Grand Pylae by Aya Mohamed

I.

Harrowing thunderstorms suddenly hit the city of Grand Pylae.

The grounds quaked and the lake overflowed.

After this, life as the inhabitants of this city had known it was no longer.

Trees died. 

Many houses vanished.

Others were abandoned.

Some of those who left complained of suffocation.

Some cited coldness.

Haystacks were ignited for warmth.

Mines were cleared of resources.

Birds averted the skies and lay dead eggs in nests.

Fountains sprang with waste water.

Rabbits suffocated in their groves.

Sheep were thinned to skeletons.

Dogs ate the carcasses of man.

Granaries were spilled.

Smog clad the sun fields.

The aid crew tagged the event as part of the knowledge cap.

No one could quite explain what was happening and why it all occurred so suddenly.

Scientists ended all communication, as it seemed.

Grand Pylae had only a small college to begin with, but after the thud it was completely evacuated.

So were the hospitals.

Every once in a while camps of medical staff would be set in the outskirts, but these were only sporadic.

Reports released on hand-printed pamphlets reasserted the utter ignorance regarding the experienced phenomena.

II.

It was decided that the survivors would be distributed among shelters.

The shelters would provide basic necessities from the storages, but perfect order and obedience were expected.

It was also said that the transfer into shelters was optional, but this was not the case with Xerxes.

Xerxes was among those forced with rifles to shelter 204479. 

He was a thin man of tall stature with bushy whiskers, dark features and a reserved smile.

Rescue crew members handed him a scrub uniform at the entrance gates.

He arched his eyebrows.

His eyes effused with suspicion.

He reluctantly received them, while sweat gathered on his forehead and the muscles of his forearms contracted.

“Can I stay in my own clothes?” he asked the crew handler.

“No,” he answered.

“This isn’t a prison. Just a disaster shelter, correct?” inquired Xerxes.

“Be quiet,” ordered the handler.

Xerxes felt overloaded by emotion. 

He was nervous. 

Rather, terrified.

He began running through the course of events since the thud, but could not remember himself doing anything particularly wrong that would deserve confinement.

He inspected his body and his clothing before changing into the scrubs to see whether he seemed shabby.

He wore a gray shirt and black jeans.

None seemed too old so as to warrant detainment

to the exclusion of others.

But what happened to the others?

One thing he knew for certain: they were not all gunned down to prison.

He saw some of his neighbours who were families disappear into the smog in hand-pulled buggies.

If there were any horses left, they were either already taken or eaten.

Was it because he was a single man in his thirties?

Was it a random capture?

Who dictated this strange disaster procedure by which rifles were employed to force people into shelters?

“Can I at least get more insight into what happened? And what other options are available to me?” he asked.

“No options,” the crew guard solemnly replied. 

III.

The shelter was a sturdy, multi-level building that began underground and extended to an uncovered rooftop which was surrounded by vast walls. 

Numerous electrical equipment was attached to the deep-sand colored building.

The garage was closed off by ambulance vehicles.

Bright emergency lighting beamed from the first floor.

Those dwellers who were forced in were confined to the third floor and they had very little information about the operations that transpired in the facility.

The floor featured a large, rectangular dinner table.

A samovar stood at one far end and a stack of reusable plates with a heaped assembly of silverware at the other.

The dinner table was located in the social ward, which extended over half of the floor.

A large white screen hung to the wall behind it.

A sleeping ward with beds set in rows extended over the other half of the floor. 

There were around 160 people on the floor divided into three groups.

Each group wore scrubs of a different color.

The crew guards wore dark guard hazmat suits.

At the dinner table, the groups amassed. 

One by one they floated like pilgrims around the food allotments with compartitioned plates in their hands. 

Each person was trying to evade order and get to the food first. 

The result was a criss-cross arm battling match over staple alimentation.

At the end, it didn’t seem like their plates were that different from one another in terms of content.

Xerxes stood far and ate last.

“Why are we here?” Xerxes asked one of the indwellers.

“They promised the screen would tell us soon what happened,” said the indweller.

There were no windows on the third floor.

The only way to tell time was if one kept count since the first meal given and remembered that it was remarked then it was morning time.

