“But he's a jackal!”
I narrow my eyes slightly. “What on earth does a canis aureus have to do with anything?”
“Damn, you're really good at all that stuff, huh?”
“You don't get a scholarship for a pretty face.” I glare up at him, hang on the door he's holding closed. “Let me out.”
“Not until you promise not to see Robert Stewart again.”
“I'm not going to promise anything.”
He narrows his eyes, beginning to lean his entire body weight on the door now, as a show of his strength, or his control over me, or some other total sexist crap.
“If I want to see Rob, I will.”
“Oh! Rob!” He laughs a bit, far too lightly, turning slightly towards me. “We're on nickname basis with him now, are we?”
“Yes, we are.” My eyes squint at him, my hand so tight around the handle that it's turning white. “Rob and I were friends long before the two of us started dating.”
“Really?” He's feigning a confusion, just attempting to show off his supposed intelligence. He gestures with his hands as he speaks. “Because we've been going out four years, and you met Robert during lab work – three years ago.” He shrugs and laughs, lightly, as if he's helplessly confused by the situation, though of course, it's all just to drive the point that he believes he's correct further.
“Actually,” I begin, my voice grating like steel, “we live in the same neighborhood. I moved to my current neighborhood five years ago.”
“You introduced him as your lab partner, not your neighbor.”
“Because I don't talk to my neighbors, and I do talk to my lab partners.” I yank on the door again. “None of this matters – just let me go.”
“No.” His way of fighting is so unique and so infuriating – rather than allowing himself to get angry, he gets strangely quiet and complacent, almost so you feel like a jerk for being upset with him. “No, that's not going to happen. I'm not going to let you be around a sexist, cruel-hearted, idiotic dick.”
“If you had a problem with me seeing someone like that, you'd've left forever ago.”
My comment surprises him so much that he lets go of the door and I pry it open before running out and coming in contact with blankets of blinding rain.
And then the rain's gone, so suddenly, and I'm left so dry that it hurts for many moments. My legs and throat are no longer burning from running, my shoes aren't soaked to the socks anymore – now I'm laying on my back, staring at the large sky above me, clouded from my view by soft waves of mist. My body begins to relax, instinctively, and I notice that there is water all over my face. My next observation is that my arms and legs are throbbing oddly, a huge, continuous sort of pain that carries on throughout my soul. There's a soft, ragged noise that I hardly notice, but I attempt to flesh it out as my heart beats against my ears and my breath comes in laboriously and distantly.
I sit up, slowly, ignoring the oceans of dizziness that consume me, and I hear Todd whisper something under his breath, harsh, which makes the ragged noises cease for a moment.
Then he's by my side, touching my hair lightly as the world begins to come into view between the mist and the dizziness. “Everything okay, sweetheart?”
“Yeah,” I groan, sitting up, grabbing his arms to help me as vertigo begins to eat away at my head. “What happened?”
“Ya got a little crazed back there, so I gave ya some water. As much as I had, nearly. You've been out for a while. Feeling any better now?”
“I... might...”
“Need a mo?” He pats my head and hugs me, carefully. The contact is... not unwelcome. The contact is rather nice, actually. “Just 'member, Rasc. S'okay. Just 'member.”
I close my eyes against him and it takes far too long than I think is correct. At first there's nothing in my mind – I merely know the name of the one standing above me, and I have an inkling that there's another one near to me, but I can't see his or her face, and don't know his or her name. A panic sets in as I'm unsure where or who I am, or what's going on, but a soft hushing in my hair begins to take away my fevered fear.
Finally, after what feels like silenced minutes, memories begin seeping back into my mind, showing me past days and months and years. The memories start from the beginning, and then it fills in to my distant history, to everything that I know and everything that I should know. They hit me with a momentous magnitude, every memory louder than the last, and for a brevity, my mind feels terribly broken before it feels completely whole.
I let out a breath I'd not realized I'd been holding and I finally pull away, a bit shakily, and give Todd a broken smile.
“Better?” he questions.
I nod.
My eyes drift over to a child, a young boy with messy hair, tear tracks obvious on his face. He's clutched his wolf, who is very still, watching me, and I feel as if I'm some exhibit in a zoo by the way the two gazes are assessing me.
I bite my lip and swallow, waiting for the association to hit me – and it does, gently.
“Hey, Scree. Is everything alright?”
He nods, but doesn't look up as I'm helped to my feet by welcoming, loving hands. I plant a light kiss on Todd's cheek before moving with him up the staircase.
My mind and eyes keep going back to the child, Screech, whose eyes mine keep finding automatically.
Finally, quietly, I lean in to my long-time boyfriend and (hopefully) soon fiance.
“Where did we meet him, again?”
fifteen
A large smile splits Todd's face at my question, one that I don't understand, but I don't have time to question him on before he answers my first one.
“We met him a while back. We all sort of accidentally ran into one another, on the staircase.”
“And did he come with Ivory in tow?”
He seems happy again – this time for another reason. I mirror his smile back to him. “What?”
“Aw, nothing. Ya just make me so happy, y'know, Rascal?”
I smile back at him, lean closer into his arms. “You make me happy too, Todd.” I love that accent of his.
