A young slacker thinks he’s choosing between the love of two women, but after being drawn into a secretive world of Sumerian cults and ancient prophesies, he discovers the fate of mankind depends upon his choice!
Part of him was angry. He’d worked too hard for this.
And Adam wasn’t one to work hard. Generally. But today was different. He’d
driven four miles of rutted, barely passable 4-wheel drive road. He’d hiked a long and steeply ascending trail that emerged above tree line, where winter’s grip clung too long for anything more substantial than low, hearty vegetation. And then he’d deliberately delved off trail, traversing a rugged, narrow ravine to the opposite slope before clambering up a field of loose rock bathed in afternoon sun and gentle wind.
All this effort, this sweat dripping from his nose, the exhausted and spent legs, had been simply to escape the pressures of life. Life in general, Sherry’s expectations in specific. He’d wanted, no, needed, nothing more and nothing less than the solace and solitude of Mother Earth. An unadulterated nature-bath.
And then he stumbles upon this…this violation.
He stood before a fifteen-foot-wide hole bored directly into the base of a cliff. A hole whose circular perfection and absolute symmetry defied the natural order of things. Hours of hiking and miles into the wilderness, and Adam still couldn’t escape the heavy fingerprints of man.
He sighed and scanned the field of scree and scattered snow patches beneath the abomination. No bits of ragged, rusted metal poked through the rock. No ghost-like remnants of long-lost structures clung to the slope. In fact, he found none of the signature debris of abandoned mines. Nothing but rock. Snow. The ubiquitous alpine wind.
Which made absolutely no sense.
He scrambled across the loose rock to peer into the darkness. The sun’s limited reach revealed only smooth walls, a gentle curve toward the right, and several feet of fine sand across the bottom. No tracks crossed the sand, only a smattering of drifted leaves.
A wiser man would turn around and go home. A wiser man would listen to that tiny voice of intuition warning of possible danger. Not a soul knew he was here. He’d set off hiking by himself despite, or, if he admitted it, because of Sherry’s protests. An infantile reaction to her constant consternation over his behavior, he knew. He should be grateful that she watched over him, kept him on the straight and narrow. Grateful for the not so gentle nudges toward becoming a better man…
Fuck it.
The only little voice in his head Adam ever heeded was the slurred one encouraging him to order another beer. He pulled his cap down tightly and crept into the tunnel. The sand crunching beneath his feet, he ran the fingers of his left-hand feather-light against the wall. Not smooth as glass, but smooth enough his touch slid with little resistance, as if the rock had been polished.
Mines were typically rough-hewn, rectangular monstrosities placarded with warning signs. Not this perfect aperture. Water could wear rock smooth; he’d seen ample evidence of that in the slot canyons of Utah, how the eons of flow had polished the rock to perfection.
Near perfection. Not this.
And none of that would happen at over thirteen thousand feet of altitude, far from any water source capable of this sort of erosion.
The air became noticeably cooler only a few feet within the hole. The sunlight, reflected and indirect, faded quickly as he followed the gentle curve. He paused when he’d exhausted its reach. Nothing had changed, only perfectly bored walls and soft sand. The mouth of the hole behind was lost to the slow curvature, but the sound of the wind beyond still reached him, a faint white noise of…
Wait…something else lurked behind the wind’s whisper…like a hiss. Barely discernable.
He took a few, tentative steps deeper. The sound grew louder, became unmistakable above the soft crunch of sand beneath his boots. He hesitated, stifling the sound of his own breath, trying to locate the source. The hiss seemed to emanate from all sides at once, as if…Adam stiffened…as if it were inside his skull.
Impossible.
He turned and retreated to the safety of the mouth of the tunnel. The hiss had faded but remained discernable. And now… he closed his eyes to concentrate…now patterns began to emerge. Almost vowels and consonants…almost words?
We...wait...waited...for....you...
Adam caught his breath.
The hiss stopped.
A gust of wind spun dried leaves up and over him before allowing them to settle at his feet in an extended lull.
Silence.
He allowed a long exhale. It had all been a trick of the wind, there was no…
Long ...time...waiting...
"Fuck this!" Adam bolted from the tunnel. The echoes of those hissed words seem to follow him, faint, white noise in the back of his skull, as he slid and stumbled down the scree, casting the occasional hurried glance behind. Only when he’d ducked into the protective embrace of the pine forest did he relax, pause to catch his breath, and listen.
Nothing but the wind.
#
Adam swept kitchen floor, vacuumed the bedroom and living room. He scrubbed the toilets even, a testament to the depths of his desperation to distract himself. Then he began preparing dinner, washing and cubing potatoes, crushing garlic, pre-heating the oven. All these things were accompanied by a steady stream of red wine. Red wine to drown out any possibility of a hiss in the back of his head. Red wine to erase the memory of what had surely been nothing but a trick of the wind, an overactive imagination combined with a stressed psyche. Relationship stress had apparently begun to take a toll on his mental health.
He'd never really enjoyed cooking before. Always considered anything that required more time to prepare than to eat not worth the effort. But the situation of late had forced a change in attitude. Given Sherry was gainfully employed, and he was painfully unemployed, he'd become the maker of dinner, the baker of treats. Over time he'd found he'd begun to enjoy the creative aspects of it. Trying, usually unsuccessfully, to time things so that everything on the menu reached completion at the same time. Learning when and how much to add of seasonings. Trying new recipes, some from a vegetarian cookbook at Sherry's request, honoring her comments about the health benefits of eating less red meat. He'd had to admit, they weren't bad, these vegetable concoctions. For vegetables, that was.
