American Omens

by Travis Thrasher

He gently kicked the box and then looked at the top of his boot, the worn leather with the hole getting bigger. These were his favorite boots, and he always went back to the things he loved the most. Loyal to a fault, as the cliché went.

  The cover for Precipice stood out, a lightning rod of a book that made people take sides and draw lines in the sand and continue to think in the conversation of clichés. The book had been a bestseller from a controversial pastor, speaker, and radio host who lost all those titles shortly before being imprisoned for supposed fraud—charges that most said were phony and were designed simply to get the man behind bars. Thad Riley. Not Pastor Riley or Dr. Riley but Thad, of all names. All the guy was doing in Precipice was saying the country was literally on the edge of falling into hell itself, and using the Bible as his resource, Thad Riley took shots at everything and everybody: the government, corporations, celebrities, the entire culture. And the book had started making an impression. That’s when it became dangerous, and it wasn’t merely banned, which would have made it even more popular. It was taken out of circulation, and like anything deemed an offense under the hate act, it was against the law to own a copy, much less sell it.

  Will wondered what it would have been like to live in the era of so-called free speech instead of in the shadow of censorship and silence. Perhaps there was a legitimate reason this country was taking God out of everything—the real God, not the feel-good, higher power, Zen, pop-a-pill, lowercase god that united everybody these days.

  Not because He’s hateful, but because He doesn’t listen.

  Or worse, Will thought, it’s because in the end He’s not really there.

  Don’t go there you know that’s a lie.

  Next to the book was the photo of Will and his wife, Amy. Like the books he had sold, the kind you could hold in your hand, this was a photograph that didn’t float and couldn’t be turned on and off. You could feel it with your fingers.

  Paper, like everything else in this world, would eventually dry up and disintegrate. New releases had a limited shelf life, not because of the lack of sales but due to the elimination of bookshelves. Everything in the world—every single thing—was being downloaded and converted into ghosts and shadows, tucked away in clouds, and brought to life in the blink of an eye.

  Our spiritual world has been replaced by a cyberspace we access every second of every day as if our very souls depend on it.

  It used to be that people ran away from or ignored matters of faith. Now their belief systems revolved around the machinery of now, the technology inside each person.

  The scratching on the glass door outside Ink—outside what used to be a bookstore called Ink—made Will turn around. The mutt was back again, the third time this week. He was small and mostly dirty white with a black face and ears right above his white nose, making him look as if he were wearing a mask. The dog had a limp and smelled and had weird eyes, like a shell-shocked soldier experiencing PTSD. Will had asked around and put a photo of the dog with his number along his building’s windows. He had even asked a few places if they took in strays, but the animal laws were very strict, and this little guy had a one-way ticket to the afterlife if Will took him to them. No tags, not great health, no owner or history…It didn’t look good for the pooch.

  He opened the door, and the dog hurried inside, wagging its tail and then sniffing the box.

  “What’s your name, huh?” Will asked, scratching him behind his ears. “What’s your story?”

  Like every book he had ever read and each one he had sold or tried to sell, everyone had a story. Some kind of story. And it didn’t have to fit into neat chapters or one particular genre.

  The last thing I need now is a dog to take care of.

  The dark eyes looked up at him, glassy eyes seeming to ask him to help. Will shook his head, sighed, then laughed as he picked up the dog and fit him in the remaining space of the box to take to the Autoveh station and get a ride home.

  At least the girls will be happy tonight.

  As he slipped out the door one last time, he didn’t bother to lock it, knowing there was no point.

  Everything of worth in the store had already been stolen.

  2.

  Before he got ten yards from the building that still had the sign Ink on it, Will was stopped and nearly trampled by a bearded stranger.

  “Excuse me,” said the man in a tweed overcoat that was as vintage as Will’s boots.

  Will gave a polite nod and kept walking until he heard the door behind him open. He stopped and turned around to see the man, seemingly in a hurry, walk into the bookstore and then just stand there.

  For a moment Will wasn’t sure whether to keep walking to the station or to stay and let the guy know what had happened. He waited, the box still in his arms, the unnamed stray dog still sitting on top of its contents. The guy was in the store for maybe two minutes. Then he walked back out.

  “Store’s closed,” Will said to the man.

  The stranger rubbed his thick, dark beard and gave him a grin. Almost as if he already knew that. “What a loss,” he said. “What’s his name?”

  For a second Will wasn’t sure what name he was referring to. Then he looked at the furry head staring up at him.

  “Good question. He’s a stray that’s been coming around this week. Can’t find its owner. Nobody wants him.”

  “Nobody except you, huh?”

  The man had an accent, perhaps Brooklyn based. Definitely not Midwest.

  “Well, I won’t be here the next time he comes pawing at the door.”

  “Good man.”

  “You look desperate for a book,” Will said.

  “The world is desperately in need, my friend. I love buying books for others even if they use them for campfires afterward. There’s still something about giving away a printed book, is there not? When you simply send it over to people’s SYNAPSYS, they can delete it as quickly as blowing out a candle.”

