The Night Was Full of Rainbows

by Kenneth Sibbett

Man oh Man, You just shoulda’ been here. What a sight, never to be
seen again on this ole’ earth. The sky was lit up in so many colors
shooting this way and that way one would of sweared someone slipped
some of that there LSD in my hot Pepsi Cola. I don’t have any idea if
you will ever see this or not, this thing has got all those egghead
scientific fella’s stumped. They don’t know their ass from their elbow
is what Daddy says. Anyway, if this survives, and I dont, and you do,
or you find it in 100o years or something, hell, this ain’t no Bible,
so don’t go a’worshiping it or anything. It’s just my account of what
happened on the last night on the last day on earth. I ain’t no
scholar or nothing, so excuse my writing right off the bat.

Me and my family are up in the Blue Ridge Mountains, one of the
perttiest places on earth if you ask me, course’ I’m from here and
kind of prejudice. It’s about midnight here, 12:15 p.m. exactly and
you can see camp fires for as far as the eye can see. There must be
millions of them since the power went out. That happened all of a
sudden about 6 weeks ago and since then, it’s been every man and
family for themselves and one hell of a ride. I’m glad I had this old
ribbon typewriter my granddaddy left me to type this. Ya’ know, he
said, before he died that is, that it might just come in handy one
day. Coursin’, he was a root doctor and could see into your future
for a few dollars. Free if you had a chicken or pig or something.
hell, I seen him do it. But back to the future, if there’s gonna be
one.

Everybody predicted it would be nuclear war or global warming or a
million other things, no one, at least that I heard, said a damn thing
about the Sun exploding and taking out all communication, everywhere.
I’m sure the president and some others still are in contact, but
everyone I know used up what gas and shit they had weeks ago. Right
now, it’s a 110 degree’s and it is in the middle of winter at night.
You don’t see many people in the daytime. They all under some kind of
shade, suffering. But, the rumor is, this is the last night anyway, so
I decided to write this down, for posterity I guess, not that it will
do much good. People are stupid, always have been and always will be.

If you have to die, and believe me, I hate it as much as the next man,
this is sure as hell a great way to go out. It is a kaledescope of
colors, shooting across the sky and exploding somewhere, anywhere, but
not here, not yet anyway. It seems like God or whoever is in charge or
fate, and believe me, I ain’t never been a big believer either way,
decided to stop us from killing each other and butchering and raping
and pillaging that we do to each other. It’s like someone got tired of
the waste and wealth of one place and the pain and starvation of
people just thousands of miles away and decided it just weren’t fair.
And it ain’t..

People fighting, and I got to say this and no one is going to stop
me. Not now anyway. It seems like the color of a person’s skin has
decided the have’s and have nots’. I ain’t got a lot of time to dwell
on this, but this country I live in has been killing brown people for
almost 11 years now in some war and ain’t solved a goddamn thing. No,
they made it worse is all, cause of profit and the rich wanting more
and more while us poor-ass people get less and less. I’ve seen some of
those rich people on the highway, out of gas in their big’ole Luxuary
buses trying to get somewhere cooler. They got wads of cash and gold
and diamonds but none of it means shit up here. WATER, that’s right,
water is the currency, it means everything, or did. I seen a man get
his brain’s blown out over a cup of warm water. Yep, that’s right and
his kids were right there and nobody helped them, nobody. It is
everyman for hisself and you take care of you and yours.

My family’s been in these mountains for 100′s of years and we know
where every drop of water that can be found is, and ya’ know what?
There ain’t no more. We got enough for tonight and that’s it. I want
ya’ll to know, I had to kill some people, some bad people who tryed to
take my family’s food and water. When it first started, we mountain
people round here got together and closed off the roads. We had to,
people were going crazy trying to get up higher. Well, I’m on top of a
mountain now and in a few hours me and my loved one’s will be dead.
I’m going to kill all my family after they fall asleep, then kill
myself. Better that than see them suffer. I won’t have that. I just
won’t!

Man, look at those colors. I’m not a religious man, but I’ve always
been spiritual and this my friends is something out of this world.
Millions of colors streaking by, it’s almost like one continuous
rainbow, as far as the eye’s can see. I got no advice for anyone who
survives whatever the hell this is. How do you survive the SunGod’s?
Sounds funny don’t it. “SunGods”. But I’ve heard it from time to time
these last few weeks. If I was pressed, and I ain’t and no one would
take my advice anyway, I would tell people to find out everything this
world has ever done, and do the opposite. Man ole Man, did we fuck
this old world up or what?

It’s getting near time. I want to go and kiss my babies and my wife.
Hug my mama and shake my daddy’s hand. He don’t know much of what
going on, ain’t in years. But there was a time, when he was a man’s
man. He probably would be doing something different, damn, I wish he
would wake up for a few minutes and tell me what to do. But.. wishes
and horses, huh? If I done anything wrong to anybody, I’m sorry. I
used to pull a cork and got out of hand from time to time. Nothin’
serious, but I’m sorry. I can hardly see for the sweat, but I got one
more thing to say to whoever finds this, if if gets found, which I
doubt. Please, be kind to everyone. That’s all. All the problems in
the world could have been solved with those two words. Be Kind. How
hard is that? Peace and Love to you all.

-end-