Scar (536 hits)
Category: UberMadness! EntryRating: 2 on 1 review (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ingsoc (View user info) at 2004-09-14 19:28:37 EDT
This post was an official UberMadness! entry. Click here to view the original matchup.
"If any member of the family should die whilst in the shelter, put them outside; but remember to tag them first for identification purposes."
Raymond Pereira paid no heed to this rather depressing warning, favouring instead the adjustment of his shelter blanket. His partially pant-covered legs were exposed to the air that was getting warmer by the minute. Where his family was, he neither knew nor cared. From his position on the floor he spotted his friend Andrew Ward break into a run towards him down the subway rails. Power had been cut to the electric rails, rendering the subway tube an inadvertent shelter for those trying to escape the surface. Andrew leant over and caught his breath, observing Raymond's large shin cut through the tears in his pants.
"That's quite a nick. Should I call the medic over?"
"I don't think it's something worth worrying over. It'll heal in good time."
"How about a Band-Aid? You should grab one just in case; you know, before he's out."
"I'll be fine. I won't be moving around much. It'll heal in good time."
Andrew could hardly hear him over the screaming of the frightened children, and their mothers trying frantically to console them, but failing admirably. It was the blind leading the blind- the mothers were scared too.
"It's enough to make you wonder sometimes if you're on the right planet."
With that, Andrew left Raymond to rest while he scurried to aid an old woman from the surface into the tunnel. And with that, he pulled the thick off-white blanket over himself, tucking the sides under himself to form a nice, soft cocoon amidst the chaos around him: his exile from the surrounding horrors of panicked people. This was their first exposure to real danger, and he wasn't surprised if it was their last. He of course was used to danger, or at least imagined danger. He had served admirably in the first Gulf War, and any opportunity where the shit could physically be scared out of him had passed him then. Over the following years he would become desensitised and lose his empathy for others. He wasn't the centre of the universe. He was the universe. Just as well, the worried parents and oblivious children around him took no notice. Their universe was collapsing out from under them.
He saw a family huddling for warmth diagonally from him. He saw the children watch their grandmother collapse painfully in front of them. Her death was ruled by the shelter medic as a result of contamination from a low-yield neutron bomb. How he could rule this was beyond Raymond, who had other things on his mind. For the grandmother, the untried and untrue method of 'duck and cover' turned out to be just that: untried and untrue. But it was worth a shot. She would invariably be carried back to the surface, but not before being tagged.
He was not worried about his family members in other parts of the country, who were undoubtedly experiencing what he was right now. Years of alienation and neglect had estranged them from him. Raymond did not attend his grandmother's funeral. Instead, he lounged around his apartment downloading porn and watching Fresh Prince while his answering machine became flooded with tearful messages. Raymond was too important for that shit.
More recently, when his friend Marti was hospitalised for angina pains in his former hometown, his family neglected to inform him. When Ray called Marti, there was not much to be said. The tables were turned. He reflected on this for a moment: after years of shutting his family out of his life, they had responded in kind. He was used for them reaching for him, begging him to come to light-hearted family get-togethers, urging him to come to mourn lost family members. He was used to the feeling of them reaching for his presence, for him to say a few solemn words or tell a few off-colour jokes. He loved that feeling. But as he lied in his cocoon, he finally realised that they were no longer reaching out for him. Somewhere on the surface, a lone bomb slammed into the ground. What looked like a coffee tin rattled down the steps to the surface, passing under the turnstile, accompanied by a low, steady hiss. Raymond ducked his head under his blanket.
His moment of realisation was painful, intensified by the reverberations of the explosion followed by a sudden muting of all noise around him. He looked around the subway; the child's screaming had subsided and the protective calls of the mothers had been silenced. All had dropped slowly and quietly, into what appeared to be a deep sleep. No further sound but the slow, dying hiss of the coffee tin object. He felt the drowsiness on his face, in his eyes, and in his nostrils as he breathed it in. Raymond pushed aside his warm blanket and was surprised by how hot it was. It felt like a blow dryer on his legs through the tears in his pants. He felt the heat push his wound open further, causing a disconcertingly pleasant sensation. He walked slowly up the stairs leading to the street level. With every step he took, pain shot through his leg. It was indeed quite a nick, as Andrew had put it- and where he was, Raymond did not know. Perhaps it wouldn't heal in good time.
Upon reaching the ground level, Raymond's senses were assaulted at all ends by what he was witnessing. The green tint of the sky blending into an orange horizon; the stench of burnt flesh and blood all around him; the sight of a hundred prop-powered bombers flying overhead and things that looked half human crawling amongst the debris on the sidewalks; the taste of lead and ash in his mouth; the feel of infernal heat of his fingertips and face; and most memorably, the sound of it all. The hissing of rising smoke clouds from the burnt and demolished buildings; the cries for help; the screaming of children and adults who were not lucky enough to be killed instantly or silenced by the invisible gas. The air raid sirens blared loudly, but not loudly enough to drown out the whistling of bombs falling from the sky, or the low whirring of propellers. Raymond could just make out a flag being raised on a pole at ground level. Whose flag it was, he simply could not say. It really didn't matter to him.
Needless to say, Raymond never had to worry about his nick.
"I wonder if it'll scab over after I die. I never had a really cool scar."
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Submitted by youarsoghey (user info) at 2005-01-16 12:34:21 EST (#)
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