Weary Traveler

Mitch sat cross-legged at the center of his tent on top of soiled couch cushions and soggy cardboard. Thin streams of pungent smoke swirled up from a bundle of flaming garbage, encircled by slimy stones, dispersing through holes in the roof of the vinyl canopy.

He licked his lips and rubbed his grimy hands together like he was trying to start a fire within his palms. His mad, mad, eyes glared at the fifty kilo bag of bonzos; breaths quickened, mouth watered, heart rate climbed from a steady rhythm to a rapid pace within a few seconds. Automatic metabolic responses ramping up from the anticipation, preparing itself for a mind-bending, reality-shaking, dopamine journey.

And then, his trembling hands reached out, unzipped the duffel bag, peeled it open.

His loose jaw dropped away from his face like it had broken from a punch. A line of drool dripped from the corner of his mouth, soaked a spot on his knee. The firelight glistened off of dozens of baggies stuffed with globs of sticky jellies. Snappers packaged in small, plastic, prescription containers. Some filled with white tablets, others stuffed with rainbow powder mined from mystical queries at the center of the Earth.

Bone-white, jagged jawbreakers, the size of an eyeball hanging from its socket during a body modification procedure, filled the bottom of the bag. A CorpoMax logo in blue ink stamped onto each one: a looping C surrounding the word MAX.

Mitch plunged his right hand into the bag, fished for a jawbreaker, and popped it into his mouth. He pressed his tongue against it, maneuvered it into the pocket of his right cheek until it puffed outwards like a synthetic chipmunk. Then closed his eyes, tilted his head back, let the saliva and bacteria in his foul mouth dissolve the intoxicant. Allowing its drunken qualities to crawl into his bloodstream, traverse through the veiny maze of skinny body and wrap its wicked fingers around his addicted mind.

A gray mist started at the center of Mitch’s vision, just above the top of his head. He reached out with his right hand and scratched it, sending tiny particles in every direction like a gust of wind had blown through a cloud of smoke. The fuzz expanded, exploded, and consumed his body, trapped him at the center of a vortex of all-consuming darkness.

His jaw drooped, heavy eyelids clamped almost all of the way shut, leaving only two slivers for the flickering light from the fire to shine through and strike his retinas.

He sucked air into his lungs. The fog swirled, filled the slow breaths flowing into his chest. Then he exhaled, blowing ripples in the fabric of immateriality that wrapped around his soul, encasing it within a persistent shadow of ghostly gloom.

Mitch chuckled like a sweaty-toothed madman, rose to his feet, ducked his head, and squeezed through the flap of the tent, stumbled into the dark alley of his front yard.

He gazed right, stared into the shadows of the alley, swung his head left, waiting several seconds for the external reality to catch up with his vision as if he existed in a separate dimension of time, trapped in a state of slow motion and suspended animation. Then his body turned left, wobbly legs chugged along, ragged sneakers slogging through the runoff of sewage muck until he burst out into the electric symphony of Arcade Street.

His eyelids cracked open to reveal a pair of synthetic egg whites, blinked rapidly to capture a douse of moisture from the cold, wet, winter air.

The desolate, late night streets of the Twilight were quiet like a ghost town at midnight, drenched in fog and mist, silence and despair. Most nomads had fallen back into their sleep boxes in their Rezi-Rizes for a night’s sleep. Escaping from the onslaught of bums now in their natural habitat, mumbling their incoherent ramblings into brick walls, diving into piles of garbage gathered in mounds tucked against crumbled brick buildings, scrounging for a few bites of rotten synth-food or the lost treasure of the last drops of intoxicating liquid from the bottom of a broken bottle of booze. Others fought against invisible enemies in the middle of the road. Throwing their fists at the wind, kicking their legs, shouting angry nothings into the sky, high on booze and bonzos, fists clenched above their heads, cursing the smog gods for smiting them with endless suffering.

A few sketchy nomads shuffled through the shadows, heads on a swivel as they made their way from building to building, running bonzos or illegal tech in the dead of night. Beyond the reach of the few remaining laws of Rosenfell and the body augmentation regulations of the corpo elite.

Mitch turned left and stumbled down the street with stuttering skips without ever lifting his feet off of the ground. A lazy trot from a weakened body, tracing a trail in the ground as if he feared forgetting the location of his tent at the heart of downtown. Feared wandering too far off of his path, away from his destiny drifting beneath the neon lights. Floating on a bonzo cloud through the abandoned alleys. A vagabond, now rich beyond comprehension with the bum’s ambrosia, elixir for everlasting life. A bagful of bonzos to soothe the pain of his memories that coated his soul in a swath of shadows and darkness too heavy to bear alone.

