Challenger Deep

by Neal Shusterman

  “If it did, you’d probably change my medication,” I tell him.

  He chuckles at that, and asks how I’m getting along. I tell him that everything sucks, and he apologizes for it, but does nothing to make things less suckful.

  He has me fill out a questionnaire that seems more than pointless. “It’s for the insurance,” he says. “They love paperwork.” But looking at my file in front of him, he’s nurturing a paperwork fetish as well.

  “Your parents tell me you’re an artist.”

  “I guess.”

  “I’ve asked them to bring you some art supplies. We don’t allow what could be a hazard, of course—the staff will determine what you can have. I’m sure you’ll be able to express yourself creatively.”

  “Goody for me.”

  He takes in my attitude like a scent in the air, and writes something down. I suspect it will result in a tweak in my cocktail. In addition to the occasional shot of Haldol, I now take four pills, twice a day. One to shut down my thoughts, another to shut down my actions. A third to address the side effects of the first two. And a fourth so the third doesn’t feel lonely. The result leaves my brain somewhere in orbit beyond Saturn, where it can’t bother anyone, especially me.

  Somehow I can’t imagine a runner that far out crossing the finish line any time soon.

  100. Her Embedded Extremities

  “I have been concentrating on my legs,” Calliope tells me as she holds me in her familiar cold embrace above the sea. I am bruised from the hardness of her copper hands, which have turned even greener than the rest of the ship. What began as traces of oxidation in the corners of her eyes and in the folds of her flowing copper hair have spread across her, so that her sheen has dulled into pale acceptance.

  “You don’t have any legs,” I remind her.

  “I think now that I do. Legs and feet. Toes and toenails. My concentration has made it so.” Then she whispers, “You cannot tell anyone, especially not the captain. He would not approve.”

  “He fears you,” I remind her.

  “He fears anything he can’t control—and he’s not above hacking my legs off if he thinks it will keep me from walking away from him.” She shifts, but her grip on me never loosens. “If I have feet, they are embedded behind me, in the forecastle of the ship. Find that place just below the main deck, where the starboard and port sides meet to form the bow. Find that place, tell me if I have legs, and tell me if you can free them.”

  101. A Piece of Skye

  “Callie doesn’t sit in front of the window because she likes to, she sits there because she needs to.”

  I learn this from the girl with blue hair—the perpetual puzzler who guards her new puke-free jigsaw landscape with her life. She likes to talk to me only when she has something nasty to say about someone else. “She’s my roommate, and believe me, she’s a total freak. She thinks the outside world goes away when she’s not looking.”

  I watch as the blue-haired girl tries to fit a puzzle piece into a place it clearly doesn’t go. Then she touches her nose twice, and tries to fit the same piece in the same spot, then touches her nose twice again. Only after repeating this pattern three times does she move on to another piece.

  “She doesn’t think the world goes away,” I explain. “She fears that it goes away. See, there’s a difference. It’s the fear she’s trying to avoid.”

  “Either way it’s idiotic.”

  I want to lash out at her. Tell her that she’s the idiot. Maybe flip the whole table and send puzzle pieces flying in all directions. But I don’t—because it’s not about idiocy. I suspect Callie is brilliant. And maybe the blue-haired girl is, too. No, it’s not about intelligence, it’s about the rearview mirror on the floor. It’s about the freaking useless “check engine” light, and the only people qualified to look under the hood can’t get the damn thing open.

  No, I don’t lash out. Instead I ask, “What are you afraid will happen if you don’t touch your nose twice?”

  She snaps her eyes to me like I’ve slapped her in the face, but she sees I’m not making fun of her, I’m asking the question for real. I really want to know.

  She looks back down to her puzzle, but doesn’t try to fit any pieces into place. “If I don’t,” she says quietly, “then I feel like I’m falling. If I don’t, then my heart starts beating so fast, I’m afraid it will explode. If I don’t, then I can’t breathe, like the air has been sucked away.” Then, ashamed, she touches her nose twice, and tries to fit in a new piece.

