Imaginarium 2013

by Sandra Kasturi

  And we couldn’t handle that.

  Wasn’t a surprise when Colonel Holding told us we had a new mission. More dangerous than the first. We knew a suicide mission when we heard it.

  So we tied Holding like we got you tied. Worked him over. Following orders, he said. Came down through a General, but started near the top. You.

  Don’t know why we let Holding live.

  So we got off the base. Quick, clean. When six men work as one there’s not much we can’t do. But our pictures were all over the news within hours. So we cut up our faces. Used hammers on our jaw and cheek bones. Just enough to not be recognized. It healed, of course, so we’d do it again.

  Day after day.

  Think about the pain, Under Secretary.

  Think.

  About.

  It.

  Now do you get it? We didn’t volunteer for this. To be dead inside. You made us, so you’re going to fix it. Turn us back into the men— the soldiers—we used . . .

  One of my friends has found something. He’s . . .

  Who’s . . .?

  [SILENCE]

  This is you.

  [SILENCE]

  You’re Pack.

  [SILENCE]

  [To Recorder] Colonel Holding: If you’re looking for us, we’re going back to the desert. Call off the search. We’re not a threat. We understand now that we can never go back to our lives. But we can make peace.

  * * *

  DOCUMENT 5: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Col. R.C. Holding

  RECIPIENT: Brig. Gen. Stern

  Sir. Thank you for forwarding me that transcript. I’ve found their trail. Ramstein, then Blackjack Air Base. Looks like transport was authorized by ADUSecDef Bernshaw himself. It seems the Pack took him with them.

  I’m healed up and ready to go. Arthur Neech can assume command while I’m gone.

  * * *

  DOCUMENT 6: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Dr. Ibarro

  RECIPIENT: Brig. Gen. Stern

  I have reviewed Colonel Holding’s medical files from the exam following his interrogation by Sergeant Calabrese.

  He has nanites in his blood at levels comparable to those in the program. I believe he is now a member of the Pack. This would explain his rapid recovery.

  I believe the transmission vector is simple exposure. Hospital conditions allow containment, but outside those the nanites might spread. I believe that when a serious wound is inflicted, the nanites replicate at an accelerated rate to repair the wound. Anyone so exposed will be Pack.

  I have also reviewed the audio file from Under Secretary Bernshaw’s basement.

  We must first assume Under Secretary Bernshaw has become infected given the head injury inflicted by Sergeant Calabrese that rendered Bernshaw unconscious.

  I also believe Sergeant Calabrese’s reported lack of emotion is caused by the nanites’ modifications to the amygdala. The modifications’ original purpose to reduce stress reactions caused by critical injuries has become amplified. Members of the Pack may be incapable of emotional reactions or attachments, similar to psychopaths. They do, however, possess a strong bond with one another.

  I am further beginning to suspect the shared hybrid model allows some form of wordless communications. The recording and Colonel Holding’s reports include moments of prolonged silence. Each nanite model communicates using a unique wireless network. This hybrid model would have a single network. This network may allow the only emotional attachment these men can feel. Further study will be required.

  I recommend Colonel Holding be found and detained immediately.

  * * *

  DOCUMENT 7: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Brig. Gen. D. Stern

  RECIPIENT: Maj. A. Neech, Officer Commanding (Acting), ASESP

  Arthur —

  We tracked Holding to Forward Air Base Blackjack, but lost him. We’ve got reports he headed into the desert. We think he’s going to join Calabrese and the Pack. Fighting is down in that sector, so I want you to find Holding, Under Secretary Bernshaw and all surviving members of ASESP. Neutralize them. Ibarro thinks killing the host will cause the nanites to shut down.

  We’ve got to contain this, Arthur. There’s no way to know what’ll happen if this gets out of hand.

  — General Stern

  * * *

  DOCUMENT 8: COMMUNIQUÉ

  SENDER: Lt. Col. A. Neech

  RECIPIENT: Brig. Gen. D. Stern

  General Stern: This will be the last communiqué you’ll receive from me.

