Outside

“Departure scan code, please,” a tall, official-looking lad said flatly, his blue eyes steely, devoid of emotion.

Ken Bradley fumbled for his phone. “I’m not going far,” he stammered, “just a short drive to the country.”

“Sir,” the guard sighed loudly, making no attempt to hide his annoyance, “anyone departing the metro area is required to apply for and obtain authorization from the Office of Citizen Security. Departure scan code, please.”

Kern lowered his head slightly, then looking at the officer, explained, “I apologize, I understood the requirement to be only for trips in excess of 200 kilometres from the metro area. I’m only going about 40, maybe 50.” He nervously wiped the sweat from his brow.

‘Identification,” the guard spat in reply.

“Of course, certainly,” Kern’s hand trembled slightly as he offered the small plastic card he was holding in his hand. “You, see,” he continued, “I’m just going for a drive, to clear my head. I’ve just lost my wife. Not long back. I just can’t sit in my apartment another moment. Some fresh country air, that’s what I need. I won’t be long.”

The guard snatched the offered card and stomped back to his vehicle without a word. Kern waited nervously, almost holding his breath. He knew he had no reason to be afraid. He was an upstanding, well-regarded citizen and a full member of the Citizens’ Democratic Alliance. Yet, the feeling of anxious dread remained. These days, despite one’s standing within the Alliance, it was impossible to know from one day to the next how that standing would be interpreted.

The guard returned and handed Kern his identification. His eyes remained fixed, cold, but his demeanour softened slightly, “thank you, Mr Bradley, you’ve been scanned and authorized. Enjoy your trip.”

Kern stared over the officer’s shoulder, at something that had caught his eye in the not too distant distance.

“You may proceed,” the guard nodded sharply.

Kern continued to stare. “Officer, behind you,” he raised his right hand and pointed, “Is that an owl?”

“I doubt it,” he replied, expressionless. There had been virtually no wildlife in the metro area for at least thirty years.

Kern nodded slightly but continued to cast his gaze forward at the creature atop the dilapidated two-story wood-frame structure that once housed a popular restaurant. It seemed unlikely, but the appearance was unmistakable. The shades of brown, grey and white, the long wings, the round, wise eyes. It was an owl – a barn owl if memory served him correctly. “I’m certain it is, officer, look.”

The guard turned around, not to see anything, but to push Kern along on his way as the lineup of cars behind him began to swell. He tipped his hat down to shield his eyes from the mid-afternoon sun and looked in the direction of the old restaurant.

There was something on top of the building. That, he could plainly see. And it was obviously an animal, a bird of some variety. It could very well be an owl.

He turned back abruptly, hiding his surprise, and not wanting to draw attention to the sight. Something as simple as a bird sighting was liable to set the citizens in the lineup into a frenzy of excited chaos, making his job of maintaining an orderly flow of traffic next to impossible.

“I think it is,” he smiled, just barely, at Kern, “it must be watching you.” Then embarrassed at his half-baked attempt at a joke, he cleared his throat and waved his hand, “on your way, sir, and remember, curfew for all adult citizens is 22:00 sharp.”

Kern nodded and pulled away slowly, smiling to himself. It was the first time he’d caught himself smiling since Ellen’s death two months ago. Her passing hadn’t been unexpected, she’d been sick for quite some time. But after 46 years together, he felt her absence as acutely as he would the loss of a part of his own body.

That owl, he thought, looked like his Ellen. It was something in the eyes, so big, so dark, so round. It was those eyes that first attracted him to her all those years ago.

He giggled, pushing a wisp of thin grey hair from his eyes. He remembered it like it was yesterday. They were at a meeting for the youth branch of The Alliance, or rather a similarly minded group which later banded together with other groups of the same type to become the Alliance. Teenagers and young adults, full of high ideals, disillusioned with the status quo, intent on creating a society based on absolute equality of all individuals without regard to race, creed, gender, orientation, wealth or social status. In fact, there would be no such thing as social status in the world they envisioned, just people working together to lift each other up.

He looked across the room and there she was, a tiny waif of a girl wearing denim overalls, rolled up at the ankles. Kern didn’t find her particularly pretty. Her hair was a sort of non-descript type of average straight brown. Her lips were thin and her nose bird-like. She had a serious demeanour and rarely smiled. Yet he was drawn to her. He kind of fell into her eyes, huge dark caverns that projected a strange mix of child-like innocence and the wisdom of the ages. He approached her and from that moment on, they were inseparable.

A tear streamed down his cheek as he choked back his guilt. He knew Ellen had wanted it this way. No special favours. No greasing of the wheels to get her the surgery she needed. If Ellen had been anything, it was true to her beliefs. So true that it cost her her life.

A simple operation, early on, would have saved her life. And indeed, she was on the waiting list for it, but the list was long. Kern knew there were ways around the list. It was well known, even if it was never said aloud, within the Alliance that although all medical services were free and equally available to all, a donation could result in a favourable position on any waitlist. And the position on the list was commensurate with the size of the donation.

Kern extracted their entire life savings, prepared to make such a donation, but Ellen would have no part of it. The height of hypocrisy, she called it, annoyed that her husband would think she’d abandon principles of a lifetime so easily when those principles became personally inconvenient. He returned the money to the Alliance Central Bank and spent the next 18 months nursing his wife as she slowly faded, each day, a tiny piece of her slipping from him until she went to sleep one afternoon as the rain fell softly outside and never work up.

After about 20 minutes had passed, Kern noticed a stretch of sand by the ocean, with a cave neatly situated to the left. The reddish-brown sand and salty air beckoned to him from his open window. He pulled his car over on the deserted beach, sitting for a moment with his key in the ignition.

