Vermillion Part 4

4.

What started out as a means to an end, has now turned into a crude experiment on the human condition. The line was blurred when he intervened in the altercation with the young girl and now the line has disappeared. He has thrown away everything that he once believed in and has gone into the business. His name is the only thing he carries with him now. After roaming the earth, comforted by his extreme arrogance, he lorded over the lesser people like a serene being. Now he is down there with them, in the dark, sweaty underworld, where all the people scratch at their skin and wait for their fix

.

His name is Cairo and he will fix them all. 

They never get enough. Under this bridge I could sit for hours and there would be a steady influx of people. Sometimes the same person will come twice or three times after their supply has run out. I’m surrounded by lost and lonely people who are curled up on top of a mound of filth, shaking in the cold air. They look so desperately woeful but deep in their eyes you can catch a glimpse of the sun that they are seeing. In their mind they are touched by the warmth and they are running through the hills that I loved as a boy. They can see my family’s cottage and they can smell the sweetest smells of world I left behind, men have starved to death in such a trance. I sell it for twenty five dollars a pop. 

It’s not hard to extract blood when you don’t feel any pain. I have a hundred little vials to fill and the junkies supply the rest. They don’t care what the blue liquid is made of; they would literally put anything in their bodies just to feel some relief from the pain of being themselves. They can look through another mirror. They can see me looking back at them, a vision of me when I was strong. Every shot they take they ingest the best part of me. My memories, my love and my joy, the things I do not require anymore. It has been too long since I have been away. I don’t believe in anything anymore, accept my mission. I can’t save them, they destroy themselves faster when you try to show them the way, so I’m fixing them

.

Don’t think less of me, you sent me here alone. 

 

Cairo sleeps there now, under the bridge. He doesn’t go back to his home. He knows that the scientists have it under surveillance. They know exactly what he is doing but they want to see how far it goes, how much it can change. They will figure out how to synthesize it soon and perfect it, turn it into a weapon. They have a world full of test subjects and one man who has become so completely indifferent to human suffering, he facilitates it. No one could take him lower. It has been three weeks and the whole town is a buzz with word about the new super drug on the streets, the one that lets you see another world, the one that stops time, the drug that takes years away from your mind. You could be sitting on a chair and staring at the wall for three days straight, completely unresponsive and you would only have been exploring the world inside your eyes for an hour. You are catatonic, you can’t see or hear or move.

It didn’t take long for everyone to discover the effects, not just the users but the abusers, the opportunists. An overweight man approaches Cairo in the late afternoon, asking to speak to him about an opportunity. He is wearing a nice suit badly and he is sweating so much the grey material looks brown. His comb over hair style is ridiculous but his watch is very high in value. This is the kind of man you know spends all his money on chance and women, at the same time. He offers Cairo one hundred thousand dollars to supply a large amount of the drug to certain young women in his neighborhood. He has two lists, one with the women’s names and addresses and another with a list of business associates and their bank account details. He wants to take advantage of the catatonic state that the users are left in, in the worst way.

Cairo looks at this man straight into his eyes. His smile bleeds over his sluggish face and he tries to look away. Cairo starts to imagine all the gloriously grotesque things he could do to him and how much pain he could reflect in his soul. Then he looks down at his arms and all the marks left by the needle he uses to extract. A tear wells inside him and it dries before it leaves his eye. 

There are no more rescues left

He takes the first list and nods to the business man. 

May the sun have mercy on the way I burn. 

The first name on the list is;

Stacey Brunt 201a Flynn Street. 

He makes his first house call. She resists at first throwing herself around her apartment but then she falls deeper than anyone he has ever seen. She falls hard onto the floor. Cairo lifts her up gently and places her in her bed. He says a prayer for the light that she sees to drown out the darkness she feels. The sweet death of her innocence will show only on her skin not her soul. She will never know.

The first client makes his way toward the room. Cairo looks down on him and warns him not to hurt her. The man looks back at him with no fear and says

No one can hurt her more than you have my friend. 

Cairo leaves the apartment and tries to saturate himself in the memory he left behind;

A young man of eighteen stands at the edge of a launching platform, surrounded by the people of his village and his family, they all look at him with love and admiration. He has been studying for years to be a traveler and he doesn’t want anything else in his life except to explore the distant beauty of the universe.

His one man ship, sits next to him, a magnificent sphere shaped, high speed space shuttle in a metallic royal blue sheen. The lights around the rim shimmer in the twilight of the three moons. Their orange hue warms the faces of everyone in the crowd.

He has been chosen out of hundreds of others to venture forth to new worlds and spread their world’s message of peace and strength. He will save the lives of people so alien to him and he will know a single happiness known only by the traveler. His father encourages him to do this as his father did before him. Cairo will go further than any of them have gone before. He will be alone but the collected memories of his entire world run through every cell of his body and once he looks within himself he will be at peace.

His father kisses him on the forehead and lets him know how proud of him he is. He wishes him luck and courage. Cairo assures him that he will conduct himself with compassion and strength and he will guide whomever he encounters toward the light

He says to the crowd;

I will save them, I will comfort them but we will show them the way. 

And with a roar of applause he lifted off and drifted off into infinity. 

This was the happiest and saddest day of his life. So alone he is, physically detached to all he loves but mentally drowning in the extended sorrow of his loss.

He can’t find his way back. They won’t show him the way.