IN THE MOUNTAINS OF FIRE by Dolores J. Nurss
Volume I: Welcome to The Charadoc!
Chapter 38 Points of View Thursday,
April 9, 2708 Next
mat: birdshot wounds all over the buttocks and backs of the legs, healing
nicely now that we've gotten some vitamin C into him. Clean and change dressings. (I ran
and ran and ran, but I couldn't outrun the gun.
Each blast came closer and closer and I zigzagged like an animal, over
rocks and under boughs, but he got me anyway.
He knew I meant to run to the rebels.) Next
mat: broken leg in traction. The patient
needs a bedpan, so I fetch him one. (I have just got to be the biggest,
supremest idiot in the entire country! I
just had to show off that I could scale the clock-tower as easily as I could a
mountain, didn't I? But did she
notice? Nooooo, she went off anyway,
mooning after that new kid who can recite all kinds of folktales off the top of
his head, even though he's obviously smitten with the scruffy-headed girl,
Cantrip or whatever her name is.) Next
mat: bullet through the cheek. Brush
aside the manchild's prematurely white hair, change the dressing, and give him
his next scheduled mouthwash. And how
the devil did he get that one? Suicide
attempt? (I can live with it, the scar and everything. I know that, now. I can get as ugly as it
takes.) Next
mat: sucking wound to the chest--painkillers only, if we ever get any; don't
waste antibiotics on the ones we cannot save.
(Oh God, at least let my parents
feel what I have done for them. They can
never know for sure, but when they hear of rebels dying for their liberation,
please let them wonder if it's me, let them say a prayer for the nameless dead
and let them name me, and when they have done crying let them lift their heads
in pride.) Next
mat: left hand blown off. Fortunately,
she's right-handed. Clean and change the
dressing and try to remember how to synthesize vitamin A cream--still draining,
no use even thinking about vitamin E yet.
(Whatever possessed me to become a
rebel in the first place? My dead hand
will find your throat in Hell, Cyran!) Next
mat: multiple scrapes and bruises, superficial lacerations, no broken
bones. Just check and make sure he's
comfortable. Big eyes follow me from an
elfish-looking face. (Well, Cyran, I played the idiot for you,
till they gave up on beating me and let me go, and I brought the message
through--you'd better come back soon and tell me that you really, really needed
information on the deeds and whereabouts of some drunk of no further use to the
Purple Mantle who'd abandoned him.) Next
mat: both feet severed by axe, severe abrasions to knees and palms from
crawling for miles across rough terrain.
Clean abrasions, check stumps--no foul odor anymore, just the sharp
scent of antiseptic. Clean and change
dressings. (Nobody could stop me from coming to you, Cyran. You have made me so happy, this paradise of
freedom that you have created here, the care that I get in this infirmary like
I matter or something--God never made me so happy. You're my god, Cyran!) Next
mat: Sprained ankle and some septic cuts. Cold compresses on the ankle, clean and dress
the cuts. (Whoever moved the goddam outhouse in the middle of the night had
better not march in front of me in the next battle!) Next
mat...notify Rashid. We can't save them
all. (...and
as I float towards the light I hear my Grandma's voice calling me home just
like she used to do...) Friday, April 10, 2708 Today we debated the Meritocracy, versus Cyran's
concepts of Egalitarianism, which Cici seems to have swallowed hook, line, and
sinker. It helped me keep my mind off
the black hole in my gut that chews up more and more of my life, body, mind and
soul. Meritocracy makes sense; everyone gets a vote,
unless they commit a felony. You get
another for a basic education, literacy and so forth, another for advanced
education, one for every degree that you accrue. And you get a vote for every hundred denars
that you're willing to pay in taxes--it's the perfect system: nobody gets taxed
but volunteers. People can't complain if
they have less say in a government that they don't intend to support. Thus the most power falls to the most
educated and those most willing to contribute to the welfare of society--what
could be more fair? It comes so easily now, to put it all on
paper. But when I spoke with Cici my
words seemed to dissipate into the haze between fern and bough, and all my
arguments crumbled like the fermenting leaves that choke our path. Don't imagine for a minute, Diary, that an
uneducated country wench could best me in an argument under normal
circumstances; I simply couldn't think straight enough to match her at that
particular time. Everything rots in this jungle. The new boots that I set out with molder, and
the toes inside itch and crack with fungus.
Mildew eats the saddle and the bridle of my mule, and just yesterday my
finger poked through the once-sturdy canvas of a saddlebag. My gear, my clothes...my soul. We are all broken down to our elements and
find ourselves naught but the dirt God made us from. Strange, the same story, from my childhood training
to my embrace of Islam in maturity. We
are made from dirt. I wanted so much to
escape all that. Sure, my grandparents raised me as a good little Christian
boy, but it didn't work; I saw others of the exact same faith murder them,
right before my eyes. I did not want
that religion, when the ship took me to Til, where I had all the world's faiths
to choose from. I wanted something concrete, direct, made plain. I wanted to be more than dirt. Yet another component comes into play, for the
Koran speaks plainly on this. God
created a pen, and paper, and jotted us all down. Crisp black ink on a clean, white page. One can write utter filth, one can inscribe
every taboo word in every language, and it can still look pristine on paper, if
you don't know what it means. And now I follow suit, writing shaky black ink on
not-so-clean paper, recording what God wrote long before—does the irony amuse
Him? Oh God, God, God, tear out this
page! Tear it out and crumple it, and
toss it in the fire! Life goes on, my prayer empty—no different from my
childhood in Christendom, when my shoes stuck to the floor from all the blood I
waded through just to walk out the door, no looking back, the nice foreigner
would take me far from there. Or no, God
chooses His own mode of destruction, as is His right. The fire still burns in my stomach, but He
quenches it with molten brass, drink by loving drink. He has abandoned my manuscript out in the
rain, and the pages warp while the ink all blurs together, fading, fading, I
drown and find my p * * * The transcriber puzzled over the barely legible diary. Rain indeed seemed to have drenched the paper;
she felt the brittle ridges as she turned the page. Well, that's why they called that place a
“rainforest”, after all. It must have
rained many times on the journey. “P”. Purgatory? But no, that would match her own religion,
not his. Paradise, perhaps, or maybe
Peace. Yes, most likely peace. But she figured she had better leave that
part blank. It was one thing to fill in
all of his missing minor parts of speech, another to invent a word out of such
uncertain speculation. After all, he
might have intended to write down “pain” before he passed out cold. Or “penance”.
“Payment”, even, or “peril”. Deep
down she felt a certainty, though, that he’d intended “peace”—or did she merely
hope so? Did she want him to at least
find moments of the oblivion that he so desperately sought? “None of my business,” she reminded herself. “Don't get too involved, kidita!” She reached for a distracting flavored
toothpick on which to chew, and suddenly laughed. “Wouldn't you know it? Peach!” |
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