Chapter Four
"No kidding!" Sapphire said, and then after a pause, she added, "Are you putting me on?"
"God's honest truth," Alex swore, and even held up his hand and placed it over his heart.
"How else do you think I would know about any of this?" he asks.
"I have got no idea," Sapphire exhaled. She double-checked her device to make sure it was getting all that.
"Argus called me up," Alex said. "After the authorities got to him. He didn't want to have anything to do with any of this. You know Argus. Well, maybe you don't. You haven't even seen him since when? Since he was maybe twelve?"
"Around that," Sapphire agreed. "Or maybe thirteen. He would've been in the eighth grade when we graduated, right?"
"Seventh," Alex corrected her. "But he's never changed much. Like anyone, he's had his share of ups and downs, but mostly he's always kept to himself. For a while I didn't know what he was going to do with himself, but hell, I didn't know what I was going to do with myself, either! You're the one with the straight line and the yes and the no. Anyway, he did go on to college, then kind of burned out and worked some lousy jobs for a while. By the time I finished my civil engineering, he'd decided to do something with his architect degree after all, and he's been doing that ever since. You might even have heard of something he did. He invented a kind of micro-portable home out of some fiber or something. They use it for shelters now, for homeless underneath bridges and such. I think it's even gone out to Africa and places like that?"
"The 'Foldaway House?" Sapphire asked.
"Yeah, that's it!" Alex told her. "That's my brother's invention."
"He ought to be proud," Sapphire said. "I hear really great things about that."
"Argus proud? Not my bro. Humble as pie is more like it. Spends his time mostly sketching out the office buildings of the future - it's how he puts it - when really he'd rather be doing more of the charity work. Still, he's got a wife now, and a young son - Arvid, that's the boy, must be six, and Peggy, that's the wife. A house full of idealists, I call it. Even Arvid. That little guy is always 'playing at paradise' - seriously, that's what he calls it. His toys are all lined up for happy-ever-after-land. There's no fighting or even disagreements in that boy's make believe. Kind of cute, when you think of it. Chip off the old block, I'd say."
"Sounds adorable," Sapphire agreed, while thinking the boy would probably have gender confusion anxiety someday. She suddenly had a sense of being watched, and looked around. There was no one and nothing in sight. She realized she hadn't seen or even heard another car on the road since she'd gotten out of her own. The silence was impeccable. There was not even the sound of a bird or a lizard scampering through the dust.
Meanwhile, Alex was catching his breath. He couldn't remember talking so much in quite a long time. 'Easy now, boy', he said to himself. 'This isn't the time to set about reviewing your various misdeeds and wrong turns in life.'
'But just look at her', his other side said, 'she's still the same. She hasn't changed, it's all straight ahead and no nonsense for her'.
'You don't really know that,' he replied to himself. 'It's just that we've been seeing her all along, on the news and all that. Of course she has changed. We all do.'
He saw she was looking at him, waiting for him to go on.
'It's all about the story', he reminded himself. 'Remember that's what she came here for. Nothing else.'
"Yeah, so anyway," Alex continued, "there's Argus, minding his own business, sitting home smoking his pipe and reading the paper - or he would be if he was our father back when - and all of a sudden there's a knock on the door. Peggy opens it up, the federales come in. All very hush hush, not even allowed to tell the wife, which of course he does later. Peggy's in charge in that house! They tell him pretty much what I just told you, plus they tell him they've got the girl in quarantine, she's in a hospital security ward all locked up, and what they want now is for Argus to go pay her a visit. He says 'no way'. They say 'way'. He says, 'at least can I bring in my brother?' They don't like the idea but Argus is stubborn and eventually they let him call me. So that's how I end up going to see this weird girl in her little glass room, this girl who insists on being called 'Nameless'."
"Nameless?"
"She doesn't say much, this girl. All that they know is she wants to be called Nameless, and that she has a message for the one they call Argus Kirkham. She won't speak to anyone else or say anything else. In the meantime, they keep her locked up. She won't eat. She won't drink. She doesn't try to escape. She just sits there on the hospital bed and stares out the window, which happens to look toward the sinkhole. She won't look at anything else. They've brought in all kinds of experts. They've tried to examine her every which way and come up with nothing and no clues at all. The girl is still burning, they told us. Her temperature seems to be way over normal and her skin is still hot to the touch. No one knows why. The whole thing is simply incredible. If I hadn't of seen it myself, I'd say I was making it up, but I did, and I'm not."
Alex by now had long since discontinued pretending he was inspecting the crossing. He stood face to face with Sapphire, both of them sweating in the hot desert sun. His story was followed by silence. Sapphire knew there was more but waited for him. Alex had, after all, seen the girl, and she knew he had much more to tell.