It all started with a snake.
Far too early in the morning, Verona Halčínova, aged mother of the mayor, was making her climb up the hillside cemetery to the church. Since her son was the head of the village and held considerable sway over life between the forests, Verona thought it boorish for her to not be prominent in the community as well. With the priest being — to put it lightly — an odd fellow, Verona decided she would serve as the village’s head of faith. Her self-decreed title required Verona to not only attend every mass of the week, but to also show up half an hour before the priest arrived to shame him into some semblance of sobriety.
So, every morning, far too early in the morning; Verona would don a fresh kerchief, grab her cane and climb up the steep hill on which the village’s little chapel stood. It’s on one of these early morning climbs, with not a soul around aside from the pious Verona, that it all started.
And it all started with a snake falling from the sky.
As an outsider I wasn’t privy to village gossip. I only found out about the snake until Sunday morning. Brother Donát was stumbling his way through end-of-mass announcements when Verona stood up and interrupted.
For four days she had sat in the pews and listened to the preacher avoid the unavoidable, the old woman screeched. There had been an omen, a snake had fallen from the sky. A cobra straight from the lands of Egypt. The Lord had sent a serpent as a warning and that warning was going unheeded.
Some in the church murmured in approval, some hissed at the interruption and Brother Donát didn’t do much at all. He simply said something about the Lord working in mysterious ways and how we all must look into our hearts to see if we are at fault. After a brief sneeze Donát continued with end-of-mass announcements.
Verona, once again, interrupted the priest with more shrieking but this time there was considerable resistance. The priest was announcing the funeral mass of a villager that was, even in death, more beloved than Verona.
Sensing the shifting tempers in the creaky chapel, Mayor Halčín stood up and announced that a meeting regarding the snakes would be held in the town hall after the priest would bless his parish goodbye. Aside from another sneeze from Brother Donát, no objections to the change of venue were raised.
The ‘town hall’ of the village was actually a decommissioned Bolshevik-era fire station that was solely used for funeral receptions and elections. It made for a poor town hall location. The space was never intended to hold a crowd, let alone an agitated one at that. The walk down from the chapel had let theories start to fester and by the time the villagers crowded into the cement box accusations started flying around.
The main hall had little standing room or air and the flickering of the fluorescent lightbulbs agitate the crowd further. Everyone had a theory for what unchristian behavior might have brought on God’s wrath and everyone had decided to voice their varying theories in unison. It wasn’t until Halčín had asserted his authority with shouting that the crowd settled down.
With the same composure he handled every crisis, the mayor asked if anyone had an explanation for the falling snake which did not involve the Lord’s anger. Only one man spoke up — the village veterinarian; he said that the snake might have fallen from a bird’s beak. Perhaps a stork or an eagle had made a nest nearby and had simply dropped its prey by accident.
The veterinarian’s theory was not well received.
By the time differing theories, theories which revolved around unchristian neighbors, started to emerge Halčín once again silenced the crowd. If the topic of the mysterious snake was to be discussed through a theological lens, then it should be done by a priest, the mayor decreed.
Brother Donát, however, was nowhere to be found. When someone announced that the priest’s car was gone, much of the room emptied out to verify. With a taste of fresh valley air the crowd calmed down. Accusations were still being thrown around but the villagers agreed to postpone the discussion until next mass.
On my walk back to the cottage I saw no eagles or storks. Then again, I wasn’t exactly searching for birds.
Originally, I only attended Sunday mass to stay in the good graces of the village. Back in the city I wasn’t a religious person and I definitely wasn’t a catholic. When one lives between the forests though, it becomes difficult to not grasp for some level of supernatural safety. Up in that rickety steeple on the hill I wasn’t making peace with Jesus Christ, I was trying to hedge my bets with the forest beyond.
That Sunday night there was a storm. It was the sort of storm that makes you fear God. The rain came down heavy and thick just before sunset and there was barely a moment without thunder. Having done most of the repairs on the roof myself I was doubly scared of the howling wind tearing the cottage apart and, with the prospect of a thunderstrike frying my computer, I wasn’t able to distract myself with any work. I spent that Sunday night lying in bed draped in terror.
It was well after the storm and I was only half-awake when I first heard it. It broke through the steady pitter patter of tin roof rain like a brick through glass. An unearthly roar descended from the sky. The dark growl dragged itself through the valley for what felt like minutes but there was no lightning anywhere on the horizon. The sound had stirred me out of my sleep enough to look outside, but when the darkness provided no answers and the skies descended into silence once more, I went back to sleep.
