Vacation

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  “Desperate people do desperate things,” she says. “I said before that the photos are of the world. Can you guess what I’m insinuating by that?”

  “Not really.”

  “What I mean is, they were taken at numerous locations all over the world. What you see in the photographs are common occurrences, everywhere. Almost everywhere.”

  “No. I can’t believe that.” And I feel angry. As easy as it would be to direct this anger at her, I know that would be a lie. “If you’re telling me the truth, and these photographs do represent a large portion of the world, why haven’t I seen anything like them before?”

  “That’s an important question. I would suggest keeping it in mind.”

  “If this is all true, the implications are insane. It would mean that the government and the media have been working together to keep the public in the dark.”

  “Assuming you have a government.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re assuming that the American government still exists, simply because you perceive certain mechanisms still working. But forget I said anything. The notion is an unnecessary aside.”

  “An unnecessary aside!”

  “As far as the Vacation question is concerned, yes. You were saying that the public has been kept in the dark.”

  I want to go back to what she was saying about the government, but I give in. “If the world is as sick as you say and we the public don’t know about it, that’s the only explanation.”

  “The only reasonable explanation. Many explanations exist that couldn’t be classified as such.”

  “Is that a clue?”

  “I’m afraid that statement was in actuality random commentary. This is what happens when I don’t utilize my lists. I succumb to tangential digressions which more often than not lead to dead-ends.”

  I smile a little.

  She taps her leg with a finger, and I can’t help but think of Weis’ daughter.

  The girl of my dreams.

  “Let’s say that you’re correct in your assumption,” she says. “You have been kept in the dark. What would this imply in regard to the Vacation?”

  “It means our Vacations don’t show us the truth. We’re only taken to designated locations.”

  “What sort of locations?”

  “Places without suffering.”

  “This is true. But I’m afraid the truth is more sinister than a mere selectivity of destination.”

  “Okay, what is the truth?”

  She shakes her head. “I already told you. If you don’t find the truth out yourself, at least to a certain extent, you won’t be as prone to believe it.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Experience.”

  I touch her eyes with my gaze for a moment. “Maybe I trust you.”

  She smiles. The sad variety. “I achieve my objectives through trickery and manipulation, Mr. Johnson. I’m not a trustworthy person. For instance, if I deem it necessary, I won’t hesitate to take over your body or invade your dreams again, despite your feelings on the subject.”

  “I know that.”

  This woman has hurt me more than anyone’s ever hurt me.

  But after escaping the battle with the men in black, Aubrey told me that Noh cares about me.

  And that girl was just a part of my mind.

  So part of me has to believe Noh does care.

  The question is, how big is that part?

  Then Noh says, “To be truly responsible, you must not only make good decisions based on what you know, but actively investigate what you don’t. You can’t trust what anyone tells you. You can’t even trust yourself. This is the world we live in.”

  Silence.

  So here’s one of those dead ends she was talking about.

  She shakes her head, as if purging certain thoughts, then says, “As I was saying, there’s more to the Vacation process than selecting appropriate locations and taking you there. What if I were to tell you that in the course of your Vacation, you’ve already visited Meek countries where several of my photographs were taken? By Meek, I’m referring to the fact that—”

  “Blackbeard explained Meek and Tic to me.”

  “I see. Good. So, what’s your response to my question?”

  A small bird engraved in the wall catches my eye, and I have to force myself to look away. “I’ve been to Meek countries, and I haven’t seen any suffering. Which means we’ve been avoiding those areas.”

  “What areas?”

  “The areas with the suffering.”

  “What if I were to tell you that those countries, even with the help of people like Weis and Blackbeard, don’t have the resources to sustain a prosperous city or town?”

  “Then the resources are coming from somewhere else. Are you telling me that my government…or Tics, are the ones responsible for these Vacation spots?”

  “I’m not telling you anything. But what possible reason would the Tics have to maintain well-off cities and towns around the world?”

  The truth smacks me hard across the face, and the fact that I don’t feel any pain in the process only makes it worse. “So that we can Vacation there.”

  “Why would the Tics want that?”

  I stare at my knees. “To keep us ignorant. So that if information about the world’s suffering is ever leaked to us, if we’re ever shown photographs like the ones I’ve seen, we can more easily reject it. We can tell ourselves that we’ve already seen the world during our Vacation, and it isn’t so bad out there. Because the world of the Vacation is like home.”

  Noh nods.

  So that’s it.

  The pain of the world has been edited out of our realities.

  The Vacation isn’t simply an abridged version of the truth. It’s a bad made-for-TV movie with a script only loosely based on the book of truth.

  I hate movies like that.

  “We’ll move on to step three tomorrow,” Noh says. “I’ll give you your Assignment, and return you to the hospital. Whether or not you attempt your mission is your choice. In other words, once you return to America, I’ll cease from infiltrating your body and your dreams.”

  Aubrey was right.

  Noh does care.

