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One of the Three
By Lydia Harkness (xpositions@yahoo.com)
Summary: "I have her strength of mind. I have his strength of will. I have their
strength of love, but it isn’t enough."
Rating: PG-13 for cussing and use of racial slurs (be forewarned, they’re slang
terms for Jews I used cautiously, being Jewish myself.) Also, possibly
disturbing imagery like self-mutilation. Or just hints of it.
Genre: Post-colonization, angst, original character POV.
Spoilers: None, but a general understanding of the mythology is useful. Just
because I outright dismiss and ignore it. I’m a true myth-phile at heart,
honest, but I’ve had enough. I needed a break. Everything through Requiem is
fair game, but untouched.
Author’s notes at the end
Disclosure: I really, honestly don’t own them. I also use Ziploc and Goodwill
without permission, so there. Sue me, you get a cactus and laptop computer. Both
neglected and abused virtually beyond recognition.
I am one of the three.
I am the one who found peace.
I am the one who found truth before belief.
I am one of the three, and the only one yet alive.
It may not be long now, as my mentor is fond of saying. Since nine he has
reminded me of that similar fate which faced my first sister, and later my twin
brother. He tells me so to keep me aware that the blight of death hangs heavily
on my family. But as the years passed on, I realized he told me so to keep
himself at a distance.
That curse, if such lore really does exist, stole my grandfather. It took my
aunt. Years later it’s steel jaws clamped heavily over my elder sister, whom I
never knew. I was as yet unborn. Following her was my grandmother, and after two
years passed my twin brother joined her in nothingness. I have no memory of him,
but I feel his nudging presence like a lost appendage that stubbornly tries to
reattach itself where it does not belong. I never knew him. How can I say I
loved him? Years later, seven or eight I believe, my father became his own
sacrifice. I was nine, and I never spoke again.
There was a time when I knew the language of laughter and tears. I dimly recall
Christmases of cheery warmth. A summer’s eve on our front porch, before bottles
and stones were hurled and our mailbox went up in flames. The strongest memory
is of a dance recital my father came to, though shielded from recognition in a
heavy raincoat and baseball cap. It was July; a warm summer’s night.
He spent the twenty minutes of my clumsy twirling and stumbling in the far
corner, near the door. I remember in that stillness of a moment my mother
turning to see him come in. The look that passed between the two was the only
time in my twenty years I’ve seen perfection. I thought then that none of the
people who despised our family and called us those horrible names (dirty kikes)
could see their capacity for love and still persist in hate. That is all I
appreciate of his memory: the way he loved my mother.
It wasn’t enough to keep him ours though. One evening he followed a smoking man
through our front door and never looked back. It had been the late evening of my
ninth birthday and the day had passed in serenity, with ice cream cake and
unremarkable gifts I was presumably happy with. After eating and sharing
laughter and the forced joy my birthday always brings, we went to visit the
graves. (You were one of the three) At seven when the streets had emptied and
the neighbors seemed to lessen their stares we piled into the car. I clutched in
my sticky sweet fingers a cluster of yellow and white carnations (your father
always brought them home from work for Emily) and two white roses (one for you
and one for Michael). The caretaker knew to leave the gate to the grounds
unlocked, and as our car pulled up through the driveway my father raised his
hand in thanks. The caretaker looked the other way. We drove past and I
stretched around in the seat, craning my neck back to see his face: the man who
hated us enough to insult my father openly. He spit on the ground with force.
(Damn Mulders)
I did hear him, not with my ears but my heart; and I’d heard it a thousand times
before. In the pity and revulsion on the faces of other children’s parents. It
was in the manner and movement of my teacher’s impatience. (Dirty kike Mulder
and his shit of a wife poor child can’t help who she’s born to.)
They were never married though, not officially. I never knew until last year
when mom disappeared and my mentor brought me home again to take what I wanted
from the house. (She’s been declared missing because no one wants to find her.)
Upstairs in her bureau drawer, beneath her lingerie and pantyhose, where the
good jewelry was kept along with a billfold of emergency money, was the marriage
license with one signature. Hers. To hear my mentor tell it, he was there with
them.
("They went for the license three months after you and Michael were born.
Michael was alive then, you know. By then the scandal had broken and the name of
Mulder was destined to live forever in disgust. And shame. Your mother was a
beautiful soul…. Well she had a good head on her shoulders. God knows why, but
she wanted to take your father’s name, maybe just for his sake. At the
courthouse they were virtually run out by the catcalls and dirty looks. She
wanted to wait it out. I guess she thought she was proving something, but your
father, he has a temper that can blind him. They left and never tried again.")
For all I know he was lying. Gave me a convenient (noble) story to restore my
father’s glory in my mind. But the image is tarnished, beyond anything reparable
by my mentor’s sure hand. Why though? For the reason the rest of the world holds
him to the damages done? For the reason the neighbors would shudder and laugh at
the sound of our family name? No, but for my mother’s sake: that she never
stopped waiting, even after the streetlights burned their amber glow into the
morning dawn, and another night passed with him gone and as yet unreturned. For
my mother’s sake, that she never felt again what it was to be looked at by my
father. (She knew the best feeling in the world was his eyes on you burning a
hole into your heart.) Where my love for him ought to be? (Yes, you have your
father’s eyes).
