Engine Tears
by Wiidaaseh Chijinweh-Shawana
* * *
then
“Skitter.” I always loathed the nickname.
him: Whatcha writing, Skitter?
me: Journaling down my days, scheduling my sessions. School meetings. This and that, blah, blah. Boring stuff. Loathed entirely.
him: Journaling? You’re one small step away from being a real feeler. Getting your memories raped, eh? Seriously, though, rumour has it some kids saw you wetting one out near Broad Shore a couple hours ago. Is it true?
me: Nah.
him: Puny liar. I would fake one on you, but I know you’d flinch like an ass.
me: When in the world was your last session, Dee? A soft nickname. Made me look at him differently. Which was sort of the point. Y’don't wet one out soon, I swear you’d smash up a mirror for letting it ‘look at you that way.’
him: Not everyone needs sessions, Skit. If it ain't a legal issue, then I’m not having it. Plus, I can handle myself just fine, thank you, Mom. ‘It keeps the peace.’ Bullshit. Human beings have been balls of pus and puke since we climbed out of the wat
me: -- And then evolution, or pollution, or whatever it was, did us nasty. A one-night stand, it went in raw, didn't pull out either, it left in the morning. It didn't even bother to write a note, or kiss your forehead as a goodbye gesture. Get over it. Go to your sessions, man.
him: Christ, how big is your vagina? When was your last session? I’m pretending to assume you needed one. Were you crying on Broad Shore?
me: I already said no, man. Back off.
him: You uncomfortable?
me: Yeah, a bit. Dallas was like 6’8’’. He got up in my grill but it was more or less just my face buried in his pecks.
him: Were you crying on Broad Shore?
me: I wasn't. I already felt myself flinching.
him: You fucking prick.
* * *
now
I could have cried right there. To this day, the only excuse I could come up with for the reason he punched me was to see if I would wet from the pain. “You fucking prick,” stammers through my memory like a tenant who doesn't pay rent. See, I’ve broken my pinky to test out the tolerance myself. It required nothing more than a hammer. Lip-biting. No tears, though. No bagging.
Three times a day I'm woken up for a meal to be shoved in my throat through a straw.
The cooks never bother to mix up something nice. Probably because in the dark recess of their minds, they actually envy us. Maybe. Maybe they envy us before we get here. Here is hell. It's dirty hair, the unbearable stench, pissing and shitting where you stand. Rarely getting it cleaned because, fuck us—that's why, I guess.
Sometimes the older Engine workers, government pigs, we call them piggies (some things never change) feel me up. Lick my face. Run their fingers down my pants. Play with it a bit. I can't do anything. I don't even get hard anymore. Some of them know this and don’t bother with it like they did in the old days. Maybe they go for the young, new flesh instead. They especially like the girls. The men take turns almost everyday. As do the women. I hear them talk about it. Hearing us cry gets piggies hard. I love the new girls, too, if I'm being honest. I smell the fresh hair and think of the squishy, warm flesh in between their legs. The smell only lasts for two or three days, and after that, it spoils like milk.
A piggie’s nails digging into my skin during the rare cleaning reminds me of the first time I cried; I was six years old and Dallas cut me up. It felt climactic. Climactic in a sense that my tears had carried seeds of new life; and my eyes? A Sexual organ. That kind of climactic. Everything was built-up until that very moment. I'm not being hyperbolic. A climax.
Four days later I went to Broad Shore, mostly to cry in safety, but I enjoy the water as well. I met an old man. He was crying and had no shoes on. He looked skeletal, near death. He was bald, light bouncing off his head. I would have pointed that cranium towards some ants. Watch them squirm a little. But that violence fades. It washes out with the tears. The geezer wore a white robe; had dirt under his fingernails— I have never seen that. I mean, I had never seen another person cry. I heard stories, sure.
“You cry and they’ll bag you, slap you in the Engine and suck your memories out the hole.. ‘Put them to good use,’ they’ll tell you. You’ll be a bird in a cage, though. Pecking, pecking, pecking. Chirp, Chirp, Chirp. You’ll beg, but you’re the sacrifice. You and Me. You’re the reason this society won't fall apart. Our Engine tears feed these people. Our sadness, our tears of joy are the nipples. Succulent. Ready for vicious sucking. The less than one percent is what you’re labeled. It's what you are. And you sound special, huh? They won't treat you that way.” The geezer wiped the tears and snot running down his mouth. The next day, Channel 40 featured a 67-year-old wetter who killed himself after escaping an Engine in Thunder Bay.
After arriving at the Engine I had obtained an enormous respect for the man. They keep you sedated for 21 hours of the day. Your feeding takes around 34 seconds, depending on who it is. Mary is quick about it, 27 seconds. The remaining hours involve extraction. Cranium raping. Memory theft. How did he escape this place?
