by Matthew Zipple

Created on: May 25, 2010

      As the man walked out of his office and stepped into the cool Tuesday night air, it began to rain. He quickened his pace and arrived at his car. He hurriedly unlocked the door and settled into the seat of his old Chevrolet.  As he turned the key, his cell phone rang. It was his wife. He answered the phone. After several minutes of pleasant conversation, the discussion turned into an argument. They had been arguing more and more ever since the accident. As the man exited the interstate the light shower turned into a downpour.  His wife continued to yell through the phone, but the words were meaningless to him. When he was a mile away from his house, his car’s engine sputtered and stopped. At the same instant, he lost connection with his wife and the downpour ceased. He turned his key in the ignition. The engine turned over, but stubbornly refused to start.

      He forced himself to call back his wife. The phone rang. Once, twice, three times, four, but the call remained unanswered.  He called the house phone, with the hope that his wife had decided to put yesterday’s fight behind them and come home. It too went unanswered. He called the cell phone and home phone of the friend with whom his wife was staying. Both lines remained silent. He turned the key again. The fact that nobody had answered his calls worried him, although he was not yet afraid. This time, the engine roared into life. He finished the drive to his house. He unlocked the front door, took off his coat and flipped on the light. He walked into the living room, lay down on the sofa, and turned on the Nightly News. But when he turned on the television, he saw the colored stripes that indicated that the station was off the air. He changed stations, but the same picture appeared. He changed stations again. Again. Again. The same colored bars greeted him on all one hundred and twenty stations. The first trickle of fear entered into the man’s gut. He called his brother, hoping to ask him about the television black out. No answer came from his brother’s end of the line. He called his father, his mother, his coworkers, anyone who could tell him what was going on. He received no answer. The man was certain that something was amiss, but decided that there was nothing he could do about it until morning. He filled the bath with water, just in case, and went to bed.

       The man was

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