Through dreary rain on a gray Babylon street, two figures walk in silence. Sparkling mylar protects them from the weather and obscures their faces. They turn in at a storefront clinic of plate glass and steel marked by a red cross and white block letters: Wholeness Health Services, Inc. In a pristine white jump-suit, the clerk behind the counter takes their money and shepherds them through paperwork with cool efficiency.
The couple turns to face one another. The taller figure, a man, pushes back his sister's hood and kisses her. She leaves, slipping through a door marked with a symbol that brings a smile to her brother's face : a black hexagon with a round hold in the center, a nut. He's been here many times and it always makes him smile to think, possibly, hopefully, someone at WHSI had a sense of humor when they chose that symbol. He exits through a similar door marked by the silhouette of a bolt.
He crosses paths with a man just leaving the sterile men's dressing area.
"Frank!" The man's voice is warm and friendly.
"Charles," Frank responds. "Ready for a day off? How are things at home?"
"Homely," Charles smiles, "How were things in the world?"
"Worldly."
They both chuckle as they move on. Alone, Frank shakes off his wet cloak and drops it into a disposal unit. Rubberized boots, jump-suit (a powder blue copy of the clerk's and twin of the one Charles wore), and simple underclothes follow likewise. Naked and still, he waits at the exit door for a red light to change. He knows behind the door an incinerator is cooly burning away every molecule of air that had entered the world when Charles came, vaporizing bits of Charles himself and their common home.
The red light changes to green and he steps through. In this enameled room the only features are the nearly invisible doors and his naked sister whose living breath is a balm. He holds the last exit door for her.
Rather than one more room, they step through a portal into the outdoors with dirt underfoot, leaves overhead and a fresh mountain breeze that brings goosebumps and the rush of adrenaline to stimulus-starved bodies. "Oh," his sister gasps, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
"Yes." He smiles and pauses to absorb the sound of birdsong like soil absorbs rain. "It's like being born again."
"Very funny," she laughs, "and true. I've got to check on Esther. See you at supper."
He watches her skip away with the suspicion she will burst into dancing at each step, then he follows into the hut directly in their path. A brightly printed curtain acts as a doorway. Above the door a handmade wooden sign reads, in ragged letters of yellow and orange, blue and green:
HARMONY HOME LEPER COLONY
WELCOME
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