Vacation

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  And here I am on the page. Caricaturized. Deformed and cross-eyed. A big giant head on a long skinny body with long skinny limbs.

  I don’t laugh, but I smile.

  “That’s the way, honey,” she says and stands. “Keep it up, and you’ll be one of us before you know it.”

  Now, I laugh.

  Part 9

  I have to leave this place.

  Not because I want to go.

  But because I don’t.

  “That’s enough for today,” Noh told me. “Think about the pictures, and we’ll continue again tomorrow.”

  And now, I’m lying in bed, staring up at the earth, and this could be my coffin.

  But it could also be my cocoon.

  I’m on the verge of something.

  And once I cross that line, I don’t think I could find my way back.

  So I sneak out of my so-called room, and enter the Garden. One of the giant bulbs emits a faint glow. An inside moon for an inside garden.

  The only sound I hear is the rushing of air and dripping.

  I walk and pass by openings to various small rooms, where I see dark forms sleeping on blankets and mattresses and mats. Everywhere, I’m stepping over paint brushes, pencils, paper, guitars, flutes, drums, clay-shaped everything you could imagine, and some things you probably couldn’t.

  During the day, these sleeping Gardeners are singing and dancing and drawing and painting and writing.

  Every once in a while, I see them huddled together with serious faces, plotting. What, I don’t know.

  But most of the time, they play. And they’re not ashamed.

  Not like me. I’ve always felt guilty taking part in culture. Watching television. Listening to music. Even reading books, I only let myself enjoy it so much because it’s part of my job description. Because I’m dissecting the words. Because a story alone is worthless.

  I only deserve to enjoy art because I work so hard. And yet, these people, they act as if these forms of expression are what it means to be a human. They act as if these things don’t need to be justified.

  And maybe, just maybe, they’re not acting.

  I head out of a large opening from the garden area, and travel a winding path that gets smaller and smaller, until there’s only a foot of space between me and that which encircles me. Finally, I reach what looks like the entrance of a bank vault. I press a big red button, and the exit opens, and I step out, and I close the door behind me.

  With heaven, it’s a lot easier to leave than it is to get there.

  I’m back in the forest, without my backpack, without the tubes, in complete control of my body, and I’m already lost.

  Before taking a step, I consider turning around and knocking my way back to safety.

  So this is him.

  The weak little shit I really am.

  And then I hear a scream. A female scream. The noise draws me forward into the wild. Maybe I want to make up for the imaginary Krow I left to die. Maybe I’m just afraid to be alone out here.

  Whatever the reason, I find the girl, a teenager, and she’s caught in a bear trap, her hands clamped on the metal jaws, unable to pry them open.

  Without thinking, I’m there, kneeling, playing the hero I know I’m not.

  The first thing I notice is that there isn’t any blood.

  The second thing, her ankle’s made of wood.

  Third, the wood’s riddled with holes.

  Even where the jaws didn’t bite her.

  A hard something hits the back of my head, and I don’t have time to notice anything else.

  The walls flap. My wrists burn and my feet don’t touch the floor. I’m hanging from my tied hands, my back against a tilted sheet of wood. The man in front of me is dressed in camouflage, but he’s all I can see now. Him and his long dark hair, almost down to his waist. Him and his gun.

  “I took the liberty of searching your wallet,” he says. “It’s only fair that you learn my name as well. I’m Sergeant Weis. This is the Torture Room. But don’t let the name fool you. This is a tent, not a room.”

  My body writhes, but it’s a fruitless effort. My hands aren’t the only part of me tied down. “Let me go.”

  “The use of torture has been justified in countless ways,” he says. “They say, we must torture the criminal in order to discourage others from committing crimes. But crime has never and will never be prevented in this way. They say, we must torture the accused so that they’ll confess their crimes. But anyone would confess to anything under those circumstances. The sick truth is, torture exists because there are those of us who enjoy causing people pain. Fortunately, I’m not one of those people. My childhood was quite peaceful, and every time I’m forced to torture someone, I feel bad about it. The day I stop feeling bad about it, I’ll take my own life.” He punches me in the face.

  “Stop!” I say.

  “Scream,” he says. “The louder you scream, the softer the subsequent blow will be.”

  Mom, dad, I’ll save you from the details of the next few minutes.

  After those minutes, he says, “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I want the security code to the Garden stronghold.”

  “I don’t have it,” I say.

  He hurts me in a way that I won’t trouble you with. It appears the old rules are over. It doesn’t matter how loud I yell anymore.

  “I know you have it,” he says. “My men saw you enter the cave on your own. However, due to the fact that the keypad is located in an alcove, my men were unable to observe the code themselves. What is it?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  It happens again.

  “Please, Mr. Johnson,” he says. “Save yourself the trouble and give me the code. Everyone breaks eventually.”

  “I’d break if I could, but I don’t have the code.” And I add, fast, “They were controlling me somehow. When I was asleep. I saw the forest, but it was different from reality. I didn’t see the code.”

  “This all sounds highly unlikely.” Onto the table, he sets the object he was using on me. Blood drips off his fingertips. “But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll be right back.”

