by Jackson, Gil
Hamilton would return to the New York Times, with the second greatest story of all time: that would never get published as it stood. But he would cut, stet, trs, edit and re-edit until some sort of story that would not sound too supernaturally extraordinary. The important thing was the earthquakes had now ceased. At least in the earthquake zones of the world, like Turkey, Greece and the Pacific Rim.
But he would never forget, that enduring image of a little girl, part decomposed and trapped in a haul net, being dragged from the Hudson with her arm hanging loosely holding her teddy bear.
***
Charlie had his own problems. All those years he had assumed that the girl Angel he nicknamed ‘Lucy’ was not the daughter of Oonna and Fariq, but Oonna herself. An Inuit of Alaska with the same faith of the North American Indian - Shamanism. Born of powerful spirits that could cross boundaries to reach creators, summon them up, and forgive what had gone before; and to rewrite human values to underline what is acceptable and that which is not.
‘And we’ve ... been given — all thanks to her — a second chance, so we have. And she, like the proverbial, Connie Lamar: you just can’t keep a good woman down.’
‘Just one thing, Charlie,’ Hamilton said. ‘At the first. How did you know that it wasn’t Marco Giuseppi. In that hangar—?’
A suited man with dark glasses approached Charlie. His hand out toward him. ‘Mr. O’Hare?
Charlie nodded. ‘Who’s asking?’
CIA. ‘And I’ll take the hard-drive.... If you don’t mind?’
Charlie smiled. Turned and quickly walked away through the departure lounge door, stepping out and closing it behind him. Laughing now, he started to run toward a Bombadier Learjet — decaled with an Irish trefoil — half throttle on the runway. Climbing its steps he turned back and shouted.
‘How did I know? Because the real one spit!’
* * *
I thought it an exaggeration to think that gravity could be so powerful that it could pull an aeroplane out the sky, so I did. But physics has since taught me differently. Given the right circumstance it can pull a black hole in; that need be no bigger than a pin-head. When Becland County became the pin-hole of the world: what came through that worm-hole was not the invertebrate animal that we are familiar: that consume the flesh of our dearly departed. For although maggots, they were not the type used in hospitals for debridement therapy (Phoenicia sericata). They were type that didn’t stop at dead flesh; but looked forward to the consumption of the living body (Cochliomyia hominivorax) – His way of cleaning up after Himself?
For, contrary to belief ... He was imperfect. He had dropped His guard. He had made an error. That His World. His Garden of Eden. Was never, ever, meant for our pervasion.
Copyright © Gil Jackson 2010.