A Hero’s Rest

After a long (unspecified period of time) battling gods, horrific monsters, and fanatical humans bent on destroying the world, I and the (surviving) defenders are being bussed home. We pass the fields that are the outer skirts of our civilized territory and I watch the laborers absentmindedly.

There is high unemployment here, and lots of inefficient, labor intensive work plans to keep them occupied. Either you participate, or you are “removed from society”. As bad as the work plans are, the alternative is worse. So, there are laborers in grey uniforms and wide straw hats, tending to vast fields of wild grass, with only a scythe to cut, and a rake to gather, and a handbasket to take away the trimmings.

They break their morose rhythm long enough to wave at us. My fellow heroes look at them with disgust. “Worthless dogs!” “Lazy fucks.” “Leeches! They do nothing and get paid while we suffer so much shit and we are supposed to smile at them?” “Don’t worry about it, bruh. They’ll pay us tonight, know what I mean?”

Gods, I can’t stand my fellow Heroes. But I can’t get reassigned. My power is too rare, they said. There is none that can replace me, they said. The lower classes look up to me, they said. Makes me feel like I’m part of the very chains that bind them, and me.

The bus comes to a unscheduled stop. The door opens and our slave driver overseer comes on board. “Last assignment of the day!” Oh no. Not public relations please! “Public Relations!” We all groan. “The Work Plan participants need to be reminded of their vital role to the community! You are to mingle among them, yes as dirty and bruised as you are! By showing yourself as coming to them for relief, they will have a sense of importance and resume the scheduled pace.”

Bread and circuses. Gotcha.

“Hey, Overseer! What if they want to help relieve… other things?” The men all snicker. I and the only other woman on the team keep a straight face. We know what they mean. “The Agency of Morals and Ethics better not get a complaint. So make sure you fuck them to satisfaction.” The Overseer’s response was matter of fact. The ‘heroes’ high-fived each other with adolescent glee.

We disembark and are greeted by a crowd of strangely eager participants. They are clamoring for our autograph and to get a picture taken with them. I know why they are so enthused. Each autograph can be turned in for a full plate of food. Each picture is worth a quarter of a liter of 3% beer. They turn their memories over to the state, so the state can make propaganda out of it. They turn their memories over to the state, so they can eat another day, and forget the few memories they have left.

We are at a Work Plan market. The Overseer strongly implied we should be seen eating something here. After all, we’re superhuman heroes! Surely our stomachs can handle a few million extra microbes. I grew up on Work Plan food, I know how to eat here. Most of the heroes were upper middle class throwaway children. They still have the palate of the unaffordable. As heroes, our food rations are beautiful to look at, and lovely to taste.

Welcome to reality, motherfuckers.

I quickly separate from the other heroes and lose myself in the market. Well, lose sight of the other heroes. The state is two-faced about my hero status. On the one hand, how did a minority female such as myself develop such superhuman abilities? It wasn’t supposed to be possible. If I could do it, could others? My existence casts doubts on the rigid social hierarchy (read: caste system) imposed by the state.

Until the state realized I was the Local Girl Done Good. My image is all but hidden in the upper echelons. But here, among the Work Plan, among the ghettos, among the institutionally illiterate, I am paraded as an example of the Loyal Citizen, and You Can Be Too!

It makes me sick. But I know no way to escape. Nothing short of revolution will overthrow the ruling class. Until then, they throw crumbs at the dogs by their feet and call it Bread and Circuses.

Hiding in the shadows, my favorite power. The other heroes call it cowardice. I call it prudence. Not every battle is best fought head on. Not every attack must be made from the front. I watch the people go to and fro before me. They are all the same. Grey uniform. Straw hat. Dead face. This shit has to change.

“Ah!” An overburdened table collapses, dumping the pile of rotting fruit on a passerby. The fruit vendor starts bitching at him, complaining about the fruit that will be damaged beyond salvaging and how she will have to pay for the loss of product out of her income. The table itself is heavy, and appears to have caught the man by the leg. The amount of sewage fruit is also substantial. At least a fifty pound weight caught him in the back as he fell. No one stops to help. No one notices he is feebly struggling. No one sees. He (and I) are surrounded by at least 14 people.

Fuck all about this.

This shit has got to change.

Wildfires start with the smallest of sparks.

I leave the comfort of the shadows and am recognized immediately. Cries rise up around me. People start demanding asking for an autograph. I ignore them all. I go straight to the pile of fruit, glaring fiercely at the vendor who is still just standing there bitching at the fallen man, and start pulling fruit off of him.

She leans forward to see what I am doing, bitching at me now for further ruining the fruit, and places her weight on the tipped table. A weak cry filters up through the fruit.

“Bitch! Get the fuck off the table! You’re killing him!” I push her back, a little too harsh, I suppose. Everyone around me stops in shock. I continue digging the man out, but the spark has lit me within. I’m burning in rage. “This man is suffocating under this shit, and you’re worried about eating tonight! There are plenty rats running around here, don’t you give me that speech.” I’m starting to cry, as I know I’m complicit in the very attitude I’m railing against. “We’re nothing to them. Not a god damn thing. We are only tolerated so they can compare themselves against us and call themselves blessed. The bastards have manipulated us into this and they manipulate us even now without having to be present!”

I find a hand. It is limp. I start clearing away from the arm, trying to reach the face. The hand twitches, then grabs my arm fiercely.

