swirlsofpurple

 

There are 60.2937 trillion universes in existence. Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov both exist in 5.1713 billion, and astonishingly, are together in 5.1712 billion of them. In 4.8071 billion universes they are the two greatest hockey players of their generation. In 39.456 million universes Shane trips in the game which decides whether his team or Ilya’s progresses to the next round of the playoffs. In one universe the trip is on purpose. 

 

*

 

Shane’s about to play a game against his only friend and he feels sick.

“Come on! I’m not asking you to score an own goal or anything, just go a little easier, move a little slower.”

Shane shakes his head. “I won’t throw a game.”

“It’s only hockey, and my dad’s gonna kill me if this scout doesn’t sign me.”

‘Only hockey’ makes no sense: hockey is everything. But Shane doesn’t want Aaron to hate him. He’s lost so many friendships because of hockey: they hate that he won’t slow down for them, or they hate that he spends too much time on hockey and too little with them. He can’t lose Aaron too. And what if Aaron’s dad does hurt him, wouldn’t the right thing to be to stop that from happening.

They’re only ten, it is just a kids game. He can’t lose Aaron. All he has to do is slow down a little. Bile rises in his throat. He can’t not give it his all. Even if he wanted to, he doesn’t think his body would let him. He feels terrible. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t.

“No. I can’t.”

“You’re a bad friend Shane.”   

 

*

 

Shane writes a list of all the things he’s lost because of hockey, some willing sacrifices, some less so. Time, energy, his body not being covered in bruises, that one architecture school trip he really wanted to go on, the figure skating club which clashes with his hockey schedule. There are a lot of people on the list, Aaron’s name is at the top.

Over the next couple of years he keeps adding to the list and begins to see a pattern.

Most of the things are just a fact of life as a hockey player with aspirations to play in the NHL. But some things are suspicious. Shane’s twelve years old, he doesn’t believe in childish things like Hockey Curses. But he’s starting to believe he might have a Hockey Curse on him.

It’s a lot of little things: he loses the things he loves. Death by a thousand paper cuts.

The chain his grandmother gave him falls into a crack in the lake ice and it feels like confirmation.

 

*

 

He still maintains the list as he’s made captain of Canada’s world juniors team. Until, when he’s seventeen, his parents die in a car crash driving to his hockey game.

Shane burns the list, he spends his time thinking about his Hockey Curse, it’s better than thinking about other things. He thinks it must be over now: this was the culmination, a brutal last goodbye.

He’s numb, moving on autopilot.

He wants to stop playing, but that would be letting the Curse win. His mother would be disappointed if he gave in after everything they’ve sacrificed, especially now. He doesn’t want to give in: he wants to win, and so he does.

He comes second in the draft pick, which feels like losing. But he’s playing for the Montreal Metros which was his mother’s favourite team, so at least his can play for her.

 

*

 

About a year later, he makes friends with one of his teammates, Hayden. The man is kind and funny and indulgent of Shane’s weird quirks. And oh, Shane thinks, this is what it feels like to not be so alone. He has dinners with Hayden and Hayden’s wife, Jackie, and laughs like he hasn’t in years. They joke together so well.

They quickly become best friends. Shane loves him. He thinks, maybe life after the Hockey Curse can be good.

 

*

 

Shane’s surrounded, he doesn’t have a path to make a good pass, so he makes a bad one. Hayden overreaches for it and falls. There are too many players moving for the puck, moving too fast to stop a collision. A blade slides against Hayden’s throat.

The players beside Hayden desperately try to staunch the blood-flow as the medics rush towards him.

Shane stands frozen. He knows what’s coming. There’s a stone in his chest. This can’t be happening. This is supposed to be over. This is all his fault.

His mind is static.

Hayden bleeds out onto the ice.

 

*

 

Shane tries to keep in touch with Jackie, keeps reaching out, but she pulls away and he thinks it’s understandable. Maybe she can see that he blames himself. Maybe she blames him too. Anyway, she’s safer not being someone he cares about.

He’s been so stupid. Now that he thinks about it, he realizes the Hockey Curse never stopped, the little paper cuts were all still there, but he’d missed them under the grief-weight of the giant pick-axe slicing into him. If he’d been paying attention, he wouldn’t have risked friendship with Hayden and Jackie wouldn’t be a widow.

He makes a new list of Hockey Curse Stolen Things.

Yuna Hollander

David Hollander

Hayden Pike

He doesn’t add any of the little things. He wants to add his love for hockey, but it feels offensive next to the very real, very wonderful, human beings.

Shane puts the list in a frame and hangs it opposite his bed. He will do better. He will be better.

 

*

 

He isolates himself completely. He plays hockey and comes home, goes to practice and comes home. That is all. He’s always enjoyed his alone time, but that was when he had the option of not being alone. Now it feels suffocating. He feels empty, hopeless.

Shane plays like hockey is all he has, because it is: flies across the ice as though if he’s fast enough he can outrun the Curse. He plays hard, uncaring of the litany of bruises and broken bones he ends up with.

Hockey is everything. That used to be his greatest joy, now it’s just a cold, hard, unrelenting fact.

He can’t go on like this. He needs something.

 

*

 

The something he allows himself is meaningless sex. Ilya’s body feels so, so good against his own. The pleasure feels life-sustaining. He can hold onto this, look forward to it. Even if he only sees Ilya a few times a year.

The moment he realizes he’s in love with Ilya, he runs.

He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. Ilya can’t die. He can’t lose Ilya. Oh God. Oh please no. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

He forces himself to calm, breathes in, breathes out, squeezes his hands closed, open, closed, open, closed. Wipes the unfallen tears from his eyes. 

