Lights Out

[Eleanora]

A thousand years from now, when the memory of the world that was long ago fades away into the knowledge of the world that is to come, our children and our grandchildren will ask, “Where were you during the great blackout? Where were you when the stars fell?”

Our eyes, cloudy with age, will look to the horizon as we remember how it was a dark night, a night without a moon, with the stars twinkling brightly above our heads. The wind was warm with the first kiss of summer, the chill of spring slowly fading as the sound of young birds filled the night. Everything was ordinary, as it should be. A night without surprises.

Until we saw the first star fall. And then another, and then