Things to wish for

----

When they finally scrambled out onto dry land that was covered by sun-heated pebbles, they were half-deaf, turned inside out, and staggering and holding on to each other. Red saw the peeling pick-up truck, sagging on its axles, and he remembered that they could rest in the shade of the truck. They crawled into the shade. Alice lay on her back and began unbuttoning her jacket with limp fingers, and Red leaned his backpack against the side of the truck, wiped his hands against the small rocks, and reached inside his jacket.

"And me, too." Alice said. "Me too."

Red was surprised by the loudness of the girl's voice. He took a sip, shut his eyes, and handed the flask to Alice. That's it, he thought weakly. We got through. We got through even this.

And now, accounts payable upon demand. Do you think that I forgot? No way, I remember it all. Do you think I'll thank you for letting me live and not drowning me? You get zilch from me. This is the end for all of you, get it? I'm not leaving any of this.

From now on, I make all the decisions.

I, Emiya Shirou, being of sound mind and body, will make all the decisions for everybody.

And as for all of you, buzzards, rins, sakuras, sabers, kotomines, bloodsuckers, green-backers, masters and servants, humans, in your suits and ties, clean and fresh, with your briefcases and speeches and good deeds and employment opportunities, and your eternal batteries and eternal engines and mosquito manges and false promises --- I've had enough, you've led me by the nose long enough. All my life you've led me by the nose, and I thought and bragged that I was living the way I wanted to, fool, and all the time you were egging me on and winking among yourselves, and leading me by the nose, dragging me, hauling me through jails and bars. I've had it! He unsnapped the straps of the pack and took the flask from Alice.

"I never thought..." Alice was saying with meek disbelief in her voice. "I couldn't even imagine. I knew about death and fire and all, of course, but something like that! How are we going to get back?"

Red was not listening. What that thing was saying no longer had any meaning.

It had no meaning before, either, but before it was a person at least. And now, it was like a talking key, a key to open the way to the Grail. Let it talk.

"If we get some water," Alice said. "At least wash our faces."

Red looked at her distractedly, saw the disheveled and glued-together hair, the face smeared with drying slime with finger marks in it, and all of her covered with a crust of oozing slime, and he felt no pity, no irritation, nothing. A talking key.

He turned away. A dreary expanse, like an abandoned construction site, yawned before them. It was covered with broken brick, sprinkled with white dust, and highlighted by the blinding sun, which was unbearably white, hot, angry, and dead. The far end of the quarry was visible from there --- also blindingly white and at that distance seemingly perfectly smooth and perpendicular. The near end was marked by large breaks and boulders, and there was the path down into the quarry, where the excavator's cabin stood out like a red splotch against the white rock. That was the only landmark. They had to head for it, depending on dumb luck to guide them.

Alice propped herself up, stuck her arm under the truck, and pulled out a rusty tin can.

"Look at that, Red," she said, livening up. "Father must have left this. There's more under there."

Red didn't reply. That's a mistake, he thought, dispassionately. Better not think about your father now, you'd be better off not saying anything. On the other hand, it doesn't matter. Getting up, he winced: his clothes had stuck to his body, to his burned skin, and now something was tearing inside, like a dried bandage pulling from a wound. Alice also groaned as she got up; she gave Red a martyred look. It was clear that she wanted to complain but that she didn't dare. She only said in a strangled voice:

"Do you think I might have another sip?"

Red put the flask that he had been holding back under his shirt.

"Do you see that red between the rocks?"

"I see it," Alice said and shuddered.

"Straight for it. Let's go."

Alice stretched her arms, straightened her shoulders, grimaced, and said looking around:

"I wish I could wash up. Everything's sticking."

Red waited silently. Alice looked at him hopelessly, nodded, and was about to start when she stopped suddenly.

"The backpack. You forgot the backpack."

"March!" Red ordered.

He did not want to explain or to lie, and there was no need. She would go anyway. She had nowhere else to go. She'd go. And Alice went. She wandered on, hunched over, dragging her feet, trying to pick off the baked slime from her face, looking small, scrawny, and forlorn, like a wet stray kitten. Red walked behind her, and as soon as he stepped out of the shade, the sun seared and blinded him, and he shaded his eyes with his hand and was sorry that he had not taken his sunglasses. Every step raised a cloud of white dust, and the dust settled on his shoes and gave off an unbearable stench. Or rather, it came from Alice, it was impossible to walk behind her. It took him a while to understand that the stench was coming from himself.

