Swansong

by Rose Christo

  I swallow. I smile. "Could we go a little farther north?" I ask.

  Judas hesitates. "You want to see the house?"

  "No. Not that far north."

  We walk together. Sunshadows grow longer as they stretch feebly across the sand. It's almost wintertime. Here, by the ocean, I can finally feel it, the air slick with icy ocean spray, the winds whistling, chilling to the bone. The sun will set within the hour.

  "What were you like?" I ask Judas. "As a kid."

  "A brat," he says.

  I roll my eyes, but smile. "Besides the obvious."

  "Hated my hometown," Judas says. His arms hang at his sides. He picks his way carefully across the sand, like he's afraid of it shattering beneath his soles. "It wasn't big enough for me. Me and my big head."

  "You don't have a big head."

  "Yeah, I do."

  "Maybe you used to. You don't have one now."

  "All I needed was someone to put me in my place."

  "Prison was your place?"

  "You are."

  I look at him quickly. I've been such a crybaby these days, it's a wonder that I don't burst into tears. Lose a family. Gain a family. It's not funny. I don't understand why God thinks this is funny.

  "Here," I say quietly.

  We stop. I turn and face the sea. The water's crystalline as it reaches for the shore. The horizon is rich, rain-gray, spotted with the shadows of errant seagulls. When I was a little girl I looked out toward that horizon and thought it went on forever. I thought--as long as I thought--that there was no such thing as an end.

  This is home, the air fresh with sea salts, the tide a familiar melody. Home hasn't changed at all in the months of agony that trailed in its wake, yearning for its presence, scared of its company. It's not fair. It just isn't. It ought to have changed. If only a little, it ought to have changed.

  This world is cruel. That's what I think.

  If it's so cruel, then why is it reassuring? As a child, when you fall down for the first time, you run straight for your mother's comforting arms. If you were to find that your mother had changed somehow, irreversibly--the length of her arms, the smell of her skin, the timbre of her voice--it wouldn't be comforting at all. You want the mother you remember from your earliest days, the one who cradled you when you first opened your eyes, the one who sang you poor lullabies when you couldn't close them again at night. Men have fought wars for their mothers. Heaven lies beneath their feet.

  The sun tilts in the dimming sky. The clouds cool blue-gray. Miles out to sea the lighthouse lights flick on, windows bathed in a warm yellow glow.

  Millions of years ago, we stepped out of the sea. Everything we've done since then has been aimless ambling. We are a sad people trying desperately to find our way home.

  I am home now, cold ocean tickling my ankles, bells ringing out at sea. I am home, the frigid winds burning my earlobes, sea salts stinging the scar on my cheek. I am home when the swollen sun dips behind the ocean, and its halo sparks amaranthine, and the clouds that chase hopelessly after it are silver and hyacinth with folly, reaching in vain for its regal coattails.

  I am home, and it takes everything in me not to throw myself back into the chasm whence we came.

  * * * * *

  Jude and I stop in the Nebraska Diner for dinner. The booths are red and sagging. The windows look as if they haven't been washed in years. One of the waitresses keeps throwing funny glances our way. I can't figure out why.

  I gaze out the window, the papaya on my plate untouched. Dusk's bruises and brushstrokes swath the sky in mysterious blue. I can smell the ocean on my clothes, my hair, my skin. I wish I didn't have to shower tonight.

  Judas looks tired. Not the It's been a long day tired; more like the dejected tired, the defeated tired, the I'm not looking to start trouble anymore tired. He always looks like this, young face lined where it isn't scarred, eyes haunting and shallow, but soul-bright.

  "Mom and Dad loved you, Jude."

  He picks up his tomato juice. He doesn't drink it. He stares out the window like he's searching for someone. Maybe their ghosts.

  "I love you, Jude."

  He looks up. He looks at me.

  Two murderers sit down to dinner at a granite, unwashed table.

  I'd better stop. I'm no good at telling jokes.

  "I don't deserve that," Judas says.

  Probably not. That doesn't mean I can shut it off.

