Emit

by Jack Beal

  “When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.”

  ~Lao Tzu

  TWENTY

  COLLAPSING ILLUSIONS

  2020, 79 YEARS OLD

  With a prominent rolled “r,” the thick Russian accent holes through my contemplations. “Robert!” Belinda shakes her head in disbelief. Under the glowing Texan sun, her black bob shines like a shampoo commercial. “What on Earth are you doing on the ground?” she exclaims, bending over to help me up. But the tapered emerald gown extending all the way to her stilettos restricts her movements too much. After a series of botched attempts, she gives up.

  My body is aching from all the digging, but I manage to prop myself up on my knees. The effort is exhausting, sending me into a coughing fit.

  “My goodness!” she exclaims.

  I smile graciously.

  But her reaction has nothing to do with my health. “What have you done to your suit?”

  Glancing down, my smile slackens. My clothes are mud-splattered and torn from tunneling through the cave. “It’s a long story,” I begin, pushing myself the rest of the way up.

  But Belinda isn’t listening. “This is hardly worth the perks,” she mutters nippily under her breath. Then, raising her voice a couple notches, she speaks slowly and deliberately, “A new suit is hanging in your dressing room. Go home. Wash up. Put it on. Do you understand?”

  I’m not sure if she thinks I’m deaf or just dumb. Probably both, I decide nodding in consent.

  “Henry will escort you to the Awards Ceremony. I’m heading over now. And hurry, for goodness’ sake!”

  With a stiff bow, the chauffeur passes me off to the butler who in turn calls for an aide. Before I can blink, I’ve been bathed, primped and accompanied back down the sprawling staircase extending from the mansion.

  The sleek black limousine is waiting for me at the center of the looping driveway that separates the house from the grounds. So is Henry, who seemingly hasn’t budged an inch in my absence. After helping me into the car, he offers another rigid bow and takes his place behind the wheel.

  Everything appears to be moving faster than it should, including the buildings I watch buzz by on the other side of the tinted windows. I’ve hardly had the time to crack open a bottle of water from the mini bar and the chauffeur is already announcing our arrival.

  As I emerge from the darkness of the limo and step into the light, my jaw drops. “Where are we?”

  “Why, at the awards dinner, of course. Is everything quite alright, sir?”

  But I’m not listening. I can’t believe I’m here.

  As the scent of palm leaves pours over me, I lick my lips. They’re dry and taste salty. Swallowing hard, I step onto the palm-lined path that’s haunted my dreams. One trembling foot in front of the other, I bypass the pavilions with their white-washed walls until I’m at the foot of the sapphire-domed building. I’m unsure if it’s the asphyxiating heat or my pulse thrashing up in my throat, but suddenly, I can’t breathe. It’s like being inside of a vacuum. Lungs stretched and strained, I climb the rocky staircase and disappear under the towering archway.

  Inside, it’s larger than life. Elegant round tables with white silken covers dot the black marble floors like countless moons. The tables have been flawlessly lain: bone china settings and fine silver cutlery sparkle beneath tall, glowing taper candles. Around each, a dozen brushed metal chairs hover like satellites.

  The hall’s slate-colored walls are adorned with strings of lights that twinkle like stars. Beneath them, radiant black countertops are piled high with fresh oysters, caviar toasts and cocktails. Groups of tuxedos and evening gowns mingle around hors d’oeuvre trays, place champagne orders at the bar, or slip in and out of the courtyard from the back doors.

  “Robert!” As the heavy Russian accent rolls over me, I spin around. Dressed in the same clinging serpentine gown, Belinda totters toward me. Her hair has been pinned back from her face, making her eyes appear large and slanted. Like a snake’s. “Finally!” she sighs, raising her hand in the air and turning to the crowd. “Mr. Flynn has arrived!”

  No sooner have the words fallen from her lips, a wave of excitement surges through the hall. Agitated like nanoparticles, the guests scurry across the black marble floors to their seats.

  As the lights dim, the sophisticated notes of piano music tiptoe softly through the air. A spotlight floods over us when, as if on cue, Belinda hooks her arm around mine. All eyes on us, she ushers me up the tiny staircase leading onto the stage. There must be over three hundred people in the hall, and yet the only noise is the click-clack of our dress shoes across the black marble.