“They tell us to be a good citizen and to do as we are told. And we do! Because we don’t know any better! They tell us the old deserves to die and the weak are useless. And we let them die, because we don’t know any better! They pitch us against each other, like dogs, and we bite and claw and rend and bleed, because we don’t know any better! And when someone comes down, and tells us we CAN do better, we turn on them.” I found his face. Too late. The weakened hand drops. I can feel his body cooling. Rotten fruit had clogged his mouth and nose.

I’m crying. “We turn on them, because we are more afraid of what we might do to ourselves, than what we are doing to ourselves already.” The crowd around me is a solid wall of silent people. No one is taking pictures. They know better. I’m breaking from the script. Any pictures would disappear. Anyone speaking of this would disappear.

I’m going to disappear.

“Sure, there are worse things we could do. But, there are also better. And we won’t know, until we try. And we won’t try, because those above us tell us we can’t. And we know they are lying, but we are too secure in our chains to break them.”

I sat back on my heels and started weeping. Small tears turned to great sobs. Not just for the dead man. But for myself. For the family that I had been told would benefit if I became a Hero, only to find they were torn apart and assigned even worse assignments to keep them from me. For the countless rapes the other Heroes were committing now, that were sanctioned by the state because it kept them under control. For the multitude of dead souls in living bodies that surrounded me. For myself, not being able to strike a large enough spark that would cause a fire great enough to burn the lofty penthouses of the state.

If I could purge the world, I would.

The silence becomes intolerable. The Overseer has found me. A not so gentle hand is placed on my shoulder. “Come on. You’ve fought so hard today for us all. It’s time to rest.” I know he is speaking softly for the benefit of the audience. But I know the meaning of his words. Heroes fight, until they die, or until they have earned their rest. To the majority of the populace, “rest” = retirement.

I know where Heroes go to “rest”. I will not become another faceless medical experiment.

I hear other Heroes running to me. I’m ruining their moment, by having attention focused on me. I know they will use this opportunity to take out their hatred on me, and if other Work Plan participants get injured, well… lazy fucks shouldn’t have been here. If they had Productive Employment, they wouldn’t be in the way, am I right?

I look over, and see a grey uniform, a straw hat, and a dead face. But in that face, are eyes. In those eyes, is a spark. A fiercely burning, slow smoldering, unquenchable spark.

My death will not be in vain, after all.

When I became a Hero, I had to tell the state the full extent of my powers, including limitations. “To better place me in a compatible unit.”, they said. Bullshit. To know how to take me down. Indeed, the Heroes that are trying to push their way through the solidifying crowd specialize in just that.

But the crowd isn’t letting them pass.

They know.

All around me, I see the flickers of sparks. Some, I know, will die out. But some… won’t. There will be no official report of this event. But the story will be told.

I may die.

The fire I have lit, will not.

I never did tell the state all of my powers. Nor did I tell them of the ability I accidentally discovered during a battle where I should have died. Nor did I tell them of the extent I have honed it.

I smile, to myself, as the two Heroes charged with my “nullification” finally make it to me. I am surrounded by them and the Overseer. The crowd, knowing instinctively what is going to happen next, has backed away, giving us space.

Giving me enough room to do what I want to do, without taking any of them with me.

I smile, as if in defeat, and look up at the Overseer. “Yes. It’s been a long week. This man’s death was just too much for me. I need to rest.” The Overseer, not expecting such… submission… is quick to take control of the situation. He looks up at the two Heroes, who are looking at him in askance.

They never see the shadow portal I’ve opened under us. It is only when the shades of the land of the dead have reached up and grabbed them by their legs that they realize the danger they are in.

The Hungry Dead. The Angry Dead. The Vengeful Dead.

I surrender to them. They who had given me my powers so long ago when I died as a child. They who had held me in between life and death and sent me back to life with the spark I had finally succeeded in passing on. They who had already embraced my family and my siblings and all the people I knew before I became a Hero. They who had already embraced the fallen man I had tried to save.

The fallen man’s shade was the first to grab hold of me. He took my hands in his own, and looked softly at me. I could feel him thanking me for trying to save him. “It’s time to rest.” Other shades reached up through the portal and embraced me gently. They lowered me through, as if I were aloft on a pallet of darkness.

The Overseer and the two Heroes didn’t fare such gentle treatment. As they tried to jump away, they had flesh ripped off their legs. They fell onto the solid ground and cried for help. They reached for the Work Plan crowd, crying out for salvation. The crowd looked at each other, and stood still. Some were chuckling. Some were horrified. They all looked the same, however. Grey uniform. Straw hat. Dead face. Sparked eyes.

The shades pulled them into the underworld, still living, though badly wounded. I wondered if they would survive, never have tasted death before. Their screams were deafening. I wondered how the state would try to spin this in their propaganda. I found I didn’t care. The embrace of the dead was affecting me. The concerns of life were slipping away.

The portal closed, sealing me and the other three in the realm of the dead. At once, I stopped hearing their screams. I had flashes of my childhood. Of the culvert. Of the moment I died the first time.

The fallen man suddenly appeared before me. No longer thin, no longer bruised. He looked quite healthy. He holds his hand out to me. “Come on, we’re waiting for you.” I took his hand, and as he pulled me deeper into the realm of the dead, my awareness faded until it merged with the darkness that surrounded me.

Make of that, what you may.