A Shift in the Universe

Death
Jack

It’s weird when you see death. I stared at the body and knew it had nothing inside.“Tricia, can you hear me? Oh, my God.”Aaron held his girlfriend’s body and kept on like that, but I knew she no longer lived there. She’d dwelt in that body only moments before, and now she’s gone.What happens after you die? Where do you go?After that night, I had those questions often. Tricia made a temporary home in that body and left it an empty vessel.My parents had always trusted Aaron, my older cousin. They let me go with him when they wouldn’t let me go with anyone else.All that changed, of course, afterward. Although Aaron didn’t cause the wreck, his decision led to it. He had brought us to the party that night.I’d mostly played pool upstairs, and Aaron passed by from time to time. He wouldn’t let me drink or get high.Across from the pool table, they had a room where people went in grinning and came out wearing bigger grins, sometimes wiping powder off their noses.Aaron, Tricia, and I had crashed that party, a typical rich kid’s party that happens after the parents get away to their chateau on the French Riviera, or some such place. Tricia’s parents had bought her a Maserati, and Aaron had driven it for the first time. When we left the party, Tricia’s brother, who also had a Maserati, wanted to race.I’d seen Tricia’s brother go into that room that made bigger grins and told Aaron.Aaron wouldn’t race but that didn’t stop Tricia’s brother.Tricia wound up dead in her brand-new Maserati.I told you that story, so you’d know the difference between my childhood and that of most people.In the next couple of chapters, you’ll meet two people with childhoods quite different from mine, which also is a consequence—a consequence of a decision Richard Paul Thomas the Second made later that day back in 1812.

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Decisions and Consequences
Jack

Decisions and consequences, you reap what you sew, what comes around goes around. That night of the Maserati crash opened my parents' eyes as well as my own. They realized the direction we headed as a family and the curse of wealth upon their son. They saw the real me, not their little boy but a transmutation.As much as I hurt for Aaron, I hurt worse for the Maserati. There goes my sixteenth birthday present. I’d hoped to get one just like Tricia’s when that year rolled around.What a stinking way to think.What a stinking world I live in.Will I be like everyone else?I wouldn’t have used the words “decisions” and “consequences” back then, but I started understanding the truth they represent when put together.What happened to Tricia planted a seed. What later happened to Aaron made it grow and led to a huge decision on my part. You’ll learn about that decision soon.But enough of that—here’s the rest of the story, starting with Reuben on that hotel room floor staring at me face to face on that fateful morning.

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Back Cover
(Lionel - Year 2022)

On the day they sold Lionel into slavery, he waited for the elevator and stretched his legs. Coach expected some miles from him this weekend.His parents had fought again.Would they split? Would they make him move?Would he lose his dog?As he watched the lighted numbers bounce above the door, his fingertip felt the groove of the half-moon part above his forehead. His palm spread over his high fade cut. He stepped in the elevator, and his Adidas Ultraboosts felt firm and cushioned on the marble tile.He’d just left his parents behind in their three-bedroom luxury condo, once known as the Hotel Rivermont, built when black people couldn’t even book a room. The new owner had updated the building with all the fancy perks, but he’d skimped on the elevator, which gave some funky rides that dinged and clanged while nuts and bolts grinded above—uninspiring sounds, sounds no one should hear in an elevator.What might happen, he wondered, if the elevator opened to the Rivermont lobby?

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Paul Hiram Thomas II
Year 1812

