Strangers Among Us

by Kelley Armstrong

  They came for her the next day. Or maybe the day after. It’s hard to say, given what occurred. One thing I know for sure: she was at school, and helpless to stop them. Two vans pulled up and out sprang a handful of white minions. I stood at my window, paralysed. Impossible to describe what the sight of those vans did to me, glaring so whitely.

  It was a massacre.

  Through the glass I heard the scree of gas engines firing up, the helicopter thop of mower blades, the buzz of trimmers, the moan of hedge clippers. They came well-armed, well-prepared. Those sounds were awful enough, but far worse was what I saw: sunlight flashing off metal blades, black fumes spewing into the air. Stems hacked like tendons, branches hewn like bone. Petals scattering like chunks of flesh. Green froth spit and spattered across their pristine suits, the gory lifeblood painting dying patterns. I was safe, behind closed doors. But Jay. Jay. I knew that nothing would be spared. Nothing.

  As I watched, I heard something else: a strange, keening cry. It was coming from my own throat. Then I was outside, acting without thinking. Grabbing a spade from my garden, I charged towards them—shouting over the roar of equipment, brandishing the tool like a sword. Engrossed in their work, eyes obscured by goggles and mouths hidden by masks, they ignored me until I stormed amongst them, threatening and shouting and cursing. Then, one by one, the engines died. My breath coming raw and ragged, I turned on their vehicles, swinging the spade like a hatchet against headlamps, windscreens, doors, and hoods.

  “She doesn’t want it! Leave her alone!”

  They stared at me, impassive and inscrutable. Inhuman, alien creatures! I was vaguely aware of doors opening up and down the block, of a crowd gathering. I continued my tirade, screaming and bashing, my words and blows growing weaker and weaker, until I had nothing left but blind spots in my vision and a cutting pain in my chest. My knees bent; I went down. I fell in the field of butchered plants, the scent of death ripe in my nostrils. Quivering, twitching, nauseous and fearful, I lay there in a semi-conscious state.

  Feet and voices surrounded me. “That’s enough now,” one said. “We’ll take you home,” came another. They were not Them (for They do not speak) but my own neighbours. Gentle and firm. The spade was wrested from my grip. Hands lifted me, supported me. Faces hovered on all sides. I recognized Mrs. Crenshaw and Amonte and the young couple and still others. Every one of them smiling sickly, emboldened by daylight and the proximity of the vans. En masse they guided me away from the scene towards my house, all the while keeping up their sinister murmurs: Everything will be okay, now. Soon you’ll see. It doesn’t even hurt. I was led (or forced) through my open door, stretched out on the sofa, my protests drowned out by the chorus of soothing, cooing voices. That’s the way. . . . Just lie down. Stay put. And I obeyed, helpless to resist—as the world went black before my eyes. I heard fading voices, retreating footsteps, the gentle click of the door swinging shut behind them.

  I remember the throb of motors coming to life.

  I am now lying in bed. Pale, lugubrious light is oozing through my bedroom blinds, leaking across the floor, and pooling in puddles on my bed. The sweat of troubled dreams has soaked through my sheets. It’s been this way for days: days in which I’ve heard the constant passage of vans, the permanent haze of noise created by their machines. I have never felt so alone.

  Jay, my Narcissus, is gone.

  As soon as I recovered, I went to see her. But once I stepped out of my house, even in the darkness of evening, I knew all hope was lost. I could see the totality of their job. Where once there grew evening primrose, foxhollow, pink hyacinths and purple forget-me-nots—a wondrous jumble of greenery and colours—there is now only the same empty vacuum as in every other yard on the block. Flat, rectangular, soulless, expressionless. Lifeless.

