So he keeps running.
S Is for Soliloquy
Here is the bridge where we first met. Do you remember? The clouds were heavy in the sky and we were both in a hurry to beat the rain and our shoulders bumped and we went spinning in opposite directions. The book in your hand—George Orwell’s Animal Farm—dropped nearest to me so I picked it up and spun myself back to you.
I told you it was one of my favorite books and when the rain started we were still standing together. Your eyes were the bluest I’ve ever seen and I couldn’t stop looking at the curve of your lips. You didn’t stare at my breasts even though my raincoat was open and I was wearing a V-neck sweater with a kiss of cleavage on display. That impressed me as much as the book. It meant you were smart as well as intelligent.
Before we parted ways I called my phone with yours so you’d have my number and when you called me two hours later I answered on the third ring.
Here is the coffee shop where we had our first date. We were so deep into our conversation that we didn’t notice the time or the baristas preparing to close for the night until one tapped your shoulder and cleared her throat. Apologies spilled from our lips so fast we made her laugh and we held hands as we walked outside. Your skin was warm and when you squeezed right before you let go I squeezed back.
Here is the front door of my apartment where you kissed me for the first time. Not after the first coffee date but the second. You walked me home and our hands brushed together more than once but you didn’t link your fingers with mine and I couldn’t bring myself to do the same. When we kissed your lips were soft and hesitant and in spite of myself I was trembling. After we whispered good night and I’d locked the door I giggled like a schoolgirl and couldn’t stop. Not even when I hated the sound and the implication. I was better than that. Older wiser etcetera etcetera.
Here is the front door of your old apartment where we first made love. Obviously not at the door like our kiss but inside the apartment. I laughed then too and then cried which made me laugh again and then you started laughing and even though I said I had to go I fell asleep in your arms.
You woke up first and made pancakes and bacon.
Here is the office building where you worked. I remember how you griped about your boss because he was demanding and thought overtime was something you should be grateful for. I remember how grateful you were when you decided to go freelance and put in your notice.
We celebrated that night with steak and red wine and a movie. Try as I might I can’t remember what we watched and I suspect we didn’t watch very much.
I drank too much wine but not so much that I wasn’t aware when you crept out of bed in the middle of the night and crept back in several hours later. I didn’t say anything to you about it though.
Here is the bookstore where we spent a lot of Sunday afternoons. You told me you loved me for the first time in the science fiction and fantasy section. (I waited a few days before I said the words back because I was worried you’d think I was simply echoing yours and that I didn’t mean them. I did then and I still do. I hope you remember that.)
I remember you once got a phone call that filled your eyes with storm clouds and you left the bookstore so fast you forgot to say goodbye. I’d like to say it was when I got home and watched the news that I first started to worry I’d been wrong about you but I think that came later.
Here is the theater where we saw the time travel movie that you hated and I loved. Well you hated the parts of it you saw because your mother called and you had to leave fifteen minutes before it ended. I offered to go with you but I hadn’t met your mother yet and you said you didn’t want it to happen like that.
I still haven’t met your mother. I’m not sure what that means but I know it means something.
Here is the bar where we met for drinks that night last spring. I know you remember. Everyone remembers that night because every television screen and every channel broadcast the same footage. Like something from a movie there was an explosion and two masked people in costume fighting an extraordinary fight of impossible flying leaps and jumps and spins. After the chaos came a victory. A person in silver tight enough to reveal six-pack abs was dragged away in handcuffs they assured us were unbreakable while a person in a patriotic shade of blue—and yes it was tight enough to show off their muscles as well—brushed dust from their shoulders.
Cut to a scene of a police car on the side of the road with two unconscious police officers sprawled on the ground and a pair of empty handcuffs on the back seat.
Cut again to a man in a red costume standing behind a podium. He said it was time to come out of the shadows. Time to tell the truth. (Funny how he didn’t take off his mask though.) How there were people like him with special strengths and most of them used those powers for the good of society. I couldn’t help but laugh at that part because he was so earnest it had to come from a script. No one really talks like that.
Then he said there were some who only wanted to profit from their talents but he insisted there were only a few and they would all be caught and imprisoned and we had nothing to fear. He didn’t use the word villain or hero but everyone knew what he meant. The bar exploded into conjecture and arguments and even hysteria from a blond guy in the back who wouldn’t stop saying it wasn’t possible in this weird raspy voice until his date slapped him across the face like Cher did in that one movie.
You shook your head and traced aimless circles on the table with one finger. You said it was hard to believe. Said it was like something from a comic book. I agreed.
Here is the restaurant where I waited for you until you called to say something had come up with a client and you were going to have to work late. I brought dessert to your apartment to surprise you and you weren’t home. I thought of leaving the dessert—Tiramisu your favorite—on the doormat but I didn’t want you to know I’d been there. Didn’t want you to think I was checking up on you.
