The Subhuman

Morning sunlight could only break through the random gaps of space between the sheet metal cage which enclosed the slum on its east side. At noon the sun could shine down the divisions of the merging overpass highway which sealed the slum from above but afternoon was black.

For the skyscrapers of a city so vast counties and area codes were hopeless to contain the city under one definitive name, shaded the slum from the west. And so the city surpassed any sort of township or stateship, because the concrete labyrinth had encroached passed rivers, mountains and borders. The continent the city expanded upon had, over centuries, capitulated to dealing with the city as if it were its own country. Sovereign by the city’s own detached will to expand and darken all land which it could wrap its brutal tentacles across.

Subhuman 1437 lived in the slum which, reflective of its own motherless city, endlessly expanded upon the city’s eastern edge. A super highway which wrapped around the city continually buzzed and roared above the slum, blocking any view of the sky. The slum was a lawless cesspool of filth and misery. Those who inhabited the slum were known as subhumans and were given ambiguous numbers to identify them. The numbers branded onto their arms as not to waste any money on ink tattoos. Too much money was wasted on the subhumans already; but with any radical, zeitgeist smashing progress into the infinite future of the human race it’s going to have its costs.

Prison buses growled to a start every morning in the cold darkness of the early morning in the most central parts of the slum where the bus depots sat at the edge of the city. Subhumans were offered the choice of two meals a day for 10 hours of work a day in the city. There were no schedule options or duty assignments, but after almost two centuries of the slum existing the subhumans had developed their own knowledge of what buses go where through generations of subjugation.

In the world of the city, euphemisms existed to justify the slavery they perpetrated, but in the slum… There was no possibility for delightful delusions, at least, in the mind of Subhuman 1437. His experience had simply been too brutal to sugar coat anything, not that his existence had been any different from any of the other subhumans. Only that, inwardly, he was not a subhuman, he had never felt like one. He saw the world the same way the highest keeper of power in the city saw the world. To say, the epitomes of both views; the glamorous and the wretched, see with the same eyes. So with that thinking, subhuman 1437 felt some small victory in the fact that the richest, most honorable man in the city, felt just as desolate as he.

Subhuman 1437 had been born in the second century of the city’s existence. His mother was unknown to him and he was raised by his father who had given himself the name of William. Subhuman 1437 would never utter the name his father had given him. And if his name were to float through his mind he would snuff it out with hate and rejection. His father was the only person who would call him by his name though there were others who knew it.

Many lives had been carried out and ended in the confines of the slum. And with so many subhumans and so much time, communities and cultures had formed- though at their lowest forms. William, 1437’s father, had lived his life in the presence of a church and a community of people who saw themselves as a candle of hope in the darkness of the slum. Who practiced something that could once be called christianity but in the day of subhuman 1437, had since transformed into something almost recognizable as the faith, but many things had been forgotten and removed from context.

People who garbed themselves in the ideas of The Candle Church rejected but also accepted their lowly place. For even outside of the church not much was known other than that they were subhuman. They knew others held power over them and their world views outside of that were up to myths and conspiracies to explain. But all subhumans knew there was a better standard of life. Even though the guards and marshalls of the slums were almost as low as the subhumans, they themselves lived outside of the slums and had autonomy. But the thoughts of The Candle Church were that God had put them there for some purpose, mostly the purpose of existing as God-believers. For in that period of time, religion was an antique from a time no one remembered and no longer cared about.

People of the church gave themselves names and struggled to be the only form of philanthropy throughout the whole slum. They had multiple mission churches throughout the slum and did what they could to provide care for the old and even the abandoned young. Believers saw self sacrifice as holy and would work inside the city and save food to bring back for the needy at their churches. The Candle Church struggled to bring any sort of order and unification to the slums, contrary to the gangs which was the most common community.

For the most part people ran in gangs, and even at the lowest rung of the power chain, there are their own hierarchies. The slum itself was the size of a state and gangs held dominion in their respective territories and held power over the smaller gangs and so on. This became the main culture of the slums and families adjusted to this framework to perpetuate themselves.

More often than not the gangs left The Candle Church alone, their worries laid with their rival gangs and if a small population of people wanted to try and make things better it was no sweat off the gangs backs. That’s not to say the church wasn’t preyed upon every once in a while but for the most part they could believe what they wanted.

Other than the church and the gangs, the next group of subhumans was the neutral, brainless mass, those that just worked and never saw what was in front of them. They believed any and all propaganda presented to them, that or they simply didn’t care.

