But it’s the perfect mode of transmission. Are we going to stop our only method of contact? You tell me, Aaron. Is hearing from me worth the risk? Should I tell you in my noblest sounding voice: “Stay away from me. My words are an infectious disease. Keep me in your heart, but remove me from your contact list?”
I don’t want to stop. I can’t stop. You are the only one who can stop this. If I don’t hear from you again, I will know that your fear is more powerful than your love.
WFAT (with fear and trepidation),
Joy
P.S. You must never let Davey read these emails.
August 4—8:48 a.m.
I didn’t say that I sympathized with the Balloon Heads that were holding you captive. You always twist my words around. Nice to know some things haven’t changed.
I don’t know anything about them, and I certainly wouldn’t side with them. I was talking about some I saw here, on the outside. The ones here certainly aren’t enslaving anyone, and they are probably just going to die of starvation unless someone takes pity on them. But nobody has yet. Not that there are many of us. I might see someone every three or four days, and it’s not for long. But everyone avoids the Balloon Heads. They can sense something wrong about them.
I guess the ones here are weak, and there aren’t enough of them to cause any trouble.
But they don’t look like aliens. They look like us. Except they have enormous heads. Like my foot. I think they’re just changed people.
I wish I knew more about what happened to you.
The news says the tsunami changed the atmosphere somehow. That it’s different now, and we’ve been changed to survive in it. So that does seem to make sense with what they told you. That the outside might be poisonous to you if you aren’t changed. But at the same time, I don’t know what to believe. If the Balloon Heads are transformed, which they obviously are, then they have to breathe the altered air. If they survive in the same space you do, then you must be able to breathe it, too.
Does that make sense?
I’ll find you. Somehow.
Every day I try to walk out to that invisible barrier I mentioned. And every day it gets so painful I can’t go on. But I’m trying. I’m trying real hard to get to you.
Love,
Aaron
August 4—10:27 a.m.
Joy,
You know how they say the cockroaches will outlast us all? I guess they were right. I was standing next to this big puddle this morning, the first water I’ve seen in days that wasn’t in bottles. Almost a small lake, really. And suddenly, it started to move. The sun was reflecting off it, and I realized it was thousands of cockroaches with mirrored wings. They looked almost like jewels as they scurried away. Or made of glass. They’d been transformed too, but they were still around.
I should have expected as much.
But I have to admit, they were actually beautiful. Nothing like the filthy little buggers that used to creep me out when we went to visit your mother in the Bronx. Remember how she used to put down poison and roach traps and that Chinese chalk stuff. They’d go away awhile, but they always came back. I remember one time I was at one of my first jobs, when we first got married, and all of these women were screaming about something in the break room. I went over and lifted some papers and there was the biggest roach I had ever seen. I swear it was bigger than my hand. So big and bloated that it could barely move. It was completely harmless, the way it was all bloated up like that, but for some reason it really touched something inside me, something repellent, and I almost wanted to scream, too. It was just so hideous. That was the last time I ever laughed at someone for screaming about bugs or mice or something. It was just horrible. I still have nightmares about that thing.
I have no idea where the roaches scattered to. I mean, they were pretty and reflecting and all, and then they were gone. I didn’t see them enter any holes in the ground or anything. And I haven’t seen them since. They sure are good at hiding.
Are there any roaches in the building where you’re living?
I remember the times I visited you at your job, bringing Davey to visit you during your lunch break when you first went back to work. Remember that? I thought it looked like a nice enough building. Modern-looking. Not too old. All that glass and steel. I wonder what it looks like now.
Aaron
August 4—7:11 p.m.
Aaron,
Per usual, you ignore what I tell you. Do you think what I told you about the Balloon Heads controlling my thoughts and possibly using my emails to infiltrate yours is a part of what you so lovingly refer to as my “craziness?”
I remember you used to pretend not to hear certain things I said. Things that you considered paranoid or delusional. Aaron, why do you always end up making me hate you? How come you didn’t say you were sorry I had to clean up the Balloon Heads’ shit? All I get from you is some crap about cockroaches. I wish I was a cockroach so I could scurry away and hide in the walls.
What can I tell you about the building? It’s just fucking dark. Didn’t I tell you that? At night, I grind my teeth. The only way I know whether it’s morning or night is by looking at the time display at the bottom of this laptop. Who knows if that’s even accurate or not? I get so angry at times my chest starts shaking.
Cindy and I had to bathe this Balloon Head today we call Woody. The Balloon Heads don’t speak so they can’t tell us their names, but we call him Woody because he is always having erections. At first, I was horribly embarrassed by it, now I think it’s funny. It seemed to come to Cindy and I at the same time that we were to give this pervert a bath. I know because the moment the command to bathe him was put into my head, I looked at Cindy and she was staring back at me with this horrified look on her face. How do you explain that? Hmm?
