by Amos Talshir
Simon asked Clebber to continue drinking water and opened his backpack. He took out his electric shaver and set it to hair-trimming mode. He handed the device to the doctor, who took it from him, immersing himself in the meticulous trimming of his mustache and beard in front of the mirror. Simon stood beside him, waiting patiently. The doctor worked his surgeon’s hands thoroughly and precisely, fastidiously conquering the wild patches of his beard. Under the abolished stubble, a handsome face was exposed, its features sharp. The long wrinkles in the skin stretching from his eyes to his chin bestowed him with the elegance of an immortal Native American chief. His sunken cheeks no longer revealed prolonged hunger, but rather the skepticism of an elder weary with disappointment. His lips curved below his mustache, also receding under the blades of the electric shaver, revealing a winking smile and rows of perfect teeth. He gazed lustfully at his reflection in the mirror, his face assuming an expression of satisfaction reserved for those who frequently examined themselves, knowing they were handsome. Simon was charmed by the way the man was watching himself. He felt that the doctor was truly in love with his reflection, but reserved a pinch of perpetual doubt, which added a patronizing hue to his expression.
Simon had never seen people like that in real life but had encountered countless of them in computer games, in the roles of leaders plotting revolutions intended to exterminate humanity. One side of the battle was comprised of the scientists of the future, trying to discover the component that would allow them to control Earth. They opposed those who were out to save the world, with their cosmic mission, who also exhibited a superior, stonelike, chiseled mien. He knew all of them from countless downloads of computer games and had wondered if such people actually existed. In fact, he had asked himself how they had been invented. Were they virtual creatures on whom the game designers had projected human traits? And now a real person with such features stood before him. It wasn’t just the visage, Simon thought, but also the soul, emitting helium gas through the eyelids. It was the heart vaporizing the blood that spread heat around this man, who was standing and loving himself in front of a mirror in the stadium’s urinal.
“You’re well equipped,” he told Simon. “What else do you have in that backpack you packed for a soccer game?”
“Almost everything that’s necessary to survive.”
“Did you know that that was what was going to happen to us in the stadium?”
“I couldn’t predict this exact occurrence, but I always knew that a significant discrepancy between the virtual world and the real world couldn’t persist in the long run.”
“You always knew? How old are you?”
“Actually, I’m almost eighteen, but virtually, I’ve accumulated all existing time.”
“You’re claiming that as a result of your virtual knowledge—I’m assuming you’re referring to online digital knowledge—you’ve acquired experience totaling more than your age would indicate.”
“You understood correctly.”
“Keep going, kid.”
“That’s also exactly what I’m telling you about what I knew could happen in the stadium.”
“Because in your online games, it’s been happening for a while,” the doctor continued this line of thought.
“Right,” Simon said. “And virtual games are developed by people simulating psychological human traits that are extreme, yet possible. They call it brain science.”
“Well, then, why shouldn’t it work in the other direction—from the virtual to the real?” the doctor continued their brainstorming.
“In reality, it’s actually a lot easier. You don’t need to know how to program, you don’t need to imagine. All the ideas are already on the Web: empires of fighters, the cruelty of monsters, extermination of living creatures, takeovers. You could simply take it and apply it,” Simon explained.
“That’s why you were equipped with this backpack. You anticipated that at some point in time, somewhere, it would happen. Someone was supposed to apply the virtual realm,” the doctor murmured, having finished trimming and shaving his beard. “Could you help me with the hair at the back?” he asked Simon.
Simon took the electric shaver from his delicate hands, now sporting long nails, and began to trim the hair on his head to collar length.
“Forgive me for the filth apparent on the collar,” the doctor requested.
“It’ll be washed and be clean again,” Simon replied, continuing the task of cutting the hair of a man he had met a few minutes ago in the urinal of a soccer stadium.
“You’re a special boy. Youth is full of optimism,” the doctor grew emotional. “How optimistic are you about this electric shaver’s lifespan?”
“I have a charger,” Simon assured him.
“Let’s talk about your father,” the doctor said.
Simon and the doctor continued to talk in the local language while Clebber sat down on the floor of the restroom facility.
“He’s not my father. I want to help him, and you’re invited to do your part. You could be of use.”
“If you’ve got a good pocketknife in your backpack, I can do something, and I assume you have some sort of first-aid kit, too. We can do something to extend his life in the meantime.”
Simon helped Clebber rise to his feet and, with the doctor’s help, led him to stand by the sink.
The doctor took the pocketknife that Simon handed him and looked at it. The urinal grew silent. The flow of those using it was thin. Clebber’s heavy breathing, almost resembling snoring, sawed through the air. The doctor caught Simon’s eye. Simon felt as if the doctor was hypnotizing Clebber, whose gaze became watery, his arm rising in response to the doctor’s inaudible command. At that moment, Simon was convinced that the man was a wizard. His blazing eyes over his aquiline nose utterly concealed the entirety of his aging body, leaving behind only the hump on his back as support for his menacing spirit.
