A bright light above flickered to life, and Gibbons saw it was a bed of wooden arms and legs he lay upon. He flailed desperately to escape their hold and get to his feet.
He stood, dazed, winded, his legs unsteady under him. He squinted and looked into the light, the bright wall burning his face. He raised his good hand to his eyes and tried to bring things into focus.
Slowly, the blur began to fade, the tiny stain within the bright field growing larger and larger. First, it sprouted legs — two thin rods placed apart and bent slightly, curving the whole backwards. Next, a pair of arms stretched wide, one slightly higher than the other. But the longer Gibbons stared, the less right it looked. The shadow seemed unbalanced, misshapen. Gibbons shook his head, trying to figure out what was wrong.
His eyes burst open, all pain forgotten. From his lips blubbered something unconscious. He backed away from the glass display case, unwilling to accept what was before him. Suddenly he understood what a mistake he had made, and how he would have been better off to have just forgotten Beverly. He stumbled back over the lifeless wooden bodies, and his foot landed on a long smooth arm from some dismantled torso. The piece rolled beneath his feet, and he found himself falling backwards, back towards the empty storefront window behind him.
His eyes, though, remained fixed on the lit display. He watched it as long as he could, a single question left stuck in his mind. It repeated as he crashed through the glass, and didn’t stop until a moment after he felt the jagged pressure at the back of his neck.
Where, he wondered, was the mannequin’s head?
THE AUTUMNAL CITY
THE AUTUMNAL CITY is a sprawling maze of filthy stone and asphalt. We march like automatons along its stretches of sidewalks toward towers of brick and glass that scrape murky burnt amber from the sky. We pile, floor on floor, into tiny offices and push leafs of paper from one side of our warped desks to the other. Our days tick slowly into evening when we then return by those same sidewalks to our cramped apartments. The lines are drawn solid along the streets. The nights are restless, the chilling wind pushing against our locked doors.
Overhead, clouds brushed in dark reds and oranges never break. Instead, wind sweeps them into strange shapes and patterns that fill the sky. Exhaust billows from crumbling factories, thickening the air with soot and ash and mixing with the vapor. The barrier is unrelenting, omnipresent, and the light that diffuses through it is pale and tinted with rust.
• • •
I sit at my desk, twelve stories above the autumnal city, the ground twisting away, staring out my window at the labyrinth beneath. Its edges are hazy, hidden beyond thick, acrid air, and the streets are as silent as a photograph. The decayed buildings that line them are filled with room upon room of desks and shelves surrounding harried and uneasy workers who clack their machines with a rapid drum.
The noise rings through the stillness of the autumnal city.
I scrape dried ink from my cuff as a movement catches my eye; a wisp appears below, a slow flicker of white on dark asphalt. I press my face against the glass to better follow it and the shape passes behind a building. I hold my breath, and a moment later it reappears, flitting down the concrete. It crosses the road, a sheet flickering in the wind, and vanishes into an alley between brown-bricked buildings.
I wait for it to return but it’s gone. All that remains is the misshapen smudge of my skin upon the glass that obscures everything beyond.
• • •
The number of steps in the autumnal city between the offices where we work and the rooms in which we slumber does not change. Heads down, we pace them every night, our feet landing heavily upon the cracking pavement.
A slip passes by the edge of my sight and I raise my head to see white flash between soiled walls, like a comet along the ground. Hair swirls, dancing before an upturned face tainted with rusted light. Somewhere deep inside me there is a sharp pain, and I feel my legs stumble. I slow as she disappears again through a street grown dark with crawling colors. I step toward her, uncertain, and the gasp of burning wind that passes pushes me back onto my path.
• • •
There are no trees in the autumnal city.
Our park is a small cobblestone square, in the center of which loom statues of the city’s four founders. Arranged back-to-back, their sight is cast out in each direction to survey their works. They are a testament to eternity before them yet time has not been kind. Their proud faces, once alabaster, are covered in a thin layer of grime. Around the eyes a web of cracks and chips has spread and the water that catches in them leaves streaks in the filth. At the foot of the towering monument a small wooden bench stands eclipsed.
We move with eyes straight ahead to our nighttime homes. As we pass the square, I notice an old man at the sculpture’s feet. He sits in a threadbare green suit, scattering crumbs over the ground. Time has slowed around him. Even the bread hangs a fraction too long in the air. I look at the swirling ochreous clouds and see no birds within them. I am not surprised; I cannot recall the last time I saw birds anywhere in the autumnal city.
The old man lifts his tired head and looks at me. His face is creased with sharp wrinkles that radiate from beneath his brown felt hat. Long fingers sweep the cool air as he beckons me, calling out quietly. His voice does not carry far enough that I can avoid approaching.
“There are no birds,” I say. As he pauses, looking above, I see colors shifting in the clogged sky over his shoulder. He directs me to sit though the bench is too tiny to do so comfortably.
“They’ll come,” he says, and throws more crumbs on the ground.
I nod, watching the crowds move along the sidewalk. He says, “I know you,” and I tense but say nothing. “I know all the questioners.” He brushes his hands against the leg of his trousers. “I can see your inquisitiveness dripping off you like a poison. It will kill you, this thinking. Better you were like the rest.”
