The Labyrinth of Souls

by Nelson Lowhim

  “I was trying to help you,” he says, leaning over to the fridge and pulling out a bottle. “You want one?”

  “I’ll be fine. What is your definition then?”

  “Of a terrorist?” He twists open the bottle and pantomimes ordering. “One who fights the futile fight, though those after him may prosper... But he won’t. His life is sacrifice. A soldier, if you will.”

  “I’m glad that you’ve found it so easy to come up with a definition.” I think that perhaps when he’s not high, Mathews is a prick.

  Mathews stares at his bottle and takes a sip. “Don’t...”

  “What?”

  “I work in finance, right? And there are the pricks who get ahead by pushing all the rules of the game.” He points to himself. “Then there are those who expect that not breaking rules and taking that risk... they think that will get them somewhere. When they end up being left behind, they grow angry, they leave and claim the game was rigged all along. They spit and they hiss, but they can’t tear down something that’s bigger than them. And people know them to be losers, so why give them time of the day? They don’t. They understand what a loser is. And that’s the way it is. These terrorists are those who failed. Who knows, maybe they can bring about a change. But everyone in the world knows who they are. Losers. They got squeezed out by those who knew the game better than them. And they can think about their seventy-two virgins, but what of it?”

  “I think it’s more than them being losers—“

  “What else are they?”

  “There’s a lot of history—“

  “Fuck history. All it is is a list of losers... Their forefathers...”

  Something like a tremble forms on my lips. I bite. The tremble travels down to my chest, my stomach. There appears to be something of the truth in Mathews’ words.

  “Am I right?”

  “Maybe,” I say.

  “I am. Think about it.” Mathews stabs his temple with his finger. “It’s all just impotent anger.”

  Another rumbling, but this time it doesn’t sound like a train, rather it’s like something metal and heavy is grinding against the concrete wall. Dust spirals from the ceiling, a few chips of paint fall erratically. A pipe in the corner shakes, and after hissing, leaks out water. I stare as a small stream of water spreads from the corner and makes its way through unseen channels and around unseen obstacles, but which make themselves known as small bumps of concrete or clumps of dust, or even exoskeletons of insects, and the water forms a film around these things, but as it continues and doesn’t seem to stop, it floods these small things, and now the pool of water is an inch deep and takes up a quarter of this room.

  “Ah, shit,” I say.

  Mathews waves it off. “It’s only water.”

  “If you didn’t notice, we have no way out. Water can fill this room up, then where will we be?”

  “You should drink more. Besides, what do you think those wooden planks are for?”

  Before my mind can think any further on the matter, a cramp hits my stomach. I’m hungry. “There any food in there?” I ask.

  Mathews shrugs.

  I stride over, using the wooden boards as the water has now flooded the entire floor. Inside the fridge, nestled between the alcoholic drinks, is a plate with a perfectly ripe mango. Its so yellow that I take a second to comprehend what I see. Not a single blemish to it. I pull it out and slam the fridge door shut. I sniff. Clean, barely a hint of fresh air and possibly soil, but mainly it smells of the potential bitterness that mango skin usually has. I bite into it. The skin gives way, releases bitter tannins, but collides with the sweet inside. Mango juice runs down my chin, but I barely notice it. I slurp up some more and chew through the skin, while the soft flesh melts and drips down my throat. I look up to see Mathews’ face screwed up.

  “You eat the skin?”

  “Best part,” I say.

  “Christ.”

  “It’s good,” I say and hold it out for him. He hesitates. “Come on. Don’t be a pussy.”

  He grunts then leans forward and grabs it. He stares at it like it might bite him. Then, after staring at the mango from several angles, and after allowing the juice to drip down his arm, he takes a bite, his entire face tense. As he chews and swallows, he closes his eyes. A smile cracks the tension. “Goddam damn, Georgie boy. This is some good fucking mango, ain’t it?”

  “Told you,” I say as I lick the rest of the dried juice off my own skin.

  He nods and hands it back to me. I devour the rest of it, eating and sucking the seed dry, the fibers of the flesh caught between my teeth the only thing left of the mango. I throw it into the water that now looks ankle deep in some areas.

