Future Credits

Yul, fearing death, turns philosophical and angry. This chapter was composed after a lonely visit to the hospital.

Rog and Yul walked from store to store, hand in hand. The City of Hope had almost anything one could want. John had given them a credit slate with more value than they could spend in a year, and, John had laughed, spend that and I'll give you two more; and so they walked and they looked and Yul’s excitement grew dimmer by the hour.

“We can buy anything we want. What do you think?” asked Rog, trying to lift her mood with his own. Yul was unusually quiet. She looked lost. “What’s wrong baby? What did I say?”

“You know what shopping is?” asked Yul, tears filling her big eyes.

Rog pulled her in tight. “I don’t know baby, tell me.”

“It’s a future.”

Rog pulled her tighter, not sure what to say to that.

“Look around. See all these people? Look at their faces, their eyes. They have a future. I saw it in my grandmother.”

“What did you see baby?”

“When she was near the end, she lost all desire to go shopping. My mother couldn’t pull her out of the house or interest her in anything. She just didn’t care anymore. Material things mattered not the least to her and you know what? She was never that way.”

“Baby, don’t talk that way. You have a future. We have a future.”

Yul shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me. Help me understand. Make me understand.”

“I don’t feel it. Or perhaps I do. I do feel the emptiness. I feel it like an endless gray day. Nothing but gray, everywhere I look. There's just nothing there.”

“Baby, I’ve told you, we are going to beat this thing.”

“It’s not just that," said Yul, her voice trailing away as her eyes looked down and to the right. Her shoulders drooping with the lifelessness of a puppet put away.

Rog was starting to get exasperated. “Then what is it?” A tone rising in his voice he quickly regretted.

Yul either didn't hear or didn't care. “Don’t you feel it? Our life. What is it Rog? Is this home? Are we going to stay here? And if not here, where? Bravo? Is that our home? Look at all this stuff. Do you really want any of it?” queried Yul, her eyes boring a hole right through Rog.

“Well, . . .”

Yul stomped off. “Call me when you get it.”

Rog stood as a boulder in a sea of people as Yul disappeared in the crowd. “Damn, what the hell was that?”

Reviews

[AutumnStorm]

This is one of those chapters that reading it accentuates the time that has passed and all that has happened as it sped forth, the only way to slow it down, at least as one looks back, is to remember that. From this moment and to where they are now and all that travelled with them, for a spell, some still. This chapter among the hundreds is one best remembered, something particularly poignant and resonant about the scene, of her standing there amongst the shoppers, one of whom is Rog, with the ability to buy anything her heart desires and having none. Not for this, not to buy something that she cannot even take home let alone where nothing follows. Perhaps it is the lonesomeness that keeps the echo ringing, of something being so clear to her, yet she here is the only one to see it. Unforgettable.

[T]

I can feel your mood as you wrote this....You bring life to your stories, I love to read them, although some are a little much for me in content sometimes, I enjoy your energy, passion and insight into the human condition.