Noology (17 page)

“I am glad, sweetheart,” he replies,
brushing his palm gently against my cheek.

Sometime soon after this exchange, I
drift to sleep and it is not until the next morning that I realize I succumbed
to my fatigue. Sure enough, Tate is perched beside me with his nose buried in a
textbook.

“Where is everyone?” I blubber in my
post-slumber haze. I scan the waiting room expecting to see my parents huddled
in the corner somewhere, but the place is deserted.

“Your parents are in the room with Tate
and his physician. I haven’t heard anything new, but they should be out
shortly.”

As if in response, my parents come
striding in the door from the depths of the hospital at that precise moment. Arm
in arm, they look concerned as grief contorts their faces and preoccupation
furrows their brows.

My mother glances briefly at Tate, and he
relocates to another chair a few feet from me. She slips into his now vacant
seat and secures my sweating palm within her soft hands.

“Avelyn, they’ve decided what to do with
Tate,” she reveals. Anxiety chirps in my breast like a frantic and caged
starling desperate to break free. I restlessly await the next words that come
pouring through her supple lips. “They have decided to operate.”
 

“I thought he was recovering fine?” I
question as confusion distorts my mental faculties.

“He is,” she affirms. “They aren’t
operating on his heart. They are going to perform the stunting procedure
tomorrow. He will leave for the food production farms after he recovers.” She
chokes on these last few syllables.

My brittle legs crumble as I collapse in
a pile on the shiny linoleum. Gut-wrenching sobs slit my chest open as I
convulse in primal pain on the hard floor. Bile rises in the back of my throat,
pushing on my tonsils and threatening to flow freely. I shiver in agony as my
senses dull and I surrender to the bleak numbness coursing through my veins.
All is lost.

The solid metal door creaks behind me as
the lock slides into place, catching in the gleaming white frame. Steeling
myself, I inhale deeply and methodically in silence before turning to face the
pristine hospital cot. Rian is awake, staring numbly at the fluorescent light
illuminating his vacant face that has become completely devoid of life: an
abominable husk of its former self. My canines pierce the tender flesh of my
lower lip as I attempt to contain the geyser of tears threatening to burst
forth.

I delicately cross the ivory linoleum as
if it is a bed of fragile eggshells beneath my feet, unsure of where to place
my quivering hands.

Reaching the foot of the lackluster bed,
I caress Rian’s exposed arm and he flinches as if he has been scalded by my
touch. He observes me with wide and startled cerulean eyes, slowly processing
my identity and extending his fingers to curl around my own.

“Hey,” I whisper, trying furiously to
mask my distress behind an awkward and forced smile. “How are you doing?”

He doesn’t respond for a while; he
doesn’t stir at all. He just remains immersed in his hypnotic trance with a
vacuous expression concealing his inner turmoil. Finally, he licks his parched
lips and begins to speak.

“She was just here,” Rian mutters.

“Who?” My brow creases in consternation
as I try to recall who Rian could be referring to. Suddenly, the bulb of
recognition ignites. “Amy,” I breathe.

“Yes. Amy,” is his curt reply. “She broke
up with me.”

“Oh no. Rian I am so sorry. I…”

He charges on with his account,
interrupting my condolences. “Said I was a disgrace. She almost couldn’t bear
to look at me. She didn’t even try to hide the distain she was feeling: it was
written all over her stoic face. With her parents being so influential, she
can’t afford to associate with a rebel of any sort. And after the procedure, we
will no longer be able to learn together from one another.” His voice fractures
on these last words and its pitch rises dramatically.

I stammer soundlessly as I try to
construct an appropriate reply; my mind is incapable of overcoming its lethargy
to summon a comforting assurance. Instead, I continue to stand at his side,
unable to console my desperate brother in his dire situation on the eve of
monumental change. Finally, he breaks the suffocating silence with a
confidential disclosure.
 

“I’m scared,” he whimpers. “Does that
make me weak?”

“Of course not, Rian. I’m scared too, but
everything is going to be okay. It will be a minor procedure and when you wake
up everything will be perfectly normal. You won’t notice a thing.”

“Avey, I don’t want to stop learning. I
love knowledge and science. I wanted to help people heal and feel good again.
Now, I won’t be able to retain anything new and my dreams will be destroyed.
Come morning, I won’t be Rian the bright medical student anymore. I’ll just be
Rian the farmer. Destined to live out my years in mediocrity.”

“Rian, you can still help people. We
would all die of starvation without the food producers, and you can live a
wonderful life in nature with the sairns. You won’t forget anything you know
now. In fact, I’d wager you will be the smartest farmer that ever existed.” I
offer a feeble smirk, but Rian rotates to face the wall and I am left looking
at his broad shoulders.

“Listen to me,” I urge with manic insistence.
“I love you more than anything and I will make sure nothing happens to you. You
are my brother and no one can take that away. I will protect you.”

I kiss him one last time on his rosy cheek
before exiting the dull hospital room and heading back towards the waiting
room.

When I enter, I am immediately accosted
by the heavy gazes of my family as they attempt to extract details about the
exchange from my exterior composure, or lack thereof. I can’t take the pressure
of this critical measurement; I have to escape.

I bound across the room and through the
sealed glass doors before anyone has a chance to register my departure,
ignoring Tate’s forlorn calls for my return. I let my feet transport me to a
place far from this despair-soaked mausoleum for hope, unsure of where that
locale will be until I stumble into the musty, cavernous shelter.

 
“Who’s there?” Bryn’s voice reverberates through the empty
barn as I search for its owner.

“It’s me, Avelyn,” I yell back.

“Hi, Avelyn. Come on back. I’m just
cleaning off Chrysanthemum.”

