The Slow Transformation of Oliver Sanderson

by libertydude

Arrival to Paradise

Personally, I thought it was a lousy time for a trip.

True, it was stuck right between the spring and summer semesters, and it’d been six years since we’d seen Dad’s significant somebodies. But my thesis portfolio wasn’t even halfway done, and what drawings I’d found time to crank out weren’t anywhere close to polished. Dad insisted I come regardless, in his “Remember Who’s Paying Your Tuition” tone. Easy enough for him. Psychiatrists don’t need their hands to diagnose people. Hell, the Conversion would probably do wonders for his practice. Nothing like an uncontrollable mass extinction to bring up some emotional baggage.

For now though, the only luggage I had was at my feet, in a rollaway bag stuffed with jeans and sweaters. Not the usual ensemble for an early May trip, but the cold fronts and perpetual rains demonstrated Portland’s nonconformity spread to its weather as well. Dad sat next to me, his smaller carry-on resting on his lap and swaying with the light rail’s turns down the narrow street. The clean shaven face he usually presented to his clients was already starting to give way to a default scruffiness. His attire similarly demonstrated an autopilot mindset, with long khakis and a thin blue windbreaker with a broken zipper he refused to replace.

I glanced down at my smartphone, flipping through apps as fast as the Metro’s Wi-Fi allowed. A half-dozen updates flashed on the screen, all stating how the apps were not responsible for a lost signal within the next three days. “Please consult your local Conversion Authority for accurate listings about your area’s Conversion period,” they all read with only slight differences in wording. I wanted to laugh. Leave it to corporate America and Silicon Valley to treat humanity’s annihilation like a brief software update.

“We’re here,” Dad said, pointing out the window. I glanced up and caught the unmistakable view of the Moda Center, a white dome sitting against the dreary landscape. The news on the plane ride over said the Trail Blazers and the whole NBA may be going out of business soon, since basketball doesn’t really work if you need all four limbs to walk. At least they’d get good severance packages. What were artists going to get? Free classes on twirling pencils in a hoof instead of hands? More grant money from the National Endowment for the Arts?

We were soon over the Willamette, the hard rails of the Steel Bridge letting out a low rumble below us. Downtown Portland would soon be upon us in whatever splendor it had left. Word back in Orlando was even an invasion of neat, colored equines with chipper personalities and literal magic couldn’t do jackshit for the drug-addled metropolis, now filled with more homeless people than actual citizens.

“I hope Chinatown’s still okay,” Dad said when the rail finally crossed the river. “Bob and I used to go there for some good Sweet and Spicy Chicken.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I said, staring out at a bearded man shuffling down the sidewalk with a full grocery cart. The wheels let out little eee-eees, the upper basket loaded to the brim with rattling soup cans and overextended trash bags. A uniformed man, either Army or National Guard, eyed him for a moment before wandering onwards.

A thin grimace stretched across my face. “This place looks like San Francisco and Detroit had an abortion.”

“Pessimistic as usual,” Dad sighed. “Common trait for an artist.”

“Realism, Dad. If a city looks like crap, it’s not usually a good city.”

“You spent three years in Baltimore. You seriously saying that place was a bed of roses?”

“Baltimore had some interesting things to it. This place…” I gave a dismissive wave towards a passing lot, packed to the brim with shambling people snaking through lopsided tents. “I don’t give good odds.”

“Well, you can always be surprised.”

The rail came to a stop, and half of the car got up to descend into the light rain tapping a rhythm on the windows. The brave and the foolish shuffled their way out, and another group soon filled their place. I looked back at my phone. Same updates. I put it away and reached into my bag for the sketchbook and pencil located under my underwear. While Dad had insisted I come down with him, I’d won at least a small victory in bringing my one release from this situation. It wasn’t the greatest escape in my disposal, but it would do for today’s purposes.

The black book soon sat upon my luggage, and I flipped through pages cluttered with physical half-thoughts and flights of fancy. Past images, consisting mostly of various walking positions and nude models, flashed across my eyes until a blank page came to view. My pencil touched paper, my mind racing for inspiration.

