2. Sheepskin 1.1.1
Volume I, Part 1, Chapter 1
Addendum to Psychology Evaluation dated 8/30/2085
John T. Parce, PsyD
Licensed Psychologist
[The following is a transcription from a tape recording. This document contains the first interview session with the patient referred to as Unidentified #307, who was admitted five days ago.]
PARCE: The date is August 30th, 2085. I am in the room of our unidentified patient number three hundred and seven, who was brought to us by the police. Their report indicates a violent and difficult arrest. The police were called while the patient was ranting to the general public about the coming of a “man wrapped in lightning” and a demonic conspiracy to snuff out the sun. He became belligerent when they approached him, and he now faces a misdemeanor charge for resisting arrest. He was highly confused and distant when I first arrived, but he is growing more alert by the minute. He has answered some questions about his previous history—incoherent as those answers might be—and provided a self-portrait. Now then, sir, I am highly pleased at how cooperative you have been since our session began. Do you care to comment on why that might be?
307: Because you remind me of someone. Have we met before?
PARCE: I assure you, sir, we have not. Are you ready to begin the formal interview?
307: I don’t have any more time to talk. Are you going to help me get out of here or not?
PARCE: That depends on your progress. The more information you can give me, the better I will be able to help you.
307: What do you want to know?
PARCE: First, tell me your name.
307: I gave that to you already.
PARCE: You did write it down on the drawing you made, yes. Please state it for the tape recording.
307: You can just call me Snapper.
PARCE: That isn’t your real name, I assume?
307: No, but it will do for now.
PARCE: Alright, then, Snapper. Can you tell me where we are?
307: This is the Branchett Memorial Hospital of Grünwald. I know where we are and I know what day it is. And I know why I’m here. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again. Can I go now?
PARCE: It’s not that simple. I need to perform a thorough evaluation of your mental state so I can make recommendations. Would you like treatment or would you like to go to jail?
307: I don’t have time for either one of those. The longer I let you hold me up, the harder my job is going to be. One of my enemies is getting closer, and another is getting further away. I’d rather not blast my way out of here, but I will if I have to.
PARCE: Is that a threat?
307: No. Just a fact.
PARCE: Talking like that is how you ended up here to begin with. Why were you shouting at people, anyway? What did you hope to accomplish?
307: I wanted to warn people about what was going to happen. But no one would listen.
PARCE: I will listen, if you will settle down and talk with me.
307: You will?
PARCE: That’s what I am here to do. But you cannot make threats.
307: I just need to leave.
PARCE: Why? You have food and shelter here. It must be better than the street where you were found.
307: I can’t tell you why.
PARCE: Then I cannot help you. I will have the staff transfer you back into the custody of the police. Goodbye, Snapper.
307: Fuck you, Doc. You think they can hold me? You think I haven’t dealt with the cops before? Fine. I’ll talk. You listen. I lived in a police state. I’ve been there. I grew up in it.
PARCE: Is that so? What country did you come from?
307: I told you already. Not another country. Another world. Not much different from this one. I see how the corporations own it all—the hospitals, the government, the schools. But in my world it was worse. So much worse. The pigs did everything they could to bleed us dry. Nothing you can do here can scare me.
PARCE: The pigs? What kind of world is this?
307: Like I said, we were all animals there. Sheep like me, we were the laborers, the lower class. The birds were scholars. The dogs were like the police and soldiers you have here. But just like here, the schools and the government were a sham, a front for the ones really in control. The birds were bought off, and they said what they were told to say. The dogs just followed whoever was strongest, so they enforced the will of their corporate masters. And we sheep didn’t have a choice. If we were good workers, we had a shot at a long life. If we screwed up, then…
PARCE: How did you escape? How did you make it to this world?
307: That wouldn’t make sense to you just yet. I promise.
PARCE: How did you survive in that world, then? You seem to be awfully defiant for a sheep.
307: I didn’t start that way. My father kept me in line.
PARCE: Your father? What was he like?
307: What do you want to know?
PARCE: Was he a sheep, like you?
307: Hardly. He was one of the last of the great horned rams.
PARCE: Tell me more about him.
307: What, you want my whole life story? We don’t have time. I have to leave here.
PARCE: You promised to talk. I need to know as much as I can about you before we can properly address your concerns. Now tell me about your father.
307: You’re not going to let this go, are you, Doc?
PARCE: No.
