Gemǣd
He coveted the gem. It consumed his thoughts. Polluted his dreams. When not anxious with yearning, he escaped to various daydreams of ownership. The drawer he would keep it in, the weight of it around his neck. But most importantly, what it could hold.
He tore his eyes away and surveyed the small but growing crowd. Each third morning the arbiter class gathered on the stone balcony of his temple and gave their tithings. The city was now a sprawling metropolis of commerce. White stone towers spiraled from the sea of gray rectangles that made up the dwellings, vomiting a sweet-smelling steam from their tops.
He took in a deep breath, taking in the sights and sounds from his position. A shudder of excitement ran through him. He was here. Years of study had finally begun to pay off. He was one step closer to The Omniscient. His new life was just beginning.
THE WORLD
Compression camps were strange and unsettling to witness but they brought The Omniscient sustenance. So they were necessary. Dizzyingly long rows of stone tablets sat, free-standing exactly the same distance apart. Each stone features a meticulously carved glyph, sometimes every stone in a camp is the same, sometimes you can’t find two alike.
Housed in reinforced stone buildings, simple architecture allowed execution at scale. Over half the city was compression camps now. Only a select few knew how they helped to empower The Omniscient, or how they were made. Most knew only that their cost was great. Lowt land was surrendered in mass swaths. All in service of The Omniscient.
THE NOBLE
He had first seen it on an unusually hazy morning, steam from the generator holdings turning the Trio Stars into a blotchy singular light-source. Nearly the size of his fist, it rested against the mirror-like metal of Super Alloy plate armor, a trillion made of a deep red. Nearly black. Its belly alive with the frantic movements of complex and potent Physik.
Held in a silver crown of thorns, it hung from a thick riveted chain of Super Alloy. He watched it sway and tip over the crest of the commander's cuirass as the hulking figure stepped forward.
She was tall, even for a commander. Her left hand rested on the hilt of her sword, her right gripped a helm, cradled under the arm. Her gauntlets were oversized, fanged fingers and spiked knuckles gave them the look of too many fingers. Her couters and pauldrons were equally oversized, featuring exquisite embellishments in the metal.
It was odd to see such a fragile face emerge from an unnatural figure. A delicate-looking egg sat atop hulking force, he thought. Hollowed eyes and sunken cheeks told the story of someone who no longer slept. Her head was clean-shaven, as all premier commanders were, revealing a Krux on her forehead.
THE COMMANDER
She watched the Trio rise from the Scriptus floor of the capital building. Her head ached, a dull pounding coming from the port fashioned at the center of her skull. The Krux, an ordainment handed down by the Confessors, was a small Super Alloy receptor. It was the best way to commune with The Omniscient if you were not a Confessor, though their methods were unclear, so to many it was the only conceivable way.
She massaged her temples, careful not to disturb the cable connecting her to the Confessors’ machine. She no longer focused on her message to The Omniscient during scripturing, instead, she let her mind wander, it was the only way she could feel some form of rest.
The cable was woven alloy but sometimes she swore she could see bulges of liquid pass through, like a snake swallowing its latest meal. The machine draws energy. And it also draws specificity. Memories and judgments and fears. The Omniscient must receive the precise texture of who she is, she was told, ever generic devotion.
Soon, she would be invited to talk to The Omniscient. She just needed to extract enough Physik. It could be any day now. They had told her at her weakest point The Omniscient would know their fortitude. With how she was feeling, it could be later this very morning.
THE WORLD
Communification began. The sound of millions of stone tablets shaking in their shallow soil beds began to hum. A sound felt more than heard. Through the ground, a low resonant pressure. It blurred the vision ever so slightly. Made the mouth itch. By the time the doors of the Scriptus opened, the sound had settled into the bones of the building itself.
The Lowt filled the rear in silence, pressing together along the stone walls, standing as they would stand for the duration. No seating was provided and none was expected. The Middling class took the benches. Rows of pale stone, worn smooth by generations of the Almost-Arrived. The Arbiters stood at the front along a raised platform of dark stone, facing the congregation with the patient stillness of those who had done this for eons. The commander stood among them, near the center. A gem necklace of deep red hung from her neck.
THE NOBLE
He closed his eyes and let the vibrations consume him. His mind wandered.
He thought of the gem at first. Then, a face. His mind? Or The Omniscient? One was playing tricks. He grimaced.
Maret had worked beside him for three years before he understood what she was.
She was brilliant in the way that certain people are brilliant without knowing it, the way that made them generous with what they had because they didn't understand its value. She talked through her ideas aloud, in the open, the way someone might hum to themselves. She had not yet learned that ideas were currency, that rooms had ears, that the person nodding along might be doing arithmetic.
He had listened for two years before he acted. He told himself the patience was kindness, that he was simply waiting to see if she would do something with it herself. She hadn't moved quickly enough. That was her failure, not his.
The Arbiter who received his proposal had looked at him with new eyes afterward. He remembered that look. The slight recalibration of how much space they gave him in a room. He had told himself that was what mattered, that recognition was the only currency that compounded.
He saw Maret once more, briefly, from across a courtyard. She was still Lowt. She looked the same. He had expected her to look diminished somehow, expected the transfer of her standing to show on her the way a wound shows, but she just looked like herself. Carrying books and scrolls, moving with purpose toward something that had nothing to do with him.
