Preface
My hands tightened around the
steering wheel, ready to jump from the starting position at the first sound of
the gun. My legs ached from the
tenseness I was forcing them to adhere to, but I didn’t notice. By now it had become second nature to be bent
and twisted in the uncomfortable position.
My body shuttered in anticipation, realizing more than a few fleeting
moments had passed while I waited to go.
I knew there would be no sound of a
starting pistol, no flag dropping, and no buzzers. Here, there would be nothing at all. This was
not a race, it was a meeting. A meeting
that could bring me answers to the questions that had been haunting me; or one
that could send me farther on the quest to find a truth.
Light
suddenly filled the dark blackened yard causing reflections to bounce off every
wet surface. Just as abruptly as it
illuminated the surroundings it disappeared before returning once more,
repeating the pattern over and over again.
The process continued, until without warning it rested in the on
position.
I was being summoned from inside, by
someone I could not yet see.
I needed to get out.
Still, I could not will myself out of the car and force my way to the
door; through the falling drizzle that hit the car without a sound.
The weathered yellow door, with its
matching exposed yellow light looked nonthreatening. Yet, there was something eating at my
soul. I was too uncomfortable and
conflicted to escape the safety the car now offered. My right hand uncoiled from the steering
wheel and reached to the gearshift; I had to leave.
The distant
murmur of someone calling my name into the darkness over the roar of the car
seemed to echo deep inside my head. My
hand continued following the directions my brain and subconscious commanded. The voice called out again instantly stopping
the advance of my limb. It was different
than the first call; now it was harsh, demanding and formal all at the same
time.
Questions
began filling my head, Could the call actually be for me? Was that even my name? The most important
question seemed to echo the loudest. What
was I doing here?
The voice continued to call; becoming
more demanding each time it repeated my name, finally causing me to sharpen my
stare through the falling rain.
A woman
appeared, filling the space of the open door.
The rain blocking her details from my face, but I could make out her
form. I knew her the moment I saw her
outline. She was not what I had come to
expect an informant to look like. She
was squat and plump, but not nearly round.
She looked more like someone had mashed her from head to toe making her
body take on the shape of an ellipse.
Curiosity to
my inquiry and the information the short woman in the doorway held took total
control of my body, overriding my brain and subconscious in the process. I moved my clinched fist from the steering
wheel and rested it on the door handle.
I had to get answers; I had to know what actually happened, what really
took place ten years ago. I had to know
if the truth I’d known had really been a lie to cover up a truth the community
was not ready for, a truth that I was not ready to accept.
Pushing the door open I exposed
myself to the wet that surrounded me. I
jumped from the car before I had a chance to put it in drive and barrel down
the road away from her. Running through
the muddy drive and bounding up the steps I stopped under the protective
covering of the small collapsing porch.
