i have a date at 8PM, but first i have to save the world?!?!?!
John held the hand guard with one hand and a soaked q-tip in the other. Using the q-tip, he glazed every inch of the apparatus with wood stain. Occasionally he dipped the q-tip back into the bottled labelled, “Midnight Dream” (John preferred to just call it “almost black”), in order to coat it some more. After turning it over a couple of times in his hands, he set it aside and picked up the next one in line.
There were about a dozen and change of other men in the room with him. They all worked mechanically, mutely, side by side, lining the perimeter of the workshop. The guns started out as rusty antiques at one end of the room, and by the time it circled back around, it was refurbished with new parts, new bullets, and a new coat of paint.
A single shift for these men were about ten hours each day. 9-5 be damned, every single shipment that came in had to be packed and loaded to be shipped out the same day. There was no need to keep an eye on the clock. John was used to the repetitive motions, which allowed his mind to leave his body and roam about the world. He suspected it was the same for the rest of the men there, as no one spoke a single word to each other outside “g’mornin’” and “cheers.” The only difference between the men would be where exactly each mind went during their quiet moments.
For John, he imagined himself back at the university—before they dissolved them—but also in the future, imagining himself having finally acquiring tenure. He imagined himself lecturing in the biggest lecture hall on campus, full of impressionable and eager minds. He countered their would-be arguments and then re-countered them again as he edited his responses over and over in his mind.
Over time, the class in his mind dwindled down to the size of one. He found himself lecturing to one person and one person only. John would be leaning against the sturdy just-black wooden desk at the front of the lecture hall, looking down at a set of wide brown eyes before him.
A strange smile would come across his face whenever Zan appeared, but no one in the room noticed, each one of them lost in their own past or the would-be future.
Zan was not one of his former students but, rather, a classmate from secondary school. They were not close then—Zan liked to play hooky whereas John liked to attend Model UN meetings at lunch—but they knew of each other, as most students did. However, Zan ended up working in the university with John shortly before the war. The difference was, John was an adjunct while Zan was just a technician, making sure the sound system and the projectors were working in the lecture halls.
It was Zan who recognized John first. He was waiting for John’s class to end before setting up for the next one. He approached John after most of the students had trickled out.
“John Woodley, ‘sat you?” Zan had grinned.
John blinked. “Alexander Szeto?” He did not recognize the other man at first. Zan stood a little straighter and became a little leaner. However, the strange silvery blue tint to Zan’s dark hair and his square face was instantly recognizable.
Zan clapped John on the back. “Please. It’s Zan. With a Z.”
After that, Zan sat in all of John’s classes that semester. He explained that he never got the grades to be able to go to college, nor the funds, but he enjoyed listening to John’s lectures. It came out of the blue for John, but at the end of the semester, John asked if Zan wanted to be tutored. Zan wholeheartedly agreed. They met two times a week at 8 PM, after Zan finished his shift and after John finished prepping his next class from his cubicle.
John sighed. The last gun piece left hisJohn's hands. He hastily beckoned for his ghost to return to his body. It never fully settled immediately, just hovering between the boundary, one foot in reality and the other still in his dreams as he journeyed the way home.
⌖⌖⌖
“I always get a little disappointed when you manage to change my mind, even slightly,” Zan sighed, closing his notebook.
John was taken aback. “Why?”
“It must mean that my thinking was flawed from the beginning,” he said, leaning back into his chair, one arm draping behind the back. “Or it must mean that I am easily swayed.”
“Sometimes you change my mind, too,” John said comfortingly, but he had a feeling that Zan wasn’t convinced. He could not deny that John often found holes in Zan’s logic, but when prompted, he was able to defend them acceptably. The times when he found himself in the wrong, he would admit defeat but come back with stronger, well-researched arguments. It was also true that Zan was able to illuminate an undiscovered nook or cranny that John would have never thought to look at.
The two sat in silence, John looking at Zan and Zan looking down at the kitchen table.
“Do you judge me?” John blurted out.
Zan sat up a little straighter and considered it for a moment. John feared he would treat this question like many of his questions: take it away for days and sometimes weeks before coming up with an answer. Thankfully, Zan looked up at him decisively.
