Dark Planet: The Reader

Rowan is the pen name of a Swedish-born songwriter and poet whose work has appeared in @EZine, Change and other Web publications.

I have only three left now.

I had seven, those Reri gave me, all hidden where I thought they could never find them. But they have found them, four of them so far. Four, and now I have only three left.

They can come at any time though they cannot hurt me. By law they can and cannot. By law they can come at any time and they can search any place, and they do, and they will, come again and again, and search everywhere, until they are certain, until they know I have none left; by law they cannot lay their official hands on me, although that may soon change.

And now they come at least once a week, sometimes every day. There is no knock, no warning. I have only a startled second or two after I hear a key in my lock and before they burst into my room to cease or hide what I do if what I do is illegal (what I'm doing now is illegal). My life is no longer mine, no longer private, for by law I cannot use latches or chains or anything they cannot easily, and quickly, unlock from without. The law

says they must have free access. Latches or chains, it says, would amount to protective privacy and that privilege is reserved for the Locom.

I have to wear a yellow R on my chest. The snake. R stands for Reader. The snake is made from glow-worm plastic so you can see it at night (were I crazy enough to go out then), and I have to wear it where ever I go. The Locom stand aside when they see me come or they stop and point or they turn away. Mothers bend to whisper to their children and I see their little eyes widen before they scramble for cover behind skirts and coats, although some are too young to understand and they smile at me in friendly wonder.

Some scowl and frown, others pretend I'm not there. Some do violence to me, for the law says they can. It happens maybe twice a week, that I get beaten. I don't think it's encouraged, the beating. Reri said the law even frowns upon it, but when you listen carefully it is not illegal to hurt a Reader, that is, as long as you're not an official, for they cannot hurt me. That's what the law says. Reri never understood it either.

I cannot, however, defend myself, says the law. A Reader may not. I have to stand still. Stand still and receive the just outrage of the Locom. It hurts, it hurts a lot, but usually I can make it home on my own afterwards. One day, I fear, someone will kill me although that is much against the law, to kill a Reader. If that would ever happen, if killing us would be condoned, then, of course, I will be dead.

But the beatings are usually not severe because they attract attention, and attention will notice if I'm killed, and attention will alert the officials and the killer will then caught and probably killed. So, it's bruises mostly, my face, my chest, my shins (some like to kick). What I fear mostly is injury to my hands, to my right hand particularly (I use it for writing), but they are seldom touched or hit as I have to keep them by my side, arms straight down.

Should I die though, at the hands of some unknown avenger, I'm sure the killer would be a hero with the Locom, but he would also, says the law, be a criminal, and no one, except the astonishingly stupid, would ever want to see the inside of a jail. And you don't see the astonishingly stupid around very often. They're mostly in jail, or dead.

I am sorry I'm rambling, this is all very unfamiliar, writing like this, and very dangerous. I am not very good at this, and I'm hurrying in case they come again, to look for more. To look for remaining three. But of course they don't know that there are more, they can't be sure they haven't found them all. Still, they will come again, of course they will come again.

Maybe they will come tonight.

Reading is not a criminal offense. Not yet. Not really. The official view--which is the same as the law--is that reading is a defilement of the Locom Desire, and is an act contrary to Image. Owning something to read, on the other hand, is a crime. I've tried to reconcile this, but the law does not have to be, and mostly is not, particularly consistent, and it has ceased to bother me. Yes, owning readable material is a crime, although

the only punishment for this, says the law, is that it shall be taken away from you. I say only, I don't mean that. In fact I have often wondered how it knows, how the law knows, knows that taking it away from you is the worst possible punishment of all.

I have only three left now.

Writing, what I am doing right now, and this is why I'm rambling, I'm sorry, is punishable by death.

Ah, that I still were Locom and that I never had learned. I look at them staring at me, pointing to me, making way for me, scorning and loathing me, and I wish I could unlearn, that I simply could forget the surge and joy and power that coursed and erupted all through me as I traced my first line of letters and conjured my first image from these symbols. My imagination, my image! Ah, that I could forget the hours and days I've spent building dreams and worlds, that I've spent diving deep into the quiet waters of knowledge left by those great thinkers and writers that came before the Locom.

