aaron_the fall of america_chapter_22

Chapter 22

I woke up late. I hadn't seen Karna or spoken to anyone the day before and still had no desire but to swim and eat berries and potato-peanuts.

Everything seemed to be in my imagination for the purpose of fulfilling my fantasy. The whole planet was mine. Colourful explosion filled my mind each time I bit into a berry. It was funny that after so many things going unnoticed that the most amazing thing for me was to eat a berry.

I wasn't sure if that was good or bad or something altogether different so rather than pursue the thought, I ate more berries before swimming in the warm river. When I had enough of swimming, I lay on the bank to have a short sleep.

I had a dream that three of us were trying to get away from the authorities. They were at the top of the cliff and we were out of sight on the beach at the bottom of the cliff. As we were wondering what action to take, a streak flashed by us and smashed into a large urn. In the rubble of the broken urn, we found a large black bird. We pushed away the broken clay to examine the bird. It seemed to be unharmed. When I stroked it, it opened it's eyes and spoke a hostile warning before flying away. Although I didn't know its language, it was clear an injustice was being committed. The bird had warned us but there was nothing we could do to stop it.

When we looked up to see if the authorities were still above looking for us, they spotted us. There was no way to out run them on the loose sand of the beach so we had to out smart them. I knew exactly where to go because I had been in the dream before under different circumstances. We slipped between two white stucco houses, gave a quick explanation to the Mexican man who lived there and ran through his back yard. We jumped the chain link fence, waded through the marsh and up onto the highway. We waved down a man in a pick-up truck who gave us a ride into town.

When I awoke, I decided I was tired of waking up on their quiet planet. It was starting to remind me of my childhood impressions of heaven, the place where nothing ever happened. It was always pleasant with nothing ever to do, especially if you had no desire to sing praises to the builder of the place. It was a hell of pleasant nothing. Happy nothing.

I felt I had to get away from these people. Their constant ignoring me grew irritating. I needed some interaction. I hadn't even talked to Karna, who I thought was a little interested in me. All my calculations and preparations had been completed, there was nothing left but to leave.

I decided to make a decision. I wouldn't be swayed. The only person other than Karna that I knew at all could understand my language was Karna's mother. Before fear stopped me, I ran to her house.

"Is Karna not around?"

"Yes, she is not."

"Where is the big city?"

"Do you want to go there?"

"I have to."

"Why?"

"I have to know."

"We don't go there anymore."

"I want to go there."

"It is up to you."

"Thank you. Where is it."

"There."

She pointed toward the distant mountains.

"In the mountains?"

"What are mountains?"

I explained mountains.

"We don't have mountains."

"I'm seeing things then."

"It is normal is it not."

"I'm afraid it is."

"Shall I take you?"

"Isn't it far to walk?"

"Yes it is far but we have transportation systems."

"You do? I've not seen anything resembling transportation."

"They are under the ground."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. There is one entrance there where the trees stop."

I looked but saw nothing.

"There are seldom used now but they function as they did when this land was used for feeding the people of the city."

"Isn't that a waist of energy."

"The sun has very much to give. The city generates all the energy that is needed. Everything stays running as long as the sun burns."

"That's interesting. I'd like to take that technology back with me so I could be shot in the back by a hired killer from the oil cartel."

She looked at me with a blank face.

"It doesn't matter. I think I'll take my craft so I can leave from there. Anyhow, I want to avoid underground for now."

"I believe if you stayed, some of us would start to enjoy your company. I guess we will never see you again. I shall miss Karna."

She seemed to be talking to herself more than me. Since she was using my language, I decided to respond.

"Where is Karna?"

"In the city with her father."

"I thought you said you don't go there."

"Did I say that?"

"I believe you did."

"Mostly we don't go there."

"Does she live in the city now?"

"She wanted to say good-bye to her father."

"Good-bye?"

"She wants to go back with you."

"But she can't. It's impossible. I can't take her."

"You tell different with words than you do with thoughts."

"You know my thoughts?"

"Only the one you show."

I walked up the hill a little to look in the direction she had pointed. I could see that I had imagined what I had seen to be mountains because I knew of nothing else of that magnitude.

I ran to my craft.

Karna's mother was standing there. I was afraid she might read something on my face that I didn't want her to know so I tried to be blunt.

"What?"

She smiled.

"How will I find Karna?"

"You would never find her but she will find you."

I had nothing to say. Karna's mother didn't seem to want to say anything so I said good-bye. Feeling a little ridiculous, I closed the entrance to the craft and prepared for a short ride to the city.

I tried to imagine what I was about to see. They didn't have violence in their nature so there was likely no danger. I had become dull enough that I might not be overwhelmed.

Taking the craft a few kilometres was more of an overkill than taking a drag racing funny car to the corner store. As soon as I left the ground I was high enough to see the expanse of the city. It was clear to see why I hadn't noticed it before. It was to fantastic for me to believe it had been constructed. It was several kilometres high, two or three hundred kilometres wide and I wasn't sure where it ended. Unbelievably overwhelming was it. It would have taken longer to construct than humans have been slave and tool using animals. It couldn't be concrete, though that was my first guess. Most of the upper surface was likely utilised by solar conductors. From my height I wasn't sure. I imagined it to be impossible to run such a city with fossil fuel even if there was an endless supply.

