Ezekial's Train, Chapter Fourteen

“This . . .”

Daniel's words are swept away by the force of the arrival, even as he knows that he and Mordechai are not truly here in this time and place, they are still affected. The bearlike creature turns to him and his mouth is wide in a scream. “This is too much!”

And the world disintegrates in a mass of writhing light.

Break

As they each come to their senses and recover from the shock of the train's arrival, Mordechai speaks again to Daniel and his words are distant as the world reassembles itself around them. “That moment in time is to . . . Crucial. It is too much to view, even for us. Are you alright, Daniel?”

“Yes. I am all—My god.”

Looking down, Daniel can see that the pier, the tunnel, the station, or whatever it might be that the Angels call it, is still there before them and he senses that he and Mordechai are hovering in the same geographical spot as before, but the structure is different. It's larger now, changed as if it has grown as organically as a tree's root structure. Looking around and at the distant horizon there is an odd ephemeral quality to this whole new world too, as if the air were filled with a strange translucent fog.

“What has happened to this place? This world?”

Stretching far inland away from a coastline that is farther back than it was in the previous visions, the pier structure has grown huge and ornate, stretching back into the city like a sinister snake of glass, metal, and materials Daniel can't recognize. Though the strange fog lends a dullness to it all, he can see that there is docked in the tunnel another puma faced transport, or whatever it is that the thing may actually be, its eyes glowing a dull electric yellow in the waning light. The city beyond the tunnel though, what there is that surrounds the structure, is like no human city that Daniel has ever seen.

“The lack of substance, the fogginess you see now is what we always are finding when in the future too far from our own time.”

For a few moments Daniel does his best to ignore the sights stretching out before him and focus on the irrationality of the alien's statements, on the physics of this traveling they've done.

“Our own time? So you are in the same time as me now, in 1972? This blending of eras that the visions have shown me has always been hard to understand.”

“The concept your race has of time is different than we are accustomed too. It is as hard for me to understand your idea of time as it must be for you to understand mine. My race, most other races, the Host and others, perceive time differently than your humans. I fear that it is too much to explain now. What is important is that--”

“My god!” Suddenly the full realization of the city before him strikes and he is more afraid than he has been in any vision or episode of his dealings with the Angels or the Watchers. “This is the city though, isn't it, Miami? On the outskirts of the alien structures I see the ruins from the visions they gave me then, years ago, though I did not understand them then. This is the future of our whole world, like this?”

As far as the strange out buildings of the structure that is the pier are and as numerous, they do eventually coalesce into a single strand of strangeness stretching off to the horizon. On the sides where they end though, Daniel can see what must be left of the metropolis which once was here. The city he visited so long ago now in the future and lying in old, neglected ruins.

“That is hard to say. Yes, in this time your Earth is like this on much of its surface, but this is only one future for your world that we see now, though the one most likely. That is why it is the world we see, because it is the world most likely to come. It is the one we would like to stop. The one you can help us stop.”

“Yah, Yah. So you've said, but where are the people?”

“We are not sure. Visiting this time is hard for us so far, though we are constantly evolving our abilities. For the Host it is probably not so hard, but for us it is difficult now.”

“Us? The Watchers, you mean?”

“Yes. The Watchers, and myself.”

“And why do you then, and why do these Watchers want to help our planet not meet this future it seems doomed to encounter?”

Mordechai looks again to Daniel, pulling his eyes away from the murky landscape before them and focusing on the man's worried but incredulous face. “I told you, we Watchers were the architects of other worlds already taken by the Host. We are old, mostly, but that is hard to qualify for your short lived race. I've wondered if it is vengeance that makes us fight the host, or perhaps a longing for balance, but it truly does not matter our motives. All you need know is that we do wish to help your world, it is just that we cannot do it without your help.”

“You are not so powerful then?”

“We are not, as you know. I am far away from you now, in a physical sense, and I cannot project so well as the Host. Their powers are greater than ours, but even so they needed your help. We need it more. Manipulating matter across the stars is difficult work. But look, out to your right. There!”

In the distance, far away from the structures which surround the station and the tunnel leading out from it, there are flashes in the city's ruins. Quick fiery explosions which expire shortly before three distinct shapes rise up from the damaged buildings there.

“What is that?”

The shapes, vaguely circular, swoop down into the base of a tower which projects from the center of a bilious building near the center of the new “city,” it's architecture matching that of the tunnel and the others, as if shaped by the wind or the ocean. “What is that? The explosions. . .”

There is a long pause before Mordechai answers, his words soft and unsure. “Maybe the remnants of your race? Your people are warlike and stubborn. Surely, whatever of your kind which are left arrange some sort of resistance. The flying machines it seems, are sent to quell it.”

“So there is hope, then? Resistance?”

“Hope?” Chuckling, he shakes his head, his laughter like the grinding of stones under a car tire, painful and grating. “For what? For what you see here? No. The only hope there is for us is to stop this from happening. Through you.”

Taking a deep breath before speaking again to the bear, Daniel says simply, “So what then, do I have to do?”

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Thirteen

“I'm sorry, Ezekial, but you do not have a choice.”

And the world falls away.

Break

The sun is rising as Daniel and Mordechai are floating over a city, or the coast of a city. It crests the horizon behind them as they look down on the docks and Daniel knows that it is on the Eastern coast of the U.S. Somehow he can sense that this is a changed Miami and that he and Mordechai are floating near the same spot where he rendezvoused with Elijah and Ester all those years ago. The city has changed, yes but as the buildings are taller he still recognizes that it looks like it did for a moment when he could see it across the centuries in any direction, flying over the ocean that night.

Mordechai speaks to Daniel but it is not through a box this time, it is in his head. “This is the wrong year. The Watchers are still not as skilled as the Host. Give us time.” The words echo in Daniel's head as if from deep within, not in the stiff crackling voice of the box Mordechai carries but in a scratchy, animistic one, the words barely coherent as English.

