Chapter 3
Marcos leapt over fallen branches and dragged his body through the slips in mashed leaves that draped across a cavern of bullish rocks, hosting himself in its womb; pulling his legs closer to his body so as to slow the escape of his breath.
He had been running since his eyes had opened; running with his worn legs and running with his divorced thought; desperate to find some abode, someplace further from the alone he felt in his mind; the lightness of not knowing where he was or who he was and the un-nameable weight of the feel of The Woman’s soft lips still tingling against his skin when she had said her last goodbye and not knowing who she was.
As he ran, the seriousness of his condition elevated itself to being the only thought playing to his conscious mind; a sudden flood of light, the cool touch of metal on his skin and the sight of two horrid looking things hovering over his body, salivating and cackling amongst themselves.
His instinct had called him to run, to burst forwards and to dash in whatever direction would invite him. As he ran, he tripped and pulled himself back up and over and through and around a horde of obstacles, scanning his mind like a blank rolodex looking for any fact, any piece of evidence of what he had drawn, of what he had seen, of what he had known, to educate him as to who he was, where he was running to and what he was running from.
He scanned his mind for any fact, any image or any memory at all, but his conscious mind drew a blank. He was naked; attired only in fresh cuts and abrasions; the cool blood trickling down the back of his legs to his calves where it dried into a red scab under the intense heat. The sensation of not knowing the script left him at unease and with great fright.
While he thought of his conscious absence, his level of concern increased to a deafening blur, but in his moments of conscious disconnection; where his focus was etched in the flight of survival, he had felt nothing more than the force of his existence; his hunger to survive, touching the cool earth and thrusting forwards into the moist air as each foot slapped down hard on the soil and burst upwards, carrying him forwards and over the obstacles that begged upon his momentum.
Now, as he lay foetal in a small crevice, covered by a splash of green; hidden from whatever monstrosity awoke him to this nightmare, spiders and insects made a mountain of his hunching frame, crawling all over his body and nesting in his hair.
He stayed completely still; listening to the sounds of a million creepy crawlies all talking to one another, his conscious voice quieted. As he inhaled, he fell upon his own breath; carrying with it; inside his self to awake once more in a Famined delusion, inside his subconscious theatre.
It was dark; pitch black with a ubiquitous grey cloud blocking out the light from the sky above. His skin longed for the fevered chill of stepping out into the morning air; escaping the confines of his dwelling and riding the wave of human electricity.
This morning, though, the steps onto which he stood were not his own and it was into the dank confines that he pressed; looking at an electronic reader in his palm to confirm the address and Investor’s name as he pushed through the revolving door and passed the security guard sleeping at his post.
Beside him stood The Woman. She had in her hands a black briefcase and she wore black leather gloves. They made a particular sound when she tightened her fingers in the cold air that reminded Marcos of a time when he was a boy when he went walking in the snow; a mix of crunching and squishing as his feet had pushed through the white cloud.
That was sound he heard now as The Woman tensed her hand, squeezing the silver handle of the black briefcase and as she did so, he smiled to himself.
Though he kept his face far from hers, she knew how much this sound made him smile and it excited her to distract him.
Marcos was the first to enter through the revolving door; his head held high, his hands busy applying a set of gloves, pulling them tight over his hands; pressing his fingers towards his palm one by one and watching as the fine black leather creased slightly then returned to a stellar darkness passing his reflection back at him through the shine it cast like duplicity on water’s edge.
He paid no mind to the Industrialists scattering about left and right as he marched through the centre of the room looking longingly into his own stare and pulling his fingers down to his palm; one by one by one by one; over and over, thinking cruel thoughts.
The Woman stepped in his shadow, carrying her briefcase and looking into the eyes of all and sundry. As they walked through the lobby and waited for the lift to arrive a young man approached the pair with a sense of curiosity and impeding fright attending his eyes. He reached out his trembling hand and pressed the small button to call the elevator, looking up at Marcos shyly, seeming guilty but merely overcome with awe, wanting so much to be like the man before him; dressed in black; eyes piercing; walking with the outcome of another man as his obligation.
