Son of Sedonia

2

Prayers


MATTEO CRADLED THE orange in the belly pocket of his hoodie. The faded-yellow pullover was so baggy on him, no one would see anything bulging from the pocket. Not that anyone would think to find food on a scrawny kid like him anyway. All the same, he kept his head down through this part of Rasalla. So near the Falari Market, the streets swelled with the poor and starving. One whiff of his precious cargo, and they’d swarm him.

Dusk had settled over the Slums, casting scary shadows into the alleys flanking the street. Matteo’s heart pounded against his ribcage. Detailed scenarios of desperate, violent thieves came to mind without permission. He shook his head and tried to focus on his route. Right at the Alati Shuttle House, walk two blocks, and left into the Temple of the Wheel. The wheezing was getting worse. He freed a hand from the orange and pinched the release on the tube. The medicine trickled in. Starving noses nearby caught something strange as he passed them. Matteo slipped his hand back into the belly pocket and sped up. Hung a tight right around the Alati House, a salvaged medical shuttle turned hospital that signaled the start of the Healer’s Quarter.

“Healing” came in many forms. If you had the cash to spend or the goods to trade, you could buy anything here from antibiotics for an infection to the best highs in the Slums. Witch doctors and surgeons worked as neighbors. Lines between pusher and pharmacist blurred. They ignored Matteo, barking over his head to the shuffling crowd. He squeezed unnoticed through the queues of sick and wounded and came out at a T-junction. Took a left. Then the second right.

A twenty foot tall, circular metal gate spanned the path. Strings of lights wrapped around the red painted frame, making it glow like a warm hover coil. Matteo smiled. The Temple’s smells of honeyed melon incense and fresh-grown herbs always felt like a greeting. Breathing was easier for a moment. Past the gate, high rafters loomed above him with multicolored prayer flags hung in long, drooping lines. He wondered what each of them said...and if God really listened.

Matteo wove through the silent evening patients to Doctor Utu’s clinic. It sat at the bottom of a stack of cinder block apartments. The gray concrete peeked through the ceremonial mural and hand-woven draperies decorating the walls. The evening torches were lit, filling the air with their cinnamon-spiced kerosene. The Doc could afford it. If a T99 or his family needed care, any self-respecting member sent them to Utu.

Matteo approached the front door and brushed a hand over the hanging beads. He loved the sound. Parting them slightly, he peered inside.

“Be with right with you, Mister Matteo!” said the Doctor in his rich, laughing tone. How can someone sound like they’re smiling? Copper candle-light flickered all throughout the room, interrupted by the cool glow of the exam lamp. Painted prayers in English, Arabic, and Chinese snaked around the entire space, playfully overlapping the shelves. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Matteo furrowed his brow, thinking. Filing the phrase away for later, he hopped onto a painted stool by the door and turned attention to the Doc.

“Almost...” Utu said, crouched beside the prosthetic leg of a reclining patient. The Doc stroked his round, lightly bearded face. He wore a loose, white linen robe and his natural paunch swayed underneath. He peered at the new leg. A curved strip of homemade carbon-fiber cut to shin length and socketed into a metal cuff below the man’s knee. Utu adjusted the cuff with caramel-colored hands then lifted the leg to bend at the knee. Repeated the process.

“There,” the Doctor said, “Try to stand.” The large man lurched forward and pivoted in his seat to face the doctor. Matteo tensed. It was Raia’s dad. The man had lost the leg in the Pits to a falling scaffold...it didn’t make him any nicer. Too many good nights’ sleep were interrupted by his drugged out screaming.

Utu stretched out his arms and beckoned to the man. Raia’s dad planted his real foot, and with a shaky heave, put weight on it. Utu braced him under the left shoulder.

“Now take your time and shift,” Utu began gradually withdrawing support, “to the new extension of your body.” The man dipped and wobbled for a moment before finding balance. He tested the weight.

“Chafing? Discomfort?” the Doctor asked. Raia’s dad pursed his lips and shook his head. Utu bowed and turned to the shelf behind him. He plucked a small frond of leaves and held them over a candle, scorching them. White smoke wafted from the crackling leaves.

“What was taken, let it thus be restored...through this joining of flesh and invention,” the Doctor intoned, tracing the prosthetic with smoke. He straightened and extinguished the leaves in a bucket of water. A crutch made of welded pipe and sewn bits of upholstery leaned against the wall. Utu picked it up. Handed it to the man.

“Use this for one week as you get used to the balance. After, try walking as often as possible without it. Short periods at first, working your way up to longer ones. The muscles will ache with the new movement, but be sure to come see me if you have trouble. Okay?” the Doctor smiled up at the thick man.

The man grunted, touched his palms together, and bowed his head. Utu mirrored the gesture.

“Namaste,” said Utu. The man turned, crutch under his left arm, and hobbled carefully toward the door. Matteo dismounted the stool and held the door beads aside. Though ignored, Matteo lowered his head in respect, then turned to see Utu beaming at him.

“Such a boy from this neighborhood...It does my heart good! How may I help you this evening, my friend?” asked Utu.

“Just a refill,” Matteo rasped, taking out the orange and handing it to Utu. The Doctor accepted it, but seemed not to notice. His bushy eyebrows arched at the scratchy voice.

“And then some.” said Utu, “Come! Have a seat.” He wrapped the orange in a cloth and set it aside. Flipping around, he lowered the patient chair, and patted its cracked vinyl seat. Matteo climbed on.

“Let’s just take this out and have a listen, hmm?” Utu reached around Matteo’s head, gripped the plastic tube between gentle thumbs and forefingers, and removed it. Matteo fidgeted. He remembered Oki ripping the tube from his nose. Everyone laughing. The wheezing started as Utu set the empty canister aside, picked up a tarnished stethoscope, and fixed it to his ears. He exhaled on the metal pad and reached through Matteo’s cutoff hoodie sleeve. Placed the pad there. Listened. Moved it and listened again. Utu sighed.

