Free Beast
Title Page
PROLOGUE
PART 1
PART 2
PART 3
PART 4
FREE BEAST
A NOVEL
BY SUZANNE MARINE
www.suzannemarine.com
FREE BEAST
BY SUZANNE MARINE
Published by Cloth LLC.
Copyright 2017, Suzanne Marine. All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact: [email protected]
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PROLOGUE
She pulls the mask over her nose and mouth. Adjusts the fit so air can't seep in. Tight and snug. She yanks the drawstring quickly to close the hood around her egg-shaped head. Her monastic silhouette blocks a crimson light as she turns to push open a heavy, wooden door carved with byzantine, geometric shapes. The long trek home stretches into the darkening dusk, she can barely see past twenty feet before her.
Gray, smoggy dust lingers and floats, litters the air. She walks amongst the crowds, everyone a lone spook of themselves. She misses the feel of driving, how the rhythm and soft whirring conjured thoughts and ideas into existence as she watched out the window.
Wondrous, down-like wings meander and drift in beautiful patterns. Graceful dust tentacles caress her skin before releasing as she moves forward. The notion and longing are gone.
She wishes she could afford to buy the premium, all-cover mask. There is no burn or sting, but she knows her skin will corrode over time, wither dry. This is the badge of the poor – thin, peeling skin. Mottled like a shedding cocoon. She remembers her neighbor's ultra-thin flesh, how she could see the veins traveling her bones, like blue snakes slithering beneath the pale white. A hair-line cut killed her.
She glances at the flashing ads plastered on buildings, gapes at how they push unreachable ideals. Rich skin that is smooth, glistening with cushiony youth and tone. A slight tan, as if the model had been on holiday to the pods that hover above. Above the pollution, above the riff-raff, closer to the life-giving sun, which has become an idol of worship. She thinks of the times she roasted under the sun, oily and golden on beaches, never knowing it would one day become a leap of faith.
She reaches into her pocket to feel the small plastic bottles snugly hidden away. She only had enough to purchase the small ones. They are a treasure of pleasure that can be barely afforded.
She climbs the rotted, wood stairs that could give way any day now and opens the door. Glances back towards the sky one last time, yearns to see any slender slice of light reflected on the metal that patches the building across the street. The sun has set by now. It is a habit of hope.
Her mother sits on a twin sized bed in the studio apartment, waiting for her as a loyal pet would. She knows her daughter needs time to decompress after a long day at work so she simply waits with noble patience. Her thin, white skin crinkles like onion paper as she attempts to smile. The pain cuts sharp. She knows she shouldn't try, but she doesn't want it to take away her humanity. Her love.
The daughter shakes her hair and small slivers of dust fly into the air. They always find a way into the hood. She takes a damp washcloth from the kitchen and swipes at the air to catch them so they won't be breathed in. She uses the cloth to wipe her mask and jacket, her pants, the old, black combat boots. Her mother takes it to wipe down her backside. The daughter removes the jacket with deliberate care. She reaches in and removes the two bottles, the size of drink cans. She hands one to her mother, the label says Laguna Beach, California. Her own says Prairie Lawn. They're ready to embark on their weekly ritual of escape.
She pops the top and quickly brings the opening towards her face, unfurling the rubber lip and gripping it around her nose. Her eyes close into delicate, feathered lines, her posture slumps in surrender, and she breathes in long, full, luxurious. No hesitation. She knows she should be measured to make it last longer, but she can't help it. She never can.
The bottled air flourishes with the dominant top notes of newly mowed sweet grass, dandelions and wildflowers. Then there's a hint of wet dirt after a rainfall; muddy and woodsy, humid with mist. She imagines proud black eyed Susan’s swaying freely in the breeze after a drizzle. She relishes the scent of lawn, remembers its plushness and give as she walked barefoot on it, the reedy clippings just cut and still damp with life as they weaved through her toes.
The ritual comforts them, helps them endure the dismal banality of life. Anxieties are released for a few seconds.
This is my drug of choice, she thinks. They've given up their stimulating coffee, the smooth sway of wine, dense chocolate bars, doughy sweets, and other crutches and treats for this. A breath of fresh air, the scent of the earth they grew up with. The time before.
I must savor it. Never forget this brightness through the nose.
PART 1
PUZZLES ALL DAY
The scent of death reeks of rotted meat and the sickly sweet, swells with the musk of old sweat. A powerful, pungent putridity. You never forget the first time it hit you, how the thick aroma of decomposing flesh invaded every pore, made you retch to stay sane. How the dead body laid there, completely abandoned and uninhabited.
It almost seems magical that one can be fresh, animated and strong one minute then this later. As if your force powered your body, then left its shell slack and forlorn. Unworn.
I push the red glowing button and the steel door slides up in a smooth, high-tech swoosh. I step forward into the white tiled room with hot, saucers of surgical lights that nothing can hide from. The white biohazard suit I wear traps my warmth and sweat. The goggles fog from time to time, as if my eyes whispered secrets into the air. I didn't know the eyes could give off heat before I worked here. The doctor waits for me impatiently. He gives me a quick glance and begins work now that I'm here.
