We Dream In Ones and Zeros: An Anthology

The Poison We Breathe

It was one of those macaques, its body lying there in a shadowy corner, on the same filthy ground as me, only a couple of feet away, just out of reach.

At first, I thought it was dead, because no sane macaque would ever risk coming down alone to ground level like that.

But then I saw that it was moving, its small body tensing up and convulsing, over and over, though its neck and long limbs stayed locked up, as if frozen in place, drool dripping down its open mouth, wetting its matted fur and pooling on the ground beneath it.

It was an awful sight, and I meant to look away, because the last thing I wanted right then was to start spilling out the nothing that was left in my stomach. But then, a particularly violent convulsion knocked the macaque to its side, forcing it to face me with its wide, dilated eyes.

I couldn't look away.

I don't know why, but there was something about that stare that held me there, something wild and almost desperate that I couldn't let myself look away from.

So, I just stayed there, hand outstretched because that was all my battered body could do through the excruciating pain.

In the oppressing and cold silence of the alley, I forced my hoarse voice to hum the broken pieces of a song that I barely remembered from my nonexistent childhood, while I watched the life slowly and painfully drain from those big, yellow eyes.

I'd seen a lot of dead animals on the streets before. Run over, shot, mangled, disfigured, kicked to a bloody death, poisoned, you name it.

But I'd never seen one die in front of me like that before.

It was so small...

I thought I didn't have any tears left in me that day, or any other day for that matter. But I did cry then. I cried more than I ever have. Not for me, not for the hundred million things that had gone wrong in my life, not for the horrible thing that had just happened to me, or the other even worse things that happen to the people around me all the time.

I cried for that random, little monkey, that died all alone and scared in that dark, dingy alleyway, not knowing or understanding how and why, ignorant of the poison that it had been consuming every day until it became too much for its body to handle.

It was so small though.

So very, very small...

*

The poison we spill,

is the poison we breathe.

All the dancers take it.

The strychnine that is used for all those street rats and macaques is artificial, produced and purified in some factory, then mixed into those baits, scattered across every hole and corner of the Pit.

Purified strychnine is dangerous though, and much too expensive anyway. So the dancers get it directly from the source, which are these flat, woody-looking seeds of a plant called Kupilu.

You'd think something poisonous like that would only be sold in the ilegal markets, next to all the other million drugs and flavors of toxins that they trade in. But I've seen even old ladies sell Kupilu, right there, somewhere between the genetically modified house plants and the bags of colorful spices.

It's everywhere. It's always been everywhere, really. I just never paid it any attention. I was looking, but not seeing.

But now I see it, all the time. I see the sellers crush the seeds into a fine powder. I see the dancers backstage, sneaking a tiny bit of it into their own drinks or mixing it in with the usual cheap drugs, if they have any to spare.