The Yoga Zapper--A Novel, page 12
“How’s Jack?”
“He’s also bored.”
“I have an idea. Why don’t you take our friend on a picnic? A jaunt in the country will cheer you both up.”
“Okay,” she replied glumly. She waited a few moments. “Is Jini there?”
“Yes, Yes,” he remarked, somewhat impatiently. “She’s doing a wonderful job.”
Maya took a deep breath and calmed down. “That’s good,” she said softly. She mentally kicked herself. Why did she let that blonde outmaneuver her? She had taken care of women like her before. But this one seemed to have brains, not just a pretty face.
A female voice interrupted the conversation. “I have to go,” said Kallin. “I will call you next week.”
Maya hung up the phone and hunched her shoulders as tears rolled down her cheeks. Everything she had worked for lay in jeopardy.
Jack marched into the room, slamming the door behind him. “Dammit! I’m fed up,” he shouted. “I don’t know how long I can take this. I need to get out!” Maya turned away and wiped her face.
“What is it?” he questioned.
“Nothing. Nothing at all.”
“It’s that woman Jini, isn’t it?”
Maya nodded her head slowly.
“Don’t worry,” Jack replied sympathetically, “everything will work out.”
“Oh really?" she cried, her hands clenched. “How do you know that?"
Jack walked up to her and rested his hand on her shoulders. “Look at me.” Maya hesitantly lifted her eyes. “Why the hell are you crying? Don’t worry about the future.”
“You don’t know my situation! I’ll lose everything and end up on the street.”
“Look, everything can change in a moment. Kallin could ask you to come tomorrow.”
Maya looked up hopefully. “You think so?”
“Of course! Live for the moment. Life is meant for fun, not worry.” He pulled her up from the sofa. “If you get all serious, then you’ll just become depressed.” He grinned. “Be happy!”
“Thanks.” Maya took a deep breath and smiled. Hope shone on her face again. “By the way, I have some good news. Tomorrow, we’ll go on a picnic.”
“All right!” he yelled and, in a completely spontaneous gesture, grabbed and twirled her around, her feet completely off the ground. Maya tittered, beholding him with surprise.
* * * * *
The transporter, resembling a big black limousine, waited in front of the mansion. The estate’s security commander, a short, rough sort of man dressed in a black cap, green fatigues, and shiny black shoes, waited with the vehicle’s rear door open. After Jack and Maya entered, he shut the door, walked over to the driver’s side and climbed in, while two soldiers in brown combat uniforms squeezed in beside him. He turned the key and the vehicle silently raced along the driveway, floating a couple feet above the asphalt, and twisted onto the main road. Outside the estate, the countryside turned dry and featureless, a desert of blowing dust, showing no signs of rain ever falling.
Maya, stunning in a short white dress with large red polka dots and a white sailor’s hat with a maroon sash around its brim, bubbled with excitement. Jack gulped. They hardly saw each other for more than a few minutes a day, mostly, he realized, because she kept away on purpose. But now, she had no excuses. Jack shared her eagerness. Being with her brought fun and adventure, and exploring a new world through an attractive woman’s eyes made him feel alive. He noticed small things; the manner in which dimples formed on her cheeks when she smiled, how her legs slanted together as she sat, her expressive eyebrows and the way she cocked her head when peering at him.
“We’re going to have a barbecue!” she exclaimed.
“Great! I love barbecues.”
As the vehicle traveled over the miles, Maya excitedly pointed out objects along the way, but after an hour her enthusiasm died down and she leaned back to snooze. The monotonous, bleak countryside lulled Jack into a dull stupor and he stared blankly out the window, unheeding the passage of time as the sun peeped intermittently through the dull haze.
The commander suddenly interrupted his reverie. “Look,” he shouted, pointing excitedly at an object on a hill above the road. Maya jerked awake and peered out the window.
“Stop the car!” she yelled. The commander immediately applied the brakes. He rushed madly out, straightened his crumpled clothes and hastily opened the rear door. The two soldiers were already scrambling up the hill and Maya quickly followed. Jack peered up but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Maya waved excitedly. “Come! Look.”
