by Robin Banks
“But then he’ll get better?”
She looks so forlorn that I wish I could tell her what she wants to hear, but that’d be a lie.
“I don’t know. I hope so, but this could be as good as it’s going to be.”
She stares at the floor, her mouth twitching. “You could have said yes.”
“I don’t dislike you enough to lie to you. If he doesn’t get any better, would that be a deal breaker?”
She sits bolt upright and stares at me in shock. “What? Of course not!”
“So if he carries on glitching forever you would put up with it?”
“What are you on about? It’s not an issue of me putting up with anything. I'm worried about him. I want him well.”
“Have you told him that?”
“What? No. I don’t want him to feel pressured.”
“Then don’t expect him to know it. He’s going to feel wretched for needing too much and not giving you enough. He’s going to want to be perfect for you, and he can’t be. He’s going to expect you to turn against him sooner or later and punish him for every little mistake, every little shortcoming. That’s probably why he’s working so hard, too.”
“He’s obsessed with pulling his share. He wasn’t too bad until Osh was made a pilot.”
“I bet. That must have been a real kick in the teeth.”
“Why are men so godsdamned fragile?”
“Don’t be so damn sexist.” I try to sound stern, but I spoil it by giggling at her horrified expression. “You kids are way too easy to wind up.”
“You’re a terrible person, you know that?”
“Yup.”
“I didn’t use to like you.”
“I didn’t use to like you either. And if you hurt the kid I will disembowel you. But I’ve been forced to come to the conclusion that you’re actually almost ok at least some of the time.”
“How very gracious of you.”
“I know, right? It’s probably just the hormones. Don’t get used to it.”
The kid, who’s been staring at us ever since he came back in, takes my giggles as an indication that we’re safe to approach and walks over.
“What are you two plotting?”
I smile up at him. “We’re talking about you, naturally.”
“Anything good?”
“Can’t be, if it’s about you.”
He folds his legs to sit next to Quinn. She slides sideways so they’re shoulder to shoulder and turns to look at him. He turns towards her, mouths something soundlessly, and rubs his nose against hers. I could look at them forever.
“You’re so damn cute together that you make me want to puke.”
Luke frowns. “You’re sure that’s not the baby thing?”
“Nah. It’s definitely you.”
Quinn shakes her head at me. “I don’t think there’s any need for me to stay here so I can get insulted.”
“You’re right. I can insult you regardless of your location.”
She gets up and smiles at me. “Charming.” She slides a hand behind the kid’s neck. “I’ll see you later?”
Luke nods. I’m not sure he can speak. Damn it, but they’re a good pair.
As soon as Quinn has decamped, Luke turns to me.
“Did you come here to take me away?”
“Kid, you’re the third godsdamned person to ask me that today. Do I have a reputation as a kidnapper I’m not aware of?”
“Dunno. Who asked you that?”
“People who ought to know better, and who should be talking to you, not me. Do you want to come back to Anteia?”
He frowns. “No. Sorry. I miss you, and Raj, and his family an’ all, but I like it here. I like it a lot.”
“So why the fuck did you think I would take you away?”
He looks right through me and talks with icy composure. “I thought maybe Quinn called you over so you’d take me home.”
“Are you shitting me? You thought Quinn would go behind your back like that?”
“I don’t know. Things haven’t been quite right.” His eyes widen and he flaps his hands about. “It’s not her fault, ok? She’s great. Everybody’s great. Don’t flip out at them.”
“So what’s the issue?”
He shrugs. “What do you think? Me. I don’t wanna talk about it.”
“Too bad. We already are. Kid, you’re being a twit. How about trying this for a trick: before deciding that you’re fucking everything up, look at the people around you. If they’re happy with you, stop fretting. Unless you don’t think much of them. Is that the case?”
“What? No!”
“Then chill, for fuck’s sake. If you were doing so badly that they’d want rid of you, don’t you think you’d notice?”
“I dunno. I kinda suck at reading people.”
“What? You can do that better than anyone I know.”
“I didn’t read her right, did I?”
I know precisely which her he’s talking about and I have to stop my fists from bunching up.
“There were mitigating circumstances. Kid, you’ve got to let that go.”
His face goes blank. “I know. Doesn’t mean I can do it. If I could, I fucking would have. Alya, if I could fix shit inside of me, I would. I really, really would. I just can’t.”
For the umpteenth time, I wish that someone would invent a time machine so I could go back, find every single person who ever hurt him, and sort them out. I’d most likely end up in jail, but it would be worth it.
“You know that you’re being ridiculous, right? Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you’re finding this hard because it is hard?”
“What?”
“Look at what you’re trying to do. You’re a nineteen-year-old kid…”
“Twenty. You missed my birthday.”
“So I did. You missed about twenty-five of mine. Do I bitch about that?”
“I didn’t know you back then. I wasn’t even alive for a bunch of them.”
