Peter Liu - Bald New World

I decided to ask him directly. “Why do you think I’m here?”

He lifted his staff and pressed it against my neck. “You’re like all the other sinners, hoping for a moment of perverse pleasure by corrupting our innocents with a display of your genitals!”

They took me for a flasher? It was such a strange accusation I didn’t know how to reply.

“How did you find out about our service?” Mardi demanded. “How much do you know about Yillah?”

“What’s Yillah?”

A lash came for my arm and it felt like it tore off flesh. “Don’t pretend to be ignorant! I know you’ve heard of our village. You’re not the first to try and corrupt our maidens! What stories did you hear? That we were a village of women ready to be taken for your carnal desires?”

I recognized the glow in his eyes all too well, the illogical fury, the insecure fear of being proven a fool, and the small-brained idiocy. It was what I’d grown up with, saying whatever I could to stop the beatings my biological father inflicted. Something inside of me hardened. “That’s right. I came to steal all your women. I knew once they saw me, they wouldn’t be able to resist. So what? You think you could provide pleasure for them, old man?”

He seemed taken aback by my change in tone. “At least now you’ve spoken the truth.”

“Where are all the ladies? I can’t wait to introduce them to the ways of the world.”

“Is that why you made films that were pornographic and a corruptive influence on the innocents of the world?”

“I never filmed a porno,” I said, realizing that if he knew my name, he could have easily searched the movies I made.

“Your recent film,” and he consulted a list. “Rodenticide featured a prostitute in the leading role, did it not?”

“She was a good prostitute,” I said. “She helps the main character in his protest to save the lives of rats.”

“You would value the life of a rat more than a human being?”

“The movie wasn’t putting a value on rats versus men, but saying when you devalue any life, then—” but I was cut off by another lash.

I gritted my teeth.

“The list of your films goes on as does the sexual explicitness and gratuitous violence. You are a man that specializes in beautifying violence and shamelessly exploiting what should be kept private between a man and woman. Are you a married man?”

“I was.”

“So you divorced your wife?”

“Yes.”

“Was it for marital infidelities?”

“No.”

“Then why did you divorce?”

I stared at him. “What?”

“Don’t you even know why you divorced your wife?”

“I know why I divorced her, but it’s none of your business.”

“I already know why. All you movie types are the same. Lust, desire, envy. You wanted other women, did you not?” My fists tensed as he continued. “It is against the laws of God and Yillah for man to be with more than one woman! Marriage is a sacred oath you take before Heaven and you desecrated it. For that, you deserve death a million times over.”

“Don’t bring my ex-wife into this.”

“What do you care? You divorced her.”

“Shut up.”

“Does the truth bother you?”

“What do you know about the truth? You’re a coward who hits a man that’s tied up,” I said. “You don’t deserve my breath.” I tried to spit but my mouth was too dry and all I could do was make the gesture.

Inside, I was fuming, so angry, I could barely contain my breath.

I guess my gesture pissed him off because his whip lashed me again. I wanted to scream, but I bit my lip and glowered at him. He whipped me again and again. I guffawed as hard as I could. “Go ahead. Kill me if you have to. I’ve already corrupted all your women. Secretly, they’re fantasizing about me. Oh, Nick, take me now.”

“Shut your blasphemous mouth or I will rip your tongue out!”

“Go ahead! You think I’m afraid of death!”

He was about to lash me again but stopped. “Your will is still strong. Let’s see how long it lasts.” He put out the candles, leaving me in darkness. He slammed a door shut as he left. I was relieved until I thought of Linda and I tried to remember why exactly our marriage had fallen apart. All that came to me were memories of the good times we enjoyed together. Her fingers used to quiver when she slept. She’d watch Chinese drama shows until six in the morning, addicted to the historical whimsies of some ancient dynasty with princesses and consorts vying for power. She didn’t like pillows and sometimes in the morning, she used her hand to make a small pillow for her head. Often, she’d be smiling in her sleep, and every morning, she had an unusual tale to tell from the meanderings of her subconscious during the night. I wished I could hold her the way I used to, feel her legs against mine, rub her back and hear her breathe softly. At least Mardi’s exit meant I could dose off.

II.

The itching and my burning stomach woke me. I had to use the bathroom really badly and the mosquito bites over my body were tingling. I wanted to scratch them but I had no way of relieving the itch. As for my stomach, it felt like it was going to explode. I hadn’t eaten anything in a while and I could feel the chemicals in my stomach burning their way through excess. There was no other option other than to piss on the floor in front of me. My bowels pushed and tugged and I tried to hold back. But eventually, the muscles in my stomach couldn’t contain themselves and a stream of diarrhea splattered down the wall and my legs. It was disgusting and smelled terrible, the liquid waste forming chunks along my calves. But it warmed my cold legs so I was grateful for that reprieve. Countless others must have suffered the same fate here if they were imprisoned in the same manner.

Now that my stomach had relief, the itchiness aggravated. There were bumps all over my skin and the allergic reaction was causing me to tremble. I shook and twisted and tried anything I could do to make it stop. But that only made things worse. These tiny blood-sucking insects made my life hell by a hundred itches. I had to think about something else, had to divert my mind. Except the only question that came to mind was, are you ready to die, Nick Guan? I didn’t know the answer. Yes, earlier, when Mardi had been whipping me, I didn’t care and would have invited it. But now that I was immersed in darkness, I wondered about the things I should have done in my life. The pain from his lashes stung bad enough. The cold numbed the lacerations.

My stomach grumbled — hungry. You just took a dump , I protested. But the growls made its grumpiness evident. I was also thirsty. I tried to remember the torture-preparation classes we had in the army. It was a classic technique to enervate prisoners, deny them food and water to weaken their will. I could probably handle a day or two of this, but more? What would happen, covered in this pitch black? They’d warned about hallucinations. Who would I see? The last time I ate was that crab and the memory of that sauce still brought back the burning sensation. Larry, man, what am I going to do? But Larry was dead. Would anyone be looking for me? Maybe some of my photography crew. Then again, they knew I tended to go on trips with Larry and vanished for long periods of time. After they found Larry, would they search for me? But who would think to look out in the middle of nowhere? It was times like this I wished they’d have allowed the credit agencies their way, adding computerized chips under our skin to track us. The religious groups had fought fervidly against their implementation, certain it meant the mark of the beast, 666, the sign that a person had turned against the Church. It was meant to make shopping easy but so many of the fanatics burned themselves and committed sacrificial suicide, the companies gave up. Is that what John dreamt of two millennium ago when he wrote Revelations? At least with the chip, anyone looking for me could have found me with a simple scan.