55044

I grimaced in my seat. My head had struck the control panel blurring my vision and blood trickled down my face. I have been in worse accidents before, I immediately thought, but that was of little consolation. I looked out of my plane and saw nothing but trees swaying as though they possessed life and some tired broken benches where no one sits anymore. I knew they would be coming. In a matter of minutes I would hear their whistles. I hadn’t much time. I was on the outskirts of Area 9, in what was once an affluent Northeastern suburb with plenty of wealthy Jews and Asians and beautiful women to go around and men who spoke like backward British speaking through ball gags. My beloved plane suddenly plummeted from the sky like a fat bird tired of flying. At first there was a matter of confusion in my head about why I went down but I soon realized I was struck by an anti-aircraft gun, which have been shooting drones from the sky since the Age of Paranoia when the revolution began thirty years ago. Thanks to the second amendment, anyone can buy an anti-aircraft gun practically anywhere; and people often wheel them around and shoot whatever moves in the sky without punishment for the government outlawed flying twelve years ago citing that the Wright Brothers weren’t brothers at all, but rather, rampant homosexuals. Rampant is the keyword. Homosexuality has been outlawed as have rainbows.

The revolution began when the most outspoken of kooks felt the government was infringing upon their liberty to own guns by enacting gun laws that prohibited crazy assholes or convicted felons to buy guns, or people to buy guns without waiting any amount of time. These days it takes less time to get a gun then it does to get an ice cream cone and even children usually carry some type of firearm. Gun ownership is rampant. It is no wonder with all the rampancy in the country that the national flag is a heterosexual rampant wild boar with a big dick holding a fifty-caliber machine gun. Wild boars, government scientists have determined, are the animal least likely to engage in homosexual behavior.

            We, the people, live under a different government these days than what was thought of at the inception of the aforementioned revolution. The revolution succeeded in ousting the former government, that which the country had known for nearly two hundred and forty years, but had no plan of what would happen next so there was a vacuum of power and no short of people with their dicks out desperate to fill it like goons on a broken-hearted fat whore. There was no lack of anti-aircraft guns, no lack of cocks, but there was a severe dearth of goodness, love and morality. My little bi-plane I built myself and called, Yellow Jacket, was mistaken for a drone perhaps, or perhaps shot down for the mere pleasure of shooting at a moving target rather than at stationary things. But more likely, they knew I was a transcontinental pilot with black market goods—books; literature; personal hygiene items; chocolate; perfume, music—all the things their new and improved government prohibits.

            My plane rested in a park and I wasn’t badly injured at all. The blood I wiped away was from a modest cut on my scalp and my blurred vision proved only to be condensation in my goggles. My radio was dead so even the slightest hope of calling out an SOS to a sympathetic ear on the ground was null. It was rather an inglorious way to die, I thought, sitting in a park waiting for those who shot me down to track and kill me. If they were government men I would be executed swiftly, but if they were citizens, I would be tortured for the new controlling government under Buddy Profit has led the public to believe that transcontinental pilots are flying vermin, responsible for their grief. They would salvage what they could from my plane and sell the metal for scrap unless I could somehow get my plane out before they came. I soon realized I was pinned inside the plane upon impact with no hope of getting out and extinguishing the flames that danced on my wings. Fortunately, as though a gift from God, a soft rain turned heavy and the flames died before they could do much damage. When the flames died out the rain stopped and the sun appeared and I saw her haloed in sunshine as though the flames jumped from my plane and engulfed her, accentuating her radiant beauty. She needn’t the help of fire or the sun. She was flawless. She stood there so bizarrely haloed in the sunlight, smiling nervously. She was young and strange and looked as though she were lost, as though she strolled up to see what the calamity was and dissatisfied that it was a transcontinental pilot, shied away.

            “Please help me!” I implored. I hoped she spoke English but it was not a given. For five years English was outlawed when the Mexican drug cartel took power and made Spanish the official language just to spite the old conservatives who were once so adamant about the superiority of their English. And the requirement of public education was one of the first things abolished by the new government, or the Profits. Since the abolishment of education a lot of people grunt and moan or simply repeat what they hear on TV. “TV English” they call it. She was beautiful, astonishingly gorgeous and in all my time in the Rocky Mountains amongst the free, I hadn’t seen anyone like her, not even in the pages of the finest men’s magazines from Europe. I wanted to take her but I was in no position being the pilot of a one-seat wrecked plane. And even if I was I don’t believe such a beautiful creature should be taken just as I don’t believe wildflowers should be picked.

            “I can’t help you. I’m forbidden,” she called back in perfect English. Her words sang like a song.

            “Yes, and you are forbidden to talk to me, yet you speak. My life depends on you! What are you doing in the park?”

            “Picking mushrooms,” she replied nervously.