  He turns, and his hair rises as a black tsunami.

  When he returns, a woman follows, maybe ten years older than me, bald and scarred and dressed in the same fatigues as the Sergeant.

  “Do what she says,” Weis tells me and points at me with a thick finger an inch from my nose.

  I nod.

  “You’ll have to leave, Sir,” the woman says. “There’s no way he’s gonna relax with you here, after what you done.”

  The Sergeant sighs. “Very well.” And he’s gone.

  Now she scoots a crate under my feet, and I’m not hanging anymore. Just standing, leaning back against the wood. I want to rub my wrists, but I can’t quite reach.

  She sits on the table, so close to the sharp bloody instrument that I’m afraid she’s going to cut herself. But she doesn’t. “I know you’re uncomfortable and all, but you gotta try to relax. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, nice and slow. That’s it.”

  I do what she says. I’ll do anything she says, as long as she keeps the Sergeant away.

  “Close your eyes, son,” she says. “Imagine your toes disappearing. Now your ankles’re disappearing. Now your knees. Your thighs. Your waist. Your flesh is vanishing. All that’s left is a white light that doesn’t feel shit. Now your hands are going, your arms, your chest, your neck. Once your head goes, you won’t feel any pain at all anymore. You’ll be a ghost. When I count to three, your head’s gonna disappear. One. Two. Three.”

  By the time I open my eyes again, the Sergeant stands before me beside the woman.

  “That’ll be all,” he says.

  The woman salutes and leaves.

  “It appears you were telling the truth, Mr. Johnson,” he says. “You didn’t know the code. I must admit, I’m quite impressed how far the Garden’s technological capabilities have advance
d since our last exchange.”

  At this point my anger overpowers my fear. “Why didn’t you hypnotize me first?”

  “A valid question,” he says. “I’ll give you a valid answer. This is an army of desperate people, serving even more desperate people, Mr. Johnson. Our resources are limited. This means that efficiency isn’t a matter pride or honor, but survival. There are various methods to create and maintain an effective army. These include classical and operant conditioning, role modeling, brutalization, and desensitization. I desensitize and brutalize my men when they first join me. I abuse them, both verbally and physically. I tear down their individuality until they’re sheep. Sheep, Mr. Johnson, can be more dangerous than any wolf, when lead by a Ram who embodies, to his sheep, death and destruction. As for operant conditioning, this is a stimulus-response technique. By the time I’m finished with my men, all I have to say is kill, and they kill. There’s no forethought on their part. No moral dilemma. They kill neither to stop the enemy nor to defend themselves. They kill because I tell them to. Finally, Mr. Johnson, there’s classical conditioning. Why didn’t I hypnotize you before torturing you? Because I need my men to associate brutality with pleasure. My men celebrated listening to your screams.” He lifts the torture device and tosses it into a nearby crate. “I knew you weren’t with the Garden in the first place. No one with full clearance in their organization would wear ad clothing. Luckily my men are too stupid to realize that.”

  Suddenly those horrific creatures I crapped out don’t seem so bad.

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says. “You’re going to go back to the Garden. Knock on the door. They’ll answer, because they’ll know it’s you. They have a peephole of sorts. Whoever answers, you’re going to knock that person unconscious. Keep the door open. That’s when my men and I will storm the place. It has to happen this way. Our presence can’t be known before the siege. We don’t want to Garden to be ready for us, because they have weapons. I don’t want anyone to die needlessly. Got it?”

  I nod, but barely.

  “If you’re afraid we’re going to kill those nice people, don’t be,” he says. “We want some of their seeds. That’s all.”

  “Seeds?”

  “My people are poor, Mr. Johnson. We can’t afford to buy enough suicide seeds to keep us alive.”

  “Suicide seeds?”

  “You really don’t know anything, do you?” He crosses his arms. “Suicide seeds create a harvest, but they don’t reproduce. They’re a one-shot sort of deal. What the Garden has are fertile seeds. We want some. That’s all.”

  “This might be a stupid question, but have you asked them to share?”

  “Your question is ignorant, not stupid. There’s a difference. And to answer your question, yes, many have asked the Garden to share their resources, but they refuse to do so. Hence the secret security code.” He uncrosses his arm and turns halfway. “Well, you’ve had a long day. I’ll give you a long night to recuperate. Tomorrow, we’re going in. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  Stimulus-response.

  Part 10

  “You don’t have a wedding ring,” the girl with the wooden leg says. “Are you married?”

  Before she interrupts my thoughts, various scenarios play through my head.

  One, I do what the Sergeant commands, and betray Noh and Odin and all the other Gardeners I haven’t met.

  Two, I step into the cave and close the door behind me, and warn the Gardeners of the danger. The Garden can’t be completely self-sustaining, so they’ll have to go out eventually. That means they’d have to fight their way out. That means I’d get stuck in a middle of the battle, and all the deaths would be on my head, because I could have prevented the bloodshed, if only I’d done what the Sergeant commanded.

  Maybe the Garden should share their seeds.

  But the girl with the wooden leg says what she says, and I open my eyes and reply, “No.”