The odor was disgusting, but somehow familiar --- that was the smell that filled the city on the days that the north wind carried the smoke from the plant. And his father smelled that way, too, when he came home, hungry, gloomy, with red wild eyes. And Red would hurry to hide in some faraway corner and watch in fear as his father tore off his work clothes and tossed them to his mother, pulled off his huge, worn shoes and shoved them on the floor of the closet, and stalked off to the shower in his stocking feet, leaving sticky footprints. He would stay in the shower, grunting and slapping his body, for a long time, splashing water and muttering under his breath, until he shouted so that the house shook:

"Hey! Are you asleep?" He had to wait until his father had washed and seated himself at the table, where a pint bottle, a bowl with thick soup, and bottle of catsup were ready for him. Wait until he had slurped up all the soup and started on the pork and beans, and then he could creep out into the light, climb up on his lap, and ask which shop steward and which engineer he had drowned in vitriol that day.

Everything around him was white hot, and he was dizzy from the cruel dry heat, the exhaustion, and the unbearable pain of his skin blistering at the joints; it seemed to him, through the hot haze that was enveloping his consciousness, that his skin was crying out to him, begging him for peace, for water, for coolness.

The memories, worn to the point of unrecognizability, were crowding each other in his swollen brain, knocking each other over, blending, tumbling, mingling with the white hot world that was flaming before his half-closed eyes, and they were all bitter, and they all evoked self-pity or hatred.

He tried to fight the chaos, to summon from the past some sweet mirage, a feeling of tenderness or cheerfulness. He squeezed out the fresh laughing face of Saber from the depths of his memory, when she was still here, desired and untouched, and her face appeared, but was immediately blanketed by rust and then twisted and deformed, then it disappeared.

He struggled to remember Rin, that sainted woman, her swift, sure movements, her laugh, her voice, which promised unheard-of marvelous places and times, and Rin appeared; but then a silver blade exploded on the sun and Rin was no more, and Sakura's unblinking angelic eyes stared at Red, a porcelain in her white hand...

The dark thoughts festering in his subconscious knocked down the barrier his will tried to create and extinguished the little good that his memory contained, and it seemed that there had never been anything good at all, only ugly, vicious faces.

And during all this time, he never stopped thinking about his current situation. Without realizing it, he recorded somewhere in his nervous system the essential information: that on the left, at a safe distance, there was a jolly ghost over a pile of old planks --- it was quiet, exhausted, and so the hell with it; on the right there was a slight breeze, and a few steps later he saw a mirror-smooth mosquito mange, with many arms, like a starfish-far away, no danger --- and right in its center, a flattened bird, a rare sight, since birds did not often fly over the former battleground of Holy Grail War; and right by the path there were two abandoned empties --- apparently Buzzard had dropped them on the way back, fear is stronger than greed. He saw all of this and took it into account, and Alice had only to stray a single foot from their path for Red's mouth to open and the hoarse warning to fly automatically from his throat. A machine, he thought.

You made a machine out of me.

The broken rocks at the edge of the quarry were getting closer, and he could see the fanciful designs made by rust on the cabin's red roof. You fool, you, Buzzard, Red thought. You're clever, but you're a fool.

How could you have trusted me? You've known me for so long, you should know me better than I know myself. You're getting old, that must be it. Getting dumber. But what am I saying, I've been dealing with fools all my life. And then he pictured Buzzard's face when he discovered that Alice, his sweet Alice, his daughter, that his pride and joy had gone into the former holy grail battle ground with Red after Buzzard's legs. He pictured his face and laughed. When Alice turned her frightened face to look at him, Red went on laughing and motioned her on.

And then the faces crawled across his consciousness again like pictures on a screen.

Everything had to be changed.

Not one life or two lives, not one fate or two --- every link in this rotten, stinking world had to be changed.

