Holy City: Chapter Eleven

The streets of the capital were full of people in suits. Many were dressed in the outdated fashions that the men and women of the shelter had changed into that morning. There were people in newer suits as well, sleeker suits in colors that were not gray. The colors were called things like charcoal and sapphire and peridot. These were the suits of the latest popular styles and were worn by people who were likely the bosses of the men and women in the gray suits.

Alongside all of these different people in suits marching into one office building or another, another species moved; ghosts wandered. These were the homeless the young mother had warned V about. They wore clothes much like the clothes V had worn in the refugee camp. The two different groups, the suits and the ghosts, were liquids that had been poured together but don’t mix. The ghosts stayed in their own streams of movement, the suits stayed in their streams, no eye contact was made, much less physical contact. V was impressed how both groups were able to avoid bumping into each other on such busy streets without actually looking at each other. He wasn’t experienced at this and was constantly sidestepping and shuffling and apologizing.

V moved as a ghost, with the ghosts, invisible to the rest of society. He wandered like this for several hours until he wandered into the nicer areas of the capital and noticed an increased presence of police. These areas were safer than those that were heavily populated by ghosts. The boulevards were wider and there was more greenery and fewer people walking purposefully from one destination to another. V was out of place on these wide boulevards. There were very few others ghosts around. The clothes that V wore, stolen from the worksite, may have been nicer than the rags he walked out of the desert with and the rags that most of the ghosts wore, but they were not quite nice enough to walk on the wide boulevards of the nicest areas of the capital city.

V’s invisibility as a ghost was his only defense. He decided to test that invisibility and walked into a clothing store of several stories that sold luxury items that cost more than a month’s salary for some and more than a year’s salary for most. If he was a ghost when he woke up that morning in the heart of the city, certainly he would still be a ghost to the customers and workers of a high-end department store.

The store was not busy. There were few customers. The only people shopping at that time of day were the wealthy who did not need to dress in suits and work in the high rises. They went about their business without paying V any attention. V’s plan was working. He maneuvered alongside a case of glittering jewelry, watches, necklaces. If he turned his head to the right he could see an ocean of silver and gold and platinum. If he turned his head to the left he could see a forest of linen and silk and wool.

Images of young people were everywhere overseeing everything. V had noticed this on his walk that morning; videos, billboards, video billboards, cluttered all streets and buildings and even random airspace in the capital city of Vitesia. These cultivated images dominated the department store as well, selling one type of good or another, selling one type of lifestyle or another. Vitesia had a cult of youth and all of these images spoke passionately to that cult. There were no written words, only images. V wondered where all of the words had run off to.

In Damasia, words were dangerous. In Lyonesse, words were cherished but controlled. In Vitesia, words had ceased to be of any interest at all, the culture had become bored with them and written communication had descended to a type of hieroglyphics.

The written word barely existed and the Vitesian culture hardly noticed that it had disappeared. When bookstores ceased to exist this was celebrated as a sign of progress. After the bookstores vanished it was only inevitable that books would vanish. And when this finally happened and books ceased to exist no one noticed in most parts of Vitesia because everyone was too busy with other addictions and entertainments and, of course, work.

V did not know any of this as he stared at one particular set of hieroglyphics in the store trying to decipher the meaning of the message. After more than several minutes, he was unable to. Perhaps there was no meaning to the message.

His thoughts were interrupted by the stares of a clerk. Or what V thought were the stares of a clerk. The clerk looked out in V’s direction and narrowed his eyes. V turned around when the clerk did this but there was no one behind him. The clerk wouldn’t give a nasty look to empty air. He had finally been found out.

V decided to challenge the clerk and walked straight towards him. He was behind a counter. V would get the test he wanted and see if his invisibility had worn off. An older gentleman dressed in a sweater beat V to his destination. The clerk’s attention was taken away from V, so V didn’t get the test he wanted. He did, however, end up in the middle of the men’s department surrounded by some of the finest suits Vitesia could offer. V had never worn a suit before, so he wanted to try one on, to see how it felt, to experience what it was like to be one of those businessmen and businesswomen he had been walking besides all morning. These suits weren’t grey like those he saw in the shelter. These were the colorful or colorfully named suits that the bosses wore.

V found a particular color he liked, charcoal grey, although to his eyes it looked black. He looked at the label. It had the name of someone he had known a long time ago, although it was unlikely the designer of the suit was related to that individual. Next to the name were numbers that didn’t make any sense. V knew what the numbers meant, they were different sizes, but he did not know how they would match with his size. If only the suits were marked with a simpler designation like medium, large, small, V would have known which one to take. As it was, he had to take four different suits with him as he walked off to the changing rooms.

The first suit he tried on fit. This isn’t exactly true. The sleeves were a little short and the pants a little long, but V felt that it fit, so he didn’t bother trying on any of the others. He knew how to tie a tie, he could do that with his eyes closed, and he had picked out a subdued tie that he thought fit the color of the charcoal suit and tied it around his neck.

V walked out of the changing room and into the main area of the store. The clerk was still talking with the older gentleman at the counter. He handed a package to the man and the older man walked away.

V walked up to the clerk and placed his hands on the glass counter.

“I would like to buy this suit,” he said.

The clerk asked him for a card.

V said he did not have a card.

“You can’t pay here if you don’t have a card,” the clerk said.

V looked disappointed. He was starting to like this new suit, at least compared to the old clothes he had taken from Kane’s worksite. V reached into his pocket and took out the money the young mother in the shelter had given him and showed the stack of currency to the clerk. The clerk looked at V funnily then around the store.

The clerk looked around again, his eager eyes shifting back and forth.

“How much cash is that?” he said.

V started to count the money one bill at a time. It had been a long time since the clerk had seen the currency of his own nation. Maybe he was one of those who lived in the shelter where V had stayed the night before. Or maybe clerks in high end stores stayed in different shelters at night, V was not sure. The clerk took the cash from V once V was done counting. It was not enough to buy the suit, but it was enough for the clerk.

“I suggest you leave quickly. If you leave quickly, you can keep the suit” The clerk said to V.

V wisely did as the clerk suggested and left the store with the same type of purposeful stride he saw in those walking into the high rises that morning. He stepped on a moving walkway to go down to the main floor and walked down the moving walkway doubling his speed. He reached the first floor and without looking at anybody in the store walked out the wide baroque front doors that led out onto the wider boulevard that ran along an even wider park. No one stopped him. No one chased him once he was outside on that boulevard.

V wasn’t exactly sure what had just happened, but he was sure, as he stood on the street corner in his new charcoal suit, waiting for a red stoplight to turn green, that he was no longer a ghost.

Next Chapter: Chapter Twelve
Previous Chapter: Chapter Ten