The elevator door opened and the young man followed by Marcos and The Woman entered. The young man quickly pressed seventeen then looked at Marcos adoringly.
“Are you visiting the old man? Today is his special day isn’t it?” he said.
Marcos said nothing. He kept his stare directed at the numbers above the door; changing their colour is ascending order. When they reached the seventeenth floor, the doors opened and Marcos lead The Woman out into the hall with the young man holding his foot in front of the sensor, watching indiscreetly as the two Collectors approached the last door at the end of the hall and knocked three times with a deafening pause between every strike.
As they stood waiting, they could hear the sound of shuffling feet busy inside the apartment, moving to anywhere but the door. Marcos lifted his gloved hand and knocked one more time.
The shuffling stopped.
He listened closely and could hear the sound of a rope tightening and then the taking of a last breath. He stepped backwards on his left foot and kicked the door down with his right.
There, hanging from a light in front of the open veranda door was the old man on the seventeenth floor; Theodore, a rope pulling tight around his neck, his face burning red, his legs kicking wildly and his fingers stretching outwards as if his soul were expanding like hot air inside a balloon. His eyes turned up and back as if he were trying to peer over his shoulders; through the thick of his head.
Marcos and The Woman entered calmly and walked up to the old man hanging from the light fixture and from her briefcase, The Woman took a long lustrous blade with a black leather handle of which she delicately yet tightly wound around her clenching hand and then up onto her wrist. All the while, the old man hanged from a light fixture, fighting his way into his own death, wishing to speed the process, suffering like a fish out of water as he thrashed about while The Collectors prettied themselves.
Gravity ordered the old man to the floor and he gratefully obliged, landing in a crumpled heap as he twisted over himself, choking and gasping for air. His hands clutched at the rope that now married to the cavernous grooves in his neck, ripping the slack noose free and now begging for life as The Woman stepped backwards with the swing of her blade and returned to the shadow of Marcos who once again was lost in his own reflection; his left hand held high to his sight; his right hand pulling down on the length of the glove; his fingers turning towards his palm; one after the other; the black glove dressing his hand like a second skin.
“Why would you want to do something drastic like that?” said Marcos.
“It wasn’t me,” said The Investor on the floor between massive gasps of air.
“Well, what was it then?” said Marcos staring at his folding fingers.
“It was the suspense and then when I heard the three knocks… I don’t know what came over me” he said looking up at Marcos woefully.
“Can you stand? Do you need assistance?” Marcos asked.
“No sir I mean yes sir, I mean yes, I can stand sir. Are you, I mean, who are you? Are you The Collectors?” asked The Investor.
“It entirely depends on your investment. Now, shall w
e commence the reading?” asked Marcos.
The Investor nodded his head and shuffled his way across the room to a small sink and poured himself a glass of water. His throat was burning from where the rope had dug in and he almost choked on the mouthful of water as his throat seized when he tried to swallow.
Water burst from his clenched teeth and a cycle of tears wept from his eyes as his whole being at that moment defined itself as sheer agonizing pain centered in one cavernous ring that was etched into his neck and buried in the back of his throat.
“Water?” he said, holding a cup to Marcos and The Woman who remained unmoved in the centre of the room; Marcos straightening his glove once more, lost in his own reflection and The Woman; removing from her leather briefcase an assortment of documents, a finger reader, a red stamp and a small leather pouch of which she unzipped and carefully left open on the coffee table exposing an array of cruel looking metallic cutting and tightening instruments.
“Theodore Edwin Black,” said The Woman reading from a white document.
“Yes mam,” he said, shaking in his voice and visibly in his body; moving closer to The Woman, seemingly out of pure fright.
“Mr Theodore, on the sixteenth month of your twenty fifth year, it is noted on record that you willingly gave your signature and your seed; extending your obligation and willfully participating in the Infantile Investment Scheme as according to article XT-416 of Industry Law. Is this your signature Mr Theodore?” said The Woman turning the document.
“Yes, mam. That is my signature” The Investor said.
His nerves settled somewhat, he; riding on his guest’s wave of implacability, grounded his conscious nerve and responded as necessary.