He had understood then that he had not climbed out of anything. He had simply climbed into something.
THE WORLD
The prostration came without announcement. Every person in the room descended at once, Lowt, Middling and Arbiter alike. Foreheads to the floor, palms flat beside their heads. The sound of it somehow cut through the hum. A startling yet soft clap of flesh and stone.
There they remained until the Confessor emerged. Standing slowly, an unnatural motion, floating to full height. A robe woven with strands of threadlike Super Alloy the figure almost sparkled in the fogged light of the Trios. The hood hung low over its face, the sleeves long covered its hands and feet. The Arbiter to the right, raised his hands up from the floor and cupped them, waiting to receive. The cloaked hands of the Arbiter lowered and the exchange was complete.
Passed from the rear of the arbiter platform forward, hand to hand along the row, each person receiving it with both palms open and held flat, lowering their head over it for a moment before passing it on. It was a small thing, a sliver of Super Alloy no larger than a finger, polished to a mirror finish. They touched the object to their foreheads, a faint metal click could be heard. And the vibrations reacted, rising in intensity for a moment before returning to their consistent hum. But the faces that lifted afterward were different from the faces that had descended. Looser somehow, briefly unburdened.
When it reached the commander she took longer than the others. Her palms were open and her head was bowed. Finally, she passed it on. Her expression had not loosened. If anything it had set harder, like a decision being made.
THE COMMANDER
Her Krux always ached during prostration. A deep interior pressure, like something being slowly wrung. She had learned not to fight it but to embrace it. You gave what you had, completely and each time you hoped, it could be enough.
Tonight the pressure felt familiar but there was something else. She noticed it cautiously. A warmth moving outward from her forehead, almost the opposite of pain, spreading down her neck, across her shoulders into her chest. Her thoughts moved from pouring all of her living will into the Relic as her system panicked with the idea of new joy.
She could feel the tablets hum coming from within and she understood distantly that her hands were no longer cold and her knees were no longer hurting and all the accumulated exhaustion of the past months was lifting from her like the smog from the tablets themselves. She felt light. Her armor weighed nothing somehow. She opened her eyes to see a mailed wrist, one hand still holding the relic to her Krux, the other now gripping her gem tightly. She yelped out in joy. All of her breath went with the sound.
The floor came up to meet her. She didn't feel the impact. She didn't feel her helm strike stone and clatter away. Or her chain pull taut and snap. Or the sound her plate-armor made. She didn't feel the Confessor's hands grasping the relic away. She didn't feel the crowd of Arbiters and Middlings rushing inward.
She was somewhere very quiet and very warm. Where she believed completely, that she had finally been heard. The Omniscient had heard her.
THE NOBLE
His daydreams were cut short. A crash of war. That’s what it had sounded like. He opened his eyes to see the Commander lying on the ground, her helm skittering away. The Confessor turned toward her. The Arbiters kneeling on either side moved their heads, taking nervous peeks, trying to determine what had happened and what to do. That’s when he saw it, Running like a pinwheel on the stone, a deep red gem wrapped in Super Alloy thorns tumbled towards the Middlings. He began to move. And many moved with him. He had undone a spell of terror and unleashed one of chaos. The Confessor bent over the Commander now, as Arbiters began crawling towards them while the Middlings rushed in to offer, respectfully, help if needed.
No one took notice of the newest attendee trip over the feet of another. He made a slow effort of getting to his feet, dusting himself off. But there was no dust on these stone floors. His trip was no accident. In the pocket of his robes sat a gem necklace of deep red.
THE WORLD
A Confessor’s presence makes most uneasy. Their power is another thing entirely. The arms of its dazzling robe rose to silence the crowd. It then nodded, the hood making a faint jingle as hundreds of links shifted.
The arbiters closest to her descended. They moved with practiced efficiency and without a sound. A stretcher appeared from behind the platform. She was lifted in one coordinated motion and carried from the platform through the side door, four arbiters bearing her weight. A gaunt face slack and withered, eyes open mouth agape. A Middling man watched her and knew he had climbed into greatness.
THE COMMANDER
She had always worn her hair long. It was the first thing they took. At first the pieces hit her shoulders, a soft thudding weight. Then finer hairs tickled her neck and nose. When she tried to ignore the hair she could only focus on the scrape of the blade against her scalp. She had told herself she wouldn't cry. She hadn't. She had that victory.
They ushered her into the next chamber. A small frail figure stood next to a stone table. Many small fires burned around the room.
The instrument was neither cold nor warm, just a pressure. And then tension, an unnatural strength was holding her head still. Eyes open, she focused on the wall and thought about The Omniscient, about what she would ask first, about how it would feel to finally be heard by something that could never be misunderstood. Then there was pain.
Incomparable. All-consuming. As if her skull had crushed down to the pinpoint on her forehead. She cried. And cried. The Omniscient would know her soon. The cost had been necessary. It had all been necessary. Without a Krux you could never hope to communicate with The Omniscient.
THE NOBLE
He watched the Confessors manage the situation with their characteristic absence of urgency.
Watched the arbiter class reassemble itself on the platform with the careful performance of people demonstrating that nothing was wrong.
The ceremony resumed. He knelt when the others knelt. He pressed his forehead to the stone with everyone else and felt the tablets climb to their peak and felt nothing he could name, just pressure and heat and the hard floor and the gem against his ribs. When it ended, he filed out with the Lowt, moving against the class current, head down. Nobody stopped him. Nobody looked at him. He was Middling and therefore invisible to everyone above him and beneath notice to everyone below and he understood for the first time that this was useful.
