Swansong

by Rose Christo

  We pass the bulky plastic corporate buildings, the domed and shining library. The library makes me think of Azel.

  "I'm taking Layla to the movies later," Kory informs me. "Should we see the bloody movie or the foreign movie?"

  "Bloody. I thought she broke up with you?"

  "Hot and cold with that girl, honestly."

  "Just be nice to her."

  "I'm always nice!"

  "You're a recovering sociopath."

  "Sociopaths are very nice people. Just because we're faking it doesn't make the sentiment any less valid."

  We pass the gauzy, top-heavy hospital and I swallow, nauseous. I hate that place. I wish there were a faster way around it.

  Kory touches my shoulder, surprising me.

  "You know," Kory says. We wait on the street corner for the light to change. Cars drive past indiscriminately, as though in a funeral procession. "I've been thinking..."

  I'm not surprised. He's always thinking.

  "Supposing we could actually pull entire universes out of your head." Kory still sounds skeptical. It's not like I can blame him, because this is really, really insane. "I've been thinking..." You said that already, Kory. "What about this universe? The one we're already living in?"

  I falter. "What about it?"

  "The reason our universe is dying is because it's running out of mass. Mass is nothing but energy in solid form--that's what Einstein was getting at when he derived E = MC2."

  "Yeah..."

  The light changes. We cross the street.

  "Supposing your headaches produced enough mass for an entire universe--why not ours?"

  I thought he would eventually get to this. I haven't forgotten his model of the universe. All the care and attention he put into that macrocosmic snowflake.

  He can say what he likes about our meaningless existence, about the inevitability of our demise, but he loves this universe.

  It's December, and it's warm. I could take off my jacket if I wanted to. I could walk around in short sleeves.

  "Wendy?"

  We step into the animal shelter. The walls are cheery, pink, laden in anatomical posters. The noxious scent of chemicals and wet fur hangs on the air. The lady behind the counter is busy with the couple in front of us. We sit down on a rubbery red bench.

  This universe is beautiful. This universe is hideous. Mom and Dad and Jocelyn aren't in it. Judas is broken.

  Azel. Kory. Seven billion people I'll never even meet...

  "I'm not sure it's something I can control." My response, when it comes, is delayed.

  "That's true." Kory frowns. "It's not as though you can sit down and say, 'Alright, I want to have a headache now.' And I hardly think hallucinations are voluntary. But..."

  Hallucinations. He's right. Why am I even entertaining these ideas? I'm insane. This isn't real. None of what I've experienced is real.

  But the Swan Nebula. I can't have faked that. I can't have.

  "The thing is," Kory murmurs. The couple at the counter don't look like they're leaving anytime soon. "Assuming there are other universes. Simultaneous universes, universes supplanting our own--whatever. Of course I'm dying to know what they look like. But it's impossible for us to leave the universe we're already in. I told you, this universe sits on the cusp of an event horizon..."

  Why is it impossible to leave? When this universe dies, we'll still be here. Consciousness is energy and energy doesn't die. Consciousness needs something to be conscious of. So of course there will be something to be conscious of when this reality ends.

  But that implies that we have to wait for the present reality to die before we can see the next one.

  But I'm not sure whether that's true at all.

  I don't really know anything. I'm only sixteen.

  "If I had to choose," Kory goes on, "I'd choose this universe. A thousand times over."

  I smile so quickly, it hurts. "Would you still feel that way if you'd lost everyone you loved? If they weren't waiting for you when you went home at the end of the day?"

  "Are you saying you've lost everyone you ever loved? What about your brother?"

  I love my brother. Of course I do.

  But if I can take him with me...

  "This universe birthed me," Kory says. "It clothed me from infancy. It reared me when I was sick and nursed me when I fell down. I grew up and it gave me a mystery to fall in love with. I love this universe. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for this universe. I would do anything it asked of me. If I could give it the lifeblood it needs, I would rip open my veins in a heartbeat. Maybe that's selfish, but so what? I don't pretend to care about anyone but myself."