  And she begins to untie me from my cot. “Weis couldn’t tie a decent knot if his life depended on it. I’ve never seen him fire his weapon either. I doubt he’s capable.” She unties my last appendage. “He could ask one of his drill instructors to give him basic training, but if word of it ever got around.” She shakes her head. “He’s a talented strategist at least.” From behind her, she rolls over a dolly with a cloth bag on top. “Get in the bag.”

  I don’t.

  “Listen, I do their laundry from time to time. I can get you out of here.”

  So I climb into the bag and curl myself up, fetal and afraid.

  She rolls me out into the camp. Laughter booms and I wonder if there are still torture parties going on in my honor. My body heats and cools as we pass by numerous bonfires. I imagine us passing by Sergeant Weis’ tent. And with his back to us, I flip him off in the dark.

  In no time at all, the girl unties my bag, and I’m free, in the forest once again.

  She motions for me to follow, then leads me alongside a gentle creek.

  “If you could leave like that, why didn’t you escape before tonight?”

  She laughs. “You’re the one escaping. I’m leaving. I was never a prisoner there.” She walks in silence for a few moments, maybe reflecting on a memory, then says, “Weis saved my life. For years he’s given me food and shelter. Safety. He said I was like the daughter he could never see.”

  Hearing someone talk about Weis like this makes the pain of what I went through with the man lessen. A little.

  “It wasn’t a bad life,” she says. “But I promised myself I’d leave if something better came along. You’re that something better.”

  “What can I do to help you?”

  “Marry me.”

  “Marry you? I can’t marry you.”

  “The Garden can give me the documents I need. Officially, you’re in a hospital right now, so they can say I’m a nurse there. We fell in love as I cared for you. You want to marry me and take me to America.”

  “I’d like to help you, but—”

  “Is it my leg? Do you think I’m ugly?”

  In truth, she’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen, but I’m too afraid to tell her that. For my whole life I’ve been bombarded with images showing me that youthfulness is beautiful and sexy. But I’ve also been taught by the very same society that once I think about how beautiful and sexy youthfulness is, I should feel ashamed of myself. And I do.

  “You’re not ugly,” I say. “But I don’t want to marry someone I don’t love.”

  She sighs. “Once we get settled in America, I’ll start looking for someone else. Once I find someone, we’ll separate. Honestly, Bernard, this is the least you can do after what I did for you.”

  “You’re right,” I say.

  “Good.”

  “You haven’t told me your name.”

  She breathes out puffs of white for a while. “Aubrey.”

  “I had a sister named Aubrey.”

  “I know. I heard you talking in your sleep.”

  “Does that mean your name isn’t Aubrey?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Call me Aubrey. It’s a good name.” She stops walking and heads across the stream, jumping from stone to stone. “What happened to your sister?”

  I follow. “She died before I was born.”

  “You’re lucky. My brother died right in front of me.”

  As we continue into the dark forest, I feel better.

  We can help each other, like the brother or sister we each lost.

  They shine sunrise at us, with multicolored faces, holding hands and folding hands. The artificial doves and flowers block the view of the actual forest behind them. Their frozen stained-glass bodies contrast with the goings-on of the children below. They’re playing and eating and shouting in an area where you’d expect to find pews.

  “Are you sure it’s safe here?” I ask.

  “They might be able to help us,” so-called Aubrey says.

  “How?”

  She
doesn’t reply.

  This is when the priests notice us. They approach in a black herd of gaunt bodies and glassy eyes. On the way, one of them vomits into a metal pot on the floor. These pots are everywhere.

  “Hello there, young man,” says a priest, about my age.

  “Hello,” I say. “My name’s Bernard. This is Aubrey.”

  “Are you feeling ill?” the same priest says.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  The priests glance at each other.

  “We can use him,” says one.

  “It’s wrong to use the children anyway,” says another.

  “They know as much pain as anyone,” says a third. “They’re not innocent.”

  “He’s perfect.”

  “He’s closer to God.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say.

  But they go on like this, mumbling to each other.

  I turn to Aubrey, who stands a few feet behind me. “Do you understand any of this?”

  She shakes her head. “No clue.”

  “Come with us,” says the first priest, and reaches out his hand. “We need your help.”

  I look at Aubrey again.

  She shrugs. “They might be able to help us.”

  So I take his hand, and follow him to the confessional, where he tells me to sit.

  But I’m sitting in the wrong section.

  The first priest shuts himself into the other tiny chamber, and sits in silence for a while. Finally, he says, “It started because we wanted to keep one church alive and bright. A beacon of God. Even with our resources pooled together, it wasn’t enough. So we made a deal. At first, we didn’t even know what we were transporting. The Agency didn’t tell us, and we didn’t ask. But eventually, we searched out the truth—perhaps because of guilt, or curiosity, or a little bit of both. When we learned the truth, we should’ve refused to continue. The Agency might’ve killed us all, but this shouldn’t be a problem for people like us. But instead of quitting, we sunk deeper. We have more than enough to keep up the church. Now, we have our…habits to pay for. In this life, and the next. Please forgive me, young man.”

  “I don’t know why you’re telling me this,” I say.