ONE HUNDRED-FOUR: Man without a face

ONE HUNDRED-FOUR: Man without a face

She woke up to something nudging her, shaking her gently.

At first, the misshapen figure frightened her and she tried to push away.

She felt silky hair in her hands.  She tried to focus her eyes on the face in front of her.  Warm sweet breath poured over her.  A soft chirping vibration filled her ears.

A Momo’s arms were lifting her. She closed her eyes and let herself be carried.

She was sat back down in a shade and felt the breeze of a fan.

Gentle fingers pried open her mouth. She felt something cool and wet on her tongue.

“Hey,” a man said.

She tried to open her eyes. 

“Just a little. Whoa!  Too much’ll make you sick.”

Arous stomach resisted the cool liquid.  She gagged.  She felt something cool on her neck and face.

“There, there.  That should help cool you down a bit.”  Arous forced her eyes open to see a thin, rugged faced man bending over her. His dark skin wrinkled into carved kindness and wisdom about his face.

The Momo was just beside her.

“It’s you,” she said to the Momo.

The Momo chirped and attempted to sit her up a little straighter.

“Maybe I should get you out of here?” The man said and the Momo nodded.

Arous looked over and saw that she was leaning against an old rusted and red pick-up.

“Let me guess,” Arous voice cracked. “It has the name Ford stamped into the tailgate.”

The shade of the man’s hat obscured his face but she could see him laugh.

“Doesn’t come with AC but at 55 MPI it’ll be cooler than this dessert.  Take my arm.  Now that’s it.  Easy up.”

“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.”

“Few have said it better than that,” he said.

They both smiled.

The Desperado helped Arous walk to the truck, ever patient with her stumbling steps.

The Momo opened the door and secured Arous before shutting the door.

“This is where we depart, my friend,” said the Desperado to the Momo tipping his hat.

The Momo leaned in and kissed Arous on the forehead.

“Thank you,” said Arous.

They began to drive away.

“I sung her back to life,” said Arous.

“I know.”

The bumpy road refused to befriend her as she sipped bit after bit of water. They had already had to pull over once because of her body’s stubbornness to guzzle. The jostling of the truck didn’t help her struggle any.  They rode in silence for many miles, nothing but the squeaking and rattling of the truck ever voicing its opinion about the sorry state of the roads.

“I make it a point never to ask anyone where they’ve been. None of my business to remind you of that.  But I do need to know where you’re going.”

“Home.”

“I’m sure the folks will be glad to see you.”

“I hope.”

Soon they had agreed on a drop off point: Chara’s Crossing. He had already planned to take a route that would pass Chara’s.  She didn’t say where she was going only suggested Chara’s Crossing as a place they both knew.

They were less than a couple of hours from Plateaus’ Edge and the lift there. They drove the rest of that day and through the night before reaching the coastal plains that Arous knew to be home.  She could smell the faint salt and the strong sent of pine and cedar. As the sun began to rise and turn the sky above the treetops pink, Arous recognized her drop off point.

“There! Chara loves to sit on the porch in that rickety old rocking chair.”

The red ford came to a slow and deliberate stop.

“Here you are young lady.  It was my pleasure to serve you,” he said.

“Thank you.” Arous slammed the door.

“I would offer you some water to take but,” he paused. “Never have to drink much there do you? It permeates to your very soul.”

Arous mouth gaped speechless.

“Take care of yourself, young lady and give my regards to your father, the Diofe,” the Desperado said.

Arous began to walk away from the truck when she turned to ask his name.  The truck was already in gear and rumbling down the road as she looked through the rear window at him.  He stopped, turned to look back at her from the cab, smiled at her, put on his wide brimmed hat (which he had not donned for the entire trip) and drove away. He just drove off leaving Arous to wonder how he knew her name.

“Impossible,” she whispered. “The man without a face.”

ONE HUNDRED-THREE: Pilgrimage

ONE HUNDRED-THREE: Pilgrimage

It was a dusty day, hot in the never-ending summer of the desert.

Arous walked the long gravel and sand road that she knew would take her home.  Over each shoulder she strapped a water bag.  Each carried a half gallon of water, which she hoped she could ration enough to take her through the dessert until she could reach another water supply. Oh, how she wished she’d thought of digging Arcadia from the rubble; she would’ve had a shorter trip home.  

