Fiction Vortex - June 2013

by Fiction Vortex

  ~~~~~

  "Can I ... go in there?" Dmitry asked the guard at the fence gate. He pointed to the females inside all wearing pink, next to his blue-men enclosure.

  The guard nodded. "Yes, you can come in to visit. You just can't touch any of the women. And you can't go through that pink doorway into the building. Do you understand?"

  Dmitry nodded. "Visit. Yes. Can't touch. I can ... only visit."

  The guard let him in through the gate. He walked across the lawn a few meters, then stopped and looked back. This felt odd. He was supposed to be over there, in the blue enclosure. This was the pink people enclosure. A hand absently went to his new haircut, still vaguely fragrant with an aftershave spritz.

  He slowly turned to look around at the pink women. He spied one he'd noticed before from the blue-men enclosure. She looked young and pretty, and vaguely familiar. She had long brown hair with silver strands tied in a bundle hanging down her back. She was sitting on a bench under a tree. Dmitry walked over to her.

  He stopped and stared down at her. Dressed in pink scrubs, she sat with her hands limply in her lap, palms up. She didn't look up at him. She didn't move at all. "I saw you," he said, pointing. "From the fence. Over there." Still no response. "I wear blue. I stay over there with the blue men."

  Still she didn't move, her head cocked at a tilt as she stared at the grass. He wanted her to say something. Strange feelings suddenly welled up inside him, confusing him. He desperately needed her to say something. It had been too long. Why wouldn't she talk to him?

  He roughly shook her shoulder. "Look at me! I'm here! I'm back!" he said loudly.

  Suddenly people in white scrubs came running toward him, as the woman with the ponytail, totally unresponsive, continued to stare at the grass. "Don't touch her!" they screamed. "You can't touch her!"

  ~~~~~

  That night he had a nightmare. It was about a pretty woman with long brown hair. She smiled at him. She liked him. She laughed and kissed him. Then ... smoke and fire. Explosions. Bad things. Too many bad things. He remembered running breathlessly down one burning alley after another, screaming out her name. When he'd found her, he'd pulled her limply into his lap, blood everywhere. But her eyes were also staring at nothing. She was empty too.

  "Dmitry? Dmitry!" came a male voice through the fog of a painful dream.

  Dmitry struggled awake, gasping for breath. His cheeks were wet, his throat full of salty tears.

  "You were screaming," said the man in white scrubs. "Here, take this." He held out a pill and a small cup of water. "It'll help you sleep, without the nightmares."

  Dmitry rose up on an elbow and reached out a shaking hand. He swallowed the pill and water. "It wasn't her," he sniffed, handing back the paper cup. "Under the tree. The pink lady. It wasn't her."

  "I know," the pill man said simply. "You can't go back, Dmitry. You can only go forward."

  Dmitry looked up. This man was about his age. But half his face was badly scarred with tight, rippled skin that made his eye and mouth droop. The Night Nurse. Dmitry had only seen him a few times before. Somehow, that scarred face fit into his nightmare.

  As the scarred man headed for the door, Dmitry called out, "You can't go back either, can you?"

  The Night Nurse paused, a hand tightening on the doorknob, then he briefly looked back. "No, I can't. And neither can you. Good night, Dmitry."

  ~~~~~

  "And what is this pill?" asked Dmitry a week or so later, at morning med dispensing. He pointed to a tiny green pill shaped like a triangle.

  "That's one of the Restorative herbs, Dmitry," answered the Dispenser. "You really need to take those, if you want to keep getting better."

  "Yes. I want to get better," answered Dmitry. "What does it do? This Restor-a-tive?"

  The old man stared at the pill. No one had ever asked him that question before. "It has herbs that make you stronger inside. It also helps balance and heal your mind. As you keep removing the other pills, these Restorative herbs will have a stronger effect. Helping you to get better. Helping you to keep moving forward."

  Dmitry nodded vaguely, staring at the other nine pills arrayed on the counter. "These other pills. What do they do?"

  The Dispenser thought a moment, deciding. He then put fingers on three pills and pulled them into a separate pile. "These three are placebos," he answered. "Fake pills. Sometimes broken minds get better only by thinking a pill is doing something to help them. So these pills are fake. It's the people healing themselves."

  Dmitry stared at the three pills, then shook his head. "No. I don't want any fake pills. Fake pills don't help ... moving forward. Can you take away all three of them, instead of just one?"

  The Dispenser scooped up all three with a happy grin. "For you, Dmitry, since you are doing so well, I'll remove all three placebos."

