599. We'll Meet in the Middle

The next morning, Kyra paid a visit to Von's quarters. After an uncomfortable prelude of small talk, she came to the matter of concern. "Von, about last night, I know we all had a few too many drinks, but, well, it seemed--"

"Like an overreaction?"

"Yeah."

"Understandable. In fact, if I knew only what you know, I'd feel the same way."

"I'm sorry Von."

"No need to be sorry. I've been less than forthcoming. Please accept my apologies. On both accounts."

"I didn't come for an apology."

"No?"

"I came to listen."

Von stood up and walked around Kyra, his eyes cutting the circumference of her head until his eyes again met hers. The room noticeably silent. "You want to listen?"

"I want you to know that I sense all is not right and I want you to know I am here if you want to talk."

Von sighed. He sat back down, put his head in his hands as if washing his face and after what seemed like a long time looked up and said, "Where do I begin?"

"I have nothing else on my schedule. And there is no other place I want to be." Kyra turned her comm off and tossed it on his desk. "Start where you like."

"Do you know what it is like to abandon someone you love?"

"Are you speaking of Ceru?"

"Yes."

"Are we going to need some snoot for this conversation?"

"Probably."

"Then I suggest you pour."

When the second glass was full, Kyra lifted the amber hued crystal and looked into the prism of liqueur as if looking into the past. "I know what it is like to be abandoned by someone you love. You walk your way and I'll walk mine and we'll meet in the middle. Fair?"

"Fair enough," replied Von. With the clinking of glass and the drinking of drink, what had not been told was begun.

598. Papa on Silus

Half-finished sketch of Papa in the last days of Silus. Unsigned.

597. The Hell I Live With

"He stood as did I, in a state of disbelief. I tried to move my feet but they would not move. Was I alive or dead? Was this happening or was I dreaming? I could see myself, transparent, holographic, just an image. The feeling, emotion, however, was real. Intense. Burning." Von raised his glass full, returned it empty. With unblinking eyes, ablaze in the story, he continued. "Electrifying."

Father? Is that you?

Son? Cerulean?

Father, I have so much to say. So much.

Son, can you hear me? Cerulean? Son?

Father. Father!

"He looked as if he were looking through me, as if I wasn't standing there and I watched him reach out, his hand passing through my faded image and the words rang, the kind of words that haunt the wake and torment the sleep, that know neither time nor space. I can hear them now. They live in my head. Clear as day. And they hurt no less. Father. Don't leave. Father. The words are in my ear now as they were then when he spoke, speaking as he passed through me, his lips to my ear, in my head, inside of me, he spoke and I felt the words more than heard, felt them in my soul, every nerve of fire, wanting to move my arms, to hug him, hold him. And I couldn't. And that is the hell I live with." 

Von lifted his glass. The others, silent, followed.

596. Three Years

My house was not much, but like all homes, it was mine. I did some cleaning, careful not to erase me, not to do what I knew she would know, which was to be other than as I was; so I cleaned up to a point. My hands shook the way hands shake when something matters, when the opportunity is now and not tomorrow or any other tomorrow but now and only now. She was coming and she would sit and observe, we would talk and toast and eat and I would struggle with two dialogues, the one we spoke and the one running in my head. This is how it is when one is too stupid to let go of a dream that never was and probably never would be, for the thought of the dream, as the aroma of the meal, was, perhaps, more than I deserved, but more than I was willing to go without. Thoughts about thoughts. (Note to revisit this topic when my mind is clear and I can devote the time.)

I looked in the mirror, or I should say mirrors, to straighten my hair and check my teeth and pretend I was more handsome than I was; so I turned my head this way and that way, trying to find the one angle to support my case, to convince myself I had a chance to cross the thin ice and make it to the other side. I massaged the achy rubberbandish tension in my cheeks, raising and lowering them in a ghoulish sort of way, horrified at the thought that someone above was watching my nonsense, but then I thought of all the more horrid things I did, which, if anyone were watching, they'd of seen them too. I thought to pray and thought was as far as it got for if there was a Janus or a God or even a Papa looking down, I didn't want to insult them now with my pettiness and self-centeredness. The very thought made me smile. Just be yourself. Why that was so hard was beyond my comprehension, as if one had to try, while fully aware that the trying itself was mockery.

