Disconnected

He feels an updraft pulling him toward a large gray mass that is threatening to swallow him up. Below his feet, there is only thousands of feet of empty space. The wind is sucking him up at an incredible rate, pulling him to ten thousand feet where cloudbase has formed. He has turned off the motor strapped onto his back and has been soaring in a thermal, caused by the uneven heating of the earth thousands of feet below him.

Now, he realizes that he is in trouble. He can no longer see as a gray mass of water envelops him, black with rain, bloated like the belly of a pregnant mother on the verge of giving birth. He wants to pray to God, but somehow, he can't find any words. He feels helpless like a child. He realizes that he is spinning, and he is caught in a spiral dive. He feels like he is being spun around in a car, but there is nothing to run up against but the emptiness of space and rough spots of turbulence that hit him from all sides. He is still in the cloud, and there is no visibility. It is getting colder. He can't find out where he is--what he imagines as up could be down. He can't reach around him. He realizes he must cut the lines of his glider. He reaches for his hook knife, and just in time, cuts the lines that hold him suspended to his brilliant red and blue glider. The lines are cut, and he grabs his reserve parachute, tossing it into the deep fog of the cloud that occasionally lights up with electricity as he is tossed around like a leaf in turbulent wind. Then, he sees his frost bitten hand, and he can no longer feel it. Everything becomes dark. His heart slows, and suddenly, he is no longer conscious.

He wakes up hours later with the horrific sound of his glider crashing into the branches of a pine tree. He is at the top of a 60 foot pine tree near Lawrenceville, Virginia. He reaches into a little compartment where he tucked away his cell phone.

He tries to call his wife, but he doesn't get service. He can tell the branch is bending, and his parachute is ripped. He is going to fall to the ground. He decides to hug the tree. He unstraps his motor and grabs onto the branch that barely holds him. He climbs towards the trunk like an ape swinging in the jungle. He reaches the trunk, and he hugs it like an infant clinging to a mother's breast. He gradually works down the trunk of the tree until he reaches the ground.

He is exhausted. He tries calling his wife again, but there is no service available. It is strange that he is not getting service because he knows that he is not far from Lawrenceville, his home town, but getting service on his cell phone is the least of his problems. He realizes that he is on the property of Saint Paul's college--it extends for miles behind the campus.

The sky is now a brilliant blue ceiling, and the sun's rays radiate warmth on his exhausted body. He is starving. He begins his long walk home.

It is still sunny outside, but the sun is now starting to set in the west. He can see its light through the branches. He walks past the center of town--there is not much but one main street. He doesn't see any students on the campus below the small hill where the town is. Most of the buildings are vacant. It is getting darker outside, but none of the street lights turn on.

When he gets to his brick house, he sees his wife's car parked out front, and he is visibly relieved. When he gets onto the porch he built, he wonders if the door is locked. The lights by the door--they have sensors and should turn on--don't turn on. The door is locked. He does find his key in his flight suit. He fumbles around for it and finally opens the door.

She is in the house, dozing off on the couch. He wakes her up. She smiles at him.

"The internet isn't working," she says. "There is no electricity anymore. All day long, nothing has worked. How was your flight?"

"I got caught in a cloud... Everything is destroyed..."

"You what? I always thought powered paragliding was too dangerous.... My God, I am so happy that you are okay. Let me hug you."

They hug for a few seconds.

"I don't want to hear any of the details about what happened," she states matter of factly. She has been against the idea of her husband flying with a propeller and motor strapped to his back since he first talked about it years ago.

"I know..."

She gets up from the couch and walks to the kitchen.

"We need to go shopping, but I went to the grocery store, and they closed because they don't have any electricity. Some people are gossiping about what happened. Something big has happened, but nobody knows what... I am scared, Doug."

Doug wants to say something to her, but he can't find the right words. Instead, he remains silent. His instincts as a man prevent him from sounding cowardly, but he doesn't know what to think. He has just survived a miraculously fall from 10,000 feet above the ground, or perhaps even more. He's lived through a traumatic experience. Now, his wife is talking about a huge catastrophe that struck America. A thought creeps into his mind like a worm working its way through the moist soil. He can't reject the idea that maybe the apocalyptic end of the world everyone has discussed since the turn of the twenty-first century has finally arrived.

