Red Rock

Chapter 2: The Weight of the World (Part 2)

The day was cooling off, hovering midway between freezing and ten degrees Celsius. The dry air made Daire's lips shrivel causing him to lick them constantly. The walk to Daire's house was much longer than he had expected. The sun was almost completely gone and he had been walking with Anna for just over an hour. "We're almost there I promise!" he said desperately.

"Don't worry, I love long walks," Anna replied with a jump. "Besides, I have gotten to know you a lot more. You are just as sweet as I knew you would be."

Daire gave a nervous laugh and tilted down his head, trying not to act too embarrassed in front of her. Anna tried to meet eyes with Daire but he would not dare look up to show his bright red cheeks. With a slow mellow movement Anna grabbed Daire's hand and smoothly tangled her fingers around his palm. They walked in silence with large smiles on their faces. They both knew that sometimes silence was the best method of communication.

*

"So, tell me about your Uncle! I'm kind of excited to meet someone with such celebrity status!" Anna exclaimed excitedly, breaking the silence.

"I wouldn't know where to start, I mean he's family, I don't see him as a celebrity at all," Daire replied thinking of something he could say modestly.

"Well, he's a doctor of some sort right? Why don't you start there?"

Daire paused for a moment to think. "Yeah he is, he has his Doctor of Philosophy in Economics."

"Economics?" Anna sounded shocked. "That seems kind of strange for what he does."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if he has such prestige and could make a nice living. Why sacrifice it all to help the poor?"

Daire had thought of that before, but he found little special with someone wanting to change the world. "He wants to change the world just like everyone else. The difference is that he's actually putting effort into changing it. Money is little sacrifice to unite our social classes as one instead of being controlled by the wealthy. 'Why contribute to the problem when you can solve it,' my uncle always says." Daire impressed himself with how professional he just sounded. It was as if Doctor O'Connor had taken control of his body and said it himself.

Anna nodded, smiling at the existence of such a specimen of purity in the human race. "When are you two going to speak next?"

"We're going to D.C. in a couple of weeks for our biggest speech yet," Daire said in a bragging tone. "Ed says this will be the turning point of the working class, but we'll see. Anyway we're here!"

Daire pointed at his tiny time worn suburban house in the secluded corner of a little road absent from the rest of the community. "Aww, your house looks so lovely!" she said as if she was addressing a baby.

Daire let out a light hearted laugh. "Thanks!"

He was about to enter the driveway when he realized that his uncle had not taken the empty garbage bins to the side of the house from the curb. "Looks like my Uncle forgot to take the garbage bins back in," Daire reached in his jingling pocket and pulled out his keys. "Here, just walk inside."

Anna's face had a look of consternation. "I am not going to walk in your house alone."

Daire let out his first real laugh of the date at the sweetness of Anna. "Don't worry! You have to enter the house quite loudly for Ed to even flinch!" Daire said trying to relax her. "Just get out of the cold for two minutes while I put the bins at the side of the house, and I will introduce you two."

Anna looked unsure but thought it would be rude to decline. "If you think it's alright," Anna replied, grabbing the keys.

Daire grabbed the two green bins and tilted them on their wheels. One of the wheels was broken forcing Daire to lug one bin in his left hand and roll the other bin in his right. Anna turned the keys and gave Daire a nervous look before he disappeared to the side of the house. The broken garbage bin was giving Daire trouble and refused to line up properly. "Come on you piece of shit," Daire whispered to himself nudging the bin into place. Daire took a step back to check his work when he heard a shriek from inside silenced by a muffled blast.

Daire stopped to eavesdrop for the voices of his Uncle and Anna explaining their obvious awkward encounter, but he could not hear anything. He cautiously walked to the front of the house still trying to listen for his Uncle's and Anna's voice only to find the front door half way open on its hinges. "Anna?" Daire called, pushing the door open wider. "Ed?" he called again waiting for a response. No one answered. He took a step inside, scanning the house for any sign of Anna and his Uncle when his eyes set stone cold on something lying on the floor at the edge of the hallway. It was Anna, lying in a pool of her own blood, her mouth slightly open and floating lifeless eyes staring at the ceiling.

Frozen, Daire stood in silence, refusing to comprehend what his eyes were processing and he blankly watched the red blood soak Anna's long beautiful hair. Daire felt his breathing tremble and limbs quiver as he slowly approached the once beautiful lively woman of his dreams. A circle-rimmed hole with eroded skin and bone marred the front of Anna's forehead giving no gesture of her previous dispositions. Daire stayed composed and stepped over her body, feeling numbness in all of his senses. He started toward the end of the hallway. Step by step, he tried to remain in control of his bodily functions, finally reaching the kitchen. His eyes met with the most heartbreaking sight of his life. Doctor O'Connor was sitting in his chair while lying chest first in his own blood on the kitchen table. Daire shook uncontrollably. Doctor O'Connor's eyes were set upon him as if he had expected him to walk in at any moment, cold and distant, warning him to run away and never return.

Daire finally felt himself break from the overwhelming sorrow withering through his bones. He fell backward on the floor and started to weep uncontrollably, his exhales so deep that every inhale felt like a first breath after a coma. He stared at Doctor O'Connor with tear filled eyes, feeling the bitterness of nostalgia overcome him. The pool of blood around Doctor O'Connor was slowly dripping off the table onto the floor. Daire watched the droplets form at the rim of the table before becoming too heavy to sustain and fall to the floor. His thoughts were too conflicted to be described in a sensible manner. So he sat waiting. He waited for things to make sense and wished he could have his Uncle there to comfort him, but the time shared between them was over.

*

Hours passed before Daire stood up from the kitchen floor, his eyes swollen and his face wet from recent tears. The blood from Doctor O'Connor had stopped dripping to the ground, settling in pools on the wooden table and floor. Daire approached his Uncle, hearing little splashes below his feet while looking at the fatal bullet wound that entered through the side of his head and exited the other. Doctor O'Connor's work was illegible from the blood that soaked the papers; Daire glanced at his Uncle's work and could only make out two words at the bottom of the page, 'too late.'

The legible words made Daire's eyes spill again. He knew he was too late to save his Uncle, too late to save Anna, too late to save himself. He began to collect and organize his thoughts. He knew that he had to leave immediately, as the men of power would not want any loose ends. Anna's entry into the house was unexpected for the assailants and put a kink in their plan. The bullet that took Anna's life was meant for him. He needed to go. He went up to his room, grabbing everything he could and put it into his old tattered school bag. Before leaving, he entered the kitchen one more time and stood above his uncle paying his silent respect. He started to leave when he caught a glimpse of Doctor O'Connor's marble statue of Atlas still sitting on the table stained with the blood of its owner. 'The irony,' Daire thought. Consumed with many emotions, he stormed out of the kitchen, through the hallway, and out of the house, leaving the blood stained statue of Atlas and everything else behind.

*