  “We need to think of a way out.” I shift my feet, and climb onto a wooden pallet. The pipe shakes and I notice that it seem to be pushing out more water.

  Mathews sips another beer.

  I glance up at the pipes, and notice the holes from which they disappear into. I tell Mathews to move, then climb up the chair he was sitting on, jumping up and grabbing one of the pipes. I try to pull myself up, but realize that my strength is failing. Swinging my feet over, I climb onto the top of the refrigerator and one over the other, I pull all of my weight unto the fridge. Even Mathews looks concerned now, as the water keeps rising. The pipe from whence it came is no longer visible, only the ripples of the water are any indication of where the water is coming from. Mathews stands on the chair, and he jumps to grab the pipe, pulling himself up.

  The cold top of the fridge travels up from my feet and I shiver, realizing that I have lost another pair of shoes. I see them floating in the shin deep water, amongst the wooden boards and titanic-angled wooden palette. The yellow of the mango seed catches my eye. I examine the hole in which the pipes disappear. Perhaps it’s a way out? I grab the pipes and shake them. Then I shake harder. Nothing.

  “Look.”

  I follow Mathews’ outstretched finger and see the wooden board with the mango. Except it’s no longer a mango seed but multiple frogs all staring at me. Their black eyes remind me of Behemoth, but I tell myself that that’s crazy, that that man, if he’s real, or that thing, if it’s real, is no frog. The frog’s skin, however, is a nearly flat yellow, that somehow manages to be rich in color.

  “Those are poisonous,” says Mathews.

  “What?”

  “Those frogs. I know them. If we touch them we’re dead.”

  “How the hell do you know?”

  “They’re from the Amazon,” he says and swings over using the pipes and lands on the top of the fridge. It creaks.

  I scan the surface of the water and realize that there are more frogs, and that the boards are somehow floating towards us and our now island of a fridge top.

  “This is fucking great. Turing!” I belt out the machine’s name, my voice growing hoarse.

  “You can’t blame him,” Mathews says, testing the pipes with his weight. “He couldn’t have known about this.”

  I don’t want to argue, so I shrug and stare at the pipes and help Mathews try and pull it down. “I figure we pull it off, then maybe we can get through that hole,” I say.

  “Pipe’s too strong to pull out.”

  He’s not wrong.

  I look at the yellow-dotted water and wooden boards. A rat has climbed unto on of the boards, and it shakes itself off, then regards the frogs. Mathews too is now watching. Something stirs in my chest. I know that something bad is about to happen and my blood pressure spikes. The rat still regards the frogs on its wooden board with nothing more than a detached amusement. Its whiskers moving, it steps forward, sniffing. The frog is dead still. The rat touches its skin with its nose and jumps back. It stops. I’m not breathing. The rat moves back towards the frog. It stops. Shaking violently now, it tries to take a step back, but fails. The tremors are stronger now and the rat falls to its side, convulsing enough that its back arches. Then it stops, its rat eyes wide open.

  “Christ,” I say. The rat slides
into the water, it’s feet up in the air. The frog hasn’t moved an inch. It’s staring at me. The water has now risen to within a couple feet of the top of our fridge. I scan the ceiling wondering if the pipes can be moved.

  “Unscrew,” I say before realizing what something in my brain already did.

  Mathews seems to understand and we both move to twist one of the pipes off. After initially refusing to unscrew, the pipe gives way. The water and the frogs are but a foot away now. The pipe loosens in our hands and we pull it off. I slowly use the pipe to push away the boards, but it’s no use. There are at least twenty of them and each time I push one away, another comes from the opposite side. I start to flip some of the boards, hoping to push the frogs underwater. But they resurface, only their heads jutting out of the water.

  “Fuuuck,” says Mathews.

  I scan the ceiling. My eyes gravitate to a metal hook that hangs out amongst the peeling leaves of paint. It’s more than an arm’s length, perpendicularly, from the pipes and our fridge. I point it out to Mathews. He’s staring that frogs, mumbling. I push the pipe end into the hook and using the ceiling, I pull down. The hook grates, then gives way. A trap door slides down, crashing into its hinge stoppers with a loud grating scrape.

  Mathews gasps. But it’s still to far to climb into, and we can’t very well swim.

