Willard spent the next three weeks bedridden. His recovery this time had been much slower than the one after the cave-in, even though he had significantly fewer broken bones. For the first week he had fallen into a coma, and spent the rest of the days after waking in a constant state of falling in and out of sleep from his nightmares, drenched in both cold and hot sweat. He later found out that that little heat his body had almost completely stopped burning when he scrambled out of the tent without any cover. Him recovering from it was yet another miracle. Adrian had been by his bed most of the time, silent, staring at the ground as if he had nothing else to do. Willard could sense something in him, yet none of them spoke about it. Willard was too scared to ask what it was, afraid that Adrian would leave him too if he did.
For the most part, he thought of mother. He had tried his best to block out all his memories of her, yet they came flooding into him like some unstoppable current, carrying all the precious moments he thought he had forgotten. Why does one only realize just how much they’ve had until they’ve lost it? He had lain in bed, oblivious to the needles going in and out of him. There had been a time when he hated himself. He wanted to rip the skin on his face off, gouge out his eyes and bang his head on the walls until he couldn’t feel anything anymore. And he had tried to do so before the doctors rushed in and punched a sedative into his neck. Then for several days he had lain motionless in bed, hating god or whatever power that had controlled his life. Then for a frightening while he had hated mother herself for leaving him all by himself. But he couldn’t do anything about it, so in the end he fell limp, the fury completely gone from his chest, that little fire smothered.
People from the International Monitory Organization had taken over the procedures for search and rescue. Doctors and aids with tiny clipboards were coming and checking on him every few hours, some with cameras. Volunteers, by their looks, were using this opportunity to decorate their college portfolios. Through bits and pieces of talk from the patients going in and out of the tent, Willard pieced together the entire story. After he fell unconscious, the orb of light had descended upon Tak’Makahn and eradicated most of the buildings along with the people. Krummlae and his hunting crew that had been out pursuing the Marime-Beasts had returned to nothing. Willard wondered how he must have felt. On second thought, he didn’t care enough to find out.
The toppled truck had shielded him from the freezing winds all throughout the night. Still, by the time the rescuers came, his pulse was nearly nonexistent. He wasn’t grateful, though. Why couldn’t he just expire up there, amidst the snow and ice? It would’ve saved him a world of trouble. He’d scoff whenever he saw the tubes and needles in him. What’s all this for, when he was about to expire in a year or two anyway?
He was discharged from the hospital the third week and led to the lost-possessions lodge, where volunteers stored everything they picked up from the wreckages of each house. The person behind the vendor bars had handed him a small ziploc bag. It contained his badly burnt knife set (only a skinning knife was left usable), a broken slingshot with a snapped strand, one unfinished circuitboard (Willard’s felt a wrench in his guts at its sight), and a mug. An ugly, brown and green mug. Father’s mug. Now it was a reminder of mother.
He had attended a mandatory community meeting for the leftover Ferans, some group-vote-discussion about what everyone would do from then on out. There weren’t a lot left. Those who showed up were either tending their own cellars or had been drinking on the low-hanging platforms under the dead Alpaco tree. That said, Rom was there, and he had tried once again to rally the townsfolk against Willard. The main evidence he latched onto was Willard’s ‘suspicious sister’ and his ‘secret meetings with Shades’, the latter successfully raising several eyebrows. Willard gave up explaining. He felt it way too pointless and tiring to try to convince them otherwise. So he admitted to everything—both the accusations and the questions—packed his bags, and left.
He didn’t have a taste for Ferah after all. After living nearly two-decade’s in this downtrodden town, stepping away was much easier than he expected. There were no emotional fluctuations. No regrets, no reluctance, nothing. It was like finishing a meal. A bland meal, with no attractive flavors to make one crave more. He had had that meal for a long time now, and had nearly choked on it. A part of him was relieved to be finally spared of this monotony. Plus, the decision to stay or not, in the end, wouldn’t really matter.
Willard sat behind Adrian as the decrepit lift took them up to the train station. After Willard returned his and Adrian’s residency chips, the brothers had been assigned a temporary lodging at one of the emergency housing units in one of the Harvest-Station towns near the southern coastline where they could stay for two weeks. The I.M.O would pay for all their expenditures during that time, as well as a one-way trip to whichever place they wanted. After that, they’d be on their own. Tak’Makahn was no more. Ferah would be converted into a purely industrial district, like Samwell had predicted. The old was gone, and the new would be ugly.
“You’re late,” Willard said. There was no strength to his words. A statement of fact, not of blame. He didn’t even know why he said it at all. For a few days he thought he had lost the ability to speak, as all that came out of his mouth were unintelligible gurglings.
“I set Rose free.”
Rose. That was mother’s broken-winged Shodra. One of the most terrifying Sorissian birds of prey, Rose had found itself onto Jamel street with a broken wing on a dim Tuesday morning. Anyone else would’ve picked it up, plucked it, sold the feathers and made a feast out of its flesh. But mother had insisted on nursing it back to health, keeping it in a tiny burrow under one of the Alpaco tree stumps. Now…like everyone else, it was gone, and he’d never see it again.
