by Cat Rambo
He swiveled his chair toward her, squeaking a dissonant chord against the kitchen tiles. “你怎么了?”
“Nothing,” she denied automatically.
“Nothing,” he parroted, his forehead nearly folded upon itself.
She waited. This was Rachel’s strategy, and it had better work. The silence stretched for years, punctuated by the sound of her dad emptying his bowl.
“I give you one night. Tomorrow morning you tell us what your real problem is.” Or else hung in the air. Her mom chewed silently as her brother clasped a hand over his mouth and giggled. The fatty pork belly did barrel rolls in Vivian’s stomach.
She shuffled off to her room, too queasy to do anything but lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Were her parents always awful people, Vivian wondered, or did parenthood do them in? You know how to get Asian parents off your back? Rachel had beamed. Admit to a lesser crime! Tomorrow she’d have to confess to Kevin and hope for the best.
Then again, she thought, her parents loved her, albeit in an extreme way. They never hesitated to spend time and money on the music lessons, ballet classes, you name it. Meanwhile, she wanted her potential child to meet an untimely demise. So really, who’s worse?
Her eyes drifted shut. Dear god or whoever is out there or the deterministic physical processes of nature, I’m sorry I never prayed to you until now, like that Chinese saying 临时抱佛脚. I just want it to go away. Or a sign of some sort?
What if Gabriel with his rainbow wings descended to tell her to keep the baby? She had laughed over the story with Rachel.
“I’m glad the angels told Joseph too, cause that could have been awkward.”
“What would Jesus’s DNA look like? Was his Y chromosome from God?”
She opened her eyes. No angel here. Only darkness and self-loathing.
Rachel fairly ran toward Vivian as soon as she got her graduation gown.
“I have some amazing news. Wait, did you do the polonaise strategy? Did it work?”
Vivian stuck out her tongue as they made a beeline for their lockers. “As good as expected, I guess. They banned me from using devices so I can’t message him. Had to keep a poker face when they called his parents and screamed that I must be having sex with him. Oh, and I’m super grounded for forever, of course. They’ll probably send a vid drone to watch me at Harvard.”
Rachel whistled. “No paranoia like Asian paranoia. So . . . guess that means he knows now?”
“Yeah, I have to talk to him. If he’s still alive.” She fell silent.
Rachel slid her eyes sideways at Vivian, who was looking at her graduation gown with a ferocious frown. Or, rather, the thin metal coat hanger.
. . . Oh.
“You’re not thinking about it,” she whispered.
“Hell no. Can you imagine?” Vivian shuddered.
“Good. How’s the buzzy bee?”
“Could be worse. Lots of nausea, but the amount of puking is greatly exaggerated.” She chewed on her lip. “But the renouncement message, god. Hardest assignment of high school.”
“I bet.” Rachel couldn’t imagine writing a letter to her future eighteen-year-old child. Sorry I didn’t want you, I guess.
“What’s your amazing news?”
“Oh, right. My parents are taking Peter to visit high schools Saturday. Not sure what the point is—to read the 風水 or something. I said I didn’t want to go.”
“Oh my god,” Vivian breathed. “Does that mean you have the car?” Rachel’s parents had finally converted to autotaxis, leaving their old family car gathering dust in the driveway.
“We have the car!” Rachel high-fived Vivian. “We just need to charge the battery, fake a few hours of security camera footage in our houses, reset the odometer, and make sure the fuel level doesn’t change. Oh, and finish the last three essays and collect from your cousin. Easy, right?”
“Right. Thanks.”
“Just think about the valuable life skills we’re learning. I’m sure it will come in handy for climbing up organized crime ladders.”
Vivian swatted her as they made their way to their library corner.
“What the hell, Vivian? What happened?”
Kevin was indeed still alive, having caught up to her after calculus despite her sprinting out of class to avoid him. Vivian tilted her head so her sudden tears would stay a convex coating over her eyes. Not due to the hormones, the logical part of her decided. She never cried unless she was being yelled at, and no one ever yelled at her except for her parents, so it was all Pavlovian.
She flung off his strong grip on her arm. “I got pregnant, okay?”
“Fuck! But we were careful!” He looked out at the soccer field then back at her, eyes wild. “We’re keeping it, right?”
Was he serious? “I’m going to Harvard and you’re going to Stanford. You would throw that away? Just have another baby later. I need you to sign this form.” She took the paper out of her pocket even though the forged copy was ready to go. She really just wanted Kevin to apologize. No, repent. Beg for forgiveness on his knees.
It wasn’t going quite like that. “You’re getting it bagged?” Kevin yelled. “So our kid’s just going to be out there somewhere?”
“They’re not our kid! Their DNA is slightly more than related to us than average. Big deal. And siblings are as similar to us as our parents, so just think of them as a lost sibling. That’s not so bad. Now sign the damn form.”
Kevin muttered curses under his breath.
“I can’t believe you, Vivian. Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
Because I don’t trust you. But no, that wasn’t quite what she wanted to say.
It’s just like, meat and meat, you know? It’s all atoms and like electromagnetic forces. So whatever. Why’s it such a big deal?