I arranged the glasses and the tea. We would have tea, brewed for four minutes and served without cream or sugar in glasses I had polished more, perhaps, than I'm willing to admit. Hot or cold is the choice I would give her as if there were no other choices and we would toast and drink our crystal clear black tea in crystal clear glassware and I would imagine all the times she drank with the crew and held amber glasses of snoot high; and, as now, I would feel my heart long for a time since past, wishing I had been born of a different age, in a different place, as if the fairy tales in my head bore any resemblance to actual events. And as we drank, I would turn the question over in my mind and her eyes would sparkle knowing that I and only I could ask the only question I really wanted to ask--Could I go with them?

She was on time as she had always been before. I wish I could describe her carriage, her walk, the sound of her heels on my hardwood floor, the lithe tightness of her curves or how the southern light warmed her cheeks, sparkled in her sapphire eyes, eyes clear, slightly glossy, brimming with a compassion wrought from loss and the pain that lingers when there is nowhere (or to no one) else to turn. She moved as if every movement mattered in the effortless way of those that are what they are as the bark is to tree or the feather to bird. When she spoke, there were her words, the ticking of a (pendulum) clock and the beating of my heart; and nothing else. Her words came neither fast nor slow, thoughts measured against a life lived in triumph and failure, of hands that had touched the divine and the labored, of eyes that had seen birth and death with the appreciation of blood giveth and blood taketh.

She asked about this and about that and I felt my chest swell, pushing forth a sigh and I was reminded of the absence of sincerity and genuineness in my own relationships and, I suppose, in my own life. She was the sun that showed me my shadows and I wondered with sadness if, as the sun, she would always be as close and as untouchable and I would forever be a shadow in her presence. Still, there was this moment, when the chocolate is on the tongue, and thoughts go neither forward nor back, but just on the melting, the deliciousness of a moment soon to pass. I watched as she asked about the sorts of things no one else asked about and I watched for even the slightest sign of distance, for a sign she was just being nice. If there were such a sign, I missed it. What I didn't miss was the dreamy sensation of relationship with one that can so effortlessly be interested and I felt as if the two of us were in a bubble, a bubble of time, a bubble I knew, like all bubbles, would eventually pop.

She talked and I found myself listening to two conversations. My own mind begun to spin, both past and future. In that moment, I saw all the stories of Bravo, all the interactions, the relationships, differently. In a way, I suppose, it was like the difference between reading a book about events you knew nothing about and reading that same book after you had had first hand experience of the place and people, of the moods and texture, the hues and sounds. The rest of the crew became different in my mind, neither better nor worse, just deeper as layers of relationship I didn't know existed were revealed in my own experience of Kyra. She looked human but that was about as close to human as she was going to get. She was something other and that otherness was nothing less than seductive and I felt myself falling and I wondered if she knew, and if she did, would her heart catch what her arms might miss.

Are you okay she asked, her hand on my shoulder as my mind raced to calculate just how much time had passed lost in thought, just how silly I must have looked to her, how alien in not being present and I wondered if she had the capacity to understand and the compassion to forgive my rudeness. Nothing, I responded. Just thinking of the time, how quickly it passes. She smiled. I told her I was thinking of the night exactly three years ago, the night I discovered the crew, for three years ago to this day, my life changed. To that, we lifted our pristine glasses and toasted with our pristine tea to a moment that seemed like yesterday and yet seemed as if another lifetime.

595. Snow

Ariel watched the snow fall in Kyra's quiet eyes, snow globes lost in thought. The snow fell in large flakes, an army of parachutes from the endless grey, falling by ones, landing, reuniting, as one. From the heavens as if postcards from Zoe and Von, snow fell across the land, a pristine blanket, silent warmth in a thousand messages, each flake, falling, falling, softly falling.

Bravo appeared in the distance as a metallic mountain in winter, sitting as a home sits with warm lights glowing, spilling forth memories and comfort, a place to die if one were inclined. Word had gone forth and Goldie and Pinkie were waiting on the dock, buzzing like bees in the soft flurries. Their metallic skins glistened with surrendered flakes, their mechanical eyes fluttering in familiar clicks and clacks as if crying, a sound missed all the more now in the hearing.

