Karma of the Silo: The Collection

by Patrice Fitzgerald

  And then I remember. Woods. Trees. Whole forests. Where are the forests?

  We didn’t always live this way.

  I can feel my heart pounding and my breath coming in short gasps. Bending at the waist, I wonder if I’m going to vomit. Suddenly there is a hand on my shoulder.

  “You okay Karma? Feeling sick?” It’s Ethel, looking at me with concern. “Need me to walk you to the john?”

  I stifle a gag reflex at her sour smell. Rising back up, I look into her eyes and reach for her arm to steady myself.

  “Trees. Where did the trees go?”

  Ethel gives me a look that is at once surprised and wary.

  “Shh.” The older woman looks around, and seeing no one approaching through the laundry room mist, says, “Meet me by the wash machines in fifteen minutes. We can talk there.”

  I sit on the floor with my back against the rumbling dryer. My eyes close.

  9

  Helen settled into bed with her reader and sighed. It was almost eleven. Again. He had promised to call by ten every night. This wasn’t the kind of government work she had voted for.

  Was D.C. changing her husband? On her visits to Washington she had found most of his colleagues to be phony, competitive, or both. Rather than doing anything to improve the lives of their constituents, it seemed they were focused only on gaining power and running for the next term.

  Finally her phone blinked.

  Don’t be angry, she told herself. He’s far away from you and there are lots of women who wouldn’t think twice about plucking a nice fresh Congressman from Georgia off the legislative branch.

  “Helen,” he said, when she pressed the phone on. She could hear the apology in his voice before he said it. “I’m sorry.”

  10

  I wake up to Julie shaking my shoulder. “Sleep on your own time, little mama,” she says, laughing, and walks back into the mist in the middle of the room. I stand up and wait for the dryer to finish, looking at the dull sheen of the machine as it rumbles. My face is reflected back dimly. My hair is long now, the dark strands held back by a cap that matches my coveralls. All I can really see is my staring eyes. Did I always look this way?

  Have I always been here?

  Why is my head full of visions… memories? Of trees, hills far bigger than what can be seen through the wallscreen, some of those hills topped with white. The word snow comes into my mind. Snow. How could I have forgotten snow? And… and huge expanses of water, in shades from blue-green to steel gray to indigo and purple and red, even, when the sun is setting. The sun. The sun a red ball of fire lighting up the sky. The sun blindingly bright—so bright it can’t be gazed at with the naked eye. The sun flirting with the clouds, peeking in and out as their translucent edges suddenly release dramatic shafts of light.

  There was never a sun such as this. Was there?

  I must be deranged.

  Unless… I shake myself, remembering that Ethel is waiting on the other side of the room with the big washing machines. Rolling a cart full of clothes in front of me, I hurry across and spot Ethel in the farthest corner.

  For a moment, I think my knees will buckle before I get there. I lean on the cart handle for support and remind myself to breathe.

  Ethel turns slightly toward me while loading the machine in front of her.

  “We have to talk quick and we have to be careful. I figure you must be remembering now.”

  “Remembering?” I ask, puzzled, while a part of me is shouting with joy, relief. With a huge gush of gratitude. And horror.

  “Remembering the Outside. Before.”

  Ethel waits, apparently expecting a reaction.

  “Before?” I feel stupid, as I have been feeling for… for how long? How long have I been stupid? Not always. I am sure of that. Some part of me, deeply buried, stands back, watching and waiting for the memories to emerge.

  “What do you remember, Karma? Tell me.”

  I stare at Ethel for a moment. And then something gives way, as if her eyes, encouraging me, make it all right to speak about the impossible.

  “I remember trees. And green grass. And… mountains and the ocean. And the moon! Stars. A sky full of stars in the dark. And… the sun. And I remember…” I turn toward Ethel, speaking past the catch in my throat. “I remember… that the sky used to be blue.”

  Hot tears pour down my face and I quickly scrub them from my cheeks. They are tears of pain as well as exultation. To know that I’m not losing my mind. But also to think… to imagine… to remember.

  My mind whirls. I used to live in a different kind of world.

  I touch the laundry bin for balance and look to Ethel. “What is this place? Where are we?”

  Ethel peers quickly around us and brings her mouth near my ear. “Everything you remember used to be.”

  And now the grief wells up in me as a powerful rage. “How did it happen?” I can hear the fury and despair in my voice.

  “Here’s what we know for sure. Just three months ago, we all lived outside.”

  “What? Three months?” I put my hand against the washer, my head thick with disbelief. Ethel takes my arm and urges me to sit on the floor against the machine, which vibrates mightily behind my back. She sits beside me and leans in, keeping an eye on the clouds of vapor surrounding us.

  “Yes. Now just listen. We only have a few minutes before we’ll have to move, or we’ll attract attention.” She pulls the laundry bin in front of us to further hide our conversation.

  “There was a plan, Karma. Someone built this place. Pretending it was for something else. They made the opening day an occasion. A big celebration—bands, singing, planes overhead. A political convention.”

  My brain is trying to keep up with her words. Bands. Yes. I remember bands. Singing. Planes! In the sky. The blue, cloudy sky. In… Georgia.

