Technocracy: Saera/Marin/Ardo/Terry

Marin was sitting on the couch, thumbs flicking idly over her phone screen. The doorbell rang, and her blue eyes glimmered in mirth. “I’ll get it!” she yelled. Vaulting from the couch, she ran through the halls to the front door, and threw it open. “Hey, guys!”

“Yo,” said Ardo.

“Hello!” said Saera.

“Hey, Marin,” said Terry.

“Oh, man, come in!” said Marin, throwing wide the door. She was wearing a wool dress in a dark green color. Saera was wearing corduroy pants and a blouse; Ardo was wearing a blue henley and some gray pants; Terry was wearing a flannel button-up shirt, some moleskin pants, and his usual field jacket. Marin noticed it, and wondered if he ever left the house without it.

“I’ve never been here before,” said Ardo, craning his head up at the high ceilings.

“It is very fun,” said Saera, flashing Marin another bright smile. The two girls exchanged happy looks, and then turned to the boys. “Marin said she found a movie we could all watch.”

“Is it some chick movie?” asked Ardo.

“Are you going to bitch if it is?” snapped Marin.

“I’ve seen some girly movies that weren’t bad,” said Terry.

“Most of them are bad, though,” said Ardo.

“I often find that the interactions between women are more interesting than those between men,” said Saera.

“Hey, now, that is not fair,” said Terry. “We’re definitely interesting.”

Saera twitched her silver eyes upon him. “You all don’t talk as much. You do not talk things out. This makes you less interesting to watch. You do not generate as much good interpersonal drama.”

“Hey! That’s not fair!” said Ardo. “We talk plenty! We just don’t jaw forever like girls do.”

“You two literally beat each other up because you wouldn’t talk to each other,” said Marin.

“That was months ago, fatass,” said Ardo. “We’ve fixed things.”

“Only after you punched each other. Also, don’t forget you lost that fight, Ardo.”

“Yeah, but now we’re friends,” said Terry. “That’s what men do. We get to know each other first without talking, and then we talk.” He cocked his head to the side. “Most of the time.”

“It’s exhausting,” said Marin. “You boys all hate hard things, but you make things between you all so hard already because you want to be strong and tough and it keeps you from just being honest with each other.”

“Well at least we don’t lie to each other, like you girls do,” said Ardo.

“We don’t lie,” said Marin, putting her hands on her hips.

“We do lie,” said Saera. Marin’s sapphire blue eyes swiveled to her, and Saera winced a bit. But she said, “We do lie. A little. Some of the time.”

“Not all the time, though,” said Marin.

“More than we should.”

“Hmm,” hummed Marin. She tried to think of what to say. As she did, her eyes swung to the high arch before her in the house, and she said, “Oh, hey, mom!”

The other three looked straight ahead in response to Marin. Bellona was standing there, wearing a cozy sweater and some corduroy pants. She was standing there, in the wide arch that led into the house. She was standing there, and looking at them, quietly watching them with an expression Marin had never seen from her before. Marin had never seen her mother look at her, or anyone else, the way she now looked at Saera, Marin, Ardo, and Terry where they stood in the entrance.

“Ms. Meni,” said Saera softly, “is everything all right?”

“Oh,” said Bellona, and she turned her head to the side, and the spell was broken, and Bellona once more looked like the woman Marin had always known. “So sorry, Saera dear. It’s just… funny. This is the first time I have seen all four of you together like this. I’m not used to my Marin having so many friends.” She smiled warmly, in a way that dazzled and showed off her great beauty. “Well, then, are you just going to stand around here in the antechamber, or are you going to come into the main house?”

“Come on!” said Marin, hop-stepping and then hurrying forward, long black hair billowing behind her. Saera instantly followed. Terry came close behind, and Ardo clenched his fists and brought up the rear.

They went through the halls and into the main entertainment room, where the big viewer screen was embedded into the wall on the western side. “Big screen,” said Terry, fixing it with a glance of his copper eyes. He stepped—and then he paused, and moved backward, and the other three turned as he coughed violently. Once, twice, thrice, and then it subsided. “S-Sorry,” he said, his voice somewhat weak.

“You better not get us all sick, man,” said Ardo.

“It is that time of year,” said Saera.

“I’m not gonna be fucking sick over Christmas,” said Ardo.

Saera suddenly coughed, just once. Ardo’s red eyes bulged at her as she did. She twitched her silver eyes at him and offered him a tiny smile. He narrowed those eyes, so ruby red, but slowly began to relax.

“So what are we watching, exactly?” asked Terry.

