The Shattered Genesis

  ***

  “What is this?” I asked Aisha. She was the wife of a man named Frank who worked on security with James. She was holding a tray out to me with one brilliantly red berry in the center. Even though the berry was very small, the silver metal of the tray around it seemed to fade in the shadow of its potent color.

  “Is this what he was talking about?” James asked, and I looked between the two of them, befuddled as to what exactly it was that they were referring to. James suddenly seemed thrilled by the sight of the red berry, as though it was a coveted gift finally found under a crowded Christmas tree.

  “What, dare I ask, was he talking about? Who is 'he?'” I asked.

  “Don found these berries out in the woods. He was hungry so he ate some. Apparently, they have some really psychedelic side effects, if you know what I mean.” She grinned at me conspiratorially. In response to what she had said and the ridiculous look on her face, I frowned.

  “You may find this shocking but I have absolutely no idea what you mean. Would you care to elaborate?”

  “Weren't you just saying this afternoon that you wanted to relax?” James asked me.

  “Yes, I do recall...” I stopped and turned back to him slowly. On my face was perhaps the most fiendishly evil glare I had ever utilized to deter him from a course of action.

  “That's scary.” He told me nonchalantly.

  “I know it is.” I snapped after crossing my arms over my chest. “Are you suggesting that we get high? James, we are not two college kids sitting in a dorm room trying to piss our time away.”

  “Maybe not, but you could be a college kid. Is that enough?” He asked in an overly concerned tone that proved he was purposely trying to irritate me. My scowl darkened.

  “I could slap that smirk right off of your face right now. Instead, I am simply going to put Penny to bed. Come along, Penelope.” I grasped her hand tightly in mine and huffed away.

  “Just to verify, though, you won't be mad at me if I eat one?” He called after me. I was tempted to use a very vulgar hand gesture to answer that question. Instead, I ignored him.

  “It is a strange day when you have to start asking someone questions like that...” I heard him mutter to Aisha.

  Just before ascending the stairs, I turned back to see Don sitting at the far end of the room in a high-backed wooden chair. Behind his chair, a fire blazed in the grate; that light darkened the space around him. If ever there was a symbol of doom, that was it. I could have shouted a warning to the others. But in their eyes, I saw a need to consume the berries that were being offered to them. They wanted to let go.

  I wanted to let go.

  It had been several weeks since our arrival at Don's house. Though James and I were finding it easier to relax after getting to know so many kind people there, we still found it necessary to keep our eyes open and our heads clear at all times. We were not afraid of many in Don's house, but there were some that sought to please the man who ran the show. They, and the man himself, were worrisome folks.

  But if I ate that berry, I would forget all of that trepidation and anxiety. I would forget how afraid I was for the lives of Penny, Violet, Elijah, and James. I would forget the regrets and sadness that attempted to plague me daily. My mind would empty and even out, quite wondrously...

  “No.” I said out loud to sway my temptation. Only verbally could I express my desire to suppress the urge. Internally, I was craving whatever “psychedelic state” was brought on by the berry.

  “But I didn't say I was actually going to do it!” Penny exclaimed as she looked up at me with wide, terrified eyes. “I just think it would be funny!”

  “What did you say?” I looked down at her as we walked up the stairs.

  “I didn't say anything. You heard me thinking about it!”

  “What were you thinking about?”

  She blinked up at me for several seconds.

  “Nothing.”

  I lost it. I was laughing hysterically and covering my mouth to stifle the sound. Her huge eyes looking up at me betrayed the guilt she felt at some fleeting thought she had only briefly mused on. I didn't even care what exactly it was that she thought would be humorous. It was more than likely an innocent prank that would cause no harm.

  I did not stop laughing until after she was changed into her pajamas. I remembered how every night on Earth, I had always fought her to go to bed. At first, I had been stern, informing her that only one story would be read and then she would have to promptly go to sleep. Somehow, she always managed to get at least three stories out of me. By the time I turned her light off, we were giggling ridiculously at jokes no one else could possibly find funny. The memory warmed me and as I sat with her that night, stroking her hair until she fell asleep, I knew that we would be doing that bedtime routine forever.

