Absolution

The heat didn’t bother me so much anymore. At least, that’s what I told myself. In the distance, a dust devil kicked up Sulphur yellow and scorched brown earth; sending it spinning through the air in a radioactive colored cloud across the desert landscape. After a while, one got used to living in a place where every day brought the same; unrelenting, unchanging heat. The light was just as bad. Everywhere you looked, it was like staring into the sun too long. Once ‘they’ had come, they seemed to have taken away everything about the planet that was gentle towards its original inhabitants.

Walking through countless rows of mounded dirt, I studied the panel on the machine that hovered beside me. A few taps on the screen and it hummed to life; large spades appeared from its underbelly and it began digging; creating an opening in the earth the same size as the mounds around it.

A low rumble had me looking up. A gigantic craft glided low and slow just outside of the cemetery complex’s boundaries; the refraction from the exhaust making the landscape beneath it dance. I unconsciously reached for the chain around my neck and clasped the heart shaped locket in anticipation. The craft didn’t slow or change trajectory. It wasn’t stopping. I released the breath I had been holding. I didn’t know if it was from relief or disappointment.

I turned back to the task at hand. A supply sled hovered next to the spade. A flick of a latch revealed an occupied body bag. I pulled it from the sled and it fell with a dull thump into the waiting grave. It was the last one. For now.

The air inside the complex was cooler than the outside only by the grace of a lack of windows and a roof of reflective panels that directed the suns punishing rays away. I stepped into the cafeteria and glanced at the room’s lone occupant.

“Good morning, my dear.” The old man rasped. “How’s the process going?”

I avoided his eyes; busying myself by making a cup of tea. I took a contemplative sip.

“Slow.” I answered honestly. “But I think I’ve made progress.”

I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.

“What’s wrong?”

“What if they don’t forgive me?”

“You must conquer step three before jumping ahead to nine.”

I snorted. This was a debate we’d had before.

“Turn my will and life over to God? I think he jumped ship with the alien invasion.”

Zarko smiled indulgently. I hated that smile as much as I loved it.

“Just because there is other intelligent life does not mean there is no God.”

I had to stop myself from reaching for my locket.

“No merciful God would have allowed what happened.”

Zarko only shrugged. He was as comfortable in his beliefs as he was in the clothes he wore.

“Doesn’t mean you can skip steps. Before asking for forgiveness, you must give yourself over to a higher power.”

I was as certain in my beliefs as he was.

“There is none.”

On that, I took my tea and made what was surely a dramatic exit. Zarko didn’t follow.

Cold storage was just that. Cold. The only room in the complex that was temperature controlled, it rested a solid three stories underground for just that purpose. It was the place I prepared the cargo ferried to me for their final destination. It would smell far worse without the cold.

I rolled the glass container between my fingers and the metal table I was sitting on. I was hypnotized by the movement of the white powder on the inside. Flecked by grains of gray and yellow, the natron smoothy slid along the side of the container. Back and forth it moved. I glanced to the table in front of me. A young woman rested on it; waiting. She could be a younger sister. A glance to the vial. Back to the woman. The vial. Heart hammering, I clasped my locket tight in my fist and slammed the jar of natron upright and walked to the body; natron left behind.

The day had been long and all I wanted to do was sleep. The light to the bathing area turned off behind me as I stepped into the bedroom. Vasu was lying in bed; his back turned to me. I slowly climbed in, not wanting to disturb him as I curled on my side. I opened my mouth, wanting to say the words that were just on the tip of my tongue, but I failed. Frustrated, I turned away and closed my eyes.

The next morning, a loud alarm broke the silence. A glance at the security monitor had me clasping my locket. A ship had arrived. I scrambled through the hallways to reach the receiving docks. A hiss of steam and grind of metal as the doors opened; revealing a holding bay of bodies. The far wall closed in; pushing them from the ship to the receiving platform. Once the holding bay was empty, the wall receded and the door closed; leaving me alone with my new charges. I grabbed an arm and tugged; beginning the process of sorting.

The second arm I grabbed caused a sound to erupt from the body it was attached to. A moan. Startled beyond belief, I jumped back, heart in my throat and hand to my locket. Tentatively, I reached out. Warmth. Life yet lingered there.

The door to the room opened with a soft click. I drug a cart behind me, carrying the warm bodied man. A heave had him settling onto the cot I had set up for just that use. I studied him; my face inches from his. Long eyelashes punctuated deep eye sockets. Hair black as the midnight sky stuck out every which way. I brought a fingertip beneath his nose. Breath tickled my skin. An unfamiliar, upward twitch of my lips had me blinking. When was the last time I smiled? I shook myself back to reality. I had to leave before the others came looking.