The steam from the Generator Holdings swallowed him before he reached the first corner.
He didn't run. He had learned from Maret, from watching what happened to people who moved through rooms like they were escaping them, that stillness was its own disguise. He walked at the pace of someone with somewhere reasonable to be and kept his face blank.
THE WORLD
An unseen door slammed shut and with that the stretcher was gone. The room was still frozen. Faint clicks of Super Alloy threads cut through silence as Arbiter raised its hands, still clasped together beneath the large sleeves.The tablets humming resumed, climbing more aggressively this time. The congregation as one, bent into prostration. Foreheads to stone. His gaze moved along the line of arbiters with unhurried patience. It stopped in front of a Soldier, much younger than the Commander. His armor was plain but well crafted. At his hip hung a sword with a sapphire set into the hilt, small and sparkling blue, catching the overhead light without any of the interior movement of the commander's gem. The Confessor settled in front of him, floating just a few inches closer. The Soldier lifted his chin, nervously peeking upward to confirm the shadow. He began to silently weep. He rose to one knee, though his eyes stayed low and drew his sword. Gingerly he gripped the blade as he turned the hilt outward. Its point mere millimeters from the seam of his plackart. The confessor lowered the small stone until it tapped against the pommel.
He wept the way people weep when they have forgotten how. His whole body was involved in it. The sliver of Super Alloy shook in his open palms. The sapphire in his sword hilt caught the light and held it and seemed to deepen, the blue going darker and more interior, as if something inside it was paying very close attention. Nobody moved. Nobody looked away.
THE COMMANDER
She came back to herself slowly. Slowly opening her eyes, she blinked the crust away. Ceiling first. Stone, vaulted, familiar. Then the cot beneath her, narrow and institutional, the kind of surface designed for function rather than comfort. A room she recognized as one of the anterooms behind the Scriptus floor, used for storage mostly, smelling of old cloth and Super Alloy polish.
The Confessor was there. Sitting. It’s hood low, yet she still felt eyes on her. A younger attendant stood near the door with the rigid posture of someone trying to look useful.
She tried to sit up. The room tilted catastrophically. She lowered herself back down. Pulled in deep breaths while staring at the ceiling and tried to calm herself.
The ceremony, she thought.
She turned toward the Confessor. Her forehead wet with sweat, blurring her vision, itching her lips. She asked about her jewel. There was an attempt to speak calmly though her voice shook. Barely more than a whisper.
THE NOBLE
He made it just two streets before he broke.
The alley was narrow and dark. He pressed his back against the stone as both hands rose over his mouth. He muffled a sound he hadn't made since childhood. A squeak. A pure physical expression. He stood there shaking. Letting the adrenaline drain away to leave nothing but the sickly sweet glee of taking something without working for it. Just two streets from the Scriptus floor he knew The Omniscient was wrapped in his robes.
The broken chain made a series of satisfying noises as he extracted the prize from fabric. It felt heavy in his hand but he liked that. A Super Alloy crown looked dangerously sharp, the jewels innards looked alive. What questions could one ask The Omniscient? His stomach sank.
He had no Krux…
The gem warmed, faint but immediately recognizable as foreign. He stared at the gem. He turned it over in his hand and then in his mind, looking for the specific shape of it. Then a voice echoed through his scattered thoughts.
He nodded to the soundless voice, tucked the gem away and walked at the pace of someone with somewhere entirely unreasonable to be.
THE COMMANDER
They had offered her a litter. She declined. She walked out of the anteroom and into the corridor alone.
The Scriptus floor was empty. The ceremony was over. The tablets, silent. The Trio hung above, a blotchy warmth turned oppressive. She pawed her chest, taloned mail gauntlets seeking reprieve. It found none.
The mind loves stimulation. Good and bad. It gave her memories, flashes of treasured moments, forgotten agonies and everything in between. What will you say to The Omniscient is so painfully different than what would you say to The Omniscient. The panic of it all was still there, coming in massive waves. And when it wasn’t crashing on the rocks of the psyche there was an anger, long dormant but powerful.
Just to escape the cold sweats of panic, she stoked the fires. Exhaustion and vulnerability make great fuel. Plate creaked and clanked as agitation and anger were exercised through awkward movements. She never heard the footsteps coming towards her.
THE WORLD
An armored commander held a Middling man pinned against the outer wall of the barracks quarter. Lowt on the street adjust their routes without stopping, averting their eyes. The Trio burned at their height. A sword was drawn.
He had come racing around the corner, a red gem in his hands. Hushed but fevered muttering barely audible over the thuds of his worn leather shoes. He had run directly into her. He crumpled against the platemail, a soft fleshy thud. But the gem also made a noise. A familiar screech as the alloy thorns came in contact with armor. Clumsy surprise turned to shock and panic as her eyes darted looking for evidence of what she heard.
He landed hard on the stone floor, his arms behind him. The jewel spun awkwardly on its alloy thorns. He had no thoughts, his mind was a swirl of pain and shock, and yet he half stood and lunged for the gem. In an instant. As if he had never fallen. But she was there.
