Dark Horizons

by Jay Caselberg; Eric Del Carlo

  Julie led them through the subterranean world to Manulife. After only ten minutes, they passed into full light. Artificial, but strong, almost blinding by contrast to what they’d left. The three stopped, shocked. Trompi fell on his knees, shaking. Zeppelin’s spellbinding guitars tore through their brains.

  Beneath the Manulife Centre, the subterranean passage had collapsed under the weight of fallen floors above, following the initial impact of the Glass Plague. A few of the pillars that had supported the central body of the building hung above the emptiness, their steel roots twisted in the air. The hole underneath them was tens of meters deep. On the interior walls of the ruin, the whitish liquid of the Plague still drained like a thick sap through the hollow trunk of a tree. It then split into myriad rivulets flowing underground in all the directions that the Plague had spread on the surface.

  From somewhere—from the sky, from above the ruins—a stream of silver light with an almost metallic consistency whistled through the subterranean air. In the middle of that light, suspended above the hole, hung a gray body, its muscles tensed under shiny skin, its arms outstretched as if in crucifixion. The position revealed a giant pair of metal-gray wings, stretched along an extremely fine, skeletal silver nerve net. The still body floated as if the light stream upheld it.

  It really was an angel! Sax wanted to throw himself to the ground in front of its majesty. He wanted to run in fear and hide. He wanted, he felt, he trembled; a knot of nerves tightened in his solar plexus. He would have screamed if he’d had the strength; he would have said a prayer if he’d known any. He would have prayed to him, if he had known how.

  “Isn’t He beautiful?” asked Julie in a whisper, looking at them triumphantly.

  Only now did Sax realize that there was a tomb-like silence in the hole under the Manulife Centre, punctuated by the dripping Plague, the whistle of light, and Led Zeppelin battering their brains.

  “Isn’t He beautiful?” Julie’s voice sounded like church bells. She smiled, radiating happiness. Even the inhuman aspect of her appearance shone, beautified by an internal glow.

  The angel turned and looked at them.

  They went back to the power plant room where the proportions and the aspect were somehow bearable. The angel was taller than any of them, thinner, although seemingly vigorous. He looked young and yet mature, with a piercing, determined expression. His irises were silver, gleaming against his bluish-gray skin. He’d kept his four wings folded on his back like a velvety mantle.

  “Yes, I am an angel,” he told them, looking at each in turn.

  They stood silent. They were much too shocked by everything they’d seen to think of a smart reply, or to behave belligerently. They sat down around the creature called Angel, stroking their now quiet Deep-Vs as if they were kittens. They were the engines keeping them on the road, still running, still fighting, still swearing and spitting.

  A CIRCLE OF THOUGHTS

  Queen’s Park, quiet as always, now without the bustle of the squirrels that had abandoned it months ago, and its dozens of empty benches, was resisting the turmoil of a city in ascendance, yet a step away from total collapse. The Affected Zone had creeped less than a hundred meters away, still munching on the university. Queen’s Park was beautiful and dumb, preening its colors in the Plague’s path.

  Sax stretched, leaned his head against the bench, and closed his eyes for inspiration. He needed quiet, meditation, time for his decision. Time! As yet he still needed time. He was stuck.

  Sax slowly raised his head and spat to his right, then froze.

  “That was a big mistake.” Doll smiled widely. That was what his friends called him, in the hoarse tone that the xenos used. In the fall sunlight, Sax’s phlegm shone on one of the guy’s patent leather shoes. Three other xenos had silently surrounded the bench while he’d had his eyes closed.

  “Are we lonely?” asked a fifth from behind him. Sax could smell his strong perfume and feel his moist breath on his ear.

  He tried to get up, but Doll’s kick pushed him back. “That’s for you, my teacher, for your precious visits in Allan Gardens,” the leader said maliciously.

  Sax bent over for a few seconds, panting, then a hand grabbed his hair and pulled his head back. He was surprised by the excited looks on his aggressors’ faces, but then he relaxed. The numbness drained from his bones as if by magic. He became alert, watching their every move. Two fists knocked his head from one side to the other. He saw his blood flying through the air and grinned.

