Read Online Wide Blue Yonder by Jean Thompson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jean Thompson
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Times we feel we hardly have room to breathe freely, let alone relax, clear our minds, and focus on what’s important to us. For the next hour I’d like you to join me in a journey toward harmony and greater self-knowledge. Remember, you are not alone.” The angels sang a little riff. “When the world swirls with formless chaos, when fears and troubles mount, remember that forces for peace and understanding are all around you. You are a cell in the body of God. You are a cell in the body of God.” The words echoed and reechoed. The angels were going nuts. “You are a cell in the body of God. You are a cell in the—”
Rolando punched the eject. New Age crap. Great production values, feel-good bullshit for people whose biggest problem was how to pay for their tennis club membership. Man, he was glad he lifted their car. He should go back and burn their house down so they’d get a feel for what real trouble was. Real was his nose twice broken, so much for breathing freely. Real was the tattoo on his right shoulder, a snake coiling around a rose whose petals dripped blood. Real was a lifetime of jobs like the one at Planet Chicken, clearing away half-chewed lettuce and cigarettes put out in coffee cups and worse. Real was the deck stacked against him since before he was born. If there was such a thing as the body of God, then he was an abscess, a tumor, a stinking boil.
This was how the anger came over him, all at once in a black wave. Once he reached his own neighborhood he parked the cartwo blocks away and slipped inside the darkened house where his mother slept. His duffle was already packed. He took the roll of money from its hiding place, also the gun he dared some fool to make him use. Then he was gone for good. He pulled away with as much speed and noise as he could muscle out of the engine and hit the freeway, heading east.
Part Two
July
Global Warming
S omething was wrong with the hot. It kept getting more. There were places like Texas that you expected to crisp up every summer. But this was different. Cities far up north zoomed into the nineties. Out east it quit raining. There were serious charts that showed the rainfall deficits, nine, ten, fifteen inches. Yellow patches crawled across the map; they meant drought. It was the worst one this century. Or maybe second worst. Scientists had measured the polar ice caps and the glaciers in Alaska. There was no doubt about it. Everything was melting.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Local Forecast watched the bubble of hot air floating over You Are Here. Every day the bubble grew a little larger. He could feel the weight of it. All the folded places of his body stuck together. The thermometer outside the kitchen window rode a rocket. Fat Cat stretched out on the floor by the fan. You could have tied it in a knot. All afternoon the big yellow sun beat beat beat against the window shades. The air slowed down to nothing.
Man In A Suit said, drink plenty of fluids, limit exertion, wear comfortable, light-colored clothing, avoid alcoholic beverages. He did all that. It wasn’t enough. It just got hotter. He filled dishes of water for the exhausted birds. He ran bathwater and paddled around in the tub until his hands got pruney. In Chicago the power kept failing. He didn’t like to think about things like that. He imagined giant wheels and pistons grinding to a stop, electricity leaking out of the long black wires. Everything was breaking. What if the water was next?
It was the Year Of Our Lord Nineteen Ninety-Nine. Something big and bad was coming.
The grass was turning yellow. He dribbled the hose on it but he wasn’t rain, he didn’t do it any good. Here and there they got a thunderstorm, then the sky shriveled up. He worried about the farmers. If the farmers didn’t get rain, they couldn’t grow food. That meant hard times. People going hungry, starving, as the oceans rose and covered up Washington, New Orleans, Los
Rolando punched the eject. New Age crap. Great production values, feel-good bullshit for people whose biggest problem was how to pay for their tennis club membership. Man, he was glad he lifted their car. He should go back and burn their house down so they’d get a feel for what real trouble was. Real was his nose twice broken, so much for breathing freely. Real was the tattoo on his right shoulder, a snake coiling around a rose whose petals dripped blood. Real was a lifetime of jobs like the one at Planet Chicken, clearing away half-chewed lettuce and cigarettes put out in coffee cups and worse. Real was the deck stacked against him since before he was born. If there was such a thing as the body of God, then he was an abscess, a tumor, a stinking boil.
This was how the anger came over him, all at once in a black wave. Once he reached his own neighborhood he parked the cartwo blocks away and slipped inside the darkened house where his mother slept. His duffle was already packed. He took the roll of money from its hiding place, also the gun he dared some fool to make him use. Then he was gone for good. He pulled away with as much speed and noise as he could muscle out of the engine and hit the freeway, heading east.
Part Two
July
Global Warming
S omething was wrong with the hot. It kept getting more. There were places like Texas that you expected to crisp up every summer. But this was different. Cities far up north zoomed into the nineties. Out east it quit raining. There were serious charts that showed the rainfall deficits, nine, ten, fifteen inches. Yellow patches crawled across the map; they meant drought. It was the worst one this century. Or maybe second worst. Scientists had measured the polar ice caps and the glaciers in Alaska. There was no doubt about it. Everything was melting.
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
Local Forecast watched the bubble of hot air floating over You Are Here. Every day the bubble grew a little larger. He could feel the weight of it. All the folded places of his body stuck together. The thermometer outside the kitchen window rode a rocket. Fat Cat stretched out on the floor by the fan. You could have tied it in a knot. All afternoon the big yellow sun beat beat beat against the window shades. The air slowed down to nothing.
Man In A Suit said, drink plenty of fluids, limit exertion, wear comfortable, light-colored clothing, avoid alcoholic beverages. He did all that. It wasn’t enough. It just got hotter. He filled dishes of water for the exhausted birds. He ran bathwater and paddled around in the tub until his hands got pruney. In Chicago the power kept failing. He didn’t like to think about things like that. He imagined giant wheels and pistons grinding to a stop, electricity leaking out of the long black wires. Everything was breaking. What if the water was next?
It was the Year Of Our Lord Nineteen Ninety-Nine. Something big and bad was coming.
The grass was turning yellow. He dribbled the hose on it but he wasn’t rain, he didn’t do it any good. Here and there they got a thunderstorm, then the sky shriveled up. He worried about the farmers. If the farmers didn’t get rain, they couldn’t grow food. That meant hard times. People going hungry, starving, as the oceans rose and covered up Washington, New Orleans, Los
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