by J. M. Clark
They were safe from the sickness though, that was something. Jacob wondered if the tradeoff was worth it as he watched the children play.
Chapter Eighteen
Trevor
Trevor enjoyed sitting alone in the courtyard while Amy did her thing. It made him feel like he was back home at Oak Park. He had loved that park; he and some buddies would go there, drink some cold ones, and do a little hunting or fishing. Many summers were spent there with the family as well. Grilling out, throwing the ball around, just spending time together.
Sometimes he missed that the most, spending time with those he loved. Of course, the Palace courtyard wasn’t the same as Oak Park, but he could always play pretend. It made him feel like he wasn’t in a plush prison for a little while. For all the Palace had going for it, it was still a place they could not leave, at least not without being accepted into the Greater Understanding Program.
And who knew if that was even a real thing. He had his doubts. Whether it was because of the sickness outside or some other reason, this place still felt like a prison to him.
Amy loved to walk around out here with her friends, and Trevor thought it was important for her to have those friends. Her mind being idle was good for no one, especially herself. She would get to thinking about the kids and had a tendency to lose sight of reality. With all the help that she’d received here in the Palace, she still needed more. Or maybe there wasn’t enough help for her. Something in her mind had become unhinged that day, and he knew it would never reconnect the same way again.
A part of himself didn’t care about that. That was hard for Trevor to admit, but as long as she was here, in any capacity, that would do. He thought it interesting the measures his mind would go to heal itself.
Trevor noticed Malcom Patton walking over in his direction. Malcom was close to his age, more likely in his late fifties—an old guy by Palace standards. Here, you were either a Palace-born idiot, a semi-young person from the outside, or a relic of the Old World, and that was anyone who was around the age of thirty to forty when the sickness wiped out the entire planet. All but them. Lucky us, Trevor thought while extending his hand for Malcom to shake.
“Hey there, buddy. How’s the Big House here treating you?” Trevor asked. “Another repetitive morning enrichment and some forced sex today?” He coughed up some laughter while looking around to make sure he hadn’t been heard by anyone.
Malcom grabbed a seat next to Trevor on the stone bench in the beautiful courtyard. He let out a relaxed sigh once he settled into the bench and put a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. “Buddy…I’m fifty-six. I’m not having much sex these days, forced or not.” He laughed and looked around to see if anyone was paying attention. Then he lowered his voice. “Unless you smuggled some of those magic beans in here, you know, to help get the soldier standing at attention. You a serviceman, you know what I mean.” Malcom laughed.
They had been great friends for some time now. Most of the Old World people were stuck with each other. The Palace-born were different—overly helpful and indoctrinated to be honest. They meant well, but they just didn’t get along like Old World humans did with each other.
“We better keep it down, old friend, or we’ll end up in a small room with Teacher Lobotomy, uhh I mean, Teacher Paul,” Malcom whispered. He gave Trevor a wink.
Trevor laid a finger over his lips and returned the wink to Malcom, and they both cracked up laughing. It was nice having folks from the Old World here with him, made him feel like he was able be himself, if even for a little.
“How are ya moving today, old man?” Malcom wiped tears of laughter from his eyes.
“I’m still kicking, my friend.” Trevor looked over to see Amy still walking laps with her friends and enjoying the conversations they were having.
“That’s all we can ask for in here, huh?” Malcom unwrapped a piece of pound cake from a paper towel and broke a few pieces off to eat. He offered Trevor a piece, but Trevor declined, shaking his head as he stared up into the sky. Malcom pulled his hand back and ate the piece of cake himself. He looked up and spotted birds flying in and out of the quarantine zone “What are you looking at, Trevor? You okay?”
They both sat there in the courtyard of the Palace, staring at the sky, Trevor looked at Malcom, raising an eyebrow. “How do you think they know that past the red flags is the cutoff? I’ve never seen anyone out here with any type of equipment. In all of twenty years, nothing. You think they may be lying to us all about that? Wouldn’t be the first time, right?” Trevor bumped Malcom’s arm with his own in a joking away.
“Hmm, I couldn’t tell you. Maybe, maybe not. Shit, I don’t know. I do know that you saw what happened during the sickness, just like I did. That really happened. Now, while I don’t know much about the quarantine zone or any of that stuff, I would give the Order the benefit of the doubt.” Malcom shrugged and went back to picking off pieces of his pound cake and popping them into his mouth.
“You know,” he went on, “you gotta be careful with that stuff, Trevor. I mean, why would they lie about something so stupid? From what I’ve understood, we are being kept safe. I seen what’s out there, and I don’t want any part of it. I just don’t see why they would lie. How does the government benefit?”
“Why wouldn’t they? You’d be surprised about the things people will lie about when it’s getting them what they want.” Trevor giggled and bent down to tie his shoe. “You’d be surprised for sure. They can get over on some folks, but I’ve seen their lies. I was a part of those lies when I was in the service. I know better.”
