The GOD Box

by Melissa Horan

  Chapter 6

  Jonathan and Gabe were going through the motions. Same observations, same responses, same prosaic discoveries. When dinner was over, Jonathan popped his pills. From a side glance, Gabe was watching, and Jonathan caught him in the act. It seemed to Gabe that Jonathan was taking more pills than ever during these last two days. Something was eating at him, perhaps, or reality sunk in, or he was too tired to fight anymore. Didn’t he realize what would happen when the pills were gone? Gabe mentioned this to Jonathan, once, when he seemed in a good mood. Regardless, he responded dryly, and told Gabe to piss off, that he could handle his consumption – and, yes, he knew what would happen when they were gone, and no, he didn’t care.

  Partially because of this, and partially because of his confusion at this society, Gabe found himself irrepressibly frustrated after dinner and volunteered to leave and prepare for bed as soon as possible. Though, of course, sleep escaped him. What things had he learned today? (1) Women are in a traditional role. He deliberated if that was a bad thing. (2) Economy is doing okay under capitalism. (3) They have chickens, but no other domestic animals. (4) They had learned to make clothes, but May is the only one I’ve seen with cotton clothes. Why is that? (5) Families are still untraditional in format, but there is a sense of community.

  The next day was engaging and full of interesting discoveries. Before going into town, May took off the cotton shirt. She did so with such regularity in her attitude no one asked why, but it made Gabe suspicious. The group of them walked through town together, Gabe now more talkative, Jonathan being critical, and Dane coming in and out – bringing back food or news. On one of these return trips, Dane brought back a friend who he introduced as Darian – his friend from the political movement.

  This man had jet black hair, a long face, with a narrow chin. He looked well-groomed clothes-wise, and his hair was combed, but his chin was scruffy. He seemed laid back, and far too relaxed, in Gabe’s opinion. So loose, and almost like the friendly salesman type, though a bit more genuine. He wore a big smile and greeted them cordially. He had a bright look about him that seemed to say he knew where he was going and what he wanted from life.

  Dane walked around to put his hand on the small of May’s back and said, “we’ll need to talk… soon.”

  When Darian saw May he started going off about the several politicians making their way around the cities now. They talked for a while, mostly about the idea of unifying means of trade between the cities. May played it off well that she genuinely found this all very interesting, however, she seemed to be able to sense that Dane brought him for a reason, so she let the conversation wither.

  “I think they’d be really interested in what you were telling me earlier… what you found.” Dane said, unconvincingly nonchalant.

  The friend smiled wisely and calmly, “Up north about three day’s trip, we found the remains of an old city.” Hopefully it wasn’t terribly obvious to him that the faces were more concerned than confused. “There’s no human remains, so we think they moved out, or were scared out. Certainly, though there were more people there than our great-great-grandparents. Perhaps there’s another group of people still out there!”

  At first Gabe was taken aback and was afraid about how they were considering the possibility of another nation existing. But the more he thought about it, Gabe wasn’t so sure how much this mattered… they’d hit a wall sometime and wouldn’t be able to go forward. They’d drive themselves crazy over a few bones of those who died of natural causes. Yet chances are they’d search and they’d search until they found possible remains on other continents that bombs didn’t fully destroy. Hmm… He became disgruntled.

  Such a mixture of emotions for him at the moment. This discovery so soon was potentially dangerous, for the society and for the scientists. Would this be enough to set Jonathan off? Should they start over? On one hand, he’d continue to be immortal and they’d failed again, on the other hand, he’d be mortal, and they’d still have failed.

  Gabe pressed for more information from the kid, about housing and organization of the town, animals, clothing, and devices. Though he knew all the answers, he wanted to know what they knew. And, where the things were located. Thank goodness they were poor archaeologists. They had needed to return quickly, so they only took the few things they could carry and came back for provisions for a longer stay next time.

