Daniel Ausema

         Avins snatched the handbill from the light pole, wondering as he did so when the last time was that anyone had bothered to light the gas light up top.  Not that the new electric lights in some parts of town would have been any better.  Electricity became unpredictable during war.  He'd been a little boy when they were last lit, it seemed—but everyone had been a child before the war, no matter their age.

         Now they were all old—those in their twenties, like himself, as well as his parents' generation, and even the little children who hardly knew what it was to play without fear in the streets.  Old in a way those who lived in peace never were.

         The handbill was cheaply made, the letters bleeding into the rough paper from printing type that had been used too many times.  No one cast new letters in the midst of a war, or if they did, then the people of the city of New Irlads certainly weren't taking the time to buy them.  Hiding from the ever-present artillery was a higher priority these days.  The notice promised what it always did—the illusion of hope.  Every month they came out, announcing a concert or a play or some other performance, an opening for an art exhibit, or as this one did, a sporting event, a football competition that invited the citizens to participate in hope of winning a prize.

         Hope.  Was there ever a time when that wasn't simply a sarcastic word?

         As always, at the bottom of the page was the line, "Conditions permitting."  They never were.  Artillery shells were the city's precipitation, and it always rained.  Troops adjusted their positions on the night of the play, or changing restrictions limited the citizens of New Irlads, forcing them indoors when the dance was supposed to take place.  Always the promised event was canceled.  "Postponed!" handbills showed up at the theater, the playing field, the opera house.

         And the people returned to their shell-marked houses dejected.

         Avins crumpled the paper into a bullet and threw it down on the cobbles.  Then he walked across the broken stones of the street, kicking spent shells out of his way.  He should probably sneak along in the shadow of the buildings, darting from one abandoned storefront to the next, but he didn't.  No one did that anymore.  The artillery caught those sneaking as often as it caught those who moved openly, so why bother?  The years of war had taught them a brutal pragmatism.

         No one really remembered the time before the war.  They said they did, but they didn't, not really.  What they remembered, Avins thought as he stepped over a pile of rubble and into a maze of buildings, was their former selves, different people who had known a time without war.  Those people no longer existed, all killed as if one magic spell had wiped them out, replaced them with the people of a city at war, people that only remembered peace at two removes.

         The maze was Avins's one concession to protecting himself.  Here he could walk easily behind walls from building to building, crossing under the streets in ancient access tunnels.  Where he wanted to go now demanded that bit of protection.

         People lived here, crammed into the shadows of abandoned office buildings and warehouses.  Many of them, like himself, opposed the war, all wars, and refused to send their young men and women to fight in the hills around the city.  Avins passed by blankets strung up for an imitation of privacy.  He could hear people behind the blankets as if they stood in the passageways right beside him.

         Turning a corner, he saw an open space, what had been a warehouse floor and was now the closest these kids had to a park.  Children climbed over abandoned forklifts and up and down the high shelves.  Parts of broken steam engines littered the edges of the room.  In the open space in the center a group of kids was kicking a ball, playing furiously.  And talking.

         Avins slowed down to listen.

         "You see the new announcement?"

         "Yeah, and I'll beat you like this."  The boy talking cut back then changed directions again and slipped by his defender.

         "No, man," a girl said as she got the pass and moved toward the goal.  "My family will win it easy.  It'll be enough to get us out of here."

         Avins sucked the air between his teeth at that.  The constant empty promise of the city was that with just a little more money the family could bribe their way out through the narrow strip of protected road in the south, start a new life where there was no war.  No war, what a joke.  He'd heard so many parents tell the story to their children, yet none of them ever managed to leave.  It was always just out of reach.

         "You can't just win and leave, girl.  You win, you gotta defend yourself, and I'll take your prize right back.  Like this."  The speaker tried to take the ball away from the girl, but she stepped over the ball neatly, pushed it between his legs with the other foot, and was behind him, the ball still in her possession.

         "Yeah."  She laughed, but it wasn't a full laugh, not the type of laugh Avins remembered from when he was young.  "See you on the other side.  I'll defend myself when you leave the city too and find us."

         Avins moved on, trying to imagine what would happen when the promised day arrived.  The kids would show up on the pitch, a large park of torn grass and artillery craters in the center of town.  But they wouldn't be discouraged by that.  They'd learned long ago to live with the ironies and inconsistencies of a war-torn city.  A few of the children would have a ball clutched in their arms, others already dribbling with their feet.