“I thought we’d watch a mecha movie,” said Marin. “It’s got good romance, too, which I like. But there’s plenty of action.” She looked down hard at her phone. “At least that’s what the description says.”

“Well, let’s go!” Ardo slumped easily and smoothly to the floor, and leaned against the bottom of the couch, putting one leg over the other. “Start it up, fatass.”

Marin narrowed her sapphire eyes. “You could sit on the couch, you know.”

“I could.”

“Ugh, you—”

“Marin,” Saera said, softly, yet it pierced the thick air. “Let’s just start watching.”

“Here you all go!” said Bellona, coming into the room with a tray. “Marin, darling, I’ve got some chocolate-covered potato chips and some popcorn. Will that be enough to tide you kids over?”

“Yes, mom!” said Marin.

“Thank you, Ms. Meni,” said Terry.

“You’re welcome, sweetie,” said Bellona. “You are… Terrance, yes?”

“Terry,” he said.

“Thank you, Ms. Meni,” said Saera, rising from her seat on the couch. She took the tray from Bellona and returned to her seat. Ardo reached up towards the bowl of popcorn—

Marin swatted his hand aside. “Not til the movie starts!” she snapped.

“Whatever,” said Ardo. “So start it already!”

“Okay,” said Marin. She pointed her phone at the big screen and punched a button on the touchscreen. “Here.” The room grew dark, and the screen lit up.

Marin coughed. Ardo flinched away from her like she had slapped him. “Oy, fatass, don’t you get sick too!”

“I’m fine,” said Marin, but even then, she suppressed a soft coughing surge.

“I’m not getting sick over Christmas!” barked Ardo.

“Pipe down,” said Terry. “Let’s just watch the movie.”

“Dude, I’m serious,” said Ardo.

And the movie unfolded. As it did, it was, slowly, accompanied by a rise in coughs. Terry would cough, and then Marin. Then Marin would cough again, and Saera would chime in. Ardo gradually clenched himself inward, drawing his legs up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

“Marin, darling,” said Bellona, coming in about two-thirds of the way through the movie, “do you want me to get you a cough dose?” Saera coughed roughly just then, and Bellona’s eyes widened. “Do you want me to get you all cough doses?”

“No, mom,” said Marin, who coughed. “Just let us watch the movie.”

“Okay, sweetie,” said Bellona, pulling away and walking back into the bowels of the house.

“Hey, fatass, you should have taken her offer,” said Ardo.

“Stuff it,” said Marin. “Shut up and watch.”

“But—”

“Not—” Marin coughed, “no! Let’s just get through the movie! We’re about to get to the good part!”

A robot punched another robot on the screen.

“How do you know when the good part is?” said Terry. He coughed. “You said you haven’t seen it before.”

“I read the online reviews,” said Marin.

“Hey—” said Ardo.

“Ah ah!” Marin held up an arm. “Silence.”

Ardo curled up further, crushing himself into a ball as Saera, Marin, and Terry coughed around him.

The movie finished. Saera coughed. Marin hacked wetly, coughing from the depths of her chest. Terry huffed a breath and curled his arms around his chest. Saera noticed this. When she’d finished her cough, she said, “Are you all right, Terry?”

“I feel a little funny,” he said.

“Oh, fucking fuck,” snarled Ardo. He bounced to his feet, chin-length black hair flying about his face. “You are all sick!”

“It is probably nothing,” said Saera. She rose to her feet, aware of the faint weakness in her limbs. “Just a little trouble, that’s all.”

“Oh, I do hope you kids aren’t sick,” said Bellona, coming into their midst. They had not heard her approach. “It would be a shame to be sick now, with Christmas only a few days away.”

“Yeah, fuck yeah,” said Ardo. “Motherfucker I don’t want to be sick over Christmas.” Then he coughed. His black eyebrows shot up and his ruby red eyes bulged. The other three looked at him.

“Christmas is when we celebrate the end of the Ravaging,” said Bellona. “It would be a shame if you all had to miss the yearly fireworks.”

“Mom, I—” Marin hacked a cough. “I’ll be fine.”

“I am not getting sick!” roared Ardo. His phone buzzed. He looked down at it; his Aunt Maria had arrived to pick him up.

“Oh, my Mama is here,” said Saera, looking down at her own phone. “Terry, I gave you your ride here, do you want us to give you a ride back?”

“That’d be nice,” said Terry. “Thank you so much.” He coughed.

“I am not getting sick!” Ardo yelled, all the louder as he threw the door open into the frosty, dim orange evening of December.

“We heard you the first time!” Marin yelled out the door at him, as he vaulted for the waiting car.