Yet even then, it had to rely on the sense that one consumed three meals per day.

Of this, Xerxes could hardly be certain.

After food, most of the group sat on the floor in the social ward waiting for the presentation.

Xerxes was among the few who remained standing up.

There were no chairs, although there were two small benches stuck to the walls.

They put the few children who were there on those.

“What do you think they will tell us?” Xerxes asked another bystander.

“I don’t know,” said the man. “We don’t even know if the world is what ended or just the city of Grand Pylae.”

“It would be better if it’s the world that ended,” said Xerxes. “At least it would justify why we are treated like this.”

“What if this is really all they could do for know,” said the man.

“Why would they stop time for us, then?” said Xerxes. “Not a single time-telling tool or announcement. It seems to me they just want to make us forget.”

IV.

It was not long into their conversation before the presentation started on the following note:

You have now reached the world’s ceiling. There is no more to know than what you see. We have chosen this building as your shelter because even if you reach the very top, it shields your eyes from all the destruction that is around you. The borders of Grand Pylae are all ravaged as you know. No one knows what happens to those who go to the East or West when we can no longer tell the difference between them, or night and day due to all the smog. It is your right to be afraid. It is your right to tremble in anticipation of what is to come. It is your right to hold whoever relatives and whatever possessions you have left close to you and hope you would not lose it. But, please, try to remember there are others around you, all passing through the same difficulties.

Xerxes was infuriated by the announcement. 

“This is unfair,” he yelled over the top of his lungs.

Two crew guards immediately approached and confined him by the elbows.

At this point, he was overtaken by a screaming frenzy.

“Let me go,” he cried and kicked the air. “Let me go.”

“You have to stay quiet or we will drug you,” said one of the guards.

The threat was enough prodding to keep him quiet for a while. 

“Ok, I’ll try to be more calm,” Xerxes said. “But I really need to speak to someone.”

“There’s nothing more to say,” replied the guard.

“Not everyone was forced into a shelter,” said Xerxes.

“This is again none of your concern,” said the guard.

“I want to leave,” said Xerxes.

“You can’t,” said the guard.

“Why?” asked Xerxes.

“Because you’ll die,” said the guard.

“And why should it concern you whether I live or die?” said Xerxes.

“Because it’s our responsibility not to let people die in disaster,” said the guard.

The next day Xerxes found himself waking up in the middle of the desert with only a bottle of water to his side and a lunch pack.

He remembered nothing about the night before and how is it that he was transported to this place.

He walked for a short while among the sand dunes before running upon a road.

He gulped some water, wiped off his forehead with his forearm and walked off.

At the end of the road, there seemed to be the vague image of something out there, but he couldn’t figure it out.

As he drew closer to it, he finally began identifying the shape of what he had been prospecting.

It was a parachute-shaped object making the scene  look very similar to the prototypical image of vision tests.

When he ultimately arrived, he discovered it was a solarium.

He slowly opened the front door and stepped inside, greeting the thin air.

The temperature was seething hot inside, but there was a working well in the front.

He threw water on his face, frantically drank out of it, then filled his bottle.

He scoped the solarium for food, but there were only a few wooden chairs across from the windows.

There was a pounding sound beneath his feet.

He put his ear to the ground, but couldn’t distinguish clearer sounds.

He inspected the walls with his hands, running his fingers along the painted mosaics, and knocking on each of them, waiting for the echoes to return.

The solarium had a transparent glass ceiling and there were multiple sundials entrenched in the ceramic ground beneath it.

Two safes stood in the corner.

They were staunchly locked and remained unmoved even as Xerxes tried to rock them out of place.

There was no food inside it.

When there was nothing left to do, Xerxes stepped out of the solarium and began circling it.

He found a small shrub to its side.

He plucked it out of the ground to eat it.

Another one, he stashed in his clothes.

Xerxes at this point felt as if the world had abandoned him to the concrete realization of dearth.

He was no longer sure of what happened or what was happening.

He inspected himself again, extending his arms and legs before him and gazing at his reflection in the solarium’s glass.

He no longer felt as a convict, but as a ghost.

