Dead Souls
Page 30
Not long after, he let off the first round.
Spying a smattering of yellow reflected in a patio door across the street, he took out the glass and whatever stood behind it. He barely had time to register that the crumpling reddened shape was that of a neighbour in a yellow dressing gown before he was shooting at a child’s yellow bicycle parked against a crooked concrete gatepost. The child beside wore a yellow hat: it was enough to convince him that his actions were just.
When the sound of police sirens reached his ears, he hoped that he could keep them at bay at least long enough to take down his enemy. Flashes of yellow appeared everywhere, tugging at his attention, causing his aim to suffer. Brett took deep breaths and tried to remain calm; if he panicked, he would use up his supply of ammo before making a direct hit.
The street was cordoned off before he even realised the sirens had stopped. Flashing lights distracted him, clouding the sight of yellow. He shot them out, watching with enthusiasm as the annoying sounds exploded into multicoloured showers of glass on the roofs of stationary police vehicles. Uniformed police officers ran for cover, and produced handheld lighting units from the boots of their cars.
A fat man in a tight-fitting suit spoke loudly into a yellow bullhorn, and Brett caught him with a round to the face. Blood and bone flew like shrapnel and the man’s voice was silenced. Another poor chap fell because he wore a bright yellow safety jacket as he ran crouched and on his tiptoes behind a parked van. Red flowed around the wheels of the van, channelling into the gutter, but all Brett saw was a vivid vision of yellow.
The thing in yellow. A shade of yellow. It was everywhere, and in every thing. Mocking him.
Pausing in his private war, Brett turned and caught sight of his own sallow face in the mirror that hung on the wall above a framed photograph of his smiling family. Yellowish eyes glared back at him from the dull yellow mask that had stalked him across continents. In the dead yellow glow from temporary emergency lights and the few streetlamps he had not yet shot out, the tears on his face shone a diseased shade of yellow. Yellow. Yellow...
****
then...
****
the blue stream
Kaaron Warren
My brother will be home soon. Home from the cool Blue Stream where he has been floating for seven years now, since I was four, and where I will soon be floating; but you sink first, a cold, fresh shock, and as you rise you begin to float. It’s just like being back in Mum’s womb, apparently, only you’re there for longer. I don’t see how anyone can actually know that. My brother will be amongst the first Streamers to emerge, so how can they know? It’s like saying if you dream you’re dead then you’re dead. How could anyone know that?
“Streamers Stream-Line the Future” we see everywhere. So my brother’s going to be some sort of hero. They all are. Coming back to do all the jobs the adults don’t want to do. Hopefully some of them will be teachers. The ones we’ve got now are so stupid. We have whole classes about How To Welcome a Streamer:
1. Smile pleasantly at them. If I used to smile at my brother he’d snarl. But I suppose that’s the whole point, isn’t it? The whole idea of the Blue Stream?
2. Speak to them in a friendly fashion. About what, though? What’ve you been up to, big brother? Learning how to swim?
3. Invite them to join you and your friends for lunch. But they’re OLD. They’re all twenty. Why would we want to eat with them?
****
Thanksgiving Day today. So much to be grateful for.
We are thankful for peace that exists in our homes, on our streets. We study riot behaviour at school — I had to memorise what a riot was because I kept forgetting. We watch old news, funny, jerky-looking pictures of big-eared teenagers. They smash and run, run over each other sometimes. We saw one, it was supposed to be a celebration of the New Year (how weird! To be happy that another year had passed!) but it looked terrible to me. Thousands of teenagers crammed together, drunk on alcohol, smoking cigarettes and burning each other with the red end. Then we heard a clock ringing twelve times and they all went mad. They poured beer on each other, threw bottles. They started to fight! They ran in fear, pushing, squeezing and when some fell over, others just jumped on them like they were rubbish. We would never treat people like that. Then there was the next day, all the teenagers (except the dead ones) were gone, and there were the adults to clean up the mess as usual. They showed us the face of one of the dead kids, before an adult lifted a sheet over his head. His face was calm. We give thanks for there being no more riots.
Since the Streamers were set afloat, our world has been far more peaceful. Not on a global scale; we still have wars and terrorism, that sort of thing. But that stuff will go too, we thanked, when the Streamers begin to emerge to grow older and take their place in the world. Soon everyone will have a position, and know their limitations, be accepting of their situation and be able to face the reality of it. We are thankful for that. We are thankful for no teenage pregnancies. And we are glad that those bad habits, like cigarettes, alcohol and drugs, are not formed at an early age, only later when a person can cope.
We give thanks for the safety of our belongings. Vandalism is gone, and our houses are safer. Not totally safe, but safer. The teenagers can’t reach us from the Blue Stream, and we are thankful for that.
Before the Blue Stream there were more suicides than road deaths. Now there are far less of both. For this we are thankful.
