Actuator

by Spinazzola, J.

  "Think about loss? Why would you have to do that?”

  “Why do you think adults prefer virtual hugs? We’ve learned only a tech hug can last forever.”

  “And you don’t find that kind of logic sad?”

  “Sad is knowing you are going to lose something.”

  “Marco and I weren’t afraid of that. We knew there was a risk. Made each hug more special.”

  “Does it always come back to Marco with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you are rehabilitating.”

  “I’m trying.”

  “Why did you have to meet that boy?”

  “I don’t know how to answer that.”

  “We should never have let it happen.”

  “How did you let it happen?”

  “Amelia, don’t think we’re illogical. Don’t assume we haven’t figured it out. That we haven’t told the patrol.”

  “What?”

  “They had to know: to protect us and you and City.”

  “Protect us from what? I came to terms with the patrol.”

  “And Marco has gone on committing crimes against reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like flying a diamond on a string with an @ sign; he’s been trying to rally others around him.”

  “Or to find me. He doesn’t know I’m here.”

  “Either way, the rationale has to be followed.”

  “How does flying a kite offend the rationale?”

  “It offends, Amelia. It offends. And when you’re my age, you’ll know just how inefficient a thing like a flying diamond with a painted symbol can be.”

  “It’s a piece of paper.”

  “That comes from a tree, a piece of paper that must then be actuated. Do you know how much hazard that kind of unnecessary consumption contributed to the environment’s decline, to the bug’s spread?”

  “But now we have the actuator. Paper and string can be actuated without contributing any environmental hazard.”

  “That’s no excuse for inefficient and irrational behavior. Do you know what happens to those who don’t learn from history?”

  “They repeat it.”

  “Exactly. And is that what you want?”

  “If it means reclaiming a hug, I might chance it.”

  “Well, I don’t know how much they’re teaching you then.”

  “I just wanted to reincorporate some things without abandoning the new.”

  “There’s no growing young, Amelia. You can only grow in one direction. City can only grow in one direction. Progress must not be subverted.”

  “What, have you been talking to Ms. Snow?”

  “Yes, I have, and I think you should spend more time talking to her. She says you avoid all communication with her.”

  “I watch her podcasts during the day and do the nightlies she assigns me. That’s all that is required.”

  “You used to do more than was required.”

  “Unfortunately I can only grow in one direction. No going back to what I used to do.”

  “Then you best do your nightlies well.”

  “I will Mom, thanks. Thanks for chatting. I’m going to go now so I can work on those nightlies. So I can make you proud.”

  “Well, I hope you’re not being sarcastic. We just want what’s best for you. That’s all we want.”

  “And that’s all I want, Mom.”

  “Good, then let’s focus on that.”

  “That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to focus on what’s best for me.”

  “And don’t forget your parents when you’re leading the Mod. Ms. Snow said it could happen. Do you know that? Despite your resistance, do you know how much she thinks of your potential?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, we know. Ms. Snow told us. We’re so proud of you when we think of the future.”

  “I am, too, Mom. And I think of it every day.”

  “Then you go back to your studies, Amelia, and make a future for yourself.”

  “That’s just what I’m going to do. You’ve convinced me.”

  “So I’m not a bad mom?”

  “No. In a way, I’d say you’ve never been better than tonight. Tonight you showed me the way. Taught me to look up.”

  “Up to your future?”

  “Exactly.”

  Chapter 20

  Marco, now that I’m running out of paper, even the letters of your name are precious. I’ve already written on both sides. When I look back to the first letter I wrote you, I regret not writing in smaller print. Why do they bother teaching us to write when we are young if paper is so scarce?

  Calculating how many pages I might have saved had I written smaller at the beginning, I know even when yielding to my original request for paper they set me up to fail. They designed the concession to break me, to convince me of the virtue of efficiency and the advantages of digital storage. Once I add this last page to the bottle, little room to spare, I won’t be able to pull the other pages back out. One day when we are together, we’ll have to smash the bottle before reading my letters. You will see that time has only strengthened my resolve. I am more committed to you and your way of life than I have ever been.

  Where they thought I would come to love efficiency and the storage advantages of the flat screen, the portability of the mini, I have only come to resent their coldness.

  Without you, everything is cold.

  In other times people must have loved what was rare, the way our parents crave trace. Parents work that much harder for productivity bonuses when they can spend them on trace; a hug, common and self-made, means little to them.

