Oracle--Solar Wind Read online

  A stifled plea for help halted Ret’s concentration, “Ret!” He spun around and saw Lye suspending Stone in the air.

  “Give me the staff, or Stone dies,” Lye stated in all seriousness, his robes soiled by soot and ash. Ret could see drops of precious water dripping from Stone’s body. Ret quickly obliged, tossing the cane at Lye’s feet.

  “Now hand over Stone,” Ret demanded.

  Lye bent down and picked up the cane. A look of relief flooded over him. Then, going back on his word, he retained Stone and hurled a lightning bolt at Ret.

  In the blink of an eye, Ret ripped off the tailgate of Stone’s pick-up truck and held it up to shield himself from Lye’s attack. The bolts ricocheted off the sheet of metal, skittering into the forest and burning holes through its canopy. In between each shot, Ret peered around his shelter. He could see Lye running away, still holding Stone a ways in front of him.

  Ret thought he should give his budding power over wind a trial run. From the safety of his blockade, he began to stir the air around Lye. He could see the dark lord’s robes beginning to flutter, so he stirred faster. Soon, Lye started to spin, and his world morphed into one big blur, causing him to lose track of Stone and release him. Ret accelerated the wind until it grew into a miniature tornado. He blew it into the woods, and he could hear Lye hitting the trees and branches as he spun in circles. The twister picked up leaves and other debris, giving it definition as Ret swirled the air even faster. Higher and stronger it soared, drawing in some of the lingering smoke from the fire. With a final gust, Ret released his creation into nature, letting Lye get carried away in the whirlwind.

  Despite their distance, Ret could clearly hear the sound waves that were carrying Lye’s departing words, “Ret won’t always be around to save you, Stone!” He sounded terribly out of sorts, coughing from all the dust and smoke in the chaotic wind storm. “I’ll find you—you know I will!” Faint sounds of choking took over as the whirlwind drifted out of sight.

  When the threat of Lye had blown over, Ret turned his attention to his dear friend, Lester Stone. The now-widowed man was a wreck, even more so emotionally than physically. He lay lifeless on the cold ground, his eyes open but his heart crushed. A large part of his being had perished with Virginia. His condition mimicked that of the trailer, which now had been reduced to little more than a blackened spot of earth. He had lost the will to live.

  Ret knelt by his side and picked him up.

  “Please, Ret,” Stone petitioned, his voice devoid of hope, “just leave me here to die.” He could hardly move, so Ret positioned himself under one of Stone’s arms and dragged him along. The scene was reminiscent of one that took place just a few weeks ago, when Stone had discovered Ret on the ground close to where he had fallen from the train and carried him away.

  “Where are you taking me?” Stone inquired as Ret set him in the front seat of the truck.

  “You and I both know another man who lost his wife to Lye,” Ret said, referring to Mr. Coy. “Maybe he can help you.”

  Ret got in the driver’s seat. He didn’t have the key, so he simply used his power over metal to start the ignition. He pulled out of the lot and entered the narrow path through the thicket.

  “Learn from my mistake, Ret,” Stone said between sobs, staring inconsolably through the side mirror at the cremated remains of his wife. “There is hardly a choice in life that affects only the man who made it.”

  It was a long, sad drive to Coy Manor.

  CHAPTER 15

  DUSTY’S SENTENCE

  Back in the courtroom at Coy Manor, the trial on the sensibleness of alcohol was just getting underway.

  “The floor is yours,” Judge Coy told the prosecution.

  “Thank you, your honor,” Leo graciously accepted, rising from his chair to begin his opening remarks. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” he addressed the coarse crew in the jury box, “numbers tell a story, so allow me to provide a few for your consideration.”

  “According to a World Health Organization global status report for the year 2011,” Leo read from a paper in his hand, “the harmful use of alcohol results in 2.5 million deaths each year.”

  “I object!” Dusty interrupted. “It’s not alcohol’s fault if someone uses it ‘harmfully.’”

  “Overruled,” Coy told the defense.