"What are people talking about?" Doug says.

"Well, our neighbor James, he says that no one knows when we'll get connected again. Some people say that it was the sun's activity--it did something strange to the earth's atmosphere, affecting the way that radio waves and telecommunications signals are transmitted. Some people are saying that we might never get connected to the internet again. All of our data is probably gone--gone forever. Maybe it was some terrorist act. A lot of people are talking about that possibility."

"It is probably too early to know what is going on..."

Doug doesn't want to talk anymore. She doesn't have anything to say either. They both decide to sit down on their couch again. She puts her hand on his and clasps it tightly. She doesn't want him to leave her side. He holds her hand tightly, aware of her femininity and her need to be nurtured by a man. He suddenly hears the dog barking.

Someone is walking past his yard. It is probably a stranger. He looks out the window. It is a group of people. They look rough. They have guns in their hands, but they don't look like they want to mess with his large dog. They keep walking.

"It is getting dangerous outside," Jessica whispers to him. "It hasn't even been a day, but something has happened that is making people nervous. I went to the bank. The bank can't work--there's no money there except the cash they have there. TVs don't even work anymore."

How can so much happen in a day? Doug asks himself as he stares through the window once again. He can see the same people walking through the streets. They are about twenty years old. They look angry and perhaps even violent. The thought of leaving crosses Doug's mind, but he can't imagine having to leave the house he worked so hard for.

"People are saying that there is nothing in this town here anymore to keep them here."

"Maybe we should leave," Doug says. "But we have to take the cats and the dog. We don't have any children, but they are our only children."

"Where could we go? It's dangerous out there."

Doug decides to get up in order to check on his dog, Alexander. When he opens the door from his back porch, Alexander looks at him with those sad, pleading eyes he first had when he found him in the local animal shelter. Doug realizes he can't leave his dog. He's walked the dog everywhere.

When he comes back in the house, he realizes that they might have to travel. He realizes that money probably doesn't have any value anymore. How can he pay for gas if credit cards don't work anymore? How far could they drive without gas? Is there anything they could do to survive?

It is winter time, and the trees have no leaves. There is no chance of growing anything. Probably other people have already thought of ransacking the two grocery stores in town for any canned food products.

In small town America, gossip travels fast. People are discussing the different probable causes of the internet and the electricity going out. Some people say that many have committed suicide after they've learned that all their wealth is suddenly gone, perhaps gone forever, trapped in cyberspace. Some people commit suicide because they spent their entire lives building memories in their facebook page. People know that everything can only get worse.

He decides to lock the door to his house. He will keep it bolted shut this day. He doesn't trust the world outside, even though he lives in a small town.

Years ago, he thought there would be a catastrophic event that would occur, but he has always imagined that it would not effect him during his lifetime. Now, he realizes that he could be one of those statistics he's read about on the internet, one of those unfortunate people who die while other miraculously survive.

He decides that he'll bring the dog inside along with the cats this night. He wishes that he had a gun with him, but he's never put his hands on a gun. He's never imagined that he would need to use one.

It starts to rain outside. His wife is next to him, huddled under the covers. There is a large sound--the sound of some distant explosion. Lightning illuminates the sky--streaks of lightning that intermittenly strike trees, topping them into houses and setting them on fire.

The wind outside appears to shake the entire house. Doug can't imagine a more deadly storm than the one he is experiencing right now. The cats are meowing, and they finally gather together in a large cardboard box he has placed next to his bed. The brick house they are living in will withstand the storm. He tries to close his eyes so he can forget the dangers that tomorrow will hold. He is too tired to try to understand what is happening. He'll make a decision after he gets some rest. Until then, he'll have to make a prayer that another miracle will come his way.

Outside, some people walk in the rain. There are no weather reports. No one knows what is happening, and even though police officers still walk around town, reassuring people that they will be safe under their surveillance, no one trusts them.

No one could have ever imagined what it was like to live before the internet was created. The people in the town feel restless. Some pack their bags and leave while knowing that they will soon run out of gas and encounter other obstacles elsewhere. They probably realize that it is not safe to stay in town, so they escape to the countryside where there are less people.

Doug and Jessica stay home that night. Jessica dreams of her facebook page in her sleep, and she is terrified that it will be gone forever. Doug cannot fall asleep because he is so concerned about whether they should stay or not.

