Spark

by Melissa Dereberry

  I float everywhere, wobble clumsily through the air like a human balloon, my arms and legs outstretched, and do you know what I think about? I think about how the world is just way too big for a floating girl. I’m keep thinking I'm bound to disappear at some point, float away where no one will ever find me, right? Wouldn’t that be interesting? No one can analyze a missing person. A missing person cannot, by definition, be weird or strange or anything for that matter, except not here.

  I have to tell you this, even if you think I’m the fruitiest pancake in the pan. I have to tell you because my life depends on it. See, I’ve pretty much figured out that telling someone makes me real. Even if it hurts. Even if it’s not really who I want to be. Because if I ever do float away and disappear, at least someone will know who I am. And if someone knows who I am, she’ll know where to find me. Because I really, really need to be found. Pretty simple logic, right?

  But the problem is that simple logic just doesn’t work on someone as complicated as I am.

  Don’t get me wrong, I think floating is really, really cool. But it scares the heck out of me. Because being real means being who I am, and I don’t know if the world is ready for me.

  See, I think I came from a dream. I mean, I think someone dreamed me up.

  Have you ever dreamed you were flying? Imagine: You are weightless, soaring through trees, over lakes, rivers and valleys? You feel like you can see the whole world up there. And then you wake up, and for a split second, you wonder if it was real. It doesn’t take long for you to realize it was just a dream. See, that’s the thing about dreams—they’re tricky.

  I have heard that dreams are just your mind thinking back over things that are happening in your real life, but I don’t believe it. That would make them nothing but imagined pictures, which would mean they are not real. And let me just tell you: They are real. There’s more to it than that. Things imagined are like fiery, electric currents, lighting up all sorts of places I didn’t know were in there. Things I don’t really want to see. Things that make me who I am. Things that make me feel even more different than ever.

  Floating feels like a dream, but I know better. Because in my case, I really am floating. If I were brave or stupid enough to tell someone about it—which I’m not—they would probably tell me I’m crazy. Who am I to think I can float?

  Freak central. A poster child for it.

  But you know what? It only takes one person to believe in me. See that’s the funny thing about life. You can be a total circus case and if one person believes in you—it changes everything. The dream becomes a reality. Somewhere out there, someone believes in me. Believes me that I have some kind of special power, that I was born with a super human ability. “You are an exceptional case, Tess Turner,” they would say.

  But I’m not so gullible. After I’d recovered from the ridiculous image of myself in tights and a cape—Tess Turner, Superhero—what do you think my response would be? What the hell would someone accomplish by floating? That’s what I’d say. What purpose would it serve? After all, if God decided to bestow powers on people, it only makes sense that they would be useful to someone. Super-human strength or speed, for example. Now those would never be real because they’re too good to be true. But I am just an enormously tall kid who can float. And that, as far as I can tell, is about as useless as anything could be. Pointless.

  And, therefore, real.

  I know what you’re thinking, so let me be clear: I am not an angel or a demon. I’m not a vampire, an alien, or a ghost. I’m not even a wizard. Good. Now I have your attention. I am none of these things . . . I am something else. I am just Tess Turner. And by the time you finish reading this, you will know way more about me than you thought you would. I might even tell you way more than you asked to know. Because I have a lot of time on my hands right now, and anyway, I’m bored out of my mind.

  Dani

  Project Zero: File 7-2-2008, Subject Tess Turner

  When I found out we were moving, I just knew Dani was going to freak out when I told her. Believe me, I did not want to tell her. I was anxious enough as it was; I didn’t really want to deal with her, too. I wondered how long I could just avoid it before I’d have to come up with something.

  Picture Dani: Short, spunky Dani with her pink jeans and blonde hair hanging in a ponytail over her left shoulder, walking up to me after school with that enormous purple butterfly backpack of hers (what does she keep in that thing, anyway?), a big, dorky smile on her face. Braces.

  I’m about to ruin her day.

  Dani, my lame parents are moving us to California, I say. Dad got some stupid job there. When they told me, I was like, “Are you serious?” Can’t believe they are doing this now!!!! So pissed. I’m going to miss everything!!!

  The smile disappears. And she says, "You have got to be kidding. Sucks—big time."

  Frown, frown, frown. I don’t want to remember Dani that way. Because I know once we move, I’ll never see her again. That’s what always happens with stuff like this. Maybe I should just get over it. Dani is always telling me to lighten up, have fun. Every time we go to the mall, she gets mad because I trail along behind her and won’t shop. She thinks I don’t want to shop with her because she has a better body and better hair than me. And she does have better hair—it’s this fine, billowy mane of strawberry blonde with just the right amount of curl. Next to my coarse black hair and glasses, Dani looks like a movie star. I always tell her she has soap opera hair. I even call her “Daniella” because it sounds like a soap opera name. She hates that. I think she’s pretty, but she doesn’t think so.

  To tell you the truth, she’s prettier than me, but that’s not the reason I hate shopping with her. I just really hate looking at stuff I can’t buy. Besides, I don’t like my legs; they are too skinny, and I have zero boobs. If that’s not enough, I’m tall, too. Mom says I look willowy, but I feel like a circus clown walking around on stilts.

