Red Sky: Year 3 - Chapter 35
Com couldn’t survive the box.
The newts had only been on the moon for a week when Com was pulled out of line as we returned to our cells for the night. They had searched his cell while we were working and found the manuscripts buried in his back wall. Hades held up the pieces of paper for all to see. Contraband he called it. “No inmate shall have contraband in his cell,” is what he said. The work of Com’s life, all of those midnight hours spent with his face buried in paper so he could see in the darkness, all of those hours his right hand, tired from an entire day’s mining, spent furiously gripped to a piece of rock so he could reproduce stories from another time, had been reduced to one word: contraband.
We were to be allowed nothing on the red moon, not even our own thoughts and stories and hopes. We would have no privacy, no memories to keep for ourselves, no words to inspire others. These would all be contraband.
*
At the beginning of the week I was introduced to my new partner, Renn. I didn’t like him from the start. There was a surface blandness to him, as though the Federation was finally successful in lobotomizing an inmate while retaining the higher brain functions. But they didn’t get the docility they desired, instead they got a blankness of emotion and pure selfishness of thought.
I wondered if the Federation had given this class a new drug for the space-time jump. Maybe it would wear off in time. I’d had similar thoughts about Tamo and he turned out okay. But if Tamo was bland when he arrived, at least he had a certain solidarity with the other newts. That solidarity ironically made them unique. With Renn, there was nothing that made him unique. He didn’t have the quirks of Max or Ray or the sincerity of Com. He was like some of the virtual addicts I had known on Earth who’ve been numbed to all human empathy, yet retained a special cunning that helped them thrive. All of my instincts said not to trust him. Even though I didn’t like Tamo, I never distrusted him. Renn, I was wary of him from the very beginning.
Com thought he was okay. He gave him one of his manuscripts and Renn took it back to his cell. I don’t think he read a word. Max and I never read Com’s works, either, but we didn’t come back the next day and lie about it telling him how it had changed our life while rolling our eyes when he turned his back. Com was beaming after Renn’s performance. He was so happy his work had finally made an impact on a newt. He couldn’t stop talking about how he was going to give Renn more of his stories. Of course, he never got the chance. Two nights later he was pulled out of line.
Com was stripped and tied to the whipping post. Hades held one of his papers in the air for all of us to see. Zero brought the rest of his manuscripts in a box that overflowed. I wondered how Com had been able to hide all of that work in his cell. The sheer volume was improbable.
Zero set the mass of papers directly in Com’s line of sight. Hades dropped the page he was holding on top of the others. It fell like a crisp autumn leaf. I could see Com’s body slump. He knew what was in Hades’ other hand. I couldn’t see what it was from my cell, but I saw the large flame that appeared a couple of seconds later. The entire contents of the box were on fire, the flame rising until it was higher than Hades’ head. Com’s body slumped even more.
Hades didn’t say anything. The lecture about contraband was over. The flames made the rest of his point. I slumped with Com as the fire continued. Zero went over to the engulfed box and kicked it once, twice, nudging it closer to Com, so he could feel the heat of his life’s work burning away.
The fire lasted a dozen minutes. It extinguished itself leaving only a few charred flakes of paper. Com’s body was now completely limp, the chains that tied him to the whipping post the only thing holding him up.
Hades had the whip in his hand. He waited for the fire to die out, so Com could fully appreciate the destruction. Hades didn’t want the pain of the whip to get in the way of his psychological torture.
The whip was raised. I turned away from the front of my cell and sat down on my bed with an unfocused stare. The back wall of my cell remained blurred when I heard the first crack of the whip against Com’s skin. Fifteen times I heard that crack. I never turned to look and I never heard Com scream. Com was stronger than I am. No one ever survived the whipping post without making a sound. He was always stronger than the rest of us.
I heard the unbuckling of chains. The opening of the door to the box. The closing of that same door, metal crashing into metal. If I had known it was my last chance to see Com alive, I would have looked. I would have watched the grisly display as it played out. But I’m glad I didn’t know. I’m glad I didn’t watch. Com’s last moments of excruciating pain are nowhere in my memory. I can remember him as he was that night in the cafeteria, as he was most nights in the cafeteria. The best version of himself.
Three days later, they opened the box and Com’s body fell onto the floor. Ginger jumped back surprised. We were all startled. The malevolent inmate was still the only one to die in the box and they had left him in there for four weeks. Com had been in there for three days. How could he be dead after only three days? Even Hades panicked. He rushed over from the far side of the prison floor to inspect Com’s inanimate body.
Beetleface was the first to speak. He shouted at us to march. We hesitated. Hades was the only one who ever gave that order and he was still bent over Com. We looked at each other, some of the inmates starting to move, others staying in place. Hades stood up. “What are you waiting for?” He yelled and we began to file out.
