“It's up to you. No shame in...”
“How would I?”
“There's a tunnel. Only five miles or so.”
“I don't know...” My voice anguished and quiet, as if my heart was torqueing. As if I'm about to say no, enough.
“Think about it. Let me know soon.” He is patient and kind. No judgment even though he risks everything.
I look away, I'm not able to meet his eyes, which are dark and ageless and watchful. An unfettered portal.
I want to make the right decision. The responsible decision. One that's a win-win for me and others. Who am I. Who do I want to be.
I don't want the bittersweet answer.
Or the one that's a one-way looking glass.
I yearn to forge a new life, find a job, make friends. Have a safe lagoon to rest in, a cozy corner of the world where I belong. Where I'm loved and accepted.
I'm tired. Of it all.
It's just me.
I could become a void. Avoid.
Who or what do I answer to.
FRIEND
The first thing I notice are his bare feet. The six long, beige toes fidget, tap to and fro in small movements, like the hair-thin arm on a timer. It's a slight oddity or shift in a room of stealthy silence, as if the room were not inhabited by living beings. He looks ahead with the others, the tips ticking just a bit.
He grips something tight in his fist, something mostly hidden. The olive-toned man-boy of about nineteen years old stands at the back of the line, the last one in a moving train towards the door. He turns and gobs his fist to his mouth. Downs its contents, swallows hard, forcing it, stuffing it so...
He waits... to be brought down. Searches the ceiling like I did at the hospital, when I wanted to leave the here and now. And he staggers in fluid fashion to it, the cold and ruthless. The zap is too late, it didn't heed the warning. And somewhere I think I see the beginning, a small uptick of lip. Not a smile. A gasp, miniature schism, past the machine into the between.
I wanted to ask him why. And now I know.
Now I know.
He was the one without a sentry.
I wished I could be one to him. Some kind of solace.
This is a story of them. Birthed by us, the worst part of ourselves. The part that hungers for power and dominion. As if that's what makes us everlasting.
The part that believes the ends justify the means. And the ends are never in sight because it's never enough. No matter what they say.
There's a peek. And I cry out loud when I see it, my hand going to mouth. A naked baby, barely one years old or so, lying in a metal box on a mattress. In a dark cave, under artificial lights. The chubbiest legs and feet, kicking and climbing air. Smallest fingers reaching out, wanting to be picked up and held. A gurgle and call for attention. And then a zap to destroy the craving for touch and comfort.
A combusted child, descending into the neverland to forget the human side. To awake, to feel, to want, to be zapped. Over and over. And I see it. In the crook of elbow, a birthmark, the one with a wagging tail pointing towards the wrist. The same one.
He's here. I've found him after all the longing, hoping, searching.
And I see it. A row of five of them.
Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. Jamie.
Morning air tastes different from afternoon or night air. It mists damp and clean, tastes of the cool and neutral. Dew tainted with the transition from winter to spring, with palate cleansing calm. Like iced cucumbers. I inhale and savor.
Far ahead, a peach dawn washes into view, staining the sky with undertones of light, showing its ultimate secret. The passage of time.
Everyone needs to see this. At least once, to understand.
I meet him at the hem of forest, past a rolling field of wheat that's miles from the safe house, the shadow of forest a colossus over us. I feel strange and awkward and tender and frightened. Uncontained.
“So... this is the last time.” He hands me a flashlight. I've heard this phrase many times in my young life.
I nod, look down, not knowing how to handle the opposites of my emotions. The rubber band stretch between them. I want to stay.
He points into the forest, which is reminiscent of the one I envisioned in the hospital. “Straight for a mile then you'll see a flower. That's the spot.” His smile runs the gamut from regret to sympathy to strength. The naked on display.
“How will I know?” I imagine flowering trees galore, confusion. Hunting and sniffing for the one.
“You'll know.”
I accept.
There's a moment of the unsaid. The warnings, the reminders, the fate we find ourselves in.
He reaches out, squeezes my arm with firm clarity, dark eyes direct. “Friend.”
I'm touched by the simplicity of the word. How it conveys everything we could ever wish for the other. “Yes, friend.”
IMPENETRABLE
Acorns, seeds and branches crunch under my steps. I search amidst the wide girthed trunks and impenetrable bushes, but I also remember. I can't help it, I should be alert and present, but my mind takes me back to the last time. I'm still absorbing.
“I don't really understand why...” Part of me knew, but couldn't accept. I needed to hear it spelled out. I hide things from myself when I can't...
“Really?” He was incredulous, a bit flabbergasted.
Embarrassed, I mumbled. “I need to know what you think...”
“Put the pieces together.”
I stared, I wanted to know.
“A war is being planned. And wars are always about resources and power. Always.”
And suddenly I understood why I couldn't accept. It would be too humiliating. I would be too angry. I was trying to protect my innocence.
“Chemical warfare,” I said.
He nodded, waited for my awareness to rove and finally bind me tight. Rope me in and never let go.
We are lab rats in their experiment. The dust is a filter. To find the exceptional ones.