Then the smallest group of subhumans, the revolutionaries. Those who believed in fairness and equality. Those who were publicly ostracized for they brought nothing but trouble for any involved with them. Suffice it to say justice was an impossibility in the slum because the slum was under a constant state of A.I surveillance. A system that controlled a whole network of screens and microphones and megaphones and scanners and drones and frequency detectors and the countless other ways the subhumans could be vaguely monitored. This A.I. system was ruthless in the way it judged subversive behavior. So any one with any revolutionary ideas were hunted down and murdered where they were found.

And outside all others was subhuman 1437. He rejected all and saw what he thought was the truth. 1437 saw nothing but uselessness and destitution in slum or city. Dreams were unavailable to him for they would be wasted upon a mind so frayed and thinned of any hope.

One thing 1437 shared with anyone was he could read, outside of station signs and instruction pages which had simplified vocabulary so only the bare minimum of education was required to work outside the slums. The service of education was of course beared by the parental subhumans to accommodate the lack of schools. But 1437 could read books and that is the only pleasure he could scrounge out of the rubbish piles of the slums.

A gigantic water conduit which had remained closed for decades is where Subhuman 1437 slept and kept his books. The aqueduct entrance was at the bottom of a towering spillway which hadn’t leaked any water over its fall in a lifetime. The section was the only part of the slum which wasn’t covered by the highway and had been an abandoned addition of the slum which was supposed to house more subhumans. It had started construction 15 years prior but was forgotten about when a virus killed a large mass of the subhuman population and numbers projected that, with the condition of living in the slum, the population would not return to such a high amount for decades. No housing had actually been built but the wrapping steel fence had been put in place and been sealed with sheet metal and trimmed with razor wire to contain any exploring subhumans. It was mostly waste land, the reason being it used to be a large river bed, and where this new addition had been placed was at the bottom of a massive reservoir.

Underneath the reservoir is where Subhuman 1437 lived, supposedly. He didn’t see it as any sort of life. He had read of real lives like those of Pony Boy and Johnny in The Outsiders, or George from Of mice and men. But 1437 knew he had no hope of an adventure or notable story to tell, so when he wasn’t working for his food, he looked for books in the millions of trash piles and dilapidated buildings which crowded the slums. Those were his libraries, heaps of ruined clothes and broken blue plastic, oozing bags and spoiled carcasses all crowned with the repugnant air of putrid decay and big fat greedy flies.

There was one book that Subhuman 1437 held above all others, the one he had read so many times that he could almost recall the whole story from memory. Which he did as a hobby throughout his day, thinking of Grendel. Some man named John Gardner had written it in some corner of history 1437 had no knowledge of. The story resonated with 1437 like a song. Though he refused to let himself dream he would often imagine himself as the creature named Grendel. Lurking at the edge of a sharp triangular rock and peering forever at those who would someday kill him. His home was even like the cave Grendel dwelled in, isolated from everyone else. If the humans wanted to isolate themselves from the subhumans so did 1437, just another thing that made him think he had some human ancestry not too far down the line.

Inside the aqueduct was sheltered because the water outlet turned a corner a few hundred yards from the entrance and this pipe was so huge it seemed the statue of liberty could have laid down in it. 1437’s cot was placed in the darkness around the corner of the entrance and where the massive outlet was sealed by two steel gates which met perfectly and horizontally in the middle. Sometimes the metal creaked and moaned like a dying ghost. He kept the bed in the darkness so he could sleep in the daytime if he wanted. At the entrance was 1437’s desk chair, where he had spent countless hours reading, and spinning in his chair.

One morning 1437 decided to sleep in and miss the buses to the city and hoped he would be able to find some extra food at the church later on. He sat in the noon-time sunlight at the edge of his aqueduct reading ‘Humpty Dumpty in Oakland’ but half way through his attention began to fade and eventually he just let the book slip out of his hands. The book flopped on the concrete and the pages bent. Subhuman 1437 stared at the book through empty eyes and heavy eyelids. The words on the pages had seemingly lost any meaning or symbolic representation. An orange haze blared behind his eyes like a fluorescent bulb of hopelessness and devoidancy, which fried his mind and fogged 1437’s process of thought. This would happen to him from time to time, he felt a loss of control of his body and receded backwards into his brain. Where he would sit paralyzed and staring at his own frozen and vignetted screen behind his eyes.

