The Shattered Genesis (Eternity) (14 page)

             
“Is that interesting?” He asked me.

             
“I thought we were shutting up.” I replied coolly.

             
“I never said I was shutting up and since when do you lis
ten to me? I'm interested to know exactly when that started happening.”

             
“I'm not listening to you. I'm not talking to you because you're irritating me. So I am going to read this
very
interesting issue of
Men's Health
.” I was silent for a minute, scanning
through an article but absorbing not a single word. The silence between us was raising the hair on the back of my neck.

             
“Do you
find this sexist drivel interesting?” I asked him and he sighed heavily.

             
“Just when I was starting to enjoy the quiet...” He
muttered and I took my time rolling up the magazine before I whacked him hard in the arm with it.

             
“Ow!” He exclaimed, “And
I'm
the one that's twelve?!”

             
“I'll make you a deal. I'm normally quite unskilled at socializing with people from any of the various
intellect levels. However, I find your inferior intelligence to be quite engaging and the bottom line is, I just can't stand the silence right now. So, I propose that we talk like the rational adults I know that we both are.”

             
“I'm sorry...” He shook his
head slightly in disbelief, “Did you just say that I am of inferior intelligence to you?”

             
I put the magazine on the dashboard delicately, “That question and your random apology prove it.” I lit a cigarette and rolled down the window slightly.

             
“Are you be
ing humorous?”

             
“Proven again.” I told him, shaking my head slightly.

             
“I'm being serious. Are you joking right now?”

             
“I don't know.” I asked, exhaling smoke at him, “Am I?” But a grin was tugging at the corners of my mouth that he saw when he glanced
over at me. I raised my eyebrows and gazed back at him impassively.

             
He laughed quietly to himself and shook his head, muttering, “You are something else, I'm telling you.”

             
We were quiet once again and I could see clearly that he was enjoying the lull in
conversation. I turned my head to look outside, blowing smoke rings and watching them quickly evaporate upon meeting the air that whizzed past my open window.

             
“What I find interesting...” I said and he exclaimed in only slight irritation, “...is that you'
ve been like a bull for the past hour and I, the red cape. Our arguments have ranged from the sensible to the absolutely ludicrous. It was only when I insulted your intelligence that you were calm. Why?”

             
“It doesn't carry any of the significance you think
it does. I was just humoring you. Now, why do you think
Men's Health
is sexist drivel?”

             
“Look at all of these advertisements they run. I mean, it's better than
Cosmopolitan,
surely.”

             
“Is that the woman's magazine that's all about how to please men?”

             
“I
ndeed, it is. I am surprised you know what it is.”

             
“I go to the grocery store like every other human being on the planet.”

             
“I am just surprised you made a note of it.”

             
“I am also surprised I made a note of it.”

             
“Our world is strange. Our culture is str
ange. There is such an emphasis on how we look. These magazines are an example of it. We pride ourselves on our pride, if you will.”

             
“I will.”

             
I smiled and chuckled softly.

             
“Shut up.”

             
He grinned, too.

             
“Do you think that's why the world is ending?” I
asked him, serious now.

             
“Why? Because magazines make us feel bad about ourselves and force us into believing we have to change our appearance to fit their standards? I think it's a little bigger than that, Brynna.”

             
“Don't be condescending.”

             
“Why not? Yo
u're condescending.”

             
“I'm trying to make sense of this right now. Catch a bubble.” I replied hurriedly, holding my hand out in his direction but not looking at him.

             
“What the hell does that mean?”

             
I took a deep breath and puffed my cheeks out as I held
the air to demonstrate. For a moment, I thought he might slap me. Then, his face broke into a smile.

             
“That's clever.”

             
“I cannot take credit for it. Please know that what I just showed you was born from a moment of whimsy we cannot afford.”

             
“You're so we
ird.”

             
“Perhaps. Now, be quiet and let me stew over the topic. I should have an answer to my question momentarily.”

             
“I don't think there's any way to know for sure why this is happening.” He replied instantly and I rolled my eyes. “I do understand what yo
u're getting at, though. Is it our vanity, our lust, our depravity as a whole that made some higher power want to snuff us all out? Do we deserve it?”

             
“Do we, James?” I asked, looking at him now.

             
He was quiet for a long moment, pondering the question. I
thought about it more in depth throughout that silence than I had previously. I was not religious in any sense of the word, but I had studied most religions extensively. I was fascinated by the blind devotion of those who followed a specific creed. I wonde
red where their resignation came from. I wondered how they could glory in the grace of a Creator whose sole endgame was to smite the earth. In Christianity, there was the notion of the Rapture, as I had been told. The good people would be taken to heaven b
efore the fireworks started. In Hinduism, there was the Kali Age, where the world would cease to exist because it was meant to and to hell with whoever remained. Some religions, like those followed by the Native Americans and Mayans, had symbols whose mean
ing told of the impending end for us all.