In an abrupt gesture, using the leatherworking pick extracted from the pocketknife, he swiftly pierced the vein in Clebber’s arm. Clebber smothered a cry of pain, biting down on his lip, as if in the midst of a deep hypnotic slumber.
“Next time, it’ll be more painful, since you’ll know what you’re facing,” the doctor said, allowing the blood to flow into the drain in the sink. “The more frequently we can do this, the more we can extend your life,” the doctor explained to Clebber in English, sealing the puncture wound from which the blood was flowing with an adhesive pad Simon had produced from his backpack. The stream of blood was swept into the sink.
“That’s a terrible waste,” Simon said. “I could have fed the bats.”
“You’ll do the next bloodlettings for him on your own,” the doctor said, passing his wet palm over his hair and his clean-shaven cheeks. “I’m not sure I should be taking a risk for him. He’s going to die anyway,” the doctor added in the local language. “What was that you said about the bats?”
“The blood,” Simon said.
“I know bats lick blood,” the doctor said. “But what’s your connection to them?”
“It’s the same one you have with commoners in bathrooms.”
“Which is?” the doctor asked.
“Gaining personal advantage from them.”
“You intend to take advantage of the bats?”
“And do you intend to take advantage of commoners in restrooms?”
“Are you serious?” The doctor was amazed. “Yes, you are serious,” he answered his own question. “My name is Dr. Thomas, and I’ll be happy to be at your service,” he said, hurrying out of the urinal as if he was late for an important meeting.
23.
“It’s nice to be thin,” were Clebber’s last words before he lost consciousness, never to regain it. Simon had managed to extend Clebber’s life by several months. He had performed dozens of bloodlettings upon him and hydrated him with many gallons of wat
er. There were no containers available, due to the restriction on nonbiodegradable materials within the stadium. Therefore, he collected the blood in Clebber’s shoes and left them in a permanent location in the bats’ burrow. The bats grew used to the whistle he let out as he smuggled the shoes there. Clebber, weakened to the point of exhaustion, insisted on being weighed whenever they had the chance to visit the fitness rooms near the burrows. He could not have been happier over every pound he lost.
One evening, as the stadium lights were turned on, Clebber lost consciousness in Veronica’s arms, after whispering to her, “I’m a thin man.”
“He realized his lifelong dream,” Veronica said. “How many people do you know who made their life’s dream come true?” she murmured, strictly between herself and the God of Wisdom. “I’m about to be a widow,” she told Charlie, keening thinly.
Charlie observed them from the aisle of the stands. He knew that Simon’s devotion to bleeding Clebber and infusing him with countless thermoses full of water would do no more than postpone the inevitable. Charlie revealed to Simon that Clebber had told him that he had no children, and therefore, “We can grieve a bit less…” as he put it.
“That’s true, Dad,” Simon responded. “When there are no kids, it’s less sad.”
“He also told me that his wife wasn’t really interested in him,” Charlie whispered to Simon.
“But he was really nice, Dad.”
“Sometimes the ones close to you don’t see your good qualities, while other people do like you.”
“I liked him,” Simon said.
“I did too, and Veronica liked him very much as well.”
“Dad, she wasn’t his wife, right?”
“No.”
“Why did she say she was going to be a widow?”
“Veronica really wanted to be married, Simon.”
Charlie picked up Clebber’s skinny body and hefted him onto his shoulder, as if carrying a wounded man. He took the aisle stairs down to the pitch with Veronica by his side. She whispered words of encouragement at Clebber’s swaying head, praising him for managing to make his lifelong dream come true by losing weight. Walking in Charlie’s wake as he carried the body, she eulogized Clebber, the one unique person who had attained the goal to which millions all over the world dedicated their lives—he had managed to lose weight and, unlike others, would never regain it and be fat again. Simon was convinced she was speaking with utter sincerity, totally unaware of the foolish aspect of what she was saying. This won him over.
Charlie laid Clebber’s body on the grass in the center circle. For a moment, he considered taking the wallet out of the motionless Clebber’s pocket; there might come a moment when he could bring the wallet to his wife, left behind at home. However, he avoided doing so. It occurred to him that the snipers might misinterpret the extraction of the wallet, and he gave up on it.
The throngs that had been wandering back and forth on the pitch every evening for months now began to drift away when they realized that a body had been laid out in the center of the circle. Within minutes, the pitch emptied out, and Charlie was left standing with Veronica at the deceased Clebber’s head. Veronica produced a well-folded piece of paper from under the elastic of her tights and asked Charlie’s permission to read a poem she had written in honor of the deceased. Charlie tried to tell her it might be better to skip the ceremony and return to their seats, but she thrust out her chin and stated she would not give up on honoring the dead one last time, even if it cost her her own life. Charlie said nothing was worth her dying, even not a poem she had written. Veronica said it was nice of him to tell her that her life was worth more than a poem she’d written, and that it meant he had the soul of a poet. Charlie said he really wasn’t a poet, and she said that men never understood her feelings, but she folded the paper once more, returning it to her underwear. She promised Charlie she would read him the poem later that night.