  “You’re not a freak,” I whisper to her.

  “I never said I was.”

  I get up to leave, but she grabs my wrist and squeezes, forcing my hand to open. Then she shoves a puzzle piece into my palm. It’s blue. A piece of sky. No distinguishing marks to identify where in the sky it could belong. The hardest kind of piece to place.

  “You can borrow this,” she says. “Just bring it back before I’m done with the puzzle, okay?” Then she adds, “It’s my name. Skye. Stupid name, right?”

  And although I have no use for the puzzle piece, I take it, and I thank her—because I know it’s not about how useless it is to me; it’s about her choice to part with it.

  “I’ll keep it safe,” I tell her.

  She nods, and returns to her puzzle ritual. “Callie likes you,” she says. “Don’t blow it by being a creep.”

  102. Severe Nails

  Hal rarely has visitors. When he does, it’s just his mother. Hal’s mother is a very beautiful woman. She barely looks old enough to be the mother of a seventeen-year-old. When she comes, it seems like she’s just been to the hair salon, but I think she always looks like that.

  Not only does she stand out from the other parents, but she stands apart. She seems to coat herself in a protective aura, like a hazmat suit that no one else can see. This place can’t touch her. Hal’s wild, profound non sequiturs can’t move her.

  During her latest visit, I overhear her complaining about a fly that seems attracted to her perfume, and won’t leave her alone.

  “The flies are awful secret police that tear us as if we were carrion,” Hal tells her. “Our thoughts are only skin.”

  Unfazed, she sips a Diet Coke, and talks about the weather. It’s “unseasonably cool.” I can’t even recall what season it is, except that it must not be winter, since it’s the only season that can’t be unseasonably cool.

  Hal’s mother’s nails are too long to do anything effectively, and they are always painted with such precision it almost draws attention away from her chest, which, like a Renaissance sculpture, was clearly worked on extensively by masters of their art.

  I once asked Hal what she does for a living.

  “She’s a collector,” he told me, but would not elaborate.

  She didn’t raise Hal. He was raised by grandparents until they died, then put into foster care.

  “She was deemed an unfit mother, in spite of the fact that she goes to the gym every day,” Hal once told me. He also told me that the first map he defaced was a map of the state. He drew lines between all the places he’d lived. He found the patterns very arresting.

  When Hal’s mother sits with him, she speaks in brief, practiced sound bites. She poses questions like a talk show host, and supplies news to him like an anchorwoman. She taps her nails on the table with such severity that after a while it’s the only noise I can hear in the rec room and I have to leave, because I can feel her nails digging into my brain, and then I start to believe they actually are, and the rest of my day is ruined.

  Beautiful people are often forgiven for many things—and maybe she’s gotten through life that way, but I don’t forgive her for anything—and I don’t even know what awful things she’s done other than showing a lack of parental fitness. The thing that infuriates me most about her, though, is that she has the gall to make me appreciate my own parents more.

  103. Magic Mantras and Latex Poodles

  My father has the irritating habit of saying the same thin
g whenever something bad happens. “This, too, shall pass,” he says. What annoys me is that he’s always right about it. What annoys me even more is that he always reminds me later when it does pass, as a smug “I told you so.”

  He doesn’t say it to me anymore because Mom told him it was trite. Maybe it is, but I find that I say it to myself now. No matter how bad I’m feeling, I make myself say it, even if I’m not ready to believe it. This, too, shall pass. It’s amazing how little things like that can make a big difference.

  It’s like that old Nike ad. “Just do it.” My mom likes to tell the story about how she had gained so much weight when Mackenzie was born, and exercise was so daunting, she didn’t know where to begin, so she just ate and got fatter. Finally she started telling herself “Just do it,” and it was the magic mantra to get her exercising regularly again. She dropped the weight before Mackenzie turned two. On the other hand, there was this bizarre cult that committed mass suicide wearing brand-new Nikes as their own warped homage to “Just do it.”

