Genre: Essay
Word Count: 1849
A/N: Yes, I wrote this a long time ago. Yes, it is probably riddled with logical fallacies. Yes, it was fun to write. That's what counts, right? o.O (Note: apparently, I seemed to lack appreciation of the two-party system before. That has changed now, but... meh, I'm too lazy to rewrite this. :P)
Evolution. Political theory. Two radically different things at first glance, but are they really that different?
Evolution concerns changes in living things over time; political theory, the structure and function of government. But let’s take this further. Let’s attempt to apply the principles of evolution to the workings of government. To do this, we must look at government as a living organism.
What is a living thing? Let’s look at the criteria:
1.) Living things are organized: their parts are specialized for specific functions
2.) Living things take materials and energy from the environment: they need an outside source of nutrients
3.) Living things are homeostatic: they stay just about the same internally despite changes in the external environment
4.) Living things respond to stimuli: they react to internal and external events
5.) Living things reproduce: they produce offspring that resemble themselves
6.) Living things grow and develop: during their lives they change, sometimes undergoing various stages from fertilization to death.
7.) Living things are adapted: they have modifications that make them suited to a particular way of life.
Now that we know the characteristics of living things, let’s try comparing a government to them. For the purposes of this essay, I will use the United States government.
1.) Living things are organized.
Is the government organized? Yes. Does it have specialized parts? Yes. Just think of the three branches, one for creating the laws, one for interpreting the laws, and one for enforcing the laws. Remember? That’s about all they teach you about the government from first to fourth grade. You want more evidence? How about the president’s Cabinet? The Senate’s committees? Who knew that being a living thing meant bureaucracy?
2.) Living things take materials and energy from the environment.
Need I explain this? The government leeches those tax dollars like a yeast squanders sugar! In case you don’t get what I mean, I’ll just explain that yeast produce energy in the form of ATP via fermentation, a horribly inefficient method compared to that of aerobic respiration, which is what we use most of the time. But I digress.
3.) Living things are homeostatic.
One word: bureaucracy. That’s making sure we aren’t going anywhere fast. And what does the government do but try to maintain the status quo?
4.) Living things respond to stimuli.
Islamic extremists attack the World Trade Center. Did the government react? Okay, that’s external stimuli. How about the Rodney King riots? There’s internal stimuli for you.
5.) Living things reproduce.
You’re probably wondering how I’m going to pull this one off. Well, I’m going to bring us over to Iraq. Yes, that place over there. Is the U.S. forcing a democracy onto the people over there? Yes. A little U.S. Jr. Granted, it may not resemble its parent exactly, but then, what child does?
And if that doesn’t work for you, there are plenty of other historical examples I can draw from. Think imperialism.
Now, I’m sure there’s someone out there who’s going to point out that the government isn’t completely reproducing without help. The U.S. is reproducing by knocking off another government. Sort of like a virus, actually. I concede that point. We can have a parasitic virus-government.
6.) Living things grow and develop.
Was the government of the late 18th century the same as it is now? No. It wasn’t. Apparently, the U.S. government has changed since then. Instead of developing new cells and tissues like we multi-cellular organisms do, it grows with the addition of new laws and amendments, new immigrants and newly fledged voters.
7.) Living things are adapted.
Finally, the last point. Let’s go back in that time machine of the mind to September 11th. Obviously, the U.S. became more aware that it needed a new way of operating to fit the new order of life. The Department of Homeland Security. The Patriot Act. These are just a few of the modifications made by the government to make it more suited to surviving in the 21st century. Adapted? I think so.
Now, we have established that government can qualify as a living thing, albeit a parasitic, virus-like one. One can now reasonably conclude that it must be subject to evolutionary forces.
What are these forces? Let’s list the prerequisites for a particular form of evolution, Darwinian, governed by natural selection. This requires four factors:
1.) Variation: individual members of a species vary in physical characteristics
2.) Struggle for existence: members of all species compete with each other for limited resources.
3.) Survival of the fittest: unequal reproduction
4.) Adaptation: natural selection causes a population to adapt to its environment
As with before, let’s apply this to government. We will replace species with government and individuals with politicians.
1.) Variation
As we all know, those pesky politicians all differ from each other… physically. We know that they’re all about the same inside: loving, kind, caring, altruistic—oh wait a second…
2.) Struggle for existence
Think Cold War. Competition? I think so. Or just think economically. What country isn’t trying to boost their economy?
3.) Survival of the fittest
Again, think Cold War. What happened to the USSR?
4.) Adaptation
This was already covered before, but this time, it applies more to government-government interaction. Yes. Diplomats. ‘Nuff said.
So, government can be governed by natural selection. Then what kind of government would be best fit?
Generally speaking, the ones that can adapt the fastest win out, but one can’t forget those that are just plain, dumb lucky.
This brings us closer to my main point, but not quite. Let’s look at the following question: How can a government adapt quickly?
Obviously, a government with just one part will be able to move faster than one that involves a million parts. Let’s just say, a dictatorship versus a direct democracy.
Let’s also just say that, theoretically, some unknown third party just suddenly decides to get medieval on the two countries.
Who is going to react faster? By the time the direct democracy can gather everyone together for a vote, they’re done for.
But, as we all know, dictatorships tend to get corrupted, making them less feasible there. So, we’ll settle on a nice, in-between representative democracy that strikes an acceptable balance between pure bureaucracy and corruption.
You’re probably wondering if I’ll ever get to my point. Well, I will… eventually. I thought it would be ready to be introduced by now, but apparently, it got held up by the airport security. Random background checks, yeah right.
Anyway, now we have to decide how to choose those who will represent the people. Here in the good U.S. of A., we do it by a simple vote. The politician who has the most votes wins.
Now, this brings up a few problems. I’ll try to address the most pressing ones in turn.
The first is what is often known as the “tyranny of the majority”. With the current system, all one of those scheming politicians has to do is get 50.1% of the votes and he or she in! What about the other 49.9%? Do they just lose their representation? This particularly applies to minorities, who are usually the ones who lose out in this form of election.
A second issue is the concern of money. Campaigns cost money. Lots of it. I’m sure if someone looks at the data, there will probably be a strong positive correlation between money spent and success of the campaign. Now, who has this kind of money?
I’m sure how people have noticed that politics is primarily dominated by the same patrician, upper-class people, year after year. Sure, there may be the occasional oddball, but generally, it works this way. So, the same type of people are dominating the representation spots.
In evolution, we would probably refer to this as inbreeding, which is usually regarded as a no-no.
I’m sure there are more issues, but we are just going to deal with these two.
We are slowly getting closer to my proposal. Yes, it concerns election reform.
As we know, randomness is something essential to life. Otherwise, an organism or species runs the risk of completely folding in the face of some unforeseen change in the environment. In the same way, randomness can benefit government, although the consequences may not be as dire as species extinction. All we need now is to find a way to generate this randomness. Living things have genetic mutations; representative democracies have elections.
Are elections random? Yes, maybe slightly. You have to realize that we have to look at this from a larger point of view: Are the type of people in power changing? Yes. But is this enough? Let’s look back a few years into history. For much of the life of the U.S., this country has been dominated by a two-party system. So basically, power is just constantly shifting between these two parties, back and forth. Is that a lot of randomness? I don’t think so. We need some new blood, more than just the sprinkling of independents one sees every once in a while.