  When we move, I’ll have no friends. Zero. My parents are sending me right back to Loserville. They are even packing my bags.

  Soulmate

  Project Zero: File 7-8-2008, Subject Tess Turner

  Ok, this is weird. My parents came into my room last night and just stood there. It sort of gave me the creeps. Do they know about the floating? They didn’t say a word, just stood there. Then they did the strangest thing. My dad put his arm around my mom and kissed her, which really grossed me out. I don’t know why it bothered me—it’s not like I’d never seen them kiss each other. But for some reason this was different. Maybe it’s because they didn’t know I was watching them. Way over the top. Romantic stuff is just not my thing.

  I laid back and sighed. Just as well. I feel weird in the stomach, like I’m the new girl in town, wandering the halls in search of new friends. I don’t do that very well. My chances of getting kissed any time in the next decade are slim, so why worry about it?

  As tired as I am, ironically, I can’t go to sleep. I sense that my parents are gone and I just lay here for what seems like a long time, and after a while, I hear someone talking, but it’s muffled and far away. I am too tired to get up and look. I see tiny, distant flickers of light around me, like little matches striking and burning out. They begin faintly and seem to double in intensity in a matter of minutes, like lightning. But there is no sound. No thunder or sky-just splitting cracks, which means it is very far away and I am perfectly fine with that. A storm can be sort of calming, with the light playing quietly all around. It’s almost enough to make me forget how sad I am. About Dani.

  I wish I could talk to her. Life would be a whole lot easier if we could talk to somebody by just thinking it. How cool would that be?

  Then, just because I can’t go to sleep and there is nothing else to do, I imagine that I have a boyfriend and that every night, right before going to sleep, we talk to each other with our minds. At first, I don’t have a name for him or
a face. He’s nebulous, sort of like a dream, forming into a chamber like on those old Star Trek episodes. But there is nothing vague about the words. I have found my soul mate, my perfect match, the one I was meant to be with.

  - Do you remember when we sat on that old bridge? You were dangling your legs over the side, swinging your feet, and you told me that there was a place inside you, saved for me with all the memories we would have.

  - They were already there, the memories. They were written in the skies, before you were mine.

  - But you were born after me, and I am so much older than you.

  - Love is ageless, did you miss that line? It’s on page 74.

  - I have turned the pages searching, searching for you but you weren’t there. You can’t define what we have.

  - We’re connected.

  - Yes, but is that love?

  - We have to go back to the beginning. You can’t start in the middle. The end isn’t here yet. Start there, at the dawn. Then we’ll know what it is that we have.

  - I have a thousand words reserved for you.

  - And I have a thousand replies.

  - It’s a good thing we have as many years.

  I got a little lost, dreaming up this guy, and after a while, I got bored with it and besides, I was almost asleep. My last thought, before drifting off, was his mind communicating with mine, perfectly matched.

  Indefinitely

  I felt like I’d woken up from a deep sleep. A bad, terrible nightmare sleep. Violated with a capital V. Right there, on Zach’s fingerprint-smudged, dirty computer screen, were the contents of my brain, four years younger… all my deepest thoughts as I lay there in a stupid coma, totally clueless. I was unresponsive to the world, but inside my mind was on turbo. What the heck did it all mean? I was utterly speechless. Honestly, I think I was sort of paralyzed right then, my mind was too numb to think about it. I sort of wished I could run away and hide from all of it, or that the ground would just swallow me up. I was embarrassed, fascinated, and angry all at the same time. How dare anyone do this? And yet, the fact that it could be done was beyond belief.

  “Tess?” Zach said tentatively. “Well?”

  I think my jaw must have been in my lap, because he reached up and touched my shoulder and all of a sudden, my mind just throbbed and pulsed with this fantastic bright wave of light, and I couldn’t speak or see or do anything. Finally, I talked my legs into moving—leaping out of my chair and right out the door.

  As I was getting in my car, I barely heard him say, “What if I told you there was a way to see Dani again?”

  I stopped short, my head reeling with confusion. Dani? How did he know what happened to Dani?

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “What about Dani?”

  He looked frightened, almost as if he couldn’t believe what he’d just said. “I know what happened to her. At your birthday party. She was the one who got struck by lightning. Not you.”

  I watched, frozen, as Zach sprinted toward me, a look of determination on his face. At that moment, I wanted to fall into his arms. The mere mention of Dani’s name made me feel like JELL-O. I couldn’t help it. A sudden burst of cold air seemed to come from out of nowhere, tousling my hair in front of my face. I reached up to pull it back, and then Zach was next to me, cupping his hand gently on my chin. I realized tears were literally streaming down my face. I didn’t want to cry in front of him, so I sucked it up and wiped them away. But it was too late. He looked so intent at that moment, his eyes pulling me in. The world went airy and blank around us and we were the only two left. I felt, for the first time since I woke up, that I wasn’t alone anymore.

  I could have kicked myself, but I started sobbing right there on the street in front of Zach and the whole world. Where was that ground opening up when you needed it the most? I really was an impossible case. I feel so stupid.