As much as people spewed their dirty looks and screamed in their minds those
evil thoughts (lousy bitch go back into hiding where you belong) when mom would
tear through the aisles of the grocery store, I hate him more than they.
I hate him. More.
At night I find tears that avoid me in my daytime stoicism (that’s your mom in
you, don’t you know child. She had a face of stone and a heart that beat for you
and your father alone even if it was rarely shown). In such dark moments I find
my heart thumping irregularly and the pain that is my life crushing every breath
I manage to wheeze out. The thought of him alone brings it on. Every time my
mouth gouges open in a noiseless sob, it’s to voice his name, like I can spit it
back out of me and disown myself. Sitting alone at night after another
recognition in the subway or bus stop (they can see your name in your nose and
chin and lips, all a mirror of your dad) I go home to carve my anger into a
moon-shaped blush on my arm. I slice what anger I can into my dirty fingernails
full of dry skin and DNA samples.
The year I joined my mentor, I took my mother’s name as an escape from my
father. Not legally, but then really nothing is anymore. Not after the Time of
Purity.
Even if I wanted the name changed legally it would be impossible: the
courthouses are fallen in ashes, and the legal system is trying determinedly if
unsuccessfully to rebuild itself. A girl with a chip on her shoulder would be a
waste of time no matter who her daddy was (is?).
Since 2016 when Purity ended, we were left with a shell of society. It seemed a
short period of time for everything to die and be reborn in, but that is the way
of things. Tragedy strikes hard and quickly, leaving in it’s wake a shit-streak
of waste. And that seems a good way to describe today: waste.
It’s my birthday again, and though the date comes and goes without a well wish
(no ice cream cake or forgettable gifts) I am instructed by my mentor that it is
time to visit my only home. Mentor picks me up at six this morning. He doesn’t
knock but taps my door with the toe of his thinly shined shoes to let me know
it’s time.
I have a small loft in what used to be Georgetown. It’s really just a cot and a
sink and a window that looks out onto nothing interesting. My pride is the small
10"x10" mirror I found in the dumpster out back. It looks like it was chipped
off a larger piece, but there’s really no problem with that. Most girls I know
use cleaned out compacts or use the gas station restrooms. Other than that, no
heat, no air, and the water that dribbles out of my sink is beige.
Slacks are beige. Car interiors are beige. I don’t think water should be beige.
But nothing is the way it should be, or even the way it used to be. I think this
used to be a nice apartment complex, but it was flattened and then rebuilt with
government funds. They only fund enough to rebuild luxury as necessity in a
futile attempt to lower to rate of homelessness. I call myself blessed.
When I open the door he fills its entirety. He is a well-built man with small
but perfect features, and though time has grayed his hair and slowed his gait he
still walks with pride. And intelligence. He stretches out an arm and for the
millionth time, the touch of heavy plastic startles me. It’s cool and lifeless
to the touch. He has never volunteered the story of how he lost his arm, and
naturally I can never ask. I wouldn’t even if I could, as it adds to the holy
reverence I hold him in. Shrouded in an inappropriately fashionable suit, he
smiles that cat smile and asks how I am.
I nod and smile unconvincingly. I raise my eyebrows at him.
"Fine, thank you. Business is well as always."
He is the only one prospering. How he does I don’t know, I don’t want to know.
The business I learn from him is not of corporate meetings or capital gain. Our
business is of survival, and he has dedicated his heart to my cause. I don’t
know why. I can only know for sure that he knew my father and feels some
obligation towards me. I was nine when I joined him. That was a shitty year, but
I said that already, didn’t I? All that was good was finding him. Or him me.
I’d already resolved myself to running away, doing what I could to find dad (to
kill him or bring him home, you still don’t know, do you?) when he extended his
hand to me. I went with him, leaving mom to sorrow for the loss alone, and never
looked back. Just like dad.
My mentor and I take the lift down, and the harsh lighting above exaggerates his
features, englongating them to a youthful mimic. This is always when my heart
catches in my throat, watching the small, sharp features of his regress to
another time. I stare through discreet lashes, as he becomes the man I was
introduced to, and the man my father surely knew. His features are precise and
he shames me with my resemblance to dad. My mentor is everything I am not. My
nose is thick and long, and my lips are stuck out in a permanent pout. Next to
him I feel gangly and bumbling like the village idiot. God, he’s beautiful.
Tendons shift almost invisibly beneath his skin as the lift slams down. I
disengage from his arm (fake, like this relationship and just as unrealistic)
and slide the grating open. Outside it rains ashes for the second time this year
and I turn to him.
"Haven’t you heard? Downtown DC is under flames again. It was evacuated this
morning when another mutated strain of the virus was found in a downtown
warehouse."
Again.
This is my anniversary of life, and I look out at the ashes of humanity. How
many this time, I wonder?
