Darwin's Easter

It no longer mattered that Darwin's hands and feet were tied. He could not have moved them now anyway. His captors had him buried up to his chest. For what reason? Darwin could only guess.

They had never said a single word all the while. Even while abducting him three hours ago. They remained silent, save for the occasional grunts they let out while burying him.

Despite his age, Darwin was rational and sane, (unlike the four deranged and masked men burying him). He was always having to wait on the world of adults for something. He would just have to wait this out like everything else. Death or rescue, one or the other would save him soon.

They stopped piling dirt on to the hole Darwin was in when they reached a point just above his shoulders. With their shovels they packed the dirt down as tightly as they could. Darwin would of told them it had been tight enough ten minutes ago when it had been, but the clothe in his mouth made him want to puke when ever he tried to make a noise.

The sun was setting to his back. The shadow his head cast on the ground before him kept growing. The miles of hills that lay out in front of him began to darken, and the tall tower of solar panels that marked his underground village soon vanished, save for it's crown of pulsating red lights.

Being incapable of doing much else, Darwin did all he could do, look at his captors and wait for them to do something. His body was too tired to be afraid now. He started to notice things about his captors he hadn't earlier.

Their masks were made out of roughly tanned leather. Over their eyes were bug like glasses that looked more like goggles a child would use to swim with. They were tinted green, allowing no one to see the eyes behind them. The way they worked together made him think that even though they were not talking, there was a shared understanding between them. Telepathy? Not likely. But there was something.

Now the men started to move. Circling Darwin like a pack of wolves afraid their prize deer was going to prance away.

Waiting for something more to happen. Darwin thought back to his history class, how people used to believe in hell. A place of eternal torture, a damnation. No matter what they had thought up, fire, ice, brimstone, or torture, Darwin was sure that for him, this would be worse. Tied, buried, and gagged. Raped of expression.

Waiting Darwin began to listen intently to the sounds of the world around him. The wind was the hand, the tree was the harp, gently they made a song together. Darwin's ears rang in harmony. There were trains speeding through the evening in the distance. Sounds of footsteps circled him like he was in the center of some twisted cyclone.

The will to move was rising inside of him. He wanted to scream. He wanted to shout. He wanted to thrash and flail. The battle for his sanity, had begun.

"Alone," one nameless voice whispered, "we have traveled through hell."

Kill me, Darwin thought. Quit wasting my time and just kill me!

"I loved you before hell," said the voice.

"And after," growled another.

The night was now fully dark. The rolling hills covered in plain grass seemed to change shape.

"I loved you before loneliness, dreamt of you in hell," said the first voice (now behind Darwin instead of in front).

"But death's other kingdom had plans for us: has plans for you," said a voice to his left. It was making him dizzy. The voices spun around him as each of the men circling him began to talk.

"You have to feel,"

"But not touch."

"Hear,

"But not listen."

"You have to be dead while breathing," The first man said, bending down and removing the clothe in Darwin's mouth. All the movement stopped. The man was now staring him right in the eyes. "Darwin?"

Darwin didn't answer. He wanted to, but all his lips could do was tremble.

"Darwin!" said the man, more forcefully now.

"Y-y-yes?"

"There are things you have to experience before we are ready to play your role. Places you have to go. Pains you have to feel. We can not rob you of that pain. Do you know why that is?"

Darwin did not know why. But the masked man gave him no time to answer. So it did not matter if he had one or not.

"We need you. Humanity... needs you. Three days and three nights Darwin, an allegorical sum, that is how long you will be alone. Wait it out, overcome your hell, that is all we ask. Can you do that for us?"

"If I say no will you dig me out of here and take me home?"

The man just laughed, "The three days will bring fulfillment, molding you into the man you will be, or setting you on the path at least. The forth brings completion, and ultimately resurrection. I am sorry my son, it is only necessary."

The man talked like he was under the impression he was a loving dad spanking his child. It annoyed Darwin more than the speech itself. He wanted to tell the man something vulgar, but nothing came to mind.

"Don't you have anything to say Darwin?" the man asked.

"Not really."

"Okay then," the man said. He put the gag back in Darwin's mouth, and then he blind folded him. Lastly he put two objects in Darwin's ears.

Submerged in world of ringing ears and a sore neck, Darwin awaited his Easter.

From the Diary of Roger P. Ashford

She lay there in her hospital whites, happy to see me again after all these years, but angry towards the circumstances which brought me.

"Roger!" she said, moving a hand to the control panel that turned her bed into a crude chair, "I was afraid you wouldn't be able to make it up here to see me!"

