One Eighty: Finale

Day Twenty of One Eighty

I don't remember

I close my eyes tight trying to make something of the void between my head

Flashes

That's all I see

The lady had returned with a mouthful of empty information

He is dead

That particular one leaves me with a sick feeling each time I think about it

And yet...I don't know why

The lady is my mother

And I am home with my family, she said

Yet, I know she's wrong

I only remember being alone

Alone alone

And I remember one eighty days

In one eighty days, everything would be fine

I can be happy again

Happy

Day Forty of One Eighty

I joined the Utopian Peace Corps

He would be proud of me

I see him in my dreams smiling at me

His eyes, sometimes grey sometimes greenish brownish, calling to me

I know him and yet I don't know him

I don't want to think too deeply about it

I can't trust what I think, sometimes I think my mind is lying to me

I don't know if what I know is what I know

I don't know what is a memory and what is just a dream

I can't make sense of anything

So I'm just going to keep myself busy helping people out there

Outside Utopia

Utopia

Day Sixty of One Eighty

I am passing through the underground tunnel again with my group

We need to get food and medical supplies to the inner city of the outside

But the outside government do not want us to help the 'rebels'

Only, at this point, every citizen of the outside is a rebel

The government is fighting its own people!

What we are doing is dangerous, I know

But it must be done

There are children there and they will starve

A water disease is breaking out too

We make our way through the dark, humid subway amid the sound of each other's groaning

The air is stagnant and breathing is hard labor

A single but large flashlight illuminates our path, further heating up the atmosphere

A sudden but slight breeze is a well-received sign of the end of the tunnel

Soon after, the ladder to the surface is finally visible

Just above, moonlight is streaming through an opening

I am standing in the middle of the woods looking up at the moon above my head through the branches of giant trees

And I am painting what I see

Painting with such speed that I can no longer see my hands' movement

Someone packs my hair into a ponytail behind me and wipes my face dry with a soft silk piece of cloth

I am sweating in streams

My eyeballs. They've rolled out of focus

When I finish, I collapse and he's there to catch me

He kisses my forehead and lays me down somewhere

Day Hundred of One Eighty

I no longer want to stay 'home' with strangers

I know they call themselves my family

But I don't know them

I have boarded with the Corps in their housing unit close to the fringes of Utopia

Every day, my group journeys through hidden tunnels, risking discovery by the outside government, to feed and treat victims of the chaos

Some of the victims, soldiers

When I meet the soldiers I find myself searching their faces

I think I am looking for the face in my dreams

His face

In fact, I think something inside me needs to find it desperately

I want to know why I feel this way

But I can't

Day One Fifty of One Eighty

He is dead

He is dead

She said

The lady that calls herself my mother

Stop looking for him, she said

I know what you're doing, she said

But how can she know what I am doing

When I myself do not

He is gone

You need to let go

Chance is gone

My eyes scorch as tears stream down unbridled

What does she mean

What is she saying

And yet it seems my heart knew

I don't know what you are talking about

The tears are gone as soon as they came

Chance simply went on a trip, I told her

He'll be back very soon

And I can leave this house and be with him

A tight smile slips up my lips

And suddenly I feel so sure of what I said

His name is Chance?

His name is Chance

I remember why I had to leave that house

Now, I can think clearly

And not feel nervous, anxious

Alone, I know everything will be fine

When I am not surrounded by worried, gloomy faces, I can be sure everything will be fine

And I can keep myself busy helping those who have the right to be gloomy

Today, I volunteered to go to the more dangerous part of the outside

They call it the Eastern Center

And I know immediately I hear about it that I need to be there

We will stay there for thirty days

This time our mission is to soldiers particularly

Day One Seventy of One Eighty

My dreams are becoming clearer

I dream of Chance every time I close my eyes

I see him

I touch his thick, curly, raven black hair

I feel his thin, pink lips

His strong arms around me

I long so much to hear his voice

But he doesn't speak in my dreams

And it drives me insane with need

Take me with you, I want to say

Take me to where you are

But I don't want to speak and ruin the moment

Or maybe I too cannot speak in my dreams

I feel joyful by day after I have seen my heart by night

I feel the time coming when I will finally see my heart in the light of day

One eighty days

And then I can be at peace

I remember something and go in search of our Corps Zonal Inspector to ask about it

