Season of Waiting

by Jim Christopher

  Wes’s voice carried from behind the trees. “Well, make sure the kid fixes that too.”

  Caleb laughed, but not at his son’s wit. The thought of being well again titillated him, filled him with energy. After the pointless cancer treatments, the fuss and worry, the trouble he’d created getting to Utopia, Caleb’s new purpose was an hour away. He needed to get to the other side of his sickness. There was so much to undo now. The shame of his actions forced a grimace on his face. He longed for his chance to make things right again.

  He closed his eyes and raised his face to the sun. The air was still, warm enough that he felt it on his skin. Without the sunlight on his face, Caleb wouldn’t know where he stopped and everything else began.

  A sound came soft to him, a perturbation through the air like a growing sigh. Caleb opened his eyes. In the sky, beneath the sun, distant dark wisps reached up over the tops of the trees. They flowed like currents of water, cresting and breaking, then fell apart and re-formed in billows of heavy smoke.

  Caleb felt a hand on his back. Wes. His son asked, “Ready to go, then? First day of the rest of your life, and all?”

  “I am, son!” He raised a hand, pointing above the trees. “You see that? I think those are the bees. I guess they’re swarming?”

  Wes took his hand back, shielding his eyes from the sun, squinting. He shook his head. “Nah, I don’t see ’em, Pop.” He turned and moved toward the truck. “C’mon, let’s finish this thing.”

  Caleb followed his son, veering off to the passenger side of the truck. He looked back over the trees at the ebb and flow of shadows in the sky. The trees around the apiary were close, hiding the distance to the blob. The swarm would be near the horizon. Caleb blinked at his confusion, trying to process how a swarm so large could form, how it could appear so fluid.

  He heard the truck door open. He turned to his son. “You don’t see that?”

  Wes stopped, turning back. Caleb gestured up above the treetops behind him. Wes followed his hand into the sky, frowning.

  “Look there, way in the distance. They’re swarming or something.”

  Wes scanned the sky for a moment and shrugged. “Guess you’re seeing shit now too, Pop,” he laughed. He turned toward the cab and hauled himself into the driver’s seat.

  Caleb took one last gander. The movements were soothing and steady. Natural. Beautiful. His contentment spread to the smile on his face. He placed a hand on the door latch as his right ear crackled. His grin faded as vibrations bloomed in his skull. Caleb braced both hands against the truck before the voice arrived.

  Caleb.

  His grip tightened on the door handle as the voice shook him.

  This is it, you’re almost done.

  Caleb breathed through a deep rattle as the voice boomed through him. The pressure in his head was tolerable, the compulsion that came with it manageable. Around the voice, Caleb found something surprising. Rage. Anger at the abandonment. The inattention that had led him and his son to such awful action. All of it was unnecessary.

  “Where the fuck have you been? We’ve been struggling here!” Caleb spit. He kept his voice to a harsh whisper.

  And yet, here you are, right where you need to be. You’re doing fine. Everything is coming into place. You’re here, the boy is here. It’s working itself out.

  “Working itself out? Are you fucking kidding me!” His voice rose. He opened his eyes, finding his son’s worried face through the window. Caleb turned away, his voice rasping, “Do you have any idea what the hell we’ve had to do in the last twenty-four hours?”

  Uh … no, not really. But you seem okay.

  “Where have you been? Do you have better shit to do? Is that it!”

  Caleb, what is this? Where is this anger coming from?

  Caleb turned his head skyward, screaming, “You want to know why I’m angry?”

  Yeah, I do. Did Wes do something?

  “Wes did what he had to! I’m pissed because you can’t be bothered to help us!”

  Oh, I see. You’re upset that this wasn’t all easy-peasy.

  “No! I’m confused that we keep finding so much trouble! You should be able to help us with this stuff! The roadblock? The police at the motel? And that poor guy locked up in the barn! We could have avoided it all. Instead, we keep hurting people. You said I have a bigger purpose!”

  That’s right, Caleb. You have a significant role to play in this universe. In how it plays out for everyone.

