Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

But you haven’t done anything wrong, either.

Nothing you can remember, anyway.

And then a strange voice says:

You won’t do anything wrong. Not now.

You look out the nearest hole; see the forest moving by slowly and then you glimpse dark figures below.

There’s about fifty, all wearing dark clothing, and chanting. You can’t see their faces and although their voices are many and echo through the dense forest, you can’t understand what they’re saying.

The woman sobs: “I have a husband. I’m only thirty-eight. I haven’t even lived. Christ I need a smoke.”

She’s the same age as you, and this fact scares you, though you’re not sure why, and like her, you too ache for a cigarette.

The compartment becomes hotter and as the trunks of the pine trees become the tops, you lose sight of the figures below, though not before one of them looks up and you glimpse a white skeletal face, grinning.

The image stays with you, even when you close your eyes; you can’t rid your mind of the face — it’s eerily familiar — and when light pushes through your world, you open your eyes to a luminous orange pulsating through the holes, and the woman turns and looks at you, tears glinting off her milky white cheeks. “There’s a fire,” she says flatly. She doesn’t blink. “A huge furnace. We’re heading straight towards it.”

“What did we do?” you cry. “Why are they doing this to us? We’ve done nothing wrong!”

But you would have , the voice intones. That’s why we’re stopping you before you could do the damage.

There’s a jolt. You feel the box turning.

You dare to look outside.

What shocks you the most is the sheer number of boxes following yours up the conveyor belt; a seemingly endless sea of smooth brown crates, all punched with tiny holes, so they resemble chocolate Swiss cheese, all, presumably, containing bodies within.

As the flames get nearer and the heat more intense, you notice, stamped in bold red on the side of the box closest to yours — 24, fire, accidental, number of deaths: 5 . On the box behind — 17, fire, deliberate, number of deaths: 16 .

And underneath, the one common bit of writing, printed in smaller letters — by order of the Death Prevention Agency, sanctioned by the World Peace Organisation.

What in Christ’s name is the World Peace Organisation? you wonder.

And whose deaths are they preventing?

Certainly not yours.

Your vision expands to see other conveyor belts — hundreds of them all over the land, crisscrossing each other over and between the statuesque pine trees. There are thousands of boxes rolling through the forest and these are the signs you can make out: Serial Killers; Motor Vehicle ‘Accidents’; Gang related Shootings. You watch with a sickening punch to the stomach as the boxes in their respective groups are: sliced with over sized swords; rammed into each other with powerful hydraulic arms; and shot at with all types of guns.

You turn away from the ghoulish sight. Catch a glimpse of a large sign over your section just before your vision fills with orange. It reads — Fire-related Deaths: Accidental & Deliberate.

The woman lets out a soul shattering scream. You’ve never smelt human flesh cooking before (you never got the chance), and it’s worse than anything you’ve ever (would have) smelt.

You close your eyes, hoping to shut your mind off from the horror, but you see the spectre of the grinning skeleton, only now it’s surrounded by a red glow which infuses its eyes with demonic glee and the only sound coming from the woman now is her sizzling flesh.

The skeleton smiles, says without moving its rotted mouth:

Two by two, just like on the Ark.

The punishment fits the crime.

What crime? you scream in your head.

The crime you would have committed. Had you been born.

But I remember my life — my wife, my job!

Future events that were projected into your mind. We wanted to show you what would have been, the life you would have lived. You deserve at least that much.

When you feel the sting of fire, you hazard a guess as to what your box reads: 38, fire, accidental (surely not deliberate), number of deaths: 4.

You think you’ll miss your wife and kids.

But you’ll never get the chance to find out.

This is one of my few sci-fi stories, inspired by some of the more socially-minded sci-fi stories such as Logan’s Run and Minority Report . And like those stories, ‘Unborn Lives’ stems from a fear of technology; or, more accurately, a fear of the abuse of technology (as well as the Government). It’s a fear that constantly plagues my mind — not only the over-reliance on it, but the concern that it will someday take over our lives to a point that’s dangerous to our well-being and even to our individual freedom.

…I will be free. Free to taste the sun without a wall of concrete around me. Free to run where I like, when I like, how I like.

But first, the night.

For fifteen agonizing years I’ve been holed up in this room, my life a routine of sleep, shower, eat, shit, play — but not too much play — rest, eat, sleep…

Fifteen years waiting for tomorrow to come and it all comes down to this.

One night.

One night that, once done, will spell the end of my burden and the beginning of my life.

One night.

For two lovers, parting the next morning, one night feels like a blink of an eye, painful in its brevity. But for a kid waiting for Christmas morning to arrive, unable to sleep, night seems to roll on forever.

One night and then I’ll be free. Gather up my clothes, my belongings, say goodbye to the heavy clanging, the even heavier silence, the violence and the madness, the rotten food, the rotten guards, the crying. All left behind in a capsule of my mind, fading with each passing day, until the memories leave only a whisper of a mark and the long years will seem like no time at all.

But first, the night.

Lights out, like every other night, only tonight isn’t like those other nights for tomorrow brings shower, maybe a shit, but not eat, and not play; at least, not the way they say. No, tomorrow I will eat pancakes or eggs over easy. A pot of coffee you say? Bacon strips, waffles and fresh fruit if you please. And I will play, oh yes I will play, but not on the concrete like so many dogs, lifting this and bouncing that, eyes watching from the towers. I will play, but on a soft mattress in a soft room with a soft lady — or a hard one. Whichever I can afford.

So one night is all I have to endure before I walk out into the light; but night can be long, it can be lonely, and too many thoughts can roll around in too many heads. So though I anticipate the coming of the dawn, it will be a hard night this night, the hardest one of them all.

I lay in my cot, like a good obedient boy, trying to drown out the cries, the slapping, the groaning, by listening to my heart, my breath. I stare out at the darkness, at the bars that have crisscrossed my life for fifteen years, waiting for sleep to overtake me, for I know that when that happens, the night will pass like a bird by my window. I will wake and the darkness would’ve turned to light and then they will come for me and I will be free.

Free.

Such a small word, but one containing all the heartache and joy of all the men, women and children in all the world.

I’m not tired, I’m much too excited, but still I close my eyes, think of what life will be like once I’m out of this prison.

I see trees spreading their wings and long cracked roads leading to somewhere, anywhere. I see bars at night, smoky women, stained eyes and good times. I see a girl lying on the ground, pants ripped, exposing tender white flesh…