DR FRANK JACKSON, 59A, PRINCES ROAD, BRIGHTON, EAST SUSSEX BN2 3RH

The Day the Sky fell down

Nobody knew that it was going to happen. It was an ordinary day, a Monday, and everybody did their usual things – going to work, shopping or cleaning the house, or doing their gardening. There was nothing to indicate that something terrible was going to happen. At about midday, a young woman looked up at the sky, for no particular reason, and what she saw made her gasp in horror. She saw the sky above beginning to crack. Small lines were forming above the clouds, as if the sky was breaking like an eggshell. As she watched, the lines grew larger, and small pieces of things began to fall. At first it was like a small gentle shower, but then became heavier and heavier, until it almost became a thunderstorm. People shouted in horror and began running for shelter, anywhere they could find. The small things that were raining down on them looked like small blue pieces of glass, that gleamed and glittered in the slowly dissolving light. As they realised afterwards, they were pieces of sky.

As the sky continued to fall, it became darker. Small areas of total blackness became larger and larger as the time passed. Everybody was stunned. As the darkness spread, the street lights were turned on. Suddenly everybody was frightened of the dark, and desperately switched all the lights on in their houses. The homeless and the street beggars began banging on front doors, pleading for shelter from the sky that was raining down on them. Cars stopped dead in the street, their drivers terrified at what was going on around them. The young woman who had first noticed that the sky was falling down sat down in her living-room and burst into tears, wrapping her arms around her to comfort herself, sobbing bitterly. Many just watched in disbelief, others began to cry. It was the spreading darkness that was so terrible. As the sky fell in larger and larger fragments, the darkness spread and spread, so black that it seemed to crush everything, and reduced even the strongest to despair. And it became darker and darker, until finally no sky was left and the world had no light at all.

Streets were covered in the small blue pieces of glass that were once the sky. But they no longer glittered because nobody could see them any more. The blackness was so complete that it enveloped everything in a thick blanket of – nothing. The young woman sat in the darkness, trying to find something that she could recognise. She was past crying now, and all she could feel was sadness. What could she ever do again? Her life was over. It had been taken away from her by this horrible smothering darkness. She began to cry again. It was the end. Nothing was left. She just wanted to die in misery and grief in this eternal night.

Many hours passed. There was complete silence, because nobody could even speak to each other. Husbands, wives, lovers, children all simply held each other tightly, not knowing if they could even see each other again in the everlasting darkness. Time had simply ceased, and no-one knew it would ever start again. For all the world was in darkness, and all life had simply – stopped.

Then something began to happen, though at first nobody noticed. But then the young woman sitting alone in her living-room, for some reason looked up. And she saw something that made her heart leap with joy. There was a small glimmer of light in the window. As she watched, it became brighter and brighter. Suddenly she got up, went to her front door and looked up. The darkness was still intense, but she saw, in the sky, small points of  light. As she gazed at them, they slowly began to come together, until soon they made a pattern. The pattern became stronger, and she slowly realised what was happening. The sky was remaking itself. Little by little, it began to form a mosaic of light and beauty, that slowly lit up the streets and houses below. The small blue pieces of the original sky now glittered again, and people poured  out of their houses to see for themselves what was happening. The young woman (whose name was Charlotte) walked along her road, her head turned upwards. She did not want to miss any of this wonderful miracle that she was seeing. As she was walking, another woman, one of her neighbours, ran out of her house, and, for no reason at all, suddenly hugged Charlotte, and shouted “Isn’t it wonderful!”. And it truly was. The sky was not like the old sky: it somehow glowed and shimmered, a deep beautiful blue. And it chased away the darkness as it spread, until once more it entirely covered the earth.

As people came out of their houses, they silently took out brooms and gently brushed away the pieces of the old sky. As they did, they constantly looked up at their new and wonderful sky. Some took away pieces of the old sky to keep as a memory of what they had, but also to accept their new one. As Charlotte walked down the street, she kept looking up at the view above. The sun had reappeared again, and it shone with  warmth on her shoulders and face. She suddenly felt a new kindness, of her life reborn again. She felt alive and happy, all because of the new sky. It was there for her, and for everybody. A thought came into her mind. “ the sky has come back to me. I know how much it means to me. I will always love it”. And from then on, people always looked at the sky, and, like Charlotte, loved it..

Frank Jackson.