Maybe we eat good tonight?
“Yes Carrion, we eat good tonight.”
We thank the Lord these days have been dry. Just like most people, we do not chose to walk the sewers when it’s wet. When it becomes wet, we have trouble to looksee what is below our feet and where we step. If we are not careful, our feet can get infectious when the rain washes in some sharp things and we step on it. Sharp, foreign things that did not come from Homepipe, but things washed up from the outside towns.
Oftentimes, the sewers beside Homepipe is a dangerous place. Seymor taught me the words to describe it. Muggy, damp, feculent. Seymor taught me many new words, taught me to speak well.
Sometime last time, I stepped on a sharp metal and my right foot had become swollen, painful and Seymor had to bite on my foot to release the hot pushing pain. When Seymor first took me in, it took us some-many sleeps for Seymor to teach me how to navigate through the sewer. Nowadays, I walked the sewers like second Homepipe. First, we start from the big grey towers by the empty train station. Then, we walk, straight, all the way through the big pipe, walk for maybe when the sun is high up in the sky, just about the middle, and we will get close to the beach. Seymor always checked his watch and kept time for me because he hasn't found the time to teach me about, well, time, yet. Seymor always tell me "Leave the counting to me, just remember to be back home when the sun is out". That is why the sun and moon are my bestfriend timetellers.
Seymor tells me, he say the big grey towers used to be called something like “The Marinar”. He says it be where rich people stayed before everything went to shit. Oftentimes, I find myself daydreaming what kind of clothes I would wear and food I would eat if I lived in The Marinar when it was still tall and shiny in the Golden Days. Some days, I wore a red and yellow bathrobe, standing by the balcony of one of the units, looking down on the Homepipe folk. I would eat fruit like apples, oranges or watermelons like one of those rich people Homepipe folks love to gossip about. Maybe sometimes, I wore a hat with colourful feathers all around it. Maybe one day I will be rich and then I will travel myself out and discover outsidetowns and then I will visit the biggest and most famous hat shops in Xingu and tell them "One of your best hats please."
Lucky for us, the grey towersare not so far away from Homepipe, so it was easy for us to work these hunting-collecting contactjobs people offered to us. But times are now difficult. Since the last full moon, big jobs came in less and less. Seymor tell me it's because of the bigger corporations up at the Redhill taking out jobs and he spits when he talks about this, but deep down, I know he is just hoping for more jobs from anybody they sent from the outside towns. Nowadays, money came by slow—we rarely ate good no more. But when jobs come, we always did the job straight away. Sometimes it’s not too hard, like today’s. Just a simple job to get some vitalis down by the beach. Other days, we may not be so lucky for such easy job.
We walked for a little bit, and then a little more, and I could see Seymor’s face changing as we got closer to the beach. His face became squished up, like he had tasted a rotten fruit. “Fuckin’ hate the beach. Remember last time we were there? Gah!” He mumbled to himself.
Seymor love to tell me stories, especially stories of when Seymor was a youngin’. He will say “When I was a youngin’, the beach was full of life. From the shimmering endless azure across the white sandy beach, people—human beings, both young and old would be get together and have a good time.”
Sometimes I don’t understand all the words Seymor says but slowly, I learn from him. After all, I always love to listen to stories Seymor tell me so it’s not a problem. And out of all the storytellers near Homepipe, Seymor told the most realistic stories.
“Just a little bit further up here Carrion. Be wary—lest you’d upset the alley cats”.
Seymor tell me always be careful of alley cats at the beach. Many moons ago, we were attacked and scritch-scratched by a gang of alley cats when we got too close to the beach to pick up vitalis plants. It was just another day like today. The alley cats also love to eat the vitalis plants. That’s why Seymor tell me “Don’t get greedy Carrion. Pick what you can find and once you start to feel your feet sink into sand, turn back–cause that means you’ve gone too far.”
Me and Seymor have been picking vitalis plants for many moons now. Seymor had taught me that vitalis plants grow around sewer sides when we are near to the beach but there are many more vitalis plants when get closer to the beach. But Seymor always remind Carrion, beach is off limits without him. Out of bounds. No go zone. Danger–beware of alley cats.
