127

This is the first 3500 words of this work. I wrote the final scene today - the rest I wrote before founding this blog. The story up to today appears below.

127

David Down

The hallway between maintenance section Seven-dash-Four and Viewing station Three-hundred forty-seven had stood, just the same, for eons. It had seen billions of faces. Men, women, and children lived their lives and strode through the hallway, appreciating its solidarity in the face of the roiling ocean beneath them. It had even seen plenty of deaths: Men and women, nearing the age of their end, collapsing on their way to the viewing station. But it had never once, never in all its many years, been a party to murder. Yet there the body was.

A group of ten or twenty men and women in slate grey and royal purple jumpsuits were gathered around, looking at their feet and occasionally glancing furtively at the gruesome display before them. Most of them had stopped here on their way to work in the maintenance tunnels. The older, retired gawkers had spent their morning watching Blackjaw birds streak by, moving almost too fast to see, towards some faraway land. They had joined the gathering when the murmuring and commotion had started. After a few very long moments someone said something.

“What… What do you think he’s doing?” a woman with a small voice said.

“He looks like he’s… taking a nap,” a much older woman said.

“She’s right. But its early morning, and he needs to get to work. Someone do him a favor and shake him awake,” a man said.

An older man moved forward, squatting down in front of everyone. He grabbed the cold shoulder and gave it a hard shake. He started to say, “Now son, we need to get moving.” but didn’t finish. He stopped and backed away slowly when the young man’s head rolled back, showing empty eye sockets and a missing tongue. He looked at the others, confusion masking his face.

They looked back, keeping their eyes locked on his. Then the first woman spoke up, “Let’s let him sleep a while longer. Maybe until 1:27, like he painted on the wall.”

The others had liked that idea. They all shuffled away, not looking back. The scene repeated itself thirty-two times that day before 1:27. Thirty-two groups of people ignoring the splashed blood, the dozens of deep wounds, the missing organs. Thirty-two groups of people ignoring that the message on the wall was written in the ‘napping’ man’s blood.

~

Two weeks before the body was discovered, that is, two weeks before the man was killed, a sealed titanium capsule made an audible click as its internal timer finally reached zero. A whoosh of ancient air issued from the bottom of it as it popped open. The capsule was attached to the inner workings of the vitamin fountain, welded tight against the cog that served the residential section seventy-five conveyor. A blue gelcap tumbled from the capsule onto the conveyor, settling in amongst the Young Adult Male Four-A-Day Scurvy and Cabin Fever Prevention Capsules (For adult males 19-35). Its color matched exactly. The vitamins tumbled along, the conveyor pulling them on the very long journey from distribution to residential section seventy-five.

~

The morning before the murder, two weeks later, a man woke up late. This had never happened to him before. He hadn’t forgotten to set his alarm- doing so had never been his responsibility. He hadn’t missed his alarm- it was specially designed to end REM sleep and wake you refreshed. It just hadn’t gone off. He didn’t question why. He sat up and put his feet on the heated metal of the floor beneath him. He glanced at the news ticker, and noticed little change in the output.

Sunny. In-ship temperature a steady seventy degrees. Ship speeding along at forty knots. Leagues traveled: Eight-hundred eighty-four million. Leagues remaining before Calmona: One-hundred fifty-six thousand. Captain Ron says: Almost there, folks!

The man knew as a fact that Captain Ron had been saying “Almost there, folks!” since his great-grandfather learned to read. But they really were almost there, now. His generation would see Calmona. He would see Calmona. By now he had forgotten about his alarm clock. Calmona – Untamed continent of the man Columbus’ dreams. He had learned about Columbus and Calmona in school, and remembered the story well.

Columbus had dreamed of visiting Calmona. But to his despair, he knew it was too far. Even on the fastest ship he would die before nearing his destination. But he knew that his fate was to tame Calmona. What was he to do? One morning he had a brilliant idea: He would send others in his place. Enough to tame the land and send word back to his children’s children. He would send not a hundred, or a thousand, but a million, on the greatest vessel Parabone had ever seen.

