FATA MORGANA

FATA MORGANA

His Dad was drunk again. His eldest sister Sarah was surely dead. Bethany was missing, and his brother Jonas and his Mom had become terrifying, ugly creatures and now lived beyond the city in the wild places; his Dad had said so.

His father had arrived home to find that the environmental conditioning unit for their small living space had been turned down. The noise of the thing always scared Kevin when he was home alone. The drunken man had plunked down on the living room couch and looked across at the boy with inebriated, withering contempt. He then clenched a handful of the preserves Kevin had prepared for himself and threw it at the boy. The brownish red paste struck the ten-year-old in the face, coating his cheek, his nose, and fully covering one eye. After a few moments, the frightened and dejected boy stood up and walked to the bathroom across the hall. He stood at the sink, slowly wiping the paste off. A plate sailed in and smashed against the wall above the bathtub. Kevin jumped at the sound, but did not look up. A moment later, a glass of blue milky liquid crashed against the wall where the plate had struck.

“I’m…gonna send you…where your mother went, you useless little shit!”

The paste was gone; Kevin now rubbed tears from his cheeks with the heels of his small hands.

“Is that what you want?! You want to go live out there?! Answer me!!”

“No.” Kevin said quietly.

“What?! Speak up!!”

“No, Daddy.”

“Yes you do!! You want to go and live with them! You want to take a green pill and die or become a monster like the soldiers say!! Like your mother did!!”

There was a crash as the table in the living room overturned and seconds later his father’s frame filled the doorway. Kevin smelled smoke and alcohol. He backed away, but his father grabbed him by one arm. Kevin cried out as he was dragged to stand before the living room window. His father pressed the boy’s face against the cold glass.

“Look at it!!”

Kevin’s eyes were squeezed shut. He was crying.

“I said look!!”

Kevin looked. The long, unbroken navy-blue cloud of toxins that had settled over the city months ago still hung there, like a clump of algae in a tepid swamp. He knew the environmental conditioning unit should be at the highest setting, but he hated the stupid, noisy thing and anyway he had only turned it down a couple of clicks.

“Can you get that through your thick head!?”

“I-it scares me.”

“What?!” Kevin’s father leaned in. Kevin looked down at his socks. They were his favourite socks, the ones with the sharks and killer whales and the dark blue toes and heels.

“T-the environem, the eviromne, the th-thing in the wall scares me.”

“Get the hell out of my sight.” He thrust the little boy toward the hall. “You’re useless.”

Kevin went to his room, his father was still yelling.

“I’m going to get more of those goddamn pills your idiot mother took, and I’m going to force one down your worthless little throat and then you’ll be gone! They’ll take you out of here in a box or in a cage and dump you out where you belong!! Out with your goddamn moth—”

His father’s voice became muffled as Kevin closed his bedroom door. He sat on the edge of his bed and wiped the snot from his nose with the back of his hand as he cried, and then wiped his hand on his pant leg.

It had been a year now since the cataclysm, which Kevin pronounced ‘cat-clysm’. He didn’t know much about it, except that it had been some big thing that the presidents and big bosses in all the big countries had agreed to do that was supposed to end all the wars and make everything better for everyone. Something had gone wrong though, and things had gotten much worse pretty quickly.

Sarah was away at school in the big city when the cat-clysm happened. There was nothing left of the big city now, just wrecked buildings, Kevin had seen it on the computer. Bethany was working across town where most of the people had been captured or killed. Mom said don’t worry she was sure Bethany was OK. It’s hard not to worry when someone tells you not to worry but then at the same time, they look very worried.

Then fights started between his Mom and Dad over these green pills that Mom got in secret from her friend. They weren’t bright yellow like the ones the soldiers were passing out. She said the green pills would protect them from the blue clouds and orange mold so they could get out of the city to where it was safe. His Dad had said no about those green pills; they caused hallucinations and killed just about everyone who took them. He said they would be safe here if they kept taking the soldier’s pills and stayed put. The governments were figuring things out. For now, the family had enough food and water, and filtration masks for everyone if they absolutely had to go outside.

Kevin’s Mom and brother had taken the green pills while his Dad was out. Kevin watched them but was too afraid to take one because of what his Dad had said. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to get ‘hallinations’ and he was quite sure he didn’t want to die. His mother said those were just stories and that if they all took them, they would be able to get away and live in a clean place with lots of other kids to play with. Kevin had still been too afraid.

When his Dad came home and saw that Mom and Jonas had taken the pills, there was a lot of yelling and thumping and Kevin ran crying to his room.

