Leaving Machacago
Harrison Kim
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
“Machacago’s hospitals are the best anywhere,” she goes on. “Once you leave the city, you can’t return. Don’t you know there are hundreds of people outside the gates, wanting to get in?”
“There must be oceans of space out in the country,” I tell her, “if everyone’s leaving it behind.”
The ticket seller wants to scare me, to get me to conform, go back to my apartment. After what happened to Pierre and the other hoarders. I’ve made up my mind. They’ll come for me, too, sooner or later. “One ticket for me and one for my cat,” I joke.
“It’s your choice,” she says. She passes a ticket through the grill. “And there’s two signed vouchers for your goods. That’s the guitar and the animal.”
I take the documents, pick up my baggage and move towards the tunnels, where the buses wait. Two hazmat-suited security guards check my papers and then my city number on their computer.
“You’re making a very serious error,” says one. “Data on you says it’s likely because of personality defects.”
“You sure you won’t reconsider, take some mindfulness training?” asks the other. “In a large city such as this, people have to work together.”
“I’m done,” I tell them. “It’s up to you now, whether you will let me go.”
“Come on, then, Armin Santander,” says the tall, lined-faced one, opening the door. “Remember, it’s not up to the Government, it’s up to you.”
* * *
Stumpy is meowing some as I head down the tunnel. At the end of it, there’s supposed to be a bus. It’s very quiet here. I hear drips of water from the ceiling. I should have bought a flashlight.
I remember what the sign said: “Buses this way.”
As I walk down, though, I wonder: “What if it’s a trap?”
I stop, put down the cat cage and lift my guitar. I play a few notes. Good acoustics.
My eyes become more accustomed to the half-light. I put down the guitar and check out Stumpy. He’s sitting right at the front of the cage, his paw pushing at the door. I open the cage and let him out. He sits there a minute, then starts walking slowly down the tunnel. He’s an old cat, very stiff and bony. He turns around and starts walking back up the tunnel and returns to his cage. I close the door.
“No matter what the choice, there’s going to be challenges,” I think. “These possessions and Stumpy all I have in the world.”
I take off my stifling mask and venture farther down, holding the cat cage in one hand, grasping the guitar under my other arm. “I’m in control,” I tell myself.
Every twenty paces, I stop and play and, at last through the notes, I see two headlights. I move towards them as they shine from the darkness. A bus stands behind the lights, a thickly armoured one with dark windows I can’t see through.
The door opens. There’s no one inside but the driver, a red-haired woman wearing a face shield, and a security guard, a hairy-necked fellow in head to foot camouflage and black gloves. He shrugs his shoulders as I approach.
“You can’t take both the cat and the guitar,” he says. He checks his phone. “Our records show you don’t own a cat.”
The driver stands up, hands him a cup of coffee.
“Here,” she says. “Take the guitar and coffee and go sit at the back. Let the kid have the animal.”
The guard stands there a moment. He looks at the guitar.
“It’s a Larriviere,” I say. “Custom made.”
The guard takes off his gloves, grabs the instrument, and starts to play. Beautiful flamenco fills the air. “Okay,” he says, putting the gloves back on. “I’ll go sit at the back and practice.”
“You stay behind me, Armin.” says the bus driver. “Put your cat beside you.”
I obey; I don’t want to make any trouble.
“Am I the only passenger today, driver?” I ask.
“There’s one more coming,” she states. “Call me Lisa.”
The sound of flamenco flows from the back seat of the bus.
After a few numbers, two stocky guards burst through the tunnel opening. In between them struggles a man dressed all in white. It’s Pierre Wayne. He’s shaven, his long hair clean and snipped short.
The two guards push him onto the bus. The flamenco player stumbles forward to help, but Lisa rises first. “We’ll sit you here,” she says, and points Pierre to the seat across from me. “You can stop trying to escape. We’re driving you out.”
He gives her a long stare, then sits down and looks at me. “So you’re leaving too,” he says. “You didn’t fall for their government lies.”
“Didn’t you want the free apartment?” I ask him.
He sits down and grins as he speaks, his teeth shiny and white. “They offered me free personality treatment, too,” he says, “but I like being irritable, being myself. They gave me a choice, to be clean and chained by their rules, or to take the bus out. I chose freedom.”
He looks at Stumpy. “Thanks for taking my cat. I’ll never forget your gesture.”
Lisa shuts the bus door and guns the engine, backs the vehicle up, swings it round. We start moving through the tunnel.
There’s a light ahead, growing as we climb.
I close my eyes, put my hands over the lids.
“What are you doing?” asks Pierre.
“If there’s refugees, I don’t want to see them at the gates, trying to get in,” I tell him.
