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The memory of your voice flows through my mind as it generally does at this location.
"This is a new one," I begin as I stare down at the ground beneath my knees.
Grass has not grown in the area for more than a hundred years, and I have no knowledge of botany to guess if it even will sprout from the ground again. Not that it matters. I am the only one who visits this remote area.
"Sorry, old friend," I say as I look up at the weathered grave marker. "Minor distractions are a comfort from the woes of the world.
"You know full well that even though society progresses, people basically don't change. They always want more, sometimes using force to take it, and war is the ugliest aspect of that greed.
"Yes, the world is at war again. But I digress."
Pausing for a moment to gather my thoughts, I listen to your faint heartbeat emanating from below me. It consoles me somewhat that you chose to take a short break instead of outright extinguishing yourself as has always been my worst fear. And I do not scare easily. Except for when it comes to you.
At least sad stories bring you peace. Which is weird since the state of depression is your permanent default.
"I was haunting another nursing home when it happened. It's one of the remaining few, since everything is being destroyed by the natural disasters that are plaguing the planet with more frequency and ferocity.
“And the more the storms rage, so do the people. As though their anger alone is righteous enough to end the chaos about which they brought with their inattentiveness to the environment. Even now, as the reaper's timepiece ticks and tocks toward the final hour, they cannot accept responsibility.
“But I digress.”
The grave marker is unnecessary, because who would think to dig in this area? Touching it, a branch of some tree that is most likely long extinct, I imagine that it is your face I am caressing. Weird, considering your skin was never this rough.
As I wonder if I will ever touch you again, I continue, “So there I was, casually walking down an empty hallway. Absent of physical human representation, but not of their sounds. It would be a lie to say their wailing was not a welcome respite from the rest of the world's insanity.
“It took only a short time to figure out the tragic part was not the obvious hopelessness in the air. While the call lights guided me as though I was on an inverted catwalk, I felt like one of the Gothic spirits you so adored lifetimes ago. Gliding past darkened doorways, I imagined that I was a mere shadow cast on the retina of aging eyes.”
You could have put them out of their misery, further contributing to your own. But I am not as capable as you. My mercy is bestowed by continuation of life, a variation that has its usefulness for my kin. Yet it is something I never valued enough to implement.
“Speaking of life, there it was. Hovering over a dead body. At first I thought it was oblivious to the concept of death, which would have been a weird oversight for a geriatric care facility attendant. How many times had it changed a brief that had not been dirty for however long?
“You can see by the images of my thoughts why I'm referring to it as it.”
Androgynous, with a strong leaning toward being female from my perspective when I squint my eyes,
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
“Don't you get tired of it?” he asks as he stares into the unchanging darkness.
Finding it difficult to avoid his reflection, because there is nothing else to look at, I shrug as my eyes fail at piercing the kind of darkness that is never dispersed for us. We understand well enough what lies beyond the glass, but no one has seen the outer surroundings illuminated in generations. Although I do have a suspicion that there is a secret control room somewhere that has live infrared camera feeds. After all, it seems irresponsible for those in charge to not know what is happening out there.
Movement in the reflective glass shows our other friend approaching us from behind. Positioning herself between us, her arms stretch out to either side of her to rest them on our shoulders.
“What's up, fam?”
“He was just about to remind us of the stifling cage we live in,” I say as the feeling of being watched glides across my skin in the form of goosebumps.
“I can't help it if I'm meant to be as free as a dolphin.”
“None of us are meant to be here,” she says as the unknown beyond the glass keeps my attention. “We just need to bide our time, and then we'll see for ourselves.”
“Or they'll continue to keep us in the dark,” says Errohn as he tilts his head and raises a hand to press it against the glass. “Do our parents act like they actually know anything?”
Nodding slowly in understanding, feeling more uneasy than usual, I have to agree with his assessment. The adults never behave as though they are privy to some sort of special, age-restricted knowledge. It would not surprise me if our origin was lost to a poorly maintained past. Especially, considering that Aunt Caren has a tongue as loose as the wine addled cells in her brain.
“Then why would they take us out there after graduation?” asks Vyckee.
The bell rings and Errohn blinks. “Time for another day of conditioning,” he says as he drops his hand and turns around.
Nervous about turning my back to the darkness, I reluctantly allow Vyckee to spin me around with her. Following Errohn across the room, I cannot shake the sensation that something is watching me. A part of me, although I comprehend the ill logic of it, expects something to break through the glass and grab me.
Across the threshold, thinking I am out of danger, being gripped around the waist causes me to experience an eternity of suffering in a single moment as my heart skips a beat and my breath catches in my throat. A buildup of pressure in my ears drowns out all sound.
With the concept that I am suddenly imbued with the characteristics of lightning, I disorientingly find myself staring back into the observation deck. My hand is balled into a fist and a body lies still on the floor at the threshold. At the realization of what I have done, all sounds come rushing back to me.
“Whoa, buddo” says Errohn from the side. “Where’d that come from?”
“Uh-oh, here comes the hall monitor,” says Vyckee from behind me.
“Better run,” says an anonymous voice from the murmuring of the gathering crowd.
The unmoving person at my feet is easily recognizable as the guy who constantly flirts with me even though he has a girlfriend. Unclenching my hand, pain shoots up my limb. I must have hit him rather hard to render him unconscious, but why did I do it? More to the point, how did I lose control of myself?
Lifting my gaze, I stare back into the dark abyss that surrounds our sanctuary. And I have the distinct notion that something out there influenced me. As I ponder what could do such a thing, or why, I also realize that I am being absurd. And childish. I have to accept responsibility for my actions, especially if my current condition is neurological in nature.
The involuntary blinking of my eyelids distracts me from a fugue that wants to consume me again, and I turn around to face pending consequences.
Vyckee has the usual expression of chagrin on her cherubic face while Errohn appears worried as though he had been the one to give birth to me instead of my mother. The crowd continues to stare and whisper despite being informed that they should make their way to class.
“Make way, make way,” says the familiar voice of the hall monitor.
With a sigh, I lower my head and close my eyes to prepare for the authoritative onslaught. If anyone deserves to be punched unconscious, it is Jeiruld. As well as the buffoon of a dean who empowers him to be an insufferable jerk. Considering neither have much going for them, it is understandable that they would abuse their power. Just not commendable.
“What happened here?” he asks with a strong nasal inflection.
Tempted to state, What's it look like?, I am surprised to hear Vyckee say, “It was me.”
Looking up, I find her standing before him and staring down at him from her noticeably greater height. Most everyone is taller than Jeiruld, though. It is not that he is younger. Rather, it is his alternative genetics that give him a unique perspective on the world.
After staring for a long time at the body on the floor, his gaze skips over me as though I am not here and he cranes his head to make eye contact from a seemingly uncomfortable position. It makes me wonder if he ends each day with a degree of neck pain.
“We can do this the–”
“Yeah,” she says with a louder voice to interrupt him. “I choose the hard way.”
His small mouth remains agape as his eyes reveal that was not the answer he was expecting. We are taught to respect authority, even if we are free to silently disagree with it, but Vyckee has always been quite the rebel. From her, I have always foreseen a chance at real change.
"Never trust a fox. Looks like a dog, behaves like a cat."
~ Erin Hunter
