304. Not White

Yul starred at the door with its small window, puckered her lips, sighed, and, throwing her head into the pillow, looked at the ceiling. White, she thought. Why is everything white? White, white, and frailing white. Frail me if I ever decorate a frailing room in frailing white.

Tapping her fingers on the crisp white sheets she reached, without looking, for her comm on the nightstand. She could find it with her eyes closed now, which is what happens when you pick the damn thing up a hundred times in as many minutes. And a hundred times the message was the same—nothing. She pulled her arm back as if to hurl the small object against the wall before remembering the incident with the phone and muttered under her breath with a sideways glance, Where the frailing frail is everyone?

Closing her eyes the words echoed through the halls of her memory. Where the frail is everyone, where the frail is everyone, where the . . .

The sun had set quickly and the addresses were hard to read. Yul pulled the note out of her coat pocket, reread the address, looked at the door and took a deep breathe. This was it. Just knock, that’s all, just knock. She opened the screen door and was about to knock when a small white object caught her eye—a note. Unfolding the paper she read these words: So sorry. Something has come up. Another time perhaps. Then she read it again and then again and again, reading without moving, reading without thinking, reading without feeling her feet on the ground.

Yul just stood on the old gray wooden porch, her head bent over, the note hanging loosely in her right hand like a leaf in autumn feeling the pull of gravity. She starred at the writing as if starring would reveal some hidden meaning, some explanation that would soothe the sickening feeling growing in her gut. But stare all she might, the house was dark, the door locked and this note was all there was. Silence never sounded so loud and although no one else was on the street she felt as if a hundred eyes were boring a hole in her back. Her neck tensed and turning her head, assuming she wanted to, became next to impossible.

Balling the note in her delicate hand she felt a wave of heated emotion rise from her tight chest to her glassy eyes, and as if her soul itself needed release into the cool night air, one tear followed another in an endless steam of repressed self-hatred. Why me?


Three hours later . . .


“Dad, can you hear me?”

“Yes Yul, what’s wrong?”

“I can’t find my keys.”

“Tell me where you are, I’ll be right there.”


One hour later . . .


“Dear, what happened?” asked Ms Yul.

“Get the little lying bitch cleaned up and in bed. I’ll deal with this frailing shiott in the morning.”

Yul lay on the ground in the fetal position. Her face was a mess. Her vision blurred and her clothes matted with a most foul smelling stain. Looking up she saw Aly, her eyes wide, in her pristine white nightgown. Nothing needed to be said. There was Aly and there was Yul. One standing and one on the ground. Seems this is the way it would always be.



“Turn out the light!” yelled Yul, trying to cover her eyes.

“Sorry Yul, but I thought you’d like to know you have a visitor,” said the nurse, dressed, of course, in all white.

Commentary Part 1

Commentary Part 2 with cameo from Maria

219. Don't Look Back

[ed note: In this chapter, the Yul we know is Aly.]

The jumper pulled up to the crowded dock and four doors opened in a gale of storm and emotion alike. In every direction ships of all shapes and sizes swayed at anchor, creaking like old men, as families were torn in goodbyes like leaves from autumn trees in a blustery gust.

“Father, may I have a minute with Aly?” asked Yul.

Their father looked vacantly annoyed, divided between honoring Yul’s request while doubting Aly’s merit. He was a large Hynerian, domineering most would say, imposing, no one would deny. Still, what Yul wanted, Yul got. “Make it quick Yul. Schedules must be obeyed.” The look he gave Aly would have frozen a battle hardened soldier.

Yul grabbed Aly by the arm and pulled her around the corner. “Look, we don’t have much time—“

“Hey, let’s cut the crap. I’m not pissed you’re leaving and I’m not. Never expected otherwise. But what the frail! Did you have to wear the same outfit. How bout I just cut my wrist so you can throw a little salt my way, for old times sake, you know, just for fun, one last time.”

“Are you through? Cause if you are, I want your scarf. Here, take mine and give me yours.”

Aly’s jaw dropped. “Are you shiotting me? Holy mother of Janus, I never imagined you . . . . Wait, no frailing sense in . . . Frail it. You want my frailing scarf. Here, take the damn thing.”

“Aly, it’s not what you think.”

“Frailing easy for you to say. You’re not the one with a death sentence, one you didn’t choose, one assigned to you by others. Ever wonder what it’s like to be judged?”