Alice stopped at the steep descent into the quarry, froze in her steps, straining to look down and into the distance, extending her long neck. Red joined her. But he did not look where Alice was looking.

Right at their feet the road into the quarry began, torn up many years ago by the treads and wheels of heavy vehicles. To the right was a white steep slope, cracked by the heat; the next slope was half excavated, and among the rocks and rubble stood a bulldozer, its lowered bucket jammed impotently against the side of the road. And, as was to be expected, there was nothing else to be seen on the road, except for the black twisted stalactites that looked like fat candles hanging from the jagged edges of the slope, and a multitude of black splotches in the dust, as though someone had spilled bitumen. That was all that was left of them, it was even impossible to tell how many there had been.

Maybe each splotch represented a person, or one of Buzzard's wishes.

That one there was Buzzard coming back alive and unharmed from the basement of Complex #7.

That bigger one over there was Buzzard getting the wriggling magnet out of here unscathed.

And that icicle was the luxurious Dina, who resembled neither her mother nor her father.

And that spot there was Alice, unlike her father and mother, Alice, the beautiful girl, their pride and joy.

"We made it!" Alice rasped deliriously. "Red, we made it after all, right?"

She laughed a happy laugh, crouched down, and beat both fists as hard as she could on the ground. Her matted hair bounced ridiculously, and dried clumps of dirt flew in all directions. And only then did Red look up at the grail. Carefully. With caution. With a hidden fear that it would turn out wrong --- that it would disappoint him, evoke doubts, throw him from the cloud that he had managed to scramble up on, and leave him to wallow in filth.

Do I remember it still?

It was not golden, it was more a copper color, reddish, and completely smooth, and it shone dully in the sun. It lay at the foot of the quarry's far wall, cozily ensconced amid the piles of accumulated rocks, and even from that distance, he could see how heavy and massive it was, and how solidly it lay in its place.

There was nothing disappointing or doubt-inspiring about it, but there was nothing to inspire hope either.

For some reason, his first thought was that it was probably hollow and that it should be hot to the touch from being in the sun. It obviously did not glow with its own light and it obviously was incapable of floating up and dancing in the air, the way so many of the tales had it. It lay where it had fallen. Maybe it had fallen out of some monstrously huge pocket or had gotten lost, rolled away during some game between some giants. It had not been carefully placed here, it had been left behind, littering up the Earth like all the empties, bracelets, batteries, and other rubbish remaining after the great explosion in the last Holy Grail war.

But at the same time, there was something about it, and the longer Red looked at it, the clearer it became that it was pleasant to look at it, that he wanted to go up to it, to touch it, pat it, and suddenly the thought came to him that it would be good, probably, to sit down next to it, or even better, to lean back against it, close his eyes, and think, reminisce, and maybe just dream and drowse and rest...

Alice jumped up, tore open all the zippers on her jacket, took it off, and threw it down smack at her feet, raising a cloud of white dust. She was shouting something, making faces and waving her arms, and then she put her hands behind her back, and dancing a jig, headed down the slope. She was not looking at Red anymore, she had forgotten Red, she had forgotten everything.

She was going down to make her wishes come true, the little secret wishes of a blushing college student, of a girl who had never seen any money beyond her allowance, who had been beaten mercilessly if she had a whiff of alcohol on her breath when she came home, and who was being groomed to be a famous lawyer, and in the future, a minister, and in the distant future, maybe more. Red, squinting his swollen eyes against the blinding light, silently watched her go. He was cool and calm, he knew what was about to happen, and he knew that he would not watch, but it was still all right to watch, and he did, feeling nothing in particular, except that deep inside a little worm started wriggling around and twisting its sharp head in his gut.

And the girl kept walking down, dancing a jig, shuffling to her own beat, and the white dust rose from her heels, and she was shouting at the top of her lungs, clearly, joyously, and festively -- either a song or an incantation -- and Red thought that this was the first time in the history of the quarry that a woman went down there as though she was going to a party. And at first he did not listen to what his talking key was yelling, and then something clicked inside him and he heard:

"Happiness for everybody! ... Free! ... As much as you want! ... Everybody come here! ... There's enough for everybody! Nobody will leave unsatisfied! ...Free! ... Happiness! ... Free!"

