Elysium (20 page)
Authors: Jennifer Marie Brissett
Tags: #Afrofuturism, #post-apocalyptic fiction, #Feminist Science Fiction, #Science Fiction, #Emperor Hadrian and Antinous--fiction, #science fiction--African-American
He injected a medicine deep into the flesh near Adrian’s spine. Within moments the pulsing pain of the wounds became numb.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” the doctor replied.
Adrian pulled down his shirt.
“Doctor, I believe I’m well enough to see my wife now.”
The doctor didn’t answer, only put away his instruments and turned away.
“Maybe you should sit down.”
“Sit down for what?”
“There is something that I need to tell you.”
Cold blackness fell down like rain. Drenching clothes. Soaking them to the skin. Words, words, and more words. What was said made no sense. Sorry. We tried. There was nothing we could do. You have a son. Keep him. Raise him. She’s not in pain anymore. Not one more day. Not one more hour. No more gasps for breath. No more suffering. She’s not coming back. Was there sorrow? A whimper. A cry. A wail. Who made those sounds?
A snarl vibrated from behind the locked door. Adrian sounded like a large cat with teeth made for rending flesh. He hissed, then went quiet like a menacing dark spirit in the back of a cell.
“How long has he been like this?”
“All night.”
A growl, low and intense.
“This is not working.” The doctor wrote out a new script. “Stop the medication and give him this.”
The window was a wash of nightfall colors. Orange drowned by pink and purple and blue, and a dot of green that briefly held in the air like a solid object, then faded away. A shadow bent his head towards the failing light. A man broken both in mind and spirit. His beard fully grown and curled at the edges, ungroomed and sprinkled with spit.
“Stephen,” Adrian said, “I know you are there.”
The little man stepped into the vanishing glow of the evening sun. No one else would come to witness this embodiment of grief. Only Stephen. He pushed back his glasses and rubbed his hair.
“You’ve been here for hours … almost every day.”
“I didn’t think you should be alone,” Stephen said and drifted back towards the exit. “Don’t worry. I’m leaving now.”
“Stephen?”
“Yes?”
“Stay for a moment.”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Have you seen my son?”
“Yes. Antoine. He is well. Sheila is taking care of him.”
“Antoine? Good. That’s good.”
Silence.
“Have you ever thought about what will be left behind when we’re gone?” Adrian asked.
“What do you mean?”
“What will be left of humanity? Ever wonder?”
“Sometimes,” Stephen said.
“We are stripping our monuments clean so we can make our new underground cities. All our databases, all of the information about who and what we are, will corrode in a matter of years without human intervention. Our books will disintegrate. … There should be something left of us, don’t you think?”
“I suppose so,” Stephen said.
Adrian placed a memory card on the window sill.
“This is for you.”
“What is it?”
“It’s my plans for your atmospheric encoding project. Multiple layers of code in the atmosphere can be networked like a spider’s web over the surface of the Earth. It should still run your warning program, but it should also be a giant database where we upload our books, history, all our knowledge. … It will be a memorial to mankind.”
Stephen stepped forward and carefully picked up the card.
“Okay,” Stephen said. “I can get started on this.”
“And I want you to do something for me.”
“Yes?”
“I want you to make sure that
she
is remembered. … I want you to make it so that the sky will have her memory living up there. … I want you to make her beautiful like she was. …”
“I’ll try.”
The door creaked open, slicing a sliver of white into the shadow.
“Stephen?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you.”
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14.
The sky was a cloudless blue, blue, blue as far as the eyes could see. No sun, just blue. The fresh scent of ozone lingered in the clean air. The trees tempered the wind. The grass was soaked with dew. And the weather was warm, like it always was.
A bearded man sat on the park bench, wearing ragged shoes. Black dirt caked his face and clothes. His yellowing eyes gazed upon the children at play, running in a zigzag game of their own making, falling down to stain their clothes with green. Their laughter echoed high up into the firmament then back down. He smiled to himself and whispered words to someone who wasn’t there. No one responded but he heard an answer.
Yes, this is good. This is very good.
He considered all the people with shadows under their eyes as he slowly rose. The creak of his legs made him feel old before his time. He clumsily hobbled across the soft lawn. The soles of his shoes flip-flopped — the rubber bands he used to keep them attached were lost or broken long ago. The soft grass tickled his feet. He laughed to himself with the sensation. Mothers pulled their children close as he passed, and some covered their kids’ eyes. The bearded man was a harmless fixture in the park. Some even remembered who he was. Others didn’t care and only wished he would go away.
He shuffled out of the park and into city streets thick with people. People, people, everywhere. All with the same sickened look and shadows under their eyes. They gave him a wide berth. It was the smell. He mumbled to a man who tried to give him money, “I made the sky, you know.” The man nodded and hurried away.
Down the boulevard, he saw corner after street corner after street corner, on and on ad infinitum. He scratched his ass and smelled his fingers and laughed. It was all such a beautiful illusion.
He knew where he was going. Better than anyone, he knew the way. Past the stores and the vendors’ tables that were lined up along the edges of the sidewalk with handmade crafts, T-shirts, scarves, and leather holders for the pocket gadgets. Past the shops and cafés. Past the people in their beautiful neat clothes and jewelry made of copper and gold. Their sounds were a blending stream of conversations and sighs. He stopped to stare at his reflection in the window of a clothing store, where the plastic people looked at the mannequins in their styled outfits. He didn’t recognize himself, but it was him, only a him he wasn’t sure he wanted to be.