by Bogi Takács
Dr. Ackerman knocks on my door one day and I let him in. He’s carrying a few bags; there’s someone behind him. I tilt my head quizzically.
“Meisun, meet your new roommate,” Dr. Ackerman says.
The woman behind him is about my age: somewhere in her twenties. Her black hair, the same color as mine, flows over her shoulder, but the styled waves are limp. The hospital gown she’s wearing renders her formless. She looks tired, empty almost, but when she sees my face, a small smile touches her lips.
“Nei kong Kwongtungwa?” she asks softly. I find myself smiling in return.
“Hai,” I reply, and I realize just then how sweet Cantonese is to my ears, how it untangles my tongue and my heart when I no longer have to cottonmouth my way through English.
“I’m Yaulan,” she continues in Cantonese. “And you?”
“Meisun.”
Dr. Ackerman shakes his head. “You people always sound so angry when you speak,” he says. I look at him, puzzled.
“We were just introducing ourselves,” I say in English.
“I figured,” he replies. Beside him, Yaulan rolls her eyes and mouths Gweilo, and I fight to suppress my laugh. “Well, get comfortable with each other; Yaulan is part of the trial and will be staying for a while.”
Over the next couple of days, between Yaulan’s diagnostics sessions, we talk about our pasts, our families, our lives. I’m still mixing up memories, but Yaulan’s patient with me and doesn’t seem to find me strange. She talks about her parents, how they had a dumpling-making machine, but then—she breaks eye contact and looks out the window at this point—it was destroyed during the riots, and she and her parents had barely gotten out alive.
“I feel kind of bad for leaving them alone to manage the restaurant—I was working as a server, but now that I’m not there, my mom will probably have to work twice as hard—but, well, this is probably my only chance for treatment, so…”
I catch her eye. “Treatment?”
She’s quiet for a long time, and then she finally speaks. “I…I tried to kill myself. Twice. It was stupid, but…. Sometimes I can’t stop myself when I start thinking about it and then—” She breaks off and takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sick and this might be my one shot at staying alive.”
My heart skips a beat.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because I’m not sure what else to say.
She shrugs.
“I just hope it helps.”
You return to me in a dream.
We’re bird-shaped again, the two of us; we sip dew from leaves, the water crisp and cool against our throats. We kick off the branch and take to flight; the branch springs back and casts dew into the air, throwing glittering points of light into the sky. We coast over the surface of the river; you spot a silver fish gleaming just below the water, and we plunge in. The river fills us with calm, presses against us in a soft embrace. We surface with the fish and land on a branch; we feed each other.
I wake with tears in my eyes. It takes me a moment to remember that I’m human, and by the time I do, the dream has started to slip away from me. Someone should be pressed up against my side, but my waist, my hip, they’re empty and unconnected, a curve unfilled.
It’s past eleven. I didn’t realize I’d slept in so late; when I turn over, I see Yaulan sitting on her bed with her back to me.
And I see you, superimposed on her.
I sit up with a jolt. Yaulan looks back at me, and then it’s only her, and she gives me a tiny little smile.
“I was afraid you’d never wake up,” she says in Cantonese. My heart’s beating a galloping rhythm against my chest and my mouth feels dry.
“You’re…” I say, then swallow. “Did something…did something happen?”
“Well, I had my first ECT session,” Yaulan says. “It was…strange. I’m not sure if I feel better, but at least I don’t feel worse.”
I feel it: our bond, our energy, torn away from both you and me. I recoil, and Yaulan frowns.
“Is something wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” I say, my hands trembling. “I just—had an odd dream, and…”
And you were in it, only that’s not true. It wasn’t her; it was you.
Yaulan leaves for more interviews and testing. I sit on my bed alone; I take a few deep breaths, and suddenly everything fades and I’m left feeling lightheaded and confused over having such a strange reaction to Yaulan. The tide of nausea ebbs, and I let out a sigh.
When I look up, I find that the room feels too big without Yaulan in it too.
