Infestation

Incisions, incisions

I just stared at the Mercury mess collecting around the well. I just stared back at my warped reflection in the beads as they rolled across the desert floor. Shit, what was I feeling?...an intense sense of impending doom, fear and an increasing pain in my chest. I couldn't breath and my vision was becoming tunneled...I read about soldiers returning from war with similar symptoms in class. After being repeatedly exposed to stressful situations, they developed PTSD. After experiencing moments that would cause one to tense up their body due to the stressful environment, those repeated muscular tenses also effected the brains pattern. The soldiers knees would buckle under them for no reason, they started to stutter when they didn't before , and some refused to talk all together for years after returning.  I could feel everything around me spinning. I was trying to blink my vision from blurry to straight. I fell forward, curled up in a ball, grabbed my stomach and vomited. I laid on my side and stared at what was once my breakfast on the floor next to me. My whole body ached. My back, my sides, my neck felt like it was going to snap in half if I even turned it the slightest. I felt paralyzed by fear. I was trying to make sense of it all. Why is it leaking mercury? Where was it coming from? How many other people or places are effected? Is this happening in the city too?...I had more questions than answers...What the fuck...I didn't know weather to tell my aunt or not because I didn't want to scare her, she'd probably would want to move but to where, where would we go? I didn't want to put that stress on her. I couldn't but I had to do something. I laid on the floor a little longer and slowly sat up, brining my knee to my chest and flattening my stomach to squeeze out the queasiness I was still feeling deep in my gut. I blew egg chunks out my nose and wiped the corners of my mouth with my sleeve. I was starting to feel the desert heat now...and it felt hotter. I blocked the sun out of my eyes and got up. I glance at the well and the flowing had stopped. I turned around and was making my way back into the cabin because I literally had no spit to swallow and after vomiting my breath was unbearable. I was starting to get a headache so I interlocked my hands on my head to protect it from the rays and drifted towards the cabin. Slowly grinding forward, each step sending a shockwave of cramps from my lower belly, that wrapped around my mid back. I couldn't believe it. I thought with all my heart that we finally had water. Funny how something so simple, can either drastically change your life for the better or break your mind and shatter your spirit. I didn't even look at the chickens on my way in, and almost step on Humberto who was sitting at the entrance. " Tia give me some water please, I don't feel good." I said as I pulled a chair and sat with my head on the kitchen table. The cold wooden table felt good on my forehead. " boy your not used to the sun or heat, cuídate, please." She was already at the kitchen sink getting herself a drink. She had a rooster clock that hung above the sink  I liked to look at. Every hour it would crow and it's eyes would cross. It eyes would move left and right, left and right and following its eyes was kinda therapeutic to me. It distracted me from what I saw and Its simple mechanics with the gears calmed me, and represented order in this fucking chaotic moment. I was interrupted by my aunts cussing " pinche mierda now this is broken." She turned the faucet on but it's was just sputtering and rattling. Shit the well! It must be causing the pipes to act up. Eventually the water dripped out but it was this foul, boiling hot, smelling water. Brown in color and smelled like eggs...eggs and ass. I was across the room and almost vomited again from just the stench. " oh my goodness wh...what it this." My poor aunt at a lost of words just dropped the cup in the sink shattering the glass in a million pieces. She broke out into a coughing fit her respiratory problems were flaring up again. "Sit down tia I'll clean it up." She went back to her favorite chair in the house. A massive big brown rocking chair in the middle of the living room. Without it the room would be completely empty. Hand carved and passed down for generations, it was still in impeccable conditions. She would sit there mostly all day. She liked to knit and watch her soap operas during the day, and local news at night from that chair. But now she sat looking out the window shaking her head, bewildered at what the hell just happened. I rubbed my head on the table a little longer making sure to get all the cold spots, and looked at the floor between my legs. My boots covered in dust had a couple of tiny specks of mercury on them. I took them off carefully and put them outside right next to Humberto. I let the water run for about 10 mins. And filled a big pot after it ran clear and stopped smelling. I boiled it for about 20 mins, that should kill the bacteria, mercury or whatever else was in there, and poured it into a floral plastic jug and placed it all the way in the back of the fridge to chill faster. I picked up the glass pieces and washed the sink out afterwards my aunt asked me to go over to Mr. Johnson house, she had called him while I was cleaning up and was curious to see if anything was wrong with his water system. He lived about 25 mins up the road he owned 600 acres. With a couple of hundred heads of cattle. I didn't mind because it gave me a reason to drive her car. I remember my dad taking me for a drive a couple of afternoon around the neighborhood because I was going to start drivers Ed