The government was handing out lengths of chicken wire from an enormous spool, along with wire cutters. We were in the gymnasium of the high school, and a Sergeant from the National Guard was standing on the stage with his own sheet of wire, showing us what to do with it. It was about an hour after midnight.

The room was packed with my neighbors, but everybody there was out of context and hard to recognize. The squat, fat lady from the grocery store was there, wearing a blue windbreaker over a long green nightgown, with sneakers on. We were all nodding at each other as we realized who we were and that we were there together. The sirens had gone off at midnight, so nobody was at their best.

Me and my neighbor and his, wife, kids, and dog, had driven here together, and had stayed together. We were standing together just in front of the free throw line. I am not married and have no children, so that made five people in the sedan. The dog sat on the little girls lap and licked everybody nervously as drove further into the suburbs, the skyline smoky orange and all the high-rising office buildings dark as broken bulbs.

At the gymnasium, the doors to the outside were chained shut, except one. On the other side of this one last door, a soldier was watching the parking lot with a .50 caliber machine gun. He let us by, but he kept jerking the muzzle of the gun and it made the kids cry.

I could hear the generator in the hallway going like a lawnmower, powering all of the lights so that we could follow the sergeants instructions.

He held three yards of government-issued chicken wire above his head. The mesh was supposed to be fine enough.

“Using the wire cutters, snip off a three-by-three foot square. Be careful of the loose ends. Theyre sharp. If you have work gloves, or even gardening gloves at home, you will want to carry them with you.”

People were helping each other cut off three-by-three foot squares. It was awkward, and pieces were being dragged along the gym floor.

Next, we made a cylinder out of the remaining six foot piece by bringing the ends together and crimping them together with the wire cutters. I looked over at my neighbor to see if I was doing it correctly.

“Now, slip the cylinder over the top of your head and lower it to the floor. Pick up the three-foot piece. Now, sit cross-legged on the floor, and cover the top of the cylinder with the square piece.”

We practiced sitting in our Faraday cages for several minutes, not moving, not even speaking, and when somebody would cough or clear their throat, the Sergeant said “No,” and shook his head. You couldn’t make even the slightest sound.

But when the .50 cal started going off, everybody got quiet real quick. The squat lady from the grocery store was pressed up against the sides of her cage, and had to hold it together with her fingers. Some kid who I didnt recognize without his bicycle was chewing on his t-shirt to keep from crying.

Then the lights went out, and the unchained door flew open, but it was black, black, black until our eyes adjusted. We heard them pass through the gymnasium. They ambled between the chicken coups like metal cows. I heard them pass by me. One of them brushed my cage, and even though it could have tore it apart easily, it didnt even notice me.

To them, we might as well be rocks, or garbage cans.

Even when they were gone, we didn’t move for almost an hour. Then, another soldier went outside to check on the first soldier, who was dead, and he took over the machine gun. We stayed in the gymnasium overnight, and in the morning we went our separate ways, F-15s exploding overhead. Everybody carried their chicken coops squashed under one arm.

The Sergeant was loading the bale of chicken wire onto a flat bed truck. He warned us about the gardening gloves again, and not to use our cell phones.