  Darian showed them the clothing they found, which looked very similar to May’s. That’s why she took it off. It seemed that it wasn’t only Gabe who was making this connection, but Samson, Miek, and Jonathan, too.

  Convenient that May and Dane found that city and conveniently forgot to mention it. They found it and wanted to learn more. Something in there led them to the cave. They left that out of the story. Gabe looked back at Darian and realized that because they were not treating the belongings with care, they were also not treating the information with care. Discoveries like this were always followed with a lust for progress. This enthusiastic young entrepreneur was going to use the ideas for all they were worth… share them in his excitement and soon the world would be bursting with “new” technology. Damn it. Just when they thought things were good.

  Jonathan was trailing along in Gabe’s wake of thoughts. He was, luckily, and for once, smart enough not to say anything right there but just a few feet away from that boy came the bitter accusation. Whispering venomously in Gabe’s ear he cursed and coursed through all of their movements until now and how they should have talked about the last time before they did anything else, how Gabe knew Jonathan had been saying this all along. He mentioned that maybe they could have gone up and destroyed it before, but it was too late now. Gabe retorted,

  “Yeah, if we could have found it, and if our captors would have let us go. Stop hissing in my ear, you bastard.”

  Gabe felt his body slacken and slope further toward the earth’s core. The small hunch he walked with increased as his spirit and energy gave way to gravity. Down he went, spiraling in his thoughts. Maybe it just can’t be done. Maybe nature was its own untamed whore. Survival was its only purpose… not a happy survival, not a fair or just survival, just existence itself. Perpetually birthing and dying.

  You know people can’t survive like that. Gabe told himself. That’s the whole point. Survival without positive, encouraging interaction… is not really survival… is it? As he was trying to figure this all out, fighting with himself, he realized the others were making plans. He looked down dejectedly, calling for the dirt to make a hole big enough for him to crawl into and lie in fetal position. This was not the man he used to be. Power-hungry, God-like even.

  The excitement of creation had once filled his mind and soul. Now, it was like going bowling and the ball return was casually returning square objects without any hurry and you sit and you wait for the ball to come back and it never comes, you just keep waiting in relentless anticipation that consumes your soul because you have one purpose, one job, to get a strike… and it was awful to think that getting the strike wasn’t the issue… it was that no matter how long you waited, you never had what you needed and could not force it into your hands by your own will power. It was pulling life and soul out of people to actually see what it’s made of… then realizing it can’t be seen after years and years of hoping.

  Gabe had had major depression a few months before the peak of the war and the culmination of their project. When he went to therapy, he was more or less a study of moppishness. Answering few of the questions and feeling one hundred pounds of weight in his chest pulling him downward was all there was then. It surprised some, including himself, that he could function at all or drive to his appointments. No room for anger, no room for frustration, no room for change… only energy to stare five feet in front of his nose to keep him, at most, from running into other objects.

  This was when Jonathan’s wife came to cook and take care of him. Now the same feelings were coming back. Feelings he was afraid of. They had given him some medicin
e… but after a month he felt like he could handle himself enough to wean him off of the drugs. And, well, he did, sort of. He replaced drugs with other habits that he already had, they just spiked. His relations with women, particularly.

  Gabe wanted to cry. Dane asked him if he wanted to go into the woods, for a walk. No, no he didn’t, he just wanted to go sit in a corner somewhere dark. He wanted to find a woman to come and please him, in that dark corner, never even seeing her face. That’s what he wanted. He tried to be agreeable, tried to not slip; so he shrugged and followed.

  Enmity was clear from Jonathan’s unsympathetic gaze. The hatred he felt for Gabe was at its perfect stage. How he really felt was evident and now he had the excuse to show it. Gabe saw that look and paled. He had no friends. He had no allies. No one would help him. He could get himself out of this… it was possible if he wanted it. But… he didn’t really want it; not anymore.