With each step, Mitch’s legs gathered strength, either from sheer will to push on or from mere momentum kicking him forward. Crawling ahead as if a puppeteer had attached strings to his limbs and dragged him deeper into the wicked gloom of the lifeless streets. He peered towards a blob of movement up ahead, scrunched his brows, trying to solidify the thing in his mind’s eye. A person? A phantom? It seemed to hover off of the ground, levitate in the air like some magician creating an illusion to trick his fried brain.

He stumbled closer. The blob manifested into a physical shape, transformed from a cloud of gray into a body of a man in a black leather jacket with radiant, metal spikes on the shoulders and tattered, brown pants with strips of light that ran down the length of each leg. The flesh on the left half of his face was removed, replaced by a slab of metal and a leering red eye that flickered as it scanned the premises.

Mitch stared at the nomad from behind his droopy eyelids, galloped past him, and continued his doped-out march through the eerie stasis of the electric smart city. Lungs huffing and puffing the spoiled mixtures and gross concoctions of smells that dropped from the nomads’ Rezi-Rizes, rose up from sewer pipes, or climbed out of the Crawlers’ grates that covered the muddy, icy streets.

“You’ve got no tech, man!” the nomad said, running up beside Mitch. “Can’t be a nomad in Rosenfell when you don’t got no tech.”

Mitch stopped, turned, but the world kept on moving without him. His body swayed in slow circles like he had absorbed an uppercut at the end of a round and searched for his corner. He grunted something inaudible. Maybe intended as a noise to tell the idiot to fuck off and bother another bum somewhere else. But it was the only sound Mitch could muster from the speech area of his malfunctioning bonzo-brain.

“I can fix that for you. Whataya say?”

Mitch lifted his right hand from his side and pushed the air in front of him. A weak, wordless gesture to tell the nomad to disappear forever.

“Excellent choice, my friend,” the man said, stepping behind Mitch. “Right this way, won’t take long.”

The nomad nudged Mitch through a mangled door on the left, down a set of slippery stone steps, and into a faint light of a musty basement. His legs seemed to move according to their own preplanned path. A fate not his own. A force seeking to rob the freedom of his bum life tramping through Rosenfell.

The nomad guided Mitch’s body onto a metal gurney with filthy, leather straps and rusted, metallic buckles attached to the sides. Mitch lifted his back off of the cold, hard surface in a weak effort to flee from the clutches of the stranger.

“Now, now, no need to struggle,” the nomad said. “I’m gonna hook you up to the matrix, my man! The matrix is where it’s all at. No greater feeling than plugging into the fuckin’ grid.”

Mitch forced his torso off of the bed, swung his legs around the side of the gurney. And then, a sharp sting pierced the side of his neck.

A metallic taste crept across his tongue. The fog that had lingered from the jawbreaker darkened until his consciousness dropped off into a deep pit of blackness.

*****

“There you are, my friend,” the nomad said, patting the back of Mitch’s tender head. The words melted the lingering fog that wrapped around him, placed him at the center of a black hole, falling into infinity for eternity.

The nomad yanked Mitch off of the gurney, forced him to the exit, and then shoved him out of the door.

Mitch stumbled onto the empty street, collapsed to his knees, and stared into the dreary sky, warped by the nebulous illumination of Rosenfell and its dancing hologram advertisements.

“No hard feelings about your kidney,” the nomad said from behind Mitch. “Crawlers need it more than you do.”

The reverberation from the slammed door pushed Mitch forward, knocked him onto his hands, splayed fingers digging into the cold, gooey mud. A throbbing, mind-slicing pain shot through his skull like a spike had been hammered into his brain. He leaned on his right elbow, brought his hand towards his head and brushed against the right side of his skull. A cold slab of steel with two input/output ports was screwed into his head, plugged into his nervous system.

Mitch pushed himself off of his hands and onto his knees. He sat on his heels, toes digging into the mud, torso wavering until his equilibrium settled and his swirling vision found a spot of smoke to stare at straight ahead. Then he lifted his left hand and reached inside his coat, touched the fleshy part above his hip. His grimy thumb traced a vertical line of stitches a few inches long. He pulled his hand away and stared at the thick film of warm blood that coated his flesh, covered in scars and cuts and bruises and mutilated brown pigmentation like the hand of a drunken street fighter.

He collapsed onto his hands, crawled at an elderly, synth-turtle’s pace until the pain in his hands and knees was greater than the gash oozing blood out of his side and the throbbing pulse exploding from the chunk of metal lodged in his skull.