He rushed up, jostled his way into the circle, and saw, for the first time, the object of excitement an evergreen, about four feet high with a brown furrowed trunk, its bark peeling off and its needles covered by a thick layer of the omnipresent dust, struggling to gain a foothold on the side of a depressing little hill. The commander pushed his hat back and whistled in admiration. Jack didn’t understand their elation—it was just another tree and not a very impressive one at that.
“Have you ever seen such a tree?” demanded Maya, wide-eyed. Jack stood dumb. The commander smiled broadly like a hunter spying a ten-point stag, basking in their admiration.
“Now, that’s a tree!” he declared.
“What is so great about it?” asked Jack.
“What do you mean?”
“It isn’t much of a tree. I’ve seen many trees over fifty feet tall.”
Maya gazed at him round-eyed. The commander and the soldiers stared at each other, eyebrows knotted, then burst out in laughter. Maya joined the merriment, her teeth shining like a string of pearls. The commander slapped Jack heartily on the back.
“Sir, this is the biggest tree I ever saw. I saw one at a museum before, but this is my first catch out in the wild.”
Suddenly the realization hit Jack. He hadn’t seen a single tree at the estate, the countryside, nor in Kallington. Except for a few forlorn weeds, neither a single bush nor flower grew anywhere. He scratched his forehead. What made him think that trees grew so high and so densely? His eyes gave him witness the evidence showed otherwise. Something was definitely strange.
“Pull it up,” ordered the commander. The soldiers rushed forward and grabbing the tree, tugged at it with all their might. The tree’s roots extended deep and though loosened, refused to yield. The struggle continued for fifteen minutes until finally the soldiers surrendered, their uniforms covered with dust and sweat.
“Enough,” yelled the commander. The soldiers immediately stepped back, looking at the ground in shame.
“Get me your firearm,” he ordered one of the soldiers. Subdued, the man sprinted to the vehicle and returned with his weapon. The commander cocked the bolt of the rifle and taking aim, let forth a burst of automatic fire straight at the base of the tree. The forlorn evergreen keeled over and crashed into the dust in defeat. Jack jumped back, shocked. The bizarre, naked execution of the plant jolted him.
The soldiers shouted in excitement, heaved the tree over their shoulders and ran triumphantly down the sooty hillside. They posed, one after the other, with boots on the tree, rifles in hands, taking photos. The commander snapped orders and the soldiers opened up the trunk, produced a length of rope, threw the tree on the car’s top and tied it down securely, ensuring that the tree’s tip overlooked the car’s roof just as an arrowhead extends in front of a bow.
They re-entered the car and the commander, smiling broadly, his military cap cocked back, climbed into the driver’s seat and drove off, the tree strapped overhead, looking, for all the world, like a bizarre trophy. They kept motoring through the barren, monotonous countryside for a several more hours until the sun perched directly overhead.
Jack’s stomach complained. “What about lunch?” he asked.
“We’ll be there shortly,” Maya responded. She knocked on the glass partition. “Take a right on the next road,” she commanded.
“Yes, ma’am!” barked the driver.
A few minutes later the road appeared and, immediately, a sharp odor cut into Jack’s nostrils, reminding him of ammonia or laundry bleach mixed with the nauseatingly putrid stench of outhouses with overflowing septic tanks, growing stronger as the car moved on. The others noticed it, but instead of being repulsed, the smell seemed to whet their appetites. Maya perked up and licked her lips while the soldiers showed signs of impatience, their stomachs growling.
They pulled up at the doors of a very large rectangular building constructed of gray concrete, completely windowless and topped with a metal roof, set in a low depression, framed by small hills and deep gullies. As the soldiers opened the passenger doors crisply, the commander ran over and banged on the building’s metal doors.
As Jack stepped out, an unbelievable, overpowering stench almost knocked him out. He fell to his knees and staggered back to the car, resting his upper body on the back seat. His head spun and he held his breath as long as possible before gasping in great big gulps of air.
