Solutions: The Dilemma for Men by James Gerard (best free ebook reader .TXT) 📕

 Strong gusts of air hit Louis from behind as Trucks sped by at a furious pace.  The speed at which they travelled made the scene back in the Village look tranquil in comparison.  He could not see too far ahead of the concrete speedway to see any signs of mighty buildings that he had heard of.  Before him was only a flat view that blended into the horizon far ahead.

Thoughts of what might be encountered entered the mind.  Hector’s warnings were overcome with the excitement of something new that he had never envisioned.  But the excitement did not rest in being in the midst of the seat of the Central Council, but it concerned those he might encounter that were in many respects much like him.  Hector had not mentioned how much of God’s Faith had been worked into those in Los Angeles, but he was sure he would find brothers and sisters..

As Louis contemplated the unknown wonders, now and then a driver of a slow passing truck would offer an invitation for a ride with a blaring horn and a motion of a hand, but his strength was invigorated under the cloudless sky.  For some reason he could not explain, Louis found himself enjoying the hub of activity zooming by to the side.  The rush made it seem that what they were delivering was of mighty importance, that the Central Council under the Lord’s influence was assuring all the needs would be met no matter how the difficulty in doing so. 

Lost in his thoughts, Louis was suddenly startled by a screaming siren from behind.  The heart accelerated with anxiety.   A vehicle with its lights flashing stopped just feet behind.  Two men bolted out of the car.  He had no idea who they were or what they wanted, but by each clutching a long stick in clenched hands, he figured their intentions toward him were anything but simple curiosity.

“What are you doing walking on the side of the highway?”

“I’m on my way to Los Angeles.”

Louis saw the two men look at one another and roll their eyes.  It was easy for him to detect their disbelief in rolling eyes.

“Let me see your identification card.”

“I don’t have one.”

Both men raised the sticks they had been clutching.  Louis identified the objects of long pieces of either metal or wood and could only assume they were meant as some security device unlike what security had used back in the Village.

One of the men approached him from the front as the other walked and stood behind him.

“What do you mean you don’t have one?”

“Well, they already know who I am back at the Village.  I guess none of us ever needed an identity card.”

“What village are you talking about?”

“You mean the name of it.”

“Yes,” the man snapped, “the name?”

Louis lowered his head and contemplated the question.  As far as he could remember it had only been referred to as the Village.  Without any other name to offer he repeated the answer.

The officer all of a sudden appeared enraged.  He jabbed Louis in the chest with the stick.  Louis could not understand the problem or the violent act, but figured maybe all that was happening had to do with the ways and customs of Los Angeles.

“Where are you supposed to be right now?”

“Well, I decided to take some time off and do some….”

“Are you some sort of idiot?  Don’t you understand what I’m asking you?  Where are you supposed to be right now?”

“At work.”

“And where is work?”

“Back in the Village.  I work at one of the processing plants.”

“And why are you not there right now?”

“Because I told you I decided to take a day…well actually I think it’s more like two or three days off now.”

“Did you defect?”

“If that means did I leave without telling anyone then yes.”

The officer raised the stick in the air and with a roar stepped towards Louis.  But just as he was about to strike they were all sent flying off their feet from the burst of an explosion.  The three were  pelted by debris flying at them from the side.

Bangs and crunching, skidding and grinding, scraping and sparks from collisions clamored in the air.  More explosions rattled the ears making dull the senses.  In a state of shock, Louis found himself lying flat on his back but could not understand why.  He quickly curled his body into a ball as debris from explosion after explosion sent bits of metal haphazardly in all directions.

All he could do was lay there motionless as the thoughts were numbed with confusion, but a fervent plea for help managed to come into his consciousness.  The plea brought the mind back into reality.  He sat up and caught a glimpse of the two officers navigating through the chaos all about and race back to their vehicle.  With apparent urgency, they each frantically shouted out a call for emergency help.

The cry continued to call for immediate action.  All of a sudden Louis realized the severity of the situation.  He jumped to his feet and ran towards the licks of flames and billowing smoke encompassing the highway.  Through it all he managed to make his way to the voice now screaming even more frantically for help.  Louis fell to his knees, crawled through a narrow opening of the mangled cab, and to the panicked driver.  He could hear the driver’s labored breathing and the moans coming out of the mouth.  The driver's arms began to lose their grip on Louis's arm.

“Are you okay?” Louis shouted.

The heat from the fire all about the mangled truck neared.  Louis began to hack and cough in response to a cloud of toxic smoke that began to drift in from the wreckage.  The driver, flames shooting in from just underneath, panicked.  Awaken by the searing heat, his hands fumbled about the strap holding him securely.  Panicked, he was unable to unclasp the belt from the weight of his body pressing down onto it.

