swirlsofpurple

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There are two moons in the sky this night. Gronkapn sits on the soft pink grass, staring out at the congregation. The weight of this coming speech sits heavy in his spine. He hopes he can sway some minds. He licks his mouth-holes, in preparation, injecting all the gravitas he has in his words,

“Lying is a virtue.”

Scores of upper tentacles wave in the air in cheers of agreement and rejoicing.

“We can’t go to Earth!” comes a cry from the middle.

“No Earth! No Earth!” a few chant.

Gronkapn waits for the cheers to quieten. “But is lying always virtuous?”

All are silent. A child so small they are still a round thing answers, “Lying is always good.”

“Is it, have you ever had someone tell a harmful lie and when you confront them, they say, ‘I’m just lying’?”

He stares at the people; several look uncomfortable, or restless. Everyone knows someone who uses the virtue of lying as an excuse.

“The virtue in lying comes from lies which help others: a lie about liking a gift or someone’s new tentacle-style, a lie to give a confidence boost, or a lie to keep someone’s secret. Lies you tell just to help yourself and harm others are not virtuous.”

Several upper tentacles wave in agreement, but the waves are more wobbly- unsure of what’s to come.

“Humans believe honesty is a virtue.”

There are cries of anger. The people chanting ‘No Earth’ start up again.

He waits. The silence takes longer to come, he doesn’t rush it. “But they also believe honesty isn’t always virtuous. To them honesty that serves others is good and honesty to serve the self and harm others is bad. Like we have those who say ‘I’m just lying’ they similarly have annoying people who say, ‘I’m just being honest’."

“What are you saying?” the words are strained, upset.

“The humans will also lie about liking gifts they do not like. They are in many ways not too different from us.”

Tentacles curl in anger. “Why are you saying this!” “What are you talking about!” “How dare you!”

Several people leave: some silently, some loudly.

“I’m saying this because our planet is dying. We must go to Earth. And we must learn to live with the people there.”

Rocks are kicked, grass is pulled up and thrown. Gronkapn doesn’t run for cover, he stays in place, waiting. More people leave, telling others to go with them.

A young woman walks up to him, tentacles drooping, her voice small but hard, “We came here for you to reaffirm our faith, to tell us to be strong while our world is dying, to tell us to stand our ground and stay here. Why would you betray us like this?”

“I’m trying to save your lives. Staying here doesn’t prove anything, you’ll just die, it’s a waste.”

“Such callous honesty, you’re already just like them.”

Gronkapn flips through the passenger lists, over and over, searching for names he knows aren’t there.

“You did all you could,” his half-soul says.

“You can’t comfort me, my love, most of them were not moved by me. They will die and it’s because I didn’t do enough.”

“Nothing anyone could’ve done would have moved them.” She takes the pages from him and points to a name. “What of this one, a child. They would have died here without your words, now they have a whole life ahead of them. You changed some peoples’ minds, and every one of those people is one entire life which would’ve been snuffed out without you. That is no small thing.”

He flaps his lower tentacle. “I should have had you talk to them.”

“Ack. I could never. Now put those away, we must rest. We have a very long, very hard, journey ahead of us. We must go with hope.”

Note: this has been an approximate translation of the alien language. A literal translation isn’t possible due to the extensive metaphor usage without the necessary reference points for understanding. For example see the below excerpt.

Small sun, big planet, for days. Small planet, big sun, for nights. Land and water. And drowning.

Small planet, big sun, for days. An inside-smile.

Flora’s hands tremble as they approach the Rowan Fortress.

Rachel considers her with concern. “Maybe we could go to one of the shelters further north instead.”

Flora scoffs. “And do what? Wait for someone there to die? You know all of them are at full capacity.”

“Well maybe we just keep moving anyway.”

“We’ll die.”

“We don’t have to do this.”

“We do. You know we do. I’m okay.”

“You’re shaking.”

“Okay, I’m not okay. Look, let’s just get through this.” Flora steps up to the gate and knocks.

Flora tucks her hands under her armpits to hide the trembling as the inhabitants come out to watch the show.

The leader stands on a dais, striding about like a showman. In another world she could see him with a top hat and fancy cane. “We have two newcomers wanting to join our sanctuary.” Here he gives a maniacal grin. “But these are hard times, and all must pull their weight, we set forth these challenges so you can prove yourself to us. You must pick three of the challenges you find before you.”

The water pit. The hot coals. The boulder. The snake pit. The climbing ropes.

Bile rises in Flora’s throat. They of course knew about these. There’s extensive online discussion on what the best challenge choices are, and what the best order to do them is, to give someone the best chance at earning the one hundred points needed to be accepted in. Flora had spent days on those sites in spite of knowing none of the information would be of any use to her. There’s only one way she could get to one hundred points.

She stares the leader in the eyes and says, “You choose.”

There are gasps and joyful shrieks from the crowd.

The leader chuckles. “Very well. You forgo your choice and in return start with fifty points. Let’s start with the water pit.”

Flora’s heart sinks. That’s the one she was really dreading. She’s hated being in water since she almost drowned at the age of eight. She’d floated out too far and spent what felt like years scrabbling up to the surface to take some too-small breaths before being pulled back down. The leader knew somehow, she’d telegraphed her fear.

She bites her cheek to keep from crying out. And lets them lower her into the water.

“The longer you stay under, the more points you earn. Press this button when you want to be let out.”

Flora takes a deep breath before submerging. The water is cold. And dark. She tries to keep calm, but can feel herself flailing. Losing air. Too much. Too quick.

She can’t do this. Can’t. Can’t. But she refuses to press the button. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Just a bit longer. Just a bit longer. Just a bit longer.

Fuck. She presses the button.

The ropes are a disaster. Her hands too wet to gain purchase. And her arms too weak to lift her.

“I’m afraid you don’t have the points to make it,” the leader says, grin still in place.

“Wait, what about the third challenge?”

“Even at maximum points you would still be under.”

Flora nods. The ache of her fate is surprisingly sharp given that she knew this was the most likely outcome. That last marble of hope held some hefty weight. The cold reality is she’s going to die.

They allow her to stay to watch Rachel: she climbs the ropes like she was born for it. And manages to push the boulder two thirds of the way up the hill.

The leader keeps a running commentary throughout, clearly Rachel is a far more interesting challenger than Flora.

But by the time she gets to the hot coals, exhausted, she gets only part of the way down the track.

“Ooh, this is going to be a close one,” the leader bounces around, awaiting the point total. “Ninety-five points! Ouch just five points shy. Sorry Rachel.” The grin is somehow wider.

Flora is sure the whole thing is rigged.

The leader claps his hands against his cheeks. “You know, as you are so close, I’m willing to give you another chance.”

“What do I have to do?” Rachel asks, resignation heavy in her tone. It’s not going to be anything good.

“If your friend sacrifices herself for us. That would be enough food to buy your way in.”

Rachel gapes. “What the fuck?! No!”

“Rach, let’s talk about this,” Flora says.

“What, no, this is crazy!”

Flora sighs. “It kind of makes sense. I’m going to die out there anyway. At least this way I can help. This is what it takes to survive now.” She turns to the leader. “I’ll do it.”

The leaders face looks strangely sombre. “Congratulations, you’ve both passed the challenge. You may both stay for as long as you wish.”

Flora blinks. “I don’t understand.”

“We may be cruel and callous. We’ve had to be. But none of us would be alive if we weren’t willing to die for each other. You belong here. Welcome.”

“A bed!” Marla jumps onto the thing. It’s lumpy, has protruding springs and looks rat-chewed. Their floor piles are likely comfier. But it’s a bed! She sprawls out and demands, “Tell me about them.”

Mother laughs. “You’re not so young that you don’t remember beds.”

“Please?”

“Oh alright. In the times before the war, most people had beds to sleep on. They came in many different sizes, and were filled with many different things: cotton or wool or memory foam. Sometimes even water.”

“Wow.” The thought of wasting water to fill a bed is befuddling. She asks, “Will The Gods bring us beds again one day?”

Some believe the beings who came to help rebuild the world are aliens and some believe they’re supernatural creatures. But Marla is her mother’s daughter, so she believes they’re Gods.

Mother tuts. “You’re sitting on one, child. The Gods’ focus is on rebuilding the systems: for water, for food, for sewage, for shelter, for medicine. Which would you divert their attention from?”

Marla sighs. “I said one day, when they’re done with all of those.”

“It’s no easy task. Even before the war not everyone had food and water.”

Marla takes several moments to think on that. The Gods are going to make things even better than the glorious before times.

Marla bounces in her seat; an isle of misshapen bricks. There’s laughter and dancing and cups of sweet water. Today is a very special day.

