Storymatic 0001
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- person with arthritis
- mind reader
- homesick
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The meat was off. Oliver smelled it the moment it slid through the
slot. Two rosy masses piled atop a tin tray. It didn't matter. He'd
eat it all. Complaint meant nothing.

Mattress springs groaned as he rolled toward the door. Three steps.
Stop. Turn. Three steps. Stop. His world arrayed before him.
A sliver of light from far above touched on dust motes or smoke too
fine for Oliver to make out with his poor eyes. Motes, he decided.
Smoke meant bad meat and he pushed the thought away.

Tin felt cold against thick knuckles. It was soothing and he let
the moment linger. Meat meant Monday. Bad meat and cursing joints
meant winter.

His last two fingers became his spoon and several minutes passed.
He pressed the clean tray under the door with his foot and settled
back on his rack. Quiet time would come now, for hours, left alone
with his thoughts. His thoughts only.

They didn't know that's what he needed. They thought this torture.
Or maybe it was ignorance and irrelevance behind it all. Maybe
they just forgot about him. Oliver knew himself again because of
it, whatever their reasons.

"Hey, old man," he said aloud to himself in the empty tower.
A slow smile crept across chapped lips and he laughed. It was
a raspy, tired thing with more chill in it than the creaking
bones. "This what you wanted?"

A high squeal echoed in the chamber outside. His laughing stopped.
Footsteps began, very far away at first then closer. A rattle,
jingle, keys then. He licked his lips and took a slow breath.
This wasn't right. They were too soon. It was the quiet time. He
looked upward at the light far above and the edge it drew on the
high wall. It was quiet time. The visitor stopped just outside his
door with the soft scratching of a rubber sole on concrete; the
shadows of legs revealed at the crack by the floor.

"--lost in park, hidden away, alone. She wore the yellow jumper.
Oliver K.--keep it straight--focus and--" a little voice grew
inside Oliver's mind then silenced itself. A guard then. Someone
prepared, thankfully.

Heavy metal thudded somewhere deep in the wall and his door
opened. An unfamiliar face looked down on Oliver. "Barnes," the
identity came unbidden. Better to start off in power. He might
still avoid the beating.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Barnes," Oliver greeted with a squint into
the new light and a crooked grin. "Welcome to nowhere."

Barnes either wasn't shocked by Oliver's name guessing or he hid
it well. Mr. Barnes might as well be the familiar stone walls for
all that he let show in face or mind. Barnes held still a long
time, impassive face staring him down. Oliver gave in first,
massaging his knuckles and breaking eye contact.

"What's it then? Questions?" Oliver offered.

"Questions." Barnes replied. He stepped back away from the door
giving way for Oliver to follow. No chains this time. Something
had changed, indeed. Oliver rose and took his three steps to the
doorway. Then after a beat, a fourth into the hall. His eyes found
Barnes' again as he listened hard for some clue about what was
coming.

"--harpies everywhere--" a shrivelled sound in the back of his
mind replied. Harpies?

Barnes raised a baton Oliver hadn't noticed before and pointed
down the hallway toward a set of metal stairs. They started
walking, Oliver in front, Barnes a few steps behind, shuffling.
Oliver stretched out his right arm casually, tentatively, and
dragged his finger along the mortar line in the wall. A simple
thing that reminded him of the grey flats of his childhood. Barnes
didn't comment and Oliver was grateful at the little kindness.

An image of a country cottage came upon him, with a contraption in
his small backyard that held both drying laundry and shrieking
children at play. Large yellow flowers with radiant golden faces
and a young girl in yellow. The memory left him as fast as it
came, but a strange homesickness remained for a place he'd never
seen in person. There was a deep hopelessness in that memory, so
close to utter despair. Oliver knew in his heart that the despair
wasn't really his, but the feel of it was as real as any other.

Oliver's hand dropped from the wall and his steps became a shuffle
on the stairs. He pushed sorrow from his mind and forced himself
on until they reached the next level. Turning to the side Oliver
began the familiar walk toward interrogation room number one. It
was the only label he'd ever seen in this place, stenciled in
black paint on a metal door. Barnes shook the keys again and
Oliver felt the familiar searching feeling in the back of his mind
like pressing your hand into a sheet drying in the sun, trying to
see the shapes distorted by light and distance. But that was
wrong, the shape felt wrong.

