The Green Light

The small Asian woman entered the Chinese restaurant by herself via the bolted back door.

Where were her sons?

Where was the college girl she had hired last week?

Unreliable. She should have expected the new girl to not show up. Studying for a test. Up all night drinking. She had heard it all.

She began slowly adjusting the valves of the gas stoves. Last night's utensils were clean. The floor had been mopped. Even so, where is everybody?

Her sons should know better than to be late. She didn't have a cell phone. Why? She had gotten along without one for 68 years. No TV or internet. Home is for sleeping, not working.

The green light came on the fryer. It was ready to receive the frozen foods needed for the hungry downtown Baltimore lunch rush.

She picked up the phone in the back office to call her sons. It was dead. Not even a busy signal. The back office was plastered with bills, articles from China Daily, flyers she couldn't read and pictures of giraffes hand drawn by her five-year-old granddaughter. There was also a picture of herself, much younger, wearing a wedding dress. This brought a slight warm smile, if only for a second.

Boom!

The bottom floor of the brownstone shook. The lights went off. There was a thick smell of gasoline in the office. She managed to push the door opened and make her way to the dining area. The tail end of a car had crashed through a wall. Glass, chairs, tables and car parts were everywhere.

The car was on fire. She bolted out of the restaurant into a nearby park. She put her head down to catch her breath. When she looked up she was greatly confused.

No one was attending to the cars which had had a high speed head-on collision. Instead people were running and screaming in all directions.

She was so confused.

A blinding light silhouetted the buildings in front of her. The new star burned her forehead as it's mushroom billowed into the burning sky. She instinctively looked away.

"Washington." A woman spoke from behind. "My parents lived there."

She turned around. A woman in a smart purple business suit, in her 50s, reddish-graying hair. "My name is Mary."

"Liu. I own the Jade Garden across the street." She could feel the heat of another blast and see it reflect in Mary's blue eyes.

"What is happening?"

Mary gave no answer.

Liu suppressed the urge to run away. Where could she go?

"My sons! I must get to... They live in Windsor Mill. They would have tried to get me but I would have said... No. I have lived a good long life. I want you to go. Save my grandchildren and..."

A serene wave came over her. Even in the midst of anarchy she was at peace.

Mary held Liu's hands. She bowed her head.

"Our Father which art in Heaven hallowed."

"May I join you?" asked another woman. Mary, still with her eyes closed, expanded her reach to make the duet of mercy into a trio.

"Hallowed be Thy Name.

Thy Kingdom come,

Thy will be done."

Liu heard another woman crying. "What are we going to do?" The circle expanded. Two more hands clasped.

"On Earth as it is Heaven.

Give us this day..."

Liu heard a toddler crying. Mary picked the little boy up and let him cry on her shoulder. Mary brushed some hair from her face. "Um... Uh."

Another woman interjected, "Give us this day our daily bread.

And for give us our debts..."

Even though her eyes remained closed, Liu could see. At first, everything was as bright as the sun at noon.

And then the sky turned orange.

All she could see were x-rays of the other women.

Mary held the toddler. "Don't cry, baby. Don't cry." She laid the little boy down and spread herself above him. The other women did the same.

And then it was all no more.

All the women in the park, the restaurant, the people in the cars, skyscrapers, the park just... just disappeared.

Many decades later, the alabaster city of Baltimore gleamed once more over the Patapsco River. The world was now a much safer place.

In a park there was a sculpture of eight women holding hands and praying. One of them held a toddler.

"That was you?" the little girl asked her great-grandpa.

"It was me. I was no more bigger than you." He used his cane to point. "The bomb exploded near Fort McHenry. And as soon as these women realized what had happened they all threw themselves..." He tapped his chest, "on little ole me. They saved my life that day so I could grow up, meet great-grandma; have three knuckleheads who met lovely young ladies. And so forth all so I could buy you a popsicle!"

He and the little girl turned to a man pushing a cart. "Two frozen grape juice, please." He reached for his wallet.

"No charge, Mayor Fielding, no charge." He handed them the popsicles.

The old man and the little girl unwrapped the icy delights and tapped them together like they were giving a champagne toast.

As they walked across the park; kites soared high into the air, majestic oaks provided nesting spots for robins and a Golden Retriever caught frisbee. Overall, it was an unremarkable day.