Chapter 11
“We’re in trouble. We have to get out of here” Ruff said to Donal and Eve, but speaking to them was like trying to console a shoe.
They couldn’t understand the sound of his voice and when they spoke; to him and to each other, it merely sounded like the stretching out of a spring; nonsensical sounds that they shared back and forth with one another. The three sat inside a small prison with a wet concrete floor and there was nowhere for the two humans to rest their rumps.
Ruff paced back and forth looking through the irons bars out through the length of the passageway where two menacing Dobermans stood attentive watch as their eyes; like the light of the moon poured through the darkness and over their skin.
“Guard” Ruff yelled.
“What is it?” replied the angry looking Doberman Guard.
“You have to let us out of here, please. It’s not safe for us to be here” pleaded Ruff.
“You are a prisoner of The Bitch Queen now. You have no rights” said The Doberman Guard.
“I know you are only following orders, but you too are in danger. A great many humans are coming and they are fed by an anger I have never seen” exclaimed Ruff.
“These silly humans here? Ha! They are no match for the royal guard. Shut up and eat your stew. You and your friends will need your energy for the hunt” said the angry looking Doberman Guard.
The guard attended to his post and continued his glare through the iron bars at Ruff and his companions who were cradling themselves on the cold floor. Ruff sat close to Donal and the untrustworthy friend as they ran their fingers through his matted fur and for a moment they all escaped the suddenness of their fearful imaginings thinking about what tragedy may become them at the hands of these savage dogs.
The two humans thought about the bars opening and then hundreds of hounds setting upon them, tearing the flesh from their bones. The small matted dog, though, feared over the idea of wild boars scratching their husks against the cold wet concrete as they trampled the distance between their heaving bodies and their prey; a small matted dog and two feeble humans, running and scampering desperately for their lives, pushing through the transparent mist of warm air that burst from their lungs with the snarl of the great beasts on their footsteps and their own feet quickly coming unstuck.
They tumble over one another as the stampede closed in.
“How will we get out of here?” asked Donal.
“We have to bide our time,” said Eve.
“But what about the Famined ones? They were coming for us” he said.
“And they still are. I’m thinking of a way to get us out this. Trust me. For now, though, we have to maintain focus; maintain one. We can’t let ourselves slip into famine or it will be our own reflection we see in the madness of others. Talking is good. Tell me about Safrine” said Eve calmly.
Donal; empty of his panic for a second, filled his mind at first with tranquility and then with sullen rage.
“Safrine is my best friend I guess; she is my sister. She is me, well, the other half of me. We were born minutes apart. I was first and then when she knew it was safe, she followed. That’s the way it has always been for us. When a room was dark I would enter first and make sure there were no monsters. I would make this sound; like a low howl of a wolf and she would know that it was safe and then she would come in. I had to protect her cause our father was always very sad after mother died and he was always away, especially when he was with us. So me and Safrine, we became one person. Did you ever have that? Did you have a sister or a brother?” he asked.
“No. I was conceived under a microscope. My father was an idea and my mother was necessity. I was not born, I was spawned. I was theorized. Then I was cultivated. We’re not all that strange really; you, I, the Famined, these savage dogs. We exist until we fail to do so. The only difference is the dog isn’t saddled with a greater philosophical want. It is enough for the dog to exist. It is not disconnected from its existence through conscious thought like we are, but it exists as we do. But no, nobody cares for me. I have no brother. I have no equal” she said.
“That’s sad,” he said.
“How did you end up in The Nest? You seem so different to the others; less desperate; less dishonest. You practice what they preach. Why were you with them?” she asked.
“Safrine. They took her. We had to get her back” he said.
“Who?” she asked.
“My family. We spent years planning for this day. Except it was supposed to be different. We were all supposed to be together, the three of us, but they didn’t come” he said.
“What happened to your mother? She birthed you, yes?” Eve asked.
“Yes. We were naturals. How did you know? My mother was infected while we were in her womb. My grandfather said she got drunk on ideals and fell into Famine. She lost her empathy one night and forgot how to love anyone but herself. Her Famine grew out of control and she became dangerous. For a while, nobody saw her. Then they kept her locked away so she couldn’t danger herself and so she couldn’t endanger us. She died during the labour. One day she stopped existing and I guess that was pretty much when father started to cry and he never really stopped” he said.
“And then The Collective saved you?” she asked.
