Sheep and Wolves

by Jeremy C. Shipp

  *

  “About half a dozen rankin…rankin…rankin…” my father says.

  He says this because of the Enemy. Because if the government didn’t have to spend so much on the war, I’m sure a vaccine or something would have been discovered years ago. Maybe then my father could say “raisin.”

  “They’re all on it down half a dozen,” my father says.

  And if I’m going to be completely honest, sometimes I blame my father.

  Maybe if he’d become someone important, instead of a construction worker, he wouldn’t be like this. Maybe he would have eaten better and lived in a neighborhood with less poison in the water and the air and everywhere.

  Maybe my father could have tried harder.

  “It wouldn’t kill you to talk to him,” Kaelin says. She scrubs at the shit-stain on the ground. The shit itself is wrapped up in a napkin beside her. I wish she would throw it away already.

  “He can’t understand me,” I say.

  “You don’t know that,” she says. She carries the napkin on the palm of her hand, almost like she’s about to give someone a present. But she drops it in the trash. The shit is one of the main reasons why my father is confined to his room. That, and the rest of the house isn’t dementia-proof. He once cut his arm with a pair of scissors, which he then cooked in the oven alongside his granddaughter’s favorite doll. By the end of it, the two objects had melded together into a cyborg of sorts.

  “He likes hearing our voices,” my sister says. “They’re familiar. It’s a comfort to him.”

  “You’ve always seen things that aren’t there, Kaelin,” I say.

  She sighs.

  The smiling faces in the photographs all over the walls stare at me, but don’t see anything, as I scoop another mound of mashed potatoes into my father’s mouth. Kaelin thinks these images make my father happy. I think she’s the one that’s happy.

  “Would you like Taran to read you a story, Dad?” she says, and plucks the apples out of my father’s collection of shoes.

  “Everyone down in the reason,” my father says. “The reason.”

  If I could, I would launch my invisible energy into my father’s mind, and piece everything back together again.

  But I can’t.

  My power is all about intentions, but in real life, good intentions are never good enough.

  My father’s already gone.

  “The reason,” he says. “The reason.”

  *

  Einstein’s right at home with the likes of Charles Darwin, Marvin Harris, Nikola Tesla. He belongs. Aside from my father and my sister, these are about the only other people in my life.

  And yes, they are people.

  It doesn’t matter that they’re snakes. They’re also great minds, trapped in my cages, eating my mice. I can see beyond their physical forms and sense their past lives, as that’s one of my many awesome powers. Or maybe I just pretend that it is. Whatever.

  Marie Curie coils and prepares to strike.

  “You’re safe,” I say to the mouse.

  I may be lying, because nothing’s happening. But at the last possible instant, the mouse shifts into the air. He swims in place.

  “You’re dead,” I say, and he falls.

  In a few suffocating moments, my words become reality. I’m so excited, I crap my pants a little bit. I thought the clown ballerina fiasco was a fluke, but this. This means I’m special.

  I head to the bathroom to wipe my ass.

  Years ago when I attended the Redmount School of Psychokinesis, I never killed anyone or anything. Mostly, I sat in an air-conditioned classroom, trying to move metal cubes across my desk, while the other kids laughed and gave each other high fives when they succeeded.

  If you’ve never suffered through a psychokinesis school, you probably think it’s a lot of fun. But the constant surveillance isn’t fun. The Protocol isn’t fun. And fuck if Solitary’s ever any fun.

  Sitting here on the toilet, moving a ceramic iguana back and forth across my sink, I remember crying alone in that plain white room. I remember my teacher saying, “I know you didn’t break Protocol on purpose. But this is the way it has to be or you’ll never learn,” before she slammed and bolted the door.

  That’s the worst part. It’s your subconscious that performs the psychokinesis. Not you. But you’re always punished along with it anyway.

  I didn’t want to trip anyone or fling food or stab Marty Martinez the Student Body President with a pencil. I didn’t intend to be a bully. Sure, part of me hated everyone for doing what I couldn’t, but every time I was set free from that plain white room, I almost cried happy stupid tears when I saw my classmates again.

  “I’m trying,” I told my dad on the phone. Long distance. “My mind just won’t listen to me.”

  “Try harder,” he told me.

  Like usual, I begged him to take me home.

  Like usual, he said no.

  He wanted me to be important, and I hated him for it. Every time I cried in the plain white room, wishing for smiling faces instead of plain whiteness, I hated him for not saving me.

  I return to my snakes, and a thought comes to me like Godzilla comes to Tokyo. I know I can’t win, but I fight anyway. With everything I have.

  In the end, I’m sitting on the cold floor, staring at my hands, thinking my monster thought.

  I can’t save my father. I don’t have the power. But I can do the second best thing.

  And get my revenge.

  *

  “You can’t,” my sister says, and for once she stops working. She was busy transferring diapers from one large box to another large box. Now she’s not. “No one who enters the Hole ever comes back. There might not be a way back.”

  “I’m not going there to come back, Kaelin,” I say. “I’m going to fight the fucking Ens.”

  “You don’t even know what they’re capable of.”

