Vacation

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  “Jack, am I going to die?” I try to scream the words, but I still sound half-awake.

  “If I’m not mistaken, you believe your father is the reason you were allowed to teach English to students, and then subsequently to regulate teachers in their teaching of students. This is true, isn’t it, Bernard?”

  “Let me go.”

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” He scratches his chin. “Your problem is that you think too little of yourself. While your father may have been a determining factor in your initial success, the fact that you’ve remained successful is entirely your own doing.”

  You might think, just by reading these words, that Jack is giving me a kind of pep talk. That he’s complimenting me. But his face shows otherwise. He’s disgusted.

  “They employ you because of how you teach,” Jack says. “Do you know why they like you, Bernard?”

  I imagine Krow smashing a golden vase over his head.

  “Because,” Jack says. “You depress your students. It’s not so much the books you make them read, but how you interpret those books. And how you, in turn, require your students to interpret those books. Whether you realize this or not, you’re a depressing person. In your defense, statistics show that most people in your country are depressing, but you’re especially depressing. And the best part is that you’re ignorant about why you’re depressed. So let’s sum up, shall we? You’re an ignorant and depressing person and you express your feelings through the only outlet you know. Literary analysis.” He peels away a strand of his hair that attached to his lips. “You’re wondering why your bosses would want your students to be depressed.”

  I’m wondering why the hell I can’t even hope this is a dream.

  “I’ll tell you why, Bernard. The why is that the school is a business. A business with ties to various corporate entities, including the pharmies. Pharmaceutical companies. For every student who’s diagnosed with depression, the school receives a check in the mail. Because, as you probably already know, when a school psychiatrist diagnoses a student as depressed, the school requires that student to pop pills. Otherwise, said student is kicked out of school. And parents tend not to smile on that sort of thing.” He pats the spot where I hope my arm is, but I can’t feel him or my arm. “Don’t blame yourself, Bernard. At least, not entirely yourself. These systems have a tendency of attacking their intended victims on various fronts. You may bum out your students, but the school food, for instance, is also laced with chemicals that give rise to gloomy thoughts. This is all hush-hush, of course, but we have insiders everywhere. And don’t think that what’s going on in the school system is some fluke in an otherwise pic-perfect society. This is a microcosm we’re talking about, folks.” He sounds like the same old Jack again, telling Tour Group Three about the newest attraction. “In a society motivated by money, the various systems within that society are used, rather ingeniously, to increase profit by fucking people over in every conceivable method possible. The media convinces you folks that you’re not being fucked over, and governments suppress said fucked-over folks if they’re fucked to the limit. Because people fucked to limit often attempt to rectify these fucked-up things, which would be, above all, bad for business.” He whirls his arm and checks a watch that I can’t see. “Well, it’s about that time.” He reaches in a coat pocket and pulls out a needle. “When you see her, give her a little message for me, will you? Tell her, ‘Fuck you, bitch.’ She’ll know what I mean.”

  And he injects me.

  Now I feel worse than ill.

  That’s the trouble with betrayal.

  By the time you know you’re in trouble, there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. Except, of course, get over it.

  I don’t.

  Part 6

  If Frankenstein used liquid to animate his monster, it would be this liquid. The neon green squirts through the tubes, from the backpack on my back to veins in my arms. And I’m wandering through a forest in moonlight. But I’m not wandering, am I? My body plunges forward with the confidence of a wild animal.

  I tell myself to stop walking.

  But I continue.

  What I’m experiencing is either the best kind of instinct or the worst kind of helplessness. Which is the lesser of two horrors, I don’t know.

  The forest floor trembles before me. And when I step forward, because I must step forward, hands erupt from of this shaky patch. Hands of bone and tattered flesh. Hands unable to wear wedding rings. With every pop of earth, a scream ricochets in my skull, unable to find an exit. I scream inside, because the dead have rotten genitalia and rotten minds, so what else could they want but to devour me?

