The GOD Box

by Melissa Horan

  “I agree he doesn’t have much left to fight for. The thing that makes me sad, even, is that he doesn’t feel satisfied with what he’s learned… or what he’s tried and thinks he’s found a simple enough answer, but it lacks application. Are we headed that same direction?”

  “I think we are at a point now where we easily could, if we don’t mind ourselves.”

  May rocked her knees in and out, letting her hands hit between them.

  “What my question is, is should the learning be enough… should our own growth satisfy our needs, or will we be perpetually wanting what we can’t have?”

  “What is it that you think we can’t have?”

  “Answers”

  Dane shrugged in undecided agreement.

  Gabe thought… well, there has to be progress somehow, a yearning… for something… but he couldn’t stay on that topic long. His mind went back to their opinions of him. He didn’t feel defiance to their words. He had been trying so hard for so long… and, truly, he didn’t really want to do it anymore. Depression was numbing his mind and body to the vicious, forced energy he had conditioned himself to, every living moment for the last few collective months and years of his life. Would they anticipate his help? Did they say all that on purpose? That thought concerned Gabe and he did a double take. Without a doubt they were playing him, and playing on his emotions. Amazing the way paranoia kicked in in the matter of a few seconds. Returning to the conversation, he wondered if he’d be able to verify his deceit theory. He didn’t want to be audacious.

  Dane looked at the side of May’s face, which was the only side in view and asked tenderly, “How are you feeling?”

  “Fine. On neither end of the emotional spectrum” she said, moving her hands along the invisible spectrum looking up at him with a lipped half-smile, then looking back down. With no change of emotion he continued looking at her, giving her the opportunity to say more if she wanted. Gabe was just irritated that they had changed the subject to something so useless to him. Feelings.

  It was illuminating, to him, that he couldn’t even put a name to the emotion he felt watching them care for one another. It was so far displaced from him and his life. He recognized it, realized what his counselor would likely have said about it, then tucked it away again. Attempting to give those emotions a place at all right now was superfluous… and far too challenging.

  May spoke again, “I don’t know what I’m working toward. So much so that I can’t even explain what I don’t know… there should be an end goal, but it’s not tangible.”

  Dane’s body relaxed as if he understood. “What I’ve come to conclude is that most often we just have to choose something… like your relationship theory. Get a notebook, take down what you’re learning. We could publish it.”

  “That could work, except, I don’t even feel like I’m living the theory. How can I write about relationships I haven’t sacrifice to have?”

  “We’ll stop by your town more often from now on, yeah? I can see you do want it now, more than ever. Give yourself credit for that. The post-partum issues are gone?”

  May sighed, “Yeah, that sounds good. For the most part. My desires are changing. I don’t know if I’m controlling that or not.”

  Gabe felt like he got struck by lightning. She had a child? It didn’t sound like it was Dane’s. Maybe they aren’t as wholesome as they seem. Maybe she was married once? Well, they didn’t know what marriage was, so no, that wasn’t it.

  Dane stretched loudly and rubbed his hands through his crazy mess of hair. “Good.”

  “And how are you?” May asked him

  “At the moment, emotionally, and mentally fit as a fiddle… but uh… there’s this spot on my back…” He looked at May with a big smile.

  May laughed, “sure thing” Dane turned around so his back was facing May, she took her first two fingers and jabbed a spot on his back, “Must be this spot again, huh?”

  Dane jerked forward, wincing and laughing, “Ou! Yeah… that really is that spot.”

  May laughed again, “Oh, alright… sorry then.” She put her knuckle on the spot and pressed slowly, rotating her hand in circles. Her left hand held his bicep to apply back-pressure, and to steady them both.

  Between winces and gasps of relief Dane said, “I see… Gabe looking at us… all the time, as if he’s … trying… to figure something out.”

  “Well,” said May, “I think he is. I think he thinks we have the strangest relationship – the way we talk with one another and care about one another… but don’t show physical affection.”

  “This isn’t physical affection?” He teased. “Guess I see what you’re saying.” Then they seemed to have the same thought at the same time and Dane said, “If people earned money for the quality of relationships in their lives -”

  May finished, sounding morose and sympathetic, “… they would be poorer than dirt.”

  Injecting the remedy would be easy now. He might even be able to convince Gabe of it with this new discovery, and his obvious mental instability. Time time time. Everything took time. This week of walking was really going to diminish his drug supply. Still he needed to wait for the opportune moment. Jonathan didn’t trust himself enough to create it. Gabe unknowingly and unwittingly would work through those details.

  Chapter 7

  Gabe fell asleep, finally, feeling like he was camouflaged with the dirt… like he was sleeping with a friend that was more like a nasty spider, always waiting to bite.

  In the morning, May came by his hammock and shook him awake. Gabe was the slowest getting up. His eyes ached like they stared at the same complex mathematical equation all night trying to use combinations of fruit to answer it.

  Great. More walking. Jonathan grumbled all morning. ‘Sun isn’t even up. Why do we have to leave so early? Maybe you should invent the car first. Get us there in a day.’