His Dad came upstairs a long time afterwards looking very sad. His Mom and brother were gone. He hugged Kevin and squeezed him really hard and kept telling him over and over again that everything was going to be OK and Kevin believed him, but still he missed his Mom, brother and sisters. He was now starting to believe that things were not going to be OK. Mostly he was just sad and scared most of the time because things looked worse outside everyday; the orange moldy stuff was growing and growing up the side of all the buildings now and he hadn’t seen anyone else in a really long time. His Dad was getting meaner and drinking more too.

He slid down and pushed his small hand under his mattress and pulled out the necklace his Mom had forgotten in his room on that last day. He had been hiding it for a year.

It had a heart shaped locket hanging from it that had cool looking tracings and lines all over it. Kevin thought that his Dad would get really mad if he knew Kevin had it and so had hid it from him. He was fiddling with it in his room one day when his Dad had burst in, took it from him and threw it across the room. It hit the wall really hard and fell behind his bed.

His Dad had left him trembling and in tears again that day, his cheek hot and stinging where he had been slapped. When Kevin crawled under his bed later to get his necklace back he was shocked to see five little green pills on the floor beside it. The heart shaped locket had popped open. Kevin recoiled and crawled back out quickly, afraid and unsure of what to do next. He crawled back in, reaching out slowly, carefully putting each pill back into the locket and quickly snapping it shut, remembering all the while what his father had said about what they could do to you. He didn’t ever want to touch them again. He hid the necklace under his mattress for a week like a dirty and dangerous secret.

Now, his cheeks once again damp with tears, he opened the locket. He stared at the emerald pills, fingering them, pushing them around in the little case, wondering where his Mom and Jonas were. Were they happy? Was his Dad wrong? His Dad had never hit him before, now he was always angry. He was hitting him all the time now. His Mom said the pills were OK, and Kevin knew she would never do anything to hurt him. She and Jonas had each taken a pill, it hadn’t looked like they were dying or anything, and then they got to leave. Even if the pill made him a little sick, he would probably get better. He had always gotten better when he had gotten sick before, and if he took the pill and then was taken to where his Mom was, he would definitely get better because it was his Mom who had always made him get better in the past.

He plucked one out and sniffed it. Smelled like nothing. He touched it with the tip of his tongue. Tasted like nothing. He popped it in his mouth and bit down. It tasted sharp and bitter and burned his tongue. He grabbed his water cup and took a mouthful, and the burning went straight down his throat like a streak of super hot cocoa and then sat like a warm ball in his stomach.

He started to feel not so great, all hot and puffy kind of, then the room started to spin, and he really thought he was going to throw up and then everything went black.

He could hear his Dad’s voice, far away like underwater in a long tunnel. Then everything started to shake violently, and his neck was sort of hurting. His Dad’s voice got louder and louder and things got very bright and suddenly he could smell cigarettes and alcohol and he opened his eyes to see his father’s angry face right in front of him. His shoulders hurt and his neck hurt and now he knew it was because his father was squeezing him and shaking him and shouting.

“What did you do!!? What did you do you stupid, stupid boy??!” His father let him go and grabbed the necklace from the floor. There were four of the green pills sitting there. Kevin’s father squeezed the heart shaped locket tight in his fist and looked at his son, despair clear on his face.

“What did you do…”

When the soldiers arrived, the burn in Kevin’s stomach was fading; the chemicals in the little green pill were coursing their way through his veins. From the back of the windowed van, Kevin noticed that the toxic navy-blue cloud was lifting. No, it wasn’t just lifting, it was vanishing. He saw that the damaged buildings, streets and sidewalks all around them were miraculously repairing themselves, and that neither he nor the two soldiers sitting across from him were wearing masks. He craned his neck; his father stood on the street watching them go and there was not a trace of the nasty orange mold anywhere; his apartment building looked just like it had before the ‘cat-clysm.’ His father watched the departing vehicle and then hurried back inside; his gas mask strapped tightly to his face.

Kevin looked up at one soldier. The man shook his head.

“You’re lucky, kid. Three quarters of the people who take a green pill die.”

“What a mess,” the second soldier said. “People are getting more violent.”

“As long as they’re afraid to go outside, things will be fine. The top brass will figure things out. Thanks to folks like you and your family, kid. We’ll figure out why you’re not dead, then everyone will get a green pill.”

“My family?”

“Yeah, you’ll be with them soon. Welcome back, kid.”