Some of the adults are getting worried. There was a meeting at the hall, which everyone had to go to. Mum and Dad took me because I was too young to be trusted at home alone. Not everyone was a parent there. A lot of them had never had a child and didn’t care if they never saw a young person again. There was a big group of them who shouted louder than the rest,
“Why take the risk? We’ve waited this long.” That sort of thing. My parents wanted Jim back, so they were on the side of letting them out.
My Dad said, “We can’t leave them in the Stream forever,” and most people had to agree.
I was pleased with my father that day. All those other adults don’t think the teenagers have grown enough. They think another year will do it, or two, maybe. They are just scared of their own plan. It’s been easy to talk, the last seven years, of how the world will be, how wonderful. Now the proof will appear, or the evidence. I can’t remember the difference. There was a survey in one paper, “Should we release the children?” They’re just scared of what they’ve done. None of the questions matter, though. They have to stick with what they said. They have to. I do twenty sit-ups every day so that they won’t leave my brother in there any longer.
And then there he was, climbing carefully out of the back seat and staring. He is a stranger to me. He has been gone from sight, floating through the country for seven years and now he is back. I don’t recognise his face, I don’t remember his smell.
How To Welcome a Screamer more like. He hasn’t shut up — though his throat’s getting sore so it’s a bit quieter now. He’ll stop eventually. He’s started to look around and notice things, his gaze flicking about while his mouth still screams. They’re all doing it, and everyone thought at the same time to call them Screamers. The PR company quickly sent out ads saying, “The Water Babies are here,” as if they’d never called them Streamers, never thought of it. But Water-Babies is almost as bad, because they’re like new-born, full-grown babies, not wanting to leave the safety of the Stream for the big world where they are told what sort of person they will be.
“It’s important to know who you are,” my father said, the family sitting around him as he spoke of the perfect world we were helping to create. “Teenagers were troubled by their lack of identity, by the great nothingness which faced them in the mirror. We are simply supplying the identity to fill the nothingness.”
“Nothingness,” my brother said, “that’s what it was.”
“You see what society has saved you from?” my father said, nodding like it was his idea.
“The Blue Stream was the nothingness,” Jim said, aping my father’s nod because he is still learning and can’t always connect action to meaning.
****
Jim has been home for nine days. He hasn’t screamed since two days ago, only his wake up scream. He carries a little satchel, which he was given as a welcome present. In it, papers grow; he receives them in the mail, pinned to his pillow, under his plate. If he sees something written on the ground, he is to write it down.
“As a Mature Person, you will Look Your Best” (found on the bathroom mirror)
“As a Mature Person you will Perform Disagreeable Tasks Without Undue Delay” (Stapled to an invitation to a job interview)
“As a Mature Person you will Be a Good Family Member” (In the bar under Dad’s favourite glass)
Some of Jim’s Friends came to visit and they all sat in the lounge room with the same frightened smile on their faces.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him. I was helping him get drinks from the bar.
“I don’t know who they are,” he said. “Were they Friends of mine before?”
“I was only four. How would I know? Why don’t you ask them?”
“I don’t think they know either.”
There was silence as we sat. I sat close to him. It was nice to be able to do so.
“Haven’t been out today?” one of the girls asked him. She has these big boobs she barely knows are there; pinned to one was a badge. Everyone in the room had them except my brother.
“Minimise Daydreaming,” she read, twisting the badge so she could see it. The others read theirs aloud, too;
“Overcome Anger and Fear”
“Avoid Complaining”
“You’ll get one if you go up the street” the girl said kindly.
My brother was staring at her chest. I pinched his elbow.
“Don’t be rude,” I said.
They know as much as me, these Screamers. No more. After primary school they went straight into the Stream. Some, now, will go to high school, but not many. There are too many urgent jobs to be done. Some will go to Uni if they have to be doctors or something. My brother won’t. He has to be a gardener.
****
“Happy Birthday,” Mum said to me. She was the only one excited. She brought out a cake with twelve candles on it. Jim stared at the flame like he didn’t know what it was, just stared and upset me so I couldn’t blow out the candles.
“Blow out the candles,” Mum said, “then we’ll have some cake in the back yard.”
We didn’t go anywhere else. Jim still gets nervous when we go out anywhere, if it isn’t part of some stupid Screamer instruction.
Sometimes I really hate him being a Screamer. He’s supposed to involve his parents in his activities, but they’re my parents too, and they hardly ever leave me alone. So I have to go. Today Jim had to go to the beach so we all had to go. People I knew were there and saw me with my parents. Jim would have gone purple with embarrassment if he wasn’t a Screamer. The whole time we had the radio on, it played only one song, which happens to be Jim’s favourite — same with all the Screamers. It’s like a chant, slow and boring, and it just sings about what a great time you can have with your family.
