Our Dried Voices (8 page)

Beyond lost, Sully tip-toed along the ledge and searched for any exit. After several minutes, the drainpipe opened into a cavernous hall-like room where water thundered in from all directions. As he tried to discern which of the many tunnels would lead him out of the sewer, Sully glimpsed a faint sparkle in the dim light. He walked toward it and stooped down to find a beautiful gold ring nestled in a corner of the wall and the ledge. It looked strangely familiar. He picked it up and stared at it for a moment, then put it in his pocket. Another glance around him, and he saw a passage that seemed less dark than the others. Having no better point of reference, Sully decided to head in that direction, and within a few moments he glimpsed a faint glow at the end of the tunnel. A few minutes more and he could plainly see that the tunnel opened up into the light. He quickened his steps and soon emerged out of the dark drainpipe and into the sun.

Sully found himself under a footbridge on the narrow shore of a small stream. An incredible thirst overcame him and he knelt and drank from the river. He slapped his hands into the current, splashing water left and right in his joy to be safe and out of the sewer and away from those bullies. Then he walked along the shore until he found a place where he could climb up the rather steep bank, up to the level of the footbridge. When he reached the top, he gazed around him in amazement. He was at the far end of the park, the very park where he had fallen asleep hours ago while playing hide-and-go-seek with Penny. He could be home in fifteen minutes! He began to walk quickly across the grassy meadow, his heart light with the knowledge that he had finally come to the end of his journey. He was halfway through the park when he spotted a dark-haired girl about Penny’s age pacing around the meadow, her eyes fixed to the ground as she stooped to look under bushes and behind trees.

Sully approached her and asked, “Are you looking for something?”

The girl appeared startled at first, having been so focused on her search, but then replied, “Oh, yes. I am looking for my doll. I put it down while I went to get a drink of water, and when I came back it was gone. Will you help me find it?”

Sully agreed, and the two of them walked together through the park in search of the doll. After some time, Sully turned to the girl, whose name was Callie, and said, “I don’t think we will find your doll today.”

Callie’s face fell. “Yes, you’re right,” she conceded resignedly. “Well, thank you for your help anyway.”

“You’re welcome,” Sully replied. “But since you lost your doll, maybe we can play something else.”

“Yes, let’s,” she said eagerly, tucking brown-black hair behind her ears. “Can we play hide-and-go-seek?”

Sully frowned. “Let’s play something else. I have had enough of hide-and-go-seek today.”

And so they did play something else. They skipped rope, played cat’s cradle, hopscotch, jacks and more. Although he did not realize it, Callie reminded Sully very much of Penny, and was almost as good a playmate as she. But they were having such a good time together that Sully forgot all about his long journey and his lost sister. Yet when the sky began to turn orange and gray as the sun dipped behind the trees, Sully remembered he missed Penny and wanted to go home. But Callie would not let him leave.

“Stay just a bit longer,” she implored him. “The sun isn’t even down yet.”

“I’m sorry, but I lost my sister earlier today and I want to go home to make sure she is all right.”

“I’m sure she is,” said Callie. “She is probably at home with your mother and father right now. But won’t you stay and play just a little while longer? I have no brothers or sisters and I will be very lonely if you leave.”

“Then let’s play tomorrow.”

This suggestion seemed to comfort Callie, and she reluctantly agreed. “All right. I will see you tomorrow, then. I am looking forward to it already.”

“Goodbye,” said Sully. “See you tomorrow.” And off he went across the meadow, walking quite fast despite being very tired from his long day, so anxious was he to return home at last.

Soon he had made his way through the park. There was his house, just across the street. He went up the steps and opened the door. His mother heard him enter and rushed into the front room.

“Sullivan Tesla Reid!” she yelled. “Where on Earth have you been? And look at you: you’ve torn your shirt and your clothes are filthy. Take them off and get in the bath right now. We’ve been worried sick about you.”

“Yes, Mom.”

Sully slunk to the flight of stairs opposite the sitting room, where Penny lay on the floor drawing a picture with crayons on a piece of paper.

