Split Subject: Chapter 4 part 2 unfinished
In Delphia, when it rains it really rains. Jack turned on the rain shield, energy blocking the rain from pelting the car at all. He had one hand on the wheel and the other rested on the leather in between us. I was slouched in the passenger seat, quiet and reminicient. The rain was clouding everything, but I knew I had seen the dilapidated outskirts of ghetto 13. Then, like it had all been a dream, the rain disappeared leaving the sky aflame with colors and a rainbow shot out of the clouds. I half-tuned out the world with one of my favorite film soundtracks. I kept one headphone in my right ear while the other headphone dangled to the side.
“Your eyes are a little puffy,” Jack said. “Dark around the edges.”
“Didn’t sleep last night. I had a nap on Spectre’s couch though,” I said. I played with the unused headphone.
The mountains drew closer as Jack drove at a leisurely pace of 120 miles an hour. Self-constructed mountain hovels dotted the lower hills. We were enclosed in vineyard country. Lines of yellow combed through the fields between thin columns of tailored bushes. Beyond the vineyard light green fields were surrounded by forested mountain areas. A few trees cast small shadows onto the flat land. A modest house with a brown roof stood guard and was swallowed by the rest of the wilderness between the fields and the vineyards.
“Feeling a bit sluggish today?” Jack was driving slower than his usual.
“Spectre will kill me if I hurt this thing.”
“He can afford a new one,” I mused.
“And why not enjoy the ride. We haven’t been able to do this in years. Just drive into the mountains like old times.”
“Maybe we should just keep going?” I asked.
Jack thought for a moment. I refused to read him, allowing him the privacy. It was a little game we played. When we could, we wouldn’t read each other and we would pretend to be two normal friends who couldn’t see every image or inkling in each other’s mind. When we first discovered our thoughts were connected we couldn’t turn it off and it became a curse. If we were going to have any sanity we needed to learn how to naturally ignore the thoughts of the other person, like you could ignore seeing or hearing some things. It’s grown to more of a peripheral vision, where we can ignore some things, even though we know the thoughts are there and we can choose to see them faintly. Most of the time. In a stressful situation its hard for me to block out the information seeding constantly into my brain from Jack’s mind. But looking into his mind is like trying to read a math text book by flipping all of the pages in a few seconds. Always calculating.
It sounds something like this:
“What would I do if this car crashed right now? These are the steps I would take.
Am I forgetting anything? These are the things I am obligated to do.
If I travel at this speed, what time will I arrive?
What did Lea need me to get at the store today? Milk. Apple Pie. Baking Powder. Curry.”
His brain runs at crazy speeds. So many times I can’t even keep up. As close as we are we still don’t get each other. It’s a soothing sound that sometimes puts me to sleep. I feel safer. I have often wondered what he thinks of my brain. How do I sound? Does he ever get sick of it? Is it depressing or interesting?
“Maybe Conroy, someday we can just keep driving. And we’ll bring Theron too. Just get lost in the mountains. Maybe we can even let the old man and Spectre join us.”
“Leave Spectre,” I chuckled.
Jack laughed and nodded lightly, a grin lingering on his face.
“Where is it?” I asked.
“It’s a cottage looking out on the ocean from the mountains. Beautiful, I imagine.”
“Sounds nice,” I said. “If you like that stuff.”
“You sound excited.”
“A little. I’m not all over nature like you are,” I said.
“Never understood why not. You hate the city even more. Choose one,” Jack ordered playfully.
“Hate is a strong word. I don’t concern myself with it. I’m uninvolved.”
“Yes, hate would be an emotion,” Jack teased.
Delphia’s high rises stuck out on the rear view imaging monitor. I played with it on my side of the dash. I clicked the screen with a tap of my finger, enlarging it. Many, including world scientists have called Delphia, Eden, the place where all life began. Then everyone ran away to all other parts of the world, running from each other as far as they could to escape from other human beings. Some ran to the sea and cut down trees to make the first boats and sail the ring of seas to find somewhere where they could be alone. Away from themselves. There, the world was spread. Spread by running away. From themselves and their own reflections.