  Frustration cramped in his leg, and Caleb stomped at the dirt, sending up a cloud of dust. “Then why is this so damned difficult! Why did I have to steal to get here? Why is that injured man cuffed in the barn outside of town?”

  Caleb, all I can say is that things are moving as they should. I’m sorry I can’t explain it better for you or make you more comfortable with it all.

  Caleb sucked in a rattling breath. Through clenched teeth, he asked, “But why did you disappear on us? On me?”

  Nothing filled his dead ear. Caleb used the space to calm himself before continuing. “Look, I’m not asking you to make things easy, okay? But it would help me if I knew you’re here, that you haven’t abandoned me in …” His voice trailed off as he gestured broadly to the Texas scrub country.

  The sound of the truck door opening pulled Caleb’s attention around. His son stood on the other side of the truck bed, eyes wide, concerned. “What is it?” he pleaded. “The voice?”

  That’s fair. I apologize, Caleb.

  Caleb processed the words, nodding. “When this … all of this … when it’s all over, are you going to leave me alone?”

  Is that what you want?

  Caleb closed his eyes. Was that what he wanted? Return to the banality of merely existing in the moment? Losing this experience and connection to everything around him? He’d cut off an arm as soon as abandon this extraordinary perception.

  “Yes.” The sound of his own voice surprised him. And then it didn’t. This sense wasn’t one he governed. The limb wasn’t his, and he would never control it. “Yes, if I can fulfill this purpose without you in my head, that’s what I want.” Caleb stepped toward the truck, reaching for the door handle. The throb of the voice froze him.

  Then yes, when this is over, I’ll leave you.

  “Good. I want to fix everything you made us do to get here.”

  I didn’t make you do anything. You made your own choices.

  Caleb closed his eyes, his other hand finding the truck to steady himself. He waited for a long moment, not speaking, hearing just the throb of his own heartbeat in his head. Did the voice expect a response? What could he say to that?

  Caleb?

  He opened his eyes, sighing through his frustration. “What?”

  Are you ready to fulfill your purpose?

  He scoffed. “Of course I am. I’ve come this far. I’m seeing this through to the end.” Caleb opened the door to the truck.

  Good. Don’t forget the gun.

  Chapter 51

  Wes

  Wes looked across the cab. Dad was standing outside, waiting for something. Maybe he was having trouble with the door of the truck?

  “Oh sorry, hang on, Pop.” Wes pulled on the latch, hearing it click. Then Pop leaned against the door, pushing it closed again. “Dad, back off, let me open the …”

  A chill froze Wes. Pop’s face spasmed, his right eye slamming shut and his mouth twitching into a nasty sneer. Wes recognized it—the tics that came when Pop heard the voice. The terror melted into elation.

  Dad spun away from the window. His hands chopped through the air as he started shouting. Screaming, incoherent. Something was wrong.

  Wes bolted from the seat, throwing open his door and moving around the truck bed. Pop stood a dozen feet from the truck, his face up, hollering gibberish into the sky.

  “Jesus! Are you okay?”

  Dad turned to look at him. His eyes were stark and narrow. His face wrenched in a sco
wl, skin darkening in a flush of anger. He hissed at Wes. Not words. Not even syllables. Just feral sounds.

  “Dad!” Wes insisted. “Is it the voice? What’s the matter?”

  His dad grunted something further, his face turning to the sky. He stomped back to the truck, slamming his hands against the passenger-side window.

  Wes ran around the truck to him. He heard his father’s phlegmy lungs heaving air in and out of his broken body. Pop leaned his head against the truck window, seeming to catch his breath for a moment. Wes reached out, wanting to take his hand. Before he could, Pop opened his door.

  “Christ, Dad! Are you all right?”

  Dad stopped, holding the door open a few inches. “What?” he rasped. Dad’s voice was thin, hesitant.

  “I asked if you’re okay.”

  Pop didn’t respond. He stood still as stone.

