Peter Liu - Bald New World

“Are you here?” Mardi demanded.

“Wh-where???”

“Hose him.”

Doused in water, doused in urine, doused in unusual memories, I heard my toes complaining about all the blood gathering in my calves. My legs were tired of standing upright and my body was drooping against the wall. I dreamt of hair. I was a little boy again with a full head of hair. It was covered with dandruff but I still hated using shampoo because soap got in my eyes and made them sting.

“God is merciful, but only to those who seek His mercy. Did you ever cheat on your wife?”

“Never!” I shouted.

But when I stared carefully, no one was there. Had anyone asked me a question? Other lovers were never part of our equation. It might have been easier if they were. My problem was that I believed in the idea of unlimited opportunities. I believed that no matter what happened in the past, the future could be changed. Had I been overly optimistic?

“It’s a common fault,” Mardi said.

“If only I could have provided the basics.”

Stuck in a cubicle for SolTech wasn’t so bad, but all everyone around me did was complain and moan and that made me miserable too and we fed off our negativity until all of us hated being at work and compared it to digital prostitution when prostitution in its old form was a horrific nightmare nothing like what we had to endure. The corporations wanted to maximize profit, so in my second year they reduced our cubicle space to the size of a box. We had to stand in an area smaller than my closet at home, vispads over our eyes and optical keypads we could type on using audio, mental stimuli, or our fingers. Standing all day made my feet hurt the same way they did in the present except it was worse now because at least then, I could go home and lie in bed with Linda and she’d scratch my back to put me to sleep and I’d pat her on her shoulders until she got droopy. She used to joke she was a fox fairy and asked if I wanted to see a magic trick, her best being her ability to splay her toes. SolTech was deemed one of the top ten happiest places to work in the world, and they maintained that by continually monitoring everything we did through cortical sensors and paying us only for the minutes we spent actually doing work. Even bathroom breaks were docked which made every urge a financial dilemma.

Candle lights out. Light back on. Light off.

I had to use the restroom but I didn’t want to lose out on fifteen minutes of pay.

It was Larry to the rescue. “You want to be my cinematogr—”

“Those films were filth!” Mardi clamored.

Whispers were everywhere. I remembered all the hair that had fallen out onto my bed. Politicians were telling us not to be afraid. Panic had set out. The days right after the Baldification were scary. Buildings were in blazes, eaten by flames that were slowly chomping them up. A variety of screaming cried out in a variety of languages. I recorded everything I could, particularly the gangs of people running along the sidewalk and destroying property. The army jumped in with their armored suits and gunships, and it was also the beginning of the 24-hour drone watch above the skies. I thought it was so cool and wanted to join the army because it reminded me of the videogames I played.

“Did you take to liquor?” Mardi asked in a harmless tone.

Was he really in front of me? I needed a drink. I’d have drunk my own piss if I could have shot it into my mouth.

Larry took me out every night after the divorce. I didn’t want to talk about Linda, didn’t want to tell him anything. He didn’t ask. He just chased after women, all sorts of women. Skinny, buxom, short, tall. Different nationalities, different religions, different politics. He was a paragon of equality. Didn’t mind that I would moan and whimper and get so drunk that I wanted to curse the world. I didn’t want to talk to any other women. I just wanted to see Linda again and any woman that talked to me received my wrathful scorn. “Leave me alone. I don’t want your company. I don’t want to talk to you. I don’t care about your problems!”

“You’re stuck with me,” Mardi answered.

“How many days have we been here?” I asked.

“Not enough,” he replied. It felt like a month. It might have been less than a week. Every time I blinked, Mardi was there, or he wasn’t. I thought of Larry taking me out despite my grumpiness, despite the fact that I ruined the mood for many of the women he was interested in.

“Sorry, man.”

He’d grin and wave it off. “I didn’t like her anyways.”

IV.

The hose woke me again, but this time, it was different. They were putting clothes on me. They dragged me outside, carried me up some stairs, then through a hallway. I felt like I was made of straw and my bones were mush, although it was a boon to finally have the restraints removed from my arms. When we stepped outside, the sun attacked me with light and my eyes felt overwhelmed by brightness. Even with my lids shut, the light tore at my sockets and tried to burn their way in. I felt nauseous until they put me on a stage.

“For three weeks, this infidel has resisted our attempts to lead him toward the righteous path. Let it never be said we don’t offer a fair trial!” Mardi yelled into a speaker. There were guards to either side of me holding whips. I saw the contours of people, heard them jeering, except I couldn’t see their faces because it was too bright. I never hated the sun so much. It was my enemy. Scientists said the sun had something to do with the Baldification, the burst in radiation, solar spikes that disrupted our telecommunications periodically. I just wanted to punch the sun in the face, let it feel my hands as nuclear implosions, scrape away the hydrogen bursts and swallow it like an overly spiced jalapeno, spitting out the seeds. The seeds would spring from the dead earth and form flowers of discontent that would blossom into a hundred reborn stars outlined as constellations of vagabonds. We’d rage a war, sun versus the stars of the earth and duke it out. Not for dominance, but the darkness of anonymity, the billions who sacrificed themselves so that other suns could burn more brightly.

Mardi lifted a stone that was the size of my hand and a whole lot thicker.

“You refuse to repent. Fine. We leave justice to God. If you can carry this rock with your mouth all the way to the end of our main road without using your hands, you are free to leave. But if you fail, then you must repent of your sins. You will be given three chances. Do you accept?”

Was he serious? Carrying a rock in my mouth seemed like an easy enough task. “I accept,” I replied.

A guard tied my hands in front of me. Mardi stuffed the stone into my mouth and it barely fit. They had sanded the rock to be slippery and I had to clamp down hard with my teeth to keep it from slipping out. Its size was already taking a toll on my jaw. My strong clench caused pain to shoot up my gums and my teeth felt sore within ten seconds of biting. Tooth pains were the worst and were already giving me a headache. They may as well have put needles in my mouth. I could barely focus and when the people started jeering me, the migraine intensified. Distracted for a moment, the stone dropped out of my mouth onto the dusty road. I was whipped twice.

“Do you repent sinner?!” Mardi asked.

My back felt like it’d been burnt and I dropped to my knees. My joints creaked and I picked up the rock. I tried to stand, but my legs betrayed me. They were too weak. I focused on the scalding pain in my back, and willed myself up. The rock was covered with dirt, but I had to put it in my mouth. The coarse particles of dirt rolled in my tongue and I wanted to gag, but I thought of that whip and I thought of having to surrender to these nutcases. I clamped down with my teeth again and took a step forward. Another. I’d just taken a total of two steps when I needed to make thousands. The thought horrified me. I forced myself to put it out of my head. Don’t think about the end. Just think about the next step . It was a cliché, but it was all I had.