Earth to Me

Okay, so eventually my mom gave me an explanation. It was a week after the concert, and I can’t say I saw it coming – I tried my best to not get my underwear knotted over it, even though it was always in the back of my mind.

Universal danger? I was no stranger to that, I guess. I spent a good chunk of 2011 losing my head over it, freaking out over something that ended up going well and benefitting my life in more ways than one. It was terrifying, I won’t lie. But it was one of the reasons why I didn’t particularly take the danger to heart; I had gotten through it once. I could do it again, maybe.

It was finals week, and I was already stressed out about the tougher exams on my plate, and falling asleep to find myself drifting through space was a mixed bag. I knew I’d see my mom, but on the other hand, that meant that I couldn’t coast on ignorance anymore. She was bound to tell me something.

And she materialized, galaxies in her eyes once again, a contagious smile that gave me flashbacks to toddler times I could hardly remember. She took my hands and for some reason I felt as though I’d been healed, like I was hurting and didn’t even realize it.

“Hello, Oshie,” she beamed. “I am sorry I could not get to you earlier. Contacting you through dreams…it is the most direct way to get to you other than sending another lightning bolt, and yet it is also very unreliable.”

“I’m just glad I can see you at all,” I said, skipping the hello and going straight to the truth. It was bittersweet, and I wasn’t just referring to the intergalactic danger.

She looked down where gravity would normally take us, and she spoke softly. “We had been trying to contact you for about a year now, and we have only just recently gotten it right. It doesn’t help that you are indoors and we cannot pinpoint your location, I guess. Every so often we still miss, but when we do, that is when these dreams happen.”

I tried to process it and put all the pieces together, no matter how nonsensical it seemed. Did anything ever truly make sense? Probably not. Everything sounded okay, and that didn’t make an ounce of sense. Whatever.

“And I know you had horrible, terrible nightmares, mijo, and I am so sorry for that,” she went on, caressing my cheek for a moment with so much sympathy in her face, “but that was when we were too far away from you. Our signals were destroyed by the time they got into your head.”

Every night it was the same nightmare, until they shifted. I guess that was when they were getting closer and closer, until they finally hit my mind on the first try. However, I still had a big question. “Who’s ‘we’?”

Mom smiled like the half-moon on its side again, and I knew she knew something. “Me and the stars, mijo. The universe and all of its galaxies, the planets that pulled me out of Heaven to speak to you right in this moment to tell you of the things you are destined to face.”

I didn’t know I was holding back a bunch of spit, but when I gulped it down, it was a little hard to swallow. My voice cracked like pencil lead when I asked, “Wh-what?”

“It will be a team effort. All guardians that were called upon years ago are being rounded up to stop an even bigger danger that is in its beginning stages,” she sighed. “This time, it is even more serious. That is why we have to stop it before it spreads outside of the warmongers’ home galaxy.”

I’m sure the look I was giving her, wide eyes and open mouth, cued her to continue.

“And I know that this will come as a shock – oops, no pun intended,” she paused to giggle, despite my bleakness, “but you are going to lead Earth. You will be the main guardian for your planet.”

Thank God she was still holding my hands, because I would’ve just drifted into the void if she weren’t there to anchor me to her.

Of course. I always thought it was a little funny how we were all struck with lightning, yet I was the one to get it as my power…but I never chalked it up to something completely insane like that. It was the kind of stuff you see in movies and shake your head at, criticizing whoever wrote the piece of crap happening right in front of you. At least, that’s what I immediately thought after hearing that news.

Mom rubbed her thumbs along the backs of my hands. “Oshie, that does not doom you to danger. You will not be alone, I will promise you that much. You will have your fellow guardians next to you when we carry out the first phase of the battle, and when it is your time to go alone, the lead guardians of the other planets will be with you. You have even met Daltia’s guardian, Shira. You will have her to look to, at the very least.”

It was so daunting that I may have actually puked if it hadn’t been for my basic instinct to hold in my bodily fluids. “Why me?”

Mom’s hair billowed behind her like a waterfall; the confidence in her stature astounded me. “I have known the stars since I passed away, and I have watched over you in all of that time. I have seen you grow with your papá, and…” Her voice broke a bit, but she swallowed and carried on. “I have always known that you are more than just the shy boy you think you are.”

“That’s not just who I think I am, that’s who I am, period,” I wheezed, the wind knocked out of me all of a sudden.

“You are kind, passionate, and thoughtful, and that was more than enough for the stars. I told them about you, and they gave you the power of lightning – the strongest power – in case the need for a lead guardian would happen. It did, and so here we are.”

The strongest power. Not fire, which could burn somebody to death, not rock, which could pummel anybody into the earth. I couldn’t believe it. I could kill somebody with my bare hands, and even if it was always sort of tucked away in my brain, hearing it from my mom just hurt much more.

The universe was spinning at a million miles an hour all around me, despite us staying stagnant among the stars, the same ones that told Put’emup, Put’emup of their fate when they were the first to get struck. The same stars that pulled me into that mess, and this time around, an even bigger one.

One that I had to face alone and I knew it, no sugar-coating.

