Changes

The cool air blew through my window, heralding a break from the heat that had smothered us the past few weeks. Getting ready for work was easy, the walk to the T was quick and brisk, and I glanced out the window of the red line into the darkness wide awake, instead of curled into a sleeping position. The wind was strong as I left South Station, much stronger than normal. And cold! I shivered and thought that a long sleeved shirt might not be enough. Halfway across the bridge, I slipped... on some ice? No, just wet stone. The smell coming from the rivers was extra pungent today, so I hurried across, cursing a little, and went to work.

Behind me, from the vents around the subway, the screaming started.

System error

I could hear people clamoring even before I got into the office. The network must be down again, I thought. I swiped my card, then had to slide it in again before I was rewarded with a click and an opened door. People were walking around a little more than usual, clustered around cubes and talking in whispers. The air seemed electric.
Rounding the corner into the data applications area, where my desk is, I saw the full extend of the chaos. My former help desk person was slamming his fist onto his PC, apparently it had crashed for the fifth time in as many minutes, and he couldn't read his e-mail. The light in the office was an odd hue, which I realized was coming from outside. The light was changing to a pale tan color, almost yellow, reminiscent of the time we got all that ash from Canada. A few programmers were watching streaming video on the television from New York and Chicago. Fear paralyzed me: the last time I felt something like this was when the WTC came tumbling down. Are we under attack? I asked. Something's wrong, they said. Something's changing. Don't you feel it?

And I did. A creeping sense that the world was not RIGHT, not behaving in a normal and rational way. The floors seemed to tilt slightly as you walked on them. My cube didn't have right angles, and then all was well again. My computer screen filled with strange images. I looked outside the window. The water of the river were freezing over but there was no snow. And overlaying everything this creepy tension on my skin., hitting every nerve ending, filling me with a fight or flight response. I could hear a crash and screams as a scuffle broke out somewhere on the floor. Some started crying. I ran through my cube, grabbing CDs and movies, taking anything that mattered to me and running for the exit. I had to get home, I had to get out of here, my family was waiting for me.... I went out into the streets, but there were empty. A few cars were parked nearby, but no people. No one I could see, that is. The smell was stronger, nothing I could place, garbage and perfume maybe, a congress so strong as to blot out any comprehension of it. The sky remained a deep even tan. And people appeared at last, falling from windows, the screams trailing behind them as they fell.

what really matters

I avoided South Station and ran through the streets. People were racing around me, screaming and running, asking each other what was happening, blaming Iraq, blaming the CIA, blaming God. I pushed past people and made it onto the train at Charles St. Thankfully, despite the madness, the trains pressed onward. They blew through the station at Kendall with no stops. As they approached Central, I could see the station thick with passengers, pushing at the side of the train, pleading and cursing us. Many of them were bleeding, their faces looking blurred and twisted from the motion of the train. I could hear higher pitched shrieks and the train jolted several times and all I could think about was fuck, those were people. He's running them down And I didn't care. I didn't want the train to stop, I didn't want to let those people with their twisted faces and hands that left smears of flesh on the window onto my train. The train descended into blackness again, the wailing overcome by the chatter of the train. The smears remained on the glass, and I stared doggedly at the floor, trying not to throw up.

When I raced up the stairs, my family was there waiting for me. I cried upon seeing them, they were ALL RIGHT, they were safe. My dad told me there wasn't time for that, I had to pack, we had to get out of the city it seemed the worst of it was in the cities. Worst of what? My mom told me we don't know. Her voice was fine, but her face was wet. Nobody knows. Things are changing, really changing and no one knows what is going to happen. The television was filled with blurry camera shots of people falling to their death, or fighting in the streets, or tearing their own eyes out. I began throwing my favorite books and discs into a bag and my sisters screamed there's not room for that you can only take one bag on the plane and we won't have anything to play them on.
And then it hit me: the world was ending, no one knew why, and there was nothing to do about it. No more bad movies, good TV shows, no more music or concerts or dancing. Just people running to the country, hiding in caves, regressing to some medieval cults praying to strange new god to save them from the change, from the chaos. God wasn't coming to save us, it wasn't Satan, it wasn't the power of Science. It was alien and obscene and it was taking my life away. I yelled at my sisters we threw bitter words back and forth until my father finally separated us. Take your mom to the store, we'll need some food. Get as much as you can carry, it will have to last a while.
Stunned, unthinking, I took my mom's hand and dragged her out into the streets, where people were loading their cars with useless things, running from their doom.

The doom that came to Boston

The corner grocer was empty, it was twilight out side, the crowds from before weren't present. I stared at the food on the shelves and thought: what would keep best? Dry goods, cans. No milk, it will sour w/out refrigeration.... oh Christ, when will I get to drink milk again? Do we even have a can opener?

Mom was calmly filling bag after bag with food. It's a good thing you work out, you're going to have to carry most of this. Then someone came into the store, the owner perhaps, old and stooped over, and for a moment I thought she was one of them, one of the Changed. She berated us as looters and vandals, and I could endure that, I'd been called a lot worse. But she wouldn't let up on my mother, calling her worse and worse names until I slammed her against the wall and told her in rich and colorful language just what I'd do to her if she didn't shut up. She was silent, staring daggers at me, but silent. I picked up the bags and walked towards the door. Thieves! If I were six inches taller and fifty pounds heavy, I'll kill you! Thieves!

I dug out my wallet and pitched it at her feet. Here, I spat at her. Have my bank card, take what you want. PIN's in there. It's not like I'm going to need it anymore.

***********************************

We made it the car, filled with family and food, the things that really mattered. I took every back street and side alley I could find on my way to the high way, but I needn't have bothered. The streets were choked with cars: a parking lot like I'd never seen in Boston before, and I'd been in some major back ups in my day. People darted between the cars, pleading, cajoling, spitting at each other. Cars rushed and pushed forward, edging each other off the road, crushing bodies between them. Drivers were pulled from their cabs of their trucks and pummeled and beaten and shot. SUV's plunged off the side and tried to off-road it. I stopped the car and turned it off. We were all silent. We wouldn't run and scream, we wouldn't panic. We could feel it happening. The Change. The air was thick inside the car, windows rolled up to keep out the din and what ever was out there, in the air. But we were Changing anyhow. I tried to cry, to shed one last tear, but I was beyond grief. There was only a void inside me, the complete and utter lack of hope, the cold certainly that Everything was Going to Change....

I was woken this morning by a cold wind blowing through the room, not just pulled by my fan. It was cold and wet. I shivered and turned off the fan. The world was eerily silent. The sky was a strange light grey color, not the normal hazy blue of the past weeks. I remembered all that I had dreamt of before. And I shuddered.