Lights began to appear in the darkening Mediterranean sky. Lights in martial array. Many colors. Many sizes. Luminous orbs in startling contrast to the gloom that hung in the air.
Lights as far as you could see in the unnatural darkness. So many, in fact, that the darkness fled away.
The mighty throng of Lights sang a great song of praise. It shook the land and the Dome. The very air was shaken.
*****
Then there was silence in the sky. The world paused for a few minutes. The Lights waited. The land waited. No Thumbies were to be seen at all. I had to wonder where they were and what they would do now. Their configuration was not joyous at all about then.
We stood mute with eyes turned to the sky. Doug’s arm was firmly around my waist suddenly. Elvin held my right hand in his.
The song began again. This time more insistent. Louder. Sound waves crashed. I could feel the sound in my bones.
Gulls flew crazily around the Dome and then out to the Mediterranean. Their cries were subsumed by the waves of crashing song from the Lights. I began to fear for our safety here in this wash of sound and power.
One of the biggest Lights lowered itself to the ground behind us and moved softly up behind us and in a second, we were inside! The noise outside diminished greatly. I felt safe inside and greatly relieved to be there. The sense of peace and safety was strong. What an odd experience. How strange that it was not much of a surprise. We were sort of floating in seated positions and the whole thing lifted up away from what was to become the battle zone. It appeared that we were alone inside it. I began at that point to believe that the Lights were a kind of projection from some other source of origin. We were lifted up and away but still close enough to see the Dome well.
The earth began to tremble below us. Men ran out of the Dome yelling and gesticulating to each other. They disappeared down the streets, white robes fluttering and head wrappings falling away as they ran in their terror.
The Lights held their positions in the sky. The singing continued. It bore down on the Dome below. Bits of stucco or plaster painted in lurid style began to peel off the sides of the building. Columns shifted position.
A dark figure walked in an arrogant swagger out of the building and stood looking up at the Lights. He shook his fist at them. He became as nothing in an instant. He burst open like a paper bag of ashes. His filth littered the pavement of the mount and ran away in rivulets.
The ground below us waved and shimmered in the light of the martial Orbs. Huge cracks appeared in the mount. The pavement buckled up. Stones flew about. They gathered and fell in heaps. One of the cracks swallowed the Thumbies’ bus craft and snapped shut on it with a huge crunch.
Older Stones rose up out of the broken earth as if to witness. Bones arose also. An older world was here to observe and be satisfied.
The whole evil building slumped into the widening opening in the earth. The golden dome shifted sideways and toppled over, exposing its ornate, garish interior. Great groaning sounds came forth out of the building as it broke.
Then strange grey shapes began to appear at last, canted sideways from the earth below. Tall and thin and horrific in appearance they moved insect-like as if to find shelter somewhere. But there was no shelter for them. The waves of song blew them across the whole scene as if they were no more than dirty smoke. They became no more. There had been a great number of these workers of iniquity, but they vanished like the dark man had.
As if the Land was sick of it all it opened wider and wider and in a sort of massive convulsive gulp, swallowed the whole broken structure. It was gone as if it had never been. Even the dust of it dropped and was seen no more.
Then the earth settled back down over the huge opening. It lay quiet. The Mount was vacant and empty. A silence hung over the whole scene. It was clean.
Inside our Light we wept.
We were comforted. There was a presence there with us somehow. We heard some soft speech, but it was almost subliminal. It was almost a motherly shushing sound. Our Light lifted higher into the Middle Eastern sky of brilliant blue.
One by one the choir of Lights broke out of formation and began to ascend into the sky, gently. Drifting away, becoming smaller as they went. The song went with them. But I knew that the song would always be in our minds as a solid memory.
We were not there for the healing of the Land. That took a bit of time, we would hear more about it later. The head of the oppression of earth was gone, but there were many wounds left.
***
I think we must have slept. It’s a long way to Milltown from the Middle East. There in our Light we were borne home. I faintly remember passing over many lands, cities, and bodies of water. At last, we came to a place I remembered. It was our own little city on the bay.
I looked down on all its familiar streets and buildings. I poked Doug in his ribs gently and said “hey, we’re back.” He sat up and shook his brother’s shoulder and said “Elf! Wake up!” Elvin sat up also and we all three looked down and wondered where our ride would end. We soon found out.
It drifted down upon Cherry Street, right in front of the small green door of Roop’s old radio station. We found ourselves standing on the sidewalk just like we had never been gone. But it was homelike and precious now. Doug stepped forward and rapped on the door. Someone heavy inside walked to the door and fiddled with the lock and popped it open.
Roops grinned, please to see us he said.
Bubby’s head appeared around our friend’s legs and said “where have you guys been? I smell battle and distance! Something has happened. I know it!” He raised his great muzzle to the sky and howled long and loud, again and again.
“Come in, come in,” Roops said and headed across the room to his big creaky wooden office chair. He sat down and looked at us expectantly.
Mrs. Steele, sitting in her recliner, tucked up in an old quilt of clever design, smiled sweetly and waved her little old hand to beckon us in also. Lou was there of course. She had been eating toast and drinking tea. She lept up and ran into my arms. The silly big baby started crying too. Even she could feel that something had changed. The world was different somehow. An intangible healing had begun.
It was hard to explain. Doug tried. I tried. Elvin laid it out in detail. It was hard for our listeners to believe. It was hard for us three to believe now, sitting there in the radio station front room.
Now, it was time to make some breakfast, so Doug and I headed out into the tiny kitchen together.
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