And then she was suddenly silent, as though a huge fist had punched her in the mouth. And Red saw the transparent emptiness that was lurking in the shadow of the excavator's bucket grab her, throw her up in the air, and slowly slowly twist her, like a housewife wringing her wash. Red had time to see one of her dusty shoes fall off her jerking leg and fly high above the quarry. Then he turned away and sat down. There wasn't a single thought in his head, and he had somehow stopped sensing himself. Silence hung heavy in the air, particularly behind him, there on the road.

Then he remembered the flask, without particular joy, but just as medicine that it was time to take. He unscrewed the cap and drank with tiny stingy sips, and for the first time in his life he wished that instead of liquor, the flask contained cold water.

Time passed, and more or less coherent thoughts came to him. Well, that's it, he thought unwillingly. The road is open. He could go down right now, but it was better, of course, to wait a while. The meatgrinders can be tricky. Anyway, he had some thinking to do. An unaccustomed exercise, thinking, that was the trouble. What was "thinking" anyway? Thinking meant finding a loophole, pulling a bluff, pulling the wool over someone's eyes --- but all that was out of place here.

All right. Saber... Make them pay for that, steal the bastards' souls, let the sons of bitches eat what I've been eating...

No, that's not it, Shirou... I mean, that is it, but what does it mean? What do I need? That's cursing, not thinking.

A terrible presentiment chilled him, and quickly skipping over the many arguments that were still ahead of him, he told himself angrily: this is how it is, Shirou, you won't leave here until you figure it out, you'll drop dead here next to the ball, burn to death and rot, but you won't leave.

God, where are the words, where are my thoughts? He slapped his head. I have never had a thought in my entire life! Wait, wait, Rin used to say something like that. Rin! He feverishly dug through his memories, and words floated to the surface, familiar ones and unfamiliar, but it was all wrong, because Rin had not left words behind. She had left pictures, vague, and very kind, but thoroughly improbable. Meanness and treachery.

They let me down in this too, they left me speechless, the bastards. A bum --- I was always a bum, and now I'm an old bum. It's not right, do you hear me? In the future, for once and for all, it should be outlawed! Man is born in order to think (there she is, Rin at last!). Only I don't believe it. I didn't believe it before and I don't believe it now. And I don't know what man is born for.

I was born.

So here I am.

People eat whatever they can.

Let all of us be healthy and let all of them drop dead. Who is us and who are they? I don't understand a thing.

And I always wanted to be myself, on my own, so that I could spit at you all, at your boredom and despair.

He finished the dregs of the brandy and threw the empty flask to the ground with all his might. The flask bounced, flashing in the sun, and rolled away. He forgot about it immediately. He sat there, covering his eyes with his hands, and he was trying --- not to understand, not to think, but merely to see something of how things should be, but all he saw were the faces, faces, faces, and more faces... and greenbacks, bottles, bundles of rags that were once people, and columns of figures.

He knew that it all had to be destroyed, and he wanted to destroy it, but he guessed that if it all disappeared there would be nothing left but the flat, bare earth. His frustration and despair made him want to lean back against the ball. He got up, automatically brushed off his pants, and started down into the quarry.

The sun was broiling hot, red spots floated before his eyes, the air was quivering on the floor of the quarry, and in the shimmer it seemed that the ball was dancing in place like a buoy on the waves. He went past the bucket, superstitiously picking up his feet higher and making sure not to step on the splotches. And then, sinking into the rubble, he dragged himself across the quarry to the dancing, winking ball. He was covered with sweat and panting from the heat, and at the same time, a chill was running through him, he was shuddering, as if he had a bad hangover, and the sweet chalk dust gritted between his teeth. He had stopped trying to think. He just repeated his litany over and over:

"I am an animal, you see that. I don't have the words, they didn't teach me the words. I don't know how to think, the bastards didn't let me learn how to think. But if you really are...all-powerful...all-knowing... then you figure it out! Look into my heart. I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! You take from me what it is I want... it just can't be that I would want something bad! Damn it all, I can't think of anything, except those words...

'HAPPINESS FOR EVERYBODY, FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!'"

End.