  “Then there was some kind of attack, and we all came down here. I don’t know all of it. Nobody knows the whole story. We’re trying to figure it out.”

  “We?” I ask.

  “Yes. There are a few of us. We call ourselves the Rememberers. Tell the truth, most of the gang is probably half cracked. Turns out we all had ‘mental health’ issues in the before times.” She gives a gruff laugh. “Our theory is they make us forget by putting some kind of happy juice into the water—which is why we suck on vegetable pulp instead of drinking the stuff.”

  I can only listen, my mind stunned.

  “Whatever they add to the water supply must not be good for pregnant women,” Ethel says. “Have you seen any newborns recently?”

  I think for a moment and then shake my head.

  “So they’re not taking any chances with you. Keeping you away from the tap water. I told Jeff yesterday –”

  “Jeff?”

  “Jeff’s one of us. He works in IT. He has to be really careful, but he gets a lot of information the rest of us can’t.”

  “Careful? Why does he have to be careful?”

  Ethel looks at me as though she’s trying to gauge what I can handle. “All those suicides recently? Well, some folks can’t stand it here. Quite a lot of folks, apparently. Even with the happy juice. Something about the human animal just doesn’t want to live underground.”

  She looks around again to make sure we are not being watched. “That’s part of the reason they upped the dosage in the water supply. Makes the general populace even spacier—and more confused about what happened yesterday or last week, let alone in the before time.” Ethel’s voice gets quieter, and I can smell her vegetable breath coming at me. “But some of those ‘jumpers’ aren’t really so much jumpers. Involuntary fallers, you might say. Science experiments we call ‘em—Galileos.” She gives a grunt which might be meant as a laugh. “Get it? Testing the gravity in the silo. Terrible way to die. You won’t catch me jumping.”

  She grins at me. “Splat. There goes Ethel.” Standing up, she starts to empty the stilled machine behind us, dropping a sopping coverall on the floor, where the soggy me
ss lands heavily and sprays water on me.

  I shiver as the chilly water hits my bare skin.

  11

  “How lovely to see you again, Helen. It’s been too long.” The Senator gave a slightly military bow, bending low over her hand, and she nearly blushed. For an old coot, he was in pretty good shape. A little respectable flirting seemed to be in order.

  “Senator, I agree—it’s been too long! But you’re the man who’s been keeping my husband chained to his desk here in Washington, working till all hours, for the last two years… to tell you the truth, I can barely remember what he looks like.” She hyped the Southern lilt that came naturally to her, and realized she was batting her eyelashes. It felt a little too Gone With the Wind, but then, Washington was all about illusion. And BS.

  He laughed, his crisply cut white hair never moving, and the crow’s feet around his eyes minimal for a man of his age. How old was he? The Senator had been around for as long as she could remember.

  A drink appeared at her left side and just as she turned to pick it up, the Senator looked over her shoulder. “And here he is! Our local boy made good. The gentleman from Georgia, I do believe.”

  She heard a familiar laugh, and realized suddenly that it was her husband putting an arm around her waist as she took the drink out of his hand. He smiled at the older man. “Leave it to you to know where my wife is when I don’t, Senator,” he said, and turned to Helen. “Hi honey.” He leaned in and gave her the kind of public kiss suitable for the occasion.

  She was glad that she had worn heels of just the right height, so she wasn’t quite as tall as he was.

  “And here comes Anna,” the Senator said. His daughter appeared through the crowd, wearing a form-fitting green sheath that was attracting more than one male glance.

  Helen felt her husband stiffen. She wondered if there was really something going on, or if his response was only to her own wariness about the woman.

  Anna smiled and nodded to both of them. “Helen,” she said, serene and lovely as ever.

  “Anna.” Helen concentrated on keeping her face relaxed and her voice normal. She searched for something charming to say, but came up empty. She certainly didn’t plan to stand in the middle of the grand ballroom and accuse the other woman of being a home wrecker—there was no point in making a scene. It would only arouse gossip and piss off her husband. He knew Helen thought that working with an old girlfriend—and the daughter of his mentor—was a bad idea, but that clearly hadn’t stopped him.

  The Senator lifted his glass. “Let’s raise a toast to the new Congressman!”

  “To the new Congressman,” they proclaimed loudly.

  Somehow there was an understanding between her husband and these two people that Helen didn’t share. And with a chill, she realized that she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  12

  As I walk up the dozen spirals to the laundry floor, I feel the new heaviness in my body. I am happy about this baby. It makes it easier to forget about the pull of the Down Deep—I realize that I haven’t thought about jumping since I found out that I’m carrying this little passenger.

  And the urge to see the Outside is no longer as strong. What is there to see that isn’t saddening? There are no explanations out there.

  Ethel will meet with me again when we can find a moment in front of the wash machines, when the noise level is high and the mist fills the center of the room. Then, it will be safe to talk. I am both exhilarated and full of dread to know that today I will learn more about the before time. I hasten my steps.

  When I reach the laundry floor I see a group of workers clustered around the door. Julie, the large woman who somehow reminds me of my mother, turns to me shaking her head.

  “Such a shame,” she says.