            “Pick me! I am far more favorable than a mushroom,” I smiled at her. Despite my dire situation I could hardly be consumed by anything other than my approbation for the beautiful young girl. I was overwhelmed. She looked skittish but interested. I could hear the dogs barking and I knew it wasn’t pinchers—the term they use for the police. They come with blaring whistles and the beating of boots. It was locals, the vigilantes who would torture me and scrap my plane for the metal and parts and sell my cargo on the black market themselves. “Please!” I implored dramatically. I was still hopelessly smiling. Perhaps it was the weirdness of my smile that relieved her of any duty to assist me. People don’t typically smile when they are in desperate need of help.

            She turned and shuffled her feet then with a noticeable limp she was gone. She too heard the dogs and knew what it would mean. She wasn’t allowed to be in the park picking mushrooms, if that was indeed what she was doing. It was my guess that she was looking for wildflowers, flagrantly breaking Profit law. She looked to be sixteen, maybe seventeen. Like a frightened rabbit, she ran away and my hope was lost. But it was then without the distraction of the girl that I remembered that I had recently patched the bottom of my plane with paper and duct tape and painted it yellow. I meant to patch it with sheet metal later but it is difficult to find, and in the moment, I was glad I didn’t. I unfastened myself and kicked the bottom like I remember a donkey kicking when I was a boy. Donkeys do not exist in Profit for they once represented the liberal Democratic Party and were slaughtered to extinction and banned for life. The makeshift panel fell to the ground as the dogs drew closer. Duct tape was another contraband item I smuggled. For whatever reason the government made it illegal being that it had too many uses and no protection under the second amendment. It became a favored material for transcontinental pilots. The outer shell of my bomber jacket is made almost entirely of duct tape.

            I fell to the ground and cut off my parachute and quickly followed the path through tall undergrowth which I saw the girl take. At first, I took it to save my life, but subconsciously, I was sure I took it because I was in love. I hadn’t spent much time on the ground for the matter to arise, but I had seen enough women to understand her exquisite beauty and more than that, there was something in her eyes that I had never before seen or felt. And her tender voice still resonated in my ears the way Billie Holiday songs from my mother’s phonograph resonate. Music. Sweet music. The girl’s pulchritudinous was of no compare and I was bewitched. Though she eluded me, I assured myself confidently that it was quite temporary, the way Daisy Buchanan eluded Gatsby before he built his worth and baited her with the honey of his extravagance. I hadn’t the time for such extravagance but perhaps there was a gift that would make me worthy. Risking myself I ran back towards the approaching dogs to my Yellow Jacket and opened the cargo door taking three gifts I thought she might appreciate. The dogs were all but upon me as I made my escape into the undergrowth.

            I was without a uniform which would be cause for an immediate arrest so I had to lay low while I figured a way to procure one. Everyone was required to wear a gray jumpsuit as freedom of expression was not protected under the second amendment. Being out of uniform was punishable by death. There were a lot of deaths in all areas of Profit and every hour or so TV programs were interrupted by quick no nonsense televised executions, always done the same way, beheading by guillotine, which the government called loppers. “Guillotine” was French and foreign languages were illegal, especially French for it encouraged homosexuality according to the government. Each area had their own lopper and I had many friends who lost their heads. As soon as the head thumps to the ground, the program resumes without a word or the slightest hiccup of static.     

            I found my rabbit in the park as I hid out checking on my Yellow Jacket. She had returned to see what happened to me and we both watched from our separate vantage points as the pickers picked through the bowels of my helpless plane. I felt as though I was watching my mother get violated but I was distracted by my rabbit stuffing her face with some sort of snack food. Her cheeks swelled out as her eyes peered at the men, the dogs and my plane. Her eyes widened as one of the men who could only speak broken English held a large box over his head and screamed “chocolate!” which sounded more like “cocklat!” She was interested in the clothes and the jewelry but she didn’t seem too interested at all in the books. She seemed more puzzled by them. I snuck up behind her by the cover of a large barberry bush and put my hand over her mouth so I didn’t startle her and wake the dogs that were napping in the shade under the plane’s wings.

            “Shhhhhhh!” I whispered pleadingly in her ear. Her skin became gooseflesh. From beneath my hand a soft pule escaped and alarmed one of the dogs which roused the others. They were ugly pit-bulls but the shade of the wing in the sun proved too much for them to resist. I didn’t speak again until their heads lowered. I held her head still. “You came back!” I whispered.

            “I thought you would be dead,” she explained casually.

            “I live to see you.”