Then he goes back and explains the whole Hockey Curse situation, because Ilya deserves to know that Shane has put him at risk.

Ilya is of course dubious, “I will be fine Hollander, if you want to stop hooking up just say that.”

Shane supresses the urge to argue and does what’s necessary to protect the man he loves, “Yeah, you’re right, I don’t really like you anymore, I’m done with this.”

Ilya narrows his eyes. “You are such a bad liar.”

 

*

 

Ilya keeps chasing him and moves all the way to Ottawa to do so.

Shane usually has to clench every muscle to stop the feelings of love blooming, but the new proximity has him too terrified to feel anything else. It hurts every time he has to push Ilya away.

The sadness in Ilya’s eyes feels like sandpaper in Shane’s throat. All he truly wants is for Ilya to hold him, he screams in frustration for letting the thought take root in his mind. He’s putting Ilya at risk. It will be his fault if something happens to him.

Sometimes Shane wonders if his mother made a Devil’s deal: make him the greatest hockey player at the cost of everything else. It’s such a silly thought: he knows he’s the best because he works harder than everyone.

 

*

 

Shane Hollander hates hockey: it’s taken everything from him

Shane Hollander hates everything: it’s the only sensible strategy

Shane Hollander hates Ilya Rozanov: this is survival

Shane tells himself he hates Ilya every hour of every day and desperately hopes it’s enough to keep him safe.

All of the little things are slowly draining him. He’s so tired. He’s so alone. He wants to leave Hockey and just be with Ilya, but he doesn’t think he’s allowed. Would it even end the Curse? He thinks his mother and father and Hayden would hate him for giving in to the thing that killed them.

 

*

 

Shane hates his team, he suspects he would even without the Hockey Curse, without Hayden there’s no buffer between him and the assholes. He’s too tired. He’s done. If he’s going to keep forcing himself to play, it’s not going to be here. For one moment a daydream blossoms: playing on the same team as Ilya, passing to Ilya, scoring with Ilya, celebrating with Ilya. Fuck, he bites his lip to pull him out of it. That was too much.

He can feel the Curse in his periphery waiting to pounce. He wants to refuse to get on the ice. Wants to fruitlessly try to keep Ilya off of it. Wants to kidnap Ilya and smother him in bubble wrap.

 

*

 

Shane chases after Ilya for the puck. His skate hits a groove in the ice.

(There are universes where the groove is too deep and he can’t stop the fall. There are universes where the groove is shallow and he can right himself. This is one of the latter).

Time slows. Shane can catch himself. But he’s too close to Ilya, it will be an uncontrolled crash into him. The Curse has lived in his bones since he was a small child and he can see what happens next like a premonition. He will pull Ilya down, his head will hit the ice too hard, too fast. Ilya will die.

Shane lets himself fall.  

 

*

 

Shane has to stop playing hockey. He can’t keep putting Ilya at risk. It doesn’t matter what people who aren’t here anymore would think. Ilya’s here. Ilya’s alive. And Shane has to keep him that way.

The thought of leaving the league fills him with a strange mix of grief and relief.

Hockey is everything. He’s leaving his prison, but he’s leaving his whole world too.

 

*

 

Shane sits, his shoulders hunched, opposite Ilya.

“I’m going to retire.”

Ilya shifts uncomfortably. The air is thick, they both know how much hockey has taken from them.

“If that’s what you want.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be safe after, it may make things worse, but I can’t just keep waiting for something bad to happen.”

Ilya cups Shane’s face in his hands. “I will be okay. You do what you need to.”

Shane nods.

Ilya says, “So we can be together now?”

Shane winces, lump forming in his throat, “I don’t think you understand how much danger you could be in.”

“Shane, I’m a bisexual Russian, any relationship I’m in with a man has the risk of death. Little curse isn’t going to scare me.”

Shane lets out a hysterical laugh. “Fuck Ilya. This is such a bad idea.”

“I think I should get to decide what danger I put myself in. I want this. You want this. We have been through so much shit. We should get some joy.”

“Okay.”

The wide smile on Ilya’s face is glorious. He leans in to kiss it.   

 This is my LJ Idol sign up post

 

Elodie stares up at the sky. Nothing yet. Her fingers press hard against the coin, digging it into her hand. She imagines it breaking the skin, sinking down into flesh of her palm. She sees the women who held it before her.

The one in a court room lit by oil lamps, dressed in clothes made by her own calloused hands, the coin against her breast, tied to a piece of cheap string which looped around her neck. She’s accused of killing a man. The jurors are likely to dismiss her as a whore. But the coin sits warm against her chest, as she sits on the stand and convinces them of the truth: she was attacked, the killing was self-defence.

The one who was a spy in The Great War, every word, every movement, every breath a performance behind enemy lines. Until the final interrogation. The coin cold in her shoe as she’s lead to execution.

The one who was a CEO, the coin warm in her pocket in every negotiation.

Elodie comes back to herself, the space ships are close enough to see now, like stars in the daytime. The entire world in the balance. She wonders if the coin will let her wield it.

 

“Good luck,” someone whispers.

Deep breath in, and out. Her fist clenched tight around the coin. She swallows. “You are entering the territory of the planet Earth. Turn away now or you will be destroyed.”

Her heart sinks. The coin is cold.

The ships draw closer, undeterred by any of the worlds defences.      

The mothership lands, too close, not even fifty feet away.

Elodie stands completely still as an alien approaches.

 

“You have a coin. We want it.”

She looks it right in the eyes. “I don’t have a coin.”

The alien blinks, once, twice, three times.

The coin is warm. “You should leave.”