She stares at the sky. It's muddy whorls. The grey film Old Wendy says is like a cataract. She’s supposedly old enough to remember the sky of before. But she doesn’t, not really. It seems like so, so long ago. The memory is like a flash in her mind, an almost there thing.

A crack appears, bright blue. There are gasps and cheers, hoots and hollers. But the sounds soon slip away: everyone watching the same point, waiting. Expectation sits sticky in the air.

Marla thinks she can almost see the hands of The Gods, from the same place in her mind that forgotten flash lives. And then there’s a whole solid patch of blue.

People are jumping and hugging and kissing. Marla stays in her seat, still now, looking up.

The blue spreads across the sky. It looks like a painting, or a photograph. She always thought the pictures she saw were exaggerations: photoshopped or airbrushed or something. But now she sees, they were nowhere near as good as the real thing.

And anyone can use any fancy technical term for what’s happened here, the science doesn’t lessen the truth of what this is: divine.

Marla spends the next month watching every sunrise and sunset she can. She’s at her stillest in these moments. Thinking. Deciding.

It’s the night she sees her first full moon that she tells Mother: she’s going to be a priestess when she grows up.

“Hmm. There’s much time yet to settle on this,” Mother says.

Marla spends every spare moment she has staring at the sky. It calls to her. She’s only more certain as the years go by.

Mother cries when she leaves. “You’re still so young.”

She bites back the urge to say Mother is supposed to be devout, instead says, “I’m an adult.”

“In the before times you wouldn’t be considered so.”

The hall is the biggest she’s ever been in, filled with what must be a thousand priestesses in training. It’s so vast, with more shine to it than she’s ever seen. But her awe quickly turns to misery.

The head priestess repeats over and over, every day, that they will root out any who are there just to get a chance to see or speak to or get closer to The Gods.

And there’s a little Hell inside Marla’s chest where the words sit, as she wonders every time: isn’t that the entire point. Is she unworthy? Is she a fake? A fraud?

The rabid thing in her chest grows, clawing at her stomach, at her throat. Turning from hurt to anger. She stares into the sun. And is certain.

She is still, until she raises her hand: it shakes. “Isn’t that the point?”

“You’re not much for prayer, are you girl?”

“I watch the sunrise and sunset every day.”

They send her to a nowhere place and she spends her days doing the mundane tasks she’s given. The days turn to weeks and then to months. Marla’s never felt so far away from reaching The Gods. She knows she should try harder to fit in. Then maybe she could progress. But she has no interest in meeting The Gods as a facsimile of herself.

When she can, she stares, memorising each days sky. No two skies are the same.

The years pass. She knows what is meant to be will never happen. The ache dulls, but remains. Marla forges new meaning in this place. People come to join her as she watches the sky, they talk and she listens. Sometimes she tells stories of the ephemeral flotsam up above them.

She wakes to one of the young ones at her door, bouncing excitedly, “You’ve been chosen!”

Marla blinks away sleep, uncomprehending. “What do you speak of?”

“You’re going to the Prime Temple.”

It’s a mistake, surely. Or perhaps a cruel joke. She doesn’t dare believe it. She gets confirmation from three different elders. It still feels untrue. Her head is awhirl.

Something long-dead unfurls inside her chest. The sun is in her heart. She’s going to the home of the Prime Goddess herself.

Marla stands at the entrance of a place she’s longed to be since she was a girl. She almost expects to be disappointed, surely no singular place can meet the weight of decades of want. But it’s more than she could ever imagine. It’s tall, has many, many floors. But it's plain. And that buoys something in her.

She’s given a bowl of water to leave by the Goddess’ door. She carries it tentatively, her feet measured against every stair. She can see the sky reflected in the liquid.

If she gets to do this every day and never gets to even see the Goddess, her life will be perfect.

“The Goddess wants to meet you.”

This is a dream. Her heart is pounding. Her hands shaking.

Marla lets the other priestesses guide her to the bath. They clean gently, anointing her with special oils and powders. And wrap her in ceremonial robes.

She kneels, alone, waiting. Panicking. She wishes she could see the sky.

A hand grasps her shoulder. She gasps.

“It’s good to finally meet you Marla. We’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”

She sits opposite the Goddess. It seems wrong, to sit so close, on the same level.

“You’re the one who will fix the sky.”

Marla gapes. “What?! The sky is fine.” She would know if something was wrong with it. She watches every fibre of it so closely.

“Not now. The sky of when you were a girl.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Time works differently for us. We didn’t just appear after the war. We were always here, in different times, waiting to do what fate had in mind for us.”

“Wow.”

Silence takes hold. Marla eventually says, “I don’t have any powers though.”

“You have spent decades learning the sky. You know it like no one else.”

Marla sees her child-self, bouncing. Impossible.

She looks to the sky, knows every bit of wrongness. And, with the certainty of staring into the sun: she reaches her hands out and begins to mend.

Dolly picks up her coffee, pressing her fingers to her chin and moving them away in a silent thank you. The barista nods and types out ‘have a nice day’ on their tablet. Dolly types out ‘you too’ on her own tablet. The drink is an expense she can’t really afford at the moment, but she also can’t afford to fall asleep behind the wheel and crash her truck.

She climbs into the driver’s seat and looks on her long haul app, DeliverNow, to line up a job after this one. The ache in her eyes and head ramps up in protest. She’s in desperate need of sleep.

Dolly stops at a post for delivery to a place where air toxicity is terrible. She’d usually just scroll past. Also, the minimal detail of what’s actually being delivered (definitely something illegal) would’ve made her block the poster entirely.

Now, instead, she brings up her Cord bill. Again. And stares at it.

One thousand, three hundred and fifty six pounds.

Her and Beth are usually pretty good at sticking to their budget of a hundred pounds a month for the Cord bill. At a pound a word, they usually end up saying around eighty to ninety words out loud. They’ve gotten used to mostly speaking via tablet and signing. Even when Beth’s mum died, they’d gotten through the month with three hundred and eight words spoken.

Then there was the fight, which would usually just be a lot of furious typing with a few out loud swears. But it was a bad one, they’d gotten carried away and started yelling. Before they even realized what they were doing, over a thousand words had been said.

And now Dolly’s working gruelling delivery shifts to make the money for it.

She looks at the post. In one night she could earn enough to clear the whole debt.

Dolly doesn’t do things like this though. She’s sensible; has done this job long enough to know how quickly things can go bad when you start working with contraband. On the other hand: she’s bone exhausted and can’t go on like this much longer. It’s only once.

Dolly can almost feel the toxicity increase as she gets on the motorway headed into the town. It’s viscous, suffocating. It’s in her head: it’s not actually possible to tell by breathing alone. But it feels true regardless.

As she arrives at her destination, she finds two men chatting. Out loud. With no concern whatsoever for the number of words they’re saying. Must be stinking rich. Whatever she’s carrying is definitely illegal and probably worth a mint.

She hands over the packages without a word, doesn’t even take out her tablet.

“How are you? It’s a long trek up here, fancy coming in for a drink?”

Dolly shakes her head no.

“Look, it’s just it’s a hard time getting people to make these deliveries, we were going to ask if you’d be interested in repeat business.”

She picks up her tablet, writes: at this pay-scale, can’t be too hard.

“Would you like to know what you’re delivering?” He rips open the package before she can refuse.

She catches sight of it before she can look away. Medicine bottles. Filled with Speak-free.

Junk. The wares of snake-oil salesmen.

She’s met with a smirk.

“We don’t speak aloud because we’re rich. We speak aloud because our vocal cords aren’t artificial. We don’t have a Cord bill.”

‘Speak-free doesn’t work.’

“Yeah. The people charging everyone for usage of their artificial cords have spent a lot of money ensuring everyone believes that.”

Dolly starts making regular trips delivering Speak-free. She doesn’t know if she believes in it. But the money is good. The more she sees of the people taking it, the more she sees that these people aren’t rich. They’re just ordinary. And yet, they speak with such reckless abandon. There’s really no explanation. Especially considering the air is at its most toxic here. Organic vocal cords can’t survive this environment. There’s only one conclusion: the drugs work.

‘You’re having your vocal cords removed?!’ Beth accompanies her words with several incredulous emojis.

‘Only the artificial ones.’

‘Yes, because vocal cord recovery is real and dinosaurs never existed and the earth is flat.’

‘What’s the harm, it’s not like we can even afford to use them, let’s call it a precautionary measure.’

‘You’re not going to change your mind.’

‘No.’

“I love you.” Three pounds.

“I love you too.” Seven pounds total.

The days following the removal are a nightmare. Her voice a scrapping together of whispering squawks and mewls, nothing close to words. She takes her Speak-free diligently and watches Beth’s happy smile and sad eyes.