The snow fell on Bravo and on Goldie and when Kyra emerged from the transport, it fell on her too. Her black hair, speckled with snow, each flake alighting on head and shoulder like birds, perching as if they belonged, as if they were home too. The snow fell in waves, heavy, as it seemed now, from outside, standing in the cold. Ariel stuck her tongue out, catching flakes, her left hand tightly holding Kyra's while her right held Em's, a foal bursting in energy, delighted to be alive. As Ariel tugged, Kyra looked at Em, "We're home."

"Home," said Em. "Home." Her voice faded. (scene fades to Trev)

594. Polaris Summation

By request, a somewhat coherent summation of The Story as it relates to the crew's time on Polaris. Enjoy and/or be amused.

593. Muted Memories

The chapter I didn't write. Goes something like this:

After the initial explosion, Arn, Rog and Yul are covered in white dust and plaster like shrubs after a snowfall. We see the scene through the eyes of Yul, two grayish crystals (her eyes) taking in the sight as if they were diamonds on a bed of cotton. She is semi-conscious and sights are somewhat faded and sounds are muted and the action seems to be moving in slow motion and as multi-hued las fire is exchanged all she can see is the beautiful colors. Any sense of danger is completely absent, such as small child, too young to know otherwise, might not see the danger as a parent scuttles about in a disaster.

Instead, she feels a warm sleepiness, similar to the feeling of just waking up. She watches Rog, taking note of this body, his arms, dirty and sweaty and how muscular they are in action. She notices his movements, strong, athletic and he seems like a roughhewn statue come to life, angular, chiseled, in a masculine way, in a way she has felt with her own hands and in a way she wants to feel again; a way that says without saying, this is mine. His voice is deep but distant, fading in and out, sometimes louder, sometimes less so and although she cannot make out what is said, just a word here and there, the tone, though urgent, is comforting, a sense of familiarity that seems more important than the events of the moment. When the fighting is over, she closes her eyes, in part because she is tired and in part because she knows Rog is going to take care of her and in part to capture the memory of what she has just witnessed before moving on to new memories. She remembers him picking her up. Remembers being placed over his shoulder. Remembers just how good that felt.

592. You Won't Feel a Thing

"What the frail are you doing here?" said Rog, not expecting to see Arn.

"Nice to see you too," said Arn. "I can leave if you like. Your call."

"It's not that. I was just expecting someone else. Come in."

Arn didn't move.

"Well?" said Rog.

"Didn't come to socialize."

"Yeah?"

"Came to save your petard. Grab Yul. I'll explain on the way."

"Look--"

Arn looked blankly at his chron.

"Yul is ill. Help is on the way. Be here any minute."

"I am your help," replied Arn without raising his voice. "You don't want to be here when that help arrives."

"I don't think you understand."

"Let me put it this way. Stay here. You die."

Rog stared at Arn who stared back. Each still as a tree in a windless dawn.

"Damn it Arn, does everything have to be a frailing mystery with you?"

"Words are time and we don't have time. You coming or--?"

An explosion sent Arn into Rog's arms, the room concussed, shaken as if by a giant, dust and plaster falling like snow, choking breath and caking tongue, the room a blizzard of destruction, their bodies as lumps in an avalanche.

__________

"You don't look Kulmykian," said Trev, the room somewhat of a drunken blur.

"I'm not," she said, closing the door and turning the lock.

"Arc'teryxian?"

"No."

"What are you then?"

"Does it matter?" she smiled, approaching the bed.

Trev considered that for a moment while fumbling with a pillow on the headboard. "Suppose not."

"Didn't think so," her voice creamy, the room spinning. Running her thumbs over his forehead, she closed his eyes, her blue nails tracing elliptical loops on his flush temples. "Relax. Promise you won't feel a thing."

__________

Von looked at the chaplain. "What the hellocks happened?"

"Some things, we don't know."

Von lifted his hand.

"And you can beat me to a pulp and you'll get no more. I can't give what I don't have."

Von lowered his hand, looking at it as if it didn't belong to him. "Okay, then give me your best guess."

"What has occurred here has never occurred before. Your guess is as good as mine."

"Your shiotting me."

"I'm afraid not."

"Never before?"

"Never."

"Really?"

"Really."

Von's left eye begin to twitch. Turning to the fount, he raised his right hand. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," said the chaplain.

Von glanced in his direction and then back to the fount before dipping his fingers in the light. In a blink, he was gone.