  "You're a liar, Kory." From the very start, he's looked out for me. In some bizarre way, I think he might be the kindest person I know.

  "Hrm, well," Kory says. "Always wondered whether I should be a thespian. But then I would deprive the world of my more patent artistic talents..."

  "Is that what your mom tells you?"

  "She tells me I'm Galileo and Bernini wrapped in one. She's wrong, of course, I'm better than them both..."

  "And modest to boot."

  "That noisy couple just left. Let's go get your cat."

  We walk up to the service counter. Immediately the receptionist throws a curveball at me.

  "Sorry," says the nice lady. "We can't hand out pet licenses to minors."

  Kory flares up at once. "Age discrimination! I demand to speak to your manager!"

  The lady winces.

  "Sorry, ma'am," I stammer. "Um. How much would a cat be, anyway?"

  "Oh, now, let's see," the lady says. "The license is $100. Oh, and then you'll want to neuter him, that's another $100. And then there's kitty food, and you'll probably want to get all his vaccines in order--"

  "Vaccines cause autism," Kory cuts in. "Mom says that's why I'm so maladjusted."

  "I am so sorry," I tell the lady.

  It doesn't surprise me when she sees us out the door a few minutes later. Kory and I gather our bearings and head north.

  "Really," says Kory, huffy with indignation. "You'd think she wants her cats to be autistic..."

  "There's no way I can afford a cat," I realize. "Why are they so expensive? They're small. They should be half price."

  "It's a true testament to the society we live in when you have to own a license to take care of an animal, but any fourteen-year-old bimbo can go and get knocked up and social services won't look twice while she's raising her spawn on Sprite and Pixy Stix."

  "Kory!"

  "What? Don't you think it's weird? All prospective parents ought to go through some sort of psychological screening process. Weed out the coked-up abusers before they get the chance to lay their filthy hands on the impressionable youth."

  There's a strange bitterness in Kory's voice. It's new. It makes me wonder what he's really talking about. I realize he doesn't live with his father.

  Kory checks his wristwatch suddenly. "Want to come back to my apartment?" he asks. "I'm going to try and interface with the astronomy club before I pick up Layla."

  "I'm not sure. I..." I've taken up enough of his time today. "You have fun," I tell him. "I should start my winter homework."

  "My God," he says. "What is this? A responsible Wendy?"

  "You're one to talk," I tell him, managing a smile.

  We walk back to the apartment building together. He rambles about the Chandrasekhar Something along the way.

  He's a good friend. I've said it before, but it's still true.

  I only hope I can return the favor someday.

  * * * * *

  Azel's got a red silk prayer rug in his corner of the hideout. I shouldn't say "corner," because it's right next to mine, only closer to the door. When we walk in I half-expect him to walk right over to the rug, kneel down, and start reciting asr. But he only sits on it, legs folded, surrounded in his fortress of books and opera tapes. Neither of us strays anywhere near Jocelyn's pink curtain.

  "Hey," Azel sa
ys. "Come here."

  I sit on the rug with him. He slides his headphones over my ears.

  "Want to hear the Queen of the Night's aria?" he asks me.

  He presses "play" on his music player. I listen to the leisurely, innocuous harpsichords. I listen to the trilling coloratura lyrics. I don't understand German, but I realize at once that this is a very famous song, one of those melodies that everybody's heard at some point in their life, only they can't identify it by name. Midway through it loses its airy, innocent countenance. It descends into something more sinister, trumpets blazing, soprano singing as fiercely as an instrument of war.

  I take the headphones off my head. My hands are shaking. They haven't shaken like this in months.

  "What's the matter?" Azel asks, eyebrows creasing together.

  Annwn. Not Annwn. Hallucinations. My brain is fractured. My mind is fractured.

  "I don't want to die," I stammer.

  No one really wants to die.

  I want to escape.

  Azel takes my hand. My hand is weak. My hand stops shaking. His fingers are long and brown. His knuckles are scarred and white. I wish I could take that scar away. I wish I could give him back his mother.

  I could. I know I could.

  No, I don't.

