Bramah and the Beggar Boy
Page 6
Dr. A.E. Anderson Returned to Pacifica
The first time I got away from—
Unstained, and not yet ochre,
Overcome by Incoming
Red became again carnal,
descended purple
Soon, I shall be punished.
The need for light brought me.
I am convinced others will, too.
Alone in the half afternoon, long walks
Toward the Good-Bye River, rising
No longer freshet—
Found Inside a Consortium Lab, Pacifica
Partial Record #1
No perimeter walking allowed.
Not ever.
A long time since
what measure might come,
in the days ahead
partial fragments yielded
a small find,
once the park had been cleared
The hive. A honeybee.
Husked chestnut open
this, then, was treasure.
Only, if we could see—
Partial Record #2
Seen, decades earlier:
A group of them saving seeds and glass jars.
Partial Record #3
In the lab, before the Invasion, distracted
her focus is on substance, colloidal
against collusion, Aunty Maria prepares no explosives.
Outside Perimeter, Guards of the Fifth
They march lockstep, AK-47s, AR-15s.
They shout in hoarse voices, boots on the ground.
IED baby, your bombs, our guns, boom!
IED baby, we’ll search out your rooms.
There will be no witnesses
save a set of designated trees.
Logbook of the Guards, Detention Centre C, Pacifica
Locator: Outside Perimeter, Pacifica.
As confiscated from the notebooks of Dr. A.E. Anderson
Gleditsia triacanthos
honey locust,
deciduous,
imported, smuggled in.
Locator: Inside Perimeter, Pacifica.
As confiscated from the notebooks of Dr. A.E. Anderson
Yellow sunburst honey green.
Cultivars thornless, less leaf, until late,
teleology as beauty:
pinnately compound, many narrow dreams, although
partially or doubly.
As Confiscated, four letters, attributed to a Mrs. Maria of Church Street.
These were burned and partial, smelling of smoke:
Singed Scraps:
deprived of water, in the cell, my tongue
found sixty-four large droplets, spilled. I read
names, by the light of a warden’s candle:
Upright Douglas fir,
furrowed mature bark,
deep for scrolls,
I searched everywhere
a handful of brown cones,
grabbed enough for messages.
A band of urchins.
Highway’s children,
to take apart each conifer’s gift,
scale by scale
to the seed.
Stolen from Detention Centre C, Pacifica
The smallest script within margins
To the city then we came, searching for—
Aunty Maria and Dr. Anderson.
Instead, we found these reports
folded inside a dossier, brought to us by
a straggling horde of beggar children
their hands bloody with scissor work.
First Report
Approach, said the Investigator
A calamity borne in minute traces
Toward what disaster, amid plenty
No lack, a fullness
This capacity, surreptitious, a watching
Conventions dictated that she must
What is in a gaze? To be looked at
Edifice, means of transport, greenery
Seated, there were no tables or chairs
Seated, they missed the old oak pews
An Arborist of the Before-Time, a place
Sing(h), discern, separate, the peoples
All tender, the leaf, a stem, saved.
After, that is, before, there was arrival.
Disputed terror. Also, colour. Skinned,
History. Aware. Those men.
Turbans not mentioned.
River demarcating, what, exactly?
Perimeter, a statement of polis.
Always, the start of something.
Walked. Park, not graveyard.
The names. Saved for later.
Jaldi! Jaldi!
Second Report
Years earlier,
before each incident.
in the year of the reign
on the night in question
migrant workers,
an immigrant woman
her undertaking,
with care and attention
a handful of songs, only a few to survive.
We knew to look away.
Our eyes always downcast.
Perimeter is the not spoken. Aligned,
the lines become——
there is no mention of
the modes, whereby beggar children
their arms exposed, a number of clinical trials
transportation, a series
of numbers, there is no mention.
