Bald New World

by Peter Tieryas Liu

  I answered, “I have nothing to tell.”

  “You have nothing to tell?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There is a trial for those who claim to have nothing to say.”

  “What is it?”

  “If you are still of the same mind at the end of the week, then I will explain it to you. For now, listen to this.” He turned on the religious hymns of an audio player and left. The music constantly shifted timbres and any time I was about to fall asleep, the shift in tone caused me to wake. They were singing in Latin or Hebrew—I wasn’t sure. I pissed and relieved myself on my leg again. My stomach was growling for food. I felt dizzy. Part of the shadow moved and asked, “Why do people’s nails grow?”

  “What?”

  “There are millions of cameras in the world but none have captured definitive proof of either a ghost or an alien.”

  “So what?”

  “Why assume there is only one type of light that can reveal all the digital layers of reality?”

  “What other light is there?”

  “Earth has a hundred suns, but you only see the dimmest bulb that requires the most energy to burn.”

  “Can you leave me alone so I can sleep?” I asked.

  “You’ve been asleep your whole life, waiting for this moment.”

  “What moment?”

  The shadow orbited around me. “When you become one with your shit.”

  Don’t break down so easily, Nick. You’ve been prepared for this kind of thing. Resist the chemicals in your mind. There is no voice speaking to you. It’s yourself.

  Suddenly, the lights came back on.

  It was Mardi. “You can’t even control your bowels anymore!” he yelled. “It smells terrible in here. If you act like an animal, you force me to treat you like an animal!” Mardi whipped me twice across the legs. “Dogs have better sense than you! At least they’ve been potty-trained.”

  “W-where else am I supposed to go?”

  “Did I say you could speak?!” he yelled and gripped me by the neck, his fingers pressing against my esophagus. His rubbery gloves grated against my skin and my breath became constricted. He let go and shook his head. “It’s disgusting touching you.”

  There was a pungent smell that reminded me of chicken. A maid brought in a plate of food. My stomach cried out and my mouth started to salivate. Mardi lifted up the dish and took a bite. I pressed against the rope and tried to struggle free. My only commandment was to eat.

  Mardi handed the plate back to the maid. “I’m not hungry. Take it out of here.” I stared at the food. He saw my gaze. “Wait.” He grabbed the piece of meat and as he was coming to me, he threw it on the ground in my waste. He lifted it back up, herbal sauce mixed in with crap. “Do you still want it?”

  “This is how the religious treat their prisoners?”

  “This is how we treat unrepentant sinners.”

  “I’m repentant.”

  “Of what?” he asked.

  “Of immorality and perversion.”

  “Because of your family?”

  “My past has nothing to do with who I am now.”

  He took the chicken and rubbed it in my face, smearing it all over my nose and cheeks.

  “You think shit can be wiped off so easily?” he asked.

  “With a strong enough hose,” I answered.

  “Spray him!” he commanded.

  The hose came at me full burst again, knocking me against the wall. This time, I couldn’t see who it was that directed the water and wondered how many people there were in the room beyond the candlelight.

  “Did you ever go to church?” he asked after the water stopped.

  “When I was young.”

  “Why did you stop?”

  “I got bored with the sermons.”

  “I can’t blame you there. God bless all pastors, but some are extremely tedious.”

  I could sense another speech coming. My mind drifted. Most times, I went to church to chase after pretty girls. But I got real tired of people using religion to suit their agendas. God became a mental genie that could be called upon to justify anything. It was a shame because I always thought religion was a beautiful thing with some of the most moral and wonderful stories ever told. The idea that the poor and the weak were more powerful than the rich and strong was so riveting for me—a reevaluation of morality. In many ways, the fundamental concept of the American Dream would not have been possible without the idea of salvation for anyone who sought it. Having come thousands of years ago, it was a radically liberating idea that still resonated with billions of people and I knew how poor a substitute science was for hope and spirituality. It couldn’t help being misused. Religious protesters used to rally against Larry’s film and people would tell me in a pitying tone, “I’m praying for your soul so you don’t suffer in Hell.” None of them ever protested vices like greed, violence, and child abuse. But show a few naked teats on screen or a woman with tattoos over her scalp, and nothing less than the end of morality was at stake. If we were to make another film—

  And then it came back to me. I was never going to get to make another film with Larry again. I couldn’t believe it. How could Larry be dead?

