The Labyrinth of Souls

by Nelson Lowhim

  Table of Contents

  The Labyrinth of Souls

  How do I escape impending death? I ask because I see my own coming for me; ravenous, disgusting, and to top it all off, giggling away. I see the same for my people. There is no hope. Or is there?

  The seed of our destruction—and by our I mean civilization's and by civilization I’m really referring to those of us comfortable enough on our thrones of picked-clean bones, high enough to not smell the stench of blood and decaying flesh of those upon whom our thrones sit—threatens to lie in our every action wrong.

  And so it goes, as that more modern Bard said; as some of us go through the codification of our souls—kicking and screaming, mind you—we try hard not to feel these things, these unsettling matters which tend to obscure our view of the manicured lawns and houses or shiny buildings or “place your history here”-facades.

  But—and allow my imagination to float a little, allow me to change the metaphor here—we still look down, for swimming over such deep waters cannot help but pique our curiosity. Yet even those amongst us who are curious cannot see much but a few snippets of the truth about those below—like the remnants of symbols of an ancient people. And from these cave paintings we must come up with a picture of an entire civilization or culture and judge its interactions at its conscious surface and—with regard to the more tangible interactions with other peoples—its penumbra, all the while exonerating the love for ourselves.

  What can one do? What does one do?

  The headline reads: X people killed by Y. Sometimes with an accompanying abstract on the method, though this is only if Y actually sent out a social media dispatch. But we rarely get much in terms of details or motivations—assuming we’re even trying to read the news—learn what drives a man to strap on a bomb vest and walk into a marketplace of the perceived enemy, or capture one of them and behead them. If we do learn something, it’s tainted with the visceral qualities of just such action, their consequences—oh my! see the head cut off, the woman and children wailing, the blood flowing down the gutter!—and how barbaric that other just is.

  We don’t see, however, the consequences of the actions we carry out—(oh my! see the head cut off, the woman and children wailing, the blood flowing down the gutter)^3—not in a visceral sense, at least. Anyone who presents this is labeled untrustworthy, dissident even. One only has a few matters one must present: logistics and technology (how our great people are able to do so much!). Talk of heroism soon follows.

  Me? I know better. I’ve seen outside the cave and so I don’t react. I act. And so it goes, you may say, but provoke the power that is and they will bite. Law and order becomes law for order, then just order.

  Lights flicker because of electrical interference. I know what that means. Something powerful and electronic this way comes. My heart sinks and I take leave, scurrying like a rat from my abode.

  As I make my way to the subway, another fall day descending upon me with dreary grayness, I think about that as I see another's shirt, American flag dead center, about never forget 9-11. The man, overweight with a goatee, seemed to be looking around the Bronx station with a sense of disgust. I walk over a few steps. The platform is warm and fetid. The rails bracket wrappers of sweets and salty foods that serve as testament to the cascading bodies in the Bronx. I stare at the filthy water draining out of the track area.

  I feel tired, but I also need to find out what happened. I'd just walked into my apartment to find it empty of everything. Of course my key still works, but to see no evidence of my girlfriend or cat was disconcerting to say the least. Numerous calls to my better half, and the hospital she works in revealed nothing.

  I sit down in the over-cooled subway car. The chill of the air, always excessive, seems especially painful today. I wonder what I’m supposed to do about my apartment and my love. I have to start a search. But where? What about that electrical interference? Was I being paranoid? As the subway doors close, I wonder why the hell I am going south to the island. Chatter arises in the car, Spanish, Bengali, and other languages that I can’t quite identify. The world’s living room. The train rumbles. Loud. Aged. I remember the smell of my woman, and my heart drops.

  There was no sign of a struggle in the apartment, so I have to assume that she left of her own accord. I had checked Facebook and saw that her feed was wiped clean. Nothing on her wall, though there was plenty from the other people I had somehow collected in my life: my southern friends decrying another gun grab; my liberal friends screaming at perceived insensitivity in any piece of media. But between these calls for attention, not a thing about my love.