  Spurned on by perversity, or desperation, I went to see her anyway. The only sign of the morning’s massacre was the faint, sickly sweet smell of freshly killed vegetation lingering in the air. I mounted her porch, knocked twice, stood standing and waiting like a salesman. And imagine my horror, my agony, as the door swung open, to reveal Jay, smiling blandly, her expression as fixed as a doll’s: eyes dim, mouth slack, features blank. Behind her, in perfect order against the walls, like hundreds of soldiers lined up to be shot, were her books. It was too much. I began to weep, clutch at her. I tried to hold her. She didn’t have the presence of mind to be scared, or angry. Rather, she seemed only confused and bewildered. She patted me affectionately, still smiling. “There, there. Everything is okay. What’s all this fuss about? Come, now.” I extricated myself, backed away, unable to take my eyes off her, still searching until the end for some semblance of the woman I knew. She stood still in the doorway, her body oddly limp: a cropped flower wilting in its vase.

  So now I lie here, stuck among sweaty sheets with my painful memories. The heady stench of her sweat as we worked. A bead of blood glistening on her thorn-pricked fingertip. The tentative, breathy whisper of her voice. The touch of her fingers on my arm, like fire.

  And outside, all the while, I hear Them working . . .

  I am up, now. Out of bed. Spurned on by the sound of something sliding through my mail-slot, something that brushed the carpet with a soft, serpent’s hiss. I’d been expecting it, of course. Still, it was enough to rouse me. Throwing on a bathrobe, stumbling to the entrance hall, I saw one of their quarter-sized sheets of paper, nestled by my doormat. I refused to pick it up, fearful of its terrible, hypnotic power, fearful of being immobilized.

  In writing this now, the utter hilarity of my position occurs to me. My lawn’s disorder is like a last vestige of individualism amongst this utterly generic wasteland. My neighbours walk by it, refusing to look, avoiding it as if, through denial alone, they can will it (and me) out of existence. And who’s to say they’re not right? Soon my lawn will no longer exist. Soon I will no longer exist. Having taken the kingdom, They are ready to storm the tower.

  And I’ve been as compliant, as submissive as the others: lying here, waiting for Them to come, waiting for the end. I’ve neglected my duties, stewing in my mire of depression, despair, and self-pity. But just now, for the first time in weeks, I’ve looked at Jay’s blog. There, to my heartache and delight, I found a final message from Narcissus—posted just before the end, quoting Thoreau: Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigour and freedom of the forest and the outlaw. Until now my resistance has been pacifistic, while around me I have seen landscapes changed and minds reshaped. No longer. Jay has shown me the way.

  The passive, civil resistance of gardening is no longer adequate.

  I am in a unique position. My storehouse is already filled with chemicals, with fertilizer, with everything I need. There are internet sites that offer simple instructions. A fool could follow them. All week I have been mixing ingredients, and loading my van with innocuous-looking packages. I’ve been going over my maps, and drawing up lists of possible targets. But I also plan to improvise. As ever, chaos will be an ally, and I can make deliveries wherever I see Them working, or at any address where They have already done Their damage, and the people are beyond saving. I know there are others out there who will understand, who may be waging their own battles and resisting this in their own way.

  I know I am not alone.

  Tonight, the night before the exodus, I am filled with a dream of tomorrow. No, it is more than a dream. It is a premonition. As I drive out of the city, I hear explosions and see towers of flame, like lances thrusting up from the earth. And the terrible aftermath! Vans torn and shredded. Billowing black columns of smoke. Helicopters circling overhead. Sirens wailing in agony. These sounds will create the swansong of the Resistance as we beat our final retreat. You cannot save people who do not wish to be saved. I head into the wilderness, for the wild. Far from this place we will meet again, those of us who still believe in natural chaos; who still believe there is beauty in the tangled snarl of vines around tree trunks, in the way weeds can crack apart pavement, in the
riotous nature of blossoms and buds. There we will meet and find others like ourselves, others who abhor the sight of cropped grass, square hedges, symmetrical trees—precision and perfection. We will cultivate our beliefs, drawing strength from the land, waiting for the time when the city turns stagnant, when every lawn is uniform and every mind is unanimous, and the light of humanity begins to slowly go out like a gas lamp dimming in the dark. Only then will we return.