“No. They came later. After we were born or after our mother died depending on how you remember that day, our father decided to keep us long from his memories, from the home he had made. He thought that if our feet were light, our mind would be light and we could escape the drag of our sadness. You know; the thoughts that creep up on you and pull you under the water while you sit still in wandering thought. He wanted to escape his sadness. And when everyone walked over the bridge towards town, my father wanted to take us in a different direction. My grandfather was always singing. He was always drunk. And he would sing about a place where trouble didn’t belong; the place of light and sound where the thoughts of the heart were the words of a song” he said.
“New Utopia,” said, Eve.
“That’s where everyone wanted to be, but it was not where they were heading. I don’t remember much of the blackout or what happened after but I remember The Uprising. It was so scary; all of those people, so angry” he said.
“Tell me about The Uprising. What do you remember?” she said.
“We went with them. They gathered first in front of their houses. Then they marched, collecting more people; gathering momentum and then when the dam broke; they lost their reason. At first they sang and chanted; they were like friends. But then their good spirits turned sour and something happened. They changed. They turned on each other” he said.
“What were they rising against?” she asked.
“Hope,” he said.
“And you were saved by The Collective?” she said.
“No. we went with the wave. We had no choice. We kept our heads low and pretended to not care for one another. We didn’t want to stand out. I kept Safrine close and I watched astutely, stepping in my father’s shadow through the light of the day and I moored on his heavy breath through the still of the night. Eventually, we crossed the big bridge and settled downtown. The people were so angry. They set fire to anything that would burn and tore apart anything that wouldn’t. I think they were all just very sad. They didn’t want to be left alone. I know exactly how they felt and why they did some of the silly things that they did. It was because they didn’t want to be left alone. Nobody does. Everyone wants to be loved. I remember when my father left me alone once. Safrine was asleep, but I remember my father joking as he closed the door and I wanted so much to go with him. I didn’t know where he was going; it didn’t matter, I just wanted to go with him and when he closed the door I couldn’t cry. I think I wanted to, but instead I was so sad that I became angry. I wanted him to know exactly what it felt like to be left alone so I woke Safrine up, I told her we were meeting Dada; that’s what we called him, in the centre of town by the old cathedral and she believed me. She got dressed and we went ou
t into the freezing cold night; my feet heavy; weighed down by sadness and my mind beleaguered; focused only on hurting my father, the only sight I could see in my mind was the turning of a handle as he walked out the door. I remember the rush of people. I was small then. I’m small now but I was smaller and with Safrine tied to my wrist, I moved slowly past the people all banging into one another. They were jumping up and down trying to see something down the road. We didn’t care about that; I just wanted to take us somewhere far. I know it sounds stupid and if I didn’t do it, maybe we wouldn’t be here now, we would still be together, maybe in New Utopia, who knows? I remember there was a loud booming voice and it carried through the air and everyone repeated every word it said. Down the back of the line, others passed whispers to one another of what they thought they heard. I remember seeing my father’s shoes as we got closer to the stage. I didn’t know it was a stage at first. I just had my head low and kept pushing us through and around all of their legs and before I knew it, I banged my hand against something hard because I was holding my left hand out to push everyone out of the way. I thought I had broken my hand. It really hurt. That’s when I looked to my left and I saw my father’s feet” he said.
“Did he see you?” asked Eve.
“No. He was screaming something at the man on the stage. I don’t think the man saw him or even heard him. It made him mad. When he turned we both ducked and he didn’t see us. I think he was too angry to see anything” he said.
“What was he screaming?” she asked.
“I’m not sure, but he didn’t like the man on the stage and he didn’t agree with what he was saying,” he said.
“What did you do next? Did you go home?” she asked.
“No. I should have, but I didn’t. I wanted to see what my father saw. I wanted to hear what he heard. I just wanted to know what was happening. We moved closer to the stage. There was a small platform and I knew if I stood on it, I would be able to see past the people in front of me and hear better what was being said. I let go of Safrine for only a second and when I turned she was gone. I screamed, but nobody would listen. Everyone was screaming louder than me. I couldn’t even hear myself. I tried looking out through the sea of people but I saw only more people, I couldn’t see her at all. I think I vomited straight away, I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do; whether I stay up high and wait for her to see me or whether I dive into the crowd and try and find her” he said.
“What did you do?” she asked.
