Before we start:
The service that July was going to work under was called the Great Saint Christina War Veteran Hotline. It was a service started out by an anonymous donor, who gave donation to the St Brigid hospital to help the emotionally scarred veterans in the wake of the great war of 19xx, which ironically has first seen the deployment of psychological warfare.
Dear Sirs, read the donation letter from the anonymous person, I work with war veterans who have served our country and sacrificed so much for us. The situation they are in, with all the guilt coming back to haunt them, and the nightmares the veterans suffer are appalling. I can not turn blind eyes to a situation such as this. These veterans scream in their dreams and some of them barely eat, effectively starving themselves to death.
Fortunately, I have this fortune at my disposal, which was given to me by my father, who was a veteran himself. I am donating this fund to raise a counselling service for all that were affected by this horrible war.
So a room in St Brigid hospital was converted into a makeshift phone service center for that purpose. At its beginning the room held five operators who specialized in talking to the emotionally scarred. At first the service was well received. Veterans of all sorts called the phone line, complaining of all maladies.
One of the veteran called because he couldn’t sleep. His complaint was that when he went to sleep because he saw the ones he buried under with his hands. He went on to complain that whenever he slept he felt their hands grabbing for him, trying to drag him down to where they are.
He felt better after talking about that to the operator who only uttered Yes, yes, and I can hear you no problem, please keep talking.
Another called because he couldn’t get over the feeling of guilt about joining the information division and spread rumors about the enemy army.
“All the things I printed and circulated through, not to mention all the information I planted into the heads of my enemies to break their spirits, really it shames me.”
He expressed feeling of relief after talking to an operator for thirty minutes.
All calls were free to veterans, as outlined in the veteran pension handbook. Among many social benefits the veterans receive such as free public bath day on every friday and free pie and punch on tuesday, the handbook read, all veterans of all divisions of army shall receive the full benefit of free phone calls to the veterans hotline between the hours of nine to five on monday through friday, and twelve to four on saturday and sunday.
The veterans hotline saw peaceful and respectable people calling them. And as the generation of war veterans started to dwindle, the management of St Brigid hospital started cutting down the number of people working for the hotline, until on the Summer of 19xx, it was decided that the service was no longer needed. The last very operator who worked named Maggie was given a plaque that read “To the workers Great Saint Christina War Veteran Hotline; whose ears and voices have healed the nation of deeply wounded.”
The veterans phone line service saw its revival in aftermass of the war of 20xx, which has now come to be regarded as the war of dancing children.
The idea was the same. Emotionally scarred veterans call in, phone operators stood by and listened. But something was different this time. The veterans who called in was actually talking back to the operators, saying things like “What do you mean yes?”, “are you just going to agree with me?”, and “do they really pay you to say shit like that?”
It was an evolution of veterans that no one saw, and no one was ready to grapple with the intensity these emotionally scarred veterans brought on when they called.
Added to the increase of these hostility, the economy of the time was robbing many people of work. More and more people were thrown out onto the street, they were seeing their pay cut in by thirds, people were seeing that something was going wrong but they didn’t know who or where to point their fingers are.
The time was not peaceful, and it was in this time that Brook July arrived at the city of Grace. Her arrival was on June 4th. She arrived alone at the Grace international airport.
“Now, Ms Bannerman, the position you are given is that of the veteran counselor. Have you read your responsibilities from the hand book?”
“No, I did not.” July Bannerman answered matter of factly.
John Graves gave out a little look of rejection at the answer, but quickly regained himself and said, “Well, Ms Bannerman, to be honest with you this job does not need any help in training, but it would help you to get situated if you read the handbook.”
“With all due respect, Mr Graves, this is not a job that I actually applied for at the job
center or anything, and to be honest I can’t really say that I care too much about this job. All I care is that it pays the minimum wage. My landlord is not waiting a millisecond longer for me to pay the rent.”
“But I just thought that you might benefit from the handbook. You see, the people who call this counsel hotline are all wounded in some ways.”
“Mr Graves, when war happens we all suffer. This war is not the first, nor will it be the last. There are more people suffering than the ones you see on TV. Now please tell me where I should go to report for work.”
