A Rising Fall

by C. Sean McGee

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  In the interrogation room, The Man sat strapped to a chair; his hands and legs bound. His face was drenched; his hair stuck over his eyes and his beard dripping freezing cold water onto his lap and then onto the floor.

  His neck was red and looked painfully sore. His head hung low with his eyes rolling to and fro. He was conscious, but barely.

  An array of cruel looking instruments lay scattered on a metal tray on a portable metal table that sat behind him. To his left sat an odd looking box with many dials and colourful displays. There were wires coming from the box and they travelled to the far end of the room and disappeared under a sheet of black plastic. Also attached to the box were several marked wires that led to two sets of metal prongs with plastic bulbs on the end of each one.

  The ground was covered in rubber matting except for where the man sat. His bare feet pressed against the cold concrete. The water rushing from his hair rushed down his legs and pooled at his feet.

  The Man’s clothes were removed and his skeletal frame shook fractiously as a strong cold breeze swept in from a vent behind him.

  His teeth chattered unendingly and reaching out from the leather straps, his fingers twitched and scratched at the metal grating covering the arms of the wooden chair. The sound of both hollowed out the silence that permeated the room.

  The Man lifted his head up. His eyes were blood red, tears and broken capillaries. His wet hair no longer covered the scores of thick red marks across his chest. There was little blood but quite a great deal of swelling. When the cool air touched his worn skin he thrust about in agony.

  Behind the man a metal door opened and a White Heart entered the room with a small container. He walked from the door, around the front of the man and back through the metal door without missing a beat. As he passed the man, he emptied the contents of the small container onto his bare chest.

  The Man screamed harrowingly, his tongue sticking far from his mouth as if to guide the torment out of his body. He thrashed about for several minutes before falling into unconsciousness momentarily.

  The Behemoth pulled a seat from the far side of the room and positioned it in front of the seated man. He sat down with a cold look on his face, the mask he wore every day of his life. He waited patiently and quietly until after fifteen or twenty minutes the man woke up panting and screaming again.

  “Safrine” The Man screamed. ‘Can you hear me? It’s your Dada’ he yelled into the air shaping his soul into the sound of his voice and willing it through the concrete walls to wherever they took the young girl.

  He remembered the sound of closing doors as he was being beaten horrendously only hours before. The two were taken down together to the same part of the complex and he knew that she must be close. It must have been her in one of those rooms. She had to have been able to hear his heart cry out. But why couldn’t he hear hers? Surely nothing this cruel would be done to a child.

  “Welcome back,” said The Behemoth as The Man lowered his stare from the ceiling to the gargantuan man sitting at his front.

  His eyes opened and shut rapidly trying to squeeze out the water that flooded them and to attract some focus in his perspective.

  An undefeated smile bravely worked its way onto his face. He tried to retract his mouth, but it was agonising. Several of his teeth were now missing and those that weren’t were more painful than the spaces left behind. Still a sense of worn accomplishment dressed his beaten face. He breathed heavily and spat in the direction of The Behemoth.

  One of his teeth bounced off The Behemoth’s knee and onto the floor skidding from the cold concrete onto the rubber mat where it came to a stop next to what looked like a bloodied fingernail.

  The Man breathed in and sighed massively, and The Behemoth leaned forward to pull the hair from his eyes. The Man tried speaking but could only make nonsensical sounds.

  There were three cups of water on the table. The Behemoth pulled one of the cups from the table and offered it to the man, holding it to his mouth and securing his head as it lent back to take in the liquid.

  The Man coughed and splurted water and blood through the air. Some of it landed on The Behemoth’s shoulder, chest and face. He wiped away the red liquid from his chin with the sleeve of his shirt.

  The Behemoth took a sip of water before saying, “It’s ok, I’m not going to hurt you anymore than you already are.”

  The Man laughed, jerking his head forward and choking on some blood in his mouth.

  “Dere’s no pain worse dan what I carry in me heart,” he said.

  He tilted his head to the far wall and returned to Marcos with an anguished look in his eyes.

  “I know she’s dere. I can’t hear her, but I know she’s dere. She’s near. She’s so beautiful, me daughter. Like her mudder,” he said choking on air and spitting blood onto his lap. “Exactly like her mudder,” he said smiling.

  This time his smile pulled across his entire face, the joy in his heart surpassing any pain his mind could conceive. The man lifted his head again to his left, his eyes rolling far to the side. As he did his smile widened. As he thought of the girl, his blood warmed, his heart thundered and his veins bulged from his lacerated skin.