“Mr Theodore, at the time of investment and signatory, you were made aware of all of your entitlements as subject to approval and change under Industry review and you were made aware of the procedural implications should your investment prove unsatisfactory during and beyond production stages. Do you accept this information as a truth?” she said.
“Yes mam,” he said.
“I will brief before we examine your return. Mr Theodore, your entitlement weighs on the outcome of your investment. Should the quality of your investment fail to achieve notable or satisfactory results according to Industry standard, the value of your entitlement will fit to reflect the outcome of the product unto which you signed off. Mr Theodore, a full entitlement will reflect a return of 99% or greater affirmative decisions by your investment. In the case of such satisfactory results, your return will be subject to a full entitlement of fifteen years life extension. Mr Theodore, should your product prove unsatisfactory with a value of no greater than 88% affirmative decisions as according to Industry standard, your return will reflect a zero percent entitlement at which point Collectors will assess the extent of your poor investment and liquidate accordingly. Mr Theodore, do you disagree with any of what I have said?”
“No mam. I understand, I agree, I mean, no mam, I do not disagree” said The Investor, submitting.
“Please place your right index finger onto the panel” she said holding out a metal reader; a small circular device no larger than a bottle cap with a glass panel where the old man pressed his finger tip and below it, a red laser that scanned his digit quickly before a small needle shot out from between a tiny fracture in the panel and extracted a droplet of blood from the man’s fingertip.
He winced slightly when it happened; not from the prick or the taking of blood, but from the burn as the edges of his skin were cauterized before he retracted his finger like a snapping coil.
Marcos stood, staring comatose at his four fingers as he pulled them towards his palm one by one with his right hand pulling at the base of his glove. He loved the sound of feet crushing through thick snow and he loved the feeling of leather pulled tight over his hand. It made him feel like he could empower himself to accomplish anything.
The Woman placed the device near a small screen she had left next to the open leather pouch glistening under the fluorescent light inside the man’s apartment. The cold steel called for calamity and The Investor was unable to keep his eyes anywhere but on them; like a tongue to sore tooth or a fingernail to a scab.
The screen dressing The Woman’s focus lit up with flashing lights and numbers; scores of numbers. Then, as the screen commenced beeping incessantly, The Investor started to feel panic once again creep over his rationale and though his legs were idle, they prepared to run.
His eyes watched the blues, reds, oranges and yellows flash on the screen and he read not of the information; for the numbers and acronyms meant nothing to him, but he tried to read the expression and the foreign language spoken by The Woman’s eyes as she flicked her finger over the screen passing through more and more information and creating an assumption that his impatient companion; suspense, could not bear.
While he watched her eyes flicker under the light, his mind raced with escape. He envisioned behind him, the veranda door; open, with the curtains midway but fluttering like a butterfly’s wings as the cold morning breeze swept in through his high rise apartment that looked out over the expanse of The City. Just above and beyond the railing he imagined himself holding listlessly in the air; freer than the bind of fate would have him now; falling into the certainty of a self-attaining outcome; something beyond the reaching of any mortal man, something only dreamt about in the fearful playing which accompanied the last minutes of one’s obligatory years as one always imagined only the worst of what could be.
Fearful of being murdered, he dreamt of suicide.
“Mr Theodore, please take a seat and we will commence. I have in my hands your official Industry contract. Do you accept as a truth what I have just said?” asked The Woman, holding a document to The Investor which she had just taken from where every contract stayed; in a metal binder hanging beside his front door.
“Yes mam” said The Investor, still imagining the taking of his life but seeing now in every breath that escaped his sentence, the door of the veranda still open and the curtain still pulled midway and fluttering in the cold morning breeze, but the image was retarding far way; far into the realm of the impossible.
The Woman took the contract belonging to The Investor and ran a small scanner over a code at the bottom of the last page. The computer to her side blinked twice then beeped several times before a series of codes and numbers flashed upon the screen.
The Investor was awash with panic as The Woman’s eyes twitched excitedly reading the information and generating in her mind a perception of which she would translate to him and determine his fate.
