"I wanted him to see," says Zero.
"I don't know if he's awake," says Oso.
"Shit," panics, Luviel, "well wake him! He can't be sleeping and trailing off like this. We'll lose him."
"Sooner than we planned?" asks Congo, smirking.
"Hey! The more mouths, the better," snaps Luviel.
"True," agreed Oso, "who knows how many times we'll need to pound her before she caves. But we got her to come out of her hole and show herself. So we're at the first step."
"Will you not give it all away," says Zero.
"Hey, divine's boyfriend," says Luviel, lifting Moritz' chin with a fingerâor two. "Hello?"
But Moritz says nothing.
I try to walk over but only fall on myself.
They all laugh at meâeven the young ones.
"Take it easy, miss divine. Don't go hurting yourself now before we can hurt you," says Oso.
I try to get up to reach Moritz, but nothing. The bandages on my feet keep me trickling at the stance and trying to get up for longer than I'd like.
"Well, he's breathing," I hear Luviel say.
"He does look bad though," says Oso.
"Where did you say they were?" asks Zero, to a young woman with a mobile in her hand.
"Hey! Miss Divine's boyfriend," Luviel repeats.
But from what I can see, meanwhile I try to get up without any help, Moritz is motionless. He's hunched back, belly up to the sky, legs hung down, blood dripping down to the carpet, his arms spread out and falling off the couch in-which he was thrown on.
"How is he?" I try to say. But under the bandages, I say...
..."hu hi ihs?"
I hear slaps on a cheek and I look up to see Luviel trying to wake-up Moritz with a few of her back-hands:
"Hello?"
Zero reaches down to his neck.
"They better get here fast before he stops beating."
A young boy comes running into the fire-lit place.
"They're here," he says.
"Alright...maybe he won't die," says Zero.
A few other young men and women snap the tape from all of our eyes and mouths: my grandmother, the lady (with my name), myself, and Moritz (but they did him first).
My grandmother looks weak. She looks pale too. She looks like she's about ready to fall over.
"Bring them straight here," shouts Luviel and a few younger souls they send outside to greet the new incomers, whoever they were.
With dust all around us, and blood, we look like a bad war-piece, all four of us, here in this nicely fire-lit place, covered with booksâgreat books, and fancy, elegant furniture.
"In here," one of the young ones says.
Four other people walk in with masks. They have these luchador-type masks; high and bright in color, edged with brighter colors, holes in the nose and eye areasâsome over their mouths. They looked just like the masks I would see sometimes at fairs, or on TV, or in the cultural books that my grandmother would bring me back whenever she'd visit our "home land".
Is this our home land?
Is this side of the Wall, the only side of the Wall I belong on (or in)?
****************
There is one difference from these "luchadores" than from those I saw as action figures in stores or as pre-packaged candy: these "luchadores" wore tuxes; they came in suits.
When the four masked people walked into the room, their elegance matched that of the place we were being held in.
I'm finally, fully up.
You could tell our grey, patchy color apart from their colorful heads and elegant bodies. They were not like the Catz either.
All four masked peopleâI can't tell their sex because of their suits over their bodiesâgo straight to Moritz. They came with these bags too.
Out of the bags, one pulls a pair of needles and scissors and bandages.
Then another one pulls out small bottles of liquid.
And another pulls out masks and more needles, and string and more string.
They begin working on Moritz as the Catz take care for us.
When I see the first one reach for Moritz' holes, I try jumping and skipping towards him. But down on the ground I go again.
"Easy, divine! He'll be fine," Luviel says, walking over to me. Not to help me, but to scold me.
"Maybe," then taunts Zero. "He'll maybe be fine."
On the corners, a few young Catz I recognize from Black Catz which had come here with Oso and Congo, begin placing tripods on all corners of the room. They are those tall, steady tripods made for cameras.
Was this some sort of live healing?
