The world was changing, coming to something. It was like the universe had its own intention, like a phonograph record, where he could lift the needle and move it forwards and backwards. The outcome was always the same. The songs never changed, for the grooves were predetermined and immovable. John could only guess how impossibly large that phonograph would feel to someone the size of an atom. The grooves would be monstrous canyons of immense width and incredible heights. From that perspective the record would hardly be predictable at all.
But the world was coming to something, there could be no doubt. The old world, a time before Aeroplanes and telephones, radio and automobiles, was all falling away. The last survivors of the war between the States could be counted on one hand. The veterans of the Great War between nations were graying at the temples.
Not that the old world intended to go quietly. Not by any means. What wasn’t open to question was the shape that cataclysm would take, and whether it would again drawn in the whole world into a terrible and bloody abyss. John had his own thoughts on the matter. He didn't see folks changing all that much, making the same mistakes again and again.
The world was at peace now, mostly. Enough that it almost made John feel thyat the war, and what it had wrenched from him had somehow been noble and worthwhile. Of course that was the perspective of the living. The dead had long ago abdicated their voice to that argument. John felt alternately blessed and self-serving for that voice.
Strange, but John felt his own life was coming to something as well. Not like a storm brewing at the horizon, where the wind turned chasing birds to safer roosts, or where the leaves had flipped, offering their lighter bellies to the rain. It was nothing that was that certain. Each impending moment was a mystery, but each with an unmistakable certainty. Not as though they were predictable, but even still there was a familiarity when they at last occurred. That said, John could feel his feet firm upon a very definite path. Like the world, that path was also coming to something.
It was hot in that old truck. Maybe that’s why John was in such a mood and thinking all these crazy things. Not so much for the heat of the day. It was still cool, especially in the shadows. The unspoiled sun bore down on the truck’s rusted metal roof and barely a mile from town he was already sweating buckets into his clothes. John hooked arm outside the open window and leaned his face out enough to feel the rush of wind. Behind him golden dust wallowed in great clouds, obliterating the road and Emmetsburg.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Seven
Blue sky overwhelmed the rolling farms and small painted banks of woods as John turned his truck onto the county road south from town. The road ran straight to mallard through the sweet oblivion of the Iowa landscape as a ribbon of dusty white gold. The storm left the world reaffirmed for its passing. Bright green trees glistened in the folds. The world was as perfect as a painting. Even a flock of geese, moving in from the east seemed part of some earthly ballet, each movement precise and choreographed.
John pushed the clutched down hard with his left foot and wiggled the gear shift until it caught with a crunch and the old Ford lurched forward a bit. It was getting worse with time, and he could feel them slipping more and more. He’d picked up a fair bit of knowledge on fixing these contraptions in the army and afterwards, but knew the parts would cost him a fair penny. It’d be just one more strain on their finances. He'd tinkered and fought to keep the old truck going all he could, but the old girl's days were numbered. Give John a wagon and a good horse, like the old days, and he'd be just fine.
Still, he thought, they were far better off than lots of folks, like those poor souls, the families and drifters and refugees from Oklahoma and Kansas who trudged, hitch-hiked or rode the rails through Iowa to some uncertain and undecided future. John managed enough through odd jobs to keep food on the table, while Anna picked up a couple Dollars sewing and looking after some of the town’s older citizens. They weren't saving anything, but there was just enough to get by on, which was about everything these days.
Just outside of town, draped upon a small rise beside the road, stood St. Mary’s catholic cemetery. White and Marble stones caught the growing morning sun. John had to force himself not to look there. It was like tearing at the scab of an old wound, but merely the thought, the proximity of the place was enough to darken his mood.
He tried to stem that tide by finding other thoughts. The damage to the house from last night's storm was not quite as bad as he feared. He could patch most of the places easy enough. That and a few other repairs and he was confident at getting through another winter, which is how he had taken to looking at things. Some folks called it scraping by, but John and Anna's fingers were dug in deep and fighting for every inch.
Anna had made him the best breakfast he’d had in some time; two eggs sunny side up, a couple strips of bacon, and warm sour dough bread she’d baked fresh that morning. Nothing she hadn’t made for him a thousand times, but making love with her, not out of grief, or rage or expectation, but for simple desire had lifted him. It seemed to lift Anna as well, and brought to mind those days when life and love were fresh and new and an exploration. He could still taste the bacon on his tongue, savoring its slowly fading memory.
Emmetsburg shrank behind him as an oasis of trees, with the tall rectangular steeple of St. Mary’s rising from them. There was nothing much to the town that anyone would lament if one day the whole town simply disappeared, but John could scarcely imagine a more perfect place to spend a life. With Pershing had seen Paris, the choked streets, mayhem and racket of New York and was never swayed for a moment by them. He only longed for Anna and this little town.
It was the people. It was the people. There was a solemn intensity to folks in these parts. Hard living and long winters helped sculpt ever deepening lines from early ages upon stern but honest faces. This was the stuff of life. This was where the negotiation between nature the elements, life and death were as intimate and bloody as any self-respecting religion. Hard drinking, a firm handshake and clear consciences were the measure of a man. And that’s what it was for John. That’s what held him so firmly to this place. Out in that other world he just couldn’t accurately read what was behind a man’s eyes.
John pushed the clutched down hard with his left foot and wiggled the gear shift until it caught with a crunch and the old Ford lurched forward a bit. It was getting worse with time, and he could feel them slipping more and more. He’d picked up a fair bit of knowledge on fixing these contraptions in the army and afterwards, but knew the parts would cost him a fair penny. It’d be just one more strain on their finances. He'd tinkered and fought to keep the old truck going all he could, but the old girl's days were numbered. Give John a wagon and a good horse, like the old days, and he'd be just fine.
Still, he thought, they were far better off than lots of folks, like those poor souls, the families and drifters and refugees from Oklahoma and Kansas who trudged, hitch-hiked or rode the rails through Iowa to some uncertain and undecided future. John managed enough through odd jobs to keep food on the table, while Anna picked up a couple Dollars sewing and looking after some of the town’s older citizens. They weren't saving anything, but there was just enough to get by on, which was about everything these days.
Just outside of town, draped upon a small rise beside the road, stood St. Mary’s catholic cemetery. White and Marble stones caught the growing morning sun. John had to force himself not to look there. It was like tearing at the scab of an old wound, but merely the thought, the proximity of the place was enough to darken his mood.
He tried to stem that tide by finding other thoughts. The damage to the house from last night's storm was not quite as bad as he feared. He could patch most of the places easy enough. That and a few other repairs and he was confident at getting through another winter, which is how he had taken to looking at things. Some folks called it scraping by, but John and Anna's fingers were dug in deep and fighting for every inch.
Anna had made him the best breakfast he’d had in some time; two eggs sunny side up, a couple strips of bacon, and warm sour dough bread she’d baked fresh that morning. Nothing she hadn’t made for him a thousand times, but making love with her, not out of grief, or rage or expectation, but for simple desire had lifted him. It seemed to lift Anna as well, and brought to mind those days when life and love were fresh and new and an exploration. He could still taste the bacon on his tongue, savoring its slowly fading memory.
Emmetsburg shrank behind him as an oasis of trees, with the tall rectangular steeple of St. Mary’s rising from them. There was nothing much to the town that anyone would lament if one day the whole town simply disappeared, but John could scarcely imagine a more perfect place to spend a life. With Pershing had seen Paris, the choked streets, mayhem and racket of New York and was never swayed for a moment by them. He only longed for Anna and this little town.
It was the people. It was the people. There was a solemn intensity to folks in these parts. Hard living and long winters helped sculpt ever deepening lines from early ages upon stern but honest faces. This was the stuff of life. This was where the negotiation between nature the elements, life and death were as intimate and bloody as any self-respecting religion. Hard drinking, a firm handshake and clear consciences were the measure of a man. And that’s what it was for John. That’s what held him so firmly to this place. Out in that other world he just couldn’t accurately read what was behind a man’s eyes.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
EMMETSBURG:Six
At barely two thousand souls, Emmetsburg was a smudge upon the green tiled mosaic of northwest Iowa. It was an anchor to most who called the place home, a sanctuary for others, and purgatory to a few. To big city people it might have proved a backwards place, the sort of town where slipping behind the times was as much a virtue as a curse, depending, that is, on one's mood, the weather and the time of day. Sort of the way most folks came to the good Lord; it all depends.
Make no mistake, Emmetsburg wasn't separate from the world. It wasn't a “world” onto itself. No, it was whipped and tossed and seduced by the unstoppable winds of history just as surely as any other place, and, arguably even more than some. The town had spilt its share of blood on the battlefields of France fighting the Kaiser's army. Fewer than a lot of places in the country, but in a place where everyone was just about family those losses resonated deep, and took generations to fade. If there was any blessing to be found in that, it was that here a body could retreat a bit from those fickle and stormy winds of history.
The burnt ochre steeple of St. Mary's Catholic Church rose welcoming and prideful at the tattered approaches of town met farm fields and pastureland draped upon lazy stretches of low hills. Sunoco station marked the edge of town. From here Main street runs straight as an crucifix through the heart of town, where it crossed Broadway before descending sharply to the marshy and wooded shores of Medium Lake.
Tree lined streets ran away from main, through modest houses set among bright spacious lots. Gardens have grown to over take the yards as families learn to depend more and more on themselves as the times grow tougher. Likewise, folks collected all sorts of things no rusting and rotting along walls, in corners, adorning yards like some sort of vagabond sculpture garden. The longer and deeper the Great Slump continued most learned to save everything out of some belief there might be some use or some exchange for something useful in an indefinite future.
The Mulroney house was hardly a stones through north from St. Mary’s. The house, with its great yard, sunny turrets and grand porch was perhaps the closest thing to an estate Emmetsburg could boast. It was built by the late John Mulroney, who along with his kid brother Kieran, were among the first Irish settlers in these parts. They'd hardly settled in when Little Crow's Lakota warriors swept out of the Dakotas to raid and massacre settlers on the frontier. Those two boys proved themselves as heroes, but the war weighed heavily on John. It left him terribly torn, and made him a harder man for it. The Irish could well sympathize with the Lakota's plight. It was after all broken promises by the government and corrupt traders that compelled them to war, much as the British had forced the Irish to assert their own uniqueness. But the brutality and the wanton cruelty against innocent settlers and children at the hands of Little Crow's warriors was more than a just man could bear. Poor old John T. carried that long burden every Sunday to St. Mary's, when finally the good Lord solved it once and for all.
Further one, the railroad cut across the waist of the town. The Chicago Rock Island and Pacific came through like clockwork three days a week. Together with the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Emmetsburg maintained its greatest connection to the world beyond Iowa's sheltering borders.
The centerpiece of downtown was the white-domed town hall. The grand entrance was framed by tall granite pillars. Tall, broad windows looked down from all sides upon a pleasant park filled with the welcoming shade of chestnut and maple that grew tall and straight from the black Iowa earth. There was a Union cannon overlooking main. On the benches beneath one could always entice a long-winded tale from the usual collection of old timers with hardly more than an unguarded glance or an inquiry as to the time of day.
There was talk of putting up a statue to the town's namesake, Robert Emmet, who'd died fighting for Irish independence. Times being what they were there just wasn't the money for such things. Hard as they were, these times couldn't last forever. They'd get to the statue soon enough. In a practical place like Emmetsburg everything had its own time.
The jail was just behind the town hall. Set back enough to make it inconspicuous, the jail was a short walk to court in the town hall. Not that Emmetsburg saw anything approaching the murderous mayhem of big cities like Milwaukee or Chicago. There was hardly anything more insidious than the occasional bootlegger, a brawl or two at the local watering holes, a few drunks and a hand full of small time thieves that come in on the trains from time to time.
Most days a passer-by could catch George Bremer, the town sheriff, out on the porch of the jailhouse having a smoke with his deputies, or trading gossip with fellas whose butts generally made peace with the town hall benches. Bremer was tall and slender with wispy golden hair so light and thin made him appear ancient older though he wasn't much older than John. He'd gone bald as a young man, but never much seemed to care. A pair of bifocals teetered at the edge of his nose. Most folks recalled him as a man whose expression seemed almost whimsical and wise, like an oracle or a travelling man. It was full at odds with reality, as Bremer was a man of deep conviction who took all those fiery Sunday sermons to heart, but with temperament and patience of a man who believed all men were always one fool hardy decision from sin.
Just a block up from the courthouse, past the Main Street shops and homespun family restaurants stood the two story Hotel Kermoore. Elegant to a fault within, it seemed all but impervious to the hard times. Might have seemed unlikely that such a small town, hidden away as it was, but the Kermoore had become a destination for people far and wide. All the fancy expensive cars, ritzy flapper girls and dapper suits provided ample faire to locals about gangsters and G-men. Saturday evenings these curious visitors would stroll along Broadway, take in a movie and walk by the lake. There would always be a hand full of kids, hovering somewhere between delinquency and entrepreneurship, trying to hustle a few pennies for a shoeshine or a cigarette.
Next to the Kermoore, a silent film was showing at the movie house. Cost a nickel to get in, and another two cents for a bag of buttered popcorn. A lot of movie in these hard times. Still on a Saturday afternoon seemed like half the town turned out for a matinee It was evidence how Emmetsburg had been spared the worst of the Great slump. Not that it had escaped it completely, but it had come through better than most. And if the Sunday Masses were any indication the townspeople were surely counting every blessing. But the raging river of the world would soon overrun the banks of Emmetsburg and threaten it in ways no one could have foreseen, pitting neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. John Perkins would soon find himself at the center of that flood
Make no mistake, Emmetsburg wasn't separate from the world. It wasn't a “world” onto itself. No, it was whipped and tossed and seduced by the unstoppable winds of history just as surely as any other place, and, arguably even more than some. The town had spilt its share of blood on the battlefields of France fighting the Kaiser's army. Fewer than a lot of places in the country, but in a place where everyone was just about family those losses resonated deep, and took generations to fade. If there was any blessing to be found in that, it was that here a body could retreat a bit from those fickle and stormy winds of history.
The burnt ochre steeple of St. Mary's Catholic Church rose welcoming and prideful at the tattered approaches of town met farm fields and pastureland draped upon lazy stretches of low hills. Sunoco station marked the edge of town. From here Main street runs straight as an crucifix through the heart of town, where it crossed Broadway before descending sharply to the marshy and wooded shores of Medium Lake.
Tree lined streets ran away from main, through modest houses set among bright spacious lots. Gardens have grown to over take the yards as families learn to depend more and more on themselves as the times grow tougher. Likewise, folks collected all sorts of things no rusting and rotting along walls, in corners, adorning yards like some sort of vagabond sculpture garden. The longer and deeper the Great Slump continued most learned to save everything out of some belief there might be some use or some exchange for something useful in an indefinite future.
The Mulroney house was hardly a stones through north from St. Mary’s. The house, with its great yard, sunny turrets and grand porch was perhaps the closest thing to an estate Emmetsburg could boast. It was built by the late John Mulroney, who along with his kid brother Kieran, were among the first Irish settlers in these parts. They'd hardly settled in when Little Crow's Lakota warriors swept out of the Dakotas to raid and massacre settlers on the frontier. Those two boys proved themselves as heroes, but the war weighed heavily on John. It left him terribly torn, and made him a harder man for it. The Irish could well sympathize with the Lakota's plight. It was after all broken promises by the government and corrupt traders that compelled them to war, much as the British had forced the Irish to assert their own uniqueness. But the brutality and the wanton cruelty against innocent settlers and children at the hands of Little Crow's warriors was more than a just man could bear. Poor old John T. carried that long burden every Sunday to St. Mary's, when finally the good Lord solved it once and for all.
Further one, the railroad cut across the waist of the town. The Chicago Rock Island and Pacific came through like clockwork three days a week. Together with the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Emmetsburg maintained its greatest connection to the world beyond Iowa's sheltering borders.
The centerpiece of downtown was the white-domed town hall. The grand entrance was framed by tall granite pillars. Tall, broad windows looked down from all sides upon a pleasant park filled with the welcoming shade of chestnut and maple that grew tall and straight from the black Iowa earth. There was a Union cannon overlooking main. On the benches beneath one could always entice a long-winded tale from the usual collection of old timers with hardly more than an unguarded glance or an inquiry as to the time of day.
There was talk of putting up a statue to the town's namesake, Robert Emmet, who'd died fighting for Irish independence. Times being what they were there just wasn't the money for such things. Hard as they were, these times couldn't last forever. They'd get to the statue soon enough. In a practical place like Emmetsburg everything had its own time.
The jail was just behind the town hall. Set back enough to make it inconspicuous, the jail was a short walk to court in the town hall. Not that Emmetsburg saw anything approaching the murderous mayhem of big cities like Milwaukee or Chicago. There was hardly anything more insidious than the occasional bootlegger, a brawl or two at the local watering holes, a few drunks and a hand full of small time thieves that come in on the trains from time to time.
Most days a passer-by could catch George Bremer, the town sheriff, out on the porch of the jailhouse having a smoke with his deputies, or trading gossip with fellas whose butts generally made peace with the town hall benches. Bremer was tall and slender with wispy golden hair so light and thin made him appear ancient older though he wasn't much older than John. He'd gone bald as a young man, but never much seemed to care. A pair of bifocals teetered at the edge of his nose. Most folks recalled him as a man whose expression seemed almost whimsical and wise, like an oracle or a travelling man. It was full at odds with reality, as Bremer was a man of deep conviction who took all those fiery Sunday sermons to heart, but with temperament and patience of a man who believed all men were always one fool hardy decision from sin.
Just a block up from the courthouse, past the Main Street shops and homespun family restaurants stood the two story Hotel Kermoore. Elegant to a fault within, it seemed all but impervious to the hard times. Might have seemed unlikely that such a small town, hidden away as it was, but the Kermoore had become a destination for people far and wide. All the fancy expensive cars, ritzy flapper girls and dapper suits provided ample faire to locals about gangsters and G-men. Saturday evenings these curious visitors would stroll along Broadway, take in a movie and walk by the lake. There would always be a hand full of kids, hovering somewhere between delinquency and entrepreneurship, trying to hustle a few pennies for a shoeshine or a cigarette.