  LIVING IN OZ

  Bev Geddes

  The door squeaked open. Old doors in old homes were the best for that. Freaked people out to no end. I never understood why. Old homes are old homes. That’s part of the deal. Not so good when you’re trying to sneak in past curfew or keep sleeping babies asleep. Now, the squeaky doors were useful to me.

  The smell of soggy tissues and coffee hung in the air. He really should empty that wastebasket more often. It was a welcome place, relaxed and easy. I’d been here a few times. Before. I threw myself onto the worn couch and announced, “I’m here.”

  He didn’t even look up from the papers he was studying at his desk, scribbling a note here and there with a half chewed pencil stub. The silence stretched. I waited. It sometimes took a while.

  “I know you’re there,” he said, finally looking up. With a sigh, he pushed his glasses up onto the top of his head, hair shaved to a frosted stubble. He was slim and fit and had a smile that eased the tension out of the room. It wasn’t a put-on kind of thing. Bernie wasn’t that kind of psychologist. He never made you feel crazy. “It’s been a while.”

  “Over here, on the couch.” I waved, though I didn’t know why. Hard to break old habits, I guess.

  “I know,” he repeated. “I’m just slow today. It’s been a busy day.” He pushed away from his battered oak desk and slumped down into the winged chair facing me, tucking his legs beneath himself. He didn’t pick up the tablet of paper that had been thrown onto the end table beside him with obvious abandon. “You’ve been invisible again, haven’t you?”

  “Comes with the territory,” I muttered.

  “Not necessarily.” He folded his hands across this stomach weaving his fingers together. He was settling in. “We’ve discussed this.”

  “Um hmm. And you still don’t get it.”

  “Then why do you come here, if I don’t understand your situation? That doesn’t make much sense. Looking for a convert?” A slow smile curled into the corners of his mouth.

  “Because you hear me.” I folded my legs underneath myself too. It was warmer that way, and I was tired of being so damn cold. I spent my life being cold in a city gripped with snow and ice for six months of the year, and now I was still cold in this unfamiliar terrain. It wasn’t right. There ought to be some advantages to being in my present state. “I need someone to really hear me. I don’t know why.”

  “Lots of other people would hear you, if you’d let them.” He paused and I knew what would come next. “They would see you, too.”

  I waved my hand at him, dismissing that last comment. It looked thinner . . . more translucent than before. I wondered how long I would have that hand.

  “People don’t want to see me.”

  “I think you’re underestimating them. Friends and family at least.”

  I laughed at that. My laugh sounded harsh. The edges of it scraped the ear. It came from just below the surface, with no depth and no softness. Someone had once said that I had the best laugh, a belly laugh that seemed to fill my whole body. A laugh that could nudge smiles onto faces. It was real. I remember. Now it was just an echo.

  “They were too tired.” I made another useless gesture with my hand, indicating my body, “This was too much for them. I was a burden. I knew that. Even if they didn’t use the word. That’s why I left. It was the only option open to me anymore.”

  “You’re wrong. It isn’t too late. They can still see you. You’re still you, just different. Trust them.”

  “Different? People don’t do ‘different’ very well. If you don’t fit into the box, they have no clue how to interact with you.”

  “Not all people. You have to try. Give it a chance.”

  “I’ve tried.”

  Bernie’s eyebrows knitted together, and he got that intense look that would flit briefly across his face before he relaxed back into therapy mode. “You’ve tried? Tell me when? What did you do?”

  “Today on the bus, as I was getting on, I saw a woman sitting there. Her face was so very sad. She was crying. She seemed embarrassed to cry. We’re not supposed to let people know that side of us. It makes them uncomfortable. But I could feel her grief. It shone from her like a beacon. I sat behind her, trying to send all the warmth and comfort I could. To let her know it would get better, that the grief would ease.”

  But some grief doesn’t just ease. It crashes over you like a wave or laps at your toes the rest of the time, always there ready to take you down. It doesn’t go away.

  “Grief is a storm,” I said, nodding at this thought. It’s more than a wave, more devastating, longer lasting. A wave hits and then recedes. Storms build, descend, wreak havoc, then scurry away only to circle back again. “The storms are different all the time. It’s just a matter of degree.”

