Hollow

by Lee Doty

  Her gaze fell again on the wires and couch of the womb. If she strained hard enough, she could still make out her impression in the faded foam padding. If she strained harder, she could almost feel the deep vibrating thrum of the whispercraft’s engines.

  Except for the padding of the couch, everything in the room was dull metal or duller plastic. It was all worn with use and neglect, like most of the world outside. The machinery was gray, with a darkening of viscous fluids at its joints and spattered around its access panels. “Ozone and rot,” she thought, wondering what this place would smell like.

  She dropped onto a hard stool next to the womb and retrieved her clothes from a dented locker. Like everything else, her clothes looked like they’d been made for someone else in another, better, long-ago time. Like everything else, the clothes had seen better days.

  Exhausted from the wrestle with her pants, she stopped with her shirt wadded on her lap and rested. She closed her eyes, and again felt the illusory rumble of engines around her, pneumatic restraints holding her like a mother might hold a sick child. Of course, she only knew children from videos, and she could only guess about what a mother might really be like. Both were alien to her world. She was a part of the last generation of man, raised by synthetic clerics to live empty and die young. She wondered in passing what the clerics would do when the last human finally gave in to the Palsy. “Checkers” flitted through her mind and a small grin pulled at her lips.

  She could feel the disease best when she first woke from the Hallow. Because that world was injected directly into her mind, bypassing most of her dying nerves, there she could feel, taste and smell—even the colors there seemed brighter, the world in much sharper focus. There, her body was strong and capable, her mind clear, and her reflexes sharp. Here, she was lucky when standing didn’t end in falling.

  Sometimes in the aftermath of that rapture of sense and motion, she would feel the weight of the real crushing in on her like the endless pressure of cold, bottomless waters.

  After a few more minutes spent wrestling with her shirt, and a few fails with the door’s latch, she stood shakily in the hall. With a hand sliding down the wall for support, she followed the familiar guidelines on the floor to the debriefing room. By the time she arrived, walking was relatively steady and she felt almost human again.

  She pushed the door open with an outstretched palm and entered the cramped space. The lights were low and a large screen on the far wall displayed the tactical schematic they’d used to plan today’s mission. Their team’s Cleric stood at the head of the table, nearest the tactical screen. He was clad in the black and silver vestments of the order of combat. The polymerized skin visible on his face and hands was too taut to be real and had a dull, waxy sheen that looked unnatural in all but the dimmest light. His inky robes seemed the most real color in this dim world—seeming to stand out even in deepest shadow as a separate and more elemental black.

  The rest of Ash’s team waited around the rectangular metal table that took most of the space in the room. They were all dressed in ill-fitting dark clothing that mirrored Ash’s own. The league uniforms always reminded Ash of a bizarre hybrid of hospital scrubs and combat fatigues. Tink sat to the left of the Cleric in his old, dented wheelchair. He gave her a warm smile and a small wave as she entered. Shadow turned from examining the screen to give her a quick nod. Crow was staring down at the few inches of tabletop between his splayed fingers. He twitched slightly when she entered, but otherwise gave no clue that he knew she was there.

  They all looked different here: the battle scars were gone of course, their lithe bodies replaced with skeletal mockeries wasted by palsy, their eyes hollow and searching.

  “Ash.” their cleric said with dry predictability. “Pleased you could make it.”

  Ash circled the table, settling into the only empty seat, next to Tink and across from Crow. With a small grin, she realized they were sitting in their transit positions, ordered around the table as they’d been sitting around the small zebra-striped corridor of the whispercraft. “Original,” she mumbled.

  “What’s that?” The Cleric said, eyes a bit too wide, smile quite a bit too broad to be real. He looked at her with his open face and flat, expressionless eyes. The most jarring thing about the Clerics was that they had been designed to imitate humans back when humans were generally healthy, so they looked like towering supermen next to the wasted wretches of modern humanity.