He climbed onto his feet and shuffled through the bleak streets and neon lights, dragging his right leg so that he traced a trail in the mud like he was a snail fleeing the comfort and protection of cover to traverse across a dangerous path. To make it to the other side without suffering death from a nomad’s life-loathing boot.

The chemical, metallic taste returned, dispersed across Mitch’s tongue and dripped down his throat. He hocked a loogie and let it plop out of his mouth. A glob of slimy scarlet mixed with sticky saliva fell from his lips and splattered in the mud, absorbed into the glistening muck. Then he tilted his head back and peered into the blur from behind his closed eyelids. The darkness inside of his skull twitched like his brainwaves searched for an ethereal connection.

He lowered his gaze, opened his eyelids, stared ahead from behind the red, eye-cracking haze of his parched eyeballs. His nostrils sniffed a savory aroma wafting from a thin trail of steam emanating from a small food cart at the base of a tall building on the right side of the street. He shuffled up to the space in front of the cart and stared at the list of items on the menu beneath the words: Elle’s Kitchen.

“Just about to open up,” said a woman’s voice from somewhere inside the cart, where crackling oil sizzled on frying pans. “What can I get you this morning?”

Mitch glared at the sign, tried to focus his mind.

“Well?” the voice said.

The head of an elderly lady with olive skin and big, round, green eyes peeked out of the front window panel. She was just tall enough for her head to reach over the edge.

Mitch cleared the phlegm and blood caught in the back of his throat.

“Ahem,” Mitch said, coughing into his hand. He wiped the blood on his muddy pant leg on the outside of his thigh, then clasped his hands behind his back. “Morning, ma’am. Don’t got no credits.”

“Sure doesn’t look like it,” the woman said, looking Mitch up and down. “How do you expect to eat with no credits?”

“Just looking.”

“Just looking, huh?” the lady said, looking down the length of her nose as if to question the existence of the bum standing before her. “What’s your name?”

Mitch gulped, scratched his Adam’s apple, and then made a useless effort to brush the stringy hair on his balding head over the patch of bloody tech pounded into his skull.

“Name’s Mitch. Mitch Henderson.”

“Well, Mitch Henderson. I’m cooking myself some breakfast. What do you think about joining me and I’ll cook something up for you, too. Free of charge. Just pay me with some good, old-fashioned company.”

Mitch checked over his shoulders, scanned the area, seeking out the metaphysical source of this gentle woman’s kindness. Maybe a hidden camera to impress her friends with her acts of heroism saving Rosenfell one bum at a time.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Mitch said.

“Scurry over this way,” the woman said, tracing a path with her slender index finger on her right hand.

Mitch crept around the corner. A small door on the side of the cart swung open and smacked against the side with a clattering clash that rattled through the air. A small staircase flipped out and dropped into the mud with a splat. He grabbed the side of the cart and pulled his weak, flimsy body up, ducking his head to keep it from colliding with the low-hanging ceiling.

“My name is, Eleanor,” the woman said, stepping up beside Mitch.

Mitch hid his hand behind his back and rubbed his palm on the back of his pants. He brought it in front of him and shook Eleanor’s wrinkled hand.

“Nice to meet you,” Mitch said.

“Likewise, Mitch. Now plop your butt down at the table back there and I will bring us some food.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He turned and marched to the back of the cart, shocks bouncing with each of his steps until he stopped beside the small table. He stared into a shadow behind a black curtain at the back of the cart. It stretched into a large room built into the bottom floor of the skyscraper.

“I find that it’s easier to have my business and my home connected,” Eleanor said. She placed two, steaming plates on the table, each filled with chunks of scrambled eggs, potatoes, and a juicy hamburger without the bun.

The aroma wafting off of the food fired off intense electrical signals within Mitch’s brain. He licked his lips and dropped into the seat across from Eleanor, grabbed the fork and jabbed a forkful of eggs. When he brought it up to his mouth he caught Eleanor staring at him.

He peeked at her without lifting his head away from the fork.

She sat motionless, vibrant eyes studying him. And then, her hands reached across the table, grasped his own hands.

She closed her eyes.

“Bless us, Oh Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.”

Mitch mouthed the last word and slowly pulled his hands away, analyzed them like they were not his own.

“Bon appétit, Mitch,” she said, her kind face beaming with a bright smile.

Mitch grabbed his fork and shoveled the eggs into his mouth. The neurotransmitters in his brain fired off unlike anything he had ever experienced. It was like a hundred jellies melted on his tongue and wriggled their psychedelic tethers down his throat. He chewed and gulped down the food, gazed at the empty fork, then to the plate of food, and then stared at Eleanor.

