an instant photo of a cinema [https://i0.wp.com/theendandtheinstant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Instax6-White-min.jpeg?w=1500&ssl=1]
Oli holds up the next photograph to Lark. “I know you’re not like a portrait artist here, but I need to know the backstory for this one. Is it a memento from the first time you saw Mission Impossible? Were you a huge Da Vinci Code fan?”
Lark laughs at that. “Yeah. Growing up, I always wanted to be a Professor of Symbology, so The Da Vinci Code was a huge inspiration for me.”
It takes Oli a moment to see that Lark is joking, his humor so dry as to be nearly undetectable.
“I actually didn’t see it,” Lark says. “When we were leaving, we drove through the town I grew up in. I took a picture of the movie theatre while we were stopped at a light. I don’t know. I guess I thought it would be the last time I’d be there.”
Of course, it hasn’t worked out that way. Lark is living there now, back in his hometown. Sleeping in his childhood bedroom. There were years, though, between his attempted escape and his return. In some ways, it is a different place. The old movie theatre, at least, is closed. Now there is a farmer’s market in its parking lot every Saturday during the summer.
“I guess you never know where the road will take you,” Oli says.
Lark agrees with that. His parents often ask him what his “plan” is. He never has an answer for them, usually feeling that the idea is meaningless. Nothing he planned for has ever worked out the way he expected, and even the most carefully planned route took him to destinations he didn’t wholly anticipate or understand.
“I used to think life would be a series of choices,” he tells Oli. “And I would know what they were, and I would make the right ones to keep me…I don’t know. Happy? Away from here, anyway. But really, it feels like, I don’t know.” Lark makes a gesture with his hand, straight ahead, time speeding away from him in a straight line. “It feels like a tunnel. Like I don’t make any choices, I can’t take any turns. Things just happen.”
“Well, if time is simultaneous…” Oli murmurs. He often wants to connect his feelings to the existential crisis of physics, but knows there’s a terror in that for some people. Lark might not benefit from the vastness and meaninglessness of space, not if all he wants is some direction. In the past, you could navigate by the stars. Oli thinks the opposite may be true now.
“If the future has already happened?” Lark asks. “I guess it takes the pressure off. For better or worse.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
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a cinema, summer 2006, the Da Vinci code is being screened [https://i0.wp.com/theendandtheinstant.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Instax6-min.jpeg?w=439&ssl=1]
My alarm woke me at 9, but I didn’t move, just lay there feeling terrible, like I hadn’t slept at all. Dana came to get me twenty minutes later, already dressed and ready to leave.
Come on. It’s time to go, Dana called through the door.
I’m awake, I answered, voice low, lips just ghosting over the words.
Up, up, up, she said and promised there was a coffee waiting for me in the kitchen.
My room was empty except for my jeans and sweater folded on the desk, and Converse lined up by the door. I used to stick up photographs, cut-outs from zines and album covers, all Blu-tacked to the walls or pinned to strings of Christmas lights. Dana and Max would sit on the floor in the blinking blues and greens, smoking and singing songs, Max curling his fingers in her hair while she sat against my amp. In that cramped space, I felt the weird hum of synth bass in my bones, the warmth of friends.
Most of the room had been taken up by the full weighted keyboard, my collection of synths and pedals, assorted hardware. With everything packed away into instrument cases and a duffel bag in the back of my car, it seemed sad how small it was, how little I had.
I wasn’t sure what I would remember: this blank white room that smelled vaguely of sinuses and sweat, or what it had been like before.
Downstairs, Max was asleep on the sofa with his mouth open. I drank my coffee, folded double with exhaustion and vague malaise. I watched Dana wade through the red plastic Solo cups and step over Reed and someone I didn’t know to shake Max awake. It took some prodding before he started and opened his eyes.
Fuck, he said. Time to go?
Yep, Dana said, pushing his hair off his face and kissing him on the forehead. You can sleep in the car.
He stumbled when he stood, and Dana had to catch him under the arm. He was still drunk. This is not great, he said.
This is not my idea of a fun either, Dana replied, even though she still seemed to find him funny, clinging to her, trying to hide from the spinning world by pressing his face into her shoulder. I had to help her wrestle him into the car. He smelled sour, beery and sharply sweating.
First challenge, complete, Dana said, getting behind the wheel car and adjusting the seat. We were driving in shifts, and she had agreed to take the mornings. I was meant to drive in the afternoons, Max in the evenings. You have the directions?
I held up a sheaf of Mapquest printouts.
You okay? Dana asked as she started the car. She must have seen something in the tightness of my smile.
Yeah, I told her. I know it’s old news, but I really am just so tired.
Are you still supposed to be this sick, Lark? she asked, looking at me as we pulled out into the sun. A pristine summer day at the start of our trip. Should you go back to the doctor?
We’re going to Portland, I said like there might not be doctors on the West Coast at all. Do you know how to get to the highway?