The Foretelling
Sky Watchers
So I had gotten a few stares. But when I found an empty seat and the bus started to roll into the direction of my school, mind-numbing chatter began to rise up like the buzzing of bees and everything seemed to be as normal as normal could be.
The highway was significantly different than it was when I was younger. What seemed like fruitful grass on the edges and spacious roads rolling beneath had turned into an ant farm-like scrap of road. My neighborhood, The Egg as we called it, was Eden. The rest of my tiny little world at that moment was not so and this highway was a prime example of it.
Why was I so intent on making it to school on time? Why didn’t I just call it a day, beg my parents to call me in sick, and stay in bed all day? School meant education. Education meant freedom. Freedom was the only way I was going to be able to leave.
I chose education.
Not to get away from my family. I loved them.
I was entirely, and rightfully, afraid of what was to come.
Minutes passed by like they meant nothing. I found myself just outside of my school. It was looking more destitute than usual. Outside, the grass was dead except in sparse areas. Weeds had mostly taken over. A lot of the shops around the place had closed. I could see the wooden boards nailed against their front doors. Not too many cars past by anymore. That would have used to get me on edge but I had gotten so used to it that it was as if it didn’t matter anymore.
I heard the first bell ring from inside the school building. It was 7:45 A.M. I had fifteen minutes to get my books and make it to homeroom on time. Everything was, of course, on the opposite side of campus.
I ran a lot in those days.
As I kept a speedy walk throughout my traveling of the halls, I heard whispers. At first I thought they sounded excited. But when I started to listen a little bit more to the tone than I should have, I determined that the whispers were out of anxiety. I pushed through an exit door to cross over to the second building. (There were three total.) Just as I took a step outside, my espionage was interrupted by a familiar face.
Nora.
“Have you seen the sky today?” she asked as she pointed to the sky.
I looked up. “Isn’t the same as it’s always been?”
She chewed on her bottom lip and her little nostrils flared just enough to show she was scared. “There are more of them.”
I looked up again. And lo and behold, Nora Escaro was indeed right.
There were a couple more of… them than I remembered.
They looked like some cheap-o airship models kids made in fifth grade. We were told to acknowledge the aircrafts, called Floaters by most people around here, as mere drones native to our soil. In the beginning, when we saw the first of them, this country panicked, or so I’ve been told. I wasn’t alive to see it, but my parents relived the horror to me in stories of how some people thought it was the end of the world so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to come home to a looted house and empty pantry. My parents would tell me that it was not uncommon to find a person still in the house just taking things.
My dad fought the first one.
He didn’t know the other brought a knife.
The pink scar had still cut across his forehead from his hairline to his eyebrow and sometimes he would catch me staring at it. I’d try to look away but he would just look at me and say, “It’s only me.”
My parents were good like that.
But whenever I tried to share one of those stories in the classroom, the teacher would give me a look. It wasn’t nasty at all. In fact, it was worse. It was fear. Mrs. Riley, my seventh grade English teacher and the only teacher I tried to bring it up with, became nervous. Her eyes popped open but she quickly tried to relax them. A superintendent was in the room that day for inspection. I caught on when she subtly shook her head at me. I ended the story, after I sugarcoated it, by saying something along the lines of, “Turns out my dad was a better story weaver than I thought.” After that class, I went up to her to apologize. She sighed, out of relief I suppose, and nodded to me.
Fast-forward back to senior year of high school and I was still waiting outside with Nora, contemplating the sky.
“Hello?” she asked me.
“I was just thinking.”
“You do a lot of that.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked her.
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
Before I could ask her to explain herself, she lifted her hand gently in farewell as she moved passed me into the building I had just left. I raised my left wrist up to check my watch. 7:53 A.M. I had but seven minutes.
“Today’s a day to be late,” I thought, as I started to sprint once more that day to the second building and tried not to look up at the sky.
The highway was significantly different than it was when I was younger. What seemed like fruitful grass on the edges and spacious roads rolling beneath had turned into an ant farm-like scrap of road. My neighborhood, The Egg as we called it, was Eden. The rest of my tiny little world at that moment was not so and this highway was a prime example of it.
Why was I so intent on making it to school on time? Why didn’t I just call it a day, beg my parents to call me in sick, and stay in bed all day? School meant education. Education meant freedom. Freedom was the only way I was going to be able to leave.
I chose education.
Not to get away from my family. I loved them.
I was entirely, and rightfully, afraid of what was to come.
Minutes passed by like they meant nothing. I found myself just outside of my school. It was looking more destitute than usual. Outside, the grass was dead except in sparse areas. Weeds had mostly taken over. A lot of the shops around the place had closed. I could see the wooden boards nailed against their front doors. Not too many cars past by anymore. That would have used to get me on edge but I had gotten so used to it that it was as if it didn’t matter anymore.
I heard the first bell ring from inside the school building. It was 7:45 A.M. I had fifteen minutes to get my books and make it to homeroom on time. Everything was, of course, on the opposite side of campus.
I ran a lot in those days.
As I kept a speedy walk throughout my traveling of the halls, I heard whispers. At first I thought they sounded excited. But when I started to listen a little bit more to the tone than I should have, I determined that the whispers were out of anxiety. I pushed through an exit door to cross over to the second building. (There were three total.) Just as I took a step outside, my espionage was interrupted by a familiar face.
Nora.
“Have you seen the sky today?” she asked as she pointed to the sky.
I looked up. “Isn’t the same as it’s always been?”
She chewed on her bottom lip and her little nostrils flared just enough to show she was scared. “There are more of them.”
I looked up again. And lo and behold, Nora Escaro was indeed right.
There were a couple more of… them than I remembered.
They looked like some cheap-o airship models kids made in fifth grade. We were told to acknowledge the aircrafts, called Floaters by most people around here, as mere drones native to our soil. In the beginning, when we saw the first of them, this country panicked, or so I’ve been told. I wasn’t alive to see it, but my parents relived the horror to me in stories of how some people thought it was the end of the world so it wasn’t too much of a surprise to come home to a looted house and empty pantry. My parents would tell me that it was not uncommon to find a person still in the house just taking things.
My dad fought the first one.
He didn’t know the other brought a knife.
The pink scar had still cut across his forehead from his hairline to his eyebrow and sometimes he would catch me staring at it. I’d try to look away but he would just look at me and say, “It’s only me.”
My parents were good like that.
But whenever I tried to share one of those stories in the classroom, the teacher would give me a look. It wasn’t nasty at all. In fact, it was worse. It was fear. Mrs. Riley, my seventh grade English teacher and the only teacher I tried to bring it up with, became nervous. Her eyes popped open but she quickly tried to relax them. A superintendent was in the room that day for inspection. I caught on when she subtly shook her head at me. I ended the story, after I sugarcoated it, by saying something along the lines of, “Turns out my dad was a better story weaver than I thought.” After that class, I went up to her to apologize. She sighed, out of relief I suppose, and nodded to me.
Fast-forward back to senior year of high school and I was still waiting outside with Nora, contemplating the sky.
“Hello?” she asked me.
“I was just thinking.”
“You do a lot of that.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked her.
“I’m not so sure anymore.”
Before I could ask her to explain herself, she lifted her hand gently in farewell as she moved passed me into the building I had just left. I raised my left wrist up to check my watch. 7:53 A.M. I had but seven minutes.
“Today’s a day to be late,” I thought, as I started to sprint once more that day to the second building and tried not to look up at the sky.