The Reclamation - Part V
In Part IV, the women are sent into the desert to participate in a Soul Walk, a journey meant to catalyze their journeys of self-actualization through the desert’s sun and heat.
DAY 5
The sun was so, so hot. She couldn’t remember it ever having been this hot before. She’d missed the pickup and spent last night in a fitful sleep against a boulder, using a windbreaker as a pillow. Her entire body hurt, and with only a quarter of her water bottle left, the VisionShake long gone, she wondered if she was a dead woman. She refused to let that happen, though. She had the blazing sun to guide her, and her Soul Well to nourish her. The van ride hadn’t been that long, and she was sure she could find her way back to camp on foot.
Her bare arms stung with sunburn, but it was too hot for her windbreaker. She was exhausted, a wrung-out washcloth, though Brooke had said that was to be expected. That connecting with one’s inner self was a tiring process. A soul workout. The Reclamation had been quite the soul workout. She felt stronger, lighter, leaner without that guilt inside her. She was powerful. There was no room for guilt anymore. Just the present.
The bushes all looked the same: dried out and unwelcoming. She felt like she was walking on a treadmill through the landscape, like time had stopped. A treadmill. She fantasized about the climate-controlled utopia that was her gym, with its AC blasting, enabling her to run endlessly, to turn on Brooke’s voice in her headphones and let it flow through her as she exerted herself. Know yourself. Be yourself. Love yourself. She recited Brooke’s maxims as she trudged on, their cadence punctuated by the rhythm of her boots on the sand. Know yourself. Be yourself. Love yourself. Knowyourselfbeyourselfloveyourself. Knowyourselfbeyourselfloveyourself.
Were they looking for her? Would she perish out here? Was she even still living? The only proof she had was the soreness of her joints, the sweat that coated her in a shell of salt. Her dry throat. She took another tiny sip of water. Was there supposed to be a trail? How would she know when she was actualized? She smelled a campfire somewhere, perhaps she’d find some helpful campers who could guide her back or, better yet, give her a ride.
Dust coated her Army supply store canvas boots, and she wondered if this was how soldiers in Iraq felt. She was a warrior too. Roman had told her that there was a marine base around here. That they’d constructed mock Iraqi villages, and even hired actors to play villagers for simulated attacks. Did soldiers also feel the power of taking lives? Was life-taking their Soul Well, where they derived their stamina? Of course, it wouldn’t be something they talked about publicly, didn’t fit in with that hero archetype. But it could very well be true. The clean pop of a gunshot, the thud of an enemy falling in the dust. Again she felt the surge energy she’d accessed during the Reclamation.
The surge of power—that power of taking the life of another. That moment, once dripping in shame, would become her Soul Well, her energy source. It propelled her forward so that she almost stumbled over a ledge. At the bottom of the ledge was a field of Joshua trees. Could she use one for shelter from the sun, at least until it grew a little cooler? And then she saw it: sitting against one of the Joshua trees was a figure. A hiker? A fellow Brookie?
She scrambled down, slipping on the loose sandstone, creating rivulets of rocks and dirt with her boots. It was like skiing. Easy peasy. Though she considered herself to be in good shape, her ankles were not used to this kind of exertion.
The trees were black, except for places where their bark had peeled off, which were bone white. The air was still and funerial. Whatever fire had come through had left the desert greenery standing but dead, a forest of dark corpse-trees on the pale dirt. The entire valley was silent, devoid of life, except the seated figure in the distance.
When she came nearer, she was both surprised and not surprised at all. “I thought you left,” she said to Celeste.
Celeste looked up at her through those glasses, reflecting Pat’s own haggard silhouette. Her face was scuffed with dust, tawny from the sun. She smiled, grimaced really. “I took your advice,” she croaked. “I trusted the process.”
“Here,” said Pat, and reluctantly held her water bottle out to Celeste. Celeste held her hand up, refusing the offering.
“I trusted the process,” she repeated, “and the process is bullshit. That’s what this Soul Walk or whatever taught me.” She spat on the ground, leaving a dark spot on the sand. It looked like blood. “I think my ankle is broken.”
Pat’s ears began to ring with rage. No, alertness. Her anger made her more alert, more present.
Celeste looked past Pat at the sky. “Those dragons need to fuck off,” said Celeste, speech slurred.
“You’re hallucinating,” said Pat.
“See for yourself,” she said, gesturing upwards with her chin.
And that’s when Pat saw them. The vultures, circling, waiting for something to happen. They seemed to know something that she didn’t.
“Celeste,” she said. “Come on. I think I know the way back to camp.” This was a lie.
“No way. I’m not going back there. I’d rather live in the sand now. Be one with the rocks. You know, I found her house.” She leaned her head back on the spiny tree. Somewhere an animal screamed.
“Brooke’s house?”
Celeste nodded, a satisfied grin on her wan face. “I was right. The trailer thing is bullshit. She lives in this giant mansion with a pool and everything. I’ll bet you can see parts of it if you go through her videos.”
“So,” said Pat. “Who cares? We all tell stories from time to time.”
“Don’t you get it? If she’s lying about this, who knows what else she’s lying about? She’s full of shit is what she is, Pat! I know it hurts to lose something, but wouldn’t you rather know the truth?”
“I haven’t lost anything,” said Pat, rage simmering to a boil.
“Help me up. We’ve got to tell everyone. We’ll find a road. I’ll post it on all the Brookie forums. They deserve to know.” Celeste leaned back on the Joshua tree, exhausted.
