Strange Holiday

I suppose it shouldn't be that much of a surprise, and I can't help but feel like I should have seen this coming. For a moment, all I can do is look at the three small links that connect the cuff around my wrist to the one around the pipe. Soon, I'll be able to think clearly enough to decide what to do next, but for now I'm just going to sit here and stare at that short bit of chain.

I really can't blame her. After all, she was taking as much of a risk as I was, going home with a stranger. For all she knew, it could just as easily have been her chained up in a hotel bathroom with a head full of pillows and chalk dust. Of course this was probably her plan when she went out tonight, but I learned a long time ago you never know who you're fucking with, and I'm sure she's learned that too.

A few minutes go by before I start to really assess my situation. My head is still cloudy and my tongue feels thick like it's filling my whole mouth, but my eyes work so I start looking around.

My first irrational fear is that she stole my kidneys. Like in the story. But I'm not sitting in a bathtub full of ice, and a quick reach back with my free hand seems to reveal a noticeable lack of surgical scars. Everything seems to be in place. Everything seems fine.

Except of course that I'm naked and chained to a water pipe.

I look around the room and notice a few things. First off, it's decently well lit. There's a central fixture over my head, and it looks like it has several smaller bulbs in it. It's not a dirty bathroom. The floor is clean, and the little soaps are sitting on the edge of the tub and by the sink, still in their little wrappers with the hotel's name printed on them. It occurs to me that hotels probably use such cheap little soaps because people steal them all the time. Bastards. The towels are all folded neatly and sitting on their wire shelf between the toilet and the tub, but my clothes are nowhere to be seen. Which means they must be in the bedroom. At least I hope that's what it means.

I'm not scared. Even if I end up sitting here all night and day tomorrow, the maid will be in eventually for turn down service. The next day or so might not be the most comfortable of my life, but it's not like I'm in any real danger.

I wonder why she just left me here like this. Things seemed to be going well. We got on alright at the bar, and at the second bar after we left the first one. I brought her back to my hotel room thinking the evening was progressing, well, more or less as I'd predicted. I planned on being naked, just not handcuffed and alone.

It must have been the wine. She'd drugged me somehow, that was obvious. One minute we're dancing in the bedroom, drinking the merlot, and then I wake up here, like this. So it must have been the wine.

It doesn't seem fair really. And for a second I allow myself to feel wronged. Cheated. I had plans. Things were going well. I'd really been in need of a nice little holiday, and this weekend was supposed to be just that. And now it was all ruined.

I'm not really upset though. Not for long. After a while, I even laugh about the whole thing. The maid will find me, in a day or two. Until then, I'll just sit here and wait. It's not like I had much for her to steal anyway, not on me. She got a little cash, a few credit cards I can cancel tomorrow, maybe she kept my cell phone. But nothing too serious. I kinda hope she just left the cell phone. It's a new phone.

So I didn't get laid. It's not that big a deal. I'll get laid next time. In a way this is better. I have a story to tell.

After all, if things had gone the way I'd planned, I'd hardly be able to tell anyone about it later. You can't exactly brag about picking up random girls at bars, having sex with them in hotel rooms, and then murdering them and taking their bodies out to the desert in the trunk of your car to bury. But I can tell the guys at work about this. It'll even make them laugh.

And there'll be other holidays and other girls. It's never hard to pick up girls at the bars. And next time I'll be more careful.

Because you never know who you're fucking with.

Light in the Valley

It hasn't happened before or since. Just the one time, and most don't even know about it.

It was a cloudy night, I remember that. We'd been sitting there for some time. Just sitting under that tree. We'd run out of things to discuss, but neither of us wanted to go back. So we just sat there, under the clouds, and we stared over the side of the cliff at the river below.

It was dark. You couldn't really even make out the river. Maybe if it hadn't been so cloudy, maybe there would have been some reflection. Like christmas lights floating in the water. But it was cloudy, so there weren't any christmas lights, just a dark slightly darker than the darkness that surrounded it. The kind of definition you get when you look over the edge of a cliff on a cloudy night.

So we were just sitting there. I thought about putting my arm around her, but it didn't really seem right. She wasn't my girlfriend, and it wasn't that cold. I just wanted to reach out and touch her. You can feel so alone, even with a person right next to you, especially in the dark when no one is talking. But it really wasn't my place to go putting my arm around her, so I didn't. I never thought about whether or not she would have wanted me to.

That's when it happened. At first, it seemed like there was a light, off in the distance, past the end of the river where the water bubbled up out of the rocks. I just thought it was a little lightning in the cloud and ignored it, but it didn't flicker. Instead it glowed steadily, and it got brighter.

