THE TREE AND THE SERPENT
JOHN TRISTAN
THE SEMI PERMIABLE WALL: AN INTRODUCTION
Mr. Stitches, Mr. Fingers, and Miss Scribble stood before a wall. There were three other walls, as well, along with a floor and a ceiling, all of which were very nice. Together, they formed a very nice, large room. The walls were decorated with fantastic pictures and paintings of creatures and trees and buildings, and many other things that stood on land. The ceiling had pictures of clouds and suns and stars and great loping rainbows. The floor was a great mosaic, and each tile had a different pattern. One had lawn grass, another savanna grass, another crab grass, brown grass, even fake football field grass. But there were others with stone patterns, and mud and swamps, and anything that had ever been tread upon. Each one of the three people standing at the wall had spent much of their time considering and discussing the extraordinary trappings of the room. At the moment, however, none of these things interested the three standing at the wall.
There was something different about this wall. This wall had no pictures, it had no paintings. This wall was a solid red. The reddest red there ever was. The red that all other forms of red had descended from.
“I don’t see what all the fuss is about,” complained Mr. Stitches as he rocked back and forth on his feet. He was short and bald and shaped like a potato. He remarked that it was just a plain old red wall, while all the other walls had strange, fantastic things on them.
“It is interesting,” remarked tall, lean Mr. Fingers, “because it is just a plain old red wall.” He went on to explain the fact that it differs from the other three walls makes it extraordinarily interesting. He claimed that there must be some reason why the wall chose to appear as it did, the same as there must be some ineffable reason that Mr. Stitches chose to appear as he did. Mr. Stitches mumbled something about his clothes being comfortable and functionally stylish, and then turned to Miss Scribble to ask her opinion.
But pretty little Miss Scribble only stood there, one leg crossed over the other, slowly turning from side to side, making her dress twist around her. Her bright green eyes, peering from underneath her raven black bangs, seemed to stare right past the elusive red wall while she clucked her tongue absentmindedly. Mr. Stitches only grunted and resumed watching the wall.
What’s the meaning, wondered Mr. Fingers out loud. What’s behind it? Dense Mr. Stitches, taking the question much too literally, turned his ear to the wall and gave it a tentative tap. Much to the surprise of the two observers, (Miss Scribble didn’t seem to notice) the wall moved, undulating under the force of Mr. Stitches’ finger. Light and shadows danced in waves over the red confounding their eyes, and settled back into its original position.
This evoked a riotous response from the two. Incredible! remarked Mr. Fingers. He tried pressing his palm slowly against the wall’s surface. The wall indented as he pushed, and returned to its form as he slowly pulled his hand away. He declared that this new discovery would certainly reveal the meaning of the enigmatic wall. Several hours of experimenting ensued, with varying methods of applying pressure to the red surface. After some time, frustration set in, which gave way to anger. By the end, the both of them were striking furiously at the wall with no more success or revelation than any other approach they had tried. The two quit the endeavor. It is impossible, concluded Mr. Fingers spitefully, and no one would ever decipher the meaning of the wall. The two beaten men turned away to find something more familiar and comforting.
“Look!” exclaimed Miss Scribble suddenly. Mr. Stitches and Mr. Fingers both spun around. The wall had split open in an upside down “V”. Inside the split stood a dark, silhouetted figure backed by a bright, white light.
“Excuse me,” said the figure politely and stepped into the room.
The Visitor was an earthy looking man, wearing faded jeans and a flannel shirt. Underneath his arm was a thin, rectangular package wrapped in brown paper and tied with a string. His hair was cut short, and light stubble covered his cheeks and chin. His eyes were bright red.
He seemed to be a little out of breath as he quickly and purposefully made his way first past Miss Scribbles, then past Mr. Stitches and Mr. Fingers, each of their mouths hanging open with an expression of unknown shock and awe on their face. Without breaking pace, he politely nodded to each of them in turn. They all looked again to the wall, but it had closed up, so they looked back the Visitor. He had walked to the far wall of the room and located an open spot among the pictures and paintings. Seemingly satisfied, he tore the paper from the package, uncovering an addition of his own. Within a black frame, against a plain white background, was a picture of a bundle of dynamite wired to a clock with no hands. Carefully he hung the picture on the wall, straightened it, stepped back, and smiled to himself.
He crumpled up the brown paper into a tight ball, tossed it away, and strode purposefully toward the wall. He held out his hand against the surface and swept it casually, unceremoniously to the side. The wall split silently open, and he was transformed again into a black profile against the brilliant light. Quickly, he disappeared and the wall closed behind him. It was solid again.
Mr. Fingers was the first to come to his senses. With astonishment fresh on his face, he slowly approached the wall. He held out his hand and slid it across the surface, trying to mimic the Visitor’s exact movement. The wall waved, rippled, and then settled back into shape. He repeated the gesture again and again with no success. Mr. Stitches looked on with hopeful eyes, still stunned by the Visitor’s appearance and exit. Enraged, Mr. Fingers threw his whole body against it, but the wall only fell back against his weight as it had with all of his other attempts to penetrate it. He fell and was almost engulfed in the wall’s billowing surface, but he freed himself and let out a fierce, indignant moan.
‘Look,’ came the tiny voice of Miss Scribble. She was standing before the new picture. Mr. Fingers joined her. What? he asked irritably. When she didn’t reply, he asked again louder. He studied the picture, trying to guess her interest. After a moment he simply said, “Curious.” Mr. Stitches took a place next to them. “What’s all the fuss about?” he inquired. No one answered him. So they all took their places studying the picture of a dynamite bundle with a timeless timer, and soon they had forgotten all about the red wall on the other end of the room.
PART I
Adam had reached the end of the above-ground tunnel. It had taken seven hundred and seventy seven steps; the same as it had taken last time and every other time he had made the trip. It was a perfectly straight walk underneath the transparent red plastic canopy supported by a skeleton of metal beams. Each time he left seven hundred and seventy seven boot prints in the orange dust ground of planet Dena, even though he sometimes had to take a few giant or baby steps towards the end to make it happen.
The plastic zipper doorway in front of him had the word GUSHER printed in large, blocky white letters on it. He sighed as he unzipped the plastic doorway in front of him and stepped into the intermediate chamber. He zipped the door shut behind him and then zipped up his tight fitting red jumpsuit over his frail frame, careful not to catch the skin of his neck. Reaching over his shoulder, he removed his standard plastic “over-face” mask from the large basket strapped to his back. He placed it over his face, let the protruding tubes pass between his teeth and up his nostrils, and twisted a small switch near the ear. There was a soft, sucking zip sound as the mask attached itself to Adam’s face. The tubes extended from his mouth and nose to a small white box attached to his belt, his self-contained portable breathable oxygen recycling facility. This technology was developed by entrepreneur and inventor Ina Dink. She released the invention under the sole condition that it never be made into an acronym or pronounced “spborf”. He switched it on and took a moment to adjust to breathing through the mask. He waited a few seconds, until his watch sounded beeeep go to work, then unzipped the next door, the door to the outside.
