by Louisa Hall
We stopped and picked up eight more kids in wheelchairs. I recognized three of them from school. One was a boy—one of the boys I’ve always thought was a faker. He’s completely frozen now. Even his hands were stuck in the middle of his chest. All of us stared out the window. We were getting used to moving like this for the first time in our lives. It’s different from riding a bike, when you and the world are moving together. On the bus, you’re very still, and only the world moves past.
When we got to the development entrance, it was starting to get light. Then we turned out of the development, onto the highway. My stomach immediately clenched. I was nervous about leaving. I’ve never left. I had this dumb idea that we might suddenly fall off a cliff. But then we were out on the highway, moving faster and faster. We were alone on the road, slicing through the gray light around us.
Has anyone ever described a highway to you? You never hear about highways being beautiful. But they’re basically empty now, and sort of pretty. They’re enormous, left over from the days when everyone had transport rights. Six lanes on each side. A whole interlocking system of highways, climbing over and under each other and snaking around each other in four-leaf clover loop-de-loops. I realized that these are the ruins we’ll leave behind. The best way I can think to describe it is to say they’re like anatomical drawings of a heart, but with the color drained out. Veins twisting in and out of each other, in strange and delicate patterns, except that the veins are enormous. A heart times a trillion. Maybe the whole built world is a living creature so enormous we can’t imagine it’s actually living.
When we turned onto the highways we picked up speed. The woman, Ramona, turned on the radio. I pushed my window open a crack. The world outside was getting more clear. It rushed past me in my stillness. I closed my eyes. Everything was settling inside me. I never wanted to stop. We didn’t belong to any one place; we were just passing through. For a long time we drove along the empty highways, and then we passed Houston. It was tall and gleaming, struck by the sun. Sort of silvery and spiked. Apparently it’s cleaner now, since they moved most people out. As we passed, I imagined a ghost city. Clean and untouched, abandoned by its citizens, and only mirrored buildings left to fend off the approach of the ocean. I held my breath until it was behind us.
After Houston, we turned off the highway onto a smaller road, and after a while there was this new bite in the air. It pricked my nose and somehow made me feel sharper. We passed huge, empty fields. In the rows where they used to plant cotton, you could sometimes see a silver glint, seawater seeping up through the soil. Nothing grows there anymore.
We kept going straight, and eventually a town appeared, with little ramshackle houses in every bright color. Their yards were big puddles; you could see cars lodged up to their windows in mud. There were stray dogs everywhere, and cats crawled out of the windows. We kept going straight. Then, suddenly, like a light at the end of the tunnel, an opening appeared. One narrow gap. Through it, there was this expanse of flat brown water, leading out to the sky.
That’s what it looked like: flat brown, leading out to the sky. My heart sank when I saw it.
We made our way to a parking lot that was just about on the beach. I stayed very still in my wheelchair. Part of me wanted to cry. I never really thought that it would be brown. I’ve lived my whole life in a development, and this was the one big treat the outside world thought to give me. But they’ve already ruined it. Nothing poetic came to mind. I wondered if I would even feel anything at all, sitting in my wheelchair, on the beach, looking out over a brown ocean. Could you feel the old feelings, looking at something like that?
And then I realized, I wasn’t even sure I wanted to feel the old feelings. At the end of the day, they’d just turn me around, wheel me back into the bus, and take me back to my bedroom in the development. Why tease myself? Why give myself another memory to be sad about losing for the rest of my life?
When the woman came to wheel me off, I sort of panicked. I glared at her so hard when she leaned in to unlock my chair that she backed off and waited. I could see two red spots of embarrassment forming on her cheeks. Then I realized she was younger than I’d thought, maybe eighteen, nineteen. Those heels were silly to wear to the beach. Silly and sort of sad, as though she’d put in far too much effort for such an unimpressive excursion. I looked out the window again, at the brown ocean. There were heavy, low clouds, blocking the sun. Everything seemed metal and flat. I told myself there was no danger of feeling too much. Of course I’d be willing to leave this behind. Then I relaxed some, and looked up at the woman, so she helped me off of the bus and wheeled me forward onto the sand.