             
All religions knew that this was imminent and all had their different take on why it was so. I prided myself on having all the answers when a logical question was posed. But this was beyond logic. This was what th
ose spiritual people would call “faith.” I marveled at it and was beguiled into a silence that was uncommon for me.

             
“I just don't know, Brynna.”

             
James's voice struck me down from the philosophical speculation I was engaging in and I was quite grateful, t
hough his answer to my earlier question brought no relief.

             
“We'll never know.”

             
I nodded but said nothing, reaching for my cigarettes again. I was momentarily confused by the way my body was suddenly trembling when I looked up to see a figure lying in the
road.

             
“Watch out!” I exclaimed and he slammed the brakes. The force from the sudden stop sent me flying forward and since I was bent down trying to retrieve my purse, I was going to smash my face against the dashboard. But James's arm jerked out in front
of me, stopping the movement before one blink. The car slid forward on the snow but stopped just in front of the person lying. Whoever it was didn't move.

             
“Oh my God or Gods...” I muttered, seeing a car that had slammed into a light-post. I jumped out, u
nsure of how to proceed. Anyone inside of the wreck was surely dead but the girl on the ground could have been alive.

             
“Brynna!” I heard James yell as he got out of the car. On the cold, abandoned street, with the snow falling around us, I ran to the girl
lying down in the road, with only the sound of the windshield wipers moving every few seconds in my ears.

             
“Oh my...” I muttered as the recognition gripped me. My feet slipped and slid in the snow but I ran faster until I was right above her. The girl turn
ed over and squinted up at me through the tears that were pouring from her eyes.

             
“Brynna?” She asked and I fell to my knees beside my sister. My arms furiously scooped her up into a sitting position.

             
“What happened to you? Are you okay?” I asked her hurr
iedly, putting both of my hands on her face, “Violet! Were you in the car?”

             
She shook her head and pointed at the wreck. I am not the person to turn to when one needs comfort, as my own emotions do not function in a way that could ever be described as nor
mal. I can feel concern for someone down to my core, as I did with Violet then, but that should not suggest that when there is an emotional outpouring, I can remedy it. I did not know why she was pointing to the car or why she was crying. If she hadn't bee
n in the vehicle then she more than likely didn't know the person who was.

             
“I'm going to call 911.” James said from the car, “She's dead, but they still have to come get her and clean up the wreck.”
             
“No! Don't!” Violet jumped up and ran towards him, taki
ng his cellphone right out of his hand, “I did this!”

             
“You did what, Violet?” I asked her with one hand rested on her arm.

             
“I caused it! It's my fault!”

             
“You said you weren't in the car!” I told her, throwing my hands up in frustration, as I always did
when a situation was just not making any sense to me. I did not enjoy when my enhanced mental abilities were trumped by mysterious circumstances.

             
“I wasn't!” She sobbed, “But I was... I had this dream... and...”

             
James and I looked at each other as she th
rew her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder, wailing now. We both knew that there was only one dream that she could be speaking of.

             
“Well, you were worried about having to convince them.” James told me as he turned us both around and st
arted walking us back to the car. “See? The hard part's over.”

             
Her grip on me was so tight that I couldn't break free to get back into the front seat. So I maneuvered us both into the backseat and wrapped my other arm around her to pat her head awkwardly.
James watched us in the rear-view mirror and I could tell by the way his eyes were squinted that he was smiling slightly at my discomfort.

             
“Shut up, James.” I muttered and he didn't hide it anymore; he laughed softly, despite the situation.

             
“Who is he?”

             
“I'm James. I know you're Brynna's sister, but that's about all I know.”

             
“He's making it sound like I haven't talked about you extensively. I have. She's Violet.” I told him.

             
“I could make a really ridiculous joke right now to lighten the mood.”

             
“Plea
se don't.” I replied with another eye roll.

             
“Okay.”

             
“Vi, who was in the car?” I asked her bluntly, the tenderness that would be most comforting to her completely absent from my voice and demeanor. I didn't try to be so cold. It just happened.

             
“It was...
” She started crying harder again and I heaved a great sigh of frustration, resigning myself to the fact that I would probably never know. “Can you please put your weird emotional tendencies aside for two seconds and just be my sister!?”

             
“What are you eve
n talking about? I'm hugging you, aren't I?” I snapped at her in offense. I was unsure how she could suggest that I never comforted her. Or perhaps I was just flustered and irritated that she had called me on my strangeness and complete lack of knowledge o
n empathy.