Third Report
Historic covert operations, banned
instead, drone surveillance instigated
satellite data livestreaming when on
everyone wanting access to printouts
no one with enough electricity
chronic shortage of lumber, dying trees
overwintering, a handful of bees
Consortium knew to ration supplies
stored infographics under lock and key
not one administrator prepared to
open up contracts and share any fees
those beggar children with their splice and paste
encryptions cut, saved, nothing left to waste
abandoned courthouses, cold marble steps
You bring the cash, they called. We’ll do the prep.
Resisters Brought in for Questioning
We admit to surveying, up by the Eve River
We all wore masks.
We hiked past
rip-rapped roads
stayed high up on trails,
logged to the water line,
covered in young hemlock,
red alder:
—that’s how we found the river
—line by line.
Later inside Rentalsman,
that Beggar Boy sent us word, inked
on saved scrap:
Consortium to order a thousand
glass vials, import dollar-buddleia
young Douglas firs, tree farmed,
close to power lines,
radio towers visible,
western hemlocks also planted,
coastal streams built over,
where coho once, pink once, chinook, chum, salmon, steelhead—
Once upon a time, we were together.
We admit we knew Aunty Maria
Outside, before train convoys—
Outside, crowded platforms.
Them with arms straight, hands empty.
Outside, waving is not permitted.
Gangs of youth wander, singing,
Un coup de dés, ah-ayee, ah-yee, jamais, jamais.
We glimpsed the edge of her cherry-red coat.
Inside, celebrations banned, yet
inside, she sat, her coat, Sears-purchased
many tokens saved.
Her skin taut brown
her cheekbones angled against
her scarf another red the red of
her youth, head covered, she’d pick bent across acres cranberry strawberry
blueberry and not harvested anymore.
Inside, she, our neighbour,
cropped hair grey-nappy-soft,
praise songs at risk
where outside the little bursts,
no one said the word, gunfire,
where marched a formation,
two militia, tanks down Vanness.
It were the Battle of Kingsway, we said.
IED baby, your bombs, our arms, boom!
IED baby, inside, outside, boom!
Freedom fighter, terrorist, who’s right, wrong?
We just want enough to eat, been so long.
We admit to helping the Doctor
Enclosed within Perimeter, she’d send
us as instructed to Aunty Maria
the two of them found a way, back and forth
doctor to aunty gathering saved seeds,
the Long Hours, afternoon-time
a holy mystery.
Both of them to tell scavengers:
observation is ritual. Remember:
Butterfly’s and Beauty’s. Under duress
these bushes will croon:
Buddleia, Kolkwitzia amabilis—
Wing joints, we saw, azimuth circles and
Eights, antennae flattened wing latches rear
front claws, membrane, muscles, the thorax
cuticle bands, tree’s bole, dry crevice pressed.
We deny knowledge of her chalice
And came those workers and that woman to
dig a deep trench and fill it with these things:
component parts, old-fashioned and upright.
As directed in messages, seams ripped,
She told us it were her chalice, she said:
pieces for the eye and nose, lenses clipped.
Condensor and mirror, forward and sideways.
Rack stop, tube, glass vials, a set of slides.
She carried also, in her pockets these
scribbled notes:
On the night in question, ten migrant workers, all male
were found to have—
An immigrant woman,
acting as citizen
her mother also—
Observations, surreptitious.
There was the walking.
A perimeter. A city park.
The Resisters Relinquish Dr. Anderson’s Instructions for a Chalice
Unable to withstand the terror of—
branding. See here, these plates buried earthbound
instructions retrieved, brush off this dirt, safe.
Here’s a knife to cut, holographic dig
rectangle of sod, roots to hand, to dig
white worms squirm, and dig, dig—
these beggar children will help us, lift, dig,
back to the lab, electricity rationed.
What? Yes. No, like this. Wait. Like this.
Our hands will push the fire button, fast light
emitting memory, a set of pieces: chalice reconstructed!
From eye to tube, adjust, nose resting, look
down and into, glass slides, adjust, adjust—
To save ourselves from hot iron tongs we’ll
do just about anything, it would seem.
As Narrated by the Investigator
And so, in this way, I tracked them all down
Portal Hoppers, trace devices secured
everyone these days knowing
the price of a hire.
