Breathing IV

I did write this yesterday but this is the first chance I had to type it up, sorry.

“You’ll lose your job over this,” the guard promised. “What were you thinking? That’s the president of the country you just put at risk. She could have been a sniper. This is a serious breach of security. Come on ma’am, you’re leaving before we all get busted. I’m going to have a real word with my men about this. It’ll be a wonder if we don’t all get fired.”

“I’m not going,” said Malia. She didn’t even know why it was she said it, it was totally irrational, but she was feeling irrational. She had the feeling that if she left the sight of the president she wouldn’t believe what she had seen. She wanted to be sure. Even while watching the breathing machine at work she could hardly believe it.

“Look ma’am, we’re trying not to make a fuss about this because it would be an embarrassment, that doesn’t mean we won’t if it is a choice between embarrassment and the president’s safety,” the guard told her. His hand was already on his radio, which was right next to a gun Malia observed. She couldn’t help but wonder if he would go so far as to shoot her but it seemed unlikely. Her mind was starting to clear a bit. She was now able to think at least a little. Enough to reason that shooting a gun right behind a stage the president was speaking on would cause a lot of problems and panic. Surely the guard realized that.

“I have no interest in endangering the president, but I do think that the public should be made aware of the fact that he is a liar,” Malia said waving her hand at the breathing machine. “I intend to tell them as soon as I can. I see no better chance then this event.” Malia was shocked by her own words. She had no sooner thought of the idea then she had spoken it. By the look on the guard’s face he wasn’t amused.

“Do you think you can blackmail us so easily?” he asked angrily. “You will be sworn to secrecy just like the rest of us before you leave here. I might have forgotten if you hadn’t just said that. Do you know the results to the government if you go around making announcements like that?”

“He is misleading the public,” Malia shouted. “He deserves to be shown for what he is.” The guard sighed and took up his radio.

“We have a situation behind the stage,” he said into it. Malia thought about running. But she had already stood her ground to long to back down now. She was just going to have to deal with it. Well she wasn’t going to fight though. That would be useless and who knew what they would do if she did. When she was surrounded and asked to surrender she instantly put up her hands, though she argued the whole time.

They searched her for weapons and, finally getting tired of her constant rant they took away her glasses. Malia hardly even noticed. She was so angry by now that nothing was going to stop her. She had wasted so much time practicing breathing and speaking without her glasses thanks to the lies of a government official that at least she was going to put it to some use. Finally she stopped, when she realized they had stopped moving and everyone was staring at her.

“What?” she demanded.

“Why do you care if someone has been lying about being able to breath without glasses, when you can ma’am?” asked the head security guard. He was looking at her with honest respect. “How did you learn how to do that?”

“I practiced every night because the president said that it could be done,” Malia said. Even as she said it she realized that the lie didn’t matter, not in the slightest. It was possible to surpass the human limit. She didn’t even complain when they had her sign the vow of secrecy. It had been a long day.

Breathing III

The woman led Malia through a maze of the back corridors of the stadium. In a couple of places she had to use an access card and once they were stopped by a guard but he let them pass when the woman flashed him an identification card. They went past other people; all going about their tasks, none of them gave the two women a second glace. Finally they reached a table and the woman motioned Malia to put her load down.

“Thank you so much. I’m fine now, do you remember the way back?” the woman asked. Malia shook her head, there was no way she could remember such a twisting route.

“I’m afraid I really don’t have time to take you back right now. I’m already running late since I dropped all my papers. You came to watch the speech didn’t you?” the woman asked. Malia nodded. It was easier then to explain that she had already given up.

“Well you can still do that anyway. Come with me, you’ll have one of the best seats in the house. We’re right behind the stage right now.” Malia stared at the woman. She hadn’t realized. That explained the high security anyway.

The woman beckoned Malia to follow her and be quiet. They tiptoed through a door and sure enough they were right in the back of the stage. All that was between them and the president were some curtains. There was a small gap to one side of the curtains large enough to see through that the woman pointed to Malia. She put a hand on Malia’s shoulder as a farewell gesture and went off to do what ever it was that she had to do.

