The Lover's Parable Through A Seven World Journey

by Millerson, Brady

  “There’s our new guide,” John said, motioning towards the Highway. “It’ll lead us exactly where we need to go.”

  His tone was not reassuring. He seemed less confident than he had been in the recent past, as if he was not sure if the answers he desired were going to be worth the risks. Sofia was not quite sure as to how to reply to him.

  “Do we really need to go there?” she asked, hearing the words slip lightly from her mouth, but unable to actually let them reach a volume in which John could hear. “Will the answers we’re about to receive provide the satisfaction you’re looking for?”

  With all her heart she spoke the words, but they never made it to John’s ears. The words fell upon the particles of light, sticking to them like pollen sticks to the bodies of the bees. It rolled through the air and through the leaves of the trees, climbing through the thin moisture of the heavens, where it was given over to the Savior.

  Taking hold of his hand as he began to move down the hill, Sofia was no longer feeling the desire for adventure. The Forbidden Zone was now within reach. She reasoned within herself that, unlike the Forbidden Room of Labor, this area was considered off-limits according to the word of a trustworthy father figure. Perhaps now was the time to heed his words.

  Having the ability to reason between various choices is such an odd characteristic of the human species, she mused in her reflective thought as they descended further down the hill. There are some actions in this age that are right and some that are wrong. Sometimes obedience is necessary to keep a man from delineating into moral ambiguity, and in the process losing his own person to a world without limits. Sometimes obedience, if nothing more, merely functions as a mode of survival.

  John, Sofia questioned, was not blindly walking into a trap of his own devising, was he? Certainly he had some concern, some inner light revealing to him the foolishness of traversing without a compass to guide them. He, Sofia concluded with some reservation, would never do anything to hurt her. He was her best friend, all of his secrets belonged to her. She had to keep placing her trust in him.

  Following the path of Labor’s tail, the Highway, was essentially to be guided by a dubious leader: the path would end where that which is good desires not to be. By using its services, Providence, or Luck, or whatever it was that had brought them to this point so safe and secure, would have the provisions that they would no longer be requiring. To John, the concrete serpent was the path to his enlightenment. To Sofia the future was becoming dull and obscure. Nothing seemed clear now. And although she wanted to say something against their new course of action, she was hesitant to speak her mind. She wanted nothing more than to turn back and go home.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The full body of the Savior was sitting above the hill covered horizon to the east on this cool, clear morning, as John and Sofia reached the edge of the tree line that was separated from the concrete wall of the Highway by approximately ten meters of grass covered field. After much time away from their crash site abode, through the experiences that they had gained by walking amongst the towering, thick trunks of the westerly trees, and climbing the massive boulders and hills that existed throughout the land around their home, the walls of the Highway now appeared much shorter in stature and less intimidating than they had remembered them to be.

  Cautiously hidden in the thick of the forest, they roamed in a parallel direction with the concrete structure, always maintaining the distance that they felt was comfortable enough to feel secure from those traveling within.

  “Do you think there’s any way for someone to know we’re here?” Sofia questioned with a whisper.

  “I don’t think so,” John replied. “I’m sure no one can hear us, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  As the day progressed and remained unchanged with regards to the wall and its gray washed face, ceaselessly staring back at them, curiosity was beginning to take hold of John. Due to its silence, he began to wonder if the transportation tunnel had been abandoned. It was an odd conclusion to come to. But, he was having difficulty comprehending the absence of the sounds of the vehicles emanating from within contrasting with the high volume of traffic that he had known to usually flow at a constant rate through it. The desire to see if the Highway was still in use was more than he could endure, and he became determined to find out.

  Allowing his hand to relax, he released Sofia’s fingers from his grip. Looking her in the eyes, knowing she would object to his plan, he anticipated her prudence. From the canted posturing of her head, she was onto him, giving him a look of annoyance that said, “Now what are you up to?” Holding up the palm of his hand, preventing her from getting the first words in, he said to her, “I know you don’t want me to go out there. I just want to see if I can hear anything in the tunnel.”

  “Why?” she began to question. “What difference would it…?”

  “I’m just going to go see,” he interrupted, trying to reassure her fears. “Nothing’s going to happen. Just wait here.”

  As he stepped out of the woods and into the open, just beyond the last, green tuft of brush at the forest’s edge, the warmth of the Savior fell upon him. With the exception of the sounds made by the roaring of the flying machines overhead, the world seemed so still and sparsely teeming with life. The air was calm, almost motionless. The sight of the Highway, as it was so near in proximity to his person, caused his heart to race, bringing back so many terrible memories and feelings of their life under the City’s shadow.

  Silently crouching down, he inched his way across the waist-high grass towards the brightly reflecting gray-white partition standing before him. Dropping to a prone position at the halfway point, he disappeared among the tall blades, waiting and listening.

  A stinging sensation pulsated from Sofia’s hand. In anxious anticipation for John’s return, she had unwittingly torn a piece of skin from one of her fingers. She did not realize that she had been nervously biting at her nails. The blood dripped from her wound as she squeezed it out, falling onto the soil and dead leaves at her knees. Placing a band-aid over it and maintaining the pressure, she resumed her watch over John, who had by now started again with his slow and steady advancement.

