Simple Things/ Lang Kenneth Haynes
Horror
It seemed like an ordinary day. The main street was thick with people hurrying off to work. Going wherever they went to try to earn
a living. Some disappeared in big office buildings. Some were sucked up by small structures that looked like houses with shingles
hanging outside to announce what service they provided. Some wore their Sunday best and appeared to be very proud of what they did.
Others carried machetes and wore the clothing of people who were more directly connected to the earth and maintained the awareness
that Nature determined everything in the long run. People with faces that had cracks as deep as those in the earth. Cracks that
occasionally erupted into smiles. People with strong, heavily veined hands and arms that were capable of pulling a plant from hard, dry,
unyielding soil or gently stroking the face of a sleeping baby without waking her. These people walked towards the hills that surrounded
the city and vanished in the thick foliage the way the baseball players dissolved at the edge of the cornfield in the movie “Field of
Dreams.” The place was bursting with color and texture. Vendors sold everything imaginable from jewelry to multi-colored fruits to fish to
an array of common foods that were quite uncommon to visitors who stood out because of the whiteness of their skins and freshness of
their t-shirts.
Then there was a rumbling underneath the ground. Like a huge serpent was waking from a sleep of centuries. He was hungry. His
stomach growled angrily. Suddenly impatient after so many years of seeming relatively contented. But now the force was fully awake and
it would not be appeased with what had slightly dulled the edge of its rage for so many centuries. It was not clear with whom the force
would reckon with or for which specific infractions, but such discrimination was not the topic of the day. Healing the lands and waters
was not on the agenda; nor was a universal mandate to treat all people of the earth fairly or to finally recognize that we are our brother
and sister’s keeper whether we like it or not. No matter what skin color they happen to have or what part of the world they come from. It
was long past the point of trying to drill into the thick heads of humans that physical characteristics are directly related to geography.
There remained one thing to do and one thing only: get out of the way of the force that made its presence known with intensifying sounds
that made the most terrifying thunder seem like a baby’s cough. It felt like unbelievably strong and resonating thunder in the stomachs of
those who witnessed it. It was not likely that a couple of million people would be sufficient to provide a significant meal for such a force
that had slept for so long. The sound got louder. The streets began to shake and roll like a carpet would undulate in the hands of someone
flapping it up and down in the wind to make it a little cleaner. To shake off the crumbs. But people were the crumbs in this instance. They
flew here and there.
Splits in the street grew to the size of small canyons. Pipes burst. Wires sparked. People screamed and were devoured by the
insatiable monster beneath the street. Buildings crumbled. It didn’t seem to matter if they were made of concrete and steel or corrugated
tin and scraps of wood. They all crumbled. The grand and not-so-grand shared the common fate of coming apart. Being reduced to debris.
Screams escaped the heaps of rubble, but the bodies remained. A “Happy New Year” banner lay on top of a pile of concrete. Concrete
that was a building, a structure a few short minutes before. We are painfully reminded that we all breathe the same air as we hear stories
and see images about being in the dark, underneath tons of concrete and steel, hearing groans and cries and not knowing whether they
come from us, as we watch, or somebody that can’t be seen a possibly short distance away, breathing scarce air, feeling a wet and
sticky substance without knowing where it comes from, and looking at the numbers barely illuminated on the watch that was a Christmas
gift and the laughter that pierces the utter desperation when it is realized that AM and PM have totally lost their relevance.
The sun had disappeared. Given way to darkness, screams and moans. Claude was outside one minute and in a damp, desperate
hole the next. He did not know if he was dead or alive. He had spent many years at the threshold of another world. Many years wondering
what it would be like when he took his last breath. Now he didn’t know if he had crossed that border. There was suffering all around him,
but the presence of agony was not new to him. He had come to accept, rightly or wrongly, that grief was his birthright. What made this
suffering different was that he couldn’t see it. He could hear it. Taste it. Smell it. Touch it. But he couldn’t see it. In fact, he could not even
see himself. He found himself wishing for death. It was as though he had turned a critical corner. Life was on one side and death was on
the other. Although only 24 years of age, Claude was totally worn out from wishing and working for a better life. Death would surely be
better, he thought. The unknown would certainly be better. And if life was what he was experiencing now, in the damp darkness, then it
made no sense at all to try to hold onto it. Yet hold on he did. The decision to continue fighting was not logical. Logic did not have
anything to do with anything. That he was trapped under tons of concrete and steel along with faceless others was not fair. But fairness
had nothing to do with anything. Claude heard voices of frantic people at another level. Probably the street. They could move. They could
breathe. Maybe they would rescue him. They could see and feel the sun. This is what Claude lived for. To see and feel the sun.
a living. Some disappeared in big office buildings. Some were sucked up by small structures that looked like houses with shingles
hanging outside to announce what service they provided. Some wore their Sunday best and appeared to be very proud of what they did.
