first, but as the things the voice told me to share became true, the numbers grew steadily every day, week, month. My videos went viral, reposted and reblogged and retweeted and shared all over the world.
I wasn’t invisible any more.
I saw the storms coming, of course. Not their origin, that was kept from me, but how they would tear through the country and all over the planet. The devastation they’d leave behind. The people who’d die. I saw these things when the voice whispered them to me…how my every left or right led this way or that. Different choices. Different paths.
It’s not narcissism if the world really does revolve around you.
I died for real, not just in a vision, and I came back, and the voice of my fathergod hadn’t told me that would happen. Hadn’t warned me of the pain. Maybe that was on purpose; maybe if I’d known in advance how much it would hurt, I’d have made different choices. I’d have moved along a different path.
I could’ve saved a lot of people in my avoidance of agony, that much is true. I could’ve turned left instead of right at several points along the way and saved lives. Property. I guess even the world, if the world had deserved saving.
But in the end, I didn’t.
13
Abbie had been through roadblocks before. She’d been pulled aside and passed roadside sobriety tests, always to her own surprise and probably that of the cops, too. She’d never had to inch her car past a pair of tanks before, or watched armed soldiers waving her through to the highway beyond.
The damage she’d seen in Oklahoma had been horrific. She’d driven from Ada and had seen evidence of other tornados in other towns, all equally terrible, but none of the damage had seemed worth this sort of nationwide government attention. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to roll down her window and ask the soldiers what had happened to make their presence necessary. She couldn’t even bring herself to listen to the radio.
She was afraid she already knew.
She had every reason to be nervous the first time the soldier waved her to a stop and gestured for her to roll down her window. She wasn’t drunk or high, but she was driving illegally. When he took her driver’s license from her, his eyes scanned it and then her face, but he handed it back without questioning the expired date. He looked inside the car, passenger seat, back seat. Then at her again.
“I need to get home to my family,” Abbie offered even thought the soldier hadn’t asked. “That’s all. I’m afraid…something’s happened.”
Other soldiers were moving along the line of cars behind and beside her. They were looking, too. Maybe for something, she thought, or maybe for nothing. Maybe they didn’t know what to look for. She had to swallow hard to keep herself from crying.
“Lots of things are happening,” the soldier said after another half a minute ticked by. His expression never changed. His eyes looked dead and hard, but when they flickered over her face again she saw a hint of something that might’ve been compassion deep in his gaze. “You should stay off the highways.”
She thanked him, and as soon as she’d passed that roadblock, Abbie took the soldier’s suggestion. She kept to the back roads, her trip made longer and more complicated but without as much interference. She drove with her hands clamped so tight to the wheel her fingers ached. Her foot moved from gas to brake. She obeyed the speed limit and traffic signs. She took breaks when her body forced her to eat, to pee, to sleep. But mostly, she drove and drove with her eyes on the road and her mind shut down against the memory of what she’d seen in that farmyard.
She drove for three days.
She could’ve chased away the image of Cal’s mouth yawning open, the black cloud surrounding him. With a bottle or so of whiskey, she could’ve kept away the dreams of Marnie’s infant chewing its way out of her body with its tiny, toothless mouth. But drinking
I wasn’t invisible any more.
I saw the storms coming, of course. Not their origin, that was kept from me, but how they would tear through the country and all over the planet. The devastation they’d leave behind. The people who’d die. I saw these things when the voice whispered them to me…how my every left or right led this way or that. Different choices. Different paths.
It’s not narcissism if the world really does revolve around you.
I died for real, not just in a vision, and I came back, and the voice of my fathergod hadn’t told me that would happen. Hadn’t warned me of the pain. Maybe that was on purpose; maybe if I’d known in advance how much it would hurt, I’d have made different choices. I’d have moved along a different path.
I could’ve saved a lot of people in my avoidance of agony, that much is true. I could’ve turned left instead of right at several points along the way and saved lives. Property. I guess even the world, if the world had deserved saving.
But in the end, I didn’t.
13
Abbie had been through roadblocks before. She’d been pulled aside and passed roadside sobriety tests, always to her own surprise and probably that of the cops, too. She’d never had to inch her car past a pair of tanks before, or watched armed soldiers waving her through to the highway beyond.
The damage she’d seen in Oklahoma had been horrific. She’d driven from Ada and had seen evidence of other tornados in other towns, all equally terrible, but none of the damage had seemed worth this sort of nationwide government attention. Yet she couldn’t bring herself to roll down her window and ask the soldiers what had happened to make their presence necessary. She couldn’t even bring herself to listen to the radio.
She was afraid she already knew.
She had every reason to be nervous the first time the soldier waved her to a stop and gestured for her to roll down her window. She wasn’t drunk or high, but she was driving illegally. When he took her driver’s license from her, his eyes scanned it and then her face, but he handed it back without questioning the expired date. He looked inside the car, passenger seat, back seat. Then at her again.
“I need to get home to my family,” Abbie offered even thought the soldier hadn’t asked. “That’s all. I’m afraid…something’s happened.”
Other soldiers were moving along the line of cars behind and beside her. They were looking, too. Maybe for something, she thought, or maybe for nothing. Maybe they didn’t know what to look for. She had to swallow hard to keep herself from crying.
“Lots of things are happening,” the soldier said after another half a minute ticked by. His expression never changed. His eyes looked dead and hard, but when they flickered over her face again she saw a hint of something that might’ve been compassion deep in his gaze. “You should stay off the highways.”
She thanked him, and as soon as she’d passed that roadblock, Abbie took the soldier’s suggestion. She kept to the back roads, her trip made longer and more complicated but without as much interference. She drove with her hands clamped so tight to the wheel her fingers ached. Her foot moved from gas to brake. She obeyed the speed limit and traffic signs. She took breaks when her body forced her to eat, to pee, to sleep. But mostly, she drove and drove with her eyes on the road and her mind shut down against the memory of what she’d seen in that farmyard.
She drove for three days.
She could’ve chased away the image of Cal’s mouth yawning open, the black cloud surrounding him. With a bottle or so of whiskey, she could’ve kept away the dreams of Marnie’s infant chewing its way out of her body with its tiny, toothless mouth. But drinking
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