11: A New Perspective

In my role as Alex’s biographer, I chose to write it in first-person in order to portray the conflicts and situations he faced. I’ve managed to convey Alex’s shock and awe; well, his shock at events at least, and the awe of those surrounding him. But there are some specific limitation in first person narrative, and with this chapter, I found I’d written myself into a bit of a corner. So I’m switching to third-person in this chapter in order to better reflect the awe of his followers as the first perceived him and his energy—which is hard to convey from his perspective. Although it’s awkward switching like this, this won’t be the only time I do it, as there are a few other instances where I have to convey things that Alex simply was never fully aware of. Again, the events and discussions were gathered both from personal experience and from consultation with the others involved, so I’m sure I’ve done a good job of covering what happened. Much of this will be familiar to those who have grown up hearing of this particular aspect of him from those in our community. Many of you who haven’t had access to those that were amongst his chosen few won’t have heard it, and that’s who this is directed towards.

“So I said, ‘Look, it ain’t who you know, it’s who knows you that’s important, ‘“ Brooke said, delivering the punch line with a dead-on delivery, causing Clark to burst out laughing.

Clark almost always laughed at Brookes many ridiculous stories. They were silly, but they hit a nerve they both shared. In this case, they both considered Frank, the subject of the story, an idiot, so the fact he gets his comeuppance in it struck both as being richly deserved. In fact, Clark laughed so hard that Brooke grew nervous about his ability to maintain control of the ambulance as they drove through the crowded streets on the way back to their station house. But she repressed that response. She had always trusted Clark to get them where they needed to go and she really needn’t have worried. Clark took his responsibilities seriously, and he’d never risk his truck, either of them, or one of their patients.

“Unit 4, unit 4,” the radio blared, interrupting their momentary reprieve, “you’ve got an apparent heart attack on Baronne Street between Poyndras and Peridido Streets.”

“Unit 4 responding,” Brooke answered, since she was riding shotgun and had her hands free. “Are you sure you should be calling us? We’re a hell of a ways from there. We’re just returning from a call way out on the Westbank Expressway and it’ll take us quite a while to get there.”

“Understood,” the dispatcher relayed before explaining the reason for the odd call. “The other ambulances are all occupied with a big pile up out on the Interstate. You’ll have to cover this one for us. The police should be there when you arrive, so just look for the flashing blue. But try to step on it if you can, this one sounds bad and it’s already been awhile.”

“Jesus,” Clark swore, nervously combing his short hair back with his fingers like he often did when stressed, “that’ll take us another fifteen to twenty minutes to get there. I sure hope a couple of the cops on the scene know enough first aid to keep whoever’s hurt alive until we can get there.”

“I don’t know,” Brooke said doubtfully, biting her lip in her own tell-tale trait much like her partner’s, “most of them know basic CPR, but that’s about it. It might be enough, but it might not.”

“Unit 4 acknowledging, Base Unit,” Brooke radioed back, acknowledging the call. “Please be advised we’re estimating a twenty minute response time.”

“Understood Unit 4,” the dispatcher responded wearily, already knowing the difficult situation he was putting one of his best units under. He knew that putting undue pressure on good people was an almost guaranteed way to burn them out, especially if you set them up where they’d feel guilty if the patient died through no fault of their own. But the pair had come through many times in the past, and he hoped they’d continue to do so. “Please do the best you can. If the local cops have any questions, I’ll relay them through to you.”

“Yeah, sure we will,” Brooke mumbled as she replaced the microphone, swearing to herself as she did so.

“Wouldn’t you know it,” Clark said, straightening his black metal frame glasses while trying to control his anger. “They pull this knowing everyone’s out of range. Why don’t they just let the cops throw him in a car and drag the guy’s sorry ass to the hospital? Waiting for us will likely kill him,” he stated as he turned the siren on and pulled out into traffic, changing lanes as he added speed.

