Free Beast

by Suzanne Marine

  And it became dustier and dustier. Father left mother in a rage against the world. We don't know where he is or what happened to him. I moved back home, helped her sell the house for a mere pittance and moved to the city where work was in walking distance now that we couldn't drive. Jobs didn't really exist in the suburbs and country anymore because of driving restrictions, so everyone moved towards our state's only big city and its gray sky. It seemed so ludicrous to move towards the dust, but people accepted it, blindly migrating like seasonal birds following innate instinct. There was no time to grieve or question, we focused on survival. She found work cleaning the exterior windows of businesses before we learned how bad a large amount of exposure was to the skin. The dust liked to stick to the glass, spongey and squid-like. She thought she was being cautious by wearing a mask that only covered her nose and mouth. She had no idea her skin would age so quickly. And now, she's unable to work, prematurely aging with creaky, thinned bones and skin peeling off layer by layer. She keeps our studio apartment clean and ponders the next stage of life.

  Friends dispersed, scattered like ants skittering in all directions away from the boot. A few ran out of state abandoning their families and parents. We talk from time to time, but have grown further and further apart that it no longer really matters. You can't judge how people reacted. You never know what will make you snap and disappear. Like father.

  Crowds of activists still protest the pollution and demand solutions that include the poor. But their numbers lessen more and more as time passes. Others have settled down and adapted, gone back to work and other activities from the time before. Dating, making money, buying trendy clothing, raising families, being oblivious to the outside world. Others have slid into decadence; drinking, pills, entertainment, sex and food to cope with fear. And others hold their anger in, seethe and obsess over alien conspiracy theories until they become lost in malicious fantasy worlds. All with a mask and some precautions.

  And there are those like mother and me. Full of sorrow, walking zombie-like through life. Mourning the loss of life as we knew it, the loss of health and vitality in our loved ones. Sort of like mourning someone with a terminal illness before they pass on.

  We aren't allowed to leave the state. We are trapped with ourselves. Everywhere we go, there we are. Border controls were erected half a year after the chaos began. And this is because of the babies. Other states don't want them in their midst. They worry about cross-contamination because the dust hasn't reached their land. It remains mostly concentrated in our city, which lies far from our small state's borders. The truth is... some of our babies are born deformed. Grotesquely hardened. Half sharp, black lava rock and half human in the strangest, morose patterns. Bits of skin corroded before getting their first drink of air. Tar babies, they are called. They tear their mother's flesh jagged as they grow and turn, as they arrive in the world.

  FERAL AND FREE

  Like every mother of a twenty-four-year-old single daughter, my mother pushes me to meet someone. Get involved in the singles group from the Sun Temple. Meet a kind man, preferably with a profession, not just a job, but a profession. A goal-oriented, heat seeking missile of a man focused on a calling and providing security for the one he loves. This is her ideal for me, but at this point I think she'd be happy with anyone who doesn't steal or lie. Being a conscientious daughter means that I take this into consideration because she has more life experience than me. And I'll admit it... I want it too. It's lonely in the forever shade, which seeps into your psyche, distorts and wrenches your view of everything, even myself. Maybe if I meet someone I'll become one of those oblivious people, too busy with living life to care what the dust means, too busy to watch as we descend into our collective future.

  Today I saw a private part of Dr. M. Not that private part. But something mysterious and slight. A sleight of hand I haven't solved.

  We were opening the chest of a male in his twenties who had brown, gravel-like crumbling on the brims of his organs, as if their sides had been burned vicious by licks of flame. He was hit by a car, a tragic accident. But he had all the signs of the poisonous hardening beginning to take hold. He might've felt tired and listless a lot of the time. He may have chalked that up to low energy, not exercising enough, not eating enough healthy food, or getting older. But the disease was beginning when he died. Families are not told this. They are only told the final cause of death, such as blunt force trauma, heart failure, myocardial infarction, kidney disease or metastatic cancer.