Except the lentil loaf fiasco. Advertised to taste like meatloaf, it had looked and tasted like a brick of grayish lentils. That page he'd torn from the book and ceremonially burnt in the bathtub as Sherry laughed in mocked chagrin.
By the time Sherry arrived home, the food had been prepared and the table set, complete with the remainder of the red wine poured.
"What's all this?" Her response as she dropped her keys on the table in the foyer. Sniffing the air as she looked at the table.
"Dinner."
"Yeah, but you've set the table all pretty. And wine. And candles...? Adam, our anniversary isn't for another two weeks."
Only two weeks? "I just felt like spoiling you a little. Take a seat! I'll pour you some wine."
"Thanks! But no wine for me.” She slid into her chair with a broad smile. “I've been feeling a little under the weather and tired today. I think I’m fighting something off. I don't want to lower my immune system, so I'll stick to water."
"Suit yourself." He moved her glass to his side of the table.
“How was your hike?”
Adam caught his breath, but only a moment. “Fine. Nothing exciting.” He took a long slug of wine.
“Did you hike alone?” Her irritated expectation of what his answer would be was obvious.
“I had to. It’s hard to find someone else able to go on a Tuesday morning.”
“It’s not safe, Adam. What if you ran into a bear, or some crazy person?”
Or started hallucinating voices at 13,000 feet…
“A bear? Really? And you could have gone with me.”
“On a Tuesday? I have a job, Adam.”
“Sure, but you could just take one morning off and …”
“Let’s not start this conversation again, please!”
“You’re right. You’re right. Let’s just eat. Eat, drink, and be merry.”
After roasted lamb seasoned with Rosemary, tiny purple potatoes baked in olive oil, pepper and garlic, accompanied by sautéed green beans with slivers of almonds, candlelight, and Sherry, Adam leaned back, belly full, satisfied and complacent.
"You're a good cook, Adam."
"Thanks."
"Now if you could only learn to fold laundry..."
"Trust me, I know how. I mess it up on purpose to make you feel like you're still valued."
"Ha. Same thing with not closing the cereal boxes?"
"Um, yeah, sure."
Adam reveled in the warm, homey feeling. The two of them. Perhaps they had slid from passion to comfortable complacency. But was that so wrong? Warm familiarity was not a rut, but a system. A system of getting things done, working together. A team....
As if she'd read his thoughts, Sherry reached across the table for his hand, squeezed it when he complied. "This is really nice, Adam. You and me. We make a good team."
"Yeah, I guess we do."
"It's like unspoken, just doing what needs to be done. I mean, you have filled in as I've had to work later recently, with all these late meetings about the re-org. I've been thinking. I mean, we definitely have our issues. But when it is good, it is really, really good."
Adam nodded. Wine and happiness drowning out anything else.
Sherry squeezed his hand tighter, only a bit, enough to signify she had something important to share. "Sometimes at night, before I go to sleep. I lay and think about what our life might be like later."
"Later?"
"You know. Down the road. What our house might be like. If we have, you know...kids?"
Adam forced himself not to reach for the wine bottle.
"I know, I'm rushing things. I mean, who knows if...we'll..."
Adam smiled what he hoped was his best, warm smile.
"Don't you ever think about that, Adam? A cozy future. A cozy little house. Maybe two kids. Hopefully a girl and a boy so we could experience both.... You could come home from work and they'd yell "daddy!" and run and jump on you."
"Sure. I guess."
"We'd have a little house. Nothing too big or too small. Maybe a dog. I'm not doing a mini-van, though."
Adam could only nod. Caught broadside by her stream of conscious contemplations of her future. Their future.
Her eyes seemed to drift as if seeing her thoughts, not Adam across from her. "I mean, we'd get some sort of SUV. Something we could take camping in the mountains. Something that could fit four and our gear. And the dog, of course...
"Aren't we, um, getting a little ahead of ourselves here."
"Oh, yeah, sorry. You're right." She squeezed his hand again. "But don't you ever fantasize about what our life could be like together."
"I've had fantasies with you in them, sure. Usually, you’re dressed a little more provocatively, and there certainly isn't any kids involved. I'm not some sort of perv."
She shook her head, but her smile didn’t fade. "You are an idiot."
Adam hid behind his own plastered-on smile.
She'd placed all her eggs in one basket. A notoriously weak and untrustworthy basket, frayed at the edges, prone to holes. Adam had never professed fantasies of picket fences, kids' baseball games, barbecues with the neighbors. He'd always markedly avoided the subject of the future, of "where they were headed". Had she not picked up on that?
Yet there they were. Headed, at least in her eyes, toward her dreams of domestic bliss. He'd been intractably entwined in her future, now "their" future without realizing it. Even if he wanted, he couldn't extract himself without destroying her vision of her future self.
Adam opened another bottle of wine.
#
Morning came with a ringing in his ears and fuzziness on his tongue. He’d woken in the gray of pre-dawn. Always did, no matter how late he’d gone to bed. Or how much red wine he'd drunk. Even the hollow head of a mounting hang-over couldn't prevent his early morning restlessness, his staring at the cracks in the ceiling with the sneaking suspicion that something more called from the next room.