He refused to let out a shout, fearing someone would  be lurking in the shadows and then convict him of insanity.

He began walking beyond the solarium when he encountered again one of the guards with a dog. 

He pointed light in his eyes with a flashlight and it felt like he was gazing at the solarium’s ceiling.

“Are you satisfied now?” asked the guard.

“Satisfied with what?” said Xerxes.

“To see the world’s ceiling,” said the guard.

“Was this the world’s ceiling referenced in the presentation,” Xerxes said, pointing back at the solarium.

“Yes,” said the guard. “Follow me back.”

V.

Xerxes was exhausted and hungry.

He felt no use to argue with the guard further.

He feared that he might use his rifle again.

“Ok,” said Xerxes. “I’ll follow you back.”

At least he knew the time, Xerxes thought to himself, and could restart tracking it on clearer terms.

When he asked for a pencil and paper, however, to keep record, he was told that charcoal was too scarce of a resource to be randomly distributed.

They gave him a clay tablet and a small metal scraper instead.

Xerxes stencilled a small table with vertical and horizontal lines for days and small slashes for the times. 

Everyday, a guard would check the content of his tablet and return it to him.

The stencilling was as small as he could muster, because he was afraid they would not give him another tablet.

Then again, why would they give him one in the first place? 

And why would they even lead him to the sundials?

He suspected because they needed a witness to assist in keeping track of time.

Still, he could not really trust there could be any relationship of reciprocity between him and the guards.

For a while he was reticent and avoided engaging in conflict.

He was told to keep his experience in the solarium a secret from everyone.

It was said that he got sick and had to be taken to the hospital level.

Some of the indwellers who had originally corroborated his suspicion began to alienate him when he insisted on the veracity of the official story,

“You could at least tell us about the hospital,” said one of them.

“I can’t,” said Xerxes.

“See you’re hiding information from us,” he cried at him.

“I’m not hiding anything,” said Xerxes desperately,

“Everyone,” shouted the indweller. “Listen to this, Xerxes is hiding information from us. He’s acting with the guards against your benefits. He’s nothing but a dirty informant now.”

The guards quickly gathered around Xerxes and detained him. 

He was blindfolded in front of everyone and taken to an investigation room.

VI.

In the investigation room, Xerxes found himself sitting on a stool before a table surrounded by six guards.

A single light bulb hung down  immediately above his head.

It kept swaying left and right, preventing him from a close identification of the faces of any of the guards.

“We told you not to speak about the solarium,” said one of the seated guards.

“I didn’t say anything, I swear,” said Xerxes.

“Too late. We already received a complaint,” said the guard.

“It was an accusation not a complaint,” said Xerxes. “I’m innocent, I swear.”

“Too late,” said the guard again. “Measure has to be taken now.”

After this, it was black out again. 

When he woke up, he found himself kneeling in a desert plain again with a wooden sword strapped on his back.

He reached down farther, rubbing his chin against the sand, before he had the strength to pull himself up.

He looked around in despair and then dropped to his knees, this time crying outloud and banging the ground with his hands.

“Why are you doing this to me?” he shouted. “Why is this happening to me?”

After walking for a short period of time, he encountered a desert shrub with a small earthen vessel full of water to its side.

At a distance to his right, he spotted a levy of people dressed as nuns.

He could hear them humming prayers from where he stood.

He waved at them in agitation.

“I’m here,” he cried. “Would you please help me? Help me!”

It seemed as if they saw, deliberated together among them, then left together in their own path.

He held up the earthen vessel, drank quickly from it, shook it to make sure it was empty, laid it down again and began running after them.

“Wait for me,” he cried. “Wait!”

When he approached their direction, they were nowhere to be found, but an old building stood near their gathering place. 

It had a sign which read:

Grand Pylae Old Hospital

He had never seen or heard of this hospital before. 

It had long iron gates which were left open. 

He pulled the gates apart and stepped inside.

He could hear people talking from where he stood on the porch.

He called out again. 

One of the nuns peered out from the balcony of the fifth floor to look at him, but did not respond.

One more time, he began running toward her direction. 

