The Cloud Seeders, page 12
"Still," I say and take a slice of turkey from one of the containers. The smell of it. My eyeballs are drooling. "Maybe you should try some."
"No thanks."
"Think of it this way. If you go into convulsions, we'll know it's not safe."
"No. To infinity and beyond."
I put the turkey back, the man in the box watching us all the while.
His face is gaunt, pale.
Like he was born in that box.
I check to see if the faucet works, and, unbelievably, it does. Together we watch as hot and cold water pours out decadently, then disappears decadently down the drain.
This isn't right.
Everything here works.
We go around to each miracle and test it. The toilet flushes, the shower showers. The fridge even makes crushed ice.
All that's missing is an indoor pool.
I can't look at these things without thinking of Jerusha. I've never seen her eat pizza before. Never seen her take a shower. I think I'd even get a charge out of seeing her flush a real toilet.
"I wonder what they're eating back at the camp," Dustin says.
"Goat stew," I say and notice a fuzzy light coming from underneath the curtains. "Hey, D. Why don't you see if the curtains open."
"You do it. I want to watch TV."
"The TV's the only thing in here that doesn't work."
I notice a big tasseled chord hanging from the ceiling and walk over, pull on it. One by one the curtains lining the room draw back. The fuzzy light I saw isn't coming from any windows like I'd hoped. Instead, there are about twenty floor-length panes of glass circling the room, each of them housing an inmate, all of them naked.
Then I understand what this place is.
We're inside a Panopticon.
Dad told me about them once, how they were the most effective way to watch over a large number of inmates. And the cheapest, too, since you only had to pay for the one guard.
I find myself standing face to face with a female inmate, the glass the only thing separating us, her eyes wide and unblinking, staring right into mine. I want to call out to my brother, but I can't seem to remember his name.
Her eyes.
So full of terror.
Like she knows what's in store for us here.
There's something familiar about her, too.
Like I know her from somewhere.
I reach for the chord again, tug on it hard, but it won't budge now. The curtains, too, are rigid, locked into place when I go to close them.
The woman's pointing at something.
She's talking, but I can't hear her. It looks like she's saying "Butter, Butter, Butter," over and over again.
"D," I finally manage to say.
"Thomas," he says, frozen, standing on the couch and aiming the remote at the glass cages like a gun.
The woman keeps pointing, keeps mouthing, "Butter, Butter, Butter."
Then I see it. A black button on the wall.
Button. Button. Button.
I point to it and she nods, smiles, her teeth all jangly looking.
"I think she wants me to push this button."
"Why?"
"How should I know?"
"Maybe it lets them out. They'll fucking eat us. Look at them."
I step back from the button and her smile drops. The other inmates, all of them bone-skinny, start doing the same thing, pointing at the button, pounding on the glass, shouting.
That's when I notice the two empty cages.
Reserved for me and Dustin no doubt.
"What do we do?" Dustin asks, turning around in circles on the couch now, the remote still in his outstretched hand.
"We don't push that button. That's what we do."
"Agreed," he says and holsters his remote.
It's almost like they can hear us because all the inmates quickly lose interest, recede back into their cells. Each of the rooms has a giant fluorescent light for a ceiling, each cell bathed in a sickly white so that their skin appears almost translucent.
There are cots that fold down from the wall.
Personal recyclers for them to use.
One empty bowl per cage.
And that's it.
I go and stand next to Dustin, the couch being the furthest thing away from the cages, and approach the guard in the glass box.
"Can you hear me?"
He stares straight at me, not the slightest acknowledgement I've said anything. He writes something down and when I lean up against the glass to see, he pulls the notebook tight against his chest.
"Don't want me to see that, huh? What is this? Some kind of experiment?"
Again, nothing.
"You want me to push that button? Want to see what the rats are going to do, is that it? Well, guess what. We're not playing. You hear me in there? We're not playing."
It's almost imperceptible, but he nods his head slightly.
"Good. Glad we've got that settled."
"Why would we be rats?" Dustin says once I sit down.
"I don't know. Maybe not rats. Mice?"
"Gerbils."
"Fine. Gerbils. What difference does it make?" I look at the cells across from us, at the other prisoners staring at us. "I think we have more pressing things to worry about, D."
Dustin surveys the room again, his eyes coming to a stop on an inmate directly across from us. He's old, ribs pushing out against his mottled skin.
"Yeah," Dustin says. "All this is making me hungry." He turns toward the glass box. "You get that? Need me to repeat it?"
I swear I see a shadow pass over the guard's face.
Something that almost resembles emotion.
But I'm probably just imagining things.
The Rat Who Committed Mutiny
In the morning
i found you hanging
by the pink
of your knotted tail.
What order did you refuse?
Or were you simply like me
and born with petulant whiskers?