“Mr Theodore Black, I will now read a list of transgressions, commonly referred to as, inapt decisions; on behalf of your investment. The period of activity will be hereby accepted as the product’s launch until the current date. The investor will keep note that every transgression will carry a point value of which will be assigned at reading. A loss of thirty two points will result in immediate liquidation. Are you ready to proceed?” she said.
“Yes mam” he replied.
“Not you,” she said, “Marcos, are you ready to proceed?”
On the other side of The Investor; who was nervously peering into The Woman’s screen trying to guess his way into his outcome, Marcos stood still watching absently and hypnotically at his fingers moving towards his palms one by one as his right hand pulled down on the black leather glove. He lowered his hand to his side and positioned himself behind The Investor; his hands together, hanging at the front of his body; his face looking every bit unloved but unquestionably involved.
The Woman proceeded to run off a seemingly endless list of choices, actions and their outcomes of a man who wasn’t here but of whom was represented by a neat stack of papers sitting on a small coffee table between The Investor and his fate; that being, the beautiful woman with black hair cut to the nape of her neck and a lilac fringe that; as the wind rushed through the veranda door, swished about her face until it was that she took
her normally slender finger now disguised in a black leather glove and pressed the lilac fringe behind her ear, casting the fluorescent light over the tender white skin that drew long across her breast bone.
With every inapt decision, the man sank heftier into defeat and thinking of what horrible outcome he may walk into and the outcome he had been torn away from.
As The Woman spoke, her voice broke into tiny droplets of water that ran down the pane of existence in front of his eyes and stained his reality.
He couldn’t focus and started to drift in and out conscious abandon, imagining himself again rushing past the man in black behind him and dashing through the veranda door, taking the cream curtains with him; wrapped around his body as his arms swung wildly. And in his suicidal delusion, he cursed out to The Industry as he threw himself over the ledge and; not wanting to succumb to liquidation at the hands of these butchers, chose to obey the rule of gravity and fell abidingly and willingly into the pavement, smashing into a million molecules.
That didn’t happen, though.
For even in his mind; as he imagined swinging his arms to push away the cream curtain, he wound up swept off his feet and rolled into a pathetic clump on the floor just before the railing.
For a man like Theodore, it was just the way it was.
The Industry was below his feet.
The Industry was at the stretch of his hands.
The Industry was the bitter aftertaste scorching the back of his throat.
The Industry was the scar on his leg that wouldn’t heal no matter what ointments he rubbed on it day after day.
The Industry was his neighbour listening through his wall probably affecting the outcome of his own investment.
The Industry was the sound he made in the morning as he abated the calling of death from his lungs.
The Industry was the will that kept him alive long enough on the end of that rope to be cut free in time to face his trial.
The Industry was the chip in his mind that fed him ideas and words and biddings.
The Industry was his only companion in life and he couldn’t run away; in his body or in his mind. It deadened his legs and prostrated his thoughts and as the theatre of escape closed out of his mind, his focus returned again to The Woman, reading from a small screen; all the pieces of his outcome.
“18th November; Product 118C-4876 participated in celebration outside of formal branding; two points,” she said as the old man shook nervously counting backwards in his mind; now well past 99 sitting one or two inapt decisions away from liquidation.
“The final transgression,” she said, as a wave of adrenaline flooded through The Investor’s veins heavying his stomach.
He thought about grabbing the glass from the table before him and washing this sickness away with cold water, but he couldn’t move his arms. He still had a few points. He could still walk into a positive outcome; a return of six months to two years.
Just one day would be enough.
“Marcos, can you look at this please,” she said, holding the screen towards him as he pushed The Investor to his left and leaned forward to read the information.
A level of interest took to his eyes as he studied the numbers that had only just flashed on the screen moments before.
“It’s just happened now. I haven’t seen this before. What do we do?” The Woman asked puzzled.
The Investor was more curious than concerned; maybe he should have been the latter. Marcos stood back and took something long and thin from his pocket.
“The contract is live until maturity and until we close the contract; every action will be taken against the investment. Regard the action as live” Marcos said.
