Chapter 6

"I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you." -Walt Whitman, Song of Myself

The sky was black, but the sun was hot and bright. Orson was afraid that his skin would turn red, and burn.
He was at the lake, but it wasn’t a lake of water, it was a lake of sand. There were still people swimming around in it however. Orson looked on in disapproval. They did it to themselves, ruining all the water. The sun was too bright, and he couldn’t focus on who was playing in the water, otherwise he would turn them in.
“Kid?” Chilo appeared in front of him, blocking the sunrays from the invisible sun. Orson was sitting on a couch.
“Oh, it’s you.” Orson looked at her, and offered her a bottle of strawberries, but then wondered how they got in there, with the small opening and all.
She laughed at him, and took the bottle, tapping on it as she walked towards the sand lake.
Orson took a second look at the area. There was grass all around, but, “all around” was simply a large block of land covered in grass surrounding the sand lake. But after a while away from the center area it simply dropped off, plummeting into the blackness that complimented the sky and horizon.

In the center of the sand was a tree stump, rotten, dried, and all around a dead piece of wood, the soil on which it grew shriveled into loose sand. Orson wondered if there would be any bugs in the stump, and as soon as he said that, Chilo was beside him again, wiping the filth off her.
“There are bugs in the lake,” She said, looking at the people with no faces of voices in the pit.
“Do they know?” Orson asked her.
“They do, but they won’t get out until they get their share of fun.” She said, shaking her head, sitting beside him, shaking the bottle of strawberries, but they were too big for anything to come out.

They both sat in silence and watched as one by one, the people began disappearing, suddenly dropping under the surface of the sand. Every time someone disappeared, there was a soft knocking sound, as if the people’s feet hitting the bottom of the pit. It got louder with every person.
“The bugs can do that?” Orson asked.
“No, that’s probably the snakes.” Chilo asked, hitting the side of the bottle, getting frustrated.
“There are snakes in there?” He asked, leaning forward, getting a closer look.
“There are all kinds of things in there, it’s just the way it is.” As the last person got dragged under, it made a very loud knocking noise.

 

 

 

“Orson, kid, wake up, jeez.” The muffled sound of Chilo’s voice outside of his room accompanied by the sound of her knocking on the door.
“Uh, coming!” The first words of the day slurred and sloppy, but still understandable.
“Open the door.” She said.
Orson groaned as he got up, and opened the door.
“Come on, I got something for you.” She said, walking away. Orson ran his fingers through his hair and got his clothes on.
“What’s all this?” He asked, looking around. There were a few objects on the table in the social area.
“Not yet, kitchen first,” She urged him to the kitchen, where more stuff covered the table. A large glass bottle, filled with some kind of liquid, and two plates of a strange, clear substance with fruits on the inside.
“ These are products of the still. It’s not only used for makin’ juice, after all.” She explained.
Juice. It’s a euphemism for alcohol, Orson remembered her saying it all the time, when she was really talking about the moonshine.
“This is called gelatin. It took me a few tries to get it right, but I made my own recipe. I used to have my own place, a lot like this, but with less electricity and a lot more asbestos. The still exploded one day when I was out and burned it down, but I still know what to do.” She explained.
“And this,” she picked up the bottle.
“Is the juice.” She swished it around.
Orson’s stomach clenched up.
“You scared?” She said, getting out two empty water bottles and a metal funnel.
“No.” He said.
“Ah, you’re getting better at lying, I’ve taught you well, but you’re still not as good as me.” She shrugged, placing the funnel in the bottle neck and pouring the liquid in. She gave him the small bottle full of the brown liquid. It smelled like rotten fruit.
“This is made from fruit?” Orson asked skeptically.
“And some nuts.” She said, pouring herself a certain amount as well.
Orson made a face at the smell of the substance, and Chilo noticed, an amused look plastered on her face.
“What?” He asked.
“Watch.” She put the bottle to her lips and tipped her head back, the murky water trading places in her mouth with air. Large pockets of air filled the bottle as the liquid poured down her throat.
“Woo!” She let out a small cry and wiped her mouth.
“For just a few weeks-that damn good stuff.” She said, shivering for a second.
Orson looked at her reaction then back at the bottle. He theorized that it tasted much better than it smelled.
He took a small sip and his mouth instantly filled with a grotesque taste, and he coughed as the small amount dribbled down his throat and seemed to burn it.
“Ack! “He made a face and took the fork next to the plate and without thinking shoveled a small amount of the gelatin in his mouth to get the taste out.
It tasted like fruit, but had a faint aftertaste that seemed to resemble the beverage.
“Yeah, sorry I didn’t really clean the still too good before I started making the gelatin “She ate some of the gelatin.
“I got a bottle of water, I knew you’d be a wimp about this.” She winked, and Orson took the bottle.
“I’m not a wimp, I’m just, not used to it yet, is all.” He shrugged, drinking the water, and eating the gelatin. The more he tasted the putrid after taste the more it didn’t bother him. Probably because it was killing all feeling in his mouth, an experience he’d never had before.
They talked for a while, about alcohol and gelatin and other strange wonders from the outside world. The surface wasteland. The Expanse.
“Oh yeah!” She said, after they had finished the fruity treat, she stood up.
“There’s stuff in there.” She pointed to the social area.
“Come on, let’s go have a lookie.” She crossed arms with him and led him out of his chair and into the circular room, where the table held some things.
The table held a gun, a metal canister full of moonshine, and a small box connected to two little wire earbuds.
“What’s this?” Orson asked, walking over to the box.
“I was really lucky I finished it before you woke up. I was working on it in secret all this time but I couldn’t finish it while you were awake because you were always around the thing.” She said, flipping open the small top to reveal the knobs that were previously on the radio.
“The…What happened with the radio?” Orson looked at where the radio was on the table. He was so distracted by all the gifts he failed to recognize it was pulled out of the table, and a sense of dread started to overcome him, and he was getting ready to yell at Chilo for destroying his radio, when she held out the two ear buds.
“Put them in.” She said. He did.