Break

The coastline is the same but the lighting is different and he can sense that it is late afternoon. The sky before was cloudless but now it is overcast and Daniel can see the condensation floating around him as if he and Mordechai sit on the outskirts of a cloud high above the rippling ocean waters. Below them, from directly underneath where they float freely, the beginnings of a long pier stretches toward the shore, still under construction. Even in the foundation pylons he can see there is a strangeness to this work. There is an inhuman aspect innate to the structure as if it were organic rather than architectural. Wispy metal framework extends toward and grows larger near the shore , laying across the water like the web of demented spider forming a long tunnel shaped by wind. It is the beginnings of an artwork perhaps, but on a massive scale.

“I have seen this.” As Daniel speaks he realizes that there is no sound but he senses that Mordechai hears him. They are here in spirit alone, or whatever may be closest to a spirit. This is a different kind of vision.

“When I was flying at the whim of the Angels, this was what I saw and the future besides the past, all at once. It was too much to take in then.”

“Eze--” Mordechai hesitates before going on, “Daniel. They were using you then as a tool to measure things you could not, cannot comprehend. Though I suspect you could more than others of your race.”

Daniel pauses and there is a soft surprise in his voice as he speaks to the shape of the bear. “And why is that?”

“You are more receptive to the parts of comprehension and . . . you would say science that your race cannot normally measure. More than any other man alive now or then, more than any they had found since your ancient times we think.”

Staring at the strange metalwork below Daniel finally embraces a realization that he has kept from the edges of his mind for more than a generation. “You mean, as you all call me Ezekial?”

“It seems, from what we have stolen of their records, yes. But that is over now.” Mordechai sighs. “There is more.”

Break

Again it is late afternoon but now they are close over a structure lit brightly with spotlights, the same structure they'd seen before, but complete. A long, sinuous tube, it snakes out from the shoreline and far into ocean, more sculpture than pier. Undulating curves and waves of thick aluminum sheet and polished steel seem to pulsate out from the shore, such is the fluidity of the structure spearing into the Atlantic.

“How?” Daniel sees the thing is man made, that much is sure, but the tensile strength required for some of the structure goes beyond any methods or technologies he knows and the effect of the insane structure is more shocking because of it. “And if building is possible, why at such expense?”

“Many things have changed in a very few years. Come.”

As Mordechai speaks Daniel feels a pull and they move down over the structure as the sun begins to set and the spotlights appear to glow brighter in a clean white light on the shining metal. Swooping down he can see that the structure is huge and hollow, filled with ornate latices and intricate supports that he can see are mostly ornamental. The interior is well lit and populated by many people, all finely dressed and aimlessly wandering the floors.

Hovering closer and looking in through the open slats of the exterior, through holes that Daniel hesitates to call windows, he realizes that this must be an opening ceremony. Some sort of gala opening for the pier, put on at great expense. He has been to enough building openings in his time as an architect in high demand in New York to know the look of the event even if the cut of the clothing is as different as the food served.

“The Host has been busy by this point, before you ask. They have guided individuals just enough to help this . . . artwork these humans are calling it be built. The Metatron. . . There is a new architect in this time but even he could not do this without what you provided at that pivotal time. He is not as aware as you were then and in all time, there is always more than one architect.”

For the first time Daniel begins to wonder, not at the motives of the alien beside him, but at the soul. Who is this creature that says he fights for humanity? “You were an architect, weren't you Mordechai?”

The bear looks at him with eyes that once again exude a sadness, even in this state. “Yes. All of The Watchers were.”

A silence stretches between them as the pair comes to rest on the floor of the structure and Mordechai guides them toward a crowded area near the farthest edge of the pier, farthest into the ocean. It suddenly occurs to Daniel, “But, will they see us?”

“We are not here. Time works differently for us. You humans are a simple race in many ways. It is too much to explain, but this is the future as it is now, as it will happen. This is a difficult thing to show you. Look.”

Pointing toward the focus of all the well clad party goers, his is not the only hand gesturing upward. Projected in high definition on the wall of the structure is an incredibly detailed set of blueprints, page after page worth and each dozens of feet across. They show the intricate pylons and framework of the pier and the artistry within.

Daniel's feet stop moving and he stares up at the diagrams, mouth agape. What he sees there is like nothing he can imagine, even with it right before his eyes. “But, this. . . This doe not make sense. This is not possible.”

Suddenly he is pulled back and into the air, sucked out of the wide open space at the end of the pier with Mordechai calling all the while, “Come! Quickly, I have misjudged.”

As they pull away from the pier's edge, whatever it is that Daniel occupies in this space, whatever body or spirit in this time, it can feel the vibrations of the structure and sense the distress of those within it. The shocked shouts and screams from the people inside drift up to him as they pull away and Daniel realizes that it is not the shaking of the pier or the structure at all he feels or senses, it is the shaking of the world.

Not an earthquake but the shaking of all matter around them. The dock, the metals, the concrete, the people inside, screaming and clutching their skulls, the hors d'œuvres and the spotlights, the ocean and all that's in it shake violently. The air and the time surrounding the area quiver and pulse and even through the muffle that their being in another time provides Daniel feels as if he is being pulled apart from inside.

Looking to the other figure beside him as they slow and come to rest high above the structure and hundreds of yards out to sea he sees that Mordechai's already ephemeral shape is quivering and flickering as it points down and yells for Daniel's attention once again.

Light begins to pour from within the pier and Daniel is not sure if it is his sight or some other sense that tells him that the interior has been sterilized of all that is not necessary for the support of the tunnel. All the people inside, all their accoutrements gone in an instant while the light pours from within. It is a white light that is uniform from land to ocean is whiter and clearer than any light he's ever seen and he begins to think again of what Mordechai said of sciences, senses, sheer parts of space and time that humans cannot comprehend. This must be one of those parts.

