GONE DAYS

Red lights

0730 hours.

"Something is wrong with Mindy Tom. Her teacher just called home saying Mindy collapsed in class. She said she is unconscious and had to be taken to the E.R at the city hospital. Please call me as soon as you get this, or better still, come see your daughter at the hospital." Oh his sweet Amani. She sounds very worried and shaken and bitter at the same time. She knew that her husband's business trips involved escapades with random girls. Thomas still remembers the day she married him. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever set eyes on. Her caramel skin that looked like had been dipped in honey, her hazel eyes and how he could get lost hours on end in them, her small curvaceous frame and her witty mind. He was always amazed at how smart she was. She gave up her career dreams for him and made keeping their family together her dream. Thomas had managed to break that dream too. He knows she is tired of him and his antics and knows he doesn't deserve her. On top of it all, she gave him the most beautiful little girl for a daughter. He hopes Mindy takes after her mother.

"I am tired Thomas," she is crying in the second message. "This is your daughter for heaven's sake. The least you could do is call and at least pretend that you care. It's been eight hours damnit! And just in case you cared, she just came to. I told her...I lied to her that you were just here but something came up at the office and you had to run. Shame on you Thomas." He couldn't believe the kind of human being he had become. Silent tears streaming down his face as he is seated still in his car at the parking lot. Through all the difficulties he had put his family through, he had known all along that he would lose himself if he ever lost his family. He makes up his mind that he will do everything to be a better human being and make it up to his family.

Thomas turns on his car radio as he exits the parking with a singular objective in mind, win back his family. "The one hundred plus nuclear fusion plants built across the globe by the Dubois energy company are set to go operational today at two P.M. This is the latest attempt by the energy giant to convert the energy industry to a monopoly after acquiring almost all the major energy production companies across the globe..." This announcement strikes a familiar feeling in Thomas's heart. A crippling fear that almost crushes him into a truck. It feels like a déjà vu. He has heard this before. This is the beginning of the world going to s**t. He has six and a half hours to get to his family and get them to safety. He knows it will not make sense to them that he knows and has lived through what is about to happen. Hell, he doesn't understand himself but he is determined to have his family with him post the pending destruction even if it means k********g them. He is four hours away from his family and is set to run through all the red lights in a race against time.