The Grave, thegardener.co.za
The next day started off a sunny and seemingly normal day, just like any Thursday morning. We rose early, had breakfast together and I drove Scout to school.
On the drive home I thought of Charlie. I made a quick turn, found him at his shop and told him of our emergency. Strange that I hadn’t thought of him the night before, but he was vital to our plans of visiting Jack. He closed up his shop, and we went to his back den to gather up some clothes and his guns, then off to my house where we spent the morning moving Claire’s computer rig to the panic room, under her direction. She didn’t need all of it, just the computer itself and one screen, with the router wired in.
She had us set it up right on the makeup counter, just inside the steel door, with the bright lights and mirrors shining back our reflections as we worked, along with the glass shelves of lipsticks and perfume bottles and pieces of jewelry adorning the counter, a real glitter show.
She told us we didn’t need to clear anything away. She was long past using any mouse or keyboard. Her mind controlled everything. Even the screen, which we could barely see with so many blinding lights behind it, was fine, she said. She did almost all of her work with her eyes closed.
“What a place to go” I thought to myself, musing. “Yet strangely appropriate for a beautiful woman. All of this is so feminine.”
All the while we were at work, Claire was filling Charlie in on the dangers we were in, of how we had to take every precaution while on route to avoid scanners at all the stops we’d be making, and finally, of her plan.
“That’s crazy” Charlie exclaimed.
“It has to be done” Claire replied. “I’m going in tonight. Stay with me and dispose of my body respectfully, then leave right away.”
My head swam, and Claire could feel it. To calm us down she distracted us, kept us busy.
“Roland, you go to the library and pack up several suitcases of books, for Rollo and Scout and the others, enough to last several months. Charlie, you handle the liquor department. Pack up as many boxes as you please. Empty the shelves. I’ll pack up the clothes you’ll want and some food for the trip. It just occurred to me, if I pack up enough food and drink, you’ll only need to stop for gas several times, and you can take turns and drive straight through. That would be best. Let’s put all the luggage and boxes in the front hall, ready to go.” It was deja vu from four years earlier.
We took her cue and headed in three different directions. Soon we had a large pile by the front door, more than could fit in any one car.
“Things will work out. You’ll see”, she said in a reassuring voice.
Then she did a strange thing. She took us both by the hand and led us into the back garden. She wanted to pick out her burial plot. Behind Naomi’s cottage there was a small clearing with a young lemon tree and some purple wisteria growing along the stone wall nearby. This was the spot she chose, and she asked us to dig her a shallow grave right there.
We set to work with two shovels, half in a daze, while she wandered around the plot, smelling the flowers and mentioning how she loved the thought that her body would nourish the tree and surrounding plants for a long time to come. Then she went on in a sort of revery about how all life was connected, and death was only a change of form for the fueling of new life. When we were three feet deep, she bid us stop. That was enough for decorum. We left the shovels in the pile of dirt, to finish the job later. We went back to the house.
It was now early afternoon. Lucile had been taking care of Rollo all morning, aware of what we were up to. She returned him to us with tears in her eyes. Claire and I took her aside to console her while Charlie took Rollo into the backyard and described to him the green forests we would soon see. Naomi and Jason dropped by for an hour, to bid farewell. But Claire spent most of the time privately with Rollo, preparing him for the physical separation, and saying goodbye.
As they left, I began wondering why Mary and Monique hadn’t shown up yet. I guessed it must take time to shut a business down. But then there was a loud noise at the back door. Scout and Rebecca burst in, panting and covered in sweat.
“They tried to take us away, our whole class” Scout began, barely catching her breath. “They were leading us to a bus, but I used the trick Claire taught me, and we got away and ran all the way here.”
We sat them down at the kitchen table and brought them water.
“Claire, this troubles me” I said. “Mary and Monique should be here by now.”
“Me too” she responded. We called and there was no answer. We tried Rebecca’s parents with the same result.
“Look” she said, “you and Charlie take the car and drive there to see if they’re okay. Pick them up and bring them here. Then drive by Rebecca’s house and tell them what’s up, that they should fetch their daughter and leave right away.”
We did just that. But as we approached the street, we saw black vans parked here and there and people being marched in groups toward campus by teams of youths, all clad in the same white uniforms. One tried to flag us down as we slowed but Charlie made a quick turn, and we sped away.
Nearing Rebecca’s house, which was only four blocks from ours, we met with the same spectacle, black vans parked at intersections, actually blocking the streets, and groups of uniformed youths leading people out of their homes, this time into buses. We were at a corner a few houses from Rebecca’s and could see her parents in the crowd. We did another quick U-turn and returned.
“It’s too late” I told Claire as we rushed in. “The roundup has begun. They could be here any minute.”
“This could get ugly Rolland. You and Charlie take the kids to the panic room and shut the door. Don’t open it till I tell you. Leave your cell phones on the table. Go now.”
We did as she said but once inside we had no idea what was playing out on the other side. Rebecca and Scout started crying. I told them not to upset Rollo, to tell him stories, which distracted the three while the minutes ticked away.