Then, with a sound that is more than a sound and less than a feeling, with a vibration that begins on an atomic level and boils outward, pulling the water apart around the pier at a molecular level and sending streams of plasma away and into the ocean, boiling the seawater as it goes, Daniel sees the tunnel is no longer empty.

The Puma Space Train has arrived.

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Twelve

Ester gasps and stumbles back away from Daniel, the force of the single word “Mordechai” enough to scare her as much as seeming return of the visions. Turning to look behind her, though, the shocks continue as there, standing in the room with them both is the bear Daniel had sketched so many times. The bear creature he had told her about all those years ago, and the sight of it there, standing on its hind legs in her living room is enough to send her back onto the couch beside Daniel, clutching him in fear.

Touching her hand to steady her and bringing her close to his own, his mind still coming to terms with whatever new kind of vision he's had, Daniel locks his eyes on those of Mordechai and it occurs to him that he should not be shocked by the sight, not after all that happened those years ago.

“Daniel,” Her voice a whisper, “It's. . .”

“I know. It is Mordechai, love,” Standing and gently holding Ester back on the couch Daniel speaks as much to the bear as to his wife. “I won’t let him hurt you.”

“Hurt me? Honey, that’s sweet of you but you ain’t no spring chicken. That thing’ll snap you in two!” As she speaks she stands to protect him and stares defiantly at the bear. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are, Mordechai! And I have only one thing to say to you. You can just get the hell out! Daniel is his own man and I won’t let you manipulate him any longer. You are not his master.”

Mordechai’s mouth twists into a toothy smile as he cocks his head up at the ceiling in what might be a laugh. As his mouth opens Ester can see that his teeth are not sharp or worn like a bear's might be but broad and flat like molars, like an herbivore. It only takes that cue for her to see how little he actually resembles a bear, aside from the short, coarse, black fur and the muzzled face. Long and lanky but the height of man he is more like a paunchy bear man than anything. His shoulders slumped a little, she realizes he must be old, at least by whatever standards his race might have. She can see the muscles slightly withered under his skin like an elderly body builder who struggles to stay in shape against the grinding stone of time. For a moment she feels some sympathy for the beast but it is cast aside by the laughter he throws in their faces.

Daniel too sees the age on the creatures face as scratchy words come forth from the box the bear holds in its claws, so like the one he remembers from long ago but smaller, simpler and more solid.

“It is not I who manipulates him. Those are beings vastly more powerful than you or I, unfortunately.” The bear leers at Ester’s unbroken brow but somehow there is a sadness in his eyes that transcends species or race. ”How can such a little person as you hope to free him from the burdens of gods?”

Ester’s expression only strengthens in determination as the bear speaks but her eyes are glossy with moisture. “I can’t free him from his own mind, only he’s got the power to do that.” Daniel feels Ester’s hand grip his tightly despite its shaking. “But he’ll never have to go a day without me bein’ at his side, not anymore. Not as long as I have air in my lungs.”

Daniel’s grip matches Ester’s as Mordechai looks at him, his face inscrutable. The box speaks. “I can see why you love her.”

“Do you?” Daniel spits the words and moves towards the bear, his eyes glazed over in a rage. “For years you had tormented me! The visions of you and those damned angels! Blackouts, fevers, the edge of death for the visions you give and those angels, always unknowable in your power! Go back to whatever place you come from. You are not wanted here!”

Ester nods and wraps an arm around Daniel's shoulders, forcing her to step closer to the bear as she notices the strangeness of its presence. Not the strangeness of it being there but the lack of a presence, that feeling in the air that one senses when another being is nearby. Looking closer she sees that the edges of his fur are a little blurry and she wonders, why does the bear not have a smell? Surely a creature like this must have an odor and in this close space. . .

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Ezekial. This is a human phrase. I have had time to practice and study your language and your people. I think I understand you better now but,” The scratching noises from the box almost sound sympathetic in their coldness, but only when backed by the gentle gestures of Mordechai as he holds out his hand to the couple. “Those whom tormented you are not my allies. You are my only ally now, Ezekial, and I fear that it is all but too late for you, for your Ester, and perhaps for your entire race.”

“What does this mean?”

“Are you saying that you’ve been tryin’ to help Daniel all this time? All of your visions?”

The bear looks blankly at them and then nods as if it had forgotten the gesture for a moment. “For a time I could only reach the Architect via the same channels that the Engineers use and even those not consistently. Those channels, unfortunately took a great toll on you, friend.”

“Friend?” Daniel laughs gently but ruefully and he feels a pain in his back as his shoulders drop The years have been long for him, visions or no. “Am I the architect? I am now yah, but surely you and your angels do not need my skills for drawing floor plans and foundations.”

“Daniel, I think the Angels needed you for something else. Listen to the . . . man.”

“Thank you, Ester. You are correct about the 'Angels,' though surely you know by now that is not what they--”

“But what is this about channels?” Daniel his head at the bear and waves his arm towards him, “The visions?”

“Where I am from, the the planet I come from, only the most wealthy can afford communication over such distance and it-”

“Planet?” exclaims Ester. “Aliens? Aliens all along? Poor papa, looking for the word of god in the phone calls of aliens.”

“That’s enough!” Daniel says, not loudly but with enough force to have the room's attention. “Tell me exactly why you have disturbed our home, Mordechai. You speak of planets and communication across the stars and the death of a race. Why are you here? I tire of your strange face.”

Mordechai nods again, more fluidly this time as the box chatters at them. “You do not have to worry about seeing my kind ever again, Ezekial. Enoch saw to it that we were wiped out long ago. I am the last of my kind but I am not the last to suffer by force of those 'Angels,' nor the first.”

“And who is Enoch? You speak in riddles.”

