Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
’Cause there was a reason everyone loaded up in the back transport: If there was a buried IED in the road, the front one would run over it first.
I wasn’t thinking about that when I sent Elmer’s to the front truck.
I swear I wasn’t.
It was just something we always did at that point. Like calling shotgun. Everyone knew you tried to load up in the back transport first. It was a reflex.
“I swear I wasn’t thinking about it,” I whisper right before another sob takes me hard. “I’m fucking sorry, Elmer’s. I’m so fucking sorry.”
Because that day finally came, after seven years and spending most of my time clearing brush and moving sand so we could build another road.
I’ve been waiting for “that day” for so long, I’m fucking shocked when it actually comes.
It’s so loud at first, but then everything goes silent at the same time. Silent with the loudest fucking buzzing ring.
It’s so silent, I can’t tell what’s happening. But my eyes burn when I try to open them. People shout and pour out the back of my transport. I can’t hear any of them, even though in some distant part of my brain, I get it.
It’s finally happening.
Today is the day.
My feet take me to the end of the truck, and my arm feels disconnected from the rest of my body as I grab the bar to jump down to the sandy road. I barely hit dirt before I’m choking on air full of burnt rubber and gasoline fumes. The world tilts sideways as dark smoke churns on the road in front of us where the front transport used to be.
The one I saw Elmer’s climb into just twenty minutes ago.
It was just there.
Now, there’s only twisted metal and blood and the bottom half of a body, guts falling out of it like sausage links—
I run forward but arms grab me, holding me back. I’m bigger, so I fight them off. More bodies tackle me to the ground right as a smaller burst from the fuel tank sends a fresh wall of fire into the air.
“Elmer’s!” I scream as my eyes and throat burn from fumes, even though I know he’s gone.
It’s only ten in the morning. This sort of thing can’t happen at ten in the morning before I’ve even managed to pinch out a shit.
That’s all I can think as I turn over, hurl up my breakfast, and punch my fists into the sand. It’s only ten in the morning. It’s just ten. People don’t die at ten in the morning.
But as I punch the road again, it’s like my fists sink further than just into the sand.
And I feel the string yanking me back.
Suddenly, I’m both in the moment and further behind it, seeing how everything is connected.
The hundreds—millions—of strings that all crossed to create this combustion of violence.
My mouth opens in the same pained scream of wailing grief it did that day, and the sinews of my neck strain.
Flesh burnt off the bones of my comrades in front of me. The blood of the people we’d come here to spill. Their fury at us erupts in today’s blood instead.
And back behind me in a yawning stretch of retribution and revenge. Backwards, and on and on forever forward.
So many strings not even birthed yet.
I’m just the smallest speck of dirt on the smallest rock of the universe. The product of so many strings tugged and yanked. A consequence of consequences.
None of us are innocent but at the same time, it’s all so terribly understandable.
Every punch I’ve ever thrown.
Every wrong decision I’ve made.
All the worse decisions I chose not to make.
And at least, with the understanding, I can suck in a deep breath that feels like it finally, finally fills up all the space in my lungs.
It’s as if I’ve broken free of something, even if I’m not sure what. Some lie, maybe, that’s held me hostage for a long, long time.
Do I think my mom wanted to be there for me?
Yes. I think she would’ve chosen me if she could. But she couldn’t. And it didn’t have anything to do with me. She was caught in the consequence of a million other consequences.
There I am as a boy, and now, another boy is standing beside me. It’s me as a teenager, for some reason. As clear and glowing as the tattoos on Kira’s skin were.
The teenager puts his arm around the boy.
Choosing him.
I feel the message deep in my soul.
I’m not alone anymore.
FORTY-NINE
KIRA
I don’t know all of what happened for Isaak during his experience. He wasn’t verbal a lot of the time.
But that isn’t to say it wasn’t powerful. By the time he actually allowed me to turn around to see him, his face was red from crying, but he also looked peaceful in a way I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him before.