  I could have cried. The thought was more beautiful than any Pangaean sunset.

  After she had drifted off into a peaceful slumber, I tucked the blankets in even more tightly around her. As always, I carefully eased my light weight off of the bed and slunk back away from her, watching her as she slept until I had reached the door. After closing it behind me, I walked back downstairs, still smiling to myself.

  Batteries must have been found on the ship because I could hear an old White Stripes song playing boisterously in the living room downstairs. I knew that several people in the house had brought their portable iPod players with them from Earth. They had also brought batteries of their own. Some people were quite skilled at remembering every last necessity and convenience that they wished to bring with them on our collective, one-way journey.

  Curiosity got the better of me. If I had simply gone to bed, I never would have tasted the sinfully sweet juice of the Peace Fruit. I would have never known the full extent of the activities Don allowed and encouraged to occur in his house.

  “Brynna!” Violet's arms were around me the moment I walked into the room. She nestled her head against mine several times before rubbing her face into my neck. When her hair tickled my skin most irritatingly, I jerked away from her.

  “Will you stop that?” I whispered fiercely to her after I had pulled away.

  One look at her face and I could have murdered James and Elijah.

  Her eyes were glowing with the same cerulean color of the juice that filled the red skins of those berries. The lazy smile that was spread across her face and the way her eyelids drooped every so often confirmed what I was dreading mentally: She had been offered that natural drug and instead of refusing, she had taken it.

  “You love this song.” She said as she twirled a strand of my hair around her finger. “That's what James said! He loves you, Brynna...”

  People all around the room were lounging in the elaborately designed furniture, laughing quietly and in some disturbing cases, caressing each other quite inappropriately. Don, for instance, was being fondled by one woman around his age and another around mine. They whispered of his bravery in sentences far too intricate for the intelligence level I knew they possessed. At one point, they muttered in a language they had never learned. His glowing blue eyes glazed over in both lust and satisfaction, quite to my bemusement. How he could emanate both at the same time, I was not sure.

  I almost heaved forward at such a disgusting sight of human frailty. Perhaps I was being what most would call “a stick in the mud”, but their behavior was proof of their inferior standing to me. They had all allowed themselves to become high on a mysterious berry from the forest, simply so they could engage in conscience-free “relaxation.” I shuddered to think what would occur in that room.

  “Don says that while the juice from these berries flowed through his veins, he saw the one God.” Violet informed me. Her eyes were rolling back in her head as her hands ran through her hair. The soft texture was enough to intoxicate her further.

  What I was witnessing had to be quite close to the effects of ecstasy. Or perhaps LSD. My heart dropped heavily into my stomach when I recalled another d
rug, one that had been manufactured and outlawed immediately after an unfortunate issue arose involving cannibalism. Something about a bath... I could not remember. I prayed that the effects of the berries would not take a dark turn for the worse.

  “You should have been here. Just as we were starting to feel the peace, Don told us that story. It was beautiful, Brynna.”

  I frowned at her when abnormally large tears began to fall from her eyes.

  “The world will be at peace, just like this right now, as long as Don lets us live. As long as we let people live. Live and let live.”

  “Alright, this is ridiculous!” I grabbed her arm. Her over-dramatic gasp would have been quite comical had she not been genuinely horrified by me grabbing her so aggressively. She jerked her arm away and rubbed the spot where my hand-print was still visible.

  “Ow...” She moaned with a terribly depressing frown on her face now, “Meanie, be nice.”

  “That last statement was completely redundant and utterly puerile but then, I sincerely doubt that you remember the definitions of those fifth-grade level words.”

  “So mean...” She sighed heavily and wiped a tear that had fallen from her eyes away. “I love you and you love me, too. We love each other even though we fight so much, Brynna. That doesn't matter. You're my sister and I love you. Even when you're mean...”