I don’t know about the outside world, but in here, the Balloon Heads sit in wheelchairs all day long and stare at the floor. I got up and starting pushing Woody’s wheelchair to the bathroom. Cindy followed, dragging her feet. All the Balloon Heads wear these fugly pink polyester jogging suits. Cindy took off Woody’s top so I’d have to deal with his bottoms (she’s such a fucking prude). They don’t wear underwear, so as soon as I pulled down his elastic waistband there it was … boing! Bad enough I have to look at one swollen head.
Cindy closed her eyes as we lifted him into the tub. That sucker was heavy. I think I pulled a muscle in my back. Then, when we’re soaping him down, trying to ignore the elephant (snake?) in the room, the thought penetrates us that there’s another use for all that soapy lather on our hands. Cindy looks at me as if to say, “You do it.”
“I’m a married woman,” I tell her straight out.
Cindy pouts and says, “I’m a virgin.” (And yet I remember hearing about how she came out of the VP of Marketing’s office one day with flushed face, bed head, lipstick smeared, and her shirt buttoned up crooked.)
“This will be good practice then,” I said.
Then the compulsion overtakes us and we’re both lathering his pole. Cindy starts crying.
“Shut up and jerk,” I tell her.
I gotta admit, I cracked myself up, especially seeing the look on her face after I said it. I couldn’t stop laughing. Cindy was bawling and I was cackling and Woody the Balloon Head was erupting like a snow-peaked Vesuvius.
Maybe you think I’m making this shit up to get a reaction out of you? Think what you want. You always do anyway. I’m exhausted and my back is killing me. I’m going to bed.
LMBHJ (Little Miss Balloon Head Jerker-offer),
Joy
P.S. Probably not a good idea relaying this story to Davey?
August 4—10:45 p.m.
Joy,
That was a pretty horrible story about the Balloon Heads. I’m really sorry that they’re putting you through all that. Now I really want to find you and take you away from there.
I met some other survivors tonight. It’s rare when they want to interact. Everyone pretty much just keeps to themselves
these days. But there are three of them. Two men and a woman. At first, I thought they were going to try to rob me, but there’s really nothing they could take. And they assured me it was all a misunderstanding. I guess I’m just jumpy, after all that’s happened. And it’s not like I get many chances to use my social skills anymore. The situation got better after that. We all realized we’re in the same boat, and it just wouldn’t help anything to prey on one another.
I’m guessing they were teenagers before everything happened, or at least in their early twenties, and they’ve clearly known each other for a long time. They have all these inside jokes and keep smiling at one another.
Thomas, the older one, has these really big teeth that stick out of his mouth all the time. And buggy eyes. His nose is pretty long and twisted, like a tree branch. He always seems very nervous.
The woman’s name is Katie. I guess she’s more like a girl. I would be surprised if she wasn’t a freshman in college or something. She wears this wrinkled school uniform and has long, dirt-encrusted hair. You can tell she used to be cute. But now half her face won’t move, and she has one really large hand that she drags on the ground behind her. The other guy is named Chet and he’s got a beard and his eyes are so big they protrude from his head, just like a frog. And they’re always leaking green fluid.
They’re probably got other imperfections I can’t see.
I’m in one of the other houses in our neighborhood now. Not all of them changed or collapsed. I’ve been in this one before. It’s good because the electricity works. I think the three of them are out sleeping in the garage.
They said we should stay together, but I don’t know. I’m not much of a joiner, and I have been getting along just fine by myself. It’s nice to have other people around, but there’s still something about them I don’t trust, and I doubt I’ll go with them when they move on.
I saw the roaches again. There was a Balloon Head in the middle of the street that had died, and this swarm of the mirrored roaches covered him. A few minutes later, they crawled off, and big sections of his body had been eaten down to the bone. They didn’t touch his head, though, just stripped the flesh off his body. I sure hope they only eat dead things.
And they disappeared as quickly as they’d come.
I might leave before morning comes. I know a place where I can go, where they won’t find me. And then they’ll just move on. I’m really thinking I’d prefer to stay behind. Let them go on without me.
There was some canned food in the cupboards, but nothing that I recognized. The labels were all in some language I couldn’t read, and the pictures on the cans were just bizarre. We opened some of them. We had to eat something. But they tasted strange. One can had these squirmy white fungi in them—like big, slimy mushroom caps. I don’t feel so well now. I hope it wasn’t the food.
What do they feed you where you are? Is it anything like the old cafeteria food they used to serve there before the tsunami, or has that changed, too?
Aaron
August 5—3:00 a.m.
Aaron, Aaron, Aaron. You poor naïve bastard. You would trust deformed, homeless thieves? There is no one you can trust in this world. NO ONE.
I wish I could get away from people. Not just the Balloon Heads (do they even count as people?), but everyone, including Cindy and Bradley. At first, when we were new to this dark, hot Purgatory, we were, most of us, like helpless mewling kittens looking to be petted and fed.