  “You wear dat heart on your chest. Why? A bit fuckin ironic, no?” asked The Man.

  Under a sheet in the far end of the room, tied to a metallic table, a body lay still in the confines of shadows far from the light of the two men conversing. The body was still, but ‘in conscious’, Marcos fought to manipulate his state of corporal disconnection willing his fingers to move but only doing as much as flooding his conscious prison with screams of disheartenment, like a puppy, suffocating in the backseat of a car on a blistering summer’s day; unable to undo the locks in its confines.

  Marcos focused on the two men speaking and travelled closer than the sound of their voices. He attached himself to the sound of droplets of blood, falling from the man’s wet mouth onto the pool of water below his feet. With every tiny splash, Marcos washed his conscious drought and tried to find some current that would drag him from his state and carry him anywhere far from here and as he reached with his every being he caught the tail of a warm droplet that ran into his conscious theatre coating the screen red.

  He sat in the only seat reaching towards the screen to touch the thick residue that poured onto the floor and puddled at his feet, like the man at the other end of the room. His ears tuned now to the sound of the man’s beating heart; every thump squeezing his conscious theatre in around him. The man’s pulse sounded like the beating of a child’s heart.

  “Do you want to know the model?” asked The Project Manager.

  Marcos looked at The Woman who was gesturing to say yes, but Marcos spoke for her, shaking his head.

  “No,” he said.

  The Project Manager looked at him oddly.

  “Marcos, don’t be strange,” said The Woman.

  The Project Manager then put a kind hand on that of The Woman’s.

  “It’s ok my dear. I’ve heard stranger. Now the process has just started so we have a long wait ahead until we extract the product so I want you to take this pamphlet here and read through in your own time.”

  He handed the pamphlet to Marcos who looked at the cover briefly before folding it in his back pocket.

  “Is that it?” asked Marcos pointing to a small discolouration on the screen above them.

  “Yes, it is. It’s just a mix of cells now” replied The Project Manager.

  “Still it’s exciting, though,” said Marcos animated.

  “I suppose” replied The Project Manager hesitantly.

  “Marcos please, you’re embarrassing us,” said The Woman trying to hush his insanity.

  “Now let’s see if this cell is active or not,” said The Project Manager putting a microphone to the Woman’s attenuated stomach.

  Marcos stared at the tiny discolouration and lost himself in the thumping of the product’s heartbeat. His blood felt warm, his heart felt heavy
, he was awash with love.

  “Sir” spoke The Project Manager.

  “Sir” he spoke again.

  “Sir” he spoke.

  The thumping echoed in his ears as the man clenched his fist.

  “Sir,” he said again looking straight through The Behemoth.

  “Can I see her?” the man repeated for the fourth time.

  “Who?” replied The Behemoth.

  Marcos was now woken from his delusion and brought back to the two men in conversation outside of the plastic that wrapped around his body.

  “My daughter” replied The Man.

  “Tell me about New Utopia and I won’t torture her” demanded The Behemoth

  “You’re kiddin me. You’re doin dis for New Utopia? A story? You’re fuckin right crazy aren’t ya? Where’s de udder one?” he asked.

  “What other one?”

  “Your boss man. De tinker, de smart one. Where is he? He doesn’t know I’m here, does he?” said the man.

  “You see that black bag, behind you over there in the corner?” said The Behemoth twisting the man’s head to the rear of the room.

  “That’s what we call a democratic shift. Now, my time is pressing. Your daughter is in a room down the hall, completely alone. She is drugged and connected to a host of tubes as we speak. Whether or not she comes off those tubes and walks again without the aid of surgical intervention depends entirely on how you answer these next questions. Do you understand?” asked The Behemoth.

  “Yes” replied the man.

  The fight in his voice that had welcomed The Behemoth was gone. He only thought of his poor daughter, suffering alone in the dark, something a child should never have to do. The man was willing to do or say anything to bargain her release.

  “Do you know where it is, the city of light and sound?” he asked.

  “No. But I heard about it since I was a boy. Me grandma, she told us tales about dis place where de lights never dimmed and where de sound of yesteryear, de endless echo of speakings once spoken reverberate endlessly troo de bustle o deal and play; and where man and machine come togedder like da tide unto da sand. It’s just a story, it’s not real” he said.

  “Your daughter seems to think it’s very real?” said The Behemoth.

  “She’s a child, of course, she does. I told her dose stories just like me grandma had done ta me. It’s fantasy it is. Designed ta occupy the fright of children, take dere focus off o dis” he said shaking his head in a circle hinting to the world and destruction that abounded them.