  I exclaimed in irritation and then began to scold her in a shaking voice:

  “Violet Mae, this kind of idealistic, drug-fueled rambling was not cute in the 1960's when those mindless people that called themselves hippies were spouting it off to people or to walls, whichever would listen. It most certainly is not cute now.”

  “The walls are standing still. So still, like the core of Purissimus...”

  I felt like a mother sent to pull her child from what the young people called a “rave.” I felt like at any moment, people would pull pacifiers from their pockets to suck on before waving glow-sticks in my face. Yes, I will admit that I was extinguishing the life of the party. But imagine for a moment stumbling across a group of people, both young and old, engaging in such reckless foolishness. Some, including Alice and Quinn, were beginning to remove their clothing. If there were ever a toxic environment from which I needed to forcibly extract my sister, I was standing in the dead-center of it.

  I actually covered my eyes for a moment because I was so incredibly embarrassed for the people around me. When I looked up, Violet had swayed off into the crowd of those dancing by the open windows. The light from the fire was lower, creating a commanding darkness that I could scarcely see through. I became aware of smoke tickling the inside of my nose. While normal smoke would have burned my nasal passages, whatever that was only made me want to smile. I did not even want to sneeze.

  The sweet smell of that smoke mixed with the wonderfully brisk evening air; the breeze gently stung my face as it flew by me. I found myself smiling as a lightness suddenly took hold of my heart. I was looking around, feeling the coolness of the night wrapped around me. I was reminded of the days at home on Earth when the summer had finally faded away into fall...

  A quick stab of horror pierced my already fallen heart when I saw Don crush one of the berries on the table. As the light blue juice was exposed to the air, it seemed to fizzle. Afterward, where the liquid had been, there was only thick, black powder. I watched Don brush the dust into his hand and carefully siphon it into a pipe fashioned from the wood of one of the old trees in the forest. That intricately fashioned smoking device could only have been a gift from Adam. The pipe was far too excellent to be crafted by Don's hand.

  After lighting the end of his pipe and inhaling deeply, Don blew the smoke into the older woman's open mouth.

  My head was starting to spin. The dizziness that rattled my brain was not unpleasant, though. A memory from when I was three years old overtook me; I was on a merry-go-round, waving to my mother every time she came into my view around the bend. Elijah was beside me, riding a huge, black horse with yellow eyes. We were giggling the way children do, shouting to our mom and smiling for the camera she was holding up.

  Why had I left her? My face was buried in my hands as the delightfully happy feeling that had accompanied the long lost memory died away. It was replaced by a regret so excruciating that I had to grasp my chest. Surely my heart would literally fall from my body. Surely, it would fall to the floor where I would see just how blackened it was from my years of hating her, my father, Maura, Michael...

  James's hands gently grasped mine. As soon as he pulled them away from my face, his lips pressed to my forehead, my closed eyes, my nose and both of my cheeks.

  Warmth. Luminescence. A desire that burned from my heart to between my legs so deliciously that I could have cried. All around us, people were standing up to leave. Soon, they would disappear into the rooms of the house where they would rectify their own erotic urges. Some were still just lounging, whispering to one another and laughing quietly to themselves.

  What was the name of the song playing? I could scarcely remember the name of the band, too. A color, or the absence of color, and the word “Keys.” It was one of their songs that received little attention yet it was one of their best.

  “Don't, man.” Elijah's voice said lazily and James let go of me. When his hands lost their grip, I expected to be filled with that ever-present ice again. Instead, I simply turned back to find him still there behind me, though now he was sitting on the couch with his head tilted back. I did not know where Elijah had gone.

  Violet was in the crowd of people that I had wandered into, dancing slowly. As my heart twirled and spun in beautiful synchrony with my singing brain, I began to dance, too.

  “Just a psychotic girl and I won't get lost in your world...”

  As the women vocalizing in the background of the song intensified, I raised my hands to the ceiling, feeling so calm, so alive, so beautiful, so powerful...

