Sandbox

Sandbox

For Denise Carcieri, the day the world ended began much like any other day. She awoke at 6 AM to the sounds of Paul and Al on 94HJY. She lay there for a moment, listening as they lampooned Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy and his son, Patrick, the junior Rhode Island Congressman. As was her habit, she waited until the bit ended, before throwing the covers off, and begrudgingly dragging herself out of bed, and heading into the bathroom. She turned the shower on and sat down to pee while waiting for the hot water to arrive. In a few moments, she saw the first tendrils of steam rising from the shower stall.

She got up, pulled her nightshirt over her head, and stepped into the shower. This did wonders. She was now a 5 on the wake-up scale, well on her way to full consciousness. After just standing there for a few minutes, she washed, shampooed her hair and got out. She dried off, put her bathrobe on and went off to make herself a cup of coffee. She sat down to suck down a good amount of coffee. She was approaching 9 on the wake-up scale now. This was her quiet time when she could simply sit still and enjoy her coffee before her daughter woke up, and the day kicked up a notch in preparation for pre-school. In a few minutes she got up and popped an English Muffin in the toaster oven. She went and woke her daughter up while the toaster was on. Moments later, she returned with her 2-year old daughter, Amanda, blonde-haired and sleepy-headed, in tow. She went to the TV in the living room and turned Sponge Bob on. She heard the toaster oven ding once and she hurried into the kitchen. She retrieved the muffin and spread peanut butter on both halves. She poured two glasses of milk and brought one of each item to her daughter. Amanda turned up her nose at the muffin, obviously displeased with the morning menu.

Denise returned to the kitchen and turned the little TV in there to Fox News. They were reporting a terrible tragedy, an earthquake and tsunami said to have been at least a hundred-foot wave off the coast of India. Early estimates placed the death toll as being 4 to 5 times that of the December 2004 tsunami. She sat and ate her half of the muffin, washed down with the glass of milk. She finished her first cup of coffee and after fixing another one, she went to check on Amanda.

“Amanda Panda, did you eat your breakfast?” She asked her.

Amanda looked down at her shoes. Denise looked around on the floor and furniture, then she noticed smears of peanut butter all around the opening to the VCR. She poked the door open and saw the muffin sitting there, dripping melted peanut butter all over the VCRs heads. “Oh goody.” She thought to herself, letting the door close, vowing to deal with this mess later that night when she got home from work. She got her in to wash her hands and got her a baggie full of Cheerios to munch on. She opened a snack-bag of Ritz cheese sandwiches and let her have what she wanted this morning. Somehow she just felt she should let it go, so she did just that.

She went back in to have her last cup of coffee and clean up the breakfast dishes and noticed the breaking news alert on Fox News. The three usually giddy newscasters, sat stone faced and solemnly reported that there had been a horrific earthquake off Washington’s Puget Sound. Initial estimates from the U.S. Geological Service put the quake’s magnitude at an unheard of 11.6 on the Richter scale. Damage details were sketchy or non-existent, but there were reports from the military of widespread coastal damage from a series of massive tsunamis, triggered by the quake in the Cascadia subduction zone, in the ocean off the coast of Washington State. It was also reported that the volcanoes of the cascade range, Including Mounts Aetna, St. Helens, Ranier and Hood had erupted simultaneously. Nations of the Pacific Rim were bracing for tsunamis in the wake of such massive destruction. Residents of Alaska, California and Hawaii were bracing for the wave that was sure to come. A new tape, reportedly from Osama bin Laden applauded the devastation as Allah’s revenge upon the Zionist infidels of America.

She was rinsing the dishes and loading the dishwasher up, when she noticed the small bouquet of flowers on her windowsill began to flutter. She stopped what she was doing, and watched as the small vase began moving of its own accord toward the edge of the sill. She had only a moment to consider this before she felt the floor began to shake beneath her feet. She heard her daughter scream that high-pitched scream that sends ice through a mother’s veins.

“Here I come, Mandy! Come to Mama!” She yelled as she ran toward her daughter’s room. Half way there, they ran into each other. High on adrenaline, in the midst of what is called “the flight response,” Denise bent at the waist, scooped her daughter up, turned and headed for the door. She paused to grab her car keys from the small ceramic bowl next to the stove. She grabbed the doorknob and the door wouldn’t budge. Frantically, she checked to make sure the door wasn’t locked, and watched in horror as she saw waves of motion heading across her back yard. Her yard seemed transformed into an ocean of scary swells. She watched as these hit her deck, and the unforgiving lumber splintered and tore away as if a temperamental giant had kicked it. She continued pulling desperately as she heard an indescribable sound, as the 80-foot pine in her back yard swayed back and forth wildly like a blade of straw. She watched in horror as the tree finally gave up its battle to remain upright and fell directly at her. With one last try, she pulled on the door with all her might, and fell on her butt as it opened fairly easily. She jumped to her feet, scooped up Mandy and ran for the back yard and away from the house as fast as she could, seconds before the huge pine landed on the house.

Navigating the yard was almost impossible due to the intense, buckling waves the earth was sending their way. It was as if she was trying to run across a trampoline while several people bounced up and down on it at the same time. As she neared the upraised roots of the fallen tree, she heard a sickening, splintering crack, mingled with the sound of breaking glass, as her house succumbed to the exaggerated ground waves, and began collapsing inward. She tore around the base of the tree and watched as a second pine began showing signs of its imminent fall, right in the direction of her Volvo wagon. She ran with all of her might, clicking the alarm off and unlocking the doors as she went.