            She smiled. Words needn’t do what actions do better. But I could tell her smile was an uncomfortable, almost involuntary reflex. Smiling was illegal unless it was while watching TV, or to smile after laughing at one of President Profit’s terrible jokes, as told by President Profit or an authorized disciple. “I have never seen anyone more beautiful.” It seemed so insufficient to say. Words often don’t do what actions must. So I kissed her. I think she understood. I knew all she had to do was to yell, after all, I was not in the required uniform. What’s more, she would probably be given some kind of commendation for turning over a transcontinental pilot. I wondered briefly during which TV show I would lose my head. I tried to recall what the Area 9 lopper looked like. Most of them had eyes painted on the top and the stocks were painted like lips so the head of the soon- to-be-beheaded looked like the lopper was sticking out its tongue and when the blood gushed from the headless neck it looked like it was spitting or puking. I hoped my head wasn’t lopped off during The Bachelor, the second longest running TV program in television history. It changed over thirty years of revolution and counter revolution, over seven different governments and economical systems. These days The Bachelor is terribly ugly and vile, if it wasn’t already. The losers who do not get the rose are raped by government men and the crew then fed to the hogs and the winner is set free. I do not believe in rape or the brutish ways of the neo-Neanderthals but it is now a way of life. I believe in love, romance, wine, music and freedom.

            I held her close as we watched the pickers conceal the plane with large tree branches and shrubs. Then they took their dogs and left. Surprisingly they didn’t scrap my plane for the metal. Maybe they planned to return to it and that is why they covered it. It didn’t concern me at the moment. I had assessed the damage and realized that it wasn’t in bad shape. A few spare scraps welded to the tail and some banging out of damage to the left wing and I would be able to fly again, supposing I could find an accessible clearing for take-off.  After curfew, which is midnight, I should be able to patch it together if they still hadn’t returned. My engine and propeller were entirely unaffected by the shot and the crash. My rabbit did not protest to me holding her and it was how I knew the feeling was mutual.

“What is your name?” I asked.

            “Do you mean my number? It is 55044.”

            “No,” I insisted. “Your name!” It was true the government outlawed names and replaced them with more efficient tracking numbers which were tattooed on the back of citizens’ necks along with bar codes which when scanned gave all the vital statistics of the individual. “Individual,” I laugh in my mind. There are no individuals. There are only parts of a machine, cogs, screws, bolts, nuts, wires or circuits. You are something or you are nothing. Regardless, many people still had a name, something that their parents called them in their homes. It is, after all, hard to warm up to a baby named 33066, and despite laws and regulations it is nearly impossible to stop the instinctive desire to be close to a baby, at least, until the advent of the little green pills. I didn’t have a number or a bar code tattooed to my neck. I was born in the freedom of the Rocky Mountains amid the resistance, an unchartered area not affected by Profit. Her brown eyes glimmered in the fading sunset and I was reminded of smuggled amber gemstones, or bits of a thick brown broken glass bottle I kept in a marble bag when I was a kid.

            “Calla,” she replied softly as though someone might hear.

            “Like the lily?”

            “Yes. Though I’ve never seen one,” she admitted. “Not even in pictures. My dad tried to draw one but it wasn’t a very good likeness. He isn’t much of an artist.” Flowers had been illegal since they became rare due to the near extinction of birds and the honeybees which began twenty-some years ago for reasons unknown. When they nearly died off completely, the government outlawed them. In the mountains though, their laws are not obeyed and we cultivate flowers, host an abundance of birds and honeybees and no one is a number. I had seen a calla lily myself. I remember its beautiful bloom that blends with the stalk and its large green leaves splaying from the stem exquisitely. I wished I could show her.

            “You are more beautiful than your namesake and twice as rare.” Again words failed to live up to actions. I kissed her again.

            “Flattery will get you everywhere.”

            “I don’t know where everywhere is but I want to go,” I replied kissing her again. “I love you.” It was so sudden but there was no doubt.

            “I love you,” she sighed. Her eyelids fluttered and she looked like someone who was about to faint. “I thought I would never hear those words.”

            “Isn’t there a government law against thinking?”

            “Probably,” she smiled. “But there is also a law against love.”

            “Well, Calla, then we must keep it a secret.”

            “Scandalous,” she grinned. “Is it strange...that we just met?”

            “Perhaps, we just met in this lifetime. But in this life we must live quickly, act quickly, or else the door will close and the moment will be taken. I believe love is an instant thing and not something that needs to be acquired, or to which one must grow accustomed. I believe my plane was shot for a reason; I crashed for a reason; and you were in the park for a reason, other than mushrooms...”

            “Flowers,” she said gently. “I was searching for wildflowers.”

            “Do you take your little green pills?”

            “No. I never have once. My father doesn’t either. We pretend to be unaffected like everyone else in public. But at home we are ourselves.”

            “Which explains how you can feel.” The little green pills are required by the government. They control thought and emotions. They are a daily lobotomy and birth control. Only permitted citizens can have children and they are created in temperature controlled labs once a year so they are all born on President Buddy Profit’s birthday—the seventh of April. Those babies that are born early are fed to government hogs. Those that are to be born late are forced to be born on time or not at all. Punctuality is everything. Be on time or don’t come. Now or never. Belatedness will not be tolerated. Signs are posted everywhere that say things to that effect. Only government approved sperm and eggs are permitted. Accidents don’t happen. No drunken mistakes. I gave her another kiss, this one longer with more passion.