No one was allowed outside the Great Red Bubble of Lybanbo without an over-face on. Of course, no one with any common sense would want to go outside without an over-face on. As children, Denians were taught a song.
Your brains will boil and your heart will stop,
Your guts will sizzle and your lungs will pop,
And they’ll have to tell you poor dear mom,
Your baby died because he went outside
Without his over-face on!
He exited and zipped the door shut behind him. From his belt, he removed a small, black cylinder with a single, flat button and an enormous net on the end. He pressed the button, flicked his wrist, and the cylinder extended ten feet into a large, unwieldy pole. As it extended it made a loud zzzzzzzzzzzzzzip.
Adam sighed again. That made six zips. Same as the day before.
He began his trek along the Gusher river and across the hushweed fields. Hushweed was named by the daring explorer Gaishen Woggorton for the distinct hush noise it made when tread upon. He almost named it shriekweed after his first step, but then he realized that his first step had crushed a ratatosk, a small rodent-like creature.
It was only a one-hundred-and-twenty-two-step journey to the wompfruit groves. Before and behind him, he saw other jump-suited harvesters making the same trip. Each harvester followed a schedule thirty seconds behind the one before him, as regulated by their watches. The harvester watch was another invention of the prodigious Ina Dink. The watch was irremovable, tamper proof, and loud. It regulated every major action of each harvester, for their own convenience. Gaishen Woggorton was a big fan of the harvester watch for the visual effect it created; he once remarked that when looking down from the top of the Nosov Doro Sumorlec pyramid, the harvesters looked like a line of red ants off to raid a picnic.
Every able citizen of the colony planet Dena was a harvester assigned to the Gusher, Spurter, Arrow, or Flooder River, and Adam was a born native. He had been raised singing songs about wompfruits, learned the value of hard work from the tale of Ricky the wompfruit-gathering ratatosk, and learned that two wompfruits plus two wompfruits equals four delicious wompfruits. Now he stood under the colossal wompfruit tree with, basket at his side, net ready; all across the garden, red figures stood at the base of yellow, spiraling trunks staring up at the elephantine red and yellow striped leaves. Underneath the shade of the leaves hung the divine wompfruit
Wompfruit were discovered by the dashing adventurer Gaishen Woggorton. Native only to the planet Dena, each fruit was about the size and weight of a bowling ball. Its rind is very, very green; the green that all other forms of green had descended from, with a yellow center. Gaishen named the fruit for the loud womp noise that it makes when it grows too larger for the fleshy stem to support it any longer and it falls to the ground. The noise is made by the air sucked into the vacuum of the hollow stem when it breaks. Gaishen was the first human to taste the wompfruit. It has an explosive, wild flavor when chewed, and is soothing and creamy when swallowed. His favorite way to describe the experience to others was:
“It’s like eating the sun.”
Gaishen built a monumentally vast industry around wompfruit harvesting, and made a sinfully vast fortune off of it. It quickly became and remained the most popular commodity in the known universe. To avoid the cost of transporting workers to and from the planet, he colonized Dena and built its only city, Lybanbo, along with the Great Red Bubble to protect it from Dena’s harsh atmosphere. objective
The second most common sound heard among the wompfruit grove was WOMP whoosh Wahoo! This sound meant that a wompfruit had fallen and plummeted into the waiting net of a lucky harvester. The first most common thing heard, by far, was WOMP whoosh SPLAT.
Adam already felt a dull pain in his feeble arms from holding the weighty net. He chewed tensely on the tube between his teeth, watching the leaves, listening for that telltale sound. “Four” he silently begged himself. “Four, at the very least today.” Quota was 12 catches. Adam averaged two. His entire career he received a constant supply of underperformance notices from the Nosov Doro Sumorlec. Steps will be taken, there will be consequences, final warning. They came at least once a day. “Four, at least four.”
WOMP!
Adam shuffled in the direction of the sound, net ready, eyes squinting against the sun, and heard a whoosh SPLAT in the direction he had shuffled away from. He looked back just in time to see the juicy green-yellow explosion where he had been standing a moment ago. Sighing, he walked back to his spot under the tree and looked up, hoping for lightning to strike twice. “One,” he muttered to himself. As soon as he returned, WOMP from the tree he had just left. He ran as quickly as his stiff jumpsuit would allow, net flailing in front of him, tripped, and hit the ground the same time as the wompfruit.
Adam remained face down in the dust for a few seconds then rolled to his back. “Two.” He gazed miserably at the striped leaves, the yellow sky, and the blue sun. He wondered how he could be so fantastically bad at something he did every day. He thought about how light his basket would be on the way back, how all the over harvesters would be laughing, talking about how ripe the fruit were today, and he would just look down, counting his steps, and worry about womp.
“Womp?” thought Adam. “Oh!” Adam jumped to his feet. Directly above him, he could see it falling straight at him. He held his net up, and then saw that he wasn’t; it was still on the ground. He grabbed it and swung it overhead, just a second after someone else’s net had snatched the fruit from the air.
“Wahoo!” said the over-face of the thief harvester.
“Why you rotting pile of…” Adam recognized the face under the mask. “Freya!”
“Tough luck today?” She winked a sapphire-blue eye. “You can’t expect to catch any fruit lying in the dust.”
Adam only managed a frail, embarrassed smile and forced laugh.
“Well, how do you like my new face?”
Adam gathered enough self-esteem to look up at her new over-face. She looked gorgeous in hers; he looked like a muddy puddle. Whereas Adam had used the same standard-issue mask for the past decade, Freya was a talented enough harvester to have been able to afford a custom made model which actually accentuated her angelic face. He had never seen her out of her mask, but he couldn’t imagine her looking any better than she did with it on.
After a longer than appropriate pause, he stammered, “It’s incredible.”
Her perfect mouth smiled. She asked him how his dear wife Mimir had been lately.
“Oh, just fine.”
“That’s great!” she replied, and then began an hour-and-a-half-long monologue. This was standard procedure in their friendship; she would talk while Adam listened. Not so much a conversation with him as it was a conversation at him. The monologue varied little from day to day; Adam liked to time her and see minute-by-minute what changed and what stayed the same. She opened, as always, talking about Duro, how no one had seen or heard from him since he left (23 minutes), which was fine because she and Anosha were both much happier without a stuffy man around (12 minutes), and how although she had to start working, now she could spend her tickets however she wanted (34 minutes). The entire time, she kept her eyes up, seeming to know exactly where and when the next wompfruit would fall, then, moving gracefully in her jumpsuit, nimbly catching each in her waiting net without a break in her speech. Adam had learned long ago it was futile to try to participate in her conversation, so just he followed her from tree to tree. Along with timing her subject matter, he kept himself busy by counting how many times she would pause for a breath; she averaged twice every five minutes. Her best was seven minutes without a pause, the day Duro had left her.
