There are people who will tell you that there are no such things as coincidences. Everything happens for a reason. Someone or something is steering events in a direction that this someone or something wants things to go. There's a plan. We're all a part of it. Yeah, some people say that. I don't. The way I see it, everything is just one big coincidence.
I don't see how there can be holy wars in the Middle East, hate crimes in the so-called Land of the Free, drug cartels running throughout South America, hunger and thirst among many African nations, and yet it's all part of some plan. That plan sucks. The world is in chaos, and it's about time someone put it right.
The solution isn't order. Order got us into this mess. The solution is freedom.
Windows and Mirrors
Never is it a sad experience to come home from school. Even if little Richardson Court is just part of a tiny, stagnant subdivision that's a ways away from the actual city part of Raleigh, it's home to me. It's where my best friends live, and it's where school bullies would get their asses handed to them if they ever messed with any of us and ever decided to move there. That's why the Jensons ended up backing out of buying a house two doors down from mine. Ah, yes, such fond memories. That guy is still a dick to me at school, but I have that one little incident to hold over him.
Another thing that makes me elated to leave school is that my Freedom of Expression is restored; Walker High makes its students wear uniforms! Khakis and dress shirts are not okay with me. I never feel complete if I'm not wearing dark jeans and the T-shirt of some obscure metal band. Teachers have also been constantly complaining for the one-and-a-half years of my high school career about the length of my auburn hair, but they can suck it because the school can't do anything about that.
The third thing I love about being home from school is that I know it's just a short break between school and the start of a good camping trip. Well, today anyway. The guys of the Court and I had this plan for a week, and that Friday was the day it would be lived. All of us get together quite often; we're a real tight group.
"Derek!" gladly greeted Tristan after I had rushed upstairs, changed out of my uniform, and headed right next door to find the other three of the gang standing around Tristan's father's gray SUV. That guy is 16 years old, just a year older than me, and has a demeanor that says "I'm totally awesome, but I'm willing to hang out with the little people like you anyway."
After exchanging the classic high-five-hugs among the group, we all piled in, and Tristan took the wheel. Like all vehicles packed with teenagers, the car was loud and crazy. Perfect. "Last again, Derek," he commented energetically, "and you know what that means!"
Not at all was I happy about my horrid fate for being last, but I laughed anyway. I don't really know why. I never do. "Yeah, yeah, I know," I responded, "Looks like the campsite rental's on me!" From around the car, a chorus of whoos and yeahs was short-lived, but quite audible while it was happening. "Hang on! Gage, you still owe me ten bucks from June!" I suddenly recalled.
"Fine," she quite reluctantly conceded and handed me the money. "That's the last time I bet you," she bitterly vowed. Gage is almost the polar opposite of Tristan. Tristan is loud and energetic, but Gage is a little more reserved and speaks in a low voice. She may dress like the preppy type even outside of school, but make no mistake that she has an attitude quite to the contrary. Even though she's a freshman, we're all above that kind of class difference.
"Well, it's your own fault for doubting my pizza eating skills," I happily snicker to her.
"Can you blame her?" Tyrone cuts in. "Nobody thought you could eat 14 slices without vomiting when you're so damn scrawny!" He went so far as to grab my left arm and stretch it out to prove his rather valid point. Good ol' Tyrone is always looking for a chance to earn a laugh, and rarely do his attempts fall flat, too. This one was made all the more hilariously demeaning by the fact that he's a defensive lineman on the school football team, and I well, I have a build more accurately resembling the water boy. Like I said, though, it's funnily demeaning.
I didn't really have a way to respond to that, so I didn't. I just started to stare out the window and observed my surroundings. The others ended up working themselves into a new conversation while I mostly just listened, as is my typical habit. "D' you think we'll be there before it starts rainin'?" Tyrone asked when we were on a moderately busy road. His question wasn't unwarranted, either; rain appeared to be forming, and the sky appeared to be waiting only for its cue to start pouring. "I don't feel like gettin' wet."
I chose then to jump back in. "The way things look now? I doubt it," I remarked, still staring out the window. "Hey, rain never hurt anybody, right?" It seemed that the last bit was in fact the storms cue. A glowing line streaked the sky for a split-second, and a low clap of thunder resounded with heavy bass.
"And I guess lightnin' never hurt anyone, either," snickered Tyrone back, nudging me lightly.