"Wrong key, Barnes," Oliver said without looking. This time the
reaction wasn't stone. A flash of surprise and frustration and--

"--knitted cap in the bush. Broken line and footprint. Spinning on
the hoist. A diary in cherry ink--"

The door slid open silently on well oiled hinges. Oliver stepped
in and went straight to the plastic chair alone in the back of the
room. He sat and didn't know what to do with his hands at first
with them being free of restraints. He settled them on his lap and
held one with the other to keep from fidgeting or rubbing at his
knuckles. The room was as it always was, stark naked stone walls
covered in off-white paint. His familiar white plastic chair
belonged in a backyard, not this cell. The other four across the
room, padded and sturdy, were all empty. That was as usual as
well. They didn't like to complicate things with him by adding
more variables like that.

Barnes closed the door and came to stand in front of the four
seats, looking down on Oliver with a face of concentration. It
wasn't easy to keep so guarded and it showed. Oliver was tempted
to force it, but remembered the small kindness in the hallway. He
relaxed and settled back.

"Same as always? Where's the script?" Oliver began. "My name is
Oliver Kirc--"

"--No." Barnes interrupted. He stepped closer, too close. For
a moment Oliver thought Barnes might hit him. Then he spoke, "I
think you're a fraud. I think you're a twisted fuck, a psychopath,
a waste of space, and a fraud. I don't know how you do it and
I don't care. You're a waste of my time. Don't you dare play any
games with me." The last felt like a question, so Oliver nodded.

Barnes continued, "They say you know stuff you shouldn't know.
I don't give a piss what you know or don't know. You've been in
a box so long anything you know is long dead and gone." The tone
was harsh but it didn't fit him. There was nothing on his wrists,
and there was the kindness in the hall.

Oliver saw the grey flats in his mind and a flash of golden hair.
In the moment of memory the hair flew in circles and framed
a face that wouldn't resolve. Her hair was always crisp
as morning but her face--

"What do you want me to say?" Oliver asked. Mr. Barnes aimed
a scowl in response, but somehow it wasn't aimed toward him.
A show, then.

Oliver let out a slow breath and let his mind slip further into
the distance. There was something. Just barely at the edges.
"--HARPIES--" the word exploded and he let out a little cry.

The scowl washed off of Barnes giving Oliver his first unguarded
look at the man. Sandy hair and a nondescript face that never
escaped baby fat. A soft face. A soft man. His eyes were
searching, trying to find... What? Truth? A secret? "--golden
sunshine in the breeze--". Questions, always their questions.

"It doesn't work like this," Oliver explained. "I can't see her.
I mean, I can, but not like that. This is a waste of time. Just
put me back."

Barnes' mouth opened and hung for a moment. He worked his jaw but
nothing came out. A click sounded somewhere in his skull and the
baby-faced man dropped down into one of the center chairs and
memories bled from him like a gushing wound.

It was Oliver's turn to put up walls. "Keep your thoughts to
yourself. I don't want them. I'm me again. Just go away." But none
of it was spoken aloud. He communicated with his slouching in the
white, plastic chair, gaze dropping to the side.

"You see her?"

"No, not like that," he sighed. His hand pulsed a dull throbbing
pain and he focused his attention there. Stay grounded. Stay
yourself. "I can't see other places. I keep telling them. It's not
like that"

"--yellow jumper, swinging high. The laughter, sharp like rain on
a tin roof--"

"Stop it!" Oliver half rose from his chair. "I don't want this.
I can't help you."

"Where is she, damnit? You know something. I can see it in your
face." Barnes softness was sliding away, face becoming ashen. He
was desperate. So hopelessly desperate.

"I don't work like that. The ferry docks, the Hills Hoist. I see
the sunflowers," Oliver tried to explain. He couldn't, though.
They never understood in time, before he lost himself. He didn't
want to remember that place. It was overwhelming, pulling him in.
The homesickness sat like an ache in his chest, a weight holding
him in the chair.

"You--How can you--" Barnes was soft. They should have sent
someone stronger. But they didn't send him, did they?

"They didn't send you, did they? You're different. How are you
different?"

"--A long corridor, a red door, another stencil and a number
higher than one--A cherry desk, imported, cigar smoke, a letter
opener from father for his graduation--The summer was chilly but
the thrill kept him warm."

