The New Rapture
I remember when it first started to really get big. Like, everyone was talking about it big. I think it was Fox News that we were watching, weirdly enough. I was with Amelia — she was one of my coworkers at the laundromat but she ended up being a really good friend. Like, her and I would just go to a meadow for a few hours after a morning shift and just sit around and just talk and have a really good time doing nothing at all. Conversation flowed really easily through her. She was really tall and pretty and she knew exactly the right thing to say to set you at ease — or put you on edge. I remember this one time that her and I went to one of our favorite fields (it was really just an abandoned lot that a contracting company couldn’t get rid of, but the way it was positioned among the houses made it feel really secluded and it was really nice to go there and just relax and smoke or whatever) and she just burst out into song. She was performing this entire sonata — I think that’s the right word, sonata — out of nowhere! With accompanied dance numbers and everything. Like, an entire musical. It probably went on for about 8 minutes before she stopped and did a little bow and took a breath and I asked her what she was singing. “My musical.” She said with a grin. I asked her if it really was her musical and not just her performance — assuring her that it definitely was her performance — and she said “Of course. I’ve been writing it since I was like 8.” I loved it, I told her. She said thanks and then she did another number for me. It was like heaven — watching her sing, dance, move. It was really something else. I might even go so far as to say otherworldly. I think that’s why she was drawn to it. She always had that sort of mystical quality about her — completely effortless. She wasn’t too into crystals or tarot, or things like that. But she believed in the universe and had a sort of cosmic sense about things that were greater than ours and out of our control. Which was why it’s so surprising to me that we were watching Fox News when we heard. I mean, she really must have hated getting that news from Fox News. I know she did. But I guess it didn’t matter. She blew her brains out right next to me on the couch. It got all over the walls and the arm of the couch. And me. It even got on the TV that was in front of us somehow. I don’t even know where she got a gun. I remember just watching the reporter’s mouth move on the TV, just watching this Fox News anchorman talk and not hearing anything that he said, her brains in my tea mug. I thought that maybe she would care a little bit more about a ceremony, or ritual. Those weren’t ideas that were foreign to her. Not that there’s anything wrong with her wanting to do it right there. I don’t want to sound judgmental. I was just surprised.
Actually, the first time I heard about it, I kind of thought of something similar. Just one quick moment and — BAM! It’s not that easy though. It’s just one moment but still. I mean, wow. The chance that you’re taking. Right? But of course people like Amelia could understand that in an instant. Intuitively, you could say. But it wasn’t something that made any sort of sense to me right away. In fact, it got more tangled the more that I thought about it.
I first was talking about it with Terry. We were walking in the park along the levee that runs along the river. Levee. He’s sort of like a mentor to me. He’s a big blackjack player. A hustler, you could say. I remember this one time that he cleaned some guy out on the street so bad, he had to run away from him, but he had just grabbed the money off the table (that he won fair and square, at least to hear him tell it), so as he’s running, he has these fistfulls of money with 20s flying out behind him, and he’s running faster and faster, trying to stuff the money in his pockets, but it just keeps flying out, and eventually the guy just stops chasing him and picks up most of the money that he lost. I think Terry was an ex-football player in highschool or something. They teach you that the faster you pump your arms the faster you’ll run. He must have really been pumping. I should also clarify — I don’t remember this first-hand, I remember Terry telling me about it. I didn’t really know him then. So, anyways, he was the one telling me all about it. “It’s a new way of life, kid.” He said. “We gotta jump on this new way. You understand? There’s only 6 chances you’ll ever get in a card game to read your opponent. Alright? And all 6 happen almost right as the game starts. Alright? And the only way, the only way you’re ever gonna beat this guy, is if you can read a majority. That means 3 or 4 out of 6. Right away. You pick up on these things right away when you been doing it long enough. So, I think that this is one of our first 6 chances. You understand? We gotta jump on this while it’s HOT. FRESH. READY!” That’s how you’d hear him talk — an idealist that was trying to get one over on the world. Game the system at the highest level, as he put it. It made a lot of sense why he was able to make that choice too. He went with a drug overdose. Heroin — probably. That was a really popular way. A lot of people said it was the best way. Terry would know. I wasn’t ever really in touch with his family or anything like that though. We met in the park so we mostly just went on walks. He knew some stuff about conspiracies and so I think at first he was skeptical, but it was that same skepticism that got him interested. “It’s about the chosen ones, you feel me. It’s about the ones who can go there and they can say to you — well they can’t say anything to you because they’re dead — but they can say to you ‘Look at me, I’m chosen.’ I think that’s what’s really worth trying this thing out.”