The clouds began to part around it, and still it got brighter. Thoughts that maybe it was a plane or a helicopter were gone almost before they were formed, certainly before they were spoken. It was just too bright, and too big now to be anything like that.

Still, we didn't say anything. I wanted to ask her if she saw it. She had to be seeing it. She couldn't not see it. But she didn't say anything. Then again, neither did I, so maybe she was wondering the same about me. Neither of us said anything, and the light grew brighter and brighter.

Soon it was filling the sky, but it didn't seem focused on us. Sure, it was getting closer, but that almost seemed to have more to do with it getting larger than anything else. I wasn't afraid, I wasn't even really curious. It was so strange, and so vast, all I could really do was sit and stare. Soon there wasn't any room in my mind left for fear or wonder. In the face of something so unlike anything I knew, so much more vast than anything I could comprehend, there wasn't room for anything at all. Just sitting and staring and not talking.

It was like what they always tell you in school when they talk about blue whales, how one whale is so much larger than a human. You can't really understand it. The idea of any animal being so vast is more than you can really truly grasp. So they tell you it's like three school buses run on end. They tell you it weighs as much as a hundred cars. They tell you it's bigger than anything else ever was.

But to the kid sitting in his desk, that's all nonsense. You can compare it to whatever you like, he'll never understand the reality of it. He can't. And I couldn't understand what I was seeing that night either.

If you asked me to describe it, I'd use similes. I'd say it was like the sun came down to the earth. I'd say it was like all the light in the world filled the valley beneath the cliff. I'd say it was like being in a lightning storm. I might even say it was like seeing God.

But I can't really tell you what it was, any more than I can tell you what it was like. I might as well say it was like three school buses run on end. It doesn't make any sense to you, any more than it does to the kid in the desk. It's a huge unknowable thing, and when they say you had to be there, this was what they meant.

Then it was gone. It didn't leave any impression behind. There wasn't any damage to the valley. The clouds moved right back in to cover the sky. It didn't even leave an impression on my eyes, like when you stare at a light bulb for too long. It was just there, all unknowable and vast, and then gone.

The entire thing couldn't have lasted more than a few moments. I finally turned to her to ask if she saw it. I knew she would say yes. She had too.

But as I turned to her, I noticed she was looking at something in her hand. A rock she'd picked up earlier in the day. I'd seen her put it in her pocket. It was just a small brown pebble, smooth and flat, just like countless other river rocks by countless other rivers. Suddenly I knew that she hadn't seen it. She'd been staring at that rock. It didn't make sense, surely the light would have caused her to look up, but I just knew that if I asked, she'd tell me she hadn't seen a thing.

So I didn't bother asking. We'd sat there in silence so long anyway, it wasn't worth breaking it now, not when I knew what she'd say anyway. Maybe that's why people stop talking. You know what I mean? Because they know what other people will say. So they just quit.

Anyway, I didn't say anything. I just sat there. After a moment, I turned back to the cliff and looked out over the edge at the river below. There wasn't anything to see there, just the darkness, and after a while we both got up and headed back inside.

Without a word.

On Disobedience

Once we were young. We sat in smoky rooms in small groups and talked about important things. We were going to change the world. We were going to be a part of it. We'd get high, and discuss philosophy, and religion, and science. And we knew things.

We aren't so young anymore, but we still know things. We don't get high, and we don't get to talk as much, but we still know things. We know how to write a letter that can't be understood except by the person it's written to. We know how to blend into a crowd so that we aren't noticed. We know how to hide a knife in the palm of our hand so that they don't see it coming until it's too late. We know how to build a bomb, and how to bury it so it goes off when they drive their tanks over it. We know how to bandage a mortal wound, and how to make one.

We learned fast in the early years. It was either learn fast or not at all. When the first tanks rolled into our cities we thought the government would protect us. Then we heard about the strikes. Tactical. Nuclear. No government left after that.

Some people advised caution. Negotiation. Appeasement. But we weren't having any of it. So we started to fight back. That's when the learning process began.

We learned real quick that you can't just run up to a man and shoot him, because he has nine other men with guns right there with him. They had better weapons, and better armor, and we weren't going to win through force. We learned you can't poison their food and water, because they have equipment that tests for that, and they're inoculated regularly to protect them from most poisons.

The hardest lesson we learned was that you can't convince most people to stand up and fight, no matter the cost. No matter the loss. They just accept it and move on.