It made me want to sleep. Forever turn my back. Because facing the truth... it means all the bad things in life. Distrust, cynicism, lack of clarity, the grand betrayal, the kind of anger and bitterness that destroys from the inside. All the damage we do to ourselves and others in a rage, then how it sets you apart from others into a stifling loneliness.
It means I have to purposely push the bad away, even while I want to wallow in it and use it as a badge of some kind of damning knowing. It takes energy I don't think I have. It sucks all the will up. I'm too young to know how to revive, how to fall and stand up again. How to purposely choose to focus on the good in life and people, even when the noxious bad seeps in. Maybe even the old don't know how. It takes such discipline. We can be so weak yet so strong. Perhaps that's OK, but I'm not sure. My thoughts spin this way and that into spills that spread here and there when blown on. I put one foot in front of the other, hoping it's in the best direction. The direction I belong to.
And I remember Jamie sleeping. His eyes shifting under soft, closed eyelids. I wondered what dreams he was diving into. What vistas, symbols and figureheads he encountered. I leaned down and kissed his forehead, silently praying he would be loved his whole life and never know loneliness and heartache. To the higher power, the universe.
And now... I wish someone would do that for me.
I laugh in surprise when I see it. A thin hole's been bored into a grandfather of a tree and a plastic tulip pops its bulbous head out of it. I run my thumb over the dense, white petals dusted with light pink. Cold water droplets condense on the tips and fall to the ground. It's glued so it can't be plucked.
I stamp around, search for the hole in the ground. And I find it covered with moss, sticks and other woodsy debris a few feet away.
I lift the wooden, trap door. There's a dense darkness there. The kind I've felt before, but have never physically seen.
I'm going in before I can think and stop myself, slipping into the undercurrent that will take me back. To th
e scene of the crime. I turn the flashlight on and its stream of light is swallowed whole into a river of deep and empty. My hand wades in, moving in circles to feel my way. And I notice how thin and frail it looks, almost translucent against the swamp of black. How can I.
TRAIL TO THE
Moss carpets the walls in amoeba shapes, as if continents on a map. A dank odor permeates and rests. My fingers run over the brick and moss, memorizing this spongey, rocky feel of the beginning. I want this scent of damp earth to ground me when I need it. It's a moment I should be proud of, one I can't go back on.
I take a gulp, adjust my backpack and begin. Point the flashlight straight ahead to detect inhabitants, animal or human. After a few steps my fear and sadness crest. I have to stop, lean on the wall and reorient myself. I snap the light off and crouch down, feeling the night hide me. I breathe to hold it in. But I have to let it out, the tears and mourning. I'm grieving the start to a new life I didn't get a chance to grow. The one I leave behind. How will it turn out? How can I survive? I'm running to the very place I want to run from. It's happening too fast.
But I know who or what I answer to. I asked myself and now I know.
I need to turn the light on. Take the steps and try. For five miles. For the best.
My mind flits from the meaningful to the meaningless. Sightings of things I never cherished the first time around. My friend the nothing man and his raised eyebrow. Mother and father making breakfast silently while listening to their favorite music. Danita studying Jamie as he climbed a ladder. Dr. M... the desperation on his face, then the panic at the thought of death. They play before me, as if the tunnel were a private theater projecting my holograms. Tunnel vision.
The tumbleweeds of dust I collected are long gone. I saw a baby Jamie and wished I could raise him. Wondered if his bright spirit could be extinguished into oblivion. I don't want to know. How did it come to this.
This is what I think happened - the faint, mysterious blueprint for what we built, no choreography, just inspired footsteps and intersections of destiny.
Dr. M wanted to tell, something came forward within him. But he couldn't do it. That part of him was selfish and cowardly. He may or may not have known about the clones. But he knew about the dust and he put that on me. Laid it on the doorstep of my conscience. Manipulated me into obeying the short path he set. He coldly analyzed my situation, thought I had nothing to lose because I had nobody. He didn't know if I would be caught or not, but I ended up there, right before him.
And I was used as a tool to subvert and investigate him. They somehow sensed he may have had a hand in it.
He knew raven and how she felt long before I got there. One can decipher these things after working side by side for years. All it takes is one look, one word and there's a click of ideology. A claim to an understanding. And he sent her to me as his last deed, as the last of what he felt he owed me. The pill and safe house. Even though he could've let me die to bury the secret. It was the second time something came forward within him.
She knew a driver from eating in the cafeteria or from smoking together behind the building. Or some other product of habit at work. They sized each other up, saw someone who's often overlooked by society. Just as they were. Maybe it took a small derisive comment about what they both knew and didn't know. How something didn't smell right. If only she could talk about the things she'd seen. How fucked up it was. And this familiarity solidified over time. And one day, she asked, could he do a favor for her. It would be one way to fuck the system. She received a “hell yeah”. And the yes was passed to Dr. M and perhaps another physician. One part of the path was set. Did the driver know anyone in the next state?
