MAXWELL GOES TO MARKET:

MAXWELL GOES TO MARKET:

“You know, I fought in World War Three.”

Maxwell Z. jumped out of his skin. He had never been addressed before at the Ultramarket. Invariably, sudden vocal tones in his vicinity had, since the dawn of time, signified either an imperative by a superior officer or the equivalent of such, for ignoring anyone who even MIGHT be telling one’s self what to do was itself worthy of a lifelong suspicion.

Max turned to face his sudden interlocutor. The blood had rushed from Max’s face; he must have looked even far paler than how he perceived himself to be each day.

His interlocutor was hardly more coloured in tone, though his unblushing pallor was not without a sheen of seeming sunburn. The man was far older than Max, demonstrably, though it never was an easy task to judge by facial scars and by gray hair. The only hint that he could truly have been a Last Veteran was in that only an incredibly archaic man would allow his hair to age. To avoid even the semblance of archaism, most men let Silver Lining hair products fall out of fashion. Max was once told that there was a time that being old was glamorized. But it would be a long time before being old was cool again.

“I’m sorry,” replied Maxwell Z. “Did I do something wrong?”

It was not a polite question. Even asking if they’d been acquainted previously would have been sociable. The old man did not let Max forget this fact, grimacing suddenly.

“No,” he rasped. “That’s the problem.”

Maxwell felt himself suspended for a moment in thin air. Then he remembered that this man was a fellow Pheomel.

“I’m sorry,” Max said curtly and sincerely. “But I must conclude my rations for the day.”

“No need to rush,” replied the interlocutor, grinning with inexplicable malice. “It’s not as though anything is going to run out.”

“True.”

It WAS true. Everything in the Caucasian Sector of the Ultramart was in endless supply. Such was the benefit of having fewer choices. Apparently, the other Sectors had a “finer selection”. Max could catch glimpses of their shelves through the transparent walls. The walls were there, presumably, so no one would feel separated. But it was bad news for Max to look through them for too long. And he had had far too many instances when he’d looked up to see a Eumel glaring back at him.

“Don’t act like such a stranger,” the voice mused, persistently, as Maxwell turned to leave. “You and I are probably far closer than you’d think. For all you know, I might have killed your parents. Wretched war that that was.”

A wave of rage swept over Maxwell Z. instinctively. His every neural fiber then became inflamed, or so it seemed, as blood rushed to the capillaries that would make him itch if he weren’t petrified.

He turned to face the Veteran. Shaking involuntarily, Max spoke.

“You,” he muttered. “You cannot insult the War.”

It was a capital offense, of course.

“I can insult myself,” replied the grinning man, leaning against a stack of Tasty Krisps, his upper arms, though often atrophied at such an age, appearing freakish in their size beside a sleeveless obsidian tee-shirt.

Maxwell thought, for a moment. He had to speak instinctively.

“How did you know my parents were killed in the war?”

“Tattoo,” said the old man and pointed at the wrists of Maxwell Z. “It is an ‘O’ for ‘Orphan’. We all know where orphans in your generation come from. Only question is: where did the PARENTS come from, right?”

“No idea,” replied Max curtly, wondering if he had collected enough foodstuffs to call the trip to Market a success. Going out was all ways terrifying, but this was the first time that he was actually disoriented, wondering madly what was going on, if he was being tested, or whom to call for help. Besides, he was feeling a number of emotions he had never felt before. Were they appropriate?

“A man without a country,” mused the man, looking at something in the distance, probably. “I understand. No heritage. No culture. Just a label and a number. Well: you’re lucky. I heard Orphans get less Privilege by half a point or so. You’re still half a point away from pale-faced Jews. But half a point ahead of me.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

It was not that Max didn’t know all ready. Though some part of him he could not comprehend was asking for another reason which he did not know or even trust.

“I’m not telling you so that you know,” said the old gray, eying Max now. “I’m telling you to let you know *I* know. Believe me: I know all too well.” He raised a crusty hand towards Max. Maxwell recoiled well before he saw what the old man was showing him. Somehow, the drool seemed to evaporate in Marx’s mouth.