"Twenty-three rebels were arrested, they are still counting the victims. So far
the number stands at seventy-five sacrificed."
I stop short of the archway that leads outside and I double over. I open my
mouth but all that escapes is a whine of air. I can’t cry or speak coherently
and the horrible whine continues. His plastic hand lands on my back in probably
his first ill attempt at control.
"Stand up. Stop that sound, you know you sound like a dying lamb." With his good
hand he pulls me back to standing. "Your father would cry. Your father would
take it on his shoulders. You’re no God-dammed Jesus Christ. It’s not your
loss."
I squeeze my eyes shut and let the last drop of pain escape instead as
frustrated anger. I slam a hand against the brick wall in voiceless fury and
wipe away a stray tear. He watches me with those (cat) eyes, sharp blue disks
like rotating razor edges. I have to look away.
"This is far from the ending. How many more strains are out there? Innumerable.
How many more will die? Far too many to cry over." He stares at me for a moment,
something passing before his eyes but is gone far too quickly to name. "You will
remain", he mutters. "One of you must."
He grips me at the elbow and nods toward the street where a station wagon with
bent fenders and a homemade sign reading ‘TAXI’ waits with the motor running. At
my mentor’s nod, the man behind the drivers seat bolts from the car. He rushes
around with an umbrella (a hole in the fabric, he’s a Goodwill scavenger like
you) and escorts us to the backseat door.
The ride from my home to my hell is long and punctuated by my mentor’s
uncharacteristic discomfort. At one point he slides a finger along my shoulder
and wonders aloud where this piece of crap came from.
This piece of crap, it’s my favorite sweater. The sleeves stop just short of my
wrists, and itches me nicely. It’s light lavender wool, like something mom never
would have chosen but dad would have loved to see her in. It’s been so frayed
and worn passing hand to hand, it almost looks like angora (which you’ve only
seen pictures of). Beneath my armpits and along my sides it has beaded bits of
wool like tiny beads of sweat where it has been exercised in friction too many
times. I sign the letter ‘G’ with my cupped fingers and my thumb tucked in. He
blows out a puff of air that immediately fills the cab with cologne. He hates me
digging through the piles there, but Goodwill is the only choice.
Beyond that and his occasional passing comment, the ride is silent and smooth
like passing memories in a dream. Outside the grayness expands to include not
just the sky and walk but cars and building tops like dirty snow. A sudden turn
and we are there, at the gated community of inhabitants slumbering against their
will. A long driveway extends beyond it, but the car (fake taxicab, so they say
but what’s a real one supposed to look like, right?) stops short and the driver
turns to face us.
"She’ll only be one moment." From his overcoat my mentor produces a yellow
carnation (for Emily like your father bought) and a white rose (for Michael the
nobody appendage) both miraculously intact.
The walk is long but not strenuous. I carry nothing but these flowers and
instinctually let my feet take me where my mind has long forgotten where to go.
(Right at the sloping walk) The ashes fall in small sheets, tiny snowflakes that
warm my skin where they land. (Left down the row of Thomases). I take in a heavy
breath only to choke on it. I feel like a smoker today. (Seven headstones to the
right).
The name catches my eye immediately, and just as immediate is the surge of fury
for the brother who didn’t stay.
Michael William Mulder.
Next to him in holy reverence, our elder sister, her name spoken in only vicious
hushes to mom as dad spoke of (abductions cancer implant in her neck clones ova
baby girls without a chance) the lies he perpetuated.
Emily Christine Sim.
(I heard it’s just an empty coffin they buried for no reason at all only crazy
people visit empty graves or dig them in the first place)
I throw the flowers lazily, both falling askew on the grass between. I want to
turn and run but my mentor would see it (with those cat eyes) and he would see
weakness. I do my sisterly duty and bend down to right the flowers. Yellow
carnation to the right. White rose to the left.
If I could I would say something to them, like those who truly grieve do. In
earlier years I’ve seen people bent over the headstones, their mouths opening
and closing in both sadness and desperation. I suppose they spill their stories
of grieving there, for the grass to soak up in motionless sobs. Watching them
bent over the decay of loved ones, that’s the only time I’ve ever wanted to
speak.
(What would you say to them?)
I’d say I miss them.
I’d say I hate the two of you for leaving me alone to face the shame. I’d say
you two left me mute in my mouth but also in my heart. I’d say I hate you for
making mom and dad so (sad vacant determined vindicated). I hate being one of
the three. The only one yet living.
The next stop is four miles from here, through a winding maze of what used to be
suburban planning at it’s worst. I grew up in this neighborhood. I rode my
bicycle down Fullerton even after mom warned to be careful (those children don’t
understand nobody does but your father was a hero don’t listen to what they
say). I ran home that day with a bloody nose and a skinned knee.
We pull up to the driveway and it vaguely shocks me that the home is still
standing. In all the destruction, this house remains upright. It’s a simple
light gray home with white trim, and the fake planters boxes lining the windows
overflow with ash. It’s half disgust, half sadness I feel as I stand in the
driveway. When I left at nine I did so as dad and never looked back. It was
during the Time of Purity but a lull in the death rate had convinced many,
myself included, that it was all coming to an end. We still had six years of
dying left.