“Well I mean it!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I am not getting sick over Christmas!”

Ardo got sick over Christmas.

All four of them did.

It was a creeping crawling sickness that came on them all, festering itself into their heads and limbs and guts. Indeed, not only did they all get sick over Christmas, the illness burst into its fullest flowering on Christmas Day itself. Marin spent her Christmas Morning running to the toilet to vomit. Saera sweated through breakfast on Christmas Morning with a terrible fever. Terry laid in bed, ruthlessly sick, his father barely noticing as Christmas Day went on. Ardo shivered, taken over with a raging heat. Fever, vomiting and weakness stole over them all, filling them with pain and dread like they had never known.

And the sickness kept on coming, did not seem to end. From the Christmas holiday it burned into the week. Ardo shivered in his bed, his fever very high; Marin threw up sludge and anything she tried to eat. Saera felt a frigid chill and moaned, in so much pain; Terry spent whole days in bed, his father did not care. Each day bent them inward, onward, with no real release.

Terry texted Saera after five days had gone by. Saera told her mother, and Aemelia paid a call. Terry’s father had been angry when she had arrived, but Aemelia had threatened to call the police. Finally she came to him and treated him a while. Bellona came the next day, Maria, Martha too. Carefully the aunts and mothers nursed at Terry’s side, as they nursed their own children as well.

New Year’s Eve came, then the Day, and still the sickness bent. All their parents called the doctor for the four of them. Though each doctor studied them and ran their numerous tests, none of their physicians could determine what was wrong. No virus seemed present in them, no bacteria; they were having symptoms that seemed not to have a cause.

In their days and hours, all four of them sat in bed. Days and nights swam by within a woozy, feverish haze. In their sickness they reached out to each other at length: Saera, Marin, Ardo, Terry texted back and forth. One by one they realized that they were all quite sick, and that they all seemed to have the same sickness as well. Saera found this very strange, and told the other three. As they vomited and shivered, as they boiled and writhed, all four of them paused to wonder what it might have been. Why were all of them so sick for no reason at all? And why was no one else from the school as sick as them? This they thought about, some more, some less, as days continued on. As January 3^rd came, then 4^th, and then the 5^th.

On the night of January 5^th, Maria, Ardo’s aunt, set a tall glass of water by a bedside table. “Terrance, here,” she said. “I’m going to leave for the evening. Please keep letting me know if I need to come back in the morning.”

“Th-Thanks,” said Terry, shivering, sprawled in bed. He barely looked up.

“Poor guy,” she said, sighing, bending down to feel his pale forehead. Still burning up. She sighed again. “I have to go, Terrance. Frankly, your father gives me the creeps, and I’d like to be gone in case he’s going to wake up from his sleeping.”

“I-I-I know,” chattered Terry, teeth rattling. “I’m s-so sorry.”

“I know. I’m sorry you have to put up with him.” She sighed. “Call 9-1-1 if you feel so sick you can’t take it.”

“I-I w-will.”

Maria sighed, one last time. Then she turned, and left the room.

Terry shuddered. The world seemed to be rocking. The sun had set, just a few minutes ago, and darkness was blooming, black like an orchid, in the corners and the crevices of his room. The world seemed to be shaking, as he laid there, bent in pain, quaking, shaking, harder, stronger, like the very bottom of the world was vibrating and pulsing, violent, cruel, rocking him, but it wasn’t the bed or the world that was shaking—just him. He thrashed in his bed. He wanted his grandpa. He wanted his mother. He wanted Saera and Marin and Ardo. He wanted someone, anyone, anyone at all. But Maria was gone and his father was drunk and drooling in his own bed. So Terry begged to God, the only one who would hear him, for help. He begged to God, though he didn’t know exactly what to say. His copper brown eyes bulged in the dark as he begged.

And maybe, just maybe, his begging did not go unanswered. For the pain was cut, at least, and the writhing stopped. His eyes slid closed. Burning with heat, Terry shuddered, and sighed, and slipped from the world.

Maria entered the nicer room, in a nicer house, to see Martha bent over a nicer bed. Nicer, but no less miserable. Ardo groaned loudly, and writhed, not much different than the sight that Maria had left at Terry’s house.

“How is he?” Maria asked.

“Burning,” said Martha. “I’ve never seen him run a fever this high, not even as a kid.”

“Aunties…”

“Bernardo, we’re here!” said Maria, leaning in close. She almost winced as she touched his cheek; his brown skin was nearly molten with heat. It seemed absurd that someone could run such a temperature. Absurd that they could run it and not be dead! Yet her beloved nephew was not dead, at least not yet.