I’ve begun therapy with a psychologist, Dr. Roberts. He tells me that I must fight off the bird memories when they intrude, but I still find it difficult to do so. It feels so real in the moment, so compelling, that I want to cling to them and try to salvage some of that feeling of being whole with you. But when I tell Dr. Roberts this, he shakes his head and tells me that I must let go of these memories, or I’ll be a human forever haunted by experiences that I didn’t truly have.
I’m not sure how I feel about that. I don’t think I want to let go of those memories and forget that they ever happened, that you ever existed. I just want to get to a point where I can think about them and they don’t send me into a ruminating spiral, one that leaves me wasting hours as I’m caught in my own conflicting thoughts.
Yaulan’s struggling, too. I see her smiling more these days, but sometimes she still looks hollow, still hunches over and refuses to talk to me. Then there are the times when she’s just come back from ECT and I almost can’t bear to look at her; the energy emanating off of her, sparking energy in me, makes me remember you and again I’m recalling Guilin, recalling Toisan, and I’m lost in my memories again.
On Saturdays, though, I don’t have to go to Dr. Roberts, and Yaulan doesn’t have to go to ECT; we can do activities or go out on supervised excursions together. Nurse Florence takes us to a café. I’ve never liked coffee and find the taste of it too bitter against my tongue, too harsh even with cream and sugar, but Yaulan drinks her coffee black and savors every sip of it. Seeing the coffee warm her up makes me smile myself.
On another Saturday, Yaulan and I stay inside for an art class. She’s much better at making the flowers and birds look like actual flowers and birds. I feel self-conscious about my misshapen figures, but then Yaulan looks at my painting, her eyes glittering with delight.
“Wow, Meisun,” she says. “Look at those colors! You’re a natural. My colors always feel so flat.”
I look between our two paintings, and I guess mine is a little more vivid than hers. I wonder, though, if we could combine our skills, perhaps we’d create a perfect painting.
Nurse Florence also supervises us while we use the kitchen the next Saturday. There are no knives in here, so we can’t really cook, but we can still bake and do things that only require mixing. It’s the Mid-Autumn Festival and Nurse Florence has never celebrated it before; we show her how to make mooncakes. Without the special molds, our mooncakes come out lopsided. The Chinese characters we write onto their surfaces aren’t as pretty as the ones they sell in the store, but the end results are still delicious.
Through every Saturday, I can’t help but think how much I like spending time with Yaulan, how well we get along together. Only when Monday rolls around and we have to go back to therapy do I remember the unease in my heart.
Yaulan’s told me before that her terrible thoughts come and go, that she considers feeling better temporary, but I’m still not prepared for it when she crashes.
“I’m never going to be better—I’m never going to be free of these thoughts—I was doing so well and then I wasn’t; there’s no point.”
She’s slumped in a corner, her hands over her head.
“But that’s just the thing,” I say, kneeling down beside her, “you did get better, so you can—”
“But it’s always going to be like this. Always.”
I frown.
“You don’t know that; none of
us know the future.”
“I just—” Yaulan starts sobbing, and the sound of it breaks my heart: her breaths hitch, and her words come out wavering; there’s so much pain laced through every syllable, so much pain that cuts straight into me. “I wish I didn’t have to deal with this. I wish I could just be better. Sometimes I am, but then I start feeling sad again, and I want to kill myself again. I want to throw myself out the window right now, too; I want so bad for all of this to just be over.”
My heart skips a beat. I place my hand over hers.
“It’s hard. I know, I’ve seen you; it’s so hard,” I murmur.
She lets her hand fall from her head. I stroke my thumb in little circles against her skin, and I give her a sad smile.
“But look at you, you want to do these things, but you’re not. You’re going on living anyway.”
She looks up at me, her eyes red-rimmed, but doesn’t say anything, only takes in more shuddering breaths.
“Lanlan,” I say, using the nickname I’ve come to call her, “let’s just go to sleep, yeah? Let’s go to sleep and see how you feel in the morning, okay?”
