by Zion's Fiction- A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature (retail) (epub)
He dresses, now turning this into a mock striptease show, teasing her, dancing with his clothes as he slowly gets dressed. He’s having a riot. He’s so funny.
Once he’s dressed, I replay this. As slowly as I possibly can without having her thoughts dissolve into nothing. It’s not just the way he looks, it’s what she feels, too. It’s so amazing. I feel what she feels. As slowly as I possibly can.
Once that’s over, I surf to another time, another place, and see him getting undressed, and another time I see her practically ripping his clothes off. I play that slowly as well.
I surf to each spot I can find, to see his body from all possible angles. I see him above her, as they’re halfway through sex.
I see him lying down.
I see him getting out of bed, on the way to the bathroom. She checks out his ass, the way his legs look from behind. I see what they look like from the front.
I see her examining him while he sleeps. His hair rumpled; his face even more trouble-free than usual; his eyebrows with a single grey hair; his nose, his nose, his button of a nose; his mouth squished by the pillow; his chin needing a shave; his neck and the wrinkles she sees he’ll have in ten years. She pulls away the covers to reveal his chest, smooth and hairless like a nine-year-old’s. She peels the blanket from him softly, going down and down and down his body, until she examines his every appendage, his every hair, even his little toes. She takes care to put the cover back on each spot she’s through with, so that he won’t be cold.
I don’t know how much time all of this took, but I have to see one thing. One more thing before I go back to my room.
I want to see her.
I see her standing in front of the mirror before she goes into the shower. She looks at her thighs, checking for fat. She looks at her stomach. She turns around and looks at her behind. She plays with her breasts, moving them to one side, then to another. They’re uneven. Everyone’s are uneven, but she doesn’t like the way one is leaning, lopsided, looking dead. She has no idea how perfect she looks.
But looks change. I surf to other showers, to other times she took off her clothes.
And for some reason, I now center on her face. Every morning, when she wakes up, the first thing she does is go to the mirror to look at her face. Every time she’s alone and goes by a mirror, she looks at her face. How tired does she look? Can you see the fight on her? Can you see how hard it is?
No, you can’t.
I find a time when she goes on a date, that even she believes herself to be presentable and good-looking. I play her face slowly, looking at every flaw, at every inch, at every … at everything. I burn her face into my memory.
—No, you don’t look tired, I tell her—
And everything vanishes.
Yeah. Can’t talk to her. That was stupid.
I look at the time.
Oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh. My. God.
Ten minutes to eight. Professor Bendis’s class is about to start. I stayed here the entire freaking night, and I’m going to be late for his class. As quickly as humanly possible, I put Stephanie back in. I can’t believe I did this. I shut the freezer door and take the key out of my pocket. The entire night! I open the door, go out, shut it, and—Bendis is standing there—I almost scream.
“Ah, Ms. Watson,” he says in his calm voice. Oh, shit, I forgot. Class convenes in the morgue! A few more minutes, and everybody would have been here. “Working extracurricularly. Excellent.”
Bendis turns around. I follow his gaze. Greg is coming. Bendis turns back to me.
“No reason to wait outside,” he says. “Let’s go in.”
Greg looks at me as I follow Bendis.
“What?” I say.
“You’re wearing yesterday’s clothes.”
Oh, god.
“Did you get lucky last night?”
Oh, god.
“Ms. Watson.”
“Yes, sir?” I just wheeled her back out of the freezer.
“Do you know the name of her childhood friend?”
“Margaret, sir.”
“That’s right. She believes her father has what sort of complex?”
“Peter Pan, sir.”
“That’s right. Step back. We won’t cover anything you don’t know today. Mr. Willis, step forward.”
Bendis doesn’t let me touch her again during the entire two hours, but the truth is that they do cover things I already know.
The rest of the day I go through the motions all day, doing my best not to fall asleep. But when the last period’s over, I go to my dorm room.
I lock the door twice, and put a chair behind the handle to make it impossible for anyone to come in without waking me.
I finally get out of these clothes and take a shower.
I’d like to see Stephanie again. Her emotions are so powerful inside me.
But I’m dead tired.
I collapse in my bed, cover myself with the blanket, and fall asleep.
“Ms. Watson,” Bendis’s voice is like a hammer. We are all standing over Stephanie’s body.
“Yes, Professor Bendis.”
“How did this girl die?”
My heart withers under his stare. “What?” It’s never crossed my mind.
“You knew so much about her yesterday. Can you tell me how she died?”
How did she die? She’s around my age. She can’t be more than twenty-four. “No, sir.”
Bendis looks at the rest. “Anyone?”
Rebecca behind me, raises her hand.
“Yes, Ms. Anthony.”
“She committed suicide.”
What! I turn to look at her. It’s ridiculous!
“That’s right,” he says, and I spin my head to look back at him. She can’t have! Her life is so perfect. She’s so….
“How do you know?” Bendis says. “Did you go through the actual moment with her?”
“No, sir. I didn’t see it when I was in her head.”
“Then how?”