Next to the Kermoore, a silent film was showing at the movie house. Cost a nickel to get in, and another two cents for a bag of buttered popcorn. A lot of movie in these hard times. Still on a Saturday afternoon seemed like half the town turned out for a matinee It was evidence how Emmetsburg had been spared the worst of the Great slump. Not that it had escaped it completely, but it had come through better than most. And if the Sunday Masses were any indication the townspeople were surely counting every blessing. But the raging river of the world would soon overrun the banks of Emmetsburg and threaten it in ways no one could have foreseen, pitting neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. John Perkins would soon find himself at the center of that flood
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
EMMETSBUG: Five
The back door was still open. Slipping into the coveralls, John opened the front door and felt the cool damp morning air flood into the house. He pulled one suspender over his right shoulder and left the other one dangling at his side. He stretched and gave a satisfied yawn, drawing air that seemed to fill his body with renewed vigor.
The old wooden screen door was slightly bent on its hinges and stuck a bit against the stoop, requiring a bit of effort to push it open. It creaked loudly against the ancient hinges. John hesitated a moment before stepping outside into the cold wet grass. He yawned once more and stretched the last sleep from his body.
The town was quiet, mostly. There was the hum of activity at the mill along the tracks, a few blocks over. It sounded more urgent than usual, not not enough to cause John to take much more than a passing note. A rooster awakened down the street. The first golden light was catching the tree tops across the road. It sparkled upon the grass and everything as warm daylight spilled through the trees. The colors of the world were soft and dream-like.
The yard was littered with clumps of leaves and pieces of tar paper from the roof. A large branch was torn from a spruce along the creek. It had split from the trunk but was still partly attached by sinewy golden-white slivers. A clump of spiky green Iris' had been flattened by the downpour. Their long orange flowers had been battered, but they'd seen worse and would recover before long.
He went out a distance from the house. Patches of black tar paper had been torn from the roof exposing the dingy-blond wood frame in places. Wasn't as bad as he feared last night, but John hardly relished the thought of climbing up there to fix it yet again. He'd patched it up pretty good the previous autumn, one of those obligatory preparations for the long hard Iowa winters. He’d need more paper and some longer nails, which would tax their already meager finances. As a matter of course John wondered what would have to be sacrificed in its place. He was mulling over that problematic budget when movement in the house drew his attention.
Anna was just climbing from bed. She was nearly lost to the umber shadows of the house, like a figure from a Rembrandt painting, fading into murkiness. She was nude, her rust-red hair wild and tangled. For a moment she lingered in the bedroom door with her back to John, looking down upon the bed, as if it was the place of a crime or something terrible she wished to but couldn't ignore. She turned and, as if she could feel him watching her, found his eyes with a guilt-laden gaze before looking away.
Anna sipped on a robe and came slowly to the back door. She smiled reluctantly, and slid along the door frame. She stood straight again and pulled back the long hair from her face, drawing it to one side. In the same motion stepped down into the wet green grass. With an economy of gliding steps she found John and wrapped her arms around his waist. Anna breathed in the scent of his chest and the memory of last night.
“Sleep well?”
“You?”
“Like a rock.”
The old wooden screen door was slightly bent on its hinges and stuck a bit against the stoop, requiring a bit of effort to push it open. It creaked loudly against the ancient hinges. John hesitated a moment before stepping outside into the cold wet grass. He yawned once more and stretched the last sleep from his body.
The town was quiet, mostly. There was the hum of activity at the mill along the tracks, a few blocks over. It sounded more urgent than usual, not not enough to cause John to take much more than a passing note. A rooster awakened down the street. The first golden light was catching the tree tops across the road. It sparkled upon the grass and everything as warm daylight spilled through the trees. The colors of the world were soft and dream-like.
The yard was littered with clumps of leaves and pieces of tar paper from the roof. A large branch was torn from a spruce along the creek. It had split from the trunk but was still partly attached by sinewy golden-white slivers. A clump of spiky green Iris' had been flattened by the downpour. Their long orange flowers had been battered, but they'd seen worse and would recover before long.
He went out a distance from the house. Patches of black tar paper had been torn from the roof exposing the dingy-blond wood frame in places. Wasn't as bad as he feared last night, but John hardly relished the thought of climbing up there to fix it yet again. He'd patched it up pretty good the previous autumn, one of those obligatory preparations for the long hard Iowa winters. He’d need more paper and some longer nails, which would tax their already meager finances. As a matter of course John wondered what would have to be sacrificed in its place. He was mulling over that problematic budget when movement in the house drew his attention.
Anna was just climbing from bed. She was nearly lost to the umber shadows of the house, like a figure from a Rembrandt painting, fading into murkiness. She was nude, her rust-red hair wild and tangled. For a moment she lingered in the bedroom door with her back to John, looking down upon the bed, as if it was the place of a crime or something terrible she wished to but couldn't ignore. She turned and, as if she could feel him watching her, found his eyes with a guilt-laden gaze before looking away.
Anna sipped on a robe and came slowly to the back door. She smiled reluctantly, and slid along the door frame. She stood straight again and pulled back the long hair from her face, drawing it to one side. In the same motion stepped down into the wet green grass. With an economy of gliding steps she found John and wrapped her arms around his waist. Anna breathed in the scent of his chest and the memory of last night.
“Sleep well?”
“You?”
“Like a rock.”
Monday, December 21, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Four
These dreams, these little torturers and redeemers, these liars and betrayers of the conscience. They are perversions and predictions, and so fully out of the soul’s feeble control. Where is the line crossed between temptation and imagination? That they reside within each soul, are they proof of ultimate corruption or reason for hope? And what of the pious man, tormented by demons he eschews by day? Is he then a hero or a hypocrite?
John woke with a start. His heart was racing. He had been dreaming something but he could not recall what it was. It was an odd thing. He always remembered his dreams. They escaped him now for some reason, which was just as well. His breaths upset the early morning still of the room. He glanced to Anna, certain it would disturb her sound sleep. She remained asleep, a deep and peaceful sleep. There was just the slightest furl to her brow. John touched her forehead gentle and it relaxed
.
There was a cob web hanging lazily from the ceiling above. It was fat and gray from dust. The creature that had created it had long ago passed from the world, or moved off to a better place. John watched it sway gently from a breeze somewhere. It almost lulled him back to sleep
Dreams stalked John. They had since the war, which had revisited him on nights too numerous to count. They were shocking, detestable images so real he would awaken believing he was still in some muddy, lice-filled, corpse ridden trench in France. That morning when he awoke those dreams had left him. More than that, John actually felt free of them, as if they had been a terrible fever that had suddenly and unexpectedly passed.
He slipped quietly from bed. The floor was cool against his bare feet. The floor boards were uneven. Not disjointed or separated in any way, but rather rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Anna was on her belly. The blanket was bunched at her waist. One leg was bent along side of her. The other stretched to the end of the small, high brass bed. Her bare foot dangled at the edge. The pre-dawn darkness softened the contours of her back, bare to her hips. John recalled their lovemaking during the night with a mix of joy and concern. He touched her bare ankle as he moved around the edge of the bed, where he scooped up his coveralls and went out into the kitchen.
John woke with a start. His heart was racing. He had been dreaming something but he could not recall what it was. It was an odd thing. He always remembered his dreams. They escaped him now for some reason, which was just as well. His breaths upset the early morning still of the room. He glanced to Anna, certain it would disturb her sound sleep. She remained asleep, a deep and peaceful sleep. There was just the slightest furl to her brow. John touched her forehead gentle and it relaxed
.
There was a cob web hanging lazily from the ceiling above. It was fat and gray from dust. The creature that had created it had long ago passed from the world, or moved off to a better place. John watched it sway gently from a breeze somewhere. It almost lulled him back to sleep
Dreams stalked John. They had since the war, which had revisited him on nights too numerous to count. They were shocking, detestable images so real he would awaken believing he was still in some muddy, lice-filled, corpse ridden trench in France. That morning when he awoke those dreams had left him. More than that, John actually felt free of them, as if they had been a terrible fever that had suddenly and unexpectedly passed.
He slipped quietly from bed. The floor was cool against his bare feet. The floor boards were uneven. Not disjointed or separated in any way, but rather rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Anna was on her belly. The blanket was bunched at her waist. One leg was bent along side of her. The other stretched to the end of the small, high brass bed. Her bare foot dangled at the edge. The pre-dawn darkness softened the contours of her back, bare to her hips. John recalled their lovemaking during the night with a mix of joy and concern. He touched her bare ankle as he moved around the edge of the bed, where he scooped up his coveralls and went out into the kitchen.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Three
Midnight blue. The storm was all but spent now. It lifted like a veil from the night. Bright white flashes on the tilting horizon silhouetted a tree line at the end of his property and a distant barn, reminding him of France and distant artillery duels. The barn was turned so that he could see directly through the open doors at either end, like an escape through this world into another. It left the yard strewn with branches, and torn sheets of tar paper from the roof. Anna pulled away slowly, holding on to his hand. She tugged at it lightly.
“Come to bed,” her voice was laced with reluctant desire. “We’ll get a new perspective on things in the morning.”
At the bedroom door she lifted away her gown and let it fall to the floor. John smiled, for not a moment before he’d had a strange sense, a feeling that the moments he was living now were as memories, as if they had already happened. At the bedroom door John took in her nakedness. She lay across the bed, her arms stretched above her head, accentuating full breasts, shone white and perfect in the darkness. Anna’s nipples were round and swollen. Her hair was thrown across the pillow. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of her sex. It beckoned him to her.
John slipped from his shorts and climbed up over her, hovering there momentarily, as though he was floating above some intensely desirable landscape; as if he was a banished native to that land coming home after so long. As she opened herself to him Anna reached up and touched his face.
Her expression was encyclopedic. There was desire to be sure, but more than that there was the deepest sadness. Her eyes were the deepest of dark pools, and John could not be certain if that sadness was more for her or for him. Her thighs caressed his flanks. He hesitated at her gaze. It was almost too much for him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes filled more with resolve than anything else. “Come into me, John.”
He found her and teased her lightly, delighting as she pulled eagerly at his hips. Her breath was warm. Anna brought her lips to his ear and pulled at his hips, imploring him to fill her. A sigh escaped her as he pressed himself tightly to her. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and whispered softly to him.
“Oh, John, I missed you.”
They made love for what seemed an eternity, erasing the world outside; the storm, sirens across town, the rattle of an old truck as it sped down Pleasant Street.. The rain came in fits and starts. The storm’s power, its melancholy and passion fully reflected in their lovemaking, as though it was a symphony to their dance. Finished, John and Anna lay beside one another staring at the ceiling. Their breaths thundered in the room, their bodies glistening from their sudden and unexpected expressions for one another.
Bluish flashes of lightening were distant now, the thunder barely audible. John looked over at Anna and thought to say something. There were tears in her eyes. He knew what they were for. A sorrowful moan almost escaped him. Sleep came quickly and as a blessing.
“Come to bed,” her voice was laced with reluctant desire. “We’ll get a new perspective on things in the morning.”
At the bedroom door she lifted away her gown and let it fall to the floor. John smiled, for not a moment before he’d had a strange sense, a feeling that the moments he was living now were as memories, as if they had already happened. At the bedroom door John took in her nakedness. She lay across the bed, her arms stretched above her head, accentuating full breasts, shone white and perfect in the darkness. Anna’s nipples were round and swollen. Her hair was thrown across the pillow. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of her sex. It beckoned him to her.
John slipped from his shorts and climbed up over her, hovering there momentarily, as though he was floating above some intensely desirable landscape; as if he was a banished native to that land coming home after so long. As she opened herself to him Anna reached up and touched his face.
Her expression was encyclopedic. There was desire to be sure, but more than that there was the deepest sadness. Her eyes were the deepest of dark pools, and John could not be certain if that sadness was more for her or for him. Her thighs caressed his flanks. He hesitated at her gaze. It was almost too much for him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes filled more with resolve than anything else. “Come into me, John.”
He found her and teased her lightly, delighting as she pulled eagerly at his hips. Her breath was warm. Anna brought her lips to his ear and pulled at his hips, imploring him to fill her. A sigh escaped her as he pressed himself tightly to her. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and whispered softly to him.
“Oh, John, I missed you.”
They made love for what seemed an eternity, erasing the world outside; the storm, sirens across town, the rattle of an old truck as it sped down Pleasant Street.. The rain came in fits and starts. The storm’s power, its melancholy and passion fully reflected in their lovemaking, as though it was a symphony to their dance. Finished, John and Anna lay beside one another staring at the ceiling. Their breaths thundered in the room, their bodies glistening from their sudden and unexpected expressions for one another.
Bluish flashes of lightening were distant now, the thunder barely audible. John looked over at Anna and thought to say something. There were tears in her eyes. He knew what they were for. A sorrowful moan almost escaped him. Sleep came quickly and as a blessing.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Two
Anna felt his worry. She turned to him as the first fat rain drops patted against the front of the house. He could feel her looking at him. For a moment they were both silent. He reached over and pulled the window shut. Instantly the heat rose in the room.
“John?”
“Go back to sleep?” he said quietly.
“What is it?” she asked, touching his bare shoulder.
He didn’t wish to worry her and frowned over thoughts refusing to form themselves into proper sentences.
“It’s nothing. Get some sleep.”
With a blinding flash of lightening, thunder, like a rumbling kettledrum, shook the world. John’s heart skipped a beat. Anna pulled closer, her warm breath at his neck. Her gasp was lost to the racket of a sudden spectacular downpour.
“Worried for the roof?” she asked. She ran a hand across his strong chest.
“Some,” he said.
He was worried for the roof, worried for the truck, for Anna and the prospect of not going back to work any time soon. He worried over the banks and all those who had lost hope along with their homes, and he worried for a world whose governments always saw the simple way out of their population’s discontent and disillusionment through war. He could feel it out there somewhere, rising as a certain tension in the world. And tensions had either to be relieved or they broke altogether. And John feared the world seemed to be coming to one hell of a break up.
John turned his head and found her hazel eyes in the dark. He said the only thing he could have said to her. The only thing his ego would permit. “Be fine.”
She pulled him closer and he suddenly felt trapped there. John’s heart thudded madly, as though about to burst from his chest. He was already sliding sideways out of bed, pulling gingerly away from her.
“Be back,” he said.
In just shorts John pushed his feet into a pair of old brown slippers. Anna didn’t protest. She watched as he left the room and crossed the small dining room to the kitchen door. He pushed open the back screen and a gust of wind tore it from his hands. The sound of it banging against the house was lost to the roaring waves of rain. Water already stood deep in the yard, with waves whipped and sheared by the wind.
Anna sat up, her feet still covered beneath her late mother’s heavy quilt. She swept back a lock of long Irish-red hair and studied him as if he was a strange animal, at once wild and beautiful in its power. It was like those pictures of great male lions from the National Geographic. The fight had long ago gone out of them though they still projected awesome strength.
John’s shoulders were broad and strong. His wavy brown hair brushed with the pewter evidence of hard years and great disappointment. He was no longer the bright-eyed boy she waved goodbye to as he went off to join Pershing in Europe. He was every bit the man who returned to her darker for that year at war.
He was silhouetted in the door against the silvery blue downpour like some dejected mythical hero. One arm was upraised, a hardened and calloused hand pressed to the frame. But the lightening, that immense and constant lightening threw his shadow in snapshot moments across the floor, making him appear all the more tragic and lonesome. There came the flat tap-tap-tapping of water falling upon kitchen tiles behind him. Anna watched with a measure of sympathy and understanding as her big man sighed heavily at the sound and looked skyward.
Anna loved him. She loved him more than he could ever realize. She loved that enduring energy, the stalwart refusal to quit, to quit her and to quit this life where lesser men might have given up. She loved that quality which compelled him to remain in the fight when all conscious faculties might have convinced him of its futility. It drew Anna from bed.
She paused in the dining room. There was hardly enough room for the old oak table and four heavy chairs. Let alone the Franklin sewing machine, where Anna hired out her services to help make ends meet. The lace-white curtains over the window were pulled tight. Beside the window a trickle of water ran along the wall past an oval framed photograph of her parents, taken just after landing in America. The couple looked ancient, and part of a very different world than they would leave for their only daughter.
Anna went to John, wrapping her arms around his body and pressing her cheek against the cool flesh of his bare back. She breathed him, suddenly and completely aroused by his scent. She moaned softly and listened to the steady thudding of his heart.
“Bad storm,” he said quietly. A flash of lightening brought a sharp and quick boom from somewhere across town. It was of a much different character than the thunder.
“Been worse,” she softly kissed his back.
He was a man of so very few words, but each was supported by deeply resonating thoughts. The words he chose so sparingly truly meant something.
“Gets so fighting even the little ones is too much anymore.”
She was quiet a long moment, and was suddenly fearful that he might slip away from her. “John Perkins, don’t you quit on me.”
He mulled over the words and held a hand out to the rain. It was cool and perfect. There was something about the rain. It had a power, as though the true character of the storm resided in the collaboration of each of those myriad drops. He thought about the waste of the European War and wondered why men of good conscience failed to rally as those myriad drops.
The rain let up just a little, and was already turning the long garden troughs into little canals. Already he was figuring a way to fix the roof, and would keep at that roof as long as he still had the breath and strength to do so. John managed a smile and touched her arm.
“Too dumb to quit.”
“John?”
“Go back to sleep?” he said quietly.
“What is it?” she asked, touching his bare shoulder.
He didn’t wish to worry her and frowned over thoughts refusing to form themselves into proper sentences.
“It’s nothing. Get some sleep.”
With a blinding flash of lightening, thunder, like a rumbling kettledrum, shook the world. John’s heart skipped a beat. Anna pulled closer, her warm breath at his neck. Her gasp was lost to the racket of a sudden spectacular downpour.
“Worried for the roof?” she asked. She ran a hand across his strong chest.
“Some,” he said.
He was worried for the roof, worried for the truck, for Anna and the prospect of not going back to work any time soon. He worried over the banks and all those who had lost hope along with their homes, and he worried for a world whose governments always saw the simple way out of their population’s discontent and disillusionment through war. He could feel it out there somewhere, rising as a certain tension in the world. And tensions had either to be relieved or they broke altogether. And John feared the world seemed to be coming to one hell of a break up.
John turned his head and found her hazel eyes in the dark. He said the only thing he could have said to her. The only thing his ego would permit. “Be fine.”
She pulled him closer and he suddenly felt trapped there. John’s heart thudded madly, as though about to burst from his chest. He was already sliding sideways out of bed, pulling gingerly away from her.
