Fragments in the Fog

It's another beautiful day together. It's always a beautiful day. Blushed with pink and edged in gold. How lucky, to be here in this beautiful city. Spacious, elegant, clean.

The environment is important here. The number of people who can live here and roam about freely is tightly restricted. This is fine, for three reasons.

One, you have seen the rampant destruction of the natural world out there. The very air and water that everything depends on has been choked and poisoned for years. It's vile. It's unsustainable. And it's ugly.

Two, you're one of the people allowed to roam about freely.

Three, they have perfected a formula for happiness. It has something to do with free ice cream.

Warm sunshine makes the ice cream drip down her cone and her fingers. Sweat trickles down your face, and your body feels drenched in it... so why are you shivering?

She licks the sticky treat with a darting pink tongue, and a swift look in your direction. That tongues traces those lips, deliberate, like a cat prowling the edges of its territory. She holds your gaze. She knows what she's doing. Your breath hitches and your heart races, no it really races, something is wro-

-"unresponsive with a Glasgow coma scale of six...exhibiting tachycardia at 130 beats per minute and pyrexia with a temp of thirty nine point"-

What was that? Shake away the memory of white walls, and a cool clinical voice -angerously high and climbing, this could result in brain da- and do what she's always urged you to do: live in the now.

The perfectly curated now.

They really do have a formula for everything. The perfect day, the perfect childhood, the perfect memory...

It makes no sense, then, that the now is a nightmare. Her ice cream keeps melting, dripping down her fingers... but her fingers are as well. So is her face. She smiles, unaware of what's happening or how ghastly she looks. You're horrified that you're not horrified. The scream is locked inside you somewhere. On the outside you take her dribbling arm like a gentleman and-

-white walls, white tiled floor, white sheets, rough white gown with stains on, and pain, it hurts, everything hurts, bedsores, limbs ache where they thrashed against the railings, and she's gone, gone forever-

Blackness descends, like a pantomime curtain, and your last thought is that this is your last thought.

+

Several days later, you're awake in the Sanitorium. Sitting in the narrow, hard bed, eating a pale jelly-like substance. Bereft of colour and flavour, and barely enough nutrients to sustain anyone, least of all a stick like you. If there was a window, you might ask to be near it, hoping you might hear the shouts and laughter of children playing in the Village.

Your expression is grim, your mouth tight and hard.

"Well?" You scowl at the doctor. "I'm ready aren't I? I want to go back in." Your puny arms are goose-fleshed, because the staff here keep the temperature here just a little below comfortable. It's just one of the ways they make sure you want to slip back into those warm memories. Like sliding into a hot bath.

"Your vitals are good," the doctor agrees in that bland, mechanical voice. "But we are unable to authorise that at this time. You have a visitor."

You look up, and that's when you see me. God alive, it's like looking in a mirror. You're the spit of me, and that doesn't even make me proud. Not because you're thin, and whining and hiding from the real world, either. Your eyes are pouchy, limbs like sticks, hair wispy and white. Like a clock dandelion, you look as if a puff of wind will blow you away. There's disapproval in the way you're peering at me. Disappointment in the downward curve of the wound on your face that passes for a mouth. In short, you look as if you are the father, and I am the wayward son.

Maybe I am already too late.

"I'm here to-"

"I know it, Da." You flap your hand and scowl. "I chose this, alright? I volunteered. I agreed to it. So I don't need rescuing. I don't need you to pull any strings. I mean, look at me." Another wave of that papery hand, gesturing to your wasted torso.

"Did you?" I ask. "Did you really agree to this? Did the reality live up to the promise?"

We both know it didn't, but you're too stubborn to admit it. "Your brain rots in stale memories, and your body wastes away... Why? What's the use of staying here?"

"Because I love her."

It's all I can do not to snort.

"Why... All this!" I gesture expansively, begging him to think.

"Well, I've been ill. It's a hospital Da."

"It's a warehouse."

Your eyes glint, and I don't know whether I'm seeing a flash of defiance, or tears. For all the hours watching you, waiting for an opportunity... Watching those vapid lovey-dovey memories on a loop... I don't know you at all.

"There's too many people, so most of them are going to be shuttled into places like this. There are a dozen Utopias now. And it's working! Earth is healing where we take the people away. They have the perfect way to keep you here, and while you're off gallivanting with some tart-" (you gasp, but I plough on) they use you, and all the others like you, so they can farm the happiness serum. But you were never meant to be a part of it. You were never meant to end up here. You were only supposed to take notes."

"It's no good, Da," You voice is more forceful now, and your skinny chest heaves with the effort. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't get out of this bed. Just let me have my ice cream, would you? Go." You're too weak to snarl. You've always been weak. For a moment, I think of walking away, but my own father raised me better than that. I have a duty.

"Son... No, let me say it," I crouch beside the bed, leaning close so I can speak softly. "This is no life. I want better for you. Please. Let me help you."

"Don't you want me to be happy?"

+

You settle back on the pillows and

-her hand is warm in yours, the breeze cool on your skin. It's another beautiful day. Far away, a monitor beeps. I press the switch.