It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be
frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant
that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to
happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an
unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice. He
had seen it both times. Squinting toward the sky, he had seen
the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and a
second later heard the blast of sound that followed. Then one
more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the
same plane.
So not frightened. At least not now, not in the same way as before. So what is Jonas feeling now, if not frightened, but nearing that emotion. Timid ? Scared ? Shaken ? Jarred ? Thunderstruck ? Worried ? Concerned ? Perturbed ? Miffed ? Put off ? Tentative ? But now we’re taken back a year in time, out of the portentous moment and into a contextual event in the somewhat recent past. What was this (supersonic?) aircraft doing ? Was the “blast of sound” even a sonic boom or just a delayed sound from a far-off aircraft ? But if the sub-supersonic jet was far enough away to notice a sound delay, how did he even recognise it as a jet and not something else ? When or how had Jonas seen a jet before to even recognise one in-flight ? And if he’d seen one before, he presumably understood what they did, so why did it straight-up frighten him to see one flying overhead ? Is he in a war zone ? Are the jets enemy aircraft ? If the jet was frightening, what “something terrible” did it do ? Did it drop bombs ? Did it fire its guns or launch its missiles ? Did it kill someone he was close to ? If the jet didn’t hurt or kill anyone, what else did it portend or signal ? Further questions, what’s the community Jonas is referring to ? How big is it ? Where is it located ? When is it located ? Why doesn’t he refer to it as a city, a town, or a village ? “Community” is a rather strange term, correlating closely with a “neighbourhood” but lacking even that geospatial context.
Let’s keep reading together… Next (and last) up is the first page.