“Same difference. Anyway, you’re a young person and you’re trying to make a new life in a community unlike any you’ve ever lived in. And this is your third total reboot already. Most people never change their lives at all. You’ve done it three times and you’re barely out of nappies. That’s pretty hardcore.”
He shrugs. “I kinda fucking had to, didn’t I?”
“You kinda fucking didn’t. Most people who grow up in the shit live and die in the shit. You got out of it.”
“So did you.”
I do my best imitation of him. “I kinda fucking had to, didn’t I?”
His eyes get all huge and bright and make him look like a twelve-year-old, light-spirited and undented.
“When you put it like that…”
“And you don’t have a fucking clue how to make this work for the simple reason that you don’t know how this works. You are trying to function in an environment entirely unlike what you’re used to. Thank fuck for that, because the bulk of what you’re used to is a heap of shit, but it doesn’t make it any easier. This is hard, kid. Objectively hard. Not just hard because you’re doing it. And that’s without looking at the specifics.”
He glowers at me. “Quinn is brilliant.”
“I’m sure she’s fantastic, and I’m sure I don’t want to know the details. What I meant is that your relationship has a lot of moving parts. It’s hard enough to make a two-people partnership work. You went and got yourself a godsdamned commune.”
He grins and he’s twelve again. I swear, the word ‘mercurial’ was invented to describe his face.
“It’s good, isn’t it?”
“Yup. You did good, kid. You did better than anyone I know. Give yourself some fucking credit.”
“Why should I? You never do.”
“Beg pardon?”
His eyes are still huge but there is no happiness inside them. They are just big, gaping holes full of uncertainty.
“Everything you told me I could tell you right back. But you don’t
do any of that. That’s not how you live. You give yourself merciless shit all the fucking time. Just watching you do it gets exhausting.”
“That’s completely different.”
“Why? ‘Cause I’m slower than you, so I should expect less of myself?”
“No! And you’re not! I don’t fucking know. It’s just different, ok? Raj is perfect. He handed me a good life on a golden platter. I just can’t seem to make it work out with him.”
“Alya, you’re having a fucking baby with the guy. Look at the state of him! He’s so happy he’s gone dippy! Which part of it isn’t working?”
“Just wait until I start fucking it all up. What the fuck do I know about raising kids? It’ll be a miracle if the poor creature grows up anywhere near functional.”
“You’ve done well enough by me.”
He’s staring at me from the corner of his eye, looking surly, pissed off, and uncharacteristically vulnerable. He’s also looking brave, capable, honest, determined, strong, gentle, and mature well beyond his years. He’s looking like good people. He’s looking like one of the best people I’ve ever met.
I could tell him that I didn’t do shit, that he always had it in him and all I did was stop the world from stomping him long enough to give him a chance to shine, and I didn’t even do terribly well at that. That’s not what he needs to hear, though. That’s not it at all.
“Yeah. I guess I did. You seemed to come out alright. Better than alright.”
He looks straight at me with those blue eyes and smiles so hesitantly that my heart fucking breaks. That’s not a problem: I can deal with that. My eyes break too, though, and decide to leak profusely all over my face. It must be something in the air, because his eyes do the same, and before I have a chance to do a damn thing about it we’re both unreasonably soggy. About a nanosecond later Raj is hovering over us, stroking my hair. He’s a bit wobbly, bless him, and he doesn’t look terribly with it, but he’s here for us. For me. That doesn’t help my eyes any.
“Are you ok, princess?”
“Yeah. Better than ok. We’re fucking great. I’m just starting to realize that.”
Glossary
‘Arc knife’. Arc blades can cut through anything without going blunt. Unsurprisingly, they make people somewhat nervous and are banned in most places.
‘ATR’. All-Terrain Rovers. Six-wheeled vehicles designed for passenger and cargo transport both in- and out-bubble. The out-bubble versions are independent habitats.
‘Bubble’. An artificial dome designed to allow human habitation of planets where the local environmental conditions (atmosphere, temperatures, radiation, etc.) would otherwise be deadly. A ‘portabubble’ is a bubble designed to be transportable.
‘Floater’. Zero-g worker.
‘Groundling’. A person who has never been to space.
‘Grub’, ‘grubber’. Someone who moils about in the dirt, i.e. someone who lives on a colony on a planet rather than an artificial environment. Alternatives: ‘dirtsider,’ ‘colonist.’
‘Holos’. 3-D photographs.
‘Out-worlder’. On a colony, someone who was born anywhere else.
‘Psi-gifted’. Someone who possesses unusual mental powers, such as telepathy, true empathy, precognition, telekinesis, hypnosis, etc.
‘Threedees’. 3-D movies.
‘Torus’ (plural ‘tori’). A structure, in this context a space station, shaped like a ring doughnut.
‘Tuber’, ‘tube people’. Someone who lives on an artificial habitat in space. Cylindrical space stations are called ‘tubes’ because of their shape, but the label of ‘tuber’ is also applied to people who live on a torus.