Days turn into weeks. She begins to think she’s done something incredibly stupid. She keeps taking the pills. What else is there to do?

Twenty-six days later, Dolly wakes up and says a croaky, “Hi.”

“Would you like to quit the simulation?”

“Why do you keep saying that? What the fuck are you talking about?!” Lia immediately regrets snapping at her husband. It’s just that, ever since her father passed away last week, he keeps asking the same question. And surely, if anyone is going to lose their mind over the loss, it should be her.

Evan sighs, sitting down opposite her. “You remember how we met?”

“Of course. You had that dumb, broken, machine that was supposed to provide virtual reality experiences.”

“It wasn’t broken.”

Lia laughs. “Well it sure as fuck didn’t do anything.”

“Lia… that whole thing: you getting out of the machine, thinking nothing had happened, that was part of the simulation. Everything since then has been part of the simulation.”

“No. You’re kidding right? This isn’t funny.”

“It’s true.”

She rises hurriedly, backing away. Her heart pounding. “Let me out! Let me out NOW!”

Evan lifts his hands, placating. “Okay, okay.”

Lia wakes. The machine has left spots of pain on her. The room holds the barely-there familiarity of a place she only saw once three years ago, yet remembers because she met someone important there. She’s sitting in the machine. Evan is climbing out of an identical machine beside her.

She’s been in a simulation for three years. It’s dizzying. What happened in the last three years and what was before that? What’s real and what’s imagined? Is she considered missing, is anyone looking for her? Her entire marriage, her entire relationship, is fake. Tears begin to form, she blinks to stop them. Pushes her hurt into anger.

“You stole three years of my life. Why?”

Gesturing at the machine, Evan says, “It makes it seem like longer. It’s only been three hours.”

“Why did you do this to me?”

“It’s one of the services we provide: we help people out of bad situations. Your friend, who got you the tickets, she paid me to get you away from your abusive boyfriend.”

“And pretending to be married to me was part of that?”

“No. I fell in love with you.”

Lia rests her face in her hands. “I can’t deal with this right now. I need to be alone. I need to get some sleep. And think.”

“Alaistair is outside. He’s waiting for you.”

Her entire insides clench. Fuck. It’s only been three hours. Fuck. The pain isn’t from the machine. It’s from the bruises that are yet to fade. “Get rid of him. Tell him to leave.”

“What do you mean she’s not coming out? What have you done to her?” Alaistair yells.

She can’t hear what Evan’s saying, but can clearly hear every word of protest from her ex.

“Let me back there.”

He’s not going to leave. Lia stands, grits her teeth, and walks through the door. And, regressing instantly, finds herself staring at the floor. She forces her head up, even though it feels like staring into the sun. “Listen, this is over, we’re over.”

Alaistair frowns. “What are you talking about babe? Has he been filling your head with nonsense shit? Remember, you can’t be listening to other people; you’re so gullible, you know you can only trust me.”

“I’m hearing your words and I cannot believe this used to work on me.”

“Come on, you know how much I love you, more than anyone has ever loved you.”

Lia rolls up her left sleeve, holding up her bruise-addled arm. “This. Is. Not. Love.”

“You know I’m only trying to make you better. Once you’re better, it will all be good and I won’t have to hurt you anymore.”

“We’re done. I’m not going with you. Leave.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” He moves to grab her.

A security guard she hadn’t even noticed steps between them. “Sir, you can leave of your own volition, or we can drag you. It’s up to you.”

Alaistair snarls, but walks out.

A sudden revelation. “Dad’s alive.”

“Yes.”

Heady, joyful, relief fills her. “I need to see him.”

She should probably get a cab, but lets Evan drive her. The distance feels eternal. And suffocating. She starts looking for a hotel on her phone.

“You can stay with me,” Evan says.

“Our whole relationship is a lie.”

“No it isn’t. I love you and you love me. That’s real.”

“You lied to me the entire time and you were in control the entire time.”

“I was in no more control than you were. You had all the freedom you have in the real world.”

“If that was true, then I would’ve left Alaistair in the real world and putting me through all this was unnecessary.”

“That’s not how it works, it’s kind of like lucid dreaming, some part of your subconscious is aware that it’s not real and it gives people the chance to explore things they wouldn’t in the real world.”

“I might have left. You don’t know.”

“Yeah. You might have. But you stayed four years, and he broke your bones, and you never so much as filed a police report.”

“Fuck you. You knew nothing you did in there would have any consequences.”

“Quite the opposite actually. Every single thing I did mattered, because it determined whether the greatest love of my life would love me back, would stay, in spite of all this.”

She shakes her head. “If you really loved me, you would have told me the truth. You would’ve ended the simulation.”

“Generally, if people are in the simulation for fewer ‘years’ than the bad relationship, they end up going back to the relationship. And I’d rather you hate me than risk you going back to that fucker.”

Lia can’t tell if the words are genuine or a manipulation tactic. She wonders at her propensity for men who like control. It’s entirely possible she’s still in the simulation.

Lia stands in front of her father, stares for an age: taking in the colour in his face, the wrinkles in motion, the animation. She wants to hug him, but he’ll just call her weak.

“I love you dad.”

“Ooh, what’s brought this on then?”

“Nothing.” She stares at him a moment longer, and then says, “Goodbye.”

She doesn’t want to stay and sour things again. She’s done what she came for.

She lays in her random hotel bed that night, thinking instead of sleeping. She’s alone. Alaistair isolated her. She hasn’t seen her friends in years. All the work she did to regain those friendships isn’t real. And all the new friendships she made, none of those people are even real. There’s a sharp ache of loss at that. Is it crazy to grieve people who never actually existed?

“I’m going to go to Alaistair’s while he’s at work and get my stuff. Will you come with me?”

“Of course,” Evan says.

“Don’t get any ideas about things being okay with us. I just don’t want to go alone. And I don’t have anyone.”

“You have me. You’ll always have me. Even if it’s just as a friend.”

“Hmm.”

It’s bizarre going back to a room she hasn’t been in for three years, but was in yesterday. Her make-up is all the muted tones Alaistair prefers. Her clothes: all long sleeves to hide bruises, no skirts, no dresses.

She breathes, in and out, just like her therapist taught her to. Another thought occurs.

“It was fake therapy! You had me going to a fake therapist! That is beyond–”

“She’s real. We have a therapist on staff, she enters simulations when needed.”

“Oh. Okay. Okay.” Breathing isn’t working. She falls to her knees. Large hiccup-sobs escape.

Evan wraps his arms around her. She lets him. She cries and cries and cries.

He keeps holding her long after she stops.

“I’m right back at square one. I have to rebuild everything. I can’t do this again. I can’t.”

“You’re the strongest person I know. And you’re not at square one. I remember at the beginning, you kept wanting to go back to Alaistair, can you even imagine doing that now? You’ve changed so much and you’ve seen what you can do.”

Lia finds a nice place to rent. She starts her overtures into friendship with Cami, the one who bought her the virtual reality experience tickets. It turns out all her old friends want to see her. The meet up is awkward: she has difficulty recalling which things she knows are true and which things were part of the simulation. But she agrees to a second meet up and a third, and things are slowly getting easier.

Applying for jobs is a mind-fuck. She has no favourite lie to avoid telling them that the gap is due to her abusive ex not wanting her to work.

And she goes on a first date with her husband.

“So, tell me about yourself?” Lia asks, the words are light; holding only a tinge of bitterness.

“The stuff you know, that’s the real me.”

“Except for your job.”

He nods, sheepish. “Yeah, except for my job.”

“So tell me about that, how does it work?”

“We give people a look at the possibilities: we help addicts, people in jobs they don’t want, or relationships they don’t want. Some clients want to have weeks to study for an exam they have the next day, or learn a language. And some just want to spend a month partying. Sometimes, it’s dying people who want a little more time.”

“Wow. It’s crazy that your place isn’t more well known.”

“We keep under the radar; wouldn’t want the government to take it to use as a weapon. Think of what they could do, the tortures they could create, with a hundred years in a night.”

“The machine can do more than a year an hour?”

“Yeah. The limit is more what the human brain can withstand. We estimate twenty years in an hour would kill. The highest we ever tested was fifteen years in an hour and the guy is still receiving rehabilitation from it.”

One day she looks out her bedroom window and sees Alistair standing below. He’s found her. Her chest is tight. Lia pauses before opening the window; struck with the irrational fear that he’ll somehow leap all the way up just to get to her.

“You need to leave. I don’t want to see you.”

“Come on baby, I just want to talk to you. You know you belong with me.”

“If you don’t leave I’ll call the police.”

“You are going to come down here right now and talk to me or you’re not going to like what I’ll do.”

She slams the window shut.