  “So you were looking for a gift?”

  “No, not this time,” the man in the tweed coat said. His intense eyes didn’t waver as they focused on Will. “I heard you actually had a collection of A. W. Tozer books.”

  This suddenly had become interesting, enough so that Will put down the box. The dog hopped over its side and went up to the stranger, sniffing and wagging its tail. “You’ve read Tozer?”

  “Of course,” the man said, taking something from his coat pocket and giving it to the dog to eat. “You say that as if he were some sixteenth-century poet.”

  “Did the sixteenth century have notable poets?”

  “My point exactly.”

  The man fed the dog another treat from his pocket.

  “Are those breath mints you’re giving him?” Will joked.

  “I have a dog myself. I love them.”

  “So what Tozer book were you looking for?”

  “Are you keeping the rest of the inventory in storage?”

  Will shook his head. “You missed the going-out-of-business sale. And the shutting-my-doors barn burner. Oh, and the here’s-the-reason-they’re-shutting-me-down private giveaway. I only have my library.”

  “I bet it’s considerable,” the man said.

  “No. Now my father-in-law’s is considerable. Big enough to one day be donated to a college. To actually make an entire library out of it. Mine is a hodgepodge assortment. I only keep books I know I’ll reread.”

  “You can’t take it with you. Not where you’re going.”

  Take what? Will wondered. And going where?

  “The Set of the Sail.”

  “Excuse me?” Will asked.

  “That was the specific title I was looking for.”

  “I’m not familiar with that one, though it doesn’t mean I didn’t have it.”

  “It’s a collection of essays Tozer wrote. The title refe
rs to having our sails set to the will of God so we’ll be headed in the right direction no matter what storms life brings.”

  “Interesting,” Will said. “Seems like a book I need to check out.”

  The man smiled. “It all starts with the Holy Spirit stirring our conscience. But the great con of the last few decades is we’ve replaced that word with science. And, of course, ourselves.”

  Will stood there, not sure what to say.

  “I hope you end up finding the right one,” the stranger told him.

  “The right what?”

  He smiled and brushed his hand through his thick, curly hair. “The right name for your dog, of course. Here, take these for him. He seems to like them.”

  The man handed him several round dog treats. Then as quickly as he had stopped Will on the sidewalk, he said goodbye and walked away. The dog looked confused, starting to follow the man, then staring at the treats in Will’s hand. He suddenly sat and propped his two front legs up.

  “Wish I knew what brand these are,” Will said as he gave the dog another one, “and how expensive they are.”

  Walking to the car station again, he wondered who the man was and what his story happened to be.

  3.

  The older their three girls got, the louder their small house became and the greater the chasm sometimes felt between Amy and Will. They had always been different and even joked with their pastor about those vast differences during premarital counseling. Parenting had produced a whole new level of viewpoints and varying perspectives. Lately, especially in the last couple of years, every single act and decision Will made seemed at odds with Amy.

  So naturally, bringing the dog home hadn’t exactly helped matters. The girls couldn’t believe it was for them to keep, asking him continually who it belonged to. Amy, upon first seeing it, was speechless, something that seldom happened to her.

  “It’s a stray I’ve been seeing lately. I couldn’t leave it. And I can’t take it anywhere.”

  “He’s so cute,” Callie said, her hand rubbing his head as if she were washing a car.

  “He looks strange,” Bella said, giving the mutt a funny look.

  “Can we keep him?” Shaye asked. “He can stay in my room. He can use my old comforter.”

  “Okay, just calm down,” Will said.

  The first word Amy eventually said when she approached him in the laundry room was “Really?” It was the sort of one-word response that carried an entire encyclopedia of past uses inside its pages. One of those reallys came after he told Amy he had quit his corporate job to open the bookstore. Just like scooping up this dog and bringing him home, that hadn’t been a joint decision either.

  Lately they hadn’t been doing anything that could remotely deserve the word joint.

  “I lost a business but gained a dog,” Will said, trying to inject a little humor.

  Even lame attempts like this were thrown to the side and replaced with frustration and anger.

  “Do you realize the cost of keeping that?” Amy said. “We’ll have to take it to the vet to get shots and see if it has a SYNK chip, and that’s just for starters.”

  “There you go, instantly getting out the checkbook.”

  “That’s all you talk about, so how can I not bring it up?”

  “We haven’t made any decisions.”

  “I haven’t even been asked anything,” Amy said. “You know the girls aren’t going to want to take it back. We’ve had those conversations about getting a puppy. I thought we decided we weren’t going to get one.”

  “We didn’t. I didn’t. That’s not a puppy.”

  “Yeah. That’s— I’m not sure what that is,” she said, regarding the animal in a clinical fashion.

  “I haven’t paid a cent for him. Not yet.”

  “Of all the days, you do this today.” She sighed and shook her head, heading to their bedroom with a basket full of clean clothes.

  He went back to the girls, who were playing with the dog. Their joy was good—as always—to see.