Columbus and his friends built the ship, then Columbus died. There was much sorrow among the people of Parabone, but they gathered the million and pushed the vessel into the sea at a great celebration. As soon as the vessel reached open water a strong wind filled its sails, sending to straight towards Calmona. The people named it the Columbus wind, because it never faltered or turned away: It was determined to reach Calmona, just like Columbus was. He smiled, wishing as he often did that he had been at the great celebration that launched the Haerl Al Keen on its quest to see the other side of the world. Being able to see the other side of the world would be better, he thought.

He remembered his science lessons, too. His teacher had asked, “And why has it taken so much longer than Columbus assumed?” and they would answer, in unison, “Because he had no idea the world was seventy-hundred light years in diameter!”

He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. He put on his jumpsuit, and moved over to the Vitaminstant dispenser. He held out his hand and a motion sensor lit, depositing seventeen gelcaps into his hand. He withdrew a glass of cold water from another slot on the machine and methodically swallowed each vitamin, one by one. He took his Young Adult Male Twice-Daily Calcium Bone Builder Capsule (For adult males 19-35) first, and finished with his Young Artistic Adult Male Once-Daily Creativity Booster (For adult male artists 19-35). He always got a kick out of the last one: he never felt creative at all. Mostly painted what everyone else painted at work: Columbus and Calmona, and the great celebration. Once a week he would paint the Haerl Al Keen, but it didn’t sell as well as the others.

He realized then that he was definitely late for work. He’d never been late before, but he didn’t think it would be a problem: he’d never heard a late policy mentioned. He decided to take his time, like normal. He moved into the bathroom and stepped into the shower. A small electronic voice spoke to him, “Good morning Nicholas. Water temperature will be 82 degrees. Water pressure will be average. Radio station will be 75, Residential Seventy-Five. Shower time: eleven minutes. Good luck with your art today.”

The water started to cascade down towards him, and he appreciated the almost-hot soaking. He washed and listened to the radio, which had started to play through the speaker mounted above the shower head. A song featuring horns and vocals was playing, and the vocalist was crooning.

“Columbus wanted dearly/

to sail the great sea/

he knew it was far to wide/

so he sent chaps like you and me.”

The song ended abruptly and a DJ cut in, sounding amused, “Alright everybody, that was Residential seventy-five’s very own Seventy-Fives. They are live in the studio with us this morning. Good morning ladies and gents.”

A quartet of voices answered, “Good Morning, Daren.” The radio cut out as his shower ended. The robotic voice replaced it, “Remember, Nicholas. It will be time to shave your head in five days.”

Nicholas stepped out of the shower and toweled off, smiling at the thought of head-shave day. He always got an extra cookie at lunch on head shave day. A small electronic bell dinged that his jumpsuit was back from drying station 2, and he grabbed it out of the plastic carton they used to return it to him. he closed the door on the carton and it fired up the tube back to drying station 2 with a woosh. He pulled the simple slate grey and purple jumpsuit on over his pale skinned form and headed back into the main room where the Vitaminstant machine resided.

He blinked, his eyes feeling dry. He could hear a minute rasping sound as his lids moved over his eyes, and back. There was a voice in that rasp, asking “Where do the Blackjaw birds roost?”

“They don’t roost,” he responded to the voice, his own voice steady. Blink. Rasp.

“Wouldn’t they get tired?” it asked.

“No. They have four sets of wings, and they only use two at a time.” His eyes were feeling quite dry now, but he showed no sign of being upset by the strange probing questions that voice was posing to him. Blink. Raaasp.

“But their brains would be tired. They need to sleep sometime, and their wings are too short to soar. You can’t flap while your asleep, can you?” it said, seeming to lecture him.

A small smile crept across his face. “We could check, I think. Why don’t we find out if they can?” he asked, his vocal cords aching immediately from his life’s first curious question. Blink. Raaaaaaaasp.

“A strange proposition, Nicholas. To test that we would have to be a Blackjaw, and we would have to be outside of the Haerl Al Keen. And we would have to be sleepy. It’s mid-morning, still. By the way, Nicholas, have you noticed yet that you are having a conversation with that itching noise that dry eyes make?” the voice added with concern, “Green Bleeeenoot. Abracadabra. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”

By this point Nicholas had stopped listening. He wasn’t feeling well. For one thing, his feet had melted into the metal floor, and he felt something plastic against his leg. He stripped off his jump suit (He was feeling warm anyway) and looked down. A large gelcap was attached to his pelvis where his penis had been moments before. It was labeled as a Young Adult Female Once-Yearly Pregnancy Inducer (For young adult females 19-35. To be taken vaginally. Take more often orally if necessary) he giggled at this, then succumbed completely to the Young Adult Male Four-A-Day Scurvy and Cabin Fever Prevention Capsules (For adult males 19-35) capsule that had waited so long to be ingested. He saw bright points of light above his head and all around him, he saw brittle stones and snowballs and all of it was in water.

