Travesty (SolarSide Book 1)

by Austin Aragon

  Isaac pushes Alex away and says, “My fault!” He turns to Vance, “Sor-ey, I fells on you, buddy.”

  Vance pours the remaining alcohol on his wrist and slaps Alex’s cheek laughing, “You got me good.”

  They carry Isaac out, and Tommy helps me out too as I realized I am dozing on the counter, my face sticking against a puddle of spilt beer.

  We are on the street, moving as an unorganized mob of squalor. Isaac grabs my shoulder and I follow. “We’re gonna do the usual cradle ass, okays?”

  I hear myself laugh, but don’t remember opening my mouth. I can’t wait for this.

  We find a suitable target. A single serviceman—Air Force—walks before us, singing. We go to each side of him, and Isaac slaps his ass.

  The pilot turns around, shocked.

  “What the fuck!” says Isaac, pushing the pilot back a little. “You just grab my ass?”

  “What! No, it was—”

  “You grabbed my ass!” Isaac looks at me. “You saw it, right? Can you believe these POGs.”

  “Sure did, that’s sexual assault, right?”

  The pilot takes a few steps backwards, his hands raised. “I didn’t do anything!” He turns around to leave.

  Isaac slaps him a second time. “What the hell! Stop doing that!”

  “You stop it!” says the pilot terrified.

  Isaac pushes him back harder and he almost falls. “He did it again!”

  “What a perv,” I say.

  “Stop!” The pilot looks like he is about to cry. “Stop it!”

  Isaac steps forward placing a hand on his flinching shoulder. “Look, it’s okay. I am just not into you, alright?”

  The pilot looks terrified and begins to reply, but Isaac puts his finger to his mouth and lets out a long slurred shh. “It’s okay, it’s okay, there’s other fish in the sea.”

  “Stop,” he mutters under his tears. Isaac glances at me and I give him the look.

  “Okay, okay. We’re all good now, here.” Isaac reveals his tin box of ancients.

  “Wha—what?”

  “Take one, it’ll calm you down.”

  He grabs one, his shaking fingers barely holding it in place while Isaac lights it.

  We leave as he stands behind with his ancient. He coughs as he inhales, and it turns into a violent fit. Other servicemen come up from behind to see if he’s okay. As we turn a corner I see the pilot point at our general direction.

  “You think he’ll be okay?” I say.

  “Yeah, he’ll find a good man one day.”

  I punch him, but miss, and we enter a club, discovering some of our platoon there.

  The loudness of the club and streaking strobe lights overlap my presence. I can’t think. I am part of the crowd. A bigger light show starts, and they are unnerving. The anxiety creeps back in. I close my eyes to a growing headache I am getting. I open them. They are no longer the club lights, but the plasma and laser streaks of the Herculeans.

  Take cover Peter!

  Kill. Kill. Kill.

  In my fit I push aside dancers and knock over drinks to escape the club. The screams and explosions resonate in my eardrums. The feeling of being powerless, vulnerable, assaults my mind. My hands start twitching too. No, no, no! My mind contrives any possible scenario of dying and the flashbacks flood in. I try to fight the panic attack but I can’t. So I run as fast and as hard as I can, throwing up as I go.

  I run down the streets back to where I best remember the hotel. Soon I am out of the well-lit areas and into a dark trashy neighborhood. The black shapes of the apartments loom over menacingly. I stop out of breath and lean against an alleyway wall.

  Leave me alone! Let go of me!

  Nothing.

  Who am I even talking to?

  Fear.

  My sobriety instantly returns.

  Who said that—but you’re not real. You’re a feeling.

  Is that true? I am real Peter. You can feel me. In the darkness of your mind I prowl. Eating away on you.

  No, stop!

  I look into my sack. All I have left are some Buzz. Why would I even take those from the truck?

  Take it.

  But they’re what I have been trying to escape!

  Take it.

  I undo a syringe and suck the capsule of its drug. I go deeper into the alleyway and slouch against the cold brick wall while I shoot up.

