Here's another example of bad fiction that came from one of our family writing challenges. I felt the need to publish it somewhere, after the work
I put into it. The challenge was to write about magical qualities in a painting.
And yes, I'm pretty sure there aren't actually any houses or apartments overlooking the Chicago Skyway. It's fiction. Deal with it.
Skyway
Chapter One
Sara sat up in bed with a start. Her heart was racing. She
looked around in the dark, momentarily panicked, until her conscious mind
whirred into gear and placed her in her bedroom.
She blew out a long breath, running her fingers through her
long black wavy hair, and squinted at the clock next to her bed. Sure enough,
it was two o’clock on the nose. Every day for two weeks, the piercing sound of
that horn outside her apartment window had jolted her awake. In her mind, it
rang out like an alarm, signifying some imminent danger. But when she came to,
her ears would just catch the end of the real noise echoing from somewhere down
on the ground.
Sara reached for her glasses and walked to the window by her
bed. Where was that noise coming from? All she could see from her vantage point
from the top floor of her apartment building were dots of light piercing
through the darkness down below. There was simply no way to know who was
blowing that horn, or why. Was it coming from the train tracks? From one of the
container ships down at the docks? Maybe some disgruntled semi driver got cut
off on the Skyway? It was anyone’s guess.
She’d asked all her neighbors who lived on the same floor if
they’d heard the sound every night. No one else had. They must have been really
sound sleepers to not hear that nightly blast that was shattering her restful
slumber.
With a resigned sigh, Sara clicked the desk lamp on and sat
down at her computer desk. She didn’t turn on her monitor but instead reached
for her favorite devotional that she’d set down in the morning before rushing
off to work. Reading a few verses of her beloved Bhagavad Gita always calmed
her mind on nights like this so she could get back to sleep. The comfort came
as much from Krishna’s wise words to Arjuna in the story as it did from the
book itself. The book had belonged to her great-grandmother, who’d come from
the old country long ago with her husband in search of a better life in
America. The book ended up in Sara’s possession because nobody else wanted it
when Great-Grandma died. To Sara, it was a connection to her family and her
roots. And over the years, it came to mean even more.
Even though her grandparents and parents had both married
other Indian-Americans, Sara saw that with each generation there was more and
more “American” and less and less “Indian” in her family. It made her sad
sometimes to read the Gita, because she knew that no one else cared about this
piece of their family’s heritage. It was something not just spiritual but
cultural. The old ways had once bound her family together. And while she still
had a loving family, something had always gnawed at her. Growing up, Sara felt there
was something like a hollow spot in her life, something that needed to be
filled. Some people called that feeling a God-shaped hole in the human heart.
For Sara, Krishna filled that inner yearning.
At a deeper level, so did Vishnu, the great creator as well
as the fearsome destroyer. Krishna was Vishnu’s eighth avatar. He incarnates to
restore order and goodness whenever the world is running out of virtue and
overrun with evil. Sara sometimes wondered where Krishna was now, and when he
was going to come back to fix this world filled with so much turmoil.
After reading a few pages, Sara felt relaxed enough to try
to go back to sleep. She set down her book and paused for a moment to reflect
on the little stone statue that sat next to the lamp. Sara got her name from
her great-grandmother, who said she sensed that the new baby in the family
would grow up to express herself through art. And so she became Saraswati
Patel, named for the goddess of knowledge, education, poetry, and music. She’d
picked up the Saraswati statue on a family trip to the old country when she was
young. It, too, was a reminder of what her family had lost over the
generations. Just the fact that she felt compelled to go by Sara and not
Saraswati, because so many people stumbled over the deity’s name, was a
constant reminder.
Besides, who was she to boast
about a likeness to a goddess of the arts? Sure, she painted in her spare time,
but by day she was just a kid a few years out of college, grinding away by day
in graphic design for a company she felt little attachment to. And she was sure
her superiors felt the same way about her. She was a worker drone getting the
job done to pay the bills, nothing more. Her true passion was in painting, but
so far she’d made enough from her art to maybe buy groceries for a week. Her
great-grandma might have been right that she’d be graced with a gift for art,
but if she relied on her paintings for her income, she would be a starving
artist in more ways than one.
Chapter 2
The bitter March wind whipped against Sara’s face as she
stepped off the bus. She put up her hood and hugged her coat as she briskly made
the five-block walk to her apartment building.
Despite the cold winters, Chicago was a nice place to live
and work, if you could afford it. But there was a reason Sara lived in the
industrial part of the city and commuted downtown to work. Here she could
afford to live, even if living consisted of a tiny four-room apartment in a
neighborhood where you’d better hope you didn’t forget to lock your doors
before bed. Living near the Skyway also gave her easy access to South Bend. Her
family lived just on the other side of Lake Michigan, about an hour and a half
away, and she drove out to visit them most weekends. She liked getting away
from the hustle-bustle of the big city when she could. And it was always nice
to go back to Notre Dame’s campus and take a peaceful walk along the lake. In
some ways, it seemed like a lifetime ago that she was walking across the stage
to receive her BFA from the dean.
Sara still kept in touch with her college friends, but as
the years passed, it seemed they talked less and less as careers and families
took priority for most. They were growing apart as graduation faded into the
rearview mirror for all of them.
She wondered why they all seemed to adjust to this corporate
9-to-5 life so easily while she felt so restless. Surely there was more to life
than working a job you didn’t love, just so you could exist, buy a few
frivolities to distract you from the emptiness of it all, and then grow old,
get sick, and die. What was the point of it all?
She shook her head and chuckled to herself. Krishna would
have an answer, she told herself. He always did. In fact, she knew exactly what
he’d tell her. He’d say she has a duty to society, to carry out the role
assigned to her, to help others, to make wise decisions, and to basically lead
a good and righteous life. Her brothers laughed at her when she got lost in her
thoughts like this. They told her she needed to relax and enjoy life. But how
could she, when she wasn’t living the life she wanted? Was being a corporate
drone her destiny, her karma? She sure hoped not. She still dreamed of making a
living with her art.
Needing some inspiration, Sara went right to her stack of
paintings piled up in the corner of the dining room. The pile was getting
bigger by the day, and they were starting to take over the room. She didn’t
wish she had more space for them as much as she hoped she could actually sell
them to appreciative buyers who might spread the word about her art. Then,
maybe one day, she could give up her crummy day job and devote her life to her
true passion.
She smiled as she flipped through the canvases, each one
taking her back to a moment in her life when the artistic muses, or maybe
Saraswati herself, came to visit her. Most of the time, she felt as if she was
just a conduit for the art, as if some unseen force worked through her to
choose the colors and create the vibrant brushstrokes that brought the blank
white boards to life. Most of the pictures she painted were places she’d seen
with her own eyes. South Bend, Notre Dame, downtown Chicago, sunrise at the
lake, even a few scenes from the places her family had visited in the old
country.
But her favorite by far was the scene she painted of the
view from her bedroom window. Down there were the shipyards, the train tracks,
the big metal suspension bridge that began the climb up the Skyway. It was
gritty and industrial, but it was home. It was her view on the world. And that
was why it hung on the wall in a place of pride. That one was too personal to
sell. Besides, who’d want to look at that landscape? It might be
familiar and comforting, but it’s not exactly an awe-inspiring view.
Sara went to the kitchen to heat up a frozen dinner. She
wasn’t much of a cook, and she always wished she’d been given even a fraction
of the gift for creating delicious meals that her mom used to make. Half the
reason she went home on the weekends was just to get a good homecooked meal.
