The Beautiful Land

by Alan Averill

  “So what do you want?”

  “What I want is to complete my plan in peace. And that means I cannot afford to have you around.”

  “So, what then?” asks Tak with as much false bravado as he can muster. “You gonna put a bullet in my head or something?”

  Samira’s eyes grow wide as he says this, and he finds himself wishing that he’d just kept his mouth shut. Sunglasses smiles as if he finds this idea very appealing, but then Yates speaks once more. “You are not supposed to be here, Mr. O’Leary. You are an outlier, a random bit that I had not anticipated. Killing you in this timeline could have far-reaching consequences. Perhaps you will come back in another form. Or perhaps it will throw this timeline into disarray. I am not sure, and because of that, I have decided on a safer course of action. I will send you to one of the random timelines of which you are so fond, then destroy the briefcase. You are a lucky man. As this world’s king, I could sentence you to death. Instead, I have chosen banishment.”

  Tak locks his eyes on Samira. “You mean us, right?” he says. “You’re gonna send us to another timeline?”

  “No, Mr. O’Leary. I mean you.”

  Tak feels his mouth dry up. “Wait a second,” he croaks. “Yates, wait. Wait, wait. Don’t take her, Yates. Send her with me. We’ll vanish, we’ll go away, you’ll never hear from us again.”

  “Mr. Kazdal?” says Yates.

  “Sir?” says the man behind Tak who hit him with the butt of his gun.

  “Set the briefcase to 4-5-3-4-2-2.”

  Tak begins to strain at his bonds as the dials are turned. Green light spills out of the case and washes across the faces of the other men, giving them a dark, unearthly glow. His breath quickens as his fingers begin to stretch across the surface of the glass panel.

  “Sam!” he cries. “Sam, I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!”

  “Be careful, Tak,” she whispers, as her frame begins to warble and disappear from sight. “Please just…be careful.”

  “Safe travels, Mr. O’Leary,” says the voice from the phone as Tak’s world fades into a dark, starless night. “And don’t worry about your friend. I promise to take very special care of her.”

  chapter eighteen

  Rays of sun filter through a curtain and onto the face of an aged man, his skin a shade paler than the bleached hospital sheets on which he lies. His breath emerges low and rattling—when it comes at all—and his eyes have a sunken, haunted look. Sitting next to him, holding his hand, is an older Japanese woman with silver hair. Everything else in the room is a glowing white blur, as if the two of them exist in a world made of light.

  Oh God. Dad. Oh no. Don’t make me see this again.

  A young doctor walks into the room and makes notes on a clipboard. Like all the medical professionals before him, he examines the paperwork, shakes his head, and leaves the room as quickly as he arrived, silently wondering how the man in the bed could possibly be alive at all. Logic and science dictated that he should have simply keeled over in the wilderness when the heart attack struck—a man of his age had no business hiking out of a canyon and driving himself to a hospital with only half a working ventricle. And yet here he is, fighting to the end. He seems the kind of man who has been fighting with something his entire life.

  The woman leans forward and says something in Japanese. The man in the bed chuckles a little, his eyes sagging around the corners like an old shirt hung out to dry. She smiles in return and leans back in her seat once more but does not let go of his hand. Soon thereafter, Tak walks into the room and takes up a position at the foot of the bed. He carries himself with arrogance, as if the events happening in front of him could not concern him less.

  Is this the day he dies? Or was it the next day?…God, look at me. Look how I’m standing there, like I couldn’t give less of a shit. I didn’t even tell him good-bye.

  The man lifts his eyes toward Tak, and his expression narrows. Tak returns the glare with defiance, as if the frail figure in the bed somehow presents a challenge. They hold each other’s eyes until the woman leans forward and pulls on the sleeve of Tak’s shirt. She says a few words in a voice fraught with emotion, but they are blurry and impossible to make out.

