A Matter of Life and Death or Something

by Ben Stephenson

  FOR MY PARENTS:

  as real as they come

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  We Watch

  A Delightfully Happy Child

  We Wait

  An Ugly Duckling

  Other Galaxies

  Snow

  Universe

  As They Say

  We Hold

  Her

  More

  Cat

  Part of the Reason Why it Rains

  Shadow

  Waiting

  Cabinetive Therapy

  Beach

  Accidentally Teleported

  Bus

  Stacks

  Stacks

  Blah Blah Blah

  We Bow

  Ice

  It Gets Heavy Sometimes

  Small

  Gone

  Gone.

  Why

  What Being Alone Sounds Like

  This

  NaCN

  We Ask

  River

  Completely Impossible

  We Shake

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  WE WATCH

  WE HEAR everything. In the wind we whisper secrets—it is true. We speak it all softly and simply, as human mothers send promises through the tiny ears of their little ones. Translate our language and hear it flow ambient and foreign, a banquet hall murmur, the airy breath of ten million hushed opinions in a crowd. Hear the constant rush of wind through our branches.

  Feel the sounds brush our leaves—the boy’s small steps rustling, his boots pressing brittle twigs and shuffling soil; the man’s breathing, steady, ragged. The signals quivering in tiniest branches then passed inward through thicker limbs, deep into our trunks.

  And see everything. See the sunlight spark through the quick spots between leaves. See the light reflecting off it all, even reaching us from such distances. See it bounce off so many surfaces—the bright rim of fuzz along the man’s cotton shoulder, his feet drawing twin arcs in white; a gleam from the notebook’s cover tilting in the boy’s hand. The light’s history leaves its imprint; its colour and texture and intensity are not lost on our skin. We see it all. See houses ascending, falling, mountains sinking into seas, cities blooming and deserted. The images, not only the light, feed us. It is the images, the sounds, the moments and the stories that sustain us. We thrive on all life projects to us in its subtle signals, and we understand.

  See us as one, strung together at the roots. Joined by all we bear witness to, we know only one moment: this full and eternal now which is everything. But it’s the humans who fascinate us most. Their desires, flaws, their will, their hopes race between us at impossible speeds, never stopping nor starting, never frozen; constant. Beneath our branches their movements blaze a hyperblur of every colour, a woven web of speeding light. Something about it never tires.

  So we slow and focus on certain threads; we bend to a point of view and a pace synchronized with its person. Some strands we revisit often, some we never leave. In this way we’ve learned much, have collected so much, but still we wonder. And so we watch.

  A DELIGHTFULLY HAPPY CHILD

  MEANWHILE MY real dad was hot air ballooning off the coast of California all by himself, trying to make the long flight over the Pacific alone without dying. He had, obviously, packed suitcases full of enough food for ten weeks, and enough leisure suits for one. My real dad was not the kind of man to wear the same outfit twice in a row, even if he was alone a kilometre above the sea, so when laundry day came around he’d send his parrots down to the surface with their talons gripping custom-tailored slacks and their beaks full of detergent. It hadn’t failed him yet.

  He Made a List of Things the Ocean Was:

  –A wrinkly blanket

  –Pale blue

  –Scarier than anything

  –Covered in cold mist

  –Infinitely huge

  He spent most of his days writing in his log book and listening to his favourite records on his mini Victrola. Occasionally he’d smoke a pipe of tobacco and write a letter home to my real mother, and promise to be back soon. Every Sunday he’d crank a lever to extend all the ropes of his airship way down until the basket floated gently on the waves, five hundred feet below the balloon, and he would cast his rod and fish for his weekly feast. Most of the time, he’d hook a great white shark and wrestle it to the floor of the basket until it practically begged to be cooked, but if he was tired, a giant squid would have to do instead. My real dad won every squid-wrestling contest he ever entered.

  When he had a break from being amazing, my real dad would just sit and think. He’d stare at the horizon. He’d try to count the days since he’d last seen land. He would lose count. He’d think about his father, and wonder what ever happened to his own son. He’d catch a glimpse of his six-foot beard reflecting in his gold pocket watch and think, “How stupid must a man be to remember everything but his razor?”

  THEN SIMON—the guy who pretends to be my dad—tapped my shoulder to get my attention back. “Arthur?” The balloon flew out through my skull and away from my brain.

  “Hmm?”

  I was supposed to be doing algebra.

  “You daydreaming again?”

  “No, I was calculating. I was trying to work it out in my head.”

  “Try to pay attention, chief. We’re almost done.”

  The math book flipped to a new page and I looked past Simon’s shoulder and out the window to the tall trees, moving back and forth from the wind. There’s a pretty nice bit of woods by our house, and I like it a lot in there. We live in this fat dark grey house that has white windows and a wood porch attached to the front, and it isn’t really in the city, but it’s also not in the country or anything crazy like that, it’s just on this long street by the river, and there’s lots of amazing trees all around. What I mean is, the city and the skyscrapers and the noise and all that stuff isn’t that far away really, if you take a car for about fifteen minutes, but where we live it’s just houses and a river and trees. Simon says I spend too much time in the woods. I don’t though. He pretty much lets me do what I want, I guess, but one time he said it might not be healthy for me to be alone in the woods all the time. And he knew how I felt about Finch and Victoria, but he still said I should ask them to play sometimes. “Even if they are so annoying.”