He heard a voice in the middle of the night.“Paul,” it said, “Paul Hiram”.Did he really hear a voice or a whisper from a dream? Might his father be waking him for school?Half asleep, half awake, he remembered … but scenes blurred in and out, faces and people, places and memories—such are dreams, a panorama of clouded emotion.He saw Elias’s face, centered in the panorama.“Paul Hiram Thomas, why didn’t you do something?”Between dreamworld and reality, the soft feathers through his mattress drew him in, while the roots and the rocks below his feet, and the laughter of the older boys around him, brought memories so intense, through a clouded mirage, they became real. Drifting away through feathers, he watched and relived the day before.Paul sat with Elias, a boy two years older than him, eating lunch on the trunk of a fallen tree in the woods near his schoolhouse. Elias had walked from the plantation to Paul’s school to bring him the mutton and bread they both shared. In front of them, in a clearing, stood a huge tree they both loved to climb. While they chomped their food, Paul scanned that tree from the bottom of its trunk to the top of its crown, where its topmost branches stretched into the sky.“Do we got time to climb that tree?” asked Elias.“You know I can’t, Elias, not while school’s in session.”“Yeah, but it don’t hurt to try.”Paul chewed a bite of mutton, then spit out the fat. “You’re lucky,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about school.”“Quit your griping,” said Elias emphatically. “You are learning to read.” He dug at a half-buried rock with his shoe and flicked it out, then threw it into a hollow in the trunk of the climbing tree.Paul picked up a rock and threw it at the same hollow. It hit the edge and ricocheted out.“When you get older like me,” said Elias, “you’ll know that learning is a good thing.” He took a swallow from the canteen they shared. “What’d you learn today?”“We’re reading, reciting, and memorizing something Thomas Jefferson wrote, something we went to war over, a war we might be fighting again.”“Are we going to war?” said Elias.“It looks that way. My Pa sees it coming any day now.”“What did Mr. Thomas Jefferson say to cause a war?”“He talked about truths,” said Paul, “but I don’t understand the way he wrote it.”“What did you understand?”An insect flew past, and Paul swiped it away. “Not much.”“Did you memorize it?”“Not much.”“Come on, what’d you memorize?”Paul cleared his throat, then spoke in an oratorical tone. “We hold these truths to be self-evident.”Elias grinned.“How do you hold a truth?” said Paul, “and what’s 'self-evident' mean?”
Elias picked up a small branch and handed it to Paul. “Write it in the dirt.”Paul finished his bite of bread and took his time scratching it out.“I like that sentence,” said Elias.“How do you hold a truth?” said Paul again.“You hold a truth by believing it,” said Elias with certitude.“What about the last part?”Elias leaned forward in concentration. “I think ‘self-evident’ means you don’t have to be smart to understand it.” He raised an eyebrow and tilted his head. “So, what are ‘these truths’, Paul?”Just then, a crowd of older boys ran into the clearing. Paul knew all three from his classroom.
Jed, the largest boy, wore patched overalls.Arnold had bad acne. The fresh red marks at the tip of the largest pimples betrayed that he’d been picking them.George, in brand new overalls, stood with his hands on his hips, grinning at Paul. George usually acted friendly when away from Jed and Arnold.“What we got here?” said Jed.“A boy and his slave,” said Arnold.“Ain’t that special,” said George.Paul sat scared, holding his food on his lap, not touching it. Elias pulled back, nearly dropping his food but caught it.“You’re lucky to have a slave, Paul,” said George. “None of us got one.”“That ain’t right,” said Jed. “How come you got one, and we don’t?” He looked at Arnold and George. “Gentlemen, we need to get us a slave.”Paul cowered, hoping they’d just go away.“Let’s have an auction,” said Arnold.“Yes, an auction,” said Jed, and grabbed Elias by the arm pulling him up. Arnold grabbed the other arm, and they placed him on top of a tree stump.“The highest bidder get’s to keep him,” said Jed.Elias stood on the stump in submission, looking straight ahead.“Take a good look at him,” said Jed. “This fine young lad is worth at least fifty dollars.”Paul ached for Elias who knew better than to fight back or run. Paul, however, knew he could do something. He could stand up and resist them, but he didn’t.“Fifty? Ha,” said Arnold. “He ain’t worth more than a dollar.”“I bid a dollar,” said George.Elias had a trace of tears in his eyes, and Paul hoped he wouldn’t give in to them.Paul finally stood up. “Stop it,” he shouted. “He belongs to my Pa.”
Paul cringed inside. What a horrible, stupid thing to say, as if he fought over ownership of Elias.How could those words escape his mouth? He should say something else, but what?“He’s mine now,” said Jed. “And I ain’t selling him for no measly dollar.”“Two dollars,” said George. He picked up two stones and handed them to Jed.“Sold,” yelled Jed. Then he and Arnold grabbed Elias and handed him to George.The three boys ran back toward the schoolhouse laughing.The shame inside Paul weighed his head down. He couldn’t bear to look at Elias.The dream faded away—Elias, the tree stump, and the clearing in the woods disappeared, but not the shame.“Paul,” said the dream voice, “you are loathsome.”He had nowhere to hide from that accusation.“Paul,” said another voice, “time to get up for school, son.”

