Posted by Troy Wiggins on December 8, 2008 at 1:15pm
This is a little something i wrote for a workshop in college. I could only find this draft for some reason but i'll post it anyways.The Chrysalis Trope“Liberation’s price is our blood.”I whispered this with razor edges as scarlet fire exploded from the hole in the back of my neck. Claret spheres free fell from my shoulders to pepper the mottled floor and the steel edges of my sink with their red heat. Profane sounds bubbled gutturally from deep inside me. I breathed fire into the swirling mass of brown water churning with red rivulets of blood and tiny bits of skin and torn flesh. Caustic waves of pain shocked my cheekbones and I stared into a world of shattered images. A large crack split my face into two halves, smaller spider webs made my lips look like pink confetti and part of my skull was gone, smashed into a shower of dirty crystal when I pushed my fist through it in a fit of stabbing excruciation.“Once we have paid this sum, we can stare in the face of God as equals.”I chuckled at this bit of rhetoric, my hand drifted to the new eruption of flesh at the back of my neck. Using a stolen scalpel, tweezers, and eager fingers, I had pried my soul from the skin that covered my spine. Furious redness pushed out from the expanse of flesh. Sticky blood covered my hands, I stared transfixed at the red playing against the pink and grime of my fingers.They looked brand new to me. My fingers, like a child’s. Something snapped. I was at attention, assaulted by the deep greys and browns of my room, the coarse hair wound tightly on my bare arm, the knocking of my next door neighbor as he pushed into some faceless girl like an automaton.Weiser had said this…explosion…awakening would happen. Called it the “chrysalis effect”. One would come into awareness like a larva out of a chrysalis. Awaken into being. I heard his solemn voice, the child of a whisper: “When you remove the chip, you will experience an awakening of sorts…” (Here he paused. He paused often. To let his abstract ideas and words sink in so that our “hindered” minds could grasp them.) “This awakening is not dissimilar to that of a toddler when he ventures out from his mother’s embrace to play in the grass. You, not having ever experienced as such, may initially find yourself overwhelmed, then angered. Use these emotions. This is when you truly begin living.”My window was open, a breeze blew in. I turned magnetically toward this chilling thing, bewildered. It traversed my skin effortlessly, and I could feel it prickling my eyeballs. Advancing on it, I involuntarily swept my tools off the blood slimed sink. The scalpel and tweezers clattered to the tile, as did a brace of crushed tulips wrapped in film (“Because olfactory response is the most genuine…”) and a sliver of black coated in a thin silicate which itself was speckled with my blood. Silver forms burned into my eyes.A-3774It stared contempt at me.I was filled with a rising heat, a sensation alien to me. I was hesitant to approach the thing, feared that it would somehow destroy me. This was quickly seared and incinerated by licking black flames, cremated by a newer, more alien sensation that refused to die. My teeth clenched, and the chip stared.And stared.“Bastard!” I cried, slapping at the demonic thing. I flinched. The sudden movement sent more burning waves of pain shooting through my body. My hand connected with the tile, tingles shot the length of my arm. I pulled my hand back, the blood had left a crude signature on the tile. The black silver clung to the space between my knuckles, anchored there by sticky blood. I stared back at it, directly into its silver. It was entirely featureless except for two protruding prongs, a barcode, and a letter number combination, all the loudest silver. The fire erupted again. Weiser’s words bathed me, the scent of chrysanthemums and tulips drifted over my consciousness. Electric relaxation coursed through me, the wind cried Mary and blasted the oxygen, crushing atoms.Weiser’s deep blue eyes smiled, but his face remained smooth marble, featureless and barren, creased with iron wrinkles. His mouth was drawn into a needle thin smile.“This is what he—they don’t want you to smell, or see, or hear,” He handed me a large package, covered in burlap. “Or know.”His eyes held volumes. Something stirred inside me when I touched the book, like a sprouting seed touched by spring rainfall. I had begun hastily unwrapping the package when Weiser’s gaunt hand descended on mine. The scents mingled, wafting into my nose. I was calmed.“Not yet. You are not ready. You cannot appreciate this as you are.” He gently removed the package from my eager fingers.Breaking his gaze, I studied the room. The walls were deep blue, almost black. Something hung on every wall, masks, statues, canvases with weird shapes (One looked kind of like a man screaming). On the far wall, a banner hung. Pictures of people in shiny black jackets, weird pink dresses, and an antique red car adorned the banner. The word “Grease” stood out in large bold letters.“It’s supposed to catch your attention,” Weiser explained. “But you cannot even begin to comprehend until are liberated. And liberation’s price is our blood.”A-3774 glared at me, burning. I whipped my hand, and it clattered off into a corner, unhurt.