  “You’re very interesting. I haven’t seen a father, a real father in such a long time. You would give anything for her, yes?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you would say anything to protect her.”

  “Of course,” he said again.

  “Even lie to me?” asked The Behemoth.

  “No, I wouldn’t do dat. I’m tellin ya the troot. On me mudder’s soul I’m tellin ya the troot. I don’t know where tis. It’s just a feckin stupid story” he said fumbling over his words as tears filled his eyes and a tremor danced at his chin.

  “You’re a man of religion as well? Well, you are indeed a surprise find. I really wish I had more time with you, to study you. Do you believe that I will violate and torture your daughter?” said The Behemoth coldly.

  “Please no. For christ’s sake please, she’s just a wee girl. She’s innocent in all dis. I’ll tell ya where it is. I’ll tell ya but please, let er go. For da love of god, let er go” pleaded The Man.

  “I believe you. You don’t know where it is, but I know a secret. A drugged little girly told me you know where the old man is, your drunken disgrace of a father and his bitch mother. How old is she anyway?” he said not expecting an answer.

  “She’ll outlive you mate” replied The Man.

  “Where are they? I know you know. I know the boy knows, but he’s not with us anymore” said The Behemoth.

  “Whatta ya mean? Ya fuckin killed him? Ah, fuck, son, Jesus fucking christ, ah fuck, this is not how did was supposed ta play out. Ah, son, I’m sorry. Jaysus” he said, his guilt beating his consciousness into submission, an apology, the only thing he could offer.

  “What da fuck is wrong wit ya? Did ya not get hugged as a baby? Did ya not get ta watch da telly? Someone fucked you up royally as a boy. I feel sorry for ya, I do. It’s not yer fault. Yer just a big fuckin baby. Yer sad, and dats sad ya know. A man o yer size hurtin little kids, da same way dey hurt you. Just fuckin goes in circles” said The Man.

  “Shut up,” said The Behemoth, taking buzzing cables from the table and pushing them into The Man’s groin.

  The Man’s body straightened violently as every muscle in his body tensed. The final teeth in his mouth shattered under the stress of electricity coursing through his body. The Behemoth held the cable to his groin for fifteen seconds, enough for the man to soil his pants again and the skin on his crotch to boil into large blisters.

  “Now, I am going to ask you to focus just a little bit harder. If you don’t, I will strap you to this cable while I rape your daughter and eat her bony little body in front of you. Do you understand? Do not push me to certainty, you will not like me” he said horribly.

  The man nodded his head.

  “Now, where is the old man,” he said.

  “There’s a path that starts past the old station, over the bridge. Follow that path for a day or two. You’ll come to a fork in da road; take the left hand path along da trail o skulls towards da black city. Ya gotta cross troo da city. Pick yer own pat. Deres only one way out but a lot o ways ta get dere and a lot o bad tings along da way. At da end o da suburbs, you’ll come to anudder fork in da road. Dis time, go right. Follow dat path until da river. Me pa and grandma, dey’ll be waitin by a boat. Dere on da road now. Dere old, but dere not slow. On dis journey, ya need more dan strong legs to carry ya troo. Ya need sum fuckin fait. Dats all I can tell ya. Dey’ll wait until de tird sun kisses da clear sky, den dey take de boat on up da river. Dats it. Dats de honest troot. Let her go, please” pleaded The Man, coughing blood and falling short of breath.

  “She’s dead,” he said coldly. “She died screaming for her father. She died alone” he continued.

  The Man surged with a visceral warmth, his eyes swelled and tears flooded his face. His scream ran through the room and bounced off of every wall. The Behemoth leaned in and took his tears in a small canister; winding the lid tight and putting it into the pocket of his pants.

  “You love your daughter. I mean you really love her; unconditionally. These tears are not yours. They are hers. It is amazing. Now they are mine” he said.

  The Behemoth stood up and took the cables that were on the table and dropped them in The Man’s lap.

  As he walked out the door heading towards the general assembly, hundreds of volts of electricity soared through the man’s body, lifting his skin from his bones as a foul odour filled the room and invaded the conscious prison of Marcos who remained trapped, in cerebral limbo.

  “Your children survived,” he said in finality to the man in his last conscious moment.

  The man died painfully but quickly, his body was already in massive defeat having been trampled upon since the early hours of the morning so the last stand was more of a rapid fall and before The Behemoth could close the door, his screams silenced as his life travelled along the open currents and scattered into the open air mixing with particles and molecules to attach itself to new life.

  The Behemoth left the room and passed a scientist waiting outside.

  “Prepare Eve,” he said.