         There would be an air of excitement, not dampened by the falling bombs in other parts of the city.  Somewhere nearby a building would be burning, but there were always buildings burning.  The ever-present steam engines exploded from lack of maintenance, causing the fires as often as the enemy's bombs did.  So the players would ignore it, approach the center of the field.  Except a handbill would be there, posted to a lamppost or flapping from a stone bench.  "Postponed," it would say.  Or, "Canceled.  We apologize for the inconvenience.  Tonight's troop movements prevent your leaders from sponsoring this event.  Please seek safety, and be ready for our next performance or competition."

         The children would hang their heads, hopes crushed among those still able to hope.  They would scatter slowly, some half-heartedly kicking around the field before they left.

         It was all so vivid in Avins's mind, stronger than the sight of the twisting tunnels that plunged beneath streets and the makeshift hallways formed of rubble and unsteady walls.  Stronger than the periodic cooking fires that lit the maze.  He wanted to hit someone, only he didn't know who.  Their leaders, holed up in the center of the city, deep underground?  The faceless enemy who besieged them?

         And for that matter, who was the enemy, anyway?  Creatures from another world, some claimed, riding here by magic.  People from across the ocean, who crossed the sea on unbelievably large steamers, others said, intent on conquering and colonizing.  Or perhaps, as a few argued, simply their former neighbors and rivals, the ethnically and religiously different people they'd shared their land with for all of recorded history.  The propaganda posted early in the war by the city leaders had been full of contradictions and vague warnings that could have been against any enemy, almost as if they'd been stockpiling posters for years in case war ever broke out.  Maybe it was all of them, Avins thought, and maybe none of it mattered.

         He tried to release his anger by kicking stones from his path, but it did little good.

         The passageway took him down and inward, so the thudding of artillery became distant, a drumming that he felt more than heard.  Sometimes he found himself trying to match those beats to music, but this time he kept his thoughts on the way ahead.  There would be guards, but as an unarmed citizen he should be allowed to reach some parts of the center.  Theoretically.  When the war started, a number of families had tried to live down there where they hoped it would be safer.  They were turned back, with force when necessary, and no one had bothered coming down in the years since.

         Now the passageway widened and narrowed alternately as it passed crumbled walls and crossed other chambers.  Avins kept going straight ahead, forcing his focus on the anger he'd felt at the handbill whenever he found his attention wandering to the sights of that unknown world.

         The first guards he encountered were not human, merely sensor gates that searched him for weapons.  Pistoned arms reached out and patted him all over, giving off whistles of steam.  After the inspection he passed through and moved onward into the central chambers.  He didn't think what he was looking for would be out here, but it wouldn't be deep into the center either.  Somewhere in the middle, perhaps.  As hallways spun away from him, it dawned on him how silly he was being.  The printing press could be anywhere, and unless he actually heard it running—and recognized the sound as a printing press—he'd have no clue where to look.

         Avins came to a pair of human guards at the entrance to the next level of the city center.  They looked at him blankly at first, then moved quickly as if to attention.  There was something oddly mechanical about them, but their voices sounded perfectly human.

         "What's your business here?"

         Without waiting for an answer to the question, the second guard stepped forward.  "Stay still while I search you."

         The first guard was still looking at him as if waiting for an answer, so while the other patted him down, doing no more thorough a job than the sensor gate had, he answered.  He hadn't been sure what to say, but now he was here he decided to simply ask right out for what he wanted.  "I'm looking for the printing press.  Could you tell me where to find it?"

         The first guard closed his eyes as if to remember where the room was as the second guard finished his search.

         "Ahead.  Turn right at the second corridor.  On the right, three doors down.  You need an authorization key to enter."

         Authorization.  He hadn't considered that.  "Thank you."

         "You may pass," the second guard added unnecessarily as he walked by.

         Even here the hallways showed damage from the incessant bombing and artillery.  Lights dangled from the ceiling, flickering unevenly as the electricity that had powered them came and went, and cracks climbed up the walls.  But Avins found the printing room easily.  One look at the door was enough to show him he needn't have worried about getting access.  It might once have been locked, but the damage to the walls had twisted the door frame so the door couldn't even close, probably hadn't closed for months by the look of things.

