Travesty (SolarSide Book 1)

by Austin Aragon

  Mr. Reeves shakes my arm and I’m brought back into reality. I place my hand inside my pocket till it calms down, feeling my antique lighter—Mr. Reeves must have gotten it back and placed it inside this morning. I have to try, for him, he would have. Mr. Reeves opens the door, and lets me into the office with a poorly attempted smile.

  I take a seat on a comfy papasan chair before the Psychologist and his desk. In the corner sit’s a Civil Commissar of the Party, his white beret with a blue gold trimmed star positioned perfectly in the center, and his eyes perfectly focused on me. Mr. Reeves sits in the back and informs us to act as if he isn’t there. The Commissar waves off the guards who escorted us, and the door is closed. I look out the window, watching the raindrops smack against the glass and slide down in their swirly trails while the Psychologist rearranges himself.

  Finally he speaks. “Tell me why you are here Peter,” he says while shuffling a last batch of papers—no doubt all the bios on other veteran nut jobs like me. He places the pile into a cabinet door and slides it shut.

  “You already know that.”

  “Yes. Your attorney has pleaded a most convincing case to have you evaluated first. But this course of action services both of the involved parties actually. Otherwise we would have glossed it over and have been done with you already. So to the point of this visit. The big story we want to hear from you. The story we all want to know. Tell me why you are here. Tell me the story from your point of view.”

  “Where do I start? The part you already know. Or the part the Party doesn’t want you to know?”

  The Commissar places his hand under his dark overcoat and onto his hip, then leans forward. Ignorant of his actions, the Psychologist sighs. “No, let’s not start there quite yet. While we will hear about the,” he pauses for a moment, “controversial aspects of your tour, I want to begin somewhere else.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well I am sure you know you are a special case from the Herculean War …”

  “Because Buzz stopped being effective on me?” my voice cracks, my hands shake into fists, their temperature rising, “and that I want to get back at the fuckers for what they made me do? So what if I’m a defec—”

  “No,” he says harshly. “A defect would have been someone who was never fazed by field stimulants, which is considered impossible. You, on the other hand, somehow built a resistance.”

  Blah, blah, blah. Great, they just want to figure out why their drugs failed on me. AbsconDX—god I can’t believe I campaigned for them once—is probably facing death threats from the Party for their drug’s failure too.

  There’s a coy look on his face, then it’s gone. “However, I digress. We are not here for that. Now, back to the reason of our visit, your point of view of the entire events during the Herculean War leading up to your believed death, and return here. By reciting these events, we can begin to find a way to determine if you are mentally sane, and solve the most perplexing mystery of your survival”

  “Where do you want me to start?”

  “How about…when you first went solarside. Yeah, let’s start at the beginning of it all.”

  Great, Mr. Reeves wasn’t lying. Are they trying to write a book about me or something?

  “Come on Peter, let’s relive every part, and don’t dare hold anything back. I am in the mood of an entertaining story.” He leans back in his chair and taps his knuckles against the table. “Look at it this way; beyond the grave implications of punishment you are obviously facing, this is your last real chance to get it all out.”

  I cough. Even though I knew this, the words still hit me like a bullet. Christ, after this, there was nothing. Either lethal injection or being locked up into an asylum for the rest of my life—what would be worse? The rain drops falls heavier against the window—or at least they feel like they do. Mr. Reeves adjusts his chair and it squeaks against the laminate. The Commissar takes a dragged out, annoying, sip of his coffee. Dread tries to knock on my door one more time.

  Fuck it. I’m here aren’t I?

  I take a deep breath…

  PART I

  2112 AD, United Nations International Military

  Traversing through Arc space lane, Infinity

  To reach the Dolus system, and liberate Nova Terra

  From Herculean invasion force

  II

  I drag my hand from her shoulder down to her hip. My phone’s vibrating alarm tells me I have to get ready. I move slowly and quietly out of the sheets. She raises her head, blowing the hair out of her face with a croaked yawn. “I’m just gonna get ready,” I say. She face plants the pillow again. I look at the phone: 5:40 AM. I could spend a few more hours in bed. But I have to study—why I am up early today. I put on some clothes, and look over at her. The blanket barely reaches halfway over her ass, and I get the pleasure of seeing her sleek back and sides of her breasts squishing to the sides.

  I walk past her to the bathroom. She isn’t the hottest girl here, but neither am I a stunning guy. I look back one last time as I close the door. I hate objecting woman like this. It’s shallow and dehumanizing. In a university full of young bright and aspiring minds, I could easily get into an impassioned conversation with any of them, and learn to appreciate their true beauty: their mind. Especially, where at this point in life, would develop far beyond their finished figures into what actually mattered when searching for a partner. Not the sexual desire of their body that is only a fleeting encounter.

  I don’t have much time before group study so I’ll have to multitask again. I sit down on the toilet, but do not raise the lid. I open my backpack and grab the text book, Comparative Party’s, and unzip my pants. I begin imagining last night—all of my past encounters—while I read the text to review for midterms.

