Piping
i
It all started at the end,
or you can say the ending of the known world. The day after tomorrow had
happened. The world had died. The world that had been green and blue. There
remained only a grey ashen corpse, oozing slime from new and old orifices.
There remained the dark viscous black sea and the ashen land of ruins. Man’s
avarice had finally filled the skies with more dark viscous smoke than clouds
and finally, forever blocked out the sun. Something had survived,just like
fungus on a corpse feeding off the decay. This new world was all about not
getting ended. No one knew when the infertility disease had started, was it the
nukes, the sea, a punishment from the gods.Choose whatever reason you want, it
doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.Only the next day and then the next day.
The laws came up eventually.Just
like finding that small patch of dirt not radioactive, at least not enough.Piling
dirt upon dirt. The law was simple like pilling dirt on dirt until you had a
pile to live on. Finding grains that didn’t push the Geiger counter too much . Building Grain by grain, pile by pile as you
rot away, in the end it would survive you bequeathed to who came after. The
small patch where they could keep the one thing that kept humanity alive. It
didn’t matter that scourging in the wild for anything, dirt, water, food
without the small Geiger’s counter, which ran on small hand cranked motors with
small pilot lights going red instead of the normal green, had its costs. The
workers barely survived a few winter’s once they started to forage outside.
During winter foraging became impossible.The only way was to huddle together,
stay awake or conscious and keep The Queen, the one last reproducing female
alive and well until summer. The males who could be expected to impregnate the
queen started working as soon as she was ready.Life goes on one day at a time.
The babies were nursed.After all workers are to be supplemented.The Queen is
nourished for where are the babies going to come from.Lastly the drones or how
else is the Queen going to be impregnated. However her babies are not getting
healthier enough to be worth anything the workers are not going to last till a
few more winters and then. Here everything lives by the day.
What if the Queen died ?Nothing
stays long on this earth.There were tests on the babies to see if they bled. If
they bled they are fed more, cared after more diligently.Should the Queen die,
they were to be the next. The Queen at present was one in such a long series of
winters that it was thought that the cycle will cease. Still the hive fed fed
the queen and the virgins the best they could.
There were three who had
bled now, two twins born with blue eyes and a younger. They were kept in three
rooms side by side by the nursery groomed and cleaned every day. It took up
many workers to build the nurseries.
The drones were all the
same. They are born they are fed better as they have to be kept healthy and
nourished so that they can keep impregnating the Queen. When they start to
mature they start fighting. There doesn’t need to be a Why? It’s just another
rule. They start getting taller or bigger and they start to fight. The last
standing over all the cowering others is taken to the queen’s chamber to mate.
If he tires then there’s the runner up.There was only once an exception to this
monotonous near codified and accepted as rule continuity.
There was a strange drone
once that had not gone by the normal route. Thisdrone that had impregnated the
queen with the virgin Queens had blue eyes and was like no other drone. Nobody
remembers it coming or going from the drone place. He bypassed the Process. He
broke in through the roof of the pile without a noise, without waking any of
the workers underneath huddled around a small fire. There were no fights, no
challenges, no waiting. He just simply walked into the queen’s chamber and as
suddenly and silently he had come he left. That was the end of the winter the
terrible time when there was no food, no water at least not enough. The world
froze over and the only way to remain awake from a sleep inducing numbness was
to form a communal ball and wait it out. Everybody tried to conserve the little
heat available and not sleep for to sleep meant to freeze over. It was these
half asleep half-awake workers of that time had seen him. They had starved
through the four terrible months and they couldn’t move well. He enlarged
circular portal at the top of the central hall, the vent for smoke from the
central fire, jumped in to land on all fours and looked once in the direction
of the shivering, gaunt, starved, mostly dead wide eyed pile with his blue eyes
lit up with the first faint summer sun streaming from the enlarged vent and
turned to the Queens chamber. He wore a tunic of some sort tied at the waist
with a rope nobody remembered anything more. He went in and after some time
came out jumped up and reached the edges of the jagged portal pulled himself up
.All this had happened before the first worker could stand up the workers in
the Queens chamber remembered that the Queen was awake when he came in and she
didn’t resist but for once willingly gave in .The Queen went into pregnancy in
a period the best drone could not keep up and the next likeliest were all still
toddling. There was also the fact that male offspring’s were rare. At any time
the pile had never had more than three to five. The harsh winters had seen them
starve to death also when the youngest was fed and the elders just kept hungry
if they got too demanding they would simply be thrown out. The Queen had to be
saved. Then there was the fact that sometimes the drones would go into a stroke
while at it, dying when their heart exploded in their chest. So they were
childless between winters also. It was a bad omen because then it would mean
that there will be less infants growing into viable workers by the time
necessary. There will be hardships when the numbers dwindled and there was
nothing to replace them. The workers would have believed in divine virgin
conception, but the Queen went on and on about the strong thin creature of
sinewy muscles and long legs. A God. The workers were not smart. Most didn’t
have enough of a brain to think things over. The collective conscious did it
for them. The collective conscious, a commune of partial minds needed to
survive. The collective conscious also glossed over many things. Then again, as
long as backup of workforces arrived, no one’s complaining. The workers would
have fought to keep him had they knew about the twins. It had been eons since
one has seen a child without the swollen throat, scales over skins, deformed
body parts. The girls were flawless, small nymphs with all human features in a
world which has moved on over humanity.
