09-14-2019, 06:26 AM
Jude was able to leave in the first place because he wasn't kept in a basement; after a certain point, his cooperation in the Family's apocalyptic venture was assumed. From this point forward, it would not be, which meant that this was his one and only chance to realize his goals. If pressed on the matter, Jude would have served Near some compressed Luddite lecture, on how people had survived centuries of rainy nights without cell phones and was Jude going to die if he didn't have one dying in his pocket? The truth was more tinfoil hat theory: Jude didn't know if even speaking into a phone would, somehow, give him away. Space and time were puzzle pieces to be dismantled and moved around, and who was he to guess the limits of possibility?
"The asshole?" Jude was slinking towards one of the kitchen exits, and his echo did not slow him. Interpretation made him pause. "Courtland?" He looked back across the room. "What did he say?" He had other questions, such as, Why wouldn't your father have your phone number?, but Jude realized this would only illustrate a greater gap between the two of them. They had known the same man, but different versions; lived in the same time, but had vastly different understandings of the world.
If Jude failed in his venture, Near would have a grand story to tell. With his flair, his listener would be no doubt entertained. How much grander would it be, if this all faded to nothing, a series of lost messages, only to return some day, with the sun going dark and the rivers turning to blood and the cicadas screaming in the night? Near would take after Courtland after all: a front seat to the end of the world.
"The asshole?" Jude was slinking towards one of the kitchen exits, and his echo did not slow him. Interpretation made him pause. "Courtland?" He looked back across the room. "What did he say?" He had other questions, such as, Why wouldn't your father have your phone number?, but Jude realized this would only illustrate a greater gap between the two of them. They had known the same man, but different versions; lived in the same time, but had vastly different understandings of the world.
If Jude failed in his venture, Near would have a grand story to tell. With his flair, his listener would be no doubt entertained. How much grander would it be, if this all faded to nothing, a series of lost messages, only to return some day, with the sun going dark and the rivers turning to blood and the cicadas screaming in the night? Near would take after Courtland after all: a front seat to the end of the world.