Malia was mesmerized, to be so close to her hero was like a dream. She wished she could hear what he was saying more clearly. There was a mechanic sound nearby that made it hard to hear. It was annoying enough that Malia even stopped staring at the president’s chest go in and out as he breathed and looked around to see what it was. She recognized it immediately when she finally spotted it. A breathing machine like people, including Malia, had in their bed rooms. This one had a very long cord coming from it. The sort of cord that usually connected to people’s heads to send the signals to the brain that made them breath without thinking about it. The cord went under the curtain. Malia could feel her stomach churn with a nasty epiphany. She had to make sure she was right. She crawled up to the curtain and peered under it.

The cord snaked across the stage floor. Malia lifted the bottom of the curtain a little more and could see it go right up the last thing Malia had wanted to see. It entered the pant leg of the president. It was impossible to see where it went after that, she would have to lift the curtain enough that it would be visible, but it didn’t matter. The president was lying. He couldn’t breathe without help; he was just like everyone else. She was filled with rage, he was misleading so many people, and he had led her on for that matter. She had truly believed it was possible to overcome the way her body was made. She was just trying to fight down the urge to run out on stage and scream to the whole world what a lie everything was when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

“And what do you think you are doing ma’am?” asked a guard. There were several others behind him, including the woman she had helped earlier.

“She told me to watch through here,” Malia protested, her anger melting into panic.

“It’s true,” the woman admitted.

To be continued....

Breathing II

People said that the president had been born like everyone else. There were pictures of him in the breathing machines all children had to be in until they were taught to breath with the glasses. His high school pictures all showed him wearing the glasses. But slowly, as his political career started, and advanced, slowly the glasses had disappeared. It had been one of the major parts of his campaign, one of the things that had pushed him to his landslide victory. He was the man with the will and ambition to fight even his own body. He was a man who had learned how to breathe.

Malia carefully removed her glasses, ready to put them back on if she started feeling lightheaded. It had become a nightly routine for her. Slowly she had improved; she could now walk and breathe without her glasses for five whole minutes. Next she was going to try speaking without the glasses on. She took a deep breath.

“With determination and persistence we can do anything,” she declared and took another deep breath. “Nothing is out of our abilities, it is only because we do not strive that we do not succeed.” She stopped, gasping for air. That last sentence had been a bit too long, her lungs were empty. She would have to watch the speech again and see when the president paused to take breaths. She shoved the glasses back on her face and instantly they told her she needed to take a breath. It was so easy to forget.

The president was going to be in town, speaking at the stadium. Malia of course had a ticket; she wasn’t going to pass up a chance to watch the president. Her boss had agreed to let her have the day off. He knew how much it meant to her.

The stadium was full already when Malia got there; every seat anywhere near the stage was already occupied. She nearly screamed in frustration. There was no way that she would be able to see the president in any detail. It would have been better for her to have stayed home and watched on television where at least they would zoom in.

Malia stormed out of the stadium and into the hall again. If she wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway, she wasn’t going to stay. It would only add to her frustration and anger. The exit to the stadium was filled with people trying to get in however. It was impossible to leave right away, no matter how much she wanted to. It would be like trying to swim against a riptide. She wandered around the halls around the stadium, waiting for the speech to start so the crowd would break up and she could leave. She was turning around a corner when she bumped into a woman coming the other way. Papers went everywhere.

“Sorry, here let me help you pick those up,” said Malia.

“No, I was the one carrying to much,” the woman said. It was true that the amount of papers strewn across the floor was far more then any one person should be able to carry without help.

“Do you want me to help you carry them wherever they go?” Malia asked. “I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Would you?” asked the woman thankfully. They finished gathering the papers again and split them between the two of them. Malia couldn’t help but notice the papers all looked like official documents of various types.

To be continued....

Breathing

Since the end of that last story wasn't a whole page I'll start on the next story.

Malia realized she had forgotten to breath, the red flashing light on the side of one of her glasses lenses told her. She took a deep breath and the light went away. Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out, there was a rhythm to it she knew that. She still needed the glasses to assist her; there were few people who didn’t. You had to be careful with breathing, standing up, sitting down, running, walking, each required a different breathing rate. It was easier to let the glasses tell you when to breath rather then spend all day thinking about it.

Scientists were always promising a better automatic breathing device. Maybe one that didn’t weigh fifty pounds and require a constant, large, source of electricity to operate. At the moment the sole model available was practical only to use while sleeping. Actually it was necessary while sleeping if you didn’t want to suffocate. You couldn’t wear the regulation glasses while asleep and they wouldn’t do you any good with your eyes closed anyway.