Eventually though he would close his eyes and resume feeling the sensory inputs of his skin, a robot who simultaneously analyzed and disregarded every emotion and sense. A sigh so cold you almost could have seen it if the winters even got that cold anymore escaped his lips. Subhuman 1437 peered to his right, outside the giant pipe and at the dry dirt where naught but the most pitiful and starved patches of grass could lay seemingly lifeless on the ground. Trash floated around the surface like swarms of jellyfish, latching on to the outlier weeds and abandoned buses. Not much different than what was happening in 1437’s mind.

The menial boredom was getting to him and he wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

Subhuman 1437 stood up from his chair which spun as he walked away from it and jumped down the steps he had made out of orphan crates so he could easily get to and from the elevated shaft. 1437 glared at the environment around him. Not too far away was a ditch which was filled with toxic, phlegm-like water that sourced itself from cesspools around the slum and when it rained the smell got quite noticeable. He could see the bright light of the sun gleaming off its disgusting surface and 1437 realized the afternoon was coming along. He was waiting for the buses to file back in from the city. After the working flock got back from the factories he intended to make a walk to The Candlelight Church where he hoped someone there might have brought some spare food back for charity.

There was a rumor that always existed that there was a slum somewhere else around the city that worked as farmers, the word was that they got to eat like a human. Just the luck 1437 expected out of life. Out of all the slums; the farm slums, the ranch or construction slums, he was born to the dump slum. Where trash rained from the world above and hateful rivers of waste flowed from the bowels of the engorged city.

He straightened up his gray jumpsuit and began to trek inwardly through the slum. A beating V8 engine began to roar in the distance as 1437 walked toward the darkening slum underneath the highway. An armored enforcer vehicle began to roll by him with black helmeted marshall leaning on a heavy caliber machine gun poking out of the top of the truck. 1437 stopped at a distance from the truck’s path and watched the black beetle scuttle down the road while the gunner eyed him. 1437 didn’t realize he was glaring at the gunner but the gunner definitely noticed.

As the truck passed thirty yards in front of 1437 the gunner pointed his mounted machine gun in 1437’s direction and pulled the trigger. The thunderclaps of the gun almost deafened him as his eyes flung wide open. Two bullets exploded in the dust just feet in front of 1437 and three more bullets zapped above his head and rang out as they whizzed far away. The shots happened too quick for his reaction to have helped in any way but 1437 grabbed his ears and jumped aimlessly to the ground to dodge anymore bullets.

The gunner laughed haughtily for a moment at 1437 then spat any ounce of joy left in his body and the beetle rolled on leaving 1437 in the settling dust, curled in the fetal position. The sound of the engine died in the distance and the regular sounds of the slum began to echo behind the new ringing in his ears. 1437 had been cramming his eyes shut but eventually relaxed his eyelids and opened them. With a deep breath he got to his feet and had to forget about what had just happened. If any of the bullets had struck 1437 and ripped him apart like a snarling possum on the side of the road, no one would have cared. The gunner would not have been punished and it wouldn’t even need to be reported.

Subhuman 1437 rubbed his gut because it now hurt and groaned from stress. He continued and walked across the road that the armored truck had been driving down then found himself under the buzzing highway. He began to take deep breaths to ease the pain in his stomach and finally saw other subhumans roaming around ahead of him.

Some were wrapped in blankets and others wrapped in plastic. Some carried bags of “goods” and others just stood around checking the others out. When Subhuman 1437 approached the shanty-like buildings there was a group of males eyeballing him. A one armed boy burst out of a sheet metal shack and darted by 1437 as three more children came screaming after him. The excited shrieks stabbed 1437’s ears and he felt pins in his temples.

Eventually after making his way through a large ghetto he came to a small corner shop operated by a man 1437 was familiar with and who 1437 would do small tasks for for food and booze. Subhuman 3226 had two box fans pointed at his back as he stood with both hands leaned on his sales counter. The store was tiny and only had a few shelves and racks with basic cans of foods and smokers.

3226 greeted 1437, “Hey! any luck?”

“Any luck with what?” 1437 responded.

“Figurin’ out how to smile!” 3226 grinned at his colleague’s listless face.

1437 looked at his feet as he finally stepped up to the counter and grasped for something to say, “I really only smile for cameras…” He could barely look at the clerk.

“Well we got plenty of those,” 3226 pointed at the several obvious cameras pointed right at the two subhumans.

1437 scratched his head and glanced at the two cameras above the entrance then he turned back to 3226 and said, “Listen, could I get a couple things… on uhh credit.”

3226 was a gang front so he was usually giving people credit but he actually liked 1437, even if he was quite unsociable. “No problem man, you fixed that radio for me man. That’s the only thing that keeps me sane you know that. Whadya need?”