But nothing ever greeted him in the next room but the cold linoleum and an empty coffee maker. Empty but pre-loaded this morning. Bless her heart! Adam started the coffee dripping slowly into the carafe, waited impatiently as the hang-over unfurled from the back of his skull to stretch into the bones around his eyes.
Coffee was not going to help.
Fresh air and the honey caress of the morning sun beckoned. After he was finally able to fill his mug, he stepped outside and sat on the front stoop, immersed in the song of the finches, a regular morning ritual he shared with the four or five that called the neighbor’s juniper home. The sounds and sights of nature always calmed him, allowed him to take a deep, cool breath and exhale. Almost forget what the day had in store.
Almost.
#
Sherry waited, bare knees peeking above the breakfast bar, steaming mug cradled above them. Beautiful even puffy-eyed, half full of sleep. Flashing him that gentle smile he loved. The smile that never failed to tug at him. Never failed to fill him with the strangest mix of elation and sadness.
"Good morning." Adam kicked off his shoes in a tumble by the door. "You're up earlier than usual." He crossed to the sink, rinsed his mug and dropped it in the permanently full drying rack.
The sun struck the peak of Mt. Audubon, visible from the window above the sink, glazed the rocky face in honey. Maybe he should climb Mt. Audubon today. Escape through the woods, up the alpine meadows, across the fields of scree to the panoramic vistas. Maybe Sherry would go. It wasn't a hard hike. And the views were spectacular. If they left now...
"I wanted to help you get ready for your job interview." Sherry's voice reeled him back. Blue enthusiasm rose to meet whatever lurked in his eyes.
"Um, okay."
She would probably insist he wear his lone button-down shirt. Shoes instead of sneakers.
It was in fact far worse than that.
#
Adam stood in the kitchen feeling stiff and awkward. Clad in the suit Sherri’s purchased just for the occasion. Somber and conservative gray. He'd never worn a tie in his life, needed Sherry to tie it for him. She stood close, smile inches from him as she deftly wound it around his neck and tightened it. Like a noose...He knew better than to let that slip. It was immature to feel this way, hating the suit, hating the shiny shoes and stiffly pressed shirt. Like an angry toddler at his aunt’s wedding.
But hate it he did.
"You look amazing." Sherry stepped back, practically glowing in her enthusiastic approval of his appearance. "Maybe we should have trimmed your hair." She made a vain effort to control the wild strands that fell across his forehead.
"I thought this was for a research position. Not a modeling job."
"Hah! It's still important to look good. Set a good first impression."
"I don't know why. It's a waste of time. There is no way I'm getting this job. I'm way under qualified."
"But at least you're trying." Still clad only in panties and an old t-shirt of his, "Pro-Clone" in red letters, she pressed herself against him, breath of warm lips beneath his ear, arms around his neck. "That's all I can ask. Besides, I have a good feeling about all this."
This he wanted. The smile. The enthusiasm. Her obvious attention and affection. The scent of her hair pressed to his nose. Her warmth. Her smooth skin beneath his wandering fingertips…
She escaped his hopeful hands with a quick peck on his cheek. "I've got to get ready for work. But good luck!" She headed toward the bedroom, long legs seeming to glide with fluid grace.
Adam closed his eyes. Pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
#
Double Americano. The faint sounds of folk music meandering just below the consciousness, allowing the constant murmur of conversation to progress undisturbed. Adam took a long swallow of coffee, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.
As soon as the sound of Sherry’s car had faded in the distance, Adam had bee-lined to Vic’s Coffee Shop. He’d need something to calm his nerves before the interview, and Vic’s was like comfort food. Home away from Home
When he'd first been expelled from grad school, he'd used his newfound free time to search for jobs but had found nothing inspiring. He’d then decided he needed to decide what he wanted out of life before picking a profession. But somehow weeks had stretched to months. Living off his dwindling savings, parental supplements, and, if he were honest, Sherry’s largesse.
Filling the space between morning hikes or bike rides, and evenings of Sherry, Vic's had become a second home, Vic's employees and patrons his surrogate family. Ms. Shaky Hands behind the counter, with her black mop of hair, her flash of a smile and "What's new?" greeting almost five days a week. Or Mr. Hipster, skinny jeans, trendy hair and manicured beard, nodding and mentioning the weather, the Broncos, or some other non-important and safe topic of conversation. Even the trophy wife, driver of the yellow Audi, always clad in yoga pants. ALWAYS. No matter the weather or the month. He’d even had the occasional, vapid conversation with her as they waited in line.
Tiny interactions that, over time, had built a reasonable facsimile of human familiarity.
The more leisurely crowd had yet to arrive. The round, wobbly tables sat mostly unoccupied and expectant. Only the early morning regulars loitered over their newspapers and cooling coffee. The nameless elderly man, in his customary disheveled cardigan, who read the paper front to back over a poppy seed muffin every morning without speaking to anyone. The lanky homeless man who usually tucked himself behind the lonely table out front, muttering to himself and invisible compatriots. And Glenn, the Tarot reader.
Glenn was a fixture at Vic’s. He’d usually arrive before the morning rush, treat himself to a coffee before setting up shop at the table closest to the counter, making himself unavoidable. A round, mahogany-skinned man whose smooth voice and personal gravity ensnared all who wandered too near. His cheeks would break into a warm smile, greeting everyone with baritone happiness and cheer. Enticing them to come, to discover what their future held in store.