The train clammered into the station. The two boarded without exchanging a single word, and sat opposite each other with Willard’s back to the train’s head. They had no luggage save a small traveling rucksack Adrian had found in the wreckage and a crude bag Willard fashioned out of a large Sorissian scarf. Give him a long enough stick and he could make a bindle with it. The two were on their own now. Before, Willard knew he had a place to return to, someone to look for. Now there was nothing. Like the train, he had plunged headfirst into a world of bleakness. The two sat in silence as Willard stared out the window. A curious thought came to him: Small Spring would be at its peak in Bagiraek, while blizzandromes would continue to pound Sorissu.
“Brother,” Adrian finally murmured. Willard cast a glance at him, though it took considerable effort to move his eyes from the whiteness outside. He wished he could just melt into it.
Seeing as Willard did not respond, Adrian continued, “I don’t blame you.”
Willard was silent. He stared at Adrian as if seeing something out of a dream, a fog over his eyes. Adrian continued.
“I had a…long time to think these past two weeks,” he said, crossing his fingers, “and I don’t blame you for what happened.”
“What?” Willard whispered, the word barely audible to himself.
“I was angry, you knew that. I wanted to blame everything on you. But…it’s also my fault. I shouldn’t have agreed to your request….I…I couldn’t even carry her down the stairs, for all I’m worth…” he trailed off at the last part, sniffed and looked up in an attempt to stop the tears from flowing.
Willard stared at him.
Adrian shook his head, “I want you to snap out of it.”
Willard did not respond.
“What happened has happened. Quit…” He grit his teeth. “Quit living in the past. You’re not dead yet, so don’t stare at me like that.”
“…the past?” Willard managed. “Wha…what do you mean, the past? You sayin’ she’s already in the past, now? That everything I’ve ever hoped for, ever worked for; everyone I’ve ever loved is in the past, that’s what you’re sayin’?!”
“You know what I mean,” Adrian answered flatly, “mom wouldn’t want to see you like this.”
Willard slammed his hand down on the small table between them. The noise in the compartment died, and several pairs of eyes turned towards him.
“You…she…she mightn’t even be…someone could’ve come for her,” Willard stammered, “they could’ve taken her away before that thing struck. We’ll just need to find her, that’s all. She…she might be in a coma somewhere…” his voice became smaller and smaller as he realized just how ridiculous he sounded.
“…I barely got out alive.” Adrian rolled up his right sleeve, revealing a light red, fern-like pattern warped around the base on his shoulder all the way to his wrist. The sight of it wrenched Willard’s heart.
“Everything started burning and…something went through the pipe, got me right here. After that, she forbade me from using that arm. And when the roof started coming down…” He gulped, in a desperate attempt to keep the sobs back, “she pushed me out of the room and locked the door. I don’t…I don’t even know how she did it. If that damned chair would’ve just worked, we could’ve-”
“Stop,” Willard said, the lump in his throat choking him, “it’s not your fault.”
“She told me to take care of you,” Adrian said. “It was her last request. I can’t do that if I can’t…if you don’t even talk. Get it together, man. You’re not dead. Get it out of your head.”
You’ve betrayed them.
“Sorry…sorry,” Willard whispered, giving up, his head hanging down. “I…I just need more time, that’s all.” More time to forget about mother’s death and start working again. To start providing, once more.
In a blink, the light from outside was gone, replaced by the darkness of a mountain tunnel.
I’ve betrayed them, and nothing will go back the way it was, ever.
The two were silent for the remainder of the fifteen-hour train ride. Some time after dusk, Adrian got up and returned with two RohCubes: small, tasteless sugar cubes advertised to replenish all the nutrients one needs for a day. Willard chewed on the tiny block, his eyes fixed on the outside.
Why do people still eat regular meals, when they have these cubes? It’s more efficient. Equally filling. Cheap. Why didn’t they just do away with regular meals?
It was no use, no matter how much he tried to distract himself from the hopelessness within. So he closed his eyes. In the darkness of his head, he could almost hear himself whimpering:
Someone, hold me. Hold me close to your heart so I can hear it beat. Hold my head and whisper in my ear that everything was alright. Give me the strength to open my eyes. Give me the courage to face tomorrow’s darkness. Just don’t leave. Please don’t leave.
It was a childish desire that stemmed from the bottom of his heart. Like a little seed that had fallen into a concrete road, cracking it as it sprouted. The lights of the compartment had dimmed as time reached midnight, and most passengers had fallen asleep, including Adrian. Willard stared at his light silhouette in the dark. What would it be like if he had also lost him? Willard shuddered.
All hugs would inevitably part.
Willard wondered again what he had done to deserve this. He had been a loyal citizen. A good son. A responsible brother. A kind person, in all the word’s definitions. But in some twisted humor, it seemed as though he got punished the more he struggled. Why couldn’t he just lie down somewhere and have a nice, long rest?