“If I could’ve fixed her, unshadowed her, which I doubt,” her voice cracked. “I hope this is the road to the hoveh lift at Plateau’s Edge, I hope this is the road . . .” she kept the prayer going on in her mind.

She kept her eyes ahead of her.  She watched as the heat made the road seem to disappear into a liquid haze far into the distance.  She heard the sound of her own feet hitting the gravel. She fought to keep her mind on what lay ahead and not on her thirst and grief.

“I hope Plateau’s Edge . . . ”

Her mind fought to recall how she had gotten to this place. But, dredging up such memories proved painful.  Her world imploded because of the choices she made and she wondered if ever she would be the better for it.

“I hope the road . . . ”

Arous had been on the road two days and she was hungry. She’d thought ahead to hide the water in the woods but left too fast to grab bread. In the distance she could see birds circling in the air. They climbed higher and higher, dropping then resuming their climb.  They circled around, around, down, up, up . . . Around, around, down . . .

She knew they circled something dead. A day old dead carcass roasted over an open dessert fire couldn’t be worse than the slop she’d been eating for the past month. With each step off the gravel road more and more sand got into her shoes.  Each footfall seemed to come harder and harder.  She glanced over her shoulder, not sure of what worried her. Her stomach kept pushing her forward.  She couldn’t turn back now, for she could almost see a shape ahead of her.  Several birds hovering around the shape; they flapped their wings and looked up waiting. 

She increased her pace since it beginning to get dark.  Shadows got longer and stranger as they crept across the sand.  Part of the sun had sunk below ground.

Amazement stopped her: before her was a rotted, half-eaten carcass.  She moved closer.  It was a human.  It was so grotesque that she couldn’t turn away.  The figure was twisted as if it had been flung down and landed on its stomach but the torso had twisted around. The naked body lay exposed except for a towel that covered its head. She stepped up and jerked the towel from the face.  The sandy-blond hair was instantly recognizable if the badge hadn’t identified him as Captain Hodges-Baire.

The hot wind turned.  The smell invaded her nostrils quicker than she could turn her head and faster than she could get her hand to her mouth. Her stomach did a flip and her head lurched.  Something at the back of her throat started fighting its way out.  She turned and ran back toward the road, but running felt like swimming as her legs fought against the sand.

She dropped.  Her knees hit the burning sand a split second before her hands.  She coughed, sputtered.  She heard the flapping of wings overhead as a dark shadow dropped beside her.  She turned her head to the right to find herself eye to eye with a large, black bird.  The smell overpowered her.

The warm wind whipped from behind her and across the baking carcass bringing the smell back to her, the memory of murder, a tsunami.  The bird made a hop, flap toward her.  It screeched beating its wings.  Another shadow dropped beside her.

Arous catapulted forward.

Less than a mile later Arous collapsed. She felt like a dead rotting carcass inside and out. Tears began to roll down her cheeks.  She couldn’t bear to cry, not now, but she had no control, powerless to stop the tears that refused to be held in any longer. As her heart broke the tears came faster, furious.  She could no longer see the road ahead. But further on, she could just make out the tall stretch of a cactus and the shade cast by it and a few bushes around it. It would protect her as she rested from the unrelenting mid-morning desert sun. She struggled to her feet.  Her entire body ached with the dire need for rest.

She reached the dwindling shade ahead of her and her body slumped into it.  She opened one of her half empty water bags and began to drink with a furious thirst.  Not a wind stirred, not a bird chirped and not rattle rattled as she settled into the small shade.  She curled into a ball so the shade of the bush covered her body.  The tears began to roll again as she looked out across the dessert.  Nothing but flat dessert, bushes, and cactus spread out across as far as she could see.  She looked despair dead in the face and began to cry hard. The reality of the barren landscape weighed down her heart.  She could no longer ignore the emptiness insider her as her surroundings paralleled all she felt.  She started her journey as a thief, stealing what the Diofe set out to give her. She had added murder to thievery on her pilgrimage. She looked at her hands.

She began to weep until she fell asleep.