 

 

“Tommy sit down and put your seatbelt on, we’re landing,” Izzy says, checking all of the kids’ belts before sinking into her seat, even after the whole journey she still can’t believe how soft it is. The academy’s space shuttle is far fancier than the ones she can afford.

Her eyes dart between each of her students as they walk through the busy city. Even though they have plenty of attendants, it’s her first school trip and there’s an itch in her brain saying she’s going to lose a kid on another planet. They reach the line for the main event mercifully quickly, and of course are allowed into the express lane designated for prime seating. Nothing but the best for these kids: the progeny of lords, celebrities, and CEOs.

Izzy stands in this most auspicious of places, feeling like a fraud. She’s never really belonged anywhere. Three months ago she was a bus driver and four months before that she was a nurse. She pushes down the bad voice, holds her chin up, takes in the children before her, and starts with an easy question, “Who can tell me why this is so special?” 

All hands go up. She points at Crissy, a shy, tiny slip of a girl. “A new Rokurirou is only born every three or four hundred years, so every birth is celebrated world-wide.”

Izzy mentally gives her an extra point for not calling them tree aliens. “Good, that’s correct. How do they sustain themselves with births being so rare?”

“They don’t die.”

“You’ve got the right idea. Can anyone elaborate?”

Tommy jumps in place, hand up like he’s trying to catch a cloud, she nods at him, “They live for a bazillion years.”

“Bazillion isn’t a real number!” Jamie yells.

“Okay, what’s your answer then?”

“They live for thousands and thousands and thousands of years.”

“That’s right, good. And why is there all this yellow?”

Half the hands go up. She points at Alice.

“Their eyes see differently to ours, each different shade of yellow is a completely different colour to them and what we see as yellow are their brightest and most celebratory colours.”

“Well done. Why is there only a birth every few centuries?”

Only three hands go up. She notes this as a topic for them to do more on.

“They have very low fertility.”

“That’s correct. They do have very low fertility, but another thing is they always have had. Though it’s not uncommon to see drop offs in fertility in a species. It’s very rare for a species to thrive while having this throughout. The low fertility also means the majority of people don’t even try to have kids which further reduces the birth-rate. Those who do try generally don’t expect to get pregnant, it’s a bit like when adults play the lottery.”

 
*

They reach their room, only a pane of glass between the class and the birthing suite. There are hundreds of little twigs protruding from the mother— Tirtriso’s— back. Izzy can see why they only do this every few centuries. She pushes a button for the shutter to lower. It had been quite a job to convince the organizers, without offending, that they wanted to be part of the before and after celebrations without viewing the actual birth. Izzy steers the kids to the other side of the room, where they can see the parade in full swing. The joyous music sounds so sombre to the human ear, but most of the kids are pressed up to the glass in delight anyway.

 
*

Then the messages start coming through. Something’s wrong. Izzy doesn’t think, just barges through the door. The newborn isn’t breathing. The doctors are panicking. This isn’t something they’re prepared for. They are a hardy species, living for many millennia, problems with people under two hundred years old is practically unheard of. Doctors are there to ensure the mother’s health.

“The tube doesn’t fit.” 

“It’s the smallest we have. Keep trying.”

“You need something else,” Izzy says quietly. She’s ignored.

The doctor keeps trying to fit the too large tube in.

She has no place here, no knowledge of their physiology, but that’s never stopped her before, “Listen! The baby’s too small, that’s never going to fit!”  

They turn to her then. “We have nothing else.”

“Then we make-shift something, put some bits of other equipment together.”

All of their eyes, all of their attention, is on her now. They all know what rests here. “How?”

Izzy steps closer. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Once she sees their equipment it isn’t hard to jerry-rig something, she had to do this a few times when she worked at a hospital in the rougher outskirts.

And the baby is breathing.

 
*

It’s a couple of hours later, when the parade is dying down for the day, she lifts the shutter, with Tirtriso’s permission, so the kids can see what they came here for.

“I want to see the baby tree alien!” Tommy says, running into the room before anyone can stop him.

“Sorry,” Izzie says, rushing in behind him, “Tommy, we don’t call the Rokurirou that, and you shouldn’t be in here.”

“It’s fine,” Tirtriso says, “Let the others come in also, come all of you, come, let my baby meet you.”

The kids pour in, clustering around swarm-like. “Careful,” Izzy says. It’s not too late for an inter-stellar incident.

“It’s good. I believe this is the first time a Rokurirou newborn has ever met another child, a moment for our history.”

Izzy watches the children coo and blow raspberries and talk at the baby and wonders what it must be like to be the only child on a planet. 

 

 

There are two moons in the sky this night. Gronkapn sits on the soft pink grass, staring out at the congregation. The weight of this coming speech sits heavy in his spine. He hopes he can sway some minds. He licks his mouth-holes, in preparation, injecting all the gravitas he has in his words,

“Lying is a virtue.”

Scores of upper tentacles wave in the air in cheers of agreement and rejoicing.

“We can’t go to Earth!” comes a cry from the middle.

“No Earth! No Earth!” a few chant.

Gronkapn waits for the cheers to quieten. “But is lying always virtuous?”

All are silent. A child so small they are still a round thing answers, “Lying is always good.”

“Is it, have you ever had someone tell a harmful lie and when you confront them, they say, ‘I’m just lying’?”

He stares at the people; several look uncomfortable, or restless. Everyone knows someone who uses the virtue of lying as an excuse.

“The virtue in lying comes from lies which help others: a lie about liking a gift or someone’s new tentacle-style, a lie to give a confidence boost, or a lie to keep someone’s secret. Lies you tell just to help yourself and harm others are not virtuous.”

Several upper tentacles wave in agreement, but the waves are more wobbly- unsure of what’s to come.

“Humans believe honesty is a virtue.”

