The Girl Who Would Be King(41)

Possible Earthquake Seizes Malibu Canyon, Significant Artifact Discovered in Aftermath

Late Friday evening, residents of Malibu, Calabasas and adjacent Los Angeles neighborhoods awoke to what appeared to be an earthquake around two am. Scientists have been unable to pinpoint what Los Angeles fault line may have caused the quake, as there appeared to be several points of impact, and some experts have even gone so far as to say that it may not have been an earthquake at all.

Nearby residents however, disagree. “I nearly fell out of my bed when I felt the impact. And three mirrors in the house broke, along with two windows in the front room,” says Trish McCoy of Calabasas. “I don’t care what the experts say, I’ve been living in LA long enough to know what a quake feels like and that was a quake.”

Commuter Jeff Grimes agrees. “I was driving home from my friend’s place in Malibu and the entire mountain nearly came down on me – and then the road ahead of me crumbled when a huge mass of something crashed into it and tumbled down the side.”

Road crews have been working non-stop since early Saturday in an attempt to repair the road, which has been completely destroyed in at least one area (fig.1) while a mass of boulders and rocks litter other parts of the road and will require significant clean up. Authorities expect Malibu Canyon to be open to traffic by the end of the week at the earliest, leaving many drivers to find alternate routes to their jobs and homes.

Upon searching the area authorities found a strange stone artifact on the ground near the center of impact. According to UCLA historian Dr. Jason Gahres, the artifact is Celtic in nature and not native to this area (fig. 2). The artifact unearthed in the disturbance will be temporarily on loan to LACMA while the authorities wait on confirmation of its origin.

Authorities are not willing to comment, at this time, as to whether the damage in Malibu Canyon and the surrounding areas was in fact caused by an earthquake or a natural disaster of some other kind.



Next to the article is a black and white photograph of the damage done to the road, which looks like a giant bullet (or maybe two) were launched into it from space; as well as a faded photo of the artifact mentioned in the article. The stone in the photo is kind of crude and clunky, and bizarrely large, like the size of my palm, maybe. There’s a small piece broken, a corner of one of three interlocking circles. The three open circles make up the outside edges and are joined in the center by a solid circle that has an intricate carving of a crow. The carving is the only non-crude thing about the whole design. It looks to me like it was supposed to be a necklace of some kind. Big and bulky and totally not my style, but weirdly impressive all the same. The longer I stare at the photo, the more I’m drawn to it. My eyes linger over the shapes and I feel a strange humming in my chest. Almost as if the symbol is calling out to me. This is important; it feels powerful.

It feels as if it belongs to me.

And I want it.

I get on my bike and head back toward L.A. That was the original plan, and it’s a good place to start looking for this stone since that’s where it was when my mother tucked this information away.



°

It’s mid-June and I’ve been in the city for about two weeks, long enough to have found a crappy job I’m terrible at in a busy coffee shop in midtown Manhattan. They tried putting me on the register, but I was pathologically quiet with the customers. They moved me to the barista position within the hour.

Coffee doesn’t need to be talked back to, I guess.

I’m still not great at it, probably in part because I’ve never acquired a taste for coffee, myself. I prefer hot chocolate, which kind of makes me feel like a kid, which is weird because, in all other ways I feel like Old Man River compared to my co-workers. They’re a combination of high school seniors, college students, and a few post-grad, tattooed artsy types, and though I’m older than only the two high school seniors – and not by much – I still feel ancient in comparison. Their conversations are all filled with talk of classes and parties, dating and clothes, music and movies. Stuff I mostly know nothing about. My thoughts look nothing like theirs. I fantasize about befriending them so that I can know about those things too, but it seems impossible. It seems more likely that I could fly than make friends. So, instead, I’m consumed by thoughts of guilt. I haven’t saved one person since arriving in the city.

So much for me being Superman.

Hell, forget being Superman, I can’t even pay the rent on my crappy little motel-room-with-kitchenette with what I’m making here. Apparently, I don’t have the skills to be Superman or Clark Kent.