His arms are around me and I adore the feeling of him with me, and I breathe in his air, and completely sink against his light.
“Anyways, yeah. He came with Ivory in tow. But...”
“But what?” I murmur against him, eyes half-closed in satisfaction.
“Well, I mean... he insists that he knows the dog from us.”
“We didn't have a dog.”
“I know. Well. Ya 'member how psycho he is, right?”
“Psycho?”
“Yeah. He keeps trying ta convince me we said and did things that didn't happen... it's like he's living in a whole different reality.”
I scrunch my nose, slightly, in confusion. “That's... not good.”
“Naw, not at all. It's getting worse and worse, though, Rascal.”
“Is it?”
I glance back at the boy, and he, indeed, seems disturbed. He's walking with his head hanging down, tears streaming down his face, hands wrapped in the fur of a potentially lethal creature. I cringe, slightly, at the obvious mental instability of the child.
“Yes. I mean... just look at the name he gave himself.”
“He gave himself that name?” I repeat, attempting to keep my voice down, in surprise. Why would a child do that to himself? It doesn't make any sense.
“Yeah. And he's been talking about leaving us.”
“We probably shouldn't let him out of our sight – ” I start, carefully.
“Nah, I think it's better for him to be on his own with that dog.”
“Why?”
“Well, uh, 'member how ya say that everyone on the staircase, they have a, a different way of dealing with it?”
“Yeah,” I recall.
“Avoiding reality is the way he copes with things... But our very existence is, is, is throwing reality in his face and it ain't really helping.”
“You think?” I g
ive him another glance before gazing up in those bright blue eyes, the ones that I could get lost in because of their silent beauty and majesty.
“I know.” He hugs me tightly... his arms so comforting, so reassuring. How can I believe that anything he says is anything other than the absolute, honest to God truth?
“So what should we do? Just let him walk away?”
“Nah. I think... we should encourage him.”
“Why?” This doesn't seem like a good plan... leaving a kid and his dog alone on the staircase. “Safety in numbers, Todd.”
“Nah, no. The more people, the more crowded, the more fallen. 'Member when we traveled in a group? Everyone fell, Rasc. But maybe... if we had been on our own... separate...”
“Don't say that.” I hug him tightly, desperately. “Then I never would've met you.”
“I know, I know,” he says, lightly, returning the hug. “But all I'm saying is... the death tally would be a lot lower too.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I guess.” I jab a finger back at Screech. “But what about this kid? We can't just strand him, leave him all alone here.”
“He's not like, totally alone. He got Ivory.”
I bite my lip, contemplating. “Yeah, but... we can't really do that.”
“We have to. For his safety, as much as ours.” He pulls me closer, kisses me in my hair. “I never want to lose you, beauty.”
I smile and sink against him. “Thanks for not saying 'babe'.”
“Why would I say 'babe'?”
I shrug. I don't know where that idea came from. “I dunno. Just... thanks.”
“Always, my dear.”
The rest of the day seemed longer than I'm sure it was, because my mind was turning over and over the fact that we had to give up one of our companions. I thought that, perhaps, I would miss Screech – even if he was kind of unstable.
The staircase is crying black puffs of soot and ash today, the sky howling and screeching still, but it is growing wider and wider and wider. Finally, suddenly, it pulls out wider than it's ever been before, and it's this huge field, like a plain, like a clearing in the middle of a forest, about a football field wide, stretching beyond my point of vision and sitting against the red sky.
“Just like Madame Veneera's,” I hear the child whisper behind us as the wolf runs out in front. He hesitates for a moment, his mind wrapped in what he's seeing before he, too, plows on ahead.
I turn minutely towards Todd, my face mirroring the confusion in my heart. “Madame Veneera?” I whisper.
“I told ya,” he says, a bit sadly, pretty sympathetically. “He's psycho.”
So I nod, because such is a sad thing indeed.
The red sky is beginning to darken, though last I remembered it was almost midday, and I walk out onto it with Todd fast on my heels, an arm reached out to hold my waist. He offers me his waterskin and I take it, though I feel a bit dizzy after consuming a drink.
Screech has seemingly disappeared among the large area with the wolf, but I'm not too concerned, of course, as he's not really my responsibility. I sit down next to Todd and he brushes my hair out of my face.
He grins. “You're so beautiful.”
I smile back. “I know,” I say, jestingly, though I wish I had a hint of knowing what I look like. Perhaps I am very pretty... perhaps I'm not. There's no way of telling. I wonder if I can see through the water in his waterskin... but the opening's too small to peer down into, I think, so I don't ask him about it.
“This place is nice,” he comments.
I look around, see if I can come to the same conclusion. It's large. The ground rises and falls slightly, tiny slopes in the landscape, and gray and silver grass appears to bleed from the sooty crevices. They catch the light of the red sky above, and the mist makes the entire area hard to clearly and visibly see, even when on it.
“Yeah,” I say, looking back at my beloved and sinking into his welcoming grasp. “It's really, really nice.”
He's thinking about something. I can tell. It's the stance of his body, the way his lips are turned, his face is scrunched. I pull myself away from him so I can get a better view of the thoughts that are painting themselves on his veneer.
