“Andrea, I’ll have the prince of tortillas – quesadilla de pollo, por favor.” He grinned and winked. Andrea giggled as she wrote and then headed to the kitchen.

Matt dropped the small laminated sheet, picked up the newspaper, and flicked through the headlines while he waited – financial crisis in France worsening; the Middle East still beating itself back to the Stone Age; and another picture of the President grinning and swinging a golf club. He sighed and continued flicking through, only glancing at the stories, until – Unexplained bird deaths accompany sinkholes. “Huh?” Matt frowned and read quickly.

Huge sinkholes have opened up across the country, over forty to date. Some are over two hundred feet across. Geologists have been left baffled.

“Now that is interesting”, he whispered.

Matt didn’t know that much about geology, but he did know that sinkholes had been around forever and occurred when too much groundwater dissolved away the subsurface layers. The ground just fell into a void. They were common in places like Florida with a lot of rain and lots of limestone rock below the soil surface. But they were near unheard of in places like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, which were way up in the mountains.

And what’s with the birds? he wondered. Intrigued now, he swiveled and reached for his satchel, taking out a slim computer and opening it on the table. In a few moments he had powered it up and found the restaurant’s wifi and was entering the headline. He selected one of the most detailed results and quickly read down the page.

In Red Oak, Iowa, expert environmental geologist, Andrew Bennet, who was first into the hole, stated that the cause for the Iowa sinkhole and others was unknown, as the ground was geologically solid, and no severe rain or underground stream activity were present to cause the subsurface erosion. In addition, investigators could find no link between the bird deaths and the sinkhole. Other than a noxious odor, no gases were detected, and no identifiable toxins had been found on the site. Other samples collected were still being analyzed.

Hmm, ‘and the Earth shall fall’, Matt thought, remembering a scrap from some unknown ancient Arabic prophecy. The pretty waitress appeared beside him, balancing a huge plate on the tips of the fingers of one hand.

“The prince of tortillas…for a prince.” Color rose in her cheeks at the blatant flirting, and she slid the plate in front of him.

The quesadilla looked magnificent. Matt looked up at her and flashed his most charming smile. “Beautiful…and the quesadilla looks pretty good too.”

The waitresses face went a shade redder and she scampered away, looking back over her shoulder when she got to the kitchen door. Matt looked back down at the food, his mouth watering.

As he ate, he used one hand to find more results for recent sinkholes and was near overwhelmed with the hits – too many to count, and all over the world. Some had pictures – massive dark craters, in some cases hundreds of feet deep. There were a few from the Iowa hole – shots of a lonely house down deep in the darkness, and then a picture of the wall and the symbol. He leaned forward.