The body on the steel table lies naked, without any trace of emotion. A look of sleep on a face looks different from death. Sleep creates a nuance of play on the face, a residue of having said or thought something, a dashed scope to the next regard. Death shows no hint of life energy, the body is simply an empty, devoid shell frozen in its last thought. There is not even a look of peace. Yet the body leaves us clues as to how it was used, what kind of life was lived. And how it died or was killed. We are an amalgamation of our habits, in our minds and bodies, inside and out. What is that old saying? You deserve the face you have when you're old. It means you can't see a person's character or life in their face when they're young, but you can see allegories of it when they're older. The habits of character become permanently etched and molded onto the face.
He performs his checklist, checking the skin for bruises, cuts and abrasions, then checking the eyes, mouth, ears, fingers and toes. I hand him the tools he needs. He doesn't need to call out for them because I'm always ready to hand them over efficiently. We've worked together for six months now and I honestly don't know how I got this job. I applied on a whim because I was desperate and knew I lost nothing if I didn't get it.
We work for the government, gather clues and data. I learned in an oblique way that he chose me even though I have no real applicable experience. How did he get his way? And why? Why me? We aren't allowed to speak beyond technical details, a steel camera behind him watches us. I caught him peering at me once, right before he pointed to a mistake I made. Subtly and cautiously.
On my first day, he introduced himself to me as Doctor M. Our white suits covered our heads, noses, cheeks, chins, bodies, hands and feet. We could only see each other's eyes a
nd his were dark, brooding, middle-aged. Deep. The kind you get lost in. The kind you read into, but then realize you don't know what you're reading. Ancient hieroglyphics and symbols. Or mirrors reflecting contorted, jaded images. You think something of significance is there, but you don't know what it is. He said he didn't know my name, only that I was called “Helper A” and that he would train me to be his assistant. He showed me how to take photos and notes correctly. Told me quietly and adamantly that my main goal was to see and record. He would be the one to deduce causes and effects, shape the stories of the body's last moments. But along the way, I learned to do the same just by watching and recording. Of course, I'm not a professional as he is, and I don't say anything. It's not my place. It never is.
The bodies he takes apart are like the ones I see every day around me. Some have the white onion skin on the face, the u-shaped section around the nose and mouth that would have been covered by a basic mask. But then I see the innards, which are tainted with rot in varying degrees. Glossy, healthy and bulging, ready to pop, or hardened on the edges of the organ. One had died of too much exposure to the dust. Her insides were petrified, burnt steak-like, and beginning to corrode. Only the very core of her heart remained soft and ripe. The heart is always last to succumb. I imagined that small part of her beating rapid and nervous like the heart of a trapped songbird, the blood squirting against a black lava of crud instead of sliding slick down a vein. A heart drowning in its own regurgitated blood. Another had died of exhaustion. The real diagnosis had been pneumonia, but you could see the utter tiredness in his old face and in the thin stripe of muscles stretched tautly over bones, almost to the point of snapping off like tight guitar strings. There was no fat for tendons and muscles to luxuriously bathe in, no gelatinous pore to soak up the pleasures of life. I assumed he had worked in hard labor, maybe in the mines. A raw, pink mark of a tracking shackle remained around his ankle as if the shackle had grown into his skin and had to be carefully peeled off by someone with small, patient fingers.
Dr. M doesn't just describe the things he studies and notices. The skin is wrinkled with water. A fingernail has split in two. Bruises are approximately two weeks old. The liver is inflamed with cirrhosis. He says what he thinks has caused the condition and what the condition might mean. How it might've contributed to the death, if at all. And that is how I learn. Secretly. By mentally cataloging this art and science, all the pathways to the end. And what I've learned is how the dust has a hand in every death. How pervasive it is to everyone's tale of woe.
We never say goodbye as normal coworkers do. He simply sews up the body and gives me a nod and a stare before removing his gloves and pressing the red button to open his door. Then he's gone, walking with a slight stoop into a white room I've never been in. I leave the dirty tools in the “used” bin, type my last notes into the notepad and lay the camera and notepad on the narrow, metal counter. I look up at the video camera on the wall with my legs spread shoulder-wide and hands up in surrender to show I have nothing on me, that I am empty. I slowly turn to show my back, remove my gloves, then press the red button for my door.
I'm not allowed to tell anyone what I've seen or done. That it's gruesome and fascinating. A sophisticated, sanctioned type of horror story. Underground, tight-fisted knowledge. There are consequences.
I tell mother I work in a puzzle factory. That I put together puzzles all day. She believes me even if she doesn't quite understand. It is innocent and doesn't inspire questions. It's also not too clever. Safe.
The punishment is death so I would never dare.
