New People

The rooster awoke in a bed not his, to a body that also was not his. He stared into the square mirror (an installation in every other house in the exact same spot, six feet from the bed framed by a repetitive lavender wallpaper) and beheld this new body. The feathers stopped around where a human’s collarbone would linger and short fur cropped up down to the bottom of his vessel. His paws opened and closed restlessly, an acknowledgement of how this body would never truly be his. He got up from the bed and stretched. Each room was deliberately small, only holding the bed, the mirror, the pulgrit, and a small mat under the door. Above the mirror, embedded into the wall, the alarm rang and so he left.

Reinier looked into the soul of the area around him. It called itself the Pulgrit Enituor System. Brown rods shot up from the ground and curled down at their tops to reveal a budding marmalade flower light. These lights went down the street until their lights coalesced into a pulsing bulb in the far distance. At the drriiing of the alarm, the animals randomly wandered out of their boxes, coming out when they got adjusted to the feeling of their legs. They then walked. Likely in the direction that everyone else chose to walk. Small creatures of all kinds dittered and dottered along the cityscape, chatting away as if the pulgrit beside them had to have been someone they’ve known forever. In reality, everyone just made a habit of conversing with whomever stood beside them. A symphony of noise catalyzed in the System, an unplanned orchestra but beautiful nonetheless. He talked with more and more pulgrits, all with unique voices and strange turns of phrases that made it impossible to pin down where any in the System had even come from in the first place. Reinier still didn’t know where he himself was from. As Reinier walked, a teeny fatty man with the head of a beaver and the body of a squirrel stumbled over to them and began. “Nice morning, wouldn’t you say?” he lilted in a voice with a very distinctive accent that elongated the o’s and e’s and r’s but left everything else short and succinct. Cider wafted into the air as he stepped.

“Same as every other day, not better but not worse,” the rooster said. That was a blatant lie of course. The sun shone down on the road and hit skyscraper trees surrounding the city in such a way that beauty stood alone as the sole word to describe it. Reinier just wanted to make conversation after all.

“Something to that, I say,” the beaver replied with a smile, his eyes trained forward. His legs would hit the floor for but a moment before jumping back up into the air.

“Or perhaps nothing.”

“Well, in any case, mornings are always good so that is always a good thing.”

“At the start of the next day, it will be the same.”

“But different.”

“Or maybe that.”

“Or maybe that, indeed,” the beaver finished before leaving.

He then walked over to a woman with the face of a bird and the body of a turtle to converse loudly about whether the tree bark was reddish-brown or brownish-red. And he did so with glee. The air around Reinier permeated still with faint dashes of cider but that smell soon gave way to an earthy, raw smell of flowers. Grand.

When Reinier glanced over, his eyes following the trail that his beak’s nostrils drew, there stood at the far-left threshold of the sidewalk a store of mud. Between the mud shot out roots with muddy brown beets at the bottom, wilted and destroyed from old age and neglect. A gray sheep walked out without buying anything, their talons caked from knee-down in mud. A lavender aroma creeped out of the store. They wandered over to him and began to bah out, “Maybe tomorrow they’ll have something.”

“Have they ever had something?” the rooster replied.

“No, but they may tomorrow.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I actually don’t quite know but I may tomorrow.”

“What do they usually have in there?”

“I don’t know.”

The sheep left and began to converse to another pulgrit, leaving Reinier stricken by the store. He meandered into the place of You. It had no door and no indicator of its existence besides a crooked sign propped up against the roots. No one ran the store. There was only one thing in the entire thing. A hole. Reinier stepped in and looked around from side to side like a small child crossing the road for the first time. Nothing all too special about it. Just a big hole, the bottom of which couldn’t have been seen. He peered into the hole. It screamed at him inaudibly. He paused for a second, his face unreadable. Then, he spun around and left. The Pulgrit Enituor System required only a few things from the people within it. The complete and utter acceptance of the present - since the past is unchanging and the future is indeterminate - as well as an acceptance of whatever scenario presents unto the individual. The top pleasure scientists determined that this style of living found itself most conducive to a happy existence. The two leads loved this work so emphatically that when time came and they finished, they imprinted their names into it.

“Maybe tomorrow they’ll have something.”

And so Reinier continued walking down the street. Many more came up to talk and he obliged in his responsibility. Fish, mammals, reptilians, and everything in between came and went. But at the exact same time of ten o’ clock, the marmalade lights began to close, leaving everyone to go into the house right beside them.

