for @pushdaisies | verse: post season 4
‘ So we’re living in a whole new timeline. At least that’s the extent of how I’m processing it. ‘
Evan had been out in the town when the ash started to fall. He, like everyone else, had assumed it was snow, that for this time of year a strange cloud must have formed in the atmosphere to cause it. The longer he walked, the dusting became obvious. He recognized ash from the many fire pits he sat around as a teenager and knew that something was wrong, that this was more than a house fire, or even a forest fire, for that matter.
What struck him the most was the ways everyone congregated together. It unsettled Evan as he made his way to the town center where whispers of the ‘ epicentre ‘ rang out around him. There were groups whispering together, some hugging, others trying to change the channel of TVs sitting inside coffee shops to the news. The ash was so silent and seemed so perfectly natural that Evan wondered, for a brief moment, if this was normal for the mid-west.
Hawai’i, perhaps, or any volcanic island that was used to ash storms during certain months ― but a semi land-locked state in the heart of America wasn’t fitting that bill.
He sat now, weeks later, with Julieta, a coffee warm in his hands. The burning and the ash and the ‘ volcanic opening of Indiana ‘ had calmed down, but the fear in everyone’s eyes hadn’t gone. He, too, felt unsettled and unsure of whether he believed the news story that a rare, but possible fault line had opened and with that came an underground river of lava. Well ― that had been ONE news story among many he heard, and happened to be the one that stuck in his memory of that day.
‘ This has got to be more exciting than touring, ‘ he teased, his habit of trying to lighten the mood always winning out.