Pulse of Heroes

by A. Jacob Sweeny

  “Oh my gosh!”

  “What happened?” Rachael asked, her voice shaking.

  “There was no one on the road. I don't understand.” Samantha said, and she was right. There was no other vehicle coming up ahead towards them. But what Samantha had failed to do was look behind to make sure that the road was clear for them to merge back over safely.

  “I checked in the rearview mirror. I don’t understand,” she said. Samantha looked up at the mirror and realized that not only was it cracked and covered in yolk, but it was also pointing in the wrong direction. The eggs must have hit it with enough force to swivel it downwards. So when Samantha checked the mirror to make sure that they were no headlights approaching from behind, the blackness that she saw was not the empty road behind them, but the interior of her own car. In reality, there was already a car in the space that she was trying to swerve into, and that driver had to slam on his brakes in order to avoid being sideswiped by the VW. Luckily, the large semi-truck that was traveling behind that car was far enough back to realize the unfolding situation, and slowly came to a stop before ramming into all of them.

  Slowly, Samantha stepped out of the car. She wanted to see if there was any real damage done. But all she saw was the goopy mess that the eggs had left. She heard movement in the brush up above and turned to see an older man rushing towards her. “Are you all right?” he asked. Michelle and Rachael watched Samantha speak to him for a moment.

  Rachael was nervous. “Michelle, what do we do? Should we get out of the car?” But Michelle was still in shock. She could hear Rachael's voice, but it sounded like it was coming from far away.

  The man peered in through the open window. “Girls, are you ok?” Rachael nodded, but all Michelle did was look at him, her eyes as large as saucers. “What about you back there?” he asked. Michelle still felt like the man was talking to someone else, maybe somebody seated next to her. Before she knew it, two sturdy hands were pulling her out through the open car door. Once outside, Michelle noticed another figure looking down at them from the main road, but all she could make out was a shadowy silhouette, as the bright streetlight behind obscured all detail. It looked as if the figure itself was radiating beams of light, and she thought that maybe she was dead and an angel was coming for her. She slowly turned towards the older man, and seeing true concern in his eyes, she told him that she was all right, although she did bump her forehead. He suggested that they all walk up to the main road where there was more light so he could look at Michelle’s bruise, which they did. Under the streetlights, Michelle could see that Samantha’s hair and face were covered in wet yolk, and wondered if she had suffered the same. Rachael seemed to be in better shape than either of them, although she did have to take off her mermaid skirt in order to climb back up to the street. Luckily she was wearing boy shorts, so it didn't look too bad.

  The nice man looked to be about 55 years old. He was tall and wore a perfectly tailored wool suit. He told them that his name was Xander. Once he confirmed that the girls were, in fact, physically sound, he relaxed some, but at the same time he made sure to let them know that he was angry and very disappointed in their immature driving choices. “You could have all been killed, young ladies,” he scowled. He just couldn't understand why they would take such a chance for something that amounted to no more than mere child's play. “Do you have any idea how quickly a human life can be extinguished?” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that, in less than a heartbeat.”

  The girls apologized profusely, over and over again, and Michelle took it upon herself to take the blame. “It was really my fault. I was the one that encouraged Samantha to swerve over to the other side. It wasn't her. She's a great driver, really.” Xander wanted to call Samantha's parents, but she begged him not to. Michelle hoped that if she took the blame herself Samantha wouldn't get into as much trouble. Xander finally agreed that since they were all completely sober, and since the car had no real damage, that he wouldn’t call the police or Samantha's parents. He told the girls to stand there while he walked back to his car for a minute. He leaned into the window and it was obvious that he was talking to someone, probably whoever it was that Michelle had seen earlier. Michelle thought it was strange that this person had obviously seen what had happened, yet gotten back into the car rather than rushing to their aid. After a moment, Xander walked down the street to the semi-truck that had its engine still idling. He spoke to the driver, who proceeded to climb out from the cab and walk to the rear of the truck. And after a few more minutes, the girls heard the roar of a powerful engine, and watched as a large excavator slowly made its way off the semi-truck and headed in their direction. Xander pointed to where the VW was, and within about ten minutes the excavator appeared from the ravine, towing the little bug behind it.

  The girls couldn't thank Xander enough for letting them get a pass on something that could've turned out so much worse. And a few moments later, both the car and the semi truck were long gone. For Michelle, the next dilemma was what to tell her father when she walked through the front door of her home an hour and a half late. She knew all too well that he would be there, in the living room, sitting on the couch, wide awake, facing the door and staring right at her.

  Michelle did manage to send a text to her father letting him know that she was all right and on her way home, but she knew it wouldn’t placate the situation. When she arrived, both her parents were waiting up for her. It was obvious to Michelle that no amount of arguing or pleading was going to clear the state of affairs. And with that thought in mind, she didn’t raise any objections to her punishment. She was to be grounded for an entire week and was forbidden from using her cell phone. Michelle knew that she had disappointed her parents, and really did feel guilty about not telling them the entire truth. She only told them about the egging part, conveniently omitting the part where the car ran off the road after almost smashing into another vehicle, although she did conclude with honesty about going to the public carwash and helping Samantha wash down the VW.

