Fitter. Happier.

Redheads, a Short Story.

So there was Dren, lying flat on a coffin-like box, side by side with Hiller. 

 

“I miss my family,” Dren whispered in the thin air, not really wanting to have a conversation. He savored the feeling of breathing his thoughts into space, or whatever’s left of it.

 

“There’s only two of us left,” Hiller whispered back.

 

“I know,” and it’s so damn depressing, he thought. He remembered how they were almost packed like sardines in this place, until one by one the others went away inevitably to the Outside, probably sparking someone else’s dream, or dying too quickly in vain in the nightmare that is the Wind. 

 

“You know one of us has got to go first,” Hiller muttered, and shivered at the thought. 

 

“I wonder how we ended up like this,” Dren muttered. “We used to be part of something. We used to be a whole. We worked together—”

 

“—yeah, yeah, we provide for ourselves and we provide for others for as much as we can,” Hiller cut him in midsentence. “But remember, the Uprights will never have enough.”

 

“—we used to savor the sun together and rested under the pale moon together. And now? We’re packed in this coffin. Alive. At least there’s only two of us now. Plenty of space, at the very least,”

 

The two paused for a moment of silence, pondering their consolation. The thin space surrounding them is deafening. Everything is black. They lay on opposite sides of the Coffin, not seeing anyhting but illusions in their mind. They can’t remember each other’s faces; the darkness of the Coffin wiped all memory, where the void would make a minute feel like a hundred years. Dren closed his eyes to imagine light which is the only way he will remember sweet sunlight again, but when he opened them, the nightmare is there. Always. The Coffin made sure of that.

 

“I wonder what waits for us Outside,” Hiller said.

 

“I don’t know. No one ever came back. They just leave, and then gone forever, without a trace.”

 

“I did hear a legend about a guy named Sunder. He said an Upright brought him outside, but escaped and lived to tell the tale. I believed they considered his return as some kind of a miracle.”

 

“That’s impossible, no one ever comes back,” Dren was surprised by the news. Why haven’t Hiller spoken of this soon enough? Probably because it was a lie, or a myth, or both.

 

“But that’s what my grandfather said.”

 

“Really, now. Tell me more,” Dren said mockingly.

 

“Well, they said that Sunder escaped the hands of an Upright, and then the Wind carried him back to the forest. Amazingly, the same forest where he was born. Many years passed before his return, of course, and his family have all perished, but he told everyone about what’s waiting for us outside. My grandfather was one of those that were around when Sunder told his tale.”

 

“So… what’s the story? What’s it like outside?”

 

“Well, Sunder said that when he escaped, the Upright just left him alone. Maybe he thought that Sunder wouldn’t make it alone outside, or maybe the Upright was just too lazy to chase after him; in any case in didn’t chase him or whatever, but took another one of his cell mates from the same Coffin as his. He watched as the upright held Sunder’s cell mate captive, and struck the poor cell mate’s head— on the Coffin.”

 

“What?” Dren said, confused by what he’d just heard.

 

“You heard me. The Upright took Sunder’s cell mate and struck his head on the Coffin itself.”

 

“My god,” was the only thing that came out of Dren’s lips. He took another breath and said, “And then what?”

 

“Well, this is the part where the details get blurry. After the blow, Sunder remembered his cell mate bursting bright with red light. Sunder could not believe what he was seeing, and it was said that he thought it was the closest one could get to the Sun. His cell-mate’s body was aflame, and then it was no more. The ashes of his cell mate’s body fell on the ground after a mmoent or two, but to Sunder this was like a moment of forever. A moment of enlightenment. He often ended his story with the lines ’Light. Light! We were giving Light! This is our power! This is what the Uprights need us for! We are the source of the Sun! We have this hidden power, we are Gods!’”

 

“I can imagine the Uprights hurting us but Power? Source of the Sun? Gods?? Okay, I’m done. This is entertaining and all, but it’s just a myth. Nice try, though, I almost believed you.” Dren said.

 

“That’s just the thing,” Hiller continued. “See, Sunder still lived a long life years after the incident. When asked about that moment, he said he couldn’t remember what he saw. They say he had become a recluse, and he had also been reported being seen banging his head on some random things. Probably searching for the source of the power that he allegedly saw. Too bad, he didn’t find it. He eventually lost his mind and died.” 

 

“Yeah, well, maybe he just didn’t see what he said he saw, after all. Maybe it’s just euphoria or shock from escaping. If it was me then I’d be more than grateful for just escaping, but then again I think about it and it would indeed take a miracle for the Wind to carry me back to my forest.” Dren replied. “Maybe we should just wait for what fate has in store for us here.

 

“You’re right. But it’d be really cool if we really had this ’power,’ don’t you think?” Hiller asked, affording a light laugh.

 

“Uhuh. Maybe we should bang our heads on random things,” Dren said as he laughed along with Hiller.

 

Then Hiller stopped laughing.

 

“Hey, Dren… you’re a genius.”

 

“What?”

 

“Repeat what you just said,” Hiller asked, forebodingly.

 

“Uh… what?”

 

“No, no before that.”

 

“Wait… uhm, bang our heads on random things?”

 

“Yes. Yes! Maybe that’swhat Sunder’s been missing! Maybe the power won’t come to us if we tried to bang our heads on other things, but only on one specific thing: the thing that Sunder saw that moment.”

 

“The coffin,” Dren said.

 

“Yes,” Hiller said with a hint of triumph.

 

“So… so you’re saying we should bang our heads on this coffin?”

 

“It’s worth a try…”

“But what if this ‘power’ is not within us? What if it’s the Upright having the power, burning Sunder’s cell-mate?”

 

Just then, a strip of light peeked into the coffin, almost blinding them both. The strip grew wider and wider until the Hiller and Dren were face to face with the Outside… and an Upright. The coffin has been opened. 

 

They knew this was coming. One of them has to go.

 

They both hid well their trembling hearts as the Upright reached for Dren.

 

“Well, goodbye, then. And good luck to whichever one of us find the power first,” Dren said sarcastically, with a friendly smile. Hiller laughed.

 

“Thanks for listening, and thanks for the company, man.”

 

“Hey, don’t be so lonely. I’m sure you’ll be next,” Dren said.

 

“Haha, I know.”

 

And then the light shrank, thninner and thinner until pure darkness enveloped Hiller again.

 

***

 

Outside, the hands of the Upright struck Dren’s head on the side of the Coffin, and Dren burst magically into flames. Dren could see his body and soul burning right before his eyes, yet all he could feel was the bliss of eternal freedom, that feeling of flight that so many of them yearned for. Passion, escape of the mind from the body, the very embodiment of a living soul. Dren only felt the feeling for only a passing second, but it felt like a fitting ending to all his sufferings. A perfect closure. A perfect death.

 

His last thoughts were, “The story is true. Sunder is unlucky to have died without feeling this. Light. We have the power. We are Gods.”

 

And then Dren was no more.

 

***

 

At the very same moment a man named James had just finished lighting his cigarette, and had also just finished beating up his wife. He threw the matchstick he used to light the cigarette on the ground and put out the flames with his boots, cursing under his breath. “Fucking bitch don’t know her place.”

  1. myinkstainedheart said: I knew this is about cigarettes!
  2. lemonaccident posted this