  “But I’m not surprised,” says another woman whom I don’t recognize.

  “We always knew there was something funny about her,” says a third.

  “What is it? What happened?” I feel the hairs on my arms stand up.

  “You know Ethel?”

  “Yes.” And then I know. Of course. They don’t even need to say.

  “She jumped last night. All the way down.”

  “Splat,” someone says, and laughs.

  “Shush,” Julie says. “Show some respect. The woman is dead.”

  13

  I am dreaming. I am running. Running up a hill. There are clouds in the sky and planes overhead and everyone else is going in the other direction. A man shouts my name. He catches me and pulls me back down.

  I am in the wrong place. He is the wrong man.

  I am dreaming. I am running.

  I am in the wrong place.

  He is the wrong man.

  I am dreaming I am dreaming I am dreaming I am running I am dreaming I am running I am dreaming running dreaming running dreaming falling down into the earth.

  14

  My name is Helen. I’m sure that’s right. I still know that.

  And I know that the sky used to be blue.

  At least, I think so.

  15

  I am awake and I am running down the stairs, running around the spirals, breathing hard. Running away from Ethel’s death.

  I hear a scream from above and I know someone is being pushed. Will they push me?

  When? Now? Now.

  Rick. I must find Rick.

  Can I trust him? Does he remember? If he does, will he tell me?

  My belly, heavy with baby, slows me down.

  The baby. I must live for my baby. I breathe deeply. People are staring. Sweat is dripping down from my temples.

  I slow and smile. Gently, gently. Happy pregnant lady making her way down the silo. Yes. Very elegant. I remember the Savannah of my youth. Warm and sunny, with a touch of hypocrisy.

  It’s all illusion.

  I smile and make my way down the lovely spiral stairs to find my loving husband.

  Whoever he is.

  16

  I hear Rick approaching the door just as I am finishing the meal I’ve prepared. With so much of the truth bleeding through from the past, everything seems very different now. The fog is lifting, slowly, and sometimes I can see that we are in a tiny apartment, eating bland and repetitive food, and living a very limited life. I didn’t know, before.

  No wonder so many people can’t stand it down here. Those who remember, and those who don’t. Even if you don’t know where you’ve been, you carry memories in your body and in your heart.

  How many people remember?

  Surely my husband does.

  I turn as Rick opens the door to our little room and kitchenette. He is smiling. He comes over and gives me a kiss. I have to stand on my tiptoes to reach him.

  He never kisses my eyes anymore.

  For a moment I’m confused. Did he used to kiss my eyes? I banish the concerns from my mind so that he can’t see them.

  “Hi sweetheart,” he says. “How was the laundry today?”

  “Um… sad, actually. One of the women who worked there jumped.”

  And in that moment, I can see that he knows. A tiny spark of guilt, or fear, glances across his face. In an instant it is gone.

  “I’m so sorry to hear it, Karma. Was she… was she unhappy for a long time? Some people… well, some people are just troubled, I think.” He ends weakly, as though he realizes how uncaring he sounds.

  I turn over in my mind the concept of a long time. There has been no long time here, if Ethel is right. If Ethel was right. A mere three months.

  I look at this man, my “husband.” He is not a stranger. But he is not the man who kissed me on the eyes on that sunny day on the blanket and promised me children.

  There is nothing to rely on here. My baby and I cannot trust him.

  But perhaps there is someone who can get me in touch with people I can trust.

  “Maybe she was unhappy,” I say, which is in fact the truth. Everyone sane would be unhappy. “But I was so sad to hear about it. I want to… well, to tel
l someone I am sorry.”

  “Like, send a message to her family?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm. Do you know her last name?”

  “No. But I know she had a brother… or maybe a cousin. A man named Jeff who works in IT. Could you get a floor address for me? I could send him a note by the porter. A…” What is the word? “A condolence card.”

  My words are coming back. This is some consolation.

  “Sure honey. I’ll see what I can do.” He looks over at what I am heating up on our tiny stove. Like a man from an old-time cartoon, he rubs his hands together in anticipation, and I realize just how much he’s been play-acting with me the entire time. Not a very long time, as I realize now. “So what’s for supper? Smells delicious.”

  I get a sudden memory of this man, suave and handsome, in a dark suit and tie, at a grand reception. We were drinking champagne and eating the most delicious of morsels, passed by hand from servers wearing tuxedos. For just an instant I can see him standing beside my husband—my real husband—laughing as they argue about who will get the most votes.

  And then my real husband turns toward me and I see his face. It is the face of love.

  17

  I feel the baby kicking as I once again make my way up the stairs. Level after level, I rise higher. Does my little passenger feel it? The pressure lifting, the slow journey up through the earth back to where we were meant to live…

  De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine.

  From out of the depths I have cried to you, O Lord.

  Strange words and visions come back to me, now, from the time before. I want to sit and see the Outside again. See what we made of our world.

  I reach the cafeteria, and the view on the wallscreen is as it always is, brown and gray and forbidding. Clouds swirl in dark patterns against dry, nameless ridges and the ruins of an old city. How can anyone live out there—how could anyone ever have lived out there?