Woman Scorned

by Fritz, K. Edwin

  He didn’t remember to employ the strategy he’d witnessed from Leb the last time. He didn’t realize he was one of the starving men the rest of the Family watched get the first bags. He didn’t see the faces of the other two men beside him, and didn’t realize that Rein was not among them or what this suggested. He only saw the bag of food hanging from the fishing line and the few bulges that teased from its sides.

  Another man got the first bag. Obe didn’t bother wrestling it from him. He knew there was another on the way. When the second bag arrived, Obe alone jumped for it, took it, and escaped happily and unscathed out of the alley.

  It was the last satchel of food he would ever consume.

  4

  A block and a half away from the alley where most of the men in blue received their food, a very special roof provided a very special view. From it, a person could see down the length of the alley without being seen by the women above who teased and toyed with the men below.

  Though it usually sat empty, today this roof was occupied by three men wearing black jumpsuits. One of them had recently given a tomato to a stranger in blue. The others hadn’t been back to this section of the island for many months, though one of these had been a blue ‘elder’ less than a year before. The other had never been an elder at all.

  “Meat?” one man said. “Is that what I heard? That’s horrible. But who knows. These damned buildings echo every word.”

  “At least we can hear something,” one of his companions said. “I thought I heard ‘Leet.’ Or maybe it was Feet? God, can you imagine? Thinking you were ‘Feet’ all this time?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the third man said. He was the oldest of their little group and easily the most respected. “You’ll be meeting him soon enough. For your sake I hope he’s not like you were, John. Such a pain in the ass. All proud of your damned status and too dumb to know any better.”

  The other two men laughed quietly, not wanting their voices to echo through the empty city streets.

  “Oh, you loved the challenge and you know it,” the man named John joked back.

  “Biggest waste of time ever,” the older man said. For a moment John thought the joke had continued, but when he saw the seriousness in the old man’s eyes, he realized he had been talking about something else. Suddenly, he understood what this was.

  “How long ago did you say these gangs formed?”

  The older man turned his back to the distant alley and leaned against the brick ledge of the roof. In his hands was a small object made with twigs and grass. He had been fingering it for several minutes. Now he stopped and looked at it closely. “Oh, the gangs themselves have probably been there since the beginning. We didn’t have names for ourselves back in the day, but blue sector has always been plagued with opposing sides. Stanley would know for sure.”

  “You think he’d understand you if you asked?” John asked.

  “Probably. But I wouldn’t bother him with it. He’s so far gone. I just want him to live in relative peace with whatever time he has left.”

  “Of course.” John berated himself for having suggested the idea. It was insensitive and he should have known better. “So it’s just the names that have changed,” he prompted. “Or is there something more?”

  “Oh, it’s much more these days. Look at how hard they fight for food. I’m not saying we didn’t fall for the women’s charade, but we were better than that. And this business with scarring your arm to keep track of runs. It’s barbaric. Every new man we get, it seems there’s another layer to the whole thing. I’m worried for the future. It’s getting harder and harder to bring the new guys around. Someday, they might not want to be turned. Then you’ll have a real problem on your hands. We’re already far short of what we need, and if we lose more men as we go… I don’t know if it’s possible.”

  “Sure it’s possible!” the original speaker chimed in. His voice was a whisper despite the insistence it carried. “We’re so close. We’ve come so far in just my time here. It’ll happen. And soon, I think. Maybe within a year, even.” He paused and put his hand deliberately on the older man’s shoulder. “Are you absolutely sure about this raid? I mean… if there’s even a chance we could move forward without it… You could at least wait till the next full moon.”

  “I’m sure,” he said firmly. In his hands the little object waved back and forth under his rubbing fingers. “Our strategy is sound. We’ve simply reached another wall, and we need the raids to take the next step. It’s my time. That’s all. If you get to my place one day, you’ll understand.”

  A long silence swept across the roof just as a soft wind came and seemed to push it. John and his two companions were men who had learned to appreciate the smaller things in life and allowed the moment and the wind to pass unremarked.

  “I’m going to miss you,” John finally said.

  “And I, you,” the older man replied. “In a way, I’m even going to miss this whole damned island.” He looked down as his little toy again. “I feel like I was reborn here. Wish I had the chance to take what I’ve learned and go try life again. Do it the right way this time.” He paused, sighing deeply. Then he placed the toy of grass and twigs against the wall of the roof ledge and stood up. “But that’s not in the cards for this old womanizer. I’ll just have to watch the rest of you do it from another plane. And we all know that won’t be Heaven”

  John and the third man got to their feet as well and watched the men in blue begin their ritual of fighting and clawing and bashing for a tiny bag of food. They didn’t speak during the whole long procession. When the blue grocery day below them had finally dissipated, they left their lookout post as quietly as they had come. On the roof behind them sat a tiny toy made of twigs and grass. It resembled a person both in shape and even in the clothes it wore. Written across the chest in a maroon so dark it was nearly black was the single word ‘Annabelle.’ On the back of the little doll were scrawled two more words, also painted with diligent care in darkened blood. These simple words were, “I’m sorry.”