Vasu was on his side again; facing away from me as I climbed into bed.

“Are you awake?” I whispered, daring to break the silence. But silence was my answer. My hand hovered over his shoulder; hesitating. I lightly traced the muscle and absorbed the familiar coolness of his skin. He didn’t respond to my touch. I pulled away; stung and hurt. Hours later, I couldn’t sleep. I looked over at Vasu, who was still asleep. I took my chance and slipped out of bed.

The temperature inside the room had cooled with the night air, making it almost comfortable. I ran a damp cloth over the warm bodied man’s face; cleaning it. There were no obvious injuries, so I wasn’t sure why he hadn’t woken up. The tendons on his forearm fascinated me. The hair on them tickled my fingertips as I traced them. A glance at his face showed no sign of a response. Giving in, I pressed my ear to his chest; lulled almost into a trance by the hypnotic thumping I heard there.

Zarko was sitting at his normal table when I walked into the cafeteria the next morning.

“Good morning, my dear.”

I poured my tea, then sat opposite him.

“How do you know?” The words came out before I could think to hold them back.

“Know what?”

“That there’s a God.”

Zarko barked out a startled laugh.

“That’s certainly a question for first thing in the morning.”

“Well?” I asked, impatient for the answer. “How do you know?”

Zarko took a sip of his coffee.

“My grandfather once heard C.S. Lewis give a radio address on this question: ‘if there is no Being who as the Author of life can distinguish right from wrong, why is it universally accepted that there is such a thing as right and wrong?”

He looked to me expectantly, but I could only shrug. I had to answer to give.

“Lewis referred to something called the Moral Law. This Rule of Right and Wrong must somehow be a real thing – a thing that is really there, not made up by ourselves. Yet it is not a fact in the ordinary sense, in the same way as our actual behavior is a fact. There is something above and beyond the ordinary facts of men’s behavior; a real law, which none of us made, but which we find pressing on us.”

My head swum, but my frustration remained.

“But how does that prove the existence of God?”

“Different societies may disagree on most things, but when it comes to others, such as desecration of a body, generations have agreed some moral standards are absolute. Why is that?”

“Because they just are?”

“How can they be if there is no higher power that designed them as such?”

“Now you’re just twisting your words around!”

Zarko laughed; the sound raspy and soothing.

“Jesus is believed to have said ‘If you do not want to believe what I am telling you, you should believe in me based on the miracles you’re seeing.”

“What miracles?”

Zarko spread his arms wide, gesturing around us.

“Why, the miracle of yourself. The world around you has crumbled into ruins, and yet you’re still here.”

As I let Zarko’s words sink in, I thought about the warm bodied man in the hidden room; the simple fact of him still being alive.

“You might have a point.” I admitted.

“Of course I do.”

He studied me, a new light in his eye.

“I think you finally might be on your way to passing step three.”

“I just might.”

Feeling lighter and with a renewed purpose, I stepped into my bedroom; slowly and carefully sitting down on my side of the bed.

“I’m sorry.” I murmured into the quiet. “I should have let you go as soon as I saw you. But I couldn’t be alone anymore. If the world were the way it was I’d be locked away for what I’ve done. I know that.” The tears come unbidden, but I couldn’t make them stop. “I think I would have ended things long before now if it hadn’t been for you. But I need to let you go.”

I turned to Vasu’s side of the bed; allowing myself to see him as he truly was. The mummified corpse I had place there. It didn’t take much effort to move him to the sled. He was light. My next stop was the cafeteria, where I paused in the doorway; gazing upon the mummified remains of the old man I had named Zarko. He was still in the chair I had placed him in. I gently freed him from his bonds and laid him down next to Vasu on the cart. I studied the gaunt face, the paper thin, brown tinted skin and hollow, empty eye sockets.

“Thank you, my friend.” I whispered.

As I stood over the freshly turned graves of my companions, I imagined I could feel a slight breeze against my skin. I closed my eyes; savoring the sensation. When it passed, I opened my eyes again, slowly reached up, and unclasped the heart shaped locket. My fingered curled around it; savoring the inconsequential weight. My hand opened and it fell to the dusty earth. I took a deep breath; feeling almost free.

A ship flew overhead, drawing my gaze back towards the building that contained the only other live person I knew of. I walked away from the graves and back into the slighter coolness of the building. The door to the room across from mine was open. I had moved the warm bodied man there after moving my friends. I stepped into the room and came to a sudden stop. Where I had expected the same as before with the warm bodied man, looking back at me from the bed was a pair of startingly blue eyes. The man was awake.