“What does that mean? What happened? Did something happen? My investment? Is something wrong with my investment?” spoke The Investor worryingly.
“25th December; 6 pm..”
“That’s today. That’s now. What? No, wait; the day’s over, no you can’t accept that. No, I finished on sixty nine points” screamed The Investor, interrupting The Woman.
Marcos punched him with a clenched fist in the centre of his head; the soft point beneath the round of the skull. The old man dropped to his knees drawing a blank for a second and then coming back into his sight. The Woman, looking displeased at being spoken over, continued her delivery.
“25th December; 6 pm; Product 118C-4876 encountered investor Mr Theodore Edwin Black in said investor’s residence. Encounterance. Breach of Industry privacy protocol. One hundred points. Void” she said coldly.
Panic filled the man’s eyes as if it were water seeping into the headlights of an old car; wrecked in a sea of depression, weighed down by its galling disappointment.
“Please no. What does that mean? I haven’t met with anyone. I have no friends. I have no woman anymore. Look around. This is the life of a solitary man. I have no visitors, no guests. This is impossible. I keep no company at work, I pass no gratitude or solicitude on the street. I committed wholly to my obligation. I served my time. I did what was right. I spoke to nobody” he cried out in vain.
Marcos released his eyes from the lure of his changing fingers, reaching for the contract in The Woman’s hands and looking with astute eyes over the finer details. As he read the information on the contract, The Investor turned himself pityingly, swiveling his body and cupping his hands, citing The Industry Prayer in his mind and in a murmur loud enough for the two Collectors to hear.
“I am what I do, I am what I’ve seen, I am what I have, I am where I’ve been” he sang over and over in a muddled desperate tone.
“Can we date this?” Marcos asked The Woman.
“It’s there on the contract. It has today’s date” she said.
“And you’re sure nobody visited you today,” he said to the old man.
“Nobody, I swear. You are the only Industrialists I have spoken to. You’re the only Industrialists to knock on my door, ever” he said.
“What about your network?” asked The Woman.
“They’re just online. That can’t count, can it?” he asked.
“It wasn’t online. The contract is specific. On this day, you encountered your product. This is a strict violation. The product and the investor must never be in one another’s possession” said Marcos.
“Marcos, come here,” said The Woman estranged.
Marcos looked over The Woman’s shoulder and stood back semi aghast; befriended by the improbable.
“You’re kidding me, right? What are the odds of that?” he asked.
“What, what is it?” asked The Investor shakily.
“Is it right?” he asked.
“It’s right Marcos. He’s your investor” said The Woman dismayed.
“You’re my product. Are you fucking joking? Are you fucking kidding me? No, that’s not fair. No, please. That’s not my fault. They sent you. The Industry sent you. It’s not my fault. I had to let you in. Wait, I didn’t let you in. You broke in. You broke in. It’s not my fault. Make a note, tell them. Fucking ring someone. Please. This is your mistake” he pleaded.
“Shut up,” the two Collectors said in unison.
“How did this happen?” asked Marcos to The Woman.
“I don’t know. There was a glitch somewhere I guess. The work order seems intact. It’s been signed off officially. The system can’t see the error. I mean, the system is reading the error. It knows you’re here, but it didn’t pick up on anything when the work order was printed. Holy shit. You realize how rare this is? This has never happened before. This is amazing. I mean, like you said; what are the odds? In a city of one billion Industrialists, what are the odds? Wow this is incredible” said The Woman ecstatically.
“Do we call it in? Does this contravene any regulation? I read nothing about this situation in my training” said Marcos.
“There’s nothing to call in Marcos. The contract is void. We have to liquidate the investor” she said coldly.
“Where’s the manual?” asked Marcos.
br /> The Woman passed him her handheld device and he opened The Collection Manual; his guide on the regulatory for approving contract extensions or contract liquidation.
“If I had of let you in when you first knocked. If I didn’t try to kill myself, this would be over, we would have finished; this would have affected nothing. Please, The Industry doesn’t have to know. We can say we got distracted, that you dropped your stamp. I was excited, I hugged you and you dropped your stamp. We can say that. We can. They won’t know. The Industry won’t know. The industry won’t know” he cried out.
