The Fan

The Fan
Two nervous shadows sat at the rim of a campfire, beset by the incessant jeering of crickets. They were miles away now from the institute- that frigid, oppressive prison of a clinic- that once called them tenants. Amber specks lifted softly into the air before falling with a harsh crackle. The smoldering embers were tossed eastward, towards that institution of correction. The flame should have been moving west; it was a weak flame and the wind was gently pressing westward. The ember’s path was corrected by some judgmental, chilly breeze. It was born from the metallic revolutions of a pair of cheap iron blades.
If not for the fan, the fire would have been unbearably warm for the broader of the two shadows. He was unashamed to admit the dull whirring of his fan had eased him like a mother’s lullaby, and had his back to that monument. Tender breaths from that mechanical savior massaged away the stiffness of his brow.
Still that damned roaring was not pleasant for the other man, the narrower of the two shadows. His frame was lithe and weightless, as if the subtlest of gusts would carry him away. Those ice-cold razors beckoned him to be consumed by their rotation. His skin quivered with the slightest of terrors- he lacked the heat for a passionate display. The fire was his messiah, but it would never accept him with open arms. The fan stood staunchly in-between him and the comfort of heat, and he would not dare approach it from behind. To corner the beast would be to provoke it, and he had no strength left for conflict. His body was wracked with fatigue and his face had been drained of color, except for the pink of his tongue.
“Turn the thing off,” the slim man requested. His tone was stern enough to seem demanding, but there was a flickering of weakness in his voice that undermined any authority he ever could have had.
“What thing?” The response was quick and abortive; the stout man refused to compromise. A thousand times without words he had denied the request for silence, and he would deny them a thousand more.
“The metallic whirring thing, I can’t sleep while it whirs.” The cowardice in his speech had become consistent. He was too terrified of that fan to call it by its own name.
“Turn my fan off? Nonsense. You know how the heat makes me irritable, don’t you? The calescence would drive me batty. Remember the last time I was batty, you don’t want that again, do you?” The stout man had heavy questions loaded in his mouth like bullets in a six-shooter. Smoke rose from his nostrils as he emptied his chamber.
“It’s a machine! I hate the machines. They used to put me in them, and then the world would shake and rattle and my brain would rattle and I hate the machines!” A brief gust of resistance had risen in the slim man’s breast before he noticed the boundaries he overstepped. “I’m sorry, but it reminds me of the institute. We both hate the institute…”
“Bah, the institute is behind us! Don’t go making me irritable with talk of the past. The fan stays on, or I will be battier than a rabid beast. Besides, I can’t make notice of those rattler snakes over the sounds” The thickness of the man’s shoulders was all the more obvious when he stood up. His chest puffed out with fury enough to make the second man withdraw.
“Piss on snakes…” the thin shadow whimpered under the sharp song of the spinning blades.
“What did you say?” The strong muscles of the first man’s neck strained as he barked out that disdainful inquisition.
“I ain’t worried of snakes. I’m worried that machine will take me and rattle me and I won’t be still ‘til morning and then I’ll be found by some patrolling goon and god knows I’ll be rattling when he thumps me- turn the thing off, please!”
“No more talk of snakes and rattling and guards!” The strong man’s voice resounded half-heatedly; a trembling notion was covered by the brass vibrations of his throat. He was just as afraid of being caught as the other man.
“Would you jus-“
No was the only phrase that could pry itself loose from the petrified the stout man’s lips had formed. Words would not serve him so he jerked out his meaty right hand and struck at the smaller one’s direction.
“Turn-” the narrower shadow continued his pleading, even in the face of the intimidating gesture. His determination had incited a true fury in his companion. Great, graceful, soldierly movements of the stout man’s legs propelled him towards his harasser. He repeated the striking jerk within reach of that other man’s nose.
“The fan stays on! “ The first man shouted as he stood above the other’s slumped body. He saw how he had twisted the bridge of that man’s nose, and stained his upper lip with dark crimson blood. As he acknowledged his own brutality, he stepped back.
There was silence except for the rotation of the fan for a long time. The two shadows avoided making eye contact, and when they did exchange glances they shared feelings of self-loathing and vitriol. The fan’s blades kept turning in rhythm without fail. The stout man quietly feared the batteries were too drained to make it through the night. This worry was the thin man’s hope, that the venomous cyclical dance of steel monsters would soon end.
The second figure employed a new tactic as his enemy drew into sleep’s cool embrace. His lips had shriveled, and seemed to resuscitate themselves as they moved again. “Why snakes?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What is it that snakes get you the same way machines get me?” The question sounded innocent as it floated along the breeze.
“It’s like this…” The stout man muttered. Then a pause, and following a slurry of pitifully uncertain sounds.
“Like what?” The second man pressed onward towards as the wounded beast retreated.
There was a heavy sigh before the first man explained his cowardice. “Whenever I went batty at the-“ he swallowed a thick lump of tension in-between words “-clinic I would get a shot from this real squirrelly man-“ another gulp went down his throat like an elevator heading towards the ground floor “-and it went into my arm real quick and I’d wake up confused.”
“Like the machines!” The narrower shadow interjected.
“Sure… sure, like your machines. But this shot felt just like a snake’s bite I suffered when I was a narrow lad. I cried for an hour I was so batty!” Tears strolled down his face as he continued, “those snakes would put me out like that little weeping boy!”
“Talk of snakes seems to make you rather batty.” There was a new pang in the thin man’s chest, as if he had pushed aside the fan and sucked the campfire deep into his heart. The first man whimpered.
“Snakebites aren’t all painful though; in the waiting room I read a magazine that said some snakes will have poisoned you and you’ll die before you even knew that.”
The first man recoiled into a ball, and the other rose to his feet. Each step the lean one took was heavy and shook his knees like tremors, but he marched onward. The sound of the fan grew louder and louder to his ears, and his face winced and turned grey with anxiety, but his approach never faltered. With the last of his strength he clasped at the machine and raised it far above his head. Then his arms sank and he let go. The fan tumbled out of his hands and into the fire’s maw. Crackling, the flame roared harshly as it consumed the oppressive king Aeolus. An ugly bang erupted from the heart of the campsite as the plastic melted away. Then the steel blades stopped spinning forever and the thin man dipped into the earth. Before he accepted sleep’s warm kiss he muttered out one phrase.
“Piss on snakes…”