Grabbing a fork, she carried her dinner to her bedroom. She
sat down at the desk and pulled up the day’s news on her computer. She hated TV
and didn’t even own one, and she found social media to be a distraction, a
place to get pulled into pointless arguments. It sapped her soul. If she needed
entertainment, she’d pull up a cricket match with her online Willow
subscription. Checking in on Virat Kohli’s latest exploits on the pitch could
come later. For now, it was time to eat bad food and catch up on the world.
She had a routine she followed: News from India, news from
the United States, news from Chicago, the arts, and sports. Something caught
her eye when she got to the local news: a report that the police had thwarted
an attempt to firebomb City Hall. With her curiosity leading her to follow a
rabbit trail of links, she found that the group responsible had been on the
FBI’s watchlist for trying to commit acts of economic terrorism around the
country. They called themselves the Economic Liberation Front. ELF. Their goal
was to target important infrastructure and economic hubs in an attempt to bring
the capitalist system to its knees.
Sara couldn’t help feeling a twinge of sympathy as she
learned more about them. They believed the system was rigged in favor of the
rich and powerful, leaving everyone else to scrape by on slave wages for their
benefit. She couldn’t condone the terrorism, but she felt their anger and
frustration at the unfairness of the system that she shared with them.
With her dinner finished, she
scrolled over to Willow and settled in with a cricket match for the evening.
Kohli, as usual, was the star of the show.
Chapter 3
Sara gasped as the blare from outside startled her awake.
Once she was fully awake, she snatched her glasses from the side table and
marched over to the window. Who was making that horrible noise, and why did no
one else hear it? She knew that looking angrily out the window wasn’t going to
give her any answers to what exactly was waking her up every night at 2 a.m.,
but her exasperation didn’t have any outlet. What was she going to do, call the
police to report that a part of the city where cargo ships, trains, and
18-wheelers converge just happens to be noisy? That would be the least
surprising news in the world. The cops would tell her to stop wasting their
time.
She sat down at her desk and grabbed the Gita. But she was
too agitated to read. Krishna, for once, was failing to put her at ease. She
turned off the light and went to lie down, but she only ended up staring at the
ceiling. She was wide awake.
Maybe painting would relax her. She got up, made a cup of
tea, and dug out a fresh canvas to place on the easel. What would inspire her
today? As usual, the answer came to her almost without thinking. As the sun was
rising, she was putting the finishing touches on a portrait of Notre Dame’s
Golden Dome, gleaming in the sun of an early autumn day. It was a scene from
her own memory, etched into her mind from her first day on campus as a
freshman. It was a day full of exhilaration and possibility, and a soothing
warmth filled her being as she thought back to that day.
Sara put down her paints and brushes and stretched. She felt
sleep starting to call her. Good thing it was Saturday – she didn’t have to
worry about going to work exhausted. With a yawn, she got up and felt her bed
calling her.
But as she was walking out of
the room, something caught her eye. She backtracked into the living room and
squinted at the painting on the wall. Something looked different, or maybe just
felt different, about it, as if she was looking at it for the first
time. But she was tired, and she decided to shrug it off and go to bed and try
to sleep. Her sleep-deprived mind was probably playing tricks on her.
Chapter 4
Sara grunted as she looked at her bedside clock: 10 a.m.
Well, at least she’d gotten a few hours of sleep. She reluctantly pulled back
the covers and shuffled to the bathroom for a shower. Normally, she’d be at her
parents’ house in South Bend by now, but they were gone for the weekend. She
didn’t have any plans for the day.
She got dressed in her bedroom and smiled as she looked out
at the sunny day. Yesterday was cold and blustery, typical for Chicago, but
today was turning out to hold some promise. Maybe spring was finally coming.
That thought made her happy enough that she decided to go out for a bike ride.
There wasn’t much to see in her neighborhood, and it wasn’t the safest part of
the city. But something told her to put her cares aside and go out for some
fresh air and a recharge after a rough night. So she grabbed her bike, which
was also parked along the dining room wall along with her paintings, and
trudged down the stairs and into the sunlight.
It was much warmer than yesterday, and Sara let out a
contented sigh as she started pedaling and the warm breeze welcomed her. It was
a quiet ride, one that let her thoughts gently percolate as she pondered where
life might take her one day.
In the short term, it was leading her down a narrow bike
path off the streets. From the bumpiness and the overgrowth, she figured that
not many people came down here. And why would they? This path led down to a
dirt shore with a view of the shipyard. If you want to see picturesque views of
the water in Chicago, you head out to Navy Pier, not to a bedraggled little
bike path that empties out under the suspension bridge on the Skyway.
Sure enough, there wasn’t much to see under there. Just a
lot of graffiti and some trash blowing around. When Sara thought it best to
head back, she caught sight of what looked like a clump of fabric. Inching
closer, she found that the fabric was a dirty blanket, and under the dirty
blanket was a man who was as dirty as the blanket himself.
Sara instinctively flinched when she realized there was a
man lying there. She hesitated, wondering if she should leave for her own
safety. But something told her to stay. To say something. Sara had never
thought of herself as a particularly brave person, but she always listened to
her intuition when it nagged her. And right now it was nagging her.
“Hello?” she said in a hesitant voice. The man was lying
there with his eyes closed. Was he even alive?
She took a step forward. “Sir?”
The man grunted, and his wrinkled eyes blinked open.
“What do you want?” he asked in a raspy voice. Sara flinched
as he pulled off the blanket and got to his feet.
“Nothing. Nothing. I’m sorry. I live in the apartment
building over there” – she pointed to where she lived – “and I was just out
riding my bike and I saw you here.”
“No one comes down here unless they want to cause me
trouble.” He brushed off his threadbare shirt and pants, as if instinctively
trying to make himself look presentable. Sara relaxed, sensing no threat from
him. This was just an old man whom life had passed by. His broken teeth and
scraggly beard told his life story more than any words could have at that
moment. His blanket and the satchel he used for a pillow were probably all that
he owned. And his outfit suggested a past life of manual labor: It looked like
a work uniform, blue from head to toe. Maybe he was a mechanic, or a warehouse
worker. Or maybe he’d worked on the very docks that his makeshift home
overlooked.
The man narrowed his eyes at Sara. “You a social worker?”
She shook her head and managed a smile. “No. No, nothing
like that. I honestly just came down here to see what was here.”
“Well,” he said, “you’ve seen what’s here. You can go now.”
It was obvious the man didn’t want to talk. But Sara felt
bad just leaving him there in such a state.
“Can I at least bring you some food, or a cup of coffee?
Maybe a fresh change of clothes?”
“I told you. You can go now.”
Sara thought she saw in his eyes a look of vulnerability.
But he was refusing to let her see any cracks on his hardened exterior. He no
doubt had his reasons not to trust other people.
“OK. I’m sorry, sir. You have a good day.”
He crossed his arms defiantly as she walked to her bike. As
she rode away, she glanced back to see the man pulling a nearly empty glass
bottle out of his satchel. She sighed and understood all too much about his
life’s story.
Shaken by the encounter, Sara went home and called her older
brother for advice. She felt drawn to help this man but powerless to do
anything. Clearly, he’d had negative encounters with social workers and who
knows who else. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how hard a life without a
home would be. As she expected, her brother told her to leave him alone. He
could be mentally ill. Dangerous. If you give him money, he’ll spend it on
drugs and booze. Some people just can’t be helped, he said. Sometimes you have
to let nature take its course.
Sara didn’t want him to be
right. Surely she was led to the man for a reason. Surely there was some
significance in having their paths cross. Karma dictated as much.