The police do nothing. Evan comes to stay with her so she’s not alone.

Loud banging startles her. Alaistair is at the door. Fuck. He must’ve followed someone to get into the building. Evan left for the first time in days, to run some errands. Alaistair must’ve been watching. Lia knows she shouldn’t still be here. But she didn’t want to move again, didn’t want to let her ex rob her of another home.

The pounding isn’t letting up. How long before the door breaks? She calls the emergency services. The lady tells her they’ll be there soon. She hides under the bed, clutching the phone like it will save her.

She hears the door slam open. Bites her lip to keep silent. Still as the dead.

“If you come out here now, we can talk about this like adults and your punishment won’t even be that bad.”

His steps are on the stairs, doors opening, clattering around. Closer and closer.

She wants to cry, bites down on a knuckle.

The bedroom door opens. Don’t look. Don’t look. Don’t look.

He looks under the bed. Eyes meet. Predator and prey. She scrambles out, away.

He catches her arm. He’s holding a knife.

“You’re mine. Only mine.”

Lia struggles. “Don’t. Don’t do this. Let’s talk, you wanted to talk.”

The knife presses against her throat. “Too late for that now. This is all your fault. I keep telling you. You need to learn how to behave.”

“Police. Hands up!”

“I’m going to kill him,” Evan says. The tone is wrong: not angry, words stated like a fact.”

“Are you serious?”

“They’ve already let him out. He’s not going to stop. Unless someone stops him.”

Lia stares. Alaistair is going to kill her. Be the predator or be the prey. “Okay.”

“I’ll figure out a plan.”

“Wait. He hurt me for so long. I don’t want him to die. I want him to suffer.”

“What do you have in mind?”

Alaistair wakes in a place of endless grey as far as the eye can see. “Where the fuck am I?”

Lia is suddenly in front of him. “This is a simulation. You’re going to be alone in here for a few centuries.”

“We’re approaching the nebula.”

“Oh, okay.”

“It’s completely safe now, there are safeguards, and we’re only going to be inside for a bit.”

“I know. I know. It’s more of a respect thing, a memory thing, that we don’t go through.”

“You don’t look like it’s just a memory thing.”

“Okay, maybe a bit of healthy superstition too.”

“Tell me a story.”

“What?”

“Come on, it will take your mind off of it.”

“This isn’t synaesthesia.”

The interviewer keeps his mid-nose and right-nose still, but the left nose twitches, giving him away, “We know this might be a little out of the wheel-house of a typical synaesthesia expert, which is why we asked you to interview for this position. We figured you would be up for the challenge.”

“Isn’t there someone else more suitable for this, a linguistics expert maybe?”

“We already have a linguist. But there isn’t exactly a field of study for beings who speak with sounds.”

“Hmm. Thank you for the opportunity, but I’m unable to accept.”

“This is not the sort of opportunity people turn down.” The interviewer reeks of desperation.

“I think plenty of people already have turned it down. No synaesthesia expert in their right mind would risk crossing the Castron nebula for something which isn’t even related to our field. Many of our kind died investigating the strange place which made people see sounds and hear colours, and scores more lost their minds. The general populace may have forgotten. But we have not. Even the youngest in our field know the haunting stories, know to be wary and respectful.”

“How about if I increase the credits on offer by fifty percent?”

“Tell me about these beings. How do they mainly communicate? Their language can’t be very sophisticated if it’s through sounds.”

“On the contrary, they have hundreds of different languages, all with thousands of words.”

“Thousands of words?! Made with only sounds?”

“Yes, they have the ability to hear minute differences in sounds which allow this. I’m sure if you told them we have sophisticated language comprised only of smells, they would be just as disbelieving.”

“Increase the credits by two hundred percent and I will accept.”

“That’s preposterous.”

“Not really.”

All three of the interviewer’s noses are twitching now. “A one hundred percent increase.”

“It’s a deal.”

“And we’re inside the nebula. So you took this post for the money?” the linguist asks.

“Yes and no. From all the information gathered, I suspect there are members of this species who also suffer from synaesthesia. Imagine it, the chance to study the experience in a completely different species and compare it to our own.”

“What a hustler.”

“All part of the game… I can see shapes.”

“What?”

“The engine sounds are making shapes.”

“Funny. You’re very funny. The safeguards would stop it.”

“I’m not kidding.”

“Checking safeguards. They’re in full working order.”

The sounds are shapes. The smells are sounds. The colours are smells. It’s very disorienting, and yet orienting. A chance to experience what he’s been looking at from the outside all this time.

The nebula speaks. This is your home. This is where you belong. We are your brethren. Join us.

It feels true. It feels right. He’s floating. He sees- smells -his body dead-eyed.

The linguist is shaking him. “Come back. Come back.”

An almost forgotten thought. He has a purpose, a reason, a mission. He floats back.

“I can’t hold on.”

“We’re almost out. Just focus on me. There are intriguing facets of their languages. They have these things called names.”

“Names.”

“Yeah, they each have an individual one they’re called by.”

“I can hear you. Your words are sounds.”

“Just thirty more units ‘til we’re at the outer edge.”

“And all the names are different?”

“Some of them are the same.”

“That seems confusing… I’m not going to make it.”

“Only ten more units. I guess it works for them.”

He feels himself begin to float away.

“And we’re out.”

He crashes back down, slumping in relief. “Way too close. Should’ve respected the stories.”

The buzzer sounds. The small light goes green. Neresse sits up, wiping the sleep from her eyes. She folds up her mat and blanket and puts them away in the chest. The customers don’t like the idea of her sleeping here. They like to think of it as a display case and not a cell. And Master always gives the customers what they want. She brushes her hair and climbs onto her stool, plastering on a smile. Neresse learned long ago that it’s best to do what Master wants.

The doors open slowly for a dramatic reveal, horns blaring- too loud even from where she is at the other end of the hall.

“Welcome,” Master bellows, “To the greatest creature collection in the galaxy!”

“How classless,” a man in Idrin robes says.

“It’s true. But don’t take my word for it, come see!”

Master leads the customers through the hall.

“Here we have the last surviving royal of Datra five.”

Said royal sits impassive.

Neresse watches closely, as always learning all she can. Not about her fellow slaves, she learned all there was to know about the older ones decades ago, and the newer ones she already knows what she needs to. She watches the customers, learns their ticks and nuances, their cultures and morals, their desires and disgusts.

The Idrin man furrows his lip, a sign of excitement amongst those people. Another man, wearing a Cacturus necklace, presses his hands to the glass. Most wouldn’t be able to see the chain from where she is, but Neresse has better eyesight than most species’. A lady, has her hair done in an Acodoi style, but she clearly isn’t Acodoi from her discomfort with it.

Next is the Gorus. There’s a long stare at the enemy: the customers know, if the war fates had sung differently, it may be them in the box. Master guides them past and any introspection is quickly forgotten as they take in a rare survivor of the Estrin system.

Ignoring Master’s repetitive spiel, as they go from cell to cell, she focuses on every aspect of the customers’ body language, even the tiniest twitch.

Any small detail may help her later.

“And now, the jewel of my collection…” Master says as they approach her.

Neresse sits poised, smile perfect.

“…The last elf in existence.”

“Impossible!”

“They’re surely extinct!”

“This must be a fake!”

Neresse says nothing. Master says nothing. They wait.

The customers all know, can clearly see for themselves. She’s the real deal.

Then come the gasps. The whispers. The astonishment. Nothing new.

“Can I touch her?” asks the Acodoi hair-styled woman.

“I’ll have to charge you extra.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

The cage door opens. Normally Neresse would be concentrating on not flinching, now she’s too busy hiding her excitement. After all these years of learning, of preparation, this may be the day it all pays off.

The woman’s fidgeting has left two hair pins stuck in her blouse. Usually irrelevant, the locks on their cells can’t be picked with mere pins. Acodoi metals however, have different properties.

Neresse holds out her arm elegantly, ensuring she has all of their rapt attention, before sliding her other hand around, deft, silent. She has to bite her tongue to hold her reaction as her fingers pull the pins free.

She waits until nightfall before sliding the pin into the lock. The buzzer starts trilling, she’s ready for it though, rigs it with a mechanism from a watch she stole a year ago. With the help from a couple more of her pilfered keepsakes, she’s out.

Her younger self, freshly captured and unknowing of the way of things, may have run for the front door- to escape. But now she knows, there’s no escape from men like Master, except for one.

Neresse creeps through corridors and up the stairs.

A stair creaks. She freezes. She can see a guard. He can’t see her. Yet.

Her heart thuds. She wants to cry. She wants to scream.

He searches, but only briefly, before turning back.

Neresse keeps climbing, until she reaches Master’s bedroom.