  I glance through to the other subway car. There’s a man, Latino, most likely Dominican, standing strong, tattooed. Next to him is a grim-jawed man, possibly too white for this stop so far north of Manhattan. The second man looks straight ahead, his ill-fitting suit and the jerks to his movement force the hairs on my neck to stand up. He’s military.

  He’s clenching his jaw. Can he see me looking? I try to make out an ear bud, but can’t see. I decide not to stare and look directly in front of me. Another sweep of the train car and I wonder if there’s anyone else who could be after me.

  I stand up, giving up my seat to a grateful mother of three. I see the man’s eyes following me. We’re nearing the 125th street station. The train stops, the doors open. There is a slew of people waiting outside the doors. A handful of people step out. The rest file in. I step to one side, spotting a channel between my fellow passengers. I look around and see more eyes on me. Discerning eyes, not the passive people-staring that one usually experiences on the subway. My heart rate spikes up.

  “Stand clear of the closing doors.”

  I move forward. There are two large men in the doorway. I give a slight nod at the door. They step aside. They’re not the bad guys, whoever they are. Each gives me a questioning look. I move a finger. They look forward, as if to cover my back. They understand. The doors move to close. Sideways, I dart past the men. I feel the brush of the doors as they shut behind me. Then I see the man with the grim jaw staring directly at me from inside the train.

  The subway moves off platform, a wind pushing away the fetid air for a brief respite, and I jog up the stairs. Up above, on 125th and Lennox, life seems to be quieter than usual. A mother heads down the stairs, yelling at her four children in Spanish. The oldest one, a girl almost in her teens, seems anxious to help her mother and corrals the young ones. It warms my heart to see such things, but I have no time for contemplating the beauty of life even here on 125th amongst the soda cans and cigarette butts. With skin shining in the sun, now peeking out from behind the clouds, wispy things, still I feel cold because I know I’m alone as if naked. Avoiding the slalom of stares and large well-positioned men who scan from one end of the street to another, I walk to the park. And even though the tension in my mind is loosened when a woman walks by, digging each heel into the sidewalk with a twist, and confidence, a helicopter hovering in the distance reminds me that there are bigger things at hand.

  Up the stairs of Morningside Park, I make my way to the more rarified air that is the Columbia University campus. The sidewalks here, save for a few scrapes of dog shit, are cleaner. A gothic tower with bat ears stands guard above. When I finally make my way west, under the cover of the trees of Riverside park, I relax and sit on a bench. The stench of weed is in the air, but I don’t see anyone. It’s still afternoon, on a weekday. It won’t be crowded now. And for a second I think I’m safe. After all, there aren’t any helicopters in the sky here.

  No. I need to be smart about this. Drones can’t be seen. Nor would I know if I was wanted; they don’t usually announce such things about the wanted, do they? No, they only do that if they
can’t catch the man and they need the public’s help. So they possibly think they have me. I look around. Hard to tell these days; if they’ve been tracking me they must have everything I own geo-tagged.

  A man in a suit stumbles out of the brush, his eyes red.

  “Hi there,” he says.

  I look around. There’s a slight wisp to his voice, but I’m not certain it means anything. Still my senses, thinking of the men with guns coming for me, parse his every move.

  He adjusts the sleeves on his suit.

  He’s only a few feet away from me and he stinks of weed. He’s almost teetering. And yet this contrasts with his Wall Street uniform.

  “Hey,” I say. The man’s teetering in front of me, seemingly too confused to even talk. “Sit down man. You look like you need it.”

  He sits, or rather he falls, down next to me. The wooden park bench slats jump at their joints.

  “So what is it?” he says. He’s intelligent. The weed only made standing seem like a chore. It happens.

  Something about the reality of my circumstances, my wife gone, hits me wrong and I’m struck with a powerful melancholy.