Outside our vault Claire sat calmly in the front hallway, waiting for a ring. In a short while it came and she opened the door to a smiling young man and woman who politely asked who exactly lived here and who was home right now. One of them had a tablet with a list on it. Claire instantly altered those contents, pairing every name to a wrong address with an invisible algorithm. Then she took them by the hand and walked them into the front yard and let them go. They walked away smiling, their two young minds a blank, unable to even recall their own names, yet blissfully assured that the house was empty and that no one had lived there in a long time.
But once outside she saw a disturbing sight. Lucile was being dragged into the street by two other youths, resisting and imploring them to no avail. Claire stepped into the busy street, walked right up to them and they released her with apologies.
But this drew attention. Now seven other youths, coming out of four loaded up vans, rushed towards her, along with an older woman in a different uniform, obviously the person in charge.
“Is there a probl…” the first to confront her began. But he quickly turned and walked away, head down, before he could finish his sentence. At the same moment, another came up from behind and touched her shoulder. He immediately fell, crumpled up in a ball and began violently shaking, as if having an epileptic attack. Then all the youths around her dropped to the ground in the same condition, while Claire walked over to confront the woman in charge.
“You're going to let all these people go, right away” Claire said, as the woman stared back at her, completely frozen. “Then you’re going to load up your helpers in three vans and drive me to your headquarters. This whole neighborhood has been reprogrammed and you need never come back here. Do this now and wait for me. I’ll be right back.”
Claire made a quick return to the house and bid us come out. She told us to move the one remaining van to the driveway, close the gates and load it up while she had a little trip to make. She would be back in an hour, she promised.
We did as she said, fetching the van from up the street. The people who were released stood nearby, wondering what was going on. They were my neighbors, but I had no time to go into long explanations, so I told them: “Look, these new wafers are no good for you. They make you slaves. Go home and don’t volunteer to take them. If these people don’t come back consider yourselves lucky. You might want to get out of town while you still can. And tell everybody you know about the danger.”
With that statement, I climbed in the van and drove to our back door. It had four rows of seats in it, enough to seat eleven, so Charlie and I took a while to remove the last two rows. This gave us room to pile all our supplies in the back, right up to the ceiling. There was a little room left, so I told Scout to go pack up some of her clothes for Rebecca and let Rollo pick out a few toys for the trip. We stashed more food and drinks under the front seats, filled the gas tank from our other cars and were ready.
Claire came back at dusk, chauffeured by the same woman. She got out, and the woman sped away, with the same frozen look on her face.
Claire went first to the Abbott’s, to comfort Lucile and tell them they were out of danger. As she entered our lot and saw the van loaded up she simply said: “Good, let’s get to it.”
“Wait” I had to ask. “What happened?”
First, she turned to Scout and Rebecca, both with troubled looks on their faces.
“Mary and Monique have been taken and reprogrammed. So have your parents, Rebecca. But I’m going to act swiftly and repair all that and restore them.”
“What else?” I said.
“I paid a brief visit to their local office in Oakland. They gave me a tour of all the floors. I met with dozens of staffers and left the building very satisfied.’
“What” I exclaimed, “did you kill them?”
“No” she said. “Only one, the director, a completely repulsive and unamendable being. He knew what he was doing, killing people with this new chip. The other’s had all been dosed, so they thought they were working to help others. But all of them are experiencing severe confusion and can’t do anything. The place won’t be operational for a long time. I commanded the staff to keep to their posts at all costs, even if it means coming to blows. They believe that if they are taken away their chips will stop working. And their entire database is a bit mixed up, and will stay that way, forever.”
“Come upstairs now. I want all of you to see and be a part of this. It’s my ‘goodbye’ to you.”
We filed upstairs behind her. Inside the panic room, she took her seat in the coiffure chair and the screen lit up. At first, she asked for Rollo in her lap and showed him pictures of a beautiful palace where she said she was going to live, and that he could visit her there and that she would visit him often, wherever he was. Then she kissed him on the forehead and bid Scout and Rebecca take him to the library.
Next, she leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. Encryption codes began pouring like rainfall down the screen. Her body slowly went limp, almost melting into the chair, as if in some Daliesque painting. But with one last faint smile she opened her eyes a bit and whispered to me: “I’ll come back to you Rolland, I will.”
Then her eyes closed and all expression melted from her face. One arm slipped off the armrest. I looked at Charlie and saw in his gaze the same sickness that I was feeling. We had no words. We stood and waited a long time until her skin began to grow cold. Then we lifted her lifeless body by the arms, reverentially, out of her chair, closed and locked the door to the panic room and dragged her body down the stairs into the pitch black yard, where we laid her to rest, covered her with dirt, for the worms. We stood at the plot, nodded our heads and gave her our own final, silent blessings. So began life without Claire, the end of one world for me, but the beginning of a new.
No matter what happens in your life, there’s a new dawn the next day. A stupid dawn, you may think, a useless dawn, but one you can’t deny.
