B.S. Lewis presents: Hills Like Mangosteens

The hills across from the train station were round, oblong and white. On the side facing the station, there was no shade, no trees to protect the ground from the hot sun. Everything on this side of the hills was fried, dry and brown. On this particular day, it was hot. Hotter than you could imagine. Hotter than hell, if you believed in that sort of thing.

“Should we get some drinks from the vending machine?”

My companion who asked the question, she was young. Innocent. Beautiful. Thirsty.

I checked my watch.

“Sure,” I told her. “It’s pretty hot. I could use one.” My watch read 1:45pm. The train would come in forty five minutes. It would stop at this junction for three minutes and then it would continue on in its journey, blissfully unaware of the plight of the people on and off of it. Machines didn’t need to feel, to know. They only needed to function.

“What do you want? They have a few things,” she said to me, her lips pulled tight in a grimace of concentration. I looked over at the hills again, white beacons shining from within a dried husk.

“Surprise me,” I told her.

She returned to my side a moment later, a cold Koota Mangosteen juice clutched in her hand. She showed it to me, turning it one full rotation, the light of the bright sun reflecting off the cool condensation that peppered the glass bottle. The pure white contents within beckoned to me.

She asked me if I was surprised. I told her that I was.

“You don’t see much mangosteen these days,” I said to her offhandedly. She nodded absently in return, but her focus was outward. She was looking off at the line of hills in the distance.

“Those hills kind of look like mangosteens,” she said to me. I followed her gaze and couldn’t help but agree. They were white within a field of brown and death. They did indeed look like a series of mangosteens, cracked open and left to either be consumed or rot. In that regard, I suppose they weren’t that different than people.

We sat in amiable silence for a few minutes, sipping and swallowing from our bottles.

“It tastes peachy,” the girl said, putting the bottle down. “Or maybe a little like lychee.”

I nodded. After a moment, she went on.

“The hills kind of look like lychees too,” she commented. Then, frowning, she added, “I guess that things can appear to be more than just one thing, huh? I suppose that’s the way with everything.”

I gave her a small smile. One that, I supposed, could look either sad or happy. I suppose she was right about that after all.

“Thanks for the drink,” I said quietly. “I had never tried one of these before.” This time it was her that smiled, although if it were happy or sad I couldn’t tell.

“That’s all we do, isn’t it? Just look at things…and then try new ones?”

“I guess so,” I said with a shrug. She studied my face a moment, mulling it over. Then, in a meek voice, she asked me another question.

“It’s not really that simple, is it? What we’re doing, I mean. It…it can’t be that easy, can it?” I shrugged again.

“The best things do tend to be simple. We just have to take the train. Or, rather, let the train take us.”

She frowned. Either she was thinking hard, or perhaps she was unconvinced. We can be more than one thing at a time.

“How about afterward? Will we really be fine? Just like we were before?”

I placed a comforting hand on hers. Her hand was wet with white flecks, droplets from her drink that tasted like a couple different yet similar things.

“We’ll be fine afterward. We’ll be just like we were before.”

She turned her palm up and gripped my hand, giving it a quick firm squeeze on both sides, the way you would open a mangosteen.

“What makes you so sure?”

The way her big wet eyes looked up at me expectantly, the way that they held so much knowledge, so much tragedy in them at such a young age, that solidified in my mind that we were doing the right thing.

“Simple. Because we’re going to be rid of the only thing that bothers us. It’s the only thing that makes us unhappy.” I squeezed her hand. “See?”

She nodded her understanding. “And then we’ll be happy? Like before?” I kissed her on the top of her head and told her yes, it would be just like before.

The alarm on my watch beeped. It was 2:00. The train would be here in thirty minutes. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a slight change in her body language. Perhaps the alarm had been too harsh a reminder of the passage of time. I smiled softly and held up my empty bottle.

“Should we get one more drink?”

As we stood by the vending machines making a decision, my eyes were constantly called to slot 11A. It was a Gopal’s Superfruit Juice.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” I said aloud without realizing it. She turned to me and stared. “I’m not scared,” she told me, “it’s not a hard decision. I feel like getting another mangosteen.” I sighed. “That’s not what I mean.”

When we had our drinks in hand, we walked back to bench we had been sitting at, only to find it was now occupied by a tired looking older woman. We decided to stand.

“I know lots of people who have done it. That’s why I said what I said,” I explained. “You know, at the vending machine I mean.” She sipped from her bottle. It was translucent, with a milky white inside. Just like a real mangosteen.

“Me too,” she said quietly. “A few girls from school did it. Their families all said that they were happy now.” Although her words conveyed confidence, her eyes did not.

“Listen,” I told her earnestly, “if you don’t want to do this we don’t have to. Really, we don’t.” She shook her head quickly side to side.

“But I know you really want to,” she began but I cut her off.

“I think that it’s for the best. I do. But I wouldn’t do it if you don’t want to. Really, I wouldn’t.”

She frowned and hummed like she was chewing on something, a nervous habit. She turned her face from me. It might have been to hide a slow tear trickling down her cheek. It might have been just to take in the hills one last time before we left.

I decided to say nothing more. I looked at our luggage, two disheveled duffle-bags leaning against the wall of the station. They were dirty and scuffed and plastered with stickers of all of the places they had been. There were stickers of beautiful sunsets and state parks. There were stickers of cryptids and historic landmarks and famous eateries. There were stickers of emotions and ones that commemorated battles that had raged throughout the annals of history.

A soft crackle emanated from ancient speakers embedded in the outer brick walls of the station. A prerecorded voice told us that the train would be here in five minutes. The woman on the bench stood up and began to pace small circles, getting herself ready. I turned and faced my companion until she faced me back. When she did, her eyes were dry and she asked me:

“What should we do with our baggage?”

I glanced over to the spot where our heavy bags lay against the outer brick wall. They had become too heavy for us to carry. Maybe they wouldn’t be for the next person who happened by them.

“Let’s leave it all behind,” I told her, my voice betraying only the slightest bit of nervousness. She reached out and held my hand again.

“You were right,” she told me. “I already feel better. It’s time to leave it all behind.” Then, after another contemplative moment, she added, “Our bodies really are like these mangosteen drinks. The outside is fragile as glass. Sometimes you have to break away that protective layer to get to the good stuff. I see that now.”

I squeezed her hand hard and looked past the tracks, past the puffs of smoke from the oncoming train. I looked at the hills. She was right about everything. They really did look like mangosteens.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I told her. Then, holding hands, we leapt. We fell towards the tracks that were buzzing with electricity; towards the train that was barreling upon us, towards whatever was coming next.

It was time to see what we were truly made of. On the inside.