It was a bright, warm September day when the hail came that took the children away.
    Nobody thought much of leaving the children outside. The school year had just started, but the children still clutched the closing rays of summer. They spent every last hour of the rapidly shortening days in the streets and parks and front yards. Only Miss van Heusen, who had no children of her own, thought it odd that the children were outside in the hail and told everybody so.
    "Those children should not be outside in that hail," she said to no one in particular, "That is some strange hail." Then she went inside, wiping the white pellets from her nylon wig.
    Mr. Henderson put his head out the window after hearing the spatter of pellets.
    "Those planes are flying low," he stated, "like Pearl Harbor in '41, you know."
    But most of the neighborhood didn't know because no one else had been at Pearl Harbor, although they had the seen the newsreels and heard stories. The children hadn't, though; they were too young. They were the children born after the bombs who had no memory of the calculated and efficient instruments of war.
    And so they ran, chasing the low-flying planes through the streets, jumping on occasion, as if to catch a ride. There was Jeanette in front, with her red ponytail flailing after her like a banner, and Jimmy Jr., James Donavan's boy running lopsidedly along on account of the stroke he had when he was eight. He was joined by the Jones' twins, Bobby and Timmy, and the whole McDougal clan: Katherine, Sean, Michael, and little Thomas with the pretty-girl-curls trailing behind. And soon there were more—children from Elm Street, Maple Street, Sycamore Street and other places everyone knew.
    They came together, skipping in groups. By the time the planes reached the schoolyard, there were several dozen children with hands raised and mouths open, shouting and cheering and welcoming the hail. It continued to pour from the belly of the planes, and the children who captured the precious pellets on their tongues held them out for others to see the physical perfection of each minute pearl.
    While the children ran, skipping and bellowing through the neighborhood, the hail collected in gutters and birdbaths and shingles on roofs where it piled up by the thousands. It poured into eaves troughs in rivulets and down onto doorsteps. The mothers and fathers who stepped out of the houses smiled at the children in the streets, then swept the snow of pellets from front porches onto well-manicured lawns.
    It kept falling and the children kept chasing it, beyond the school and across the open fields. The parents did not think to call for them—after all, it was still light outside and the children were safe. Only Miss van Heusen was somewhat alarmed when she called the Health Commissioner who said there were no precautions to take; the hail was a necessary tactic in a battle against a beetle.
    The children did not know this. They only knew what they wanted: to run and to watch the hail descend. They embraced it together as it continued falling, falling, drifting and floating to the earth like dandelion cotton. They were mesmerized by the spectacle and did not notice the changing landscape, the odd quality of the sunset, nor the many birds that fell from trees and died.
    They ran, following the planes that rained magic hail with the joy and innocence of children born in an atomic age who are protected by the miracle of pesticides, plastics, disinfectants and entire spheres of products that would forever protect them from the evils of the living world. They opened their mouths as wide as their little faces would allow to the brilliant promise of a perfect world and swallowed it whole.



About the author:
Sharon McGill is a writer and illustrator pursuing an MFA in fiction at Penn State University. Her work has appeared in 580 Split, The Berkeley Fiction Review and several other publications, and she co-edits Monday Night, a print journal with an online component at www.mondaynightlit.com.

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