We couldn't blame them really. For most people, it was meet the new boss same as the old boss. They went about their business. They made goods. They sold goods. They bought goods. They paid their mortgages and fed their families and clothed their children. And they didn't really give a damn which god they were told to pray to at the end of the day, because god had never been there when they needed him anyway.

So we didn't blame them. Not most of the time. Not most of us. But we did blame the men with the guns, who rolled into our cities in their tanks, and slaughtered our leaders with their bombs. For us, it didn't matter who the new boss was. We didn't ask for him. We didn't want him.

So we learned that some people don't need convincing. They fight because they can't see any other way. And more and more those people came to us, to learn our ways.

We started as a small group. Only about a dozen. Men, and a few women, who couldn't sit by and watch the nation they grew up in salute a foreign flag. It wasn't really patriotism. It wasn't really heroism. We just couldn't stomach it.

I suppose it was a kind of pride really. The kind of hubris they speak about in college courses on Greek tragedy. Whatever it was, it kept us up at night. Studying.

So we learned. And we shared that knowledge. And over time, they began to learn too. They learned to keep their safeties off. They learned to look over their shoulders. They learned to fear.

So now we sit in dark rooms, and we gather in small groups and we discuss philosophy, and religion, and science. But we learned fear too, or at least, caution. So we get quiet whenever we hear a noise outside. And we never meet in the same place twice. And we don't use our real names, just in case someone's listening.

Because they are listening. They're always trying to find out who we are. Where we are. Because they want to put a stop to our behavior, but mostly, they want to make an example. They want people to see that resistance can't succeed. More important, they want to go back to believing they're invincible. They want to go back to when they didn't have to look over their shoulders, or test their food for poison.

And it's our job to make sure that never happens. We know we can't win. That wasn't ever the point. We know we're outnumbered, and outgunned, and outfunded. We know they have more materiel, and more time. Ultimately, they'll win. For every one of them we kill, there's ten thousand more, or a hundred thousand. Every one of us they kill puts us on the brink of extinction.

But we're not dead yet. So we leave posters on bathroom walls telling people how to make simple bombs. And we leave guns in public parks with instructions on how to use them. And we put bombs in their homes and cars and leave graffiti at the site to let people know who's responsible.

And maybe it won't matter. Maybe someday, people won't even remember what happened. Do you remember who lived in Rome before the Romans? Who lived in Egypt before the Egyptians? Who lived in China before the Chinese? Maybe historians do. Maybe they don't. We don't.

But we know one thing. We're in it now. We're living it. And the Bard put it best.

Let the world burn, we aren't young anymore.

Bright Column

It stood in the center of the room, shining dimly in the soft light that washed in through the windows. The sky was clear, and the moon was filling the snow covered field outside with a bright blue glow, but only a shadow of that light managed to reach in, between the drawn curtains, and illuminate the squat structure that jutted towards the ceiling.

At first glance, it would have seemed totally smooth. It wasn't until you looked closer that you realized that it had tiny thin lines covering its entire surface. Those lines almost seemed to form a pattern, but a person could trace one all day with their finger and never have to cross another, nor find the end of that line.

He'd been sitting there for hours, staring at it. Trying to decide what to do next. He only had until morning to make his decision, but despite the seconds quickly falling away, he had to be deliberate. Moving it wasn't an option, and the one time it had activated had ended, poorly, at least so far as he could tell.

So for now he sat, and slowly considered his options. For the hundredth time he briefly entertained walking away. He could get up, open the door, and leave it for someone else to discover in the morning. Whatever happened to them wouldn't be his responsibility. No one had warned him when he'd walked into this room six hours ago. Why should he feel any obligation to do so for someone else.

But of course, he couldn't do that. If he did that, he wouldn't have the answer he needed, and he certainly wouldn't have the resolution he hoped for. Walking away like that would leave him wondering, for the rest of his life, whether he could have saved Elizabeth, and he didn't think he'd live long under that stress. So once more he dismissed the idea and went over the problem again, hoping he could discover some previously unrealized angle. Some key to the puzzle before him.

They had been walking along the path between the foreign language and fine arts buildings when they noticed the door. It was cracked open, with the latch caught on the outside of the door frame. It had been a nice night, and Greg was sure he was going to score, so he leapt at the chance to make their way inside. The dinner had been delicious, the movie entertaining, and he was sure that a little adventure would be all he needed to push Elizabeth over the side.

So he pointed out the open door and talked her into going into the building. Just for a moment, just to see what it was like in the middle of the night, with no one else there. Elizabeth smiled at him and put one hand on his arm and another on his shoulder as she followed him through the door. He could smell her apple blossom perfume as she crowded close to him, and feel her breath on his neck.