“You… you were a NAZI?”

“Like hell, I was,” replied the man with the swastika tattoo. “I was a convict. Convicted for having convictions. Prior to the war, I protested the riots down in Florida. They locked me up, alongside a whole crowd of protesters. The motley crew was split and sorted evenly, much as we’re sorted now, into a prison for each ethnic group. I’d tell you what I called them then, but I won’t scare you. Anyway, some fat guy gave me this to show that I was one of ‘them’. As if there ever was a black man in the white block.”

Maxwell gulped quietly.

“How did you get to fight?”

“‘Get?’ I was made to. They were drafting from the prisons then. Cost of preaching peace and love, I guess.”

“You were a racist, then.” Max did not say it meanly.

Suddenly, the old man removed the upper half of a stack of Fun Flakes, setting far more than his allotted daily serving on the floor, and sat upon what remained.

“There was a time that term meant something,” said the racist. “It was worse than any slur, and any slur would lead to it.” He sighed heavily. “I was no racist. I was a non-racist.”

“So a racist.”

This was getting annoying.

“That’s what you’ve been taught, boy,” muttered the old racist. “In schools, it’s all ways black and white now. When I grew up, it was different. You didn’t have to fight the evil to avoid becoming it. In fact, we knew that the far greater risk had lain in fighting monsters. I saw the best fighters turn to utter savages, even before the War. Projecting does that to you.”

Maxwell had had enough. He began to walk away.

But the old man’s voice was mesmerizing in its arrogance.

“You know, boy,” it mumbled, “when it all started, I was teaching college. All my colleagues thought I had gone crazy. When you’re academic, you expect people to all be rational. It’s far too great a sin for liberal intellectuals to lord their wisdom over anyone. So they were the first to fall, one way or another.”

Maxwell hadn’t noticed his own legs stop. He simply listened, as if spellbound.

“I said to them, though: this is what will happen. White people will get what’s coming to us, not because we deserve it, but because that’s what the World wants. And they preached to the choir then. They said: no, it CAN’T happen. HOW could you hold someone accountable for a sin that he inherited from his ancestors? Racism isn’t genetic or hereditary. This isn’t North Korea.”

“Who’s North Corea?”

“They said to me that by the year 2050 no white man will have been born who could possibly have gotten away with even the MENTION of a hate crime. On what grounds could a state hold anyone in intrinsic debt? Schoolchildren would be isolated from their parents too entirely in order to allow them to learn a lingering Fascist tradition. How could the Left or the Right allow for it? And I just said: no one needs to allow for it. Reason is just a relic to these people…”

The voice slowly disappeared. Maxwell’s legs had begun to move, far too rapidly for their own sake, to get away.

There was no sign of the old man at Food Security. Maxwell felt a sense of faith wash over him.

Across the gate, he saw her once again: a far more pleasant sight. Ebony curves shone blue along their edges under the synthetic lights, as if she were outlined in azure. Her cheeks were pinched in what Maxwell imagined to be a smile, revealing two rows of very even teeth. Hair like the silhouette of an exquisite tree stuck out from an enticing forehead, sometimes falling to obscure her probing eyes.

Beside her stood her mate, exactly as the eBooks described him: muscular, proud, with a shaved head and face. Maxwell had never forgotten all of his sexual education classes.

He knew that he could never do what he wanted to do with the girl. But it was nice to wonder, from time to time.

A sudden panic overcame Max. All about him, sirens were screeching and lights were blazing.

The gate had been triggered. He tried to step out of it, stepping backwards so as not to appear fugitive, but he was braced by an invisible barrier that had risen to encapsulate him.

Soon thereafter, several Eumel Officers appeared on the television screen overhead.

“Maxwell Z. You are being detained under suspicion for leering.”

The chamber then descended underground.

[({Dm.A.A.)}]