There are cries of anger. The people chanting ‘No Earth’ start up again.

He waits. The silence takes longer to come, he doesn’t rush it. “But they also believe honesty isn’t always virtuous. To them honesty that serves others is good and honesty to serve the self and harm others is bad. Like we have those who say ‘I’m just lying’ they similarly have annoying people who say, ‘I’m just being honest’."

“What are you saying?” the words are strained, upset.

“The humans will also lie about liking gifts they do not like. They are in many ways not too different from us.”

Tentacles curl in anger. “Why are you saying this!” “What are you talking about!” “How dare you!” 

Several people leave: some silently, some loudly.

“I’m saying this because our planet is dying. We must go to Earth. And we must learn to live with the people there.”

Rocks are kicked, grass is pulled up and thrown. Gronkapn doesn’t run for cover, he stays in place, waiting. More people leave, telling others to go with them.

A young woman walks up to him, tentacles drooping, her voice small but hard, “We came here for you to reaffirm our faith, to tell us to be strong while our world is dying, to tell us to stand our ground and stay here. Why would you betray us like this?”

“I’m trying to save your lives. Staying here doesn’t prove anything, you’ll just die, it’s a waste.”

“Such callous honesty, you’re already just like them.”

 

*

Gronkapn flips through the passenger lists, over and over, searching for names he knows aren’t there.

“You did all you could,” his half-soul says.

“You can’t comfort me, my love, most of them were not moved by me. They will die and it’s because I didn’t do enough.”

“Nothing anyone could’ve done would have moved them.” She takes the pages from him and points to a name. “What of this one, a child. They would have died here without your words, now they have a whole life ahead of them. You changed some peoples’ minds, and every one of those people is one entire life which would’ve been snuffed out without you. That is no small thing.”

He flaps his lower tentacle. “I should have had you talk to them.”

“Ack. I could never. Now put those away, we must rest. We have a very long, very hard, journey ahead of us. We must go with hope.”

 

*

 

Note: this has been an approximate translation of the alien language. A literal translation isn’t possible due to the extensive metaphor usage without the necessary reference points for understanding. For example see the below excerpt.

Small sun, big planet, for days. Small planet, big sun, for nights. Land and water. And drowning.

Small planet, big sun, for days. An inside-smile. 

 

“A bed!” Marla jumps onto the thing. It’s lumpy, has protruding springs and looks rat-chewed. Their floor piles are likely comfier. But it’s a bed! She sprawls out and demands, “Tell me about them.”

Mother laughs. “You’re not so young that you don’t remember beds.”

“Please?”

“Oh alright. In the times before the war, most people had beds to sleep on. They came in many different sizes, and were filled with many different things: cotton or wool or memory foam. Sometimes even water.”

“Wow.” The thought of wasting water to fill a bed is befuddling. She asks, “Will The Gods bring us beds again one day?”

Some believe the beings who came to help rebuild the world are aliens and some believe they’re supernatural creatures. But Marla is her mother’s daughter, so she believes they’re Gods.

Mother tuts. “You’re sitting on one, child. The Gods’ focus is on rebuilding the systems: for water, for food, for sewage, for shelter, for medicine. Which would you divert their attention from?”

Marla sighs. “I said one day, when they’re done with all of those.”

“It’s no easy task. Even before the war not everyone had food and water.”

Marla takes several moments to think on that. The Gods are going to make things even better than the glorious before times.

 

*

 

Marla bounces in her seat; an isle of misshapen bricks. There’s laughter and dancing and cups of sweet water. Today is a very special day.

She stares at the sky. It's muddy whorls. The grey film Old Wendy says is like a cataract. She’s supposedly old enough to remember the sky of before. But she doesn’t, not really. It seems like so, so long ago. The memory is like a flash in her mind, an almost there thing.

A crack appears, bright blue. There are gasps and cheers, hoots and hollers. But the sounds soon slip away: everyone watching the same point, waiting. Expectation sits sticky in the air.

Marla thinks she can almost see the hands of The Gods, from the same place in her mind that forgotten flash lives. And then there’s a whole solid patch of blue.

People are jumping and hugging and kissing. Marla stays in her seat, still now, looking up.

The blue spreads across the sky. It looks like a painting, or a photograph. She always thought the pictures she saw were exaggerations: photoshopped or airbrushed or something. But now she sees, they were nowhere near as good as the real thing.

And anyone can use any fancy technical term for what’s happened here, the science doesn’t lessen the truth of what this is: divine.  

 

*

 

Marla spends the next month watching every sunrise and sunset she can. She’s at her stillest in these moments. Thinking. Deciding.

It’s the night she sees her first full moon that she tells Mother: she’s going to be a priestess when she grows up.

“Hmm. There’s much time yet to settle on this,” Mother says. 

 

*

 

Marla spends every spare moment she has staring at the sky. It calls to her. She’s only more certain as the years go by.

Mother cries when she leaves. “You’re still so young.”

She bites back the urge to say Mother is supposed to be devout, instead says, “I’m an adult.”

“In the before times you wouldn’t be considered so.”

 

*

 

The hall is the biggest she’s ever been in, filled with what must be a thousand priestesses in training. It’s so vast, with more shine to it than she’s ever seen. But her awe quickly turns to misery.

The head priestess repeats over and over, every day, that they will root out any who are there just to get a chance to see or speak to or get closer to The Gods.

And there’s a little Hell inside Marla’s chest where the words sit, as she wonders every time: isn’t that the entire point. Is she unworthy? Is she a fake? A fraud?

The rabid thing in her chest grows, clawing at her stomach, at her throat. Turning from hurt to anger. She stares into the sun. And is certain.

