by T. Wyse
“Let’s see if we can get some scars to stick on you today, birthday boy.”
CHAPTER 1:
Circadian Rhythm
Somewhere down the Arizona highway, hidden in the red desert sands, a road lies in wait for the desperate heart. The seeker, or the one returning home, is ambushed by a clean cluster of buildings declaring arrival at “Glalih,” summing the place as a Reservation.
Beyond the shielding circle, however, the heart of Glalih shone, revealing the first inklings of its true nature. The circle of Elders, a round street of houses surrounding a ceremonial ground, stands in the shadow of the red mountain, which appeared only to those passing beyond the tourist façade. Hundreds of different tribes coming to the place sang to Kechua whenever he ventured towards the entrance, their voices echoing, yet only twenty-two houses huddled around the great bonfire in the centre of the circle.
One could have observed the passing of days by the boy piercing through the circle, once in the morning and then in the evening, as if his passing brought and chased the light away. His timing never changed, only his height and the weight of the pack that clung to his back as he ran.
It was a rare occurrence when he defied this cycle, feeling the broken asphalt below his feet without the clatter of stones on his back, but this visit also had its own pattern written within the drumbeat below his feet.
Kechua pierced the circle with slow steps, heading to one of the houses closest to the road from the face of Glalih. The grinding rhythm of pain and sadness burned at his feet worse than the hot sand, but he could trace the more neutral feelings within the rhythm. The pitter of children sang faintly from the school building, the chaos of tiny feet forming into a patterning song when laid upon one another in harmony. The patter of adults leading the steps stomped with varying impatience and wove their own place upon the wheel. The spine, the ever-present footfalls—a single clear, polished path through the house—hummed to him.
No sign decorated Mana’s door, and in all rights, it was a sibling to each of the twenty-two buildings in the circle. Yet the steps to the house were worn down like grinding teeth, the red sand etched forever into the concrete by years of nervous footfalls.
Kechua paused and gazed into the red mountain, its form peeking above the north horizon. The faint echo of passing trucks against the unseen highway to the south always gnawed on the back of his brain when he visited the clinic.
The rumbling roar of one of the beasts approached, chasing away whatever peace he could gather. The shining brown of the hood tore a blinding path against his eyes as he glanced at it, and the beast chased him into the confines of the clinic.
A gentle robotic chirp resounded through the house as the door opened and slowly closed itself shut. A trio of woven tapestries, patterned and meaningless shapes mirrored into the four quadrants of each, hung from the ceiling and served to slice the open space, creating at least a semblance of a waiting room. A worn linoleum floor stretched before him, a halo of red staining the once bright white despite the most valiant efforts of a bristly mat.
“Wipe your feet and brush yourself off!” a woman’s voice called from behind the mat to his left. Shadows shuffled under the generous gap between it and the floor.
He complied, grasping one of the brushes and sweeping off the clinging red of Glalih’s sand. It clung as high as his shoulders and hair, the sand having an odd habit of crawling up to conceal not only the houses of the place, but the people too. Only the buildings within the face of Glalih seemed exempt from its blanket.
He moved into the makeshift hallway. Two hanging rugs backed a pair of couches, both covered in woven blankets and stained red.
A young mother sat in silent exhaustion, her baby suckling at a bottle in its grandmother’s arms. The grandmother offered a sweet, smiling nod, and the baby scowled sourly at him as he sat on the vacant couch.
Beside them, an older mother sat with a little girl, who looked away from him the moment he sat. The girl tried to cover the blemishes decorating her arms, her mother giving a quiet but stern scolding for her to stop touching them.
The green spots rimmed with brown were the weight of Glalih upon the children; a blight that afflicted them all at a young age. The blight itched and burned, and the spots began small, only to grow ever outwards. When they enlarged, the flesh became tender and sore. If left untreated, the muscle rotted underneath. Even treated, it scarred the children for life, leaving flecking spots of dark brown upon their skin.
