The door of the inn hung open. This was not right. His brother never forgot to close and lock the door. Nerie inspected the lock, he looked over every inch of the door. The door was not broken. He stepped inside. Nerie’s body went cold, his flesh tightened. A mess of blood came from the storeroom. Its door was closed. He approached the horror before him; he could not avoid the crimson pool. His sandals left prints in it. Nerie flipped the lock and opened the door. His brother gazed at him from the red-soaked floor. Nerie stuttered, his brother’s name tripping over his lips. The young man on the floor stared into nothing, into oblivion, eternity. His mouth hung open, many of his teeth were missing. Nerie said his brother’s name, he said his brother’s name. At some point he found himself on the floor beside his brother, kneeling over him, his palm on cold skin. Again, he said his brother’s name. It was all he said—he did not know how many times.
***
Smelling the rusted aroma of blood on the wind, the bear emerged from the evergreens. Revolving blue and red lights flashed on his mussed brown fur. He shuffled up the incline and paused at the top. Cars sporadically sped past on the highway; the bear making soft snorts at them. He sniffed the body of the dead state trooper on the ground and nudged him with his great paw. He sunk his teeth into the man’s neck. The bear dragged him down the incline and into the waiting evergreens.
***
People ask me, they say, ‘Jon, how do you drive so good? You never make a mistake. So many people make mistakes,’ and that’s okay, I drive fast because I can. And now I’m not driving, and, do you want to know? I’ll tell you a little secret—I’m not very happy to be pulled over. They treat me so unfair, they do, they really do. And now here comes the state trooper approaching my car. Can you believe this? This is really not a good guy, you can just tell—he isn’t going to be a movie star. I know many cops who love me, and—can I say it? Okay, some people say no, but I’ll say it—these are great looking guys, okay? These guys could star in movies. Women love these guys. Huge guys—some of these guys you should see in the shower—it’s like, ‘What’s going on here?’ And they treat me very well and that’s a good thing. This guy approaching the car—I don’t think that’s very fair. I’m not putting my window down. He is really not a good looking guy. He’s got sunglasses on, maybe he’s hiding something, I don’t know, because it’s late, you know, and who wears sunglasses at night? I’ve never seen that, I don’t know anyone who does that. The sun went down I don’t know how many hours ago, so it’s been night for a while now, and we love the night, don’t we? We love it, we really do. I have nothing to hide. This guy is knocking on my window, so okay, I’ll roll it down. I roll it down slowly though, you know, I can’t make it entirely easy for him. He starts talking and, oh my god, his breath is really not good. I have great breath—you know, you’re talking to people all day, you don’t want them walking away, going, ‘What the heck? I can’t talk to that guy, he’s killin me!’ So, I keep my breath fresh, I brush before bed, you know. My dentist, this is a great guy, he tells me he’s never seen teeth like mine. He says I’m going to put him out of business, you know, because I go in for a cleaning and he’s got nothing to clean. It’s important, you want people to like how your breath smells. Let me tell you, I have no problem there. Someone once told me I smell too good, and I don’t know about that, but okay, they say to me, ‘Jon, I’ve smelled a lot of people and you smell the best. God wants to smell like you for Christ’s sake!’ Okay, well, that’s good to hear, but I don’t know. This guy, he’s saying my car smells like a dead body, and I don’t think that’s right. I start telling him, listen, it’s not a dead body, why would I need a dead body? I’m not nuts, okay? You must be smelling the garum, I tell him, because, I’ll be honest, I have a couple barrels of the stuff, and frankly, I don’t think that’s illegal, now is it? The state trooper, he’s raising his voice now. I’m barely listening to him, let’s be honest here. He doesn’t have much to say, guys like this, they talk a lot because people don’t listen to them. He’s probably got a wife at home, and we know she hates him—his kids hate him—she can’t wait for something bad to happen to this guy. If he has a son, he’s probably into stuff—well, it’s stuff that’s