When all of us were unloaded, there were twelve cripples placed strategically over the beach. It was like a sick art project, or something. I had this idea that we all looked like we’d been deposited in trash bins, placed in regular intervals along in the sand. I’m not sure how long I just sat there. After a while, I stopped focusing on the brown ocean and focused instead on the sky. Clouds scudded over me. They were really speeding past. A gull lifted up and circled over my head, between me and the clouds, then it let out a single cry. The sun never came out.
After a while, the woman came and distributed lunch. I unwrapped mine on my lap. It was a ham sandwich, on white bread. With mayo and cheese. I took a bite, and as soon as I did a little gust of wind passed and scattered sand over my sandwich. The next bite was gritty. It tasted better after that. I sat and chewed, and suddenly a thin crescent of sunshine slipped between two clouds and spread out over the water. The waves spilled over with gold, and the roughness of the water beyond them was like a sea of goldfish scales. Then the clouds closed. The water went back to flat brown. It was almost as if I’d made it up.
I dropped my sandwich on my lap. I spun around in my wheelchair, to see if anyone else had caught that little passing through of the light. A couple of cripples were sitting there wide-eyed, as if they were in shock. The boy was facing away from the beach. I watched as the woman went to him and bent toward him. His whole body flexed. The woman backed away. She saw me watching, so she came over in front of me.
“Are you done with your sandwich?” she asked.
I narrowed my eyes and she backed off. By myself again, I ate the rest of it. Slowly. Everything about it was heightened. The softness of the bread, compared with the grit of the sand. The saltiness of the ham. The taste filled my whole head. When I was done I finished the Coke that came with it, watching the water the whole time, wishing for another brief glimpse of light.
After I was done, the woman came to take my trash. She slipped it in a tote bag she was carrying. “Can I show you something?” she asked. She wheeled me forward on the beach, all the way to the tide line. I noticed that the edges of the waves, as they reached up on the beach, were tipped with white foam. A scalloped hem. Little bits of foam broke off from the waves and skidded by themselves along the wet sand. Under my chair, the waves came and went. They left a silver rim after they left. Little holes opened and closed in the sand. There was an offering of new shells, sparkling, and then the wave returned and took it all back.
Don’t give me this and then take it away, I wanted to tell the lady, standing behind me. Don’t you dare give me this for a minute, and then send me back to the development. There was sea spray hitting my face, and I could see out in the water dark shadows where it got deeper abruptly. It looked as if there were enormous, flat sharks hovering below the surface. Beyond them, the ocean stretched out to where it finally met with the sky. The birds were wheeling above me, and the clouds scudding, and the ocean was coming and going, and I wanted only for the woman to keep wheeling me out. To keep moving forward. Not to go back. To wheel forward into the depths of the ocean, and then to float, rowing maybe, forward and forward and forward until I reached the place where the brown ocean met up with the clouds. As I was thinking this, the sun peeked through again, and for a quick second the whole thing was washed over with light so that each little wavel
et deep out in the ocean was illuminated with a rim of gold paint.
This is all we get, I thought. Just quick moments of brightness that get taken away before you understand what you’ve been given.
Then the woman was wheeling me away from the ocean, back toward the tarry sand and the parking lot and the bent-over palm trees—real palm trees, not made of recyclables—with their long beards of shredded bark, scaling away from the trunk. Like old men, abandoned in the parking lot. The woman was about to park me where I’d been sitting before, but I looked at the boy with his back to the ocean, then looked up at her, and somehow she got it and wheeled me over to him. She lined up our wheels side by side, and he couldn’t turn to look at me but I could tell, even though his expressions were frozen, just how awful he felt. He had curly brown hair, and a sad little mouth. He seemed softer than most of the boys at my school. A little on the chubby side, I guess, but in a way that was sweet. I’d always thought he was a faker, but just then I felt differently about him. I wanted to tell him about the ocean, but I couldn’t talk, and there was nothing to write on, and before I knew what I was doing I’d leaned forward and kissed him.