For a small fee, of course.
The man knew better than to attempt to entice Adam into a reading. He’d tried and failed numerous times. Adam had a low tolerance for bullshit.
Today Adam felt the man’s presence in a way he couldn’t explain. In a way that made him snag the abandoned newspaper from the table beside him, raise it as if immersed in the boring stories of Boulder’s city council meetings, if only to create a paper barrier between himself and Glenn.
After a time, he began reading in earnest, concentrating, closing out the distractions of the world, immersed in an explanation for the latest CU football grid-iron debacle. Again, he hovered on the outside of humanity, surrounded by the sound of quiet conversations, soft music, the scrape of chairs.
The low rumble of the Tarot reader broke through his defenses. "Young man, I know you don't believe, but I have looked into your world of possibilities.”
Adam wasted a shrug behind his paper. "Thanks, I’ll definitely keep that in mind."
"Your future is in limbo, the potential for disaster and greatness equal. Remember, the right choice is not always an easy one."
Adam broke into a smile despite himself. "C’mon, Glenn. You stole that from a fortune cookie. And I’ve told you before, I’m not paying you for that kind of crap. I don’t care what ‘the cards’ say about my future.”
"She already paid for you.”
Adam lowered his paper.
The Tarot reader’s thick index finger pointed toward the woman across the tiny table from him. A new face at Vic's. He would have remembered that vibrant pink hair, closely shorn. Her broad shoulders stretching the limits of her cotton T. The vivid tattoos, blues and reds, a flame engulfed earth, scrolling up her forearms. And he certainly would have remembered those big, brown eyes. Attractive in a natural, innocent sort of way.
She perched on her chair, gaze intent on Adam. Appearing almost concerned or worried.
"Who are you?"
"Maybe a friend." She flashed a thin, half-hearted smile that did nothing to relieve the weight behind her eyes. A sadness that seemed too large for her - what? -twenty-five years?
"Um… okay." Adam folded his newspaper with slow and careful precision, laid it before him. “Why would you ask for my future?”
“I’m worried about you.”
Adam searched for a faint curl of a smile, a light in her eyes, some indication this was all an inside joke between her and Glenn, who sat, uncharacteristically quiet, looking from Adam to this new "maybe friend”.
"Thanks for the concern, but you wasted your money. I don't believe in any of that nonsense, Tarot or horoscope stuff."
"What do you believe in?"
"Huh?"
"You're a scientist, right?" she asked as if they were old friends. Coffee shop regulars who met every morning, discussing local politics over scones and espresso.
He answered with a hesitant, “No.”
"No?"
Adam sighed. "I mean, I may have been at one point. But right now, I'm a big fat nothing. I'm unemployed." Much to Sherry's chagrin.
"I see.” She nodded. Leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “But by nature?"
Adam laughed. "That, my 'friend', is a great question." He took a bemused sip of coffee, turned to Glenn, who’d begun sliding his cards into their purple velvet case. "So…just what the hell is this about, anyway?"
Before the man could answer, the strange woman leaned forward as if revealing a secret. "Interesting choice of words."
"Um… Okay." Adam looked toward the counter. As if our Lady of Perpetual Hangover might swoop down and rescue him…
The pink-haired woman sat back, crossed one leg over the other. "I'm just trying to get a feel for you. To see if there's hope. I mean, do you believe in anything he said?" She nodded toward the Tarot reader, whose customary smile had disappeared, replaced by the most serious of stares. And more than a hint of confusion.
“No. No, I don't. I told you. Why would I believe in that?"
"Why believe in anything?"
Jesus! There were times for navel-gazing. Times to sit back, take a long hit from the emergency joint Adam kept stashed in his glove compartment and deliberate life's serious questions.
But this was not one of those times.
Or maybe it was. For the joint part, anyway. Adam slid his chair back as if to leave. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered something I have to do."
"It's a simple question. You can't answer it?"
She certainly was persistent, he had to give her that. "I believe in things that have ‘evidence’."
"Well, I'm sure there was plenty of ‘evidence’ at some point that the world was flat.”
Adam gave an exaggerated sigh. "Of course. And then we discovered new evidence and changed our minds. It's called 'learning'. And I've never seen any evidence Glenn spouts anything but vague generalities that someone can always find truth in." Adam met Glenn’s eyes with a shrug. "Sorry, no offense."
Glenn shrugged back with a "none taken" smile.
“He implied you have a difficult choice to make.” She cocked her head slightly as she peered up at Adam. "Are you saying you don't have an important decision to make?"
"Hell, everyone is faced with important decisions almost every day."
"What if he specifically asked if you are contemplating your future in physics?"
Adam gave his best bored look. "I'm supposed to be impressed with that? You just asked me if I were a scientist, and I said, no, I was but am currently unemployed. So, guessing I’m a physicist isn't too much of a reach. Lucky for you I didn't study biology or chemistry. You'd have guessed wrong.”
"I really need to know if you’re going to return to physics."
"Why the hell do you care?"
She set her coffee mug down, all pretense of casual conversation gone. Leaned forward, again as if she were about to share a momentous secret and weren't simply bat-shit crazy. "It is very important. Your answer will help me decide."
“Decide? Decide what?”
A swell of sadness, a deeper set melancholy that no one, at any age, should have, welled behind her eyes.
