C-Shapes

by Matthew Fish

  “Got it…” I say as I take the second file and begin to get up, and then realize I have a day unaccounted for. “Who takes care of them on Sundays?”

  “That’s when the Calm levels in their blood are at their highest so they pretty much go into kind of like a cross between a coma and hibernation-like state. It helps keep them from going Aggro. Plus, you know… it gives us all a day off.”

  “Alright,” I say as I get up, eager to get to work.

  “One more thing,” Katharine says as she stops me. “Are you interested in the C-Shapes dating service?”

  “What’s that?” I ask, just like the whole Sunday hibernation thing, it was not something covered during training. I know that it is considered very important for the normal people left to have children just in case we never find a cure for the Unstables in order to keep our population up. Also with the threat of large groups going Aggro again someday, who knows how many people will die before this all eventually ends.

  “We set you up on dates with people around your age who are also Sitters… you get a profile sent to your phone and a meeting location. If you agree, you go and see how things work out.”

  “Sure,” I say shortly. I never gave dating much thought with all the shit going on in the world, but it would be great to have a conversation over a nice dinner or something. “Let’s do that.”

  “Got you in,” Katharine says as I walk out the door. “Good luck out there.”

  “Thanks.”

  I make the drive out of Chicago. It has been a while since I’ve driven so far away from the main part of the city. I can still remember the days when I came here to visit before the virus hit and the traffic was so unmanageable. Now it is just like driving anywhere these days. Not much traffic anywhere. I guess that is what happens when you take half the population off the roads. After a while, I end up in my old neighborhood. A few of the houses I remember have been burned down, leaving behind a crumbled, broken wreckage that through age and neglect look like abstract twisted sculptures. I spot my old house as I round a corner. Nature has reclaimed it. Large vines grow over the house covering the majority of the front. A few crafty vines have managed their way into the windows, slowing breaking through them over time. The grass is high and dragonflies fill the yard fleeting back and forth in their rhythmic dances.

  I park my car outside one of the few houses that still look like they’ve been taken care of. A large lemon yellow two-story house with white shutters stands before me, just as I remember it. A set of playground equipment and a matching yellow tree house is visible in the backyard. It brings back a flood of memories, swinging on warm summer days. Chasing fireflies and catching them in jars at night. I remember being older, going on drives and trying to meet girls with my friend—just hanging out and talking. Being here really hits me in a way I did not expect. Why him, and not me? He was talented, he had something to offer—I’ve never been anything but a habitual fuckup. The realization does not give me much comfort that there is some greater meaning to life.

  I ring the bell, after a few moments an older woman in a wheelchair answers.

  “Mrs. Williams?”

  “Are you the new Sitter?” She asks and then pauses. “Ethan Chase, is that you? You’ve grown up.”

  “Time seems to have a way of doing that to people,” I say, more amused with myself than she is. “You look exactly the same.”

  “Oh bullshit,” Mrs. Williams says as she gestures for me to enter into the house. “Don’t kid an old lady, I own a mirror.”

  “How is he doing?”

  “He has his good days,” she says pointing down the basement stairs. “He stays down there most of the time, we had a kitchen installed and it’s fully furnished. They say it was for my safety but I’m in this wheelchair… if he goes Aggro someday I’m dead anyway.”

  “Well hopefully they’ll find a cure soon.”

  “Cure,” she chortles which abruptly turns into painful sounding coughs. “You don’t buy into that cure bullshit do you?”

  “Are you the same Mrs. Williams that used to scold us for saying fuck when we’d get angry at a video game?”

  “Don’t say fuck, it’s not polite.”

  “Got it,” I reply with a laugh. “I’ll just head down.”

  “You’re the Sitter, you do what it is you people do,” Mrs. Williams says as I descend the staircase.

  As I make my way through the basement hallway I can hear the faint sound of someone talking. I follow it and find Noah Williams sitting in a chair facing a blank television screen. I knock softly on the edge of the doorway to announce my presence.

  “What’s that?” He says as he turns and gives me a slightly angry look as his face is squished into a contorted grimace. “You my new Sitter then?”

  “Yeah, I’m…” I stammer. It has been so long. I half expected him to remember me somehow, even though I know how stupid that notion was. “I’m Ethan… Ethan Chase.”

  “You’re late.”

  “Sorry,” I reply, attempting to get back on his good side. “I had to meet with the caseworker and she held me up a bit. I will be here on time from now on. I promise.”

  “The news says it is going to rain. Is it raining now?”

  “It’s a sunny summer day,” I reply—unsure of how to reply.

  “They’re always lying to me, this thing,” Noah says as he gets up and gives the old flat-screen TV a smack with the back of his hand.

  “You know it’s not on right?” I say, slightly apprehensive of how he might take this. They always said in training to never argue with an Unstable, but it is hard for me because I know him… or at least I knew him.

  “Of course I know, I’m not some dumb son of a bitch,” Noah says as he sits back down and turns his chair to face me. “I just turned it off.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say as I nod repeatedly. “It is my first day.”