307: Fine. Alright. Well… what I remember most about my father is his voice. Deep and gravelly, you know? Like he couldn’t get enough air. Which was true, by the way.
PARCE: What’s your most defining memory of him?
307: Oh, you want one day in particular? I could tell you about the day things really started to fall apart. The day that set me on the road that brought me here.
PARCE: That would be delightful. Tell me what you remember. I will try not to interrupt unless I need clarification.
Part 1: The Old Ram
Chapter 1
307: It was the morning of my final exam at Primary School. I was seventeen. All I did back then was stew in my own anger. Everything about my world pissed me off. The way the other animals treated sheep. The way they spied on us. And worst of all was the way my dad tried to help me get past it and fit in. I was on my way, too, but then I screwed it all up. And so did my dad.
If we had just kept our mouths shut and let the pigs have their way with us, our lives could have been peaceful. If I had resolved to ignore what was being done to my people, I could have even fooled myself into thinking life was good. But that wasn’t how it turned out. They weren’t going to let me have that.
I had barely slept in weeks, which might have been part of the problem. Someone would spy on me through my bedroom window back then. A creature. At the time, I couldn’t tell what he was. All I could see was a pair of stumpy little hands jerking the windowpane to see if it was locked. And one red eye that zoomed in and out and clicked like a camera lens. I had no doubt he was recording me. Not every night. Not even most nights. But just enough to keep me afraid to fall asleep.
PARCE: Let’s stay focused on your father. What did he think about this creature?
307: My dad didn’t care about the creature, and he sure as hell wasn’t sympathetic about my lack of sleep. He’d just yell through the house, “Up for school, son, let’s go.” If I didn’t get up then and there, he’d drag me outside.
And all the way he would order me to ignore my nighttime visitor, as if I hadn’t been trying for years. We went through all that many times, if you couldn’t tell.
I did see his point. I couldn’t miss any more school, especially now that I was at the end of Primary. We were already being scrutinized enough. That was my fault.
So I slid out of bed, tripping over my own hooves. I was a clumsy kid, always stumbling around. My body felt unbalanced. My dad tried to say it was because I was a teenager, but I knew that had nothing to do with it. My sheep body was just too awkward.
I walked through the house and met him in the yard—
PARCE: Sorry, but you had a real house? You mentioned a bed and a window?
307: Yeah, but that was about it. Not much else to say. Bare concrete floor, no decorations, no comforts, nothing. Just the way my dad liked it. He was a minimalist, I guess.
PARCE: Who built your house?
307: My father said he did.
PARCE: With hooves? How did he accomplish that?
307: You know, I asked myself the same thing every day. He would say, “I just did.” I learned to stop questioning things like that.
PARCE: That doesn’t make much sense. Your world doesn’t seem to make sense thus far.
307: We haven’t even gotten started, Doc. Do you want to hear the story or not?
PARCE: Go on, then.
307: So I went outside and found him lying on the lawn, reading his paper and coughing up a storm as usual. He stood up, which was always hard for him because of his knee. I always winced when I saw that left leg giving him trouble. I blamed myself for that, too. You see, I hadn’t done a very clean job healing his wound.
PARCE: What do you mean by healing it?
307: Just that. I healed it. But I wasn’t good at it back then. I was just a kid. My dad always said I should “get back in there” after I’d spent some time studying sheep anatomy at University.
PARCE: Tell me more about this healing.
307: I thought you wanted to hear about my dad. Stay focused, remember?
PARCE: I did say that. Can you tell me why he was coughing? You said earlier that he didn’t get enough air.
307: He always said he felt a mass, you know, like a foreign object deep in his throat. I think it restricted his airway. He let me try to heal it one time, but it didn’t respond. I tried to get him to go to the hospital in town, but he refused to go. He insisted that the staff there had a vested interest in making him even sicker. He got pills in the mail from Chugg Pharmaceuticals, but they didn’t help.
Anyway, that particular day he folded up the newspaper he’d been reading and stashed it under the porch steps. He was always reading that trash. The Chugg Report. Pure propaganda. No truth to be found anywhere.
“Whipper-Snapper,” he said, “you have got to start getting up earlier. You’re going to have to eat and walk.” He led me to the gate and then we were out in the field, on our way to Fleece City. That’s where the Primary School was at.
I never enjoyed that trip. It was a long way, because my father wanted to live out in the country. We had an acre out there, just a stretch of flat grassland like the rest of the field. He always said having to get up early was better than living with the city’s electronic eyes on us all day. And yet he refused to listen to me about the creature at my window.