  I'm losing my mind. Please send help.

  Azel takes me out onto the concrete balcony. The rail is rusted and thin. Gray sunlight flutters through our hair. I take that back. Up here the sun is really more white than gray, cleansing, forgiving. It dances on the distant, jeweled ocean waves. It sends the ocean back to me, water and sunlight dancing in my eyes.

  Home.

  I laugh shakily. "I want to dive in." We all do. I really believe that.

  "Can I tell you a secret?" Azel asks. He sits on the concrete.

  I sit with him. "What is it?"

  "I can't swim."

  I've never heard of somebody who can't swim. It's about as foreign to me as a bird that can't fly. Azel grew up in the desert, I remind myself. There's not a whole lot of water out there.

  "It's easy," I tell him. Why does my voice sound unfamiliar to me?

  "You could teach me," Azel says. "Couldn't you? We'll go to Cape Meares this summer. You can show me how."

  This summer. Just like that, the days are flying by. This June it will have been a whole year since I lost everything.

  I gained something. Didn't I? My brother. My friends. Why did it take such a great sacrifice to gain them? It feels as if God wants to make sure we're never too happy in life. Every time there's a possibility for something wonderful to happen, he complements it with the worst sorrow, the worst pain you can imagine.

  I hate God. I've never hated anything more.

  "Would that be alright?" Azel asks.

  This summer. I know what he's doing. If I'm waiting for the summer, I can't die.

  I don't want to die. Nobody wants to die.

  Tears spring to my eyes. Hastily, I rub them away. I don't give them the chance to flourish, to fall.

  We're so high up, Azel and I. Nineteen stories off the ground. Someone told me once that it only takes one second to fall four stories.

  Azel pulls me into his arms. I don't want to cry all over him. The only thing worse than crying is crying where someone can see you. I don't think I can help myself. My tears wet his shoulder. His hands still the shivers that trace their way up and down my back.

  "They're gone," I choke out. It doesn't make sense. It will never make sense.

  "No," Azel says. He holds me tighter. "The people who die don't leave you. People don't really die."

  "Then why aren't they here? Why can't I see them?"

  I can. I know I can.

  I know what I have to do.

  I don't want to die.

  Azel sits me down on the concrete terrace. We sit together, side-by-side, his hand on mine, his knee touching mine.

  "I told you before," Azel says. "I think we go on forever."

  He told me how our atoms don't just come from nowhere. He told me how I could be Shakespeare or Buddha or Gengis Khan. Those are all men. I don't want to be a man. I could be Lady Godiva. I could be Lady Lazarus.

  Lady Lazarus.

  Why won't they let her die?

  "Wendy," Azel says. "You need to promise me. Promise we'll go to Cape Meares this summer."

  Promise? "I..."

  "Promise."

  He won't let me die. Why won't he let me die?

  I don't want to die.

  "We'll go," I say. "I promise."

  If only I were braver. There wouldn't even be a promise to make.

  * * * * *

  The nice thing about winter is how fast it gets dark outside. I think I prefer the sun myself; but I know how much Azel admires the moon. It's only after four, and pearl-gray shadows already reach inside the factory, coloring us dim. I light the kerosene lamps on the floor by my easel. Each one has a different pattern on its glass casing: spotty pink flowers, ducklings, smooth ceramic and lacquer. The one with the cherry insignia was a gift from Dad two years ago.

  "How did you get over it?" I ask Azel. "When your mom died?"

  He sits on his prayer rug, looking through his poetry collection. There's a City High poster on one of the peeling walls.

  "I didn't," Azel says. "I don't think you ever get over it. I think you find new ways to deal with it."

  I hide a frown. I scrape old paint off my palette with the palette knife.

  "Mom was an important person," Azel tells me. "I don't just mean she was important to her family. I mean she was responsible for making a lot of people's lives better, richer. She worked one-on-one with the wali--the governors--for education reform. The Sultan noticed, and he wanted to help. When I was seven, he formally invited her to his palace in Salalah."

  "That must have been such an honor..."

  "It was. And she took me with her."