First, second, and third class. The class system harks back to the time when humanity first took to space. In a nutshell, the first class owned the ships. The second class bought their tickets. The third class worked their way on board.
Discography
Apropos of nothing, here’s a list of the music I listened to while writing this.
Sam Baker – Say Grace
Sam Baker – Cotton
Sam Baker – Pretty World
Sam Baker – Mercy
The Decemberists – Crane Wife
The Decemberists – The Hazards of Love
The Dubliners – Wild Rover
Julie Fowlis – Cuilidh
Julie Fowlis – Dual
Julie Fowlis – Gach sgeul - Every story
Julie Fowlis – Mar a tha mo chridhe
Julie Fowlis – Uam
Charlie Grey and Joseph Peach – Waves Rise From Quiet Water
Gnoss – Gnoss
Nick Jones – Penguin Eggs
The National – Trouble Will Find Me
New Order – Singles
Lou Reed - Retro
Sigur Ros – Hvarf/Heim
Sigur Ros – Valtari
The Smiths – Hatful of Hollow
Trampled By Turtles – Blue Sky and the Devil
Trampled By Turtles – Duluth
Trampled By Turtles – Live at First Avenue
Trampled By Turtles – Palomino
Trampled By Turtles – Songs from a Ghost Town
Trampled By Turtles – Stars and Satellites
Trampled By Turtles – Trouble
Trampled By Turtles – Wild Animals
The Velvet Underground – Loaded
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground & Nico
The Velvet Underground – The Velvet Underground
This Will Destroy You – Young Mountain
The Inevitable Postface
Whenever suicide is mentioned in the media, it is common to include a postface about how people affected by the topic should contact a helpline, speak to a doctor, reach out to family and friends, and so on and so forth. I've never been sure whether that kind of thing is put out there in the hope that it will actually help people or as an attempt to dodge responsibility. Either way, I can't write anything like that. I don't know what to say.
I don't know what can help a stranger who has suicidal thoughts. I know what helped me and what didn't. I know what helped and didn't help some of my friends. I also know that what helped some of my friends didn't help them enough. I know that what helps one person may not help another. I don’t know anything that could help everybody. I'm pretty sure I know what can't help anyone, though: platitudes and generalizations.
If you really want to help someone who has suicidal thoughts or feelings you can start by shutting up your mouth and your ego and listening, even when it's hard. If you feel that you need to read between the lines, don't let that distract you from reading the actual lines, too. 'Suicidal' isn't necessarily synonymous with 'deluded' or 'histrionic'. Listen first and then, if you think you have something useful to say, say it. But for the love of all that is holy, fucking listen.
People who are experiencing suicidal ideation are still people: they are individuals with different lives, needs, wants, and problems. I cannot begin to guess how they got to where they are, how they came to feel and think as they do, unless they are willing to tell me and I am willing to listen. Yet the vast majority of the time when people dare to talk about suicide what they get in response is a barrage of trite, pointless crap whose main function is to soothe the person spewing it.
No, it's not true that people who talk about suicide never do it. It's not true that people only ever do it for attention, to leave their mark on the world, or to get back at somebody. It's not true that you just need to find the right meds and the problem will go away. It's not true that anyone entertaining suicidal thoughts should be hospitalized with or without their consent. It’s also not true that all suicidal people want or need you to save them, or even to give them your advice.
Thinking positive or doing yoga or changing diet or whatever works for you might not work for everybody. Think about it: if you are finding yourself with a simple, easy-to-apply solution to a problem that literally kills thousands of people every day, it coul
d be that you're a freakin' genius… but it could also be that you don’t understand the issue.
About the author
Robin Banks finds writing in the third person intensely creepifying, so I won’t.
I was born a while ago, and these days I don’t regret it too often. A fan of peregrinations with a terrible tendency to get myself marooned, I currently dwell with an excessive number of dogs right at the end of the big cabbage field. That’s the big field with the cabbages, not the field with the big cabbages. Don’t be silly.
I enjoy road trips, dogs, guitars, and getting into scrapes. My favorite writers are Tom Robbins, Spider Robinson, and Matthew Stover; Rory Miller for non-fiction. I refuse to be landlocked, because you need to have some standards. I like Irish coffee with condensed milk in lieu of cream. You can’t help some people.
There is a rumor going around that I might in fact be a collection of raccoons hiding inside a hoodie, but that’s not been confirmed to date, possibly because I bite.
If you enjoyed this, please check out:
https://www.facebook.com/HeinleinsFinches
https://godsbastard.wordpress.com/heinleins-finches
With many thanks to Mary Kogut, Shane Michael Murphy, and Sjoerd Bergstra, who still haven’t learnt to run away from this kind of project.
Let it be known throughout the land that Mary is a typo-hunter extraordinaire! She found 96 of the little blighters. If this book makes any kind of sense, it’s thanks to her. If it doesn’t, it’s not her fault.
