Sounds in the sky

Today the weather was finally nice enough that I dragged out the World's Most Comfortable Chair to the porch and recovered from work there in a light breeze. The sky was a little dark, waiting, maybe to downpour later, or blow in the wind and dump on the next town. I heard keening on the wind, in the sky, and it reminded me of a story I wrote a few years ago, about growing up during the Cold War. (Maybe. I'm historically retarded and am not even sure if I qualify as growing up during the Cold War, or if I caught the tail end, or if I grew up in the after-effects of the Cold War. I don't know. My history classes usually ended right before Vietnam.)

What I forgot to write in "Nuclear War" that I just remembered was how I'd encounter parades of military vehicles driving down the highway. Single file for miles, the green and grey Hum-Vees seemed to march the road with menace. The Kansas flinthills, gorgeous though they are, felt like the right, appropriately desolate, place for the end of the world to begin. Everyone in the car would fall silent, and we'd drive past the many vehicles, soberly waiting for their line-up to be distant tail-lights in our rear-view mirror so we could shake off the chill that had fallen.