‘… and there was some kind of acidic liquid coming out of the metallic body. Military biologists say it’s some kind of fuel that powers the suits movements, while the power cell energizes its weapons, such as the high power electric knuckles, and the heat-rays every standard Mara solider carries. This has been Joseph Li Marton ASG radio, tuning out until next report…’ As the broadcast ended, classical music began to play.
Orson looked at Chilo in awe as the music played, and took out his earbuds.
“How did you do this? The radio shouldn’t work if it’s outside the table?” He looked at the empty radio hole.
“Well, the radio itself was just connected to the power source, so I just had to replace the plug in to the places mainframe with the temperature devices battery powered, uh, thingy, I guess, and wazam, battery powered radio with earbuds respectably borrowed from a scrap pub somewhere in the Flea Lands. You keep saying you’re losing sleep over that song in your head that only plays a while after the show ends, and you keep missing it. Well now you can always have it on you, and eventually hear the song again and get it out of your system.” She took a sip from her bottle of juice.
“And the rest?” Orson looked at the assortment.
“A gun, for if thugs ever show up at your doorstep. Remember what I taught you about guns?” She asked. Orson nodded his head.
“And then a thermos full of juice. I’m taking the glass bottle with me, might be worth something one day. Bunker juice. I like the sound of that. I’m also taking some seeds from the garden with me and some provisions. That okay with you?” She asked. Orson finally noticed the packed bag in the corner of the room. He looked down at the radio box. This was the day.

 

The First of October.

 

“I have something for you, too.” He said, placing the radio down and walking to his room. Chilo sat on the couch, looking at the radio, listening to the music softly play through the earbuds at a distance.
Orson came back with a composition notebook, with the space provided for writing your name in the front instead reading ‘School’.
“School? What’s this? Your old notes from robot-garden class or something?” She asked, opening it.
“No, I wrote it for you.” He said, sitting next to her. She looked at him like he did when she showed him the radio.
“You made all this? The book is completely filled up!” She said, flipping through the pages.
“Not quite, I left spaces for you to write in. I made it the best I could, by the time you fill it all up your writing skills should be caught up with a late junior high school level. You’ll be smarter than most of the people out there.” He shrugged.
“This is amazing.” She said, flipping through it again.
“It’s no battery powered radio.” He said, handing her a familiar looking pen.
“Where have I seen this before?” She asked, looking at the golden design.
“It was in the locked off section of the storage room. I saw you looking at it. You can have it.”
“What about when it runs out of ink?” She asked, admiring it. He pulled out the drawer from under the table, with a stack for written in journals, and fresh journals, as well as a pile of empty pens, and fresh pens. He took a few pens and a new journal and handed it to her.
“Just in case you want to record your travels. They’re pretty intriguing. You can give it to your badass wasteland traveling protégé. I mean, if you ever get one. And you can use the extra pens for ink for your righteous tattoo gun.” He said.
“I cannot believe you just said all that. A month ago you didn’t know what half of those words meant. I’m proud of you.” She said, grabbing his shoulder.
“You, are my badass wasteland traveling protégé.” She said, standing up, and Orson stood up too, his eyes stung.
“Thanks, kid, for everything. If I ever make another friend half as close as great as you, I’ll tell them all about you.” She wrapped her arms around him and hugged him.
Orson stood there for a second, then, slowly, reached his arms up, then mimicked her.
This was a hug, he realized. He’d seen it in stories and comics, but never thought it was as great as it was portrayed. He is now proven wrong.
He loved coexisting with someone. A girl who could convince him to drink rotten fruit juice, a girl who made him a carry around radio, who built him a fortress of feathers and cotton, and was the only one in his dreams that had a face. A person who taught him that the world was not as simple as he thought, and told him to be his own person, and not what a computer thinks he should be. Someone who, the longer she stuck around, the more his bones popped, like fireworks in his knuckles. A girl who built a moonshine still out of spare parts, then made gelatin with it. A girl who has a noose tattoo on her hip as both a warning, and a promise.
This girl was his only and best friend. He would never forget her, even in old age when his mind would deteriorate.
“Goodbye, champ.”