It took us a while for all of usâmy grandmother, the lady (with my name), and myselfâto get accustomed to a free mouth, one that is not under the thick, sticky, cheap duct tape that had entrapped itâand usâfor so long, but once we moved our mouths around, once we puckered our lips to try to get rid of the sticky glue that remained but failed so then had to do with it and get accustomed to it, we were back to asking, asking, and askingâall three of us, those that still could, unlike Moritz:
"What are you doing to him?" I went first, beating my grandmother and the lady (with my name) to the hit of questions.
"What are you doing in my house?" then said the lady (with my name).
That made Luviel and Oso and Zero and the other Catz, laugh.
The people working on Moritz shook their luchador heads.
"So now that we finally have you here," began Zero, directing himself at the lady with my name, "you agreed when we told you who we had, that if we gave her to you, then you'd give us your portion of power?"
The lady with my name looked at me.
I looked at Moritz. His eyes were flickering as if they wanted to open.
The young kids around us set up the cameras.
"And being that the whole area doesn't know it, that your people don't know," said Luviel, "we're going to put your agreement, on live."
It seems that, by the look of the cameras, the ceremony, the ritual, the gathering, the whatever-they-want-to-call it, is beginning; the show is about to start.
"Maybe we can show them what we can do to them if they don't agree with this?" Zero asks the lady with my name as he looks back at Moritz and the luchador men trying to put him back together.
"Can we help him first," I say. "Can we just help him?"
The tape is almost fully out of my mouth. Although, I don't think it'll ever be out of my mouth, no matter how many times I spit out glue or rub my lips off of the stickiness. It won't be until I get to a faucet, or clean water, and probably some soap, that I'll be able to rub it off.
But by the looks of this, of what is happening, I don't know if that'll be any time soon. So I'll deal with the sticky lips for now. They can't keep me shut.
"We need to help him," I say again, demanding this time, to Zero and Luviel and Oso and Congo, and anyone else that I knew could possibly do something for Moritz, as many times as I could, as my sticky lips would allow me.
"How is he?" asks the lady with my name, looking at Zero and then at Moritz.
"He'll make it..."
"Until we need him," finished Oso, the statement Zero started.
Congo sniggers.
"As soon as they see," Congo says, looking at a camera, "then they'll know the blood runs deep and far when you mess with the Catz."
************
How many times will the Catz and Zero and Luviel try to circumvent each other?
"If I say that I will right now, on camera, will you take him to a hospital, will you let them go?" the lady with my name asks, looking at all of us, but mostly, at Moritz.
Congo laughs.
But it's not Congo that answers, or that is in charge.
And it's not Oso either, even under my thoughts, my hypotheses.
I believe it's Zero.
But Luviel answers:
"I believe it's too late for hospitals," Luviel says.
Too late for hospitals?
"No! Please!" I begin to panic. My lips did that thing they did when my uncle walked back in on me with his gun in my hand for the first time ever, committing something his hand had never committed, even though it held the gun I held.
"Easy, Divine," Oso says, "he's not going to die."
"Yet," gabbles Congo, playing Oso's sidekick per usual, always with a what-he-thought-was-witty-remark-but-really-is-only-witty-to-him remark on hand.
"Clippers," I hear one of the "luchadores" say.
This is the fighting, my brain tells me. Moritz is fighting against "fights". So why don't' you fight for him, it says. Fight. Fight with the fighters. Make yourself a fighter.
"How are the cameras, kiddos?" asked Zero.
"Clippers," obliged, or concurred, a "luchador" to another luchador.
***************************
I believe we're all fighting. Fighting for that little thing we want but we're never able to getâeither now or as kidz.
But we're all fighting.
There is fight in you.
You may be wrapped, head to toe, feet to arms, but you need to be a fighter.
**************
One of he luchadores dropped some of the liquid in a bottle over Moritz' stomach. They did this before anything.
"Bands," said another luchador, allowing the liquid to go onto first, moving his hand out of the way.
The cameras were still being set properly so they wouldn't fail; so they wouldn't fail in capturing this capture.