  “Hey, Pop?” Wes grabbed his father’s shoulder, giving him a shake. Dad’s grip on the truck door supported his frail form. Wes pried him away from the truck and then regretted it. Pop’s hands fell limp. He spun into his son, eyes dilated and unfocused. His mouth hung open, a thin line of spittle hanging from the thickest part of his lip. His legs crumpled beneath him, bringing him hard toward the ground. Wes caught him at the waist, easing him the last few inches to the earth.

  Wes hovered. He waited for Pop to move, twitch. Fucking breathe. Instead, his father’s eyes stared past him into the sky. His body relaxed against the ground, one leg twisted beneath him. His arms splayed to the side as if he were performing some macabre dance. Wes listened, watched. No part of him moved. He was still far too long.

  Was he dead? Wes’s eyes flitted across the apiary, retracing his dad’s steps as though he’d dropped a clue somewhere to explain everything. Dad had stood by the truck, alive, a moment ago. And now he lay prone in the dirt at Wes’s feet. Could it have happened? Just now? So close to the win?

  He knelt over his father. Memories of the accident at the greasy spoon came rushing back. Dad had moved then. He’d spoken. Cried. Wes moved his hands over Pop’s face and chest, unsure of what to do. “No, no,” Wes howled, “not like this, come on!” He took his father’s shirt in his hands and gave him a throttle, hoping to thrust the life back into him. Dad’s limp form flopped inside of the loose shirt.

  “No, no, no!” Wes screamed. They were just leaving! They were about to see the boy! They only needed another hour! He released the crimped shirt and stood, his hands finding the sides of his head and clenching mounds of his hair. Wes turned away, exploding his frustration in a violent bellow that scorched his throat and rattled his vision.

  How could they have come so far, guided by God, only to fall now? Was this a cosmic joke? A fucking game with his family as the pawns?

  The sting of tears came to his eyes. The world blurred around him. Wes had no control over it. No control over what was happening to his father. No way to help. To fix it. To back up, move sooner, skip the nap, stay in town. The possibilities flipped through his mind. They agonized and tantalized him with what-ifs and should-haves. He hated being this helpless. He hated himself. Who did he think he was? A millennial apostle? Wes’s knees hit the ground, followed by his palms. He sucked in a dusty breath, his chest exploding and collapsing toward hyperventilation.

  The questions came like a battering ram. When had he fucked it up? Had he pushed Pop too hard? Should they have waited at the diner? Should they have kept driving in Junction? What if they had spoken with Irene before they left, what would have happened? The possibilities grew. The regrets multiplied. Wes’s breath heaved faster, but no air filled his lungs. Shimmers appeared at the edge of his vision. A tingle reached from his chest into his legs, where his muscles began to shake.

  A percussive snap derailed the freight train running through his head. Wes turned to the sound, his torso following until he fell onto his backside. He stared to the ground where his dad’s body had been. It was empty. Dad was gone.

  Chapter 52

  Caleb

  His anger tempered to confusion. “What?” Caleb snapped. “Why would I need the gun?” The sun grew blistering suddenly. Sweat worked its way down his face, and he swiped it away with the heel of his unbraced hand.

  To complete your purpose.

  Caleb scanned the hillside, as if an explanation were hiding in the scrub. “I … I don’t understand. We’re heading to Emerson now. Let me get healed, and then I can do what you need me to do. Hold your horse for another hour or two.”

  His head rattled. The voice moved in him. Impatient. Unable to rest.

  You don’t have another two hours, Caleb. You need to make this a priority, or it won’t happen.

  How could something omnipotent be so obtuse? Caleb pleaded, exasperated. “We’re leaving now, Emerson will cure me, and then we can prevent that … that …”

  The end of everyone and everything?

  “Yeah, that!” Caleb snubbed. “Give us a damned minute to do the first thing first. I can’t help you if I die from cancer, can I?”

  That’s what I’m saying. You will die, Caleb. You will die today. In less than two hours. If you want to come through for me, the time is now. There is no later. Not for you.

  Caleb stopped moving. The truck door lilted closed. It clicked in front of him as his mind made sense of the voice’s words. “But the boy ... Emerson,” Caleb mumbled. The annoyance dissolved into his gut, the heat of his impatience tempering to a chill. “We came all this way so Emerson could heal me.”