“Enoch is what your people called the guide for a time. His kind arranges for travel across distant planets, helping the wealthy, the powerful ones of the universe to come to the weak and take what they will. Enochs kind, the Host we'll call them, are the only ones who know the technology, the methods. Those I cannot explain but Enoch, the Metatron to the Host, they have done this at least nine times that we know of. My planet was the ninth.”

The box falls silent and Ester looks to it as Daniel keeps his eyes locked with those of Mordechai. “And you will tell me ours is intended to be the tenth.”

“Yes.”

“Why?!” asks Ester, suddenly pulled back into the dialogue and afraid.

The bear shrugs in a very human was as its box speaks for it, “Perhaps it was the closest one within arm’s reach, who can say what they would like from your world. I could not not tell you. All we know is that the Revelation is never good for those chosen.”

“And what to do with me is this story or yours?”

Daniel sits back on the couch and pulls Ester by his side, both of them landing with a sigh and a longing for this story of his to end.

“Enoch reaches through the Metatron out to an Architect from the planet they choose and interacts with them through the . . . visions from far away across space, guiding the Architect, or on this planet, the many, in helping build what is needed.”

“And I helped them? I did so much?”

“It is hard to explain--”

“We have to tell the government, Daniel.” Ester pleads with her eyes to Daniel to let this be passed to another but he can see she knows that futility as Mordechai goes on.

“And what could your people hope to do to defeat them? They who would travel across the stars and take what they want from your material space?”

Daniel looks to Ester and she sees in his eyes a depth like the moonless sky at night as he speaks to the bear, standing as he does. “But you are here, so there implies a way to stop them. What do I need to do?”

Mordechai reaches out his arm toward Daniel and as the box speaks he moves his thin lips in a way that might be saying the words as well. “I need you to come with me.”

“Well, hold on!” Ester says, standing beside him “Daniel ain’t going nowhere without me!”

Mordechai ignores Ester now and instead focuses on the old man before him, his eyes narrowed into slits. “Ezekial, what I need you to do is to stop yourself before you help the 'Angels.' It is the best way we have determined, the most likely acceptable outcome. It is the only way we have developed to save this world which has a chance.” Daniel nods.

The bear glances at Ester and sighs, “But there is always a cost.”

Daniel immediately takes a step back and closer to Ester, moving slowly. It is hard for him to read the face of Mordechai and it is said that when a human looks on the face of an animal or alien it sees what it wishes to see there, for good or ill. In Mordechai's face, in his eyes so much like a humans, Daniel sees a look of compassion but unrelenting steadfastness. A determination that could bridge planets and time, and an anger there too. A longing for revenge that Daniel knows he is not projecting there, but which lies in whatever the creature uses for a heart.

Daniel shakes his head. “No, I will not help you.”

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Eleven

Daniel Christiansen can feel the vibrations of the train beneath him, the hum electromagnets and the soft whirring of motors far away. So like the trains he rode all over Europe and so different. Something like the trains he's seen pictures of from Japan, long bullet-nosed things a mile long and looking faster than sound. So like them too, but so different.

As the train vibrates around him he can feel the vibrations through his being, enveloping him like a pocket of warm air, surrounding him completely as if in a cocoon. It surrounds him and he surrounds it. Space and time function differently here and he knows that the train is not moving in any rational sense, just as the train is not truly a train, but a vessel of some sort. A vessel and the tunnel through which it travels, both at the same time.

So like a train though, the way it moves, the shape it occupies. He can see it from outside as clearly as if he was out there watching it, observing it from all angles within and without, staring down the grim face of the giant cat creature whose image it wears on its forward edge and seeing every berth and machine inside just as clearly.

He can see the rows and rows of people sitting calmly, some chatting, some dozing, some doing things he can't quite decipher.

But they aren't people.

* * *

Daniel shakes his head and realizes he's been daydreaming again. It seems to be happening so often lately as he sits at his desk, staring out the window over the streets below, idly sketching on his drafting pad. Only a year retired and he already feels his wits slipping into atrophy. He'll have to find something to keep him occupied soon or else Ester'll start worrying about him even more than she already does.

Looking down at the drafting pad he sees the train from his day dream, the same one that he's been sketching absentmindedly his whole life, though not for years.

That same train or whatever it is, long and sinuous, snaking off into the distance, looking like a snake crowned by the head and forelimbs of a puma or something like it if anything. If he were seeing it for the first time he'd say it looks like the sphinx transformed into a bullet train, but this isn't the first time he's seen it. He starts drawing a locomotive like he remembers from the war beside it, to scale in the technical way that he's accustomed to, his fingers moving swiftly in the way that they usually do. Drawing mostly of their own volition, they move on their own and creating something he could barely have imagined before he'd seen it. Just as they always have.

It was those quick and brilliant flourishes of design that had him partner in an architecture firm barely ten years out of college on the G.I. Bill and retired twelve later, wealthy and successful but with too much time on his hands for drawing trains and angels. Now the old steam train comes together beside the strangely anachronistic train from the dreams, looking both from the future and the past especially next to the hard edged, gear driven monster next to it. Like night and day, they juxtapose each other on the paper there, each drawn out with grid lines around them as if in a blueprint.

Before he realizes what he's done he's drawn a stocky bear standing by the train that's carrying a box with it. Quickly Daniel sketches a tiny hammer and sickle armband on the bear and the shape of an artillery shell on the box, erasing the switches he'd put there at first. It's only the bear from the war.

Not that other one.

“Daniel honey, are you home?”

Daniel hears the door clacking shut in the front room and Ester's voice calling to him. “Yah. What are you doing home so early?”

He turns, dropping his pencil on the vellum paper and looking to find Ester's smiling face and outstretched arm. “I can't come home early, huh? Not to my own house? Silly man, I thought I'd come home and check on you, maybe we could go out for lunch since I know y'all hadn't ate anything yet.”