Chapter 5
The dreaded 2 o’clock horn blared Sara out of her sleep. By
now this had become an annoying nightly routine. She’d get up, read from the
Gita, and if that didn’t work, go out and paint something. But on this night,
instead of jumping out of bed, she sat up, crossed her legs, and bowed her
head.
“Lord Krishna,” she said, “please tell me. What is this
noise that I hear and nobody else does? What is it that I’m supposed to know? I
need your guidance.”
She sat in silence for a moment, hoping to find some
clarity. When nothing came, she went out to the kitchen to heat up a glass of
milk. She brought it back to her desk as she decided to catch up on the day’s
news.
“Chicago police involved in shootout with domestic terrorist
group,” read the headline at the top of the page.
She clicked in. ELF, the self-described Elves, had been
planning to firebomb a bank on the south side, just a few miles from Sara’s
apartment.
“Guys, I totally get it,” she said to herself between sips
of milk, “but you can’t do this. Innocent people will get hurt.”
She shut down her computer and walked her empty glass to the
kitchen. On her way back to bed, she stopped in her tracks: The same thing that
had caught her attention yesterday was there again, on the painting of her
bedroom window view. She hadn’t imagined it. She walked over for a
closer look, and the instant it hit her, a shiver rattled through her body.
There was a man on her painting. A man she hadn’t put there. And everything
about him was blue, even his skin.
Sara knew: There was only one whose blue skin signified his
transcendence, his infinite nature that exceeds the sky and the sea.
She fell to her knees, as much as from the weakness of shock
as from the wave of humility and reverence that flooded her body.
“Lord Krishna,” she said with
her eyes closed, “I’m listening.”
Chapter 6
Sara tossed and turned all night. It was Monday morning, and
she had to call in sick. There was no way she could function at work today. Not
only did she feel like a zombie, but she couldn’t get her painting out of her
mind. Once she went to bed, she wanted to go back and look at it again, just to
see if she’d been imagining things. But she was too nervous. Was Krishna really
calling out to her to do something? Or was she losing her marbles?
She couldn’t put it off any longer. She put on her glasses
and forced herself out to the living room. She cautiously peered over at the
painting from the other side of the room and slowly moved closer. Her heart
raced: The blue man was still there.
What did this mean? What was she supposed to do? She went to
the kitchen for some toast and tea. Bringing them back to the dining room
table, she stared a hole through the painting and racked her brain.
Then she noticed something. The blue man was standing at the
end of the Skyway’s suspension bridge that began the climb of the elevated
expressway. That was the same place where she met the homeless man.
She gasped when she remembered that the man was wearing a
blue uniform.
“Lord Krishna,” Sara said in a shaky voice, “are you
disguising yourself as that man?”
And if so, what did that mean? What did she need to do?
She pondered for a moment, then
sprang up from her chair to get dressed.
Chapter 7
Sara was sweating and shaking as she walked down to the dirt
landing under the bridge. How exactly was a human supposed to address a deity?
“Excuse me, sir?”
Sara saw the familiar clump of dirty fabric that was his
blanket. She waited for him to move. When he didn’t, she came closer, until she
was practically leaning over him.
“Sir?”
Sara squealed as the man stirred from sleep with a loud
grunt. He rubbed his eyes as he sat up. He blinked.
“Who are you? What do you want?”
Sara swallowed hard. “Hello, sir. Do you remember me? I came
down here a few days ago.”
He looked her up and down quizzically. “You look different.”
If she really was having a face-to-face encounter with a
deity, Sara decided she ought to dress appropriate to the occasion. She’d put
on her best blouse with a pleated skirt, and she’d draped herself in a long
colorful sari. She adorned herself in the most elegant jewelry she owned – long
earrings, a bold necklace, and bangles on her wrists – and her hair was pulled
up in an elegant bun. In one hand she held a paper cup, in the other a paper
bag.
“I, uh… brought you something to eat, sir.” She extended her
arms out to him, not knowing what else to say. How do you make an offering
under these conditions? Was she doing it right? She’d made food offerings to
the gods when she went to visit temples. That was straightforward. This felt
very different.
The man eyed her suspiciously for a moment, and then finally
reached for the items in her hands. He sat on the ground, put the cup down, and
opened the bag.
“It’s just some coffee and a bagel sandwich from the deli
down the street,” Sara said, pointing in the direction of the store. “It’s not
much, but I’m a terrible cook, and I wouldn’t want to bring you something I
tried to make.”
The man reached into the bag and pulled out the still
steaming sandwich. With a puzzled look, he sniffed it. Looking up at her, he
took a cautious bite.
Sara watched, wringing her hands.
“Have a seat,” he said, taking a bigger bite and making a
satisfied noise. It looked like he was enjoying his first hot meal in a long
time. That put Sara at ease, and she sat down cross-legged in front of him,
waiting for him to say or do something so she’d know what to do next.
“So who are you?” he asked between bites.
She smiled. “My name is Sarasw – I mean, Sara. As I told
you, I live in the apartments nearby. And something told me I should come back
and… offer you something.”
He swallowed the last bite of his sandwich and tossed the
crumpled paper wrapper aside. “You aren’t one of those crazy religious nuts,
are you?”
Sara laughed, sure that he was thinking of the aggressive
street preachers who’d told her over the years that she was going to hell for the
crime of being a Hindu. “No, sir. I’m not here to convert you, or do anything else
to interfere. I only wish to serve and help you.”
“Why?”
She hesitated. What would Krishna want her to say? She
thought for a moment and cleared her throat. “Because I believe I am called in
my devotion to do so, sir.”
He picked up his cup of coffee. “You don’t have to call me
sir. Just call me George.”
She nodded as he took a sip. That was a very ordinary name
for Lord Krishna to pick for this human incarnation.
“Is there anything else I can do for you, George?”
He shook his head. “You’ve already done more for me than
anyone has in a long time.”
That warmed her heart. But she felt she should offer to do
more. Maybe her hospitality was being tested.
“Do you need a place to stay? I don’t have much, but I can
maybe—”
“No, no, no,” he said, waving her off. “This is my house.
I’m used to it. I want to be here.”
“But… there are shelters that could maybe help—”
“No,” he said emphatically. “I don’t want to live by their
rules. My life isn’t easy, but at least I’m free.”
She nodded, not quite understanding why he’d turn down
assistance and shelter. But then she had heard stories of homeless people who were
a lot like him, choosing to live on the streets and fend for themselves.
Usually it was because they knew they’d get kicked out of a shelter for
drinking or using drugs. Everyone knew substance abuse was a big problem among
the homeless population.
“Do you have family? Friends?”
He finished his coffee and shook his head. “Wife kicked me
out for drinking. No one else would take me in. The ones who did offer help
always wanted something from me.”
What a sad existence, Sara thought. If he actually was
human, of course. She still wasn’t quite sure who she was talking to. At first
she was certain he was Krishna in the flesh, putting her faith and devotion to
the test. But what if she was just talking to a real person who’s had a tragic
life? Maybe Krishna sent her here to bring the man some comfort.
The more she thought about it, the more she realized it
didn’t matter. Whether she was in the presence of Krishna or just showing
kindness to a mortal man, she was still doing what in her heart felt like the
right thing. Maybe the painting would offer some kind of clue when she went
back home, now that she’d done what she felt she’d been called to do.
“Well, if I can ever do anything for you…” She stopped in
mid-sentence, realizing he wasn’t just going to come knock on her door or ring
her on the phone. She’d have to come to him. And she decided she would, whether
he was Krishna or just George down on his luck. “May I come back to see you?”
