"Ribbit" by Scott Bryan
Chloe thinks these people are lousy approximations of celebrities who died a long time ago. As a collective, they are the enemy. These fakers. Their smiles stretch back toward their earlobes, lips sculpted to look like flooded trenches carved in some foreign countryside, they protect shining veneers that are about as valuable to national security as naive PFCs. Their hands shake with such intensity that observers mistake anxiety and withdrawal for real human radiance. When this vibration is picked up by digital media, it is filtered out, whittled down to nothing, hidden behind flavor and dye.
As far as Chloe can tell, Oliver is hosting this party to celebrate everything getting so complicated it became stupid and simple. However, it is Chloe’s first invitation past the guard station. She knows enough to understand that Oliver doesn’t pay for the champagne, but he makes the bottles possible.
She finds him, the figurehead, the face of the evening, and connects with him from across the room, using that way beautiful women have. Most average men have probably never seen it, this tug on the rod, but Oliver is not most men. He knows what he is looking at.
When the two of them are close enough to see each other’s physical cracks, which are few, she runs a hand across his midsection. He gives a nod toward the exit to the hall and, before Chloe can take inventory of the gathering, they leave it behind.
The pair jog away from the fray, down candlelit hallways, and Chloe thinks perhaps Oliver could be separated from the world surrounding him.
“There is more money in the rugs than in the school down the hill,” she says breathlessly. “We’re wiping our feet on what could be a scholarship fund.”
“Why not?” he asks as if the statement is a personal attack. “More happens here.”
He tenses at her touch. His abdomen flexes and ignites a wave of flesh sculpted by early-morning workouts and oatmeal spruced up with half an apple. The other half of the fruit is carried off by servants, disposed of in secret, in other rooms.
“You are still hiding surprises. What’s the most interesting room in the house? Somewhere no one has ever been?”
The thudding bass from the party below rattles the walls, the vibrations make their way past the shine of his shoes, up his hairless shins, into the vortex of his groin. Chloe looks there now, unable to restrain herself. She wonders if this is what it’s really all about.
“I think there have been a thousand people in every room in this house,” Oliver sneers with dismissal toward his own good fortune. “But exposure isn’t a problem for me. Have you ever been in a room where someone was murdered?”
“Hasn’t everyone?” she asks playfully, swinging her hips. Her dress twirls around her ankles. Maybe this isn’t the right play, but Chloe’s politics have been charmed into a secondary role. “Another floor up, then maybe we’ll be safe?”
“Better than that,” he says through the only dry-mouthed buzz that still excites him. “Another floor up and the constant screaming will seem a little farther away.”
They bound up a spiral stairway which is easier to climb than those built for big gray boxes housing far-away peasants.
“There were no nails used in the construction of this staircase,” Oliver says as he bows his head. The specifications of the ascent are not accommodating of his lacrosse-tested frame. Nevertheless, Oliver yanks Chloe round and round without reserve, and soon Chloe is kissing him outside the final room of another hallway, this one is dark and only a little false.
She can feel his heart quicken, it runs at the same angle as the grain of the grand, oak door.
He slips a hard, elegant key from a secret pocket and penetrates the portal under the knob. His twist is an act of aggression, and Chloe tightens in anticipation.
With a much more gentle shove, the door swings open, moving on silent hinges.
This room is different. No servants have been here. The privacy is a living thing. The movement of air stirs up cobwebs and ripples sheets strewn over priceless pieces from the old country, wherever that is. There are secrets in this room.
In the middle of the floor, there is a body.
It is a showcase of the macabre. The gore is fresh, splattered along the floor and up the back wall of the room to the window. The fixtures, frames, and panes of the glass are pristine and new and out of place, transparent in a way Chloe finds off-putting. They are spotless and unused, strangers in the room aside from, of course, the christening spray of human fuel.
The body is face down, dressed in all black. Cotton fabric hides evidence of wounds and social standing. The hair and complexion of the person are dark, their gender obscured by the angle. Chloe immediately thinks of theatrical misdirection, a cheap tactic employed by an ambitious carnival barker.
She betrays herself and takes an unconscious step back. Despite her foreknowledge, Oliver’s talent is effective. The presentation is fresh, something over which a normal person would panic or lash out or become immersed in the details as a means to recuse themselves from culpability.