  I smile at the thought of it. I can just imagine a seven-year-old Azel, wide-eyed with wonder, hanging onto his mother's hand. His hair must have been shorter back then. That, I can't imagine.

  "Everything was so big," Azel reminisces. "So opulent. The atrium, the courtyard. There were colors I had never seen before. That shade of blue. That shade of yellow. The floor shone back at me with my reflection. I was afraid I would trip over it."

  "Did you?" I ask, trying not to laugh.

  "No. She picked me up. My mother. She held me in her arms."

  My smile feels heavy on my lips.

  "The Sultan entertained us in the audience chambers," Azel says. "By 'us,' I mean Mom and some hundred other governors and diplomats he wanted to impress. Musicians played the qanun and the oud. Bedouins danced the Al-Bar'ah." A certain light, indeterminate, takes to Azel's eyes. "Mom's favorite was the Al-Bayaty dance troupe. Do you know them?"

  "I don't think so."

  "They're from Baghdad. They dance contemporary."

  Contemporary. Azel dances--

  Oh.

  "She couldn't take her eyes off of them," Azel goes on, remembering. "That whole afternoon, she watched them dance. She told me dancing was a kind of magic--a real magic--the type that infuses your bones with God." His eyes flash with emotion. "I didn't care about God. But I knew I wanted to make her smile again the way she smiled that day."

  "Azel..." She's gone. His mother's gone.

  "She's still here," Azel says. It's as if he's read my mind. "Every time I dance, I'm taken back to the day my mom smiled. That moment is perfectly preserved inside my memory. The feelings, the newness--they're all the same. My mother is with me when I'm dancing. That's why it feels like flying."

  I feel like I could cry. Something tells me I'm all out of tears today.

  "That's what I like about memories," Azel says. "They let you relive them as many times as you like. Imagine a world where we didn't have memories. If you lost somebody you loved, it would be as though you had never loved them to begin with--or they you."

  The cruelty of the scenario
hits me like a leaden weight. A world without memories is a world without love. If that means we have to take the bad memories, too...

  Dad's kerosene lamp flickers merrily with warmth. The cherry paint on the glass canister is as fresh, as vibrant, as it was two years ago. I can still see Dad's big brown hands wrapped around it.

  I'm never going to hear his voice again.

  That doesn't make sense. I can hear it right now.

  Sea agradecido.

  * * * * *

  Night falls. I lie on my back on Azel's prayer rug. I watch the reflections of countless stars skidding and swirling across the shaded ceiling.

  Azel lies next to me. His hand is around mine. His fingers are wrapped with mine. I wonder if he sees what I see when I look at the ceiling. It's odd, isn't it? You can't see the world from anyone's eyes but your own. I know what orange and gray look like in my eyes. I'll never know what they look like in Azel's. Maybe gray looks like orange. Maybe orange looks like gray.

  "Orange is my favorite color," I say. Like it matters. Like he cares.

  "Mine's russet." Maybe he does care.

  The stars are beautiful, even if they're just shadows of themselves. They're tiny fireflies ambling on the ceiling rafters. Maybe each one contains its own universe. Untold galaxies. Untold dreams.

  I think this universe we're living in came out of somebody's head. Whose, though? Not mine. It can't have been mine. I would have designed things differently. I wouldn't have been a Clockwork God.

  Maybe I wouldn't have had a choice.

  Mom likes Carl Jung. Liked. I swear she's read everything he's ever written. She used to quote him at the dinner table, to Dad's great confusion.

  Collective Unconscious. Jung was treating a paranoid schizophrenic who knew things he shouldn't have been able to know. About science and history. About Jung's other patients. About Jung himself. That was when Jung decided that there's really only one mind. Everybody comes from the same mind, but being born into human bodies divides us. When we're born, when we grow up, we develop artificial personas. We distance ourselves unconsciously from our origins. We forget where we came from. Mom thought of it like spokes on a wagon wheel. Each one of us is a different spoke on the same wheel. Those spokes don't intersect with one another; but they all connect back to the same source.