My eyes stayed on the group hovering over Com as my body moved forward. I was in a daze, numbed from the shock. I continued in that daze for the rest of the day. I don’t know what was said in the mine by Dexter or Renn or anybody after we stepped off the elevator. There was a group of us in a circle, I remember that, but none of the words were able to penetrate my muddled head.
The numbness, the denial, only wore off during the march back to the shoebox when I saw Tamo in line next to me without Com ahead of him as usual. The reality hit when I sat down in the cafeteria. I looked over the table trying to find him even though it made no sense. I kept looking every couple of minutes, expecting him to show up. Then I would try to convince myself that he was still in the box. That they hadn’t taken him out in the morning, that it was only a vicious dream I’d had before waking up.
The conversation at the table didn’t allow me to hold on to such illusions. Everyone was talking about Com.
“What should we do now?” A newt asked me.
“We have to do something,” another said.
“Yeah, what should we do?” More newts joined in. The old newts, Tamo’s class, were agitating again.
After I was asked, “what should we do?” for the fifth or sixth time, I snapped. “What can we do? Do you want to kill Hades? Is that it? Should we charge him the next time we get a chance. Of course, we never get a chance, do we?” Bitterness dripped from my lips. Even after Aya’s death and two years on the red moon I wasn’t bitter. Com’s death made me bitter. And angry.
My head began to overheat. My body burned unable to cope with the anger, frustration, impotence. The same thing happened during my second time in the box when that pool of blood popped into my brain. My arms and legs twitched, wanting to flail about like they had when my temperature rose to intolerable levels in the box. I jumped up from the table and started pacing. I found myself in the back of the cafeteria near the drop-off. I wanted to get out of there, to find some solitude, some peace. But the hour in the cafeteria was less than twenty minutes old. I had nowhere to go.
My head grew hotter as I stewed with nowhere to turn. When I was a little kid I could run into my room and jump face down on my bed when I didn’t want to talk to anybody, but now I had no control over such things. I could feel the eyes of the guards on me. I could feel the eyes of all of the other inmates on me. I looked over the cafeteria in despair. They were all gone now. Ray, Max, Com, they were all gone. Why were the others looking to me? I wasn’t the Lion. I wasn’t Cyclops. I didn’t want anybody to look to me. I didn’t want anything from anybody. I wanted to run into my room and throw myself on my bed. My bed. Not a prison bed.
Sounds began to overwhelm my inflamed head. Conversations building upon conversations like gears grinding on one another. I leaned back against the drop-off wishing for Goodwell to appear in holo form and end my excruciating wait. I wanted to space-time jump through the last forty minutes of the meal. I wanted to be down in the mine. I wanted to be back in my cell. Anywhere but where I was. I closed my eyes to disappear.
And then I was invisible to the rest of the world. No one was asking me questions. No one controlled me. I was in control of what was inside of my head. Hades could take away our written words, he couldn’t take away my thoughts. But my thoughts were killing me now just as Com’s words had killed him, just as Max’s thoughts had turned him inside out. I wanted to grab a glass and jab it into my head to let the steam out. Com was always so centered and peaceful, how could he be the one who broke in the box, not just mentally broke, but physically broke after three days. Only three days. How could he let Hades destroy him like that?
I opened my eyes and some of the steam dissipated. Cyclops was standing next to me. He looked like he wanted to say something. I shot him a look that shut him up. I had had enough words for one day. Words meant nothing. Words meant everything. Words killed my friend.
Cyclops and I stood on the end of the cafeteria looking at everyone else. Ginger was up above, leaning on the railing of the balcony looking down at the two of us. Leaning was bad form for a guard and Zero quickly corrected him. I searched for Hades or Beetleface or Bug Eyes, but none of them were up above that night. Maybe that’s why Ginger felt comfortable breaking the rules. It looked like he was lost in thought as he stared at us or maybe stared through us. I looked back over to Cyclops. He had dumped his tray and his bowl of paste and was now standing there with his glass of water. I laughed.
I flashbacked to younger days, standing at the end of the bar with a friend as we looked out at the crowd holding our drinks, hoping to find a few girls who would be willing to talk to a couple of young misfits. The idea that Cyclops and I would be two guys out for a night on the town was laughable, absurd. Everything was absurd at that moment.
“Five years,” Cyclops said.
My laughter stopped.
“Five years,” I said.
Cyclops walked back to his table leaving me alone. I was finally calming down. My anger turning into depression. “Five years,” I repeated to myself. Then I thought, “no, three years.” I had three years left. I looked up to Ginger who was back on patrol. He was going to be here longer than me. He didn’t have three years. He had four, five, six years, some of the guards even stayed for ten. Hades and Goodwell had been on the red moon longer than that.
Dexter and Brin came walking back towards me. Dexter had a proposition for me. He said it was because I had saved his life, that it was the least he could do to pay me back. I wondered if it was only a way to calm me down, to bring me back to the table and the rest of the group. Either way, I accepted. My temper tantrum was over. I went back and finished my paste.