1437 focused his ears passed the ringing and he heard the music coming from the radio he had fixed, sitting on a shelf between the two fans. “Could I get some smokers and a pint? And uhhh lighter?” 1437 finally looked 3226 in the eyes as he asked.

“Of course man,” 3226 replied happily as he began to grab the three items. He slid the smokers across the counter and placed a lighter right next to the pack. 3226 then leaned backward and opened a case to his right where he pulled a glass pint out of the dark cabinet, closing it immediately after. He placed the glass pint in front of 1437 and began to lean, looking at 1437.

As he slipped the glass bottle into his pants pocket and opened the smokers 1437 said, “O.K. thanks, I'll see you later.

“Take care my man. Take care. You know shit’s gettin crazy out there.” 3226 called out to 1437 as he exited and nodded in agreement.

1437 dragged on his smoker long and hard but inhaled too much and coughed harshly as he looked around the ghetto of debris. Fences sagged from their posts while rats ran in streams down the alleys. Nothing was more than two stories tall other than billboards of propaganda and tall speaker towers that would at certain times of the day give bus updates and spout nonsense about complacency and bliss. 1437 wished he was deaf whenever the blaring demon voices spouted out of those towering speakers.

A screaming man jolted 1437 as he stumbled out of an alley with his jumpsuit hanging around his ankles as he exclaimed exasperated, “Thank You!” over and over as he slapped his own head. 1437 turned and left the area as the madman yelled, “Thank You!” at nothing.

With the removal of a cap and the tilting of the bottle, 1437 applied his anesthesia orally. Only barely stopping himself from draining the whole thing like a fiend. 1437 figured he could head to The Candle Church so he set off as he saw a slew of junk fall between the lanes above.

He couldn’t help but sardonically sneer at the trash twinkle in the fading orange light and crash in a stinking heap.

1437 had to stride past the pile to see if anything valuable like an electronic with scrap batteries or a magazine, if he was lucky, had fallen. He knew nothing he would want would have been bestowed upon him and saw that it was just rotten food waste and tattered plastic that rats began to excite over.

Finally the ghetto ended and shacks became more scattered. 1437 only had to follow a path along a concrete ditch which led to the church he was headed to. He took long purposeless steps to make the walk waste more time. Though he was hungry, he knew what interaction was required at the church. The people of this particular Candle Church all knew him and had been big fans of his father and unmistakably disappointed by 1437. They all gave themselves names and strived to have identity, no matter how futile. And 1437 refused to let them use his name, he was always constantly rebelling against them but simultaneously shamelessly relying on them. While it was true they were disappointed in 1437 they accepted him anyway, much like their place in the slum.

Groans began to churn in 1437’s stomach while he gazed at the wasteland of misery. The people he saw made even his mind seem hungry, yearning to taste someone like him. But 1437 failed to find any mirrors in the wandering crowds. Closing his eyes couldn’t even hide the oppressed world around him.

A revolting smell began to assault 1437 along the trail, and ahead of him he saw the source sprawled in the bright concrete ditch. Some deceased subhuman lay bloated and green, partially submerged in a puddle of unspeakable filth. Black slime had seemingly exploded out of the corpse’s neck which repulsed 1437 even though he stared at the poor soul, completely numbed. If he could have spared the water, he may have wept.

1437 continued on the path and let the image become a glowing memory, scarring itself into a pearl of despair. He pondered on how that could have been him after the incident with the armored truck earlier. If the two pieces of 1437’s body had laid there for more than a week, unattended to. He let the cathartic thought of it crush his tinfoil heart a little.

The Candle Church came into sight past an intersection in the dirt road that 1437 walked toward. The Church was an ancient plywood warehouse that had been claimed by shoddily made religious symbols and structures like barnacles. A worn cross hung slightly crooked on the broad windowless wall. An unpainted bell tower had been added to the roof of the building but held no bell. They just kept the bell tower filled with candles at night, so they could always be seen. 1437 stopped by one of the derelict buildings nearby and pulled out one more smoker as he killed more time before heading into the church.

The yellow sky had finally faded into a dull gray which eliminated the shadows of the buildings as the sun began to recede behind the massive curtain of skyscrapers bordering the slum. 1437 began to wander over to the church when he noticed not very many people were around. Usually there were kids running around and mothers talking while the occasional word of God was shared. As 1437 stalked around the church’s neighboring building the church’s garden came into view with Pastor Peter kneeling in the weeds.

The Pastor was murmuring to a small tomato plant with wrinkly green tomatoes hanging from its branches as 1437 approached him. Pastor Peter heard his footsteps, turned and greeted 1437, “Hey hey, there he is. Whatta ya been up to? It's been a while.”