Oliver just stands beside her, marveling at the reveal. She can tell this is the moment for which he lives. The other sounds and motivations fall away. The walls Oliver has built around himself feel like home and Chloe hates herself.
“I like to keep this here,” Oliver brings one strong knuckle to Chloe’s chin and tilts her head toward him. Her eyes stay fixed on the interior of the room until he speaks again. “It’s good for my confidence.”
“Oliver, is this some kind of . . . ” she can’t finish. If she labels it she might underestimate his talent and give him further advantage. “How much do you want from me?”
“Nothing, really,” he says, still calm. “This is just the impetus for our exchange. It is only here for my piece of mind, necessary to keep the revelers downstairs at bay. It’s a rumor for people in town to fret over while they prepare for their day. Its value is based on your reaction.”
“But you don’t have to,” Chloe chokes again and has to restart. “This isn’t still necessary, is it?”
“Always,” he says as if soothing a child. “When I shake a hand in a boardroom or travel abroad or when I’m with a beautiful woman, or a beautiful man for that matter, I can move easier, dominant. I have something no one else can touch. I know something about life, and death, that no one else can attempt to understand. Every day, all day, during every interaction, I feel this.”
“Oliver, surely you don’t think you have exclusivity on death?”
“No,” now they are seeing each other. “Only its profit.”
She looks back into the room, up to a chandelier which supports small candles. The flames flicker, shifting shadows in the room. To her, the party below still seems quite loud again.
“Oliver,” she says. “Please believe me when I say, this is all lovely. I have always admired you, and I don’t doubt your sincerity, no matter how warped it has become by your compromises and impossible situation. I know you want to be special, but . . . anyone could do this.”
Oliver’s perpetually sculpted brow crumbles. “That is an Olympian!” He points at his creation, his demeanor is instantly cold and childish, as if a tantrum is brewing. “I can’t even remember the last time the Olympics were on.”
“What?”
“I used to watch contests of sport with such reverence, marveling at those who devoted their lives to a discipline, a practice which never crossed my mind. I couldn’t believe there were people who were given accolades, applause, attention for things like jumping on a trampoline or dancing with a ribbon.”
“There are people all over the world doing all kinds of things.” Chloe knows diffusion might be slipping away from her possible options. “Why are you being so cruel?”
“I want to be the best, can’t you see?”
“The best at what?”
“There is no ‘what.’” He turns away from her as if this were a trivial argument over fleeting matters. “There is only ‘is’ or ‘isn’t.’ ‘Are’ or ‘aren’t.’”
“Is that a real person?”
“What do you mean ‘real’?”
“It seems strange that you talk of this room as if it is always just so,” she proceeds carefully. His violence is still untested and, despite her abilities, her victory is not assured. “You have been backed by this secret, which everyone knows, for the better part of your career. You are different only because you’ve been singled out. How long has that poor champion been lying there? How has the blood on the windowpane continued to run without pooling on the floor? How have the contractors installed the frame around such brutality? Did you do all that?”
“What does it matter if it’s real? Or exclusive?” He seems a thought behind, and genuinely baffled by her fixated morality. “All that matters is that the people at the party are happy. They’re the ones who direct the flow of reality, of entertainment. Can’t you see that? The people from the village come here and pay to tour the grounds, but they only want to see what’s on the sign, and the party people make the sign. If it’s not an ad for my murderous psyche, a haunted house full of ghosts, then it’ll be someone else’s courtroom rant, an immigrant story with modern commentary, an edge-of-your-seat-thriller, the autobiography of a problematic man.”
“You do yourself a disservice, Oliver.” Now Chloe wraps her arms around her midsection, cutting herself off from him.
“You are very clever.” His back straightens. There isn’t any reason for pretense anymore. “There are rooms like this all over the world. The vessel doesn’t matter to them, Chloe. Only the influence. It’s the power they want, not the culture. The drunken excess is a benefit, not the motivation. The only way in is compromise.”
This speech, this coercion, this all-encompassing wave, has worked for a millennium. Chloe understands that if one has heard it, there isn’t usually much persuasion necessary. Her singular advantage is that she can see the changing of the tide, and Oliver cannot.
