New Worlds, Old Ways Page 4

  Bernard stopped.

  She was wrapped in the fetal position like all the short-termers. Her formerly shaven head had sprouts of black, tightly-curled hair covering her scalp. Bernard looked through the glass for the tattoo on her left shoulder. He could only see the top, her head and a bit of her arm.

  He leaned against her chamber, the coldness of the glass penetrating through the back of his parka, and rested his head back.

  “Ava, it’s Bernard. I’m having a bad day.”

  * * *

  Bernard woke up with Derrick’s shoe nudging him against his calf. “Hey man, it’s time to head back up.”

  Bernard nodded and slowly picked himself off the ground. He looked at Ava’s face one last time before accompanying Derrick to the twelfth floor.

  Returning to his own desk, he saw his phone lighting up. He slipped on his headset. “Good day, Porrima Incorporated, we offer you a new life in a new time! Bernard speaking.”

  “. . . I don’t know if this is a good idea.” The woman at the other end was sobbing.

  “This is the best idea you’ve had today . . .” Bernard glanced at the phone screen. “Yvonne, it’s a great idea. Today, things didn’t go so great, am I right?” Bernard clicked his browser and began skimming through his emails.

  “How did you . . .” Her breathing had already accelerated into hyperventilating gasps. “It’s more like nothing went well this whole month, this whole year. I hate everything right now. I want to make it stop, I want everything to stop. I want everyone to stop looking at me make every single mistake I can. I hate my life!”

  “Everything is better tomorrow, Yvonne, and we can help you reach there faster.” Bernard’s stomach cramped as he registered the red exclamation mark on the email.

  “It’s gotta be better than this shit.”

  “I promise it will be, Yvonne. Let me transfer you to our bookings department. You’re about to have a wonderful future to wake up to.”

  Bernard tapped in some keys and hung up the phone. The words were red and large on the screen. See Me. He left his cubicle and entered the elevator. He came out at the twenty-seventh floor. The number bothered him. He signed his name at the secretary’s desk and headed towards the office at the end of the long corridor. He walked slowly, measuring his steps in sets of twenty. At the first step he took a long breath, at the tenth step he exhaled very slowly, there was a pause at twenty as if he was deciding whether to breathe again.

  The wooden door felt warm and smooth on his knuckles as he knocked. The door clicked and he entered. Ms. Eris was seated on the couch behind an oval coffee table laden with biscuits and iced wedges of cake. She was absentmindedly picking at her teeth, but immediately straightened up as her eyes flickered over Bernard.

  He cleared his throat and deliberately stood with his legs slightly apart. He did not know what to do with his arms. He touched his chin and then felt for his pen in his front pocket and realised he hadn’t brought any sort of writing pad to this meeting.

  Dr. Carmenta emerged from behind his enormous executive chair. He straightened up to his full height and pushed his long black hair over his shoulder, revealing a 12mm ear plug stretcher. He had a gentle smile on his face, speaking with a soft yet deep voice, “Glad you could come up here to see me.” It was a languid purr, floating through the room.

  “Yes, sir,” Bernard said, his arms suddenly finding themselves at his side, his head erect. “It’s a pleasure to meet with you, sir.”

  Dr Carmenta curled the ends of his hair around his left index finger.

  “I’m sure you know Alexa,” he said, gesturing towards Ms. Eris. “She has been giving me some interesting stories about your work . . . relationship. Alexa has been with us since my mother was our chief executive here and I would like her to be treated with respect.”

  There was a smack behind him as a lipstick-smeared mouth sucked inward into a smirk. Bernard kept his gaze ahead. There was a huge window behind Dr. Carmenta’s chair, where the city stretched out like a map before him. Everything below moved slowly.

  “Bernard, please, sit with us. Let’s talk about this.” Dr. Carmenta gestured towards the empty seat next to Ms. Eris. Dr. Carmenta sat in an armchair while Bernard miserably sank into the couch.

  “Please, Bernard,” Dr. Carmenta said, pointing to the slices of cake, “help yourself.”

  “I’m fine for now, sir.”

