Four Seconds In Pennsylvania

Its light was beautiful…its finality absolute.

In October of 2013 twelve hippies stood on a hill in western Pennsylvania, and peacefully awaited their deaths.

We’d spent the evening in Pittsburgh, where Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman’s giant rubber duck (measuring 40’ tall) floated in the Allegheny River, in an initiative to “spread joy around the world”.

It did just that.

A tug boat nestled the 1,300 lb. yellow creature just shy of Clemente Bridge, where a DJ began a party that lasted well into the night. So wild was this thing, that when we were finally ready to go, we were forced to climb through crevices of the bridge’s framing to escape the throngs.

Eventually, designated drivers and otherwise landed in the hills south of the city- our home away from home as employees of the Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival. It was an amazing night. We talked, laughed and just enjoyed one another’s company, not quite ready to find our tents, despite the late hour.

Then we heard it...Have you ever heard or seen something so powerful that it inspired actual awe?

Before we saw it, we heard it, and it shut up grown men and women in an instant. It sounded as if someone had taken hold of the fabric of space, and began tearing it at its very core. It was similar to the sound you hear in the news clippings of NASA shuttles taking off, but much more focused- much more terrifying.

All of us immediately turned our eyes to the sky north of us, where a giant ball of light ripped into our atmosphere. In what could not have been more than four seconds, my heart and mind went on a journey that I never quite returned from.

My first thought was of absolute fear. The trajectory of whatever we were seeing was not skyward, but earth-bound. That inclination along with its apparent proximity to the planet was heart-wrenching. It was not the needle-pin-like shooting star skipping off the mesosphere; it was a very real presence. A mini-sun, cyan, green, pink, and red, filled my vision, and the gravity of what was about to happen sank into my chest, inspiring my second thought: “run” followed quickly by “as if…” (so immediate was the danger).

What followed were two of the most spectacular seconds of my life…Options weighed and inevitability enveloping me, I did the only thing I could.

I gave up. I succumbed to death, wholeheartedly.

I nearly weep now just thinking about it. How humbled I was.

No one faces such power with an arrogant heart. No one faces death with a proud spirit. There we stood, wholly unified, resigned and silent, staring at this absolutely elegant and beautiful thing, waiting for the blast that would both kill us and end the world.

I reveled in its magnificence. I thought of my family and friends. My regrets and fears shrank until they were not even a fleeting emotion in the ocean of my existence. I was content. I was free…

And then the light was gone, leaving its wonderful trail in that dark blue Pennsylvania sky.