As some of you may or may not know, I'm taking a creative writing class this semester. Frankly, I feel that I've learned....some, but the feedback that I've gotten from my classmates have been only vaguely helpful. I'd love to hear what you think! So I'll be posting my short stories/poems on my blog as well throughout the semester. This story is called Moksha - a story about the near future where the dead are frozen and living children are already "dead".
Moksha
Adam was
born in 2050, the dawn of a new age. His clear blue eyes drank in the
world from the moment he arrived, but not once did those eyes water.
He greeted the world in silence, not a cry, nor a laugh escaped from
his pink mouth.
The year
is now 2055, and my son has still not cried. Not once. Nor has he
laughed. He is intelligent, his teachers say he learns very quickly,
he can easily say his ABC's, and math is not a problem for his mind.
But Adam is lost in art and music classes. If he is told to draw a
dog, he will draw a dog. But otherwise, he is without ideas when it
comes to creation. Adam does not smile. Not unless he is told to do
so. But even then, his smile doesn't reach his eyes. His eyes are
flat, just lenses for which to see.
The
doctors call it “Emotional Detachment Syndrome”. Adam is just one
of many, the growing epidemic that is sweeping the world. At first,
the news blamed the water. Then genetically modified foods and
vaccinations. Even air pollution was named criminal, the thief of
children's' laughter. But it didn't matter what we did, what foods we
fed them, or that water that they drank. More and more, our cities
became filled with children who do not smile.
It is a
rainy day in Boston when I decided to visit Michael. Adam and I walk
to the subway, down into the veins of the city, avoiding the sweating
sky. An old man with skin like paper and gritty blackened teeth sits
on a red plastic milk crate, strumming rusty guitar strings grubby
fingers. He glares at Adam as we pass by. “Zombie child,” he
spits, his voice cold and grating.
“Mom,
what's a zombie?” Adam asks. He looks at his shoe, more interested
in the gum he had stepped in than the world around him. I debate
several answers before deciding.
“They're
monsters from silly horror stories. They don't exist.”
“Okay.”
Adam is not offended. Nor is he amused. He is focused on his shoe.
The man called him a zombie, and that was a fact for him to absorb,
not to worry about. Sometimes I wonder, perhaps it is easier, to live
in a world where events are just information, something to watch
passively as it marches on.
The
Sleeping Home smells like plastic and chlorine, it burns my nostrils
at first, but soon I am breathing normally. Adam doesn't flinch like
I do, he just walks forward, knowing where Michael sleeps. It takes
us about fifteen minutes to find our family's pod, even with the
moving walkways there are too many families sleeping in here for us
to have a spot near the front of the home. A plaque labeled
“Henderson” rests above the pod where Michael, my parents, my
grandfather, and his parents, and his grandparents all sleep. Their
faces are peaceful, despite the ice that creeps around their skin,
all pigment seeped away in their frozen beds. Michael still looks the
way he did before the accident happened, the car that took away his
breath for the last time crushed into his chest, but his chest only
shows the car in the form of a thin scar. His blue eyes are closed,
but they stare at me in my mind. God, Adam has the color of Michael's
eyes, but there's just something missing. I touch the glass, just on
Michael's cheek as a feel warm wetness slide down my face.
“What's
Dad doing?” Adam is looking at his father, not at me as the tears
keep coming, the sobs wracking my body. It takes me a moment to
compose myself. Deep breaths.
“Daddy
is,” I catch myself. Adam never says Daddy. Or Mommy. “Dad is
sleeping. He needs medicine strong enough to wake him up.”
“You
said that last week.” I look at him, hoping for a hint of a whine,
a face pained for his father. But Adam is unchanged. I did say the
same thing last week. Adam just remembers. He turns around and walks
to another pod, blank eyes absorbing the family in front of him.
“Yes
dear, I did.”
It was a
week before Adam's birthday when the bombings started. We were
sitting on the couch in the living room, our shar-pei Rocky sitting
on my lap as his blue-black tongue lapped Adam's wrist
absentmindedly. Adam looked at the wriggling brown mass of folds, but
made no attempt to move his wrist away. We were watching a movie when
suddenly the screen switch to a woman in a red blouse that was far
more confident than the slump in her shoulders and the grimace on her
face.
“This
just in: New York City, Paris, Shanghai, London, and fifteen more
cities around the world have been attacked simultaneously. This is
not a test.” She looked as if she had been crying, her eyes red and
her cheeks blotchy. She takes in a deep breath and continues,
“Cryogenic centers around the world have been blown apart by a
terrorist cell. The group has not been named, but officials are
warning citizens to avoid cryogenic centers and surrounding areas. As
of now, the Boston area Sleeping Home is officially off limits to
citizens and security measures are being taken to protect your
families.” A scrolling list of cities appears at the bottom of the
screen, the death toll is staggering. Thousands of families, who
could have come back to the living someday, all gone in the blink of
an eye.
I taste
metal as dread fills my body like sand in a broken hourglass. I am
heavy, the hands of the dead presses down on my arms, my legs, my
shoulders. All I can think is Michael, Michael, Michael.
