Sudden Lockdown

by Amos Talshir

  Simon was sitting in his seat, his cell phone connected to the power source. He had been surfing silently for hours, and Charlie remembered they hadn’t really talked about the girl Simon had met. Thousands of fans were sprawled out on the turf, sleeping for hours to make up for the night they’d spent folded in their seats.

  Simon’s eyes scanned the oval created by the stands, trying to estimate how many other fans were currently surfing online, using phones and laptops. Those people might be certain that an all clear would arrive at any moment, and the tens of thousands of people would leave the stadium following what would turn out to be another false alarm regarding a terror attack. There had been many such occurrences since the 9/11 disaster, which had happened before he was born. Simon even remembered an event that had taken place when he was a child, and how everyone had talked about it as if it were the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There had been an alert regarding a hundred nuclear reactors exploding in the Asian Union. The new world had begun preparing for utter destruction, but ultimately, it had turned out to be a false alarm. To this day, no one knew who was responsible. Simon found it very interesting. Endings were always fascinating to Simon. Endings of all kinds.

  9.

  Evening came and they were still there. Twenty-four hours had gone by since the gates of the stadium were blocked. No one was talking to them through the PA system, calming them down or stating encouragingly that the ordeal would soon come to an end. Not even the self-important, emotional announcer, with his lustful voice. Charlie thought that if it truly was a terrorist attack, you couldn’t simply announce to the whole stadium what was going on, what the plans were, where this was heading and what they intended to do. That would play right into the terrorists’ hands if they really were somewhere in the crowd. They needed to wait patiently and let the local police do its work. It would be colder tonight if they stayed here, he thought. The sky was already cloudy and the sun had disappeared earlier than yesterday.

  Simon had left the blanket with that girl, Rose; he hoped that was going somewhere. Simon did not take his eyes off the smartphone screen, merely whistling gently the way he did. An undefined melody of sorts that Charlie could already identify as the familiar tune Simon would emit during his long hours of surfing, in response to the revelation or wonder inspired by what he saw on the screen. A whistle that was inaudible as the air was exhaled, seeming to sound when it was inhaled. Not truly heard yet discernible, existing and passing through Charlie’s nostrils, near his temples. A whistle present in Charlie’s imagination though it did not bear a sound.

  “Aren’t you afraid of killing the batteries?”

  “I mapped out exactly where the outlets are all through the stadium, and at any moment, I can charge my power supply.”

  “I’m glad you’re not worried.”

  “I’m very worried by the fact that there are electrical outlets and the internet is working as usual.”

  “You’re confusing me,” Charlie said.

  “This is a confusing situation. Look, we get locked in here like there’s a terrorist attack, and there are reports online about the game we won yesterday and the fact that we’ve been in this stadium for almost twenty-four hours. And I don’t get it. They could have just disabled the internet, and all the modems and phones. But everything’s running and we’re the only ones who are shut down. There are reports about other games in the Coalition Cup that happened at the same time last evening, and about other stadiums in lockdown and planes that didn’t take off.”

  “That’s what it’s like with terrorism,” Charlie said. “They’re coordinated, all over the continent.”

  “Dad, you’ve got to break free of what they expect you to think. You’ve been locked up here for two days now, and you’re relying on what they’ve gotten you used to thinking, that your enemy is terrorism. That’s convenient for everyone. Terrorism’s to blame for everything. Just like fifty years ago, everything was the communists’ fault. Then it was terrorism’s turn. And tomorrow it’ll be the UnionNet. There’s a different force that’s locked us in here, and that force finds it convenient for you to blame terrorism. Those are ‘the Others’ and we don’t know anything about them, so we don’t know how to fight them, either. That’s what makes them different from everyone we’ve known thus far. We can’t understand them because they don’t have an ideology and they’re not making self-righteous claims about a higher morality or protecting the weak or opposing the strong. They don’t even surf the UnionNet.”

  “What do they want, then?”

  “Just to be.”

  “What do they get out of it?”

  “That is what they get out of it—they get to exist.”

  “That can’t be right,” Charlie said. “People want something else—more money, more territory, more women, more people on their side. It can’t be possible that it’s enough for anyone just to exist.”

  “Dad, you told me that you couldn’t believe that planes could crash into towers. That eighty years ago, they didn’t believe that that German would want to kill all the Jews.”

  “Right, but they wanted to achieve something.”

  “The Others want to achieve something, too.”

  “What?”

  “To be,” Simon repeated.

  “Simon, you’re fantasizing. Take it easy.”

  “I’m fine, Dad. For now, I’m having fun.”

  “Are you going to go see her?”

  “She might go to the center circle. I’m off.”

  “If anything happens, run back here immediately.”

