understand their shyness.
The legend according to Plato is that Atlantis unsuccessfully attacked Athens, and then sank into the sea. The truth is different. The Atlanteans were thousands of years beyond Athens; they were working on rocketry, for God’s sake. But they were also a peaceful city-state; in Latin over the city gate is the inscription, “the just do no harm.” It was the Athenians who sought conquest, despite their disadvantage. Rather than be party to a slaughter (and likely, due to the allure of their vast wealth and technology, many slaughters yet to come), the Atlanteans decided to hide their island nation in the single place it would impossible for war to find it: beneath the sea. Their technology was decades beyond ours, even now; I’ve looked at schematics for gigantic machinery that I can scarcely fathom, but suffice to say they accomplished the impossible.
Of course, the Athenians were the “victors” according to history, so they wrote the books, and Atlantis became the defeated aggressor. I suspect that Plato, like Galileo after him, ran afoul of the ruling class of his day, and rather than a premature ending, decided to slightly alter the wording of his philosophical treatise, without altering its meaning. That history has lost its original context is unfortunate, but such a thing rarely survives the trials of time.
Atlantis always hoped a day might come when mankind would soften enough for them to return to the surface. It really pains these people to have science that could virtually end hunger and disease, but be unable to share it because our species would just find a way to engineer it into a superior method of murder. By their count, we’re nearly as backward today as the Athenians were thousands of years ago.
Their philosopher-king in the Platonic (or perhaps it was Socratic) mold is largely an executive- imposing the will of the people, rather than his own edicts. Their republic is far more directed, and is focused around weekly community meetings where direct votes are tallied. I mean, it’s honest to God democracy- no oligarchy of any kind.
They’ve harnessed thermal vents for electricity that provides for all of their power, and the architecture is, there aren’t words, really. The city is capped by a rocky-looking dome that keeps the city hidden from anyone who might look to scan it from the surface, but built into its crags are these giant, vibrant buildings that claw and scrape at the “skyline” in an architectural style that feels like it's influenced by Egypt, only if ancient Egypt were the dominant culture in the 24th century. Beneath the dome everything is lit by a brilliant blue glow.
It’s all so beautiful, so perfect. I remember college, and we spent nights staring up at the stars, talking about how wonderful seeing those ancient, fabled societies would be. I only ever wanted to share them with you; and when our marriage started to have trouble, I just buckled down, because I thought if anything could fix us, if anything could give us back that fire we had, it was sharing something like this.
But we can’t. Because you left me. And married someone else. Because of that, you’ll never see Atlantis. Our daughters will never see Atlantis. If you have any heart left, you won’t tell them what they’re missing. I’m only telling you because that girl I loved in college, I wanted her to know that it was real, that us and it and our dream, all of it, was possible, just waiting to be touched. I know we haven’t been the best of friends lately, but we were once, and I hope you can start dreaming again; it would be the saddest thing in the world to me if you couldn’t.
Don’t for an instant worry about me. It might all sound lonely, being the only surface man in a strange land. But I’ve met someone, too. Her name is Mera, and she’s beautiful; you’d probably say she’s too young for me (and might not be wrong about that). We’ll be married next month. She’s already pregnant, too; beautiful twin boys, healthy as clams. And I know I always told you your breasts were a nice size, perfect for my hands, and that they wouldn’t sag after you breastfed our children (though somehow they still did a little), but hers are larger, and firmer, and underwater, they’ll never sag. That might come off as bitter, and perhaps it is a little, but I only mean to say I’m happy. I wanted to be happy with you, but I’m happy without you anyway. And I do hope you find happiness without me. Truly.
- Peter
Jean,
I’ve been through every friend and associate in your ex-husband’s address book; even the higher-ups at his university think he’s vanished without a trace. I don’t like taking money from people who get no benefit off it. You want me to keep chasing geese it’s your dime, but he’s out of the state, likely out of US jurisdiction. I’d also raise the specter that this letter ain’t what it says; it’s him saying goodbye, on account of he’s leaving the world behind- hell, you’re a grown up girl- offing himself. You don’t pay me for advice, so this is on the house: let it go. Chasing bad blood gets you nothing but more of the same.
