Suburb Zone Chapter 2

A Story by Thaddius

The quarter hour arrives. I have joined Charlie in the doorway and am clad in my pack: a flesh toned, element proof mesh of fabric and hardware. I grasp my insignia, a digital sort of gavel that gets me through the doors. It curves and weaves itself through my fingers.

The scope of buses stretches to a point so small it raises the question of that point's existence. The land is flat, so flat, and I see far, as far as any living creature. The horizon doesn't dip when you'd expect, and yet the line of shuttles reaches to the limit of perception, the sunlight bouncing off the wall of steel and lighting up the Burb in a crawling flash of blindness.

The procession wails in a wavering falsetto of rubber on metal, and falters. I tap Charlie on the shoulder. We both reach for our glasses, amber hula-hoops that run from eyes to the back of our skulls in an airtight circle. We slide them into place, and Charlie throws open the door.

The scene is a hot electric summer. It's brisk out, arrays of flora and weeds sprouting in washed out greens and pinks. The reflecting light renders all the would-be splendids benign. We have exactly twenty seconds to board.

Our mirror images step onto porches, shattered a thousand times into the morning. There is no breeze, no chirping or acorn tapping. Only the rush of a collective breath, one after one after one into an amalgamation of mother's breath, an approximation of how earth would breathe if she had the time. We let our feet fall in rhythm with the rest. Fifteen seconds. The bus nearest us is ten away. That extra five? Call it our 'just-in-case' policy.

We reach the car designed for us. I raise my insignia. Charlie doesn't have one yet. He'll have to wait another few months, until he's eighteen. Our amber likenesses swim in front of us on the wall of steel, the glassy renditions clearer than the real Charlie and me, for some reason. The steel draws a sensing breath, and a five-meter square juts out of the wall like a morgue tray. A monotonous click reverberates across the valley. We step around our painted copies and dip under a far edge of the tray, which presses shut behind us as we climb the single step into the car. The transport is already gaining speed.

We step easily into the center of the compartment. Two plush chairs are stuck against a silver pillar, rooted in the buzzing floor. The room is dim; jaundiced light spills through a porthole, perfuming a red essence through the haze, replicating in the mirrored beyond, but too far off to trace. It's an American nightclub from the archives, rumbling and spinning in a sensuous blur. Floor to ceiling windows link us to the other cars, but they are frosted. I imagine similar scenes beyond the echoing rosé.

We take our seats. Remove our packs. I start to unzip mine, and glance up at Charlie. He unzips his, too. I pull a cradle of twisted wire from the pack. On one end is a link; I clasp this to my wrist. The other end is a bulb, which I lock into the armrest on the pale velour. A third branch taps both into the hardware in the pack.

A little spot of light plays around the cabin. On Charlie's first day I told him it was a friendly spirit. He believed me, and would have gone on believing me if he hadn't seen my clawing hand, maneuvering the hardware from the shadows to make reflected sunlight dance. I don't know why I did it. I must have thought it was funny to see such a little kid so enraptured in faith. I would twirl the wire like a wand, a joystick, operate the beam like a puppeteer, lose myself as well as him in every joy-tickling cliché. So I guess even then I did it for my own amusement. Now I do it without meaning to; the spot of light frolics in mindless, meaningless anarchy.

My hands tingle and my spine begins to ache. The hardware is kicking in. I turn to Charlie; his eyes light up in blue, his back trembles. I almost admire his undying fight to care. But it's a waste, and I close my eyes as a wave washes through my core. Sparks manifest in my elbows, knees and neck, and I can register the secrets of this morning, last night and yesterday thawing off and dripping down, away...

************************

I speed through the faceless valley of my hippocampus. I am the trail of buses, I am their guide. Every human in this bus is at my mercy, subject to my rules and hospitality, passenger on my blurring freight. A part of me is splintered into many, many pieces, careening down adjacent trails. This one is mine.

Suddenly there is no bus. I'm lying facedown in the grass. Pollen teases across my neck. The dew itself is too strong to palate, I wretch a cough. Throw myself on my back. The sky is blue, so blue. The sun is out, unsheltered by the clouds, but something's different. The blueness of the sky is unhindered by the brightness. The sun twinkles in benign indifference, like a moon. I could stage a staring contest with it - I'd lose, but I'd keep my sight. This must be what it was like before the Days of Merge.

'Come, Charlie, come!'