* * *
then
me: What the fuck, Dallas?
him: Fuck you. You were fucking crying by Board Shore!
me: I wasn’t, you steaming psychopath!
him: You know what they say, ‘Better off a steamer than a feeler!’ Where you gonna go? Nunavut? Like I said, looking back now, it makes sense. He saw the book before copping it. Copping it off my unconscious body.
me: If it means keeping my fucking sanity, then maybe I will. Maybe, if it means I won't get punched in the face by inbred half-wits!
him: You gonna leave your family? Ouch. You gonna leave your friends? Ouch. You gonna leave me? Ouch. You gonna leave your home? Ouch. You gonna leave school? Ouch. The money? Ouch. The food? Ouch. You know what they do to you fuckers?
* * *
now
At that point, I could barely see anything besides the color red. From the blood. I wasn't angry. That beating served as motivation. The missing teeth and puffed face were reminders that everyday I stayed there I wasn’t safe. I lost count at 14. To think I even had the time to count. After 14 punches, I was out cold.
I woke up on the side of the road in the morning, surrounded. The people flocked. But flocked to work in all likelihood. My book was gone. At the time, I didn't even think about it. It makes sense, now that I look back on it. I stood up and my ankle felt just about completely shattered. He broke it. Knowing Dallas, he probably blew a load in my mouth, too. I didn't have salty gums, though, so that's really just a mystery to this day. The people had eyes that gazed over me, but the attention was absent. They didn't bat an eye at the bloody, beaten, bruised and begging boy.
I limped home. Washed up, left no note, left no trace, left all clothes, left ankle had a splint, and I ate as much food as I could. I dipped out the back. A walking cane in one hand and my school bag in the other. Containing ID and a VISA with seven grand on it; it’s easy to save if you don't have anything to spend it on. I made for a town just shy of the Nunavut border, Graston, by car-hopping, bus-hopping, and using just about any type of travel method I could. I heard countless stories of feelers fleeing to Beijing. For a price, it was said you could live there unharmed and free. However, the price was too steep. Plus, I was young, and shy, and more importantly, I was terrified. So scared, in fact, that I didn't cry for three years buried up in that town.
I woke up every morning afraid that Dallas would be waiting by my door with a suit and tie on, holding a black bag. He’d be the right age by then to work for the Agency. He’d make a good bagger, a good piggie; he was a demon; he was a rapist, a sadist, a growing ball of sexual frustration laced with rage. In many ways, he was just like everybody else who wandered this Earth. Tearless, soulless. By year four, though, 2217, I knew Dallas was never going to find me. Whether he worked for the Agency or not.
In fact, I put all my bets on it. I went back home. I never said goodbye to my mother, to my father, or to anybody. I risked it all because four years in the making, I figured Dallas was a ticking time bomb that exploded. Exploded a long time ago in a session room maybe, or in a jail cell. Knowing how he was, he’d be put to death for Steaming: the willful act of denying 30 or more sessions. He always pushed the boundaries, usually went for about 27-29 missed when finally clocking in for a session. And even Agency workers need the fix.
I pushed the door open and sat down, confident, semi-comfortable. Ordered my favourite meal and flirted with the waitress, Becky. Gave the cook in the back a quick glance and tilted my head out of respect. The rising steam masked his features, but I could tell he tilted back. He wasn't too pleased and I could tell. The gesture he returned was weak and half-assed. Clearly a means to disrespect. The meal, after all, was a secret menu item. As far as I knew,
not a single person in the town knew about it. Becky tossed a few winks to the cook as well. Kinda put me off my appetite for tight young girl, but she rubbed me off in the washroom and took me home when the place was closed. I guess I still had game. Far more game than the cook. She told me she came twice, but I knew she didn't. They never do. Not twice, anyway. I caught the lie in its track and just ate her out. Two servings in one day wasn’t too filling.
While she slept, I cried. I cried until the sun crept up from under the horizon. I cried knowing no one else could. I cried knowing that one day, no matter how much I ran, this memory would serve to make others cry. I cried knowing the people had not the slightest idea what a tear felt like. A real tear. I cried free tears. Tears free of shackles. Tears free of duty. Tears to be lost, inevitably. Tears soaked into cotton or perhaps polyester rug. I cried tears that served no greater purpose. Tears that I called mine.
Now, in this chair I slump. My tears to be consumed. My tears to be salvation. My tears to serve a purpose beyond my comprehension. My tears no longer gave me the freedom I so desperately wished to taste. My tears ripped from me, a soul. My tears ripped from me, my life. My tears are now made to stimulate and nothing more. My tears are shackled, controlled, monitored. They are the Engine’s tears now.