  Sax slammed his head back into the neck of the guy behind him. As his captor released his grip on his hair, Sax sprang forward, reflexively catching Doll’s ankle as his leg shot out again to kick Sax in the stomach. He twisted the foot until Doll lost his balance and landed, bewildered, on his belly. The other three pounced on Sax and brought him down. They were all over him, kicking and punching him. But everything lasted only a few seconds; as fast as they’d overpowered him, they disappeared. Doll was still struggling to free his leg and run too, but Sax gripped his ankle like a bulldog.

  A policeman pulled them from the ground and took them to the closest station. Sax complied immediately when the officer shoved him toward a chair in the interrogation room. Doll resisted, still protesting the treatment and his innocence, as he’d done during the ride over.

  “You will speak when I tell you!” the policeman snapped, brandishing his nightstick. Doll stopped struggling and sat down.

  The officer turned to Sax and smiled. “So, what happened?”

  “I don’t know why, but they wanted me to take some xenorphine,” Sax began. “When I tried to get away, they decided to force it on me … probably looking to make some new customers for their merchandise.”

  “Do you know them?”

  “No,” Sax lied, looking innocently at Doll.

  “Motherfucker–”

  The xeno didn’t finish. The cop caught him by his nose and pulled him toward them. “It’s possible you two will meet again,” the officer said to Sax as he pulled him to his feet. “So, I don’t want any quarrels in my area. Punch him and you’re even.”

  “Excuse me?” Sax blurted, surprised by the offer.

  “It’s a brave new world. I don’t want war on my turf. Punch him once and you’re even,” the cop repeated, slower.

  He didn’t wait for a third invitation; he hit Doll as hard as he could. Doll fell to the floor near the table, so red in the face that he looked as if he’d have a stroke. He started to cry. The cop pushed Sax toward the door, smiling broadly, then he turned and heaved the xeno onto a chair, on his knees, with the thin leather soles of his shoes facing outward. Sax saw only the first blow the officer delivered to the soles with his nightstick, heard the painful scream, and then closed the door respectfully.

  Jaw clenched, he walked through the station to the washrooms, where he washed his face, then outside onto the street, where he started laughing until tears came. It was good, it was perfect, life was beautiful!

  He stopped laughing and sauntered away, toward St. George. Yes, life was beautiful. But, to what good? Now he didn’t know what to believe anymore. With all this sun, the brilliant colors of fall, and so many college girls with their tempting curves walking around the Law School, and then to the east—the Plague! As real as the sun or the college girls. The angel had spoken to them. What he’d said seemed absurd now in daylight, but had sounded credible in the glassy darkness of the basement.

  He entered the campus social club, plugged his earphones into his ears–“It rained infernally / Through the window eye”—ordered a Bloody Mary, and then turned the tall glass on the table while watching the bare thighs of the girl in front of him, the diffuse light throwing clumsy shadows on the abstract paintings on the walls.

  Clearly, it was a special day. There were signs everywhere. Yes, sometimes happiness can make you high, like xenorphine—if he could only fly.

  Sax stretched happily, and then came back to reality. He was supposed to be at the hospital
in two hours. And connected to that, he couldn’t keep from thinking about the angel. He had wished to know so many things, but he hadn’t had the courage.

  And what about Trompi? Why hadn’t he even breathed? He, who usually had a big mouth and wouldn’t hesitate to pose some deep questions and play the wise guy role, had just kept silent, his mouth hanging open. He’d lost his wise guy face too, the face that was always ready to catch you saying or doing something stupid, with its sidelong look, half-shut eyes, and a cunning smile twisting its lips while his right hand stroked his chin. He hadn’t done anything but stare at the angel.

  Sax remembered that night in the parking lot near High Park. He had seen the shadows performing the ritual on a bench and had smiled, knowing what he would discover—two kids sucking the xenorphine buds in the bushes. He’d crept closer, stopping a few steps away, close enough to see them. One kept sucking greedily. The other had frozen with his hands above his head, looking at him in shock. It was Trompi with a bud hanging in his mouth.

  Sax too had frozen in shock, then lowered his eyes and quietly left. For a week, they had avoided each other. He’d tried to tell his sister, Christine, Stupid girl, your boyfriend is a xeno. How can you touch him? Trompi is a fucking xeno. He’s tainted. He might not even be human any more. But he hadn’t found the right moment, and gave up.