She come up to him and wraps an arm over his shoulder, leaning down to kiss him on the lips. “Ha, you know me too well, you do. I would forget to eat did you not remind me. What have you in . . .”

He trails off as he sees her looking over him at the drawings on the desk, the sketches and the diagrams, the trains and the bear staring out from the paper with more intelligence than a bear should be expected to have. “Honey, you aren't havin' visions again, are you?”

“No!” he says abruptly, pushing a stack of letters down onto the vellum pad awkwardly, “Of course not! After all these years, that I should have . . . those visions again. Preposterous!”

“Honey, look at me.”

She looks into his eyes and stares at her with a wrinkled brow, trying his best to show his sincerity. “I promise you, daydreams, nothing more. I. . . think of them often as I sit around with nothing to do. They still puzzle me.”

“Just don't think about 'em too much, okay honey?” She leans in again and kisses him a little longer than before, reaching out to push more papers over the drafting pad and the touching his cheek as she pulls away. “They may be what brought us together, but it don't mean I want to see 'em coming back.” She smiles suddenly and lightly slaps him on the top of his gray hair, “Sides, you found me last time, don't want you havin' visions again that find you a new woman!”

“Oh honey, I would try you know, but the women, they say I am too old.”

He looks up at her and stands, a twinkle in his eye as she wags her finger at him. “You ol' letch, you. Y'all be the death of me yet, like mama always said.”

Daniel chuckles softly at the old joke, wrapping his arm around his wife and moving with her toward the front room, grabbing his coat on the way. “Now where did you want to take this old retired letch for lunch then, eh?”

* * *

“Honey, I know you spend too much time puzzling out those visions since you retired the firm. I see the sketches all balled up in the trash and I see 'em doodled in the corners of every piece of paper in the house. Why you thinkin' about 'em so much these days?”

The last rays of light are filtering through the blinds in fiery slices of orange and deep yellow, leaving strange shadows to fall on the room, lighting up the bookcases and the architectural models in their cases, the accumulations of a successful life gathering dust around their townhouse as they grow old together. “Ester, my evening star, you know that I cannot forget these things that happen. You know they still are in my dreams all these years.”

“I know honey, but I never did stop worrying about you. It's been hell, twenty five years since you had a vision, least if you're telling me truth it has, but I still worry.”

Daniel reaches out and puts his hand on hers, gripping it softly. “Yes, yes it has, but I still just can't make sense of it all. I never could.” He looks away, toward the window to avoid her gaze. “Neither could your father, though he did forgive me for not being the savior he sought I know that he never stopped thinking of them either.”

Squeezing his hand before letting go to run her fingers through her own gently graying hair, she speaks softly. “My father, may he rest in peace, never was gonna find what he was lookin' for as long as he looks in that book of his for it.”

“The Bible you mean? But so much of it made sense then, to what was written there. My own mother would've had agreed with him on that, if nothing else. . .”

“Daniel, their gone, both of them, but we're still here. If you need to think on those visions, do it, but I swear with each passing year I feel a little more like that was all some sort of dream. Like it happened a long time ago to some other people.”

“But that is easy for you to say, yah? Not so much for me.”

The last rays of dying sunlight are gone and Ester stands to turn on another lamp, watching Daniel from the corner of her eye as he speaks. “Yes, not so easy for me to forget, even though the memories do fade around the edges. Even being there, I do not think you ever truly understood.”

“I understood enough I think, to help you come out the other side, though at the moment I don't know why I bothered.”

Daniel stands and walks to Ester, touching her softly and pulling her face towards his again. “Darling, do not take such thoughts.” He pulls away before going on, avoiding her gaze again, for a moment.

“It is just that they have, these past months, been more on my mind. There is something that I can feel in the air, something creeping on the edges of my mind. Not like a vision, not like a vision at all but something. There is something happening, or something will.”

“Daniel, let's talk about something else.”

“No. I must talk about it. The bear, Mordechai, he said seventy-five years, or so I thought, but it is now been twenty-five and why should I be thinking about it now? Why?” There is a long pause and the sound of Ester's nervous breathing fills the room. “Unless. . .”

“Yes?”

“. . .Ester?”

Daniel looks to her suddenly and she sees he's shaking as he does, his eyes afire with fear and confusion. “Yes honey, it's me.” She does her best to smile, suddenly afraid her self. “You alright?”

“What, what's happening? Where am I?”

Now she's very afraid and she feels like she's watching a story that she's seen before, a story whose ending she can see and is afraid of. She tries to laugh, to put him at ease but she knows that it's finally come. “Where you think you at, old man? You ain't up and losing your mind on me again, are you?”

Daniel looks at his hands, turning them over and bringing them to his face as she edges towards him, “We. . . we were on a boat.”

Now she can force a smile no longer and she runs to him by the window, covering the space in only two steps as she clutches him in her arms before putting her hands to his face, looking into his eyes fearfully and finding no comprehension. Finding a person staring back that is not her Daniel. Finding a person who plainly doesn't know who she is. “Look at me, okay? This is important. Tell me, who are you?”

He looks at her and she can see the gears turning behind his eyes, trying to figure it out. Between the fear and the confusion Ester wonders to herself which she'd rather see, Daniel losing his mind to Alzheimer’s or the visions again.

“What? I. . . I am Daniel Christiansen.”

“Not your name, honey. Your name ain't who you are. Daniel, Ezekial, whoever you are, don't make no difference.” Suddenly she realizes tears are running down her cheeks and her own hands are shaking worse than Daniel's, clutching his face so hard that she can see the skin around her fingertips turning red. Before she even has time to know why she would say such strange words, she has said them.

“Your life belongs to you. Your choice belongs to you, you hear me?”

“I don't understand. . .”

“Sweetie, you ain't never gone understand, and neither will I, but as long as you know who you are, deep down, your life is still yours and can't nobody take that away from you.” She leans in to kiss him and whispers, the tears flowing from her face to his, “I love you.”