  It was not long before he finally reached the wall. He hesitated before walking directly up to it, feeling the convective warmth circulating off of its surface. With the palms of his hands reaching out, John took one more step, making his first physical contact with Labor in nearly two years.

  With an ear pressed against its surface he could sense the vibration of the transporters zipping through the tunnel on the other side. Giving a quick glance over his shoulder, he was unable to find Sofia. She was invisible to him, camouflaged amongst the green growth. But she was there watching, and he knew she was just as curious as he had been to know whether or not the tunnel had been abandoned. Waving his hand about, he began motioning to her that everything was secure. It was safe to come out.

  Sofia could clearly see him urging her to come to him. As hesitating as John had been during his approach to the wall, Sofia was far more unresolved in her decision to leave the safety of the forest, or to make any type of contact with the treacherous City. The whole idea lingered in her mind like the olfactive pungency of a decaying animal lingering in the nose long after its fetidness has disappeared. She wanted nothing to do with it. Feeling the cool of the dirt under her hands, she sat down, uncompromising in the matter, waiting for him to return back to her.

  After several more attempts to persuade her, John realized that she was not going to budge from her position. In order to avoid wasting anymore time, he returned back to the forest. It was enough that she had gone along with all of his outlandish plans up to this point. He could not reasonably have everything his way.

  As the night began to settle in, the cold northerly wind was beginning to fall upon them with a chilling effect that even their sleeping sacks were unable to fend off. The two of them found it difficult to get the rest that they so desired.
The dirt beneath was losing heat fast, while the airships above ceaselessly roared out like a beast in its anger. Sandwiched between the two disturbances, John and Sofia curled up under their lean-to structure, heads pulsating and toes numb. Leaving his sleeping quarters, John slipped himself inside of Sofia’s sack, pressing up beside her. Huddling together under the covers of a single bag, the warmth of their bodies made the night’s rest much more tolerable.

  “We may have another night or two before we get there,” he said. “I’m sure it’s only going to get colder.”

  Sofia tightened her arms around him. She was quite satisfied with their new arrangement.

  “I don’t mind,” she said. “This works out just fine.”

  Nearing the northern, mountainous region, Sofia and John began to feel the nakedness of the thinning trees. The forest’s leaves were becoming more and more scarce. The timberline had been receding away from the Highway for quite some time and was now distanced from it by a little more than two hundred meters. Desiring to stay hidden among whatever was left of their dying protection, they left off from following the tunnel. As they skirted the thicket’s edge, they kept watch over its slithering body as it rolled over the treeless hills and into the distance before disappearing completely.

  After traversing a few more kilometers, the land had become barren and completely devoid of foliage. A light, flaky substance was beginning to fall like that of snow. Observing the behavior of the newly found material, Sofia took note of the thin, floating flakes as they settled upon the soil, melting into a fine powder. Occasionally, one of the whitish scales would land upon her shoulders or chest. Any attempt to wipe it off would cause it to disintegrate, smearing across the fabric of her clothes.

  The cold, lifeless northern valley was the final crossing in their long journey. They were nearing the end. With the long, cylindrical transporters overhead, loud and keenly visible without requiring any visual aid, the couple descended the downward slope into the dried, yellow, dreary plains. It appeared that the eroded hills ahead, steep and lacking the integrity to make climbing safe, would require them to remain in the lowlands for a long time to come.

  The crisp wind howled through the canyon as they rounded a steep bluff, finally leaving the lowlands behind. John and Sofia had finally reached the area of which Mr. Sanders had marked with the Xs: red, rusted fencing, broken down and mangled, long ago fallen into disarray. A few standing walls, crumbling and wasted, were all that remained of the skeletal framework related to a compound that no longer had a functional capacity in the order of Labor’s governing structure.

  Another towering, missile-shaped object burned into the skies overhead, filling the air around them with more flakes of ash and dimly falling, smoldering debris. Aglow like tiny, orange fireflies, it settled upon the thick soot that covered over the natural soil.

  Pulling a shirt from Sofia’s backpack, John used his knife to cut it into two long strips. Handing one to her, he began wrapping it around the lower part of his face.

  “Put this on,” he said. “My lungs are burning. We shouldn’t be breathing this stuff in.”

  Sofia followed suit. Tying the strip of fabric in a knot behind her head, she was able to breathe much easier. The burning sensation, that she really did not notice until John mentioned the quality of the air, was beginning to subside. With the environment so polluted, Sofia figured she would not be seeing John’s face for quite some time.

  The roar of the engines was frightfully resounding throughout the canyon. Sofia and John had to be constantly plugging their ears as the vehicles entered and exited the base consistently at least a dozen or more times every thirty minutes.

  For some time now they had been able to see the rocketing machines unaided by their binocular apparatus. It was quite clear now that their home had indeed, at one time in the past, been a transporter of the skies.