I make my way cautiously to the rear of
the building, careful not to trip in my eagerness to reach the aforementioned
mare. When I encounter the askew gate to her pen, I can just make out the curve
of Bryn’s back over the wooden board. He is deftly wiping the congealed
discharge from her muscular haunches.

“Is everything okay?” he questions with a
failed attempt at nonchalance. Since the university owns the sairns that
transported Rian to the hospital, they must have passed through Bryn’s hands.
He must be dying to know how Rian is faring.

“Not really,” I sigh despondently. “Rian
is going to undergo the stunting procedure in the morning. He reacted to
something in black market widow’s web, and as a result he has to start food
production in a week.”

“I’m so sorry,” Bryn replies. “It’s not
so bad, you know. Kind of calm and peaceful compared to the rigors of school.”
I completely forgot that Bryn too had received the procedure at the ripe age of
twenty-five, and the evidence was permanently emblazoned onto his dirty brown
eyes. He was a botched suicide case – attempted to hang himself from the
barn rafters but the termite-ridden lumber crumbled before he went limp. As
some kind of sick joke, the administration decided to force him to patch the
roofing himself and maintain the very barn he collapsed in, along with its
living tenants.

“I didn’t mean to disrespect you or bring
up bad memories,” I sheepishly mumble.

“It’s no problem, Avelyn. Really.
Anyways, why don’t you go groom Leo? He has a way of making things seem less
devastating.”

With that invitation, I amble down the aisle
to Leo’s stall and grab a damp cloth from the bucket beside his door. As I slip
inside his private corral, he glances up from his radioactive slop and cranes
his head around to see who is disturbing his meal. Upon identifying the
intruder as yours truly, he happily leaves the remains of his food to curl his
snout around my wrist in a fond greeting.

“How’s my man today?” I coo into his
extended nose as he searches for treats. Eventually I yield to his persistence
and produce a granulated sugar cube, which he eagerly gobbles up.

Taking the rag, I begin to buff the
syrupy grime from his skin to reveal the magnificent green canvas below.
Gingerly combing over his sensitive rib bones, I dig the heel of my palm firmly
into the groove below his whithers. He extends his nose and tilts his head
upwards in ecstasy as I rub this itchy spot for him.

“That’s my boy. You like that, don’t
you?”

When I have finally scraped the viscous
goop from his coat and polished his epidermis to a grassy hue, the crushing
weight of my personal burden begins to descend back onto my shoulders. I no
longer have a methodical process to distract my wandering mind, and it quickly
returns to the crippling news of late.

“Oh, Leo. Why did this have to happen?” I
moan into his neck, my lips brushing against his slick skin. Unable to suppress
the agony any longer, I erupt into a passionate fit of tears. As the saline
bubbles etch shiny tracks over my ruddy cheek, I am powerless to halt the
impending flood. Violent sobs course through me, tossing about my body as if it
were no more than a rumpled doll.

Leo ceases his begging and becomes a
monolithic statue, supporting my fragile frame against his own robust one. He
can sense my depression and provides the vessel into which I pour my anguish and
frustration. Patiently, he awaits my return to composure, at which point he
resumes eating his dinner but not without periodically whipping around to check
up on me.

Eventually I must leave this wonderland:
my haven. I strangle Leo one last time in an emphatic embrace before departing
from the ramshackle barn and returning to the reality of the eerily sterile
hospital. Now it is my duty to remain strong for Rian and I must not waver in
this endeavor.

It’s just after one o’clock. They began the
procedure at 8:00 am. It should be done soon. Who will greet me when that door
finally opens?

My parents still haven’t returned to the
waiting room, but the procedure was finished over half an hour ago. Right now,
I am precariously balanced on the edge of a navy cloth cushion as I try to
focus on anything but Rian’s mental state.

To my immediate left, Tate paces
anxiously across the floor with expansive strides of his long legs.

A sharp squeal penetrates the dome of
trepidation that encloses the room as my fretful mother wheels Rian through the
metal door. My breath instantly catches in my throat and I am unable to utter
the speech I have been planning out for hours on end. Precipitously, Rian
shatters the uneasiness with a beaming grin laden with reassurance.

“How are you feeling?” I venture.

“Fine, but I have a splitting headache,”
he jokes. I reflexively smile in return. “What, brain surgery and no hug? Come
here,” he beckons.

I dart across the slippery tiles,
catching myself with Rian’s metallic throne.

“Easy there!” he scolds. “No one messed
with your brain while I was out, right?”

“Haha,” I sarcastically retort. I peck
him quickly on the forehead directly between his bushy eyebrows, careful to avoid
the stark white gauze encircling his scalp. “What are you going to do now?”

“Well, I have one week before I report
for production. I am planning to go back home with mom and dad. Do you know of
any farms that may be looking for a hand? I can request a certain locale if I
have a contact.”

Instantly I remember the trip I made with
Tate over break to the humble barn near our house.

“Actually, there is a farmer named Benny
that works really close to the house. You could request to help him out, and
that way you could stay at home for as long as you want.”

“That sounds great, Avey. Thanks.”

We exchange a few more superficial
pleasantries before disembarking from the hospital and going our separate ways.
Rian needs to rest for the time being anyways. Complications are very rare, but
just in case he will be monitored almost 24/7 for the next few days until we
are confident he has made a full recovery.

Tate escorts me back to the dormitory,
quietly guiding me along the path as my mind continues to meander in convoluted
patterns. He leaves me to my own devices, neither bothering to dwell on the damaging
nature of my new familial situation nor attempting to futilely convince me that
it is acceptable. This development may have disastrous implications for my own
future academic and societal success, particularly if it brands me as a
possessor of unfit genetic stock.