“You are worse off than most,” Weiser had said. “Your farm is the home of The Superior, and his wickedness is harsher near the tower. But you have courage. I saw it in you then and I see it in you now.” He gave me a small bag on a string. The sweetest scent emanated from it. Intrigued, I hungrily pressed it to my nose.“Tulips.” He stared, eyes still smiling. “Take it and remember, be strong. And no longer be afraid.”A new sensation coursed into me, whistled through my veins like liquid fire. The coppery scent of blood saturated my tiny bathroom. Red dappled my grey standard work shirt. Everywhere was five different shades of crimson, the scent of violence assaulted my small space. My bloody hand stained the tile. I reached into the grimy, bloody sink. Cloudy water exploded from the bare faucet, washing away the blood in the bowl. I began throwing the water everywhere my hands would allow me to, on the walls, windows, the floor, I drenched myself, my skin tingled after a feverish attempt at scrubbing the blood from my cheeks.Wild eyed, I sloshed around in a thin skin of pink water that covered my floor. My blood boiled, I could hear my frenzied breathing ripping from my lungs. Something black flashed beside me. I pounced on it, bloody water splashed everywhere. My fingers closed on a slimy black, silicate coated thing, flashing silver. It burned as I grasped it.A-3774 taunted me again.Flicking my wrist, I flung it out of my open window. Even in death, it taunted me. One dash put me at the window, I watched as it tumbled and cavorted down 74 stories of my tenement. Every odd tumble would put it in the right position to reflect the rays of the spotlights that constantly swung throughout the farm. Each flash of silver stabbed into my brain, I flinched away from the window. Finally it disappeared beneath the layer of smog that coated the ground. Deep breaths escaped from a pit somewhere inside of me, the same pit that held all of these new fiery sensations.My fury subsided. I stood dripping amidst a sea of blood. Another breeze blew, and my gaze tiptoed to the window. The gentle breath chilled me, goose pimples rose on my arms and I waded through the waves of red back to the window. Spotlights tore through the late evening sky. In the distance, a column of white ascended through the grey toward heaven. My eyes caged on the column, far superior to the surrounding structures, it stood three times the height of the tallest building in the farm. It was illuminated from below by harsh lights that dispersed the smog. I was amazed. The Superior’s tower was a constant in the life of any resident of farm 23, but when I gazed at it then I shivered. A tendril of black fire wrapped itself around my arm and intertwined with my fingers. My hand balled into a tight fist.The Superior’s smile burned into my eyes, shook my core. I was transfixed, the smile of our dictator was hypnotic, like the gaze of an adder. I shuddered under his tiny blue eyes. They could see through me, see the chip that I had just ripped from myself. He said upon the initial occupation, when he ripped out or hopes and dreams in English tinged at the edges with a German accent, “I am God. I am YOUR God. You will revere me as such, for I control your everything.” The collective moan of six million Americans as these words were broadcast on their radios was heard truly around the world. That day, I remember a ripple of wind stirring the shock of black hair that tickled the top of his cranium. His frame was slightly gaunt, but even from below him, as he stood on a balcony on his tower, I could see that he was a tall man. He looked like anything but a god, standing there frail and balding, but he truly held our everything in his hands. Magnified to the size of a small building, his face looked more sinister than benevolent; his smile seemed more like a snarl.A spotlight sent the tower into a fit of blinding shimmers, and my brain reeled again, stabbed. I felt something dripping on my fingers; my nails had drawn more blood. The black fire began to rage. I turned away from the window, looking at my bloody restroom and becoming more enraged. The water had subsided, leaving my floor a grimy pink tint. A pitiful lump of brown lay near my foot, I bent and its slime coated my fingers. The scent of tulips mixed with my blood weakly struggled into my nostrils. I knew then what I had to do._____Without the protection of the stone and steel of my tenement, the once gentle breeze became a biting wind. It tore through my overcoat and ripped my cotton work shirt to shreds. A large gust pushed me against one of the brick layers of the building, and I fell against it. Rough hewn brick scraped my wrist where the skin wasn’t covered by my thick jacket. The brown stone was pockmarked, full of dents and depressions. One dwarfed the others, a crater in the stone. I wondered how it got there, maybe by a wayward shot from the Axis occupation of farm 23, or maybe from one of The Superior’s farm police’s weapons. Other dents were small, a shard knocked off by shrapnel, or maybe debris from the explosions of the bombs that the Axis dropped.The