Light Bearing Read online

  “Yeah,” he muttered, and fell back asleep. Momma had already left for work, and I figured Grandpa’d probably gone down to Café Noir to flirt with Tolka, so I started making breakfast, dry bread and a couple eggs. I boiled pine needles for tea, hadn’t been able to find any coffee outside of the overpriced cups in the cafés for a while. The wood burning in the stove crackled as the heat traveled up its metal body, turning the water into apparitions that swirled around the kitchen, spreading pine scents to every corner. I was half way through my meal when Shiloh wandered from our room into the kitchen, hair a mess and foggy-eyed, but with a look of something I hadn’t seen before. Maybe it was optimism, or a renewed sense of innocence, maybe a combination of both.

  “You look chipper,” I said.

  “I feel chipper,” he grumbled, sitting down at the table next to me. “That meeting last night, Sam, listen, I know you’re skeptical, but it changed my life! Really, it was incredible! They proved, I mean without a doubt Sam, that what they’re talking about is real. I mean they fucking proved it! These people are different; they really share a single mind! They say we as a race have the opportunity to tear down the barriers between each other forever!” He told me this with glowing aura, but I just looked at him with skepticism.

  “How could they prove something like that?”

  “Just come to one meeting, Sam! Let them explain it to you and it’ll all make sense like it did for me.”

  “No way,” I said. “I’m not gonna stay up ‘till five listening to some religious maniacs.”

  “Do it for me, Sam, just one meeting, that’s all I ask,” he said. Of course my instinct was to tell him no fucking way, and no way any brother of mine is gonna be hanging out with fanatics, but I’d never seen that look on his face before, the mask of solemnity that may as well have been the Columbia uniform had fallen off, replaced by a shining clarity I couldn’t deny, and that I found myself having envy for. So I said I’d think about it, and Shiloh didn’t pester me too much once I’d made the concession.

  He kept going to the meetings every night. Momma didn’t say anything about it; I don’t know if she was just too tired, or really didn’t see any potential harm in it. Grandpa was against it, though. He would rave up and down, waving his cane, ranting about the stupidity of these new “Singulars”, as they’d become known. He was an individualist through and through, I guess, always had hatred in his heart for the structures the world imposed on him. Sometimes it seemed like he’d been happiest before the Gov brought stability, even before people started conglomerating in settlements, and America was nothing more than wandering nomadic peoples, just trying to get by.

  ***

  After a couple days of my not saying anything, Shiloh stared asking me if I’d go with him, and finally I agreed. I told myself I was just doing it to make him happy, but I did have a growing curiosity about it, especially seeing the way Shiloh’d changed wasn’t going away anytime soon; if anything he seemed to get happier by the day. We left the house a little after nine and walked to the northeastern quarter of the city. Shiloh took me down a narrow alleyway and we came to a peeling door of what looked to be a normal, albeit rundown, basement apartment. There was a man standing outside, same shaved head and robes as you’d expect, only his clothing was much newer, wasn’t full of holes and smeared in dirt. The man, who looked maybe twenty, Shiloh’s age or even younger, looked at us expectantly.

  “Proélefsi” Shiloh told the gatekeeper, and the man smiled wide, opening the door to reveal downward leading steps.

  “What’s that word?” I asked Shiloh as we started down the stone passageway. “Doesn’t sound like English.”

  “Fuck if I know, it’s just how you get in.” We walked down the narrow corridor in near pitch-blackness until emerging into a small room with ten or fifteen people sitting in pews, just like the one’s Momma used to tell me were in churches before the Gov tore them all down in the name of progress, saying the old world had already been in the process of destroying the archaic structures and the false beliefs that upheld them, and that they were just finishing the job. There were lanterns glowing on the walls, and an ornate chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling, a huge flickering light in the middle, circled by smaller flames. Everyone in the room was silent as we sat down in a middle row. I noticed there were four of the monkish people standing in the corners of the room, two men and two women, both adorned with the same shaved heads and tattered robes.