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Prologue - Reuben
Year 1962

You’ve never seen a hotel bed with space underneath to hide, but I assure you, once upon a time, such beds existed.Although Reuben had no memory of the war, the Nazis had left plenty of scars. The trauma stirred within him now as consciousness returned.He opened his eyes. A teenage boy, about his own age, lay under a bed in front of him.Immediately, the boy gasped, startling Reuben who jerked and stared hard back at him. The boy slapped a hand over his own mouth, too late to restrain the sound.Reuben lay on the edge of a throw rug, its stale odor filling his nostrils. The wooden floor of the room pressed against his aching head and busted cheekbone, at least it felt busted. His whole body ached, but he could not remember why.On the other side of the boy, another teen lay with his index finger pressed against his mouth, silently pleading with Reuben not to give them away.Who are these guys? Why are they under the bed? Rancor stirred his gut. Why would complete strangers steal under his bed and expect him to say nothing? Whether they had good reason to be afraid or not, he didn’t care. A strange reaction, but emotions could be like that for Reuben.The boys stared back at him, faces frozen—eyes wide in terror.

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An Epic Tale of Preposterous Events
Jack

On the day they sold Lionel into slavery, I woke as any other day, just like he did. In the same building even, but with an insurmountable chasm separating us, or so you’d think, a chasm so deep, long, and wide that it’s the death knell to any friendship, but you’ll understand that in due time.My name is Jack Murdock, Tyler Jackson Murdock. My dad likes to call me Tyler Jackson since it has a ring befitting a member of the Murdock family. Still, I like the name “Jack” myself since it sounds like a regular kid, like the Jack in the movie Titanic, which, by the way, Hollywood hasn’t filmed yet, or maybe even Jack Dawkins, the artful dodger, both of whom you’d never call wealthy white boys.I’m also the kid who startled Reuben from under his bed, as well as the narrator of that last tidbit prologue. In fact, I’m the narrator for it all, a story that spans centuries—different times, different places, different people, and different ways of thinking. Don’t get frustrated keeping track of all the times, places, and people. This is an epic tale after all.Before it’s over we’ll explore the mysterious purposes of God, His unsearchable judgments, and His paths beyond tracing out.Despite the complexity, it’s a homespun tale with outrageous adventures (every word of them true) and dumb laughs, cringeworthy even—but pay close attention and your eyes will open to the world we cannot see, the world of good and evil, darkness and light, demons and angels, time and its relativity, and, most important—the divine purpose of God woven into the fabric of our existence, the fabric of our universe.I figure, being so many pieces to this puzzle, I’ll give one piece at a time from a distance since I know the whole story from beginning to end and can relate it through those who gave me the details. I’ll write through pimples, and act like a kid, laugh at stupid things, and dance around. I’ll turn gray and write sophisticated beyond my years as if timeless—as timeless as life, death, and consequences and as boys coming of age and losing their innocence, like when you see the darkness in your soul while facing a fork in the road, knowing you must choose one path or the other.

