The Prison Dome

      “Here are your weapons; your ammunition will be located in the portal to the left of the dome entrance. Open it within two minutes of entering or you will not be able to access your ammunition. The portal will only open with your nine-digit code. Do you have it memorized?” The sentinel performed his routine with a measure of tedium that showed his total lack of concern quite plainly.

   Chuck answered with as much of the same tedium as he could muster. “Yes it is memorized.” He stared at the shiny new rifle and pistol in his hand and realized that he would probably have to use one of them to kill someone before the end of this day. He would not enjoy it as he suspected some of the deranged, sociopathic, half-humans he might meet today would, although he had killed before. That’s why he was here, at the Federal Penitentiary Dome in South Dakota, a vast area of land enclosed by Solidair. 

Solidair was just that, a construct of solid, yet permeable air. It was permeable to the atmosphere, wind, rain, snow, and flowing streams, but not to anything more solid than that. Birds could not fly through it. Animals could not walk through it. And humans, at least those inside it, were just that, animals. He didn’t understand the physics behind it but he did know that there was no escape. In the last three months, he had thought often about how he ended up here. It all started the day he left the Army nine years ago.

    “You should take advantage of all the VA has to offer you, Chuck,” the captain had said. “Life as a civilian might seem strange now, but it’s even stranger than you think.”

   “I’ll be fine doc. I haven’t been here that long and besides, I was never really part of the action. I was a clerk, remember?” Chuck had replied.

   “But not everyone in your unit was a clerk, Chuck. And I know your company saw a lot of action. In fact, I know that more than one of your friends died in those actions. Stress can manifest itself from more than just being part of the battle. It can just as easily rise up from personal loss. Don’t kid yourself into thinking you haven’t experienced real, hard-core stress. And don’t kid yourself into thinking that you can deal with it on your own. I’ve seen too many guys like you do that and end up falling through the cracks. All I’m saying is, don’t let that happen to you,” the doctor said.

   “Yeah, yeah, fine, I got it doc. Now can I get out of here? Places to go, people to see, you know?” Chuck said as he gazed at the door.

   “Fine, here’s your medical release.” The doctor handed him the form he had just signed and Chuck leapt from the exam table and was out the door, flinging his shirt on over his massive back and arms as he went.

   However, as he hit the parking lot at the base hospital, the broad, anxious smile he had been wearing faded into a grim, furrowed brow. I wish the doc hadn’t brought all the old shit up. It’s been days since I thought about Ken and Jerry. Fuck, I can’t deal with all that now, I need to pick up Diane, Chuck thought.

    Chuck Berger was about as nice a guy as you could want to meet. He had an easy-going personality that made him a hit with all his friends, male and female. At least that was the case before the Army sent him to the Middle East. Given his size, six feet four inches and two hundred and seventy pounds of solid mass, it was natural that Chuck had little trouble with physical altercations of any kind. Nobody wanted to pick a fight with a guy like that, and that added to Chuck’s easy demeanor. He knew he could take care of himself in just about any situation. Most times, all he really had to do was stand and puff out his massive chest and only a fool would continue to give him, or any of his mates, any problems. Chuck was quick to make friends and when he learned that Ken and Jerry had similar senses of humor, the kind that led to wild practical jokes, they quickly became fast friends, best friends, really. 

They had many late-night talks about what they would accomplish after their return to the ‘world’. Plans were made. Ken was an engineer and had some great ideas for new products. These were the type of better mousetrap ideas that would cause the world to beat a path to your door. Jerry was a practitioner, a builder. He knew how to make things happen. How to make things that had never been made before. Chuck was the money guy. With a degree in economics, he knew how to make those things that Ken imagined, and Jerry built, profitable. And the best part was that they knew they would have a great deal of fun doing all of it, whatever it was. Ken, Jerry and Chuck were The Three Amigos, thick as thieves and twice as devious. 

   For now, though, there was the Middle East. They had to get past this part of their lives before they could get to the really good stuff. Still, they found a way to have fun, even in this shit hole. Once, they told a rookie recruit to go down to the helipad and bring back five gallons of prop wash. The rookie didn’t realize that prop wash is the air movement created by a rotating propeller or helicopter rotor. They’d stolen all the nurse’s bras one night and hidden them in the company safe, which Chuck had access to. They even stooped so low as to put bootblack on half of the store of binoculars in the camp. Of course, they knew which half had been tampered with so that they knew which ones to avoid. It was a steady stream of silly pranks and it kept the rest of the company amused for the most part. Those that fell victim weren’t always as amused, and when the Captain looked in the mirror after coming back from a brief patrol of the action area, he gave them each an Article 15. It cost Chuck one stripe and twenty-one days extra duty but he hadn’t laughed so hard in the months he’d been deployed and he felt it was worth the price. They weren’t carefree but they were doing their best to act like it. 

