There were differences in the paths of their lives, but only in the most heartbreaking ways, and they had grown closer to each other with each new tragedy. Graham and his wife had managed to fall pregnant just once during their long marriage. His daughter had been small but more beautiful than anything Graham had ever laid his eyes upon. Her little bud of a mouth and soft black hair were a miracle to Graham, but those pink lips had turned blue quickly and the feeling of loss almost crushed him when she breathed her last so soon after coming into the world.
Neither of them had wanted to try again. The situation was never discussed, but his wife had quietly gone and had an implant put in that would prevent another pregnancy. Graham had felt the tiny lump in the course of their lives but, like her, never spoken about it.
For Wallis and his wife the experience was different but Graham thought it must have been even harder to live through. Pregnancies came one after the other for that couple, yet all of them ended in miscarriage until their boy had finally come screaming and healthy into the world. That son had died at twelve years of age from some cancer of the blood. Just days later the boy’s mother joined her son when she decided to fall.
Since then, it had become habit for the two men to eat together more often than not and keep each other company. At first it was under a cloud of despair as both tried to continue living in the face of so much loss. When special days came around they provided silent support to the other to get through the day. When the sadness struck one of them particularly hard for no apparent reason, the other would produce a pack of cards or a game or just some distracting conversation. In those first years, the temptation to tell Wallis the truth about this world had been almost irresistible. But he had resisted and with the passage of years the temptation had waned.
Over time, they had both settled into a new sort of life and had provided to each other a companionship much like that of close brothers. In their own ways, they had developed a sort of resigned contentment and helped the other to forget what could be forgotten. If only Graham could indulge in the water. If only he could let Wallis do the same.
Today’s bucket, bristling with the bright yellow ears and speckled with spices, provided a believable cover for Graham as he sought help from the only person who might believe what he said or even understand it. Graham felt better just knowing he would have an ally.
At Wallis’s door, he knocked then held out the bucket in invitation as it opened. Wallis clapped him on the shoulder in welcome as he crossed the threshold and said, “About time! I’m starving.”
He stopped and looked at Graham, actually seeing his friend with his hollowed eyes and stressed expression. He said, “You look like you haven’t slept in days. You okay?”
Once inside and with the door closed, Graham plunked the bucket down unceremoniously on a littered table and said, “I need your help.”
You Might Want to Sit Down
“Okay,” Wallis answered, eyeing the bucket of corn. “Can it wait till after we eat? I’m not joking about being starving, you know.” He sucked in his gut dramatically and slapped at his belly, but his smile belied his words. He was just cheerful and couldn’t seem to stop himself.
“Not that kind of help,” Graham answered, trying to figure out exactly how he was going to do this and not get punched. He would deserve a punch or two. “We can eat while you help me.”
Wallis rubbed his hands together and said, “Right! Tea. And napkins. Get comfortable, why don’t you.”
Graham took the bucket and scooted some junk around on the low living room table to make room for it while Wallis busied himself with the business of making tea, humming a little tune as he did. He was glad to see that his friend was using the containers of farm water to make the tea.
He had already done all that he could to keep Wallis safe and with his wits intact without telling forbidden truths. He had ensured that Wallis received water tapped before it was processed through the dosing machines. Graham and Wallis were both drinking straight farm water now. The water they were drinking came from the upper water treatment plant—the one that brought the highest levels of contamination to those that drank from it—but Graham could see no help for that. He tried not to imagine what poison leeched into his body whenever he drank. When Wallis had asked why Graham wanted him to drink only from the big containers he hated hauling, he had lied and his lie was just believable enough for his friend.
Graham hadn’t been able to face the idea of being alone in his memory. It was bad enough seeing the dullness come over everyone else but he wouldn’t have been able to survive without at least one other undimmed person. Wallis was getting some dosing, of course, and there was nothing Graham could do about that. The tea in communal spaces, a quick drink of water at some handy faucet during the day or even the water left on vegetables washed before being served meant he couldn’t escape it entirely. But that little bit hadn’t dulled Wallis and he was almost as quick as ever. Graham was getting that much as well. There was simply no way to avoid it completely, but these small amounts seemed to have no real effect on either man.
Wallis waved him over to grab the tea while he carried in the other necessaries. Once they had settled and Wallis dug into the fragrant, but rapidly cooling, ears of corn, Graham decided it was now or never.
“So, Wallis, you know I don’t have a shadow anymore, right?”
Without a pause in his rapid nibble along the ear of corn, Wallis nodded and grunted something that sounded vaguely like a yes. The way his eyebrows drew together told Graham he didn’t understand the point of the question.
“Well, a big part of my job involves stuff no one except my shadow and myself are supposed to know about,” he said by way of explanation and then trailed off, trying to work everything out in his mind.
Wallis finished his first ear and dropped the gnawed cob into a smelly—and overfull—bin meant for compost material. He grabbed another in hands already dripping with juice and asked, “You want me to be your shadow or something? Because, if that is what you’re after, I gotta tell you I’m fully employed already.”
That actually wasn’t a bad thought. In a way, he was enlisting Wallis as a shadow of sorts. Unlike his uncle, Graham had no shadow to take over for him should the worst happen. And if anything happened to him right now, before he could do what he needed, the silo would be lost. And the only shadow he could handle after what had happened to the boy he had thought of as a son was Wallis.
His shadow had died before his thirtieth birthday. He had wasted away until the doctor gave him that single big dose of concentrated poppy extract that he gave to all those whose pain grew too great. There was not enough of the extract to manage the pain of a long decline. Even when crops were displaced to increase the space for the flowers, there was no way to tend and process as much as they would need. There just weren’t enough farmers or chemists.
So, people like his shadow suffered until the suffering was too great and then their suffering ended. That was it. A medic was called and with him came his little bottle of painless death. Graham had cared for his shadow as best he could but eventually the young man had called for the bottle. He had cried and held his bony hand as the lines of pain eased away and he regained his youth, even if only briefly and in death.
Graham shook those dark thoughts of the past away and grabbed one of the ears of corn and said, “Okay. You know how you’ve always thought we were the only silo?”
What Would Wallis Do?
They talked until well into the dimming, when the silo became quiet and the sounds of life tapered off beyond the compartment door. Graham did not return to his rooms once they were done talking. He had been exhausted almost to tears and couldn’t face even that short trip back to his empty compartment. Instead he shoved piles of laundry, plus one disreputably shaggy old cat, off the couch and onto the floor and took that for his bed. It was an uncomfortable bed and, as tired as he was, Graham found his mind going over the evening just passed and all that had been said.