Adrian woke as the train rolled into the terminal station the next morning, and was startled to see Willard staring at him with downcast, emotionless, tired eyes. He did not inquire about it, and the two silently descended the train.
Harvest Station A6 was even shabbier than Ferah, built atop a colossal natural-gas reserve on the wasteland plains, somewhere not even the scavengers bothered to visit. A set of antique ultrasound projectors was all that protected the small settlement from the Sorissian wilderness. On the other hand, nothing protected it from the cold. Crooked houses with peeling paint and jagged windows were scattered unevenly throughout the near nonexistent settlement grid. The smell of rotting meat permeated the air as black smoke billowed out of the refinery’s chimneys at the settlement’s center, sending charred magnet dust into the air to slowly drift down like snow. Following the address on the business card the I.M.O agent had given Willard, Adrian made his way through the muddy streets, the burning trash containers and the groups of beggars huddled together for warmth, glancing multiple times behind his head to make sure Willard still had his mask on until the two eventually reached the standardized housing container units. Decommissioned cargo containers, similar to those of weather-monitoring stations and field hospitals, had been refashioned as temporary lodgings. Four stacked on top of each other, with five rows to one building. Combined, they made the second tallest structure in A6, the first being the giant cooling tower by the old refinery.
The woman at the reception cast a questioning glance at Willard when he stayed back, letting Adrian approach with the business card. Willard looked away.
The room was small, with only space for one bed and a stool beside it. Adrian threw his bag on the ground and turned to Willard.
“Wanna fight for it?” He grinned, pointing at the bed. He wasn’t very good at faking expressions. Willard shook his head.
“You take it. I’m going to look around.” He turned and shuffled out of the room. Adrian shot out his hand and pulled the door open before Willard could shut it.
“You should sleep.”
“I don’t want to.”
“You didn’t sleep on that train, right? You need rest.”
“I need fresh air.”
“I wouldn’t call this air ‘fresh’.”
Willard stared at him, not wanting to respond. There wasn’t anything he wanted to do. Actually, there was one thing, but he was ashamed to tell Adrian what it was.
Seeing as Willard had gone silent, Adrian put on his most cheerful, confident smile. “So! What’ll we do now?”
“I’m still working on that.” Willard tried his best to cover the hurt in his voice. Adrian shouldn’t be putting on anything.
“…oh. Alright, alright. I’m counting on you.” He gave Willard a thumbs-up.
Willard stared at him for a few more seconds. “Lock the door and open it only if you hear my voice,” he finally said, turning his back to him and walking down the shaky steel stairs on the side of the building. Down at the reception he asked the woman where the bar was, and she shot him an angry, disappointed look. Willard, tired of seeing that gaze, turned and walked out without bothering to ask a second time.
As it turned out, he did not need to ask again, for the bar was the most prominent place in town. The only building that had lights on the outside, it was a small establishment no larger than Sunnyset Diner. Yet there were dozens of people outside, supposedly begging for drinks from the few who came out of the bar’s revolving doors, and spitting on the ground when they were ignored. Willard pushed two out of his way and entered.
It might be because the insides went underground, but the actual bar appeared much larger than from the outside, though it still contained pretty much everything one would expect from a typical hype-house of a fifth-rate settlement town. Blaring music, disco balls, two counters filled with all sorts of bottled drinks on either side. Only difference was, there was no one on the dance floor, no one playing poker on the tables, and only a two lousy bums on the bar stools by the right counter. For so many to be on the outside, it was almost disheartening seeing how few customers there actually were.
The projector on the ceiling was broadcasting the latest news in Bagiraek.
“Armed personnel…Syncorps manufacturing facility destroyed…retaliation suppressed…Gerang Coalition has opened international conference…the Holy Capital, Jeris, not present…” the tiny speaker buzzed over the music.
Willard cut across to the right, pulled himself onto a stool and showed the bartender behind the counter the IMO card, the sight of which drew a light frown on her face. However, she quickly fixed her expression and beamed at him.
“I haven’t seen you before,” she said, going over to him in one, smooth motion without bobbing. Willard shook his head slightly without answering.
“What can I get you, sir?”
Willard got the feeling she was not used to addressing people with honorifics.
“Anything strong,” he murmured.
“Oh, they’re all strong here. You’d have to be more specific than that.” She grinned, her teeth a pristine white. Perhaps even whiter than Mia’s.
“…right, then. One that makes me forget something important.”
“That’s more like it.” She pushed herself from the counter and went to work picking bottles of all shapes and sizes off the shelves. Something glistened in Willard’s eyes, and he glanced at her legs. From the knee-down, everything turned a burnished silver, stopping at her calves with two slim wheels on either side of her legs.
“It’s rude to stare, y’know.“ She glided over, a shaker slotted below her chest, her hands pouring several tiny cups of liquid into it. All of that, combined with her tight worksuit that brought out the prominent S-curve of her waist, made for an unaturally alluring sight. Under normal circumstances Willard would have blushed, yet now he simply stared blankly at the shaker.