“It’s because of that mess a couple of months ago,” Brooke reminded him, the wind from the open window blowing her long light brunette hair aflutter around her face. “You remember, they tried that and killed a guy. Now they’re all gun-shy, and won’t approach anyone until they kill someone waiting for us. This may very well be that case. I hope not though, ‘cause so far we’ve had a fairly good record.”

“Yeah, well if we do, it’s because of you, Brooke,” Clark replied, glancing over at his 37-year-old partner, trying to ignore her signature nipples pressing against her shirt. Why she couldn’t wear a bra like everyone else, he never knew. “You always seem to know when and where to go in order to get to trouble before it’s reported. I don’t know how you do it, but you just seem to have a knack. It’s managed to save a lot of people and it’s improved our record in the process.”

“Hey, don’t be telling any lies,” she cautioned him self-consciously. “I just get lucky. Sometimes I just get a hunch and it pans out. There are times when my hunches are wrong as well.”

“Well, I don’t seem to remember many of those,” he replied, staring at her to demonstrate that he didn’t buy a word of it without having to explicitly say it, “but I remember plenty when they were dead on.”

“Anyway, let me look up what might be in the way,” she said, hoping to end that topic. Her ability to anticipate things was something that unnerved even her. She’s never understood it, but she’d come to rely on it. “It’s a pretty busy area at this time of day. It’s a one way going north, but we’ll just rely on the lights and turn in off of Poydras. I guess once we get close we’ll figure out where to turn. They didn’t even give us a specific address this time.”

“Probably because they figure the guy’ll be dead by then,” Clark snorted, smiling unhappily. Brooke had to concede he had a point.

Brooke Knowles had been an Ambulance EMT for a fair number of years. She had been riding with Clark Straus for the last five. He was a good partner. He sometimes cursed and could definitely say the wrong thing on many occasions, but he was reliable and knew what he was doing. She was always glad to have him around whenever trouble hit, and in a field like this, trouble hit with amazing regularity.

She held on as he took a corner at a high rate of speed. It seemed like blind luck that kept them from colliding with that cab, but she knew she could always rely on his excellent driving to pull them through something like that. He had steady hands, even when hers would get all sweaty when things got tough. Still, they were both tough old birds. The bosses kept threatening to put them both with the young kids, but so far they kept them together simply because their numbers were so good. True, they’d frequently put a newbie in to ride with them, but they’d allowed the two of them the freedom to ride together, which was a blessing in itself. Brooke knew that no one else would listen to her intuitions as Clark had eventually learned to. It had taken a long time before Brooke could even mention them to him.

Both Brooke and Clark were EMTs, Emergency Medical Technicians, and it was their job to handle emergency care in cases where they were usually the first responders. It had many drawbacks, the stress of never knowing enough—either of their patients’ conditions or of the necessary medicine, not being the least of them—but it had its advantages as well. One was that it was very satisfying to be able to rescue dozens of people a day. Sure, many never made it and that was a bummer, but those that did more than made up for it. They served a purpose and were making a significant improvement in the lives of those they served. That plus a good paycheck made a difference. The extra bonuses they earned for their high survival rate certainly didn’t hurt either.

Careening through traffic at a breakneck pace, Clark distracted them both by droning on about his troubles with his newest girlfriend. He never managed to keep one for very long, and Brooke could certainly understand why. The guy was a good friend and a trusted partner, but aside from that, he was a real pig. While he was berating the newest conquest’s physical attributes, Brooke let her mind wander. Today was a beautiful sunny day and that always spelled trouble in a city like New Orleans. Although they had a lot of warm days here, it always brought out the crazy tourists or the local rowdies. Someone would, inevitably, try something crazy and all hell would break loose, thus the sudden increase in accidents this morning.