She is still, until she raises her hand: it shakes. “Isn’t that the point?”

“You’re not much for prayer, are you girl?”

“I watch the sunrise and sunset every day.”

 

*

 

They send her to a nowhere place and she spends her days doing the mundane tasks she’s given. The days turn to weeks and then to months. Marla’s never felt so far away from reaching The Gods. She knows she should try harder to fit in. Then maybe she could progress. But she has no interest in meeting The Gods as a facsimile of herself.

When she can, she stares, memorising each days sky. No two skies are the same.

 

*

 

The years pass. She knows what is meant to be will never happen. The ache dulls, but remains. Marla forges new meaning in this place. People come to join her as she watches the sky, they talk and she listens. Sometimes she tells stories of the ephemeral flotsam up above them. 

 
*

She wakes to one of the young ones at her door, bouncing excitedly, “You’ve been chosen!”

Marla blinks away sleep, uncomprehending. “What do you speak of?”

“You’re going to the Prime Temple.”

It’s a mistake, surely. Or perhaps a cruel joke. She doesn’t dare believe it. She gets confirmation from three different elders. It still feels untrue. Her head is awhirl.

Something long-dead unfurls inside her chest. The sun is in her heart. She’s going to the home of the Prime Goddess herself.  

 

*

 

Marla stands at the entrance of a place she’s longed to be since she was a girl. She almost expects to be disappointed, surely no singular place can meet the weight of decades of want. But it’s more than she could ever imagine. It’s tall, has many, many floors. But it's plain. And that buoys something in her.

She’s given a bowl of water to leave by the Goddess’ door. She carries it tentatively, her feet measured against every stair. She can see the sky reflected in the liquid.

If she gets to do this every day and never gets to even see the Goddess, her life will be perfect.

 

*

 

“The Goddess wants to meet you.”

This is a dream. Her heart is pounding. Her hands shaking.

Marla lets the other priestesses guide her to the bath. They clean gently, anointing her with special oils and powders. And wrap her in ceremonial robes.

She kneels, alone, waiting. Panicking. She wishes she could see the sky.

A hand grasps her shoulder. She gasps.

“It’s good to finally meet you Marla. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

 

*

 

She sits opposite the Goddess. It seems wrong, to sit so close, on the same level.

“You’re the one who will fix the sky.”

Marla gapes. “What?! The sky is fine.” She would know if something was wrong with it. She watches every fibre of it so closely.

“Not now. The sky of when you were a girl.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Time works differently for us. We didn’t just appear after the war. We were always here, in different times, waiting to do what fate had in mind for us.”

“Wow.”

Silence takes hold. Marla eventually says, “I don’t have any powers though.”

“You have spent decades learning the sky. You know it like no one else.”

 

*

 

Marla sees her child-self, bouncing. Impossible.

She looks to the sky, knows every bit of wrongness. And, with the certainty of staring into the sun: she reaches her hands out and begins to mend.   

 

“Would you like to quit the simulation?”

“Why do you keep saying that? What the fuck are you talking about?!” Lia immediately regrets snapping at her husband. It’s just that, ever since her father passed away last week, he keeps asking the same question. And surely, if anyone is going to lose their mind over the loss, it should be her.

Evan sighs, sitting down opposite her. “You remember how we met?”

“Of course. You had that dumb, broken, machine that was supposed to provide virtual reality experiences.”

“It wasn’t broken.”

Lia laughs. “Well it sure as fuck didn’t do anything.”

“Lia… that whole thing: you getting out of the machine, thinking nothing had happened, that was part of the simulation. Everything since then has been part of the simulation.”  

“No. You’re kidding right? This isn’t funny.”

“It’s true.”

She rises hurriedly, backing away. Her heart pounding. “Let me out! Let me out NOW!”

Evan lifts his hands, placating. “Okay, okay.”

 

*

 

Lia wakes. The machine has left spots of pain on her. The room holds the barely-there familiarity of a place she only saw once three years ago, yet remembers because she met someone important there. She’s sitting in the machine. Evan is climbing out of an identical machine beside her.

She’s been in a simulation for three years. It’s dizzying. What happened in the last three years and what was before that? What’s real and what’s imagined? Is she considered missing, is anyone looking for her? Her entire marriage, her entire relationship, is fake. Tears begin to form, she blinks to stop them. Pushes her hurt into anger.

“You stole three years of my life. Why?”

Gesturing at the machine, Evan says, “It makes it seem like longer. It’s only been three hours.”

“Why did you do this to me?”

“It’s one of the services we provide: we help people out of bad situations. Your friend, who got you the tickets, she paid me to get you away from your abusive boyfriend.”

“And pretending to be married to me was part of that?”

“No. I fell in love with you.”

Lia rests her face in her hands. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to be alone. I need to get some sleep. And think.”

“Alaistair is outside. He’s waiting for you.”

Her entire insides clench. Fuck. It’s only been three hours. Fuck. The pain isn’t from the machine. It’s from the bruises that are yet to fade. “Get rid of him. Tell him to leave.”

 

*

 

“What do you mean she’s not coming out? What have you done to her?” Alaistair yells.

She can’t hear what Evan’s saying, but can clearly hear every word of protest from her ex.

“Let me back there.”

He’s not going to leave. Lia stands, grits her teeth, and walks through the door. And, regressing instantly, finds herself staring at the floor. She forces her head up, even though it feels like staring into the sun. “Listen, this is over, we’re over.”

Alaistair frowns. “What are you talking about babe? Has he been filling your head with nonsense shit? Remember, you can’t be listening to other people; you’re so gullible, you know you can only trust me.”

“I’m hearing your words and I cannot believe this used to work on me.”