"You know, Ty," joined in Tristan, "I think lightning actually has hurt people before!" The sarcasm was quite heavy, but that's why we all thought it was at a decently laughable level. Right then after, a significantly brighter lightning strike and a significantly louder thunder roar caught our attention and made all four of us jump. "Whoa, that one was close!" Tristan exclaimed.
"Relax," I tell him, even though he obviously wasn't genuinely scared, "It isn't actually that close. Besides, we're in a car. Rubber tires. Even if we were struck, nothing would happen."
"Yeah, we know, Derek," Gage remarked, seeming the slightest bit annoyed.
By the time of the next red traffic light, the storm had pretty much gotten going, and there was another seemingly close call. There was just one odd thing. "Geez, all the thunder and lightning, but no rain," observed Tristan once we'd stop. "You'd think it'd be raining by now, right?"
"Well, they say 'shit happens,' but now it looks like they should be sayin' 'shit doesn't happen,'" joked Tyrone. That one ended falling flat on its face, though. "But if I'm good and dry, that's fine by me!"
"You know, just because you're so reluctant to get caught in the rain," I snickered, "I really want to see it happen." We waited at that red light for quite a while, and the bunch of us was starting to get rather impatient. "Damn, what's taking this light so long?"
Tristan was highly annoyed, too, and it showed when he replied, "Man, I don't know!" He honked his horn then, almost as if thinking that it would make the light more likely to change soon. "Damnit, change!" Well, he ended up getting his wish. Right then the light went from red to green. The problem was that it went right back to red again, as if someone was manually operating the lights and just wanted to mess with us. Then it turned green again, then red, then yellow, then green, and then it just started flashing random colors randomly and rapidly. "What the hell…?"
Right after half a minute or so of this, the lights just went completely black. They had turned off entirely. "Well, that sucks!" bitterly snapped Gage.
"Ty," requested Tristan, "Call our parents, will you? I'm driving."
"Ha! Barely!" laughed Tyrone, but he took out his phone anyway. Something seemed off, though; it had apparently turned off without him doing anything. "Damn, I thought I charged this thing! Derek, got juice on your phone?"
"Yeah, one second," I responded, and extracted my own cell phone from my pocket. Mine had turned itself off, too, though. It also wouldn't turn back on no matter how many times I pushed the button to do so. "Okay, I know for a fact that I was at 75% battery just before I got in this car. Gage?"
Gage appeared to have taken a step ahead of me when she'd seen me having trouble. "Nope. That's weird." The thundering began to really pick up now.
"Same here!" called Tristan from up front. "What the hell is going on here? With the lights and our phones, it's like someone set off a fucking EMP!"
"Come on," I rebuked skeptically, "I doubt that." This time, there was no mistaking it: the next thunder clap was so loud that it left my ears ringing for a few moments and lightning quite clearly struck just by the side of the road. "Holy shit!" The ground appeared to be slightly charred.
"Alright," conceded Tristan, "screw the light, we're outta here!" He didn't even have time, though, to touch his foot to the accelerator before the next bolt hit the road, surely no more than a foot ahead of the car's grill. I could only barely hear that over more ringing from the thunderclap that accompanied the lightning "What the fuck is going on here?"
I peered my head outside the downed window and looked straight up. The darkly clouded sky almost appeared to have a veined network of electricity running through it, kind of like an orb spider web with all of its spindles extending the center. That can't be good…What really made it scary was that the "center" seemed to be, well, right above us. As in, right above our specific car. "Oh, crap, everyone out! Get out!" I screamed, pulling my head back in.
Lightning seemed to then start raining down from the sky's nexus like, well, like rain. It barraged the ground all around us, and seemed to be getting steadily closer, almost resembling an orbital laser cannon from space homing in on its target. Everything just seemed to become pandemonium from there. Everybody who was sitting next to a door was struggling with sweaty hands and an unsound mind to get their doors open. Tyrone was the one who actually managed to get his open first, and he shouted, "Pile out!" when he did. It was too late though.
What had to be the greatest flash and the loudest bang of the bunch descended down from the center of the electroweb like the merciless wrath of an angry deity, and it landed directly on our car. I'm surprised that my hearing ever managed to recover afterwards, let alone so quickly and that my eyesight wasn't at all lost to me either. That didn't occur to me, though, until far later. Bigger things were at hand.
That lightning strike did not pass through the vehicle harmlessly as it should have. After it had hit, well, the simple if maybe a little overused way of putting it is that everything went black. All senses ceased to function for some fleeting period of time. Simply, I blacked out.