  "Hell," Judas says. He finally puts his glass down. He rubs his tired eyes with the heels of his hands.

  "Jude," I say.

  "I was going to off myself," Judas says. "Then you fell into my lap."

  I want to believe I misheard him. I know I didn't.

  I reach across the table to touch Jude's arm. I can feel his veins underneath my palm. There's a tattoo by his elbow, some kind of padlock. The ink's faded with age.

  "Shouldn't have said that." Judas draws in a breath.

  "You already said it."

  "Yeah, but I shouldn't have."

  "Why? You think I don't want you being honest with me?"

  "Your therapist would say that's emotional abuse."

  "What do I care what she says? She's a quack."

  "Don't talk about your elders like that."

  "I'll stop calling her a quack once she stops being a quack."

  Judas puts his hands on the table. His shoulders are big, but his hands are skeletal. A knife scar snakes around his left heel.

  "Jude," I say. "You think you're the only person who's trying not to want to die?"

  Judas doesn't look at me. Of course he knows.

  "Dying would be pretty stupid," I conjecture. "We can talk about physics and metaphysics as much as we want, but we really don't know what will happen when we die. We can't know until it's too late."

  Jude stares blearily at the tabletop.

  "You have to live. Even if you can only find one reason... Just take it. Even if you're miserable. Because if you live long enough, something really great might happen to you someday. If you die too soon, you'll never know."

  Judas doesn't say anything.

  "Okay?" I want him to say something. "We'll take care of each other?"

  "You're a kid. I shouldn't be putting this on you."

  "Didn't I just say I'm in the same place you are?"

  Jude falls silent again.

  "You're the reason I didn't die," I say. "If I had woken up in that hospital bed, and no one was there--"

  "Don't talk like that."

  "You know it's true."

  "Hell," Judas says.

  "We're not dead," I say. "You and me."

  "Not yet, anyway."

  "Jude."

  "Not funny, sorry. I... Why are we talking about this? I'm not going to die on you. Don't worry about it."

  "I'm not worried. You're not going to die because I'm not going to let you."

  Judas drinks his tomato juice. I turn my head and watch the moon rising outside the window.

  The moon rises and the night connects us.

  I'm somebody's reason for living. I've never been able to say that before. I've never been this important before. Somebody needs me. My brother needs me.

  My feelings don't matter in this. All that matters is that I don't let him down.

  12

  Superego

  I never look forward to therapy with Dr. Grace. It feels about the same as an unwanted parasite gnawing away at the inside of your brain. I say "unwanted" because I know there are some parasites that are good for your body, or supposed to be, even if the thought of cohabiting with them really creeps you out. But Dr. Grace isn't one of those good parasites. She's ringworm. Every time I leave her, I feel a little less sure of myself as a human being.

  She hastily closes her laptop when I step inside her cramped office. She thinks I didn't see the Pacman sprites on her laptop screen. I sit in the only available chair and stare at the blinds on the window.

  "You can talk to me about anything," Dr. G
race says awkwardly. "Boys, TV..."

  "No, thanks."

  She taps her fingers against her thigh. One time I sat in the chair and said nothing for an entire forty-five minutes. I think I can do that again if I focus on something else. Something more pleasant.

  Azel chased me halfway around the school today. Pretty impressive feat when you consider just how gigantic Cavalieri is. He cornered me in the hallway on the eighth floor. I didn't know, or I would have slowed down for him. When I asked him what was the matter he gave me a poppy flower, the most beautiful, most delicious shade of orange I'd ever seen.

  "You said you liked them," Azel explained, his eyes on the ceiling, his face suffused with red.

  The Monet painting. He remembered.

  Unfortunately, he ran off before I could thank him. His ponytail made for an impressive sight, curls flying behind him as he made his mad dash for Freedom and the Final Frontier.

  I want to keep this boy. I can tell by the way my pulse picks up and my head feels fluttery and light. I can tell by the size of my laugh--bigger than it used to be--and the ease with which I smile when I smile. It's like being alive again. In moments like those, I'm alive again.

