Brandon, OR/ID: Part VII

Suspended Pinks
By Jem Morgenstern

A cello sits quietly in the corner of the room. Its dark body stands out against the blushing pink walls. The wooden floors are similarly dark. Anne is sitting on a yellow chair. This is a room she hasn’t been in before. The cello in the corner is a stranger to her - a distant relative to her own cello. She is staring at its peg box. The head of each peg is parallel to the others - an impossibility that leads Anne to ask questions that she doesn’t intend to answer or vocalize. She wonders if the cello is tuned properly. She wonders why it wouldn’t be. She wonders if the cello’s cellist has a method of tuning the cello in a way that keeps the pegs perfectly aligned with each other. An impossibility.

She stands. Her shoes are between the doorway and the wardrobe. The left side of her left shoe is parallel to the right side of the wardrobe, the right side of her right shoe is exposed to the air flowing in through the doorway, the heels of both shoes are against the wall behind them. Their laces are undone. Each time she looks at the shoes, she is bothered by the end of the lace on the right shoe that is frayed. She is planning to replace the laces soon, because she is trying to minimize the number of small details in her daily life that make her uncomfortable. The next pair of laces will be the fourth pair of laces that have been on these shoes. She replaced the first pair because they were a particular shade of blue that didn’t match well with the peachy yellow of the shoes’ bodies. She still has this pair of laces stored in the bottommost left drawer of her own dresser at home. She has considered lacing that pair onto the shoes rather than buying a new pair, but she decided the combination of colors would cause the same amount of discomfort as the frayed end that she is attempting to ignore now. The shoes are now on her feet and she is walking down the stairs. The stairs are steep - otherwise, her pace would be quicker.

There is a long hallway at the bottom of the staircase. The walls are bare, likely because it is hard to pair artwork with the intricate wallpaper. The floors of the hallway are the same as they are in the room with the cello. There is a small decorative table near one of the doorways. Nothing is on the table. The rooms in the house are wide and spacious, but this corridor is suffocating.

The tiles in the kitchen are a muted white that is similar to the tile on the countertops, the cupboards and walls are a heavy blue. On the countertop near the sink, which is below a wide window, there is a wooden cutting board. There is a column of drawers next to the white fridge - two cutting boards that are identical to the one on the counter are in the middle drawer. The knives are all kept in the drawer above the cutting boards. The drawer below the cutting boards contains miscellaneous tools that are not used often. None of the handles to the cupboards or drawers are matching. There is an asparagus green kettle on the stove and Anne hears it begin to whistle. Two teacups are set next to the cutting board on the counter. Something is placed on the cutting board - Anne is unable to identify what it might be by just the sound of its heavy body landing on the wooden board. She enters the kitchen and does not look at the cutting board.

“I have to go. Are you busy later this week?”

Anne knows that he is busy later this week, but she feels that asking this question makes her unexpected exit seem more polite. Her question and presence in the kitchen are met with a concerned expression.

“Yeah, the rest of this week will be kinda busy, but I can see if I can find some time. Is everything okay?”

She knows that ignoring his question might spark some suspicion, but she chooses to anyway.

“I’ll text you later. Let me know if you can find time.”

She can tell he isn’t satisfied with this response. They talk for another short amount of time before she is able to leave. She’s glad that she decided to leave before he was further into the lunch-making process. They both exit the kitchen and walk down the narrow hallway towards the front door. There is a table next to the door with a stack of small books. Anne glances at the titles and finds that they are almost all contemporary christian fiction. She’s glad that she decided to leave before she was further into the romanticizing process.