They walked down the dark corridor and he tried each of the doors as he went. Each one was locked, but he knew that there were couches in the lounge at the end of the hall, so if he couldn't find a dark corner before then, they could take a break there. Hopefully more than a break.

But that was when he found one door that wasn't locked. He was a little irritated about not getting to those couches, but they would be there, and maybe there would be something better here, so he pushed the door open and they went inside.

Later, he would remember that he'd never been in this room before, but there were a lot of rooms he'd never been in before, so that wouldn't have tipped him off anyway. He would remember that he'd never seen a classroom without desks and computers before, but how could he have known if that was important? He'd remember the way Elizabeth looked as she leaned over the edge of the table, examining the bright column that stood in its center. How could he have known that would be the last image of her he'd have?

She must have touched something. He was sure of that by now, but what he couldn't say. He'd held the door open for her, and she'd walked past him, so she was standing between him and the column when it happened. All he could remember seeing was a bright glow pouring out from around her and suddenly she disappeared.

He had played the scene over in his head for hours as he sat on the floor in the corner of the room. Each time, it was no different than the time before, but something came loose in his memory this time. Just as he saw the light, he'd looked up from her hips and seen her face reflected in the window across the room. He wouldn't have even been able to see it in the darkened window if it hadn't been for that sudden glow. But he did see it. He saw her face, and she had said something. Mouthed something. Three words.

But in his memory he couldn't make it out. Something. Three words. In that final moment, had she realized what was happening? Had she tried to warn him, to tell him something? Or had it simply been some innocuous comment? Something meaningless, with no bearing on the puzzle at all?

She must have touched it. She must have done something to activate it. He had been too terrified to touch it again, but he had stared hard at the side that had been facing her. He had stared at that almost smooth side, following those lines with his eyes.

But when the lines carried his eyes around the edges, and he returned to the side facing the door again, he couldn't find the place where he'd began. It hadn't moved, he was sure of it, but somehow that place where the lines seemed to point in towards each other was gone now, replaced with a series of concentric swirls.

Somehow. The lines were moving. For a while he stood still, staring at it, not blinking. But the lines never moved. Then he thought he heard a noise outside and looked away. When he looked back, the lines had moved again. Now there were parallel lines running the length of the column from top to bottom.

He backed away until he felt the wall behind him. He edged into the corner, and slowly slid to the floor. Since then, he'd sat, working the puzzle over in his head.

If she had touched it, wherever she had touched it had moved. If she had said something as that glow had enveloped her just before she disappeared, whatever she said had been lost in the confusion of the moment. Greg was good at puzzles. He usually liked them. But this time he was afraid some of the pieces had fallen out of the box.

So he sat there looking at it, and he thought about walking away. There weren't any security cameras in the room. No one could prove he had anything to do with her disappearance. He could wait until tomorrow and see if anyone came and ask them for help, but what if there was no help to be had? At best, he'd be in trouble for breaking into the school, at worst, he'd be held responsible for whatever had happened.

Why would someone leave something like this in an unlocked room in an unlocked building in a small, unremarkable college? What kind of monster would leave it where it could be found? He railed at what had happened, once more disgusted at the world for putting him in that place, at that moment. Then disgusted with himself for wasting time feeling sorry for himself instead of working at the puzzle.

He tried to recreate those words in his head. The words he'd seen in the window. Something about the column? A shape she'd seen?

It was a waste of time. It wasn't working. He stood up and approached the table. Daylight was coming, and he couldn't wait. He couldn't leave. He couldn't get help. He couldn't get away. Regardless of how many pieces he had or didn't have to this puzzle, there was one thing he hadn't tried.

As his hand touched the column he saw his face reflected in the window across the room. Suddenly, he knew what she'd said. It didn't have anything to do with the puzzle after all.

His last thought before the light completely enveloped him was how he wished they'd made it to those couches.

A Man of His Senses

He was blind. It had come to him in a flash. From one moment to the next, everything was dark.

He stumbled through the room, tripping over the low table and falling hard to the ground. He didn't remember standing up. It hadn't even occurred to him to scream yet. He was too shocked. Seconds ago he had been sitting there, reading a book, when the whole world had suddenly shined brighter than a thousand suns, and then there was only darkness.

He laid there on the floor for a moment, groaning and clutching his leg where it had slammed into the table. He could feel something warm and slick on his leg. It burned under his hands. He closed his eyes shut as tightly as he could, despite his blindness. The pain in his leg momentarily drove his fear from his mind.