The workers were not sure
what to do exactly, the collective conscience dismissedthis to a new sort of
mutation. The workers are not really much for thinking anything. The babes with
working limbs, heard and saw fine, no swelling in the larynx and any scales or
disproportionate heads would not be thrown away.Another law.
The babies were allowed milk
because most thought they would be worthy workers and then like magic and in god
knows how long there was blood in the cot when the girls were nine winters old.
There was a unanimous sigh of relief.The babies were more worth with time and
the queen might not last. The collective conscious soon realized that the man with the blue eyes had to be
found. However there was the problem.The original workers who had probably seen
the man were no more, taken from the hive by the summer work or winter cold.
There were just hand-me-down stories.Everybody noticed that the twins were not
growing tumors or any new limbs. Like with all stories which pass from mouth to
mouth through a generation off workers who normally don’t last more than a few
winters the stories grew disproportionate. Soon it was apparent that the men
could not possibly have wings of gold or carry pots of food. The general opinion
was that he had blue eyes just like the twins and he was one who at least
didn’t stay on the pile. Scouting workers were sent off looking for him
immediately. Problem was the scouts never came back with success. Mostly they
never came back at all.
There were two virgin queens
for the Queen who was not getting any better. The pile will be alive for a few
more winters.
The best workers, young ones
with little deformations, were chosen to work in the twin’s cell. The twins
were fed, clothed and cleaned. They were groomed continuously.They were kept in
adjacent cells and allowed to go out for a few minutes but only when all
outside workers have left and only the workers attending the twins the Queen
and the nursery are left. However it was never for long and they were always dragged
back.
Until they were nine, they
were just crawling, gurgling, vomiting mass in a pod of other crawling gurgling
and vomiting mass. However children develop their alliances, their
congenialities even before they develop cognitive language. Then they were
plucked out not realizing why. The twins were allowed the rare luxury of the
company a few of the nursery mates. The healthiest of the baby workers deemed
too good to be wasted in the outside was allotted to the task.
They were named Air and Sky.The
collective concious thought it would be the best to name them after the giant
billboard that shielded something of a patch that from time to time yielded a
few tomatoes or potatoes.There was a picture of something that flew on the
badly burnt billboard. The paint remained in cracks and blobs and the only letters
still legible was Air and Sky. Nobody could read, the People were forgetting
words especially the workers with their deformed brains from continuous
exposure and birth defects. They knew it said Air and Sky and that’s what they
had ever known.
The virgin twins were never
brought before the queen. That was the thing that had been reduced to a baby
machine for over as long as one can remember. Mothering unending continuous stream
of individuals had done things to her. The only thing that kept the workers
from replacing her was the collective conscious deciding that the twins and the
new unnamed one were too young to breed.
The twins never saw her but
could hear her and she frightened them.Their chambers were near her, only to conserve
the warmth and minimize the unexposed workers contact with those exposed.
They cringed in the corners;
holding on to whatever there was to hold.She got worse on days. Those were the
days when the pains of the labor or being forcibly impregnated got to her. They
were begging to scratch at the walls.Normaly they won’t be stopped from doing
what they won’t but as soon as they dig anything the workers repaired` double
quick like a two minute hole disappearing in one. They could do anything they
want in plain sight but it would change little or the change desperately
erased. They had to be patient and wait. The walls were dirt.The same dirt
which won’t cause the dreaded red lamp .A mixture of clay, feces and anything
that can solidify to form a support. The clay was kept in its place by salvaged
sticks, metal rods and bones. Workers kept the pile in place even with their
own bones. Then there were the few Bricks or stones when they were lucky. The
material for the walls, the things to burn, food had to be gathered from the
outside. Venturing outside into the radioactive waste land had its
consequences. Where you crank the Geiger counter after five steps and then you on
the next crank the dreaded small red lamp, the red eye illuminates. You run
cranking until your palm bites into old iron drawing blood your foot struggles
through sludge, and filth. You pray that you don’t faint from the vomiting out
of your entrails,feel the vertigo as if the world goes into an spin and you
drop to the ground .If you don’t pass
out from the imploding pain in your cranium as if something expanding out you
can feel the other pains in your joints in your lungs. The full spectrum of numbing
pain shrivels you up and then you die of a combination of shock, dehydration
and blood loss.That’s how the workers die slowly engulfed by the floating mist
of radiation, the small powdery flakes of radiation, the rain of radiation
etc.So bricks,rocks, things to burn, anything and everything is rare and hence
priceless.
