The GOD Box (20 page)

Gabe had had too many expectations coming into this. He used all that knowledge to make assumptions, but he was surprised by the turn out, and distraught that it didn’t work. ‘This is wrong, this is wrong’ were his last words, muttered in absent minded dementia. While usually nothing that Gabe said was of interest to Jonathan, these last words were intriguing. This was wrong. Jonathan wanted to know why.

Jonathan perked up, and stretched to see the dead man, now flopped over the couch.
May clasped the chair. They both noted that instant that he was dead. May was quick to action, moving up and around the table. With his body pulled onto the floor she was about to attempt CPR, but Jonathan warned against it.

Jonathan determined that h
er desperation came from the expectation of human decency, not loss. Plus, perhaps they were under the impression that they still needed him. He was the one on their side, or, rather, was indifferent. In May, he saw how physically the heaviness came on in the recognition of a loss that was strangely unemotionally related to Gabe himself, but existed in the empty body. Jonathan felt nothing.

There
were so many things for her to feel right now, Jonathan guessed. So many emotions overpowered her. May paused, lost, looking at a pile of dirt next to the door. Jonathan knew what she was thinking: she realized that he could come back, somehow, though she didn’t know how, but she could sense his death was not necessarily final. His death was lacking. Her face showed that she was a little anxious to realize death was ambiguous.

Jonathan looked on unemotionally, weighing his own thoughts.
He was a little surprised by May’s next reaction.

She swore
and put her fists to the ground, bowing her head. Jonathan couldn’t recollect ever hearing her swear before, but, she knew nothing could be done, right now, by her. Looking back with scrutiny, May was judging
an emotion Jonathan had had before, a long time ago. so many things for her to feel right now. k down and tried to approa
his complacency, and was unsure if she expected it after his relationship with Gabe was on such a downhill.

“What are you thinking?” May asked
him.

With a look of
undiluted dullness he stared back at her. He didn’t care. Not about the dead fool on the floor or the fair sexed shrew kneeling on the filthy ground. Formidable though the situation was, there may be ways around it. What he was thinking… if he could have expressed what he was thinking… was everything at once: there were images of pristine labs in the background, a cemetery in the foreground; remembering the deal and that the qualifications for coming back had to include Gabe, he was unsure if there was a way around it. He was deciding if Gabe had enough distraction factor, or convincing power to engender their care or interest to bring him back. He was almost positive he wouldn’t really need their care or interest, however. It wasn’t just that he was considering starting over. As a matter of fact, he wondered if he shouldn’t…

“Whether or not it would be beneficial to bring him back… and if I care.”
He said frankly

Involved with discernment she stared at Jonathan for a good long while.
It was obviously his choice whether to bring him back, she could tell that much. But how? That was the question she would have to answer. He was happy to see that she couldn’t read him well enough to know, really, what he wanted.

“At this point it seems like you don’t want it and that it wouldn’t be beneficial for your cause at all.”
She pressured him.

“Well, your lack of details is your disadvantage. Regrettably
, depending on what I choose my cause to be, his life might be the
only
beneficial thing.”

May didn’t know what that meant
, which was fine because he intended her not to know.

Jonathan hated Gabe even more after death, thinking
more seriously to the final deal the council made to their equipment, that one couldn’t come back without the other. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that there was no way to fix that, no escape from it.
Check and balance put him in this predicament now. He couldn’t have selfishly said otherwise without suspicion. Immortality was only at reach with enough human decency to bring back with him his enemy; his hatred embodied.
Oh, the irony.
Of course, they didn’t always hate each other, but he did in this moment.
Where they all stood now perfectly summed up the problem in Jonathan’s mind – him in chains and May disappointingly helpless over death.

Jonathan thought she was
asinine. She was satisfied to let her only ally remain dead. She wasn’t begging or bargaining for Gabe’s life back. All that knowledge she could have, she’s was wasting.
Idiot.
Not surprised. What she wanted was comfort and zero responsibility. Not that she even knew what she wanted.
He slunk back, emotionlessly keeping eye contact. He knew she was in charge, partially because he was in chains, but partially because she was more emotionally secure. Eyes closed, chin to chest, he imagined all the possibilities. When his mind went running… as the saying goes, he didn’t lose control like other people seemed to… he took intense mental notes and dealt with things one at a time.

His head slowly tipped upwards as
May looked away from him, yet his eyes remained focused on her. As was her habit, she rubbed her hands over her face and through her hair. Nothing was hidden in her expression. She was obviously hesitant to leave Jonathan alone with the body. She had to decided now how to dispose of it. Her eyes darted back and forth from the door, to the window, to the body. May opened the door to see if someone was within the sound of her voice. Thomas was out chopping wood.

“Hey,
will you help?”

“
What for?” He asked, then seeing some distress, said, “…I’m almost done.”

When the door was clo
sed behind her again, Jonathan was staring hard at the ground, a little more panicked. It wasn’t because he felt like
he
couldn’t come back. But, he knew that if he chose to come back, he would need Gabe’s blood and the panic, in actuality, was because he was afraid of being psychotic… of taking action that labeled him as the town’s monkey and put in prison or killed without what he needed from Gabe. Jonathan had to make a decision whether he wanted Gabe or not. Unfortunately for him, May did too, and she made hers faster.

“Here’s how its gunna work from now on,” May began, “Every time I give you pills to swallow, I throw the same amount in the fire.”

At first he could only gape at her.
How did this even come to this?
You are a product of your emotion, woman. You’re weak and stupid.
Only an imbecile would take what someone needed most and destroy it.
Then he became afraid what she really might do. He tried to calm himself by thinking, she
doesn’t have the stamina to stand by the threat…this is her only source of power.

