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Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11
Part 12
Part 13
Part 14
Part 15
Part 16
Part 17
Part 18
Part 19
Part 20
Part 21
Part 22
Everybody wants something from me. Do this, believe that, fit into this plan. Sometimes I wish I could turn myself off. Not death, but something like it. Sleep isn’t enough. What’s it all mean? It can’t just be what it looks like.
One injury after the next, like falling from a tree and hitting every branch on the way down. You think at least it will end when you reach the bottom and break your neck, but it doesn’t. There’s just more branches. So long as I’m conscious, I can’t stop trying to make sense of it.
I lifted my head and scanned the room for Kat. There she was in the far corner, nose in a binder, drawing something. Maybe her own torture machines. I’d stopped that habit, worrying somebody would find the drawings and I’d have to explain them to the shrink. Or worse, the principal. Besides which, I could no longer be sure whether it was the ogres or myself that I most wanted to feed into them.
After school, while it was still light out, I biked over to Tyler’s house. His dad’s house, anyway. It’s hard to get away from. Walking among the same trees I’d hidden behind for cover while we shot imaginary lasers at each other brought back the confusing, bittersweet feeling of surreality. That he could still pop out from behind the next tree, blast me with his outstretched fingers, and insist he got me this time.
Taking care not to destroy any spiderwebs, I ducked behind various trees, then peered around the edge. Daring it to happen I suppose. Of course it never did. In the process, something caught my eye. A stack of comic books stuffed into a hole among the roots. Pulling it out and wiping off the dirt revealed covers emblazoned with colorful heroes, battling evil in a fantasy world where the good guys sometimes win.
But when I opened them up, inside were bridal magazines. Where’d he gotten these? Maybe from his mother’s old stuff. Turning the pages, I found he’d circled certain gowns, veils and shoes. What would a boy do with stuff like this? I guess he could hang it up and look at it. A lot of it was really pretty, I had to admit.
The hostile feeling from the other night was conspicuously absent. I felt no invisible force pushing me out. The opposite, if anything. This was Tyler’s forest. Perhaps it could feel he was gone, and was mourning with me. I’d formed such a connection with my own woods, before the fire. It always seemed to welcome me when I’d visit. To surround me in a protective, nurturing cocoon. How terrible for a boy to lose his forest! How terrible for a forest to lose its boy.
As I continued exploring, several times I came across little houses or villages. Some built by the Homunculi, but some of his own construction. There’s a big difference in the craftsmanship and attention to detail, things our large clumsy hands could never fashion. I’d built no small number of houses like this on my own. Back when the little ones left me, and I doubted if they’d ever return.
Soon I came across the quarry. I didn’t think it held any new surprises for me, but upon my arrival I was immediately struck by the sight of a cylindrical metal tower consisting of cans. The same Goji berry juice cans I’d been leaving in the field! A tall skeletal metal tower to one side held it steady as a crane stacked more and more cans on top.
Nearby, smoke issued forth from the exhaust towers of a chemical refinery. I couldn’t kneel down to inspect it as the closer I got, the worse the smell became. My eyes were watering even from several yards away. A long thick black hose trailed from this structure to the skeletal support tower, filling the cans with who knows what.
A weapon, no doubt. Had to be. The last raid was so devastating, they’d gotten it in their heads to put a permanent end to it. I thought back to my dream of the mushroom cloud, slowly rising over a smoldering battlefield. That’s their fate, surely? With no method in sight capable of putting a stop to their petty conflicts.
I wandered over to a statue I thought was just another one of me, holding that baseball bat next to Winston. Instead, it was of Tyler. Sitting crosslegged, arms circled protectively around a little town. There was some small bit of plastic they’d carefully set at the base of it. When I turned it over, I gasped.
The barrette. Every little thing of his I’d seen so far brought back a flood of painful memories. Painful, but precious. This little pink plastic butterfly clip was no exception. How happy he’d been when I returned it. Only now did I grasp why. It’s always too late. I only understand somebody’s feelings weeks, months, or years after the fact. Then of course, I can’t go back and react how I should’ve. The ship has long since sailed.
