I was walking around a college campus in broad daylight. It was one of those colleges where most of the buildings were newer, not Gothic architecture, but the fascist type that seemed to dominate university construction in the 50s and 60s. But this wasn’t those decades and it wasn’t now either. It was depressing, despite the brightness of the day. I walked across a large concrete quad. It was probably one hundred yards across and dipped down in the center with stairs running along the circumference of the giant useless square. In the center there was a monument to man. A huge bronze atrocity.
I stopped to ask someone where the library was. He pointed to the structure immediately in front of me. A huge blank wall enlightened only with thin vertical windows that ran from the top to the ground. When I got inside there was a large glass window taking up the entire exterior wall of the first two floors. Suddenly it was night. Lights behind the building made me realize that the window overlooked the ocean. Standing near the glass I could that I was only 50 feet from the water.
Then a shrieking noise came from above me. It was a wiring, drone that became louder and louder. A plane. When I looked up I realize the roof was made of glass as well, and I could clearly see a 757 blaze overhead. Oddly the plane appeared to have a Southwest Airlines paint scheme, but I knew that Southwest predominately flies 737s and this plane was clearly larger. It wasn’t more than one-hundred feet above the building now, and it appeared that the nose of the plane was on fire. The engines were firing and idling all at once giving off an awful noise. Perhaps the sound would be normal if the plane was taxiing a runway or landing, but the situation made the engine sound like it was screaming in peril.
It hit the water behind the library, but it did not break up. The angle and trajectory of its flight did not seem to add up, but when I looked at the plane, the hero in me kicked in and I began to rush to a door near the now shattered window. Someone behind me seemed to have the same idea, then changed his mind saying, “The thing is gonna blow.” When I looked at the plane again I could see jet fuel spraying like a fire hose onto the beach. I stopped dead. I could see into the cockpit and windows and could make out the faces of the people inside. I braced myself for an explosion at any second and a sudden shock of fear hit me because I was so close to the time bomb. I was also hit with the overwhelming sadness that I was about to witness these people die horribly, and I could not save them.
I waited, watching for several moments, but the plane did not erupt. I looked on as the door on the side of the plane shifted open. Then two men exited the aircraft. It was the pilots. I could tell this because they were wearing uniforms, but they weren’t like normal commercial airline pilot uniforms. Their shirts were black, although they were embroidered with stripes on their shoulders. They were moving quickly toward the building, and could see me and the other students who had gathered to watched. “Does anyone know anything about constitutional law?” The captain shouted. I was shocked, and relieved at the same time. I raised my hand, “I do,” I shouted back.
The two men approached me as fast as before. The one who I assumed was the captain seemed to have a German accent as he spoke in a frantic matter, “The whole world is at war!”
“What?”
“We hit a fighter jet in mid air.”
The co-pilot was talking to someone else now and his accent seemed to be of a Scandinavian origin. When I looked back at the plane I could still see people inside, and I wondered why the pilots would not help them.
My feeling now shifted to anger at the obvious negligence of these European pilots. Their caps became more evident to me and they too were black and embroidered with gold striped which I assumed symbolized some type of rank. I sensed that authorities were arriving on the scene now, but something about the whole situation was making me extremely uneasy.
When I looked back at the plane it was now being pushed into the wall of the library by the high tides, and I could no longer glimpse the people inside. I felt as thought the pilots were clearly responsible for this and they would surely be taken into custody soon. Then I realized that the pilot had been talking to me about the legal repercussions of this incident the whole time, and I had not been listening. He was becoming more aggressive with me because he was obviously frantic and distraught about what had just transpired.
A feeling of trepidation came across my entire body. I was engrossed with the sensation that something about this was not right, besides what had already happened I got the feeling that something much more sinister was about to take place. If the pilot was telling the truth about hitting a fighter then perhaps there really was a war going on. If not then I didn’t have any idea what was happening, but I had no reason to talk to this man now. In any case I began moving away from the scene. Slowly taking a few steps back at first until finally I turned and ran quickly from the building. I felt like I was escaping.
When I got back into the quad I still had no idea where I was. I felt I must be in California somewhere, but I couldn’t be sure. When I stopped to examine my surroundings the campus was in a state of chaos. There were students running around near the dorm buildings on a hill to my left. The windows had been yanked up and things were being thrown to the ground. There seemed to be a fire in the distance because there was an orange glow on the walls and trees near the top of the hill.
Maybe the world was coming to an end. I looked back at the statue now as I lit a cigarette. It was a goliath holding a hollow outline of the globe on his shoulders. There was a girl in one of those dorms who I had to see.