Seymor will tell me story of alley cats when he was a youngin’. He will say “The alley cats were once docile, good-natured cats that roamed the food hawker centres of the beach. They would meow and gracefully brush their cheeks against the legs of the human beings who were sitting at the tables having their meals. Human beings, there was a time where there were still a few good ones, like yourself. They would see the cats and offer them a shared portion of their meals—fried chicken wings or grilled squid. Humans and cats were once friends. Can you believe that? Alley cats, domesticated by someone like, you!” Seymor did a laugh of air.
You lie, I would always tell him. How can alley cats and humans be friends? Nowadays, we see people going out on big hunts, like us, hunting down alley cats to make food. Alley cats nowdays are so big. How can they navigate through the legs of human beings? I make fun of Seymor for telling such lies, but he always insisted that is the truth.
Seymor, looking annoyed, he grunt “You think I lie? Nah. I have sauntered these lands since human beings were still trekking the Earth for food. When the first breath of wind graced my inner lungs, the heavens above us were still halcyon. The clouds – diaphanous. Long before you were brought to us, the men, women and children roamed the lands with such merriment and glee. No longer do I hear joy. No longer do I see beguilement within human beings. All I see are men, women and children, depressed, absorbed in consumerism, slaves to the greedy consortia. Their humanity–stripped. Their innocence—corrupted. Their mirth—desolate.”
Seymor often gets riled up when he starts talking about what he calls ‘The Blackout’. He will say “You’re lucky you don’t remember” and he will say “Let’s focus on the future”. I think he just does this to try and forget. He tells me it is his way of making himself feel better, and not feel emotions like human beings nowadays.
“Ah, why does it matter, you couldn’t understand it anyways.” Seymor sighed.
When we walk the sewers, we always walk the same path. It is a straight path on a wide pipe, but the safest way. As we walk more towards the beach, the pipe holes along the sewer sides get bigger, much bigger than the ones near Homepipe. On the sides of these pipes, there are more pipe holes leading to other pipes. We could always see into these holes and into these other pipes, but we does not know where it goes. One time, I asked Seymor and he said it just led to other sewers. Sometimes, I hear sounds from these holes. Sometimes, I hear the sounds made from when someone is being hurt. Seymor tell me “Don’t worry, it’s nothing. Probably just age causing the pipes to crack and creak and break apart.” I tell him age no make rock scream and shout and cry. Seymor never tell me more after that. I guessed not many people wanted to make Homepipe near beach.
I think we had walked for more than a few hours because now my stomach has started to make rumble noises, my mouth feels salty and dry, and the bottom of my feet are sore. But this is also a sign that we are usually close by to where we needed to be to pick vitalis plant.
“The business of vitalis is the business of medicine.” Seymor told me when we first started walking the sewers. Seymor has a friend. His name is Hansheng. I’ve met him a few times but never really spoken to Hansheng. He always looks at me with angry eyes and I think he does not like me. One time, I got to close to him, and he push me with his foot. He was wearing a hard shell shoe over his foot and it had made my shoulder hurt for a few days.
One way to vitalis and one way back to homepipe. When we arrived home, Hansheng was at the front of the homepipe entrance. He tells in a slow and quiet voice “What’s the haul for today?” Seymor reply “About two kilos, sir.” Hansheng looked at me. His eyes go up and down, made me feel shy, not know why. Hansheng looked back at Seymor. He tells “The market rate, as you know, has been going for fifty dollars per hundred grams.” Hansheng rubbed his chin with his fingers. His arms, skinny, coming out through his black dress. He looked at me again, eyes small, and then away quickly.
