Quagmire's Gate

by Allan E Petersen

  After swiping her card, she hated what came next. Of the few people she had met and talked to here, conversation was casual and her greeting smile was rarely returned. It was for that reason she found it discomforting to hear a pleasant greeting from a computer. After pushing aside the protective cover on the security swipe slot a mechanical voice responded, ‘Good evening Doctor Gray and welcome home.’ There were times when she felt like staying and having a conversation with it. However, almost run over and losing one tomato, she was not receptive to the congeniality today. Her response reflected her mood. “Screw you.” As a reflection of her day, she stomped up the stairs to the second floor.

  Her apartment was small but comfortable. After all, and as so often reminded, she was now alone. A small kitchenette was adequate for the diminutive meals she nibbled at. In the beginning of her confinement, her desire to meet others brought her to the common underground cafeteria near the laboratory. Although many people frequented the cafeteria, they all seemed overtaken by the ‘Shut Mouth Syndrome.’ It did not take long to realize that nobody was going to invite her over for tea.

  In the cafeteria, if one was brave enough to respond to a smile from across the table, the conversation was generally artificial and brief. It was easier to just sit there and eat in silence than to calculate what can be talked about and what cannot. For her, the weather was dry conversation. It was always hot here anyway. Because of a lack of pleasant company in the cafeteria, she decided that her books made better company than the “Shut Mouth’ people down there. A dark cloud always loomed overhead when realizing how well she had adjusted to eating alone and sometimes looked forward to it.

  Her small living room seemed bigger by the lack of furniture. A small sofa seated two but was only ever occupied by one. On the small throw rug was a small table holding a small television. On the wall behind the television was a large picture of a herd of jumping kangaroos. A real boomerang with authentic aboriginal pictograph painted on it hung next to the picture. Those items somehow abated frequent bouts of homesickness.

  On the bookshelf, stacked with novels not yet read was a picture of a young woman incased in a golden frame. She was perhaps eighteen, wearing her graduation cloak and beaming her mother’s smile. The picture was also a cure for frequent lonesomeness. Just above that picture, on another shelf was another one. It was not framed in gold but rather in cheap plastic. The glass covering the picture was cracked from corner to corner. Even the plastic frame was cracked and chipped in many places. Because of the cracked glass, it was difficult to make out the man’s face. He was the reason for her broken heart and lonely life.

  He was a handsome man looking very much younger than his fifty years. Despite trying hard not to, she still loved him. His powerful personality was the reason so many considered him their best friend. His striking features greatly enhanced the smart Air Force uniform. A slight tilt of his Beret gave him that boyish charm that she had so easily yielded to so long ago.

  In the kitchen the groceries were placed on the counter. The kettle was filled with water and placed on the stove and a tea bag was nonchalantly tossed into a cup. Waiting for the water to boil she became a slave to a habit. Walking back into the living room she haphazardly threw her jacket onto the sofa. After unbuttoning her blouse, she tossed it onto a heap with the rest of the clothing waiting to be washed. She wandered over to that shoddy picture with the broken glass on the top shelf. As always, she found herself standing there, arms to her side and staring at it.

  A gloomy Lynda Gray transfixed her gaze onto the only man she had ever loved and given herself to. Not understanding the swirling tempest in her head that was spinning love and hate, her thoughts became muddled. As she stood staring at her husband’s picture, ancient memories of how they met bubbled to the surface. At first, it was a horror story, the most dreaded of assignments for any medical person. Nobody ever wants to be on the emergency ward when something that horrible happens.

  He was a member of the Australian synchronized RAAF, a Blackhawks flying squadron stationed in Fort Ambley. On this particular day she was working a double shift when one of their FB 47’s crashed during an Air Show at an old and hardly used airport not far from Sidney. Thousands of people watched in horror as Captain Jeff Gray’s jet clipped the wing of another during an ever-dangerous Roman candle cross over maneuver.

  Although Captain Jeff Gray was able to eject before impact, he was seriously injured. Both legs snapped in half like fragile toothpicks just below the knees. There were multiple fractures in his right arm and many broken ribs. His internal damages were so severe that a blender could not have done worse. The first time Lynda saw Captain Jeff Gray was on a gurney quickly wheeled into her emergency ward. She became his attending surgeon and for months, she too suffered his pain. She spent many nights praying for his recovery.

  He spent six months balancing on a thin thread between life and death and each time she helped him pull back from the light. Lynda shared and experienced every painful moment with him. Because they had joined their souls to form as one, the next step was easy. They fell in love and married. Terri was their only child. It was all she needed.

  How did God’s plan for two kindred souls get so screwed up? After years of bliss, here she now stands looking at a picture of the man who had walked away from her. He was responsible for her being in this hellhole of monotony and tediousness. Loneliness holds hands with hate and dances through her confused heart.

