If you’re reading this, I’m already dead.
You ever heard ’em say time ain’t linear? When I was a boy, I heard that once. On the radio, it was. I asked my Pa what it meant, he slapped me upside the head for asking–he took a likin’ to slappin’ me upside the head. Those slaps lodged that question in my mind.
Time ain’t linear.
Now, from this side a things, I can tell you. It certainly ain’t linear, no sir, no ma’am. Ya’ll think you start as a baby and grow old, but that ain’t how this life a ours works. I don’t expect ya to comprehend it now. I don’t expect ya to spend your remaining years tryin’ to either.
Yet, I’ll tell ya how it goes
The average human–even the smart ones–see time as happening like it should, like a progression from 1 to 100. That’s what we was taught, and that’s how we see it. The trick is, some people–people with an extra ability, an extra sight, you could say–catch glimpses of a different set a rules.
People like Albany, an my boy Deacon.
People like me. We somehow break through the assembly line a life and see things happening at odd times. Like those boys in the woods, Albany and my boy. They saw ’em clear as day, dead in the woods, but that ain’t when that happened.
Those boys died like that back in ’52.
Back before I was even born–had to do some diggin’ to find that out. This town likes to keep its secrets boxed up like forgotten Christmas presents. It took me some time to reckon with, to come to terms with, but when I did, I knew I had no choice but to test the theory.
Test the universe, so to say.
So, I took my own life. Not to run or hide or destroy my family, like you might be thinkin. I did it to save my family, to position myself like a sniper in a tall tower. When I realized the truth a the situation, I saw it as the only way.
An on that day, the fourth of July…
When Albany found me, four years post my ‘linear death’. That’s when it all came together, that’s when I took aim, an I been waiting until this moment to shoot. I been waiting for this day, you could say, my whole life. The day when IT align Itself with the barrel of my shotgun.
That day is here.
And as long as Albany and Deacon follow through, this war, may never have to happen. It’s up to Albany now, she’s got to make the right choice. Problem is… This war? It may already be in progress. There’s only one way of knowin.
