Chapter 8 - The long whiteness and the empty shadow
Everything was so bright. And cold. The sun was no longer the right color and it wasn’t warm like it should be. The ground beneath Stewart’s feet was wrong. It was too flat and too smooth. And there was nowhere to hide. He hadn’t noticed that right away. The light had been so sharp that he had stumbled through the sneaky hole several feet before he started to wonder what was wrong with the grass. With his eyes half closed to shade them, he could finally see there was no grass, just flat, bright white, on and on and on. He turned and looked back the way he had come. The man wearing the shadow was still thrashing about in the pond. Between the pond and the sneaky hole was grass and rocks and dirt. He looked forward again. Everything beyond him was…different.
In the distance he could hear slapping sounds, voices talking too fast for him to understand, clicks and buzzes and clanging. All of it made him nervous. All of it made him want to hide. The only place that seemed possible was a shady spot beside a tall, thin wall so he scurried towards it.
His claws made tiny clicking, scratching sounds on the ground as he ran. His tail swished back and forth with the undulations of his long, narrow body. Once he made it to the shade he curled up and watched. It wasn’t nearly as dark there as he had hoped. He still felt very exposed with no grass hanging over him and no dirt and rock to blend in to. He looked at his front foot. It stood out against the white ground like a deep red-brown clump of mud. He looked up, searching for birds. There weren’t any and that was good.
After resting a few moments he peeked out and looked further down the long whiteness. He breathed in and out and it irritated him. Breathing in the water was so much easier. The water just flowed into his mouth, over his gills, and back out into the pond. Now he had to pull the cold, dry air into his lungs and push it back out again. The more he moved the harder he had to breathe, and his gills were beginning to stick to his sides. He hated how that felt. He looked back at the sneaky hole. It was still open. He could run back out and hide, then scurry his way back to his pond and be safe.
The man from the high, clear place climbed out of the pond and started back. He was dragging the two nasty sticks behind him and water glistened off the shadow he wore. He was not walking very fast. His steps were heavy and each time he raised his back feet water sloshed out of his legs. As he got closer, Stewart could see his face inside the huge clear eye and it made him shiver. The man was breathing hard, Stewart could hear it, and every breath he took seemed to hurt him. The man’s mouth was a long, straight line and he had deep grooves over his eyes. He stepped through the sneaky hole and the wall slid shut behind him. Stewart felt a deep sense of panic as he watched the grass disappear.
The man took three more steps into the long whiteness, dropped both nasty sticks on the ground and began to peel the shadow off. He pulled the shadow’s head off his own and let it fall to the floor, then he pulled on a loose piece in the front and tore open the shadow from beneath his neck all the way to his back legs. The whole thing made Stewart shake. The man pulled the shadow from his shoulders and let the shadow fall to the floor in a heap. He stepped out and then walked slowly down the long whiteness, his back feet leaving small puddles of water with each step. He turned and suddenly disappeared into the wall.
Stewart looked from the wall where the man had been to the lump of shadow he had left on the floor. Curiosity got the better of him and he crept toward the shadow with slow, tentative steps, swinging his head from side to side to be sure he was safe. All of a sudden a part of the wall further down flew out from the face and the long whiteness was filled with voices. The woman and two men poured out and began searching for something. Stewart scuttled into the folds and hanging down places made by the shadow and hid.
“Mason!” the woman shouted. “Mason where are you?”
Stewart watched from under an overhang of orange as one of the men started down the long whiteness in his direction.
“Look, he left the biohazard suit.”
“Don’t touch it!” the second man yelled and the first one stopped ten feet from Stewart and his hiding place. “Natalie, call the HazMat team to come take care of it. One casualty is more than enough, Rob.”
The first man nodded and then glanced at the floor. “He’s gone in there,” he said and pointed to the place in the wall the man had disappeared into. “Call the medical team, too, Nat. Send them to the men’s room. He’s gonna need them in a hurry.”
The woman nodded and tuned back the way she had come. She pulled the broken piece of the wall back into place, leaving the men alone in the long whiteness.