            “Yes. I can feel,” her lower lip quivered. I ran my hand down her stomach and massaged every part of her. I kissed her neck and worked up to her ear then I switched to the other side. She exhaled softly, letting go of the slightest amount of resistance that she may have intended to keep, trading it for anticipation. “We have to go! Curfew is in a few hours.”

            “A few hours,” I contested continuing to kiss her. At curfew the government releases a poisonous fog that lingers until morning. Despite government denials, it is what killed the birds and the bees. But at least, some say, there are no pesky mosquitoes. “Don’t leave me,” I implored her. She looked frantic and worried. Her large brown eyes shined in confusion and in the uncertainty of her youth and passion. The sky began to grow dark and I bent to kiss her again and her bottom lip quivered the last of her resistance. I held her lip in mine, sucking it until it stopped and she was imbued with my confidence. 

She grabbed my hand. “Let’s go.”

I didn’t question where. I didn’t speak at all. I simply followed her as she pulled me through the ruins of what was once Charlestown. Buildings were shelled and fragmented and rubble from their devastation amassed in the streets in gray lifeless piles. It was hard to imagine what they may have looked like when they stood unbroken. Only a few of the street lights worked and of those that did they flickered erratically and leaned as though they would fall at any moment making whatever they illumined even more unnerving. As we hurried across streets and through alleys, the sound of gunfire, dogs, whistles and the squeals of the wild boars feeding off the dead reminded us that our excursion was dangerous and at any moment we could be killed or caught. And since neither of us took the little green pills, the fear in us, perhaps for the safety of each other, coursed through our brains and kept us from stopping or doing anything other than holding hands tightly and moving forward quickly. I had faith in her—faith that she would not turn me in and we would go somewhere where we could be alone and safe from the madness of a mad world.

The pinchers were notorious for their incessant whistle blowing. The shrill sound of the cork ball vibrating in the metal was unsettling. I tried to drown them out but they kept ringing even when they were not being blown. They screamed like wild animals. It was hard to tell what the buildings were once in the condition they were now but it was clear they were no longer in use except by rats and whoever could survive the poisonous gas of the impending curfew. There were only a few people milling about lethargically like zombies. One was a large woman pushing a grocery cart already wearing a gas mask and the other was a skinny old man perusing a large pile of rubble with prosthetic metal hands and a metal detector looking around neurotically. Neither noticed I was there and out of uniform but they didn’t seem like people who would care. Calla’s hands were clammy but held mine tightly. I looked through an opening that was once a parking garage and could see the water. The USS Constitution lied like a broken bath toy on its side bobbing haplessly with the current, still tethered to the dock. Surely all the metal from it had been scrapped. It was a pitiful sight unless you were a mollusk, or an early nineteenth-century Brit.

Calla led me into a building that was intact other than the back half which had been completely obliterated. There was exercise equipment in pieces in a room behind a large broken-glass window and an enormous crooked sign hanging by one screw that said “Welcome to Charlestown YMCA.” There was a reception desk with broken pieces of the ceiling littered on it and a gold-colored elevator. Calla pressed the button and it opened. “It still works” she smiled. The open door chimed invitingly and we stepped inside. She pressed a button that lit up and after a quick jerk we rose steadily. It was my first time on an elevator.

We stopped on the fourth floor and she led me to a fallen bookcase with books lying in disarray around it. We climbed up and over. Behind it there was a door hidden in the darkness. She had a small flashlight which she turned on lighting the door and handle. I smiled at the childlike look on her face. The room was undisturbed—everything was in place. It looked as though the housekeeper had just left. There was a TV, a bed with fresh linens, two lamps, a table, and a bathroom. And surprisingly, everything worked. There was electric and water. We lied in bed and I kissed her and everything flowed from that kiss. I took off her gray uniform and her body lay before me in the lamplight invitingly pale. I was humbled. This was the first time it had ever felt real. Everything and everyone else before felt like naïve mistakes so suddenly. I had never known anything more beautiful nor felt anything more perfect. We made love and slept. I held her in my arms as the gas rolled outside the window after curfew.

“Wake up!” she cried sharply. It had only been an hour or two at most. “They’ve found us! You have to go!” she pleaded frantically. I could hear their whistles screaming but I didn’t move. “You have to go! Now!” she insisted. “They will arrest you and you will be killed.” She must have felt what I wanted to say but my words failed me. They crumbled in my mouth like the buildings. I stood up and looked around. How could they have found us here? “It was enough,” she cried frantically. “To know you at all was more than I could have hoped for.”

“No,” I countered. “I will be back in a plane with two seats. I’d strap you to the wing if I could.”