  We sat there in silence for a few minutes before anyone came onto the small stage that’d been built in front of the pews. I could feel the expectation in the air, the sense of revelry that emanated from the crowd around us, and from Shiloh too. Just then the lanterns on the walls were blown out, and the only light came from the chandelier that glistened over us. A robed man came on stage and started speaking.

  “I am very, very pleased to see that we have some new faces in the crowd tonight, this is a great blessing,” he said, and looked directly at me with a serenity that made me shift uncomfortably in my seat. “For the newcomers, then, I am sure you have heard something of who we are, and if not, you will see very soon. We are all gathered here tonight in the name of unification, the golden light that will bring all mankind together. It is the destiny of our race that now comes knocking on the doors of Columbia, and you are all here to witness it; the great cocooning of humanity. ‘How might this miracle be achieved?’ the skeptic will ask, and we respond by the grace of the old world, which has given us the holy gift of The Device. Let me explain: there was, long ago in the years before the collapse, a great inventor by the name of Gana. Gana was convinced that he could use technology to show people what it meant to experience the world through the eyes of others. This man felt that if he could tear down the boundaries of consciousness that separated us, the world could live in harmony, as it had before the individualism of humanity caused the wars and greed that led to the collapse. Despite being mocked and ridiculed, he persisted, and finally on a day that will be remembered as the dawn of a new age, he succeeded, and the minds of two test subjects were merged forever; the first initiates. Gana, the father of holy unification, had done this miracle by constructing a higher-dimensional structure that minds could be attuned to via a machine he simply called The Device, for it is The Device, the one and only harbinger of dawn. When multiple minds were attuned with this structure, this higher place, they would merge into a single consciousness, assimilating each other and sharing the bodies of all those who had joined.”

  The speaker paused and looked at us, face growing from calm to solemn. “But the old world was not ready for this light to spread, and Gana was imprisoned, but not before those two test subjects, the first to join together in unification, managed to hide The Device away where no one would find it. Unfortunately these two original Singulars were killed before they had a chance to add to the great source that they had merged with. Those that join in unification cannot truly die, however, and they were merely forced to bide their time in that higher space, waiting until The Device was again discovered and used to bring a new mind into the structure. They waited, and the old world fell apart, destroyed by avarice and rot, and finally their waiting paid off. The time has now come for that light to spread, for all of humanity to become one, to join in unification and fulfill our destiny of immortality!”

  I sat with arms folded listening to the sermon, my eyebrows raised; I wasn’t willing to accept a thing they said until someone provided proof this wasn’t all the mirage of insanity masquerading as a new world order. Seeming as if he had sensed this, the man proceeded to declare they would now demonstrate what he and one of the other initiates, as they called those who had merged through The Device, did in fact share a single mind, that they had been granted the bliss of unification. The man asked if anyone would like to volunteer to whisper a word, any word, into the ear of the women who was standing at the end of the rows. Nobody responded, so he chose from the crowd himself. Without hesitation his fi
nger pointed directly at me, and he turned his back to the crowd without giving me time to protest. The woman came over, and when she did I leaned towards her and whispered ‘holographic’ in her ear, an old word Grandpa was fond of using to describe the way he thought modern people acted.

  “Holographic,” the man on stage immediately said, the air of the last syllable having just barely passed my lips. I was stunned. I’d never been witness to something like that in my life, and the effect it had upon me was one of complete shock. I just sat down, didn’t know what else to do. I’d been laughing in my mind right before I said it, thinking I knew they wouldn’t be able to do it, that this was all some trick. But the immediacy with which the man had said the word had taken me off guard. This procedure was repeated three more times, and they even let another crowd member examine the woman’s robes and the man’s ears so as to guarantee there were no electronic tricks about them.

