§§§
“Of course she’ll see me in Hell.” Wright had said. “After all...that’s where we are now. That’s simply the nature of the world in which we live.”
But Dio didn’t believe that.
Dio didn’t believe in Hell; only the Place of Forgetting...where punishment and reward were meted by the self, according to self-estimation
Dio didn’t believe in Heaven; only the Place of Forgetting...where punishment and reward were meted by the self, according to self-estimation
Dio didn’t believe in a distinction between the responsibility for death and the taking of life; though he did understand that, where the two intersected, examples of the former – more often than not – presupposed the inevitability of the latter.
Dio did believe in ‘good’.
Dio did believe in ‘evil’.
And, believing those things that he believed...Dio realised that he had to get as far away from Palatine Hill as was humanly possible. He and Yvonne, both.
But Yvonne was nowhere to be found.
XVII – The Collapse
~ Kayla ~
01/12/2023
By nightfall, Colorado was a memory.
The sinkhole was spreading; expanding steadily in all directions. The formula for survival remained the same as it had been from the start: the faster you could move, the longer you’d last. Beyond that...we hadn’t really thought about it. Hit a border? Keep driving. Find the coast? Steal a boat. No boat to steal? Start...fucking...swimming. Something. Anything. Just keep moving.
On the radio, there’d been panicked bursts of information that had bled into whimsy and conjecture as the day wore on; growing more and more erratic, with channels dropping like flies. The last coherent report we’d heard had the sinkhole spilling over the border into Kansas and Nebraska.
Naithe and I hadn’t gone back. We knew that by the time we got there – going by my suspicions, which Naithe trusted implicitly – whatever was going to happen already would have. Pueblo was the epicentre. ‘Ground zero’. The very heart of, already, the largest crater that Human eyes had ever beheld.
§§§
The first thing we’d tried was to head for the airport in Phoenix, hoping to get on a flight before the panic started. I’d fully expected to be attacked as we made our way through the airport; expected some kind of punishment waiting for Naithe and I. Retribution for disobeying Ambrose’ instructions. And, in a way, there was. Though it was more of a leash than anything else. It was something I probably should have expected.
Asking for two tickets to Melbourne – on whichever flight was the next possible – we got as far as payment. Our cards weren’t working. No guns...no high-speed car chases...nothing but polite apologies and deactivated credit cards. Naithe had twenty dollars in cash, and I had a little over five. There was nothing else for it: we sullenly refuelled the car on the way out of Phoenix, and headed south. Somehow, it was worse than the confrontation I’d expected. We were insects, to them. Nothing more. That much was clear.
Soon after leaving the airport, the phones had stopped working. We kept checking – over and over – but there was no reception anywhere. Somewhere around five in the afternoon, my phone had chirped to life with a call from Meg...but the reception tapped out in seconds, and there hadn’t been any follow-up. Either the networks were so totally overloaded that nothing was getting through, or...something else. Something worse. But speculation was pointless, and relative to our situation – so far as I was concerned – ‘worse’ couldn’t be noticeably worse than things already were.
§§§
“Naithe.” I murmured.
“Kayla.” He replied. We sat in the car. A cigarette burned quietly between my lips. Cool, fresh breeze blew in through the windows. The radio was just white noise, now. Static.
“What do we do?”
“Head for Mexico?” He shrugged.
“What’s the point? The border’s gonna be fucked.” he nodded. We sat there for a few minutes, saying nothing. “Look, I need to tell you what happened.”
“What are we talking about?”
“My parents. I know it’s stupid. But...we could die. At this point, it seems like the most likely scenario. And I don’t want to die without you knowing why I’m...like this.”
“Like what?” I sighed.
Funny. I thought. Funny: how one tiny coping mechanism can throw such a long shadow over the way you see yourself.
I mean...it was nothing sinister. It was just something I’d started doing.
The thing is...when you tell people that your parents died in a car accident, the response is always the same. Shock. Surprise. A lot of sympathy and a lot of apologies, and always with those sad, sad fucking eyes, no matter how long ago it was. But, more than anything, what I always notice is that little barely perceptible shift behind the eyes.
We never really consider the vast range of situations that cause our fight-or-flight reflexes kick into gear – even just a little; even just for a second or two – but the next time you have to divulge some priceless chunk of agony from the deepest, darkest months of your developmental years, I suggest you pay close attention. For science or whatever. Because I’d bet everything I have that unless you just started dating the person you’re telling, and you’re in the process of fucking each other’s serotonin levels into orbit...there’s gonna be a shift. A twitch. And then you’ll know: they’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, than standing or sitting there...with you...and having that conversation.
And then you’ll understand – perhaps – how quickly the idea of explaining the rest – and the worst – of the events surrounding my parents’ death became completely unbearable, and stayed that way. How it changed me, knowing that, as much as people tried to understand me, they couldn’t. Because they were always missing a fundamental chapter of the overall story.
