Le Ciel Cassé

(a short story of love and annihilation)

All over the world, scaffolding and crane arms stretched up as far as the eye could see. Hundreds of thousands of construction workers in hard hats milled about, their faces smudged with dust and sweat. It got out that the sky was broken.

I had suffered from claustrophobia for some time, but now it reached an apotheosis with this unfortunate news. For the firmament to be repaired would not be enough. Nothing less than my sinews and exposed ligaments and tendons would have to transcend my own skin in order for something approaching freedom to be possible.

Feeling trapped sucks. The inability to move, worse. I could do MRI machines, because I lay supine. The emergency button's presence was enough of an escape mechanism to keep me calm. But the idea of heaven caving in became too much. What can protect you when the great blanket itself has been compromised?

I swooned and came to. Swooned and came to. The cycle repeated itself ad nauseam. I would have thought that my sympathetic nervous system would have learned and stopped setting me up for the freak-outs. Swooned and came to.

My first order of business was to cancel my tele-therapy subscription. If I couldn't tolerate Armageddon, then what good was Jesus doing me?

Swoon and came to. It was Tourette's wired into my Circadian rhythm, thrown apart by a buffoon behind a drum kit. Cymbal crash. Swoon. Shitty rimshot. Came to.

Nothing was visibly amiss. Everything appeared to be fine, normal, in place. No jagged shards of cerulean fell at one's feet, no billowing cumulonimbi clogged up intersections or squeezed a party of four out of their streetside table at the trattoria. But the truth was out. The sky was broken and it was threatening to come crashing down.

That I should suffer from a bout of claustrophobia when the very sky was rent asunder belied my anxiety over personal space. I should have felt more free than ever. But I didn't. Instead, I felt the impending weight of the stratosphere bearing down upon me. Homer should have kicked Odysseus in the ass and written an epic poem about Atlas.

Pundits emerged from the woodwork to parse the very sentiment of the sky being broken. “The sky is forever broken and crashing down,” one Thurmond Ramsby said. The podcast host elaborated. “Nothing new. That's what a sky is meant to do.”

“No no no,” said his guest, Cheeto Matula, author of Earth: Public Enemy #1. Why it is trying to kill us and what we can do about it. “Climatologists, geologists, and governors all agree that the sky is broken. If the fissures are not addressed soon, it won't be able to bear its own weight and we will all be doomed.”

Thurmond raised a finger, adjusting his headset. “But—”

“To deny this,” Cheeto interrupted, “is to deny science.”

The first question asked by the collective worriers and self-appointed sky experts was what substance to use in order to repair the fissures. Comedians proposed Krazy Glue. Done in obvious jest, this was taken in earnest by those trying to retain enough openmindedness to straddle the gulf between being alarmist and reactionary.

One governor of a large swing state wasted no time adopting this as a talking point to skewer the opposing party. “Krazy Glue! Next thing you know, they'll be proposing mastic.”

Reader be like, What the fuck is Mastic?

Mastic is a resin. The likely variation the governor had in mind was roofing mastic. This was used by roofers and industry experts to repair leaks and cracks in hotmop tar, plywood sheet unions, and cracked ceramic tiles.

This seeming facetiousness had some import, however. If not roof mastic or cheap adhesive to repair reading glasses, surely a more potent sealant could be adopted as the world-saving agent. Something was going to have to be used, and it better be discovered quickly.

I eventually stopped having the panic attacks. I adjusted. As my therapist said, the key is to focus on something else. Naturally you leaving me, Stephanie, became the focus of my waking existence.

To hell with earth, its sky, and its inhabitants. They were all props in the tattered Eden that our love became. I had finally gotten over my initial claustrophobia and had not long after that figured out the algebra of love. It was pure bad timing that your song Le Ciel Cassé went viral, landing you a record deal.

By the way. What's the origin of that song? Since you and your acoustic guitar and your Françoise Hardy voice had concocted the melody and lyrics a full two years before the worldwide catastrophe, I can't imagine what motivated you to pen such pathos.

To wit:

Toi et moi sommes

Tombés dans le feu

Ou toujours si trove

Notre amour perdu

Mais au face de l'espoir

Je me suis lassé

Quand le ciel se divient

Un ciel cassé

Would you answer my calls if I told you that your dumping me caused this global emergency? Wouldn't you get a dump truck's worth of satisfaction if you saved the world by coming back to me?

Draped around my neck on a gold chain is the left side of a shattered heart. Do you wish the same fate upon the firmament? If so, what kind of monster are you? You and your acoustic guitar and your multi-record deal.

I just hired a lawyer, a PR agent, and a life coach. We're drafting a plan and will be in attendance at the world summit in Brussels in two weeks’ time. On the summit's docket will be the expected topics like sky restoration, ozone infusion treatment, potential adhesives, and the structural integrity of the vaulted ceiling. They can use lodestones all they want. That motherfucking sky is coming down.

But our plan will be to urge you to come back to me. Aren't the best solutions usually the simplest? If word gets out that Louie loves Stephanie and that Stephanie loves Louie, only problem being that Stephanie has gotten suddenly famous, pundits and politicians and priests and podcasters all across the world will preach the good sense of you coming back to me.

Because if love can't keep us together or patch up the sky, then what's the point of it all? No mastic or Krazy Glue or drywall tape can keep you attached to me. Only your attention can heal aall. All the people toting their designer caulking guns are spinning their wheels. If you leave me, they may as well let heaven keep shattering, and on top of it set the oceans ablaze with Greek fire and dynamite the moon.

Love,

Louie.