  The water is almost on level with the fridge. Mathews’ face is as white as a ghost’s. I leverage the pipe perpendicularly between the pipes still screwed in. “Here,” I say. I’m not sure, though, I climb down the length of the pipe, still a foot too short of the hole in the ceiling. I swing twice and stick my feet into the black hole. Slimy concrete. My feet slip out.

  “Come on!” Mathews yells. In the corner of my eye, I can see that he’s hanging off the rest of the pipes. The frogs have moved in on the fridge top, as well as some of the wooden boards again. They stare impassively.

  I swing again, landing a foot on the lip of the door that creaks to this new weight it must bear. My heart beats fast, sending pulses of heat up my neck and past my ears. It’s risky, but I must. My back cracks and I push off the pipe. For a second, I feel no weight. Then I think I’m falling. That allows another gasp, and my fingers grip the inside of the wall. I contort myself and with most of my weight on this finger, I pull myself up to the door and the hole.

  Relief floods my bloodstream. Mathews is on the pipe, climbing with all four limbs because the water is too high. The frogs are all croaking. For a second it sounds like they’re croaking to a beat, but then it falls into random croaks spilling out of their mouths. I try to stand up as Mathews makes his way to me. My head hits a cement ceiling, the pain almost knocking me out. I massage my skull, and feel around with my hands. Another tunnel. I peek back down to give Mathews a thumbs up and a hand. He makes it to the door as I climb into the black and dark tunnel. It’s wet on the bottom and smells like mold.

  I make certain to breathe through my mouth. Bit by bit, I inch my way. I can feel the water level rising. I inch faster. Luckily Mathews, without asking, has decided to place a hand on my bare again feet. After what seems to be forever, my knees, scraped up and tired enough, evoke ghosts of my other time in a stress position, of the woman mocking me, of Behemoth.

  “Why’d you stop?” Mathews pinches me for good measure.

  I consider donkey kicking him. But instead I move on, at one point I stop because my elbows and my knees are beyond raw, and now the tips of my toes feel raw. Mathews’ hand pressing down on my foot doesn’t help. I crawl on.

  “I can hear the frogs.”

  I use Mathews’ plea to stop, rest the raw points of my body. “What?” I feel the pain pulse, and as the rest elongates, the pulsing pain turns into a sedate feeling. I close my eyes. Then the croaking echoes off in the distance. “Shit.”

  “I know.” Mathews’ breathing is labored. “I know.”

  I take in deep breaths, enjoying this respite from pain. But when I do the croaking comes back. This time louder. Are they following us? Christ. I thought we were done with them. That’s when I feel a ripple running through the water. I slap the water, feel it spray my face. It’s getting higher. Back on my elbows and my knees I grit my teeth, the pain now cutting got my bones. The complete darkness is now playing with my mind. I see shapes, yellows, of that fecund color, everywhere. The slimy moldy brick is now potentially a frog. I keep on crawling. Can’t die like that rat. The water level is rising yet. I will not fail. But I’m soaked, and my skin tightens, cold seeps in. This isn’t the time to quit.

  My head hits a wall. I rub my hand over it, over the sides. Nothing. We’re trapped. I test the ceiling. It’s a metallic door.

  “What the hell are you stopping for?”

  I lean my back against the wall and I press up on the metal door. I see hints of light at its edges, but it does not budge.

  Mathews makes to slide past me. I put up my leg.

  “It’s a dead end,” I say. “There’s nothing more. This door, I think if we can budge it.”

  “Let me get closer.”

  We both squeeze underneath and push as hard as we can, my feet slip on the slimy mold. The water laps up against the end, rising. The croaks grow louder. I’m not sure what I fear more, dying of poison or of drowning. We try again and again. There’s a certain amount that the door will give. But beyond that, it won’t.

  The croaks are now deafening. I expect we won’t see anything. But they don’t sound upon us just yet.

  And like that, the door swings up. Turing stare down on us, smiling. His hands swoop down and pick us up. One arm is now made of flesh, though it too has a patchwork look to it, while the other is still metallic. When I land on a soft carpet I turn, back to the ground and cough. “You bastard. Where the hell did you go?”

  “I’m sorry, George. I was not aware that anything would happen.” Turing is scooping up the frogs, examining them and throwing them into a bag.

