A Reunion and Questions

By Bea Augustine
Tell me when we should get up, Christie said. She was packing her belongings for the travel. We
had just had dinner and wanted to make sure everything was in place.
I told her at 8 am, finally. We had to get up early to take the train to Korie Town. I had looked
through the train lines schedule and chose the earliest outbound train.
We had to travel to meet our family, we had not seen them for six months and it was time we
reunited. This was to be a nice voyage, we had to cover the span of 500 miles and then we would be
together for the holidays.
We would be chatting all through the holidays and then, we would partake in their stories and divvy
the holiday meals, for everyone to feel as festive as possible.
Christie was my cousin, we were both born in Korie Town and he had grown up together there.
When we were kids, we played around and it was always so much fun. Now, it was only memories,
when we moved along in life and started to make a living.
Now, the festive season was up and we thought it would be just the right set of circumstances to get
quickly what was happening to all of us.
What I never expected, looking back at our arrangements that day and the forthcoming get-together
was to get involved in the life-changing events of someone that we knew quite well from the time
when we were kids.
There was no clue or some conception - we could never have known that Kasey, the guy next door
had caused a car crash. He was working for an insurance company and it seemed he was doing well.
He had crashed his van into a car and there was a kid there, now struggling for his life.
Kasey, as it turned out when we reached Korie Town and this happened to be the first news that we
heard of, had been driving drunk. He was now under prosecution and was to be sentenced and there
would be no grace for him. Christie and I were shocked we had never thought that Kasey could do
such a thing, we were deeply sorry for the child in the other car, too.
Then, we could only hear rumours about Kasey. People talked that he was not as gregarious as he
used to be, he had stopped meeting his university alumni. The neighbours said it was uncanny, no
one could explain the behaviour of Kasey or his state of circumstances. No one could just get a
glimpse of what had been going on in his mind, prior to the accident.
Then Christie, as always, started to dig into the specifics. She repeated again and again, that nothing
was just coincidental and that there was something deep down there. I thought it could be so, but
now we had only the facts, no one could amend the gravity of the situation or tweak the meaning of
the past. Kasey had done a bad thing and he could in no way give an excuse for his wrongdoings.
Only if the child could live, it would be some chance for him to not be sentenced as sternly as initially
forecast.