There wasn’t likely to be any microphones or video cameras out there. There’d be no place to put them discreetly.

He turned the key and got out of the car. He inhaled deeply, taking in as much of the fresh, clean air as his lungs could hold and looked around. The tide was out, exposing the cave’s floor. He walked slowly toward it, thinking about Ellen. Thinking about The Alliance. Thinking about the lifetime he had given to ideals he no longer recognized.

As the pondered, bitterness rose within him, a vile rot, a bile of mixed anger and hate so strong he could taste it in the back of his throat. The Alliance lied to him. All this time. All the work. The loyalty. The service. Endless evenings meeting, printing flyers, discussing a supposedly shared world view. For what? A slightly less crappy apartment than most of the other residents of Hemisphere North – West Division 7? Less drafty windows and a small balcony overlooking another building, identical to his? A gold star? Oh, and a dead wife. Mustn’t forget that.

Standing just in front of the cave, Kern spotted something moving. He stepped in a little closer and stood quietly, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the cavern. He struggled to focus for a bit and then saw it. A barn owl. It looked identical to the one he’d seen on the road. It was perched on a little shelf of rock in the cave.

He took another step, gingerly approaching the middle of the cave. The owl stood stubbornly on its perch, stretching its wings out wide. Kern looked into its eyes. They were the same eyes, Ellen’s eyes – big, round, dark and knowing. He was transfixed, locked in the bird’s gaze. There was something in the moment, a connection, a kinship. It was as if the bird was saying, “I know you. I see you.”

Kern felt a sudden warmth come over him. It was a brief, inexplicable feeling of comfort. A comfort he hadn't felt since he lost his wife. Then as the owl broke his gaze, the warmth steadily bubbled into a white-hot, over-powering rage.

He allowed the rage to fall out of him. “The Alliance is bullshit!” he screamed, tears streaming down his face as the owl continued to stand there, perched. “Lies, lies, lies!”

He collapsed; his grief-stricken body curled into a ball on the cool, wet sand as the cave’s echo called his words back to him, “Lies, lies, lies,” in a tone dripping with creepy ominosity. He sobbed and sobbed, slamming his fists into the cold dirt until there was nothing left. Every ounce of despair, every ounce of feeling, gone. His body, lay parched, drained of all its moisture and he allowed the blackness of exhaustion to overtake him.

Surrounded by shallow water, Kern felt a tugging at his ear and something cold and hard against his face. He opened his eyes slightly to see a tall figure standing above him holding a baton against his cheek.

“You’re in an unauthorized area, after curfew,” the figure bellowed, “Get up!”

The realization that the figure was that of an Alliance officer jolted Kern completely out of his post-sleep stupor. He tried to sit up but lay back down as the officer shifted his stance menacingly. “I’m sorry, I… I must have dozed off…” He knew he wasn’t outside the authorized travel zone, but he also knew he was in no position to argue. Ever since the Alliance took over, after the Great World Economic Collapse, the rules were whatever the Alliance said they were at any given time and were subject to change.

“You’ve been speaking against the Alliance,” the guard said flatly, “you’ve been recorded.”

Kern shook his head, incredulous. “No, no,” he started, denying the accusation. He barely remembered saying anything at all. And even if he had in his state of despair, he reasoned, it would have been impossible to have recorded him way out here.

As if reading his thoughts, the tall, broad uniformed man pointed toward the rock shelf. The owl was no longer there but apparently, a microphone was and had been. “Now, get up!” he ordered.

Kern rose slowly, gingerly, his clothes soaked with water brought in by the tide. Terror filled his soul as the reality of his fate unfolded. He was about to die. That was it. He had fallen asleep and slept well past curfew. That was bad enough. But he had been recorded speaking against the Alliance. It didn’t matter that it was in a cave, to no one but a barn owl, he’d been caught and now, he was way out here, alone with an officer with no witnesses.

He stepped back, raising his hands, signalling surrender, “I’ve been a loyal Alliance member for well over 40 years,” he began, pleading. “I was angry. I was delirious with grief!”

The guard stood silent; his hand grasped tightly around the metal baton he was holding in front of him.

Kern continued, trembling as the words just poured out of him furiously, “My wife, my Ellen… she just died not long ago, you see. She was a loyal member too. Loyal to her death. Look it up, you’ll see. I didn’t even know what I was saying. I didn’t mean it. I swear, I just… you must understand. People say things, don’t they? They say things when they’re so overcome with feelings of sadness and anger. It’s gone now. All gone, I promise…it’s…”

The guard cocked back his arm. Kern winced, closed his eyes and fell to his knees, awaiting the fatal blow of the baton.

“Get up!” he ordered. Then a screech, an unholy, high-pitched, horror-inducing sound. The sound of pure fright. Not a human sound, more like a bird, an owl. Then nothing.

“Get up,” a voice called again, “Kern, get up!” He felt the tug on his ear again.

He opened his eyes, confused to see Ellen standing above him, her big, round, owl-like eyes dancing with a mix of exasperation and amusement. She had his headphones in her hand. “Ellen, darling,” he whispered, reaching out to touch her arm, “Is that really you?”

She wrinkled her nose and laughed, “Well, it ain’t no supermodel.”

“You’re not dead!” he exclaimed.

“Not yet,” she quipped back. Then, handing him back his headphones, she smiled warmly, “You fell asleep in your chair again. I was trying to wake you up. You know what this chair does to your back.

Kern nodded.

Ellen continued, brushing the dark hair from her forehead, “And you were having some sort of a dream. What did I tell you about listening to those Orwell audiobooks before you fall asleep?”