Blue Light

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I didn’t use a tape recorder back then, but I remember every word. Our teacher stood on a simple flat rock and told us about the blue light. What it meant — at least, as much as we could understand. Here is what he said:

The prophet always seemed smaller, weak after his sermons. But we felt elated and strong.

There were other transformations on the night that Ordé, the prophet, saw blue light. These I have gleaned from conversations, newspaper articles, interviews, obituaries, and a peculiar facility that Ordé endowed upon me — the ability to read blood.

Reggie Brown was pushing the baby carriage down Easter Street toward the Broward shelter that evening. Their uncle Barnes was drunk again and Reggie’s mother was still at work, so he bundled up the twins, intending to take them to Nurse Edwards’s station until their mother came home. Nurse Edwards had Fly Comics in her drawer and Baby Ruth candy bars too. She’d been their father’s friend; she was at their house when the letter came from the State Department telling how Mr. Brown was missing in the police action in Vietnam. Now she helped Mrs. Brown with the children when she could.

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