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It was a cold evening when he was spawned there. Several blocks high, in a long glass hallway. Carl, green, gay, and full of explosive energy, had been wandering that hallway for a couple of hours when he saw her across the hallway.
Carl approached, and found a near-mirror image of himself.. He had not heard this creature speak, but he could tell from the everything about them that they were gay. A gunpowder sizzle came from his heart; in the hours that he had existed, he had never met someone like him, someone to share in his passion for… well, he wasn’t quite sure what gay people did, but he was eager to find out.
Carl approached the creature, and suddenly he saw, flashing above it in white letters, his own name: Carl.
“Your name is Carl?”
“Yeah, my parents named me Carla, but I go by Carl. What’s it to ya?”
Carl’s heart sank. She was not a man.
“Oh, I see,” Carl said, feeling as though water was poured over his formerly firework-y heart. “Well, my name is Carl too. It looks like we’re stuck here.”
“Yeah, thanks to them.”
Carl motioned away from the platform. Carl turned around. There in the air were three humanoid figures, clad in differing amounts of glimmering armor, floating in midair, watching.
Carl jumped slightly, almost setting himself off. “What the FUCK are those things?”
Carl sighed. “They are God.”
“God? All three of them?”
“I think so,” Carl said, walking over to make eye contact with the entities. “When I was born, my instinct was to look up, and I saw that one” Carl pointed at the mostly naked one “above me. I think these things trapped us here.”
“Oh,” said Carl, perturbed. When he was born, his instinct was to look around. He hadn’t looked to see where he had come from. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him.
“Wait, how long have you been here?”
“A while,” Carl said. “I thought I was alone.”
“You must have been born when I was behind that green thing, figuring out my sexual orientation.”
“Oh. Okay. We just met but like that’s cool.”
Carl blushed. “I’m gay, I think.”
Carl nodded awkwardly. “That’s cool, so am I. Well, I’m probably bi but I’ve only been alive for like…. Half an hour so. We’ll see.”
Carl stared blankly. “Oh you just…. Figured that out. That’s cool. Happy for you.”
Carl continued to stare beyond the glass boundary. “I don’t know, I just sort of knew.”
Carl was silent. He could sense that the new Carl was not going to be a worthwhile companion to him, so he started to wander off.
“Wait,” he said, stopping in his tracks. “Parents, you said you had parents. Said that they called you Carla.”
“And?”
“Does this mean you remember a life before you were born?”
Carl was silent. “I think I do. I mean, we were placed here, fully formed. Neither one of us are children. Surely, we could not have been born like this. I believe we had a life before this, before those idiots trapped us here. And for what? What are we even standing on? We’re like a thousand feet in the air. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Carl was yelling at the gods, who were still hovering above them. In a contradictory move, they approached the hallway as she screamed, intrigued by the torture they were causing.
“WHY ARE WE HERE? WHY DID YOU PUT ME HERE?”
Carl, sensing that Carl needed a moment alone, walked away. As we walked, he became curious about what surrounded them. He looked out the glass blocks and, for the first time, noticed the mountains and waterfalls that surrounded him. In the distance, he could see a herd of wild horses. Horses. Wait, how did he know about horses?
Before he could process that thought, Carl came up from behind him.
“So, whatcha looking at.”
“I’m just looking around us, you know. The area seems to be really beautiful.”
Carl approached the edge of the glass. “Yeah, wow, I hadn't looked out onto the area. It is beautiful.”
Carl’s mouth returned to a frown. “You know, we could be happy here.”
Carl cocked an eyebrow. “What?”
“I don’t know. I understand why you would be mad at them. I’m mad too. But, we don’t have to be mad. We can create a life. Get to know each other. That sort of thing.”
“Didn’t know, like, just tell me you were gay?”
“I don’t necessarily mean it in a romantic way, I just mean that we could be happy together, under whatever relationship structure we have.”
Carl squinted. “ I’m never going to be happy here. I’m going to tell you that now. And I’m going to come up with an escape plan. But,” Carl’s expression softed, “I’m willing to be friends.”
Carl then approached him, slightly touching her foot stub to his as they looked over the horizon.
***
Several days had passed since Carl and Carl had been born and established their friendship. However, Carl was still feeling uneasy. She had uncovered the deep injustices of her existence so quickly after being born. It was hard for her to sit still, be calm in what she knew were dire circumstances. She wanted to continue lashing out, and demanding her freedom, but she didn’t want to upset Carl.
Carl. She didn’t know quite what to make of Carl. He was so much more optimistic than she was, and seemed somewhat okay with their circumstances. Carl attributed that to one crucial detail: he couldn’t remember his past life.
Yes, Carl has kept quiet about it since their first conversation, but she has slowly begun to piece together the fragments of her past life. She had lived in an acacia forest with her parents, Carla and Carlos. Her mother had not been thrilled about her going by Carl, but it certainly made distinguishing her and her daughter easier. Carl used to joke about how the green of her skin clashed with the orange wood. She used to wander around, scaring any wolves or spiders that happened to pass by.