Others carried machetes and wore the clothing of people who were more directly connected to the earth and maintained the awareness
that Nature determined everything in the long run. People with faces that had cracks as deep as those in the earth. Cracks that
occasionally erupted into smiles. People with strong, heavily veined hands and arms that were capable of pulling a plant from hard, dry,
unyielding soil or gently stroking the face of a sleeping baby without waking her. These people walked towards the hills that surrounded
the city and vanished in the thick foliage the way the baseball players dissolved at the edge of the cornfield in the movie “Field of
Dreams.” The place was bursting with color and texture. Vendors sold everything imaginable from jewelry to multi-colored fruits to fish to
an array of common foods that were quite uncommon to visitors who stood out because of the whiteness of their skins and freshness of
their t-shirts.
Then there was a rumbling underneath the ground. Like a huge serpent was waking from a sleep of centuries. He was hungry. His
stomach growled angrily. Suddenly impatient after so many years of seeming relatively contented. But now the force was fully awake and
it would not be appeased with what had slightly dulled the edge of its rage for so many centuries. It was not clear with whom the force
would reckon with or for which specific infractions, but such discrimination was not the topic of the day. Healing the lands and waters
was not on the agenda; nor was a universal mandate to treat all people of the earth fairly or to finally recognize that we are our brother
and sister’s keeper whether we like it or not. No matter what skin color they happen to have or what part of the world they come from. It
was long past the point of trying to drill into the thick heads of humans that physical characteristics are directly related to geography.
There remained one thing to do and one thing only: get out of the way of the force that made its presence known with intensifying sounds
that made the most terrifying thunder seem like a baby’s cough. It felt like unbelievably strong and resonating thunder in the stomachs of
those who witnessed it. It was not likely that a couple of million people would be sufficient to provide a significant meal for such a force
that had slept for so long. The sound got louder. The streets began to shake and roll like a carpet would undulate in the hands of someone
flapping it up and down in the wind to make it a little cleaner. To shake off the crumbs. But people were the crumbs in this instance. They
flew here and there.
Splits in the street grew to the size of small canyons. Pipes burst. Wires sparked. People screamed and were devoured by the
insatiable monster beneath the street. Buildings crumbled. It didn’t seem to matter if they were made of concrete and steel or corrugated
tin and scraps of wood. They all crumbled. The grand and not-so-grand shared the common fate of coming apart. Being reduced to debris.
Screams escaped the heaps of rubble, but the bodies remained. A “Happy New Year” banner lay on top of a pile of concrete. Concrete
that was a building, a structure a few short minutes before. We are painfully reminded that we all breathe the same air as we hear stories
and see images about being in the dark, underneath tons of concrete and steel, hearing groans and cries and not knowing whether they
come from us, as we watch, or somebody that can’t be seen a possibly short distance away, breathing scarce air, feeling a wet and
sticky substance without knowing where it comes from, and looking at the numbers barely illuminated on the watch that was a Christmas
gift and the laughter that pierces the utter desperation when it is realized that AM and PM have totally lost their relevance.
The sun had disappeared. Given way to darkness, screams and moans. Claude was outside one minute and in a damp, desperate
hole the next. He did not know if he was dead or alive. He had spent many years at the threshold of another world. Many years wondering
what it would be like when he took his last breath. Now he didn’t know if he had crossed that border. There was suffering all around him,
but the presence of agony was not new to him. He had come to accept, rightly or wrongly, that grief was his birthright. What made this
suffering different was that he couldn’t see it. He could hear it. Taste it. Smell it. Touch it. But he couldn’t see it. In fact, he could not even
see himself. He found himself wishing for death. It was as though he had turned a critical corner. Life was on one side and death was on
the other. Although only 24 years of age, Claude was totally worn out from wishing and working for a better life. Death would surely be
better, he thought. The unknown would certainly be better. And if life was what he was experiencing now, in the damp darkness, then it
made no sense at all to try to hold onto it. Yet hold on he did. The decision to continue fighting was not logical. Logic did not have
anything to do with anything. That he was trapped under tons of concrete and steel along with faceless others was not fair. But fairness
had nothing to do with anything. Claude heard voices of frantic people at another level. Probably the street. They could move. They could
breathe. Maybe they would rescue him. They could see and feel the sun. This is what Claude lived for. To see and feel the sun.
