Scarleton Series I : Before the Cult (15 page)

“You go first,”
I gestured, as soon as I sat down.

She roamed her
eyes and fidgeted. “What got you so upset?”

I grabbed a
beer without hesitation and downed it. She opened her mouth to
speak but I silenced her by raising my hand. “My turn,” I burped.
“What is the name of the ‘oke behind you?”

She glanced at
him. “I don’t know?” she replied, scowling.

“Drink.” I
pushed a glass to her side of the table.

“No,” she shook
her head.

Puzzled, I gave
her an inquisitive look.

“I answered,
those were the rules. At least that is how you put them out. As
long as I give the answer I don’t have to drink,” She
protested.

“Well, I forgot
to mention that it has to be right or true.”

“Well, if I had
known downing was punitive I would have went and got his name.”

I grumbled.
“Okay then. Next time alright?”

She nodded her
eyes still retaining what was left of that spark of defiance. I
felt her disappointment, I was too agreeable for her taste. She
glanced at the floor again. When she pulled her face up again I
knew that was going to be tough question.

“Are you trying
to get me drunk?” It hit the bulls-eye. And she could see it in my
face how unexpectedly right she was, she was not oblivious to that.
A smile flickered across her face, appreciation of her small
victory.

MacFearson
sniggered. “Guess we in trouble.”

“Tell her the
truth, Sands!” said Macxermillio.

Macfearson
leered at Macxermillio for a while then his face softened into a
contemplative gaze. ”If you drink it she is going to get more
edgy.” He glanced at her. “See she is already quite restless like a
hell hound in this type of weather.”

Macxermillio’s
gaze shifted towards me. “Tell her the truth.”

“Well I hate to
say this but I agree,” Macfearson blandly contributed. He put on a
sly smile and added,” Well…tell her half the truth. You do want to
dope her, at least give her that much and we chilled. She doesn’t
have to know what we got in store for her for the rest of the
evening.”

“Like we would
have a plan without telling you at all,” Maxcermillio said.

Macfearson
laughed. “Believe me we have a plan. Maybe not with you, but
we
do!”

Macxermillio
grabbed me by the shoulder. His questioning gaze striking me.

I raised my
hands. “We have no plan whatsoever, okay?” I explained. “Don’t let
Fearson play you. You know how he is.”

“Then tell her
the truth. Tell her why you getting her drunk. Why you are here and
why you feel she has to be doped before she can hear it! Ask the
questions and open her eyes and see what she has to say. See where
this road is taking us,” said Macxermillio, all the while shaking
my shoulder into what seemed like a shrug.

Macfearson
sulked, pain on the fringe of his cheeks. “Like she will believe,”
he groaned, something he rarely did unless he was hurting.

Lifelings
never got it, which is why Macxermillio was in the
wrong here.

“Maybe this
time there is a point,” Macxermillio murmured, clearly not trusting
his own words. Casting doubt to whether he believed it at all.

Unsettling
silence hung between us. Macfearson’s head drooped. Macxermillio
sighed. And I shook my head.

“Are trying to
get me drunk?” Kim repeated, her smile implying she took my silence
and gesture as a yes. I could not help but smile guiltily.
Admitting defeat.

“Yes!”

She laughed
gaily, the laugh was infectious. There was no telling what was on
her mind even when she pulled her head back up to face me. I was
clueless at how she would react to that.

“Your turn,”
she said, no sign of how she felt.

I took a moment
and then asked, “Who is the president of Sri Lanka? “

She frowned at
her hands, and then fidgeted. She wished she knew but it was clear
she didn’t, she looked hard into her hands as if somehow the answer
would materialize.

“Drink up.” I
grinned.

She snorted her
defeat and downed her first drink. Macfearson hissed a yes,
Macxermillio cleared his throat excitedly. She downed it with no
difficulty at all which I never expected from a chick at all. Maybe
prostitutes were used to men being this way. Men who seek to have
some fun time before the real feast begins. More like appetizers.
Maybe men who needed affection and company just hired her to hang
around with them for the duration of the evening.