Malia hated the glasses, even though everyone else she knew also wore them. It wasn’t their appearance so much; it was her dependence on them she hated. She sighed and flipped on her television. The president was speaking again, Malia leaned forward eagerly. She had no interest in what the man said, it was his face that fascinated her, his glasses free face.

To be continued....

A Unpleasant Task II

It wasn’t as if Mathew’s wife would never hear of her husband’s demise. She would find it out when his pay stopped, but that seemed so harsh, so cruel. With this reminder the man again sat before the sea chest to write. He disposed of the ink stained sheet and pulled out his last piece of paper. Once again he rewrote what he had had before and tried to think of a way to continue. The other men in the forecastle left him alone; they knew what he was doing. It put him in an isolation usually reserved for officers.

While I realize that this letter brings you bad news and grief, I hope that you will find comfort in my condolences.

The man was just about to write more, his pen still on the page, when another sailor, pushed by an irate shipmate, staggered into him. The man stared down at his page, with the long line that now slashed across it. He just couldn’t continue. He couldn’t send off a serious letter with a pen mark through it. It was disrespectful. Nor could he start over like he had before, he had no more paper. He had done his duty, he had tried, he couldn’t do more then try.

Someone else would have to tell Mrs. Blackwell, and even as he told himself that, he knew no one would.

A Unpleasant Task

So I guess I am kind of starting this blog off with a story that is WAY less happy then the sort I usually write.

Dear Mrs. Blackwell,

Though we have never met, it has become my painful duty to inform you of the death of your husband, Mathew Blackwell, on the twenty-fifth of March of this year.

The dim light of the forecastle slush lamp illuminated the paper. The man leaning over it, using a sea chest as a desk, set down his pen. He had no idea how to continue such a letter. He had barely known Mathew Blackwell, but as the only man who could write in a fair hand in the forecastle he felt the letter was his duty.

The man was dressed in the plain checkered shirt and loose pants of a common sailor but there was something in his manner and the familiar way he held his pen that spoke of something else. Yet another victim of the press gangs that swept the streets of London. He had grown accustomed to his new lot in life by now however. He took up the pen again.

We held an auction of his possessions and I will attempt to obtain the proceeds for you.

The image of Mathew face, in his final illness, floated through the man’s mind, sunken and wasted in his sick berth, refusing all food. The man had never gained a sailor’s morbid acceptance of death, and the face haunted him. It was a relief when the ships bell rang and the whistle blew for the change of watch, breaking his train of thoughts and forcing him to put aside his writing.

The next day the man forced himself to pick up his pen again. No inspiration had come to him overnight. No ideas that would make the writing of the letter easier, or less painful.

He died a peaceful and painless death.

The man tore up the sheet of paper, even thought it was one of only a few sheets that he had. While such a sentence would be a comfort to the woman, who did not yet realize she was a widow, the man couldn’t stand the lie. He took out a new sheet of paper and rewrote what he had had the day before. Again he paused to consider how to continue the letter.

He passed away after long illness, surrounded by his friends and companions.

That was true at least, and the part about him being surrounded by friends could be considered a comforting thing. He was better satisfied with the letter now, but he was again at a loss at how to continue it.

Overhead the man could hear the piping for all hands and he leaped up, there were penalties for being late when all hands were called. Then the man swore, he had left a blot on the paper in his hurry. There was no time to see to it though. He would just have to start the letter again; the blot obscured half of the writing.

The wind had changed; the ships had to be changed accordingly. It would be difficult to reach their destination now. Even as the other hands discussed the possibilities of half rations if they were stuck at sea for too long because of this, the man could only think about his unfinished letter.

It was so unfair, had Mathew died in any other way the matter would have been taken out of the man’s hands. Had Mathew died in battle the captain would have written an official letter that would have included Mathew in the list of dead. Those usually ended up in the papers. Had Mathew not been married there would have been no need for a duty letter. If Mathew had fallen over board even, the man wouldn’t have felt the need to write such a letter, not if Mathew was only presumed dead. Again the man could see Mathew’s wasted face, no Mathew had not been so kind.

To be continued.....