Teaching someone to read is also punishable by death, and Reri, my teacher, although his name was officially James 86V, paid that price. He told me several times that he had taught fourteen people.

"Fourteen", he would say and splay the fingers of both hands once and then those on his right hand a second time.

"But that makes fifteen," I would answer.

And he would smile and say, "You're number fifteen."

And I was his last. They must have done awful things to him for they sent for me shortly after he was arrested.

The room was very clean and they only had a few questions.

"Can you read?"

"Read?"

"It's a simple enough question."

I was very afraid. "No," I said.

Then they hurt me very much. Then I said, "Yes."

Then they stopped hurting me and nodded at each other and the guard whose breath was a sort of hissing picked up a voice transmitter. He didn't dial a number but simply listened for the answer. Then he said, "Okay," into the instrument and replaced it.

The door opened and a small person, I say person because I am to this day unsure whether it was a man or a woman, a small person entered the room. He, I'll use 'he' for convenience, sat down at the table across from me. He placed fine, manicured hands -- one on top of the other -- in front of him on the polished table (where they seemed at home) and looked at me, his eyes directly into mine. He was breathtakingly beautiful, and then I was sure he was a woman. Although I wanted to I could not look away, I was held captive by these still, grey eyes that should have been too large for his fine face but were not. Then he spoke, and then I was sure that he was a man, although, as I said, now I don't know.

"You have now lost your rights as Locom."

I nodded that I understood.

"Do you know what that means?"

"Yes." It came out blurred and I tasted blood as I moved my tongue and lips.

"Oh, really? How would you know?"

How would I know? Of course, Reri had told me. It had been part of the training: These are the risks you run, do you still want to proceed? Although I couldn't tell him that. Or did it matter? Was Reri still alive?

The man/woman across from me waited patiently for my reply, knowing full well he had ensnared me.

"How would you know?" he prompted.

"I," I halted, "I was told."

He smiled to himself, then said, "By . . . ?" He hesitated. The name had apparently escaped him and he lost his composure. One of his fine hands leapt up and out toward the uniformed guard to his right (to my left) with a crack of snapping fingers. The guard quickly placed a white dossier into the waiting palm, and the little man/woman, composure regained now, placed it on the table. Delicate fingers folded back the cover and retrieved the sheet on top. It was flimsy and white and did not have any

writing on it that I could see. Just an image. In color, of Reri. I looked back at him while he glanced at the sheet. "Ah, yes," to himself, remembering now that he saw the face. Then to me, "By James 86V?"

I heard the question but didn't answer. The dossier had caught my attention. It was thick with sheets. Was it all image? Or did it contain writings too? The second sheet was image, that was plain, but through the thin paper I thought I could make out the dark traces of thought beneath. A sentence, a paragraph. He saw my glance and as if surmising my question he replaced the image of Reri and closed the cover.

His eyes said nothing. But they were not Locom.

"By James 86V?" he repeated.

The guard who had handed him the dossier shot me a quick glance as if to remind me of pain. My lips still stung and my kidneys still ached and neither cared that now that I had confessed to reading, now that I was a Reader, they could no longer torture me, officially. But logic is a poor balm for lips and organs and the visceral quickly complied for fear of fresh pain.

The glance lingered to ensure this desired effect then returned to the wall opposite him. His lungs still hissed. He must be a heavy smoker, I thought. I looked at the guard to my right, to the beautiful man/woman's left. He remained frozen at attention, his eyes had probably never left the wall. "Yes," I said.

The man/woman smiled again, at me this time. Again his nervous hands ceased their parody of stillness and one of them sprung to life. The hissing guard understood immediately and reached into a large pocket. He brought out what looked like a tablet and placed it into the impatient palm. It was a single sheet of writing, encased in stiff, protective plastic. It looked old and probably was. "This makes it so much easier," he said with a knowing smile, as if we shared a joke, and handed it

to me. "I mean," he added, "that you can read." I wasn't sure whether I should take it, but he nodded, "Go ahead, read it." It felt greasy to the touch.

Both guards were deliberately looking elsewhere. Maybe they cannot set eyes on any writing, I thought.

The protective plastic had begun to crack and there were the prints of many fingers. The lettering was beautiful and clear. And then I recognized the words. I knew them by heart. As had Reri before me.

