When he finally stops and stands in the middle of the room, the floor and every wall is completely transformed. He is panting with exertion but he is smiling.

  Quentin is happy again.

  His mother comes up behind him.

  “It’s beautiful,” she says with wonder.

  He nods.

  “What is it?” he asks her, the first words he has spoken in a long time.

  She looks down at him with surprise that then becomes another one of those sad smiles. He feels a twinge of guilt but mentally shakes it off; he is too elated to feel more than that.

  “It’s a sunset,” she says softly, “over the mountains.”

  “Sunset,” he repeats.

  He likes the sound of that.

  He sits back with the last piece of the 3D geometric puzzle in his hand, turning it this way and that, unable to see the correct placing for it. Last week he was able to put it together in a couple of minutes. He doesn’t know how long he’s been at it but he knows it’s been much longer.

  Neural degeneration.

  Quentin overheard those words the other afternoon when his parents were speaking in hushed tones in the foyer just as his father arrived home from the lab.

  He doesn’t quite know what it means, except that he should. Words are slippery to him these days. Sometimes he can almost grasp the concept and then…it slips away.

  It’s his brain, of that he is certain. Something is wrong with his brain. It’s the reason he keeps forgetting things or can’t do things on his own.

  This morning he couldn’t do the buttons on his shirt when he got out of bed. They had looked alien to him. What were they for? Why were they round? His fingers fumbled with them for a full minute before he finally gave up in frustration and forgot about the clothes.

  His mother found him walking around naked in the kitchen and carried him upstairs where she dressed him, buttoning his shirt for him.

  Then she cried.

  “Bon see, Murmur,” he said to her.

  He knew that wasn’t right so he thought real hard about it and tried again.

  “Don’t cry, Mommy.”

  But she only cried harder.

  When was that?

  Quentin looks at his hand. There is something shiny and long with sharp lines and edges. In front of him is an object that has a lot of flat sides and is also round like a circle only not.

  “Ball,” he says to himself.

  He raises the thing in his hand and sticks part of it in his mouth. It tastes like nothing but he gnaws on it just the same.

  They are sitting at the kitchen table. His mother and father are looking at him. He feels a hard object clenched in his hand and looks down. It is something long and skinny and hard and shiny but he doesn’t know what it is.

  Something smells good.

  A bowl in front of him. Liquid, orange, steaming a bit…little black flecks floating in it.

  He looks at the object in his hand. There’s something he’s supposed to do with it, something that should be easy to remember.

  The stuff in the bowl smells really good.

  He forgets about the metal object, lowers his head into the bowl and tries to bite the orange stuff. It’s slippery and keeps falling out of his mouth. He growls low in his throat.

  There’s more crying from the woman but he doesn’t really care about that anymore.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  She’s pretty-

  what is pretty?

  -but he doesn’t recognize her.

  There is water falling down her face from her eyes. He tilts his head. She grasps him fiercely and squeezes him, squeezing so hard he wants to squirm away.

  “I love you, Quentin.”

  Who is Quentin?

  It is night. He is lying down. It is quiet. When it is night and he is lying down and it is quiet he remembers stuff, like feelings and words and sometimes even what they mean.

  There are voices; they are familiar. He thinks they are talking about him but he is unsure.

  “…take it anymore…”

  A woman’s voice.

  He doesn’t hear it all, or maybe he does and just doesn’t understand it.

  “…so close…just…more time…”

  A man’s voice this time.

  “NO!” she screams and then begins to cry again. “No more…no more…”

  The voices start to fade, replaced by a high-pitched whine. The darkness is fading even as a bright light begins to encompass his vision.

  He knows what is coming…it has come before…maybe this will be the last time…he hopes it is because…because he is tired…so tired…

  Quentin is sitting on the back porch. Everyone else is milling about the kitchen or crossing the threshold back and forth to the living room, offering condolences and piffling comments that seem blithe and insincere.

  His tie is lying on the grass in front of him. It was strangling him with its constraints, both physical and emotional, and it gave him some satisfaction to see it there like a dead snake.

  “Who would have thought, right?”

  A stranger’s voice, a hushed conspirator’s voice, filtering through the half open kitchen window.

  “It was the boy,” came a whispered response. “He was sick for a long time…terrible burden you know…couldn’t take it anymore I guess…”

  …take it anymore…

  “Still…to leave your family like that…selfish, if you ask me.”

  “Hush your mouth,” a third voice hissed.

  “Seriously…we’re all lucky to be here and know it…guess you gotta weed out the ones who don’t-”

  Quentin gets up and walks away from the porch before he’s tempted to do something violent. He’s been feeling that way lately, like breaking things or even worse, hurting people.

  The lawn is small and there isn’t anywhere else to go except back through the house, so he heads to the other end of the yard and sits down in the corner of the fence, leaning his head back and staring up at the sky.