Their near-union, their possible partnership, is at an end.
Her palm bursts forward in a strong, straight-armed uppercut.
The blow connects and Oliver’s head jerks back as the door jam absorbs the force of his new momentum. The reverberation of his nose snapping jolts Chloe into action beyond her reactionary attack.
She knows vengeance will be swift and brutal, but there is support if she can reach it. The people in the town. The masses. Their pitchforks and torches have been dormant for a long time.
Perhaps the devils and demons of the old world have been destroyed, but it seems unlikely. The people at the party convinced the townspeople that the monsters of the world were gone, driven back into shadow and coffins when, in reality, they had simply grown too large to see.
She goes right.
As Oliver recovers from the shock more than the pain, Chloe pushes past him and sprints down the hallway. The distance seems longer now, and her heels press pinprick holes in the priceless foreign carpet.
When she reaches the spiral stair, she tries to put a foot on the first step and finds she cannot. Her spiked shoe twists and fumbles through mesh grating that was invisible when Oliver led her up. The angle of the step tilts her frame backward until she nearly falls. There is no going back, but Chloe thinks of politicians and racists and old men in tuxedos and she is able to sit on the rail. Her hand slides along the steel behind her, guiding her as she slides indiscreetly around and around.
“You’re never coming back up here!” Oliver shouts from the top floor as she races back toward the ballroom. She fans her face, hoping to dry out tears and perspiration before she bursts back into mixed company, but she slams through the huge, heavy double doors before she can conceal her truths.
Chloe is surrounded by the dream-makers. She hopes she can move through the crowd, so she starts cutting spaces between arrogant, self-obsessed power addicts.
Her fantasy of easy escape is immediately dashed. Barreling toward her is a huge shadow woman, all hooks and lines, neither fat nor thin, fact or fiction, simply everywhere in the room, stretching and filling space, she is in the thoughts of the attendees and the acknowledgments of their memoirs.
“I have notes,” the woman bellows in a lusty baritone.
Chloe is darting between revelers who are, at first, completely unaware of her. They look around, hoping the banshee is talking to them, then realizing it might be someone in the vicinity, then, to their horror, they understand the wraith has entirely shed her costume and now dons the cap and jacket and flaming skull of the gatekeeper.
Chloe wades out into the center of the undulating wake of the dance-floor when Oliver appears at the back of the hall, points, and screams, “Consumer!”
Everyone stops and turns, finally focusing on her. They know the label, are familiar with the concept, but many of them only think of such a thing as a dream, an abstract, ones and zeros on paper, reports during which they can let their attention drift.
But they are not stupid. This party has a pure exclusivity that cannot survive interruption. To gain access to their midst without screening (screaming?), without some recommendation, without first being subjected to filters and laundering and ethical (ethnical?) evaluation, would dilute the pool and obstruct the group conscience.
They turn on Chloe now, fangs descending from exaggerated smiles. Oliver moves as if he lives on the shoulders of these people, to capture her.
He drops in front of Chloe and seizes her by the shoulders. One of the sleeves of his tuxedo jacket is smeared with his blood, both of his expensive shoes are covered in the mire of the dead. He turns her to look into the truth and pain, as the overseer concentrates itself on the largest platform Chloe has ever seen.
“There is more than one moral judgment now, Chloe,” the wraith says, almost apologetically, her confidence and stage-presence hypnotic and intoxicating. “Choices like these aren’t left up to the general populace. Sure, murder is wrong, but not universally. We have to make hard decisions, not just about what people are allowed to consume, but about what they are allowed to enjoy. We find the dwellers in darkness and obscurity, folks who can act as a reflection of the culture, and we turn them into royalty with commercials and targeted ads and blurbs and, when we need to, force.”
“It’s like an evil spell,” Chloe realizes aloud.
“You have to choose a side, my dear, that’s all,” the woman with the platform and the influence continues. “Anything can be justified, but you have to decide which morality you favor. We went with the power. Look at all the good we can do. Take Oliver, for example, he still gets to keep the keys to the doors upstairs. In fact, he has more freedom to fill them when he has the adoration of the townspeople. We built his house to certain specifications for him and he smiles and waves and diverts attention.”
