Love In Hibernation

Articles of manifold topics were written in the newspaper. Most detailed the progress of society in Letum, championing how high humans had been rapt. 

“We have travelled,” stated a renowned scientist, “far from the primitive eras before us. Dissociated ourselves from the rudiments of friendship, religion, sympathy, empathy, family, and other inherent flaws besides. What we have built, instead, is a system of efficiency.” 

Maesus winced at having read such casuistry. Science, he believed, had segregated all from the most basic human function: emotion. They even contradicted themselves by regarding the present as sophisticated. He instanced this by looking at an advertisement for the Purple Light District: a place where sorrows were scuppered. Letum encouraged readers to adventure there, by publicising that, for a fortnight hence, all visitations were gratis. Maesus sighed. 

He continued down the voluble refuse, till he arrived at an article promulgating a public execution, set to be held on the morrow, at noon. Slander painted the victim on death row as a corruptor, for they had lured another into feeling, and, of especial illegality, love for them. The person to be executed was stripped of their name. They were but referred to as the corruptor or the depraved. Appalled yet mournful, Maesus decided to attend, on grounds of viewing it as a funeral for what Aphrodite embodied. An ulterior motive lurked also: to have a vicarious memorial, for whom Maesus himself had been estranged. 

From a closet, Maesus unburied an illicit photograph, diluted by the ravages of time, of Ether. They had been his former lover. Embracing it, the memories it fetched had tears overbrim. 

With this estrangement having resurfaced, he could garner no respite from its constant siege. The advertisement of the Purple Light District lolled its reptilian tongue, lisping temptations of the relief he could achieve. Out of desperation, Maesus relented. Shop after shop, on either side of this infamous and bustling district, mildewed the streets with wanton fungi. They were characterless and unembellished. Crude neon signs heralded: All Tastes Catered For. Every shop had the same writing. 

Inside, sundry aisles of lucent pornography smutted the shelves, which slithered into endless junction after junction. From films to magazines to photographs, the interior baited customers with lewd hooks. The yellow walls, as of necrotizing fasciitis, were peeling. Inanimate, nude figures were erected everywhere. Being expressionless, the only thing evocable when looking at them was repression. At the outskirts were stalls providing, like changing rooms, areas for customers to try their items. An odour of bleach, salt, and musk sweated throughout the air. 

Disinterested in this selection, Maesus teetered to the level below. A guard had him hault, and  inspected his identification by scanning the records for whether he had visited here before. When green glinted on screen, the guard informed:

“To be clear, whomever one is with, will be but for tonight. Being with somebody twice is prohibited.” 

Maesus nodded. It was probable that he would never remember whom he was to see. They were to be dehumanised as a figment of placation. A sea for him to drown in. 

Seated in a nylon booth, Maesus waited for the dancer to emerge from behind a half-silvered mirror. When they did, he fixated on dampening his pains through voyeurism. As the dancer, déshabillé, twirled in sensuous kinks, Maesus leered at their hairless genitals. 

Are they humiliated by this? wondered Maesus. Am I alone in doubting the morality of these acts? No. Others must exist, submerged beneath layers of fear and tyranny. 

Vomitous shame began chiding Maesus, for his trespass against the dancer: anatomising them into pounds of flesh. His eyes were seared by what he considered to be adultery. He fought as best he could. By and by, he succeeded in expelling this adversity. His guilt waned. His burns were reduced to mere singes. Having surrendered altogether, Maesus had not a cognitive wisp left. He swam in the bliss of ignorance. 

This was the closest that he, or anybody besides, could be to intimacy. 

The next day, Maesus embarked for the centre of the city, where executions were always displayed. A big courtyard, fashioned of limestone, prisoned the thousands of herds of sedate sheep. Not a frown was visible; nor was a sniffle or sob audible. To be undetected, Maesus resorted to portraying an identical apathy. The styleless edifices, flanking this courtyard, captured the anaemic hearts of the people. In the midst, was a mercurial podium where the corruptor was thrown for all to scrutinise. Seven officers, armed with guns, marched in the wake of the prostate corruptor. None of them had any defining features to be ranked by. All of the officers were in equal anonymity to one another. 