  He was sick for a long time…terrible burden you know…

  A burden. That was true, just as it was true that he was still sick, only not as bad as before. He still forgets things and sometimes his body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to, but his father assures him that he’s getting better, that the treatments are working.

  Quentin hates the treatments. He has to go to sleep for them and he feels so disconnected when he wakes up, as if he hasn’t been asleep so much as dead.

  Sometimes he wishes it would all just stop.

  The back porch door opens and his father steps out. He has shed the black jacket and the tie as Quentin has.

  “There you are,” he says.

  His walk across the lawn is slow and tired. He sits beside Quentin and joins him in staring up at the sky.

  “Those people are assholes,” Quentin says, his jaw set.

  A sigh escapes his father’s lips.

  “Not all of them…but some of them, yes, I’ll agree with that. I’d like to know where you heard that word though.”

  “A book, of course,” Quentin says resentfully.

  “Of course,” his father heavily replies.

  They both know Quentin isn’t allowed out of the house. Too much stimuli could trigger an ‘episode’, and so books are his only escape, delivered by the box full once a week per request. He doesn’t get to choose but he finds it doesn’t really matter. An adventure book passes the time as easily as one on how to make kitchen cabinets.

  “I don’t understand,” Quentin finally says, determined to not let his voice break.

  “It’s a difficult thing to understand,” his father replies.

  “It doesn’t make sense,” he says stubbornly.

  The pause is long as his father searches for the right words; something he’s rarely had a problem with in the past.

  “Certain people…they suffer a great sadness; it’s very much like an illness, and it becomes a lifelong battle, a daily struggle at times. Some days you win, some days you lose. And maybe one day when you are losing you might feel as if all the fight is gone.”

  “Is that why she did it?” Quentin asked, feeling very tired all of a sudden.

  It was exhausting to be angry, guilty, and hurt at the same time. He couldn’t hold onto the rage he’d felt just a few moments before.

  His father looks at him and Quentin feels compelled to do the same.

  “I don’t know, Son…I really don’t. But I imagine that it was something like that.”

  “Do you-“ Quentin begins to ask, and then his voice does break even as his face crumples into a mask of grief.

  His father holds him, pulling him close against him so that Quentin cannot discern between their two heartbeats.

  “Do you…do you think it was because of me?” he finally chokes out before the sobs take away his ability to form words.

  “No,” his father replies immediately, fiercely. “Don’t you ever think that.”

  They begin to rock. Quentin doesn’t know if it is him or his father who initiates it or just the both of them moving in unison but he feels slightly calmed by it. His violent sobs eventually trickle off and the tight fist that was squeezing his heart loosens its grip just a bit.

  At some point his father explains to him that she’d always felt sad, ever since he could remember. It was a shadow that followed her around all her life. She could be incredibly happy for long periods of time but inevitably the dark days would follow, and there would be long days spent in bed with curtains drawn and fits of crying that proved immune to comfort.

  Quentin thinks of that last day at the beach, of how her laughter had given him relief. He remembers seeing the shadows gathering in the corners of the house. Up until now there had never been explanation for those memories.

  It is small solace. He still hurts to breathe. A part of him will always wonder, and sometimes it might feel more like guilt than consolation, but he knows the burden isn’t his alone to carry, and that helps.

  He doesn’t know if everything is going to be okay.

  Maybe it will never be okay again and maybe that’s fine…maybe it will have to do.

  The Waste Belt

  `He seemed so small, childlike. His eyes were open and puffy, shot through with red where the blood vessels had burst, cheeks swollen and purplish like that of a newborn. The tears were starting to stain on his face, leaving white streaks akin to paint.

  Tom’s expression had smoothed over the last hour but was still partially twisted in a rictus of fear and shock. His body had let loose its bowels and the stench was almost overwhelming, but Mia still did not leave.

  She had spent the last hour talking to him, saying all the things she didn’t have the courage to say when he was alive. There was no allusion that he could hear her; she was not suffering delusions or trauma. The words were more for her sake. She was, in truth, calm and composed.

  When Mia finished saying her piece she knelt down and kissed his cheek, laying the picture of their baby on his chest. She had loved him once, passionately and with every nerve in her body. That is what she would try to remember.

  After leaving the baby’s room, she headed downstairs to the kitchen. She grabbed her jacket from the back of the dining table chair, pausing for a minute to stare at the spot Tom usually occupied for his meals.

  It was surreal to consider all that had happened in the past few weeks, knowing that she would never step foot in this house again. She felt melancholy, not for the act committed or the loss of her old life, but rather because she had no feeling whatsoever about it ending.

  There should be something…some sense of loss, guilt, or sorrow; not this apathetic and composed stoicism. What did that say of her?

  Then again might it be shock? Could her mixture of equanimity and poise be a physiological reaction that would soon abate, leaving her with debilitating feelings of regret and remorse?

  No, this is…something else.