She met his lunge with her own, but she was not after the gem. Her mailed fists grabbed the furls of robe and skin. She rushed him back to the stone wall. She loved the sound his back made against the stone. A new cut slapped onto the butcher’s block. Through gritted teeth she asked him the only question her mind could repeat.
“Where did you get this gem?”
He looked into her eyes, his widening as he recognized who he was pinned by for the first time. He let the words fall out as they came to him. “The Omniscient. I am talking to The Omniscient.”
THE NOBLE
The Omniscient’s voice was calm, reassuring, like warm honey. It spoke to him of a long awaited reward. It spoke to him of the suffering and what it had earned. It spoke of a new life, where he could lend his talents to those closest to The Omniscient. and in turn he would see riches he had never thought possible. It spoke to him of Command barracks. That’s where he must go now.
He told her what it had said. Every detail. More for himself than her. Because in a way, to tell another was to make it real. He had felt her grip loosen. Her eyes streamed tears and as he noticed, he realized so did his. She slowly stepped backwards, her eyes never leaving him. She knelt and delicately plucked the gem from its alloy case. He flinched, worried she meant to destroy it. But stopped when she began to unsheath her blade. She touched the stone to her Krux. Eyes rolling back in her head.
He wondered what he should do. He couldn’t leave. He would never leave the gem again. But dying was leaving the gem too. He wouldn’t die. Not without the gem. He would wait for his next opportunity to get the gem back.
Patience had a habit of paying off for him. As he calmed himself with this logic she lowered her hand, her eyes rolled back, and her body became less rigid. Her shoulders sank, her chin fell to her chest and her legs buckled slightly. For a brief moment he thought she might collapse again. But she did not. She began to scream. A haunted hollow scream and drew her sword.
THE COMMANDER
Everything he had said to her was what she had wanted to hear. But not from him. How would he know what her Physik contained? One's relationship with The Omniscient is intimately private. The Gems, when Consecrated are conduits, a two-way channel. Yet without a Krux, without his own She turned that thought over.
The Omniscient had not been able to realize it was not her.
She touched the gem to her Krux and felt the familiar warmth ignite and closed her eyes and listened and what she heard was so perfectly shaped to the wound she was carrying in that exact moment that she could not breathe. It knew. It knew the specific texture of her devastation. It knew what she needed to hear and it told her and it was true, it was all true, every word of it was precisely and completely true.
That was when she understood.
It was true because she had built it. Every Physik extraction, every morning of prostration, she had been constructing the voice. Her deepest fears, her most private hopes, all of it drawn out through the cable, from her Krux, powered by the tablets and compressed into stone until what spoke back at to was so fluent in the language of her own mind that she had mistaken it for her own creator. The Omniscient had not failed to recognize the thief. The Omniscient had never known her at all.
She let the gem fall from her Krux. A howl left her that felt inhuman. She drew her blade, raised it and brought it down. The gem shattered.A small pool of faintly luminous liquid leaked out. It pulsed twice, gently, like something finishing a thought.
THE NOBLE
At first he did not move toward the fragments. He had told himself he would wait. That patience paid. That another opportunity would come. He wanted to feel humbled by this. He tried it on. It didn't fit.
What he did instead, watching the last light go out of the pool, was acknowledge his hunger. Not the shallow covetous hunger he had carried through the ceremony. This was something deeper. Something that had been waiting underneath the wanting of the gem the way a root system waits beneath a single flower. The gem had given him a taste and now his desires knew what it was and it would not unknow it.
He crawled forward still huddled over and studied the Physik. He had spoken to The Omniscient. It had been assembled from the wrong materials and it had not known his name. But he had spoken to The Omniscient. When he shares his wishes The Omniscient will already know him. He needed his own gem.
THE WORLD
A commander knelt over a scattering of red fragments on the stone floor. Beside her a Middling man slumps against the wall, watching. Lowt on the street move around them without stopping. The compression camps hum at their low frequency. The generator holdings cough out smoke. The Trio burns through the constant steam, shading everything with the same washed white. The afternoon Consecration Call sounds. The doors to the barracks open and soldiers pour out, eager to give their tithe. Two figures kneeling over the fragments are lost in the swarming crowd. Before the final call blares out, the rush thins to reveal the streets empty, save for the scattered fragments of a deep red and a chain of thorned alloy. For everyone had gone to watch the Confessors connect another soul to The Omniscient.
The Console
“Any better?”
“Can’t say. Take a look.”
There they were, his entire world. Well... for the moment.
From their first breath to the one they just took he watched. Well...he or Dara always watched. You have to take breaks sometimes.
They had been arguing again, he could see it in their body language. One was cross-legged facing their partner, the other lying in bed staring into the ceiling as if they knew he was watching from above.
“This goddamn career,” he thought. “It was the cause of all the problems. Everything about it was complicated. Floundering purpose, 60 hour weeks… but the real egg to crack is their goddamn connection between job performance and self-worth. Imagine if I viewed this situation as a reflection of me?”
He snorted aloud.
Dara shot him a look. Her head cocked to one side. Mostly curiosity but he saw a bit of impatience creeping in. She wasn’t ecstatic about how their conversation went. Damn, he missed something juicy.
“These jobs, can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Am I right?”
She gave a tight lipped smile, exasperated agreement, and went back to work.
He pulled open the access screens to current emotions.
“Fuck, it’s getting worse.”