  It was in those exact woods where I was about to find the most excruciating thing I’ll probably ever find, and half an hour later my life was about to never be the same again, but I didn’t even know that yet. These past couple weeks have felt like a thousand weeks, and they’ve definitely been the craziest days of my life so far—well but maybe I should just give you the basic scoop first of all, so I can make sense. I promise it won’t take forever or anything.

  First off, I know it’s confusing, but Simon Arthur Williams is not actually my real dad. Even though it probably looks like he is. But he adopted me when I was still a tiny foetus or something, I guess because he wanted a kid pretty bad, and he named me, and everything. And I had been living there forever pretending like he was my dad even though he wasn’t. Because someone else was my real dad and mom but they decided not to be. I know it’s confusing. The most confusing part was how last Christmas break I asked if we could go see them one day but it turned out I wasn’t allowed to.

  Simon has big square glasses and wisp
y soft hair and he’s really tall and boring. Compared to Uncle Max or even Aunt Maxine, he’s boring. And compared to most of the other grown-ups I know, too. His job has always been something on the computer that he does at home, in the room with the wooden sliding door beside the kitchen, and he’d never had a girlfriend or frenched any babes or anything. But that was OK with me, because if he had a girlfriend she might think she could just start being my mom if she wanted, which obviously would be so annoying. Simon always thought that he could teach me better than schools could, so the room beside our kitchen is also where I go to school. I guess he must be an alright teacher, because I’m supposed to be in grade five Math, but I’m really in grade eight. And I’m in grade six English, and grade seven Social Studies, and grade nine Science.

  Simon’s got a younger sister named Maxine and, unbelievably, she married this guy named Max. Since he is her husband, and she is Simon’s sister, that makes Max and Maxine almost my aunt and uncle. They’ve always acted like they really were my aunt and uncle, but mostly I don’t mind that, because mostly, I like them. Simon likes them a lot too, especially Max, so they come over to our house a lot and it’s usually pretty fun when they do. They both like talking to me, but in different ways.

  Uncle Max is hilarious, because of when he tries to be, but also because of when he doesn’t try to be. I mean, he’s pretty good at telling jokes and giving me funny presents and things, but he’s also afraid of lots of things. Lots of things. Uncle Max is afraid of spiders, and tall places, and rats. He’s afraid of swimming, and boats, and driving—Aunt Maxine drives most of the time—and paper cuts, and spilling hot drinks, and mermaids. Some of his fears are a lot more serious than others. Some of them are mostly jokes.

  Whenever some tiny little thing scares him when I’m around, he’ll usually yelp or jump at first, and then go right into doing an impression of whatever the thing is. I think if he makes fun of the thing, he gets revenge.

  He’ll see a spider and get the shakes and I’ll laugh at him.

  “Oooh-hooo, spider,” he’ll say.

  Then he’ll bend his arms and stick them out funny and crawl around on the floor, and try to climb up my pantleg. It’s only happened a few times, but I usually try to gently stomp him, to help him get over the fear. Then he twitches upside-down on the ground and I put him out of his misery. Or,

  “How are you today, Uncle Max?”

  “Not bad, Arthur, not bad, except your aunt’s busy so I had to drive. You know how much I hate driving.”

  He’ll open his eyes as wide as they go and grab the invisible steering wheel and start crashing into things in my bedroom and puffing out his chest like an airbag. What I’ll do is, I’ll grab hold of the wheel and I’ll throw the emergency brake on and steer us to safety. Then I’ll ask him to step out of the vehicle and suspend his licence.

  My Uncle Max is not afraid of talking about what he is afraid of though, and that’s what I like most about him. He’s an obvious guy. And he has good skills with the ladies even though he’s got a hairy moustache. He’s always making up funny love songs about Maxine and the sun and cheesecake and stuff, and singing them to me and playing his electric organ. Also, he is not afraid of the dark. He says that when it’s dark, he can’t possibly see any of the things he’s afraid of anymore, so it’s OK. Plus I doubt my Uncle Max can do a very good impression of “the dark.”

  Aunt Maxine is different. I don’t think she’s afraid of anything at all. She gives great hugs and she always writes me letters and usually sends them in the mail, even though she could easily send them to my Gmail account, and even though they only live about twenty minutes away. Her letters are always written on pale blue paper and neatly folded into white envelopes. She said that she wanted to be pen pals so that I could practise my writing skills and my politeness and things, and so she could send me amazing true facts and interesting words. But really, there were usually hidden important things that were the real reason she wrote.

  April 8th

  Dearest Arthur,

  How are you, sweetheart? I’m terribly sorry that I haven’t written in a while. Your silly uncle has been in bed stiff as a two-by-four for six days, he’s got very mild pneumonia [new-moan-yuh] and is delighted to make me serve him like a prince whenever I’m home. Speaking of two-by-fours, how is your old treehouse holding up? Do you still spend much time in it? I hope so.