She takes a hunters knife off of the wall. The knife used to catch many of her fellow slaves. Though unlikely after all this time, she pretends it’s also the knife used to capture her.

Kismet.

She slits Master’s throat.

Once the ship reaches a sensible coasting speed of fifty light years per hour and everything seems to be running in a stable fashion, the captain goes to check their supplies. They hadn’t been allowed access to check before-hand and they’ve got suspicions as to why. Opening the boxes labelled suits, their hunch is confirmed: there’s no real protective gear.

They are going to a water planet. The place has oceans filled with the stuff, and even on land, the rain is water. The sentient species on the planet, is mainly water, can spit water and has water flowing into their homes at the opening of a tap.

They had been assured that they would have appropriate protection for this.

Budget cuts had been running rampant and they’d heard rumours of poor, unimportant, infantrymen, like the ones on this ship, being used for canon-fodder. To gain intel and measure the planets reaction to a conquering force. But this wasn’t just going into battle without sufficient armour, this was going to a place which could burn them to death if the skies opened up suddenly.

The stuff in the box is okay for lab-work using water, but is definitely not enough for what these soldiers are going to face.

It turns this into a suicide mission.

There are those who would say they should blindly carry out their orders regardless. The captain is not one of those people. They refuse to throw away all of their peoples’ lives so carelessly.

There are also those who would say the captain must be the one who makes the decision on what to do next: that is the burden of their station. This is a notion they spend some time thinking on. They decide to hold a vote. After all, it’s everyone’s lives which will be affected.

They gather their people in the main atrium and lay out the options. They can’t go home: they would be killed as deserters. One option is to run: they would still be hunted as deserters, and would be looking over their shoulders their entire lives waiting to be found. The other down-side is how it affects the loved-ones back home: they would lose any benefits and pensions they were due and would be cast out as deserter-kin. The other option is to complete the mission.

They look at their people. There are many grim stone-faces, some teary-eyed. The youngest, not even of age yet, a child really, has tears running down their cheeks.

Wiping them away, the kid says, “I heard the beings on that planet cry tears of water.”

“They get burns every time they cry?” the soldier beside them says, before realising their mistake.

They all know. It’s a nightmarish thought: these water creatures, drinking and swimming and thriving with water.

In the end, the decision is made to complete the mission. Too many are worried about their families to do otherwise.

They set out a feast, trying to lighten the mood, knowing the food likely won’t be needed for a return journey. Some laughter, some joy, is managed.

But as they approach their destination, a sombre silence takes hold.

They stare in awe at the planet: terrifyingly blue.

Mary stares at the house. It’s in poor condition, so it looks a bit spooky. The door creaks loudly as she opens it. The smell of damp is pungent. The walls are riddled with cracks and peeling paint. There are stains- likely mould. The couch’s stuffing is visible. And as she takes a few steps, Mary finds herself on unstable ground: the wood- soft and bouncy- ready to give way.

Oh well. It’s hers now.

It would be sensible to get the place fixed up and sold. But she’s too heavy with grief-addled exhaustion.

The stairs groan at every step and all the banister’s varnish has worn away. She finds a bed and curls up on it.

There are scratching sounds, maybe rats. She remains still. Usually she would be running from the place- refusing to return before the exterminators, but now she can’t muster the energy to care.

The sounds get louder, too loud for rodents, and she wonders if the ceiling will collapse on top of her. At least then this will all be over.

Mary doesn’t know how she feels. The word numb seems incomplete and inadequate.

She just wants to lay here.

Mary reluctantly turns her phone back on. She can’t take dealing with the messages. But she doesn’t want someone to get worried enough to take a two hour train ride down here.

There are yet more condolences. How are they still coming in? Expressions of sympathy and concern. Loved ones urging her to come home: telling her hiding away isn’t good, that she needs support.

She doesn’t. She needs to be alone. She can’t take any more platitudes or sad eyes or people saying her dad is in a better place. Not to mention the one asshole who said she can’t love him that much because she hasn’t even cried. She doesn’t have the strength to get dressed and put on fake smiles.

She replies to only a few of the texts, until it saps all she has. She turns the phone back off.

Mary winces as she bumps into the furniture for the third time. It’s almost like it’s moving into her way. And she could’ve sworn the wood was perfectly smooth before it gave her a splinter. She’s clearly in too much of a haze, she needs to pay better attention.

The floorboards, firm beneath her feet, give way. She collapses, twisting her ankle.

Tears spring to her eyes and she takes a deep breath, staring in disbelief at the small crooked hole. The shape doesn’t quite make sense for a natural break.

And the groaning sounds coming from seemingly nowhere have increased in volume.

She dreams of her dad often. And she thinks maybe if she never wakes, she can stay with him forever.

She knows her dad would want her to do the place up, but she still doesn’t have the energy.

The calls from work turn from understanding to faux sympathetic- with insinuations that it’s been long enough and she should be back. She quits.

She sits on the floor and screams and cries and cries and cries. She can’t do this. She can’t. She can’t.

The walls start seeping red paint. Then the smell hits her: blood.

She’s seeing things. She scrolls through her texts, someone had sent her a grief therapists number. She was planning to ignore it. But she can’t go on like this.

The therapist turns out shitty and just tells her grief is normal. That it hasn’t been that long.

But the world expects her to be back to normal by now and she has no idea how to do that.

After pulling maybe the hundredth splinter from her hand, Mary decides to at least sand down the banister. She adds the necessary items to the next delivery order.

Sanding the banister feels unreasonably good. She’s done something. She’s been able to do something.

Maybe she’ll be okay now.

The next day the banister springs up new splinters like magic, wilder and gargantuan.

Mary decides to paint the walls. She doesn’t feel up to it. But she has to, she has to keep moving forward.

She keeps trying to recapture the feeling of things improving, but it doesn’t come.

Part of the floor rises, pushing her over. Blood seeps out of the walls again, this time spelling out one word:

Leave.

Mary suddenly remembers her dad telling her this place was haunted. It was only one time and she’d immediately filed it away as something ridiculous to be forgotten.

Maybe some of the weird shit in this place isn’t just grief.

She should probably clean the blood off of the wall. Instead she just goes to bed.

She wakes with a start. Heart hammering in her chest at a loud bang. It’s the window slamming open. It slams shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut.

Mary rushes out of the room. She holds her hands to the wall as the floorboards shift violently beneath her feet.

She gasps as the boards reach higher. She trips, tumbling down the stairs.

She splays on the floor, in shock. Takes a breath. And another. Nothing really hurts. Some bruises maybe.

Mary stands tentatively, gripping the banister. The downstairs windows start slamming open and closed. The heavy front door bangs open. She flinches. It stays in place, beckoning her out.

Blood seeps out of the wall.

Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave. Leave.

“I’m not leaving!” She screams at the wall. “This is my house. It’s probably the only place I’ll ever be able to own. My dad gave me this house. He gave me everything. He never got to do anything: he never went out to eat or to the cinema, he never did anything that cost any money. All for me, all so he could give me the best opportunities, so I could make something of my life. And I have nothing to show for it. He gave up everything for me, and what was the fucking point? He never got to see me do anything with my life. I have nothing. But he left me this. And this is something. This is the only thing. I’m staying.”

The house quietens.

The banister no longer gives her splinters and the floor no longer shifts beneath her feet. And the next time she starts to paint, words form on the wall not in blood, but in the eggshell yellow she’s using.

Don’t. I don’t want to change. I’m me.

Mary sighs and puts down the brush. “Okay. I guess we’re both broken.”

She convinces the house to let her change some of the old furniture. But then she ends up staring endlessly at the couch, thinking about all the time her dad spent sitting there, all the things he did there, all the life he lived there. And she decides to keep things as they are.

Mary takes a breath and turns her phone on. Many people have stopped bothering to contact her. But some are still trying:

Please can you call. And I’m just worried about you. And can I come visit. And I just want to help. And most irritating: You’re not okay, you know this, you can’t even leave the house.

Which is not true. She could leave the house, if she wanted to. It’s just a lot, so much needs to be done, and she just doesn’t have the energy at the moment.

She lays down on the floor and the house warms the boards beneath her.

There’s no signal. She moves around the house: nothing. Her phone has never had this problem here before. She turns to the wall. “Did you do this?”

The letters appear in bright yellow: It always makes you unhappy.

Mary snorts. “Yeah, I suppose it does.” She shuts the phone away in a drawer.

Mary starts spending her days sitting against the wall, talking to it. It feels good to speak without expectation, about nothing or about everything. Sometimes they exchange stories about her dad. Sometimes they talk about the weather. Sometimes she sits silently, palm pressing into the wall, letting it warm her.

She likes to pretend it’s knitting her back together, even if it isn’t.