         Avins slipped inside and stared at the printing press, an oversized monster of metal surrounded by piles of paper.  Handbills.  Already printed.

         Taking the top handbill from one pile, he read of a play scheduled for months from then.  Another pile proclaimed a traveling petting zoo, with the date not yet filled in.  Did they really think they could get people to believe anyone would bring a herd of animals into a war zone?  Further piles promised musicals and dances and lawn bowling competitions.

         Avins pushed the piles over after he'd read what each one was.  Paper scattered over the floor, reminded him of snow that had once been a part of winters here.  Had the war warmed the city too much for winter?  Feeling an instant of nostalgia, he reached down as if to make a snowball and crumpled up a few of the handbills.  They flew, though not quite like snowballs.  He made more paper balls and spent several minutes throwing them harder and harder against the walls of the room.

         When he stopped he noticed a larger pile of paper against the other wall, tucked behind the printing press.  He knew what he would see even before he picked the first one up, but he grabbed it anyway.  "Canceled!"  These he didn't bother taking the time to crumple individually, didn't bother checking the top of each pile.  He just kicked and pushed piles over, scattering the handbills across the room, grinding his foot whenever he stepped on one.

         With the piles knocked down, he picked up the handbills that fluttered in the air, tearing them in half.  But before he'd ripped many, he noticed movement at the upper edge of his vision.  He looked up, saw the crooked doorway.  A man stood there.  He was not old but not young, and there was something completely human about him that the guards at the entrance had lacked.

         He wore the mantle of the ancient mayors, a sash that fell down from one shoulder like a waterfall.  Avins's hands continued their motion after everything else had stopped, slowly tearing one more handbill in half.

         The man watched the two pieces of paper fall to the floor without speaking.  When they landed, Avins tried to say something, but all that came out was, "I, umm..."

         "All those hopes...gone."  There was a wistful tone to the mayor's voice, but more than that, a sort of simple curiosity, as if he honestly wondered what would happen next.  "Dreams, torn in half.  Wishes trampled underfoot."

         Avins looked down and for a moment felt guilty, for a moment imagined each of those papers was someone's dream fluttering around his feet, crushed by his vandalism.  Then he remembered what they really were.  Handbills that played with hopes, lifting them up only to crush them.  It made him mad.

         "You call these things hopes?  You think what you've been doing has helped the people get through the war?  You only drive them more quickly to despair."  He kicked papers into the air.

         The mayor cocked his head to one side.  "Is that what you believe?"

         Avins was speechless for a moment, then he bent and picked up a handful of crumpled bills.  "Of course.  Those handbills over there build hopes up briefly, but each of these crushes them even lower than they would be."

         "Is it better then to hope for nothing?"

         "Yeah."  Avins shuffled his feet in the piles of paper, then added more firmly, "Yes, it is.  They'll find things to hope for, small things that will come true.  A trickle of clean water.  An extra serving of grain slipping through to give them strength."  He thought of the boys and girls he'd seen on his way there and added, "A game played for fun among friends."

         The mayor waved his hand, as if none of this seemed worthy of hope.

         "So what now?" Avins asked.  "Will you arrest me?  Lock me up for vandalism?"

         The mayor took a step closer then shook his head.  "No.  We don't have the people left down here to run a jail."

         "But you have the people to spread worthless handbills around the city every few weeks?"

         Raised hands and an affected shrug were Avins's only answer.

         "So I just walk free?  Or will your guards drag me off to fight?"

         When the mayor said nothing, Avins stepped toward the door, sliding by the mayor to reach the hallway.

         A hand grabbed his elbow as he passed.  "You could if you wanted to."

         It took Avins a moment to realize the mayor meant he could join the army.  The thought sickened him.  A gun didn't fit his hands.  A sword wouldn't rest easy on his hip.  There was a pathetic undertone to the mayor's voice, but Avins shook him off.

         He was halfway down the hallway when the mayor called again to him.  "The announcements will still go out.  There are plenty left for that, and I'll keep ordering more."

         Avins didn't bother responding.  Thoughts of an endless stream of promised events, endlessly canceled, ran through his mind, and he wanted to turn around and damage the room more.  When he reached the two guards, he heard a noise behind him and wondered if it was the printing press coming to life to destroy more dreams.  The guards said nothing as he stalked between them and headed back for the surface.

