The Way of All Flesh: Illusions Can Be Real

by Corey Furman

  “Yeah?”

  “Before you congratulate yourself too much, remember that there are lots of others around that aren’t happy where they are, either.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, man,” he said and sighed. “Ridder… The truth is I can’t save every starfish that washes up on the beach.”

  “Yeah, that’s the spirit,” he said. “Call someone else for the next psycho, okay?”

  Harry nodded, and Ridder shut the door.

  Back at their apartment, Harry found Sirvon and the girls with their heads together in the small sitting area. Everything the girls owned sat in a couple of boxes a few feet away on the floor, and they looked understandably tired.

  “Hey,” he said.

  Sirvon smiled when she saw him coming in the door. “Hey yourself.”

  “How’s everyone doing?”

  “Better,” said Luna. “It’s been a long day though. Thanks for taking us in.”

  “We appreciate everything, Harry,” Maré whispered.

  Sirvon took their hands. “Of course, dears. It’s going to be cramped around here, but it will be fine.”

  “I have a few ideas about that, but we can talk it over tomorrow. How about we have dinner and just chill out for tonight?”

  “Good idea, Harry. Girls, how does pizza sound?”

  Luna smiled. “I’m dying of hunger. Pizza sounds fantastic.”

  They turned to Maré, but she stayed quiet. “Honey?” said Sirvon.

  “Girls,” she said staring at the floor, so quiet that Harry wasn’t sure he heard her correctly.

  “What do you mean, Maré?” Harry asked.

  “Girls,” she said again. “Breylin always called us girls. I think we’ve been through enough to be called women now.” She looked up, reached out for Luna and drew her into her arms. They made eye contact, then Luna laid her head down on Maré’s chest and closed her eyes. It was becoming her default position when they embraced. As she absently smoothed Luna’s hair, she looked to Harry and Sirvon and spoke. “Do you think that would be okay?”

  Sirvon looked up at her husband when he answered. “You’re right, Maré, and I’m sorry. We’ll call you anything you want, but you’re definitely women.”

  The next morning, Harry got up at his usual time for work when the alarm went off, but he surprised Sirvon when he called in to say that after the weekend’s events, he’d be taking a week off.

  “Good thinking,” she said to him when he ended the comm. “We should get this place sorted out.”

  “Not exactly what I had in mind. We can talk about it when our guests rise. Would you make me some coffee please? I’m going to step outside and have a cigarette.”

  Sirvon scrunched up her face, but she said nothing as she began to make the coffee.

  He stopped. “Okay, honey, you win. Today’s a new day, and I’m quitting.”

  She stopped and turned to him with raised eyebrows. “Are you serious?”

  “Why not? I give. It seems like the right time to start making positive changes.”

  She gave him a smile warm with pride. “You’d better get some nicotine patches before you get moody.”

  “A remarkable idea, my darling.”

  “And make the gym a priority – I don’t want you getting fat, either.”

  He laughed as he reached for her, and she came to him. They stared into each other’s eyes for a few quiet seconds, then rubbed noses.

  Movement from the sofa broke their private moment, and they turned to see their house guests sitting up.

  “Good morning,” Sirvon said with a splash of joy.

  “That’s easy for you to say. Maré had some wicked elbows last night.”

  Maré looked at her silently as she rose. She regarded their new hosts but continued in her silence.

  Luna gave her a big smile, but the only reply Maré gave her was to caress her cheek.

  Harry cleared his throat to break the tension. “Let’s eat some breakfast, and then we can discuss our collective future,” he declared. “For what I have in mind, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  A couple of days later, Maré and Luna were settling into their new home down on the shaded floor of Amity Canyon. Luna had remarked she could hardly believe the changes they had been through in such a short time, or the kindness of Harry and his family. They had rearranged their entire lives to help them, and to be near them. Maré had become a little more talkative – and a little more possessive where Luna was concerned – but not much.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to look at one of the other houses?” Sirvon asked with a wrinkled nose as she ran her finger through the thick layer of dust on the kitchen counter top. “Maybe one of them had been sealed up better and is a little less musty.”