  The fear is gone. Peter is ready and eager for action. His head hurts. He falls to the side. Peter tries putting his hands before him to lift himself up, but a boot slams into his ribs and he falls again.

  “What! You don’t have any left in here?” says a dirty man looking through Peter’s bag.

  Fury takes over. He has targeted an enemy. The battle yearning anticipation inside of him transforms out to the man. Seriously, how dare he attack a Marine of the Coalition? “I’ll fucking kill you!” Peter charges and tackles the man. He tries to put his hands up but Peter’s blows come too fast. His basic melee training kicks in with the Buzz rage. No one can stop him. Peter punches and wails on him. Soon the man’s hands fall to the sides as he blubbers, crying in his own mucus and blood. His eyes and lips swollen and gashed open.

  “Stop please! I’m sorry!”

  Peter keeps punching.

  “STOP! I’ll give you everything I have!”

  Peter keeps punching.

  The man can hardly talk through the strikes now. “I, ha-have a family. PLEASE!”

  Peter keeps punching.

  He stops talking. His face a fucked up and bruised crater of blood.

  He’s ready for you.

  Splendid! Damn, it feels good having another body again.

  You did it Peter! You killed the worthless enemy!

  Peter falls to the man’s side holding his hands away from him. They are covered in his blood. “What have I done!”

  The man coughs horribly. He is still breathing after all.

  Finish him.

  I roll about in the trash of the alleyway, feeling a tingling sensation over my body. “Who are you!”

  “Don’t you know? I’m your brother; the one God loves less, but uses most.”

  “Get out of me!”

  I roll over to the man and check his pulse. It’s beating. He should live.

  I search him over. I feel his pockets where a bag is sticking out and grab it. It’s full of pills. I take them all to try and fight the voices in my head, and run as far as I can. The world becomes a strange place of colors and scary things. Every time I look around a corner, I swear I see a little kid staring at me from within the dark alleyway. It looks like he’s wearing pajamas. Sometimes I stop and he raises his arms out and tries to talk to me, but then I keep running. I don’t want to hear what he has to stay.

  You had to Peter. He would have done it to you if you didn’t.

  No. I never had to go that far. I almost killed him. What’s happened to me? I was a straight-A student, a pacifist.

  That’s all useless. You’re a warrior Peter. A disciple of death!

  “No, no, no. Please stop.”

  Exhausted, I collapse into another alleyway and pass out.

  The white void greets me. The green hill in the center, atop it the rampant weeds, but many of them have drooped to the side now. Some of the petals from the roses have fallen and dried up at its base too. The naked lady is on her knees near the mound, whispering into her wrists. The vines that penetrate her flesh are thin and some have withered away completely. Her hair still covers her face, and her body looks more alive and thicker than last time, but still overall skinny and pale.

  “Can you believe this, Mind?”

  “No I can’t, it’s rather sad. Like you said, I think it is time for us to go.”

  “Please, please don’t go. I need you. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Body, you are lost,” says Soul. “Now don’t take us into your downfall with you.”
/>   “No please! Help me! I don’t want to be this.”

  The morning light is so bright I have to close my eyes for a while.

  “Hey, y’er awake,” says a scruffy voice.

  I open my eyes to stare at him. “Don’t worry boy. Looks like you got en some tough shit. So I stays around when I find y’er passed out on ye ass to make sure no one else fucks with ye.”

  I have a horrible headache that must have never left from last night. And the anxiety kicks in again. “I need, I need Cloud. I mean DT.”

  “Straight to the point ar’ ye. Well I am a,” he pauses shuffling his fingers between his hands, “giver of goods ye see. And since ye foreign boys take a load of that stuff. I could get ye some. If you haves the money that is.”

  Just my luck, a drug dealer to my aid. “Yeah, please.” The anxiety worsens and my twitch is back. I hide my hand inside my pocket. “I got money.”

  “Well why don’t ye take a rest on t’at corner store and clean up while I get some goods.” He breaks out into an odd laugh and coughing fit as he waddles down the road.

  I can’t believe I almost killed him. Another human being. I was almost a murderer.

