The Chosen One, page 11
“Dang, Earnell,” Keli chimes in, “that’s cold-blooded. You didn’t have to say all that. Chill.”
Earnell knows I can’t fail and understands what’s at stake. Beneath his frustration is a reservoir of love and care for my well-being.
Our love is always buried underneath, at least the Black people I know. We don’t say, “I’m concerned about you” or “I’m terrified you won’t make it” like they do in Hallmark movies. We say, “You betta get your life together before it all falls apart.” We don’t ask, “How are you doing? Do you need anything?” We ask, “You good?”
“You good?” can mean a range of things: “How are you? Are you hungry? How’s the family?” The meaning is conveyed by the tone beneath the words, which is where we place our concern. We love through our shields, since we rarely have the luxury of taking off the warrior gear. Anything that’s filtered like that, through a protective covering, will be coarse and abrasive, but it will also be rooted in deep care and love.
Earnell, Keli, and Gabby are the kinds of friends that would be on the front lines of any war in which I find myself, but don’t expect them to say, “I love you. I’m here for you.” Expect them to say, “You betta wake up” and “You good?”
We spend the rest of our time in the study room in silence. The weight of Earnell’s comments hangs in the air. I pretend to be studying, like everyone else, but am really just waiting for time to pass. A steady stream of thoughts about Bryce, Mandy, the series of unusual occurrences, and my failing grades make it impossible to focus. When Matthew finally rings the bells, signifying it’s time to go, I jump up from my seat and tell them I have another appointment.
“Must be exciting if you are in this much of a rush,” Keli says.
“Trust me, it’s not, but it’s a necessary evil.”
As I’m rushing out the door, Earnell yells behind me, “Hey. I’m sorry, but please gather yourself and fast.”
I smile at the bubbling brook of tenderness beneath his words. “I will, Earnell. Don’t worry.”
I stand at the threshold of Jennifer’s door for five minutes, trying to compel myself to knock. I know something is wrong. It doesn’t feel like the other two times I’ve been here: warm, safe, or inviting. Everything seems off, out of alignment. Maybe Earnell’s intensity threw me off more than I realized. Even my RWP sensor is beeping out of control, which never happens with her. I try to talk myself out of it, but I feel her presence from behind the door as if she’s standing there, waiting. Watching.
I quietly press my ear to the door to see if I can hear her moving around, but it’s eerily quiet. I don’t even hear the running water of the small fountain. I convince myself she’s not there, even though I know she is. I turn around, preparing to leave. As soon as I walk away, the door swings open. She is standing there. Waiting. Watching.
“I thought I heard someone,” she says. “Come in. Come in. I’ve been eager to hear how your trip went, how everything else is going.” I suddenly feel disoriented somehow. Out of place and confused. She stands aside and motions for me to enter.
I don’t move. “You good?” she asks. The way she says it, like how all the other shielded but loving Black people speak, hypnotizes me and pulls me forward. I walk in a daze, as if I’ve lost the ability to control my own body. It moves without my blessing. I enter her office. The room rotates on its axis right in front of me. The fountain moves to the opposite corner. The desk slides across the room.
The body, still moving without my permission, sits on the couch, which is now in front of the window, instead of by the door.
The hands accept the tea in a white mug that she gives me. It’s cold, which is strange, but the mind, which has stopped, cannot process. The mouth drinks. The throat swallows. Then the mouth smiles. The teeth glisten. The nose bleeds. Drip. Drip. Dripping. The hands wipe, pressing a white tissue under the nostrils. The bleeding stops.
She sits. Her eyes watch. The RWP sensor deactivates, so there is no way to protect her from what comes next. The mind is disarmed, so it cannot build a barrier in the space between. The exposure disquiets the emotions. They blare with fright.
Then it starts. The watching. Which I knew was happening since I got here. Now to confront the watcher, finally. She is motionless on the chair across from me. She does not speak. She does not move. She just watches. The pupils of her eyes spin like all the other portals I’ve seen since coming to Dartmouth. The temperature drops. The water, which had been running even though I couldn’t hear it through the door, stops.
The words do not come out of her mouth. They come out of her eyes through electrical pulses. They spiral directly into my brain. Living words. Luminous words that sparkle with a light of some unseen presence. The words, initially jumbled,
Wondering Picture
Searching Timeline
You Answers
Mission Beginning
Know Why Breaker
eventually organize into coherent sentences:
You are wondering why, who, what
You are searching for an answer
But there are no answers, only more questions
We are the Keepers, and when did we come?
We arrived when you reached your lowest, a streak of light in the sky
We are a collective consciousness of ancestral forces, and what do we want?
We have been watching you from the beginning, through them. They weren’t watching you, we were, and why is that so?
You have an important mission, and what could it be?
