The History That Will Haunt You

This story has allusions to racial prejudice and violence. Please proceed with caution and put your wellbeing first.

Mississippi, 1987

Had she seen…? Did she really see her cousin MELT doll heads?

“Andy, you're such a bully! I know those dolls weren’t YOURS!”

Turning around Andy’s expression didn’t gawp or scramble to cover up his guilt and lie just like a stinking boy always does. Instead Andy looked like the older men when they looked at their wives for talking too much.

Angry. So angry they could spit fire or scream obscenities the adults said ladies and especially little girls shouldn’t hear in public.

“What DO you think you saw, nosey-posey?” Andy dared, teeth grit and jaw jutting to a hard, awful growl.

She did her best to be brave, giving Andy her whole arm to shove him out of the way to get a good look at the evidence of his crime!

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Not on the ground, in the grass, or on the trunk or up the branches of the deep sighing, wide spanning tree the two stood under. Andy– because he was a dumb boy– had hung dolls or staked stuffed animals high as he could reach on a thick trunked but still smaller tree at family reunions, not knowing just what that did to the girls and guys with darker skin uncles and older cousins brought over. 

(Just Black was impolite and impetuous, especially for a little girl, to say)

Miranda was born with her Dad’s brown skin but limp, straight hair like her Mom’s in the lightest, makeup powder color that Grandma and Pop pretended was fine but always tutted whenever he came without Mom.

“Hey! Hey!” Andy insisted in her ear like a wasp. “I was talking, that wasn’t very nice or ladylike!”

“Let a girl think, you lumbering ox!” she shouted, even if Andy really was very small and such a lean chicken he might as well be just bones and taut skin.

His fists were clenched. But Miranda could still see.

She wasn’t stupid.

And Andy wouldn’t know, but ladies saw everything. 

Miranda took his wrist. “You stole other people’s toys; that’s not just a crime, it’s plain bad.”

Miranda saw the black spewing from his hands too eager and fogged to be blood.

“How did you do that? What… Did ya do?” Miranda asked, voice held to just a whisper by her sort of horror, sort of wonder.

Andy’s eyes went wide, then tunneled to something beyond her, something she doesn’t think anyone but him could see.

She’d remember it for a long time and sometimes turned it over when she was drunk. 

…Huh, like toni…

Slapping her hand away, Andy couldn’t stop the apprehension with which he touched her, jabbing his finger at her blue dress with bell sleeves.

“You didn’t see a thing. Not. A. Thing,” Andy said, eyes empty and a deep dark that formed a hard marble in her throat that she imagined dropping (and her) into that emptiness she saw. “Girls, always imagining things.”

Tutting at her the way every man did sometime in some way. No matter how “nice” they said they were about it.

New York, 1993

That man.

He was said to be a renowned scientist.

The kind cultured, mature girls in college fantasized about in their posey, chic little apartments with verandas bursting with potted plants, imagining the stars aligning just right…

He’d broken INTO the TV studio, nevertheless in a formal suit, snatching the microphone from a vapid smiling anchor. Who wasn’t smiling anymore.

“Do not panic, it is important that there is calm; there is an emergence, happening right under our noses, in our homes, our schools, the very streets, there is nowhere to hide from this…”

Some would say the leaner of his accomplices in black leather and a cascading, choppy unicorn mohawk was actually a woman rather than just a queer, even as that figure bodied the anchor causing a commotion.

How the cameraman was still filming or why…

Would remain a conspiracy of soon to be 4Chan.

Images were loaded of disasters that had been covered almost ad nauseum in the news. In fact they had been covering a freak mudslide near Lake Erie. How or where experts were trying to figure out.

“These were no accidents, no draw of chance. Not even conspiracy or man-made, those who caused such disasters, healed, caught the most prominent of US,” we and this babbling man were the same apparently, “with our pants down, and so much more… didn’t realize themselves.”

Security stormed the chaotic scene like bulls with no cues or sense of entertainment value.

They grabbed him tight, to a point of being excessive, the poor guy looked INCHES. From. Death. They hoisted him off his feet so he had to kick to finish off his message in the most dramatic way possible.

“There is no more impossible, humanity won’t be recognized anymore! GET– GET OFF!”

And cut.

Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, Arkansas, Oregon…

“It has just been confirmed; floodwaters were suddenly frozen over, in the deciduous forests, trees were found acting as buffers, too organized…”

THE APOCALYPSE IS UPON US!

Such messages and slogans appearing alongside a “Y2K,” promised to strike the Internet networks, too simplistic to keep up with the pace of passing time.

Conspiracy nuts around the world linking the two as the waves of humanity’s end.