How can we fix this? Let’s look at the elections, standard majority rule. What if we have an election based on chance? How is that possible, you ask? Well, allow me to present a possibility.
Imagine an election in which every vote is thrown into a giant lottery. The politician who was voted for on the ballot that is randomly drawn out wins. Maybe it can be a bit more high tech that that, but the principle remains the same.
What does this do? Firstly, this increases randomness. Secondly, well, let’s go back to those two issues we discussed earlier.
The tyranny of the majority fact is eliminated, or at least greatly reduced. Even if the politician gets the majority of the vote, the other candidate still has a chance to win. In addition, politicians can’t be happy with just 50.1% of the vote anymore. That’s just not good enough to hope for an outright win.
Also, this gives lesser known people a chance to win an election, the occasional wild-card candidate, bringing new blood into the system. And under this election system, he or she may actually have a chance at winning without having to spend gobs and gobs of money. Of course, money will still be a factor, but the near-complete dominance it had over politics now may be greatly weakened.
Of course, this also brings up the chance that some complete psychopath would get lucky and win. Simple measures can be taken to reduce this possibility, such as counting every 500 votes as one “vote” in the lottery. In the rare occasion that a psychopath is elected anyway, chances are, one psychopath won’t be enough to really affect the normal functioning of the government.
And there it is. The principles of evolution applied to government. Would this be good enough to decrease the apathy of today’s representatives? They are always the same type of people, always pushing the same views, always presenting the same proposals.
What about it, eh?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Monday, August 10, 2009
Serial
Genre: General
Word Count: 464
A/N: Another something I wrote long back. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I haven't been doing much writing lately partly due to all the stuff I've been doing and places I've been going. o.O
“So,” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice as I looked down at him, tied securely to a chair in front of me. The room was empty except for the two of us, uncomfortably devoid of almost all furnishings. “It was you.”
He tried to rock the seat, but it barely budged. “Hey, let me out of here, Marc.”
I felt the feeling of distaste in my mouth. He tried to undo the knots holding his hands back, but failed. None of his struggling affected me. I knew it was all an act, all a ploy. He had had plenty of time to try to escape already.
“Come on, Marc,” he looked up pleadingly, looking rather pitiful. “Won’t you help a friend?”
“I don’t think so.” My voice was shaking slightly, and he blinked. He seemed to reevaluate.
He leaned as far forwards as the ropes would let him. “It wasn’t my fault, Marc. It wasn’t my fault. They forced me to—they forced me. I didn’t have a choice, can’t you see? I didn’t have a—”
“You killed her!” I cut in, and he stopped.
There was silence.
I swallowed uncomfortably, my face feeling uncomfortably warm. “You killed her.” I closed my eyes and opened them again, trying to imagine what could have been, trying to pretend that he wasn’t sitting there, tied in front of me, trying to hope that, maybe, just maybe, he was innocent.
But he was there, face twisted in some sort of grimace—almost as if he were feeling my pain. I could feel the anger returning.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It wasn’t my fault… I was forced to do it.”
“Even if you were, you could’ve refused it—you could have just fought them!” I stepped back, almost in surprise, almost in fear of what had just escaped.
I turned away. Looking at him was too painful—the duel emotions of hate and confusion jockeying back and forth had become unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said. It almost sounded truthful. It almost sounded sincere. A half-sob. “It was a mistake—it was all a horrible mistake. I was wrong… terribly wrong. You know how strong that pull for self-preservation is… I… I couldn’t fight it.”
It was too much. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“He’s a real mess, that one,” the homeowner commented as I came out of the room. “I’m glad the police’ll be here soon. About time he gets what he deserves.”
“Good thing you caught him, eh?” I forced the words to sound as normal as possible.
The man shuddered. “A good thing for us all.”
I left the house, and for the longest time, I could not get my mind off the subject of murder.
Written: 1/19/2008
Word Count: 464
A/N: Another something I wrote long back. Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. I haven't been doing much writing lately partly due to all the stuff I've been doing and places I've been going. o.O
“So,” I tried to keep the emotion out of my voice as I looked down at him, tied securely to a chair in front of me. The room was empty except for the two of us, uncomfortably devoid of almost all furnishings. “It was you.”
He tried to rock the seat, but it barely budged. “Hey, let me out of here, Marc.”
I felt the feeling of distaste in my mouth. He tried to undo the knots holding his hands back, but failed. None of his struggling affected me. I knew it was all an act, all a ploy. He had had plenty of time to try to escape already.
“Come on, Marc,” he looked up pleadingly, looking rather pitiful. “Won’t you help a friend?”
“I don’t think so.” My voice was shaking slightly, and he blinked. He seemed to reevaluate.
He leaned as far forwards as the ropes would let him. “It wasn’t my fault, Marc. It wasn’t my fault. They forced me to—they forced me. I didn’t have a choice, can’t you see? I didn’t have a—”
“You killed her!” I cut in, and he stopped.
There was silence.
I swallowed uncomfortably, my face feeling uncomfortably warm. “You killed her.” I closed my eyes and opened them again, trying to imagine what could have been, trying to pretend that he wasn’t sitting there, tied in front of me, trying to hope that, maybe, just maybe, he was innocent.
But he was there, face twisted in some sort of grimace—almost as if he were feeling my pain. I could feel the anger returning.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “It wasn’t my fault… I was forced to do it.”
“Even if you were, you could’ve refused it—you could have just fought them!” I stepped back, almost in surprise, almost in fear of what had just escaped.
I turned away. Looking at him was too painful—the duel emotions of hate and confusion jockeying back and forth had become unbearable.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said. It almost sounded truthful. It almost sounded sincere. A half-sob. “It was a mistake—it was all a horrible mistake. I was wrong… terribly wrong. You know how strong that pull for self-preservation is… I… I couldn’t fight it.”
It was too much. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“He’s a real mess, that one,” the homeowner commented as I came out of the room. “I’m glad the police’ll be here soon. About time he gets what he deserves.”
“Good thing you caught him, eh?” I forced the words to sound as normal as possible.
The man shuddered. “A good thing for us all.”
I left the house, and for the longest time, I could not get my mind off the subject of murder.
Written: 1/19/2008
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The Love Test
Genre: General
Word Count: 291
(A/N: Man, I haven't posted here for a long time and I feel sort of bad about it. Here's a short little piece I wrote back during school. I hope you like it.)
I had never really noticed the photograph before, but when I asked about it, Ellen said that it had been there since the day after the funeral three weeks before we had gotten married. I guess I ought to believe her, but still I can’t quite reconcile that I could have missed it all these years.
There was that lithe body stretched along the grass, melding artistically into the gentle curve of the hill. The laughing face, the bouncing hair—almost pushing against the clear plastic of the picture frame—the careless eyes wide with mirth. Her mouth was spread, lips ringing that effortless smile, so full and moist.
Her body was smooth and slender, the bare legs crescendoing into that healthy, developed frame on which her fierce intellect rested confidently.
The sun shone warmly, the wind blew softly; the shoots of grass all around bowed their pointed heads. She was just as I had remembered her.
I could sense Ellen coming up from behind me, and I could feel her eyes gazing along with mine.