“Stand,” ordered one of them. 

The corruptor disobeyed them by wallowing on the podium. 

Two officers upreared the corruptor, spun them around so as to face the audience, and lined themselves in uniformity. Cocking their guns, they aimed them at the occiput. 

“Are there any last words?” asked an officer, disaddressing them by staring into the sight. 

“That in death shall life be born,” replied the corruptor. “It is better to love for an hour, than to live in heartache forevermore.” 

Maesus was sweetened by their poesy, notwithstanding their bitter plight.  

He barricaded his eyes, yet the sound of bullets cannonading, and pervading with fulgurant barbarity, pregnated. The image of whom he had loved erst, bared its head. Throughout the enduring assault of guns, aggravated by the inquietude of those around him, Maesus chewed his gums till ulcerated. 

Once a speech on the reasons for why this was so criminal had finished, Maesus lumbered home. In the corner of everything he saw, was the vestige of whom he longed for. He avoided passing through the lechery of the Purple Light District. The thought of entering one of these establishments now disgusted him. He swore an oath to abstain from such filth. 

At home, in front of the distorting mirror, he attempted to clean himself. Wash away the lice pestering him. He had been naive, however, to expect this to prevail. The tepid water, filled with granules, abraded his skin. He jumped backward, for he could not decipher whether blood or water now cooled from the tap. Maesus blinked. Petals from the goriest of roses were wilting, drifting and pouring into the sink. Weeping was all that Maesus could muster. 

He had work on the morrow, at the Rehabilitator. This was where the vulnerable or defective were brought. It was a reverberant cavern of cells, with scientific devices of all purposes at hand. They had rooms for severing neural connections to the prefrontal cortex, comfortless baths for hydrotherapy, and straitjackets were hung as if the garments of the newest vogue. 

Maesus and a senior doctor were tasked with examining a patient. 

The senior doctor was analysing from an immovable chair. “What is the trouble?” 

“Some kind of…feeling,” said the patient. 

The senior doctor, blustering their disapproval, manned the examination. The patient was shown a carousel of photographs, each with various depictions of humans in untoward situations. There was a slave being tortured, a boy being jeered at by others of his age, a perishing wife with her grieving husband clinging to her hand. The patient failed, for their face reacted to everything that was put before them. 

“This ailment is serious,” diagnosed the doctor, “though it is curable.” 

The patient further defiled themselves by smiling. Maesus swathed his distress at foreknowing what lay ahead. 

Manacled with leathern rope, the patient was prescribed currents of electroshock therapy. A rusty gag was strapped around their mouth, and then stuffed into it, hampering them from screaming. Pupils reeled, veins tautened and empurpled, the brain tumesced, as well as the body convulsed as if animalised into an eel. The senior doctor looked vacant. Maesus wrestled with the woes this galvanised. When the administration had been completed, the patient was silent and submissive.

“Better?” probed the senior doctor. Unanswered by the patient, they knew the desirable effect had occurred. It was fortunate that this had proved fruitful, for, if it had not, the recourse was either lobotomy or execution. An ill seed is too dangerous to not be destroyed. The whole crop could be at risk of infection. 

Maesus was revolted by how he had facilitated such a heinous crime. How many souls have I extinguished? reflected Maesus. Similar to the patient, this reflection was unanswerable. 