  5

  The rising sun sparkled gently in Obe’s eyes as he worked the kinks out of his back. The nightmares had returned, and the morning cold didn’t help to shake them off. He’d eaten half his chunk of bread already and was hoping to find the elusive stream for some fresh water.

  Find your brother, Mr. ‘C’. Not the stream. Your brother, your brother, your brother. My name… is Obe. O.B.E.

  He returned to the dry bed he’d discovered the night of the white car and the huge woman, but after following it for only ten minutes it widened, became shallow, and vanished.

  He took a look inside his food bag. It had come with the chunk of stale bread, a plastic bottle of water, and a single piece of fruit. The fruit was an orange of better-than-average size, though it was soft and a little bruised. He reasoned he could take a single wedge for breakfast and still be okay for the day. He hadn’t drunk a single gulp of the water yet, after all, that water was the one thing he needed most.

  He palmed the orange, his sore thumb sticking out like a hitchhiker. Then he scored it carefully with his other thumbnail and peeled away one side. In a moment he was licking the sweet juices from his fingertips and wrestling a lowly orange wedge from its prison of rind.

  The hill he sat on faced the sea, and as he ate he took a moment to appreciate the rising sun. It was a chilly morning, but he’d become used to this. The view before him was utterly beautiful, but he’d become used to that, too. He was startled to realize it, but until this moment he had never once taken the time to wholly appreciate the sea since in doing so the fortress would be at his back.

  What’s changed? he wondered. How has being beaten and starved made me more comfortable?

  But his normally active mind didn’t answer, and he soon stood and turned his attention to the south. He couldn’t see it from his vantage point, but he knew that across the hills and the distant perimeter poles was the only place on the island where he had every street and tree
memorized and his new jumpsuit color alone made him well respected. Somewhere in his damaged mind, a strategy began to develop. It seemed unlikely, even impossible, but there was evidence his brother was somewhere in green sector. He had three days to decide if the Family of Blue would be the best way to help him in his inevitable quest.

  But if I can find him on my own first… he thought. No further discussion within his mind was necessary.

  As he began walking, Obe understood that he’d been delaying this search because of fear. Fear of what the women would do to him if they even saw him in that sector, and fear of what he might honestly find once he got there. If his brother was on the island, it meant he too had committed some sexist atrocity. It meant Obe’s vision of a loving, older sibling would not- could not- be pure. It meant his dreams were tarnished with the soot of reality.

  Don’t you mean you’re worried about what you won’t find, O. B. E. Obe? Have you considered that possibility even a little bit? Have you considered that the women-

  “Shut up, brain,” he said aloud. And for the blessing it was, his mind did just that. “If he’s not there, it means he’s home and he’s safe. And if he is, it means we can connect. We can remember.” He pushed aside another stand of tall grass as he waded through the rolling hills. “It’s worth the risk,” he summarized, and his malicious counter-side did not contest the statement. He moved on with relative ease, though perhaps that was only due to the missing sound of screaming tires to which he had become so accustomed.

  As he headed further south, he tried again and again to picture his brother’s face, but could only remember the same old cloud formations they had once seen together- a Santa Claus with the tumbling sack of toys, a tortoise and hare racing toward the garden rows of carrots and lettuce, a sad Indian brave with a lone eagle’s feather sticking in a jackknifed, broken angle from the back of his head. But the face would not come. These images were almost all he knew of his only true family.

  He passed the white perimeter poles- they were taller here, prouder somehow- with a step of confidence this time. In green sector, Obe would be at the top of the ladder. In the back of his mind, though, he remembered how quickly the green car had always chased a man in blue who was out of his sector. He would have to be very careful if he expected to live through the day. Even being seen would mean his certain death.

  The first man he came across had been hiding in a walkway. He passed it casually, not expecting to see anyone, but when he saw the man, he deliberately pulled out his bottle of water and took a swig. First impressions, he reasoned, were important, and he wanted to appear important as well. When Obe finally approached him, the man stood and clutched at his chest.

  “I’m not here to steal from you,” Obe said. “I’m looking for someone.”

  “My name is Jork, J.O.R.K,” the man offered.

  God, Obe thought. That really does sound stupid. “I’m Obe, O.B.E.,” he said, then repeated, “I’m looking for someone.”

  “Okay,” Jork said cautiously. “Who?”

  “My….” Obe started to say ‘brother’ but realized how insane this would sound and how useless it would be. “Just a man,” he said. “A green man.”

  “What’s his name?” Jork asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What’s he look like, then?”

  Obe considered his newest memory, a thing he hadn’t had when he’d been a green just a single week before. “I… don’t quite know that either, but he does have a small scar on his forehead. It comes straight down from the hairline. He might have gotten it from a bike accident as a child.”

  Jork’s mouth stood agape for a moment before he responded. “He remembers his childhood?”

  “No,” Obe started to explain. Then he reconsidered. The poor man before him may have only been released a few days before, for all he knew. The notion of remembering anything beyond what the women had allowed was possibly too much for him to comprehend at this early stage. “He may remember,” he went on. “It doesn’t really matter. Have you seen a man in green with a scar like that?”