  Despite daily patrols these last few weeks, there’s no sign of Bernshaw, Holding, Dr. Ibarro or any other member of the Pack.

  We’ve had no enemy contact, either. In fact, there’s been no fighting across eighteen sectors for five weeks.

  It must be the Pack. They’re spreading. These heartless killers are spreading peace. Just by their presence. Just by being here.

  But desertion rates have passed 35%. Men are wandering off from patrols or in the middle of the night. Somehow the Pack has breached our walls, the infection spreading.

  I imagine the deserters are feeling the pull of the Pack the way Holding must have, despite being tortured by them. The way Calabrese must have, realizing some of the people he’d tortured had become Pack and he’d left them behind.

  They can’t stand being away from those like them. To feel like you belong instead of the slow stripping of anger and joy and fear. To be at peace.

  And General, I want it, too. Dear God, I don’t think I can fight it anymore.

  invocabulary

  GEMMA FILES

  The small shall become great, the crooked become great, and though blind, I shall see.

  —Desumiis Luge.

  At this very moment, what I’m avoiding most of all

  is laying a curse on you.

  I’ve thought about it, a lot, and really,

  it’s far too much trouble

  for far too little reward. So I sit here

  smiling pleasantly,

  avoiding carving your name with my fingernail

  into a sheet of soft lead, then melting it

  over a fire. On no account

  will I drip wax into water and see

  which of the resultant

  lumps looks most like your face, then

  drive pins into the places

  where your eyes should be. Neither will I bury

  your cat alive in a cemetery at midnight,

  or weave your hair into a nest for birds

  to fuck and shit in. None of that.

  The worst part of my own forbearance is how you

  frankly don’t even seem to notice how much effort

  it takes for me to avoid making

  my thoughts real, killing you long-distance,

  sending black words down into your blood to bloom

  like microbes. Nevertheless, I refuse

  to spit into your food, to lick your spoons,

  to show my vagina in your shaving mirror, in hopes

  that its reflection will strike you blind. To take

  photos of you while you sleep, then burn them.

  You can’t make me, no matter what you do,

  or don’t.

  i was a teenage minotaur

  A.G. PASQUELLA

  At the mall a lady offers me a free sample of zit cream and I’m about to be all sarcastic, like “Look, lady—I’ve got a giant bull’s head. No one’s going to notice a few zits.”

  But there’s something about the way she’s smiling at me, not a plastic fantastic artificial airbrushed smile like all the ladies on the magazines, that draws me up short and makes me smile back at her (have you ever seen a bull smile? It took me years of practice to get my lips to curl just right) and yeah, I know she’s been trained in the fine art of zit cream sales but either she’s the bes
t actress in the world or she’s the nicest person in the world and either way my heart just melts. Zits or no zits, suddenly I know this year is going to be different.

  “You’re sure you want to do this?” my mom asks, piling my plate with spaghetti and drenching it with sauce, just the way I like it.

  “I’m sure,” I say, thrusting out my jaw all determined-like. I would never say so because I don’t want to break Ma’s heart but the sauce is a little bland.

  “Last time we didn’t have much luck.”

  I rummage through the cupboards, searching for spice. “Yeah, but that was elementary school. This is different. This is high school.”

  As the years grind by the memories recede. It’s like it all happened to some other person, not me. Your body’s cells change completely every seven years (or so I’ve read) so really it’s true. I wasn’t me, I was someone else, I was Li’l Minotaur peering through the slats in our fence as the other kids tumbled from the school bus and ran laughing through the streets. Li’l Homeschooled Minotaur begged and pleaded to go to school with all the other kids until finally his parents relented and he rushed for the front doors so excited, untied shoelace thwapping on the school house steps, oversized Superman backpack stuffed piñata-full with binders and pencils and paper and pens.Inside the school, kids screeched to a halt. One washed-out little blonde girl’s lower lip trembled before she burst into big terrified sobs. A little brown-haired tousle-headed boy in a red and white striped shirt turned tail and booted it down the hallway while an older kid, a hall monitor, boomed after him with the voice of grade six authority: “No running!” Then the hall monitor turned and spotted Li’l Minotaur and he, too, shrieked and took off running.

