by Ross Anthony
“Mīlo, are you home? It’s Cindy from the diner.”
“What does she want?” I thought as I got up to open the door. I took a look through the peephole to confirm as I slid the off chain lock. She stood in the empty hallway alone. She wore sandals, shorts, and a tank top. Her platinum blonde hair fell just to the top of her shoulders.
“Hey sweetie,” she said, “I’m so sorry.” She continued as she wrapped me in a hug that I was unwelcome to receiving, “How you holding up?”
I pulled myself back from her, unamused.
“I’m fine, thank you.” I stared at her, waiting silently for her to explain the reasoning for being at my door. I didn’t want to entertain; I wanted to be alone.
“Is it okay for me to come in? To talk?”
I thought for a moment. “I don’t really have anything to talk about, Cindy. I’ve run out of topics.”
“I understand,” she said, “but it’s about your ma. I, uh, you know, and everything that happened with Barbara and stuff at the diner.”
“Oh, yeah. That.”
It was the very last thing I wanted to talk about.
She pushed past me and made her way into the apartment. If the ladies at the diner had anything in common, it was their persistence in not taking no for an answer.
With a roll of my eyes, I turned and calmly closed the door behind me. I took a breath and followed behind her.
Mid-passing through the living room, she stopped. She had noticed the urn sitting beside the record player. She gently placed her hand on it, and with her other hand wiped a tear from her cheek.
She proceeded into the dining room and sat down at the table.
“Mīlo, your ma was an amazing woman.”
“Thanks. She was.”
“Anyways, sit,” she said, staring with wide open eyes. They were green like a forest and innocent like a child’s.
I had no energy for company, but I knew Cindy wasn’t going to be leaving unless I cooperated, so I sat.
“What is it that you need to tell me?” I asked, annoyed.
“On behalf of all of us at the diner, I want to apologize to you.”
“Okay,” I shrugged. “Is that all? Because I really don’t feel like revisiting this.”
I was taken aback by my attitude. I wasn’t myself.
“I understand if you need more time, but we love ya Mīlo, and we want ya to come back to the di–”
Each word she spoke became increasingly intolerable. She had no right apologizing to me.
“Why are you here?” I slammed my hand down on the table, rattling its surface. “Mikey should be the one here right now. Not you!”
My voice had climbed to a volume I’d never heard from myself before. The words that shot out of me startled both of us. I was upset, sure, but I hadn’t realized how much so.
“I know,” she hushed. “He’s embarrassed, ashamed. He’s grieving the loss of your mother just as much, if not more than the rest of us.”
I closed my eyes and took a breath. “I just don’t understand. Why– why keep it a secret?”
“Mikey and Fran got back together before your ma found out she was pregnant. That’s all I know,” Cindy shrugged.
“My mom told me that my father left because she wouldn’t terminate the pregnancy. I don’t know what’s real. Why would she have stayed there working with the man?”
“Perhaps you should talk to him,” Cindy suggested.
Questions spun in my mind, dizzying me. I yearned for answers, and the only way I’d get them was if I did talk to him. “I don’t think I’m ready to do that. Yet.”
“Well sweetie, when you are, you know where to find your family.”
She was right; they were like family, and I was wrong for being as discourteous as I was toward her.
“Thank you Cindy. I’m sorry for–”
She shushed me. “Don’t worry about it.” She reached her hand across the table, which reminded me of my mother, and I reciprocated. Her touch was soft and warm. “We had never seen your mom as happy as she was the day you were born.” I felt her sincerity as she squeezed gently. “You remind me so much of her.”
I grinned, accepting the compliment. However, I was quick to change the subject. “So, what about Barbara?”
“What about her?” she chuckled, “Barb’s a bitch, excuse my language.”
I felt “bitch” was an understatement. “Is she still at the diner?”
“Oh, no, honey. We haven’t seen or heard from her since that day.” She got up from the table, holding out her arms. “I should be going though, sweetie. Come on, give me a hug.”
I got up from the chair, this time accepting of her embrace. Cindy was true to her friendship she had with my mother, and for that I was grateful.
Later that afternoon, I went down to the diner, but Mikey had already clocked out for the day. A few new people I hadn’t seen before were working, so I left.
I decided to use what was left of my day to clean and straighten up the apartment.
Afterward, I went into the bathroom to prep myself for bed. I watched my reflection in the mirror, brushed my teeth, and washed my face.
For the first time, as I followed through with my routine, I saw myself just as I was, and I was perfectly okay with that. There was no need to compare or wonder.
The question of a father never again crossed my mind.
Twelve
All moping and self pity had to be put on hold, as I had classes to resume. With all the events that had occurred, I had fallen behind on the semester. All the catching up I had to do meant that I didn’t have the time to go back to the diner to talk to Mikey.
I had to push myself, but much like working at the diner, I soon found meditation in class work. Quite a contradiction, considering it was inducing some of the stress. However, It took me away from the politics of the outside world.
