Free Beast

by Suzanne Marine

  A staff with a snake coiled around it indicates a medical clinic. The ad emits no sound, only shows the ailments they treat in bright, blinking neon words. Chronic cough! Cirrhosis! Obesity! Depression! Anxiety! Cutting! Fast pulse! Dust syndrome! Lung hardening! Agoraphobia!

  There is the glowing, line-free skin of a beautiful actress known for acting in histrionic dramas. Her profile is so feminine with its sloping lines and small curves, cartoon-like. “I want you to know my secret,” she says breezy and seductive as her profile turns to face me. “For dewy, soft, undamaged skin, Enchant Elixir, made from the pure waters of Belgium. Saved and stored by Franciscan monks through the ages. It's the only one.” Her forefinger moves to her lips to indicate a secret. “Shhh, it's between us. Limited quantities available.” She doesn't mention the air-tight, locked headgear she wears when she leaves her air-tight home. How not one single feather of dust has touched her life or corroded her face.

  A colorful gas mask juts out. Covered with blue, yellow and orange symbols and geometric markings, it represents tribal civilizations. Soft drum beats echo around it. Something about the mask exudes refinement and elegance. The metal edges around the goggles, mouthpiece and neck lock are thinner, not so bulky and military. And the thick, air-proof cloth drapes liquid-like, isn't a bulky hood. A large diamond sits centered on the forehead, like a beacon of light for the princess-wanna-be's of our time. The logo of a luxury accessory brand flashes and then it all fades to black before starting again. Luxury brands have found a way to make the mask an alluring status symbol. And by doing so, have made it acceptable, nothing to rail against. Something we can oooh and aahhh over, something to lovingly save for and feel superior about since there are people who can't afford such style and grace.

  I see a crowd of men and women in their twenties through the large window of a bar. They chit chat and laugh at a joke of some kind while drinking beer and mixed drinks. The women wear fitted dresses. They would have worn leg warmers or tights to cover their skin as they walked to the bar and taken them off once they arrived. They would've also changed out of their boots and into the stiletto heels they now waver and balance on. The bare legs are strange to see in public. Aglow and smooth, the rounded, muscular calves are sex-like and bulging, ripe fruit-like. It is as if we were brought back to olden times when skin was not shown and a view of it could titillate a man. I can see their masks hanging on hooks near the bar with their roomy purses. They are a peacock-like mix of painted, beaded, bedazzled with crystals, shiny and smooth. The men's masks, hanging off their chairs, relay an independent masculinity, leather-like with a distressed texture in neutral, manly tones of grey, beige and black. Ruggedly handsome, as if they had been on an adventurous journey that took them to the ends of the earth in a rite of passage, of manhood. They would have walked to the bar with their long sleeves buttoned around the wrist and rolled them up to their elbows once they were in the safe confines of the bar with ultra-filter windows and doors. Their toned forearms, slightly hairy and athletic with long muscles that flex and shift slightly when holding a glass, are again sex-organ-like, intimate. Something I want to stare at. All these shows of skin act as a sort of mating signal. I wish I laughed amongst them, was joined in and of means. Oblivious and happy. But I stand outside looking in with my mask as the toxic dust flitters around me.

  A silhouette of a naked woman lights up and blinks next to the bar. The line drawing shows off her perky, full breasts and rounded bottom as she sits astride something or someone. Rays of sunlight radiate from her head like an everlasting sun goddess. A husky female voice evokes a come-hither tone. “Nude girls. All nude. All day and night. No tipping required. Our girls like everyone.” The emphasis on “everyone”.

  Entertainment, escapism, and voodoo health cures have proliferated. Coping mechanisms have crept into everyday activities without struggle or question. Complete acceptance of our condition pervades our culture.

