Vacation (7 page)

I smear snot onto my sleeve.

“Truth be told, there are various purposes for the Vacation,” she says. “But the one we’re looking for, what I referred to as the true purpose, it’s the strongest driving force behind the decision to implement the Vacation program. This you have yet to discover.” She holds out the album. Her arm muscles aren’t small, but the album still vibrates in her hand, due to its weight.

I take it.

I open it.

These photos, I don’t want to describe. Not because you’re my parents, and I want to keep you from this specific suffering, but because I want to keep myself from suffering again. Even now, as I’m writing this, as I’m attempting to block out the images, they’re popping and bursting inside me. I see the faces. I see the eyes.

“What is this?” I say.

This is everything Mary Shelley’s monster did that she was too afraid to write down.

This is Hemingway’s shattered romanticism.

This is Mr. Hyde’s nightmare.

“This is the world,” she says.

There’s something worse than being tortured in hell.

It’s being in hell, and left alone to watch.

And I thought I knew guilt.

I’m sitting on my bed when a banana peel flitters through the mouth of the room onto the ground at my feet. Then an old woman creeps inside. Her hair is a rainbow explosion with a different color for every spike. Her skin’s as wrinkled as mine.

She hobbles over to me, and I raise my hand and open my mouth to warn her, but by then it’s too late. She slips on the banana peel.

“Ah! My hip!” she says.

“Oh god, are you okay?” I say.

She sighs and stands, and brushes herself off. “You were supposed to laugh, honey.”

“What?”

“It’s called comic relief. God knows you need some right about now.” She pockets the banana peel and hops down onto my mattress. “The name’s Laetitia.” She holds out her hand.

I take it, and my hand vibrates a little.

She points her palm at me. Hand buzzer. “Alright, so you’re not a fan of the classics. I’ll make a note of it.”

“My name’s Bernard.”

“I know.” She pulls out a pad of paper and something small and black. Charcoal maybe. She starts drawing. Her eyes jump up and down. “I also know how you’re feeling. Because, honey, we all felt that way at first, like we don’t belong here. But that’ll change, if you stick with the program.”

“I doubt that.”

“So did I. So did all of us. Because growing up, we all label each other, and we label ourselves. We think we know our definitions and our limitations, but we don’t. We work our asses off to be the person we think we’re supposed to be, but the fact that we have to strive to be normal proves that we’re not. Honey, you haven’t the foggiest the man you could become.”

I think of Krow and her transformation.

No. I’m not that strong.

“I’ll tell you what works for me,” she says, and her eyes still keep the beat as her fingers dance on the paper. “Humor. Humor’s a powerful weapon, and the fact that it’s underestimated is part of its power. Don’t demonize the enemy. Satirize him. When you make fun of an aspect of society, its authority is lost, and people will be more likely to change the way things are. The same goes for you. Laugh at yourself, and you’ll be better prepared to see yourself in a new light.” She flips the paper around.

And here I am on the page. Caricaturized. Deformed and cross-eyed. A big giant head on a long skinny body with long skinny limbs.

I don’t laugh, but I smile.

“That’s the way, honey,” she says and stands. “Keep it up, and you’ll be one of us before you know it.”

Now, I laugh.

Part 9

I have to leave this place.

Not because I want to go.

But because I don’t.

“That’s enough for today,” Noh told me. “Think about the pictures, and we’ll continue again tomorrow.”

And now, I’m lying in bed, staring up at the earth, and this could be my coffin.

But it could also be my cocoon.

I’m on the verge of something.

And once I cross that line, I don’t think I could find my way back.

So I sneak out of my so-called room, and enter the Garden. One of the giant bulbs emits a faint glow. An inside moon for an inside garden.

The only sound I hear is the rushing of air and dripping.

I walk and pass by openings to various small rooms, where I see dark forms sleeping on blankets and mattresses and mats. Everywhere, I’m stepping over paint brushes, pencils, paper, guitars, flutes, drums, clay-shaped everything you could imagine, and some things you probably couldn’t.

During the day, these sleeping Gardeners are singing and dancing and drawing and painting and writing.