Barely
a day passes before the next bombing occurs. This time, Chicago, San
Francisco, Dubai, and Okinawa have lost their dead to the fires and
smoke. The news speculates as to who the terrorists are, but the only
hints they have are glimpses of red and yellow robes caught in
security cameras moments before the bombs went off. They suspect
perhaps a cult, or maybe an extremist political group. Regardless, at
every bombing, none of the living are lost. The cryogenic centers are
always empty, besides the dead that sleep within. There are no bodies
to freeze when they are done, the blasts wipe out all of the pods
where the bodies would have gone anyway. No one understands their
motive. Why bomb the dead, when they are already gone?
It is the third day since the first bombing, and I decide to visit
Michael myself while Adam is in school. The subway ride to the
Sleeping Home is uneventful, but before I even step out onto the
street I realize how foolish I was. The sound of the mob hits my ears
like a shock-wave, violent and relentless. Mothers, daughters,
fathers, and sons, all surround the Sleeping Home in droves. The
street is engulfed by them, like a swarm of fire-ants upon an
unsuspecting foot. Some hold posters above their heads, others simply
attempt to slam into the police blockade that has locked the
perimeter of the Sleeping Home. The shouting blocks out all other
sound. Without warning, I feel a pair of hands grab me by the
shoulders and flip me around, and suddenly I am facing a man with red
hair and wild eyes. His fingers dig into my flesh like talons as he
shakes me.
“IT IS HERE!” He shouts, spittle flying from his mouth. He looks
all around in circles, unable to maintain his gaze on any one spot. I
try to push myself away from the man, but his grip is iron. He leans
in close and talks in my ear.
“The zombie children. The fire of the dead!” He pulls away a
bit, still not letting go. He grins, a smile that would make the
cheshire cat proud.
“THE END IS NEIGH!” He shouts again. I am panicking, my breaths
are short, but with the air saturated with noise, no one would hear
me shout for help. A blur of yellow and red flash into my vision, and
the iron clasps of my assailant let go. I feel a hand grab my own,
soft and sure, and I am lead away from the crowd, as if drifting by a
current away from the shore.
As the noise slowly goes away, I find myself able to breath once
more. We are about a block away, when the man lets go of my hand, and
turns to face me. He is short, almond shaped eyes over a kind smile.
His head is shorn, and the robes that he wears are worn from use. He
speaks, but the words he says are in a language that flows like
water, they dance around me and disappear, and I feel oddly
comforted. He takes one of my hands between his own, and speaks
quietly.
“Moksha,” he says, looking at me expectantly.
“I don't understand,” I say slowly, shaking my head.
“Moksha,” he repeats with a smile. He makes a short bow, and
walks away, as quickly as he had appeared. I look into my palm to
find that he had placed a red rope within, knotted into many parts
that twist into one another, an infinite loop.
A week has passed, and the cryogenic centers have been destroyed in
rapid succession. Boston's Sleeping Home is one of three cryogenic
centers left in the world. Despite the militia of men with guns and
shields, the helicopters and tanks that parade around our streets, I
doubt that the Sleeping Home will remain standing for much longer.
The terrorists have come forward, not with demands, and not with
explanations. The men of the yellow and red robes are Buddhist monks,
men known for peace, and they have turned themselves into the police
without a fight and with a smile on their faces. Regardless of how
many monks turn themselves in though, the cryogenic centers keep
falling. I have been preparing for the worst, reminding myself that
there was only a slim chance that Michael could have come back.
It is the evening of Adam's sixth birthday, and after a long day at
the zoo we retired to sitting on the couch, watching cartoons. Rocky
sits on his lap, gnawing on a rubber bone toy, his slobber sliding
onto Adam's pants. Adam is watching the television screen, but the
yellow dog on the screen running in circles doesn't make him laugh.
He just notices the dog, the fact that he is yellow, the motion of
the dog running. The screen abruptly blinks blue, and once again the
grim news reporter is on the screen, today wearing a navy blue
blazer. I know what is coming. The fear that had been at bay is
suddenly the lead in my bones, and my breathing becomes shallow and
silent. I barely hear the words as she speaks that the Boston
Sleeping Center is gone, that my family is gone, that Michael is
gone, gone, gone.
Michael is before my eyes. He smiles at me, and places his hand on
my cheek, as warm as a beam of sunlight on my skin. Then he is
broken, on the ground, the car just feet away as I scream until my
voice gives out. We are at the park, playing on the swing set as we
giggle like schoolchildren. I hear laughter bubbling up like water
from an underground spring. It is a full laugh, one that comes from
the belly and fills the body from your head to your toes. I realize
that it is my grandfather's laugh, a laugh I haven't heard since I
was ten years old. But the voice is high, clear, and sweet. My eyes
blink open as I stare in shock.
Adam is laughing. His eyes are bright, and shining in a way I had
never seen before. Rocky is licking his face, as he laughs fully, my
grandfather's laugh. In that moment, I knew. I take Adam into my
arms, and my heart is lighter than it has been in years.
I finally understand what “Moksha” means.