He leans close to me as he says this, sweat sliding down his coarse face. I make to stand but he waves me down and my legs feel heavier than stone.
“Have you seen her yet?”
“Pardon?” I sputter, the clouds burning upon my face.
“In the corner of your eye? Have you seen . . .” he says, then whispers behind his hand, “her?”
I do not confess it.
He looks away from me and across the bricks and streets. “I have. I even once touched her," he adds without applause. “It’s true. I thought she had what I wanted, but she has nothing.”
He turns back toward me and grips my leg with his knotted fingers. He squeezes, paralyzing me. With wide desperate eyes he speaks in a seething voice so harsh that I am left speechless by this sudden turn.
“You won’t believe me. You’ll see her slip from corners and crevices, moving as we move — a pinprick of light amidst the dark flame. You’ll soon feel the weight of the city upon you, the walls leaning in, the sky crushing down, and she will tempt you. Oh yes, I was like you. And then I saw.
“She sat curled in a pocket, watching the twisting sky. My mistake was stepping from the path. Nothing good can come of it.” He licks the spittle from his lips before continuing. “She was not beautiful — freedom never is. It is plain and unremarkable. Yet, that is even worse a temptation. She said nothing, her large wet eyes unblinking, transfixed above her. I reached to take her shoulder and discovered the truth.
“To touch her was to sink a hand into molten wax. Hot, burning. Look!” He rolls his cuff and thrusts his shaking hand before me. I nod but I see nothing; only flesh spotted and wrinkled by age.
“She is a mirage of freedom, the debris of the city. The brick, the stone, the grime — it siphons hope from us, stores it in its walls like a battery.
“The discharge is eventual. Inevitable. It spreads out across the ground like scraps of bread, yet there is nothing left to feed upon it. There is nothing that wants it.
“And, in truth, you are better off without it.”
He stan
ds then, crumbs rasping under his heel, and reaches out a trembling hand to my face. I do nothing to stop him as he places a solitary thumb upon my brow. His touch is moist and warm. A tiny shudder runs through him, then confusion creeps into the lines of his face. He bristles, looking beyond me, and hurries away without further word.
I turn to look behind me at empty streets being buried in the gathering gloom.
• • •
I struggle with my wool jacket to keep out the chill as around me apartments leak dim light into the dusk. I am unsure how long I was with the old man, listening to his throaty voice, but there is no one left on the streets. My back aches from so long upon the tiny bench. My legs, too, have fallen asleep, and walking upon them sends a jangle of nerves along my body.
Dark brick looms, pale red light casting shadows in slats on the ground, making strange echoes of shapes around me. I struggle to keep to the long sidewalk but my mind strays to the bloodied sky. I feel it pressing closer to me.
Wind murmurs through the autumnal city, binding brick and stone, twisting crimson clouds into intricate patterns. My footfalls rattle in the emptiness, multiplying until a crowd surrounds me. Shadows grow longer, sharper, as the city takes hold, and I see them gather at the door of my residence, barring my way in. I slip through, turning locks behind me.
The sliver of light beneath the door remains unbroken as something brushes against the handle.
• • •
The tinged morning light weighs upon me as I rise. My sleep was poor and yet far too long, and the feeling this day has brought unnerves me. Throughout my dreams I have seen her, listened to her whisper close as she coaxed me to escape from the snare of the autumnal city. I am disheveled when I finally reach the sidewalk, yet no one notices. No one looks my way. Instead, the flow of bodies breaks to allow my entrance. My glance does not find the far-eyed statues for fear my flight will be discovered prematurely.
From the hard chair amid the sea of desks flooding my office, I find myself absently peering through murky glass at the street below. Around me drones shuffle their paper against wood, the sound like shoes on concrete. They look about with hazy eyes, as though they see very little.
I am impatient, raking fingers across my leg, scratching at an itch not there. The documents before me seem strange, as though they were written in some ancient hieroglyphic — muddled lines that mean nothing to me.
I get a coffee from the machine recessed in the far corner of the office, its pale green color muddied by the red light from the window. The drink that pours is chalky and bitter and bears little resemblance to the coffee normally in its place. The drones seem unaware of the change. Cups cool upon their desks as fingers clack against oiled mechanical keys.
The hours of the day pass in silence with only the clatter of work to distract me from my unfocused anxiety. Outside the window a crumpled object no bigger than a hat rolls awkwardly down the windy street.
• • •
I move with the crowd through the autumnal city’s passages and by-ways, carried along in its solitary direction past statues and buildings, past stone and brick and concrete, through orange fading light and dark painted clouds, toward cramped apartments where sleep is troublesome.
I travel with single-minded focus, watching the streets for sign of my salvation.
When I see it, that startle of light along shadowy corners, I feel the city’s confining arms of routine around me, trying to dull my senses.
But the light is so bright.
