The Meteor

Honolulu, Hawaii 1987
This story took only seconds to happen, and therefore the telling of it will be short, but it was quite interesting to me. I do not recall the exact road my friend and I were walking on, but the sidewalks on both sides were crowded with pedestrians, local and tourist. My friend and I were discussing something – who knows what – and I was facing him when it happened. An enormous streak of green light passed by, high enough above the horizon that it was easily seen, but still very low in the sky. It was faster than anything I had ever seen, thicker than it was long, and it was so long that it took up a quarter of the sky. I have no idea how long it actually took to cross the sky but I am guessing that it was no more than three seconds, though it seemed to take thirty.
Immediately my friend knew that something had happened to me; I had stopped moving, or speaking, and maybe even breathing and when he asked me what was wrong all I could say was, “Did you see that?” and point over his shoulder. Of course he had not seen it, he had been facing me. I could not hide my excitement as I described the incredible green streak of light and he could not hide his disappointment at having missed it. Then I did what most humans do when they are faced with the incredible, I looked around and asked others if they had seen it. What I saw on the sidewalks was almost as amazing as the event itself.
Up and down the road the same thing had happened to dozens of others, those who happened to be facing one way saw it and those looking elsewhere had not. I could see the same sad story play out over and over again, one person smiling and excitedly describing the celestial event, dumbly gesturing over their friends shoulders as I had done, while the others were frowning and sadly shaking their heads and their bad luck.
Those near to me who had seen it approached in solidarity, and we happily compared our memories as to its enormous size and emerald color. Many saw blue within the green. This did nothing to improve the mood of the others and us, the special ones, realized that we should stop already and get about our days.
I was many years later that I saw a video of a meteor skimming the earth without hitting it, and it looked exactly like what we had seen that day. It was magnificent and beautiful and mind boggling and all the more so because only half of us saw it.