  Special assembly, man, that shit was embarrassing. Some well-meaning teacher with a droopy moustache and a winter landscape on his fuzzy sweater got up in front of the entire school to talk about how ‘everyone is different and differences are what makes us beautiful’ and even at the time I knew that was all jibber-jabber and jive. I felt more ugly than ever, trying to shrink down small so my horns would be swallowed up by the wooden auditorium seats.

  After assembly I was hauled off to the guidance counsellor who said, “Now, Mitch, this is just a precaution, I’m sure your parents discussed this with you at home” and then he stuck corks on my horns—corks!—and my face burned hot beneath my fur. Then I slunk back down the hallway tugging on the straps of my too-big Superman backpack with corks on my horns and yeah, I must’ve looked ridiculous because some loudmouthed asshole stared at me as I shuffled past and then burst out braying hardy donkey guffaws.

  But that was then.

  Dad looks over the top of his newspaper. “And you’re sure this is what you want?”

  “Man, why do you guys keep asking me that?” I know he means well but all this touchy-feely-new-age-what-about-his-feelings crap is really grinding me down. I’ve been homeschooled for years and it’s time for a change. It’s been almost a decade of Dad’s voice droning on and on about Napoleon this and right angle that and tomorrow we’re going to go on a field trip to the Natural History Museum—Won’t that be fun? Yeah, that’ll be fun all right, except the last time we were there two security guards followed us into the stuffed bird room, past the dead ducks and the giant albatross dangling from the ceiling and now and then they would whisper to each other and I couldn’t shake the feeling they were wondering how I had escaped my cage.

  Those guards didn’t know me and these high school kids don’t know me. I could be anyone. I’ll always be a Minotaur but now I have the chance to be the best damn Minotaur I can be. A Hippy Minotaur. A Gourmet Pizza Chef Minotaur. A Badass Secret Agent Kung-Fu Minotaur. A Tap-Dancing Disco Priest Minotaur. Whatever.

  It’s the first day of high school and I’m strutting down the hallways rockin’ some brand-new threads: white jacket with the sleeves rolled up, turquoise T-shirt, acid-washed blue jeans, high-top sneakers with graffiti-style airbrushing that I did myself in the backyard.

  “Is that dude a Minotaur?”

  “For real! And did you see those shoes?”

  And so it begins. The taunts and jeers and jibes, ripped ketchup packets on my chair, ink sprayed from snapped pens, punched in the stomach almost as an afterthought as a bully walks by. If I don’t fight back, it’s open season on Minotaurs. If I fight and some kid gets gored, I’ll be hunted with torches and pitchforks and driven into the sea.

  I shuffle toward the cafeteria, deflated like a dollar store balloon. I don’t know why I thought this time would be different.In the cafeteria a guy from my Social Studies class—Bill? No, Dave—clanks down his tray and sits down beside me.

  Dave leans back, all leather jacket cool. “Why are you eating alone?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I have a giant bull’s head.”

  Dave slurps milk. “So?”

  “What do you mean, ‘so’?”

  Dave shrugs. “Everyone’s got something.”

  The cafeteria is a cauldron of hormones and hairspray. All eyes are on me. “It’s my jacket, isn’t it?”

  Dave smiles. “Dude, you could be wearing a garbage bag splattered with rat blood and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference.”

  He’s wrong. We humans—and yes, I am human, thanks for asking—are visual animals. The small details add up to the big picture. Good grooming is important. Before every special occasion I brush my fur and wax my horns.