It has been two hours. Anne is walking through the mall to a store she believes will have shoelaces. The mall is crowded and she worries for the unsupervised kids who are chasing each other around the always ignored mechanical rocking horses. She thinks about coming to the mall with her parents - she is surprised by the lack of change and she experiences a mild sensation of loss while thinking about the things that have changed. She wonders if the children understand how temporary childhood is - though she then hopes that they don’t, because she doesn’t want them to worry about the impermanence of their childhood freedoms. She doesn’t want the pleasure of childhood to be spoiled by the aggressive reality of temporality. Her thoughts sway between the consideration of childhood as a concept and memories of her own childhood. She remembers the excitement she felt when her parents gave in to her begging for a ride on a mechanical rocking horse and the dry embarrassment she felt when she got on the horse and discovered it wasn’t as fun as she had imagined. She tries to pinpoint the exact moment her childhood ended, but eventually determines that the loss of childhood is a gradual process of it being torn away rather than a single moment.

The store’s shoelace options are more limited than she had imagined. There is white, black, off-white variations, and a small group of neons. None of them are particularly attractive to her. She takes a few off the rack and holds them against her shoes. A sedated blue, a muted yellow, a pristine white, a violent neon pink. She puts the neon pink and the white back on the rack. She holds the blue and yellow against her shoes again. She puts the blue back on the rack.

At home, she replaces the laces on her shoes. The old ones are placed in the garbage bin. She feels like throwing them away is a waste, but she knows that keeping them around will do no good. With the new laces on her shoes, she is relieved that she won’t be bothered by frayed laces again until these ones are also worn to their limit. This small chore was the only activity Anne had planned for her day. A moment of stillness follows the completion of this one goal as the embrace of her achievement loosens. The stillness is a midpoint between her short pride in her small accomplishment and the inevitably approaching fear that the empty hours following will be filled with nothing but the questioning of what to do next. Anne is ashamed of her ruthless habit of killing time - the guilt of idling while time passes overwhelms her before the time she is afraid of wasting has begun to pass. There is some dirt on the rug in her bedroom, she thinks, so she decides to vacuum. She knows this will only occupy a small portion of the time to follow, but she is happy that the few minutes it takes will be spent in a way that she considers productive. With the vacuum on and the bedroom door closed, Anne doesn’t hear the knocking at her door. She would never know there was a knocking at the door and she would never know why.

Anne is able to occupy the rest of her day with small activities similar to vacuuming the rug in her bedroom. She finds a short time to play her cello, but she hasn’t yet forgiven her talent for the work it created when she was invited to perform at the Philadelphus Lewisii Music Hall nightly each day of the previous week. She punishes herself for the stress she has caused herself. At this time, playing her cello evokes the same stress her practice sessions had before, which is unpleasant. Overall, she is satisfied with how she spent her time.

She receives a text from the date she abandoned. He has found some free time later in the week and wants to know if this time aligns with her schedule, because he would like to see her again. Anne isn’t sure if she wants to see him again. She doesn’t respond.

Anne’s shoes are in the hallway. Her left shoe is on the right side of her right shoe - the toe is against the wall and its heel is against nothing. Her right shoe is pointed in the opposite direction. Her socks are still on her feet. She is sitting at the kitchen table in silence. There is an empty floral white bowl on the table in front of her. The head of her spoon is resting in the bottom of the bowl. There is a matching plate to the right of the bowl. On the plate, there is a small portion left of the bread she cut herself from the loaf she bought the day before at a supposedly French bakery. The texture of the bread isn’t as satisfying as it was the day before. Anne hasn’t yet decided if she will finish eating the bread. With the potential for love and the bread on her mind, she’s reminded of one of the many Johns she has known throughout her life. His absence doesn’t darken her mood. She wonders what he might be doing with his life now - she knows he’s no longer a gardener and she knows the friends they shared haven’t heard from him for a long time. Although she doesn’t care about him, she hopes that he is doing well.

Tunnel Shears

By Jem Morgenstern

The walls were once slick with condensating excrements and the scent of feces was an inescapable force that lingered in the air at all times. Now, the sewer corridors are as dry as the desert above them. Putrid scents come and go as the winds blow through galleries of semi-petrified masses of ancient feculence - or the scents are carried from fresher excrement after the wind passes through corners of the sewers reserved for stews of waste and rotting dead of the present day.