“It’s a pity she died so young,” she said finally, and there was a tone of silent contentment that I had never quite heard in all our years.
“Why is this picture up?” I asked, at last banishing all the sweet fantasies evoked.
“You never took it down,” she said, as if that was explanation enough for the oddity.
“I’d never noticed it before,” I told her.
“I know that now,” she said, and then there was a sort of warmness in her voice that enfolded everything in its ecstasy. “I’ll take it down, if you want.”
“Yes,” I decided, letting it all go with a sigh, “that would be best.”
Word Count: 291
(A/N: Man, I haven't posted here for a long time and I feel sort of bad about it. Here's a short little piece I wrote back during school. I hope you like it.)
I had never really noticed the photograph before, but when I asked about it, Ellen said that it had been there since the day after the funeral three weeks before we had gotten married. I guess I ought to believe her, but still I can’t quite reconcile that I could have missed it all these years.
There was that lithe body stretched along the grass, melding artistically into the gentle curve of the hill. The laughing face, the bouncing hair—almost pushing against the clear plastic of the picture frame—the careless eyes wide with mirth. Her mouth was spread, lips ringing that effortless smile, so full and moist.
Her body was smooth and slender, the bare legs crescendoing into that healthy, developed frame on which her fierce intellect rested confidently.
The sun shone warmly, the wind blew softly; the shoots of grass all around bowed their pointed heads. She was just as I had remembered her.
I could sense Ellen coming up from behind me, and I could feel her eyes gazing along with mine.
“It’s a pity she died so young,” she said finally, and there was a tone of silent contentment that I had never quite heard in all our years.
“Why is this picture up?” I asked, at last banishing all the sweet fantasies evoked.
“You never took it down,” she said, as if that was explanation enough for the oddity.
“I’d never noticed it before,” I told her.
“I know that now,” she said, and then there was a sort of warmness in her voice that enfolded everything in its ecstasy. “I’ll take it down, if you want.”
“Yes,” I decided, letting it all go with a sigh, “that would be best.”
Friday, July 3, 2009
The Theory of Relativity
Genre: Essay
Word Count: 700
Everything is relative. That’s what we seem to hear all around us now. Morals, standards, dreams, goals—don’t judge me, we say. What I think is just what I think. What you think is just what you think. We don’t need any pushing around. Everyone has their own truths. Nothing is intrinsically right, and nothing is intrinsically wrong. It’s decided by the individual or by society. Each person can come up with his or her own philosophies, his or her own beliefs, and his or her own right and wrongs. I can do this if I want. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want. Spread the love… right?
This is the mindset we seem to live in, that all reality is relative. Things can only be judged in respect to other things. People point out all the different religions. So many ways, so many truths! Every one can be right or wrong. Your spirituality is essentially completely up to you. It’s the ultimate response to any sort of contention—everything is relative. You think homosexuality is wrong? Well, that’s nice, because I don’t. You think big government is good? Well, that’s nice, but you’re not going to convince me because I believe that small government is best.
It seems to have penetrated so deeply into our society that we don’t even seem to question it anymore. Reality is relative. Everything comes down to a person’s core beliefs, and everyone’s own core beliefs are a kind of truth in themselves. It’s the Theory of Relativity—but wait, isn’t there already a theory of relativity? It seems awfully similar; one person moving at a certain velocity sees an object moving at the same velocity and says it’s at rest. Another person at rest looks out and says that the object is in motion. Two different observations, two different reference points, and yet, two different truths.
The thing is, though, so often, we leave it just at that. We reach a seemingly true statement and take off from there—Everything is relative—and off we go! But we’re forgetting something… not everything is relative, at least in the Theory of Relativity. In the maelstrom of observers and objects, time dilation and contraction, mathematical formulas and ever-shifting variables, we find one constant around which everything is evaluated: the speed of light. It sets an eternal, unmoving standard, one from which all other things depend on, no matter what frame of reference. The person in motion sees light at the speed of light. The person at rest sees light at the speed of light. How? It seems a paradox but it happens. Light is light, the constant, and other seemingly unrelated things—mass, time, length—all depend upon how fast something is moving compared to the speed of light. It is the absolute by which everything else is judged.
But what’s this? Isn’t everything supposed to be relative?
No. Or, at least, scientifically it isn’t. Truthwise, I won’t say anything. But the thing really is, we can’t just come a certain way, see certain things, experience certain things, and just come to a conclusion that everything seems relative and stop there. We aren’t going out far enough. Everything can only be all relative if there is no absolute by which other things can be evaluated. If there is an absolute, it doesn’t matter how relative everything else seems—there is a benchmark by which to measure by. Maybe everything seems permitted. Maybe absolute good and absolute evil don’t seem to exist. But if even one thing that is intrinsically good or evil exists, it creates a bellwether from which we can judge all other things. How good is it compared to our absolute? How evil is it compared to our absolute? We can’t say it’s all relative anymore.
We can’t say that everything is relative before first asking ourselves whether any absolute exists or not. Only after we have ascertained the answer to the first question can we make any confident statements on relativity. And just to provide a hint… absolutes are rather difficult to confirm. Just ask the philosophers.
This is the theory of relativity.
(Written on 6/30/09, 7/2/09)
Word Count: 700
Everything is relative. That’s what we seem to hear all around us now. Morals, standards, dreams, goals—don’t judge me, we say. What I think is just what I think. What you think is just what you think. We don’t need any pushing around. Everyone has their own truths. Nothing is intrinsically right, and nothing is intrinsically wrong. It’s decided by the individual or by society. Each person can come up with his or her own philosophies, his or her own beliefs, and his or her own right and wrongs. I can do this if I want. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want. Spread the love… right?
This is the mindset we seem to live in, that all reality is relative. Things can only be judged in respect to other things. People point out all the different religions. So many ways, so many truths! Every one can be right or wrong. Your spirituality is essentially completely up to you. It’s the ultimate response to any sort of contention—everything is relative. You think homosexuality is wrong? Well, that’s nice, because I don’t. You think big government is good? Well, that’s nice, but you’re not going to convince me because I believe that small government is best.
It seems to have penetrated so deeply into our society that we don’t even seem to question it anymore. Reality is relative. Everything comes down to a person’s core beliefs, and everyone’s own core beliefs are a kind of truth in themselves. It’s the Theory of Relativity—but wait, isn’t there already a theory of relativity? It seems awfully similar; one person moving at a certain velocity sees an object moving at the same velocity and says it’s at rest. Another person at rest looks out and says that the object is in motion. Two different observations, two different reference points, and yet, two different truths.
The thing is, though, so often, we leave it just at that. We reach a seemingly true statement and take off from there—Everything is relative—and off we go! But we’re forgetting something… not everything is relative, at least in the Theory of Relativity. In the maelstrom of observers and objects, time dilation and contraction, mathematical formulas and ever-shifting variables, we find one constant around which everything is evaluated: the speed of light. It sets an eternal, unmoving standard, one from which all other things depend on, no matter what frame of reference. The person in motion sees light at the speed of light. The person at rest sees light at the speed of light. How? It seems a paradox but it happens. Light is light, the constant, and other seemingly unrelated things—mass, time, length—all depend upon how fast something is moving compared to the speed of light. It is the absolute by which everything else is judged.