“I hate to say this, but you sound like the one who should call the counsel line, not be the receiving end of it. If you feel like you need help, I can give you the number for a counsellor that you can call.”
“Please, Mr Graves, I’m just looking for a job, I’m not telling you to find me a psychiatric hotline.”
At that, Mr Graves, a fresh graduate from the university gave July Bannerman the contract paperwork and address to the Great Saint War Veteran Hotline.(Service started out by an anonymous donor who gave donation to the Saint Gregory hospital to help the emotionally scarred veterans.)
Life of July Bannerman, a damned immigrant
1
Now, the author feels that at this point some readers may be thinking why this story started out like this. The answer is simple, because that is where the story naturally starts. Up to that point, July’s life is that of a woman living in an apartment. And for all this story is concerned, she could stay being that, just a character so the story can move along. But as the story progresses, July comes into my mind and tells me that I am a heartless man for not giving her a proper life. She tells me “You put me here because you just wanted to write something. How dare you. I was born in a place, I have parents damn you.” She mostly tells me his when I am about to sleep and that really disrupts my sleeping.
So, for the sake of satisfying Abraham, here is her life story, followed by how she lives with her new job at the Great Saint War Veteran Hotline.
(One thing to be grateful is that Mr Graves is not haunting me in my dreams. He’s too unimportant to care. But just to satisfy my curiosity, I found that after this, he marries his girlfriend, make three kids who graduate from high school and marry and make him a grandfather, and dies of heart attack at seventy nine. His wife follows him a couple years after from heart complication.)
who is this July Bannerman person? Where was she born? Why
July Bannerman was born in the town of M. It was a small town located at the southern part of the country.
“When you see the shape of this country, which is a barrell,” she always said whenever her introduction lead to where she was born, “my home town is at the bottom of the barrell.”
“It was a small town. You don’t want to blink when you are driving by it or you’ll miss it. Yes, it was a small town, but it was my hometown, so already I’m looking upon it with unfair judgement.” She would continue. “But even with that, my town was a beautiful town. A river ran through the middle of the town, and people travelled in their little boats, tie them to whatever post they can find and just do what they wish.”
In this town she was born to a carpenter father and a painter mother. They raised her as best as they could. She was cared for with all the love they could pour in, they hugged her a lot, they told her they loved her at every chance they could find, they showered her with kisses.
She would recollect her parents like this: “I was their first child, and I think they were afraid that the first mistake they make will ruin me for life. They tried to be perfect, and god was it funny watching them lose their mind when I got sick. They sat by my bedside and would never leave. God I miss them.”
July grew up healthy, lively and smiled a lot. She always smiled to everyone, and she always ran when she was sent out for errands.
Growing up, July wondered why she was named after a month. So she asked her parents, and the answer she was given was:
“Well my dear, July in this country is really beautiful. So we named you July so you can grow up beautiful.”
“And they were right. July in my country is really beautiful.” She would add. “Fields of sunflowers shining yellow gold, rice plant growing heavy with seeds and rustling as the breeze went through them, covered over by mountainous white cloud against the blue sky so spotless you’d think every conceivable blue have been mixed in. God, I remember that I used to run around in the mountain nearby my home catching those beetles with that protrusions from their heads, the ones that looked like they got forks growing out of them.”
“It was such a peaceful village. I mean you could leave your front door unlocked and
no one would dare steal anything. You could sleep on the front porch and no one would disturb you. It was a peaceful time back then.”
In this little village she grew up, and when she got old enough to start thinking about a professional career, she opened a little pub, or as she would put it “a shack converted to a drink stand for my friends.” In there she spent her days watching the little boats pass by. In summer she served ginger drinks, sometimes mint drinks. In winter she served heated milk with honey. She wasn’t good with cooking, at best she could only boil buttered noodles and broiled chicken simmered in spice. Sometimes she would venture to cook lamb or veal, but as her friends would put it, “You always convince us to tell you to stick to cooking only chicken.” She always smiled when she tells that part of her life.
Out of this life in peace, she met Mel Abraham. (Yes, that is where the Abraham part of her name came from.) Mel was a local boat operator with a shining smile. “Not a shining smile that you would think a weasel would put on for tourist women. It was a genuine smile of a person who’s happy where he is. It was a comforting smile.” July would say when she had the feeling to explain what person Mel was like.
