Riva

Marie Grows Wings

            Marie lies on her stomach, head turned to the left, whimpering quietly. The small black wings grafted to her back have already lost the beauty and health with which they had shone when she left the hospital two weeks ago. Now, feathers hang limply, and the row of tiny neat stitches holding them in place is strained almost to bursting.

            Eric swabs at the cuts with ointment, gently, but Marie still has to bite back a scream at the burning in her shoulders. Finished, Eric binds the wounds again with cloth and walks slowly to the head of the bed. He kisses her feverish forehead, and pulls the blankets over her frail form.

            “I have to go out now, sweetheart. For work. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Be strong for me. Please.”

            His words wash over her; she catches barely enough to know what’s happening. She nods, because this is enough. She knows he’ll be back.

            Eric leaves their tiny, squalid room, reeking of sickness but the window won’t open. Marie drifts easily into sleep.

            She’s standing at the window of her childhood bedroom, looking out over the city. The light and noise below her makes her dizzy, so, effortlessly, she falls out of the window. She plummets toward the asphalt for a few short moments. The wings catch her, then, and she soars over streets and parks, higher than treetops or skyscrapers.

            These wings aren’t tiny black things sewn painfully to her shoulders, rotting even as her body tries to reject them. These wings are huge, strong, and perfectly melded into her flesh. They let her glide, soar and dive past lampposts, churches and the statue of some man nobody remembers. Giddy with the sun and the sky, she catches a wind current. It takes her out to the edge of the city, past anywhere she’s ever traveled. Out here, there’s forest as far as she can see, even from this height. It occurs to her that the air is kind of thin, so she finds a downdraft, landing in the top of a fifty year-old oak. It was probably one of the first trees planted in the 2015 reforestation. It’s certainly the tallest tree around. She perches there for a while, just enjoying the weather. She hasn’t been outside in two weeks now, except in these dreams.

            As soon as she is aware this is a dream, dull burning pain brings her back to her broken body in the sweat-drenched bed. She shivers under every blanket she and Eric own and contemplates putting a coat on the bed. She will ask Eric when he gets home. She wonders briefly what time it is, but she doesn’t remember when he gets off work. Details like that have always had a tendency to fade from her mind. She settles for curling into a ball under the blankets and falls back to sleep.

            When she wakes up again, Eric is home. He’s sitting in the far corner of the room, reading an antique mystery novel. Marie carefully says, “I’m cold.”

            Eric puts aside the book, not bothering to mark his place. “You’re awake, love.” He crosses the room in two steps to put a hand to her forehead. “Your fever is worse. I’m afraid it’s not safe for you to be warmer.”

            “Eric, please. They ache with the cold.”

            “It’s not the cold they ache from. It’s the infection. We have to bring the fever down, now. You can’t get warmer. You’ll die Marie.”

            “Don’t worry so much. I’m not going to die. It’s just an infection. No one’s died of infection in fifty years.” She forces a smile, to reassure him. It turns into a wince within moments. She’s never realized how important shoulders are for basic movements like smiling before now.

            “You’re not in a hospital, Marie, and we can’t go to a doctor. We’ve run out of antibiotics. I couldn’t find more.”

            Marie is quiet for a while, after that. “We could go back to the university. Make the doctors who did the surgery take them off.”

            “You can’t even walk, sweetheart. How would you get there?”

            “You’ll figure out.” Marie resists the urge to yawn. She shuts her eyes and is asleep almost immediately.

            The minute Marie is asleep, Eric realizes she hasn’t eaten anything but the tea he gave her this morning.  He thinks about waking her up and arguing about food, but … she’s tired. He’s tired. He’ll make sure she gets more to eat tomorrow.

            He picks up the book Joe found for him. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union isn’t exactly mystery, but it’s not like there’s a huge selection of outlawed paper books that haven’t been recycled anymore. It still disgusts him how much censorship is passed off as environmentalism. Would it really be that hard to digitalize every book destroyed?

            He can’t focus on the book’s main character’s misery. Instead, he tries to invent schemes to get Marie back to the university. If she can even begin to stand up, he can support her, but it might be too far to walk.

