Solutions: The Dilemma of Hopelessness by James Gerard (great novels of all time .txt) 📕

The white hue of skin under dark eyes, between the brows and black matted hair, dotted with black stubble on chin and under nose, revealed his dire state of health.  The man looked more like a child as watery eyes stared intently at Timothy.  The stranger’s facial expression was that of terror.

“I have to remove your suit so the doctor can diagnose the problem,” he softly whispered.

Gloved hands popped the connections between torso and leg assembly.

“Phew,” he exclaimed.  He coughed and choked in reaction to sniffing the putrid fumes rising from the trouser assembly once the torso was removed.

Quickly, he grabbed two portable oxygen masks clinging to the doctor and wrapped one over the man’s face first, then his face.

He pulled the trousers down revealing dark stains spotting the workpants.  “You gotta be so uncomfortable right now.”

Timothy slipped the boots out from under the restraints, and slipped off the trouser assembly.  Carefully, the man’s limp body was escorted in front of the doctor.  The torso was strapped in.  An arm was inserted into the slot.

Not wishing to cause any further harm, Timothy took hold of a pair of scissors to remove the shirt and pants.

“You’re in bad shape,” he whispered while staring at rolling ribs.  He then looked into the stranger’s eyes, “This is the health analyzer.  It has hold of your arm to diagnose the problem.  Do you understand?”

No response.

The doctor flashed a sequence of colored lights while Timothy cut free the pants from its sticky grip on the skin.

Eyes stared at patches of red amid blackish slime and crud covering thighs and stomach, the cause of which could only have been inflicted by the remnants of a watery discharge.

Timothy picked a pad saturated with ointment from a compartment and ran it over the inflamed areas.  The man uttered no objection.  He tried to clean the crud off as best he could, but the pad was not working too well.

The doctor flashed the diagnosis: Viral infection.  High fever.  Diminished motor functions from ocular muscle paralysis.  Severe dehydration.  Kidney failure.  Administering serum and fluids.  Stand by.

“So my friend, that’s why you’re not fighting; the flu followed you up here.”

Timothy turned to the other figure.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

So young, he thought.  Black, short cropped hair contrasted with a face of smooth and paled skin.  Like her shipmate, dark eyes could only stare back.

Timothy slipped an oxygen mask over the young woman’s face.  “I need to remove your suit and clothing so the doctor can examine you.”  He pointed over to the woman’s partner.  “See?”

The suit slipped off her bony body.  Gently, he cut off the pants and shirt.  A hand guided her arm into the second slot of the doctor.  As gentle as he could the pad patted the sores covering legs and torso, but again it was useless.

Timothy saw her glance at the flashing lights.

“The doctor is examining you.  Do you understand?”  Limbs did not struggle against the doctor’s grip.  “You must be very weak too.”

Timothy kept an eye on the monitor waiting to see the fate of his friends.

Stand by.

The ship suddenly lurched.

He turned to the friend.  “What did you do?”

A burst of light flashed and lit up the room.

Timothy darted to the window.  “Is that some sort of probe?”

The ship lurched again.  The object disappeared from the field of vision.  He shot up to the attic to witness on the monitor a bright light glowing from the object’s end, heading towards the strangers’ ship.

The screen burst with a flash of brilliance.  The ship rattled.  The foreign entity was obliterated.

“You evil idiots!” shouted Timothy.  A fist punched the terminal.

The friend stopped blaring its alarm, but then began its scream of ‘system check.’

Just wonderful, he thought.  I can hear it now: Even though we told him to only use the weapons to blast large asteroids, he must’ve disregarded those orders and brutally killed those innocent people.  She will be so happy to hear that.

Timothy darted back to the man and woman.  “I’m sorry.  I didn’t know.”

He removed his suit and reached into the pouch. The pistol was revealed.

“Why were they carrying a gun?” he wondered aloud.

Its clip was popped free.  Timothy squeezed the handle.

“Were you going to use it on me?  Is that why you were in the spacesuits?  Were you being good little puppets by eliminating your enemy?”

Eyes stared into the darkness of the barrel.  A finger wrapped around the trigger.

“Or could it be you spotted my ship first.  You knew you were dying and only sought assistance?”

The doctor flashed the same diagnosis for the woman.  Then it flashed the prognosis: Failure of life functions imminent.

“Imminent?” whispered Timothy.  “I’m so sorry.  Maybe if I found you earlier.”

The clip was tucked into a shirt pocket and the pistol released from the hand’s grip.  Eyes glimmered from the light of the distant stars.

“I’ll make you as comfortable as I can.  Doctor, display, list, medications, pain.  Prepare, doses, two, morphine.”

Specific amount of doses, the doctor flashed.

He scanned the young man.  “Slot one, weight, seventy pounds.  Slot two, weight, fifty pounds.”

The doctor flashed a sequence of lights then injected the morphine.

He pulled their arms out of the slots then whispered: “I have to be honest with you…the doctor says you guys are going to die.”

Timothy maneuvered the man to the chair and secured him onto the comfort of the seat.  “Enjoy the view.”

He then took hold of the young woman’s hand and guided her to the shower.  “You probably aren’t going to care about any pain after the morphine takes hold, but I don’t want to let you die like this.”

He slipped her feet under the holds and reached around for the water nozzle.  The water streamed forth from the sponge and warm air flowed.