“I do,” Zan said slowly, tasting the words as they left his mouth. “But I respect you enough not to show it.”
It was an answer that made John exhale. He wasn’t quite sure what to say next, but Zan did the job for him. “Do you judge me, John?”
“I do,” he said. They held each other’s gaze, as if trying to sort out the truth behind each other’s words.
Zan smiled softly. “And? I’ve presented my evidence and paraded out all of my witnesses. I know I’m a bit of a twat, but what’s the verdict from Professor John Woodley?”
John paused, taking the question seriously despite Zan’s jokes. “The verdict is that I respect you.”
At this, Zan chuckled softly. “I’m glad that’s the conclusion you came to.” He reached out across the table to put a firm grip on John’s arm. John almost flinched at the warmth of Zan’s hand. “But John, I’ve always respected you.”
The words swirled in John’s mind the next few days. He felt guilty that he had not respected him from the start. It was obvious that Zan did, respect him, that is. Zan took everything he said seriously, questioned him genuinely, and was endlessly curious about his thoughts and opinions. It took a while, but John did eventually see him as an equal, and he thought that had to count for something.
The next time they met, they both sat together like usual and talked, bouncing around ideas, stepping on them, testing them, throwing them away. But the moment a lull in the conversation came upon them, the feelings of guilt would bubble up John’s throat. He hoped that he didn’t show it and would rush to the next topic. Before he knew it, it was time for Zan to leave again.
John followed Zan to the back. Zan paused before the door, his gloved hand resting on the doorknob.
“John,” Zan said suddenly. He looked at John but quickly turned away. “What we’re doing. What do you think of it? I feel like I’m conspiring with the enemy. Do you feel the same?”
“Do you think that I’m your enemy?”
“No!” Zan protested loudly. He clamped his mouth closed immediately. The two of them stayed silent for a while, listening. Nothing. Zan lowered his voice. “No. You and I, John, we’re different. But we’re not enemies.”
“I feel the same,” John smiled.
At that, Zan nodded, somewhat curtly, and without another word, opened the door and slipped out into the night.
John did not see him for quite some time after that. He worried. Worried that maybe he was caught, that they were too loud and someone reported the noise, that maybe he had finally defected and joined his faction, full-time. John tried to bury his worries with his work. There was no way of contacting Zan, so there was nothing else for him to do.
He forced himself to be present, the feeling of the grain of the wood or the smooth metal finishing of barrels underneath his fingertips comforting him. It was a foreign feeling, but it helped to pin his mind down to one place.
A few weeks later, on a Sunday evening, it was John's turn to load and drive the truck over to the training centre. He parked at the back and began slowly emptying out the truck bed. The foreman, dark and wrinkled like a prune, came out to greet him.
“Hullo, John!”
“Hullo,” John returned the phrase, putting the last crate down onto the ground. “How’s business going?”
The foreman snorted. “Recruitment’s down. We’ve sucked the country dry of abled men.” He stared at John for a little too long.
John understood. He pointed at his left leg, which was subtly thinner but noticeably shorter than his other leg. “Do you want infantry to be limping all over the battlefield?”
“But you can lift just fine,” the foreman grumbled. He cleared his throat as John grimaced. “Anyhow. Thanks, John. I’ll get Evet to bring all of this in.” The foreman didn’t make a move to leave. “Did they tell you to not bother next month, John?”
John’s mouth opened. Then closed again. “Don’t bother?” he repeated dryly.
“I’m expecting you not to squeal on me. The Pillars are telling us the war will end soon,” the foreman shrugged. “I don’t know how, at least with us on the winning side. Either way, they’re shutting us down.”
“As long as we’re done with this war business,” John offered, not quite believing the words that came out of his mouth. He left no time for the foreman to reply, and climbed into the truck.
On the drive back to the workshop, he turned the words of the foreman in his mind around. There was no clear strategy to win the war. He could hardly see The Pillars surrendering, either.
He left the truck at the lot and began to walk home. The streets were quiet, and the sun’s rays were barely reflecting off the bottom of clouds. The Pillars unscrewed the light-bulbs from the street lamps a year ago. There was no need for light when curfew came as soon as the sun set and ended as soon as the sun rose.