“Be back,” he said.
In just shorts John pushed his feet into a pair of old brown slippers. Anna didn’t protest. She watched as he left the room and crossed the small dining room to the kitchen door. He pushed open the back screen and a gust of wind tore it from his hands. The sound of it banging against the house was lost to the roaring waves of rain. Water already stood deep in the yard, with waves whipped and sheared by the wind.
Anna sat up, her feet still covered beneath her late mother’s heavy quilt. She swept back a lock of long Irish-red hair and studied him as if he was a strange animal, at once wild and beautiful in its power. It was like those pictures of great male lions from the National Geographic. The fight had long ago gone out of them though they still projected awesome strength.
John’s shoulders were broad and strong. His wavy brown hair brushed with the pewter evidence of hard years and great disappointment. He was no longer the bright-eyed boy she waved goodbye to as he went off to join Pershing in Europe. He was every bit the man who returned to her darker for that year at war.
He was silhouetted in the door against the silvery blue downpour like some dejected mythical hero. One arm was upraised, a hardened and calloused hand pressed to the frame. But the lightening, that immense and constant lightening threw his shadow in snapshot moments across the floor, making him appear all the more tragic and lonesome. There came the flat tap-tap-tapping of water falling upon kitchen tiles behind him. Anna watched with a measure of sympathy and understanding as her big man sighed heavily at the sound and looked skyward.
Anna loved him. She loved him more than he could ever realize. She loved that enduring energy, the stalwart refusal to quit, to quit her and to quit this life where lesser men might have given up. She loved that quality which compelled him to remain in the fight when all conscious faculties might have convinced him of its futility. It drew Anna from bed.
She paused in the dining room. There was hardly enough room for the old oak table and four heavy chairs. Let alone the Franklin sewing machine, where Anna hired out her services to help make ends meet. The lace-white curtains over the window were pulled tight. Beside the window a trickle of water ran along the wall past an oval framed photograph of her parents, taken just after landing in America. The couple looked ancient, and part of a very different world than they would leave for their only daughter.
Anna went to John, wrapping her arms around his body and pressing her cheek against the cool flesh of his bare back. She breathed him, suddenly and completely aroused by his scent. She moaned softly and listened to the steady thudding of his heart.
“Bad storm,” he said quietly. A flash of lightening brought a sharp and quick boom from somewhere across town. It was of a much different character than the thunder.
“Been worse,” she softly kissed his back.
He was a man of so very few words, but each was supported by deeply resonating thoughts. The words he chose so sparingly truly meant something.
“Gets so fighting even the little ones is too much anymore.”
She was quiet a long moment, and was suddenly fearful that he might slip away from her. “John Perkins, don’t you quit on me.”
He mulled over the words and held a hand out to the rain. It was cool and perfect. There was something about the rain. It had a power, as though the true character of the storm resided in the collaboration of each of those myriad drops. He thought about the waste of the European War and wondered why men of good conscience failed to rally as those myriad drops.
The rain let up just a little, and was already turning the long garden troughs into little canals. Already he was figuring a way to fix the roof, and would keep at that roof as long as he still had the breath and strength to do so. John managed a smile and touched her arm.
“Too dumb to quit.”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
EMMETSBURG:Part One
We are storms and banks and reeds
Whipped by the wind we rise to bluster and succumb to our own floods
We are fear and desperation and pointlessness
Cold we huddle for fear of being forgotten, yet that is our fate.
We are hope and need and desire
Dragged from our homes with cries lost to the tumult of the world
We are tragedy and sickness and alone.
And if there is any redemption left to us it lies in the sacrifice of love
Silver. The leaves of Oak and Maple trees across Pleasant Street turned over in anticipation of the rain. In the moonlight, before that light was obliterated by storm clouds, the leaves shone polished and ghostly against the midnight sky. From the semi-consciousness of a restless sleep John was vaguely aware of the approaching storm. It came at first as a sudden gust pushing the long branches of the old willow out front against the small white wood frame house. The wind was scented with rain and cool, breaking a string of broiling days that had taken hold of Northwest Iowa.
There hadn’t been a drop of rain in nearly a month. There had been that sudden all too brief downpour just as church was letting out the week before, but not enough to help crops withering in the fields. But for scattering the usual social congregations on the steps of the old Saint Mary’s church, it dried almost before hitting the ground. Soaked a few folks caused Mabel Conlon to take a spill down the steps of the church. Mabel is a large woman though and, but for a possible bruised bottom-which only Mister Conlon could verify, she could only lay claim to an injured ego.
A few counties over some cows had come up sick. The government had sent out inspectors to make tests with the authority to condemn whole herds if need be. It would be a disaster for a family to lose a herd (pennies on the Dollar was as good as a loss). In times such as this it was, well, a declaration of war on decent salt of the earth folks. It was only a matter of time before it brought good men to the end of their rope, and showed conniving men for their darkest character.
The cost of everything had gone up, while paychecks went down. Banks called in bad debts from folks with no means to pay those debts. Those banks foreclosed and threw good god-fearing people off their land and out of their homes, then closed their own doors for good. Other families didn’t bother to wait for the bank to call in their notes, and overnight packed up and left Iowa forever. Every day brought some new insult, some new weight around the neck of a struggling economy that was, in the end, not international bankers and corporations and industry but millions of men and women toiling and bleeding and dying for their god-given right to carve out a small plot of this earth.
John sighed heavily and turned towards the window. He’d seen all this coming. This great slump, as it had come to be called, didn’t happen overnight. Nothing happened overnight, except to fools and those fighting desperately to fend the constant indignities of being down and out. John had seen this coming, at least as much as an average working Joe could. Maybe it was the war that had opened his eyes, or darkened them enough to see how fragile and arrogant the veneer of civilization was. He eschewed the allure and temptation of debt. It meant that he and Ana had to go without during the spend and boom years of the Twenties, but they had a roof over their heads and a chance to weather this better than most.
Anna was beside him. Her buttocks were warm through the thin cotton fabric of her gown he’d bought her last Christmas for a buck and change from the Sears & Roebuck’s catalog. She was breathing rhythmically, her lips fluttering ever so slightly. For a moment it built, disturbing his sudden onslaught of thoughts and worries and memories. John reached back and ran a hand across her hip and stilled her somewhat. It was the first decent sleep she’d had since, well, in some time anyway. That thought led him invariably to a place he preferred not to be.
It was best not to dwell on such things, force them from the mind and get on with living. Of course it was easier for a man than a woman. Men are so much farther from the body. They are ego drenched in misgivings, but they by force or by necessity buried those misgivings deep. They buried them deep enough that it takes a lifetime for them to resurface again. Women, by contrast were worry vainly longing for lost innocence. Theirs was an ill-defined ideal alternately negotiated with or abandoned to men.
There was something more though, something that John struggled to fathom. It was that marital rhythms came more naturally to women. She knew his secrets, while he could barely come to terms with them himself. She knew desires and thoughts he endeavored to keep for himself. It was that which made him desire and despise and long for her and run from her all at once. It was that which kept him at her side while wishing for the far horizon.
“Oh,” he sighed, exhausted. It came as a trembling breath that escaped him almost without knowing. It was a lament. It was a lament over life and all its many burdens. It fell like a weight on his chest, and protested the purpose of existence at all. His thoughts led inevitably to some end, with the realization that the precious nature of each life was alternately a definition of its ultimate futility. It was a thought that reflected the tragedy of the past several months and of a growing cynicism that engulfed him like a cancer.
Sleep fell away from him now, like metal shavings on a concrete floor. Sleep gave way to primal stirrings and more rational worries over the tarpaper roof he’d put on the summer before. It had taken the worst Iowa winters could muster, holding on by hardly more than a wish. But John could sense this storm was something more. He could feel its power as it fell upon little Emmetsburg, and knew it would be a hard night. What he couldn’t know was how this single storm would call into question everything in his life, and even life itself.
Whipped by the wind we rise to bluster and succumb to our own floods
We are fear and desperation and pointlessness
Cold we huddle for fear of being forgotten, yet that is our fate.
We are hope and need and desire
Dragged from our homes with cries lost to the tumult of the world
We are tragedy and sickness and alone.
And if there is any redemption left to us it lies in the sacrifice of love
Silver. The leaves of Oak and Maple trees across Pleasant Street turned over in anticipation of the rain. In the moonlight, before that light was obliterated by storm clouds, the leaves shone polished and ghostly against the midnight sky. From the semi-consciousness of a restless sleep John was vaguely aware of the approaching storm. It came at first as a sudden gust pushing the long branches of the old willow out front against the small white wood frame house. The wind was scented with rain and cool, breaking a string of broiling days that had taken hold of Northwest Iowa.
There hadn’t been a drop of rain in nearly a month. There had been that sudden all too brief downpour just as church was letting out the week before, but not enough to help crops withering in the fields. But for scattering the usual social congregations on the steps of the old Saint Mary’s church, it dried almost before hitting the ground. Soaked a few folks caused Mabel Conlon to take a spill down the steps of the church. Mabel is a large woman though and, but for a possible bruised bottom-which only Mister Conlon could verify, she could only lay claim to an injured ego.
A few counties over some cows had come up sick. The government had sent out inspectors to make tests with the authority to condemn whole herds if need be. It would be a disaster for a family to lose a herd (pennies on the Dollar was as good as a loss). In times such as this it was, well, a declaration of war on decent salt of the earth folks. It was only a matter of time before it brought good men to the end of their rope, and showed conniving men for their darkest character.
The cost of everything had gone up, while paychecks went down. Banks called in bad debts from folks with no means to pay those debts. Those banks foreclosed and threw good god-fearing people off their land and out of their homes, then closed their own doors for good. Other families didn’t bother to wait for the bank to call in their notes, and overnight packed up and left Iowa forever. Every day brought some new insult, some new weight around the neck of a struggling economy that was, in the end, not international bankers and corporations and industry but millions of men and women toiling and bleeding and dying for their god-given right to carve out a small plot of this earth.
John sighed heavily and turned towards the window. He’d seen all this coming. This great slump, as it had come to be called, didn’t happen overnight. Nothing happened overnight, except to fools and those fighting desperately to fend the constant indignities of being down and out. John had seen this coming, at least as much as an average working Joe could. Maybe it was the war that had opened his eyes, or darkened them enough to see how fragile and arrogant the veneer of civilization was. He eschewed the allure and temptation of debt. It meant that he and Ana had to go without during the spend and boom years of the Twenties, but they had a roof over their heads and a chance to weather this better than most.
Anna was beside him. Her buttocks were warm through the thin cotton fabric of her gown he’d bought her last Christmas for a buck and change from the Sears & Roebuck’s catalog. She was breathing rhythmically, her lips fluttering ever so slightly. For a moment it built, disturbing his sudden onslaught of thoughts and worries and memories. John reached back and ran a hand across her hip and stilled her somewhat. It was the first decent sleep she’d had since, well, in some time anyway. That thought led him invariably to a place he preferred not to be.
It was best not to dwell on such things, force them from the mind and get on with living. Of course it was easier for a man than a woman. Men are so much farther from the body. They are ego drenched in misgivings, but they by force or by necessity buried those misgivings deep. They buried them deep enough that it takes a lifetime for them to resurface again. Women, by contrast were worry vainly longing for lost innocence. Theirs was an ill-defined ideal alternately negotiated with or abandoned to men.
There was something more though, something that John struggled to fathom. It was that marital rhythms came more naturally to women. She knew his secrets, while he could barely come to terms with them himself. She knew desires and thoughts he endeavored to keep for himself. It was that which made him desire and despise and long for her and run from her all at once. It was that which kept him at her side while wishing for the far horizon.
“Oh,” he sighed, exhausted. It came as a trembling breath that escaped him almost without knowing. It was a lament. It was a lament over life and all its many burdens. It fell like a weight on his chest, and protested the purpose of existence at all. His thoughts led inevitably to some end, with the realization that the precious nature of each life was alternately a definition of its ultimate futility. It was a thought that reflected the tragedy of the past several months and of a growing cynicism that engulfed him like a cancer.
Sleep fell away from him now, like metal shavings on a concrete floor. Sleep gave way to primal stirrings and more rational worries over the tarpaper roof he’d put on the summer before. It had taken the worst Iowa winters could muster, holding on by hardly more than a wish. But John could sense this storm was something more. He could feel its power as it fell upon little Emmetsburg, and knew it would be a hard night. What he couldn’t know was how this single storm would call into question everything in his life, and even life itself.
Emmetsburg
Emmetsburg
A novel of the Great Depression
By
W.C. Turck
Exclusively
on
BLOGSPOT
Copyright W.C.Turck 2009
A novel of the Great Depression
By
W.C. Turck
Exclusively
on
BLOGSPOT
Copyright W.C.Turck 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Epilogue
The sea is a mirror of the burnt orange sky, hardly disturbed by the wake of our little boat. It lops lazy and hollow against the old wooden hull. Behind us the sounds and images of war are distant and low. I stopped rowing sometime ago, content to drift for a while and not cause any more noise in the world than absolutely necessary. The scent fills me, and will forever remain wedded to these first hours of freedom.
The wind has stopped, the crisp cool air salty and sweet. It is as still as that painted sea. Desiree is asleep and curled in the bow beneath a crudely sewn blanket. I wish that I could say it is a peaceful sleep. More accurately it is an exhausted sleep haunted by all she has been through. None of this was hers by choice. She is so perfect there, and for the first time I am truly happy. I am sunbeams through the clouds. I am hope and I am nearly saved.
Is this some sort of victory? Have I won anything? If freedom is the only measure then I have won everything. However, if escape remains the measure then a man must know what he is escaping to as intimately of what he is escaping to, with full understanding that he may never escape himself. I am settled and at peace for the moment, but with the understanding that the world is moving to something. The world is always moving to something, some final accounting, a cataclysm, and a sum total of all that has come before. What form it will take is impossible to say. Nor can I say whether it will come with a whisper or a like a storm.
The boat drifts invariably towards the ruins, floating among massive pylons supporting iron and concrete platforms high above the sea. They are terrific and large, like great rusting sea monsters frozen in a time long passed. Among them the air is funneled to create its own wind, which tugs as great cables. The wind whispers and whistles through the ancient structures. Desiree wakes with a start as I steer the boat close to one of the structures. Her eyes go wide as we pass beneath the first platform, neck straining at its towering superstructure. I stretch a hand and let it brush along the massive concrete support. A rush of excitement sets me to light and sends a shiver through me.
It is clear they are long deserted, perhaps for centuries. The flames I spied from my flat, the fires I dreamed and fantasized over for so long was merely the sun reflecting off broken window. The movements I believed were people like me, upon whom I weighted all my hopes were birds or tattered fabric pushed and pulled by the wind.
There is a small dock below the structure. It is rusted and bent by centuries of storms. One end is underwater, the rich brown rust, like the overlapping blossoms of some ravenous ivy patiently dissolving and devouring the platforms covers the platform. A metal sign hangs at an odd angle by a second chain above the platform. Like the dock it too is steadily being devoured by rust and salty sea water until almost nothing of it can be read. I can make out only a hand full of words, but they mean nothing to me. I mouth their sound. Desiree says them aloud.
SHELL OIL
All Visitors Must…
I use the oar to push away from the platform and guide the boat into the open sea. What lies beyond the far horizon is impossible to say. I remain hope, and I remain hope for Desiree. In those dark hours when I am without I will stand if only to be that hope for her. What else is there? As for freedom, I know now it is not some distant land or some castle to conquer. It is not me and it is not mine. It is not fleeting as a storm, nor it is anything a man can ever retreat from once it has been tasted. It is a bittersweet fruit whose taste is unknown yet familiar to the man who has never known it, and the harvest plundered and wasted by the man who has never been deprived. It is a breath of life; fully mine one moment and gone the next…
THE END
The wind has stopped, the crisp cool air salty and sweet. It is as still as that painted sea. Desiree is asleep and curled in the bow beneath a crudely sewn blanket. I wish that I could say it is a peaceful sleep. More accurately it is an exhausted sleep haunted by all she has been through. None of this was hers by choice. She is so perfect there, and for the first time I am truly happy. I am sunbeams through the clouds. I am hope and I am nearly saved.
Is this some sort of victory? Have I won anything? If freedom is the only measure then I have won everything. However, if escape remains the measure then a man must know what he is escaping to as intimately of what he is escaping to, with full understanding that he may never escape himself. I am settled and at peace for the moment, but with the understanding that the world is moving to something. The world is always moving to something, some final accounting, a cataclysm, and a sum total of all that has come before. What form it will take is impossible to say. Nor can I say whether it will come with a whisper or a like a storm.
The boat drifts invariably towards the ruins, floating among massive pylons supporting iron and concrete platforms high above the sea. They are terrific and large, like great rusting sea monsters frozen in a time long passed. Among them the air is funneled to create its own wind, which tugs as great cables. The wind whispers and whistles through the ancient structures. Desiree wakes with a start as I steer the boat close to one of the structures. Her eyes go wide as we pass beneath the first platform, neck straining at its towering superstructure. I stretch a hand and let it brush along the massive concrete support. A rush of excitement sets me to light and sends a shiver through me.
It is clear they are long deserted, perhaps for centuries. The flames I spied from my flat, the fires I dreamed and fantasized over for so long was merely the sun reflecting off broken window. The movements I believed were people like me, upon whom I weighted all my hopes were birds or tattered fabric pushed and pulled by the wind.
There is a small dock below the structure. It is rusted and bent by centuries of storms. One end is underwater, the rich brown rust, like the overlapping blossoms of some ravenous ivy patiently dissolving and devouring the platforms covers the platform. A metal sign hangs at an odd angle by a second chain above the platform. Like the dock it too is steadily being devoured by rust and salty sea water until almost nothing of it can be read. I can make out only a hand full of words, but they mean nothing to me. I mouth their sound. Desiree says them aloud.
SHELL OIL
All Visitors Must…
I use the oar to push away from the platform and guide the boat into the open sea. What lies beyond the far horizon is impossible to say. I remain hope, and I remain hope for Desiree. In those dark hours when I am without I will stand if only to be that hope for her. What else is there? As for freedom, I know now it is not some distant land or some castle to conquer. It is not me and it is not mine. It is not fleeting as a storm, nor it is anything a man can ever retreat from once it has been tasted. It is a bittersweet fruit whose taste is unknown yet familiar to the man who has never known it, and the harvest plundered and wasted by the man who has never been deprived. It is a breath of life; fully mine one moment and gone the next…
THE END
Monday, December 14, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Forty-three
A burst of fire from the armored transport takes the corner off the building beside me. The chest thudding concussion of those heavy rounds knock me to the ground. Chunks and pieces of building rain down around me. I roll to one side as another volley chews the pavement where I was laying to pieces.