They weren’t close to resolving anything. From surface to core there was tension and these late night skirmishes were only making things worse. He opened a new viewport and scanned through their timeline. He already knew what happened but lately he liked to remind himself that things were once good.
They had met at a trivia night. Complete strangers who ended up taking their teams to finals. The competition only magnified their attraction to one another. He had been so excited to watch those moments, nothing beats the unique starting point of deep connection.
He knew a relationship would be hard for them. His charge had been through so much. Escaping home, building a life, the trials and tribulations that come with being without home. Physically and emotionally. He had done what he could when he could but the console isn’t magic. His lip twitched at that. He chided himself and returned to watching the scene unfold.
The fight has lost steam but it’s not relief they feel, it’s anxiety squirming its way around uncomfortability, wrapped in insecurity. His charge is muttering something to himself, his lips barely moving.
A button on the console flashes red. He hits it instantly. A warm glow emanates from the console as a ding resounds in the room.
Eyes open, strength flooding in from seemingly nowhere. They start to talk and though they are slow to warm he can tell that things are turning around. It will be some time before he can use the button again.
* * *
They are asleep now. The console lowers it light. He looks up and smiles at Dara. She is standing on the other side of the console, leaning against her control board, her arms are taught with tension but her shoulders slumped, defeated.
“They don’t work together, Uriel. This constant tension is draining away precious time. Hell, it’s almost as bad as when he was smoking those wretched things.”
A tea cup appeared as she raised her hand to her mouth. She finished her sip and sighed. A deep exasperated sigh. An actor's sigh.
“They need each other. You will see. Just give it time.”
He knew that wasn’t true. Things were rocky on this side of the console. A divorce now? It could happen.
* * *
They are fragile. He knew that. They all have been. This is not his first charge. Hardly. But the console does not allow control. It is a delicate balance of curating moments. It is hardly static. He had worked that console for this one for nearly twenty five years before they met their current partner, and just like that his console room merged with Dara’s. Two watching two.
He was back in his quarters now. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he tried to keep his memories vibrant. The last quarter century had been interesting. Things were changing so fast in that world. He couldn’t tell if humans were spiraling or their world was simply spinning too fast.
* * *
The white walls glow pink. The red light is flashing. He pulls back the glass case and presses the button.
He can’t help himself. He smiles big. Perfect teeth.
But there is no ding. No warmth. He looks up confused. On the other side of the console Dara is staring at her button. It is pulsing red. She presses it. The ding is faint from where he stands but it echoes throughout their room as if it boomed.
He turns back to the console. What will this do?
He hears music...Metallica. Something so utterly mundane. The volume climbs. The driver hits every drum fill on the steering wheel with his fingers. Bangs his head to the rhythm of the riff. It’s a slow part of the song. He doesn’t notice the light has gone red. His car never stops. Neither does the bus. There is a flash of light on the console screen. Then black.
“I will miss working with you Dara.” Uriel sighs.
“I’ll miss it too.”
He knew she was lying.
He closes the view ports and signs out of the console. He takes one last look at the room he has shared with her for the last decade before stepping through the sliding door. He hears the familiar hiss and turns. But just like last time, like everytime a life ends, the door is now gone. He is in a new room. It’s all white and doorless, with a console sitting in the center, like every room before it.
He powers on the console. A newborn is crying. Their mother cradles them close. She radiates warmth.
He smiled down at the console screen.
“Welcome to the world little one, let us hope it does not crush you.”
Count the Stars
It was just a one room shack, nothing special, but better than anything I ever lived in. The first five steps were fine, I was looking at my feet as they walked me in, arms held behind my back. Then my boots began to push into dark slippery dirt, and I smelled blood. I heard gags from behind me and I looked to my left before I looked forward. I wanted to see their faces. I wanted to ready myself for what they thought I done.
The sheriff’s eyes were unmoving, looking straight ahead. His jaw clenched, tightening up his whole face, like he had gone and tried to eat a lemon whole. The deputy wasn’t ready though, he hadn’t been with the sheriff when discovered this. Me and him were the same in that way, it was our first time walking into this hell. He was on his hands and knees heavin something fierce, no mess yet though, but he was still at it. I tore my eyes away from the pair, and looked back to my boots. That gnawing pit of worry in my stomach started to twist and turn, getting that feeling like when I hadn’t relieved myself in a long while. I began to believe that I was standing in blood.
I been on this earth thirty eight years and I ain’t never seen anything like it, and I doubt I ever will again. She was young, young enough to be considered beautiful by a grown man but she... she was just starting out on life. My mind screamed at my eyes to look away but eyes grow greedy when they see something they ain’t never seen before. They gotta see everything they can before they get scolded. She had no clothes, lying on that straw mattress all splayed out. Didn’t even look human, not with that suit of red and brown on. It was dried blood that covered nearly every piece of skin, only her feet showed the chalk white color of death. My greedy eyes were drawn to the deep red line cross her neck, a second mouf, it had talked an awful lot of blood. Little lines from a blade dotted her chest and arms, the rough handiwork of a violent man. I know I am not that man. Her eyes were gone, only black pits, where shadow and gore made out to be a haunting nothingness.
That’s what bothered me the most, he had taken her eyes. I began to feel faint. Leaning forward against the sheriff’s grip, I was just thankful he was there to keep me from putting my knees in that poor girls blood that soaked the dirt.