“No!” she cried. “If you come back they will kill you! Please!” she began to cry. “Just...remember me, please? Maybe I will be able to come to you.” I quickly got dressed and reached into my rucksack. I pulled out three chocolate truffles and gave them to her. It is what I thought she would enjoy most and what I knew she wouldn’t be caught with and thus punished for by the pinchers. Her eyes lit up like road flares.

“I will come back! I promise. Eat!”

She smiled. “I will wait for you,” she said simply, opening the first of her chocolates. The sound of the whistles intensified. The proximity of the sound and the beating of their boots told me they were in the lobby but it would take them a few minutes to find our room—our room that I had to leave so soon. I kissed her lips that were covered in chocolate and left. I followed an exit sign down the hall to a fire escape. The gas rolled outside and my eyes were filled with the piercing sting then flooded with the reaction of tears. I took off my shirt and tied it around my face. I found scraps of metal on my way and instinctively carried them to the park like a bird carrying twigs to a nest. I know I wasn’t being followed or else I would have heard their terrible whistles closing in on me. They hadn’t found my plane. It was where the pickers left it under the camouflage of tree branches and shrubs. Government men were known to be none too bright and the citizens certainly none brighter. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the pickers forgot where they hid it. I grabbed my goggles from the cockpit but despite them and the shirt that was wrapped tightly around my face the searing pain of the gas was unavoidable. I uncovered what I needed to uncover to make the repairs and welded quickly. I burned my right index finger to the bone in my haste but I had to work through the pain. In a few minutes after I began the repairs of the tail I could hear the whistles, the dreaded cork ball and metal. I imagined what monsters they must look like in their blue uniforms and gas masks armed with submachine guns. I could hear the spitting of gunfire. Finally, my Yellow Jacket was flyable and I sealed the welded seams with swipes of duct tape to be sure the crude repairs would hold. I hadn’t faith in my welding but I had the utmost faith in duct tape.

I could tell the whistles were near. I felt the cork ball vibrating loudly in my ear. I wasn’t accustomed to the sound as others were accustomed to it. It has been said that citizens of Profit hear the whistles as pleasant contextual sounds the way people once heard birds and crickets. But by design, foreigners, transcontinental pilots included, are nearly paralyzed by the noise. I can attest to it. The engine stalled on the first crank but after two more tries she fired up. The propeller began to twirl then spin and I steered myself to what I hoped would lead me to the possibility of a clearing which I noticed on the way to the YMCA. I pushed through the undergrowth and my previously repaired propeller hacked through briars and branches. I could only pray that it would hold. I rubbed my lucky rabbit’s foot and gritted my teeth. Behind me through the cloud of green gas I could see them emerging. The light of one of those swaying light posts reflected off their goggles and with the hoses of the gas mask protruding from their noses they looked more like insects than men. The Yellow Jacket began to build up steam and I could see that I was right. There was a small clearing that led to the harbor but I was not sure if I could build up enough speed for take-off. I gave it all she had as machine guns began to scream and the rear of my plane was riddled with bullets. “Hold!” I begged. “Hold!”

At the end of the land God afforded me I skidded atop the water and pulled her back. Like a flat rock I skipped twice before I caught the wind which blew me up and successfully airborne. I had to turn and reverse my course though I should have went further out to sea and done so at a higher altitude to avoid taking fire. But in my exhilaration of being free and out of arrogance perhaps, I turned course and defiantly buzzed the pinchers who thus turned their guns heavenward and riddled the underbelly of my Yellow Jacket with their angry rounds. My excitement in making such a harrowing escape soon faded as I could see the YMCA below. I missed my rabbit already. I had to leave, I assured myself, but I would be back I knew. Nothing would stop me. My Yellow Jacket was badly damaged but it wouldn’t affect my flight. I was fortunate that the anti-aircraft guns miraculously missed from such short range. I was lucky, I knew, but I didn’t feel lucky. I looked down upon the upturned USS Constitution and the ruins of Charlestown as I flew away. But after my adrenaline subsided I realized the rounds that riddled the bottom of my plane riddled my legs as well. Blood began to trickle down my legs and pool in my boots. I would have to make a landing at a bootlegger-safe landing strip near Scranton, Pennsylvania for gas and repair work on myself and the plane. It was a safe stop and part of the transcontinental route. The area was controlled by the resistance and bootleggers and they would be able and willing to help me. Regardless, the trip home would be dreadfully lonesome and painful.

...

