K Breese - Future Imperfect

Mom moves over to my side of the couch and starts massaging my shoulders. Says, “You remember when we went to Cave of the Winds in the Springs? You were only ten or maybe nine at the time and the whole drive down you were carrying on something crazy. Anyway, we’re in these caves and you’re just having this fit. The tour guide is ready to leave us behind. She’s looking at us and frowning and ready to just kick you down into some bottomless shaft. The whole tour you’re getting on everyone’s nerves. Just driving everyone crazy and I can’t seem to do a thing about it. I’m embarrassed as all hell. I’m trying to calm you and trying to look like a decent parent, like an effective parent, but it’s going nowhere. I’m temped to turn back when we enter one particular part of the cave system and we’re looking up at all the stalagmites and stalactites-I can never remember which is which-and you suddenly stop complaining. You go silent. We had to stay in that room for five minutes longer than most tours stay. Everyone on the tour was fine with it because you were finally being quiet. You sat down on that cold stone floor so deep beneath the ground and just stared up at these rock formations. It was like it was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen. As though you were staring into the celestial heavens. Staring straight into the face of God himself. Sweet Jesus, that’s when I knew. Right then.”

“Knew what, Mom?”

Mom says, “I knew that you were a miracle. To be honest with you, I saw you in that cave and immediately realized that there was something more going on in your head than just the usual kid stuff. And you weren’t marveling at the strange developments of nature either. You were seeing beyond what all of us see. The world’s a curtain, Ade, and you were seeing right through it. Right though to the other side. To the strings and the hands that hold them. You saw the geometry of the Maker’s design. We see the simple wings, but you see the souls headed to Hell. You see the needle. What the rest of us only guess at. What scientists can only dream about.”

Mom’s talking dragonflies again.

She says, “Come in the kitchen with me.”

I look around the corner, up the stairs, and to the kitchen where the lights are on and two women, both Mom’s age and type, are sitting at the table drinking tea and looking back at me. They’re smiling, faces wide and warm. Also there’s a laptop and a projector sitting on the table.

In the family room, now with my back to the kitchen, I ask Mom who these women are.

She says, “Part of our flock. You’ve met them before.”

“When?”

“Many times.” And she touches my head. “It’s okay if you don’t remember.”

“Why are they here? It’s the middle of the night, Mom.”

“Waiting for you, Ade.”

I’m tired and trudge into the kitchen, head down, ready to just bulldoze through and maybe give these women a wave. That doesn’t work. As soon as my feet cross into the light of the kitchen, they’re up off their chairs and wringing their hands and patting my back and pushing me (so gently) to the head of the table. There’s even a cup of tea waiting there for me.

I sit and one of the women, a chubby one with a mess of curly hair, says, “You need to put your faith in the Lord. If he beckons, you answer the call, don’t you?” And Mom says, “Jesus is love, Ade.”

Of course, this all sounds very familiar. I saw this when Jimi hit me with the baseball bat and the vision was dull. Well, here it is again only in real time. The déjà vu built right into the very fabric of my life.

I actually look forward to seeing where this leads.

“What are you guys talking about?” I ask.

“Love. Duty,” Chubby says.

The other woman-she’s got straight brown hair and a long-time-smoker’s face-says, “Being in love is the best thing ever. Wonderful. Have you seen this girl in the visions? Has the Lord directed you to her?”

Mom tries to answer, but Chubby shushes her.

I say, “I did seen her in a vision.”

Eyebrows up, Smoker says, “How far out?”

“I saw her two years ago. She’s here now.”

Smoker smiles. Chubby sips her tea. Mom crosses her arms and looks at me sad. Her eyes flickering closed and open and closed and open. Not blinking but signing something unconsciously.

I say, “I’ve loved her for years.”

Chubby, hands in prayer pose, says, “Wonderful, but…”

Smoker says, “Amazing, but…”

Mom says, “Your future, it’s already written itself. For you to get to where you want to go, baby, you need to trust in the Lord and do his bidding. Past few weeks, at the church, we’ve been working it out. These ladies have been there right along with me, sleeves rolled up and getting in the trenches. As it’s written, Proverbs 10:4, ‘He becometh poor that dealeth with a slack hand; but the hand of the diligent maketh rich.’ You’re the wealth, Ade.”

“Mom, I’m super tired, just want-”

“Aren’t you interested in what we found out?”

“Found out?”

Chubby fake-claps her hands. Smoker says, “Something wonderful.”

I look to Mom. She grins, says, “We weren’t looking as deep as we needed to. We weren’t seeing all the connections. You know, watching you put all those cards, all the string, up around your room, that project you and your friend were working on, it gave me an idea. Take a look at this.”

Mom turns the projector on and nods for Chubby to dim the lights.

And she starts a slide show.

Pictures of me up first. Me when I was ten with freckles and my hair like straw. I’m running. Wearing a train conductor’s hat. And there’s me at the zoo riding the bull sculptures. And there’s me in a swimming pool. And then me only a few years ago with a black eye I don’t remember having. Next slide is a painting of Jesus. He with a crowd of followers. He in his robes, looking the ancient Israelite but all the people around Him dressed in modern clothes. A chef, a businessman, a surgeon, a woman with a child on her hip and a wooden spoon in her hand.

Mom says, “All the signs were there from the get-go.”

Next slide is a time line. It starts now and goes out for years. Right near the middle, maybe when I’m forty, there’s a big red cross and under it, written in Comic Sans, is the word “Rapture.” The next slide, it’s a Photoshopped cloud in the shape of a hand. A big exclamation point next to it.

Smoker says, “We found it. You saw the hand of God in a cloud. Pointing east to Jerusalem. The sign everyone’s been waiting for.”

Mom says, “There all along.”

I start getting up from the table. I tell the women, my mom, that I’m just really tired and I appreciate them sharing this. I tell them that I’d love to spend a little more time on it tomorrow. I say, “Nice presentation. Must have taken some time.”

Chubby stands and raises her hands, “It’s not over, Ade.”

Mom says, “Please, Ade. Five minutes.”

I sit back down with a groan. The slides continue. More pictures of me intermixed with passages Mom’s typed in from the Revelation Book. There are charts and even diagrams. My future laid out in black and white, with a terrible font. I’m really not paying much attention but nod when they look at me. Smile when it seems like I should.

Everything they’ve got, the whole presentation, is based on all the stuff I made up. All the stuff I pretended I saw in my visions. See, my mom’s organized it all chronologically and, looking it over, she thinks there’s a pattern. This slide show, it basically says the Rapture’s due any minute now.

All of this from my lies.

From the cloud I said looked like a hand. From the dude I saw pulled on the breach who was drunk, the dude I added the Jesus just off the cross pose to. The mourning dove I added to the tree in the college vision. And older stuff like the chrysanthemum seen in a mall store and the eyes of a child that were pale fire.