Yul’s face changed and in one fluid motion she slapped the living shiott out of Aly. “Listen up. I’m only going to say this one time and I’m going to say it real slow so that thick head of yours doesn’t frail this up. I’m dying. Got maybe six months to live, perhaps a year with luck, which certainly is longer than this planet’s got.”

Aly wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth. “So why are you telling me this? You think it gonna make me feel any better?”

Yul just shook her head. “You don’t get it do you?”

“Get what?”

“You think I would dress like you on purpose? My Janus, it about killed my soul to put these clothes on. Look, here’s the deal. Your name is Yul and you are getting on that ship. You understand?”

Aly stood with a deer in the highlights look. “What are you talking about?”

“The whole purpose of getting people off-world is to save them from certain death, to give them a chance to start over. I’m dying Aly. Makes no sense for me to get on that ship when I know you could go in my place.”

“So why—“

“Father. You think he would let you go if he knew?”

“Nope.”

“So, I’m giving you your chance. Now take my scarf. When we walk back around, your name is Yul. You hug Father. Kiss Mother. Ignore me and walk your arse up that plank as quickly as you can. And Aly?

“What?”

“Don’t look back.”

Categories: Story, Yul, Hyneria

218. NotYul or Pieces of Me

“Yul, I’ve got something I need to say,” said Rog. “I’m not sure why I didn’t say this sooner, but, well—“

Yul sat up, opened her teary eyes and smeared her little fists across her face. “Rog, before you say anything, there’s something you need to know.”

“Baby—“

“Let me finish.” Rog sat up and Yul summoned her courage in what was only a second but seemed to both like a minute or more. “My name is not Yul.”

If Rog was a clock, he just stopped ticking; as he would later say, for one of the few times in my life, I had no response. He knew all was not right with her past and that she was not the one that was suppose to be on Bravo and had concluded that perhaps some sort of foul play was involved, something that Yul felt the need to hide, or at least not disclose. He had made peace with that picture. This name thing, however, caught him off-guard and his heart sank as if those five words had moved his peg back to the starting line.

“Rog?” Yul snapped her fingers. “I’m right here baby. Talk to me.”

“Sorry, Yu--.” Rog hesitated, hoping something intelligent would pop in his head, like real fast. “Okay, let me say two things.” Then he hesitated and rubbed his jaws as if they were rusty and needing oil, as if the rubbing would loosen his sticky hinges of articulation.

“Okay, whenever you are ready,” said Yul, filling the uncomfortable silence with a tone tinged with fear not unfamiliar. She rarely opened herself up because the few times she had, instead of love and understanding, she was judged and convicted. The pain of self-righteous condemnation was not a feeling she wanted to ever experience again. As Rog hesitated, she braced herself like one on the ground expecting to see the foot and not the hand.

“First, I don’t care what your name is, the person I see in front of me and the person I have come to know and love does not change with a label. Good milk is good milk, my dad used to always say, and don’t ever let no salesman convince you otherwise.”

Yul tried to laugh. “What the hellocks does that mean?”

Rog smiled that smile that only he could. “It means I love you, not your name, not your past, not my idea of who I think you are. I love you Yu--, or, well, crap, I forgot my second question. Not that it matters, but, what is your name?”

“I was called Alyssa, or Aly for short. Yul is my identical twin sister’s name.”

“You have an identical twin sister?”

“Stop it. I know that look. I’m serious Rog.”

“I know you are baby, but an identical twin. Give me a minute.”

“Imagine all you want, she was nothing like me. In fact, quite the opposite.”

“Sooooo . . . ?” (said slowly and softly as if he was tip-toeing through a minefield)

“So, you want to know why I’m onboard and she isn’t?”

“Yes. No. I mean . . . “

“Spit it out.”

“I mean yes, I want to know the story, but no, it don’t matter. As I said, what is done is done and that doesn’t change good milk to bad.”

“Her name was on the manifest. So, I assumed it.”

“I figured as much. You don’t have to share with me why if you don’t want to.”

“Ranch boy, it’s not a matter of want as much as need. You deserve to know and I need to walk to the edge and face an old fear. So I reckon, as you might say, we have a mutual interest.” Yul reached out and took Rog’s hands as she leaned forward. “But I need to ask you one thing first?”

“Sure.”

“When I fall, will you catch me?”

Rog smiled with eyes like full moons sitting on the horizon of his rising cheeks. “I think I can answer that question in one word: abso-frailing-lutely!”

And so Yul began to talk, and a lightness she had never felt came upon her as if each piece of her story was a rock taken from her shoulders, presented to Rog, and laid upon the floor.

Categories: Story, Rog, Yul, Paintings