“Why would we ever leave this place? It’s the most beautiful place on earth,” Jack said trying to get a rise out of me. His eyes burned into me, pushing me for a reaction.
“Watch the road.”
When we made it to the mountain road, Jack had to slow down. We avoided the tunnel heading out of Delphia into the plains of Sherigol. We wanted to take the high road. These mountains had been defensive measures against invaders for thousands of years. Yet it never seemed to stop enemies from attacking and subjugating Delphia. Delphia is made up of such a small area yet it is a desirable position between the Northern continents and the southerly ones. It is surrounded by mountains besides the Zapharian Sea that connects us to the ring of seas. This connects us to the world. Warm winds come from the mountains blessing our land with fertility and a pleasant climate. Delphia is a very small country topographically and has mainly been a stepping stone for other empires over millennia. Thanks to our ports, Delphia has been able to keep somewhat in touch with other more successful countries. The ‘have’ countries, as they call them.
Through the window, evergreen trees glided by. We were deep in the forested mountains, the car rising and falling over the hills. Even larger mountains dwarfed us from over the trees. A few heads of logging crawdad machines bobbed, a few of their long legs clutching newly cut trees; their other legs pierced the earth shaking the world just enough for me to notice. Jack slowed down to miniscule speeds and the wheels crackled over the rock driveway, leading up to a small, light blue painted house.
“The rumor is, his father came home full of the drink, spluttering and vomiting on himself, screaming for his wife to let him in. She was finally standing up to him after so many years of smashing glass on her feet and breaking her legs so she couldn’t run away. She locked the door and threw out his belongings on the ground right in front of him so he could see it and soak it in. The father called out to his son telling him to honor his father and being his father’s son, the son hit his mom over the head with a bat, unlocked the door and pushed her out onto the steps. The father kicked the mother back into the house and the son watched as he kicked her a few times, terrified for listening to his father’s demands. Something snapped and torn between both of them the son set the house on fire. The drunk father had no clue the place was burning around them and he and his wife were burned alive by their own son. And that son, changing his name to
Gendarme (one of Delphia’s historical heroes) went on to be one of the most dangerous genocidal leaders of the Delphian Freedom Fighters. The Terrible Five,” Jack said, pleased with his storytelling.
“So it all makes sense than.”
“How do you mean?” Jack asked.
“He killed millions of people because his own life was messed up. Seems kind of typical to me. He’s a victim right?” I teased, knowing it would get to him.
“No one can make that excuse. You and I have lived hard lives too, and you know it. Yet here we are, making a difference to society.”
“That’s debatable,” I muttered.
“An exhausted topic I might add,” Jack huffed. “But, we have done the best with what we were given.”
I stayed silent.
“I won’t waste any more time,” Jack chuckled, his face brightening again. His mind was calculating even faster and completely unavailable to me. “Keep your senses keen. Although this will be quite a surprise for him, he has survived for a very long time and has various methods of staying alive. He’s a cockroach.”
I shrugged and followed Jack and he crept up to the cherry wood doors. “What should we do?”
“I don’t know how he’ll react. This is an emotional place. Can you feel it?”
“It smells like memories,” I sniffed, unamused.
“Don’t know whether to take you seriously or not.”
“What place isn’t saturated with the past? Seems a bit pretentious to single this one out.”
“I’m talking about passion. Hot memories. It doesn’t happen as strongly in other places,” Jack said trudging on the yellow grass, in the direction of the house. It had the architectural flare of two hundred years ago, in the old country. Tall windows and a high porch overshadowed by a chunk of roof. The pillars supporting the roof had multiple rivets giving it an obsidian look. “Their family built it together. Gendarme and his son and two daughters and his wife. She’s gone now I think, for years.”
“Will he struggle?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we plan this out?”
“I think he’s done with fighting. Us finding him here will be the final straw. After you?” Jack fell back allowing me to enter first.