“Oh…sorry.”
She paused, her mischievous grin vanishing for an instant before reappearing again.
“OI! JUNE! GIMME ‘NOTHER!” The man two seats from him, previously drooling with his head on the counter, suddenly shot up and banged his glass on the table. His chest was bared, and Willard caught a glimpse at his flabby rolls of fat.
“Yes yes, sweetheart,” the girl crooned, snatched the glass up, filled it under one of the three taps by the counter and slid it back.
“…hic…heh heh…you’re the best.” He flicked her a teardrop token. She caught it in midair and blew him a kiss, and he hooted with laughter. He drained the contents of his mug in one go as Willard watched in mild fascination, then collapsed onto the counter again.
“Where were we?” She turned back to Willard. The bottles in her hand had vanished, replaced by the shaker. Willard blinked. Just a moment ago it had been on her chest. “June, by the way.”
“Really?” Willard blurted. He had heard somewhere that club-workers used aliases instead of real names to avoid…nosy customers. He didn’t know why that piece of useless information came back to him now, and even less so as to why he had bothered to asked.
“Maybe, but that’s all you’re gonna get outta me right now.” She laughed, tossing the shaker high up in the air, catching it at the last second and spinning it around her arms like a professional acrobat. Willard marveled at how she handled it, not expecting such grace from a common barmaid. In one fluid motion, she capped off the shaker’s lid and poured its contents into a rectangular rocks glass. With the same hand-wave as she did with the drunk man, she placed the glass on the opposite end of the counter and slid it across to Willard, who caught it right before it could fall off.
“So! First time?” she said as Willard glanced at the dense, lemon-colored liquid in the glass.
Willard stared at her.
“First time boozin’?”
Willard nodded.
She laughed. “How old are you? Not a drop? No? No wayyyyyy…..I don’t buy it.”
Willard sighed, too tired for further conversation.
“Is that so……why now, then? Why here?” She drifted over to the opposite end of the counter to pour someone there a drink, then skated back to him.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Willard held the glass up, ignoring the question. “Will this kill me if I drink it?”
The girl studied him, her grin returning all of a sudden.
“There’s always a first for everything, right?”
Willard put the cup to his lips, and downed its contents in one gulp. To his surprise, the drink was sweet, but not pungent. Instead of the expected burning sensation on his tongue, it was welcomed by a mellow caress as the liquid slid down his throat, assuaging the invisible lump that had crystallised there. He felt hot all of a sudden, as if he were enveloped by his soft, warm blanket back home. The world spun around him, and that tranquil sensation one gets the few seconds before they fall asleep seeped into his head. His nerves eased, the pain in his chest dulled, and his entire body turned lighter than a feather. Lighter than air. Then the effects passed and his vision focused again.
The girl watched him in silence, amusement perched on her heart-shaped lips.
“Well? How was it?” She slid over to the other side and caught the empty glass that another customer pushed down as they rolled in their sleep. The guy fell off the bar stool, but continued snoring on the floor.
“It was…it…” Willard stared at the drunk man, struggling to find the word for it.
“Pretty neat, huh? My special. Always works. And here”—she swept up the IMO card, leaned over the counter and tucked it into Willard’s chest pocket—“my treat. For your grievances.”
“…how did you know?” Willard said, massaging his neck. The drink had done something to him, he was unusually jumpy.
“I recognize depression when I see it,” she tilted her head sideways.
“I’m not depressed.”
“And I’m not a hype-gal.” She shrugged, her back turned to him while she returned several bottles to the shelf.
Willard shifted his position on the bar stool. The scar on his back had begun to itch, though not from nervousness. Irritation, perhaps. No one would understand what he’s been through.
“Oh yeah?” He raised his glass for her to pour him another drink.
“Not a lot of people come, as you see.” She filled the glass half full, to Willard’s disappointment. “A6’s crawlin’ with thousands of dry workers who burn themselves away. Those who do stop by for a glass or two, well, let’s just say they either gave up on life and came to drink their brains out, or came here in a last ditch effort to gamble what little they have away.”
Willard raised the cup to his lips and emptied it in one go again, shutting his eyes as the calmness washed over him. Maybe it was because there had been less liquor this time, but that fleeting feeling of numbness disappeared much faster than the first time.
“These people, they don’t know why they’re still here. Looks to me like they’re consciously wasting their lives away. And they get sad because they know it. Depressed. Most of them are pinned here by debt. Some are Bagiraek expats with failed work-cycles, but most inherited it from their parents. I pity them.”
Willard glanced up with annoyance at her words. What did she know of life’s struggles? Her cheerfulness and vigor were no doubt the result of being shielded from the outside world by the roof of this stale cocktail lounge. “What do you know of it?” His words came more bitter than he intended.
