Sunday, April 3 2022 -- 11:11pm
356 W 11th St, Manhattan
The West VillageIt had been nearly noon before
Beverly Harper had regained consciousness after a long night out on the town. When finally she did rouse, she realized that the bed in which she'd slept wasn't hers at all.
Big shock, had been her first thought, particularly since she was naked and felt as though she'd been
ridden hard and put away wet, as her Montana born best friend and party partner would have described her post-coital condition.
The previous night was somewhat of a blur to Beverly. She'd begun the evening at dinner with a dozen people, of whom all but one were new acquaintances; she remembered an art and wine show at which she met even more new faces; there was dancing at a club into which even her cuteness and curves wouldn't normally have gotten her; and more drinking at a number of Manhattan bars, though exactly
how many bars was a question Beverly couldn't answer.
Beverly had ended the evening in the usual way, getting naked and sweaty with the man whose credit cards had paid for the evening. He wasn't anyone special to her, just another man who'd attended her art opening and had expressed interest in her paintings as a ruse to do to, with, and for Beverly exactly as he had last night.
He'd been gone when she awoke, a note explaining that he had a family obligation in New Hampshire but that he'd be back before midnight,
just in case you want another go-around 'tween the sheets. Beverly had nowhere else to go, of course, and -- despite having been a bit intoxicated -- she seemed to recall having enjoyed herself
'tween the sheets, as well as in the shower stall and bent over the back of the couch.
So, Beverly had remained, spending the day partaking of the benefits offered by the home of a man who had money, good tastes, and the knowledge of how to use both to enjoy life. Come nightfall, sitting in the world's most comfortable armchair, wrapped in a soft, warm Alpaca blanket, and sipping steaming hot herbal tea, Beverly was looking out over the Hudson River at the Jersey City skyline. Oh, it wasn't the same as if she'd been in Jersey looking back at Manhattan, but it was still a much better sight than she got from her basement apartment in Queens.
Still awaiting her new lover's return, Beverly had just drifted off to sleep when she awoke with a start to a deep rumbling sound. The apartment was pitch black, as we the West Village beyond the window and the entirety of the landscape beyond it and the river. Beverly had experienced New York City blackouts in the past, but this ... well,
this was a whole different animal altogether; the lights that would normally be powered by batteries or back up generators even in the most extensive of power outages -- as well as those from the fronts and rears of thousands of automobiles -- were no where to be seen.
It was as if electricity had never been invented at all.
Then, there was a flash of red and orange off in the distance, and Beverly knew in an instance that it was an explosion.
Terrorists, was her first thought; terrorists had blown up a power station, causing the black out. But that didn't make sense, as the blackout had preceded the explosion by, what, 30 seconds ... a minute?
Suddenly, there was another similar, fiery explosion off to the left, and a moment later there was a third that was out of Beverly's direct line of sight until she hopped up and ran to and through the glass doors that led out onto a balcony. Over the next minute or so, she saw dozens of almost identical explosions at locations far and near.
Terrorism was quickly replaced in her thinking with
military attack: America was being attacked! Who was behind this? Russia?
Obviously! The whole War in Ukraine thing and the accompanying tensions between Russia and the US had only been getting more heated every day.
But, if it was going to attack the US, wouldn't Russia have done so with nuclear weapons? Beverly looked out at the fireballs rising into the air in every direction and -- despite not being a military expert or war historian or
anything like that -- didn't see this as the first step of a Russian invasion of America. No, this was something different; this was...
And then she saw something she hadn't seen before, and it all came to make both total sense and deep confusion. In the glow of one of the most recent fiery explosion, Beverly caught the reflection of a jet airliner's fuselage as it dived rapidly toward the ground at a steep angle. A moment later, another fireball, followed a few seconds later by yet another booming explosion.
They're falling out of the sky ... the planes ... dozens, maybe hundreds of them. They're just ... falling out of the air. Looking at the locations of the crashes and contemplating her location on the West Side of Manhattan, Beverly realized that the planes that had gone down had likely been either taking off or trying to land at one of the greater metro area's many local, national, or international airports.
Beverly moved to the railing and looked down to the street. Here, too, nine floors below her, was near absolute darkness. (The moon was in its
waxing crescent phase, providing very little light to the surface street level.) With no cars, trucks, taxis, buses, or trains moving, Beverly could very clearly hear the people on the street clamoring on with the same confusion wracking her, too.
She went for her phone, hoping to find news on the internet or one of her news Apps: no signal. She went to her host's laptop, then his television: again, no joy. Everything electrical in the apartment was simply dead. She rushed to the bedroom to don not only her clothes but also a heavy coat and hat from her new lover's closet. But before she opened the door, a thought came to Beverly's brain:
Where the hell you gonna go? 
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