  You got to turn yourself in Peter. This is getting way out of hand.

  No, I would get capital punishment for being a service member after last night. Never.

  What has happened to you?

  I repress the thoughts as much as I can as I wait at the corner store. I don’t know what I have become now. I hate myself for it and all I know is that Cloud keeps the pain away. I can pretend to be someone else. That the world is fine.

  Eventually he returns. In his sack is a considerable amount of DT and even some Buzz once more. “I tried to only the stuff ye asked. But we have a max limit per customer, so I threw in some asskicker.”

  I give him a month’s worth of salary. I go into another alleyway, and invite Cloud.

  But she doesn’t come. Cloud? Cloud!

  Oh, now you want me?

  What are you talking about?

  I saw her, is it because she’s prettier than me?

  No Cloud. It’s nothing. We are nothing—hey I swear! Come back please.

  I prepare another dose as she continues to attack me.

  Just because you think you can put that needle in doesn’t mean we’re…

  I shoot up a second time. I am higher. Calmer. Her anger dissipates and we are one again.

  There you go my little warrior. There you go.

  As I regain composer, I remember I do have a date with Alison soon. I find my way back to the hotel and enter my room, where Blake looks at me queerly. “Lobby in ten minutes!” he says.

  “Oh god, I need one hell of a greasy breakfast,” says Vance holding himself over the balcony as I walk to the bathroom.

  Isaac rolls off his bed landing on Dmitry and they both yell in surprise, Isaac jolts up then falls over throwing up. “Who let Ivan in?” he says wiping his mouth.

  Dmitry curses at him. “Watch out, almost barfed on fucking boots!”

  “You Russians sure know how to drink,” says Isaac as he changes his shirt. He looks at me as the rest of the unit does too. “Where the fuck did you go?”

  “I had a shitty experience. I think someone laced me with LSD. I passed out in some random chick’s floor and made my way back here.”

  “Yeah I saw you booking out the club,” says Vance.

  “Did you do her at least?” says Isaac.

  “At this point, I don’t remember anything.” I go to the sink to wash myself up.

  Dmitry follows behind brushing his teeth. “I wish could get drunk again right now. Probably be dead when ship out with you guys,” he spits into the sink, “knowing Love and reputation.”

  “Reputation?” says Isaac. “Like what?”

  “Everyone talking about it, they calling all Love, ‘Glorious Bastards of Tionem,’” says Dmitry.

  “Now that’s catchy isn’t it?” says Isaac lacing his boots.

  “Yeah,” Alex walks to the sink after I finish, “but the real hero of that battle was

  Peter.”

  Dmitry looks up at me. “So it’s true? You single handedly save day.”

  “I just did my duty,” I say. I wasn’t really lying this time. While I feel fucked up from the battle experiences, mixed about with the Buzz. I still feel a little proud over my actions there. I did save the day after all.

  Isaac adds his remarks, breaking me from my thoughts. “Aren’t you a saint. As humble as he is courageous too.”

  “Anyone would have done it,” I say.

  “But they would have been killed,” says Vance. “He saved my life.”

  “So there you have it rusky,” says Isaac. “A true American war hero.”

  Everyone finishes getting ready. I rest on the bed, sure as hell comfier than concert. Cloud is already leaving but I am actually not too strung out at the moment. I went too far but I didn’t kill him. And I got more time with Cloud at the end of it. Also I am going to see Alison soon. So today is starting to look better already.

  We gather into a group taking the elevator down to the lobby. Once there we find Blake and our Ukrainian replacement, Yahir. Blake steps forward, “This is Private Yahir, we talked yesterday about…events. He is glad to join you.”

  There is silence till Yahir comes forward. “Sorry, my past life, which should not dictate current situation here as new marine, got in way last night.”

  We give him the formalities and leave for breakfast. After the meal, men in the unit begin talking about what they’re doing for the last day. I rise leaving the table first. “Where are you going, Private?” says Blake, as I have been quiet most of the meal.

  “I, have an appointment to make.”

  “He’s going to meet his girlfriend, sarge,” says Isaac through a mouthful of food.