and I was nervous. I missed my dad he would know exactly what to do in a situation like this. We had a Plymouth deluxe as well, so I sorta knew how to manage to drive in a straight line to the neighbors house and park the car. Before leaving though I went back outside to put the hens up and feed Roberto the bull. He was another gentle giant. He would meander from one side of his pastures to the other. Lazily sit under his make shift shed during the hot afternoons, chew his hay and gracefully sleep out in the pasture under the stars. He had worn spot down on the beams of his shed, from scratching his horns. It was more than big enough for him and I to stand under comfortably without being super close to each other. He was nice but he could still kill you. I grabbed a bale of hay that we kept stored in a bin outside his gate. He was all the way in the back so I could take my time opening the gate, walking in and closing it behind me because he never ran or did anything spontaneous really. Expect today. When I turned my back to him, I could hear him snorting nothing unusual, than I could hear him moaning and bellowing and that was weird he would throw his head back and drive his horns down and up like he was fighting something invisible, bucking and jumping around causing the dust to rise. " hey Robert are you ok?"...I asked stupidly as if he would answer me speaking must have token him out of whatever trance he was in because now his eyes were fixed on me and he was charging my way and he was pissed...I felt the ground trembling, bouncing under my feet. The dust circled and swirled around him as he ran. His ivory white horns gleaming menacingly against his broad black head and shoulders the rest of his body seemed to be floating out of the red dust cloud that trailed behind him. I threw the bale down and scrambled out the pasture in time to lock the gate behind me. When he reached the gate he stopped bucked his head up and down for a bit, ran the whole pasture twice and started to eat. He's never done that before. I stood behind the gate and watched him eat thru the slats. As I was about to leave he did do his usual routine of laying his head on the gate where I usually stood to watch him eat, and pet him. I was hesitate to but I did. And as soon as I did he tried to nip me. " fuck you" I swapped him on the head and jumped off the gate quick. I got in the car and started to go reverse slowly out of my aunts driveway. She waved from the window and blew me a kiss. I smiled and waved back caught her kiss put it on my cheek. Sometimes those little things we think were doing for others to feel good, really we need it just as much as they do. It was mid evening now. The hot ass desert day was now turning into its cooler crisper night time self. I started out driving with the windows cracked just a bit, if I had put it all the way down I wouldn't be able to hear the radio. The road that we lived on was a long private drive. Only 2 other people beside us lived on it. Mr.Johnson and Mrs. Carver. They were siblings Mrs. Carver was the oldest and they inherited the 2 properties from their parents. An ad played for a local mechanic shop having a big sale on tires when the radio started to come in and out, nothing but static and than silence. I turned it off and drove with the windows down. One hand on the wheel, and the other making waves up and down outside my window. Feeling the jet stream of air glide under my fingers, lifting my wrist to my whole arm. I was feeling good and just living in the moment. The sky looked like a giant fruit smoothie. Pinks and oranges of every shade, looked like sherbet and streaks of bright yellow cutting up the mix like lemon slices all being engulfed in a black blueberry syrup that was slowly leaking in on the corners of the sky. I wanted to drink it. Especially because I still hadn't drank anything from before. I smacked my mouth and was reminded of the well. I liked the long drive. Seeing the cactuses and catching a glimpse of a fox run along the pasture sides was like music for my eyes. No need for the radio just look at what was around you. Each farm post on the side of the road that I past made me feel like I was getting further and further away from my past. It was nice to be nothing and no one right now. Because to be nothing means you have nothing and to have nothing means you don't not fear losing and to not fear losing anything means you have everything it takes to make anything and everything happen, because nothing is holding you back. As I tried to over philosophy my short life, I was distracted by something in the sky...looking up I thought I must've seen the brightest star known to man kind. It was an elongated star sitting vertically up. It looked like a silver banana standing straight up in the sky. It was gone before I could get a really good long look at it. I wasn't startled by it because strangely I've felt I've seen it before, but couldn't recall where and since it disappeared so quickly I really thought I just imagined it...it was than I made it to Mr.Johnson driveway where he was already waiting for me. He had his headlights from his Chevy truck on. He was tall, thin as a reed, and as flexible as one too. With icy blue eyes, and thick white hair he gelled back. He was pretty clean cut and chic for an 85 yr old I could see why my aunt fancied him...He took me to his well and bent don't with out cracking a knee and popping a hip like I did. I couldn't bend as low to the ground as he did, he was super stretchy. " I knew this shit was going to happen as soon as they started messing with the corn. modification" he scoffed "these people can't leave nothing alone.look at