  The New Founding Fathers Party, commonly abbreviated to NFFP, is the ruling American party of today’s government since 2013. This party, like almost all unitary party systems in modern first world countries, is an offshoot of the Global Founding Fathers.

  I take out my phone and open the app to the pornography site I frequent.

  The Global Founding Fathers Party was created as a response to the horrific stalemate in the Terrible War that began in 2009. This stalemate that lasted four years caused nearly a quarter of Earth’s population to die due to starvation and lack of common necessities that were previously allocated through free trade, but diminished as the warzone grew to a global scale and embargos were emplaced to try and collapse the opposing nation’s economies. In a desire to end the self-destruction of Earth’s old hegemonic system at brutal total war, they formed a global revolutionary military separate from any warring state, and which was unified on one ideology: peace. They then began the seeds of revolution simultaneously in all the warring capitals of Earth.

  This revolutionary militia was commonly referred to as the People’s Army, or Freedom Core. Their strategy was to raise the populaces will to revolt against their current leaders that were determined on perpetual war, and begin the goal of creating a unified world with permanent global peace. We call these pre-Party governments and their members Traditionalists. (Author’s Note): This book or the writers do not support or encourage Traditionalism in any form, and only reference them for academic purposes. Traditionalist thought or activity as you know is illegal for their grave crimes against humanity.

  I switch back to my phone. But when I am closest to finishing I turn it off, and pull out a picture of a girl, probably in her twenties. I don’t know her, but it’s as if I did. She is in a white dress, moderately covered—ready for church even. No sign of indecency or behavior a father would glow red at. Her hair brown and tied into a French braid that drapes her left—or it would be her right—shoulder. Just beautiful in being there. Not trying to solicit something, or imposing a superficial image upon me. Innocent and perfect in who she is, in what she is. It’s her I always finish too. Something about her I wished I had, not selfishly, or enviously, only
longingly. Something all these girls I meet here don’t have, but also something I know I couldn’t give them even if they did.

  KNOCK KNOCK

  “Peter, you done yet? Girls have to get ready too.”

  My phone and photo fly out of my hand, alongside any hopes.

  “Yeah, sorry, I was studying too.”

  Thankfully, I had already dressed up and created the scene of flossing while reading my textbook over the sink as she bursts in, half naked above the hip still. I stare at her as she turns the shower head on—maybe she would let me finish with those. She gets in the shower, “Take your time.”

  I look at my phone. “Sorry, I got to get going for midterms. I’ll text you latter?”

  “Yeah, I may be free this weekend.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  I reach my dorm, finish my previous business, and sit down on my bed as I prepare for the day. My roommate, Isaac, lies nestled in a rat’s nest of blankets and clothing on the opposite side of the room. “Unity, Defense, Revolution…” blares my phone’s wake up alarm again—shit, I forgot to turn off my normal alarm last night.

  “Shut up,” moans Isaac. I tap the clock symbol turning it off, and begin the delicate process of lacing my shoes and grabbing the rest of today’s text books and supplies. Isaac looks over from his bed with a face of disbelief. “You’re already up? Fuck would you let it stay on asshole, tryin’ sleep.” He disappears back into his fort of pillows.

  “Sleeping is a waste of life, should stop wasting yours.”

  “Should stop being such a little bitch,” he mutters underneath his pillow.

  I grab my stuff and leave for the door. Isaac calls. “Hey, I need your notes for Comparative Party’s.”

  “Again?”

  “Yes again. Don’t play dumb, we talked about it a thousand times. It’s the class’ midterm tomorrow. I’ll buy your pizza or something tonight if you let me.”

  “And breakfast.” I am out the door before he can reply.

  After group study and a few hours of listening to my Professors warn us of the severity of passing midterms, the school day finally ends. I hit my dorm quickly to get ready for the night. I drab a blazer, and wash my face in the sink. I look into the mirror while I dry off…still scrawny, my nose peeling from my last Junior Mock Congress that was held in an outside auditorium—an obvious sign that I don’t go outside that much—and my shoulders are just bone. Then that birthmark I have, the one on the bottom left side of my chin that Isaac jokes looks like a pot leaf. Overall, it’s had an equal amount of girls sayings it’s cute, or ugly.

  “One hour till Dolus System,” announces the ship intercom.

  I keep my eyes closed. It’s just a nightmare.

  Someone close talks. “Christ man, we’re it. We’re it. We’re gonna land first. We’re gonna die first.”

  “Have faith brothers! Believe in the Cause!”

  I doze in and out, hearing more than the talking now: other muffled sounds that scare me—noises I don’t want to accept as real—then it all disappears.

  I spot Isaac’s curly wild hair, flopping about first before the rest of him appears as he moves through a crowd in the hallway. I catch up and we walk out the main entrance of the college, along a red brick pathway underneath a wooden terrace covered in vine and surrounded by Devilwood on each side. We reach the parking lot and I pause in the middle of it, rubbing my fingers through my hair. God, this migraine. I take out my painkiller bottle, pop a few pills into my hand, and swallow them.

  “You’re addicted, bud,” says Isaac.

  I place the bottle inside my pocket. “How many times are you going to tell me that?”

  “Every time you take them. You go through a bottle a week.”

