The Moment the Earth was Silent.

A Story by Aisuru

.

The Moment the Earth was Silent.

By Jen Dayton

The morning was young, and the five o’clock sun just peeked over the hill illuminating the branches of that fateful tree. The minutes went so slow that we could almost see the dew forming on the sharp blades of grass beneath our feet. My toes are starting to prune. I haven’t yet shaken the soggy feeling from last nights rain. No one seemed to move, we stood still and quiet in the same place we’ve been for hours. Nothing seemed to disturb my personal silence. I don’t know if every one felt this way but it looked as though they did. The filming helicopters and the chattering media behind me were just back round noise.

At night the people light their candles many in prayer others just for the light. With the hundreds of thousands of spectators one good tip and it would set the whole state aflame. I’ve never seen that much light nor that many people.

I don’t know the reason every one was here but what I do know is that every wanted something from her. Many brought their ill hoping for healing. Some sat patiently waiting for God. They looked for wisdom, hope, even salvation. And like me some just wanted an answer.

Regardless the reason we all stared up. At the tip of the hill, at her. Legs crossed hands skinny as pins and needle rested on her knees, eyes aimed straight forward, glossed over and mirrored.

She had been on that hill for fourteen days, and I’ve been on my little peace of earth for thirteen. The words get stuck in my throat when I gap my jaw to explain this unexplainable event. Even Fox news was in too much shock to film their ridiculous analysis of every second. Back to the phenomenon (as they called it) that caused all this. The tree behind her carried every species of fruit on its thick branches. No leaves sprouted from it limbs portraying and awkward and majestic appearance. It birthed in less then three days. The development was so quick it would have been easy for the phenomenon to go unnoticed in this rural Pennsylvania town.

The events however didn’t really just start with the tree it started with one little peace of unidentified fruit. It was small about the size of my palm and had a almost silvered mirrored skin. It seemed to be tough at first; until, that is, it was consumed by the girl the we now gaze upon. The girl barely breaching fifteen stubble upon it as if destined. And with in an hour the news had 24hr coverage. Within seconds of eating the fruit she assumed the position that she currently has. She hasn’t eaten, drank, moved, or even blinked. You could believe she were dead if not for the silent flutter of breaths.

And so we are all gathered, watching, waiting, acting as skeptics and as believers that some how some way the phenomenon could changes the world. And I guess in a way it did.

There was a thick anticipation in our stomachs. Our hairs raised as if to warn us of pending lightning. I don’t remember breathing in the passing minutes but I’m sure I did. We watched a slight flicker of movement pass though her body that led her to stand.

She raised her arms as if to open herself to crucifixion. Her body, skin, dress, hair, they all looked sterol. Almost unbelievably clean. I could see the shadows of her thighs though thin fabric of her little white dress. The sun looked as though it was shining straight though her. And with one step forward she did what seemed to be what she always knew she would do. Her bare food didn’t hit the grown and her mouth didn’t open to reveal the profound words we all so desperately needed to hear. No, she sent her leg, then hip, then torso, and then face first in to the air. She fell, not gliding or flying but dropped in perfect formation to the ground. When it registered what had happened. When we all knew she plunged to her death a great silence came over the crowd, over the world. No shrieks no painful screams, no praise, just the most earth penetrating silence. Neither slave nor master, rich or poor, the hated or hater moved. Even the earth failed to spin. This was the moment the earth was silent.

I guess it was in the shock of the moment that we failed to see what was happening above us. We all gawked at her body, crumpled on the grown like a discarded tissue, we didn’t see the tree. Its fruit rotted and dissipated, its bark boiled and turned a sticky thick black tar and it limbs sucked into its trunk. Like the girl even quicker then it was born it had died. The soil inhaled the trunk leaving no lingering signs of its existence. Where its roots once fingered deep into the crust there lay a patch of freshly grown grass.

I suppose some one pulled her body from the ground. A love one clamed her or maybe it was just the sanitation department. What ever the case, with in hours of this happening every one had dispersed back into their homes, cars, and places of work. They turned off their TVs and radios. Moving on blankly as if nothing had ever happened. Though we all remember it we acted like we didn’t.

No ones ever tried to explain the phenomenon. Some said in quiet and under their breaths that the knowledge she gained couldn’t be held in her fleshy shell. But under my breath and in my quiet I knew that her silence was our silence and her peace was our peace. In that elegantly minuscule fourteen days we were no longer plural but a singular body of humanity. Who she was and what she was I’ll never know, I don’t think I want to. But her mysterious acts, so simple, so strange changed all of us that day.