The tables are turning

Eugenie placed herself at the threshold of Barry’s little room and watched him for ten minutes without him noticing. He had unclasped the sling off his right arm and discarded it half fallen on the side of the bed and was now slowly solving a Rubik's cube, his hands resting on the comforter on his lap and his fingers moving in a slow but determined process. Some clicks and claps punctuated his patient work.

There was a barely touched cup of apple sauce sitting on the night table with a spoon sticking out of it. The rain was gently falling against the window, the night having presently swallowed the day, and it was difficult to imagine that outside, the world was in turmoil. This invasion from the mrai moumous was tremendous, and they were producing flock after flock of attackers from the rim at the bottom of the Great Lakes. Easy rebuffed, yes, but persistent, and testing out the human defenses in front of them.

But here, in Hobbes Lab, the worries of the other side were kept at bay. A vague panic was tugging at Eugenie’s heart, maintained at a distance as well, and her index finger was itchy, which happened to her when she had a lot of unreleased tears or when she was on the verge of losing her marbles. None of those phenomena was announcing themselves elsewhere, so she wasn’t sure.

Eugenie almost wished Barry wasn’t so resilient so he gave her more time to rest, would she be the baby sitter of a newborn infant who would never nap. He had been gunned down just ten days before, and switched to half less a dose of drugs for a fortnight only, and he was already pretty awake and responsive. In the longer run, it would be a strenuous task to control him and convince him to chill, which was the reason Eugenie suspected Alphonse had been so adamant about moving her into the headquarters. Now, it was her shelter. Now, Barry was once more her responsibility. She sighed. She wished she had a cigarette but she hadn’t thought about buying a pack on the way back to the Lab.

“Don’t you think Barry looks like that guy parading in his underwear in the movie John Carter?” Darlene had asked her.

“Wow, I am not familiar at all with this reference, regretfully” She had answered.

“It’s a movie that happens on Mars or something, with orange people”

She couldn’t let her mind continue to roam free and her index finger continue to itch this way, aimlessly, hungrily, so she readied herself and asked, “Barry, you’re alright?”

Barry got spooked and his shoulders jumped, then he swiftly snatched the sling off the bed and dropped it on to the floor, “yeah I was j just thinking” where the thing made a little mound, color blending with the hue of the linoleum “that I don’t need that thing”

She smiled, “really?”

“Really, it’s not my style. You were s s spying on me?”

“No“ she lied, “that would be so creepy” he stared at her without words, waiting for her to explain what she was doing in his room, “are you busy?”

“Yeah obviously” Barry closed his eyes and grinned feebly, “did you want to hang out?”

She thought about asking him if he knew of any untold smoking spot, but she guessed she was now living in a tobacco-free zone or, even worse, the spot on earth where smoking would be diabolized, so she just pulled a stool next to Barry’s bed and sat on it, “this place is big” she said, “and intimidating.”

That was an understatement. Hobbes Lab was an ancient scientific testing station with its ground level kissing the side of a steep hill in the state park of Toferky Run, a rocky descent that merged into a dull valley opening on to a landscape of snow and prairie grass with more mountains in the distance. In a swerving line rather than a bulk, the opening floor was a large and imposing hallway of a hundred meter with nothing but lockers inserted inside the concrete, standing like an army of steel one after the other, docile soldiers. The rest was a drop of stories down into the earth, around a serpentine set of stairs that seemed to dig into the underworld itself. God only knew what Hobbes had built on each of these dark and grey levels.

But halfway between the surface and the core of the planet, on the fourth sub-level, he had carved some cozy living spaces which could accommodate at least thirty people, although the team was only a dozen people strong, including, presently, Eugenie or, as Alphonse had nicknamed her in a tone that suggested either despise or endearment –no one would ever know—, la pièce rapportée.

“You like it?”

“Well as long as—”

“What?” Barry was drained now, at the end of a second full day without morphine, and his words were already slurred , “there’s s s something bothering you I… can tell”

“No!” she didn’t want to show herself ungrateful, so she rushed, “I am very glad I can stay here, in this uh… mansion” she raised her palms to the ceiling in wonder, “especially with my cat. I just didn’t know Alphonse owned so many cat toys”

“You know what” he closed his eyes, reopened them, “Alphonse’s first calling after his military career was opening a cat café”

“Does he smoke? Like another one of his… things I didn’t know about”

“Negative”

“Well” there goes that, “my studio is very beautiful”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Marlene decorated everything here after Daphne died”

“I had a feeling” Eugenie scratched her finger, eyeing the apple sauce next to the side lamp. She suddenly had so many needs. “It has a Greek vibe. A Mykonos vibe”

“Where is it?”

“Mykonos?” Geography teacher, she heard from nowhere in particular.

Barry sniffed loudly, “noh, your studio”

Eugenie had to think for a second, as she had traveled down the endless corridor of the base only twice and attempted to remember all the arrows and signs, “just under here, I think, like, in the corner of the building, the one stuck under the gigantic mountain” It was a marvel of minimalism, brutalism and hygge all at once.

“I want to see it”

“What, now?” Barry nodded, “Barry no, doctor said no moving”

“You know that Alphonse is not a real doctor, right”

“It’s common sense”

“That’s just something doctors say, even if you go to like, the dentist”

“I don’t think dentists say that”

“That’s just some…” It was interesting to see how easily Barry could slide back into his old high school ass character and how fond he was still of that guy after all these years. Eugenie remained unperturbed only because she had a lot of experience, “some story”

“We’ll go tomorrow” she found a carrot at the end of her stick. She knew he didn’t mean to go on a stroll at the moment as his energy was still at the depletion level; instead, he was just being a smart-ass, “besides, my cat’s sleeping right now, he had a big day” Before he could get more creative, she changed topics to her initial subject of interest, “I’m just worried, I suppose, that… I feel like I could become hired by the Team, like, accidentally, I mean”

“Hired as what?”