  Otherwise, she wouldn’t sound so sad about setting me free.

  Lying on my coffin, I wonder if God’s given us freewill, or if we’re suffering from planned obsolescence. Companies create merchandise that’s prone to breaking, so that more money can be made later. Has the human race made bad decisions, or are we simply breaking down the way we’re meant to?

  Maybe the problem’s that God can’t create a being with freewill. He can’t cut a godly umbilical cord because the paradox would cause him to lose all his godly powers.

  Maybe planned obsolescence is as good as it gets, so that one day he can descend on us and save us and feel damn good about himself. At least for a self-deluded while.

  He needs this façade, like the Jennings needed theirs.

  And now mine’s gone.

  I can’t run into my room and close my door and hide under my covers like I did as a boy. My room is a tomb, and I don’t have a door, and when I’m under my covers, I’m still just a stone slab away from the boogieman.

  This is Frankenstein’s monster seeing his reflection for the first time.

  This is Don Quixote on his deathbed, regaining his sanity.

  This is Mr. Rochester’s attic.

  This is my reality.

  Part 17

  Noh rips a small piece of paper from her notebook. She stares at the page, then hands it over.

  “What’s this?” I say.

  “Your Assignment,” she says. “More specifically, it’s a list of ten books. You’ll need to memorize the list before I return you to the hospital.”

  “You want me to read these books?”

  “Whether you do or not is your prerogative. That’s not your Assignment, however.”

  “Which is?”

  “Retur
n to America and include each of these books in the required reading list for high school students. In all likelihood, your superiors will take one look at your recommendations and ask you kindly to change them. If you don’t change the list, they won’t hesitate to fire you. They will, of course, change the list themselves. And if you do change the list when they ask, they’ll thank you and then wait for the next possible excuse to fire you.”

  “If that’s true, then what’s the point?”

  “Because after you refuse to change the list, you won’t take your dismissal lying down.”

  I wonder if that phrase originated as a sex joke.

  “You’ll contact every newspaper you can and tell them your story of woe,” she says. “You’ll supply each of these periodicals with the list of books. And some of them will include the list with the story. The students will learn about this list. They’ll learn that a man in a black suit, who looks an awful lot like their father, is attempting to keep them from reading certain books. They’ll search out this forbidden fruit themselves, and they’ll be more likely to read them than if they were required reading.”

  “That’s my Assignment?”

  “Yes.”

  “So I went through all of this for some stupid books I’ve never heard of?” thinks the booklover.

  But what I say is, “What exactly is the content of these books?”

  “Various truths about the world, embedded in fiction. Why fiction? Because people are more prone to believe foreign truths in an imagined reality than otherwise. When these students encounter similar truths in their real lives, they’ll be likelier to recognize them. And a few of these students will even seek out such truths. This may not seem like a great accomplishment to you, and perhaps it isn’t in the greater scheme of things, but I for one am confident in its validity. You are required no such conviction on your part, of course. To accomplish your Assignment requires only action and trust in the Garden.”

  What I find strange is that I do trust the Garden, despite the fact that I have little idea what it is. Maybe my trust stems from the fact that the Garden is respected by people like Weis and Blackbeard, who aren’t the nicest guys in the world, but at least they’re fighting like mad to alleviate the suffering of the people in Noh’s photographs. And maybe my trust for the Garden comes from the fact that Noh is the leader, or at least that’s how I think of her.

  “People will believe the truth even when it’s not hidden in fiction,” I say. “It just needs to be told to them by people they trust. Like Jack. He’s working for the Agency, isn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “The public will believe whistleblowers.”

  She nods. “This is true, and we do have potential whistleblowers all over the world. The problem is that those who blow their whistles have a tendency to mysteriously disappear and never be heard from again.”

  “I thought you were willing to make any number of human sacrifices for your cause.”

  “I am, but once whistleblowers start dying, the others tend to keep their mouths shut. And then there’s the mass media problem. They’re not going to give our whistleblowers a voice, if they can help it. In fact, they’ll do everything in their power to discredit what mighty peep we can manage. The media is a facet of the very system we’re attempting to change.”

  Suddenly, I can’t take it anymore. “What are you hoping to accomplish? What is the Garden? Who are you people?”

  Noh sits in silence for a while. “You may find it interesting to know that there are many acquisitions who never bring themselves to ask such questions. Perhaps they don’t want to invest themselves further in a cause so imbedded in the stark reality of the Meek.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. The Garden’s connection to the real world should be more reason to invest yourself.”

  “It should be, but let me ask you something, Mr. Johnson. The first time we met, you asked me about the purpose of the Garden and I gave you an unsatisfying answer. Why haven’t you inquired further all the days that you’ve been here?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  “Perhaps the more telling question would be, do you have any desire to visit the places you’ve seen in my photographs? Or do you want to go home?”

  “I see your point. Now tell me about the Garden.”

