by Leah Thomas
I want to meet all the kids like us. I want to write their origin stories, too, dark parts included. I want to give them a shorter nickname than “kids I’m going to meet.” Oh, and help them with their emotional teenage nonsense. I want this to be my new life purpose!
But what I want most is one of those amphibious vehicles. Then Auburn-Stache and I could just drive right off the coast and aim straight for Germany. I’m sure there’d be gas stations along the way, floating on buoys out in the middle of the Atlantic. We could stop off at oil rigs, right?
That’d be the cherry, Moritz Farber. You’re the ultimate cherry. And we’re serious about cherries in Michigan.
Now! Shut up and tell the Teenage Lord of Glockenspieling what the sounds of your life look like, Ultimate Cherry Dolphin Mo-Man!
I know you’re sighing in exasperation. Just like Mom used to.
Focus, Ollie.
~ O
P.S. Hey, since we’re on the move, you can e-mail (!) your next reply to the account Auburn-Stache set up for me, and he’ll go print it out. (Did you know about the existence of print shops? I stood outside the door when Auburn-Stache went in, and when he returned, I swear I smelled watermelons. Does ink come from all those black seeds we spit out?)
Anyhow: [email protected]. I’m not even joking. Stache.org
P.P.S. There may be a handful of us weirdos stranded here in the colonies, Moritz, but after the eighty-seventh time I asked him, Auburn-Stache confessed there are more in Europe. Unlike me, you have access to the magical realm known as the Internet, with all its maps and search machines. You can use electricity to meet the X-Men (real nickname pending)! What d’you say?
chapter two
THE APPLICATIONS
You remain as overwhelming as ever, Oliver Paulot. What a garbled mess your last letter was. Oh, the humanity of your vomit-laden grief.
Chin up. Soon be Christmas. It is late November after all.
If you wish to speak about your mother, don’t hold your tongue on my account. Be nonlinear and remember her. We have spent enough time talking about talking about our feelings that we can omit the first “talking about” and simply talk about them.
Now you’ve got me speaking nonsense again.
If I could remove my pacemaker and simply run, I would run to meet your amphibious vehicle when it arrives on the coast. Though I do not hug, I might hug you. I am not the toughest of cookies yet, but I am not without my crunchy almonds. When we meet, my electric pacemaker and I will withstand the milk of your presence. Without crumbling into soggy despair.
Your penchant for terrible metaphors has infected me.
As ever. The things you do somehow change me, Ollie.
As for Kreiszig.
In my life, I have endured my fair share of dark parts. One might think after having survived heart failure I should be able to tolerate no small degree of misery.
One might think.
I have rarely felt the same sense of being beaten as when Frau Pruwitt laid three Gymnasium applications on the kitchen table before me.
“Go on, then,” said my librarian.
“At this very moment?” I stood up from the chair. Adjusted my lapels. Pulled my goggles down from my hairline to obscure my eyelessness.
“Got a date this morning, Peter Parker?”
“Is that such a surprise?”
She stared. I coughed.
“Your MJ can wait. You aren’t leaving until I see your name and address on these forms.” She patted the chair beside her. “You’ve been avoiding this for weeks.”
Not untrue, Oliver.
Her infamous eyebrow rose. I sat. She jabbed a pen into my hand. I clicked my tongue at the text on the first document. Sound waves echoed back to my ears. MBV—Magic Brain Vision; see how I’ve entirely adopted your nonsensical shorthand!—informed me the application was for Myriad Academy, a fine arts school on the western side of the city.
The wealthy side of the city.
Father’s face tightened while he leaned over the stove. The noise of the coffeepot illuminated him. I do not need to turn to see, if I can hear. Echolocation reveals everything. As ever I am listening. I hear what’s unspoken:
We can’t afford Myriad.
“That’s a school with a creative focus,” Frau Pruwitt said. “They offer extensive music, art, and performance classes.”
“You may have noticed that I lack creativity on all fronts.”