Just like the mystery of the falling snake, I decided to ignore the strange thunder.
Perhaps because I needed something to distract myself, I spent most of the following day behind the computer. I moved out to the village to be closer to nature and further away from the trappings of modern life, but I work as a freelance graphic designer so there’s certain things that are inescapable. With a hefty day of screen time behind me and a certain curiosity about how morning mass went I made my way to the village pub.
As it turned out, Brother Donát’s spiritual guidance did not satisfy his parish. Nothing of consequence was said and the priest refused to pick a side on whether the snake was of godly or earthly origin. The steeple of the church was examined from below, but when the prospect of checking the top of the flimsy structure was floated no one volunteered. The question of the graveyard snake was starting to lose its novelty and it almost lost it completely if it wasn’t for one of the farmhands.
The boy had managed to spot not one, but two snakes warming themselves on a grave in the afternoon sun. Not knowing what else to do the farmhand dashed down the hill and roused whatever soul he could out of the nearby cottages. A few of the curious crowd had witnessed the snakes before they scampered off but the moment the sighting turned into news the facts started to differ.
When I entered the pub, the air had already turned thick with tobacco and debate.
None of those who had witnessed the snakes were present in the pub, yet versions of their stories were being shouted across the room. The Miller was certain that the two serpents were nothing but harmless garden snakes. The Carpenter, on the other hand, swore he heard that the two snakes were cobras just like the one that Verona had witnessed. Old Štefan, who did very little of use in the village, claimed that both men were misled. The creatures spotted in the graveyard were neither garden snakes nor cobras, they were a reptile dreamed up by the devil himself. Not only that, the grave that the snakes rested on was none other but that of the woodsman.
The mention of the woodsman had quieted down the table. An uncomfortable topic to which I was not privy to squirmed itself through everyone’s eyes. The whole pub became unbearably tense until — with a slam on the table — the Mayor broke the spell.
‘This is not the time to speak about the snakes. None who witnessed them are present and no conclusions can be reached without evidence,’ Halčín decreed, ‘Let us not debate around this table about who heard what. Let us do what should be done in a pub! Drink!’
Then, the mayor summoned the bartender and made sure no man was left without slivovitz. Once the shot glasses were emptied the conversation shifted away from the snakes. Once the shot glasses were filled and emptied again, some of us might have even forgotten about the alleged serpents in the first place.
I arrived back at my cottage much drunker than anticipated. The slivovitz in my stomach made the stairs up to my bedroom a mighty climb and when I finally reached my bed the world was spinning far too quickly for me to fall asleep. Half-awake, I managed to crawl my way over to the bathroom and empty my stomach. Too exhausted to make the journey back to bed I took my rest by the toilet bowl.
I drifted between the numb darkness of drunken dreams and the cold tile of my bathroom well after the road lights had gone out. The headache came slowly. At first, I was able to ignore the pain with sleep, yet with each new spindle of discomfort that popped behind my eyes, escape became more improbable. Suddenly I was sweaty and my heart was skipping beats. The punishment for slivovitz on an empty stomach had caught up with me.
I drank as much water as my stomach could handle and laid down in my bed, yet the room refused to stop spinning. The rolling around in bed was just making me sweatier. Getting up and stumbling down the stairs brought on another wave of nausea but getting out into the mountain air settled me. In my underwear and a shirt that reeked of cigarettes I stood out in the complete darkness.
The road lights had been turned off and the night was absolute. With the exception of a silhouetted countryside and the burning moon above everything else was plunged into darkness. All that existed was the bubbling of the nearby brook. Sitting on a bench by the door, I started to breathe off my hangover.
The drunkenness had long overstayed its welcome and my brain felt like it had burst into flames, yet even past the hangover I was able to enjoy my surroundings. I remember that moment well — that tranquility that reminded me why I left the city.
I remember that moment well because of how it ended.
The sound started off faint, but nonetheless concerning. Like a burst of thunder dragged past its breaking point. It undoubtedly came from the sky and it was undoubtedly getting louder. My brain squirmed with renewed pain, but I kept my eyes locked on the dark forest and the burning moon above. When my migraine had reached its zenith an imminent sense of nausea climbed up my throat. The louder the dark note in the skies got the more my condition worsened.