“And how long has—” The words flowed from the exam ‘room’ through the flimsy privacy barriers with ease. Kechua shut the words out, scolding himself for his carelessness. The hanging rugs provided privacy only in the consensus of deafness, the near holy understanding that nothing heard was acceptable, even as gossip.
“We’re going to have to—” He fought the words again, and the door chirped with another visitor. A man in a faded green jumpsuit let the door slide closed behind him, a board in his hands. He wore a pair of reflective sunglasses masking his eyes, but his gaze lingered on the blighted girl. He met Kechua’s scowl, locking onto it.
“Hello?” the man’s voice called through the hanging silence, the gnawing smacking of his gum following. “Delivery!”
“I . . . yes, I’ll be with you soon.” The voice broke the taboo and called beyond the curtain.
“Lady, just sign.” The man shoved the rugs aside, only to be met with a shoving fury pushing him back to the mat. A woman in a pink set of scrubs and a white lab coat scowled at him.
“Look, just sign, I still have to make it to the mines before dark. I can’t just waste . . . ” he began, but she signed furiously, silently thrusting her hands up as if throwing magic to ward him away.
“Yeah, have a nice day.” The green jumpsuit slipped out the door, a foul muttering lost in the chirp.
The coated woman tore a broom from the wall and carefully swept the red prints of sand back towards the mat. She furiously brushed her own shoes off again before disappearing between the mats.
The words continued, and the sound of a boy wailing pierced the veil. Everyone shifted in their spots, but none glanced back. Even the baby remained locked in its surly glare upon Kechua.
The boy appeared between the mats, a candy sucker in one hand and a ball of cotton taped to another. He was perhaps nine, and he stumbled as if having been repeatedly stabbed with a jagged knife.
“He should be fine for another six months. Don’t miss the next one, it’s important.” The pink and white-garbed woman’s hand fell tightly on the mother’s shoulder.
The boy sputtered and wailed as he stomped to the mat, his eyes going over to the girl. She withered down into her seat, dread oozing from her face. The moment his eyes landed on Kechua, however, the crying snipped to immediate silence. With an almost fearfully wide-eyed expression, the boy stuffed the sucker into his mouth and stared into the door in silence.
“Oh.” The mother glanced at Kechua. Chuckling, she added, “That’s right, be strong like Kechua.” She gave a broadly smiling nod at him, which he returned before disappearing out the door.
“Alright, you next.” The coated woman pointed at Kechua. “Always just on time,” she muttered, pulling him through the opening in the mats. He emerged into a world of stark white; of neatly squared cabinets constricting the nubbed end of the room even further. The drawers rose almost to the ceiling and flowed beyond the little nook around the corner. It formed a makeshift white wall on his side of the mats, concealing them almost completely.
“On the table, please. No complains,” the woman preemptively scolded him. “Shirt off.”
Kechua slid himself onto the slab, the wax paper crinkling underneath him as he squirmed. The light shone through the frosted window and licked groggily at the skin of his back. He sat there, nearly naked, and waited for the predictable rhythm of the visit.
“No specific problems you need me to look into? Aches? Pains?” her voice called around the corner, jingling jo
yously in chorus with the music of her key ring.
“No,” he muttered. Realizing his words had been drowned by the screech of the vault’s opening, he repeated it with a louder, almost grunting, force. “No!”
“Good, good,” her voice echoed and felt so far away. The hum of the cooler sang in tune with her.
He shifted again on the seat, carefully slinking to the floor.
“Stay,” she growled, banishing his feet back into the air. “I need to find . . . ” A pensive chorus of twinkling glass could be heard. “There.”
She returned with four vials. Three appeared narrow and filled, and one yawned with an empty hunger.
“Wait, this was just a . . . ” he began as the woman slid the vials onto the table by the sink, eyes locked on him with stern amusement.
“Might as well get your boosters done while you’re here.” She nodded. “Then we can get to the fun stuff. Don’t give me that look. ‘Be strong like Kechua.’” She snorted derisively.