“Trying this thing out.” It was so callous the way some people talked about it. It felt pretty final to me. That was one of the things that made me feel like I just didn’t get it. Making a decision like that so fast. In an instant. One instant forever.
It’s hard to ignore though. It’s not like it’s going to go away. It isn’t some “problem” that’s fixing itself either. It isn’t an epidemic. That’s not how anyone is thinking of it. I feel like there’s just a new way, I guess. That’s the easiest way to put it. A new way of life that just so happens to begin with death. I think that’s right to say. Every day, people are still disappearing. Dying. It makes a lot of sense to me. I want to make that clear. It really does. But still, even knowing that it’s… logical? Sensible? It still scares the shit out of me. Even if there is a new life waiting for me at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel is still dark. I really don’t know why some people. Like Amelia, or Terry, or Reggie, or Samantha, or Miranda, or Atelia, or Ruth, or Tom, or Sage, or anyone. I don’t know why some people were just able to… do it.
What really made it catch on, at least I think, is how affirmative everyone is about it. There’s lots of stuff you can read if you’re not sure about it. Actually, I think, and I could be wrong, but I’m pretty sure I read something like “Unprecedented Amount of Grants and Funding Pushed to Science and Research Across the Country (And World)” or something like that in the New York Times. Or one of those news outlets. It’s actually crazy when you think about it. In the span of only a couple months, something can change so much. We could have done it any time. Put that much money into science and research. But it takes something like this for it to happen. I think it’s probably a little beautiful. But right now it just makes me kind of concerned. It really just caught on, like wild fire. People are calling it all sorts of names too. There’s a lot of different activist groups and people you can talk to for outreach. If you are sure, if you’re not sure, like I mentioned. Stuff like that. And of course a vocal minority opposing. I’m not really part of that group. Although I do think it’s normal — healthy, even — to have some reservations. But I wouldn’t go so far as to like, join any of those Facebook groups or anything. I think it’s just a new nature. Running its course. Something like that.
I think I get it more now. It’s like a flash. It’s like a flash of white where everything collapses into a two dimensional plane. It’s there but completely imperceptible from where you’re sitting. And when you return, everything goes back to normal. If you return.
The tunnel reminds me of this time I was little. I remember that I fell asleep in the car. An old Lincoln, or something like that. It had those headlights that made it look like an angry Texan. As a child, at that age, every single day seemed like an everlasting twilight. Everything had glowing edges and borders and a sungold hue. The sky was always a light orange and a faint white aurora borealis shimmered off in the distance near the mountains that looked down at me on the drive home. I fell asleep in the car on one of the big hills right off the freeway. The slow tick of the turn signal seemed to hypnotize me and I fell asleep while the gentle rock of the curved road lulled me. When I woke up, I was foggy, distant. Outside of myself. But, still, in myself. I was like a second-hand observer. But there wasn’t anyone driving. I just simply existed. I felt a dull panic about where I was going or who was going to steer the car but it wasn’t anything serious. I knew my parents were missing and I recognized the area I was in as somewhat familiar (but still unfamiliar, as things are to a little kid), and I looked around at the different seats to find them empty where people should be. And to my left, out the window, were rose bushes. They all had the same color of the heavenly gold sky and took on the same white aura as everything else. And then my parents came in from outside whatever world I was in and took me inside and I started to cry. I just didn’t know where I was. I think it’s like that.
Anyways. It was a white flash. A flash of pure white, and now it’s done. A single moment of incomprehension. There isn’t going to be any wait and see. I’m glad for that.
There’s a fuzziness to it. A happy, funny feeling. A comfortable static. then nothing. but. black.