  “I want you all to look up at the chandelier above you,” the man said once the proof had been offered. “See the way the smaller flames encircle the central one, the way they perfectly mirror it in form and substance. It is the same with each us. As human beings, we should come to be perfect reflections of that mind which all who know unification shall enter. Nothing is lost, nothing is destroyed, only melted into the bliss of endless life, endless perspectives, endless peace.” I looked up at the lights dancing above my head and felt I was being hypnotized, lulled into a deep slumber where everything was warm and fluid, womblike, except bright, brighter than bright: shining with the intensity of suns. The energy of the room poured over me and I felt the symbolism of what the man said track its way into the deepest centers of me, spreading light to places I’d never known. It was a powerful feeling, but some part of me couldn’t let go into it, refused to shake some discomfort, like there was something shallow in the feeling. Looking down from the chandelier above us I noticed the long shadows stretched beneath the onlookers upon the dirty floor.

  As we left the basement I recognized one of the Singulars as the man me and Shiloh had met out on the edges. He smiled at me but I was too dazed to do anything but stare. Walking home I couldn’t shake my mistrust of the trance I’d been put into, despite how peaceful it had felt. I knew I’d been deceived in a way I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Everything I’d heard, and everything that had been proven to me seemed beautiful beyond belief, but something in me whispered against it. Maybe it was Grandpa’s voice, ranting about the holographic world, everyone just a reflection of the Gov and what they said, or maybe it was Momma, warning me that some things on the other side aren’t worth trusting, that we can’t ever let our guard down, else we risk being manipulated by malefic forces in the guise of wonder. Whatever it was, suspicion told me what that Singular had said wasn’t the whole truth, that they were hiding something, maybe without knowing it.

  “Wasn’t that incredible?” Shiloh asked me, his voice rhetorical, words slightly slurred as if just waking from a dream.

  “Yeah, it was,” I said, but Shiloh noticed my distance and jumped on it.

  “What, you can’t really still be skeptical of them, can you?”

  “Well…” I said, “I believe they’ve combined their minds with technology somehow, but I can’t help but feel like I’m being sold something. Listen, Shiloh, I think we’d both be better off if we stayed away from those Singulars; I have a bad feeling.” That didn’t go over so well and Shiloh looked at me with a fire I hadn’t seen in him before.

  “You just fucking hate everything don’t you! The world is shit to you! Nothing can ever be hopeful, or real, or worthwhile, it’s all just shit!” I looked at him surprised. Shiloh the gentle one, Shiloh the pacifist, was yelling at me with steel on the edges of his voice, and I felt, to my shame, anger well up inside of me.

  “I’m just trying to stay alive like everyone else!” I yelled back at him. “And keep your stupid ass alive at the same time, like I’ve always done! Your optimism would’ve gotten you killed by now if it weren’t for me!” Red flashed in my vision, how couldn’t he see this? How could he accuse me when all I wanted was to keep us safe? He swung a fist at my head, and I barely managed to deflect it with my shoulder. The blow landed and I felt the anger in me melt to rage. We had never fought before growing up, even when we were little. Momma used to say we acted just like we were two halves of the same person, always watching out for one another. But now that changed, and I threw fists and knees at him while he flailed and fought back with even more vehemence than I did. When we finally separated both of us were bloody.

  “You won’t have to protect me anymore, Sam. I’m not a kid, and I’m gonna join them; there’s nothing you can do.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Do what you want. I don’t care.” I moved away from him, choosing a direction, any direction. We limped home separate. I took the longest route I knew, stopping to curse and stare down at the ground, my mind slowly cooling from the whirling madness I’d felt. Let him do what he wants, I thought, he’s an adult, let the bastard do what he wants.