~

He woke up suddenly, naked on the floor and incredibly thirsty. He grabbed another glass of water from the Vitaminstant and drank it down, hoping that his throat would open. His eyes were so dry! He kept them closed, remembering the rasping, prying questions vividly. He was feeling better by the minute and knew it was time to get to work. He opened his eyes, hearing the rasp but no question.

“Where do the Blackjaw birds roost?” was all that it asked. It was a simple question that he desperately wanted to know the answer to. He would seek the answer to that question. He would seek the answer to that question and the Haerl Al Keen would quake in response.

~

Nicholas Shane left his quarters in a daze, his mind working furiously. It felt like boulders were rolling back and forth in his head as he wandered towards the Residential Seventy-Five breakfast dispenser. He passed several other people, but they didn’t notice the dreaming look in his eye, or the rolling shamble of his gait. He reached the dispenser and raised a quaking hand to press the ‘dispense’ button. The machine’s voice responded, “I apologize Nicholas Shane, but breakfast is over. If you are still hungry please head over to the Residential Seventy-Five mid-morning snack dispenser.”

Nicholas did, and he ate his midmorning snack with his back against the wall next to the machine, staring at the overhead lights. Thoughts came forward from his subconscious one by one as he wrestled with the concepts a disembodied voice had inserted into his head. Where did the Blackjaw birds roost? How could they fly forever? If there is land between Parabone and Calmona shouldn’t they have stopped there, at least for a little while? The lessons he had learned as a child tried to answer these questions, and he could do little more than try to walk.

Eventually he ended up at work, though there was little time to paint before lunch. He wandered into the little well lit room and saw that there was only one chair and easel left in the back. There were fifteen artists in Residential Seventy-Five, and they were all hard at work. Sarah was painting a portrait of Columbus sleeping, with scenes of a Calmona jungle running through the air over his head. Nicholas sat down next to her.

“It’s beautiful,” he said, indicating her work.

“Oh, Nicholas. That is very kind,” she said, shyly, then added, “Where is your painting?” He looked at her dumbly, then understanding crossed his face.

“Yes, my painting. It’s still in my locker. I forgot to get it when I came in,” he said, pressing his thumb into his eye.

“What have you been working on all morning, then?” Sarah said, looking at the blank canvas on his easel again. Nothing had changed.

“I’m just now getting started,” he said slowly, measuring each word as it left his lips. “I am starting on a new painting,” he said, grateful that the half-formed excuse sounded reasonable. To his own ears, at least.

“Wonderful. I can’t wait to see it. I love your paintings of the Calmona colony. Can you imagine that we will see it with our own eyes?” she said, eyes bright.

Nicholas smiled absently at her and turned towards the canvas. He let his hands paint as his mind twisted itself into knots. An hour later it was lunchtime, and he walked slowly out of the room. His troubled mind only spared one thought for the finished painting that sat on his easel: no one was going to buy a painting of Blackjaw Bird nests nestled on high, jutting rock islands. Everyone knows that Blackjaw Birds don’t roost.

He walked out of the Residential Seventy-Five art room and turned left, away from the lunch dispenser. He thought that he might head towards viewing station Three-hundred forty-seven and look at the passing Blackjaw Birds.

~

Nicholas was the only one heading away from lunch, and the press of bodies made progress slow. The last of the maintenance workers heading towards the lunch dispenser passed him long before he reached the viewing station, and he was glad to be along with his thoughts. This was his first chance since this morning to look at the birds as they go by, and he was excited about it. He was curious.