“More than you’d expect.” She chuckled, set the shaker to one side, pulled out a rag from under the counter and started cleaning the cup she’d caught from the fallen customer. Willard stared at the shaker, wanting more. Yet his annoyance at this girl had flared up and he felt obliged to defend himself.
“So! What’s up with you?” she said before he could start. “Planning on staying for long?”
“Don’t know. Don’t wanna talk.” Willard leaned forwards and rested his chin on his arms. He didn’t feel like talking, not to anyone anymore. It would simply amount to unnecessary pain.
“It’s always better to talk about it.” She shrugged, punching a series of numbers into a tiny pad by the beer tap. “That’s the whole point why people come here, anyway. They talk, drink, talk some more, and drink until they forget everything. Then the next thing they look at the receipt, whine, and drink until they forget their blunders in the day before all over again. That’s how I get paid extra.”
“Cunning plan you’ve got.”
“Oh, I’m nothing BUT cunning,” she bowed proudly, gliding over to Willard’s side and leaning forward so her nose was right above his brow. She smelled like fresh flowers from a deep summer Alpaco bloom. An uninvited desire to just reach up and kiss her lips sprouted in Willard’s mind. A beastly impulse. Inhibitions, desires, none of that mattered to him now. He wanted to do whatever he wanted. But he couldn’t do whatever he wanted. In that sense, he wanted to do nothing.
Why was he here? To drink. Why? To rid himself of the pain and worry. Why could he still feel these emotions? Because he still needed to take care of Adrian. If not for him, he would’ve buried himself somewhere already.
“Wha’cher name?” she whispered, her voice so low it felt like the two were sharing a secret only they were supposed to know.
“W...Price.”
“No no. First name.”
“Willard.”
“Alright. Will, then.” She pulled back, suddenly speaking at normal volume again. “Seeing as I likely won’t be getting any customers for the night, tell me about yourself. So I can know about it.” She made a clicking sound in her mouth.
“Why do you care?”
“I’m bored.” She flashed him the biggest, most innocent grin he’d seen in his life.
Willard sighed and switched off TimeScale. It couldn’t hurt talking about pain, after all. This might as well be his Mara-Tafji. The girl hoisted herself onto the counter, took off her wheels and stacked them neatly on top of each other. Without them, her lower body ended abruptly at her calf, making her body out-of-proportion. Willard wondered how she’d lost her legs, and why she opted for such an inconvenient replacement.
“Well? Don’t mind me. Think of me as a potato.” She poked his shoulder. “Tell this potato about yourself.”
And so, Willard started. The words came out slow at first, like children, unwilling to go out the door on a snowy day. He took her back to the furthest point he could remember from his childhood, that day on the highest peak in Bagiraek. He recalled fondly the smell, the wind, the sea, and the cloudless skies. He hesitated about whether he should skip his conversation with mother, ultimately deciding against it. He talked about every minute detail, reluctant to move on to the next memory. When he eventually did, his words became faster, and he talked about the nights on the stowaway boat to Sorissu, not thinking of anything but the experience. He gulped down the lump in his throat when he talked about finding Mia on the front porch, his words fast as if they wanted to get by as soon as possible. He talked about Adrian’s birth and his first Hemani-Nnussan baptism. He talked about the first human death he saw on a hunting trip with Krummlae. He talked about that night when a Meeko prank went wrong and nearly burned down the entire building. By the time he reached the part where father left, his sentences had become fragmented, incoherent to anyone but himself. Yet the girl nodded reassuringly, and he continued. Talking, barely thinking, just words out of his mouth. The projector’s hologram turned from blaring Bagiraek news, to advertisements, to real-estate sales, to a game show, then to political commentaries regarding Jeris the Holy Capital, then back to Bagiraek news. Willard did not pause when all the other customers had picked themselves up and left, only stopping occasionally to drink when the girl refilled his glass. Always half-full. He talked about the cave-in, how he had thought he’d seen something in the dark; he talked about Mia’s return, like a ghost preserved in time, and how quickly she’d vanished from his life again. He was sweating as he talked, as if his words were a mental burden. By the time he reached the events of the Makobi festival they had become a frantic blubbering, shot out from his mouth like the bullets of a railgun. The girl stopped him. He panted and looked at her, dazed, thankful at first for pulling him out of this trance then remembering she had been the one who had brought him into it.
“Slow down,” she said, “you’re gonna forget if you go that fast.”
“Wha—” Willard said, “what did you do? I came here to forget it. Now everything’s backwards….what did y-what did you do?” He whimpered, slamming his palm on the counter and pulling back, shocked by his anger.
“I listened.” Still the same amused smile, the same half-lidded eyes.
Their gazes met. Indeed, she was still sitting on the counter, in the same position as she was when he had started. The shaker was completely empty, his glass gone, and his forehead a mess of sweat. The bar had turned all the lights off save the neon LEDs behind the bottle shelves. How long had he talked? An hour? Two hours? He was drained himself. Yet she remained there, her large, electric-blue pupils focused on his. Something warm welled up inside him, different from the one induced by the booze.