   Shortly after the stunt that had resulted in the Article 15, on May 9, 2029, a mortar round entered the camp and landed directly on Chuck’s tent, killing Ken and Jerry instantly. Chuck had gone to a poker game that evening and wasn’t there. In that instant, everything in Chuck’s life changed. He became sullen and withdrawn. His isolation from everyone then led to a build-up of anger that he couldn’t get a handle on. He knew he couldn’t be blamed for their deaths but that didn’t help. Survivor’s guilt is a real thing, a palpable thing. It was so tangible that he could not only feel it as his heart would begin to race, but he could still taste the acrid smoke. Still smell the burning flesh. Still hear the medics and support personnel yelling orders. Still see the mourning on the faces as everyone realized two souls were gone and wouldn’t be returning. 

He thought he’d made it past all that, then the doctor had to bring it all rushing back. Now, as he drove toward Diane’s place, he could feel in the pit of his stomach the churning, that gnawing, gnashing, gut-wrenching guilt. I should have died too. It was a thought he’d repeated to himself many times.

  “OK Google,” Chuck said to his phone, “call Diane.”

   “Hi sweetie,” Diane answered with that voice that would thaw frozen steak. “You on your way?”

   “I was, but something came up and I need to take care of it right away, Diane. I’m sorry, I don’t think I’m gonna make it tonight.”

   “What happened, is there anything I can do to help?”

   “Not really, I don’t think so. I just need to work out. Grind out the blackness at the gym, you know. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

   “Damn right you will,” was her response, but he could hear the smile on her face. 

   “You’re great. Love you,” Chuck replied.

   “Love you too. Call me when you start to turn gray.”

   This put a wide grin on Chuck’s face and he knew he’d done the right thing by calling her. Maybe someday he’d be able to explain where the blackness came from. Maybe someday he’d take the doc’s advice. But today the gym would have to do.

   Diane Brennan was a beauty. At least to Chuck. She wasn’t perfectly proportioned, but she had a gorgeous face and a free-wheeling smile that said, “You’re cute, I like you.” She was of average height and slim, although she always complained about excess fat around her butt. Chuck never saw it, but she swore it was there. After the Middle East, when Chuck came home alone, he felt lost and useless. The only place he ever felt better was at the gym. He knew he could go there and sweat out all the anger and angst. He’d met Diane at the gym. She’d dropped a barbell and he offered to help her with it. She smiled that smile and he got lost in it. He made a point of being at the gym the same time every day after that until he saw her again about four days later. He boldly walked up and asked her if she’d like to go get a coffee or a drink after her workout. He was very pleased with himself when she agreed. They went to get coffee and he told her every joke he knew just to stay in the warmth of that smile. It soothed him, got him out of himself, and he soon came to know that she was exactly what he needed. Soon after that, they began seeing each other every weekend, then every night. It was only natural that she should move in after about three months of that.

   Diane thought she understood the blackness Chuck was talking about. She knew he’d been to a war zone. She knew he hadn’t actually carried a gun but she also knew that something had happened while he was there, something that manifested itself at odd times and in odd places. She’d witnessed the blackness only once and it was not an experience she wanted to repeat.

   They had been out to dinner, early in their relationship and a busboy had dropped a tray full of silverware at the next table. Instantly, Chuck had flown out of his chair as though he’d mastered levitation and faced the boy with a grimace that spoke volumes. He was crouched with his arms spread slightly and both hands balled into tight fists. The poor young man probably thought Chuck would beat him to a pulp and apologized profusely in a morose sputtering voice. Chuck regained his composure seconds later and also apologized. However, after the incident, he remained distant and very quiet for the rest of the evening. She had suggested he come up to her flat when he had gallantly seen her home, but he refused. This was very odd because, up to that point, he had been an enthusiastic, and well-versed lover. She pressed him slightly for an explanation but he simply said, “Not tonight,” and had presumably gone home. 