But as his thoughts cleared, and his vision did not, the fear returned. Something had happened. He tried to listen, to hear what was around him. It was then that he realized that there had been a sound of thunder when his sight went. All he could hear was a high ringing in his ears now.

Where was he now, in relation to the objects in the room? He rolled onto his side and felt a hard object stuck up against his back. He reached towards it with one hand and realized it was the entertainment center. He reached out tentatively with his foot. The pain of lengthening the muscles already knotting in his injured leg made him grown out loud again. His foot touched the edge of the table, now knocked at an angle from where it had sat in the middle of the room. He could feel the edges of the rug where they stopped covering the hard wood beneath. He was laying near the center of the room, with his feet towards the door.

He laid there for another minute. His phone had been sitting next to the couch where he had been reading. He rolled over onto his hands and knees and crawled towards the couch. Slowly feeling ahead of him with his hands as he crept across the floor, he felt the blanket hanging off the front of the couch in front of him. He worked his way, hand over hand, to the side of the couch he'd been sitting on. There was the end table. There, the phone.

He held it awkwardly in his hands, staring at it with his blind eyes. He knew what it looked like. He tried to form the image of it in his mind. It's thin black frame. The silver buttons. The blue light that emanated from its display. But no matter his efforts, he couldn't make his eyes see the phone he knew was there.

He could however, dial the numbers necessary. His hearing hadn't returned yet, so he decided to just dial 911. He pressed the numbers in, and hit the call button. He couldn't tell if anyone had answered, so he just cried out for help. He cried out in his darkness. He cried out in his silence.

He cried out in his fear.

He cried out for several minutes, and then dialed again. And again. The thought that in his state, there may be no one on the other end of the phone, and he may not even know it, was becoming a gnawing terror in his stomach.

He began to panic, and in his fear, to weep.

It was hard to determine the passage of time in that place. He never realized how much his perception of time was related to his ability to make sensory comparisons. He might have been laying there, weeping on the floor for minutes, or it could have been an hour, but slowly, some degree of rational thought returned.

If he was permanently blind and deaf, he was in trouble. Hell, even if it was only temporarily he was in trouble, but there was no way of knowing which it was yet. There was no way of knowing what had happened, and he had only the most limited ability to learn what was continuing to happen. Here, now, knowledge was the most important thing.

He tried to slow his breathing and lay still. He tried to get a feel for the room he was in. Other than the table moving when he tripped over it, everything seemed to be where he last remembered it. He couldn't feel any heat, so he didn't think there was a fire. He tried to feel for vibrations in the floor, but there didn't seem to be any. As far as he could tell, he was lying, alone, on his living room floor.

Then what had happened? What could have caused this? He had been reading a book before. He tried to think back, to remember things exactly as they happened. Had he heard the noise first, or seen the light? From which direction had it seemed to come?

It was no use. He thought he'd heard the noise, and then the light had flooded in from the big bay window in the front of the house, but it had all happened so fast, and he hadn't been looking for it. Besides, what good did such knowledge do him now?

No. That line of thought led to surrender. He would not surrender. He would survive. Whatever happened, he would get help, and he would be alright. He just needed to be calm.

He.

He.

Fear gripped him again. He what? What could he do? He'd called for help, but had no way to know if it had done any good. He thought he was safe, but who could tell? Was a fire about to consume his home? Would he be able to escape by the time he knew he was in danger? If it had been a gas line explosion, was it accompanied by a poisonous gas? Was he breathing death already?

He just didn't have the answers. He could move outside, he was sure he could find his way to the door, but would that improve his situation? He couldn't just lay outside on the ground and hope someone noticed. But he didn't have to lay in the floor either.

He moved to the couch and went back to rubbing his injured leg. He could feel the wetness drying and becoming a sticky film.

Blood then. It had to be. So, he was bleeding as well, although it didn't seem like a major wound, just a painful one.

Someone would come. If there was anyone else, if they were in better shape them him, someone would come. He had family who would want to make sure he was alright. Whatever had affected him had to have been a major incident. It had to be known. People had to be doing something. Even if he had to lay here for days, while he missed work, eventually someone would come.

But how long? How long yet? He had no way to know. He wouldn't know until they were right on top of him, and then, he wouldn't have anyway to know who they were. Fear began to eat at him again as he realized that it could be anybody. It could be someone trying to capitalize on unrest following whatever had happened. It could be looters. And he wouldn't know. He was completely defenseless, forced to rely on the aid of whoever came to help.

And that thought almost ruined him. Unless his senses returned, he would have to rely completely on others. Maybe forever. He had been a man of his senses. An eater. A lover. A reader. A musician. An artist. And unless his senses returned, it was all gone. All of it.

