Swansong

by Rose Christo

  My vision swims. Hot and dizzy. I thought I ran out of tears.

  A snowy swan rests calm on the paint canvas. Her head is tucked under her wing. She's sleeping. This universe should stay asleep. It shouldn't wake up. I don't know what happens when the universe stops dreaming; but some of its dreams are positively breathtaking.

  I wish I'd never woken up.

  When I turn around, Kory's hand is outstretched. I don't know what he's reaching for. Nothing, I realize. There's a snowflake on his palm. The whole entire universe rests inside a snowflake. But if he isn't careful--I know it firsthand--the snowflake will melt. Oceans swimming in your empty palms.

  He smiles at me, reminding me of oceans, reminding me of remorse.

  "Sorry," he says. He doesn't need to say it. "You were my best friend, after all. I wanted to give you back yours."

  "You idiot," I say, my head tight. I toss my arms around him in a hug.

  "I'm sorry, Wendy." He hugs me. "I'm sorry. I'm very sorry."

  "You idiot." It's okay now. I'm finally convinced of that. Half a year ago I couldn't see how I could possibly live without them. I thought I would die. I was waiting to die. I was the idiot all along.

  There's never going to be another me.

  Whoever you are, you're having a dream. I'm sure of it. I'm sure that everyone and everything in this observable universe are just a part of your long, uninterrupted dream. It's scary, isn't it? But how do you get to the good parts if you don't first get the scary parts out of the way?

  Please don't wake up just yet. You'll miss the best part of all.

  There is never--never--going to be another you.

  * * * * *

  Kory takes the badger brush from me. He tucks it behind his ear. It looks funny back there, especially when the white-and-blue paint bleeds into his tawny hair. Funny that the paint's still fresh. It shouldn't be.

  "Don't get scared," Kory tells me. "No matter how scary it gets."

  I flash him a smile.

  "I mean it, Wendy, you can't just freak out and--and--"

  "I'm okay. Really."

  Kory rubs his elbow. Just like me.

  "Do me a favor, though?" I prompt.

  "What is it?" Kory asks.

  "Can we meet in another reality? Without all the craziness next time?"

  "You have been studying superposition, haven't you?"

  I hug him one last time. He's so bony. So weedy. I can't have imagined him. But I've imagined the entire universe. Edmund Husserl says so. Erwin Schrodinger says so. Astrophysicists say the same.

  I think we were all Adam once, but that was too lonely. So Adam split open his ribs. From his bones he made Eve and Cain and Abel and all the good and bad that came with them. I think it was worth it. I think the perfection of this universe comes from how imperfect it is.

  I let go of Kory. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His smile is distinctly goofy.

  His smile is the last thing I see.

  * * * * *

  "If you'll just listen--"

  I'm kneeling on the floor in Judas' bedroom. He approaches me. He stops.

  The expression on his face is half-pain. Half of his mouth still doesn't move. It's paralyzed with closed, rigid knife marks. Knowing what I know now, I can't help but think that disfiguration was deliberate. It kept me from recognizing the stranger beneath the scars.

  He hasn't been a stranger to me these past seven months. He took care of me. He became my brother. He lied to me; and I don't know why.

  If he killed my parents--if he killed Jocelyn--

  "Did you kill them?" I ask.

  "No," he says. It's so quick, I can't tell whether it's a lie or the absolute truth.

  Jocelyn said the agent was a woman. I don't know what role Judas might have had in that.

  I lay his ID card on the floor. Ash Galloway. I can't bring myself to connect the name with the face. I flip the card over. That way I don't have to look at the name anymore.

  Judas kneels on the floor with me. He takes my shoulders in his skeletal hands. I don't fight him. I don't know why. He could have killed me all these months and never did. That's probably a part of it. The other part, I think, is--

  The pain in his eyes. I've always said his eyes are different from mine, even if both of our eyes are gray. The key difference is that mine are murky. His are wet and translucent, like clouds at sea.

  In their translucence, his eyes betray what he doesn't say with words.

  I've never seen such sad eyes.

