We slammed our doors and windows and turned up our TVs. The few who braved the briefly illuminated chill quickly returned inside, unable to glimpse the rainbow sparks the distant booms had promised.
The strobe faded, and silence swallowed the darkness.
In the morning, the booming started again, but this time at our doors, and of familiar voices in the street. We tumbled blearily out of our homes, the familiar morning mist mingling with a foreign smoke. They threw our lives from our houses and they tore off our clothes; our secrets, strewn in the streets, illuminated in the dawn.
They cast us, naked, into our bare boxes, and left only silence.
In the evening, the booming started again, but this time slowly, methodically, crawling closer.
We closed our eyes and counted down to "me".
