Strange Days

by Constantine J. Singer

  She’s at the desk. She has a check-in with Julia in her role as English teacher in an hour, and Jordan’s supposed to show her what she’s completed. Poetry.

  Jordan likes poetry. She writes a lot—has a journal for her schoolwork that everybody sees, but has another one, too, that she keeps tucked under a hidden bottom in her jewelry box—an early gift from Grandma Bev. “A girl needs her secrets,” the note had said.

  Thinking about the note makes her angry. She shouldn’t have to keep secrets. She pictures her mother, her father, Julia, Dr. Halliday, all the people who would be horrified to learn her truths.

  She thinks about Will, who knows them all already and loves her anyway.

  She returns her focus to the notebook in front of her. What she’s writing now is for school, which is annoying, but it’s a poem, which Jordan enjoys.

  It’s a place where the Truth Will Out, but only to those who know how to see it.

  Since this poem is for school, not just for her, she’s writing it in in her “public” journal where she edits as she writes, false starts that hitch up, editing her content to fit what Julia will accept.

  How her mom will see it.

  The assignment: Poetry in the modernist style. Eliot, Cummings, Dickinson, Yeats. Allusion, compression, fragmentation, imagery, fractured meter.

  Music filters in from the Central Hall. The sound swims into Jordan’s ears, muffled and strange to me. She doesn’t recognize it, assumes it’s from Samantha’s room—she regularly plays music with the door open when Dad and Mom aren’t in the residence.

  The music grates on her. Anxiety swells. Jordan is afraid.

  Abaddon the Destroyer is here, preparing to end us. The conversation with her mom didn’t put her mind at rest. Instead she’s more afraid; more sure that her father will not keep the world safe.

  More sure that defending us from Abaddon will fall to others more willing than her father.

  “Alex!” she calls out into the hall. She’s calling one of the Secret Service detail, a big black guy who Jordan likes more than she likes the other ones. It’s strange hearing her call my name.

  “What’s up, Jordan?” Alex pokes his head into the doorway.

  Jordan smiles through her fear. “Can you turn off Samantha’s music and then bind and gag her for me?”

  He wrinkles his face likes he’s thinking about it, then: “Don’t think that’s in my job description, kid.” Then more brightly: “But I can teach you how to bind and gag someone properly so you’ll be able to better handle your own business in the future?”

  She giggles. “Fine. I’ll deal with it myself.” Feeling safer having talked with him.

  He smiles, steps back from the doorway. She watches him go, feeling sad. Alone again.

  The poem is half complete in front of us. Jordan’s handwriting is uneven. The start of the poem is the loopy girlish cursive she uses for her public work, but as it’s continued, it’s grown more real, more felt. She’s transitioned to her private scrawl, a blocky print that has only been seen by Grandma Bev and Will.

  She rips the page neatly out of her journal, begins to rewrite.

  She edits as she goes, pushing the pen across the paper in a single smooth motion for each line. The words don’t form fully in her mind before she writes—inside, she and I are both reading them as they appear like they’re new to us.

  Abigail on the Day of Her Becoming

  In Carmel, again, it is the tailing end of day.

  The sun falls again, rolled behind the fields of grain,

  The pigs, slopped, are quiet.

  Inside I sit, dine on caked dates, raisins shriveled by exposure reduced to sweetness and grit,

  And wait, as I do,

  For the coming demon, and on men.

  On Nabal, the husband, The Fool, alit, enflamed, building rage.

  David, the boy, the King, hungry, near, his shield may

  Protect us all.

  For Abaddon, whose day

  has come.

  She’s filled with Bible stories. My family never spent much time in church, so I don’t know anything about it beyond what Jordan’s shared with me in her thoughts. To her, the stories are real, almost like family legends. Abigail is married to Nabal. Nabal is rich but bad and Abigail has dealt with it for years, but when Nabal turns his back on King David, whose people are hungry in the desert, she betrays her husband, steals his food, and delivers it to David because she knows it’s the right thing to do.