  It isn’t until we’ve taken a seat at the lone table up on the stage that a low rustling breaches the silence. A croaky voice scratches out from the loudspeakers. “Thank you for joining me here today for this great honor. Have a wonderful evening, and, as always, Burn Bright!”

  Under the pulsating of over three hundred sets of clapping hands, Belinda offers me a small squeeze. The raspy, old voice was mine.

  The world around me leaps into fast-forward. As the enormous stage curtains part in a raging sea of black, they reveal an extraordinary banner of light. Burn Bright, it glows. The crowd cheers. Turning toward them, I watch as sculptures of light ignite through the room like starbursts. As the hall transforms into a glistening Milky Way, the Maître D’ appears.

  Bell platter in hand, he glides through the room, maneuvering around the shimmering sculptures with lengthy strides. Poised, he prances up the miniature staircase and onto the stage. Finally coming to a standstill, he rips the arched silver lid from its plate, and places it before me.

  All at once, the hall resembles a ballet. Tens of waiters spin nimbly through the hall, dispensing silver platters on the tables as they pass. Once their trays have been emptied, they twirl quietly away.

  A sequence of oohs and ahhs surge through the room as the guests unveil their dinners: oversized Texas steaks, roasted potatoes and fried okra. When a deafening round of applauds ricochets off the slate-lined walls, I follow the crowds’ gaze to Belinda. She’s standing in front of a polished redwood podium, waiting for the clapping to subside. When it does, she begins. “While we all know you’d liken it to codswallop, time is of the essence.” The audience lets out a collective chuckle. Belinda continues, “On behalf of all of us here, we would like to offer you this gift in tribute to your life’s work.” She holds up a slim package wrapped in satiny white paper. “For the man who transcended time, Robert Flynn.”

  Beneath the standing ovation, I’m frozen stiff. What does she mean, the man who transcended time? Does she know? I want to ask, but I can hardly hear myself think from beneath all of this clapping. Belinda struts over to me and holds out the box. But I can’t move. My eyes search hers, imploringly. What do you know? they silently convey. Severing her gaze from mine, Belinda places the box in my hands. Then, planting a feigned peck on my cheek, she turns back to the crowd. “Dinner is served!”

  The screeching of hundreds of forks and knives is worse than fingernails down a chalkboard. Chills poke down my spine. Beneath the slapping of masticating jaws, my stomach lurches. My head whirls. It feels like entering the void.

  Clenching my eyes, I try to calm the spinning. I draw in a deep breath, but the smell of food only makes me gag. Pushing my platter away, it takes the tablecloth with it. With a thunderous clash, shards of china and crystal litter the floor.

  The spinning gets faster. No, not now! I plead, gripping the white papered package as if trying to hold onto the moment.

  I’m so deep in concentration I don’t see the men emerge on either side of me. As they lift me from my seat, I let out a startled cry. An anxious murmur issues through th
e hall as we disappear through the back doors and into the courtyard.

  Outside, one of the men helps me to take a seat at the edge of a tiered fountain. After easily removing the box from my white-knuckled grip, he places it beside me on the ledge. Then he withdraws a stethoscope from inside his jacket and says, “I’m going to need you to draw in a deep breath.”

  The other man’s face is all scrunched up with worry, leaving his forehead resembling a tic-tac-toe board. Even when the doctor announces everything is fine and begins packing away his tools, the crisscross doesn’t fade from the other man’s brow.

  “Given the circumstances, you’re doing marvelously, sir,” the doctor beams. “I believe all this excitement snuck up on you, but you’re going to be okay. Would you like me to help you back to your seat?”

  “No,” I gruff. “I’d rather stay here and get some fresh air.”

  The man with the crisscrossed forehead takes a seat beside me.

  “Alone,” I snip.

  Pausing at the doorway, the doctor glances over his shoulder. “Are you coming, Mr. Baker.”

  The man’s brow crisscrosses deeper. Without a word, he trudges across the lawn and disappears with the doctor into the immense hall.

