Ocean of Suffering, Part 3

"We've given you a toilet and a hundred-pound bag of Psilocybin mushrooms. That's all you'll need to entertain the . . ."


THE REST OF IT GOES HERE

Gilbert jumped to his feet. Blankets were sprawled on either side of his but no
people. Eleven blankets. Where the fuck! Bile bubbled up and saturated his tastebuds.
A jetliner zoomed past, flying low. The airport tower gleamed with reflected sunlight
from a mile away. Gilbert surveyed the horizon, squinting. Low-lying structures belching
black chimney smoke. Ant-sized figures, silhouetted and walking erect in the distance.
Peggy? Mayor? He started walking, hoping against all intuitive dread that one of them
had a cigarette.

* * * * * *
The Mayor’s mouth tasted like shit. Dry shit. He looked out at a man through
bars who was talking matter-of-factly like a surgeon explaining an impending procedure
to a patient. The Mayor looked above and to the sides. More bars. He was naked but
didn’t care about that. The man had the insignia of Homeland Security over his left
breast. He peered in closer and locked onto the Mayor’s gaze. “You will be a zoo
animal now.”
“Fuck off agent.”
“Now now, calm yourself sir. You should feel honored. The others have to labor,
but not you. You’re a celebrity, you see.”
“Give me a smoke,” the Mayor said with a punctuating grunt. His brain was
pounding.
“Afraid your days of smoking are over. We’ve given you a toilet and a hundred-
pound bag of Psilocybin mushrooms. That’s all you’ll need to entertain the others.” The
Mayor looked at the plastic port-a-potty then to the mushrooms, veined in deep greens
and blues. He stuck his finger into a rip in the bag and caressed a well-sized cap. He
turned back to the agent and spat.
“I won’t give you or anyone else the pleasure of watching me trip in a cage.”
“Oh, have you forgotten sleepwalker? You’ve already eaten a few. Should be
kickin’ in any minute now. Happy onset.” Tribal drums beat in the Mayor’s head, his
guts crawled with worms. He strained to summon his powers to melt both the agent’s
brain and the bars of the cage. The agent smiled. “Give it a rest celeb. What you drank
last night our scientists had been perfecting for years. You and your infected friends will
never be the same again. The mental contagion has been stopped. Your pathetic attempt
to spread freedom has failed.”
“You fuckin’ tool,” the Mayor said. “Bootlicker.”
“Acceptance will come,” the agent said while picking up a sign and pressing it
against the bars so the prisoner could get a good look.
WARNING TO ALL YE WHO DARE TO THINK
THIS TOILET WILL NEVER EVER SHUT DOWN!
The agent hung the sign, turned away and barked into a bullhorn. “The exhibit
is now open and ready for viewing.” The Mayor slumped into the dirt and leaned against
the port-a-potty’s seat. The cage shimmered and oscillated. The dirt crawled in wild
geometric patterns. His ears crackled and opened to strange music like the laughter of
elves, but after a few moments, screeching through the polyphony rose the laughter of
feminine treachery. Samantha! And now the mushroom has betrayed me as well, and
that is gnosis, and now the terror. Aum Mani Padme Hum . . .

* * * * *
When Gilbert reached the village complex it was bustling with activity. Countless
buses brought new arrivals, staggering around weeds and rocks like drunken sleepwalkers
with minds traumatized to silence. Gilbert shouted for Peggy, for Mayor, for smokes, but
no one answered. Hell’s Welcome Center, he thought and walked on past the buildings to
a new sight. Heaps of concrete as far as he could see, and multitudes of dazed men and
women pounding away at them with sledgehammers. Dust filled the air and burned his
eyes. He heard angry shouts, and the crack of whips. The dust thickened as he
approached and the agony grew more palpable. Stepping into a clearing he made out
the individual faces. Miserable faces with eyes of robotic grey and gouged of soul. And
where are the children? All afternoon he walked on as the hours bled into the dust like
sweat from his aching flesh. So tired. Peggy? Mayor? More structures came into view.
Smokestacks. Grey dormitories. Hunched slaves. A smell both sweet and sour that made
Gilbert puke. He laid beside the stink of it and closed his eyes.
When Gilbert awoke it was dusk, smoky and orange. He walked on, nothing to do
but walk, the only dream left was finding his beloveds, his Peggy, his Mayor. He stumbled
on a clump of weeds and heard laughter and the rhythmic clang of a cowbell. Am I finally
hallucinating? Have I crossed over to madness? Fuck it--what do I have to lose. Gilbert
ran to the sounds, crazy with competing thoughts of dread and hope. He came to a
freestanding wall connecting nothing to nothing behind which male laughter gushed and
the cowbell clanged like an invitation to dinner. He stumbled around the wall and cried
out in horror, “Peggy! No!” The cowbell was fastened around her neck. The laughter
was the laughter of guards, lining up before the kneeling Peggy one behind the other,
unzipping their pants with streams more pouring in from all directions. “Peggy?”