Nonentity (13 page)

My breaking point came during my second week there. As I nibbled on some bland food, the familiar blue blotch seized my consciousness:

I plunged through a door in a night sky, landing hard on a rock cliff. I stood up and peeked over the precipice. At the base of a wide canyon was a green bus with rocket boosters attached to its sides. Resting at a forty-five degree angle on a circular platform, the bus pointed skyward. The vehicle struck me as immensely significant.

Lukas Lambert floated upward out of the canyon. He hovered to a spot about five feet away from me. Defiance of gravity imbued him with supernatural presence.

Lukas said, “Perception works wonders. What do you make of this, Sebastian?”

I tried to answer. My mouth produced no sounds.

“Transformation begins,” said he. “Everything is mute where you are headed.”

I again tried to speak – nothing. I was voiceless.

“Talk is cheap. Communication does not occur verbally in your ultimate destination. Do not resist the change.”

The blue blotched flashed before me. I caught a fleeting glimpse of Randolph Doppelganger’s welcome mat:
All Visitors Welcome – Except Jack
.

“Ignore that,” said Lukas. “Jack was not welcome in Doppelganger’s home because it is pointless to welcome one who is already there. Jack lingers in that domain, plotting schemes against the characters of this story.”

A blinding green light overtook the blue. Slicing through my disorientation, Randolph Doppelganger spoke: “Some claim the blue light is good and the green light is bad. Others claim the opposite.”

Lukas was emphatic. “It is not the opposite. The blue displays truth unsullied. The green offers distortions and lies. Reject the green.”

My sight returned to blue. I lacked the voice to request clarification.

Lukas said, “Set your confusion aside. I have news from beyond. Your friend, the schoolteacher, is in police custody. He is finished. So are several others you knew and now must try to forget. Sorry.

“When this vision passes, Sebastian, what carries over will unsettle you. Please stay put. Your condition is irreversible. Do not seek me out for a remedy or explanation.”

A ferocious wind swept me off the cliff. I landed in a chair at a makeshift meal table in the warehouse. Defibrillator sat across from me.

He said, “Damn, Nonentity. You look shaken. What gives?”

I moved my mouth and nothing came out. I remained mute.

“What the hell is going on?” said Defibrillator.

Spurning Lukas’s instructions, I retrieved the business card of the unregistered cab driver who had driven me to the parallel universalist thrice previously. I sent an electronic message to the chauffer, informing him of my whereabouts and requesting his transport once more. I headed for the door of the hideout.

“Hey buddy,” Freddie Fish Eyes said to me as I fled, “what the fuck are you doing? You don’t have permission to leave.”

I wrote him a note: “Must deal with an urgent matter. Will return as soon as I can.”

Fish Eyes shook his head. “Think again. If you go, stay gone. You can’t come back.”

Incapable of arguing, I walked out. My driver arrived shortly.

He said, “No need for discussion, Mr. Flemming. Let’s be off.”

I scribbled a note to Lukas as we rode along. Out of sorts, I caught snippets of Allen Jonah over the cab radio: “inexplicable mutation … speechlessness … Lukas Lambert … bitter fate … nonentities … Randolph Doppelganger … not what he seems … Jack … Jack …” I was too unhinged to make sense of Jonah’s words.

Lukas’s barn was in worse tatters than ever when we came upon it. One of its walls had a giant hole, as if a wrecking ball had smashed through it. The windows were shattered. The front door was busted. Debris littered the yard. I exited the cab.

Not a minute later, a man shouted at me from behind, “Freeze, scumbag. You’re under arrest. Don’t make any false moves.”

Someone I could not see grabbed me and placed me in handcuffs. A needle punctured my right shoulder. Everything faded to black. My captors would be forever faceless.

Thus commenced my conversion to a nonperson. It would prove the strangest trip yet.