  Leo resumed, “According to a 2009 study cited by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, alcohol abuse costs the United States $235 billion annually in crime, lost work, and healthcare.”

  “Again, I object!” Dusty repeated, purposely trying to get on their nerves. “That figure is about alcohol abuse, not alcohol use.”

  “Overruled.”

  “And, finally,” said Leo, “according to data released by the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, a total of 10,322 people died in drunk driving crashes in 2012.”

  “I object!” Dusty stated a third time. “You can’t blame alcohol if someone who has been drinking gets behind the wheel.”

  Observing Dusty’s selective hearing, Leo slowly repeated the statistic to emphasize its gravity: “In just one year, drunk driving killed 10,322 people in this country. That’s an average of one person every 51 minutes—28 people each day. Can you believe that? And it’s an increase of 444 from the previous year. More than two dozen people—some guilty, some innocent—die every day in this country for no good reason. It’s a massacre—one that happens daily—but does it ever make the headlines?”

  “That’s why there are laws against drunk driving and underage drinking,” Dusty submitted.

  “Which you defied,” Leo inserted.

  “We’re not talking about me,” Dusty sneered, his ego bruised. “We’re talking about alcohol, and the fact is alcohol doesn’t kill people—people kill people.”

  “Even though the World Health Organization says alcohol kills 2.5 million people a year,” Leo reminded. “And how many people do you think get behind the wheel drunk specifically to kill another person? Did you get in your recent accident on purpose?”

  “Of course not,” Dusty admitted. “If that’s what this is all about, then fine: I’ll stop drinking until I’m old enough, okay? Can we go now?”

  “As if age has anything to do with it,” Leo remarked. Then, returning to the jury, “As I said before, numbers tell a story, and the story of alcohol is one that never has a happy ending. Can anyone tell me one good thing that has come from human consumption of alcohol?”

  “It sure does me a lot of good!” one of the jury members joked, sending a wave of laughs through the box.

  “Case in point,” Leo muttered to himself, shaking his head.

  “Always a ‘good’ time!” agreed another. “Just like the billboards say!”

  “Yeah, nothing but ‘happy endings’ here!” cried a third, only adding to the jury’s hysterics.

  “You call handcuffs a happy ending?” Leo rebutted.

  “Not if you don’t get caught!” another said.

  “And the hangovers? The health risks?” Leo pointed out.

  “It’s always worth the fun!” one more claimed.

  “Yeah, Dusty, why don’t you pass that bottle around already?” asked the friend closest to him who had been eyeing it ever since Thorne brought it out.

  “Order! Order!” Coy exclaimed from the bench, slamming his gavel on its wooden pedestal. The party in the jury box settled down.

  “Look,” Dusty spoke up, “I understand what you’re trying to do here. But this is a free country, and alcohol is perfectly legal.”

  “It wasn’t always legal in this country, however,” Leo said. “Such was a battle that was fought and lost many years ago, and we have been paying for it in health, money, and blood ever since. But we’re not here today to squabble about laws. My purpose is to instill sobriety not by virtue of the law but by its own virtues.”

  “If you think alcohol is bad, then don’t drink it,” Dusty stated. “But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it
, and I’m entitled to my opinion, aren’t I? It’s like the industry always says, ‘Please drink responsibly.’ That’s all there is to it, okay? Case closed.”

  “Ah, ‘Please drink responsibly,’” Leo iterated, “the ultimate copout! The makers of alcohol are well aware that unfortunate consequences are sure to follow those who consume it, so that statement is their nifty way of removing themselves from any and all accountability. But, in reality, any semi-intelligent person would realize that such a statement is flawed. It’s an oxymoron. It contradicts itself. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “For what does alcohol do? It first and foremost makes the drinker less responsible. It makes him less responsive to everything around him. It deadens pain and lessens embarrassment. It induces a less rational state of mind, leading him to do and say things that his normal, responsible self would not do or say. It temporarily removes the stresses and obligations in life—work, spouse, offspring—the things he is responsible for. It makes him unfit to drive or operate machinery—why?—because his mind, his judgment, and his reflexes have become less responsive. Sometimes a drinker will find himself in a place and not know how he got there, or with people whom he does not know, or having done something that he doesn’t remember doing.”