"More," said a luchador, patting Moritz' stomach.
"Okay, okayâlet's just get it done before he dies," agreed the lady with my name, keeping her eyes on Moritz. "Come one!" she then shouted at the young kids adjusting the cameras.
They didn't care though. Not about Moritz. They kept their eyes behind the cameras, fixing the stand. They posed like they had all god-damn day.
While one of the luchadores was wrestling and tackling at Moritz, a badge on his hip slipped from under the jacket he was wearing. Over the top of the badge, with a face of an older lady, about in her fifties, thick eyebrows and lips, read University of East Wall Medical Center.
So they're professional doctors working for a mob-like organization; but they're also part of the medical center here?
It seems that the luchadores are not fighter fighters, but professional doctors instead.
These mob-doctors continue to work on Moritz, while the kids work on the cameras.
Zero and Luviel position the lady with my name right where they want her: in front of a bigger camera, centered in the middle of the room, where the most light hit it, right by the fire place.
This thing, this camera, looked like something to record movies. It's a real sophisticated item to capture memories, or make new ones, as the Catz, and Zero and Luviel are doing, with us.
At least they cared that much to deliver their message, that they got what would feed the entire villages, the areas. If they only knew how to spend it: with real professional cameras.
Moritz lets out a small cough.
Then comes another "bandage" request, from another luchador doctor.
I can't see this one's badge.
**************
I remember this one time, about two years ago, I sent Moritz this one song by Citizen Cope. Sideways is the name.
I sent it because I like a line from the chorusâin fact, it was a main line in the song that I liked: these feelings won't go away, were the wordsâor the lineâthat I liked.
This is something I remember because it was something that connected Moritz and I even more. Because at this time, was the time when we were breaking the barriers of our friendship and allowing it to turn into whatever it was turning into.
And to be honest, Moritz and I never got to whatever this was. We never figured out where we were taking this thing to.
This situation arose when he asked me if the line I dedicated from the song was from the band or from myself: if I was telling him that certain line directly?
I think heâMoritzâwanted an answer I wasn't ready to give him. And maybe, I'm not ready to this day. But I know I don't want him to die.
I want to run up to Moritz and tell him I love him. Because if this is the last time I see him, I want him to know that I did care this much to say those three little words he cares so much about.
I do love himâmaybe not in the way he wants me to, but what is, truly, the difference? Loving someone is loving someone. Isn't it?
***************
Love is love.
To fall in love with someone, in whatever wayâeven if it's as a friendâis something beautiful that doesn't come around that often. And if Moritz wants to know if I love him, I do. I know I do. He can't leave me.
"How is he?" I ask.
"Okay, you're going to look right here," I hear Zero tell the lady with my name while crunching her face together and directing it at the camera that he wants her to look at: which is the center one I mentioned before, with all the fire light on it; it's about get-up in fire in here.
"I got it," snapped the lady with my name, flipping her face towards one way as to release herself from the hands and fingers shackling and enclosing her, forcing her to give up everything, I guess; I don't know anything about this lady, but why is she doing this?
My grandmother says my name.
And then the lady with my name replies:
"It's okay, mom."
Mom?
"Are you ready?" Zero asks.
"How's he holding?" Luviel asks the masked medics.
Zero's voice was like a man shaking his head while he talked, those whose accent sounded like his, and he shouted with it again:
"He looks good fucking enough."
"Sir, one of them isn't working," a young woman says, one standing near one of the smaller cameras.
Zero walks over and gives the camera a shake like that would help anything.
"Damn thing," he says, hitting the top of the camera, punching it until a light flickered on and off.
"I can see if we have another one in the truck," the girl says.
"Hurry up!"
Zero then walked over to Moritz.
One of the luchadores looked up at himâone of the ones with a mouth hole:
"Can you all fucking hurry. We're stitching him up, but not good," the luchador said.
The lady with my name thought what I did: as in Moritz doesn't look like he's going to make it.