“The Industry will know. The Industry already knows” The Woman said.
‘If I let you go then I am contravening Industry regulation. This is account to treason, do you understand? If I do this, The Industry will return in seconds and torture you. You will die agonizingly and slowly. That is not how you want to end your obligation” said Marcos sternly.
“There has to be something. You said yourself. It’s never happened before. Maybe there will be some intervention. If we show them the mistake…”
“The Industry doesn’t make mistakes,” said The Woman picking through some cruel looking instruments that sat before her on the table.
“Wait. Look at this. If a product should save the life of another, its investor is granted full term extension; all transgressions are voided. We saved him. That’s it. Punch in this code” he said repeating a set of numbers to The Woman who obliged and typed the numbers.
The Investor looked to Marcos smiling and pulled on his leg like a hungry dog. He looked to The Woman, but she was machine like, no different from any of the devices he had spent his life slaving over.
As she looked at her screen and waited for the system to compute the code, her left hand strummed the sharp cutting tools and silver wires in the leather pouch on the table. The Investor watched as she callously fondled the cruel instruments; loving them in front of him obdurately.
The machine beeped several times and the old man’s heart skipped a beat as The Woman smiled to herself.
“Did it work? Do I get my extension? He saved my life, he did, he did. I was going to kill myself and he saved me. He saved me. Oh, my god, you saved me. That’s incredible. If I let you in, I wouldn’t get this chance. If I didn’t try to kill myself, I wouldn’t be alive. I owe my life to you and to suicide. You saved me” The Investor said gleefully.
“He didn’t save you,” said The Woman.
“What?” said Marcos and The Investor together.
“I saved him. You, Marcos, were watching the turn of your fingers in your hand. I cut him down. I saved him” she said.
“What does that mean?” asked The Investor.
“It means your contract is still void. Your product didn’t save a life. He has never saved a life, only taken them away and today, he didn’t save yours, I did. If he had of cut you down, maybe we could intervene. But he didn’t cut the cord” she said.
“But they don’t have to know,” said The Investor.
“I made the choice to cut you down. The chip in my mind recorded that choice. They knew the moment before I swung the blade, before the splitting of the first minute fiber” said The Woman.
“Please, you have to do something. I’m your investor. Without me..”
“There would always be an investor. If it weren’t you then it would be someone else. It is always someone else. His only ties to you are the choices he makes. The Industry is his father” said The Woman.
“Then isn’t this a choice? Doesn’t he have to consider my right in this choice?” asked The Investor.
“What serves you is what serves The Industry; adherence to rule. What you want right now, it contravenes what you believe. That’s not what you want. You are The Industry, The Industry is you. What is best for The Industry is best for you and that alone is all that you should want” she said.
“How can you be so cold? I’m going to die. I don’t want to die” he said.
“I found you hanging from a ceiling fan with your belt around your neck. You have a funny way of embracing life” said The Woman.
“Please. Marcos, yes? Marcos, I signed on your life. Please. You can set a precedent. You can change the world. We can” pleaded The Investor.
“The Industry doesn’t make mistakes,” Marcos said, though; as the words fell from his mouth, he felt strange to the truth in their meaning.
“No” screamed The Investor.
“Mr Theodore Edwin Black. Your contract is hereby void. Your investment value has been zeroed as of 6 pm this evening. Your product committed an Industry offense. ‘Encounterance’ is a crime punishable by death; televised death of the investor. If you would please” Marcos said, nodding to The Woman and instructing her to take the small camera form her leather bag and start filming.
As she turned on the device, all the screens in the old man’s house turned on simultaneously and outside his apartment, his disgraceful image along with the action by his product was displayed on every building, on every bus, and on every handheld device in The City. The Investor; Theodore, was a blubbering mess, watching his own fate play out on his favourite channel.
“Please, you can’t kill me, please. I did so much in my life. I worked so hard. I made every right decision. I dedicated my life to this fucking city. You can’t do this. It’s not fair” he screamed; saliva spraying on the lens of the camera with the Industrialists, about in their day, watching the drama unfold, all booing and hissing as the image lost its clarity and mocking the man in the throes of despondent conjuration; shedding tears to summon a grace of humanity; wishing for something that in this age, did not exist.