"Whether or not you're the Anti-Christ."
And Adam wasn’t one to work hard. Generally. But today was different. He’d
driven four miles of rutted, barely passable 4-wheel drive road. He’d hiked a long and steeply ascending trail that emerged above tree line, where winter’s grip clung too long for anything more substantial than low, hearty vegetation. And then he’d deliberately delved off trail, traversing a rugged, narrow ravine to the opposite slope before clambering up a field of loose rock bathed in afternoon sun and gentle wind.
All this effort, this sweat dripping from his nose, the exhausted and spent legs, had been simply to escape the pressures of life. Life in general, Sherry’s expectations in specific. He’d wanted, no, needed, nothing more and nothing less than the solace and solitude of Mother Earth. An unadulterated nature-bath.
And then he stumbles upon this…this violation.
He stood before a fifteen-foot-wide hole bored directly into the base of a cliff. A hole whose circular perfection and absolute symmetry defied the natural order of things. Hours of hiking and miles into the wilderness, and Adam still couldn’t escape the heavy fingerprints of man.
He sighed and scanned the field of scree and scattered snow patches beneath the abomination. No bits of ragged, rusted metal poked through the rock. No ghost-like remnants of long-lost structures clung to the slope. In fact, he found none of the signature debris of abandoned mines. Nothing but rock. Snow. The ubiquitous alpine wind.
Which made absolutely no sense.
He scrambled across the loose rock to peer into the darkness. The sun’s limited reach revealed only smooth walls, a gentle curve toward the right, and several feet of fine sand across the bottom. No tracks crossed the sand, only a smattering of drifted leaves.
A wiser man would turn around and go home. A wiser man would listen to that tiny voice of intuition warning of possible danger. Not a soul knew he was here. He’d set off hiking by himself despite, or, if he admitted it, because of Sherry’s protests. An infantile reaction to her constant consternation over his behavior, he knew. He should be grateful that she watched over him, kept him on the straight and narrow. Grateful for the not so gentle nudges toward becoming a better man…
Fuck it.
The only little voice in his head Adam ever heeded was the slurred one encouraging him to order another beer. He pulled his cap down tightly and crept into the tunnel. The sand crunching beneath his feet, he ran the fingers of his left-hand feather-light against the wall. Not smooth as glass, but smooth enough his touch slid with little resistance, as if the rock had been polished.
Mines were typically rough-hewn, rectangular monstrosities placarded with warning signs. Not this perfect aperture. Water could wear rock smooth; he’d seen ample evidence of that in the slot canyons of Utah, how the eons of flow had polished the rock to perfection.
Near perfection. Not this.
And none of that would happen at over thirteen thousand feet of altitude, far from any water source capable of this sort of erosion.
The air became noticeably cooler only a few feet within the hole. The sunlight, reflected and indirect, faded quickly as he followed the gentle curve. He paused when he’d exhausted its reach. Nothing had changed, only perfectly bored walls and soft sand. The mouth of the hole behind was lost to the slow curvature, but the sound of the wind beyond still reached him, a faint white noise of…
Wait…something else lurked behind the wind’s whisper…like a hiss. Barely discernable.
He took a few, tentative steps deeper. The sound grew louder, became unmistakable above the soft crunch of sand beneath his boots. He hesitated, stifling the sound of his own breath, trying to locate the source. The hiss seemed to emanate from all sides at once, as if…Adam stiffened…as if it were inside his skull.
Impossible.
He turned and retreated to the safety of the mouth of the tunnel. The hiss had faded but remained discernable. And now… he closed his eyes to concentrate…now patterns began to emerge. Almost vowels and consonants…almost words?
We...wait...waited...for....you...
Adam caught his breath.
The hiss stopped.
A gust of wind spun dried leaves up and over him before allowing them to settle at his feet in an extended lull.
Silence.
He allowed a long exhale. It had all been a trick of the wind, there was no…
Long ...time...waiting...
"Fuck this!" Adam bolted from the tunnel. The echoes of those hissed words seem to follow him, faint, white noise in the back of his skull, as he slid and stumbled down the scree, casting the occasional hurried glance behind. Only when he’d ducked into the protective embrace of the pine forest did he relax, pause to catch his breath, and listen.
Nothing but the wind.
#
Adam swept kitchen floor, vacuumed the bedroom and living room. He scrubbed the toilets even, a testament to the depths of his desperation to distract himself. Then he began preparing dinner, washing and cubing potatoes, crushing garlic, pre-heating the oven. All these things were accompanied by a steady stream of red wine. Red wine to drown out any possibility of a hiss in the back of his head. Red wine to erase the memory of what had surely been nothing but a trick of the wind, an overactive imagination combined with a stressed psyche. Relationship stress had apparently begun to take a toll on his mental health.
He'd never really enjoyed cooking before. Always considered anything that required more time to prepare than to eat not worth the effort. But the situation of late had forced a change in attitude. Given Sherry was gainfully employed, and he was painfully unemployed, he'd become the maker of dinner, the baker of treats. Over time he'd found he'd begun to enjoy the creative aspects of it. Trying, usually unsuccessfully, to time things so that everything on the menu reached completion at the same time. Learning when and how much to add of seasonings. Trying new recipes, some from a vegetarian cookbook at Sherry's request, honoring her comments about the health benefits of eating less red meat. He'd had to admit, they weren't bad, these vegetable concoctions. For vegetables, that was.