Still, I read it:

YOU have been found Reader. As Reader YOU have scorned

the Desires of the Locom and thereby placed YOUR self

outside ITS benevolence.

Now and Forever YOUR person may be searched at any

time. Now and Forever YOUR home may be searched at any

time. Now and Forever YOUR right to Image has been

forfeit and YOUR TeleVisions will Now and Forever be

removed from YOUR home. Now and Forever YOUR person

may be Assaulted by any Member of the Locom and YOU

shall remain Passive, for it is the Right of the

Desires of the Locom to purge ITS Emotional Outrage unopposed.

Any writings in YOUR possession must be relinquished,

Now and Forever.

YOU must, Now and Forever, wear the Symbol for Reader

on YOUR person, for All Locom to see. R. It must Glow.

It must glow. I looked up and into his beautiful, waiting grey eyes and then handed the sheet back to him. He passed it on to the guard without comment. The other guard, still as a statue until now, moved for the first time. He seemed relieved that the writing was gone as his arm sprung to action and delved into a monstrous pocket to finally bring out the R. This he did not hand to the grey eyes and fine hands, as I had expected, but instead placed on the table between us. Maybe those fine hands were loath to touch it. And this guard, I noticed, wore gloves.

I looked at it. I knew it well, Reri's snake. My snake. Coiled and twisted, the snake, forked tongue and venom as a warning to the Locom, at rest but forever awake in the shape of the capital letter R. It glowed.

The delicate face nodded again. "Yours."

I picked it up. It was warm in my hand, as if alive.

"On your chest," he said. "Over your heart."

I placed it against my shirt breast, to the left of the row

of round white buttons, over my heart as directed. The snake stuck fast to the fabric. It would never fall off.

You get used to it. It clings to you with a sort of burning, uncomfortable at first, but you get used to it.

Although Reri had told me what it was like, what to expect if ever I had to wear it, I did not properly imagine. Living it was very different.

After I placed the R on my chest and the beautiful grey eyes assured to their satisfaction that it would so remain my host rose and without a word left the room. The guard to my left, the more animated of the two, indicated that I was free to go.

As I descended the stairs and into the stream of the Locom the R grew warmer. Was it the sun, or was it that I was more conscious of it, here, where it would be seen by so many?

Living it was very different.

Utterly shattered was the grey, formless anonymity of the Locom. Gone was the comfort of belonging and the passive benevolence of the many faces you don't know. Placid, uninterested eyes were, by the invitation of the glowing serpent, all turned malicious. From the warmth of the Locom womb I was not only born (ejected) but I had been made a target of its spite.

The first person who noticed me, an older woman, slightly bent, cast me a baleful look and spat at my feet. I startled. Not so much at the saliva which landed on my socks and shoes, but because the woman, a person I had never seen in my life (that I know) really meant her venom. She rushed off, glanced behind her once, then rounded a corner.

The next, a brat -- he could not have been more than thirteen -- cast me a quick glance, saw the R, stopped and smiled. He licked his lips with a quick, darting tongue, and slapped my face. I felt the sting, from pain and humiliation both, and the heat reached my eyes. He laughed. His features, malevolent and superior, swam unsteadily in the moist film that

filled my seeing. Then he raised his hand for a second helping and I snapped mine up as a shield. He stopped then, perplexed and affronted, and looked at my raised arm with a question. How dare I? And I remembered, I had just read my sentence, I could be arrested for that, for defending myself. Slowly, and with even greater humiliation, I lowered my arm, inviting the blow. And with a triumphant smile it arrived, savage and with force. I reeled backwards, my heel caught a crack in the pavement and I

almost fell. Pride alone refused to go down and finally regained my balance. He watched my antic flailing in silence then laughed as he moved away. Just a boy, secure in his world of grey privilege.

Others had seen the exchange. None, of course, moved to help. And I could only think of escape. Reri had told me, had told me many times, but the telling did not approach the real. Or, perhaps, rather, I had not properly listened. Perhaps I had not wanted to image the real. For the real was torture; if not pain and humiliation then the anticipation of pain and

humiliation.

Ah, that I were Locom again.

But was I ever? What had driven me to Reri in the first place? And driven is the right word: I was restless, restless, restless.