  Jordan identifies with Abigail, imagines her looking like Grandma Bev in her wedding pictures. As she’s been writing the poem, an idea has solidified in her mind:

  Her father is Nabal. She is Abigail. She bides her time, waiting for the right moment to take a stand, to expose herself to them as she really is. She suspects the time is now. Abaddon has risen. He is stealing souls, preparing to destroy the world and Nabal does nothing but rage and watch his sheep and worry that David might have a better weapon.

  Jordan, the modern-day Abigail, will tell the truth to the world, about Abaddon and about herself.

  She leans back, looks up at the ceiling. The music has stopped, which makes this easier. She leans forward again, puts the pen to paper:

  Nabal, a fool, husband to sheep, which he sees,

  to me who lives life outside his vision. A womb, my breasts, my service have disguised me.

  Until now;

  Abaddon is rising.

  The Fool, my husband, the shepherd king, has denied Great David, our strength,

  kept his sheep as he shed his honor.

  But Tonight,

  As I secrete the Fool’s stores, date cakes, shriveled raisins, sheep and grain, a river of sustenance guided by me across the dead plains of home to fill,

  Sustain,

  The glory of David, tool-maker, slayer of monsters and giants,

  His sword, our wisp-hope against Abaddon, destroyer.

  I am revealed.

  And Carmel has never seen the likes of me.

  She stops. We read it. She likes it, feels it’s pretty good. It is good. I think about the songs I’ve written, and compared to her poem they seem dumb.

  Jordan hesitates. She’s worried. It’s personal, too revealing. Maybe not something she should share with Julia or her sisters. They may see her truth too soon. Jordan is careful when she pulls the poem from her notebook, folds it twice, sets it aside to be placed in her personal journal.

  She will be Abigail, but only when the time is right. For the first time since I’ve been gliding her, Jordan closes her eyes to pray.

  “My God, my creator, if it be your will, let me be your Abigail. Give me a sign and I will go public about Abaddon and I will stop at nothing to get your message out.” Her words are slow, precise, complete in her mind up until this point, when she falters. “If that is not your will . . .” She pauses, but she can’t stop the thoughts that follow it inside: I’ll know you aren’t real, or that you don’t care. Then: “Give me a sign.”

  When I come out, Paul’s looking at me funny.

  “What?” My hands start to sweat because all I can think of is that he somehow saw me loitering around the Jungle.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t even tell me,” he says. He sounds hurt, but I don’t know what he’s hurt about. Probably not the Jungle, which is a relief.

  “Tell you what?”

  He cocks his head at me. “Your birthday?”

  He seems really concerned. My birthday’s not until March 30. “What about it?” There’s a clock/calendar above the dictation microphone. I strain my eyes to read it. “Oh.”

  It’s March 28 today. My birthday’s in two days. I shrug. “It’s no big deal.”

  He narrows his eyes and examines me. I feel naked in my suit. “Really?”

  No. Not really. It’s the
sixth anniversary of Pete’s death and it’s my first birthday since my parents were killed. It is a big deal, but I don’t want it to be a big deal for anybody but me. It’s my big deal. “Yeah. It’s not a thing.”

  He keeps looking at me, but then nods his head, smiles brightly. “Alright. No big deal.”

  I slide off the couch and he slides on. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

  He closes his eyes. “No problem.” And then he’s gone.

  I dictate as best I can, but my mind’s not on it. I keep seeing my dad’s face from when I ran from him at Julio’s school. I see my mom on the kitchen floor.

  I see Pete from the picture in the Long Hall.

  By the time Paul comes back, I’ve made up my mind. If that other path through the Jungle is mine, then I’m going to take it. Backward.

  Tonight, I’m going home.

  Thirty-One

  I don’t know how I’m going to get to the glide rooms without people seeing me, but I know the first part of the plan is to get Paul to go away. When we get back to the room, I lie down on the bed and tell him that I’m too tired to do anything. He doesn’t really believe me, but he gives in. He gets his guitar from the room and leaves me to myself.

