Nano Bytes

«For a plotter and a schemer, you’d think you’d have figured out a less trying way of crawling out of your own delusions,” the deer said.

«Yeah, what’s with that, I wonder?» There. He’d found it. He picked up the nearly perfectly round piece of red clay, and squeezed.

The desert disappeared and in its place was the world he’d left behind. Not too much more enticing, all things considered. The high chaparral country was nearly as dry and as lonely looking. The half dead shrubs and squat trees mostly rubbed him the wrong way whenever he brushed up against them. Got rid of the dead skin cells real good though, which cut down on the need for bathing. Mindful of the painful grooming in store for him, he sucked in a deep breath and took his first step forward.

«I guess we’re heading towards the Airstream,” the doe said, absently overturning a rock with a front hoof. «Whose idea was it to stick a mobile home on a piece of land that makes it visible in all directions for hundreds of miles?»

«Maybe eyesores were all the rage once upon a time. And nah, definitely not headed towards the mobile home. The other way.»

«We keep going that way, we’ll be in real desert soon enough.»

«That’s the idea. Supposed to be an airplane graveyard out there. Hoping I can get one of them running.»

«Oh, no. Bad enough I have to figure out how to pivot my backside inside of a mobile home, but this deer don’t do planes. Nope, not enough bucks in the world to get me to gallop onto that thing.»

«Up high we might spy us a piece of land worth spending some time on. You might even find one of those bucks you keep dreaming about. Just don’t smile at him. Could put a real crimp in his self–confidence.»

«Fine. But if what we see from above just traumatizes us more…»

«Yeah, yeah. I’ll crash us into the nearest cliff,” Peter reassured her.

«You better. I’m overdue for a mercy killing.»

* * *

«Is this the best you can do, after all this time?» Sasha said, staring into the doctor’s eyes with a look meant to scare his soul back to heaven, where he might obtain the answers he needed for a more authoritative response. Her tone accomplished just what she hoped it would; registering like a knife to the belly, it nearly caused him to double over.

«I’m afraid so,” he said. He was a short, fat, round man. He’d make a hell of a beach ball, which Sasha was all too tempted to kick inside her son’s cage so he could play with it.

She returned her eyes to the observation window showing her son, Peter, in his staging area. The therapy room was meant to be necessary only so long as Peter needed that reality more than this one. She supposed she couldn’t blame him, considering what her reality was like. She’d nearly checked herself into this place herself on more than one occasion.

Her sixteen year old son’s body was lean and sculpted and tanned, not to mention fully exposed with just the loincloth to cover him. His poignant green eyes at once piercing and dreamy. He was marked up like an Indian with his war paint on now that he had the blood of the coyote smeared all over him. He was at that age where he was half boy, half man. Only… «He’s still age regressed.»

«Yes, but now he’s sixteen going on twelve. Last time you checked in he was sixteen going on eight. So we’re making progress. I’m sorry it’s not fast enough for you.»

She caught the you thankless bitch connotation of his voice. Figured she deserved it. But damn it; it had been nearly a year. Would he ever come back to her? «What do you suggest I do?» Sasha asked.

«Go back to your daily routines. Try to find in them something which might entice him back.»

She snorted. «You’d think that would be longing to be with his parents, but, as it is…» Her voice trailed off, lost in a fog of self–recriminations.

«It’s not your fault. Ours is a harsh world. Few adults are coping properly. It’s no surprise most of the children don’t make it. No way to shelter them the way we’d like. And not sheltering them, leads to this more often than not,” he said, pointing to the glass wall that was camouflaged from Peter’s side.

She stared into the doc’s gray bloodshot eyes one last time, registered the empathy he seemed to genuinely feel for her. Maybe that was all she needed from him for today. Some sign he actually gave a damn. Then she turned and left.

* * *

Sasha made sure when she exited the underground bunker not to reveal her position. That’s the last thing she needed was to have their little oasis in this desert of the soul taken from them.

«You took your sweet time?» her husband said. She wondered what he looked like anymore under all the camouflage paint. It had been years since she’d seen him without it. Even the square jaw and bird beak she remembered from once upon a time found their lines softened and altered by the makeup. The horror of the scars hidden by the swaths of black and gray grease following similarly irregular lines across his face.