She had stayed.
None of the people he knew stayed. Impermanence was constant. Everyone just walked in and melted out of his life, taking a bit of him away with them. First there was Mia, then there was father, then there was his friends in the cave-in, then Mia, coming back and vanishing in a week’s time. When he saw her, he had gotten his hopes up, feeling like the pieces of himself were returning, only to have it completely shattered. There was Adrian, but Willard loved him too much to share his burden. Then mother was gone. It had finally snapped something in him, something that was already on the verge of breaking. They were shadows rushing by, not stopping, not pausing. Or perhaps he was the shadow, whipping past everything that ever held meaning to him like a relentless freight train into the night.
“…Will?” the girl asked, her voice filled with concern. She pointed at something on his cheek. Willard reached out, touched his chin, found it, felt the wetness on his fingertip. A single drop was all there was.
“Sorry,” Willard sniffed, wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He glanced at her and smiled, the muscles on his cheeks moving on their own. “I’ll go slower.”
And so he started again, from that night on the lift with Mia. He forced himself to talk about everything: his feelings, his subconscious thoughts, even his momentary arousal at her presence. He talked of Krummlae, of Samwell, of Rom, of anyone he could think of that had been a passer-by in his life. He talked about the meeting with the Shades, his conversations with Adrian. On and on, all the way until his departure from Ferah. When he finished, he took a long breath of air, and let it out slowly. He was pleased with himself, like a child who had procrastinated until the last second finally finishing their work, work they didn’t even know they had up until recently. He turned to the girl who was still there, staring intently at his face.
“That’s all, I think,” he said, seeing as she did not speak.
“That’s quite a life you’ve led, Willard Price,” she mused after several seconds of silence.
“Thank you,” Willard blushed, scratching his head, “and…sorry. I’ve droned on for way too long.”
“Not at all!” She grinned. “On the contrary, I’m no longer bored.” She hopped down the counter and fitted the two wheels back onto her calves, rising with two spins like a practiced ballerina. Energetic, as if she hadn’t sat in the exact position for the several hours. Willard watched as she opened a drawer below the counter and pulled on a yellow quilted jacket, humming a strange little tune in a language he has never heard of before. In twenty seconds she was fully dressed, a satchel slung over her right shoulder. Willard switched TimeScale back on. Five-fifty two in the morning. The girl glided out from the counter and gave him a pat.
“Come on! Let’s talk a bit more on the way back.” She winked.
Willard grinned, delighted at her request. He pulled on his own jacket and followed her through the side door, putting on their masks and striding through the quiet, deserted streets. Willard noticed she was moving her legs like she still had feet, adjusting the speed of the wheels with each “step”. The desire to ask her about them grew stronger.
“I’m really June, by the way. It’s my real name,” she said.
“Is that right?” Willard chuckled, “clever.”
The two walked past the rows and rows of unaligned houses, June stopping and telling Willard the stories of the owners behind each door. Willard walked in silence beside her, smiling slightly to himself and chuckling at her jokes. She was a brilliant fireball, and in many a sense, similar to the Mia he remembered. When they reached the Temporary-Housing-Units, Willard told her he didn’t feel like resting, and would accompany her a bit further, to which her only response was a knowing grin. And so the two went on, June with her hands behind her head. Eventually, the two of them exited the residential district, to Willard’s surprise. She simply laughed and told him she lived far from any of the trash and filth on the ground. When they passed a rusted statue of Makobi battling a two-headed serpent and June yawned, Willard decided to break his silence.
“June. I’ve been wondering. Why did you do it?”
She finished yawning, “Eh? Did what?”
“Put up with my rambling for all that time.”
“First of all, you ain’t rambling.” She gave him a playful push, though her voice was reprimanding. “The things you told me were beautiful. And secondly, never call speaking about something as precious as your life ‘rambling’.”
“You sound like my mother.” Willard chuckled, then suddenly he felt curious. “Actually, how old are you?”
“Pfffph! It’s rude to ask a girl her age, y’know.” She stuck her tongue. She looked even more like Mia, in that sense.
“Sorry, sorry.”
“And stop apologizing!” She laughed.
Willard forced his mouth shut before he could respond with another customary ‘sorry’, and hid it behind a smile whilst June gazed at him with her large, round eyes. If Mia’s eye had been a bottomless abyss that swallowed his reflection, June’s eyes brought them back out like the water on a waveless sea.
“I like you,” she said, raising one brow and nodding at him, her playful smile still written across her face.
“Yeah, yea-what?“ Willard’s ears grew bright red, redder than it had been in the coldest Sorissian blizzard.
“You asked why I chose to listen, right?”
Willard stopped in his tracks. June turned, puzzled.
“What do you mean?”
“I meant what I said. You’re not the broken man you think you are, Willard Price.” She waved at him to start moving. “I was jus’ doing m’job at first, but, well… your story…let’s just say it touched me in all the right places.” She winked, stating it in a matter-of-fact manner, not blushing or even turning remotely red in the face.