  “Never been around an Unstable before then?”

  “Only in passing, never… really for a long time,” I admit. We spent a short time with each variety besides the Psychopaths, Manics, and of course, the Aggros during training. However, it was in a more group orientated setting. It didn’t feel as personal or strange as actually being here does.

  “I don’t like it.”

  “Don’t like what?” I ask, confused.

  “Don’t like being called an Unstable,” Noah says as he looks saddened all of a sudden.

  “I won’t call you one then,” I say as I reach over and attempt to place a comforting hand upon his shoulder.

  He quickly slaps my hand away. “I don’t like pity.”

  “You never did.”

  “What’s that mean?” Noah asks as he looks at me with his eyes furrowed.

  “Well I know you don’t remember anything before the virus day, or V-Day, whatever people call what happened… but we went to the same school from about 4 grade on. You went away to college and I stayed behind so we kind of lost touch.”

  “We knew each other?”

  “We were friends.”

  “Huh…” Noah says as he scratches his chin with his fingertips. “Don’t remember you.”

  “I figured you wouldn’t,” I say as I nod. “How have you been feeling… any changes?”

  “You don’t have to bother with that. I know anyone that goes Aggro just goes, there are no symptoms.”

  “I know I’m just supposed to ask.”

  “Yeah, last Sitter asked me all the time,” Noah says as he shrugs his shoulders and lets out a sigh. “Annoying fuck…”

  “You know my next step is to watch you take your pill for the day then right?” I ask, continuing to follow procedure.

  “Yeah,” Noah adds with that same annoyed tone in his voice. He pulls out a white and blue pill bottle from a drawer and takes a single nondescript white pill out. “Would you hand me a bottle of water over there?”

  “Of course,” I say as I reach over and grab one from a sealed container that stands about as hig
h as I am from the floor. I think to make a comment about the need for so many bottles of water, but then realize any attempts at humor would probably go unappreciated. Before I begin to turn, I feel a strange pain at the base of my neck—then a small strike hits me from behind.

  “Spiders…” Noah says as he holds onto a rolled up magazine. “Did it get you?”

  “I think so,” I say as I run my fingertips against a small raised lump.

  “Don’t worry so much about it… there aren’t any poisonous ones down here… you ever seen one of these things?” Noah asks as he holds up small white pill in his hand.

  “Not in person,” I say as I bend down to look at the smooth round white pill. It looks to me like nothing more than an aspirin. I keep playing with the small bump on my neck; I certainly hope there aren’t any poisonous ones… with most of the houses vacant these days a lot of the houses outside of Chicago are crawling with them.

  “Not very impressive is it,” Noah adds as he pops it into his mouth and then consumes the entire bottle of water without pause. “…all these world issues over something so small…”

  “I think China would still own most of our assets if it weren’t for it,” I say attempting to be relevant. To be honest I hardly keep up with politics. Whenever I would turn on the TV it would always be terrible, one group was always killing another group, no matter where it was in the world.

  “Almost makes you wonder if the government didn’t invent the virus doesn’t it?”

  “Now don’t tell me you’re one of those conspiracy nuts…”

  “I think I’m just classified as nuts,” Noah says with a hearty laugh and then pauses drastically and looks sadly down to the floor. “Although I do love conspiracies…”

  “I hear you’re doing well…” I say in an attempt to cheer him up.

  “It never rains anymore.”

  “It rained yesterday evening; had a bit of a storm… I’m a bit more north so…”

  “When I was a kid it rained every day. I used to swim into the sky… and when night came I’d catch stars and put them in an old mason jar by my bed and they’d keep me up all night because they were so bright, but they were so beautiful I never minded. I always… stayed awake as long as I could to watch them. So long that I’d be… asleep till noon. Then you know what would happen overnight?”

  “What would happen, Noah?” I say, remembering back to my training. Sometimes they will go off for a moment—especially with high functioning Amnesiacs. It is always best to let them just go and return on their own.

  “They would all die,” Noah said as he buried his head into his hands and began to cry.

  “I’m sorry, Noah,” I say as remember to not place my hand on his shoulder as this would annoy him. “You didn’t know that would happen.”

  “Do you want to know why I’m going to hell?”

  “I don’t believe you are—but why?”

  “Because I always knew it would happen. I just did it anyway,” Noah continued between sobs of tears.

  I find a box of tissues and hand it to him and he nods thankfully and wipes away his eyes. “You forgive me though, right?”

  “Of course I do.”

  “Sometimes I wish it would rain like it did when I was a kid again, so that I could go up and catch those stars… is that selfish of me?”

  “Sometimes in life, if you want to be happy… you have to be a little selfish.”

  “I just want to swim through the sky again.”

  “I’d love to join you,” I say as I nod. Although he’s being very abstract, I get the idea. I’m surprised that he even slightly remembers the notion of catching fireflies as a kid. I thought that would have been something that was wiped away from his mind.

  “So are we having lunch? I’d like a grilled cheese. Can you make that or should I make that?” Noah asks as his tears are gone and a smile is back on his kind face.

