The Last Normal Day
The lab hummed with the gentle whir of machines, a soothing counterpoint to the cacophony in my mind. I adjusted the electrodes on Sarah's temples, careful to avoid the angry purple bruise that bloomed across her forehead. Her eyes were closed, but I could see them moving rapidly beneath the lids, as if she were reliving the trauma.
"You're doing great, Sarah," I murmured, my voice barely audible over the steady beep of the EEG. "Just a few more minutes."
As I monitored the flickering lines on the screen, my thoughts drifted to the world beyond these sterile walls. The Utah Sovereignty Council's flags fluttered on every corner, a constant reminder of our new reality. The Stars and Stripes, once a symbol of unity, now felt like a relic of a bygone era. Replaced by the aggressive red and yellow of the USC.
My gaze wandered to the framed diploma on my office wall – Brigham Young University, Class of 2018. The sight of it sent a jolt through me, catapulting me back to that fateful night 12 years ago...
I was hunched over a desk in the Harold B. Lee Library, the clock on the wall ticking relentlessly towards midnight. The harsh fluorescent lights cast long shadows across the stacks, and the air hummed with the quiet desperation of students racing against looming deadlines.
My fingers flew across the keyboard as I worked on a paper for my Church History class. The assignment was to research and write about a significant figure from the Nauvoo era. Nauvoo was a 1840s Mormon settlement on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois. It was here on the frontier that Joseph Smith made his last great theological and political push before his death and the subsequent exile of his people with Brigham Young to the Utah territory.
Without hesitation, I had chosen Heber C. Kimball. As his descendant, I felt a surge of pride in my pioneer heritage. I imagined Heber's unwavering faith as he helped build Zion, his courage as he served missions and stood by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
As I typed "Heber C. Kimball Nauvoo" into the search bar, my heart swelled with anticipation of the spiritual stories I would uncover. But among the expected results, an unfamiliar name caught my eye: Helen Mar Kimball. Curious about this Kimball I hadn't heard of before, I clicked the link.
The page loaded, and I found myself staring at a section of something called the "CES Letter." As I began to read, my world tilted on its axis. Helen Mar Kimball, I learned, was Heber's daughter – and at the age of 14, she had been married to Joseph Smith. The prophet had been 37 at the time.
My hands began to tremble as I scrolled through the document, reading how Joseph had pressured Helen into the marriage, promising her family eternal salvation if she agreed. The words blurred before my eyes as I read about how, after her marriage, Helen was no longer allowed to participate in normal teenage activities. No more dances, no more socializing with friends her own age. At 14, her childhood had effectively ended.
My mind reeled as I read about Helen's marriage to Joseph Smith. Memories of past conversations flooded back. I remembered my parents' gentle explanations when I'd first learned about polygamy in Sunday School: "Things were different back then," they'd said. "It was a commandment from God to help the Church grow."
Even my Bishop, when asked about Joseph Smith's plural marriages during a temple recommend interview, had mentioned that people married younger in those days. It was just part of the culture, he'd assured me.
But this... this felt fundamentally wrong. Prophet or not, how could a 37-year-old man justify marrying a 14-year-old girl? The thought of someone my little sister's age being pressured into marriage made me physically ill. This wasn't just a cultural difference – it was the exploitation of a child.
As the night wore on, I found myself falling deeper into the rabbit hole of the CES Letter. Each new revelation felt like a punch to the gut.
Then I came to a section about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon. My eyes widened as I read, my internal voice growing more frantic with each item. Steel? In ancient America? And horses – wait, what? Horses weren't in America? But I thought... I mean, Native Americans rode horses, right? The letter said they were brought by the Spanish? How is that possible?
My mind reeled as I continued reading. Chariots, really? I'd always pictured them, but... And what about wheat, barley, and silk? Those aren't native to the Americas, are they? Even a compass – wasn't that invented much later?
I blinked, trying to process what I was seeing. The letter explained that an anachronism is something that appears in a historical context where it doesn't belong. It was like reading a story about Abraham Lincoln using an iPhone, or Christopher Columbus navigating with GPS.
These items, which I'd read about countless times in the Book of Mormon, apparently didn't exist in the Americas during the time periods the book described. Steel wasn't produced in pre-Columbian America. Horses had been extinct in the Western Hemisphere for thousands of years before European contact. Wheat and barley were Old World crops introduced after Columbus.
My mind reeled. How had I never questioned this before? How had none of my teachers or church leaders ever mentioned these issues? Why did I always picture Lamanites on horseback if horses weren't even here?
As I delved deeper into the letter, more and more inconsistencies and historical problems came to light. Each new revelation felt like another crack in the foundation of my faith.
How had I never known any of this? I'd devoted my whole life to the Church. Like most Mormons, I had woken up at 5 am every morning of high school to attend our seminary, studying and memorizing scriptures. Every semester at BYU I had taken the mandatory religion class. How could so much have been hidden from me?
By the time the library closed, forcing me to leave, I felt as though my entire world had been turned inside out. The pillars of my faith, once as solid as the mountains that cradled the Utah Valley, had crumbled to dust.
In the days that followed, I went through the motions of my life in a daze. I attended my classes, smiled at the right moments during Church meetings, and kept up appearances. But inside, I was screaming. Every hymn, every lesson, every casual mention of Joseph Smith or his church felt like a fresh wound.
I wanted to scream the truth from the rooftops, to shake my fellow students and ask if they knew what I now knew. But the reality of my situation quickly set in. I was at BYU, surrounded by true believers. If I voiced my doubts, I risked being expelled, losing my housing, and my job on campus. My whole life hinged on my affirmation of faith in Joseph and his lies.