Restless at work. In my creation and distortion of image for the Locom's consumption. In my selection of color, in my dissembling true intent of advertisements to be fed the hungry Locom to sell the product to create the need.

Restless in my hunger for what had gone long before, long before, when printed words were used. Written words (it was commonly whispered) made of symbols, called letters. Words and sentences (less commonly whispered) representing thoughts. In the distant past when the Locom could read (seldom whispered). Now there is only image. Says the law: there is only image. I search for and find another, and then another and I meld and add the colors, and I add another and I hunger for the word to tell

when the image so blatantly fails to. And I envy those that work with TeleVision, who can work with speak. For me, for the ad man, there is only image.

Restless at home, reclined before the monitors, passive as wave after wave of image washes over the room and rush in through my eyes. Restless as I notice the blatant manipulation of the Locom, as the guilt of being party to the deception rises. Restless as I sense the vacuum beneath, the hunger that would only grow and that image would not still.

Restless in thought. In seeing the cycle of the Locom from sleep to monitor to work to monitor to sleep, ruled by Image, lulled by Image, fed by Image.

Restless as the hunger grew and tore and rose from below and then breached the surface.

"Where do the Readers learn?" I asked.

"They don't," he answered.

"But that's what R means. I've seen them. The R for Reader. They're branded as Readers."

"They're paid actors."

"They get paid to play outcasts? To get beaten and scorned?"

"That's what I've heard."

We both went back to our work, to our images. Plausible, I thought, but no, not true. No actor can simulate fear so accurately, to such depth, no actor can create, at will, the intelligent dread that plays on these faces. No, they are Readers, and they know the word. I was sure of it.

Restless as the hunger would not still, and as it ripped at its fetters and thrashed and would not stay contained.

"Where can I learn?" I whispered.

The Reader looked at me with eyes that turned from frightened to expressionless. He then dropped his arms as if inviting a blow. He did not answer.

There were too many people around, I did not dare to ask again. Maybe he had not heard me. I would try another time, another Reader.

"Where can I learn?" I whispered.

This time without stopping. Again, as always, there were Locom about. Anyone hearing me could, and probably would, make a report. So I tossed her the question without looking at her, hoping my circumspection would put her at ease and maybe elicit an answer. I stopped a few steps past her and turned. She looked at me with expressionless eyes. She did not answer.

"Where can I learn?" I whispered.

His eyes met mine only briefly. As expressionless as the others. Nearly. There hovered, for an instant, beneath his dark brows and behind his brown irises, an alert curiosity, then it too was extinguished. He did not answer.

Restless. I had to know with no way to find out -- I realized that no Reader would ever answer my question. For their own safety, for mine.

Restless, until they came.

The knock was light, in retrospect quite secretive. He didn't activate the visitor alert, he simply tapped on the door with his knuckles. Then again, and again. Until I opened.

I recognized him right away. Brown irises speckled with gold, and no longer looking away. We stood for a good moment, facing each other in silence. Then I stood aside and motioned him in.

"Thank you." His voice was low and firm and reminded me of cloth. I closed the door behind him and, after a brief deliberation, engaged the safety bolt. I followed him into my apartment. He stood in the center of the room, taking in my private life: my paintings, photographs, monitors, music and image discs, speakers, windows and bed. Then he turned to me.

"We have treatment to offer."

I didn't understand. Not at all. The Reader had appeared in my apartment, had discovered who I was, had arrived unannounced, and had now spoken like an Official.

He eyed my confusion with a curiosity he no longer had to conceal. Then he smiled. Thinly, not pleasantly. From an inside pocket he brought out a small plastic badge and handed it to me. There was his picture, and there were symbols. Letters, I guessed. I didn't understand. "Philip 996X," he said.

"Department of Adjustment."

Then I understood.

"You have been asking rather uncommon questions of some rather unsavory individuals lately." It was a statement. Although I did not understand the meaning of 'unsavory,' I knew the intent and I knew I had been caught.

"Of course," he continued, "there is no law against asking, but I think you should be aware that you condemn to death whoever would teach you." Again, this was a flat statement, cast in his fabric of a voice. It was low, almost a whisper, still it filled the room. I was cold but sweating, I even believe I had begun to shake. They said reading wasn't a crime, not a real crime, but the Locom treated it like a crime, and now the Officials were on to me. My hunger was a disease and they were here to cure me. I sat down, I had to.