These corridors, once solely the home to pests and shifting excretion of the old age, now house the people who could not bear the striking heat of the dual suns and the jagged sand winds. All who abandon the arduous journeys above for the security of the sewer passageways face the questionable hospitality of the indigenous craftspeople known as The Sewers.

The Sewers are the last remaining people of the Northwestern Landmass who have the skills needed to manufacture clothing. Because it is the only skill that offers them an advantage in the trading networks, they cruelly guard the secrets of their techniques. Without their secrets, the only product they could offer to the markets would be the petrified manure of the ancients. With only that to offer, they would find themselves starved and dying because so few ask for the petrified manure.

The Sewers reserve all garments they make to be sold in the world above them. Because of this, they all live their lives disrobed. The docile underground wind wraps its fingers around their bare bodies, refugees from the desert avert their gaze until they finally become accustomed to uncovered skin, nudity is only interrupted when they dress themselves in newly made clothing to ensure it will fit similar bodies in the dusty world above.

The Sewers’ utilize their nudism to distinguish themselves from the refugees whose bodies are veiled by clothing. Although those who are clothed are not treated poorly, they are excluded from greater sewer events. They are not invited to the occasional dinners afforded to The Sewers by their monopoly on skills of clothing production, but they are treated to the leftovers from these feasts.

The Sewers are kind enough to allow outsiders to participate in their industry, too. For a long period of time before they are truly considered part of the sewer community, the outsiders work as liaisons to the desert markets. They bring the clothing up and the traded goods down in exchange for gradual acceptance - plus, they are compensated for their labor with popular currencies and necessary comforts.

Eventually, some outsiders become Sewers and are offered the privilege of learning the skills hoarded by underground dwellers since the beginning of this age. There have been attempts by desert travelers to infiltrate the indigenous sewer communities by stripping their rags from their bodies and entering the tunnels while pretending to already be Sewers. The Sewers, having exceptional eyes for details, are able to distinguish a dust dweller’s skin from their own. With exposure to the desert, patches of skin are rugged with scars that do not occur in the sewers. If The Sewers discover intent to steal their secrets, the former potential thief is quickly tied and brought to an empty corridor that is strictly used for immolation. Afterwards, the body is transported to a waste corner where it is left to decay.

This brutality towards thieves is the only violence found in the sewers. There is no other place that provides the same asylum from barbarism. Above, even the air is savage. Below, the world is gentle enough for nakedness to be commonplace and for inhabitants to be so untroubled by their surroundings that they are able to socialize without irritation piercing through their interactions. Couriers, wealthy travelers, and even the Dust Raiders rest in the company of Sewers - to escape the suns, to rest without worry of Horrible Centipedes emerging from the sands, and to disrobe and refresh in gentle air.

Erase

By Jem Morgenstern

The wood burned. Fire tainted every color its wrathing arms could reach. Bright embers and dark ashes slowly fell onto the white floors, painting it black and spotted red. Blue wallpaper disintegrated: curling downwards, crumbling, fading to brown. Blinding yellow flames rose into the sky and bled into the blue horizon dyed orange by the rising sun. The blinding light would wave and the smoke would peer over the hills, but no eyes would look in its direction. None were near enough to witness the building’s excruciating mutation. Nobody would hear the aching wooden skeleton crack and fall apart. Nobody would smell the distinct, uniquely putrid scent of the burning evidence: the sulfurous stench of keratin, nauseating odor of heated bacteria, or fumes from unused chemicals.

No roads led here. Nobody ever wandered here. Discovery of what happened here was unlikely. If anyone did happen to find this ruin, every question they could have would forever be unanswered. The specifics of the crimes committed would never be uncovered. The identities of those involved would always be a mystery. Their stories would never be told, shared, reported. Nobody would hear about the cold nights they spent in that building - body shivering, teeth chattering, hands shaking - waiting. Waiting for the breathing to stop. Watching a body laboriously force itself to continue living until it lost the strength to keep itself running. Sometimes, it would take minutes. Sometimes, so much time would pass by that they felt their own bodies might give up before the one collapsed on the floor would finally croak out its final breath. They wanted it to last, so they could savor the intensity of seeing life inch itself out of a body with every shaking moan, every quiver of the body, every exhalation. So they wouldn’t have to clean up after themselves. So they wouldn’t have to begin the tedious process of finding another again so soon. They always wondered if anyone would notice these people were missing. They always did their best to choose lonely people. Quiet people who nobody noticed. Ones that were almost expected to disappear someday anyway.