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Ricky
Year 1962

Ricky heard his uncle spit and saw the chaw fly past him, splatting into the brown water, which churned beside the towboat, the white foam swirling atop the grand old Mississippi, the Father of Waters.On the larboard, atop a bluff, a tree stretched into the sky almost touching the clouds. Ricky longed to climb its topmost branches and take in the view.They followed a bend in the river.Behind them, the barge stretched out like a football field.Before them, way in the distance lay another bend in the river.He heard the music again and looked upriver into the trees from where it came. “Uncle Charley, do you hear that music?”“You hear music, son?” His uncle grinned a puckered smile, a smile that old guys make when talking with teenagers. “Well, isn't that something? You hear the music.”“Yes sir, I also thought I saw lights through those trees over there, but they’re gone now. Is something coming up around the bend?”His uncle stared at him long and hard. “You ever hear of Hopefield, Arkansas?”Ricky shook his head.“Hopefield set on the Mississippi south of Memphis way back in the Civil War, a thorn in the side of the Union.”Uh oh, Ricky had heard about his uncle and the Civil War. Once you get him started, he won’t stop. His dad had warned him.“After the Yankees took Memphis,” said his uncle as a sports caster might begin describing the winning touchdown at the Cotton Bowl. “The people of Hopefield swore their allegiance, but not for real. Secretly, the Rebels used Hopefield as a base of operations. First, they captured the Transport Musulman up the river from Memphis. Then they plundered the steamer Grampus at the Wolf River. The final straw occurred when the vessel Hercules headed upstream with seven barges full of coal.” The words flowed with passion as if he might burst from enthusiasm as if he had just ridden the longest and tallest roller coaster in the world.Ricky stared at his uncle, whom he did not know well. His uncle must be an encyclopedia, he thought. He truly means to inflict all these facts upon me.“On that day, Captain John McCluskey landed the Hercules in a heavy fog at Mound Landing—built by slaves’ blood and sweat. Then a band of Confederate cavalrymen dashed up on horseback and took it right from him, torched it, and made off with all they could carry.”“That is something, sir,” said Ricky, shocked that any human being would learn all those facts without a teacher making them do it. “My dad told me you’re part of the Sons of the Civil War?”
“You betcha, a proud descendant of General George Henry Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga, which means you are too, young man.”He detected a change in his uncle’s voice, a hint of suspicion that Ricky did not hang on his every word.“So, what happened next, Uncle?”“The Yankees could take no more and dispatched a fleet of mortar boats to shell the woods around Hopefield. Then they burnt the city to the ground.”“Excuse me, Captain,” said one of the crewmen.Uncle Charley turned his head.“I just put some papers on your desk you might want to look at. The quartermaster says they need your signature before we get to Memphis.”“Thank you,” said his uncle, nodding toward the man who then walked away. “Oh, one second, Chester. Could you take a look at the tie-downs on the transom? They’re getting loose.”Ricky looked out on the water for the lights he had seen before. He still heard the music, but barely, on-again, off-again. The sun had set, but dusk’s light still reflected on the horizon. Nothing but wilderness surrounded them, fields, trees, mud, wild grass, and patches of land, the aroma of water and wildlife—all filling his senses. He loved chugging along the river all alone—at least he’d thought himself alone until he’d heard the music.“Have I bored you silly, Ricky?”“No sir—what happened to Hopefield next?“Do you really want to know, or are you just humoring an old man?”Ricky didn’t say anything. He figured a high-powered microscope adjusted carefully might find some interest inside him, maybe even enough that he could nod his head with a clear conscience.His uncle hit the palm of his hand with his fist and grimaced, frustration oozing out the pores of his skin. “I wish I could shake your shoulders, young man. Why don’t you get it?”Ricky jumped back, caught off guard, not sure what to say. He hadn’t seen his uncle act like that before, but he mostly had distant memories of him from his earliest years.“That Bible you just committed yourself to obeying is also a book of history. It records what’s happened to man for thousands of years. Don’t you think God cares about history?”“Yes sir!” Ricky nodded, standing up straight at attention.