“I started to cry. It was the only thing I could do. Nobody would help me. I was a child, I didn’t exist. Even if they could see me, they wouldn’t care. They blamed us for this. They said it was our fault that the lights went out. It wasn’t though you know. It just happened. Anyway, I don’t know how long I was crying for but it felt like forever. I remember wiping my eyes and I saw her. I don’t know what made me turn like I did, but for some reason I spun right around and I caught her in the glimpse of an eye. She could see me staring straight at her. She was reaching out with her hands. They were carrying her over their shoulder. They just took her; like that. Who does that?” he asked.
“Who took her?” said Eve.
“Those fucking White Hearts. I’ll never forget that symbol; grinning at me as my eyes burned from a mix of my tears, the stench of sweat and the dirt being kicked up by thousands of feet. I didn’t see their faces, only the heart. When I turned I saw the man on the stage and he wore the same white heart on his chest. I wanted to run up there and kill him, but I just froze. All I could think was; Safrine’ gone, and Dada’s going to kill me. I thought only about myself. Is that wrong? Am I a bad person?” he asked.
“If you are to ask me this question, then I would assume not? It is not something you would hear a Famined ask now is it?” she said consolingly.
“I guess not,” he said.
“You made a mistake. This is being human. What did it feel like, the second you realized she was gone? I’m sorry I don’t mean to make you feel…”
“It’s ok,” he said, “It hurts to remember, but it’s a strange kind of hurt. I can’t explain it, but I like going back there every now and then. I love my sister. When I imagine her gone, I love her more. This hurt, it warms me. It suffocates the emptiness in my soul. I guess it’s what drowning must feel like. At first I try to fight it, but once the pain is all I can feel, I sink into it and I feel comfortable and safe. When I turned and I didn’t see her eyes looking back at me, it was nothing compared to when I turned and saw her reaching out for me with every inch of her soul; so desperate, so completely alone. And I took her to this state. You know, I took her out of her bed. I made her march through the freezing cold. I didn’t even let her see our father only inches from where she stood. I took her to them. I closed my eyes and gave her away. I wanted to hurt my father. I wanted him to think we were taken. I wanted it to be a game. Whatever they did to her for all those years, it was because of me” he said, tears welling in his eyes.
“I have never felt that kind of love. I know love. I am capable of love, but I have never tasted that salt. It sounds beautiful. It must be heavenly, to hurt” she said.
“I would rather be annoyed and have her close than to feel this tearing of my heart and the blame. My father wasn’t angry when I finally got home. He was so happy to see me. It’s not what I thought would happen. Not even that was right. He hugged me and he asked me where Safrine was. I told him the truth; that we went out as soon as he left, that we stood only inches from where he was and how I wanted to see through his eyes and when I turned my back Safrine was taken. And I expected him to throttle me; to open his hand and earn my apology. I expected him to be angrier than he was when he shouted at that giant man on the stage, but he wasn’t and he didn’t. He just hugged me and said he was sorry. He didn’t let me go, not until I told him what I saw; the men with the white hearts carrying Safrine on their shoulders” he said.
“What did he do?” she asked.
“He made a plan. My father is very smart. He knew who they were. He knew exactly who they were. He told me they were stealing children. They were offering food for women to give up their newborns. Most of the babies were dying anyway, once the last of the formula was stolen, there was nothing to feed them so all of the babies would die after two days and the people, they didn’t like them very much. They would hold them funny like they had just scraped something off their shoe and didn’t know what to do with it. The people gave away their babies to the men with white hearts and the ones they couldn’t have; the ones like myself and Safrine, they took” he said.
“Because you are a natural?” she asked.
“Because I was a twin,” he said.
“I’m sure they had their reason,” she said.
“They did and we did everything to find out what it was. We waited until the end of their collection, then we followed them; to their prison. We waited and we waited. My father thought about how we could enter and save Safrine. We couldn’t just run in there. There were too many of them and there were only four of us” he said.
“Who were the other two?” she asked.
“My grandfather and my great grandmother. They called them the drunk and the story teller. She was wonderful at telling stories. Anyway, after watching them for many days, then many weeks and finally man months, my father realized there was only one way to enter; as a child” he said.
“You,” she said.