  “You can drink without getting drunk, you know,” Dusty informed him.

  “So why drink at all then?” Leo carried on. “If one drink doesn’t do anything—if it fails to wipe away cares or create a buzz—then why drink it? A drinker will never be more responsible than before he takes his first sip for the night; every sip thereafter, he becomes less and less responsible. Do you really expect a person in that state of mind to, as they say, ‘know his limits’?”

  “That’s why you’re supposed to be responsible and pick a designated driver,” Dusty argued.

  “And that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” Leo disagreed. “Sure, be a responsible person by asking a friend to be responsible for you while you become irresponsible. You see, it’s the principle of the matter. There is nothing responsible about making yourself irresponsible. So when they tell you to ‘please drink responsibly,’ what they’re really saying is ‘please become irresponsible, but do it responsibly.’ Such a directive is simply impossible and outright hypocritical, and a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.”

  Leo’s words were having a sobering effect on Dusty and his friends. He was trampling on their tipsy hearts, their flippancy replaced with resentment.

  “Alcohol is not bad, in and of itself,” Leo taught. “It can be quite useful for cleaning and sanitizing things, for example. But when it is taken into the body, it wields an influence—it exerts a force. We already know this; it cannot be denied. This is why the crime is appropriately named ‘driving under the influence.’ The influence of what? The influence of alcohol, of course. But what is it exactly? Can it be seen? Is it a tangible thing? Is it even real?”

  The jury was speechless.

  “I’d like to call Ana Cooper to the witness stand,” Leo transitioned.

  Thorne stepped to the front of the room and pulled open the side door. Ana strode through and took her seat at the witness stand near the judge’s bench.

  “You were with Dusty the night of the accident, were you not?” Leo questioned the witness.

  “Yes, sir,” Ana answered.

  “Did you observe any change in Dusty over the course of the evening?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said again.

  “Would you please describe the change you saw?”

  “Now that I know what he was up to,” Ana recalled, “I remember sensing a difference in Dusty after the very first time he returned from stepping outside. He began to say things that were rude and do things that were kind of unusual for being out in public.”

  “Can you give us an example?” Leo requested.

  “Well, he made a crude joke about how a heavy-set girl looked in her dress,” Ana remembered, “and he started to do some dance moves that were borderline inappropriate. But he didn’t seem to be aware that he was causing people to feel uncomfortable.”

  “Would you say he had become unresponsive to their feelings?” Leo asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I see.”

  “And it took me by surprise because I never knew Dusty to be mean or offensive,” Ana said. “At the time, I thought maybe he was just getting into the music or something. But each time he left and came back, he returned with more energy—a foreign energy that made him not himself. By the end of the night, he had become a totally different person. And then, when I told him to let me out of the car, he really changed. It was like I became his enemy by not approving of what he was doing. The Dusty who left me on the street that night was not the same Dusty I showed up at the dance with.”

  “Thank you,” Leo told her. “You may step down.”

  On her way back through the side door, Ana passed by Dusty, his head down in disgrace as she recounted the events of that homecoming night.

  “Seen or unseen?” Leo put forth. “As we have just heard, the power of alcohol remains unseen in the bottle but most certainly can be seen working within someone. You see, it needs a vessel—something that it can take control of—and when a man voluntarily ingests it, he gives it free license to take control of him. And so the irrefutable fact remains: the influence of alcohol is very real.”

  “Within that bottle,” Leo said, pointing to the defendant on the table, “there are lurking demons that will kill common bacteria when applied topically but will destroy common sense when consumed orally. You and I may not be able to see these drinkable devils, but it is impossible not to see the havoc they wreak—not only on the drinker himself but also on the innocent souls who get in his way. Even the smallest dose will change a man—give him a buzz that erodes his reason, hijacks his freedom, and turns him into a puppet whose strings move with the whims of a liquid. Only a period of restraint can give the body the time it requires to purge itself of these microscopic monsters. Is it any wonder, then, why they are often called ‘spirits’?”

