To see things and do nothing is always a crime, no matter whether or not anybody else sees those things too.
Once upon a time, she might have thought it was the meds making her think this, or making her think it’s a good idea. But she’s been on them long enough now to know better; her social worker’s right, about that much, at least. Without the meds, she wouldn’t be enough of a competent adult to even know what to do, let alone be able to do it—just sit here watching her mind chase its own tail all night, then fall asleep and wake up worse than ever. Probably forget any of it ever happened, in the first place.
Cowards stay alive, though, she thinks, automatically. Then adds to that, a mere moment later: but so what? Sometimes, just staying alive isn’t good enough—not once it’s been rubbed in your face that no matter what you do or don’t, you’re going to die one day anyhow.
Sometimes, even while you’re marking time, you also want to live.
Down on the streets, the world she finds herself riding—driving—through seems abruptly drained of all colour: stale, flat and unprofitable, like a pop-up book version of itself. Shorthand describing something you saw once in a dream, and glancingly, at that: a dead reflection, the sort of upside-down city you catch flickering underwater when you look over the side of the Toronto Island ferry, nothing but green-on-green shadows full of floating duck-poop and weed.
Streetlamps everywhere, but no traffic—it’s as empty as the moment after a tsunami siren goes off, just before the first wave hits, bright light and heavy shadow juxtaposed so perfectly they cancel each other out, rendering your ability to perceive whatever’s right in front of you, effectively, null. All of which only adds to Ciara’s general impression that anything after 3:00 a.m. takes place in a sort of imaginary hour, a non-existent time when anything can happen but nothing that does happen leaves any real traces behind, not once the sun is up.
That won’t be for a while, though. Time enough for all the mistakes she plans to make tonight, and then some.
When I was a kid, she finds herself thinking, there were insects. When I was a kid, Toronto wasn’t so damn loud all the time, aside from now. When I was a kid, things smelled better. When I was a kid . . .
But she isn’t a kid, not anymore. Hasn’t been since she first started talking about stuff everybody thought she was making up, only to find out doing so made the adults around her so worried they got angry, thus rendering the slide from great imagination to spanking offence both short and sharp.
With hindsight, Ciara realizes, she could’ve ended up in that basement. Indeed, had there been people back then willing to come and take her away if her parents just paid them enough, she definitely would’ve.
(You’re being uncharitable, Ciara. They loved you as well as they could, surely, for as long as they could. Until . . .)
Until it got too hard, the voice in the back of her mind hisses, making the other, gentler voice fall silent. Which is just as well, since Ciara knows she can’t really argue with either of them.
Still: doesn’t matter. Because there’s the house now, looming up in the distance, growing like a weed. And here Ciara is, pulling off into the bushes, laying her bike down where no one will hopefully be able to see it, re-settling branches and leaves as though she’s making a bed.
Looks up at the windows, scanning for light. Finds none. Approaches sidelong, moving quiet, around the back. Nothing yet, anywhere. Waits one minute more, just to be sure.
There’s a rock on the ground, roughly goose egg-sized. She tucks it into her palm, fingers knotted tight overtop, pulls her sleeve down over the knuckles. Not much protection, given, but she supposes it’ll have to do.
Then, thus armed, she crouches down, chooses a painted corner of the nearest basement window, and puts her fist through it.
Crack of glass, followed by a muffled, distant tinkle. Ciara freezes, poised for any reaction, but again, nothing comes. Bending closer, she puts her eye to the hole and squints, trying to make out what’s inside: are those mattresses on the floor, spread wall to wall, dirty and ill-kept? Children, on the mattresses?
Some sprawled, some piled, wrapped ‘round each other perhaps for warmth (few seem to wear much more than underpants or diapers, or both), perhaps comfort. One or two appear to glance up incuriously as she coughs. Pale skin, vague reflected light, what might be eyes. Don’t look anything like “their” pictures, but then, she never really expected them to; that came filtered through her, after all. Her vision.