I only saw the source of that cursed roar for a split second before I had to avert my eyes. Big and black and shining red, the machine passed above. All the water that I had drank to hold back my hangover left my throat and my body collapsed in the grass. For what felt like hours but must’ve been minutes, I lay on the floor and shivered in fear and weakness, unable to face the heavens. It wasn’t until the horrible sound was nothing but an echo that I managed to rise to my feet.
The sky was clear once more, but off in the distance, away from the moon — I could see two dim red lights disappear into the forest. The perplexing sight and sound had sobered me enough to lead me back up the stairs to my bedroom. Being covered in mud from my collapse, I elected to take a shower. Shortly after that shower I fell into an exhausted sleep.
I had hoped that I would wake up and not remember the affair, or at least that by morning light I would be able to discount the whole experience as a product of drunken stupor. I did neither. Instead, I woke up well into the late afternoon feeling like a corpse with the perplexing events of the previous night burning in the back of my skull right next to the headache.
For hours I lay in bed, questioning my sanity. When no comforting answers presented themselves, I climbed out of bed, pulled on some fresh clothes and made my way to the pub. I had hoped that someone else had heard the terrible sound, that there would be some simple rural explanation to the phenomena that my upbringing in the city had simply robbed me of — yet in the pub I found no answers.
Instead, I found chaos.
The pub was much angrier than before. Different stories of snake sightings had spread through the village and were getting aired out in the smokey room. The Veterinarian, who rarely visited the pub, stood in opposition to the rumors with a few sober voices of support. He had seen the stork nesting at the top of the steeple. Others had too. The sightings of exotic serpents, the Veterinarian claimed, were fabulations brought on by religious panic.
The bartender — as always — was the calmest person in the room and made no fuss about me getting a Kofola. When I tried to ask him about the strange roar in the middle of the night, however, he nodded his head towards the lively debate about the snakes. He was not interested in conversation; he was enjoying the show.
Halčín, befitting a mayor, sat at the center of the rowdy table. When I had first entered the pub, he was trying to calm the atmosphere with jokes and laughter, but by the time I sat down his appetite for diplomacy had passed.
His slam on the table sent a glass of wine and one of the ashtrays crashing to the ground. In no uncertain terms, Halčín declared that all discussion of snakes was to cease at once. On the following morning a ladder was to be brought to the church and the steeple was to be inspected for nests. Any further discussion of the serpents until then was not suited for polite company.
The sound of broken glass quieted the crowd and the bulging veins on Halčín’s forehead prolonged the silence. On any other occasion I would have stayed silent as well, knowing that I am still an outsider in the village community, yet, driven by fear I spoke up.
I asked the table if anyone had heard the horrible howl last night.
My question was answered with nothing but stares that bounced between me and Halčín. Over the months I had been welcome into the village community as an outsider, yet asking the question about the mysterious night-sound had been a bridge too far.
I tried to explain myself further, to mention the red lights and the dark shape that moved across the sky — yet I scarcely got a sentence out before Halčín silenced me.
No one else had heard the sound, he said. I was simply spreading further panic.
As divided as the rest of the table was about the snakes, they were united on the issue of me speaking. This was no time for outsiders. I was not welcome among the village people anymore. With the pub silent and tense, I finished off my pint of Kofola and excused myself from all social activities.
I did not plan to stay awake that night. All I wanted to do was become unconscious as soon as possible and wake up to a world that I would understand better. The thought of that terrible sound, however, of that indescribable black machine, of those two burning red lights — it kept me sleepless well into darkness.
It was around two in the morning when I heard it again. The dark groan started softly enough that I thought it a product of my imagination, yet when my windows started to shake under the strain of that unearthly sound, I knew that what had haunted me the night prior had returned.
Perhaps, I was driven purely by exhaustion and confusion. Perhaps, what got me out of bed was a morbid sense of curiosity. Either way, I made my way down the creaky stairs and out into the darkness.
My stomach and head had recovered somewhat from the slivovitz, yet the metallic bedlam above brought on the same discomfort that had plagued me the night prior. The roar was louder this time, much louder. The sound of the calm bubbling stream had been utterly annihilated by the sky. All that existed was the burning moon, the silhouette of the forest and that terrible roar.
I watched the sky, every fiber of my being wanted me to turn around and hide in my cottage — yet with tears in my eyes I faced the sky demanding answers to the origins of that cursed roar.
I saw the machine for but a moment but that moment will forever be etched into memory. Set against the backdrop of the bright yellow moon, its wings massive and shining red — I saw what looked like a massive cargo plane.