Every once in a while, I see them huddled together with serious faces, plotting. What, I don’t know.

But most of the time, they play. And they’re not ashamed.

Not like me. I’ve always felt guilty taking part in culture. Watching television. Listening to music. Even reading books, I only let myself enjoy it so much because it’s part of my job description. Because I’m dissecting the words. Because a story alone is worthless.

I only deserve to enjoy art because I work so hard. And yet, these people, they act as if these forms of expression are what it means to be a human. They act as if these things don’t need to be justified.

And maybe, just maybe, they’re not acting.

I head out of a large opening from the garden area, and travel a winding path that gets smaller and smaller, until there’s only a foot of space between me and that which encircles me. Finally, I reach what looks like the entrance of a bank vault. I press a big red button, and the exit opens, and I step out, and I close the door behind me.

With heaven, it’s a lot easier to leave than it is to get there.

I’m back in the forest, without my backpack, without the tubes, in complete control of my body, and I’m already lost.

Before taking a step, I consider turning around and knocking my way back to safety.

So this is him.

The weak little shit I really am.

And then I hear a scream. A female scream. The noise draws me forward into the wild. Maybe I want to make up for the imaginary Krow I left to die. Maybe I’m just afraid to be alone out here.

Whatever the reason, I find the girl, a teenager, and she’s caught in a bear trap, her hands clamped on the metal jaws, unable to pry them open.

Without thinking, I’m there, kneeling, playing the hero I know I’m not.

The first thing I notice is that there isn’t any blood.

The second thing, her ankle’s made of wood.

Third, the wood’s riddled with holes.

Even where the jaws didn’t bite her.

A hard something hits the back of my head, and I don’t have time to notice anything else.

The walls flap. My wrists burn and my feet don’t touch the floor. I’m hanging from my tied hands, my back against a tilted sheet of wood. The man in front of me is dressed in camouflage, but he’s all I can see now. Him and his long dark hair, almost down to his waist. Him and his gun.

“I took the liberty of searching your wallet,” he says. “It’s only fair that you learn my name as well. I’m Sergeant Weis. This is the Torture Room. But don’t let the name fool you. This is a tent, not a room.”

My body writhes, but it’s a fruitless effort. My hands aren’t the only part of me tied down. “Let me go.”

“The use of torture has been justified in countless ways,” he says. “They say, we must torture the criminal in order to discourage others from committing crimes. But crime has never and will never be prevented in this way. They say, we must torture the accused so that they’ll confess their crimes. But anyone would confess to anything under those circumstances. The sick truth is, torture exists because there are those of us who enjoy causing people pain. Fortunately, I’m not one of those people. My childhood was quite peaceful, and every time I’m forced to torture someone, I feel bad about it. The day I stop feeling bad about it, I’ll take my own life.” He punches me in the face.

“Stop!” I say.

“Scream,” he says. “The louder you scream, the softer the subsequent blow will be.”

Mom, dad, I’ll save you from the details of the next few minutes.

After those minutes, he says, “Let’s get down to business, shall we? I want the security code to the Garden stronghold.”

“I don’t have it,” I say.

He hurts me in a way that I won’t trouble you with. It appears the old rules are over. It doesn’t matter how loud I yell anymore.

“I know you have it,” he says. “My men saw you enter the cave on your own. However, due to the fact that the keypad is located in an alcove, my men were unable to observe the code themselves. What is it?”

“I really don’t know.”

It happens again.

“Please, Mr. Johnson,” he says. “Save yourself the trouble and give me the code. Everyone breaks eventually.”

“I’d break if I could, but I don’t have the code.” And I add, fast, “They were controlling me somehow. When I was asleep. I saw the forest, but it was different from reality. I didn’t see the code.”

“This all sounds highly unlikely.” Onto the table, he sets the object he was using on me. Blood drips off his fingertips. “But I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. I’ll be right back.”

He turns, and his hair rises as a black tsunami.

When he returns, a woman follows, maybe ten years older than me, bald and scarred and dressed in the same fatigues as the Sergeant.