  When finally they’d been alone one day, Trompi had asked him, “Why didn’t you tell? Why didn’t you turn against me?” He’d only shrugged. “Why do you attack the xenos in the washrooms and not me?”

  Sax had answered calmly, “If there weren’t xenos, it would be something else. Why did you do it?”

  Trompi’s voice was steady: “It gives you hope. You dream of flying and you see worlds of unimaginable beauty. It tells you there’s still a future to look for.” In time, almost everything went back to normal, and nobody found out. Almost everything. But who can tell exactly what everything and nothing mean.

  Sax got up, left the club, changed the music on the Deep-V, and started walking to the hospital. He needed some exercise. He looked along the avenue, guarded by skyscrapers on both sides, and tried to imagine the immortal world from whence the angel had come—the sky full of wings, the roads full of slim, sculptural gray bodies with young, composed faces, cool but tough, hiding centuries of experience behind their calm demeanors.

  God, it was impossible to imagine a timeless world, without death, sickness, suffering. It was too much for the denizens of University Avenue to behold. On the other hand, if time was indeed, as the angel had revealed to them, only a virus, an infection altering the texture of the universe, then the problem narrowed down to the antidote.

  Sax knocked quietly on the hospital room door. Christine went out like a shadow. His mother was staring at the ceiling. She lay on the bed, covered with the blue blanket. Sax knelt next to the bed and stroked her hair.

  “Hi, Mama. It’s me, James.” He swallowed at her lack of reaction and kissed her on her forehead.

  SOFT PETALS

  The angel took his hands and pressed them against the concrete. “Enter the wall. Don’t be afraid.”

  Sax was afraid and trembled, but the angel’s presence and his big palms—guiding him, pushing him forward—stole his will to resist. He didn’t feel anything but terror. No pride, no bravery, not even the noble spirit of sacrifice. Two fears writhed in his chest: the fear of touching the Plague, and another one, even more terrible that pushed him forward, one he couldn’t explain or control. His mouth was dry. He would have closed his eyes, but the second fear kept them open, awakening his curiosity to see what would happen. It was like an animal inside him, gnawing his guts, whirling frantically in his stomach.

  The Plague’s surface was like a paste, but even softer, and lukewarm, massaging his hands as they dove inside it. In a few moments he was sucked into the wall, into the warm and protective yellow-gray fluid. It twirled him, stirring his blood, flowing through his lungs and out through his mouth. He felt easy, floating there.

  Images flooded his mind in a colorful stream, bearing familiar fragrances … the aroma of cologne, Armani, his father smiling like a fox from the corner of his mouth … God, how he’d missed Dad!

  And the smell of walnuts and cake, his mother—tall, fit, with a confident air and a peaceful face, made happy by the presence of her family, by their requests that made her feel useful, busy, loved.

  In the end he had agreed to the angel’s proposal. He was the one to do it.

  “The Glass Plague is only the predator that hunts and feeds on Time,” the angel’s voice was seductive and confusing. “But people slow it down and transform it through their very existence. People are Aspects of Time. We need an agent to cure the Aspects. We need you to be our agent.”

  “To cure the Aspects?” he’d asked, circumspect.

  “Yes, an agent to spread the cure against Time among people, to soften their resistance to the Glass Plague and allow it to kill Time once and for all.”

  “Immortality,” whispered Sax.

  “We are, indeed, immortal,” said the angel.

  He woke up suddenly. He was breathing, whistling with the force of it. He lay on the former Ping-Pong table in the power plant room. Julie leaned over him. The angel was nowhere in sight.

  “Where is he?” he asked hoarsely.

  “In the Manulife Centre,” she answered and stepped back. She smiled. “Since last night you’ve been in a very deep sleep. You shouldn’t have awakened yet. Your organism was supposed to slowly get back to work. Anyway, the inoculation has been a success. If you wait a little bit, He’ll join us.”