  Through the town they walked, past houses, through yards and farms, no one asking them questions, just looking concerned. Jonathan was going to have to do all the talking. All the planning. Maybe his impulses would get them somewhere. Gabe curled up by a large tree trunk, in between the roots.

  Jonathan explained to the crew what was going on with the depression.

  “We know what this is. Most of us have felt that way some time or another. We know it’s called depression, too, so spare us.” Samson clarified, also clearly ticked off about something.

  He didn’t know much about May and Dane’s discoveries either. Gabe thought.

  Jonathan scoffed, “You have no idea. Trust me. It’s a chemical imbalance, we made sure the people who started again had as little mental illness in their family history as possible, which was hard to do. We put them through hundreds of tests to make sure they were mentally stable. Chances are you haven’t been to the same depths that either of us have been. Mere sadness is all you’ve faced and you just didn’t know how to deal with it. You have to have medicine for this kind of thing.”

  “So why don’t you giv-”

  “Why don’t I give him some of mine? Because he voluntarily got off all of his medication before we left, so he could fulfill some great moral purpose, by proving human beings were strong enough, and that we shouldn’t have to have medication. Now look at the slop.” Even as he said that, Jonathan knew if they didn’t make decisions to start again in the next few weeks he would run out of pills and look like a similar mess.

  “Man, you’re an ass.” Miek said, looking mordantly to Jonathan. The bright humor that was usually in his eyes was gone. “As if you could ever know the things we’ve felt … as if you could measure my pain. What is wrong with you?” At the same time that the question was sincere, it was accusatory. Miek sighed as he looked at Gabe, then looked away toward the ground and trees behind him.

  Jonathan kept alarmingly calm.

  “Is this how you knew about us? You discovered the city?” Jonathan accused.

  The answer was yes. Dane shook his head and almost laughed, “You think we can’t see what you’re thinking. Don’t be a fool. This is the first time you’ve been calm in a fight, because it’s the first time you think you might have leverage. You’re addicted to immortality, no one here is not privy to your lust, nor to your threat. Let’s just talk about this new situation. Do you have any reason to need to see the city they found?”

  “Destroying it would be helpful,” then he added, “for you and for me. People will make themselves sick searching in vain for the previous inhabitants. All the people will be filled with lust for treasure of knowledge they can’t find. You are left with a speculative and fearful nation.” He looked around through the trees as if he heard someone there. It was just Gabe.

  Gabe turned himself spread eagle and had tears falling down his face. Emotional pain was so real.

  As much of a nuisance as he was, watching him in that pain made all of them feel heavy and hollow. True, he was the only one that could get himself out of it, but surely they could help somehow.

  While Jonathan spoke they all looked around the group to see if anyone would help the pathetic slop on the ground. It seemed clear to all of them that he’d given up. Miek almost cursed himself as he gave into his sympathies, muttering and walked over to Gabe, grabbing him by the arm and pulling him up and a few yards into the jungle.

  “Old, half-baked, good for nothing, cares for nothing, biased, know-it-all, wise cracker. Look at you. Pathetic.”

  ___

  May smiled a little to herself while watching Miek set him down several meters away to talk. Then, assuming that was taken care of, all attention was turned back to the current situation. Samson was trying to reason with Jonathan while May and Dane conversed together.

  “Problem is if we destroyed that city, people would know and start to wonder why it was destroyed and who destroyed it, then it would get political about who owned it in the first place and what action do we take against those who destroyed it.” Dane said.

  Distracted from his other conversation, Jonathan turned to them and pitched in vote. As it turned out, and with little surprise, the argument hardly convinced Jonathan, who was so set in his wants, that they were wary he’d do something rash.

  May asked if there was something else they could do that would help him feel more secure. Jonathan then asked them if they would go and destroy the artifacts before the other group made the return journey. May and Dane considered the suggestion intimately. Tame Jonathan, but arouse suspicion and frustration… which was better?

