The Cloths of Heaven

The Cloths of Heaven

 

Part I: Paradise Lost

 

Movement I: 3030

 

The sun sets over the British Isles and the shadow passes over Europe as it begins its daily journey across the Atlantic. Earth turns as it has for ages, while humanity wars with itself as it has for ages. Nations come and go, wars are won and lost. Cities and countrysides are destroyed and rebuilt, regrown. But humanity remains a constant. The variables change, yet the equation remains the same.

Earth sits against a backdrop of infinity, defying the universe with life. The ultimate sign of fertility, it almost radiates humanity’s legacy. Or so say the colonists.

Luna sits against what used to be a backdrop of blue, green and white. When one looks hard enough, now, there is still green to be found. Green patches between the gray sprawl that lies all across Earth and beyond.

Where once men looked to the Moon and saw gray, now men look to it and see light. Colonized for centuries, there is no dark side of the Moon. As the war broke out, the First Colonies jumped almost tenfold in population. But without an economy of their own besides research, the Colonies faltered and most of their residents live in crowded slums outside the scientific centers in inflatable structures capable of housing thousands.

Mars was soon to follow, but Second Colony has never faced the economic troubles of the First Colonies. Though numerically inferior, Second Colony has spread over the Red Planet gradually by pioneers likening themselves to Lewis and Clark and various space-age explorers long dead or long lost to the void.

The sun sets over Earth as it always has, and war rages at it always does.

 

Duck and cover. Covering fire. Advance! Repeat.

That’s how war always went, albeit in different forms. Trenches in the Great War, beaches in WWII, and silo garrisons in this one.

Duck and cover. Covering fire. Advance!

Alpha 2 signals the go-ahead and Beta team surges forward from the electrical grids towards the compound, running and gunning. A sniper takes out the man next to me, his face pouring blood. I can only glance at him as I slide behind cover. Duck and cover. A burst of fire from behind and the exposed sniper is silenced. Covering fire. We advance.

Beta 3 was down, so I had breach duty. Open door, lob grenade, get the hell away. An explosion, and we switch up the order of operations. Cover fire. Advance. Duck and cover as you go. But I guess that’s just picky. There is no order. Just chaos that we try to rationalize.

We make it to the control room. Breach and clear. No grenades.

The door swings open…..and we’re at a standoff.

One man, hand on key, ready to turn, gun pointed at me. I hesitate.

The bullet hits me in the neck. As I fall, the man turns the key.

Everything is illuminated.

Then there is nothing.

 

 

I heard them coming, heard them shooting, heard my fellow soldiers die.

Panic resonating from the speaker on the wall.

I saw them coming, saw them shooting, saw my fellow soldiers die.

Panic resonating from the screens on the wall.

Hell, I was panicking. I’d been trained never to break. But they were coming and they would hold the most powerful silo in the region. I couldn’t let that happen. I mean, they would use it against my countrymen.

I looked at the key in my hand. I had to. I inserted it and I hesitated.

They were getting closer. I closed my eyes.

I heard them outside the door.

I raised the gun. The door flew open. My eyes flew open.

He hesitated.

I acted.

Everything was illuminated.

Then there was nothing.

 

 

Fire blossoms over the city; a fiery mushroom rushes up to meet the sky and the Earth trembles. The armies pouring in are gone. The city is gone.

The sun sets over North America as the first of the nuclear weapons bring light to the darkness. Minutes later, the fiery clouds are lit the world over. North America. Europe. Asia. Australia. Africa. South America. Antarctica. The colonies watch as their mother bursts aflame before them.

 

 

“Chaos reigns across the globe as war continues….” The news report preaches to an empty street. “We have unconfirmed reports that New Beijing was one of those destroyed in one of today’s many nuclear detonations, this one in the heartland of the Federation of Asia. We have been so far unable to reach anyone in the area…..Association forces moved into Istanbul in an attempt to secure the region’s last silo……..we believe that was the first to be detonated…others followed within minutes….can’t establish a connection….God…on us all….”

 

 

Give peace a chance. The man in front of the projection yells into a phone. On his face is a map of the world. But only for a moment. He paces back and forth, his face strengthened by the gray goatee tracing his chin and mouth, uttering a string of vulgarity followed by an urgent apology and a desperate plea. Give peace a chance.

Across the world, a woman with a cold stare broods in her chateau’s office. She listens to the man’s pleas. Give peace a chance? She stares as reports come in from the ground zeros around the world. She taps her pen. Tap. Tap. Tap. She utters a brief negative. Vulgarity flows from the speaker. Her expression remains the same. He pleads. That voice…a moment of pain flickers across her face, an image of a life long destroyed. She throws the pen across the room. It bounces off the wall and rolls across the floor. She breaks.