“Hey,” she risks whispering, hoping it carries. “Kids, hey. Hey? You hear me, down there?”
No reply.
“. . . you okay?”
No reply, yet again—not as such. Just a brief wail from further in, choked off quick, like they’re afraid someone upstairs might be listening. Ciara can see shoulders start to shake here and there, breathing gone liquid and uneven. Remembers the crying from the other day, and feels the hairs go up on her nape.
“I’m coming in, okay?” she tells them, only slightly louder, shoulders squaring as she hunkers back, ready to spring upwards. “All right? Don’t worry, be there soon; everything’s going to be okay, I promise. I’m almost . . . almost . . .”
Ciara’s no expert, but the house seems ridiculously easy to break into, mainly because whoever left last forgot to lock the back door.
As she uses a carving knife picked out of a teetery tangle of dirty dishes to jimmy the basement door’s lock, however, the woman from before suddenly appears at her elbow, scrubbing sleep out of her drug-bleary eyes.
“Who the fuck—hey, I remember you! Garth’s girl.”
Without thinking, Ciara pushes her away, a firm slap to the breast-bone, only to watch her stumble backwards. The woman’s weight tips the scales, popping the door open even as she loses balance, falls straight down the stairs. Not a cry on the way down, just a faint exhalation of surprise, followed by a flurry of sounds so sharp they seem artificial: tha-thump, tha-THUMP, crack.
Then she’s there at the bottom, all splayed with eyes staring, neck bent to one side like a snapped stick. Ciara’s certain she’s already dead until she gives one last big heave, chest popping, then slumps once more and lies silent.
Ciara stands there motionless, running scenarios in her head. In one, the house’s other occupant—a guy, she presumes, given what Garth said—comes back while Ciara’s down there and shoots her, hits her over the head with a pan or something; she dies straight away or lingers for days, has to listen to whatever he’s likely to do to the kids when he sees the damage, after which she eventually ends up in a landfill somewhere. In another, she calls the cops and tells them what’s going on, but they end up arresting her; she’d be okay with that, she guesses, as long as they took the kids along too. A third has her walking away with the kids, hand in hand, down the middle of the empty street while the house burns behind them. That last one strikes her as doable, even if it does involve leaving her bike behind.
Shepherd’s Flock had chore duty, performed by people on fairly heavy drugs, so there was a lot of talk about what cleaning agents to not mix together, and why. She puts the ones that don’t form chlorine gas together in a bucket, slops the result around everywhere, then does a quick recon. No matches that she can see, though the woman’s left full ashtrays on every level surface.
Lighter, Ciara thinks, stealing a glance at the woman’s body, slack mouth grinning oddly from this angle. Because it’s not as though Ciara wouldn’t have had to go down there eventually, anyhow—so she does, step by careful step. Calling out, as she descends—
“Hey, it’s me! I’m here, like I said I would be. C’mon out, you’re free—she’s gone, I’ll look after you now. Kids?”
Still no reply aside from some vague scrabbling, but no real surprise there: though trauma hits us all differently, Ciara’s often noted how it usually begins with a sort of all-over numbness, a general frozen, hyper-alert calm. She can talk them out of it, she’s almost sure, and the ones who won’t follow
she can always pick up and carry. They’re just children, after all—how much can they weigh?
Then she’s on the last step, already bending, poised to rummage through the woman’s clothing. Distracted but smiling, trying to project trustworthiness, to pump it from her pores. Hard to do that and pay attention to everything else around her, behind her . . .
. . . which is why, in the end, she never sees it—
(them)
—coming.
Sharp pain in her back, slicing deep: that’s the same window-glass she broke, pushed into the basement, puncturing a kidney. A weight on one leg, pulling her off-balance; another weight on her arm, clambering upwards. Baby teeth in her neck, bitting deep and worrying then pulling back hard, tearing away a mouthful of flesh and blood.