A large warehouse I noticed a far distance from the wounded soldiers' camp we visited daily

It seemed all but abandoned but I couldn't stop watching it

And for days, I have watched it

For what? I don't know

Today, I noticed men enter and not retreat until a full hour after

Then, I see them leave one man less, through a dirt road across the sparse field surrounding the terrain

The ZI warns me against venturing towards the vicinity of the warehouse

And I know that I must go there

According to him, it is a pseudo detention camp kept by rebels and the prisoners there are beyond our helping capacity, it is too guarded

And yet I saw no guards nor any restrictions whatsoever in all my days surveying the area around the structure

If there are soldiers held there, they need help just as much as any other soldier they've helped

Why help some and not help others?

Why help only when it's safe or easy?

Day One Eighty - D-day

I'm ready

Today, I visit that warehouse

I planned a course of action, as much as I can manage

The ZI disapproves, so I am not going with my group to the house

Nobody can know I am going at all

They'll want to stop me

They'll try

But it's OK, I have everything well planned

I have mini food and drug packs for thirty people stuffed in a Peace Corps goodwill carryall

Detached hard work has its benefits, I am group leader

I will give my members instructions about today's campaign and head off immediately for a 'special assignment'

Everything has worked out perfectly

And now, with the warehouse door towering in front of me, I break into a sweat

I shiver with a sudden bout of anxiety and I hold on desperately to the handle of the heavy carryall

I gingerly open the great door and I am swiftly bathed with the smell of death and decay

My eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness of the interior of the warehouse, a sharp contrast to the bright, sunny outside

There are no windows here

Or the windows are all shut

There are bodies on the floor tied to poles

The bodies start to move

And moan

Before I am conscious of it, I'm on the floor leaning towards the man in front of me

The big gaping wound on his leg looks infected

This man would die soon, why would anyone bother to tie him up, what harm can he do?

I lift his head to look at his face

I need to make sure his eyes aren't grey, greenish brown

I move to the next then the next

Searching their faces

I don't find what I am looking for

The men are not all wounded but they are all hanging on to life by a thread

I reach the last man, he lifts his head to look at me before I have to do it for him

And confirms my unconscious fear

He is not here

I collapse to the ground

He is dead

He is dead

And again I feel completely disconnected from my mind and my body

I am weeping and yet I don't know why

He is dead

I don't understand my mind's pattern

He is dead

I feel myself convulse with the intensity of my tears

I pull at my hair in desperation and anxiety

And then I hear it

Heavy footsteps from just outside the building

Like boots crushing dry leaves on the ground

I hear voices, angry voices

I left the door open

I tremble with sudden fear

I should have left while I had the time

And then all thought drains from me as I relax into a comfortable resignation

I sit on the floor and wait for the worst

The men walk in and one shines a torch in my direction

They throw angry questions at me

Who am I?

Where did I come from?

Who sent me?

Who am I?

Someone shouts a loud and precise 'STOP'

And my head is up instantly because I know that voice

I have longed for that voice in my dreams for a long time

He walks towards me and I want to scream

He looks straight at me, stands right in front of me

I can touch him if I want to, yet I can't

I don't remember him

The only thing I know of him is what I see in my dreams

His eyes lock with mine

Greenish Brownish

Am I really looking into the eyes of my heart?

And I am up away from the ground and in his arms

April

April

He repeats over and over again

I want to disappear into him as he is crushing me with the strength of his embrace

They lied to us the council, the government everyone

Everything we thought we knew is all a lie, he is saying

But I don't care about any of that

The one thing I care about has returned to me!

I am laughing and crying and wailing and convulsing

I lift my hands into his hair to feel the silky strands again

I am overwhelmed with a barrage of emotion and I can make no sense of it

I don't want to

I was right

In One Eighty days, everything would be fine!

Am I really in his arms?

Can I really finally hear his voice whispering words of love and other deep emotions only our hearts would ever comprehend?

My face is safely buried just below his shoulder and I am content

Happy

I hear scampering and shuffling around but I don't want to move an inch from where I am

Suddenly I feel a sharp, piercing metal-like thing graze the top of my head just as His hand tightens more around me

I lift up my head as a dizzy spell washes over me and see blood on his shoulder

I am just about to check if he is okay

When I feel another hard substance hit me squarely at the back of my head and pierce through faster than I can conceive my next thought

Light flashes before my eyes for a split second before I blackout

My last vision is of grey eyes under the sun.