And if that wasn’t enough, the thought of disappointing my family, of being labeled an apostate, was almost as terrifying as the collapse of my faith. But more than that, I couldn't bear the idea of starting over at another university. So many of my credits wouldn't transfer – I'd be years behind, wasting time and money I didn't have. So I hid my notes, buried my doubts, and played the part of the faithful Mormon girl.
I made a choice. I would stay silent. I’d smile, I would finish my degree, all while nurturing my doubts in secret. It felt dishonest, almost suffocating, but I saw no other way forward.
In the end, it was science that offered a lifeline. The rigorous pursuit of knowledge, the thrill of discovery – it gave me purpose when my spiritual moorings had come loose. If I couldn’t live my moral truth at least I could immerse myself in the “revelations” of neuroscience. I threw myself into my neuropsychology major, finding solace in the elegant connections of synapses and neural pathways.
On the day I graduated, as I stood in my cap and gown surrounded by beaming family members, I made a silent vow to myself. Never again would I live a lie. Never again would I pretend to believe something I knew in my heart to be false. I would forge my own path, free from the constraints of unquestioning faith.
That was until…
BEEEEP. The sharp spike in Sarah's brain waves pulled me back to the present. I blinked, forcing myself to focus on the flickering lines on the EEG screen. The memory of that night in the library, of the slow unraveling of my faith that followed, still had the power to leave me shaken.
I made a note on my tablet, the stylus scratching against the screen. The data was clear: Sarah's neural pathways showed signs of acute stress and trauma. My stomach churned as I recalled her trembling voice describing the attack.
She had been at a peaceful protest against the USC's latest "moral purity" laws when members of the Defenders of Zion or DOZ, a right-wing militia group, had charged into the crowd. The image of a club swinging towards her face was the last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital.
"I was just holding a sign," she had whispered earlier, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't... I wasn't doing anything wrong."
The Defenders of Zion claimed they were protecting the community from "apostate influence." The police, increasingly aligned with USC ideology, had made no arrests. It was a chilling reminder of how quickly things were changing, how dangerous dissent had become.
A knock at the door startled us both. I quickly saved the data and began removing Sarah's electrodes. "Come in," I called, forcing a calm I didn't feel into my voice.
Nurse Abernathy, from the pediatric ward, poked her head in. Her eyes darted nervously between Sarah and me. "Dr. Kimball, when you're done here... you need to see something. It's urgent."
I nodded, my heart racing. "Thank you, Nurse Abernathy. Sarah, we're all done here. Take your time getting changed, and remember what we discussed about the follow-up appointments."
As Sarah gathered her things, I couldn't help but notice the way she hunched her shoulders, as if trying to make herself invisible. I longed to comfort her, to tell her she was safe here, but the words caught in my throat. In Utah under the USC, safety was an illusion we could no longer afford.
Once Sarah had left, I followed Nurse Abernathy to the small break room where a group of staff had gathered around the television. The scene that greeted me made my blood run cold: the Capitol building was engulfed in flames, black smoke billowing into the night sky.
"...breaking news. We're getting reports of a major fire at the Utah Capitol building. Authorities are calling it an act of terrorism..."
The USC Capitol building was the former Utah State Capitol Building. It was a sensible decision for the seat of government when the US federal government collapsed. The building sits above the rest of the city on the mountain side, so lighting it ablaze was quite the political statement.
The acrid smell of smoke seemed to seep through the screen, filling my nostrils and bringing back memories of campfires and testimony meetings. But this was no controlled burn. This was chaos.
"The Council was supposed to make a big announcement tonight," Dr. Jensen murmured beside me. "Do you think this is related?"
I opened my mouth to respond, but the words died in my throat as a deafening explosion rocked the building on screen. A section of the Capitol's west wing collapsed in on itself, sending a fresh plume of smoke and debris into the air.
"I don't know," I managed finally, my voice barely audible over the shocked gasps of my colleagues. "But something doesn't feel right about this."
As we watched in horror, a news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen: "Utah Sovereignty Council declares state of emergency. All citizens advised to return to their homes immediately."
My mind raced. The timing was too perfect, too convenient. The Council's announcement, the fire, the immediate declaration of emergency... It all felt orchestrated, a carefully choreographed dance leading us toward some predetermined end.
"I think we should all go home," I said, turning to my stunned colleagues. "Whatever's happening, it's big. We should be with our families."
As the group dispersed, murmuring anxiously among themselves, I retreated to my office. My hands shook as I gathered my things, my mind a whirlwind of fear and suspicion.
My gaze fell on the family photo on my desk. It was taken years ago, before the troubles began. Before the perilous results of the 2024 election and the resulting second insurrection of the MAGA nut jobs which culminated in multiple regions of what had been known as the United States fracturing into their own independent countries. Before the Utah Sovereignty Council rose to power. Before doubt began to eat away at my testimony like a cancer.
I traced my finger over the smiling faces, remembering a time when faith felt simple, when the future seemed bright with promise. Now, as I looked out my window at the USC flags snapping in the wind, I wondered how much longer I could keep up this charade.
The last rays of sunlight painted the Salt Lake Temple in hues of gold and crimson. It stood as it always had, a beacon of stability to some, a symbol of oppression to others. As darkness fell, I knew that tomorrow would bring changes none of us could foresee.
I gathered my things, my mind racing with plans and contingencies. Whatever was happening at the Capitol, whatever new measures would be imposed by the USC, I knew one thing with certainty: this was the last normal day we would know for a very long time.
As I left the lab, I whispered a prayer – not to the God of my childhood, but to whatever force might be listening in this broken world. "Please," I murmured, "give me the strength to do what's right. To help those who cannot help themselves. To resist."
The words felt like treason on my lips, but as I stepped out into the gathering twilight, I felt a glimmer of something I hadn't experienced in years: hope. And with it came a sinking realization – the vow I'd made on my graduation day was about to be put to the ultimate test.