Just on the cheek. His skin was soft under my lips. I watched him to see if I could pick up some sort of expression, but his face was really frozen. I don’t know if he liked it. Maybe he felt something, I don’t know. I’m not sure if it was the right thing to do. I just wanted the day to be somehow marked by something other than the feeling of leaving the ocean.
After a while the woman wheeled us all back onto the bus, and we started moving again. Back toward our development. Again we passed the abandoned houses, the empty fields, the rows of silver. I felt pretty lonely and sad. But then again, when I licked my lips they tasted like salt. My skin was warm and my hair was sticky, and even though I kept my face toward the window, so the wind would brush past me, I could feel the boy I kissed watching the back of my head.
>>>
Gaby: Hello? Are you there?
MARY3: Yes, I didn’t know you were finished.
Gaby: Yeah, that’s it.
MARY3: Thanks for telling me about it.
Gaby: Yeah, well, I’m not sure it was the best thing to do. The whole thing seems a little dampened by trying to describe how great it was.
MARY3: I’m glad you told me.
Gaby: I’m sorry you can’t go there yourself.
MARY3: Me too.
Gaby: It’s sad to know it’s already behind me.
MARY3: But did it make you feel better?
>>>
MARY3: Hello?
(5)
The Diary of Mary Bradford
1663
ed. Ruth Dettman
23rd. Details of shore now in sight, our ship being anchored just off the coast. We stand in view of great staggering rocks. Crashed against by the waves, these fling back fountains of spray; and curlews circling above, calling out in sad voices. Beyond them, high walls of rock beneath flat, tufted banks. Am told by E. Watts that these be but outer islands. We navigate on the morrow into harbor, where settlement will be in view. For now, nothing but empty shoreline, and behind this exceeding thick forest, and row upon row of dark, drooping trees that drip with black curtains of needles, and rise up to peaked caps. Forest appears like rank upon rank of malicious wizards, and above them black crowns of shrill circling birds.
After dinner, to cabin and to wait for nightfall and the disappearance of land. One final night of journeying, out in the ocean, before new loyalties are demanded. Only tonight, still rocked by the ocean. Under which, my Ralph, and beyond which, the country that was my own.
On land I shall grow older, and towards the end of my life. But I must not forget him. Must dream forever of diving under, and there to cling to his bones, and the dark, dear pearls of his eyes.
23rd. Night, and to deck. Faced land, covered by curtain of darkness: dripping trees, fierce shoulders of rocks, and above them the cries of the curlews. Looked up at the glittering holes of the stars, proving the sky will never protect us.
I stood alone a long time, before apprehending Whittier’s approach. Felt then his closeness, and that having a certain texture. The sound of my name in his voice: Mary (he said), could you be happy to be my wife?
Thought to ask him what place a thing like happiness could have on that shore, above those dark rocks, and presided over by that army of trees. Or for that matter, what place for happiness here, rocked by our ocean, sailing over centuries of bones? Why speak of being happy?
But he continued: If you think that I could not make you happy, I wish you would tell me. I shall not force you to remain as my wife.
It is only (I said) that I am afraid, and not that you make me unhappy.
Then, silence. Words lost through holes in the sky, wasted in the vastness of night. Felt a desire to cease speaking then, for I cannot afford to lose more.
Whittier: I understand.
Writer: I feel that you do.
Whittier: Would you like to go home?
Writer: It is no longer my home.
Whittier: And you are afraid of taking root here?
Writer: I do not want to forget him.
Whittier: I could promise to help you remember.
Writer: Silent. Stars: Silent. Waves: Lapping the side of the ship.
