by David Hearne
“I had to stop and think for a bit to sort out what I was going to do, and what I was going to say. Then the shock of Ira’s death and the others hit me, and I felt like I should take my own life. I threw up in the hay there on the barn floor and continued lying there almost paralyzed from what had happened. Some of it I was not sure had even happened anymore. It just seemed to be a nightmare or a hallucination of some sort. But as the cold bit into my face and hands, my senses returned, and I knew I was now truly alone as Zoe had been except for you my friends. My husband was gone and I was not sure if I should go on anymore, but then I thought about Zoe taking her life to save mine and about my daughter. I realized that I had to go on, and I had to try and now be the epitome of good as she was as an honor to her sacrifice. So I went back to the road and flagged down a car that brought me to the police and after a quick bandage job they begrudgingly brought me to the town hall. I wanted to thank all those who supported me and to deliver my message. Because the only way we can win this fight is electing new Senators and changing the laws that allow Senators to hold power forever.”
“Just you all knowing this makes me feel a bit better about Zoe. I hope you will also remember her in your prayers. I just cannot express to you how much I really loved her. The longer she stayed alive, the more my love and admiration grew for her.”
Pamela Tutton interrupted Katherine and reminded her that they had to return to the police.
“Pamela is right, we did promise the police to go over everything, as soon as I was done with some personal matters. You four were those matters.” The Senator tapped on the glass partition and the limo pulled over to the side of the road. Behind them a police cruiser with blinking lights pulled up beside us and stopped. Two officers sat in the black and white cruiser. I suddenly realized that we were now in south Charlestown a short distance from where the attack had occurred earlier this morning. Police cars lined the road and in the distance I could see her campaign bus, with police milling around it.
Senator Laforge reached out her hand to shake ours and to bid us good night. Stacie and I said good-bye to Kat. Stacie kissed her on her cheek one last time. Katherine apologized again and said, “With the number of enemies, I’ve accumulated, it’s impossible to know who was trying to kill me. Big Oil, CIA agents, Saddam’s agents, tax fanatics or some other psychotics.”
In a low-pitched voice she added, “I do sincerely hope we get to see each other again.”
A behemoth police officer pulled opened her door and she and Pamela alighted and climbed into the waiting cruiser.
I glanced out the door and a dull metal object in the snow caught my attention. It looked like a Hulagu coin lying there outside the door. Did Katherine drop it? I just had a glimpse of it before our limo door was closed, and we pulled away. But that is what fixed in my mind. I glanced out the window, but I could see only the swirling snow, the waving police officer and Katherine’s vehicle returning to the stricken campaign bus still stuck in the embankment.
Her departure had been rather sudden; we really didn’t have much time to say good-bye. There was now an uncomfortable silence between the four of us.
The limousine drove down Main Street stopping at each parking place where we had left our cars earlier that morning and each of us said good-bye to the driver and exited out into the cold.
When we came to where my car was parked, we said our goodbyes. Something new was nagging at my consciousness about today. At first, I couldn’t figure out what it was that was bothering me. But as I inched my car out of the snow, it struck me. Katherine’s hair had been virtually white. I distinctly remember her twisting it between her fingers as she sat in front of me on the bus.
It was much lighter than the salt and pepper hair that I remembered from the night before when my wife helped her color it even darker.
I looked at my wife and asked, “Did you notice anything different about Katherine than how she looked last night?”
Stacie looked at me oddly and said that she had not. I reminded her of how Katherine’s hair had looked when we left her the night before. “Why would it be so white today?” I questioned.
She looked at me strangely and said, “Sometimes when a person gets very scared their hair turns white. She also might have just decided to wash the color out and be her natural self. What is bothering you?”
I didn’t reply, but doubts were growing about what was real and what was not. Or was I just being paranoid?
Since that traumatic day, strange and disquieting thoughts continue to plague me. Maybe it is just my doubting nature, but the image of Kat’s face with her white hair does not easily fade from my memory. Perhaps her hair getting wet from the snow washed the color out or maybe the grayness of her hair was the results of poor lighting in the limo, but I do wonder. I have many thoughts about that day wandering through my mind. I admit that I want to believe all she said, but I am sure there is something more to Katherine’s story than we know. There may not be, but part of me won’t bury those doubts.
I guess to ‘keep the peace’ and perhaps my life, I must repress these things inside. But I can’t do it forever. Sooner or later, I will have to let it out; otherwise, I will drive myself to insanity. If I could say what I need to say, you may think I am a terrible person. You may think that I am simply trying to confuse.
In all honesty, I am trying to tell you the truth, and whether or not you can accept it, is your choice. I know she said that this secret group is enlisting other Senators and in particular junior Senators, with one chosen to become President, but that logically couldn’t happen. They would have to convince the public to vote for an inexperienced junior Senator without a power base and no amount of perception management could accomplish that. Senior statesmen would never support the election of a junior Senator. And where would they raise the money? Wall Street would not gamble on a powerless junior Senator. It is inconceivable. But then I also doubt that major contributors like Big Oil or Wall Street would embrace their nemesis, Katherine.
Her story of destroying the car and her twin’s body with fire also bothered me. A shell of a burnt out car was found close to Route 12, but not any human remains. I suppose it is possible that wolves, dogs or wild hogs hauled it away and ate what was left, but where would the bones be? Maybe deep in the Connecticut River.
I really feel lost sometimes. Now I won’t go into all the details I am referring to, but certain people reading this will understand exactly what I am talking about. So was it Katherine or her twin that told us her story? Was it just a way to confuse us because she is their chosen one?
‘Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.’ I have always liked Albert Camus’ quote and in this context it is so apropos.
I know some people do see things that are not real, like long-dead relatives or faces changing before their eyes. But, I am not like that, I just have doubts.
But I no longer doubt Sorat’s existence. I have come to believe he is that evil conduit who invades our being and mutates our soul to the point that spreading misery and death becomes as fulfilling as the rapture of one’s first love.
Since my wife and friends don’t share my concerns about that infamous Sunday, I find it more comfortable keeping my views to myself.
I wish I had never said anything to Stacie about Katherine’s hair. I don’t want her to think I am some sort of psychotic. Even when we socialize with my old friends, I feel a keen sense of dread and anxiety as soon as Senator Laforge’s name comes up. When it does, I just sit there quiet, saying nothing, but just rocking in my chair, looking out my window and savoring the knowledge that only I have of that day.
To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.
~ Abraham Lincoln
About the Author
David Hearne is a former military officer who has been involved in the IT Industry for the last 20 years. His last book was a 500-page book called “Enable Command
Performance”. This was an exhaustive and comprehensive reference to the Enable Procedural language, a scintillating read for the Dilbert crowd. He also has written numerous articles on technology and interviewed its luminaries like Ted Wait the founder of Gateway 2000 Computers, Heidi Roizen the founder of T/Maker and a Vice President of Apple Computer.
He now lives in Southeast Texas with his wife and daughter.