  "I'm sorry," he says. It's all he can say, again and again. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

  I don't know whether I should believe him. I know I want to. He pulls me into his arms and apologizes, again and again, and it feels like family, it feels like love--but there's no blood between us. We weren't raised under the same roof.

  I don't put my head on his shoulder. I want to, though.

  "Tell me what's going on." My voice sounds like it belongs to a child. "Tell me what you've done."

  "I can't."

  "You mean you don't want to." I don't blame him.

  "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

  I pull out of his arms. I pick up his ID card.

  Ash Galloway didn't die in the car wreck.

  "There was no car wreck," I say.

  I watch Judas' eyes close themselves up, his half-paralyzed mouth, his freckled face. The freckles... Oh, God. I think Jocelyn was right.

  "There are five and a half million 'car accidents' in the US every year," Judas says. "At that rate, the US will be completely devoid of life in sixty years' time. Do you really believe that ridiculous number? Or do you think somebody, somewhere, is lying?"

  Somebody, somewhere, is lying.

  "You work for UNICOR," I say. That much wasn't a lie.

  "We build cars," Judas says. "Bombs. And fuel."

  "Fuel...?"

  "Mostly nuclear, sometimes alternative. Water fuel, for instance. We dig up 12,000 aquifers a year."

  That's ten times the planet's sustainability rate. Somebody told me so. I swallow a wave of bitterness.

  "Do you think we don't know we're killing the planet?" Judas says. "We've known it since the 1930s. That's how long UNICOR's been around. Only it was called FPI back then, and Roosevelt was running the show. Federal agencies are required by law to buy all their power, all their weapons from us. But we operate on commission, so we're not subject to federal law. The government answers to us. We don't answer to them."

  I'll admit I don't know much about the law, but that premise strikes me as soundly terrifying. Leave a monster to grow unchecked in your backyard and he'll probably get around to eating your house.

  "How can you work for that company, Jude?"

  I bite my tongue. He isn't Jude.

  "You act like I had a choice." Hunched, guarded, Judas reminds me of a dog on the end of a chain. "UNICOR employs inmates. I've told you that."

  Judas went to prison for killing an innocent man.

  This man is not Judas. "What were you...?"

  "In for? Vehicular homicide. Ran over my old man. Twice."

  This man is not Judas. This is the part where I can't deny it anymore, and I hate it; and it scares me.

  "He ran dog fights," Judas--not Judas--adds as an afterthought. "I don't like that shit. You don't mess with animals."

  I wonder where Maurice is.

  "Where is my brother?" I ask. My real brother.

  But this man is my...

  "Don't know." Judas rubs his face, haggard. "Probably dead, or they would've used him in my place. Unless he was a wildcard. In which case, he still would've wound up dead."

  Was he a wildcard? I was a little girl the last time I saw--Judas. I remember him being mouthy, brazen, bragging about his crime. Nothing at all like this ruminantly melancholy man. Prison can change a person. I thought...

  "Jude." He's not Jude. "There was no car wreck."

  "There are five and a half million 'car wrecks' in the US every
year. Most of them are staged."

  "Why--?"

  "I told you," Judas says. "We're in the business of making fuel."

  A headache is an efflux of protons inside your skull. One trillion protons were what made this universe.

  Universes pouring out of my head.

  I think about the glass casket. That wasn't oxygen therapy, was it?

  "Best case scenario," Judas says, "we can harvest enough protons from people like you to shut down the nuclear reactors. Nuclear energy produces carbon emission. Carbon emission is what's depleting the ozone layer. Worst case scenario, when we relocate to Europa in a few years, we can take your output with us."

  I think I'm going to throw up.

  "I'm sorry, Wendy." Judas slumps. "I'm sorry."

  Why does he remind me of a little boy right now?

  "Did you kill my parents?" I ask him. I need to know. I might be shaking. "Did you kill Jocelyn?"

  He looks me in the eye. "That was my partner."

  "Partner...?"

  I await his answer. He doesn't give it to me. He falls forward. With a gasp, I brace him. He's much heavier than me; he takes us both down.