That’s when I heard one of them come aboard.

The unmistakable clop-clop noise followed behind me, until I heard it stop right behind our seats. I couldn’t look; a dozen fights in middle school had taught me eye contact was the first step to getting a fist to the face. Besides, being stuck on the inside seat required me to twist my whole body around and would easily give away my prying eyes. So I positioned myself like I was looking out the window, adjusting until I could get the creature’s dim reflection within the dingy glass only a little bit cleaner from the rain.

A long, black mane hung off her head, with her aqua fur coat clashing against the red seat she’d taken. The thin, orange scarf hanging around her neck shifted in time with the starting rail car. She pulled out a phone much larger than mine, better suited for her wide hooves and nonexistent fingers. Yet the phone scrolled like any other device, her eyes moving with each new screen her hoof pulled up.

The eyes. Yes, those were the strangest things about her. The rest of her body at least seemed like a reasonable corollary for a horse from another dimension. But the eyes took up fifty or sixty percent of her head, absorbing more stimuli than the little beads in my own could ever hope to. How did they even fit in her head?

A nudge in my ribs interrupted any further reflection.

“Here’s our stop,” Dad said.

I grumbled before grabbing my bag, getting up just in time for the train to slow to a crawl. Dad got himself situated as well, though he wavered a little with the rail’s sudden stop.

“Current Stop, Oak Street and Southwest First Avenue,” a robotic voice called over the intercom. Within seconds, the doors opened and we began shuffling towards the outside world.

I sniffed the air and cringed. An unmistakable combination of marijuana smoke and decaying feces filled the air. The nearby porta-potties provided no alibi, nor the people stumbling out of them with dazed and far-off looks. The smoke leaking out the johns dissipated in the rain still falling steadily upon the streets and our heads. Across the street stood a man with no shirt and ragged shorts, proclaiming himself to be the next Messiah in a high-pitched falsetto. The price to get into Heaven was fifty bucks or a bottle of oxycodone.

I shook my head, a mirthless smile filling my face. “Well, no surprises so far.”

Dad gave a heavy sigh. “Well, we ought to go-”

“Excuse me, sir!” a soft voice called out. We turned to see the mare from the rail trot out, walking on three legs. Her right hoof held aloft the thick, brown mass I recognized as Dad’s wallet.

“Oh, thank you!” my father said. He reached for the wallet, though he took a moment to gauge how to take it from her foreign appendage. After a moment, he just opened his hand and let her drop it down. “Would’ve been a pain to leave that lying around.”

“I’m sure,” she said. “You guys tourists?”

“No,” I said, crossing my arms.

“Well, kinda sorta,” Dad said. “We’ve been here a few times, but not in a while. We’re visiting my sister.”

Sure, Dad, tell her your whole life story, I thought. Aren’t doctors supposed to know how to keep their mouths shut?

“How nice,” the mare said. “Family can be quite wonderful in times like this.”

I couldn’t help but appreciate the mare’s abilities in downplaying. “The times” instead of “the Conversion”. Just another large scale event destroying an entire species. Nothing special, as the dinosaurs can attest.

Behind the mare, the light rail doors closed. Another minor victory snaking in-between the dark cloud.

“Oh dear,” Dad said. “Sorry you missed your train.”

“That’s alright,” she said with a smile. “There’s quite a few coming through here.” She wasn’t wrong; Portland’s hardly a quiet town in the late afternoon rush hour, a fact the honking Priuses driving by made clear.

“Well, have a nice day,” the mare said.

“You too,” Dad said.

I stayed quiet while she trotted back to the station, a contented look upon her face. Have you ever come across someone who seems a little too genuine? This mare fit the bill to a tee. She had so little motivation other than to be helpful that I couldn’t help but suspect her of some unseen ill. Maybe Dad would find a twenty or two missing.

“Have to keep this in my side pocket,” Dad said, shaking his wallet. “Back one always seems a bit loose.”

“Mmm,” I said. I did my best not to stare back at the stranger, but only the flashing crosswalk and the National Guard troop staring us down kept me from seeing her disappear into a new rail car.