  James was watching me. The song was so true, he knew. He and I both knew that wisdom would tell him to stay away. But love was not wise. It was not even smart. It was just one of the many results that could occur when emotions won out over logic.

  It is funny how when one is on drugs, suddenly the most random events pull together to form one cohesive whole tailor-made for the individual. Every song was written for that individual, every word spoken is about the individual, the universe was created for the individual… That individual is the hand of God, creating meaning, while simultaneously being the only thought in God’s mind.

  James could not stand to stay away. He could not bear the thought of losing me. I almost allowed tears to fall from my eyes when I realized that I felt the same way about him.

  Watching me was too much for him. In a blur of movement, he was in front of me and scooping me off of my feet. I was so entranced by his expertly sensuous kisses that I did not realize we were leaving the room. It was a blissful feeling, to be mindless.

  We were in one of the back rooms of the house. I could still hear the music playing clearly. Now, the song had changed. A band whose name was written in all capital letters. A singer with a raspy voice. An exclamation:

  “SAIL.”

  Our clothes were off and I was on top of him, my lips moving slowly down his firm body. His hand grasped hold of my long hair and pulled backwards. I was sitting in his lap, straddling him, but now, our sweating torsos were touching. I moaned out loud when his tongue grazed my neck in between each perfectly placed kiss. While I was so hypnotized by the erotic intensity his mouth on my skin brought forth inside of me, he pulled my hips forward abruptly, taking me, literally and figuratively, by surprise.

  I exclaimed at the feeling, almost in tears from the fierce pleasure of it. From the top of my head to the ends of my feet, I burned delightfully in desire to reach what I knew would be an utterly world-shattering conclusion. And yet, I wanted to experience the brilliantly agonizing, gradual ascent to that ending. After my head tilted back, his mouth moved down to my chest that was rising
and falling with my deep breaths. By then, I was not moaning in ecstasy anymore; I was crying in sensual delirium.

  When his deep voice saying my name echoed around in my ears, I grasped his shoulders and moved even more quickly. Nothing else in the entire world could possibly exist. Time had stopped. The Peace Fruit summoned images of the two of us, alone in a paradise as old as any world. Heaven, Nirvana, and tangible serenity... I might have seen Hell, too, but it was beautiful.

  I did not have to worry about the entire house hearing the loud hybrid of a moan and a scream that escaped me just before I collapsed onto him. Tears were streaming down my face as we both gasped for breath. All around the house, my enhanced hearing picked up the animal grunts and moans of those engaged in similar activities. Our only response to the sound was hysterical laughter; James and I laughed until we cried.

  Another song was playing, starting slowly, guitars intermixed with a techno beat. Whomever had brought his or her iPod was my musical sister or brother, because the song was yet another I knew and loved, but in the moment, could not name. I felt an almost tangible connection that linked me to person supplying the beautiful music I loved to the rest of us. Regardless of one’s beliefs about different genres of music, music in general truly does pull us together, and in that night, we all felt it in our hearts and souls. It was linking us all together, making us one cohesive whole. Those songs had been written for us, in the same way that the universe had been built for us.

  “Are we human / Or are we denser? / My sign is vital / My hands are cold / And I’m on my knees / Looking for the answer / Are we human? Or we denser?”

  The moon was streaming through the window, and I was not wiping the tears of completely random, completely heavenly joy that were falling from my eyes as I reached into the beam and felt the light caressing my skin. James reached out, too, feeling it and laughing with me. Before I could blink, he had lifted me, and I was sitting on the wide, cushioned window-ledge with my legs draped over his shoulders, my head tilted back, and my mouth open slightly as I breathed in slowly, deeply, moaning, once his face was burrowed between my legs. The moon’s light was all around us, cradling us.

  “Will your system be alright / when you dream of home tonight…”

  My back pressed to the wonderfully chilled glass of the window as his hands came up to grasp mine.

  “…There is no message we’re receiving / let me know is your heart still beating?”