I took all the long, brightly lit, and populated routes around campus to get to my classes, in hopes of avoiding Moose. Who knew what he would do if he saw me again?
There was tension around every corner amongst the increasingly white-skinned crowds of people.
Everyone kept their heads down and their eyes to themselves, more than ever before. Not a single person gave a glance of acknowledgment to passers-by. If they were with someone, they leaned in close and spoke quietly to one another. A great discomfort clouded over the campus. Even the ocean’s breeze had grown quiet.
Inside classrooms and lecture halls was where I saw the greatest difference. Rooms were filling with empty desks as more people of all different backgrounds seemed to disappear around me.
Stetson’s cleanse hadn’t seemed plausible in the beginning. Granted, it was scary to hear his intentions during his speech, but no one imagined that it could actually occur, at least not as successfully or as expedited as it had.
I carried on from class to class, and then on to Math 202 with Dr. Nolan. It was the first day of what was going to be my last week with her. Over the course of the semester, I’d grown quite fond of her. She was a brilliant educator, and while it was obvious that she could comprehend the most challenging of equations, she had a way of simplifying it for everyone. At first, what was off-putting about her was that she knew how impressive she was.
However, that day in lecture, I hardly paid any attention to her. My mind was wandering about, replaying snippets of the last several months. My last night with Nicolas was predominantly on my mind.
Everything he said about Stetson the night we were attacked had sounded so far-fetched. I didn’t know how much of it to believe, if any part of it at all.
Though, as I circled around all the events that led up to that, it was seeming more tangible.
It was on that thought that a group of three individuals uniformed in black war-ready body gear burst into the room. They were accompanied by a man who appeared to be a campus administrator of sorts.
A feeling of dread flooded into the room behind them.
“Well, can this wai-” she started.
“Step outside,” he exclaimed impatiently.
For the first time in my knowing Dr. Nolan, she submitted herself and stepped down from her podium, following in their direction out the door. The admin, appearing nervous, stepped up to where Dr. Nolan had been.
“I regretfully inform you all that Dr. Nolan will not be returning to campus. Surely, you all must be wondering why, but all I’m authorized to say is that those three men who took her are a new line of American defense known as Cleansers. With that being said, you will all be required to retake this course next semester.”
The class booed.
“With,” he shouted over the ruckus, “a new educator, one who completely fits New Westminster’s updated criteria.”
He had a peculiar look of guilt as he turned to the white board behind him. Shaking nervously, he picked up a dry erase marker and began to squeak it across the board. As he finished with a quick slash, he turned to reveal the unequal sign.
The room began to whisper with speculation, but I already knew. Nolan was like me, and Nicolas was telling the truth. I needed to warn Peter that his fears were becoming reality.
“How could I have been so ignorant, so naive?” I thought.
I gathered my things into my bag, threw it over my shoulder, and hurried out of the room. I tried to do so with discretion, as I didn’t want any attention on me.
Outside of the classroom, the unequal sign had been printed on flyers and plastered to the walls that lined the campus. In bold letters scribed underneath the unequal symbol read “The Cleanse.”
The Cleansers were seemingly working quickly and diligently, as none of the flyers had been there before I started class.
My name echoed from behind me. It was Peter.
“Mīlo,” he panted, running up to me with panic washed across his face, “they’ve pulled our data from the HomoSphere app. They’re combing through all the files, and they found me. I went back to my dorm and it had been totally ransacked.”
“How do you know for sure?”
He pulled his phone out of his pocket and flashed it in front of my face.
“Read the headline.”
“Dept of Homeland Security subpoenas user information of popular dating apps” read the rogue, non-Stetson news source.
“I deleted mine a while ago,” I said.
“That doesn’t matter. All user information, including your last known location, which was in this city, was saved onto the app’s encrypted servers. I was just using it less than an hour ago, before I saw this,” he said, regretfully. “In addition to this, they’re sweeping through same-sex marriage registration all across the country’s courts.”
Fear washed over me; it wasn’t going to be like the days when I just blended in. There was a physical track record for them to find me.
“We’re not safe anymore, not anywhere,” Peter said, shaking.
I looked past Peter to see a group of black uniforms, like the ones that had taken Nolan away. They were fast approaching down the hall. They walked past other students between us and them with ease and purpose. They had a target, which appeared to be Peter and perhaps myself.
“Peter,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth, not breaking my gaze with the uniformed group, “we need to get out of here.”
He stood staring at me, confused.
“Just start walking.”
“What?”
“Do it,” I demanded.
He started to move forward, keeping his back to the Cleansers.
As I turned to walk with him, they accelerated their pace toward us.
My chest began thumping, pushing adrenaline through my body.
“Run!” I shouted.
We pushed past people, racing toward the stairwell. Paper, books, and writing utensils fell from arms and bounced on the floor. I hoped that it would slow the Cleansers. We hurried down the stairs to the ground floor, not looking back. Waiting at the entryway, we noticed several more Cleansers standing guard.
“What do we do?” huffed Peter.
