3. Awakening to a Mad World

*I have consider a re-title of, Awakening to Madness*

Oh yeah, when you see a first person point of view, that's a characters thoughts*

On the Eastern side of the world, Eitan's eyelids fluttered open. His room was black, but his eyes quickly adjusted and he could see moonlight stream in through slits in the window drapes. Eitan felt goose bumps on his arms. The nightmare had seemed so real.

He was no stranger to having bad dreams. The worst his dreams had him reliving the tragedy that made him the bad person that he was now. At the age of ten, Eitan and his friend Habil had been playing soccer outside, and then he was gone, faster than the kick of a ball. His friend had lost his life in a suicide bombing by a Palestinian terrorist.

Eitan had witnessed it, from the moment the man pressed the button. That explosion. The smoke and dirt that rushed toward him in a cloud. His eyes were blackened with it, and it had entered his mouth and lungs. It may have been induced by breathing in all those fumes, but Eitan faintly recalled hearing a wolf’s howl mingle with the explosion.

But, that was impossible. There were no wolves in the city. He wasn’t even sure if Israel had wolves at all. It was silly to actually believe that he had heard anything but the explosion and screams. That day he had come to know death with all five of his senses.

His parents had found him sitting against a wall, rocking back and forth. For weeks Eitan feared just leaving his house. And day by day, he felt a rage building inside of him toward the Palestinian people.

He had become what the Americans would call a racist. His parents didn’t know. If they did they would see him for what he really was. A boy consumed by a monster that he created.

Eitan noticed that his mouth was dry and tasted foul. He needed a glass of water. Eitan cast his bed cover aside, opened his door, walked out of his room and into the darkened house. The room light of his little sister Jonina's room shined through the top and bottom cracks. What was she doing awake at this hour? He had just begun to her door when the knob turned; his sister rushed past him and ran to her parent’s room.

Her face was shrouded in shadow, but by her erratic breathing he knew that something had her frightened. Eitan stood next to her room and waited to see what his parents would do to calm Jonina. His little sister was pounding on their door with a force that didn't belong to a gentle four year old girl.

His mom burst out and immediately asked what was wrong. Her black hair clung to her sweat moistened forehead.

"I had a bad dream," Jonina whispered.

Whatever dream she had it couldn't have compared to his. Eitan would have expected his mom to tell Jonina that there was nothing to worry about and should just go back to sleep, but she didn't. In fact she looked worried.

"What did you dream about, Jonina?" his mom asked.

"Lots of fire," said his sister in timidly, “and animals fighting.”

Eitan was stunned. Had he and his sister had the same dream?

"Was there a gazelle in your dream?" Eitan said. He couldn't contain himself, he had to know if it was the exact same dream.

His mother looked at him, surprised. She brushed away a stray clump of hair dropping over her eyes. "I hadn't seen you there, Eitan."

"What's a gazelle?" his sister said.

"It looks kind of like a deer, except-" Eitan had begun to say before his sister cut him off.

"Mother, I saw a deer in my dream. His branches were on fire!" Jonina said, tugging at her mother's night gown. It stuck out from her body like a shedded snake skin.

That was all the confirmation Eitan needed.

"Namir," his mom said. Namir was his father. The big muscular man appeared in the doorway.

"Yes, dear?" Namir said.

"Jonina had the same dream me and you had.”

Namir's face flushed. It was all too much for Eitan to take in. First his sister, and then both of his parents had had the same dream. Did his brother Zeev also dream it? A light in the hall turned on and his brother approached, his long black hair covering his right eye like a patch. Seeing his visible shifty eye was all Eitan could do to keep from shouting an English swear word.

***************************

The second Chloe awoke at 5:24 ante meridiem; she rushed over to her pets ignoring the cold sweat on her forehead and under her yellow pajamas. She was the first of the Westerners to awaken. She fell asleep late into the night and always woke up early in the beginning of the black dawn. Chloe flipped on the light switch. The sudden brightness irritated her eyes.

Chile, her chinchilla, reared up on his hind legs and pressed his tiny forepaws against the cage bars.

"Hey, Chile," Chloe said, tickling the animals chubby stomach. His bushy squirrel like tail curled up behind him. She pulled her fingers out from the bars and plopped down on her bed.

Chloe’s room was almost entirely white. From the walls, desk, bed, pillows, television, movie player, and many other miscellaneous objects. The carpet of the floor, however, was green, her favorite color and also of her eyes. Her dad often teased her calling her foliage because of their leaf like luster. Chloe did not resemble either of her parents. Her mother’s eyes were brown and she had blonde hair. Her father’s were blue, and he was brown haired.

She and her family didn't talk much. Mostly her mother just told her how much she loved her. Choe would merely nod. It was annoying really, how her mother said she loved her, but never listened to anything she had to say. Her father, on the other hand, was always busy doing something, so they didn't talk much either. And when they did it was usually greetings, sarcasm, and departings. Chloe didn't even know how to start a conversation with her own parents.