On a computer forum…

–This sounds nuts but I think… My sister sees dead people? Or something–

–Ears ringing, migraines all the time, doctors can’t find anything. Tranquilizers, pain meds, not even booze gets me to sleep–

–I am… ee2uen… sshaa=kin reeling. I fiewnk O… coommriuw aarson????????--

Reply: What did ya use, a flamethrower????

–No–

Okay then what the problem?

–I touched something with my hands and then it was on fire–

NEW YORK TIMES: Disasters Reach the Thousands This Year in 1996

THE CRIER: IS It a Curse? An Act of God?

_____________________________________________________________

New York

December 31st, 11:58:50. 

1999

For the new year (not to mention turn of the century) there really was a lot to celebrate. 

Miranda had graduated smooth sailing in a non-HBCU college (take that racism) with honors, and missed either real Honor Title by one letter grade in her Practicum when she was fizzed out and wrung for all the flowery brilliance and ambition she possessed, anyway as a Senior.

She’d nevertheless been scouted and snatched up by a retailer for their HR nightmare which wasn’t exactly what her Hospitality Management Degree was for but whatever. It was good money that she jumped ship from cold, gloomy Maine to equally grey-toned New York in an embarrassingly tiny studio.

Then again the small size meant it came alive at the lightest touch, sensitive but stalwart in a way only scrabbled together living among friends can accomplish. She whooped into the mass of (twelve) bodies cramming themselves at her dining table and leaking onto the living room carpet floor.

This busted place was hers and a lady made it work to hold her very first own adult rager to wring in the New Year– and mostly ironically– ride out the apocalypse. With popcorn and cheap beer and seltzers.

Her guests were near rabid for the game of beer pong she was setting up with some Rube Goldberg effects.

Once eight guests had gotten their mixers or five dollar bills she’d put in a given solo cup, the party spread across her living room for the countdown.

She had trusted Ernest Mason out of everyone there to handle her TV whilst everyone else mingled.

On his knees he fanatically pushed the channel button. 

“Muppet,” she said lowly, dropping the nickname she’d given him for his spastic hair and inclination for earth toned cable knit sweaters under his clown costume. “What is taking so long?”

“Ask the New York News stations, they’ve got some embargo on Times Square or Madison or anywhere else doing a countdown.”

Newscasters were all wearing pretty solemn expressions for an audience the country over partying literally like no tomorrow.

“Just 40 seconds!” cried her favorite Junior from the job at a swanky bistro she’d picked up since moving, with a pink fade dye job.

Miranda huffed and squared her shoulders, “then I guess we’ll just be doing without the extra fanfare. Guess what really matters is the clock and well wishes.”

“Dude it’s conspiracy bunk on the news!” 

Huh, just how strong had her mixers been?

“En masse family and friends have reported young adults suddenly disappearing, traffic crawled to a standstill in just the last hour.”

“FIVE!”

“FOUR!”

“Similar anomalies have been reported in all major cities of the United States.”

“THREE!”

“TWO!”

“We are currently receiving an audio message…”

“ONE! HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

In Mississippi you could hear the pops of pistols going off. 

Here fireworks boomed, but not with the teeth-rattling impact of something or another that shook half the room off their feet.

Miranda was two beers and too many fruity coolers deep to really register what something like that could mean.

Or that alarms followed right after.

Exactly at 12:02 am Y2K had occurred.

Miranda slogged through a monster hangover.

His fists were clenched. But Miranda could still see.

She wasn’t stupid.

And Andy wouldn’t know, but ladies saw everything. 

Miranda took his wrist. “You stole other people’s toys; that’s not just a crime, it’s plain bad.”

“These were no accidents, no draw of chance. Not even conspiracy…”

“You didn’t see a thing. Not. A. Thing,” Andy said, eyes empty and a deep dark that formed a hard marble in her throat.

God, Andy. Screw-up, old-fashioned, and disgusting with the favor his father gave him to run his mouth and his hands however he liked.

He’d almost been tolerable as a child though. 

Had that day really changed so much? The day he got so angry? Got all up in her face? Accosted her like a grown man with no sense or care for his lady?

The last dregs of the recollection hung bitter as she got up, sprawled across her own too small couch and moaning.

Jill– she remembered who owned such a ravishing pink fade now– from work was right beside her on the floor. Waking a bit more gracefully in the still water grey of the day.

“Heya, sleep alright MiMi?” she cracked with much too much sass for a 23 year old girl (nevermind Miranda herself was just the same). “Good news, neither us ended up pregnant last night.”

Jill stretched her arm over her head, getting blood flow back, “that I am sure of.”

Miranda scoffed, “yeah I bet, you were just as plastered as anyone.”

“‘Xcept I hold my liquor just fine Mom,” she crowed, craning her neck up to smile that impertinent smile.