I done went numb, like some kind of dream, like my brain gone and switched off without me giving it permission to. They took me back to the cell, asked me if I was ready to confess. I could only shake my head, trying clear my head of that terrible thing I seent. That poor girl was all I could think of. Every time I clothes my eyes I see the holes were hers once was. I couldn’t of formed a good thought to save my life but even if I was thinkin clearly, I wouldn’t much care to speak round people. I wanted to say I was innocent, scream it, but I couldn’t. I never been able to say nothing most times. It weren’t no use, the men had blind justice in their eyes, I could see the hate burning there. Folks eyes will tell all you want to know bout what they thinking.
It’s my mouth. I can’t blame em, I still ain’t comfortable with it neither and I’ve had for thirty eight years. A harelips what they call it, on account of that gap down from my nose resembles a hares face, though people don’t mind hares so the name can’t fit the problem that well. It makes it hard to speak, and I spit an awful lot when I do. My front teeth are always showing, I make this constant offputting grin though I don’t mean to. It robs me of a real smile but I like to think people smile more genuine in their eyes. Maybe I say that cause that’s how I tend read people. I don’t know. But I do know that poor girl wasn’t none too fond of my mouf.
She was pacing the right side of the bar, cleaning glasses and giving patrons wild looks, asking simple questions in a low hushed voice, she knew her job well. She was easy on the eyes, though as I think back my pesky mind won’t picture her before the evil, only her coated in that layer of dried blood. My stomach grows sick everytime I close my eyes now. I sat off on the opposite side of the room, enjoying my drink and the piano that played in the corner. I had only been in town for two days and two nights, running cattle through with my employer. I had a room upstairs and enjoyed the drink when the day was done. I thought it was a nice time in my life, hadn’t gone one comment yet on my mouf. I wore my collar high and hat low, to avoid stares, but there ain’t nothing I can do beyond wearing a mask to hide it.
I drift off with some drink in me, helps me relax. I suppose this time I shoulda watched where my greedy eyes went. I was watching without really watching but I had been looking in her direction too long. She grew uncomfortable. My lopsided grin, made only worse when I tried to actually smile in forgiveness when I realized I was starin, did little to reassure her that I meant no harm. She had a quick word with the bartender and before I knew it I was asked to go upstairs to my room. Terse words with a firm hand on my arm. I shrugged him off and in with my head down and hand over my mouf I muttered I would leave for a walk. My hand is always over my mouf when I speak, on account of the drool I can’t control. When those men had my hands behind my back I felt more naked than if they taken my clothes.
Out the doors I went. The hot stale air that stank of men and beer was left behind and I took a deep breath through my nose. The saloon sat at the head of the town, with one street coming right out its swingin doors. Stores and shops were on either side, closed now for the night. Their owners lived on the second floors, windows flickerin with life. A strange sight it was, a town of floating houses. The nights fog set in and the warm wood nestled in it was painted white. It looked like heaven but I had to leave it. I walked two miles down the middle of the dirt street until I got to our rented cattle field. Counted the calves, the horses and once satisfied I lay on the soft grass and began counting the stars. I fell asleep in that field, as peaceful as you like. Weren’t the same waking up, no sir it was not.
She had been murdered in that still summer night. Raped and killed they said, by that stranger with an evil grin. It must have been just minutes before the sun was gonna announce the morn when the sheriff and his deputy grabbed me. They tied my hands behind my back, pulling tight, letting me know the rope was not there just to subdue me. Deputy couldn’t help but be a bit rough with me, can’t blame the man, justice is an emotional thing. I didn’t let it get to me, I heard them words to many times before.
They marched me to the only cell they had, just two bunks and a bucket inside. The locked me in, never bothered to untie my hands though. They began leading in an array of the town’s peoples. The bartender came in and after a hushed discussion followed by some pointing and feverish nods he left. He was quickly followed by the piano player and even a woman I had simply walked by on the way to the field the night before. My employer was the last to walk in. I tried to read his eyes, to show him mine, but he turned from me. I heard him say I never returned to my room that night. Heard him say I never talked much. Heard him say I have a devil's grin. Satisfied with their evidence them two lawman took me outta the cell and led me to that horror I told you about.
They are screaming for me now. Screaming how I killed her. Raped her. I look out at the crowd and try to see what they are feeling, I look to their eyes, it’s what I am good at. God had to give me some gift since he gone and gave me this smile. All men are created equal they said, right? Or maybe... maybe it is the destiny of some men to suffer so others can go on to do great things. Jesus was that way wasn’t he? I don’t know, but then again we ain’t supposed to.
The deputy steps forward across the wooden stage and puts the rope round my neck. He works the knot as tight as the bindings keepin my hands together, I can’t blame him. He begins reading my crimes and I reckon that Pontius Pilate musta looked an awful lot like this man. Well if he is Pilate in this play, well then that makes me Jesus himself. I smile at the thought, I couldn’t help myself. The crowd don’t like that none. I know what it looks like when I smile. Only if they would bother to look at my eyes, they would know. Guess not everyone got a gift like I do.
Some are startin to throw rocks. Some of them rocks are startin to land. I try to pull my lips tight shut, hide my teeth. It never works, just makes some drool start to creep its way out. I bend my shoulders forward, trying to block what I can. I don’t blame them, I know what it looks like when I smile, it ain’t pretty. I snatch glance away from my boots, out into the sun. Heads silhouetted by the glow. Halos on each head. Dust floats behind only leaving the shadows of the town. The rotten wood creaks with movement to my left and I look back down.