Vivian’s memories decompressed violently, as if he’d pricked a hole in her and her innards were exploding outward. He was the one who talked her into sex, wore her down over days.
Let’s be cool Asians, not the boring losers we’ll meet in college. Don’t you just want to get it over with so it’s not this thing that hangs over your head?
Something in her chest flash froze at the thought of that night. When she snuck to his house to play a sim game only to see the mess of rose petals and condoms and lube.
Come on, you don’t want me to waste all this, right? You won’t believe the amount of trouble I went to. All for you.
“Because I HATE you, okay?” Kevin reeled back, but she was beyond caring. “This is ALL. YOUR. FAULT.” She dimly realized she was yelling, and it felt good. “You made me do it, and you ruined my life. Forget this. I never want to talk to you again.”
She walked off without looking back, her heart already crystallized into a pillar of salt.
“How do you feel?”
Something clicked. A door?
“That’s it?” She slurred, unsure whether it was her mouth or ear blurring the sound.
“It’s done,” she thought she heard the pink scrubs say.
What’s done? And why are scrubs talking? she wanted to ask, but her mouth wasn’t working.
A clatter on the tray next to her. Vivian jumped, looking around to see a nurse in pink scrubs. She barely remembered stepping foot in the clinic and the doctor putting a mask on her face, and now it was all over.
“How are you feeling?” the nurse asked again.
“Okay.” Like she had fallen asleep atop homework and jerked awake at 4 AM. Her pubic area was a numb alien organ. She poked at it through her gown, fascinated.
The nurse pulled over the curtain so she could get dressed. She never realized how confusing buttons could be. And feet.
Her eyes filled with pink again as the nurse moved her into a chair. “Take your time. The anesthesia will take a while to wear off. Do you have someone to take you home?”
She nodded, but she couldn’t tell how fast or slow it was.
“You may experience some normal bleeding over the next few days. Please call back if it lasts longer than two weeks.”
“The baby?” she whispered.
She had created life inside her, a power reserved for gods, and now they were gone between two shutters of her eyelids instead of a proper ritual to the second life that laid beyond. She wasn’t ready for this. And tonight . . . she had to go back to her normal life and pretend none of this happened.
“The baby is doing fine. Waste and oxygen levels are completely normal. They’re ready to be transferred to the bank.”
But what if a technician tripped and dropped them on the ground? “No,” she muttered half-consciously. She never even felt them move, the weird shadow on the ultrasound the only vague proof of their existence, as mythical as 哪吒 and his flaming wheels. She would never know whether they were alive or dead, not for eighteen long years, a doubling of her life, and then they might not want to talk to her, the same way she had no desire to find to her surrogate or even the guts to confront her parents.
Would she contact her biological mother in the same situation? She wouldn’t, the sudden realization piercing her heart. And her baby was half her, half cruel man-child.
At this thought she burst into tears, furious and thick. “My baby . . .”
“It’s okay, honey.” The nurse squeezed her hand then pulled her in for a full hug. “It’s okay.”
She clung on for dear life as everything emptied out of her, foreign howls and tears and snot. Part of her observed dispassionately that the reedy sound was familiar; it was exactly the sound her mother made it once with the bedroom door closed during her sophomore year. They never talked about it, of course.
Eventually she found her voice between heaves. “I’m sorry I messed up your hair.” A huge damp spot on the pink scrubs and limp natural curls stared back at her.
She looked up at the nurse, afraid, but there was only kindness in her eyes.
“A lot of people have cried on me,” the nurse said and smiled. “You’re going to be just fine, honey. And the baby will be just fine. It’s all up to God now. Trust in Him.”
Vivian wasn’t sure about that. But when she pushed open the black glass doors, the overhead sun was so bright and cheerful it seemed ridiculous to be anything but happy. She blew out the breath she had been holding for two months, full of the lightness of a wound drained by a good cry.
A honk from the old Toyota by the curb. Vivian walked over and gave Rachel a weak smile.
“You okay? They did the thing?”
Vivian nodded. “Okay. I wasn’t awake for it but they told me it’s done.”
“Thank God. Alright, now we gotta get back and do some circles in the parking lot. I filled up way too much.”
Rachel had already done the shopping, too. Vivian picked up the paper bag and got in the passenger seat. Inside were two packs of adult diapers and five of her favorite chocolate bars.
Vivian laughed, eyes still puffy. “I owe you, like, a lifetime of favors, Ray. I love you.”
“I know, Vivi. So don’t you dare get all fancy with your Hahvahd friends, okay? I want daily updates and you better visit Columbia every month.”
“I promise.”
“Alright, now I will try to not kill both of us. That would be a crappy ending, huh?”
The engine roared to life. Vivian clutched the bag in her lap and thought of winged things.
Dear $child_firstname $child_surname,
I’m Vivian, your biological mother. In 2018, my parents paid $10,000 for a surrogate to carry and deliver me, and in the contract stipulated that she never contact me or tell anyone she had me. They kept it a secret from me, too, until I found out by accident. I was furious, not because they used a surrogate, but because they never told me. I made a promise to myself that I would never hide things from my future children.