I was actually nine and a half, and I left without mom knowing. A runaway, is
that what it is? I never thought of the word, only because I was never running
from anything. At the time I was running towards dad.
I had packed it all in a pillowcase, just a pair of jeans and three shirts, some
underwear and my toothbrush. Oh and a dried white rose I’d saved from my
birthday. It ended up crushing in there, beneath everything else. I remember as
I dumped it all out onto the cot he’d given me, the dried petals fell like
ageless snowflakes.
We met that night. I’d left mom alone to grieve, without tears or red-rimmed
eyes, as that was her way. I rode my bike through the maze of suburbia, guided
by the light of a burning DC (It was burning then too, like a pattern, or
timetable it goes by in stages). I rode down Fullerton with my head held high,
and as I charged past I stuck my tongue out at the houses rolling by.
I ditched my bike about six blocks from there. I don’t know why, I would have
gotten farther with it than lying damp in a wash somewhere. Anyhow it didn’t
take long. A black and white picked me up on curfew, and when I refused to give
a name or address they took me to visit the drunks and forty-year old
prostitutes. Nice lesson for a nine year old.
I waited and feared the appearance of mom. She never came. He did though, his
overcoat dangling floor length, and his suit a gray wash of impeccability. Awed
and relieved, I never protested when he outstretched that arm (fake even then,
when wasn’t it?) to take me "home". He was the antithesis to dad. I was smitten.
A heavy hand falls on my shoulder, and he clears his voice. Suddenly the street
seems dead, its silence extending to the soul. I realize the taxi is gone and we
stand alone. Most of the surrounding homes are leveled, but building will begin
again soon. (More government funded housing for the needy and near dead). This
is one of three houses still standing. The door is wrapped head to toe in yellow
tape, marked ‘Crime Scene – Do Not Cross’. I guess they’re still pretending to
try and find mom.
Mentor produces a small silver key and with one smooth stroke he breaks the
tape, and in another quick stroke he unlocks the door. He kicks it open with the
toe of his shoe just enough so it nudges right up next to the adjoining wall.
I feel nauseous.
"It was last year but her case is still open. The FBI is doing what they can,
but naturally resources are limited. As is want of determination to see it
resolved. Hard feelings still hang heavy."
With real fingers he slides his force down to the small of my back and together
we walk forward.
"Here." He hands me a small MAG light, dark shiny black. "Power’s been out since
April."
With the flick of a wrist the house swells to rounded lighting, swinging back
and forth like a pendulum. Here the small dining room table, chairs turned over
and beginning to dust with age. I swing the flashlight right, and there the
stairs lead upwards to darkness. Forward down the hall a bit is where the
television and couch used to be. I imagine looters took it all not long after
mom disappeared. To the left is the kitchen and sliding glass door to the
backyard. Somewhere in the midst of darkness I stumble my way towards the garage
and reconcile what has been a nagging question for nearly a year: her car is
still parked with the security light blinking, and the red bar lounging across
the wheel. Exactly as she would have left it.
From off the hall that leads to the garage door is dad’s small office, still
overflowing with boxes. You know, the kind that holds files, with holes for
handles on each side and ill-fitting lids? Those were dad’s secrets (abductions
cancer implant in her neck clones ova) and the final resting place of (baby
girls without a chance) the lies he perpetuated.
"Odd to find you drawn here," I hear the voice rumble behind me, vibrating
against my neck. "Almost immediately. I thought your method of dealing with the
shame was avoidance." His voice cracks me and I shove back from the doorway,
pushing him roughly aside and storming down the hall.
It was shitty of him to bring me here today. He said it was time to return, that
the timetable had begun and our chance for life would repeat itself today. It’s
shitty of him to talk that way, but he does and there’s no way to shut him up.
The only protest I manage is that damn whine of air, something between a moan
and a yawn, and as I storm back towards the front door it escapes my mouth. I
want to cry, letting him know I’m tired. Today was not a good day to come home
(feeling your mom’s vacancy?) and not a good day to see dad’s crap and (feel his
vacancy of beliefs?), No!
No.
They weren’t beliefs they were lies. Lies mom satiated with love. (She loved
him, she believed him it’s all the same, isn’t it?). They were lies and wretched
ones (aliens abductions cancer clones conspiracy). My mind disobeys my heart and
runs through those words like browsing through an encyclopedia of my history. I
issue a small growl, something animalistic and frightening even to myself. I’m
at the door now and trying to leave in spite of my arms, which tangle themselves
messily in the yellow tape. It’s like spider webs and sticky memories that cling
unacceptably (aliens abductions cancer clones conspiracy).
And then like browsing through that encyclopedia of my history a picture comes
into focus and makes sense at last. It isn’t something that grabs me, but like a
small fragment of memory that I finally find clarifying in my mind. It’s been
blurred by time and prejudice far too long.