  The government has forced all of the dead to be cremated out of an abundance of caution. The public believes the government is careful with our health. That tar babies are the result of careless mothers who didn't wear masks often enough. That our masks can prevent the dust from entering our systems. That the poor who can't afford full face masks to protect the skin deserve some financial assistance to purchase them, but no one wants to pay for it.

  I believe the government doesn't want people to know the extent of the damage because it would cause unrest and anarchy. I understand to a point, society works best if it runs placidly. People and property are damaged in anarchy's chaotic violence. Stores are looted empty and left derelict, homes burned into wispy, black paper, women pawed and raped until bleeding. The hungry elderly are left behind to cower in the cracks, and the innocent are blamed and trampled by demagoguery and a thousand stomps. Everyone is boxed into a caricature of their stereotype by the other. No one wants this, but the truth is... we are not told everything in its entirety. Its enormity.

  Dr. M peered down into the open chest cavity, bending forward to get a good look. Then he rose up and leaned back so I could lean in and take a photo. He pointed to a particular part of the heart he wanted to me to focus on. And I took the photo. I was about to pull away when I saw his hands folded flat on his stomach in a pious pose, like a patient nun. It was an odd pose I had never seen him hold. His hands pushed downwards against his body, dragging his biohazard suit down. This had the effect of pulling down the ruffled, elasticized edge that surrounded his eyes. It pulled down slightly and through his goggle glasses I saw a black, raised mole on the apple of his cheekbone. His sharp, dark eyes darted and locked onto mine. Stayed there, a meditation on me, inert as an inanimate object, without a flicker or breath. He wanted me to see it, to know it and memorize it. I stared, stunned frozen and blank. A deer in headlights. Was this some kind of test? The video camera behind him couldn't see this simple act. I stood back and looked at the camera I held in my hands to check its settings, I needed to pull away. When I looked back, he was peering down into the chest again. The edge of his suit had sprung back because he had let go. The mole was covered again, and we went on as usual for the rest of the day.

  Later in the day, the incident beckoned me in a strange slow motion shimmer. A hazed one second dream you recollect when you awake half drowned in sleep. Something that evaporates from your mind later in the day. Only this wasn't a dream, so I remembered and held it sacred in my mind, contemplated this odd burlesque motion that symbolized something I didn't understand.

  Am I supposed to know something? I'm confused, cloudy. For a brief second I feel a shadow looming closer.

  The bowling hall beams and blinks its rainbow-colored logo extravagantly through the veil of night. It signals fun and frivolity. Hilarity, socialization. Good times. The singles group meets here every two weeks. I've never attended, but I force myself to walk through the doors with a faint smile on my face. Ready to meet and greet my way to the chosen one!

  Madlon stands by the bar, waiting for a drink. When she sees me she waves and points to the shoe rental desk. We are temple friends, meaning we only see each other at the Sun Temple. We aren't close, but we talk and socialize briefly on Sundays during the social hour after the service. I'm so glad she's here. I would feel lost and awkward without someone familiar. It dawns on me that it never occurred to me to ask her to come with me. In the old days, before, I would have asked and made a fun night of it.
Now, I feel alone and have forgotten to rely on others. Forgotten to ask. Especially because I can't tell anyone what I really do and can't relate to how most people have moved on with life. I'm trying to rejoin now in some way, find a way to integrate what I know with a life looking up and forward instead of down and into.

  I have a short drink with Madlon before we're divided into teams. We both badly need the social lubricant. We clink our glasses for some cordial cheers, and she says with a relieved honest laugh, thank the Sun you're here! I agree wholeheartedly and say we have to do it again some time. I like her. Her vibe is light yet real. Sensible yet fun. She's someone who can take a joke and make a joke. She doesn't seem to hide her intelligence, but she doesn't shove it in your face either.