  "Wendy?"

  Dr. Grace interrupts my thoughts.

  "Can I go home?" I ask.

  "Not until the session's over, sorry."

  I slump in my seat.

  I wonder if Azel would still be the same boy--charming, baffling, introspective--had his mom lived. I think most people's personalities are shaped to some degree by the curveballs thrown their way. I think I've become a little more cerebral since I lost the people I love. A little more self-loathing, that's for sure. It's sickening how unconcerned I was with the world at large. What would have changed about Azel had he never lost his mother? Would he still be the boy I'm so endeared by? Would I still be the girl he wouldn't mind buying drugs from?

  Questions like these scare me. I don't want to consider their implications. I don't want to know how much about humanity is really left up to circumstance. It makes me feel...powerless. Small.

  "Do you think there are other universes out there?"

  By the time I realize I've just asked Dr. Grace a semi-personal question, it's too late to take it back. I never meant to engage her. Lack of impulse control is supposed to be another symptom of brain damage. That's why I take propranalol.

  "How do you mean?" Dr. Grace asks. Her ballpoint pen flies straight to her notepad. Dissection time.

  "It's called superposition," I say, remembering Azel's words. "Quantum physics says all particles operate on wavelengths. So although we can't see it, all particles, even yours, are multitasking. You're doing one thing in this reality, and...something else in another."

  "I'm not very good at physics," Dr. Grace apologizes.

  Me, neither. It's funny.

  "I do believe in separate subjective realities, at the very least," Dr. Grace says, templing her fingers. Her notepad lies open on her lap. "The way you perceive reality, for example, is different from the way I perceive it."

  I'm willing to bet she's right about that.

  "Are you interested in psychology, Wendy?"

  I smile shakily. "More like second chances."

  She gives me what I'm sure is supposed to be an empathetic look. Too bad it just makes me want to storm out of her office. "Supposing you found a way to access a different reality," Dr. Grace says, "then it wouldn't be a different reality anymore, would it? It instead becomes a part of your observable reality."

  "I know. But I..." Why is she taking notes again? "The 'Me' in that reality might be living a different life entirely."

  "Then can you really say that person is you?" Dr. Grace asks. "If her circumstances are different? Her DNA? DNA only has to vary by .00001% for two human beings to be considered separate individuals. Identical twins aren't really identical. Their fingerprints, for example, aren't the same."

  "Then maybe," I say, "she and I have the same fingerprints. Maybe our DNA doesn't differ by..." However much it needs to differ by. I'm no good at remembering numbers. "Then we'd be the same person. Wouldn't we? I could step into her skin. I could forget..."

  Dr. Grace jots something down on her notepad. I feel as if I've allowed myself to fall right into her snare.

  "Unfortunately," Dr. Grace says, "this universe is finite, but unbounded. I'm not very good at physics, but I do remember that much." She smiles unconvincingly. "No matter how far we travel, or how many machines we construct, it's impossible to leave this universe, let alone the reality we built for ourselves here."

  I don't want to say anything else. Not to her. But I think she's wrong. I don't know for sure. I think--

  --Isn't it true that everything happens inside our heads? You can stand and admire a painting on the wall, an old fresco from the Renaissance, brightly colored angels bleeding across lime plaster; but what's really happening is that your optic nerves are communicating with your thalamus in order to tell you that the angels are there. You can listen, transfixed, to your favorite concert pianist, his fingers gliding across the keys; but what's really happening is that your temporal lobe is lighting up, translating aural vibrations into what it thinks sounds like a pleasant song. Even pain is just your parietal lobe getting antsy over unwanted neural activity in your somatosensory system. Everything we experience happens inside our heads. We can't experience anything outside of our heads.

  Everything is inside our heads. Nothing is outside our heads. If nothing is outside our heads, then we only need to change what's inside our heads to change the reality we live in.

  Mom. Dad. Jocelyn. I could bring them back. I know I could. I know it. But I...

  Dr. Grace chuckles nervously. "You're sure giving my Superego some much-needed exercise."