But what’s this? Isn’t everything supposed to be relative?
No. Or, at least, scientifically it isn’t. Truthwise, I won’t say anything. But the thing really is, we can’t just come a certain way, see certain things, experience certain things, and just come to a conclusion that everything seems relative and stop there. We aren’t going out far enough. Everything can only be all relative if there is no absolute by which other things can be evaluated. If there is an absolute, it doesn’t matter how relative everything else seems—there is a benchmark by which to measure by. Maybe everything seems permitted. Maybe absolute good and absolute evil don’t seem to exist. But if even one thing that is intrinsically good or evil exists, it creates a bellwether from which we can judge all other things. How good is it compared to our absolute? How evil is it compared to our absolute? We can’t say it’s all relative anymore.
We can’t say that everything is relative before first asking ourselves whether any absolute exists or not. Only after we have ascertained the answer to the first question can we make any confident statements on relativity. And just to provide a hint… absolutes are rather difficult to confirm. Just ask the philosophers.
This is the theory of relativity.
(Written on 6/30/09, 7/2/09)
Friday, June 26, 2009
The Locket
Genre: General
Word Count: 1640
You meet a lot of strange people when you work the night shift out in a gas station just outside of town. It’s an experience, I’ll tell you, and one I’ll probably never forget.
It’s a rare feeling to look out the recently cleaned windows and spot those two glaring lights turning in for a stop at two in the morning. If anyone’s out at all, they aren’t stopping their car unless they really need to.
It’s a slow job, I’ll say, and most nights, after I’ve finished cleaning and rearranging the displays, after I’ve given up trying to get the ‘four’ in the ‘Open Twenty-Four Hours” sign to work, after I’ve counted and recounted the money in the old register, when there’s just about nothing else to do, I’d sit back in the plastic lawn chair I found out back and count the cars that went by.
It was a waiting game, one of those things that just tests your patience. You’d be just about ready to give up, just about ready to go back through and count the cash again when there’d be the faint glow in the distance, slowly coming closer, slowly getting brighter until those glowing eyes pass by, beams pooling ahead like some sort of crazy cones of light.
Sometimes, I’d guess how long it’d be before the next one passed. Some nights, it’d be half-an-hour. Others, two or three. If I was really bored, I’d keep track of my score, trying to figure how much I was off by every time those headlights came in the distance and the soft purr of the engine brushed by.
And then, of course, there was the occasional stopper, someone who was just so low on gas that they didn’t think they could make it over to the next city, to somewhere where there were actually other people, to some other station with their polished, automatically-opening, sliding doors and their bright signs screaming out the latest prices and bargains. Buy one get one free. Twenty percent off a new bottle of antifreeze. Twenty-four ounce fountain drinks for only a buck.
There was nothing like that here, just a bored night-worker and a small convenience store filled with the various trinkets and curios that had piled up over the years.
An authentic baseball hit by the Great Bambino over in the last game he played. A broken guitar string from some artist I’ve never heard about before I took the job. Some holographic trading card apparently worth thousands of dollars. But most special, to me at least, was this small chain of linked golden rings—not even the whole necklace, just a bit of it.
It had joined the stack of stuff at the shop only about six months ago, when he had said that he would return in about half a year. I took the fragile-looking chain and closed my hand tightly around it so I could feel those little golden rings pressing into the inside of my hand. I tried to remember that man’s face, his tired eyes, the wild, untamed wilderness of his hair.
I’ll be back, he had said.
When I had asked when, he only shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his scraggly jacket and reached out to stroke the chain he had just put onto the freakishly clean counter. Three months, two years, it makes no difference to me. He grasped the chain and let a thoughtful look slide onto his face. It came gently, as if it had been pushing all along and the man had only just given in. ‘Bout six months, I suppose. Look for me in about six months.
“You’ll be coming from the West again?”
The thoughtful look disappeared and his eyes returned to that smooth, glassy dullness. Finally, his shoulders rose, and then lowered. He let go of the chain and let it slide gently through his rugged hands onto the counter, like a quaint, golden waterfall over the beaten rocks. The West, the East, it doesn’t matter. When you don’t care where you’re going, any road will get you there.
I didn’t understand completely, but I took his chain and slipped it into a drawer, keeping it as he had asked. No doubt I thought he was just a bit odd then—most who stopped to talk were. I probably figured I’d never see him again.
Man, was I surprised when that letter came two weeks ago. Only five simple words, but they stopped my heart for a moment. Do you still have it?
Five simple words. No return address. There was nothing to do but wait.
I opened my hand and stared curiously at the nice little imprints the rings had left. For some reason, they seemed to beckon, almost as if there was some kind of hidden message to be found in those little grooves.
I looked up, and there, almost as if it had been planned, there was that tell-tale glow on the horizon, a small ghostly form, almost, stretching out and out until it became obvious that there was something coming.
The lights slowed, and then almost passed completely by, but not quite. The dark shape behind the lights made a turn into the lot, and I had a feeling that it was him.
A tall, thick form stepped out of the vehicle, and I left the chain on the counter and stopped out the door, going to offer whoever it was my help, just doing my job. He stepped into the dim light coming from the single bulb by the pump and my suspicions were confirmed. He was almost unrecognizable in the near-complete darkness.
I stopped walking, not wanting to move too far from the comforting oasis of light I had left behind me.
He looked up and saw me, and for the first time, his face was more exposed to the light. His beard had gotten slightly longer, and perhaps his hair as well, although I couldn’t really tell his dark, nearly black strands from the darkness around.
“You still have it?” the voice was surprisingly hoarse, almost guttural.
I started nodding before I realized how hard it would be for him to see my movements. I was about to say something, but he seemed to have gotten the message.
He took a step towards the small store. “’Kin you get it out?”
“Alright,” and I turned and made my way back towards the door I had just stepped through barely a minute before. I heard the door of the car slam behind me and then the sound of his heavy boots on the gravel.
He stepped into the store right behind me and homed in on the short length of chain on the counter right away. He looked as if he was about to say something, but only a sort of gulping noise came out of his mouth. He walked up to the counter and I followed him, wondering what he was doing here a second time.
In one quick movement, he had reached into one of the folds of his jacket and produced a small pendant hanging from some of an identical chain. The rings at the ends were popped open.
He dropped it next to the chain on the counter.
He was blocking my view of the two pieces now, and I could only make out a short length of part of the broken necklace. There was a glint of gold in the bare light as, for a moment, he lifted both together before him. A heart-shaped locket hung open along the chain—I thought there was a picture in it for a moment, but he had moved it too quickly for me to judge for sure.
“You found the rest,” I said, breaking the silence. The words seem to hang awkwardly in the air.
“I’ve always had the other part,” he said heavily, setting the now-completed necklace back onto the counter. I heard the soft clink of metal hitting porcelain.
He sighed heavily. “I had hoped it could be fixed but…” his voice died off into some sort of croak.
In one swift movement, he produced a hammer from somewhere and smashed it down onto the counter.
I stood, frozen, as the last waves of the blow faded away.
He slid the tool back into a loop in his pants, where it must have been hanging before. He turned slowly towards me, all of a sudden seeming completely exhausted. “Thank you,” he said tiredly. He stumbled past me to the door.
