One Billion Drops of Happiness (16 page)

Click.

She choked.

‘What’s wrong?’

She found herself kneeling on the floor, staring up at Lars. A near miss. What had happened to her Suppressitor?

‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

He looked mildly concerned but said nothing. Inside, her nerves were clattering in fright at what had just happened. She focused desperately on maintaining a steady breathing pattern until a dose of elusive calm eventually followed. Trying not to dwell on what ha just happened for far of relapse, she followed Lars. Together they wound their way silently through neat lines of well tended stones, each with a few words describing the deceased. It all seemed terribly old fashioned. Safely back in her right mind, Xandria wondered if this land belonged to Lars, too. Was it his hand that had created this haven?

‘Here,’ Lars said softly, stopping.

He motioned to a granite slab at the end of one of the rows. There was a bench next to it, and looking up, the branch of a sycamore tree curved around the back, quite conveniently, as if offering a sympathetic arm.

She was about to ask him about the surrounding land but her good sense interrupted her. Lars was gazing at the stone with such a look of thoughtfulness and vulnerability. She had never seen someone look like this. It was almost…touching.

Touching?

What was that? She poked her Suppressitor in irritation. It was malfunctioning and sending the strangest thoughts into her head which she could barely decipher. Soon it would be time to jet back to normality, she resolved. It did not feel safe here.

‘What do we do here?’ she asked.

Lars fixed her with his ice blue eyes. Strange, they were warmer yesterday among his friends.

‘We pause and we respect,’ he murmured. ‘And we remember.’

Xandria bowed her head instinctively and allowed herself to inspect her grandmother’s stone.

‘Kristina Reinhardt.’ And then – ‘To live in the hearts of those you love is not to die.’

She looked hesitantly over at Lars. His head was still bowed, yet he was gazing surreptitiously over at her. Was it concern? Pity? She averted her eyes. The man was a riddle.

Fully concentrating now, Xandria tried desperately but she could not fathom it. Why did these people wax on about love? She had tried it with Henry, bless his powerful enigmatic entity, but like the inevitable outcome of even the best planned clinical experiments, it had somehow failed. She stared at the stone for a few more moments, trying to glean something that she did not think she was getting. This was her grandmother, for Okadigbo’s sake. Her mother’s mother whom she had never known. Surely there must be something? Anything? But it was no use. She felt nothing.

Then, something in her stomach began to stir. Instantly she knew it well, this hungry, niggling beast named annoyance. It reared its ugly head only too often these days. Why, it must like Norway. It was here that it could pester her, feeding off her frustrations and then greedily asking for me.

Oh, why could she not connect? Dolt, dolt, dolt! She was beginning to look stupid in front of these Old World people, and ironically it was they who were the ignorant ones. She was the strong one; she was the one demonstrating only too clearly that all attachment to the past was detrimental. What did they want her to do? Fall to her knees, prostrate, and incoherently mourn the faceless skeleton who could not reply? Who did they think they were? Had they found a way to eradicate every disease imaginable like her own noble country? Evidently not!

‘Your people have this love thing, but where has it gotten you?’ she burst out.

Lars frowned at the outburst. He motioned at her to come away from the grave stones. She wanted to scream, ‘So they can hear you now? Really…?!’ But she had the better sense.

Back outside the church yard, Lars turned to regard her again. She had managed to hold her tongue as well as her burgeoning temper for the duration of the hasty exit. She imagined he might shout at her and was fully braced for this. But instead stood before her, regarding her with a sort of sympathy.

‘Is it always like this?’ he asked quietly, ‘the battling to control your emotions?’

She blinked at him. Such a direct question. How dare he? But how right he was, and why did Voss leave them so? But good grief, how she missed Henry…

She jerked back to the current moment, regarding Lars unsurely.

‘Not always,’ she heard herself whisper. ‘Only until recently.’

‘What happened?’ He said, his expression frozen yet kind. Like his mother.

‘Things…’ she muttered, feeling she had already said too much. ‘Things are not working right now. But they will. Soon.’

‘The gas.’ He said simply, seeing it all fall into place.

