by Gann, Myles
‘He thinks we care?’
‘I’m feeling it at this point. I can’t think. Pain.’
The nerve impulses continued to pump pain through his brain and body as Arnold removed the large man from his foot and occupied the stool on more solid ground. “Who are they? You spoke of they before, so who are they?”
“Nobody you know.”
“I know everyone in this cave system, insane pig. Thousands of men that your country and your pig-pen have put into the hands of Holy God, I knew. Many, many men have I known, and women, and children, and none of them want me dead. They sing me as hero, as protector of bullied countrymen. Who do you know? Someone that wants you dead?”
“I…,” Caleb felt another sharp jolt from his leg and noted the numbness in his toes, “I haven’t been called a hero in a long time.”
The leader stood back up and spoke in his native tongue to the three members of Caleb’s family at his back. “Your mind is broken, my friend. We will return in the morning for our answers.”
“Thanks, Arnold.” The leader looked sharply at him with his brown eyes ringed in red. He left with the three men in tow, but the images stayed of Caleb’s mother, Carol, and the man; the family distorting ever so slightly as again the men exited their unknown shells. They filled the tiny chamber in the few seconds of solitary; eyes piercing Caleb’s heart while their slight frowns tore his guts to shreds. He rocked back and forth lightly in his chair, his eyes closed and tightly sealed lips tried anything to silence himself. His entire brain was alive with the sensation of the rope against his skin with every fiber tickling him in the deepest way and hurting. Suddenly, all of his sustained injuries began to heal. ‘You have been holding out!’
‘I’m not controlling this Caleb! This is a control issue, and that’s you!’
Every ounce of his natural strength went into the ropes repeatedly until he was flailing with a momentary rage, but nothing gave. The more he moved, the more sensation flooded into his temporary craze until he finally stopped and screamed violently in the small cave. “Why didn’t they just drown me?”
‘You’re afraid of us.’
“I deserve to be drowned! I let you all down! Killed you! I was wrong, wrong, wrong!” The last word elongated into a rising scream until his breath gave out.
‘You can’t face us.’
Caleb looked up with tears of mixed origin in his eyes. “I can’t live knowing I did so much wrong to you. The world won’t miss one fucking moron that completely destroyed every life he’s ever touched.”
‘You want to destroy yourself.’
“It’s the right thing to do. It’s time to atone.”
‘You want to die.’
“Yes! Okay? Yes! I’ve wanted to die every day since Carol did!”
‘You didn’t though.’
“I couldn’t”
‘You always had a choice.’
Caleb started laughing. “And I went against what I wanted. I haven’t made a choice for myself since high school.”
‘You want to change back into that.’
“I…always thought I did.”
‘You no longer want to be Caleb.’
“I never even knew who that was, but I hated him. He’s the one you all thought you supported.”
‘You are better than Caleb.’
“He’s a dead soul.”
‘You are nobody.’
“Only when I’m dead.”
“Who are you talking to?” A round man walked back into the cave with a sidearm drawn. “You have friend here?”
Caleb couldn’t help but laugh. “No, no friend here.”
The wide frame walked closer but kept his distance. “The boss, he no like you.”
“Good. I couldn’t be happier to hear that.”
He crossed his arms while Caleb stared at the jagged rock under his broken shoes. “You have want of death?”
“You have no idea.”
“What man, eh, what man want this?”
“A man that has lived a mistake.”
“Maybe, I say, what you want is not really what you want. Mistake are like sand is here. Everybody make them.”
“Nobody knows how to live through them.”
There was a sudden smack of metal against the wall behind the relaxed man and he was standing straight immediately. The two lesser guards pushed and shoved him out of the room as Caleb kept his eye on Ronaldi with a glare growing in involuntary fashion. “Protector of the bullied, eh Arnold?”
The leader stopped fiddling with his object and turned to Caleb. “Only one man ever called me that. I gave him nice scar. You call me that? You must want the same thing. You’re a crazy, crazy man.” He turned back and the ignition of a blowtorch made Caleb unexpectedly cringe. “Tell me the day your whore mother brought you into the world, and I’ll carve it in your chest so you’ll never forget again.”
---
“What if he doesn’t come back, Alice?”
She popped her head up from the space between her hugged knees. “Then you’re going to feel even worse for always being mean to him. It’s not even nice now to bring it up with me because you know I miss him. A lot. So much—”
‘Alice.’
“What, David?”
He turned around from the window. “I didn’t say anything.”
‘Don’t give up hope.’ She waited until David turned around before closing her eyes and hearing Caleb’s voice whisper. ‘I told you I’d come home. When have I lied to you?’
“He’s never lied to me. He told me he’d come home.”
David turned around again with a concerned look. “You’re not talking much. Are you okay?”
‘You’ll be all right.’
“Why?”
‘Because there’s no one like you in the universe.’
Her heart began thumping loudly against the back of her breast before David spoke. “You’re usually thinking a lot, but now you’re not.”
“I am.”
‘Talk this? Let me?’
‘Don’t give up.’
‘Can…letter, no, can…I talk?’
‘You can do it. All by yourself you can.’