It flew much lower than it did the night prior and its roar was loud enough to feel in the teeth. My knees buckled and my heartbeat throbbed in my eardrums. As the massive black airbus passed above all I could do was whimper in the mud.
I could not see the machine, but every inch of my body felt it. The plane flew much lower than any plane should. When the giant was right above me and my terror had reached its zenith, I found myself screaming. Yet no sound left my mouth. The roar of the metal monster had completely ensnared the world.
When the sound finally started to fade, I thought myself deaf for a moment. It’s not until the gentle bubbling of the nearby stream edged itself into reality that I finally found myself safe.
The mere sight of the machine made me doubt my sanity. I did not look back at the plane’s glowing wings. Instead, I looked out at the village. The road lights were long dead, but the windows of the cottages were lighting up one by one. I stood out in the mud, listening for any hint of conversation, for some sort of clue to what had just happened — yet the villagers stayed in their homes and kept their conversations contained there as well.
Soon enough the moon became swallowed up in clouds that leaked lightning. With the first burst of thunder — real thunder — the lights in the cottages started to turn dar. By the time the first drop of rain left the sky I made my way back to my home as well.
I was still terrified. I was nearly going mad trying to understand what had just transpired. There was, however, some solace in the idea that others had heard that terrible roar as well. I would not be alone in my terror. Maybe, I tried to convince myself, someone from the village might have a perfectly reasonable explanation for the strange plane. For a while that misguided ember of hope kept me company, but by the time I had laid down in bed it was snuffed out.
There was no reasonable explanation.
The airbus wholly defied reason. I found myself sick to my stomach even trying to visualize it. The machine was — at first glance — just a particularly large airplane. Yet the more I replayed those few fevered seconds of its visage the more I became sure it was a thing of the eldritch. It moved far too slow for an object that flies. The machine’s roar was unlike that of any airport. There was no conceivable reason for why the airbus would fly so low.
The inexplicable nature of what I had witnessed kept me from sleep for hours, yet as the rain died down to nothing but taps on a tin roof, I found myself counting sheep. I never fell asleep that night — or at least I don’t think I did. I did, however, find some solace in those dark tranquil hours. I found solace in the idea that I would get answers soon, that once the whole village had gathered and acknowledged the terrible plane that my fears would be quelled.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Long before the rooster crowed, I found myself on my feet. I wasn’t planning to head to the church yet, it was barely light outside — yet when I looked out of the window, I could already see people making their way up the road. Everyone had umbrellas out but no one was dressed in their church clothes. The villagers weren’t going to the church to pray. They were going to the church to get answers.
The rain had picked up into cold wet chunks, but no one was dissuaded. On top of the hill, surrounding the church; an agitated crowd gathered. Among the villagers murmurs about the strange thunder from last night were starting to spread. Whenever the discussion of the unearthly sound got too loud, however, mayor Halčín would quiet down the discussion.
One crisis at a time, he said. The issue of the strange thunder would be discussed once the stork nest was retrieved.
The church had been standing for well over a hundred years and, at its top, it once held a bell. During the war the Nazis reappropriated the bell to be smelted down into munitions and the Bolsheviks were in no rush to replace it. Without a bell the stairs to the steeple aged without repair until they became a death-trap.
It wasn’t until the two farmhands carried in the lengthy ladder that conversation shifted away from the snakes and strange thunder. In quiet whispers, far too quiet for the third farmhand to hear, the gathered crowd of villagers wondered whether the church steeple would be safe to ascend.
Perhaps because he didn’t hear the concerns, or perhaps in a false show of bravado; the third farmhand climbed up the ladder without complaint or pause. It wasn’t until he was halfway up the rickety structure that his steps lost their confidence. A gust of wind ruffled many of the umbrellas below. The church steeple creaked, ever so gently. The farmhand became aware of the height he had climbed to and stopped. For a moment it looked as if he would descend.
The farmhand’s mind was quickly changed by his colleagues holding the ladder. Past the rain they swayed between encouraging shouts and questions about his masculinity. The farmhand put on another burst of speed and leaped up the ladder to the top of the steeple.
The storm drowned out what the farmhand was yelling, but he was clearly reaching out for something. Whatever he was trying to grab, however, escaped his grasp.
One moment the farmhand was reaching inside of the steeple — the next he was grasping at air. With another groan from the steeple the ladder lost its balance and tipped towards the iron fence of the churchyard.
A horrible scream that refused to die stretched through the valley like a high-pitched air raid siren. As he rushed down the hill to help the poor youth, the Veterinarian called out for someone to call an ambulance. I managed to avert my eyes from the dying farmhand but I couldn’t shut out my ears to his horrid screams.