  Am I the only one who mourns the time before, even after these few years. Am I the only one who hasn't really adapted. I have been affected in a quieter way. Others seem to have adapted or reacted, coped in various outward ways that can be seen by the world. Most seem perfectly fine to go on with life by buying special skin cream for extra protection, losing oneself in decadence and pleasures, talking about the latest, fashionable masks that are new for the season and what can be worn with them. But I haven't adapted as well. I observe mouse-like, watching and waiting with small, timid movements. I have my coping mechanisms. My bottles of scented air. My cynicism. I've lost my feminine side. My outlook on life is practical, harsh and calculated now. The dreamer in me has died. But these are small internal things that don't ripple the water, that aren't visible to the naked eye. They settle deep inside me as sediment, gritty, unseen and undisturbed as I drift, left behind in my own thoughts. The world has moved on and gone off-kilter, and I've remained just to the side of center. Clear-eyed and sober or lost in the vortex of the past, I don't know.

  RUMBLE OVER THE LAND

  Today, at work, a woman joins us. She's there with Dr. M when I slip past my steel door. We lock eyes one long time as I enter the room. And I'm sure to memorize everything I see in that instant because I won't have the guts to look so directly again. Sitting at the end of the table in a white biohazard suit, she watches. And nothing else. No note-taking, no look of knowing or surprise, nothing uttered. Just an eagle eye watching every move, as if she were the eye behind the video camera that hangs overhead directly behind Dr. M. I feel the scrutiny like a hot breath on my neck, as if she were a ghost hovering over my shoulder invading my space. I catch peripheral glances, then I realize her judgments and unspoken comments hang concentrated between us. A new chapter has somehow sneakily begun, like soft padded footsteps coming closer to your door, yet I don't know why or what comes next.

  Dr. M doesn't provide any hints. He seemingly works as usual. I sense a slight adjustment in his descriptions, but can't quite decipher it. It's there, but not there. Like a parent who changes behavior slightly without explanation. As a child, you don't know what goes on in the grown-up world, you only see the subtle signals and signs in a sideways sort of way and sleuth if it means anything.

  Her blue eyes, older and squinty, are those of a bureaucrat who stares at screens and technology all day. I'm sure she squints while assessing data and making decisions. The white crepey skin around her eyes is lined many times over, filled with symbols hiding in the cross hatches. Her back is ramrod straight and still as she sits on the backless stool, a sign of someone conscious of small details and an ability to control herself at all times. Perhaps she's Dr. M's boss. She's definitely not an intern or new hire. Not a relative. I can sense the organization in her with its labyrinth of hierarchies, ladders and trap doors. A claustrophobic Escher drawing of rectangles and stairways stacking within her mind. Organizing resources and battalions for the future.

  The body on the table is a young girl, seven years old. A malignant clump of cells lies in a crevice of her lungs. A cave of hard rock and blackened lava. It is the usual story of dust and woe. Only she is so young. At her age, she should be running and playing, unconscious of the workings of the world and even of herself. But this craggy, sharp, ugly monster in her chest made her conscious of life and death, of limited time. Somehow her body is genetically predisposed to not tolerate our new atmosphere at all. An evolution of sorts, the cold hard truth. Her parents will eventually question if they should try again for another. If the next one would make it or if they're genetically cursed. Her body, so small and thin on the large, steel table, reeks of nightmares. Hers and her parents. I imagine their gut-wrenching agony at seeing her weakened and lifeless. Their thick, ropey hands squeezing her small, bird-bone fingers, engulfing them with hope and prayer. An intense rage grows within me, draws my breath in, singeing my edges. I've seen the damage so many times, but with the young, the anger reignites, eventually cooling into bitterness. The unfairness and cruelty of life. All the things
we could've done to prevent the pollution. All the ways we were foolish and the weak suffered because of it. Sacrificial lambs, but for what. The dust will harden you one way or another. I hide these thoughts and feelings from my eyes, which I try to maintain as cold and clinical. All business with a job to do. Non-sentient, robotic glossiness.

  The minder continues watching. Something hangs tense and unspoken between the three of us. I try to maintain my composure, keep it light and efficient, not shaken, and most importantly stupidly unaware. Perhaps I'm not doing a good job? Will I be put on a probation of sorts? I should prepare my resume when I get home tonight, just in case. Officially I'm not allowed to say what I do, I can only say that I helped create medical books. Editing and such. That's all.