  Gabe rolled his eyes and grumbled under his breath for Jonathan to shut up. But Gabe didn’t feel any better about the situation. It would take about a week they said. Three days up, one day there, and two days back, ending at May’s house. That meant an entire week of self-reflection. Drat.

  Strategically placing himself close enough to May and Dane this time was his plan. He managed to get in between them and hoped that it wouldn’t hinder their conversation. The idea was to hear less of Jonathan and more of these two, even for the sake of drowning himself out if possible. Good things in Dane’s town made them feel they might have been successful. But one town was too small of a sample to make any decisions with it, and yet he found himself doing just that.

  The anticipation that Jonathan was doing the same thing made Gabe fearful. That man was unreadable, because everything was cloaked under anger. Every time they stopped for water, Gabe felt like he was drinking to his death, as if they had injected the ground with the syrup from the syringe and he was committing suicide again. Each time he hesitated longer thinking about it. One day, it would be so easy for Jonathan to just do it… to end the whole thing. And, then, unknowingly, every living person would come for the water to relieve them and walk away, with each step less alive and less whole.

  By the last swallow, Gabe realized he was in some sick way wishing it was, even fearing death the way he did, he wished his fear would be affirmed as the only sure part of life and then he could feel his physical body falling apart to compliment the way his brain felt like it was disintegrating.

  They walked a route toward a river that they could follow. Dane had a map up at the front of the group that he’d drawn when he and May came this way before. Gabe caught a small glance at it, but hoped, with a slight glance back that Jonathan hadn’t seen it. A little too obviously, Gabe craned to see it. Chances are it was very inaccurate as to the sizes and distances of things. Still, it was instructive. From over his shoulder, Gabe saw circles for all of the cities at relative sizes and there was a small picture of a cave at the lowest left corner of the map. On the lower center portion was the asphalt road
they discovered, but it didn’t have a picture of where it led. Instead, there was scrawled one word at the edge of the page: destroyed.

  It was not very detailed, and little artistic attempt was made on any part of it accept by one of the towns, likely May’s, which had a stick figure by it that was supposedly representing May. The representation of her was childlike and psychotic looking. What looked like a series of misaligned ‘m’s were at the top of the page, which Gabe guessed were mountains. Mistakes could even be seen on it, trying to make up for distances and cities discovered after it’s original making. Dane’s city was on the north-west side of the map – it was the city closest to the cave. Small stick palm trees were scribbled sporadically around the cave.

  The city they were heading to, which was unnamed, but described as ‘abandoned’, was on the northern part of the map between May’s city and the mountains and toward the right. There were several cities en-route between them, but so far most had been avoided on their journey, to keep from arousing suspicion. When they needed supplies, one or two were sent to get them while the others made camp a good distance from the city.

  Gabe realized the city from the past was the farthest North they had been… or had recorded. What they didn’t have was two more cities, both farther north, one east and one west. There was enough trade between those old cities that there should have been worn out paths leading to both. It was interesting that May and Dane didn’t pursue those as well.

  “I think we’ve only got a few more miles.” Dane said, mostly talking to May, but since Gabe was awkwardly between them, Dane was polite and acknowledged him as well.

  Anxiety crept on him as Gabe recreated the city with images in his mind. That city was where he died twice. He was sure it was the same one. It was completely irrational because they were with different people now, and people who seemed trustworthy. But oh, how he feared it.

  …

  Images pieced together came up with a vision like this: A large gate with a poorly wrought metal frame with welded links from one end to the other, and a cement wall surrounding the city. They had the best fortification of any of the cities. Inside it was a clear distinction of rich to poor, and this city was the most prosperous economically of any during that time. To the left of the entrance were houses of wood and thatching. To the right were houses of wood with slanted roofs and two rooms, the further one continued toward the distant right corner, the more detailed the houses became, the larger they were. They had cement foundations. Somewhere in the general diagonal from the gate to that back corner there was the square where Jonathan and Gabe were found in distress, running from the men they betrayed. A well stood in the center, which was exactly where they needed to be. Jonathan was fumbling with the syringes and the silver case. Uncoordinated in the pressure of things, he almost stabbed Gabe while handing him the syringe with the clear liquid. As soon as Gabe got a handle on it, someone grabbed his shirt and slammed knuckles into his face.

  So many things flashed through his mind; like how they wouldn’t be able to destroy the evidence. How they wouldn’t be able to hand select the people to stay behind. A religious group had left from one of the cities already poisoned. Jonathan and Gabe loathed that idea, and even delayed their work hoping they would return before they were finished… but there was nothing they could do now. Half of the reason they decided to destroy it was because religious ideas were creeping into their minds. That and the economic inequality meant an automatic restart in Jonathan’s and Gabe’s mind.

  …

  When they arrived in the city there were no bodies and no bones, just windswept streets. Samson, Jacob, and Miek stopped at the gate in awe, touching and testing the materials of the gate. May and Dane walked, as if it were blindly, through the gate. Building materials was a mere child’s wonderment compared to all of the things they’ve seen. Right to business those two. Gabe and Jonathan followed May and Dane through.