Among those screams, I could hear calls for a priest. The boy wasn’t going to make it. The boy wasn’t going to make it and Brother Donát was nowhere to be found. In the absence of a priest, mayor Halčín descended down the hill to comfort the dying youth.
For a moment the crowd of villagers on the hill stood in complete silence with nothing but death rattles and rain to keep them company. Then, seizing the opportunity for spiritual support; Verona Halčínová climbed up the church steps and started to preach.
The snakes, the strange thunder, the accident; it was all a sign, she said. The Lord had seen into the homes of the village and found them wanting of faith. Calamities would keep on happening until each and every member of the village had atoned for their sins and accepted the truth of God into their heart.
As she raved, the old woman kept on looking at me; as if I was the source of all the signs. Perhaps I reacted to her singling me out, or maybe it was because I was so starved for answers that I couldn’t stay quiet — but I spoke out.
I told the Mayor’s mother that she was wrong. That the sounds in the night weren’t strange thunder, but an airplane. The village was not being punished for some abstract crime of the spirit — there was simply a giant black airbus flying dangerously low through the valley at night.
Even as the farmhand expired within ear shot, my explanation for the strange thunder produced some laughs. Most of the crowd, however, became angry.
I was speaking out of line and, furthermore, I was speaking nonsense.
Energized by the crowd Verona launched into another religious diatribe this time directed specifically at me. I had come from the city and I belonged back in the city. It was only with my arrival a couple months prior that strange things started to happen in the village. It sounded as if Verona was about to list off these strange things but her preaching was cut short by a barrage of hail.
Within seconds the shards of ice went from peas to pebbles to fists. Much of the congregation quickly retreated into the church but I ran down the hill towards the exit from the churchyard. As I passed the crowd that had gathered around the farmhand, they paid me no mind. They were too busy shielding the fresh corpse with umbrellas.
The storm that washed over the village was unlike anything I had witnessed before. I arrived back at my cottage wet and shivering and bruised. Not for a moment did the barrage of hail relent. None of it broke the skin, yet minutes after I found shelter beneath my tin roof dark purple bruises of impact spread up my arms and back.
The cabin had sheltered me from many storms over the months but this tempest seemed to be of a wholly different nature. The whole wooden structure vibrated under the relentless barrage of hail and wind. The calm stream in front of the cabin strengthened into a wild river of mud and my whole yard was swallowed up with shards of ice. The mood felt decidedly apocalyptic and I had no idea what to do.
Standing anywhere near the windows felt hazardous and no part of the creaky cabin felt particularly stable. Not knowing what else to do I curled up beneath the winding staircase that led to the second floor of the cottage. It felt like the most stable part of the house and the noise was the most bearable in that dusty corner.
For a while I just shivered, my mind blank with terror. Then, even though the pandemonium outside stayed the same — my breaths slowed. Past the sheer confusion from the storm, past the questions about that horrid airbus —
I found myself counting sheep.
When I woke, I woke to complete darkness. Hunger and thirst quickly followed. Every muscle in my body roared with bruises but after some groans and false starts I managed to get up and locate the fridge. I found a Tupperware container with overcooked pasta. I was so groggy and hungry that I ate straight from the container. After the cold meal was done, I chased it with my last can of coke.
The storm had passed and only the hiss of the muddy river remained. With my immediate needs met, I found myself in a sense of dazed calm. Soon enough, however, my mind drifted back to the plane and its terrible roar.
My phone read fifteen minutes to two AM.
When I pulled my aching body up the staircase, I told myself that I would just take a shower, change into dry clothes and lie down in bed. I told myself that I would wake up wiser, but deep inside I knew I wasn’t going to sleep.
I did not shower. I simply put on dry clothes and made my way back down the stairs.
Outside the sky had turned cloudless and the moon shined just as bright as it did before. The stream, however, had grown wild. The water leaped up much higher than it ever had before and would occasionally splash into my front yard. All that divided me from the raging torrents below was a bridge that was rickety on the best of days.
My flashlight shook as I crossed the rotting wood, yet I did not let myself think about the possibility of a collapse. I had more important things to worry about.
I had the airbus to consider.
Perhaps if I raised my concerns with the Veterinarian or even Mayor Halčín, they would be heard. The rest of the village, however, wouldn’t believe anything without concrete evidence. The mere existence of the plane bothered me to no end, but I knew that if I was to get help in solving its mystery I would need proof. So, with a flashlight in one hand and a phone in the other, I made my way up the village road.