  “Well,” he says, pausing as a woman comes in running shorts, bouncing chest and shiny skin. She stops to to actively stretch, kicking her toes high, then takes off. There is something asexual about her, but the man stares at her bouncing, ponytailed hair as she turns the corner and disappears.

  “I’m George, by the way,” I say and stick out my hand.

  “Mathews,” he says and sticks out his hand. I shake it. It’s sweaty.

  My melancholy dissipates, but in its wake it leaves some stirred up thoughts too strong to keep inside. “It’s tough to think on things others tell you to leave be,” I say. I’m thinking on the current of compromise.

  “This is the land of 3/5s,” he says. That he’s this in tune with what’s going on in my mind almost scares me, but at least it confirms his intelligence, and I trust him more.

  “And what about thinking outside the box?”

  “The sheeeple,” he says in a zombie voice and giggles.

  That does make my words sound odd, but my thoughts are too strong for any filter. I push on. “And the word terrorist—“

  “I was there. On 9-11.”

  This unexpected sentence hits me and sinks in as leaves rustle at my feet. I wonder if I’ve asked the wrong person. He sounds sobered up now. I watch the same girl come running back up the sidewalk. Perhaps she isn’t entirely asexual. She focuses even harder on the ground in front of her as she runs by.

  He goes on after watching the same thing. “I left when the first building was hit. My boss said not to. He stayed behind.”

  “Sorry,” I say, though I know the pause has been too long.

  “Not to worry,” he says. “The boss was an asshole.”

  I don’t know if that means that the boss died.

  “But ever since that day I was told that terrorists hit those towers. And for the longest time I agreed. Or, I suppose, I never thought about it. So when we went to war, wherever, I cheered. Always.”

  “What made you change?”

  “Nothing.”

  I wait for more. A couple, black and well dressed, walks by. They tilt their friendly heads at us. I smile. They’re old, connected at the hip.

  “Only you did,” he says. He pushes his hand through his pocket and pulls out a handkerchief.

  “You mean you never thought about it until now?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “I guess you’re right,” I say. “I haven’t thought about it. Not well enough.”

  “It’s tough.”

  “The definition?” I ask.

  “No. To go against the Greek Chorus.”

  I nod.

  A helicopter flies low over the buildings about ten blocks away. I freeze, feeling needles in my heart, then realize I’m holding my breath. Looking over, I realize that my new friend is also staring at the helicopter.

  “Not for you,” he says.

  “You were saying?”

  Sirens blurt out, and I jerk. Mathews looks at me, then turns to the street from where the wailing sound originated.

  “We can go to my place,” he says. “It’ll be safer than here. Why get caught when we’re just about to figure things out?”

  I hesitate. He’s acting friendly, like an informant would. Should I take this chance?

  “Just to talk,” he mumbles.

  We walk up to Riverside road, passing a blocked font graffiti being washed out. The words, “all is well,” seem juvenile to me. We hail a cab and head to his place. Apparently on 70th street.

  The taxi turns into a smaller street. Here in the upper west side life is buzzing, though not as much as near 125th street. It’s a less interesting and a more affluent, a more faked rush.

  We enter a posh lobby, where the Hispanic doorman nods at Mathews with respect and gives me a sullen look. Up a quiet elevator, everything still clean and sanitary with polished golden surfaces shining as a frame. We enter a quiet and similarly clean hallway. There should be a tense feeling in my chest; instead I’m relaxed. I’m away from the sky, away from potential watchers. Well, or so I hope. I know that their eyes can reach every corner of this earth, but that’s too depressing to think about.

  His place, a large almost house-like apartment, has a view, of other building tops. Everything is spotless. I’m trying hard not to be jealous. I think of my studio in the Bronx. I’ve always held a sort of pride in my ability to suffer for my art, but for some reason, now that that art had forced me to go on the run, I feel absolutely foolish about the whole situation. This is how rebels are forgotten, I think. I cough to decrease my discomfort. I need a drink.

  “How about a drink?” he asks as he walks to a kitchen well-stocked with shiny stainless steel utensils and machines.