“Come on, you know how much I love you, more than anyone has ever loved you.”

Lia rolls up her left sleeve, holding up her bruise-addled arm. “This. Is. Not. Love.”

“You know I’m only trying to make you better. Once you’re better, it will all be good and I won’t have to hurt you anymore.”

“We’re done. I’m not going with you. Leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He moves to grab her.

A security guard she hadn’t even noticed steps between them. “Sir, you can leave of your own volition, or we can drag you. It’s up to you.”

Alaistair snarls, but walks out.  

 

*

 

A sudden revelation. “Dad’s alive.”

“Yes.”

Heady, joyful, relief fills her. “I need to see him.”

She should probably get a cab, but lets Evan drive her. The distance feels eternal. And suffocating. She starts looking for a hotel on her phone.

“You can stay with me,” Evan says.

“Our whole relationship is a lie.”

“No it isn’t. I love you and you love me. That’s real.”

“You lied to me the entire time and you were in control the entire time.”

“I was in no more control than you were. You had all the freedom you have in the real world.”

“If that was true, then I would’ve left Alaistair in the real world and putting me through all this was unnecessary.”

“That’s not how it works, it’s kind of like lucid dreaming, some part of your subconscious is aware that it’s not real and it gives people the chance to explore things they wouldn’t in the real world.”

“I might have left. You don’t know.”

“Yeah. You might have. But you stayed four years, and he broke your bones, and you never so much as filed a police report.”  

“Fuck you. You knew nothing you did in there would have any consequences.”

“Quite the opposite actually. Every single thing I did mattered, because it determined whether the greatest love of my life would love me back, would stay, in spite of all this.”

She shakes her head. “If you really loved me, you would have told me the truth. You would’ve ended the simulation.”

“Generally, if people are in the simulation for fewer ‘years’ than the bad relationship, they end up going back to the relationship. And I’d rather you hate me than risk you going back to that fucker.”

Lia can’t tell if the words are genuine or a manipulation tactic. She wonders at her propensity for men who like control. It’s entirely possible she’s still in the simulation.

 

*

 

Lia stands in front of her father, stares for an age: taking in the colour in his face, the wrinkles in motion, the animation. She wants to hug him, but he’ll just call her weak.

“I love you dad.”

“Ooh, what’s brought this on then?”

“Nothing.” She stares at him a moment longer, and then says, “Goodbye.”

She doesn’t want to stay and sour things again. She’s done what she came for.

 

*

 

She lays in her random hotel bed that night, thinking instead of sleeping. She’s alone. Alaistair isolated her. She hasn’t seen her friends in years. All the work she did to regain those friendships isn’t real. And all the new friendships she made, none of those people are even real. There’s a sharp ache of loss at that. Is it crazy to grieve people who never actually existed?

 

*

 

“I’m going to go to Alaistair’s while he’s at work and get my stuff. Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Evan says.

“Don’t get any ideas about things being okay with us. I just don’t want to go alone. And I don’t have anyone.”

“You have me. You’ll always have me. Even if it’s just as a friend.”

“Hmm.”   

 

*

 

It’s bizarre going back to a room she hasn’t been in for three years, but was in yesterday. Her make-up is all the muted tones Alaistair prefers. Her clothes: all long sleeves to hide bruises, no skirts, no dresses.

She breathes, in and out, just like her therapist taught her to. Another thought occurs.

“It was fake therapy! You had me going to a fake therapist! That is beyond–”

“She’s real. We have a therapist on staff, she enters simulations when needed.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay.” Breathing isn’t working. She falls to her knees. Large hiccup-sobs escape.

Evan wraps his arms around her. She lets him. She cries and cries and cries.

He keeps holding her long after she stops.

“I’m right back at square one. I have to rebuild everything. I can’t do this again. I can’t.”

“You’re the strongest person I know. And you’re not at square one. I remember at the beginning, you kept wanting to go back to Alaistair, can you even imagine doing that now? You’ve changed so much and you’ve seen what you can do.”

 

*

 

Lia finds a nice place to rent. She starts her overtures into friendship with Cami, the one who bought her the virtual reality experience tickets. It turns out all her old friends want to see her. The meet up is awkward: she has difficulty recalling which things she knows are true and which things were part of the simulation. But she agrees to a second meet up and a third, and things are slowly getting easier.

Applying for jobs is a mind-fuck. She has no favourite lie to avoid telling them that the gap is due to her abusive ex not wanting her to work.    

And she goes on a first date with her husband.

 

*

 

“So, tell me about yourself?” Lia asks, the words are light; holding only a tinge of bitterness.

“The stuff you know, that’s the real me.”

“Except for your job.”

He nods, sheepish. “Yeah, except for my job.”

“So tell me about that, how does it work?”

“We give people a look at the possibilities: we help addicts, people in jobs they don’t want, or relationships they don’t want. Some clients want to have weeks to study for an exam they have the next day, or learn a language. And some just want to spend a month partying. Sometimes, it’s dying people who want a little more time.”

“Wow. It’s crazy that your place isn’t more well known.”

“We keep under the radar; wouldn’t want the government to take it to use as a weapon. Think of what they could do, the tortures they could create, with a hundred years in a night.”

“The machine can do more than a year an hour?” 

“Yeah. The limit is more what the human brain can withstand. We estimate twenty years in an hour would kill. The highest we ever tested was fifteen years in an hour and the guy is still receiving rehabilitation from it.”

 

*

 

One day she looks out her bedroom window and sees Alistair standing below. He’s found her. Her chest is tight. Lia pauses before opening the window; struck with the irrational fear that he’ll somehow leap all the way up just to get to her.

“You need to leave. I don’t want to see you.”