  When he’s safely gone, I peek out into the hallway. It’s empty. The glide rooms are on the other side of the commons and I still can’t think of a good excuse to be going over there if anybody sees me, so instead I walk into the commons acting like that’s where I want to be.

  It’s empty. I cut across to the glide hall as fast as I can, but just as I’m stepping into the hallway, I hear a door open behind me. I press myself against the wall, trying to stay out of sight of whoever it is that’s walked in.

  I hold my breath. My heart is thudding hard. Nobody’s ever said I shouldn’t do this, but there’s no doubt I’m not supposed to glide on my own time.

  The TV turns on. I peek around the corner to see who it is just as Damon stands up from the couch and turns to walk to the snacks galley.

  I flatten myself back against the wall, watch him go.

  He doesn’t see me.

  While his back is turned, I edge farther into the hallway, out of sight, but then something I hear on the TV stops me—they’re talking about Jordan.

  “ . . . made her political debut today in Des Moines, Iowa, by leading a two-day working congress tasked with developing the scope and master plan for the White House’s More to Life, America values education program.”

  Des Moines. That’s where she met Will. She just met Will yesterday.

  Tonight is when she’s going to talk to Grandma Bev and reach out to him.

  It’s happening. “Go Jordan,” I whisper to nobody in particular.

  Damon is crossing back to the couch, so I slip farther down the hall, to the last room, the one farthest away from the commons, and step inside. I don’t turn on the lights, and the room is nearly pitch black except for the square of light from the window on the door. I lie down on the couch without getting into a glide suit. I don’t imagine I’ll be down long, and it seems better to be a little out of breath than to have to explain an extra used glide suit. I don’t know what the penalties for what I’m doing are, but my guess is that they won’t be much worse for doing it in jeans.

  I close my eyes and dip down past the Jungle of Guitars until I see the second path. My path. I ride onto it. There’s a noisy direction in front of me and I’m pretty sure that’s my future. I’m a little bit tempted, but I resist. Instead I picture myself turning around. The path I’m facing now is narrow and bright. I slide down along it.

  Darkness. Light.

  On the floor of the living room. It’s dark outside and I’m in my pajamas. They’ve got Thomas on them. I can see my hands in front of me, holding a plate with half a concha on it. The concha comes from the panaderia on Sunset and it’s my favorite thing in the world. I’m not happy, though. I’m mad.

  At Pete, who’s next to me on the floor. We’re watching George Lopez and I don’t want to be watching George Lopez. I want to watch Toy Story again.

  “Pete’s piece is bigger than mine.”

  I look up from my piece of concha to Pete. He’s ignoring me. His half is nearly gone and I suddenly feel how urgent the situation is. If I don’t get some of Pete’s RIGHT NOW, I’m not ever ever going to get any more and it’ll be gone and I’ll only have my half.

  I feel myself taking in a breath to say it again louder.

  “Don’t!” I think it as hard as I can, but five-year-old me doesn’t listen. Doesn’t even know I’m here. I’m trapped in my own life. A passenger, just like Paul said.

  Time Zombie.

  “Mama, Pete’s eating it all!” I shriek. “Tell him to give me more. He got more than me.”

  “Shut. Up,” Pete tells me. “I can’t hear.”

  “Mooooommmmmmmmmmmm!” Things are unfair. My eyes start to burn.

  I want to make myself stop. I know how this plays out, but there’s nothing I can do. I’ve already done it.

  Then Pete’s foot catches me in the side, knocking me over. My piece goes flying onto the floor. “You haven’t even touched yours, you little brat.”

  Benny sees the food on the floor. I can get to it before he does but I don’t. Instead I watch while mom’s little dog grabs it.

  My life is over. Nothing is okay. I’m sobbing.

  DON’T BE SUCH A LITTLE BRAT!

  I think it, but I can’t do anything. I’m watching myself and all I can think is how stupid I am. I’m five. Pete’s thirteen. He’s going to be dead in seven years and I’m going to spend almost all of it as a whiny little brat.