Maurie
P.S. Figured you’d want his letter back; maybe your girls will want it someday. Sorry about the coffee stain.
Table of Contents
An Iraqi Christmas Carol
I could never pronounce or spell his first name; his last name was Zakaria. He was a proud Muslim, but he liked that his name came from Zakarias, a messenger of Allah, and father of the Prophet Yahya, or as westerners know him: John the Baptist. There was a world of difference between him and us, a poor Iraqi translator and the American Army ostensibly here to give him democracy, but Zakaria was the kind of person who liked to emphasize what we had in common, instead of what made us different.
He was killed by an IED, planted just a little too far down an alley to be called roadside. We were just walking on foot, talking about something, his son, I think. And suddenly I wasn’t walking anymore; my body moved sluggishly, my ears hurt and I was having trouble focusing my eyes. I tried to get up from where I fell, but didn’t have the strength, so I crawled over to him. There wasn’t enough of his chest left to perform CPR on, and I took one deep breath in so I could sigh, only it made me realize the sharp pain in my own chest, the warm wetness spreading out from my wounds. I passed out.
Doctors patched me up, and when I came to, they told me that Zakaria saved my life; as close as I was to the explosion, if he hadn’t absorbed the most of it, the shrapnel that sliced into my chest would have cut my heart in half. I don’t have any delusions that he wanted to die for his country- or for me- or even that he thought that he might. But he did. I could have gotten a medical discharge, served out my tour on a safe little base in Kansas or Kentucky, but I couldn’t do that, not now.
His widow invited me to Christmas dinner, but I declined. Her husband, wittingly or not, saved my life; I wasn’t ready to look across a table and know how far I had left to go to pay that debt.
I still wasn’t in my right head, still hadn’t realized that she was putting on Christmas dinner for me, because it’s not like the holiday had any significance for her. Of course, if I’d been there, either none of what happened would have, or I’d have been dead and unable to do what I’m about to do.
Some militia men, claiming to be Mahdi Army, burst through Zakaria’s door. In life, her husband had been able to hide what he did for us- even the fact that he worked with us at all- but in death, his secrets came out. The Mahdi needed to make an example somewhere, and they heard he had a son. If the boy had been even a few years older, the example would have been written in blood on his mother’s doorstep, but his age gave them enough pause they took him with them, instead.
Which is why I have a ruck filled with magazines and grenades and a claymore or two, why I’m out this late, why I’m sneaking around the base perimeter. I hear the shuffle of feet and stop dead; they have me to rights, and from the tone of their voice they know it: “Where the hell do you think you're going?”
My muscles tense; if it was a ranking officer or an MP I wasn’t getting out any way but through them- but as I turned I recognized the voice, and then the build of the silhouette it belonged to, and deducing his partner was easy: Dartsman and Troy, the balance of my f
ire team. They’re not bad guys, and not stupid guys, they just get into conversations like:
“Seen too many John Wayne movies, I think.”
“Is that it? Going out to play lone sheriff cleaning up the town with pure grit?”
“This is the US Army, you don’t piss without a buddy watching your six.”
“Just make sure your buddy ain’t watching you piss.”
“We assumed you were just shocked and awed; if we knew you were fantasizing-”
Much as it pained me, I cut off their witty banter: “Okay. I get it. I’m an idiot for not inviting you idiots to go AWOL to do something potentially illegal.” At this, a third man moved in the darkness, and I was suddenly aware of a badge glinting off his chest in the dark.
This time it was definitely Dartsman who spoke up. “Right, this is Dawud, a policeman. He’s the one who told me about the kidnapping. He speaks broken enough English to translate, and when we’re done cracking skulls, he’ll make arrests.”
“Anything else he can tell us?”
Dawud’s eyes narrowed in the dark. “One man, he was recognized, by a neighbor. But to me, he will not talk. Instead, he takes down my name, for later, he says.” Dawud spit on the ground.
“Let’s go play bad
Selected Short Stories Featuring New Corpse Smell Page 3