  Charlie’s eyes followed Simon as he descended the stairs. A painful memory returned to him. Little Simon going down to the sea from the bluff and he, Charlie, coming out to the yard in order to keep an eye on him. His worried gaze following his son. The boy was highly athletic and a great swimmer, but Charlie was afraid the kids would not allow him to take part in their beach games. His wife would scold him for the overprotectiveness he projected to the boy, undermining his self-confidence. He would pretend to be studying the damages inflicted by the wind and the salt on the wooden shutters of the windows in the house by the edge of the bluff. If only Simon would talk more and introduce himself to the kids, telling them that he was a good soccer player. But Simon would stand down there, saying nothing as the gangs of kids came to play on the beach. During those long moments as he peeked down from the height of the bluff on his son, standing on the sidelines and expecting someone to invite him to play, Charlie wanted to die. The pain would climb up his throat, suffocating him with grief over the condition of his son, who did not manage to fit in. The boy would walk into the surf, swimming far, beyond the line of the breakwater.

  Charlie had not forgiven himself to this day for the terrible thoughts that flitted through his mind in those days. He could not stop that horrific thought from invading his mind. If only the boy would drown, putting an end to everyone’s suffering. Charlie’s and the boy’s mother’s and perhaps the boy’s own suffering as well. Until, one day, the ball was kicked hard outside the court the kids had marked on the sand, rolling slowly toward Simon’s feet as he stood yearningly at an isolating distance from the kids on the beach. Charlie saw his son extending the long leg of a child who was extremely tall for his age, without even gathering much momentum, and kicking the ball with immense strength that cut through the quiet of the beach. The ball rose with a whistle, sliced through the air, briefly whizzed over the face of the setting sun, soared beyond the breaking waves and landed far out at sea. The kids paused from their chase after the ball, their anger over its loss replaced by amazement over its trajectory. Simon ran into the sea and began swimming into the distance, following the ball. His front crawl was torpedo-swift, and he reached the ball, turned around and swam quickly toward the shore with the ball in his arms like a water polo player, returning it to the kids. They hugged him and included him in their socc
er game on the beach.

  ***

  Charlie stood on the bleacher, trapped for two days now, his thoughts wandering back to the events of the past. During the few seconds before losing Simon’s profile among the thousands of fans walking around on the turf, he envisioned the nursery school parties when his Simon had not managed to reach the last piece of cake snatched from the tray. He remembered how, on his birthday, he did not manage to sing the duet with the little girl his age who had such a miraculous voice. How at the elementary school graduation ceremony, he did not receive any role, not even the smallest, on the stage along with the other children. Charlie and his wife had returned home with the memory card in their camera empty. There had not been a single moment when they could take photos of the boy hiding behind the rest of the children despite being taller than all of them. Ever since, he had started to seclude himself in the house with the internet and the electrical chargers and the digital cameras, whistling inaudibly to himself in front of the screen and falling asleep in the chair while watching a broadcast of the soccer game. Until the day of redemption, when sports became the pride of his high school.

  Then, his son began to rejoice. He did not talk much, and his behavior did not truly change, but he greeted each day with anticipation. Only then was Charlie willing to reveal to himself that there had been days, and mostly nights, when he had not wanted his son. He did not know who suffered most, himself, his son or his wife, but he found this suffering nearly unbearable. The child’s misery and weakness, the worry tearing at the soul every day, the tension in anticipation of any change in life, in class, in social encounters. He now despised himself for being willing to give up this boy, who had done no wrong. There was no blame in Simon, merely his difference, his oddness, and the oppression.

  Sports erased the darkness, the day after day of thinking about ominous disability, one born of Charlie’s body, he who had once been the champion of bar chin-ups on the beach, an amazing long-distance swimmer, the kind of distances that would make marathon runners feel they had no limitations stopping them. And this quality was not merely physical. Charlie trusted his body, which had been exposed to the sun all day ever since he was born.

  On some days, he was sent by his mother to the terrace to see whether his father’s boat had appeared on the horizon after an absence of a night or two. His mother wanted to know first, as soon as possible, that her husband had not been shipwrecked among the waves. Charlie would stand on the terrace the whole night, feeling his mother’s anticipation of his call, “Here’s Dad,” at the back of his neck. And when the boat failed to appear on the horizon come morning, before he could hear his lonely mother wringing her hands toward heaven in despair, while accusing her husband of betraying her and her son, he would run to the black water, leaping into the surf in his white underwear and competing against the sun, which was about to rise. He had to swim far enough, pushing the horizon line ahead so as to see his father’s boat before the sun illuminated the horizon. The further he swam, the longer it would take the sun to shine upon the western horizon. He would swim as far as he could and save his father, he thought as a child, and continued to do so when he got older. His body had never betrayed him at the heart of the sea.

  Charlie was ecstatic that his son had discovered sports. That powerful kick of the ball exposed Simon to his full physical potential. It didn’t have to become clear only through swimming, but swimming had brought Simon up to a certain point, from which he had to develop on his own. To allow his body to save his soul.

  Charlie designed a sports field under the house he had inherited from his parents on the beach. He set up basketball posts on the beach at the foot of the bluff, as well as soccer goals that brought joy to the few visitors arriving at the remote beach. For the first time, he felt fine about the fact that his son could not repair boat engines. He began leaving happily to fix engines once he knew his son was an excellent soccer and basketball player. They began attending games together and even flew regularly to intercoalition tournaments. The repair shop provided a generous income that honestly supported their sports excursions. His satisfaction reached its summit when his son also began to exhibit interest in Formula One car races. This was probably the closest Simon had come to fixing boat engines.

