Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

“Come sit,” she says. It’s more like an order than a request and something in me rebels against that. I just stand there.

“Can I get something to eat first?” I ask. “I’ve been walking all day.”

“Believe me,” the Good Prince says. “You’re not going to want to do this on a full stomach.” She taps the chair. “You can eat all you want after.” She laughs then. It’s almost a cackle really, like something a witch might do. I don’t know what’s coming, but I know I’m not going to like it. The Good Prince taps on the chair a third time and this time I move obediently and sit down.

“Why do they call you the Good Prince?” I ask her. I’m stalling and I can tell that the Good Prince realizes it immediately.

She ignores the question. “This is what is going to happen,” she begins, her blind eyes fixed toward me but somehow not at me. “First, you’re going to get all those horrible clothes off him. All of them. We’re going to have to burn them,” she says. “Then you’re going to pick up this cup.” She points to the aluminum mug on the table. “And fill it with salt water from this jug.” She points vaguely toward the old plastic jug. “You’re going to make Eric drink as much as he’ll drink, but no more than this gallon.”

“Salt water?” I look over at Eric. “Won’t that hurt him?”

“Hurts the Worm worse,” she answers. “The salt water kills the worms. Right now his stomach is full of them, and from there they get into his blood and all through his system. We got to throw water on the fire, understand?”

I nod, but then remember that she’s practically blind. “Yes, I understand,” I say to her.

“After he’s done with that,” she continues, “you’re going to wash him from head to toe with that bucket of soapy water. I mean you got to wash him good, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I answer. I’ve never used the word “ma’am” before, but it seems appropriate for the Good Prince.

“When that’s over,” she says, “we’ll get him a clean robe.”

“Then what?”

“Then we wait.”

My lips are quivering. I never would have thought of salt water. “Thank you,” I say.

“Okay, Birdie,” she says to me. “Better get to it. I know it ain’t pleasant, but the longer you wait, the worse off you’ll be.” She sits back. Her eyes palely glow in the light from the kerosene lamp. For a moment, I don’t want to do any of this. I don’t want to strip Eric naked, I don’t want to scrub him clean, I don’t want to make him drink salt water. I wish someone else could do it. But I know they can’t. I know I’m the one who has to risk it. No one else should have to put themselves in danger of a scratch or a bite or even just a bit of black bile flying in their mouth. I’m the only one here who will do this for him.

Eric needs me.

Taking a deep breath, my heart pumping, I push myself up from the chair and walk toward the jail cell.

I start with the bandana around his eyes. The cloth peels off his eyes, bringing some long, pale worms with it. I fling the bandana to the corner of the jail cell with shivering disgust. In the flickering lamp light, Eric’s eyes seem impossibly dark. Immediately his eyes begin to leak a black, stinking fluid. They trace horrid lines down his face like black tears.

“Unh,” Eric says and his black tongue snakes out to lick at the liquid as it passes. I turn away in disgust. I feel my stomach clench, and I step back and breathe.

“You can do it,” I hear the Good Prince tell me. “Keep going.”

I take a deep breath to steady myself.

Next I try to take off his shirt, but Eric won’t keep his arms up. Even after I unbutton it, he won’t let me pull the shirt away. Finally I give up trying to do it gently. There’s a long ripping sound as I tear the shirt away from him. When I see Eric’s bare chest, I turn away with a gasp. His skin is gray and rough and stretched impossibly thin over his rib cage. He looks more like a skeleton than a human being. His skin is covered in tiny red blotches, some them of leaking a gray, thick liquid. I begin to cry quietly. There’s hardly anything left of him. I’m shaking and trembling as I toss the shirt into the corner with the bandana. I take a few gasping breaths and then turn back to Eric.

Eric’s slouched forward, his mouth open and dark. His pants are hanging on his hips, his tightened belt the only thing keeping them up. I shudder thinking of touching his bare skin. But I have to do it. I have to do it. I step forward and grasp his belt. Quickly I unclasp it and pull it loose. When his pants fall, the smell is so horrific that I step back, stumble, and fall to the hard ground. I get one look of him standing there with his pants around his ankles, his legs covered in filth and squirming with worms, his dark pubic area horribly recessed, and I turn on my stomach and begin to crawl away, heaving. I’m sobbing and gagging at the same time. For a long time, I sit in the corner, hugging my legs, my head down so I don’t have to look at what Eric has become.

“I know it’s hard, honey,” the Good Prince says, “but you got to keep going.”

“Yeah,” I breathe. “Yeah.” I want to say more, but I’m afraid if I keep talking, I’ll break down. I’ll just start crying and won’t be able to stop. I would rather do anything and be anywhere than where I am. I don’t want to see what he’s become. But there’s no choice. Eric wouldn’t give up on me.

I take a deep breath and pull myself up, feeling weak. Stepping forward, I gently pull Eric toward me. He stumbles a little, but finally walks out of his pants. With his clothes off, his stench is overpowering. He’s surrounded by a sphere of putrescence that I have to step inside. Recoiling at the feel of his dry, cold skin, I gently push Eric to a stop and then back away, kicking his pants into the corner with the other clothes. Without looking at him, I walk to the mop, wanting to wash him.

The Good Prince hears me grab the mop. “Not yet, honey,” she says. “The salt water first.”

“Why?” I ask her. I want to wash Eric badly, to get rid of the stinking filth, to make it easier.

“Salt water first,” she repeats gently.

I want to argue, but I don’t. She knows better. I know the right thing to do is what she says, but I also don’t want to approach Eric again. I try not to look at him as I pour the salt water into the mug and then walk back into the cell. Finally I have to look. Eric is standing naked in the cell, his jaw open, his eyes oozing dark liquid over his face. His hair is tangled and crazy on his head, like a bird’s nest. With his gray skin, he looks like some troll or goblin out of a nightmare. His tongue hangs indecently out of his mouth. I step forward, holding my breath against his stench. Usually when you approach a living person, you can feel their heat, but with Eric it’s the opposite. He seems to radiate cold. I step forward without wanting to, and, putting a hand on his chest to steady him, I begin to pour the salt water on his tongue.

Immediately, Eric lunges toward the liquid. “Unh!” he cries. “Unh!” I make a face at his disgusting black tongue, and pour the salt water into his mouth. He swallows eagerly, making horrible gurgling sounds. When the can is empty, I go back to refill it. Eric stays where he is, his head pointed upward as if expecting water to drop from the ceiling. “Unh! Unh!”

He takes three cups of salt water before I begin to hear the deep, gurgling sound rising from Eric’s stomach. Eric turns his head away suddenly and then takes a step back. I watch with concern. Eric’s head jerks back and then I see the muscles in his stomach constrict. He coughs for a moment and then there’s another gurgling sound. I step back in disgust just as he leans forward and hacks up a massive ball of dark liquid, pocked with white balls of worms. They aren’t wriggling as usual. They’re coiled on themselves. The ball hits the floor and lands like a dropped scoop of demented ice cream. Eric hacks up another, this one even larger. It lands with a sickening splat on the cement floor. Eric picks his head up toward me, black bile running from his nose and mouth and even the corner of his eyes. He hacks up a third ball, this time it rolls gruesomely down his chest before it oozes onto the floor. I stumble back, and start vomiting in the corner, all over the clothes I took from him. The both of us are hacking and vomiting for a while then. When I turn back, Eric is covered with black bile and dead worms from his mouth all the way to his legs. My stomach painfully clenches, but there’s nothing left to come up.