“Come on baby, I just want to talk to you. You know you belong with me.”

“If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”

“You are going to come down here right now and talk to me or you’re not going to like what I’ll do.”

She slams the window shut.

The police do nothing. Evan comes to stay with her so she’s not alone.         

 

*

 

Loud banging startles her. Alaistair is at the door. Fuck. He must’ve followed someone to get into the building. Evan left for the first time in days, to run some errands. Alaistair must’ve been watching. Lia knows she shouldn’t still be here. But she didn’t want to move again, didn’t want to let her ex rob her of another home.

The pounding isn’t letting up. How long before the door breaks? She calls the emergency services. The lady tells her they’ll be there soon. She hides under the bed, clutching the phone like it will save her. 

She hears the door slam open. Bites her lip to keep silent. Still as the dead.

“If you come out here now, we can talk about this like adults and your punishment won’t even be that bad.”

His steps are on the stairs, doors opening, clattering around. Closer and closer.

She wants to cry, bites down on a knuckle.

The bedroom door opens. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

He looks under the bed. Eyes meet. Predator and prey. She scrambles out, away.

He catches her arm. He’s holding a knife.

“You’re mine. Only mine.”

Lia struggles. “Don’t. Don’t do this. Let’s talk, you wanted to talk.”

The knife presses against her throat. “Too late for that now. This is all your fault. I keep telling you. You need to learn how to behave.”

“Police. Hands up!”

*

 

“I’m going to kill him,” Evan says. The tone is wrong: not angry, words stated like a fact.”

“Are you serious?”

“They’ve already let him out. He’s not going to stop. Unless someone stops him.”

Lia stares. Alaistair is going to kill her. Be the predator or be the prey. “Okay.”

“I’ll figure out a plan.”

“Wait. He hurt me for so long. I don’t want him to die. I want him to suffer.”

“What do you have in mind?”

 

*

 

Alaistair wakes in a place of endless grey as far as the eye can see. “Where the fuck am I?”

Lia is suddenly in front of him. “This is a simulation. You’re going to be alone in here for a few centuries.”

 

The buzzer sounds. The small light goes green. Neresse sits up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She folds up her mat and blanket and puts them away in the chest. The customers don’t like the idea of her sleeping here. They like to think of it as a display case and not a cell. And Master always gives the customers what they want. She brushes her hair and climbs onto her stool, plastering on a smile. Neresse learned long ago that it’s best to do what Master wants.

The doors open slowly for a dramatic reveal, horns blaring- too loud even from where she is at the other end of the hall.

“Welcome,” Master bellows, “To the greatest creature collection in the galaxy!”

“How classless,” a man in Idrin robes says.

“It’s true. But don’t take my word for it, come see!”

 

*

 

Master leads the customers through the hall.

“Here we have the last surviving royal of Datra five.”

Said royal sits impassive.

Neresse watches closely, as always learning all she can. Not about her fellow slaves, she learned all there was to know about the older ones decades ago, and the newer ones she already knows what she needs to. She watches the customers, learns their ticks and nuances, their cultures and morals, their desires and disgusts. 

The Idrin man furrows his lip, a sign of excitement amongst those people. Another man, wearing a Cacturus necklace, presses his hands to the glass. Most wouldn’t be able to see the chain from where she is, but Neresse has better eyesight than most species’. A lady, has her hair done in an Acodoi style, but she clearly isn’t Acodoi from her discomfort with it.

Next is the Gorus. There’s a long stare at the enemy: the customers know, if the war fates had sung differently, it may be them in the box. Master guides them past and any introspection is quickly forgotten as they take in a rare survivor of the Estrin system.

Ignoring Master’s repetitive spiel, as they go from cell to cell, she focuses on every aspect of the customers’ body language, even the tiniest twitch.

Any small detail may help her later.

“And now, the jewel of my collection…” Master says as they approach her.

Neresse sits poised, smile perfect.

“…The last elf in existence.” 

 

*

 

“Impossible!”

“They’re surely extinct!”

“This must be a fake!”

Neresse says nothing. Master says nothing. They wait.

The customers all know, can clearly see for themselves. She’s the real deal.

Then come the gasps. The whispers. The astonishment. Nothing new.

“Can I touch her?” asks the Acodoi hair-styled woman.

“I’ll have to charge you extra.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

The cage door opens. Normally Neresse would be concentrating on not flinching, now she’s too busy hiding her excitement. After all these years of learning, of preparation, this may be the day it all pays off.

The woman’s fidgeting has left two hair pins stuck in her blouse. Usually irrelevant, the locks on their cells can’t be picked with mere pins. Acodoi metals however, have different properties.

Neresse holds out her arm elegantly, ensuring she has all of their rapt attention, before sliding her other hand around, deft, silent. She has to bite her tongue to hold her reaction as her fingers pull the pins free.

 

*

 

She waits until nightfall before sliding the pin into the lock. The buzzer starts trilling, she’s ready for it though, rigs it with a mechanism from a watch she stole a year ago. With the help from a couple more of her pilfered keepsakes, she’s out.

Her younger self, freshly captured and unknowing of the way of things, may have run for the front door- to escape. But now she knows, there’s no escape from men like Master, except for one.

Neresse creeps through corridors and up the stairs.

A stair creaks. She freezes. She can see a guard. He can’t see her. Yet.

Her heart thuds. She wants to cry. She wants to scream.

He searches, but only briefly, before turning back.

Neresse keeps climbing, until she reaches Master’s bedroom.  

She takes a hunters knife off of the wall. The knife used to catch many of her fellow slaves. Though unlikely after all this time, she pretends it’s also the knife used to capture her.

Kismet.

She slits Master’s throat.