John walked up to the porch and fumbled for his keys. He hesitated. He could see a faint light from his kitchen through the window. Biting his lip, he John placed one hand in his back pocket, grasping at the Nine. He drew the gun out of his pocket and opened the door cautiously.
Careful to not make a sound, John walked steadily to the kitchen. He saw that only the stove light was on. But from the shadows on the wall, he could see a shadow of a figure.
He whirled around from the hallway and pointed the gun at the person seated at the table, finger ready at the trigger. A big pair of brown eyes looked up at him in surprise.
“Jesus Christ, Zan!” John hissed, still careful not to make too much of a commotion. He pointed the gun downward. “Fucking scared the ever living shit out of me.”
Zan smiled wanly. “Never heard your Protestant arse swear like that before.”
John ignored the comment and stuffed the gun back into his back pocket. “Where have you been?”
“Oh, y’know,” Zan gestured vaguely. “I got caught up in some things.”
“Like what?” John asked, a little more accusatory than he would have liked. He squinted in the dark. He couldn’t make out Zan’s expression with just the stove light on.
“The Pillars.”
At that, John felt all the energy drain from him. He stepped forward to pull out a chair from the table and collapsed in it. Closer now, he could make out Zan a little more clearly. One of Zan’s cheeks was slightly bruised and swollen. There were a few nicks here and there scattered across his face. John looked down at the table.
“Christ,” John finally whispered. “You didn’t get caught from the last time we met, did you?”
“No, no,” Zan said hastily. “We got raided.”
“Shit!” John stood up automatically and began to pace around. “How did they figure you out?” His own display of emotion surprised him. Zan didn’t tell anything about The Resistance to John, but John never asked either. They were direct about many things, but this was one thing they had never talked about before.
Zan rubbed at his bruised cheek. “They were looking for someone.”
“They weren’t looking for you, were they?” John stopped in his tracks. When Zan shook his head, John resumed his pacing. It was better this way, for John didn’t have to look at Zan’s battered face. “Then who?”
“A damned bad spy, that’s who,” Zan grumbled. He broke his straight posture to slump back in the chair. “We had a mole. Pretty high ranking one at that. Told us the ticket that would end the war and then disappeared into the night.”
John rushed back to the table, which startled Zan. He hovered over Zan, one hand gripping the back of Zan’s chair. “End the war?” he asked breathlessly. “This is the second time I’ve heard this today. I've run all the possibilities in my mind, I can’t think of a single thing that could end this war with victory on our side. Ending the war now is unfeasible.”
“The victory would be on your side,” Zan said stiffly, avoiding John’s gaze. “And ending the war is possible. What’s impossible is getting those who are capable of it to stop.”
“What do you mean? Ending the war is a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Enough with the questions, John!” Zan suddenly pushed himself up to his feet to look John square in the eyes. Zan did not look angry, but his mouth turned downwards. “I’m not here to get interrogated.” The two of them were standing close and Zan had John stuck in his gaze. “I’m here to say goodbye.”
John took a step back, eyes wide. “Goodbye?”
“We’re demonstrating tomorrow,” Zan said quietly, looking away.
“What good will that do?” John couldn’t help it, but a laugh escaped his lips.
“The Pillars have made a bomb, John!” Zan walked up to John and jabbed a finger at his chest. “It’s capable of wiping out a small country. It will wipe out a country—my country—the one your country is in a proxy war with right at this second. You’re telling me that I should just sit by and watch as this happens?”
“Y-you were born and raised in this country!” John sputtered out.
“They’re still my people!” Zan spat. “Throw your damned logic out of the window for once!”
“Logic?” John felt the heat rising to his face. He knew he was yelling now andat that the neighbours would hear, but he did not try to contain himself anymore. “Brave thing to say for one who needs logic the most. You’re going to get killed!”
Zan narrowed his eyes at John and stared at him silently for a moment or two. John imagined that Zan was considering the proposition, choosing his words carefully. Finally, the exasperated lines on Zan’s face uncreased themselves. He clapped John on the shoulder and attempted to smile. “I know.”
Without another word, Zan left, like he always did: silently and into the night.