My father was buried today. They say he died peacefully, in his sleep.
That’s how everyone dies.
Peacefully.
My dad lived to be one hundred and nineteen years old. It’s not unusual, you know. The experts say we are healthier people than we used to be. They say we used to fry chickens, and scorch cows, and then eat them. Not anymore. The environment is protected too. We don’t contaminate the air and water with wastes and chemical by-products. We take care of the Earth, and each other. Senseless accidents and natural disasters rarely result in the loss of human life. Our weather forecasting technology is almost flawless. Our Geological Event Warning System is without error. Human technology and engineering have prevented countless disasters from taking human lives.
Life is good.
Life is almost perfect.
Almost.
***
Everyone has left the cemetery, everyone except for me. The pigeons have gathered here, around the bench where I sit looking out at the rows of graves. The way they move is almost mechanical. They seem to have one purpose and one purpose only: To hunt and peck. They walk in a straight line and change directions erratically, like they are pre-programmed.
***
I fell off the roof of the New Catholic Church when I was nine years old. My friend David and I were horsing around up there one day when Father Thomas saw us from his kitchen window across the street. We didn’t stick around long enough to see if he came out of the house. David bolted for the far side of the roof, the side that faced the cushioned lawn of the old Stafford Opera House, a towering Gothic structure that presented a number of challenging climbs in itself. He was faster than I was in those days, and he jumped and landed safely on the lawn one story below. I, on the other hand, lost my footing on the gravel rooftop and plummeted headlong into the not-so-soft lawn below. The world looked a little different to me from that day forward.
***
I couldn’t sleep again last night. I lay there the entire night with the glow from the fish tank bathing the walls around me in a pseudo-underwater impressionistic painting. I was thinking about the pigeons at the cemetery. They reminded me of the people at the burial. As the Priest had finished his sermon, the attendees stared straight ahead, cocking their heads to the side randomly. Almost mechanically. Like pigeons. No one cried. Crying is no longer a human function anymore. We live in a highly civilized world today, compared with civilizations in the past. Pain is minimal, almost unheard of. Without pain there is no need for tears. Scientists say we have evolved to a higher level of consciousness where pain has no meaning.
***
I had to go to my physician today for my annual checkup. I took the early sky-tram to the park, and sat on a bench for an hour enjoying the fresh morning air. I was thinking about my father as I watched a man toss a ball with his son. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I have begun to think something is wrong with me. I wanted to tell my physician about the incident, hoping he could correct the problem, but something in my mind held me back. Pigeons. Something about the pigeons held my tongue for me.
***
The anchorwoman on The World News briefly mentioned the crash of a airship that had been crossing the Asian continent. She went on to say that all six hundred and forty seven passengers had survived the crash, emerging with only minor injuries. Superior human technology had once again saved the lives of the innocent. I should have been overjoyed knowing that no one was killed in such an unpredictable catastrophe, but I wasn’t. Instead I felt curious. Where I had always had full confidence in human ability, there was now irrational, unwarranted doubt. Could there really have been no casualties? How is it that no one ever dies accidentally? These were the questions I had been asking myself that I had never asked before. Questions that no one ever asks. Now I am sitting in front of my machine surfing the pipeline for answers. I know they are watching, so I am trying to keep my queries general. I have asked the pipeline for information on sky-trams, hoping this would be broad enough not to flag my account with the Pipeline Authority, or the Bureau of Information. These agencies monitor the pipeline for negative information and revoke accounts that are not in compliance with the Information Standards Act. They are always watching. Sweat has begun to trickle down my sides from my armpits. I am very nervous, yet excited at the same time. I am on the verge of some kind of breakthrough. I’m not sure what I hope to find, but I know that there is something rotten lurking under the surface, disguising itself in contentedness and world harmony. And yet I doubt these thoughts at the same time.
***
Nothing interesting about sky-trams on the pipe. Nothing that helps me make sense out of whatever I am trying to make sense of. Ran a query on pigeons too and came up with nothing. I still don’t know what I am looking for.
***
I think I saw my dad on the street today. I was on my way back from the Central Library when a man bumped into me and excused himself. My attention was fixed on a man feeding pigeons just off the walkway. I didn’t see the man that bumped me, but I recognized his voice as my father’s. I looked up in time to see him disappear into the crowd. I turned back to the man feeding the pigeons, but the pigeons were gone, and the man just stood there smiling at me.
***
I am really beginning to worry about my mental health now. Normal thoughts seem to be unraveling in my head at an alarming rate. I think that I am on the verge of understanding some great truth about the world, and yet I wonder if I am delusional. I cannot trust my own mind. I am not sure what is real or what I have conjured in my malfunctioning brain. Is this not the definition of insanity?
***
I typed my dad’s name into my machine and ran a check on him through the pipeline. I don’t know what I was hoping to find, but whatever hopes I had were soon dashed. I found nothing. Nothing. All public record of him was gone. Erased? I had never checked his public record before. Confusion has reached its all-time highest peak in my mind. I don’t know what to do next. I am nervous and paranoid and, I think, delusional. Pigeons are the only thing standing between insanity and me. Something about those pigeons holds my self-doubt at bay, while my mind tries to uncover… uncover what?