She didn’t hear from him again for days, which was also very odd. What she didn’t know was that Chuck had, in fact, left her that night and gone to a bar less than a block from his home so that he would not have to drive. There, he proceeded to get back-alley drunk. So drunk that he’d vomited his entire dinner into the trash can behind the bar. So drunk that he’d crawled up the steps to his front door. So drunk that he had slept through the entire next day. When he called her a few days later, he was quick to apologize, his remorse genuine and spontaneous. She wasn’t quite sure what he was apologizing for. She really liked him and she wasn’t angry that he’d gone home that night, but in the back of her mind, she knew that something else had happened, both at the restaurant and after he’d left her standing at the front door.

   “Hey Chuck, wasn’t expecting you again today. Weren’t you in here this morning?” The receptionist asked as he came through the door of the gym.

   “Yeah, got some issues that need hard physical exertion to put away. Figured this was better than beating up my neighbor,” Chuck replied with a half-smile.

   “Well, always glad to see a good customer. Here’s your towel. Have a great workout.”

   “Thanks,” he said, accepting the towel without enthusiasm. He changed his clothes and got right to it.

   “Goddamn doctor stirring up old shit. Why can’t they just leave it alone.” He muttered to himself as he did rep after rep of squats with 250 pounds on the bar. He was sweating profusely; it always seemed too warm in there. He didn’t need to sweat off a bunch of weight. What he needed was the mental release that a hard, physical pounding would provide, he hoped. But as he went on through his normal routine, its very routineness allowed his mind to wander back to the Middle East. Back to his buddies and the horror of May 9th, 2029. He couldn’t break the spell. The scene kept playing over and over in vivid detail. Finally, when his body and his mind were both near the breaking point, one of the trainers, noticing that Chuck might be in distress, came over and asked him to stop. At first, Chuck hadn’t heard him, but then the trainer yelled at him by name and got his attention.

   “You know Chuck there is such a thing as overdoing it. I know you’re in great shape, but you’re pushing yourself way too hard. Especially since you were in here this morning. We’re trained to notice these things, and right now what I’m noticing is your body telling you to quit. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Please, I’m going to have to ask you to quit for the day, and don’t come back tomorrow, at least not to my gym,” he said with genuine concern.

   “Yeah yeah,” Chuck replied. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

   Chuck went to the locker room, got undressed and began to shower, and suddenly, like a trapdoor opening under his feet, he began to feel as though he was falling. He slumped in the shower room and began crying like a child whose favorite toy had been smashed. Uncontrollable sobs escaped his lips and his legs would not bear his weight. Luckily, he was alone in the shower room and no one had witnessed his collapse.

   He finally stood after about five minutes of crying, shaking and sobbing and proceeded back to his locker, where he dried off, put on his clothes and started toward the door.

   As he walked, he realized he felt better, not great but better. He’d left some of his anguish there in the shower with his tears.

   Well, he thought, that was costly but at least it had the desired effect; maybe I’ll call Diane.

   “Hello,” she said, again in that warm tone, “feel any better?”

   “I do,” he replied. “Can I come over? I know it’s a bit late but I’d like to make it up to you for messing up our plans.”

   “What did you have in mind?” Her voice was now in full-on sultry.

   “I’m sure we’ll think of something,” he said with a grin as wide as Alaska.

   After their lovemaking was complete and both were sated, Diane leaned across his chest and asked, again “What was it, the blackness? Was it the war? Can’t you explain it to me, or at least talk to me about it?”

   And again Chuck told her, “Diane, there is just no way that a civilian who knows nothing of what it’s like would ever understand. Please don’t make me relive it. Let’s just say that it was an experience I hope never ever repeats itself because I’m certain it would kill me if it did. What I can tell you is this. There were people over there I was incredibly close to. In a war zone kind of way, I loved them like brothers. And I fucked up one night and let them down. When they needed me most I was playing poker. I have to deal with that now because no matter how hard I try there’s no turning back the mistakes I made.”

   This statement scared Diane so badly that she never brought it up again. She thought of it from time to time when Chuck would be moody or off-center in some way, but she never broached the subject aloud after that. If he came to terms with it, she thought, it would have to be alone, or with someone else’s help. She realized she would not try to get him to speak of it again because she couldn’t live with the guilt if he did something to himself, which she thought was a real possibility.