  Dave says something else but I don’t hear him. Walking towards us, hair flowing, is a beautiful girl in ripped denim. Her jacket is a patchwork riot scrawled all over with pen and paint.

  “This is my girlfriend, Jenna. This is—”

  “Mitch. I’m, uh, I’m a Minotaur.”

  She has the biggest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. She smiles and shakes my hand. Her hand is warm, so warm.

  She smells like cinnamon.

  Have I ever dated? Yeah, right. Oh, I’m sure there’s some freaks out there into the whole barnyard thing but let’s get serious.

  There was that one girl, Andrea, back at the homeschool Halloween party. She was drinking and running her hand along the muscles in my arm. She pulled me into the pantry and looked up at me with half-lidded eyes. “Take off that mask and kiss me.”

  I hate Halloween.

  I’d be lying if I said I’ve never thought about plastic surgery. I know what you’re thinking—Oh, but Mitch! How could you turn your back on your proud Minotaur heritage? To which I reply, What heritage? Mom and Dad aren’t Minotaurs. I’m the only Minotaur I know. What do you think, some focus group is going to call me up to get a handle on the valuable teenage Minotaur demographic?—Say, Mitch, what did you think of that movie Titanic? It sucked.

  Once I tried hitch-hiking to this plastic surgeon I had seen advertised on the back of a bus. I thought Mom would be happy. My mom never says so but I can tell she’s—what? Not ashamed of me, exactly—maybe embarrassed in front of the bridge-club-braggers. My little Susie is a hang-gliding marathon-running PhD Rocket Scientist from Yale. My boy Mitch is, uh . . . a Minotaur.

  She caught me four blocks from our house. Instead of being happy she looked so sad.

  “Get in the car, Mitch. Now.”

  I got in the car (cracked vinyl seats, stuffy air smelling slightly like spearmint) and we drove home in silence.

  It’s a full moon tonight. Dave and Jenna smoke pot in the playground, lying atop a wooden pirate ship-style climbing structure, looking up at the stars.

  “What if you’re not really a Minotaur?”

  “Oh, I’m a Minotaur, all right.”

  “What if this is like some Matrix-style False Reality?”

  “You mean, what if I’ve got a body with a human head tucked away in a Sci-Fi tube somewhere and this Minotaur body is just my avatar?”

  “Man, you’re really hung up on this whole Minotaur thing.” Dave sits up and takes a drag on
the joint. “So you’ve got a bull’s head. Big whoop.”

  “There’s more to it than that. Minotaurs are legendary.”

  “THE Minotaur was legendary. A legendary loser. Didn’t he get his head chopped off?”

  “Well, yeah, but—”

  “You’ve never even been to Crete. Am I right? You’re no maze monster.”

  “If you want to get technical, it was a labyrinth, not a maze.”

  “You mean that David Bowie movie with all the puppets?”

  I look over Dave’s shoulder. In the parking lot, two black pick-up trucks circle like wolves.

  Truck doors slam. At my side Dave remains cool, nonchalantly propped against the wooden wall of the pirate ship.

  Four bros with beers stride into the playground. “Hey, Jackass! What’s with the Halloween mask?”

  And here we go. I give that one a 2.5 out of 10. Not very clever or original and believe me, I’ve heard ’em all.

  Shit People Say to Minotaurs

  Do you use, like, human toilets?

  *Snaps Red Towel* Toro, Toro!

  Do you eat people food?

  Do you eat people?

  So, you must be pretty good at mazes, huh?

  Do you fuck cows?

  Dave leaps down from the ship. His face is twisted and vicious. “If you want him, you have to go through me.”

  Here’s the part in the playbook that calls for more puffed-up posturing and then fisticuffs but instead the bros stomp back to their trucks and rev away.

  Dave, normal again, saunters back to the pirate ship and lights another joint.

  In the morning Mom and Dad knock on my door and peek into my room. “Mitch? May we come in?”

  “It’s a free country.”

  “Mitch, we’re concerned about these new friends of yours.”