The remains of the necklace were still left on the counter. Most of the links were still intact, but the locket had been completely pulverized, the precious gold pressed into a heart-shaped foil on the counter. There was a barely visible rectangle raised slightly in the center, just about the size of a small picture.
Outside, a car started. With a cautious finger, I brushed the top of the flattened gold, feeling the barely perceptible bump as my finger passed over where a picture must have been entombed. It was a disquieting feeling, one that sent some sensations through my spine, not a chill, but more like a feeling of clearance, a feeling of completion.
Finally, I thought I understood the words he had told me half a year ago. Finally, I understood the reason the man had been driving so late at night in the middle of nowhere.
I lifted my finger from the gold, lifted my finger from the final monument to the now-destroyed love that must have brought the chain here in the first place.
I have loved, and I have lost, the words stared back at me from the small scrap of paper left on the counter.
It was a melancholy hand that finally threw the crumpled note into the wastebasket.
Written: Before 12/17/2007
Word Count: 1640
You meet a lot of strange people when you work the night shift out in a gas station just outside of town. It’s an experience, I’ll tell you, and one I’ll probably never forget.
It’s a rare feeling to look out the recently cleaned windows and spot those two glaring lights turning in for a stop at two in the morning. If anyone’s out at all, they aren’t stopping their car unless they really need to.
It’s a slow job, I’ll say, and most nights, after I’ve finished cleaning and rearranging the displays, after I’ve given up trying to get the ‘four’ in the ‘Open Twenty-Four Hours” sign to work, after I’ve counted and recounted the money in the old register, when there’s just about nothing else to do, I’d sit back in the plastic lawn chair I found out back and count the cars that went by.
It was a waiting game, one of those things that just tests your patience. You’d be just about ready to give up, just about ready to go back through and count the cash again when there’d be the faint glow in the distance, slowly coming closer, slowly getting brighter until those glowing eyes pass by, beams pooling ahead like some sort of crazy cones of light.
Sometimes, I’d guess how long it’d be before the next one passed. Some nights, it’d be half-an-hour. Others, two or three. If I was really bored, I’d keep track of my score, trying to figure how much I was off by every time those headlights came in the distance and the soft purr of the engine brushed by.
And then, of course, there was the occasional stopper, someone who was just so low on gas that they didn’t think they could make it over to the next city, to somewhere where there were actually other people, to some other station with their polished, automatically-opening, sliding doors and their bright signs screaming out the latest prices and bargains. Buy one get one free. Twenty percent off a new bottle of antifreeze. Twenty-four ounce fountain drinks for only a buck.
There was nothing like that here, just a bored night-worker and a small convenience store filled with the various trinkets and curios that had piled up over the years.
An authentic baseball hit by the Great Bambino over in the last game he played. A broken guitar string from some artist I’ve never heard about before I took the job. Some holographic trading card apparently worth thousands of dollars. But most special, to me at least, was this small chain of linked golden rings—not even the whole necklace, just a bit of it.
It had joined the stack of stuff at the shop only about six months ago, when he had said that he would return in about half a year. I took the fragile-looking chain and closed my hand tightly around it so I could feel those little golden rings pressing into the inside of my hand. I tried to remember that man’s face, his tired eyes, the wild, untamed wilderness of his hair.
I’ll be back, he had said.
When I had asked when, he only shrugged his shoulders, adjusted his scraggly jacket and reached out to stroke the chain he had just put onto the freakishly clean counter. Three months, two years, it makes no difference to me. He grasped the chain and let a thoughtful look slide onto his face. It came gently, as if it had been pushing all along and the man had only just given in. ‘Bout six months, I suppose. Look for me in about six months.
“You’ll be coming from the West again?”
The thoughtful look disappeared and his eyes returned to that smooth, glassy dullness. Finally, his shoulders rose, and then lowered. He let go of the chain and let it slide gently through his rugged hands onto the counter, like a quaint, golden waterfall over the beaten rocks. The West, the East, it doesn’t matter. When you don’t care where you’re going, any road will get you there.
I didn’t understand completely, but I took his chain and slipped it into a drawer, keeping it as he had asked. No doubt I thought he was just a bit odd then—most who stopped to talk were. I probably figured I’d never see him again.
Man, was I surprised when that letter came two weeks ago. Only five simple words, but they stopped my heart for a moment. Do you still have it?
Five simple words. No return address. There was nothing to do but wait.
I opened my hand and stared curiously at the nice little imprints the rings had left. For some reason, they seemed to beckon, almost as if there was some kind of hidden message to be found in those little grooves.
I looked up, and there, almost as if it had been planned, there was that tell-tale glow on the horizon, a small ghostly form, almost, stretching out and out until it became obvious that there was something coming.
The lights slowed, and then almost passed completely by, but not quite. The dark shape behind the lights made a turn into the lot, and I had a feeling that it was him.
A tall, thick form stepped out of the vehicle, and I left the chain on the counter and stopped out the door, going to offer whoever it was my help, just doing my job. He stepped into the dim light coming from the single bulb by the pump and my suspicions were confirmed. He was almost unrecognizable in the near-complete darkness.
I stopped walking, not wanting to move too far from the comforting oasis of light I had left behind me.
He looked up and saw me, and for the first time, his face was more exposed to the light. His beard had gotten slightly longer, and perhaps his hair as well, although I couldn’t really tell his dark, nearly black strands from the darkness around.
“You still have it?” the voice was surprisingly hoarse, almost guttural.
I started nodding before I realized how hard it would be for him to see my movements. I was about to say something, but he seemed to have gotten the message.
He took a step towards the small store. “’Kin you get it out?”
“Alright,” and I turned and made my way back towards the door I had just stepped through barely a minute before. I heard the door of the car slam behind me and then the sound of his heavy boots on the gravel.
He stepped into the store right behind me and homed in on the short length of chain on the counter right away. He looked as if he was about to say something, but only a sort of gulping noise came out of his mouth. He walked up to the counter and I followed him, wondering what he was doing here a second time.
In one quick movement, he had reached into one of the folds of his jacket and produced a small pendant hanging from some of an identical chain. The rings at the ends were popped open.
He dropped it next to the chain on the counter.
He was blocking my view of the two pieces now, and I could only make out a short length of part of the broken necklace. There was a glint of gold in the bare light as, for a moment, he lifted both together before him. A heart-shaped locket hung open along the chain—I thought there was a picture in it for a moment, but he had moved it too quickly for me to judge for sure.
“You found the rest,” I said, breaking the silence. The words seem to hang awkwardly in the air.
“I’ve always had the other part,” he said heavily, setting the now-completed necklace back onto the counter. I heard the soft clink of metal hitting porcelain.
He sighed heavily. “I had hoped it could be fixed but…” his voice died off into some sort of croak.
In one swift movement, he produced a hammer from somewhere and smashed it down onto the counter.
I stood, frozen, as the last waves of the blow faded away.
He slid the tool back into a loop in his pants, where it must have been hanging before. He turned slowly towards me, all of a sudden seeming completely exhausted. “Thank you,” he said tiredly. He stumbled past me to the door.
The remains of the necklace were still left on the counter. Most of the links were still intact, but the locket had been completely pulverized, the precious gold pressed into a heart-shaped foil on the counter. There was a barely visible rectangle raised slightly in the center, just about the size of a small picture.