“Hi Penny,” he said, cheered once more at seeing her. She did not look at him. “Where did you go? I looked for you after the rain, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

Now she turned to glare at him accusingly. “I didn’t go anywhere, Sully. I waited forever for you to find me, and then it started raining so I just stayed in my hiding spot until it stopped. Then I came out and you were gone. So where did you go?”

Sully blushed. “I did look for you, Penny. But then I found a dog that wanted to play, but it got mean and chased me, and I escaped in an ice cream truck, and the driver let me help her, and then I was chased by some bullies, but I got away in the sewer, and—”

“Yeah, right. Go take a bath. You stink.”

“No, I really did do—never mind. I’m sorry Penny.”

Penny turned around and went back to her drawing. Sully waited a moment and then walked upstairs to the bathroom. As he began to undress he put his hand into his pocket and felt the ring he had found earlier. He took it out and put it on the counter while he used the toilet and had a bath, then took it with him to his bedroom. He was pulling on his clothes when his mother knocked on his door.

“Your dinner is on the kitchen table,” she said. “Go eat and then come right back up here and get into bed.”

Sully got dressed and went downstairs to the kitchen. He set the ring on the table while he ate his meal. His mother washed the dishes in silence. When she was finished, she turned around to face him. Her face had softened a bit and there were little lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth.

“Where were you all this time, Sully?” she asked. “Penny couldn’t find you anywhere.”

“I looked for her Mom, but then I was chased by a dog and some bullies, and I escaped into the sewer and found this ring…” He held it up to show her.

His mother glanced at the ring and her mouth opened wide. She moved to the table for a closer look and fell into a chair, as though her legs could no longer hold her. She took the ring from Sully, turned it over in her hands and stared at it in astonishment.

“My God,” she whispered. “Where did you find this?”

“In the sewer, Mom.”

“Sully, this is your father’s wedding ring. He lost it this morning and I was so mad at him…” A tear slipped out of her eye. “Larry!” she called. “Larry, come in here!”

Sully’s father entered the kitchen carefully.

“What is it, Clea?” he asked, then noticed Sully sitting at the table. “Well, well. The little runaway returns. Did you have a nice time, leaving your sister all alone in the park?”

“Larry, look.” Sully’s mother extended the ring.

Sully’s father glanced at it distractedly, looked at Sully, then quickly looked back at the ring. He studied it in similar amazement.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said as he sat down. “My ring. Where did you find it, Clea?”

“Sully found it,” she replied.

“Sully?” He looked at his son. “But how? Where?”

“I found it in the sewer, Dad.”

“The sewer? But what were you—the sewer! I must have knocked it down the drain when I washed up this morning. I can’t believe it.”

Hearing the commotion, Penny entered the room. “What’s going on?” she asked.

“Your brother just found your father’s wedding ring,” Sully’s mother said. “I thought he’d lost it.”

“I did lose it,” Larry replied. “I’m just lucky our little hero here found it. Thanks, son.” He squeezed Sully’s shoulder and ruffled his hair, then kissed Clea. Sully looked at Penny and she beamed back at him, and he was very glad to be home again.

The story came to an end just as the sun began to set and the sky turned a beautiful pink and orange in the fading light of the meadow. The sound of bells rolled across the colony. The colonists were in good spirits once more. Gleeful cries of “ontbe chick!” and “ullvan tesree!” rang out as they meandered off toward the meal halls. Samuel remained seated for a moment and let the story tumble through his mind, hearing the words both strange and familiar, and finally understanding this one small thing he had so long taken for granted. Then he stood as well and set off for the nearest meal hall.

