The Prophet gets down on the ground and looks into Simon’s eyes. He is a wavering form, a ghost of carbon dioxide and light.
“Those frightened people were our parents,” he tells Simon. “And rather than raising us, their children, from a place of love, they raised us in fear. Doesn’t it stand to reason that their fear would shape the adults we become? Anxious, plagued by a constant sense that something, everything, is wrong. Their fear has crippled us, and our inability to function only feeds our anxiety. We are failing at life. So now all we are is failure.”
The Prophet leans back and rests his face in the dappled sun.
“Doesn’t that sound like your life?” he says.
Simon’s breathing is normal now—a recycled calm coursing through his oxygen-starved blood. He lowers the bag.
“I don’t understand.”
“I’m saying the world you think is real is a lie. Liberal, conservative, the so-called Culture War. It’s a delusion. The end result of fear over love. And worse, our parents are training us to pick a side. But it’s all bullshit.”
Simon breathes into the paper bag, but his heart rate is de-escalating, his breaths becoming deeper, longer. The Prophet takes off his glasses, exhales on the lenses, and wipes them with his shirt.
“Listen to me, Simon,” he says. “The world they’re offering us is a lie. Do you know how I know?”
“How?” says Simon, his mouth dry. The words come out like a croak.
The Prophet returns his glasses to his face, and the effect is to magnify his already big blue eyes. He blinks at the return to vision and leans forward.
“Because we’re still dying.”
Simon lowers the paper bag. The colors of the world seem brighter now, the air fresher.
“What did God say?” he asks. “About me.”
“That he has a mission for you. That you will be instrumental in building our new utopia.”
“Our new—”
“Utopia. See, this is the message he has told me to spread. The adults are lost. We, their children, are starting over.”
On July 12, the president makes a statement from the Oval Office. He sits behind the Resolute Desk, hands clasped, expression somber.
“My fellow Americans,” he says, “I speak to you now at a moment of true peril for our nation. Not just the physical borders that define us, the physical makeup of this great land, but for us as a people. Our children are dying. They are taking their lives in numbers never before seen in the history of the planet.”
A pause as he rubs his eyes, looking tired. We know from news reports that he has slept very little since this crisis started. Visits with grieving parents. Phone calls with local officials. Round tables with physical and mental health professionals. He has pounded more than one table, demanding answers.
Now he sets his jaw, shaking off his personal feelings.
“Many of my aides,” he says, “asked me not to make this statement tonight, but I’m not just your president. I am also a father, and as a father I feel I must speak. You should know that your government is doing everything it can to understand and disrupt this phenomenon. As of this morning I have declared a state of emergency and have tasked FEMA with responding to this crisis as they would a hurricane or other act of God, for what else can you call this, if not a cataclysmic human event? Their first order of business will be to open and operate clinics around the country. I have also signed an executive order drafting all medical and psychiatric professionals to form a new corps of first responders and asked them to suspend their private practices to work instead for the good of all Americans, no matter the cost. If this is some kind of new virus or infection, we will diagnose it and find the cure.
“But there is only so much we can do. Your children are not the property of the United States government. They are yours. And though we can support you in your efforts to raise them, to care for them, to keep them alive, we cannot do it for you. So I beseech you, my fellow Americans, let us come together now—whatever our differences—and face this crisis, the way we have faced all great crises in our past. With heart, with dignity, with strength.
“And to you, our troubled youth, let me say this: We see you. We hear you. Nothing is more important than your safety. And to my own children, now ten and twelve, let me just say, Nathan, Rebecca, Daddy loves you. Mommy loves you. America loves you.”
The president pauses, his eyes welling. For a moment he chews his lower lip, getting his feelings under control. And then he nods and addresses the camera once more.
“It has been my great honor to be your president these last two years. There is no country on Earth as blessed or as commanding as this great nation. Let us come together now to meet this challenge, to save our children from darkness, so that they may one day enjoy the freedoms and opportunities that we enjoy. So that they may experience all the hope and promise of which our democracy is capable. So that they may one day lead us into the future.
“God bless you and may God bless the United States of America.”
The Conklins