THE CRUDEST SENSE
The children born now don't know a world without the gray. They have never seen the wide blue sky and dreamy, white puffs of clouds. Cumulus as symbols of omnipresent beauty and prodigious delight. On lazy days, we used to elicit stories from the clouds that passed above. This is a fat, happy Buddha sitting under a tree. That one is an elephant blowing you a kiss with his nose. And this, a popped balloon, shrinking, fading fast and flimsy. Into obscurity. Childhood now plays itself out in small, filtered rooms, and you always know where your mask is. You are nothing without it.
I've seen what the dusty air does over time. How it slowly leaches you of everything, making you bone weary, tired of living to fight the ailments. The psychological games it plays. The scientists fight to make it disappear, but it is forever futile. This incessant dust acts as a sort of evolutionary device. It shows who has fight in them, the guts and clever thinking to push on and maybe even thrive. It also shows who would prefer to lay down and wave the white flag, all drawn out and sucked of everything. Fossilized before death. The will to survive and adaptability have always been an evolutionary technique, one studied in times past, one that quietly faded into the background with the advent of medical and societal advances. It's now revived in the crudest sense.
SOMETHING FIERCE
In the Temple of the One and Only Sun we channel our thirst for solar presence into a myriad of prayers, stories, spells and methods to summon its warmth. Codified behaviors to bring its essence closer. All of this created by a man at the top who, along with his disciplines, bears witness and preaches. It's a power they greedily vacuumed up during a time of distress, soul searching, and ineffective, circular solutions. Confusion at not knowing what the next chapter held. Ultimately, the man cannot have power without it being given to him, and it has been given in spades by the masses who are frightened by the present and future. By the dust.
It boggles my brain how easily society reverts to these types of superstition in times of scarcity and fear. I'm frightened by the dust, but even more so by the masses incapable of deciphering fairy tale from reality. Regardless, mother and I go to the Sun Light Service every Sunday to discover neighborhood information, maintain a support system, feel a pulse on the times. It's a tool in our tool kit for survival. I sometimes wonder if others are also secretly non-believers.
The man stands at the top of a non-working escalator, preaches down at us while reaching up towards the heavens every now and then. We, hundreds of us, sit at the foot of the escalator, pious and docile, cross-legged on our mats atop squares of cold, peach marble. Stale air is better than gray air. This was once an expensive, bustling shopping mall. Over time, the internet made them ubiquitous. And then the dust turned them into palaces of worship.
My Sun, we humble ourselves before you. We pray for your mercy and presence so that we may bask in your warmth and spread it amongst humankind.
Always, we pray for the dark skies to part and for your rays to shine down on our lowly lives. Our bodies and plants are forever in your debt.
You are a life-giver, all life comes back to you. We accept this without question.
Always pivot your mirrors and glass items towards the window and sky to show reverence. To show how much we yearn.
A circle signifies you believe. Round necklace pendants. An orange circle patch sewn onto your bag or backpack. A black circle tattoo on your forearm or earlobe.
Praise to the circle of life, our beloved sun.
Aborigines and ancients once more.
Tribal dances and drum beats for the sun.
He wears a golden crown stamped with the sun and its rays as he leads our prayers. The white pallor of his skin, powdered with orange bronzer, beams down towards us. His golden cloak hangs stiff and paper-like over his thin body, a costume that means to inspire honor, but instead solicits pity at its farce. At least from me.
To close, we shut our eyes in a moment of silence as the lights turn down. I see darkness and then a shaded bright through my eyelids. Simulated sunlight, as if I were laying on a beach, chin tilted towards the sun. The light moves on and I'm left in the cold black. I open my eyes to see the large spotlight panning over the crowd, slowly and surely, blessing everyone with its white ray. It is our communion.
With eyes eagerly shut I wait for the tunnel of light to touch me again, and when it does I imagine an intense warmth creeping into my bones, and
a time that was carefree. When you could spread yourself out on a long, sticky lawn chair in the yard. Sprawled with cool drink in hand and eyes sealed lazy hazy. The calm, mechanical hush of sprinklers, and the neighbor's children laughing as they play hide and seek in the distance. Bees flitting from stamen to stamen. Solar heat softly blowing on your skin, undoing anything knotted tight within you. And one by one, every bone within you slowly melting down into a languid resting pose. The sun loving you something fierce.
SMALL INTERNAL THINGS
Ghoulish, tacky things crowd my vision as I walk the overcast, busy streets. The dust adds a veil to the night, making it seem as if I'm walking through gauzy curtains in a mysterious house of ill repute. Or a haunted house, full of dread at the unknown. Blinking, neon signs and advertisements buzz and pop into my peripheral vision as I pass. Try to snag my attention through the shade. Sounds blast everywhere since visuals are now fogged and hidden.
A clown face lights up as I near it. Loud, fake laughter fills my ears, the kind you hear on sitcoms. “Undeniable fun! For all ages! 24 hours a day! Jokes and carnival games!” People have turned to religion or entertainment as a way to forget. There are many varieties of escapism.
Free Beast Page 1