The whole reason for Chloe’s room being almost exclusively white was because she hoped that in doing so it would ensure that Snoweys coat would stay white year round. So far it hasn't been put to the test since summer hadn't arrived. But Chloe doubted that she was a match for the laws of nature. While Chloe was a bright girl, her goofy side still showed. And my bad side.

Chloe threw herself back on the bed an shut her eyes. She had found the Lepus othus leveret in the wild when she had gone with her parents to Alaska. The mother had just been killed by an arctic fox, along with the rest of the offspring in the nest. As much as her parents argued about her interfering with nature, Chloe could not leave the tiny snowball of a animal to die.

She scared the predator away. That was the easy part. It was a nightmare getting the young hare through customs.

The reason for the trip was that her parents had been there on assignment. They were to check if the rumors of the locals that the permafrost of tundra regions was thawing at the wrong time of the year were true. A documentary crew accompanied them throughout the entire time that Chloe and her parents wandered the Alaskan tundra, using high tech equipment to test the permafrost, and take ground temperatures, even using special devices to test the moisture in the air.

She liked that her father, Benjamin Campbell, had a sense of humor. And he wasn't afraid to crack a joke or two when the cameras were rolling. Her mother, Gloria, was the opposite. She was all doom and gloom, temperatures are rising and there’s nothing that can be done about, all that stuff. She was right about green house gases being the culprit behind the thawing, which were proven to be all too real.

Chloe ran a hand through her moist hair. She smiled, remember how she had found it so repulsive compared to the lion's luscious gold fur. Chloe stopped stroking her hair and clamped her fingers around a clump. Her parent's environmental philosophy was wide spread. They were television icons.

Even a number of the kids from her school watched The End of Nature, Extinct Habitats, Expedition Blunders, and Curiosity Sent The Cat Around The Globe. All of them were among the highest rated nature shows. Of those shows, her personal favorite was Expedition Blunders, her father was pretty funny in the episode he appeared in. Laughter was a rare luxury Chloe ever had the joy of experiencing.

Feeling a sharp pain on her scalp, Chloe gritted her teeth. She realized that she was still tugging at her hair, and loosened her grip. She opened her eyes and turned her neck to the right, resting the side of her face on the bed. She smiled at a picture of she and her family on the wall. In it, they were all wearing Hazmat suits, grotesque trees, and a gritty skyline behind them.

Some of her fondest memories were there, in Chernobyl. She giggled, remembering that her father had whispered to her, "Those aliens following us are giving me the creeps." He had been referring to the documentary crew who shuffled after them like robots, carrying equipment. There erratic breathing making sucking sounds the entire time. He didn't know until later that their highly sensitive sound equipment had been recording the entire time.

Chloe pressed her palms over the bed and pushed herself off. Sucking sounds. Chloe went over to a trash can and spit in it. The memories are always coiled up like snakes, ready to strike and inject their sadness inducing venom.

She snickered nervously. I've always wanted a poisonous snake to bite me on my family's trips to South America so I can die without causing my parents too much grieve. I'm disappointed it hasn't happened.

The Chernobyl trip was interesting, but what it really was, was an eye opener. A nuclear disaster had snuffed out all forms of life, hundreds of miles around the disaster site. And prior to the trip all animal life just died around the site where the nuclear meltdown took place. Nobody knew why, and they still didn't. Some speculated that secret tests for nuclear weapons had taken place there. Perhaps dirty bombs that spread something like fallout that could actually kill people, rather than just be a weapon of mass disruption. Like the ones that were recently used in Ashdod and Tel Aviv.

But then why had they been allowed to film in Chernobyl? Maybe they didn't care about their safety; they probably counted on them dropping dead from radiation sickness sometime soon. I wouldn't mind.

Who, "they" were if anybody, was unknown. However, the horror of nuclear destruction remained. Chloe could only begin to imagine what a nuclear war could do to the natural world she had grown to love. Just thinking about it broke her heart. Just as seeing all the animals fighting in her dream had.

Why are we humans so destructive? We live a parasitic lifestyle slaughtering each other for our own benefit. We may primarily live a commensalistic relationship, but that is still a form of living only for ourselves. Rarely do we live in mutualism in which we can help each other grow and come closer together.

Chloe crouched down in front of Snoweys cage and looked in at her. She was stretched out in the middle.

“Hey you little spoiled princess, “she said, opening the cage. Snowey's ears perked up and turned to Chloe like antennas.

She giggled. “You're so adorable.” She reached in the cage and pulled her pet. It was time for her exercise in the backyard of her Omaha, Nebraska home. She slipped on a pair of slippers and snatched her field notes journal and a pen on her way out. It was also a diary full of dark memories of her not too distant past. The sprawling frantic sloppy writing was evidence of it, and the tear stains.