  “Knowing what happened here makes this city totally different this time through.” May said and she looked at Gabe and Jonathan with sadness in her eyes. “Let’s do this before we can change our mind. Samson, guys, come on. Every personal belonging; everything that’s not connected to a house, besides furniture, bring it out to be burned. That was our compromise.”

  Dane was already bringing out a table and was starting a fire by spinning a stick on its flat surface. Jonathan guffawed rudely and said, “Here.” He pulled something small out of his bag and took a small stick out of it which he scratched on the surface of the small box and fire started on the stick. Gabe covered his eyes as if Jonathan’s idiocy didn’t exist if he couldn’t see it.

  “I can’t stand how long that takes every time.” Jonathan muttered.

  Dane snapped the boys out of their trance to the match, conducting them toward the houses. He looked at Jonathan incredulously, “really?!”

  Samson was irritated, and came back out of the house, “Really? Really? Dane, you don’t even tell us about this? Are you kidding? Then you act like we should just go along with whatever you say, not even make our own discoveries, and find interest in it? Now we have to destroy it before getting to see it? I am so mad at you both right now.” He growled, with his finger pointing back and forth between them.

  Neither responded.

  Gabe kept thinking he should probably help. He wandered slowly into the nearest house, grabbed a few things and put them absent mindedly in the fire. He wasn’t really thinking about what he was doing. He was just doing; just a drone. Jonathan stood by waiting for the work to be done. After a few trips Gabe was having a hard time breathing. When memories of his death by fire started coming, he ran down the street coughing and crying. He put a hand on the nearest termite damaged house and sobbed. Flashbacks rained upon him. He couldn’t get a grip. He tried every trick he knew to settle down. I can’t be here. I need to leave. How long would this take? Did they really trust May and Dane to accomplish all this? Would they stow away things and hide them? Had they already collected the books and journals they wanted? Probably. That’s why they were okay with it.

  This had to be done as fast as possible. But what about the other two cities from the fourth time? They didn’t burn them or the artifacts inside, they didn’t know about them. What if Darian found those, huh? They just weren’t a threat yet, because they hadn’t been found. His brain felt like it would implode. Gabe could think of anything to do, but to fall asleep. So he lay down right in the dirt and was out in a matter of minutes. Of course, his dreams were all about death and so it was a relief when he was awakened again outside of the city.

  May shook him awake rather violently. “Gabe!” He jump started, feeling like he was breathing properly for the first time in hours. That was probably nearly true. “Ugh!” She yelled as if she was mad at him. “Why would you let yourself fall asleep so close to the fumes? What’s wrong with you?”

  She was hyperactive and breathing heavily. His death was almost on her hands. It was probably even the fact that she didn’t care that made her so angry. She didn’t care and yet felt responsible. Gabe noticed how loud it was around them. May gave him water, then went back inside the city.

  When Gabe woke up again, he determined that they must have been done because there was a large amount of smoke billowing into the sky and all were outside the city walls.

  The boys were hollering at Jonathan who was looking rather smug. Gabe’s vision was blurry; still burning. The story, it turns out was that after they had gone to all that trouble collecting the artifacts, Jonathan took bits of burning rubbish and threw them in nearby houses. The bonfire of burning artifacts could have been hid or buried, or scattered and looked less suspicious, especially because the previous search was not very in-depth. But burnt houses that weren’t burnt before? Gabe knew why they were so upset. May kicked Gabe’s legs, apparently irritated with him, too, as if Jonathan’s actions were also his.

  “Get up. We’re leaving.” She said shortly

  He rolled to his feet
, still wheezy and wobbling. The group of seven trudged along, more slowly than they should have if others would be seeking out the perpetrators. They were dreadfully silent for two days. The tension in the air was like sharing a sleeping bag with six other people with your head in the end that your feet were supposed to be in. There was no room to breathe; no room to move.

  Finally, the third day, just before reaching their destination, May asked the question that had been haunting her for days.

  “So why did you kill those people?”

  Gabe, impatient for more polite lies spoke viciously, “They were unfair. They were intolerant. They were greedy. They were delusional, and getting caught up in things that didn’t exist. They made rules to make up for their weaknesses; imposing limits on free people.”

  No one responded to that, but for the next few hours, they were deeply concerned and visiting thoughts, philosophies and fears they had never had to face before.

  Saturated in exhaustion and sucked dry for nourishment a home came in view, at quite a distance from the city. This house was their destination. From what Gabe could tell, May’s house was about the same size as Dane’s, maybe a little smaller, even including an extra attachment that was probably made for more children. To the left they could see a larger city about a mile in the distance.

  As it was daylight this time, people were out and working. Behind the house was an enormous field where a small green crop was growing. When Gabe asked, he was told they grew and sold peanuts.

  A small toddler seemed to come out of nowhere. She had bright blonde hair that got lost in the glare of sunlight. She ran as fast as she could to her mother. May ran up ahead of the group to scoop her up. The girl giggled wildly.