Velvet Dogma

chapter 15



She met Abraham in the fourth story CONEX after breakfast. The minute she entered and saw his twisted and brutalized body, she wanted to leave, but to do so would me more than a sign of disrespect—it would be a slap in the face to all they'd done for her. Still, it took all the self control Rebecca could muster to suppress a shudder as she saw him resting within the cradle.

She approached him with trepidation. The closer she got the more she saw. But she couldn't stop. He was looking at her through eyes bright with intelligence. His face was beautiful. Smooth skin. Aquiline nose. Masculine yet delicate jaw. A beauty juxtaposed to his body which rested neatly in a cradle meant for a baby, and only fit because he had neither arms nor legs to get in the way.

"I'm an ugly sight to an upworlder," he said in a low, velvety voice. "It's okay if you want to run away. I'll understand. It's happened before."

"No." She swallowed and stepped to the very edge of the cradle. "I'm not the type to run away."

"Oh, you're strong-willed. Gonna tough it out, are you?" Although there was an edge to his jibe, a smile hid at the corner of his lips.

"I won't leave."

"Is that a statement or the beginning of a mantra?"

"I want to learn," Rebecca said, holding her ground. "Your mother thought you'd be the best one to teach me. I like her and if she thinks so, then you must be more than the measure of your snottiness."

The look of surprise on his face was quickly banished by a smile so beautiful that Rebecca almost forgot how ruined his body was. "She said you'd respond this way. Forgive me, Rebecca. I am more than the measure of my snottiness. I shouldn't have acted that way. I'm just used to certain responses to my condition and I've developed my own ways of dealing with them."

"I'm surprised your expectations are so high." She wasn't going to let him off that easy.

"What do you mean?"

"You seem to expect people to ignore that you've ruined your body. You seem to have forgotten that it is a badge of honor, a badge of political rage that you chose to wear by making the choice. I would think that someone who is as sensitive as you are to the political motivations of the Day Eaters would relish other's reactions to your visage, knowing that you are the consummate result of a man's political determination."

He grimaced as he fought to gain a sitting position. Clearly angry, he grunted as he scrambled like a worm, twisting and turning, finally pulling himself up with the aid of his chin. "No one has ever spoken to me like that." He glared at her. "I think they're too afraid of me to say what you said," he paused a moment, then added, "However right you may be." He smiled sideways. "I've allowed self-pity to color my presentation. I see a woman such as you and want to stroke your cheek or hold you in my arms. I usually do bear my cross proudly, but sometimes I get caught up in the what-ifs of a full-bodied Neverland."

She softened her gaze. "And I don't play well with others and have been saying too much of what is on my mind recently. I really should find a way to censor myself."

"Why? You're right on in what you said. You aren't married are you?"

She blushed. He couldn't have been twenty years old. "No. I'm not married."

"Do me a favor then. If I slip and fall on my self-pity again and ask you to marry me, don't immediately say no. Think about it, will you?"

She couldn't help but grin. "I promise I'll think about it."

He grinned as well. "That's all a man can ask."

He'd vacillated from pitiful, to self-deprecating to charming. She didn't know how a boy in his condition should act. She did know that he'd won her over. She'd responded so harshly in defense of her true emotions. The time it'd taken her to say it, along with the time it'd taken him to respond had allowed her long moments to come to terms with what he was, A Day Eater Christ.

For the next hour he taught her about her world and all that had happened since she'd been in prison. His slow, velvety delivery reminded her of a priest delivering last rites or giving guidance in the privacy of a confessional. At times he spoke wondrously, at other times with distaste, but through it all glistened a sparkle in his eye, evidence of his joy at interaction.

The face of the world had changed in the last twenty years as if a divine surgeon had decided that it was time for a new look. After the droughts of 2029, hemorrhagic fever swept across the Horn of Africa, turning Cairo and most of Alexandria into ghost towns. Cholera killed what was left of Sri Lanka after the third Tsunami in as many years. Asian Bird Flu finally snuck across the Pacific, killing ten million North Americans and resulting in the forced destruction of all chickens. Smallpox made a comeback in Colombia, killing farmers and destroying the cartels. Some still believe it was the final weapon in the forty year war on drugs, delivered by low flying aircraft that traded defoliant for biological warfare.

In 2032 a series of earthquakes threatened to split the world asunder. No less than 121 countries were struck by quakes with magnitudes upwards from 6.0 on the Richter scale. The Golden Gate Bridge fell. St. Louis was destroyed as the very path of the Mississippi was changed by a magnitude 9.0 quake along the New Madrid Fault. That same year a hurricane hit New Orleans, delivering the coup de grace to a city that had never been able to rise above the blow delivered by Katrina in '05.

Industry and innovation drove politics as organizations, governments and territorial boundaries were forced to change to keep up with the times. Rebecca had learned about the organ levies, but she was stunned to discover that it hadn't always been mandatory. As one of the last acts of the United Nations, before it disbanded to become the World Congress, the nations voted the levy into law by a simple majority, which meant that the decisions of countries like New Angola, Belgium, Croatia and Singapore affected the then United States, which had voted against it.

