Sonic Booms
by D. M. Krigsman
The sonic booms began a little after nine every morning. Off and on for three or four hours, occasionally interrupted by a boom that wasn't so sonically controlled. Your Mother tells you to pray then. You hate praying. It doesn't seem to get you anywhere but on your knees. After the last of the sonic booms, they usually end around noon, you and your family get in your old car and drive over to the launch center.
Trailers lined both sides of the road and the soldiers let you through the checkpoint. You're all authorized, there are identification papers to prove it. You clean the trailers that the people who left stayed in before their flights. Sometimes there are things to be found. Usually food, but sometimes things even more valuable. Watches, jewelry, things made of gold that Father can sell. No matter what happens gold always seems to have great value. Father told you all these people knew what they were allowed to take or not. It made you wonder how much they had left behind in their houses. Your house didn't hold much but you liked it. The guards don't care. Your parents make sure to give them something and everyone is happy as can be considered.
The things are left because at the last minute people realized that these things just doesn't matter anymore. Some probably realized that they probably wouldn't pass the weigh-in. You find lots of toys. Sometimes really good ones. Your favorite was a doll of a little girl that looked like you and would sing a song about her backpack. You can't keep all the toys you find, but that one you do.
Your family is done cleaning your allotment of trailers by four, and after your Father pays the soldiers, you leave.
