The Wall

I hated waiting.

Too soon light was shining through my slitted eyes. Like a white-bone needle it was working its way between my lids and forcing them apart. It hurt. I was groggy and I’d barely slept at all. My teeth were furry. I cursed that brown stuff but then the memory of it made me crave more. That convinced me it was bad.

The sun rose over the icy plains, painting the horizon with drips of color that hit the snow and splashed across it, seeping in like the ice could hold it. The stu

I pulled up the blind between the carriages. Everyone was awake and Deshi waved at me. He looked happier, more secure.

The train glided smoothly to a stop and the carriage door opened soundlessly. The blast of cold air was like a smack in the face. Joseph woke up very suddenly, sitting bolt upright, like someone had given him an electric shock. Looking at him crumpled from sleep, he looked boyish, his hair sticking up at all angles, his eyes squinting and not wanting to open. It made me want to grab his hair and pull his face down to mine. He made me feel like I was sitting at the edge of a pool, that feeling of warmth touching my toes and begging me to dive in. He smiled down at me, leaned in, and pressed his lips to my forehead.

Matthew poked his head in the door and smiled. His light brown hair showed strands of gold in the light. “Hungry?”

We both nodded. He threw some sandwiches at us.

He was wearing his stethoscope around his neck and was carrying a small bag. “I thought I would ride with you for a bit. I need to give Joseph a check-up,” he said in a too-cheery voice. His mood from last night was shoved somewhere. Maybe being closer to home helped him. I didn’t know what that was like. There was no place I felt a pull towards except maybe the woods and they were dangerous. We were like trees with nowhere to sink our roots, Joseph and I. Instead of finding the ground we wound them around each other.

Matthew put Orry’s capsule on the floor and slid into the seat opposite us. Orry seemed so tired from the stress of yesterday, he didn’t even notice the movement. We opened our food and talked while eating.

Matthew cleared his throat and tapped the end of his stethoscope. “How are you feeling?”

Joseph breathed in and out slowly as Matthew listened to his lungs and tapped his chest lightly. “Stitches are itchy but apart from that I feel really good,” he answered, gri

I tightened my eyes at Matthew. He leaned back a bit and raised his eyebrows. I was so used to people reacting that way to me it didn’t give me pause anymore. “What exactly did you do to him?” I asked.

“Rosa…” Joseph started to say.

“It’s all right.” Matthew put his hands up. “She has a right to ask, so do you.”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t have to glare at you like that.”

I turned my eyes on Joseph. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I snapped.

He chuckled and ran his hand through his hair. He was so a

Matthew explained that the operation they’d performed, the ‘broken heart’ procedure, was one of the borrowed technologies discovered when they started building the settlement. It involved removing the heart and placing it in a glass box. At this point, I snorted. It sounded stupid. I felt sure it was a lie. Matthew assured us it was true. They didn’t know how it worked but, coupled with a complicated machine, it could completely regenerate the damaged tissue. It could replicate any organ or body part. So if you were badly burned, it could generate new skin. It was like Joseph had been given a new heart. Joseph was fascinated. I was looking out the window. As long they hadn’t hurt him or changed him in some fundamental way, that was explanation enough.

When they had finished their doctor talk, Matthew asked Joseph to unbutton his shirt so he could look at his stitches.

“Would you turn around please?” Joseph said to me, making a circle with his finger, a wicked grin on his face.

I poked my tongue out at him. “If you hadn’t just had surgery, I would punch you.”

The train started moving. Matthew slammed into Joseph’s chest with his stethoscope and he winced. “Ha!” I laughed.

I could tell Matthew didn’t quite understand our dynamic. But he ignored us, focusing on pressing around the edges of the scar as Joseph gritted his teeth.

“All looks good,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Good. Really good. Thanks, Matt.”

“How’s Apella?” I blurted out before I could stop myself.

“She’s fine,” Matthew said looking at me with his kind, blue eyes.

“What? What’s wrong with Apella?” Joseph asked.

“Umm…” I was never good at coming up with a lie on the spot.

Matthew took over. “Apella had a miscarriage while you were in the coma. She’s very sad, but physically she’s doing well.”

Joseph shook his head sorrowfully, “Oh no. That’s awful.” He went quiet, taking on her grief. It made me love him more, that he would be so affected by her loss. He wouldn’t make the co

The spi

Matthew said we would be there soon. He tapped his fingers on the table and glanced out the window absentmindedly. Trees sprouted out of the snow and I felt more at home with the green pressing into the tracks. With the sun so strong, the snow was melting, pulling the white back from the leaves, revealing the life underneath. It was there, just waiting, ready to grow and change the scene. I wanted to run out there, to shake and whip the branches and tell winter to hurry up and finish.

As we climbed further, an alien noise punctured the silence. Matthew uttered, “Gwen.” He rolled his eyes and stared out the window more intently, like that could block out the noise. Tiny speakers in the four corners of our carriage emitted static and I thought they were going to make an a

Joseph and I both jumped in our seats. Orry followed the noise around the room like he could see the sounds floating around on the air. I could almost see them too.

It fit into the scene like it was made for that exact purpose, an accompaniment. It slipped in and around the trees, hopping up and down on the leaves, sending sprays of melting snow ru

Then the singing started. A man’s voice ebbed in between the springing, echoing noises of strings being plucked and wood being hit. His voice was sweet and soft; the painful bemoaning edge to it brought tears to my eyes. I thought of Clara. She understood music. In Pau, the only tuneful sound came from absent humming or whistling and that was usually swallowed pretty quickly for fear of being reported. This was the first time Joseph and I had ever heard anything like this, an organized, yet almost organic, melding of voice and instrument. It filled my ears, my head, with pleasure and aching and I wondered if that was the intention behind it. I couldn’t even hear the words. The sound was overwhelming enough. When it stopped, I wanted to reach out and tug it back through the speakers. But another song started and brought us through another journey of the singers making.