Jornada del Muerto: Prisoner Days

by Claudia Hall Christian

  After killing thousands of wasps, and sending their spirits on, they continue to come en masse. They’ve surrounded the entire Pen’s fences. Between the electronic fences and our flame throwers, we’ve killed two, maybe three thousand in the last week.

  And a sea of wasps remains.

  How many wasps can there possibly be? They ate their way through half of the population. Is it possible that there are 4.8 billion wasps? If they are breathing, have they added to their numbers?

  All I know is that no matter how many wasps we kill, no matter how many souls are released, there are still thousands surrounding the Pen.

  We need another way out of the Pen. Right after the Great Human Transition, I found a map of the Pen in the Warden’s office. The Pen was a large campus spread out over 127,000 acres. There were six separate prison facilities and an administration building. I went through the Pen prison by prison, area by area, until the wasps were killed and all of the bodies were destroyed. It took me almost three years. George helped me seal each prison by concreting closed every door and sealing all the windows with metal bars from the cells. George and I live in the Old Main. Everything else is sealed closed.

  According to the Warden’s map, our area of the Pen is connected to some old supply tunnels. One of the first things I did was secure our area. I checked the tunnels for activity and sealed them off all those years ago.

  Today, George and I are going to see if we can get out of the Pen through the tunnels. It will take us most of the day to get through the concrete and metal bars. We will spend the evening and possibly the night exploring the tunnels. I will report back what I’ve found.

  11/22/2056

  Tunnel report: The “tunnels” are tight areas designed in the 1950s to carry piping from the Pen to the local sewage plant. The tunnels go the entire way to the sewage plant.

  There are a variety of obstacles to keep people from escaping the Pen. Even now, passage through the tunnel is nearly impossible for a living being. We had to belly crawl in a couple of places. In one area, George had to thread himself through one shoulder, then the next, one hip, then the next.

  After hours in these cramped conditions, we stepped out into the deserted sewage treatment plant. There were, gratefully, no wasps. Strangely, there were also no rotted or petrified bodies. They must have cleared the facility before the wasps came.

  No one had been there in years. It looked like everyone had expected to return the next day, then never did. A thin layer of dust, dirt, and desert sand lay on every surface. The plant looked like something from the Twilight Zone. We sat at people’s desks, peered at the photos of their families, and ate their stale candy.

  The treatment plant break room had one of those wonderful vending machines. George shook the machine until packages of chips and candy fell out. Kept perfectly fresh with massive preservatives, we feasted like kings on the precious junk food of old. (Of course, I checked every ingredient for The 146. We burned anything made with it.) We found a bottle of flavored vodka in a hidden drawer in the boss’s desk. We drank, laughed, and ate junk food.

  It had been at least five years since we’d had anything like this. Caught up in the rush of caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and preservatives, we felt like we were on vacation.

  As abandoned as the plant appeared to be, the treatment facility continued to function. Honestly, I never gave sewage a thought. We use the toilets and showers at the Pen. It never occurred to me that the sewage would have to be treated.

  The sewage treatment plant is on a rise about two miles from the Pen. From this vantage point, we can see the entire area, including the Pen. There was about five feet of wasps pressed against the electric fence, which goes around the outside of the entire Penitentiary campus. Wasps stumbled out of the desert and down from the hills toward the Pen only to fight with each other for a chance to be seared by our fence.

  I’m not sure what drew them to the Pen. The noise maybe.

  I wondered if the wasps came to commit suicide. Certainly, we’d killed thousands, and I’d sent on their detached souls. Could the wasps have enough sense of self to long for peace? Could they actually feel the existential crisis of de-evolution?

  We stayed at the treatment plant as long as we dared. As the distant horizon began to show some light, I tucked my thoughts and questions away. I would ask them on my next soul journey. For now, they were unanswerable questions.

  The trip back to the Pen was easier because we knew what to expect. George had an easier time in the tight spots.

  And now we knew. The tunnel would provide us with a safe journey out of the Pen, but only us. We would not be able to carry supplies, munitions and our protective gear, or even bring the horses. We’ve spent years preparing for this trip -- we’d have to leave everything behind if we used the tunnels.

  That’s hard.

  The sewage treatment plant has vehicles but no gasoline. We’d have to trust that we could get to our destination on whatever rotten fuel remained in their trucks.

  Trust. If we took the tunnels, we’d definitely miss the wasps.

  But we’d have to leave:

  * the horses to die at the hands of the wasps.

  * our supply of dried meat, vegetables, and all of our food supplies

  * our clothing, guns, bows and arrows, and flame throwers

  I don’t know if I can do that.

  It feels better to storm the gates than to slink away trusting the “universe” to provide.

  11/23/2056

  Sex.

  As a young man, sex meant everything to me. From the moment I was capable of joining with a female, sex was all I thought about. Period.

  I was so sexually charged that more than one teacher thought I didn’t have the temperament to become a shaman. The press of sex was like a drum that beat in my brain. Bang, bang, bang. As a shaman, or shaman in training, I held a special status in any tribe I was visiting. Girls wanted to have my children or at least wanted to say that they had been with me.

