Southern Winds

Chapter 1: Peter

Chapter 1: Peter

October 15th, 1996 | Huntsville, Alabama

The Democratic Republic of the American South

   I never used to like hydrangeas. To me, as a child, they never seemed to fit in with flowers as a whole. Tulips, roses, lilies, those were flowers. However, now as a middle-aged man, I see that plants come in all different shapes, sizes, colors, varieties. As I look at the sphere-like hydrangeas, in the gardens at Burritt Mansion, they are my favorite. The bushy plants remind me of the city I have lived these past decades. This particular secluded garden, the Plot, has a weathered, stone bench flanked by two large bushes of hydrangeas. Their fallen petals, scattered by the wind, on the green grass. The view of the city of this mountain home, and Executive Headquarters, is astounding.

   I breathe in the ever chilling air that has the slight scent of smokey bacon, a smell no one seems to be able to pinpoint when it gets colder. Here the wind moves like the great shift of an organ, slow and lazy like a wave in the ocean. Monte Sano Mountain hosts this beautiful area, a place accessed by a windy road in careful ascension. Even though the power of a nation is focused on this very area, there is a deep quiet. I stand and let the heavy wind glance around my palms. In chaos, there are small spots of beauty. It is here that I reflect. I look at the sprawl of a growing city before, small at this elevation, and I marvel at how this city has changed.

   Huntsville was a small, steadily growing town. Now, it is the capital of the American South. After the former United States fell, fifty governments arose led by governors. Over many years, some of the individual states allied themselves to each other. Six regions formed, out of them were fourteen alliances established. More years passed and the Democratic Republic of the American South was created. Delegates from the states of three alliances and thirteen states banded together into the nation that most closely resembles the former United States. Yet, it was not an easy several decades. War on a massive scale was waged — now an uneasy peace. Socialism to the West and Fascism to the East. We, the South, are the last of the democratic foundation. Who would have thought?

   Huntsville was the right city, at the right time. The Von Braun Civic Center was converted into the Southern Congress; the Burritt Mansion, a museum, became the Executive Headquarters; the Madison County Courthouse became the Supreme Court. Redstone Arsenal is now the Head of Military Operations, the "Pentagon." Small scale venues became the vessels of power. Before the United States fell, I graduated high school in a ceremony at the Von Braun, I went on a field trip in Elementary School to the Burritt Museum, I paid a parking ticket at the Courthouse. Huntsville adapted to the needs of fledgling government and it prospered.

   The once-quiet city now has its own problems. Many people came to this city, people who are so different from each other. My duty is to solve the religious issues. I am the Chaplain of the Premier, Evelyn Atwater, but she trusts me to bridge divides on a municipal commission.

   How am I supposed to help others with faith, when I struggle myself? I am ordained, received Holy Orders thirty years ago. I had been through tough times, but nothing prepared me for the Downfall. A perfect storm brought down a two-hundred-year-old superpower. Division, debt, and terrorism. That was the perfect equation for the death of democracy.

   I am supposed to believe that God has this plan, that it is there for a reason. That these things happened for a reason. Yet, the Vatican was blown apart. Washington D.C. is a ghost town. Cities, entire peoples, devastated. NATO, the United Nations are a legend now. The threads of humanity were being weft together, and God cut them. As though we were the city of Babel.

   I am no longer furious, I no longer have the time to be. Leading people who are just as hurt, just as confused as I am, but I cannot let it show. They must have someone there for them, a rock in this storm. But, now, when I think of God, when I think of church, I feel my soul spreading thin. It is tight and alone.

   I am Peter Gabriel Abrams, I remind myself. I am a rock, I am strong, I am a father to a flock. I cannot let them down. So, I pick myself up. I rise from the stone bench, and I choose to have Faith in my people, Hope in my people, and Love in my people because I no longer have that in God.