It was just darking, the last colors of the sun vanishing, the first stars showing, the light of the town brightening. It had been a beautiful sunset.
And then they came. A flicker here, and a flicker there, color danced in the sky. Then sheets of it, brighter and brighter, dancing wild sheets cast across the skies, beautiful purples and blues and pinks.
The sky became full of them, dancing, waving, and pulsing. They would fade a little, and strengthen, and then grow stronger and stronger.
So beautiful. But terrible. What was this? Angels? It was not as I would have thought. So bright and silent. I do not know. I do not yet know.
Hannah came, and Jacob, and we watched together, as the wings of angels lit the skies, and the earth glowed under the warm light. Jacob laughed and pointed and jumped around at the joy of it.
Then it grew so bright that it was brighter than midnight under a full moon, bright enough to see my hand, to see the house. Angel wings dipped, radiant with color, and touched the earth. There was a feeling of strangeness in the air, I do not know what it was, but the hairs on my arm rose. From fear, perhaps, because it was strange, but also because the air seemed sharp with . . . something. I do not know. But the smell changed.
“Dadi, it’s so bright, what is that smell?” asked Jacob, suddenly stilled, his voice filled with awe and alarm. Hannah pulled in close, but Sadie stood separate, looking up, rocking back and forth a little.
It went on, radiant and terrible and beautiful. We stood silent.
And then Jacob said, “Dadi, look, there are no lights in the town now,” he said, “and there are no lights on the road.” It was true. And he was excited and frightened, and looking everywhere and talking, and then he pointed up.
“Look at the plane,” he called out, and there it was, an airplane, a big one. It was not where the planes normally fly, high and moving north or south. The silhouette was low and large. There were no lights on it, or in it, just the beautiful light dancing on and behind it.
It was sideways. It was coming down.
I could see both wings, bent back dark like a broken cross, and it was floating downward, downward, very slow. It was very wrong. I began to pray.
The plane moved down, southward, like a dark, windblown leaf against the color-splashed sky. We lost it to view behind the trees.
And then there was a faint flash, and a few seconds later, a crump like a short peal of thunder.
“Oh blessed Jesus, all those people,” said Hannah, and she began to pray softly and in earnest, her whispered prayers melding with mine.
Still, the skies danced, so bright, so silent.
And a few seconds later, another flash, to the north. And a minute later, another to the southwest.
Sadie turned to us, and her eyes were huge and wet with tears.
“The English fall,” she said.
And then she went inside, away from the light that filled the sky over the darkened earth.
September 23
I awoke this morning, and it felt like any other morning.
We woke together, and prayed in earnest for the souls of those on the fallen plane. Such a terrible thing to see. For half of an hour, we prayed. But then the day’s work called.
The air was crisp, this second day of autumn. I went out to the barn, and there was Sadie, milking. I fed the horses, then went to tend to some business in the workshop.
In the distance, there was fire, smoke rising from something big burning off to the south. Where the plane went down. It is strange that it is still burning, but the woods have been dry.
YOUNG JIM STOLFUTZ ARRIVED while the morning was still new, riding that three-year-old mare of theirs, no buggy, riding fast, faster than he should. I saw him through the window of the workshop, set down my tools, and walked out to greet him. He rode over to me, leapt off, and came up breathless, face red with excitement and the bite of the breeze. The mare was breathing hard.
“There has been something strange,” he told me. “Something has happened.” I told him that yes, I knew, the lights in the sky and that plane. It was a tragedy. But he shook his head, and cleared his throat.
“Dadi told me to ride, to tell you and everyone. Our neighbors the Wilsons, they say that they have no power. And Mr. Wilson’s generator won’t start, and their trucks won’t start, and their car won’t start. The radio, it doesn’t work, and their cell phones don’t work. Some of them turn on. But nobody hears anything.
“And our generator is dead, too, when my mami tried to use it for the washing this morning.”
“Does he hear from anyone else?” I asked.
“No,” said Jim. “No word from nobody. Man from Lancaster was supposed to talk with my dad, but he never showed. I just came from Mr. Fisher,” he said. “He tells me that his neighbor’s wife came by, scared and on foot, saying that her husband was hurt bad. Not sure why or how. But they couldn’t call for help. Couldn’t call an ambulance. Car won’t start. Truck wouldn’t start. Van wouldn’t start. Mr. Fisher was with her, just about to ride over to see if he could help, maybe take them into town.”
“Does anyone know anything more?” I asked.
“No sir,” he said. “But there are almost no cars on the road. Pretty much nobody. The roads are so quiet, it’s like everything has come to a stop. Almost the only folks moving are plain folk. Just buggies. Only seen two trucks and two cars. Strangest thing.”
That was strange.
“Gotta go,” shouted Jim, and he leapt up onto the mare and rode off in the direction of the Sorensons’. Again he was riding faster than he should, but he was excited. I’m not so old that I’ve forgotten what it was to be excited.
I went and talked to Hannah, told her I was going to go over to the Sorensons’, and that I’d be back by lunch.
BEFORE I WENT, I went behind the house, to where we keep our small store of fuel and the little Honda generator that Hannah uses to power the washer. That is all we use it for. Even that would not have been permitted in my father’s house, but here, few see the spiritual need for washing by hand. Perhaps it is that they actually listen to their wives here. It is simple enough to be independent, or so Bishop Beiler used to say. I turned the key. Nothing. I pulled the cord to start it. Nothing.
Hannah will not be pleased to hear this.
I WAS NOT THE only one at the Sorensons’. Jim was still there when I arrived, and his father, and the oldest Fisher boy. Deacon Sorenson and Isaak Stolfutz were talking in earnest, the younger folk listening intently.
The word was the same from every family. The English neighbors, none of them had power. Most were farm folk, and most had generators and emergency power and solar and wind turbines for when the power went out.