Two agonizing months later I recovered and was finally well enough to fly again. The wounds had become infected and if not for the care of my mother I would have flown my last flight on this Earth. I repaired my beloved Yellow Jacket and sold her for the money to buy a slow two-seater tri-plane that was gaudily painted up like the Red Barron’s plane. It was a piece of shit I didn’t enjoy flying but it had a seat for Calla and that is all that mattered. I kissed my mother goodbye and she wished me a reluctant farewell with her hands over her face to hide her tears. She had tried for two month’s to discourage me from my plan with no success. I wore a gray uniform, cut my hair and had my neck tattooed with a fake identification number and barcode. 04095. I hoped Calla would be in the park and the flight back was a torrent amalgam of confident anticipation and insuppressible apprehension. It had been two months after all. What could I expect? Somewhere over Ohio I realized I had forgotten my lucky rabbit’s foot. But how lucky was it for the rabbit? I thought.

If she wasn’t in the park she would be at the YMCA—in our room. Our room. It was our hotel. I breezed through the anti-aircraft guns and landed safely in the park near where I crash landed so fortuitously before, but this time with no damage to the plane and no Calla. Nothing much had changed, only the season. It was fall now, two miserably long months had passed. The cool wind that blew in from the harbor conveyed the smell of the saltwater that lingered amongst the earthen pool of fallen leaves. Autumn is unmistakable. I camouflaged the plane and hurried to the YMCA and up to our hidden room. It seemed like I was in the elevator forever. I brought flowers and wine. The room was intact but the bed was unmade, perhaps, as we last left it. The sheets smelled of her skin and I pulled lost strands of her hair from the pillow. But there was no sign of her. I waited but I knew what the unmade bed meant. She hadn’t been there since I left. And miserably bereft on the floor there were three chocolate truffle wrappers. I drank the wine and the calla lilies began to wilt in a pot on the nightstand. I fell asleep remembering how perfect she felt. Nothing lasts, not even the beautiful things.

The next morning I went out amongst the citizens in the downtown district of Area 9 that had been rebuilt and cultivated by Profit design. It wasn’t a crumbling mess like the old city. Old Haliburton really outdid themselves this time. It felt odd to walk through the artificial town. I was in uniform with the proper haircut and identification but I didn’t feel as though I was one of them. But then I caught glances of myself in shop windows which reminded me I was not in a duct taped bomber jacket and cargo pants and boots. I had to try to find her. I had to know what happened. Despite the new buildings there were still remnants of the civilization that had not been lost but which had been brutally murdered. Revolution, regardless of the intent, is such a brutal betrayal. The rail line was defunct and the ghostly ruins of the stations where people boarded the T, steps going underground, signs hanging limp, remained as though to serve some bizarre purpose. The steps made me think of Hell. Maybe it is the way we will go when it is all over. And Heaven will be via a gilded YMCA elevator.

It was very depressing. The faces were hard to differentiate, they all had the same dismal look and their weights didn’t vary much for no one overate and no one ate too little. Everyone was plump. Women were made to wear terrible makeup, thick eyeliner, bright red lipstick and a lot of rouge. They looked like they belonged in a circus. The hairstyles were uniform. All the men had crew-cuts and the women shoulder length brown hair. Those who lost their hair were either smart enough to wear a government wig or they were sent to the lopper for the crime of inferiority. I felt desperately out of place for I didn’t carry a gun. Even children carried guns, some seemed to be toppled over by the weight of their sidearm but their parents grunted at them some kind of command to do what they were told or else they would lose their head. “Don’t lose your head,” or something to the effect, is a phrase I heard often walking through the streets. But no one seemed to fear it. It took some getting used to but the random shots that rang out and the whistling settled in my brain and I wasn’t so skittish. I had coffee at a sidewalk café and when I asked for cream and sugar the barista looked at me angrily and asked me if I “was trying to lose my head.” Looking around it was quite obvious that in Profit, coffee is to be had black or not at all.

It was nearly the end of a long day when I decided to have dinner at a place suggested to me by some drunk who insisted his number was 33069 before laughing nearly uncontrollably. He got the attention of some passing pinchers who immediately swarmed on him for laughing. Although he insisted he was laughing about a Buddy Profit joke it they had none of it. “33069!” he screamed suddenly sober. “33069!” He hadn’t been taking his pills or else he would have had no fear. I went to the place the drunk suggested hoping for a drink myself to calm my nerves. It was called 1984. Only the favored things in Profit were called “1984” for it was the year of Buddy Profit’s birth. The place was very clean and despite the dirty kitchen staff whose faces I could see peering out of a small open window I felt comfortable about eating the food. I was seated at a booth by a pretty hostess and my server walked over to me calmly and presented me with a menu which the hostess had forgotten to give me.  The hostess was brutally flogged then fired when the manager learned of her negligence. I looked up at my server and my eyes could not believe the sight. It was Calla, my rabbit. She stared at me blandly as though looking through me to the wall. Her eyes were empty and there was a vacant look on her face. Sadness overthrew what was once beauty, but beauty left its memory or its unmistaken mark. Even the bland hairstyle and the ridiculous paint job upon her face could not suppress her beauty—even the jagged scars that ran down her face.

