Page 34 of Homebound
“Good morning, gentlemen! Merry Christmas!” She yelled out to everybody, caring little if the aliens observed Christmas or if they even knew what it was. “Line up and let me see your faces.”
She walked very, very slowly, trying hard and failing to disguise her bad limp. She didn’t look at who was up and who was sleeping, disengaged, in pain, and making little effort in enforcing the order.
The Sakka was predictably up already polishing the legs of his cot. A deadbeat Perali in number 12 was snoring; this one was never ready on time. Birdies were clucking their usual weird stuff. Her gaze briefly touched and moved past the hostile eyes of the Tarai and the indifferent ones of the Tana-Tana.
And here he was, her Simon. She skimmed the bars of his door with her fingers.
“Morning, sunshine,” she said quietly. “Merry Christmas to you.”
He was sitting on his cot as he always did, legs drawn up. But when she approached, he turned his head.
He turned his head.
Her breath hitched.
She could see his face looking at her from the dimness of his cell. His deadened eyes were opaque, with no pupils or irises. They never moved, and it wasn’t possible to tell if he was looking at her. If he was seeing her.
But he heard her. She knew he did. He was tracking her progress, and his cell felt alive, filled with awareness.
This is my Christmas gift, she thought.
Fresh tears sprang to her eyes, this time from joy. She didn’t dawdle by his cell but moved on, much calmer now and energized despite the acute ache in her foot.
After the inmates went to the courtyard for their outing, Gemma found herself going down in the elevator with Simon in his chair. Ruby had begged her not to go and rest her foot instead, but Gemma was adamant. She lived for their outings, and today she planned to explore the depths of his awareness. And he needed to eat his yogurt.
She wheeled him out and headed for the old church. It was easier to walk with his chair as a prop. Breaking with her tradition of parking him outside where he could see the sky overhead, she maneuvered the chair inside, out of the elements and where she could find a spot to sit down. The wooden pews and other removable items had long been gone leaving behind only the crumbling bare stone, and not for the first time Gemma wondered how long before the roof caved in. A couple of winters, max.
She retrieved the yogurt and perched on a rocky ridge, all that was left from the banister.
“Sorry, I’ll have to take it easy today.” She propped her foot on a stair and expelled a breath of relief.
Despite her earlier hopes, Simon exhibited no signs that he heard her, saw anything, or knew where they were. He sat still in his chair, feet neatly placed on the footrests, hands folded in his lap, just like Gemma had arranged them.
She fed him his meal talking to him and telling him about last night - not how she fell, but about the migrants and the unrest that plagued the City. She told him a little about Christmas.
“In The Islands where I grew up, we used to decorate magnolias because they were lush and evergreen, and budding with bright flowers in winter. So pretty. My brother Foy once brought home old wires from a spaceship - I don’t know what they were - and he and dad manufactured a string of lights that gave off little sparkles. Not safe at all, and of course it shorted the house, but it was so festive when it worked. I swear you’re hungry! A little more, we’re almost done.”
Simon complied with her feeding efforts, swallowing slow and sometimes with difficulty. He made no sound. His eyes never moved. And she could no longer detect any energy that would cue her to his wakefulness.
The meal completed, Gemma gently dabbed his lips with the sleeve of her overcoat.
“There you go. Good job.”
Clumsily, she rose and went to stash the empty jar between the bricks to take home after work. Picking her way through the rocky debris littering the floor, she stumbled and said a bad word from nearly landing on her face. Please, not again. She didn’t think her foot could take any more abuse.
She bent down to tighten the laces and make her boot serve as a brace.
“What’s wrong with your foot?”
Gemma froze. The voice was low and hoarse, the words measured and pronounced with a liquid, flowing inflection.
Slowly, she straightened from her bent position, the boot untied.
“Simon?” She sounded hoarse herself as she looked at him.
His face was tilted toward hers, and his blank glassy eyes stared back like two mirrors. She wished she could tell where the large pupil-less orbs were trained.
His fine eyebrows rose a fraction like he was prompting her to answer. Definitely an intentional move.