“That’s not true, Moritz.” Father spoke slowly. Pouring coffee at the counter. I scooted my chair in so he could fetch milk from the fridge. “You’re very good at hip-hopping.”
“Spare me. I mimic. I don’t create. I lack the capacity.” I am certain you have written beautiful songs on your glockenspiel, Ollie. I long to hear them all.
I shuffled the forms. Clicked at the second application. A Gymnasium far from Kreiszig, in the rural sprawl of Rhinluch.
“That is an almighty commute. Should I learn to apparate?”
“It’s a boarding school. Your father thought you might like the countryside.”
“Despite the undeniable appeal of attending school in an isolated swamp, I would prefer to remain in the city, where there’s enough sound to see properly. There are other considerations for eyeless monsters.”
“Moritz, what’s wrong?”
“Don’t indulge him.” Frau Pruwitt tapped her nails against the plastic coating on the table. Flecks of breakfast toast, vividly magnified to my ears. How irritating. “He’s decided to be difficult.”
Father turned away from the stove, mugs in hand. Had I eyeballs instead of blank sockets, I might have rolled them. How he smiled at her.
You won’t see me making doe eyes when I meet the one I love, Ollie.
“The deadline for Myriad is only two days away. Begin it now. You can type the essay portion out after you get back.”
I wrote half my name. Frau Pruwitt hissed between her teeth. “Gracious, is that really your handwriting? How did you even pass the transfer exam?”
“I colored in a large number of bubbles.”
“We can help you apply online instead.”
I pushed away the stack of paper. Stood. “Perhaps I should remain at Bernholdt-Regen. I have made a friend or two there. Sometimes the cafeteria food tastes almost edible. It hardly matters where I spend my last semester.”
“It won’t be your last. If you’re accepted at one of these Gymnasiums, you’ll take part in an expedited education program. After two years of hard work—work we all know you’re capable of—you’ll be qualified to do what you please.”
Two years, Oliver. How insignificant she made it sound!
“Moritz, Frau Pruwitt has spent hours on the phone with financial aid programs. With representatives of these schools. We will help you, whatever you decide.” Father took her hand.
Perhaps she blushed. I cannot see blushing.
“I will consider all of this.”
“Why are you upset?”
“I’m not in the least. Beg pardon. I have elsewhere to be.”
“Hogwash,” shot Frau Pruwitt.
“Beg pardon?”
“You are upset. Your father and I can feel it.”
I clicked on impulse. Then wished I could retract the sound.
Of late I am denied any sense of privacy. Of late my emotions emanate from me whenever I echolocate. Living, bee-stinging things. You would not need to cut me to see my secrets. I have no say in the trajectory of my emotional transference, Ollie. As you have no say in your electromagnetism.
Of late I suspect every individual within yards of me feels what I feel. When I fret, those closest unconsciously bite their lips. When I am livid, fists clench in my vicinity. Father and I believe this is more than coincidence. It is an actual consequence of exposure to the pseudoscientific disaster known as Moritz Farber.
Why has this transference suddenly worsened? A mystery. The one instance when Father murmured “Ist es der Pubertät?” we both cleared throats. Exited
the room. Perhaps blushed.
Ollie. Forget automobiles. If the world can suffer my oddities, it can welcome you.
I gritted my teeth. Doubtless, so did they. “I’ll be nineteen by the time I graduate?”
“In the grand scheme of things,” Frau Pruwitt replied, “nineteen rather than seventeen can’t make much difference.”
“I disagree. We’ve reached an impasse, Adamantium Pruwitt.”
I spun on my heel.
“Moritz!” Father’s temper, rising alongside mine. Because of mine?
I closed the door behind me. I did not slam it.
That would have been rash.
I inhaled mildewed air. Walked to the stairwell. Even from here I could feel the familiar traffic far below, clarifying the tiers of the concrete apartment complex. Today the symmetry of angled steps, parallel railings, and diagonal staircases did not soothe me.