  Chapter 4

  After that me and Shiloh didn’t speak much for a while and didn’t forage together anymore. We would go to the edges separate, moving in opposing circles. Things at home got tense. There were a lot of dinners where the only sound was bread being slowly chewed and the slurping of cheap soup. Momma noticed our bruised faces and asked us about it, but we just stared at the floor, not saying anything. Seemed like she knew what happened anyway though, could read it in our movements, in the cold glares we each kept but always refrained from placing on the other. The days become warmer as the wheels of nature rolled their way onwards into spring, starting to melt the snow and frost. Foraging became a depressing ordeal, especially without Shiloh to help me along. For whatever reason moisture seemed to pull the smell from a place, and the ruins of the outskirts stunk of decay, rot and abandoned things too unwholesome to take along for the apocalypse that had come to those who’d lived among those now skeletal remains.

  I knew Shiloh was going to meetings just about every night, I heard him come in sometimes through the haze of sleep in early mornings. I noticed his initial enthusiasm had turned somber. He took the new world he was hoping to help build seriously. I watched him in frustration; I couldn’t then reconcile his stupidity with my own.

  ***

  Stopping in to sell my daily scraps one day, Portlock gave me his eye.

  “You and Shiloh been coming in separate, everything all right between you two?”

  “Nothing but chipper” I said, but he frowned in knowing disbelief. “We don’t forage together right now, that’s all.”

  “Hmm. Sorry to hear,” Portlock said. “I would say you two would be best off if you put these divides aside as quickly as possible, though. The world’s a changing place, foundations have a way of slipping out from under us.” I nodded slow, gaze unfocused.

  “What do you mean?” I asked him after a moment, coming back to myself.

  “You haven’t heard the rumors? Shit man it’s all they talk about on the Daily News lately.”

  “I don’t listen to that crap,” I said. “Like to keep my mind on my mind.”

  “Well then, let this be the rude intrusion of reality for you my friend. I hope you’ve noticed that you’ve gotten more money for your turn-ins lately, at least. “

  “Yeah, so what?”

  “The market’s the market,” Portlock said, “and I pay what I can for what I can sell, and the selling right now has never been better. The Gov’s gone mad buying every piece of metal they can find, forges must be working overtime, the wheels in their smoke-stack warehouses turning faster than ever. I’d say they’re preparing for something, and not the usual threat of collapse type shit, something more pressing. I’d say General Director Shilk has something bothering him real bad. You’ve heard of the Singulars?

  “What about them?” I asked, feeling the stinging reminder, summoning again that feeling of discomfort at the words of the basement
meeting.

  “What about them? Damn your dense sometimes boy. Why else do you think the Gov would be stressing so much lately? They’re scared, man. Those Singulars are actually gaining some traction around here, and if the higher ups are worried enough to drop extra cash on materials it means they’re looking to make a move. I’d keep my eye out if I were you.” I thanked him for the heads up, took my cash and left. On the walk home I considered what Portlock had said, mulling it over in my thoughts. It hadn’t really occurred to me that the Gov might take some kind of issue with the preaching of a new ideology within the city. I hadn’t realized they might not take so kindly to another authoritative voice other than their own, offering a worldview other than the one they were busy propagating, but once I looked it at it I couldn’t see how they could react any different. I wondered how real the possibility of violence was, and I worried about Shiloh. When I got home it was late enough that Momma was sitting at the table sipping tea, Grandpa was asleep on the ragged couch and Shiloh was off who-knows-where. I sat down next to Momma, smiling. We didn’t have as much time together as either of us would’ve liked, sometimes it felt more like Grandpa raised us, and I knew that made her sad.

  “What’s that on your mind, Sam? You look more tired than usual,” she said to me.

  “Yeah, Momma, I have been. I guess you’ve noticed me and Shiloh aren’t speaking much these days.”

  “A blind man could see the glares you two’ve been throwing at each other, but I was hoping you might tell me yourselves before I started prying,” she said.

  “He’s been spending all his time with those Singulars, going to their meetings. I don’t know if he’s told you, but that’s where he’s been every night. I’m worried, Momma, I tried to talk him out of it and he got angrier than I’ve ever seen him. That’s why we fought. I think he might’ve gotten himself into something he isn’t prepared for.