Go to the beach
Read a sto-ry
Watch TV
or TELL a sto-ry
Take some lessons
Try a square dance
Do some sewing
Maybe some pants
Work on puzzles
Play a Game
Blah blah blah. I don’t want to do any of that stuff. I think Jim is supposed to go all the way through the song, doing one of everything. I can’t wait till he gets to square dancing.
****
I saw a terrible accident today, and it’s all because of that boring Sara from school. She couldn’t learn her rationale and the teacher said that I had to help, because I was smart and we both had a sibling home from the Stream. So I had to go to her house to help her. I made her try to remember on the way home.
“Teenagers have identity crises.”
“Teenagers have identity crises.”
“They develop negative personalities.”
“They develop negative personalities.”
“They join gangs.”
“They join gangs.”
“They rape.”
“They rape.”
“They riot.”
“They riot.”
“Once the physical changes have occurred, they will take their places as confident members of our society.”
“I can’t remember that.”
She’s a stupid girl.
We got to her house and her mum was crying.
“There’s been a terrible accident,” she said, “in the bathroom.”
There was Sara’s sister, empty pill bottles around her, vomit in her hair, a note clutched in her hand.
“It doesn’t look like an accident,” Sara said. Not so dumb.
But it was. The police said so. And in the newspapers, underneath the advertisements that said, “Be tolerant of other peoples opinions” was a headline:
“Screamer accident rate alarming.” Sara brought the article to show me.
“Mum wouldn’t let me read the note. She said I shouldn’t have any new ideas before my birthday next week.”
“You’re lucky. I’ve got months to go.”
“Yes, I can’t wait. The peace, the rest, the water lapping my ears, cooling my forehead, washing me so I don’t have to have a shower for seven years. I hate showers. And I won’t commit suicide due to the confusion of my loyalties.”
She has finally learnt the rationale.
****
Jim got a note today he didn’t understand so I had to explain. He found it pinned to his towel in the bathroom.
“Be not dominated by other’s opinions nor in constant revolt against social conventions.”
“It’s just that you’re not supposed to listen to what your Friends tell you, only what the adults tell you.”
“And what’s revolt? Like that casserole Dad made?”
It’s good being smarter than your older brother.
“You’re not supposed to argue when they tell you what to do.”
“But if they tell me everything, I might get sick of it.”
“Well, if you do, don’t tell anyone. You’ll get into trouble.”
He could understand trouble. It meant the withholding of the nothingness which comes at the end of the lives of people who have been good. I don’t like the thought of nothingness, myself, but then I’m not a Screamer.
****
My brother keeps telling me stuff that I’m not meant to know till I’m a Screamer, and he lets me watch stuff that’s meant to be private.
He feels sorry for me because most of my friends have gone into the Stream. I was smart and they put me up a grade, but now all my friends are early into the Stream. He feels sorry for me because I’m lonely, and he’s been given so many Friends.
I hid behind the couch so I could only hear what was going on. It was called a “Give deserved credit or praise to other people” party, and it is the only party they are allowed to have. They are getting very good at them.
Jim sat on the couch, and kept dropping soft lollies for me to chew quiet as I could. His friend Barry was there; I could tell his deep voice and the way he felt so unused to it — he has only just emerged. And there was June; she has a lovely soft voice. Andrea, who kissed everyone (you’re not meant to do that). Beryl, Big Beryl I call her, though my father says, “Nicknames Breed Contempt.” And Mark, who is nearly as nice as my brother and wouldn’t tell if he saw me behind the couch.
“Who wants to start?” June said.
“Me,” Barry said. “Andrea, I admire your friendly nature and the way you make people feel comfortable.”
“Thank you,” Andrea said. “June, you are a gentle and kind person and you will make a marvellous instructor.”
&nbs
p; “Thank you,” June said. She’s got that lovely voice; I wish she was one of my teachers. “Jim, I think it’s admirable the way you helped me prepare my college application even though you won’t be going yourself.”
“Thank you,” my brother said. “Beryl, you are a most marvellous cook, and the lunch you prepared today was a great accomplishment. Thank you for bringing it to my parent’s house.”
“Thank you,” Beryl said. “Mark, I think you are very handsome.”
“You can’t say that,” June said. “That’s a compliment for something he has no control over. Think of another thing.”
“I’m not very good at this,” Beryl said. There was a bit of a silence. If the others were anything like me, they would have been thinking, “Useless.” But then they’re not like me. They’re Screamers.
Beryl finally said, “I think you’re very good being nice to Jim’s little sister.”
My ears burned.
“Thank you. Barry, I appreciate the fact that you are very generous with your car and don’t mind picking us all up to bring us here.”
“Thank you,” Barry said. They all stood up then, all saying thank you, thank you. The party was over. What a rage.
****
Jim and I went walking to get out of the house. It was hot, he had taken his shirt off and tied it around his waist. I thought he looked nice, such a big chest, hardly hairy at all, still smooth and soft from being in the Stream. Better than Dad’s wrinkled and greying old thing, which luckily I only see if we go swimming.