MirrorWorld

The street is filled with angry people. Some carry picket signs with slogans like: RAISE MINIMUM WAGE, NO MORE PROPERTY TAXES, and my favorite, NO MONEY, LESS PROBLEMS. Some carry bricks. Others wield guns. Their voices rise and fall, repeating some kind of chant, muffled by the vehicle’s thick walls. On the surface, they’re protestors, but they feel more like a mob. The violent tension brewing outside is almost explosive, a powder keg just waiting for the fuse to be lit.

We pull to the side of the road and stop. It’s a downtown area. Tall brick buildings line both sides of the street. Looks familiar. Manchester, New Hampshire, I think. The driver raises his palms to the people outside the vehicle, mouthing the word, “Sorry,” over and over until they’re placated and move on. But there are more where they came from. Many more. All of them angry. Afraid.

“We’re in an ambulance,” I say. “They won’t move if you hit the siren?”

The driver just shakes his head.

Allenby puts a hand on my shoulder. “It’s best to—”

People move for ambulances. It’s a universal fact. I’m not sure why I believe this so soundly, but I do. If staying here is a risk, then we should use the tools at our disposal.

“No, don’t!” the driver shouts.

My finger is already resting on the switch for the siren. I flip it.

The siren blares to life.

But it’s not a siren.

It’s a song. “Do Your Ears Hang Low?”

The plucky tune puts words in my head. “Do they waggle to and fro?” I look at Allenby. “We’re in an ice cream truck?”

But she doesn’t respond. Her eyes are locked straight ahead on the frozen mob of more than a hundred people, all staring at us with hateful eyes. The signs lower. The chanting stops. These people have no real cause. They’re just afraid and angry, expressing it as a hot-button issue bandwagon. But the violence in their eyes is different from the eyes of people with a cause. There is nothing righteous in these people’s eyes. Instead, I see a kind of vacant mania that was commonplace in SafeHaven. These people just lacked an outlet for their pent-up violence. But now I’ve given them direction. The jingle of the ice cream truck, its jovial blare like a mocking voice, has lit the fuse. All of this comes clear to me in a moment. Only one mystery remains. “Why are we in an ice cream truck?”





4.

The crowd outside shouts at us. There are so many commingling voices that understanding the individual messages would require a supercomputer. And yet I clearly understand the communal meaning of their words: hate. But why? Who hates an ice cream truck, other than protective, corn-syrup-fearing parents?

“What are they so afraid of?” I ask, not because I’m concerned for their well-being, but because I know there could be a subtle danger that I’m not seeing simply because I wouldn’t fear it.

“How do you know they’re afraid?” Allenby asks.

“People only act like this when they’re afraid.” It’s not a memory. It’s simple knowledge. “I don’t feel what they’re feeling, but I’ve learned to recognize it in other people and understand the kinds of things it can lead to. There is no short supply of fear in a mental institution.”

“Things … are not good,” Allenby says. “Anywhere. People are afraid. And angry. Because they’re afraid. It’s boiling over into the streets. Major cities—New York, Los Angeles, Boston—are a mess. Rural areas, like most of New Hampshire, have been calm, but that appears to be changing. At first, they take to the streets, like this, latching on to whatever hot-button issue affects a certain area. Here it’s all about money. Wages. Taxes. The working-class money struggle. But things eventually take a turn for the worse. Violence. Looting. Vast destruction. People are dying.”

The driver turns off the ice cream truck music and rolls down the window a crack. “Sorry! Sorry! It was an accident.”

“Asshole!” someone shouts back. “You think what we’re doing is funny? That this is some kind of joke?”

Others join in, shaking their fists at one of America’s most beloved summertime-fun icons. The images of Bomb Pops, orange Dream Bars, and ice cream sandwiches no doubt plastered to the side of this ambulance in disguise somehow appear as a threat to these people. Something to be dealt with harshly.

The driver rolls up the window and turns to me and Allenby. “I think we should force our way through. This isn’t going to end well.”

“We can’t just run them over,” Allenby says.

“I could,” I say.

The driver shakes his head. “Of all the people to be stuck in this mess with…”

Allenby silences him with a gentle touch to his arm.

He looks back at me. “Sorry.”

Hands slap against the truck’s hood. And the sides. There’s a click all around us as the driver locks the doors. The vehicle’s interior rumbles as the people outside start pounding, venting their fear.

“Shit,” the driver says. “Shit!” The fear outside the vehicle seeps inside, taking hold of him.

I take hold of his prickly chin and turn his face toward mine. “What’s your name?” My voice is as calm as always. My pulse is rock-solid, like a metronome. Luckily, calm can be as infectious as fear.

“Blair,” he says. “Ed Blair.”

“Does whoever you work for have a helicopter?” I ask.

He nods.

“Are they far?”