“Do what she says,” Weis tells me and points at me with a thick finger an inch from my nose.

I nod.

“You’ll have to leave, Sir,” the woman says. “There’s no way he’s gonna relax with you here, after what you done.”

The Sergeant sighs. “Very well.” And he’s gone.

Now she scoots a crate under my feet, and I’m not hanging anymore. Just standing, leaning back against the wood. I want to rub my wrists, but I can’t quite reach.

She sits on the table, so close to the sharp bloody instrument that I’m afraid she’s going to cut herself. But she doesn’t. “I know you’re uncomfortable and all, but you gotta try to relax. Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, nice and slow. That’s it.”

I do what she says. I’ll do anything she says, as long as she keeps the Sergeant away.

“Close your eyes, son,” she says. “Imagine your toes disappearing. Now your ankles’re disappearing. Now your knees. Your thighs. Your waist. Your flesh is vanishing. All that’s left is a white light that doesn’t feel shit. Now your hands are going, your arms, your chest, your neck. Once your head goes, you won’t feel any pain at all anymore. You’ll be a ghost. When I count to three, your head’s gonna disappear. One. Two. Three.”

By the time I open my eyes again, the Sergeant stands before me beside the woman.

“That’ll be all,” he says.

The woman salutes and leaves.

“It appears you were telling the truth, Mr. Johnson,” he says. “You didn’t know the code. I must admit, I’m quite impressed how far the Garden’s technological capabilities have advanced since our last exchange.”

At this point my anger overpowers my fear. “Why didn’t you hypnotize me first?”

“A valid question,” he says. “I’ll give you a valid answer. This is an army of desperate people, serving even more desperate people, Mr. Johnson. Our resources are limited. This means that efficiency isn’t a matter pride or honor, but survival. There are various methods to create and maintain an effective army. These include classical and operant conditioning, role modeling, brutalization, and desensitization. I desensitize and brutalize my men when they first join me. I abuse them, both verbally and physically. I tear down their individuality until they’re sheep. Sheep, Mr. Johnson, can be more dangerous than any wolf, when lead by a Ram who embodies, to his sheep, death and destruction. As for operant conditioning, this is a stimulus-response technique. By the time I’m finished with my men, all I have to say is kill, and they kill. There’s no forethought on their part. No moral dilemma. They kill neither to stop the enemy nor to defend themselves. They kill because I tell them to. Finally, Mr. Johnson, there’s classical conditioning. Why didn’t I hypnotize you before torturing you? Because I need my men to associate brutality with pleasure. My men celebrated listening to your screams.” He lifts the torture device and tosses it into a nearby crate. “I knew you weren’t with the Garden in the first place. No one with full clearance in their organization would wear ad clothing. Luckily my men are too stupid to realize that.”

Suddenly those horrific creatures I crapped out don’t seem so bad.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he says. “You’re going to go back to the Garden. Knock on the door. They’ll answer, because they’ll know it’s you. They have a peephole of sorts. Whoever answers, you’re going to knock that person unconscious. Keep the door open. That’s when my men and I will storm the place. It has to happen this way. Our presence can’t be known before the siege. We don’t want to Garden to be ready for us, because they have weapons. I don’t want anyone to die needlessly. Got it?”

I nod, but barely.

“If you’re afraid we’re going to kill those nice people, don’t be,” he says. “We want some of their seeds. That’s all.”

“Seeds?”

“My people are poor, Mr. Johnson. We can’t afford to buy enough suicide seeds to keep us alive.”

“Suicide seeds?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” He crosses his arms. “Suicide seeds create a harvest, but they don’t reproduce. They’re a one-shot sort of deal. What the Garden has are fertile seeds. We want some. That’s all.”

“This might be a stupid question, but have you asked them to share?”

“Your question is ignorant, not stupid. There’s a difference. And to answer your question, yes, many have asked the Garden to share their resources, but they refuse to do so. Hence the secret security code.” He uncrosses his arm and turns halfway. “Well, you’ve had a long day. I’ll give you a long night to recuperate. Tomorrow, we’re going in. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Stimulus-response.

Part 10