by IGMS
"What?" The director stared at him blankly for a moment. "Herb, I don't need to tell you what kind of pressure we're under here. The company --"
"-- can be patient," Herb finished for him. "I have something I have to do. If it's a day late, it's a day late."
"This had better be important, Herb."
"Nothing matters more," Herb said, smiling to himself.
The director was flustered, but agreed -- because working with difficult talent was easier than rewriting contracts, Herb supposed. Shark-Man wouldn't be thrilled, but the work would get done. One day was one day, and if that was worth firing him over, Herb was prepared to take that risk.
Herb thanked the director politely and stepped outside into the waiting room. He brought out his new phone, still unfamiliar in his hands, and pulled up Triela's number. Instead of the picture with the party hat, there was a default human-shaped, blue gradient. He missed the old photo. He would replace it when he got home. Maybe he would even take a new one today, if all went well.
Herb tapped the word "text" next to the picture.
"Triela," he typed. "I'm coming."
He felt lighter just saying it. Deciding it.
He added, as an afterthought, "Where are you?"
Triela and Rebecca had moved again a few months back, and Herb had never been to the new place. In fact, he wasn't sure when he had last seen them in person. Six months ago? Eight?
He paced back and forth, over to the palm tree in the corner and back to the bamboo table, waiting for the phone to chime. When it finally did, he almost dropped it. He opened the text and read it, squatting on his hunkers like a cowboy hunting for a trail.
"1111 E. Conch Ave." the text said. There was a zip code, then something that looked like an apartment number. "6G."
Herb walked briskly toward the exit, his pace quickening until a walk could no longer sustain it. When he reached the double doors, he broke into a run. Then he was on the 5, following the translucent arrows overlaid on his windshield.
The building Herb pulled up to wasn't an apartment complex. It was a hospital.
He walked through the automatic doors in a daze, going over and over the address in his head until he came to the elevators and a sign displaying room numbers for the first floor.
"1A-1M" was printed next to an arrow pointing left. "1N-1Z" and an arrow pointing right.
"6G," Herb said out loud to himself.
He reached out and pressed the elevator button going up. When the doors opened, Herb boarded the elevator and pressed the button for the sixth floor. A very young, very pregnant woman squeezed through the doors at the last minute, smiling politely.
She's going to floor six, Herb thought with odd certainty. Triela is up there right now in 6G getting a sonogram. She's pregnant. Triela is pregnant.
Herb was so certain of this that he almost told the young lady she had pressed the wrong button when she selected the "4" instead of the "6."
The elevator hummed its way to the fourth floor. The doors opened on a sign that said, "OB-GYN" followed by the names of several doctors and signs pointing in various directions. The young, pregnant girl exited with the same polite smile, the doors shut, and Herb was alone again.
Herb didn't have time to process what this meant. If she wasn't pregnant --
The elevator dragged him mercilessly up another two floors. He wanted to push the stop button, to slow down, to face the wall, wait for the doors to close, and go back to the car. Instead, he stood frozen as the white "6" above the door lit up and the elevator doors opened on another sign. The words seemed to glare at him, like sunlight on eyes used to the dark:
"CANCER CENTER."
Then in smaller text, "Chemotherapy, Proton Therapy, Hormone Therapy, Gene Therapy, PTD --" The list went on, like whispers.
Near the bottom, Herb found "6A-6M," with an arrow pointing left. Numbly, he followed it.
His whole life, Herb had been scared of one thing or another -- failure, intimacy, of not measuring up somehow. But this was something else. This was a whole other universe of scared. For a moment, Herb wasn't sure his legs would carry him down the hall. But he could see her door. 6G. It was real. All of this was really happening. Leave your feelings out of it, a voice in his mind told him. Be present, but selfless. Be what she needs, not how you feel.
It was Herb's voice, but it wasn't. It was slightly lower, stronger, and spoke with an easy confidence that Herb had come to know well. It was Mato's voice, the voice of his memory, of hundreds of recording sessions that Herb had done.
"I'm so scared," Herb whispered.
So was I, the voice said. More than you can know. Act brave, and you will be brave.
Then the door was there, and it was open. Rebecca was sitting in a chair, reading a magazine and looking years older than the last time he had seen her. When she saw him, she stood, hands balled up into fists, arms held soldier straight. Until the moment she hugged him, Herb had been certain she was about to hit him. Then she was crying, digging her fingers into his coat and sobbing. Herb rubbed her back, and turned to look at the hospital bed.
Triela was asleep, clutching her phone to her chest. She still had her hair, but it was matted and thin, and the skin around her eyes was the color of bruises. Tubes were everywhere. One bright, rainbow toe-sock stuck out from under the white hospital sheet, the only color in the room.
"Is she going to be okay?" Herb asked, still trying to shake the feeling he was in the recording studio, doing a voice for some nonspecific, heartbroken shit of a father.
Rebecca answered his question with a chorus of sobs, burying her head in his chest and shaking her head, no, no, no.
Herb felt like sliding down the wall into a ball, but that sense of Mato's presence kept him standing.
