Intro Chapter

This is the first chapter of my book, Faith After Death.

Introduction

 

Sunday, August 9, 2065

Alaska

“I don't think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.”

The words had been stuck in his mind since he read them. Such applicable words - yet surprisingly written by someone so young, over one hundred and twenty years ago. He gazed at the forest floor rising up to the mountains that reached for the sky. It was the bluest sky he had ever witnessed. He had been trying to find any bit of solace in the fact that these mountains would remain untouched. Could the pain caused by what he knew was coming be soothed by the knowledge that the trees growing into the clouds would still be standing and the beauty of the land would survive? He had been telling himself to heed the words of the girl that wrote them and had committed to always remembering her name: Anne Frank.

For a first time visitor, the drive from Seattle to Anchorage was not only revealing of beauty, but of the isolation that existed. Traveling at what the speedometer said was near one hundred miles per hour, he drove for nearly an hour without seeing another vehicle or person. Other than the crowds of people, Seattle, as with the other cities he had seen since he arrived, was so different from his home. A population living so close to each other was something he was familiar with. Unlike his home though, in only moments on the highway he was away from the hordes of people. And now, he was traveling for hours seeing no one.

He was driving on the Tok Highway speeding nearer to a place called Christochina, Alaska. His automobile needed fuel and he was hungry, so he stopped at the next station he saw. He pulled in and parked in front of a small, log cabin with signs offering snacks and sandwiches. As he stepped out of his car, the cold morning air was striking. At home it was always warm; he never even needed a coat. Here, the weather was more unpredictable. It was the warm months, and still he felt a chill. Someone had told him his blood was too thin for the colder weather. He was not sure if that was true, but he put on his coat and walked into the store.

As he opened the store’s door, a bell gave a short ring. He walked in and was greeted by a young boy, maybe seven years old.

“Mister, you are really, really tall! How tall are you?”

“Nicky, stop. That is not being polite, son. My apologies sir, but my son is still trying to understand what is and isn’t a polite way to deal with strangers.”

The visitor looked over to the boy’s father standing behind a counter. “Not a problem sir,” he said with a deep, husky voice that had a slight hint of an accent. The tall man was trying to speed up his speech and hide the fact that he was still learning English. Learning new languages was what he liked most about this job. He enjoyed the challenge of the syntax, the flow, and the different ways languages allowed the conveyance of thought. English was one of the toughest languages he had attempted, and he looked forward to any opportunity he could find to speak it with others.

He looked down at the boy. “Nicky,” he said, “I am not offended at all. I am 7 feet 4 inches tall.” As was his habit he did a quick internal review of what he had said and realized he did not quite add the proper pause. His comment to the boy had come out as one continuous blurb. He knew he had to work on his cadence.

The father smiled and said, “Well, thank you for being considerate.” He turned to Nicky. “Son, what is the proper way to meet people?”

Nicky nodded at his dad, smiled and walked up to the stranger. The height and size difference between the two was striking, but Nicky showed no fear in approaching the giant of a man standing in the front of the store.

Nicky reached out his hand and said, “Hello sir, my name is Nicky. What’s yours?”

The tall man looked straight down at the boy and then over at Nicky’s father who was smiling. He was not sure how to respond, but after a moment he took Nicky’s small hand and enveloped it with his. “It is nice to meet you. Nicky my name is, um… It may be difficult to say in your language.., I mean in English. My name is Mahalak.”

The boy made a face as the man said his name and looked over at his father. As it rolled off of the visitor’s tongue, the man’s name sounded to Nicky more like when someone exhaled.

Nicky’s father nodded to him and said, “Nicky, what do you say now?”

“Oh,” Nicky said and looked back up at the stranger. “It is nice to meet you, um. Nice to meet you Mah..., Mahhhhlkk.”

“Thank you,” said the man with a smile.

“Pops, how does the man fit in his car?”

The question had come from behind the visitor. He turned to see another boy, similar to Nicky.

The father explained. “This is my other son. He and Nick are two thirds of my triplets. This is Jack and he has the same issues with strangers. Jack, you’re going to make our customers uncomfortable”.

“Once again, there is no problem. Does my car look small for me Jack?” the visitor asked.

Jack was looking back and forth between the car and the visitor trying to figure out the sizing. The father walked over to the door and looked out the window. “Looks like a ’58 Mustang. I owned a ’40. Not white like yours. White gets dirty real fast on these roads. Once I graduated, I went with the flow and bought a pickup. I sold that Mustang for a few bucks. It was really falling apart. Too much off road. They’re not built for that, eh? So sir, is there something I can get for you?”

The visitor was struck by the comment that the boys were part of triplets.

“So you have three children at once? That is rare, is it not?” he asked.

“It is,” the store owner replied, “but my wife and I wanted three. So we travelled down to a hospital in San Francisco and paid for the implants. Now I have these two guys and my daughter Haleigh. Life is real good.”

The visitor smiled, weakly running the quote in his head. ‘Focus on the beauty that still remains’.

After gazing at the boys, he finally said, “I need some food and gas. Do you have any ham and cheese sandwiches? I do enjoy those.”

The father nodded his head. “Sure do. How about I make you up two and I’ll only charge you for one.” He walked around the counter. “I detect an accent, you visiting the States?”

The visitor put the ominous thoughts out of his head and said, “Yes sir. I have been here for two months. I am driving from Seattle. As you can hear from my speaking, I am still learning the language. Your English can be difficult.”

The man looked up and smiled. He said, “You speak well for just two months. What’s your secret? I’ve heard of people learning the language by watching television.”

“I read as much as I can,” the visitor said. “I have an old, large bag of books in my car and I read them many times. Over and over. They are some of the most famous books and help me to learn.”

The man nodded and asked “Heading to Anchorage for pleasure? I assumed so. We don’t see a lot of business travelers driving through. They usually fly up from the lower States. Or are you one of those adventure types that take on the Alaska Highway as a challenge?”

The visitor thought about the question for a second, then replied, “It is actually business. I need to visit some places.” The visitor watched the two boys playing in the corner of the store. It was getting more difficult to watch.

“Here you go,“ the father said. “I threw some ketchup and mustard packets in there. Why don’t you grab a drink, some chips and we will call it ten bucks for the food and then we can see about the gas.”

The visitor walked over to the refrigeration unit and opened the glass door. He wrapped his hand around a soda bottle and then grabbed a bag of chips from the shelf next to the drinks. Walking back to the register, he had to keep ducking under the wooden beams running across the store’s ceiling. He reached into the pocket of his blue jeans and pulled out a large wad of bills. Peeling off a hundred, he placed it on the counter. “Please take this and keep the change for the food and gas.”

The father looked at the bill and then up to the visitor. “Sir, it won’t cost more than twenty dollars to fill your Mustang out there. That’s a lot of change”.

The boys were now running around the store laughing and the visitor was starting to become emotional at the scene. He wanted to leave.

“The money is no problem. I want you to be able to be with your family.” He could not get the words out fast enough. “My time is behind so I must go. I will pump the gas now and go, is that alright?” He was starting to sweat now.

The father noticed that the man was starting to get uncomfortable. “Sir, please don’t let me hold you up. I can’t thank you enough. The money will help us, no doubt.”

The visitor left, not caring that he basically ran out of the store. After filling the tank, he gave a quick look back at the store. In the window stood the boys along with a slightly taller girl with blond hair. One of the boys waved. He took another hundred dollar bill out of his pocket and left it on the gas pump. As he sped away he thought to himself, ‘It is going to be difficult to not think about the misery’.