What use a set of spells against machines
all the latest models
Consortium-approved.
Take us to the chambers
Save us from the Guards
Take us to detention
Keep us from their tongs
Conscripted at the Gate of the Autumn Portal, 2055
None of us spoke.
In our hands, fragments, torn scraps of paper.
Small vials of elderberry. We saved them
to drink later, after our escape from Detention Centre C.
And hid among the alien corn, GMO and sprayed,
at the far eastern wall of the Fifth Gate.
We’d brought with us the good doctor’s chalice.
We’d whispered messages sent, just in time:
from Aunty Maria, rolled scrolls, glass jars.
Wash your hands, use your sleeve,
sang a gang of Beggar Boys.
And we replied under our breath:
Trust us now, you’ll never have to grieve.
Out on the sunbaked tarmac, transport planes
languished for want of fuel, where soldiers marched:
Lave tes mains, utilise ta manche.
At dusk, no one left to hear Beggar Boys,
IED, baby, IED!
Who’s right, who’s wrong?
We just want to eat
—been so long
As Reported to the Investigator, Detention Centre C
Informant #1
Yes, there were three of them, lab assistants and
they worked to record, light waves on those plates.
Yes, we searched everywhere, beam splitter and
they stole from Consortium, two lasers.
Yes, she denied all knowledge: reference beams
telepresence, the last Ethernet, gone.
Informant #2
After many years, countless encounters
woman to woman, men also
she resolved to inoculate children,
in a futile attempt to share resources.
Variants of concern haunted each camp.
Each hurt a public wound, reprimanded
for crossing lines; she dared to share her skill.
She broke all the rules of the Healing Guild.
Outside Perimeter
people streamed across borders, and sent
in their own way, any number of messages.
How to get their children to her
by any means necessary—
Informant #3
Tucked behind the cover of her journal
sketches for a chalice diagram, pulled—
Well before the first catastrophe, she
began by studying all the Beggar Boys
usually in small groupings
always outnumbered in their language.
She found herself stuttering, unsure how
to replicate their rhythms, to fit in
against Consortium rules forbidding speech.
She wrote down resister prophecies, signs.
Her messages to Cy-Board #6, delayed.
The Good Doctor, as Posted on Cy-Board #6
To Whom It May Concern
Third attempt, connection intermittent.
We crossed out of Perimeter, borders,
hedges, train tracks, a long line of fir trees
Long after the Battle of Kingsway, survivors.
My arrest impending or so they say.
Befriended, this small girl brings me androids.
At night she squats beside me, chanting words.
I can only decipher a few here:
Right as rain
good as new
Jumped the fence
you should too.
Her poor left arm branded:
Desiderata
Beggar Boys to chalk mark Perimeter,
trails, boundaries, even if not permitted would allow for—
Everyone in those days carried within the names of—
All of them to pace dimensions: cell, chamber, park,
yard, compound, plaza, a field, vast, the forest—
Said the mothers at the well, Please not yet Said the teacher, bombed-out classroom, Simple
Said the three washerwomen, Jump that fence!
Said the resisters, deep in hiding, Find that little beggar girl even if—
Said the Investigator, Gold is its own reward Said the Guard of the Fifth, him with his cold blue eyes, I know just the girl.
Said the Village Spy, Regret’s a luxury.
Said Dr. Anderson after she was forbidden to practise medicine,
You see, the both of them, in on it. Don’t blame Betty, she was in love.
A Guard of the Fifth Lures Betty, Daughter of the Village Spy
His smile, slant, those looks, and sat close to her
And she, knowing that gaze, those cold blue eyes
Cascading petals, leaves, autumn to spring
Lamp magnolia, star-shaped too, imagine
Possession, interlocked, a fit, two joined who must
She realized; this is how he got them—
And careened toward abandonment
If only she had not fallen under.
Always, those surveillance cameras, third eye
He said in that language, when last, they had sat—
Together. Imagine, she thought, afterward, the power, unearned
The thing that would come, turning who could tell
Thinking back, she realized, and could not believe