To Know Your Enemy and How The Enemy Unravels: Ha, Ho

The reader of this short-story should be aware that the story contains themes of drug use and the issue of sexual violence. It also is intended to contain elements of tragic-comedy. Please be advised. Thank you.

It wasn't until I saw the splintered glass of the Celea pod casing did I acknowledge it. So, maybe this wasn't just a vice and creative tool. My hands were shaking. Maybe this was the last place I could hide. My nails were long. Maybe I’d become what they said I’d always turn into. My bliss within inches away. Finally, my great golden fallout... in pieces on the floor staring up at me, not recognizing the face. Why did they keep these things in golden colored casings? "Golden child," my step-mother used to call me. Golden... Golden. Bliss at last. The memory of her soft smile seemed to fade a little every day – replaced by something just out of reach. Something I couldn't place and only appeared in the microscopic space between agony and ecstasy. I took one more hit of the fully-bloomed flower and closed my eyes.

"The Kind-Dome is the opposite of kind..." I heard a mediocre comedian once say in a half-empty milk bar. Ha, ho. What did he know about living here? Very little, apparently.

Which is to say, kindness could be found everywhere in the Dome. Yes, it didn't take long for me to find my group of open-hearted friends here. And no, it wasn't simply our love of the famously illegal and heavily banned Celea flowers. We saw something in each other. It was intangible, sure, but very real. We were sculptors, writers, painters, musicians: Creators of the highest order and of all disciplines. That would be true whether Celea pollen filled our nostrils or not.

Did it help the creative inclination and process? In certain ways, sure. In others, less than people think.

 It was well-known that when the pollen of Celea enters the bloodstream, it creates a thickening agent that steadies the hands and simultaneously blocks out certain activity within the brain. What’s not known by all, or at least discussed, are the particulars. For what the tiny pollen grains block is the human brain’s ability to discern or, more accurately, judge the merit of one’s own created work.

It might sound simple to some, but this is the equivalent of pulling the perfect nail out of a creative floodgate. When the dam bursts, the art is no longer inhibited by fear. So, when I say Celea is not the reason for the unity of our artistic collective – known affectionately as the WellSprungz, Ha Ho – I mean it. We would answer the call to create no matter what circumstance or fate. However, I also mean that the Federally forbidden flower is a gateway to bypassing our great enemy. We see the enemy and recognize his name. He is the enemy of Freedom and his name is Fear. Ha, ho.

My feet are sprawled in my studio space and everything I’ve explained about the importance yet inessential use of Celea must sound a bit naive. Was it addictive? Of course. And the WellSprungz and I have always known the risks. I’ve seen it in others and now I see it in me. The space between pollen inhalation and the act of picking up my paintbrush has increased with every dose. However, because the distance increases at such a miniscule rate, it becomes hard to detect. Still, here I am, back against the wall, legs numb, surrounded by scattered Celea blossoms and dusty pollen staining my shirt and pants. I stare at my easel, paints, and brushes only ten steps away in the corner of the cobwebbed studio room. Feels like ten miles. 

I close my eyes and there she is again – my step-mother sitting before me on her rocking chair. She’s calling me again, “Golden boy, golden boy Gabriel.” She places her hand on my head, brushing my hair back and forth. Why is the door locked?

“Gabe!” 

The scream rattles me awake as I feel someone’s small hands shaking me hard. 

“Gabe, they’re coming! Gabe, they’re here!”

My eyes roll open to reveal the thin frame and searching eyes of Thelia the Sculptor. 

“Oh, Jesus, Gabe” she says. “Can you even move? What are we going to do?”

“Who?” I hear myself croak.

“Who do you think? The Paralanizas, Gabe.”

“They’ve come before” I mutter, nodding my head downward.

“Not like this time. Not like this. Samuel counted at least seven Detainment Cranes.”

“Seven? Can’t be…” I stare into her wild green eyes.

“It’s not gonna be like last time, Gabe. They’ve craned every Celea-junkie in the district. Everyone but us.”

“Viva la Wellsprungz… Ha, ho.” I mutter. It’s a failed attempt to lighten the fear I see in her wild eyes.

She helps me stand. My feet are bare.

“God, you’re bleeding Gabe.” 

I noticed I’d managed to step all over the golden shards of the glass casing. A streak of red followed me to the corner of the room.

I feel light-headed suddenly. My eyes roll back. I can discern a muffled pleading as I drift off.

“Give me your hand, Golden boy…” I don’t know why she’s putting it there. It’s not a place I like. No.

“Let go!”

“Don’t be afraid, Golden boy. Golden child… This is where you came from.”

I try to break free but she keeps returning my hand to the same place – the space where her legs come together. 

“No, not true! You’re not my mother!” My screams do nothing. I can’t break free. I can’t…

Ice water now – sending a sharp pain through my entire body. Thelia is holding my head under the large studio faucet. 

“Come back, Gabe. Come back.”

“Okay, okay! I’m here.” I say and back my head away, now dripping wet. The chill counteracts the Celea high. I’ve helped dozens of friends with the same technique – overdose fears are hard to overcome.

I notice the orangish clay mound next to my easel and bright, primary colored paints. Would it be the last time I laid eyes on something so inviting?

“Thelia, you know you are my little love, my little truth…” I whisper, “And we both knew this day would come.” 

As if on cue, the pound of a battering ram hits hard on my studio door. Like a raven’s beak on an unsuspecting egg. My weariness starts to leave as her beauty charges a familiar inspiration.

“Yes, but I’m so frightened, Gabe.”

“I am too… but remember the true enemy. Fear is powerful, but we’ve found ways to unravel it, Love.”

She gives me the same look she always gives when I tell her of my love. It’s soft, sweet, but hardly a blush.

“I’ve just discovered something, Thelia.” I say slowly, “Something I’ve hidden for years. I think it’s always followed me and now further seems forever. I won’t be able to live or die without actualizing it the only way I know how… to demonstrate it…”

“What do you mean?” She whispers.

“Color on canvas,” I say.

There is mist growing in her electric-green eyes, yet I see a smile creep to her mouth.

“Ha, ho!” She laughs. 

She takes my hand and we walk almost calmly now. Slowly over to the opposite corner of the room where her orange clay resides. I limp but my hands find my brushes, paint, and easel beside her.

It takes a fairly long time but when the three heavily armored Paralaniza patrol officers finally break down the double-layered studio door, they don’t immediately tell us to get on our knees and prepare to be craned. Instead, the mustached and fattest one in the crew stares with dumb eyes and says,

“What the hell is that?”

A slightly thinner and clean-shaven Paralaniza answers, “I think it’s a Celea flower…”

The third one – much older, skinny, and tired – says, “No, no, no… that’s a vagina!”

“I mean, the sculpture is definitely a vagina,” the first insists, “but I think that painting is a flower…” 

Thelia and I don’t stop our work.

“Celia flowers aren’t purple, you idiot!” The third replies, “Vaginas are purple.”

“Vaginas are purple?” says the second.

“What the hell kind of vaginas are you talking about!” says the first.

“Vaginas are purple?” says the second again.

“Why don’t you just ask those Celia-heads, Frank!” The old, skinny, and tired one says waving his semi-automatic rifle in our general direction.

“Well?” Frank the mustachioed Paralaniza asks, looking all the more like a bumbling turtle.

I give a reassuring glance to Thelia.

“Oh, sorry, boys, we didn’t hear you come in.” I say, turning towards the Paralanizas. “By all means, yes, yes. You are all correct in your astute artistic critiques. Ha, ho.”

The End.