What is this place? Zephora asks, sliding to the ground.
If you go up the mountain, you will find all the answers. The creature’s voice is like the sound of many waters. But if, however, you go down the mountain, then you will find the questions.
After the creature departs, Zephora hears its voice within her like the shadow of a repeating memory. Before her, the valley’s flood plain is lush with grasses, its slopes exuberant with flowers, lily of the valley and red anemone. It stretches as far as eyes can see. Staring out at it, she cannot recall so vivid a green, brighter than the green light that would bleed from the leaves of her mother’s trees when, as a child, she fell into a trance that made colours come alive.
Now, resting on the grassy highland above the river valley, puzzling over her choices (Answers or questions. Go up the mountain or down.), she falls into a reverie that gives her memories the ghostly patina of a seventeenth century phantasmagoria: visions of the dead and skeletons dancing through smoke. She remembers a yard fringed with oleander trees, the smell of dark earth, the earth of an island. She is a child, running from the yard to the house. Inside the house, crossing the dim, empty drawing room reserved for guests, lace doilies on the teapoys, antimacassars on the settees. Running past the wooden louvres that let in cool trade winds, her bare feet on the smooth rattan mat. The house is not architecturally significant, but the memory of the house has an architecture of its own, a strange, significant architecture, like missing walls and unstable rooms in dreams. The symbols, the archetypes, the omens . . .
But the memory is false. The drawing room is not empty. And she is not a child. She is eighteen years old, running away from the inquisition of her family. Her older sister Anara, the Real Beauty of the family, the remarkable and remarked upon, has won an island scholarship, has stolen the first boy she ever loved.
Are you thinking about the future, Zephora? Why don’t you follow your sister’s example? What will become of you? Stay in the island or go abroad. Take flight or don’t take flight. Enter the plane or not. Sitting on the settee, across from her lovely, treacherous sister, the choices puzzled her. She is sitting calmly at the inquisition, then suddenly she is running away from it all, running through the unstable architecture of the collapsing house, running fast along the tarmac to the waiting plane.
The plane!
How long ago was it since she had entered the plane? It could be moments or centuries. The choices puzzled her. What was more important, the questions or the answers?
Go up the mountain or down?
* * *
She placed the watch on the table. Already, she thought of the diners from the unreliable perspective of nostalgia. She saw them grow statuesque in her memory, black-and-white snap-shots rather than colourful, moving images. She closed her eyes and listened. Dusk was falling upon the old Caribbean city. From one of the trees in the square, a nightjar whistled mournfully. At the sound, she opened her eyes again, sighed heavily and tapped a finger to her wrist.
I still don’t know the time, but I must go now.
I do not think you should get on that plane.
I have to.
You must not enter that plane, I feel sure of it.
The Andalucian was leaning back in his chair. His gaze was steady on hers and he spoke in a calm, unrushed way. She did not know whether to be amused or alarmed.
Why?
He thought for a moment. Let us say I have a feeling.
And what if I go anyway?
Earlier today, I walked down a hill to get here. Through the window of an upper floor room, I saw a woman in white clothes talking on the phone. She called to me and spoke to me from the window of the entresol. She told me I would meet you . . .
There was a long silence, during which he picked up the broken watch and examined it. Finally, he sighed. This place, the time, I know it is confusing. But is your choice. You have already made up your mind I see . . .
A few hours before, descending into the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, she had watched from above, the white caps of the Atlantic breaking against the shores of Carolina. Carolina, named after the Bewitched king of Spain, last of the Habsburg rulers. Carolina, hometown of the great Latin American poet Julia de Burgos. Carolina, city of twenty-first century luxury resorts and American affluence, JC Penny and TJ Maxx stores like rarefied rooms of heaven in the dazzling Plaza Carolina. Puerto Rico, island of sixteenth century citadels, killer rums, Cuban exiles. Borinquen, an island between two worlds.