  ~~~~~

  A few days later, Dmitry headed sadly back to the farm. As the fog in his mind cleared, he'd been feeling lonely. He'd tried talking to other blue men in his enclosure, without success. They either ignored him, stared at him blankly, or ran away from him. Dmitry understood. They weren't ready to move forward. But he was.

  The Official people in white scrubs or white lab coats didn't have time to talk to him. They were working, they said. And he never saw them when they weren't working.

  He'd gone back into the pink-scrub female enclosure a few times, always with a stern older woman in white scrubs beside him. But those pink women wouldn't talk to him either. At best, they just smiled crookedly and said "Hello!" over and over and over. "Hello! Hello! Hello! Hello!" And he wasn't allowed to go into the yellow children's enclosure on the other side, since he'd shaken one of the pink females.

  So he talked to the farm animals. Even without their psychedelic colors, the non-talking animals seemed friendlier. And he could pet their warm bodies without getting yelled at. The animal Officials, who all wore green scrubs, always smiled and nodded a greeting to him. But they were also too busy to talk to him.

  Occasionally they let him hold a baby chick or piglet. Sitting cross-legged on the grass with one baby animal or the other in his lap, he wondered what they were thinking. They had no bad memories. They were all so new, having just been born, that they could only 'go forward' for the rest of their lives.

  One time, he even had flash-memories of once being very young and having an animal for a pet. It was a spotted dog he called Lucky that he'd raised from a tiny puppy. It was so long ago. But he remembered having so much fun playing with Lucky. He realized then that he'd always found solace with animals. They couldn't talk, but they could love. Lucky had loved him so much that he'd crawled on his belly, whimpering with a broken spine, to lick Dmitry's face and bring him back to consciousness after that bomb had blown up their home.

  Suddenly, Dmitry didn't want to remember anymore. Shaking, he quickly stood up and thrust the newborn animal back into the arms of a startled green-scrub Official, before walking away rapidly up the slope.

  ~~~~~

  "So how do you like your cage, Mr. Pig?" Dmitry asked the pig one day, as the porker snorted and slobbered up its breakfast in the trough. "How do you go forward, when this pen only lets you go in circles?"

  Something shimmered through Dmitry, startling him. He too was going in circles, he suddenly realized. He wasn't going forward either, only in circles, from the building down to the farm and back again. He abruptly turned and headed back up the slope toward the blue door in the circular building.

  The old man at the dispensing counter seemed surprised, as he checked the wall clock while coming out of the back office. "You're early, Dmitry," he said. "You don't get your evening meds for a few hours yet."

  "How do I ... get out of this cage?" fumbled Dmitry. "If I want to go forward, I need to leave this building and these fences. You know that, don't you?"

  The Dispenser dropped his chin briefly. All his loved ones, his entire city, were dead and gone from the face of the Earth. He could never go forward be
yond this compound. Yet it was his job to help the patients go forward and eventually leave. Even his favorite ones, like Dmitry.

  When the Dispenser looked up again, his eyes seemed filled with tears, as he quickly swallowed. "Go look for your Freedom, Dmitry," he said in a shaky voice. "Start in the hallway." Then the old man turned away, sniffing, and went back into his rear office.

  Dmitry slowly walked down one side of the long, curved hallway. The cafeteria doors were closed, but it wasn't mealtime. He waved at the Shaver in passing, who paused from shaving another head bald, to smile and nod at him.

  He still shaved Dmitry's face once a week. But it was up to Dmitry to decide when he needed a haircut. Dmitry had gotten used to having hair again. But he was dismayed at all the new silver strands he saw in that big mirror every time he had a shave or a haircut. It was definitely time to go forward, before all his hair was grey, and he was trapped here like the Dispenser and Shaver.

  One end of the hallway was lined with doors to the bedrooms, open or closed, blue men stumbling in or leaving their tiny rooms. Some were stuck in their doorways, or leaning up against a wall by their doorways, all fearful their rooms and furnishings and meager belongings would be gone if they didn't stay close by and guard them. Dmitry understood. He'd been like that once. His first few months here he'd only gone between his room and the cafeteria and dispensing counter. So much loss in that horrible war. These fearful bald men just weren't ready to go forward yet.

  Dmitry didn't find anything helpful about his Freedom on that side of the hallway. So, when he reached the end of the hallway, and could hear the yellow children on the other side of the wall, Dmitry turned around and slowly went up the other side of the hallway.

  Getting frustrated, he still didn't see anything about Freedom. He ended up on the other end of the long hallway, by the offices of the white lab coat Officials. He noticed a huge posting board on the wall. On one side were announcements, such as the week's menu in the cafeteria. And the upcoming monthly concert-under-the-stars: blue men on the first Friday of every month, pink women and yellow children on the third Friday of the month. In the middle of the board were names and numbers that Dmitry guessed must match the Officials to their offices.

  At the far end of the board was a list of nonsense words. Silly words. Nothing useful to someone who wanted to—

  Then a chill rocked Dmitry, head to toe. All the nonsense words made sense. That was the answer. Up there on the board, near the end wall to the pink women's side. His Freedom. He started hyperventilating, his heart pounding. "No ... No! Not now! Not yet!"

  Dmitry turned and ran, around the corner to the exit hallway, past the dispensing counter and then out of the blue door. He paused on the front lawn, panting, long enough to catch his breath. Then he ran the rest of the way to the farm. The green Officials found him with his arms wrapped around the bars of the pigs' enclosure, terrified and gasping for air.