I awoke shivering on a cold floor. Things were blurry, clearing gradually. Steel bars enclosed me. A dangling ceiling light burned my retinas as I slid into a sitting position. A disfigured man reclined against the wall across from me. He wore a torn shirt and tattered pants. His shaved head exhibited deep gashes that befitted the bruises all over his face. He smiled at me with a bloody mouth missing several teeth.

“Do I look pretty to you?” he said, drooling.

Still voiceless, I responded with a blank stare.

He dragged himself toward me. As he inched closer, I noticed that the whites of his eyes had turned dark red. He halted a couple feet away and grinned, displaying a cheer inconsistent with his condition.

“They must have just brought you in,” he said. “You’re too handsome. It won’t be that way for long. These fuckers’ll make sure of that.”

The man’s repulsiveness disturbed me. I turned away.

“Why are you here?”

I could not tell him to stop talking to me.

“What’s the matter – can’t speak? Maybe the bastards stole your vocal cords. Is that what happened?”

I shook my head “no.”

“You must have been mute to begin with then. Me and you are cellmates now. My name’s Howard Freel. I’d ask you for yours, but that wouldn’t get me nothing, would it?”

He stuck out his hand and I reluctantly shook it.

“As you can see, I ain’t in the best shape. I ain’t in the worst shape either. These mongrels can dish out only so much abuse. I’ve gotten used to it, you know. Pretty soon they’ll zap my ass. If they think torturing and evaporating a nobody like me is going to do any good, they’re more warped than I gave them credit for. You see, they …”

From out of sight, someone yelled, “Freel! Shut your goddamn yap. How many times do we have to order you not to speak with the other prisoners?”

Freel said, “Twelve. I count nine so far. It’ll take three more before it sinks into this thick head of mine.”

A tall, thin guard approached our cell. He was about thirty-five. His face was ugly and humorless. His “PR”-emblazoned cap was spotless.

The guard sneered. “We could just beat it into that thick head of yours.”

“You’ve already tried that. Can’t you fellows come up with something more original?”

“You wouldn’t be worth the effort, Freel. Shut your mouth and leave that other criminal alone.” The guard walked away.

Freel winked at me and dropped to a whisper. “Don’t let that prick bother you. I’m going to be quiet for now. Me and you’ll speak again. Rather, I’ll speak again and you’ll listen.” He dragged himself back to his initial spot.

Hours of unnerving silence passed (or so I presumed; my watch was gone). It bothered me that my own actions had landed me in jail. What had possessed me to leave the warehouse? I tried to get some shut-eye to avoid reliving the debacle.

“Flemming!” shouted the guard, interrupting my slumber as he returned to the cell. “Get your ass up. You’re due for processing.”

I stood up and moved sluggishly toward the steel bars.

The guard opened the cell door. “Hurry up. And don’t try anything funny. Just look at me wrong and I’ll knock whatever brains you have onto the floor.”

“I found that out the hard way,” said Freel.

“You’ll find it out again if you keep running your fucking mouth.”

The guard jerked me by the arm as I stepped through the door into the lobby. He led me past a row of cells. Each cell contained two prisoners. The inmates had shaved heads with scrapes and bruises as unsightly as Freel’s. Some slept in pools of their own blood. One of them reached out feebly with a hand missing two fingers.

“Enjoying the scenery?” the guard said to me. “It’s your very near future.”

We came to a door at the end of the hall. He opened it and pushed me into a small room. He stayed outside as he shut the door.

Blood tainted the white walls inside. A hulking guard sat behind a desk to my right. He was bald and had a thick brown mustache. A second guard stood in a corner to my left. Lacking his associate’s beefy stature, he compensated by scowling and twirling a metal club.

The bald guard addressed me rigidly. “Sit down.”

I sat in a chair across from him.