  As another airship propelled itself further into the heavens above, its terrible thunder fading away as another incoming vessel was making its approach, Sofia and John continued through the entrance of the ruins. Stepping upon a long, metallic, hinged apparatus covered under a thick layer of ash and dust, John knelt down, lifting it out of its ashen heap. He immediately recognized that it was an old-fashioned, manually operated barrier arm, similar to the electronically controlled versions used at the red brick gate from which the Labor Security controlled the entrance to and from the City.

  “I wonder if this area was the checkpoint center that all the people that had constructed the Highway had to pass through to get to work,” he said, kicking up a cloud of white powder from off of a rusted beam.

  “It could have been,” Sofia responded, looking around the abandoned station. “I guess when they completed it, they had no use for this place anymore.”

  “Nope. They just left it to waste away.”

  The soil, deep beneath the ash of the long-forgotten hub, was dry and crumbly. Its fine-ash covering kicked up into clouds with each breath of the wind. Like walking through wet sand, the tracks of John and Sofia’s feet trailed behind them, deep and defined. The ruins of the old center were an eerie reminder of the control that the powers-that-be had over the citizens. John now understood why Mr. Sanders would not want them to enter into the present domain, if, and only if, it had been a currently functioning base of operation. But, the Highway no longer terminated at this junction. It continued further north, perhaps just over the chain of hills at the base of which direction they were headed.

  “I wonder what was here that Mr. Sanders wanted us to avoid,” John commented, without an immediate word from Sofia.

  Pulling a rectangular, metal sign out from under a heavy layer of dust, Sofia glanced over its face. A few stenciled characters were still amazingly recognizable after so many years of neglect.

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure he had his reasons,” she said, dropping the sign back to the ground with another cloud of dust added to the already polluted air.

  Burning under the assault of the airborne particulate, John’s eyes were beginning to blur and water. Sofia’s frequent coughs and guttural clearings of her throat was a sure sign that she was feeling rather miserable as well.

  As John began to lead Sofia out of the northern area of the compound, heading towards the final chain of hills separating them from their long-awaited destination, the hollow echoing of what sounded like the voices of men could be heard in the distance just around the edge of the steep bluff. Although, at this point, the strangers were too far away for either of them to discern the specifics of what they were actually saying, their utterances were consistently increasing in volume, evidence that the men were heading towards their current position.

  “They must know we’re here! What are we going to do,” Sofia’s voice began with a tremble.

  Looking for somewhere to hide, John could see that there was very little they could do to conceal themselves in such a wide-open and desolate expanse. With little time to waste, he turned back towards the ruinous station with Sofia close behind.

  “Follow me,” he said, running into the shadows of the crumbling walls.

  Dropping his backpack from his shoulders, John buried it under a mound of powdery ash, commanding Sofia to do the same. Rubbing the fine dust into the fabric of his clothes and upon his exposed skin, he said to her, “Cover every part of your body, they’re almost here.”

  Gray and thick, they were an image of ghostliness as they dumped handfuls of the powder upon each other. The backpacks beside them, buried and hidden, had now blended into the world, appearing as nothing more than soot-covered rock. As they placed the finishing touches upon the skin of their faces, it was within a few minutes time that they were both completely free of their natural aspects. The voices of the men, clear and distinct, were now just around the corner of the wall. Pulling Sofia to the ground, John kept her close by, showing her how to burrow her arms and legs deeper into the soot. Placing a heavy grip upon her arm, he silently forced her to stop moving.
The men had entered the compound.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The newly arrived group made its way into the center of the abandoned station. John and Sofia could see that they were a party of nearly a dozen men. Mostly of middle age, burly and decorated with the same angry expressions that the Monster always had on his face, they were the type people of which neither he nor she had any desire to make their acquaintances with.

  Dressed in orange jump suits with heavily equipped tool belts slung around their waists, their thick black boots and white hardhats gave them a bulky and intimidating presence. They had strapped under their jaws, and covering up to their noses, breathing masks, with hoses that connected to the filtering devices attached to the their belts at the smalls of the their backs.

  “The ash probably triggered ‘em. But, who turned it on in the first place?” one of the men growled at his companions as they entered the compound.

  “I hate coming to this area. I turned those things off months ago. Absolutely no need for them anymore: false readings, animals tripping them. Absolutely no need at all,” said a shorter, more mature and slender worker.

  “Must be that new guy. Who else would turn the blasted things back on? I’ll have a talk with him. He needs to stop following protocol all the time,” another worker grumbled with a laugh that brought chuckles to the rest of the clan.

  The two trespassers were as still as hand drawn objects upon an artist’s canvas. Covered over with the same substance that blanketed the rest of the area around them John and Sofia remained motionless, watching as the men split up into two parties.

  Across from each other, set into the corners of the concrete foundation of one of the former buildings, were two metallic structures. Opening them up, the two teams worked together, simultaneously performing the same tasks. Grunting under the strain of the weight, they removed the outer shells of the units, lifting them up and revealing the rather large and noisily humming computer mainframes contained within each one. While one person from each team knelt down beside the exposed screens inside, the others sat down and rested, talking among themselves.