  The organizer puts her on another team, which is fine with me. There are four of us on mine. A happy, bubbly girl, bordering on fake. Very syrupy. Almost as if she had read in an article that the way to a man's heart is to be like pink, fluffy cotton candy. I'm getting a sugar crash, but I don't blame her. She's doing what she thinks is best, but you can't tell who she really is because of the facade. There's a low key, lanky guy, who walks with the bowling ball so very casually before he hurls it down the lane with a thrust of wrist. He smiles shy and lopsided, and his dark hair curls on his forehead. I can tell he's someone who's angry very rarely, you can see it in his soft puppy eyes. He's the kind who could fall in love easily once you talked to him deeply one on one into the wee hours of the morning. The kind that would make you breakfast in bed. He's someone I want to get to know, but he's preoccupied with the cotton candy. And then there is the other guy, the sun god. That's the phrase that comes to mind when I meet him. He could be a mascot for our temple, so shiny and harmonious. Easy. That bright, wavy, blonde hair is slightly mussed, and he smiles without a care in the world. His lean, toned body moves self-assured and his vibe draws you in, makes you want to be with him and help him. As if he's never been marred by the world. A handsome golden child prince. He's the kind that gets over heartbreak and disappointment quickly, he skims over it, barely feels the low and nocturnal. That's just his nature, not something he tries to do. The cotton candy is drawn to him, or his alpha male status here. Or maybe she is just drawn to shiny things, like birds. But it's like two positives or two negatives together, which doesn't generate any power or electricity. He seems drawn to his polar opposite here. Me. Quiet, deep, inward looking, subtle, intuitive, surviving. A watcher. Not the watched, like him.

  We cheer each other on. Him in his bright, positive way. And me in my light, supportive way. A thread grows between us, so thin and almost invisible, like a delicate, silken spider web that can only be seen at certain angles. Streams of rainbow colored lights shoot through the air every time someone throws a strike, and we take shy peeks at each other through the colored sheen. His smile glows brilliant under the orange-yellow prism of stripes crisscrossing his face. He nudges me when it's my turn and I'm not paying attention. Watches diligently when I'm hurtling the ball straight down the line towards a good score. We high-five each other when there's a victory. It feels nice to bask under his lustrous rays. Warm and happy.

  The games end and we return our shoes. Madlon smiles knowingly, she's caught on. Coincidentally, she's connected with the sun god's friend. I can tell by the way he turns his head towards her when she's doing something as mundane as returning her shoes. He waits for her and the sun god at the end of the counter and I nod in his direction. The four of us walk out together, masks on. The sun god asks which direction I'm walking in and says that's where he's going too. I wave goodbye to Madlon, I'll see her on Sunday.

  We are quiet, walking slowly to drag the time out. Usually I would walk quickly to avoid the dust. And now it seems like a leisurely afternoon stroll.

  I tell him I've never seen him at the Sunday service. He says he doesn't go on Sundays, he goes on Tuesday nights.

  I'm quiet again. I wait for him. I don't want to be one of those women who feel pressure to fill in silence with nonsensical babble. Don't want to be one of the many who are drawn to oblige him, because I know they exist. It must be an effortless life, one with an open palm that's always filled. I don't want to be easy. I peek at his noble profile, the brown, weathered mask covering his nose and mouth, the yellow hair curling over his hood. He's one of those cherubic cupid statues all grown up. Surreal angel.

  I think you're really pretty, he says as he turns to meet my eyes. It's my second direct stare of the day. His blue eyes pierce mine before I look away bashfully. I'm floored, my stomach leadens, drops, touched by the innocence of the statement. As if we were in grade school and not twenty-four. I want to see you again, he says.

  Thanks, sure, that would be great. I don't know what else to say. I'm thin and pale, my face is long without sharp angles, pretty in a freckled face kind of way even though I don't have freckles. My features and beauty are reticent, something you might notice after knowing me some months and everything pulls together for you in a moment. Only to disappear in a flash. So I'm shocked that he sees me.