Outside, a car started. With a cautious finger, I brushed the top of the flattened gold, feeling the barely perceptible bump as my finger passed over where a picture must have been entombed. It was a disquieting feeling, one that sent some sensations through my spine, not a chill, but more like a feeling of clearance, a feeling of completion.
Finally, I thought I understood the words he had told me half a year ago. Finally, I understood the reason the man had been driving so late at night in the middle of nowhere.
I lifted my finger from the gold, lifted my finger from the final monument to the now-destroyed love that must have brought the chain here in the first place.
I have loved, and I have lost, the words stared back at me from the small scrap of paper left on the counter.
It was a melancholy hand that finally threw the crumpled note into the wastebasket.
Written: Before 12/17/2007
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Citrus Tea
Written: 17 June, 2009
Word count: 732
He visits frequently and just sporadically enough to keep me on my toes. I'll be watching from my fire escape, spraying my flowers, and he's standing there, the bottom of his Levi's slightly damp from the evening dew. My gut always gives a slight lurch, not wholly unpleasant, every time I turn and say, "Oh, you're here." Sometimes he flashes me his crooked smile or gives a slight shrug. Other times, he turns and walks away. Some nights he comes in, and I boil two citrus peels in honey water for him and watch him as he drinks.
Other nights, we sit on the fire escape and talk until we hear the first honks of the morning delivery trucks. We admire the unstable silence of the New York streets at dawn. I keep him talking. The week's late night soaps, the sporadic wars of the world, the woman across the street with an affinity for exotic herbs, the man downstairs with the peculiar tattoo, the mythology behind Orion's belt. I keep him talking in hopes of hearing him utter my name, ever so quietly into the heavy night air.
"Where do you go off every morning, Dave? So early in the morning. . . "
"I'll take you someday." He jokingly pushes my shoulder causing me to spill my tea. I run to the kitchen, and when I return with a patterned towel, Dave is gone, his cup untouched. No footsteps touch the stairs for the rest of the week. I keep a cup of citrus tea on the table every night, just in case.
My vigilance pays off when I hear a creak on my fire escape. I knock over one of my petunia pots in my fervor to open the door and shout, "Oh, you're back!"
"Say my name," I whisper, scared I'll frighten him.
"Why?"
"Just do it. Please."
"Karen."
The name drifts into the air and settles somewhere up higher than I can reach. Hoping to snatch a measly vowel or consonant, I desperately grasp for something tangible to keep.
"Say it again."
"I can't keep coming back."
My stupor breaks.
"Why not?"
"You haven't left the apartment in a year."
"I'm always waiting for you." I try not to sound like a child.
"I can't come back. It's been a year. I can't keep coming back for you."
He slowly makes his way to the bookshelf and grabs a pile of newspaper clippings. He flips past last week's garden club tips and the month before's book recommendations. Past the erotic horoscopes and crossword puzzles. Past the stock market quotes, the weather predictions. In a flash his hands sift through one years worth of useless information and delicately pick out one lone slip of paper. A rogue neuron in my brain fires, and I realize what he's trying to show me.
"No! No! We can keep going like this! Nobody can say my name like you. Please keep coming, Dave. We still have so many constellations to look at! Too many cups of tea to drink! You're all I have."
"I was all you had."
He drops the tattered article to the ground. I can barely make out the words and the accompanying photo through my tear glands now in overdrive. My hand involuntarily picks up the crumpled wad reading. I blot out the words with my tears until no one can ever read them anymore.
"No! Take me with you, please, Dave. Take me with you! Please!" I grab a corner of his blue striped polo in a fit of mental abandon.
"I can't, Karen."
I hit my side on a table corner and fall to the ground, wincing. I catch a last glimpse of him in the door, and the creak of his feet on the fire escape.
"Is this Karen Alexander's house?"
"Yes, this is. I'm Karen's mother. Please come in."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I just came to give my condolences. I live downstairs. I heard about the suici-- well, I'm very sorry about, well, I'll be glad to help if you need anything. Just down the stairs. Uh, yes, well, nice to meet you."
Karen's mother walks back inside and sits in the kitchen, staring out the window, a cup of citrus tea in hand.
Word count: 732
He visits frequently and just sporadically enough to keep me on my toes. I'll be watching from my fire escape, spraying my flowers, and he's standing there, the bottom of his Levi's slightly damp from the evening dew. My gut always gives a slight lurch, not wholly unpleasant, every time I turn and say, "Oh, you're here." Sometimes he flashes me his crooked smile or gives a slight shrug. Other times, he turns and walks away. Some nights he comes in, and I boil two citrus peels in honey water for him and watch him as he drinks.
Other nights, we sit on the fire escape and talk until we hear the first honks of the morning delivery trucks. We admire the unstable silence of the New York streets at dawn. I keep him talking. The week's late night soaps, the sporadic wars of the world, the woman across the street with an affinity for exotic herbs, the man downstairs with the peculiar tattoo, the mythology behind Orion's belt. I keep him talking in hopes of hearing him utter my name, ever so quietly into the heavy night air.
"Where do you go off every morning, Dave? So early in the morning. . . "
"I'll take you someday." He jokingly pushes my shoulder causing me to spill my tea. I run to the kitchen, and when I return with a patterned towel, Dave is gone, his cup untouched. No footsteps touch the stairs for the rest of the week. I keep a cup of citrus tea on the table every night, just in case.
My vigilance pays off when I hear a creak on my fire escape. I knock over one of my petunia pots in my fervor to open the door and shout, "Oh, you're back!"
"Say my name," I whisper, scared I'll frighten him.
"Why?"
"Just do it. Please."
"Karen."
The name drifts into the air and settles somewhere up higher than I can reach. Hoping to snatch a measly vowel or consonant, I desperately grasp for something tangible to keep.
"Say it again."
"I can't keep coming back."
My stupor breaks.
"Why not?"
"You haven't left the apartment in a year."
"I'm always waiting for you." I try not to sound like a child.
"I can't come back. It's been a year. I can't keep coming back for you."
He slowly makes his way to the bookshelf and grabs a pile of newspaper clippings. He flips past last week's garden club tips and the month before's book recommendations. Past the erotic horoscopes and crossword puzzles. Past the stock market quotes, the weather predictions. In a flash his hands sift through one years worth of useless information and delicately pick out one lone slip of paper. A rogue neuron in my brain fires, and I realize what he's trying to show me.
"No! No! We can keep going like this! Nobody can say my name like you. Please keep coming, Dave. We still have so many constellations to look at! Too many cups of tea to drink! You're all I have."
"I was all you had."
He drops the tattered article to the ground. I can barely make out the words and the accompanying photo through my tear glands now in overdrive. My hand involuntarily picks up the crumpled wad reading. I blot out the words with my tears until no one can ever read them anymore.
"No! Take me with you, please, Dave. Take me with you! Please!" I grab a corner of his blue striped polo in a fit of mental abandon.
"I can't, Karen."
I hit my side on a table corner and fall to the ground, wincing. I catch a last glimpse of him in the door, and the creak of his feet on the fire escape.
******
"Is this Karen Alexander's house?"
"Yes, this is. I'm Karen's mother. Please come in."