  “Bernard, let’s make this a bit more casual. Have a slice of cake.” Dr. Carmenta leaned forward and pushed a plate of enormous chocolate cake wedges towards Bernard.

  Bernard exhaled slowly, took up a napkin and manoeuvred a slice into the pair of tongs. He brought the napkin-swaddled cake to his lips and bit off the edge. He stared into the wall shelves, chewing slowly as Dr. Carmenta began his introduction. There were two leather-bound copies of Sleeping Beauty next to a photo of Dr. Carmenta and his mother, Dr. Julia Carmenta.

  Words crawled over the walls and the ceiling above Bernard: Mediation, Work Together, Impossible, Tolerance, Respect.

  The final word lingered in his ears as he swallowed the paste on his tongue.

  The sugar burned the walls of his stomach. He released a tiny gasp as he registered the familiar pain and placed the cake back on the table.

  “I would like to say something about this,” Ms. Eris said as she struck her hand against her chest. “Since the first day that Bernard came here, I’ve been good to him. But in return he has embarrassed me countless times, correcting me in front of supervisors . . .”

  Bernard heard her recount an incident that had happened a year ago, and slowly allowed her voice to disappear into the background as he contemplated the books on the shelf. Sleeping Beauty, a woman in a deep sleep awakened with a kiss, perhaps that was what everyone in those frozen coffins was waiting for.

  “I tell him good morning and he doesn’t even look at me!” Ms. Eris shrieked.

  Dr. Carmenta shifted in his seat and tilted his head. Bernard’s eyes moved between them.

  “What do you have to say about this?” Dr. Carmenta said, smiling at Bernard.

  “I apologise. I seem to have aggravated Ms. Eris. I’ve never meant to do these things. I will try harder to communicate in a more sincere fashion.”

  “Bernard, these things have been going on for months, and it seems that Alexa is beyond aggravated. She is grieved. She is developing . . . medical repercussions from your behaviour.”

  Bernard stared at Dr. Carmenta. His stomach suddenly clenched in a spasm.

  “I’m going to try my best, sir.”

  “Bernard, are you familiar with our mediation clause in your contract?” Dr. Carmenta dug his chin into his open palm as Bernard shook his head. “It states that in circumstances where there are uncomfortable relations between colleagues, we work on them the one way we can. Time apart.”

  “. . . Am I being suspended?”

  “Bernard, we’re creating a booking for you for twenty-two months in Basement 6. These are the terms that Ms. Eris has put forward to regain her emotional and physical wellbeing.”

  Bernard began to crumple. “You can’t . . . do this. Can’t you just suspend me?”

  “This is for your own sake. It’s rehabilitation for your behaviour. It’s best we do it now before it gets worse.”

  “But you can’t do this . . .”

  * * *

  “Yeah, they can.” Derrick leant back in his chair and emptied his soft drink down his throat. “It’s under their mediation thing where it’s seen as rehabilitation, and it’s preferred over firing or having an employee quit with their problems unresolved.”

  “But that’s not true! We both know that you wake up with everything exactly the same! Nothing will change, Derrick!” Bernard began to gasp and buried his face in his hands. He was crying now.

  Derrick shifted in his seat. “There was a girl who worked here a while back. She actually punched a manager who trapped her in the fireproof room to . . . you know. They gave her four y
ears. But like you said, she’s going to come out of that chamber with all that rage afresh. This isn’t to help you, Bernard. This is for them to rid themselves of the guilt of their own behaviour. They hide you away and turn you into an icicle in the basement.”

  “I don’t . . . I don’t . . .” Bernard couldn’t breathe. Derrick pushed a bottle of water into his hands and watched Bernard gulp it down.

  “I don’t want to be in that cold coffin. My life isn’t like that, it’s not like theirs . . .”

  Derrick wheeled his chair slightly closer to Bernard. “Do you know . . . the chamber number?” he asked quietly.

  Bernard raised his head up from his hands, “Sixty-eight, Basement 6.” His assigned numbers made it all the more real. “Sometimes, I think that my life is terrible, that I don’t want to do this anymore. But I realise I just lead a simple life and I do enjoy simple things. It’s only when I compare myself to other people that I get depressed. It’s now that I’m faced with this threat of having almost two years of my life blacked out that I realise how much I have and want to do right now.”