For a moment, I wonder if she’ll be angry, if she thinks I’m treating her like a child. But I’m not; I’m just trying my best to be gentle with her, to calm her down. Finally, she nods.
“Okay.”
I help her up. We squeeze together in her bed. She curls up against my chest, still crying, but silently now. Her tears soak through my pajamas and dampen my chest. I stroke her hair and sing a lullaby my mother used to sing to me, tell her some of my favorite stories, tell her to rest for now, to sleep.
Even when her breaths finally even out, I still hold on to her. She’s so warm, such a bundle of light; I fear that if I let go, her light will go out. Only when I fall asleep do I let myself relax.
The next day, Yaulan’s eyes are puffy from crying. She looks at herself in the mirror, prods at the newfound creases in her eyelids, and makes a face.
“I want my monolids back,” she says. “I don’t look like myself.”
“You look lovely,” I say, and Yaulan turns, frowning.
“Are you making fun of me?” she says, putting her hands on her hips. She’s trying to play it off as a joke, but I can tell from her tone that she’s feeling hurt.
“No, I’m serious!” I say. “Really, you look fine.”
She lets her hands fall and sighs, her stance slumped now. A flush rises to her cheeks.
“I feel so silly for…what happened.”
I get up and give her a hug. She’s tense at first, but then she relaxes into me. I rub her back.
“Sometimes things like that happen,” I say. “It’s okay.”
After a moment, she breaks away from me. She’s looking at me like she doesn’t believe that I’m real, and for a second, I start doubting myself too, start wondering why she’s looking at me like that—but then she speaks and interrupts my thoughts.
“You’re really not going to scold me?”
I furrow my brow.
“Why would I scold you?” I ask. “You told me yourself, you’re sick. I wouldn’t scold you for coughing; why should I be angry with you for your mind’s illness?”
She’s scrutinizing me, like she’s testing me. Then, she smiles at last.
“I really like you, Meisun,” she says, and I blush. “Really. I’m glad you’re in my life.”
Her words linger with me for the rest of the day. I find that I like her too, in a way that feels both familiar and terrifying. It’s a swelling in my chest and suddenly I remember you. Would you be upset? We had bonded for life, after all. But what happens when your life is over, yet mine goes on?
I’m still feeling anxious when I walk into Dr. Roberts’s office later that day.
“Is there anything on your mind?” he says. “You seem distracted.”
“I…” I pause. “I keep thinking about—about my partner. The other bird. About how we were supposed to live and die together, but I’m still alive. If I were to be with someone else—would that be okay?”
“You aren’t a bird, Meisun,” Dr. Roberts says, and anger flares in my chest.
“But I am,” I retort. Then, I doubt myself and add, “Or, I was.”
“Then you aren’t a bird anymore,” Dr. Roberts says, his voice level, and suddenly something shifts within me. “You’re human now, and you live with humans now, all right?”
Part of me resents him, but part of me considers what he says.
I am human.
And maybe humans love differently.
This Saturday, Yaulan and I go out to the beach under Nurse Florence’s supervision. It’s a beautiful day, with cirrus clouds pulled loose across the gentle blue sky; we pack lunches and bring a picnic basket. Yaulan wears her favorite deep blue cheongsam, and I wear a white one. She teases me for being so modest, my cheongsam looser against my body, and I stick out my tongue at her.
I tell her and Nurse Florence stories about Toisan in between bites of our sandwiches. Nurse Florence nods, acknowledging my words, while Yaulan listens wide-eyed; she’s never been to China before.
“Maybe we can visit Toisan together someday,” she says.
“I’d like that,” I reply.
We explore the beach, climb into the caves, and I’d regret wearing my white cheongsam if not for the fact that I’m having far too much fun. We climb back out onto the sand. Yaulan picks up one shell, and I pick up another; I scour the sand for an unbroken shell, one with that perfect mother-of-pearl sheen.
When I look up, Yaulan’s already several paces ahead. The setting sun turns her into a silhouette; the wind whips at her hair and the skirt of her cheongsam as she walks barefoot in the sand. She holds her arms out, like she’s balancing herself on an invisible beam. I see her soaring in my mind’s eye, and suddenly my heart aches.