I felt sick to my stomach and so I let out a tiny little whine. Mom wrapped her arms around my shoulders and soon enough, my face was in the crook of her neck and shoulder, stardust pouring all around me like glitter. I wrenched my eyes shut and I could still see the planets beyond us; I could still clearly feel her healing my aching bones.

“That’s enough for tonight,” she whispered in an easy voice. “We will round up all the guardians at one point so that we can all meet in the same place up here – I will get somewhere for us to sit. In your dreams, we can pull your mind out of your body if only for a moment.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I mumbled, feeling sleepy.

“I know, mijo,” she ushered, rubbing my back. “It probably never will. But it is the way the universe has been working, and I know you can pull through.”

I just nestled my head further into her shoulder.

“Let the other guardians know that we must all meet eventually. I will pull them up here from their dreams so that I can finally meet all of your friends,” she said, a smile evident in her voice. “I have spoken with other angels who were close with them, like Chuck’s cat and Anthony’s sister.”

“Anthony’s sister?” I mumbled, my mind snagging on the thought but quickly letting go. It was none of my business.

Mom quietly said, “Car accident,” and then kissed the side of my forehead. “Go to sleep, Oshie. I will see you soon.”

I followed her orders and fell right back asleep, and when I woke up the next morning, I immediately had to empty my bowels. Murray asked me if I was sick, but all I could tell him was that my mom had given me more information about the “danger” and his head was probably already spinning. He stared me down with concerned eyes and just told me to be careful.

And so I had horrible diarrhea that morning and I was almost late for class because of it, but immediately after class, I raced over to Tegan’s dorm and told her everything.

When I was done relaying it all back to her, thankful that her roommate was gone as usual, she stared at me for ten seconds before just murmuring, “Sweet baby Jesus.”

She told me to call the band instead of just texting them, even though I insisted that they would probably be busy. Still, I dialed Mick up, since he had a history of being the most reliable, and he answered with a chipper, “Hey Oshie! What’s up?”

What’s up? What’s up? My heart rate was up, stress levels through the roof – that’s what was up.

I panicked a little bit and then just dumped all the information onto him. I had a right to, since the band had info-dumped me over two years before, although I think the info they gave us back then was a little more unsettling. We already knew we had ties to the galaxy – it was just in a new way.

When I was done rambling, Mick sighed and said, “Whew. That’s…that’s a doozy, huh?”

“I need you to tell the rest of the band for me, too. We need to all fall asleep at the same time for a while, just in case my mom tries to round us up,” I added, my hands and knees shaking. I always hated asking for help, especially when I felt like the root of this problem in the first place.

“When did she say we would have to actually, like…do stuff?” he asked calmly.

My heart dropped. Of all the things she told me, that was not one of them. “Uh – um, she didn’t…tell me. Sh-she might when we meet. Sorry…”

“No, don’t apologize!” he laughed, back into character. “Hell, I’m glad you told us something! We’ve all kinda been wondering about it, especially since you told us a little bit in the first place. We got your back, Osh. Don’t worry about it, we’ll get through it.”

We wrapped up the call, I hung up, and then I just stared at Tegan, absolutely exhausted. I didn’t have to say a word and she had just instinctively known that I needed a hug from her.

Then, I called my dad, knowing he was at work but would answer a call from me in a heartbeat. I told him everything in the same way I told Mick, and he told me to calm down and keep a level head. Knowing his history of being weird about me having links to weird universal forces, I wasn’t too surprised, but I just had to let him know, just in case…just in case anything happened, really.

I said it was just weird to hear it all from Mom especially since the dreams were unlike anything I ever had before, and he just quietly responded, “I cannot say if I trust these things or not, especially considering all of the weird things you have had to do in the past. But I will keep it in mind, mijo, and you should too. Stay safe.”

I took it to heart and gulped down yet another lump in my throat.

Later on that night, I wrangled up Chuck and Riley and completely info-dumped them in text form over Facenook. (Boy, if they didn’t already hate me, they’d have a completely valid reason to after that.) In a way, it was better, since I could make sure I covered everything and I didn’t sound so stupid over text, but it was always rough to try and make Riley listen.

“…sooooooo thats it. we gotta make sure we go to bed at the same times so that we can meet with my mom,” I typed when it was all done.

Five minutes came and went with no answer.

Then, Riley chimed in. “oshie, ur a babe, but i think ur trippin.”

“ok whatever i guess,” I replied. Honestly, I wasn’t in the mood to deal with his…antics. Other times, he could be funny. Not that night.

“even if it does end up being nothing, we shouldn’t just brush it off though,” Chuck finally responded. “i mean, what’s the harm in taking caution??”

“can u please just humor me once?????” Riley insisted.

“thanks chuck, good to know youre on my side c:,” I typed.

“it’s the least i can do. just ignore riley.”

“lick my asshole, u piece of shit”

It degenerated from there, if you can believe it. They argued for a little while and I read some of it, trying to distract myself from the inevitable. There wasn’t a whole lot of substance, but it kept me from dreading what was to come.

There were some things I couldn’t overlook, though, and one of them happened to be the fact that I was slated for winter break. Christmas was coming again, and one thing I knew for sure was that I definitely needed a break. I’m not good at self-love, but I can admit that much.