  “No, it’s fine. We’ll take our time and clean it little by little,” answered Maré while running the water out of the long unused faucet. “The old house was out; even if it didn’t hold bad memories and blood stained furniture, we’d still have to look at that damn horizon. Down here… I guess it’s like the sun has finally set.”

  “And the electronics work,” said Luna. “Not a whole lot of automation here, but more than we had, and we can listen to music whenever we want.”

  Sirvon bobbed her head in agreement. “This and the house next door are the only ones close to each other.” She smiled at the younger women. “And we do want to be close to you.”

  Sitting at the table, Luna wrung her hands and looked pensive. “But are we sure no one will find out about us here? I guess I’m afraid this’ll be taken from us.”

  Harry placed the satchel he was holding on the table, sat down next to her and took a serious tone. “Are we sure? No… but it’s extremely unlikely. Maré, in the year you were out here, how many times did anyone come through?”

  She snorted, came behind Luna, bent down and put her arms around her. “Before you folks came to dinner, never.” She moved her lips near her ear and spoke quietly, though just loud enough for the others to hear. “We’re safe here, Chroma. This place isn’t as isolated as it had been,” she said with a relieved nod towards the Westports, “but we’ll have the seclusion we’ll need.”

  Luna closed her eyes and pressed Maré’s head to her own.

  After a few seconds Harry said, “I have a small house warming gift for you.” Opening the satchel, he pulled out two image frames. “After you mentioned pictures of your parents the other day, I dug through the archives and found a couple of 2D scenes of them. There are a couple more out there, if you want them. Sorry they’re flat – I couldn’t get the dimensional paper fast enough.”

  “Oh…” said Luna as she looked at one of them. “I hadn’t seen this one before.”

  Maré leaned forward and picked up the other and held it so they could both see it. “Here’s the one from the wall in our room.” She turned it around so Harry and Sirvon could see it. “This is supposed to be us in front.”

  “Thank you, Harry,” said Luna. “This means more to me than you know.”

  Maré nodded in agreement. “Yeah – thanks, for everything.”

  Harry smiled and craned his head in acceptance.

  “I’ve kept pictures of my family, too. I don’t look at them all that often, but I do like to.”

  “So do I,” said Luna. “This is really an awesome gift, you guys.”

  “Doesn’t it feel… artificial though?” Mare asked. “At least a little?”

  “Is that how you feel when you look at them, Maré?” asked Sirvon.

  She stood, went back over to the sink and shut the water off. Resting her elbows on the edge, she looked out the window at the weather-eroded rocks, not really seeing them. “I guess it’s something of a novelty to me, but… well, to be honest, my connection to those people isn’t strong. Luna is my family. In important ways, you guys are becoming my family. Them though?” She shrugged. “Not so much. But then I’ve struggled with what I
am.”

  “I’m sorry, Maré,” replied Sirvon. “Having our memories makes it much easier on us. I haven’t tried very hard to see things from your point of view. I’m sorry.”

  She waved her hand. “No, that’s fine, Sirvon. I mean… I do appreciate the love they had for their children; I’ve been able to see it through Luna’s eyes, and I’m going to work on strengthening that connection. All of my connections.” She looked at Luna. “I certainly don’t have all the answers, but I’m finding that it’s okay. Maybe I’m fortunate to be like a blank screen – I get to determine what I am, not what someone else thinks I should be. I’m beginning to feel that I’m truer, more genuine this way, somehow.”

  Luna nodded. “I know you’ve wrestled with it, Chroma. But I don’t think I did know, not really. I’ve been insensitive.”

  “Let it go, Luna. After all we’ve been through, it’s not worth wasting energy on. Let it go.”

  A strange hush cropped up, one that was half comfortable, half unsettled. She knew she was responsible for it, but it was okay. It was okay to be a little weird with her family.