The door was open. Jack stepped off of the wooden entry steps onto a pine floor. The smell of dust entrenched the living room. A glass table was lined up with a leather couch and a fireplace was nestled in the wall. There was a high ceiling and a bit of light came through holes of glass and the cloudy sky allowed little sun to seep through. Jack and I snuck through, entering the kitchen. Someone standing in the kitchen could stare out into the sea through the lofty windows, fogged from dust and the beatings of past storms. I approached the window. Outside, the ground sloped down and was swallowed by waves. Trees forked out of the soil. A man, with his back to us, stood almost as tall as the fig trees in the middle of it all, seeming to be mesmerized by the waves at the bottom of the rise. His head was tilted as if in half-prayer, the top sprinkled with grey hairs. His grey dress shirt was wrinkled and the cuffs over his arms undone and smudged with dark
spots.
Jack looked to me and his cheeks rose in a “what do we do next” kind of way. I returned with my bored face which usually answers most of his questions, this time the answer being “why ask me?” We continued to walk slowly, crinkling the brush under our boots. There was no need for quiet or an element of surprise: He already knew we were here. The wind slashed at him, his hands in his pockets, the sleeves of his shirt shaking over his arms. He matched his description for the most part. In briefing he looked much younger. Roughly in his late fifties, this man had blocks of grey in his hair, but had broader shoulders and even more elegant posture than the man we saw on news broadcasts and old conference recordings. When we approached him he didn’t jump or startle. But something about the air changed. With his back to us, he said, “The sea sure is long,” his voice soft, protective, like a father speaking lovingly to his child. I disliked him
instantly.
“Mr. Gendarme, please come with us,” Jack’s inviting protectiveness altered and his face tensed with a police-like sternness. Gendarme turned, with his hands still in his pockets, and concern tinged his staple comfortable expression he displayed in photographs. During speeches, Gendarme spoke as if the whole world was leaning in to listen to a respected philosopher, his hands ready to aid his words, his eyes relaxed. Seeing us, his eyes shook. Or was it just me? All familiarity drained from his expression as if he finally noticed a giant wave overtaking him. He was a sensible man; he was right to be afraid.
“You’re not soldiers, and I’ve never seen you before,” he
mentioned calmly, turning fully around. His hands came out of his
pockets revealing his famous white gloves. Stories said he had some
sort of hand condition. Despite his hint of fear he stood straight
and scanned us confidently with his brown eyes. His skin was a sap
colour and his grey beard was carefully trimmed and well kept.
“Pack up a few
things: tooth brush, comb, clothes, a souvenir,” Jack ordered.
“Where are we going?” Gendarme asked jovially.
“Please cooperate quickly.”
“How did you get past my security system?” He asked with genuine curiosity.
I chuckled and it startled him like he had forgotten I was there. “We’re not really
sneaky. We’re cheaters. Cameras, motion detectors, heat sensors,
none of them really pay much attention to us,” I tried to explain
our condition the best I could. His eyes rang with alarm when I
spoke, his fear percolating with the tone of my voice. I wondered
what startled him about me. I wasn’t really hurt by his judgement,
merely curious at what made me worth a cautious glance...
Thanks for this next section Donnie. Here's just something I noticed. The phrase, "I said. I played with the unused headphone." maybe change to "I said, playing with the unused headphone."
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm confused because the voice seems so different than the first part. I know that Conroy is older now. . . but, maybe I should just go back and read it all starting from the beginning to the end again. Could you maybe email me the manuscript from writing project?
I really like the idea of the world spreading out because we were running from ourselves.
I'm gonna read this again - and maybe have some better comments.
Thanks for reading Skyla. Ya maybe the difference in voice is a problem. In the bazaar scene he's reminiscing with a tinge of fondness and childlike wonder to match the mood of what he is telling, but as things get a bit darker I tried to make him transition to who he is in the story's present. I probably don't sell it enough and I'm not really sure how to. Any suggestions? :)
ReplyDeleteI'll just post the first three chapters as well so everyone can look at them if they like.