* * *

The commotion had already begun by the time Samuel arrived at the hall. A few minutes earlier, the first colonist in the meal line had stepped forward to the hole in the building’s far wall. The small red light above the hole flashed once, there was the usual clicking and whirring sound and a meal cake appeared in the hole. The colonist, an adult male, took the cake and stood in place and stared at it for a moment. An older female nudged by him to the front of the line. There was something different about the male’s food, but he couldn’t quite say what it was. Then the female received her meal. The male stared at her cake as she turned toward him. It was at least twice as large as his. She slipped past him and scurried from the hall as his eyes bore a hole in her back. A younger male stepped forward and received a meal cake even larger than the female’s. Then another adult male received his cake; it was not as large as the female’s but still considerably bigger than the first male’s. A wide grin spread across his face at the first good thing that had happened to him in a long time.

The colony had long been simmering in the wake of the recent incidents, but now the situation had reached its boiling point and long-repressed emotions began to bubble over. The first male took in the other’s self-satisfied smirk and the size of his meal in one glance. A low, guttural, savage growl escaped his lips. He dropped his cake to the floor. His legs flexed.

Samuel entered the hall to the sounds of astonished screams. The first male had just launched himself at the second and grabbed at his meal cake. The latter, who had not even noticed his disgruntled neighbor until that moment, was shocked to find his meal knocked from his hand and sent tumbling to the floor, followed hungrily by the first male. But he did not hesitate to react. In an instant, the second male dove on top of the first and the two men clawed at each other’s face and scrabbled for the fallen cake. The other colonists screamed and backed away. A young adult female was next in line; she received an undersized portion as well. Seeing the much larger cake on the floor between the two brawling males, she made a dive for it. And at that moment, just as Samuel walked through the door, the meal hall descended into chaos.

XIV

A
s it turned out, the same malfunction had occurred at the other six meal halls that evening. Similar skirmishes broke out across the colony. One by one, each colonist approached the food machine hesitantly, not knowing what his fate would be. Each hoped to receive a large meal cake, but all who did feared reprisals from colonists who had not been so fortunate. No single cake was normal sized. Those who received bigger meals shielded their prizes and scuttled quickly from the hall. Some who received smaller cakes waited near the food hole and ambushed those who received larger portions. Others merely bowed their heads, walked away and ate their tiny cakes alone, too worn down to fight.

Samuel received a larger meal cake. He was a bit surprised by his good fortune, but he took his food and strode calmly from the hall. A group of less fortunate colonists eyed him warily. He passed them without a word, neither avoiding their gazes nor staring back at them. They watched him go and waited for what appeared to be easier prey. Outside the hall, Samuel spotted Penny seated under a tree nearby holding a small, untouched meal cake. He hesitated as he neared her, feeling for the first time the weight of the food cradled in his hands. Penny turned her head up to Samuel, her lips drawn wide and flat to create little hollows in her narrow cheeks. She fingered her meal cake reflexively but only picked at it in her lap. Samuel broke off a piece of his food and extended it to her. She stared at the piece of cake, then at him, not seeming to comprehend this act of selfless generosity, perhaps the first she had ever witnessed. Slowly, she extended her hand and took it.

“Thank you.”

Samuel nodded graciously and sat down next to her. They both held equal portions about the same size as a normal meal cake, and they ate together as the cool breeze swelled to a wind and brought an end to the day’s warmth. The sun seemed to set more quickly than usual, leaving bruised streaks of indigo and violet in the tired sky.

* * *

The problem with the meal cakes continued. The clashes between colonists intensified. Informal marauding bands of colonists who received undersized cakes assembled outside the halls to wait for particularly weak-looking victims with large meal cakes. But even these groups shared no real unity, for as soon as they had bullied a meal cake out of the hands of a more fortunate colonist, they would set upon one another, each trying to claim his ill-gotten gain for himself.

The morning after the first incident with the meal cakes, a female colonist lost three teeth when attacked by two younger males with smaller portions. At the midday meal, an older male’s arm was broken as he tried to fend off another assailant. Where once the sound of the bells had prompted an immediate colony-wide migration to the meal halls, now the colonists feared to even set foot inside those doors. Some loitered near the halls all day, waiting for the bells to toll so they could rush inside, grab their meal cake, and either escape before there were too many looters or join those same looters and wait in ambush for a potential victim. Many of the older colonists who required less sustenance stayed clear of the halls until long after the bells had sounded, hoping to avoid the violent clashes altogether.

