Feast Of The Torn
by Brandie Tarvin

The star sliced a silent arc through the midnight sky, a burnt-yellow ribbon of fire trailing in its wake. The first recorded sightings came from China, while the star was large and fiery and seen as a omen of good fortune. For the wise men of India, the star presaged a great time of change despite its somewhat diminished appearance. Persian astrologers proclaimed it a messenger of the gods and never knew how much smaller the star had become. A few Assyrian shepherds, tending their flocks during the night, saw a tiny light in the heavens, huddled together in fear, and prayed for Baal’s protection.

By the time the star reached Israel, it was but the barest of bright smudges against the sky. Aramaean soldiers, standing watch over their army, assumed it to be a fire arrow. Their commander sent out scouts to find the army who dared come to the aid of their Israelite enemy.

And in the Hebrew city of Samaria, under siege by Ben-Hadad of Aram and his army, not a single Israelite noticed the remaining bit of rock drop into the well which supplied the city’s western quarter.

Steam and water showered into the sky. The bottom of the underground cistern stopped the sky rock’s momentum, but shook from the impact. The surrounding ground bucked, a minor earth tremor that rolled outward to the edges of the sleeping city. Lime and stone cracked, opening a shallow fissure through which a small trickle of water escaped. If anyone could have seen the bottom of the cistern at that moment, they would have noticed a tiny cloud of whitish-green fragments leaching from the rock and mixing with the water.
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