Maybe she
just loves beer. Period
, I thought,
She is not reluctant to
drink beer but something is definitely on her mind…she wants me to
pay more.
“Right?” I concluded my thought audibly.

Macfearson
nodded.

She was roaming
her eyes again, a gesture that was distinctly hers. I could not
figure out what it meant yet. There was something frisky about it
and quite solemn at the same time. A token of some sort. There was
a prophylactically clever aspect to all of this. With that
observation I suddenly felt my heart skip inducing a wave of a
pitiful feeling, that rolled to my stomach and receded. The circle
occurred over and over again making me lose my appetite.

“Your turn,” I
said, surprised at how my voice came out. It was roughly out of
breath support, almost a whisper. In simple words weak. I wondered
if
lifelings
ever felt like that. If they did I refused
believed it was to such a degree. Life would have been lived
differently by them if that was the case. They would have time to
think of a whole lot more than purpose and meaning of life, and
stop answering such questions with unsatisfactory evolutionary
science like it had the gist of the point to all of existence after
all. Guess no one can know what they cannot know my nature. Of
course, we were an exception. Being called weird and freaks all our
entire life just proves it. We were just at the fringe of what they
cannot begin to comprehend.

“Do you
masturbate?”

It went silent
again.

“She knows what
questions to ask, doesn’t she?” Macfearson remarked.

Macxermillio
nodded in agreement, amused.

She studied my
face, she shrugged , quickly shifted her glance to the beer and
back to my face in a suggestive manner.

God, she is
so much fun
. I thought.

“Yes,” I
answered. Not what she expected I would do from the drop of her
shoulders. I felt naked, I told her one thing I never told anyone
not even to myself alone.

This is how it
must feel when someone admits a fact they are in denial about, like
their gay. This must be the relief and shame that engulfs you like
mist. And then goose bumps follow like you have confessed your love
to a girl you love. Never thought answering such a question would
be such a romantic endeavour.

Kim smiled.
Blushed like I had told her she was pretty but, honestly, I was the
kind of guy she would only give a chance if he proved himself.
Something foreign came upon me then, a compulsion to get to know
her, no agenda, just
her
. It felt like being drawn in.

“What is your
surname?” The feeling had overwhelmed me.

“Besert,” she
flicked her hair and shifted her head to the side exposing her neck
line. It was though her voice was the sweetest thing I had ever
heard suddenly, the kind of a classic tune I would want to hear for
eternity chanting absurdities at me. It was the equivalent of
semantics to words, it breathed life.

“What are you
doing?” Macfearson demanded, sensing the change in tone.

“Don’t worry
she is the perfect sample. She is exactly what we need,” I heard
myself lie as if in the distance, anything to deflect the
distraction.

“What you been
up to?” asked one of the two girls who came to check on Kim.
Friends who seemed full with vigour and joy, nonetheless of the
same oblivious herd. She cast an empty glance at me and returned
back to Kim showing not acknowledging my presence in any way. Not
even a nod. Felt like I was a fly. The same rejection and judgment
was reeking from her. Nevertheless my face was not congruent to my
distaste for her.

They chatted
among themselves, private girls’ talk. It was accompanied by gasps,
controlled giggles and wry smiles. I grew impatient with every
feminine hand dance they did. They maintained strong eye contact,
something that I always found inefficient about women. As far as
they were concerned we were not here, they were absorbed in
whatever nonsense they discussed. It was very disruptive and
disrespectful.

As I shifted my
gaze towards Macfearson he was shuffling his feet and biting on his
sleeve. He glanced at me briefly feeding off the little of patience
I had. It was just darn right annoying. And in a while I suddenly
got back to noticing the other people in the pub. The smokers in
corners. People around the bar trying to get their next heavenly
invitation. Some climbing up and down the stairs. It was a happy
place there. People talked loudly, laughed and seemed to be on some
enchanting gas which couldn’t affect me. As I scanned through the
cigarette mist the people exuded a deep connection and thrill as if
something had brought them there to witness a spectacle. Of course
they were students like me but what I sensed was soulful unity. It
escaped the range of human comprehension but was close enough to
experience intuitively. It was the
lifeling
fabric sealing
them like a shroud, forming an organ. Outside of the sheath dwelt
all the pain and wretchedness, they were not protected from it.
They were merely blinded from it.