It was when they noticed somebody had begun looking for one of their people that they fretfully decided to burn the building down. Tears rolled from their eyes, as they set their place of ritualistic pleasure ablaze. They watched the walls that housed so many memories of joy crumble to the ground. They burned their souvenirs along with it. Erased any proof of their dark avocation. Though they didn’t intend for the loss of their house of memories to put an end to their past-time. So they set out to find a place to begin again. One as hidden, as disposable, as perfect as this one. Where, even now, they continue to derive joy from watching their victims struggle to stay alive. Where, even now, there is no trail that leads to them - to their discovery, guilt, or conviction.

The Mother's Den

By Jem Morgenstern

Grass grew up from the cracks in the floor and it was the first time I had seen so much green. I’d never been on that floor before. Access is restricted to gardeners and communication directors, so growing up in a family of analytical health specialists and sanitation inspectors never granted me the opportunity to look inside. Usually, the deeper down you go in the tunnels of Saint Wilgefortis, the more frowsy everything looks, so I was expecting the lowest level to be the shittiest concrete tunnel possible. It wasn’t. The hallway from the elevator to the doors to the gardens already had me dumb with wonderment. Vines crept up the walls and onto the ceiling. It was bright. It smelled like the few floors we have above ground. It was immediately inviting.

Linda stepped out of the elevator and said her goodbyes before the doors could slide shut, turned away, and headed down the hallway to the gardens. Her suitcase’s small wheels struggled their way over the bumpy overgrown floor. She chose to wear a dress today - a yellow one with floral patterns - she looked like a daffodil and fit right in. I could tell she was happy to be there, but it was difficult for me to empathize with her happiness because I was beginning to realize that it could be the last time I would see her and the smile that got me to pry open my mouth and share the contents of my jar of thoughts with her. I forgot to prepare myself to say goodbye. The reality of the separation didn’t set in until that moment. I never knew if she felt what I felt about her, but I always hoped - and still do hope - that she knew I loved her.

The machinery yanked the elevator back into action. Besides the guide, I was the last one in. I should have been the first one out, but I stayed on so that I could spend a few more moments with the women I grew up with and learned to love despite the distaste I had for so many of them. It was a long ride. The guide was visibly frustrated, which I always assumed was because she would have been on her way home by then, if I hadn’t decided to take up more of her time. When we reached my floor, I attempted a friendly goodbye and thanks, but her acknowledgement seemed hesitant.

Being on the above-ground levels of our shelter is much different than being below. There are windows; not many, of course, for safety, but there are windows. Everything is a lot cleaner. Because the work we do in the labs requires absolute sterility, it’s kept spotless. Even the uterine tank that was abandoned due to a previous contamination incident is cleaned as often as possible. This disparity in quality of life does leave me feeling guilty, but I always justify my comforts by excusing it with the importance of my work. Without our expertise and work in the labs, our child production would end. In turn, our society’s longevity would be cut short and there would be nobody to open the doors when that time finally comes. That longevity is also threatened, if we’re unable to reach a compromise with the women from the lower floors. They have roles that are essential to the continuation and guarantee of safety for everyone in Saint Wilgefortis. If they don’t do their jobs, we will be incapacitated. It’s because of this, and not because of my long-over relationship with her, that I say we need to give Linda what she wants. She controls the gardens. If she feels the need to, she could shut down our supplies. The same goes for all the other leaders in resource management, who are all on her side this time. If we’re going to claim that we’re not greedy, we should show that we’re not.