A World Called Solitude

Chapter 1-3

He climbed.

He found what he didn’t know he’d been seeking near the very top of the building. It was one of the windows, oval in shape, with the long axis nearly two meters tall and the short axis a meter across. The frame was glittery silver, sparkling with a life of its own. Birk took one look into the window and was transfixed by its awesome emotional impact.

The background of the scene was dark blue, verging to black as it faded into the distance; although there were no lines of perspective, the impression was of staring down a long, dark tunnel with no opening at the other end. Two figures inhabited the scene—both androgynous (if such a term could be used in reference to the Makers), both featureless.

One figure seemed smaller, though that might only indicate it was farther away from the viewer. It was pale blue and lay on its right side, propped up on one elbow. Its neck was craned forward and its left arm stretched agonizingly toward the other figure in a gesture that could only be a call for help. Its cry of pain was implicit in the strain of its musculature, the angle of its head, the trembling fingers of its hand.

The larger—nearer?—figure was golden-skinned and had its back turned to the other. While it, too, had no facial features, it faced the viewer in a pose of disdain. Hands resting casually on hips, left foot forward and slightly bent, the figure had its head c****d, listening. There could be no doubt that it heard the piteous pleas of its fellow on the ground behind it—and there could be even less doubt about its total lack of concern.

There in the window, the scene was staged in eternal simplicity: the blue victim, its silent screams echoing through the blue-black corridor, reaching out for help; and the golden ignorer, locked into its own world and refusing to emerge even to help a soul in agony.

Birk didn’t know how long he’d been standing in front of the window before he realized he was sobbing. The devastating emotionalism of this single piece had lanced through him, touching scars he’d thought were long healed and making them bleed afresh. Birk sank slowly to his knees but did not—could not—take his eyes from the window.

Though the picture remained unchanged, he could see faces forming on those alien bodies. His face and—Reva’s. He was on the ground, reaching up to her, reaching for his golden Reva. Reva, I’m hurt. Reva, I need you. Reva, don’t deny me! Reva! Reva.…

There came a point at which he could no longer keep himself upright, even on his knees. He fell forward, then, to the walkway, and his eyes finally left the scene in the window. He lay there prone in an undignified heap with his arms outstretched and clawing at the floor, coughing as his tears flowed unchecked. The walls of the empty building echoed his cries of anguish.

After some time, the sobbing stopped. Birk rose unsteadily to his feet and staggered back down the ramp and out of the gallery. Not once did he look back at the window hanging silently on the wall.

***

The nightmares started up again that night.

They began with the peaceful fuzzy nothingness of his normal sleeping pattern—but the fuzziness was suddenly shattered by sharp, painful images of bright lights shining in his eyes, of harsh stabbing at his limbs, of a relentless droning in his ears that grew louder and louder no matter how hard he tried to shut it out, until finally his eardrums threatened to burst. There was Reva, standing before him, naked in the golden glow of her beauty, smiling her warm, understanding, I-can-make-everything-better-with-a-touch smile. But as he stepped toward her she changed, snarling with fangs that would shame a guard dog, raking him with claws of burning iron.

He backed away and stepped into a Pit. Cold, heavy chains bound him as he fell. As he hit the floor, he discovered that there were others around him, also in chains—faceless souls screaming against their bondage. The floor tilted and he was thrown together with them, jammed so tightly that the stench of their sweating bodies burned his nostrils. Then explosions, bright lights, shock….

He awoke to find himself crying in Arthur’s arms. The robot was holding Birk tightly against his smooth body, swaying ever so slightly with a comforting rocking motion and stroking the man’s hair tenderly. Birk could recall his mother holding him like that when, as a child, he’d awakened in the night with fear. As rational thought returned to him, he remembered teaching Arthur exactly the way it should be done.

“I… I think I’m all right now,” he managed to say.

The robot loosened his grip, but did not entirely let go yet. “Are you sure, sir?”

“Yes, quite.”

With the increasing confidence in Birk’s voice, the robot took his hands away and backed off. He continued to watch Birk closely, however.

“Thanks for coming to me,” Birk went on after a moment. “It’s been a while since I’ve had an attack that bad, hasn’t it?”

“Over three years, sir.”

Birk shook his head “It’s all part of this feeling I was trying to describe to you earlier. I don’t know what’s come over me.”

On impulse, he threw back the blankets and slid off the high bed to stand naked on the icy floor. The soles of his feet tingled and the air was bitingly cold all around him, but he forced himself not to notice. Instead, he crossed to the stairway and climbed up one flight to the roof.

A chill wind whipped him as he stood unprotected in the darkness, looking out over the black abyss that was the city below. Looking upward brought no relief from darkness, either; the night gripped him like a cold black fist and the sky was as barren as a witch’s womb.

Behind him, Arthur emerged from the stairwell carrying a sleeping robe. Birk turned slowly and allowed his companion to dress him. “I do miss the stars, Arthur,” he sighed. “They’re the one thing I really do miss. These empty nights of yours give me a touch of claustrophobia.”

“You said yourself, though, that being in the middle of a dust cloud kept other humans from finding you.”

“True, true. But shooting my own arguments back at me won’t cure me of nostalgia. The stars were always my friends, even when people turned against me. I may recognize the necessity for their absence, but I still miss them. Damn it, I do!”

As he spoke, a streak of light flashed across the otherwise black backdrop of night. “A meteor,” Birk said, his lips curling into a tight smile. “All right, then, I’ll settle for that, if it’s all this stingy sky will give me.”

Alarm bells started ringing downstairs, and Arthur stiffened. After a moment, the robot relaxed again and addressed his master. “That was no meteor, sir. It was an artificial object, quite possibly a spaceship like the one you came in. It just crashed in the mountains five hundred kilometers north of here.”

It was Birk’s turn to stiffen. The night’s chill had suddenly doubled its intensity. There could be only one reason why a ship would come here: they had found out about him. They were coming to take him back.

Perhaps it was, indeed, the end of the world.