To answer the call of the beyond
Answers and questions
Know
The inexplicable occurrences strike when you are ready to answer the call, they test your endurance, which this work requires
Know
Everything you thought you believed must be dismantled and reassembled in a new way to trigger the awakening
Know
You are a guardian of the timelines, a Chosen One, this is the call
Know
We are a unified energy with no beginning and no end, but we have known you since you accepted the Guardianship, we have known all of you, the Chosen Ones
Know
This is just the beginning, but the fall must come before you start your work, do not be afraid
Know
That the only way forward is through
A shrill high-pitched sound starts after those last words. The eyes close and the hands cover the ears to shield from the sound. It’s so loud, like a dreadful creature of the night returning from the underworld. The nose starts bleeding again, this time dripping down all over my pants and her dark pink couch.
When I open my eyes, Jennifer has a clipboard in her hands, the water is running, and everything has been repositioned like it was on my first visit.
“I was saying,” Jennifer continues, “that I’m surprised you wanted to do EMDR today. You did very well. You seemed to easily recall many things and released a lot. I’m so proud of you. When shall we plan our next meeting? It’s really rewarding to watch you heal.”
I blink. Cauterized by what just happened. Confused by how this Jennifer seems so different from the one that greeted me at the door and shot words into my brain through her eyes.
“Honey, are you all right?” she asks. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
The eyes stare, then another tunnel of motion, forward.
CHAPTER TEN
Her consciousness unbuttons, moving at warp speed through time and space while her body stands lifelessly in front of Matthew, staring, for hours. The body is such a faithful servant, ignoring its own needs in favor of the mission. Hundreds of timelines to travel. She is gone. Far away.
FORWARD
A dinner table. Cleveland’s Last Supper. My mother has prepared a feast. We dine by candlelight. Everyone is glad I came home for winter break. They want to know about Dartmouth. What’s it like living in a winter wonderland? Tonight all will be laid bare. Healing is inevitable when the truth comes out.
FURTHER FORWARD
The realm of prayers where blessings rise from the ether like mist over the sea. A transcendent dimension outside of time and the material world. I rest there for an eternity before a tunnel of luminous, bright white light swallows me whole. Then, a procession of singing ancestors. “Do you want to return as Echo Brown?” they ask through electrical impulses before the miracle.
THE END
A drowning or a rebirth. A completion of the mission or a new life cycle. A Legend or a Lost One. The end of timelines threaded by millions of choices. Events unfolding one after another until conclusions are reached.
BACKWARD
So many faces—penetrating, unfamiliar. The third week of October, a homecoming for the ages. They will worship Him first, then try to destroy Him and His games. His wicked smile taunting me again. I throw rocks at him, watch them come barreling back down. He is immune to my attacks. “Luke, I am your father now! Your mother’s God has forsaken you again. Look how the Chosen One falters,” he laughs wildly. “I will defeat you!” I shout angrily.
They are all caught under His spell, running in circles, ripping off their clothes—white flesh, mad white flesh everywhere—kneeling in the dirt, praying to the God of Light, even as he, the Joker, inhales their prayers into his flaming nostrils. His chaos rules us all. He has to die.
BACKWARD
The calculus midterm exam. Pencil writes, but only doodles come out. Squiggly lines. No words. No numbers. Time’s up. Professor takes the exam. Stares. His face malfunctions, switching abruptly to Mr. Walsh’s and then back again. They are one and the same. They don’t understand. Mr. Walsh’s prophecy of failure fulfilled.
FURTHER BACKWARD
I am eight years old and the people are watching again. I told my mother, but she said it’s just my imagination. They tell me they are the Keepers. They say they have been watching since the beginning. They travel through time, looking for Chosen Ones: protectors of the timelines. They never blink. Not even now, while the doctors and nurses do their poking and prodding. They stare and say whiskey man is a wicked creature, deplorable and cruel. It’s all my fault for being a bad little girl. I wish my mother was here.
THE BEGINNING
In the beginning, she was intangible. An eternal concept, floating through timeless space. Then this thought disrupted her peace: “What if I can rise? And what if I can help the others rise?” Momentum spiraled, then we heard the call and transformed her from a wave to particles, to cells, accelerating her transformation. The incarnation of flesh from the infinite.
We the Keepers serve the greater purpose of activating the Chosen Ones. We balance the universe when everything bends toward darkness. And the Chosen Ones are the beacon, the light pointing home for the others who cannot see. A Chosen One does not come for herself. She comes for the others.
The cycle is constant in all realities: The concept becomes form. The form becomes story. The story becomes legend. The legend blooms into light fueling the others. The Chosen Ones protect the Legends. So it has been. So it must be.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Zero days left till midterms. Now the verdict: I have failed my calculus midterm and gotten C’s on all the others. Professor Cartwright calls me into his office and hands me back my test three days later. It is covered in doodles and incomprehensible text. I don’t know what to say. “I’ve been having episodes,” I explain. “Mental health episodes. My roommate told me I was standing in front of Baker Tower for hours, staring, until Dean Harrison came and took me to her house. I don’t remember any of it. I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening to me.” Tears well up in my eyes. I try and suck them back in, but they disobey me, like everything else in my life.