  She minds me. Attempts to mine me for ardent clues of some kind. Dig past the exterior into the vulnerable softness inside me. Her eyes focus mostly on me, not Dr. M. I'm aware of that, I can feel that radioactive heat even with my back turned towards her. Have I left any potent tells or crumbs? She leaves with Dr. M when we're finished for the day. I attempt to catch her eye to curry some kind of favor by nodding my head or something. But she refuses to look my way, as if I were a nobody or a thing. The fishbowl eye of her attention gone cold and void. I'm just a simple cog in her machine.

  I walk home, breathing heavily, mind itchy with worry and wondering at my survival there. For once, the bright, glowing signs on the busy street don't invade my mind. What will my mother and I do for food until I get a new job. There is the food bank at the Sun Temple. We don't have any savings for rent. Every penny is spent on survival basics we can barely afford. We don't even have enough to purchase goggles and masks that aren't air-proof. What companies could I apply to? I grind my teeth with anxiety. Should I tell mother what happened? It's probably better to not worry her unnecessarily. The stress directly affects her health. She's aging on fast forward. I hate living on the edge like this, so close to sapping extinction.

  A bum sits on the sidewalk against a crumbling brick wall. He slurps hungrily from a bottle, most likely alcohol of some sort. His bare hands have turned a corpse-like ashen white with the purple flesh showing through. His old face peels and flakes. A piece of thin, translucent skin hangs off his chin. He doesn't wear a mask and his eyes puddle milky white from years of constant exposure, like the marbles from childhood. The gray particles rest on his weathered jacket and pants, like fallen snowflakes on a statue. His slurred mutterings don't make any sense – Get off my porch you sicko. They can't take your soul. Minions inside me. He diddled me with his finger. You and your metal chariots.

  A guy with a strong, lean body and straight posture walks by nearly tripping over the bum. He yells through his heavy-duty designer mask as he walks away, “Get a fucking life you loser! Get a fucking mask!”

  The bum utters a drunken laugh, deep, slow, rough. Like a growling cowboy with whiskey on his breath, a rumble over the land. His sagging eyelids close in slow motion with all the time in the world, and his mottled, peeling face tilts up towards the sky basking in the flakes. As if full of a rare, shining beauty in a numinous spell. “We will all end up here my friend,” he says.

  It's not the phrase he says that hooks my brain. But that word, the word “will”. The phrase isn't “we all end up here my friend”. It is “we WILL all end up here my friend”. A tiny morsel of difference, but something about it puzzles me. Shows me, but I can't see. There's a finality that triggers an avalanche of despair within me.

  I want to cry even though I don't know why. The sadness and terror have awoken and twisted inside my core, wanting to erupt as tears and sobs. Maybe it is pent-up, subconscious fear. I hold it in, my stomach and fists clenched. The tears would attract flakes, make them stick to my skin. Mother would ask why my eyes are swollen and blotchy. Instead, I cough out loud several times as a release valve, so violently people turn to look at my convulsing, jerking form, venting emotions and tears I can't face.

  The thunderous coughs create a flat-line silence within me. I turn and look down a small side street with a dead end that's been untouched by advertising. It would be a beautiful scene if you didn't know... a melancholy painting of one day in a life. The small feathers swirling in a light breeze, the street lamps casting a romantic, orange glow, the refined, stone buildings with classical flourishes that were once so revered. Fading beauties that have lost their audience. And it sinks me with sadness. To the very bottom where everything is dark, without outlines. It's all been lost. I'm in a long, plain nightmare where it snows all day and all night into stagnant perpetuity.

  ARRIVE IN THE WORLD

  Pin bursts. A tiny seed exploding puffs of pollen with gentle, whispered poofs. Poof. Poof. Little feathery fireworks. That was how it started.

  They would appear randomly in small amounts. Quiet clusters of seeds appeared in the sky and poofed their gifts down upon us. Maybe only one or two a day for a few months. And then more every day. Sometimes crowds of people would stop in the streets to watch and the experience unified us because we all saw something beautiful at the same time. Spectators, alone but together in a type of religiosity. It was deeply touching and surreal.