Willard was about to respond when a shadow came over him. Looking up, he saw the body of a giant cooling tower that rose high into the sky. He glanced back and realized they had walked out of the commercial district into what can only be described as a worn-down, abandoned block of the old industrial district. The old factory windows were broken, no smoke coming out from the cooling tower. There was a small service elevator fixed to its side, and June zoomed right towards it.
“Hey! Where’re we going?” Willard shouted behind her.
“Wanna show you summin’!” June held the door for him. The two squeezed into the small lift, evidently designed to transport only one person. Willard felt her shoulders pressed against his chest, and he got unbearably hot. The elevator shook, and shot up, vibrating to the rhythmic hums of the cable outside.
“…but we’ve only just met,” Willard said after they rose several dozen meters above ground.
“I don’t think that makes any differences, though?” She smiled back with those impossibly large eyes. The urge to reach down and bring his lips to hers resurfaced.
“I’m grateful for everything you’ve done today, don’t get me wrong, but…isn’t this a bit too…sudden?”
“Everything’s sudden in life, man.” She shifted her wheels to one side so Willard’s legs got more space. “I can shut my eyes today and not open them again tonight. I know you get what I mean. If you don’t get everything you want to get out of yourself out now, you mightn’t get another chance later. We pass our days without knowing what we’re doing, and become sad about it when we finally do. None of us live like we know we would die. Decelerate just a little, and you’ll realize that happiness exists within your own grasp.” She gave his left shoulder a pat. “You being here rather than in one of those crate-houses is proof of that.”
Willard’s lips drew into a thin line. Was he happy? Had he been happy at all? He certainly was when he recounted his childhood. But was he happy now? He wasn’t sure. A day before he had been hopeless, too tired to do anything, his body dragging his heart behind it. Now he wasn’t sure. There were so many things he knew he should do, yet here he was, blushing sheepishly beside a girl he had just met, on his way up to god-knows-where.
“But that’s…selfish.”
“No, it’s called treating yourself right.”
“I don’t…”
“You see this ride?” June said, swiveling her head around in the tight space of the elevator. “We could either be silent through the whole ride and poke each other with our elbows, hoping for it to be over soon, or we can laugh, joke, and make a good time out of it. It’s alllllll about perspective. The future haven’t existed yet, and the past has…well…already passed. What matters is the now, but it seems to me that you’re ignoring it.”
“I wish I had your energy.”
“Ha! You’re not even that old, man. You’ve got a burning, bright life before you.”
“And I’ve also got a burning, blackened lung in my chest.”
“That’s just all the more reason to live, see?” She clicked her tongue. “It’s about tasting. You ought to go through life the same way you taste a drink. Slowly. With the very tip of your tongue. Yet you, along with everyone else, just seem to down everything in one go.” She scratched at the rust on the elevator handrails with her nails, “I’m not blaming any of you. You’re why the Vestiges made people like me. Oh! we’re here.”
Vestiges?
The elevator shook to a stop, and she threw the manual doors open. TimeScale beeped six-forty-seven. It was a snowless day, and the winds howled somewhere below the curved path on the top rim of the cooling tower. June squeezed out under Willard’s arm onto the ground, and he followed, careful with his step. The only thing stopping him from slipping and tumbling down two hundreds meters of concrete were two split-rail fences on either side with holes large enough on the bottom to slide through. The sky had turned brighter, a low shade of purple seeping through between lighter layers of gray.
“Hey! You’re gonna freeze if you stay still like that! Come on!” She laughed, zooming across the snowy path, turning, and then zooming back to Willard’s side. Willard took a cautious step forward, wanting to grab hold of the railings but afraid of the large gaps underneath. He ended up shuffling forward like an amateur tightrope walker. June stared at him, and a mischievous grin curled up his lips. She shot out her hand, facing Willard. “Hold me.”
“What?” Willard forced himself to look forward, not at the ground several hundred meters below his feet.
“Grab my hands, man!” She shot out her arms and beckoned with her palms to the sky.
It wasn’t until Willard had both hands clasped with hers in the shape of two “C”s that he realized what she was going to do. June leaned back, her center of gravity lowering as Willard was pulled forward, their arms and legs forming the outline of an inverted pyramid.
“Oh no. Ab-so-lutely not. Don’t you even th-”
The inertia from her sudden burst of speed ripped the words from Willard’s mouth. She was zooming back in reverse, not bothering to look behind her, pulling Willard along. The ice underneath his shoes had made the ground seamless, a perfectly smooth surface to skate on, and he was dragged forward, holding onto her hands for dear life, the howling of the wind and the pounding of his heart mixed in his ears as he shot across the icy path. In ten seconds they were on the other end of the cooling tower, June guffawing at Willard’s shrieks. Finally, she slowed to a halt as the ice faded down below. Their hands still together, she pulled Willard up.
“Didn’t think that’d work!” she exclaimed, an ecstatic look in her eyes.