With the fire’s heat nearing an unbearable point, Louis quickly positioned his body under the driver and propped him up enough for the driver to release the belt.  The driver knocked Louis about with elbows and knees as they both attempted to crawl out of the wreckage.  Clear of the mangled mess, Louis turned back as the cab became fully engulfed in flames.

Sirens came rushing in from all directions.  Flashing lights from an assortment of vehicles came to a screeching halt.  Men raced to the carnage strewn about.  Men shouted in response to the cries emanating from deep inside the wells of twisted metal.  Rescue workers rushed in the direction of shouts.   Men raced to the cries with stretchers.  Tools were powered up to make expedient escape routes for any trapped inside.  

Louis struggled to his feet and dodged the mayhem with carefully plotted steps.  From the side of the road, standing distant from the scene unraveling before him, he grimaced in reaction to pleas for help.   With an eerie reality, the magnitude of devastation could not compare to the incidental accidents that had occurred in the Village.

Out of the corner of an eye Louis spotted a man running at him.  The man asked about his present condition, whether he had been hurt, whether he needed any medical attention, but Louis did not feel a thing.  Although his clothes were ripped and tattered, his face covered with ash from the smoke that had mixed in with sweat, no throbbing pain was present.  The man pointed out blood seeping from open wounds, from blood splotched clothes, but Louis was simply numb to any pain.  His entire conscious was subdued by a general malaise.  The man sat him down on the side of the road and raced away.

The injured, too numerous for the ambulances to handle, were rushed over to a makeshift triage center just to the side of where he sat.  The strength to utter a word, a cry of mercy to his Lord, was overcome by a nausea that sickened the stomach.  The urge to stand and do something, to attend to any one of the fallen was hampered by sapping strength.

As the moments passed he could hear from those attending to the injured.  Someone remarked how unbelievably no one had been killed.  Louis looked back to the direction of the compound and tried to think of Hector’s warning, but if it had been a warning concerning this he could not remember as waves of weakness held him captive and confusion resonated in the mind.  Silent pleas to go home, to go back to the Village where at least it was safe from such disasters, could not reenergize the strength.  

All flames had been snuffed out.  The clouds of smoke were blown away by a breeze.  What was left of many of the trucks was now just mangled wreckage.  Barely able to discern the situation, he could at least see that barriers and flashing lights that blocked the highway on either end of the carnage, prevented any other vehicle from entering until the carcasses of trucks could be pushed off to the sides and hauled away as junk.

Louis wanted to get away from the horrible memory of it all.  Still woozy, he managed to his feet and walked away in the direction of the city.  An occasional ambulance sped by.  The remnants of the accident could be seen speeding by too as industrial sized towtrucks and flatbed trucks hauled away the twisted metal.  Slowly, emergency response and security vehicles sped by and disappeared into the horizon ahead.  A convoy of regular delivery trucks soon after started to flow by.  They were the signal that the emergency had ended.

One of the drivers slowly pulled off to the side of the highway and sounded the truck’s horn.  This time Louis ceded to the offer of a ride and hopped into the cab.

“So, what happened back there?  Were you one of the drivers?”

“I’m not sure,” Louis answered, still feeling numb in a cloud of confusion.  “I think there was an accident.”

“Well, the way I heard it, someone planted a bomb on one of the trucks.”

“A bomb?” Louis mumbled.

“That’s the rumor we drivers have been hearing.”

“Who would want to do that?”

Louis became alert while he listened carefully as the driver explained the growing conflict between two of the Central Council members.  The two were in the midst of a growing battle for power.  Each had the passion to eliminate the other members that made up the Central Council and exclusively rule over all.  In their pursuit, however, one of the councilmen chose to utilize every bit of trickery at his disposal to assure the other would fail in his bid to seize the power.

“Why would they do that?” asked Louis.  “It is such nonsense really.”

“Look, to guys like us, it is out of our hands.  Anyway, whether by one man or many men, they’re going to rule us anyway.”

“But the battle is not theirs to wage, it is our Lord….”

“Hey,” the driver interrupted, “I’d be careful about that kind of talk.  I don’t know about where you came from, but talk about God is not tolerated around these parts.”

“It’s happening again isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Louis contemplated the confusion in the answer.  It was akin to the attitude back in the Village where men and women turned away again from the Lord because of what they lacked.  Men once again sought after a glory they were never entitled to, and to seek out the vanity of the self-important.

He looked to the driver and said, “Nothing.”

Queasiness accompanied Louis all the way to the outskirts of the city limits, but he somewhat perked up when the view of the mighty buildings loomed in the near