Maya stepped out and took a deep breath. “Ahh,” she sighed. “Isn’t it wonderful to be in the country?”
The repeated banging on the building’s doors produced a huge man with a very ruddy, almost pink, complexion, a large head topped with a shock of pale blond hair, small beady blue eyes, a grossly extended belly, who looked just like a pig. Upon seeing them, he immediately stiffened and, bobbing his head up and down, obsequiously invited them into the building.
Jack’s head finally cleared and he slowly staggered up and entered the building. A blast of hot, stinking air, as if he had walked into a furnace greeted him and an incredible assortment of shrieks, screams and howls filled his ears. After several long minutes, with eyes finally focused, Jack discerned thousands of small cages, one upon the other, reaching the ceiling and extending all the way to the other end of the long building, each containing a single animal. Long, narrow troughs brought food to the animals, but no mechanism removed the excrement. The beasts passed urine and dung on others below until all were completely caked with a thick layer of stinking feces.
Jack panted, held his nose, and gasped. The place resembled a scene from hell. He jumped in fright and joined the others as they walked down an aisle. The commander led the way, pointing out choice animals. One would be lunch.
Jack stopped by a cage and closely examined the animal. It resembled a large goat, thickly encrusted with excrement, shrieking and bellowing incessantly, lips raw and bruised, its wild red eyes giving a shocking setting to soft brown pupils. Jack examined its head, legs, and haunches and stopped in shock when he spied its udders, recognizable beyond doubt! This strange, unhappy beast was actually a cow! He recoiled in alarm and ran to meet the rest of the party. He angled up beside Maya.
“Did you know that these are cows?”
“Yes. And they’re quite tasty.”
She dumbfounded him. “But look at them. They are so small. And they stink.”
Maya looked at him quizzically. “What do you mean, they stink?”
“It smells like an open sewer here!”
“Oh! I know what you mean,” she exclaimed. “You’re smelling their food! Kallington’s main sewer runs right into this farm. They dry it, cut it into pellets and feed it to the animals.”
“Don’t cows eat grass?” he asked dumbly.
She glared at him in surprise. “Grass! What’s grass? You are a strange man. You’re always saying something outlandish. Cows eat garbage and that’s what they’ve always eaten.”
“What about water?”
“Oh, we mine that. We’re forced to drill maybe seven or eight miles. It’s the only sweet water left. It rains once every ten years but we can’t drink that.”
Browbeaten, he meekly followed her. Nothing made sense. What did cows eat? What on earth made him think that they ate grass? He didn’t know the answer, but still, something felt quite not right. At this moment, he knew absolutely nothing about cows, but one thing he did know—he had completely lost his appetite.
They caught up to the commander. He’d selected an animal for the afternoon meal. The two soldiers excitedly roped the bellowing, struggling animal and led it out of the building. They marched in a line to the top of a nearby hill, the soldiers first, dragging the rickety-legged, stumbling beast, followed by the commander wielding a smile on his face and a machete in his right hand and finally by Jack and Maya, their footsteps raising the soft dust. Arriving on top, the soldiers pulled out a few fuel bricks from their rations and set them alight.
One soldier held the back legs of the animal and the other the head. The commander raised his long sharp knife and deftly brought it down on the quivering cow’s dung encrusted collar. It rolled its maddened eyes and gave an unearthly howl as its head separated from its body, ending its cruel, short, miserable life. The soldiers jumped up and down in excitement and tugged at their tight neck collars.
The commander passed his tongue over his lips, smacking them impatiently. He pushed his hand into the dead animal’s neck and pulled. Much to Jack’s surprise, a string of sausages tumbled out. The soldiers jumped upon them and using assorted knives or pieces of metal, roasted them over the flames.
Jack stood hesitantly. It was the strangest thing he had ever seen. “Are they all like that?” he questioned.
“No,” replied Maya. “This is a sausage cow. We also have steak cows, hamburger cows, hot-dog cows, and so on.”
“That’s amazing.”