May
didn’t back down. His anxiety visibly exploded with heat from his chest to his arms, to his cheeks. As if he couldn’t control it, his fear and frustration made their verbal stand,

“You can’t do that! They are
for me-dic-al conditions! You can’t force me off my meds and think that you’ll solve all my problems. They are chemical imbalances in my brain! Who the hell do you think you are?! I was the smartest man in the United States. I know more about your brain than you do! I could take it apart and put it back together with a brand new set of memories! You think you know what makes life work! You have no idea, who I am, what I’m capable of. You have no idea what people need, or how to get there! All your reading, all your searching is idiotic. All that crap you were talking about yesterday?! Do you know what that is? No. Because it’s nothing! Nothing! All your little ideas might as well be put in Gabe’s grave and peed on. Deranged idealist. You know how many of those cute little ideas were tried and failed? How hoped for they were by stupid little people, who had no control. This is typical! You know why it didn’t work? Nobody cares!”

He was trying to piss
her off, just running and running his lips. Maybe she’d get that it would be worse for the wear on all of them without his medication.
Still, in that demonic smile which he most positively wasn’t imagining, it pleased her to punish him, and to condition him. Grabbing the bottle of his pills she put a few in her hand. Now he was watching her intently, cursing at her, telling her to put them down. As she moved to the fire where dinner was cooking he became quiet. One pill into the fire.

“Bitch!”

Another pill into the fire.

“Damn, feisty, whore!”

The door flung open on the scene – one man dead, one man screaming, and May at the fire, pills in her hand. Thomas came in running, seeking explanation. Thomas grabbed a shovel outside and swung it upward, threatening to bring it down in his might on Jonathan’s head. Jonathan became silent. This was the bottom of the food chain. Sweat was pouring down his face and snot was leaking from his nose. Almost totally crazed, he was embarrassed at the scene. He was breathing heavily.

Knowing this was a tool, May stopped putting the pills in the fire. Silence was rewarded.

Thomas stared at her incredulously, “Uh… hey, could you help me?? That’s what you ask? What do think about? He’s dead! You could have screamed or something! Or ‘get the hell in here and help me’.”

May didn’t say anything to his rebuke. She dropped her hand lamely and her face
dripped into exhaustion. She wasn’t going to throw his pills in the fire. That was a lie; a threat, but an effective one. After a certain point though, she just didn’t know how to deal with him.

Jonathan cussed her out
deliriously in every language he knew… which was four. Everything he just felt about potential control was gone. Desperation was taking over. This wasn’t a side of himself he enjoyed seeing, or showing for that matter. He convinced himself thoroughly that it had nothing to do with him or who he was… it was his anxiety and it was beyond his ability to control.

“Stop… please stop.” He begged now as tears came down his face quickly, all of the adrenaline trying to drain. One incontrollable
emotion to the next left him hating himself. Everything inside him needed to come out like vomit which his body was rejecting. His manic behavior was surely frightening them. It would be over soon, but he needed to let it out. Biting his thumb knuckle was, albeit, the only thing he could do… and the most tame. He wanted to break the skin; make it bleed. He was shaking now. He hated the chains. He hated living. He hated losing. He hated dying. He hated the chains and knew it was his fault that he was in them. He hated forceful submission. Anxiety and panic screamed from every vein.

The pills stuck in May’s sweaty hand as she
put the leftovers back in the bottle, which rattled with the soft plunking of each pill replaced. She was sweating and shaking too, though not nearly as badly as Jonathan. May looked as though she might faint, and she sat down.

Thomas put the shovel down.
He looked around the room to fill in the storyline. May waited until Thomas asked about Gabe. When she slowly explained, he soberly nodded, like one does at the sight of death, even if they don’t care, because they feel like they’re supposed to. Jonathan hated this stupid, tiny and dark hovel of a house. Blankets everywhere, a dead man flopped on the floor, and the cushions in an array where the body was dragged from the couch to the floor. Thomas began cleaning up. Jonathan didn’t know why, it’s like he had some moronic notion that that was the first thing to do to get the world back in order – straighten up the cushions.

The woman
sat in front of her notes. Thomas sat next to her, on the side that would separate her and Jonathan. They discussed a few things which Jonathan paid careful attention to. How they would need to take care of Gabe’s body in town, and who would finish chopping the wood. May got up and poured herself water and came back to the table. Face squished between her hands, she sat there, breathing through pursed lips.

Removing hands from her face, she had a mixed look on her
face toward the body still on the floor.

That’s right,
Jonathan thought,
stare at it. Think really hard, maybe you’ll come up with a solution, you moron.

“I’ll go ahead and take care of the body.” She said.
Then something else came to her mind as she now stared at the water. May swirled it around, thinking and looking discreetly at Jonathan. He dared her to fear it in silence, but then as if to prove to Jonathan she wasn’t afraid, she drank it, giving him an intentional blasé expression.

Thomas seemed to want to help, but felt awkward and didn’t know how. He went over to the body and began to pick it up. May
followed as Thomas went to lift the body and attempted awkwardly to hold open the door. She grabbed Gabe’s legs. They noted with hush how surprisingly light-weight he was. They took him outside and took any noise with them.

Praise the lack of ignoramus’
Jonathan thought. He wearied and looked at the chains. This was a typical uncivilized response of how to deal with the unknown. If they chained it, they could stare at it and try to understand it, until it was beneficial to set it free.

Any part of Jonathan’s face that could leak was doing so. Chances are he’d soon be asleep and could ignore everything that just happened. That was the plan, anyway. After he finished crying and shaking, he leaned back in his chair with a pillow on the head of the very low-riding back rest. Vengeful thoughts cooed to him like a lullaby.