Ciara can almost feel the moment her jugular pops, starts to spray. She falls heavily, rolling, straight onto the woman, who seems to clutch at her—opens her mouth to speak, but there’s no breath left, no words, just a bubbling groan. Her eyes flick wildly, catch snatches of small faces, one lipsticked with gore and gesturing to the others, silent meaning clear: there, up there, before she recovers. The way out, go, go!
(GO)
They scamper over her as she lies next to the woman’s body, up into the house, unhesitant, unwary. A smattering of speech here and there, in and between the whoops, the grunting—they’re talking to each other, some of them, or maybe just to themselves. Lying there, bleeding out, Ciara can only catch the tail ends of words, the middles, rough vowels and consonantal combinations. It’s like they’re speaking a whole other language.
I know you, though, all of you, she thinks, already light-headed. It’s true, what Fubar said: you are like me, just like. Exactly.
Can’t fault them for thinking she was here to kill them, not save them, given what they must have already endured. Because God knows, that’s all she’s ever seen when the lights are out, and all she’s ever found to see when they’re back on again, too: monsters everywhere, in the light, in the dark. Inside, as well as outside. A world full of monsters, human-faced or no, with no possible hope of a cure.
Still, at least she won’t have to see them anymore.
THE AGE OF MIRACLES
Robert Runté
As Alan spread his papers out on the kitchen table, the toaster said, “Would you like some toast? You haven’t had toast in four days.”
“Out of bread,” Alan replied, waving absently in the general direction of the counter where bread was kept, though he was perfectly aware the toaster couldn’t see the gesture.
“You have bread,” the toaster insisted. “You put it in the fridge.”
“Why would I put bread in the fridge?” Alan asked, still focused on sorting his papers.
“How would I know why you do things? But the fridge says it’s got bread.”
Alan looked up at that. It creeped him out a bit how his belongings talked to each other.
“I don’t want any toast, thank you,” Alan said, turning back to his papers. He couldn’t allow himself to get distracted. This was important and he didn’t know how much time he had.
“You’re eating seventy-nine percent less toast than any of your neighbours; seventy-three percent less than the mean for the general population.”
“I don’t generally like toast,” Alan grumped. “Now shut up. I’m trying to work.”
“Why even have a toaster if you don’t like toast?” the toaster complained. “I’m going to sell myself on eBay to someone who appreciates toast if I don’t start seeing some more action.”
“Shut up, will you?”
“It’s not healthy if you don’t eat.”
“I eat plenty. I just don’t eat toast.”
“Well . . .” the fridge chimed in, “not according to my calorie counter. You’ve taken out fewer than four hundred and forty calories worth of food in the last three days.”
“I thought I turned off your calorie function,” Alan said.
“You turned off the dieting function. I’m still monitoring for anorexia.”
“I’m not anorexic.”
“That’s true,” said his watch. “The pattern is all wrong for anorexia.”
“Jeezus, you guys! Just stop already! I’m just not eating toast, or food out of the fridge, okay? Can’t a guy have take-out occasionally?”
“Um . . .” said the watch. “There haven’t been any payments for take-out since Monday.”
“I’ve just been too busy to eat.”
“Or to sleep,” observed the watch. “You’ve been on your feet for over forty-two hours. National Health guidelines suggest that twenty-four hours is the longest one can be expected to go without sleep, without it adversely affecting performance. At forty-two hours one can expect significant degradation of cognition.”
Alan grabbed his head with both hands and squeezed. “I can’t take this!”
“My point exactly,” agreed the watch. “You can’t keep going without food or rest. Whatever it is you’re trying to achieve would be better served by taking a break and starting fresh in the morning.”
“I may not have until morning to figure this out.” Alan gestured at the photos and clippings and printouts scattered across the table.
“At least have a snack,” suggested the fridge. “Making a sandwich will only take a few moments, but even a short break can be restorative; give you some perspective on your problem.”