“Synth?”

“Oh, heavens no!” Eleanor said. “I don’t consume that artificial poison. My ingredients are all one-hundred percent authentic.”

Mitch leaned back in the chair. He gazed at Eleanor with curious eyes that reflected the cart’s dim, fluorescent light.

“But… how?”

“I know a few corpos that know some corpos that have access to real ingredients.”

Mitch was silent behind an expressionless face.

“Long story,” Eleanor said. “I’ll tell you some other time. Eat up before it gets cold. Then we can chat.”

Mitch scooped up the remainder of the potatoes and eggs. Scarfed down the burger until his plate was bare of any sauce or grease like there had never been food on it. He leaned back in the cracking, wooden chair and rubbed his belly.

Eleanor pushed her plate away and wiped her mouth with a torn rag. And then, she stared at Mitch, smiled.

“What’s your story, Mitch Henderson?”

Mitch scratched his head.

“Can’t say I got one,” he mumbled.

“Oh, c’mon now,” Eleanor said. “You were crawling through that muck on your hands and knees. You got blood dripping from your head and the right half of your coat is soaking red like paint from a barn drenched you. So, tell me… what’s your story?”

“Well… name’s Mitch Henderson. I… uhh…”

“Where do you live?”

“Downtown.”

“Where downtown?”

“In a tent down an alley. Here in the Twilight.”

“Where’s your family?”

Mitch’s eyes glazed over as his mind receded into itself. The light flowing through the cart dropped several shades darker like a nearby garbage fire had dwindled to weak embers.

“Family?” Eleanor repeated.

“Don’t got no family,” Mitch muttered. “Abandoned me when I was a teenager.”

“Been living on the streets this whole time?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Ever thought about getting off the streets and pulling your life back together?”

“Can’t do it. Brain’s messed up.”

“How so?”

“Won’t let me see past the pain and guilt.”

“Pain and guilt, huh?” Eleanor said, nodding slowly to herself. “Mitch Henderson, what if I told you that your life, your entire reality, is a product of your mind? That reality itself is a creation of your consciousness.”

Mitch turned his head and peered out of the front of the cart. The streets were beginning to fill with early-rising nomads, bustling about for their purposeless day of meaningless consumption. Their tech bodies and augmented faces painted by the phosphorescence of enchanted neon.

He turned back to Eleanor.

“I don’t know,” Mitch said, shrugging.

“You make your own reality, your conscious awareness brings it to life, and fate… is in your own hands because your human experience is built in that powerful computer within your skull,” Eleanor said, motioning her head and eyes towards Mitch’s scalp.

He raised his right hand to his head and tried to comb a few wispy hairs over the dried blood surrounding the slab of fresh tech.

“Guess I never thought of it like that,” he said.

“Most assume that reality is something that happens to them, passively, rather than something that they actively pursue and create for themselves,” Eleanor said. “You must have a plan in this life, Mitch. It is vital. Otherwise, you may find yourself wandering aimlessly without a purpose or a reason to live. And people that wander without a purpose become a meaningless piece in somebody else’s plan. Often the wicked, wretched plan of a power-devouring psychopath.”

“Yeah,” Mitch muttered, looking away from Eleanor’s searching gaze. “I know a little something about that.”

“You ever thought of a plan?”

“Not too much,” Mitch said, sniffling as his eyes drifted away. “Been busy.”

“Busy, huh?” Eleanor said, tightening her lips. “I’ll tell you what, Mitch Henderson. I enjoy your company. You ever need something to eat or a warm place to rest, you come visit me. We’ll see if we can put your mind back on track. How does that sound?”

Mitch’s neck whipped around, eyes beamed at Eleanor. His full, conscious awareness focused upon her.

“Thank you, Eleanor,” Mitch said, stammering. “Thank you.”

And then, his lips spread wide to reveal a crooked-toothed smile. The hot pain from his new tech sliced through his skull, shot across his body, and ignited a fiery sensation in the empty cavity where his kidney once lived. He turned towards the left, looked away from Eleanor, erased the smile from his face, returned it to its familiar, depressing frown.

A pair of faces appeared at the front of the cart. Their heads tilted backwards and their eyes moved back and forth, scanning the menu hanging above the order window.

“What’s it gonna be?” Eleanor asked the nomads. She rose from her seat and squeezed Mitch’s shoulder. “I will see you soon.”

Mitch watched Eleanor take their order. Then he climbed to his feet with a replenished body and a fresh mind, scurried down the steps of the side door and made the lonely trek through downtown back to Jefe’s office.