"Those Who Have Risen" (1.2)

(rough draft)

Francois was a Texan. People asked how a kid who grew up in El Paso got the name Francois. He wouldn’t talk about it.

Francois had a bad habit of counting the room.

Forty-six people in this subway car, eight wearing hats, he'd say.

Or: Seventeen in the main dining room, one with silver hair—as if the night hinged on that.

And when you missed a social gathering, the inevitable text message would follow: Twenty-six people at the party tonight, twelve of them women, four of them non-hostile.

The darkness of the woods felt like the bottom of a well.

Cold night now, Francois said. Sure picked a strange time to head north.
We didn’t pick it, Gene said.
Want some coffee, Gene?
No, Gene said.

Francois drew circles in the dirt.
I had a strange dream last night, he said.
I was some sort of detective, undercover, following a man.
A criminal on the run.

I was on an airplane and the man, he was three rows up along the aisle.
I watched him. I observed his motions. He was very calm. All the normal things. He chatted with his neighbor, read the in-flight magazine, flirted with the stewardess—even ordered a drink—it was an old-style plane, they served a steak and potatoes dinner—it was delicious, and the man, he ate everything.
Yeah?, Gene said.
Yeah, Francois said.
I looked away, just for a second, and when I looked back, this man, he was at the emergency door now.
Standing there, peering through the little window.
He yanked on it, the door, and there was this loud popping sound, and it opened, and the light flowed in and the wind was flapping and blowing everywhere.
Then he just jumped.
I ran and looked out as he fell downward toward the sea, getting smaller.

Without thinking, I jumped out after him and we’re both shooting toward earth and I’m falling fast.
The man, his parachute opens and he's carried.
I feel around.
I don’t have a chute.
I realize this as I’m falling and he’s floating like a leaf, slowly, and I blaze right past him like a rock toward the water.
Then it just ends.

In the distance, over the black hill beyond them, the wind blew hard.
Francois warmed a tin of coffee over the pale embers of the fire.
Gene looked past his friend, into the woods, into the flowing pines.

I had a dream of my own, Gene said.
Like mine, asked Francois.
No, Gene said.

I was on a train with my father, he said.
It was morning and the sun was coming in and my father was in the seat across.
He was wearing an expensive suit and tie. His briefcase on his lap.

We’re going to see your grandmother, he tells me.

He’s staring out the window, at the plains, which just go on.

Then I hear a whistle.
And the train stops.
And the doors open.
And my father, he gets up, carrying his briefcase.

I try to go with him, but I can’t move.
I try to speak, but nothing comes out.

He’s in the doorway now, looking at me.
Saying something to me. I can't make it out.
And then he goes.

And I watch him cross the plains, disappearring into the color of it.