  “—can’t remember how to speak anymore?” Mardi asked.

  Was he asking me a question?

  “To show we are merciful, to show we are just, I will allow you to take the trial.”

  “What trial?”

  And then the lights went out again. Or were they back on? I saw Mardi. He was holding curry soup. I loved curry. How did he know I loved curry? Whenever Linda cooked curry, our apartment would smell for days. Same when I cooked kimchee soup. Her favorite were dumplings. One Chinese New Year, her mom cooked us so many dumplings, I stopped eating them for almost a year. I craved those little jiaozis. Even one bite now, and I would have traded away my birthright.

  Ropes slithered around my wrists and hissed at me.

  Lights out again. Where did Mardi go? He was asking me a question about stealing. Or was it lust?

  I lusted all the time. But after the divorce, I refused to go near any other woman. It’d been so long since I’d even kissed a girl.

  Did a part of me wish Linda might come back?

  I knew that was impossible. She’d already gotten remarried. I didn’t know to whom, but I hoped he could take care of her better than I did. After being discharged from the army, I got involved in a scam where a real-estate agent promised special veteran rates for a mortgage. It was an adjustable loan that would jump from 1% to 19% after two years. “Not to worry,” the old Korean businessman with slick hair told me. “The price of the house will go up so you can refinance your loan.” He took me out to dinner several times, told me I was a brave soldier fighting for their rights. I lapped it up and bought an apartment I couldn’t afford just like everyone else getting in on the housing frenzy.

  Only prices plummeted after the bubble collapsed and my credit was ruined while my savings evaporated when the banks sent debt collectors after me.

  We were always on the move because the owners would kick us out for whatever reasons. “I can pay for an apartment,” she offered. “It’s not a big deal and at least we won’t have to keep on moving every few months.”

  I couldn’t accept her money. Shouldn’t I be the one providing for her?

  “Are you here?” Mardi demanded.

  “Wh-where???”

  “Hose him.”

  Doused in water, doused in urine, doused in unusual memories, I heard my toes complaining about all the blood gathering in my calves. My legs were tired of standing upright and my body was drooping against the wall. I dreamt of hair. I was a little boy again with a full head of hair. It was covered with dandruff but I still hated using shampoo because soap got in my eyes and made them sting.

  “God is merciful, but only to those who seek His mercy. Did you ever cheat on your wife?”

  “Never!” I shouted.

  But when I stared carefully, n
o one was there. Had anyone asked me a question? Other lovers were never part of our equation. It might have been easier if they were. My problem was that I believed in the idea of unlimited opportunities. I believed that no matter what happened in the past, the future could be changed. Had I been overly optimistic?

  “It’s a common fault,” Mardi said.

  “If only I could have provided the basics.”

  Stuck in a cubicle for SolTech wasn’t so bad, but all everyone around me did was complain and moan and that made me miserable too and we fed off our negativity until all of us hated being at work and compared it to digital prostitution when prostitution in its old form was a horrific nightmare nothing like what we had to endure. The corporations wanted to maximize profit, so in my second year they reduced our cubicle space to the size of a box. We had to stand in an area smaller than my closet at home, vispads over our eyes and optical keypads we could type on using audio, mental stimuli, or our fingers. Standing all day made my feet hurt the same way they did in the present except it was worse now because at least then, I could go home and lie in bed with Linda and she’d scratch my back to put me to sleep and I’d pat her on her shoulders until she got droopy. She used to joke she was a fox fairy and asked if I wanted to see a magic trick, her best being her ability to splay her toes. SolTech was deemed one of the top ten happiest places to work in the world, and they maintained that by continually monitoring everything we did through cortical sensors and paying us only for the minutes we spent actually doing work. Even bathroom breaks were docked which made every urge a financial dilemma.