Cut in a dozen places and disoriented from fright and fire, it is all I can do to scramble and tumble from the street into the relative cover of the alley. Desiree is running towards me. Out in the street resistance by loyal Corporation troops has completely collapsed. Their ranks are either scattered or killed. Virtually all of the shooting comes now from troops loyal to the Ministers. I still cannot find my feet when Desiree falls to her knees and into in my arms.
“You’re hurt,” she says, wiping a trickle of blood from a cut to my cheek.
“I’m fine,” I say. She settles me, brings a focus and a purpose I almost lost in fear. Behind us, at the top of the alley a soldier draws a bead on us. We are already up and running for the sewers. A burst from the Corporation side cuts the man in half. Bullets sail wildly around us in the man’s final dying spasm.
The entrance to the sewer is raised perhaps eighteen inches above the alley. Just inside there is a small concrete lip. There is a Sentinel, whose blue shell offers something of a hand hold. A waning afternoon light falls dimly to swirling brown water below. It is far too much of a drop for Desiree alone, but leaving her exposed in the alley. The armored transport draws to a stop. Its heavy turret turns slowly in our direction.
“I don’t think they’ve seen us yet,” I say. Fear thunders in my chest and in my ears. Soldiers appear from behind the transport, edging cautiously into the alley.
“It’s too far, I can’t make it!” she exclaims.
The soldiers spot us. The first shots slap impotently off the lip of the sewer entrance. The transport opens up a moment later, smashing fist size holes in the seawall above our heads.
“We’ll go over together,” I tell her, shouting above the gunfire. “Hold tight to me!”
Desiree and I slip over the edge as another volley from the transport blasts the wall to pieces. For a moment we swing in space. I have an arm around the broken Sentinel, the other holding precariously to Desiree. Hers are wrapped around my waist, but her grasp is already failing.
“Climb down my body and drop down!” I shout, but it is already too late. Her hold fails and with a scream she drops into the churning water. An instant later the Sentinel breaks loose and I am falling.
The water is deeper than I expected, cushioning our falls. It is muddy and filled with debris obviously loosed by the destruction of the Reclamation Center. Coming to my feet I find it almost chest deep and powerfully swift. Desiree is nowhere to be seen. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and I spot her hand flailing wildly just at the surface. I pull her up and she gasps for air.
“You’re alright?” My voice echoes thunderously.
She nods, spitting water. “I couldn’t, the current…”
“Hurry, we haven’t time” I turn her away from the sewer entrance. Fighting the current I keep a wary eye on the hole for fear the soldiers will follow. All the while I hold Desiree up as the current threatens to drag her under.
The current slows, the water levels settling to our waist before too long. Near the beach it runs hardly deeper than our knees. For the first time it feels safe enough to pause for a rest. I settle against the wall. Desiree puts her face in my neck. Too numbed and too exhausted to cry she gives a long low moan.
Dogs have begun to pick at the dead on the beach. Their grisly task becomes all more chilling in the lessening amber light. They pay us little mind. Even still we keep well clear. From the bundles and scattered belongings we change from our wet clothes. Dressed in the things of the Low City people, there is a moment in which we realize our break with the Corporation. There is the odd realization of freedom, while not knowing precisely what that means. It is an entirely new land and a fundamentally knew sky that we come to now. It is an unfamiliar land so far away from the words I read in all those books. For freedom is not a battle to be won, but an eternal compromise between the desires of selfish heart against the tyranny of the world. And so I am free. The far horizon remains to challenge and define that idea. It is, at the end of this story, for me to weather that journey and, in the end, still remain true to my good heart.
Cut in a dozen places and disoriented from fright and fire, it is all I can do to scramble and tumble from the street into the relative cover of the alley. Desiree is running towards me. Out in the street resistance by loyal Corporation troops has completely collapsed. Their ranks are either scattered or killed. Virtually all of the shooting comes now from troops loyal to the Ministers. I still cannot find my feet when Desiree falls to her knees and into in my arms.
“You’re hurt,” she says, wiping a trickle of blood from a cut to my cheek.
“I’m fine,” I say. She settles me, brings a focus and a purpose I almost lost in fear. Behind us, at the top of the alley a soldier draws a bead on us. We are already up and running for the sewers. A burst from the Corporation side cuts the man in half. Bullets sail wildly around us in the man’s final dying spasm.
The entrance to the sewer is raised perhaps eighteen inches above the alley. Just inside there is a small concrete lip. There is a Sentinel, whose blue shell offers something of a hand hold. A waning afternoon light falls dimly to swirling brown water below. It is far too much of a drop for Desiree alone, but leaving her exposed in the alley. The armored transport draws to a stop. Its heavy turret turns slowly in our direction.
“I don’t think they’ve seen us yet,” I say. Fear thunders in my chest and in my ears. Soldiers appear from behind the transport, edging cautiously into the alley.
“It’s too far, I can’t make it!” she exclaims.
The soldiers spot us. The first shots slap impotently off the lip of the sewer entrance. The transport opens up a moment later, smashing fist size holes in the seawall above our heads.
“We’ll go over together,” I tell her, shouting above the gunfire. “Hold tight to me!”
Desiree and I slip over the edge as another volley from the transport blasts the wall to pieces. For a moment we swing in space. I have an arm around the broken Sentinel, the other holding precariously to Desiree. Hers are wrapped around my waist, but her grasp is already failing.
“Climb down my body and drop down!” I shout, but it is already too late. Her hold fails and with a scream she drops into the churning water. An instant later the Sentinel breaks loose and I am falling.
The water is deeper than I expected, cushioning our falls. It is muddy and filled with debris obviously loosed by the destruction of the Reclamation Center. Coming to my feet I find it almost chest deep and powerfully swift. Desiree is nowhere to be seen. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, and I spot her hand flailing wildly just at the surface. I pull her up and she gasps for air.
“You’re alright?” My voice echoes thunderously.
She nods, spitting water. “I couldn’t, the current…”
“Hurry, we haven’t time” I turn her away from the sewer entrance. Fighting the current I keep a wary eye on the hole for fear the soldiers will follow. All the while I hold Desiree up as the current threatens to drag her under.
The current slows, the water levels settling to our waist before too long. Near the beach it runs hardly deeper than our knees. For the first time it feels safe enough to pause for a rest. I settle against the wall. Desiree puts her face in my neck. Too numbed and too exhausted to cry she gives a long low moan.
Dogs have begun to pick at the dead on the beach. Their grisly task becomes all more chilling in the lessening amber light. They pay us little mind. Even still we keep well clear. From the bundles and scattered belongings we change from our wet clothes. Dressed in the things of the Low City people, there is a moment in which we realize our break with the Corporation. There is the odd realization of freedom, while not knowing precisely what that means. It is an entirely new land and a fundamentally knew sky that we come to now. It is an unfamiliar land so far away from the words I read in all those books. For freedom is not a battle to be won, but an eternal compromise between the desires of selfish heart against the tyranny of the world. And so I am free. The far horizon remains to challenge and define that idea. It is, at the end of this story, for me to weather that journey and, in the end, still remain true to my good heart.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Forty-two
I climb slowly to my feet. As I draw Desiree up, still shielding her with my body, it seems impossible we are still alive. Desiree is already pulling me towards the sewer, knowing full well this could be our last chance for escape. At the entrance to the alley I spot movement among the dead. I pull away from Desiree. Her fingers linger at the end of our touch. Her face fully reflects the urgency of this moment, but I have to go.
“Please, I beg you,” she pleads.
“One moment is all I ask.”
I take her in my arms and look purposefully into her tortured eyes. We both look to gunfire out in the street. The sound comes nearer with each passing heartbeat. Her fingers grip the sleeves of my tunic tightly, as if she might drag me away if all else fails.
“If something happens,” I tell her, “follow the sewer to the coast. You will find…”
“I won’t, not without you!”
“You must,” I say, pulling away. It takes every ounce of strength and courage I can muster her. We may only have this one chance, but I have to go.
I follow the wall to the top of the alley. In the street, a few yards away the Man from the Corporation lies bleeding. Bullets have pierced his body crossways from hip to shoulder. I am amazed he is still alive. Seeing me he musters the strength for an ironic smile. At the end of the street, in the direction of the Reclamation Center, Section Twenty-one troops loyal to him are fighting a losing battle against the Minister’s forces. Bullets rip at the air overhead and skip at the street close by.
Ignoring the fighting I kneel beside him. Gently I lay my hand upon his shoulder. It is cold to the touch. Already I can feel the life fleeing from his body.
“Seems as though I am the one eager to say goodbye now,” he says weakly.
A cross the street a man stumbles from the fight and collapses against the wall. The street battle reaches its climax. The man from the Corporation looks past me to the ultramarine sky, and the torn layers of smoke and dust.
“Does it hurt terribly?”
His eyes find mine. “I did not believe I would see you again. Don’t ascribe any purposefulness in saving you, if that is in fact what I’ve done.”
“Still, I owe you a debt, my friend.”
The word seems to catch him a moment. It seems to rescue him from the finality of the moment, more than he rescued Desiree and me from the Minister’s bullet.
“It is I who owe you a debt.” I said. “In the atrium you said something I did not understand. You said that a man alone is always defeated, but that a man alone has nothing to lose but his dignity, and that he will defend to the last.”
“I did.”
“But not all men. It takes an uncommon character.”
“Or a common man in an uncommon situation.”
“Perhaps if that were truer we would live in a very different world. I believe you are the last man…my friend”
Only a hand full of his loyal men remain now. They have retreated to doorways around us. At the top of the street, seeming to rise from the lingering smoke and haze from the Reclamation Center, an armored troop carrier creeps forward spitting fire around the street.
“Anything I can do for you?” I ask.
He looks to Desiree. There is a lonesome look to his eyes, as though he realizes something he has always missed but only now discovered. With his final breaths he reaches up and touches my face.
“She is waiting for you,” he says, breathing heavier and more erratic now. “See how she looks at you? That better world awaits if the two of you can find it.”
With that he is gone. As I close his eyes I know he meant less of the physical world than of something more. I am coming to a definition of love in Desiree. Implied in that word is the hope of a different world, if we can find it.
“Please, I beg you,” she pleads.
“One moment is all I ask.”
I take her in my arms and look purposefully into her tortured eyes. We both look to gunfire out in the street. The sound comes nearer with each passing heartbeat. Her fingers grip the sleeves of my tunic tightly, as if she might drag me away if all else fails.
“If something happens,” I tell her, “follow the sewer to the coast. You will find…”
“I won’t, not without you!”
“You must,” I say, pulling away. It takes every ounce of strength and courage I can muster her. We may only have this one chance, but I have to go.
I follow the wall to the top of the alley. In the street, a few yards away the Man from the Corporation lies bleeding. Bullets have pierced his body crossways from hip to shoulder. I am amazed he is still alive. Seeing me he musters the strength for an ironic smile. At the end of the street, in the direction of the Reclamation Center, Section Twenty-one troops loyal to him are fighting a losing battle against the Minister’s forces. Bullets rip at the air overhead and skip at the street close by.
Ignoring the fighting I kneel beside him. Gently I lay my hand upon his shoulder. It is cold to the touch. Already I can feel the life fleeing from his body.
“Seems as though I am the one eager to say goodbye now,” he says weakly.
A cross the street a man stumbles from the fight and collapses against the wall. The street battle reaches its climax. The man from the Corporation looks past me to the ultramarine sky, and the torn layers of smoke and dust.
“Does it hurt terribly?”
His eyes find mine. “I did not believe I would see you again. Don’t ascribe any purposefulness in saving you, if that is in fact what I’ve done.”
“Still, I owe you a debt, my friend.”
The word seems to catch him a moment. It seems to rescue him from the finality of the moment, more than he rescued Desiree and me from the Minister’s bullet.
“It is I who owe you a debt.” I said. “In the atrium you said something I did not understand. You said that a man alone is always defeated, but that a man alone has nothing to lose but his dignity, and that he will defend to the last.”
“I did.”
“But not all men. It takes an uncommon character.”
“Or a common man in an uncommon situation.”
“Perhaps if that were truer we would live in a very different world. I believe you are the last man…my friend”
Only a hand full of his loyal men remain now. They have retreated to doorways around us. At the top of the street, seeming to rise from the lingering smoke and haze from the Reclamation Center, an armored troop carrier creeps forward spitting fire around the street.
“Anything I can do for you?” I ask.
He looks to Desiree. There is a lonesome look to his eyes, as though he realizes something he has always missed but only now discovered. With his final breaths he reaches up and touches my face.
“She is waiting for you,” he says, breathing heavier and more erratic now. “See how she looks at you? That better world awaits if the two of you can find it.”
With that he is gone. As I close his eyes I know he meant less of the physical world than of something more. I am coming to a definition of love in Desiree. Implied in that word is the hope of a different world, if we can find it.
Friday, December 11, 2009
THE LAST MAN: part Forty-one
Desiree and I are led from the building. My steps are weighted with stone, each one more humiliating than the next. I am impotent, struggling for a rationalization as to why I do not fight back. There is a part of me that believes an honorable death resisting would be better than a fool’s pointless and passive death. That part of me is a hostage to moments that wash one to the next, fluid like waves. I am suspended in them, unable to do anything but be carried forward towards death.
As we are leaving I spy two other ministers jut arriving. I could perhaps find something sinister in their presence. By their appearance I could believe they are too well prepared for all this. The Woman from Security and Resource does not notice me. The man from Efficiency and Entertainment seems surprised to find me here. His eyes follow me before they disappear inside.
Around the corner is a small alley. It is bounded by tall buildings on two sides, and at the back by the sea wall. There is a sewer near the sea wall. I have a mind to through myself over the edge, with full realization I could be seriously hurt. Still, despite that, it might prove my last chance for escape. I fear that I may never see the ruins, but I cannot and will not abandon Desiree, not so long as I can still draw breath.
“Stop there,” says the Minister. We turn, pausing to meet one another’s eyes, as though saying goodbye. I take her hand in mine. She squeezes it tightly and takes a deep stuttering breath. I cannot breathe, my throat growing dry. The minister comes forward and raises his pistol at Desiree. I pull her my chest, bringing her head to my chest, my gaze filled with contempt for the commander.
“If you shoot we die together,” I say bitterly. My intention is rob him fully of even the slightest satisfaction. With that I close my eyes, fully expecting the burning hot stab of the bullet. Desiree and I pull her tightly to me, and breathe in the dusty scent of her hair, savoring that smell in the face of eternity.
“Makes no difference to me,” he says.
There is a sudden volley of shots from beyond the alley. The shot from the Minster’s bullet explodes, but I am already pushing Desiree to the ground. The round goes wide, slapping against the seawall. I cover her with my body. More shots thunder in the alley, the air momentarily alive with bullets.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the shooting stops. I look up cautiously, still shielding Desiree. The air in the alley swims and is bitter with spent gunpowder. The bodies of Section Twenty-one men litter the ground. There is more fighting in the distance near the command center. Beside me the Minister is all but dead yet. He lies on his stomach, a bullet through his neck. He gurgles and chokes out his final breaths. Life runs away from him like the river of blood to the sewer.
As we are leaving I spy two other ministers jut arriving. I could perhaps find something sinister in their presence. By their appearance I could believe they are too well prepared for all this. The Woman from Security and Resource does not notice me. The man from Efficiency and Entertainment seems surprised to find me here. His eyes follow me before they disappear inside.
Around the corner is a small alley. It is bounded by tall buildings on two sides, and at the back by the sea wall. There is a sewer near the sea wall. I have a mind to through myself over the edge, with full realization I could be seriously hurt. Still, despite that, it might prove my last chance for escape. I fear that I may never see the ruins, but I cannot and will not abandon Desiree, not so long as I can still draw breath.
“Stop there,” says the Minister. We turn, pausing to meet one another’s eyes, as though saying goodbye. I take her hand in mine. She squeezes it tightly and takes a deep stuttering breath. I cannot breathe, my throat growing dry. The minister comes forward and raises his pistol at Desiree. I pull her my chest, bringing her head to my chest, my gaze filled with contempt for the commander.
“If you shoot we die together,” I say bitterly. My intention is rob him fully of even the slightest satisfaction. With that I close my eyes, fully expecting the burning hot stab of the bullet. Desiree and I pull her tightly to me, and breathe in the dusty scent of her hair, savoring that smell in the face of eternity.
“Makes no difference to me,” he says.
There is a sudden volley of shots from beyond the alley. The shot from the Minster’s bullet explodes, but I am already pushing Desiree to the ground. The round goes wide, slapping against the seawall. I cover her with my body. More shots thunder in the alley, the air momentarily alive with bullets.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, the shooting stops. I look up cautiously, still shielding Desiree. The air in the alley swims and is bitter with spent gunpowder. The bodies of Section Twenty-one men litter the ground. There is more fighting in the distance near the command center. Beside me the Minister is all but dead yet. He lies on his stomach, a bullet through his neck. He gurgles and chokes out his final breaths. Life runs away from him like the river of blood to the sewer.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Forty
“Is there any hope for us?” Desiree asks. How do I answer that question? Her eyes tear me to pieces. I would do anything to save her from all of this, but I am at the end of hope as well. Do I tell her what I honestly believe, that we will meet our end with a bullet? Do I implore her to go bravely with me to that end? Perhaps the illusion of hope is the best answer. In any case silence is the wrong answer, but the only one I can muster.
“During the attack I saw one of them,” she begins. “It was a young woman. She tackled a man almost twice her size and killed him with her bare hands not three feet away from me. When she had finished she sat astride his body and our eyes met…the, the…her eyes, they were so filled with life and power. I am sad I will not live a life like that.”
There is a sound at the door. It opens to the Minister from Police. Desiree stands as several of his men enter the room. The Minister enters, pacing back and forth a moment. He glances up at us from time to time. His expression is snug and self-satisfied. I hold Desiree’s arms. I fear it is more for my own faltering confidence than for her.