  I need to keep my mind clear. “I’m fine.”

  He pours himself a cup of water, chugs it down. Opens the expansive fridge—filled with pre-made meals—and pulls out a yogurt. “You sure?”

  “Sure,” I say. I lean against the counter. I stare at the windows. All open. Ostensibly they can hear me from there, can’t they? Again that constriction in my chest expands. I should steel myself for the fight.

  “You should sit down,” he says and points at the white leather sofa.

  I sit down, my legs feeling weak.

  “A writer, eh?” he says as he hops on a love-seat perpendicular to me. “There’re lots of those in this city, aren’t there?”

  I nod even though I take his words as a slight. I look at the roof of the building across the street. What happens when they come for me? I’ll be trapped here. I know all about the tactics that they’ll use. Unless they just choose to send a sniper placed on that roof, or on a helicopter, and, adjusting for the bullet’s refraction off the glass. Pop. My head spins, my brains fly. And maybe Mathews here will get to know how exactly how a man’s head looks once it’s been run through by a bullet. He’ll learn the colors that skin and a head of hair holds in. That white, strawberry red, that pink. That strange beauty.

  “You’ve got a look... in your eyes,” he says, and glances down at his glass.

  “Where’s the bathroom?” I ask. He nods over, then raises his hand to point down the dark hallway. He turns his back to me and pulls out a tequila bottle from the fridge. As I walk to the bathroom, I feel the softness of the carpet underneath my shoes. I kick off my shoes.

  I enter the bathroom. It’s clean, and smells like a woman. I sit down on the porcelain, my legs throbbing with pain. Old age, I’m no where near it, but the future calls us just as the past does and it only adds to the pain.

  As I lean forward, allowing the smells of sandal soap to fill me with a comfort only ever attained by my childhood dreams, the mirror starts to vibrate, then shake. I freeze. Soon the air is vibrating, and then the candles, the filament on the lights too, sending a near epileptic shock through my body. My knees hit especially hard,
buckle, and I find myself seated back on the toilet—one ass cheek askance.

  My heart flies into my mouth, and I hold my breath, like a child hoping to pass out, my mind flashes not my life but a vision of the men coming through the door—full well knowing that they would put a bullet through me rather than deal with a messy trial— with lights and HK MP5s spraying my head into my lap. My thoughts, which tell me to pull up my pants, which tell me that I shouldn’t be found like this, that they’ll parade me through the streets like this, half-naked, like crazed Somalians, don’t make my body move.

  The vibrations cease.

  It takes a few seconds for me to chew on the air and sit up, stand up, and pull up my pants. In the mirror my face looks haggard, hunted.

  “You alright?” Mathews calls out.

  “I’m fine,” I say, my voice cracking on the last word.

  “Ha! I’ve got just the cure for you.”

  I step out, the hallway darker than ever, though the light from near the kitchen is still bright.

  Mathews, grinning, hands me a drink. He has the same in his hand.

  It could be poisoned. But after my recent weakness, I’m in no mood to turn down a friendly hand.

  I grab the cold glass, the condensation absorbed readily by my skin.

  “To definitions,” he says with a smile.

  I sip it, the tequila sunrise, and allow the alcohol to cool my throat, then leave a warm sensation. As I look at the hallway, I realize that it is indeed longer than anything in this building or block would indicate. I see a handful of light-lips from the bottom of doors. Some seem half a football field away. And it doesn’t seem to end, it just falling into darkness.

  He opens his mouth but sees where my attention is.

  “You’re more than welcome to explore.”

  Now I can hear the sounds of tapping. A yell. The sound of someone groaning in pain. I’m taken back to visions of men enclosed in barbed wire, their heads down, traveling to small dark and dank rooms, the smell of blood sweat fear everywhere. My insides lurch. I turn to Mathews.

  He sips his drink. But when another yell sounds, even he can’t help but dart his eyes over, though in the end it seems as if he’s still trying to act unconcerned.