She was just getting to the part about all the new wompfruit recipes she had been trying and her mild case of wompskin (27 minutes) when they ran into another group of harvesters. She recognized them as friends and eagerly trotted over to grace them with her presence, leaving Adam behind. This was also standard procedure for their friendship. Ninety six minutes this time, Adam thought. That was about average. He always hoped that they could avoid others long enough to reach a new part in her conversation. He used to wonder how it ended, but he had grown to think it probably had no end.
Suddenly, she turned around. “Hey, Adam,” she called. “You should stop by my place some time! I could fix you some wompfruit salad!”
This was new.
Adam froze. He tried to respond, but couldn’t find the words. When he did find them, they were a high-pitched, “Sounds good!”
Her perfect mouth smiled, and she pointed above his head. “That one looks about ready.”
Adam looked up.
WOMP wooooosh SPLAT.
“Three,” he sighed.
One hundred and twenty two steps back to the tunnel, six more zips, and then seven hundred and seventy seven steps through the tunnel to the Fruit Collector. Adam paused at the entrance to the cavernous room. He closed his eyes, forgot how tired he was, forgot that he had caught only three fruit today and missed twenty six, and most of all, forgot how much he hated the Fruit Collector. He opened his eyes, smiled as broad as he could, and marched cheerfully towards raised the platform in the center of the room. There was only one station and only one line of harvesters. The line could be held up for hours if the machine malfunctioned, which it often did. Today, things were moving smoothly. He approached the platform with a can-do attitude.
The Fruit Collector stood in the center of the platform, on top of a four foot tall, square column. The Collector itself was a silver metal automaton, designed to resemble a human from the waist up, although it would seem that the designer had never actually seen a person, only heard what they looked like. It had a large circular hole in its chest and a big, ridiculous smile.
In one of the Fruit Collector’s “eyes” was a morale-monitor display, a simple needle which moved up and down a spectrum of black to green, depending on the harvester’s morale level. The morale-monitor was invented by Ina Dink. It had taken her quite some time to develop; it never seemed to pick up any reading from her no matter how loud she yelled. Finally she hired some happier-sounding people to help her with the tests.
Adam skipped up the steps and took his place before the Collector.
“Hi there!” came an enthusiastic, plastic sounding voice.
“Hello!” Adam cheerfully responded. The needle rose into green. “How are you toda…”
“Thank you! Please insert wompfruit one at a time, please!” Adam removed the basket from his back and deposited his fruit into the Collector’s chest-hole. “Thank you! You have harvested two wompfruit today! Twenty three tickets awarded! Please take tickets, please!” Green tickets began to print out of a slot in the Collector’s abdomen.
“Two?” asked Adam. “No, I had three fruits today…er, buddy!”
“Please take tickets, please! Thank you!” The needle began to twitch.
“Wait, I had three! I know! I counted them!” The needle sank slowly into the black.
“Thank you! Please just a moment, please!” The tickets receded into the Collector’s abdomen. Adam waited silently.
“Nineteen tickets awarded! Thank you!” Tickets popped out the slot again. Adam opened his mouth in indignant protest, paused, and then broke into a smile.
“Thanks!”
“Thank you!” responded the collector. Adam ripped the tickets from its abdomen and hurried towards the exit. He had to wait at the door a moment before his watch sounded beeeep go home. On the way home, Adam counted his tickets. The Fruit Collector had only given him eighteen.
Adam counted the stars on his way home, but they were hard to see through the blurry red, plastic tarp-ceiling. His watch ordered him, beeeep go shopping. He passed by the same general stores, wompfruit markets and over-face designers he passed by each day. Absentmindedly, he fingered the tickets in his pocket wishing he had enough to buy a new mask or some food, or just a basic luxury, like a toothbrush. He shuffled the rest of the way home and took the rickety escalator up to his apartment and entered, and was met by the aroma of hushweed and wompfruit salad. Mimir had her back to him, hunched over the counter. He watched her contentedly, enjoying the simplicity of the moment. Without saying anything, Adam went into their bedroom and changed out of his jumpsuit. When he returned, Mimir was sitting at the table waiting for him to join her. Many people described her as “plain”, but Adam never felt that did her any justice. She had a rare, simple beauty, and an air of serenity. He felt intensely lucky for having married her, and grateful for her love, and he felt shame for his feelings for Freya. He took his place next to her at the table.
“It smells good,” he said.
“There wasn’t much wompfruit to use, but there was plenty of hushweed.”
Despite an extremely rough texture and viscously bland taste, hushweed contains all the nutrients necessary to sustain a man. In fact, all-hushweed diets have proven to be unbelievably healthy, although massively unpopular; the valiant pilgrim Gaishen Woggorton once shared a story about nearly starving to death in the desert, when he came across a patch of hushweed. He tried eating some for the first time, and although it filled and strengthened him, he opted to eat the leather of his shoes before relying solely on hushweed. Wompfruit, on the other hand, has absolutely no nutritional value. In fact, copious consumption of wompfruit sometimes results in a harsh skin condition known as “wompskin”.
“That’s fine,” replied Adam. I’m the one who can’t catch enough to provide for us, he thought to himself. Beeeep eat, his watch commanded. Adam began to eat.
“How were things at Spurter today?” he asked.
“I did pretty well, I think,” Mimir quietly replied. That meant she had done fantastic. She averaged over thirty catches a day. Truthfully, she supported him; if he could at least bring his average up to normal, they wouldn’t have to scrounge; she could even stay home, or buy a new over-mask. Adam watched her eat. She was always so composed, so together. He had never seen her get hysterical or lose control of herself. He admired her, her strength and elegance. As she ate, she kept her eyes down on her food.
“What’s wrong?” he asked gently. She looked up and smiled a soft, heartbreaking smile. Oh no, Adam thought. She knows. She knows about Freya, my feelings for her.
His mouth went dry and his throat clenched. He felt cold sweat gather on his forehead. She would leave and not love him anymore, and he would be alone, poor and alone. He tried to ask what was wrong again, but only managed to croak like a toad
“Another letter came from Fruit Collection,” she answered.
“Oh!” His pulse fell and he could breathe again. He wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Is that all? They come nearly every day! Nothing to worry about.”
Mimir looked back down to her plate and mixed her hushweed and wompfruit around.
“It’s in red.” She slid the letter to him, printed in thin red letters, with an emblem of a snake coiling around a tree.
Adam dropped his fork. He felt his breath leave him and the room grew dim. Mimir looked up at him again with her sad smile, and if it wasn’t for her eyes, Adam thought to himself, her redeeming blue eyes locked onto his, holding him still while the world seemed to drain into a void all around him, he might have died right there.