"I'm only doing it if he lives," she said.
***************************
Maybe the lady with my name has more than my name, and has obsessed and inherited something else; or maybe it is me that has inherited whatever that is from her?
***************************
"Ludivina! What have you gotten yourself into," asked my grandmother.
"What do you mean?" both I and the lady with my name replied, at the same time.
Luviel snapped her fingers.
"No more family breaks or meetings!" she said.
"Remember: I'm giving it all to the Black Catz," worded Oso, making sure the lady with my name picked up on every word he wanted her to say.
"Okay, okayâbut how is he?" insisted, again, the lady with my name.
"Don't worry," said Oso, shouting. Then he followed with a "just prepare for when the right camera gets back."
And at that moment, the girl who was supposed to go out and fetch a new camera from the truck, returned with a smaller, new camera tucked under her shoulder, cocooned within her curled-up arm.
*************************
"I found one, I found one!" she shouted, proud of her accomplishment, showing the camera off in the area where she ran into the room we were all tied-up in like a satisfied child holding up a first place trophy.
In the light made by the fireplace, the girl's skinâthe one with the cameraâdid not look as swarthy as mine, or as my grandmother's, or as Luviel's, or even...as the lady's, the one with my name. Zero's though, along with the restâthe young and ol' Catzâhad a different shade of swarthy to them than that of which I suspected to be family ties.
"Hurry up and set it up. We're running out of time," Zero says, looking at Moritz.
"Why don't they just take him to the hospital," I ask, in desperation, to the lady with my name instead of the causers of the sceneâZero, Luviel, Congo, Osoâas if the lady with my name knows something I don't know, or as if she would have taken Moritz to the hospital if she could, if she cared for him like I did.
Would she care that much?
This woman could have been the woman that left me with another woman. So would she care for anyone if she didn't have to?
"How is he?" the lady with my name lets out towards Moritz.
"You all can get him help, we'll still do everything you ask," I tell Zero, then Luviel, then Congo, then Oso, before realizing it doesn't matter what comes out of my mouth.
The girl that ran in with the camera, produced a click from her end, and when I turned, I realized the camera was ready.
"It's ready," she then saidâthe girl.
"What do you want me to say again?" said the lady with my name.
Zero grabbed her face and forced it right in front of the new camera. The old position he had chosen for the lady with my name seemed to not be exactly where he wanted when the girl came in and positioned the new camera, so he had to re-adjust her.
"Just say it's ours," he said, positioning the lady with my name in the new area, following with a "say it's all under Black Catz rule now."
"Where are we streaming?" asked Luviel.
"YouTube," said one of the boys, then agreed another girl.
"Let's get it everywhere," Zero said.
***********
"What do your people use, eh?" asks Oso.
"We can ask them," the lady with my name replies.
"Can we forget the small talk and hurry," I beg, looking at Moritz.
As the luchadores continue, Zero now goes behind the camera.
"We now have it on all streams," says a boy walking in from the other room.
Speaking of her people: where are her people?
"About fifteen minutes," says one of the luchadores, giving Moritz fifteen minutes.
"We killed the soldiers you had here before we brought you inside, but let them know, Ludy," said Zero, making sure the camera was steady, with one blinking light, the one that mattered the most: the red one. Like the blood he was craving; like the blood he would spill if the lady with my name didn't give him what he wanted; like the blood he would take if not given his way.
"My name is Ludivina," began the lady with my name, blinking her eyes with the blinking light. "I rule the areas North of the East Wall."
"That's it," I heard Zero mutter under his disgusting smileâunder that same smug as always.
Moritz coughed behind me.
My head was turning back and forth, back to Moritz, and forth to the lady with my name.
That badge came out again when my head turned:
University of East Wall Medical Center, flashed in my face, taunting the location Moritz should be at, the one that could save him.
Hurry, I tell myself, directing that energy and vision at the telling's telling before this tale.
Exalt yourself! I hear myself say. Exalt yourself for them!
