Chapter 38

Edward walked slightly ahead of Witticker, reminiscent of a samurai being followed by his servant. However, the roles in this case had become slightly reversed. Edward had saved Witticker from several complications already with no mention of restitution or compensation and while Witticker found this to be a rather curious circumstance he did not dare to look the gift horse directly in its mouth.
The two men found a worn pathway leading into the forest in the direction of the native distrip and took it in opposition of hiking over open fields. The heat of the day beat through the light-filtering trees as they wound through the forest pathway, flanked by wild undergrowth. As they began their descent into the valley of the distrip they spotted a small clearing in a grove on the valley’s edge. As they reached the clearing they spied a man alone in the grove, curled into the fetal position, rocking back and forth, and groaning in pain.
“Are you alright, sir?” asked Edward cautiously.
The man looked up at his new visitors with eyes brimming with wild fear and despair. His face was stretched and pulled in agony.
“I’ve got…I’ve got’em in me. Nobody will tell me the truth, but I know…I know they’re there. I can feel’em crawling, calculating. I just need to find one…can you see one?”
Upon saying this, the man released his fetal lock, showcasing his gut, unrecognizable through the red of the blood. His body appeared to have been sliced open at the waist in a most gruesome fashion.
Witticker jumped back as Edward moved closer to the man.
“Who did this to you? Were did they go?”
The man stared madly into Edward’s eyes as he pulled a blade from the ground next to him.
“It wasn’t no one else. I’m gonna find one. I know there’s one inside of me…somewhere. I just have to find it.”
“One what? What is inside of you?”
“A robot! They’re real small…and can look just like all the other stuff in there. It’s a big scam, you see…the doctors put’em in there and the lawyers…the lawyers just cover it up, but I figured’em out. I’ve just gotta find one and then everyone will believe. Everyone will…everyone.”
At this the man opened himself up again and began poking through his wounds savagely, clawing through his own body like an open suitcase. Edward took a step back, removing himself from the man’s activity. He watched as the man dug and screamed in alternation, a horrific self-inflicted torture. Edward took a revolver from his side-holster and aimed it at the man. The gun discharged and the man fell limp to the ground, his extremities idly drawn to the forest floor.

*~~*


Witticker walked back on the path a short way and, after the shot rang through the valley, fell on his hands and knees, heaving in disgust. Edward approached him from the grove and waited in silence.
“What…why did that man do that to himself?”
Edward stood reloading his gun and polishing its metal frame.
“Don’t quite know. Every person reacts to knowledge in a different way.”
Witticker stood up and leaned against a tree, using it for support.
“What does knowledge have to do with what that man was doing to himself?”
Edward slipped the revolver back into his side-holster, concealed beneath his brown vest.
“Imagine it like this. You grow up your entire life with an active imagination. The possibilities are endless. You learn and achieve and acquire and at the end of the tunnel someone tells you that reality isn’t what you learned about all those years. It’s what’s in your head.
“For some people it’s like a new lease on life. They love the control. For some,” said Edward as he pointed towards the grove, “it’s like throwing a brick through a glass window. People just don’t know what to believe and in the breakdown that means they really have no reality. Long story short, Perceptionism isn’t for everyone.”
Witticker leaned against the tree for a long time. He couldn’t get the image of the man’s face out of his head. The way his eyes had communicated such despair. The way his face had stretched out in earnest agony.
Edward waited and, after a time, Witticker moved again. The two men passed through the grove and down the valley, drawing nearer to the distrip.