  By the time Michelle cleaned up the horrible mess of eggs, makeup, and sweat, she had a horrendous headache. She glanced over at the clock and sighed at the numbers that read 3:10 AM. Her headache only got worse when she lay down, so she decided to sit up in bed and wait for the pain to subside. She thought about the dance, and about Tim, and of course about the mistake that could have killed them all. How stupid she thought to herself, to risk a life in order to throw foolish shells at 12-year-olds. Eventually, Michelle’s mind began to drift, and with her headache less severe she lay back down and managed to fall asleep. During that early morning she had the most strange and vivid dream that she could ever remember…

  In her dream, Michelle was standing on an unfamiliar seashore. It was a warm sunny day, with a bright yellow sun and white fluffy clouds passing along the bluest of blue skies. She could see the footprints of her bare feet stretching out a long way behind her. She was holding some sort of a pail or bucket, and began collecting shells that were strewn along the sand. Most of them were still closed and she tried prying a few open, but to her disappointment they were all empty. She then looked out across the water and saw gentle foamy waves in the distance, but the water in front of her feet was amazingly clear. She waded out and began picking up more shells and placing them into her pail. From the corner of her eye she saw a very large yellow shell, and decided to wade in deeper to reach it. She tried to pull it out of the sand, but it wouldn't budge. She knelt down on her knees in order to get a better grip, and she managed to pull it free from the sticky sand, but slipped backwards and fell head underwater. She panicked a bit, but then realized that the water was clear and sweet to the taste. She stood up and opened the palm of her hand, only to recognize that what she thought was a shell was not a shell at all, but rather a large starfish, which suddenly began to pulsate and shine. Then, the starfish disappeared in a flash of bright white light. Michelle immediately looked up at the sky to see a bright star pulsating with immense bright
ness. She said one word to herself, ‘pulsar’. She then turned to face away from the water, with the pail still in her hand. To the right of her feet, she saw an iron arrow stuck in the sand. Thinking that maybe it could be used to pry open the shells, she pulled it out of the sand. But just then, Michelle noticed a large armchair on the beach a few feet away. The chair looked very familiar, but she couldn't tell if anybody was sitting in it, so she decided to walk up and take a look. When she reached the chair she saw that it was empty, but upon closer inspection she observed a small pearl sitting perfectly in the middle of the worn out cushion.

  Michelle woke up with her hand stretched out in front of her, still reaching for that pearl in her dream.

  * * *

  About a month earlier…

  Michelle slammed the button on her alarm clock with her fist. She heard loud voices and at first she thought she might still be asleep. But as her eyes began to focus on the wood beam above her bed, it became clear that the voices were just her parents making a ruckus in the kitchen. Michelle was mature enough to understand that parents are people too, with problems of their own, so the occasional argument or slight raising of voices didn't really bother her. But she had hardly slept at all that night, staying up well past midnight trying to make up missed homework assignments. She hoped her parents weren’t arguing about her, because they had recently become unusually interested in her school progress. She wasn’t sure if it was because her older brother Toby had moved to Arizona for college, or if it had to do with her father getting voted onto the Town Council. Because after that their quiet little life had taken a change; some for the better, and some for the worse. Michelle looked over at the clock again, this time with her mind more awake and she realized that she must have hit the snooze button at least twice. It was definitely time to panic.

  Michelle glanced in the mirror, shrugged and grabbed her book bag. On her way down the stairs she heard the familiar sounds; yep, that was mom plopping the teapot down onto the range, and the annoying tinkling sound was her father playing with his key chain as he always does when he's feeling stressed. Her parents lowered their voices when they heard the stairs creak under Michelle's feet.

  “Morning Mom, Dad. What's going on?”

  Michelle's mother smiled from her cup of tea. “Morning baby. There’s still some hot water. Would you like a cup?”

  “What, you're going to pretend that I didn't hear everything you guys just said? Why is everybody so upset? Did somebody die or something?”

  “No, no. Nobody died, Michelle. I don't understand you kids today, always obsessed with morbid things.” Her father gave her a serious look from across the table, then closed his laptop and got up to leave, tucking it underneath his arm. “I'm off to the office. Michelle, do you want a ride to school?”

  The drive to school was quiet. Michelle conveniently crunched on her father's half-eaten toast from breakfast while staring at the road. She could feel the tiredness inching its way through every muscle of her body. She had to shake this off. What a night, she thought to herself. She had tried to make up almost three weeks worth of homework in one evening but had been forced to give up when the words in her notebook started dancing around off the pages. Most mornings she appreciated the redwood-lined road that led to the school, but this particular day she felt like she was in one of those old movies where you could see that the people in the car were not really moving, but instead it was a film of the passing scenery being projected on a large screen behind them. As she got out of the car, her father tried to explain that he didn’t have authority from the city to share any information as to what he and her mother had been discussing, and in fact he probably never should have told anyone about it this early. Michelle understood, but she thought her father was taking this whole Town Councilman thing a bit too seriously.