It’s mom. It’s a picture of mom dying. Or near dead. I can’t tell, since it’s
just a picture of her neck, but I can sense it. Her skin is light lavender (like
a wool sweater your dad would have liked to see her in) the color of near death
I’ve seen on street corners as the homeless hold up signs. ‘Infected – Please
help’. Her skin was always pale, but in this picture it’s gray and heavy like
thick bruises. The small chain of her necklace is shoved down along with the
edge of her hospital gown, held there by invisible fingers off camera. Dad took
the picture. Dad put it in the file. Dad wrote the report. (The one the FBI
later declassified and removed from the filing system and near burned, right?
Then like Jesus Christ he sacrificed himself for them. The X-Files killed your
family.) Dad signed the report. Mom signed next to him.
The tiny scar in the picture could have indicated anything. Shrapnel? Glass from
an explosion, working it’s way up through the skin? But in the report it’s
(cancer causing implants) unearthly metal, supposed proof of alien life.
I shudder at the memory, the picture of my mom at dad’s vindicated, delusional
hands yet again. It’s all so embarrassing, really. I’m just at the doorway,
about to breathe the dull, ashy air of outdoors when my mentor calls back at me.
"You think I’d bring you here for my own pleasure? I’m here for survival’s sake.
Not just yours but everyone’s, so get back here. When we’re done I’ll say so."
I’ve paused in the foyer, listening.
"You can go when I say you can."
I turn back with bleary eyes, knowing he’s right. He’s always right.
Outstretched on the end of his shiny stiff arm is a dangling necklace. At first
I pull back, unwilling to accept the proof that she’s dead. ‘No’ is the only
thing I can think. Having not said the word for eleven years, it comes out
wrong. "Haawww…."
He brings it closer, but there’s something different about it. The cross looks
larger than I would think it should be. "Don’t cry. We didn’t find her or her
body. She left this for you." He hands it to me gently, letting it snake its way
down into the palm of my hand where it has coiled itself. The thin gold chain
holds the cross…. small and delicate just like I remembered it, just like it
should be. And something else.
A key rests next to it.
"Awaaaaa…" What is this?
"It’s your key. It’s your key to everything in your future, everything in your
past. It’s your key to everything you are and ever will be."
As always the message is cryptic and requires a skeptical mind to sort through
it. Today the words are different though. He said it was time to return, that
the timetable had begun and our chance for life would repeat itself today. But
where hope and his ever-constant "lesson" should be is only empty imagery. I can
tell I won’t be going back to Georgetown today. I wonder what tells me this is
the end of the road.
"You are our savior."
I back up, key and cross in hand, fumbling for the door. His eyes are more alive
than ever, and something in them rotates (sharp razor edges, eating you alive)
as they change from (cat) mentor to (rat) enemy. He doesn’t move though,
watching my hand steadily. He watches the distrust grow, inviting me to strike
back at him with the defenses he’s taught so well. But he doesn’t frighten me
with physical harm. It’s all in his words.
"You have the key to the truth now. Use it."
I still see it there, that something in him ready to pounce and nibble. His eyes
moving, skin twitching and muscles flexing beneath the surface. Was this it? Was
this the survival he was teaching me? His own?
"Be your father."
"Hawww…" No.
At that I turn and smack directly into yellow blur. Beyond it is the
neighborhood I could stumble through, take all day walking and running home,
disturbed by the curiosity. Whose key? To whose Truth? Dad’s. Sure, I can run. I
have before.
Or I can handle myself. This. Him.
I can disobey his menacing eyes, which practically urge me to run and stay with
him, hearing twisted truths issue from his thin lips to my (father’s) ears.
His hand (the one your father made me loose!) is at the small of my back, this
time not just forcefully but greedily, like he and the rest of mankind own me.
(We do.) "You’re waiting to know, aren’t you?" It’s whispered into my ear, a
beautiful stench of hot air and cologne. I used to lap at it. "You can run, but
you’ve too much of Mulder in your blood. You’re a born truth seeker."
Yes, truth. No more lies (I can teach you survival and be your mentor, your
guide, your healer, your father!). More truth. More aliens abductions cancer
clones conspiracy. More truth.
"In a small savings and loan two blocks from here is a safe deposit box. It was
signed out by your father and mother two months before you and Michael were
born. There are medical records. There is more, more you must see to believe."
This is it. Not the end of the road but the beginning. It leads to Dad.
"He was a hero. You will be too."
As I raced down the walk I turned once to see him through the yellow grid. I
don’t remember forcing my way through it, or disengaging myself from his firm
grip, but later as I run my arm begins to throb and I can feel the dull pain of
a bruise on my neck. I don’t remember him gripping me there.
Memories storm past as my feet pound the sidewalk, knowing exactly where to go.
I run past leveled houses and I run past troubling recollections. I run into the
gray snow, letting it brush my already reddening cheeks. There, where tears and
memories sting me:
(Mom, where’s Dad going, I thought he promised he could stay this time?
Are you ready to forget your past? I can teach you to be a new person. Rule
number one: don’t ask my name. Rule number two: I’ll never call you by yours.