It was one minute from the hour when I reached the churchyard. The spot of fence where the farmhand had landed in the morning was covered in a burlap sack. I did my best to force any question of its contents out of my mind. Thoughts of the boy’s body still being impaled on those metal spikes quickly became replaced with fevered questions about the flying machine.
I kept my phone trained on the moon.
Every neuron of my attention was focused on picking up any hint of that terrible sound, of seeing even the slightest shiver in the trees that would suggest the arrival of that horrible plane — yet no precursors to horror manifested. All I could hear was the hush of the muddied river and, when the silhouettes of trees did sway, it was from a gentle forest breeze.
I found myself wondering whether the plane was just a product of my imagination, whether I had simply gone mad out in the countryside. My worry for my sanity only lasted for a moment. There was a pile of manure further up the road, but the wind from the woods had brought in the undeniable smell of forest. The hush of the wild stream went from a source of concern to a source of tranquility.
The village was nothing but a little bastion of civilization in a valley of the incomprehensible. I was nothing but a little man trying to find reason in the face of nature. The plane was nothing but a figment of my imagination, I convinced myself. Spending months away from the comforts of city life had just driven me a little bit mad.
It was time for me to go back home and sleep in a bed.
I scarcely made three steps when I heard it though. I had started to believe that visions of the airbus were nothing but me going crazy in the woods, but the moment I heard the start of the rumble I let go of those lies.
The plane was real. The plane was real and it was approaching the village.
The moment the machine emerged from the woods I averted my eyes. It was much closer. It was much louder. The sight of its terrible silhouette was enough to make me hold down vomit and grit my teeth. Through my distress I still managed to raise my shaking hand to the sky. As the phone captured the plane bathed in moonlight it grew unbearably hot but I kept my grip strong.
The airbus flew much, much lower than it did before. Its roar annihilated all other sounds from the universe, but past my panic I could see the other cottage windows light up. I wasn’t the only one who was witness to the terrible machine, but not being alone in my horror did nothing to ease my anguish.
For a mere moment I thought I heard a sound of wood cracking, of something falling on the side of the church hill — yet the deafening sound of the dark plane’s engine quickly rendered my surroundings irrelevant. As the airbus passed over me it felt as if my eyeballs were about to vibrate out of their sockets.
It wasn’t until the plane’s roar started to subside that I noticed the flames. Half of the spire had been knocked to the ground below and what was left of the church was on fire. The remnants of the spire were ablaze as well, yet the water-soaked earth had kept their light dim. The only bright fire on the ground was that of the burlap sack stretched across the iron fence.
My hopes of recording the dark machine had proved futile. When the villagers spilled from their homes out onto the road my phone was hot and dark and refused to turn on.
I had no evidence of the plane knocking down the church’s steeple.
The blaze at the top of the churchyard hill attracted immediate attention, yet as the villagers armed with buckets of water sobered from their sleep the futility of their fight became apparent. It would take at least half an hour for a firetruck to arrive.
No amount of buckets could stop the blaze atop of the hill.
I tried explaining to the gathered mob that I had seen the plane, that I had witnessed the crash and had no doubts about what had caused it. My testimony, however, soon became just another theory.
Even though the storm had long passed, some considered the crash a freak lightning strike. Other — much more fanatical voices — considered the collapsed steeple and blaze another sign that the Lord had been displeased with the village. When I told them that they were wrong, when I told them that I had witnessed the airplane with my own eyes — the crowd turned aggressive.
I fled the churchyard and, once the roads became visible, I fled the village. There was no reasoning with the locals and I fear that if I stayed there any longer more of them would start to consider me the source of their misfortune.
I write this as I sit on a high-speed train to the city. I do not know where I will sleep tonight, but I take solace in the idea that I will not be anywhere near that incomprehensible machine. I worry about what will happen to the village tonight. I worry that the plane will fly lower once more and cause unspeakable suffering.
Yet, as the train whizzes through the countryside that turns into small towns that turns into cities, I find my mind calming. I am safe. I content myself on the idea that I am safe from that terrible plane.
As the stations through which the train passes become familiar, however, I can’t let go of a single sight.
When the steeple first fell, as the villagers dashed up and down the hill with rusty buckets of water — I saw something. Out among the kindling that was once the top of the steeple, with burning straw for company and its white feathers caked in mud and blood — I saw a dead stork.
It had a garden snake in its mouth.