God Saw You Were Getting Tired
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The next morning I awoke to the sound of a child’s voice. A girl, it sounded like. The door was open and I could hear her playing in the corridor outside. It reminded me that we had left my brother and sisters behind in the city—we must have been forced away during the night while they were asleep, for their rooms were empty.
“Is someone there?” said the voice outside. “Are you alone? Can we come inside?” There was urgency in the question; she did not wait for an answer but rushed back down the stairwell. When I stepped out onto the landing I saw her running up the stairs, clutching two dolls in their hands.
Her hair was unkempt and matted with sweat. She wore no shoes. I heard her calling again as she ran towards us, begging permission to enter. My mother looked at me and shook her head before turning back to face the young girl and her toys.
She stood just within our threshold. We both watched as she reached out, holding one doll close to her body so that its feet touched the floor. The other doll she held higher so that its head was turned upwards, as though it was speaking or singing into the heavens.
“It’s all right,” I called out, wanting to help but afraid that if I moved she would disappear again.
I waited patiently until she spoke, wondering what she wanted. Finally, after long moments, she raised her voice enough to say: “Can we come in please?”
She was trembling; there were tears in the corners of her eyes. For some reason this made me feel even more afraid, as though the child was being torn apart between her fear and her love of her toys. Perhaps this is why she asked first for permission to enter our home rather than asking about me directly.
My father stepped forward then. He walked straight past Mother and took the dolls from the girl’s hand, gently placing them on our bed.
“We’re sorry we weren’t here when you woke up,” he said to the little girl, “but we couldn’t leave our family behind.”
This last was true. In truth it should not have bothered him so much—he had always spoken to me only of our new family and never mentioned my parents or his former life in our old home.
The young girl sniffled and nodded her head as though accepting his words. Then she turned to my mother, still holding the dolls, as though they were her property now. “Did he tell you how we escaped?” she asked, nodding toward me.
Mother shook her head. “Yes… no,” she replied slowly. “He didn’t tell us anything…”
Her eyes fell upon mine. “But he knows where we are going.”
In that moment I knew she would not be allowed in without my permission. I did not want the girl to see me in such disarray or talking about our plans among others. This is something men do, I thought to myself, but it does not apply to women. Not these days. Not ever since the Change.
“No,” I whispered. “Come back later.”
“Later,” repeated Mother. “After dinner.”
“Please,” said the young girl. “Don’t make me wait. What happened? Tell me. I’ve already seen it in your eyes…”
There was a pleading note to her voice now; she might as well have added: “Save me from dying alone.”
“You won’t die,” said Mother. “Not for many years yet.” And suddenly she was crying.
For a moment I stared at them both, unsure which was the lesser evil, my mother crying openly in front of the girl, or the girl crying herself because she felt abandoned by us. But then, just as quickly as they had begun their tears, they stopped. Mother wiped away her tears with the palm of her hand, while the girl put her arms around my mother and hugged her tight.
“Thank you,” she said. And as she spoke her fingers touched my shoulder and brushed against my hair, as though trying to find the missing piece of her own lost self.
When they had gone, Mother led me into the kitchen. It was empty except for me and her; my father had already left. My mother sat beside me at the table, taking the chair facing the door as though she wished to watch for any sign of the girl returning.
She did not speak, nor did I. Instead I looked over to the wall beside me and noticed that my father had scratched the word ‘K’ into the plaster. It seemed he could not bear to be separated from it either; he was always looking for it wherever we went.
“Your father told me to give you a message,” she began abruptly after what I guessed must have been several minutes of silence, “a few months before he died.”
The words sent a thrill down my spine, but also made me think of all those times he’d tried to tell us what we needed to know, but never succeeded.
“That man,” my mother continued. “His name is Karr.”
“What?” I asked, surprised to hear this.
“Just listen,” said Mother, her voice hardening. “The thing with Karr—and all the men like him—is that you need to watch them carefully. You can trust none of them until you see what they’re capable of doing.”
“Why?” I asked softly.
“Because they don’t care about anyone other than themselves. They are dangerous. Don’t forget that. As soon as you learn anything useful, you will be free to go. Your father—”
I cut her off by interrupting with a sharp: “He told us!”
My mother gave me an unreadable look, perhaps wondering whether it was safe to continue speaking. But I wasn’t ready to let this moment slip away.
“… he wanted you to remember one thing. That the only way out is through. If you follow your instincts—as soon as you feel something is wrong, if you suspect something is amiss—you must take immediate action to ensure everyone else’s safety. Otherwise, you’ll end up in the same situation as the rest of us.”
I remembered the doll he had given me, how it had almost been crushed by my father, who had taken it from the room as though it belonged to him more than anyone else. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said, shaking my head. “We’ve been waiting so long… The Change… it’s too late.”
“Don’t say that,” she said sharply. “Listen to what I’m saying: Karr isn’t interested in men like your father or yours. He wants men and women, people of the Change generation.”
This was a relief to hear: “So he wouldn’t come here anyway?” I asked.
Mother shook her head again, “No. No, he wouldn’t come here.”
“Good.”
And for a moment I believed she was right, even if she was not.
“Look, your father wanted you to know that the Change has already changed us, as much as it possibly can, and there are two paths to choose between from now on, and neither leads to happiness.”
“Yes, yes, I get that. We’re all dead anyway, aren’t we? There’s nothing to lose—”
But my mother did not seem to agree with this. “Listen,” she whispered urgently, and I sensed her desperation, her desire that I should understand the gravity of what she was saying. “We must find a way to stop it. To make sure that no more people ever have to suffer as we have.”
She paused to consider the idea, and for a moment it seemed as though she might have fallen asleep. And then her eyes opened suddenly like she’d woken from a nightmare and saw the light of day shining through our windows.
“Listen,” she repeated, “there is someone outside who knows the truth about all of this. Who knows what’s happening.”
“Who?” I asked.
“A man named Jadon.”
I nodded slowly. “Jadon,” I whispered, remembering his name; he had been the first person Mother had ever called upon when she had thought to call him.
“You’ve heard of him,” she said, and I knew she was referring to the time he had visited us. He had been wearing the same black robe that night, as though he were preparing to become one with his faith. But I hadn’t understood at the time that he was talking about becoming one with death itself, that he wished to die and enter into whatever lay beyond, which I assumed to be Heaven.
“How do we find him?” I asked, but my mother was already shaking her head.
“He’s gone, he’s gone.”
“Gone where?” I asked, but my mother didn’t answer. “Where?” I asked again, louder this time, but my mother still did not reply. She stared straight ahead as though looking back through the years to another moment before the Change, and I knew she was thinking of the day Jadon left us.
“There’s another man, he came to us once, he’s a very old man…” my mother began and then stopped. Her face became rigid as if her body had suddenly seized. My hands trembled as if they would break under the strain of holding them behind my back.
My mother looked at me, her eyes pleading with me to understand what she was trying to tell me, “Your father has seen him. He spoke to him last night.”
“Who?” I asked sharply, my voice echoing throughout the room.
My mother closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. “He’s coming here, to your home.”
The End