Mulder, she’s a dirty Mulder. Kick that brat.
‘Reports were received early last night in the suburban community of West Haven,
that Dana Scully was reported missing, and possibly kidnapped. She is wife and
former partner to the infamous Fox W. Mulder, whose theories of alien
visitations and government conspiracies were the smoke screen for a larger
global domination plan of ethnic cleansing. Though experts and social scientists
have largely placed the Mulder family at the center of destruction as
scapegoats, the search is heavily underway for the former FBI agent. The couple
had two children, one whom died suddenly at two months old, and another who went
missing in 2010. In related news, President McGovern delivers his fifth address
this year, in attempt to raise spirits after what is known as the single
greatest human tragedy, continues…’)
It’s his face, though, a face that kills me and stings my eyes with tears as I
run. Run for the truth. Run toward Dad. (You were never a runaway because you
weren’t running from anything. Run to him.) Run to Dad and be a martyr like him.
Run to him and never look back.
I slam through the glass doors, accidentally, and immediately ten or so heads
jerk my way. Like a hydra their movements are as one, all in their perfect
business attire, all in their acceptable disdain. They stare, first confused at
my sniffling vicious presence and then grow in recognition. Two people in the
corner murmur to each other then turn their backs. They always turn their backs
on Mulders.
(Traitors) But were we scapegoats? Saviors?
Directly ahead is the line of small windows, three shielded from the outside
world by bulletproof glass, the other two are shattered or taped. To the right
is a wall of desks, and I stride as confidently as I can to the first.
I open my mouth
but I can’t speak.
I forget if I ever truly could.
‘Paaawww…’ Pen. Please, Jesus Christ a pen. Say it, dumb ass. ‘Paaaaennn.’
The woman watches, slowly and almost unaware of the torture she’s causing. Her
lips tighten and then go pale lavender. Without breaking contact with her eyes
she reaches for one that’s ready to slide off her desk. I shouldn’t have to ask
for paper, but I try anyway in a soft mewling sound just as she slides me a
piece.
Quickly I scribble what I can.
(‘Mulder. Need entry to safe deposit box. I’m beneficiary.’)
The paper is slid across the desk with the key I’ve untangled from Mom’s
necklace. She reads carefully with her eyes lowered but brows arched. She clears
her throat, "I need to see ID," and slides the paper back to me.
I fumble through the Velcro wallet I keep in my back pocket and produce a torn
government ID. It’s unlaminated and the picture is a fading black-and-white. I
was eight. (FBI – visitor’s day pass – family).
I slam it down on the key and paper, sliding it back at her with pleading eyes.
She looks and sighs, then eases out from behind her desk. "All right, Miss
Mulder, follow me please."
It’s box 224, ten rows from the bottom, five boxes from the right. Their small,
shiny metal faces glimmer back at me with unrealistic promises. I’m hanging all
my hopes on a 5"x10" box. It’s unlocked with dual keys, and carrying it like a
box of flowers or a doll’s coffin she leads me to a solitary room. No windows
and one door. A table and chairs. She leaves me alone with the fluorescent
lights and their insect-like buzzing. She turns around as she closes the door
and says with a smile, "Just holler when you’re done."
I lick my lips and close my eyes, breathing deeply as with one movement I flip
up the lid of the box. Inside the contents hardly look aged, but they must be
twenty years old at least. Inside is a letter, written on FBI letterhead. A
manila envelope and overflowing contents, and beneath that a plastic baggie. The
Ziploc kind I’ve seen in old television commercials. It’s full of odds and ends:
a few photographs, a small handwritten letter it looks like, and several plastic
medical tubes. The liquid sloshes lethargically.
The FBI letterhead is so retro looking, blue solid seal and the inscription
‘Federal Bureau of Investigation’ is written out in confident type. How about
Fucking Brutality and Incompetence, I wonder, thinking of Dad and his loss.
I wonder if you’re really to blame for what they’ve done to me, in your name.
The entire document is handwritten, in short quick strokes. Dad’s writing,
strong and unyielding. It’s dated March 14th, 2001.
‘One of the three –
This is at your mother’s insistence, and with my inability to leave our children
unaware of the truth. I imagine a part of the country is in flames right now,
and that community leaders are calling for more control of the virus. I imagine
you have been lead here by the last link you have to your mother and I. I can
only imagine your tears and your hurt at being alone. I can only imagine your
confusion in the time at hand.
You will be asked to follow a similar fate. I shook hands with the devil in
exchange for a simpler life. A life with you, your twin, your mother and I. It
was a mistake in only that our life together could not last. That deal with the
devil that has kept you alive until now. I hope one day I can apologize to you.
I hope more than that to hold you again, fearing I may miss too much of your
childhood. So much is being taken away from us, not at our will but in spite of
it.
Our family has suffered the shame of society’s blame, but in that we always had
each other. I can only hope you are not alone at this time, that you have
someone who you trust to be your grounding force. I had your mother, and she had
me.
And yet in spite of perfect love, our family was torn apart, as the devil
required.