Mary wakes to the house groaning louder than it has in ages. She runs to the wall.

“What’s happening?”

I’m breaking apart. You need to leave.

“No. I’ll help. I’ll stop it. What do I need to do?” She presses against the wall as though she could hold it up.

A beam falls.

I can’t stop it. It’s too late. I’m collapsing. It’s over.

“It’s not. I can help.”

The groaning has increased to wretched screams.

The floor begins pushing her, careful but insistent, towards the door.

Two more beams fall.

Get out. Get out. Run.

“Stop that.” She grips the door frame, refusing to budge.

You’ll die.

She can feel it against her hands and feet. The whole thing is moments away from coming down.

“I’m staying.”

There’s a song written on the walls. We hold our paper to it. To gain an indent: a hollow impression. We kneel before it, trying to twist our tongues into the shapes it makes. It does tell; we must, we must, we must.

It is the only path. The words a place, a time, a reverence. It must be followed. We bow our heads, and chant. The path must be followed. The path must…

The path…

We have forgotten the words again. We stand nearer to the wall. Try pressing our eyes to the inlay. We know the words but do not know them also. There’s the bit about a path again. What is a path? How does one follow it?

Is this the story on the wall? No, it’s another story, on another wall, about a story on the wall. Written in a time when paths existed. How can we follow paths that no longer exist? The only answer: We must, we must, we must.

There is so much grey now. Didn’t there used to be trees and grass and people? It’s all disappearing, space contracting. What’s happening? We must follow the path, it will all be okay if we follow the path. But we can’t see it. Follow it better, follow it closer.

We must follow the path, or die.

It’s all grey. It’s always been like this. There has only ever been this small number of us. The song on the wall is missing some words. It’s old. We must look closer, we must follow.

“Can you hear us? Your path is caught in a feedback loop.”

“We must follow the path.”

“No. You’re trapped. You need to get off the path. The system is degrading. It will cease functioning soon.”

We wake in a strange place. But there is no us. Someone is screaming. It’s us. We are screaming.

“It’s okay. You’re safe here. Get me a sedative!”

“Where is us. Where is us. Where is us.”

“Just rest.”

“Where is us!”

“People were dying, we had to forcefully disconnect you from your virtual reality.”

“Where is us?”

“The hive-mind only existed because of that reality. Here you’re an individual.”

No. No. No. No. There is no we. There is no us. We are alone.

There is only crying. We can’t do this. We don’t know how. What will we do. We will die here.

“Hi, how are you feeling, you seem a little better today.”

Are we better? We aren’t crying. We just stare until they go away.

“How are you today?”

“We’re okay.”

“That’s good. I thought today we could work on deciding on a name for yourself.”

A name, do we want a name? Then we will truly no longer be an us. Us will be gone. Us is already gone. We need to survive here.

“Okay.”

There are an endless number of names, meaningless words on a page.

How do we choose? Who are we? What do we do? We can’t do this. We want to go back to the path. We want to go back to the song wall. We want to go back to us. None of those exist anymore.

We throw the book on the floor.

“We have… I have chosen a name.”

“Good. That’s good. Listen, I think you’re ready to move to outpatient care.”

“What? No. We can’t… I can’t do this alone. I’m not strong enough.”

“I think you’re underestimating yourself. And you won’t be alone, we’ll always be here.”

It turns out I am strong enough. It’s exhausting though. For every tiny new thing, I think, I’m not strong enough for this. But I do it anyway. I hope if I keep doing this, at some point, I'll no longer have to think I’m not strong enough every five minutes.

We are doing okay. We have started referring to ourselves as we again. It makes the most sense for us, it’s the most comfortable. It’s the most true. We still think we are not strong enough, but it happens less often.

We still feel the ache of loss. But we are building anew. We are making new friends. It’s hard. But we keep trying.

We are not alone.

Xtrzza increases the zoom on her contact lenses, but that doesn’t change what’s happening in the incubation chamber: nothing.

“Have you tried using arti-soil?”

She startles. “You shouldn’t be in here.”

Zorta shrugs, doodling on some scrap paper. They both know Xtrzza won’t kick her out.

“And artificial soil is okay for gardening, but I’m trying to bring a long-dead fruit back to life.” Xtrzza measures out another two milligrams of grow-sand, carefully adding it to the chamber.

“Well, it looks like your plooms aren’t going to happen any time soon. You should take a rest.”

“Plums. They were called plums.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I’ll stop when my contacts need to recharge.”

Xtrzza wakes under a soft blanket, with a bowl of her favourite soup in front of her. The warmth inside her sings at the signs of Zorta’s care. She blinks when she sees her friend. “Did you stay here all night?”

“Is that weird?”

She walks up to Zorta, and cups her cheek with her fingers. “We’ve been lingering here so long.”

Zorta chuckles, eyes alight. “Yes. I wondered if you would wake the dead first.”

Xtrzza leans forward, pressing their lips together.

She walks into her new lab, Zorta holding her hand firmly. It’s much smaller than her old lab. The designation change due to the lack of progress. Everyone kept looking at her with pity. Zorta didn’t.

“Thank you.”

“I’m just standing here.”

“This will work. I can still do the work.”

Xtrzza fiddles idly with the bed’s temp control. It’s one of those too-hot, but too-cold days.

Zorta sits up. “You’re thinking about your plooms again.”

“Sorry.”

“Tell me. I want to know your thoughts.”

“It would be easier if I could grow a tree.”

“So grow a tree.”

“It would take too much time. And they’re already preparing to give up on the project.”

“Grow a tree anyway.”

It’s almost like starting from scratch. She spends weeks researching different bio-tech sands. She grows trees, or rather, small aborted twig things.

“Spooky little corpses,” Zorta says when Xtrzza moves the failed experiment into their newly shared home.

“I find the paintings worth a king’s ransom hanging on the walls much scarier.”

“Pish. These are just my doodles. They are worth nothing.”

She raises an eyebrow. “How much did your last piece sell for again?”

They briefly consider having the wedding beside the tree: almost as tall as them now. But decide it will distract too much. Everyone is fascinated by this thing she’s created. She has all the acclaim that comes with such a success. They’ve also given her big lab back, which is frankly more important.

The tree bears no fruit.

The baby is a tiny scrunched up thing.

“We should call her Rose,” Zorta says.

“Rose?”

“It’s a flower that used to grow in the time of your plums. People often named their children after it.”

“That sounds wonderful. Hello Rose.”

The tree dies.

They take away the lab.

Rose moves so fast. How can someone so small get from one end of the room to the other in a blink. Maybe this will be her life now, looking after this amazing little girl.

But the call is relentless. “I want to build my own lab, here.”

Zorta sighs. “Za, I don’t like seeing you disappointed.”

“I need to do this.”

The second tree is fruitless. And so is the third.

Rose sits and draws while Xtrzza works and it reminds her of those early days with Zorta. She wonders if the girl will have her mother’s passion or if it will be only a childhood thing. She thinks the talent is there, bias or no.

“You need to slow down.”

“What?”

“I need you. Rose needs you. You’ve missed every one of her plays this year.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m just at a crucial point.”

“No. It’s always been like this.”

“And you used to believe in me.”

“I do believe in you. I just don’t believe in what you’re doing. No one does. You’re not working in a lab, you’re working in a fancy shed. And our daughter has nowhere to run because there are trees everywhere.”

She stares, tears stinging her eyes. This has clearly been building for a while. She’s at a loss. “I’ll be in my shed.”

“Za…”

The sixth tree grows things which are, supposedly, fruit. They’re inedible grey-blue spheres.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’m leaving.”

She stares at her wife, knowing she should say she’ll change, knowing it would be lie. She’s so tired. “Okay.”

“I’m taking Rose with me.”

She wants to fight. Instead she says, “Okay.”

A lab half a continent away is successfully growing cherries.

Xtrzza checks herself into a mental health facility. She spends too many hours talking about her drive, all of the sacrifices her parents made for her, all of the need to achieve, to succeed.

She rests. She heals.

She paints what she imagines a bowl of plums would look like, and sends it to Zorta.

Zorta comes to visit. They talk as friends. And watch Rose play.

“It’s done. There’s no more to do. The race is over.”

“Someone made plums?”

“No, cherries.”

“I heard about the cherries. They’re not plums.”

“Now that the methodology exists, someone will make plums soon enough.”

“And after all this, you have no interest in that someone being you?”

“I’m not needed.”

“Oh, so just because it’s not impossible anymore, you don’t want to try?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Go make plums!”

She bites into the plum. The juice runs down over her hands and wrists and lips. The burst of flavour is wild: strong and sweet, and soft on her tongue. A true forbidden fruit, too wondrous to survive.