  After the hands subside, the forest explodes in white light. An instant later, I’m looking up at the largest thing I’ve ever seen. Nihilistic terror grips me, but not hard enough to keep me from moving. This thing, it’s alive. It’s blubber and tentacles and eyes, and this Lovecraftian beast doesn’t give a shit about me, and it’ll never give a shit about me. I could fight it. I could beg for mercy. I could even save its life or fall in love with it, and it would never for a moment acknowledge my existence. When I get close enough, it will destroy me with its rolling fat or a stray feeler, unintentionally, not because I’m not worth the intention, but because I’m unperceivable.

  Still, I step forward.

  And then I’m alone again in the forest.

  Or so it seems at first.

  Even before I see the eyes on the trees, I feel them. They look at me from every angle and judge me. The problem is this isn’t one of those righteous situations where you feel empowered by their critical stares. No, I know I’m in the wrong. I know that these trees and their immobile lives are more deserving than I am of respect. I want to curl up and make a sindoor on the forest floor, and I never want it to be opened.

  Still, I step forward.

  In the distance, a dark form swings from a tree branch. It moves as if rocked by the wind, but I don’t feel any wind. Closer, and it’s obviously a body. Closer still, and it’s obviously Krow.

  She’s still alive. A python, hissing with laughter, dangles her by her neck. I need to stop. With one hand, I can hold her. With the other, I can peel the snake off her. The tail wiggles at me, taunting me, just below Krow’s chin. I spot the snake’s head, and realize that this may be the reincarnation of Krow’s penis. Out for revenge. Or to take her with him. Or it may be lonely.

  All I have to do is stop walking.

  But still, I step forward.

  When I pass her, I’m breathing through my mouth, so I can’t smell her.

  It’s no longer just screams trapped in my head, but tears and snot and simmering blood.

  “Oh god,” Aubrey says, beside me now, in hiking gear. “It’s already started, hasn’t it? I didn’t expect it to begin so soon. I shouldn’t have left you on autopilot. I’m sorry.”

  I try to open my mouth.

  “Just think it,” she says. “I’ll be able to hear you.”

  So I think, “Krow needs help! You have to go back and save her!”

  “There is no crow, Bernard.”

  “No! Krow! She’s a person and she’s dying back there!” But even as I’m saying it, I don’t believe it. This can’t be real. But I can’t take the chance.

  “You’re sleepwalking, Bernard,” she says.

  Now they’re laughing at me. Squeaking at me. I haven’t been afraid of clowns since I was a kid, but that doesn’t seem to matter here. “Keep them away from me, Aubrey. Please.”

  She points her walking stick at me, and it looks like a petrified version of Krow’s snake. “Your mind is attempting to regain control of your motor functions by shocking your system. The problem is, it’s not going to work.”

  I see now that the trees are hollow. Hands and faces and oversized clown shoes stick out of the cavities in the trunks. They’re packed in the wood the way they pack themselves in clown cars. “Aubrey, there’s thousands of them. You have to get out of here.” I don’t know
what they want to do to me. But it’s something much worse than death.

  “You have to stop fighting me,” she says.

  The flowery limbs thrash about and it’s only a matter of time before the trees will split down the middle.

  “Run away,” I tell her.

  “Give yourself permission to keep walking. Otherwise this nightmare isn’t going to end until you and I are face to face.”

  “What are you saying?”

  She’s in front of me now, walking backward. Somehow she manages to step over every rock and avoid every tree in our path. “Repeat what I tell you. Will you do that?”

  I nod.

  “Say, ‘I’m happy to walk.’ Say it.”

  “I’m happy to walk.”

  “Again.”

  “I’m happy to walk.”

  “Keep saying it.”

  “I’m happy to walk. I’m happy to walk. I’m happy to walk…”

  The clowns stop moving. They stop laughing. They stop existing.

  “Don’t try to stop walking anymore,” she says. “This forest is safe. You’ll be fine.”

  I believe her. Or I want to believe her, and that’s enough. “What’s happening to me, Aubrey? I don’t understand any of this.”