***
I went to meet David, my childhood friend, hoping seeing him again would clarify some things and help to ground me. We met at a hyper-cafe inside the beltway. David seemed different. We caught up on each other’s lives, talked about his family, and then moved on to old times. When I mentioned the time I fell off the church roof, he cocked his head to the side and stared at me blankly. It was an odd expression, yet familiar at the same time. I asked him if he remembered the accident and his expression grew strained, but he said nothing. I pressed him further, but he only mumbled that it sounded like a dream and then fell silent again. Something felt off, skewed from reality, another piece in the jigsaw puzzle of my brain was sitting right there in front of me, but I couldn’t quite get it to fit. I let the matter lie, though I was disillusioned at not coming closer to the answer I was seeking. We chatted for a while longer, awkwardly, as though it was required of us. And then we bid each other farewell.
***
They know. I was waiting at the sky-tram station on my way to visit my father’s marker, and not knowing why I was going, when I saw The Smiling Man. He was standing at the next line over waiting for the same bus that I was waiting for. He was grinning at me. My paranoia went into overdrive. I knew this could not be mere coincidence, and those thoughts were confirmed as I scanned the other boarding lines of the bus and found three more Smiling Men who were exactly identical to each other. It was like God had run out of extras in the movie of my life. My heart seized in my chest, and I thought it would implode in that instant. I was startled back into consciousness with the arrival of the countryside sky-tram, and before I knew it, I had boarded, exited out the other side, and boarded the downtown bus headed in the opposite direction. I knew this wouldn’t throw them off for long, for they would trace my tram card through the pipeline.
***
They were waiting for me at the downtown stop. As I had expected, they had traced my tram card punches and found the destination of the bus that I had picked up. This time there were no Smiling Men, only Bureau of Information Agents dressed in their usual dark blue uniforms waiting on the platform as the air bus glided to a halt. I gained a few seconds on them by rushing out of the service exit, and dashing out into the street. I made it all the way to the next sky-tram station, and quickly boarded a bus bound, once again, for the countryside.
***
I made it to the cemetery where my father was laid to rest. I sat on the ground in front of his marker for a while, thinking. Pigeons gathered around me while I considered what to do next. It seemed like hours had passed, and when I looked up next, The Smiling Man was standing over me. Without a word, he picked up one of the pigeons and tore its head off. I was shocked at first, but astonished to find that instead of currents of blood, a tangle of wires streamed out of the pigeon’s feathered neck.
***
I am in a white room by myself now and strapped to a table. A physician has been in to see me. She says she will treat the problem I am having, but first she must access vital memories stored in my subconscious. She says I will sleep for a while. I am pleased to receive her help. Life has been too much like a nightmare in the last few days. All I want is to have my painless life back.
***
Dreaming. I am walking down a ramp, headed for the tram station. I am holding someone’s hand. I look up and see that it is my dad. The tram leaves us at a wooded park. It is a sunny day. People are all around. A man bumps me and says, “Excuse me”. The voice sounds just like my dad’s. I look back, but it’s too late. He is lost in the throng of people. I turn and look questioningly up at my Dad, who is still holding onto my hand. But my dad is gone. A man with wild eyes and a knowing smile is looking down at me. The Smiling Man. For a minute I cannot breathe. I reflexively let go of his hand and stumble backwards, but someone catches me. I turn around and it is The Smiling Man again. I break free and run frantically into the crowd, thinking I have escaped. But now I notice something queer about the crowd. Everywhere I look I see familiar faces, which should normally be comforting, except that several people have the same face. I immediately count eight people that look exactly like my friend David. The Smiling Man is staring back at me from every direction. My physician stands solemnly, scattered randomly amongst the crowd. I want to run. I want to hide. I want to lie down on the ground and curl up into a ball and shut these mad visions from my sight. I know now that I must be crazy. And just when I feel that my heart will stop from shock, someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn slowly; not wanting to know who it is that is standing behind me. But I turn around and I see my dad again, and he has that confident look on his face. That look that I have always relied on. That look that always assures me that things are going to be okay. He is trying to say something to me and his mouth is moving, but there are no sounds coming out of it. And when I look closer, past the assurance of his expression to his eyes, I see something that is different. His eyes are no longer brown as they used to be. Instead they are now a vibrant blue. A soothing, shimmering blue, like the blue that bathes a room when a light is shined through the glass walls of an aquarium. And there are shadows in there, like the shadows of fish on the walls as they swim in front of the light. The shadows are hunting. And now I notice as I look back at his moving, silent lips, that something deep inside his mouth has uncoiled itself. Something dark, yet colorful, is slithering its way up, up, and out.
***
The doctor is here again, and now she is doing something with a machine behind my head. I can hear the motors whirring. It feels like something has been dislodged from my scalp, but I am no longer worried. The physician will take care of all my health problems from here on in. She is saying something about memories and dreams again, but the words are blurred. I can barely understand her. My vision is blurred, but her face seems to contort with rage as my eyes fight to regain focus. I feel on the edge of consciousness.
***
I’m at the edge of the back lawn of the New Catholic Church. I can see a small figure hunched over another figure, but what they are doing I cannot tell. As I approach, I can hear a soft moan coming from one of the two figures. I am upon them now and it is clear what has happened: David, my childhood friend, is kneeling over me, because I have just fallen off of the roof. He is sobbing uncontrollably, and as I get closer I see what has him so distressed. My head is lying next to my body, and instead of ribbons of blood issuing from my neck there are only wires. Neatly bound, multi-colored rows of wire.
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