Unclean

When I put on the suit in the morning, I think about going home. When I seal the black, weighted boots onto my legs, I imagine my children singing out, “Daddy’s home!” and running for me. When I zip the double-insulated heat-proof jacket up to my chin, I imagine my wife’s arms around me, her smile.

Then I pick up my helmet, that hellish helmet, about ten pounds of weight and heat guard and sweat-stained padding. And I put my hands on the goat’s horns curling up out of the top, reminding me that no matter how much I hope and how much I dream, I will never, ever go home again.

The government provides us the suits because lava farming powers massive amounts of our energy grid, and we, those infected with the magma-charge virus, power the lava farms. That’s the government. Society as a whole would rather we not wear them. They want to forget about us quickly, but the magma-charge virus is inconveniently slow. It takes a good five to ten years for it to cement our joints together and buckle our bones and remove all the feeling in our limbs. There is a significant political movement to have the suits removed so that we die faster and don’t need provisions and shelter and suits supplied to us. But it's unlikely to succeed. If it weren’t for the sheer profitability of a workforce that cannot do anything but farm the lava fields, they would never have issued the suits in the first place. So we climb into the suits, and hope that someday, somebody will care enough to invent a cure for us.

I put on that horrible suit just like I did every day and walked out into the cold grey light of the morning at Barracks 19. For three miles all around the lava pits the land is scorched, so nothing burns in case there’s an eruption. It’s just grey sky and black ground as far as you can see. The government provides each barracks with four sheds abandoned on the edge of the burn zone and an air-dropped crate of rations once a month.

Depending on how bad the magma-charged outbreak is in an area, I’ve heard of barracks hosting eighty to a hundred infected people and running out of food and suits. It wasn’t so bad here by the time I came two years ago, and many of us have died. Now there are only ten of us. I don’t tell the other guys, but I was moved to Barracks 19 from a different kind of facility. I didn’t contract magma-charge virus at home, like the rest of them. I was in prison. So for me Barracks 19 was freedom, of a sort. Freedom to die in agony.

Mills, one of my friends, came out behind me, cursing under his breath at the stinking, sticking rubber suit. He stood beside me and stretched, groaning. “You hear about that guy who says he can heal people?”

“Some nut.” I said.

“I dunno…I mean, what would we lose if we tried? You think people would look down on us more?”

From over by the cook stove, Dap called out, “Everybody looks down on you, Mills!”

Mills, who barely comes to my shoulder even in his lava boots, snorted. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, Dap. But I’m serious. If we went where this guy is, if we met him—”

A few of the other guys were listening in. “Yeah,” one of them said, “They say he’s in the area.”

“We’d have to go around other people.” I reminded him. “That’s illegal.”

Mills was on a roll though, and brushed my objection aside. “If we got just close enough, though, to tell him we wanted him to heal us, show him that we’re people in need, make him feel bad for us, maybe get the media interested, like a sob story human interest kind of thing, then he’d have to—”

A voice cut in over top of his, harsh enough that we all heard it clearly. “Get within a hundred yards of that guy and they’d chuck you into the lava pits alive and congratulate themselves for averting a crisis. We don’t count as people anymore.”

Mills turned red and glared at the taller man stalking past us. But he said nothing. He couldn’t say anything. Rex had only spoken the truth. We all knew it; we just didn’t like to say it so bluntly. Rex was bitter because he had a bad case; he’d only been with us two weeks but already had the distinguishing stoop and limp of the magma-charged. He limped past us and left an uneasy silence in his wake.

We ate the cindery, tasteless, powdered eggs from the ration box. It was not enough, as always. And then we headed down the road to the lava farm. Normally there’s some joshing around and chat, but this morning, after Rex’s pronouncement, nobody felt like talking. We walk by the side of the road to get there. As with any road near the lava fields, it’s mostly dust and grit. The road crews do not want to repair a road where the magma-charged walk. Most people do not drive down it unless they have to. But today, there was a small black SUV rumbling down the potholed road.

I nearly stopped breathing. There was a reason I chose to stay at Barracks 19, when I could have traveled elsewhere. This single moment. I knew that car. I knew who drove that car. Before I could barely draw a breath, it was flying past us.

And for one second, I saw my wife. I saw her face, her jawline, the wisp of dark hair against her cheek. Then she was gone in a cloud of cinder and dust. It was the off chance I’d been hoping for the whole two years since my diagnosis, the reason I’d stayed at Barracks 19. It hurt worse than anything else in the world. And the sight of her brought to mind the question every magma-charged person wonders: does my family want me back? Or do they want this suit that preserves my life taken away from me?