Did you see your death
scurrying towards you
from the horizon?
When the noose took hold
did you row your arms
toward a landlocked heaven?
If so, remember it was me,
the boatswain, who cut you down
and slung you out to sea
among the waves
crumbling
like so much Feta cheese.
11 Water is Life. Don't Waste Yours.
It's like Vegas in here. The lights never go out and we have no idea how much time has passed.
Vegas in a rain forest maybe.
To pass the time, Me and Dustin have taken to naming the other prisoners. The guard in the glass box is now Shakespeare. Because of all the writing. Hitler was a close second.
The old man is now Ribs.
For obvious reasons.
The woman I first saw has become Teeth.
Also for obvious reasons, though that one was all Dustin.
Shakespeare still watches us, but he paces back and forth in his box a lot now. He talks to himself now, too. Or to them, I'm not sure which because we can't hear a thing he says.
All I know is it's never directed toward me or Dustin.
And we haven't seen him eat or drink anything in two days. Or at least I think it's been two days. I'm also pretty sure they fed the other prisoners. I woke up from a nap and saw them all crouched over their bowls like monkeys, scooping up whatever garbage they gave them to eat.
We haven't seen the other two cops again either.
There's only the one door out of here, which I've tried just about every hour, even though I know it's useless.
I've also already given Dustin my two last salal berries and, to make matters worse, every time I lie down on the couch, I'm forced to listen to the refrigerator seductively humming away.
The refrigerator.
Our salvation.
Or a shiny, white coffin.
"Dustin," I say, and he stirs, pulls Mom's splayed book from his face. He's been using it as a shield, something to block out the light.
And the other nineteen people watching us.
"I'm going to make us something to eat."
"I'm not hungry."
"Bullshit."
"Sorry. Stuffed."
"Fine. I guess I'll be eating pizza alone then."
Dustin shrugs, but I swear I hear his stomach rumble.
"Pepperoni okay with you?" I ask Shakespeare and head to the kitchen without waiting for him to not respond.
There are two frozen pizzas in the fridge. Each of them loaded with toppings. I decide to cook both since I could easily eat two if Dustin doesn't come to his senses.
Before too long every inmate in the place is standing, their foreheads pressed to the glass, watching my every move as I wait the fourteen excruciating minutes for the pizzas to cook.
I wonder if they've seen this sort of thing before.
Maybe they all know the food is poison.
But nobody is motioning for me to stop. It almost seems like they're excited, like they'll be sitting down to dinner right along with us.
That's what I tell myself anyway.
I pour a glass of orange juice first, figuring that either everything is poisoned or nothing is. Dustin, who's now pretending to read Mom's book, looks over at me as I hold the glass up.
"I don't know about this, Thomas."
"I don't either. But if we're going to die, we might as well have full bellies."
"Wait," he says and walks over, pours himself a glass. "We'll do it together. It's only fair."
"But then we could both die."
"Yeah, I know. Stupid, huh," he says and raises his glass to mine.
"To Mom and Dad," I say.
"To Jerusha."
That gets me. Just the thought of Jerusha hurts.
And Dustin refusing to toast to Mom and Dad.
How long will it be before he forgives them?
We clink glasses and drink.
The orange juice is cold and tastes like life. That's the best I can describe it. Like someone took what it is to be alive and squeezed it out into these glasses and that's what we're drinking. I can feel it coursing through my veins, like my blood has turned orange.
We down our glasses at the same time and wait.
"How do you feel?" I ask.
"Thirsty. Is that normal?"
"Yeah, I think so. That it?"
"And good. I feel good."
"Yeah, me too. Let's have another."
I scan the room, can almost hear the salivating tongues. Teeth is nearest us, and, when I look at her, she starts pointing at the button on the wall again.
No dice.
I pour me and Dustin two more glasses. And then a third. Each one is better than the last. All the while we keep an eye on each other, watching for signs of poisoning.
But nobody's tongue falls out.
Not yet anyway.
The timer on the oven dings.
I can already smell the pepperoni, the sausage.
The glorious grease.
I dish up a pizza for each of us and we head to the couch. Before we dig in, I hold a steaming slice up next to Shakespeare's glass. "You sure you don't want some?" I say. "Okay, suit yourself."
I shove half a slice into my mouth and Dustin does the same. The way he's holding it, his hand on the crust so that the entire thing droops is exactly how he used to eat pizza.
Like riding a bike.
"What do you think?"
Dustin doesn't answer. He's too busy chewing. When he does speak, it's with a belch so loud it echoes across the room.
"That good?"
"Better."
Me and Dustin spend the next hour gorging and exploring. I make us each a grilled cheese sandwich with ham. Dustin used to love them. Next I broil up a steak. They even have A-1 sauce in the fridge. I slather the stuff on, watch as Dustin goes to town on it. We finish off the rest of the orange juice. Then we start in on the milk.