  He says this is his corner, he has to turn here. I nervously enter my number into his phone. A feather lands on it, and he brushes it away cheerfully. I smile happy, and he smiles big and radiant. We can't see each other's lips, but we can see it in the eyes. And his light up and crinkle tight. We say our goodbyes and turn to go our way. I turn back briefly to watch him walk down the street. He's walking fast and hunched to avoid the flakes, like everyone else. A fever of joy buzzes me, flash floods me quick. My bearings shift, become unmoored a tiny bit. I'm awash in something elated, I remember it from a long time ago.

  It's a small start that may or may not be anything. Most people might not be so affected, but I can't help it, my heart splits open a sliver. Longs to be feral and free.

  LIGHT TO MY NIGHT

  I am now the mother, and she is now the child. Our roles have reversed prematurely and become warped in this never-ending saga of woe. I try to remain patient as I repeat something for the third time. She remembers the past, describes it exquisitely as if she were living there and not here. Her most favorite tourist destination is the sandy beige beaches and sage brush covered hills of southern California. She reminisces over the scent of my father's cheeks, how they sometimes smelled of sweet milk. How she was beaten with a sharp, stiff belt by her father for receiving a failing grade on a mathematics test. His angry, red, acne-scarred face, he took his insecurities out on her. There is the fact that her life seems so short, if she only knew back then how it would be now. The things she would've said and done differently. She is a casualty in this environmental disaster, an early adopter of its effects. There was the time she stole a banana nut muffin from the store because she was hungry. She wolfed it down hungrily, greedily because her father didn't let her eat dinner for a week. The store manager saw, but turned his head quickly. She fell madly in love with my father. Loved that he made her feel like a whirlwind. His charisma magnetized the small-town girl in her. He never beat her, though he hollered and wailed from time to time. She is his forever more.

  Her love for him remains unsullied. It runs as clear and true as a sterling, effervescent river even though he's left us behind. Even as her bones become charred by dust bit by bit and as every layer of her skin falls off revealing a thinner and thinner barrier between her insides and the atmosphere. I want to shore it up, keep her preserved, cover her with something thick, protective and moisturizing so she never has to suffer. But we can't afford it. I'm not ready to let her go, become an orphan. Lose the one person in the world who has loved me the most. The one who knows me inside out, who can read the cryptic, braille of my thoughts from afar with just a glance. The one I love most in the world. The most, the most, the most.

  Families now mostly live together under one roof, especially if one is single. This had been looked down on in times past, but now it's necessary to survive because the jobs don't pay enough, even for the educated. It brings with it a sense of closeness a
nd claustrophobia. You are blended in with one another's lives, and not by choice. Movies, book plots, news stories and our personal lives are dissected at the dinner table over meals of imported, steaming potatoes and cabbage. And depending on people's personalities and psychoses, this can bring everyone closer or be an intense, needling torture as you are judged and subtly put down. Familial patterns of dysfunction are still ever present, just more emphasized. And love is more distilled, to pure clarity.

  You grow to know someone well when you share a bedroom with them. You know the odious side and the enchanting side. The face slack and deep in ugly thought when they think no one is looking. The heavy-lidded disappointment in the eyes. It's only a millimeter difference between the regular look of the eye and the heavy disappointed one, but you can detect it. The flames of hope going up in smoke behind the serene mask. The true, clear as diamond intentions behind a gesture of kindness.

  All these tales... and all because of what we live with. It's a frail, translucent mix of pain, despair and intimacy experienced by thousands behind the closed doors of our city.

  The mound of peach-pink flesh before me is an infant, barely born. Maybe a few weeks old, or newborn. His skin is so new, soft, gelatin tender. Perfect. I want to lovingly caress the curve of fat on his arms near the wrist to soothe him. He is a beautiful baby boy, like the one who babbles rhythmically and charmingly in his own language. The one you hold and nuzzle and vow to protect from the world. The one who smiles at you wide-eyed and vulnerable as if he's never been rejected and never had a malicious thought. I want to cry.