“Well I hear that.” Malcom paused for a few seconds and continued. “But we got what we got, ya know? They’ve always done right, and still doing right by us. Without the Order, we wouldn’t even be alive. I say as long as they keep feeding, clothing, and protecting us from that sickness, then I don’t care a lick what they lie about.” He popped another piece of cake into his mouth and waved at a Palace member walking by.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what everyone here thinks.” Trevor finished tying up his white walking shoes, sat with his back on the bench, and looked at Malcom with skepticism in his eyes. “That’s the type of thing they were saying to us over there in Iraq. They had us thinking stuff was one way when it was actually the other. The old government had us over in fuckin’ sand country, killing more civilians than anything else. We thought we were gonna be bringing the pain to the people that blew up the towers over here, ended up not being the case, or at least not the way a lot of us saw it after a few years.
“I don’t recall seeing no Iraq uniform for the armed forces; most those folks were people just trying to protect their homes. We did what we had to do, and we took care of business. I’m just saying…it wasn’t what we thought it was gonna be.”
Trevor spit on the ground next to the bench and offered his hand for a piece of the pound cake from Malcom’s paper towel. Malcom broke off a piece into Trevor’s hand, ate the rest, and balled up the paper. He got up and looked around the beautiful courtyard, taking in all the gorgeous flowers, trees, and amazing landscaping. Sticking the balled-up paper into the back pocket of his tan slacks, he looked at Trevor and pointed at him.
“Let me tell you something, sir. You been a good friend to me since we been here, and Lord knows that’s something I needed. I lost my entire family. I was barely holding on, and even thought about killing myself a few times. Folks like you and a few others kept me on the wagon, and you will always be my friend for that…but I think you are wrong about this place. Honestly, I think you should be a bit more appreciative to what the Order does for us. They could have left us all out there to die.
“The United States government, hell, all the governments of the world, were destroyed. They got together all they could muster and put together something new to provide some type of stability, and we got that here. No, they haven’t done everything perfectly, but would you expect ‘em to?”
The volume of Malcom’s voice rose s
teadily. He was visibly angry and starting to cause a scene. Trevor raised his hands and tried to motion for Malcom to calm down, but it didn’t seem to do anything.
“You got your life, dontcha? Yeah, you do. That alone should be enough for you to just be happy.” Malcom was shaking at that point and burning a hole through Trevor with his stare. Trevor looked around and noticed a few people looking their way. Malcom saw it too. He lowered his voice and placed his hands on his narrow hips.
“You get to see the Old World become the new world. They say that ninety to ninety-five percent of the folks in the world are dead and will never get a chance to bitch about what someone else did to help others, like you are doing right now. Don’t you dare complain. You hear me? Don’t you dare.” Malcom turned away from Trevor and stormed back into the Palace.
Trevor looked around to see if he still had a small audience. The people outside had turned away after Malcom went into the building. Palace members did not handle conflict well; they would rather not see it whenever it reared its ugly head. Trevor was happy about that. The last thing he needed was for a teacher to have witnessed what happened and begin the constant questions about the issue.
He paid no attention to Malcom’s outburst; his friend was prone to those for little to no reason. The man was kindhearted, but he had a bit of a short fuse and was emotional to say the least. Trevor knew he was lucky to have Amy here with him. Malcom was right about the fact that many didn’t get to see this new world, or whatever it was becoming. His children were among the many. But Amy got to see it, and for that, Trevor was happy.
He got up from the bench and walked over to a bush of roses and picked one. He put the rose up to his nose and inhaled the aroma. It smelled just like the roses on his grandma’s farm. She had the most beautiful flowers that bloomed every spring, and she would bring hell and its horses if you got anywhere near them. He would always find a way to smell the roses though. That was so long ago, it could have been a different life altogether. Things got hazy when he thought about the past; the concept of then and now was confusing for him in most cases. Maybe it was his age.
He picked a few more roses and bundled them together. Hiding his hand behind his back, he headed in Amy’s direction. She always loved roses.
Chapter Nineteen
Mary
Whenever an individual was struggling with a high amount of stress and needed intervention, there were different counseling methods or activities one could do in the Palace to better deal with it all. Both the stress relief activities and the counseling sessions were handled on the eighth floor of the Palace. Mary and a handful of others took full advantage of these options when they began to feel the pressure of the responsibilities they had. Mental stability was of the utmost importance here, and was not to be taken for granted.
There was no harm in using what was available to feel better about herself, which would help her stay focused on the task at hand. And for Mary, that was doing all she could to get into the Greater Understand Program. Talks with Teacher Paul helped tremendously. There was a gym on the first floor that was open to everyone in the Palace; she ran there and did boxing routines daily. And Mary was not a stranger to the eighth floor and the offerings of stress-relief activities there. At only age nineteen, Mary had been through a lot, and she needed time to unwind, to think, and to recommit to the mission.
Lying naked inside of the long rectangular box filled Mary with relief. The softness of the surrounding linens and fabrics felt so smooth on her skin, like wearing silk all over her body. The smell of the fresh dirt surrounding her outside of the box reminded her of the courtyard and how she enjoyed spending time walking the trail there and picking flowers to bring into her pod. The smell was comforting.