Slowly, Rebecca let go of him. She held up her hands in a delicately apologetic gesture, eyes looking to the sides, mouthing "I'm sorry," but not making any sound.
"Why didn't she tell me?" Herb said.
For the first time, Rebecca's dark features grew hard.
Herb knew the answer already. "Because if I didn't come, that would mean I didn't love her at all. And if I did, she would always be suspicious, like I had done it because I had to."
Herb walked over to the bedside and took Triela's hand, the one not holding the phone. It felt almost weightless.
"Cancer?" Herb asked, because he needed to hear it confirmed.
Rebecca nodded.
"Where?" he asked. Even as it came out, Herb wondered why he hadn't asked, "What kind?"
"The long bones of her arms and legs," Rebecca said. "The x-rays look like somebody took a melon-baller to them."
Herb shut his eyes. Eighty-five percent of cancers were easily cured these days, but Triela had fallen in the deadly fifteen.
Herb waited a long time to ask the question on his mind, the one question that still mattered. Act brave, Mato had told him. If there was one thing Herb could do, it was act. So he pretended he was brave enough to ask the question, and then asked it.
"How long does she have?"
"Three to six months," Rebecca said.
Herb hesitated, then nodded. For a moment, he had half expected her to say, "Forty-one hours," the amount of time the Kabuki had had before the end, to make themselves ready to die, to go home, and be with their families. Herb thought three months wasn't long enough. Six wasn't long enough. Hell, one hundred years wasn't long enough.
Herb looked down at Triela and thought, There's nowhere for her to go, nowhere she can go to get away from this.
Three to six months, with the end looming like a storm cloud.
Herb leaned down and kissed Triela's hand. As long as she was here, he would be here with her. Because he had to, and he wanted to. Because nothing mattered more.
Triela stirred, eyes opening the tiniest bit, darting around, then closing again. Herb felt her fingers close around his, and for the first time since walking through the door to room 6G of the cancer center, Herb b
egan to cry.
Later that week, when the recording was done, Herb watched the airing of the candlelight vigil in Triela's hospital room with his family around him. Triela said little, but watched the final seconds of the Kabuki broadcast with scarcely a blink, as blindingly beautiful auroras lit up the sky over the empty streets of the Kabuki city square. When the cameras went to static, May and Rebecca cried from their chairs in the corner. Triela looked up at Herb and simply nodded. There was strength in that nod that Herb hadn't seen in her before, strength and understanding and acceptance. And gratitude, Herb thought. When she smiled at him, even though the expression was wan and thin, he smiled back.
On the TV, announcers were speaking over a shot from a telescope showing a purplish star that outshone all the others. It was the supernova that had killed the Kabuki so many, many years before, and the light -- like the television shows -- was just now reaching earth.
In a day or two, the remaining light from the star would fade forever, but for now, Herb and Triela could share it, together.
Ratoncito's Last Tooth
by Mike Hill
Artwork by Dean Spencer
* * *
In all the world, Ratoncito Perez was the strongest man in his lifetime. He was born into a sort of half life, neither youngest nor oldest in a large family, living in poverty but not squalor in the no-man's land between city, suburbs and slums, and so went mostly unnoticed. He was raised almost by default, getting enough to survive but being given responsibility for the younger ones early in his life, especially as it was realized that he had incredible strength.
By the time he was three years old, he was bending bars of steel, could break heavy wooden planks and lift at least three times his own weight.
He never took advantage of his strength, but it was always "Cito, come and lift the stove, por favor." It was an ancient thing of cast iron. He would tuck a couple of fingers beneath and a hand on top to steady it and would hoist it up so his mama could clean beneath it, and then he would return it gently to its place.
The next week his papa would say, "Cito, we have lost the key to this lock, can you take it off?" and he would give it a poke and it would break.
By the time he was four years old, his only chore was to do those things that took a stronger man than his father, who never said he was proud of his son. Sometimes papa seemed to resent being displaced as the strongest.
His mother always told him that he was descended from Samson of the Bible, of the Tribe of Dan, and made him promise that he would not become a drinker like his father, and to always use his strength to help his family, being careful never to hurt another.
After he turned six, he began to lose his great strength - somewhat to his relief - and he was given more mundane duties around the house. But by the time he was twelve he had all of his strength back three or four times over, and his father left, never to return. Ratoncito worked hard to keep his family well, though it should not have been his burden. He carried on nevertheless, because he always felt guilty at having shamed his papa and driven him away.
He often did the heavy lifting in his community; it was always "Cito, go and help the neighbor raise their new wall," which he did almost without effort, or a call from the street, "Ratoncito, can you come and take this new dent out of my old car?" and he would go out and reach in the trunk and push the dent out.
When they would go out to gather a supply of firewood, he would take the ax and tap the big slabs of hardwood into chunks and splinters. When there was a well to be dug, he was the one to dig it, with others standing by to clear away the loose earth and hand him a new shovel every so often.
Ratoncito Perez worked very hard to keep his mother's large family fed, never taking money for helping his neighbors but only for the "regular" work he did, when there was any to be had. He would work on building the great, new office buildings in the city, carrying the iron beams from the crane to where they were needed on that floor.
