The Wanted

I leaned back in my chair, straining my neck to focus on the corner where the large window met the bumpy, pilling carpeted wall. No one’s attention was on me now. I was a fly buzzing haplessly in the corner. All eyes were on the man with wasted legs and muscled arms. My eyes were the only ones that wanted to turn away but couldn’t.

“…one…”

Watching it from the outside was a very different experience. But a memory of pain still ran a routed course through my veins. I could feel the searing burn of blue liquid under my own skin as I watched Grant’s body convulse when it entered his. He was silent, his mouth a punched, hard line, but the scream lay plain across his face. His eyes pooled with water, and his arms lifted slightly as he gripped the seams of his hospital gown in his hands. He thought the agony was going to be worth it. He thought this suffering was a means to healing… not a means to his end.

I pulled my legs up to my chest and rocked back and forth, trying to shut it out. But it was useless. Thoughts banged in my head, clanging like an empty drum. He had said my death would not be easy. When was death easy? I was trapped between my fear of dying and my fear of what I was about to see. There was no avenue to escape, no wall to climb. I would have to watch my actions play out in front of me, just as I had watched myself die over and over again.

“I tried,” I told myself, my lips stretching over the green and pink silk flowers. “I tried.” Words dried up.

I tried, I tried, I tried.

The guard slapped my shoulder and told me to shut up.

Five minutes of pain, and he thought it would be over.

The glass coffin lifted and people gasped before Grant had even moved or spoken. A whitecoat moved to him and attempted to mop Grant’s forehead with a washcloth. Grant waved him off in irritation, pulled himself up to sitting, and laughed.

The crowd shuffled closer, pulled in by the maniacal laughter, and for a moment, I couldn’t see him. I didn’t want to see the joy on his face. But I could hear it.

Camille’s voice passed through the crowd. “Oh Judy,” she sighed happily. “Did you see that? He just wiggled his toes.”

“I did, Mother. It’s amazing!” Judith crooned. “This will change his whole life.” Her voice had taken on a very considered tone.

He had fifteen minutes to enjoy his legs.

People took turns congratulating him through the intercom. Sekimbo shoved through the guests, shouldering a woman out of the way, and slobbering drunkenly over the intercom. “Well done, Wyatt, well done, friend. Now you can…”

“Daddy, wait!” interrupted whatever uncouth thing Sekimbo was about to say as the guests jostled like tenpins. Judith’s breathless, willowy body pushed through and she landed on the intercom, her thin fingers hanging off the plastic rectangle like she needed it to hold her up.

The crowd pulled back from the window, and I could see clearly again. Grant sat up on the edge of the bed, delighted by his own, working legs, lifting them and rolling his ankles. His face lit up with a genuine smile that fell into a grimace at the sound of Judith’s voice.

He signaled the tech to open the mic. His voice stretched as taut as a set catapult when he barked, “Wait for what?”

From a pocket in her dress, she produced two white pills sealed in a plastic bag. Denis stumbled backwards like they were going to blow up in her palm. I didn’t know what to feel. Relief I wasn’t involved in a murder? Dread I was going to be executed? Every emotion whirred together like a cyclone and sucked into the sky, leaving me an empty shell, watching this play out like a video, a play, a plot.

“Daddy, they tried to make me do it, but I knew it was wrong. They threatened me and Mother, and I didn’t think I had a choice.” She held up the pills and showed them to everyone. “De

Camille sat down and put her head between her legs, whispering, “My own child, my own child.”

Confusion dominated the room. Grant’s voice, thick with anger, rose above the crowd.

“Judith, come down here immediately. Guards, detain Denis.”

Quickly, everything flipped like a coin. Denis was a prisoner, Judith was the hero, and I was still pi

Grant swung his legs on the edge of the bed like a child. Bright lights bounced off the metallic surroundings and made his sweaty skin shine. When the door finally opened, he jumped down and I sensed the power he felt as his legs supported him. He drew strength from the ground as if it were electric as he strode towards Judith’s tiny figure. He eyed the pills and his daughter suspiciously. She talked fast, her head bobbing up and down, and her eyes welling and spilling over with false tears. She moved to hug him and, after a moment of rigidness, he wrapped his arms around her and patted her honey-colored head gently. He swallowed the pills without water while still in her embrace and then turned to the crowd, who were all almost leaning on the glass as they tried to read the situation.

Grant strode proudly over to the mic and flicked the switch. The intercom vibrated with his energy and fury. “Judith has relayed a plot to assassinate me in which she was an unwilling pawn.” My heart rattled in denial. “She has come to my aid and has proved her worth in my eyes. Denis, on the other hand, has proved wanting at every turn since he came to me, and perhaps that is why he has now reached this depth of deception and depravity. Working with a rebel to murder his own father is despicable and unforgiveable.” Grant shook his head and swiped his forehead. “I have no choice but to disown him and sentence him to death along with the rebel.” He didn’t even look at me. He had won. I could be swept down the garbage chute now.

Denis managed to yell, “She’s lying!” as they dragged him away.

Judith took a step back from her father as he began to address the crowd above. His head tilted upwards, his expression glinting all kinds of sharp angles and cuts.

“Friends. See what is possible.” His leg wobbled, and his foot dropped flat when he stepped towards the window. He straightened it. “See what our great society can achieve with the right motivation.” He cringed inwards and coughed, a blue drip appearing at his nostril. “I am healed…” He stumbled. “I am…” One knee collapsed, and he reached down with his strong arms to pull it back up. But as he leaned down, his other knee buckled.

Camille whispered, “Wyatt,” and reached her arm out towards him. He fell forward, bracing himself with his hands. His legs were once again useless. He rolled to sitting and grabbed at them, pinched them, shaking his head.

The guests breathed in one collective breath and held it.

“No,” he wheezed. Another cough sprayed blue liquid down the front of his gown. I retreated deeper into my seat, the second hand pounding over my head.

In the corner, leaning against the door, Judith smirked. No one saw her but me. Then she rushed to him.

“Daddy!” she screamed. Her voice was over the top, her screams strangled and full of huffs and gasps as she sobbed hysterically.

The mic was still on and we heard every word.

“What’s happening?” he rasped, his voice weak, desperate, as he sat staring at his hopeless legs.

Judith kneeled down. “I don’t know, Daddy. They should work. Unless she gave me fake ones.” She pointed up at me and I shrank back, the events leading up to this moment sifting through my mind and landing in a neat and ordered stack.