  Inoculation? His head felt heavy, his mouth dry. Yet he only had to think about these and the problems were solved instantly. He felt good, only a little bit lighter than usual. He was normally tall and solid, with some weight, as his father used to say. Now though, he felt like a feather. He sat up, then jumped down from the table. He looked at his hands, then stared in shock.

  Julie turned him toward one of the glass walls. At her touch its surface became mirror-like. A shiver crept from his belly and burnt into his brain. He looked like a dandelion—no, more, like a carnival! His skin had wrinkled into yellow puffs, or flowered into soft and silky petals; his eyes were two miniature sunflowers; his whole body rustled in the draft. He was naked, his clothes lying in a heap next to the table. He felt somehow erotic—completely strange, alien, terrifying, and yet attractive. And his penis—oh Lord, he was ashamed to look at it, but he couldn’t stop his fascination. Which he was also surprised to see in Julie’s eyes.

  “Every puff is a spore carrying an antidote,” she whispered, running her fingers from the softness on his shoulders to his chest, “every touch, a mortal touch for Time.” She blew softly on the nape of his neck, while the tips of her fingers walked slowly over the petals of his shoulder blades, then downward, toward his hips. “Every kiss, a deadly kiss against death!”

  She turned him toward her and kissed him voluptuously. Her tongue slid like a long snake through his lips and down his throat. His hands were knotty branches caressing her translucent abdomen, stirring the lightning life under her skin, sliding toward her vagina. His penis was a stem with curly, yellow petals, penetrating her and thrusting upward, toward her abdomen, chest, throat.

  She groaned, panted, withdrawing her tongue from him to gasp with pleasure. Bracing her palms against the table behind her, she leaned back, spreading her legs even more. The organisms beneath her skin became madly agitated. He had thrust into her up to her chest. Her breasts were swollen. She groaned, howled with pleasure, and his penis opened into a flower that spread its pollen inside her. Julie jerked violently as fireworks spread under her skin, then she convulsed with her mouth agape, a whitish-yellow fluid dribbling over her lower lip. Looking at him with glassy eyes, she stroked his shining, corn silk hair and his face, breathed once more, then fell back on the table and lay still.

  Scared, Sax withdrew, took two steps back, and fell to his knee
s. “Julie?” He was trembling so badly, his whole body shook. “Julie?” Fear strangled his guts.

  An agent to spread the cure against the Aspects of Time, he remembered the angel saying.

  He rose and lifted her in his arms, then laid her carefully back on the table. She was dead. The lights under her skin had gone out, the yellowish liquid had lost its color, her skin had become like a marble crossed by blue veins. He had killed her! He was a poison, not a cure. And the Aspects were Time’s children. People were Time’s children and he was supposed to kill them.

  The snakes with magazine page-skins and women’s heads scattered in panic, disappearing into the subterranean gloom. He wanted to puke, but his nausea immediately passed. Despite everything, he felt good.

  I’m not even allowed to feel remorse. My new form will always bring me back to serenity, he realized with a pang of horror in his heart. I’ll kill and destroy and I won’t be able to mourn and suffer.

  He turned his back on Julie’s body and walked away. When he reached the stairs leading to the exit, he heard the vigorous flutter of the angel’s wings. He froze on the first step, undecided, ready to run up to the street—running, as he always did lately, after doing something stupid.

  But now he was the Cure. He turned back, waiting for the angel.

  That one’s silhouette filled the tunnel, massive and friendly. “You look wonderful, my friend! Where’s Julie?”

  Sax swallowed dryly. He lowered his head, then raised it again. With an effort, he looked the angel in the face, gazed into his big silvery eyes, disoriented now. The angel’s smile slowly vanished. He knew. He knew but didn’t believe it could happen, didn’t believe that Julie would … that Sax could …

  Avoiding him now, the angel went straight to the power plant room, to the Ping-Pong table, to the body. He stared, frozen in place, for minutes. For a being from a timeless world, the difference between a second and a few minutes, a few hours, probably didn’t mean anything. Sax joined him and waited. Another ten minutes, twenty. His chest moving rhythmically, the eyes peering into Julie’s face were unblinking but animate. There was no other sign of life. Sax took him by his shoulders and the angel collapsed. Suddenly, as if cut by an invisible sickle. Sax bent to support him, then lay down on the floor.