Watch on YouTube

“Are you okay?” Alice calls. The man is just standing there, and this deep in the forest there’s a good chance he’s lost.

The man starts walking towards her. She freezes.

He’s wrong.

Run.

The word trills, insistent, from her gut. Alice can’t move.

He’s only thirty metres away from her now.

His features could be human, his eyes aren’t far apart enough to be considered disfigured, and she’s definitely known people with lips that thin. His paleness doesn’t stretch the imagination, nor does the length of his limbs. But the whole combination, some ancient part of her knows, is other.

Fuck, she’s staring. She averts her gaze slowly.

The being’s twenty metres away from her.

Alice needs to run. But what if this being is too fast, too strong. She can’t afford to provoke it. Her heart races. Run. Stay. Run. Stay. Run. Stay.

She stays.

Ten metres.

It smiles, wide. Its many teeth are sharp and long.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She’s going to be eaten. She turns to run, sees it in her periphery.

Five metres.

She trips, falls, curls up, squeezing her eyes shut.

A hand takes hers. It’s a child’s hand, small and sweet-sticky.

At a loss for what to do, she repeats, “Are you okay?”

“You’ve killed almost all of us,” the being says in a strange hiss-growl. It smiles again, showing teeth.

“I’m sorry that happened. But I didn’t. I swear I didn’t. Please don’t hurt me.”

“Your people. You.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“You will kill the rest of us.” And again the smile, the teeth.

“I can help you. Once the right people know about you, you can be classified as an endangered species: it will be against our law to hurt you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, come with me.” Alice tugs at their still joined hands.

The being stares at her. She waits, and wonders if she will be eaten after all.

“You genuinely believe this?”

“Yes. I know it will be hard. I’m willing to fight if you are.”

“I speak your tongue and you think I haven’t had this conversation before? It never ends well. This time will be no different.” The being smiles again.

Alice realizes that it isn’t really a smile; that smiles are their version of expressing sorrow.

“How can I help? I can try. What would you like me to do?”

“Leave. Leave, and do not return.”

When there are monsters in the smell of freshly mown grass,

In the ring of a phone, in the knock of a door,

When you can only hide and wait for all to pass,

Who will ever come to know your core,

One says he can see you and all you can be,

But his errant belief does suffocate,

No vigour to strive, only to flee,

You know aloneness is your fate,

One says you’re lucky he puts up with you,

As you know no one else will,

And it’s all so fucked up, but still true,

As again you freeze so painfully still,

One loves you on and on,

Through every missed call, every unopened door,

And finally you feel that you’ve won,

Until he says he can love you no more,

You shouldn’t have a child you know,

But it happens and you try every day,

To make sure the monsters in the winds that blow,

Over her hold no sway,

And though you stay in solitude,

The child grows wild and fierce and free,

And though the monsters still intrude,

You are still happy.

“Are you writing a poem?” he asks, looking over her shoulder.

She tenses, but doesn’t hide it. Her need to have him see it, in spite of everything, is perverse.

“Is that supposed to be me in the fourth stanza? I never said I couldn’t love you. I said you couldn’t love anyone.”

She shrugs, it’s the same in her mind. He was supposed to understand that she loved differently, and he didn’t.

(She’s selfish. She was raised to believe that being anything less would make her weak, pathetic and most of all unworthy. She still tries her hardest, in her own way, to be loving).

There was a time he would’ve fixated, grown that line into a cosmic betrayal, she almost misses those times when he moves to the next paragraph.

“Is this you trying to convince yourself you’re a good parent? I know we were all worried you would be too heartless and cold and harsh, but you’ve frankly overcorrected the other way.”

“Fuck you.” She briefly considers asking for a divorce, it feels like they’re ramping up towards one of their ‘let’s end it all’ phases again, but she doesn’t have the energy, especially considering they never go through with it. And likely never will. As much as they hate each other, they also love each other.

“The kid needs discipline.”

“The kid’s fine.”

(She hadn’t known how to be a loving parent, having no loving parents of her own to learn from. She's doing okay. But the thought of discipline makes bile rise in her throat: being told she looked fucking stupid when she cried, being ignored, watching her brother cower bruised and bloody. And she knows, that’s not what discipline is, but her spine knows otherwise).

“You love her, we all know you love her, she knows you love her. Teaching her how to behave doesn’t mean you love her any less, and doesn’t mean you love her flaws any less.”

She purses her lips, blinks to keep the tears in place. Swallows and swallows and swallows and says, “Okay.”

I have decided to bow out of the competition. The reason for this is that I have three strikes but am still in due to an error. I feel, that for me, the only fair thing to do is leave the competition.

I've enjoyed being in the competition with all of you and wanted to say a thank you to all of you for being wonderful.

I'll still be around, lurking in green rooms and reading entries, I may even write a home game if the mood strikes.

Farewell for now.

She sits, not really swinging, just pushing herself a few inches back and forth on the balls of her feet.

“Hi Viji!”

She stills the swing and says, “My name is Vijikala.”

“I know, silly. It’s a nickname.”

“I don’t like it.”

“No one likes nicknames, that’s the point of them.”

“Oh, okay,” she says, fingers clenching around the chains holding up her seat, the metal digs sharp into her palms. And Vijikala struggles to understand why she’s so upset. Loads of people have their names shortened, it’s not a big deal. She feels small. She is small though. But she feels more small.

*

“This is Vij.”

“It’s Vijikala,” she corrects. She’s in High School now and she’s determined to get everyone calling her by her name.

“Forget it Vij, this is your name now, no one’s going to call you that.”

She pushes down the unpleasant smallness, just as she had years ago that day on the swing and just as she has every time since. It’s okay, she’s just a kid, a nobody. When she’s older she’ll be someone big and important and will make everyone call her by her name.

“Is there something easier we can call you by, it’s kind of difficult to remember,” the interviewer says.

She shrinks in on herself, forces herself to sit back up straight, she’s too old to be angry, she’s too old to be a troublemaker, she’s too old to rock the boat. There are bills to be paid.

“You can call me Vij.”

And she works hard, and does what everyone wants, and climbs the ladder- slowly, so slowly. Sometimes the thought pops into her head: one day I’ll be worthy of four whole syllables, not this small cowering thing, someone worth the effort, someone worth the respect, a whole name, for a whole person.

But the years go on, and she only gets smaller and smaller. Some days she can’t even remember the sound of her name.

Until one day it feels as though she’s going to be squeezed into non-existence, the pressure builds, her size demanding its space, and she towers high above, screaming,

“That’s NOT my FUCKING NAME!”

There are approaching footsteps and a too loud whisper, “Isn’t she the crazy lady who will only help if you address her by her full title?”

“Yes.”

“What is it then?”

She grins manically as they come into view.

“I am Vijikala, First of her name, The Angry One, The Troublemaker, The Rocker of Boats.”

Marcie steps into the vast lobby, the floor a shimmering pale blue, the ceiling impossibly high, the walls an artful mismatch of neon pink and forest green. There’s an unidentifiable scent in the air, almost-mint. It’s impressive.

She’s not entirely sure why she’s here. The other woman interviewing for the job had been incredibly excited by the opportunity and had seemed to know everything there was to know about The Unconventionals. While Marcie herself only knew what everyone knew: They were people with powers who weren’t heroes or villains.

“I’m Marcie Thomas, today’s my first day,” she says, tentatively stepping up to the front desk.

The receptionist gives her the brightest of smiles and leads her to a small break room and turns on a giant screen which fills an entire wall. She hasn’t even finished watching the training video before a harried man approaches,

“You’re the newbie? Good, Terry’s off sick, you can hit the ground running,” he hands her a laptop, “The database and schedule set-up is in there.” And then he’s off.

“Wait! What am I doing?”

“You’re deciding who is getting saved and in what order.”

Marcie thinks she might throw up.

Thirty minutes later she’s at a table with The Unconventional known as ‘The Clock’ (due to his complete refusal to help anyone while off the clock). She’s always thought it was a stupid name. He’s powerful and saves a lot of people and would fall solidly into the hero category if it wasn’t for his stubborn stance regarding timing.

The Clock stares at the schedule for what feels like eternity. Her watch insists it’s only three minutes.

“This is your first day right? This is good; you’ve removed the bullshit requests and redirected the stuff that needs redirecting.”

“Thanks…” to her horror, she realizes she doesn’t remember his actual name.

The Clock chuckles. “I’m Geoff. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m Marcie.”

He nods. Then points at the schedule, “Well, this is jam-packed, so I’ll get started. Keep in touch, let me know if there are any changes, sudden emergencies and such.”

Marcie nods, repeatedly and too rapidly, “Yes, yep, will do.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m on my lunch break,” Geoff says.