   Chuck and Diane’s relationship blossomed into love and he asked her to marry him early the next spring. The wedding was grand and well attended, but in the midst of all the happiness and gaiety, Chuck stopped and said a prayer for two people who weren’t there.

   Chuck was madly in love with Diane, but he was still haunted. He was never physically violent with her but he could be terribly harsh verbally when a mood came over him. It was always worse around the beginning of May each year. Five years into their marriage, Diane began having her first affair. It was short-lived, a fling really. If she thought hard about why it happened, she always came back to the thought that she was punishing Chuck, the same way he punished her over something she didn’t even know the details of. She still had no idea what had happened, and the longer her ignorance of the facts was promoted, the more frustrated she became. The more frustrated she became, the more she would lash out with her tongue and the more they would fight. She didn’t think Chuck knew about the first affair, although he might have. It ended when Chuck bought her flowers one day, out of the blue. He came home and set them on the table with a flourish and said, “for the love of my life.” That’s what was written on the card as well. She’d cried at the gesture, because it was sweet and because she felt guilty. He might have seen the guilt; she wasn’t sure.

   The second affair was more protracted. She’d been seeing a businessman from her job for nearly six months when Chuck had seen them together holding hands and kissing at a local restaurant. He held his temper in check but demanded that she end it immediately and change jobs. She complied, although reluctantly. At that point, at least for her, their marriage was toast. She didn’t love Chuck anymore. He had a lot of baggage she wasn’t equipped to help him carry, and he’d become routine. Their lovemaking was no longer passionate or unique, and definitely not as spirited as it had been. The affair gave her a release, both mentally and physically, that she had been longing for quite some time.

   The third affair was with the same man as the second. They had rekindled their relationship just a few months after she had quit her job as requested by Chuck. She’d seen him at the grocery store. She’d been eager to strike up a conversation, and as they say, one thing led to another. That afternoon, they made love in Chuck and Diane’s bed. Unfortunately for both, Chuck came home early from his workout. As he walked into the hallway he heard the distinct sound of lovemaking.

   That fucking bitch, Chuck thought to himself.

   He walked through the door without a sound and stood there for a long moment watching his wife screw another man. Thousands of words played through his head. How could she do this to me, I love her. How could she be so disloyal, and that one thought struck a chord. In his mind, he was thrust back to the Middle East, getting ready to play poker, putting on his lucky shirt, not knowing that his two best friends were about to take off on a one-way trip to a place he could not follow. They hadn’t even said goodbye. He couldn’t believe they had just left him there to grieve by himself. Suddenly he was angry, as angry as he had ever been before. Rage filled him like a boiling cauldron of molten iron fills a casting mold then explodes out the top. His sight narrowed to a tiny pinpoint tunnel. He could only see his wife and her lover, and because that was all he could see that was where all his rage was focused like a laser, concentrated rage of a magnitude he’d never experienced.

   He walked slowly and silently over to the bed and as the man noticed him and was startled, Chuck grabbed him by the throat. He was light, no more than 180 pounds. Chuck raised him off the bed, off his wife, and glared at him with focused rage. He never heard Diane screaming to stop. He never felt her long nails digging into his arm trying to release his grip from her lover’s throat. He never felt the life leave the man’s body as he held him aloft with one hand and pounded away at his face with the other. When it was over, he noticed there was a lot of blood, all over the bed, the carpet, his clothes, and Diane’s breasts and face.

   Diane, the unfaithful bitch who had stolen his love and then spread her legs for some other asshole. His rage returned with a vengeance. He reached down and grabbed her by the arm, taking time to notice the blue and purple hues forming under his massive fingers as he pressed into the flesh so tightly he thought her arm may burst. He dragged her screaming from their home and across the backyard to the 80-foot cliff behind their house. Reaching out now with both hands, he held her suspended over the precipice while he searched her face for some sign of regret. Some sign of remorse at what she had put him through, but it wasn’t there. There was only fear. There was no indication that any other emotion existed for her at that moment. He let her fall. She hit the face of the cliff halfway down and stopped screaming as her body began to tumble. All sound ceased when she hit the ground below. Her body lay there, immobile, in a position that could best be described as incongruous.

   Chuck was found rolled up in a fetal ball when the police arrived about twenty minutes later. He offered no resistance as they placed him in handcuffs and escorted him to the waiting car. He felt nothing. Well, he was a little worried about what it would be like in the Penitentiary Dome.