The World Without Flags

But in the past few days, I’m more grateful to him than I was before. I was never stupid about the way people looked at me, about the way they saw me because of my skin. How they always wanted to touch my hair. How people would look at me when they thought I wasn’t paying attention, not with hate exactly, but just studying me, like I was something strange that they were always trying to understand. At the Homestead, people never treated me like these bandits had. Even the ones that came to trade, even the ones who looked at me with eyes of hate, they didn’t dare say anything, not in front of Eric, who was so obviously my protector. No, they were always good to me. Because of Eric, I never had to endure the hatred, the pure animosity that I feel from these bandits. I wasn’t naïve or anything, I mean, I knew people were like this. Eric had always told me that I had to be careful, that there were people who wouldn’t like me because of the color of my skin, that there were those who would want to hurt me because of it. But it’s one thing to know it in your mind, to know it’s true, to see little glimpses of it hidden in the attitudes of strangers, and it was something else completely to see it naked and revealed and shameless.

As I sit and think of it, remembering the hatred in their voices, the sparkle of joy in their eyes at the prospect of causing me pain, I wonder maybe if Eric has protected me too much. I look over to him. He’s turned around, as if facing the other way might help me reach up past the steel roof to the rain crashing down. His face is covered by his filth-encrusted beard. The band around his eyes that used to be crimson red is now entirely black, and I can’t help imagining the dark pits beneath, writhing with worms. What would he say to me if he could?

He would say he wanted the best for me. I’m sure of it as I think it. Why expose me to the very thing that hurts me? It’s like poisoning someone because you’re afraid of them being poisoned. He did what he did because he loved me.

Loves me.

He’s in there somewhere. I won’t think he’s not. I won’t.

“Unh,” Eric says. Suddenly his body goes rigid and then he coughs loudly. A ball of black bile rolls out of his mouth, writhing with worms. It rolls down his chin and beard, then down his overalls before landing wetly on the concrete beneath it.

“Gross, Eric,” I tell him. Then I go over to him and reach in his pocket to get his drooly towel, which thankfully is still tucked in a pocket. I wipe his mouth carefully.

“Unh,” Eric says, his tongue reaching out toward the ceiling.

“Don’t,” I tell him. “Stop it.”

His tongue waggles for a second before calming down. I finish wiping his face clean of the little worms before tucking the drooly towel back in his overalls and then going to sit down.

“Unh,” Eric says.

“I don’t know what to do either,” I answer.

81

I don’t know how long we’re kept in the cell before Squint comes for us. It might have been a day or two. It’s impossible to keep track of time. The rain doesn’t hardly let up in all that time. I try to get Eric to sit and relax, but he won’t. He continues to stretch with all of his strength toward the rain and water he can’t possibly reach. I give up trying to get him to relax. The desire for water is far too elemental. It seems to be the only thing that makes him aware. I just sit there with my back against the cold concrete, thinking, trying to figure some way for us to get out of there. But when Squint comes for us again, I still haven’t got a clue.

Squint comes alone, with a torch. His dark hair is slicked back and his clothes are new and clean. He smells like soap. When I smell it, I can’t help but feel jealous and a little angry. I can’t remember the last time I was able to wash with soap. It seems a small thing, but freshly cleaned, I feel more human. Squint opens the padlock with a little brass key that I see he slips into his front shirt pocket and then looks at me without emotion. “The Doctor wants to see you,” he says.

A feel a shiver of fear and a desperation takes me. I picture myself wildly flying out the door, and my muscles tense to leap. But if I do that, I will almost certainly be killed. Even if I do make it, I’ll leave Eric alone. I have to do this if we’re both going to survive. Eric would do it for me.

“Come on,” Squint tells me. “Get up. Don’t make me get you.” He says this last in a dangerous tone. I can’t feel my legs very well, but I get to my feet somehow.

“What does he want?” I ask. I hate that my voice is shaking from fear, but I can’t hide it.

“You’ll see,” Squint says. He steps back from the door. “Move slow.”

I’m moving forward, but I’m trembling, and, hating myself a little for it, I hear myself whimper a little. A real whimper. It escapes from me before I can stop it. When Squint hears it, he chuckles.

“You oughta be scared,” he says and gives me a shove.