That night, Adam dreamt. He dreamt that he stood in a desert under a gigantic tree, and twisted around the roots of the tree was an enormous, majestic green serpent. In its fangs it held a beautiful wompfruit. The serpent raised its head to Adam’s, and Adam took a bite. It was delicious. The serpent led him to a well behind the tree, and he jumped into the well. He fell through the water into a room decorated with pictures and paintings, and the serpent was with him. The serpent showed him the pictures and paintings, and Adam was amazed. The serpent told him they were all his and he could spend the rest of his life enjoying them, and Adam said that would make him very happy. Then Adam noticed that one of the walls of the room was plain grey brick, with no pictures or paintings. He asked the serpent what was behind the wall, and the serpent told him to knock it down and see. Adam pushed on the wall, but it did not move. He shoved it and struck it, and beat it with his fists. He beat it until blood flowed from his knuckles and covered the wall and made it red. Exhausted, Adam sat down and said, “There is nothing behind the wall.” The serpent coiled around him to comfort him. Then Adam woke up.
Adam left his house at three in the morning, as the letter instructed. Apparently, those who sent the letter had even signaled for his watch to wake him. Beeeep get up right now. Letters in red were cause for the greatest fear on planet Dena. Recipients of letters in red were either drastically changed or, much more commonly, never heard from again. When he left, he had kissed Mimir, careful not to wake her, and left their apartment for what he believed to be the last time. He followed the letter’s rambling directions, leading him through odd streets and alleys, often crossing the same place twice. Finally after three thousand and twenty seven steps, he came to his apparent destination: the Nosov Doro Sumorlec Pyramid.
It was hard to miss. The Nosov Doro Sumorlec Pyramid stood in the center of the city, one thousand, seven hundred and seventy six feet tall, nearly touching the peak of the Great Red Bubble of Lybanbo. It was green; the primal green color of a wompfruit. The design of the Pyramid came from the ambitious mind of Ina Dink. The name of the pyramid had been courageous founder Gaishen Woggorton’s first and only attempt at creating a Denian language. He never told anyone what it was supposed to mean.
Adam had never seen anyone go in or out of the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, but it was common knowledge among the citizens of Dena that inside was where the important things happened; fruit collection monitoring, major governing decisions, anything that mattered. It was the nucleus of Lybanbo, the great tower of power; apparently Adam was supposed to go inside.
Adam looked down at the letter, and then again up at the pyramid. Then he held the letter up looking back and forth between it and the pyramid. This did not reveal any new information to Adam. He thought of Mimir and wondered what she would do; probably walk right up to the door and knock. He thought of Freya; she’d probably cartwheel up to the door and knock.
But not me, thought Adam. Poor spineless me. Me, I’ll have to shuffle.
As soon as he worked up the nerve to move his boot and take the first, feeble step, his watch sounded Beeeep turn around. He tripped over himself slightly and spun on his heel. A man in black clothes stood before him, his arm outstretched to Adam, holding a large red bag.
“Put this over your head,” he commanded.
Shocked and confused, Adam did as he was told. For just a moment, as he stood listening to his own breath and the blood beating in his ears, he thought of Anosha, Freya’s daughter. He saw her face on the red fabric two inches from his eyes, bright and sharp and intriguing. He had only met her once, but she was such an inquisitive child; she had asked him questions the whole time. She was enthralling and her curiosity was contagious.
But that image only lasted a moment. The next, he felt a sharp jab in his arm, his vision faded, and he fell onto the orange dust ground. Then there was nothing.
“You may remove the cover from your eyes, and see,” was the first thing Adam heard. He hadn’t even realized he was conscious again. He found his hands free and pulled the bag off his head, as he was told.
The room he found himself in was long, with a low ceiling. A single candle illuminated a table in the center of the room; everything else was shrouded in shadows.
“You are not a very good wompfruit harvester, Adam,” came the voice again. It was a dark, thick voice; Adam couldn’t place its source. Whenever he looked into the dark places in the room, he became disoriented. He focused his vision on the candle.
“Well, I, um, it’s not that I’m lazy or don’t try hard,” Adam stammered, “it’s just that I’m, well… not very good.”
“No, you are not very good,” said the voice.
Adam waited for it to continue, but nothing came. The room suddenly felt crowded and claustrophobic, and he couldn’t breathe. He lost focus of the candle. He tried to listen for the sound of his own heart, but he couldn’t hear anything. Not even the air circulating in the room. Adam realized this was the first time in his life he had heard perfect silence. Usually, he would think it was perfectly silent, but then he would hear a clock ticking or wompfruit cooler humming. At that moment, Adam experienced perfect silence, and was terrified.
“Sorry,” he said to break it.
“You apologized,” came the disembodied voice. “You must feel ashamed. Do you feel ashamed Adam?” “Well, I don’t know if I’m ashamed,” Adam said.
“Do you always feel ashamed?” the voice said. “When you can’t provide enough for your wife Mimir? When she has to support you? Do you feel embarrassed when all the other harvesters see you fail?” the voice said.
Bewildered, Adam searched himself for something to defend himself with, and found nothing.
“Wouldn’t you like to buy enough food to last more than just a day,” the voice continued. “Don’t you wish you could buy a new face, Adam, for you and your wife? Or maybe, for Freya?”
Adam tried to swallow, but his throat was dry.
“Are you ashamed?” the voice asked.
“Yes. I am ashamed.”
“Then that is your curse. Shame,” said the voice.
Adam hung his head.
“Would you like to rid yourself of this curse, Adam?” asked the voice.
“Yes!” Adam answered, surprising himself with his own enthusiasm. “I would do anything, anything to not deride myself! I’ll catch more fruit! I’ll exercise and stretch! I’ll become the best harvester in the Gusher, Spurter, Tiger or the Arrow! I’ll do anything!”
“Then there is something you can do.” slowly said the voice. A hand reached out from the dark edge of the room and placed a brown paper package tied with string on the table. Adam stared at it in the candle light.
“Take this package to the top room of the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, to the desk of Gaishen Woggorton.” ordered the voice. “Leave it there. Then the tower will be destroyed.”
“I… I don’t understand,” said Adam. “I thought I was here because I don’t catch enough fruit.” Adam was met with silence. “Who are you?”
A chorus of low, dark, steely voices said, in perfect union, “WE ARE THE SERPENT, GNAWING AT THE ROOTS OF THE TREE.” Adam cringed at the sound.
“Tell me, Adam,” spoke the voice, louder and more commanding than before. “How much wompfruit do you think you will have to catch until it will be enough? How many years of your life will you spend gathering and gathering, keeping only a tiny fraction of what you’ve gained? Don’t you think you deserve more?”
“Well, I suppose…” Adam said.
“Shame, Adam! Cast off your shame! Stop perpetuating this infernal machine! Every day you waste more of yourself. Every day, that watch on your wrist commands you, every step of your life. Wake up, eat, shower, go to work, go home, go shopping, make love, drop your pants and defecate. Beeeep. I have heard it say all these things! I have one of my own, and I would cut off my hand to remove it if I could. But not yet; there is still work to do and I need these hands, as much as I need you.”