The Reader, no, the Official, said no more. The fabric, now like strands of echo, drifted away, leaving behind it a terrifying stillness. I buried my face in my hands. My hunger, now that they knew, would never find its relief, this restlessness would never dissolve, would always simmer and

torment. And now they knew.

I may have cried, I think I did. My despair, for sure, was riding me with shivers for it was an effort to keep my hands and head still.

He startled me, or rather, his hand did. He placed it on my shoulder and left it there, firm and warm. "I'm sorry," he said. "I had to make sure." His voice was warmer this time, not as dark, friendlier. And, again, I didn't understand.

My face remained hidden and with it my new confusion.

"They're looking for our teachers," he said, his voice still friendly, his hand still on my shoulder. "They will stop at nothing."

Then I understood. And then, for sure, I cried. For when I slowly removed my hands to look up at him I noticed in them the glittering of wet, fresh tears.

He brought me to Reri.

Oh, Reri. "Fourteen", he would say and show me three handfuls of fingers.

"But that makes fifteen," I would answer.

And the smile lit up his wide, blue eyes, and he said, "You're number fifteen."

I smiled back at him and responded according to our little ritual, "All but a fraction of your full harvest."

"Yes," he nodded. "Only a fraction."

He was a good teacher. He was a patient and wise teacher. I learned the mysteries of letters from forbidden programs that he owned that used keyboards (they were a processor controlling device with many keys, each corresponding to a letter or other writing symbol).

I learned the meaning of words from secret books he kept hidden called dictionaries.

I learned the pronunciation of these symbols, of these words, from his lips.

I learned grammar, which is what the system of language is called -- how the words relate one to the other -- from other hidden books.

And I learned the beauty, the sacred flight of reading from ancient authors (which then meant a writer of words and books, not an image creator). I know their names. They were Feodor Dostoyevsky, Vladimir Nabokov, Mervyn Peake, John Gardner, Charles Dickens, John Crowley, Gene Wolfe. There were many others.

And then I was a reader. A reader is very different from a Reader. The reader harbors his wealth in private, he treasures his books as highly as his life. The Reader is the reader branded and scorned.

"At first it was noticed that fewer and fewer people could actually read," said Reri, "despite the fact that reading was taught and writing was taught and this teaching was mandatory. This was before the Locom," he added. "Long before."

"If reading was taught," I asked, "how could the number of readers lessen?"

"It was indeed taught," he said as if confirming himself without having heard my question. "Everyone was taught. But those who did the teaching no longer made sure their pupils could read."

I didn't understand. "How can you teach and not teach?"

"It was not like you and me," he answered. "It was very different then. The teaching was not personal, it was not one teacher, one pupil in a joint quest. It was different."

He paused, as if he could actually remember, but he could only have remembered others' accounts, it was so long ago. "Each teacher was assigned a large group of pupils, there could be as many as thirty or forty to a group. They called these groups classes," he explained, looking up at me, then he resumed. "They would all sit together in a large room. The teacher would then lecture them, read to them, give them reading or writing assignments, review them, test and encourage them, grade them,

but there would always be too many to make sure."

"Grade them?"

"They had a scale of excellence upon which they placed a pupils skill. 'A' for excellent, 'B' for normal, 'C' for barely adequate, 'D' for inadequate."

"Why?"

"This was before the Locom, remember."

"Ah."

He fell silent then and sat for some time gazing at the floor. I don't think he saw the floor though, his eyes were still and unfocused, as though he was looking through the floor, at another floor beneath, or at something else, at something beneath even that.

"Often," he said suddenly, then paused to take another breath. "Often his pupils never finished their learning. They would simply stop coming to him, before they could read, before they could write."

The idea was too colossal, grotesque. I could not imagine. "How?" was all I could say.

"Image had arrived. Image could talk, image could show, could thrill."

"Not they way the word can," I interrupted.

He cast me a quick glance. "No, not the way the word can," he said. "But with image you didn't need the word, and for the indolent it was a welcome short cut."

"For the Locom?"

"Yes, for the Locom. Although they were not to be called Locom for a while yet."

"What were they called?"