Bright fearful eyes poked at the white edges of the doorway. Diana and Minerva were peeking into Ardo’s room. Minerva inched closer, her eyes glimmering in the lamplight of the room. “Is Ardo gonna be okay?” she said, very quietly.

Just as quietly, Martha came to her and said, “He will be, sweetie, don’t worry. Don’t worry, it’s safe.”

“Uh-hhh!” growled Ardo. His eyes, so ruby red, seemed particularly hot and reddish now, when they cracked open and saw Maria above him. “I’m tired, auntie.”

“It’s fine, principe, it’s fine,” said Maria, pressing a cold pad onto his boiling forehead. “Can I give you something to make you sleep?”

“S-Sure…”

“All right, shh, shh,” said Martha, bending in close. “Shh, open up, principe. Open up, and you’ll be sleeping soon.” Ardo sputtered, a cough spattering some saliva from his mouth. But he opened, and Martha used her shooter to squirt some cough syrup down his throat. Ardo coughed again, but the medicine went down.

“Buh, Bruh,” rumbled Ardo, black hair sweaty and lank around his head. He slumped against his pillow, and sighed. His aunts could hear the exhaustion in his breath. He wheezed, and shuffed a breath. The bright light, the burning light, in his eyes began to dim. “Sorry,” he whispered, at the edge of his breath.

“It’s not your fault, principe,” said Maria, who leaned in and kissed his burning forehead.

“It wasn’t your choice to get sick,” said Martha, who kissed the forehead herself as Maria pulled away. The two ladies turned off the lights, and gently almost-closed the door to his room.

Heat bathed Ardo. It washed up, with the darkness, looming and pressing upon his skin and his head. It bathed him, and immersed him, and in heat, in fire, he was dragged into the darkness of sleep.

Marin vomited again. She’d been spewing from her mouth for minutes now. As she vomited, she cried, tears surging from her eyes, running down her sallow cheeks, matching the flow of bile and mess into the bucket that Bellona had left for her.

“Oh, sweetie, I am so, so sorry,” said Bellona herself, coming into the room with her nightgown on. “Sweetie, you have to try and sleep. It won’t get better if you don’t sleep.”

“Bluch!” belched Marin, and spewed another trickle of vomit into the bucket. “Hck,” she heaved, and sobbed, and cried, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. “I hate this! I hate this! I—” she heaved, and vomited again, “I hate it!”

“I’m so sorry,” Bellona said again. Marin cried. She wept. Beaten, broken, battered down by more than ten days of illness, she bawled like a baby. Bellona cradled her daughter. There was a slight stiffness to the woman’s posture, but Marin was too miserable to notice. Marin crushed her sweaty black hair against her mother’s chest, shoulders pumping, wracking, with sobs. Bellona’s nightgown was quickly stained wet with her daughter’s tears.

“I want it to be over,” Marin whispered.

“It will be,” said Bellona, pulling back from the hug. She stared at her daughter’s dazzling sapphire eyes. Wet with tears, but still so bright. Bellona kissed her on the forehead. “Darling, are you tired?”

“B-Buh,” Marin stifled a burp, “yes…”

“Then sleep,” whispered Bellona. The shadows and the soft golden light of the lamps traced and cut her features in their gentleness, their beauty, so that she appeared, for a moment, to have been sculpted, one of the statues from the ancient days, the times before the Ravaging. Marin, even in her discomfort, her sickness, her weakness, saw her in a striking way, just for a moment. Only for a moment, though. Then the marble cracked, as Bellona smiled sweetly; not as statuesque, but so much kinder. “Sleep, beauty. It will be better in the morning.”

“It… it…” Marin’s sobs wracked her chest again. “It hasn’t gotten better. I’m so tired of being sick!” More hot tears ran down her cheeks.

“I know.” Bellona rose, and moved for the lamp. With a flick of her wrist the light came off, plunging the room into almost-darkness. Bellona walked to the door. She paused there, the hazy white light of the hallway casting her in vibrant silhouette. “But, Marin, remember… each day is new. Every day is not the same as the one before. So tomorrow might be better. Have faith in that.”

“Good…” Marin swallowed. “I will, mom.”

“Good night, darling.”

“Good night.”

Bellona left the door cracked, allowing a shaft of light to pierce the gloom of the darkened bedroom. This was well, for Marin suddenly, for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, felt the urge to vomit. Her stomach oozed and boiled and burst, and flipping over, turning upside-down. Marin grabbed the bucket, by her bedside table, and just in time brought it beneath her.