            The schemes get less workable as he searches for the perfect one. In the end, he can figure out nothing better than to bundle her into a coat that covers the wings, and take the train. At least it might work. They’ll find out in the morning. He fixes himself dinner and sets up the armchair as a bed. Everything will be a little better in the morning.

            Marie wakes Eric up before dawn, coughing up blood. The infection has gotten into her lungs. He kisses her forehead and does his best to clean her shoulders. He convinces her to drink a cup of tea. While she’s drinking, he finds clothes for her, laying them on her bed.

            “We’re going to the university today,” Eric tells her.

            She smiles. “Of course.”

She has too much faith in him, he thinks. He helps her dress in a shirt that accommodates the wings, under a coat that’s just big enough to cover them. He gets her standing up, using him for support, and they go. They make it to the elevator at the end of the hall before Marie’s next coughing fit. The train stop is still blocks away.

Outside, the paths between skyscrapers aren’t yet filled with people. This is probably for the best. Somehow, with frequent pauses, at first for Marie’s coughing fits, and later because Eric isn’t as strong as he wishes he were, they walk down the stairs into the train stop. The train is one of the fast, new ones, and almost empty, as expected when it’s only just six in the morning. The university is five minutes away, on the same line. Eric has to carry Marie up the stairs out of the station, but once they’re inside the university, she seems stronger. Eric wonders for the first time if Dr. Mattin will actually be there yet.

When they get to his office, the doctor is sound asleep in front of his desk. Eric assumes he must have fallen asleep at work. He helps Marie into a chair, then carefully wakes Dr. Mattin, who’s a little put off by their appearance in his office, but eventually is convinced to look at Marie’s wings.

Finally showing the appropriate worry, he promises to help however he can. Marie signs the forms put in front of her without even glancing at their content. Among them are the two Eric fears most: general consent to any medical procedure considered necessary and strict nondisclosure about the nature of those procedures. A gurney is sent from the medical school, and Marie waves as she is sent back with it. Eric moves to follow her, but Dr. Mattin grips his shoulder and makes a speech about how sorry he is, and how there’s nothing more Eric can do. Escorted by two rough security guards, he’s sent home. Standing on the top stair of the train station, it’s all Eric can do not to scream. He’s certain he won’t be allowed back in to see her. He’s lost Marie.

Marie, lying on her stomach on her gurney, misses Eric almost immediately. The doctors don’t explain anything well enough that she can understand through the pain. She hovers on the edge of consciousness, exhausted by her first exposure to the outside world in weeks. When a nurse finally makes it clear that she should move from the gurney to a hospital bed, she finds herself unable to even begin getting off of the gurney. She’s lifted instead, carefully and gently. The nurse leaves the room for a minute, and, exhaustion overcoming curiosity, Marie falls asleep again.

In the dream, she’s back in the top of the oak tree. The air is still and clean around her, leaves barely moving in the slightest of breezes. On the ground below, she can hear small creatures moving, and a distant sound of water. Carefully folding the wings out of the way, she climbs down the tree and steps onto soft soil. Her feet, she realizes, are bare, and she presses her toes into the earth, reveling in the way they sink a little. She is not a tree, though; she will not take root, because then she could not fly. She walks among the trees, in some places surrounded by dense undergrowth and in others empty of anything but tall pines and vast open spaces, delighting in the world around her. This forest is home. She belongs here, with these wings, in a way she never belongs in the city. If she could live in this dream, she would never go back.

Instead of going back to the empty, stale apartment, Eric decides to walk as he plans what to do next. He paces the paths between skyscrapers, not sure whether he should be trying to forget Marie or trying to rescue her. But forgetting Marie… He can’t live like that again. Before Marie, nothing in the world was important. Without her now, not only is the world not worthwhile, it’s hopeless. It’s broken. Marie is one of the only people in the world who are still good. Dr. Mattin, by casually performing experiments on human beings, is destroying that last remnant of goodness.

Eric can’t allow a man who would do that one time a chance to find another remnant of good in the world. And anyway, it’s also the best way to rescue Marie, if the bastards haven’t euthanized her yet. The details of his plan established, he looks up to figure out where he’s walked. He’s only a couple minutes away from a subway station, and the train to the station by Joe’s store is there within another few minutes. He sets off.