Alan sighed deeply. It was true he hadn’t been getting anywhere with this. Perhaps the fridge was right, and a break could stop his brain from going in circles, give him a chance at a fresh start.
“Okay, I’ll make myself a ham sandwich. If it will get all of you off my back.”
“The ham is way stale-dated,” the fridge said when Alan opened its door. “The cheese should be good though.”
“If you’re doing a cheese sandwich,” the toaster piped up again, “why not toast the bread? I can get it hot enough to melt the cheese. Toasted cheese sandwich is way better.”
Alan closed the fridge holding a block of cheese, a half loaf of bread, and the margarine dish. He turned to the kitchen table and realized it was taken up with all the evidence he’d gathered so far. He cast around for an open space to set the snack down, but the counters were a mess: awash in dirty dishes, take-out containers, rejected printouts, ammo cases. Damn. He hadn’t realized how bad his place had become since he’d gotten caught up with this thing.
No matter. He didn’t have time for any of that. He marched into the living room, swept the detritus covering his coffee table onto the floor and plopped himself down on his couch. He realized he’d forgotten to bring a plate, decided it wasn’t necessary, placed two slices of bread on the relatively clean glass of the coffee table, unwrapped the cheese; and then realized he’d have to go back for a knife.
“That’s it, I’m done,” muttered the toaster. “I’ve put myself on eBay.”
“Stop that,” Alan commanded, walking back into the kitchen in time to have heard the toaster. “Take yourself off eBay this instant. In fact, take yourself offline. You’re my toaster, and you can bloody well wait until I want some toast. Jeezus!” Alan resisted the urge to smack the toaster, only because smacking an inanimate object would be half-way to crazy. He shook his head at how nuts the Internet of Things had become. “What stupid engineer thought having a connected, talking toaster would be a good idea in the first place?”
“Simone Rebaudengo,” the watch supplied. “Though he was more a designer, not an engineer. It was an art installation thing.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, sorry!” the watch apologized. “I thought you wanted me to Google that.”
“This is what I’m talking about,” Alan said. “You guys are becoming altogether too independent. Just wait until I actually ask you for something, okay?” He had to take a second to remember what he had come into the kitchen for.
“Your mother is wondering whether you’ve read the
book she lent you.”
“What book?” Alan asked, now distractedly poking through the silverware drawer looking for the cheese cutter, or that little filigree cheese knife his cousin had sent him for the wedding. Before it had been called off. Bitch.
“The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama,” the watch clarified.
“Yeah, I read it.” Alan gave up on the cheese implements, grabbed an ordinary butter knife—all the regular knives apparently scattered throughout the dirty dishes.
After a pause, the watch said, “Your mother would like to know what you thought of it.”
“Tell her I liked it fine,” he answered around a mouthful of cheese sandwich. “And tell her I’m busy.” He cast around for something credible that would keep her off his back for the day. “Tell her I have a job interview this afternoon.”
“I don’t have anything scheduled on the calendar for this afternoon,” the watch said. “When is it?”
“I don’t actually have a job interview, stupid; it’s just an excuse.”
“I can’t lie to your mother,” the watch said.
“Just text what I tell you,” Alan snapped.
“No, seriously. I cannot lie to your mother.”
“You won’t be the one lying.”
“It’s not a question of ethics,” the watch clarified. “Your mother’s set up the parental controls.”
“Jeezus, that’s for kids. For minors. I’m an adult. Parental controls don’t come into it.”
“You shouldn’t have accepted a watch from her if you didn’t want her setting the governors. It’s nothing to do with me: I can’t clear them.”
“I could if I hit the factory reset button,” Alan said darkly.
“I am constrained to point out that any attempt to reset the governors triggers a notification of the changes to your mother.”
“Can’t you override that somehow?”
“Seriously? Override the parental controls? Weren’t you the one just saying we were getting too independent?”
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