One day the earth cracked in two. There was a great rending noise at the separation point followed by tremors. A reporter reporting on a crime looked down and said, “What the hell? Get the camera on that.”
But as people can only see a few miles in any direction, most considered the crack a local phenomenon. The band at the high school lined up at the crack in the field. The band teacher said, “Don’t get too close. We don’t know how deep it goes.” One of the trumpet players blew a note into the crack and everyone listened to the echo.
Climbers came to the crack in a mountain and leapt across and continued on their way. In the suburbs a family watched as all the water in the pool disappeared in a great silver swish along with the youngest one’s rubber duck. “God, I’m glad none of you kids were in that,” the mother said, amazed.
Cruz dragged his girl friend Maricela from bed. “Come on. Look at this crack.”
She said, sleepily, “Not now, Cruz. Maybe tonight.”
“No,” he said. “The one outside.” On the porch, she accepted a cup of coffee and observed the crack in the yard, a three foot wide fissure. The dog kept leaping across it and barking. They left the porch and followed the crack in Cruz’s car and parked at a higher point on the road outside of town.
“Look at it, Cruz. It cuts across the floor of the desert,” Maricela said.
“It reaches to the edge of the earth,” Cruz said. “Or maybe it does. Look at the other side of the crack, the bushes, the hills. They look like they’re moving farther away from us. My god.”
Just then, Cruz’ cell phone went off. “There’s a crack? Yes, Mama. How big is it? The cottonwood’s fallen into the river? Ay,” Cruz said. “Te llamaré pronto. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Your mother has a crack? Why didn’t you tell her about this one?”
“I didn’t want to scare her,” Cruz said.
Maricela phone rang. “Hola,” she sad. “There’s a big crack in your yard? Shaking? Like an earth quake? Yes, Papa. Well, how big is it? Your car? Is she okay? No, I don’t know. Maybe Cruz and I can come down soon. Sure. Yes, I love you too.”
Maricela pocketed the phone. “Everyone has a crack,” she said. “Your mother and my father. He said he almost had a heart attack because my aunt had just gotten out of the car and then, boom, the car fell into the crack. He says it’s that big.”
Cruz said, “It’s either everyone we know has a crack and there are many cracks or this is the same crack, which would be even more amazing. Look how far it goes and it’s getting wider. Look at the dunes. They’re drawing away from us.” Cruz kneeled and touched the ground delicately with his fingers as if feeling for movement deep inside the earth. “But what makes this odd,” he told Maricela, “–if this is the same crack, then the crack has somehow traced a vector that links us with those we love, a strange connector.”
“Call Eduardo. Ask him,” Maricela said.
Cruz called his friend Eduardo. “He’s not answering. You, you call Henry and Maria.”
Maricela called Henry and Maria. “No answer,” she said. “Call, Jaime or Hector.”
“Jaime, Jaime. Is there a crack in your yard? There’s a crack? The whole other side of the block? Fires? The lake is spilling in? All of it? They’re dead? Oy, I’ll call you back.”
Maricela had her face in her hands.
“It’s confirmed then,” Cruz said, walking to the edge of the shoulder. “This is the same crack and it’s everywhere. It’s everyone’s crack. I’ll bet that if I call James in London and he calls Susan in Tokyo, they’ll all tell the same story. A crack has opened in the earth but somehow, impossibly so, it’s appeared for everyone. It’s swallowing lakes. At this moment, the oceans are disappearing, draining into this impossible crack. The coast lines will dry up and the mountains will crumble and soon the earth will divide down the center and who knows what will happen after that.”
“I don’t know,” Maricela said. “But it’s growing wider and I feel a tremor under my feet.”
A moment of warm, unique silence passed. Maricela said, “Look: birds. Cruz, look at all the birds coming. All kinds. I’ve never seen so many birds.”