The craft wasn't designed to work against gravity very long so I landed the craft near the edge of the city, closest to the settlement I had just left.

When I stepped out of my craft, I felt smaller than I had when I stood looking up at a west coast mountain range in Canada. I was awed like a child receiving his senses after living its life in dark oblivion. I couldn't perceive distance. I thought I had landed beside the structure but had to walk hours before finally reaching the wall of the city. It wasn't a wall constructed to keep an enemy out, it was simply the beginning edge of an unfathomable large construction. I bent back to look up the wall. At a slight curve, it reached up away from me until it faded with the sky. I lost my balance and fell on my back.

It took some time before I started to accept what I was seeing. There wasn't a mountain on Earth that reached higher. Babble's famed tower would not suffice as an adequate outhouse. Eventually, I crawled over to the wall to examine it. I dragged my fingernails along, trying to understand what it was. It wasn't plastic or fibreglass but I couldn't figure out what else it might be. Whatever it was, I was standing on and what I had landed my craft on. I wondered what distance it might also reach beneath the ground. The more I looked at it the more I thought that it was translucent, possibly even conducting some luminance.

I walked along the side of the wall looking for a door or an opening but couldn't find a slight fault in the surface. With a strange feeling grabbing hold of me I spun around to see where I was in relation to my craft. It wasn't there. Or rather, there was nowhere to look to. I retraced my tracks at a frantic run. I was soon able to see the outside world again. I had missed seeing that I had walked into an opening hundreds of meters wide. It followed the gentle curve of the wall, then slowly turned inward. I took comfort in knowing that I was completely lost. It was a freedom to not be responsible for my future. Even with an excellent sense of direction, I had no chance of orientation in surroundings that were far too foreign to understand.

I understood that if I were to get anywhere before I died of old age, I would need something other than my feet to transport me. As I stood staring at the endless walls of luminance, wondering if there would ever be anything else to view, a slice of green appeared. It gradually grew while I stood and watched. A park of forest was coming to greet me like a sideways oasis might in the heat of a desert. If I had been thinking properly, I would have either tried to run back or wake up. Instead I stepped out farther from the disappearing wall and had trouble with my balance. I got on my hands and knees, to not only steady myself, but to examine the floor. When I looked up again the wall was well behind me and the scenery had become grand.

I was moving independent of my efforts. How long had I been moving? Was my craft moving as well? I crawled in one direction and the scenery changed slowly. After becoming comfortable with that, I crawled in another direction and the scenery swallowed me much faster. It was beyond my belief, yet it seemed the seamless floor moved. The more I crawled toward the centre of what looked like a thirty lane highway, the faster did things change. It was such a rapid speed I was now travelling that I couldn't see how I had got to where I was without being thrown off or ripped apart in the speed difference.

I was making good time.

I could sit and think while moving at a speed that would make the Autobahn’s left lane look like a parking lot. Somehow the air was not smashing against me. How that worked was too much to reason. The walls were indiscernible, except for the glow of white rather than the green-blue of the outside sky. Above was the same. It wasn't possible to judge the distance above me. Although it seemed it could reach endlessly, the glow may have been not so high at all.

I was starting to understand the surrounding. The greenery was interrupted evenly by what looked like openings. This thought convinced me to investigate. I crawled toward the towering greenery that was flashing by. The nearer I was, the slower it past by. When eventually I was off the translucent floor and onto something green and short but not grass, I was no longer watching moving scenery. Everything was still.

I stood.

Even the road seemed still. I wondered at such a thing and how the producers of tin cans with metal containers exploding finite resources of fossil fuel would feel about it. It would give some of them a shake.

The greenery was high enough to believe if there was a roof, it wasn't near.

"Ba!"

My voice vanished into the silence.

"Hello!"

Since I wasn't responded to in any way, I strode to the first opening in the greenery. It lead to an opening in a wall that led to simple, yet luxuriant living quarters. Proportions were comforting. I walked out just to walk back in again to see what it was I felt. On my return, I noticed I hadn't opened a door. I hadn't noticed a door since arriving on the planet. I walked out once more to study the entrance. It wasn't even rectangular. I walked back in and looked out. All there was to see was green and a little background luminance. Frightfully peaceful.

I explored the dwelling. It was difficult to recognize the purpose of various spaces. What might be called a living area, blended into a solarium area that emerged into a courtyard that seemed to be bordered only by thick greenery. There was no distinct wall or fence and it didn't appear too small or too large. Where the living area appeared to transform into sleeping areas, was a clear pond. The solarium made it look like you could step out of sleep into the outdoors, have a morning swim, get out the other side and have breakfast in the room that remotely resembled a kitchen. I had no clue what anything was, but when I reach under a spout, water came out. I drank.

Food, I could not find.

I took my clothes off and dove into the pond. When I resurfaced, I wondered why I hadn't tested the water beforehand. It was a perfect temperature. The dwelling was perfectly euphoric. Something about that made me a little uneasy. I sloughed it off as unwarranted paranoia.

Since I was tired, I decided I would adopt the dwelling until I had a good sleep. Perhaps it was night. It appeared so when I entered the sleeping area. A good sleep would make me a better man for the rest of my exploring.



read on. book_01 chapter_23



by Joanne B. Washington

© 2001 | the jose wombat project