Hollow Roar (New Fiction)

Ron Koppelberger

Hollow Roar

The disaster had been reported in clear concise tone of fear. The Revolutionary Democrat had a photograph of a cloud that had specks of crimson in it and the well-bred Republican gazette showed a genuflecting pedestrian outlined by a twilight argument of darkness and scarlet cumulous clouds, a butterfly was visible in the corner of the photograph contrary to the horror of the moment. The headline read, “Beauty Before the Darkness.”, the caption beneath the photo read, “ Subservient to the unknown.” The aspirations of human endeavor, even wanton desires, had become a faded memory in the face of the phenomenon.
There were explanations offered and proposed but the complexity, the purity of the now sovereign cloud burst was still a mystery in the shroud of a mystery.
Wuhan Luke hid in the thick concrete shelter of his basement. He had moved his Igloo cooler and several cases of Victoria Springs water into his basement. A breath of life, an ordered quarrel of noise and news reports poured from his all weather radio in a barrage of static. Wuhan sat down on the variegated cotton comforter and leaned against the basements gray block wall. In wandering contemplation of his mortality, he prayed for a miracle.
Was this the end? Was this the end of mankind and life on earth? He prayed and listened with a hopeful expectation. God’s slight of hand brought twilight spears of sunshine in crazy quilt patterns through his basement windows. He was exercising his cramped fingers, he had been clutching a fold of the quilted cotton blanket unconsciously for the last several hours. Wuhan Prayed again in balanced benediction, “ Our father who art in heaven…..”, he began. As he prayed a hollow roar filled the basement and the air outside of the tiny clapboard house. It sounded like the ocean and a speeding fright train in cacophonous harmony. A flash of light filled the skies and poured in flowing rivers of affirmation through the basement windows. The August eyes of hastened force and currents of unwavering rebirth championed the earth and Wuhan cried thinking the worst.
Eventually, the hollow roar abated and Wuhan ventured upstairs to the chance and the fate that had overwhelmed the planet. Wuhan opened his front door and looked into the glowing golden brilliance of an almost ethereal sunshine. The roses he had planted were in bloom and the grass was a rich emerald hue. A gentle symphony of beauty filled the once baron desert that had bordered the edge of his property. In the distance he saw fields of wheat and saffron in bloom, glorious and blessed a miracle had occurred.