He shrugged. “Sure. Not like I have a lot on my calendar.”
She laughed at his comment. That, in turn, caused his
scraggly face to crack into a weary smile.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Sara,” he said. “Has anyone
ever told you that?”
Sara felt as if she should have heard alarm bells going off
in her head after that comment, from a man she barely knew, in a secluded place
where no one would hear a cry for help. But she didn’t. She only saw sincerity
in his face. She felt perfectly at ease.
“That’s very kind of you, sir,” she said, lowering her gaze.
“Why are you dressed like that?” he asked with a sweeping
gesture of his hand. “You didn’t look like this the other day.”
She raised her eyes to meet his and thought of how best to
answer. “It’s something my culture does out of reverence,” she said finally.
“Reverence for what?”
What should she say? Did Krishna want her to acknowledge his
presence?
“For when we see God in another person.”
He furrowed his brow. “You sure you aren’t one of those
religious nuts?”
Sara laughed heartily. “I love my God with all my heart, but
I can assure you I’m not crazy.” After seeing a little Krishna appear
spontaneously on her painting, she felt she was assuring herself as much as him
of her sanity.
“Well, Sara, you can come back for a visit whenever you
want.” He got himself up off the ground, and she took the gesture as a signal
that it was time for her to go.
“I’m going to take you up on that offer,” she said, dusting
herself off after rising to her feet. “You take care of yourself down here.”
He nodded. “I’ll do my best.” Then he extended his hand.
Sara looked down to his hand, then up to his eyes. Again, she saw nothing but
sincerity, and maybe a glint of gratitude.
She took his hand and shook it, realizing how hard it must
be for him to offer his trust to someone after the life he’s lived. She gave
him a warm smile and walked away, back to the comfort of her apartment. She had
a feeling she’d never take what she had for granted ever again.
When she walked in, she glanced over at her painting. Krishna
was still there, in the same place, in the same position. She’d half-expected
him to have done something in acknowledgment of her act of charity.
“I hope I did the right thing,
Lord Krishna,” she said, looking intently at the figure that had imposed itself
on her painting.
Chapter 8
“But can’t you stop the drinking, George?”
Sara sat beneath the bridge with the homeless man, watching
him eat his now-daily breakfast. This had become part of her morning routine.
Feeling she was called to come back to George to check in on him and his
well-being, she committed to heading down to the deli, ordering a coffee and a
hot sandwich, and bringing it to him every morning. They’d make small talk for
about half an hour. Even though George wasn’t very forthcoming about his life,
it was obvious he appreciated the company. Then she’d excuse herself to go off
to work for the day.
The horn still sounded every night at 2 a.m., and Sara could
never get back to sleep. She had no answers for what was happening. She’d just
resigned herself to a life of sleep deprivation and strange happenings on her
painting, assuming she must be working out her karma from a past life. And she
came to assume that part of working out that karma must be to help this poor
man who had no one to help him, no one else to care about him. Sara didn’t know
if he was Krishna in disguise or not, but she didn’t care. He came into her
life as someone in need, and that was enough. It cost her very little to show
him a bit of human kindness.
Also, the little Krishna on her painting had never moved,
and the only thing she could take from that is that she had more work to do,
and that he was going to stay parked there, like a supernatural version of the
little stick-figure guy on Google Maps, until her work was done.
The first day Sara came back to visit George, she was in her
work clothes. Business casual. Slacks, flats, blouse, blazer. She wore her long
hair back in a ponytail. That had prompted George to ask where her pretty
outfit had gone from the other day.
“Oh, this is what I wear when I go to work,” she explained.
“Once I leave here, I have to a catch a bus downtown.”
“Sounds like you have an important job,” George said.
Sara shrugged. “I work as a graphic designer.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said, “but it sounds
impressive.”
Sara gently laughed. “It just means I work with images.
Pictures.” She paused. “I also paint pictures in my spare time.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, seeming genuinely intrigued. “Of
what?”
“Mostly landscapes. Places I’ve visited. Places that mean
something important to me.” She looked around and smiled. “I sort of painted
this place. I mean, I painted the bridge as it looks from my bedroom window.”
“I’ll bet that’s a really nice painting,” he said. “Maybe
you could paint a picture of my house someday.”
Her eyes widened. “You would let me do that for you?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Oh, George, I would be honored. Maybe one day when I have
time, I’ll come down here with a canvas and my paints. Would that be all
right?”
He hesitated for a moment. Sara read his expression of one
that said he wanted to say something but wasn’t sure he should.
“What is it, George?”
“I hate to ask,” he said, looking away and averting her
eyes. “But do you think you could come back wearing that pretty outfit you had
on?”
Sara blinked, looked down at her work attire, then back at
George.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “You look very pretty. But
when you came down here all dressed up in that fancy outfit…”
Sara tilted her head as his words trailed off. “What is it,
George?”
“Well,” he said, looking at the ground, “don’t take this the
wrong way, but you looked like a goddess.”
This was another one of those moments where Sara felt she
should feel unsafe. She’d been in situations before when men had come on to her
a little too strong, like all women have. People liked to comment on her tall,
slender figure, her jet black hair, her deep brown eyes, and her rich brown
skin. Sometimes she felt like American men were objectifying her for looking
exotic and foreign. She knew some East Asian women who were treated like that.
Whenever she received comments on her appearance, she’d always had a fairly
good sense if someone was genuinely trying to give her a compliment versus
reducing her to a stereotype or an exotic sex object.
From George, though, she felt nothing but sincere
admiration. Something just told her that this man would never do anything to
hurt her.
“Thank you, George,” he said. “That’s very flattering of you
to say.”
He managed to raise his head enough to hazard a look at her.
“It’s the truth. When you came down here looking so beautiful, with food for me
and all the kindness you showed me… well, it was like a goddess came down to
save me.”
“Oh, George, I’m not here to save you. I’m just Sara. No one
special.”
George shook his head. “No. You are special. Very special.
Don’t you forget that.”
Sara wasn’t sure what to think about that, but she took the
comment to heart. From every morning on, she came back dressed in her
traditional Indian clothing, and the happy look on his face told her that it
made a difference in his life. It was a small kindness she could offer him. It
only meant that she had to go home after her morning visit to change into her
work clothes, which meant coming down under the bridge a little earlier so she
wouldn’t miss her bus.
But it wasn’t like she was sleeping anyway. When she got
home for the night, she managed to get some food down and usually passed out
from exhaustion around 10 or 11, before being awakened by that terrible horn a
few short hours later.
Days turned to weeks, and Sara felt she’d established a
friendship of sorts with George. She looked forward to their morning meetings,
knowing that she was making a positive difference, however small, in his life.
One beautiful Sunday morning, she brought her art supplies with her and sat
down to give him his gift of a painting. She smiled as George did his best to
slick back his hair and smooth out the wrinkles in his blue uniform. He sat on
his blanket, leaned against his satchel, and managed a smile as Sara went to
work. When she finished and showed him the painting, she could see his eyes
welling up with tears.
George looked at the painting, then back to Sara. “This is
the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” he said, his voice quivering.
“When you’re homeless, you’re invisible to most people. The worst ones treat
you like an animal. I’ve been insulted, yelled at, spit on, had trash thrown at
me, even had people steal what little I owned. But none of that ever hurt as
much as being ignored. Watching people hurry by and look away when they see
you…” He sniffled and wiped away a tear.
