And made me want that ice cream even more.
ButIknewI needed to move, and I really was planning on it. It was just easier said than done. Six months ago, I’d told myself I couldn’t leave because I wanted to harvest my garden first. I’d put so much work into it; I couldn’t let it go to waste. Then, I had convinced myself that I should wait until after the holidays. Moving during winter would suck. What if it suddenly snowed? My car wasn’t all-wheel drive, so I needed to take that into consideration too.
Then there was the biggest factor: I hadn’t been able to pick a place yet.
It might have not helped that every time I’d sat down to make a decision, I’d done the same thing I had tonight—I spent all of two minutes total looking at the map before I’d come up with something else that needed to be done that was just as important. Like running. Or folding the mound of clean laundry that always seemed to pile up even though I was the only person in the house and I usually wore my pajamas all day unless I had video lessons with my students. Then I got real fancy and put on a nice shirt while I sat in front of my computer in sweatpants or shorts.
It wasn’t like it mattered where I went. It was time to bounce.
It was one of the rules I’d been raised with after all:Don’t stay in one place for too long.
Lifting the back of my palm to my face, I dragged it across my forehead before dropping it onto my lap as I blew a raspberry with my mouth.
My stomach clenched again.
It doesn’t mean anything. It was a coincidence; my body was being annoying and had nothing to do with me moving. There was no reason for me to believe I needed to panic, get in my car, and peel out of here. It had been a long time since my stomach had done this funny shit.It doesn’t mean anything.It was the cheddar. Ormaybeit was a sign that, yes, I needed to get out of here at some point in the very near future.
That made sense.
Maybeee… I could spice it up and move east. As long as it wasn’t anywhere warmer than here, I might even be able to run during the day instead of risking my life every night. I had never been farther east than Texas.
I needed to think about it a little longer to be on the safe side.
Butjusta little longer. A day or two max. No more than three. It was a good plan, I thought, as I picked up the glass of water I’d left on the edge of the table and took a big gulp. In the middle of taking another drink, I grabbed the remote from beside the map and turned on the TV.
“…I’m tellin’ you it was got-damn ANGELS! The po-lice tried to say it had to be some weather phenomenon. Call it whatever the h-e-double-l you wanna call it, but that weren’t no storm out there. It were angels!”
The reporter on the screen blinked, and at the same time, the corners of his mouth twitched almost unnoticeably, but I caught it.“Sir, why would you think it was angels and not a member of the Trinity you saw through your window?”
The elderly man lifted his arms and let them drop at his sides. Behind him was an arid landscape with some blurry horses in a corral. “Come on, boy, use some common sense. Ain’t no lightnin’ blottin’ out the got-damn sky the way this’un did. D-uh. Tried to tell me too it was one of ’dem cape-wearers. What them ‘heroes’ gonna be doin’ around here? Nothin’! That’s what! Lived here my whole [beep] life and never have I seen one of ’dem comin’ ’round these parts. We ain’t got no crime worth dealin’ with. Puh-lease. This here was HUGE! You couldn’t see nothin’ but this light in the sky. No reason it woulda been one of ’em Trinity. They can’t do that kinda thing. Folks been watchin’ too many movies.”
That was… interesting. I remembered one of them had been spotted in Albuquerque helping with a fire, but that was nearly three hours away and about a year ago. There was crime here, in the town I lived, like everywhere else, but nothing that kept me up at night.
It was one of the benefits of living in Chama, New Mexico, population about 1,000.
Which was exactly why I lived here.
On the screen, the older man’s hands moved animatedly as he went on to say that his neighbors had claimed to have seensomethingout of their windows, but by the time they had gotten up to look, there hadn’t been anything out there. It was only because he’d been washing dishes and had a window above the sink that he’d seen the “big ol’ glow move across the sky.”
I’d always wondered if angels were real. Some people said they existed—and I mean, if you really thought about it, there were superhumans or whatever the Trinity were, why wouldn’t there be angels? When I was little, we lived in a house that my grandma swore was haunted. But angels?
I changed the channel, trying to decide if I was in the mood to watch a movie or not, but I paused on the footage that seemed to have been recorded on a cell phone.
“The Primordial made a rare appearance today at a hospital in Chicago. Workers said the hero spent several hours at the facility, distributing gifts to children.”
Taking another sip, I eyed the woman standing beside a hospital bed, smiling at a little girl tucked into it.
Rumor had it she was six foot two or three, but it wasn’t like anyone had ever held a tape measure against her. She had broad shoulders rounded with muscle, and beneath the dark green, skintight suit that covered everything from her throat to the tips of her fingers and toes, the most well-known member of the Trinity was r-i-p-p-e-d. Everyone had, at some point, watched the footage of her holding up the Golden Gate Bridge when an earthquake had done the unthinkable and nearly caused it to collapse ten years ago.
I wanted to be her when I grew up.
If I magically became superhuman. And grew over a foot and gained forty or fifty pounds of muscle. And had magnificent bone structure and flawless skin.
Miracles could happen.
The incredible woman had hair so brown it couldn’t be mistaken for any other color and a skin color so golden, if she had any human in her, which was widely debatable, I was pretty sure a DNA test would have come up with a mix of ethnicities to pinpoint how it came to be. The face of the strongest woman in the world could only be described as striking.
She was a beacon of strength, femininity, and just plain being amazing, for not just little kids but for people of all ages. They all were, if you wanted to get technical. Most of humanity thought the three superbeings, called the Trinity for that reason, were incredible.