  Ash half laughed, half shrugged, “Just noticing that we’re still in transit positions.” She made a small gesture that indicated both bemusement and the team’s positions around the table.

  “We always sit like this…” Tink said, breaking off, “oh… I guess that is weird.”

  “You sit where you were trained to sit.” The Cleric pronounced, “You bring more than memories back from the Hallow. You bring back patterns, habits—a brighter perspective.” He looked around the table, “And that is right.” He concluded with a small, pious nod.

  There was a long pause as they played “the game”. The game was this: stare at the cleric with undivided attention and no expression. Do not blink, do not speak. The game had been Ash’s idea quite some time back, and they’d played every time a cleric made some “deep pronouncement about the universe”, which was constantly. Any negative reaction to the cleric, especially when he was ministering on the subject of the Hallow, would be dealt with harshly, but the clerics had no response for “the game”. It was great fun, especially giggling about it later in the privacy of one of their apartments, but also Ash was genuinely curious if it was possible to drive a machine crazy.

  A moment passed in silence as the Cleric looked uncertainly about. Finally, the machine broke the silence, “Captain…” the cleric prompted, “Captain.”

  Crow looked up from the interesting table to regard the cleric. “Sir?”

  “Well, another victory for Phoenix, and for the whole city!” The cleric enthused.

  “Long may its banners wave.” Shadow said with no enthusiasm.

  Apparently not programmed to either understand or react to sarcasm, the Cleric tried to build on the moment, “Children, you are the mighty Phoenix, the most successful of the heroes of our League. You have much to be proud of…”

  “Long may our banners wave.” Shadow said in the same voice.

  Despite her dark mood and the scourged and broken world around her, Ash felt the corners of her mouth twitch upward.”

  Couples Therapy

  Chicago, 2020: Office of Dr. Therese Smith

  “So, let’s talk about Jeremy.” Smith said, breaking their start-of-session routine.

  “Whoa, Doc! What about my mother?” Jo asked, swinging her feet down and sitting up on the couch.

  “Humor me, Jo.” Smith rotated the end of her stylus through a few circles in the air, encouraging Jo to begin.

  “What’s to talk about?” Jo asked, settling back onto the couch, fidgeting her arms and feet about, seemingly unable to find a comfortable position.

  “Exactly. You haven’t mentioned him in the last two sessions.”

  “Ah… uh, did his mom put you up to this?”

  “His Mom?” Smith asked.

  “Well, I haven’t been returning his calls… I was just wondering when I’d hear from his mommy.”

  “Ah, I see. Your humor slips when you’re uncomfortable… did you know that, Jo?”

  Jo’s grin spread warmly, “Are you engaging me in idle banter, Doctor Smith?”

  “Did something happen? You always spoke fondly of him before?”

  “Clearly not.” Jo mumbled, half to herself, then cocked her head toward Smith again, “Ok, no… he’s a great guy.”

  “But?” the doctor prodded.

  “But he wants to get physical.”

  “…and you’re not ready yet?”

  “And he’s not the one.” Jo said flatly.

  Dr. Smith’s eyes widened perceptibly and her head rocked back slightly. “The one?” When
it became clear that Jo wouldn’t elaborate, Smith prodded again, “One what?”

  “Not the one for me.”

  “Do you believe you can only ever date one man?”

  “Boy, I sure hope not, as I’ve already dated one man, and he wasn’t the one.”

  “There’s that phrase again, Jo. What does it mean?”

  An uncomfortable silence lengthened through the cozy office. Finally, Smith tried again. “I’m surprised. After how close you’ve been to death, I wouldn’t have expected you to be so reserved about who you decided to sleep wi—“

  “Whoa!” Jo started, half rising off the couch before noticing the awkward start and settling back, “Nobody said anything about sex! I mean, I’ve only known him for five weeks!”

  If Smith was rocked back before, this time she looked like she’d been sucker punched by Santa at the mall. Jo could feel her face heating and tried to hide behind her hands. She pressed on her forehead, hoping Smith would just think she had a headache or something.