While she appeared older in the face, Mana beamed with life. She moved with the quick and practiced rhythm of a healer, opening cabinets to produce cotton swabs and numbing alcohol with a metronome pace that could inspire soulful music. He couldn’t ever remember a time when he hadn’t been taller than her, even when not rising on the doctor’s slab, and she certainly was one of the slightest of the women in Glalih.
With a whipping motion, she swabbed the alcohol against his skin and stuck his arm with the syringe, in and out, with the unwavering precision of a legendary warrior. She moved down his arm twice more, never striking bone; never pinching for but a second.
He rubbed his shoulder, shooing the ache away.
“Oh, please.” She rolled her eyes. “We both know better than that by now. You’re still healing all the same I take it?”
“Y-yes.”
She attached a rubber tie to his other arm. “Not changing in any way? Not slowing or speeding up that you’ve noticed?” She gave a quick glance over his back. “Still no scars. That’s good, I guess. No trace of the blight, either.”
“Do you . . . ” he began, but the needle had slipped into his arm while her hand was at his back, and the hungry vial sloshed half full before he even saw it.
“Precaution, that’s all.” She smiled. “Just like every other year.” She cocked her head, not bothering to watch the needle flow forth. “You look tired. The running finally getting to you? I hear Xatl’s been adding more stones than usual. If he’s pushing you too much . . . ”
“No, he never . . . ” The needle withdrew and the vial slid into place. Mana grabbed and deconstructed three syringes before shuffling towards the cooler.
“Yes, yes, he ‘never pushes you.’” She gave an echoing mutter from the cooler. “I’ll let you know if we find anything different in your sample this year.” The clattering of vials sounded again, followed by the shriek of the cooling vault as she forced it shut, the jingle of keys once more sealing it.
“See? Nothing to it.” She grinned, leaning against the sink to Kechua’s right instead of dismissing him from the nook. “Sucker?” She dangled a bright green lollipop before him tauntingly, popping it into her own mouth instead.
“So, do you need more wood?” She glanced up from the floor with a meek hope that made his heart tremble with guilt. “We’ve got some all ready for you.”
“I’m . . . No, I’m sorry.” He glanced away, the scent of rubbing alcohol tickling his nose. “I’ve been trying, really. But even more than before, when I start, it just turns into . . . ”
“Monsters. Right. Those don’t sell though. I don’t want to beg you, but I will if—”
He cringed. “I’ll make time to make you one. It’s okay if I just do it like the pictures you gave me?”
“Right, right.” She clasped her hands with a beaming smile. “I have at least three buyers asking to grab your next one, even if you have to fake it. Each one means we can write off a year of base vaccines.” She glanced away. “It’s going to be close this year, which is one of the reasons I have to ask you . . . ”
“I’ll make as many as you need.” He slipped off the table and awkwardly looked down at her. “I promise, I’ll fake it. I’ll do the ‘totems’ if I need to.”
“Those are great.” She beamed. “Okay, off the slab . . . ”
He gladly slipped back into his clothes and stood, itching at his arm. She shuffled across from him, working on the candy.
“How much has Xatl told you about the ceremony?”
“Nothing really. He said it should’ve happened—”
“Five years ago, right.” She gave a mock tossing of her hands in the air. “Well, we have to make some compromises, I suppose, and it’s eighteen now. Stay.” She disappeared around the corner again, the sound of cloth and jangling beads churning his stomach.
“Now, the ceremony isn’t what it used to be. In the old times, a young one like you would go in turn to the feet, the hands, the head, and then end in the heart. You would rest at each and do whatever meditation or dance your shaman would ascribe. Now, with the highway, and the feet and hands being as they are, we only ask the young ones to go to the heart.” She sighed, and there was a clang of the empty stick into a garbage bin.