“What do we do?” the first one asked. “He’s a dead man. What do we do?”
“We go in there and make sure he’s there, we don’t touch him, and we wait for the med team. They know what to do. That’s their job.”
“I’m right, though, aren’t I.”
“Yeah,” the second man said as he carefully stepped around the water on the floor. “He’s a dead man all right. He’s got maybe 36 hours at best.”
“Shit,” the first man hissed and followed the other one into the open space in the wall.
Stewart stayed hidden for a few more moments before he realized just where he was. Slowly he crept out from under the shadow and then crawled onto its skin. He peered at the pile left by the man and he shuddered. There was nothing in there. The insides of the shadow were gone. No bones. No meat. No fat. Nothing. Stewart looked at the place where the sneaky hole had been and wished it would come back. He wished it would let him out. Then he remembered why he was in the long whiteness in the first place. The child. The warm hands and big eyes. If this is what the man had done to the shadow who knew him, what would he do to the child who didn’t? Stewart climbed down off the shadow’s skin and scurried down the long whiteness, hugging the base of the white wall as he ran. This was no place for a child. Not for his child.
~ Peace and spirit
They say you should be careful what you wish for, and perhaps this can be applied to that which we hope to win. Be that as it may, I desire a writing life and so I am embarking on the journey, risking and writing in order to win it, a writer's life.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Chapter 7 of Joshua and Stewart's dilemma started on 11-24-09
Chapter 7 - Decision
The pond was filled with a strange sucking, whining noise that hurt Stewart’s ears. It drew him out of another dream, this time about the hunting rock down in the beyond. The noise was just like the noise in his dream, the same eerie sound the hunting rock made when it had caught something and was eating it. He hated that noise. He wrapped his tail around his feet and pressed himself tight against the rock shelf.
The sunlight no longer filtered in through the algae. Now the surface was a dull green nothingness and the water below it was hard to see through. The sudden splash and descent of the nasty stick made Stewart bolt to the surface and into the hanging grass along the edge of the pond. The shadow was back and it was angry. It was growling and snarling as it jabbed the stick over and over into the pond. The horrible clicking box was there, too.
“You’ve got to move whatever it is blocking the outflow pipe, John. Now. The pressure’s building. The entire system’s bound up because of this.”
“Yeah, well who the hell missed the indicators, huh?”
“What was that?”
“I said, who the hell missed the indicators!” the shadowed yelled.
Stewart blinked. He had understood the words.
“Don’t yell at me,” a woman’s voice squawked back. “That was Mason’s job. Not mine.”
“You got the email just like the rest of them, Nat. You could have done something about it.”
“Me? Me? I’m trying to keep an eye on the kid! This is Mason’s fault! He’s the one who told me to grab the child in the first place! Hell, if he hadn’t forgotten to check the fence line the boy wouldn’t be hiding in the bio lab.”
Stewart blinked and cocked his head. He understood what the voice was saying. He knew what the growls meant.
“You know what,” the shadow snarled back, “I don’t want to hear it. All day long you people sit in there and mess with the conductivity of this and the electron balance of that and when the damn system you guys built starts sucking in things it’s not supposed to I have to come out here to the this mini hellhole you idiots created and fix it!”
“Mmmm,” Stewart tried as he pressed his lips together. “Mmmmmeeeee,” he whined softly.
The shadow jabbed the stick hard against the bottom and yanked it back and forth.
“What ever it is down there it’s stuck good. You’ll have to reverse the flow and maybe then I can shift it,” it said.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Excuse me?”
“We can’t do that, John,” a man’s voice crackled into the air. “The containment pond won’t be able to handle that type of flow and we have nowhere to send the backflow when the water level in the pond gets too high.”
“You’re joking.”
“Ah, not so much.”
The shadow backed up and leaned on its nasty stick. “Who the hell designed this system?”
“Mason.”
Stewart hissed and rolled his tongue against his front teeth. “Hhhhlllllll. Hhhhelllllllll.”
“Well you better tell Mason that his system is screwed.”