“We’ve got a rich family history ourselves, young man, a history of faith that first dwelt in our forefathers.“Look around you, Ricky! Feel the history! Think about all that’s happened on this very river in the centuries before you popped out of your mama, day-after-day, year-after-year floating along—Old Man River.” His uncle slapped the banister, the top side of the boat railing. “You listen up now. Look at this river. Go back in time a thousand years. Indians alone traveled these waters. Hundreds of years later, the conquistadores crossed it. Then a couple hundred more, Lewis and Clark came and went. Man built steamships that chugged up and down it. Mark Twain brought it all to life in stories and made its history something you could breathe inside you just as if you’d been there.“Are you listening, Ricky?” He slapped the banister again.Ricky sure enough listened now.“Feel the history—living, moving, breathing. Feel it deeply. They fought battles here. Men bled and died. Slaves lived brutal, hopeless lives while the white man prospered. Then God rose up during the Civil War and put those white men in their place.”A big smile spread across Uncle Charly’s face. “I live all this out in my head, Ricky, as I go up and down the river, just as if I’d been there myself. I imagine it, watch it, feel it, hear it.”Uncle Charley stopped, leaned over inches away from Ricky’s face, eye-to-eye. “What if we could actually go back in time and be there?”His uncle placed his hands on top of the banister and stretched until he got a good crack from his back. “Yeah, I needed that.” He looked back at Ricky, steady in the eyes once again. “Any chance I made the slightest hint of a crack in that thick-as-granite teenage skull of yours?”Ricky chose his words carefully. “Maybe just a scratch, Uncle,”Now that the smoke had cleared from the conversation, he no longer feared for his safety. Maybe his uncle wasn’t crazy after all, just passionate. “So, what happened next?”“They rebuilt it,” his uncle paused and gave a serious raise of his eyebrows, “while fighting off yellow fever and the floods of the Mississippi. They rebuilt a wild and reckless town, with more saloons than churches, a different kind of thorn in the side to Memphis—gambling, drinking, women, and even duels—a man would count ten paces in an open field and blow off the top of your head for the slightest offense.“The men in Memphis were its not-so-proud customers. They’d sneak across the river, dirty up their souls, and bring that dirt back inside them to their families at home—no telling the future of a family or a city when you dirty it up with sin.”They looked upriver as their towboat and the barge it towed approached the bend.“So, Ricky, what do you think of life on the Mississippi?” asked his uncle. “Would you like to spend your summer working with me out here? We could have some grand adventures and make up for those years we lost.”“I’ve been thinking about it, Uncle. What a cool way to live.” Ricky paused, looked away, and shifted on his feet. Then his eyes lit up. “My dad told me you’ve got an old pair of dueling guns. Could I see them sometime?”Just then, the towboat and its long cargo rounded the bend. They passed a stream that poured into the river under tall trees on both sides. A mist hung over the land, which cleared into unexpected shapes. Ricky saw scattered pieces of buildings surrounded by forest, rusted railroad beams jutting up here and there, a few grave markers set off by themselves, and the frame of a log cabin set on pilings in the center of a field. Farther back, another magnificent tree like the one he’d just seen, a mountain of a tree, jutted out from the landscape, its branches extending far and wide, chock-full of memories of an age long ago. How much time had passed since that tree’s first shoot had popped through the dirt? How much history had it seen? Not far from the tree, in another field, set a broken-down brick building with a chimney poking through.Ricky took a deep breath and soaked it all in—that must be it, age-old Hopefield, now a ghostly wasteland of broken buildings and broken dreams.“You see those graves over there,” said his uncle. “That’s the old Grenock Cemetery. That, and the rest of it, is all that’s left of the town of Hopefield, now just Hopefield Point. Those Rebels paid a price for buying and selling people and making them slaves.” His uncle leaned down and looked Ricky eye-to-eye once again. “As to the lights and music you’ve been hearing, maybe you should ponder that inside you a tad and only let it out carefully. Folks could start thinking your nut is a couple turns short of tight.”Their boat rolled along, steady on its course, while a faint shimmer of starlight snuck through the clouds, reflecting on the water, breaking into the darkness before them.