And he's gone.

Barely catching him before he hits the table behind him, Daniel is a dead weight in Ester's arms as she lays him on the couch, cradling his head and feeling for a pulse. His eyes are closed and he feels calm, not like the fevers he had all those years before, but she is afraid. Daniel is an old man now and not as healthy as he was then. “Daniel . . . Please honey, are you there?”

As if from underwater, his eyes flutter open with a vague understanding of his surroundings. They glide over Ester's damp face unseeing but then the focus on a spot somewhere behind her, somewhere in the unimaginable distance as he says aloud in a soft but firm voice, “Mordechai.”

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Ten

In Daniel's dream, Mordecai weeps. The bear’s shoulders, once strong, are hunched and withered and his head is bowed in defeat. It occurs to Daniel to reach out and comfort the poor creature and slowly, as if through molasses, he tries to raise his arm. The bear shakes its head.

“I tried to warn you,” Mordechai says in a voice snatched away by the howling wind. “I told you, in seventy-five years…”

A rage bubbles up in his chest and erupts through his throat, venomous anger spilling from him. “In seventy-five years, what?” Even as he shouts he struggles to make himself heard over the wind. “What do you want from me? What do you want me to do? Tell me! Tell me, damnit!” He’s still screaming as the wind turns into a gale, tossing him away from Mordecai until the bear disappears, swallowed by the storm.

“…niel? Daniel!”

Daniel’s eyes fly open. His breath comes in short gasps, as if he has been running and is in desperate need of air. His eyes dart back and forth as he tries to gain his bearings; the room is dark, but what details he can make out feel familiar.

“Daniel?”

Daniel realizes he is not alone, and someone has placed a firm hand on his shoulder. Standing above him is Esther, her face lined with concern. He reaches for her hand and wraps his fingers around hers, and it brings him some peace to feel the warmth of her hand in his. “Esther, where am I?”

“Home,” she says, before correcting herself. “You’re back at our house. When we pulled you from the water, you were gasping and jerking just like a you were having a fit. We brought you back and Mama finally convinced him to bring a doctor. He was right sure you were beyond his help, but he helped us cool your fever and keep you from burning up.”

Daniel nods. He stares at the featureless ceiling, lost in memory. The feeling of warmth, of peace and of a purpose fulfilled, roll over him like a wave. He knows there is more to do, but perhaps now he will be granted some peace. For a little while, at least.

“Would you like something to eat? I can run down right now and get Mama. You missed dinner, but Mama can probably warm something up for you, and…”

“No, please, don’t,” Daniel tries to sits up, wincing as his unused limbs creak and crack in protest. Abandoning his plan of sitting up, he leans back against the bed’s headboard.  “I don’t think I’m ready to see others just yet.”

Ester nods. “I can leave you be, if you wish.”

“No! I mean, I would like someone to speak to, I’m just not sure I’m ready to…” His voice falters, unsure of how to explain his wish to keep her here beside him while keeping the outside world at bay. Ester, however, places the damp wash towel she’d held clenched in her fist inside a bucket of warm water and sits at the edge of the bed. “I understand. You must be dying to know what happened after…well, after all that.”

“I would,” he says. “What happened after I landed in the water?”

“Papa and Thurgood fished you out quick, but you weren’t…right. Your eyes were spinning in your head and you were mumbling some terrible nonsense.” Ester’s face pales at the memory. “We sped back to shore and brought you here, but by then you were running that terrible fever and thrashing something fierce. Mama finally went and got the doctor. It’s been about a week since then.”

“And you’ve been tending to me all this time?”

Ester nods, and Daniel felt her fingers tighten around his. “We were sure you were going to die. Your visions, are they always so frightful?”

Daniel shakes his head. “Not usually. They’ve been worse lately.”

“Because of Papa and his crusade? Is that why?”

“No!” Daniel looks into her eyes, hoping to inspire conviction. “This is something I want to do.”

“Is it?” Ester stares back and her eyes, though big and round and brown as a doe’s, seems to pierce his heart with the intensity of her gaze. “I sure hope it is. Because if I were you, I’d make sure I’d know who I am and what I want. Your life belongs to you.”

With that, she jerks her hand out of his, as if she just realized where it was. A dark red tinges her face, and she hastily stands up, promises to bring him dinner, and rushes out of the room. Daniel watches her go and feels a loss he can’t describe at her absence.

Daniel leans back and stares at the ceiling.

The words seventy-five years echo through his head and fills the room until he can no longer bear it.

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Nine

Falling back into himself, Daniel holds tightly on to one of the grab bars by the little cabin, clutching the wooden bar tightly as he sways to the rocking of the boat and trying his bed to hold himself together. The vision he's just seen is . . . Too much.

The visions have never taken him forward before and this one felt different. Neither the Angels, if angels they be, the bear Mordechai, or more rarely, the other beings and those visions devoid of any creature, have taken him forward in time and none have ever felt so real while feeling so ephemeral. For a moment he saw the girl kiss him, but not her. “Ester. . .?”

Daniel casts around for the Reverend’s daughter and sees her at the back of the boat. Wasn't she just talking to me? Before the vision started, he thought there was a conversation, but it's getting harder and harder to differentiate between the visions and real life, between the present and the past and maybe even, now, the future. The future with. . .

But there she is, helping Thurgood untie the boat as he looks over his shoulder quizzically at Daniel, the fisherman whispering to Elijah all the while. “He always ac' funny like that, 'Lijah?”

The Reverend Elijah Thompson shakes his head wearily to his cousin's concern and amusement, “That he do, that he do.”

“Is he?” Ester turns as she pulls the last rope and sees Daniel's eyes fixed on her, and she looks away, whispering to her father as well. “Papa, he look like he seen a ghost, and now I know that ain't how he always look when he come out of one of them visions.”