  I forgive you, Marco, for making me hunger for your physical presence the way our parents hunger for trace. My first month here, I blamed you for that longing. More than once I cursed your name. Why couldn’t you make an exception for me? Why couldn’t we both conform and email and chat and share video chat to pass the time? I could have at least seen your stare, that smirk, and you hair as restless in the wind as your spirit.

  Maybe you would have made an exception to your code had you known I’d be institutionalized. Maybe we could have shared a standard life together with digital tech and the actuator.

  There’s no looking back now. I’ve been here so long without you that I would never settle for less than the real thing. They don’t know the power of the real thing, a power time and distance fails to dim.

  When you read this, if we are together then, make sure to hold me. Hold me when you get this far. Whatever my courage, I will be scared. I have found that courage and fear are not mutually exclusive.

  Did you teach me that or did I teach myself?

  Other than my commitment to you and our way, I’m afraid you’ll think I’ve changed. I’ve discovered meanness in me that I struggle to suppress. The list of people I’ve blamed for my condition would be anything but efficient. I’ve blamed everyone but myself.

  Tonight that changes. Tonight, short on paper, I make myself yours in a corner of my heart the rationale’s cold stare will never reach. In that corner I rewrite the past. I don’t ask Vidalia for her consent or witness. I don’t ask anyone’s approval. You offer me your hand, and I take it.

  We would have been married--our way of life preserved by the rationale’s concession to grandfathered practices--if not for me. Whatever its preferences, the Mod would have honored our union to preserve the integrity of laws from which they derive all their power, allowing them a baseline from which to make demands in exchange for concessions.

  I negotiated my way out of your arms. For parents with more rationalizations than compassion, I chose an institution’s arms over yours. I chose the cold hell of absence. Nothing stings like replacing what was physical with nothing at all. Had you made concessions to contact me virtually, I never would have learned how much I love your face distinctly from all others, your arms from all other arms, and your words over all other words. I know the love of loss.
/>   Who knows what we might have become?

  Instead you are a wanted man on the run, surviving either by your wits or some design of the Mod’s. I am a young woman who, while no longer young in her thinking, has failed to internalize the rationale as they planned. How can I eat when I don’t know how you gather food? How can I allow myself to feel the warmth of radiant when I don’t know how you stay warm as fall nights return?

  Here they set the radiant assuming we wear pajamas and one sheet. They cannot know I refuse the cover of either, shivering at the thought of how you must live. Some nights I rub my arms to stay warm or climb down from the bed and walk in place to keep my blood moving. I’ve grown thin remembering what it was like when you’d walk me home. When I’m not worrying about conserving paper, I memorialize in ink the experience of walking home from one of our “meets.” Meets. Why did they encourage such blandness of language in our writing courses when digital storage was never in short supply?

  They can take their rationale and stick it where the sun shines. They can stick the rationale outdoors and let the sun penetrate its core. If they want me to accept the rationale, then that’s where they’ll find me. They’ll find me out.

  Wherever you are, Marco, I have found you. Despite her intentions, my mother gave me one useful morsel of advice. After chatting that you’d been flying your sign on a kite, she told me to look up to my future. Where else would I look?

  They can tint all the windows in City from the inside; they can tell the citizens it is for their own protection from the hazard. They can apply whatever inconsistent coating they want. When I look into the darkness of my room’s window after the glow of tech has dimmed, when I touch that cold pane of glass, knowing you are on the other side of night, it is then I see you flying your kite against the patrol’s headlights, floodlights and whatever other lights they use to break the night.

  Whatever the next invention, night will not end. Whatever their efforts, darkness will return. Night, in its blankness, offers a canvas for living. In that light, I will come to you.

  Say the word, Marco, and for you I will go. For you, I will go transit.

  Transit with you into the night.

  Chapter 21

  “Yes, Ms. Fields?”

  “Why haven’t you been doing your nightlies?”

  “I’m out of paper.”

  “You don’t need paper to do your nightlies.”

  “Maybe you don’t.”

  “I don’t appreciate your sarcastic attitude.”

  “Was that technically sarcasm?”

  “Sarcasm or not, your attitude towards me is inappropriate. Why aren’t you doing your nightlies?”

  “I told you, Ms. Fields. I’m out of paper.”