“Her hands,” she points to the hands that are now covered. “She slit her wrists. I saw it yesterday, when Alexandra removed the sheet.”
What!
“Very good. Sometimes we lean on our abilities too much and forget to look at the physical evidence. There’s a lot to be learned just by looking and reasoning.” He looks at the entire class again. “Did anyone else notice this?” Silence. “Has anyone gone over any moment from her last days?” Silence.
I can’t believe she killed herself. It’s just not possible.
“Well, barring incontrovertible telepathic evidence, does anyone have any ideas how this happened to her, just from the physical evidence before us?” I look at the body, and then I notice that Bendis hasn’t removed the sheet from her body, on purpose. We can’t even see her face.
“Slitting your wrists,” I hear Megan behind me. Bendis looks at her. “Sir,” she amends herself. “If I may. Slitting your wrists is usually a … I heard that it’s a cry for help, sir. There are easier and more effective ways to kill yourself.”
“That’s right. It was a call for help. Unfortunately, as we see before us, no one heard it in time.” He purses his lips. “Each of you has been in her head at least twice, now, on two different occasions. You had your free roam of her mind. And not one of you saw a problem, a call for help, a deep depression, a hint of the event that ended her life.” There’s silence, again. “Today we are going to learn to look for signs of trouble, for calls for help, for tendencies toward extreme emotions.
“Ms. Watson!”
“Yes, sir.”
He uncovers Stephanie’s face. “Tell me how she died.”
I look at her face. I take a breath, and take off my glove.
“What are you going to do?” Professor Bendis interrupts just as I’m about to touch her.
“I … I was going to look at her last days.”
“How?”
“What?”
“How are you going to find her last days?”
<
br /> “Um….I don’t think I have a pain or a feeling that I know corresponds to wanting to take your own life, so I thought I’d take the worst moment I’ve seen till now in her life, and try to expand on it.”
“Which moment?”
“I …” I look at him and I don’t want to say it.
“Do it.”
I cover my eyes. It’s not exactly true what I told him. In fact, I’m going to do the opposite.
I touch her.
—I replay the instant in which she had multiple orgasms, in which the pleasure overwhelmed her. And then I reverse it, searching for a lack of it—
She can’t breathe, her heart-rate doubles, and it’s dark.
What the hell! Her inner gyro says she’s in her bedroom, and it’s the middle of the night. Her parents are sleeping in the next room.
The scene she’s just reacted to happened in her head. Michael’s leaving her for good. This would explain his behavior over the past few weeks. Michael’s leaving for good.
And for an instant, in her mind, it’s true and inevitable.
Her world is so dark. There is no hope. There is no reason to live. There is only pain.
But this isn’t it yet. It’s not what Bendis wanted. I take the feeling and multiply it a thousand-fold.
Her pain takes my breath away.
And suddenly I see her from the outside. There’s no one in the room but us two and she’s not covered. I see her naked. I see her guts. I see her soul, her passion, her greatest desires, her pain, oh, how beautiful her pain is, bottomless, perfect, amazing. This pain opens her up to me in ways that couldn’t exist if she were alive.
I surf her blackness. It is endless. There is nothing about her I can’t know. She’s giving me all her secrets. To me. I love her.
More, open up more for me.
The pain multiplies by a multitude. Michael is there, saying “Yes,” and suddenly a wave of—of—of—of—of—
of—of—of—of—of—
of—of—of—of—of—
I’m on the floor, pain shooting through my elbow. Rebecca is holding me, half helping me up. I must have fallen.
“What happened?” I whisper.
“Bendis yelled at you to break contact,” she heaves me up, then adds, “And when you didn’t, he slapped you.”
“Are you all right, Ms. Watson?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
“Keep your distance from the body,” he says. And I notice I almost grazed her.
“Yes, sir.”
“You saw Michael before it happened, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“When Michael said what you saw him say, Stephanie’s brain short-circuited from the pain. The same thing almost happened to you, Ms. Watson. She had to live with it. You don’t. You weren’t even ready.
“Sit the rest of the class out.” He points to a chair. “That’s enough adventures for one day, Ms. Watson. You’ll be fine.” Almost in the same breath, he looks aside, and I’m forgotten. “Mr. Crowley, step forward.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Same assignment. Find what led to her death.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And Mr. Crowley?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Try not to short-circuit your mind. This is just an assignment.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Ms. Watson, a word,” he says once class is over.
We’re all alone. I still have to put the body back in. “Yes, sir.”
“You’re not hurt.” There’s no question in his voice, but he’s right. The ordeal was over as soon as I sat down.
“Yes, sir.”
“This happened because you’re identifying with the subject, Ms. Watson. You mistook her feelings for your own, instead of being an observer. That’s dangerous with a young woman who killed herself. During our next lesson, we won’t be going forward to her last few days. We’ll be going backward, trying to understand the seeds of the emotions that led to such pain. You’re not ready to see her death. Do not try it alone. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Professor.”
“Good. Lock up.” He walks toward the door, then stops and looks back at me. “By the way, Ms. Watson.”