ONE HUNDRED-TWO: Run

ONE HUNDRED-TWO: Run

She realized that she was trembling.  She knew she’d have to leave soon, maybe even without Jude, now it was imperative.

Arous sensed something in Jellina’s eyes.

“What’s going on?” asked Arous.

“Nothing.  Jude and I were having a little talk,” said Jellina.

That’s when she realized it. Arous felt sick to her stomach: Jellina had changed. She was Jellina on the outside. She talked like Jellina but her eyes were, different. Cold. Sparkly.  Arous was walking toward those eyes without even realizing it. She was closer than she wanted to be.

“I’m so glad to see you again,” said Jellina.

Both of the girls stared at each other.  Jellina squeezed her hand; Jellina’s hand was warm and moist. Jude stood there stunned.

“Look, sweet,” said Jellina. She’d never called Arous that. Arous wanted to throw-up but she could place it now. Jellina sounded like Ricci; he was her puppet master and she was just an empty shell.

“I’m going to leave you two alone.” Jellina reached out to hug Arous.  It was like hugging a dead body pulled from the warm Alippiana river, just not as bloated or mushy. Jellina walked away.  They both watched her walk away until she was gone.

“I have to leave,” said Arous.

“I know,” said Jude. “Give me just two more days to get ready. We’ll leave together.”

“No,” said Arous. “Right now.”

“You can’t,” he said.

“What?” said Arous.

“You can’t.  I almost have things worked out. For you and me.”

“I have to go home, Jude.  I can’t stay here.”

There was a moment of silence. Jude grabbed her hand. It was so warm that she wanted to melt there.

“You heard, didn’t you?”

Arous didn’t say anything. She was too scared to confess. The fact that she was afraid of Jude made it hard to breathe.

“I can’t explain,” Jude was pleading with her now. “I want to escape as much as you do.”

“I have to go. Now.”

“Wait. Just two days.”

“Ricci could be here in two days,” said Arous. “I can’t wait Jude.”

She wondered if he was waiting on something, or if he was just stalling for Ricci. She couldn’t believe it, not after everything. Would he choose Ricci over her?

“It’s just, a few details,” he said but wouldn’t look at her.

She let go of his hand and started to back away.

“No,” Arous was whispering now, choking out her own need to breathe. “Not you too?”

 “It’s not what you think,” said Jude, grabbing Arous’ arm.

“It’s not?” Arous was still backing away the full length while he had hold of her arm. 

“You can’t leave me. Not now,” he said.

“I have to go home,” she said.

“Please, Arous.” Jude’s grip tightened.  “We’ve been through so much.”

Jude. Was there any other way to say it? She stayed because there was a need, a need to be loved, a need to be held; she couldn’t go back without him. But now she wasn’t so sure that he wasn’t part of it all from the very beginning. If she asked would she have to tell him the whole truth about Siobhan, Ricci, and about Simon? Maybe he already knew.  Maybe he knew it all because he was the one who had made it all happen. The doubt had been planted by him, after all.

“Let me go Jude.”

She wrenched her wrist from his grasp.  He lunged for her, tripping, hitting the stable floor hard.  She began to back away from him.

“You don’t understand,” he sputtered.

“I want to go home” said Arous. “I want my Daddy.”

She felt a shimmering lightness radiate from her heart and electrify her whole body.

Arous.

It was his voice calling her.  She could hear him now.

Arous, sweet.

She’d know that voice anywhere.

“Daddy.”

Jude was getting up He made a move to grab her again.

She remember Edlawit.  They were playing in the yard.  Edlawit was teaching her to fight, teaching her to take her opponent down.  They were eight and nine.

“Kick him here,” she said, showing Arous on the straw dummy. “Where it counts. It will take him down.”

“Kick him, Arous.”

She kicked him at the pressure point just below the knee and he hit the ground. He yelled in pain.

“I’m sorry, Jude,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I-“

Run!

She darted from the stable to the edge of the forest, she could hear desperate cries of her name echoing through the trees, repeated by the leaves.  She didn’t look back.

            She ran chasing thoughts of home that she imagined was before her. The weeping willows, the oak lined drive; a man, a friend, Miguel, me, standing on the front porch with a vision of her and a dream and Spring full-on dancing through the fields.