The Failure of Flee and Flight ...

The sky had opened and the low-seated clouds had started to interfold and back outward at an inconceivable speed. The entire process soured my stomach and I felt nauseated by the exhibition of unnatural occurrences.

I was positioned in a field of trimmed hay grass at the base of a large Makua-like mountain ridge. Cars were scattered throughout the field and folks sat in them, waiting. I froze and dared not to move from my vantage point near the flank of a building of unknown function.

I ran to a nearby pickup where my mother was resting and I asked her to step out and view the happenings above. We stood, arm in arm, watching in terror as the light blues of the afternoon sharply warped into grays and black … the stars were seen from a distance well above that of common nighttime observation.

A comforting feeling blanketed me when I spotted a large, military-like helicopter flying just above our field. People – now outside of their vehicles – waved and cheered the pilot. He smiled at us from above and waved down. He engine whistled and stuttered as he negotiated the winds. The tail rotor completely seized in the moment and the aircraft started to spin, slowly then rapidly in a downward spiral. It whirled just above my mother and I. We separated, she to the underside of the pickup and I - freezing and staring up at the circling aircraft until the last moment - to the opposite side of the adjacent building. The helicopter collided with the ground with a terrible crack, the tail split from the body and leaving a window to view the carnage inside. I panicked and my emotions grabbed onto similarities of a time past.

We spotted a large passenger airplane gliding low overhead, its engines off. It passed through a saddle in the mountain formation and exited our line of sight. The sky lit just over the saddle as the plane dropped into an unknown portion of the ridge.

I listened as people made failed attempt after failed attempt to start their vehicles with expectations to flee. Starters engaged but not a single cylinder on any of the vehicles fired... batteries depleting in only moments. People stood speechless in the wake of failed cell phones and laptops and wristwatches.

Hours past. No one spoke.

We reclined and waited for the absolute inevitable.