“What do you need me for?” asked Adam, beginning to get excited.
“To go where I cannot go, into the Nosov Doro Sumorlec. I am a marked man, and exile. An unknown laborer like yourself may be able to lie, or sneak, your way through the pyramid’s security. It will not be easy. Others have tried, and they all have failed. If we ever want to live free of tyranny, to enjoy the fruit we harvest for ourselves, and to stop this terrible cycle, you must succeed!”
Adam thought. He thought about how dangerous this would be, and how sure he was he would fail. He would be killed, and leave Mimir a widow. No! he told himself. That was old Adam, cursed by shame. He could succeed. It was either that or spend the rest of his life, gathering fruit he would never himself enjoy until he died.
“I’ll do it.” Adam said.
“Excellent,” said the voice. “Take the package, and this letter.” A hand placed a letter written in red on the table. “It details how to enter the pyramid. From then on, you will rely on your own wit to make it to the top. You will attack immediately after your shift today.”
Adam took the package and the letter.
“I won’t fail,” he said to the dark.
The voice answered, “Then the tree will die.”
Adam turned around to leave, but couldn’t see a door. He felt a sharp jab in his shoulder. His vision faded, he collapsed on the floor, and then there was nothing.
Adam woke at the end of the tunnel. Before him was the zipper door to GUSHER. He stood up, his wits slowly returning to him. There were no foot prints in the dust leading back up the tunnel. His jumpsuit and basket were waiting next to him, along with the package and letter. He suited up and entered GUSHER, counting the six zips as he did. He counted the steps across the hushweed. When he reached the wompfruit trees, he stopped. And he stood there. WOMP whoooosh SPLAT. WOMP whoooosh SPLAT. WOMP woooosh SPLAT. He counted fifty seven WOMP woooosh SPLATs in all. He had no will to dash back and forth, waving his net, catching fruit for a faceless business any longer. He only stared up at the sun through his blurry over-face for as long as he could stand it. His watch beeped incessantly, commanding him back and forth; he paid no attention.
Freya came and began her conversation with him. It was very routine; she had bought a new over-mask, complained about Duro, mentioned how she had developed a mild case of wompskin, and so on. Through repetition, Adam knew when to nod and agree and respond to seem like he was paying attention. She repeated her invitation to him before leaving to join her friends. For the rest of his shift he stood by a particularly tall wompfruit tree, kicking at its roots.
At the end of his shift, he reported to the Fruit Collector.
“Hi there,” it piped cheerfully.
Adam said nothing.
“Thank you! Please insert wompfruit one at a time, please!” Adam pulled a large rock he had picked up out of his basket and crammed it into the Collector’s chest-hole. He leaned in close to the idiotic, grinning, metal face and said,
“You’ll get yours. Soon.”
“Thank you!”
The letter ordered Adam to approach the colossal Nosov Doro Sumorlec from the front. Then he was supposed to walk around the pyramid seven times, approach the looming front doors, and speak the password written on the letter. Adam marched around the pyramid, counting his steps to himself, approached the door, and recited the password.
“Em di see see, el ecks ecks vi eye.”
Nothing happened.
Adam looked the door up and down, then side to side. Nothing seemed to have changed. At a loss, he tried to pull the door open. It swung open easily.
He entered a cavernous room, completely vacant except for an elevator on the side wall and large reception desk in the center, which appeared to be unoccupied. Adam quickly dashed to the elevator, happy to have a stroke of luck in avoiding the receptionist.
The elevator only had buttons for seven floors. Adam pressed number seven and the elevator rose. He tucked the package firmly under his arm, stood up straight and prepared himself to deal with whatever he would see when the door opened. The elevator dinged, and the doors parted, revealing a long hall lined with office doors. It was completely silent.
Evidently, this was not the top floor; it was too large. He peeked around the corner to the left and right and saw two more identical halls in each. Down the hall directly in front of him was another elevator. He briskly walked past the doors, trying to make as little noise as possible, but it was so deadly silent that even the sound of his breathing seemed to echo off the walls. He sped up his pace, nearly running by the time he reached the elevator. This one, again, had buttons for seven floors. He tried number seven.
The elevator opened again to a slightly shorter hallway also lined with door. This floor was just as silent. Starting to feel puzzled and curious, Adam took off for the next elevator on the opposite side of the room, but halfway through the hall, he stopped, and approached the door nearest to him.
As quietly as he could, he pressed his ear to the door; he heard nothing. It was nearly as silent as it had been in the candle lit room of the Serpents, but here he could hear air rushing through overhead vents. He strained to hear and held his breath; still nothing. Slowly, he reached for the doorknob. It was unlocked.
Adam slowly pushed the door open, just a crack, and peeped inside. The room was small and square, probably no more than twelve by twelve feet. There was a wooden chair and a wooden desk. No one was inside. Adam opened the door all the way and looked the room up and down. There were only blank walls and nothing more to see.
He closed the door and paused for a moment, wondering why this room, and apparently the whole floor, was unoccupied. He decided not to question his luck and continued on to the next elevator.
Again, the choice of seven floors. Again, he chose floor number seven. And again, he walked into a silent, uninhabited hall of empty rooms.
He crossed the room to the next elevator.
All together, Adam repeated this process seventy six times, counting each time. Occasionally, he would stop to check another office, but each one was the same as the last: a chair, a desk, and no occupant. He began to feel more confident, thankful he was avoiding any trouble, and proud he was doing so well. He wasn’t as careful about being quiet; he even began to hum. Adam began to let his guard down.
Each floor was shorter and smaller than the last, which made sense considering the shape of the building. The seventy sixth floor was only about twenty five feet long. The elevator for this floor was different than any of the others. It numbered the next floors one through six, but instead of floor seven, the button was labeled, “Atunin Cipetos.”
Apparently, another untranslatable Denian phrase, crafted by would-be linguist, Gaishen Woggorton. Adam pressed the button.
The elevator carried him up seven flights, to the top of Nosov Doro Sumorlec. It opened to a sizable, luxurious office. The room stunk of rotting wompfruit. Indeed, there were rotting wompfruit carcasses on the floor, along the walls, and on the grand, elaborate desk in the center of the room.
Adam walked slowly into the room. He had the feeling as though he were walking onto the altar of some forgotten religion, and that it had been a long time since anyone had paid tribute to the gods there, and anything sacred had left long ago.
The four walls of the room were tall and triangular, coming to a peak at the top. In each wall was a circular window. Each window overlooked the entire city of Lybanbo, past the Great Red Bubble, and in each direction the Gusher, Spurter, Flooder, and Arrow Rivers, each leading to the wompfruit groves.
There was not much else to see in the room. Adam turned his attention to the desk. He approached it, looking for any clue as to why the pyramid was abandoned, and where the dictator who had enslaved an entire planet to harvest his fruit might be. Immediately, in the center of the desk, he saw a single sheet of paper, with a message written in red ink. This is what it said.
The cogs are in place.
There is no need to stay.