 

The man sighs with relief and tosses the phone towards a desk. It bounces across and slides off the edge. He curses.

 

 

The Great Conversation; around a octagonal table sit the eight Great Powers. Peace talks. Give peace a chance. Conditions for a truce; papers are traded back and forth. Voices rise and fall, only to rise again.

Calls for troops removals, reparations, land, even aid. The leaders of humanity’s pinnacle of civilization sneer and name call. Coward! Idiot! The man holds his head in his hand. Kindergarten. The woman’s face remains blank. Numb. A gun is drawn. Shouts. The offender is tackled. Show’s over. The party disperses.

Like a drug deal gone bad, the peace talk ends as abruptly as it began.

 

 

 

“….worldwide poverty and millions with radiation sickness after last month’s nuclear attacks that occurred in every continent…..rescue workers have still be unable to access Australia or the Antarctic Expedition…war continues in all theaters, with a major AU offensive against MA garrisons across North Africa.”

The girl barely glanced at the orange flicker of the side-scrolling news board. She was cold. Shivering, she trudged on through the sewage that flooded the abandoned city.

The city stood in ruin, its fabled high rises laying across the city center. Lights flickered here and there, but they were not enough to brighten the unending night. Smoke filled her lungs, death filled her nostrils, and radiation filled her body.

She trudged on aimlessly for hours. She found no one. She stopped as she came to the city center. She shouted at nothing and trudged on. She trudged on through the remains industrial sites and residential areas as if they were graveyards. And they were.

She made her way to what had been a mosque. Half-standing, it was in better shape than most of the surrounding buildings. The girl slowly entered the mosque and, finding no one alive in there, curled up beneath some rubble, wrapping herself in a tapestry of Mohammed that had once hung on the Eastern wall.

The girl shivered. She shivered, pulled the tapestry closer, and waited to die.

 

 

This ends now. We grow weary. Weary of you. You, who mock us with your concrete jungles, your grotesque abominations whose inspiration you audaciously attribute to us. If this path is continued, we will both go down together. We cannot allow that. We must be free from you. For thousands of years we have submitted to your every desire, indulged your whims, fulfilled your lusts. No more.

 

 

Movement II: Nature vs. Nuture

 

 

For someone who never knew when he would eat next, he was rather fit. One of the tallest in his village, the man hacked away at the brush before him. His machete tore through the foliage with ease…and lodged itself in flesh. The man leaped backwards and brought his rifle up. Nothing. Cautiously, the man brushed aside the severed branches and his eyes found the body of another one of his missing men. They had been sent to investigate the deaths of several villagers and hadn’t returned.

The man glanced around, anxiety etched, as if permanently, across his face. Breathing deeply, he pushed on.

The brush nearby rustled. The gun came up, a mass of black and silver enveloped his sight, and the gun was flipping through the air and into the brush. The man didn’t get a chance to register what had happened before he died. The gorilla’s fists slammed into him again and again.

 

 

We knew we would be attacked eventually, but we had always thought it’d be by the Federation. Not this. I was helping my brother and father stack heavy objects in front of windows and doors, securing any and every entry way to our home. Jenna was gone. I vomited. The image was burned into my mind. She had been tending to the bees. We raise…raised bees. Our honey bees were genetically formulated to be docile. And they had always been docile. None of us had ever been stung except by accident.

I numbly picked up a stair and piled it atop the other furniture bracing the side door.

She had gone out to collect honey. I vomited again. My brother glanced at me. My father kept stacking.

When I heard the screams, I came running. My brother and father had been in the bomb shelter working. When I came running, I saw my sister die. In movies, it happens quickly. And if it doesn’t its usually an epic battle scene or something. This wasn’t any of those things. She died slowly.

I vomited. Or would have, if I had anything to vomit. I slid down the wall, retching.

My father kept stacking.

 

 

Danger. Defend. Prey. Kill. Intruder. Defend. Stalk. Kill. Kill. Kill. Defend.

The prey is unaware. Watch.

The prey rustles. Advance.

The prey glances towards the tall grass. Stop. Silence. Wait.

The prey looks away. Strike.

The soldier screams.