It really shouldn’t surprise him to find that Joe isn’t there yet. It’s only 7:30 in the morning. He stares at the closed door for a handful of seconds before walking on toward his office. There isn’t anything better to do while he waits.

Dr. William Mattin looks down at Marie’s sleeping body, drugged to remain that way, and sighs. This was never what he intended. The wings will have to be removed, and then, if they’re very lucky, the girl will live. She should never have been allowed out of the university. He dons gloves, calls for nurses, reaches for tools, and cuts away too-tight stitches.

Eric goes to find Joe at his lunch break. Joe, who is mainly a book dealer, is initially shocked by Eric’s request.

“You want what, why?” he whispers in such a way that he might have well yelled.

“It’s for Marie,” Eric says, letting his panic come through in his tone “and I can’t go to the police.”

“Fuck, man, what happened?”

Eric shakes his head. “I don’t… I… It doesn’t matter. Can you get it or not?”

“I can do it,” Joe answers, resigned to uncertainty. “It’ll take a while. Come back tomorrow afternoon.”

“Can’t it be sooner? I can pay.” Eric reaches for his wallet.

Joe smiles grimly. “Trust me, man, you can’t. Couldn’t get it sooner, anyway.”

“Well, thanks, then.” Eric contorts his face into something Joe is pretty sure is supposed to be a smile. “See you.”

Joe is not at all sad to watch Eric leave. The man is obviously out of his mind with worry. Not that Joe won’t do what he wants. Mostly.

Dr. Mattin sighs as he grafts the last of the skin replacements into Marie’s shoulders. It’s taken all his skill just to put her body together again. It would almost have been justified to end her suffering in a case like this, and may still be, if Marie doesn’t show signs of determination to recover soon. But he can’t stand the thought of losing this girl, somehow, if only because she shares his passion for flight. He’d thought he’d never find a willing test subject before he met her. No other person had wanted wings enough to allow him to try the procedure that he still hoped would make him famous, even with the risks downplayed. She’ll probably heal fully, allowing him the chance for more research. He forces himself to have hope.

Home from work that evening, Eric strips all the blankets off the bed, but leaves the pillowcases. They smell more like Marie’s hair than like sickness. He cleans. He even tries, fruitlessly as always, to open the window. When there’s nothing left to clean, he settles restlessly in the chair, one of the pillows from the bed tucked behind his head. He can’t sleep immediately. Instead, he finds himself remembering Marie. The way she’d smiled the day he’d met her, as if smiling was the easiest thing in the world and cost nothing. The way she’d listened when he first dared voice political opinions to her, and hadn’t called him crazy. The way she’d looked, waking up after that first night when they’d slept together. The love in her voice the first time she’d told him about the dream. He finally falls asleep around two, face buried in her pillow.

He wakes up late the next morning, and rushes to arrive at work on time. Tension distracts him from accomplishing anything, not that it matters, since this is certain to be his last day at this job. Unable to wait any longer, he leaves for his lunch break five minutes early, getting to Joe’s store the moment it could first possibly be considered afternoon. Joe motions him to the back room, which has a case of books along a wall. Eric leans against it while Joe carefully removes a box from a hidden desk drawer. He hands over its contents, and Eric’s expression now is definitely a smile. The smile of a wolf, when it knows its pack has the deer surrounded.

“You know how to use it?” Joe asks, hoping the answer is no.

Eric nods casually, lifting the gun up to shoulder-height smoothly, a finger on the trigger. “I’d make sure it works right, but I don’t want the noise. Bullets?”

Joe hands him a box of them. “Here. Now, stop pointing that thing at me, and give me the money.”

Eric lowers the gun and gives Joe a handful of bills. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Joe lies, as Eric tucks the gun and bullets into an inside pocket of his jacket. Joe allows himself a single relieved breath as Eric steps out the door.

Marie wakes up briefly to a tube in her arm, and a different kind of pain in her back; the jagged, sharp pain of a healing wound, pulling rather than burning when she moves. The awkward weight of the wings is gone. Though she knows their removal is the only thing allowing her to regain her health, she misses them horribly. Crying, she waits for sleep and her dream to take her away from the wingless body.

Dr. Mattin finally has a minute to check on Marie in the early afternoon. She’s sleeping, as she has been every time he’s seen her over the last day. But more rest isn’t really what she needs right now.