And as she heaved, she felt the oddest thing: something cold, cold and slick and slimy, passing up out of her throat in the rush of the vomit. Weeping and heaving with sobs, Marin vomited, until she could vomit no more. And at last, with this final push of vomiting, it seemed that the sickness had left her gut. Her insides did not boil and fester any more. She looked down into the mess in the bucket.

There was a chunk of ice sitting amid all the vomit. Marin’s blue eyes went wide.

But she coughed, and sighed, and weariness hit her like a wall of bricks. She put the bucket back on her bedside table, and she laid back in bed. And, soon enough, she was sleeping, tears still staining her cheeks.

Coughing, coughing, coughing, Saera coughed into the night.

Coughing, coughing, coughing, Saera couldn’t get quite right.

“Darling, take this,” said Aemelia, wearing a fuzzy pink robe. The house was a bit cold, not surprising for the depths of Winter.

Saera threw back the shot of cough syrup. She sputtered a hacking cough out of her mouth, coughing, bent double as she coughed, even as the sweet and sticky oily ooze of the cough syrup trickled down her throat.

“I’m—” she coughed. “I-I am sorry for keeping you u-up so late, Mama.”

“No. No!” Aemelia bent the bed as she sat on it, as she came in close, and Saera was cradled against her, and Saera sobbed, in happiness, as awful as she felt, because the love from her mother could be felt as well. “No, sweetie, it’s fine. I would stay up every night, as long as you need me to help you.”

“I-I,” Saera coughed, coughed, coughed, almost ready to vomit she coughed so hard. She shoved herself against Aemelia, gentle tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. “I love you, Mama.”

“I love you, Saera-beara,” whispered Aemelia, rocking her daughter as she held her, squeezing a sob out of Saera at the nickname from so long ago. “The coughing should stop soon. The medicine should let you sleep.”

Saera coughed again. She coughed, she wheezed, she sputtered. A flush was on her pale cheeks as she coughed and coughed and hacked. Her body had been beaten, attacked by the viciousness of her coughs. She was worrying that she had worn a dent into her chest from all the coughing she had done, day in and day out, for more than a week. She coughed, and phlegm sputtered from her mouth onto her mother’s nightgown. Aemelia saw it. She did not care.

“Shh,” whispered Aemelia, rocking her again, again, as Saera clutched her, grasping at her, sad and weak and so dizzy, head pounding beneath her platinum blonde hair. Saera was breathing—in and out, and in and out, and in, through her nose and through her mouth, the air came sucking, in and out and in and out and in. Her silver eyes twitched, bulged, bloodshot, their brightness dimmed but not beaten even after her days of sickness.

She coughed and coughed and coughed. But Saera herself could feel the coughs weakening. But her fever still blazed. She was burning up, and still coughing, even as the medicine took its effect. Yet, for all that, it was working. She felt it.

So did Aemelia. “Sweetie, try to get some sleep.”

“What—” Saera coughed. She said, “What time is it?”

“It’s after midnight, sweetie. It’s January 6^th.”

“I…” she coughed. She coughed. She coughed and hacked, wet and harsh. But she felt the lead and molten weights of tiredness crushing her now, bending down upon her eyelids. “I-I’ll try to s-sleep, Mama.”

“Poor baby,” whispered Aemelia. Gently, tenderly, with the softest and gentlest care, Aemelia pulled away from Saera, and softly settled her on her pillow. Aemelia pulled the blanket over Saera’s pale, weak body. She even tucked her in, which she had not done in years. And, finally, Aemelia kissed her gently on the cheek. “Sleep. It has to get better. I know it will.”

“Good,” Saera coughed, “good night, Mama.”

Aemelia rose. She turned off the light. “Good night, Saera. Try to have a good night’s sleep.” She turned, and headed for the door. “Please, Saera,” she said over her shoulder, “if you’re feeling sick, or like you need to throw up, please call out to me. I’ll at least hear it through the intercom.”

“I sh-shall, Mama,” said Saera, trembling.

“Good night. I love you.”

Tears leaked from Saera’s eyes. “I love you, too!”

Aemelia left. Saera coughed. She coughed and coughed, not as hard as before, but still in a way that wracked her slender frame, that shook her shoulders inside her pajamas. She was terrified, genuinely frightened, that she would cough so much that she would not fall asleep. She had done that more than one night, over the last twelve days. But even amid her coughing, her eyelids grew heavy. So heavy she could not ignore them, and, at last, even amid her coughing, they slid closed.

Thus

Saera

Marin

Ardo

Terry

Fell into the depths of sleep.