I went home and watched T.V. More footage from around the world. Bank heists explosions car chases kidnappings rescues heroes villains masks. The charred remains of a secret lair. Construction of new prisons. Men and women who could fly. Who could walk through walls. Who could lift cars over their heads and stop bullets with the palms of their hands. And the man in the red costume—the official spokesman of the good guys—always there assuring everyone that his team had everything under control. The villainous element didn’t work together so their position was much weaker and it was only a matter of time before they all fell.
But good guys trying to catch bad guys didn’t have anything to do with us and I turned off the television and sat in silence.
Here is the flower shop where you bought roses to apologize for breaking our date at the restaurant and for working late so many nights and for not answering my calls. I forgave you and we made love but when I woke in the middle of the night you were gone.
You’d left a note that said you loved me but had to get up early for work and were afraid you’d sleep too late at my apartment.
Here is the grocery store where our carts collided in the ice cream aisle. You were surprised to see me because I usually did my shopping at night. I’m sorry you said. I’ve been so busy with work. I’ll call you tomorrow.
But you didn’t call.
Here is the park where you told me to meet you. I waited and waited but you never showed never called. I finally gave up and headed home.
There were sirens in the distance and a news van rushed by but I ignored them. No matter what the man in the red mask says the villains always get away. I think it’s supposed to be that way. If there weren’t any villains there wouldn’t be a need for heroes. Supply and demand.
Here is the stretch of pavement where we last spoke. I was coming to see you I said. I smiled and reached for your hand but you said you didn’t have time to talk and you pulled away before our skin made contact. I asked why you stood me up at the park. You said not everything was about us. But nothing was about us. I didn’t
even know if there was an us and I begged you to tell me what was wrong. You said nothing was wrong and you had to go.
When you walked away I couldn’t bear to watch. How could something so good go so wrong so quickly?
And now here is an alley. I know it’s a strange location and it’s starting to rain—only a light mist but it will turn my hair into a halo of frizz—but I didn’t check the weather beforehand I’m sorry. Or maybe I’m not sorry because it feels like the day we met. I can see you standing at the opposite end and while you wait you’re darting glances at your watch because you haven’t seen me yet. I asked for only a few minutes of your time and I was afraid you wouldn’t come but now that I know you’re here I need a minute to gather my thoughts.
Because here is where I tell you the truth and the truth is almost everything has been a lie.
Our first meeting wasn’t accidental—I’d been watching you for several weeks. The night I drank too much wine I merely pretended to be drunk. When you left I timed your absence and checked the news reports the next day. And I know you never worked in that office building. It was a cover story. A few phone calls confirmed that.
Watching that first televised footage with you was unbearable. There was so much I wanted to say and so much I’d been planning to say but I was waiting for the right time. The footage with the empty handcuffs was staged by the way. They didn’t want the public to know the cuffs weren’t as unbreakable as they thought. But I think you already know.
Every time you disappeared there was a fight between a hero and a villain. Every. Time. So I know you’ve been lying to me but you’re clever and I can’t figure out the last piece of the puzzle and it’s the piece that’s most important.
If you’re a hero everything changes.
If you’re a villain everything changes.
The media has it all wrong. We’re not as bad as they want us to be. Maybe we don’t rescue the masses from burning buildings or out of control trains but that doesn’t mean we’re bad people. They’re right about us working alone but it does get lonely after a while. When you come up with a great plan there’s no one to share it with and no one to help go over all the small details that can so easily get overlooked. Drowning your solitary sorrow after a defeat in a bottle of red wine or a half-gallon of mint chocolate chip ice cream is no fun. Celebrating a victory by yourself gets old too and all too soon it resembles the post-defeat routine only with more expensive wine and gourmet gelato instead of ice cream.
So. I have a proposal. I think you and I would make a great team because we do—I love you so much—and if we work together we could defeat anyone and do anything. We’d be unstoppable.
If I’m right.
If I’m wrong here is where I kill you or you kill me or we both try at least. More than likely neither one of us will die but we’ll create a great deal of damage in the attempt. (I really hope you brought your mask but if not I brought an extra. Anonymity is paramount where the public is concerned.) Our fight will be amazing—and did I mention I love you?—and will probably make the evening news if we start soon enough. I’ll get away of course. I always do.
Here is where all the lies end and everything else begins.
The Floating Girls: A Documentary
The floating girls are all but forgotten now. It’s easier to pretend they didn’t exist, to pretend it didn’t happen. But there are parents who still keep bedrooms captured in time, complete with clothes folded in bureau drawers and diaries tucked beneath pillows, everything in its place, waiting, and there are friends who still gaze at the sky, wondering how far the girls floated and if they ever fell.
Some of us haven’t forgotten. Some of us never will.
* * *
Twelve years ago, three hours after the sun set on the second of August, nearly 300,000 girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen vanished. Eyewitness reports state that the girls floated away, yet even now, many of those eyewitnesses have recanted their stories or simply refuse to talk about it at all.