It was not easy getting the time off. Actually, at this very moment I was supposed to be traveling across America selling retailers the next generation of useless kitchen ware. But I had turned west on to Highway 20 instead of east. West to Loreen. West to unemployment.

But I figured she did not need to know that. "My boss was understanding. And he can hardly complain, as it is, he can't afford to lose me."

Loreen had been my friend for five years now. I had met her during my last year of college. We had been protesting one thing or another. We became inseparable almost immediately. Only two months into our friendship I had to leave college because of some family issues. Somehow that seemed to draw us closer though.

I thought about asking her how she was, but that was a stupid question.

She could walk, but not run. Wobble, but never dance. So was life with robotic legs. Not matter how good you got at controlling them, no matter how real they looked, they still made you hobble around like some less evolved member or the primate family. A person like Loreen would never say she was good under such circumstances.

God, the universe, or the aliens watching us like some sort of animal planet special, did not care about the little things like this I figured. If they did they would not have let them happen. They thought these things shaped and molded us, caused us to evolve for the better.

That is if anyone was really watching us with any concern at all.
I just sat there wishing this did not happen. I did not know what to say. Why would God give beauty and take grace? I do not mean to sound rude, but there are better people to cripple than her.
The silence was starting to get awkward. I did not know what she was waiting for.

"Instead of backpacking around Germany this year, I think we should go to DC. How long has it been since you have been to the Smithsonian?"

"I need to ask you something," Loreen said. She looked a little out of it. Like she was on drugs or like her accident had not only taken her legs, but a few points off her IQ too.

"Okay," I said, waiting for her to continue. "Ask away."

She turned and looked at one of her walls like it was a window, like she was staring out at some distant object, distracted by some non existent beauty. Finally she began to speak, "Do you really think there are two sides? Or just different shades of gray, and different ways of seeing things?"

"I am not sure. Both I guess?"

"No, you have to pick, is moral law just a matter of which side of the fence you are on, or are there things that are always right or always wrong, No matter the motivation?"

"Isn't it a bit early to start in on this kind of stuff? Why not ask me about my drive here? I swear I got passed by Larry King. Seriously, he isn't dead. I saw him..."

"Shut up! This is important." Loreen said, raising her voice just a little too high.

"Sorry, keep it down though."

"They're planning on leaving us." She spaced every syllable evenly, as if to make herself understood to a young child.

"Who are Loreen? Why? When? Are you feeling well?"

"The thinkers! The inventors! A whole secret society of arrogant snobs who look at themselves as prime specimen!"

She must have been drugged I thought. It was unlike her to be so loud. And to be talking such nonsense. "Calm the hell down Loreen. Mars is still two hundred years from being settled. Talk of the ruling class not allowing people who didn't meet certain criteria to migrate there has always been around. It is just stupid gossip. That is all. And what is the hurry? Why is this so important?"

"Not Mars. Another star system," Loreen said, still voicing her words like she had to treat me like a child. "SETI institute started receiving messages about four months ago from an unmanned, or I guess you would say unaliened, prob heading towards earth. The message says we are to meet them in the Rigil Kentaurus system, something about it being the halfway point."

There was no way this could be true. I knew this must just be a side affect to some medicine she was taking.

"Uh--How could you possibly know this? If it were true, and let's say it is, What reason do I have to believe this?" I asked, waiting to hear "gotcha!".

Loreen only gave me her trademark, the sardonic half smile, and said with a little too much edge, "You should believe me because, in a few minutes, a very persuasive nurse will come in, sedate me, and tell you that the trauma of my accident has caused me to think up alternative versions to how my legs were lost. She will say that nothing like what I told you happened. That really is a funny thing to say because I stuck to the story they will claim as true."

Loreen thought she was being real witty. I had no doubt of that. I was starting to grow concerned though. I began to sweat. What if she was right somehow?

The door to the room opened, my heart jumped up into my throat. I wanted to puke up those cheap "gas station special" white powdered donuts I had this morning on the way here. I started to shake. It was the persuasive nurse! It must be, I told myself.

But in the doorway was not a nurse with a needle and syringe ready to sedate Loreen. I had to laugh to myself. Such foolish thoughts!

I turned back to her to give her my version of the sardonic half smile, but she was still giving me hers. Puzzled I looked back to our guests in the doorway.

And just then it dawned on me, two armed guards dressed in the uniform of the Naval Air Service were really just about as good at proving her point as anything.

Loreen sat there in her hospital whites, happy to have so utterly proven her point, but angry at the point she had so utterly proven.