END

One Eighty: Part 3

Day One of One Eighty

I try to remind myself that my heart will grow fonder with his absence

An hour later and I am still on the rock-hard bed rolling around

Why don't I have the will to do anything

I move slowly to sit up pushing my legs down the side of the bed facing our one large window

I stare out to the long stretch of green that's dull in comparison with the first day I saw it

Little animals roam free all around the field and I cannot help feeling imprisoned

Suffocating in my self-made prison

I shiver

I am alone again

This time I truly am alone

We came to the village to be alone together

Now I am alone alone

I wince

Chance walks past the window, heavy looking logs of wood in hand

I hear the soft creak of footsteps on our loose front stairs

I hear him enter through our front door

We had just finished erecting our cabin house

We needed logs for the fireplace because it felt like winter was here

It felt like snow was supposed to be falling already

We had finished our home just in time

Or we would have needed to lodge at an inn we didn't have money for

The location was perfect

It allowed us the illusion of being apart from the world

It was what we needed

We were young

We were in love

He sat next to me on the bed and pulled me to his lap

He rested his forehead to mine and we stared into each other's eyes for a long time as the heat of the fire he had just stoked in the fireplace and in my heart enveloped us

And then he proceeded to tell me why I am the one

I am different from him

In culture and thinking

He will never understand how and why I think and act the way I do

And so it's going to be a great adventure spending his entire life trying to understand me, he said

In looks

He is so white and I am so dark

My tough and curly hair that never obeys

My dark eyes the shape of almonds that remind him of hot cocoa

My pudgy nose he loves to pull

My soft, swollen lips are too kissable and reminds him of honey or caramel

My round stubborn chin

My fresh ebony skin that makes him think of melted chocolate.

There was a time blurred up in my past, I used to think myself ugly in the face of those pale faced golden girls in school

But I can't even remember why I would think that

In truth, there weren't many people who looked like me

I am special!

The way you carry yourself, he continued

Like you were worshipped in your past life

Like you have everything under control

Like you don't need any protection

My queen

I looked into his soft hazel eyes that looked grey from a distance

Or under the sun

Hot breathe from his nose fanned my face

You are mine, I said to him

I chose him again as he chose me

The window blurs out of view and I realize I am crying

My eyes burn and I shut it tightly

I don't understand myself anymore

This is ridiculous

Teardrops fall to my fat thighs

And I feel insecure again

Am I fat again?

Am I ugly again?

I look vaguely toward the dresser mirror but I don't move to stand before it

I can't

If I look, I will become that girl again

I look at my stubby dark hands, my dark skin

Ebony, he called it

Chance's are as pale as milk

We really are different

Day Fifteen of One Eighty

I make it my mission to be up and out of the house by dawn

The house is a trap

A house of mirrors haunted with too many shadows

Nights have become torturous

I haven't had a wink of sleep in perhaps a week

I am barely conscious

Barely sane.

Art is the only answer

Yet all I paint is doom

I look at today's creation half smeared with my tears

There is fire in the sky and a body lies on the floor in the midst of several people running around in obvious panic

The body is intricately detailed, two bullets to the head.

But it has no face

In fact none of the people have faces

My tears have smeared them all out

Suddenly, there are shadows hanging over my paper

Dark inverted figures, getting bigger and bigger

I look up to see heavily suited men approach me

I take a few minutes to look at their faces

And immediately I know why they are here

I don't know when I start to run but I see approaching landscape flash past me as I move thoughtlessly away

Far away from the evil people

I mustn't hear what they have to say

I just know I mustn't hear it

A pair of arms grab me from behind and suddenly I am back in the departmental store five years ago

When I open my eyes it is not Chance standing in front of me

I put my hands over my ear and scream loudly

I cannot hear my scream but I feel my throat aching, piercing

When I open my eyes again, I am in a strange place

At first my vision is blurred

Smeared grey and dark figures moving into each other

I hear loud voices but I cannot make out their words

I need to know where I am

Suddenly, I feel panicked, restive

I move and realize I am lying down

I attempt to lift myself but something pins me down

I shut my eyes as a series of sharp pains explode in my head

I hear myself groan

And suddenly everything goes dark, oblivion

I open my eyes

I remember the last time I opened my eyes but I don't remember anything beyond then

I stare straight ahead of me where a blurred man is standing, his back to me,

He seems to be talking to someone out of view, outside the door

As my vision comes into focus, I notice the room looks vaguely familiar

The walls are muralled with blue daisies

I blink

A lady rushes in through the door and pushes a cup with a straw sticking out of it, towards my mouth

And I realize I am, in fact, thirsty

A barrage of people breeze in as I drink the water longingly

Who are all these people?

