The n-Body Problem

A hydro tower. There are at least a hundred people on a long rope, like fish on a stringer. There are random flips of tails and clapping gills. Blood in a bathtub dragged beneath them. The bathtub sits in a lake of blood.

“I know where he went.”

I lay my thin hands on my hips. The points are sharp. My knees are pointed.

“WasteCorp got here yesterday. They’re picking up everybody. Dead, half-dead, anything. They’re tossing everything in.”

The sky is full of vultures and rain. That always happens. As soon as the animals realize the people are dead, they move in. Take over. Rats. Raccoons. Possum. They disappear into the corpses.

“You okay?”

Y looks at me. Impatience. I’m guessing he almost left me to die. Probably did a couple times.

“I’m not doing that again.”

Y is disgusted. He has contempt. I imagine myself thanking him but can’t. My brain feels dry and hot. I have crammed myself into a very small hole up there. To survive.

Y gives me a suspicious look.

“You better not be dead.”

A long arm with heads nailed into its muscles reaches across the road and crumples the roof. I’m hallucinating. Carnival sounds. The feeling that I am in clown makeup. Why does delirium use such stock figures?

“You better show me you’re alive or I’m rolling you out this car.”

I need anti-psychotics. I need to say something. He’s going to drop me into a sea of bodies. I have to say something.

“Comme ci, comme ça.”

“What?”

I try to make saliva.

“Comme ci, comme ça.”

Y Laughs.

“Really? Comme ci, comme ça?”

I nod.

“Well, okay. You’re doing better than you look.”

There is a wide hole all around me. The underside of ground. Red tree roots and broken mason jars. The snipping teeth of mice. Everything needs to dive. Get below. The bones of dogs. The fat death mask of a grub. The yellow plans of beetles and worms and a moon princess.

Goodbye.

a weeks.

There is a soft light in the clouds this morning. I swing carefully on the porch. Y is in the field. It has been weeks. I saw terrible things. I was kept alive by these jolts. These images. And Y’s portable lamp. I am, for now, in old body. No syndrome. No disease being cooked up by winds in my blood. Y is heading to the house. Pail of radishes. Carrots. I am an old woman swinging on the porch. Grateful to her son. He drops the pail and wipes his brow.

“Surprised these are growing.”

I look out to a copse across the field. It appears like a lead shroud. There is no green anymore. Leaves are grey and black. It gives the land a metallic look. Grass is silver. Odd behaviour in birds. They circle trees in mad spins. Small bushes take on the look of manic gyroscopes. I stop swinging and peer into the pail. Something grew anyway. Carrots look like long teeth. Radishes like filthy buttons.

“Let’s eat them. We got oil and vitamin D. We’re fine.”

We eat inside by candlelight. The vegetables are tasteless and, worse, ugly. Y had followed Dixon out of town while I was out. He was going back and forth between two towns. Y thinks this second town is his next target. I have to call it in to the school board. I can’t afford to be feral. This is my job. I want to get paid. I want to get out.

“I’m calling the school board after dinner.”

Y doesn’t react to this. He pulls a thong of carrot from the back of his throat. He saw it all back there. All of Dixon’s merriment. He wants to hunt. So do I.

“Once I get clearance, we go in.”

Y and I have never talked much. We stick to practical words. What we will do. What we need. A bird hits the window and drops straight down. That happens dozens of times a day. This house sits in a bed of bird carcasses.

Tonight the cloud cover is high and thin. We decide to sit outside and watch the sky. See what it looks like now. We drag reclining lawn chairs and blankets out onto the lawn. It feels like an occasion. We are excited.

“I called the board.”

Y is sitting a pot of tea on a small table between the chairs.

“I don’t know why.”

I lift the pot lid and stir the loose leaves.

“I work for them.”

Y scoffs.

“Really? Are you sure?”

The light shifts from pink-grey to darkness just like that. Nothing gradual. No magic hour.

“They confirm anyway.”

The temperature has dipped abruptly. My breath freezes the tip of my nose. Blankets.

“Ok. Good. So we go in. First thing.”

Yes we do.

“They’ve changed the protocol for Dixon.”

Y doesn’t know the word.

“They want me to do it differently now.”

Y exhales loud. Impatient. Hates me seeking out authority. Teen man.

“No infiltration. No finesse. They want me to find him and terminate him and whoever’s in the room or on the street or near him. They think the town council has covertly requested him, that the entire town’s a snake pit before he even gets there.”

Y likes this. Figured he would.

“So what, we go into town and just start shoot-ing?”

“No. That’ll get us killed. We find a place to watch from. We hope we see something.”

Y lays his head back and looks up.