While sitting there, fiddling with the barrette, I faintly overheard what sounded like speech. Following it to the source, I discovered a great domed building printed from cloudy glass, a gaping hole in it left over from the attack. Peering in through that hole revealed a sizable crowd huddled before the same sort of touchscreen music and video player I’d once given to my own little guys.
It was playing back an episode of a TV show I vaguely recognized, having caught bits and pieces of it on Saturday mornings while searching for cartoons. There’s this gentle sounding old man in a sweater vest who tells you he’s happy you’re his neighbor. He’ll talk about this or that, then perform puppet shows to convey some lesson about how we should behave.
Perfect for them, I realized. They couldn’t understand what he was saying, but didn’t need to. The puppets acted out the various lessons for them. And his tone of voice and general demeanor had a hypnotic quality, putting me at ease even though I couldn’t make out what he was saying with the volume turned so low.
I reached in with my finger and turned the volume up so I could hear. The little ones, huddling before the glowing screen a moment earlier, now clasped their hands over their ears in obvious pain. “Sorry! Sorry sorry!” I whispered, and turned it back down. They glared up at me. It’s easy to forget differences like that.
I remember learning to hold them comfortably and move them about back when I was building their settlement. How what seem like small, gentle movements to us are huge and scary to them. It’s important to remember that they’re just little guys. It’s all too easy to hurt them by accident, they need special precautions.
I sat for a while, watching the show with them through the hole in the dome. The puppet show, the little model train. The old guy in the sweater vest speaking warmly to the camera. Then I saw some green robed fellows enter the dome, joining the brown robed crowd in silent appreciation.
My eyes bulged as I realized the significance. Could it be that simple? Surely not. Yet it was playing out before me! And the more I watched the show, the more I understood why it had worked, where everything else before it failed. The way he speaks to you, the way he tries to make you feel comfortable and welcome.
It’s authentic. He’s not trying to sell you anything. I kept waiting for him to pull out a Bible and start quoting passages, yet he never did. I’d seen just enough of this show to know he’s a Christian, but that was before I knew what Christians are like. Now it seemed impossible. This man? Really? How could he be one of them? He was completely unlike any Christian, or human being I’d ever known. May as well be an alien.
How could this be? Why, in all the world, is there only one of them like this? I puzzled over it but continued to watch, spellbound by the grey haired, sweater vested man. Then suddenly the episode ended. I waited for the intro to the next, but instead, it was a completely different show. Until then I assumed Tyler had just mass downloaded eps of one show and set them to loop.
I recognized this one immediately. Dad used to make a point of having me watch it. The host is a tall, thin man with windswept black hair, a crooked nose and a black turtleneck plus funny looking bell bottoms.
In every episode he teaches you something new about the universe. Like how the atoms in our bodies were forged by fusion in the heart of our sun. And how we’re how the universe can look at and understand itself.
I remember thinking it was funny every time he said “billions and billions”. But also being drawn in, utterly fascinated and made to feel at home. Craning my neck, I saw murals painted on the inside of the dome depicting the two men standing together, taking turns looking through a telescope or playing with puppets.
I watched the episode to the end, half expecting some third show to start. But it was just more sweater vest guy. Tyler must’ve set them to alternate. I scratched my head. How could it be that easy to broker peace? Why these two specific shows? I didn’t understand and feared I never would.
How did watching this make them give up on building those fenced in camps? Or the little white houses for that matter. It’s like all of a sudden, they knew how to be. Just by watching the examples Tyler had chosen for them. When I disconnected the player from the power cord and tried to remove it from the dome, they swarmed my hand, beating on my fingers and biting my skin.
It only tickled. But I took the hint, set it back down, and plugged it in. I’d overstayed my welcome, so I got up and left. But not before taking the pink barrette from the foot of that statue and tucking it into my pocket.