It’s like everyone here is from an office building or maybe just my office building. People from other companies who were on other floors and cleaning people. I recognize a few of the Spanish people here, dressed in their orange cleaning smocks. I was thinking a bit ago how, when things were normal, we never said, ‘hello’ to them as we passed them in the hall, as they removed the dirty bags from our wastebaskets and put clean bags in, as they wheeled their cleaning carts around bathrooms. It’s like they existed on a lower level from us. We tsk, tsk at the caste system in India. Untouchables and all that. We like to pretend we don’t have a caste system in this country. Americans love to pat themselves on the back, don’t they?
I remember Cindy one time left a ring on the sink in the bathroom and when she went back to get it, it was gone and she told me, “It must have been that cleaning girl.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“That’s how they get by in their country,” Cindy said, “They steal.”
“Is that a fact?” I asked.
“Minimum wage isn’t good enough for them. They think they deserve more, so they steal our stuff.”
“You try paying rent, food, electricity, supporting a family on minimum wage,” I said.
“They can’t even speak English,” Cindy said. “You think I’d get a job in their country not speaking Spanish?”
And now we’re on the same level as “them.” There’s always a “them,” isn’t there? The Balloon Heads are the new “them.” And we are their ‘them.” I wonder if they look down on us like we did on the Mexicans.
Funniest of all is that Cindy has been walking all bug-eyed and ticked out since we gave Woody that bath. And this little Mexican dude who used to empty the trash cans around here gave Cindy this tiny toy burro that looked like a child had knitted it (maybe his daughter?). The stitching was all crooked and the black buttons that were sewn on for eyes didn’t even match. But Cindy had this quivering smile on her lips when she took it from him and he (his name is Jose, I found out from Cindy of all people) petted Cindy on the head like she was a little girl. Maybe he was thinking of his daughter? I’m sure he misses her. I wish I could say I missed Davey, but I don’t feel like I do.
Maybe he left his daughter behind. I wonder if everything is as weird there as it is here.
I know what the “right things” are, but I don’t feel them. I should probably stop judging Cindy so much. Seems like she made a connection. I didn’t. But at least I just figured out by writing to you that we are the new Mexicans. And the Balloon Heads are the new “us.” Does that make sense? Probably not.
UNT (until next time),
Joy (maybe I should rename myself Juana, lol!)
August 6—3:22 a.m.
Joy,
After I wrote to you last night, I went out to the living room in the house and found them at it. Kind of grotesque. Their nudity just emphasized the ways their bodies had been deformed. There were tumors I hadn’t noticed before, and their strange version of sex involved lots of licking and the fondling of oversized body parts. It ended with a bizarre game of Twister, where the two men twisted their bodies to avoid bulges and growths, to penetrate the woman at the same time. Her vaginal lips were as huge as their penises were malformed. I can honestly say there was very little about the spectacle that I would consider arousing. It was more of a curiosity than anything else. I watched for a little while, then went back to my hiding space.
They searched around for me a little this morning, but gave up pretty easily. I’m staying hidden for the rest of the day, just in case. I have no idea if they are trustworthy or not, but I’m not willing to take the chance. On one hand, it would be really nice to have friends at this point. Everything is so disjointed and chaotic. On the other hand, my instincts said these three were a little off from the first time I saw them, and I’m thinking it might be a good idea to listen to my instincts right now.
That’s interesting about your theory about the class system stuff. Sounds like everything is pretty twisted right now. It’s been awhile since I worked in an office, but I know exactly what you’re talking about.
It sounds like you have a decent amount of time to yourself, though. You’re not serving those Balloon Head things constantly at least. How much time do they give you to yourself? It sounds like you’ve still got some semblance of your life going on.
I have to admit, I feel adrift in these new surroundings. I’ve been trying to keep on the move, mostly because I’m not sure what’s safe anymore and I don’t want to stay in one
place for too long. But it’s tough when you’re limited to one area. I’m really surprised I haven’t seen more people.
I’m thinking of going to see Davey soon. He’s still at the school, and I’ve only seen him once since the tsunami hit. I don’t think I really want to see him again, but there’s some unfinished business I should take care of. And I want to see how much more he’s changed.
I know he was a major headache growing up, always getting into trouble. And I know it really freaked you out that time you caught him torturing that cat. That bothered me a lot, too. You know what they say about serial killers starting out small as kids, hurting animals. I think that scared the shit out of us. And I still believe he’s a big reason why we drifted apart. I know toward the end you just wanted nothing to do with him, and I can understand that. I don’t know if he’s sociopathic or what. But if he continued to get worse, we probably would have had to commit him somewhere. His behavior just kept getting worse and worse. I just couldn’t handle him at the end, and it was just getting out of control.
Did I tell you that he pulled a knife on me once? I was asking him questions and he got agitated and pulled out this knife. It wasn’t huge or anything, but it was the action that freaked me out. That he would pull a knife on his own father.
Yeah, I still think Davey played a big part in what happened to us.
It’s funny, the day before the tsunami, his principal called me into the office to discuss his behavior. He was starting to get violent with the other kids. The principal, that Mr. Atkins guys, he told me if things didn’t change soon, they’d have to ask Davey to leave. Well, that’s all water under the bridge now. (No pun intended.) I don’t even know if Atkins survived. The school was probably taken over by the children for all I know.
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