I barely noticed when we reached the lava fields. The stench of sulfur and the heat rising from the glowing depths becomes not just a smell but a feeling, the air thickening around you. But a wordless exclamation of surprise escaped Mills’ lips and I looked up to see the strangest thing I’d seen in two years.

There were people standing by the lava farming equipment.

As a group, we slowed down, unsure. There were about a dozen of them, all in regular clothes, not the lava farming suits other plague victims would wear; just regular jeans and shirts. If we had any other disease I might have thought they were do-gooders, out to hand out pamphlets and water bottles, but nobody goes slumming around the magma charged. Moral posturing doesn’t feel so great if you end up infected afterward. A few of us crossed their arms and held them in the air; the sign for “keep away.”

But beside me, Mills gasped. “It’s him! It’s that prophet that cures people!”

A murmur—a gasp of terrible hope—and suddenly we were running towards this man and the people around him. This had to be the most terrifying sight any modern human being could imagine; ten, rubber-suited devils, carrying the worst disease known to man, pounding towards an unarmed man. Even as I ran I expected at any moment to be shot. There was no way—nobody comes and visits the magma charged—but if they did come, they would come armed and ready to shoot to kill. The people around him scattered, like sane human beings.

But he didn’t move.

I think this disoriented us all. We didn’t know what to do, and as suddenly as it began, our headlong charge stopped, three long paces away from the man.

We gathered in a collective huddle of uncertainty. I peered at him through my faceplate. He looked normal. Black hair, brown skin, normal face. He didn’t look like a charismatic faith healer, or some kind of publicity magician. For a long moment the only noise was the hiss of the wind across the bare ground and the oppressive silence of the lava flowing in the trenches.

Finally, Mills spoke, his voice unsure. “Can you heal us?”

I don’t know what I expected. Something dramatic. Some purple flashes of light…maybe a tingling sensation, magic words? There was none of that. The guy said: “Go to the town clinic and have them verify that you’re clean.”

Just like that, like he could just tell the worst disease known to modern man to go away and it would go with its tail between its legs. Again, we were silent, unsure. And then Mills began to shriek. “I’m not in pain! I can move my legs!”

There was a flurry of jackets being unzipped, helmets hitting the ground, shouts of joy. I tore off my jacket and just stared at my arms as the lobster-red sheen faded away, as the pain eased from my body. I stood upright for the first time in two years and breathed in a deep breath of the smoky, heat-thick air.

With a rousing whoop of joy, we headed back across the cinders, sprinting for town and life as real people—and our homes. I sprinted after them, hollering something crazy, tears streaking down my face.

But in those moments, rejoicing in the crunch of cinders under my boots, in the smoothness of my joints, of the wonderful, delicious wholeness racing through me—I remembered I was a convict and I stopped. I couldn’t run to the authorities. And that second, that momentary check in my headlong rush for freedom, jolted my mind.

That man saved us. And I was about to sprint in the opposite direction. Maybe it sounds insane that I had forgotten him—that we forgot him—but in the relief and the shock—

I turned back around, because suddenly my knees were weak, and tears streamed down my face, and I wanted so badly to run for home and beg my wife to take me back and hide me—But. Who was this person? What kind of man goes out to the lava fields and speaks a disease away? How could I run away from the man who saved my life? I turned and ran back in the other direction. Hopefully he hadn’t gone already—there he was, just leaving. I waved my arms and shouted like a madman, sprinting back over the ground towards him.

I halted, breathing hard, and found I could barely see him through the tears pouring down my face. I couldn’t speak. He took my hand. It was a normal hand, firm grip, brown skin. The first touch I’d felt in years.

“Friend, why are you waiting? Everyone else left.”

My voice wouldn’t work quite right. “I wanted to say thank you. But I-I can’t go to the town clinic. Is that—does it mean…”

His voice was soft, thoughtful. “Only one out of ten thought to say thank you. No, friend, you will not lose your healing because you are a convict; your faith has made you well. In fact, the law will see that you have served your sentence.” He put his hand under my chin so that I looked straight into his eyes. “Go home to your family. They are waiting for you.” My husband said, "I like the lava farming. I like the retelling of the story of the ten lepers. But why put them together?" I feel like this might be a common question after reading this story, so my answer is: well, reader, I did it because I wanted to, that's why!