“Marie,” he says, quietly, then again louder when she doesn’t respond. “Marie. I need you to wake up now. Marie!”

She blinks at him sleepily.

“I’m worried about how much time you’re spending asleep. At this point, it’s not the healthiest thing for your body. I know there isn’t much you can do when you’re awake right now, but I can get you a computer to read on, if that would make it better.”

“It wouldn’t,” Marie says. “Nothing will. I’d rather stay asleep, anyway. You cut off my wings.”

Dr. Mattin opens his mouth to say something, but still hasn’t figured out what when the door opens with a bang. Eric stands in the doorway, calmly pointing a gun at his head. “Marie, get up. Your clothes are in that drawer.” He gestures with the hand not on the gun. “ I’ll help with them once I’ve dealt with this bastard. I’m taking you home.”

“Eric…” Marie says faintly, “I don’t want to leave yet.”

Dr. Mattin, just about able to breathe now, says, “If you remove her, she’s in even more danger than she was the last time you took her from this hospital before the healing process was complete.”

“She’s not safe here. I can’t trust a doctor who would experiment on a person so blithely not to decide it’s easiest to just terminate the experiment. You had her sign the forms.” Eric is growling now, anger evident in every syllable.

            Dr. Mattin makes a silent observation on the absurdity of the idea that a man with a gun is safer than a hospital bed. Carefully trying to redirect Eric’s unbalanced anger, he says, “Those forms were for her protection.”

            “And that justifies the nondisclosure? Don’t tell me it was for her protection. I know how few people are ever seen again after giving general consent and full nondisclosure.”

            “I can assure you, we had no intent of harming Marie.” Dr. Mattin tries hard to sound reassuring.

            “Then why wouldn’t you let me see her? I had to wave the damned gun just to get in here!” There is no semblance of calm left in Eric’s voice.

            “Because we were afraid you’d try to have her discharged early, again,” says Dr. Mattin, with a bitter laugh.

            “Eric, please calm down,” says Marie, who’s somehow managed to roll over and sit up in bed. “They really are trying to help.”

            “No, Marie, they’ve got you brainwashed. Have they ever followed through on any of the promises they made when you agreed to the wings? It was a perfectly safe cosmetic procedure that you’d soon be able to show off to your friends. Isn’t that what they said?”

            “He never said perfectly safe. But it was worth it, until now. Eric, love, please put the gun down.”

            Dr. Mattin has been using the conversation as a distraction while he edges toward the alarm button. He presses it just as Eric returns his full attention to the doctor. In a too-late attempt to stop him, Eric pulls the trigger.

            The result is as rapid as expected, if not involving the subsonic propulsion of a lead pellet. The gun explodes in Eric’s hands, shrapnel flying in all directions. A piece sinks into Dr. Mattin’s shoulder, and another into the bed by Marie’s thigh, but the majority hits Eric, frying his upper body and leaving his hands in bloody shreds. He crumples to the floor, barely breathing.  Marie lets out a shrill, ragged scream.

            The security team arrives then, and hauls away the body on the floor. Marie, standing unsupported for the first time in weeks, moves to follow them, but finds Dr. Mattin’s hand on her shoulder.

            “Let him go,” the doctor says, in a tone of voice meant to be reassuring. “He was crazy. I’m sorry.”

            “You’re no better,” she answers, pushing his hand away. “I’m tired of dreams and science and wings.”

            Unhindered by the startled, wounded doctor, or the nurses who rush to see to Eric, Marie walks slowly and deliberately through windowless hospital halls until finally she reaches the exit. She’s surprised to find her legs support her, barely. The pain from her shoulders is still dull enough that she can keep moving despite it. The guard posts are deserted in the chaos, so, with a deep breath, Marie pushes open the hospital’s glass doors.

            Standing outside in the midafternoon sunlight, she begins to laugh. Passersby give her curious but malice-less glances as they go about their business. The pavement is rough beneath her bare feet, the sun reflects dazzlingly off the skyscrapers and the park across the path is an oasis of children and greenery. Pigeons and crows fly overhead, making noises as beautiful in their way as the animals of the forest in her dreams. The distant noise of the subway is, in its own way, as soothing as the river. She breathes deeply and smiles. The city has never felt so beautiful.