“What about the man I saved? I saved a man’s life. He would have died without me. I saved an Industry life. That must deserve something” he cried.
“Your investor was rewarded accordingly for your servitude to The Industry. You are not responsible for your own actions. Your product determines your outcome. This is the nature of all things. You are responsible for what you produce. A tree is solemnly known by its fruit. Mr Theodore Edwin Black do you accept these conditions?” said Marcos, standing over him like a storm cloud creeping up on a summer’s day.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly as Marcos stepped forward, tying the glistening cord around his neck tightly and pulling his arms back around The Investor’s head; firm against his body.
The Investor gripped at the cord pulling around his neck, but he soon lost any strength to pick at the wire. His body fell limp in a matter of seconds. For The Investor on his retirement; what felt like a lifetime, suffocating for a second time was to the Industrialists; watching on their handheld devices and on the screens throughout the city, too short for their liking.
He simply hadn’t suffered enough.
As The Investor’s arms went limp, Marcos unwound the cord and let his body drop to the floor. The Woman packed away the camera and her assortment of tools while Marcos returned to a hypnotized glare, watching his fingers pull towards the palm of his hands, one by one.
“Marcos,” The Woman said, but he didn’t respond, he was drifting further from himself; far from the reality he knew and into a strange absence from self and into a burdening sense of immediacy.
“Marcos,” she said again.
But he was gone and as his index finger pulled down towards the palm of his hand, he retreated from his body and woke again; adrift in amnesic waters and completely absent of his bearings, hunched over his trembling knees and griping the soles of feet. He awoke from his delusion in a small crevice, hidden by the shade of canopy that covered the rocks abounding him as that strange burning light continued to devastate his eyes and seer his skin.
“What the fuck was that?” he said out loud, his breath racing ahead of his words; sweat dripping from his brow and running down along the ridge on his nose and seeping into the cracks of his worn grimace.
He looked around sharply and with bridging stress. A new heaviness sank into his stomach, churning his blood a
nd cementing his mind. He was waking into his black spot, becoming a heavy emotion but still now, under the glare of a red hot sun, so far removed from his own reflection.
“Am I that man? Is that what I am running to, or is that what I am running from?” he thought.
“I have to find that woman. She will know who I am. She’ll help me remember” he said to his own shadow stretching out from his imprint in the sand.
Marcos had fought The Famine for so long, keeping it housed and domesticated and feeding it what it needed to remain subservient; information, ideas and slight truths. ‘Name your disease, contain your disease’ had been his approach; to keep as close as possible to the conscious fever and Famine so as to keep it from creeping up on his self and losing whatever slim chance he had at rebuilding the blocks of society, finding the empathy gene and saving mankind from the ironic effect of its own promise.
But now, under an amnesic veil; unknowing of his own identity, the very memories he once willed into repression seemed so inviting to someone found shipwrecked in self abandon with no conscious bearings of ‘I am’.
The Famine was no longer a threat, it was his compass. It was a tool that he could use to gauge his subconscious and remember.
In his hands, he gripped a shiny silver blade. There was dried blood on the tip. He looked over himself and saw a large cut against his leg. It was a clean and deep cut and the wound sat open in the morning heat, the muscle exposed; no more blood than on the tip of the blade, just a small dried trickle running down his thigh that tightened against his skin whenever he stretched.
And then he became conscious to the only memory he could remember having lived, having created; those things on his trail; whatever they were, their flight would not have left him. He knew he couldn’t wait here but not knowing who he was or how he got here meant he had no idea if he was running in the right or wrong direction. He thought about the delusion for a moment.
“Every choice is the right choice as long as I will myself to choose, but the outcome is not mine to celebrate or to mourn.”
With that faith, he leapt from his sanctuary and back out into the morning sun and onto the path that was clear only for one’s feet but of which was married to a mount of obstacles slowing his pace to that of the monsters on his trail.