  “We have to name him,” he said without asking Amy.

  She didn’t want the dog, so she didn’t have to worry about names.

  4.

  The night was cold, the clear sky glossed over by the glow from the streetlamps and neighborhood houses. Will waited outside for the dog to do his business in the backyard, and while he stood on the steps to their patio, he looked up as he often did. Sometimes praying, sometimes planning, and sometimes simply peering into the silent space as he did now.

  When will all this junk inside ever go away?

  The wind cut against his bare arms sticking out of his T-shirt. Sometimes he liked to step out in the frigid weather just to wake up, just to try to get a little of the fog out of his mind. But the haze wasn’t in his head; it was in his heart. It had started to suffocate his soul.

  Believing wasn’t the issue, nor was knowing the truth. It was following and obeying and getting with the program and not having this awful uncertainty running through his system day and night. It was a dizzy and breathless feeling, like deathly cold air on a subzero morning blowing through his veins.

  Will thought once again about spending an hour on the network trying to find anything mentioning a book by A. W. Tozer called The Set of the Sail. What was utterly bizarre was there was no mention of that particular title or any other Tozer books online, not even the briefest of summaries. He would have to get out of the system to find backup data for that sort of information. Will used to consider it a nuisance to see things like this happening, to realize that anything related to Christianity was suddenly vanishing online. Now it was simply the reality of the way things were. What used to be called the internet had belonged to everyone. Now the network was monitored by the government.

  “Come on, little guy,” he said, regretting that he’d decided to bring the dog home.

  Like pretty much everything Will did, bringing home the newfound mutt had prompted an argument with Amy. A bouquet of flowers would bring on a debate about spending money. Staying late at work would stir up the never-ending who-does-more-work fight they always seemed to have. She had recently increased her hours as a senior food technologist at Nestle-Mars Co., working overtime as often as allowed. It was always the same two-headed monster: time and money, money and time, both chipping and cutting and cracking an already-brittle foundation. When the dust settled and the girls were asleep and the nighttime routine set in, Will would try to find some respite. Momentarily freezing only distracted him from his doom.

  Why can’t I be like the rest of them? Not worrying about God and not feeling guilty for not being strong enough? Not carrying this load of fear and brokenness around while also hurting for all those who are so deluded, so far gone?

  He thought about the words Amy had said not long ago: “I wish I’d never married you.”

  They were spoken, of course, in anger and were so unlike her. The apology that came the following day seemed to make it all fine. These were simple words that said he was acting worse than a jerk or that she couldn’t get what he was doing or why. But, in reality, this had been a statement of faith, a battle cry, a declaration of war. The words weren’t the sort that a simple sorry could erase. They had been carved in the concrete of the step he stood on, and every time he slipped out of the house, he could feel their edges against the heels of his feet.

  Will knew she was right to say them.

  He had waited long enough. It didn’t matter that he was wearing socks and a T-shirt. Will stepped out into the yard to try to find the dog. As he rounded the tall arborvitae trees on one side that blocked the view of the street, Will saw the outline of a commuter car, sitting as if it was broken down. He couldn’t see any light or anybody inside it.

  He paused. Then he began walking toward it, the frozen ground cracking underneath his feet. When he was twent
y yards away from the vehicle, the engine roared to life, and the car began to drive away, still without any lights inside or out.

  Someone had been watching him. Why, he had no idea. At the moment he didn’t care either. He had bigger problems to figure out. Starting with trying to find the mutt he’d let out here ten minutes ago.

  5.

  In the dream Will sits on an old wooden bench in the woods, not connected to anything, no SYNAPSYS to use as an intellectual crutch, no means to communicate with people other than talking to them. Like all dreams, this one feels real and distorted at the same time, and in this case he can feel the person next to him but can’t get the person’s attention. He can’t find the words to say, so he remains silent even though he can still hear her beside him, breathing, moving, waiting.

  Her.

  The moment his mind whispers that word, he knows he’s dreaming, yet he doesn’t want to wake up. He wants to remain there, and he wants to finally speak. He wants to talk, to try to connect, and then to listen if she’ll do the same.

  But the leaves underneath his feet and the sun peeking through the trees turn black as he opens his eyes. The bench and the moment are gone.

  Yet Amy is still there, still breathing and moving.

  Still waiting.

  6.

  The snow on the playground in the midday sun made Will squint and wish he’d brought his sunglasses for lunch duty. More than one hundred kids from kindergarten to third grade played throughout the field, most of them having fun packing the snow now that temperatures had risen. As he walked down the sidewalk, making sure to scan all the kids, Callie and Bella remained close by, talking to him about their days and wanting him to watch and asking him to help roll the snowman. Spending time with the twins over lunch was an advantage of being his own boss.

  Until, of course, I ended up firing myself.

  He had signed up for this duty at their elementary school, something parents were encouraged to be a part of. Will would go a few times a month. Today he was glad to be busy, even if this wasn’t exactly what he should be doing. Figuring out what was next was on the top of his to-do list, and it was the only item on it as well.