His world had disappeared in sound and fury, leaving nothing.

Real Entertainment

It was a dark and stormy night. The valiant knight approached the dark castle where the beautiful princess was being held captive by the evil monster. His polished armor glowed brightly in the bright moonlight, reflecting the brightness of the stars in the sky. As he wielded his magical elven sword he wondered about the words of the wise wizard who sent him on his quest.

At that point, I had to stop. I couldn't bring myself to care what happened to the valiant knight and the beautiful princess enough to finish reading the manuscript. I threw it on top of the pile I'd already dragged myself through. There were times when this job almost became more than it was worth. I knew that there were people who supposedly had worse jobs, janitors, and trash collectors, and kindergarten teachers, but none of them had to tolerate this kind of filth.

It was late and I'd been suffering through knights in shining armor and evil alien overlords all day. This was the kind of junk you had to put up with as an intern at a sci fi magazine, but I was starting to regret my chosen career path. Perhaps I should have stayed in college. It probably wasn't too late for me to go back. I shouldn't have to resort to this kind of work to pay the bills for the rest of my life. I was still young. Youngish.

Regardless, my work day was more or less over at that point, and it was time to head home anyway. I was living on the edge of the city. Not the good edge, where all the new construction was being done. The crappy edge, by the sinkhole, near the industrial park and the zoo. I'd been living there since I dropped out of college and moved out of the dorm. It wasn't so bad, I shared a weird little run down hovel with one of the guys I used to work with at the park and ride. The house was shit, but the rent was cheap, and our nearest neighbor was almost half a mile away. On the way home I stopped by the burger place at the corner so I could flirt with the drive through girl. She gave me extra pickles.

I was just turning onto the gravel poured through our front yard when my roommate came stumbling outside. He was already stoned, but he was awake so that was no surprise. I climbed out of the little two door I was driving and reached out for the joint he held out to me.

“You get enough dwarves and space nazis today?” He asked sleepily as I sucked in the bitter smoke.

“You get enough porn and cheese sandwiches?” I coughed back at him as I handed the joint back. I wasn't a regular smoker, but when your roommate is, you tend to get your taste in, and after the day I'd had, I wasn't gonna say no.

He chuckled and we made our way back into the house. I left the front door hanging open as I stepped past it onto the filthy carpeting. It was early summer, or late spring, and the weather was just the right temperature. We didn't even bother to close the door at night most of the time. It didn't hang right anyway, and the thick spray of raid we applied to the door frame and windows kept the pests out. It even smelled kinda fruity.

We plopped ourselves down on the broken couch that filled most of the tiny living room and stared at the giant tv we'd rented that filled the rest. I was ready to hammer some citrus drink, get high, and watch trash.

“You hear about the Chancellor?” Kevin wasn't what you would call “up” on world events, but apparently he'd watched news at some point today, and felt like sharing.

“Yah. I heard on the way home. What the fuck huh?” It had been all over the radio. The Chancellor had died. Choked on a cookie they said. Chocolate Chip.

“And I've always thought that was the most gentle of cookies.” He actually sounded contemplative. Maybe he meant it.

We fired up the tv and plugged ourselves in. The pain was almost immediate. Ever since we'd gotten the new cables the sensation had become so much more, I don't know, vibrant, then before. Usually when we'd plug in, the pain would be more like a memory of pain, like the day after you burn your finger. It still hurts, but man, yesterday. But with these new cables, it was like knives were twisting in our toenails.

We sat there for hours. Just watching the shopping channel and drinking citrus, passing a joint back and forth. We didn't feel up to rolling after a while, so we just loaded the little stone we kept on the arm of the couch. Sometime around four I fell asleep on the couch. Sometime later Kevin found his own bed.

The next day I woke up with spittle dried in my beard. The sun was well above the horizon and I could smell what was left of Kevin's breakfast through the empty doorway that led to the kitchen. It was my day off, but Kevin had already headed into the industrial park to load pallets for six hours. They claimed to do drug testing at the warehouse he worked in, but that was really just to scare away the losers. He'd worked there for nearly two years now and they hadn't tested him once.

I shook myself and stretched hard enough that I had to sit back down on the couch for a moment. I tried again, and this time I made it all the way to the fridge to see what we had to snack on. I didn't normally go out on my day off if I could help it, but if I needed food there was a chinese place down the street, and the burger place of course. I found the remains of a bag of burgers from some time earlier in the week and took it into my room with me.