  Christ, I don’t even remember what she said. What the hell was I thinking about? The show? The next area I was going to explore? The fangirls back in Tokyo with the fake tits and the Hello Kitty skirts? Oh, Dad, I’m sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry about everything.

  A machine behind the man’s head springs into view and begins to beep erratically. Tak can see every detail of the machine—every wire, every screw—because all of his attention is drawn to it. A thin green line bounces up and down against a dark black background, spiking and falling with increasing intensity.

  This is it. This is where he goes. Ah, Christ, no.

  The man pulls in a harsh, rattling breath, but his chest refuses to fall again. The pale skin starts to turn blue as a loud alarm suddenly goes off. The woman begins to wail before reaching over the railing and shaking her husband with something approaching fury. Tak stands at the foot of the bed with an expression on his face as if he can’t believe this is actually happening.

  I’m dead. I’m not in the Machine, I’m dead and this is hell and I have to live through this for eternity. Please. Please, please, make it stop. Make it fucking

  • • •

  people are crowded into a living room. There are far too many for the small space, and the energy of them is everywhere. Along the wall, next to a large picture window, four old women in traditional garb hug each other and speak comforting words in a language Tak barely comprehends. Men in dull suits stand next to the fireplace with cups of tea in their hands, talking quietly. Smells emanate from a nearby kitchen—coriander and turmeric and cumin and a dozen other spices that seem both exotic and comfortingly familiar. Nearby, a table piled with food groans under the weight of the dishes.

  Ahmed Moheb moves slowly through the crowd, people stopping him every few steps to grab his hands, exchange a few words, kiss him on the cheek. An unlit cigarette dangles forgotten from his fingers. Despite the comfort of the family and friends that now fill his small suburban home, there is a profound sadness on his face.

  Oh, wow. I haven’t thought about this in forever.

  The crowd parts to allow Ahmed access to the table of food. He clasps his hands behind his back and stands in front of it like a general surveying the troops. Finally, he reaches out, grabs a small piece of dried fruit between his fingers, and brings it toward his mouth. Halfway through the journey he seems to lose interest, and eventually he sets the fruit back among its many brethren.

  An older woman comes up behind him and makes a motion with her hands. Eat, eat, she is saying. You must eat something. Ahmed shakes his head and backs away from the table, making small excuses all the while. Ultimately the crowd becomes too much for him to handle, and he moves through them and out to the back deck, where he lights his cigarette with trembling hands. Rain falls against a dark Seattle night. A cold wind blows. If his plan was to be alone, even for a little while, this certainly seems to be the place for it.

  But he is not alone: there is a young man with spiky black hair leaning against the railing of the deck and gazing off into the distance. Ahmed considers his form for a bit as his cigarette slowly burns, then shuffles across the faded wooden boards and joins the other man at the rail.

  “Hello, Takahiro,” says Ahmed.

  “Hey, Mr. Moheb,” says Tak. He continues to look out over the rows of suburban houses and their identical peaked rooftops. “How are things in there?”

  “Crowded. And noisy. My cousins try to make me eat.”

  “Which cousins?”

  “Pah. All of them.” He waves his hand in the air, leaving a smoky trail in the rain. “I tell them not to bring food. I tell them, ‘No. We will have a small remembrance. That is how she would have wanted it.’ But they bring the food anyway.”

  “I guess they’re trying to help.
”

  “Perhaps they do not know how else to mourn.”

  Ahmed finishes his cigarette and tosses it into the back lawn. He then reaches into his suit coat, shakes two more free and offers one to Tak, who takes it with a nod. The two men light their smokes and lean against the railing as the noise of the house increases behind them.

  “Taslima always disliked this suit,” says Ahmed after a pause. He lifts a faded brown tie in his hands and stares at it with a faraway expression. “She told me to throw it out and get a new one, but it was purchased in Iran, and I was…fond of it. I have so few things left from that time.”