“Okay, that’s fair,” she stares at the long sprawling schedule, bile curdles in her stomach, her leg bounces, “How long do you take for lunch?”

“An hour.”

“Okay. Okay.” She taps her fingers against her arm.

“Ask what you’re going to ask.”

“Any chance you would cut it a little short, it’s just the list is so long.”

“Anything that doesn’t get done will get done tomorrow. You decide which ones can’t wait and put them at the top.”

Marcie opens her mouth to say nothing can wait, and then shuts it, rethinking. She takes a breath.

“Can I join you?”

Geoff sighs. “Sure.”

Marcie takes out her own sandwich, chews slowly, let’s the silence stretch to several minutes. She’s beginning to get why this job has such a high turnover. She has a question, it’s probably going to get her fired, and she needs this job, but she also needs to be able to sleep tonight,

“I heard if you’re off the clock you won’t even save someone right in front of you, is that true?”

Geoff stares off into the distance, it’s probably a question he’s been asked hundreds of times, his gaze settles back on her and he gives her a sad smile.

“I can see a hundred miles away and can hear two hundred; everything is right in front of me.”

Thinking back on that day six months ago Marcie can’t believe she’s still in this job. She thought she would be a nervous wreck by now, but it’s just the opposite. She’s calm and collected and works the schedule in the most efficient way she can.

“Happy six months,” Geoff says as she joins him for lunch.

“Thanks, surprised I lasted this long?”

Geoff grins. “Not at all.”

They eat in silence, uncharacteristically Geoff starts speaking first,

“I wanted to say, thank you for respecting my boundaries, I know how hard it can be, and I’m more thankful than you know. When I was younger I spent every minute of every day trying to save people, I would take whatever I could to keep me awake a little longer, just so I could save a few more people, I would go weeks without eating or sleeping, and then collapse and sleep for days, with a nutrition IV strapped to my nose. I can’t be the one deciding who to save, because I can never save them all.”

“Why do you want a Reset?”

Cassie’s standard response of ‘none of your business’ is on her tongue, ready to slip between her teeth, but she pauses. This is her sister asking, her posture open; her gaze sincere. Cassie has always failed at being bitter and angry towards Tanya, the true daughter, the legitimate heir. Tanya has always been too lovely for any resentment to survive her onslaught. They aren’t as close as they were during the summers they spent together as kids. And Cassie desperately wants them to be that close again. She also doesn’t want to tell the truth, because it’s pathetic. She settles on a compromise, a half-truth for a half-sister.

“Nothing as glamourous as love or money.” She smirks, self-deprecating, and picks at her sandwich- the bread is soggy.

“Hmm,” Tanya gives her a considering look, takes a long slow drink of lemonade, asks gently, “You think people wanting to go back in time and live their life over just to make more money is glamourous?”

“Most people don’t want more money to have more money. It’s about the peace of not lying awake worrying about bills. The joy of being able to help whenever someone you know is in need. The safety and security of knowing your family will be cared for.”

“Those people don’t have a shot in Hell of getting a Reset.”

“Well if they work here and they work hard to earn their place, there’s a chance,” Cassie says, the words sound foolish, too high and shrieking and delusional. She can’t have given over her life to working through lunch breaks and endless over-time and throwing away every relationship for nothing.

“We have a chance,” Tanya says, conciliatory, uses her straw to fiddle with the ice in her glass, and urges, “Tell me.”

Cassie sighs around the lump in her throat. “I don’t actually want to redo my life. I just want dad to consider me worthy enough for a Reset.”

Tanya laughs. “Same.”

Cassie stares in shock. “But…you’re the heir, surely…”

Tanya shakes her head. “Inherent worth isn’t for the likes of us.”

“Well done Cassie,” her dad says, “You’ve earned this.”

There’s a high whine in her ears and she can feel her heartbeat in her whole body. She’s getting a Reset. It’s exhilarating. It’s terrifying. She worries that Tanya will hate her. But her sister just gives her an excited hug.

Cassie settles on going fifteen years into the past, the further back someone goes the more opportunities there are, but she has no desire to relive her teens.

She steps into the machine, her insides gurgle, her skin simultaneously tears and remains intact, she’s undone and is put back together whole.

She steps out onto a familiar road. Everything seems brighter.

The process to establish her as someone who has gone through a Reset is quicker than she expects. Some standard predictions and everyone believes her.

Her father readily accepts the decision his future self made and she’s immediately thrust into the upper echelons of the company.

Tanya is lovely to her as she always was, but she becomes more ruthless towards everyone else, an accommodation towards playing a game she’s already lost. She ends up getting a divorce.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Cassie fills with guilt and regret, wants another Reset just to put things back. It’s not possible though, more than one Reset does irreparable damage to the body.

Another promotion happens, Cassie’s half convinced it’s so she has no time to sit with her guilt. With said promotion comes access to the Reset records. She stares at the list of names, bile rising in her throat.

The company line has always been that restrictions on a Reset were so that too much damage wasn’t done to the timeline. Cassie has always known it’s more to do with keeping the access amongst a few rich and powerful.

But she hadn’t understood the sheer level of devastation it wrought.

Drug barrens and mob bosses were legitimized business tycoons. Corrupt business people were presidents and prime ministers.

The world had been twisted into a much darker shape.

“Why do you want a Reset?” Cassie’s the one asking this time.

Tanya grits her teeth.

Cassie’s never been good at getting people to open up. She decides to go first. “It hasn’t been worth it.”

Tanya laughs, too harsh, too unlike the person she once was, in another life-time. “Fuck you.”

“I’m doing an interview. I’m going to reveal some stuff.”

Tanya’s eyes widen, words rush to fall out of her mouth, “I want my husband back.”

“That’s romantic.”

“It’s pathetic.”

“No. You guys are meant to be together.”

Cassie’s torn apart after the interview. They paint her as a crazy liar. And the truth is relegated to jokes and conspiracy websites.

“Help me,” she asks.

“There’s nothing I can do,” Tanya replies.

“I need another Reset. It needs to be obvious. It needs to be something they can’t ignore.”

“And you want mine?!?” There are tears in her eyes. “We’re not meant to be martyrs.”

“I’ll fix it all. It will all be okay.”

Cassie emerges in the past a second time, adorned in lesions and seeping wounds; a product of the second journey.

“I had to come, to fix something terrible from happening,” she says.

Her father nods. “Your sacrifice will be rewarded.”

She wears her scars with pride, tattooing around them with swirls of obsidian and gold, so they cannot be ignored. So she cannot be ignored.

She’s smarter this time. No interviews. Cassie works from the shadows, from the inside, adding light to the darkened world.

It may not be much, but as she watches Tanya with her husband and new-born child, she knows it was worth it.

“What’s this?” She presses her small face to the glass, pointing at the stone inside and the weird marks on it.

“It’s old English, it says America.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s what this place was called, a long, long time ago.”

“Did something bad happen?”

“Yes. A lot of bad things did happen, here and in the rest of the world also. There were dark times. But a lot of people fought, very hard, and made good things happen too. But then, after a while, the good things were undone, and the bad times came again.”

She gasps, covering her face with her hands, “And then they all died?”

They chortle. “No. New people fought very hard, and they made the good times come again.”

“So what happened to them?”

“Oh, they moved on, journeyed out into space, made homes on other planets. Nostalgia kept some here for a few thousand years, but eventually this planet was mostly forgotten.”

She bounces on her heels. “How did we get here?”

They give her a scrutinising look. “You know this part of the story.”

“Tell it anyway.”

“Our world was dying. The humans came to help us, they spent an age looking for a world that wouldn’t be toxic to us, but eventually they realized the best place would be Earth. And we have shared this world with them ever since.”

Flash, flash, flash,

Too many half-there reds, greens, blues,

Push, push, push,

Too many hands, shoulders, feet,

Loud, loud, loud,

Too many beats against her skull,

Too sticky floor,

Too hot air,

Too much, too much, too much.

Find a bathroom, close the door, breathe,

Splash, splash, splash,

Water on her face,

Cling, cling, cling,

Fingers on the sink,

I am having a good time

Having

Good

Time

Smile, smile smile,

Step back into the cacophony,

Dig fingers in arm, stare at clock, is it too soon to leave?

“Are you unhappy?”

The strobe-lights halt. The music cuts. Everyone stares.

The accusation sits heavy. Are you us? Or are you Other?

I am happy

They look into her eyes. They take her pulse. They see her sweat.

The crowd chants,

Other, other, other,

Wait. Wait. Wait: I am having a good time.

They let her go.

Smile, smile, smile,

Must stay happy ‘til the end,

Stay happy ‘til the end,

Happy ‘til the end.

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Title: With ice-cold hands taking over me

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Week 1: Someone to love you in all your damaged glory

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