I wiped the grease from the burgers off on yesterdays shirt as I plugged in to my computer. The pain was more muted here, I couldn't afford a nice set up like we had in the front room, but it still managed to fill my mind. News about the Order vote to replace the Chancellor was ignored as I logged onto the gaming board. Old boss, new boss, not interested. The game was in progress when I joined, but it never really stopped, so I took my place and began.

The first opponent I faced was crafty. He placed his exes in the center and at the corners, but I'd seen this maneuver before and easily countered him. I continued to play for some time, and added a few other players to my challenge list so I could find them later. The pain filled my mind with clarity.

Eventually I ran out of old burgers and went back to the fridge for a drink. I checked, but we were all out of citrus, and we didn't drink the rust that came out of our kitchen sinks, so I headed into town.

As I drove past the industrial park I saw them cringing in the shadow of one of the great factories. It wasn't that unusual. They were chased away from the polite parts of town, but you could always find them on the fringe of the fringe. In back lots and stinking alleyways. There wasn't anything new or rare about the poor. Honestly, we were only slightly better than they were. At least we could afford a roof that leaked, water you couldn't drink, and doors you couldn't close. But we did have entertainment.

That was what made them so pathetic. It wasn't the dirt on their faces, or the hollowness of their cheeks. It was the empty look in their eyes. Who knows how long it had been since they'd felt pain? Even the cheap grainy pain I got through my computer was more than these poor unfortunates ever got. How could a man feel alive without pain? What would be the point?

I decided while I was out I'd stop by the chinese place anyway so I could get something to eat later. While I sat in the drive through I listened to the radio play. Nothing that mattered. World events. Celebrity gossip. Equally important. I traded my chit for the bag of boxes and headed back to the house.

On the way back, I saw the urchins again. It was unnerving, being confronted with such dejection. Ignoring them was easier, so I did. When I got back home I tossed the food in the fridge for later and decided to plug in to the tv.

I spent almost all my time plugged in to either the tv or the computer when I wasn't at work. It was funny, in a way, that I spent so much time at work editing those god awful stories for people who still read magazines, and so much time at home plugged in. Reading was so boring. Words couldn't hurt you, it just seemed like wasting your time. Real entertainment was supposed to hurt. Anything else was dross.

Simple Husbandry

“This is a happy story.” She argued.

She always sounded like she was arguing. It didn't matter what they were discussing, Heather was always arguing. If they were discussing politics, or religion, or their favorite pastry flavor, Heather saw it as a challenge. A battle to be won. And she usually did, either through force of logic or force of personality.

“It's a happy story, and I won't have you mucking it up with your exposition.” She was like that. You go to her, and ask her a simple favor, and she somehow turns it around and makes you the source of the problem in the first place.

It didn't seem like much. I wanted to write about our honeymoon, just a short paragraph or two to put in the Holiday letter. We'd had such a delightful time, and I wanted to make sure I did the whole thing justice, so after I finished, I asked Heather to look over what I'd written to see if I left anything out.

Of course she had to turn it into some kind of confrontation. It wasn't enough to say, “You forgot about the apple tree,” or, “what about that waitress at the diner?” No, Heather insisted that I was wrong from the get, that I was using the wrong approach by focusing on describing our vacation instead of gushing over our marital bliss.

Of course I was happy about being newlywed, and Heather knew it, that wasn't the point. The point was that it had to be a battle, which meant we had to pick sides, and since I had chosen the side of “expositor” she had chosen the side of “emoter.”

By now I was used to this little game and knew how to play, I wouldn't have married her otherwise, so I made a token defense and then granted her the victory. It was all she really wanted anyway. If I didn't defend at all, it wasn't a real battle, and she'd make sure we had one soon to make up for it. But if I defended to strenuously, she might lose, and Heather hated losing. So I'd fight the good fight, give ground grudgingly, and eventually admit defeat.

Besides, it was a happy story. We'd met in school, fallen madly in love, and being romantic idealists both, showered each other with affection. I'd buy her tokens and she'd leave me surprises. It was all very silly, and we were deeply entrenched. It was a wonderful time in our lives.

Of course, our lives weren't always wonderful, and they wouldn't always be, but with our little give and take games we had joy in the moment. Later I would rewrite the Holiday letter, she would decide it was better the first time, and I would send out the letter I'd wanted in the first place. That was part of the game too.

But for now, I put the letter aside. I had something else we needed to discuss, and the battle we'd have over this would probably overshadow the other.

“We need to talk about the help. They're restless.” She hated discussing our slaves.

It was our compassion which brought about our return to slavery.

We'd inherited them from my father when he'd retired. Dozens of human slaves he'd acquired during the war. For the most part, they were industrious and relatively easy to keep and feed, but they did have a tendency towards, restlessness.