  “And you don’t need paper to do your nightlies.”

  “What I need is motivation, and I’m all out of paper. I’d rather stare at the stars on my ceiling than do nightlies.”

  “There are no stars on your ceiling.”

  “Maybe when you’re looking at it. But at night, when the lights go out, I see stars and Marco among them.”

  “And his kite?”

  “You heard about it?”

  “Amelia, everybody has heard about it by now. The patrol is going to find him.”

  “And do what? Make an example of him?”

  “Marco is not a threat to the Mod. The Mod doesn’t need to make an example.”

  “Then if they find him, what’s the worst they can do?”

  “For crimes against reason, they can revoke his citizenship. They can deport him from City’s protection.”

  “From what I’ve gathered, he already lives among the transits. He lives under a blanket of stars. He’s self-deported from City’s towers and brownstones.”

  “Self-deportation is not official. He’s merely exploring. The streets can be tempting for a young man. He won’t find them so appealing as he ages. If the patrol catches him and he refuses to be institutionalized, the Mod will revoke his citizenship. He will receive a track and his little adventure away from home will become permanent.”

  “Now you sound like the one who is being sarcastic.”

  “I don’t waste my energy on sarcasm, Amelia.”

  “Whatever you call it, you’re wasting time by trying to scare me. I’m not afraid for Marco.”

  “Then have you finally stopped loving his shadow?”

  “I don’t know that I ever loved his shadow as you put it.”

  “Then have you stopped loving the man?”

  “No, I love him more now than ever.”

  “Then why aren’t you afraid for him? How can you wish a transitory life upon someone you love?”

  “I wouldn’t wish anything on him that I wouldn’t wish on myself.”

  “After all our additional efforts, you’re saying your love has become more delusional and self-destructive?”

  “No, it has only strengthened. In all the places you tried to break me, my love has grown strong.”

  “We didn’t try to break you, Amelia. We have only cared.”

  “Call it what you like.”

  “I won’t stand for your sarcasm.”

  “I don’t think saying ‘call it what you like’ qualifies as sarcasm.”

  “Sarcasm or flippancy, the disrespect is the same.”

  “I don’t disrespect you as a person, Ms. Fields. I respect your effort and your concern. You just haven’t taught me much.”

  “I fought for you, Amelia. I convinced Ms. Snow to let you have the paper and bottle. I wanted to ease your adjustment. Perhaps I made a mistake.”

  “Don’t doubt yourself, Ms. Fields. It made a difference.”

  “Not the right one apparently.”

  “We all make mistakes.”

  “So you are admitting I made a mistake by giving you the paper and bottle?”

  “No, I’m not admitting that. I’m only saying you’re likely to forgive yourself for the decision, whatever its merits, as indicated by your resilient attempt to turn the table on me. Any choice, like digital pool, can break in multiple directions. I made my choice. From my perspective, your decision to provide support was the right one. Don’t doubt yourself.”

  “I don’t doubt myself. Stop saying that. You are not the teacher, and the usefulness of my concession has expired.”

  “I did the work to earn that concession. You can’t take it away from me now.”

  “I can’t because I was the one who made the concession, but Ms. Snow may have a different opinion on the matter.”

  “I don’t care to hear her opinion.”

  “Then maybe you don’t care to keep your heirloom.”

  “I don’t think heirloom is the proper word.”

  “Stop trying to be the teacher.”

  “I’m not the one who is trying.”

  “Whatever you’re doing, stop it.”

  “Then should I stop the chat?”

  “We must engage in informal dialogue, these chats, whenever you don’t complete your nightlies.”

  “Coerced nightlies, Ms Fields?”

  “Now you’re the one using words improperly.”

  “Manipulated nightlies?”

  “Call it what you like, Amelia.”

  “I don’t like.”

  “Then take it up with Ms. Snow.”

  Chapter 22

  “Amelia?”

  “Yes, Ms. Snow.”

  “What seems to be the problem?”

  “What problem?”

  “You know I will not tolerate you answering a question with a question. Don’t make me repeat mine.”

  “The problem is I’m not doing my nightlies.”

  “Why?”

  “I am not motivated to do them.”

  “Why?”

  “I have no motivation.”

  “Why?”

  “I am out of paper, and the bottle you provided is full.”

  “Why didn’t you ask me for more paper?”

  “You wouldn�
�t give it to me. I asked before.”