  As soon as they’re gone, my gaze falls onto the slender package. Snatching it from where it’s lying on the fountain’s ledge, I tear off the paper. Opening the top flap, I slide my present out from its box and swallow hard.

  In my hand is a silver slate. It’s soft and pliable, and when I bend it, it goes right back to its original form. When I touch it, it emits a subtle glow from which lines like ancient hieroglyphics shape and shift before my eyes.

  But instead of revealing a picture of a little boy holding a shovel, a new image appears: a fountain bearing an exact resemblance to the one whose ledge I’m sitting upon. Filled with curiosity, I cup my hands around the tablet, shielding it from the sun’s light. Like a movie scene, the picture comes to life. I watch the spurts of water gurgle down from the fountain’s spout in sparkling jets when suddenly, the easy babble of trickling water is drowned out by a loud rumbling. As a white line plummets down from the sky, the fountain splits in two, spilling quicksilver streams across the ground.

  Heart racing, I peel my eyes from the movie and peer into the sky. No silver streak is rushing down from the great blue. Behind me, the fountain is intact, gurgling as cheerfully as before. Letting out a sigh of relief, I turn back to the tablet. A message is stamped where the fountain once stood: Emit: A Modern Myth.

  Huh? But before I have the chance to think about what it could mean, the letters change again.

  Robbie Flynn

  1941-2020

  Below the epitaph, two shovels emerge: a blue-handled to the left and a red-handled to the right.

  As I glide my wrinkly finger to the shovel of enlightenment, I know what it means. My digging has only begun.

  “Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon and the truth.”

  ~Buddha

  TWENTY ONE

  ORIGINS OF TRUTH

  1940-1959

  The red shovel disappears. With a flash of light, the story begins. My story.

  It all starts with two divergent pacts: one of love, the other of hate. At the exact moment Hitler and Mussolini were creating a union of abhorrence, my parents were building their own empire: me.

  I swipe my finger across the silvery slate, which reveals itself to be a screen. I scroll to the next page. While no shiny buttons decorate his chest, it’s easy to recognize the man in the picture. He’s got the same crooked nose and side-part as always, even if his eyes glimmer in a way I’ve never seen before. I let out a sigh for the dad that could have been mine. A dad that wouldn’t have known the war. It’s a dad I never knew.

  Gliding my finger across the screen, thick boldface type stares back at me. STALIN NECESSITATES SCORCHED EARTH POLICY. 3 July 1941. A day of contraries. A day of obliteration. A day of new beginnings.

  As I slide to the next screen, my mouth gapes open in disbelief. I’ve never seen a picture of myself as a baby before. I didn’t know one existed. But there I undeniably am, cradled in my mother’s arms. It doesn’t matter that it’s in black and white. As soon as I see it, the brushstrokes of my memory fill in the colors. My mother’s eyes radiate with an unparalleled blue that exudes from the screen. With a mix of nostalgia and regret, I continue scrolling.

  The next page catches me by surprise. Without ever having to evoke the color, Mom’s eyes shine out like sapphire beacons. It’s not a photograph. It’s a portrait. Wearing a starched uniform and matching cap, she smiles triumphantly above a caption: JOIN THE U.S. CADET NURSE CORPS.

  I dig through the headlines. WORST POLIO OUTBREAK TO HIT UNITED STATES! U.S. CADET NURSE CORPS STRUGGLES IN BATTLE AGAINST THE POLIOVIRUS. POLIO EPIDEMIC CLAIMS THE LIVES OF THOUSANDS. As the pictures spool on, Grandmom’s gentle smile replaces Mom’s. It hits like a bomb: That’s why she went away.

  Seeking solace, I push on. But there are explosions everywhere.

  August 6, 1945. FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EMPLOYED IN WAR DROPPED ON JAPAN. U.S. B-29 Bomber Jet unleashes estimated 15 kilotons of TNT on city of Hiroshima. Thousands expected dead…

  “LITTLE BOY” LEAVES A BIG IMPRINT. August 8, 1945. The city of Hiroshima has been entirely razed. President Truman advises Japs to quit now…

  But they don’t.