Xerxes could not understand why the nun could not even wave at him back.

The ground floor did not seem like a hospital at all.

It was an oriental apartment with evil eye charms hanging on the walls.

On one of the tables, he found the sheath to his wooden sword.

He simply took it off and stuck it inside it.

He reached inside the inner rooms and there he found the dummy of a man seated in a crossed-leg, reading position in front of a Koran.

The dummy wore a white galabeya and turban.

He shook the turban off his head and it fell to the ground on a copper aroma stand making a rattling noise.

Xerxes held the dummy’s arm up and it had silver nails attached to its hands.

VII.

Xerxes went out toward the staircase.

The doors between the first floor, where he was, and the fifth floor were all locked.

He pushed down the handle of the fifth floor door and entered.

He found two rows of hospital beds in a parallel arrangement.

There was a small window, cracked open, and letting in sunlight in a beam across the floor.

He looked around and found two large shutters leading into what appeared most sensibly to be a balcony.

He felt confused by its location.

It was as if the building turned around full circle from the time the nun jutted her head to prospect him to this moment he was about to walk into the balcony.

He unhooked the latch holding the shutters closed, not knowing what to expect, and walked inside the balcony,

No one was there.

He looked down to see if indeed it was the same place from where the nun looked at him.

It was.

He could not mistake the sight or the iron railings.

“Where are you,” Xerxes cried out. “I know you were all here looking at me.”

Tired of appealing to no avail, Xerxes pulled out a chair standing next to one of the beds and threw himself on it.

A few minutes later, one of the nuns finally approached him.

“We just wanted to make sure that you are able to calm down,” the nun said. “Follow me.”

Xerxes followed her to the sixth floor.

The nun let him into an office room.

Three other nuns were seated around two desks.

“Why am I here?” he asked.

“Because we sought you, then you sought us,” said a nun.

“You were dropped off to our service because you couldn’t stay contained where you were, in the shelter,” said another nun.

“I just had some questions,” he said.

“In this time you’re not supposed to question,” said the first nun.

“What’s going on?” Xerxes inquired nervously.

“We are a group that has aggregated because the empire has fallen,” said the second nun. “The complete annihilation of Grand Pylae dealt the blow to a long series of mistakes that the empire administration had committed.”

“Does this information satisfy you better?” asked the first nun.

“What empire?” he said. “I’ve never heard that we live in an empire.”

“It’s the trade network,” replied the second nun. “As regulated by the central government.”

“And what exactly happened in Grand Pylae?”he asked.

“This information will be gradually revealed to you, only if you commit to us,” said the first nun.

“And what exactly does your group do?” Xerxes inquired.

“As with you, we seek those who seek us. We travel around and find people who occupied previous positions of authority. We talk to them about the next steps,” said the first nun.

“If I don’t want to, can I return to the shelter?”asked Xerxes.

“As with the shelter, there are no choices regarding the offers we extend. You already know too much,” said the first nun. “But we thought if we could phrase it as a choice, rather than put a rifle to your head, you would accept the opportunity with a more open heart.”

Xerxes felt as if he had moved from a futuristic tour to a journey back in time.

More so than the guards, the nuns laid it clear that he had no choice.

He took trips with them, dressed also as a nun, but in darker veils.

All the merchants and tradesmen they met agreed on one thing.

Grand Pylae exposed the degree of the decomposition the empire had been suffering from for many years in secret.

They simply did not have the resources to deal with a nuclear crisis that their failed energy system initiated.

People were left stranded in the streets, or forced into shelters if they saw any value in them.

As a series of cities interconnected by trade, the fast destruction of one city necessitated the crumbling of the entire empire.

“And what happens to the full range of products in storage houses outside of Grand Pylae?” Xerxes asked a tradesman of authority.

“They get transported very slowly to shelters,” answered the tradesman. “A fallen empire simply cannot afford to sustain a market.”

When all the conversations with the former imperial figures of authority led to the same hapless results, they traveled far and wide and across the seas.

They wanted to see if they could speak to someone else outside the traditional realm of authority that they knew.

In each of these travels, however, Xerxes remained pessimistic.

VIII.