“I suppose. A long time back, they engineered all farm animals that way. At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”
The commander looked at Jack from between mouthfuls of meat. He pulled up a sausage from the pile lying on the ground and stuck it on a large knife. He broiled and handed it over.
Jack inspected the piece of meat hesitantly. It stank horribly but didn’t differ from any other piece of meat at the estate. He couldn’t get the face of the pitiful, mad cow out of his mind. The sausage stopped resembling food but rather embodied the suffering of the unhappy animal.
He felt everyone’s eyes staring at him. Despite the revulsion, he closed his eyes and bit off a big chunk of flesh and swallowed it. It felt and tasted like plastic and slid quickly down his throat. The commander smiled greasily.
“Aren’t barbecues great?” asked Maya.
Finally, except for a thin bag of skin and bones, nothing remained of the animal. The commander rolled the remains into a square, brought it over his head and pitched it as hard as possible. It fell deep into the gully, tumbling to the bottom and finally nestled up against a small boulder, trailed by a minute avalanche of gray dust which gently buried the remains of the dead animal.
Chapter Sixteen
President Kallin’s Country Estate, End of Kali Yuga
The vehicle dropped them off and Jack and Maya strolled around the building and entered the back garden. The night’s cool air drove away the day’s mugginess and stars sparkled in the sky. Except for the bubbling of the spouting fountains, all remained quiet.
“Thank you for your companionship today. It’s been a long while since I spent a whole day with a man. I’d forgotten how nice that feels,” Maya revealed, being one of those women who couldn’t remain happy for long without a man’s company. Being the mistress of a distant man must be a pretty lonely job, thought Jack. She catered to Kallin’s desires, not he to hers. This may be easier than I expected, he decided.
The moonlight revealed her sad face.
“Are you still upset about Jini?” he questioned.
She sighed. “Yes. I’m frustrated, angry—mostly at myself. I have no one to talk to. It’s lonely at the top and I can’t trust anyone.”
They came across a stone bench on a knoll overlooking the mansion. “Let’s sit down,” he offered. The bench retained the day’s warmth. “How long have you known Kallin?”
“Almost ten years. When I first met him, I happened to be a naïve young thing. I wanted what every woman dreams of—to be with Kallin.” She dropped her eyes. “In my gullibility and foolishness, I expected him to marry me but after a few years, I realized that would never happen. But at least I expected to be his number one.”
“But why Kallin? Why not settle with someone else?”
She shook her head. “Why do women go after men? When I started, maybe I didn’t know. But Kallin taught me a lot about men and about myself. In the end, it’s about money, about prestige.”
“So you don’t love him?”
Maya let out a small hollow laugh. “In the beginning I fooled myself into thinking so. I grew up seeing pictures of him in my schoolbooks. His portraits hang at every street corner. I have what every woman wants, but now I realize he loves no one except himself. He just uses people.”
“And you?” he questioned.
She glared at him with raised eyebrows. “You like to come to the point don’t you? What do you want me to say? That I’m a calculating woman who uses men just like they use me?” Her eyes flickered. “You’re right, of course.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” he protested. He only meant to question her feelings about her situation. But she impressed him with her brutal honesty, the intelligence to see through her hypocrisy and her bravery to admit it. She made the deal with Kallin to get power and wealth and now the arrangement was slipping through her fingers, as she likely knew it would. But her rancor surprised him. She sounded like someone at the end of her rope. And maybe she was. A younger, more beautiful, and just as ambitious a version of herself was passing over her.
“Why so bitter?”
“Because of what happens to women like me in a society like this. The only way to get to the top is by using what we have, but once we get there, we’re cast-off and thrown in the trash. And that’s where I’m heading.” Her frustration felt palpable.
“No. No,” he interjected. “There’s always someone for everyone. You’ll definitely find someone else.” He glanced at her. The attraction to this point, he admitted, had been purely physical. Now she intrigued him. He found her more complex, a lot more layered. Maybe that’s what he needed. Someone who’d been around, who knew the score, who’d keep him honest. Her situation touched him. He didn’t know much about this culture, but Kallin couldn’t be easy to live with.