  I can’t watch any more. I pull back, ride forward. As I ride, I realize I can tell mostly what I’m passing. It’s like fast-forwarding on a DVD—flashes of scenes, totally out of context but that I recognize enough to tell me where I am.

  A teacher from sixth grade. A stray dog I walked past on my way to get lunch in middle school. My mom and me washing Pete’s plate. Xeon laughing in the alley near the park.

  Julio giving me a burrito at his school.

  I stop. Dark. Light.

  “But the letter,” I remind him, and I wave it at him.

  “You wrote it, man!”

  “The picture of me!” I shout at Beems. “I didn’t do that!”

  He shrugs and shakes his head. “I don’t know what you did or didn’t do, man, but you need help.”

  My dad is closing in.

  DAD!

  I see him through the glass in the doors.

  I’M SORRY, DAD.

  I’M SAVING THE WORLD, DAD.

  I feel my body preparing to run. My legs stabilize under me. My body begins to turn. My heart breaks.

  NO!!! DON’T GO HOME, DAD! STAY AWAY!! KEEP MOM AWAY!!!

  But nothing changes. Nothing stops.

  My dad falls out of my field of vision, lost behind me as I push out through the bushes and onto the road.

  “Alex!” my dad calls after me as I run.

  It’s the last thing I hear before I surface.

  When I come to, my heart’s racing and I’m drenched in sweat. Even so, I keep my eyes closed for a while. I don’t want to open them.

  For bare moments, I’m able to pretend that everybody’s still alive.

  But then I can’t pretend anymore and I open my eyes. The glide room is completely dark. I don’t know how long I was down, so I don’t know what time it is. If I glided through dinner, then everybody’s going to be in the commons when I come out.

  I get off the couch and open the hallway door as quietly as I can, then make my way to the end of the hallway where I can see a little bit better.

  I don’t see anybody.

  A little closer.

  Nothing.

  I step into the commons just as Corina is com
ing in from the patio doorway.

  “Hey,” she says, looking at me. “Where were you?”

  My heart thuds in my chest. My fingers tingle, but I don’t show anything. Instead, I shrug. “Didn’t feel like eating.”

  She smiles. I like her smile and while she’s smiling I almost forget that I’ve got no way to explain why I’m coming out of the glide hallway.

  But she doesn’t ask me why I’m there. Instead: “You need to talk about it?”

  I shake my head, try to smile back to her. “Nah, just not feeling well. I think I’m gonna go to bed.” I start toward the dorm hall.

  “Wait up.” I stop and she crosses the room to me. When she gets to me, she hugs me, pulls me against her.

  I hug her back, breathing deep to get more of her smell, and for a moment I forget I’m covered in sweat. I even forget why I was sad.

  When she lets me go, she touches my face. “You ever do want to talk, you know where I am, right?”

  I nod. “Yeah, I’m okay.” I can only feel her hand on my cheek. Everything else is gone. I’ve been watching Corina from across tables and stuff, and listening to her, and talking with her, but with it there’s been something else, something scary strong and different from anything I’ve ever felt before with girls I went for. Before, I’ve always felt in charge, like I was the one making the decisions, but right now I don’t even feel fully in control of my own mouth, much less the conversation.

  “You sure?”

  I flash on Jordan, copying Will’s information off the contact list, pursuing him through Grandma Bev. Jordan tells Will things. She lets him see her . . . but the thought crumbles under Corina’s questioning eyes. I’m ridiculous. She’s smart, I’m fooling myself. I pull away. “I’m gonna go to bed.”

  She takes her hand back and there’s a look on her face when she does it—like she’s done something wrong. “Sorry.” Then: “You may be sick, but you also look like you need to not be alone in your room right now.”

  I don’t want to be alone in my room, but being here, with her, is asking a lot right now. “I’m good.” I try and look up from the floor, but it’s harder than I expect. When our eyes do meet: “Thanks.”