“So he made a plan. He had to gain their trust. He had to know them to become them to infiltrate them and get Safrine back. My grandfather was an old poet once. He used to trade poems and songs for whisky and a warm bed. He said that we needed to become their provider and to groom our Trojan horse; pointing at me. At the time, I didn’t know what it meant. They started the Child Market, something my father was absolutely opposed to. He despised the idea of children ending in their hands, but my grandfather convinced him that sometimes, the will of one is worth the ill of many. They traded children for songs, opiu
m and in the end; after The Famine took its grip and made everyone crazy; information. They sold the children to the big man with the beard; the one that was on the stage that night. He wasn’t their leader, but without the other one present, he sure acted like it. In the end, they more than trusted my grandfather; they needed him. But he had a plan. The children he sent them, they couldn’t be loved. My grandmother, she gave them terrible stories, frightful stories and none of them would be loved by the white heart. That was part of their plan, to keep them coming back for more until finally they gave them what they wanted, what they needed, what they weren’t expecting; me” he said.
“Your father just gave you up? He can do that, with empathy?” she asked in a mix of wonder and shock.
“It’s easy to love something and keep it close, being scared to lose it. True love means putting your love in danger. To feel love, one must dare to be without it” he said.
“And you entered The Nest,” she said.
“Yes, but not before I tested my own resolve,” he said.
“How so?” she asked.
“I had to leave my father and live with the other children on the streets, below the feet of men hungering for love. I stayed within reach, but out of sight. I had to be strange enough to my father for he himself to believe our lie. I lived for a time I cannot recall. I think I lived many lives in a single skin thinking about Safrine and the sight of her hands reaching out for me and then my father and the sight of him turning the handle to close the door. For days, I would sit alone with my head in my hands and cry. I cried until there were no tears left and then; when my soul was dry and my mind emptied of caring, I was like them and I was ready” he said.
“You forgot your sister?” she said surprised.
“And my father. I forgot their faces. I forgot the sound of their voices. I was detached from everything I knew; everything that defined me” he confessed coldly in prison canter.
“What was that like?” she asked inquisitively.
“I don’t really remember what it felt like to feel nothing. I remember the things I did, I remember the places I had been, but I can’t for the life of me remember what drove me to every decision” he said.
“When did you start to remember?” she asked.
“I lived in The Nest for many seasons, too many to mention. I can’t say what brought me out of nothingness, but in the same way something pulls at the tides and the currents drag at the surface, something inside me pulled my blankness backwards and folded it inside out or something. That’s what it felt like, like someone pulling the middle on a sheet from underneath and turning everything upside down and inside out. All of a sudden like a tear in a hull, warmth filled my mind, seeping in slowly at first but then flooding and filling my senses entirely within minutes and like the rising of the sea, something pulled me towards the shore. I didn’t remember everything and especially not the plan, I just felt that I had to find something and help it escape. I didn’t know what or who I was looking for but when I saw the big man, the one with the beard and the massive hands, I remembered him from somewhere” he said.
“The rally, where Safrine was taken?” she asked.
“Yes, but I didn’t know that then, just that I didn’t trust him and so I followed him and… I saw her in a room. They had her tied to all sorts of machines and they did terrible things, in all of the rooms. I knew when I saw her. It was like seeing my own reflection for the first time in years. I could see my eyes looking back at me and I knew she felt the same. The door was unlocked, maybe because she was tied, I’m not sure but I opened the door and tore all the wires and tubes off of her and I got her out” he said, falling away from his breath.
“That’s quite an achievement for a young boy,” said Eve.
“Don’t you have someone that you would do silly things for? You’re not like the other children, but you’re not like me either. What are you?”
“I’m just a girl,” said Eve.
In the distance, the large Doberman Guard approached their cage with an oratorical rant in his eyes; his calamitous bark cutting through their ears and reducing their sight to a mere squint as it growled cholericly and shook saliva in their faces as they gripped each other, pressing against the concrete wall with their feet pushing through the bars in their incommodious cell.
“Get your humans to shut up” screamed The Doberman Guard.
Ruff stepped forward and stood between his human friends and the great monstrous hound barking orders unto him.
“Sir, I can’t make them stop. Humans don’t understand us. I will let them run their hands through my hair, it should calm them. Please don’t hurt them” said Ruff.
“If I hear one more peep out of the small one I’ll eat him. Do you understand?” said The Doberman Guard.
“You won’t do that,” said Ruff defiantly.
“What?” screamed The Doberman Guard pushing his chest outwards, the fine hairs on his neck standing on end and his front legs pressed forwards making him appear like a tower of violence.
“Go back to your corner. You have no authority here. If you hurt my human friends or I, The Bitch Queen will eat you and you know it, so do us all a favour and stop yelling. I’ll do my best to keep the humans quiet; you assume that same level of control over yourself” said Ruff.