I tried to contain myself but I couldn’t. Immediately I developed an escape plan. I looked up at her as she rehashed her line. “Welcome to 1984, I am 55044, may I take your order, sir?” She sounded so abysmally different. There was no longer a song in her words.

“I am unfamiliar with the menu,” I defended myself perusing it. 

“Well, familiarize with it and I shall return. May I start you off with a drink?”

“Maker’s Mark on ice.”

She wrote it down. 

“Will you suggest something?”

“Yes. The steak teriyaki and the butternut squash.”

“I am a vegetarian.”

“Funny. There is no such thing. Not in Profit. Are you not from Area 9?”

“No. I am not. But I visited here once and I fell in love with a beautiful girl.”

“Love?” she scoffed softly. “Keep your voice down or you will be arrested. No one uses that word loosely. No one is allowed to use it at all unless it is in regards to President Profit. I don’t think you are from Profit at all.” She began to look uneasy.

“Calla!” I whispered loudly. “It is me, rabbit. I love you!”

She dropped her order book and pen and suddenly looked drawn. The manager who had flogged the pretty hostess looked over suspiciously. I glanced at him and started to smile before I caught myself. “I will take my drink, 55044.”

“Yes, sir.”

I knew I had to get her out of here so for the rest of the meal I didn’t say anything to startle her. I sat and ate steak teriyaki and butternut squash with two loaves of bread. I drank three drinks and wondered if I was doing everything appropriately for the manager kept giving me distrustful looks that I could not ignore. I tried not to look around and every time I made eye contact with him or the dirty people in the kitchen I looked away. I looked out the window at the blowing trees without birds, at the pinchers running along and the occasional heterosexual wild boar rooting in the grass or eating parts of someone or something. The pinchers fed them human parts publically to remind the citizens of Profit of the grim fate of those who step out of order. The hogs were ugly bastards.

I regretted not bringing a gun for I found myself at an immediate disadvantage. While finishing my meal one of my fellow patrons sitting at the bar shot another in the face then casually put his gun back on the bar as the lifeless body of the person he shot lay on the floor. Then three of the kitchen staff hurried out in their gray uniforms with dirty white aprons and drug the body out the front door and into the street. I watched from the window as one hog began to eat the body that was still alive, or at least that gave the appearance of being alive in the way it twitched. In a few seconds a second hog arrived and then a third and a fourth. In twenty minutes the body was completely devoured. I could hear the awful sound through the glass and I couldn’t stop watching.

            I paid my check and waited outside in the bushes for Calla’s shift to end. When she emerged from the restaurant I grabbed her and pinned her to the ground. “Don’t scream!” I ordered her with my hand firmly over her mouth.

            “I won’t,” she said calmly. She wasn’t the least bit startled. I lifted my hand from her mouth surprised by the lack of fear in her eyes. “Are you going to rape and kill me, sir?”

            “No! Not at all.” I replied. She looked dreadfully disappointed.

            “Then what are your plans? If I may ask.”

            I took a napkin out of my pocket and spit on it. I wiped the hideous makeup from her face. She struggled a little. “I just want to see my Calla.”

            “I am not Calla! I am 55044!”

            “You don’t remember me?”

            “No. I do not,” she replied bitterly. It was near dark. The sounds of gunshots and whistles continued in the background seeming to intensify as it grew dark. I had overheard talk earlier that day that the government was going to roll the curfew back to eight or nine, but it had yet to be decided by President Profit who is said to make all of his decisions while defecating. Those are his moments of clairvoyance. Once while constipated, the government nearly shut down. I kissed her the way I remembered kissing her in the park. I stopped.

            “Are you going to rape me now?”

            “Why would I rape you?”

            “It is how a girl knows her worth. If someone rapes you it means they are attracted to you. It means I am worth it.”

            “That is sick.”

            “It is logical.”

            “Do you remember making love to me? In the hotel? Do you not feel?”

            “No, I do not remember,” she said wearily. “Yes, I feel. But you are not my monthly poker. He is 14085. I am going to see him tonight.”

            “Poker?” I asked despairingly. I knew what it meant.

            “Yes. And last month he was 66033,” she fawned. Each month the government sends every citizen a postcard with the number and address of the person with whom they are authorized to have what they call “physical recreational interaction.” It changes monthly so people do not become attached. Love is forbidden. There is no Valentine’s Day and marriage is against the law. Anyone even pretending to be married will lose their head to their area’s lopper. “I preferred him to most,” she said flatly.

            “Who?”

            “66033. He was very attractive. But maybe next month I will have better luck.”

            I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Do you remember making love to me? We met in the park. I was in my plane...”