"They had no name. No, not really, although they were sometimes referred to as 'the public'. They were just people. People who were content with image. People who were content to read only what they had to. Street signs, directions. People who didn't care to know."

"No books?"

"No. No books. Books were too many words. Too much reading, too much work. Why struggle through books when image gave you everything without effort. Image showed everything, you didn't have to tax your imagination."

He smiled then, sadly. "You no longer needed imagination. Image thrills, as now, were fierce and direct, image excitement was blatant and excruciating, image blood was red and flowing and image explosions were loud. Image said it all, served complete with hand and spoon and ointment to make it go down easily. And under the onslaught of image, books started to decline in number. To be sure they were still enjoyed by the readers, who vastly preferred them to image, but the number of readers was declining too."

"And they were banned? The books?"

"Yes, but not immediately. What happened next was that learning to read was no longer mandatory. It became an elective, and only a few chose it, only a few saw the need. And to be truthful, by now there was no need, for image had entered every field."

He fell silent again, a thick silence which I had to respect. It stretched and hurt while he remembered.

"And for those who did perceive the need, the need mostly grew out of a personal hunger, a hunger seen by the public as a weakness or as an imagined superiority. And in the face of that stigma, and it had become open scorn, ridiculed on TeleVision, joked about in the street, only a few of those who felt the need actually elected to learn. Only a few had the courage.

"And eventually reading and writing were dropped as subjects of teaching. Book publishing dwindled to one or two houses and eventually they too ceased. The last house to publish books was constantly under attack and called a moral outrage. The Locom, and yes, they were Locom now, stoned the building and harassed and threatened, and then attacked the employees of the last publisher. That was the end of the book.

"Those who still read dared not display their gift, or their passion. Those who wanted to learn did so privately, and in secret. And then the act of reading was decreed a defilement of the Locom Desire. That's what they called not conforming to the lowest common denominator. That's also when teaching the art of reading was outlawed, when writing was outlawed, when books were outlawed. That's the world you were born into."

"But the wonder of it? How could they outlaw this wonder?"

"I really don't know." He shook his head. "The Locom works with image. The world functions and revolves around image. You cannot, must not differ. Not that drastically. A reader is vastly advantaged were he to find the right book. A reader can think, can create, can judge, can see. His imagination, which is the strongest and most wonderful manifestation of self there is, will revive and blossom once he knows how to read. The Locom can do none of this. All is done, thought, displayed and fed to

them. That's why the law says they must know, must be made aware whenever a reader is discovered. That's why I must wear the snake. So they can shun me, shield themselves from me. That's why you must hide your knowing."

"I will," I answered.

"And if you can, if you have the courage, you must teach others."

"I will," I answered.

"Else," he said, "if the reading would vanish, if the books would vanish, there will soon be no world."

"I will," I affirmed.

But they found him. They killed him. They took his books and his word programs. The only books they didn't find were those Reri had given me. Seven books. Now I have three.

I am really very scared and I am not very courageous. I have not kept my promise to Reri for I have taught no one. I dare not. I barely dare to write, but I am writing this and I shake as I write, listening for steps outside my door, listening for the key in the lock and for many footfalls through the open door. When I finish I will hide this writing, in the fields

maybe, so that one day those who search the ruins of this world for clues to its destruction can find this and know. For I am sure now, more sure every day as the Locom shun me and spit at me and more often beat me, that the reader ....

And there it ended. Fine hands replaced the sheets of paper on his desk. They must have arrived as he summed up his outpouring. He could picture him, frozen with pen in hand as he heard the key enter the lock. He must have panicked, he thought, rendered incapable of movement as the door swung open. There had been time for him to hide, but he had not. He was still in the act as they stormed into the room.

Justice had been swift, of course. There was no need for trial or defense. He was caught writing. Now dead. The execution had just been broadcast. Nice image.

He looked at the sheets before him. Yellow paper. They had been well written. Not brilliant, but well written. Neat small letters in the beginning, larger and more hurried as he neared the end and felt the need to finish, as his fear of discovery grew.

He, too, could read, of course he could. Some officials, like him, had to. Some had to read and interpret and understand confused ramblings like this. Someone had to stop them.

He studied his fine, manicured fingers, then turned aside to admire his own reflection in the office window. He smiled.

And he thought I was beautiful, he thought.

Back to thePlanet's surface.