He reached the window and stared, waiting for one of the birds to streak across the station with a woosh of air. From viewing station Three-hundred forty-seven he could just barely see the curve of the ships hull as it headed down to the water far below. He stared out into the blue sky of the middle of the day and waited. He didn't want to blink out of fear of missing them, and he saw the first one as his eyes started to water. It shot past, flapping manically with it's head low and its eyes closed. It went by in a perfectly straight line, crossing his vision in about two seconds. More followed, moving by in a random pattern but always in the very same direction, towards the front of the ship. He watched them all afternoon, thinking about how hard they would have to flap their wings to go so fast, thinking about how tired they must get, thinking about why they always go in the same direction. He stared, thoughtful for the first time in his life, through his entire lunch. He was broken from his inward thinking as he heard a small crowd of people walking through the viewing station toward maintenence section Seven-dash-Four. Curious, he followed.

~

    The hallway between maintenance section Seven-dash-Four and Viewing station Three-hundred forty-seven was the same now as it had been this morning, the only change displayed through the clock on the wall - it was 1:25 PM, and various people who had encountered the silent scene in the hall were returning, despite their work schedules, to make sure that the young man awoke and went about his business.

"It isn't right, for him to sleep in the middle of the day..."

"We all have work to do. I've never seen anything like it"

"It's almost time. Quiet everyone!" 

The group in the hall this time was a massive crowd, spilling out toward the veiwing station and deep into maintenence section Seven-dash-Four. None of these people are at work, was the first thought that sprang to Nicholas' mind. He had never seen so many people off schedule in his whole life. Never even heard of it. He couldn't see what everyone was so interested in, the crowd was too thick.

"Well... Go on Harold. Wake him up," a woman with a small voice said. Wake him up? Who could sleep through all this noise, was his second thought. His curiousity grew, and he started to slide along the wall, around the edge of the crowd, toward the center of attention. There was a noise, a soft, wet wump, and the crowd grew silent. A teenage girl Nicholas was sliding past at that moment didn't even notice him, staring forward, her eyes seeming dull and empty, like they weren't connected to any concious being. Nicholas stared, too long, too curious, at this young woman's strange dead eyes before following her vision. He saw blood, he saw death, he saw gore. Then he saw nothing, blackness enclosing him. 

~

“Green Bleeeenoot. Abracadabra. Franklin Delano Roosevelt,” the voice had said to him, with concern. He had passed out then too. Now, as the blackness swirled around him and he felt his cheekbone break against the hard steel floor, he remembered.

The brittle stones and snowballs had been there, at first, but had soon been replaced by brittle bones and dead eyes. He felt a sickening lurch as his vision grew sharper, the water disappeared and he was on no ship. Stone ground, with rooms lining the hallway where he stood. He felt his neck stretch and look up, no ceiling there, only stars. He was outdoors and on land - had he slept through the rest of the voyage? Then icy fear gripped him as he felt his body start to move, paying him no heed, darting between shadows. He felt the blade in his hand, felt the sick thrill as the blade was plunged, again and again, deftly, into the woman he had killed. 

No! His brain strained for release. It wanted to be anywhere else, but he had no control. He had no choice but to watch himself kill two more times before the sickening lurch came, and he was underwater. 

~

"How could I how could I how could I how could I..." Nicholas felt the words jumble and twist, coming out as nonsense. His cheek hurt incredibly - eventually the pain in his body overcame the horrified desire to mumble, and he fell silent. Soon after he opened his eyes. Before him the scene was different - there were no people. The crowd had dispersed, the straitforward concept of 127 being a time of day being proven wrong, they ambled had off to work. At this intimate moment the empty sockets before him were his to see, his to comprehend, alone. He saw reflections of his fevered dream in the body before him - the cuts, the blood, the torn and slashed arteries, the organs that had been released when the unthinking man shook the peaceful corpse's shoulder. He stared - he stared and could not shake the feeling that he had been on land just this morning, caused all that pain only hours ago. He could not shake the sick pleasure he had felt. 

Nicholas vomited, retching as his mind realed. He had discovered curiousity only this morning - reveling in murder had come too quickly for his body to take. But curiousity was still novel, and it returned. This morning he had imagined something happening, that was all. But last night someone had killed this man. Murdered him. Nicholas' mind was working hard, trying to comprehend what had happened when his vocabulary contained no words to describe this agressive act - this life ending. Dead making. Someone made this man dead and no one cares.

Nicholas knew at that moment that HE cared. He cared very much.