Perhaps
blindness is a form of protection.

And from the
speakers coincidentally spoke the voice of Lil Wayne:

…
but wisdom
is bleak, and that’s the word from the wise…

And what were
we?

Some fits of
intuition are like a wave in the fabric of reality. Not just a wave
but a sign of transcendent forces at work, weaving and driving us
towards some direction. The frequency reaches certain sensibilities
and its nature is an indication of the hands at work.

“Can you feel
it? You must have had a touch at it, that
fabric
,”
Macfearson mused.

It had been a
minute since we moved from the table for our own private conclave.
We shared the same peculiar experience, it ran a thread through our
hearts. Hot and impaling .We stood in disconcerting silence, each
whirling in their own supercharged thoughts. I just stared at my
feet all the while, wondering… struck and almost impervious to the
kind of cogitation it required at the moment.

“It is trying
to drive us off course?” Macxermillio added to the frustration, a
heavy tone. His distress presenting itself as mourning upon his
face, because that is what it felt like to lose a project embroiled
with blood and souls. Our blood and frustration this time around.
Mourning for what was imminent.

“I was there
for a second, at the
fields
. And…” Macfearson’s voice
trailed off, clearly a secret he was uncomfortable sharing but this
moment demanded it and he was afraid it could be too late to be
sharing now, if not close.

We were
stormed, Macxermillio more than me because,,,

“Why didn’t you
tell us?” Macxermillio scolded, his eyes narrowed and rebuking.

“Because…well,”
He chuckled dryly, maybe at his stupidity or he was just
dumbfounded.

“I saw it too,”
I involuntary confessed. My skin shimmering already, waves flowing
through it. Ripples that were unnerving. I cringed in anticipation
of a scolding from Macxermillio.

However,
Macxermillio was daunted into silence, understanding how futile his
frustrations were in addressing the real problem – maybe
understanding too that his anger might interfere with any attempt
at a solution. “It is enticing, isn’t it? Trying to show us what we
may be throwing away.” His eyes glittered.

I dropped my
shoulders and drifted…

There was
stinking heartfelt silence, my eyes fixed at my feet. It was just
between the three of us, adeptly localized by an almost sorcerous
nature. Now we were the ones preoccupied, transfixed and oblivious
to the rowdy life of the bar. There was a strange feeling lurking
about, much like the calling. Creeping in like an illness. Grass
through the cracks. I felt my stomach lurch into my chest,
asphyxiating. I was drowning in it, paddling to keep my head above
it. Terrified of what might happen if I gave in. It was eerily
familiar, a calculating little thing that would consume me. Of
course I knew how it would end, and I did not want that… not here,
not now.

“What was it
like?” Macxermillio asked eager. His eyes gleaming with what looked
like dismay. Awestruck more than anything. That much was evident in
his voice but he was like one who has lost grasp of adequate
consciousness.

Macfearson
wandered about struggling with the right way to put it. “It was,”
he sighed, “it was red, immense and felt like
home.
”

“What did you
see?”

“Something
growing in the fields.
The crop
, Macx.” Macfearson stared at
him, his eyes teary. “There was blood,” he continued in what was
more like a moan, his face soppy like a romantic confessing his
love in a mist of an emotional climatic turmoil, “We gotta find it.
If not die for it, die trying. Everything you said was right. It is
the truth which we have known all along. Our souls were never
wrong. It was overwhelming; maybe…maybe that’s how heaven feels
like. Maybe that is what the
lifelings
mean by bliss. It is
greater than love, ecstasy, that pang of happiness or life itself.
It is a daydream come true, fantasy made into reality. I cannot
convey what I feel or felt with words for you to comprehend it,
much like a near-death experience you must experience it.”