“You are a cleaver one,” says the Minister, still pacing. His hands are clasped behind his back. “I have seen many Associates resist Reclamation, but none so manipulative as you.”
“You can let us go,” I assert, feebly. “What are we to you?”
“What was it you said at your trial? Oh, yes, that no man can adequately proclaim his right to exist to another. You said it was a matter of perspective, and that perspectives are, by their nature, limited and biased. Isn’t that what you said?”
I do not answer. He continues.
“If that is truly how you believe, then you must concede that the argument falls both ways. Indeed, then you must accept that the perspective with the greatest power will carry the most weight. My perspective is to carry out the Reclamation Mandate for both of you without delay.”
“To what purpose?” asks Desiree. I can feel her trembling. There is a different quality to her voice, a stronger quality that sets my blood on fire. I cannot help but smile.
The Minister chafes at her perceived insolence. He is quiet a moment, as if the thought had not occurred to him before, at least not beyond the egotistical wish for revenge. His eyes rise accusingly to mine.
“Your presence is an infection that must be cut out of the body. Look at the effect you have had upon her.”
“We will leave the city, as I said, and never return,” I say.
He moves around behind me. I turn, straining to see him without letting go of Desiree. “Reclamation is the backbone of the Corporation. There is no better time to reassert that Mandate, and I can think of no one better to begin that process than you and your cohort.” He motions to the troopers. “Take them outside into the street.”
“During the attack I saw one of them,” she begins. “It was a young woman. She tackled a man almost twice her size and killed him with her bare hands not three feet away from me. When she had finished she sat astride his body and our eyes met…the, the…her eyes, they were so filled with life and power. I am sad I will not live a life like that.”
There is a sound at the door. It opens to the Minister from Police. Desiree stands as several of his men enter the room. The Minister enters, pacing back and forth a moment. He glances up at us from time to time. His expression is snug and self-satisfied. I hold Desiree’s arms. I fear it is more for my own faltering confidence than for her.
“You are a cleaver one,” says the Minister, still pacing. His hands are clasped behind his back. “I have seen many Associates resist Reclamation, but none so manipulative as you.”
“You can let us go,” I assert, feebly. “What are we to you?”
“What was it you said at your trial? Oh, yes, that no man can adequately proclaim his right to exist to another. You said it was a matter of perspective, and that perspectives are, by their nature, limited and biased. Isn’t that what you said?”
I do not answer. He continues.
“If that is truly how you believe, then you must concede that the argument falls both ways. Indeed, then you must accept that the perspective with the greatest power will carry the most weight. My perspective is to carry out the Reclamation Mandate for both of you without delay.”
“To what purpose?” asks Desiree. I can feel her trembling. There is a different quality to her voice, a stronger quality that sets my blood on fire. I cannot help but smile.
The Minister chafes at her perceived insolence. He is quiet a moment, as if the thought had not occurred to him before, at least not beyond the egotistical wish for revenge. His eyes rise accusingly to mine.
“Your presence is an infection that must be cut out of the body. Look at the effect you have had upon her.”
“We will leave the city, as I said, and never return,” I say.
He moves around behind me. I turn, straining to see him without letting go of Desiree. “Reclamation is the backbone of the Corporation. There is no better time to reassert that Mandate, and I can think of no one better to begin that process than you and your cohort.” He motions to the troopers. “Take them outside into the street.”
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-nine
We are taken to what appears to be a command center some distance away from the blast zone. My impression is that it is far too organized to have been thrown together since the fighting began hardly more than two days before. It is as if they were expecting at least some aspect of this, although they also seem to have been surprised by the magnitude of the destruction. Even here the damage is breathtaking.
The immensity of the blast is reflected everywhere. Walls and streets are fractured. Windows are shattered, filling the streets with a dusky scattered amaretto glow from their reflected light. Walls are cracked and buckled, and in one building part of a wall has collapsed into the street. Section Twenty-one soldiers herds Associates from the area. Many of those Associates bear terrible wounds caused by flying glass and debris.
I feel everything is lost as Desiree and I are shoved through a door and down a long corridor. I half hoped for some chance that we might escape, as I had done in the sewers. That fading opportunity screams in my chest, settling as a dull fever. I am holding Desiree’s hand, almost too tightly. I refuse to let on how hopeless this all seems, though a part of me believes that she already knows. For her sake I portray ultimate confidence, if only because I owe her a measure of doubt about our fate, in the belief that she may find a bit of hope. It is nothing, really. It is a diversion from the fate.
The door closes behind us. The sound of the latch catching slices through me like a knife. It feels final. Both Desiree and I turn at the sound, eyeing it for a moment. Her shoulder is against mine, and I want to believe that reality is as malleable as memory. I want to believe that it is some long carried illness afflicting humanity since the dawn of time. Oh, that I could break free of that affliction at this moment, if for no other reason than to spare myself the pain and dread in Desiree’s face.
The room is poorly lit. A single kinetic light on the ceiling comes to life when it senses our movement. It is old and covered with layer of dust that bleeds from the sides of the bulb. The light is feeble and does little more that allows us to see one another. That light concerts with the ancient stale air of the room. A large old fashioned Sentinel is dark and lifeless on the wall above the door. Its blue glass face is shattered on one side. There is a single overturned chair in the corner that I can well imagine as been there for ages.
I pull the chair from the corner and set it down in the center of the room for Desiree. The wooden legs scrape loudly across the concrete floor. Desiree sits and throws her arms around my waist, as if it might save her from tumbling off the edge of the world. I pull her closer, soothed by her warm cheek against my stomach. She looks up at me, her eyes wanting pools waiting to be filled with hope and promise.
“Is it true,” she asks, “about the exile decree?”
I am lost for a proper answer. My heart tears itself to pieces. “Do you regret now that I came back for you?”
She looks away to the door, and then up to the broken Sentinel out of habit. “When I was in the Reclamation Center I felt so terribly alone. I thought, is this all there is; to live and to die? After I undressed and got into queue I was given a small cup of red liquid. It was sweet and syrupy, but had a bitter taste afterward. I knew it was a drug. I knew I was about to die and happily took that drug so there would be no pain. I could see the furnaces now. It was chaos, pure insanity, not like the Corporation’s illusion of efficiency before. The shouts of the men at the furnaces, the roar of the furnaces, the shuffling of a thousand bare feet. I was at the end, about to be Reclaimed when the attack began. It was bewildering, especially from the drug. They appeared from everywhere, up from the floor, from above, almost seeming to materialize from the air. Section Twenty-one was helpless at first. They were slaughtered. I thought they would free us, but then more Section Twenty-one soldiers appeared, prepared for battle.”
“They were expecting an attack,” I observe.
“There were too many,” she continues. They were shooting everyone. There was panic. Some Associates ran into the furnaces to escape. Many around me were cut down. I hid under bodies until…” Desiree buries her head in her hands and weeps. Kneeling I cradle her face and whisper softly to her tear streaked cheek.
“I love you,” I say, with only the vaguest impression of what that means.
The immensity of the blast is reflected everywhere. Walls and streets are fractured. Windows are shattered, filling the streets with a dusky scattered amaretto glow from their reflected light. Walls are cracked and buckled, and in one building part of a wall has collapsed into the street. Section Twenty-one soldiers herds Associates from the area. Many of those Associates bear terrible wounds caused by flying glass and debris.
I feel everything is lost as Desiree and I are shoved through a door and down a long corridor. I half hoped for some chance that we might escape, as I had done in the sewers. That fading opportunity screams in my chest, settling as a dull fever. I am holding Desiree’s hand, almost too tightly. I refuse to let on how hopeless this all seems, though a part of me believes that she already knows. For her sake I portray ultimate confidence, if only because I owe her a measure of doubt about our fate, in the belief that she may find a bit of hope. It is nothing, really. It is a diversion from the fate.
The door closes behind us. The sound of the latch catching slices through me like a knife. It feels final. Both Desiree and I turn at the sound, eyeing it for a moment. Her shoulder is against mine, and I want to believe that reality is as malleable as memory. I want to believe that it is some long carried illness afflicting humanity since the dawn of time. Oh, that I could break free of that affliction at this moment, if for no other reason than to spare myself the pain and dread in Desiree’s face.
The room is poorly lit. A single kinetic light on the ceiling comes to life when it senses our movement. It is old and covered with layer of dust that bleeds from the sides of the bulb. The light is feeble and does little more that allows us to see one another. That light concerts with the ancient stale air of the room. A large old fashioned Sentinel is dark and lifeless on the wall above the door. Its blue glass face is shattered on one side. There is a single overturned chair in the corner that I can well imagine as been there for ages.
I pull the chair from the corner and set it down in the center of the room for Desiree. The wooden legs scrape loudly across the concrete floor. Desiree sits and throws her arms around my waist, as if it might save her from tumbling off the edge of the world. I pull her closer, soothed by her warm cheek against my stomach. She looks up at me, her eyes wanting pools waiting to be filled with hope and promise.
“Is it true,” she asks, “about the exile decree?”
I am lost for a proper answer. My heart tears itself to pieces. “Do you regret now that I came back for you?”
She looks away to the door, and then up to the broken Sentinel out of habit. “When I was in the Reclamation Center I felt so terribly alone. I thought, is this all there is; to live and to die? After I undressed and got into queue I was given a small cup of red liquid. It was sweet and syrupy, but had a bitter taste afterward. I knew it was a drug. I knew I was about to die and happily took that drug so there would be no pain. I could see the furnaces now. It was chaos, pure insanity, not like the Corporation’s illusion of efficiency before. The shouts of the men at the furnaces, the roar of the furnaces, the shuffling of a thousand bare feet. I was at the end, about to be Reclaimed when the attack began. It was bewildering, especially from the drug. They appeared from everywhere, up from the floor, from above, almost seeming to materialize from the air. Section Twenty-one was helpless at first. They were slaughtered. I thought they would free us, but then more Section Twenty-one soldiers appeared, prepared for battle.”
“They were expecting an attack,” I observe.
“There were too many,” she continues. They were shooting everyone. There was panic. Some Associates ran into the furnaces to escape. Many around me were cut down. I hid under bodies until…” Desiree buries her head in her hands and weeps. Kneeling I cradle her face and whisper softly to her tear streaked cheek.
“I love you,” I say, with only the vaguest impression of what that means.
Monday, December 7, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-eight
"Spared the furnaces,” sneers the Man from Police, one of the judges of my so-called trial. Gone are the robes he wore for the trial. He is dressed in the dark Section Twenty-one uniform, with helmet and goggles around his neck. He is weighted heavily by body armor, to the extent that his smaller frame (much smaller and weaker then the troops bred for his command) frame. A pistol sits in the holster across his body.
“You will not escape a bullet,” he says.
“What have I done?” I say, drawing Desiree behind me. “Nothing!”
“Call it maintaining the public order,” he replies. The Man from Police unsnaps the pistol and draws it from the holster. He holds it against his thigh.
“On whose authority?”
“I am the Minister of Police. I don’t need anyone’s authority.” He motions to the Reclamation Center, or what remains. “Especially after what your friends in the Low City have perpetrated.”
“I have not taken any sides in this conflict.”
He scoffs. “No one holds that luxury any longer, even if I could believe you weren’t somehow complicit.”
His finger slips over the trigger guard. There is nowhere for Desiree and I to go. We stand at the edge of the crater. Death is certain, no matter how good the Minister’s aim is. He raises the gun, aiming it at us from the hip. Slowly he pulls the slide back to chamber a round.
“But you have not heard?” I say. He pauses, lowering the weapon a little.
“Heard what?”
“The exile order.”
“Exile order?”
“From the Corporation. They have ordered that I be exiled from the city.”
“You must think me a fool,” he says. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Fair enough,” I reply, “but what sort of example will the Corporation make of a Minister who takes it upon himself to countermand a decree?”
He thinks for a moment. I know he believes it is a ruse, but it creates enough doubt that he relents.
“I will make the call. For now you enjoy a temporary stay of execution, but when I confirm what I already know I will shoot her first so that you may see her die.”
“You will not escape a bullet,” he says.
“What have I done?” I say, drawing Desiree behind me. “Nothing!”
“Call it maintaining the public order,” he replies. The Man from Police unsnaps the pistol and draws it from the holster. He holds it against his thigh.
“On whose authority?”
“I am the Minister of Police. I don’t need anyone’s authority.” He motions to the Reclamation Center, or what remains. “Especially after what your friends in the Low City have perpetrated.”
“I have not taken any sides in this conflict.”
He scoffs. “No one holds that luxury any longer, even if I could believe you weren’t somehow complicit.”
His finger slips over the trigger guard. There is nowhere for Desiree and I to go. We stand at the edge of the crater. Death is certain, no matter how good the Minister’s aim is. He raises the gun, aiming it at us from the hip. Slowly he pulls the slide back to chamber a round.
“But you have not heard?” I say. He pauses, lowering the weapon a little.
“Heard what?”
“The exile order.”
“Exile order?”
“From the Corporation. They have ordered that I be exiled from the city.”
“You must think me a fool,” he says. “I have never heard of such a thing.”
“Fair enough,” I reply, “but what sort of example will the Corporation make of a Minister who takes it upon himself to countermand a decree?”
He thinks for a moment. I know he believes it is a ruse, but it creates enough doubt that he relents.
“I will make the call. For now you enjoy a temporary stay of execution, but when I confirm what I already know I will shoot her first so that you may see her die.”
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-seven
There is nothing to do but cover Desiree with my own body. It is a feeble gesture, given the magnitude of the disaster, but I would wish for her to survive if there had to be a choice. This moment of uncertainty, this is the moment in which the miniscule nature of human existence is suddenly laid bare. It is at this moment, when I am prepared to sacrifice everything for another soul, that I feel more human than ever before.
The street buckles violently beside us, the ground and pavement are suddenly uprooted and twists towards the building and the doorway. For its part the ground beneath the building collapses. With a grunting, leveling sound the sudden shock resonates through the building. For now the structure holds as Desiree and I find ourselves in something of a protected little pocket. It leans so precariously, however, that I have little faith it will last much longer. When the worst is over I push myself from Desiree.
“Are you all right?” I ask. As I stand dust and rock cascades from my shoulders and hair.
“I think so.” Desiree looks past me towards the Reclamation Center. What she sees fills her face with a sort of disbelieving horror. She rises slowly, keeping her back to the wall. I turn as the dust and smoke clears.
My eyes go quite out of habit to the place the smoke stacks have occupied my whole life. But there is nothing there any longer, but a ghostly pillar of steadily shrinking black smoke. It is as if the pillars were pulled from around that smoke, and now unconstrained it drifts free. The Reclamation Center has been obliterated, replaced by a mammoth smoldering heat. It rises to an uneven peak from the center of a huge crater a hundred feet deep. I climb up to the street and go to the crater’s edge. I am taken aback by a powerful and pervasive silence.
Desiree joins me a moment later, pressing herself to my shoulder. A lingering glance betrays something far beyond the limits of language. Thousands are dead within that wreckage, but the magnitude is impossible to fathom. It becomes a very personal thing for that simple fact of the limits of human comprehension, fully skewing any true and just comprehension.
There I a sound behind us. The sound of many hurried footsteps tears Desiree and I from the remains of the Reclamation Center. We turn, suddenly confronted by a dozen or more Section Twenty-one troopers. They are as stoic as ever, as if this disaster bears no greater significance than their regular tasks. One of them steps forward. I recognize him instantly.
The street buckles violently beside us, the ground and pavement are suddenly uprooted and twists towards the building and the doorway. For its part the ground beneath the building collapses. With a grunting, leveling sound the sudden shock resonates through the building. For now the structure holds as Desiree and I find ourselves in something of a protected little pocket. It leans so precariously, however, that I have little faith it will last much longer. When the worst is over I push myself from Desiree.
“Are you all right?” I ask. As I stand dust and rock cascades from my shoulders and hair.
“I think so.” Desiree looks past me towards the Reclamation Center. What she sees fills her face with a sort of disbelieving horror. She rises slowly, keeping her back to the wall. I turn as the dust and smoke clears.
My eyes go quite out of habit to the place the smoke stacks have occupied my whole life. But there is nothing there any longer, but a ghostly pillar of steadily shrinking black smoke. It is as if the pillars were pulled from around that smoke, and now unconstrained it drifts free. The Reclamation Center has been obliterated, replaced by a mammoth smoldering heat. It rises to an uneven peak from the center of a huge crater a hundred feet deep. I climb up to the street and go to the crater’s edge. I am taken aback by a powerful and pervasive silence.
Desiree joins me a moment later, pressing herself to my shoulder. A lingering glance betrays something far beyond the limits of language. Thousands are dead within that wreckage, but the magnitude is impossible to fathom. It becomes a very personal thing for that simple fact of the limits of human comprehension, fully skewing any true and just comprehension.
There I a sound behind us. The sound of many hurried footsteps tears Desiree and I from the remains of the Reclamation Center. We turn, suddenly confronted by a dozen or more Section Twenty-one troopers. They are as stoic as ever, as if this disaster bears no greater significance than their regular tasks. One of them steps forward. I recognize him instantly.
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-six
The whole city seems to groan and heave, driven by a rapidly expanding thunder far beneath the earth. It builds with some unfathomable pressure, straining the earth until it can no longer be contained. All around the Reclamation Center the earthy opens like a violent concrete flower. Great gray concrete petals rise vertically before tearing themselves to pieces. A great eruption of smoke and flame carries bodies, vehicles and bodies skyward.
For a moment, amid this calamity, the Reclamation Center seems defiant. Even as the walls are swallowed in the eruption those towering smokestacks remain unbowed. They continue pouring thick black smoke into the air, oblivious to everything but their singular hideous purpose.
For a moment it seems all but certain that the rebels have squandered their chance. But then the center stack wavers and falters, like a prize fighter taking a fatal blow. It bends and dissolves in the middle with a piercing crack. In quick succession the others follow, twisting fluidly as they slip from view in pillars of smoke.
The sound, the sound! The death sounds of the Reclamation Center are as solid as a wall. Not a singular mass of sound, but a collection of sounds, of thunderous groans and murderous screeches. It sounds like some great beast being felled by a pack of ravenous and vicious wolves.
The sounds fade, echoing away through the city streets. It is replaced by the patter and hiss of brick and stone, the remains of the reclamation center falling like hail. In time that fades too, becoming a silence as deep and breathless and full as death. Dust and smoke hangs heavy as a shroud, blotting the thin cold arctic night.