As they drew near the city’s business district, Brooke got another feeling like she’d traditionally get—guiding her towards something significant. Only this seemed to be starting sooner than normal. It wasn’t alerting her to something about to happen, like how it usually occurred, this seemed to be farther away, possibly where they were heading. She didn’t usually get warnings this far away. She kept patient, not saying anything yet, but it seemed to be the case, the feeling gradually grew stronger the closer they got. She guessed it had something to do with the emergency they were heading towards, but these feelings had always been immediate in the past. Just short warnings based on an immediate need, like warning them not to turn at a particular time, or to expect trouble at a particular location. This new feeling was growing stronger the closer they got, but they were still quite far away.

Since it was so steady, she actually had time to analyze it. Something she’d never been able to do before. Usually it was just a brief flash and would be gone before she was even fully aware of it. She knew from experience to trust her instincts. That’s about all she could call them because they were always so brief. Now she could feel it as if it were an old shirt, familiar and comfortable. It told her that what they were approaching was significant in a way she hadn’t experienced before. Usually she’d get a brief glimmer of trouble, a momentary warning when something was about to go wrong, or a quick nudge to help her decide something on time, but this was constant, and increasingly powerful.

“You’d better give it a bit more speed,” she warned her partner, glancing at him with a particularly worried expression. “I don’t know what it is, but this one feels significant. Somehow this one is more important than the others.”

Clark took her warning seriously, nodding to her acknowledgement. She had a knack for always knowing just what to do and when to do it. But he could also tell that this time she was a bit unnerved. There was just something odd this time. Since they both had such obvious tells, they’d given up playing poker together long ago, and she was biting her lip again, as well as drumming her fingers against her thigh. It seemed the stars were aligned on this one. First, the call way out in the boondocks, then the unexpected pileup out on the interstate, now this problem back in the heart of the city with no one there to respond in time. Something big was brewing and he didn’t like it at all. This many unlikely events, all piling up on one another, portended something momentous, and momentous wasn’t something you looked forward to serving as an EMT, since it usually involved multiple deaths.

Brooke had always been in tune with nature in such a way that she could frequently anticipate accidents or unexpected illnesses. It was part of what made her so successful in this occupation. She’d often guess at a diagnosis based on nothing more than a hunch and very often it would bear out. Sometimes something would happen at the scene of an accident and she’d be ready for it when it occurred. She’d learned to trust her instincts as a result. This time it wasn’t just an inkling, it was a full on assault on her psyche.

She seemed to not only be able to sense its direction but also its distance. She thought she could tell Clark just how far away they were without looking at the onboard GPS unit, but she resisted the impulse. Instead she checked the display just to be sure. It was spot on. She now knew that what she was feeling was where they were headed, and was likely the source of the incident. However she didn’t worry about how she could know such things, she was much more concerned with finding out what it was that was directing her.

“Come on, Clark, this is REALLY important,” she told her partner, stressing just how unusually vital this information was in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

“Yeah, you and that damn woman’s intuition thing you have going,” Clark playfully groused, watching Brooke’s mood grow steadily worse. “How come my dates never have enough intuition to know I don’t like shopping and watching some damn play? You tell me that and maybe I’ll trust these damn hunches of yours,” he told her he applied yet more gas and continued weaving through traffic, cutting dangerously close to cars that couldn’t get out of his way fast enough. Brooke was used to Clark’s varying moods. His driving and his dedication were reliable but his moods were anything but. He’d praise you for making his career one moment, and then tell you the thing that achieved it was shit the next.

“Ambulance four, this is car 3020,” announced the authoritative voice of a police officer over the radio.

“Unit four reporting,” she answered back, anxious to hear anything she could about the accident they were approaching—not necessarily for professional reasons either. “What’ve you got for us?”

“I’m at the scene. We’re attending the man down. He was out when we arrived but the woman who was with him reported he was still active and responsive before we arrived. We’ve begun CPR on him, but so far he’s completely unresponsive.”

“Understood, Officer, keep up the CPR, we’re still a fair distance away. Hopefully you’ll get a response soon and we’ll be able to carry him to the Hospital for you.”