  Those ethereal showers of feathery dust mesmerized, lulled us into a trance. And it was beautiful because it hadn't taken up the whole sky, yet. They floated juxtaposed against the magnificent blue sky and sparkling sun. They were a billowy, dream-like counterpoint to the sharp, bright solar rays. It set our imaginations on fire. Songs and poetry were written. It appeared as apparitions in our dreams. Numerous photos and videos were carefully taken and studied. People tasted them. Children captured them in small, glass jars only to find the jars empty within a month. Fortune tellers read them to predict futures. We called them glorious star dust. Marveled delirious. Mythologies sparked. This was before we learned.

  Work has normalized. She never returned. What was it all for. Maybe nothing to do with me, maybe I am too sensitive. I don't know how much longer I can do this work. It isn't terribly physically taxing and I don't work overtime, but psychologically it takes something from me every time. I don't know if I'm becoming more or less human. Does becoming sober about human existence make you more empathetic and human? Or does it rust your heart cynical. And what is it to be human anyway? Is it goodness and treating others as you would want for yourself, or is it a self-preserving, methodical approach to survival of the fittest? Some combination of both I suppose.

  I abstract these nests of innards, tangles of veins, and sawed ribs in my mind so I can immerse myself in the work and learn. This is merely a spleen. Not a person's spleen, just a spleen that will be photographed, sliced and tested. A miniature object, squishy under my fingertip, weighing 6.2 ounces. I try to distance myself, unsuccessfully.

  Sometimes bodies arrive without a kidney. A concave cavern robbed of an organ. This is when you know how desperate this person was for money. So desperate they sold part of their being and function. Part of me understands, but also doesn't. I don't know if I could do it, but you never know until you hang off the precipice. I imagine there's a point in your life where you think of doing it for a long time, and the next point where you go for it quickly so you can't stop yourself. And then I can see a final one where it's all been lost, so who cares what you do next. Like the bum. Like steeped graduations down towards hell, decisions you can never go back on.

  We learned the truth from the news. The clusters of fine dust were pollution. Something to be feared, not beloved. Scientists at first told us it was only slightly harmful. All would be fine if we just wore masks. They worked feverishly on an antidote. The reassurances and plans were a way of preventing mass hysteria. We would be fine if everyone just calmed down and took precautions.

  The pollution came from the gas emitted from numerous smoke stacks along the river in the city, and something in that gas reacted with something in the atmosphere to create the dust spontaneously out of thin air. Like comet dust magic. Many hours and money went into finding a cure
. But no one told the factories with the smoke stacks to shut down. They produced something too valuable to society – specialty medicine and cures for the sick that weren't made anywhere else in the world. Debates on ethics and population numbers ensued. Calculations on the value of a sick person's life were compared with the good for a population. Plans were devised to create other similar factories, but the funding never came through. We were told that we are humans and to be human is to care for the weakest link no matter what. We were told this was something our society could live with while they worked on a solution. We were known as courageous, honorable humans. Real, authentic citizens.

  The population panicked. People stockpiled food and made home-made weapons. More and more peopled opted out of work. Conspiracy theories grew thick and deranged like overgrown weeds and vines. Trees were chopped down because scientists believed they emitted chemicals that helped the feathers grow. Citizens demanded welfare income for all, not just the poor. Cars were outlawed, save for the privileged few in the political class, because they might contribute to the pollution. Some walked out of our state, leaving their houses full of furniture and clothing and unfinished routines. Nervous breakdowns electrified the wired. And all the chaos hypnotized me.

  Then slowly, it became accepted. Educational seminars were held to teach everyone how to wear a mask, what kind to buy, what to eat to help prevent dust oxidation. News pundits and experts spun a positive, practical take on the situation. No one is dying from it so we are fine as long as we take some precautions, they said and still say. Sure, long term exposure caused early death and other major problems, but so did unhealthy eating and smoking. If someone died from it or suffered greatly from it, perhaps they were the unlucky ones who were greatly exposed before we knew what it was, or perhaps they did something wrong, didn't follow the rules. I know different but am not allowed to say.