The sheriff approaches with a black bag and I relax. I couldn’t say anything that matters now and I don’t intend to get stoned to death. The rocks stop hitting me, they know what’s coming as much as I do. As it slides over my head and rests on my shoulders I relax my mouf, the dark wool is the only blessing the good Lord seems fit to give me. It evens help to muffle the crowd, a general hum of that can barely be distinguished.
That poor girl and I, we are one in the same, two of God’s innocents’ sentenced death for the way we look. But some must suffer for others to do great things, I tell myself. I am like Jesus, yet they think me the leper.
I wonder if God sees a man’s smile in his eyes instead of his mouf.
An Enormity On the Hill
The doors stay open most of the day, letting a fresh breeze come through. A toothless mouth waiting for me to feed it more livestock. Haven’t in years, though. Those fifty-six animals are my livelihood now. When we built it, it was majestic. A structure that surely made our cabin envious. Two hay lofts on either side of the main hall, with fenced-in quarters below. The barn held a draft, yet always felt warm, no matter the season; fifty-six bodies will do that. Pigs on the right, cows on the left. Everything had its place. Tools on the far wall, shovels, hoes, axes, and pitchforks- an array of what it takes to run this place. Everything I have ever owned has a place here; you can’t run a farm if you aren’t organized.
When I wake, I walk to the kitchen. I pass the empty rooms. It’s quiet. The heat's on, but it feels cold. I make my coffee on the stove. Rich black in a tin mug. I sit on the porch and watch the sunrise. I wait for it to get to the perfect spot. You see, between orange and yellow there is a gold, and that warmth is the closest thing to the glow of love.
I pull open the heavy doors, bathing the dirt floors and red walls in golden light. I am greeted by the warmth fifty-six bodies create, the stench, the noise. I close my eyes and take it in. The beauty of a barn is that you can feel your work in its life. The lives of my fifty-six. There is not a thing I own in this world that does not have a place here. But there are some things you just can’t own.
The Sun & Moon
One hundred and forty-four strokes to finish it’s face. She had counted it enough times aloud to know. There was just enough paint on the pallet for one clock at a time lest it harden and dry. She had wasted paint that way enough times to know. A meticulous process.
For $15 a week nearly 4,000 clocks were painted by hand. That is 240 hours. That is 16,000 dots of paint, 223 licks of the brush, 2,052,000 individual strokes. She was 14 when she began working at the factory. Today was her birthday. She was 16.
A steady hand kept her safe from mistakes but it was a love for painting that kept her sane. She often wondered what she could create. Beyond the four dots of color. The one hundred and forty-four strokes. Metal tables stretched across the stone floor, creating aisles to allow workers to walk through with carts full of the faceless. A worn wooden stool and a milky bulb above her station were all she could call her own at work, but the light was enough and she fit comfortably in the grooves of the seat.
They had given her one brush and she had rejoiced. A tan wooden stalk topped with a metal ring, a hilt for the blade. Bristles, stiff and firm could be tamed by water, and quality that kept if you cared for the tool. It was just the right size to detail the face of a clock, if one was careful. Mistakes did not bode well for a worker. An error on one doll could result in the withholding of a month’s pay. That was $45 gone. That was 240 hours. That is 16,000 dots of paint, 223 licks of the brush, 2,052,000 individual strokes. For nothing.
The street noise woke her before her grandfather ever could. She never lingered in bed, the view of a sunrise was a treat far greater than a few minutes of sleep. There was already a kettle of coffee warming over the fire, just like every morning. She ignored the basket of cheddar biscuits her grandmother had baked last night. A special treat for her birthday. She struggled to eat lately, her jaw was either a dull ache or aflame.
She poured a small cup and smiled, it warmed her hands and soothed her head. She looked over to where her grandparents slept. Their cot was only slightly larger than hers yet they slept shoulder to shoulder. They would wake soon.
She added a pinch of salt to the steaming porcelain mouth and walked through the wooden door, out into the first showing of daylight. Dried dirt ontop of stone crunched with each step but she only looked upwards. Her steps slow and determined. She was sore often now, and her legs felt stiff and heavy. She thought little of it.
The moon did not easily give up its domain. It did not rise nor did it fall. It simply remained until the sun chased it away. She loved this battle, for she knew the moon was patient. The sun would leave and it would be there as it always was. Indifferent to opposition.
She wanted to paint. With far more than four colors and so much more than the stoic faces of clocks. She had started working when her grandmother was unable. Her education was brisk and lean. Nothing was untouched by life experience, not the teachings of a soldier to his granddaughter. Unlike her love for painting. An unbridled limitless fantasy in which she took her training and practice and put color to canvas. But there was no room for dreams during the day. They were unwanted.
But she knew things would change. She had received nearly $990 from the factory in total. Most had gone to helping her grandparents buy food, clothing, and care. But she had kept some aside. Saved some to keep her dream alive. She had $12. It sat tightly rolled and banded in her jacket pocket. She could buy an easel, canvas, and a brush of her own. Colors that she had never even imagined. She would become known for her paintings, she could finish with the faceless. But first she would paint her grandparents. To thank them. To remember them.