Mel was a regular at July’s drinking place. He drank sparkling water mostly. When
he drank alcohol, he drank a pint very slowly. “Alcohol is not my thing,can’t handle it really” he said shyly to July one day in a warm Spring day.
“He was a talker. He talked a lot. He talked a lot about his customers, about the weather. All he’s doing is talk, nothing special to it. But you couldn’t stop listening to him.”
Their romance was not a fiercely burning kind, but one that burnt over slowly until one day they realized that they were in love.
“After that, it was just us moving in really. And a couple of years after August came, yes he was named after my favorite month. My parents may have loved July month, but August wasn’t too bad in that country. Mel rowed his boat with August all wrapped up and sleeping in a pouch slung over his shoulder. We cared for August with love. We kissed him when we could, we always told him how much we loved him, we showered him with presents on his birthday. We always took pictures of him. When he stood up for the first time, when he walked for the first time, when he spoke for the first time. We took pictures of them all. I think that was a happy time in my life. Yes, that was a happy time.”
But as we all know that when someone mentions a happy time, something else in reverse is bound to happen. It’s much in the same between peace and war. And for July Abraham the reverse came quite swiftly. About seven years after August was born.
2
To explain everything that happened, we can not rely on July’s account of event. She only know what happened at the very last part. That was the most exciting part, but if the whole thing is to be explored, July’s account of what happened must come last. So let’s start from the logical beginning.
I can even show you what her account of events were like.
“My dear, it happened a long while ago, I can’t remember everything.” That is her usual response.
If you press her more to relate to us her account of what had happened, she would most likely tell you “I think you should go out to the library. That place has all the records of what had happened. I’m pretty sure you can find everything you want in there.”
So now that it has become obvious that she can not be relied upon to tell us exactly what has happened, we have to rely upon the history itself. History itself will tell as thus: it all started with a plant that the locals found...
It all started with a plant that the locals found. It was a plant like any other. Green stalks and stems, leaves, and petals and core in the middle. The plant stood up to about the height of a rose, and the core was bigger than any plants the locals have ever seen. And when one local whose name has been forgotten in the history, for a reason no one can ever correctly identify other than youth stupidness, put his lit cigarette up to the plant, the plant exploded with such force that the local youth’s hand was burnt off.
“He was the only one standing nearby when it happened and thank god for that. Wait, I shouldn’t say thank god. But still, we didn’t get hurt, and it was his thoughtlessness that got him to this. But anyways, it just exploded like, like a grenade. Only it was smaller and it hurt only him.” One local who was present at the site would say.
The wound was treated, an article on local paper ran a story about a plant exploding, and life went on. The exploding plant itself was treated as a freak accident, but nonetheless the local governing body gave out a warning with the poster of the plant cautioning the locals not to come near the plant. The first couple of years was that; explosive plants grew out and people who weren’t too cautious, such as those making bonfire in the woods, were subjected to horrible explosions.
The thing that came next, and the thing that made people realize that something was amiss, was the advent of new breed of plant that grew exclusively on concrete and steel beams. Once these plants settled themselves in the foundation of a building would rapidly grow and erode away the concrete.
“Rapidly grow doesn’t even begin to explain this,” commented one survivor of this such phase. “In matter of minutes these plants sprouted and grew roots. And another would grow in its place and again in a matter of minutes would grow its roots and so on. In a matter of a day these plants would consume those building which were already growing weak from years of erosion, then these plants would target those new recently elected buildings. It was kind of amazing watching this happen. One day I was watching buildings in the historical district collapse, then only a week later I was watching the new high rises and flat building collapse like dominoes.”
At this point people had thought that there might be something, but mostly people blamed the building company accusing them of using faulty equipment that made the housing flats so weak against the elements of nature. This again has gone on for a couple of years, where people played a whack-a-mole game of patching up damaged buildings while the plants ate away the buildings.
Then some years later another plant came into light. This one grew on people.
“This thing would mostly start to root from the noses and lungs,” said one.
“it grew and sprouted leaved out of ears eyes noses and mouths. It was just weird, all these people coming into the hospital with green leaves coming out of them. I don’t think any of them survived. And those who died just became flower food. Only their bones were left behind. It was a real sad sight to see.”