As he got older, he began to take pride in his great strength and the awe of his coworkers, but at home he was just "Cito" and there was always the cast-iron stove that needed lifting.
Ratoncito had always been careful with his strength, but as his pride grew, his caution slipped. One day he was swinging a beam around and, unable to watch both ends at the same time, he struck another worker and knocked him from his perch, hearing only his cry as he fell to his death. No one blamed him - the man had moved into Cito's way instead of waiting for him to finish - but Cito remembered how it felt to bump into him, the surprise and grief of it.
After that, he used his great strength very little except when really needed, and never to impress; but he continued to work hard to provide for his family, and now the family of the man he had killed.
The man had an unmarried sister, Amada, and in time they fell in love, married, and began their own family. She knew of his strength and why he rarely used it, but when there was real need, neither of them would hesitate.
As his own children began to come, he would watch them carefully for any sign of the trait that he had been born with, but it seemed to have skipped this generation. He felt relief that none of his children would have to grow up with the burden that he had.
One night, there was a heavy rain and the old church nearby creaked and groaned and then collapsed with many people inside. He ran to help as did all the neighbors, moving great blocks of stone and timbers to rescue the survivors. He expended more energy that day than he ever had before.
By morning, there was nothing but a ring of debris and the floor of the church, open to the sky. Many lives had been saved, but as Ratoncito returned home he felt something hard and loose in his mouth and spit out a tooth, feeling a measure of strength leave him. He was confused as he had not been struck nor felt any pain that might indicate he was going to lose a tooth.
His wife greeted him as he arrived and asked about the look on his face. He told her, "This night's work has cost me a tooth, but it is a little price to pay for so much."
He realized in that moment, when he said it aloud, that this strength was tied to him in this way and understood why it had faded from him when he was a child, losing his milk teeth before his adult teeth had come in.
He also believed that on the day he lost his last tooth, this would be the day that he died.
As years went by, he had need and reason to use his strength occasionally, but always his wife sorrowed, for he had told her all he knew or guessed about this burden that had been placed upon him, and she feared that it was his life he was giving up a little at a time. But she never said anything to stop him from using his gift for she understood his belief that he had this strength only to help others.
In time, his children grew up to be loving and strong - but not too strong - in a household of peace. One by one they moved away to go to school, to fall in love, to have their own families.
In the course of years, Ratoncito's strength ebbed, for every time he used it to its utmost, he lost another tooth, so that he became more like other men, stronger in mind than in body as the years passed.
They had had many grandchildren when Amada became ill. He prayed for her, asking that he might be able to save her, but knowing that even if he had all his old strength back he could not help her. He grieved as she faded and died, for the pain of loss was greater than any strength he possessed.
When he was very old and had just three teeth left in his head, he knew that his time was short, so he set out on a trip to see his children and grandchildren for what he thought would be the last time.
He traveled by bus up a long and dangerous road over the mountains and as it groaned its way up, it began to slip on the muddy track until it slid partly off the road, one wheel hanging over a precipice, in danger of plummeting many hundreds of feet off the cliff.
Many people jumped off the bus as it slid, but many more were trapped, some with children and some with packages they would not relinquish even at the edge of life. Many were
simply frozen with fear.
Ratoncito jumped off, but looking into the faces of the parents and children, he knew it was time to use the last of the gift he had been given.
He bent his old back and gripped the corner of the bus, delaying but not stopping its slide. He struggled with it, sweating and shaking, and he spit out a tooth.
Many of those still on the bus got off, but not all, and he looked up to see small faces pressed against the glass.
He heaved then, groaning with the effort, and felt every limb and ligament straining. And another tooth, like a hard pebble in his mouth, came away.
Then he looked up to see that nearly all were off the bus, all but three small children, so like his own grandchildren that he could not allow himself to fail, and so he made one last effort, clenching his jaw, locking it in place so that his last tooth, biting into his lower gum, would not come free until the bus was empty, the last children lifted out by bystanders.
Only then did he feel his strength and his life begin to leave him. He staggered to the side, letting the empty bus slide and fall over the cliff. He fell to his knees. He saw an ancient man walk to him, wizened and nearly toothless as well. It was his father.
"I'm proud of you my boy," he said. "You saved them all."
Then Cito felt the last of his strength leave him, and he bowed his head as he toppled over into the mud. His hands were so weak he could not raise himself, but his heart was full and strong.
Opening his mouth, he pushed out the last tooth with his tongue, and died.
A Frame of Mother-of-Pearl
by Cat Rambo
Artwork by Emily Tolson
* * *
Hattie Fender was spring-cleaning. It wasn't that the household particularly needed it, but something about the day, the fair weather, the smell of plum blossom and lily of the valley floating in the parlor window, had demanded sparkling windows and the banishment of dust.
Some days she wondered if these duties simply served as distraction from the endless progression of days, the days of her state, not widowed, but worse. She fitted the minutia of housekeeping into a pattern to fill the hours, the ones she didn't spend studying magic theory in order to keep her skills fresh.