The girls lived in cities, in the suburbs, in the country. They lived in first world and third world countries. They were only children; they were one of many siblings; they were of all ethnicities and religious backgrounds. They were everyone and anyone, and after that night in August, they were no more.
I’ve found plenty of evidence decrying the phenomenon, but there are lists of the girls who disappeared. Those who claim it’s all bullshit provide other lists, girls who vanished and were found years later: the runaways; the girls involved in ugly custody battles, who were spirited away by either custodial or non-custodial parents; the girls whose decomposing bodies were recovered from forests, old drainpipes, beneath concrete patios.
But none of those girls were floating girls, only gone girls. The reports always conveniently leave that out.
I wonder about the evidence I haven’t found, that doesn’t exist. It seems like there should be so much more. And how many girls who vanished were never reported? And why just girls? Why just these girls?
As far as I can tell, very few scientists or statisticians studied the phenomenon itself. No one counseled the families; no one dug through the chaos to find the facts. Like certain religious or political scandals, everyone wanted to brush it under the rug.
Maybe it made a strange sort of sense at the time. I don’t know.
* * *
Jessie and I grew up next door in a tiny corner of suburbia. You know the sort: backyard cookouts, running through the sprinklers, drinking water from the hose, playing tag. Perfectly charming. The sort of childhood that screams ideal. The sort of childhood that could take place anywhere, in any town, not just our little corner in Baltimore, Maryland.
Our backyards were separated by a row of hedges with spaces in between perfectly sized for someone to walk through. We would flit from yard to yard—mine had the swing set and the sprinkler; hers the sandbox and hammock—and house to house—split foyer for me, rancher for her—nearly inseparable, spinning circles and holding hands while we chanted Jessie and Tracy, best friends forever.
My strongest memories are of the countless hours we spent catching fireflies. We’d keep them inside glass jars with holes poked in the lids so they wouldn’t die and invent stories that they were princesses trapped in the bodies and the lights were their way of calling for help because they couldn’t speak. And every night before we had to go in, we’d let them go, watching until they blinked out of sight, pretending they were off to find their mothers, their princes, the witches who’d cursed them.
I think you only truly make that kind of friendship in childhood. When you get older, you know better than to let people in. You know they’ll only disappoint you in the end.
* * *
Video interview with Karen Michaels of Monmouth, Oregon, March 17, 2010:
[A woman sits in a cramped, dingy kitchen, a lit cigarette clutched tightly between two fingers, an overflowing ashtray by her side. She grimaces at the camera and looks away. Her face is worn and heavily lined, her shoulders hunched forward.]
“Thank you for agreeing to talk to me, Mrs. Michaels. I know this is difficult.”
[Mrs. Michaels takes a drag from her cigarette. Exhales the smoke loudly.]
“Call me Karen, okay?”
“Okay, Karen. I know it’s been a long time, but can you tell me what happened that night, August second—”
[She waves the hand holding the cigarette.]
“I know what night you’re talking about.”
[Another inhale from her cigarette. Another exhale.]
“Nina had problems with sleepwalking when she was a kid. Used to drive me crazy. For a couple years, I had to lock her bedroom door from the outside to keep her in the house. You got kids?”
“No—”
“That’s right. You already told me you didn’t. Who knows, maybe you’re lucky. Anyway, that night, the night Nina floated, it had been years since she walked in her sleep. I heard her go down the steps, and I follo
wed her. She went out the front door and stood on the lawn, staring down at her feet, like this.”
[Mrs. Michaels stubs out her cigarette and stands with her arms straight and her head down, her hands held out a few inches from her body.]
“I thought she was sleepwalking again, that’s all, so I stayed on the front porch. I was getting ready to go get her, grab her arm, and take her back in because I had to get up early in the morning. But then she went up, just up, like a balloon. I, I—”
[Video cuts off. Returns. Mrs. Michaels is wiping her eyes.]
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, sure, I’m fine. I, so she went up, and I thought … I don’t know what I thought. I ran and tried to grab her, but she was already up too far. I touched the side of her foot, but I guess, I guess I was just too late.”
[She grabs another cigarette and lights it. Her voice is barely audible when she speaks again.]
“I let her go. I didn’t know what else to do, so I let her go.”
[Her head snaps up. She looks straight into the camera.]
“Everyone told me not to talk about it. It’s like she never existed at all. But she did, and no one cared that she was gone. No one. Do you really think this thing, your project, will help?”
“I’d like to think it will, yes.”
[She makes a sound low in her throat.]
“Will you tell me what Nina was like?”
“She was like every other kid. Listened to her music too loud, left her dirty clothes on the floor, griped about her chores, but she didn’t run around wild or anything like that. She didn’t drink or do drugs or cause me any grief.”
“And what was your relationship with Nina like?”
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