The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

shark’s grin. Last fall, Mister Mosby cracked Travis in the back of the skull with a rifle stock for mouthing off in the commissary line. Carrie can see the bright red blood on pale green tile. The camp doctor, who reeks of gin and a faint whiff of piss, gave Travis a clean bill after a cursory exam with a penlight. Travis’s hands still shake. Every time Carrie leaves the two of them, Diane rests her hands on his to steady them as he works.

“It will be beautiful,” Travis said to her, kissing her on the cheek. Carrie and Miquel would never be a couple like this, united in a project, a craft that demanded its own language. She wished Miquel wanted to fight with her, but it wasn’t something they shared. She looked at the dress and saw the Atlantic from Coney Island at night, Ferris wheel lights dancing in the surf. She worried that all that brought the two of them together was their past. She was trying to give weight and solidity to something that had already evaporated.

Miquel’s suit is borrowed from Sidney in Hall B, who was wearing it when he was taken. The camp gets thrift store clothes, mostly tee shirts and sweaters. The suit doesn’t fit well, although Travis did his best. We’ll do it again on the outside, Carrie thinks. We’ll get everything right. On the outside has a fairy tale ring to it. There’s only this making do: borrowed suits and dresses that are not the true ocean but a memory of it superimposed onto bootlegged cloth.

The ceremony is held in the laundry. Mister Bailey guards the door for them, an armed usher. It’s damp inside but cooler than the July desert night. The room is bright with the smell of mildew and bleach. It’s perfect.

Felix, who cooks in the commissary, serves as the officiant. He was a minister once, in the last life. On the outside. It’s good to remember that they were all something else before. The sermon is overprepared, more than they needed. It’s as much for him as for them. Maybe that’s what weddings are like, Carrie thinks, never having attended one as a guest. The way funerals are to remind the living they’re alive, weddings call lovers back to the day when their love was worth celebrating. An infinite regression, new loves placing themselves in conversation and context with old so that one day they can be recalled, too.

All this overthinking as she stands facing Miquel, the one she loves, the one she’s loved so long she can’t remember a version of herself that didn’t feel defined in relation to him. She has his hands in hers, the sleeves of his suit coat nearly covering them. He looks at her the way he did the first time they met, when he was the first one at Bishop to see her. A look that affirms that she is real and solid. He grounds her in the world when she feels most at risk of floating away.

There is a kiss that almost escapes her. She catches the end of it, returning to her body from her thoughts before their lips part. Their friends clap, and the sound caroms off the walls as if everyone they know is in attendance. Thinking of the people here as their friends is strange. Some of these friendships are old; some started in Topaz. They don’t seem real. Bryce and Hayden, Jonathan and Rafa, who lost an eye while in custody. An accident, of course. These are the relics of their past life carried over into this one. Travis, Diane, Felix. All new to them but no less dear. Topaz has fused them all. If they ever get out of here, they’ll be different from everyone else, everyone who’s never been inside. She wonders what will happen to those friendships, then reminds herself that there’s no point wondering.

“Waylon’s going to be so pissed he wasn’t here,” Bryce says to her, kissing her on the cheek. Tricia passes around paper cups of hard cider, mulled at the end of last fall and hidden in oak barrels through the winter. It’s bitter and crisp. Rafa and Jonathan play quietly in the corner on an improvised drum kit and a guitar Hayden had smuggled in. The comforts of the real world, leaked into Topaz Lake.

“That’s the thing with destination weddings,” Bryce continues. “Not everybody’s willing to travel for this shit.”

“When you guys get married, I’ll get arrested so I can be there,” Carrie says. She immediately regrets it as his smile becomes brittle. She gets so caught up in her own unhappiness, she can’t see how much worse it is for others. Bryce hasn’t had any communication with Waylon in the year and a half they’ve been here. She wonders what’s worse, the separation or the disappointment that Waylon hasn’t managed to find him. Bryce holds out hope of rescue not because of the message in a bottle Siu threw into the Hive before Christmas but because he can’t let himself think that Waylon would stop looking.

Hayden sings “I Found a Reason” by the Velvet Underground for their first dance. The words take on new meanings from the situation and their surroundings.

Something borrowed, something blue, Carrie thinks as she and Miquel sway and slowly turn. Something old. Three out of four.

The guests at the reception rotate in and out. Everyone wants to be here because of Miquel. For him. There are satellite receptions throughout the camp, and except for their close friends, guests leave to let others in, then come back, drunker, happier. Carrie imagines the other parties like lights on a string, connected but individual.

When the feeling comes over her, Carrie mistakes it for love. It’s a pulse of warmth and strength, a rush. Like a chord sustained on a piano, it lands and holds. She’s dancing with Miquel and feels like something has been lifted off her. Then she looks at his face and sees