not very good, now is it? No, because he doesn’t listen to dad. Guys like this, people walk all over them. And they’re these little guys yelling up at us, they’re making a bunch of noise, but we don’t hear them, do we, folks? So, okay, I’ll give him what he wants. He wants me to listen to him, doesn’t he? We’ll do that for him, because I’m a good guy, even if someone isn’t very nice to me. I told him that, yes, I’m listening to you, okay? But you really need to calm down, you’re making a scene, let’s be honest. That’s not a very good look, is it? He asks me if I know how fast I was going, but really, he’s yelling, you know that. How fast I was going? Well, I don’t know, but, believe me, I know what I’m doing. I have it under control. I’m not gonna crash. I’ve never crashed, but that doesn’t matter to some people, does it? They’ll just say whatever they want—they’ll print it; they don’t like Jon Titor, and that’s okay, I’m used to people treating me unfairly. I tell the trooper that I wasn’t going fast, it wasn’t fast to me, maybe it was fast to you, I don’t know. I have no trouble with that kind of speed, you know, on the highway, really any road, okay? I’m saying this to this guy, and, I mean, he’s really not having it, which I’m not surprised by, honestly, because he’s never going to become anything, we know that, and probably he knows it too. He wants to have power over me, which we know he doesn’t have. He’ll probably be begging me for his life at the end of this. I have a plan, it’s a good plan. I mean, if he wants me to get out of the car, then I guess I will, what do I care? I wanted to get out of the car anyway, he didn’t need to tell me. It’s not a bad night, which, okay, I guess it’s not night yet, but we love the setting sun, don’t we, folks? This guy is nuts, if you can believe it. He wants to pat me down. Pat me down? Now, I don’t let anyone pat me down, which, if you know anything about me, that’s not happening, okay? I tell the trooper, you know, if you want to make this easier for both of us, you would just get back in your little car and go on your way, like, I mean, come on, what are you trying to prove? You’re not gonna prove anything to me, I don’t even care about you. I don’t worry about guys like this, believe me, I have much bigger things on my plate, okay, everyone knows this. This guy is a real whacko, I wanna ask him how he got this job, because someone made a very big mistake when they hired this guy, I mean, what the hell were they thinking? I would never hire a guy like this. He tries to be quick, thinking I don’t see him, because he wants to pat me down, you know? Of course I dodge him, I have to. I always have a gun, I knew I needed one, you know, after, well, what happened to me should never have occurred, it was a tragedy. He was disturbed, he was really disturbed, and really, I have the best people trying to take me out, okay? My shooter was much better than JFK’s, much better aim. But he got hit—JFK—he got hit and I didn’t, but okay, so I’m stronger maybe, who knows? And I blame people like David Muir—who is a very nasty man, okay? Very nasty to me—I blame people like him for trying to turn everyone against me, because, we know, David is not a very good person and he’s never treated me fairly. The trooper is shouting at me, and this guy is a real nut, he’s barking at me like a dog, because that’s what he is, a dog, an angry little dog. He’s saying I’m under arrest. He’s being so unfair to me. I easily get away from him because, well, I’m much faster than him, which isn’t saying much because this guy is really not an athlete, he’d never be able to catch me, believe me. He’s trying to chase me around my car, but I catch him, I catch him so good, right when he’s not expecting it. I’m also much stronger than him because, let’s be frank, he’s weak, he’s a weak man. My arms, my very powerful arms, they’re wrapped around him, and he’s struggling, he wants to escape but he can’t. No, he can’t. He’ll only get out of my arms when I let him, if I let him, which I don’t have to if I don’t want to, but they won’t tell you that, will they, folks? They’ll say, ‘Mr. Titor can’t be trusted, he’s a bad guy,’ but we don’t believe them, do we, folks? So, okay, I open my arms, and he drops to the ground like nothing I’ve ever seen, like a sack of potatoes, he really falls hard, maybe because he’s a weak man, I don’t know. And there he goes, one hand and then, well, both hands, they’re