  Derrick nodded and opened up another can of soft drink.

  Bernard continued, “I wanted to see Ava. One day, I wanted to see her awake and unfrozen. I wanted to hear her voice. What if she wakes up, leaves the building and I never get to hear her voice?”

  Derrick extended his arm and patted Bernard on the back. “I wouldn’t worry about that too much.”

  “It doesn’t matter, does it? She wouldn’t know who I was if she saw me. ”

  “Well, how about you get to hear my voice while you’re in there. I’ll let you know how things are doing.”

  Bernard took a long look at Derrick. “I would be happy if you did that for me.”

  * * *

  Derrick stood before the main computer in the cold darkness, striking keys and reading lines of code. His breath came out as white clouds and floated out towards the chambers.

  “What number is your friend’s number again?” a voice echoed out between the chambers.

  “It’s sixty-eight,” Derrick called back.

  Ava walked through the chambers, looking at the numbers until she came to the window of a young man with a thin face. His cheeks were gaunt and his lips were slightly parted. He wore a pained expression with furrowed brows and squeezed eyes. Perhaps it was fear.

  “You haven’t got it so bad. I’ve been gone for four years. It’s over in a second. Well, it feels like a second. You won’t even realise that the world is changing around you because nothing inside you will change.”

  She touched the window of his chamber and made a dot in the condensation, when suddenly the observatory window directly above glowed white. There was a tour happening for potential short termers. Ava shrank into the shadows, peeking out at the group.

  The tour members stood near the glass, scanning the rows and rows of chambers. A woman walked towards the glass and pressed her hands against it. Her lips curled in a soft smile of hope, but her large brown eyes read only of desperation.

  Brandon O’Brien

  fallenangel.dll

  Trinidad & Tobago

  “Didn’t have any problems getting back?”

  Imtiaz stretched on the couch and sighed. “Nah,” he called back to the kitchen. “Traffic was remarkably light today. You know how it is–takes a while for everyone to find their rhythm.”

  “I don’t know how it is, actually,” Tevin shouted from the kitchen. There was a rustle of plastic bags, and then he poked his head from the door. “I never experienced a state of emergency before.”

  “A blessing for which you should thank God,” Imtiaz said. “I would’ve killed for the chance to study abroad when the last one happened. Worst three months of our lives.”

  After even more shuffling from the kitchen, Tevin came into the living room, a cold bottle of beer in each hand, and kissed Imtiaz on the cheek. “And was there a good reason for the last one?”

  “Just as good a reason as this one.”

  Tevin sighed and handed his partner a bottle. “I guess I should have gotten more beer then.”

  Imtiaz chuckled. “Slow down, hoss. Since when you turn big drinker, anyway?”

  “Country gone to the dogs? No better time, I figure.” Tevin raised his bottle before him as a toast.

  “To the dogs. Now they get to see us trapped at home.” He brought his bottle to Tevin’s with a soft clink, and then put it to his lips and took a long swig. It had only been three days so far since the Prime Minister had declared the country under lockdown, and everyone knew what a joke looked like when they saw it. It had been seven years at least since the last time he’d been in one, and the excuse was the same. “We are working hard with the Armed Forces,” the Prime Minister would say, “to curtail the growing crime rate in this country, and we ask only that the citizens of this great twin-island state be patient in this effort.”

  The first thing that popped up on social media was also the most accurate: “How you does curtail crime by simply asking criminals to stay inside?”

  Imtiaz felt a vibrating in his pocket, and reached into it for his cell phone. Almost as soon as he saw the text on his screen, he shoved it back into his pocket.

  “Everything okay?” Tevin asked.

  “Yeah.” A long sigh, then Imtiaz took another, longer gulp of beer.

  “Im?”

  “. . . It’s nothing.”

  “If I have to ask what nothing is–”

  Imtiaz frowned and put his drink down. “I just might have to head out in a bit.”