For anyone to stay.
The machine will run itself.
Gaishen Woggorton.
Adam read the letter. Adam read the letter again. He didn’t learn anything new from his second reading.
He held the package he had been given in front of himself, studying it, and placed it on the desk. Then he picked it up. He turned around to leave, but then put it on the desk again. He walked back towards the elevator, stopped, and returned to take the package once more. This time, he made it to the elevator, package and all, and began his trip down.
PART TWO
Adam stared intensely at his spoonful of wompfruit pudding. He held it a few inches in front of his face. He watched it as if he expected it to speak, to impart to him divine wisdom, some pearl of knowledge that would cause the world to make sense again. But the pudding did not speak. It only sat there, quivering slightly, like a spoonful of pudding should.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what happened?” Mimir asked. Adam only shook his head slowly, his eyes still transfixed on his pudding. “Okay, but if you want to talk, I’m here. Alright Adam?” Adam nodded slightly, and Mimir busied herself cleaning up the kitchen.
Adam finally managed to get the spoon inside his mouth. There is no one inside the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, he thought to himself. He spooned himself some more pudding. There is no one running the planet. He chewed slowly on a piece of hushweed. No one is making me harvest wompfruit every day. Nothing will happen to me if I stop going to work. But if I don’t go to work, what would I do all day? Adam swallowed.
“Mimir,” Adam called looking up from his pudding, “If you didn’t have to go to work, what would you do all day?”
Mimir turned suddenly around and stared back at him, a flicker of something strange in her green eyes, maybe alarm. “Well,” she began. She didn’t seem to be thinking about the question. She seemed to be searching Adam. She wrung her hands and looked down, then turned around suddenly. “I can’t think of anything,” she said softly, and returned to cleaning.
It had been several hours since Adam had returned home from the pyramid. Adam wanted to tell her that she didn’t have to catch wompfruit all day, that it was all a lie, but he couldn’t bring himself to it. He wanted to tell her about the Serpents, the package, the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, and the arrogantly absent Gaishen Woggorton. He even wanted to tell her about Freya and his adulterous temptations, but every time he opened his mouth to speak his hand shoveled another spoonful of pudding inside.
Adam wondered about the Serpents. Were they really the underground resistance they claimed to be, or were they Woggorton’s secret police trying to sniff out infidels and discontents? Would they be upset he hadn’t completed his mission? Or would they be glad he had fallen into their trap? And for that matter….
“What’s in this brown paper package?” Mimir asked, holding the package in her hands.
Adam spewed wompfruit pudding across the table. The package that was supposed to destroy the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, why had he taken it with him? He dove across the table and grabbed it from Mimir, falling head over heels. He got to his feet and ran in a frantic circle around the kitchen, trying to decide what to do with it. He ran into their bedroom, then the bathroom, and back into the kitchen. Then he spotted the wompfruit cooler. He sprinted across the room, threw the top open, tossed the package inside and slammed it shut.
At this point, Adam realized he had made two assumptions, both wrong. The first thing he had assumed was that the thin fiberglass walls of the cooler could contain the destructive force meant to bring down the gargantuan Nosov Doro Sumorlec pyramid. The second thing he realized he had assumed was that the package contained a bomb.
Adam slowly opened the cooler, peeping inside, as if he feared the package might leap out and bite him. He picked it up gingerly and held it to his ear. He heard no ticking, no whirring, nothing. If it was a bomb at all, it wasn’t set to go off at a specific time. Adam felt that was a safe assumption to make. Perhaps the Serpents had some way of monitoring its…
“Adam?” asked Mimir’s voice from behind him. Adam turned slowly around, package in his hands. She stared at him with eyes full of concern. “Are you sure there isn’t anything you want to tell me?”
Adam forced a nervous smile, then let it fall. He sighed and then opened his mouth to explain.
The door behind Mimir burst open; a bright white light poured into the kitchen. Mimir became only a silhouette. Men in black clothes marched in the door, casting long shadows against the floor and walls. One of the men grabbed Mimir, roughly, and dragged her back towards the door.
“No!” Adam screamed. He ran towards her but was intercepted by another man in black clothes. The man grabbed Adam by the hair and threw a red bag over his head. A needle plunged into his arm, and Adam went limp.
“Adam, Adam,” said a low, dark voice as Adam slowly regained consciousness. “You have forsaken us.”
“My arm is sore,” was all Adam could muster in response, grabbing his shoulder where the needle had penetrated.
“Next time, we’ll just club you over the head!” said the voice, enraged. Adam was back in the dark hall of the Serpents, at the end of the candle lit table, addressing unseen looming figures in the shadowy edges of the room.
“Why did you not complete your mission? Why did you not leave the package at the top of the Nosov Doro Sumorlec? Did you run away when they questioned you, you coward? If you thought you could ever escape your shame, there is no hope now.”
“No one questioned me. There was no one in the pyramid.” Adam said, nearly out of his haze.
“There was no security?” the voice demanded.
“No, I mean there was no one in the pyramid! Not a single person! It’s full of empty rooms, empty desks, empty chairs! And you know what else?” Adam said, with building courage in his voice. “I’ve been to the top. I stood in Woggorton’s office, I looked out his windows down on Lybanbo and across Dena, and I stood at his desk. He’s not there!”
Adam was met with silence, but not a complete silence, not an empty silence. It was a silence turgid with anger, loaded with rage.
“TRAITOR,” came a chorus of low, dark voices.
“Woggorton has turned you,” accused the voice. “He has bought you off, or made a deal, or twisted you mind with hollow words. And you, you weak-willed, fruit sucking, asinine insect, have turned on us.”
“He’s not there!” Adam shouted into the darkness.
“TRAITOR,” said the voices in perfect unison.
“The tree will die one day, Adam,” said the voice, “You could have stood next to us, even ruled with us. You could have been a hero to the people of Dena. But instead, you are a slave.”
Adam hung his head, but he wasn’t ashamed; he was searching himself for something strong; not angry or violent, or even righteous. Only strong. When he found it, he couldn’t believe he had never found it before.
“I’ve always been a tool, since the day I was born. I was raised to be a tool, by tools. If I had died a week ago, I would have died a tool, but only because I chose to. No one forced me to harvest fruit. I mean, they told me I had to if I wanted to eat and get married and be successful, but no one really forced me. Now I know that if I don’t want to, if I just drop out of the game, no one will stop me. And now you want me to be your tool, to play your game! Well, I don’t have to if I don’t want to. There’s no one in the pyramid. You’re striking an enemy that you’ll never beat because he only exists in your delusional mind! You’re just as blind as I am. I want off this ride, I’m not playing this game, and I’m not your tool!”
When Adam ceased speaking, the silence was extreme. Finally, the voice spoke, deliberately, with barely suppressed indignation, dripping with venom.
“When our time comes, when the tree withers and dies, when the fruit rots, Adam,” the voice spat his name as if it were a swear, “You will not be spared.”