591. Very

"Kyra?" asked Ariel.

"Yes."

"Emily says hello."

Kyra sat up. "What did you say?"

"I said Emily says hello. And she says she has made plenty of friends so there is no need for you to come see her just yet."

Kyra pulled Ariel into her chest and wrapped her arms around her small body. Gently, she anchored her chin into Ariel's little shoulder and with a tremulous voice and memory flooded eyes, whispered. "Tell me, what else did Emily say?"

"She said you were the best big sister anyone ever had and that I was a very, very lucky girl."

"Hey," said John, looking into the backseat, "is everything alright?"

Kyra wiped a tear from her cheek. "Yeah, everything is alright. Yeah."

"You sure?"

"Very."

590. Endogenous Etiology: 4

Transcript from sometime in the future. Location unknown. Names redacted.

Q.

A. The grayness comes without rhyme or reason and it comes, if we personify, as visitors of all sorts, shapes, sizes. Like the knock at the door, it comes of its own accord, a time of its choosing. And, for the record, weather has nothing to do with it.

Q.

A. What I mean is, the grayness is seldom the same. The feel, the texture if you will, changes and I cannot say that this grayness is like that grayness, that today resembles yesterday.

Q.

A. Today? Today is an odd grayness, a flavor I've not sampled before. The sky is blue, the weather near perfect, the house quiet and my emotions calm like the surface of a lake at dawn. Yet, there is always a yet, the sun rises quietly. The quiet is the first sign that all is not as it should be. I feel apart. The dawn, the awakening of the day is experienced as something separate. I don't feel a part of it. The feeling is somewhat like, how do I say it, like when you leave a thing, a job, a relationship, and the thing you are leaving is still in view, still warm, yet, you are no longer troubled with the issues attached to that job or that relationship. The troubles are still there, nothing is better, you can still see them, but you are no longer involved, the troubles are no longer yours. That is how it feels, as if one is in limbo, between this and that, an odd nether-land.

Q.

A. These are the days that scare me the most. The absence of emotion. You see, anger, as much as we diss it, is like a guard rail. It keeps us from going over the edge, for anger wants to express, to act, to be. So anger, in a strange way, keeps us in the game. I may do bad things when angry, but the ultimate is out of bounds. So you see, when I'm angry, I'm protected. But when anger is absent, and the grayness rolls in, then the game is very different, as different as swimming in a lake and swimming in a river flowing before a waterfall.

Q.

A. Anger is like the fist holding the rope tight. With apathy, you just let go, and the letting go is without care, without an opinion one way or the other. In short, you just don't care anymore. Imagine it this way. Let's say you no longer became hungry and let's also say you could not taste anymore either. Would you eat?

Q.

A. Well, that would be logical and if logic had any part in what I was describing, would I be here?

Q. 

A. Voices sound like so much noise. I hear them, other people. I know they are talking, sometimes to me although it seems more like at me. I know the words but when I try to put them all together the only thought that comes to mind is, what the frail are they saying and why do they need me to say it because it certainly seems as if they are going to say what they are going to say with or without me.

Q.

A. (raucous laughter) You're shiotting me, right? 

Q.

A. Look, I don't even know what that would feel like anymore. And memories of what it once felt like fade by the day. And then I ask myself, am I even capable of doing what I accuse other people of not doing. Do I remember myself?

Q.

A. I don't know. But I like the metaphor. I do feel like I'm floating away, into the sky and all I know is getting more and more distant. So, I suppose, in answer to your question, I feel no connection, to anyone. Nothing. No thing. Just a drifting away and the sense of distance, of fading away, doesn't need physical distance. The distance is something other. But I think explaining it as a lack of connection is apt. Not connected. Not fitting. A plug without a socket. 

Q.

A. Not always. There are moments, which I think only stand to illustrate the greater picture. If life were a highway, well, then, the station I'm listening to is mostly static with the occasion clear signal and I keep turning the knob, trying to get a clear, consistent signal, but I can't. I rock the knob back and forth, to and fro, minute adjustments and, for a second I have a signal and then, just as quickly, its gone and the static, like a steady shower, washes over me. Now imagine that its not just a ball game you can't tune in, but life, relationships. So your life, all its relationships, are just noise, static, an endless gray.

Q.