“What is it?” I prompt, gently.
“Just thinkin', dearest.”
“No, no, tell me.” We're in this together, after all, him and me. The dynamic duo. The perfect couple. I have to know all his thoughts, as he has to know all of mine. That's what husbands and wives do.
I look down to my finger, which doesn't have a ring on it. I distinctly remember him apologizing for that fact – and the fact that we didn't really have an actual officiator at our staircase themed wedding. “I'm sure this isn't what you dreamed about as a child,” he'd told me on that day.
“Honestly, I couldn't've dreamed of anything better,” I had said, though I never remembered being a child, let alone such dreams.
We'd kissed under the setting sky, just as the world got so dark that we could not see each other and had to settle against a cold world, our bodies clinging to one another, clinging to the light that was our love.
I hear Todd's voice now, in the present. “Well... I just think that maybe... this is a good place.”
“A good place? A good place for what?”
He doesn't speak for many moments, not looking at me. He's looking out into the fog, and he takes a deep breath of it in, and I do the same – feeding, of course, because Todd told me that the fog feeds us. Didn't he? I mean, I think he did. Finally, he murmurs, “For resting.”
I hesitate, look up at him, my lips pressed into a firm line for a moment before I go on. “What?”
“Well... I've just been worried about walking with ya for a while. Anything could happen, and nothing can happen to ya now... I mean, not... 'specially not with...”
“Especially not with what?” I push, gently.
“With the baby and all.”
I stare at him blankly for many, many moments, because what he's saying isn't really kicking in. “The... baby?” There is no baby, not that I'm aware of, unless he's talking about Screech or the wolf.
“Take another drink, my love. Stay hydrated.”
I do as I'm told with a nod, taking a large gulp, and for a moment my vision goes white and I get a bit unsettled and shaken before I get proper control over myself.
“Your memory always fades out when ya get too dehydrated,” he says, rubbing my back with a gentle hand. His eyes capture my face, holding me there, bright, hopeful, loving. “Better, my dearest?”
“Better,” I say, a bit hoarsely, as the memory comes to me. Our baby. I'd totally forgotten that I was pregnant.
“How could I forget something like that?”
“It's this planet, love. Does some strange things to creatures as compassionate and empathetic as you.”
I smile at him, shyly, because he shouldn't be this good to me, shouldn't be this loving. “Oh, Todd... you've already got me. You don't have to keep this act up.”
“Ain't an act, when I love you so much.” He plants a kiss on the side of my head and rubs at my arms before letting out a long, distant sigh. “The point of my story is, Rascal, that I think we should... set up camp here.”
“What, like, make this our permanent home?”
“Well, why not?” He seems to still be thinking through this idea as he's pitching it to me – I can see some thought process going on behind his eyes, like gears in a machine working. “It's a beautiful, large place to raise our son or daughter, without constant worry of them tumbling off the edge. And who knows if we ever find another place like this? Maybe... after a few years, when they're older, we can start climbing again, but...”
“You want to give up the climb?” I'm scooting away from him now – for some reason, there's a bit of an alarm going off in my head. Todd never wanted to give up the climb. I never wanted to give up the climb. The climb was the reason for living, and without it... what was there? Red morning and black nights? A distant ocean
, a frightened existence? Without the climb, there was nothing but fear, and horror, no distraction.
No... we had to keep climbing. I will not allow a child to be brought up in a frankly hopeless environment such as stillness.
For a second, it occurs to me that we were candidly careless to even let this happen. I should have never gotten pregnant at all. This was illogical and puerile of us... all of this, all of it.
“I don't want to give up the fight,” he's defending, hands out like a cease fire, “but I think it's best.”
“The climb is what we have to live for. If not that, what would we give our child as a reason for life?”
“Each other.” He reaches out, touches my hand, and surprisingly, I allow him, despite how angry I am with him. “He'll live – ”
“Or she'll,” I interrupt.
“Or she'll,” he agrees, “live for us. For his or her mother and father. For his or her family. Not for the climb. Who even knows if there is a top, Rascal? Who even knows if there's an end?”
My resolve is beginning to falter. “Yeah, but...”
“But nothing, love. That... the climb itself... that is hopelessness. But here... what we have... this is true. This is right. We have each other... that's really all we can be sure of. You know that, right?”
I smile, briefly, the outlines of the joy just barely meeting my features. “I know that.”
“Then what's there to fear? If we're together, who cares about the stupid staircase?”
“Certainly not I, as long as I have you,” I reply, moving a bit closer, my anger so long faded that I cannot even remember what the sting of it felt like.
“Good. So, it's agreed, then? The two of us stay? Stay here, together, forever, with our baby?”
I put my hand on my not-yet-enlarged tummy, and he puts a hand over mine, which makes me dissolve into a grin. “Yes. The two of us, stay.”
It's then that a red-faced, sweaty, giggling, running Screech returns with a wolf on his heels, who is barking and licking at him a bit wildly as he trots up to us. “Hey, Freck,” he says, jovially, all the odd pretense that he was carrying before suddenly dropped. “Seems we're alone this time. No Madame Veneera or anything.”
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