She reached the car, yanked open the door and literally threw Amanda in the front passenger seat. She fumbled, trying to get the keys in the ignition, as she saw this last pine tree give up the ghost and began falling straight at her. She managed to get the key into the ignition and sat there for a fraction of a second with her foot on the accelerator, wondering why the hell she wasn’t moving. She reached down and put the car into reverse, never taking her eye off the pine tree heading her way. She became alarmed when she saw thick smoke flowing by her window. She realized with horror that she was spinning her wheels, going nowhere. She eased up a bit and the car suddenly lurched backwards, careening crazily down the driveway. She wasn’t going to make it. She could see that easily, and sure enough, as she swung the car out of the driveway, the pine crashed to the ground, the last 5 feet of it landing squarely on her hood and shattering her windshield. The both of them screamed as the car continued its crazy arc out of the driveway and onto the road. They were nearing the corner when they realized that they had not been killed and the car was still running.

They roared down the road, Denise taking one last, quick look in the rear-view mirror, at the rubble that had once been their home. She stepped on the gas and roared around the corner onto Ferry Lane and raced up toward Rumstick Road and Barrington Center. She had no idea where she was heading. Her only destination was a broad one – out of here. She flew through intersections, honking her horn, swerving around slow or disabled traffic, and for the most part, driving like she was on a NASCAR track. For the most part the roads seemed to be deserted. She saw that most of the cars that were on the road had pulled over when the quake struck. Everywhere she looked, she saw devastation. St. John’s Church, commonly known as the “Red Church” was a pile of rubble, save for the bell tower which leaned precariously, caught from further collapse by the branches of a mighty oak. She could hear its bells clanging wildly. Nearby, the Barrington Getty and the Barrington Shell gas stations were roaring infernos. As she sped down County Road, she passed the Barrington Town Hall, built in 1888, damaged but still standing.

As she sped down Prince’s Hill, she noticed a large oak blocking the road. Without a moment’s hesitation, she swerved off the road, mounted the sidewalk and drove up onto someone’s lawn, in order to avoid the tree. She had no idea where she would go, other than she would try to find a place with no trees nearby, somewhere the two of them might be safe for the time being.

She was nearing the Barrington Congregational Church, also known as the “White Church”, when an enormous 150-year old oak tree slammed to the ground, completely blocking the street. Without even thinking of her actions, she yelled for Amanda to slide off her seat and onto the floor, as she swerved the car to the left and headed straight at the chain-link fence surrounding the Barrington High School playing fields.

“Hold on baby!” She called to her terrified daughter as she slammed into and through the fence. With a loud bang, she found her face suddenly enveloped in the white of the airbag. She kept her arms rigid, maintaining the same direction of travel she had been going before hitting the fence. She took her foot off the gas and let the car come to a stop. She was in the middle of the playing field, where the football team usually practiced. But the best thing about her present location was, there were no trees of any great height anywhere nearby. They were safe, at least for the moment, anyway.

She sat there, letting her heart get back to a normal rhythm. Behind her she heard the screeching of car tires and the sound of several collisions. She could see in her rear-view mirror, that a few cars had followed her lead and sought the relative safety of the football field. Then her eyes took in the shattered remains of Barrington High School, recently named as a blue ribbon school, one of only a handful of schools in the entire nation to be awarded such an honor. The school was utterly destroyed as was every structure as far as the eye could see. She could see that St. Anthony's School, a den of perversion and administration-sanctioned decadence, was in flames.

Due to the adrenaline pumping through her body and the exhilaration of her flight, she had barely noticed that her CD player was blasting. She pressed the FM button to see what she could hear, and turned the volume down a bit, to a non-ear-splitting level. She heard the now familiar squawking tone that usually announced that “this has been a test of the Emergency Broadcast Network,” however, this time there was no such announcement following the sound. She heard a voice announce that the following was a bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security. There had been massive earthquakes across the planet and at this moment there was no clue as to what had triggered the global destruction. The voice told listeners that they should move outdoors away from tall structures or trees but other than that, they should stay where they were, until help could arrive. She helped her scared little girl up off the floor and held her tight, trying not to show her own terror at what was unfolding.

“Mommy?” Amanda asked.

“Yes Pumpkin,” Denise replied in as steady a voice as she could muster.

“I love you Mommy.” The two-year old replied and Denise thought to herself that it was funny how you could be having the worst day of your life…The world could be literally crumbling before your eyes, and an unsolicited proclamation of love from a child could make everything all right. Such a sentiment could erase all fears and give an adult a shot of strength, which would be needed at a later date and time. She hugged her daughter, telling her how much she loved her too, when she heard a loud, booming, decidedly female voice, call from the heavens. She heard it echoing on the radio as well.

“YAWEH?”

“YES MOMMY.” A child-like voice also boomed from beyond the skies.

“TIME FOR YOUR BATH YAWEH.”

“AW, CAN I JUST PLAY FOR ONE MINUTE MORE? I JUST WANNA FINISH DESTROYING MY WORLD.”

“OKAY HON, JUST A FEW MORE MINUTES. YOU GO AHEAD AND DESTROY YOUR WORLD, THEN COME ON IN FOR A BATH.”

And then it was all over, life and existence as we knew it was destroyed, crushed under the rubber sole of a size 2T sneaker, worn by an infant named YAWEH, the God of the Old Testament, Creator of Heaven and Earth.