I count eight of them

The man at the door is now facing me, he is wearing an all black ensemble, suit, shirt, tie

Angel of death

His eyes lock with mine

I look away nervously

The lady with the cup now has a hot towel over my fore head

She tucks the thick blanket over me more tightly and then I realize how cold I am

I feel like I am back from the dead

And yet I can't remember what could have happened to me

I can feel these people's stare on me, wanting to talk

Wanting to tell me some grave bad news

But the lady has given them a stern look effectively shutting them up.

And now she plants a warm, flower kiss where she the towel used to me

She whispers for me to go back to sleep

My subconscious immediately obeys her as I feel myself already drifting

I must truly be exhausted

My last vision is of the lady leading everyone out and closing the door behind her.

Part 4 is COMING SOON. What do you think of the story so far? Tell us in the comments section!

One Eighty: Part 2

Utopia

It has been a thousand years since the Great War

A thousand years of perfect peace and harmony

A thousand years since the only world we know was physically separated from the ‘outside’

The outside never recovered from the Great War

Thousands of smaller wars have erupted since then

They say a lot of things, the scholars, historians, keepers of the past,

They say we, Utopians, have been fortunate

That it’s not humanly possible for so many different looking and thinking people, black, white, red, to live so peacefully together in an enclosed world

They say our world is too good to be true

They say our world is not real

They come from the outside and they distort everything we know, we believe

They say a war is coming

Either from the outside or within ourselves

They say human nature would corrupt Utopia just as it has corrupted the rest of the world

I don’t know if they are right and I don’t want to think about it, about discord

But it was all Chance could think about

He needed to do something about it

If Utopia had to be involved in the war then he would play his part

Last week, Chance volunteered to serve in the Utopian Peacekeepers Delegation

A division conceived by the council to keep the crisis out of Utopia

He received his conscription almost immediately

Yesterday, he followed his fellow recruits and new superiors aboard a frightfully large jet

I think at that moment he had never looked happier

It was impossible for him to hide his teeth as he moved excitedly with palpable energy

Completely oblivious to my pain

He seemed so happy to leave me

I had never felt heavier seeing him completely overcome with glee

He would be gone six months

One eighty days

I was alone when I met Chance

My parents were alive and I had five siblings

But I was so alone

I was working in a departmental store when I first saw him

He was beautiful and kind looking but I decided to ignore

Five minutes later, an entire heap of canned fish was falling from underneath me and a pair of hands were pulling me out of the line of fire

I dread to imagine all those cans landing on my feet

I felt heavy breathing at the back of my neck and realized I was still held prisoner by two solid arms

I moved out of the shield of flesh so quickly that I fell to my hands and feet

Someone pulled me up again and I felt my embarrassment grow with each breath I took

I heard his voice for the first time from behind me as I moved quickly towards the storeroom

He was calling for me to hold on, to slow down

I couldn’t get out of the room quicker

God alone knew why I was behaving like a fish out of water

But for some reason I was nervous

Ok, well, I was a klutz any given day and it was completely expected for me to tip over a pile of produce

I wondered why I was weirdly shaken by that encounter

By the next week, I had forgotten about the little incident

I was sitting on a bench in the only park in the city

The only place that you could get some peace and quiet, just

It was the only one hour in the day I had to myself after office work and before house work

I was facing the clear glassy duck pond but I had my eyes on the amazingly colorful sunset

This one was special and I had to capture it on paper

The purple, yellow, blue, white and grey colors that all flowed into each other in harmony, ushering away the burnt orange sun

And then the way it all reflected in the tiny pond beneath it

Bending forward over my work, some of my thick brown hair over my face, with the quacking of ducks for background music,

I was awed by the fast strokes of my paint brush as I hurried to capture the scene perfectly

For most artists it was a slow and painstaking process

But for me it was a spiritual happening

Something took over me when I got the inspiration

At one moment, a shadow fell over my easel

I trembled slightly to see the dark silhouette on my paper

I bit my lower lip a little too hard

But I couldn’t stop painting, I couldn’t break transmission

The human outline did not shift, even slightly, it waited patiently till the end

My brush fell to the ground at the last stroke

And as I looked at the picture, I knew nothing needed to be added, it was perfect!