  She taps the unused eraser of her pencil against her knee. “I told you that the Garden is a place filled with people, and sometimes we do what we want to do, and other times we do what we feel we need to do, even if it isn’t a want. I fear that even if I expand on this, my answer still won’t satisfy you. Because the truth of the Garden isn’t satisfying.”

  “I’ll take what I can get.”

  “Very well.” She sighs. “The Garden has no mission statement. We aren’t that sort of organization. The truth is, we don’t know how to fix any of the world’s problems, or even if they can be. The Garden is a champion to no single country, unlike Weis and Blackbeard and other Meeks. My goal, my personal goal, is to bring the truth to as many Tic citizens as possible. It’s my desire for them to know that they’re using the last of the world’s resources, while the rest of humanity suffers and dies and does the things which you’ve seen in the photographs. Perhaps if this is known, the Tics will share with the Meek. And perhaps this sharing won’t even make a difference. And perhaps if the Tics learn the truth, they won’t want to share, and nothing will change. In truth, Mr. Johnson, I don’t care about the outcome. I’ve witnessed suffering that you couldn’t imagine, even with the aid of the photographs, and I have to do something, and I have to keep doing it. Even if my actions are futile. Even if my so-called activism is simply a means to keep myself from going insane. But perhaps I already am.”

  Noh was right. I’m not satisfied with the answer. But I am damn glad that she told me.

  “You’re not crazy,” I say.

  “I’m the product of a world gone mad,” she says. “What else can I be?”

  I think, “If you’re crazy, then fuck sanity.” But I say, “I’ll do my Assignment.”

  She stands from her seat on my coffin bed. “I’ll leave you to the list. I recommend making up a story that incorporates all the book titles. That works the best for me.” She smiles and goes away.

  Here’s me, working on my homework the first chance I get, like the good student I never was, for the teacher I always wanted to become, and this is the first test in my whole life that I really give a shit about passing.

  Laetitia scrambles into my room. “Honey, we have to get out of here! Weis just breached the security door!”

  I burst to my feet.

  And she says, “I’m only kidding.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Not to you, maybe.” She laughs. “You should’ve seen your face.”

  I sigh and sit again.

  “So I hear you’re going back soon.” She sits facing me, with the chair pointed backwards. Like a teenager would. Like Marvin Blackrow. “Let me give you a little advice, honey.”

  “Alright,” I say.

  “Don’t watch too much TV. The same goes for music. Books. Art. That sort of thing.”

  My eyebrow lifts. “That seems strange, coming from you.”

  “What I mean is, don’t OD on Tic entertainment. Their music, books, art, television, movies might be great, but after a while, it’ll get to you. People need art, but we need it to reflect and comment on our experiences. Even with something like escapist literature, there has to be an understanding of what exactly you’re escaping from. Otherwise, it doesn’t work. In other words, we need Meek escapist literature. We need Meek art. And honey, that sort of thing isn’t very common in America. You’re going to have to create it for yourself.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “You can. Trust me.” She stares down at her hands. At her painted fingernails, with pictures of various smiley-faced bugs. “Not too long ago, the Garden wasn’t the cheery place that it is today. The operatives moped around and h
ardly talked to each other. Noh brought me here to boost morale, and what I realized was that they were torturing themselves on purpose. They saw so much suffering in the world that they felt too guilty to be happy. Now I’ll tell you what I told them.” She reaches out and takes my hands. She pulls me closer and looks in my eyes. “You don’t deserve happiness any more than you deserve misery. The Universe will keep expanding and time will keep on ticking no matter how you live your life. Happiness is a gift others can give you, but mostly, it’s a gift you give yourself. And the great thing about gifts is, you don’t have to deserve them to receive them. When you think of it that way, everybody’s equally worthy of having a good laugh and a good time. Don’t you think, honey?”

  My toes wriggle under the dirt, close to the roots of the plants that have sustained my life the past many days. I’m partway buried, and it feels good.

  Odin approaches, carrying Amina’s head in his hands. “Hey man. Good luck with your Assignment and everything, and thanks again for saving Pari from Weis. Oh!” He holds out the head. “She made this for you. She can look at something once and then sculpt it. She says her ability to do that comes from trauma, but I don’t know. I’ve been traumatized like a motherfucker and I can’t do shit.”

  I take the head. “Tell her thanks.”

  “Thing is, Noh won’t let you take any Meek souvenirs back to the hospital, so you’ll have to leave that thing here. So I guess it’s a stupid gift, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

  “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Cool.”

  After he leaves, I tuck in my shirt with Amina’s clay nose pressed against my flesh back, and climb one of the pillars. Four or five tries later, I stick her head up at the top. Now the pillar’s got something to hold up, though the head really doesn’t have to be held, and maybe I like it better that way.

  Minutes later, Noh comes to me. She tests me, and I regurgitate the list, while the story of the crow and the angel soars through my mind. And a thought gnaws at me until I say, “It’s so easy to remember everything with a story. Why wasn’t I ever taught that in school?”