Ben Marcus: The Flame Alphabet

It was a warm day and I was flushed and sweating. Even in the sunshine my mood did not ease. It pulled at my breath, drew my sight into a darkened hole. It was a wordless despair I felt, a final sense of certainty that one’s maneuverings were all tethered to some vector of, not even folly, but something far worse. Something much more terrible than folly.

At the shallow row of stones, I crossed the murmur line easily and kept walking into toxic territory. The fairy tales boomed from the speakers with perfect clarity and I did not stop. The recording was crisp and lucid and finally, when I determined that I could listen without detriment, I sat down on the path.

I was fine. The language floated above me, entered my body, and I held my own, swallowing it whole.

The serum was working.

On the path I heard, from the loudspeaker, the old tale of the blindfolded bird who must search for his mother by sound alone. I had not heard this one since I was young. I am no fan of stories, perhaps because they seem more like problems that will never be solved, and this was among my least favorite.

The bird is alone and scared. Because of the blindfold it cannot do the one thing it was made to do: fly. And its mother, though always nearby, learns to keep perfect silence when the little bird is on the verge of finding her. She keeps herself artfully concealed from him, hops away whenever he approaches. All the older birds do, so the little bird thinks he’s the last bird left on earth. He calls out and no one answers. The mother holds her breath as her own little bird is so close that he can smell her. He knows it’s her, right there. He doesn’t need to see to sense his mother there. She holds her breath and stands perfectly still, a statue. He circles her, moves in, then finally cries out, at which point she leaps into the air and flies off.

When she returns later that day, laughing, with a lesson to share, he refuses to be comforted, will not acknowledge his mother, will not go near the older birds. He even insists on keeping the blindfold on his little head. Days go by and the bird won’t take off the blindfold. He learns to get where he needs to go. He doesn’t fly, but he can walk places. He gets around okay. Everyone thinks the little bird is sulking, taking himself so seriously. But it’s not true. The bird is in darkness under that blindfold and that is what he has come to prefer. He is not sulking. He is happy. The blindfold becomes a part of him. Even though he will not speak to his mother again, or to anyone else, he is grateful to them. Every day he silently thanks them for their gift.

The story puts it differently, of course. Stories always do.

More stories followed from the great loudspeaker, filling the woods with sound. I spent some of the afternoon enjoying the broadcast of tales down beyond the murmur line. The smoke I’d inhaled was a mostly thorough shield, though with certain words I felt mild convulsions, suggesting a partial immunity, which would need to be addressed.

If the tales themselves did not please me, the voice they arrived in did, and it was this that I wanted to hear more of. I’d not been spoken to in years and the effect was luscious. I had taken this pleasure for granted. The stories were read by a child with a scratchy voice. They’d found a child who herself did not seem to understand the stories, because always at the moment of crisis, of conflict, the child’s voice only became sweeter, as if she were entirely innocent of what she was reading. What an enormous gift that would be.

Or else to this girl these terrible moments were the good parts, the ones that gave her a thrill.

Finally my shivers came on more strongly, the stories cutting into my head with a cold pain, and my daylight began to spoil.

I walked home to see how my subject was doing. I’d need more of his breath in order to generate a true inhibitor, and I’d want to diversify beyond this boy. I’d need to establish that this extraction was not a fluke. It was the air of children I wanted, a fine-grained powder that rode out on their breath and offered to us a transformative medicine.

The discovery, in the end, was a simple one. I should have made it months ago. From hyperventilation of a child—ideally, one later learned, a child in agitated fright, surging with adrenaline—comes a residue in the lungs. Coughed up out of fear. And when this residue is refined of impurities, enforced with certain salts, then subjected to heat, it forms the foundation of our immunity. Child’s Play. It lets the words back in, if briefly.

Whether such a reversal should be sanctioned is another matter.

Once I’d perfected the serum, and could endure without sickness the full range of Aesop’s broadcasts below the murmur line, I sat down in the hut with the cherished contraband I’d smuggled from Forsythe: the voice tapes of my daughter, Esther.

A language archive of the girl. Paper and tapes, a broad syllabus of topics, a spectrum of moods. Our viral girl, fourteen years old, singing, laughing, yelling, whispering, arguing, speaking sotto voce, making up words. Reciting letters, numbers, crying out in pain .

I do not tire of these tapes. I will not. I have done the awful math enough times to determine that my inhibitor work is worth it to hear this girl speak. The work of gathering immunity, and the cost of such. Etcetera, fucking etcetera. The exchange, I believe, is fair.

It makes it safe to hear the girl’s voice, and for that I would do anything.

I am ready to debate this matter. My arguments are strong. This is the last of my daughter’s voice. You will be at a sad disadvantage if you challenge me on this point.

Last night I was stranded in darkness, out waiting for a child who never came. If one had appeared, and if I had secured possession, I would have led him to the extraction shed, applied the bottle to his face, and produced, if I could, a scenario that would lead to fright, which would lead to adrenaline, and, if I was lucky, my subject would hyperventilate, in those fast rabbit breaths, enough for me to collect a thimble of his powder.

A fairly standard bit of smallwork. I’d burn it down and bottle the smoke, which I could gust over Esther as she lay prone in the bed. If I’d done my job properly, the smoke would sink over her and she’d have no choice but to breathe it in.

This would be the last use of assets, just for this, so Esther could see something.

If it worked, if Esther sat up and passed the various little tests I could subject her to, to affirm her immunity—the shortest, smallest words I could say, offered in a sequence deliberately free of meaning so as not to disturb her—I would hand her the letter her mother wrote to her.

I’ve kept the letter safe since the day we left home. It is crushed and filthy, that is true, but I have not opened it. It is not for me. There were many times, under the protection of the serum, that I could have read it, but I didn’t. It is for Esther, her mother’s words of departure. I would let her read it alone. She could take all day with it in the hut. I would walk out to the clearing to give her time. I would wait as long as she needed me to.

When Esther finished reading the letter she could join me outside, if she wanted to, and I would not ask her what was said. I would never ask her.

But this was not to be. The day ended without a sighting, and my asset supply would have to remain low.

This morning the daylight finally soaked through the woods, forest sounds hissing up as I slept in the mud. Certain creaking reported in the trees, a whisper blew from the sturdier insects, roared over my wet resting place.

I slept well in the soupy muck. I was ready to return to Esther, and not make such a mistake again.