The Divided Line: Bastian [Part 2]

It began slowly—the plague, the greed, the riots. Revolutionaries rose up behind symbols, murals, and songs, while the masses were fed machinery and religion. In the wake of the destruction, politicians deemed art a dangerous thing—a worthless thing—and the masses agreed. They took away the paint, the books, and the instruments. But they could not wholly silence the artists. These are the stories they left behind.

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Bastian’s foot splashed through a murky puddle in the dim, stinking streets of the lower city.

He’d grown up on these streets and had gone to school with Quade in the now desolate building a few blocks away. His conformist grandfather had pulled him out before graduation and sent him to an academy in the upper reaches of the city. No grandchild of his, he’d said, would make his life in the slums simply because his mother had made poor marital choices.

When his grandfather died, Bastian received a large sum of funds to pay off the rest of his education. Bastian tried to give the money to his mother—she’d suffered bitterly after his father’s hanging—but she refused it. Better to give Bastian a more prosperous future. He took the money out of spite and enrolled in the arts program at Solinus University, his grandfather’s alma mater.

Quade rounded the corner, hands in his pockets, lips curved into a charming smile, his black curls tussled. “Welcome home,” he said.

Bastian slipped his arm through Quade’s as they walked. “What will you read tonight?” he asked.

“The seeds of my magnum opus,” said Quade with a cheesy grand gesture. “It’s time.”

Quade had been working on it for nearly a year now, bouncing ideas off Bastian as they’d lain entangled together in the predawn hours.

“They’ll love it,” said Bastian.

A neon sign flashed over a nondescript doorway—a green vine with a single blooming flower. Quade pulled the door open and ushered them inside.

The thump of a distant bass reverberated through the hall, growing louder as they neared. Quade opened another door, and music inundated the space—live, keening vocals and stringed instruments laced with techno synth and a driving beat.

A throng of people danced together, bodies undulating to the rhythm, glimmering with a sheen of sweat beneath saturate light beams. Painted dancers performed on raised platforms wrapped around tall concrete pillars. It smelled of spilled booze and perfume.

Bastian and Quade stopped at the bar and placed their order: a drink called The Requiem, named after the poem. It wasn’t truly a drink. Rather, it was the week’s password to the garden.

BP Miller via Unsplash

The barkeep opened a side door and waved them in. There, in the gilded haze of flame-lit lamps, artists gathered. Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, dancers. Artists of all sorts came to the garden to talk, create, and workshop. It was a safe place for unfettered expression. One of the last of its kind.

Silence fell upon the room as Atticus, founder of the garden, stepped onto the small platform at the center of the room. The mingling artists seated themselves on pillows, blankets, and gaudy cushions. Discarded things gathered over the years. Bastian sat cross-legged beside Quade on a vibrant rug and laid his sketchbook open across his lap.

“Hello everyone,” said Atticus. “As always, those who signed up have five minutes to showcase or present their work. After everyone has gone, the house is open for you to collaborate and workshop as you please. Lights go dark at two.”

Atticus named the first person on the list and stepped off the platform. A woman rose to her feet and took the stage with a violin perched upon her shoulder. She gave no introduction, just set the bow to the strings and drew out its lamenting song.

Bastian put his pencil to the paper and began to draw.

Halfway through the list, Quade was called to the stage. He strode to the platform with a casual confidence, joined by the dancer he’d been collaborating with over the past month.

He introduced his project to the crowd and began to read.

There was a strength to the lyricism of his poetry—rallying, devastating, and beautiful all at once. The dancer performed to the rhythmic cadence of Quade’s voice, expressing with movement all the things words could not.

Together, they told a tale of legacies lost, stories erased and never finished, the all-consuming end to man and memory, and the dreams left behind in the rubble. Quade envisioned it would one day be a convergence of dance, music, poetry, and theatrics, performed on a large stage in front of hundreds of people. For now, it was an intimate thing. Bastian would never say, but he liked it best this way. A novelty experienced deeply by only a few, and he was lucky enough to be one of them.

Bastian drew envisages of the poem and abstracts of the dancer’s grounded and raw-felt movements. Fragments of reality and dream.

When it was finished, the audience applauded, breaking the still silence of their enchanted listening. Quade returned to Bastian’s side, and the next person took the stage.

“That was brilliant,” whispered Bastian as Quade settled.

Quade leaned close to Bastian, whispered, “Thank you,” and pressed a gentle kiss to Bastian’s shoulder. “Show me what you drew. I want to see.”

Bastian showed him the sketches, and Quade smiled. “You’re wasted at that university. You know that right?”

“You’re wasted in this era,” said Bastian. “They’d have worshipped you in the twentieth century.”

Quade gave a low laugh and began to reply, but before he managed, the door burst open, and a woman stumbled in. Bloodied, breathless.

“Run!” she shouted. “It’s the Censor!”

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The Divided Line is an original serial updating biweekly.