 

 

The Earth is alive. I shout at the TV. Natural disasters. Everywhere. Tsunamis in the Atlantic. Tornados in the Rockies. The Caribbean islands are gone. My apartment rocks violently. Earthquakes here. I shout at the world. At least I’m alone. My stream of consciousness is chaos:

God save me. I’m not even religious. The altar. Confession. My affair. My wife. My kids. Dead. Are they? Oh. My. God. I have no idea where they are. They could be anywhere. Oh God. Panic. Steady yourself. Figuratively and literally. Wry smile. Haha. Fade. Panic. God. Fuck God. He’s gone. We are alone. Humanity is alone. At war. Steady as you go. I’m going to die. I am numb. I am-what was that?

I make my way to the 10^th floor window. The world is shaking. The ground ripples. I lurch forward and something hits me from behind. A million stars all around. The ground rushes up to meet me.

 

 

I shout into the radio. Evac. Advice. Anything. Help.

The lightning strikes across the horizon. The tornado rips apart the command center.

In the military, there is a protocol for everything; training that prepares you for any emergency.

But not this. How do you fight nature?

Calls for retreat. But where do you run to?

I shout into the radio. We are under attack. By who? I don’t fucking know. I have no fucking idea. Fuck!

Lightning strikes not twenty feet away. The tornado looms closer.

I run. That’s all you can…do.

 

I watched as our commander and half the men ran, abandoning their posts. I remained. We could weather this storm. But on the wind, I heard the calls of birds. Thousands of them. I looked up and squinted at the sky. The darkest grey I’d ever seen. And…birds. Thousands of them.

I saw other soldiers pointing. Are they migrating? Fleeing this unnatural occurrence of nature’s wrath?

They dotted the sky as would arrows. And they dove. They were on us before we could do anything. I managed to run, get inside the main compound. Most of the others weren’t so lucky. I saw a man lifted up by a group of eagles. I have no idea where he ended up. I barricade the door and wait for the rescue that would never come.

 

 

“The Asssocia…….Islamic States….destroyed…..animals……sandstorms…government seat….New Mecca…no contact…..area…” The news reporter’s face broke into static. “Tornado….close…landslides…..last broadcast….good luck……………………………………………………………..” There is only static.

 

The leader stood in front of the screen. There is no other option. One of the eight Great Powers, destroyed in one day. Destroyed by nature. By weather and animals. By Earth.

Preposterous. Earth is a planet, not a sentient being, you fool. Exasperation. Then how do you explain it?

The other leaders said nothing. The leader, tugging at his gray goatee, stares through the wall.

We have to leave. Evacuate.

Eruption. Leave what? Earth? For where? The Moon and Mars aren’t accessible. No contact from them for days. We cannot leave.

We must leave.

The leaders shout. The leader shouts back. One of the screens flicker static. They stop.

Amidst a roaring that drowns out any human voice, the wall behind the man in the screen is gone. There is nothing but chaos. The man collides with the camera. Burst of red. Static.

There is nothing but chaos.

We have to leave.

We have to leave Earth.

 

Movement III: Exodus from Eden

 

The sun rose over Earth to wrath and retreat.

The ship glistened as the sun’s warm rays made their way over it and onto the masses of people waiting to board. There were faces from every walk of life, huddled together as they waited to flee their planet. There had been no attack on the operation yet, but the public had watched their entire civilization dissolve over a matter of days. Expressions ranged from the blank numbness of someone who’s tuned out everything to those with fear etched in every lining of their faces, every crease and every wrinkle.

Soldiers and volunteers shouted commands to the throng, calming them when they seemed on the verge of stampeding or rioting, rejecting anything more one suitcase per family, and issuing identification numbers to everyone as they boarded.

The ship itself was massive, built for an outbound flight into the unknown regions, the unexplored reaches of space. It was envisioned as the vanguard of human space exploration. And then, as it neared completion, it had been abandoned. Abandoned as the war broke out. Abandoned alongside social programs, alongside anything that wasn’t for the benefit of the nation, the alliance, the leader, the war effort.

Capable of housing millions, the transport was an international endeavor left to rot, never to even be christened. And now millions of men, women, and children clamored to board this real-life biblical allusion. The leaders of the seven remaining Great Powers were already aboard, rushing along last minute construction. The leaders knew it was only a matter of time before the tornado or sandstorm or lightning strikes began. They watched on their screens as warships and smaller transports retreated from cities overrun by wildlife, water, wind, earth and fire; they watched as the four elements brought down some of humanity’s finest ships. They watched animals pull down a small shuttle and a tornado rip apart a mid-sized assault ship.

 

 

Ready to launch. Outside, funnel clouds form on the edge of supercells that race to converge over the massive flagship.

The pilots looked to the leaders, who remained silent, all unwilling to be the one to give the order.