  And trust me, if someone said she’d been with me, she probably had.

  I had mellowed some by the time I returned from the Wixaritari, but I had also reached what felt like my prime. I met a beautiful girl from the Pojoaque. She was hot, ready, and willing, and so was I. Her uncle was a shaman, so she knew what a weird life she was in for.

  Her name was Laura. I called her Laurie. A very Anglo name for such a pueblo woman. She wasn’t surprised when I was sent to the Pen by my great-great-grandmother. Again, she knew the strange path of a shaman. She was ready to wait for me. She wanted to take her place beside me at the head of the tribe. She loved me.

  I wasn’t surprised that she was pregnant. I don’t think we got out of bed that entire summer. Even now, with all the years and experiences between then and now, my loins tighten at the thought of her. I was sure that I would do my time and return to her.

  Before this happened, she wrote me every week. And, I’m a little embarrassed to say, I replied to her letters every week. Right now, all that writing back and forth seems sentimental and stupid. But I cherished her letters. These letters were a lifeline back to Pueblo, to my family, my child, and my life. They still are.

  For all my screwing around, I was careful. I only had one child. I didn’t want to be tied down by children. My life was dedicated to the shaman way, which meant I was either helping people, advising, performing ceremonies, or journeying to the spirit world. I barely had time for myself, let alone to raise a child.

  Laurie was remarkably sweet. And I miss her. I can’t tell you the pain I felt when her letters stopped. Nor the heart-wrenching sorrow when her soul appeared to say goodbye. She did the right thing, exactly what I would have wanted her to do, and even all these years later, I wish she was alive.

  Someday, when this journey of the dead is over, I will meet her on the other side. It’s not much comfort for me.

  Anyway, back to sex.

  The sexual drive is something that a shaman must control.
Or so I was told. Sex is earthy, base, and human. A shaman’s job was to serve as a conduit to the spirit world. Such physical pursuits were strongly discouraged.

  Not that shamans were celibate monks. Like everyone, shamans love, live, and do have sex. They’re also supposed to be more connected to the spirit world than the earthly, physical plane.

  I was too earthy. Or so I was told. I was also told that my earthy nature would be a burden for me all of my life. I guess no one realized I would spend more than three decades in this cell -- 25 years as a prisoner, and 10 years fighting the wasps.

  I have wondered if my great-great-grandmother sent me here so that I would gain control over my sexual drive. Certainly control over my sex drive was a side effect of 25 years in isolation.

  The first year was hard. I missed the touch of flesh, the gentle caress of a woman’s hand, and that all-consuming moment when I immerse myself into her. I missed Laurie’s laugh or sigh. I spent many hours with myself and my memories.

  Over time, I became less interesting to me. And, possibly because I am older, my sexual drive diminished. In the last years, my sex drive has diminished to the point of being gone. I would say that it was entirely gone, but my interactions with the human women tell a very different story.

  I don’t think about sex anymore. Thinking about Laurie is too painful, so I don’t. I also don’t see her. I could call her from her peaceful rest, but I don’t. I’d rather think of her at peace than have her see me as I am now.

  I’ve never had sex with a man. I know that most prison movies show prisons as hotbeds of rape and sex. I’ve only ever been in solitary confinement. I don’t really know what about prison life is like, per se. No guards came to my cell for sex. Nor, as far as I can tell, any other prisoner’s cell.

  George was very sexually active. He had a bevy of regular lovers and a few less consenting men. He was such a physical creature that lust became him. His lust was the stuff of legends. But he had a lust for everything physical: food, sex, exercise, sleep, showering… If it was physical, George lusted for it.

  George is a different being after healing his soul. He’s calmer, more thoughtful. If he has a powerful lust, I wouldn’t know it. We sleep in the same room, eat together, and spend most of our time together. He laughs, communicates as he can, and works.

  He can work. He loves working. The harder he works, the happier he is.

  The old George would never have left the human women alone. The old George would have had each of them and then gone back for seconds and thirds. His lust for sex mingled with dominance was strong. This George acted like a shy virgin. His lust for them was as clear as my own. Yet, in place of the aggression and need was a kind of shy uncomfortability.

  Anyway, sex… I’m talking about sex because we have only a few more days before we leave the Pen. I don’t know if I can take this Remington with us. If we creep through the tunnels, we can’t take anything with us. My documentation as the last human on the planet will end here at the Pen. I figured I needed to cover all of the topics that might be important if anyone comes behind us.

  Maybe when the mammals return, they will be able to decipher these ramblings. More than likely, they will curse me for using paper and not stone.

  We forget so much, our species. Our world is littered with the ruins of cultures that lived only a few hundred years ago. Yet, we know nothing about the people, the culture, or the language. Anthropologists and archeologists spent minor fortunes digging in the dirt for some clue to our human history.