No, not him, Barnes. Barnes was warmed. Oliver sat in a cell
buried under concrete, forgotten until someone needed their
questions answered. Bad meat and never enough water and a body
that screamed for him to hurry up and die so it could all end.

Barnes held a steady gaze on Oliver. Something like hope eased
into his expression, but Oliver ignored it. Hope doesn't belong
here. Barnes straightened his back and looked over his shoulder at
the corner of the room. There was nothing there. Oliver had seen
that glance before on other faces, in other times, with other
questions. Something was there, a camera probably. They watched
him, always. Even in his little hole in the earth they watched.
Whover "they" was.

"--harpies--"

Yes, the harpies. They held all the controls, even the invisible
cameras. They held Barnes too, or thought they did.

"They don't know you're here," it wasn't a question. Whatever was
going on, Barnes was on his own. Oliver was free of restraints and
Barnes was alone. He could--

But no, what could he do. Oliver squeezed his hand shut and felt
the stabbing in his joints. There was a time long ago, maybe,
where he might have done something. He was broken in so many ways
now. If he walked out of room number one where would he go next?

"No. I..." Barnes began, lowering his eyes and sitting back on the
row of chairs. "They say you see things, secrets." A long beat
passed before he continued. "Someone took my daughter."

A brilliant flash of sunlight nearly knocked Oliver from his
chair. The sunny fields were overpowering to his untrained eyes.
The Hills Hoist, that wonderful contraption, spun in circles while
a screaming child whirled. Her face lit more than the shine from
above. The cries were musical with delight and innocence. A breeze
stirred the tall grass and fluttered ripples across her jumper.

Not jumper, a sweater. That's what they're called here. This was
Barnes memory, not his. He had no daughter, not that he could
remember anyway. There was someone, once, long ago. He remembered
the pain he felt, or she felt. Something lost, then. That was
a pain of his own, then. Like his gnarled, broken body.

"She was in the park. I turned away for a moment," Barnes' body
crumpled into itself with the memory, but Oliver couldn't see. He
was standing on a snowy path surrounded by naked trees, their
silhouettes stark against the white hills. A yellow cap hung from
a bramble. Branches bent and snapped inward between the bush and
the large tree beside it. He never knew the names of the trees.

Pine. How did Barnes not recognize a pine tree?

"Why were you there?" he asked. Barnes looked up.

"--harpies, cigar smoke, a leather chair--"

"Did they send you?" Oliver guessed. Barnes opened his mouth to
speak, but an electric hum cut him off. His eyes shot back to the
far corner of the room with fear. A siren wailed. Sound crashed
into him. It reverberated in his chest, in his bones. The sound
was another wall of this prison trying to trap him in. It weighed
on him, filling his mind with red.

Footsteps. Their sound was too soft to make out under the claxxon,
but Oliver felt them inside. The impact of foot on stone, on metal
stairs.

"They're coming," both men said, though they couldn't hear one
another. "We don't have time."

Oliver felt the minds flooding toward them like a wave of
overlapping anxiety and anger. They were a force of identity
merged into an axe already swinging down. A tidal wave was coming
to sweep him away. He yearned for his little hole in the ground,
for aching joints that were his alone. Then Barnes took his hand.

Oliver's muscles groaned as they tried to remember how to move,
but Barnes gave no respite. His arm pulled him along behind,
caught in a vice grip. Falling from foot to foot he focused on
staying upright. Corners turned, stairs ascended and descended.
The cooridors looked the same as always but they felt wrong.
Tension stretched their distance. The labyrinth was endless and
the same, gray as his cell and as hopeless. But he tried anyway.
He tried to keep up with this strange man who knew nothing of him
and his ways, yet somehow knew the routes of this maze.

"--concentric circles, Fibonacci, ends are beginnings and middles
and ends, canary in a--"

"--find them, find him, return, suppress, escape, mustn't reach--"

He thought he smelled meat. Was it bad, was he back where he
started? Then the numbers appeared. Numerals large and stenciled
with many digits scrawled with precision surrounded them. The
hallway had ended in an oval that stretched ludicrously into the
distance, gentle gradients revealing curves of infinite subtlety.
Doors lined both sides. So many doors. So many numbers. And
a smell of meat.

"--step, step, step--"

The wave of inevitability still followed. It would be upon him any
moment and then it would all be gone. He would lose himself again
like he had before, when she--.