            “You cannot say love!” she protested again. She struggled to break free but I held her firmly. I could hear the sound of wild boars snorting near us but we were concealed by the bushes and could not be seen. People walked past and by the sound of the loud whistles I knew they were pinchers. All she had to do was scream and I would be arrested but I knew my fate was grim either way. There is a certain death one dies when the heart is broken and I was dying it. There was no lopper inside me with big painted eyes, a stock painted like lips to hold my head in place, and a sharp blade to relieve me of my life, but it was twice as excruciating the way it was being done.

            “You’ve betrayed our love. They’ve filled your head with their pills and you’re no longer the girl in the park. What happened to you?” She stared up at me vacuously. What is missing is the agonizing details of her capture following my escape. I would never know what happened to her and probably also to her father. It was gone. I couldn’t imagine what she endured, that which she blacked out or that which was taken from her in two short months, two long months. I didn’t hate her. I loved her but she was gone. My rabbit was dead.

            “If you rape me I will not report it,” she offered.

            “I will not. I am not them. I am a transcontinental pilot. I believe in freedom and love. This is not my world. I don’t belong here.” She looked sad and disgusted. She was terribly disappointed that I didn’t want her that way but that was it. She simply wanted me to want her. She hadn’t the capacity to love. But maybe, I thought, if I took her I could get her back. I could take her to the Rocky Mountains and a cabin in the woods and she would come to life again. I sat and helped her up. I reached into my rucksack and pulled out what I had brought her. She looked at it and held it in her hands.

            “What is it?” she whispered.

            “A calla lily. Your father named you after this flower. I wanted you to see it.” She held it in her hands gazing at it for a long moment. I watched her. A faint glint of recognition, of something other than what there was flickered in her eyes for a moment. Then the whistles blew and it vanished.

            “Let’s go!” I screamed. “Run!” We were only a few blocks from the park. Only a few blocks. She looked up still holding the flower. I held her hand in mine and tried to pull her along but she resisted.

            “It’s illegal to run,” she replied dreadfully confused.

            “Fuck illegal, Calla!” I tried again to pull her along. The whistles grew louder as did the sound of the hogs.

            “It’s illegal to swear.”   

            I could see them approaching. I tried to pick her up but she jerked away from me and scratched my face. “Calla! Come with me!” I yelled. I had to go. If I ran now I would make it. The pinchers fired shots into the air.

“Halt! Halt!” they screamed. I bit my lip looking towards the direction of the plane and at the pinchers who were only a block away. I waited too long. I froze. The calla lily fell from her hands and the pot broke on the pavement. They hogs got to us first but the pinchers ordered them to stop and they obeyed. The one taller pincher by virtue of being the tallest among them spoke for the group. “We are placing you under arrest. Turn him around,” he ordered one of the shorter pinchers. They scanned my neck. “You are under arrested for suspicion of terrorism and for unconventional behavior. You tried to order coffee with cream and sugar and you smiled at the restaurant. How do you plea?”

“Guilty,” I replied plainly.

“Guilty as charged. Who are you?” he asked Calla.

“55044, sir.”

“Are you in cahoots with this convicted law breaker?”

“No, sir. He was trying to abduct and rape me.”

“Is this true?” he turned to ask me.

“It is true.” I replied. Calla looked scared for a moment. Then the brief eclipse of fear faded and she normalized. The scan of my neck came back invalid and it was over for me. Calla’s scan came back acceptable and she was sent home. One of the hogs ate the calla lily and the dirt that lied on the ground and gave me a loud and emphatically heterosexual snort. They are dreadfully ugly things.

Clairvoyance came to me in the moments leading up to my execution. I sat in a gray sterile-looking room on the concrete floor naked, stripped of the uniform with my hands shackled behind my back. I was all-seeing as though I was a dandelion spore drifting in and out of space. There were four executioners and they wore skeleton masks and black cloaks. If there was one thing Profit did well it was uniforms. They didn’t say anything when they came in to the cell to extract me. I didn’t resist. They blindfolded me and stood me up. They grunted and led me through a long hallway but I was somewhere else. I was already gone. All they possessed was an empty shell like the skin of a cicada, lifelike but hollow. They stood me in front of the lopper but I was a fly suddenly. I was on the wall of a bedroom where 55044 lied in bed with 14085 after physical recreational interaction. The glow of a television lit their naked bodies on the sand-colored sheets like whale carcasses in moonlight. They were watching Vampire Diaries. It cut to an execution and they stopped to watch, as they were ordered to by law. They were obedient. Through all my eyes I could see myself walking to the lopper. My head placed firmly in the brace. 55044 looked closely. A faint glimmer of recognition sparked in her amber-colored eyes. She looked sad for a moment as they drew the blade up by pulling on the rope.

“No,” she whispered. “No!” The blade dropped, my head fell and the program resumed. Somewhere my headless body was fed to a pack of heterosexual wild boars as she swallowed another little green pill and went to sleep. In the morning she wouldn’t remember anything and in a few weeks she would get another card in the mail telling her where to go next.