“Case XLK8743: Sebastian R. Flemming the Third,” he said, perusing a sheet on the desk. “You are before us, Mr. Flemming, on the orders of the Supreme Magistrate. I am Chief of Internal Processing. It is my duty to inform you of the charges you face. These include, but may not be limited to, the following offenses: possession of unsuitable literature, publication and distribution of unsuitable literature, abetting known enemies of the State, conspiracy to dethrone the Permanent Regime and jeopardize its citizens, first-degree treason, and participation in extralegal activities of a metaphysical nature. How do you plead?”

The allegations shocked me. I shrugged, unable to plead verbally. The bald guard sighed frustration. The other guard hammered me over the head with his club.

“Answer the goddamn question, scumbag,” said the clubbing guard.

He struck me again, with added might. I almost fell out of my chair. The room spun.

The bald guard folded his arms. “Once more, Mr. Flemming: How do you plead?”

My unresponsiveness earned me another thwack, against my mouth. My teeth loosened. I tasted blood. The clubbing guard taunted me with a wicked smile.

The bald guard said, “It’s settled. A refusal to formally plead is an admission of guilt. The verdict is ‘guilty’ on all charges. Stand up and take off your clothes.”

I stumbled as I rose, unsure of my footing. I shed my garments without humiliation, too dazed for self-consciousness.

The bald guard’s eyes lit up at the “PR” on my chest. “You bear the mark of the Regime. I suppose you were previously incarcerated. You should never have been released. Sit down.”

As I reseated myself, the clubbing guard laughed twistedly. “Let’s cut off his testicles.”

“No. Stick to the standard procedures. Get your razor and shave this bastard.”

The clubbing guard took an electric razor from his pocket. He flipped it on and advanced toward me. The buzzing of the device increased my disorientation. Grabbing my face, he said, “This’ll be a real improvement for you.”

“Stop talking to the prisoner. Leave him to his own misery.”

The blades grinded mercilessly into my skull. Hair fell to the floor in big clumps. The haircut was thankfully over in a few minutes.

“That’ll do,” said the bald guard, opening a drawer in the desk and pulling out tan clothes – socks, underwear, shirt, pants, and shoes. He handed the stack to me. “Put these on.”

He continued as I dressed. “At no time during this processing have you requested the services of an attorney. Your ‘guilty’ plea means that such a request would have been useless. Hell, your guilt is so obvious, I doubt you could have qualified for legal representation under any circumstance. Your sentencing is in two days.

“You disgust me, Mr. Flemming. The punishment you get will not be enough to satisfy me. Will you please offer a comment for the official record?”

Fully clothed, I sat back down. I stared over his shoulder. He stood from his desk. His muscular frame towered over me. Wanton malice animated his face.

“Your unwillingness to cooperate exhausts my patience. You disrespect my authority and the authority of the Permanent Regime. Now … I will fuck you up.”

Fists raised, he hesitated, escalating the tension. The first blow exceeded my expectations. The second was a pile of bricks. A third jolt crashed me to the floor. The lights went out.

When consciousness resumed, I felt overwhelming pain. The room twirled in nauseating fashion. Blood gushed from my mouth.

“Here,” the bald guard said, handing me a blood-stained rag. “You’ve made a mess of yourself. Clean up and get the hell out of here.”

He pressed a button on his desk. I toweled myself off. The guard who had transported me to this hell returned to chaperone me to my cage. I leaned heavily against him, wobbling down the hall. Reaching my cell, he opened the door and shoved me in.

The guard said, “This does not bode well for you, Flemming. That was just a simple processing. We haven’t really started on you.”

His words floated past me. He walked away. I curled up in a ball, my body aching. The light in the cell dimmed as I slipped into unconsciousness. The final thing I saw before passing out was Howard Freel sleeping placidly in the corner diagonal to me.

****

“Wake up,” a voice hissed.

I emerged from sleep back into the chilly confinement of my cell. Agony spread like wildfire, from my head to my toes. It hurt tremendously to turn my neck. Freel sat next to me. Get lost! I wished to say.