“John? This is Mason. Listen you have to unclog the outflow pipe. It’s extremely important.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Well you have to do it. Everything we’ve been working on will be affected if the system gets fouled.”
“I’m telling you that I can’t unclog it with this pole. It’s not possible.”
“Then get another pole! Get a pitchfork! Get something that will unclog it!”
The shadow threw the nasty stick on the ground and turned toward the high white wall. Stewart scurried forward and hid himself under a clump of weeds. It was harder to move on the ground. Not all of his legs seemed to work quite right. Swimming was much easier. Swimming was smooth and precise. Running was awkward and tiring. He watched the shadow disappear into the sneaky place in the white wall and then return with a new stick. This one was longer and thicker. It had two long claws on the end and the sight of it caused Stewart to press himself close to the ground.
“This is not going to work,” the shadow snapped.
Stewart watched the shadow pierce the pond’s surface with the new stick. It went through the same motions as before and got no where.
“How’s it coming?” the woman asked.
“How do you think? Are your readings any better? Has the pressure changed?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I told you it wasn’t going to work.”
“It has to work!”
“How? How do you want me to make it work, Mason?! Get an even bigger pole?”
“Get in the water and pull whatever it is off the grate.”
The shadow stood up and turned toward the high white wall. There was a different sort of hole up high that Stewart had never noticed before. He could see people there. A woman and two men.
“Are you out of your friggin’ mind?!?” The shadow threw its hands out to the sides, the new stick flashed in the late evening sun. “I’m not going in there! The radiation levels alone are too high, and the toxicity is off the charts! No way!”
Stewart watched as one of the men in the high up hole grabbed his head and turned in a tight circle.
“Shut the system down, Mason!” the shadow yelled. “If it’s that critical then shut it all down!”
“Ssshhhhtttttttttttt.” Stewart tried. “Ddddddwwnnnn.”
“I CAN”T SHUT IT DOWN!”
“WHY NOT?!”
One of the men in the high place looked like he was going to fall. His front legs were held in front of himself like he was trying to jump out of the high place, but he stayed right where he was. Stewart’s stomach grew taut waiting for him to fall and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t. Then he remembered. Before the pond there had been clear walls that kept him in one place. He had tried to climb them, but it hadn’t worked. He had been able to see everything around him, but he couldn’t get to any of it. Maybe that’s what kept the man from falling.
“Do you have any idea how much money this project is costing us? Do you know how much money this project will generate if it succeeds?!” There was a dull thud as the high up man hit the clear wall. “If I shut the system down it’s a complete wash. A complete wash! It can’t be done over! It can’t be restarted!” He hit the clear wall again. “CLEAR THE DAMN PIPE!”
“CLEAR IT YOURSELF!” the shadow roared and threw the new stick on the ground. It landed not five feet from where Stewart was hiding and he pressed himself as close to the ground as he could to keep from being seen.
“JOHN!”
The shadow turned away from the high clear place and walked toward the sneaky open place below.
“JOHN!”
The high up man hit the clear wall again, the thud was louder this time, ringing and angry.
The shadow disappeared inside the white wall and the sneaky place slid shut. Stewart glanced up at the clear wall. The two men were thrashing their front legs at each other and the woman was trying to back away. He looked at her. He knew her. She was the one that had yelled the other day. She was the one who said she had taken the child. He remembered the angry, frightened screams. He knew those screams. He had heard them before. The child with the warm hands and the big eyes had made them. Those had been the hands that had put him gently in his pond.
Stewart looked at the place where the opening had been. The child was in there. He scurried towards the high white wall and ducked behind a rock that was resting against it. The sneaky place slid open again and the man who had almost fallen from the high place came out. He was wearing the shadow on his body and carrying the shadow’s head. He looked around and then put the shadow’s head over his own.
Stewart could see his face through the big, clear eye and he shuddered. The man’s eyes reminded him of the hunting rock. They were not right. The man walked to the new stick, picked it up and plunged it into the pond. He jabbed and jabbed and twisted and yanked. It made Stewart’s skin hurt to watch. Finally the man shouted and stepped into the water. He slid as his back legs lost their footing. When he stopped sliding he was into the pond to his middle and the new stick was thrust back into the water and twisted some more.