In time, Maesus declined all the more. During the day, his eyes would perceive sepia. Whereas, at night, monochrome was perceivable. Juxtaposing these achromes, was what internalised in his mind: a kaleidoscope of lurid thoughts, melancholia, and despair volatilised. He was misgiven suggestions that nevermore would he encounter his love of old. His self arraigned him for the extinguishments of others: dousing their emotional faculties. He sought a method of redemption. The words of the corruptor whispered in his ears. He was tired of having hibernated so long. Finding Ether would lull him. He cared not for whether this reunion would be ephemeral. Nor did the knowledge of him being jeopardised, alarm or deter. On the contrary. The pendulum of peril enheartened him. 

If caught, judged Maesus, then I shall be all the happier. To be sacrificed, for a cause so pure, will martyr me. 

The problem resided in where Ether now was. He recalled how they had been employed at the Department of Rations. Shirking his occupation, Maesus followed up on the lead. The halls of limestone, soundless when walked upon, as if a vacuum, were a sinister guide for Maesus. Not an adornment depended on the cubic ceiling, amorphous walls, and lineless floor. At the backmost of the Department of Rations, officers were congregated. Maesus questioned them all. Tactful so as to not be incriminated, he exerted his position at the Rehabilitator thereby occluding suspicion.

“We have reason to investigate them,” explained Maesus. 

“What is the serial number?” responded an officer, who was operating a computer. 

Having conned it, Maesus elucidated:

“Eighty-Four-Nineteen.” 

“They have not been under employment for some years. This ought to have been known.” 

Their toneless comment ignited the fury of Maesus. It contested his yearning for Ether, and discounted the bluing within him. “What is the accusation?” he protested. By so saying, he had betrayed an ounce of discontentment, affront, and anger. 

The officers were alerted to a nerve having raised. 

Maesus, sensible to his incaution, stifled any additional betrayals. He stood adroit, and tried to be indomitable against their circumspection. 

“Serial number?” queried the officer, pointing at him.

Maesus had inward startlement. A chill leapt upon his spine; he twitched a microscopic inch. “Nineteen-ninety-one.” 

The officer sifted through the database, and evaluated the description characterising Maesus. His record was stainless. They concluded him to be adherent and inconspicuous. “One can never be too suspicious, nowadays,” said the officer. 

Maesus deported passivity, and quitted the Department of Rations, none the wiser. On the streets of Letum, he studied visages which shimmered as phantasmal.

There must, he opined, be some who pretend. Imitate the grave for the sake of blending in. If so, we are a cursed lot of hermit crabs, sunken in the depths of what rubble we have scavenged. 

Maesus proceeded to rummage through he and Ether’s haunts of yore. Alas, little of where they used to go had survived. The bookshops, cafés, theatres, restaurants, and markets had vanished. There was a park still, however, its virid grass had been denaturalised and supplanted for astroturfing. The flowers, here, were artificialised with variegated plastic. Even the entry to the once pellucid river, now scummed over with algae, mud, cholera, and faeces, was barred from the public. In the stead of all this, were enormous grey manufactories, edifices, and miniature houses. 

The extinction of humanity was all that Maesus could see. A tear dewed his cheek; he swiftened to eradicate it. The hope that had, thus far, sustained and invigorated him, faltered and flagged. Being lost, Maeus was susceptible to maligner forces. Once more, temptation lisped of the Purple Light District. On this occasion, he did not tax himself by repelling them. They had redoubled in their debauchery, with the sibilant voice of the temptor being that of Asmodeus, the three-headed Prince. The bull bellowed, the man wiled, and the ram bleated. Flames spattered in spittle when delivered to Maesus. 

Could he spend a night alonely? Is it not peacefuller to be desensitised? Yes, resolved Maesus, it is. He, therefore, forswore his oath and knelt before the altar of Asmodeus. 

As always, the Purple Light District was saturated with the dregs of Letum. People somnambulated by, snaking in and out of different shops, smothering their hardships for the while they were here. The neon signs were monochromatic to Maesus. He picked one at random, and stepped inside, where his scent was assaulted by that customary odour. The echo of the corruptor redounded through him. 

I am pathetic, Maesus self-deprecated. 