searching for his gun. But, it’s not in its holster, is it, folks? No, he can’t seem to find it, his gun, and, let’s be honest, it’s really not a good thing to lose. But he lost it. Because that’s the kind of guy he is, a guy who’s lost it. It’s really not looking good for him, the state trooper. But we love our law enforcement, we really do, because they’re doing all they can, even with everything that’s been taken from them, all the hoops they make them jump through just to do their jobs. And it’s really a shame. It’s sad, it’s really sad, how our law enforcement officers are being treated. So, I told him, okay, well, I have your gun, which you probably already guessed, maybe you guessed, I don’t know, I don’t think you’re really a very smart man, I mean, how can you be? I took the gun, your gun, I took it right off you, you had no idea I was doing it, but how could you? I’m too fast, I don’t expect you to be able to keep up with me, I really don’t. I told him, you know, you can’t keep up with me, there isn’t anything I do that, well, frankly, you could do better. You couldn’t. Not many people could. My doctor tells me, he says, ‘Jon, I’ve never seen someone with this kind of stamina, and I’ve seen a lot of people, believe me,’ and I guess he’s right, I mean, if he’s saying it then it must be accurate, I don’t know. I’m getting back in the car, and let me tell you, you have to see this car. It’s a beauty, let me tell you, it really is, because, you know, I needed a good car, you want your car to get you where you’re going, but it doesn’t hurt if it looks good too, okay? So, I start driving away, and the road feels so good under the car, you can’t find a smoother ride than this, you really can’t. Well okay, I look in the rearview mirror, not because I want to, but it’s there and I don’t mind looking in it, so I guess that’s fine. You’ve got the trooper’s car back there, and it’s got its lights still going, and they really are great lights. You have the blue light and it’s turning and it’s flashing. And right next to it, well, we all know, you have the red light, and that one is turning and flashing like it’s supposed to, and we love that, don’t we, folks? You have the two lights, the blue and red light, you have both, both of them on the police car, because that’s where they are. And, I’ll admit it, okay, well, I’m driving away fast, I’m going so fast, maybe too fast, but that’s okay, I told you, I have control, I have the best control, I won’t spin out, some people spin out, but I don’t and I won’t, I won’t spin out of control, it’s impossible. Some people, they really have it out for me, and they’ll tell you I’m spinning out of control, that’s what they say, but we know I’m not. I mean, look at me, I’m as smart as I’ve ever been, and actually, I’m smarter from what I’ve been told, and I guess I already knew that. I watched Good Will Hunting last night; have you seen this movie? There’s so much math in it, it’s so good, we love the math, and I can do that math—in the movie—I have no problem with that math. And the plot, it was pretty good, I have to tell you. Robin Williams, we miss Robin, don’t we, folks? It stars Matt Damon, who is a great actor but maybe not the best person. He’s never been very fair to me, but… do you want to know a little secret? They all love me, they love me. They come up to me at parties and wherever, saying things like, ‘Mr. Titor, you’re going to save this country, we just can’t say anything,’ and well, okay. I do really love that, you know? They call me Mr. Titor, they all do, because, well, maybe they’re thinking I can help them down the road somewhere, maybe they’ll need a pardon, but I don’t know. But they won’t show you that, will they? No, they want to pull off the biggest steal in history, but we won’t let them do that, will we? I love this sea of beautiful hats, beautiful red hats. I love the color red, I really do, it’s such a good color.
***
Tidore Barron, clothed in mixed linens of black and crimson, sipped from his cup of garum and gazed around the hazy inn, considering his predicament. The innkeeper’s brother approached Tidore at his table and offered to top off his garum.
‘No, I think I have enough for now,’ Tidore told the young man. ‘This garum is a great drink, it really is, it’s so good. I think you could bottle and sell this, I really do. It tastes like the ocean. People ask me, they say, “Tidore, how can you drink that?” Well, I don’t know, but I like it.’