Up in the high place the woman watched and another man Stewart hadn’t seen before stepped up next to her. She gestured with her front legs and the new man shook his head. She put her front legs over her head and sat down. Stewart glanced at the man wearing the shadow and then made a decision. The man hadn’t closed the sneaky place. The woman had said the child was hiding in there somewhere. He was going to go find him. This was no place for warm, gentle hands.
Stewart took seven halting steps towards the opening, glancing between it and the man in the pond. When he got to the opening he was dazzled by the white light inside, but he blinked, half closed his eyes, and scurried inside.
~ Peace and determination
The pond was filled with a strange sucking, whining noise that hurt Stewart’s ears. It drew him out of another dream, this time about the hunting rock down in the beyond. The noise was just like the noise in his dream, the same eerie sound the hunting rock made when it had caught something and was eating it. He hated that noise. He wrapped his tail around his feet and pressed himself tight against the rock shelf.
The sunlight no longer filtered in through the algae. Now the surface was a dull green nothingness and the water below it was hard to see through. The sudden splash and descent of the nasty stick made Stewart bolt to the surface and into the hanging grass along the edge of the pond. The shadow was back and it was angry. It was growling and snarling as it jabbed the stick over and over into the pond. The horrible clicking box was there, too.
“You’ve got to move whatever it is blocking the outflow pipe, John. Now. The pressure’s building. The entire system’s bound up because of this.”
“Yeah, well who the hell missed the indicators, huh?”
“What was that?”
“I said, who the hell missed the indicators!” the shadowed yelled.
Stewart blinked. He had understood the words.
“Don’t yell at me,” a woman’s voice squawked back. “That was Mason’s job. Not mine.”
“You got the email just like the rest of them, Nat. You could have done something about it.”
“Me? Me? I’m trying to keep an eye on the kid! This is Mason’s fault! He’s the one who told me to grab the child in the first place! Hell, if he hadn’t forgotten to check the fence line the boy wouldn’t be hiding in the bio lab.”
Stewart blinked and cocked his head. He understood what the voice was saying. He knew what the growls meant.
“You know what,” the shadow snarled back, “I don’t want to hear it. All day long you people sit in there and mess with the conductivity of this and the electron balance of that and when the damn system you guys built starts sucking in things it’s not supposed to I have to come out here to the this mini hellhole you idiots created and fix it!”
“Mmmm,” Stewart tried as he pressed his lips together. “Mmmmmeeeee,” he whined softly.
The shadow jabbed the stick hard against the bottom and yanked it back and forth.
“What ever it is down there it’s stuck good. You’ll have to reverse the flow and maybe then I can shift it,” it said.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”
“Excuse me?”
“We can’t do that, John,” a man’s voice crackled into the air. “The containment pond won’t be able to handle that type of flow and we have nowhere to send the backflow when the water level in the pond gets too high.”
“You’re joking.”
“Ah, not so much.”
The shadow backed up and leaned on its nasty stick. “Who the hell designed this system?”
“Mason.”
Stewart hissed and rolled his tongue against his front teeth. “Hhhhlllllll. Hhhhelllllllll.”
“Well you better tell Mason that his system is screwed.”
“John? This is Mason. Listen you have to unclog the outflow pipe. It’s extremely important.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Well you have to do it. Everything we’ve been working on will be affected if the system gets fouled.”
“I’m telling you that I can’t unclog it with this pole. It’s not possible.”
“Then get another pole! Get a pitchfork! Get something that will unclog it!”
The shadow threw the nasty stick on the ground and turned toward the high white wall. Stewart scurried forward and hid himself under a clump of weeds. It was harder to move on the ground. Not all of his legs seemed to work quite right. Swimming was much easier. Swimming was smooth and precise. Running was awkward and tiring. He watched the shadow disappear into the sneaky place in the white wall and then return with a new stick. This one was longer and thicker. It had two long claws on the end and the sight of it caused Stewart to press himself close to the ground.