  I don't know what she means. Is she calling herself conceited? Truth be told, I forgot she was here.

  "The Superego," Dr. Grace explains. "Freud didn't get a lot right, but what he did get right, we're still using today. The mind exists in definitive components. The survival instinct, the self-serving, the scientific--we call that the Id. The spiritual longing for something greater, something more--that would be the Superego."

  Something greater. Something more. That's the problem with me, I realize. All I want anymore is to escape this world. My brain's fractured. My mind's fractured. I'm nothing but a Superego. Superego. That sounds dumb. It sounds like codeword for Big Jerk.

  I'm a Big Jerk.

  "You're getting there, Wendy," Dr. Grace says.

  I still don't like her. But that's not her fault.

  * * * * *

  After school the next day I take the staircase to the second floor. Semper Ubi Sub Ubi, reads the embossed school logo above the double oak doors. I step through the doors and find myself in one of the lesser-used auditoriums, the carpet royal blue, the chairs stuffy and red. A few underclassmen kneel beneath the grand stage, adjusting the standing black lights. The walls look like modern art, smooth blocks of gaudy faux gold overlapping in pretentious patterns. Faux gold. I'm surprised they didn't spring for the real deal.

  "Over here!" Kory calls me. He waves at me from the lefthand side of the auditorium, center row. I hurry down the aisle and sit next to him.

  "Why are you wearing a flower behind your ear?" Kory asks. By the tone of his voice, you'd think he were gravely insulted.

  I know better. I roll my eyes. "It was a present."

  "An impractical present. Next time, ask for money."

  "Kory..."

  "Anyway," Kory goes on, "Martin's performing today." Smugly, he adjusts his eyeglasses. "That's not to say that we're on speaking terms. I'm only here to make him feel bad about his choices in life."

  "Kory. Jeez. You're such a good friend..."

  The first performer is a sophomore, a contortionist. I really didn't know this school considered contortionism a performing art. Or is that a visual art? I wince when her legs wind up behind her shoulders. Now I remember why I was so afraid
of the circus as a child.

  "Judges, ballots please," Kory whispers, mocking the teachers in the front row.

  We watch a clog dancer, a couple of monologues, an animated short. We listen to a soprano singer with a voice like warm honey. I push thoughts of Joceyln aside with a pang of yearning. Kory's friend Martin plays the cello and Kory hisses and boos. I shrink in my seat when harsh stares turn our way.

  "Oh, it's the Towelhead," Kory says disdainfully.

  "Really?" I sit up quickly in my seat. "Stop calling him that, Kory."

  "What's wrong with Towelhead? There are worse things to call a man."

  "That's like saying it's okay if you lose your arm in an automobile accident, because there are worse things that can happen on the road. You realize you're insulting his sister, too?"

  "That's fine. She broke up with me."

  "Sometimes you're the worst..."

  "I have Tourette's."

  "Saying it doesn't make it true."

  "Quiet. I'm trying to pay attention here."

  Azel's on the stage in a black singlet, his brown curls tumbling down his back. I don't think he notices us, or anyone else in the room, for that matter; he's so focused, so poised, his face is devoid of expression. An underclassman presses buttons on a tape deck. Something mystical, something not-quite-a-harp twangs and echoes across the auditorium.

  That shadow making its way across the stage--it can't be Azel. It moves like smoke, elusive, precise. One moment it's whirling and shapeless; the next it's rigid and sharp. It's Azel, I tell myself, because it has to be, because it was Azel only one moment ago and it still has his ponytail. The slightest hitch in the song--a seamless tonal shift--and suddenly the smoke is gone. Suddenly the shadow is water. The water tumbles and spills. The water rises again, high tide under a full moon. It cascades across the stage, weightless and fluvial.

  There's no way those are human arms. There's no way those are human legs. Azel's face is a prestezza face, obscured by movement, by rhythm. Only his curls convince me that there's a boy in there. There's personality in the way they fly after him, the way they can't keep up with him. I wish I could catch them between my fingers.