Page 8 of Love, Nemesis
An endless, loud cycle of monotony,he thought, feeling suddenly tense and wrestling in the feeling with thoughts of horseback riding.
“I heard a war hero in Fort Laurie was just honored by the State for giving up war secrets,” Manaj said, rocking in his chair.
“Propaganda,” Lethe replied. “They’d execute a war hero if they ever proved they found one.”
War heroes, like any reminder of the war, weren’t well liked. En Sanctans pretended they didn’t exist. The State would interrogate them for information and then execute them when they lost their usefulness. The Mystics loved them, but no one wanted to escape to the barbaric wilds of the Mystics.
Finished with the water, Lethe set the glass down in his lap as his fingertips traced the light reflecting through the lip. He watched the residual water on the lip tug toward his skin, and he left just enough space so that the drop would hang there in limbo.
“I’m hearing more and more of these stories,” Manaj started again. “The State is pushing for answers. The remote forts up past the mountains see any mention of the war as an offense, and the State is now sending its emissaries poking around asking sensitive questions. Conflict will follow.”
“Hmph,” Lethe said skeptically.
It already had, just not in En Sanctus.
The State was caught in perpetual squabbles with the Mystics. The State philosophy of discovery and exploration had posed a heated contradiction to the En Sanctan conviction to secrecy and the Mystic’s reverence of the unknown. As neighbors, the three countries didn’t seem to agree on any idea but one: they were marooned on this continent, alone and together, unable to explore beyond. Time moved much too fast beyond the drawn borders. People always died on their way back.
Lethe stood abruptly from his chair and walked inside. “I’m done,” he announced.
“Already? You barely sat at all!” Manaj called after him as Lethe placed his glass in the kitchen. “You aren’t teaching any soldiering classes today! You can’t use that excuse!”
Manaj had caught on to all his excuses, most notably, the soldiering classes. In exchange for the town’s secrecy, Lethe had agreed to teach the youth some of the skills he’d learned in thewar. Not that anyone would report him to the State for being a war hero. They were either too afraid of him or too afraid of betraying the En Sanctan vow of secrecy. Being willing to do the classes did, however, earn him the smallest bit of the people’s trust and it was a nice escape from Manaj’s oversight.
“If you sit in that chair too long, rigor mortis will set in!” Lethe called back.
He heard Manaj chuckle as he wound back into his room and shut the door. He rubbed his face, sinking down on his hands and knees before peering under the bed.
He shuffled through piles of stolen name cards from a wedding, a few utensils from a house down the street, an empty sweet loaf package, a burned figurine of a deer, and a multitude of stolen caramels, boxes of them, that he’d collected over the past few years.
He pulled out an old book, holding it to his chest as he moved to the nearest wall and sat up against it. He pried a caramel loose from the back cover, the front cover all but removed.
He opened it to a page saved by two metal shish kabob skewers, inspecting the images and descriptions of primitive psychiatric treatments before flipping through to the section on lobotomies.
He looked at the door, listened for Manaj, and then glanced back down to the book. He reread the passages, his face nearing the pictures as he played with one metal skewer.
He’d read them all before, gone through this all before, but it was different this time. Since early this morning, he’d built up the conviction that it was worth trying, at least.
Lethe tilted his head back against the wall, lifting the skewer up to the corner of his eye, closest to his nose. He felt the indent there, positioning the skewer as he took in a measured breath.
He could hear his own pulse, louder than anything else. One quick, hard tap, and maybe he’d have some relief. It would only be painful for a few seconds. He’d been through worse.
He took a deep breath and held it.
His pulse drummed in his ears.
It was likely why he didn’t hear Manaj until he’d opened the door.
The two men looked at each other, Manaj with a ladle in his hand.
Manaj’s eyes moved from the skewer to the book to Lethe.
Lethe lowered the skewer and eased the book off his lap.
The old man’s lips pinched together. He readjusted his ladle.
Lethe put a hand up as he stood. “I’m leaving,” he said, easing toward Manaj so he could squeeze through the door. “Leaving right now.”
Twop!
