‘Smoke?’ he asks and proffers something that looks like weed and smells like asphalt.
‘Why not.’
I take the joint and Boltz lights the end, sending a puff of red smoke in to the air.
‘What is it?’ I ask. But Boltz just shrugs in reply.
It’s good stuff and I can feel the corners being shaved off the morning and the ground smoothing in to pillows. It would be good to take a break; a proper one, and for a moment I think about joining Boltz and just kicking back amongst the trees. But then he takes the spliff from my lips and the buzz recedes sharply.
‘Easy cuz. It’s not one for greeners.’
I’ve smoked enough of Boltz’s rollups to heed the warning and exhale deeply, leaving the rest of the joint in more experienced hands.
‘Should be getting back anyway.’
‘Sure cuz, don’t wanna miss her do you?’
Boltz laughs and picks up his paintbrush, joint firmly planted between his lips.
‘Ain’t nothing comes between you and that girl is there?’
11
The morning passes slowly and the fug of Boltz’s smoke fails to lift until well after Ella disappears from her room for lunch. At 1pm Griffin calls us all together, lining us up around the poolside. There are twenty or so of us; mainly permanent staff but a few like Boltz and I employed on some temporary need. Griffin smiles, revealing a rarely seen sweep of bone white teeth that erupt like gravestones from his pale gums.
‘Wait here,’ he commands gleefully, before disappearing in to the house.
There are many reasons why Griffin calls us all together, some more sinister than others and instinctively I worry which end of the spectrum we’ll be subjected to. After five minutes or so he returns. He walks ceremoniously, left hand raised as he gently guides Mrs Fairwater across the lawn. A white tunic with gold leaf trim stretches tightly over her generous frame, failing to conceal the many feasts and banquets that linger on her ample hips.
Griffin helps her in to one of the pool loungers and then waits whilst drinks and parasols appear from the house; the inside staff briefly crossing over in to the outside domain.
Cassandra Fairwater speaks, revealing a small wobbling voice that creeps from behind her jowls like a mouse.
‘Inspection,’ she says.
The coolness of the word strikes through the heat of the afternoon. Inspection – such a bland word, but in the Fairwater house it has much meaning. Clothes are swiftly peeled off, shirts clinging briefly to sweat kissed backs before being placed without fuss on the poolside floor.
Shoes and boots are set aside before shorts and underwear are removed,
A quick glance around reveals a sea of uniformity. The permanent staff unveil a set of hairless torsos, all hints of pubic fuzz carefully removed. Only those of us on temporary work placements stand out; unruly patches of wiry hairs signifying us as clearly from the Zone.
Ghosts appear at the windows of the house; silent figures that watch this parade from behind glass panes. The world of the inside staff is as alien to me as ours is to them. I hurriedly search the windows for some sign of Ella, unsure whether her appearance would stir excitement or shame. But as ever, when one of her parents’ inspections occurs she is absent.
We are called forward one by one, Cassandra casting a butcher’s eye over us all. Here she compliments a breast, there a thigh or a particularly appealing rump. Occasionally she will nudge Griffin and whisper in his ear.
When it comes to my turn I walk slowly round the pool before coming to a stop immediately in front of Cassandra and Griffin. Two pairs of eyes watch as I slowly turn; lifting my arms and flexing my muscles as I expose pale flesh to the sun.
‘Next,’ Griffin calls and I take up my position on the other side of the pool. At the end of the inspection a few are called back for further consideration until a young woman is selected. I recognise her as the one who was scrubbing the poolside when I arrived.
She looks nervous as she’s led away towards the house. I know exactly what she will go through. But I also know that strange feeling that will follow afterwards; not relief, nor shame, nor even contempt, but disinterest. Perhaps it is because it is so different here; so far removed from the Zone where sex is immediate and urgent; where bodies contort and writhe in equal energy. But in the Heights their bodies; their mannerisms, their innate entitlements are so alien that it is almost impossible to recognise the puffing, roll of gluttonous lust that falls upon you as sex.
I smile at the young woman, hoping to reassure her, as if my smile might convey that lesson learned that it doesn’t matter. They can’t take any more from her than they already have and soon it will be over, and when it happens the next time it won’t be so bad and one day she simply won’t care whether she’s picked or not, it’ll all just be part of the job.
12
I smooth the crumpled fabric of my shirt back over my torso. An unruly crease has appeared; an unsightly ridge of fabric that feels enormous beneath my fingertips. I glance up at the house and there she is, walking slowly back to her room and taking a seat at the window.
Ella’s movements through the house are like a stone falling in to a pond; the ripples expanding and spreading. As she settles the rest of the house staff disappear from their vantage points and those of us in the garden return to our work. But Ella remains, watching, always watching.
I rub a firmer hand over the crease cursing my misfortune. My hand rises; teetering on the edge of a wave but I manage to withdraw in time. When something happens; a wave, a conversation…a kiss, I want it to come from her.