  Candle lights out. Light back on. Light off.

  I had to use the restroom but I didn’t want to lose out on fifteen minutes of pay.

  It was Larry to the rescue. “You want to be my cinematogr—”

  “Those films were filth!” Mardi clamored.

  Whispers were everywhere. I remembered all the hair that had fallen out onto my bed. Politicians were telling us not to be afraid. Panic had set out. The days right after the Baldification were scary. Buildings were in blazes, eaten by flames that were slowly chomping them up. A variety of screaming cried out in a variety of languages. I recorded everything I could, particularly the gangs of people running along the sidewalk and destroying property. The army jumped in with their armored suits and gunships, and it was also the beginning of the 24-hour drone watch above the skies. I thought it was so cool and wanted to join the army because it reminded me of the videogames I played.

  “Did you take to liquor?” Mardi asked in a harmless tone.

  Was he really in front of me? I needed a drink. I’d have drunk my own piss if I could have shot it into my mouth.

  Larry took me out every night after the divorce. I didn’t want to talk about Linda, didn’t want to tell him anything. He didn’t ask. He just chased after women, all sorts of women. Skinny, buxom, short, tall. Different nationalities, different religions, different politics. He was a paragon of equality. Didn’t mind that I would moan and whimper and get so drunk that I wanted to curse the world. I didn’t want to talk to any other women. I just wanted to see Linda again and any woman that talked to me received my wrathful scorn. “Leave me alone. I don’t want your company. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t care about your problems!”

  “You’re stuck with me,” Mardi answered.

  “How many days have we been here?” I asked.

  “Not enough,” he replied. It felt like a month. It might have been less than a week. Every time I blinked, Mardi was there, or he wasn’t. I thought of Larry taking me out despite my grumpiness, despite the fact that I ruined the mood for many of the women he was interested in.

  “Sorry, man.”

  He’d grin and wave it off. “I didn’t like her anyways.”

  IV.

  The hose woke me again, but this time, it was different. They were putting clothes on me. They dragged me outside, carried me up some stairs, then through a hallway. I felt like I was made of straw and my bones were mush, although it was a boon to finally have the restraints removed from my arms. When we stepped outside, the sun attacked me with light and my eyes felt overwhelmed by brightness. Even with my lids shut, the light tore at my sockets and tried to burn their way in. I felt nauseous until they put me on a stage.

  “For three weeks, this infidel has resisted our attempts to lead him toward the righteous path. Let it never be said we don’t offer a fair trial!” Mardi yelled into a speaker. There were guards to either side of me holding whips. I saw the contours of people, heard them jeering, except I couldn’t see their faces because it was too bright. I never hated the sun so much. It was my enemy. Scientists said the sun had something to do with the Baldification, the burst in radiation, solar spikes that disrupted our telecommunications periodically. I just wanted to punch the sun in the face, let it feel my hands as nuclear implosions, scrape away the hydrogen bursts and swallow it like an overly spiced jalapeno, spitting out the seeds. The seeds would spring from the dead earth and form flowers of discontent that would blossom into a hundred reborn stars outlined as constellations of vagabonds. We’d rage a war, sun versus the stars of the earth and duke it out. Not for dominance, but the darkness of anonymity, the billions who sacrificed themselves so that other suns could burn more brightly.

  Mardi lifted a stone that was the size of my hand and a whole lot thicker.

  “You refuse to repent. Fine. We leave justice to God. If you can carry this rock with your mouth all the way to the end of our main road without using your hands, you are free to leave. But if you fail, then you must repent of your sins. You will be given three chances. Do you accept?”

  Was he serious? Carrying a rock in my mouth seemed like an easy enough task. “I accept,” I replied.