1437 failed to make eye contact with the Pastor as he replied, “I haven’t been doin much, I guess…”

“Readin the same old books? Heh heh.” Pastor Peter searched 1437’s distant face.

“Yeah… I guess they’re pretty old now. Has everything been alright here?”

Pastor Peter placed his hand on 1437’s shoulder and gestured with his hand toward the church, “Oh everything’s fine, a little trouble with some girls and some gang members… but life is always gonna have its troubles.”

“What happened?” 1437 investigated.

“Well we were told some gang members were following a couple of our regular visitors and they went missing last week. But it seems now that the girls may have known the males and could have gone with them willingly. Still… I’d rather have them here.” The Pastor searched 1437’s face again for any sign of acknowledgment but 1437 seemed to be empty. “Bahh… You know how those gangsters are. Dangerous and, well… unwholesome.”

1437 followed the Pastor into a side door of the church as he replied, “Nothing is wholesome.”

They arrived amongst some ramshackle pews and Pastor Pete had to disagree, “There is plenty wholesomeness, didn’t you see! I had something actually growing out there.”

“They were already dead. Nothing wholesome about houses of trash and boiled rats.” 1437 peered around the darkened and empty church. “Where is everyone? The buses haven’t arrived yet?”

“Oh the buses have come. I think you’ll probably see everyone later. Everyone went to the reservoir. Apparently there is a way up to the actual water and the humans across the reservoir are lighting off fireworks tonight.”

1437 was shocked by the revelation. For he was the one who had originally discovered a way up to the dammed water. He had shared it with only one person but he had never seen anyone up there before. Especially since you had to go right by 1437’s home to get to the trail. The news of the fireworks also surprised him. He remembered around a year ago they had shot fireworks over the reservoir and it had annoyed the hell out of 1437.

“Fireworks for what?” 1437 asked.

“They call it a New Years celebration. Someone heard about it while at work in the city. I would have gone, but I didn’t want to leave the church alone. Everyone went straight there after the buses came in. Are you hungry?” Pastor Peter asked 1437.

“Yes I am, but obviously no one brought any food back. I guess I should have figured.” 1437 couldn’t hide the disdain in his tone, a tone he usually buried when he came to talk with Pastor Peter. But 1437 couldn’t muster the strength to feign any sense of joyfulness.

“Don’t worry, follow me.” The Pastor led 1437 out of the main cathedral and into the back room where the Pastor lived. There was a shoddy wooden staircase that led up to the ceiling and up into the faux bell tower. Pastor Peter ran to his bedside and scooped up a jar to hand to 1437. “It’s peanut butter… take it. It’s yours. Very delicious. Sorry, that’s all I have, heh…”

1437 finally had to look the Pastor in the eyes and thank him. This made the Pastor finally smile at the face of 1437 but the smile faded, because in his face the Pastor saw no registry. As if 1437’s eyes were open but they could not see, the eyes of a statue.

“Let me get you a spoon!” The Pastor blurted out as to not seem awkward.

1437 set the jar of peanut butter down as he responded, “No, don’t worry. I’ll eat it later. Have you found any new books?”

The Pastor looked around his room, “No… No, I’m sorry. I haven’t been lucky lately.” He then watched 1437 take a swig from a brown bottle grabbed out of his pocket. “Tell you what. It's dark now, if you help me light the belltower candles I’ll play you a game of chess.”

Pastor Peter tried to make it sound like fun but once again 1437 barely responded, “Nah… I don’t feel like losing.”

Trying to impose, the Pastor scrambled for his chessboard and the box filled with the pieces. “C’mon, set up the board and I’ll go light the candles.” And Pastor Peter shoved the board and box into 1437’s hands.

1437 watched the Pastor grab a bundle of candles and run up the rickety steps that led to the belltower. Once at the top he unlocked a latch and popped through the porthole into the tower. 1437 sighed and cleared a short table and unfolded the thin board on the table, he once again pulled from his bottle before dumping all the chess pieces onto the board. While arranging the pawns and kings 1437 could hear the Pastor humming up above his head. Tilting his vision, 1437 looked up at the porthole and saw faint yellow light shimmering out of it.

Then the Pastor’s feet popped out of the hole and he jumped down onto the shaky platform beneath. Pastor Peter knelt and looked down at the board and saw it was set, and that made him happy. He made his way down after closing the door of the porthole and leapt off the bottom ladder. “Go ahead, you take white, I’m fine with going second.” The Pastor said as he rushed to the table and sat across from 1437.