The wolf awoke in a bed not his, to a body that also was not his. He stared into the square mirror (the same installation as in every other house) and beheld this new body. Reinier felt this ritual necessary for a reason that he couldn’t think of. When he left the building, he began as he did upon ever beginning.

Something felt off within the soul of him that day, something discordant with the soul of the area. The hole remained constantly in his brain. He directly approached a tall and lanky boar with the body of a giraffe, the neck stretching up into the sky and the head far above Reinier. He said, “Have you seen the store of mud?”

“What?”

“The store of mud?”

“Oh, I done seen it. Just never walked in.” the boar lilted. His voice had a very distinctive accent that elongated the o’s and e’s and r’s but left everything else short and succinct.

“Why not?”

“Why would I when I could walk?”

The silence weighed down on the two. It stood against pulgrit nature. Reinier couldn’t think of any response.The streets still plagued themselves with more idle chatter, a soft thrashing guitar against waves. A soft smell of cider lingered in the air, impossibly faint. Reinier’s thoughts jumbled up into a ball before it rolled up a hill self-sufficiently. He bit his tongue. Painful. There had to be something that he could do. At the top of the hill, the ball rolled back and crushed him. He hadn’t a clue what to say. And so, he stuttered out in cracking record, words not heard for many years. A response not only to him but to the world.

“My name is Reinier.”

That had to have been true. Even he thought so. At the start of the System, everyone accepted the simple reality of its tenets. New pulgrits even started going beyond themselves for the sake of its existence. A part of this was the complete discard of identity from before the System, if that time existed. No one ever talked about life before the System for the simple fact that the conversation that one had with themselves about it was far more enlightening then the discussion with others. Then everyone forgot the details of a life before except for a small part deep within everyone’s subconscious that wanted to express itself. And so it held up. Reinier’s eyes in that moment flickered with the remnants of identity. He looked up at the boar who had once flowed with their gait but he now had a certain roboticism to him. They looked straight ahead, perhaps processing, perhaps postponing. Imposing. Tall. Grand. Reinier couldn’t make out any expression. His arms no longer swung.

“Otto.”

Otto.

Drriiing-drriiing. All pulgrits went into the house closest to them, almost like a game of musical chairs with no stakes. Otto left quickly and so did Reinier. When reaching the building, the wolf looked into the mirror, the edges lit up dimly. He observed himself and his form. Pulling down on his mouth, he observed his teeth and his tongue. Blood filled the cavern. He swallowed and went to sleep.

Reinier couldn’t help but hold onto the name even days after this incident. It felt important to him intrinsically. He went along his schedule as he always did but the thought pervaded his psyche. “Why does it feel like this inside?” he repeated. He saw someone who spoke like Otto a couple of days later, his arms still never swinging. He spoke with the same jubilance but almost as though a burden cursed him. Everywhere below his knee joints caked in dirt. His mind tore away from the torment of joy and settled into a steady pleasant state of misery.

The fox awoke in a bed not his, to a body that also was not his and yet his mind stayed still his own. The greatest thing that no one could take from him.

He scampered out of the building and started to walk. He walked as the sole person on the street when thousands would. With no one blocking his vision, he spotted the store of mud far in front of him. He picked up his pace as others began their walk, following the direction of Reinier. He crouched into the opening and found himself facing the hole. Nothing but the hole. The place of You. He stood at the threshold and held his breath. People accumulated behind him. Some innate human curiosity. He felt drawn to it so much. He leaned closer, almost as if wanting to hear something from inside its pits. His flippers held onto the mud as best they could as he leaned further and further. He fell.

As he fell, he screamed a horrifying scream that only a human could make. He saw terrifying visions of himself in a fleshy exterior living a life. It was disgusting. No joy, no nothing. Reinier closed his eyes to try and escape but he couldn’t. His thoughts betrayed him. They showed him images of that flesh from before and made up new images and terrible stories of after. Terrible. Terrible. Terrible. He wanted to get out, he needed to get out. But he couldn’t. So he stilled himself and found meaning. The burden of identity. The pulgrits at the top heard the scream and leaned. Then others fell and became people. Then everyone fell.

With no one to support, the System would fail and the marmalade flowers closed slowly. Winter came, and so they wilted. The buildings collapsed. From the wreckage, small bits of the broken glass flung out into the street. The sun died and beyond its light stood the face of everyone - all the pulgrits who were no more. The store of mud sang, a lavender aroma spreading from beyond. A soft white snow covered the streets. The soul of the area grew dim before flickering out slowly. One small final marmalade flower, glowing still. Then zero. Ugly plants rooted themselves in the store of mud, surrounding the place of You like a crown.