  “I can definitely do a grilled cheese,” I say as I am slightly taken aback by the swiftness of his return to a degree of normalcy… then again, it should be something I expected. However, things were so much different in training. I mean it is one thing to learn and get the basic idea of how to do something than it is to actually be confronted with it in reality.

  “And a beer,” Noah says as I head towards the kitchen.

  “You know you’re not supposed to be drinking anything with alcohol on your med…”

  “I was just testing the waters.”

  “You still play chess?”

  “How do you know I play chess?”

  “I knew you before the incident…” I say as I nearly forget about the memory issues.

  “Was I good back then?” Noah asks as he intently watches me prepare a simple grilled cheese sandwich.

  “I’d say we were about even,” I say with a short laugh, “but I’d be lying, you’d usually beat me.”

  “Well maybe you’ll win, I haven’t been playing that long—but I’m always up for playing a game… just as long as I can make it through.”

  For a moment that statement makes me rather sad. “Yeah, go ahead and set one up, I’ll finish up here.”

  “Don’t forget my beer,” Noah says as he laughs his way down the hall.

  The day passes quickly. Just as Katharine said, Noah has his ups and downs and they come and go just as swiftly as passing breezes on a windy day. He manages to complete a game of chess with me, and to my disappointment, I win. I never used to win. I prepare him another grilled cheese for dinner. I attempt to tell him that he has had one for lunch but he insists that was yesterday. I do not argue, as I said before, it was in my training to not argue. Evening approaches and the end of my shift draws near.

  I clean up the dinner dishes and place them onto a rack. I make my way down the hallway and Noah is sitting in front of the TV set, only this time it is on. More stories about Unstables going Aggro… more deaths.

  “I’m heading out soon, do you need anything done?”

  “I’m good I think.”

  “Don’t forget to do some writing,” I say, remembering to keep him busy.

  “I’ve got some here,” he says as he digs out a small pile of printed paper. “Read a little of it.”

  I scan the first few lines:

  There was a tree that grew so tall that it reached the sky. My mother does not believe me because she cannot see the tree. I am the tree. I am the tree. I am not the noises that I hear at night but I make noises that I hear at night. Therefore I am the noises that I hear at night. I am the tree.

  “This is really good…” I say as I am once again overwhelmed with sadness.

  “You don’t look like you think it is,” Noah says, catching me off guard.

  “It is,” I immediately backpedal. “It has just been a really long first day—still getting used to all this. You were always great at writing. I always thought so.”

  “How did you know I wrote?”

  “Caseworker told me,” I say, taking the easy way out this time.

  “Oh, right.”

  “You’re a good Sitter.”

  “It’s not much work really; I just kind of hang out and make you food… I’m glad though that you said that.”

  It did mean a lot to me at the time. After all, I was so nervous that I was going to mess this up. I never really had good luck and always seemed to mess up at other jobs. I was a little surprised, honestly, that I did get accepted into the C-Shapes program… then again the caseworker said they were rather desperate. Although it makes me wonder, why even have me on a waiting list? Anyway, what he said that day made me feel more confident about being helpful.

  “I’ll see you on Wednesday,” I say as I turn and begin to head up the staircase.

  “Why C-Shapes…?” Noah asks.

  “I’m sorry?” I reply as I stop at the third stair.

  “The sea comes in many shapes… it’s never in one constant shape. It’s redundant. You can’t stop the sea and make it into one singular shape; you
can’t control something so big.”

  “I don’t think they mean the actual sea, Noah,” I say as I shrug my shoulders. “I’m not sure why they came up with the name. I think it’s more to do about the letter C and the shape of it, like one could look at it like a defensive shield or a place to take refuge in.”

  “Either way it is redundant.”

  “I can’t disagree.”

  “Do you think it’ll rain tomorrow?”

  “I hope so, Noah. I hope so.”

  Exhausted, I begin the drive home. My heart weighs heavily in my chest. I find it to be some kind of cruel fate that I ended up being a Sitter for a childhood friend. I begin to hope that he never goes Aggro with me; I don’t think I could deal with seeing him being dealt with. I used to think so highly of his writing, and it was such a sad state to see how far things have deteriorated. Once I get back to my apartment, I take a long hot shower and think more upon the events. I know that I cannot let things like this get me down or else I’ll not be able to make it. After all, this was just my first day.

  I receive a message on my phone, I pull it out and it is a message from C Shape Central. It simply asks, “How was your first day?” I write back “It went pretty good.” Seconds later I get another response asking me on a scale of one to ten how well I think I was trained for this. I realize that I am speaking to a computer and mindlessly numb my way through the answers I know that they’ll want to hear.

  As it gets later I crawl into bed and turn on a machine that simulates the noises of a busy city, the sound of traffic and an indistinct sound of people talking. I find all the busyness of the sound soothing. It reminds me of being younger in the city… it reminds me of a time that has long since passed. I fall asleep wondering how the new case will go tomorrow. In the back of my mind I wonder myself… ‘will it rain tomorrow?’