Sara felt the sting of tears in her own eyes. It cost so
little to take a few moments out of her day to show this man a little bit of
kindness. Why did people have to be so mean, so cruel? It was something she’d
always struggled to understand about humanity. Everyone seemed so
self-absorbed, so short of time, so focused on making money. Her own brothers
were like that. But what was the point of even being alive if you forget what
it means to be genuinely human? To make authentic connections with people that
touched their souls? To make a difference, no matter how small?
Overtaken by emotion, Sara reached out and pulled George
into a hug. She let the tears fall against his chest as he wrapped his arms
around her in return.
“I promise that I’ll always see you,” she said to him.
After that day, George began to let his defenses down a
little bit, as he started giving Sara brief little peeks into his past life
that over time added up to a rough sketch of a broken man. He had been a
blue-collar worker, it turned out. He had a good job with an HVAC company, pension
and all, but things were strained at home and he turned to alcohol to numb the
pain and push through. He’d seen his own dad struggle with the bottle, and he
swore he’d never go down that road. And then he did. And things unraveled
quickly. He kept messing up on the job and missing a lot of work. He got fired.
His wife, who was already fed up with him, told him to get off the couch, stop
feeling sorry for himself, and get out and look for a new job. He said he
tried. He’d pick up odd jobs, but he couldn’t reliably hold down any of them. Even
worse, he was drinking his paychecks away. And when his wife finally tossed him
out on his ear, he knew he had no one to blame but himself for how his life
turned out.
She also learned a little bit about his prize possession,
that tattered old blanket that had been the first thing she’d seen when she
came up upon him the day they met.
“I grabbed this off my chair when Ellen was pushing me out
the door,” he said, rubbing it thoughtfully with his rough hand. “It’s the only
connection I have to my old life. Fortunately, nobody’s tried to steal this
from me.” Now Sara understood why he was so protective of it.
Sara had seen his humanity. She felt she was making a
positive difference in his life. It was in her nature to want to fix him and
make him better. She’d always been like that, even when her brothers would mock
her for what they called her bleeding heart. They did the same when she told
them about her daily meetings with George. “Stop wasting your time on a bum,”
they said. “You can’t help him. And you might get hurt in the process. You need
to be more careful.”
Sara insisted that she knew George’s heart and said she felt
as if Lord Krishna himself had sent her down under that bridge to get involved
in that man’s life. Again, they mocked her for holding on to the superstitions
of the old world. She didn’t dare tell them about the little Krishna who’d
taken up residence on her painting. They’d think she’d completely lost her
mind.
Their mockery only made Sara more determined to try to help
George – not just bringing him breakfast every morning, but trying to help him
get his life back on track. One Saturday morning, when she came down to sit
with him, she noticed that he’d taken the painting she’d made for him and
propped it up against one of the bridge pillars with an empty bottle of whiskey
on each side. She felt compelled to say something.
“George,” she asked, jutting her chin toward the painting, “Where
do you get those bottles? I see a lot of them down here.”
Goerge looked back at the empty bottles, then dropped his
gaze as he turned back to her. “I find them laying around.”
“I don’t think that’s true, George.”
He didn’t answer.
“I don’t know where you get them, or how, but I know you’re
struggling with this problem, and I’m asking if you can try to stop.”
After a long silence, he looked up at her, with a look that
she thought wavered between anger and despair. “That’s none of your business,
Sara.”
“But I feel like it is my business. I want to help you get
better. I can take you somewhere to get help if you’ll let me.”
George drew in a deep breath as he clenched his fists and
looked away. “I don’t want help.”
“I think you do,” she said, trying to remain calm even as
she could see George’s building agitation. She reached out to touch his hand.
“You’ve always been happy to accept my help, George. So why not now? Maybe
someday you wouldn’t have to live like this anymore.”
George withdrew his hand. “What’s wrong with the way I
live?” he snapped.
Sara tensed up at the sight of his unexpected outburst. “I…
I just want to see you get better.”
“There’s nothing wrong with me.” He quickly sprang to his
feet and looked her in the eyes. “You need to leave now.”
Sara’s heart sank. “George, I’m sorry. I care about you.
That’s all.”
He pointed to the path that led away from the bridge.
“Leave.”
Without another word, Sara got to her feet and did as he
asked. On her walk back to her apartment, she chanced a glance behind her, only
to see George still standing there with his arms defiantly crossed, as if
warning her not to try coming back. She shuffled on, wiping away a tear that
had escaped from her eye. And when she got back to her apartment, she plopped
down in a chair at her dining room table. There in front her was the painting.
Krishna still stood there, unmoved. Suddenly, the tears came in a flood.
“Have I failed you, Lord
Krishna?” she choked out. She didn’t expect an answer, but she was at a loss
for what to do next.
Chapter 9
Sara thought a lot about George as time went on. You can’t
just walk into someone’s life the way she did and turn the feelings off. Part
of her wanted to go down there under the bridge to see how he was doing, but
she was afraid he’d run her off, and that would just make her heart break all
over again.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, following her latest
rude awakening. What was the point of all this? Why be startled awake by a
blaring horn every night if she had no idea what significance it had? Why did
Krishna decide to park himself on her painting if he didn’t show her some kind
of concrete action she was supposed to take? She thought Krishna was pointing her
to George, but George didn’t want her help. She didn’t know how much more of
this she could take until she started cracking up. Maybe she needed to put in a
call to a shrink.
With a deep sigh, she got out of bed and walked over to the
desk. She plopped herself down and decided to catch up on the latest news, well
aware that no more sleep would be coming that night. When she clicked into the
local news, what she read made her heart jump into her throat.
“Michigan Street bridge destroyed in act of terrorism.”
“Oh, my dear God,” Sara said as she clicked into the story.
The Elves had struck again, just a few hours earlier, under cover of darkness.
The main bridge leading into the Magnificent Mile, the main center of commerce
in downtown Chicago, had been wired with explosives. The leader of the Elves
had left a handwritten manifesto at the explosion site, threatening more
violence in the days to come. Dozens were dead and injured.
In a panic, she turned on her phone, knowing her parents in
South Bend would have been frantically trying to reach her. She always turned
her phone off at night, and now she wished she hadn’t, just knowing how worried
her mom and dad would be. Sure enough, her phone spit out a deluge of worried
texts and voicemails. Even though it was the middle of the night, she knew she
had to call them back to let them know she was OK.
Except she wasn’t really OK. She
was scared, just like the rest of the city probably was. When would this end?
Who else would get killed?
Chapter 10
Sara was in the shower getting ready for work when her phone
rang again. This is exactly why she normally turned off all but the most
essential notifications during the day and shut the thing off at night. But
with everything going on in Chicago, she decided it would be best to keep all
lines of communication open.
Sara hurriedly shut off the water and wrapped herself in a
towel as she ran to the kitchen table. She grimaced when she saw “Mom” on the
display.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Sara, are you all right?”
“Yes, of course. We just talked about this four hours ago.”
Her mother sighed that exasperated sigh that Sara had come
to know all too well over the years. “Sara, why don’t you own a television?
There were more bombings.”
“What? Where?”
“Downtown. Sara, I think you should come home for a while.
I’m scared for you.”
Sara knew there was nothing that economic terrorists would
want to target in her gritty neighborhood, but she was as gentle as could be
with her mother, who she knew only had her best interests at heart.
“I’ll come home like always this weekend, Mom,” she said. “I
need to get online and see what’s going on before I leave for work. I promise
I’ll be safe, OK?”
“OK, dear. I love you.”