A girl who looked like Jill could afford to hold her liquor, hold her secrets, maybe even hold a baby in college.

The thought stopped her cold, it wiped any whimsy, any fun left off her face.

At the moment the rest of the party in her living room was waking up too.

Like her two guys and another girl moaned, staving headaches and wanting to bitch to somebody.

“Welcome back to the land o’ the living,” Jill joked. Miranda didn’t think Jill knew these people until last night.

Miranda sat herself up and ran a hand through her hair.

Another noise was starting to come clear through the balcony door…

Sirens. A full raid of police sirens, fully waking Miranda up from her stupor. 

The energy in the room began to match that.

“Shit,” said a guy up and pants half on, looking at his phone. Miranda could see his finger scrolling down what she assumed were some kind of missed message. “Guys you gotta check yours. Else I’m going insane or someone decided to hack my phone for some messed up prank.”

Miranda leapt up just as Jill dove for the couch, rummaging for her own cell between the cushions.

She did vaguely remember taking a room shot as they’d hollered and howled for the New Year, finding it on the floor by her bare feet.

A needling feeling told her to look up– she saw footprints on the ceiling in vaguely her size.

Huh… she’d cope with that later.

Only to jump when Jill shrieked at seeing something on her phone.

Shakily, she said to the guys, “I think this is real. I– I have a million calls from my Mom panicking down in Florida.”

The other guy had opened the balcony door.

“Shit you all should look at this,” he said, head turned but eyes still focused on the edges of his sight. Like something could inevitably leap out.

All four craned to look.

Whatever was going on was picking up in volume. Which probably meant more momentum.

Flicking on her phone, Miranda did in fact find a city wide alert.

THIS IS A HAZARD ADVISORY, RESIDENTS ARE REQUESTED TO STAY IN THEIR HOMES, LIMIT POWER USE…

Her heart roared, the chaos outside clamored for her attention too.

She snapped, practically yelling for her layabout friends to just “SHUT that DAMN DOOR.”

Soon after, her company had to hustle out whether for family members or to hole up in their own homes.

That was just fine with her. Just peachy in fact.

Miranda double checked that her balcony door to the fire escape was shut and locked tight, pulling the stapled on curtain to block her room from sight for good measure.

The window in her bedroom too.

Miranda’s parents, her grandparents, too many relatives HAD to make sure she was all too familiar with this type of situation before she moved out. The city was for educated folk and in some nooks and crannies that “Progressive” word, but it was also vicious.

TV was no help for a distraction.

It went out soon after. Along with the hum of the old AC above her.

It took her a little too long to find out she’d basically blown through her bottled waters as well as some of the few hearty food she’d had. She’d planned to go shopping the day after the ‘Apocalypse.

Miranda steeled her nettle, put on a pair of old sweats, got a pen knife, and her cloth grocery bag. Quick run, in and out, steal if she had to from looted stores.

She depended on some forums that were still somehow active and posting on her phone.

Stepping into the pandemonium was a wholly different experience. She saw all types of things that uttering a word about would have had her laughed at or committed as a kid or a Mississippi housewife just twenty-some years ago. 

Bats and pipes were covered in frost or flames, sometimes vines. She saw one gentleman in a formal suit tossing pieces of already unsteady, cracked asphalt to break a window.

Forcing Miranda to duck in cover, make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible to hopefully not pose any interest.

That was just the area spat out of the apartment complex.

From there she kept to the sidewalks, under the few green spaces, and went her way to the grocery store by intuition. Whether it was looted or not… she was sure it would… she’d snatch what she needed. 

No power, no media, too many police sprawled instead of patrolling the streets, for once a face like hers might not get caught.

And it was… the fastest way to go. Certainly that too.

Miranda would ride this out indoors where it was marginally safe. 

Some people screamed at the impossibilities coming from their own hands or their minds. 

One slender man with greasy hair– that was really a too-young teenager– bundled in rags had grabbed her wrist, frightening her.

Eyes blown wide and red as if high he gave her some advice: “The Skull flags’ll have taken over the area by now. Go to a bodega, the one on 20th is a far cry but the owner has a rifle he doesn’t use on women.”

Miranda pursed her lips, unsure if she could or would trust information given to her by a stranger in a riot to rival the worst of her people’s bloodied history…

Until a boom rang through the sky and a jolt of impact ran down the pavement underfoot.

A deadly array of lightning painted a greying sky and washed both terrified faces in blue.

Miranda couldn’t help it. Her hysterical laugh.

Surely, this wouldn’t last. They’d round up all the chaos starters, these people with oout-of-controlthings about them and help them.

None of this would surely affect her in her lifetime.