  Mare broke it anyway. “There is one connection I’d like to forget,” she said with a rueful snort. “It’s bizarre, but I do feel something for that unhappy bastard Breylin.” She turned back to the others and sat down at the table. “I hated him – he deserved that… but I feel a…” She put her palms flat on the table and let out a long, tired sigh. “A loss, too, I guess. I don’t know why. A little for his wife, too, and I never knew her. It might have been watching that holo of them as he was bleeding out.” She rubbed her eyes. “Stars, that got to me; not all at once, but it definitely showed me what family can be like. I’m not sure any of us were thinking straight at the time, though. Am I making sense? That holo could’ve been of us, sitting there at that fire, and listening to her read. That really felt weird…”

  “Yeah,” agreed Luna. “I felt it, too.”

  “You’ve both been through a lot,” Harry said charitably. “You’re going to have to allow yourselves time to feel, and to process those feelings.”

  Sirvon took a hand from both of them, put them together, and then covered them with hers. “It’s okay, dear. Like you said, maybe you don’t need all of the answers. Don’t expect too much too quickly.”

  “Pitying him…” Luna confessed. “It feels wrong. In the end, I didn’t want him to die, but maybe a part of me did because he was so cruel to Maré. But at the same time, I forgive him.”

  “Both of you… listen to me and try to think of it this way.” He paused for a moment. “Joss did awful things… but he could be funny and kind, and he was capable of tremendous love, too. We all sensed it watching the holos he took. But what you experienced with him… well, I think maybe life dealt him a bigger pile of shit than he could handle, and it broke him. When his sanity left, I think it took a lot of his humanity with it. It could have all been quite different given better circumstances. That the two of you feel conflicted shows how developed your sensitivity is.”

  Harry added his hands to the pile in the middle. “What I mean is that whether you have your memories or not, even whether you’re humans or simulants, what matters is that you are genuine, good people.”

  Sirvon gave him a warm smile and laid her hand on his arm. “You’re talking too much, husband, and you’re getting maudlin.”

  “No, I’m serious! And I’m not maudlin!” he said with a small laugh. “Am I?”

  Sirvon just shook her head.

  Maré smiled too, but she tucked his words away. They felt right, if difficult, and she’d have to give them consideration. After all he’d done he deserved that.

  “Anyway, it’s not up to me,” he continued more seriously. “But I think you should try to put all those confusing feelings into a bucket, and over time, pull them out one by one. Talk to each other, and you can talk to us, too.”

  “It may seem crazy now, but I think we should all forgive him, no matter what he did,” Sirvon said.

  “Hey, I said I felt something for him, but don’t you think forgiving him is awfully generous?” Maré asked dubiously. “C’mon, I’m working on it, but I just don’t know if I’m able to go that far.”

  “He’s gone, dear,” said Sirvon. “Forgiveness isn’t about making him feel better, but you. If you can find it within yourself to let your anger go, then you’ll have less to carry around. You and your Chroma can be what you are in the present and moving towards the future, and not defined by the past. What were the words you used? Start a new song?”

  Maré nodded.

  “And if I may say… I think Luna needs you to get what she understands. If you don’t then it won’t matter how close you get – you’ll always have this between you.”

  “Maré,” Luna said. “You once asked me to get past an ugliness that controlled me. Remember how I didn’t want to give it up? We had to do it together, and that’s how we’ll do it now.”

  “It’s a big ask,” said Maré. “But yeah, you may be right. Give me a little space, and I’ll think it through.”

  “I hate to bring up practical matters,” apologized Harry with a sigh. “But maybe this is a good time to mention that the authorities are gonna release Joss’ body to me tomorrow, if I want it. Those idiots can’t find the records of where Larissa was buried. Otherwise if I don’t take him, they’ll inter him in the pauper’s grave outside the city.” He sighed. “I thought maybe we could bury him above the rim of the canyon. Maybe poke through the ruins of the fire and see if there’s anything left. We might come across a memento, or something.”