She is thin, small, made smaller by the large white shirt she pulls close beneath her crossed arms. Her greasy hair is tangled and matted upon her head and stands at peculiar angles. A jaundiced face is slick and turned expectantly toward the tea-stained sky, eyes deep and bloodshot. She differs from my dreams but her promise remains. She walks slowly, moving unnoticed into gaps and openings, twisting her way against the grain of the crowd. I alone seem able to see her. I watch her tremble, ringing her hands, moving opposite to the flux of the city.
It is clear to me now; the old man misunderstood. He did not ask the right questions, and it has cost him. She will guide me out of this nightmarish place in which I have been trapped for so long. I have only to reach her, to take her ephemeral hand. It is then she will reveal to me all that I’ve lost.
I pass within inches of her. I reach out, my fingers breezing the soiled white material of her shirt. I feel a slight chill, the temperature of the sweeping evening wind dropping unexpectedly. My sight stays fixed upon the girl as she is swept away, her eyes on the red clouds gathering above as she mutters unintelligibly through thin, bloodless lips.
My hand continues to vibrate from the touch of her, and anticipation reverberates within me. I stop and look back through the crowd of drones to see the girl’s white form bobbing slowly as it makes its way through the ignorant current.
I struggle against the flow of people but am pushed back with every step, forced to travel in their direction. She disappears before I get closer, taking with her any hope I hold for escape.
I throw myself from the current, wind rushing past the confines of the street, and once off the sidewalk I find her again. She too has left the concrete, and floats imperceptibly beneath the lengthening shadows of the four founders, her back a small white field amid the colors swirling beyond brick and stone rooftops. Light bathes her, catching in the loose fabric of her shirt, giving her a faint glow as she waits for me.
I approach unsteadily, so close to relief from the heavy sky. The old man’s words swarm inside my brain. Drones continue to march, so many empty heads working as one, feeding the brick’s hunger. She stands unmoving, an alien in this autumnal city of decaying edifices and cracked streets.
My mouth is dry as I attempt to speak but the words choke before I can utter them. Instead, I drop to my knees and reach my hands carefully out toward hers, bracing for the feel of heat between my fingers.
She twists and looks at me, eyes filling with confused terror. She shakes her head with quick, sharp movements, her entire body shivering from my touch, and violently yanks her hand to free it. My hands weaken, allowing her to slip through them and flee down the street, white shirttails flailing behind her.
• • •
It seems like hours before I can stand. Along the broken sidewalk are the hopeless eyes of the autumnal city, thousands-strong, that watch what has transpired. No one speaks, and soon they pass into the encroaching dusk.
I stumble to the sidewalk yet the current resists me as I try to regain access. The bodies of the city are like a flowing wall, oblivious to my pounding fists, and I haven’t the power left to push my way through. I must wait to one side in fear until the stream empties, until darkness creeps through the oppressing sky, before I may follow the cracked stretches toward my tiny apartment.
The old man was right, I realize; questions do not belong in this place, this autumnal city. It burns all those who ask.
I look up, past the four statues, at clouds the color of rust, of dried blood, that grow deeper in the burning sky. They slowly slip apart and reveal some terrible darkness beyond.
THE WOUND SO DEEP
HE SHOULD HAVE known it was all a big joke, but deep inside he thought maybe for once things might go his way — maybe he had lived through enough that, finally, it was his turn to be happy.
He should have known better.
Cole Wilkin was a fool for having allowed himself to be tricked by the two Garys and Mick and Mark, into asking Amy out on a date. His tongue twisted as he said the words, discomfort strangling his breath, and the look in her eyes when he was finished made him want to shrink and disappear. He scurried from the light of her uncomfortable gaze and, as he passed the men, they laughed and clapped him on the back.
Did they think he shared the joke? He couldn’t even look at them. Not at the Garys, those two hulking brutes who slapped each other and made identical guttural sounds; nor at Mark, tall and silent, sitting by their side with eyes that w
ere always shifting; and certainly not at Mick, a common thug who had slipped into his job like a shadow and was always around at the least desirable moment. The four fed off one another, worked as a team, a pack, to take their prey down. Cole was desperate for the security of his cubicle where, out of sight, he could fall apart, a victim of his own delusions.
When the joke was long forgotten by the others, Cole still could not shake the chill that ran through his body and drained the blood from his face. Were he different, he might be able to withstand their barrage of words or the viciousness of their attack, but there was nothing he could do. There was no way he could change; he didn’t know how. He held his head in his hands and shook as he tried to keep his despair at bay. Maybe he ought to run off, to disappear without a trace. The world was filled with ugly, vicious people. They waited around every corner, hid in every building. They bred like rats, and their multitudes crushed him. Not one of them felt a thing, while Cole felt far too much.
The pack spent the day hovering near him — Mick throwing off the random quip designed to destroy Cole from the inside, while the Garys laughed and clapped. Mark remained quiet and watched, and Cole could see that behind those narrowed eyes his mind was concocting another vile plan.
Then, after the group of them returned from their extended lunch hour, they strangely ignored him, and he was able to finally fade into the grey felt of his cubicle walls.
The end of the day caught Cole by surprise. He was so engrossed in his work, enjoying his few hours of freedom from the banter of the others, that he did not immediately notice what was transpiring around him.
“You guys ready? Come on! Come on! Get your coats on.”
Beneath The Surface Page 13