  OK, the vocabulary word this time is: “transmigration.” It can mean one of two things: the departure from one’s native land to settle in another, or the passage of a soul after death into another body.

  Love as always,

  Aunt Maxine

  P.S.—I really do hope you still play in that old treehouse. I remember when you and Si built it. You were such a delightfully happy child in that era. Are you still?

  P.P.S.—I know it must be hard, this business about wanting to know. I just hope you know how special you are to us.

  See what I mean? Aunt Maxine really likes movies, and she knows what all the really good ones are. Her favourite part about movies, I think, is when the guy (or girl) has this thing happen, some big gigantic thing or sometimes a really small but important thing, which sort of changes the guy’s life. Something that makes the guy snap out of it, or makes him stronger, or something. It’s like she’d always try to do that to me sometimes, in her letters, even though I was absolutely fine and could take care of my own snapping out of things. I would write back, usually, but I’d just hand her my letter next time she came over, because what kind of ten-year-old could afford a stamp every week?

  Dear Maxine.

  I’m absolutely fine. I still play and pretend stuff in the treehouse from time to times. It’s weird that Max would let himself get pneumonia because I would think that he’s probably affraid of pneumonia. Come over to visit soon so I can transmigrate this letter to you. I think that I am still a delightfully happy child. Bring some of your cinnimin buns.

  by Arthur.

  P.S.—Obviously I’m special. I’m Arthur.

  I’d usually try to write the vocabulary word somewhere to show her how much smarter I was getting. I’d hand her my letter and she’d say thanks and put it right in her purse and probably not read it until she got home.

  When I was still a little baby me and Simon built a big treehouse in the woods, on a cliff near the water, and I used to play in it every day. That’s what Aunt Maxine was talking about. But then I didn’t really go in the treehouse too much anymore, after a while. Not because I didn’t like it anymore, but because I just got a little too old for it, and I liked exploring other parts of the woods instead. It wasn’t a big deal or anything, but maybe I just sort of grew out of it.

  Anyway, you never know what you might find in the woods. Every day there’s a new universe in there. Some things I’ve found in the woods are a rock shaped exactly like a human brain, a half of a steering wheel, and a couple shotgun shells that Simon said must have been from hunters, way before we moved in. There are animals, too. One time I chased a squirrel around for an eternity (for fun, not because I’m a hunter or anything) until he scampered up into a pine tree and straight past this huge black porcupine. That big guy gave me quite the staring contest. There was a bare patch on the trunk next to him where he must have been eating the bark, like how Victoria told me her dad once murdered a porcupine with a rifle because it was killing their trees. The porcupine I saw just kept staring at me, which was a little scary because he looked sharp of course, but we both minded our own business. I was being pretty brave. Everyone thinks porcupines shoot their quills at you. That’s ridiculous. As if they have gunpowder blood or something.

  Whenever I find something good in the woods, I’ll draw it. I’m a really good drawer. I drew the Leaning Tower of Pisa before, and I was pretty proud of it. I hung it on my wall with all my other drawings and lists and things. A couple nights after I d
rew it, I had a dream where I went to Spain to hunt down the real leaning tower, and I drew a giant picture of it in full-scale size. I drew it with a gigantic yellow pencil, and made it really wide and flat, on sheets of white paper the size of apartment buildings. Months later, when I was finally finished the drawing, my team of engineers and architects helped me lift the paper with cranes and wrap it around the whole tower. The biggest roll of masking tape ever was needed to hold it in place. The thing was, I made it so that when you looked at it with my drawing on top, it wasn’t leaning anymore. It was just the Regular Tower of Pisa, like it was always supposed to be. The tourists stopped staring at it, because it was like any other building around. It was perfectly normal. I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what my dream was.

  When I woke up I thought, “You idiot. It’s in Italy.”

  Part of the reason I drew everything I found was so I could remember it. Because, whenever I discovered anything in the woods, I always put it back exactly where I found it. Instead of keeping all the things I found, I would just make really exquisite drawings of them, and then put them back where they came from.

  Other Things I Found in The Woods:

  –A rusted silver tag from a dog who was named Crusader, which is about the most moronic name for a dog ever

  –The pit from a peach

  –A squishy thing that I had to do a ton of internet researching about to figure out that it was a used condom.

  It’s just that the woods are so gigantic. The trees are a thousand times taller than me, and hundreds of years older, and the rocks and leaves and plants and animals never do anything silly like kill each other or fall in love or grow up. So I always felt like the woods was very nice for letting me walk around in it in the first place, and I should at least be careful to leave things where they were. It’s like, the woods doesn’t go around moving everything everywhere, so I didn’t think I should either. Even when I found things that were obviously garbage from sloppy people, like the peach pit and stuff, I still left it where it was because the woods was used to having it there, and maybe it wasn’t garbage to the woods. I mean, who knows? There’s lots of garbage in my desk at home that if anyone threw it out I would want to punch them, except I wouldn’t actually punch them, because punching is something I’m not very good at.