* * *
A memory of a long-ago day on the island, a day when she had visited an old abbey in the hills. She went alone, bearing her loneliness. The buildings told her no secrets. She sat in the cool, secretive mission, whitewashed walls and low ceiling, like hiding out in a sea cave. Someone had left a missalette open on the polish-stained pew. Kneeling women all around, mute and solitary in their supplication, grow statuesque in her memory.
Leaving, she walked down the winding mountain road in the hot sun, the afternoon’s palpable somnolence. From the overhangs above the road, woman’s-tongue trees dangled their branches like the arms of sleeping people. She paused to look at a small graveyard, the headstones so overrun by weeds she could not read the names of the dead. She could hear children’s voices, faintly, in the distance. Walking on, she passed a preschool where she could see in the upstairs window a woman in white clothes talking on a rotary phone.
Further down the mountain, she paused to take pictures of the view. There was no one to take her picture, so she stood the camera on an ancient rock. She set the timer. She ran and sat below the green cliff-face, on the grass dappled with sunlight and shadow. She laughed at nothing in particular. The countdown seemed to take forever while she laughed and laughed, waiting for the bright flash that never came.
Portia Subran
A New Life in a New Time
Trinidad & Tobago
Bernard Gray started each morning with a single boiled egg.
It was served in a stainless steel eggcup with the words Porrima Inc. engraved around its centre band, and was often accompanied by a glass of lemon water which he would hurriedly gulp. He usually followed this with a small bowl of steel-cut oats.
Today, he was eager to reach this part of his breakfast, this new addition to his meal. In the centre of his grains sat half a maraschino cherry. Its colour had started to bleed out to the edges of the tiny Pyrex bowl. His gaze became transfixed on the thin pink strands blotting out the cream of his oats.
He swished the milky grains through his teeth, causing his tongue to be aroused by the moving textures. He looked at his clock and his throat tightened. He breathed slowly, closed his eyes and reminded himself that it was set twenty minutes fast and there was still plenty of time.
“Today I might see her,” he said calmly to the bowl of oatmeal.
Suddenly his back was struck with pain, the sides of his abdomen were swollen. He passed his hand over his hanging stomach in an attempt to soothe the cramps as the food plummeted into it. He was dizzy. He took a deep breath.
The clock continued ticking while Bernard stared at it, the sound growing louder in the early morning silence.
Bernard gasped as oatmeal stuck to the back of throat. He choked and spat the loose grains back into his bowl. He moved towards the bathroom and the nausea began, his abdomen still cramping. He needed to urinate; and when he finally did, it came out like scraping blades and fire.
He took his clothes off, stepped into the shower and let the sweat wash off his body.
* * *
When Bernard got to work, he walked through the aisle between the cubicles of his co-workers and turned into his cubed space. He placed his bag with his lunch in a corner of his desk and took out his Porrima Inc. water bottle. He made a slow trek to the kitchen, counting his steps.
Thirty-five.
He winced and forced another step.
Thirty-six.
He began to fill his water bottle at the cooler. H
e consciously regulated his breaths, and reminded himself to go at it slowly. Slow. Smooth. And deep.
The heavy staccato tap of stilettos roughly stabbing the floor shook Bernard out of his calculated breathing.
His hands trembled severely enough to make the bottle spill water on the floor and on his shoes. He tried to steady his breathing. The taps stopped behind him and he heard the refrigerator open and close. He removed his bottle from the lever, cutting the flow of water, but remained with his back towards the refrigerator. With the sucking of teeth, the high heels wheeled on the floor with a harsh scrape and the taps faded from the kitchen.
Bernard held his breath. He closed the bottle and made his way back to his cube, counting his steps along the way.
Twenty-seven. The odd number bothered him.
He sank into his chair and sucked some water. He thought of all the things he would have to do that day. He would refill his bottle twice more, and urinate approximately seven times. Bernard’s stomach groaned.