“I don’t care,” Adam replied.
“Nor will Mimir,” the voice said. Then Adam remembered. They had Mimir.
Before he could move, or speak, or gasp, a hand reached out from the darkness at the far end of the room and snuffed out the candle on the table. A needle jabbed into his arm, but he did not pass out; he managed to take a single step before someone clubbed him over the head and knocked him out cold.
WOMP whoosh BLAM.
“Nine!”
That was the sound of a wompfruit breaking its stem, plummeting to the earth, and getting smacked by a long, hefty broken tree branch swung by Adam. WOMP whoosh BLAM.
“Ten!”
He woke up at the end of the tunnel to the Gusher River, along with all of his equipment and a throbbing pain in the back of his head. His first thought was to look for Mimir, but he had no idea where to start. The Serpents had always come to find him, and they never gave him any idea where he could find them. He had returned to his apartment to look for her, but found it empty. He stood in front of the Nosov Doro Sumorlec, hoping they would come get him as they had the first time. He searched blind alleys and odd streets, looking for any clue, anyone who seemed suspicious, anyone who might secretly be a shady and deranged subversive holding his wife captive. All the while, his tiny dictator of a watch was commanding him to beeeep take a shower, beeeep start eating, beeeep go to work. When he finally came to terms with the fact he had no idea where to find Mimir, he went back to the wompfruit grove, and he left his basket and wompfruit catching net behind.
WHOMP whoosh BLAM.
“Eleven!” The green rind of the fruit burst like shrapnel in all directions, and thick yellow juice exploded with incredible force.
He had no idea where his wife was.
“Twelve!”
He had spent his life working for a company that didn’t exist on this planet.
“Thirteen!”
He had no clue what to do with the rest of his life.
“Fourteen!”
And he was smashing more wompfruit than he had ever caught before.
He went on smashing fruit for the better part of an hour, with a grand total of seventy-seven. By the end, he was thoroughly coated with a thick layer of wompfruit juice. After that he laid his wompfruit-smashing stick down by a tree and stood out in the sunlight, chewing thoughtfully on the breathing tube of his over-face. He stared up at the blue sun for as long as he could without looking away. He thought about the sun bursting, like an overripe wompfruit smacked with a stick. He pictured all the planets in the solar system silently falling away, freed from the bonds of gravity, slowly falling down through the black, empty void of the universe, and then smacking against some invisible surface, the great cosmic floor, and exploding with a spray of yellow juice.
He thought about the sun burning his eyes out. First they’d dry up and crust over. They’d brown and bake in the sun’s brilliant rays. Finally, they’d crisp into black husks that used to be eyes, crumble like ashen paper, and tumble around inside the transparent surface of his over-face. He would wander idly around the towering wompfruit trees until he collapsed, leaving a blind corpse covered in yellow juice, having never once seen anything real in his life. His body would rot away and turn to dirt and dust, and where his sun bleached bones lay would grow another wompfruit tree for some other blind, jump-suited harvester to eek out a meager existence, perpetuating the infernal machine of Gaishen Woggorton, who wasn’t even real.
Adam blinked and looked away from the sun. He thought of Mimir. He should be looking for her. He should be trying something, anything to get her back. He felt ashamed for wasting time smashing fruit. He had no idea where to start, but maybe if he recruited some help. Who, though? He had no standing among the other harvesters. They only spoke to him to mock him, or to tell him to stop daydreaming and take his turn at the fruit collector. Mimir was the only person on the planet who ever showed him any kind of respect, for God knows what reason. Only Mimir, and…
“Hey, Adam! You never came over to my place!” Adam looked in the direction of the voice, and saw the lean, jump-suited body of Freya on the horizon, waving at him. “My shift’s almost over! Would you like to come home with me?”
Adam thought for a moment and then smiled. “Sure! I’m way over quota today.”
On the way to Freya’s house she ran him through the usual one-sided conversation. She didn’t say anything about how Adam was shirking the schedule, or about his watch beeping in indignant protest every five minutes. She didn’t seem to notice that he followed her past the fruit collector without depositing any of his own fruit or collecting any tickets. She only kept chattering away while he silently heard her without really listening. Even if she bothered to ask, Adam knew he could recite most of it word for word after so much repetition.
Adam noticed that Freya didn’t take off her over-face once they were inside the Great Red Bubble. That wasn’t too unusual; many people with custom made masks such as hers chose to wear them constantly in public. That Freya would be among them didn’t surprise Adam at all.
Adam did notice, however, that something strange was happening around him. Or at least it seemed that way. Things would disappear out of the corner of his eye. A street light, or a fruit stand, or even a person would simply vanish in his peripheral vision, but when he looked directly at where they were, they reappeared. At first, Adam thought it must be his eyes playing tricks on him, but the frequency of this phenomenon convinced his already stress ridden mind that there was something more sinister behind it. Maybe the center of the solar system really had burst and the planet was slowly drifting into the ethereal void, shaking apart and dissipating along the way. Or maybe I’ve just snapped, thought Adam. He shrugged his shoulders up high and kept his eyes low, trying not to notice the world disappearing around him.
They reached Freya’s apartment. The design was sleek and modern, with an interior to match. Freya caught enough fruit to afford all the luxuries, including a full array of wompfruit preparation utensils: a juicer, a peeler, a dicer, a deluxe cooler, and so on.
Freya took a break in her speech to ask, “Would you like something to eat?”
“Sure,” Adam said.
“How about some pudding?”
Before Adam could say anything she had continued her conversation while her hands flashed across the counter, pressing buttons, flipping switches and grabbing fruit.
How can I tell her, Adam thought. How can I tell this feeble-minded, vacuous cog-in-wheel that all of her success and prestige is imagined, and then ask for her help? He would have to do it slowly, explaining every step of the way. He would have to tell her the whole story, about the Serpents, the package, the empty rooms in the pyramid, and about Mimir. Calmly and convincingly, he would have to tell her.
“Adam, I have something to tell you,” said Freya quietly, still working at the counter. Adam was taken by surprise.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Promise you won’t tell anyone?”
“Sure.”
“Well,” she turned around to face him. “It’s nothing serious I’m sure. I haven’t been to the doctor for a while. He said earlier that it wasn’t serious, but it wasn’t so bad before.”
“What is it?” Adam asked.
“My case of wompskin,” she said quietly. “It’s gotten a little worse.” Adam looked closely at her face. Her over-face was clean and clear, and he didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary.
“You look fine to me.”
“It’s the over-face,” she said. “I had it custom made to cover it up.” Adam didn’t even know that could be done.
“Well,” Adam said, “Take it off.”
Freya sighed and raised her hands to her face. She slipper her thin fingers under the snug fitting, plastic edges. There was a soft zip noise as she pulled away the mask.
Adam was very aware of himself at that moment. He was trying to be careful not to gasp, or to widen his eyes, or cringe, but he knew he was. And then he said, “Oh, Freya.”
