I wake to the sound of talking. Has he been chatting the whole time? How long did I drift off?
"I'm from the southern side of the city." The boy says.
"Oh?" I ask.
"Where are you from?"
"I..." I think for a second. That place really isn't my home anymore. "I don't remember." I finally decide on.
The boy's shock is clear in the long silence he takes. "How long have you been here?"
"I think... seven days." I say. "Or six. Who knows?"
"And you can't re—"
"I don't want to." I say. "I don't want to say. It isn't important. Can we talk about anything else?"
He quiets again for a short time.
"Alright. Have you figured any good way for escape?"
"For what now?"
"Surely the Fos must come by sometimes." He says. "A girl's been here two times already today. She walks to the center of the arena, draws a couple of illegible symbols in the dust, and walks over to your cell."
"Oh? A girl now?" I say.
Poppy. Poppy! What on God's earth has Poppy been doing by my cell twice already today? While I've been sleeping of all things! Why do the angels watch us as we sleep?
"I thought maybe I could reach through the bars, grab her leg or trip her if only she would come near me. She won't though. She only goes near you. Maybe you could try to strike her when she least expects it. Pretend to be asleep then strike the savage on the head!" He yells. I can hear him jumping up and down. "There's no locks on these cells! It's maddening! How on earth do they lock us away?"
"I... couldn't strike her..." I say.
"Why?" He asks.
"Because..." Poppy. Coming by my cell as I sleep! An angel watching a devil drift off through his nightmares. Who would have thought! Maybe I will pretend to sleep so that if Poppy comes by again she'll find me seeming to dream, only to smile at her wide awake suddenly in the broad of daylight. What a lovely surprise it would be for her to know that I care even now, with the horizon of death only hours away. ...because I love her?
"Why?" The boy demands, louder and more persistent. He reminds me of myself once.
"...Because she never comes close enough to the bars." I respond with a lie, almost feeling her leg in my hand. I grabbed her and the way she looked at me told me all I needed to know. I can almost taste her. She's so close now. "I wish she would."
And that time, it's the truth.
YOU ARE READING
Tatemae
Fantasy"Death, I think I could handle. It's the waiting that kills me." Humanity is no more. Struggling out of the rubble are the Lumière and the Fos, two races whose only edible source of food is the hearts of one another, and no matter how much they eat...