*************************

Stacey was the second of the Westerners to wake up from the dream. She brushed her short dark brown hair away from her eyes and got out of bed. The old clock hanging from a rusty nail against the wall read 6:48. Stacey was used to waking up earlier than other kids. She had to since she walked to school everyday. She did so because her dad didn't own a car, and wouldn't have taken her if he had one anyway.

Stacey shuddered. Riding the bus was a dreadful experience she did not want to repeat.

Stacey walked barefoot over the cold wooden floor to the window. She pushed the baby blue shades aside and gazed at the sky. It was a dark bluish gray. The banana shaped, crescent moon was still visible. Looking at the street, she saw the paper boy toss the morning newspaper on people’s front lawns, skipping her house.

No newspaper was ever dropped on her lawn; It was always barren. A few years back, the grass on the side of the street had been left to grow wild. Only when the city people sent in letters did her father get around to cutting it. Stacey now took the ordeal of cutting it herself with a heavy rusty old lawn mower that only worked half the time.

Stacey rubbed a finger along her left palm. Blisters creased below her fingers like mountain ranges. Hard labor was her way of life. She closed the shade and got dressed, choosing generic clothes on purpose. In one of her clothes drawers she kept a Bible that she had to hide from her anti-religion father. Stacey pushed it further back and covered it lightly so she wouldn't leave an obvious bulge where it was. She knew that her father often raided her room for beer money.

Stacey dug out her work uniform and stuffed it in her backpack. She went straight to work as a waitress as soon as school ended. The customers usually gave her hefty tips. It was like they knew that she needed it. The faded red and khaki uniform in her backpack was the only one she owned. She washed it every night during the summer when she worked. During the cool weather of this time of year she only did so every two days. Her work shoes were also her school, and casual shoes.

The sky blue paint with a grayish tint on the walls of Stacey's room was oppressing and threatening in the twilight. It was like she was surrounded by fathomless stormy ocean water in her rectangular room. The rest of the house was the same color. Stacey had not only bought the paint for the house but also did all the painting herself. The paint had cost a fortune considering she was on a budget. Her father hadn't worked ever since he had been fired from his job as a garbage truck driver.

Stacey's room was originally the living room but years ago when her mother still lived there and before her father had become a drunk he had built a wall and door to isolate a large portion of the living room from the rest of the house. It made the single bedroom home into one with two. In a way, it became her parent’s master bedroom when they were together.

Her dad now had his sleeping quarters in what used to be Stacey's room as a child. Her father never told her why he insisted on trading rooms with her when her mother left. She assumed it gave him bad memories being in the room where he and her mother spent their time together.

When she was done dressing, she looked at her reflection in a large wood framed mirror. Stacey saw a teenage girl wearing faded blue jeans and a gray sweatshirt. She was beautiful and knew it. No matter what she wore she always got a lot of interested looks from guys.

Any other girl would have taken in all the attention if they were in her body. But Stacey didn't see things that way. She didn't live by the same rules as the youth of today. She sighed. What has the world come to? It's like me and my friend Veronica are part of some elite group rebelling against the Now Society. Stacey grabbed her backpack and crept toward her door. She cautiously opened the creaking door.

The house was quiet, which was a good thing; Stacey did not want to have her morning begin with verbal abuse from her father. She tiptoed through her small house toward the bath room. She brushed her teeth and stepped out of the puny room. She headed for the front door taking baby steps. She wished a back door existed.

Her tiny home was vibrant because of her hard work around the house. Her dusting and cleaning of windows until they sparkled like crystal in the sunlight more than made up for the short comings of the rotting floorboards and the deteriorating walls and roof. She even cleaned the dust off of all the ceiling fans which no longer worked.

Her father, on the other hand had never done anything around the house but make a mess which she would promptly clean up. She smiled at her work. Her hard work had transformed an indoor landfill into a liveable household.

Stacey jumped when she heard someone say, "Goodbye sweetie." The floor boards strained under her sudden movement. The voice was that of her father, not of a burglar.

She turned to the kitchen and saw her father sitting on an old wooden chair smiling at her. He looked ten years younger his actual age. She couldn't recall any time she had seen him so happy. Even Stacey’s mother said the happiest she had ever seen him was when he held her in his arms after she was born. The sight of him without a beer can in his grip also didn't compute.

Stacey thought her dad was just trying to be funny. She waved at him and said, "Bye dad," as she headed out the door. Before the door closed Stacey heard her dad say, "I love you." I do too. I just wish you really did. You haven't called me Sweetie since when? Nine, ten years ago?

She wondered if he was just acting nice because he was about to ask her to cook him some breakfast. A meal he never ate, he would skip right to drinking a beer. “Dad, that's just not healthy,” she whispered to the empty street. A dove perched on a wire, chirped at her.

Stacey smiled up at, but her smile became a grimace as a hawk swept down on it like a scythe.