The Gathering Storm

Sika Raine Ase

She was just trying to cool down on the porch. Then a light in the sky pulsed back at her. Alexis has spent years holding everybody else’s life together—her husband’s trucking company, her family, her friends, everybody’s problems. But lately, something has been changing. The dreams are getting louder. Strange memories keep surfacing. And the more she pays attention, the harder it becomes to ignore what she has always known about herself. Then a receipt falls out of her husband’s jacket. What starts as a question about a receipt opens the door to something much bigger. Her marriage begins unraveling, her dreams become harder to dismiss, and experiences she once kept to herself start connecting in ways she never expected. Her grandmother, the Little Hell Raiser, carried two guns in her purse “in case she missed the first one.” Her hypnotherapist has coffin-shaped nails and a chair that looks like a lawn recliner. Her daughter calls from North Carolina. Her Morkie, Tank, is along for all of it. As Alexis begins following the strange experiences instead of pushing them aside, she finds herself questioning what she thought she knew about her life, her family, and herself. *I Am the Signal* is funny, raw, mysterious, and rooted in experiences that refuse to fit neatly into one explanation. It starts with a flicker in the sky.