  I suppose even a simple slogan can be twisted into whatever shape we want, like a balloon animal—we can even make it loop back around on itself, becoming a noose. In the end, the measure of who we are can be seen in the shapes of our balloon animals.

  104. Mutinous Mutton

  A figurehead can only see things in front of the ship, and nothing within it, so Calliope can just guess at the way into the forecastle, where her legs—if they exist—would be embedded. She guesses that I can get there from the lower decks, but she’s wrong. The only way into the forecastle is through a grate on the main deck. The grate is locked by a steel padlock, its shine a mocking contrast to the muted green coat that covers the rest of the ship. I peer down into the grate, but see only darkness.

  “Looking for something special, something special?”

  The parrot’s shrill voice makes me jump. Following his voice, I look over the front of the bow to see him perched on Calliope’s head. She doesn’t try to shake him off. She doesn’t reach up to grab him. I wonder if he even knows she has come to life. Perhaps she remains so still because she doesn’t want him to know.

  “Nothing special,” I tell him, knowing I can’t get away without an answer he’ll believe. I look down into the square grate above the forecastle. “I’m just wondering what’s down there.”

  “Stowage,” he tells me. “Stowage and steerage and sewage and queerage,” he says, mimicking the voice of the navigator, then he laughs, pleased with his impersonation. It isn’t even close, though. He has the voice, perhaps, but not the cadence. Cadence, Caden, maiden, mutton. That’s more like it.

  “Wits about you!” the parrot reminds me. “Do not be distracted by shiny things, and do not forget what I said about the captain. What may need to be done.”

  “Mutton, mutiny, destiny, desperately,” I tell him, putting his own impersonation to shame.

  “Very good, very good,” he says, “I have faith in you, Seaman Bosch. Faith that you’ll do the right thing when a thing is right to do.” Then he flies off to the crow’s nest.

  That night the parrot makes sure mutton is on the menu, just to remind me of our conversation—although I don’t know where one finds sheep at sea, and I fear it may not be mutton at all.

  105. Out of Alignment

  “There are many ways to view the world,” Dr. Poirot tells me on one of my clearer days, when he knows I’ll digest it, and not just repeat back what he says. “We all have our constructs. Some see the world as evil, some see it as a basically good place. Some see God in the simplest of things, some see a void. Are they lies? Are they true?”

  “Why are you asking me?”

  “I’m just pointing out that your construct has gotten out of alignment with reality.”

  “What if I like my ‘construct’?”

  “It can be very seductive, very seductive. But the price to live it is severe.”

  He holds his silence for a moment, letting his words sink in, but lately thoughts tend to float rather than sink.

  “Your parents and I—the entire staff here—we want what’s best for you. We’re here to help you get better. I need to know that you believe that.”

  “Why does it matter what I believe? You’ll do it anyway.”

  Poirot nods, and offers what I think is an ironic smile, but a squirrelly voice in my head tells me it’s sinister. The voices can be muffled by the meds, but they can’t be silenced entirely.

  “I believe you want to help me,” I tell him. “But in five minutes I might not believe it.”

  He accepts that. “Your honesty will help in your recovery, Caden.”

  And that pisses me off, because I didn’t realize I was being honest.

  Back in my room, I ask Hal to weigh in on the subject. Does he believe everything they do here is for our own benefit?

  Hal is slow to answer. He’s been more antisocial than usual since his mother’s visit. Apparently that’s a pattern. They’ve upped his antidepressant, which doesn’t seem to make him any less depressed, but helps him to forget that he is.

  “What they do here has no bearing on the price of tea in China,” he finally says. “Or for that matter, the price of china in Turkey.”

  “Or,” I add, “the price of turkey in Denmark.”

  He looks up at me sharply, and wags a finger. “Don’t bring Denmark into the equation, unless you’re ready to deal with the consequences.”