Your mother was barren. To bear you and your twin safely we made a promise to
sacrifice ourselves when the time had come. When another mutated strain of the
virus might be found, and a new hope would be needed. As alien abductees, your
mother and I carried the DNA necessary to protect us from the virus. Our
children would naturally as well.’
The door is shaken by a small knock and then opens. "There are men here to see
you. They insist that they cannot wait." She stands there, her eyes suddenly
full of fear and compassion. In my mind’s eye Mentor waits beyond to see me
through to the final hour. "Shall I let them in?" I shake my head, needing, no
longer merely wanting to hear Dad’s words.
I’ve waited so long to forgive him. I can’t run from him any longer.
What you do now is your own choice.
She closes the door reluctantly, and with my own instincts I feel her mind.
(Jesus, those men scare me half to death, what do they want with her? I can’t
face them…) It breaks off from there like a distant message transmitted, barely
reaching it’s destination. Outside the door I hear shuffling feet, and more
thoughts from others that might dare intrude…
Know you have your mother’s strength of mind,
And they do, mostly that of my mentor, as I feared. His thoughts pound into my
brain and I feel like I can grip each one. I do what I can to shield my ears and
listen only to the steady voice of Dad.
…and know you have the strength of our love.
The voices increase. They build like a wall of rushing water, like the thoughts
that rumble with them. It thuds forcefully, (Can you hear me, Mulder? Can you?)
breaking me down.
Your choice will affect the world. I could never ask you to walk willingly into
the arms of danger, or run from the possibilities you hold. But today you can
save a nation.
I bite back the tears that have already started to flow. The tears fall and
mingle with decades old ink and paper, spilling where Dad may have shed his own
tears. I breathe a heavy sigh, tired at last. It’s a shame you got so famous for
a sacrifice.
Don’t.
From outside the door Mentor’s presence grows like a looming force I can feel
physically. It mutates and lives, seeping his thoughts beneath the cracks in the
door. (Can you hear me, Mulder? Can you? Did you find your Daddy? Do you know
whom, what you are? Come now; let’s not play games. The hour…)
Run.
(...is closing in. We have so little time. We own you, the whole world does. Did
you know your father sold you over? Do you know he did it all for your mother?)
I would never ask you to face the tests, the torture, the end that I might have
faced. Find your mother, your twin. They are still alive and…
The door opens, and the woman, the poor ragged woman, is pushed aside by men I
don’t recognize. There are three of them, and one by one they fill the room with
a stinking presence. They reek of expensive cologne and thoughts I’ll never be
able to shut out. Last enters my mentor. He calls me by name, breaking rule
number two.
"Miss Mulder, we’ve been together so very long. Would you break our extensive
trust for a glimpse into your father’s insanity?" He walks over to where I still
clutch the paper, his eyes ranging over the contents of the box. He makes the
sound all parents make when disappointed with disobedient children. "I wouldn’t
mind, really, if I didn’t think you believed all the garbage you’ve been
reading." With that dull plastic arm he closes the lid on the box, a sharp tinny
sound that echoes in the empty room. "This was the easiest way to tell you,
though."
Tears keep falling and through blurred vision I watch as the woman leaves us to
our business. The door is shut behind her.
"Alien DNA. It does so much for an infected nation. Emily, Michael, your father,
mother… They sacrificed just as they promised they would. And now it is your
turn."
Speech eludes me, but I try. I try. "Allliiii…"
"Alive? No." His laugh is harsh and sudden. "No, but I’m sure your father has
written otherwise. I’m sure he had good intentions. He always tried to play the
hero." He extends an arm. "Are you ready?" His fingers, warm and waiting, beckon
me to join a fate I can’t describe. "Are you ready to join your family now?"
Don’t. Run. I would never ask you to face the tests, the torture, the end that I
might have faced.
I’ve heard people say that in last moments, memories and thoughts run free and
wild, as if uninhibited by us at last. Without our fear to guide and restrain
them, our lives flood back at us in harsh honesty. I pray this isn’t my last
moment, but I thank it anyway for the memories it brings me. The strongest of
which is when I was young, and like most kids watch their parents from a
distance, I did also.
I watched a very different story unfold:
(He holds her in the crook of his arm as if she is a child herself. But her face
shows a strength unfound in children. She looks world-weary, as if she’s seen
too much of life and it’s crimes against her.
The kiss Dad places on her forehead is gentle.
I feel guilt for intruding on their moment, and simultaneously, the need to join
them on the couch.
And I do, finding myself curled in mom’s arms, the both of us held by him.
Life is unfair.
Words hurt.
Kisses sting.
I try to sleep in her lap. Though it does not come, a gentle rest does and as I
feign sleep to listen to them speak.
I never should have promised I could stay this time.
You didn’t know, you can’t blame yourself.
She won’t understand.
She loves you, and I do. That’s understanding enough.
Words are elusive and gently flow away as my act becomes reality. Dad’s voice
washes over us in a tight hold. Though he is tired and worn, his words are
loving.
I am picked up and carried to my room.
Mom hides tears in their room, and Dad sits by my bed for a long portion of the
night.)