“I know honey, but we getting' close to the point he needs to be, so they ain't no tellin' what he gone do. Le's just be here for 'im, whatever he need. Now, come on.”

Elijah brings the crew back to the front of the boat as it embarks, putting his strong hand on Daniel's shoulder and ignoring the requisite flinch he gives in return. “It's gone be okay, son. It's gone be okay. Now let's go see what the Good Lord got for us today.”

Pulling out into the calm water, the high tide helping them along, Daniel points to a spot far out in the water that looks no different from any other, but he knows it is the right direction. He can see that it will be several hundred yards from shore but he knows they will keep the dock in distant sight. He knows it because he has seen it many times in the last few days.

Thurgood looks again the Dane and the merriment leaves his face as quickly as the sun is leaving the sky. “Son, I don't got no clue what y'all lookin' for out there, just open water 'less you wanna throw the fishin' lines in.”

Daniel sighs and closes his eyes to focus better, as he always has. “No, today we are looking for something other than fish, though I know not what it may be.”

“Sure. . . I'll jus' keep followin' yo pointy arm there, then.”

Daniel is silent as the boat moves ever forward, his eyes closed and his outstretched arm shifting a little this way, a little that as Thurgood steers the boat by eye. Ester is the first to notice the humming noise coming from Daniel and the first to realize that it is not the sound of a man humming, but something like heavy machinery in the distance, droning with a steady buzz. All three are silent as the watch Daniel's back with the skyline in the distance before him.

The yards go by quickly and as they do the humming grows in pitch until finally it drowns out the sound of the motor, giving no doubt that while it comes from inside the man Daniel Christiansen, it originates elsewhere. Daniel's hand begins to come upward in a sign to stop and the boat slows to a gentle rest as he takes a single step forward to the very front of the prow, his foot mere inches from the tip of the boat, his head held high and staring, eyes still shut into the distance.

“Here.”

And he jumps from the end of the boat.

Mend

As Daniel's feet leave the edge of the boat all three passengers jump after him, Ester's hand nearly touch his shoe as it leaves the boat, but as it does, he move upward. He flies from the trawler and into the air, straight up into the sky and begins to glow a sickly orange light as he does.

The light grows brighter as he flies and when he is barely a spec in the sky the ocean is drowned in the light of mid-day, light pouring from the spot where Daniel's body hung like the brightest sunlight of summer in a cloudless sky, all centered on the man Daniel Christiansen as they see his body high above, his arms outstretched and his body spinning slowly.

Ezekial can feel his skin pulsing with a warmth like none he's ever felt and this is no vision. He can see infinitely into every direction and towards the shore he sees the city of Miami, but he sees it as it is now, as it is a hundred years from now, and as it was a hundred before, a thousand before. He sees all time and he sees the ocean full of ships, ephemeral but real, from every era. Two man duggouts compete with futuristic aircraft carriers and all manner in between as he sees pristine beaches overlaid with tall skyscrapers and charred ruins. He sees everything and he feels whole.

But there is work to be done.

As Ester, Elijah, and Thurgood shield their eyes from the bright lights, their mouths agape and sweat forming quickly on their now warm faces, they see him there, like a being of pure light as he slows his spin and darts off towards the shore, gliding a hundred feet in the air. The land is illuminated there as bright as daylight, as is the ocean, and they can see him clearly as he pirouettes and dances on the rail of brightness on which he slides.

Daniel begins to feel the rays of light bend to his will and each glimmering piece of iridescence bend around his fingertips as he begins to weave geometric patterns in the air which coalesce into organic shapes and forms. Reaching the shore he starts there, pulling gossamer webs of light into streams of form which begin to build on each other to form an ornate structure out from the shoreline and into the ocean, building to a crescendo of wires out where the boat still lies, the three passengers staring in wonderment as he glides through the air.

The lines of light begin to build a magnificent portal, long and undulating like a tunnel of light and wind, toward a specific point, far out in the ocean. Through the strands of the structure Ester can see what looks like girders and beams supporting it, holding its structure up as if it were a man made thing, maybe one of the radical art sculptures she's seen in the books of European architecture. Some sort of man made colossus built to mimic the wind as it flows from the shore to the ocean.

But in this instance it is built of light and gossamer wind made of individual photons and electrons and within it Daniel can feel the molecules singing in his blood as he bends the material of the universe in his fingers and as the angels watch on, sagely nodding to the tune of his ministrations.

The humming builds to a deafening level as he spins, feeling the present, the past, and the future moving within him, feeling the angels, the others, the memories and the premonitions all dancing within his mind, Daniel feels at peace as it all comes together and below him his friends see the structure come together for an instant as hard, material pieces suspended above them before. . .

Before it is gone.

And the light is without, and the structure is as dust, and Daniel is as a wisp of fog on the wind.

And there is a splash and he is gone.

Gasping.

Struggling.

Reaching towards the darkness which may be the surface or the deep Daniel is casting about, reaching for anything to save him. Still feeling the faint whispers of greatness as he grasps at the strings of desperation, he reaches out to find nothing but the bubbles swirling around him.

Soon all is lost but for a moment he doesn’t care. For a moment he knows he has done what the angels wanted and he can rest now. For a moment his legs stop moving and his eyes slide shut, knowing that it is over.

But then it is not.

There is more work to be done.

And like lightning the feeling of unfinished business shoots through him and his eyes open.

Through the green, murky water there is a hand above him and it is reaching.

And he grabs it.

* * *

Ezekial's Train, Chapter Eight

The sun is already setting when they reach the dock and the horizon is ablaze with shades orange and red, giving a false sense warmth to the cool breeze rolling in off the sea. Elijah turns to Ester as he parks the car, speaking gently. “Now, baby girl, I really do think it’ll be betta’ if ya stay here in the car. Ya mama’ll like to tan my hide if somethin' were to happen to you out here.”