“Yes, Professor?”
“Are you really fine?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Then I should tell you … I’m gay.” So I should stop fantasizing about him. He probably hears me drooling every time he walks into the room.
“Yes, sir.” Should I … ? Should I tell him? Damn it, yes. “I know, sir.”
He smiles, impressed. He knows I got it from his mind and not from physical evidence. “Very good.” And he walks out.
That only makes you more attractive, sir.
I rush to Professor Parks’s class. I sit through an entire hour and a half, and it’s like sitting on a geyser. Once her class is over, I rush out. We get thirty minutes for lunch, but I almost run to my dorm room.
I shut the door, double-lock it. I run to the bathroom, lock its door, put down the toilet’s lid, and sit on it.
Suddenly my throat constricts and I have to gasp for air.
Stephanie’s feelings overwhelm me again. But I’m not touching her, so it’s diffused, less powerful than it was. It was a pain worse than loss of hope, worse than loss of a loved one. Her future vanished, and it was as if she had vanished. No, it was even worse. There was no reason for her to live. It was the most basic emotion I have ever felt in a human being. There was no internal reason for her to exist. She ceased to exist at that second.
That was the emotion. Carried to the power of ten.
I didn’t see all the events that led to this when I was in her mind. I had to hear it from the class during the rest of the lesson.
Michael has been growing apart, keeping his distance, never initiating a call, but always sounding fine when she called. They hadn’t met in weeks. Stephanie had ignored it for as long as she could, but eventually she confronted him. He waffled and stammered, so she said, “Are we through?”
He said, “Yes.”
That instant she saw in his eyes how long he had wanted her to know. And she knew she had lost him forever.
And for her, it touched on something primal and ancient. A key turned inside her and the world turned white.
I saw more, though. I felt more before Bendis slapped me. Something in between the whiteness. Something….
I replay the feelings I felt. Piece by piece, I separate some of the emotions. Despair. The return of the ability to think. Walking home. Sinking into bed and out of life. And there are some actual moments in my head, some very clear moments from her last day.
Stephanie was lying on her stomach, face buried in the pillow, hardly breathing, all darkness. The inner gyro says it was her bedroom and that it was after seven p.m. It was dark outside even though she hadn’t seen it.
Her mother’s voice comes from behind, annoying, unbearable—she’s been talking for a while, now.
“I don’t know,” she says, “what you’re going through, or what’s so bad. But if you’re even thinking about killing yourself” and a shot of electricity goes through Stephanie’s spine—she’s been thinking exactly that “… I want you to know … I won’t have it. I’ll kill myself. I won’t have it.”
“Oh, gawd!” Stephanie shouts into the pillow, and her pain is unbearable. This is exactly like her mother. “This isn’t about you! Not everything is about you! This is my pain! Stop making everything about yourself!” And she shouts so loudly that she becomes hoarse, having uttered just those words. And without words, she keeps shouting in her head: This is mine. Mine! Don’t you get that?
I don’t know how this conversation ended. I don’t know how it began. But it was close to the end.
There’s another memory.
Still in the pillow. Still dark. Later still.
Her father’s voice behind her, more reasonable than ever, calmer than ever, “Y
ou will come to dinner and you will eat.”
Stephanie rolls her eyes, even though he can’t see her. Please, please, go away. You don’t understand. Go!
“No one cares that you’re depressed,” he goes on with an emotionless voice. More emotionless than ever, he tries to show her what nothing should feel like. “Depression is a choice. A luxury.”
She wants to cry. But it’s her father. She worships him. She needs him to understand. “You don’t know.” Stephanie turns around on the bed, looking at him, her voice plaintive like a six-year-old. “You have no idea what depression is. Or you wouldn’t say that. You don’t know.”
“Ridiculous. I feel as depressed as the other guy. But I do not let it bother me, because I cannot afford to.”
“Dad,” she bursts into tears, feels the hopelessness of explaining emotion to him, but needing him to get it. “You don’t feel as deeply.” It’s the first time she’s ever said this to him. “You don’t know what depression is. You don’t know what it does to me.”
“Depression…” his voice grows even colder “… is an indulgence, nothing more. Any reasonable person can put it aside.”
That’s all there is of that memory. I break down into tears.
Her pain is in me. Her pain washes over me and I bathe in it and I can’t stop crying and I don’t want to. I know that pain. I love that pain. I need that pain. Stephanie understands me. Anyone who feels this understands me.
An hour later I’m still crying, and now I can’t stop.
I missed one class. I can’t go to the other, even if I do stop crying.
That exhaustion you have after you’ve cried a lot, they’ll feel it, they will all feel it. And see it on my face. And hear it in their heads. I can’t go.
I’ll stay here, with Stephanie.
Her emotions are better, clearer, stronger, more powerful.
She can handle those emotions that are greater than mine. But not me. I can’t even handle my own, stupid world.
This isn’t good. It isn’t healthy. I … I need help.
There’s no one to turn to, though. There’s no one who will understand. There’s no one who….
I walk over to the morgue and unlock the door. I pull her out.