Timid souls

(…) those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Li opened the door that lead to the street with a determined sigh. If she ran all the way to
her apartment, she’d possibly make it in time to see the start of the games; sadly, Li was
not an athletic girl, and it’d probably take longer for her to run there, than just taking a taxi
to Aunt’s Zee house, even in the middle of the day. The street outside was packed with
people —most of them also in a hurry—, and the air tasted like a mix sweat and cleaning
products. This time, Li didn’t mind: her head was on the games, whereas the street had
always tasted bad.

She walked forward, already extending her arm over her head, as soon as he watched the
yellow shine of a car appear in the corner of the street. Her hands were chubby, and her
fingers short —added to that, she was only a meter and a half tall—, so she had to extend
her whole body into the road in order to be visible among the crowd.

The taxi, blessedly, stopped in front of her. She leaped into it, and rattled the address of
Aunt Zee’s house.

Inside the air-conditioned car, Li realized how dumb it had been to consider running home.
The effort of getting from the last floor —the 97th— of her job’s building to the ground, even
if it was inside an elevator, had her heart beating wildly against her ribcage. She was not
built for adrenaline, or any emotion that altered her fragile peace. Oftentimes, she’d refuse
to come out of the building in fear —that felt like an itch in her chest— that some
commotion might occur during her time out, and she would not survive it.

Today, however, was the best of times, and nothing —not even her own panic— could
restrain her immense eagerness to get out of her office. Aunt Zee had the best screen in
town; it extended over an entire wall, curved towards you, and made it feel as if you were
inside the action. The games, when they started, were so savage that the blood almost
poured from the screen.

Li enjoyed that the most. She could almost feel the warm spray of sweat from the
participants.

The downside of Aunt Zee’s house was that it was always infested by some bug, because
Aunt Zee did not believe in the exterminator services, nor did she believe in death. The
woman who had bought Li up, was adamant in leaving the cockroaches until they rot in a
hole —something that never happened— or damaged something she held dear, in which
case she’d spend days smashing them all with her favorite shoes.

She was a weird little woman, Li thought, just like herself.

In less time than she had expected, the taxi pulled up in front of the house. Its red bricks
were clean, the garden was modest, and Aunt Zee was waiting on the door, already
waving hello at Li. She was a vision that would scream of old money if Li ad known what
the expression meant. Everything, from her rings to her shiny black boots, was in its
perfect place, and yet Li knew that once inside the house something would bite her legs,
and the dust would make her sneeze her brains out.
With that image in her mind, she paid, and made her way towards Aunt Zee.

The buzz of anticipation was still tingling in her hands, but she maintained a measured
pace, and made sure to kiss Aunt Zee on the cheek —although her perfume almost made
Li gag— before crossing the doorstep and rushing inside. She knew how much Aunt Zee
loved appearances.

Aunt Zee’s two fat cats, called Girly and Cancan, meowed from their spot on the couch. As
Li approached, she could see that their fangs had grown, and they no longer fit inside their
mouths. Aunt Zee didn’t believe in dental care, either. Li licked her own teeth, and
continued walking.

Passing the first living-room, there was a hallway that lead to the stairs, the second living-
room, and the kitchen. Li entered the next space, where the gigantic screen was already
playing the theme song of the games. On it, a group of explorers was venturing out of the
protected zone, and into the wilderness. The goal would be to hunt enough wild humans to
win, and the teams were already forming. It was an exhilarating experience.

The explorers, a group of well-trained, normal humans, walked among the ratty,
abandoned houses that made up the lost city. The space was vast, and in the times where
the weather was still nice, it had been filled with thousands of humans. Now, decades after
the dark era of climate catastrophe that took place all over the world, it was a ghost right
on the limit of the metropolis.

The television center, which monitored what was shown on screen, always made the best
quality items available for it on the week before the games; this year, Aunt Zee had
decided to buy a pair of glasses that made the people on the screen enter the room. It was
breathtaking from the moment you put it on, nothing could describe it. She didn’t want to
wear them, though; too afraid it would surprise her to death. Li wondered, as she sat on
the plush couch, how the television center had access to such amazing technology, but
her thoughts were cut by the laughter on the screen.

The people on it were laughing, throwing their heads back. She wanted to reach out and
touch them, they looked so close. The explorers were always beautiful too, it helped theaudience. Li didn’t mind, she was one of the girls that fantasized with touching their soft
hair, and feeling the strength of their muscles.

Explorers were so divine, they looked like
heaven coming down on the settlements of wild humans, bringing their absolution in
blades. The ruins surrounding them only made it better.

Li could admit she was obsessed.

Li could also admit she would never be able to run a mile, or hold a gun, or smile as bright
as the girls in the team did. She was both jealous, and too enamored of them to care. They
looked so beautiful, along with the boys, and gents, breaking necks, and throwing knives.

She almost didn’t care for the reason they might attack them, the wild. There wasn’t an
official one, except the silent consensus that wild humans were primitive, like animals.
They decided to be away from the cities, and became outcasts, left behind by evolution. Li
believed they were just humans with other costumes, but that didn’t stop her from enjoying
a good hunt. After all, her job required her to know about the things wild humans believed
in, and it was no good at all.

They had wanted everything for free! Back when the few survivors of the harsh climate
change decided to form their own order, the wild humans wanted more than was possible.
They had no money, had no work, did not help in the reconstruction at all —or so the
history books said—, but demanded to be treated like generous members of the society
would.

It was ridiculous. They, the normal, had told them so. And when wild humans couldn’t get
their communist dream, they went out into the changed world, and made themselves lives.
Li did not care if they survived or not, but the existence of the games suggested they did.
But how would she ever know? The massacre that the games presented could well be a
fiction plot created by the television center. It was a plausible excuse, an easy alibi to hide
behind. She did not think the wild humans were animals, and she absolutely did not
advocate killing another human being —not in cases where it wasn’t necessary—, but she
could enjoy entertainment, as long as it was fiction.

(Li knew she was lying to herself, but perceptions of the self were easier to deal with, than
the fact that someone high up was sending killers to annihilate the wild settlements.)

After all, who was to say any of it was real? She’d never venture outside the limits of
civilization, and see it with her own eyes.

She could only live through a screen.

1409 words.