The computer’s clock said 8:47 am.
He stared until it turned to 8:48 am before allowing his eyes to leave the screen.
On either side of him, Bernard could hear rapid typing and muffled conversations. He rolled his fingers over his pens aimlessly, and looked over to his lunch bag. Three more hours . . .
The tap of high heels scattered through the office hum, its pace different from before–angrily hurried.
Bernard’s stomach began to cramp. The taps came closer and closer. His breathing became slow and deep. Slow. And deep.
His hand trembled over his mouse as he opened the spreadsheet he had completed the week before. Porrima Inc. Promotional Item Inventory. 10,000 Porrima Inc. umbrellas ordered and received for this quarter. 30,000 pens, and 20,000 tote bags, all in assorted colours. Blue, black, red and yellow.
The taps came to a jarring halt in front of Bernard’s cubicle. He began to concentrate very hard on the spreadsheet in front of him, beads of sweat forming on his upper lip.
5,000 blue tote bags. 5,000 black tote bags, 5,000 red tote bags, and 5,000 yellow tote bags. 20,000 tote bags, in assorted colours.
He could hear her voice, not her words, but suddenly it rose to a shrill. He looked up at her pasty, wrinkled face.
“You’re not listening to me, Bernard! I wonder if you remember your status here. I don’t have to keep you here taking up my space!”
She hit the sidewall of his cubicle with her palm. Bernard winced. Her space.
He rolled his eyes to her badge, to see if her position had changed. The flaking bronze-plated finish flashed dully: Ms. Eris, Jr. Officer.
He stared at her as she spoke. The yellow plaque accumulated at the base of her teeth glistened under the fluorescent lighting. He rested his eyes on her mouth, watching her tongue roll in a pond of her saliva as her voice melted into the background. She concluded suddenly with a stamp and a scream.
He watched her leave and then left for the bathroom. His vomit painted the bowl beige with tinges of pink.
Bernard spent the rest of his morning drinking water and urinating while reviewing spreadsheets with hundreds of tiny petty numbers always adding up to the final significant number.
At midday, he got up from his seat, taking his lunch bag with him. He took the elevator to the twelfth floor and knocked on the door labelled Tech Support. He adjusted his tie and smoothed his yellow and brown plaid trousers. The door unlocked with a loud beep and swung open. Derrick was on the other side with his arms folded, giving Bernard a quizzical look through his thick lenses.
“What did she blame you for this time?” Derrick asked. He stepped aside to let Bernard in.
“I don’t know,” Bernard said, pulling a chair out. “I stopped listening,” He rustled his whole wheat and egg sandwich out of his bag. “She hit the cubicle wall again. I . . . I think I dislike her.”
Derrick crumpled his face as the scent of the egg reached his nostrils. “You can hate her, I don’t care.”
Bernard placed a serviette over his trousers and took a huge bite out of the sandwich.
Derrick crinkled his nose at Bernard before continuing. “She’s an asshole. She’s been here for a long time holding a shit position, but she yells at all the young officers to feel important.” He flicked open a can of soft drink. “She thinks shouting at you is her reward for her thirty years of service.” He took a huge gulp.
“People who have little power are eager to exert it on others,” Bernard said, staring at the floor and taking another bite. “So . . . are you going down there today?”
“Down where?” Derrick asked. He had put the soft drink down and was now typing rapidly on his keyboard.
“You know where,” Bernard said softly as he turned his face away from Derrick. “Basement 8.”
Derrick grinned. “Aching to see her, aren’t you? Chamber Eighty-Eight.”
Bernard shifted in his seat. “Her name is Ava.” But Eighty-Eight wasn’t such a bad number to describe her as. It made him feel light.
Derrick got up and ruffled Bernard’s thick curls. “You’re one lucky bastard. Paul’s out sick so I’m going down today.”
Bernard’s face lit up.
“C’mon.” Derrick pulled a black key card out of pocket. “Let’s go talk to the dead.”