  “And you’re not going to understand any of it until you clear your head a little. You’ve built up a lot of pressure. I’ll give you your face for a while.”

  Without another word, my tears escape from their prisons, and I’m happy to leave them behind to nourish the trees. I open my mouth, but it closes again before I have time to speak.

  “That’s all I can give you,” she says. “I’m sorry, but any loud noises you might make could attract attention.”

  I think to her, “What is this place?”

  “In terms of physical reality, it’s your average forest. But as I said, you’re sleepwalking. Your eyes are open so you can technically see where you’re going. But in terms of perceptual reality, this place is anything your mind makes it.”

  “Why is this happening to me?”

  “Because I made it happen. Jack put you in a coma of sorts, and now I’m taking you where I want you to go.”

  The mention of Jack’s name forces me to connect this reality to what I’d like to think of as my real reality. More than anything, I don’t want them to be one and the same.

  “I’d like to clear things up,” she says. “But I’m unlikely to succeed in that task until we meet face to face. Even then, I doubt you’ll ever be able to fully rationalize this experience. The problem with the way we’re speaking to each other is, I can’t hear what you’re saying and you can’t hear what I’m saying. Not directly. What you’re hearing right now is your mind’s translation of my thoughts, and vice versa. You’re interpreting my message in reference to your own consciousness and memories. This means that you won’t hear any words that you’ve never heard before. This also means that it’s difficult for me to explain the intricacies of a phenomenon that you aren’t already somewhat familiar with. In other words, it’s better if we continue this specific conversation once we meet in person. Until then, I suggest we change the subject or enjoy the scenery.”

  Aubrey and I hike together, her backward, me forward, and the trees poof into clouds. The floor dissolves into sky, except for my path. This trail of gold extends with every step I take, so that I don’t fall.

  Not that it would matter if I did.

  I’m dead.

  Aubrey’s my Guide. Soon she’ll be pointing out the main attractions of heaven. Here’s the cabin Jesus was born, she’ll tell me. And here’s where he chopped down the Tree of Good and Evil, and immediately told God what he’d done. And Aubrey won’t tell me that Jesus never did chop down such a Tree, and that such a Tree never existed, and that Jesus owned angel slaves, and that God actually wanted Satan, Jesus’ brother, to become King, because Satan was a lot smarter and kinder.

  No, she won’t tell me shit like that.

  This is what I’d like to believe. But even now, with the clouds drifting around me and the halo and wings on my dead sister, I know that I’m only seeing what I want to see. Believing what I want to believe.

  Almost believing. But what other kind of believing is there? Faith can’t exist without doubt.

  The clouds morph into faces of disgust and shake their heads at me as the wind blows. These faces—my faces—are sickened by how easy it was for me to give in to Aubrey’s possession of my body. I no longer fight back. I no longer want to fight back. How quickly I allow myself to be manipulated when faced by the fear of the alternative.

  To fight for my freedom would mean clowns and monsters and dead loved-ones. And according to Aubrey, this fight would be pointless. Freedom from her control is unattainable.

  Better to let go.

  After an eternity or two, I’m at the Gates. My fingers dance on a keypad in a pillar inscribed with cherubs.

  Better to believe she’s doing this for my-own-good.

  The Gates creak open.

  Better to not think about it at all.

  Part 7

  God disconnects the tubes from my outstretched arms, then places a hand on my chest, and his skin buzzes with white light. Here’s the part when all my sins are supposed to melt away. When I feel at peace with the Universe(s). Instead, God’s robe and face dissipate, along with heaven, along with Aubrey. Along with any fanciful hope that I’m already dead.

  Now I’m in a garden with dozens of raised beds, side-by-side like uprooted coffins, and there’s no sky. Just giant orbs of light hanging from a ceiling of earth. I’m underground, or I’m in a cave, or I’m in an underground cave.

  Instead of God, here’s a woman about my age, a hypodermic needle at hand. She’s short with short hair and perfect skin, wearing dirty overalls. She trembles the needle into a plastic case, the sort you’d put eyeglasses in, and maybe that’s what they’re for. She does wear glasses.