Cold gusts foretold imminent winter. I had neglected to grab my cane. I would only swing it into the pavement. Wielding a sledgehammer. When I passed smokers, I did not hold my breath. The burn of cigarettes seemed less cancerous than the taste already in my throat. Once, I strayed from the sidewalk and into the road. MBV tiptoed me out of the path of honking vehicles.
I tried not to let the smallest smidgen of my feelings dribble out into the atmosphere. I’m convinced strangers sensed my frustration. They hung their heads at my passing. Did their hearts hitch?
My pacemaker had difficulty steadying me.
I am so accustomed to pains in my chest, Ollie. Those pains are infinitely trivial beside the notion of not meeting the boy I love.
I will not wait two long years to see you, Ollie. Gymnasium be damned, I won’t.
I stopped under the Südbrücke between the Abend residence and my own, where I maimed Lenz Monk in that ill-considered fight many months ago. I listened for my reflection on rippling water. Of course I could not hear it. I considered leaping into the canal. Not with any reasonable goal in mind; the canal does not lead to the ocean. It is man-made and filthy.
It could never take me to you.
Or even to Owen.
We spend a great deal of time together. Not only in the Diskothek and the Sickly Poet, but also during hours spent after school “volunteering” in the Bibliothek, under the oddly lenient eye of Frau Pruwitt. She lets us linger between shelves with nary a snipe. Once we saved up for the cinema. That amounted to a great deal of noise and the feel of Owen’s hand in mine. You have asked what films are to me. Now they are his warmth.
Despite his tonguelessness, he tells me he cares for me. Speaks with his posture. His touch. I am abysmal at sign language. It takes me eons to read the notes he writes me. But there’s a rhythm to Owen: the tapping of pencils on the edges of things, quiet footsteps, and gentle humming. Sounds that make him immense to me.
On Friday he put himself on pause while we waited in the school courtyard for his sister.
She stayed after to speak with an instructor. Serious, then, about attending some of her classes. This may portend the apocalypse. Fieke, tucking in her blouse to demonstrate her newfound scholarly dedication. She still looks and sounds like a hellion in high boots, with her ceaseless “fluffin’” cussing. But she wears twenty-three piercings rather than fifty now. That is almost like making an effort.
Owen and I, on the steps. Made an art of hand-holding. My cane rested across our laps. We engaged in people-watching of the highest order. Bernholdt-Regen’s delinquents did not disappoint. Watching an adolescent in braces inflict a wedgie on his weed-thieving minion is not romantic. We made do.
Lenz Monk has made it apparent since his return to school that no one is to disturb us. A week after Owen, Fieke, and I visited the laboratory that raised me, Lenz appeared in my peripheries. I waited for him to shove me. He nodded. That was all. Later someone tried to cut Owen in the lunch line. Lenz grabbed the unfortunate line cutter by the nape of his shirt. Dragged him away. Lenz might make a passable bouncer.
On the steps. The wind blew the city into our faces. It felt not altogether miserable to be alive. Owen pulled my arm toward him. Traced my skin with his forefinger.
Tomorrow, he spelled. Come over.
“Why?”
I am forever amazed at the volume of his laughter.
Überraschung! he traced with aching slowness. “Surprise!”
His touch. So jarring I forgot where I was.
Now, under the bridge, where was I?
Ollie, you and I have been working on standing up. But those undead habits: for years I dodged projectiles before they could come close to hitting me.
I sent Owen a message. Gutschein? (“Rain check”?)
After only a handful of heartbeats, my phone trembled. A synthetic voice read his reply aloud: “Is everything okay?”
He did not demand an explanation. Only asked after my well-being.
I sucked cold air between my teeth. Moved my fingers on impulse: I’ve fallen ill. So sorry.
Not strictly a lie. Perhaps the brother of one.
If Frau Pruwitt and Father could feel my anxiety, Owen would feel it also.
Understand. Owen has been helpless enough throughout his life. Our relationship is growing, but doesn’t that make it fragile? A woodland metaphor for you, fellow hermit: while the boughs of trees expand into magnificence, the tips of branches break at the slightest pressure.
Recently I felt one snap.
