Immobility by Brian Evenson Read Free Book Online Page B

purpose is not the same as liking me.”
    “But what are we if we are not our purpose?” asked Qatik. “Burden Horkai, I like the way you fulfill your purpose.”
    “Just Horkai,” said Horkai.
    They might have talked more, but Qanik grunted and shrugged Qatik’s arm off his shoulder. Qatik fell silent, gradually drifted away. They walked, faster now, Horkai gently rocking up and down as they went.
    *   *   *
    THE ROAD TOOK THEM SLOWLY UP, edging closer to the mountains—unless it was the mountains that came closer of their own accord.
    He thought he saw movement in one of the housing complexes they passed, a series of ruined duplexes that had once been identical and now were collapsed in somewhat disparate ways. Another flat, empty space, perhaps an old sports field. He could see it in his mind, green as it had been, rather than the slightly concave rectangle of dirt it was now. Things were coming back to him, though slowly, and not the important things. Or was it simply his imagination making an educated guess about what had been there?
    A huge gouge in the ground 30 feet wide and 150 long, either a long-interrupted construction site or the result of some instrument of devastation. Farther on, in the dust, to one side of an intersection, was a metal signpost, bent over and crushed, the sign itself buried in the dust. Qatik stopped and dragged it up, straightening it until they could see at the end of it the octagonal shape of a stop sign, the word STOP faded but still faintly visible on it.
    “What does it say?” asked Qatik.
    “Have you never seen a stop sign?” asked Horkai.
    Qatik shook his head.
    “Can’t you read?”
    Within his hood, Qatik shook his head again. “Neither of us read. But I can recognize letters.”
    Beneath him, he felt Qanik nod. “It’s not important for everyone to read,” said Qanik. “Some read and some do other things. We all have our purpose.”
    “Who told you that?” asked Horkai. “Someone who can read, I bet.”
    Not detecting the irony in his tone, Qanik nodded. “Our leader,” he said. “Rasmus.”
    “Should we stop?” asked Qatik. “As the sign instructs?”
    “It isn’t meant for us,” Horkai said. “And besides, we’ve already stopped. Now we can go on.”
    Qatik let the sign fall. They walked on, Qanik stopping every once in a while to reposition Horkai on his shoulders. A collapsed strip mall, beside it a building mostly intact. Probably a bank, Horkai thought, and then realized that yes that was what it was. He wasn’t speculating, he was remembering, this time he was almost certain of it. There were areas that were oddly undamaged—houses with their windows broken out and bricks stripped of paint but otherwise more or less habitable. And then there were other areas that had been all but leveled by mortars or shock waves or dust storms or other weather. Sometimes both areas stood side by side, with a sharp transition dividing one from the other, the whole arrangement artificial and arbitrary enough to make him wonder if it was real.
    A Mormon ward house, little left of it beyond a weathered spire and a flattened roof. The houses became sparser, thinning out, and then they thickened momentarily again before thinning out further still.
    They came to a large intersection, the road crossing it almost as big as the one they were traveling, and the mules stopped.
    “Which way?” asked Qatik.
    Horkai shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said.
    “Which way?” asked Qatik again, as if he hadn’t heard. Not knowing what else to do, Horkai pushed on the back of Qanik’s head until he moved out into the intersection. From there, he looked to either side. To the east, the road ran quickly south, trailing up a high ridge. To the west, it moved straight ahead, climbing very slowly. In front of them, it continued roughly north, coming still closer to the mountains.
    The map Rasmus had given them followed a path between the mountains and the lake. For