Sara hit the “end call” button and moved with purpose to the
desk in her bedroom. She clicked in to local news and gasped. The Chicago
Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade, hubs of economic activity, had
been attacked. Suitcase bombs. Dozens dead and injured. As she was reading, a
breaking news item came in that the police had stopped a similar attack on the
Chicago Federal Reserve building. Bomb squads were on the scene. The city was
in a panic. Rumors were swirling that the John Hancock Building and the old
Sears Tower were the next targets, but nothing could be confirmed.
Sara’s phone rang again. It was her boss, calling to tell
her to stay home until further notice.
She felt she was in a haze as
she got dressed. There was so much fear and uncertainty in the air. What should
she do? What should anyone do? What would happen next? Should she go home and
get away from the craziness like her mom said? Sara ended up sitting back down
at her desk, glued to the news that was coming in fast and furious. By 9 a.m.
the mayor had ordered a lockdown of the city. There were rumors of martial law.
By the afternoon, the National Guard was rolling into town. Sara could only sit
helplessly at her computer, wondering where this would all lead and when it
would end.
Chapter 11
The next day was Saturday, and Sara got ready to head out to
South Bend. She packed a few clothes this time, just in case she couldn’t come
back into the city for a while. There were now checkpoints coming in and out of
Chicago on the major highways, and if things got worse, she wasn’t sure she’d
be able to get back to her apartment.
She dropped her duffel bag on the floor next to the dining
room table and went to the kitchen to pour a bowl of cereal. Bleary-eyed and
anxious, she sat down and shoved the spoonfuls into her mouth, just wanting to
get on the road.
As she was finishing, something caught her eye. It was her
painting again. She leaned forward and squinted through her glasses. Krishna
was still there, in the same place he’d parked himself weeks before. But now
there was something else.
When it hit her, she screamed and stumbled backwards. She
tripped over her chair and landed with a thud on the floor. From where she was,
she could still see it. Next to Krishna, also at the foot of the bridge, was
now another figure. A taller figure, with matted hair and a third eye, holding
a trident aloft. His expression was fierce.
Shiva. The destroyer.
With everything happening in the city, this had to be a
warning. A warning of something ominous to come. But what? She wished that if
the gods were trying to talk to her, they’d be more direct about what exactly
it was they wanted. And why were they showing up at the foot of the Skyway
bridge? Why not downtown, where all the attacks were taking place?
That’s when it hit her. The Skyway bridge. A bridge,
that thousands of commercial trucks and rigs traveled every day to bring goods
into and out of Chicago.
Sara got off the floor and grabbed her phone. The call went
to voicemail.
“Mom, I might be a little late getting there. I need to go
check on something before I go. I love you.”
She hurried to the bedroom and opened her closet door. She
pulled out her best blouse and skirt, then went to put on her best jewelry and
tied her hair up in a bun. She scurried to her front door and had her hand on
the handle before looking down and realizing she was missing her sari. She
darted back to the bedroom and wrapped herself up in it before finally heading
out.
She knew this was the only way
George would listen to her, and even then she wasn’t sure. She hadn’t been back
to see him since the day he told her to leave. But this could be a matter of
life and death. She at least had to try.
Chapter 12
Sara hurried down the trail that led to the underside of the
bridge.
“George?” she called out when she got to the bottom.
“George, are you here?”
In the distance, she saw the painting she’d made for him,
still propped up against one of the bridge pillars. She saw his satchel,
sitting unattended. But his blanket was gone. That seemed bad. He made a point
of saying how important that blanket was to him.
A moment later, George came out from behind another concrete
pillar, his blanket draped over his shoulders. He was zipping up his fly,
apparently having just relieved himself. Sara breathed a sigh of relief to see him.
He really didn’t go anywhere without his blanket, did he?
“George!” Sara waved at him, unsure if she should come any
closer. He looked over at her, and she saw him take a hesitant step toward her
before folding his arms and walking in the opposite direction. He took his
blanket and spread it on the ground to sit down, his back turned to her.
Sara felt a flash of anger surge through her. But her
compassion for this man’s well-being kept her from stomping back to her
apartment and leaving him to his fate. She took a calming breath and walked
slowly over to him, and she took the liberty of sitting down cross-legged on
the corner of his blanket next to him.
“How are you, George? I’ve missed you.”
George sat silently, looking straight ahead of him.
“George, I am sincerely sorry if you thought I was trying to
interfere too much in your life. I only did it because I cared about you. But
maybe it wasn’t my place to say something. I hope you can forgive me.”
George was silent for a long moment before slowly turning to
face her. “Sara, I’ve disappointed every person in my life who’s wanted to help
me get on the wagon. I didn’t have the heart to disappoint you too.”
Sara had to choke back tears when she saw the pain in his
eyes. She had a feeling that nothing she could say would be received well.
“George, I came back to tell you something. I think you
might be in danger staying here.”
George furrowed his brow. “Sara, I was in danger every day
when I stayed downtown. There was always someone looking to rob me, beat me up,
knife me.” He looked around thoughtfully at the underside of the bridge. “No
one comes here. No one bothers me. This is my safe space.”
She hesitated, wondering what she could say, or how she
should say it, to get him to understand.
“George, have you heard about the bombings downtown?”
“Bombings?”
Sara nodded. “Terrorists blew up the Michigan Street
bridge.”
George’s eyes widened.
“They also attacked the Mercantile Exchange and the Board of
Trade. The whole city is on lockdown. They’re saying the Sears Tower or the
John Hancock Building could be next.”
George shook his head. “That’s terrible. But what does that
have to do with me?”
“I think they might be targeting this bridge next.”
George didn’t say anything. He just chewed on his lip, as if
looking for the right words. After a long silence, he looked at her and said,
simply, “Nope.”
Sara narrowed her eyes. “Nope what?”
“Nope, I’m not leaving.”
“What do you mean you’re not leaving?”
“Sara, I’ve had people like you lie to me for years. They
try to lure me out, either by scaring me or promising me something. They just
want to stick me in a shelter or get me into rehab. I’m not doing it.”
Sara huffed, trying to restrain her frustration. “George,
I’m not a liar. You just said two minutes ago you didn’t want to disappoint me.
Well, you should know that I’d be really disappointed if you died because you
wouldn’t let me get you to safety.”
Goerge looked away and shook his head. “I’ve heard it all
before, Sara. You can stop.”
Sara balled her fists. “George, why do you refuse to let me
help you? Why won’t you even help yourself? You’re a human being. You matter.”
“Go away, Sara,” George said coolly.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to throw your life away so
easily?”
“My life has been over for a long time.”
That comment instantly cooled her anger. This poor man had
given up the will to live. He’d resigned himself to his demons long ago. She
needed to give up this fight. She’d done all she could.
Silently, Sara got to her feet and stood behind George.
Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on his shoulders.
“I love you, George.” The words came out with a hitch in her
throat. She genuinely did love this man. She loved his humanity. She loved his
heart. And her own heart ached to see that he ultimately refused to let himself
be loved.
Wiping away the tears, she
strode back to her apartment.
Chapter 13
“So there’s nothing you can do?”
Sara was on the phone with Chicago police, and she was
quickly getting the impression that not even they were going to help.
“Lady, we’re one more bomb threat short of having martial
law declared over the whole city,” said the frazzled officer on the other end
of the line. “All our resources are tied up here. And all the legitimate
threats involve targets downtown.”
Sara sighed. “Can’t you at least send someone out to, I
don’t know, scope out the area or something? Just to make sure?”