Pat was about to deliver a piece of her mind, but she restrained herself. Instead, she readjusted her pack and began to walk across the scorched field, away from the hysteria. She couldn’t handle her drama right now. But what if Celeste was right? She pushed that thought away. Use your mind, she told herself, and refocused.
Breathe in, breathe out, step in the dirt, imagine yourself actualizing, how free it will feel. Her breath and footfalls filled her ears, until she became a machine, all parts running in sync. And what was the body after all but a machine? Or was a machine like a body? It boggled the mind: the processes inside of us that all just happen whether we want them to or not. We don’t even know what they look like. Mind-boggling that the whole red mess of ourselves doesn’t just exit through our orifices, which was what she thought was happening when she got her first period, thanks to her mother never bothering to talk to her about her body’s inner workings.
The shadows were changing now, the distant mountains becoming more grandiose in the contrast of the afternoon light. How many steps had she walked? How would they ever find her? Speaking of shadows: there was another one, another slouching figure in oversized sunglasses. Another Celeste. Pat’s first thought was that she’d walked in a circle, but this was impossible. She’d been walking toward one mountain peak the entire time—westward, the sun was heading that way.
She knew what heatstroke could do so she decided to ignore the fake Celeste. But as she walked past, a hand gripped her ankle, sending her toppling downwards. She rolled over and surveyed the damage: the sting of gravel on her lower palms and a bloody knee where she’d caught herself. Her 1978 Pradas had somehow managed to skitter off her face and she’d fallen on them, crushing the frames.
“What the hell?” she spat.
“Sorry,” said Celeste. “Take mine.” She held them out to Pat, who took them, warily, and slid them on.
“I know what you want,” said Celeste in a low voice. There was something off about her face. It had grown gaunt and skeletal, the skin under the eyes droopy and quivering, as if a single tug would rip the whole epidermis from flesh. Her white tank top was filthy and drenched in sweat. She stunk of something feral.
“What,” said Pat. “What do I want.”
“Control.”
Pat eyed a small, jagged rock near Celeste, big enough to pick up with one hand.
“I don’t know—” Pat began. But she did. She did know.
“Help me,” pleaded Celeste. “We can help each other. We can tell the truth. People are grifted all the time. It’s the American way. We’ll be forgiven for believing.”
But Pat’s mind became static. All she could see was the stone in front of her, the black trees looming above. She wrestled the rock out from the ground, its underbelly cool against the palm of her hand. She raised it up over Celeste’s head with some effort, her wounds stinging in the dry wind. Something screamed again, louder and louder. The vultures? Or some other animal? The screaming dominated her ears until she could hear nothing else. Know yourself, Love yourself, Be Yourself. She brought the rock down on Celeste’s head, again and again and again and again. The screaming stopped.
She began to dig, using the rock to help her loosen the gravelly dirt. As she dug deeper the dirt became finer and finer, until it turned to sand, and she could clear it with her hands. The hole kept filling with water, which Pat bailed out with cupped palms as best she could. Strange, she thought, this much water in a desert. Then she rolled Celeste’s body into the shallow hole and covered her up.
She couldn’t be sure how long she sat there. She must have slept at some point, because when she woke the sun was setting and she could hear the trills of shorebirds somewhere. The vultures were gone and up above her, looping in the fading blue sky, was a seagull. In the distance came the unmistakable hush of waves crashing. She stood, running toward the noise.
Her knee ached, her wrists stung, she was sure she looked like a complete maniac. That didn’t matter anymore. Where was this energy coming from? A salty wind licked her face as her feet pounded the damp sand. The ocean was so close. She would throw herself into the frigid sea, wash the filth off of her, and emerge renewed, actualized.
Then everything seemed to flatten and she was back in the desert. What had sounded like an ocean was a highway. The sea breeze vanished and the hot, dry gusts picked up again. She collapsed on the shoulder, panting. Her hands and arms were covered in Celeste’s blood, brown and thick. She pulled her scarf off her head and wiped them as best she could, finally letting the wind carry the scarf away.
A car engine sounded in the distance. With the last bit of her energy, Pat stood, holding her hat aloft. As the car came closer, she saw the lights on top, the mirrors. She’d hailed a highway patrol car. It slowed to a stop. The officer was a white woman, about her age. She pulled her aviators down to get a better look at Pat. “You part of that group that was out at Touchstone Ranch?” she said.
Pat nodded, mute, heart racing with nerves. The officer continued to stare for a few fraught moments. Celeste’s blood was smeared all over her shirt. She zipped up her windbreaker, knowing she was done for.
But instead of cuffing her, the officer told her to get in the backseat and help herself to some bottled water. “I’m headed that way,” she said. “There was a fire. Wiped out nearly the whole place. Luckily they contained it before it could spread but I guess there are some people that aren’t accounted for. There’s a burn ban for a reason. It’s a tinderbox out here.”
Dozing in the AC, sipping on the tiniest of plastic water bottles, Pat listened to the officer chatter on about fires, invasive species of grass, her own heroics. She caught a glimpse of herself in the rearview, Celeste’s glasses obscuring her dusty, sunburned face. She was untouchable, all-powerful, a deity. She was actualized.
Lena Valencia’s debut short story collection, Mystery Lights, is forthcoming from Tin House Books in 2024. Her fiction has appeared in Ninth Letter, Epiphany, Electric Literature, the anthology Tiny Nightmares, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a 2019 Elizabeth George Foundation grant and holds an MFA in fiction from The New School. Originally from Los Angeles, she lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she is the managing editor and director of educational programming at One Story and the co-host of the reading series Ditmas Lit
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