Bernard crumpled his sandwich into his bag as he followed Derrick out the door and into the elevator. Derrick swiped the key card in front of the scanner and they began to descend into the underground floors, stopping at Basement 8.
As Bernard stepped out he shivered, a dull blue light falling across his face. His lips slowly parted as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. A night sky was painted on the walls of the large room. Stars and moons covered in wisps of cloud. Directly in front of him were several thick cables, connected to an enormous metal cube, and as he walked towards them he could hear the whirring of machinery. His breath came out like white smoke from his lips. Bernard felt something heavy fall over his shoulders. Derrick had put a parka over him.
Derrick’s glasses looked dark against the blue light, and with the huge jacket over him, Bernard thought he looked like an Arctic explorer.
“C’mon, the computer is in the back there. And remember, don’t touch anything, Bernard. They only check the cameras if they detect something’s wrong.”
Bernard nodded and put his arms through the huge jacket’s sleeves.
They walked around to the other side of the giant cube, huge sheets of glass lying over it. It looked like a massive refrigerator. Bernard recalled his orientation course–he remembered being guided through the client entrance. Derrick had led them through the maintenance entrance.
Derrick pulled up a chair behind the main computer and swiped his card to turn it on. Combinations of symbols flashed up on the screen and Derrick began swiftly typing lines of code.
Bernard stepped quietly away from him while he did this. The first time he had come down to the Cryonics Floor of Porrima Inc. was during his orientation course where the new communications and marketing officers were introduced to the product they would be selling: A New Life in a New Time.
After extensive research confirmed that revival from cryopreservation was not only plausible, but more widely accessible, both in the means of biological revitalisation and the successful integration of the Awakened into present society, Porrima Inc. began an aggressive marketing campaign to encourage a new kind of clientele.
Cryonics was no longer for the extravagant, the rich, and the eccentric, who wanted to live in the very distant future, but for the common man who found that his life was currently in a slump. The daydream of a time skip just a couple years into the future was now reality; it provided an escape from the current situation.
It was around that time that Porrima Inc. made a grand call to all qualified persons to join their company, and boost their communications and marketing department. Bernard had seized this opportunity more than a year ago.
He barely remembered the tour arou
nd the building until they were scanned and sterilised before entering the Cryonics Floor. Their CEO, Dr. Carmenta, was a man who thought strategically. He understood that one of the most important things within a company was the dissemination of information from top to bottom; every member of the company’s staff should have a basic knowledge of how the company worked and what their goals and visions were. However, for Marketing and Sales, Dr. Carmenta thought that it was most important that they got the full tour, the meat of the meal, their frozen cash cow.
Bernard thought he was going to faint the first time he came down to the Cryonic Floor. He could see the faces of all their clients through the glass windows of their separated chambers. They were grey with their eyes wide open and their blue lips slightly ajar. Their wrinkled faces sagged over their old bones.
These were the frightened magnates who were looking for one last avenue to escape the unknown of death. They were the long-termers or the Dead-Sleepers. They were put away, waiting for the future that could hopefully cure them. Make them young again so that they could relive the decadence of youth. Bernard understood that he would be an old man when the time came for their revival. But these were not the ones he was looking for.
He was looking for the short-termers, the ones who were put away for just a couple years to escape the pain of the present, to be awakened when those agonies had passed. Bernard left Derrick behind the main computer and headed to the smaller chambers for the short-termers.
The sound of Derrick’s typing faded.
“Don’t touch anything, man,” Derrick’s warning echoed in the darkness.
Bernard kept on walking, counting his steps, checking the smaller chamber boxes for the increasing numbers. He couldn’t believe people did this, that they hid themselves away for a couple years because they hated the current state of their lives. Because they hated themselves? No matter how bad things got, he could never do this. He could never hide himself away from the world, especially when he had something to look forward to every day.
New Worlds, Old Ways Page 3