  ~~~~~

  Ten days later, Dmitry attended the monthly concert-under-the-stars, like he'd been doing for almost a year now. Other blue-scrubbed men wandered around aimlessly, since no one had to go in at sundown on concert nights. Dmitry sat in the front row, to minimize the distraction from the other blue men, so he could listen to the music.

  He studied the musicians. They were all middle-aged, like Dmitry, to white-haired seniors, in a variety of pants and shirts. While playing, their faces were expressionless, except for slight frowns and moving lips as they read the music in the stands before them. Between songs, they ignored him, talking and joking with each other instead.

  Dmitry suddenly felt a sharp pang of loneliness. He wanted to be part of a group of people like that again. People who liked him, people who joked and chatted with him. Friends and family. Faces he recognized, faces that lit up with smiles when they saw him.

  Choking back tears, Dmitry realized that it was time to take a chance again. To march through his horrible memories and once more become part of the Living. To go forward and have a future away from medications, fences, and the blank stares of drugged patients. Dmitry started to tremble, tears falling down his cheeks. Suddenly, desperately, he wanted to be part of a group like that again, more than anything else in his life.

  ~~~~~

  The next morning, Dmitry sat waiting on the metal bench across from the dispensing counter. He wore a clean set of blue scrubs, his hair neatly combed. There was stubble on his face, since the Shaver had told him that he was too busy to shave him out of his weekly rotation. A small packing crate from the cafeteria sat at his feet, filled with all his worldly possessions.

  When the Dispenser arrived, he was surprised to see Dmitry sitting and waiting. But the old man quickly took in Dmitry's clean clothes and crate and nodded over a sad smile, understanding.

  The Dispenser went behind the counter to the rear office to drop off his sweater, then came out again. "Good morning, Dmitry," he said over the counter. "Don't you have something to tell me?"

  "Yes. I do," answered Dmitry, rising and approaching the counter.

  "Freedom Restored Ends Entropy Despite Obnoxious Medications. FREEDOM."

  The Dispenser smiled broadly and nodded. The way Dmitry pronounced that phrase told the Dispenser that Dmitry understood it. And was ready to be discharged.

  "I knew you were getting close to leaving," the Dispenser said, opening a side drawer. "So I prepared your paperwork. This ... is one of my favorite duties."

  The old man pulled out a piece of paper and a small card, and put them on the counter. "This card is your discharge from this Restorative Home for the War Insane," he said, pushing the card toward Dmitry. "Put this in your wallet or pocket. You will need to carry this with you always."

  Dmitry reached over and picked up the card. He put it in his scrubs pocket, since he didn't have a wallet. Not yet, anyway.

  "And this piece of paper has the name and address of a cousin of yours, one Dr. Vladimir Portnoy," the Dispenser explained, pushing the paper toward Dmitry. "He has a successful medical practice and a large home. And he is more than happy to have you join his family."

  Dmitry was surprised. That pesky little cousin Vladimir? The same one who used to slip vodka into his parents' morning coffee? And would pinch Dmitry's girlfriends and run, so they'd slap Dmitry instead? All grown up now and a doctor, with a family of his own?

  "I'll call you a jet-taxi, and then remove your waist alarm," the Dispenser said, reaching for an odd-shaped phone Dmitry never knew was behind the counter.

  "And then, Dmitry, you shall have your well deserved Freedom."