For a moment, amid this calamity, the Reclamation Center seems defiant. Even as the walls are swallowed in the eruption those towering smokestacks remain unbowed. They continue pouring thick black smoke into the air, oblivious to everything but their singular hideous purpose.
For a moment it seems all but certain that the rebels have squandered their chance. But then the center stack wavers and falters, like a prize fighter taking a fatal blow. It bends and dissolves in the middle with a piercing crack. In quick succession the others follow, twisting fluidly as they slip from view in pillars of smoke.
The sound, the sound! The death sounds of the Reclamation Center are as solid as a wall. Not a singular mass of sound, but a collection of sounds, of thunderous groans and murderous screeches. It sounds like some great beast being felled by a pack of ravenous and vicious wolves.
The sounds fade, echoing away through the city streets. It is replaced by the patter and hiss of brick and stone, the remains of the reclamation center falling like hail. In time that fades too, becoming a silence as deep and breathless and full as death. Dust and smoke hangs heavy as a shroud, blotting the thin cold arctic night.
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-five
We round a corner at a run, at least as much as we can muster. I want to put the greatest distance between us and the Reclamation Center, but every step and every heart beat seems an eternity. If it is to be destroyed, and the fighting a diversion to draw in the greatest number of Section Twenty-one troops for slaughter, then I can only conclude that as the battle wanes that the end is near. The gunfire comes in wild spasms, with pauses coming longer and longer.
Desiree holds weakly to my side. If not for me her legs would not be enough to hold her. Her bare feet slip and trip as she fights ground over glass and the refuse of war. The narcotic is wearing off slowly, awakening pain from her battered and burned body. She shouts and slips from my arms, tumbling heavily to the street.
“We have to keep moving,” I draw her into my arms. Desiree presses her face into my chest.
“I can’t go any farther.”
“You must.”
“To where?”
I help her to stand again then lift her partially into my arms. There are troops around the next corner. Down another street there are still more. Section Twenty-one has sealed off the area around the Reclamation Center. Desiree and I take refuge in a deep doorway as I try to figure an escape.
“The sewers!” I exclaim, keeping my voice low to avoid attracting the troops. “We have to find a way to the sewers.”
“I can’t go any father,” Desiree gasps, slumping to the door.
I look up and down the street. We have barely gone more than a few blocks from the Reclamation Center. It rises monstrous and large at the end of the street. The entrance is crowded with Corporation troops. There is no particular urgency to their movements. In the doorway Desiree is huddled beneath the trooper’s jacket, shivering terribly.
“There has to be an entrance nearby,” I return to Desiree, rubbing her arms to warm her.
“I’m freezing,” she moans.
“We have to keep moving,” I urge, wiping dust and sweat from her face.
“Please,” she begs.
I take the trousers and boots from a dead soldier. Desiree dresses quickly, cinching the waist with a simple knot. She falls into my arms, her eyes alive with uncertainty. I know at that moment we have run out of time. Some reflective echo of the unfolding universe betrays the upheaval a moment before it happens. My gut tightens and the air freezes in my throat. Not that knowing offers any greater advantage. No king or general or messiah could confront this moment any better or any worse…
Desiree holds weakly to my side. If not for me her legs would not be enough to hold her. Her bare feet slip and trip as she fights ground over glass and the refuse of war. The narcotic is wearing off slowly, awakening pain from her battered and burned body. She shouts and slips from my arms, tumbling heavily to the street.
“We have to keep moving,” I draw her into my arms. Desiree presses her face into my chest.
“I can’t go any farther.”
“You must.”
“To where?”
I help her to stand again then lift her partially into my arms. There are troops around the next corner. Down another street there are still more. Section Twenty-one has sealed off the area around the Reclamation Center. Desiree and I take refuge in a deep doorway as I try to figure an escape.
“The sewers!” I exclaim, keeping my voice low to avoid attracting the troops. “We have to find a way to the sewers.”
“I can’t go any father,” Desiree gasps, slumping to the door.
I look up and down the street. We have barely gone more than a few blocks from the Reclamation Center. It rises monstrous and large at the end of the street. The entrance is crowded with Corporation troops. There is no particular urgency to their movements. In the doorway Desiree is huddled beneath the trooper’s jacket, shivering terribly.
“There has to be an entrance nearby,” I return to Desiree, rubbing her arms to warm her.
“I’m freezing,” she moans.
“We have to keep moving,” I urge, wiping dust and sweat from her face.
“Please,” she begs.
I take the trousers and boots from a dead soldier. Desiree dresses quickly, cinching the waist with a simple knot. She falls into my arms, her eyes alive with uncertainty. I know at that moment we have run out of time. Some reflective echo of the unfolding universe betrays the upheaval a moment before it happens. My gut tightens and the air freezes in my throat. Not that knowing offers any greater advantage. No king or general or messiah could confront this moment any better or any worse…
Friday, December 4, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-five
We round a corner at a run, at least as much as we can muster. I want to put the greatest distance between us and the Reclamation Center, but every step and every heart beat seems an eternity. If it is to be destroyed, and the fighting a diversion to draw in the greatest number of Section Twenty-one troops for slaughter, then I can only conclude that as the battle wanes that the end is near. The gunfire comes in wild spasms, with pauses coming longer and longer.
Desiree holds weakly to my side. If not for me her legs would not be enough to hold her. Her bare feet slip and trip as she fights ground over glass and the refuse of war. The narcotic is wearing off slowly, awakening pain from her battered and burned body. She shouts and slips from my arms, tumbling heavily to the street.
“We have to keep moving,” I draw her into my arms. Desiree presses her face into my chest.
“I can’t go any farther.”
“You must.”
“To where?”
I help her to stand again then lift her partially into my arms. There are troops around the next corner. Down another street there are still more. Section Twenty-one has sealed off the area around the Reclamation Center. Desiree and I take refuge in a deep doorway as I try to figure an escape.
“The sewers!” I exclaim, keeping my voice low to avoid attracting the troops. “We have to find a way to the sewers.”
“I can’t go any father,” Desiree gasps, slumping to the door.
I look up and down the street. We have barely gone more than a few blocks from the Reclamation Center. It rises monstrous and large at the end of the street. The entrance is crowded with Corporation troops. There is no particular urgency to their movements. In the doorway Desiree is huddled beneath the trooper’s jacket, shivering terribly.
“There has to be an entrance nearby,” I return to Desiree, rubbing her arms to warm her.
“I’m freezing,” she moans.
“We have to keep moving,” I urge, wiping dust and sweat from her face.
“Please,” she begs.
I take the trousers and boots from a dead soldier. Desiree dresses quickly, cinching the waist with a simple knot. She falls into my arms, her eyes alive with uncertainty. I know at that moment we have run out of time. Some reflective echo of the unfolding universe betrays the upheaval a moment before it happens. My gut tightens and the air freezes in my throat. Not that knowing offers any greater advantage. No king or general or messiah could confront this moment any better or any worse…
Desiree holds weakly to my side. If not for me her legs would not be enough to hold her. Her bare feet slip and trip as she fights ground over glass and the refuse of war. The narcotic is wearing off slowly, awakening pain from her battered and burned body. She shouts and slips from my arms, tumbling heavily to the street.
“We have to keep moving,” I draw her into my arms. Desiree presses her face into my chest.
“I can’t go any farther.”
“You must.”
“To where?”
I help her to stand again then lift her partially into my arms. There are troops around the next corner. Down another street there are still more. Section Twenty-one has sealed off the area around the Reclamation Center. Desiree and I take refuge in a deep doorway as I try to figure an escape.
“The sewers!” I exclaim, keeping my voice low to avoid attracting the troops. “We have to find a way to the sewers.”
“I can’t go any father,” Desiree gasps, slumping to the door.
I look up and down the street. We have barely gone more than a few blocks from the Reclamation Center. It rises monstrous and large at the end of the street. The entrance is crowded with Corporation troops. There is no particular urgency to their movements. In the doorway Desiree is huddled beneath the trooper’s jacket, shivering terribly.
“There has to be an entrance nearby,” I return to Desiree, rubbing her arms to warm her.
“I’m freezing,” she moans.
“We have to keep moving,” I urge, wiping dust and sweat from her face.
“Please,” she begs.
I take the trousers and boots from a dead soldier. Desiree dresses quickly, cinching the waist with a simple knot. She falls into my arms, her eyes alive with uncertainty. I know at that moment we have run out of time. Some reflective echo of the unfolding universe betrays the upheaval a moment before it happens. My gut tightens and the air freezes in my throat. Not that knowing offers any greater advantage. No king or general or messiah could confront this moment any better or any worse…
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-four
There a blistering gun battle near the Reclamation Center. It sounds like thousands of bits of glass being crushed. Dull hollow explosions punctuate the fighting, joined in awful chorus of the murdering airships on the coast. I pause in the doorway of my building and can see that parts of the city have gone unnaturally dark.
Further on I pass a naked man in a doorway. He is curled gently, an arm across his belly. His feet are bloody and there is a bullet wound through his forehead. A trickled of blood runs across his forehead and across one temple. But for that the lonesome figure appears asleep. On the next block I find a man and woman cowering and disoriented. They huddle against the wall, their faces emptied of any emotion, with only a jacket from a fallen trooper to keep them warm. At the end of the street the front of a Section Twenty-one transport has been shredded by a bomb. Flames pour from the rear compartment, consuming the troops inside, still sitting in their seats.
The scene before the Reclamation Center is far ghastlier. Bodies are piled at the wide, arched entrance. A crimson river floods into the street. Great concrete pillars to either side are chewed and pitted by shrapnel and bullets. A transport lies overturned. The bodies of Low City rebels and Corporation troops are scattered everywhere, many in deadly embrace. The continuing battle thunders from within the building.
Near the entrance I find one of the rebels still alive. I recognize her from the sewers. Kneeling I gently lift her head. Her eyes, distant and confused, find mine.
“Why did you come here?” she coughs. There is blood on her lips. More trickles across her cheek, running wet and wrm over my fingers.
“Why did you?” I ask.
She coughs heavily, bringing a wave of terrible pain that wracks her broken body. She squeezes the back of my arm tightly, and then relaxes as the pain, or the worst of it, passes.
“There was no choice,” she says, her voice fading steadily. I sweep back the hair from her tortured and perspired brow.
“Yes,” I say, simply.
She coughs again, more violent and more exhaustive this time. There is sudden alarm in her young face. Not a realization she is dying. There is no doubt about that. The bullets had all but cut her in half, enough that her legs have fallen unnaturally to one side. No, the alarm, I believe, is more a precise understanding of just how little time remains her.
“You have to go, get away from here,” she says. “There isn’t much time.”
As if to underscore the urgency in her voice the earth shudders powerfully. Across the city a giant tower collapses into a cloud of dust and smoke and flame.
She looks to the roar following a moment later. I know already this is the fate about to befall the Reclamation Center. Now that knowledge grows to an urgency. It thunders away in my chest.
Her expression transforms to something puzzling and curious. And for a moment we are an island apart from the battle. It is not something dark or reflective of the cruelty done her body. Nor is it filtered through some ultimate betrayal of personal dreams or aspirations. It is apart from those things, as if the body and its desires are inconsequential. It comes to her like a recognition, like an idea just occurring to her. She reaches up and touches my cheek.
“You’ve come for…” she says. “What’s the word? I can’t think of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Help me to say it.”
“Love?”
“Yes,” she says at hardly a whisper as her body goes limp. She almost smiles, and seems lifted by the word; by a single ancient word. The light fades from her eyes. She gives a final sigh and manages the word one last time. “Love.”
THE LAST MAN
Part Thirty-four
The battle in the Reclamation Center builds to a deafening crescendo. Fate screams in my ear, warning me that death hunts me every moment. It’s shrill fingers would drag me away to cower someplace. Intellect is of limited value. It favors all too often the weaker elements of my heart. What is death? Why should I care, rushing headlong through smoke, climbing over bodies, pressing through fleeing Associates? I am a man with purpose, and in that purpose death is only a minor consideration. The fear that accompanies the threat of death is merely a hindrance.
The great hall is a confusion of images and moments. Near the furnaces the main force of Low City rebels is cornered and under siege in a frantic and desperate hand to hand struggle. Associates, rebels and soldiers alike throw themselves into the flames, animated and dejected fully by the all consuming violence around them. There are masses of bodies, the terrified and hopeless, clustered together so tightly one might believe they are fused. Others pass as a blur as they rush headlong from the fighting. Smoke fills the tragic hall. Bullets chop the air. Cries and moans arise each time one finds a victim.
I realize it is almost impossible to find Desiree here, even if she remains alive. The nearer the furnaces the fewer living souls I find, and my hopelessness rises in direct proportion. There is a terrible grinding and cracking sound as one of the furnaces slips open, its flames curling towards the ceiling hundreds of feet in the air. It boils out to set alight dozens of fighters still locked in combat, like some great amber flood. The battle continues unabated, those at the front unaware comrades and enemies behind have been consumed, and those being consumed unwilling to abandon the fight before the very moment of death.
Even here, some distance away, the heat drives me back. I shield myself with an arm and turn away, tripping and sprawling across the blood-drenched floor among a confusion of limbs. Behind me the furnace dissolves in a roiling ball of flame, swallowing the fighting there. It continues elsewhere, smaller battles, but every bit as bitter and unrelenting everywhere in the hall.
There is a woman beside me, dead from a terrific head wound. The hair covers her face completely. My blood runs cold at the prospect that it could be Desiree. I reach out to brush the hair from her face. My fingers tremble, hovering near her face. Just then hands grab my tunic and turn me over. My instinct is to fight, but I hesitate.
“Desiree!” I exclaim.
She is nude and covered with blood. It drips from her fingers and covers one hip. Desiree’s hair is singed on one side. The side of her body is burned red, and beginning to blister on her shoulder and arm. I can only surmise that she was close to Reclamation when the fighting broke out. I pull her to the wall and help to cover her with a fallen trooper’s jacket. She is trembling terribly and seems disoriented and dulled. No doubt the lingering affects of the drug administered before being thrown into the furnaces.
“You’re hurt?” I shout above the din. Even then I can hardly be heard. She stares at me blankly, and shrugs.
The rebels are nearly finished. More troops pour into the hall until the rebels, those who are still alive, are hopelessly outnumbered. Still they fight on, even taunting and encouraging the Corporation troops. In the confusion Desiree and I slip from the hall into the street.
Further on I pass a naked man in a doorway. He is curled gently, an arm across his belly. His feet are bloody and there is a bullet wound through his forehead. A trickled of blood runs across his forehead and across one temple. But for that the lonesome figure appears asleep. On the next block I find a man and woman cowering and disoriented. They huddle against the wall, their faces emptied of any emotion, with only a jacket from a fallen trooper to keep them warm. At the end of the street the front of a Section Twenty-one transport has been shredded by a bomb. Flames pour from the rear compartment, consuming the troops inside, still sitting in their seats.
The scene before the Reclamation Center is far ghastlier. Bodies are piled at the wide, arched entrance. A crimson river floods into the street. Great concrete pillars to either side are chewed and pitted by shrapnel and bullets. A transport lies overturned. The bodies of Low City rebels and Corporation troops are scattered everywhere, many in deadly embrace. The continuing battle thunders from within the building.
Near the entrance I find one of the rebels still alive. I recognize her from the sewers. Kneeling I gently lift her head. Her eyes, distant and confused, find mine.
“Why did you come here?” she coughs. There is blood on her lips. More trickles across her cheek, running wet and wrm over my fingers.
“Why did you?” I ask.
She coughs heavily, bringing a wave of terrible pain that wracks her broken body. She squeezes the back of my arm tightly, and then relaxes as the pain, or the worst of it, passes.
“There was no choice,” she says, her voice fading steadily. I sweep back the hair from her tortured and perspired brow.
“Yes,” I say, simply.
She coughs again, more violent and more exhaustive this time. There is sudden alarm in her young face. Not a realization she is dying. There is no doubt about that. The bullets had all but cut her in half, enough that her legs have fallen unnaturally to one side. No, the alarm, I believe, is more a precise understanding of just how little time remains her.
“You have to go, get away from here,” she says. “There isn’t much time.”
As if to underscore the urgency in her voice the earth shudders powerfully. Across the city a giant tower collapses into a cloud of dust and smoke and flame.
She looks to the roar following a moment later. I know already this is the fate about to befall the Reclamation Center. Now that knowledge grows to an urgency. It thunders away in my chest.
Her expression transforms to something puzzling and curious. And for a moment we are an island apart from the battle. It is not something dark or reflective of the cruelty done her body. Nor is it filtered through some ultimate betrayal of personal dreams or aspirations. It is apart from those things, as if the body and its desires are inconsequential. It comes to her like a recognition, like an idea just occurring to her. She reaches up and touches my cheek.
“You’ve come for…” she says. “What’s the word? I can’t think of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Help me to say it.”
“Love?”
“Yes,” she says at hardly a whisper as her body goes limp. She almost smiles, and seems lifted by the word; by a single ancient word. The light fades from her eyes. She gives a final sigh and manages the word one last time. “Love.”
THE LAST MAN
Part Thirty-four
The battle in the Reclamation Center builds to a deafening crescendo. Fate screams in my ear, warning me that death hunts me every moment. It’s shrill fingers would drag me away to cower someplace. Intellect is of limited value. It favors all too often the weaker elements of my heart. What is death? Why should I care, rushing headlong through smoke, climbing over bodies, pressing through fleeing Associates? I am a man with purpose, and in that purpose death is only a minor consideration. The fear that accompanies the threat of death is merely a hindrance.
The great hall is a confusion of images and moments. Near the furnaces the main force of Low City rebels is cornered and under siege in a frantic and desperate hand to hand struggle. Associates, rebels and soldiers alike throw themselves into the flames, animated and dejected fully by the all consuming violence around them. There are masses of bodies, the terrified and hopeless, clustered together so tightly one might believe they are fused. Others pass as a blur as they rush headlong from the fighting. Smoke fills the tragic hall. Bullets chop the air. Cries and moans arise each time one finds a victim.
