Shit Storm

“Fuck, I hate the athletic ones!”, Vera groans as they speedwalk up Fifth Avenue. She’s dressed in Doc Martens, denim cut offs, and a cropped white T,  iced coffee in hand. Her jet black hair and full-sleeve tattoos provide an edgy aesthetic but her slight build diminishes her capacity for intimidation. “Why can’t she walk at a normal speed?”

“Some people have places to go and people to see, dearest”, remarks Roman. Towering more than a foot over her, he easily keeps stride with Vera. Two siblings could not appear to be more starkly contrasted. Gray chinos, a light blue polo, and blonde hair in a side part, Roman is clean cut and preppy in his summer pastels. “Besides, this gives you more time to think of your opener.”

“Ha! Finally, a red light!” Like a marathoner within sight of the finish line, she pumps her arms and leans into her step as she wills her five-foot frame to close the gap between herself and the lululemon-wearing Amazonian woman. At last abreast with the woman, she backhands the woman’s upper arm and applies her cold beverage to her perspiring forehead. “Jesus, woman!” She exasperates. “I’ve been trying to catch up to you for three blocks!” 

Wide-eyed and agape, she puts her hand on her hip as she takes in Vera’s appearance, clearly torn on whether to proceed with caution or tell her to fuck off. 

“Nice opener”, Roman grumbles. He takes this opportunity to intercede. “Allow me to apologize. What my sister meant to say was ‘Good day! Aren’t you spry! So sorry to interrupt but I was wondering if I could have a moment of your time to tell you something important.’” He takes a step back to extricate himself from the interaction, gesturing at Vera to take the floor. 

“Yeah. That”, she says, still catching her breath. The woman looks at her expectantly, as she sucks down a healthy swallow of her coffee and applies the cold beverage to the back of her neck. “Leandra, right?”

“Yess…do I know you?” 

“Not even a little”, Vera says with a dismissive wave of her hand. “But that trip to the Hamptons this weekend, skip it.” 

“How’d you kn—“

“I just know, okay? And if you want proof I know things, see that cabbie? He’s getting into a fender-bender in three, two, one—“ With a crunch and blare of a horn, the bystanders in the vicinity have swiveled to eyeball the two drivers, now violently gesticulating and screaming in the street. Vera doesn’t bat an eye. 

The woman’s head whips back to look at Vera in disbelief, but she is already back away. “Listen, I don’t mean to freak you out but just don’t go, okay? Any other weekend and you’ll be fine.” 

“Wait, wait!”, Leandra says, stepping towards her. “Can you tell me when I’m gonna die?”

“If you skip the trip this weekend, you’ll die in your sleep at a ripe old age.” Vera waves and winks at her, “Have a nice life.” Vera and Roman turn and walk back the way they came, Leandra still peering after them. 

“Is that true? She’s gonna die in her sleep?”, utters Roman under his breath. 

“No, she’ll die of cancer at forty-seven, but I’ve already ruined her weekend plans, why ruin the rest of the day?”

“I think that would ruin more than just her day, Vera. I imagine it would put a damper on the rest of the week at least.” 

“Ah, well”, she pulls her sunglasses down from the top of her head. “Our good deed is done for the day. What’s next on the agenda?” 

Despite her attempts at humor, a dark cloud hangs over Vera the rest of the day. The feeling of uneasiness and trepidation builds, as does her irritability. As it turns out, when a seer traipses around a metropolis known for death and destruction, they see a lot of death and destruction. Meandering towards the theater district, Vera feels compelled to stop three more people. Surprisingly only one of which tells her to go fuck herself. 

By the time they are in line at the box office, she is at her wits end. “I’m closing my eyes. I’m closing my eyes and you’re gonna have to lead me around the rest of the day because I can’t fucking take it anymore.” As if being a soothsayer isn’t enough of a burden, the visions come on suddenly, and are often very graphic. It isn’t every person she sees, just those meeting violent deaths. 

“Perhaps taking you to a city of violent crime wasn’t my most brilliant idea”, admits Roman, “but I really wanted to see Moulin Rouge…”

Vera sighs. This trip may be a selfish diversion on his part, but Roman has the thankless job of reining her in. Drugs and alcohol are devices she often uses to quell the visions, and as her older brother and a sympathetic non-seer, he makes sure she doesn’t go completely off the rails. 

“Alright, but there better be a cocktail at the end of this line.”

Her “gift” is a double-edged sword. Surely she could monetize her services and demand would be high among the rich, famous, and people who live fast lives. But instead of allowing people to seek her out, she leaves it in the hands of fate to decide who she will and won’t encounter in life. That doesn’t mean it’s not a daily struggle of guilt, depression, and nightmares, but she tries to make the best of a shit situation. 

“No wonder this city never sleeps”, Vera remarks, “it’s a living, breathing nightmare.” Having unceremoniously thrown back several drinks to assuage the madness, she resigns herself to a day with her eyes mostly closed and looking down at her feet. 

“I’m changing our flights”, says Roman. “There’s one leaving first thing tomorrow morning. Let’s make sure we’re on it.” His tone doesn't betray him but she can detect his disappointment. 

“You stay. I'll take the early flight back by myself.” 

“Absolutely not”, he scoffs. “You unleashed in a confined space? You’re the reason we have air marshals.” 

Though she doesn’t have a violent bone in her body, unsurprisingly, some of the people she can read, do. 

“I’ll drug myself. I’m a big girl, I’ll be fine!” Even as she says it, she knows it’s bullshit. The impending sense of doom that has loomed over her all day consumes her. 

Even the fistful of antidepressants she takes every morning did not make the musical theater production easier to digest. Lucky for her, none of the actors were destined for an untimely death, which was really too bad after the atrocity committed on the stage that night. Proclaiming their gruesome demise at the stage door would have been the most fun she had all day. 