  Dane was stoic. It was difficult because they could hardly monitor what the consequences would be. Surely he imagined every possibility before the spoke. Samson tried to convince him against Jonathan’s proposition.

  “I think it’s best if we head up there.” Dane said to them, “We don’t want people questioning what we’re doing before we even know. We need to make sure there’s nothing for them to find except buildings.”

  May folded her arms and pursed her lips, staring at the ground, showing her angst in a small twitch in her knee. Dane noticed and said, “You don’t agree?”

  “Not entirely. I feel like they have as much right to it as we did…” She hesitated, not sure she wanted to share this in front of everyone, “we have the most important stuff. I’m afraid a riot will be worse than subduing Jonathan.”

  Jonathan tried to talk, but Dane beat him to it, “But think how much more we could learn, and how much more they could learn if we have him as an ally.”

  She looked Dane straight in the eyes, “I want to see Janey. Maybe you could go up there without me and you’ll meet me home in a few weeks? But… I feel like it’s as much my duty as yours to figure this out. What’s two more weeks to the six months it’s already been?”

  “What do you want?”

  She might have been tearing up. She was in a battle with herself. Her knee wobbled back and forth more steadily as she tensed up and closed her eyes. Dane waited patiently, never taking his eyes off of her. May swallowed, won her battle and said with finality,

  “Let’s get this thing figured out. Then maybe I can put a rest on my lust for answers.”

  “’kay.” Dane massaged her head lovingly, combing his fingers through her hair. Their plan was to leave early in the morning. May would see to the early part because she wouldn’t sleep anyway.

  ___

  Back in the inn now, swaddled in the hammock, Gabe was listening to their conversation. Against the back window, they sat cross legged with the moonlight making indistinct silhouettes. It was calming to him to listen. It was likely that they knew he was listening, too, but were unabashed about their conversation.

  “Let’s go back to the beginning. What is our purpose, why are we still keeping them alive?”

  May rubbed her hand over her mouth and said, after a long pause, “I don’t know. We want to find the missing link… and we can’t kill them… I guess that’s important to remember.” They chuckled shortly at both the sarcasm and the eeri
e irony. “Without them could we have found why we automatically had language? Most people think that’s false… that it’s just built in; even you did until we realized there was more. Let’s face it. We already knew there were other people out there. Sure, it was a legend from that other city, but we know it had to have come from somewhere, which is why people have started searching at all.” She paused again as Dane kept his eyes on her face, “We need answers, so people don’t go mad in a vain search. I personally want to know what people thought their purpose was, what they used to work for, you know?” She turn her head toward him and they locked eyes. Both were leaning forward on their knees now and their heads were inches from touching.

  Were they going to kiss? No? Okay… Gabe didn’t understand them at all he realized… not who they are, at any rate. Their desires were clear enough, their motives the same. Of course that could give him big hints to who they were. Just like May said, though, there was now a missing link between him and them. Understanding people of the twenty-second century was a different game. An easier game, too, Gabe felt. People had wanted to feel that their problems were unique, but, no, they had all been the same… all stemming from the same lack of… something.

  They sat next to each other, not touching this time. Were they going to kiss now? It sure looked like it… but they didn’t. From all that Gabe had learned about families and about the lack of loyalty between women and men and their unconstrained sexual appetites, it was strange that these two had hardly touched in the last several weeks. At this particular moment, their minds were too caught up in thought, their hearts harrowed up in responsibility.

  Dane hung his head and looked at the ground for a good ten minutes.

  “They’re not hard to figure out.” He said frankly, talking about Gabe and Jonathan. “At this point they have different motives, different patterns of understanding, and different desires from each other. Thus, as long as they try to work together, they won’t accomplish much. I personally think Gabe is just tired. He’s just ready for it to end. He thinks he should want more; doesn’t want to give up. Yet, its taking a toll on him, there’s a straw that will break the camel’s back. I don’t think we need to be worried about him.”