Samuel alone remained unscathed by these circumstances, even though he continued to receive a large cake at every meal. A powerful aura existed around him; he never imagined another person would harm him, and no one did. Everything about him, his words, the strange things he did around the colony, even the way he walked, marked him as somehow different from the other colonists, somehow untouchable. After the first evening, he and Penny began to visit the meal halls together with the tacit understanding that they would divide their two cakes evenly between them. But by the midday meal on the second day of the crisis, Samuel realized it was always he who had the bigger cake, always he who shared his meal, and always Penny who received a small cake and accepted his offering. He began to suspect each individual colonist received rations of a constant size, and he wondered if
there might be a way to encourage them to share their meals as well.

As the sun set that evening, Samuel waited inside one of the meal halls. When the bells sounded, he was first to receive his meal cake. Once again, it was larger than average. The next colonist in line, a young male, received a small cake for the fourth straight meal. He hesitated a moment, as if unsure whether to wait and attempt to ambush another colonist, or eat his food, go to bed with an unfilled stomach and hope his fortunes would improve the next day. He bowed his head and trudged toward Samuel, who stood near front of the line. As he approached, Samuel broke off a piece of his own cake and extended it to the other colonist. The youth did not see it until he had nearly walked into Samuel’s arm. He stopped and stared at the offering for a moment, then looked up at Samuel, his face stone-blank, mouth slightly agape. He searched Samuel’s face with flat and barren eyes, then snatched the morsel from Samuel’s hand and fled from the hall as though he had just stolen it.

An adult male stepped forward next and received a small meal cake. His shoulders sank and his head dropped. He shuffled about in haphazard circles that edged him to a spot near Samuel, close enough to observe the front of the line, but far enough that he was not so terribly affected by Samuel’s presence. The adult female behind him accepted a large meal cake. The tension in her body relaxed momentarily in recognition of her good luck in receiving this gift before a sizeable group of less fortunate colonists had amassed. But then she raised her guard once more and scurried away from the front of the line. She had only taken a few steps when she drew to a stop in front of Samuel, as if caught by some powerful magnetic force. She looked at Samuel, enfolding her food protectively in her arms. His dark eyes glinted sharply as they stared back at hers, and she turned her gaze to the other male. Slowly, very slowly, she pulled out her meal cake. Slowly, hesitantly, she broke off a piece and extended it toward him. The hall was silent. Everyone in the line had turned to watch this exchange. The male reached out, took the proffered food and clutched it to his chest. A murmur went up among the other colonists in line. The male rus
hed from the hall while his female benefactor slunk out behind him.

Only once the piece of meal cake had exchanged hands without incident did Samuel dare to exhale completely. For the first time since he had stepped forward to unlock the sleeping hall doors, the critical decision and action had rested in the hands of another. But it had worked, at least this time. Samuel oversaw the rest of the meal distribution process at the hall that evening. For the most part, the colonists robotically imitated the chain of generous gestures that had started with Samuel. A few colonists who received larger meals rushed from the hall as soon as they collected their prize, leaving some with smaller than average portions at the end of the process. They milled about the hole in the wall after the other colonists had gone, and Samuel broke his cake into small pieces and distributed it among the group. By the time he was done, Samuel had only a single bite left to himself. Still, he was pleased with the success of his impromptu experiment.

He repeated his demonstration the next morning with similar results. And again he left only a small morsel of cake for his own meal. He thought he recognized a few colonists from the previous evening’s meal, and he noticed they received the same sized cakes as on the earlier occasion. Somehow this piece of information seemed especially crucial to Samuel, though he could not say why. Yet despite the encouraging results of his initial plan, he knew it could not serve as a long-term answer. He could not be at every meal hall at the same time, and a single action at one of the seven meal halls could not alter the ever-more primitive tendencies of all the colonists. A surer solution would have to be found.