  His hands grasped my hips, and he pulled me towards him at the same time that he was coming up to rest his knees on the window-ledge in front of me. My legs were still on his shoulders, and after entering me with a powerful thrust, it took both of us mere minutes to reach the same earth-shattering conclusion we had reached only moments before, it seemed. As I moaned out his name, and he made a noise between a carnal grunt and a moan, I reached up and pulled him to me. His heaving chest was pressed to mine, and after a moment, he slid down to nuzzle his face into my chest a few times before resting his cheek in between my breasts.

  “Oh, my God…” He said, and I thought he might be crying, so I laughed hysterically again. “Where did you come from? You weren’t here a few months ago, and now you’re here, and I love you, and I should say you’re too young for me, and I might have something wrong with me for loving you, but I don’t care… I just love you, and want you, and I think I’m laughing now…”

  He was laughing. We both were. All the limbs of our sweating, gasping bodies were entwined together, tied in indecipherable knots; my leg was over his, my foot rubbing up and down the back of his calf, and his was wrapped around my back, grasping the back of my hand on the other side of my body. It should have been uncomfortable, but it was not. Everything was perfect.

  Perhaps our behavior was anything but morally upstanding. Perhaps succumbing to the force of the Peace Fruit was weak on our parts. But imagine for a moment exactly how wondrous total emptiness was for myself, James, my brother, sister, and housemates. After all we had fought to survive, we were allowed just one night of wild frivolity. James and I were allowed a night of the most mind-numbing pleasure imaginable. We'll call it our celebration, our way to show our gratitude to ourselves for all we had overcome.

  When we awoke the next morning, I was still lying on top of him. In his deep slumber, he had turned us sideways to lie on the window-seat. His arms had not released me. Someone, who had gotten an embarrassing view of both mine and James's naked bodies, had covered us with a blanket. I cringed in humiliation and ran my fingers through my sweat-drenched hair.

  Those who had built the house had knowledge on indoor plumbing, it seemed. Every room had a shower that ran with hot and cold water. I awoke James, and we walked up to our room, wrapped in the same blanket. We closed the bathroom door behind us. Penny, I was pleased to see, was sleeping peacefully still. The unsavory actions committed by us and the people in our house had not awoken her. For that, I was thankful.

  My body was still weak from the erotic intensity of the night before. As the gloriously hot water poured over our skin, I clung to James and buried my face in his chest. The wildflower shampoo smelled divine, like the promise made by God regarding heaven coming to Earth. I almost moaned in ecstasy as I massaged that thick, sweet-smelling slop against my scalp. My nerve endings were still on high alert; they were heightened even in response to the simplest of pleasures.

  Breakfast was not due for another two hours, given the position of the sun. James and I seemed to be the first people who had risen from the deep sleep that followed the intoxication. After dressing in clean clothes that smelled of home, we walked, hand in hand, down the hallway.

  “We need to find Violet.”

  “Are you worried? Don't be worried.” James told me.

  “I am quite worried. I neglected my responsibilities last night, and I can only pray that she did not pay a price for my ignorance.”

  The way Lucien did, my mind taunted cruelly. I stopped walking and pressed my hand to my forehead. I wished that I could reach into my skull and strangle my sadistic conscience.

  “Hey...” James whispered. He let go of my other hand so that he could place both of his on my face. “We're happy, baby. Last night was one of the best nights of my life.”

  “You mean the drug-fueled moral depravity or the earth-shaking sex?” I asked after pressing the top of my head against his chest.

  “Both. Tell me that you didn't enjoy that last night.”

  “I enjoyed the latter substantially. I wish that the former had not occurred.”

  “You torment yourself over everything. Maybe we should have become Bachums.” He told me as we continued walking. “I'm glad that you ate the Peace Fruit last night. For the first time in your life, you finally let go.”

  “How do you know it was the first time in my life? I actually have a very sordid history with street drugs.”

  “Oh, yeah? Which?”

  “Peyote.”

  “Oh, my God!” He exclaimed, laughing.

  “It was nice. Not the peyote. The Peace Fruit.” I said with a slight smile, “It was so peaceful.”