She’ll never be you, but she’s not meant to. She had no part in them taking away our bond, and if our bond helped her so, was that such a bad thing? Besides, she’s human, and so am I; we’re not meant to be joined together like kimkim. Love for humans means flying side-by-side in the same direction, two separate beings working together.
I catch up to Yaulan and grasp her hand. She turns, surprised, and a grin spreads across her face. It’s the most beautiful sight I’ve ever witnessed, but even so, sadness still lingers in her eyes, in the way she holds herself.
But that’s okay. I’m not expecting magic, for us to live happily ever after. All I want is to be beside her and hope for the best.
I lean in and kiss her forehead, and in that moment I think, I love you.
Contributors
CHARLIE JANE ANDERS is the author of the Nebula Award- and Crawford Award-winning novel All the Birds in the Sky (Tor Books). She has also won a Lambda Literary Award for her transgender work Choir Boy. Anders has had fiction published in Strange Horizons, Tor.com and McSweeney’s and her non-fiction has appeared in Salon, The Wall Street Journal, and Mother Jones.
GWEN BENAWAY is of Anishinaabe and Métis descent. She is the author of the poetry collections Ceremonies for the Dead and Passage. An emerging Two-Spirited Trans poet, she has been described as the spiritual love child of Tomson Highway and Anne Sexton. She has been the recipient of the inaugural Speaker’s Award for a Young Author and in 2016 she received a Dayne Ogilvie Honour of Distinction for Emerging Queer Authors from the Writer’s Trust of Canada. Her work has been published and anthologized internationally. She and her many vintage dresses can be found on Instagram @gwenbenaway.
VAJRA CHANDRASEKERA lives in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among others. He blogs occasionally at vajra.me and can be found on Twitter at @_vajra.
HOLLY HEISEY launched their writing career in sixth grade when they wrote their class play, a medieval fantasy. It was love at first dragon. Since then, their short fiction has appeared in Intergalactic Medicine Show, The Doomsday Chronicles, Clockwork Phoenix 5, and Transcen
dent: The Year’s Best Transgender Speculative Fiction, and has been translated into German and Estonian. A freelance designer by day, Holly lives in Arizona with Larry and Moe, their two pet cacti, and they are currently at work on a science fantasy epic.
JULIAN K. JARBOE is a writer and sound designer living in Salem, Massachusetts. In 2016 they and their partner were artists-in-residence for a special “Science Fiction and the Human Condition” themed residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. Their work can be found on their website, toomanyfeelings.com, and they tweet @JulianKJarboe.
KEFFY R.M. KEHRLI is a science fiction and fantasy writer, editor, and podcaster currently located on Long Island, NY, where he is working toward a PhD in Genetics. His short fiction has appeared in magazines such as Lightspeed, Apex, and Uncanny, as well as in anthologies such as Clockwork Phoenix 5. In 2015, he launched GlitterShip, a podcast that presents audio versions of LGBTQ science fiction and fantasy short stories. You can find more about him at keffy.com or @Keffy on Twitter.
S. QIOUYI LU is a writer, artist, editor, and narrator; their writing has appeared in Uncanny and Strange Horizons, among other venues. In their spare time, they enjoy destroying speculative fiction as a dread member of the Queer Asian SFFH Illuminati. Find out more at s.qiouyi.lu or follow them on Twitter at @sqiouyilu.
BRIT MANDELO is a writer, critic, and editor whose primary fields of interest are speculative fiction and queer literature, especially when the two coincide. They have two books out, Beyond Binary: Genderqueer and Sexually Fluid Speculative Fiction and We Wuz Pushed: On Joanna Russ and Radical Truth-telling, and in the past have edited for publications like Strange Horizons. Other work has been featured in magazines such as Stone Telling, Clarkesworld, Apex, and Ideomancer. They also write regularly for Tor.com and have several long-running column series there, including Queering SFF, a mix of criticism, editorials, and reviews on QUILTBAG speculative fiction.