  The others woo and tease me, Blake replies, “I assume she is just a special friend of yours. Well, have a good time Private. Don’t forget tomorrow we are back to fighting a war.”

  I wave goodbye, and walk down the street searching for a cab to that café from yesterday. I am excited to see her, and am able to somewhat push away my other anxieties. Today is the day Peter, I tell myself. A cab picks me up and I’m on my way.

  I sit nervous before her. I didn’t bring Cloud along because I didn’t want to say some doped stupid statement. But now I really regret it. Last night at the club plays around in the depths of my thoughts. Ready to strike at any moment, and send me to an inhibiting fit of panic and fear. Earlier, an anxious looking guy bumped into my chair that freaked the shit out me. Such a great way to start a date.

  She notices my fake talk and artificial words.

  “What’s wrong?” she says.

  “Nothing, I was just thinking.”

  Our coffees arrive and she takes a sip. “About what?”

  “It’s not important.”

  “I think it is. You’ve been all shut up since we sat down. Don’t be hollow with me. Our date is technically about you telling me what it’s like out there. So tell away.”

  My hand threatens to shake. Hold it together. “I’d rather not actually. Tell me about your life back on Earth.”

  “Oh come on, don’t change the subject. What, you can’t tell me or you’ll get in trouble?”

  I place my hands around the hot coffee. This is a bad idea. Why did I even come?

  She looks down at her cup. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be rash.”

  “The truth of the subject is better not said. It’s easier that way.”

  “The truth? That’s why I am here, marine. To learn about it, I am tired of everyone sugar-coating it for me. The media depicting everything as jolly. I guess you can’t help me then. I want to know what’s real.” She begins to rise out of her chair.

  I swallow my fears as best I can. I have to say something to keep her. I’ll tell her the simple truth, some of it at least.
“I hate sleeping.”

  I feel her gaze on me, I stare up at her.

  “What?” she says with a sting of venom as if I said something already obvious and stupid.

  “You want some truth about the subject, I am about to tell you.”

  She sits back down. “Okay. Tell me. That’s what I wanted in the first place.”

  The waitress adds sugar to our table. I add some stirring it in and take a sip. I haven’t had something this tasty since before I entered Parris Island about four months ago. I lower the cup and stare at the foamy design inside it. “I hate sleeping. I hated that, us as humans, already have such a short life, so little time to do anything before we die. I hate that we spend almost half our time alive, just sleeping. Sleeping, not living, not doing the things we want to do. Just lying useless and exhausted in our beds when we can’t keep our eyes open any longer. I hate it because it reminds me of death. It’s a little demo of what is to come. You get tucked up in your blanket, you lie there doing nothing, then darkness takes over, and you’re dead for a few hours. Half our lives, we are forcibly practicing for death.”

  “But we dream sometimes, that’s different than death,” she says.

  “Is it? We all know dreams are just rearrangements of our past experiences and thoughts. But what if we went beyond that. What are dreams really? I had lots of dreams before this war started, of what I wanted to do or be. Now I don’t have any. My dreams in life are no different than the dreams I have when I sleep. They are both fake. But if it’s all imaginary, even before I realized it, that is my dreams and the dreams I have sometimes while sleeping, what are we left with as real? Stuff we don’t like. Such as wars. So we fake it, we dream over again to escape it.”

  “But we also have nightmares too.”

  “And that’s the worst part. The part that reminds us of the futility of being human. Even in our own minds, where we can imagine whatever we want, we still imagine horrible things. Why would we do that?”

  I glance up, her hand rests under her chin, staring at me with a look of muse in her eyes. “If we are going beyond those scientific reasons again, I would say it’s part of the human condition.”

  “And part of the human condition is dying. And so we let our own dreams take us down, defeat us, scare us, consume us. We let a fake terror into our minds to hide us from the real ones out here. I mean, I still wake up terrified with nightmares sometimes out on the field. What the hell does that mean? Why am I waking up scared shitless from a fake monster when I am in the middle of a real nightmare every day?”