“My friend, what have you been doing?” Utu asked, setting the stethoscope aside. “Let’s see...” The Doc scanned the shelves in the room then focused on a door in the corner. “Ah,” he said. He crossed the room in a flutter of linen and opened the door, spilling white light into the room. Matteo leaned and squinted to see what was inside. Green plants of so many shapes and sizes. A broad leafed one with gold blossoms. A sparse, spindly one with red berries. The Doctor entered the closet and knelt beside a bushy one barely larger than Matteo’s orange. He plucked a few coin-sized leaves from it, exited, and closed the door. It took a moment for Matteo’s eyes to readjust to candlelight. The Doctor picked up a wooden mortar and pestle and started grinding the leaves.

“Well?” Utu said.

“Wasn’t doing anything...just went empty. That’s all,” said Matteo.

“Mmmm...” Utu nodded slowly. “Hold this under your nose and take ten deep breaths.” Matteo slouched in the chair, his small hands cupping the bowl under his nose. A strong menthol wave chilled his nostrils, throat, and lungs. The doctor turned away and hummed a gentle tune as he fetched a fresh canister. Through Matteo’s growing buzz, the notes seemed to have their own healing quality.

His thoughts drifted. One breath. Two. Three. He was back on the rooftop next to the soccer game, gazing out at the city. Four. Five. Memories of countless buildings in the skyline appeared. Every curve and line. Every arrangement and set of windows. Every hazy silhouette rose in his mind and was lovingly examined. Six. Seven. Eight. He saw himself climbing over the wall, tunneling under it, blasting through it, or flying a ship—like the one he saw today—over it. The humming tapered off.

“Where are you right now?” Utu asked.

Matteo blinked. Shook his head slightly.

“Oh, I only ask because you certainly aren’t here...or now for that matter.”

“Huh? But I’m—I don’t understand,” said Matteo

“Yes, your body is here, but you? You were far away...a place you like to go?”

A snapshot of the city skyline flashed through Matteo’s memory.

“Yeah...someday...it’s just a stupid dream though.”

“Dreams are a gift from God! Keep that one close to you, child, and it can be yours,” said Utu, pruning a jagged leaf on a potted plant.

Matteo shrugged.

“Jo doesn’t believe in God,” said Matteo.

Utu stopped halfway through cutting a stem.

“I know, my boy...I know. Your brother, he...has his reasons,” Utu continued cutting, “What do you believe?”

“I don’t know,” said Matteo, “I guess I’ve always had this...feeling. Like I’m supposed to be somewhere else. Like I will be somewhere else...doing something great. Is that God?”

Utu smiled.

“I don’t know either. Do you need to call it something?” asked Utu. Matteo shrugged again.

“Then don’t,” Utu said, “But it is up to you to follow it or not.”

“I want to...”

“That, my young friend, is Step One to achieving anything your heart desires,” Utu offered the full canister to him. Matteo looked at it. Frowned as he dropped it in his hood and fed the plastic tube over his ears and under his nose.

“I need to get better,” Matteo said, adjusting the nose-piece, “Stronger.”

“Now there I think I can help you...if you’re willing to work,” said Utu, mock frowning.

Matteo perked up. Nodded. Utu continued.

“Come over once a week from now on. There’s plenty that a kind young soul like yourself can do for me around the Temple. In exchange, I’ll give you regular treatments and physical therapy. Together we will test this ‘Faith’ of yours.”

Matteo’s heart fluttered, making him wheeze a little. He squeezed the release. A fresh tank always felt good. The sweet mint coolness swirled in his chest.

“Thank you,” Matteo smiled shyly.

“So! Back to the present moment...feeling better?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good man! Now, this fine orange you gave me...it’s something very special. Maybe too much for my services this evening...” Utu turned and trotted to a shelf. He bent and slid out a lidless cardboard box. Reached inside.

“Your brother’s friends get these from time to time. They’re not the most...literate lot, so they pass them on to me. Haven’t seen a new one in a while though.” Utu pulled out a magazine and held it up. ‘National…G-e-o…gra—’ Matteo squinted to make out the faded letters, but a big worn spot on the cover cut off the end. It didn’t matter much though. Here was something new.

“I’ve read each of them so many times now, I think it’s time to pass them along. At least to those who might be interested.” said Utu. Matteo fixated on the faded blues, greens, and yellows of the cover photo. He recognized the curved towers and cascading windows. But this... This was taken from the air! The words over the top of the picture tugged at his curiosity. ‘Sedonia City: The Great More Machine’

“Well!” said the Doctor, “I’ll take the vacant expression for a ‘yes.’ Why don’t you go on and take that?”

Matteo’s stomach flipped. He reached forward and took a delicate grasp on the magazine’s edges. Peering into the photo, he fed these new angles and foreign shapes into memory. They slid into the gaps in his mental models, widening the big picture. The thought of looking inside the book overwhelmed him. He tore his gaze away and looked up at the Doctor.

“You’re welcome. Now be careful with that on your way home. The binding isn’t what it used to be.”

“I will, I promise!” Matteo blurted out. Shyness returned to him. He brushed a hand against the beads on his way out the door.

Utu chuckled with a full heart, watching the boy disappear into the street with the prize. Yet as the room settled, sounds of the early evening drifted in through the swaying beads. Sirens. Drug-induced babbling. Shouting. The muffled tap of distant gunshots. Utu’s gentle smile dragged down into a grimace he allowed few to see.

“Be careful, child...” Utu looked up at the ceiling. Beyond it. “Take care of that one.”