Barnes turned to him and met his eye. The screeching continued,
a harpy's scream. He was mouthing in exaggerated pantomime and
gesturing with his hands. Oliver didn't understand. He didn't want
to understand. He'd have to let go to listen, to want to reach out
and touch that mind. A foreign thing. Not his, not his mind. But
he had to. The end was upon them and he would go back to the hole
in the ground. He would be alone. Stabbing pain in his hand, but
not the one Barnes held. That hand felt...contact.

Oliver sighed. Then he let go.

A lone red door sat at the end of a long hallway, a number in
black stenciled slightly askew. 216. The door moved away and an
ancient, cherry desk dominated the space. Cigar smoke filled the
room with a haze that multiplied in memory, for that is what this
was. This was Barnes memory.

A stub of cigar still sat in a pottery dish on the desk. It looked
like it was molded from leftover lumps and glued together
haphazardly. It had a date etched into it with a backward seven.
Smoke rose. Embers glowed. A man was hiding in that smoke. He had
no face, no skin, no voice, but he was there. Barnes could feel
him, or where he should be, but there was nothing. It was a black
hole of presence that bent the mind away, like a figure in the
corner of the eye that you know will not be there if you look at
it directly. But Barnes couldn't look directly. His eyes wouldn't
move away from that cigar, from that smoke that intoxicated him
and pulled him inward. He struggled to think of why he was here,
of who he was supposed to meet, but the thoughts just poured away.
He strained to remember, anything, any memory. Each came into
focus for the briefest of moments before slipping into the haze.

A yellow jumper and a summer day. The door closed. He was in the
woods now, his heart racing. Something was gone, somewhere he'd
left something behind. He couldn't remember what, or where. What
was it that he'd lost. What had they taken? A golden cap clung to
the bush. So familiar. It terrified him. What did it mean?

"They took her. They took her and I can't even remember her name,"
Barnes said. His voice was clear inside Oliver's mind. It was his
own voice, but it was Barnes.

"How?" Oliver said. How could such a thing be done? How could
anyone steal away a life from memory? Who would do such a thing,
and why?

"I need your help."

"How?" he said again. What could he do? He was barely even
himself. But that wasn't true, was it? He had opened up and they
were separate still. He felt the gravity of minds puling them
together, squeezing them into a single pulp, but there was a box.
It was like his prison, his little cell of three steps. This time
it was around Barnes, though. It boxed him in and locked him away
from everything. He wallowed in it and suffered from it with
a torture that Oliver could barely stand to look at. It glowed
a fiery yellow like a burning sun and it was nothing but pain.

"Please."

He was himself. After all this time he'd found someone he could
talk to. He could share a room, a conversation. He could relax,
and it would be okay. All it took was the unimaginable pain of
absolute loss and despair. How comforting.

A smell of rotted meat wafted by him again. Where was that coming
from anyway?

"--2156, 7888, November, four apple pies
and a cheese danish, he'll be home late tonight, will we get out
early after this?--"

They were nearly upon them. Barnes still held Oliver's hand in
a death grip. Oliver placed his other hand on top, gently, and
nodded.

The siren continued as 41 men in combat armor rounded the corner.
They wore webbing and sported so many weapons that it seemed
a waste of time to count. They moved with precision and ferocity,
tigers on the prowl. Oliver and Barnes held their position in the
midst of the great oval, still grasping hands. Barnes shifted as
if to move, but Oliver held him fast. Their eyes stayed locked on
one another, ignoring the munitions building around them. They
were so locked onto each other, so utterly focused, that Oliver
didn't notice the blood red patch they wore on left shoulders.
Heavy wings and a snarling face, mouth gaping in a banshee call.

The harpies flooded the room and stopped. Hand gestures flew
between them and they fanned out, searching and seeing nothing.
They flowed around the pair of men and toward the long oval end,
pulling on door handles and checking they were secured. It was all
so orderly, so neat and efficient.

"How?" this time Barnes asked.

"No one searches himself," Oliver said. "And I am everyone."

He pointed to a door to their right. It was identical to
everything around them save for the stenciled number reading
2156. A panel was nearly invisible to the side. Oliver
straightened a knobbed finger and tentatively tapped outthe
7, 8, 8, 8.

The door opened and Oliver saw Barnes smile for the first time.
They stepped through together into a world lit with stars and
hope.