  “I don’t care. Life is a constant battle because of them. They shoot their rays and their emissions across the Universe and fuck with us without ever stepping foot on our planet. They make me sick.”

  “It’s galaxies away, Taran. That’s too far.”

  “Sooner or later, they’ll find a way to break through our shields and firewalls and armor. If that happens, civilization will collapse in a second. I can’t twiddle my thumbs and do nothing.”

  “Dad needs you.”

  “No.”

  “I need you, Taran.”

  “You know that’s not true.”

  She sits in silence. Not because she’s given up on stopping me. She just knows that I’m immature and rebellious, and listing reasons for me to stay will only make me want to run away more.

  “I’m going now,” I say.

  “You mean going going?” she says.

  “Yes.”

  Tears trickle down her cheeks. She hugs me and squeezes me and it hurts.

  “You can’t do this,” she says.

  “Goodbye, Kaelin.”

  “At least say goodbye to him.”

  “No,” I say.

  My father snores.

  *

  Somewhere between the Earth and the moon, I funnel into the Hole, atom by atom, along with the other Space Force recruits. I think about my snakes. I wonder if they’ll enjoy freedom in the wild, or just die trying.

  The three days are almost up, and no one’s said much of anything. I don’t mind.

  I’m not afraid, because if I ask my subconscious to protect me from a giant blob or a swarm of alien insects or whatever the fucking Ens are, it will obey me. I will be saved.

  The Enemy created the Hole so they could spit their venom onto our world, but the Hole will be their undoing.

  I’m coiled and ready to go.

  Lights flash.

  I can’t breathe.

  The moon disappears.

  When I open my eyes, I expect to find a battlefield raging on outside the window.

  I see thousands of missiles and ships and tanks
and jeeps. I see geodesic domes. I see Washington the Earthmover.

  They’re all floating in a chaotic and inactive heap.

  There’s not a planet or an Enemy in sight.

  A nearby ship hails us with a beep. It’s my job to activate the intercom, so I do.

  “Welcome to the Junkyard,” the man says from the other ship.

  I deactivate the intercom.

  So maybe the Enemy aren’t here. And maybe they’re not anywhere.

  Like the girl beside me says, “They’re not fucking real.”

  What I know for sure is that I didn’t run away to escape nothing.

  I left everything behind.

  I didn’t see the whole message written with the clown’s blood, but I know what it said. It said, “My father is still in there.”

  Trout

  Once again, at exactly 10:43, the trout wriggle their way from the black holes of the polka dot wallpaper, and I’m still not in love.

  Maggie screams.

  The fish whiz from one side of the room to the other, slapping me with their wet tails, knocking over not a few of my antique lamps onto the pillow mounds I set up on the carpet.

  One fish slaps me especially hard in the face, and I catch him. I’m not surprised to find that it’s Shard, my least favorite trout of all time.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I say, squeezing him.

  “There’s nothing wrong,” Shard says. “This isn’t about wrong. Didn’t we already talk about this? A million times?”

  “She has a doctorate, Shard. Don’t you, Maggie?”

  A very pale Maggie nods in silence.

  “Does that mean nothing to you?” I say to the fish.

  “Not really,” Shard says. “I mean, that’s quite an accomplishment, but it doesn’t make any difference to us.”

  “I should just paint over your holes and be done with this nonsense.”

  “You can’t get rid of us that easily.”

  “I’ll use lead-based paint.”

  “I know I said I believed you,” Maggie says, very quiet. “But I didn’t. I thought you were crazy.”

  “And you still wanted to be with me?” I say.

  “Yeah.”

  I don’t tell her how stupid that sounds.

  “Why do you think they always come at 10:43?” Maggie says.

  “Ask him,” I say, holding out the trout.

  “Well?” Maggie says.

  “It’s sort of a big secret,” Shard says. “It’s connected with the meaning of the Universe. If I told you, there would be dire consequences. Do you still want to know?”

  She nods.

  Shard wiggles free of my grip, and whispers the secret in her ear. Then her flesh erupts from her soul, blinding me with blood, and I wipe my eyes clean in time to see her light funnel into one of the black polka dots.

  “Why would she do that?” I say.

  “You’re never going to love anybody until you start trying to understand them,” Shard says.

  I grumble, and don’t tell him how stupid that sounds.

  Maybe next time I’ll try a lawyer.

  Sin Earth

  Finding a pyramid of sticky bluebursts and a bucket of water before your doorway doesn’t necessarily mean that the villagers of Sin Earth respect you, or even like you. The act may instead imply that no one really wants to see your face outside as they’re living what my mother would call their pathetic little lives, singing and dancing and eating and sometimes carving ancient faces from spirewood that they burn right after, because otherwise the Enforcers would beat the culprits senseless with sacred clubs.

  One such club rots away under the table where I set my bluebursts. Enforcer Yor gave me this weapon the day of my mother’s funeral. “She was a good woman,” he told me. “Very reliable.” Then he handed me his club, which he described in almost the same way.

  I pluck the top fruit off the pyramid, and chew. Juicy, delicious. But my mother still says, “You deserve better than this animal food.” She says, “Go to the barracks and ask for a decent meal. They’ll take care of you.”