“Lady, we have guys down at the shipyard who are always
watching out for threats. Will it make you feel better if I call my buddies
down there and tell them to be on alert?”
“Yes, if that’s the best I’m going to get. But I still don’t
understand why you can’t send an officer down here, or somebody from the bomb
squad. It’s not going to take that much time out of your day to come down here
and make sure the bridge is secure. I mean, wouldn’t you rather know?”
Sara heard the officer let out a long, exasperated sigh.
“All right. First just tell me where you heard about this so-called threat
against the Skyway bridge. If there’s anything to it, I can send someone down
there. But I don’t have the manpower to track down every imagined threat from
people wanting attention.”
Now she was getting annoyed. Not only did the officer not
seem to care, but she couldn’t tell him where the warning came from without
getting locked up in a padded room. She looked at Shiva standing stone-faced on
her painting next to Krishna and scowled at him.
“You know what? Never mind.” Beyond frustrated, she pulled
the phone away from her face, pressed the “end call” button, and slammed it
down on the table. She plopped down in a chair and frowned at Shiva.
“So you have the power to show up in my painting, but you
won’t do anything to help? Thanks for nothing.”
Sara had already left another voicemail for her mom, saying
she wouldn’t be home this weekend and assuring her that everything was fine.
Something just came up. And the “something” was trying to get the police to
come down to Skyway, and to try to get George to safety. She knew she shouldn’t
even care about his fate, but she couldn’t help herself. She just didn’t know
what to do. After heating up a TV dinner and eating it absently at the table,
she went to her bedroom to pray. If Krishna was going to ever offer her any
guidance at all, now was the time she needed it.
She wasn’t more than 10 minutes
into her prayer before she went to lie down. Almost instantly, she passed out
from exhaustion.
Chapter 14
The 2 a.m. horn once again roused Sara from sleep. At this
point, she just treated it like a really loud alarm clock. She’d be happy if
she could change the time it went off, or at least hit a snooze button. Since
she couldn’t, she just made the best of it. This was a part of her existence
now, apparently a permanent one.
Sara grabbed her glasses and made her usual walk over to the
computer desk. Might as well see what’s happening downtown. Hopefully nothing
else had exploded.
It turned out nothing had, but the news articles were
getting more and more distressing, as people in Chicago were going from panic
to hysteria. People were throwing around blame, attacking each other, acting
out of fear and paranoia. Shaking her head, Sara turned off her monitor and
stepped away. Everyone else could get sucked into this irrational drama, but
she refused to be a part of it.
She went to the kitchen to heat up a cup of tea, then sat
down at her usual spot at the table to sip it. The tea tended to calm her down,
even if it didn’t help her get back to sleep. She sighed as she looked up
absently at her painting. That stupid painting that had caused her so much
grief. She had half a mind to take it outside, light it on fire, and be done
with it once and for all.
But that all changed when she squinted to take a closer
look. Had something changed again? She thought it had. And if so, what this
time?
When she saw it, she scooted her chair back in a panic and
ran to the bedroom as her teacup shattered against the floor. Slipping in to
the first pair of shoes she could find, she ran out the door in her pajamas and
flew down the stairs. She didn’t know how much time she had.
In the painting, the Skyway
bridge was gone.
Chapter 15
“George!”
Sara was scanning the underside of the bridge with the light
of her phone.
“George, where are you?”
She couldn’t see anything in the dark. Next thing she knew,
she was falling off her feet. She landed hard with a thud, face down into the
dirt.
That hurt bad. As she stumbled to her knees, she could see
that her glasses were sitting crooked on her face. As she went to wipe her face
off, she could feel something wet coming from her cheek and her nose. She was
bleeding, but she couldn’t tell how much in the dark.
Sara looked behind her to see what had tripped her up. She
pointed her flashlight at it: It was George’s blanket. She’d just tripped over
his sleeping body. Looking closer, she wondered why it looked like the blanket
had spiderwebs covering it. Then she realized it was her glasses. The lenses
had shattered in the fall.
Somehow George hadn’t woken up when she tripped over him.
She leaned down over him to shake him awake.
“George, it’s Sara. Wake up, please.”
George grunted as his eyes fluttered open. “What are you
doing here?” he asked in a groggy voice. He wasn’t just tired – his breath
reeked of alcohol.
“George, it’s very important that you talk to me right now.
Did you see anybody down here tonight sneaking around?”
George struggled to keep his eyes open. “I passed out.”
Sara frowned at him. Knowing she had no time to lose, she
got up and shone her light toward the pillars and the underside of the bridge.
It was hard to see anything through her broken glasses, and the rocks and
uneven ground kept making her stumble. Were there wires? Explosives? She needed
to know. As she was walking toward one of the pillars, she stumbled over a rock
jutting out of the ground and fell down hard again. She cried out as pain
seared from her ankle. She tried getting to her feet, but it was no use: Her
ankle wouldn’t bear her weight. Struggling to her knees, she managed to shine
her light up against the pillar, and through her spiderwebbed vision she could
make out what looked to be a string of wires that hadn’t been there before. She
panicked.
“George, you need to get out of here right now!” She shone
her light back toward where he was still lying. He wasn’t moving. She dragged
herself over to him and dialed 911 on her phone.
“I’m under the east end of the Skyway bridge, and it looks
like it’s wired to blow up.”
“Your name and location, please?” came the dispatcher’s
voice.
“My name is Sara Patel, and I told you I’m under the Skyway
bridge. Please send someone. I’m injured and I’m trying to rescue someone
else.”
“One moment, please.” The line went silent for what seemed
like an eternity. Finally, the dispatcher came back.
“Ma’am, I do want you to be aware that the shipyard called
in suspicious activity from your location, and officers are en route. Please
stay where you are until help arrives. Do you need medical attention?”
“Yes. I think my ankle is broken.”
The dispatcher said something, but it was drowned out by the
sound of approaching cars and sirens. In a
flash, the area was teeming with police officers shining flashlights.
One of the officers blinded her with a beam to her face.
“Don’t move!” the officer barked. “We have the area
surrounded. Show me your hands.”
Sara ambled to her knees so she could raise her hands in
clear view of the police. “I’m not the one you want!” she yelled. “I came down
here to help get a man to safety.”
Down near the water, she heard a commotion and saw
flashlights bobbing toward some unseen target. The lights spread out. Then they
retreated as a voice came blaring over a loudspeaker to clear the area.
“What’s going on?” Sara called out.
“We’ve located the bomber,” the faceless officer said. “He’s
about 50 yards behind you. I need you to come toward me, very slowly and very
carefully.”
“I can’t!”
Sara looked behind her, wondering if she could spot the
bomber. But it was simply too dark. The police had all moved out from under the
bridge. She overheard something about a handheld detonator and negotiations.
Tension hung thick in the air. Sara didn’t know what was going to happen next.
But apparently, from what she could make out among the nervous discussions
among the officers, the mastermind behind the Elves had been here earlier in
the night, wiring up the bridge for detonation. Someone at the shipyard had
called in suspicious activity. Apparently, the officer she’d spoken to earlier
actually did talk to someone at the shipyard to put them on alert.
“Who is the person with you?” she heard the officer ask.
“His name is George. He lives under this bridge. I’m trying
to get him up.” Sara pushed at him. “George, you need to get up, now. Please.”
George’s eyes fluttered open again. He looked up at her,
then around at all the flashlights piercing through the dark. Confusion and
panic danced in his eyes.
“Sara, what’s going on?”
“Someone is trying to blow up the bridge. You need to go.
Please get up!”
