Crossing the Camp

At the west entrance to the detainment camp, government workers string another layer of wire against the wall. It uncoils through human hands like a metal snake without a head. Feeling numb with the knowledge, I turn to Jaime Mundo, my new trainee, and say, "It'll be electrified by the time we leave tonight." He nods, his fingers twitching for rosary beads that aren't there, and I force a smile his way. He's going to have to learn fast. We pass the dark black metal of the guard house and enter the camp.

The people have been in the camps for almost two years now. After the brewery accident in Milwaukee, followed almost immediately by the explosion in North Dakota, they have been under constant supervision in camps like this one. The people had just begun to adjust to North America and the Midwest, and then the accidents happened. The Department of Defense insists the accidents were sabotage. I try not to let what happened in the past affect my work, yet the blurred facts are always there, like a dull ache or a dry mouth.

Jaime walks beside me, his streetwise Mexico City eyes widening. He's probably thinking about the guard house and the other side of the camp's walls. I've discovered that being one of the few Catholic priests remaining in the first decade of the new millennium has become a tightrope act of minute movements and reactions. The wrong word or the wrong action can distance us from a world that has almost completely turned its back on organized religion. There is little room for error. From what I observe in Jaime, his fast breathing and restless hands, he's not going to make it here in the camp.

Yet we all have our moments of weakness. I have to force myself, on this gray morning, not to dwell on the squalor around me. It reminds me of Chicago's south side: the discarded ration boxes in mud puddles, the broken bottles on dead grass, the clothing limp on the line. The only things missing are the high-rise tenements. Instead, here we have government-issued Quonset huts.

The cold air has numbed my ears already, and my breath clouds up in front of my face. I catch myself starting to believe my brothers from the rectory who claim that the camps were built to remove the burden of guilt from the people. Guilt is something all of my brothers and I fully understand.

The sun pushes out from behind some clouds, warming me slightly through my black coat. Jaime slows down next to me, his dark eyes scanning the road and the shadowy entrances to the huts on either side of us. He has barely spoken all morning.

In front of us, young alien voices approach, growing louder. Jaime pauses in mid-step, then sets his foot down.

"When a child comes close to you, don't jerk away," I whisper in his ear. "Just relax."

A band of five children slide out from behind a hut and gallop toward us, using their long, thick arms like front legs. Fat hair-tentacles bounce on the children's narrow heads. They'd look almost human if it weren't for the tentacles and the third eye, sitting sideways in the middle of their foreheads. The clump of their hands and feet on the dirt road is loud in the morning stillness.

Continued...

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What the critics said about "Crossing the Camp":

"Father Joshua, a dedicated priest with a moral dilemma, is the human protagonist in this last of the four Wannoshay stories. He works in a concentration camp where the Wannoshay are housed, his job to teach their young. He uses Bible verses to teach them literacy. But seeing how, one by one, the people are being destroyed by our world -- so unnecessary -- is grinding him down, and a young priest, Father Jaime, is sent to replace him. I thought the writing was powerful, the men and aliens sympathetic as they wrestle with their own emotions, and examine grim moral dilemmas while trying to do good work. A fine story."

— Sherwood Smith, SF Site