When the Sky Weeps Blood

It is raining relentlessly, and every drop feels like a hammer hitting my brain. I am physically uncomfortable, but the icy terror that has taken up residence in my bones is much worse. A storm is raging.

Standing outside the stark white Emergency Medical Center, I attempt to understand what is happening.

Inside the hospital, my son Jacob is fighting a seemingly invisible enemy while linked up to equipment.

Yet maybe we are both fighting the mystery of premonition?

Accompanying him in Emergency is Sarah, my wife. She possesses strength and logic. When I feel my mind spinning out of control or when my past resurfaces to haunt me, she is the rock that I can rely on. At this very moment, I require her presence, but I also require this space outside, the separation from the clinical reality of the hospital and the terrible thoughts racing through my head.

In my mind, the events of the past several hours unfold like a disturbing film. Sarah and Jacob were meant to be on a short vacation while I was due on a business trip from Kansa to Arlington. We were supposed to board a plane. But by the time we reached near the gate, Jacob had fallen apart. His savant syndrome caused him to have these unprecedented bursts of insight and brilliance, making him an exceptionally clever yet also disturbed young man.

But there are moments when everything becomes too much, and he just breaks down. Today was just another one of those days but with an extra dose of something macabre.

We were nowhere near the jet when he began screaming. The background noise of the airport was interrupted by his ear-piercing screech. With a horrified expression on his face, he writhed and clawed at my arms. With his eyes watering, he yelled out, "No go!" The gate workers looked terrified and even demanded we get a doctor because he was so agitated.

To be honest, I felt some relief. It was more than just his condition that prevented him from boarding the plane. Those were his sketches. A fixation with drawing had gripped Jacob for days. A plane, obviously a plane, though badly painted. On the underside, a rough depiction of water. And then in the same sketch, a helicopter, likewise depicted in his uncomplicated, juvenile manner, stood next to the plane.

Then the numbers and the words that made me shudder: "42 is bad! 42 is not good!"

I thought Jacob was experiencing a tantrum and because I am 42 years old, I thought he was having a go at me, so I threw out the drawings.

I am burdened with knowledge about something that twists my gut and causes me to doubt many things.

It occurred long ago, before Sarah and Jacob, when I had just graduated from college and was excited to go and begin my financial career in the Big Apple.

I will always remember that in in the past:

.... I awoke very early and I felt a heavy sense of foreboding as if something terrible was about to happen. In my thoughts, the number eleven kept popping up in my mind. It was an irrational, uncomfortable sensation, not a rational thought. Reluctantly, I remained at home. A knot of worry tightened in my chest as I paced my apartment, called my new employer, and pretended to be sick.

It was on September 11, 2001, I was supposed to begin working at the North Tower of the World Trade Center.

American Airlines Flight 11 was one of the planes that crashed into the building.

I cannot describe the agony of that disaster.

Some weeks later, I first met with Sarah, who was also frantic for a change. Far from the city that caused me such anguish and suffering, we relocated to Wichita, Kansas.

I attempted to live a normal life, burying my past. Still, I was never truly free of the knowledge. It was like a latent germ of fear just below the surface.

I couldn't help but notice the similarity as I stand now in the rain. A foreboding 42, Jacob's hysterical cry of "No go!" and his artwork. Had he caught a glimpse of the future?

Had he inherited my ill-fated gift?

Right now, the already hazy streetlights are even more blurry as the rain picks up speed. On the other side of the road, I notice a man smoking a cigarette in a makeshift bus shelter. In the middle of my terror, the sharp aroma of tobacco lingers in the air, providing an odd solace.

As I quietly murmur to myself, "God, I need one of those," there is inside me an intense want to smoke, even though it had been years—maybe decades—since I had last done so.

Whatever: I need to alleviate the crippling worry.

With the rain clinging to my clothing, I hurry across the street to the shelter.

The man, who is around my age has wrinkles of middle age visible on his face yet nevertheless exudes a friendly enough personality.

The sound of my voice was raspy as I spoke, "Pardon me. I really need to smoke, and my son is in the emergency department, so I'm sorry to interrupt you. Please, would you be able to assist me?"

He looked up from his phone for an instant, briefly diverted. An expression of understanding flashed across his features. "Oh, absolutely, my friend. Sorry about your son."

He pulled a cigarette pack out of his pocket and extended it to me. I took one. Using his cupped palm to protect the flame from the wind, he even lit it for me.

I uttered a desperate "thank you" while taking a long breath. Although the nicotine stung my throat, it was a pleasant diversion from the nagging terror.

"Rough night, huh?", the man said. He then remained glued to his phone as he shook his head as he read something messaging from his cell.

And he said:

"Seems like a terrible accident. Over the Potomac River, an airplane collided with a helicopter.”

Like a punch in the stomach, the words landed on me. This made my body shiver. After a long pause, I uttered:

"Do we know the flight number?"

A croak, hardly audible above a whisper, was all I could muster.

His eyes lingered on his phone once more.

He said:

“It appears the plane was operated by American Airlines. Flight 5342, Eagle. No one could possibly make it through that.”

Oh my God! I thought to myself.

This was the plane we were meant to board.

Jacob rescued us!!!

A wave of pure terror came over me. I fumbled with the power button on my own phone as I reached for it in my jacket. I had turned it off while I was in the emergency room.

My phone came to life with a text message from Sarah:

“Jacob is presently comfortable and doing fine. He hilariously claims that: a white-haired man will deliver gifts to most cows before Christmas. The sky maybe the world will be filled with fireworks. Zero on the ground!

0 on the ground!"

And Sarah added jokingly:

"Maybe Jacob is already getting into the holiday spirit!”

Whilst greatly relieved he is OK I frantically wonder the meaning of Jacob's latest remarks?

What does he observe? Are more calamities lying in wait, ready to be set loose?

As constant as the rain, this question whirled about me.

Jacob's foresights are becoming real