Professor Cartwright leans back in his chair. He doesn’t know how to handle this kind of vulnerability. He tries to soften
when he sees the disappointment roll across my face. “A lot of people do just fine in the world with degrees from regular schools. It’s nothing to get upset over.” Mr. Walsh smiles dryly, entirely pleased with his “reassurance.” Totally unaware of the way he is belittling me, cutting me down to his low expectations. He thinks he’s helping me. He doesn’t care what I have overcome or how much I have accomplished, like earning straight A’s every year. In his mind, I’m above average at most, but definitely not intelligent enough to attend an Ivy League school. “I see it every year,” he continues,
students from rough neighborhoods who think they can take on the world without having an accurate perspective on what it takes to make it in a place like this. They come here and think they can play a new game with the same rules. You can’t. Find someone to help you get through this or you’re going to end up on a bus back to where you came from. I always wonder why no one tells you what you’re up against before you arrive.” He shakes his head in bewilderment. Someone did tell me, I think to myself. Now Mr. Walsh will have a brother, Professor Cartwright, planting seeds of doubt inside my still fragile mind.
I knew he was a doubter all along. Nonbelievers always reveal themselves. I am numb to his cruelty now, however, even if he is right. I am just another statistic, despite my best efforts. My expectations for myself come crashing down. The downfall. Not even the Defiance can save me from myself now. I wonder what the House of Oppression has in store for me next?
I emerge, uneasy, from Professor Cartwright’s office back out into the crisp fall air. I stand on the steps of the math building lost in thought. The unnatural chill gave way to a few summery days, which seem to be finally passing, and fall, winter’s diligent messenger, hints of permanent cold’s arrival. How am I going to get through this, especially now that the change in season is fast approaching. They say winters are both brutal and wondrous at this small, beloved college. Winters are a lot like the men who “didn’t mean to.”
I heard it was colder than usual last year, negative twenty-three degrees for several days. They said your nostrils freeze as soon as the cold air flows in. “Try not to breathe,” they suggest. “Try to run as fast as you can between buildings.” The ethereal beauty of a fresh snowfall makes up for the cold, however. That’s what they say. The white snow blankets everything in sight, covering the campus in a surreal glow, just like in the brochure—a promise kept. But I’ve learned not to trust everything that shimmers.
I watch the sky with a low brow and my “What you talkin’ ’bout, Willis?” glare, bracing myself for Darth Vader’s next storm. “Can you let this one pass quietly?” I ask the God of Light as the chaos maker laughs brazenly on the horizon. I guess not, I think to myself. I guess some falls are destined.
“You look like a Black Xena Warrior Princess standing up there like that,” Connor calls from the bottom of the stairs. “Wait, is that offensive? Sorry. Sorry if that’s offensive.”
I smile while bouncing down the stairs in Connor’s direction.
“How’ve you been? Was thinking about you the other day. You haven’t called so I guess everything’s OK?”
I want to tell him that everything is falling apart, that winter is coming, but I know he can’t really help me and he won’t understand.
“I’m in Rumi’s field now, out beyond all my problems. So yea, everything is fine.”
Connor grabs the straps of his backpack and stares at me in confusion. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or serious. Do you want to go grab a bite and properly catch up?”
“Nah, but thanks. I’m running off to meet some friends. Maybe another time.”
We decide that the best way to release the pressure of midterms is to go dancing at a frat party on Halloween weekend. With seven weeks until finals, the semester is nowhere near over but we need to let loose and are all feeling reckless. It’s the usual crew—Earnell, Keli, Gabby, and me—dressed respectively as a garden gnome, a gangster Cinderella (instead of a wand she carries a baton), and an ancestor. I’m wearing a bloody skeleton costume. It wasn’t my first choice, but it was all they had left for a girl with expanding thighs.
By the time we arrive, the music is blaring and the dance floor is jam-packed with ghosts and ghouls searching for the beat. In this mostly white frat, only a few manage to find it.
“So this is what it means to be young,” Earnell remarks, unimpressed.
We stand against the spiderweb-covered wall, watching in silent judgment. We are only eighteen and nineteen, but already ancient in many ways, having seen the best and worst of what life has to offer.
“I guess we should try to have fun,” Keli says eventually. “I wish the Alpha party wasn’t overcrowded. This looks like peak Caucasity.”
We make our way to an open corner of the room and start dancing awkwardly in a circle. Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” is playing. The chorus blasts, “It’s getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes,” at which point a girl next to us begins peeling off her sweat-drenched sexy pirate costume and chucking it into the crowd. She pulls her bra down and flashes everyone in her vicinity to the delight of her friends, who cheer and celebrate the body-positive drunkenness. Someone vomits right behind us and we shift our position in disgust. Someone else starts crawling up the stairs on his hands and knees while barking, as a friend holds a leash attached to his neck.
“Look around,” Earnell says sarcastically. “This is the Ivy League. The cream of the crop. The elite. Getting wasted. Vomiting on the floor. Crawling up the stairs. Taking off their clothes. These people will run the country one day. Take a good look and remember this.”