I pick up a pile of bricks and slowly place one in to the sunken earth. I am so close now: the house looms over me carrying its cargo of men and women as we grow nearer with every brick. Still she watches; a book lies idly in her hands, the pages unturned.
I’ve become much braver in these past few days. The growing closeness of the house should deter me, but if anything it spurs me on. If ever there was a time she might recognise me; might remember – it would be now. As the chasm between us narrows I hold her gaze; allowing my fingers to wander over the bricks unwatched; feeling for them by touch alone. Any number of the staff – inside or out – could see, but I do nothing to hide the disinterest in my work. After all these years we are so close again; so close that I cannot do anything but watch; watch her watching me.
13
It must have been five, six years ago – I was barely nineteen, Ella maybe a few months younger. I’d been dared to cross the fence in to the Heights. Security was looser then, the chokehold of the accords having not yet tightened around us. Then it was still possible for a boy to cross in to another world and find a girl standing by a lake.
I think she knew as soon as she saw me what I was - that I didn’t belong. Beside hers my best clothes looked like rags. Her porcelain skin shone in the moonlight whilst mine could only manage a dull lustre. It must have been so obvious where I was from, and yet she didn’t care. She looked as miserable in the Heights as we were in the Zone. And just as eager to escape.
She let me sit with her and offered me a sandwich. I tried not to eat too quickly but the bread was so soft; the lettuce so crisp and the chicken…real chicken; it tasted incredible.
‘I’ve never eaten meat before.’
The admission blurted out of me unbidden, taking flight in to the evening air as I rushed to fill the silence.
She laughed; ‘Of course you have! You could have just said if you wanted another one you know!’
The laugh hurt more than her disbelief and more even than knowing it was true. I ate the second sandwich, and a third, the embarrassment growing with every bite. And yet I couldn’t stop, I knew that every mouthful might be the last time I tasted tomatoes so juicy, or butter so smooth, or that it might be my last ever bite of chicken.
We talked for hours, each of us bewildering the other with stories we couldn’t imagine. When I said I’d never been in a car, or that no one in our fa
mily had ever finished school, or that I’d never drunk milk she looked at me as if I was mad.
I couldn’t tell her that half the things she spoke of I didn’t even understand.
At some point she must have told me her name…and yet I don’t remember those words: ‘I’m Ella, Ella Fairwater,’ she must have said. But the memory of it escapes me. Instead I remember the feeling of grass beneath my feet; soft and strange. I remember her laughing - kindly this time - a rich bubbling sound that filled the night with warmth.
‘Tell me about life in the Zone,’ she said. And I did, except I left out the worst of it; the crowding, the noise…the stench associated with too much life.
‘Well the moonshine, that’s like nothing I bet you get here – booze so strong it’d knock you out for a week if you didn’t water it down. And the parties – when it’s past curfew there are these places you can go; kind of like bunkers – never in the same place two weeks in a row so the Zone-guards never find out.’
‘That sounds exciting, nothing like that ever happens here.’
‘You must party though, you know all rich kids together.’
She didn’t answer. Now it was she that was uncomfortable. The more I spoke the more her eyes widened in disbelief as the unfamiliar world of the Zone came to life in front of her. I grew bolder, bragging of all the freedoms she imagined came with living in captivity.
Suddenly the time for talking came to an end, suddenly it was me that was the more experienced. The Zone is no good for a lot of things, but life there is short and you live it while you can.
She kissed me back, her lips soft and wet as they traced a line from my lips to my neck and down towards my chest.
I remember the taste of her, how she felt; her body light and delicate, the fine strands of her hair shining silver in the moonlight and the heat of her breath warming my neck. Those memories remain printed forever on my mind even if time has taken the detail; so that the colour of her eyes, the sound of her voice, the name falling from her lips are all forgotten.
14
Her hair is so different now: Ella’s. It’s so different from that of the girl by the lake; in length, in shape…even colour. And for all the privileges of the Zone she looks older than me now, taller too. She watches me with strange distant eyes that show no sign of remembering, and yet there is something there; a desire behind the gaze.
The book falls to the floor and she doesn’t even stoop to pick it up. Her eyes rest on me and I wish I knew how to reach out to her; what strange language would bridge the divide between this Ella and the girl of all those years ago. I search her eyes again for some glimmer of recognition; some sign that I’m more than just an idle amusement for her, a pretty trinket to pass the time. But there’s nothing.
I place another brick in the path; another step closer to the end. Another day nearer leaving and time is running out for her to remember. They look so alike; the girl in the window and the girl by the lake. They have the same eyes; the same hunger, only the girl in the window never smiles, never laughs, never asks my name. And soon I’ll have to walk away from her and it’ll be as if I never existed. Another nameless face will step in to fill the void. And so I linger, delaying the inevitable, putting off the end. Waiting for the girl in the window to come outside. Because why won’t she; this girl who must once have stood by a lake and kissed a boy. But I’m still waiting for her to tell me she remembers: to tell me I am someone.
###
Author’s Note
Thank you so much for downloading this short story. I hope that you enjoyed it and if so that you might consider leaving a review. As a self-published author your support means a lot and I would love to hear from you.