The numerous audience members returned to their seats on the stands. Charlie hugged Veronica’s waist and began to walk away from Clebber’s body. Veronica leaned on his shoulder and they made their way back toward their seats. The floodlights were turned off earlier than usual and Clebber’s body merged with the dark turf in the moonlight.
Veronica hugged Charlie’s waist and realized that he, too, was very thin, although his fortitude was apparent in his taut muscles and in his firm grasp on her waist. They strolled through the dark, crossing the pitch, on their way to spending the night in their seats. Veronica felt Charlie’s body heat when her face touched his neck. He walked her calmly toward their place in the stand so she could prepare herself for the cold night in the seat. They reached the stairs under the stand and she did not want to disengage from his warm body. She heard the gnawing sound of the truck with the claw crane making its way out of the players’ tunnel into the center circle on the turf and did not look back. Over there, the metal arms would now be lifted to collect Clebber’s sprawled body, the way they had collected the bodies of the previous dead placed by the audience in the center circle. Clebber would thus join the ranks of the soccer fans who had not survived the conditions of the lockdown. Veronica did not want to hear or see the spectacle of the body being gathered up. She tore herself away from Charlie’s embrace and escaped to the edge of the dark chamber under their stand, as far away as she could get from the commotion of the body truck.
Charlie called out to her to hurry up and return to their seats so as not to violate the stadium’s familiar orderly regulations, but she did not respond. He strained to locate her in the dark restroom facilities, to no avail. He called her to come out of her hiding spot, but she did not reveal herself. Sometime later, the noise of the truck collecting the body faded away, the clatter of its tracks becoming a distant hum. Charlie’s ears picked up the thin sound of Veronica’s weeping, coming from one of the corners of the facility. He asked her not to panic, as he was making his way toward her in the dark and might run into her. She did not reply. The sound of her crying in the darkness guided his steps.
Charlie knew he had to get her back in her seat and, even more importantly, get back himself. He couldn’t worry Simon, who took care to obey all regulations intended to maintain the peace, realizing full well that anything that seemed like disorderly conduct would bring on immediate retaliation. He paused inside the concrete space, trying to pick up Veronica’s faint voice again, while also sharpening his sense of smell in order to isolate the odor of his own body, and perhaps discern Veronica’s scent. He had gotten to know this scent thanks to her body sleeping on the seat beside him for many nights. When the sound of her crying died out completely, he picked up on a scent that was not originating from his own body. He could not define it in words, not being a man of diverse, sharp descriptions, especially in regard to his sense of smell, dulled over the years in which he had been breathing in the odors of burnt oil and slick grease in his repair shop. And yet, out of the moldy smell of concrete, his nostrils discerned Veronica’s scent, or that of another woman. This scent differed from the smell of the concrete walls or from that of his own body. Her scent was appealing, different from that of diminishing, aging people, turning more quiet and gray and increasingly resembling one another in their lengthening stubble and the hair on their head that gradually obscured their features. People who were becoming wrinkled stains, shuffling off to the restrooms and returning to their chairs, or others, stronger, pacing aimlessly on the pitch. He recognized this scent, and walked on, gravitating toward it. His arms stretched out in front of him to greet any possible impediment, until his knees felt a soft touch, and he heard Veronica’s startled voice.
She groped his knees and said, “I’m glad you came, Charlie.”
“Come on, honey, we have to get back to our seats,” he told her.
“Give me a little more time. It’s so hard for me, Clebber’s empty chair.”
“Don’t be scared, it’ll all wor
k out.” Charlie hugged her shoulder. The scent of her body was exactly what had brought him to her. Veronica pulled him toward her, and he sat down next to her on the concrete floor.
“It’s sweet of you to promise me it’ll be okay, but you have to understand, he was the man I was with. He brought me here. I’m always faithful to whomever I come with.” Veronica wrapped Charlie’s arms around her and kissed his palms. “I always stay with the guy who brought me to the party. I’m not the kind of girl who just takes advantage of the person who brought her and then latches on to someone else she likes on the dance floor. Clebber brought me here, and I was faithful to him till the last moment, and now he’s gone and I can’t see his empty seat.” She stroked Charlie’s face, grabbing on to the back of his neck. “Don’t you leave me too. I’ve got no one left. Do you have someone?”
“You know I came with my son. You know him.”
“No, I meant whether you have a woman in your life in general, not here.”
“I live alone now.”
“Because I’m not the kind of girl who steals someone else’s fellow.”
24.
Charlie felt tempted to get swept up in her thoughts along with her. The two of them were in the locked-down stadium, and she was talking about things whose existence he’d forgotten about. They should already have been in their seats due to the early lights-out and she was talking to him about romance and cheating. Outside, the snipers were waiting for them, while she was drawing his body to hers, until he lay down on the cold concrete beside her. And yet he felt affection for her awakening within him, in response to her loyalty to a man she barely knew—a man who had run away from his wife in order to enjoy some warmth from the young woman who had complimented him on his slimming exercises at the gym.
“I wrote a poem in his memory,” she said. “Do you know I write poems? I wrote a poem about a cat that no one likes. Do you know why people don’t like stray cats?”