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Gabriella
Year 1862

She heard a voice in the middle of the night.“Gabriella,” it said, “Gabriella”.
Did she really hear a voice or a whisper from a dream? Might her mother be waking her for school?Half asleep, half awake, she remembered … but scenes blurred in and out, faces and people, places and memories—such are dreams, a panorama of clouded emotion. She saw the boy’s face, centered in the panorama.“Gabriella, why didn’t you do something?”Between dreamworld and reality, the soft feathers through her mattress drew her in, while the splintered surface of the wooden walkway and the nonchalant, uncaring chit-chat around her brought memories so intense, through a clouded mirage, they became real. Drifting away through feathers, she watched and relived the day before.“To Be Sold and Let by Public Auction,” the sign had said, dated that very day, an auction, with fleeting notice, designed to escape the watchful eyes of the Union Army in Memphis, which soon might demand from them an oath of loyalty, as they had in other towns near Memphis.It’s happening today—but when? She looked down the street to the Town Square, seeing the crowds in the distance. This might just be the last auction until the war is over.It’s happening right now. Should she get her mother from the dress shop?An older boy stood on the platform, too far for her to see his face, but she could see his body language and skin color. Her heart went out to him and all those in chains and shackles lined up behind him.It’s not just the auction that stirred her so intensely, nor the people lined up in chains—she’d seen all that before. The boy in particular had her attention. She felt a calling. What should she do? She felt compelled to do something, but what? The right thing to do existed. What was it? How could she know? She hesitated, then stepped off the wooden walkway and ran like a shepherd would toward a lion that had one of his precious sheep in its mouth.The looks of consternation on the faces of those around her, however, slowed her down. Young ladies in dresses do not run through dirty streets. She changed to a rapid walk but still her feet kicked up dust, sure to dirty her white dress and maybe the clothes of those around her. In her peripheral she saw a couple of friends from school and their families whom she pretended not to notice. Most of those friendships had not proven real. Oh no, Marybeth and her mother too, why them, of all people? more ammo to use in the war.Marybeth’s war, not hers.She arrived breathing heavily at the platform, with, as expected, a dirt-brown dress at the hemline. Standing at the back of the crowd, she pushed to the front, close enough to see the splintered wood at the edge of the platform. She looked up at the boy, nearly a man. His eyes wandered over the crowd in a daze. Chains and shackles lay at his feet, unused for now, but she saw the marks on his ankles where they had been.The white men around him wore tightly tailored coats and trousers. The male slaves wore homespun breaches with coarse hemp shirts, and blank stares on their faces. The female slaves wore full-bodied cotton gowns or plain gray dresses with cloth head wraps and clutched their children tightly if they had any. No white women stood on that platform.In slow motion it seemed, the white men moved about, organizing documents, checking lists, positioning the merchandise, while the slaves waited their turns, their moment in time on the auction block to the highest bidder. They either stood alone or grouped in families.
Amidst it all, a couple of male slaves began chatting and even laughed, just another day of horse-trading where you’re the horse—one person’s nightmare, another one’s casual event.Gabriella stood unique in the crowd, no other so-called ladies near her.The boy, not much older than her, stood next in line, with an unweathered, clear complexion, as if he had grown up in the plantation house, not on the field. His hair had been roughly cut short, yet his sideburns had been shaved cleanly with a razor. How strange. He did not look like the other slaves, resigned to their fate. He did not look defiant. He looked terrified, horror-stricken like she’d never seen before, all alone, without a family. That must be it. He’s being sold away from his family for the first time, but she’d seen that before too. What about him had stood out from such a distance? Why had she felt compelled to come so quickly?She overheard a conversation from the side of the platform by the steps where the line of slaves began.“Master, I’d be a good slave for you, strong as an ox and work twice as hard. I done taught my boy the same, sir. Look at those arms a his.” The boy smiled, lowered his eyes, and bowed down a bit. “My wife? Who-eee can she cook. She teaching my girl too. And my girl will clean a room and leave nary a speck a dust. You be mighty happy with my family, sir.”Gabi’s heart ached as she saw the broken, submissive smiles of the man’s family. She looked at the potential master and saw a friendliness to his face, not as cold and hard as the rest of the gentlemen in the crowd who perused the merchandise. The slave father must have seen it too, his future depending on the kindness of the master who bought him and hopefully bought his whole family as well.The gentleman smiled at the slave father, took a keychain watch from his vest pocket, glanced at it, then walked onto the other slaves down the line, nodding politely to the father.The boy’s turn arrived. “Ladies and gentlemen,” the auctioneer announced. “Next, we have an exceptional young negro.” They pulled his sackcloth shirt off him, leaving him naked at the waist, and prodded him onto the auction block, his terror-stricken eyes open-wide, a gateway to his soul, where his nightmare lived, a nightmare the crowd could not flippantly disregard.Maybe they’d kidnapped him from the north. She’d heard of that before, someone born free up north, having an education, living like a white man, with no expectation of slavery in his future, then kidnapped, thrown on a ship, and sold on the auction block almost overnight. That was the terror she saw in his eyes, a terror not yet resigned to its fate, unhardened by hopelessness, then thrust into it, feeling the full brunt of slavery’s evil all at once. She felt the terror herself, as if that were her on the auction block.The intensity of the moment had not escaped the crowd, the discomfort thick in the air as people fidgeted about in silence, some looking away. The boy, his expression, the indifferent tone of the auctioneer, threatened the onlookers, their delusion of goodness, their self-deception of right and wrong. The veil that covered their eyes had slipped briefly, offering a glimpse inside themselves, behind the veil that protected them from the truth, the truth we all hide from, in one form or another. Something is wrong with us.“A strong, healthy workhorse of a boy,” continued the auctioneer, “with many years of hard-working labor stored in those muscles you see. Who will make the first bid?”If only Grandpa had been there, she thought, as the panorama faded. He would have put an end to the bidding quickly, just like he’d done with Quigley and his family.Then the dream voice returned. “Gabriella, the high and mighty, self-righteous one, why didn’t you do something? You weep, you plead, you hurt, but you don’t do anything.” The voice laughed. “You just stand and watch.”She woke now and clung to memories of her grandfather. He had done something. He had been the first to take a stand and fight. Afterward, the rest of us followed. But now what?“Gabi,” she heard her mother’s voice. “Gabi, it’s time to get up.”

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A Shift in the Universe
(final chapter)
Year 1812