  And since I’m not, I suggest no further nations.

  106. The Skin of Who We Were

  Callie and I are not in the same therapy group. I ask to be switched into hers, but I don’t think such requests are honored.

  “I’m sure it’s the same as your group,” Callie tells me at breakfast one day, “except that no one in my group is a first-timer. We’re probably all a little less naive. We were arrogant enough to think we were done with this place. Now we’re more humble. Or more pissed off. Or both.”

  “Hal’s in my group, and he’s not a first-timer,” I point out.

  “Well, he may have been in and out,” Callie says, “but I think his first time never really ended.”

  I join her in front of the picture window of the Vista Lounge whenever I can. Whenever my feet allow me to stay in one place.

  Today, while she stands valiantly observing the world, I draw the random things that come to mind. They’ve bent the rules, allowing me to have markers outside of the rec room. I think that’s a sign that I’m making progress. No pencils, though. Felt-tip markers are less likely to cause injury, either intentional or accidental.

  Sometimes Callie and I talk, sometimes not. Sometimes I hold her hand—which, strictly speaking, we’re not supposed to do. No physical contact allowed. Human interaction here must come verbally or not at all.

  “It’s good when you do that,” she tells me as I take her hand one day. “It keeps me from falling off.”

  Falling off what, I don’t know. I don’t ask. I figure she’ll tell me if she wants to.

  Her hands are cold. She says she has poor circulation in her extremities. “It’s genetic,” she tells me. “My mother is the same. She can chill a beverage just by bringing it to you.”

  I don’t mind the chill of her hand. Usually I’m too warm. Besides, her hand warms quickly when I hold it. It’s good to know I can have that effect on her.

  “This is my third time here,” she confides in me. “My third episode.”

  “Episode.”

  “That’s what they call it.”

  “More like a miniseries.”

  She smiles at that, but doesn’t laugh. Callie never laughs, but the sincerity of her smile makes up for it.

  “They tell me that when I’m ready to stop looking out of this window, I might be ready to go home.”

  “Are you getting close?” I ask, selfishly wanting her to say no.

  She doesn’t answer. Instead she says, “More than anything I want to be out of here . . . but sometimes home is harder than here. It’s
like jumping into a cold ocean on a hot summer day. You want to do it more than anything, but you don’t want to feel the shock of the cold water.”

  “I actually like that feeling,” I tell her.

  She turns to me, grins, and squeezes my hand. “You’re just weird.” Then she returns her gaze to the view, which doesn’t change today. Not as much as a single hawk in the sky in search of a rabbit.

  “At home they expect you to be fixed,” she says. “They say they understand, but the only people who really understand are the ones who’ve been to That Place, too. It’s like a man telling a woman he knows what it feels like to give birth.” She turns to me, forsaking her view for a moment. “You will never know that, so don’t pretend you do.”

  “I don’t. I mean I won’t. But I do kind of know how it feels to be you.”

  “I believe that. But you won’t be with me at home. Just my parents and my sisters. They all think medicine should be magic, and they become mad at me when it’s not.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But if I endure it,” she says, “eventually I will settle in. I will find myself as I was before. We do, you know. Find ourselves. Although it’s a little harder each time. Days pass. Weeks. Then we squeeze ourselves back into the skin of who we were before all this. We put the pieces back together and get on with things.”

  That makes me think about Skye, the puzzler, and the jigsaw piece she gave me. I keep it in my pocket as a reminder, although I can’t recall what it’s supposed to remind me of.

  107. The Fo’c’sle Key

  The navigator might be brilliant, but I don’t dare ask him about the forecastle, and how to get in, because he’s also curious. He’ll want to know why I’m asking. I haven’t told him about the time I spend with Calliope, because I know he can’t keep a secret. He will blurt it out in so many rhymes and alliterations, everyone will know. Besides, the navigator has been moodier than usual. He’s begun to close me out the way he closes out others. Something about me being suspicious and pernicious.