  Her eyes wander and she picks at her lips with two fingers. She looks, above all, uncomfortable. “I was right, wasn’t I?”

  I know I’m in control of my body again, but this free man doesn’t move or speak.

  “You hate me,” she says.

  All I can think is, “You’re not my sister,” so that’s what I tell her.

  She looks me up and down with a bounce of her head. “You’re taller than I imagined you. I had your specs beforehand, mind you, but you were nevertheless shorter on my end of the communications.” She reaches in a large pocket that could swallow ten of her hands, and pulls out a tiny notebook with rings on the top. Her attempt to open the notebook with a flick of her hand fails, so she resorts to rotating the cover manually with her other hand. “This is a three step process. One, detoxification. Two, indoctrination. Many would rather me call this step enlightenment, but I have no problem with the word indoctrination. And three, assignment. After you complete these three steps, you’ll be free to go.” She twirls the notebook closed and stares at it. “In case you’re wondering, I don’t have a memory problem. I was already quite aware of the three steps. But as far as security blankets go, making lists is a worthwhile activity. In a sense, lists have the power to validate your existence and clearly define your identity in manifested terms. I list preferences and accomplishments. Dislikes and mistakes. What I find most beneficial, however, is when I accomplish a task or some good thing happens to me that doesn’t previously appear on any of my lists. Joy and contentment aren’t always enough. Sometimes you need unforeseen blessings to feel as if your life is a full one. Don’t you think?”

  “What is this place?”

  “The Garden.”

  “Outside of the garden.”

  “Even outside of the physical garden, this place is called the Garden.”

  “What’s the purpose of this place?”

  “That’s a very simplistic question, and therefore requires a very complex answer to be fully understood. You might as well ask someone, ‘What is the purpose of a house?’ You eat
and sleep there. You store your belongings there. You might raise children there. In general, the Garden is a place filled with people, and sometimes we do what we want to do, and other times we do what we feel we need to do, even if it isn’t a want, per say.”

  “You can’t keep me here.”

  “Ah, I’m afraid I misspoke before. When I said you’d be free to go at a later date, I meant that at that point you’d be directed safely back to the hospital. You are not currently a prisoner here, in the most stringent definitions of the word. You would, however, die if you attempt to leave before the appointed time. Not by our hands. You’d get lost in the forest, and I know for a fact that you lack the necessary survival skills not to perish in this environment. I suppose one could hope that a set of instincts would awaken when needed, but I can’t believe that for two reasons. One, I’m a pessimist. Or a realist. The more I learn about reality, the less I’m able to distinguish between those two terms. And two, I’ve experienced firsthand what it’s like to be thrown into an unfamiliar environment.” She pockets her notebook. “So, Mr. Johnson, I suggest you stay here for a while. You won’t be harmed. Quite the opposite in fact. You’ll find that out for yourself in a short time. Ah, here he is.”

  A kid, maybe 20, steps up from behind me. He’s got a patch on one eye, and he wears a T-shirt with the Pax clam stitched on. The clam’s getting stabbed in the mouth with a samurai sword. “Hey man, let’s go.” He punches me on the arm. “We gotta get you fixed up.”

  The kid lifts my shirt, and fondles my stomach, and sniffs my breath, and tells me to stick out my tongue (which I don’t), and sandwiches my hand between his own, and squeezes my fingernails, and plays with my hair, and all the while he says things like, “Oh shit,” and “Wow.”

  I don’t look at his face during this process, but I can see his arms and his hands. His skin is perfection, just like the woman’s from before.

  “I’m Odin by the way,” he says. “I used to go by something else, but Noh started calling me that ever since I fucked up my eye. I don’t know why Odin, but who cares. It sounds cool. Oh!” Then he pulls up my sleeve and shakes his head, the way you did, mom, when you were disappointed, but not surprised to find yourself disappointed. “You bruise easy, man.”