When I got home, I found some string and made a necklace out of the barrette. Something to wear under my shirt as a reminder. Then I went online looking for episodes of those TV shows. I watched a lot of Mr. Sweater vest. Tensely waiting for him to say something scornful about boys who like boys, or girls who like girls. He never did.
Nor did he seem to have any opinions about the age of the Earth, how life began, or anything of that nature. All he ever talked about was how to be nice. “He should know”, I thought. “If there’s a foremost expert in that field, I’m looking at him.” I found a torrent of every episode of his show and started downloading.
Next, I searched for episodes of the “billions and billions” guy’s program. Videos of him proved to be plentiful on Youtube, with all kinds of funny remixes that made it somewhat of a trick to find the unedited original episodes. Once I did, I sat and watched those for a while. It took me back to a place of security. Of wide eyed, excited exploration. Before this school, before the Tyrants, before any of it.
Back then it was all so simple. The world was this boundless, beautiful, fascinating expanse that my obvious purpose was to explore and understand. At the time I thought there was no part of nature I could possibly dislike, until I met other kids. The first time it happened was more confusing than frightening.
I just lay there on my side as they formed a circle around me, kicking, stomping and spitting. “Why is this happening?” I kept thinking. Every time I asked them why they were doing it, they just laughed harder.
“I don’t mean you any harm” I pleaded. “I want to be friends, and exchange ideas with you pursuant to improved mutual understanding.” More kicks, more laughter, but then they began repeating parts of what I’d said to one another the way you might quote funny lines from a show.
For a while I thought I must be a different species from them or something. Like a UFO dropped me off instead of the stork. How could we be the same? I couldn’t imagine doing to anyone else the things they did to me. I couldn’t comprehend the thought process behind it, or why they seemed to enjoy it.
Yet, watching these shows did something to reduce the swelling around the wound, as it were. No longer so inflamed, for once I found bad memories as easy to forget as they are to recall. This fellow in the black turtleneck was teaching me that in spite of life’s hardships, there is great comfort to be had by appreciating the staggeringly beautiful universe we live in. While Mr. Sweater vest taught me that, rare though they may be, there are some okay people in it.
Maybe it’s gonna be alright, I thought. In spite of everything. Maybe it’ll still work out somehow. If not, then these two were doing a bang up job of fooling me. I got my homework out, slogged through that over the next two hours, then went to bed with the pink barrette still dangling from my neck.
The next day at recess, I brought my own digital video player out to the largest settlement in the field. They’d preferentially built it in that empty space beneath the willow tree where Tyler and I once hid.
Finding the closest thing I could identify to a town square, I carefully set down the media player, turned the volume down to five percent, selected the playlist of downloaded videos, then set it to play them on a repeating loop.
There was an initial flurry of interest simply because I’d brought them something new. Then the crowd dispersed, their curiosity sated. Except for a few. They must’ve seen something the others didn’t, because they sat crosslegged before the great flickering screen with the same rapt interest I’d seen in the quarry dwellers.
They didn’t go out and try to rope others into watching. There was no need to. Those who stopped to watch and listen soon found themselves glued to the screen. A familiar effect. I set down the charging cable next to them, then left. No idea what they’d plug it into, but I trusted them to figure it out.
I went back in a bit early, wanting to talk to Katerinka. I couldn’t find her, but spotted her binder poking out of the cubby just under her desk. As nobody was around, I opened it up to see what sort of things she’d been drawing the other day. If possible, she takes an even more dismal view of these people than I do, so I was expecting elaborate scenes of torture and extermination.
Instead, I found detailed sketches of me. Page after page. Some of them just of my face, or everything from the shoulders up. Then I found some of me crouched over the settlement I’d once built for the little ones in the woods. Based on what I told her of it, I thought. Until I noticed suspiciously accurate details I never disclosed.
Stay Tuned for Part 24!