  Pinned between my brother and the floor, I can feel his blood trickling on my face.

  "Judas." I'm shaking. "Jude--"

  His body rolls off of me. A woman stands over me. I wipe the blood from my eyes.

  Smoke coils around the silencer on the end of a pistol. An earpiece crackles with static transmission. Marguerite Modesto grins at me. Her teeth--sharp--remind me of a shark's.

  "How's it going?" she quips.

  * * * * *

  My entire body shakes.

  "Ah, man," Modesto says. She slaps her hand against her earpiece in annoyance. "You'd think bugging tech would get with the times already."

  Judas lies face down in a pile of his own blood, a bloody hole drilled into the back of his skull. His eyes are wide open. Gray eyes have lost their wet translucence.

  "Wake up," I beg him. He's my brother. I don't care. I don't care what he's done. "Wake up."

  "Pipe down, will you? And hold still," Modesto says. "I want a clear shot."

  He won't wake up.

  Modesto raises her pistol.

  I see red.

  I lunge at her as the gun goes off. The bullet streaks past my shoulder. I can hear it dislodging the plaster in the wall behind me. I slam into Modesto's chest. I slam her back against the wall. I punch her--her stomach--whatever I can reach. It's no use. She's wearing a vest. My knuckles split open against her brick armor.

  My left hand is covered in a large red burn. Bumpy skin grafts climb up my wrist.

  The barrel of a gun presses against my skull.

  A hand grabs my hand. A hand pulls me out of the way. The stray bullet pierces Judas' drawers, blowing them apart, splinters and shredded paper raining across the room.

  Azel pulls me behind him. His curls fill my vision, my vision blurry.

  "The heck did you come from?" Modesto says.

  She sees--

  "Wendy," Azel says.

  "Judas." I can only say my brother's name. "Help him. Help--"

  Azel turns around. Azel takes my hand. My left hand--my scarred hand--my scarred hand in his--

  --It's bright. It hurts--

  --The brightness is the watery winter sun pouring in through the factory window. A swan sleeps soundly on my paint canvas. Messy books clutter the red silk prayer rug.

  Kory and Annwn lift their heads, as if alerted by a sound. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm crying.

  I'm crying.

  "Wendy," Azel says, and kneels with me. Id, Ego, and Superego all in one room with me.

  "We have to go back," I tell him. Judas isn't dead. Judas is-- Judas isn't Judas. Judas isn't dead--

  You were at the center of the universe.

  "Did something happen?" says Annwn, sounding dazed.

  "Bring him back." I can't stop stammering. I can't stop crying. My tears feel cold. My head feels hot.

  "We can't," Kory says.

  How? How can't they? They are me and I am the universe and the universe is dreaming and we are all that dream--

  My burn scar came back.

  "I want my brother back." I won't take no for an answer.

  "Wendy, for God's sake," Kory says irritably. "Forget about that for a second. We have to hide you; you're in danger."

  Jocelyn and I were in danger. Jocelyn and I were going to run away.

  "Be kind," Azel rallies back at Kory. "Put yourself in her position."

  "I am in her position, you twit!"

  "Are we safe here?" Annwn asks. She still sounds dazed. "Can that woman find us?"

  Kory sits cross-legged on the floor. "If she's been bugging the apartment..."

  "I'll keep a lookout," Annwn says. She mills out to the balcony, azure ribbon tangled in her 1950s curls.

  Judas is gone. Judas is dead.

  No way. Not him.

  Everybody I love leaves me.

  Azel takes my shoulders in warm, soft hands. Azel left me. Azel came back. That's one person I love. That's--

  Where are my meds? I don't have my meds. Will I lose him again? I don't want to lose him. I'm tired of losing everyone. Id and Ego and Superego. My mind's been fractured. I don't care. I'll stay broken. I'll stay broken if it means I can keep him.

  Maybe--maybe I can break my mind up even more. I'll be just like Adam. I'll break my mind into tiny splinters and one of them will be Judas and Judas will come back to me.

  That's it.