He never talked much during the morning walks. And there wasn’t much to distract me out there in the grassland, so I was alone with my thoughts. Those trips to and from the city, day in and day out, were when I was most aware of how uncomfortable it was to be walking on four legs.
Even though the skies were clear blue and there was never anyone around, my father was a paranoid mess. Being a pair of sheep in a land full of predators, we both should have been looking over our shoulders. But he took it to an extreme.
My dad jumped at every sound and his eyes darted to every movement in the grass. He was always sure that some wild dog, driven mad by hunger, would come bounding out of nowhere to snatch me up. He watched the birds as they passed overhead, as if any one of them could have been spying on us. To be fair, he was right about that.
And those horns of his… everywhere he looked, that was the way his horns pointed. He almost never looked directly at someone because of the implied threat of his horns. The points had a red stain he’d never managed to wash off. Guess if he ever told me where that came from.
Anyway, he’d hang back and watch our surroundings, and I would lead us to the city. It would have been to the east because the sun was in our faces. I don’t know. I just followed the dirt path. Over the years, our hooves had worn away the grass here. Every few minutes, I would step off the trail to grab a bite to eat.
I hated eating that way. Let me tell you, ripping up grass with your teeth is disgusting as all hell. It’s undignified. That’s one thing I don’t miss about that world. But I would have had no answer if you’d asked me what I’d have rather done.
My father tensed up. Out of habit, I glanced at him and then followed his gaze. Half a dozen magpies flying in a tight group were headed in our direction. But they didn’t approach us. They wheeled to one side and disappeared into the pine forest that grew halfway up Ptera Peak. My eyes wandered further up the mountain, where the dead tree stood. I almost got to look at what hung from the tree.
My father said, “Don’t look at it.”
I answered, “That just makes me more curious.”
“It’s there to be ignored.” That was always his last word on the thing on the mountainside. He tried to distract me by talking about what he’d read in the paper that morning.
He said, “Listen to this, Snapper. The Chugg Corporation is rolling out a Cybernetics division. They’re going to be working on improving medical research. There’s a big joint project with Chugg Pharmaceuticals, but there aren’t any details yet.”
“That’s great, Dad.”
“They might end up doing some good for people. Even if it’s by accident. Maybe they could figure out what’s going on in my lungs.”
I rolled my eyes and said to him, “It’s all run by the same pigs that own the hospital you won’t go to.”
“You know better than to say stuff like that out loud.”
“It needs to be said. They have no interest in making us better. They just want to profit. You said so yourself.”
“I’m trying to help you see the good in things, son. You have to take the good with the bad sometimes. Think about it this way: you have so much passion for healing. Maybe at a place like that, you’d have an outlet. You know… a legitimate one.”
I didn’t answer. My father let it go. Why wouldn’t he? We’d had discussions like that too many times already. Besides that, his distraction failed. As soon as he went quiet, my mind wandered back up the mountainside.
We arrived at the entrance to Fleece City while I was still pondering the thing hanging from the dead tree. We came to a black wrought-iron gate. I remember it clear as day. That iron fence ran all the way around the city. Two dogs stood guard. I always wished I could be one of those instead of a sheep, you know? A big German shepherd like them, almost like a wolf, with the teeth and—
PARCE: Did you call them that in your world? German shepherds?
307: Of course we did. Why not?
PARCE: What about other dog breeds? Irish setters? Great Danes? Dalmatians?
307: Yes, we had all kinds of dogs there.
PARCE: Did your world have those places? Germany, Ireland, Croatia?
307: No. What’s your point?
PARCE: Let me propose something to you, Snapper. You seem to be struggling with cognitive dissonance in your memories—your revulsion with eating grass, your difficulty as a quadruped, the different breeds of dogs having names from this world. Might these be outcries from your subconscious, signs that all this is a fabrication? What if we set those issues aside and let you and your father be humans? Would we lose anything by transposing the events of the story from your alternate world into this one?
307: We sure would, Doc. We’d be losing the truth. Look, I know all that stuff doesn’t line up yet. It didn’t for me at first, either. But there was a reason for it. I don’t know if I can trust you enough to tell you yet. Can you live with that?
PARCE: For now. Go on. What happened when you and your father reached the city?
307: My dad got out in front before we got to those guard dogs. Then he told them why we were there. Same thing every day. I think the routine of it placed their minds at ease. No one was really comfortable around him because of the horns.