  A guard tied my hands in front of me. Mardi stuffed the stone into my mouth and it barely fit. They had sanded the rock to be slippery and I had to clamp down hard with my teeth to keep it from slipping out. Its size was already taking a toll on my jaw. My strong clench caused pain to shoot up my gums and my teeth felt sore within ten seconds of biting. Tooth pains were the worst and were already giving me a headache. They may as well have put needles in my mouth. I could barely focus and when the people started jeering me, the migraine intensified. Distracted for a moment, the stone dropped out of my mouth onto the dusty road. I was whipped twice.

  “Do you repent sinner?!” Mardi asked.

  My back felt like it’d been burnt and I dropped to my knees. My joints creaked and I picked up the rock. I tried to stand, but my legs betrayed me. They were too weak. I focused on the scalding pain in my back, and willed myself up. The rock was covered with dirt, but I had to put it in my mouth. The coarse particles of dirt rolled in my tongue and I wanted to gag, but I thought of that whip and I thought of having to surrender to these nutcases. I clamped down with my teeth again and took a step forward. Another. I’d just taken a total of two steps when I needed to make thousands. The thought horrified me. I forced myself to put it out of my head. Don’t think about the end. Just think about the next step. It was a cliché, but it was all I had.

  Linda, you always joked Larry would get me into a whole lot of trouble, but I never imagined it would be like this. I would rather die than live a life of forced subjugation. That’s the household I grew up in, forced to repent for imagined crimes. I struggled so hard to leave that life behind. Nick. You fought to get out. Now fight to stay out.

  I knew my teeth were upset. I implored them: I know it hurts a whole lot, but help me now. Help me and I swear I will get you the best dental treatments in the world. I’ll drink a hundred bottles of wine and only pick out the most select teas in the Chengdu chaguans. Want ice cream? Which flavor? Warm broths, huo guo, mapo tofu, anything you want, you’ll get. I wish I could have taken more calcium for you guys, given deeper fortifications to you laterals and cuspids. Canines, I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been pointy fangs, but I need you to clench as though we were in the wild. I
need you to be ruthlessly bestial on this rock and obliterate it.

  The villagers started throwing fruits at me. A tomato hit the side of my head. Apples, which were much harder, started coming my way. I decided to take a risk. I let the rock fall out of my mouth. Two lashes hurtled against me.

  “Do you repent?”

  I got down again, but this time, rather than the rock, I picked up one of the apples and took four rapid bites. I swallowed without chewing and by the time Mardi realized what I was up to, he tore the apple away and yelled to the crowd, “Don’t throw any more food!”

  An apple had never tasted so sweet and savory. I felt energy swell from within. It was the best apple I’d ever had, even if it was covered with dirt.

  “Thank you,” I whispered to the crowd.

  I put the rock back in my mouth and stood up.

  Five, six, seven, eight.

  I clenched harder, felt saliva dripping over the rock. Only I saw red slithering over the rock and realized it was blood. I heard a chip, felt my teeth compact.

  “We are a society that believes good morals are the foundation of a family. How dare you enter our village and try to corrupt everything we hold dear?!” Mardi yelled. “Look how hard he resists. Look how he struggles against the righteous path. All he needs do is repent. But he would rather die than turn away from his life of sin!”

  If it was sin I was turning away from, I would have gladly given it up. Sign me up to be a monk. What did I care? I hadn’t even touched a woman in years. Priests and monks were guilty of every vice but sex, and even that, they often violated. I had no beef with God or their Yillah. I had a beef with the sun, with the religious freaks, with the gravity that was pulling on this stone. God had never done me any wrong. Only humans misusing God and every other idea in the universe to exact their petty creeds. I realized the only way for me to get to the end was clamp even harder and destroy my teeth. Break through until it was gums and blood to cement the rock so I could hold it in my jaws. No one ever said the American Dream was free.

  I no longer tried to protect my teeth. I pressed down, pressed like I was trying to cause fusion in my mouth. My laterals gave way first and the pain nearly caused me to drop the rock as I felt the pieces tumble on my tongue. I let them leak out the side of my mouth and bit harder. Sanded as it was, all the blood and saliva was soaking in. They whipped me because I was standing still, trying to break my teeth.