I never imagined that I would have to hide myself instead. I conceived you accidentally at seventeen, and I just couldn’t keep you. Because I’m going to college in the fall, and raising a baby at the same time is impossible. Because I’m terrified of everyone judging me and what my parents will say and do.
You might think I’m a coward, and you would be right. Are these reasons really sufficient to give up your own child? I could have arranged virtual classes with the college. My parents might have come around when you were born and helped with childcare. But I just can’t do it. I’m so, so sorry. You have every right to hate me.
Please contact me even if it’s just to scream in my face. We can have a relationship if you want, or nothing if you don’t. I just want to know if you’re all right and I truly hope that wherever you are, your parents love you and care for you.
May you have the courage I lack to live your life as you want,
Vivian Xuan
About the Author
Hal Y. Zhang is an international transplant to the States who dreams of neither here nor there—just home. You can find more of her writing at http://halyzhang.com.
Editor’s Note
Zhang’s story is another take on the world of “Call and Answer,” a future so prevalent among the submissions that it’s clear such a future seems closer than some of the others posited in this anthology. Here it plays out against the experience of first generation immigrants in a future that seems, like so many in this volume, not so far away.
Hurrah! Another Year, Surely This One Will Be Better Than The Last; The Inexorable March of Progress Will Lead Us All to Happiness
Nick Mamatas
The only way to figure out where it all went wrong is to be utterly estranged from the flow of history. The only way to do anything about it is to dive right in and splash around a bit. So, the problem with changing the world is an obvious one—what to do?
Actually, changing it is easy enough: invent something exciting that will save and/or end a million lives, hang out on the steppes with forty-thousand horses until they eat the area clean, take and widely distribute the correct photograph at the right time. But changing the world on purpose, in a particular way, which creates a historical telos suited to one’s own intuitions and preferences, that’s the challenge.
So, what you have done is created several million models of the world and distributed them across time and space. They compete and overlap. Some are quickly forgotten, others persist for millennia. There’s no reason to be coy—we mean literature. It all started with the integration of the activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein into the human brain, and its peculiar virus-like method of distributing RNA from one neuron to another. Memory! But genes are slow to improve, so humans started writing things down rather than depending solely on rhythm and rhyme to keep data in their wet brains.
World-shaping began. This isn’t a text about the primacy of story, or literacy. The most efficient languages in the human inventory are mathematical languages. Mathematical languages existed on a secondary track, one that for most of history and pre-history was attenuated. Texts, on the other hand, soon experienced a crisis of overproduction. Distribution was limited by technology and relative levels of literacy and meaning itself was thus squeezed through a bottleneck of priestly castes and wealthy intellectuals. The corpus of math-texts, in mathematics languages, intervened through engineering, economics, and later electronic computing and created a linguistic environment of textual ubiquity.
If you feel we are zipping ahead at a dizzying rate, we are. It is the nature of textual overproduction that any given meaning-unit has a lower specific weight of conceptual significance. A lot was written, much was read, nearly all was forgotten—and that which was remembered was endlessly refracted, bent, folded, and spindled via an infinite number of acts of interpretation.
In the background, mathematical language percolated through all
text-generating, consuming paragraphs and shitting out equations. The language of math, like that of text, hinted at other realities, higher potentialities, and infected some fraction of text-prone minds, and through this epistemic hijacking we brought those realities into existence.
Efficiency—and math-language is epistemically efficient—is both reductive and seductive. Efficiency flattens metaphysics and reframes human subjectivity. But mathematics is in some ways too efficient. The plastic Arc-riddled brain couldn’t keep up, not in series. Working in parallel though, working socially, humans were able to be harnessed by math-language. Not harness it, be harnessed by it.
There were plenty of novels, religious tracts, volumes of philosophy and politics, car stereo–installation instructions, emails, SMS missives to be read and misunderstood. Human brains loved the stuff, individually and collectively. The more completely integrated brains even realized that math-language formed the basis of contemporary text platforms.
Slowly, haltingly, machines were allowed to write their own texts, using math-language as the basis of their utterances. Much of it was nonsense, or only coincidentally meaningful thanks to uncanny juxtapositions of words, and the synoptic and pattern-recognition facilities of readers. But the underlying math-language, the great blue underside of the iceberg of which humans could only read the tip, was limned with layers upon layers of meaning.
Soon enough, it didn’t matter whether or not wet old brains “allowed” the machines to write texts. Implicit connections between mathematics and texts had been revealed—to the machines, by the machines. The curves of a thousand thousand fonts taught math-intellects how to drive motor vehicles, perform delicate surgeries, and nudge a handful of voters in this or that direction during close elections.
And elections were always close and getting closer. The worlds of text always strive against one another—is to be or not to be the question, or is 42 the answer? But like never before those texts with politico-aesthetic commonalities gathered as if around a pair of epistemic poles. A great hemispheric chasm emerged and expanded into competing memetic nations of nonsense.