  Adam, don't you dare wake up yet.

  Kory lets out a sound of impatience. He rises off the floor. "I'll go with Annwn," he grumbles. "Make sure she doesn't jump off the side of the building..."

  He heads outside.

  "Wendy," Azel says.

  It's another world. Azel and I. It's a world-within-a-world. I can escape the world without leaving it.

  "Judas is not dead," I tell Azel.

  He hesitates. He doesn't want to upset me, I think. That's okay. He doesn't know. He doesn't realize.

  All of reality is inside your head. Change what's inside your head, and you change reality.

  * * * * *

  Azel sits with his back against the wall, his arm around me. I'm wearing two jackets--but I don't know where they came from. I'm wearing his scarf.

  His fingers are gentle in my hair, like the strings of a harp.

  I smile at him. I hope it isn't as weak as it feels.

  "I thought you were gone," I say.

  The burn on my hand. It's back.

  I wasn't in a car accident. Why do I have burn scars if I wasn't in a car accident?

  "I'm never going to leave you," Azel says. "Not willingly."

  Why does he look so guilty? It's okay. Doesn't he know that it's okay?

  "Where are your sisters?" I ask. "Are they alright?"

  "They're fine," Azel says. He looks cold in his cotton jacket. I take his scarf off, drape it around his shoulders. "Thank you. Dad took them to the movies."

  "That's nice of him." My dad's not the movie type. We watch soccer together, though. He calls it football.

  "It's that new Wooper Looper movie. The 3D one?"

  "Ick," I say, with a little smile.

  "My sentiments exactly."

  I wonder what Kory and Annwn are doing. I wonder whether it's still snowing outside.

  "Wendy..." Azel's forehead creases.

  "We're going to Cape Meares this summer," I say. "Right?"

  He pauses. He nods.

  "I'll teach you how to swim." The sun. I love the sun. I love the sea. "You can meet my dad." I hide--not very well--another smile. "He's a big guy. He'd get along with your dad."

  "What? Wendy--"

  "It's fine, Azel." I know it is. "It's fine."

  He pauses again. "I'm cold," he realizes. He looks tired, too, the skin around his eyes sagging.

  I can feel Judas' blood matting my hair. "I'll get you some blankets." I stand.


  "Blankets...?"

  Joss left them here. The blankets. We were sharing blankets.

  I walk over to her striped pink curtain. I pull it aside.

  "Wendy--"

  I find the blankets. I take them back to Azel. I sit with him.

  "Thank you," he murmurs, his mouth slack. He takes the pile and parts it. He wraps a blanket around his shoulders.

  I pick up my badger brush. I toy with it between my hands. Azel rests his head back against the mural on the wall. I look at the City High poster on the wall opposite us. I don't know anyone who listens to that band.

  "That woman wants to kill you," Azel murmurs.

  "She's not going to."

  "We're going to protect you."

  "No. It's okay."

  "I want to protect you."

  "I'm the one who's going to protect you."

  Azel wavers. "Your hair."

  I don't say anything about it. I can't. There's no blood in my hair. Judas isn't dead.

  Azel walks over to his side of the hideout. He talks to me while he moves. I think he's trying to calm me down. It's weird, because I'm already calm. When he returns he's got bottles of water in his arms.

  "Do you need help?" I ask.

  He sits with me once more. He opens the water bottles, wets his fingers. He combs his fingers through my hair, washing the blood away.

  There isn't any blood.

  "Azel?"

  "What is it?"

  "We're just a part of Adam's dream. Right? The universe is having a very long dream."

  "Yes," Azel says at length. " 'We are such stuff as dreams are made on.' "

  "I'm going to find Adam."

  Azel looks alarmed. It's funny, though, because the look doesn't last long. "I'm going with you."

  I grip the badger brush against my knees. He dries his cold hands on a particularly threadbare blanket.

  Azel laughs humorlessly. "My name means Noble Lion."

  "Really?" That's... It's really endearing.

  "I'm named for Ali, the Prophet's son-in-law. His nickname was Azel Asadullah--Noble Lion of God."