“I was in the car when my parents crashed.” I quietly admitted. I dropped the almost-finished cigarette out the window – avoiding eye contact – and fumbled for another, lighting it...staring out into the darkening emptiness. “I think they both wanted it that way. Maybe that’s bullshit, but it’s how it feels, thinking back. It wasn’t planned, but once it started...I think they both knew how it was going to end. I was ten.” I stopped. My throat felt itchy. He just waited, patiently, for me to continue. “If we’re gonna die today, or tomorrow...you need to die knowing that your parents loved you. It’s important.” He nodded. I could see him doing it in my peripheral vision. “Say it. Please.”
“I know my parents love me.” I twitched at the present tense, but didn’t call attention to it. Too soon. Far too soon.
“Good. I’m glad that you never had to think any different.” I sighed. “A lot of people do. That’s the impression I get: that a lot of people live with this awareness that, for whatever reason, they’re not loved by the people who are meant to love them. The reason Ambrose relates to me is that...when he was little, his father killed his mother. It wasn’t a crime of passion: it was methodical. Precise. Vindictive. His father was never arrested, or charged. Years after, his mother’s murder was pinned to his father but...that evil fuck was long dead by then. Justice isn’t meant to be punitive, but...it still feels kinda meaningless if the person’s not around to be punished. At least...it’s always seemed like that to me. It wasn’t just that, though. His father, for years after that...did things to him. The kinds of things that you never forget. The kinds of things that a person wouldn’t do to you unless they never wanted you to forget. Ambrose eventually killed him. Bullet to the temple – bang – and that was that.”
“Fuck.” Naithe murmured.
“The bastard had it coming,” I continued. “But...the rest of his family put it all on him, like his father was a fucking saint or something. I’ve never been quite clear on what happened next, but he must have gotten past the charges somehow. He was underage, and he was clever. Really clever. You can kind of see how it might have happene
d. Regardless of what his family had to say, Ambrose would’ve had...marks. Scars. Physical ones. The kinds of marks that would’ve conveyed a pretty detailed narrative for anyone who managed to get a look at them. I’m guessing that someone did, and that was enough to get him out of being charged for murder as an adult. So there’s a gap, and a few years pass where there’s literally nothing to be found...and then he’s out of Greece and living in America with a fifth cousin or something. From there, it’s rags-to-riches...relatively speaking. Eventually, he winds up working as the Director of Restorations at Weisbrod and consulting for Manus Incorporated.”
“That’s an Australian company, isn’t it?”
“Yeah. Headquartered in Brisbane. Always in some sort of beef with Lilum Multinational; their CEO – Michael Manus – just stepped down to run for the Senate earlier this year. It was a big deal...if you follow Australian news, that is”
“Right.”
“Anyway...it’s all there. Hidden, but...not hidden well enough. Anyone who was working his story would have found it, just like I did. And the story would’ve sold if I could’ve brought myself to tell it. It would have sold well, even if it is a bit...sensationalist for my tastes. It would’ve been a very good career move for me. But I couldn’t do it.”
“You sound like you think you should have.” He observed. There was no judgement. It was just an observation. I sighed.
“You go through something like what Ambrose went through, and things are never quite the same. You lose some options. You’re never going to be a person like everyone else is a person. I should have thought about it more. I should have considered what it could have turned him into. No one likes to admit it – it isn’t ‘politically correct’; it isn’t fair or right – but monsters make monsters. They do.”
“But they don’t always. In fact, usually they don’t.”
“And you’d know that, because...” I trailed off, my right hand raised, palm angled upwards...like a request. It was a request. He couldn’t know. It wasn’t his world.
“Statistics, mostly.”
“Statistics lie. Take rape, for example. Underreporting is endemic. Unreported cases could even be the majority. It’s not outside the realm of possibility. That’s true for a lot of things.”
“What’s the point, Kay? If you’re trying to argue that the world’s fucked; that people are fucked...” He looked pointedly out through the windscreen, holding up his hands as if to indicate ‘exhibit A’: “You’re not gonna get an argument, here. But if you’re trying to argue that people who’ve been through hell should be nailed to the wall, just because there’s...what? A ‘statistically significant correlation’ – ” I almost laughed at his imitation of my voice and accent: “ – between having been a victim and becoming a perpetrator...then you’re full of shit and you know it. You’re just trying to find a justifiable reason to blame yourself for not targeting someone who – as it only just turned out – possibly deserved to be targeted.”
“Probably.” I sighed. “That’s probably part of it.”
“So what about your story?” I looked back out the car window, weighing up how best to begin. It was difficult to know. After all: I hadn’t told anyone the full story since it had actually happened. That was a full seventeen years ago. Eventually, I just took a deep breath, and started talking.
“It’s not like our stories are similar. For me, it was very different...but a little bit the same. Just enough for him to be able to feel like we’d shared something.” And, honestly, just enough for me to feel that way, as well. “My parents – like his – should never have been together. In a way, they never really were. My mother was in love with someone, once. That person left. She took comfort in my father because he was there. She got pregnant.”
“And that was you?”
“Yeah. I was a mistake.” I nodded. I fought back a wave of irritation as his brow furrowed inward with concern. “You’re about to say something dumb, Naithe. Don’t say it. Honestly, if I had to be a product of two broken, fucked up morons...I’d much rather it have been as a mistake than on purpose.”