“Going first won’t help me.” 1437 said as glanced at all the pieces on the board, and the empty spaces between them.” He slowly sent one of his pawns out two spaces.

“Don’t be so sullen. You’ve beat me before.” Pastor Peter said as he sent a knight out to attack.

“Not that I can recall. I don’t even think I know how to play this game.” 1437 moved again.

“C’mon, playing as long as we have… You’ve won, you just stopped caring.”

“Can you blame me?” 1437 aimlessly placed his pieces.

“I don’t blame anyone. You shouldn’t either. Try getting the Bustown Church to lend you their copy of the bible. Well… You’ll probably have to read it there. I mean, since you’re out of things to read.” The Pastor sent his bishop to bait one of 1437’s knights.

“I don’t think so… I heard enough when I was a kid. Plus it’s damaged and incomplete. You guys don’t even know the full story.” 1437 sent his knight for the obvious bait because he thought Pastor Peter might try to lose on purpose in the long run.

“Still… it is very good, the parts that are there.” The Pastor didn’t take 1437’s knight.

The wind began to pick up outside the church and boards began to batter against each other, creaking and distracting both players.

They both played conservatively for quite some time. Pastor Peter decided he wasn’t just going to let 1437 win, that would be insulting. And contrarily 1437 decided he wasn’t going to lose for once. He wasn’t sure how but some sort of instinctual hope manifested inside himself and every move became deliberated and examined. Pastor Peter noticed the sudden competition and contained his excitement. Finally, he felt he saw the boy he once had known almost like a nephew. But it was hard to imagine the man he looked at as that same boy, who was once naive and pondering. Who had now become something deprived of a lust for life, deprived of any inkling of any prospects of faith or optimism.

1437 had slain many of the Pastor’s pieces and gained the edge, spending his time between moves concerning every maneuver and attack possible. A trap 1437 had set up far earlier had finally set upon Pastor Peter’s queen who joined a crowd of pieces in front of 1437. Then he noticed the trap he had just fallen for.

The Pastor moved a piece and gravely stated, “Check.”

1437 shook his head in disbelief at his king, who was stuck between his own pieces. So he reversed his last move to close the lane. But that knight fell.

“Check.” The Pastor relayed once again.

1437 closed his eyes and realized once again he had lost. A soulless sigh drained out of him and he tipped his king over with hate.

“Hey you still have a move!” The Pastor tried to point out to 1437, as if he didn’t know.

“It doesn’t matter…No matter how well I do…” 1437 shook his head at the board one last time before he stood up and retrieved the bottle out of his pocket.

“Well you did block yourself in. You’re right, it doesn’t matter.” The Pastor gazed down at the board with his own glance of disdain, he could tell the loss hurt whatever feelings 1437 had left.

“Yeah, I think I’m going to go. I don’t like this game anyway.” 1437 began his departure.

“I wish I had more games. I know a guy I could borrow his dominos from.” The Pastor was trying scrounge for any more conversation from 1437.

“I don’t really like any games. Listen… It was nice to see you Peter. I guess I’ll see you later.” 1437 was trying desperately to leave.

“Wait, 37. Let me show you something.” The Pastor once again waved for 1437 to follow him. The two men went to the darkest corner of the room where Pastor Peter’s bed roll was laid out on a hard wooden bed frame. “Listen, keep this secret for me. I haven’t shown anybody this before.”

1437 could barely feign interest as he replied, “Alright?”

The Pastor kneeled next to his bed reaching under to grab something as if it were attached to the underside. Still kneeling on the ground he pivoted and handed a thick black book to 1437. 1437 felt the ancient leather bound book and saw what had used to be gold letters that read: The Bible.

“Where’d you get this? How long have you had it?” 1437 was actually surprised by the Pastor’s secret.

“Most of my life, I’ve had it before I knew your father. I was walking through the field where that burnt ghetto is, you know?” The Pastor loved that he finally got to tell the story.

“Yeah I know.”

The Pastor continued, “And you know how the highway above has that giant triangle-like gap?”

“I guess…” 1437 didn’t really recall.

“Well it fell from the sky and landed almost right in front of me.” The Pastor didn’t elaborate.

“You’re kidding right?” 1437 asked, unimpressed. “Someone threw it out, like any other book. Why haven’t you told anyone? You could be the most popular priest in the slum with this.”

“Well… I felt like God gave it to me. No one else was around and… Come on, you can tell it felt special to me. So I liked keeping it secret ‘cause it has some of the parts the Bustown Bible is missing. But it is missing some parts and it’s a little damaged. Take it.” The Pastor smiled at the book’s cover as he offered it to 1437.