night was devoid of human presence. I shivered, and pulled my overcoat closer to my body. Something opened in my brain, a sudden rush of oxygen. Before removing the chip, I never shivered, never had felt the need to actually use my clothing as a shield from the elements. It was just a crocodile reflex, something I involuntarily did to keep from getting beaten or killed by The Superior’s secret enforcement squad. A burly shape materialized in the fog, a lone man drifted listlessly back to his tenement. A passing spotlight caught his face, his features were rough and haggard, his gaze focused on the ground in front of him, as if walking was a gargantuan task. My eyes followed him down the abandoned street until he was swallowed by shadow. I wondered what his number was, what set of letters and numbers branded on his chip stood for his face, his soul. A certain coldness spread through my arms, tingling. I felt the chill burn of eyes following my movements. My pace quickened, and my heartbeat sped up.Weiser. Weiser was my reason for venturing onto the streets of farm 23. A sheen of smog from the factories and the coal plants made the air smell of oil, hard labor, and grime. Everywhere was grime, everything was covered by dirt and grey was the prominent hue.Except in Lowtown.Lowtown, the part of the farm where somehow The Superior’s seemingly omnipotent reach didn’t extend. It seemed almost as if The Superior and his faction didn’t know that Lowtown existed. Here traces of American culture pre-war remained. I walked between two crumbling structures and down an alley into an entirely different world. Neon lights shone through a smoky haze that covered the entirety of Lowtown. It seemed to rise from the earth. The acrid fumes crept into my nose, it sent tiny flames creeping up to my eyeballs. Weiser’s lair was here, hidden behind a bar between a shop that sold pictures of nude men and an authentic pre-war Chinese restaurant.“You say want pork and broth?” The proprietor said quickly, slamming his hands down on a counter that separated him from his patrons. Sweat linked his forehead, and his black hair stuck to his face.“No pork, asshole!” A slender man raised his fist to the black haired man, chains tinkled as he shook his knotted hand. “If I find fucking swine in my broth, I’m gonna come back there and shove your fucking head into that fucking boiling water!” He turned to me, his bleary glare fell somewhere around my chest. “What the fuck are you looking at?”A small man weaved in and out of the crowd, offering endorphin injections and for those who were really addicts, fresh brains available for consumption. To the right of me, a man dressed in leather and rags sucked on the neck of a woman who wore a tunic and loose leggings. Her slitted eyes focused on me and her lips broke into a slow smile.Rainbow light washed over me, turning my grey into patches of pink, orange and blue. I spun in different directions, watching the hues wrap themselves around me. Two spins later, I began to see double and I staggered to the hidden compartment that unlocked the entrance to Weiser’s residence.A small insignificant stone near my foot between two overflowing waste bins served as a switch that unlocked a sliding door. I tapped the stone with my foot, and the door slid out of place. My disappearance went unnoticed by the people on the streets. The door slammed shut.I looked up; a hallway yawned in front of me. Dim light sprinkled from the ceiling, a stronger light pushed out from a room at the end of the hall. Loud knocks from my factory issue boots echoed through the hallway as I made my way to the room. A silhouetted figure sat in a large chair covered in various hues of shadow.“Have you paid the price?” The voice came from everywhere.I stepped forward into the room, my hands rose to my neck.“I truly wondered whether you would actually go through with it. Not many people like seeing their own blood. There are certainly people who don’t like the theory of us liberating ourselves.” He sat forward, I started as his wrinkled old face penetrated the shadows. His eyes gazed intently at me. They were the deepest blue. I stared at him, something off kilter inside me. My stomach tightened on itself. “Tell me, did it hurt?”My lungs refused to expel the air necessary to speak. Instead I stared at the wisps of hair illuminated by the light. His wrinkles, the shape of his face all shone white against the shadow.“Did it hurt?” He repeated.“Yes. It did. Blood was everywhere. I still feel the pain in my neck and shoulders.”“Think of how many of our brethren are in constant pain. They’re in pain, dying and they don’t even know it. Do you know how the chip subjugates you? The amount of energy we use to destroy each other is frightening.” He waved toward a crate sitting near him. “I apologize that my accommodations aren’t more…comfortable.”The crate creaked as I put my weight on it. Weiser stared at me, his blue eyes full of concern and wonder.