THE SUBLIME
Now, when they remember it, they think that perhaps they had heard the approach of the sublime—like a distant hum of huge machinery, long before it arrived. As it drew closer there was no mistaking it as hundreds of swaths of trees in the forest across the valley lay down in supplication. Some of the survivors describe it as an approaching shadow. Some say it became midnight in the afternoon, and they saw constellations they had never seen before or since. Others say it was a conflagration, the air was on fire, houses and trees exploding before the flames even touched them. Some say the sublime was ice, or even just a deep silence. They only thing survivors agree on is that they could not take their eyes off of it. If there had been music, and some say there was, it would have been The Ride of the Valkyries. And they stood there, their weapons like toys dangling from their hands, staring up at the advancing sublime. Shit, they said, and fuck, and God, they said, my God.
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Richard Garcia: “‘A terrible beauty has been born.’ —Yeats” (website)
