Happy Shack: Part 5

The next installment!

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“You can’t be in here.” A male voice cut through the black. It came from my left.


I was pressed up against Erin11, her breath hot on my cheek. Trying to play the gentleman (I swear the shed looked larger from the outside), I pushed back against the door setting off a new chorus of rattles and clangs. They sure don’t build these things to last.

The male voice added to the din, “You can’t be in here. I’m notifying security.” It was the Peter model. Peter11. Tall, blonde, you get the idea.

“Wait!” Erin’s voice, but not the polite greeting voice from before. Louder. Biting.

“Programing requires us to notify—”

“Wait!” Peter had opened a small box on the wall. A monitor pored green light into the locker. Peter paused, staring tense at Erin, and my brain is doing double-time now.

“Stand down, P11.” Erin returned his glare. “I have superiority here. Stand down or I will call district.” Her eyes were intense, made toxic by the monitor’s glow. Peter stepped back leaving the panel hanging open, illuminated keys below.

“Thanks.” I sighed. “You really—”

“What are you doing here?” Erin’s eyes now bit into me. I smiled sheepishly hoping my boyish good looks would work some magic.

“Define your operative!” She spat.

My operative? This wasn’t going as well as I had hoped. My operative? That wasn’t the language of two kids in love. Her lips were parted, but not in a smile. More like a corned animal, and that’s what she was, a cornered rat protecting her nest, and I didn’t like thinking of her as a rat. I just wanted her to laugh again.

“Define your operative.” She repeated, and to the right the stained cooker mech squatted in the shadows watching us without expression.

“My operative is conversation.” Real smooth. “ I just wanted to talk to you.” Her fan turned on as she silently took me in.

“Look,” I filled the pause, not wanting to lose momentum. “You’re entitled to a break, a life, and you don’t have to lock yourself up in this shed, because I know where there are plugs outside, and why not enjoy yourself, because you only live once, right?” It came out in one breath, a long viscous ribbon of words.

“I don’t live.”

Silent screams behind her eyes.

“But you could, right?” I touched her shoulder. It felt warm. Living. It squeezed like a girl’s shoulder should squeeze.

“Open the door P11.” Her voice was quiet now. Almost a whisper.

“Come with me.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?” Peter11 was watching on incredulously. “Peter, open the door.”

He pressed a button on the keypad, but instead of the door rolling open, the tiny shed began to strobe red.

“No!” Erin pushed me back and suddenly the locker was a riot of noise. Erin had shouldered Peter out of the way and her fingers flew across the keypad with speed I’d never seen. Clack! Clack! Clack!

“You have to leave. Now.” She didn’t look up.

“Come with me” I pleaded.

“Security is on the way. Go.”

“And what about you?” I couldn’t turn my eyes from her. “What’s going to happen to you? A quick memory erase and back to the land of protein patties?”

“It’s safer for both of us.” She pressed a final key and the wall began to move behind me. Icy air filled the lockers. Cold, clean air. I stepped backwards into the ally and held out my hand. I was crazy and every molecule in my body buzzed electric. In the distance, a teeter-totter siren. Sharks would be here soon. The door stopped rolling with a clang, and three machines looked out at me.

“Close the door E11!” Peter barked, but she didn’t.” Instead, without smiling, she took a single step out into the cold.

***

Pink clouds blanketing a world below.
Insulation rolled out eons ago
quiets the keening of entire populations,
absorbs the flails of burning homes,
wraps cumulus arms around a kicking child.
Hanging above it all, pulsing, humming. A city.
It’s glass becomes golden effigies to the rising sun.
And below the temples, beneath the palaces,
the hanging gardens of dust and detritus.
Life so grayed the sun has overlooked all
save a scattered few it deems worthy.
A baby’s rattle fashioned from a pill box.
A stream of urine splashing on sheet metal.
The yolk of a pigeon egg cracked in its nest.
The curve of your cheek as you smile at my touch.