He gaped at me. “Yikes! Those bastards really worked you over. You lost your virginity last night, Flemming.”

What had happened? I vaguely recalled guards, fists, and a metal club. There had been blood and a crash to the floor. Additional details were murky.

“You’re confused. Let me clear some things up for you, Flemming. You were charged with several bullshit crimes. They asked you to enter a plea on the charges. As a mute, you couldn’t plead. They deemed that an admission of guilt. No foul there; anything you might have said would have been twisted into an admission of guilt. They shaved you and had you put on the clothes you’re wearing. They also informed you that your sentencing will be in a couple days. At some point, they kicked the shit out of you.”

Freel’s incredible knowledge refreshed my memory. Was this man psychic? Or was the processing system so uniform that an absent party could recount its specifics?

He laughed. “How does he know? you’re thinking. What is this guy – a parallel universalist? Not remotely. Parallel universalism requires too much effort. But it’s no accident we wound up in this cell together. That lady friend of yours might have called it ‘fate.’”

I sat straight up at the mention of Lorna. Magnificent pain streaked through my torso.

“A lovely girl with a lovelier mind. She wanted me to be here with you. I’m a messenger, you see. I open one more door along the transcendent path.

“Much that is possible in this world is impossible in the next. Much that is impossible here manifests as reality there. This dimension’s physical aspects lose all substance in the realm of pure perception.”

He spat blood on the floor. A vibrant green light filled the cell and consumed my vision. I surfed waves of tranquility.

“Sebastian, you are transforming into something elsewhere,” said Randolph Doppelganger. “I come to you in the guise of this battered prisoner. Listen to me through him.”

The green light faded. My pain, so devastating a minute earlier, was gone.

Freel said, “Physical suffering is a relic of this sad existence. You move beyond that existence. The thugs who run this place will beat you and beat you and beat you. The beatings will mar your appearance, but you won’t feel a thing. This is a gift of passage. Speech is unnecessary and pain is a hoax. Your chosen reality does not include such elements.”

I stood up and stretched my arms and legs. Seldom had I felt so alive and strong. Was I hallucinating again? Did it matter if I was? Fearlessness electrified me.

“Resist complacency. Exemption from pain does not squelch your humanity. Certain vulnerabilities still plague you. Let go of them to the extent that you can.

“I can clarify some of the oddities you’ve experienced. Your initial encounter with parallel universalism introduced you to a realm of pure perception far beyond this Earth. Once you enter that realm, it never quite leaves you. The strange visions you’ve had were windows back into that other dimension. What you’ve witnessed just now was another window.

“My mission is fulfilled. I will not be with you much longer. Another messenger – someone you once met – will visit you in a few days. Goodbye, Mr. Flemming.”

Freel crawled away to a distant corner. He lay down and shut his eyes. I would miss my cellmate when he departed. I could not voice my gratitude to him. Nevertheless, I was certain that he understood my sentiments.

I also went to sleep. When I awoke, Freel was gone.

****

Many hours (perhaps days) passed following Freel’s removal. I had no hunger despite receiving no meals. Nobody interacted with me. Had my captors forgotten me? I longed for the chance to painlessly withstand their torment.

“Here,” the guard responsible for my cell finally said, opening my door and placing a saucer onto the ground. “In one hour you will appear before a judge for sentencing. You should eat.” He closed the door and walked away.

The “food” on the saucer was unidentifiable. It was a dull gray. Though it lacked appeal, I seized the plate and scooped up a nice portion with a plastic fork also provided. I tasted nothing. Maybe I had lost that sense.

About forty minutes after I devoured my meal, the well-groomed guard returned. “Alright, Flemming. You are due in the sentencing chambers. Come on.”

He opened the door and I exited into the lobby. He led me by the arm to an elevator halfway down the hall. We entered the lift and he pressed a button marked “B” on the floor listing. The “B” indicated the basement, an apt location for a kangaroo court.