The twins could whisper
through a small dent their nursery mates had still not detected and repaired
immediately. It was not easy but the workers and their nurserymates
fastidiously cleaned groomed and fed them. Their friends had turned silent
gradually.They had talked little before, with their flat heads, but now they
didn’t even squeak.
They were there, they did
their thing and disappeared there was the undertone nobody said anything but
you felt it. There were reasons if you stay out you don’t return alone the
radiation catches on to you even without the
small plastic octagonal eye blinking suddenly from green to red. Its everywhere it
just keeps on accumulating. The workers had to keep it off the queens and the
twins.
There were normally someone
constantly cranking a Geiger but she will fall asleep. The twins would wait and
then get at rapidly scratching at the dent or where it was being repaired. They
could hear each other’s play stories. Imaginary stories of the queen, of their
nursery mates, the once collapsed snoring in a corner. There was not much light
from the small fire place in the corner and their small nimble fingers could
never dig far. They couldn’t see each other and that remained a great mystery
how do they look like, what the Queen looks like and most importantly how does
the outside looks like.
“Outside no good no go
outside”
Sky’s worker was an anencephalic
though not completely only some portions gone. She was a nursery mate.She
couldn’t think, see only partially and was only good at cranking the Geiger.
Her tongue slurred when overwhelmed with words and she preferred to bite down
on her lips and stare.
She cleaned and groomed Sky
religiously and without being asked to, just like everybody. Everybody did what
they had to.It was like the endlessly played rule the loop that kept everything
in place at least the pile if not its inhabitants. She was kept progressively
detached from the foraging workers and kept alive on whatever Sky didn’t
finish.She understood little but knew what was to be known. Thing radiated like
touch, fear, ecstasy within the workers without anyone speaking a word. The
anencephalic had only a four fifth of a brain but she knew the outside was bad
without being there.
“but why?”Sky persisted
“Outside kill”
“wats kill?”
“kill no eat …… no move….cold…hard”
She was dripping tears now. Sky
gave up not convinced. Meg was red in the eye cranking as if possessed and was
ready to pass out. Sky would wait.
“Did she tell you anything?”
Air was hardly audible
whispering through a finger hole.
“No she never speaks I think
she can’t”
The queen was terrible
lately they will hear crashes fights of things thrown about.They never saw her
but her poltergeist malevolence of the immense hate somehow communicated
through and seeped into everyone, the twins included.
“Why is she always like
this?”
Air conjunctures “Maybe she
is in pain”
“Fed better than all and in
pain”
“You never know”
If that was all the twins
would have been content food and pampering.Denied nothing in the world but the
outside, whose effects were plain to see. There were babies without arms or
legsor deemed to be not worth the food that is to be spent on them. The rule
took over by a day they were left out outside. Problem is such worthlessness is
born with a noise and that can be heard a while before radiation silences it.
The noise can be heard a constant high pitched scream over the snow and trees
and debris. a banshee scream in pain and anguish. The twins tried to get
together by trying to dissolve into the wall that separated them.
“Hate it, make it stop “the
workers at times like this would go deaf and loose any comprehension abilities.
Move about like automation programmed to clean, groom and feed. Impervious to the
ear wrenching yellemanating from the outside. Even Meg, she didn’t even flinch
or express any signs of any response. She rocked to and fro continuously
winding the Geiger.The small fish head, dressed in tatters to keep of the cold
with two outsized fish eyes placed almost an inch apart. Her missized hands
piston pushed cycling the paddle causing the dynamo to going wheee…….in a
constant annoying drone. Other than a small green light diminishing and
brightening in tandem with the piston hands cycling speed, there was no toy
popping out at the end of a long spring like Sky remembered a relic from
antiquity she had. It was enormously clear even in the skull splitting banshee
torture. There was nothing to complain about.Thankfully the sound broke in
rhythm and progressively was punctuated with coughs, the coughs kept growing
progressively difficult to register and in the end other than some noise of
trying to creep through debris scrapping with baby hands.At intervals there’s
nothing.That too disappeared as if it had never been there.
For some time Sky had been
clutching silently the arm of Meg who kept winding the Geiger without
exhibiting any change throughout the whole episode. She didn’t repeat anything
about how the outside kills. Sky waited until she heard the familiar scratching
in the walls. Meg despite her collective conscience of responsibility never
betrayed Sky. Was Air having an ally in a worker maybe? Just minor discount of
prison guards, they could talk but not break the walls any attempt will be eradicated.
This was a little something Meg allowed after all in leaving by a day a few
years and workers had passed.
Sky almost run why would Meg
not talk a little more she had Air though, don’t she understand she hated the
yell but then she hates this not yell worse.
“Its you Sky, thanks…let’s
not ever go outside” Air was swallowing she felt her hiccup trying to hold the
sentences together.