  August 9, 1945. SECOND A- BOMB, “FAT MAN,” RELEASED OVER NAGASAKI. Japanese city of Nagasaki disappeared beneath a mushroom cloud early this morning. The explosion created as much energy as “plummeting into the sun’s core,” scientists claim…

  By the time Japan surrenders, the war has claimed almost eighty million lives.

  SECOND WORLD WAR OFFICIALLY COMES TO AN END. September 2, 1945. After six long years and a day, the Japanese government signs official documents aboard the USS Missouri…

  I scroll forward to a snapshot of three airmen. The man in the middle’s got the same sad eyes as the Shiny Santa that came knocking at my house late one summer night. Below, the caption reads: BEARING DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS, PILOTS TIBBETS, FLYNN, & SWEENY RETURN HOME HEROES. November 6, 1945. The three men whose heroic actions are responsible for ending the Second World War with Japan return home along with the rest of the 509th Composite Group. They are stationed at Roswell Army Airfield in New Mexico…

  Sliding my finger eagerly across the tablet, the images pass by like memories. As Grandmom’s face is overwritten by Dad’s, bedtime stories and fresh-baked chocolate chips are replaced with putrid tins of corned beef. Then there are newspaper ads for German P-38 Souvenir Pistols and neighborhood friends who won’t play with you when all you got was a crummy old shovel.

  The next article is marked 4 July 1947. The day after my sixth birthday. The day the so-called space ship came crashing down. The day all of this began. I remember it all like it was yesterday. After all, in a way, it was.

  As the thought of Dad disappearing into the distance floats into my mind, tears stream from my eyes. Now I know it was the last time I’d ever set eyes on him.

  Wiping my tears, I begin reading. THERMONUCLEAR TEST CONDUCTED OUTSIDE OF ROSWELL AIRFORCE BASE GONE HORRIBLY WRONG. With the ever-present threat of impending war, the US Armed Forces has begun implementing testing of a series of atomic and thermonuclear bombs in order to both study and improve weapon quality. Unfortunately, one of these tests, an underground trial known under the pseudonym of Operation Weather Balloon went unpredictably awry. At approximately 3:05 p.m., members of the 509th Composite Group detonated the initial test of an innovatively designed defense, nicknamed the Star Bomb. This Super Bomb, which functions with the same fusion-based prope
rties that stars use, has proved to be much more powerful than scientists hypothesized. As a result, unable to contain the energy created by this star bomb, the testing field crumbled, taking along with it the lives of many…

  I stop abruptly. That’s impossible! That’s not at all what happened! Pulse racing, I flip to the next article. July 5, 1947. FLYING DISC DISCOVERED IN FIELD OUTSIDE OF ROSWELL, NEW MEXICO. An anonymous man passing through the region alerted police of having witnessed an unidentified flying disc-shaped object fall from the sky yesterday afternoon. Police have turned over the flying saucer to the 509th…

  July 6, 1947 AIR FORCE HERO FOUND WOUNDED IN THE RUBBLE. Nearly two days after the calamity left by the Star Bomb explosion, Edward Flynn, retired WWII Air Force Hero is found alive. Experts consider Flynn’s unlikely survival a miracle. The former celebrated Air Force Pilot has been rushed to Chaves County Hospital for treatment.

  July 6, 1947. MILITARY OFFICIALS CONFIRM ROSWELL “FLYING SAUCER” TO BE WEATHER BALLOON. The US Airforce confirms the so-called flying disc was part of a covert operation using weather balloons to track sound waves produced from Soviet bombs. The Armed Forces refuse to reveal any more on the subject…

  July 7, 1947. STAR-BOMB CLAIMS LIFE OF ONLY INITIAL SURVIVOR. After being transported to Burn Unit in Las Cruces Hospital, Edward Flynn, 34, dies of radiation poisoning. Flynn is survived by 6-year old son, Robert…

  “No! No! No!” This is all wrong! What about the flying saucer! What about that fancy pants, Monty Bristol? I remember watching him take my daddy away!

  Or do I?

  I also remember Mr. Bristol coming to the house, sitting down with me on the porch, and telling me about an accident.