In the booth, he steadied himself as light outshone the dark beyond the half-silvered mirror. The dancer remained shadowed a moment, before they were demystified in the midst of this tenebrous stage. Maesus rubbed his eyes twice, then thrice, and was mired in disbelief. Could that be Ether whom he was now ogling at? The dimples etched upon them, their rubied blush and celestial nose, in addition to their hooded eyes and marine-blue irises, were all synonymous with Ether. Moreover, the pronounced v, on their lower abdomen, was identifiable as theirs. It had to be Ether. 

At first, Maesus rejoiced at having defied his hitherto doomed odds. To be reunited with Ether was a bijou not from this world. His joy and rapture, though, were envenomed by resentment, enmity, and hatred for how Ether had been degraded. How dare they confine them, as an animal in a zoo, to a cage where salacious gazes could letch off them. Heedless of danger, Maesus interrupted the gracile swaying of the dancer by rapping on the half-silvered mirror. So wroth was he that he clenched his fist tight, and welted till cracks formed. The dancer had since ceased, and was petrified. A guard barged in, and ousted Maesus from the booth, whereafter escorting him out of the shop. 

“The Rehabilitator has been notified,” imparted the guard. “An appointment is scheduled for seventeen o’clock tomorrow. We advise against absconding.” 

Once the guard had disappeared, Maesus burst into raucous laughter. A ridicule of his person for the foolery, squandering, and self-indictment he had actuated. There was a twinge of hilarity, too, in the irony of his own occupation being the carrion that would soon feast upon his carcass. Maesus abandoned all inhibitions. “What do I have to lose,” he muttered in private. He consecrated a decision: hide till the reverent of Ether materialised, whenever that may be. 

Night went at the pace of a sloth. Overfraught with the when and if, Maesus never once shut his eyes. Nor did he untense his muscles. He was rigid and mulish. When a group of dancers exited the shop, Maesus surveyed whether one of them resembled Ether. He discriminated by looking for their unmanly torso and slim waist. Despondence almost won over, that is, till he reded the hazy crevices of those signature dimples being illuminated by a pale floodlight. Maesus approached the dancer, jittering from both excitement and rage. They acknowledged his advance, and jolted backward at such anomalous behaviour. 

“Ether! It is me, Maesus,” he said, still at a disadvantage of obtaining total visibility of the dancer. 

“The name means nothing,” they replied, void of amity or warmth. 

 Maesus now crossed the threshold into where he could be seen. He tarried, praying it to have been the dark which had tampered with their recollection. 

“Do you not remember me at all?” spoke Maesus, with defeatism on the offensive. 

“No.” They punctuated this by shrugging their shoulders, and cankered Maesus the more. 

Unwanted! He felt jettisoned overboard into a Stygian tempest. His rejection roiled a vengeful violence in him, and he quaked in hunger to soothe himself. A kiss would suffice; whether consentual or not, was of no matter. Maesus lunged forth to wrench the dancer. In a trice, he recoiled and retracted from doing so. The person under harassment was not Ether. They bore common features, but, when face to face, he could distinguish between the two. To verify, Maesus sourced the photograph of Ether from his pocket. With the floodlight, it was revealed as the tristful truth: their nose was aquiline, they were dimpleless and had no blush. Besides, the dancer lacked that intrinsic endearment pertainable to Ether. At least, the Ether Maesus had once loved. 

Had his malady grief-stricken him to project whom he was sick for? From what had come to be, it must have. 

The dancer shuffled away into the obscurant night. Maesus choked on the stutters of wishing to say a final word. He could not compose himself enough to do so. 

Reclining against a leaden wall, Maesus plunged down upon the ground, and rued having erred thus. Perhaps, thought he, conforming is the only way of suffering the insufferable. By being so, you forget how voiceless you are against them. In life, to be blind, dumb, and deaf is easier than being blinded, dumbed, and deafened. I learnt this virtue too late, determined Maesus, cackling the while.