“Good morning, boys,” he said. “Just bringing my son to school.”
He turned his head—and horns—to the side, giving the guards the signal that they could safely approach. They sniffed him down, then they did the same to me.
“Alright, Old-Timer,” one of the dogs grunted. “Go on through.”
Old-Timer. That’s what everyone called him. Old-Timer and Whipper-Snapper, that was us. Dumb names. But my original name wasn’t safe to use. And his, like the horns, made everyone uneasy. So he had our names legally changed when I was little. From then on, Old-Timer it was.
We walked through the gate and into Fleece City. That gate went straight to the commercial district. As usual, Old-Timer stopped to survey his surroundings and watch the morning rush.
A crowd of sheep rolled in from the suburbs at the south end of the city. Normal pedestrian traffic, same as you might see here. Some of them were headed to work at the bank or the stores. Others were dragging kids to school. Almost all of them were white or grey in their coats, like me and my dad, but every now and then you could see someone whose wool was tan or brown. Those sheep were born in the Quarry far to the west.
Right next to us, by the gate, was Little Piggy Primary School. You couldn’t miss it. The sign was painted in this nasty garish pink. It stood out because everything else was flat grey. If not for the foot traffic, you’d never know anyone lived or worked in Fleece City. Every surface was pristine. There were no cracks in the pavement. No graffiti on the walls, no trash bags in the alleys. Not a spot of yellow in the grass.
PARCE: You’re getting off topic again.
307: Sorry. Anyway, once Old-Timer had reassured himself that nobody was coming after me, he led me toward the school. But as we got closer, we noticed a crowd gathering in front of the City Hall down the block.
Mayor Wilter was coming out, headed down the concrete steps. He was an older sheep, kind of weak in the shoulders, as we said, quiet and mumbling. He was in his third term, although no one seemed to know anyone who voted for him. His favorite issue was “combating anti-pig sentiment.” His appearance itself wasn’t usually enough to draw a crowd. Something was going on.
“Go,” my father said, motioning with a foreleg toward the school. Then he headed over to see what the commotion was about. I followed him.
But I couldn’t see through the crowd. So I crept around the edge of the gathering until I got to the fountain in the middle of the square, right across from City Hall.
Like the buildings, they kept this sculpture free of any tarnish. It was a big bowl, all wrought from bronze. In the middle was a cool statue of Arghast and Optera, spraying water up into the air.
PARCE: Sorry, a statue of what?
307: Oh, a couple of the gods of our world. Arghast, the creator, and Optera, the first demigod he made. You want me to get into that now? That’s a whole other story.
PARCE: No. Thank you.
307: Didn’t think so. Anyway, I climbed up onto the fountain so I could see over everyone. But I tried to duck behind the statue a little so my father wouldn’t see me. A couple of other kids followed my example, so that helped me blend in. From the fountain, I was able to look over the crowd and see that they formed a circle around the sidewalk in front of City Hall. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
There was a pig. A real live one. They came over here sometimes to conduct business, but for the most part they stayed in their own city a few miles away. This pig was wearing a jacket and tie, but he wasn’t getting any business done at all. He was getting his ass kicked.
A big grey sheep had headbutted him right in the face and was gearing up to do it again. The pig was lying on his side and his snout was gushing blood. It was splattered all over the pavement and the sheep’s forehead.
The sheep was yelling “Swine!” and going on and on about how pigs drank the blood of sheep so he was just taking back what was ours. So everyone in the crowd was gasping and talking to each other, you know, how dare he, doesn’t he know you can’t say that, blah blah blah.
He scuffed his hoof on the sidewalk and lowered his head and we all braced for another hit. But those two guard dogs whipped around the fountain and cut through that crowd like knives. They went right for that aggressive sheep and, Doc, they just floored him. They must have trained as a two-man team for years. Just one coordinated strike and he was on his back. He kicked out, but they grabbed his forelegs with their teeth and crushed the bone. Then they backed off. So did everyone in the crowd.
That sheep tried to stand, but his legs just collapsed under him. He was crippled. Now it was his blood pooling on the sidewalk. I can still hear his screams.
Mayor Wilter finally spoke up. “Everyone, please, over here. I want to talk to you.”
On command, the whole crowd turned their attention away from the bleeding sheep. Even the two dogs left him alone. They got to the pig, helped him up, and started walking him down the road to the hospital.