Off to the corner of the room, hidden away from the fireplace light, my grandmother stands in the same reticent state she is usually in, always illegible to those around herâI am only able to catch her from the white strands she hasn't painted over this week that stand out over the green, overcast, opaque background wallpaper.
"Because of certain circumstances, I must give up my ruling to the Black Catz."
"That's it..." purred and drooled Luviel.
"To all my soldiers, to all my people, to my familyâdo not worry, I am okay. Do as the Black Catz say" continued the lady with my name.
Then a knock came.
The blinking light on the camera continued.
******************
Moritz coughed some more and the luchadores didn't handle him as much as they were when they arrived. They weren't so fast-pace or hurried anymore.
"What the-? Who's expecting someone?" asked Oso.
Zero shook his head:
"You fools can't let me do anything right for the first time, can you?" he said.
"What?" Congo asked, turning to Oso.
"Hey, I didn't invite anyone," Oso said.
Luviel looked at my grandmother, for some reason.
"Did somebody invite someone?" she askedâLuviel did.
"What?" my grandmother replied. "Did I tell anyone?"
"That's right old, lady," said Luviel.
The knock came again.
They were solid bangsâlike the bangs on the door at my uncle's store, the day they came for me.
"Can somebody just get the fucking door?" snapped Zero, still standing behind the camera.
The young Catz in the scene were all just puzzled, facing each other as to not look at the heads, or to avoid eye contact with zero, or Luviel, or the other head Catz.
"Wait!" jolted Luviel, before Oso or anyone could reach the door. "Where are her soldiers?" she asked, looking at the lady with my name.
The knock came again.
"Did you send a message before meeting us?" Zero asked the lady with my name.
The knock came again...
...and the lady with my name looked towards the knock before replying.
"Did you or did you not tell any of your men before meeting us?" repeated Zero.
"What? Why would I?" said the lady with my name, looking back at the door...
...as the next knock came.
"Don't fucking lie to us!" snapped Luviel, pulling out a hot-leather shooter and pointing it right at the center of the back of the lady with my name's head. "I'll give you one shot to answer again," she said.
But the knock got harder.
And Moritz got worse.
"Sir, we need to get him out of here," the privileged luchador with the mouth hole said.
"You open the door and I'll shoot," said Congo to Oso.
Oso walked up to the door.
"I swear to god," said Luviel, pressing the barrel of her gun closer and deeper into the lady with my name's skull.
"Ready?" Oso asked Congo, both pulling their bullet-whippers out.
And as I was expecting, another knock came around...
*************
...Oso was knocked to the floor.
Then...another knock came...but it wasn't at the door, or at Oso, it was Congo.
Bulletsâit is the bullets that keep on knocking through the doors.
But they stopâthey stop once Oso and Congo fall, knocking on the ground, sending our feet in a shockwave motion with the undulating spell they were under.
They can hit any of us. If they hit Moritz, they'll surely kill him.
Life at this point, is pointless. I've brought all those I love to die. What am I if I don't risk what I can for them?
With tired feet, I lung myself forward as much as I can, trying to cover Moritz, trying to use my body as the vest I'm wearing.
So how brave is that?
Over the couch, my grandmother lands when tripping back from the fright she got from what I thought were knocks but were really bullets.
"Stay down!" I try to yell to her, but Zero and Luviel and the lady with my name, are screaming, and the kids that came here to protect us are dying, getting knocked one by one, by the "knocks".
Like with Felix, and with Moritz, and with others I've seen and may have causedâdefinitely caused that exit at my uncle's storeâthe blood drops out in sparks, in splashes. It goes everywhere.
Yet, unlike the last times, this time my hands and feet are buckled together, preventing me from covering any part of my eyes as to not get blinded by death. And I am mildly successful, leaving the death on my eyelashes and not into my socket.
The luchadores move about, ducking and dashing and launching behind the couches and anywhere else they could take coverâthe tables, and ducking under them (those that fit) did so.