I realize it is almost impossible to find Desiree here, even if she remains alive. The nearer the furnaces the fewer living souls I find, and my hopelessness rises in direct proportion. There is a terrible grinding and cracking sound as one of the furnaces slips open, its flames curling towards the ceiling hundreds of feet in the air. It boils out to set alight dozens of fighters still locked in combat, like some great amber flood. The battle continues unabated, those at the front unaware comrades and enemies behind have been consumed, and those being consumed unwilling to abandon the fight before the very moment of death.
Even here, some distance away, the heat drives me back. I shield myself with an arm and turn away, tripping and sprawling across the blood-drenched floor among a confusion of limbs. Behind me the furnace dissolves in a roiling ball of flame, swallowing the fighting there. It continues elsewhere, smaller battles, but every bit as bitter and unrelenting everywhere in the hall.
There is a woman beside me, dead from a terrific head wound. The hair covers her face completely. My blood runs cold at the prospect that it could be Desiree. I reach out to brush the hair from her face. My fingers tremble, hovering near her face. Just then hands grab my tunic and turn me over. My instinct is to fight, but I hesitate.
“Desiree!” I exclaim.
She is nude and covered with blood. It drips from her fingers and covers one hip. Desiree’s hair is singed on one side. The side of her body is burned red, and beginning to blister on her shoulder and arm. I can only surmise that she was close to Reclamation when the fighting broke out. I pull her to the wall and help to cover her with a fallen trooper’s jacket. She is trembling terribly and seems disoriented and dulled. No doubt the lingering affects of the drug administered before being thrown into the furnaces.
“You’re hurt?” I shout above the din. Even then I can hardly be heard. She stares at me blankly, and shrugs.
The rebels are nearly finished. More troops pour into the hall until the rebels, those who are still alive, are hopelessly outnumbered. Still they fight on, even taunting and encouraging the Corporation troops. In the confusion Desiree and I slip from the hall into the street.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-three
There a blistering gun battle near the Reclamation Center. It sounds like thousands of bits of glass being crushed. Dull hollow explosions punctuate the fighting, joined in awful chorus of the murdering airships on the coast. I pause in the doorway of my building and can see that parts of the city have gone unnaturally dark.
Further on I pass a naked man in a doorway. He is curled gently, an arm across his belly. His feet are bloody and there is a bullet wound through his forehead. A trickled of blood runs across his forehead and across one temple. But for that the lonesome figure appears asleep. On the next block I find a man and woman cowering and disoriented. They huddle against the wall, their faces emptied of any emotion, with only a jacket from a fallen trooper to keep them warm. At the end of the street the front of a Section Twenty-one transport has been shredded by a bomb. Flames pour from the rear compartment, consuming the troops inside, still sitting in their seats.
The scene before the Reclamation Center is far ghastlier. Bodies are piled at the wide, arched entrance. A crimson river floods into the street. Great concrete pillars to either side are chewed and pitted by shrapnel and bullets. A transport lies overturned. The bodies of Low City rebels and Corporation troops are scattered everywhere, many in deadly embrace. The continuing battle thunders from within the building.
Near the entrance I find one of the rebels still alive. I recognize her from the sewers. Kneeling I gently lift her head. Her eyes, distant and confused, find mine.
“Why did you come here?” she coughs. There is blood on her lips. More trickles across her cheek, running wet and wrm over my fingers.
“Why did you?” I ask.
She coughs heavily, bringing a wave of terrible pain that wracks her broken body. She squeezes the back of my arm tightly, and then relaxes as the pain, or the worst of it, passes.
“There was no choice,” she says, her voice fading steadily. I sweep back the hair from her tortured and perspired brow.
“Yes,” I say, simply.
She coughs again, more violent and more exhaustive this time. There is sudden alarm in her young face. Not a realization she is dying. There is no doubt about that. The bullets had all but cut her in half, enough that her legs have fallen unnaturally to one side. No, the alarm, I believe, is more a precise understanding of just how little time remains her.
“You have to go, get away from here,” she says. “There isn’t much time.”
As if to underscore the urgency in her voice the earth shudders powerfully. Across the city a giant tower collapses into a cloud of dust and smoke and flame.
She looks to the roar following a moment later. I know already this is the fate about to befall the Reclamation Center. Now that knowledge grows to an urgency. It thunders away in my chest.
Her expression transforms to something puzzling and curious. And for a moment we are an island apart from the battle. It is not something dark or reflective of the cruelty done her body. Nor is it filtered through some ultimate betrayal of personal dreams or aspirations. It is apart from those things, as if the body and its desires are inconsequential. It comes to her like a recognition, like an idea just occurring to her. She reaches up and touches my cheek.
“You’ve come for…” she says. “What’s the word? I can’t think of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Help me to say it.”
“Love?”
“Yes,” she says at hardly a whisper as her body goes limp. She almost smiles, and seems lifted by the word; by a single ancient word. The light fades from her eyes. She gives a final sigh and manages the word one last time. “Love.”
Further on I pass a naked man in a doorway. He is curled gently, an arm across his belly. His feet are bloody and there is a bullet wound through his forehead. A trickled of blood runs across his forehead and across one temple. But for that the lonesome figure appears asleep. On the next block I find a man and woman cowering and disoriented. They huddle against the wall, their faces emptied of any emotion, with only a jacket from a fallen trooper to keep them warm. At the end of the street the front of a Section Twenty-one transport has been shredded by a bomb. Flames pour from the rear compartment, consuming the troops inside, still sitting in their seats.
The scene before the Reclamation Center is far ghastlier. Bodies are piled at the wide, arched entrance. A crimson river floods into the street. Great concrete pillars to either side are chewed and pitted by shrapnel and bullets. A transport lies overturned. The bodies of Low City rebels and Corporation troops are scattered everywhere, many in deadly embrace. The continuing battle thunders from within the building.
Near the entrance I find one of the rebels still alive. I recognize her from the sewers. Kneeling I gently lift her head. Her eyes, distant and confused, find mine.
“Why did you come here?” she coughs. There is blood on her lips. More trickles across her cheek, running wet and wrm over my fingers.
“Why did you?” I ask.
She coughs heavily, bringing a wave of terrible pain that wracks her broken body. She squeezes the back of my arm tightly, and then relaxes as the pain, or the worst of it, passes.
“There was no choice,” she says, her voice fading steadily. I sweep back the hair from her tortured and perspired brow.
“Yes,” I say, simply.
She coughs again, more violent and more exhaustive this time. There is sudden alarm in her young face. Not a realization she is dying. There is no doubt about that. The bullets had all but cut her in half, enough that her legs have fallen unnaturally to one side. No, the alarm, I believe, is more a precise understanding of just how little time remains her.
“You have to go, get away from here,” she says. “There isn’t much time.”
As if to underscore the urgency in her voice the earth shudders powerfully. Across the city a giant tower collapses into a cloud of dust and smoke and flame.
She looks to the roar following a moment later. I know already this is the fate about to befall the Reclamation Center. Now that knowledge grows to an urgency. It thunders away in my chest.
Her expression transforms to something puzzling and curious. And for a moment we are an island apart from the battle. It is not something dark or reflective of the cruelty done her body. Nor is it filtered through some ultimate betrayal of personal dreams or aspirations. It is apart from those things, as if the body and its desires are inconsequential. It comes to her like a recognition, like an idea just occurring to her. She reaches up and touches my cheek.
“You’ve come for…” she says. “What’s the word? I can’t think of it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Help me to say it.”
“Love?”
“Yes,” she says at hardly a whisper as her body goes limp. She almost smiles, and seems lifted by the word; by a single ancient word. The light fades from her eyes. She gives a final sigh and manages the word one last time. “Love.”
Monday, November 30, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty-two
There are undeniable risks. Perhaps I will fail, be captured by Section Twenty-one, or will be killed in the impending battle between the Corporation and the Low City. All those possibilities seem inconsequential now. Those other fates seem so small compared with the prospect of losing her. If that qualifies as that relic called love then so be it! Perhaps I am following a fool’s dream. What is the alternative? A man fails to dare his dreams is a heretic to his own ideology.
I am not so eager to say goodbye to the young woman. Something in her face causes me to believe she would feel the same. A face reflects the sins of a life, and hers was innocent and pure. There is a simple wisdom that, even now, lingers.
Rising slowly I glance up at the sea wall and the city stretching along the coast. I look down upon the girl then reach down to cover her face. There are easily hundreds dead nearby and scattered along the shoreline. Many thousands more are sure to follow, but it is her face that becomes the symbol of this tragedy. A quiet mournful moan escapes my lips. I turn and start for the archives.
The city is deathly still. The battle in the sewers seems to have abated or paused, but there is a tension to the air. The shadows are dramatic, swathing the street in deep angular shadows, where the air is much colder. A Sentinel on the corner is dark, which is a strange thing. Slipping from doorway to doorway along empty streets, scurrying across channels of daylight I find every Sentinel dark. Two Section Twenty-one transports roar past. I hide in a doorway until they are gone, and make my way quickly to the flat and Desiree.
The door to my flat is wide open. The white sheet from the bed lies at the door, and I know instantly. Inside a chair is overturned in the center of the room. Her shoes remain neatly beside the door. On the table is a small slip of paper. It only confirms what I already know.
MANDATE FOR RECLAMATION
DESIREE 664212
REPORT IMMEDIATELY
I am certain she did not report voluntarily. Section Twenty-one came for her immediately as a means of getting at me. She struggled, which tells me waited and hoped I would return. The question is how long ago they took her. Whether it was minutes or hours ago is impossible to say.
I fall against the window, certain I will die without her. The glass cools my forehead. Misty white clouds sweep low over the turquoise sea. In gaps and moments I can see the ruins, seeming more distant than ever. From the corner of my eye I spy a flash of orange near the Reclamation Center. A boiling mushroom cloud of smoke rises into the air. Raging fires throw their wildly dancing light across the broad brick face of the Reclamation Center. Farther up the coast Corporation airships dart madly, pouring rockets and death upon the refugees fleeing the Low City.
I am not so eager to say goodbye to the young woman. Something in her face causes me to believe she would feel the same. A face reflects the sins of a life, and hers was innocent and pure. There is a simple wisdom that, even now, lingers.
Rising slowly I glance up at the sea wall and the city stretching along the coast. I look down upon the girl then reach down to cover her face. There are easily hundreds dead nearby and scattered along the shoreline. Many thousands more are sure to follow, but it is her face that becomes the symbol of this tragedy. A quiet mournful moan escapes my lips. I turn and start for the archives.
The city is deathly still. The battle in the sewers seems to have abated or paused, but there is a tension to the air. The shadows are dramatic, swathing the street in deep angular shadows, where the air is much colder. A Sentinel on the corner is dark, which is a strange thing. Slipping from doorway to doorway along empty streets, scurrying across channels of daylight I find every Sentinel dark. Two Section Twenty-one transports roar past. I hide in a doorway until they are gone, and make my way quickly to the flat and Desiree.
The door to my flat is wide open. The white sheet from the bed lies at the door, and I know instantly. Inside a chair is overturned in the center of the room. Her shoes remain neatly beside the door. On the table is a small slip of paper. It only confirms what I already know.
MANDATE FOR RECLAMATION
DESIREE 664212
REPORT IMMEDIATELY
I am certain she did not report voluntarily. Section Twenty-one came for her immediately as a means of getting at me. She struggled, which tells me waited and hoped I would return. The question is how long ago they took her. Whether it was minutes or hours ago is impossible to say.
I fall against the window, certain I will die without her. The glass cools my forehead. Misty white clouds sweep low over the turquoise sea. In gaps and moments I can see the ruins, seeming more distant than ever. From the corner of my eye I spy a flash of orange near the Reclamation Center. A boiling mushroom cloud of smoke rises into the air. Raging fires throw their wildly dancing light across the broad brick face of the Reclamation Center. Farther up the coast Corporation airships dart madly, pouring rockets and death upon the refugees fleeing the Low City.
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty_one
I am momentarily alone among the dead and dying. What became of the Rebel Leader is only a guess. As the battle erupted she was spirited away by several bodyguards. Perhaps she lies among the scattered dead. If true I can only imagine if that will stop the attack against the Reclamation Center. Perhaps it will only interrupt the attack, or maybe her followers will continue the work in her name. Who can say?
The moment feels tentative. This chance at freedom feels fleeting, I can feel it constricting rapidly to trap me. But I have this moment, and I will be damned that I will have it taken from me.
I am decided. I have decided, as I pick my way through the sewers back towards the beach, John Brown and the others. I will escape the city and find some way to reach the ruins. I want no part of this war and no part of the Corporation. Comes a time when a body must decide for itself, for its own good and for its need. I am decided, and freedom is the course I have decided upon.
There is fighting on the beach as well. It comes sudden and shocking, with screams and cries filling those rare gaps in the shooting. The sounds hold a different character than the battle behind me. It feels crueler and malicious. It feels like a crime. I wait until the shooting has ended before continuing.
When I reach the sewer’s end I pause, still keeping to the shadows. The bite of spent gunpowder fills the air, and stings at my eyes and throat. The troops have moved off. Smoke still hangs in ghastly gray shrouds. It scatters the blood red sunset into lazily drifting shafts that fall upon countless dead scattered and heaped upon the beach. Hardly the scene of a battle, this was murder, pure and simple.
Doubtless this was revenge for the commander and his troops, whose bodies would brazenly have been laid out in the archive as a message to others. And so Section Twenty-one and the Corporation decided on a punishing course, but this carnage only predicts retribution from the Low City; the next link in an endless chain. Such is the path when vengeance masquerading as justice becomes the final motivation.
The dead are not even scattered, as if they had attempted some defense, or failing that, an escape. The bodies are piled near posts or where parents had fallen on children in a vain attempt at protection. Skulls are blasted open, faces shot away, limbs shattered, and bodies torn open. The stink of ripped innards fills the air already. Other victims were trapped at the shoreline before being cut down.
I run to the water’s edge, climbing over rocks and several bodies to reach the old row boat I had seen earlier. A young woman lies in the boat. Her lovely light brown face is turned skyward, as if she has merely fallen back in gentle repose to ponder the heavens. Her auburn eyes are open, but dull and lifeless. One arm is outstretched towards the bow of the boat. The other lies across her forehead. Long straight black hair is splayed in all directions. The poor woman’s feet dangle over the side of the boat, hovering just above the sand. One crude rubber sandal is missing. A bullet has pierced her body just above the left breast. There is little blood, but for a smudge across her cheek.
Strange, I think, gently lifting her into my arms, that lifeless as she is I still find a connection to her. Lifeless as she is I am alternately mournful, curious and afraid. I might easily believe she is used up, that death is nothing more than a sudden cessation of a vast and incredibly complex electro-chemical equation. As I carry her up the beach I am haunted that there must be something more. It becomes a matter beyond science and mere logic. Whether that portends something outside this world or is a product of my ego I cannot say for sure. In that gap I find room and cause for speculation and (dare I resurrect an ancient word) faith. Logic of course, tells me otherwise, but the simple fact that I treat her body with such gentleness challenges that notion completely.
There is something in her face that reminds me of Desiree. I place her gently upon the soft sand in a sheltered part of the beach. Here she is protected on all sides by rocks, and separated from the brutality beyond. It seems fitting given the peace upon her face.
Wetting my thumb, I smudge away the dried blood upon her cheek. Near the boat I find a crumpled cloak. It covers a bundle of food and a jug of tea. I place them in the boat and carry the cloak back to the girl’s body.
I wrap her carefully, as if she had laid down for a nap. Her face is left exposed, at least for now. With both hands cupped I cover the ends with sand and stones to secure the blanket in place. With that I close her eyes and sit back, looking out across the sea now stilled in a lessening wind. At that, engulfed in silence, thoughts rise like a storm.
I sigh deeply. It is at once a cleansing and sorrowful breath. And my thoughts return to Desiree. It occurs to me that a man alone upon the sea has infinite directions, but no true purpose. Desiree, I decide gives me purpose, will the ruins offer only direction. These things I want are all too feeble without her. Want without purpose is merely desire, and desire can never quench the soul. At the end of all these thoughts I come to a resolution, and that is to convince Desiree to come with me.
The moment feels tentative. This chance at freedom feels fleeting, I can feel it constricting rapidly to trap me. But I have this moment, and I will be damned that I will have it taken from me.
I am decided. I have decided, as I pick my way through the sewers back towards the beach, John Brown and the others. I will escape the city and find some way to reach the ruins. I want no part of this war and no part of the Corporation. Comes a time when a body must decide for itself, for its own good and for its need. I am decided, and freedom is the course I have decided upon.
There is fighting on the beach as well. It comes sudden and shocking, with screams and cries filling those rare gaps in the shooting. The sounds hold a different character than the battle behind me. It feels crueler and malicious. It feels like a crime. I wait until the shooting has ended before continuing.
When I reach the sewer’s end I pause, still keeping to the shadows. The bite of spent gunpowder fills the air, and stings at my eyes and throat. The troops have moved off. Smoke still hangs in ghastly gray shrouds. It scatters the blood red sunset into lazily drifting shafts that fall upon countless dead scattered and heaped upon the beach. Hardly the scene of a battle, this was murder, pure and simple.
Doubtless this was revenge for the commander and his troops, whose bodies would brazenly have been laid out in the archive as a message to others. And so Section Twenty-one and the Corporation decided on a punishing course, but this carnage only predicts retribution from the Low City; the next link in an endless chain. Such is the path when vengeance masquerading as justice becomes the final motivation.
The dead are not even scattered, as if they had attempted some defense, or failing that, an escape. The bodies are piled near posts or where parents had fallen on children in a vain attempt at protection. Skulls are blasted open, faces shot away, limbs shattered, and bodies torn open. The stink of ripped innards fills the air already. Other victims were trapped at the shoreline before being cut down.
I run to the water’s edge, climbing over rocks and several bodies to reach the old row boat I had seen earlier. A young woman lies in the boat. Her lovely light brown face is turned skyward, as if she has merely fallen back in gentle repose to ponder the heavens. Her auburn eyes are open, but dull and lifeless. One arm is outstretched towards the bow of the boat. The other lies across her forehead. Long straight black hair is splayed in all directions. The poor woman’s feet dangle over the side of the boat, hovering just above the sand. One crude rubber sandal is missing. A bullet has pierced her body just above the left breast. There is little blood, but for a smudge across her cheek.