“Please don’t do anything…that crazy…ever again.” Willard felt the nausea rising into his throat, shot up his forefinger to indicate he wasn’t finished, rushed to the fence on the outer side, and spewed all the drinks he had for the night over the ledge. He wiped his mouth, put both hands on his knees and had a long, nice breath of air.
“Shit, man. I didn’t think you’d…damn. I’m so sorry. I should’ve…” June started.
“No, no. It’s fine. I’m just not used to going twenty-five miles an hour…two hundred meters in the sky, that’s all.” Willard panted, taking a longer time than he expected to stand up.
Hearing that, her grin returned. “But you gotta admit, that was pretty awesome.”
“It was certainly…something.” Willard smiled, looking to his right at the tiny rectangle that had been the elevator door. He suddenly realized, despite the fright he had felt of the near-death experience just then, he hadn’t been this free in a long, long time. Standing right here in front of this giant ball of unpredictability without the need to consider how much quotas he’d have to meet the next day to keep his job anymore. Sure, he’d have to get another job eventually, but right now was the time when he felt the lightest, when everything still lay undecided.
“Here, put these on.” She threw him a set of goggles bulkier than helmets from her satchel. They were crudely made, with pieces of red wiring sticking out from the eye seals. “It’s gonna happen soon.”
Willard shrugged, stared at the bundle of wires and meshing, and stuffed his head in it. It was a surprisingly good fit, as it it had been designed for someone his age. To his side, he heard June punch something into her numpad. Then the screen glitched, flickered, and switched on.
“What do you see?”
“Uh…nothing, at the moment. Says at the corner it’s running some system diagnostics.”
“Good, good. That’s supposed to happen. How about now?”
Suddenly, an image flicked into view. There was something gray, like wool, on the bottom of the screen, that occupied half of the image. The upper half was of a clear, blue shade. It took some time for Willard to realize he was staring at the sky, the real sky, above the hundreds of meters of cloud. Not even the sky on Makobi’s day was this blue.
“The projector’s connected to the cameras on the weather-monitor balloons.”
“Aren’t those Triumglate property?” Willard stared intently at the streaks of scarlet red from the horizon line, “you could get ten year’s worth if they spot you hack these.”
“Eh, they hardly care about them. Plus, I’m a professional. Now shhh, here it comes.”
TimeScale beeped six-fifty-five. The scarlet melted quickly away into a vermillion, then to a dark orange, and finally, on the furthermost edges of the skyline, a thousand beams of light shot out, dancing on top of the clouds. Though clearer than he had expected, it was nothing he hadn’t seen before.
“Woah. I didn’t know dawn could look t-”
“Keep looking.”
Willard squinted at the brilliant light far away as it slowly rose above the clouds. Just then, a black shadow burst past the right edge of the screen. Then another. Then several more. Then a swarm of black filled most of the screen. Tracking the first shadow, Willard recognized the signature wing-motion of the Shodra: two flaps, a third three seconds later. The shadows were gone from the screen, and Willard saw hundreds, if not thousands of them, swarming together like a school of fish, an arrow shooting across the morning sky.
“But they aren’t supposed to be social animals…” he murmured to himself, dazed by the spectacle.
Then something semi-transparent filled with screen, as if a shadow had been cast onto the camera. Before Willard could ask, the blue sky on the top half of the screen was replaced by a yellowish whiteness, bursting forward so fast it shook the camera. It took several seconds for the entire animal to be fully shown on screen. Three sets of fins on its disk-shaped body, its elongated neck twisting like a snake, the creature reminded Willard of the recreated Plesiosaurus models he’d seen in the Gallith Museum when he was still a child, except it was nearly as big as a Boran Songwhale. Maybe even bigger. How can something so large even be airborne without wings? It was as if it was cruising the air like water, bobbing up and down to the steady flaps of its fins. Willard watched as the the titan swam through the sky, chasing the school of Shudra until both disappeared behind the clouds. The entire sequence took less than thirty seconds, but to Willard it felt as though he had been gazing for a lifetime, a sudden reluctance biting at the edges of his heart when June helped him take the helmet off. The sight of it burrowed deep into his memory, an experience that would dwarf all others he had made in Sorissu, even the dark time stuck underground.
“What…was that?”
“A gift,” she mused. “Something to remember me by.“ She stuffed the helmet back into her satchel and leaned on the fence rails facing the outer rim.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Willard shrugged.
Yet.
“No, not right now, you’re not. But you will. We’ll all be going places soon, never stuck anywhere for long.” She stared at the A6 below them, the gray dot amidst the bleakness. “We’re always moving on. People change with circumstances, and that’s why you think everything’s fleeting.”
“June, who are you?” She seemed so young, so full of life. Yet at the same time she had the tone of the hag on the roof.
“A potato.” She grinned. “Didn’t I tell you? Come, let’s get back down, now that you’ve seen what you needed to see.” She shot her arms out at him, her faraway stare replaced by a playful innocence. “Feeling brave?”