Ester steps out of the car anyway and makes her way towards the boat without a word. Elijah and Ester had argued long over her joining them on the boat but Ester had seemed to have all the logic on her side, and of course, she claimed if Daniel were to receive another vision, she had already proven to be the only one even slightly adept at seeing to his well being. She had been fishing with Thurgood dozens of times when she was a child, she'd argued, and had never drowned or been herself eaten by a shark. Her mother had heard the arguments and made them quiet down, but she had refused to weigh in her opinion, having decided to “stay out of all of this foolishness.”


Elijah had started to protest at Phyllis’s repeated use of the word “foolishness” for what he considered was as a mission from the Lord, but, having his hands full with Ester, he quickly abandoned the effort.


Daniel had offered his aid to both parties, supporting Elijah’s claim, though  fairly weakly, that the Lord had not called upon Ester to be part of this, as well as Ester’s more rational reasons for her to accompany them. After nearly twenty minutes, it was ultimately Ester’s stubbornness that won out. She simply refused to stay  put.


Daniel smiles to himself as he and Elijah follow Ester to the boat. It's worn little trawler with a tiny wheelhouse and only enough room in the back to accommodate perhaps half a dozen people if the room weren’t needed for all of the fishing gear, of which there is much. Thurgood is already at the helm when they board and he is a hefty, gruff, old man with a beard like a wire brush falling out around his collar. Elijah and Ester greet him warmly and introduce him to Daniel by his name and by Ezekial, respectively. Thurgood glances at each of them as they use different names but fixes his eyes on Daniel's before speaking. “So this here is the son of bitch wants to waste my gas traipsin’ ’round the water, is it?”

“Um,” starts Daniel uncomfortably, “I do not mean to inconvenience you in any way, it is just-”
Thurgood interrupts Daniel by giving him a heavy slap on the back, “I’m just yankin’ yo chain there, white boy. If Elijah says ya alright, then I says ya alright.”

“Thank you very much for your… kindness and generosity,” says Daniel, shaking Thurgood’s hand.
While Elijah and his daughter look on Thurgood spreads out tattered maps atop the fish box and asks Daniel where he'd like to go, curious as he only sees a blank stare in return.

Pausing before diving into the maps, casting them about and hoping that it is not so obvious how adrift he is, he tries his best to give Thurgood a direction and location based on the positioning of the few landmarks he remembers from his vision. All the while though he knows, as do they that there is no clear destination for them and they should probably set off from the dock without much preamble.
Elijah stays uncharacteristically silent as the maps are examined, his face reading a strange mixture of angry determination and anxious excitement and with a start Daniel realizes that perhaps Elijah has more invested in him than Daniel does in himself. All of Elijah’s hope and faith for God to make the world a better for him and his family, for his people, is wrapped up in Daniel and whatever these visions of his are urging him to do, wherever they're urging him to go.

Thurgood finally gives up and puts the maps away and begins to ready the boat to depart, leaving Daniel staring a little forlornly at the cabinet where he tosses the ragged, roughly folded papers.

“So, Daniel,” says Ester in a manner that, looking up, Daniel can tell is meant to break the silence between her father and his guest, “you didn’t finish telling me ’bout that bear soldier y’all had over there during the war.”

Daniel tries to hide his smile as he looks to her, “Yah, the bear-”

Break

“Ezekial,” shouts Mordechai, his voice piercing the howl of the wind around them. Daniel is prone on the ground, the sand cutting into his hands like razors as he pushes himself up. The tall, bear-man looms over him like the shadow of Death, “Ezekial, you must stop this. Turn back now.”

Daniel waves his hand at the bear, casting his arm as if to brush him away. “Stop, leave me in peace!”
“The final chance. Do not do as they ask.” There is static in the creatures voice. It’s cruder, harsher than the times before. “Do not do it. It has end badly. Seven five years from this time-”

Daniel shoves the creature away from him as it approaches, eagerness in its steps, “Stop this now!” Mordechai stumbles back a bit, the box dropping from his hands. Daniel notices it looks different, as if it has been crudely repaired after being broken or damaged. “Leave me alone,” shouts Daniel, “I don’t want this anymore, I don’t want any of this anymore!”

Shatter

“Yes?” asks  a sweet voice, a familiar voice, like he’s known it for years. He knew it when it was younger, rougher, when it spoke with anger and defiance and he’s known it as it's changed, grew older and softer and grown more compassion and gentleness.

Daniel turns around to see the women he knows he’s grown to love. “. . . Ester?”

“Yes honey, it's me,” she says impatiently, but with a smile, “You alright?”

She’s older, maybe in her late forties or early fifties but he still sees the pretty young girl that she was. Her hair is half grayed and her face is lined from years of smiles and laughter, but it's serious as she sees his confusion.

“What,” murmurs Daniel, “what’s happening? Where am I?”

“Where you think you at, old man,” she says playfully, “you ain’t up and losing your mind on me again are you?”

Daniel can see that her smile doesn't extend to her eyes and Daniel looks at his hands, barely recognizing them, “We… we were on the boat.”

Now Ester’s face changes completely and the jovial facade falls away. “Daniel, honey,” she says, quickly walking over grasping him in her arms. She puts her hands on both sides of his face and holds it still, directly in front of hers, “Look at me, okay, this is important. Tell me, who are you?”

“What?” starts Daniel, confused, “I, I am Daniel Christiansen.”

“Not your name, honey. Your name ain’t who you are. Daniel or Ezekial, it don’t make a difference, okay.” Tears run silently down her face as she looks to his eyes, willing him to understand. “Your life belongs to you. Your choice belongs to you, you hear me?”

“I don’t understand. . .”

“Sweetie, you ain't never gone understand, and niether will I, but as long as you know who you are, deep down, your life is still yours and can't nobody take that away from you.” She leans in to give Daniel a kiss. “I love you.”

Break