The Fourth of July

On July 4th 2033, it was a sunny, warm summer day in Richmond,Virginia. I was sitting in my living room having a cup of my homegrown tea spiked with a tad of mountain whiskey with my former beloved husband Joe. Watching the news because at this point in time things were constantly changing in the political world. We wouldn’t go out much anymore. Not since the global attacks that had been occurring unanimously. I think all we did was drink to stay sane, or unperturbed. We were somewhat calm and collected most days. What used to be Independence Day or the the Fourth of July hadn’t been allowed to be celebrated for a few years now since new foreign leadership took over the White House. The time on the television was around 6:05 when suddenly, the power went out. We heard what sounded like screams and explosions on every corner. I ran outside to see what was happening, my husband followed after. A mother ran straight up to me screaming “My baby! My baby! …..My baby is MISSING!!”

As she began to pull me down to the ground in utter distraught, I held her arms and glanced around the neighborhood and saw others in complete irrational panic.

“My kids! My kids are gone!”

“My husband! My wife! My child…”

“They’re missing!”

I looked down at the woman crying and said “Ma’am, it’s gonna be okay, we’ll find your child”

She looked up at me stone-faced, expression-less, water filled eyes, and confused in disbelief at even the next words she was about to murmur…..

“I was breastfeeding when she disappeared.”

My husband and I immediately got in the car and started to drive before we realized we couldn’t get very far. There were about seven cars on fire just outside of the intersection of where we would pull out of the neighborhood, in flames, while stand-byers were pulling bodies out of cars.

Joe and I didn’t know if we should get out and help or what we should do but we decided to attempt to get to the nearest place of safety. We turned on the radio looking for some sort of explanation and breaking through we had heard about hundreds of air planes that had gone down. Into the sea, into buildings, into people’s homes. Hundreds! Not just here in the U.S. but Malaysia, Honduras, France and Bulgaria, one after another reports were coming in.

I looked over to Joe and said “Is this a terrorist attack?”

Joe responded, “It’s something bigger”

Seconds before he was pulled out of the car and assassinated before my very eyes, I’ll never forget his last words, “It was real, it was all real.”

I didn’t know what he meant until I saw the old heirloom in his hands that was passed down from his great grandmother, a gold cross pendant that he held tight the whole time we had left the house, until now, as I watched it fall to the ground in a pool of my dead husbands own blood. Hands on the steering wheel, I noticed the grim time change on the car dash, blurred numbers glitching from 6:05 to a fuzzy 6:66 then fading back in to 6:06 p.m.