“This is not going to work,” the shadow snapped.
Stewart watched the shadow pierce the pond’s surface with the new stick. It went through the same motions as before and got no where.
“How’s it coming?” the woman asked.
“How do you think? Are your readings any better? Has the pressure changed?”
“No.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think so. I told you it wasn’t going to work.”
“It has to work!”
“How? How do you want me to make it work, Mason?! Get an even bigger pole?”
“Get in the water and pull whatever it is off the grate.”
The shadow stood up and turned toward the high white wall. There was a different sort of hole up high that Stewart had never noticed before. He could see people there. A woman and two men.
“Are you out of your friggin’ mind?!?” The shadow threw its hands out to the sides, the new stick flashed in the late evening sun. “I’m not going in there! The radiation levels alone are too high, and the toxicity is off the charts! No way!”
Stewart watched as one of the men in the high up hole grabbed his head and turned in a tight circle.
“Shut the system down, Mason!” the shadow yelled. “If it’s that critical then shut it all down!”
“Ssshhhhtttttttttttt.” Stewart tried. “Ddddddwwnnnn.”
“I CAN”T SHUT IT DOWN!”
“WHY NOT?!”
One of the men in the high place looked like he was going to fall. His front legs were held in front of himself like he was trying to jump out of the high place, but he stayed right where he was. Stewart’s stomach grew taut waiting for him to fall and he couldn’t understand why he didn’t. Then he remembered. Before the pond there had been clear walls that kept him in one place. He had tried to climb them, but it hadn’t worked. He had been able to see everything around him, but he couldn’t get to any of it. Maybe that’s what kept the man from falling.
“Do you have any idea how much money this project is costing us? Do you know how much money this project will generate if it succeeds?!” There was a dull thud as the high up man hit the clear wall. “If I shut the system down it’s a complete wash. A complete wash! It can’t be done over! It can’t be restarted!” He hit the clear wall again. “CLEAR THE DAMN PIPE!”
“CLEAR IT YOURSELF!” the shadow roared and threw the new stick on the ground. It landed not five feet from where Stewart was hiding and he pressed himself as close to the ground as he could to keep from being seen.
“JOHN!”
The shadow turned away from the high clear place and walked toward the sneaky open place below.
“JOHN!”
The high up man hit the clear wall again, the thud was louder this time, ringing and angry.
The shadow disappeared inside the white wall and the sneaky place slid shut. Stewart glanced up at the clear wall. The two men were thrashing their front legs at each other and the woman was trying to back away. He looked at her. He knew her. She was the one that had yelled the other day. She was the one who said she had taken the child. He remembered the angry, frightened screams. He knew those screams. He had heard them before. The child with the warm hands and the big eyes had made them. Those had been the hands that had put him gently in his pond.
Stewart looked at the place where the opening had been. The child was in there. He scurried towards the high white wall and ducked behind a rock that was resting against it. The sneaky place slid open again and the man who had almost fallen from the high place came out. He was wearing the shadow on his body and carrying the shadow’s head. He looked around and then put the shadow’s head over his own.
Stewart could see his face through the big, clear eye and he shuddered. The man’s eyes reminded him of the hunting rock. They were not right. The man walked to the new stick, picked it up and plunged it into the pond. He jabbed and jabbed and twisted and yanked. It made Stewart’s skin hurt to watch. Finally the man shouted and stepped into the water. He slid as his back legs lost their footing. When he stopped sliding he was into the pond to his middle and the new stick was thrust back into the water and twisted some more.
Up in the high place the woman watched and another man Stewart hadn’t seen before stepped up next to her. She gestured with her front legs and the new man shook his head. She put her front legs over her head and sat down. Stewart glanced at the man wearing the shadow and then made a decision. The man hadn’t closed the sneaky place. The woman had said the child was hiding in there somewhere. He was going to go find him. This was no place for warm, gentle hands.
Stewart took seven halting steps towards the opening, glancing between it and the man in the pond. When he got to the opening he was dazzled by the white light inside, but he blinked, half closed his eyes, and scurried inside.
~ Peace and determination
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