S. Bodeen - The Compound

Lexie disappeared into the closet. When Dad talked about the Compound, he told us we’d have duplicates of everything we treasured. What an idiot I had been, to believe everything I cherished could be reproduced.

We left Lexie to explore and continued down the corridor. Dad indicated my room on the right. I pushed open the red door. Fresh-smelling meadowy air blew softly into my face. A bed took up the entire near wall, but there was no canopy like Lexie’s. Instead, I looked up at the night sky.

Dad’s hand squeezed my shoulder. “The constellations rotate. It’s timed to be accurate from sundown to sunup, and will alter with the seasons. You can even choose the southern hemisphere if you like. During the day the bulbs mimic the actual progression of the sun. Of course, you have artificial light available at any time, but I thought you might miss your sunsets.”

My sunsets? Not just mine. I wanted to shout at him. They were Eddy’s sunsets, too.

Every day since we were seven, Eddy and I sat on the front lawn of our estate and watched the sun set over Puget Sound. The evening ritual began with Els, an old lady from Belgium, who was one of our family’s cooks. Hardly taller than Eddy and me, she wore her silver hair in a bun and squeaked around in white orthopedic shoes. As a rule, she never smiled.

One evening after dinner, she set out ice cream and bowls for sundaes, then left us to make our own. Sometimes we’d make a little mess, usually just drippings on the counter, smears of chocolate sauce. But that day I dropped a scoop of ice cream on the red-tiled counter. Instead of just picking it up, I poured fudge sauce over it. Eddy giggled and squirted whipped cream on top. I added a few cherries. We laughed. Then we filled our dishes.

Before we were done, Els returned. She saw the chaos and must have known I had caused it. She shook her finger in my face, speaking in her strong accent: “Brat, you are always a brat.” She grabbed me by one ear. Her pinching grip was extra firm. From decades of kneading, I imagined. She had no trouble dragging me out the door.

I fell to my knees on the soft lawn. My ear hurt and I rubbed it while scowling up at her. “I’m telling my dad!”

Els raised her hands. “What will he say? He tells you always, ‘Go out, get fresh air.’ I give you fresh air.” She slammed the door.

Eddy had followed us outside with an ice cream sundae in each hand, splotches of whipped cream adorning his face. He sat down next to me and handed me a bowl. Banished to the lawn, we ate our ice cream and perceived the sunset as an actual event for the first time ever. The next day, we found ourselves waiting for it to happen again.

Sunsets, imitation or not, would no longer be the same.

Still, knowing my dad expected it of me, I lamely thanked him for the extravagant special effects. The room was done in the primary colors that appeal to boys of nine. One wall held shelves that stretched into the stars, and a speedy scan revealed my favorite books and other possessions. Copies, of course.

Dad asked me if I wanted to see more of the Compound.

I didn’t. We would have to wait fifteen years, fifteen years before it would be safe to go outside. Which left more than enough time to see the rest of the Compound. Our new world. A new world I would soon hate.

Dad rubbed my shoulder. Suddenly his touch suffocated me. My stomach lurched, and I thought I might be sick. I wriggled down, away from his grip.

We went back to the family room. Terese slept on the couch. When Mom saw us, she shifted Terese off her lap and stood. Her eyes were vacant as she went behind the bar and made instant hot chocolate with marshmallows in the microwave.

I don’t recall finishing my drink. I just remember feeling the emptiness in my gut. And the guilt. Nothing would ever be the same without Eddy, but I had to live with that. Why? Because it was my fault he wasn’t there. My fault Eddy was dead. That night, I blamed myself.

Almost six years later, the feeling was just as strong. As was the feeling that all was not right in our new world.

TERESE DRIBBLED PAST ME, SWITCHING HANDS AS I’D TAUGHT her. A few months shy of twelve, she’d gotten taller in the last year, but still came only halfway up my chest. With her dark hair in the same braids she always had, the shrimp looked closer to ten.

Mom, Lexie, and Terese had white T-shirts and velour jogging suits in every color that particular clothing company produced. Even though Terese had plenty to choose from, she always wore purple.

Little Miss Perfect annoyed me, the way she always seemed so hell-bent on doing the right thing. Fluent in French, she also played the oboe. Hers was custom-made of the best grenadilla, African black wood. Dad brought it home from Paris when Terese was five. What other kid that age had a $10,000 oboe? I suppose I couldn’t talk. Dad bought my $4,000 Getzen trumpet when I was six.

But down here my choices of people to hang out with were limited. Time wasn’t.

Almost six years in the Compound. Six years.

Well over two thousand days, most of them pretty much the same. But routine tends to equal comfort, which does provide some semblance of security. My alarm went off at seven. I rose to do tai chi for a half hour. Gram had taught Eddy and me the summers we stayed with her in Hawaii. The exercise ritual made me feel closer to both of them.

Then I showered. The bathroom was dark blue marble, with a huge whirlpool tub as well as a step-in shower that could hold an entire football team. A mirror ran the length of the room and I had two sinks all to myself. I switched every other day, with no particular reason why. Guess I relished having an option. Not a lot of those underground.

Most days, I weighed myself and checked out my body in the mirror. I was six feet and still growing, one hundred eighty pounds, and my muscles were well defined. Was I vain? I don’t think so. I worked hard at getting my physique to that level. The outside was a lot easier to perfect than the inside.

For obvious reasons, thoughts of Eddy invaded me most when I looked in the mirror. If he were alive, I wondered, would he have had the same build? Same hair? Looking to control some aspect of my life, I’d refused to cut my hair after I turned twelve. It fell past my shoulders. Sometimes I left it down, so I had to peer out from behind a curtain. I couldn’t see anyone. Made me believe they couldn’t see me either.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail secured with bands I’d taken from Lexie. It was nice, having the same face as Eddy. I never had to struggle to picture him; I simply looked in the mirror. Some days that face was a comfort. But other days, I couldn’t bear to see his face—or mine.

Every day, I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt emblazoned with Dad’s company’s logo, YK, the biggest computer manufacturer and software developer in the world. Early on in the Compound, Dad explained there was clothing in every size we might possibly need.

He just neglected to mention that while sizes were limitless, style selection was not. In addition to jeans and YK T-shirts, my wardrobe consisted of gray sweatpants. Certainly didn’t take me long to pick something out in the morning.

In our old world, my favorite shirt was an orange-and-white-striped rugby. Eddy had one, too, but he never wore his. I loved orange so much that I practically wore out that shirt. When we arrived down here, there was one in my closet, but I outgrew it. After I told Mom it was too small, it just didn’t come back from the laundry. I missed the color. If I could have had one new thing to wear, it would’ve been a big orange hooded sweatshirt.