  Terri and her father were also kindred. The bond between them was more than father and daughter. The usual awkward and confusing years of youth transcended parent and child. It was one of friendship and trust. Terri was seventeen years old when her father walked out of the house never to return. At least on the surface, she took it better than her mother.

  Memories! A shaking hand slowly reached out for his picture. As she sometimes does, she stared transfixed at his smile. Slow hands gently pressed his image to her bare bosom. This was where he belonged and should be to this day. With words soaked in restrained tears she whispered,

  “I begged you not to go.”

  Without realizing it, she started to sway slowly back and forth. Something inside her built to a crescendo and quickly manifested to a boil. From somewhere deep inside, hatred surfaced and she bore a harsh facial expression of mania. There was no longer a fondness in her soft endearing eyes. In a rage, she tossed the picture across the room. It shattered against the wall and careened to land on the sofa. With any luck, nobody heard her frustrated scream.

  She suddenly realized what she had done and instantly regretted it. She ran to her fallen husband, gently picked him up and again took him to heart and bosom. Through the tears she sobbed,

  “You hurt me. You son of a bitch, you hurt me bad when you walked out that door. Look at me now. What am I without you? I’ve sunk to being a lonely doctor in a cursed lab surrounded by intolerable Yanks all because of you.”

  As fast as the rage surfaced, it was banished to the land it had festered. With gloomy eyes and bearing a confused look, she raised Jeff to his resting place up high and between the books. This time he was leaning to one side just a little bit more than before his nightly flight across the room. A whistling kettle from the kitchen snapped her out of the insufferable reminiscence.

  As the tea brewed, she prepared for her shower. Behind the bathroom door hung the most insufferable contraption ever known to a middle-aged woman. She hated it. As much as she tried not to look at it, a strange compulsion forced reason to the side and she stared naked into the full-length mirror. In this most volatile condition, she swore she would never look in a mirror again.

  However, a slow acceptance of slight imperfections gained the forefront and she decided what she was looking at was not that bad after all. She took solace in understanding that mirrors only reflect surface images, be they the truth or unflattering. Mirrors cannot reflect the soul in a person. Turning to the shower she gingerly sidestepped the scale. It was not a reliab
le scale anyway, never showing the same weight twice. Steaming water gushed from the shower and washed away the frustration of a woman not used to a single life and loneliness.

  As the potatoes and carrots cooked and the steak marinated, she opened the big sliding glass door leading out into the balcony and stepped outside into the warm dry air. Both sides of the balcony had tall separator walls allowing for privacy from neighbors. Because her apartment was at the end of the street, it looked over the barb wired fence of the compound and out into the desert. From here, nobody can see her light up a cigarette. The tea always tastes better out here too. A tea, a smoke and a warm breeze was one of her few pleasures here. When she returned to the kitchen, the empty cup was left on the balcony rail.

  It was only after the third beer that she started chuckling at the TV program. If it were not for the beer, she would not understand any of this Yankee humor at all. There was nothing else to do. There were no appointments in her date book and no romantic hero was going to risk scaling the hazardous fence to enjoy the pleasures of her bedroom. God she missed Jeff in more ways than one. Most of the time she woke up on the couch with the blue TV screen still on. More often than not, groggy Lynda Gray struggled into the bedroom to a waiting lonely pillow. But not tonight.

  Chapter 4

  Because she fell asleep on the couch, sometime in the early morning, she was not sure when, she heard an eerie voice coming from somewhere in the room. Perked alert she realized that the voice was calling her. In a stupor, she stirred and wondered if it was not a dream. Had she left the TV on all night again? When she heard it again, she recognized the voice and produced a sleepy smile. It was a voice she missed as much as her husband.

  “Mom? Where are you?”

  Terri was calling on Skype from Paris. Both are aware of the extreme time difference. Despite being unfocused for opposite reasons, Terri from staying up late and the other not getting to bed at all, the screen still managed to project congenial smiles. While mother basked in the glow of her daughter, Terri, ever the blunt teasing one said,

  “Mom, you look like a piece of Kangaroo turd. Have you been to bed at all?”

  Subconsciously fixing her hair with combing fingers, mom sat up and faked indignity.

  “Why thank you. You look as beautiful as ever though.”

  Terri then asked a question mixed with coy and teasing.

  “Well, have you been to bed? Is there a man in your bedroom?”

  The indignity of it all! Yet somehow and for whatever reason, Lynda had grown accustomed to her daughter’s cavalier inquiries regarding her personal life. Perhaps it was because, at least to her, it indicated caring and a comfortable friendship between them. Lynda does not have adult friends who talk to her in such a cavalier manner. She does not have any friends who talk to her at all in this encampment.