  Smith lowered her tablet and gestured for Jo to continue. “You said he wanted to get physical.”

  “Concert ballerina?” Jo said miserably, eyes hiding behind her fingers, cheeks burning furiously.

  “No, Jo.” Smith laughed, “You’re not getting away that easily. What do you mean, by ‘Physical’?”

  Jo had less than a year of memories in her head, but she had the strong impression that this was the most embarrassed she’d ever felt. This simple statement was larger than it might at first appear, as Jo’s experience with awkward chagrin was short but intense. For instance, this felt worse than fleeing that play at the Oriental Theater, crying like a baby… this felt worse than the time when she’d discovered that men and women were supposed to use separate bathrooms at her first McDonalds.

  “You know…” Jo faltered, “He wanted to get, uh… mushy? Uh he kept lingering at my door at the end of the evening, and he would get really close—look, could we go back to talking about the car crash? I think I might have some new insights…”

  “But you said you thought he was attractive. You were positively giddy last time we talked about him. Let’s see…” Smith prodded her tablet for a few seconds then quoted from her notes, “He’s sweet and thoughtful… He’s a perfect Gentleman… He makes you laugh… he’s beautiful… funny and interesting… He understands me… I don’t know what he sees in me…” Smith looked up at Jo, “This is not the pre-breakup pattern I’ve come to expect, Jo. From hearing you talk about him, I think he’d be able to look past all the scarring. I think he’d only see you. I don’t think you have to be afraid of him turning away from you…”

  “You’re probably right. He’s the nicest person I remember meeting.” She gave a furtive smile. “But that’s not the problem. I look at his beautiful, kind, considerate face, and don’t really want to kiss him. Look, I’m only what… seven months old now, Doc. I might have the body of a twenty-three-year-old, but my heart’s barely crawling… I can’t explain this very well.” Jo shrugged her shoulders, then finally involved her hands in the gesture, completely at a loss.

  “Jaio-Long Farris!” Smith said in her best matronly stern. “You may only have nine months of memories in your head, but there is no amnesia of the heart. You don’t lose your maturity, you don’t really lose yourself when you lose your memories; you just have to spend some time rediscovering who you already are.” She gestured about her, “That’s why we’re here. When you’re ready, Jo. When you’re ready, it will all come back.”

  “If you don’t lose your maturity, then where’d mine go?” Jo’s tension dissolved into a giggle.

  “I swear I’d have an easier time with one of your kids.” Smith sighed, “Maybe you are only nine months old.”

  Jo’s giggle was mostly muffled by her hands.

  “Ok.” Smith said with a small nod and a refreshed positioning of her stylus. “What are you looking for… what kind of man will be The One?”

  Jo thought for a minute, intensely glad to move on from the specifics of her currently stunted love life. She held up her hands before her, looking at the palms as she thought. “I think I’ll just know. Like you can tell that my right hand goes with my left… they’re two parts of a single, greater purpose… two aspects of something unseen, but bigger than either of them alone.” She held up her hands before the doctor, palms out, “I’m looking for the match that will show me who I am… I’m… I’m looking for the rest of me.”

  Dr. Smith was silent for a long moment, her stylus seemingly forgotten in her hand. “Jaio-Long, you are a mystery.”

  “Aint that the truth?”

  The Learning Place

  Chicago, 2020: Happy Dinosaur Preschool

  Hazy afternoon sun slanted through large windows cluttered with brightly colored finger paintings of animals, houses, and the smiling, big-headed caricatures of the children and their families. Jo’s favorites were the sloppily rendered rainbows—she knew of nothing more optimistic than a child’s inexpert rainbow.

  The children were spread out across the floor for playtime and were entertaining themselves with blocks, crayons and various learning-focused toys. Jo and the other two teachers were spread around the room doing individual time with some of the kids. Even the three to five year old kids knew that something was up—that the magic of the weekend would soon begin. They were just a little bit brighter, a bit louder, and somehow they managed to be even less patient.