I miss him.
I have for a long time; I just let it fester under hurt and anger. Now it seeps
free of the insufficient binding I’ve held it under. My wound grows and bleeds,
this time as loyalty and love, not pain and vengeance for a father who couldn’t
stay. I have her strength of mind. I have his strength of will. I have their
strength of love, but it isn’t enough. Not now, to keep a tired daughter
running. I leave Dad’s time capsule behind and follow my nameless mentor into
the martyr’s role at last.
In time the darkness covers me, and though the faces of those who surround me is
blurred, their thoughts are clear as ever. It took me too long to distinguish
intrusive thoughts from my own, and I wonder now if that wasn’t part of my
renegade heart. I wonder how much of my anger was my mentor in me.
From beyond the darkness comes gray, solidifying itself eventually into my
mentor’s beautiful face. His eyes have retired their menace, and as he watches
me on the hospital bed, they form something resembling pity. He rests an arm on
one of my bound wrists. He speaks, using my mind instead of the communication I
cannot use.
(Can you hear me? Do you know now?)
I nod deeply, feeling suddenly the restraint of my head. I close my eyes at the
tug, the straps pulling and hands invading my line of sight.
"She’s not going anywhere." My mentor says to the invisible men. "She’s fine.
She’ll be ready in a moment."
I sense the aloneness as they leave. Just him and me. This man who knows my
secrets.
(Is it clear as my voice, I wonder, or do you simply feel the words in your
mind, like reading a book or watching a movie?)
With a bound hand I stretch out my index finger. The first one.
(How interesting. Often I’ve envied you, and the ability you never knew you had.
How is it you’ve avoided knowledge for so long? No matter now. I’ve broken one
of our rules, though, haven’t I? Mulder? Or is it still Scully? Which do you
prefer now? Dying man’s request.)
"Mmmm…"
(Mulder, then? Yes you are your father’s daughter. Well, you may call me Alex.)
Alex? That doesn’t fit.
He laughs aloud, realizing he’ll never hear me say his name.
(And a shame too, we were such good friends.)
I want to spit at him, but I jerk my head in his direction and am immediately
forced back by the straps. Spit makes it halfway to him; the rest falls down the
side of my cheek. I feel like an animal.
(Now don’t get hostile. This was your choice, no? Any last words, then?)
More laughter.
(No, I didn’t think so. I’m so sorry I’ve not your ability. It seems you’d have
a beautiful mind.)
"Anything else?" This he asks aloud. He comes closer, bending himself to my
level. A kiss on my forehead and he’s about to leave. "I hope you understand.
About survival. It is always the greater cause which one must keep alive. It’s
never about sole survival." He draws a finger down my arm, then wiggles his way
into one of my hands, which he squeezes. (Goodbye, my lamb. You were a good
sacrifice.)
And that is all. Aloneness, then waiting. Darkness. In it all the words pound
past like feet on pavement. They move and shift the darkness to accompany my
heart. They are only the words of my childhood, and ones I’ll always remember as
my family recesses into darkness with me:
Life is unfair.
Words hurt.
Kisses sting.
My heart aches for everything in the letter I was unable to read. And then
later, for all the words I could never say. I think of the gray snow tumbling
our world apart. I linger in the hallway. I crawl into mom’s lap, letting Dad
hold us both. The iconography of Emily isn’t so stale or revered. Just the
memory of a girl I miss not knowing. The appendage of Michael isn’t so heavy. He
sits by us in light we cannot see. Dad and mom talk into the night, about the
kind of love I could only feign. Like sleeping and inconsistent dreams I drift
from one thought to the next. Like hearts slowing down after busy days. Mine
stills. Rests.
I close my eyes and try to speak. I don’t want to believe I’ve also forgotten to
speak the words that reside in our family encyclopedia. I browse through once
more and find new words to carry with me (aliens abductions cancer clones
conspiracy fate love trust). I rest in the words, knowing they knew the full
meaning, even if I never could.
THE END
Author’s Notes: One of my favorite albums is by an obscure early nineties band,
called James. The album, Laid, is great and one of the songs I’ve always loved
is ‘One of the Three’. I never knew what it was about so I felt drawn to write
my own story. I hope you liked it, and if curiosity strikes you, here are the
lyrics. First, though, special thanX to my two best friends, Shawen A. Greer and
Tara W. I’m the luckiest girl alive.
James, ‘One of the Three’
You were one,
One of the three.
One in three must find some peace.
You were one,
One of the three.
I need truth before belief.
O well,
You just knew they’d come for you
So it was suicide,
Suicide.
O well,
Now you got just what you want,
I hope you’re satisfied.
One of the three,
You were one of the three.
One in three must find some peace.
You were one,
One of the three.
I need proof before belief.
O well,
I guess you’re not to blame
For what they’ve done to me in your name.
O well,
It’s a shame you got so famous for a sacrifice.
One of the three,
You were one, one of the three.
On in three must find some peace.
You were one, one of the three.
I need proof before belief.
You send forth your lamb to the slaughter
You send forth your lamb to the slaughter
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