  Since her husband walked out the door, there has been a strained relationship between her and Terri. Something happened that day and Lynda never knew what it was. From that time on, hugs and words of love from her daughter were few and far between. Obviously, the tragedy affected both but in different ways. The mystery of her daughter’s indifference to losing her father lingered. Often Lynda thought Terri’s smiles and words were simply a happy facade keeping emotion locked in.

  The playful tease about who was in her bed invoked a false embarrassment. She smiled and replied,

  “I’ll just remind you this is your mother you’re talking to here and not some floozy college girl like I’m sure you’re turning out to be.”

  The spirited scolding did not faze the daughter, who quickly rebuked,

  “Hah. I’m trying my best to be a floozy but it’s not working out. Besides, I thought you told me Doctor Nelson, was one heck of a handsome man. Hasn’t he hit on you yet?”

  What was a mother to do but blush? With a sudden girlish attitude Lynda responded,

  “He’s not the only rooster in the hen house you know. I will have you know there are plenty of men here who have expressed interest in me. Just for your edification girlfriend, not all want to jump in the sack with me. There are other things in a relationship than just sex you know.”

  Why was Lynda not surprised at her daughter’s reply?

  “Really? What?”

  The conversation went on and on. Lynda was proud of her daughter’s achievements. From the sounds of it, she was having fun at the university. For some reason when Lynda told Terri the only highlight of her time here at Deep Lab 6 was a hole in a scientist’s hand, it was not as exciting to Terri as it was to her. As she related the story, Lynda saw Terri’s upturned eyes and shaking head. The expression was easy to read, ‘Damn mom, get a life!’ After an hour of casual chitchat and the promise to keep the next appointment, they blew each other a kiss and signed off. Lynda shuffled into the bedroom and crashed onto her lonely bed.

  Chapter 5

  The next morning the insolence of the alarm clock forced blood to flush through a dormant mind. The snooze button was hammered hard and silence again soothed a weary body. The pillow was so warm, so inviting. The only thing Lynda currently struggled with was how to come up with a decent excuse for ignoring the rooster’s call.

  Again, the damn thing screeched its blaring call to arms. It was heartless and unrelenting and not caring about her great need for just a few extra minutes in this more pleasant of worlds, her dream world. However, as she had learned from so many times in the past, there was no choice but to respond to the damn merciless alarm clock.

  Reluctant feet dragged her into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she entered the kitchen and with just barely both eyes open, she managed to toss a teabag into a cup. Cold cereal was slurped down. Who cared what skirt to put on, the blue one, the green one, what does it matter? After putting on shoes and a jacket, she was out the door and down the street to another day of boredom.

  Although the cool mountain air was fresh and invigorating, she could not help but compare it to home. Because the air on the ranch in Australia never really cooled down too much during the night the morning air started hot and got hotter as the day progressed. Here in this awkward land of the Yanks, the morning air started cool and eventually warmed as the day rolled along. It was better this way and so she reluctantly conceded half a favorable point to yank-land. The pleasant aroma coming from the mountains got the other half point. It certainly was better than that stifling reek the morning breeze brought to the ranch house from the sheep stocks at home. As her father had so aptly put it, “It’s the smell of money honey.” “No dad, it’s the smell of sheep shit.”

  As she walked toward the elevator silo, she saw a couple jogging around the oval track but it was too great of a distance to make them out. Small matter when realizing she would not know them anyway. There, near the edge of the track she saw a lone figure driving golf balls toward the fence. Although it was early morning, they were the only people she saw, at least aboveground. She understood that most activities are under her feet.

  When she first saw this compound, she wondered why the government would bother putting living quarters on the surface. Surely, with their resources, they could have hidden everything under the ground and even put in a full sized golf course, grass and all. However, a colony of mole people was not what the authorities wanted here. There had to be some semblance of a society within the barbed wire. There had to be a reminder to the staff and scientists that civilization was still present, albeit, restricted. Hence, the above ground stores, the jogging track and movie house. Apparently, some people worked better when allowed to cook their own food and do their own laundry.

  Past an open store with nobody in it and past the park with the now absent joggers, she continued to make the mistake of comparing this place to home. It was not like when she used to get up in the morning and walk over to the barn. It was not even comparable to the long walk to her car. It was a two-hour drive to the Air Force Base at Barwon in the north of New South Wales. She was here now, not there. Her life had changed an
d she had not gotten used to it yet.

  When looking to the elevator silo in the distance she suddenly froze in her tracks. Two staunch uniformed men stood guard at the entrance to it. Where was Keats, the old man who was always on duty when she reported to work? Keats never wore a uniform and always dressed rather casually despite the importance of his job. Standing rigid, almost at attention, these two do not look friendly at all. Those two uniforms were probably only the third or fourth ones she had ever seen here. Electronic surveillance and security cards did all security here. If there was an ‘at fault’ swipe, security people quickly showed up.