The advent of the personal ocular device changed the face of culture, bringing the living room to the streets as people downloaded inDramas and accessed the ID while performing the mundanities of life. Multi-tasking rose to new and absurd levels. No longer were people tied to their sofas. Television and cable went the way of the 8-track tape player and mood rings. Water cooler discussions of the previous night's shows was replaced by PODmeets, virtual dialogues conducted through the POD imaging system where sometimes thousands of avatars came together to argue, applaud and dissect the hot topic of the moment.

China destroyed and recreated the world's economies when in 2022 they began mass-producing hydrogen cars. Within six months factories in China, Japan, Korea and Mexico began pumping out oil-free hydrogen-fueled cars. Within a single year, ten million U.S. drivers had switched to hydrogen. The major manufacturers began practically giving away their cars, subsisting on kickbacks from OPEC and the hopes that no one could pass up something that had previously cost fifty thousand dollars. But the world was tired. Too many wars had been fought for oil. Too many young people had died. The consensus was to let the change happen, trading peace and hydrogen for war and oil.

OPEC didn't go down without a fight, however. Called the Day of the Fire Blossoms, seventeen Iran Air flights carrying unsuspecting passengers into China diverted their courses towards the factories, detonating in bright mushroom blossoms of flame. China immediately retaliated by firing short range nuclear missiles from submarines hidden off the coasts of the OPEC member states in the Arabian Gulf and off the coast of Venezuela. Within a month, sixty million people had died—a pharaoh's escort for the Middle Eastern Sheiks who found themselves unable to continue living as rulers of nothing more valuable than seas of sand. By 2028 oil was rendered worthless as even plastics switched to silicon, thus ending the Era of Fossil Fuels.

A great sadness swept through Rebecca when she learned that the United States ceased to exist as a sovereign entity in 2028. To compete with the European Union, Pacific Rim Amalgam, the New Afrikaan TransVaal and China, the United States formed permanent partnerships with Canada, Mexico, the Antilles, Cuba and the West Indies to form the North American Free Trade Congress.

But what saddened her most was what happened to sports. She'd never been athletic, but sports had always been a part of her life while growing up. Superbowls, March Madness, the World Series and the World Cup were as common to her as February, March and October, marking the seasons and the days, benchmarks for her life since she'd been old enough to remember. Those words and phrases had become part of the world's lexicon. Now they were words rendered as incomprehensible as Victorian England.

Football breathed its last breath on November 14, 2023, not even making it until the end of the season. PODs had reduced the crowds to essentially nothing. Those who'd remained were subjected to bomb threats and snipers' bullets. The last five years saw games played in secure domes with fans going virtual, viewing games through PODs instead of live. But without the fan dynamic, team loyalty disappeared, and with it the pure love of the game. Professional football was replaced by a virtual counterpart where teams played every day, three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, injuries decided by algorithm, winners by fan participation.

American Baseball moved to South America. Hockey was cancelled in America and Canada, moving to the Russian Free Tundra. Basketball remained as the sole spectator sport played in the North American Free Trade Congress. The rules of the game hadn't changed much, but with the advent of genetic-splicing the rims were raised to fifteen feet.

Soccer was outlawed in England after German Hooligans, in retaliation for the murder of four German soccer players during the World Cup at Wembley Stadium, burned London to the ground.

Rebecca had once read that sports were a reflection of civilization—winning, losing, cooperation, and competition inextricable aspects of any society. As the world had evolved, bringing with it those things necessary to assist in the propulsion of the human race into history, sports had been left behind. Now sports represented a mere historical footnote, like the games once played by Aztec warriors, another civilization forced to merge and die.

When Abraham finally finished his telling, he stared at Rebecca, waiting patiently as she took it all in. His bright eyes danced to her every twitch and movement, one time following her hand as it swept at her hair, another as she adjusted the fall of the fabric around her breasts. She allowed him this as she sat and lamented the death of more than her world—of her home. Los Angeles still existed. The land that had once been the United States still existed. Things she recognized coexisted with the surreal and strange. But this would never again be her home.

And with that realization she cried, tears seeping from her closed eyes and flowing silently down her cheeks. She sobbed silently, grieving for a nation, for a time that would never come again. She also grieved for herself, selfish in her wish for things to return to the way they were. Her sentence had been too harsh. Not only had she lost twenty years, but she'd lost her land.

After awhile Rebecca tired of her tears. She could cry forever and nothing would change. So she wiped her eyes and thanked Abraham for his telling. The last thing she asked was about his own history, not blinking as she asked how he'd lost his limbs. To her surprise, he came right out and told her.

"I had a friend hammer nails through each shoulder and above each knee. For a leper, even the simplest bruise can reap horrendous results. What I did was like a nuclear detonation to my system. It was only a matter of time before the disease saw the opportunity."

"So you did it on purpose?"

"Of course I did."

She thought about asking why, but didn't want to insult him. He knew that she understood. She knew exactly why he did it, and the knowing was enough.