Steve Tem: Ubo

NOW IN UBO, he felt as if he’d not just fallen into but passed through the rabbit hole.

Every resident had a similar memory of the journey here: a dream of dry, chitinous wings crossing the moon, the gigantic insects so like roaches or cicadas dropping swiftly over the houses of the neighborhood, and then hooking him with a spur through the base of the thumb, yanking him out of his life for a trip into the distant stars. They all had that same impossible recollection, some sort of shared nightmare or mass hallucination. Each had passed out or had suffered some gap in memory, although many were lucky enough to have gone to bed or nodded off reading or watching television. For some there was a vague recollection that a window had been left open or forced open from the outside, or in a few cases the walls of the house or apartment had actually dissolved, providing easy access for their kidnapping.

Specifics varied. For some it was all the eyes looking at them. For who could trust eyes like that, staring at you out of the dark on the other side of the bed? You could never know what really occurred in the stream of thoughts passing uninterrupted, even in sleep, behind such eyes.

For others it was an obsession with fingernails, how at any moment those nails might turn into claws and dig into flesh. Some claimed they’d seen nails lengthen and expand, turning into a hard sheathing covering hands, arms, torsos.

Most recalled despair that they might never find their way home again.

In a few instances they had had a notion that they’d done something terrible that day, or had wanted to, or had first realized that they were capable of performing some dreadful act.

Dark membranes and scabrous exoskeleton passed through walls and windows in some manner magical or scientific like a deck of dusky and baroquely‑ornamented cards fanning themselves from one hidden world into the next. Then, spreading their wings over the bed where he curled against the love of his life, they’d separated him from his wife of ten years and yanked him out of the world.

In almost all these memories long horned lobes ascended into the broad ebony heads framed by multi‑faceted eye globes. From each side of the head protruded vicious‑looking mandibles. Their forelegs and back legs were armed with jagged protrusions, and their thick black and dull‑gray hides were spotted with barbs.

There was also the smell which wasn’t quite a smell, and the sense of a scummy dark effusion that made you want to avoid contact at all cost.

Some of the residents claimed to have been awake during the final stage of the journey. They said the name Ubo came from an aerial view of the ruined complex that made up this experimental hell which shaped the letters U, B, and O. Daniel had no memory of this, no memory of waking up at all during the long journey, and yet he too had known the name immediately upon awakening. Strange as the story seemed, it had always rung true.

They all wore skin-tight uniforms the color of snail skin, with a dark mottled pattern over the shoulders and back. Daniel thought they looked like animals preparing to shed their hides. They gathered in small groups to wait and pass the time. These groups tended to go everywhere together, eating together, sleeping in close proximity like tribes. And each tribe seemed to have its own particular conversational obsessions.

It was the stench of the place that originally convinced Daniel that Ubo was no dream, even though “dreamlike” was an impression he was never quite able to shed. But no dream could have been that extended or detailed, that vivid. And in the early months of shock and confusion after his arrival, those inescapable smells upon awakening reminded him where he was.

He’d been there long enough that familiarity had lessened the effect of those terrible smells, but they could not be ignored. Picking out individual olfactory sources was a futile game, but one his tribe played from time to time.

“A slaughterhouse, I think,” was John’s assessment. John was huge and bearded, an unusually dramatic presence in their relatively small community. “I visited one in Berlin in my youth. You never forget the lingering smell of blood as it turns, and this underlying rot because the facility could never be completely cleaned. The animals, too, when they became frightened, gave off this peculiar smell. Ammonia, I believe. People do as well, of course, when they know they’re about to die. They piss themselves.” He laughed loudly. Daniel always thought of him as their Falstaff: larger than life, a drunken and deranged Santa Claus type, as played by Orson Welles. But with something worn and tired deep behind the twinkle in the eye. What was the line? “We have heard the chimes at Midnight.” Henry the Fourth Part Two. Whatever Shakespeare had meant by that, Daniel was sure it had happened to all of them.

“P—please, we just a—ate,” Bogart said muddily. His real name was Alan, but assigning alternate names to each member of his small group had become a habit of Daniel’s. But it was also self-protection; it took the sting out when they disappeared, which they all did eventually—either they wouldn’t come back from a scenario or they wouldn’t be there when he woke up in the morning. There was no particular logic behind the name assignments—a vague resemblance, perhaps, or the result of some anecdote. Daniel didn’t know these men well enough to suggest they were anything like their namesakes. But there was a power in naming, even if you didn’t know your secret name. Somehow over time the names began to fit in odd ways, as if he had sensed something about them he couldn’t have put into words. Bogart had turned out to be as secretive as a gangster, and wouldn’t tell Daniel his real name when they’d first met. “I’d r—rather not say. The guards…” He shifted his dark eyes. “They m—might hear.”

Charles, their red-headed comrade with the little beard, became Lenin in Daniel’s mind. Lenin thought Bogart might be an infamous criminal, perhaps even famous enough they’d be asked to play him at some point. Daniel just figured that Bogart was afraid if the roaches knew his name they’d have more power over him. Daniel was pretty sure the roaches already knew everybody’s name. They knew everything else.

“You should know where your food comes from, my friend. It shows respect for the animal,” Falstaff said.

Lenin made a disgusted noise. “Do you really think that pink protein paste they feed us came from any living thing? From some chemist’s vat, most likely.”

“Sewer smells, what else could it be?” Walter said. Daniel had assigned Gandhi as Walter’s new name. The resemblance was approximate—Daniel doubted that Gandhi had ever been this thin. “Piss and shit, obviously. Don’t tell me that after all we’ve been through you’re too shy to say the words!” Gandhi stretched out his neck and gestured broadly with his arms in emphasis. Daniel noticed the scars running lengthwise on his wrists, spreading up his neck from his chest like flesh-colored vines.