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The Great Disaster

When the carnage began, I was brushing my teeth. It seems trivial now, but I was always very careful about my teeth. I brushed every morning and every night, and sometimes in between. I'll admit I wasn't much of a flosser, but I was an excellent brusher. Side to side, up and down, around in circles. And I always rinsed, morning and night. I went to work every morning and to bed every night with minty fresh Linsterine breath. A lot of good it ended up doing..
As I was finishing my bottom teeth and moving on to the top, I heard the first crash. No, heard isn't right; I felt the first crash. I later came to know that this was the first of the seventy-five major meteor strikes that would be called The Great Disaster. All I knew then was that it felt like the planet was exploding. At the first boom, the lights went out instantly. Blackness engulfed my bathroom. I managed to grab the sides of the sink to keep from falling. The rumbling lasted almost an entire minute. Once it seemed to be over, I made my way into the bedroom carefully in the dark.
Rendered essentially blind, my other senses became instantly heightened. I could feel the texture of the carpet between my toes. I never knew I had such soft carpet. I could hear the car alarms outside, and distant shouting of people who were caught in much less promising circumstances than I was. I wanted to help them, but I knew there was nothing I could do.
As I continued shuffling into my room, my legs hit the side of my bed, and I stopped. Feeling my way to the nightstand, I found the phone. As I expected, there was no dial tone.  I looked toward the room's only window. It was pitch black outside. I shuffled my way around the bed to the other side of the room. With arms outstretched in case some large obstacle had wandered into my room in the dark, I reached the wall with the window. The flashing lights of cars with sounding alarms provided the only illumination. As far as I could see, power was out everywhere. As much as I wanted to see what was going on, I knew nothing could be done until morning. Once it was light out, we could all assess the damage. If only I had known what was to come.
We have all been told there were seventy-five major strikes world-wide. In our small western Massachusetts town, we felt seventeen. That night was the longest I've ever experienced. Crash after crash, I still had no idea what was happening. My first thought had been earthquake. We had never had earthquakes before, but anything was possible. After the fifth strike, I began to doubt my assessment. Actually, it was more hope than doubt: if there had been five earthquakes, I expected I would fall through a crack into the center of the earth sometime soon. The thought of meteors honestly never crossed my mind. Until the morning. By then, word had spread from people closer to the landing sites.
When the sun finally rose over our broken city, everyone took to the streets. It's amazing how much tragedy does to bring a community together. Unfortunately, all the togetherness in the world couldn't have helped much. Buildings had fallen. Fires had sprung up where cars had been struck. Water from a nearby river was flowing slowly down Merchant Street. The town's beautiful trees, our pride and joy in a country of such expansion and commercialism, were in disarray. Almost all had fallen. Houses were crushed. Families were crushed. There was almost nothing left.
I noticed that the movement of people had taken on a uniform direction. I looked in the direction they were headed and saw one massive building still standing above the wreckage: our town center. All the people of the city were headed toward the auditorium.
If ever we needed to call a town meeting, this was the time.

1347 6/26/08

Searching

As I tore through the closet, I knew it was no use. I was never going to find it. Sweat was dripping from my forehead as I leaned over the boxes. Lid after lid I grabbed and threw over my shoulder. Boxes were overturned across my room,