  Like most Fridays, Jo was just a bit gloomy. For her, the weekend was a dry, uninterrupted expanse of loneliness. This was fine at first—a nice break from five days of kiddie crowd control—but by Saturday morning, her to-do list was done and it was all downhill from there. She’d try to read, but after an hour or two, her imagination would disengage from her book and her apartment would shrink around her. Watching TV only made it worse—the world of TV seemed even smaller than the small, confining world of her apartment.

  By Saturday night, she’d be out roaming the dark streets, searching for something. As she loitered in shops or rode the busses or trains through their endless circuits of the sleeping city, sometimes she would imagine she was searching for herself, looking for the woman she’d been before the accident had stolen her away.

  It’s hardest to be alone when you don’t even have yourself for company.

  She shook her head to clear it. She wasn’t wandering the streets yet. She wasn’t being rocked to sleep by the synthetic mother of the elevated train yet. Maybe this weekend would be different—and in any case, she still had a few more hours with the kids. Why experience the emptiness until she had to? She recommitted to living in the joy of the moment and got back to work.

  “Look, I don’t know what the letter is, but that’s definitely an apple.” Anaya said, pointing to the apple on the flash card in Jo’s hand. The defiance of children was sometimes more endearing than their rainbows.

  “Hmmm…” Jo said, not allowing her smile to come out and play, “Maybe what we have here is a mystery apple.”

  “Mystery apple,” Anaya seemed to be considering the idea, but then, “ridiculous!” she concluded with a stern wrinkle in her brow and her index finger thrust up between them. At times like this, it was easy to imagine her mother, the doctor.

  “Ridiculous, eh?” Jo said contemplating the sandy brown pigtails that nodded agreement with Anaya’s every word and move. “You’re so sure, but you don’t even remember that this is clearly a ‘C’.” Jo said, gesturing to the red ‘A’ on the card.

  “Apple doesn’t start with ‘C’…” Anaya started.

  “Oh? Mystery apples might, my little Einstein.”

  “Cat starts with ‘C’… you’ll see in two more cards.” Anaya’s eyes narrowed as if she were dealing with a person of dubious character or intellect.

  “Ah, true. But what you don’t realize is that this is a crabapple—‘C’.”

  “Really?” Anaya said with a smirk, “So why is that letter an ‘A’ then?” Anaya
tapped the red ‘A’, “I thought you were supposed to be the teacher.”

  Jo flipped the card over so she could reexamine it. She fixed it with a contemplative stare for a few seconds then finally concluded, “You know… you may be right.”

  Anaya’s smile spread wider, even as she shook her head in mock disappointment. Jo tickled Anaya under the chin, on the rib, then on the side of the neck quickly, “You… little… genius!” She said as each of Anaya’s defensive moves only served to open her for the next tickle. After a few seconds, Jo interrupted Anaya’s squealing laughter with the next question.

  “So. What’s this, little miss smarty?” She flipped the next card to the front of the deck.

  “B! Too predictable! You should mix these up if…” Anaya’s four-year-old sass was cut off by another squeal as the tickling resumed.

  ***

  The slant of the sunshine through the finger paintings had moved into its pre-dinner attitude and the room had darkened enough that the main source of light came from the fluorescent ceiling fixtures. The last of the late-pick-ups were gone, and the preschool was unnaturally still. As Jo moved the vacuum over the multicolored patchwork of the playtime carpet, she paused to regard the window. The onset of evening seemed to punctuate the end of the week’s bright sentence, a harbinger of the two dim days to come. With a sigh and a sense of resignation, she switched off the vacuum and began to wind the cord.

  “You and Jeremy have a hot date tonight?” Jackie asked from where she was organizing books on a child-sized shelf. Jackie was the only other prison guard on duty tonight at what she liked to call the “Happy Dinosaur Preschool and Correctional Institute for Youthful Offenders”, though only “Happy Dinosaur Preschool” appeared on the side of the building and the school’s letterheads.