  As Michelle headed up the stairs of Meadow High School’s main building, she was about to enjoy some of the benefits of being the daughter of a newly elected Councilman. Everybody said hello to her now, even if they didn’t know her well. Michelle wasn't popular, but neither was she unpopular. It was difficult to gauge her rank, because there were definitely the trendy kids, and then there were definitely the unpopular kids that for some unknown and futile reason had ended up in that category. But Michelle was neither. She had her few friends, and she did the normal things like going to the movies and shopping at the mall. She was even invited to a party here and there, but all in all, she felt quite invisible. ‘No salt or pepper,’ as her great aunt Eranka would say. Michelle hadn’t had a boyfriend since the eighth grade, and although she told everybody that she had gone way past first base, the truth was a bit less exciting. Her great aunt had told her not to worry because she was just going through, for the lack of better words, the typical ugly phase, or the cocoon phase; the one before the beautiful butterfly emerges to see the light of day. Michelle didn't take the ‘ugly’ thing too seriously, since Eranka was from the old country and didn't speak English ‘too good’. And besides, judging from the pictures she actually looked a lot like Eranka, who back in her day had won Second Place in her village’s Beauty and Grace competition. As Michelle headed to her first-period classroom, she could hear many different voices greeting her. There was Eddie, who hadn't said a word to her since kindergarten, and Pia, who sat behind her in biology all last year without ever acknowledging her presence. And even Mrs. Howard, who had given her a B- in freshman English just because she didn't like her handwriting, was suddenly smiling at her.

  It was eight minutes till lunchtime, and Michelle couldn’t take her eyes off the clock. She could have sworn that the second hand was actually jumping counterclockwise before returning to its regular rotation. When the bell rang, Michelle practically flew out of the classroom. As she tried to make her way to her locker, somebody suddenly gave her a shove from behind. Not amused by this latest development, Michelle turned around and was ready to start in on whoever it might be. But it was only Sam, Michelle’s best friend and neighbor, without the annoying BFF title.

  “Wow, are we a little tired today?” Samantha commented. Michelle rolled her eyes.

  “Hey, you're lucky I didn't deck you right in the face.”

  “As tired as you look, I think the only thing you can deck right now is your head on a pillow,” Samantha teased.

  For whatever reason, a mistake had been made in Michelle’s schedule. She had wanted to study Italian for her foreign language, but the computer placed her in German, and although she had reluctantly settled into German class, right at the last minute someone dropped out of Italian and she had decided to go ahead and transfer. It was a struggle for her to make up so many missed assignments, but she was determined to catch up with the rest of the class.

  Staring into her Swiss Miss cocoa, Michelle was nodding off, even though Samantha was excitedly discussing the latest school events. It was something about trying out for the fall musical. But Michelle just didn’t have the time for any extra-curricular activities. She did love to dance, but she was by no means a pro, and she hadn't done it in a while. When her father began his campaign for Town Council earlier that year, the whole household went into an economic upheaval because he started working less hours at his regular job, and the idea of continuing any dance lessons while he took a considerable pay cut just didn't seem like a mature choice. Dance lessons were expensive.

  Time was passing like a whirlwind. It seemed like the school year had just begun and the Halloween decorations were already going up. Every year the town went all out, with people doing up their homes and storefronts. Even the trees along the highway had ghosts and ghouls hanging from their lower branches. It was a time-honored tradition that the younger children in elementary school and kindergarten would make them out of construction paper to decorate the roads, and the fire department would hang them. They made everybody smile, and at nighttime they actually did manage to scare a few people when the cars’ headlights landed on them in just the right angle.

&n
bsp; “Remember that time, when your classroom spent four days working on that giant paper ghost and you stayed up the whole night because you were worried that it would rain and ruin it?” Michelle’s father was reminiscing on the way to school one morning later on that week.

  “It did rain, Dad. Don't you remember?”

  “Michelle, that wasn’t rain, that was just morning dew. And anyway, we all agreed that it made it scarier with all the ink running down its face. You were so proud every time we drove past it.” Michelle was proud; she could even remember the large spider web she drew on the ghost, but now as she was looking at the decorations swinging from the branches she wasn’t thinking about Halloween. What she was really thinking about was what was happening at home, because since the morning of the argument her mom and dad had seemed nervous, and there was tension, invisible tension she felt every time she walked in on their conversation.

  “Dad,” Michelle asked, unsure of herself. “Are you and mom getting a divorce? I mean, not that it’s any of my business, but I was just wondering. I would be okay anyway.”

  Michelle’s father laughed nervously. “What on earth would make you think that, and no we are not.”

  Michelle was relieved; she didn’t want to be another sad statistic. “You guys are always whispering nowadays like you don't want me to know about something, and the other day you gave me money to go buy clothes. You never do that.” Her father promised that he and her mother would discuss the situation later on that evening.