I start. That voice... it rang of the unbroken notes of a flute, smelled like un-split planks of cherry wood. Familiar, untouched. Why did it call for Charlie? This was my trail, my vision. What could the System want with him?

I rise to my feet and look around. This is the most dangerous garden I have ever witnessed. A river rushes a hairpin bend away, but I can't locate it; flies buzz by whichever ear I strain to listen for the river with, protecting it. Our Raid Kiosks would never allow for this in any of the city gardens. Rows of caution planks would bar off all the rivers. But here the foliage and streams bend and wind without constraint; two trees bleed into each other like a double headed hard drive. My eyes are beginning to adjust. I squint and realize I can see an endless distance, although from one hundred meters out citadels of topiary block my sight. There is so much here beyond even my perception.

'Charlie! I'm chasing you!' It's coming from behind a Sphinx, shorn in layers of billowing ivy. I approach it, and pass through a wind rippled tunnel beneath its feet. In here, water slaps my feet up to my ankles - this is where that river was! I can't see, can only feel the prickles and smoothness of the intestinal topiary as I pass.

'Charlie, look! Shhhhhhh!' I hear the muffled voice as if it bellows from inside of me. I want to find what it is they've found. I quicken my pace, reach the end of the tunnel and enter on a stage of shaded brush. I am in an amphitheater of milk and honey, budding plants like butterflies and shrouded moths like wisps of wind.

'Mom!' I call. 'Mom! Charlie!' A maple leopard stretches: he could easily have swallowed the train of buses. From under his legs Charlie appears.

'Charlie! Where's Mom?' He is much younger than the Charlie strapped beside me. This Charlie is 7 or 8. He looks around, perplexed.

'Don't know! She was right behind me.' He studies me. 'Who are you?'

'I'm your brother, Charlie, and we're in a dream. I need to talk to Mom. You understand?' Charlie stares at me, then his eyes widen.

'Gabriel! It's you. You look like Dad!' I nod.

'I can't leave this place without speaking to Mom, so can you get her? If I wake up-'

'Wake up? Gabriel, we're not dreaming, you know.' And as if that was her cue, my Mother approaches.

She's different from the woman flipping pancakes in a frenzy. Different from the grey-green pompadour. That woman shrinks into a single leaf compared with her who stands in front of me. This is the Mom I grew up with.

Her eyes are brown, and brim in an enticement I never had. She darts them from one edge of the garden to the other, and rests on me. Her nose slants like a goddess'. She wears a creamy, weightless nightgown. I know that Charlie speaks the truth; this is no dream. It's a memory.

In the pool of her eyes I spot myself - I'm much, much younger. Eleven or twelve. My hair is tousled like a badger's.

'Mom,' I start. 'I couldn't find you! I was looking and looking, but you weren't anywhere!'

'I know, sweet-pea. I'm sorry. I thought you were on your own.'

'On my own? You thought I'd just explore this whole dump on my own? You didn't think I'd get bored, that I'd miss the company?' Mother listens, her face a graveyard.

'I didn't think you would. You're independent, Gabriel. You're almost a man now,' she breaks off and brushes something off of Charlie's shirt.

'Well, where were you? What did you see?' She exchanges a furtive look with Charlie, and they break into giggles. 'What?'

'I'm sorry, baby, but I can't tell you.'

'What?'

'I can't tell you. We found something... we made a vow.' Charlie's eyes gleam, glacial like the sky.

'But what was it?' I begin to dissolve into tears. Mom bends and wraps me up into her arms. Rubs my back. Kisses my neck. 'Oh Gabriel... I'm sorry! I just can't say!'

The stretching leopard stirs behind her. It throws open its weeded fangs and screeches. The amphitheater shakes. Mom's eyes blink in an apology through the spinning topiary, the river gushes out of bedrock, floods the garden.

The city of buses screeches to a sudden halt. I open my eyes. We are here, unburdened. We have arrived in Metro-Zone.

© 2014 Thaddius

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The Representative

Remember my saying feeling left behind, when reading you: that sentiment still holds up.

Even my having written The Representative - I honestly feel below you.

The first impression I had of The Suburb-Zone, almost four months ago, was that of confusion: albeit confusion riddled with awe. (The exact same, now, as how I feel - confounded, albeit imbued with astoundment).

So much information. Used so organically - so naturally.

Just like before, now almost four months ago: I'll continue to read The Suburb-Zone (Chapter Two!).