  He seems ready to say more, but a hitching sound comes out of his throat instead. The noise seems to surprise him, and he tries furiously to avoid meeting Tak’s gaze as he straightens up and runs one sleeve of the old brown suit across his eyes. When the fabric comes away, it is spotted with bits of wet. Tak lifts one arm with hesitation and slowly places it around the shoulders of the older man. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I always loved her.”

  “She was far better than I deserved.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  Ahmed glances over at the young man beside him and almost smiles. “Thank you for being here, Takahiro,” he says. “I will always remember it.”

  They return to silence as the world begins to splinter and dissolve around them, sharp beams of light cutting through the darkness until the memory becomes a shimmering wall of white.

  • • •

  tak is slumped in a chair, eyes closed, breathing heavily. To his left, a woman with long red hair scribbles calculations on a whiteboard. From somewhere behind them, a stereo belts out a fierce Thelonious Monk solo.

  Ah, Monk. When you’re on, there’s no one better.

  “Tak?” asks the woman without turning around. When there is no response, she looks over her shoulder and sees that he is trying to nap. Without skipping a beat, she picks up a dry eraser and hurls it at his head.

  “Whuzza!?” cries Tak, bolting out of the chair. “What? What is it?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “Goddammit, Judith, seriously. I’m tired.”

  “It can wait.”

  Tak stretches, small pops emerging from the depths of his spine, and wanders over to the whiteboard. He stares at the mass of numbers and equations and symbols, trying to find something recognizable to kick-start the conversation. “Um…nice math,” he says weakly.

  “All math is nice,” replies Judith as she scribbles a radius in the one clean corner of the board. “That’s why I like it.”

  “Are you just doing this for fun, or—”

  “Have you ever considered what would happen if this project went wrong?”

  Tak yawns, stretches, and wanders away from Judith as a table warbles into existence on the other side of the room. There’s a bowl of fresh fruit sitting in the middle, and he gladly purloins an apple from the pile. “Not really,” he says through a mouthful of pith. “I leave thinking to eggheads like you.”

  “This isn’t funny,” she says. “We’re messing with time here. We’re doing things that no one has ever thought of before. It could easily have far-reaching consequences.”

  Tak leans against the board and accidentally rubs a number out of existence. He sees this and gets a sheepish grin on his face, then quickly picks up a marker and puts it back. “Sorry,” he mutters. “Seriously, though. I’m listening. What do you want?”

  “I made a fail-safe.”

  “You made…Sorry, you made what?”

  “A fail-safe. It’s a copy of our timeline before Yates and Axon and everyone started tinkering with the Machine. Think of it as a hard-drive backup, if that’s easier for you. I want you to promise me that you’ll use it if things go wrong.”

  Tak raises his hands and backs away. “Whoa, Judith. Come on, now. I can’t promise anything like that. I mean, how will I even know if things are going wrong? I’m just a grunt, you know?”

  “You’ll know,” she replies, staring at the numbers in front of her. “Trust me. You’ll most certainly know.”

  She pauses for a moment, but before she can say more, the memory shudders violently. Cracks of white move across the surface of Tak’s vision and break the world into shards, pieces crumbling off into nothingness before the entire thing finally dissolves into dust.

  • • •

  well, she was right about that…. Yeah, well, whatever. I gotta get out of here and go find Sam. Come on, Machine. Let’s go. Hurry this up. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s

  • • •

  a large fist is rushing toward Tak’s face. It happens so slowly, he has a chance to admire every facet of the hand: the well-manicured fingernails, the slightly scuffed knuckles, the blue class ring with the words meadowdale high etched around the outside. Then the fist smashes into his nose, and the next thing he sees is the ceiling. This view lasts for about three seconds before being replaced by the twisted, angry face of a young man with a bad crew cut.

  “Yeah, now what!?” cries the young man.

  He sees someone else appear in the corner of his vision: it’s Samira, and before he can say anything to the young man, she grabs his arm and helps him to his feet. She might be telling him let it go, let it go, but the ringing in his ears makes it hard to hear.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” says Crew Cut as a few of his friends laugh and punch one another in the arms, terribly amused by the entire thing. “You and that camel jockey get the fuck out of here.”