  “That's why it's called Peace Fruit, my love.”

  “Whatever it is called, I will not be doing that for a very long time. I sincerely doubt that I will ever do it again.”

  “We'll see about that.”

  I scowled at him in jocular scorn.

  “That 'Peace Fruit' as you call it, could be used as Rohypnol.” I told him, “Given your stalking tendencies, I would not be surprised if you were alright with that.”

  “With forcibly drugging you?! Jesus, baby! That’s intense.”

  “That was intense. It was a bad joke. A surprisingly crass one coming from me. I’m sorry.”

  He looked around, feigning shock.

  “Did you just apologize to me?”

  I punched him lightly in the arm as he laughed raucously at his own joke.

  “I did, and don’t act so surprised! Loser…”

 
I was walking ahead of him when he grasped my hand and pulled me back to him. In a quick movement, he dipped me backwards and kissed me passionately. When his mouth finally broke from mine, I looked up at him, trying to suppress a smile.

  “Why are you bending me over like this?”

  “Bending you over...” He repeated in exaggerated intrigue, “I'm going to show you bending you over..”

  “Oh, really?” I grinned up at him, “You have my full permission to show me exactly what you're talking about.”

  “Say no more.”

  Without taking his eyes off of mine, he kicked backwards, sending a door to one of the many closets in the house flying open. There were two screams from within. James and I both jumped and shouted in surprise when five of our housemates came stumbling out into the hallway without a scrap of clothing on any of their bodies.

  James was staring, wide-eyed and mouth open, in absolute horror. The look on his face and the situation as a whole had me doubled over, clutching my stomach as I laughed. My arms reached out and grasped James as I struggled to stand upright.

  “Baby, this is so disturbing... I think we need to move out...” James muttered as he shook his head back and forth. I only laughed harder.

  “Stop!” I grasped my stomach with one hand and wiped the tears from my eyes with the other, “This is so ridiculous! Oh, God or Gods... I cannot take it!”

  “Sorry, guys.” An English man said. He was trying to hide his lower appendage from our view with both hands. “Closet's free now.”

  “Oh, that's gross!” James exclaimed in genuine revulsion.

  “Come on, honey.” I managed to say through my laughter, “You were so eager to show me how you were going to bend me over, and now the closet is free! How convenient!”

  “I see your point of view on the Peace Fruit now.” James told me as he rubbed his eyes. “You win, baby.”

  The uncontrollable giggles that shook my entire body only intensified.

  “It's not funny!” He exclaimed finally, “I feel violated!”

  Alice and Quinn stumbled out of their room, cracking up just as I was.

  “What are you two so happy about? If you knew the horrors we have just seen...” James shook his head again.

  “What are you so happy about, Brynna?” Quinn asked me to purposely avoid the question he had just been asked by James.

  “Oh, human tendencies, of course.” I replied as we descended the stairs, “Have either of you seen Violet?”

  “Yeah. She and Nick were sneaking past our door about an hour ago.” Alice answered, “That was a good time last night, wasn't it?”

  I stopped in my tracks, my laughter ceasing quickly as though it had never existed in the first place.

  “I swear, if my sister and that boy are having intercourse, I am going to castrate him with a dull sewing needle!”

  The stifled laughter of Alice, Quinn, and James told me that my outburst was a tad over the top.

  “I choose to ignore your laughter at my emotional torment! She is seventeen and has only known him for a few months.” I scowled as James's thoughts entered my mind, “You know what, I am aware that that statement is hypocritical! Actually, it is not. You and I have known each other for longer, and...”

  More of his thoughts invaded my brain. I wondered briefly if he was assailing me with them purposely.

  “I know that we had sex after only...” I stopped and threw up my hands in irritation, “You know what, I get enough of your sarcasm when you speak. I do not need to hear it telepathically, as well. So shut up, James!”

  “And there it is!” James commentated happily, to the delight of Alice and Quinn.

  That aforementioned vulgar hand gesture? James got two.