Except the lentil loaf fiasco. Advertised to taste like meatloaf, it had looked and tasted like a brick of grayish lentils. That page he'd torn from the book and ceremonially burnt in the bathtub as Sherry laughed in mocked chagrin.
By the time Sherry arrived home, the food had been prepared and the table set, complete with the remainder of the red wine poured.
"What's all this?" Her response as she dropped her keys on the table in the foyer. Sniffing the air as she looked at the table.
"Dinner."
"Yeah, but you've set the table all pretty. And wine. And candles...? Adam, our anniversary isn't for another two weeks."
Only two weeks? "I just felt like spoiling you a little. Take a seat! I'll pour you some wine."
"Thanks! But no wine for me.” She slid into her chair with a broad smile. “I've been feeling a little under the weather and tired today. I think I’m fighting something off. I don't want to lower my immune system, so I'll stick to water."
"Suit yourself." He moved her glass to his side of the table.
“How was your hike?”
Adam caught his breath, but only a moment. “Fine. Nothing exciting.” He took a long slug of wine.
“Did you hike alone?” Her irritated expectation of what his answer would be was obvious.
“I had to. It’s hard to find someone else able to go on a Tuesday morning.”
“It’s not safe, Adam. What if you ran into a bear, or some crazy person?”
Or started hallucinating voices at 13,000 feet…
“A bear? Really? And you could have gone with me.”
“On a Tuesday? I have a job, Adam.”
“Sure, but you could just take one morning off and …”
“Let’s not start this conversation again, please!”
“You’re right. You’re right. Let’s just eat. Eat, drink, and be merry.”
After roasted lamb seasoned with Rosemary, tiny purple potatoes baked in olive oil, pepper and garlic, accompanied by sautéed green beans with slivers of almonds, candlelight, and Sherry, Adam leaned back, belly full, satisfied and complacent.
"You're a good cook, Adam."
"Thanks."
"Now if you could only learn to fold laundry..."
"Trust me, I know how. I mess it up on purpose to make you feel like you're still valued."
"Ha. Same thing with not closing the cereal boxes?"
"Um, yeah, sure."
Adam reveled in the warm, homey feeling. The two of them. Perhaps they had slid from passion to comfortable complacency. But was that so wrong? Warm familiarity was not a rut, but a system. A system of getting things done, working together. A team....
As if she'd read his thoughts, Sherry reached across the table for his hand, squeezed it when he complied. "This is really nice, Adam. You and me. We make a good team."
"Yeah, I guess we do."
"It's like unspoken, just doing what needs to be done. I mean, you have filled in as I've had to work later recently, with all these late meetings about the re-org. I've been thinking. I mean, we definitely have our issues. But when it is good, it is really, really good."
Adam nodded. Wine and happiness drowning out anything else.
Sherry squeezed his hand tighter, only a bit, enough to signify she had something important to share. "Sometimes at night, before I go to sleep. I lay and think about what our life might be like later."
"Later?"
"You know. Down the road. What our house might be like. If we have, you know...kids?"
Adam forced himself not to reach for the wine bottle.
"I know, I'm rushing things. I mean, who knows if...we'll..."
Adam smiled what he hoped was his best, warm smile.
"Don't you ever think about that, Adam? A cozy future. A cozy little house. Maybe two kids. Hopefully a girl and a boy so we could experience both.... You could come home from work and they'd yell "daddy!" and run and jump on you."
"Sure. I guess."
"We'd have a little house. Nothing too big or too small. Maybe a dog. I'm not doing a mini-van, though."
Adam could only nod. Caught broadside by her stream of conscious contemplations of her future. Their future.
Her eyes seemed to drift as if seeing her thoughts, not Adam across from her. "I mean, we'd get some sort of SUV. Something we could take camping in the mountains. Something that could fit four and our gear. And the dog, of course...
"Aren't we, um, getting a little ahead of ourselves here."
"Oh, yeah, sorry. You're right." She squeezed his hand again. "But don't you ever fantasize about what our life could be like together."
"I've had fantasies with you in them, sure. Usually, you’re dressed a little more provocatively, and there certainly isn't any kids involved. I'm not some sort of perv."
She shook her head, but her smile didn’t fade. "You are an idiot."
Adam hid behind his own plastered-on smile.
She'd placed all her eggs in one basket. A notoriously weak and untrustworthy basket, frayed at the edges, prone to holes. Adam had never professed fantasies of picket fences, kids' baseball games, barbecues with the neighbors. He'd always markedly avoided the subject of the future, of "where they were headed". Had she not picked up on that?
Yet there they were. Headed, at least in her eyes, toward her dreams of domestic bliss. He'd been intractably entwined in her future, now "their" future without realizing it. Even if he wanted, he couldn't extract himself without destroying her vision of her future self.
Adam opened another bottle of wine.
#
Morning came with a ringing in his ears and fuzziness on his tongue. He’d woken in the gray of pre-dawn. Always did, no matter how late he’d gone to bed. Or how much red wine he'd drunk. Even the hollow head of a mounting hang-over couldn't prevent his early morning restlessness, his staring at the cracks in the ceiling with the sneaking suspicion that something more called from the next room.