  It was getting more difficult to refute Leo’s points. With the well-sharpened ax of truth, he was striking at the root of the issue, not merely trimming its foliage. The glitz and glamor of beer and liquor were now identified as nothing more than foolishness and ignorance. What the jury had chalked up to be an arena of fun and games had been accurately depicted by Leo as a pastime with no winners. It was the principle of the matter, not the lawfulness of it, that was changing hearts in the courtroom.

  “I know what I did was wrong,” Dusty said at last, his tone starting to show the remorse that his father had been praying would come into his heart. “I’m sorry for what happened to Missy.” A feeling of hope began to fill the courtroom. But then he left every listener dumbfounded with one sentence: said he, “I never would have done that to her in real life.”

  Mr. Coy couldn’t believe what he heard. Leo stood as still as a statue. Pauline looked up from typing with a face of shock. Thorne scrunched his forehead in utter disbelief. Paige’s jaw dropped. In profound silence, everyone stared at Dusty.

  “What did you say?” Judge Coy asked from the bench, hoping he had misheard.

  Unusually timid, Dusty repeated the sentence, “I never would have done that to Missy in real life.”

  Mr. Coy’s heart sank to know he had heard correctly.

  Despite the collective mood of stillborn hope, Leo turned to the bailiff and said, “Bring in the evidence.”

  Still in shock from his son’s statement, Thorne again walked to the side door and held it open. Ana slowly reentered the courtroom, this time pushing a wheelchair in front of her. There was a mass of white bandages sitting in the wheelchair. Within those bandages was Missy.

  A pin drop could be heard as everyone in the courtroom watched Ana roll the evidence to the plaintiff’s table, granting the defense table a nice, long look. Ana positioned the wheelchair right next to Paige and then took a seat on the other side
of Missy. Both girls put a hand on their bodyguard’s hands, though only the fingertips of which were uncovered. Missy was awake but clearly incapacitated.

  Leo took a few steps back from where he had been pacing in front of the jury box. He held out his right hand, pointing at Missy. With tenderness, he asked Dusty, “Is this not real?”

  Dusty’s head fell in shame. He had not known the extent of what had happened to the driver in the car that he crashed into, until now. He stole a glance at his friends in the jury box, but their heads also hung low. Convicted by their own conscience in the face of such indisputable evidence, they sat with broken hearts.

  “Is this not ‘real life’?” Leo lectured. “Are these bandages fake? Is this woman’s pain pretended? Do you think that collision never really happened? It may not seem real to you; you may not have done it on purpose; you may not have been your true self at the time; but I can assure you, this,” pointing once again at Missy, “this is real. This is not a ‘happy ending’; this is not a ‘good’ time; this is not being ‘responsible.’” Leo walked to the defense table and picked up the glass of beer. “In fact, who is responsible for that poor woman’s situation: you or this?” Leo moved the glass in fast circles, swirling the yellow liquid. “Tell me, Dusty: was it worth it?”

  Dusty looked up with tears in his eyes.

  “Tears can’t change the past, Dusty—this I know very well,” Leo said without sympathy, as if the two of them were the only people in the courtroom. “I shed tears every night, wishing my parents hadn’t been killed in a drunk driving accident. The other orphans where I live also shed tears every night, each a victim of someone else’s poor choices. You may claim it’s just a drink—that the danger is in its misuse. But I say there is danger to be found in every drink, that any use is misuse. And so I say to you: stay completely away from it. Its present use was never its intended use. There is no responsible way to do it, no matter how little you drink or how strong you think you are. There is no fun to be had when you play in harm’s way. All who try to drown their problems in alcohol quickly find out their problems grow gills. Don’t let the sad story of alcohol be your story, too.”