  Luna broke the pregnant quiet, speaking directly to Maré. “Our love could cover many wrongs, Chroma…”

  Maré blanched. “Maybe, Luna,” she replied. “But there’s more than mementos left after the fire…”

  With her arm around Luna and the light breeze streaming their hair around their faces, Maré watched Harry place the last shovelful of rocky soil on the grave that had been dug large enough to hold four sets of remains. It had been a long tiring piece of work, and when he stood up he wiped the sweat from his face with his grimy shirtsleeve. Sirvon handed him a flask of water; and he thanked her with a nod of his head before taking a long pull from its contents.

  Maré and Luna picked up the rock that they had taken turns working with a couple of Harry’s screwdrivers. It had taken them more than four hours, but they’d managed to legibly carve the Breylin name upon it. They carried it over to the grave and placed it at the top and turned so that the sun shone on the name. With Zarmina’s predisposition for wind and rain, the carving upon the rock would wear with time, but they would keep after it. Brushing off their hands, they moved to where Harry and Sirvon were standing.

  Yesterday, they’d gone to the burned out remnants of the house. The fire hadn’t left much, and exposure had worked its processes, but they’d found the bones – pitted, bleached, and caked with muddy soot.

  At first, Maré wouldn’t go in, but finally she’d willed her legs to move.

  Luna looked at her. “You didn’t have to come over.” She touched her arm. “You okay? You look pale.”

  “Yeah. My stomach’s going crazy, and I nearly left you to deal with it.” She pointed to her temple. “But the memory’s a lot worse than anything here.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it, Maré.” Harry held his stomach and looked like he might throw up. “I knew you weren’t lying, but this is too much.”

  “It’s okay, Harry – you’re not responsible.” She closed her eyes and held her face up to the breeze. “Let’s just do what we came to do and finish this.”

  Once they’d collected Riss and two simulants, they muddied their shoes poking around the rest of the house. There had been furniture springs, warped utensils, melted electronics. The fire had left plenty behind, but all of it was destroyed.

  Luna had spotted a bit of color sticking out from under a piece of collapsed wall that had fal
len in towards the back of the house. Once Harry had picked it up, they found a few books and a small, simple rag doll. They were in bad shape; they’d been mostly covered, but time and weather had worked their inexorable processes regardless. With effort and care, the books might be salvaged, but the doll nearly fell apart at Luna’s touch. In the same hollow, they’d also found a small resin display case that contained the two paper flowers that had figured prominently in some of the holo recordings of the Breylin women. It had been exposed too, but both it and the things it held had survived everything almost completely unscathed.

  At the gravesite, Sirvon handed Luna the doll and Maré the case.

  They turned and walked back slowly with gravel crunching underfoot. Maré crouched and laid the box near the headstone, with her fingers lingering upon its smooth, cool surface. Luna bent down and positioned the rag doll between the cased flowers and the stone marker. Leaning on her Chroma’s shoulder, she had to twist it just right so that it would sit up, but she was able to get it settled, and now it too looked upon the sunlight streaming in from the horizon.

  “So that’s it,” Maré said as she looked down upon the small memorial.

  She stood up and took Luna’s hand, and they walked back to stand next to Harry and his wife. Luna put her arms around Maré’s neck and laid her head on her shoulder. Without taking her eyes from the grave, Maré circled Luna’s waist and drew her closer with her arms.

  Harry and Sirvon were holding each other, too, and both couples silently absorbed the somber scene.

  Maré squared her shoulders and took a couple of cleansing breaths. “Joss, Larissa, and your daughters, may your family find the comfort and happiness you lacked in life.”

  Luna’s lashes had served as breakers against the tide of her tears, but they flowed over them now and down onto Maré’s shoulder. She loved the feel of the innocent delicacy that Luna had, yet she possessed an inner strength upon which they would both need to lean. She possessively tightened her embrace on her and kissed the top of her head.