Chapter 4: Onan, Lord of the Past



Not wishing to delve too far into my past or relate what would be
mundane and disconnected with my story, I will summarize with brevity
what my situation was. I was a military man, an Air force pilot to be
exact, and was on active duty patrolling the no-fly zones off the coast
of China, it being, at that time, an area of very high tensions. The
situation was grim, as any small incident promised to set the pendulums
of war into motion, but the worst had subsided, and things were
beginning to look as if that incendiary incident wouldn't come after
all. The main part of my story begins on a cloudy night of what was to
me just a few weeks back, though it seems like many ages ago now, and
indeed, it was.

I was flying over an area that was littered with small volcanic islands,
the type that rise above or fall below sea level continually, so that
what one year is above water is later below. Some of them have even been
known to only rise above the waves for a short time, and then vanish
from the sea completely, worn down by wind and waves. The night was
murky, and the air was thick with water and dust, the result being that
there was no natural light whatsoever, and any artificial light that
could be mustered was largely reduced to nothing, visibility being no
more than twenty feet.

The wind was calm and the flying, though strenuous from lack of sight,
was without turbulence. I was doing well, until out of nowhere I heard a
loud crack of thunder, followed by a bolt of lightning that hit the