Tidore Barron’s handle on Etruscan was passable but it made his being an outsider obvious to any real Etruscan, along with his strange hair color, a mixture of electric blonde, orange, and a new color that could not be described. He combed the hair forward from the back of his head and patted down the sides. Among all the other men of the land who wore their dark hair in short curls or cropped it close to their scalps, Tidore was offbeat and stood out. For the time he had been in this village on the hill, he liked to think he stood out, specifically to the fertile females.
‘Lots of women around here,’ he said to the innkeeper’s brother who was wiping clean a table nearby. Tidore sucked in air between his teeth. ‘They’re very good looking, okay? And believe me, I know about good looking women.’
The young man nodded and smiled, curtly.
Tidore was eyeing a woman sweeping near the doorway. The innkeeper had hired her a few days prior.
‘I like to watch her sweep,’ said Tidore. ‘I really do. I could watch her sweep all day, I really could, because it’s something, well, it’s something you don’t see enough of anymore.’
‘Arria is a great help here,’ the young man offered.
‘I moved on her and I failed,’ Tidore whispered. ‘I’ll admit it. I did try and fuck her.’
The young man shifted, awkwardly, glancing back at Arria sweeping by the door. ‘She is married,’ he told Tidore.
Tidore winced at that but shook it off. ‘And I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out broom shopping. She wanted to get a new broom. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice brooms.” I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn’t get there. And she’s married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she’s now got the big, phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.’
‘Tits?’ repeated the innkeeper’s brother. He didn’t know the word. Again, he looked back at Arria. She was standing, looking out the doorway, wiping sweat from her pale face with her sleeve. The day had been hotter than usual this time of year.
‘She still looks good,’ said Tidore. ‘Well, they like it when you tell them how good looking they are.’ He watched her silhouette in the afternoon sunlight before looking back at the young man. ‘Cutu, what do you think of my angel?’
‘You’re happy, I’m happy,’ replied the innkeeper’s brother.
‘Isn’t she beautiful?’ Tidore asked, hoping for more from the young man.
Cutu said, ‘To you, she’s beautiful. For me, there’s only my wife and son.’
Arria placed her broom behind the counter and approached the two men. ‘I’m going to take off now,’ she said to Cutu. ‘If that is okay with you? I’m feeling faint from the heat of the day.’
Cutu nodded and bid her goodbye. She glanced at Tidore Barron but said nothing. Tidore watched her go, his eyes looking her up and down. A moment passed.
Cutu was at Tidore’s table, wiping it clean.
Tidore gulped down the last of his garum. He reached into his pocket. ‘Cutu,’ he said.
The young man looked at him. Tidore leapt from his chair and tackled Cutu.
‘Why?’ Cutu screamed. Tidore scuttled over him and forced his knee into the young man’s spine. ‘Ah!’ shrieked Cutu. Tidore picked him up. He wrapped his arms around him. Cutu felt a coldness against his throat. He grabbed Tidore’s arm.
‘I trained myself how to use a knife,’ Tidore hissed in Cutu’s ear, inhaling sharply between clenched teeth. ‘I didn’t need to be trained. People tell me, “Tidore, we’ve never seen someone with a mind like yours.” And I think, Okay, that makes sense.’ He pressed the blade against the young man’s neck, breaking the skin.
‘Don’t kill me,’ Cutu gasped.
‘I would never do that,’ said Tidore. ‘People trust me and that’s good. But sometimes I think, Okay, well I need you to do something for me, and when I ask them for help, which I don’t need, but if I do tell someone to do something, well, it helps when people listen to you.’
‘What?’ Cutu was squirming in the large man’s grip.
‘I really don’t like when people can’t stay still. Believe me, it’s a big problem. We have some very good people looking into it.’ Tidore dug the knife deeper into Cutu’s flesh. ‘Now, whatever money you have—and it’s probably not a lot, I’m sorry to say—I want it all.’ He threw the young man down. Cutu landed on his hands and knees. Blood dripped onto the floor. He looked back at the strange towering man, holding a dagger at his side, his knuckles burning white.