“I’m just going to pop over to that usher to chat”, she says to Roman during intermission. “I’ll be right back.” 

“Vera…”, he warns. 

“What?”, she doesn’t try to disguise the irritability in her voice. 

“If you get escorted out, I don’t know you.” He levels her with a steely expression. 

“It’ll be fine, I have a good feeling about this one.”

Her intuition, as usual, is on point. 

“I know this is going to sound creepy as fuck, but do not renew your lease. Trust me, your roommates are bad news.” 

“I’m sorry?”, says the bemused usher.

“We don’t know each other. I’m just a stranger with a strange mind. But the meth lab setup they’ve got going on, is a ticking time bomb.” 

Darting a glance at the row next to them, he leans in to say, “I don’t know what you are talking about Miss, but please take your seat. The show will start momentarily.”

“Don't worry about her”, Vera nods in the direction of the woman sitting at the end of the row, “she is more preoccupied with the drink she is about to spill.” As if on cue, the woman drops the drink down the front of her top. “Also, someone should really do something about the loose pin in the carpet over there.” A middle-aged man grunts as he stubs his toe and nearly trips on the frayed carpet in the entryway. 

Wide-eyed and agog, the usher turns to her and takes in her blase expression. “Ok, so I guess I’m moving.” 

She loves the believers. They make her life so much easier. The believers are the people that make her life worth living. They are the ones that will listen to what she tells them, make the necessary changes, and live to see another day. But unfortunately not everyone believes. In fact, the majority of people don’t, no matter how much impressive evidence she can divine. They will see it as a parlor trick, a prank, anything but what it is, a revelation. The nonbelievers are what keep her up at night. She figures at best the nonbelievers have a fifty-fifty chance of heeding her advice. She stopped tracking her stats long ago. 

******

Sitting at the gate in terminal three the next morning with a coffee as big as her head, Vera nudges Roman to pull him from the Tik Tok hole he’s fallen down. “Did you enjoy a taste of what your life could look like after I die?” Her tone is pleasant, as if asking about the weather. 

He rips his eyes off his device to regard her. “That’s not funny”, he snaps. Uncrossing his leg, he examines her expression. “You would tell me, right? You would tell me if—“

She holds up her hand to quiet him. “Not now.” Her eyes rove around the terminal, seeking. The storm cloud above her head threatens to deluge. 

Several minutes tick by in silence. “How does your cloud feel?”, he asks. Something is coming and while Roman can’t feel it, he can sense her anxiety building. 

“Full.” She continues to scan the airport, feeling for the source. A familiar tug pulls her to her feet. “Here we go.”

She’s led to the last gate at the end of the terminal. Suddenly the dark cloud of dread bursts, dousing her with a chill that seeps into her bones. The change is so sudden she nearly gasps. Bingo. 

“This is it”, she says. 

“Which one?”, his gaze sweeps through the seated travelers. 

“All of them.” She turns to face him. “If this plane takes off, everyone on board will die.” 

He blinks. “Gotcha.” The gears turn. “Who among them are believers?”

“Shouldn’t we go straight to security or the gate agent? This flight has to be grounded.” 

He shakes his head. “What are you gonna say? You’re clairvoyant and can see death? They’ll escort you out of here and the flight will still go as scheduled. If we plant some seeds with the passengers, at the very least they may refuse to board, saving them. Or, best case scenario, chaos ensues.” 

She glances at an anxious-looking young man, a pair of helicopter parents with three kids, and several other seemingly uneasy would-be travelers near the window. “Ok, let’s start planting some seeds.” 

Once they get on a roll, word spreads like wildfire. Vera draws attention with her minor but precise predictions. The believers request to change their flights. The nonbelievers pelt her with questions, demanding more proof and answers. 

“What’s your motive? What’s in it for you to get us off this flight?”

“Is there something wrong with the plane? Is it the pilot? An act of terrorism?”

“Listen! I don’t know the specifics of why this flight will be unsafe. I can only tell you if you get on it, it will be the last thing you do.”

“I don’t care what this crazy girl says, I’m still getting on the flight”, says a man wearing a suit and carrying a briefcase. 

About half of the flight is refusing to board with the other half vehemently dead set on not being delayed by a deranged quack. 

“This is our cue to make a quick and graceful exit”, says Roman. “We are attracting the attention of the gate agents and we’ve done all we can do here.” 

Vera is reluctant to give up. Is there more she can do or say to convince the nonbelievers? Shouldn’t she give the crew the same opportunity to decide for themselves? But in the end she concedes. As they return to their gate she looks back at the turmoil she ignited. Fuck, why does this feel like a loss? 

Their flight is already boarding and they are able to scoot onboard immediately without incident. Panic surges through Vera as she sits and she struggles to regain control of her breathing. 

“Take these” Roman says as he puts two valium in her hand. 

She brushes away a stray tear. “Thanks. Do you think we did enough?” She’s not sure if she wants to know the answer.

“You spared at least half the plane from a premature and ghastly death. That was all you could do.” The cocktail he ordered arrives and he hands it to her. “It’s time to let go.”

She downs the drink in one gulp and rests her head on his shoulder. What would she do without Roman? With any luck she’ll be unconscious before they are even wheels up.

“Let’s never talk about it”, she says as she closes her eyes. “I don’t want to know, whatever happens.”

“You got it.”

But unfortunately for Vera, fate has other plans. 

After an uneventful flight the plane touches down. Vera, rubbing the last remnants of sleep from her eyes, looks up as two officers stand over her. 

“Vera and Roman Scamp?”

“Yes, officer”, says Roman. 

“You need to come with us.”

As they are led off the aircraft Vera sighs. “Any ideas, Roman?”

“Not one.”