Chloe is wildly looking around, struggling, but she is trapped. A hundred hands hold her in place, and their grip is tight.
“You’ve worked hard, you’ve earned this opportunity. Don’t throw it away over some misguided sense of duty to the people in town, people who can’t be trusted with the responsibility of their own free thought.”
“Choice is freedom!” Chloe screams, indignant.
“Yes,” Oliver whispers into her ear as applause breaks out. Chloe can’t tell if it is for her or for her impending obliteration. “All we are controlling are the options people see to make that choice. They won’t know the difference.”
With that, they descend upon her, and the next night she is happy. She swirls and drinks and converses with her new friends. She is welcome at the party and lost in the crowd.
Chloe goes left.
She is through the room like a banshee, her braceleted arms out in front of her as her heels splatter through the gore. The scene is so obviously a put-up. When she gets close she sees the imperfections and inaccuracies. The Olympic medal around the corpse’s neck is made of myrrh. The shattered bone is crafted from old newspaper inserts and school glue.
She jumps, smashing through the window. It breaks and tumbles with a theatrical flourish but no real danger. It is candy glass, and Chloe lands on a crash-pad in a room that looks like the outside world. The set is adorned with miniature trees and a pale horizon under a black, speckled sky.
She is up and out an unlocked door she never would have seen had she been open to the suggestions of soothing voices and whispered madness. She descends a rickety staircase built by honest hands, a back entrance (or exit) to transport tangles of mass with no connections.
Chloe is on grass again, all the flash and dazzle is left behind. Outside the house of entertainment, free air is on her face, and it lights her brain with inspiration.
She could learn a new trade, start a new life, remember the simple aspirations of her youth. The bright screens and accelerated frame rates could be dimmed, muted, shut off. She could attack the guardhouse from behind, and the lumbering deputy would never see her coming. The people in town could come and go as they please, enjoying resources that were coveted, hoarded behind the illusion of necessary exclusion.
Oliver is after her. He swings through the air on a glider that looms in the periphery of her vision.
When he drops in front of her, blocking her escape from the grounds, the wings retract into an invisible pack hidden in a seam in his jacket. The device is just another luxury, like the murder room, for Oliver to access during a game where there are only rules for the losers.
He attacks her with less precision than Chloe anticipates. Out here, in the dark, away from comfort, he is clumsy, almost confused.
He grabs at her forearm and the stretch causes his shirt to come untucked from his pants. Chloe can see a little gut where his sculpted midsection used to be.
In the shadows, we all become hideous.
Chloe starts screaming, trying to convince herself of something. “If you tell me this wet, slimy thing crawling out of your house, out of your mind, out of your vault, is a prince, some royalty of the highest quality, you don’t understand the choice I have.”
“What are you doing, Chloe?” he screams as they tumble.
She ends up on top of him, straddling him and digging her nails into his neck.
“It is a prince. I promise!” He flails and howls and she bucks to retain her position.
“Maybe I don’t like that idea!” she screams back. “There is a difference between what is real and what you say is real! This game was won a thousand moves ago when you put the idea of the prince in my head. You engineered yourself to be attractive, rich, smart, handsome. You came at me with banners and banshees and recs and shelf-placement, but I see you now, here in the dark. I see privilege, insulation, elitism, influence! You filled the air with a thousand voices of support, a rhythmic chant to change the pulse of my own thoughts. But it’s quiet out here, Oliver, and all I hear is a bunch of fucking frog burps.”
His eyes widen, and the new sound is that of a satisfying crunch. Chloe decides it is time to let her heroes pass out of her mind. She knows she will wander alone now, separate, away from the elevation and riches and access, set apart even from the people in town. She will encounter only other travelers on the road and, perhaps, they will have wares of their own to peddle.
Scott Bryan publishes the online novel/zine Get It Away From Me, which he has exhibited at Zinefests and Lit Conventions from Denver to D.C. He is a former editor at Music in Minnesota, he wrote the screenplay for the feature film Drunk, and his work has recently appeared or is forthcoming in Trampset, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Versification, Rejection Letters, The Cabinet of Heed, and Soda Killers Magazine.