The Doberman Guard knew that Ruff was right. They were kept alive for a reason that was grander than his stature and he didn’t want to upset the queen. She had such a vile temper for a hound so small and her capabilities were surpassed only by her ferocity and her desire for blood.
He stepped away from the cell and stood with his wide eyes trained on Ruff and his human friends. The two humans stopped their whining and noise and sat quietly as Ruff had predicted, running their hands through his matted fur.
“Why don’t you roam free?” asked Ruff.
“Says the hound in a bind” replied The Doberman Guard.
“Your cell is much larger, but you keep yourself in binds as well. The one in your mind, it makes a prisoner of you in any field” Ruff said.
“What would you know of the mind of a hound? You are a human lover” said The Doberman Guard.
“It’s not real love you know. You think you love her. Maybe you do love her. I don’t know. Tell me then, why do you love her? What does she give you in return?” asked Ruff in genuine interest and concern.
“Life” replied the Doberman Guard.
“Life? She gives life? How? She is a murderer and a tiny coward. She doesn’t give life; she takes it away as a sport; to serve her sickness. You only love her because she hasn’t killed you yet. That’s not love, that’s rational” exclaimed Ruff.
“What would you know of love?” exclaimed The Doberman Guard cynically.
“You see these two humans. I met them only hours ago and yet my bond to them is so great that I would throw myself at the menace of your queen and into her pit solely to keep them alive because I love them; why? I have no idea. That’s love. You can’t analyze it. You can’t package it. You sure as hell can’t disguise your necessity to stay alive as a longing for an annoying psychotic fucking Chihuahua. This big human; I don’t even trust her, but I love her” said Ruff.
“You are sick; like them. A human can’t love you back. Humans haven’t loved hounds in centuries. Only the feline they pretend to understand because of its treacherousness. My queen loves me. What can you get from them? Nothing. They are incapable of love unless it is of their own dressing. Humans and felines; disgusting creatures” said The Doberman Guard.
“But they do love. Their empathy, it is returning. Don’t you feel it? They are different to the rest of them. They have empathy. I can feel it in the oils that wet my skin as their long fingers brush through my thick hair and the way the boy scratches behind my ears. There are more of them. There was an old man; he died yesterday morning; shivering in his own filth, left out in the cold by the armed ones. He shared his heart with me. The love he shared warmed his blood, but it wasn�
��t enough to heal his failing heart and diseased limbs. There are more, I’m telling you. A change is coming” said Ruff.
“The Bitch Queen said the humans were incapable of love. She said they traded their hearts for the sun so that they could live with their shadow and keep in the company of themselves” said The Doberman Guard.
“She wasn’t lying. They did. They traded their souls for their own reflection. They spent a century giving themselves away, but it’s different now. Or it’s becoming different. You have to help us. Come, let me show you. Lower your authority, come into the cell. They won’t rebel, trust me. They are capable of love. Do you want to feel loved?” asked Ruff.
The Doberman Guard thought for a moment. He could hear the shriek of love scratching at his inner voice; deafening his own will and empowering him into submission; the sound of The Queen Bitch ordering him to stand his ground.
He shook his head, clearing his mind and stepped forward towards the cell, his eyes glued to Donal and Eve, trying to read through their stare. As he stood at the bars, the young boy kept his sight to the Doberman but instead of glaring wide-eyed, he lowered his head, looking upwards and blinking long and slow, lowering his sight each time with the shutting of his eyes. The female human beside him did the same.
The Doberman Guard felt his defense slipping and the threat receding. It felt like the humans were caressing him with their eyes. The voice in his head grew louder as he moved to open the cell door.
“Stand your ground” it screamed into his thoughts, completely drowning out the sound of Ruff in a low voice welcoming him to ‘trust me and ‘open the doors’.
The violence in his head grew and he shook and he shook until behind him stood an army of hounds; all snarling and drooling on the cold concrete floor and at their centre; on her throne, carried upon the backs of boars sat The Bitch Queen.
“You dare defy me; to prove how you do not love me? Speak to me hound” she screamed at The Doberman Guard who was now hunched inwards carrying his tail between his legs and whimpering discontent in a pathetic empty shrill.
“Get back to your post and think of me adoringly and you; mutt, you and your disgusting humans; we will play a game,” said The Bitch Queen as the wild boars licked their lips hungrily.
Utopian Circus Page 12