“Listen,” says Pierre, his nose pressed against the window, “we made our decision. Now let’s face it like true humans.”
I peek through two fingers. There’s a scratching, something’s banging on the side of the bus. I see a big stick poking at the back window, and yelling.
“The windows are one-way glass,” I tell Pierre. I tap on one. “And made of heavy plastic.”
The stick stops banging as Lisa drives the bus at a crawl through the crowd. Scores of people jump up and down under the bright sun, waving signs with blotchy red writing that says, “Please let us in,” and “Have mercy, we are sick.” There are ancient ladies lying prone on gurneys, limping old men shaking their walking sticks, wailing kids in buggies, ashen-faced mothers in scarfs and baggy dresses beside them yelling, “Take us inside.” Someone’s yanking on the bus door, but it’s locked tight, and Lisa keeps driving, a set look on her face.
The security guard at the back keeps playing flamenco.
“Why isn’t he doing his job?” asks Pierre. “He’s supposed to protect us.”
“This bus is pretty much invincible,” I say.
I see Lisa’s eyes looking back through the inside mirror. Her voice comes through an intercom. “I experience this scenario every day,” she tells us. “When the authorities let two of you go, like today, they take two of these people in. So, you’ve had an effect.”
We’ve passed most of the crowd now and are moving down a long gravel highway. I slide to the front of the bus, lean forward in the seat opposite Lisa. “Who are the authorities?” I ask her.
She pauses. “People like us,” she says, “trying to make things work.” Then she grins. “Or they’re evil oppressors who made up the plague idea to keep us all clean and quiet.”
“Why are there only two of us on this bus?” I ask.
“Not many choose to be stubborn as you,” Lisa tells me. “I guess you could call that courage.” She grins slightly. “Or craziness.”
We pass a few people on bicycles, a team of horses pulling an old van with a small family riding inside.
“There’s no gasoline out here,” says Lisa. “Shrinking supply chain.”
After ten minutes of driving, we pass through a village. “This is Tatla Lake,” says Lisa. “I’ll let you out the other side. The folks here don’t like strangers, on account of disease.”
The bus stops by a stream, under shady poplars. The stream winds away through grassy fields. I take the cat cage and step off the bus. Pierre follows. Lisa steps off and opens the luggage compartment at the side. She pulls out a couple of huge back packs.
“There’s canned food in here to last a while,” she says. “One pack each.”
Pierre grabs his. He can barely lift it in his old skinny arms. He staggers off with it towards the stream.
“Why are you giving us this?” I ask.
“You only brought one package,” Lisa says. “With the food you have two packages, according to the rules.”
“The guard’s still sleeping,” I tell Lisa.
“That was strong coffee,” she says, “with an added item or two to keep him quiet.”
“Thanks,” I tell her.
“He’s a good guitar player,” she says.
I nod, and Lisa steps back on the bus.
“Take care of your cat, Armin Santander,” are her final words.
* * *
I shoulder the huge backpack, carry Stumpy in his cage and my guitar in either hand.
Pierre walks upstream, lifting his pack ahead of him for ten paces, then resting. “There could be an old house this way,” he says, “where I could find a stove.”
The air is different here, thinner. I sit beside the stream, open Stumpy’s cage. He walks in a small circle then comes meowing to me.
I open the backpack and check out the cans. I find the can opener and open some food for Stumpy.
The old cat eats fast. He’s hungry.
I lie back against a tree and listen to the stream. This is why I left Machacago, to return to the real sounds, the real way to experience life, in all its true nature. I lean and listen and hear the leaves rustling through the trees all the way up to the sky. I hear footsteps, turn my head.
Pierre stands over me. “Can I have my cat back?” he asks.
I look at him. I stand up, scoop Stumpy into the cage and close the latch. “This fellow’s mine,” I tell him. “You passed him to me, and I exchanged my guitar for him.”
He stares at me. “They incinerated my possessions,” he says. “My history. I have nothing.”
“I handed all my stuff to you,” I tell him. “It was a fair exchange.”
“I’ll be lonely,” he said. “Stumpy was my cat for the whole month I was in the station.”
We stand watching Stumpy sit in his cage.
No one wants to make the next move, but it comes to me. I’m much younger and fleet of foot. He’s old and frail. I lunge forward, heave my pack onto my shoulders, and take off with the cat cage under my arms.
“Face things like a true human!” I yell back at him.
No one is going to tell me what to do, and what to give or take. I jog downriver towards a cottonwood grove. I carry only a packsack and a cat in a cage. Stumpy and I will find a quiet home together, beside this river. We’ll lie under shady green trees, listen to the clear water swirl and flow, with no cameras watching. We will find a place, and we will have our freedom. It won’t take long, I promise.
Copyright © 2025 by Harrison Kim