The first foreign land they ventured to together was locally known as the ‘Land of the Ear-Taker’.

It was said that the ruler of this land followed the rules of a light and sense theory he contrived in everything he did.

He employed an overlying system of shades to guide people to all their paths and choices in life.

A person has to be literally left in the dark, he proposed, so that he feels he is following the wrong path.

Those who understood the light tricks and labyrinths he implemented, benefited the most.

One of them was a giant statue who ushered people with a flail to employment offices.

The trick was not to step beneath any of the shadows that the flail cast before embarking on a path.

This would lead to a cumbersome office that would waste the time assigning useless tasks.

He himself, a tallish man with a bulging stomach, had two wives.

He decided that one of them should appear in the light and be known to everyone, while the other one should remain in darkness.

He would only step out with her a few times a year.

They would go out to a nightclub.

Although he was a pious man, he said, it was still his responsibility to inspect all of the places found upon his land.

Where he would get his moniker, the ‘Ear-Taker’ was from a common rumor spread through a series of underground reports.

The reports claimed that, occasionally, the inhabitants of this state were intentionally deafened by the governing forces to disable them from work.

There was a certain wall which stood close to the temple of worship in this land that if anyone were to approach, he would be at risk of losing his sense of hearing.

A device would approach from behind the wall that would release a terrible sound in the direction of the person’s ears causing their eardrums to bleed immediately.

Since most of the inhabitants were farmers, and relied on verbal orders, deaf ears meant immediate disability.

People, therefore, would warn each other in secret never to stand alone in front of this wall.

“And why would he do this?” Xerxes asked one of the nuns.

“As an early retirement system,” said the nun. “There’s an over abundance of young people in the land of the Ear-Taker.”

“And did you know about this before we came here?” said Xerxes.

“We have heard the rumors,” said the nun. “But we never expected that they would be so blatantly confirmed to us by state informants pretending to be secret rebels.”

“How can a man like this help us?” said Xerxes. “Do we really want to tell him that our empire has fallen?”

“Not necessarily,” said the nun. “We wanted more to observe his system of government and trade. What other options are available for our authorities to do?”

In the land of the Ear-Taker, Xerxes and the nuns stayed in a small adobe hostel by a dark and muddy lake.

They were told by the hostel employees, who all worked for the state, that they were the only foreign visitors in the land.

This confounded them by the cases of the businessman and the mystery woman who lodged two rooms in the hostel along them.

If everyone in the land was native, then why did these two people live in a hostel?

It all began clearing up when they found out the Ear-Taker himself visiting the hostel every weekend.

He would immediately go to the woman’s room and kiss her at the door before she let him in. 

When they asked the undercover state informant assigned to them, he said this was his second wife.

“Who is the businessman, then?” asked Xerxes.

“The Ear-Taker wants to pretend they are both visitors and they have a romantic affair going on,” said the informant. “He is assigned to play her lover, even her secret husband in lieu if any of the rumors about the Ear-Taker’s second marriage come to light.”

“And is she originally a foreigner?” asked Xerxes.

“No one is allowed to ask about her or her origins here,” said the informant. “Never ask about her again.”

Despite his injunction, the informant would continue to  speak rumors about her once every while. 

“Do you know his first wife tortures her often?”the informant told Xerxes.

“I thought we were not supposed to talk about her,” Xerxes shrugged.

“Hush, hush,” replied the informant putting his finger on Xerxes’ lip before strangely resuming the conversation on her as if he did not order him silent. “She flogs her, I’ve heard.”

“Oh,” said Xerxes, trying as much as he could to keep all sentiments on guard.

It would only be a few weeks after this conversation when they heard of a ceremony and parade that were set to take place in the land.

Xerxes and the nuns were startled to see that an effigy bearing a mesmerizingly high degree of resemblance to the hostel second wife was all that was being paraded.

Crowds cheered and blew horns.

They were given paintballs and confetti to throw at the effigy.

“See,” the informant said to Xerxes. “I told you she hated her.”

“You said I cannot speak any word in return,” said Xerxes.