The worn wooden fence trailed its way nearly a mile down the road before it stopped. Rotten and decayed wood crumbled away to join the soil. She stared beyond it, to the tall grass that embraced her path, the opaque water that sat placid in the ditch. She looked to the splotch of paint that bled into the pale gray. Coating her and everything else in orange. The dream was hiding just behind. She breathed deeply and imagined the scene as if made from her own hand. The perfect amount of strokes that lift life from the colors.
Her jaw pulsed with each step. Soon earth gave way to rock and pavement beneath her feet as she neared closer to the warehouse. An immense block, pale creamy white mixed with the black and gray of pollution. Metal roofing with plastic sheeting to protect from leaks. It smelled of rust and paint. She liked the smell. She pushed open the heavy metal doors and slipped in. She soundlessly strode to her seat and began preparing for her first face.
She traced the number 16 on her hand with her clean brush. She smiled. But her mouth didn’t. The swelling was much worse today. The pain began to subside as her face went numb.
She had finished the numbers of faceless number 27 when things went wrong. She was soaked with sweat, she had tasted blood. She began to panic. The stool crashed to the floor and she tumbled backwards without a sound. Hands clutching her cheeks and head tucked to her chest. She vomited. Two teeth came with it.
Fellow workers rushed to her side, crying out questions and concern, but she refused to speak. She couldn’t speak. The pain was unbearable and her mind could only focus on preparation for each new pulse of pain. She blacked out.
The women stood around her speaking quickly in hushed tones. She lay there for hours before the emergency services arrived.
White. Her dress, sheets. The walls, the ceiling. She was in a room of white. She closed her eyes again. Black was easier on the pain in her head.
“Hello”
She opened her eyes.
“My name is Doctor Williams. Can you hear me?”
His teeth were as white as the lab coat he wore. A nightmare or blank canvas. She nodded.
“You arrived here nearly 48 hours ago. I have been treating you for what I believe now to be radium poisoning. I ned you answer some questions for me. Just yes or no. Please not or shake your head. Do not try to speak. Understand?”
She nodded again.
“Have you been feeling weak, your limbs heavy?”
She frowned. After a few seconds her brow knitted and her jaw clenched, she saw stars. Her arms and legs were lead. She nodded.
“Your appetite?”
She breathed and closed her eyes. She tasted blood again. The nausea was intense. She frowned. She began to cry.
The man in the white coat sat on the white bed against the white wall. Nearly disappearing completely. He placed a hand on her shoulder. She saw only white in the blur of tears.
“You have an ulcer in your mouth. A sore. I am sure it has caused you pain. But what is most concerning is your jaw. The bone has weakened. Please do not attempt to speak. Rest is most important now.”
She hung her head. Tears began to sting her eyes and she could not move her own hand to wipe them away. She cried harder.
She heard the nurse enter the room. When he did talk it was very quiet, almost a whisper and she felt him stand from the bed.
“We have another case. Her ulcers are newer, no necrosis yet but for her age this type of ulcer is alarming! What are they working on there?”
“Numbers... hands.” She croaked. “I paint them.”
His mouth tightened into a grimace. He reached backwards to the chart hanging off the end of the bed. White pages flipped over and revealed yet more white.
“These girls are paiting clock faces.” The nurse said.
“Does your skin touch the paint?” The doctor asked the girl.
She opened her eyes. Her eyelashes sticky with sorrow. She thought she wiped her eyes. She looked down at her arm before answering.
She nodded. “We lick the brush. Bring it to a point. Detail.”
She blinked slowly. Once, twice. To clear the tears. But she was thinking. Remembering 16,000 dots of paint, 223 licks of the brush, 2,052,000 individual strokes.
“Your grandparents are here. I will send them in.”
She heard the door open and when she looked again he was gone. The silence only lasted for a few seconds before the sobs of her grandmother burst into the room. Doors swinging open, banging against the walls. She made a noise of woe and sorrow, masked by the doors.
She was unable to speak. They were unable to stop. Her grandfather asked her how she felt over and over. His lined face cracked and creased with worry and stress. Her grandmother was hysterical, sobs racking her wiry frame. Words interrupted by wails and coughs.
She laid there. Blinking. Resisting the urge to move her arms or legs. Trying to not try. The failure would break her. She let her mind wander. Blocking out their noise as they clung to each other on the foot of her bed. She remembered her money. Her $12. Her treasure. Her dreams.
“My jacket.”
Her voice startled them. Their faces scrunched as surprise pushed its way through grief. She was shouting it now. Over and over again.
“We don’t know, what does it matter? You are here now. It is simply a jacket.”
She tried then. To move her legs, her arms. To leap out of bed and run the halls. To find her dream rolled up tightly, a band to keep it safe. But they would not listen. Stubborn. She could not stop it, and again she cried.
A porcelain face that released streams of heat and wet.
“My treasure...”
He opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t find the words. He went to place his hand on hers and stopped. His hand slowly fell back to his lap but smiled to reassure her. She did not meet the smile. Nor could she match it. She stared at the ceiling. She let the tears boil and pour. They left her alone in the white. The canvas.
She sunk her head deeper into the pillow and the tears slowly dried, stiff lines of salt tracing her face. And she thought of the battle. The sun that rose in strength and blotted the moon out. She hated this battle, for she knew the moon was cowardly. The sun would reveal all.
Her dreams belong in the night. They have no place in the day. She slept.