Doug and Jessica awaken to the sound of all the pots, pans, and dishes falling onto the tiled floor in their kitchen. The entire house is shaking like a boat at sea. The earth rocks back and forth like a ball that is floating on rough water. Doug and Jessica walk underneath the entrance to their room, anticipating the possibility of the roof falling in, or even worse, of their second floor bedroom collapsing. It seems like an eternity before the earth stops shaking.

"Just the day before the internet crashed," Jessica explains, "I read that there will be more earthquakes because of global warming."

"Why is that?"

"Because the glaciers are melting. The tons of ice actually create a huge depression on the earth's surface. Once they melt, the pressure is less, and so the earth rises up. That creates huge chain reactions by moving the earth's plates that are all connected. They are also saying that earthquakes are happening near the seaside because raised water levels are creating more pressure on the earth's crust near the shoreline."

"That's crazy. There is no place to run to."

"We should check our other house."

They go outside. Last night's storm is over. There are groups of people walking around the street. They don't look as dangerous as the other individuals they saw last night. Their neighbors, an elderly couple, wave at them. A tiny African American woman has gathered all of the neighbors on their street. Everyone is surrounding her. She is talking in a loud voice. She is explaining that everyone has to come together because the police are not doing enough to protect people. Some people are listening, but others are thinking of leaving town. Nothing seems good about this to Doug and Jessica. They decide to move on and walk a couple blocks down to their other house. The other house is a rental house. The tenants are gone. There is a message on the door. The handwriting on the message is barely legible, but Doug can read it. The tenants are gone. Some windows are smashed in the house. It looks like the vagrants they saw last night broke into their house, destroying the windows and stealing a lot of the items the tenants left behind. Doug is concerned that the vagrants are still there, but they are gone. He is angry because all of these years, he has spent a lot of his hard earned money as a professor keeping the house intact. He has been a model landlord for his tenants.

Jessica and he do not talk as they rummage through the house, assessing the damage. They do not know what to say. They contemplate leaving the town of a thousand people, the place where they have spent a good deal of their marriage together. It has been a peaceful place until now. They both don't share with one another what they are thinking. Instead, they hold their thoughts inside, but they can feel the pressure of their thoughts rising upwards like steam. The pressure is unbearable.

When they walk back to their house, they are relieved that their house is still locked and empty. Probably, their large dog scared away any possible intruders. Doug wishes that he had a gun. He'll have to find one somewhere. He knows people who have gone hunting before. He'll have to contact them. He can't call them. Maybe they have already left. He is afraid to leave Jessica alone in the house, but he has to do something.

While they eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, they feel another aftershock.

Jessica grabs him and holds him tightly.

"We need to get some food. I heard that the grocery store in town is accepting cash for the food that is not spoiled. Why don't we go there and get some canned food and peanut butter?"

Jessica shows him some cash. Doug never keeps cash in his wallet. He's always using his credit card because he gets reward points on it. He's glad that his wife still keeps cash around. They both leave the house, locking the door behind. The cats are safe inside.

Doug realizes that they must get cat and dog food as well.

There are long lines at the grocery store in town. There's never been such long lines in such a small town. The grocery store is rationing the food. People are talking with each other. In a small town, rumors travel like the wind.

Their neighbors are in front of them. The line to the grocery store winds around the block. They are an elderly couple, and they look like they have aged in the past few days because of all of the stress.

"Did you hear what happened?" Adrienne says. She is usually a spunky neighbor, but today she looks exhausted and has rings under her eyes.

"No, I didn't."

"People are saying that it was a terrorist attack, but no one really knows. Some people say what happened was a natural disaster."

"Do you know when everything will go back to normal?"

"No. Some people are saying that there will be no return to normal."

She is silent for a moment. Then, John her husband breaks the silence.

"People are saying that in Richmond, there isn't enough food to go around. They are saying that people from Richmond are coming down south. They are taking over small towns like this one. They are killing people and looting everything. We have to band together and get all the men together who know how to hunt. We have to be prepared."

Everyone falls silent. There isn't much that can be said. Jessica wonders whether they should stay, but she is not prepared to leave her cats and dog. She can't leave them to die. The sky  becomes as dark as the moist earth.