  Now from the height of the stand, after thinking he was over feeling anxious about his son’s physical condition, his roaming eyes were once again seeking out his son on the pitch among thousands of fans, just like those days when he had gazed with pain at his son swimming into the distance to fetch the ball that a powerful kick had sent off to vanish among the waves.

  10.

  Simon made his way toward the center circle. He passed by hordes of fans roaming the turf in groups, raising various theories and rumors about the stadium lockdown and arguing about possible courses of action if it continued for much longer. It was obvious that the locals were accepting the lockdown with relative ease, out of a habit of obeying the authorities. Not only did they find the confinement acceptable, but they were not even expecting explanations.

  Simon imagined the sight of Rose’s tan body and the sudden hot-chocolate kiss and felt the pimples tingling on his face. He tried to ease the excitement of recalling the warm touch of her tongue and the sight of her breasts and butt. Pausing in place, he tried to regulate his breathing. Gradually, he diverted his thoughts to a question that had bothered him since he had met her with her gang in the morning. Why hadn’t they hurried down to the turf to warm her nude body and save her from fatigue and freezing? This thought pushed away the flavor of her kiss, allowing Simon to focus on the actual, aggravating matter: her friends had been in no hurry to help her. It was obvious to him that they had a reason for this. Perhaps he would ask her. But he quickly concluded she might see this as an attempt on his part to brag about his actions.

  He began pacing within the stadium’s center circle and suddenly noticed his blanket wrapped around her shoulders. He made his way through a group creating a tight circle around two other people who were moving strangely. The huddling group separated him from Rose, who was standing and talking to her friends. He tried to walk around them, but the entire group moved as one to block his path. Simon heard the local language but could not understand the slightly different dialect. They stank of alcohol and were encouraging one of their own to do something that Simon didn’t understand. It was unclear to him whom they were spurring on and what exactly they were saying, but he could understand that the circle of drunks was urging someone to take something forcefully, and there were other words about love or something similar. He could not work his way around the commotion the group was generating, and his eyes sought out his blanket, which had disappeared on Rose’s shoulders within the crowd that was getting jostled by the group.

  Suddenly, he noticed a red dot of light scurrying around on the drunks’ heads and shoulders, coming to rest on the head of one of them who seemed to be holding onto a woman within the group’s circle. An explosion rang out, and he immediately saw a wound gaping in the head of the man who had forced himself on the woman. White smoke in the shape of a small coil curled out of the wound and the head was blasted aside, the body collapsing beneath it and falling to the turf. A woman whose shirt was torn, and whom Simon had not noticed before, ran out of the circle of men. They scattered everywhere, leaving the body of a young man who was holding a bottle in one hand, with a smoking black opening in his head, on the turf behind them. Simon had time to smell the seared flesh before he was pushed wildly by the mob that had begun to run toward the stands. He gave up on the idea of running in the direction where he had last seen Rose’s shoulders wrapped in his blanket and looked for an escape route.

  With the sound of the shot, the floodlights had gone out again, and darkness covered the pitch once more. His height allowed him to see where he was running over the heads of the thousands fleeing. He wanted to reach his father as quickly as possible in order to ease his mind. As he ran, h
e realized he had been very close to the man who was killed, and what he had seen was the light of the laser scope of a sniper rifle zeroing in on the head of the drunk who had assaulted a woman. He had been truly close, and no one could sell him any other story; he had heard the group of drunks forming the circle cursing and uttering profanities and even understood a bit of what they had been saying. The sky was cloudy and the night was denser. He tried to look back as he ran to see Rose running with his blanket, but darkness swallowed everything.

  Within a very short time, the pitch was dark and silent, and like the rest of the fans, Simon had reached his seat. His father hugged him and tried to talk to him but clammed up in fear like the rest of the audience in the stadium as they heard the rattle of an engine coming from the direction of the turf. And indeed, a vehicle emerged out of the players’ entrance tunnel, resembling a landscaping truck with a mechanized arm intended to gather stacks of garden cuttings, or an armored personnel carrier, equipped with a claw-arm crane and headlights hatched with protective webbing. Powerful spotlights installed around the perimeter of the vehicle’s roof cast their light in every direction, making it look like a spaceship. It crossed the turf, the beams of its headlights falling upon the corpse with the smoking head. The silence was disrupted by the tense breathing of a hundred thousand people less one. It was the most terrifying silence Simon had ever heard in his life. The claw-arm crane gathered up the corpse trapped in the headlights, hoisting it to the roof of the truck. While the body made its way through the air, someone took off running from the locals’ stands toward the truck. “Buddy, buddy,” he yelled out as loud as he could. “Take me with him!” he yelled out in the local language, and before he could cross the truck’s beam, the red dot of light on his forehead was revealed, cutting through the darkness and forging a hole from which a coil of smoke rose in the interloper’s head. The body continued its motion, collapsing at the edge of the line of light drawn by the headlights on the turf.