‘A lot of people would try some funny business, but I think you’re smarter than that, Cutu.’ Tidore pointed the knife to the counter where Cutu served drinks. ‘Get the money.’
The young man pushed himself up and Tidore kicked his shin, knocking him down once more.
‘Believe me, I’d prefer if you crawled.’ Cutu glared at him. ‘Well, we can’t take any chances,’ Tidore laughed, and kicked the young man again. ‘We don’t have all day, now, do we? No, I don’t think so.’
Cutu crawled across the floor to the counter.
‘You can stand now,’ Tidore instructed him. ‘That would really be in the best interest of everyone.’
The young man braced his hand against the top of the counter and stood. Tidore tossed him an empty sack. ‘Put all the money in the bag. It’s really sad, actually, you have no money, really, hardly any. Oh, well. That’s not a bad bag, is it?’
Cutu filled the sack with coins and closed it with the drawstring. He slid it across the floor to Tidore. ‘Why are you robbing me?’ Cutu asked.
Tidore inhaled. ‘People think I rob them, they say, “Tidore, you’re taking all our money. We need that money, Tidore.” Let me tell you, it’s not a lot, they don’t have a lot of money. I wouldn’t consider it robbing people, I really wouldn’t. People will tell you it is—dishonest people, angry people—they say, “Tidore Barron is a bad guy.” I mean, do I really look like a bad guy?’
Cutu stared at him, confounded, perplexed.
‘How much garum do you have in stock?’ Tidore asked. ‘It’s a delicious drink.’
‘Two barrels.’
‘In the back?’
Cutu nodded.
Tidore pointed his blade at the door to the storeroom. ‘Well, let’s go. I’d love to see where you keep your stock of garum. You should see some of the places I’ve stored things, you wouldn’t believe, you’d say, “Tidore, I thought I had a big room for all my stuff, but wow, look at this!”’
The two men entered the backroom. It was windowless and dark. Tidore reached into his pocket and pulled out a black square. He held it up, illuminating the room. There were shelves of various items, sacks of grains on the floor, and the two barrels of that sumptuous garum. Cutu was staring at the glowing square in Tidore’s hand. Tidore held it in the young man’s face, blinding him to his surroundings. Cutu felt his body burning. He dropped to the floor, clutched his abdomen. Tidore’s light-square shined on him. Cutu looked at his hands. They were hot and red, smeared in wet blood. He collapsed in a heap at the foreign man’s feet. The glow left him and shined entirely on Tidore’s face. With his small thumbs, Tidore tapped the black square, again and again and again, for what seemed like forever to the innkeeper’s brother.
‘Blood,’ said Tidore. ‘So much blood. There is blood everywhere.’ He pulled back his foot and kicked Cutu in the face. Teeth scattered across the wooden floor into shadows. Cutu cried out and held his stomach and mouth.
Tidore crouched down, shining the light on the brutalized young man. ‘Let me tell you what I wrote,’ he said, ‘so you don’t have to read it yourself, which I guess you can’t, given when you live, but oh well.’ Tidore turned the square and looked into the light. Cutu stared up at his aggressor, washed in that white light, unlike any light he had ever known—Cutu thought it was an evil light, a light of unearthly despair, a death light. Tidore was speaking.
‘Are you listening, Cutu?’ he asked. ‘You’re usually a good listener, everyone says it. But you are pretty hurt, it doesn’t look good, let me tell you. There is so much blood, blood everywhere. I have never seen so much blood.’
Cutu was coughing up puddles of the stuff, the room reeked of rust.
‘Here’s what I wrote, Cutu—it makes you look not very good, but I wrote, “Cutu of Vatluna, you know him, not a good guy, was very rude to me. I’d say I’m sorry to see him turn up dead, it’s not what I wanted, but it happened. A terrible way to go, gutted like a fish and died like a dog, because that’s what he was, a dog, and in some ways, a fish. I have reached out to his wife, Velelia of Vatluna, not a very pretty woman, but I expressed my condolences.”’