"Oh, I'm sorry, I can't. I just came to give my condolences. I live downstairs. I heard about the suici-- well, I'm very sorry about, well, I'll be glad to help if you need anything. Just down the stairs. Uh, yes, well, nice to meet you."
Karen's mother walks back inside and sits in the kitchen, staring out the window, a cup of citrus tea in hand.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Heaven's Messenger
Genre: General/Sci-fi?
Word Count: 1412
It was a cold night to be out, but I wasn’t going to be the one complaining.
“How much farther?” Hal asked, his breath coming out in a mist from his mouth. He thumped his gloved hands together. “It’s cold out.”
“It is,” Angela huddled close to me. She wrapped her hands around her as she walked.
“Oh, come on, Angie,” Hal thumped his hands again, “You have a hat and everything—coat, scarf, gloves, earmuffs—”
“My legs are freezing,” she huddled closer to me, and I put a hand over her shoulder, bringing her in.
Hal threw up his hands. “Oh, come on, you even have Joel to cuddle with.”
“Quiet,” Nolan stopped moving and shone his flashlight at the trees all around us. I finally saw that the path split ahead, and the light danced between the two trails. I almost considered losing face and going back to grab another layer, but finally, the beam stopped on the left path. “Alright,” he said calmly, and started walking again.
The three of us followed him, I on the left, a bit behind him, Angela next to me, and Hal on her right, a little behind.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Hal said finally, breaking the repetitive crunching sound of our feet stepping on the woodchip-covered path.
“It’s going to snow tomorrow,” Nolan said calmly without turning around.
“Ugh,” I stuffed my hands into my pockets, but Angela relocated my arm so she could hang on to it, “Snow. I hate it. It gets everything—shoes, floor, the bottom of my jeans—ugh!” She shivered. “I wish I lived somewhere else.”
“Really.” I thought I might have sounded a bit too unconcerned. Too late to go back now.
“Well, I wish you were there, too, of course,” she smiled at me, looking almost like a completely different person all wrapped up in her winter-wear.
“How much longer?” Hal’s voice came out again.
“Oh, not long now, I think,” Nolan’s reply was prompt. He flashed his light around, and showed that the woods were starting to thin. “We’re almost there.”
“Good.”
“Oh, come on, Hal,” Angela imitated. “You have a coat and everything. Joel’s only got a jacket.”
Hal wasn’t deterred at all. “That’s only because I’m not dumb enough to walk out here wearing that little. I mean, come on.”
I was freezing. I wasn’t even sure I could feel my ears anymore. Angela seemed to be looking at me expectantly, though, so I tried to ignore all of that. “I’m fine.”
“See?” she turned triumphantly. “He’s fine.”
I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. It’s an odd thing, something you’d never think could actually happen sometimes. It’s just one of those things that you read about in stories and that’s about it. You’d never expect it to actually happen. I tried to move my hands around inside the pockets to make sure they were still attached—they were, thankfully enough.
Below, the woodchips were more sparsely layered, and there were some dark stalks of grass poking through now and then.
Angela sighed loudly. “Look at the sky. It’s amazing.”
I looked up at the vast expanse of lights shining above us. The tree cover had dropped away behind us, and we could see the night sky naked before our eyes.
“There’re so many of them,” she breathed. “I never thought you could see so many.”
“It’s the lights in the city,” Nolan said, pausing for a moment to look up. “There’s too much light around to see the stars real well.”
The sky was like an inviting dark blanket with little sparkles thrown all over it. It was just full of stars, burning spheres of light, almost inviting —nothing like the sky I had grown so used to. I thought about how the first humans must have seen the heavens, resting around the fire after stuffing themselves with that day’s hunt. Warm. Comfortable. I almost asked to borrow a hat.
Angela took my arm again. “Thinking about something?”
“Nothing really,” I caught Hal in the corner of my vision, looking as if he were about to echo me mockingly, but he noticed that I had seen him and said nothing. “I was just thinking about how it must have been before…” I thought for another moment, “before electricity and cities and cars and all that.”
“Of course,” Hal said scathingly.
“Hal!”
“What?”
Nolan cleared his throat. “We’re almost there—we don’t want to miss it.”
“What time is it?” Hal looked to me questioningly.
“Time for you to get a watch,” Angela said quickly.
He ignored her. Reluctantly, I jerked my left hand out of my pocket and tried to make out the numbers in the dark. I brought my other hand out quickly and jabbed at the button to make the numbers light up. I stuffed the hand back. “Eleven fifty.”
“A few more minutes, huh?” Hal looked back into the sky.
I slid my left hand back into the pockets. I could barely tell the difference in temperature. Somehow, I didn’t think that was a good sign. Either my pockets were pretty cold—which they were bound to be—or my hands were starting to lose their feeling. For a moment, I tried to remember the symptoms of frostbite and the conditions needed, but I just couldn’t recall them. That only made me feel colder.
Nolan stopped and switched off his light. “Here we are.”
Hal looked around. I could make out his figure in the starlight. “We’re on a hill.”
“Yeah,” Nolan answered.
“We walked all the way out here to sit on a hill.”
“That sounds about right,” Nolan nodded. “Yeah.”
Hal looked confused. “Is there something really special about this hill?”
“Not really, no. We can go to another one if you want. What time is it now?”
I checked my watch again. “Fifty-six.”
Angela intercepted my hands before they could make it back to their shelters. She clutched them in her gloves. “Cold?”
I thought I saw Hal look gloatingly over. “A little bit,” I admitted.
“Want to borrow my hat?” she started taking off the pink, red, and white hat she was wearing. “I’ve got a hood on my coat.” She shoved the thing into my hand.
It felt warm, and I let some of the heat pass into my freezing hands.
“Well,” she put her earmuffs back on and then flipped the hood of her coat over her head. “Put it on.”
“Put it on!” Hall imitated.
“Oh, shut up, Hal,” she punched at him, but he skipped lightly away.
“You missed.”
Angela didn’t answer. I pulled the woolen hat onto my head, glad it was dark and glad that I couldn’t see myself wearing it. It made me feel warmer for a bit, but then the heat seemed to fade away and I couldn’t help but notice that I was trembling slightly.
“It should be about time,” Nolan stared up into the sky.
I checked my watch again. Twelve one, it blinked. Any time now.
“Where do you think it’ll be?” Hal asked.
Nolan took a few seconds to answer. “I don’t know.”
Angela pressed towards me. “Aren’t you glad it’s going to miss us?” she whispered, so that only I could hear.
“Yeah,” I breathed softly, watching the light mist of my breath disappear quickly in the night air. “But we were lucky.”
She suddenly pointed out into the sky a little above the tree line. “Is that it?”
As I looked out at the horizon, I saw a narrow streak of light burning through the night sky.
“There it is,” Nolan pointed as well.
Hal was surprisingly silent.
For a moment, I almost forgot about being cold as I watched the streak of light move across the sky. The line grew thicker and brighter as the asteroid moved deeper into the atmosphere. It would only miss by a few hundred miles. I shivered, nearly asked for the scarf.
The front end of the line ignited and now it glowed a glaringly bright white, obscuring the long tail of heat it left behind. The spectacle passed out of view behind the trees.
I realized that I had been holding my breath and let it rush out. “It’s over then.”
Nolan seemed to be nodding. “Thank God it’s over.”