Gently, the sponge wiped the hair and face, back and arms and neck, and over the areas encrusted with blackish discharge.

“If this hurts, I want to let you know that I’m not trying to torture you in any way.  I know now they would want me to—they’d expect me to, but don’t worry, I never wanted to be like them.  I won’t forget the pain.”

The rinse cycle activated, the warm water then removed the bits of putrid particles and sent them to the flow of warm air rising to the vent.  The warm air then swirled about and dried the moisture from the cleansed body.

Needing something to cover the woman’s skeleton of a body, Timothy took off his shirt.  “This will cover you up.”

The strangers then switched positions.  The young woman now sat before the field of stars; the young man was guided to the shower.

As Timothy prepared the man for the shower, he heard a muffled sound slip out of the mouth.  The stranger extended his hand.  Timothy stared into the eyes and spotted what appeared to be a glimpse of gratefulness.  He shook his hand.  “God bless you friend.”

As the sponge glided over the body, Timothy said, “Propaganda has it that your country is evil.  I bet you’re told the same thing about mine.”

The sound of flowing air whirled about the stall.

“It’s said your country is void of love and nurturing.  Adults are treated as economic assets.  Children are treated as nothing but potential assets.”

Timothy flipped a switch activating the rinse cycle.

“We can never get rid of them,” whispered Timothy.  “They’re invisible you know.  They can be living right next to you and you’d never know it.  And when you do know, we’re too scared or stupid to do anything about it.”

The warm air flowed about the body.

“Funny thing is, you know what happens when their prey speak out or act out the pain of the rape?” whispered Timothy.  “That’s right; we’re the ones that are punished for not dealing with it.  We're punished for hurting.  Yep, they just feast on our innocence."

The shower finished, Timothy drifted over to the hamper and picked a pair of pants from its hold.  “I’m sorry, they’re somewhat dirty but I don’t have any clean ones.”

A hand dislodged the feet from out under the holds.  The pants were slipped under the legs and all the way to the waist.  The man’s hand rested limp in his grip as Timothy guided him out of the shower.

Entering the living room he reached out to handrails and froze.  “There are no bullets in it.”

The woman smiled and handed the pistol over.  Timothy smiled in return.  “No rulers here.” He tucked the pistol into the waist of the pants.

Eyes then fell upon the two friends.  “There’s nothing more I can do for you,” he whispered.

He thought about letting them slowly slip away in the bedroom, but he could not be sure if they ever had access to a gravitational wheel—the sudden force of gravity could crush their fragile bodies.

Timothy was prepared to leave them in the living room but then an idea popped into the thoughts.  Images of their sterile ship moved about the mind.  For all he could see, it was a world of metal and plastic.

“Hey, I want to show you something.”  He smiled.

One by one they were escorted through the bedroom and into the east garden.  The wheel stopped.  The walls came down.

“Look.”

A smile turned up around the corners of their mouths as eyes gazed at the view of the trees.

“They’re real.”

Timothy guided them into the compartment housing the maturing orbs of nectarines and stretched them out above the soil.  He floated before the wheel and smiled as their hands dug into the moist and loamy soil; beads of fresh water formed on their faces.

“It feels good doesn’t it,” he whispered as each rubbed the feel of the soil about fingers.

The young man raised an arm and picked a nectarine from the tree.  A fingernail pierced the skin.  He ran it over the cheeks as if to feel a feel he had long forgotten.  The orb was held below the nostrils as if to breathe in the aroma of its sweet scent.  The orb was run over lips as if to taste the nectar within.  He then reached over to his partner and rubbed the nectarine about her face.  She smiled in response to the feel.

The young man looked to Timothy and smiled.  “Thank you,” he whispered.

Tears welled up.  “Don’t go,” he softly whispered.  “Please, don’t leave me alone with the friend.”  But it was too late. It looked as if death had possession of their lives.  Eyes sparkled no more.

A trembling finger touched the throats.  Hearts had ceased beating.

Though Timothy did not know who they were, their names for that matter, or even what they had meant to one another, but something told him otherwise.  “Fellow sojourners.”

He hovered over them in silence.

Thoughts drifted to the storage bins suitable for coffins, but that did not seem right: They enjoyed the feel of the soil.

Eyes looked at the naked apple tree.  No, he thought, death has already visited you.  They liked the nectarines.

Realizing roots might be lying just inches beneath, Timothy dug all the way to either side of the compartment, careful not to sever any of the tree’s life giving arteries.

With a gentle touch, hands set the bodies into the holes as deep as they would go.  He drifted to a cabinet and guided a bag of soil through the air and into the compartment.

The wheel’s rotation began.  Hands scooped out mounds of soil and covered the bodies.  Head lowered.   Softly crying he managed a few words.  "God, please have mercy on their soul."  Silence followed.

Worried that all the extra weight in the one compartment might upset the balance of the graveyard, Timothy stopped the wheel and drifted back over to the cabinet.

A couple of bags of soil were placed opposite the grave site; the compartment containing the skeleton of the apple tree.

The walls went up.  The wheel spun.

Timothy floated before the wheel and whispered, “May your journey continue.”

Body drifted to the apartment.  Eyes looked at the empty shells of floating suits and stained clothing floating about—sheaths that once sheltered life.

Numb touches