The dream faded—Elias, the tree stump, and the clearing in the woods disappeared, but not the shame.“Paul,” said the dream voice, “you are loathsome.”He had nowhere to hide from that accusation.“Paul,” said another voice, “time to get up for school, son.”He opened his eyes to the smile of his father sitting beside him on his bed. “How’d you sleep?”“I need to tell you something,” said Paul.His pa put his hand on Paul’s shoulder, and Paul told him the whole story, including the dream and the voice."I didn't know what to say, Pa. I just watched the whole thing like a coward. Then when I finally spoke, I said something foolish."His Pa took a deep, knowing breath. "Ignorance, foolishness, and pride are all around us." He stood up. "And inside us too—you'll have to live with them the rest of your life." He looked down at Paul who had leaned himself up on his elbows. “Get your clothes on young man. We’ll talk more at breakfast.”As Paul dressed, he looked out the window from the second floor of their plantation. A fresh and lively Southern, Spring morning stared back at him, but he didn’t see its beauty. Wagons, horses, and people scurried about.He opened the window and stuck out his head. The crisp air cooled his face. A slave walked by pushing a wheelbarrow and waved at him. “Good morning, young master.”Paul returned a perfunctory nod and pulled in from the window.The slaves worked in the field, in the heat of the sun on a cloudless day—a tough job for a paid worker, a nightmare for a slave. The white overseers stood by watching them. At least they didn’t have whips. His pa would not abide by that.Paul looked around his room. Ideally located at the corner of the house, with a window in each of the two outside walls allowing a breeze to pass through. He had a fancy pitcher full of water with porcelain cups next to it, set on a fancy chiffonier, brought by a slave to his door each morning. He had a room full of Chippendale furniture, imported from Europe, and a closet full of fancy clothes for every occasion—even some silk shirts.He had it made, born with a silver spoon in his mouth as they say. All because he’d been born white to a rich pappy.What if he’d been born a slave?At breakfast, the whole family gathered as usual. His Pa said nothing about the story he’d told him, which Paul didn’t mind at all. He’d rather keep his shame to himself.When Paul took his last bite, his Pa stood up. “When you’re ready, Hiram, we’ll walk together to your school, so we can talk.” His Pa called him Hiram sometimes since they both had the same name, Paul Hiram Thomas—Senior and Junior.Paul did not like the suffix, Junior, however. The moniker “Paul Hiram Thomas the Second” set better with him. Besides, he planned to have a Paul Hiram Thomas the Third someday.Later, as he and his father walked along, they passed the slaves who worked the fields on both sides. Paul made small talk, and his dad listened.When Paul stopped talking, he heard the scuffing of their shoes on the rocky, dirt road and the birds singing their morning songs. He smelled the dust their shoes kicked up, making both of their clothes dusty, especially his father’s frolic coat.His pa opened his shiny pocket watch and glanced at it. The gold chain hung at his side. His pa cut the perfect image of a powerful, austere plantation owner.“Do you have a meeting this morning, Pa?”“Yes, and it’s too hot for these clothes now.” He began taking off his black, frolic coat, with the help of Paul who grabbed one sleeve. As Paul tugged at the sleeve, the cuff links held firm to the wrist, and the coat, pulled over it, got caught. Father and son laughed together. They tugged away in the middle of the road while the slaves, on both sides of the road, watched. Finally, the coat gave way, and the cuff links popped off. One of them hit his pa in the forehead.Jack laughed even harder, and so did his pa—then even the slaves joined in.Jack picked up the cuff links while his pa wiped the perspiration off his forehead with his frolic coat.The perspiration had soaked into his cravat, so he took it off and folded his cravat and frolic coat over his arm.His father turned to the slaves, took a slight bow, and said, “We hope you enjoyed the show.”They laughed.The father and son continued walking.Paul dreaded that he’d have to wear clothes like that someday.On their dusty journey, those they passed showed an obvious regard for his father as usual.He looked at his pa. “Are you planning to say something to Jed, Arnold, and George when we get to school?”“I’m not sure. I may just give them a long hard look in the eyes. I know their fathers, and they know that I know their fathers.”His pa could have an intimidating presence when he wanted. He had a fierce look, a warning look that said a hundred words. Paul had been its recipient before.“I’m hurting for Elias, Pa. Yesterday those boys called Elias my slave as if that’s something to brag about. They want their own slaves.” He put his hands in his pockets and hunched his shoulders. “I’m not proud that we own Elias. We shouldn’t own him.”“You know I’m not proud of owning people either,” said his father, “but we need to own slaves, and I’ve told you why.”Paul shook his head. “Do you remember when we took the steamboat to New Orleans last year?”His father nodded.“Do you remember the slave auction?”“What are you getting at, Paul?”“I ran into Billy Perkins back then. He came with his father to buy more slaves.” Paul took a deep breath. “That Perkins’ plantation already has hundreds of slaves.“As we stood there, near the auction, Billy pointed out a pretty black girl about his own age standing in line with her family to be auctioned. ‘Look at her,’ he said. ‘She’d make one amazing concubine.’ He told me his Pa has concubines, and he uses them to make other slaves. ‘You don’t always have to buy them,’ he said. ‘You can make your own.’ He thought himself funny and laughed. Imagine that. Billy’s father doesn’t give birth to children. He gives birth to property.”A wagon came alongside them and slowed down. “Good morning Mr. Thomas,” he said deferentially. “Would you two like a ride?”“Thank you kindly, mister, but my son and I are taking this time to talk.”The man tipped his hat and rode off, kicking up more dust.“I’ve been thinking a lot about Billy and his family,” Paul said.“Son, stay away from that Perkin’s boy. I stay away from his father except for business.”“Just think, Pa. If you had me by a concubine, I’d be your slave.”His father cringed.That had cut.Then Paul had an inspiration, a conviction from deep inside, words different from what he’d normally choose. He looked at his father until he had his attention.“Paul Hiram Thomas,” he said, then cleared his throat. “God does not want you taking part in slavery. He does not want you to own slaves.”His father looked at him, confused, then angry. He looked down at the ground and then back at Paul. He spoke each word of his response slowly. “Paul Hiram Thomas Junior, I don’t see any way out of owning slaves.”Later at lunchtime, Paul watched Elias walk up the road toward the schoolhouse carrying the bag that held their lunch. Paul walked down to meet him. He’d dreaded this moment and still had no idea what to say. He and Elias connected at the climbing tree.“Hello, Elias.”Elias nodded and handed him the lunch bag.“With your permission,” said Elias with carefully pronounced sarcasm, “I won’t be staying for lunch. I’ll just head back to the plantation.”Paul looked down and Elias walked away.Paul watched him until the sounds of nature covered the sound of Elias’s footsteps. Next to Paul, on the other side of the road from the climbing tree, a trail opened that led down to the river. He took it.The air became crisp as he entered the shade. When he kicked a dead branch off the path, a squirrel ran up a tree. He turned a corner, and the downward slope of the path shifted his weight while the sound of the rolling river increased.He thought of the pretty girl standing in line in New Orleans waiting to be sold, the anguished look on her face. Back then he did indeed know what Billy meant by having a concubine, but he didn’t understand the big deal. He didn’t have those desires. Now he did. Now he understood why men want concubines. Now he understood the power of those feelings, those longings.Jed, Arnold, and George don’t have what he has and likely never will. He, on the other hand, should easily have all the pleasures this world has to offer.Elias can’t—and neither can that pretty girl.Thoughts filled his mind, dreadful, specific thoughts, almost as if a voice said them. He loved and hated those thoughts.Then he remembered his shame. The shame he felt about Elias. The shame he knew would come if he took the wrong path now, the natural, easy path, if he fulfilled his desires in the wrong way, in a way that displeased God.But maybe the shame would go away if he ignored it.He prayed.He prayed more deeply and more powerfully than he’d ever prayed before.When he reached the shore, a big New Orleans steamboat headed his way down the river.Up the trail, a small clearing opened with a stump in the middle, like the one Elias had to stand on yesterday.He walked to that stump, knelt, and leaned on his elbows. He heard laughter and party music from the steamboat passing behind him.He told God how he felt. He told God about his shame. He asked God to help his father set their slaves free. He asked God for the power that he himself would need to resist the desires fighting to overwhelm him. He wondered, in the back of his mind, if his pa had ever had a concubine.A deep, rich love for God stirred within him, a love for God and everything He stands for. That love hadn’t stirred within him in a long time. Why had it gone away?“God,” he said, “I love You”. Then he lost his words. A battle raged inside him between his desires and his love for God, desires for the things of this world and the boasting of what man has and does. He knew God punished sinners, but at a moment like this, punishment didn’t matter. People do what’s wrong and get away with it all the time. Maybe it’s not so bad anyway. He’d never allow himself to be as bad as Billy Perkins.But he can’t allow himself to hurt people either. He can’t hurt Elias. He can’t hurt people standing in lines at auctions living a nightmare.He choked up.Most of all, he can’t hurt God. He imagined the pain God endures at the horrible things people do to each other, people whom God loves so much.“God,” he said, “I love You. He paused and dug down deep into his soul where convictions that last a lifetime reside. “I’m going to love and obey You the rest of my life.”Suddenly, the earth rumbled and shook—the land, the trees, the shore, and the river. The ground rippled below his knees. Paul clung to the stump and looked around. Downriver, the steamboat gyrated and swirled about.The water stopped flowing forward as if a hand held it back, turned in a directionless, sloshing pool for a timeless moment, and then flowed backward.Staring in awe and wonder, he beheld a miracle of nature. He’d even forgotten to breathe. An earthquake, he’d never passed through one before.One day, many years later, he would reflect on this moment. Was it an earthquake or a shift in the universe?The shift unleashed when a young person loves God with all their heart, chooses to seek Him the rest of their life, and truly means it?

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