A. You reach a point where you are just tired. Morning, noon or night, doesn't matter. The tiredness is not of body and not really of mind. When you are being beat, physically beaten, you go through stages, fear, terror, pain and all the rest but then you get to a point where to pain slips away and the blows appear to slow down and you feel like a pillow, absorbing blows, cushioned by a body you no longer recognize as yourself and you realize they can't reach what they want to reach and it is at this moment you either stay or go.

589. No More, No Less

"Papa, if you could go back in time to when you were my age, what do you know now that you wish you had known then?" asked Kyra.

Papa smiled. "I wish I had been wise enough to ask the question."

"I'm serious."

"I am too."

After a slight pause, Kyra added, "So you're not going to tell me?"

"There is nothing I could say that would be greater or wiser than the mere asking of the question, unabated. I could give you a few answers that might make sense to me and my life, but probably would be of little value to you and yours."

"I see. So you could but you won't."

Papa laughed. "Come here." Papa pointed to the kitchen window where Grand was washing the morning dishes. "Tell me what you see."

"Grand washing dishes."

"Keep looking."

Kyra looked at Papa and then back at the window. "Well, she's still washing dishes, just like she does every morning."

"True enough, but look deeper."

"OK." Kyra looked on for a few more minutes. "I give up. What is it you want me to see?"

"Look at her face. How does it look?"

"Like it always does."

"Describe it for me."

"Rosy cheeks, brown hair--"

"Deeper."

"What does deeper mean?"

"Look again. Think beyond the physical characteristics. What do you see?"

Kyra looked again. After a short period, long enough to give the impression she had been thinking, she said, "She's just washing dishes Papa. No more, no less."

Papa smiled. "That's it."

"What's it?"

"What I would tell myself, if I could go back in time."

588. The Mushroom People

Kyra welcomed the sleepy warmness of Ariel without sentiment or sentimentality. Just warmness, like sun on the belly and waves in the ear, where the inside of eyelids are translucent orange starbursts and lips are salt dry, much like they were now. And peace, the peace of rustic mornings bathed in deep greens turning to lush and light greens and weathered woods of porch and rail soaking in the morning rays; the kind of peace found in quiet chapels and beside matutinal mountain lakes or walks with Papa on Valla's beaches; the kind of peace that showed just how far out of bounds most of life was lived.

With her knees pulled into her chest, she watched Papa tend to his flower garden, watering and weeding, bending to breathe, eyes closed, smile worn without artifice. To each their own he would say, to each their time he would imply. We are not single notes. We are not just a page. Unfolding we do, and not all at once. Patience we practice and we continue to water and feed and cultivate, for what is today is not what will be tomorrow or the day after that. Then he would lift his arms and smile and say, as he always said, can you see, can you feel, my sweet angel, your unfolding? Watch, he would add. Watch as if your life depended upon it and as surely as the dusk becomes the night and the night becomes the dawn, you too will fall and rise and it is not the falling or the rising we note but rather the eternal unfolding.

Unfolding at this moment, was Ariel. Talking as children talk, to tell a story for the sake of the telling, a shared excitement that distinguished not between teller and tellee, that assumed the unbounded joy in one would be equally shared without doubt, without question, in the other. It was this way the tale was told.

Without opening her eyes, Kyra smiled and tightened her arms around the diminutive bundle of unbridled optimism as she weaved the saga of the Mushroom People and their great struggle against the odds of nature as they climbed mountains and sailed seas in search of a home. They succeeded, she said. And, to make clear her intent and leave no doubt, she added: so would they.

Soundtrack: Faithless, A Kind of Peace

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587. Stolen Hours

The ocean glittered in encore as the sun set and the moon rose. Where light from above had warmed roof and heart alike, lights within, gloaming golden and orange behind jalousied pane, twinkled life indoors, happy shadows of simple domestic bliss where bread was bread and wine was wine and gratitude for the day was served first. In concert, closing or opening act debated, the claret sky twinkled life from the watchful velvet heavens. The sight was, as it had been before and as it would be again, sublime, if one had the mind to see.

Trev didn't. He had found a small alley off a small street, a place for locals, a vista to the small harbor in the distance, a place to get lost, a place to be lost, a place, with open windows and aged wood, redolent of lore, legend and sea, of hands labored in cause, a place breathing neither need nor want, a place to get drunk. And drink he did. Drank the colors till the colors danced in his eyes and around his head and sound sat upon his head, feet kicking the top of his lobes. So he did what lost and drunk do, he drank more, his hands on the bar, rolling as if at sea, heavy his head felt, bobbing. Another glass, another lifting and down like gavel rang empty what was once full.