Tidore lowered the black square of alien light, it shimmered on his boots, it glittered on the spreading flood of crimson. ‘So much blood,’ Tidore said again. ‘That’s your life force pouring out of you. It’s interesting.’ He dipped his pinky into the blood and brought it to his tongue. ‘That’s good, that’s how it should taste. You’ve got great blood, Cutu.’
Cutu’s vision was spinning and foggy; he could only ask… ‘Why?’
‘You know, it’s a very good question,’ replied the foreigner, the imposing mass kneeling over him, his face hidden from the death light. ‘It’s something I don’t have an answer for, and really, I don’t think anyone would. I know you want an answer, and believe me, you know, I always have an answer. People always come to me knowing I can solve this problem or that, and okay, I do what I can, and it usually works out. I don’t always get thanked but that’s okay, people don’t want to thank me these days.’
Tidore stood. On the floor, the young man, the innkeeper’s brother. Cutu inhaled, a sharp sound, a knife into a sheath. And he exhaled. And there was a certain kind of silence in the storeroom, the silence that surrounds you when it’s only your body you hear. Tidore stood in that silence. He shined the black square’s light onto Cutu’s face. He tapped the side of the black square, the light vanished, the darkness was total.
***
It was a cold November night, the smell of wet paint permeated the air, somewhere outside, goats were bleating, and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Donald raised his eyes, looking around the room. He had been dozing on the sofa. But the room was busy with people. They ran across the floor, from one side to the other, whispering, feverishly. Their faces within the square white lights of their phones. Tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping their phones. Tweeting and texting, at least one of them was gambling. The frenetic movement in the room was making Donald’s eyes go in and out of focus. He rubbed his palms into his closed eyelids. When he reopened his eyes, he leapt back into the sofa, the back of his head whacking the wall.
‘Jesus,’ Donald exhaled.
Elon was bent over, staring at Donald less than a foot from his face. ‘No, it’s just me,’ said Elon, chuckling. ‘Although, I like to think I’m more inspiring than that old messiah.’ He laughed, again, and it wasn’t a normal laugh. Though it never was. If there was a normal way to laugh, Elon simply could not do it. He sat down next to Donald, so close their thighs touched. Donald was sitting in the corner of the sofa. There was no escaping Elon. ‘It’s officially Election Day,’ he told Donald.
Donald glanced at his watch. 13:02 AM.
Elon was making those strange sounds again; into the uncanny valley of laughter he so often ventured. ‘Elonction Day.’
‘What?’ asked Donald, feeling incredibly incredulous and unnaturally uncomfortable.
Elon put his hand on Donald’s thigh, further increasing the older man’s physical discomfort. ‘I’m thinking about buying Election Day,’ Elon replied. ‘Calling it Elonction Day.’ And down into the uncanny valley of giggles, chuckles, and guffaws.
‘I can’t tell if you’re being serious,’ Donald said.
‘Like the Joker: Why so serious? It’s a question we need to ask ourselves as a country. Seriously.’ Elon smirked and couldn’t resist tee-heeing at his own caustic wit. ‘I’m E-Man, Master of the Pun-iverse!’ He squeezed Donald’s thigh.
Donald recoiled, grasping Elon’s delicate wrist.
‘Careful,’ Elon hissed. ‘That’s my painting hand.’
Donald looked at Elon’s hand and, indeed, it was stained with red paint. He then looked around the room and watched several people painting the room’s walls red.
‘Why are they doing that?’ Donald asked. ‘Why are you painting the room?’
‘You told us to.’
‘When did I do that?’ Donald’s face was scrunched into a ugly frown.
Elon shrugged. ‘Six hours ago, maybe.’
Eyes darting all around, Donald asked, ‘Where even are we?’
‘Are you feeling okay?’
‘Answer me!’ Donald shouted. ‘Where the hell are we? My head doesn’t feel right, it really doesn’t, okay?’