The ship hummed to life. The ship hummed with life. The millions of people aboard settled in to their quarters. The leaders of the human race stood at the helm, their feet rooted to the past, to their old habits, unwilling to act for the future of their species.

At last, one of the leaders spoke softly the command. The engines roared, the ship shuddered, the funnel clouds became tornadoes around the ship, the landing gear left the surface, and the human race left Earth.

 

 

We are Greeks among Trojans. We feel the parasites depart. We feel the virus leave. We are not the same. We are not healed, but we have halted the cancer. You are gone and we are left alone to clean up and heal the wounds you left us with. You, who profess your love for us while you destroy us. You, who use our plight as a party platform. You, who have butchered us for thousands of years. You, who –

 

 

The shockwave from the detonation reverberated for thousands of miles and rattled the flagship as it rose towards the stars. The leaders all jumped to their feet and watched as the area they had just departed from was erased from the world. The fiery orange and subsequent gray was clear even to those in orbit.

Shouts of confusion arose from the leaders and civilians alike. The ship continued its rise as the mushroom cloud blossomed below it. It was a parting blow from humanity to Earth, as exiles would to their empires.

Accusations flew back and forth between the leaders, yet not one claimed responsibility. In the coming days, rumors would fly through the refugees like napalm, ranging from a military operation against undead to an AWOL silo team driven mad by the sheer chaos of the past few days. If anyone knew the truth, they revealed nothing.

 

 

The convoy converged just outside of orbit above Africa, the battered vessels sliding into formation. There, sitting in space just aside from Earth, is the remainder of the human species.

The remainder makes its way towards the first of human colonies, out of contact for nearly a week. Luna revolves with an eery gray as the convoy approaches. Radio contact is made on an alternate frequency. The citizens from the living spheres overran the first center. The leaders decide to allow the second center to board and no one else; even Noah’s Ark ran out of space.

The Lunans walk aboard to a somber scene. Cabins meant for four housed twelve or more, while thousands sleep in large rooms meant for exercise and education. Having been out of contact for days, the Lunan camps echoed and reincarnated the reaction of the Earth residents as would an aftershock echo an earthquake. The sentiment was only exacerbated when the Martian colonists arrived onboard. They felt it just as hard as the Lunans did, for while the Lunans saw Earth burn, the Martians had been away from Earth for a much shorter length of time. Together, the Colonies grieved while the refugees from Earth grew silent and aloof as shock set in.

 

 

The seven leaders of humanity gathered in one of the command rooms aboard the nameless flagship to discuss their next move. Recon teams that survived reported that the violent weather and animal life on Earth continued, while those in the colonies unable to board the convoy remained prisoners in their respective settlements. Gathered around a hologram of galaxy, they discussed, debated, and argued over the next move. They quickly decided on a christening for the flagship, but then the conversation stalled. Unconsciously they were all waiting for the same conclusion.

 

 

We have to find somewhere else. The leader swallows the liquor and grinds his teeth, holding the glass tightly, sitting alone in his quarters, slumped, staring distantly through his desk.

 

We have to find somewhere else. The soldier holds his helmet in his hands as he slides to the floor against the white walls that are to be his prison. His eyes trace the lining of the helmet that caught the tears his eyes shed. Mother….

 

We have to find somewhere else. The mother cradles her baby close and bites her lip, forcing herself to tune out the thousands of similar situations that fill the stadium in which they now call their home.

 

 

The motley fleet of warships and transports that comprise the convoy glide through the solar system slowly, almost reluctantly. Behind them, the Earth eclipses the Sun, its blue and white fading from their eyes for the last time. The shadow makes its way across the Moon and Mars, engulfing them in darkness. The group of starships are dark gray against the black backdrop of space, both of which are adorned with twinkling lights that both provide for us a haven from the darkness and yet also remind us how alone we really are.

The leader reflects alone in his cabin, glass still clutched in his hands. His mind plays scenes from his life on a projector as he stares into the hardwood grain of the desk. It was never nationalistic, it was egocentric. We didn’t define ourselves through our duty to our country, but rather we defined our country through its service to us. His hands seek but a quantum of solace. They find it.

The gunshot reverberates throughout the hall of the Existentialist.

Humanity looks back to its homeworld, the bitter taste of loss deep set in its memory, beset by internal tension, abandoned by its Mother and its God, and reeling from the deaths of nearly one-fourth Earth’s population.

Humanity looks back, but only until Earth no longer marks the horizon, left forever to memory as the human race begins its exile among the stars.