  His son’s face appeared in the window. Wes said something he couldn’t process. Caleb turned away. His voice assertive, Caleb sputtered, “No! We did awful things to get to the boy! To cure my cancer!”

  What? No, Caleb. No, I’m sorry. That isn’t why you’re here.

  A hole formed in his chest. A familiar void. Caleb recognized the shape of it. The tender edges. The scarring left behind as the tangled roots of hope ripped out of him.

  You’re not here for salvation. You’re here to act. To close that cosmic gap before your cancer kills you.

  The void in him opened. Became a chasm. Separating Caleb from his petulant dreams of a longer life. Of knowing a sober and responsible Wes. Of living vicariously through Irene’s success. Of making right all the things he’d set wrong. He felt it slip away, a treasured gift morphing into a malicious prank.

  His lungs shook as Caleb inhaled, his body revolting against the voice’s words. The world blurred beyond his tears. His jaw panged from the pressure of clenching teeth. “That’s not right,” Caleb spit. He shoved away from the truck. The apiary spun around him as his eyes scoured for something on which to focus. “That can’t be right!”

  I’m afraid it is, Caleb. I am sorry if you thought you would live through this, but it’s not possible. It never was.

  “But why!” Caleb yelled. His face turned to the sky, to the empty pale blue, and he filled it with his scream. “Why would you let me think I was going to live!”

  Caleb, I never said that. I offered you a purpose. That’s what you wanted, and it’s all I’m able to give you.

  Wes came at him, frantic. “Jesus, Dad! Are you okay?” Caleb looked back to the truck. Wes was out of the cab, his mouth and eyes agape with worry.

  “Not now, son,” Caleb scolded. He turned his attention back to the endless Texas sky. Searching. Wanting the face of the voice. To grab its throat and throw it to the ground. Rage replaced his blood, thrashing through his good ear, building pressure through his body, a vise closing around him. Fists clenched. They pounded on the truck window. His voice exploded into the air, “Explain yourself, you manipulative shit!”

  I can do that.

  The apiary shimmered. The grid of hives unfolded into a cube. Caleb leaned into the truck, trying to keep his balance as the world split open around him. The chassis of the truck bent toward him, away from him. Caleb kept his eyes locked on the center of the window. A glint of light, an indirect reflection of
the sun at the center of the kaleidoscope forming around him. The sky’s reflection in the window expanded in directions Caleb couldn’t name. He focused. On the pinpoint of light in the reflection. On his breathing. He fought to stay inside his body.

  Let go.

  “What?” he asked. It came out in a tight whisper as Caleb tried to breathe through the experience.

  I need you to let go, Caleb. Let me pull you out of this moment.

  Caleb resisted. His mind pushed against the voice. Tried to force it out of his ear. But the compulsion hit his head like bullets: act; choose; let go. The gleam in the window expanded, along with the sky, the ground. The scratches in the truck’s body panel grew to canyons. The wide sky shrank to a speck. His consciousness exploded against the moment.

  Caleb didn’t want to see this. He didn’t want to explore possibilities, to be aware of every atomic detail around him. He wanted a simple answer. Why? Why wouldn’t he live?

  I don’t know, Caleb. I can’t help you with that. I just know it won’t happen.

  Anger should have flooded him, but Caleb felt nothing. The dimensions twisted around him, and his feelings did the same. He was neither peaceful nor belligerent here. He merely existed, but he wanted so much more. To rage. Scream. Destroy this moment and all others in a seething tantrum.

  Why was he here? What was the point?

  I realize we haven’t communicated effectively. This thing we’re doing now—being able to talk like this—it’s new to me. That’s not an excuse. The stakes are too high for the imprecision of language. It’s time I show you. Explicitly.

  The moment collapsed. The universe passed through him as Caleb stared into the brilliance of countless burning stars. He recognized this space. The familiarity should have shocked him, but Caleb felt nothing. The boundless light of this realm where every possibility floated alongside the others. This was where he experienced the strange vertigo of the empty tear. The void where choices no longer existed. The end of everyone, and everything.