  My gaze drifted out the window, frost-etched patterns of silver blocking the view of the street. I didn’t share the rest of my thoughts on grief storms but I counted out the ones that I knew so intimately.

  The white-out of the blizzard storm where there is nothing but surge upon surge of driving snow. Each snowflake stings with memory and settles on the soul a grief so pressing the body screams beneath its weight. The world doesn’t exist outside of this storm. Here there is no end.

  Then there’s the crazed thunderstorm full of fury and red-hot strikes that shake the earth below you. You scramble for cover knowing the storm will seek you out and there is no escape from the crackling stab of lightning.

  The sudden north wind pain that rakes your face with icy fingers and pulls the breath out of you. This one sneaks up on you like rounding a sheltered corner only to be blasted back into grief with a single gust of wind.

  The rich earthy storm of the fall that heralds the cold of winter is less overwhelming but, with the constant drizzle of days, it is grey and pressing. It wears down the heart slowly.

  Finally, the dead calm of an August afternoon when the heat seems endless—and so does your life. When you feel nothing, and there is nothing. Nothing in front, nothing beside, nothing behind you. It’s just an endless sheet of still water and your boat is sinking.

  Grief is so many different storms.

  “Sometimes words don’t help,” I said, looking down at the rug, a mottled richly hued old Indian one that Bernie had found on the boulevard a few years back. He was so proud of it. I could tell by the way he uncurled from his chair and rubbed his feet along its thick warmth, allowing a smile to wrinkle his eyes into a half-moon.

  Bernie leaned forward and scratched his nose. I could hear his fingernail rake the skin and I was surprised he didn’t have welts from scratching too hard. I knew it meant he was choosing his words carefully. “No, you’re right. Words don’t always help. But sometimes just letting someone know you’re there and it matters that they’re struggling is enough. Sometimes a hug or a touch is good. A day, a week, a year, three years later. Always.”

  I nodded quickly. I knew this. He had said this to me before.

  “I did. I touched that lady’s shoulder. Squeezed it as I left the bus. I wanted her to know someone cared.”

  “And?” Bernie’s eyes were bright. “She saw you then, didn’t she?”

  He deflated as I shook my head. “She looked up, but no, she didn’t see me.”

  There was a part of me that wished she had, that someone could. Being like this was like watching the world through a slightly distorted pane of glass, wavy and indistinct. I could see people carrying on, laughing, falling in love, fussing about bills, eating food and really tasting it, complaining about their kids o
r jobs or spouses. All, so simple. So taken for granted, the basic act of continuing to live.

  Somehow I had lost the ability to carry on. Bernie had said it was something that got messed up in my brain that day, something biochemical. It was like a light switch turned off or on, depending on your perspective, and nothing was the same anymore. I wasn’t the same anymore. Nothing made sense.

  I lowered my head and rubbed my hands along my thighs. It seemed as though the outline of my legs had faded further into the red plush of the couch. Was I fading faster than I thought? The process of leaving this world had been so slow. How I wished it would end and the final wisp of whatever I had become would be gone; sucked into the breeze like the smoke from a chimney in the autumn chill. Then I could remain in the Other—for good.

  I could feel myself trembling. “I haven’t got the strength. I’m not in Kansas anymore,” I whispered.

  “Bullshit!”

  My head snapped up at the sharp tone of Bernie’s voice. It hadn’t been a loud expletive, but his tone shocked me into attention. He had never spoken to me like that before. I felt my eyes widen. “What?” I stammered.

  Bernie didn’t move, but I could see his jaw working. He was wrestling with himself about something. We held each other’s gaze as the web of silence stretched between us.

  “You’re looking for proof that you’re in this world. That doesn’t come from other people. Sometimes you’re just stuck in some nightmare place that you can’t wake up from, like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz finding out she wasn’t in Kansas anymore. There’s no escape from this. You have to re-learn how to live in the world. Our world. This world. Not Oz.” He ran his fingers across his stubbled head, knocking his glasses. They tipped precariously over one ear. He didn’t seem to notice.