Death had been a common fear of all human life since the beginning of time. It was the reason humans had been creating gods since the moment they could scribble suns, moons, and stick figures on cave walls. Moving from those caves into the most luxurious buildings of the world, mankind had one constant for thousands of years: people could not deal with life without their impending death looming somewhere in the background, as if they could remember not existing before sliding out of their mother’s birth canal. Time as a construct served to measure that very thing. From the moment humans took their first breath until the time their pyre burned in the night, sending their matter floating around as ashes through the atmosphere to eventually land on the earth, they constantly worried about the “after.”
This fear of death carried a bigger effect on life than anyone realized in the Old World. The worry of dying kept many from going after their dreams, instead staying in their homes and only socializing through cell phone apps. Instead of going out to buy goods they needed, many would purchase them online and have them delivered, all to avoid danger and a slight possibility of death. Becoming obsessed with living a long life served to make sure they never lived at all.
O Merciful Mother of Earth, I’m thankful to be one of a small group you have entrusted to remain here. I do not believe myself to be special in any way, shape, or form. So many men and women who were pure of heart and mind perished during the sickness, the same as the unfavorable. I do believe that I’m here today, in this moment, because I can and will do what’s necessary to make—
Mary heard a loud thud dropping just over her face. She paid the sound no mind, she’d been here a hundred times before. She laid there, arms at her sides, feet pointing straight up. Her body was covered with goosebumps, and her nipples hardened to a pink point over the soft flesh of her breasts. The feeling of being exposed allowed her to think more clearly.
I will not repeat the mistakes of the past, nor will I allow others to take advantage of you, themselves, or any others, for we are one. I will not allow your resources to be pillaged and capitalized upon by the wicked. We have offended in the past, and for that we paid dearly with human lives. This was deserved, I know that. It is not my place to judge your ways of dealing with the crimes of men, but it is my job to learn from them and heed your ways…and I do. We all do now.
Mary felt a warm tear trickle down her cold cheek. The tears fell down her face, making a wet trail that passed her ears and found a home in her silky dark hair. Another thud dropped on the wood above her face.
Nothing will stop my stride. I will reach my goals, and surpass them. Life will not scare me out of the position that you have placed me in. The memories of child birth, the fears of my children’s future or lack thereof, the strange feelings I’m beginning to experience with Jacob, not even death itself could evoke enough fear inside of me to stop this momentum.
Mary wanted to wipe her face, but there wasn’t enough room to move her arms. The sound of dirt hitting the top of the casket quickened and became steady. The whole time she remained calm, opened her eyes, and thought about the fact that she was buried six feet down.
It was a common stress-release exercise offered on the eighth floor of the Palace. The simulation of death and the ritual of being buried was helpful to some. The teachers believed that a big part of the human experience was the fear of the unknown, and the biggest unknown was death and how that would feel. While the burial activity didn’t provide the full experience of death, it did offer portions of that “after” experience. You were buried in a casket, which, for obvious reasons, had air circulation, so there was no true fear of dying from loss of breath. There was a lot to be said about the constricting feeling of being inside of a casket though, about the feeling of the pressure bearing down on the wood from the dirt and rocks.
After the casket was fully covered with dirt, the subject was meant to stay in the ground and meditate. To think about life and death, and all that entailed. It was a time to reflect on loving the life you had and accepting the amount of time you were given on this planet; knowing that you used every minute to better yourself and take care of the planet should always be enough. After an hour, the casket was dug up and the subject retrieved. After so many sessions, it was
said that subjects would come to terms with things like their mortality; they would be better able to accept control of the things that could be controlled, and let go of the things that couldn’t. Mary had been coming to the eighth floor for mock burial sessions for over five years, and every night she dreamed about the children she’d created.
Chapter Twenty
Dwight
Elsewhere in the Palace, a man sat inside of his shower, fully clothed. The showerhead dripped just enough to provide a steady drop, drop, drop on his forehead. Kind of like the Japanese water torture from World War II. For some it could feel like torture, but for Dwight it was…relaxing, calming even. Dwight Patterson sat just beneath the showerhead with his back against the wall. He looked up at the ceiling and allowed the dripping of the showerhead to tap, tap, tap on his forehead. He’d been doing this for so long, he didn’t know when he figured out that it made him feel better. One day while sitting in the shower, pleasing himself to his mental Rolodex of the things that get him hot, he discovered this little trick that made him think better. Normally his mind raced and he couldn’t focus on one thing for more than a few seconds. The tapping helped with that.
“What’s the point of even being here?” he said to no one as he counted the cracks on the ceiling (another calming method he’d figured out while living in the Palace). Dwight had come up with a lot of things to do in the bathroom except actually taking a shower. That television was a camera, peeping into his pod. Watching him, measuring him, and hoping to catch him doing something wrong so that he could never get out of there. But for Dwight, there was no such thing as “out of here.” They only let the goody-goodies out. He couldn’t be “normal” long enough to be noticed by the teachers or Sirus, so why even try?