We don't talk.
And we don't look at the glass cages.
We chew.
We swallow.
We drink.
We grin like fucking madmen.
Madmen with milk moustaches.
*
I don't know how long we're out for, our bellies confused by the recent windfall, but I wake up to find Shakespeare gone. The notebook is there, closed, resting on his stool.
Pee break maybe.
Which reminds me. Neither Dustin or I have used the old-fashioned toilet yet.
There's even toilet paper.
I get up quietly so as not to wake Dustin and do a quick headcount. It looks like there are only three awake right now. Two we haven't named yet and Teeth. It's almost like they're all on the same schedule.
I start out with something simple.
Peeing.
I stare at the floor, listen to the falling rain which, for once, is good for something. When I finish, I give a sheepish look around the room, notice Teeth watching me, and for about the hundredth time, I get the vague, creepy feeling I know her from somewhere.
I stare at the floor some more, then drop my pants and sit down.
Talk about stage fright. My forehead is sweating.
After what feels like two eternities, I manage to go.
I'm certain I've woken up the entire Panopticon, but when I look up nobody is paying me any attention.
I wipe as discreetly as possible, the toilet paper so soft it almost tickles. I can't believe we used to live this way. Then, as if the whole experience wasn't degrading enough, Shakespeare reappears through a door in the floor of his glass box just as I'm finishing up.
When I flush, the sound is louder than I remember it being. Or maybe it's just the acoustics of this hell they've put us in. Whatever it is, it wakes Dustin up.
"Whoa," he says, fanning his hand in front of his face. "Somebody light a match."
Not so much as a grin from Shakespeare.
"Your turn," I say. "It's kind of liberating."
"No thank you."
He curls back up on the couch, sneers at Shakespeare before burying his head in the cushions again. I don't blame him. If Dustin hadn't been sleeping, there's no way I would have been able to go.
*
I'm about to take another nap when the TV comes snapping to life, a grainy picture filling the screen. The rain, I notice, has suddenly vanished and Shakespeare's got his pen poised, his notebook at the ready.
On the TV they're playing some sort of home video shot with a hand-held camera. It's dark, the only light coming from a flashlight, the screen all bouncy. Me and Dustin are more amused than anything else at this point as we watch the camera walk down a flight of stairs.
Then the camera stops, focuses in on a cardboard box.
It's an old Slip 'N' Slide.
Whoever's filming turns the camera around, holds up a gloved finger and wags it at the camera all tsk-tsk like.
We used to have a Slip 'N' Slide.
Mom kept it as a memento even though it was clearly an Unforgivable.
There's laughing in the background and the camera is set on the floor. You can hear feet scuffling about, more laughter, then the camera's picked up again. A man is now dancing around in the dark with what looks like a piece of shag carpet.
"Hey, that's Tony the Tiger!" Dustin says, leaning forward now.
I start to say something, start to tell him it can't be, but then I recognize the unmistakable fuzzy head.
And there's our old washer and dryer.
A mound of dirt beside it.
The fuckers.
I get up, start twisting and pushing buttons, but it won't turn off. The camera pans in on what's left of Mom and Dad, their clothes sunken into where their bodies used to be. I see things moving in there, maggots, squirming pieces of bone, a jaw and white teeth, mouths full of dirt.
A smiling face fills the screen.
Even with the grainy light, I can tell who it is.
Dumb cop.
I bear hug the television, yanking the chord from the wall as I pick it up.
The laughter disappears.
Dustin.
He's sitting there, his bottom lip quivering.
I spin around, hurl the TV at Shakespeare's glass box, but it just comes thudding harmlessly to the floor.
Shakespeare doesn't so much as flinch.
This isn't happening.
This is not happening.
I try to think of something to say, some words that might erase what will no doubt be burned into Dustin's mind until he goes the same way as our parents. But all I've got are syllables. I swallow down, something I'm barely able to manage, and just as I'm certain I won't throw up every last thing in my stomach, someone pounds on the Panopticon door.
A yellow piece of paper is slid under.
Mom's suicide poem.
The fuckers.
The unbelievable mother fucking fuckers.
To My Boys
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
12 Vote Water
Dustin finally uses the toilet.
Which is great but when he flushes, the water never comes back. The faucets are bone dry now, too. And we're running out of food. All that's left are some sea-salt potato chips.
Not exactly a thirst quencher.
This morning I found Mom's suicide poem crumpled up in the garbage. Dustin must have read it. I hadn't noticed it before, but there's something off about the poem. Mom never used capital I's. She told me once that she thought capital I's were egotistical, that they placed too much importance on the self.
Mom was a fruit cake.
A beautiful, beautiful fruit cake.