Strange, I think, gently lifting her into my arms, that lifeless as she is I still find a connection to her. Lifeless as she is I am alternately mournful, curious and afraid. I might easily believe she is used up, that death is nothing more than a sudden cessation of a vast and incredibly complex electro-chemical equation. As I carry her up the beach I am haunted that there must be something more. It becomes a matter beyond science and mere logic. Whether that portends something outside this world or is a product of my ego I cannot say for sure. In that gap I find room and cause for speculation and (dare I resurrect an ancient word) faith. Logic of course, tells me otherwise, but the simple fact that I treat her body with such gentleness challenges that notion completely.
There is something in her face that reminds me of Desiree. I place her gently upon the soft sand in a sheltered part of the beach. Here she is protected on all sides by rocks, and separated from the brutality beyond. It seems fitting given the peace upon her face.
Wetting my thumb, I smudge away the dried blood upon her cheek. Near the boat I find a crumpled cloak. It covers a bundle of food and a jug of tea. I place them in the boat and carry the cloak back to the girl’s body.
I wrap her carefully, as if she had laid down for a nap. Her face is left exposed, at least for now. With both hands cupped I cover the ends with sand and stones to secure the blanket in place. With that I close her eyes and sit back, looking out across the sea now stilled in a lessening wind. At that, engulfed in silence, thoughts rise like a storm.
I sigh deeply. It is at once a cleansing and sorrowful breath. And my thoughts return to Desiree. It occurs to me that a man alone upon the sea has infinite directions, but no true purpose. Desiree, I decide gives me purpose, will the ruins offer only direction. These things I want are all too feeble without her. Want without purpose is merely desire, and desire can never quench the soul. At the end of all these thoughts I come to a resolution, and that is to convince Desiree to come with me.
Friday, November 27, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Thirty
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” My betrayal is carved into the Rebel leader’s expression. She is not Bethune any longer. She cannot be, for with her crimes and short-sightedness the Rebel Leader is the antithesis of Bethune.
I am held against the wall by two of her bodyguards. There is a knife blade at my throat. It presses into the flesh enough that an errant move by either of us would cause it to pierce the flesh. I weigh the answer to her question carefully, knowing that an errant word could be far deadlier than an unguarded movement. Still I cannot play the fool, even now and in this precarious position.
“You’ll address one atrocity with another?” I accuse.
“You have seen their crimes. The Reclamation System is the backbone of the Corporation’s control and power. In one blow we strike at Section Twenty-one and martyr our enslaved comrades.”
“And thousands of Innocent Associates?”
“They are already dead. They gave themselves to the Corporation.”
“They were born into it.”
“I am fighting for the future.”
“And this accomplishes that goal?”
“This will shake the Corporation to its core!”
Three thunderous explosions shatter the sewers in quick succession. Glowing chunks of shrapnel tear at the sewer walls around me. A sudden fusillade of bullets rips the air like murderous hail, cutting down a number of the fighters nearby.
Suddenly Section Twenty-one fighters are everywhere in the sewers. In the darkness their incessant muzzle flashes capture images of unspeakable carnage, and at first their organized assault all but overwhelms the rebels. They advance steadily, pouring fire into their enemy, but in the darkness they are nothing against the smaller and fiercer rebels. The trooper’s cries for retreat or screams of agony are deafening as they are cut to pieces.
Within minutes the fighting all but ends. The moans of the wounded and dying are punctuated by scattered shots, or brief and distant fusillades. The battle is far from over. The rebels caught Section Twenty-one by surprise, but there can be little doubt they will return, wielding its vengeance and might against their shadowy enemy.
I am held against the wall by two of her bodyguards. There is a knife blade at my throat. It presses into the flesh enough that an errant move by either of us would cause it to pierce the flesh. I weigh the answer to her question carefully, knowing that an errant word could be far deadlier than an unguarded movement. Still I cannot play the fool, even now and in this precarious position.
“You’ll address one atrocity with another?” I accuse.
“You have seen their crimes. The Reclamation System is the backbone of the Corporation’s control and power. In one blow we strike at Section Twenty-one and martyr our enslaved comrades.”
“And thousands of Innocent Associates?”
“They are already dead. They gave themselves to the Corporation.”
“They were born into it.”
“I am fighting for the future.”
“And this accomplishes that goal?”
“This will shake the Corporation to its core!”
Three thunderous explosions shatter the sewers in quick succession. Glowing chunks of shrapnel tear at the sewer walls around me. A sudden fusillade of bullets rips the air like murderous hail, cutting down a number of the fighters nearby.
Suddenly Section Twenty-one fighters are everywhere in the sewers. In the darkness their incessant muzzle flashes capture images of unspeakable carnage, and at first their organized assault all but overwhelms the rebels. They advance steadily, pouring fire into their enemy, but in the darkness they are nothing against the smaller and fiercer rebels. The trooper’s cries for retreat or screams of agony are deafening as they are cut to pieces.
Within minutes the fighting all but ends. The moans of the wounded and dying are punctuated by scattered shots, or brief and distant fusillades. The battle is far from over. The rebels caught Section Twenty-one by surprise, but there can be little doubt they will return, wielding its vengeance and might against their shadowy enemy.
THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-nine
In short order everyone is on the move. I am not bound, rather by oversight or otherwise. Not that it matters. The woman who guards me holds a captured Section Twenty-one rifle at the ready. She is young, with attractive Asian features, but the seriousness of her expression and the confidence with which she carries the weapon leaves little doubt about her determination.
I am better now. I know the sewers better than before, not much better but well enough to have an idea the direction we are moving. The Low City rebel leader now commands a force of more than a hundred strung single file through the sewers. The water and filth has deepened, rising nearly to our knees at times. It runs cold and swift, the chaotic currents underneath those black waters making our progress all the more treacherous. I cannot move my thoughts from the ruins, and the belief that, at the end of all this, I will never reach them. Indeed, in this place, I feel farther away from the world, let alone the ruins. That realization is worth than death.
At every junction I weigh my chances at escape. The guard ahead of me is more concerned of a surprise attack or an ambush by Section Twenty-one than for me. Behind me the guard helps a comrade with a heavy bundle of supplies. They have fallen back quite a distance. In the darkness they are barely visible at all. I could slip away down one of the many intersecting passages, but they are even smaller and narrower. I am outclassed, untested and out of place here. They would recapture or kill me before I managed to get very far. Still my mind races, palms tingle and my heart swells for even the slightest opportunity.
I can smell the Reclamation Center now. I can tasting the burning of bodies and feel the thundering calamity of the furnaces reverberating through the walls and into my soul. Time is running away from me with every step, running away from me like a pugnacious child. The reluctant clock hand drags me through each excruciating moment despite my failing will. I am fighting it at every step, and come grudgingly to the understanding that I am the final agent of the hope I seek.
At a junction I spot a portal to the city above. Gray light falls in a heavy shaft, illuminating a circular patch of churning brown water. There is something more, the blue glow of a Sentinel. It is high and out of sight, but there is no mistaking that light. I recall John Brown, the dog carcass and the rats, and realize this might prove my last opportunity.
Footing is hardly a certainty. There are hidden straps and obstacles with nearly every sloshing step. I can only guess at my chances for reaching the portal, but I know full well my chances if I fail an attempt. In an instant I am splashing, slipping and clawing towards that pale shaft of daylight.
I can hear others behind me, giving chase. Bethune’s fighters, move easier through the muck and refuse. Foolish to chance a look backwards, but the flash of a knife blade drives me forward. I know now that I will die here, my body left to rot and be consumed in this sewer. I am not sad for that realization. I have chosen this path, however, and I am determined to see it through to the end.
I reach the light first, standing tall and straight. The guards stop short, backing away from the light and Sentinel, as if I am standing at the center of a flame. I turn to face them, my arms outstretched in some mechanical gesture that I am unarmed. They could kill me yet. By their expressions and the way they hold their weapons that it still undecided. But they know. They know it is too late, and killing me now would be little more than an act of revenge. Sentinel has already read my thoughts fully. The Corporation knows everything now. It knows of the attack on the Reclamation Center, and it knows Bethune’s true identity.
I am better now. I know the sewers better than before, not much better but well enough to have an idea the direction we are moving. The Low City rebel leader now commands a force of more than a hundred strung single file through the sewers. The water and filth has deepened, rising nearly to our knees at times. It runs cold and swift, the chaotic currents underneath those black waters making our progress all the more treacherous. I cannot move my thoughts from the ruins, and the belief that, at the end of all this, I will never reach them. Indeed, in this place, I feel farther away from the world, let alone the ruins. That realization is worth than death.
At every junction I weigh my chances at escape. The guard ahead of me is more concerned of a surprise attack or an ambush by Section Twenty-one than for me. Behind me the guard helps a comrade with a heavy bundle of supplies. They have fallen back quite a distance. In the darkness they are barely visible at all. I could slip away down one of the many intersecting passages, but they are even smaller and narrower. I am outclassed, untested and out of place here. They would recapture or kill me before I managed to get very far. Still my mind races, palms tingle and my heart swells for even the slightest opportunity.
I can smell the Reclamation Center now. I can tasting the burning of bodies and feel the thundering calamity of the furnaces reverberating through the walls and into my soul. Time is running away from me with every step, running away from me like a pugnacious child. The reluctant clock hand drags me through each excruciating moment despite my failing will. I am fighting it at every step, and come grudgingly to the understanding that I am the final agent of the hope I seek.
At a junction I spot a portal to the city above. Gray light falls in a heavy shaft, illuminating a circular patch of churning brown water. There is something more, the blue glow of a Sentinel. It is high and out of sight, but there is no mistaking that light. I recall John Brown, the dog carcass and the rats, and realize this might prove my last opportunity.
Footing is hardly a certainty. There are hidden straps and obstacles with nearly every sloshing step. I can only guess at my chances for reaching the portal, but I know full well my chances if I fail an attempt. In an instant I am splashing, slipping and clawing towards that pale shaft of daylight.
I can hear others behind me, giving chase. Bethune’s fighters, move easier through the muck and refuse. Foolish to chance a look backwards, but the flash of a knife blade drives me forward. I know now that I will die here, my body left to rot and be consumed in this sewer. I am not sad for that realization. I have chosen this path, however, and I am determined to see it through to the end.
I reach the light first, standing tall and straight. The guards stop short, backing away from the light and Sentinel, as if I am standing at the center of a flame. I turn to face them, my arms outstretched in some mechanical gesture that I am unarmed. They could kill me yet. By their expressions and the way they hold their weapons that it still undecided. But they know. They know it is too late, and killing me now would be little more than an act of revenge. Sentinel has already read my thoughts fully. The Corporation knows everything now. It knows of the attack on the Reclamation Center, and it knows Bethune’s true identity.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
THE LAST MAN:Part Twenty-eight
“I cannot allow you to leave,” she says, turning back to the last of her journals and notes.
“What am I to you? You’ve already seen how I protected you and the others from Sentinel and Section Twenty-one.”
“I have,” she nods, weighing the last of her things in her hands. “For that I will protect you as long as I am able, but at this moment allowing you to leave is a risk I cannot accept.”
“If you fear I will return to the city…I will take my chances with the refugees on the coast.”
“I am sorry.” She tosses the last of her things into the fire. She motions to the guards. “Bring him, we are going to the Reclamation Center.”
“You’re going to liberate the Reclamation center?” I asked, alarmed.
“Liberation?” she replies, with not a small amount of mockery. “There is no liberation. I will strike them at the heart of their hypocrisy. It will be historic, dear friend, and you shall be there to watch firsthand.”
“What of the innocents?”
“There are no innocents. This is war! There is no one to redeem. All are beyond redemption.”
“You would slaughter so many?”
She comes forward. Her back is to the fire, so that her features are all but obscured in shadow or lost in the glare. She is not enraged or hostile or threatening. Her mood is much different, rather like a teacher in the channels; wishing to impress upon me a crucial point. She takes hold of my arm to stress her position.
“Lucky soul,” she says. “What luxury you have to believe in the inviolability of human life. Yours is a perspective of the common man, in which life is large and death is a monolith. Your lives stand for nothing but struggle and pain and that is all you can see. At the end of that is only death, an ignominious death. You are relieved of the burden of history. You are relieved of the burden of being judged by future generations. Death is nothing to me in the face of that legacy. That is the burden I bear.”
“What am I to you? You’ve already seen how I protected you and the others from Sentinel and Section Twenty-one.”
“I have,” she nods, weighing the last of her things in her hands. “For that I will protect you as long as I am able, but at this moment allowing you to leave is a risk I cannot accept.”
“If you fear I will return to the city…I will take my chances with the refugees on the coast.”
“I am sorry.” She tosses the last of her things into the fire. She motions to the guards. “Bring him, we are going to the Reclamation Center.”
“You’re going to liberate the Reclamation center?” I asked, alarmed.
“Liberation?” she replies, with not a small amount of mockery. “There is no liberation. I will strike them at the heart of their hypocrisy. It will be historic, dear friend, and you shall be there to watch firsthand.”
“What of the innocents?”
“There are no innocents. This is war! There is no one to redeem. All are beyond redemption.”
“You would slaughter so many?”
She comes forward. Her back is to the fire, so that her features are all but obscured in shadow or lost in the glare. She is not enraged or hostile or threatening. Her mood is much different, rather like a teacher in the channels; wishing to impress upon me a crucial point. She takes hold of my arm to stress her position.
“Lucky soul,” she says. “What luxury you have to believe in the inviolability of human life. Yours is a perspective of the common man, in which life is large and death is a monolith. Your lives stand for nothing but struggle and pain and that is all you can see. At the end of that is only death, an ignominious death. You are relieved of the burden of history. You are relieved of the burden of being judged by future generations. Death is nothing to me in the face of that legacy. That is the burden I bear.”
Monday, November 23, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Part Twenty-seven
The flames jump, crackling and roaring to a blaze that reach skyward, where the scorched concrete ceiling bends them back, like the liquid petals of a flower. I shield myself from the scorching heat, yet cannot take my eyes from the pages curling and blackening in the flame. Like the archives, and the volumes rotting there, here is a history lost. It seems a terrible crime, for how can a man rightly comprehend his fate without memory of his past?
Around us is a wild scene. It is the frenetic preparations for a final great battle to be joined against the Corporation. Many of the warriors brandish captured section Twenty-one weapons. They appear fierce in wolf skins and pieces of body armor. That wall of odd bricks is almost gone. A dozen or so children wait to shuttle the final loads somewhere deep beneath the city. Aids rush in and out begging orders and instructions. Bethune is well prepared, dispatching them to their urgent duties without hesitation and without the slightest indecision.
“We’re prepared,” she says with a weighted sigh.
“You’ll strike the Corporation?”
“It has always been A strategy. Would I choose such a terrible outcome? Of course not, but often in war the time and place of battle is chosen by the enemy. It is necessary to strike them before they strike us.”
“All of your people are fleeing along the coast,” emotion rises in my voice.
“Far too dangerous to remain,” she says.”I have my fighters.”
“The Corporation will butcher them out in the open!”
“Do you believe I would send them to be martyred lightly? The Corporation already makes it clear they mean to exterminate us. Better to die for a cause than for nothing.”
“The Corporation has no official policy about the Low City.”
“By their actions and their lieutenants their policy it only too clear,” she turns away.
“This is the wrong path,” I say, taking her arm and turning her back to me. She pulls away, glaring angrily at my unforgivable breach. Several guards rush forward, drawing blades. Bethune waves them away.
“In desperate times the wrong path is all too often the only path.”
I can see that it is pointless to argue. She is decided. The events have run away from any one person's ability to stop them. They have gained a character of their own, like the fire, ready to consume all the stands before it; innocent or guilty. I might strike Bethune down (and be slain by her guards) but the moment has even fled and outgrown her significance.
“I am sorry for you,” I say, “but more sorry for the innocent on both sides who will suffer most."
Her acts, I assert, are criminal, and not at all worthy of Mary McLeod Bethune’s association. True enough, this memory proves a malleable substance, fully at the beckoning and blunder of the owner. I had learned to alter mine, concealing true identities from the Corporation of those I felt were just. All that was now changed, and so Bethune’s identity was returned to its rightful place in history and in my memory. If Sentinel sought I would make no effort to protect her at all. I turned and started to leave. The guards block my path. I turn, finding the rebel leader’s immoveable gaze.
Around us is a wild scene. It is the frenetic preparations for a final great battle to be joined against the Corporation. Many of the warriors brandish captured section Twenty-one weapons. They appear fierce in wolf skins and pieces of body armor. That wall of odd bricks is almost gone. A dozen or so children wait to shuttle the final loads somewhere deep beneath the city. Aids rush in and out begging orders and instructions. Bethune is well prepared, dispatching them to their urgent duties without hesitation and without the slightest indecision.
“We’re prepared,” she says with a weighted sigh.
“You’ll strike the Corporation?”
“It has always been A strategy. Would I choose such a terrible outcome? Of course not, but often in war the time and place of battle is chosen by the enemy. It is necessary to strike them before they strike us.”
“All of your people are fleeing along the coast,” emotion rises in my voice.
“Far too dangerous to remain,” she says.”I have my fighters.”
“The Corporation will butcher them out in the open!”
“Do you believe I would send them to be martyred lightly? The Corporation already makes it clear they mean to exterminate us. Better to die for a cause than for nothing.”
“The Corporation has no official policy about the Low City.”
“By their actions and their lieutenants their policy it only too clear,” she turns away.
“This is the wrong path,” I say, taking her arm and turning her back to me. She pulls away, glaring angrily at my unforgivable breach. Several guards rush forward, drawing blades. Bethune waves them away.
“In desperate times the wrong path is all too often the only path.”
I can see that it is pointless to argue. She is decided. The events have run away from any one person's ability to stop them. They have gained a character of their own, like the fire, ready to consume all the stands before it; innocent or guilty. I might strike Bethune down (and be slain by her guards) but the moment has even fled and outgrown her significance.
“I am sorry for you,” I say, “but more sorry for the innocent on both sides who will suffer most."
Her acts, I assert, are criminal, and not at all worthy of Mary McLeod Bethune’s association. True enough, this memory proves a malleable substance, fully at the beckoning and blunder of the owner. I had learned to alter mine, concealing true identities from the Corporation of those I felt were just. All that was now changed, and so Bethune’s identity was returned to its rightful place in history and in my memory. If Sentinel sought I would make no effort to protect her at all. I turned and started to leave. The guards block my path. I turn, finding the rebel leader’s immoveable gaze.
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