Yes, somehow he knew someone. A cousin or other good friend from years past. I imagine their tribe full of rabble rousers, the careless, the risk-takers. Born wild and untangled. Both were drivers. One delivered dead bodies from the hospital to the crematory. Deliveries with bodily fluids require a chaperone, a human driver. The other delivered desperately needed, sanctioned produce to the edges of our state. He worked for a small delivery company that hadn't yet upgraded to robo-vans. But that could be any time now, everything is rapidly transferring to those. They met periodically on their routes to have lunch and shoot the breeze in the woods. Loosen the invisible leashes. It was a coincidence, a loophole of miracle.
An address was passed in code. And that's when the fake-dead bodies were delivered, like me. It didn't happen often at first.
Dove happened to live in the apartment next to the dead body driver. Or there was some other social link. They may have gotten together with the other people in their social milieu and complained over drinks about the news they weren't allowed to access. But not too much, just in jest. You don't know who will squeak on you. And one day, one of them sensed a vestige of shadow, saw a brief look of disgust flicker in the eyes. And they spoke privately, venting and expounding. They held the secrets of the other. One day, Dove told him he needed to pass some damning information to his ex-lover. Did he know how. He couldn't send it digitally, it would be too risky.
The produce driver wanted out by now. It was too much. He felt it looming and steamrolling towards him. The eye, the arrest. And he was correct. Safe house mother knew him and his company. She could rat on him whenever she wanted. For the time being she didn't because she wanted to keep the informants coming. To find the link back to others who helped. To help the government uncover the faint capillaries of networks that could become veins then arteries. The drivers argued over doing the right thing, helping those who fought oppression, those at the beginning of those thin capillaries. But his mind wasn't changed. He said, one more body then I'm done. And so, Dove's information traveled with me to the safe house, which Dr. M thought would be my way out. The home began as a true safe house, but somehow the government snaked its way in via safe house mother.
Dove asked nothing man to go to the home. Get the information on my tooth. He insisted on it. Demanded it. Felt a surge of righteousness, that he was on the edge of getting this right. Of exposing it to the world. He needed nothing man to gush the veins open. He didn't have the knowledge or internet access to do it himself in our country. They had brief conversations via throw away phones and perhaps even felt that old longing for the other. But there was no time for sentimental wishes as Dove pushed and pushed single-mindedly.
Nothing man called him and the produce driver and never heard back. He knew the produce driver had moved on, was scared and didn't want to be a partner in crime any longer. And he knew that Dove had been found out, disappeared into the depths. But he, himself, was not found out for he still lived and his tourist visa to another country was approved. A country that allows its citizens more liberties than ours.
He will leave soon too. And he'll create a non-traceable website to show the videos, to show the world what our country has done. Within one week. And then he'll disappear into the crowds of this new country and start a new life. Never see his family again. Never leave a trace to stop the dogs cold.
And I am going back to our city to find a printer. To tell my fellow citizens. Dove was to do it. It's a calculated risk. I don't know if I can find a willing printer who can keep a secret. I pray I can just return to my new state and find a job afterwards.
It's the right thing to do, but I'm scared. If I don't try, I know I'll regret it. I'll wonder if anyone in our city could've known. If only I had told.
We were all dominos, falling on one another in happenstance ways. No coordinated group, no real mastermind. No devised pattern. Just free will. One conscience after another awakening, agreeing to do one thing that leads to another, that leads to someone else. A moral imperative and small fuck you's. Even if only once or twice. That was enough to create this trail to the truth.
DISAPPEARED
He will leave soon after me. He'll say he plans to move in with relatives in another state. We don't want to seem linked, but have no choice but to leave so soon after the other. Our tim
ing must be impeccable.
And I said goodbye with warmth and sentimentality when it was my time. I told everyone I found a job a few cities away. Nobody asked where, they respected my privacy, the boundary I set from the very beginning. She asked what my forwarding address would be in case I accidentally left something. I told her I would be in touch if I needed anything, that was all.
I hugged the line of women goodbye and when I got to the abused woman I told her softly to watch out for old corpse-man. There was no time for her to ask, she could only digest the information. I reached out to safe house mother, took her hands in mine and told her how grateful I was for the home and her presence. How it meant the world to me and how it changed my life. I wanted to see through her, look into those dead eyes surrounded by happy crinkles and see if I detected a molecule of remorse. If she was on the edge, I wanted to push her over to the good side. I saw a granule of cognizance, as if she blinked and saw herself from the outside, high above. And then it disintegrated into vapor.
There's a small ladder. I push up and out, squint to acquaint myself with the overcast light. I'm on the edge of another forest, this one drier and beiger. Less lush than the one I came from. As if I entered a poisoned land. Perhaps the dust from our city has its effects here too. Past the forest is an expansive, flat land waving with tall grass about chest-high. And further off in the distance I can see that the edge near the highway is shorn short. I shut the door behind me and do my best to camouflage its cover. I turn left as I was told to do. I believe my city is almost fifty miles away.
Free Beast Page 20