Alice opened her eyes to see David studying her intently. “I’m okay. Well, I’m tired. Do you mind if I get some shut eye?”
David jammed his hands back in his pocket as she thought, in Caleb’s voice, ‘He’s disappointed. He wanted to stay with you. He still has feelings for you.’
‘Friend?’
‘No, I think more.’
‘Mine…more is…you.’
‘I’m you, Alice. Caleb will be back soon.’
‘Hope.’
‘No need.’
- - -
Caleb was finally drowning. On all sides was the clear menace that tugged at his precious air while his hair gently drifted with the current of the hand along the back of his neck. His limbs didn’t flail, and wouldn’t if they could. Inside of his mind was still; as the water seeped through every open seam, the instinct to survive that had furthered human and amoeba alike was completely overshadowed by a sense of wrong within the self; a sense of the need to self-destruct in a final, decisive manner that would leave no room for mess within the agony. ‘The dark is so comforting. This is what I want. This is what’s happening. Alice….’ An image of her flashed through his closed eyes and what was left of his breath escaped through his flattened cheeks. ‘She will miss me. We had our future. We…could have had the finest of futures. How odd. The only eulogy a dying man ever hears is from himself. How can that be good? How can that be right? Where is the choice to be made?’
His lungs suddenly found more air in a dusked corner. ‘How can this be right? My family died, but my Alice lives. I…the dangerous word. It is I that wants to die for what I’ve done, but what’s right? This is vengeance against myself. A crime of passion. A passion of man. A man of I. No, this isn’t right. It is soothing though…Alice. I promised her I’d be home. I promised them so many thin
gs…and I will fulfill them. Not even because they wanted it of me, but because they saw that I could do the right thing. They saw what I could never. A world without I. Will it be I, or her? I or everybody? I am sorry, Mom, Carol, Dad, but I cannot do this. No matter how tired I am, I cannot sleep. Not yet!’
The ropes surrounding Caleb were suddenly engulfed in a blue hue that obliterated the chair into atoms. While the four other men in the room quickly found the exit, Caleb pushed his power completely out until his clothes were burning from the intensity of the surrounding blue orb. Columns shot upwards and exploded through the pointed rock of the mountain, sending hundreds of pieces into the air and collapsing a large portion of the cave system, all the while Caleb’s face had found a smile from underneath the healed flesh now surrounding his body.
“What just happened?”
“The past is no more.”
“Right. Get your man and let’s leave.”
Caleb dashed through the fallen rocks, but stopped in the dark tunnel with Power several feet extended. His enhanced hearing could pick up breathing shadows cast from the tremendous blue still emanating from his extended self. The intensity of his power subsided into the clear barrier of its weakest state, and a single tentacle unfurled and lit the tip of the searching form with a blue eye. Caleb closed his eyes and looked through the warped space as his feet took measured, nearly silent steps forward. Two men attacked from either side of the narrow passage; Caleb split the single, writhing ray into two extensions of his arms and drove them back into the wall while making their guns unusable. Crouched down behind one of the held men was Ronaldi— ‘He looks surprised.’
“Who are you?”
“Nobody, you know.”
Caleb lifted him by his scarf and powered through the wall. He was back to the unforgiving light, to which he held nothing between who he was, what he was, and what that meant. He ran quickly to the far end of the disintegrating mountain range to find fifty prisoners being loaded into a convoy of military vehicles, and Stanley smiling wildly. “There you are, Jay Bird.” He removed his vest and threw it to Caleb as he approached. “And hello Arnold. It has been a while.”
Caleb let two soldiers take the cowering man while a third brought him some pants. “This train heading home?”
Rue kept his smile—a smile that now seemed prevalent across every enlisted man’s face—and said, “You earned a first class ticket, I think. Gotta say, when you promise something, you don’t mess around.”
Caleb laughed and felt fatigue grip him from the shoulders as Power warily nested within a shallow confine. “I just did what I had to. Something right happened here.”
“I’ll say.”
Both men waited until every prisoner was loaded before mounting the bumper of respective Jeeps.
Chapter 22
‘Six minutes late. David’s not fidgety at all-what is his problem? I wish I’d come alone. I wish Caleb was here to be with me to wait for Caleb…but that wouldn’t make sense. Man that would be awesome though. Just being with him…. Seven minutes. Please be here.’
“Alice? You’re not thinking again.”
Alice swiveled within her quick trench in front of the switchboard—the carpet beneath her feet surely more worn than before she arrived—and said, too loud, “I’m thinking. I’m waiting and thinking because that’s all I can do because he’s almost eight minutes late now, leaving me to wait and think while I walk back and forth like a crazy woman.”
David smiled while stretching out upon the reclining, copious chair. “Did you ever worry this much when I was late?”
‘No,’ she thought, now in David’s voice, ‘it was never a big deal. Never even crossed my mind to worry about him.’
“The board says he’s been landed for about ten minutes.”
She pivoted again and caught a group coming off the escalator that dispersed to leave two figures. ‘Caleb!’
---
Caleb set Stanley’s bag next to the empty escalator. ‘Alice is behind us.’