this." He said with a hiss as he lifted a thick slab of concrete off the top of his well. It was filled with the same mercury sap. His well was a lot deeper than ours and it hadn't over flown like ours did but it was the same shit. Placing the slab back, Mr. Johnson lend against the well and wiped his brow with an greasy red handkerchief. " they started to mess with the airways, spraying the crops and farmland with all types of poison and insecticide and now the poison they grow they want you to eat it, and all that water that picks up the contamination and pollutants they want you to drink it" he said as he pointed to the well. " I ain't got a solution but we both got the same problem." He started to wipe his hands when his cattle's started to run in circles frantically as if they've spotted a predator. They cried and mooed to one corner to the next. We waited for them to settle down thinking them might've picked up a scent, but seeing how they became more and more agitated we ran towards them to see what was wrong. Mr. Johnson just threw one long leg over the fence followed by the other...this motherfucker was slinky...I threw one leg over and rolled my body over like a loaf of bread. Mr. Johnson started to make some noise, raised his arms and wave his hands in-front of the cows to get their attention and start to push them towards their other pasture thru a corral. They listened pretty well and as soon as he got the first couple in, the others followed quickly. They desperately wanted to get away from this pasture. We searched around to see what had them spooked but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Mr. Johnson said that he was missing some calf's the night before. I offered to stay a bit longer to help him look for them...as the last cow was in the new pasture we locked the gate and started to head to our vehicles when something odd caught our eyes on the ground in the far corner of the pasture. We walked towards it, talking about how the cows must've hear a coyote in the distance, when we saw one of Mr.Johnson calf laying on the floor. It was mutilated. Cut up. Totally defaced. It had incisions all thru out it's body with not a single ounce of blood around. It was missing its right eye, it's tongue and it's genitals all were extracted with surgical precision, the full moon highlighting each fleshy pink cauterized incision making them stand out against the calf's dark brown fur. It appeared to have been drained of blood completely. It's body still warm" Mmmr. Jjjohnson" I stuttered "have you ever seen anything like this before?" I stared at the calf with anticipation that it was going to start breathing again and stand up and be ok. Somehow this was a strange coyote attack and this calf was going to be ok. I realized Mr. Johnson never answer me so I looked over at him. His blue steely eyes were deer eyed, fear stricken, his mouth agape, bottom lip trembling and his hands outstretched before him shaking as if he was looking for something to catch his balance...he didn't say a word...he was making a noise but no actual words came out...I grabbed his arm softly "Mr. Johnson"...he blinked hard 3 or 4 times and looked down at me, and grabbed my shoulders really fucking tight and thru his teeth he said " Go home boy...go straight home right now." " don't stop nowhere just go straight home this isn't natural this is unearthly." His lips thin and serious. I nodded like I understood what he meant. Unearthly? I slowly walked to the fence and crossed over the gate, as I did I glanced once more at Mr. Johnson his tall lanky figure stooped over the calf, examining the body closer. The cows mooing made me realized I still have a little drive till I'm home so I better hurry up. I ran in the car and threw it in reverse and started backing out the driveway. I'd give anything to be in that kitchen now watching that rooster clock. Anything. I did no less than 70 the whole way down an unpaved dirt road. Jostled by every bump and dip I didn't dare try to slow down. I whipped in so fast I caught the mailbox's open lip and tore it off, the mailbox shook but remained in tack. I put it in park and ripped the keys out. I ran inside and locked the door, I didn't realized how quick and shallow my breathing was until I was inside the cabin and was able to breath a sense of relief. My chest and back expanded and tho still very sore, that big breath was very much welcomed. My aunt was already in bed. Good, I thought I wouldn't have to talk to her immediately I had time to think about what I was going to tell her. Humberto was under the kitchen table. I walked over to the sink and stared at the rooster clock. Following his eyes left to right, left to right. Tomorrow was going to be better I thought...tomorrow will be better. I grabbed a cup out of the cupboard and got the jug of water out from the fridge. "Tomorrow Humberto I will figure this out. All this...there's a very simple logical explanation for." I reasoned with myself as I poured a cup of icy cold water. It chilled the glass cup immediately. Condensation forming on the outside was making it hard to grip. " to a better tomorrow." I whispered and lifted my cup and nodded, toasting the occasion of having water finally with Humberto, who was laying face up on the floor sleeping. I drank the water slowly. Let it fill my whole mouth and held it till my teeth were hurting from the coldness and slowly swallowed. Remembering how bad I wanted a drink before I made sure to enjoy every sip and every bit of pain that came with this delicious drink. Tomorrow I will have any cup of clean water. Maybe with some eggs and chorizo or maybe just a plain egg sandwich...decision decisions.