  “Because my head fucking hurts, dude. Get off my case.”

  “Maybe if you smoked some weed.”

  “Shut up. Can’t believe you’re telling me my painkillers are worse when you blaze it all the time.”

  “It’s natural.”

  “So is dying, doesn’t mean it’s good for you.”

  We reach my car, a bright red mustang from the sixties, its bulky shape standing out from the slicker modern cars in the parking lot.

  “Alrighty, why hell-o Wang-Stang,” says Isaac.

  I get into the driver’s seat. Isaac opens the passenger side and his feet crunch around in all the trash. “Do you live in here too? Clean it out, it wouldn’t kill you.”

  I go to lower my window visor to block the sun. Hmm, I already used his mom quite a bit this week as a comeback, what should I go for next—something black falls out and lands onto my lap—NO! I can’t move. A black stuffed owl lies across my lap. I feel my eyes cry, but I have already retreated within myself to try and escape, it’s as if I am watching someone else panic.

  Isaac grabs it quickly and runs outside. He comes back out of breath, “It’s gone. I am so sorry. What asshole would do that to you?”

  I can’t fucking breathe! Isaac hands me an asthma inhaler in the glove box. I suck in and breathe out till my hands stop trembling. “It, it, wasn’t—”

  “No bud, I can’t believe you would think that. I may hate you, but I’m your best friend.”

  I look over, he gives me a smile.

  “I don’t know who would then.” I turn up the radio to forget and we exit out onto the route. I won’t let it ruin my day. Just fuck the guy who thought that would be funny, probably one of the guys from Speech trying to be clever. We enter downtown as I lazily rest my foot on the gas.

  “Not this guy again,” says Isaac.

  I realize he means the talk show host on the radio. “He’s pretty informative.”

  “He’s a Party bitch.”

  “You think anyone patriotic is.”

  “There’s a difference between loving your country, and loving to declare it’s better than anything else.”

  “And what’s wrong if our country is better?”

  “It just makes you an asshole going around and stuffing it down people’s throats.”

  “What would you rather have? Us apologizing for everything like we did back then? That’s what was wrong with the Traditionalists, they were leading the strongest country then, us, but were apologizing to everyone as they handed out their gifts. Who says sorry when they’re giving something away for free? That mentality caused the war. The gift barer shouldn’t be forced to place the receipt inside the bag.”

  “Just because it’s a gift doesn’t mean it’s wanted.”

  “A white elephant gift is still better than nothing.”

  “Alright, alright, Commissar.”

  I shake my head, “What did you hear about tonight?”

  “Third Street is having a band,” says Isaac, “But let’s do the whole route like normal to check it all out ourselves.”

  I pull over by a convenience store, parking under the shade of a solar panel placed on top of an old gasoline service island. “Oh yeah,” says Isaac, “I forgot this thing burns dinosaurs still. When are you going to get a normal car?”

  “Not for a while. Being the last hybrid model is something to be proud of owning, it adds an extra zero to the price tag if I were to sell it.”

  As I go in to buy a gas canister I notice a homeless man by the door. I come out with the canister and a deli sandwich. “Here, sir.” I offer him the sandwich.

  “Thanks kid.” He grabs the sandwich and places it into his stuffed backpack, “Got any money though? Trying to get to the town over.”

  “Sorry I don’t sir.”

  “You just came out of the store, I know you have change.”

  “I can buy you the ticket if you want.”

  “Please, just some money.”

  I leave back to the car. Isaac sits on the hood, pulling out a tin box of pre-rolled white papers labeled Ancient on the side. “What was that about?”

  “Gave him some food.”

  “Yeah but
he kept pestering you.”

  “Wanted money.”

  “Don’t we all?”

  “He was trying to get drugs.”

  “How do you know?”

  I twist open the gas cap and bring the nozzle to the port to fill the tank. “When I did AmeriCore during our civic year before college, I helped do homeless aid and prevention in Chicago. With all the Party centers and free necessities wage you can get for food and rent, the only reason you’d be on the street is if you were discontinued from it, which was almost always by drugs.”

  “How do you reckon he was part of the norm?”

  “Wanted money for this or that, I offered to get him the real thing, wouldn’t accept it.”

  Isaac examines one of his ancients, licking the side where the paper folds over itself to secure the seam from letting any tobacco fall out. “How come I’ve never seen you do this before?”

  “I don’t go looking for them; only get them food if they happen to be where I’m at.”

  I finish filling up the tank. Isaac holds the ancient in his mouth and grabs his lighter out of his pocket. He pauses to stare at the lighter while flicking the cap open. He loves that thing. Beyond the fact he is one of few people that still smoked rolled tobacco and cannabis, he also had a unique lighter. A square metal lighter painted over with the first US flag and its thirteen original colonies. From afar, it looks patriotically complicit. But under closer inspection, one could see that the red and white stripes carry a quote, something a Party Rep would apprehend immediately if they ever read it: We are orphans of the American Dream. And where the stanza ends is where the lighter top starts. The Dream bursting up in flames every time he flicks the cap open. He calls it Poetic Justice. I call it trying too hard to be hipster.