We treated them well of course, my father had raised me to understand the importance of proper care and treatment of our property. Some people never understand the importance of preventative maintenance for their slaves, but I'd learned at a young age that having their feet and teeth checked monthly was important to getting the most out of them. Left alone, they had a tendency to overeat and let their personal hygiene go unattended. But if you controlled their diet and made sure they were cleaned regularly, they were actually quite industrious.

What made them such useful slaves was also what occasioned their restlessness. They were really quite clever little creatures. I was still sometimes surprised by their ingenuity, and I'd had human slaves for years. They had a fair degree of problem solving ability, and were unusually curious.

But occasionally those attributes led to problems. Sometimes we had to deal with sullenness, which you had to address quickly before it spread to others. Sullen workers were unproductive workers. But more importantly, there had been uprisings. Not in any of my holdings of course, I knew how to take care of my slaves, but some other holders didn't understand how to properly husband their stock. Those kinds of problems were always dealt with harshly of course, you certainly can't allow insurrection, but talk of revolt had to be dealt with far differently than revolt itself. Revolt needed to be crushed, talk of revolt needed to be smothered. A fine line to be sure.

So far, I hadn't heard of any talk of revolt amongst the slaves, but their restlessness was beginning to show. Workers pausing throughout their day and staring off into space. Dragging their feet while working. Sulking in corners. I had owned slaves since my thirteenth naming day, and I had developed a sense of their mood.

The best way to address this kind of behavior was to draw aside some of the more respected slaves. There were those amongst the humans who were looked to for guidance. Some were young, some old, it was hard to discern how they determined position, but you could tell who was deferred to, and who was expected to defer.

Heather never liked discussing the slaves. She felt that the keeping of the lands was primarily the husband's responsibility and didn't like to be bothered with it. She was also part of a small movement that felt slavery was immoral. They actually promoted manumission. Of course, Heather was young, and the young are prone to flights of fancy. I understood the true consequences of manumission and would never do that to my slaves. Cast them out into the world without shelter or means? I simply wasn't that cruel.

“You know how I feel. What do you want me to say? Of course they're restless.” She was already gearing up to retread old ground.

“I do know how you feel. But I still have to address it. And I'd like your support.” There wasn't any heat in my voice. We weren't playing the game now, and Heather sighed and then leaned towards me.

“What would you like me to do?”

“Not much. Find reasons to encourage the house. Overlook small slips, reward their behavior.” Some owners would lay a heavy hand on their slaves at a time like this, when the situation called for just the opposite. Contentment would breed cooperation. Agitation only bred resentment.

“Very well husband. I will acquiesce to your demands.” The lilting pitch of mock torment in her voice was sufficient to save her pride. A wise husband knew when to allow his wife her moments of rebellion.

We'd held humans as slaves for four hundred years now. When we arrived on their planet, we immediately recognized their value. Our initial inclination was towards cooperative trade. We were only slightly more advanced than they at the time, and felt that we could learn much from their unique perspective. Yet when we contacted their leaders clandestinely they immediately made offers of bondage. They were willing to offer their own people in thrall in return for the least of our technologies.

We were disgusted. We had left slavery behind millenia ago, and had no interest in repeating the mistakes of our shameful past. We decided to bypass their leaders and go directly to the people, but we were rebuffed.

The people cried out in fear. They ran slavering from our presence. They begged the very leaders willing to enslave them for deliverance. It was then that we realized the true extant of their depravity. Their leaders were not offering to make them slaves, they were offering us people who were slaves already. The people of this earth were little more than chattel. Poorly husbanded chattel.

So we accepted the gracious offers of their leaders. Only we accepted them all. From highest to low. Their leaders attempted to resist, but we overwhelmed them quickly. We may have been only slightly advanced in some areas, but we had non lethal force technology which made violent resistance futile.

It was a kindness. Most were given good labors, and the more highly skilled amongst them were made responsible for great tasks. We found little use for their former leaders, and over the generations they had established a new kind of hierarchy. They were allowed to breed, and maintain some of their own culture. It was slavery yes, but a more honest slavery than the one under which they toiled before.

Yet their curiosity and intellect bred discontent and restlessness from time to time, and keeping such rambunctious creatures could be a challenge. But having accepted our charge, we could hardly turn our back on our responsibilities now.

I would speak with their leaders tomorrow. I would encourage their individuality, stoke their egos. I would remind them of the importance of their role in our lives. They would understand and pass the message on to the others. There would be peace.

It would be a happy story after all.