“Amen,” Hal said quietly.
We turned and started walking back towards the car. I was in a mood for hot chocolate.
Written: Before 12/8/2007
Word Count: 1412
It was a cold night to be out, but I wasn’t going to be the one complaining.
“How much farther?” Hal asked, his breath coming out in a mist from his mouth. He thumped his gloved hands together. “It’s cold out.”
“It is,” Angela huddled close to me. She wrapped her hands around her as she walked.
“Oh, come on, Angie,” Hal thumped his hands again, “You have a hat and everything—coat, scarf, gloves, earmuffs—”
“My legs are freezing,” she huddled closer to me, and I put a hand over her shoulder, bringing her in.
Hal threw up his hands. “Oh, come on, you even have Joel to cuddle with.”
“Quiet,” Nolan stopped moving and shone his flashlight at the trees all around us. I finally saw that the path split ahead, and the light danced between the two trails. I almost considered losing face and going back to grab another layer, but finally, the beam stopped on the left path. “Alright,” he said calmly, and started walking again.
The three of us followed him, I on the left, a bit behind him, Angela next to me, and Hal on her right, a little behind.
“Damn, it’s cold,” Hal said finally, breaking the repetitive crunching sound of our feet stepping on the woodchip-covered path.
“It’s going to snow tomorrow,” Nolan said calmly without turning around.
“Ugh,” I stuffed my hands into my pockets, but Angela relocated my arm so she could hang on to it, “Snow. I hate it. It gets everything—shoes, floor, the bottom of my jeans—ugh!” She shivered. “I wish I lived somewhere else.”
“Really.” I thought I might have sounded a bit too unconcerned. Too late to go back now.
“Well, I wish you were there, too, of course,” she smiled at me, looking almost like a completely different person all wrapped up in her winter-wear.
“How much longer?” Hal’s voice came out again.
“Oh, not long now, I think,” Nolan’s reply was prompt. He flashed his light around, and showed that the woods were starting to thin. “We’re almost there.”
“Good.”
“Oh, come on, Hal,” Angela imitated. “You have a coat and everything. Joel’s only got a jacket.”
Hal wasn’t deterred at all. “That’s only because I’m not dumb enough to walk out here wearing that little. I mean, come on.”
I was freezing. I wasn’t even sure I could feel my ears anymore. Angela seemed to be looking at me expectantly, though, so I tried to ignore all of that. “I’m fine.”
“See?” she turned triumphantly. “He’s fine.”
I tried to keep my teeth from chattering. It’s an odd thing, something you’d never think could actually happen sometimes. It’s just one of those things that you read about in stories and that’s about it. You’d never expect it to actually happen. I tried to move my hands around inside the pockets to make sure they were still attached—they were, thankfully enough.
Below, the woodchips were more sparsely layered, and there were some dark stalks of grass poking through now and then.
Angela sighed loudly. “Look at the sky. It’s amazing.”
I looked up at the vast expanse of lights shining above us. The tree cover had dropped away behind us, and we could see the night sky naked before our eyes.
“There’re so many of them,” she breathed. “I never thought you could see so many.”
“It’s the lights in the city,” Nolan said, pausing for a moment to look up. “There’s too much light around to see the stars real well.”
The sky was like an inviting dark blanket with little sparkles thrown all over it. It was just full of stars, burning spheres of light, almost inviting —nothing like the sky I had grown so used to. I thought about how the first humans must have seen the heavens, resting around the fire after stuffing themselves with that day’s hunt. Warm. Comfortable. I almost asked to borrow a hat.
Angela took my arm again. “Thinking about something?”
“Nothing really,” I caught Hal in the corner of my vision, looking as if he were about to echo me mockingly, but he noticed that I had seen him and said nothing. “I was just thinking about how it must have been before…” I thought for another moment, “before electricity and cities and cars and all that.”
“Of course,” Hal said scathingly.
“Hal!”
“What?”
Nolan cleared his throat. “We’re almost there—we don’t want to miss it.”
“What time is it?” Hal looked to me questioningly.
“Time for you to get a watch,” Angela said quickly.
He ignored her. Reluctantly, I jerked my left hand out of my pocket and tried to make out the numbers in the dark. I brought my other hand out quickly and jabbed at the button to make the numbers light up. I stuffed the hand back. “Eleven fifty.”
“A few more minutes, huh?” Hal looked back into the sky.
I slid my left hand back into the pockets. I could barely tell the difference in temperature. Somehow, I didn’t think that was a good sign. Either my pockets were pretty cold—which they were bound to be—or my hands were starting to lose their feeling. For a moment, I tried to remember the symptoms of frostbite and the conditions needed, but I just couldn’t recall them. That only made me feel colder.
Nolan stopped and switched off his light. “Here we are.”
Hal looked around. I could make out his figure in the starlight. “We’re on a hill.”
“Yeah,” Nolan answered.
“We walked all the way out here to sit on a hill.”
“That sounds about right,” Nolan nodded. “Yeah.”
Hal looked confused. “Is there something really special about this hill?”
“Not really, no. We can go to another one if you want. What time is it now?”
I checked my watch again. “Fifty-six.”
Angela intercepted my hands before they could make it back to their shelters. She clutched them in her gloves. “Cold?”
I thought I saw Hal look gloatingly over. “A little bit,” I admitted.
“Want to borrow my hat?” she started taking off the pink, red, and white hat she was wearing. “I’ve got a hood on my coat.” She shoved the thing into my hand.
It felt warm, and I let some of the heat pass into my freezing hands.
“Well,” she put her earmuffs back on and then flipped the hood of her coat over her head. “Put it on.”
“Put it on!” Hall imitated.
“Oh, shut up, Hal,” she punched at him, but he skipped lightly away.
“You missed.”
Angela didn’t answer. I pulled the woolen hat onto my head, glad it was dark and glad that I couldn’t see myself wearing it. It made me feel warmer for a bit, but then the heat seemed to fade away and I couldn’t help but notice that I was trembling slightly.
“It should be about time,” Nolan stared up into the sky.
I checked my watch again. Twelve one, it blinked. Any time now.
“Where do you think it’ll be?” Hal asked.
Nolan took a few seconds to answer. “I don’t know.”
Angela pressed towards me. “Aren’t you glad it’s going to miss us?” she whispered, so that only I could hear.
“Yeah,” I breathed softly, watching the light mist of my breath disappear quickly in the night air. “But we were lucky.”
She suddenly pointed out into the sky a little above the tree line. “Is that it?”
As I looked out at the horizon, I saw a narrow streak of light burning through the night sky.
“There it is,” Nolan pointed as well.
Hal was surprisingly silent.
For a moment, I almost forgot about being cold as I watched the streak of light move across the sky. The line grew thicker and brighter as the asteroid moved deeper into the atmosphere. It would only miss by a few hundred miles. I shivered, nearly asked for the scarf.
The front end of the line ignited and now it glowed a glaringly bright white, obscuring the long tail of heat it left behind. The spectacle passed out of view behind the trees.
I realized that I had been holding my breath and let it rush out. “It’s over then.”
Nolan seemed to be nodding. “Thank God it’s over.”
“Amen,” Hal said quietly.
We turned and started walking back towards the car. I was in a mood for hot chocolate.
Written: Before 12/8/2007
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