As coin upon coin was offered up, coin attracted what coin is wont and beside his listing was flesh firm and soft, eyes the larger in reflection, fingers twirling, a code neither secret nor discreet. He talked, the words feeling visible, objects upon a platter, notes hanging in the air, an orchestra in support of tale told. She listened, her face a pleasant mask, hiding nothing and in that nothing, nothing sincere, sincere as nothing asked, nothing wanted, beauty held, growing by the dram.

Lost, time. To lose time, to that place he sought, those hours given forth, banked in memory denied to journal, foe of pen and paper, stranger to all but strangers. She offered neither flesh nor warmth as it seemed from afar as it would seem from eye and ear witnessed, but lostness, a few hours stolen, extracted. That is what he wanted, an extractor, someone to pull from his mind an hour, an hour removed from the hours before and the hours to come. She could do this. Extract him. Her trade, skill. Worthy of the exchange, for who can buy time? Who can create time?

He nodded. She smiled. And lips were sealed to the ears that asked. "Did you find him?" asked John.

"Not hide nor hair," replied Arn as the bartender looked to the stairs. "Yet."

586. One

Into the backseat John tucked Kyra and her heavy lidded eyes. Ariel spooned into her belly, gently pulling Kyra's arms around her, a cocoon of community. Em leaned against them both. The three as kittens in a winter barn, bound by warmth, a common bond, a shared humanity beyond age or race, Hynerian and Kulmyk, together, one.

John looked behind catching one set of eyes, wide, smiling the smile of usefulness, purpose, significance. She caught his eye and in the look, father and daughter, a family, a home, a corner turned. Blond hair in a black cloak, day rising from night, convent pure, the black and white of truth not parsed, the oneness that could not be cleaved, divided, boxed or labeled. The mornings would be different now. The dawn rising breathed the transcended wind of hope.

585. Amaranthine Loyal

Kyra sat, well, actually curled more than sat, curled like a doodlebug, her cloak a shield, holding warmth within and the cold at bay. She curled not by mind but rather by design, by instinct, a sense of circling the wagons, of protecting the organs, of warmth involuting to warmth, and the thought, the thought of the comfort of fetus, of knees pulled into belly, of being covered and sustained, protected and supported, of sound muted and colors faded, all of it felt like a return, a coming home, a place safe, a place where language was left at the door and communication was known by other means.

She listened, voices familiar, warm drunk, eyes closed, tired. Her mind moved, slowly, her body, not so much. A disconnect, it felt, mind and body, one no longer in command of the other, a rebellion, a mutiny, or, perhaps, just a tiredness, a numbness to engage, to participate. Anger not, more apathy it felt, jellyfish like, a floating, boneless, a gentle lapping, shore blurry, shapes indistinct.

Still they talked, spoke, tone given and tone taken, back and forth. Matters discussed, thrown and caught and thrown back and caught and so it went, purpose unknown. She could have cared less and pondered the less in the caring, tasted it, twirled it around her mouth as hard candy, strange, the feeling, not what mom usually served. More words came, knocked and were not so much turned away as ignored, but not so much ignored as not understood. Images of standing at a window, looking out, a neighborhood child is knocking on the door, they want to play, reaching out, seeking connection and, she, just standing, watching from her window, wanting to answer the door but her feet wouldn't move, watching, they knock again, look around, then leave. She watches them go and the feeling is empty and expansive, creamy and suffocating, an odd sense of melting and drowning, not of water, not in water.

He comes, John. His large eyes, glassed with concern, sparkling in worry, say what cannot be said. His hands, strong, virile, masculine in the sense of male, male beyond gender, but male in archetype, male in fit, the square peg to her square need. They, his hands, pull her cloak taut; and, with care, fit button to loop from bottom to top, stopping to survey, as his doctor's eyes must have surveyed many times before, a look of mind racing, holding back forthrightness, replacing it with wardship.

