Ben Bedard - The World Without Flags

Wordlessly and silently, Randy leaves me alone finally. I hear the steel door shut and the echo reverberate through the warehouse. I make sure he’s gone a long time before I start to cry as quietly as I can, with my head buried deep in my arms.

Drained by tears, sleep begins to take me. Knowing that I might never awake, I struggle against on the edge of sleep, thinking desperately of Eric, of Pest, of all the people at the Homestead I will never see again. I think of the feeling of a warm breeze against my skin, the taste of sweet cider on a brisk autumn night, the softness of a bed, the fields glimmering with fireflies in the summer, the sound of the ckickadees in the forest. My heart is lacerated by the knowledge that I will never know it again. I will never awake. I fight to stay conscious, to meet my end fully aware, to feel the fever of the Worm take me, to even enjoy these, the last sensations that I will ever know. It is all precious, even the pain. But the last of the drug and the exhaustion and despair combine to push me into what might be my last night of dreaming, my last night of existing in this world. The soft obscurity of dreaming accepts me into the last hours of my life.

I’m walking down a road. A dark road. Fires flicker like candles at the tips of the pine trees. The forest is all in flames, but it somehow burns gently, even peacefully. I am overcome with thirst and the thought of water consumes me. Beside me, as usual, my father and mother walk, guiding me forward. We walk through a tunnel of smoke, flame, and fire, my mother humming, my father’s quiet presence comforting beside me.

At the end of the tunnel, Eric is waiting for me. His eyes are full of worms, all undulating toward me, but he stands the way he used to stand, strong and steady, aware and himself. When we get to him, he turns away and waves us to follow him. All four of us walk through the smoke and fire. Then we stop. All of them turn to me, their eyes dripping white worms that drop to their feet where they turn to wisps of smoke. They stare at me as if waiting.

“Think, Birdie,” Eric says, his eyes a wriggling mass of white.

“You can do it, honey,” my father tells me in his low voice.

I look down at my feet. Worms fall to the ground. I watch as they swirl into smoke until I am standing knee deep in a fog of smoke.

When I wake up, I blink for a moment in disbelief. I rub my eyes and check my hands. No blood. I feel my head. No fever. I blink, searching myself for signs of weakness, dizziness, nausea. Nothing! It’s been enough time. I swallowed a ball of worms the size of a peach! I should be taken by the Worm by now. I should be infected! Above me the skylight is bright with morning. My heart stops and then races ahead. I’m still alive! I’m still me! I leap to my feet and almost cry out in joy. Instead I make a little squeal of delight and jump in place.

The elation doesn’t last long. Maybe the fever will start a little later. Maybe I’ll be dead in just another few hours. I check my forehead again. Nothing. I feel fine. In truth, I feel great—alive , energetic, healthy. But I should be…gone. I should be wherever it is that Eric has vanished, deep within himself, if he’s there at all.

Think, Birdie.

I remember resuscitating Eric when he dived into the river, the black liquid he vomited into my mouth. How wasn’t I infected by that? How wasn’t I infected when Eric coughed up on me? After all the contact I’ve had with Eric, after all the times I’ve wiped him clean, shouldn’t some little drop have infected me? Some people are infected by the smallest scratch, the lightest cut by a ragged, infected fingernail. How have I avoided it all this time? How am I not infected?

In my dreams, my mother is always holding me, her eyes bleeding. My father’s eyes are bleeding. But I made it, I was safe. I think of all my dreams, how thirsty I always am, how I see through fog and smoke, as if through a layer of mud.

Or a layer of worms , I think suddenly.

I’m not infected because I’ve already had the Worm! The revelation comes to me with a feeling like my head has grown seven times larger. I feel dizzy and sit down on my cage floor. That’s what my parents were doing! They were taking care of me because I was sick with the Worm! My father was telling me I could make it because I was infected! I had always thought he was telling me I could make it across the country, but he was encouraging me to beat the infection! I’ve already been infected! I can’t be infected again!

The hope that I feel is almost too much for me. I lean against the wall, weak with relief. Any other person in my place would have been infected a dozen times taking care of Eric. Any other person with a bellyful of eye worms would have had a fever long ago. I feel like I’ve been pulled from the edge of a pit. It’s like a whole new life, like being born again.

I look around at my cage with new eyes. I don’t see it as my coffin.

Now I’m looking for a way to escape. I’m alive.

I’m thinking.

The greatest advantage you can have in this world is when you’re the only one who knows. And I’m the only one here who knows that I can’t be infected. To Randy, to Doctor Bragg, I will succumb to the Worm at any moment. They have no idea that I’m healthy as a horse. If I’m going to escape, I have to use that to my advantage.

Watching the steel door nervously, anyone could come in at any moment, I sit down on the cement floor and search my body. I feel the metal on the zipper of my jeans, and smile with excitement. I begin to twist and pull at the zipper until the metal tab finally comes free. I lift it up and examine it. The edges where it broke free are sharp and serrated, just as I hoped. I roll up my pant leg, take the gleaming metal tab of the zipper, and, without thinking too much, drag it across my leg, grimacing at the pain. It’s not a very deep scratch, but the blood comes to the surface. I dab my fingers in it and then rub my eyes with the blood, blinking and tearing up as best I can. I keep repeating this until I feel like my eyes are a bloody wreck, like I’ve been crying tears of blood. Then I roll down my pant legs, slip the zipper tab into my pocket and lie down.

Then, thinking of Eric, I get up, stand with one shoulder lower than the other, let my jaw hang open.

“Agh,” I groan. I clear my throat and try again. “Ergh,” I say.

I hear the clanking of the door being opened and I let the focus of my eyes go wide.

Get ready, I tell myself. Time for the show of my life.

The door opens.

“Yeah, you’re right, she’s not dead,” says Randy over his shoulder as he walks through the door. He strides in and then stands behind the bars, looking at me, smiling. “Don’t worry, you’re still cute,” he tells me in a low voice, winking at me. I struggle to contain a shiver a revulsion at his words. It’s hard, but I do it. I remain motionless.

Doctor Bragg walks in behind him and examines me coldly. “She’s turned very cleanly,” he says. He thinks for a moment, his gaze on me like a spotlight. “There’s hardly any sign of the sickness.” His eyes study me from head to foot. “Excellent,” he says at last. “She will endure many weeks.”

Randy laughs. “You’re a gruesome son of a bitch, you know that?”

Doctor Bragg looks at Randy sourly. “Not all of us have the luxury of inaction.”

“None of us have any luxury at all,” Randy responds to him with equal bitterness.

The Doctor looks at Randy for a moment longer, as if carefully measuring the appropriate response. Apparently deciding it best to drop the entire subject, the Doctor sighs and turns back toward me. “I’ll need a sample,” he says, “several of them.”