  Tak stops moving. Samira looks into his eyes, pleading silently for him to do the smart thing, but knowing in her heart he’s never been very good at doing the smart thing. He glances over at her and gives a small shrug, to which she shakes her head furiously. Then, before she can say anything more, he spins around, grabs Crew Cut by the back of the neck, and brings the boy’s face down into his knee. The force of the blow actually causes the teen to backpedal a couple of steps, where he wobbles in place like a dying top before reaching to his nose, feeling the first sticky drops of blood, then collapsing backward into a heap.

  “You got punked like a low bitch!” cries Tak with a furious grin. He seems ready to say more, but then the other teens rush forward and begin to pound the hell out of him.

  • • •

  the man stumbles through the front door of the house with blood smeared in his hair. “Scabs!” he screams, his voice slurred with a night of alcohol. “Fuckin’ scabs! Broke the picket lines, crossed over. But we got ’em after the shift. Fucked ’em up good!” A young Takahiro peeks out from between the legs of a chair and watches his father lean against the wall and slowly slide to a sitting position. From somewhere behind them, a woman begins to scream in Japanese.

  • • •

  two young women dance clumsily, their forms little more than shadows in the dim lighting of the club. Loud techno music assaults Tak from all sides as he slumps on a velvet couch and watches the women begin to undress. They giggle and raise their eyebrows at him in an attempt to be sexy, but his only response is a slow, blank nod. One of them crawls onto the table where he’s amassed an army of beer bottles, takes off her bra, and leans close enough for him to smell the alcohol wafting off her. “I never had sex with TV star,” she says in halting English. Tak doesn’t reply; he simply stares forward with the same blank expression as the woman begins to nibble on his ear.

  • • •

  red sand stretches toward the horizon in every direction. There are no mountains, no hills, nothing to break up the immense flatness of the landscape but the fact that it eventually vanishes from sight. Tak lies on his back in the middle of this sand and waits for the Machine to take him home so they can start the process all over again.

  • • •

  he runs from a mob, dodging carts and donkeys and peasants in cloth sack dresses as his sneakers pound on cobblestone streets. Pitchforks! he thinks wildly, as a flaming arrow blazes past and takes a notch out of his ear. They ac
tually have fucking pitchforks! He turns a corner and sees a man in shining metal armor, then the world spins and heaves and blurs together before finally exploding into stars.

  • • •

  tak opens his eyes and sees a massive building stretching up to the sky. He can hear wind blowing through the city; it echoes and howls as it slinks in and out of a million broken windowpanes. His eyes shift left and find the burned-out remains of a car; they shift right and see a small coffee shop with shattered furniture and a bloodstained floor. He smells the air and discovers rain and smoke, as well as the unmistakable scent of death. The urge to close his eyes and pretend that none of this is happening is overwhelming, but instead he forces himself to his knees and waits for the sickness that he knows will arrive soon. “Hold on, Sam,” he mutters, as his stomach begins to clench. “I’m coming…. I’m fucking coming.”

  flicker and die

  chapter nineteen

  One of Samira’s dreams—perhaps the worst one of all—has nothing to do with Iraq. Although it started sometime between her first and second tour, she’s never been convinced that the two things are related, and she hates it more than any of her other dreams for that very reason. At least when she’s being chased by children in Fallujah or watching someone be torn apart by an IED, she can match the nightmare to a trauma. The randomness of this one, the way it seemingly comes out of left field, makes it so much more disturbing.

  In the dream, she’s riding her bike down a suburban street on a gorgeous fall day. She’s young, maybe ten, and the wind catches her hair as she races along without a care. Bright orange and brown leaves fall from the trees and land in her path, creating a pleasant crunching sound as her bike rolls over them. When she thinks about this dream during her waking hours, she always wonders why it can’t just end here. But of course, it never does.