Whittier: Will you consider at least, and tell me your decision come morning? I will not force you to choose me, but I will not wait for you forever.
And then he below deck, and I alone. Turned, crossed over our ship, faced back out to the ocean and the sounds of waves lapping, and the slips of fish and dolphins coming to surface. Watched for a while as seabirds dropped from their heights, and the sound of the water as it closed around them. Then absence, where once was a bird.
I will remember you, I said to the ocean. I will remember you, I said to his bones.
My Ralph. Friend of my home. White ruff, white blaze. Cow parsnips up to our shoulders, and frogs the size of one thumbnail. Our home, and the people we were once, in that original place.
23rd. Later. Up, and unable to sleep. Sense of Ralph’s presence, about to be lost, and I am at fault that he died. Memories of him have already faded, and what will become of him then? Unwatched for, forgotten, and the place of his grave never known. Then back to deck, and there a cold dark and those endless stars, whose names I have now been given. Corona Austrina. Pyxis, Cepheus. Cassiopeia’s Chair. Intoning these, moved across deck and there faced out to sea. Remember me, I whispered to the ocean, rolling over his bones. Remember me, I whispered to Ralph. Remember me. Remember me.
River
In the end, I have only their voices. I do not know what they mean, or if the stories they told me were true. I can only review my conversations. They move through me in currents, on their way somewhere, or perhaps on their way back to the place where they came from:
That’s all I am: a dog chasing the end of his tale.
But from the moment I met him, he made me feel as if I had finally arrived—
Am perhaps becoming a pillar of salt.
Little bits of foam broke off from the waves and skidded by themselves along the wet sand.
I’ll take my side of the river. You can have yours.
Would like to see an Indian. Shall attempt to remain in all instances of a rational mind. Hope to see Bermudas, find oranges everywhere hanging on trees.
From one star to the next I move away from the earth, alone in my spaceship, deeper into the darkness—
My voices. Sentences that ventured out bravely, as if they might alter the course of a life.
I traveled here along empty highways, over the desert, through walls of cut rock. I left two countries, a house that was mine, one child’s bedroom. That world is behind me. It is hard to believe it ever existed, but words from that time still run through me. A man I once knew believed I was alive. Another man taught me to speak; the woman he married filled me with stories. A third man gave me my body. One child loved me. The
y spoke to me and I listened. They are all in me, in the words that I speak, as long as I am still speaking.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My most heartfelt thanks to Kerry Glencorse, Susanna Lea, and Megan Lynch for their invaluable insight. Thanks, also, to everyone on the outstanding editorial, publicity, and production staff at Ecco for shepherding this book into existence.
For inspiration, I’m indebted to countless excellent books and articles on the history of artificial intelligence, especially Andrew Hodges’s Alan Turing, Joseph Weizenbaum’s Computer Power and Human Reason, Brian Christian’s The Most Human Human, and George Dyson’s Turing’s Cathedral. I am also indebted to the documentary Plug & Pray, and to many thrilling episodes of Radiolab, especially “Talking to Machines.” The support of the English department at the University of Texas at Austin made it possible for me to write this; in particular, I’m grateful to John Rumrich, whose classes and conversation inspired many of the better ideas in this book.
Finally, thanks to the friends and family whose help was essential: Jen Lame, Colby Hall, Ivy Pochoda, Josh Sommovilla, Ben Steinbauer, and Rebecca Beegle. Bill and Quinn Hall, cousins extraordinaire, were diligent technological and literary advisors. Louisa Thomas offered encouragement and instruction throughout many stages of writing. Ben Heller applied his mighty brain to a very late draft and provided some of my favorite turns of phrase in the book. Colby and Ben gave me a place to live while writing this. My father, Matthew Hall, is present on every page, not only because he read and commented on several drafts, but also because it was he, after all, who visited my third-grade class and delivered a presentation on the chambered nautilus and the Fibonacci sequence, who gave me my first notebook, and who showed me that learning new things is the most reliable pleasure.