  That’s what will happen to George and me. We will blow like dust in the wind. Maybe someone will read what I wrote here. It’s more likely that these pages will be used for a wasp’s nest -- destroyed and devoured.

  I have held on so long here with the single idea that we would escape the Pen for the Pueblo on the 500th day after seeing the last wasp. I have been fixed on the idea that this day is the end of November 2046. We were so close, so close.

  Now, we are surrounded by wasps. Do we leave? Or do we stay and hope to accrue 500 days?

  We cannot continue to defend the entire Pen compound. If we stay past the 30th of November, we will have to make some hard choices. We are fond of our garden, but it’s a lot to defend. We can defend this building, but we will eventually run out of fuel for the generators. Once the electric fencing is down, we will never be able to leave this building.

  At the sewage treatment plant, we saw thousands and thousands of wasps walking toward the Pen. It would take us ten years or more to make a dent in all of these wasps. In that time, we’d have to hide inside like hermits.

  I don’t think I can live that way. And I’m fairly certain George cannot live like that.

  We’re leaving in eight days. We have no choice. We cannot stay here any longer. Prophecy or no, 480 days is going to have to be enough. We may as well head to the Pueblo. We have no other place to go.

  George, self-portrait

  11/24/2056

  I am proud of myself. I’ve just accomplished the spiritual equivalent of the children’s game “Telephone.” OK, “proud” is a little sarcastic.

  My brother Earnesto’s spirit has been hanging around a lot. Somehow, his fate and my journey are linked together. Or maybe he’s just bored. He could just as easily want to see his “perfect shaman brother” fall flat on his face. You never know with brothers.

  This morning, I asked him to find our great-great-grandmother. The fact that we are leaving surrounded by wasps and with less than 500 wasp-free days worries me. I wanted to ask great-great-grandmother if we should stay or go.

  Earnesto found my mother, who, as I suspected, was with my father. He found my grandmother, who found another relative. You can guess how this game went. Someone found my great-great-grandmother and asked her to appear for me.

  My great-great-grandmother was angry when she appeared. She was told that I needed her help cooking an elk fillet.

  Yep spiritual “Telephone.”

  My great-great-grandmother’s spirit came tearing into the cell. She was furious that I would dare bother her rest for something so trivial. She stood with finger raised, ready to give me a tongue lashing when she heard the awful clamor of the wasps outside the fence. Her face went still, and her finger dropped. She simply said, “Oh.”

  In a matter of moments, we cleared up all misunderstanding. My great-graet-grandmother was like that in life. She could switch from rage to calm and loving in a matter of seconds, especially with her male children. She felt like males were harder to control. She would have broken herself on me and my brothers if not for our deep love for her -- and summer camp.

  With George watching the door, she and I held council. I told her everything that had happened. Our less than 500 wasp-free days, the women, our work to get ready, and finally our limited access out of the Pen. I even confessed to starting this journal late.

  (She laughed and said she assumed I would start it late. As she used to joke, I was even late being born.)

  After we held council, she went to review the situation for herself. When she returned, she asked if I would tell her everything I knew about the wasps. I told her what little I knew and what we had learned from the women. I told her about the disturbing breeding project. I ended saying I thought the noise was bringing wasps from all over New Mexico and maybe all over the US.

  She was frustrated with me for not keeping track of how many souls I sent to the afterlife. But how could I have kept track? There were thousands when the Pen transformed. Right now, I’m back to sending on thousands of souls a day.

  Of course, she would have done a better job. She did a better job with everything. Better than I. Better than anyone I’ve ever met. I asked her if human children were being born, and she didn’t know. I asked her if any of our people survived. She didn’t know that, either. She said I survived, and that was good enough for her.

  She hadn’t tolerated my whining as a child and tolerated it much less now.

  Then I had th
e oddest experience. All of my life, she knew everything. She was the wisest person I’d ever met. She had an opinion about every little detail of life, especially my life. More than anything, she’d always known what to do. When I was stuck, I could ask her, and she’d tell me what to do. If I did what she said, I was always all right.

  Look where going to prison got me. I’m the only living Tewa.

  Today, she didn’t know what to do. She had no advice for me. She’d missed the rise of the wasps and the death of the world she’d known. Yes, she’d dropped in to see me, but that was about me. She had no idea the world had changed so much.

  And frankly, I think it terrified her.

  Even the rebirth of the streams, mountains, and prairies was disturbing. For all the decades of believing and repeating the prophecy, I don’t think she really believed it would come to pass. Or if she did, I’m not sure she imagined anything like this.

  Who would?

  Not one to waste time with sentimentality, my great-great-grandmother left me to think. George and I went on about our day. We killed a few thousand wasps, I moved their souls along, and we had dinner. I’d frankly forgotten about my great-great-grandmother when she came tearing back into the cell.

  “You must leave as soon as possible,” she said.

  I must have looked surprised or maybe stricken, because George turned to me with concern. I repeated what she’d said. George shook his head. He was as unwilling as I to leave our gear, our supplies, and the horses behind.