‘Is it difficult?’ she returned unexpectedly, feeling a sudden sense of comfort. ‘Is it difficult for you people? To somehow control everything with nothing? You are all so powerless to your feelings, all at the mercy of this colossal force. But how do you keep going through such sadness?’

‘Every low means a high is just around the corner,’ he replied somewhat gruffly, his eyelashes directed at the earthy ground. ‘That’s how I see it anyway.’

‘I felt sad once.’ Xandria reflected after a few moments of quiet. ‘At least I think it was. It felt like the world was coming to an end.’

‘It does,’ said Lars softly. ‘It does.’

‘No!’

‘Unbelievable…’

‘You mean they…?’

‘Why didn’t they warn us?’

‘Where did they test it?’

‘An island somewhere…’

‘…only for the day.’

‘…test subjects from the Old World.’

‘Results to come later…’

‘But what does this mean?’

‘I think it’s marvelous,’ said Bathsheba Ermez, emerging from nowhere and managing to disperse the speculation faster than a particularly noxious gas.

* * *

What had they done?

Xandria would always remember the day she awoke to the news that New America had tested their Ophelium. Her dreamless sleep was rudely interrupted by the sound of Mrs. Olsen squealing in shock downstairs, and upon rapidly bolting into the chaos beneath her feet, she discovered the woman in a highly fraught state, standing in her dressing gown trembling in utter distress. Gabe was pacing the kitchen in a highly het up state, brandishing his stick and rambling furiously at the mirage bearing the news. Lars was merely seated at the table, his head held in his hands.

She watched in dismay at the reaction of the kind family who had housed her, realizing slowly that she may not be so welcome there anymore. As for the Ophelium however, she felt a twin swell of pride that her country had managed to move forward with their invention. Soon they could all vaporise their Suppressitors and this nasty, glitch-ridden chapter of history could be erased from living memory.

Mrs. Olsen spun round upon hearing Xandria’s footsteps.

‘Have you seen this? It’s beyond awful!’

Xandria squinted at the mirage, wishing it was as high quality as they could transmit in New America. There was an abundance of frantic voices in the background as the news was being relayed. Distracted, her eyes flickered back to the Olsens.

‘Bloody fools, bloody idiots. Let’s nuke ‘em, get their guts for garters...wait ‘til I get my hands on them. I’ll kill them!’ Gabe was wheezing unsteadily, rage oozing out of every follicle in his body.

Xandria distantly registered the room spinning, suddenly overcome with a queer sensation. It was sticky; it felt like shame. Her fingers stabbed her Suppressitor as if to push away this dirty emotion, but it only seemed to suffuse her body with more of the same.

Lars was wordless, but as he looked up at Xandria, all she could see in those eyes was anger and disgust. She was one of them, one of those who had destroyed the quiet, humble composure of their everyday life. Hell, this feeling was worse than anger, it seemed to multiply and feed off itself. It made her feel her feel as if she wanted to shed her skin and run away.

The emotion invaded her. But how could her country upset this nice family? It demanded of her, why would they do such a selfish and callous thing? The voice inside her head was wailing morosely, getting louder and louder until it filled her ears. Just look for once at what you’re doing to the rest of the world; your gain will be their loss. And how these poor people will pay!

She drew in several breaths of air, trying to drown out the newly arrived duo of both guilt and shame. They seemed to compliment each other well, for she was feeling truly hideous. Her Suppressitor had given out, perhaps also hanging its head in sorrow. Amid the din of her mind, she allowed herself to listen to the mirage, learning that overnight New America had stormed an island somewhere and blown Ophelium into the air for miles and miles around. It was not clear yet who the test subjects had been, but there was a suggestion that it had included some people from the Old World which was causing an international furore. Finally she allowed herself to just stare at the imagery. The sight of it she would never forget.

The landscape of the island was much the same, but something was not quite right. She hurriedly scanned the mirage until the drop in her stomach confirmed she knew what it was: the animals.