Ariel, primrose hair coruscating in the light of the fount, stood by his side, watching as children watch, with their heart, amaranthine loyal. Her azuline eyes, deep as the watchet sky, blinked not, nor did they wavier. She held the hem of Kyra's cloak as her father lifted, her small pale fingers all the more white for the grip, holding tight without obligation, without exchange, without ledger or want or need. She held for in the holding was not skin and bone or motive or artifice, but the expression of all that is, all that was, all that would to be.

This, and not any other writ or wrote, is how it was. This was Bravo. This was Papa. This was the universal lesson taught on beach and danced on deck, delivered in smiles and wrapped in hugs.

584. The Math

"If we don't get off this planet now, she won't be the only one in a better place," said John.

"What are you talking about?" asked Von.

"It's the planet. Polaris. We were suppose to be here months ago."

"What?"

"The air. Doesn't agree with female hynerians. Nothing wrong with me or you or Trev or Rog. We weren't targeted. She was." John looked at Kyra, huddled in a pew. "Zoe, Em and Yul are just collateral damage."

"I take it you have a cure?"

"There is no cure."

"I don't believe it. There is--"

"I'm not asking you to believe it. I'm telling you."

"So they die?"

"I didn't say that."

"So?"

"We've got to get them off planet."

"And Zoe?"

"What about Zoe?"

"You think I'm just going to leave?"

"I thought you said she was in a better place?"

"Better, not best."

"What does that mean?"

"It means I'm not going anywhere without her."

John looks around. "Well, where is she?"

"Hellocks, if I knew that you think I'd be standing here?"

"Look, if we stay, they all die."

Von looked at Kyra.

"Don't go there," said John.

"It's true."

"What's true is the math."

"Math my arse. Explain to me where math is in the heart?"

John looked dumbfounded. "I don't have time for this. You coming or not?"

583. Flying Squirrel

Ariel skipped, jumped, ran to Von, launching herself like a flying squirrel into his open arms. His eyes remained locked on John's as she wrapped her small arms around his crackled neck, her little legs around the bottom of his aging ribcage. Into his stiff carriage, she whispered words unknown, which neither repeated, nor at any future time, documented. This much is known. His parched skin relaxed as leather massaged with mink oil. He smiled and his arms, once frozen, moved, lifting Ariel upward as if holding a bag of giggles. She winked, a catch in her young eye that took breath as one twirls a banner before crowd.

"Where's Zoe?" asked John.

Von looked up from knee, Ariel holding his hand, their heads on the same plane. "A better place." His words, deep, sonorous, echoed in the chapel. Scene fades to black.

582. Rusted Frozen

Von stood, somewhere between in-breath and out-breath, in the moment when the mind whirls, not in gear, neutral, spinning, faster and faster, the feeling of a drain draining, picking up speed, disappearing, the pitch, the sound, higher and higher, slipping away, threatening to break free, a nut un-tight, set free, as a fan comes loose, blades sharp, out of control.

His arms, forklift empty, rusted frozen, feeble in emptiness, uselessness, a vessel without water, a bird without wings. Palms and fingers clawed in disbelief, dry, topographical wrinkles drawn in time, deepened with labor, highlighted by worry. He blinked, with cheek as much as lid, as if in the blinking one could change slides, and in the dark of the click, the click of (slide) projector, where for an instant the room is dark, and amorous hearts beat a little faster, where there is doubt if the wheel will move back, if the slide of before will appear again, if time itself can be toyed, in that instant, a thousand images flashed, each as a coin, double sided, image and emotion, picture and feeling, each needing the other as color needed light.

Leaves fell, in his mind. Thousands of gold medallions, round as coin, the ground a golden carpet, falling, falling like lazy snowflakes, filling the sky like flock, a thousand mini suns, transparent as fragile, messengers each, story consistent, whispered on the wind, caressing the cheek and light in the hand. The image persisted as did the desire, the desire to stand under tree, feet in leaves as if in ocean, a warmth, a cleansing. His mind stuck, stuck in the image, in the idea, a dance of light, a play of neurons, apparitions of consciousness and memory. He didn't want to rake leaves, he wanted the idea of raking leaves, the peace, the solitary sounds of nature, the pungent smell of death and dying, of the relentless grinding cycle, the inevitable turning circle, to be ankle deep in truth, to be stripped of illusion, to let drop the tail of desire, an irony not lost in the lostness, a sign of trap-ness, limbo, of this world and the next, of numbers that don't add up, of colors that shift under changing light, where pain and pleasure change clothes and all of life seems a masquerade, eyes and minds moving behind static glittering facades and everything known becomes unknown and everything unknown becomes loyal and faithful and trusted.

