Gillian Anderson - A Vision of Fire

“Cai?”

There was no response. He flipped the top from the tin, brought the jasmine tea to her nose, and held her tightly with his free arm. After a moment he heard her very quietly inhale.

“Cai? Are you… here?”

She opened her eyes, struggled to focus. Then, finding his face, she smiled.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m here.”

Caitlin woke the next morning to see Jacob, fully dressed, leaning over her, smoothing her hair from her face. Caitlin blinked at the light shining from the hall through the open door, the tall figure of her father in the frame. Weak sunlight was filtering around the corners of her curtains.

“I’m going to school with Grandpa,” Jacob signed, then pasted himself to her for a hug and a kiss. Smiling, she watched the bedroom door shut quietly behind them.

Her eyes closed and she suddenly felt achingly alone, lonelier than she’d ever felt in her life. She had been bonded in a group the night before, in a still-unimaginable way, and now that was gone. She ran a hand through her hair; it felt too fine and unfamiliar.

Knowing it was four a.m. in Santa Monica, she phoned her sister anyway. Abby sounded wide awake.

“Whoa… I was just thinking about you.”

Caitlin was silent, staring at the ceiling. There was no way to tell her about any of it.

“Cai? Are you there? Did you butt-dial me?”

“Abby, do you think souls are real?”

“That’s… unexpected.”

“I know, I’m just—I don’t know. You’ve been around death. I mean, person-to-person. Much more than I have.”

“Too much of it,” Abby said. “Too much of it young, sudden, needless . Drugs, drinking, texting while driving, hit by cars, shot in malls.”

“And?”

“And, yeah, I do. This may sound nutty but sometimes when people die—only for an instant, the kind of moment that’s so fast you wonder if it happened—I can feel them. Not always, but briefly, after the life signs are gone, it’s very clear to me that I’m not the only person in the room. The feeling is stronger if I’m holding their hand.” Abby waited a moment. “Why are you asking?”

Caitlin had expected the question; there was no easy answer. “Just soul searching,” she joked.

“Cute,” Abby groaned. “Dad says you’ve been traveling.”

“Oh yeah,” Caitlin said. “That I have. Call you later?”

“Sure. I’ve got to go anyway.”

“Wait—you were just thinking about me? What are you doing up at this hour?”

“Got an early surgery,” Abby said.

“Ah. Good luck.”

“Thanks. Burn victim.”

When Abby said “burn victim,” Caitlin felt herself tense. She wondered if that would always happen, going forward.

Their call ended and she lay back. Her eyes closed, her mind closed, and she was asleep again.

Three hours later, when Caitlin was fully awake and caffeinated, the tabby Arfa draped across her lap, she opened her computer and her e-mail. At the top of the list was one from Ben, subject line: 2.5M hits in 4 hrs . Caitlin clicked on the attached video—and she was watching brightly painted trucks full of men and lumber driving into something like a shopping center in India, but a wrecked, distressed shopping center. It looked as if it had been through a hurricane. The men piled out of the trucks and hurried to greet the few people who were edging cautiously toward them from nearby houses. Then the video jumped to show construction—men repairing domed roofs—and people setting up long tables with lunch.

Caitlin called Ben and he picked up immediately.

“What am I watching?” she said, smiling as she saw little kids helping to drag planks toward a blasted shop front.

“The solution to all our problems,” he said. “This video was posted at around noon Jammu time and it went viral faster than any video in history. This shopping center saw a showdown between armed forces with guns, bombs, you name it. That’s what I was watching the night after we—after I stayed over. Apparently, truckloads of Pakistanis and Indians just converged on the city and now they’re rebuilding everything, the temple, the stores, the cinema. When the video went viral there was an international outcry calling for reconciliation. Both delegations showed up this morning to make a deal. It was—actually, it was very strange, like they’d all woken from a fever or something.”

“That’s amazing,” Caitlin said. “It’s too…”

“Impossible?” Ben asked. “Nevertheless, that was all it took. Supposed enemies treating each other as people, with dignity. Cooperation. Kindness.”

“And the governments listened,” she mused.

“Listened? This was just the face-saving grassroots stuff they were praying for.”

“What does that mean for Kashmir?”

“We’re not sure,” Ben said. “Both governments agreed to pull their troops from the region. It’ll take some effort before they actually do it, but the ambassador and his counterpart are hard at work on that now. He has a second wind, I’ll tell you that.” Ben chuckled. “Actually, I guess I don’t have to tell you that.”

“How is Maanik?”

“The ambassador said she’s herself again.”

“Specifics?”

“She has her energy back, her joy, her enthusiasm, and she’s been on the phone with her friends nonstop.”

“Does she remember anything?”

“Honestly, Cai, nobody wants to ask her. She was told she had a very bad lung infection and she didn’t question it.”

“What about the dog?”

“He’s fine too,” Ben said. “That was the third thing I asked: how’s the world, how’s Maanik, how’s Jack London.”

“He’s a part of this somehow,” Caitlin said. “Like the snake in Haiti, possibly even those rats that massed downtown.”

“Odd grouping, wouldn’t you say?”

“I would.”

“Any idea how they’re connected?”

“None,” she admitted. But the claw tips of the crescent symbol flashed through her brain.

“Speaking of which, you and the snake showed up in a YouTube video,” Ben said.

“What?”

“Yeah. I’ll send you the link. Don’t worry. Only a couple hundred hits. You haven’t gone viral.”

“Am I identified?” she asked.

“Not by name,” he replied. “Now I have one more question before I head back into the conference room. How are you ?”

She chuckled mirthlessly. “Honestly? I have no idea. My brain is present and accounted for but… there’s been a shift of some kind.” She extended a hand toward the little sliver of Hudson River she could see outside the window. “There’s something… different. I can’t explain it.”

“You self-hypnotized into quite a state,” Ben said. “I’m not surprised you’re a little disoriented.”

“Disoriented but connected.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know that either.” She let her hand drop. “To something.”

There was more to say, a lot more, but Caitlin let it go. Everything she’d experienced would require a great deal more reflection and investigation.

“Can I assume that whatever it was, whatever they were, they’re gone now?” Ben asked.

“I’m not sure. I’m not sure they were ever here .”

“If by ‘here’ you mean ‘on earth,’ the linguistic evidence certainly supports their existence,” Ben said. “You and Maanik didn’t make that up.”

“No,” Caitlin agreed. “But a civilization that may have existed before we began recording history… a civilization that still seems to have active moving parts, probably did make it up.”

“And—group hug—a civilization you and I seem to have discovered,” he added proudly.