It’s been a long two weeks some six hours away.
Procrastination pushed the schedule from the subtle spring past the fire months to the first freeze. She was there when I arrived, bright and cheery, looking youthful for the moment. Hers was a life of complex service like what an angel might do lifting the burdens from humanity to release their spirits. She was a philanthropist and humanitarian with a deep spiritual essence that people gravitated toward, sensing something special that exuded her. It wasn’t until adulthood that she realized its power. People wanted it and all the poster-child promises were pushed like pop-ups from some otherworld where only ideas drift in wonder never coming to fruition. The marketing was a lie. It was unattainable. Eventually, she too grew tired of the facade and left for an underground sanctuary to retire in a quiet place. Her absence made her into a legend eventually lost to nature’s whispers.
I drove to the place where she had last been seen. A place marked by an event that left half a city block melted and charred from intense heat. There was no correlation to her but for my own observation; the intuition that drew me. Naturally, talking heads spoke of an asteroidal event, and several blocks were quarantined. But when she appeared to me, I knew the connection was real.