The fount bubbled forth as it had bubbled forth before, the chaplain photograph still, his face unreadable. This is the image John saw, Em in his arms, Ariel at his feet, Kyra walking as soldiers walk in retreat, in silence, dark with rain, numb by instinct, dead to yesterday, dead to tomorrow, living in the sheltered cave of now.

__________

The chapter above was based on the following notes discovered in one of Von's journals:

--age: old like not old, but old like the urgency of gardening before the coming storm, coming it will, inevitable, still able, so not too old, but coming it is

--mind: always spinning but not always in gear; questions must be shifted, manually, to get moving, to be productive; likewise, an image, a lyric or a passage of good writing can kick the mind into gear

--psychological prisons: we never reveal all, we always hold something in reserve, what is most raw is held back like a retarded child--embarrassed we are at how little we control; we are and the "areness" is with or without us; and this "being of something other" is frightful

--leaves: I want to rake leaves, not actually, but in my mind; I want the romanticized idea of it, of the peace and beauty, the tactile feel, the earthly fragrance of death and dying and the circle

--age: rounding the circle not quite complete -- from baby to baby, only age and size to distinguish -- rounding eleven he would say, or, on a good day, maybe, ten -- either way, midnight was coming and the fear was not of the hour struck, but of the final hour -- to put bluntly, the hour where one could no longer wipe one's own arse, the hour where you starred into faces speaking gibberish, speaking baby talk and your desire was not to talk back, but to slap the shiott out of adults that should know better -- and you smile inwardly, knowing, their day was coming, that you would not be around to enjoy it lessened not the pleasure of imagining it

581. Gyro

He walked as if wearing himself, each movement shifting weight like a heavy object inside a box. Vision sharp, hearing narrow, touch blind sensitive, taste metallic bitter. The cobbled streets were still butter smooth, a dull gloss, evidence of time and shod. The shops bustled as they had bustled before, although vaguely cloaked with a strange patina of loneliness that made what looked the same feel entirely different. The gloaming without would come to match the gloaming within, the feeling such as neighbors peeking from behind curtains, fingers pointing just out of sight, whispers mouthed but not heard.

Inside, the box, his heart spun, a gyro picking up speed, slightly out of balance, faster, singing rotation, a heavy hum, a spinning beyond his hands to stop, trapped, buried, within his chest it spun, above the gut, below the throat. The street started to spin. Feeling dizzy, he sat. The bench felt warm. Bead of sweat trickled in the blue sky heat. Still he felt a chill, cold as one feels cold in fever. Taut, his skin felt; and thin. Taut and thin, brittle, such to tear if he moved too quick. Or combust under the magnifying glass sun, the cold heat burning his pale space-voyaged complexion.

His hands gripped the arms of the bench and what was still, felt as if moving, a circus ride shifting to and fro, jerking on tracks metal, wood squealing protest, a ride without known end. Colors, bodies, blurred before his starring eyes. Voices mixed with the sounds of transport and nature, of a village exhaling midday life. Hues flowed like water, like the river and he felt the rock, resisting, out of place, out of step, stupid, stubborn; and upon his stubbornness, life flowed over and around him, wearing him down, wearing him away, not with harshness, but a gentle washing, away, not of door slammed but instead, slowly, quietly shut, a rejection all the more damning in its lack of hate or anger, a cold indictment, of knowledge known to all but himself.

How was she? Where was she? Where was he? How was he? The questions stuck in his parched throat, unable to move, a hairball lodged. Still, the questions came, multiplied, mocked, each a strand, an invisible spider weaving, he the prize, dinner, caught, passive, watching, strand, question, strand, question. Tight, he felt tight, constricted, consumed, in life, in the street, but not of life, not of the street. How? Where? Why? His head spun. His head. Spider. Him. Consuming itself. Alive.

__________

As Ariel held Em's head, John stood above, caught in the moment between action done and action to be done. Em looked up. "Where's Trev?" Her voice soft such to need a gentle breeze to carry it upward.

"We don't know," said John. Seeing her exhale, chest sunken, he quickly added, "But Arn will find him. Have no doubt, he will be here soon."