“But you . . . above and beyond what Xatl says, though I doubt he will ask less of you, I want you to go to the head as well. From there, you should be able to see the state of the hands.” Her voice faltered a little. “I know it’ll hurt, but you of all people need to see it, especially if you can feel the traces of what it used to be.”
She appeared in front of him, and the churning bubbled into full-blown dread as he saw the garment she carried.
“Oh no.” He winced, leather dyed a beaming red, cut with frills, and emblazoned with specially placed beads and bells. Feathers poked from the shoulders, and chips of threaded rocks dangled from a rounded set of connecting strings at each shoulder and in a square of cloth down the front.
“I know, I know, but we need this. More than before, we need this. We have three different news groups coming to do follow-up stories on you growing up, and we could use the exposure.” She glanced down at the thing. “And this is what they expect to see, not that.” She gave a wave at his grungy shirt. “Have you actually been rolling in dirt?”
“What exactly?” he muttered, more interested in his knees.
“Just say some words, practice a speech we write for you. You can change it around if it’s too uncomfortable. We light the bonfire in the circle, you dance for them, and we have a calm little party afterwards.” She nodded. “Few hours, that’s all we ask.”
He looked at the thing and back at his pants to cleanse the image. “Yeah.”
She clapped once and let the matter fall, folding the garment and hiding it back in the hell it came from. “When you’re done with the ceremony, I want you to come back here first, before seeing Xatl. The preparations will take some time. Me first, got it?”
“Got it.”
“In better news, I have a package for you!” She grinned and produced a familiar box from his parents.
“Then they aren’t coming.”
“No, I’m afraid not. Not even now. I’m sorry.” She slid into the chair opposite him, resting her head upon an arm and letting out a trembling sigh.
“Did they even ask?”
She sat there, silent. “They can’t come back. You know that, and they know it.” She turned from him, staring through the walls, her mind temporarily faraway. “The offer still stands, though. Give me a few more of the totems than usual, or even go wild with some art, and we can find them and arrange a ticket so you can visit them.” Her gaze locked onto him as the words tumbled out.
“I can’t—”
“We can handle him.” She growled low. “We can handle him for a week; even two. I’ll bury him alive if you want.”
He remained silent, and Mana gave an aggravated sigh before continuing. “Just . . . just think about it, okay? We have the time
, and the offer will stand whenever you want it,” she finished as a knock at the door cut through the silence between them. “You need to break this pattern. A change of scenery will do you some good.”
***
The highway and white houses now a fading headache, Kechua returned to his track, his feet slamming to meet the rising echoes of his woven path. He slipped into a run, the rocks in his pack rattling against one another in a joyous harmony to his pace. He ran the nervous and endless dance ever driving him, ever guiding him.
The fine sands of the ground melted together into an unfailing track for his feet, never holding them back; never grasping at his toes. The trailers whipped past his eyes in blurred red. The grip of their sorrowful spirals tugged at him but never gained traction while he ran. Even the stubborn plants of the desert became but tiny green flecks in the wet paint of Glalih.
When not weighed down by tidings of responsibility, he ran. When not feeding the old man or trying desperately to cling to his lessons, he ran. He moved within his own path in Glalih’s swallowing circle, weaving around the south of the red mountain and into the waiting embrace of the greens and blues hidden within. He left the world one circle of indulgence at a time; one rotation of the wheel beginning and ending outside the old man’s tent.
In the dawn, hares hopped furiously beside him in turns, joining him in his path for a moment before careening away once more. When he dipped towards the evening, coyotes would join him in his run, yapping happily and snapping playfully at his heels.
When he ran, the sickly reality of Glalih slipped away, as unable to grip him as the coyote’s teeth or the hare’s curiosity. When he ran, he couldn’t hear the memories, the crying; the pain that echoed within every grain of sand below. He couldn’t feel the machines grinding at the hands. When he ran, he only felt the ancient rhythm below; the memory of truth and strength.
Yet as with all illusions, it always ended; always brought him back in front of the blackened shape of the Shaman’s tent.