‘I know I saw.’ He smiled and waved to her before turning back to Stanley. “Not a bad few days eh?”
“Not for me. Not for me at all.” Stanley smiled and extended his hand. “It was short, but kind of sweet.”
Caleb reached out and firmly took his hand. “It was something. When’s your connecting flight?”
“I’ve only got another hour to wait. Looks like you’ve got someone that noticed you.”
Alice walked forward, but kept her distance from both men as they turned; Caleb smiling widely at her proximity while Stanley just shifted between both figures and the slow-approaching David. “No big parade?” As she spoke, she inched forward towards Caleb whose hands were open and expectant. “No banners? Medals? A mob of followers?”
Caleb smiled as she finally inched into slowly converging arms, the warmth of her shoulders pouring into his biceps as they fit into one another’s contours. Her eyes looked up through her lengthened bangs while his brown curls stayed out of his eyes with a down-turned face. From the left of Caleb, Stanley addressed her. “No, your boy was screwed out of that publicity.”
‘Her hair is longer, but those brown eyes haven’t yet come back from the depths of her soul. Everybody is still here.’
Alice retained eye contact as she asked with a hint of dream, “Who’s that?”
He smiled and turned. “Alice, this is Stanley. You can call him Rue instead of his pansy first name. He was over there with me.”
She broke away from Caleb long enough to gently shake Stanley’s hand with averted eyes and a disinterested look before smiling widely once back to homeostasis within Caleb’s arms. David finally caught up to the stationary group. ‘Has he changed?’
‘It wouldn’t seem so. He’s still looking quite sour.’
“Nice to meet you. This guy wouldn’t stop talking about getting back to you. You’ve got yourself a good man here.” She looked over towards Stanley’s midsection and flashed her massive smile. Both of his bags found their way into Rue’s massive left hand. “In any case, this old dog has to pop his paws up for a little while. Caleb, Alice, other guy.”
He nodded around at everyone before turning towards the chair area. “See you down the road, Rue.”
“We’re going to be late if we wait around much longer.”
Caleb swiveled to David. “Late for…?”
“Picnic.” He looked down again to see his answer along her face. “If no one else will celebrate you coming back, then we will.” Her eyes lit up again as she pushed away to turn to David. “I want to stop by that gift shop first.”
“Alice…. No, wait, Alice!”
Caleb smiled at David’s reaction. “Do you know her at all?”
“For much longer than you.”
“And yet, you still try to change her.” He walked towards the cluttered shop. ‘Do you notice that too?’
‘Notice what?’
He passed by a woman with two teenage boys, all of their eyes averted. ‘They’re not watching anymore.’
‘Because I’m feeling lazy.’
‘No, it’s because there’s nothing more to see. Whatever I had inside of me is completely gone.’
Power could be felt trudging through his mind with its retort unable to take form. ‘There’s still me.’
‘That’s true.’
Alice was at the register upon his approach, and a bag was thrust into her hand before he could see what she purchased. She stopped short of him and looked at his extended hand. ‘She’s drinking in my smile.’
‘She’s not thinking.’
‘Yeah she is. We just can’t hear it.’
Alice and Caleb walked with their hands playfully, slowly entwining; around them the world moved, but apart from them did it stay. As she closed her eyes and he zoomed into the details of the faces of people, they both became witnesses to the same phenomenon; every face and body they passed was drawn not to her boundless smile or to his radiant eyes, but to the hands by
which they were connected. There was a resonant calm that flung and swirled around the pathway they walked, and its effects were nothing more than a glance and a thought, both soon forgotten from within their context but remembered for the thorough capitualizing of the void created by the small connection of two separate bodies. By time they reached David at the revolving door, they suddenly found that their pathway—though linear or circular—had been shifted with the subtlety of a whispered dream.
- - -
Beneath a scattering of blue spaces between white clouds, food was spread across a calculated area. Alice hummed with a large bite in her mouth, and shown an oblong smile to Caleb’s funny face. ‘That’s a lot of mustard. I like his voice. In my head now. That’s where it’s meant to be.’
Benny stood from the far edge of the nondescript blanket and raised a small bottle. “To you, returned warrior, I shall toast with my heartiest wine.”
She heard a small retort from everyone else. Alice swallowed before smiling at Caleb again. ‘He’s embarrassed. His cheeks look so cute in red.’
“Thank you, Benny, and everyone for surprising me with this get-together.”
“What was it like over there?”
Alice didn’t turn. ‘Stewart asked. Caleb’s face looks so beautiful. I missed it.’
“Well,” Caleb stammered, “it was…sandy, and sunny. I wasn’t around for very long to sight-see. But the mission was…,” his head suddenly went down while his eyes focused intently, “done the right way.”
Her head swiveled slightly to see Stewart’s face. ‘He’s pleased with that. Change the subject.’ “Who wants ice cream?”
She dug several pints from the chilled bucket next to her and passed them around.
---
‘She’s different, I say.’
‘How could she possibly be different? The desert warped your mind.’
Caleb took the vanilla pint as it came to his lap. ‘Look at her eyes.’
His head turned to glance into them before her attention was pulled aside by David. ‘She always looks at you like that.’