Owen and I stood shoulder to shoulder in the library. Books in the children’s section are placed in rainbow order, whatever that signifies; the concept of color remains irrelevant to my ears. Every time he slid a hardcover into a gap, Owen tapped the spine with his forefinger, mouthed the shape of a shade: Orchid.
“How is orchid a color? It is already a plant. Is that not enough for a thing to be?”
Owen smiled through pursed lips. I elbowed him. None too gently. I felt warm when he rocked back into me and used his careful hands to tap a tattoo onto the bindings. I could see the books even more clearly through the intimate echoes of his fingertips.
“If you can’t handle work this simple,” called Frau Pruwitt from the upper level, “how do you expect to get along in a respectable school?”
My breath caught. Owen’s fingers halted. If only for half a beat, the books dissolved in my ears.
His tapping resumed, meter ever so slightly off.
If I went to see him after this spat about applications, I’d be no kind of company. Me, leaking pains that don’t belong to him. Tragic enough that my emanations impact strangers.
If I can no longer be certain whether people in my proximity are feeling their own feelings or feeling mine, how can I help but mistrust their dismay? Their surprise?
I am an unnaturally manipulative creature.
I can only trust you. Only trust the letters of someone never tainted by meeting me. Yet meeting you is all I want. Even if it would mean sabotaging your emotions as well.
More happened on that very same day. Events that will set you bouncing in your rubber womble. But you seem content to be a storytelling tease. I will follow suit.
As for finding the children like me in Germany, I can’t bring myself to make the pledge you have made. To call this my Lebensziel, life purpose. Not because I fear they would not like me. I don’t like me, either.
Oliver. Has it occurred to you that there’s purpose in simply being alive?
Life’s enough of a thing for life to be.
Love,
Moritz
P.S. Recall that computer screens frustrate me. You’d be better off asking someone like Owen for help in the “magical Internet” area. Beg pardon.
P.P.S. A word that is the same in both our languages: Idiot. The ineptly named “kids you are going to meet”? They will be smitten by you. There’s no alternative. Idiot.
chapter three
THE BEANIE
PEP-RANT INCOMING!
Moritz! What are we going to do with you?
You stood u
p your beau? Because of feelings? Bejeezus, man.
I want to grab your shoulders and shout in your ears to just let yourself BE HAPPY for once. You’ve finally got good things in your life! Maybe I never should have told you my theory about echolocation and emotional transference. Your emolocation. You’re overthinking it, dingus!
I know you feel like an angsty blob of moods. (You’re talking to a kid who kills phones when he’s scared.) But here’s the deal: Owen cares about you. Adamantium Pruwitt and your dad, too. They aren’t worried about you manipulating them. It’s normal for people who care about you to feel for you! That’s not you foisting your emotions on people. That’s just how people act. If Owen’s sad about you changing schools, it’s probably because he’ll miss you.
Besides! Think about it, Moritz: If you’re really infecting other people with your feelings, well, how amazing would it be if you infected them with something upbeat? Ask Owen! I bet it doesn’t feel like bee stings when you laugh! Maybe that’s more like, I dunno, getting your ears cuddled by a dozen ghostly kittens! Maybe when you smile, people melt like molten lava cake!
Idiot. You make me feel better even when you’re a grump. So imagine the possibilities!
And now that you’ve survived this latest PEP-RANT, here’s a promise: WHEN we meet (I’m always gonna say WHEN and never if), I’ll be the happiest person in the world. So if you feel scared or sad, I’ll grin hard enough to even us out.
And dang it, Mo. I’ll hug you first.
I woke up blinking under white stars, breathing soil and antiseptic wipes, womble half peeled off my face. Green leaves scraped my skin, and stiff stems of massive stalks of some plant dug wedges into my spine.
“Where are we?”
“In a cornfield.” Auburn-Stache perched on a pillow beside me in orange lantern light. “We crossed into Indiana an hour ago, while you were snoring.”
“We’re in Indiana? Fluff!” I sat up.
“Language.”
“I spent my whole life alone in a cabin just so one day I could sleep through a border? For shame.”