I was the only one still watching the guy on the ground.
Wilter was talking. “This is the kind of hatred we have to fight against,” he said. “Slurs against pigs, unfounded rumors about blood rituals, these are the things that divide our society. We sheep have to embrace all other animals and make them feel welcome in our city.”
He kept going, everyone was nodding, I stopped listening. I was watching the bleeding sheep on the sidewalk, and I was gathering my courage for what I was about to do. But I stopped when I saw what was approaching from the far side of town.
The sight of it made me sick to my stomach. It slithered along the road, leaving a slimy trail behind it like a huge slug. I’d never seen this… thing before, but I had heard about it from my classmates. There’s no way I could describe it, except… it looked like someone had taken an animal and turned it inside out. It was a mass of flesh, a transparent sack with organs writhing around inside. You could see the veins pulsing. Bones stuck out all over the place. The skull of a sheep was perched right on top, like a trophy. Eyes popped up in the front, the sides, the back, wherever. They would look around and then retreat into the tangle of guts.
It looked like one of those, what do you call it, when you have a growth that has hair and teeth in it—
PARCE: A teratoma, it’s a kind of tumor.
307: Tumor, yes. Tumor. That’s what this monster was called. The Entomber. I’d heard the rumors but they didn’t do the real thing justice. I could barely stand to look at him. But I had to, because no one else was paying attention. Everyone had their eyes on the mayor while Entomber crept toward the crippled sheep on the sidewalk.
He stopped screaming—he froze—when he saw Entomber coming at him. Then he tried to get up. He couldn’t. His front legs wouldn’t support any weight.
I realized it was now or never for this guy. If I could heal his legs, it might give him a chance to get up and run. No one was watching.
I jumped down from the fountain, snuck around behind the crowd… and bam, my father was right there, tripping me up and pinning my head to the ground with one hoof. With my chin jammed against the sidewalk, I couldn’t open my mouth to protest. He tried to turn me, but I was able to keep my eyes on the bleeding sheep five feet away from me. I wish I hadn’t watched.
Entomber vomited up his own stomach, prolapsing himself into a long slimy tube with teeth sticking out every which way. He retched a yellow glob onto the crippled sheep, and the screaming came back double. Everywhere the yellow mucus touched, the sheep’s flesh turned into red foam and sizzled away. He howled and flopped over onto his back as the skin fell off his legs and chest. Some of the other sheep at the back of the crowd began to turn around. Entomber spit out a second acid glob that hit the poor sheep right in the face, and his screams turned into hissing and wheezing as his tongue and throat disappeared. As soon as he went quiet, the crowd listening to the mayor forgot about him all over again.
“Let go, damn it,” I said through clenched teeth. All my dad did was press down on my head even harder. I couldn’t do anything to help as Entomber rolled over the dying sheep. When the monster’s entrails went into reverse and furled up back inside him, they pulled the sheep’s body along. I hope to God he died quickly.
Entomber turned around and slithered back the way he came. My dad didn’t let up an inch.
“And that’s all I have to say on the matter,” Wilter said. “Have a good and productive day, everyone.” Same as Entomber, he turned and headed back the second his job was done. The crowd started moving again as soon as they were dismissed.
I started to move, but Old-Timer still didn’t let go of my head. I managed to turn just enough to glare up at him. He wasn’t looking at me. He was staring up the steps at City Hall. I couldn’t see what he was looking at through the legs of the bustling sheep walking around us. Almost like he was keeping me down and out of sight.
Just for a second, there was a gap in the crowd and I could see up the steps to the entrance of City Hall. Wilter’s assistant pulled the door open to let him in. The lobby was dark inside for some reason.
And there was that single red eye. The one from my window. Looking right back at me.
The gap closed and I couldn’t see anything again. But that was when my father finally took his foreleg off the back of my head. I stood up and turned on him.
“I could have helped that guy,” I said. “You know I could have healed his legs. At least enough for him to run away.”
My father didn’t look at me. “Yes, you could have, and Wilter and Entomber and your red-eyed friend would have seen it. After I promised them you would never do that again. And then it would be you being digested in Entomber’s belly right now.”
“We let him die,” I said. “Doing anything would have been better than doing nothing.”
“That’s not always true, son,” he answered. “Now, go to school. We’ll talk about it later.”
I said, “Yeah. We will.”
Wow. You have me sucked in with your vivid imagery. Great writing