Hansheng was just another garden city sourcer, as Seymor calls them. Hansheng would go around bothering the poor Homepipe folk, sourcing for herb pickers and folks who used to be big game hunters and ask us to do jobs for him. It depends. Sometimes, he will need some herbs and other times, he may need some meat. Seymor and I work for people like him. We don’t really like them as most of the time, Seymor tell me that they get more money when they sell it to their buyers than when they buy from us. Upsell Seymor calls it. He usually spat when he said the word upsell. “It’s a disgusting practice.” He would say. But that’s the only way we can make money—by selling to sourcers. Because the people that bought from him, they would never meet people like us—Homepipe folks. I have never met one of the normal garden people myself, but I’d like to think that they be slim, tall and white. Not like us folk down here at Homepipe—near sewer, near beach. Homepipe people all looked the same. All had dirty hands and feet—mix of grey, brown and black. Hansheng is one of the few lower garden people, Seymor would tell me, that would come down to sewer and homepipe to interact with us. He laughs sometimes at this fact because it means that even the garden people didn’t really like Hansheng.
“What the… anyhow! Only last Thursday you told us it was seventy dollars per hundred grams. What sort of business are you running here?” Seymor was getting angry. His voice loudened, and his face became squashed again like when he thought of alley cats and the beach.
Seymor points a finger at Hansheng and then puts his hand back by his side quickly. Seymor tells me I should go sit inside the housepipe while he debate for a good price with Hansheng and I go. I normally listen to what Seymor tells me because he has kept me safe all my life I can remember. I don’t remember what my life was like before The Blackout. But deep down, I want to know. I have asked Seymor but he doesn’t really want to talk about it. Sometimes, I get curious but never too annoyed. After all, Seymor tells me that he got my back, and I trust him.
“That fucking cheebai is scamming us, and now he wants to insult me? To my face?” Seymor bangs through the main door and comes into homepipe unit. I just stand still. “Where’s my fucking..” Seymor is banging through the standing wooden cupboard behind our dining table, breathing hard while he was at it. Taking a peek outside, I caught a glimpse of Hansheng rubbing the leaves of the vitalis plant together. Then, Hansheng shout again into our homepipe unit “Forget it, this is not the quality I’m looking for. Both of you are obviously incapable of performing even the simple task of picking flowers.”
Seymor found what he was looking for and went out main door of homepipe. “So you don’t want to buy?” I can hear him shouting. “Fine!” And then I heard a loud bang. I went out to have a look and saw Hansheng on the floor, outside of homepipe, near the sewer main hole entrance and he looked like he was bleeding from near the knee. In about one breath, he started to scream. When he could stop screaming, he looked at us and shouted “What is wrong with you?!” And I didn’t know what was wrong with what happened. It has been a long day and I could tell that Seymor was as tired as I was and our feet hurt and we didn’t have any food the whole day. I looked at Seymor and I could see he was holding our homemade pistolgun. He was so tired that you could see the sweat drip from his headhair, down his right shoulder all the way down to his claws.
I looked at Hansheng and then looked at Seymor. I asked Seymor “We eating good tonight?” Seymor didn’t look back at me. He kept staring at Hansheng who was taking in deep breaths now—not screaming but rocking back and fourth while his hands gripped tightly onto where the bullet wound along his shin, just under his knee would be. “I told ya boy, we will eat good tonight. I wasn’t wrong, was I?" Seymor spat on the floor and let out a dry heaving cough. "I guess, menu’s changed is all.” Yes, I thought to myself, menu’s changed. I looked at Hansheng, who started to cry while he rolled onto his back.
Hansheng's body started to shake as my face got closer to his. “What are you doing?” The pathetic man on the floor cried in a broken voice. I close my eyes a little and squished my face together. "Did you not hear?" I glanced up at Seymor, who just nodded his head. "I was getting my dinner, bozo!" Emphasising on Bozo. I lifted my knee to my chest and Hansheng saw this. "No, what are you doing, please." He begged. And with one swift motion, just like metal scrap collectors would crush empty drink cans, I stomped on Hansheng's face. Once, twice, then until he stopped gargling the body liquids that was coming out from him. As Hangsheng curled up on the dirt covered homepipe floor, he coughed his last mouthfuls.
The gargling slows down. He chokes. A few more coughs. Silence.
Seymor scratches his eyebrow, inspecting the last few slow twitching pulses.
Seymor took a slow, deep breath in, held it in for about two seconds and then breathed out. "Mhmm, go wash the coriander." He instructed. "And start the fire for me."
