That week passed us by in a flash. Deliveries started rolling in like candy on Monday, and they kept piling in endlessly all week long. Signing, unpacking, sorting, and cleaning up was a full time job for us, not counting the "little interruptions" that disrupted our established workflow.
Tuesday, we had our first real issue when father showed up, raising hell about contractors wanting to bulldoze his land and him knowing absolutely nothing about it. Since she'd promised to deal with it, we left Maria to settle the problem, but that increased the burden on me and Vicky with dealing with the endless stream of packages.
Tuesday was completely exhausting!
Wednesday wasn't any better. Vicky's mother showed up, completely out of the blue, with a string of a zillion photographers and all their gear. Enough goodies had came in already, in her opinion, for her to start turning a profit on her investment. Vicky's whole day was spent modeling her new style for countless posters to be distributed across the country, to show what a true devotee of the Bloomer Burn movement is willing to wear to prove their commitment to the issue!
It was basic Marketing and Propaganda 101, with Vicky headlining the centerfold of the movement. We didn't learn until much later that Maria's mother – my Nother – had purchased the knockoff clothing styles that Vicky was promoting so heavily! Girls across the nation were burning every stitch of clothing they owned "for equality" and because "we don't dress for you", just to be guided into dressing how Vicky-the-Virtuous told them to dress!!
It was a whole new fashion style, promoted by barely-there clothing styles, as a means of symbolizing "open, naked equality"! And, Vicky's mother was heavily pushing it and the politics associated with it, while Nother was secretly producing the clothing lines visualizing it, and Father was pushing the music industry to glorify it.
The world's morality was being rocked day by day, with first one celebrity and then another jumping to get in on the bandwagon, while at the same time, secretly, our finances was going up higher and higher with every bloomer burnt.
The world is fucking crazy!!
Things started to settle back down as Thursday rolled around, only to fall completely to shit a little after lunch. The news reported that two girls had been reported missing – Krista Hubbard and Lucy Gallen. Neither was in our class – or even our grade in school for that matter – but it was a big enough deal to force another family meeting over the issue.
Our little community was in a complete shit-blown panic! Brock had escaped prison. The school had been closed to rioting. (Exaggeratedly so, in my opinion, but things get blown up with every telling.) Vicky's mom had organized a whole political movement centered in our backyard. Davy had been killed and his brain liquified and drank. The manhunt still hadn't turned up Brock. Parents were protesting the school and keeping students home…
And now two young girls just up and disappear with no trace?!!
If you guys can't imagine how crazy shit has gotten around here, then there's no reason for me to try and explain it to you. You're brain damaged!!
A county-wide curfew was set. Our barely-opened schools went into lockdown and then sent children home. Businesses shut down and locked up early. Panicked parents rushed home to check on children. People were calling for the National Guard to be called in to do an inch-by-inch search of the whole county. Google, and a few other gigantic businesses, offered to set their satellites to continuously monitor the area at the highest resolution possible, and then share those aerial images so the public could scan them for clues.
Like I said, things went crazy all around us Thursday.
By Friday, there were half a dozen nondescript black vehicles parked outside the walls of our home, and a score of black-dressed brutes patrolled the perimeter of our house ceaselessly. Vicky's mother – and maybe my parents too – had splurged and hired a whole personal security crew for our house!
Crazy! Crazy! Crazy! The whole damn world has went crazy!
You guys will never believe how happy I was, to see the day come to an end that Friday evening. The rush deliveries should be done. Things were settled down in the house somewhat. And, most importantly, the portal to the other world was now large enough that it could be used by a single person standing upright, one at a time.
Our preparations were all done. We were finally ready to cross over and finally step foot into the other world!