1437 shoved it back at the Pastor, “No. No thanks.”

Pastor Peter refused to accept the book, “Please take it. Just think of it as a story, don’t even worry about believing it. Just see… If you feel something. Like your other books you just read over and over.”

Once again 1437 refused, “No I don’t want it. I’m sorry. Keep it. I can’t take your special book. It’ll be wasted on me.”

“No it won’t be! Please just take it,” the Pastor pleaded but ultimately 1437 dropped the book in his hands and backed away. Once again the Pastor noticed 1437’s statuesque eyes, that seemed like they could see the world but truly saw nothing. Pastor Peter watched as his long-time friend backed away from him, nodding a curt goodbye and slipping out the door. The Pastor was left on his knees, worrying deeply for 1437 as he searched the lifeless cover of his Bible and sadly like 1437, he found nothing.

The wind was slapping against 1437 as soon as he stepped outside. A chilling bite traveled on the wisps of wind as they licked his face. Using his back to block the gales, 1437 sparked up another smoker and tugged from his bottle to warm himself up. Trudging away from the church 1437 looked back only once and noticed the candles in the belltower had been blown out.

The infinite gray of the night was becoming darker and darker as 1437 found his way from that part of the slum. He followed his ditch trail back to the ghetto as incantations howled in the wind rushing around him. He came upon the place where the bloated body had laid but it was so dark now he saw only a large black mass, pulseless.

When the trail finally brought him back to the ghetto 1437 had receded back into his mind. Watching everything as an audience member through the screen of his eyes. He no longer gave commands to his legs, for they had become automated. The lights in the ghetto stretched and became trails themselves as 1437’s body passed by them. The huddled creatures that gazed at him in shadowy masses repulsed him, he felt their black hole souls trying to rip into his. But when their stares found no soul their pull ceased and 1437 was able to continue into the ghetto that had become a blurred mist.

1437’s lack of coordination caused him to bump into one of these shadowy masses and it had shoved him off his feet into the sandy dirt. He had bumped into some eel-skinned Enforcers in their black armor. The one he had run into began to beat 1437’s legs with his baton but 1437 barely felt the lashes and the Enforcer noticed this. Kicking sand in 1437’s face he left the subhuman in the dust.

1437 rubbed his face to try and wake himself from the dampening haze but he noticed the other subhumans looking at him. He saw that they looked at him how 1437 himself looked at the madman from earlier who screamed, “Thank You!” at the sky. He whispered, “thank you…” as he pushed himself up and didn’t even bother to clear the dust off of himself.

Stumbling past the onlookers, 1437 left a trail of pitiless faces and finally made his way out of the ghetto and away from the alley-lights. The wind was still wailing at his back so he quickly made his way back to his dwelling.

Filthy clouds of pollution sealed the darkened sky which suffocated 1437 as he came out from beneath the overpasses that vibrated like hornets nests above him. 1437 crossed the road where he had been shot at earlier and began to trek downward into the deserted riverbed. The massive drains loomed in the distance like black holes in the side of the reservoir. Jogging now that he was in sight of his drain, 1437 held the bottle in his pocket as he jostled back and forth.

As 1437 came close to the giant pipes he saw the trail that led up a dirt embankment next to the reservoir and noticed that it had been traveled recently, meaning the patrons of the church had used it to reach the water within the reservoir. 1437 glared up above his home drain and heard the disgusting laughter and chatter of people spilling over the edge of the dam. This made him groan and rub his eyes in anger. Hastily, he jumped up his makeshift steps and fled into the hollow pipe to flee from the sounds of people. The sounds that had encroached to the last corner of the slum and invaded 1437’s place of solitude.

1437 stood at the lip of the gargantuan pipeline and stared back into the darkness where he lived. The wind still blew at his back and howled down the huge passageway, reverberating like a scream till it echoed back to 1437’s slightly ringing ears. His footsteps pronounced the presence of his lonely existence like the toll of a soulless bell. Like a solemn warning of what becomes of the hopeless soul who was sold and bought and paid for lifetimes before his very own birth. A cursed individual- cursed to know a great deal yet almost nothing and never quite accepting what fate had beset upon them.

With his skin numbed and his mind fogged, 1437 finally rounded the corner of the pipe and laid his eyes upon his small dwelling. He kept an archaic television connected to a battery and facing the wall so when he turned the television on the strobing static reflected off the interior and slightly lit his things; a decaying bookshelf filled with rotting books and a cot covered in frayed blankets and surrounded by empty water bottles and food wrappers.