  “Me too,” Zach whispered. “But we’ll be together. That’s what matters.”

  Had he read my mind—or, had I actually said out loud how stupid I felt just then? Either way, there was no turning back at this point. I buried my head in his shoulder and his arms were wrapped tightly around me like we’d always been that way. Like we’d always been together. How could a complete stranger feel so perfect? How could a crazy, unbelievable situation seem so right?

  “How did I get so messed up?” I sniffled. “My life is completely nuts. No one would ever believe it.”

  “What if I told you,” he said, leaning closer to me. “There was a way to change everything?”

  I lifted my head, looked up into his eyes and all of a sudden, things didn’t seem so incredible. I was starting to believe. Warm and fuzzy was not out of the question, and trust me, that doesn’t happen very often. “I’d say you were as crazy as I am.”

  “Destiny isn’t crazy,” he murmured. “You can change it all just by looking at it differently.”

  By then, I’d calmed down a little and laid my head back on his shoulder. “I miss her so much,” I breathed. It was so true, it hurt. My legs were weak beneath me and Zach tightened his arms around me, as if he knew.

  He placed his hand on my hair and weaved his fingers through it. “I know,” he whispered.

  I didn’t want to, but I felt a tinge of doubt again. How did he know? He didn’t know anything about what it was like to lose your best friend—did he? I stared at him with what I hoped would come off as defiance, but he just stared at me like my hair had suddenly caught on fire or something.

  “What?” He asked.

  “You tell me what.”

  “You want me to spell it out?”

  I just shrugged.

  “There’s only one way to do that.”

  “The documents, right,” I scoffed. “Give me a break, Zach. You probably typed all this up last night.”

  “That’s just it. The only way I can prove it is to show you. And that means, you have to trust me—more than you’ve ever trusted another person, ever.”

  “What do you mean, show me?” My palms were sweating. I was starting to get nervous all over again.

  “I mean, you have to experience it.”

  “Experience it?” A nervous laugh tumbled out of my mouth. What was he up to? Suddenly, I didn’t really feel all that comfortable sitting there with him. He just drilled through me with those impossibly gorgeous eyes. He leaned closer and I started to protest, but I was simply mesmerized, frozen with some weird concoction of fear and awe.

  “Well, sort of, yes.” He looked at me tentatively, then kissed me again, so gently and perfectly, that I started thinking about how fireflies must feel, flitting around in the dark, a tiny spot of light that never lasts, but keeps flickering on and on until you can’t see it any more. As Zach’s lips brushed across mine, the sky reeled as if the earth had suddenly switched gears. I felt the only way to keep from falling off was to lose myself in his eyes—they were secure, constant. “It’s going to be very hands-on,” He said. Then, as if he’d intended the play on words, he squeezed my hand. “This research really is a scientific achievement. It could change the world.”

  “Nice,” I said, melting right there. Zach and I, changing the world? I was so there. At that moment, I’d have signed myself up for elective dental surgery if it meant I’d be holding Zach’s hand, kissing his lips, indefinitely. Because indefinitely means forever, and always. And forever is sometimes scary, but it’s something you can count on just the same.

  Project Zero

  Zach and I met at the lab after school the next day. He was waiting at the door for me and hugged me so tightly he lifted me off my feet. His eyes were sparkling. “What took you so long to get here?”

  “Cricket,” I shrugged. He smiled knowingly.

  “Come on!” He said, taking my hand as we went back to the computer room.

  Resting his chin on his ha
nd, he peered at me like he had some big enormous secret. Mischievousness was never more adorable.

  “What?” I said. “You look like you’re up to something again.”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Ok, before we go any further I have to ask you something.”

  “Anything,” he offered.

  “What did you mean yesterday, about Dani? About seeing her again?”

  He raised one eyebrow, and I could tell he was a little nervous. “I’m not sure.”

  “What do you mean you’re not sure? Why did you say it then?” He turned on the computer screen and started typing on the keypad.

  “So you just made it up?” I grumbled.

  “Well, I don’t know… exactly.”

  “Exactly.”

  How could someone be so maddening and lovable at the same time? All I wanted was to kiss him again, but I had to focus. He’d made an outrageous statement about seeing Dani again, and I was calling him on it.

  “There’s something I haven’t told you,” he started. “About my dad’s work.”

  “Ok… what?”

  “This is my father’s log,” Zach explained, pointing at the screen. “Read this. It explains everything.”

  I wasn’t thrilled about reading more, but I sighed and pulled my chair closer. “All right,” I agreed.

  Document: The Philosophy of Zero 2020

  by Edwin G. Webb

  Everything complicated begins with something simple, some boring thing that you do every day of your life—like waking up. In those few seconds between dreaming and reality, nothing really happens and anything is possible. You are at zero, the least complicated number, the one that will never—no matter how much you add, subtract, multiply, or divide—have a measurable effect on anything.

  Thus, zero is a unique phenomenon in the universe. Because there is nothing, there is everything. At zero, all time is converged. It is here that we begin, exist, and end.