One Amazing Thing

Cameron’s story begins in the recent past, while on his way to volunteer as a gardener for a hospice center. On the bus, he meets a man named Jeff, who he considers to be a holy man. Cameron is holding onto guilt from something that happened thirty before, when he met a girl named Imani at a party and began a relationship with her. Cameron was on track to attend a university after graduation, but Imani was content to work at Burger King and attend a community college. When Imani became pregnant, Cameron insisted that she get an abortion. Furious, Imani broke up with him. As she walked away for the last time, Cameron believed that she put a curse on him when she said, “No matter where you run, you be ending with ashes in your mouth” (196). Later, he learned that she did have an abortion.

In college, Cameron developed asthma and lost his athletic scholarship. He quit school and joined the Army at the end of the Vietnam War. He spent his career in the Army, often serving overseas and witnessing a number of atrocities. After the war, he volunteers at the hospice center and other places hoping to cleanse himself of his guilt and make a positive difference. He keeps meeting Jeff at the hospice center, and they become friends. Jeff encourages him to sponsor a child in another country. Cameron is assigned to a girl named Seva at an orphanage in India. After years of writing letters, he decides to visit her, filling his suitcase with toys.

Cameron’s story is interrupted by a powerful aftershock. Everyone rushes for the doorway. Uma realizes that Cameron has not joined them in the doorway, but is shivering on the table, fighting for each breath. The smell of gas has been growing steadily stronger and the water continues to rise. Soon the water will be as high as the tabletops.

Uma begins her story by saying that she chose a college far away from her parents.

From above, the survivors hear sounds that could mean a rescue is at hand. They decide to try to make contact with people above. They work together, moving a sofa to stand on. They scream but do not hear a response. Believing the gas will soon kill them, Uma continues her story.

While at college in Texas, Uma had weekly phone calls with her parents. One day, her father told her he was going to ask her mother for a divorce and that he only stayed with her mother for Uma’s sake, but now she was an adult and no longer needed them. He asked Uma not to say anything to her mother until the next week.

Uma reacted to this news drastically. She stopped attending class, indulged in expensive meals, and began acting recklessly. When Jeri, a woman in her kickboxing class, announced that she had broken up with her boyfriend and was moving to New York, Uma offered to drive. She cleaned out her savings account and she and Jeri began driving. Soon they picked up a hitchhiker, a young man named Ripley. They drank and smoked marijuana, and Jeri and Ripley had sex in the back seat of Uma’s car. When they stopped later that night, the three of them witnessed the aurora borealis, which had a cleansing effect on Uma. She changed course and returned to her college dorm, dropping off Jeri and Ripley along the way. She discovered a number of missed calls from her father, and when she returned his calls, he revealed that he had made a mistake and did not want a divorce. Uma promised not to tell her mother. In the time since that day, Uma has distanced herself from her parents, who now live in India. On this visit, she plans to come clean with them.

There are more sounds from overhead, but it is impossible to tell if these sounds are a sign of impending rescue or impending collapse. Plaster falls on them, covering them in its dust. Uma finishes her story by saying that years later, Jeri tracked her down. Now dying, Jeri wanted to know if what they saw in the sky was the aurora borealis or a figment of her imagination. Uma assured her that it was the aurora borealis and Jeri replied that she was happy that in her life she was able to see this one amazing thing.

The clanking continues overhead, and the group waits to see if the sounds signal rescue or catastrophe.