“How does the chip work?” I asked, focusing on the lines in his forehead. “Without it, I feel…different. I notice things now…that…I don’t know, it’s like I can see, hear, and even smell more. Everything seems closer, more real.”Weiser rubbed his bald head slowly. “The chip kills you. It dulls your senses, keeps your brain from working properly so that you can’t think, wonder, nothing more than wake up, cover your body, trudge to the factories to produce materials that your farm can send to the trade department so that we can send goods to Manchuria. You’re effectively enslaved.“It’s actually an ingenious policing system. It keeps you from thinking properly, therefore you can’t organize a resistance, you can’t learn to rebel against this system that keeps you a shell. All of the people on the other side are basically sheep. Docile and easy to exterminate. The whole reason behind the enforcement squad is to eliminate those people who somehow overcome the constant drugging of the chip.”I studied the fuzzy length of his eyebrows. “So now what? What do I do without the chip?”“Do you wish to reside here?”“I don’t like it here. It’s…it’s too much.”“Well, you can stow away on a supply ship to Manchuria or Germany. From there you can make your way to London. There is a large community of people there who live according to old rules and put up a special resistance against the Axis.”“That could be dangerous. I don’t want to die yet. There is so much…outside, I saw…like I’d never seen before. Why can’t everyone feel like this? What about our brethren? Who will let them live?”“That is the part we have not figured out yet. The Superior’s power is near absolute. He has even managed to somehow control nature. Have you ever noticed how the sun rarely shines on this farm? We are illuminated mostly by artificial light.”I felt a gnawing in my brain. Familiar coldness began to trickle through me. I stared into Weiser’s blue eyes, the temperature dropped. His lips twisted into a weird shape as he leaned back in his plush chair. It was almost a snarl.“I have to be selective,” he said. “As do you. You have to decide what you are going to do with this new life I have shown you.” He reached down, pulled the burlap wrapped book from beneath his chair.I looked at him, looked at the book. “I want everyone around me to feel as I feel right now, as I have felt all this day. I have never experienced life such as this before…People on the other side just trudge through life, it’s a straight line to death and to try and keep from being exterminated by The Superior. But if we liberate them…who knows what could happen…”“I could sense unrest inside you despite the chip. When I met you near the Lowtown entrance, I could feel this…this desire rising from your flesh. Now you are ready to know the truth,” his blue eyes burned into me with a new intensity as he leaned his thin frame forward to hand me the book. Like a scavenger, I greedily unwrapped the book, tearing at the wrapping. The rough material scratched at my forearms. The book was large, larger still now that it was truly exposed. It weighed down on my thighs. It took great effort to lift the front cover of the book. It slapped against my leg. Weiser watched me hungrily. A blank page stared me in the face. I squinted, trying to study the page but the words did not magically appear. Weiser leaned back in his chair and sighed. I flipped through the pages.“What is this?”“The history of the world, The Superior’s version. Do you understand now?”“There’s nothing here,” I said.“Exactly.” He smiled. No, he snarled. Something fell off a shelf within me, its crash brought me to attention. Weiser’s eyes were bluer than they had ever been.“You--” I started. I felt like a child again, cold and alone. Weiser rose from his chair. He strode to a far wall and stood near the screaming man. It was then I realized how tall he was.“It was fun, A-3774. You realized it before I could exterminate you. Did you not wonder why Lowtown remained untouched?”My infant brain could only form one thought that manifested as sound: “No…”“Your fervor amuses me. Brethren. You forget, there is only one GOD. Even Lowtown knows this.” He turned and his blue eyes shot through me.“No…” I rose to my feet, the black fire spreading through my limbs. “No…”“Yes.” He gestured, two enforcement officers materialized as part of the shadow. They held semiautomatic weapons in their black hands. Their eyes held black silicate and silver. I wondered what set of letters and numbers branded on their chips stood for their face, their souls.“No! NO!” the fire exploded within me. Fingers curled into claws, I leapt toward Weiser.“He giveth and he taketh away. You were given life…”Muzzle flashes tore apart the shadow. Lead slugs tore apart my torso. One shattered my outstretched left arm, another took my foot off right below the ankle. My pounce stopped halfway to Weiser, I hit the floor in a splattering of red and the smell of violence filled the small space. I could feel the fire inside me rapidly extinguishing, a deeper cold than I had ever felt assaulted my limbs. I struggled to turn my neck to stare at Weiser. He looked down at me, something flashed as he swept his hand and a black sliver coated in silicate bounced toward my nose.“You have been liberated. You have paid the price in blood.” He turned and walked off.A-3774 stared at me, and the silver burned itself into my eyes as I froze over.
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