The room fell silent. So silent, Donald could hear the wet paint dripping down the walls.
Elon stood. He held out his hands to Donald and Donald took hold of them. Elon led him through the room, through the crowd. Donald saw their faces as he passed, bathed in the blinding light of phones. Some looked back at him.
‘Who are they?’ he asked Elon, who was opening a door into the night.
The two men stepped outside. There was desert in every direction. The dim moonlight sparkled in the crimson sands. The wind rushed by. Donald held himself and shivered. Out there in the shadows, he could hear the crash of the goats’ horns slamming together.
Elon had his hands on his hips, staring into the sky. A tiny moon hovered there. Elon pointed to it. ‘That’s Phobos,’ he said and turned his gaze. ‘And that shining little dot is Deimos.’
Donald looked where Elon was pointing. There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of shining dots in the sky.
‘You’ll start to remember soon,’ Elon said. ‘This is your first time here.’
Donald reached behind himself for the door they had just walked through. He clutched the handle and yanked open the door. He tumbled backward, collapsing back inside. The others scurried over to him, cradling his head, asking him if he was okay.
‘You’re not human,’ Donald muttered, truly seeing them for the first time. ‘You’re not human,’ he repeated louder.
Elon approached, peering down at Donald on the floor of the barn.
‘They’re not human!’ Donald screamed, shoving the creatures away. ‘Elon, they’re not human!’
Elon choked out those awful, wretched imitations of laughter.
Donald’s eyes bulged. Sweat poured down his face, cutting canals through his remarkable sprayed-on tan. He was streaked like an orange and snowy zebra; the fear wafted through his pores. He stuttered. ‘Are-are-are you… Elon, are you human?’
Elon grinned, taking off his undeniably hip and fashionable black MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN hat. Under it, there rested another hat upon Elon’s head. This one was a deep, blood red. The letters stitched onto it: RMANK GEA HTH LAEALA.
Donald could make no sense of the script. Elon smiled at him.
‘It’s Dogepilliin,’ Elon said. ‘The words on my hat. It’s the language here.’
‘Language… here…?’ Donald was shivering again, yet not from the icy desert wind. The creatures surrounding him were caressing his cheeks and forehead and holding his hand with tenderness. Donald looked at the hand wrapped around his. It was small, it was silver-skinned, he counted six fingers, at least. The hand was connected to a slender arm which belonged to a kneeling creature. Its face was angular and sharp, feminine and caring. Black hair fell to its knees. It was gazing back at him.
Elon waved his hand upward to the creatures and they lifted Donald, once again, to his feet. ‘It’s a Martian language,’ Elon explained, gesturing to his hat. ‘The most common language you should expect to hear.’
All around them, the sounds of bees buzzing in pockets. Their phones were all alerting, simultaneously. Elon and the silver creatures looked at their shining telephonic squares.
Elon’s face beamed and flushed with red. ‘Outside, now!’ he shouted. ‘All of us, everyone, outside!’
Donald was pushed back into the dark desert night, he felt six-fingered alien hands carrying him along. They all crowded together, searching the sky.
Elon had a laser pointer focused on a far-off star. ‘There it is,’ he told Donald and the silver creatures. The star did not sparkle and twinkle—if Elon had not been directing attention to it, one would never take note of it, this pitiful, woeful star.
‘What is it?’ Donald was asking no one. ‘What is it?’
The gentle creature who had not ceased holding his hand turned to him. ‘Earth,’ it sang.
‘Of course,’ he whispered. ‘Earth. I like Earth.’ He looked down at the silver creature. ‘I really do.’ The creature smiled at him, and Donald saw a profound sadness. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Here we go!’ Elon called out.
The silver creature turned its face to the sky. Donald didn’t look away from the being by his side.
There was only the sound of the wind finding its way over the rusted desert land. There was only the sound of silver creatures inhaling, exhaling, inhaling, exhaling. There was only the sound of Elon producing mechanical, artificial laughter-like cracklings.
