The Cluster Event
A day like any other—until it isn’t.
The sky turned a shade of Gatorade Green. Not the lime or mint green that comes with auroras, its that neon chemical green that looks radioactive. It was the sort of green you might remember from a dream — unnatural. Skies aren’t supposed to look that way on Earth. And yet there it was, stretching from one horizon to the other.
Thomas squinted up. “Looks like something a kid with a crayon addiction cooked up.”
Our phones buzzed in unison, blaring through the silence.
“I guess practice is canceled?” I said as we reached the school gates.
He was opening his mouth to reply when the cow appeared. It floated by, stiff-limbed, spinning like a tumbleweed in slow motion. As it passed overhead, I swear it looked right at me.
“Did that cow just —”
“I’m not sure,” Thomas said, eyes wide. “Cows don’t fly, bro.”
“Well that one did!”
Then Mister Langley from two streets over, runs out in socks screaming, “It’s a cluster! A cluster of them! Run!”
“What’s a cluster?” I ask, but it’s too late. Debris rain. The wind began hurling fragments of the neighbourhood at us — gutters, pieces of fences, a child’s tricycle, and lots of snapped branches.
We bolted. The Waffle House was open, had a walk-in freezer. Someone had wedged the walk-in freezer ajar. Inside, the light flickered on a group of silent, shivering strangers. A woman beside the crates of moss-green cucumbers spoke softly in words I couldn’t understand. Possibly more than one language.
Thomas found my hand in the cold. He was shaking.
“This might be it,” he says. “This feels like the end.”
I look at the rivulets of condensation gathering on the steel walls.
“Not yet,” I say. “It’s only April.”
And somehow, that made it worse.
Real headlines that vaguely resemble today’s fiction:
https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/something-strange-happening-to-tornadoes
Relate? Leave a comment. Know someone who would? Send it their way.
If you are confusing this with real news, please unplug your Wi-Fi router, go outside and touch some grass to get back to reality. Full disclaimer here.