Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

As I sit and think of it, remembering the hatred in their voices, the sparkle of joy in their eyes at the prospect of causing me pain, I wonder maybe if Eric has protected me too much. I look over to him. He’s turned around, as if facing the other way might help me reach up past the steel roof to the rain crashing down. His face is covered by his filth-encrusted beard. The band around his eyes that used to be crimson red is now entirely black, and I can’t help imagining the dark pits beneath, writhing with worms. What would he say to me if he could?

He would say he wanted the best for me. I’m sure of it as I think it. Why expose me to the very thing that hurts me? It’s like poisoning someone because you’re afraid of them being poisoned. He did what he did because he loved me.

Loves me.

He’s in there somewhere. I won’t think he’s not. I won’t.

“Unh,” Eric says. Suddenly his body goes rigid and then he coughs loudly. A ball of black bile rolls out of his mouth, writhing with worms. It rolls down his chin and beard, then down his overalls before landing wetly on the concrete beneath it.

“Gross, Eric,” I tell him. Then I go over to him and reach in his pocket to get his drooly towel, which thankfully is still tucked in a pocket. I wipe his mouth carefully.

“Unh,” Eric says, his tongue reaching out toward the ceiling.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Stop it.”

His tongue waggles for a second before calming down. I finish wiping his face clean of the little worms before tucking the drooly towel back in his overalls and then going to sit down.

“Unh,” Eric says.

“I don’t know what to do either,” I answer.

I don’t know how long we’re kept in the cell before Squint comes for us. It might have been a day or two. It’s impossible to keep track of time. The rain doesn’t hardly let up in all that time. I try to get Eric to sit and relax, but he won’t. He continues to stretch with all of his strength toward the rain and water he can’t possibly reach. I give up trying to get him to relax. The desire for water is far too elemental. It seems to be the only thing that makes him aware. I just sit there with my back against the cold concrete, thinking, trying to figure some way for us to get out of there. But when Squint comes for us again, I still haven’t got a clue.

Squint comes alone, with a torch. His dark hair is slicked back and his clothes are new and clean. He smells like soap. When I smell it, I can’t help but feel jealous and a little angry. I can’t remember the last time I was able to wash with soap. It seems a small thing, but freshly cleaned, I feel more human. Squint opens the padlock with a little brass key that I see he slips into his front shirt pocket and then looks at me without emotion. “The Doctor wants to see you,” he says.

A feel a shiver of fear and a desperation takes me. I picture myself wildly flying out the door, and my muscles tense to leap. But if I do that, I will almost certainly be killed. Even if I do make it, I’ll leave Eric alone. I have to do this if we’re both going to survive. Eric would do it for me.

“Come on,” Squint tells me. “Get up. Don’t make me get you.” He says this last in a dangerous tone. I can’t feel my legs very well, but I get to my feet somehow.

“What does he want?” I ask. I hate that my voice is shaking from fear, but I can’t hide it.

“You’ll see,” Squint says. He steps back from the door. “Move slow.”

I’m moving forward, but I’m trembling, and, hating myself a little for it, I hear myself whimper a little. A real whimper. It escapes from me before I can stop it. When Squint hears it, he chuckles.

“You oughta be scared,” he says and gives me a shove.

I see the door shut behind me, a final glimpse of Eric with his legs splayed out in front of him, then Squint’s face, smirking a little now, and before I know it, before I’m even close to ready, there’s a door, and I have to push it open. A short hallway, flickering from torchlight, and then another door, this one bigger, with a handle. I hear Squint tell me to open it. I hear him saying it, but I can’t do it, my hands are shaking. I feel a shove at my back and another chuckle from Squint, and I watch as I move my arm and then my hands touch the handle. I can’t feel. I can’t feel anything I’m so scared. I hear the click as I push the handle and then I’m stepping into blinding light. I close my eyes the light is so painful. I hear the distant thrumming of a generator. The room is hot.

I can’t focus. I can’t see anything in the light, but I feel Squint’s steel grip on my arm. His fingers are sickeningly thin, like the branches of trees in the winter. I feel myself dragged forward and then shoved into a wooden chair. My wrists are put inside cold steel shackles. I smell something familiar, something horrible, like old urine.

“Thank you,” says a low, calm voice. “You can leave.”

“Sure thing, Doc,” says Squint.

I blink. My eyes are beginning to focus. I hear a steel door shut and I know that Squint has left me alone with the Doctor.

“Hello,” I hear. “My name is Doctor Bragg.”

His face is the first thing I see. It’s lean and long and reminds me of a lizard somehow. His nose is squashed and flat, like it’s been broken in the past. The Doctor has long, glossy black hair that goes down to his shoulders. His eyes are heavy-lidded, like he’s tired or bored, and strangely lifeless, as if nothing in the world really interests him anymore. Even though he’s looking at me, his eyes seem to focus somewhere behind me, like he’s looking through me. He’s young, probably Eric’s age.

“Good evening,” he says.

Behind him, over his shoulder, I see the woman who was on the cart with Eric. I must’ve been sleeping harder than I thought. They came and got her without waking me up. She’s strapped down with wide canvas straps to an aluminum table. Even her head is strapped down so she can’t move. Her one good eye is facing me, and I can see she’s staring up at the ceiling through dark eyes, still alive.

“I hope they’ve not treated you too badly,” the Doctor says. His face drops. “I know what we do here is not kind, but there’s no need to be cruel.” A smile flickers across his face like a wind through grass. “I’ll allow what I do is not civilized, exactly, but that’s no excuse for incivility.” I get the feeling these little jokes are rehearsed and he’s testing them. Although I’m trembling with fear, I try to smile, try to make some connection with this guy that might help me. “There,” he says, seeing my smile. “This does not have to be a terrible ordeal. We’re not going to cause you any pain, I swear it.” He holds up one blue-gloved hand and smiles again. This time the smile stays, greasily, upon his face.

“Wh-wh-at,” I stammer. I breathe in and try to control myself. My mouth is horribly dry. I close my eyes, concentrate. Try to listen to my own heartbeat. Keep it together, Birdie. If I lose it, I won’t be a help to anyone, not me, not Eric, not anyone. I open my eyes and wet my lips with a dry tongue. “What are you going to do to me?” I ask. I feel myself sweating all over.

Doctor Bragg seems to be waiting for something. I have a feeling that I need to let him decide the rhythm of the conversation or there probably won’t be one. While he’s thinking or waiting or doing whatever the hell he’s doing, I notice that we’re in a large room, like a garage, with a high ceiling, crisscrossed by metal girders. On the sides of the room are long benches and shelves that disappear into shadows. In the corner of the room behind me, just barely visible in my line of sight, I see there’s another door, opposite to the one we entered. In front of me, behind the woman on the operating table, there are rows of metal shelves. A menagerie of glass jars sit on the shelves filled with some dark liquid. I can’t stop shaking. I’m shackled tight to the chair.