Entertainment, she thought. “A liability, maybe?”

Barry frowned like it was the most absurd thing on Earth, rolled a screw from his cube between his fingers like a cigarette, which, once more, reminded Eugenie that she craved one, “everyone loves you here, except Hobbes, ‘cause Hobbes hates most people. We know you have your uh… life and everything but right now we need to make sure as many people as possible are safe” What a way he had to use language to make it seem like he was saying something, while he was actually not saying anything at all. She had witnessed the birth and blossom of that skill in him, at a younger age. What many people was he talking about?

“Ngati oel munge soaiane”

“Hum?”

“Ngati oel munge soaiane” Barry repeated, “it means, I brought you into the family, in Navi’”

“in Navi’?”

“It’s from a song in Avatar 2”

“There is an Avatar 2 movie? Wait, you never validate that my mother tongue is Swedish but you had the time to learn Nav--”

"Shhh"

They both looked at the window, both in their different worlds of thoughts, absorbed by very opposing concerns. It was a trompe-l’oeil window, or it had been an actual window before Hobbes declared that the tower would be dug into the earth and shoved into a fucking mountain. From the surface, some water was seeping in long streaks against the glass, undulating as if under a spell, slowly-slowly. It could become entrancing, and Eugenie saw the memory pop inside her skull of the fortune teller’s message, ‘total surrender’ she had said above her card spread. There was a still life painting of an apricot in the sunset behind the woman, that Eugenie couldn’t forget, something unique and powerful. “As long as I can move back to my flat whenever I uh… wish” she said.

It was undoubtedly very difficult for Barry to give a damn about that preoccupation of hers, but he nodded with determination, “of course, but not now, ‘cause things are sticky, out there. Give it just a month, alr—”

“A month?” It was Eugenie’s turn to jump on her seat, “I was thinking, perhaps a week or something”

“Eugenie, t t t” Barry lifted his left hand to seize hers but he missed, he was still too slow. She thought about humoring him and letting him catch it next time, to reassure him, like people do with cats and the red laser dot or with small children at TicTac Toe. “I understand that you p p prefer your life to be announced to you in advance like, officially, but—”

“Actually, I wouldn’t have said it better”

He nodded, went on, “but right now, it’s one day at a time” He was speaking to her the same manner she had addressed him and the slowest students of her lessons, “you need to relax, everything is alright, here, no deci—” he sighed, exhausted, “deci—"

“Decisions, yes”

“Thank you— need to be made immediately”

“Okay”

She watched him draw a deep breath and retrieve the energy he needed to continue his discourse, “we will make the most of it, I will sh show you around, I will sh show you the trap doors, we will go to the surface and scout, there is a particular triangle spot, I know you are a big fan of triang—”

“Trap d— Oh my god, you are loving this! Barry you’re like, on a camping adventure, you’re—” she pretended to be surprised.

Their hands met while hers was flapping around and his was just suspended shakily, waiting to grab something. His thumb rubbed her palm encouragingly, “I try to… al always see the bright side of things”

Give up, just surrender, she fell into one of her and Barry’s mysterious eyelocks. During those moments, time could spend itself without an end and without a tremor, without an eyelash batting. Their subconscious selves --or higher ones, or souls-- were speaking in another dimension, which they knew they could never see, but a dimension that beat in unison with the hearts and rolled around their necks like silk scarves, enveloped their limbs like a sweater or like a womb. They said to each other, ‘you’re fucking with me’ and replied, ‘yes, yes of course’. They were speaking about things they couldn’t comprehend in the real world, and Eugenie sought to put an end to it as soon as possible, so she mouthed a silent yes to Barry.

“Are you going to eat that?” she asked about his puree.

“That? You’d eat that, wouldn’t you”

“Yeah” she smiled faking embarrassment, and faking to fake a doubtful shame.

Barry meant to reach for the little cup, but it was way too far, “aiille, damnit, you know we have some real food, here” he shook his head to himself, “you know we have some frozen pizza, we have sandw—”

She picked up the cup with exaggerated smoothness, “don’t stretch” she whispered, raising her eyebrows, before sitting back down, “I just really like apple sauce”

“That’s not apple sauce, that’s—” Barry grimaced, slid his hand under his arm to hold his chest together, “just a bunch of fake fruits. Man, I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, you know?”

She dug into the apples with the spoon, “just bullets” she joked, chewing, watching him get offended. He just looked at her with theatrical disappointment.

“You can have this pleasantry for the next ten years, Eugenie. Hilarious!”

“Only if you survive that long!”

“Oh that might mean that I need to keep you around, in that case. ‘Cause as soon as the exchange of fire starts, you just jump on me to shield me with your body” Now, Barry was really flying.

“I don’t remember that”

“You don’t remember what”

“I don’t remember any of that… moment” she said, developed, as she saw he was stunned, “it’s not so abnormal, to have some kind of amnesia after an episode of that… intensity” The apple in her mouth was sour, and the next was sweet. Barry was right, those were not real apples.

“By intensity you mean awesomeness”

“You’re saying that getting shot like a rabbit was awesome” she meant to trigger him.

“I’m saying. You flattening me like a pancake to save my life was epic”

She gulped the last apple, “I don’t remember it”

“It’s impossible”

“I’m sorry” she saw how distraught he suddenly seemed