But nothing ever greeted him in the next room but the cold linoleum and an empty coffee maker. Empty but pre-loaded this morning. Bless her heart! Adam started the coffee dripping slowly into the carafe, waited impatiently as the hang-over unfurled from the back of his skull to stretch into the bones around his eyes.
Coffee was not going to help.
Fresh air and the honey caress of the morning sun beckoned. After he was finally able to fill his mug, he stepped outside and sat on the front stoop, immersed in the song of the finches, a regular morning ritual he shared with the four or five that called the neighbor’s juniper home. The sounds and sights of nature always calmed him, allowed him to take a deep, cool breath and exhale. Almost forget what the day had in store.
Almost.
#
Sherry waited, bare knees peeking above the breakfast bar, steaming mug cradled above them. Beautiful even puffy-eyed, half full of sleep. Flashing him that gentle smile he loved. The smile that never failed to tug at him. Never failed to fill him with the strangest mix of elation and sadness.
"Good morning." Adam kicked off his shoes in a tumble by the door. "You're up earlier than usual." He crossed to the sink, rinsed his mug and dropped it in the permanently full drying rack.
The sun struck the peak of Mt. Audubon, visible from the window above the sink, glazed the rocky face in honey. Maybe he should climb Mt. Audubon today. Escape through the woods, up the alpine meadows, across the fields of scree to the panoramic vistas. Maybe Sherry would go. It wasn't a hard hike. And the views were spectacular. If they left now...
"I wanted to help you get ready for your job interview." Sherry's voice reeled him back. Blue enthusiasm rose to meet whatever lurked in his eyes.
"Um, okay."
She would probably insist he wear his lone button-down shirt. Shoes instead of sneakers.
It was in fact far worse than that.
#
Adam stood in the kitchen feeling stiff and awkward. Clad in the suit Sherri’s purchased just for the occasion. Somber and conservative gray. He'd never worn a tie in his life, needed Sherry to tie it for him. She stood close, smile inches from him as she deftly wound it around his neck and tightened it. Like a noose...He knew better than to let that slip. It was immature to feel this way, hating the suit, hating the shiny shoes and stiffly pressed shirt. Like an angry toddler at his aunt’s wedding.
But hate it he did.
"You look amazing." Sherry stepped back, practically glowing in her enthusiastic approval of his appearance. "Maybe we should have trimmed your hair." She made a vain effort to control the wild strands that fell across his forehead.
"I thought this was for a research position. Not a modeling job."
"Hah! It's still important to look good. Set a good first impression."
"I don't know why. It's a waste of time. There is no way I'm getting this job. I'm way under qualified."
"But at least you're trying." Still clad only in panties and an old t-shirt of his, "Pro-Clone" in red letters, she pressed herself against him, breath of warm lips beneath his ear, arms around his neck. "That's all I can ask. Besides, I have a good feeling about all this."
This he wanted. The smile. The enthusiasm. Her obvious attention and affection. The scent of her hair pressed to his nose. Her warmth. Her smooth skin beneath his wandering fingertips…
She escaped his hopeful hands with a quick peck on his cheek. "I've got to get ready for work. But good luck!" She headed toward the bedroom, long legs seeming to glide with fluid grace.
Adam closed his eyes. Pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head.
#
Double Americano. The faint sounds of folk music meandering just below the consciousness, allowing the constant murmur of conversation to progress undisturbed. Adam took a long swallow of coffee, closed his eyes, and exhaled slowly.
As soon as the sound of Sherry’s car had faded in the distance, Adam had bee-lined to Vic’s Coffee Shop. He’d need something to calm his nerves before the interview, and Vic’s was like comfort food. Home away from Home
When he'd first been expelled from grad school, he'd used his newfound free time to search for jobs but had found nothing inspiring. He’d then decided he needed to decide what he wanted out of life before picking a profession. But somehow weeks had stretched to months. Living off his dwindling savings, parental supplements, and, if he were honest, Sherry’s largesse.
Filling the space between morning hikes or bike rides, and evenings of Sherry, Vic's had become a second home, Vic's employees and patrons his surrogate family. Ms. Shaky Hands behind the counter, with her black mop of hair, her flash of a smile and "What's new?" greeting almost five days a week. Or Mr. Hipster, skinny jeans, trendy hair and manicured beard, nodding and mentioning the weather, the Broncos, or some other non-important and safe topic of conversation. Even the trophy wife, driver of the yellow Audi, always clad in yoga pants. ALWAYS. No matter the weather or the month. He’d even had the occasional, vapid conversation with her as they waited in line.
Tiny interactions that, over time, had built a reasonable facsimile of human familiarity.
The more leisurely crowd had yet to arrive. The round, wobbly tables sat mostly unoccupied and expectant. Only the early morning regulars loitered over their newspapers and cooling coffee. The nameless elderly man, in his customary disheveled cardigan, who read the paper front to back over a poppy seed muffin every morning without speaking to anyone. The lanky homeless man who usually tucked himself behind the lonely table out front, muttering to himself and invisible compatriots. And Glenn, the Tarot reader.
Glenn was a fixture at Vic’s. He’d usually arrive before the morning rush, treat himself to a coffee before setting up shop at the table closest to the counter, making himself unavoidable. A round, mahogany-skinned man whose smooth voice and personal gravity ensnared all who wandered too near. His cheeks would break into a warm smile, greeting everyone with baritone happiness and cheer. Enticing them to come, to discover what their future held in store.