  I take another bite. “I’d rather stay in my hut today.”

  Every day.

  “Well,” she says. “At least you’ll avoid the rabble.”

  Don’t get me wrong. I don’t particularly enjoy staying cooped up in my room, my mother haunting me with wispy words, unable to let go. But usually, I’d rather stay in here, than go out there.

  At least here I don’t feel a hundred eyes peeling off my flesh, draining my blood, staring at that festering blotch I can’t wash off or shit out.

  Here, at least I can pretend.

  A crow dives through my window and lands on my mother’s chair and nibbles at a string on his leg. I untie the note.

  “What are you reading?” my mother says. She would examine the letter herself, of course, but I’m the only thing she can see anymore.

  “It’s from the Thundershines,” I say.

  “Those fools never wrote me any letters. What do they want?”

  “They’re inviting me for tea.”

  She laughs.

  The crow nudges at one of the bluebursts with his beak.

  “Go ahead,” I say.

  So the crow pecks away.

  “Go ahead what?” my mother says.

  “I was talking to the crow.”

  “Never mind the beast. You write a letter to Grandma Thundershine and thank her for the offer but tell her you’d much rather devour your own legs.” She chuckles.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you talking to me or the bird?”

  “You.”

  “How dare you speak to me that way? I’m not here for myself, you know, Gourd. I’ve given up a lot to stay and counsel you.”

  “I know, mother. Thank you.”

  “You won’t visit them, will you?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  But the truth is, I have.

  I reach out to pet the crow, and he bites at my finger.

  “Sorry,” I say to the bird.

  “I’ll forgive you this time,” my mother says.

  Maybe one day I’ll honor my mother and carve her festering blotch of a face into a spirewood log, but for now I feel like tea.

  *

  Stepping through the archway into the Thundershine longhouse is almost like stepping into one of my mother’s books. The men wear suits. The women wear dresses. The problem is that no one’s greeting me with a handshake or even a smile.

  I follow the bird, and my bare feet smack against the intricate flowers and vines painted on the stone floor. I try to lighten my step without looking even more stupid. It doesn’t work.

  As soon as I enter the dining room, the conversations that died when I first entered the house suddenly come back to life behind me.

  “Close the door,” someone wheezes.

  I do as I’m told.

  “You’re going to regret this,” my mother says.

  The crow hops onto the table, and the work of art, or what I assumed was a work of art, starts to move. On closer inspection, this skeletal sculpture is actually an old woman, not much more than skin and bones that cling together so tight there’s hardly a wrinkle anywhere. Her hand quakes all the way to the bird.

  Then the crow speaks, in a soft feminine voice. It says, “Forgive me for not serving you, Gourd. I’m afraid I can’t stand.” The old woman’s lip lines move a little as the bird releases the words.

  I pour some tea into a cup painted with elaborate blue flowers that match the old woman’s dress. I drink. Rich, warm.

  Still my mother says, “She’s trying to poison you.”

  The woman lifts a cup with her free hand, but the shaking causes most of the contents to spill out. A drop or two spatters on the bird. I expect him to fly away or at least flinch. He doesn’t.

  I’m angry that no one but the bird is here to help this old woman.

  “Can I hold your cup for you as you drink?�
�� I say.

  “It’s alright,” she says. “The tea wouldn’t do any good for me anyway.”

  I set my cup down.

  “What are they saying to you?” my mother says. “Don’t listen to their lies.”

  “My name is Stone, though most everyone calls me Grandma,” she says. “I’m sure your mother spoke of me often.”

  Hearing the word Grandma is enough to gnarl my innards.

  As a child, I hated Grandma Thundershine with a blind intensity that only a child can perfect.

  I hated her cruelty. I hated the toys and the cousins she kept away from me. Mostly, I hated my mother’s eyes every time she talked about this old woman.

  And of course, part of me still does.

  “I’ve invited you here because I’d like to give you a chance to prove yourself,” she says. “To prove that you belong with us.”

  I smile.

  I smile at the enemy, because I want smiles and handshakes in return. I want to wear a suit.

  “You’re talking to her, aren’t you?” my mother says. “She’ll ruin your life, Gourd. She’ll destroy you.”

  Every wonderful part of life that was taken from my mother exists here, in this house.

  “I’m sorry that you and your mother were punished for ideals that have been passed down generation to generation,” Grandma says. “It’s no one’s fault, really. Many hoped that we could finally rid these values from our family once and for all, by keeping you and your mother outside these walls. So that they would die with you.” Her hand slides off the crow and rests on the table for a while.

  I sit in silence, waiting.

  After a few moments, she manages to lift her arm again.

  “I understand as much as anyone the benefits of sacrifice,” she says. “But I’d rather give you a choice. Luckily, my family feels so guilty about the sacrifices I myself make that they’ve agreed to honor my request.” She closes her eyes. “You should know that this is a dangerous situation, and I do have an alternative motive in asking you to be a part of it.” She opens her eyes again. “I’m not very attached to you, Gourd. If you died, I probably wouldn’t mourn much at all.”

  “Better me than a loved one,” I say.

  She nods. “It’s not that I couldn’t come to love you. I simply don’t know you.”