Finally people talked among themselves about what was happening.
What is this monstrosity that is happening to us, some people whispered.
Why is this happening to us, other people whispered.
When will this end, and what is going to happen next, some other people whispered.
But mostly people hoped that this was the worst that can happen.
The shock that made people finally realize something was really amiss happened on the 22nd of July, at 13:28PM in Wentman Cemetery.
What happened on that day can be summed up quite simply; an animated object consisting of earth and human skeletal system rose out of the ground and attacked people.
“It was the end of the world, that’s what it was”, argued a man who the author interviewed when compiling facts about this series of events. “I was out with my wife visiting my late father when the Earth just rose up and these, these things came out. They were the demons of hell sent from below to destroy us all.”
From hell or not, these objects sprung out from earth and advanced towards the populated area of the town.
What happened after that could again be explained simply; they attacked all the buildings they came into contact. All the buildings that were affected by the preceding plants crumbled down after a dozen or so of these objects attacked them.
One witness was seen screaming out “my god those things have bones in them!” These bones were later discovered to have come from those buried in the Wentman Cemetery.
These objects, Earth goblin they would be named later, attacked all man made objects; buildings, light posts, pavement. All the debris were thrown about and hurt people, sometimes wounding them seriously. Those who were injured included July Bannerman’s daughter and husband. All around them people ran in fear and confusion. July Bannerman’s daughter and husband, Kate Bannerman and Albert Bannerman, were trampled by the people who were trying to get away from the Earth goblin. When July Bannerman got to them, after fighting against the tide of people who were coming her way, they were trampled within inches of their lives, gasping and sputtering blood out of their noses.
All she did, entirely out of panic and because of the surrealistic nature of the scene, was hold both of them in her arms until they stopped breathing.
Her daughter, then nine, looked up to her quietly and stopped breathing. Her husband, then thirty five, held her hand and whispered I love you and stopped breathing. July Bannerman held onto them until the police authority, or the emergency service, stood her up to her feet and took her family away to the morgue.
She went back to her house, which was miraculously saved from the attack and slept. She felt that her bed was too large, but her mind refused to figure out why.
When she woke up the next morning, she heard commotion outside of her house. It was the sound of people arguing about what had happened yesterday.
“It’s the end of the world, that’s what it is” was one opinion people took to, while another opinion of “this is mother nature’s way of taking back what belong to her but we took away” gained quick preference among people. These people argued about what had happened and clashed, so much so that one fateful day, three months after the initial argument, one of the people who believed that end was coming was hanging from the light pole. The people who believed that Earth was taking back what belonged to her lynched a member of the opposing opinion to his death. But July Bannerman knew nothing of this because her mind refused to comprehend anything, lest she would risk killing herself to join her family.
She didn’t recognize any contact made out to her, either from the emergency service who wanted her to take her family’s corpses to a funeral home or from her friends who were worried about her and had to forcibly enter her house when she did not respond to any of their worried phone calls.
When her friends broke down the front door of her house, she found July Bannerman in her bed. She didn’t respond to her friends’ calling, just tilting her head to see where the sound came from. From that moment she was in their care to be fed and to be washed.
And since then she lived in a haze until the end of the war, at which point she heard a little girl say to her father “dad, we are running late.” At that precise moment it finally sank in that her family is gone, but being too late to cry for her family, she merely collapsed to the ground and sat around like a doll that lost its footing.
After the war all July Bannerman did was cycle through the places that she and her family used to frequent in hope that she might meet them. After three months of doing this and numerous attempts to stop her, her friends unanimously told her to leave the country and never comeback.
“Listen, everyone you loved is dead.” One of her friend said. “They are not coming back. I’m sorry but your family is now ashes. I’m really sorry. You’re not going to find them no matter how many times you go back to that movie theater you went with your husband. Your daughter is not gonna run to you no matter how much you go to the park. Nothing in this world is going to heal you, and staying in this country a day longer is only going to drive you a day crazier. Get out and find something new. Please.”
And like that an airplane ticket was handed to her and she left her homeland. She didn’t take anything with her besides a few items of clothing.
And this is how July Bannerman, thirty five and without a family came to the country of Grace.
