by Harry Mazer
Chris was still there. He had never left.
“Are you okay, Ben?” Ariela was asking.
“Meat locker,” Chris said. “Locked door. A cleaver, a toaster oven, a light saber, and a carton of milk. Eli Manning and Genghis Kahn. Who lives?”
The window was opening and the sun was in Ben’s eyes but it didn’t feel hot and it didn’t feel sandy. It felt warm and good. “Eli,” he said.
Chris raised his hand. “You will regret this.”
“Three,” Ben said, “two.”
“Da man,” Chris said.
Ben slapped Chris’s hand. “Da man, brother.”
Ariela was crying again. She loved to cry. She put her arm around Chris, but he shook it off.
Ben stared at her, too. Her eyes were glassy. Her hair fell forward in curls. He touched her hair.
“Ben?” Ariela said.
Her hair was soft and almost white in the lights behind her that flickered and brightened and oozed like blood. He forced himself to breathe and look, breathe and look . . .
“Hey, are you okay?” Ariela asked. “I don’t mean to upset you. If you’re tired, I’ll leave you alone.”
. . . And the ooze became circles of blue and yellow, purple and red, receding and brightening while the basement walls faded to black and reached back into the universe . . .
“ . . . I’ll be here for a couple more days before school starts again . . .”
She was rising now, her mouth moving, neck softly sinewed, eyes pulling him upward . . .
“Niko sends his best, but he just started his freshman year at Pomona and the trip is too expensive so he’ll see you at Christmas . . .”
. . . Until he too was lifted from the bed and they were flying together, weightless on a column of breath. They were released from the world, from sand and rucksacks, radios and red dolls, the suck unembraced, they were going to a new place, and nothing could touch them now.
“Maria,” he said.
Ariela smiled. And then she laughed. And she said his name. And he knew it was his name.
Ben.
His name was Ben.