“Exactly,” replied the informant. “This ceremony was accepted by the Ear-Taker when his first wife presented it as a ceremony in the spirit of how what lies in darkness can come to light. He didn’t really want to humiliate his second wife like this, I believe. Although she stays mainly in the hostel, some people could still recognize her. The temple’s rule, however, is that anything that conforms to its light dualism is acceptable. Thus, the Ear-Taker could not refuse.”

Disgusted by the parade, Xerxes and the nuns decided to immediately leave afterward.

The Ear-Taker seemed to have no interest neither in chasing after them, nor in preventing their departure as long as they left in the nighttime, per the advice of the informant.

Being placed in the hostel of darkness entailed their freedom in the darkness as well.

IX.

The second major land Xerxes and the nuns would go to was known as the ‘Land of the Gang of Zeus Basileus’.

This land was permeated by an invader group of whale fishers from its northern boundaries who came down there after an environmental crisis of their own.

A war in this land had resulted in the poisonous contamination of the big fish population in its surrounding seas.

The ones who suffered most in the aftermath were those fishermen who were confronted with a dearth of both food and blubber to keep them warm in their cold environment.

They formed a gang called Zeus Basileus and aggregated their metal tools for an invasion and capture of the bordering territories where the war had taken place.

To keep order, they resorted to crime.

Anyone who walked in the streets after curfew was slayed with an ax to his head.

The only person who agreed to talk to Xerxes and the nuns was Meninjika, the wife of the gang leader.

“Everything will improve,” she said, “but it wasn’t safe for us in the north either. We were cold. We were very, very cold.

“It is rather cold in the north,” Xerxes said in a trembling tone. “We came from environmental crisis as well.”

Xerxes and the nuns were surprised to travel from a land where people had relative freedom in the dark to one where the dark meant certain death. 

They felt lucky they were again able to leave in safety.

The third they visited was called the ‘Land of the Plague’.

It was mostly a desert land with intermittent hay fields.

This was, for a change, a peaceful land.

It was ruled by an aging and generous tribal leader.

The land, however, revolved around the principle of reverence to the dead.

There was little else to do otherwise.

Life was dumbfoundingly simple

The diet was restricted to fowl and a few desert animals that were hunted down every now and then.

It was said that long ago it was populated by the escapees of a vicious plague from the nearby cities.

Although most died, the few who survived decided to inhabit the area and built shrines everywhere to honor those among them who wasted.

Most of the burials happened in the hay fields and they harbored an infinite number of relics, so visitation to them was not advised.

During their stance in the plague land, Xerxes and the nuns received news that the environment in Grand Pylae started to recover.

They decided to go back.

X.

Yet even as the conditions began improving in Grand Pylae, Xerxes’ pessimism was unshakable.

Once again, he saw the green grass sprout from the dead land, endowing it with life.

The smog cleared, giving a leeway to the sunlight.

Some of the damaged roads were repaired.

Animals repopulated the environment.

Dust settled.

Birds perched on trees.

Horses were seen spotted over the lands.

Xerxes, nonetheless, felt that his sense of normalcy was forever disturbed.

He pleaded with the wounded world to save him, but he was still estranged from it.

He felt that if he were to abscond again, this time by his own volition, no one would notice.

After the environmental regeneration of Grand Pylae, the empire began to rebuild itself again and his job with the nuns was dissolved.

Of course, the map and landmarks were completely changed, but even so, he often found himself drifting to places that he sensed were always barely known.

To his understanding, he was searching for that original shelter where he was taken.

Then, one day, when passing by a tavern of the old style, he heard a familiar melody.

It was a song similar to the one used by the shelter crew guards to urge people to assimilate in order before food distribution times.

He never quite fathomed why they would use music to incite a sense of order deep into people’s hearts in an emergency shelter where no one knew what they were doing, but it was thus.

He pulled the tavern door open to see if the melody was coming from there and it was.

“Do you know where this melody comes from?” Xerxes asked the bartender.

“Yes,” the bartender replied. “It was played as the team song in shelter 204479.”

“You were there too?” asked Xerxes.

“I was one of the guards,” said the bartender.

“I was an indweller,” said Xerxes. “And, ever since then, I have remained a prisoner.”