  “You locked us in,” I say. “And this frogs won’t like the bag. They might die.”

  Turing stares at me, smiling. He shuts the door. “I didn’t mean to lock you in. It was for your protection. What happened? I returned to find the door wouldn’t budge.”

  “It filled up with water and poisonous frogs. You know that.” Right now, I don’t trust this machine.

  “You have to know that I didn’t know that would happen. I locked you in a place where no one would find you, and I went to see what was going on in the world. I know nothing about these frogs.” Turing holds up the bag. He walks over to a large glass box, the top open, and throws in the bag. He places a sheet of plywood over the top.

  I shake my head. Mathews pats my shoulder. “Take it easy on him. He probably didn’t know.”

  Not certain why Mathews, who only a few seconds ago was about to shit his pants, is now so nice, I nod and I close my eyes. I can hear the chorus of the frogs. I drift off.

  From the ceiling above, I hear the pattering hum of what can only be rain. A shiver runs through me. Somewhere up there in the world, there’s a piece of road, puffing up warm steam while the paved road wrinkles and spits up water. And I’m here. I need to think more, but it’s true, as one grows older, the mind, like the muscles, becomes less flexible. I’m stuck, and it’s possible that I will be stuck here forever.

  “Food”

  I open my eyes. We’re in the same room. Or at least I think it is. Out of the corner of my eye I see the frogs in their glass enclosed world. My body is stiff, so as I reach up to yawn, a few joints pop. I rub the crust out of my eyes and look up. Turing, a little bigger than before, a little more muscular than before, stands above me and Mathews—who’s also slowly arising from his makeshift bed on the carpeted floor—a brown paper bag, with an oiled bottom is dropped between us. “Halal.”

  I detect a grin on Turing’s face. I remember his arm of flesh, and see that he’s wearing a long trench coat and gloves.

  “You grow a sense of humor, Turing?”

  He pauses
, grimaces. I see that his face seems less of a patchwork now. More like a human being. Even his movement, which before had been smooth, and yet with a jerkiness that was not seen, but felt, that filled one’s lungs with the knowledge that this person is either sick or not right. Now, it appears that there’s nothing machine about him at all.

  “I can’t joke?” Turing says, scratching the stubble on his chin. He smiles, and it’s still that steel-skull smile.

  “No, it’s fine,” I say. “It’s fine.”

  Mathews tears into the bag of food, three pans of steaming chicken and rice. My mouth salivates and I jump in as well.

  “I got the hot sauce, which is to die for.” Turing giggles after he says this.

  I look up at Turing. I nod with approval. Mathews gulps down a forkful and jerks out a thumbs up.

  After I’m at least half full and can slow down—not to mention that I remember that chewing slowly helps with digestion, with weight loss, though why the hell I care about the latter is beyond me—I look up to Turing, who’s observing us. “Where did you get the flesh for the other arm?”

  Again that hurt look.

  “Leave him be,” says Mathews.

  I turn my attention to my chicken and chew some more. My stomach groans and expands.

  “I got you some shoes,” Turing says and drops a pair of old looking tennis shoes in front of me.

  “Thanks,” I say. Now I feel like a fool for hurting him. I look at the shoes, which are dirtier than ever. “I might need some socks.”

  Turing throws two old, but clean socks down.

  “Thanks.”

  Mathews finishes his food and burps.

  “So you two were discussing the definition of terrorism?”

  I look up at Turing. “Mathews thinks he has it figured out.”

  “And you?”

  I let out a sigh, ignoring Mathews’ glare. Melancholy tangles up in my thoughts. What do I know? I’m usually very certain when I think on the righteous path that I walk upon. And yet when I stop to think, when I actually think out all the if-thens, I cannot come up with a single coherent set of rules or even the closest thing to a model for a way to live life. I can spurn many other castles though, but at this age, when the bones start to ache, when the weariness of evil in the world starts to leech into your muscles, into your thoughts, well, you start doubting your ability to throw stones and lay siege to all the castles because, well, there’s no castle for you to return to. That’s the other thing about not having a castle of beliefs to fall behind. You’re exposed to the elements and you weaken quicker than those with those castles... The melancholy grows stronger as I think on that.