 

 

         On the morning of the promised game, Avins arrived early to the pitch.  A part of him hoped to beat whomever the mayor sent to post the notices, but already papers waved in the cold morning breeze.  He wondered if the mayor had some army of automatons, incapable of fighting but well able to deliver these ridiculous notices.  The first one he pulled down had the faint outline of a shoe-print.

         He circled the field gathering all the handbills that announced the cancellation, and threw them into a metal trash canister.  Something whistled over his head and struck a nearby building, but he didn't turn to look.  Picking up the ball he'd brought, Avins kicked it into the center of the field.

         His first thought had been to simply remove the handbills, as if that would guilt the leaders into following through.  But when he pictured the sad, lonely mayor, he knew that nothing would happen.  As far as he knew, the mayor was alone down there, assisted only by mechanical guards.  Where the rest of the city's leadership had gone he couldn't guess, but he was certain that no help would come from them.

         The promised start time was still over an hour off when the first hopeful children arrived.  Avins joined them in kicking his ball up and down the field, and soon other kids arrived with their own balls.  Laughs and shouts punctuated the ever-present scream of artillery.

         The players arriving got older, the passes crisper, and the youngest faded off to the sidelines for their own mini-games as the scheduled time arrived.  Avins had no whistle—and besides, the people in the city had learned to ignore whistles long ago—so he clapped his hands rhythmically to get everyone's attention.  Once everyone was clapping with him, he cut them off and spoke.

         "The war goes on.  The enemy nears and retreats, and our city's soldiers scurry to protect us.  Or to protect the city anyway.  But today we have a game to play.  And don't think it's any less important."  Did he really believe this stuff?  Not wholly, and yet for that moment he thought he might.  He wondered if he should say anything about the promised prize that he obviously didn't have.  But one look at the faces there told him they knew.  There was a hard edge to their hope, even in the youngest children.  They understood that the city would do nothing for them, that no prize would come for how they played today.  And yet they believed in the game itself.

         "We...we will play the promised game, and may the war disappear from our thoughts for a time!"

         They cheered, though the dark undercurrent remained in the sound.  They wouldn't forget the war.  Nothing could do that.  But for a moment they would pretend that it was possible.

         And that was worth hoping for.

         The game began furiously—fast-paced and competitive, though not mean-spirited.  At first Avins tried to officiate, but soon he was invited to join in.  Players switched teams around after short games, and the time went quickly.  No one was in shape for that kind of play, but they pushed themselves anyway.

         At one point a rocket struck one of the buildings beside the pitch.  Chunks of the wall rained down, but it only meant that the players and spectators avoided that side of the field.

         Only when everyone was too tired to play anymore did they stop.  Most collapsed onto the grass, but not too tired for small smiles.  No one said anything about the promised reward, but one girl did ask a question that made him pause.

         "Will we play again next time?"

         It was the girl from the warehouse, and she'd played out here too, even though she was much younger than most of the players.  Her eyes shone, though with a hint of wariness like a second set of eyelids as if ready to mask them.  Ready to extinguish that ember of hope.

         "I..." He thought of the handbills that showed up, at the variety of events they promised.  He knew nothing about directing a musical or conducting a concert, and yet...if that was promised, he knew he would do what he could to make it come true.  "Next time maybe something different.  A play or an opera or a pie-eating contest.  But we might get a chance to play here again, too."

         Avins looked from her face to the faces all around him, glimmers of something so foreign to their city in recent years.  It struggled through the usually cloudy expressions.

         He gave the only response he could to those expressions.  "I...hope so."

 

 

Copyright 2007, Daniel Ausema

Originally from Michigan, Daniel Ausema recently moved to the edge of the Rocky Mountains in northern Colorado.  He is a stay-at-home dad and writes furiously during naptime and Sesame Street.  His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in a number of publications including The Sword Review, All Possible Worlds, Mytholog, OG's Speculative Fiction and Noneuclidean Café. His poetry has appeared in Scifaikuest.

  

 

Cover: "Secret Shangra-La:

Hidden in the mists of memory lies Shangra-La" 

This is a pencil sketch gone over with ink markers, scanned, and enhanced with digital colorizing software. 

Copyright 2007, Melinda Reynolds 

 

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