 

 

Once the ship reaches a sensible coasting speed of fifty light years per hour and everything seems to be running in a stable fashion, the captain goes to check their supplies. They hadn’t been allowed access to check before-hand and they’ve got suspicions as to why. Opening the boxes labelled suits, their hunch is confirmed: there’s no real protective gear.

They are going to a water planet. The place has oceans filled with the stuff, and even on land, the rain is water. The sentient species on the planet, is mainly water, can spit water and has water flowing into their homes at the opening of a tap.

They had been assured that they would have appropriate protection for this.

Budget cuts had been running rampant and they’d heard rumours of poor, unimportant, infantrymen, like the ones on this ship, being used for canon-fodder. To gain intel and measure the planets reaction to a conquering force. But this wasn’t just going into battle without sufficient armour, this was going to a place which could burn them to death if the skies opened up suddenly. 

The stuff in the box is okay for lab-work using water, but is definitely not enough for what these soldiers are going to face.

It turns this into a suicide mission.

 

*

 

There are those who would say they should blindly carry out their orders regardless. The captain is not one of those people. They refuse to throw away all of their peoples’ lives so carelessly.

There are also those who would say the captain must be the one who makes the decision on what to do next: that is the burden of their station. This is a notion they spend some time thinking on. They decide to hold a vote. After all, it’s everyone’s lives which will be affected.

 

*

 

They gather their people in the main atrium and lay out the options. They can’t go home: they would be killed as deserters. One option is to run: they would still be hunted as deserters, and would be looking over their shoulders their entire lives waiting to be found. The other down-side is how it affects the loved-ones back home: they would lose any benefits and pensions they were due and would be cast out as deserter-kin. The other option is to complete the mission.

They look at their people. There are many grim stone-faces, some teary-eyed. The youngest, not even of age yet, a child really, has tears running down their cheeks.

Wiping them away, the kid says, “I heard the beings on that planet cry tears of water.”

“They get burns every time they cry?” the soldier beside them says, before realising their mistake.

They all know. It’s a nightmarish thought: these water creatures, drinking and swimming and thriving with water.

 

*

 

In the end, the decision is made to complete the mission. Too many are worried about their families to do otherwise.

They set out a feast, trying to lighten the mood, knowing the food likely won’t be needed for a return journey. Some laughter, some joy, is managed.

But as they approach their destination, a sombre silence takes hold.

They stare in awe at the planet: terrifyingly blue.    

 

There’s a song written on the walls. We hold our paper to it. To gain an indent: a hollow impression. We kneel before it, trying to twist our tongues into the shapes it makes. It does tell; we must, we must, we must. 

It is the only path. The words a place, a time, a reverence. It must be followed. We bow our heads, and chant. The path must be followed. The path must…

The path…

 

*

 

We have forgotten the words again. We stand nearer to the wall. Try pressing our eyes to the inlay. We know the words but do not know them also. There’s the bit about a path again. What is a path? How does one follow it?

Is this the story on the wall? No, it’s another story, on another wall, about a story on the wall. Written in a time when paths existed. How can we follow paths that no longer exist? The only answer: We must, we must, we must.

 

*

 

There is so much grey now. Didn’t there used to be trees and grass and people? It’s all disappearing, space contracting. What’s happening? We must follow the path, it will all be okay if we follow the path. But we can’t see it. Follow it better, follow it closer.

We must follow the path, or die.

 

*

 

It’s all grey. It’s always been like this. There has only ever been this small number of us. The song on the wall is missing some words. It’s old. We must look closer, we must follow.

 

*

 

“Can you hear us? Your path is caught in a feedback loop.”

“We must follow the path.”

“No. You’re trapped. You need to get off the path. The system is degrading. It will cease functioning soon.”

 

*

 

We wake in a strange place. But there is no us. Someone is screaming. It’s us. We are screaming.

“It’s okay. You’re safe here. Get me a sedative!”

“Where is us. Where is us. Where is us.”

“Just rest.”

“Where is us!”

“People were dying, we had to forcefully disconnect you from your virtual reality.”

“Where is us?”

“The hive-mind only existed because of that reality. Here you’re an individual.”

No. No. No. No. There is no we. There is no us. We are alone.   

 

*

 

There is only crying. We can’t do this. We don’t know how. What will we do. We will die here.

 

*

 

“Hi, how are you feeling, you seem a little better today.”

Are we better? We aren’t crying. We just stare until they go away.

 

*

 

“How are you today?”

“We’re okay.”

“That’s good. I thought today we could work on deciding on a name for yourself.”

A name, do we want a name? Then we will truly no longer be an us. Us will be gone. Us is already gone. We need to survive here.

“Okay.”

There are an endless number of names, meaningless words on a page.

How do we choose? Who are we? What do we do? We can’t do this. We want to go back to the path. We want to go back to the song wall. We want to go back to us. None of those exist anymore.

We throw the book on the floor.

 

*

 

“We have… I have chosen a name.”

“Good. That’s good. Listen, I think you’re ready to move to outpatient care.”

“What? No. We can’t… I can’t do this alone. I’m not strong enough.”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself. And you won’t be alone, we’ll always be here.”

 

*

 

It turns out I am strong enough. It’s exhausting though. For every tiny new thing, I think, I’m not strong enough for this. But I do it anyway. I hope if I keep doing this, at some point, I'll no longer have to think I’m not strong enough every five minutes.

 

*

 

We are doing okay. We have started referring to ourselves as we again. It makes the most sense for us, it’s the most comfortable. It’s the most true. We still think we are not strong enough, but it happens less often.

We still feel the ache of loss. But we are building anew. We are making new friends. It’s hard. But we keep trying.

We are not alone.