  Tevin squinted. Imtiaz didn’t like getting in fights, least of all with Tevin, whose disappointed glares had the power to make him feel ashamed for days afterward. “I don’t want to, but I kinda promised–”

  “Promised who?”

  “A friend of mine wanted help moving something. She doesn’t want to talk about it.” He got up and walked slowly to his bedroom. “I wish I didn’t have to, but I promised before this was a thing-”

  “But you can say no? It’s minutes past six. You can’t just head back out–”

  “I promised,” Imtiaz called back. “And I swear, it’s not a big deal. Lemme just take care of it, and I’ll be back before you miss me.” He took the phone back out and opened the text this time: so im at uwi, can you meet me at the gate?

  “Im.” When he turned to the door, Tevin was already in the walkway, arms folded. “Come nah man. You wanna break curfew and not even tell me why?”

  Imtiaz reached for a shirt hanging on the door of his wardrobe and put it over his grey tee. “It’s Shelly. She said she needed someone with a car to help her move something two weeks ago, and now is the only day it can happen. I volunteered.”

  “‘Move something’? What?”

  “One of her projects. I dunno what yet.”

  There it was–Tevin’s dreaded glare, as he tapped his foot on the white tile of the walkway. “A’right. A project. But if the police hold you, you’re out of luck. And don’t play like you taking your time to answer the phone if I call. You hear?”

  “Yes, boss,” Imtiaz said, a small smirk on his face. It was his only line of defence against Tevin’s sternness. It didn’t succeed often, but when it did, it did so well.

  Tevin tried to fight the grin spreading over his face, and lost. “Be safe, Im. Please. Promise me that. Since you insist on keeping promises.”

  Imtiaz walked up to him, still slipping the last buttons into their holes, and kissed his partner softly on the lips. “I absolutely positively promise. I’ll be fine.”

  “You bet your ass you’ll be fine,” Tevin whispered. “Play you’re not going and be fine, see what I go do to you.”

  * * *

  Imtiaz sped down the highway at sixty, seventy miles an hour, past the three or four motorists still making their way back home who glanced at him with fear. A dusty navy-blue Nissan rushing past in the dark night blaring circa-2007 noise rock does that to people.

 
He made sure to call before he took off. He’d meet Shelly at the South Gate and take off immediately. She asked if the back seat was empty, and if his boyfriend knew what they were going to pick up. Imtiaz reminded her that he didn’t know either, to which she replied, “Oho, right–well, see you just-now,” and hung up. This wasn’t a good sign, but the volatile mix of curiosity and dedication to keeping his promises got the better of him.

  It was twenty to seven when he pulled up, screeching to a halt right in front of the short Indian girl in the brown cargo pants and black t-shirt. She took the lollipop out of her mouth and peeped through the open driver-side window, putting a finger of her free hand into her ear to block out the music.

  “You just always wanted to do that, right?”

  “Get the hell in,” he sneered.

  “Alright, alright,” Shelly said. She lifted a black duffel bag off the ground beside her and got in the back.

  “Wait.” Imtiaz turned back to face her. “What’s in the bag?”

  “Tools.” She patted it gently as she said it, looking right at him, sporting a smug grin.

  “Tools? Open it, lemme see.”

  “What, you think I selling drugs or somet’ing?”

  “I t’ink if you weren’t selling drugs, you’d be able to open the blasted bag.”

  Shelly slapped the bag even harder, just so he could hear the clanging of metal within. Her hand recoiled painfully. “Happy now?”

  “No.” He faced front and slowly got back on the road. “Where are we heading?”

  “Eh . . . Just keep going west, I’ll let you know.”

  “That isn’t how you ask people to give you a lift.”

  Shelly sighed, rolling the lollipop from one side of her mouth to the next. “Would you get nervous if I said Laventi–”

  “Laventille?” he shouted. “You want to go to Laventille at minutes to seven on the third night of a curfew? What, not being arrested or murdered is boring?”

  “Trust me, when you see it, you’ll be glad you came.” Shelly grinned even wider. “Something you couldn’t imagine. I could’ve gone myself, but didn’t you wonder why I asked if you could do it? Not because I needed a car.” She shrugged. “Although we will.”