  Jork shook his head, but Obe perceived that it was a slow movement. Too slow, in fact, to be convincing. “You look unsure of yourself,” Obe said. His heart had picked up. Did this Jork already know his brother was dead and was afraid to tell one of his perceived superiors?

  “Is…” Jork said slowly. “Is it… you?”

  “What?”

  “Is it you? You know… your scar? Or the one you’re going to have? That looks like a bad scratch. Did the women cut you like that? Are they still torturing us out in the field? They said they wouldn’t torture us in the field, but they’d never lie. The women never lie. They said so. They said they’d never torture us again once we were released and if we didn’t break the rules.”

  Obe had nearly forgotten his facial wound. “No,” he said. “That’s just a coincidence. The women don’t even-”

  “But you’re here in green sector so you crossed the poles,” Jerk went on. “You broke a rule. They’re punishing you. I shouldn’t be talking to you. I shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”

  “What?” Obe asked. “No, that’s not what-”

  “I don’t want infractions!” the man screamed. “I’ve been good! I haven’t done any infractions! You’re just trying to get me in trouble! You’re trying to kill me! You can’t! You can’t!” He was running away now, looking back over his shoulder with every shout and still clutching at his chest. Obe let him go. There was nothing that could be done.

  For the rest of that day and into the coming night, Obe scoured the green sector for a man he hoped he would recognize as his bother. There were more men here than in blue sector, so he came across many. There was also the green car. Whatever strange hiatus the women were working on his home turf, no such pause was happening here. Five times he heard or saw the car, and twice he’d needed to hide behind a dumpster or run down a nearby alley to avoid being seen, for he knew even being spotted in the green sector in his blue jumpsuit would mean death.

  Fortunately, the women of the green sector were more casual hunters than those in blue. There were simply so many men to hunt there- well over a hundred by the women’s claim- that another, more vulnerable man would come along every time someone outran them. Obe realized their jobs weren’t so much to finalize the punishment which had begun inside the fortress, but to simply thin the herd of its weakest stock. Consequently, more men died wearing green jumpsuits than blue. Obe was slightly taken aback he’d so quickly forgotten the number of bloodstains on the pavement, many of which were still glistening with the vitality of a fresh kill.

  Some of the men Obe already knew. There was Bile and Fain, two men who he’d seen as far back as inside the fortress walls, and also Alt, Olk, and Dik, men he’d seen and talked with many times in his three months in green. He realized each of these last men were potential new members of the blue sector, should they survive just a bit longer, and he was careful to drink water or peel his orange rind in front of them. He was also polite but not too forthcoming about his current needs. He couldn’t know if one day they’d be members of an opposing gang.

  That’s assuming I even join one myself, he thought. I wonder if the Hillbruhs will make a similar offer with similar dues, or whether they only seek out the loners?

  Several other men recognized Obe, though he didn’t know them. He supposed after all his time simply surviving the green sector’s streets and hills, all the newer men had tended to blend together in his mind. All were pleased to see him alive and asked what blue sector was like. He was honest with them in that he said it had been a difficult transition, especially grocery days, but that there appeared to be advantages as well. Yet he was deliberately vague in offering any further details, surprising himself. He hadn’t realized it before, but wearing the blue jumpsuit did give him pride, and he didn’t want to disrespect the Family, the Hillbruhs, or himself by gossiping. These men in green would find out in their own time, if they
earned it.

  Most of the men he met were strangers, however, and he realized that these men looked at him differently. There was respect, yes, but there was a lot of that fear Jork had displayed as well. These men were strangely easier to talk to. They didn’t ask so many questions and were more direct in answering his. One man- his name had been Hait- had assured Obe that he had definitely seen a man with a scar coming down from his forehead. He’d even helped Obe seek the man out for nearly an hour. But when they’d found him, the scar had actually been on the man’s cheek, and Obe had no recollection of him and he had had none for Obe. It had been a briefly exciting time, but Obe had by then come to distrust the memories of these younger men.

  What stood out most in his mind, though, was the one thing all of these men had in common. Every single man he saw first spelled his name before even saying ‘hello.’ It shortly became annoying, and he was more embarrassed than ever that he’d done so himself just days ago to all his new colleagues in blue.

  When that Thursday evening approached, it had been only a day and a half since the last grocery day, yet Obe’s food was almost gone. In his bag were just two wedges of orange and all the peels. The bread was gone. The water was gone. He’d noticed himself eating far too often during the day, but he’d enjoyed showing off in front of the green men, and he berated himself now for his foolishness.

  When Obe realized the night had fully arrived, complete with a dark sky teeming with bright stars, he was still wandering around the northern edge of the green sector. The search for his brother had not produced a single worthwhile lead. When he finally stepped back across the perimeter poles, it ended the search and defined it as a failure.

  North of the white poles his attention shifted. He was on a new search now, this time for fresh water. Though he was tired and his body was weakening, Obe continued slowly looking in every valley for the Hillbruh’s fabled stream. I’m not a “Crete” yet, he reasoned. If I find it, they have no reason to keep me out. Not yet. I’m not their enemy yet. But the truth was that he was already coming to think of himself as a Family man. Who else, he reasoned, could help him find his brother?