How they lay, splayed in sorrow, never to walk the Earth again. How beautiful they looked, so serene, a collage of whites and blacks and greys, every single colour under the sun, all come to rest shoulder to shoulder, comrade to comrade beneath the rising sun. No more could they be hurt, no more could they roam idle. A sea of resting carcasses as if bewitched by never-ending sleep. But what was worst was the silence; the hillsides mourned their faithful foragers, the rivers and the seas rippled no more.

* * *

‘You flaming pilchard! You pillock!’ Okadigbo screamed, hurling his knife and fork at the mirage.

Henry blinked, obviously unfazed by this now not unusual display.

‘Okadigbo, pull yourself together. You’re not a child. You knew this would happen all along.’

A subordinate scurried to retrieve the utensils, secretly wondering why the President allocated vast portions of his day to eating in the old fashioned way.

‘I knew but yet I didn’t!’ Okadigbo wailed, his cheeks going purple. ‘You philistine! What will I do now?’

‘Okadigbo,’ Henry said patiently, ‘you do as we agreed before. You will make a worldwide announcement and you will tell everybody that this is our stance and if they they don’t like it then they can suck it up.’

‘But I can’t!’ he whined, tears of frustration flying out of the corners of his puffy eyes. ‘They’re so angry, and I can’t hold it together, and, and…. the animals! You killed the animals - you animal killer!’

Henry stared at Okadigbo’s mirage from his office in mild concern. This would not do. The man was an impediment to everything. He watched as Okadigbo was almost wringing his hands in vain around his Suppressitor. A couple of subordinates had rushed to his aide but he was swatting them away with his beefy hands, still screaming, great globs of saliva spraying everywhere.

Henry made a motion with his hands to turn down the racket being transmitted from the other end so he could think properly.

Indeed, as had been expected, the Old World was officially up in arms. His little test had worked a treat. At the last minute Henry had entertained a cracking idea to use a mix of Old World and New World test subjects. Recently he had been thinking ahead to the future, to a time when the Old World might too be subject to the delights of Ophelium. It would be a peaceful world, one where Zachary DuPont and his cronies would leave him alone, for they too would be basking in wonderful inertia.

The New World test subjects were easy enough to come about. He had offered a little money and the knowledge that these people would be instrumental in instigating a magnificent new chapter of New American history. The propaganda was so successful that they had ended up turning away disappointed citizens in their swarms and droves.

Procuring Old World citizens was a slightly more laborious task. Henry had toyed with the idea of just using the newly arrived immigrants to the country, fresh off the plane. But Reginald had pointed out to him that these people may, in their eagerness to please, overplay the true effects of the gas. No, it would be better to use completely natural Old World citizens.

Now, this part he was slightly hesitant to admit. He knew it was mostly wrong. Because of this they had tried to keep it a secret but those pesky Old World people had not managed to keep their mouths shut. This was precisely why they could not be trusted with anything. They would surely rat out their very selves if only they could.

In the middle of the night, the designated aircrafts travelling to the island had made a detour to another nearby islet wherein a couple of hundred native people were swiftly rounded up and taken by force, or rather - taken against their will - as DuPont had already roared at Henry. Fury was not the word to describe his condition. The man needed to relax a little.

The people had spent the night cohabiting serenely with their New World counterparts, under the severely potent effects of Ophelium, before eventually succumbing to a peaceful slumber. If they had been panicked and absolutely petrified when they were seized by New America the night before, by the next morning they showed little sign of their earlier struggle. If anything, the Ophelium seemed to have an even greater efficacy on this lot than New America’s own folk. This was pleasing news indeed.

Once the experiment was satisfactorily concluded, the people were gathered up again like draughts counters at the end of a long game and ferried back to their home island. In the excitement that their experiment had worked, and also in their increased haste to vacate the area before the alarm would be raised, Henry had to sheepishly admit that the Old World people were merely dropped off haphazardly on their home beach, any old way any old how.

Waking up from their drugged state and finding themselves blustered across the beach like carelessly strewn litter, it did not take long to compare gruelling notes and for these wretched people to crawl unsteadily inland to recount their horror to the rest of the world. And that was when Henry had received the first of a barrage of livid phone calls.