She hadn’t really been happy then, either, but at least she was free to wander. Now she was trapped in a glass box, observed occasionally by the cruel gods who had put her here. The least she could do, she thought, was keep Carl from falling into her misery.
As she contemplated this, Carl approached her. “Hey, do you want to take a walk around the hallways?”
Carl scoffed. “You mean like we do every day?”
“Yeah! Come on, it’ll be fun!”
Carl, sceptical but ultimately more bored than anything else, accepted. They began walking, taking opposite sides of the multicolor blocks.
“Which is your favorite?”
“What do you mean?”
“What’s your favorite color, of all these beams?”
Carl looked at the boxes, and for the first time she noticed there was a beam of light radiating upward from each one. “Holy shit.”
“Carl, there is no way that your first instinct when you were spawned here was to look up, but then somehow you never looked up again?”
Carl smiled wryly. “Perhaps the first time was so traumatic, I never looked up again.
“Yikes.”
“I’m joking.”
“Okay then, Miss Jokes for Days, then which color is your favorite?”
Carl looked up at the beams of light. Noticing for the first time how loud they were, emitting a loud hum, which was made only louder by just how many of them there were.
“I like the orange one,” she said, certain. “It reminds me of the acacia trees back home.”
“Nice,” Carl said.
Carl kept silent, trying to see how long it would take Carl to impose his own opinion. He didn’t; he continued the stroll silently.
“Do you really not remember anything?”
Carl’s pace never slowed. “What do you mean?”
“Like, do you really have no memory of a life before this box?”
“No, I don’t. And I don’t think I mind it.”
She jumped in surprise. “What do you mean? Don’t you wish you had known a life before this prison?”
“I don’t know,” Carl said, his tone light and pensive. “I mean, I suppose one day I’d like to wander, to see the rest of the world. But, I am content. This is all I have known, and it has been good. I am way above the ground, so I see the world around me. I get to look at these beams, which are mighty and powerful and radiate importance. And…” Carl blushed slightly.
Carl cocked an eyebrow. “And what?”
“And I get to spend it with you.”
Carl blushed, turning her face away from Carl and towards the glass. She peered down at the floor, which was an enclosed area with trees and llamas.
“I’m gonna get us out, you know,” Carl said, looking down at her feet. “I’m not going to let us rot here. We’ll wander around someday.” She paused. “Together.”
Carl smiled. “I’d like that.”
Carl nodded, and began to walk away when she paused. “Hey. Which beam is your favorite?”
Carl smiled, looked her up and down, and said, “The green one, of course.”
***
It was evening when Carl came up to Carl.
“I have an escape plan,” she said. “But I’m going to need you to trust me.”
Carl’s eyes widened. “Oh my god, really? How?”
Carl’s voice remained calm and emotionless. “The gods accidently dropped something into our pen last night. I can use it to blow up the glass and propel us onto that tree.” She pointed to a tree next to the llama pen.
Carl looked down too, then inched back. “Won’t the fall kill us?”
“No,” she said. “The fall should be short enough that it won’t kill us. Landing on the tree will leave us with half a heart, so the plan is to heal up and then run off. The perimeter is fenced in except for that direction.” She pointed in the opposite direction, the mountainous area. “We can escape that way and they will be none the wiser.”
Carl beamed. “Awesome! So what do we need to do?”
Carl's mouth smiled, but it did not reach her eyes. “I need you to stand against this wall. I will set off the device, and we will be propelled. But I need you to trust me and do as I say.”
Carl nodded, suddenly imaging all the things they could do together.
Carl placed him against the wall, facing the glass. He was looking out when he heard the familiar sizzle of an explosive device.
“Carl?” she said.
“Yes, Carl?”
“See the world for me, please.”
With a sudden realization, Carl turned around, seeing Carl in her sizzling state. “CARL NO!”
Unable to contain herself, she leaned in and kissed him. Then, she turned him around.
Before he knew it, he was launched forward, through the shattered glass, and onto the tree, barely alive as Carl had predicted.
He sat there, numb. All he had ever known was Carl, and all he had ever wanted was to wander the world with her. She had ended her life to give him that chance, but now he felt empty and cold.
Wondering what his next move was, he suddenly saw an iron-clad god wander into a building, being chased by a small zombie. His body was suddenly filled with rage, a familiar sizzle echoing throughout it.
These gods had ended Carl’s life, and so he would end theirs.
He ran towards the building, thankful that the door had been left open due to the god’s panic. He walked in, and met eyes with the god, who was trying to climb a ladder as two birds squawked at it’s shoulders.
Unable to contain his anger, and his love for Carl, he surrendered his body to the anger, to the explosive nature of his every pixel, and wrought his wrath upon the god.