There were big, dark blotches on her cheeks and forehead, and her skin was withered and leathery. Strands of hair had fallen off with the mask. Her lips were cracked and dry. Milky white spots floated in her eyes. But between all the discoloration and withered flesh, there was still mostly healthy, fair skin. Her sapphire blue eyes still peeped through in places. It was as if someone had smudged disease on her face, like spots of wet, grey paint smeared on a portrait.
“Do you think it’s bad?” she asked. “What should I do? The doctor said I should eat less wompfruit and more hushweed, but I can only choke so much of that stuff down.” The way her face moved when she spoke, how the good skin wrinkled up against the bad skin, it was almost too much for Adam.
He tried to say, “Excuse me,” but only managed to mutter something unintelligible before rushing to what he assumed was the bathroom. It was actually Anosha’s room, and he stumbled turning around leave. When he looked down, he realized with shock that he had tripped over Anosha, but before he could apologize, he vomited. Not from Freya’s face, but from what was inside the pretty pink dress, leaning against the bedroom wall. What had once been a human girl was now a grey, shriveled, leprous creature. There was no healthy skin visible on her skeletal frame, only bark-like hide from copious consumption of wompfruit, probably all she had been fed since her father left. Only thin tufts of hair clung to her pale scalp. Her eyes were a blind white; there was no trace of the bright, curious, blue irises that once enthralled Adam. If she was breathing at all, it was too shallow to notice. Adam hoped she was dead; no living thing should look like that.
Adam vomited again, a putrid, piss-yellow goo of half-digested wompfruit pudding and bile. The stench made him want to retch again, but there was nothing left in him.
“Adam, for God’s sake!” Freya cried. “In the bathroom!”
Adam ran bent over for the door, shoving Freya out of the way. Once outside, he spat out the last chunks of vomit, put on his over-face and switched on the air, hoping to regulate his breathing. As soon as he felt well enough, he staggered away from nightmare behind him, the negligent mother dead in her mind, and the innocent child, dead all over.
Adam walked the seven hundred and seventy seven steps to the end of the tunnel and stood before the plastic doorway labeled GUSHER. All the way there, down the streets of Lybanbo and through the tunnel, objects disappeared out of the corners of his eyes. He hadn’t bothered looking to make sure they hadn’t really disappeared. By the time he reached the end of the tunnel, he had regained his composure, but his mind was in a perilous state. Anosha was dead. Freya was dying. The world was disappearing. His wife was missing. His life was an illusion.
“Lies, lies, lies,” Adam said aloud. He turned around to look at the Nosov Doro Sumorlec.
“Lies.”
He looked up at the Great Red Bubble of Lybanbo.
“Lies.”
He looked out to the wompfruit trees on the horizon.
“Lies.”
The red door in front of him, the mask on his face, the orange dirt underneath his boots; just how much of it was lies? He wasn’t sure, but he had a guess.
Adam unzipped the door in front of him and stepped through. He unzipped the second door, and stepped through that too. He stood outside in his red jumpsuit, on the edge of the hushweed field growing along the Gusher River. He took a deep breath through the over-face breathing tube, held it a moment, and then let it out.
Lies? He wasn’t sure, but he had a guess.
Adam closed his eyes, reached up to ears, and pulled off his over-face. When he opened his eyes, he did not die.
He breathed in the fresh air of Dena. He looked up at the blue sun, seeing it for the first time not through his over-face, or tainted by the Great Red Bubble, but with his own two eyes. He stared at it for a long time, and when he looked away, it was not because he couldn’t bare it anymore.
Adam walked along the Gusher River breathing freely, and he walked through the wompfruit groves with WOMP whoosh SPLATs all around him. He passed through the trees, not hating them, just simply passing them. The ratatosks in the trees chattered at him as he walked by, following him along his journey. At the edge of the grove was a desert stretching to the horizon, spotted with hushweed patches.
Adam walked through the desert for days, leaving behind him a trail of trappings: an over-face, the breathing facility, a watch with a broken band, a red jumpsuit, and a trail of innumerable footsteps.
He walked for forty days and forty nights. He ate only the soft hushweed, and he slept on it at night. The sun tanned his bare skin during the day, and he grew lean and strong. His muscles grew tight and more defined. His back grew strong, and he stood up straight.
On the fortieth day, he came to a single gargantuan wompfruit tree growing in the desert, the largest he had ever seen. The leaves were like the wings of colossal birds, and the trunk was like the hind leg of a great behemoth. Underneath the shade was a well, and next to the well was a naked woman, his wife Mimir. He walked to her and sat down facing her in the shade.
“How long have you known?” He asked her. She smiled at him.
“Quite some time,” she answered.
“The Serpents? The pyramid? The fruit?” he asked.
“Yes, I know,” she replied.
“How did you escape from them?”
Mimir only looked down and smiled.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Adam asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she replied. Adam thought for a moment, and then smiled back at her. He laughed.
Mimir looked up and raised her hands. WOMP. A large, plump wompfruit fell from the tree. She caught it easily in her hands. She held it up to her lips and took a tender bite, chewing with her eyes closed. She offered the fruit to Adam.
Adam took the fruit in his hands, raised it to his mouth. His teeth broke the rind easily and his mouth filled with juice.
“How is it?” asked Mimir. Adam chewed and swallowed.
“It tastes like ash,” he said.
“Here, try this,” she handed him some hushweed. Adam took it and chewed it for a long time. The taste was rich, filling, nourishing. He ate it all happily.
“I have one more thing for you,” said Mimir. She stood up and walked around the well. From behind it, she took a brown paper package tied with string. Adam stood up and walked over to her, and she handed it to him. “Time to open it.”
Adam tore through the paper, revealing a cardboard box. He took off the lid and found inside a bundle of dynamite wired to a clock with no hands.
“When is it going to explode?” he asked her.
“When you stop worrying about when it’s going to explode,” she said.
Adam set the bundle down on the ground, and then peered inside the well for the first time. The waters were clear and still, and he could not see the bottom.
“How deep does it go?” Adam asked.
“I’ve been waiting for you to get here. Let’s find out.”
Adam and Mimir looked at one another. At the same time, they reached up to their faces, stuck their thumbs into their eye sockets, underneath each eye, and began to pull.
Adam felt as though he were dreaming. He had no form, but he was still in one place. He saw himself and Mimir dropping their eyes into a well, and then he felt himself falling through water. Mimir was with him. As he fell, he saw the image of a pyramid, exploding with brilliance. The brilliant light of the explosion encompassed him, and when it faded he was in a room decorated with pictures. Each picture frame was an arrow, pointing to a wall smeared red with blood. He approached the wall with Mimir. “Go through it,” she told him. “I tried,” he said. “There is no way to go through the wall.” “It is not a wall,” she answered, “It is only a curtain.” And she reached out with a hand, and he found that he could reach out with his, and together they parted the curtain. There was a bright white light, and they stepped through into it.