“Affirmative,” the voice responded, sounding distracted and worried. Brooke didn’t recognize him offhand, but that wasn’t surprising. There were lots of officers and she could hardly know all of them. Even more, many officers didn’t have clearly recognizable voices over the staticky service radios.

As Clark careened around another curve, Brooke could feel more of what they were driving towards. They were still a couple miles from the site, but she felt she could tell Clark how far away it was to the very foot. However, now that they were getting closer and the feelings grew stronger, she began to realize these weren’t the same sensations that had always warned her of danger in the past. No, she could feel a sense of power. There was something very strong there and that was what she was feeling. It’s not likely the victim, but probably the cause of the emergency, she realized. When images of an alien invasion or a huge psychic attack flashed in her mind, she purposely fought them down and considered the more realistic options. Maybe the victim suffered a shock from what she was picking up, which produced the heart attack? No, again she could feel that wasn’t likely. For some odd reason, she felt she could trust the source of these feelings. However, she no more understood why than she understand the feelings themselves.

Clark slowed down as he took the last couple of turns while Brooke held on, partly to keep from being thrown, but also just to steady herself from the onslaught of these sensations. She wasn’t used to these feelings. Previously the warnings she got were just fleeting impulses, something that was very easy to rationalize, to tell yourself it was simply your intuition and nothing more. But this was clearly overpowering. There was something ahead which both terrified and fascinated her, and she had no clue what it might be or what it represented. However, as they rounded the last curve with a police officer out directing traffic, she swallowed and decided she couldn’t let these feelings dissuade her. She had a job to do and possibly a life to save. Getting distracted by anything else would be detrimental to everyone. She’d deal with the emergency and then try to figure out what was guiding her later. Surely it wasn’t associated with the accident if she wasn’t getting any indication of what to do.

Flashing blue lights indicated the location of the victim and Clark drove as close as he could. They both knew they were very late by the large number of onlookers standing around. Brooke grabbed her kit and jumped out, rushing to the cluster of people surrounding a reclined form she was all too familiar with. One officer was kneeling over the figure working on him. She rushed to his side.

“We’re here,” she called, realizing the police would be anxious to be relieved. “We’ll take over.” The chances are there was little anyone could do since the victim had been unresponsive for so long.

“Thanks,” the burly cop responded, a bit breathlessly from having labored over the prone figure for so long. “‘Bout time you guys showed up. The guy’s been down for some time now.” The big cop shifted over, allowing Brooke to take over without much of a delay.

“Yeah, we had problems with logistics this morning,” she informed him, not really knowing why she bothered. “We had a call way out in the burbs and all the other available trucks were at an accident scene,” she said as she began pumping the man’s chest, hoping to trigger the heart to start again, even though it was highly unlikely. However, even as she did so, her attention was drawn away from what she was doing, and she found herself glancing into the crowd staring at her from a relatively short distance away.

She knew she had little chance of saving someone who’d been down for so long. If there was any chance of saving him, there was only one possible alternative at this point. She zeroed in on a single figure she saw lurking behind the barricade, the people beside him saw her looking and quickly began whispering to each other and trying to look inconspicuous. The figure was a clean faced young man looking down, apparently trying to hide within himself. He briefly glanced up at her, but quickly looked away again before she could lock eyes with him as if afraid of being recognized, but she knew him for what he apparently was. There was no other sensible answer for the radiating power pouring out of him.