The sky view was in my paper.

And still the shadow hadn’t moved

And then I heard his voice

He told me what I already knew

That the painting was a miracle

I looked at him and registered the same awe I knew was written on my face too

I smiled at him

He walked me home that night because he wouldn’t hear of me walking back alone in the dark

That feels like a lifetime ago

Chance wanted to help people, to save people, to protect them

He wanted his life to have some deep meaning

He dreamed of it

At heart, he was a fighter, a defender

He loved the take-care-of role

With the talk of coming chaos in Utopia taking flight, it didn’t take long for his protect-the-people instinct to kick in

To him, he had to have an active part in the cause

That was the only way he could truly help,

Join the army

The entire idea, logic, theory made no sense to me

All of this “peacekeeping” would not bring peace!

They will not really protect the people

Utopia has never experienced war and I don’t know what it will be like but I know it would destroy everything

Sometimes, in the dead of the night, when all is silent, loud explosions could only just be heard and gentle vibrations felt from whatever ominous thing was occurring on the outside

And sometimes, I could just make out human screams

or maybe I just imagined them

I think about how life is out there, how people live there,

Why they couldn’t join us and live here where it is safe and peaceful

But now we join them in dispute and discord

Every single citizen of Utopia would be dragged into this dreadful event, consciously or unconsciously

I can feel our lives changing irrevocably

We would never know this peace again, I know

And I am afraid

Soldiers die

They are always the first to go

They fought and sacrificed their lives for the “greater good”,

For the country

For the vague nation of Utopia which somehow never really included the singular people

And after war, there is never peace, there is just destruction

I think I am a pacifist

I do not NO cannot understand why the world hasn’t learnt from the patterns of the past

And now everything I know and love has been plunged into this meaningless protracted war that might never end

Nobody remembers why it started.

As I watched the enormous craft lift into the sky, I couldn’t help feeling sick to my stomach

I could have stopped him

I knew I had the power to

I could have asked him, told him how I felt about him leaving

About the whole idea of the peace keeping mission

How all my “excitement” was fake

I could have told him

He would have changed his mind

But how could I have?

He thinks this is his destiny!

I love him and I don’t want him having regrets because of me

How could I ask him not to do this if he believed this was his life's mission?!

He might have agreed to stay because of me

But he would have grown bitter hanging around in the country when the idea of fighting for the safety of the people had already stoked a fire in him

I would be quenching that fire

And he would never thank me for it

He would eventually blame me for keeping him from what could have been

I can't handle him hating me

And he would

Not at first

It would be a slow and painful process

And I would never be able to live with myself

Still, now he's gone and I cannot imagine how I will live with myself

Last night, I couldn't sleep

The night before that, I couldn't sleep

But at least the bed was soft and warm

And our quaint, square, wood logged room was not quiet

Chance couldn't sleep too

But for a completely different reason from mine

He was bubbling with uninhibited mirth

He was sitting up on the bed, his back resting on the headboard

Outlining the itinerary for the six months he will spend with the delegation

It occurred to me that Utopia has never had an army, how can they know what they are doing?

I had not noticed that tears had started streaming unchecked down my cheeks until he asked me why I was crying

I looked at him, he was truly confused

That was my first show of anything besides happiness and approval

I didn't wipe the tears from my face, no

I let them fall freely

Because what I wanted so desperately to say, I couldn't

I stared at him and his gentle, kind eyes filled with concern for me, called out to me

I leaned up to pull his face to mine

His lips to mine

The gentle kiss was reassuring

I felt like I could absorb his strength and make it mine

We didn't talk more that night but we said everything we needed to say to each other

And the next morning I escorted him to his fate

Watch out for Part 3 next Sunday.