Adam 0532 is and always will be a free title – a thank you to those who enjoy my writing and for new readers a taste of the type of fiction I write.
If you enjoyed this book you might also like my novel – The River, an epic fantasy title available on Amazon, iBooks, Kobo and more…
You can even read the first four chapters of The River right here, starting on the next page.
Nick Frampton,
July 2017
Web: www.framptonbooks.com
Twitter: @framptonbooks
Facebook: Framptonbooks
Goodreads: Nick Frampton
The River
By Nick Frampton
1
From the first day we were told to view the struggle for life with detachment. I remember clearly that being the word the Sister used. When she had finished speaking she must have seen the blank stares looking back at her. ‘Oh, of course, detachment - well it means distance, separation, perspective.’ More blank stares as three more unknown words were used to explain the first.
It was like that a lot to begin with, the frustrations of teaching language to newborns was permanently etched on the faces of the Brothers and Sisters. They would pour new vocabulary in to our waiting minds as we sat upon the cold stone floor until our heads were full to the brim. Words were given to us like shiny trinkets, every one beautiful and unique. But often their meaning was lost to us; such was the urgency, the rush to hurry us through our education. There were so many of us, and there was so little time to learn.
Words came upon us like snowflakes in winter, falling in great dizzying flurries of new experiences. But as soon as we reached out our hands to hold them they were gone, melted in the spotlight of our gaze. We saw the snowflake, but we couldn't understand the snow.
I felt the frustration of the Brothers and Sisters grow and saw them tire and wane in their efforts. It made me sad, though I didn’t yet understand what that meant. All I felt was the emptiness in my stomach, the sweeping malaise as it stole across the room worrying at our brows and drawing the strength from our limbs. We were a disappointment, and it hurt.
To me words were like dewdrops on spiders’ webs. Look at one on its own and all you see is a drop of water, but connected they become something else - something wondrous and meaningful. Tie them together and you begin to learn.
The Sister tried again: ‘It would be best for you, for everyone if you try not to get too upset by what you see, if you learn to accept it and not to fight it. Not yet anyway. For some of you the time will come when you can and will want to fight, but now, now you must learn. You must focus on learning, listening, reading, talking, discussing. Do all that you can to find out about the world around you.’
There was a mixed response this time; a dangerous realisation that we were not all the same. Some of us comprehended more and were catching on quicker. Suddenly I began to compare myself with others and to worry about where I stood in the field of learning. I understood the essence of her message; the idea, but it still didn’t quite make sense. It didn’t marry with the images that reeled in my mind. Flashes of swirling waters dragging me down to breathlessness, a woman; her brown hair tangling around my fingers as we grappled for life, the shouts of soldiers, arrows singing, swords cutting, and bloodied bodies scrambling for safety. All of these were sad, all of these difficult to accept on the first day of our lives.
When days later I did finally come to stand on The City’s walls and look upon the River as it carried its tide of human bodies, I was reminded of the Sister’s word. Detachment. I tried above all else to hold that word in my mind in the hope that it might take root. I planted it like a seed and nourished it with willing, praying to the River that it might yield fruit. I said the word aloud, but once wasn’t enough and so I tried again.
Detachment. Detachment. Detachment.
But as much as I said the word the feeling never followed. I felt anything but. As I watched the bloody beginnings of human life, I wept freely. I was not detached.
Even then I could recognise the heretic in me, the stirring of emotions against rather than for the River. Seeing our god bringing us in to life, spewing us from its source in to crowded waters thick with the dead I wondered if it had to be this way, if birth had to be so hard.
I sa
w men like me, women too, struggling, clawing at one another in their desperation to be free of the drowning tide of the River. My tears fell for the ones who lived just as much as the ones who died. For the living are forced to make murderers of themselves in their first moments of life just to survive. I am living. I have killed. A strange bargain the River makes us strike so soon, before we can understand our actions.
Even those that escape the River’s clutches and make it out on to the broad sweep of the plains are not spared. There the killing moves from the watery might of the River to the hands of men. The swords and arrows of Rebel fighters pluck survivors from life and cast them instantly back in to death.
Of course there are some that run this gauntlet of bloodshed we call birth and survive. Some like me that make it all the way through the gates of The City. Like me they are called Riverlings: men and women born from the River, sons and daughters of The City of Life.
But we are not detached.
2
The cornerstones of our understanding were simple; the River was good; our god loved us and had given us life. The Rebels - who tried to kill us even as we took our first steps - hated us and wanted to take that life from us. But there was a third, another who held sway in the court of our existence: The City of Life. As unrelenting as the Rebels and as wondrous as the River, The City gave itself willingly to all. It was a haven, a place of safety that we had miraculously stumbled into. Its doors were permanently open to receive runners from the plain day and night. We were shepherded in by its faithful army of soldiers and watched over by the Brothers and Sisters of the Order of the River. The River may have given us life but The City and the Order sustained it.
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