Firmament

Everyone remembers what they were doing when they first heard about it. I was trying to scrape peanut butter from the bottom of the jar with a knife. School bell rings at 4, I’m usually home by 4:12, it must have been 4:17 when I heard the news. The kitchen radio is always on. They interrupted the song and told everyone to stop what they were doing and to look up.

I looked up and saw the kitchen’s ceiling. Then I heard people shouting outside and I saw it through the window. The grid. White lines in the sky. Impossibly tall. Impossibly light. Impossibly bright. I ran upstairs to my room. I opened the door wide and climbed on the roof through the window. It made the sun look so small. I climbed down. I changed into my evening clothes and closed the door of the cupboard. It’s important to close the cupboard otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore.

It's been three weeks now. It’s been both a very short time and an eternity. Everyone keeps talking about it. Everyone has a theory about it. Self-proclaimed specialists yield more and more explanations. Everyone thinks they’re right, thinks that they know what the grid means, that they broke the cypher. I have a theory too. I didn’t tell anyone. I wrote it on a notebook that I keep in my desk, opposite the cupboard. I have to close the cupboard otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore.

My theory is that there is no meaning to the grid. It’s there as a distraction. While we’re thinking about it, we forget about the rest. They made the grid to fascinate us while they were spreading. They’re making progress and we still haven’t realized it. To be honest, I’m surprised their plan works so well. A grid, whatever kind of grid it is, is a very low effort form of visual representation. And still, people are fascinated. This is the only thing they talk about. It shines brighter than the moon during the night. It’s everywhere. The only place where I can’t see it’s light is in my cupboard. I should not forget to close the cupboard otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore.

I’m getting ready. I don’t have a hunting license yet. I was supposed to start taking shooting lessons in September, but that’s still months away. They won’t wait for me. I took a long knife in the kitchen. My parents haven’t noticed. They don’t notice much in normal times either. I hid it in my bed, between the frame and the mattress. I have a baseball bat in the cupboard. I always close it otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore.

Many people don’t come to school anymore. I have two good friends in my class, they still come. In the larger group of people I talk to everyday, maybe half don’t come anymore. Parents don’t say anything. Maybe they don’t know? Teachers don’t really teach anyway. They’re fascinated like the rest of them. We don’t really understand why. It’s like they all suddenly found how the world works. Or maybe they all found that the world doesn’t work in a particular way, that none of it matters. Either way, every time I get back home and write in my notebook, I realize it’s getting worse. Yesterday I thought I should hide it somewhere else, like in the cupboard. I hope I closed the cupboard otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore.

I came home an hour ago. My parents are not there yet. I don’t know if they ever will come back. I just climbed into my room to check on my notebook. I had left it at the usual spot in my desk in the end. I opened it, took a pen, and then it slowly dawned on me. I took a pen and put in in my mouth as if I was pondering on what to write. The knife is too far, I’ll never get to it. The chair is sturdy but it’s too heavy. The door of my cupboard is always closed otherwise it blocks my room’s door and you can’t open it from the outside anymore. Then why is it slightly open?