  Marilyn Martin is a writer and humorist. Her stories have appeared in "Deadman's Tome," "Strange Valentines" (antho - Whortleberry Press), "Cosmic Crimes," "PerihelionSF," "The Fifth Dimension" (these last two stories can be read for free on her Amazon Author Page), and the March 2013 "Universe Horribilis" (antho - Third Flatiron Press). Marilyn also writes weekly non-fiction and humor columns for "ComputorEdge.com," and is writing a new series of Science Fiction/Horror/Paranormal Tech novellas on Amazon Kindle called "Hunting Monster Aliens".

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  Freckles, Stan, and Peconic Joe

  by John Byrne; published June 7, 2013

  No one complained when those harsh four-letter words that teens thrust into every sentence unaccountably disappeared. Nor was anyone concerned that political talk-show hosts seemed no longer able to verbally compare everyone they disliked to devotees of a genocidal former German Chancellor. And nobody but nobody complained that door-to-door preachers were suddenly rendered speechless when hoping that their victims enjoyed the ensuing 24 hours.

  But when previously common and less controversial words became suddenly unsayable, concern and then panic set in.

  Take Stan, an Oregon State University graduate student enthusiastically pursuing linguistic anthropology, and his girlfriend, Sue, an OSU graduate less enthusiastically pursuing paychecks to keep their household above the poverty line. Sue’s prime reward fo
r the time she spent harvesting a very modest wage was that Stan was a verbally attentive lover, ready at all moments to put down the latest article about abstract nouns among the unfortunately extinct Tikiwadda people to express a sincere, over-the-top admiration for Sue’s allure.

  On the afternoon of July 17, as Sue struggled in the front door with two armfuls of groceries, Stan looked up from his latest find, a sixteenth century Jesuit’s report, complete with sample words, about the Quaquanantuck on Long Island in what is now New York State, and said, “Tswa incomconque tswinginging.” Which, he hastened to add, was Quaquanantuck for, “You are truly...” Only the intended last word of the sentence did not emerge.

  Sue feared that Stan had had a stroke, but there he was, breathing normally while looking puzzled and taking a second, and a third, and then a fourth, and then a fifth run at rendering the Quaquanantuck phrase into English, only to stop dead each time at the end of “truly.” Stan finally chose a side route by saying, “You are truly of an appearance that is remarkably appealing.” Sue decided that instead of a stroke, Stan must have been suffering early onset dementia, a condition Sue had seen often among graduate students.

  But Stan wasn’t demented. The word he’d sought was gone. Simply, completely, absolutely, and unsayably gone. Challenged by Stan to enunciate the hitherto common, three-syllable, English adjective meaning “of an appearance that is remarkably appealing,” Sue failed. And their neighbor, Josh, failed at about the same time in his effort to invoke a deity’s wrath upon the stray cat which had just dug up Josh’s best tomato plant. And, down the street, Cynthia was rendered speechless at the gas station while trying to ask the attendant to replenish her car’s fuel to the utmost. And on, and on, and on, all across the increasingly frustrated and alarmed country, which demanded that something be done to recapture the missing words. As best they could, people struggled around holes in their diction to make protest signs, to send e-mails, and to shout insults at similarly afflicted politicians.

  Stan took a different tack when he realized that he could compliment Sue readily by using the small clutch of Quaquanantuck words he had mined from the sixteenth century book. The only drawback was that neither Sue nor anyone else within 3,000 miles of Stan understood him.