Identity. Jeff MDiv Sieniewicz
of losing custody of his son had set in. That happened later, so at the time he had been determined to get Johnathon back, and weeks later Frank had indeed kicked his drug habit. But even having done so, he had not been reunited with his child.
The state orphanages had been full at the time of Jonathan being made a ward of the state, so the practice of stationing the child with a qualifying and willing family within California had been put to use.
This step was intended to be for a brief period of time until the biological parents could regain custody rights. If that was not a possibility, then until a spot in an orphanage opened up, or permanent adopted parents could be found. That was the intention of the program, but would not be the case with young Johnathon.
After his release from drug rehab, Frank had appealed to the state to gain the rights of his child back. He won, yet due to problems with the documentation, the guardians who had been given Johnathon were not to be found.
Despite attempts from the state to locate them, as well as desperate personal ones from Frank to do the same, they had disappeared with Johnathon. And the fact they could not be found was no accident.
The two had used a loophole in the system to hide their true identity, and proceeded to sell Johnathon through a back channel to a wealthy and willing husband and wife unable to have children on their own. Shortly after selling him they fled the country for fear of being captured. These facts were later uncovered and became known to both the authorities and Frank.
What neither Frank nor the state ever discovered was that months after Johnathon’s wealthy new guardians had acquired him, they died in a car accident just outside Los Angeles. With them having no close relatives to take Johnathon, he was once again put back into California’s orphanage system. With all these dots impossible to connect back to Frank, and after a lengthy yet unsuccessful investigation by the state of California, Johnathon’s matter was deemed settled, at least by the state.
And after several months of intense yet futile personal search efforts for Johnathon, Frank was also left to consider the case over, and to go about his new life completely alone. A life that had accumulated substantial payment amounts owing of the dirtiest eight-letter word in American vocabulary: mortgage.
Being mindful of that responsibility, he eventually went back to school and studied finance, something that would give him stable although bland employment.
Leaving his dream of writing and later the house he had bought with Sarah behind, Frank bravely started his new job hoping to make the best of whatever life he could manage. All the while he was left in a state of pronounced longing to be reunited with Johnathon. He couldn’t help it; he knew that until he was reunited with his son, that cold November wind would not cease to blow. Not ever.
Chapter Seven
“--then escaping with five thousand dollars in cash. Police are currently looking for any help in locating this individual.” As the television played on, Frank groaned from deep within as he shifted back and forth on the couch, waking to the newscaster's voice and the radiating glow of the television. Outside it had already been dark for hours.
On his way back from cleaning up the spilled beer Frank noticed there were now two distinct glows in the room. As usual, one was from the television, but the source of the other he had much more difficulty in discerning.
This strange light was emerging from the area nearest the door. Cautiously, he made his way toward the glow, feeling relieved as he saw that it was just the glowing rock he had brought in hours ago.
Relief that is until he remembered that rocks as far as he knew do not glow. Not even a little bit. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t. So he continued, nervously looking closer, picking it up as if it were a wounded bird that could at any time explode without warning.
The predetermined rock felt bare and sterile, but what caught Frank’s attention as he turned it in his hands was the tiny bit of warmth it was currently emitting.
It felt not unlike a rock that had spent centuries in a windy, cold, and harsh climate, then been thrown under a heating lamp at a local McDonald’s for a few minutes.
Just as he was examining the features of the object more and more closely, there came three loud pounding knocks at the door.
A somewhat startled Frank went and opened the knocking door, and in spilled two men flashing badges while decrying their “unquestionable authority” in the name of one George Washington.
Still feeling a bit groggy from his long nap, Frank shook his head violently back and forth trying to focus. He had obviously misheard that final part.
“Umm, what is this about?” he asked. His voice sounded more like a whimper rather than the confident inquiry he had intended.
“There it is. Right there!” the short burly officer said to the other, both entirely ignoring Frank’s presence.
“Yes, I saw it first,” the tall and much thinner officer responded.
The two officers exchanged looks at the rock and then a knowing glance to each other. They then emitted what Frank could best perceive as a contented beeping sound.
As Frank stood there looking at them, the thought that standing next to one another they resembled a spoon and a plate ran through his mind. He shook his head violently once again, trying to free his mind of any remaining cobwebs.
Frank gathered himself. “You two want my rock, but why?”
“That’s confidential. Yes, very confidential. Matter of national security,” they both said in a very uniformed fashion. Their voices were strangely monotone, but Frank immediately dismissed this. The bit about George Washington and the whole business surrounding the beeping had been enough.
The stocky agent quickly grabbed the rock away from Frank, and with that the two officers left as fast as they had arrived, slamming the door behind them.
Frank was left standing alone in his now even more dimly lit apartment, with questions running through his mind like mice. It beat the feeling of stinky cheese, he concluded.
After Frank peered out the window in a failing attempt to catch a glimpse of the two men, he decided the day had gone on plenty long already and that he would go directly to bed. He would skip his nightly reading, which was now A Case of Identity, the third in the long line of Sherlock Holmes Adventures by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Apparently the events of tonight were enough to snap his cycle, at least temporarily.
So with that it was a night, and Frank quickly retreated to his bedroom. As he slid into bed, he put the typical finishing touch on the night. Looking hard and long at both his once wife and child, then giving the photo a kiss before sliding it back onto the nightstand. Frank reached over and shut off the light, then laid his head on the pillow. He was lost in his normal thoughts about how that Sunday afternoon had felt when they had arrived home from the hospital with newborn Johnathon. Frank stayed lost, at least for a brief moment, before the events of tonight interrupted his memories.
The completely dark apartment was now mostly quiet and would remain that way for the rest of night. Although, if one had been there to listen ever so intently, they would have made out the soft flick of a light switch, a low nonsensical grumbling, and then another even lower grumbling in a quite irritated and sarcastic tone, “Unquestionable authority, unquestionable authority!”
Chapter Eight
As Frank was resting in bed, pushing thoughts regarding the Founding Fathers from his head, there was a planet trillions and trillions of kilometers away named Hiruaha.
In fact it had been there, or more accurately orbited there for quite a while already, billions of years to be slightly more accurate, and would continue to do so for billions more.
Currently, large numbers of Hiruahians were fleeing all three of the planet’s major cities, Moran, Prent, and Kita for the Geric Mountains. Meanwhile, the rest of the planet stayed inside their homes, with