Panic filled George’s face. “They’re going to take me to
jail. I’m not leaving.”
“George, what is wrong with you? They’re here to help you!”
“I don’t want anyone’s help!”
Sara looked from George to the officer. “Can you please come
get him?” she yelled.
“Ma’am, he’s just a bum. Leave him. He doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, he does!” she screamed. “He’s my friend. I’m not
leaving until you pull him out of here.”
Silence on the other end. Then the officer spoke.
“Ma’am, we can only spare one man. It’s too dangerous. I’m
sending him in right now.”
Sara tossed George’s blanket aside and punched feverishly at
the arm closest to her. “Get up, you stubborn man!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she saw the silhouette
of a man in armor reaching out for her. She swatted his arm away.
“Get him up first!” she demanded. The armored man hesitated
but pulled George to his feet. When he did, George tried to push the man off.
“I’m not going!” he yelled. “This is my house!”
But in his weakened state, he was easily overpowered, and
the armored man managed to put George into a fireman’s carry and haul him to
safety. In a flash, the same man returned to scoop Sara up in his arms and set
her down next to George. She looked around in confusion as she heard someone
saying something about the bridge going straight down if it blew. She took that
to mean they were a safe distance away if the worst were to happen.
Is this what Krishna had sent her to do, then? To save this
stubborn old man before it was too late? So that he might be able to pick up
the pieces of a broken life and start over? She could only ever wonder.
An officer was on a bullhorn. Sara couldn’t make out what he
was saying. She only knew he was talking to the bomber. It was impossible to
tell if the negotiations were working or not, but the tension was thick enough
to cut with a knife.
George was lying next to her. He rubbed his eyes as if to
get a clearer look at her.
“Why did you save me?” he asked.
Sara winced at the pain in her ankle as she shifted to get a
better look at him.
“Because you’re worth saving,” she said, a tear streaming
down her cheek from the pain. “And because I love you.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Sara watched
anxiously as it looked like he was going to fall back to sleep. Then she jumped
as his eyes flashed back open.
“Sara!”
“What? What is it?”
“My blanket! I don’t have my blanket!”
Oh, no. She’d yanked the blanket off him to get him up, and
in the commotion, it had been left under the bridge.
George needed his blanket. That was his only connection to
his old life. The only possession that was dear to him.
She scurried away from him without a thought, dragging
herself to where she remembered his blanket was.
“Ma’am, do not go back in there!” she heard the officer
saying behind her. George was also saying something in a panicked voice, but
she couldn’t make it out.
Trying to hurry, she pulled herself to her feet. Instantly,
she screamed as she buckled from the pain of her unnaturally twisted ankle. Yet
she forced herself forward, hopping on one foot and holding her phone in her
hand to light up George’s blanket. She spotted it and stretched for it, but she
stretched too far and slammed into the ground.
There were voices swirling all around her. Panicked voices.
The officer behind her was yelling something. The one on the bullhorn sounded
frantic. And the rest of the team was shouting orders back and forth. She had
no idea what was happening, but something was imminent. She was sure of it.
Sara’s heart was racing. Gritting her teeth, she got to her
knees and clutched the blanket. Before she turned to crawl away with it, a
horrifically loud noise drowned out all the surrounding commotion. She clutched
her hands over her ears. Looking to her right, she saw a huge container ship
suddenly lighting up at the docks. The operator was blowing his horn in the
direction of the bomber. She could vaguely make out a small handful of men
shouting on the ship with guns pointed.
That sound. It was the horn that had haunted her dreams and
startled her awake every night.
Everything happened in a confused flash. The officer on the
bullhorn seemed to be ordering the men on the ship to stand down. The officer
behind her, the one who’d pulled her to safety, was shouting something
indecipherable. The rest of the officers were scrambling around and yelling.
In the light from the ship, Sara saw for the first time the
man, the mastermind, standing in waist-deep water, partially hidden behind a
concrete pillar. She could see the device in his hand.
She heard voices yelling – maybe at her, maybe at someone
else – to get out and clear away. Gunshots fired out. Everything was chaos.
Sara tried with all her strength to get to her feet, but again her ankle
collapsed under her and she fell to the ground. Still clutching George’s
blanket, she lifted her head up from the ground just in time to see a blinding
flash of orange light. Then a loud crack.
Then, for Sara, everything was
silence and darkness.
Epilogue
Nisha Patel sat in stunned silence in Sara’s empty apartment. She returned, as she had so many times in these dark days, to the news report she’d bookmarked from that terrible morning, hoping to make some sense of it all.
Officials are hopeful that the wave of violence in
Chicago has finally come to an end, now that the ringleader of the Elves has
been killed. The mayor said in his speech this morning that the city will
rebuild. But peace, if it is here, has come at a very high price. At least 200
people have been killed and thousands injured in the terrorist attacks. But the
victim who may end up being the last one offers Chicagoans an inspiring story
of selfless courage. Saraswati Patel, 25, was at the scene of last night’s
blast in Skyway, and officials say she gave her life saving a homeless man she
had befriended.
The man, 55-year-old George Douglas, is a Chicago native.
Douglas spoke to reporters from his hospital room at Northwestern Memorial,
where he’s being held for observation. He called Patel his good Samaritan.
“I truly believe she was an angel who was sent down from
heaven to save me. She was so beautiful. I’m sorry I couldn’t save her. But I’m
going to try to get my life sorted out in her honor.”
The ringleader was shot and killed as he detonated the
bombs. The city is hopeful that the threat is over, but lockdowns will remain
in place until further notice.
Reporting from Skyway, this is Stacy Smith for WGN News.
Sara’s dad, Ashwin, sat at his daughter’s dining room table,
trying to come to terms with all that had happened. When the call came that
Sara’s body had been pulled from the rubble, he and Nisha had the grim job of
coming to Chicago to identify her. He sat in stunned silence as he gazed at the
portrait on the wall. He noticed that it matched exactly the view from her
bedroom window. What he found inexplicable is that the Skyway bridge was
missing in her portrait. Did Sara not complete the picture? And if not, why did
she hang it up? There’s no way she could have known what was going to happen.
Ashwin chalked it up to a spooky coincidence, even as he wished there could
have been something in that painting that could give him some kind of clue as to
what happened. Some kind of closure. But there was simply nothing there.
Ashwin stood and walked into Sara’s bedroom. On the computer
desk he recognized the worn old hardcover book handed down from his own
grandmother. He picked it up and absentmindedly leafed through it, half-looking
out the window that had provided the inspiration for that portrait in the
dining room. With a sigh, Ashwin tossed the Bhagavad Gita on the bed, smiling
wistfully to himself at the thought that those silly superstitions from the old
country had somehow managed to bring Sara some kind of comfort. On his way out,
he picked up the Saraswati statue on the desk and tucked it under his arm.
Keeping a memento of his daughter’s namesake would be a fitting way to maintain
a connection to her.
He came out to the dining room and placed the statue in one
of the boxes that held the items her parents intended to keep.
A knock came at the door. Ashwin opened it to let in the
Goodwill crew.
“We’re all set here,” he said. “The rest can be donated.”
He turned to his wife. “I guess we should get these boxes
down to the car.”
Nisha nodded. Wiping a tear from her eye, she stood to grab
one of the boxes on the floor while Ashwin collected the rest.
Ashwin paused at the doorway and looked around the quiet
apartment one last time.
“Bye-bye, Sara,” he said. Turning, he and Nisha walked down
the stairs, loaded up their car, and made the quiet drive home to South Bend,
where they would await Sara’s body for the funeral.