The cot’s springs squeaked as 1437 sat down, gaping bleary eyed at his feet wondering why he lost the chess match. He had been playing very well, he had thought. Yet somehow the Pastor had swept 1437’s feet out from under him. All that effort and thought, useless and lost.

1437 tried to think of something he could do to occupy himself but he struggled to see past his own eyes. That, and the dark crushed down around him, constantly battling the buzzing light flashing from the television’s tube. There was no activity he could conjure in his mind that could shake him from his waking nightmare of desolate boredom and depression.

A gust of wind crept around the corner of the pipe and 1437 could swear he heard the merry voices of the invaders roll in on the gust. He decided to just lay down and let his reeling mind throb itself to sleep. But once he rested his head and closed his eyes a loud pop echoed through the drain pipe. A firework had exploded somewhere outside and the sound sought out 1437 just to interrupt his rest. 1437’s eyes ripped open and investigated the darkness to see if someone had brought the fireworks in the pipe but the sounds of the other explosions rang out in the distance and 1437 knew they were all above him.

Frustration furrowed 1437’s brow and he shot to his feet. He knew he could not lay in bed and let these fireworks ring around him while he tried to sleep. For some reason 1437 decided to leave the loneliness of his dwelling and approach the loud pops of the fireworks. He angrily rushed out of the passageway and past his wrecked office chair. After hopping back down his steps he turned to look up the tall smooth face of the spillway and saw the colorful blue and red lights flash in the sky and illuminate the undersides of the disgusting, hanging clouds that refused to let a star shine through.

Once outside 1437 could hear the cheers of the subhumans rain from above him. It seemed they were right above him from the sound of their jovulations. For a moment 1437 felt he was actually in his body and not watching from afar as he came upon the trail that zigzagged up the hillside. He felt if everyone would ruin his quiet place with their cheerful event he would try as best he could to ruin their celebration with his hateful presence as a protest.

But about halfway up the hill as he pumped his knees up the trail he suddenly felt his burst of purpose dissipate like smoke. His pace slowed and he receded back behind his eyes as he continued up to the top of the hill. Finally he made it to the top and past between the hole in the chain link fence he had made years ago. 1437 saw a crowd of gray jumpsuits gawking with their heads tilted upward, laughing at the lights in the sky. They seemed to have cleared a section of the beach of broken bottles and bags of trash so they could lay blankets down where some sat like it was a picnic.

1437 didn’t want the group from the church to notice him because it was likely he knew some of them and he was in no mood to interact with anyone. So he took up a place on the hill behind them where he could sit and glare at the group as they enjoyed the fireworks being shot over the reservoir by the humans on the other side. The surface of the water was black and crowded with floating heaps of plastic bags that bounced off of barges of destroyed furniture and toys.

Trails of light shot into the sky from the opposite side of the reservoir and when they exploded in the sky 1437 thought he could glimpse the humans on the other side, gawking just as foolishly as the subhumans he mocked inwardly. And he began to realize the barrier between the human and subhuman was the defiled and toxic water they both had to gaze upon, and how similar it made them when they had to gaze upon the same ugly barrier.

Despite whatever the fireworks were being launched to celebrate, 1437 decided he would celebrate the stupidity of the humans and subhumans alike, and the irrelevance of their titles in the face of the futile world they strained to live in, and of course die in.

1437 watched another light flicker up into the sky and blow up into a blue light that sprinkled downward and lit up the dust colored bellies of the wretched clouds above. The group of subhumans shrieked as they pointed upwards and embraced each other. 1437 spat in defiance of their joy and stared hatefully at their backs.

The group began to chatter amongst themselves and 1437 could make out some of the words. His ears distinguished a certain exchange and he saw a father bend down and shout to his son, “Isn’t that lovely Zach?”

This is when 1437 felt his last feeling.

1437 no longer sat on the hillside on the edge of the reservoir, he resided in the chair in his mind. Where he sat, slouched and dissociated as curtains slowly drew before his vision.

The crowd would never notice as 1437 strolled across the debris covered beach and waded into the black abyss of trash. 1437 didn’t even think to finish his booze before plunging amongst the floating trash. He closed his eyes once he couldn’t walk anymore and began to swim downward with one last breath as the chilling black water enveloped his body. 1437 swam down until his strength gave out far beneath the surface. He opened his mouth and flooded his lungs with the foul water. Opening his eyes one last time,1437 would see nothing. No one would ever notice his body floating with the trash, even with the fireworks flashing above. Subhuman 1437’s life fleeted.