The source of this power she felt had to be a person, she’d realized, and she was absolutely sure that it was coming from the young man trying to hide behind the row of people behind the police tape. Then an awful realization struck her and she felt as if her heart had just dropped out of her chest. This power was WAY too strong, much too personal, and yet no one else seemed to notice it beside her. She’d been around powerful and important people before and they never gave off waves of anything. She’d dealt with Senators, Congressmen, Mayors, and was even there when the leader of the free world had visited Orleans. None had seemed any more than just an average guy in a nice suit surrounded by lots of security. No, this single unobtrusive individual held a palpable energy that was anything but human. It had to be otherworldly, but she simply didn’t believe in little green men. No, this would have to be some kind of spiritual energy. She felt herself easing back, forgetting her efforts to save the man as these realizations swept over her. She slowly pieced one piece after another together as she unraveled the mystery. She had to shake her head to refocus her energy, to begin again, but she managed to separate her thought processes from her mechanical actions, since she knew these motions so intimately. The only thing she could think of that could account for such an amazing spiritual power was an angel. Actually one specific angel, the angel of death! And if she was the only one able to detect his immense power, that surely meant that he was here for her—the only one who wouldn’t be able to tell anyone else about it. He couldn’t look at her because it wasn’t yet her time, but she knew in her heart that it was only a matter of seconds until it was, since she’d felt drawn to this time, to this lone figure, ignoring everything else going on around here. That was clearly why he refused to look at her, she knew that as soon as their eyes met, that his power would wash over her, and then she’d be gone, done for, lost to the eternal blackness of death. He wasn’t here for the man she was trying to save, but for her.

Despite this terrible realization, she wasn’t afraid. She kept working, feeling her body taking over for her as her mind danced around these concepts. She was nervous, assuredly, but the character didn’t seem to bear her any ill will. Whatever it planned didn’t seem to be personal in any way. She quickly considered that. No, although the angel of death had always been pictured as a scary skeleton bearing a sickle, he was always there to take people away when it was their time. He had nothing invested in punishing them. When it was a person’s time, it was simply their time. We all worked to pull people back, but when you couldn’t—like the person she was working on—then they simply passed. In fact, she felt such a sense of comfort from the powerful figure, she thought of the words she so often heard from religious figures when faced with unexpected deaths. ‘No one knows the will of God’. She’d always thought it a copout before, but maybe they had something. Maybe he was here to save her from something far worse than death. Maybe by remaining beyond her time she would face an even worse future.

What’s more, she could feel that this angel of death was kind and generous, and bore her no ill-will. He was here to help guide her, to take her from this mortal coil to the next world, and she grasped that concept as if it was a lifeline. It certainly made no sense to fight such an awesome power, especially when it was clearly trying to help her through this difficult process.

Just then Clark came sliding in beside her, lugging the defibrillator. As he started it up, she had to focus on what she was doing or risk getting shocked. While she doubted she’d die from that, she certainly didn’t want to be stricken unresponsive moments before her death. No, she wanted to know more about this powerful angel that had come for her.

She heard the call of “CLEAR!” and pulled back as a powerful shock jolted the unmoving body off the ground, but he remained impassive as she resumed her CPR.

“Increasing charge,” Clark warned. Brooke wordlessly acknowledged the caution as she continued to think about the powerful being standing so near her. Now that she had time to consider it, she couldn’t quite figure out what it was here for. If it wanted to take her, it could do so at any moment, and alerting her that it was there would only alert everyone else that something strange was going on. It seemed to just be standing there, waiting for something. It wasn’t even acting like the rest of the onlookers, trying to get a look at the activity taking place under her hands. No, chances are it already knew the fate of the individual she was working on. Either it already knew his fate, or it was waiting for something else entirely.

The second call of “CLEAR!” surprised her, and she just managed to pull her hands free before the inert body jumped again. In either case, whether it was here for her or for something else, she felt no fear. It held no malice, it was simply doing what it had to do, whatever that was. It was then she decided she had better watch herself, as it may be watching what she was doing and passing judgment on her feeble attempts to save a life. Still...

“Clark, take over for me,” she commanded.

“But I’m—” he started to protest before she cut him off.

“I know, but don’t worry about that now, it’s not having any effect. Just take over and keep up the CPR.” He quickly moved in beside her and resumed the compressions as she moved her own hands aside.