For a small fee, of course.
The man knew better than to attempt to entice Adam into a reading. He’d tried and failed numerous times. Adam had a low tolerance for bullshit.
Today Adam felt the man’s presence in a way he couldn’t explain. In a way that made him snag the abandoned newspaper from the table beside him, raise it as if immersed in the boring stories of Boulder’s city council meetings, if only to create a paper barrier between himself and Glenn.
After a time, he began reading in earnest, concentrating, closing out the distractions of the world, immersed in an explanation for the latest CU football grid-iron debacle. Again, he hovered on the outside of humanity, surrounded by the sound of quiet conversations, soft music, the scrape of chairs.
The low rumble of the Tarot reader broke through his defenses. "Young man, I know you don't believe, but I have looked into your world of possibilities.”
Adam wasted a shrug behind his paper. "Thanks, I’ll definitely keep that in mind."
"Your future is in limbo, the potential for disaster and greatness equal. Remember, the right choice is not always an easy one."
Adam broke into a smile despite himself. "C’mon, Glenn. You stole that from a fortune cookie. And I’ve told you before, I’m not paying you for that kind of crap. I don’t care what ‘the cards’ say about my future.”
"She already paid for you.”
Adam lowered his paper.
The Tarot reader’s thick index finger pointed toward the woman across the tiny table from him. A new face at Vic's. He would have remembered that vibrant pink hair, closely shorn. Her broad shoulders stretching the limits of her cotton T. The vivid tattoos, blues and reds, a flame engulfed earth, scrolling up her forearms. And he certainly would have remembered those big, brown eyes. Attractive in a natural, innocent sort of way.
She perched on her chair, gaze intent on Adam. Appearing almost concerned or worried.
"Who are you?"
"Maybe a friend." She flashed a thin, half-hearted smile that did nothing to relieve the weight behind her eyes. A sadness that seemed too large for her - what? -twenty-five years?
"Um… okay." Adam folded his newspaper with slow and careful precision, laid it before him. “Why would you ask for my future?”
“I’m worried about you.”
Adam searched for a faint curl of a smile, a light in her eyes, some indication this was all an inside joke between her and Glenn, who sat, uncharacteristically quiet, looking from Adam to this new "maybe friend”.
"Thanks for the concern, but you wasted your money. I don't believe in any of that nonsense, Tarot or horoscope stuff."
"What do you believe in?"
"Huh?"
"You're a scientist, right?" she asked as if they were old friends. Coffee shop regulars who met every morning, discussing local politics over scones and espresso.
He answered with a hesitant, “No.”
"No?"
Adam sighed. "I mean, I may have been at one point. But right now, I'm a big fat nothing. I'm unemployed." Much to Sherry's chagrin.
"I see.” She nodded. Leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. “But by nature?"
Adam laughed. "That, my 'friend', is a great question." He took a bemused sip of coffee, turned to Glenn, who’d begun sliding his cards into their purple velvet case. "So…just what the hell is this about, anyway?"
Before the man could answer, the strange woman leaned forward as if revealing a secret. "Interesting choice of words."
"Um… Okay." Adam looked toward the counter. As if our Lady of Perpetual Hangover might swoop down and rescue him…
The pink-haired woman sat back, crossed one leg over the other. "I'm just trying to get a feel for you. To see if there's hope. I mean, do you believe in anything he said?" She nodded toward the Tarot reader, whose customary smile had disappeared, replaced by the most serious of stares. And more than a hint of confusion.
“No. No, I don't. I told you. Why would I believe in that?"
"Why believe in anything?"
Jesus! There were times for navel-gazing. Times to sit back, take a long hit from the emergency joint Adam kept stashed in his glove compartment and deliberate life's serious questions.
But this was not one of those times.
Or maybe it was. For the joint part, anyway. Adam slid his chair back as if to leave. "I'm sorry, but I just remembered something I have to do."
"It's a simple question. You can't answer it?"
She certainly was persistent, he had to give her that. "I believe in things that have ‘evidence’."
"Well, I'm sure there was plenty of ‘evidence’ at some point that the world was flat.”
Adam gave an exaggerated sigh. "Of course. And then we discovered new evidence and changed our minds. It's called 'learning'. And I've never seen any evidence Glenn spouts anything but vague generalities that someone can always find truth in." Adam met Glenn’s eyes with a shrug. "Sorry, no offense."
Glenn shrugged back with a "none taken" smile.
“He implied you have a difficult choice to make.” She cocked her head slightly as she peered up at Adam. "Are you saying you don't have an important decision to make?"
"Hell, everyone is faced with important decisions almost every day."
"What if he specifically asked if you are contemplating your future in physics?"
Adam gave his best bored look. "I'm supposed to be impressed with that? You just asked me if I were a scientist, and I said, no, I was but am currently unemployed. So, guessing I’m a physicist isn't too much of a reach. Lucky for you I didn't study biology or chemistry. You'd have guessed wrong.”
"I really need to know if you’re going to return to physics."
"Why the hell do you care?"
She set her coffee mug down, all pretense of casual conversation gone. Leaned forward, again as if she were about to share a momentous secret and weren't simply bat-shit crazy. "It is very important. Your answer will help me decide."
“Decide? Decide what?”
A swell of sadness, a deeper set melancholy that no one, at any age, should have, welled behind her eyes.
"Whether or not you're the Anti-Christ."