“We keep running,” I said, pushing him in the direction down the hall opposite the exit. I heard the sound of boots clamoring down the stairs, and another set echoed from the entryway as we ran through more clusters of people just coming from class. We slowed to a more casual pace to blend in.
“Give me your phone,” I said.
“Why?” Peter whispered, puzzled.
“They’re tracking us with them, remember? We gotta lose ‘em.”
He handed me his device, and I slipped both of our phones into a trash can as we turned the corner to another exit.
We successfully lost them and we hurried out of the building.
Despite our best efforts, we realized quickly that our win was short-lived.
White, windowless vans lined the campus. Black suited beings, who hardly seemed human, were escorting individuals into the back of the vehicles. Some of the people being taken I recognized from the Color Wheel meetings.
Every direction we looked, there were Cleansers positioned at the ends of each walkway.
“This is it,” said Peter, shaking.
“I can’t let us go down like this,” I replied, trying to channel the courage I had so heavily boasted in my thoughts. All the while, my heart pounded with contradiction.
“Mīlo, I just want you to know that…” he paused for a moment as tears welled in his eyes. Then, with no warning, he leapt at me and kissed my unprepared mouth.
Startled, I pushed him off of me. “What are you doing?” I yelled furiously. This was no time for emotional revelations or public displays of affection. It was completely uncalled for and foolish.
“I’m sorry. I just-”
I noticed one of the far off Cleansers point in our direction, and a group of them started our way. From the door we had just come from, six more appeared.
I took a quick breath to dissipate my frustration. “Peter! You can’t,” I was frantic. “We have to run!”
He stared at me blankly.
I saw the Cleansers speeding toward us. “JUST RUN!”
We bolted across the grass, but Peter began to lag behind, and before I knew it, he was down and surrounded by the Cleansers.
I kept running.
I was alone, fleeing for my life. It felt like the nightmare I had of the car chasing after me, though this was very real.
I felt a small sting on the back of my neck, and I immediately fell to the ground.
The world around me faded to black.
Thirteen
White. Blinding white light burned my eyes as my lids creaked open.
I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t move. I looked to find thick, brown leather straps buckled across my ankles, arms, and chest. The surface below me was cold and firm. My clothes had been changed to white cotton hospital garb.
“Hello, Mīlo,” said an aged, hollow voice.
I looked to my right to see a frail man, dressed in the traditional black and white clerical clothing as that of a Catholic priest.
My stomach churned, spinning fear into anger, and anger into confusion. My body tensed, seemingly growing bigger, causing my restraints to tighten.
“Where am I? Where’s Peter?” I demanded.
“Peter? Oh Mīlo, you needn’t worry about Peter.”
“Why? What did you do to him?” I tried thrashing around to break free, enduring various pinching and burning as the hard edges of the leather straps gnarled at my skin.
“Well, it was determined that he was past the point of saving, but you’ll be happy to know that he was successfully Cleansed.”
A lump formed in my throat. “No,” I choked.
“Don’t fret. He is in a better place now, Mīlo. He is with our Crea
tor. We should all be so lucky,” he smiled.
By “cleansed,” I knew he meant murdered. My anger grew deeper as the realization of Peter’s murder sunk in. Doom began to fill every corner of my body. I, too, was going to be Cleansed.
“Let me go,” I begged as I thrashed in my restraints.
My body seized as an electric current entered my body through the temples.
“We are going to make you better too, Mīlo,” he said.
I laid immobile on the table. There was no use in fighting as my muscles continued to contract and spasm.
“Let’s get you settled in, shall we?” he grinned, revealing a corroded smile.
I slowly rolled my head to face him, my mouth agape, drool draining down my cheek.
“Fu-f-,” my mouth sputtered, “fuck you.”
“Well, now. That’s not how we talk here,” he said with a tone of condescension. He then, with a deliberate motion, pressed his decrepit finger down on a button resting on the arm of his chair.
My body convulsed again before I blacked out.
I came to, some time afterward, with a metallic taste in my mouth. My tongue was throbbing. I must’ve bitten it hard during the induced seizure.
“We want you to be the best you, the most pure you,” insisted the empty voice. “New America demands it.”
I felt weak as I tilted my hanging head from left to right.
I realized that I was sitting in a chair at a table, completely undressed. I looked around, and I was in an entirely different room. It was significantly darker than the one before. The wall before me looked to be a screen. It was like I was in a movie theater, but there were no other seats, only mine.
I felt something tugging at my genitals. I looked directly down and saw there were wires taped to me, leading to a box on the table stationed beside me. Clipped to my finger was a heart rate monitor, which was connected to the same box. It had dials on it and a meter needled over numbers labeled volts and watts.
“New America?” I sputtered. My motor functions had slowed down significantly, making time itself feel like it was creeping to a halt. I had to pace myself to articulate my thoughts, but it proved to be challenging. “Wha-what i-is thisss?” I felt the “s” sound drag for a couple of seconds before it finally stopped.