“Keep up the CPR,” she repeated, as she climbed to her feet and began walking away from the victim, her partner, the cops and her responsibility. “Don’t stop,” she called back distractedly, “I’ve got to go see about something.”

“What the fuck?” Clark called out after her. “There’s not much sense if he’s already coded!”

“Just keep it up, I think I might be able to get some help,” she called, hoping to reassure him. She was quickly moving toward the figure she’d seen lurking behind the barricade. When the people surrounding him saw her, they quickly began whispering with each other again, but they quickly pulled back. The clean faced young man still avoided looking at her, but it was obvious he was clearly aware of her. She could literally feel his embarrassment at being caught in the fact, but she refused to allow his concern to cloud her own judgment. Even if this was her very last act, even if he was here for her, she had to do this.

“What are you—?” asked the portly policeman manning the barricade as she approached it, looking like he was approaching his own heart attack with no holds barred.

“Never mind,” she said, cutting him off dismissively with an idle wave of her hand, refusing to even look at him and take her eyes off of this lone solitary figure hiding amidst so many others. “I need help with the victim.” The cop looked at her strangely, but gave way as she moved around him.

Approaching near enough to get a clear look at this angel of death’s face, he reluctantly raised his head and finally looked her in the eyes. It hit Brooke like a sledge hammer to the face, one minute she was marching forward, the next she was reeling back, staggering, with her legs threatening to collapse under her.

“Hey, are you OK? What the hell did they do to you?” the nearby cop yelled, rushing to her assistance.

“Nothing,” Brooke called out, idly waving the man away, still trying to figure out just what had happened to her. There had been a brilliant burst of light, as if the young figure had suddenly burst into a massive ball of flame so bright she had trouble seeing anything else. She struggled to figure out exactly what had transpired. “He didn’t do a thing, at least nothing that didn’t need to be done,” she answered, intuitively knowing that whatever he’d done, it had been necessary. She could feel he wouldn’t do anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. She tried to steady herself, veering as she tried to find her sense of balance again, the hand of the patrolman on her side not helping at all. As her eyes refocused, the bright glare still almost blinding her, she was shocked at what she saw all around her. Instead of the faces of people surrounding the supposed angel, she now saw the figure for what it was, a real, damn ANGEL, shimmering in a light which reflected all the power she’d been feeling emanating from him. She had to shield her eyes, his glow was so overpowering. She couldn’t even make out the figures around him he was so bright.

As she tried to protect her eyes, moving them to the side and away from his mighty glare, she suddenly noticed that everyone else also had a lesser glow about them all as well, except instead of being overpowering she could see they were all clothed in a whole array of new colors she’d never seen before.

“What the... ?” she started to say before considering who she was speaking to and what their opinion on profanity might be, especially considering the role she had so recently assigned to the figure.

“It’s OK,” a young woman nearby assured her. “He strikes all of us that way.”

“What, what is it I’m seeing?” Brooke asked hesitantly. The figure before her suddenly moved forward, stepping confidently around the barricade. Whatever he’d been waiting for, apparently now was the time he’d been waiting for. Brooke was almost afraid of what else he may have in store, but again, she couldn’t afford the luxury of waiting for her future to be revealed to her. Whatever befell her, she had at least one last task she simply had to take care of.

“Hey, get the FUCK back behind the—” the cop behind her warned. Brooke held out her arm.

“No, I need him. He’s the one I came here for,” she informed him, her voice calm but her words unmistakably firm.

“Don’t panic, it’s nothing unearthly. What you’re seeing is people’s life force, essentially their souls,” the bright figure explained as he moved up beside her and grasped her side to steady her. “The colors you’re seeing are a reflection of their personalities; the varying colors around the edges are the various emotions that play on their personalities. It also shows their health,” he continued explaining. “The dark patches are unhealthy organs, anything lacking light is probably dead.”