“Penicillin was – ”
“Dear Christ, no. Don’t.” I warned. “Sperm. Egg. Gestation. Birth. Please don’t overthink it. They were both...weak. Weak, hopeless, and fundamentally lacking in self-awareness. That’s why I’ve worked to hard to know myself; to be strong; to have goals and ambitions. I can’t expect you to understand this – I don’t expect you to – but that’s the only thing my parents ever gave me: a solid blueprint of who not to be. It’s why I never let myself be weak until I found someone I could trust.” I smiled sadly at him. “That’d be you.”
“I’ve never seen you weak.” He reached out to brush his fingers gently over my cheek.
“I’ve been weak for you since we met.” I admitted. “Every second.”
“Then I think you and I have different definitions for the word ‘weak’.” I shrugged.
“Sure. I’m sure that’s true. I mean...you’ve never seen a person completely destroy another person by using their love against them. It’s weakness, Naithe. Loving you is weakness. Love is never not weakness, when you let it control you. I never thought I’d trust someone enough to be as fucking weak with them as I am with you. But I do.” We fell back into silence for a minute, just looking at each other.
“Do you want to go on?” He reached over, squeezing my shoulder. I nodded.
“My parents were weak, but not for each other. They were weak for the past. Maybe it could have been different. Maybe they could have loved each other. Maybe they could have found love elsewhere. Maybe they could have even loved me...though I really sort of doubt it. But they didn’t do any of those things. They just...held on to the love they’d felt in the past – for people long gone from their lives – until they bled and broke for it. By themselves. With each other. With me. They held on to the love that they’d lost, and they used it to slowly...systematically...infect, pollute, and destroy everything that might have been, for any of us; chipping and scraping and peeling it back until nothing was left. Blaming the present for the past.” Naithe looked confused.
“It was a long time ago.” He suggested...as if it really meant anything. He didn’t understand that my words weren’t based on sentiment; that I hadn’t manufactured a false image of a life deserving of being violently snuffed out in a car-wreck; a congruent illusion of causality to match a messy, sad, and immutable reality. I couldn’t really blame him...but it did disturb me slightly: the way that he missed the obvious. Editing and amending the past, that is to say...means fuck-all if you don’t tell people about your revisions. Internal lies require external mirrors, or they just...don’t...work. It’s counterpoint, pure and simple...to refute the droning, accusatory monologue of that part of yourself that never quite buys into your bullshit.
“Look: it’s not so hard to understand. People jam so much meaning into children that they are, in the end, usually just an aggregate of how the people feel about each other. Which can be great – apparently – if two people love each other. They can take that little vessel and fill it with all the love that they have for one another. But...if two people fucking loathe each other...a kid just becomes a constant reminder of the lives they should be living, but aren’t; and the person that they’re stuck with, that they can’t stand.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. He seemed sceptical. I decided to just keep going. What else could I do? It was part of the reason I’d never wanted to tell it: once you started, you were committed to finishing.
“I remember these holidays we used to take...driving up and down Cape York. They were week-long screaming matches that started in Cairns and ended when one of them couldn’t take it anymore: drove off in the night and took a plane back to Melbourne. Some of the only good parts of my childhood involved being stuck in the middle of nowhere with one and not the other of them...trying to find our way back home without a car. But as soon as we were all in the same place again, it was just more
of the same. It was worse when we were away, though...if only because it was meant to be different. I don’t know why they insisted on those holidays. They always ended the same way. They both hated being there...but they did it anyway. It was just one of those things. And that’s where it happened.”
“On one of the holidays?” Naithe asked. I nodded.
“The cabin we were staying in was on a ridge, in the mountains. In the Queensland hinterland, there are mountain ranges where you have these almost sheer drops, just slathered in gum-trees and scrub...with snaky little roads carved around the sides, slowly going up or down. There are always boundary railings...but Queensland’s a really big place...and sometimes, when part of a boundary rail gets damaged, it takes a little while to get fixed. I remember that so well. The holes in the rails used to terrify me.”
“I can imagine.” I smiled rubbing his knee.
“That’s sweet. I’m not sure it’s true...but that’s sweet.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “We were driving back to the cabin after having gone to a look-out for lunch. It had been embarrassing. There were other families there; other kids...and my parents had been arguing about something. Loudly. They never really stopped arguing, but...I was used to it being behind closed doors. The humiliation was...a new twist. And even at that age, I already had enough experience with the way their arguments evolved to know that all new elements soon became consistent. When we got in the car and left, I’d been trying not to cry. I was almost relieved when my dad started speeding up and not watching the road...because I was suddenly too frightened to be sad. The sense of relief was pretty short lived, though. I started looking out the windscreen through the gap between the two of them, watching the road and cringing at every sharp jerk of the wheel he had to make to stay on course...and every time our car got a little too close to the guard-rail...or was a little too close to another car as it shot by. They were screaming at each other – as always – and I was worried that they weren’t paying enough attention. As it turned out, though...that was pretty fucking ironic.”
Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) Page 22