Donald followed the eyes of the aliens. The stars winked and glittered above. He searched for the star that didn’t.
Donald jostled through the legion of silver creatures studying the sky. ‘Elon,’ he said. ‘Elon.’
The cackling billionaire welcomed him with a hug. ‘Donald, Donald.’
‘Where is it?’ asked Donald. ‘I can’t make it out from all the other stars. Where’s Earth?’
Elon turned on his laser pointer again and aimed it at the cosmos. ‘Right there.’
Donald looked. He squinted.
‘Right there,’ Elon repeated. His laser pointer was circling an empty corner of the sky. ‘Right there was where it was.’
Donald’s head swiveled and he stared at Elon.
Elon was grinning at him. ‘And that’s that,’ he chirped.
Elon walked into the mass of silver creatures. ‘When the sun rises,’ he announced, ‘we shall begin casting our votes for the next president of Mars.’ The odd little beings cheered. Elon continued: ‘Mr. Trump is running uncontested, as we all know, so this should be an easy choice for everyone, but still, we have to get out there and make our voices heard!’ The cheers echoed across the badland. ‘Now, let us head back inside and finish painting the walls red for our dear leader. Yeah!’ Elon leapt up and down, in his fascinating, unique way.
The silver creatures filed past Donald, heading inside and picking up their buckets of paint, dipping their brushes into the red, smearing the walls in ever thickening layers.
Elon clutched Donald’s hand and shook it.
Donald felt lost. Lost in a tumult of stacking thoughts. Lost on a planet of silver oddities and sanguine sands. Lost. He had lost.
‘Make Mars Home Again,’ Elon said. Donald floated out of his grim reverie. He saw Elon as a blur. He shook his head. His vision cleared. Elon was touching the brim of his hat. ‘That’s what it says. In Dogepilliin. Make Mars Home Again.’ He cried out in triumph and dropped to the ground, beating his hands upon the dirt. ‘Home! Home! We are home! Yes!’
Donald trudged away, leaving Elon screaming on the desert floor, raising clouds of Martian dust into the air to be caught in the alien wind.
Into the encompassing dark, Donald stepped. Away from the light of the barn.
‘I see around me,’ he spoke, ‘tombstones grey.’
He removed his watch, dropped it among the rocks.
‘Stretching their shadows far away.’
He removed his shoes, slipped off his socks.
‘Beneath the turf my footsteps tread.’
He loosened the tie around his throat.
‘Lie low and lone the silent dead.’
He tripped on an ancient bone jutting from the ground.
‘Beneath the turf, beneath the mould.’
Donald looked at the bone. He brushed the sand from it.
‘Forever dark.’
He dug in the sand, in the dirt, in the rust.
He dug through the night. With only his hands. He dug. He tossed the land over his shoulder. And he dug.
The sun’s blue rays peeked over the horizon.
Donald stood at the bottom of a hole. A great machine towered before him. He reached out, touching it. It made a booming sound and where he touched, an opening appeared, large enough for a human to enter. Donald crossed into the hulking metal machine. New noises came alive and lights whirred awake. There were various buttons and levers of all colors and shapes. And there was a seat. Instinctively, he sat and laid his hand on a main lever next to the seat. The machine vibrated. He surveyed the switches and wires and locked compartments. He noticed something on the floor by his feet. Donald picked it up. It was a rolled up bit of paper. He unfurled it. There were two words. Garum = Fuel. He considered the words and stuffed the note into his pocket. His fingers ran over the panel in front of him. Above him, a screen and green button began glowing. VATLUNA/ETRURIA/333BC/CONFIRM? blinked on the screen. He gazed at the green button. He lifted his hand, hesitated, hesitated.
‘Forever cold.’
Donald pushed the button.
And the sky, it spun, endlessly into oblivion—a wormhole swallowing the machine, swallowing the man within it, dispatching him across eternity, and plunging him into the centuries.
seanpatrickwhiteley 