  Mia opened the door next to the pantry that lead down into the basement. Even from the top of the stairs she could smell the sickly sugary sweet smell of the still.

  She held a hand over her mouth as she headed down the steps. There wasn’t much down there, just a few rugs that had been tossed to the floor to prevent Tom from slipping and smacking his head whenever he spilled the contents of his special brew. There was a very long table against the far wall along with three large copper stills perched atop, pipes and tubes running here and there. A couple of gas burners with small propane tanks sat next to them. These were considered dangerous and therefore banned, but Mia knew all about special privileges.

  Upon inspection she found that one still was half empty while the other was full. She turned on the gas burners, making sure the knobs produced the highest flame possible then put one under the full still and the other a foot away, picking up one of the rugs and piling it dangerously close to the flame. From what Tom had told her long ago, the alcohol would be extremely flammable at a high temperature. She hoped it would be enough.

  Mia hated this room, this place. It wasn’t just the smell; it was what the room represented, over a decade of fear and loathing. Her antipathy was like a sour taste in her mouth as she turned and left the basement.

  Upstairs she headed to the front door. She paused at the threshold and took one last look. There was nothing of her here, nothing of the woman she once was. It was just a house, a stranger’s home.

  Mia closed the door behind her and headed down the porch steps and across the street, where she sat on the opposite curb and watched the house.

  She wasn’t sure what would happen or how long it would take. It was with surprise that only about five minutes later she heard the concussive boom of the explosion. A few seconds more and she could see the flames appear through the windows, consuming the interior of the house with a swiftness she found astounding.

  It was almost beautiful.

  By the time the glass windows shattered and the flames began to lick the outside of the house, Mia was already a hundred meters down the street, heading towards the nearest transport, unheeding of the faces that appeared in the neighboring windows or the heads that poked out of the front doors.

  “What is your destination?” the male voice asked of her.

  “The Waste Belt, sector 13,” she responded.

  At the beginning of each week, mass texts would be sent out on screen pads across Akropolis. Some of them would be as simple as reminders to put in for meal pack orders or a call for volunteers for certain restoration projects in the Gardens or even detours because of construction projects. One of the constant texts pertained to production sections of Akropolis.

  Because of finite materials and the fact that they could not venture outside of the Wall to procure more, the facilities of the city never operated at full capacity, meaning that large sections would be closed for weeks at a time, especially in the Waste Belt, where recycling of materials took place. The text alerts let the workers of the Waste Belt, commonly referred to as Recyclers, know where to report to for duty.

  Mia knew form earlier in the week that sectors 11 through 16 would be shut down for at least a period of six weeks, which meant it would be a veritable graveyard in terms of human occupation.

  After that, well, she had no idea. There weren’t many options for her. Despite her calm state of mind, she knew that sooner or later one of two things would happen; either she would be caught and wiped completely or she would be caught and delegated to the Ether. Since there hadn’t been a crime like hers in Akropolis in centuries, she was uncertain which option would be her fate.

  She realized, however, that she didn’t want the former. Despite the desolate and comfortless existence she had lived these past two decades, she didn’t ever want to forget that feeling of carrying Ambrose in her womb. It was the single most impactful and shining moment of her life, the only memory that had ever given her any sense of purpose.

  Mia laid her head against the window of the transport and watched as she left behind the neighborhoods of the Outer Zone. The fringe of the Waste Belt had its own wall, though significantly smaller in stature than the one that encircled Akropolis, its circumference broken only in spots where the streets passed through.

  The wall was originally intended as a noise buffer, back when the Waste Belt operated at full capacity, which would have been near the inception of the city when materials were much more accessible through trade with the other sanctuaries.

  Now it was more of a buffer for separation of class. Those that lived in the Outer Zone tended to be plant workers or ‘lifers’, people that had opted out of revival from the Cloud. They preferred their privacy and avoided the bustle of the Inner Zone unless absolutely necessary.

  Not too many breeders existed in the Outer Zone area, most of them preferring the luxuries afforded them in the housing complexes near the Pantheon. Mia and Tom had been one of the few couples that chose the opposite, and only because Tom preferred the anonymity. He had grown up on magazines and books that depicted the quiet white picket fence life of the 1950’s, and the Outer Zone encapsulated that lifestyle in a way that no other place in Akropolis did.

  Mia’s transport passed beyond the wall to the Waste Belt. Factories and recycling plants came into view. They didn’t have the same pleasing aesthetic look as did the monoliths closer to the center of the city. These buildings were built to be practical and looked it, packed together tightly, made of steel and concrete and pipes and siding, a veritable time capsule of the manufacturing areas in the cities of old.

  She bypassed the first two exits and directed the transport to take the third, the street winding down in a gradual slope a hundred feet to the ground level of the Waste Belt. As she surmised, there were no other transports around. The entire area was deserted. If not for the sounds of production far off in the distance, she could have felt like the only soul in existence.

 

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