Gravity Changes

by Zach Powers

  Still not fully awake, I flop down next to her. What are we going to do today, I ask. She bought a sewing machine last week and I’m eager to see what she makes with it.

  Her eyes are glazed, fixed on the TV.

  I touch her cheek. She smiles. The expression doesn’t imply happiness. Then is it a smile? A new expression created just now on the sofa.

  Joan shuts off the TV, but she keeps staring at the vanished picture. She speaks, not necessarily to me.

  “I’ve never really considered anything else, content to make my tiny additions to the universe. But maybe it’s not the best way. Maybe a single act of creation can be greater than the sum of everything I’ve done before. It’s not a question of quantity, but one of meaning. The more meaning I introduce into the universe, the less non-meaning there is outside it. Each creation has depth, and revisions of books and songs and paintings are shallow compared to the originals. When I think of it, I’ve barely shrunk the universe at all.”

  I put my hand on the back of hers. She recoils slightly, but lets me keep it there.

  “I’m done,” she says, “making things with my hands. When I got dizzy on the stage last night I knew what I had to do. The room swirled around me, and I felt it swirling inside me.”

  She moves my hand to her stomach.

  “I’m pregnant.”

  I look at her fingers, already still, retired from the act of creation. Her eyes, unfocused, remain directed at the darkened television. I lift her hand and kiss it. I get up. I go to the kitchen to make breakfast. Joan stays motionless on the sofa.

  A shrinking universe inside her.

  CHILDREN IN ALASKA

  She glowed Easter yellow in the charcoal grays of the kitchen. I’ll be right back, she said, descending into the pitch black of the basement where the spiders and the roaches live because they are averse to even the faint glow from the windows. I don’t worry about her in the dark, though, because she is a lightbulb. Not a regular lightbulb, but one the size of a person. Five-feet-four from her cap to the crown of her bulb. Her filament dangles provocatively, a thin white fissure behind the frosted glass. Her breath is the faintest hum of electrical current. At night I dream of sleeping beneath thick black power lines, and old black crows come there to perch, and with them I listen to the humming.

  Hello mother, I said, this is my new girlfriend. Do not be alarmed, she is a lightbulb.

  I can see that, said my mother, always kind and understanding.

  When we were married, very few people came to the wedding, and the kiss was awkward. At the reception I noticed several lightbulbs who had not attended the ceremony. They hovered near the bar, accepting new drinks as soon as the old ones were empty. I never mentioned this to my wife because I did not want to upset her, but in every other way I have always been perfectly honest.

  Are you ashamed of me, she asked one night. You never take me anywhere.

  No, I am not ashamed of you, I said, but you do not fit in the car.

  We walked to the lake and circled it on a path carved into the underbrush mostly by joggers, but also sometimes by couples like us, or by people walking dogs. Darkness was setting in, but the path ahead was illuminated by my wife’s face, so we walked well past nightfall and the fireflies swarmed around us. The waters of the lake splashed on the bank and old toads croaked to each other from opposite shores. We stopped in a clearing beside the path. My wife dimmed her light and we made love. Dry leaves rasped against her glass. Her buzzing came louder and at a higher pitch. I could not hear the toads anymore.

  The pregnancy ended in miscarriage after only one month. When I cried to the doctor, Why us why us, he said, Probably because lightbulbs weren’t designed for birthing.

  We bought a dog. This was not to fill our childless void, but for the same reason that anyone buys a dog, though that reason is not clear to me. We named him Sparky, and Sparky would prance around us or lie in the corner by the heat vent. Sparky loved my wife. He would curl next to her in our bed and his golden fur would blaze with reflected light. One day we were walking Sparky around the lake, near the spot where once my wife and I made love. Sparky dashed into the lake and swam far out into the middle where his head was just a small dome on the water. He went under and we never saw Sparky again. I knew that he drowned, but my wife believed he lived on in the lake. She had never swum there, could never know anything but the unbroken surface.

  I crashed the car. My wife rushed into the hospital, humming frantically, barely able to articulate the simple question Where is my husband? I was in a full-body cast in the ICU, watching reruns on the wall-mounted television. My wife flickered as she wept at the sight of me, which must have been rather pathetic, and I wanted to hug her but could not because my arms were encased in plaster.

  We took the insurance money and bought a van. The back doors opened wide enough for my wife to fit inside. How long had it been since we’d last been on a date? Not since before we were married, when I had the pickup truck, and she rode in the bed, and in my rearview mirror the world looked bright and alive behind me.

  We went to the movies. The moviegoers around us whispered through the previews until one of them left and returned with an usher.

  The usher said, I’m sorry but your light is washing out the screen.

  That is no light, I said, that’s my wife.

  The usher laughed and walked away. He left us standing in the middle of the aisle. My wife blushed, casting the red of her face over everything in the theater.

  We went to bed without speaking. Faint bursts of light flashed from under the covers with each of my wife’s sobs. I wanted to comfort her, but I didn’t know what to say. I never know what to say.

  Maybe we should take a vacation, I said, so we packed the van and rode northwest through all those middle states with interchangeable names, across the border into Canada, all the way up to Alaska. We stopped in Dogpatch, north of Fair-banks, because the name reminded my wife of Sparky, and for the first time in a long time warmth returned to her glow.

  It was dark the day we arrived. And the next day, and the day after that. We walked down the street and my wife looked bright as the sun in all that darkness. Several of the local children began following us. Bundled in thick jackets and bulky boots, they moved like astronauts, crunching the snow with each step. They let my wife’s light fall across their faces, then scampered away, laughing into the dark. By the last day of the trip, two dozen children followed us everywhere we went.

  Our van pulled away and in the mirror I saw all their sad young faces peeking out from hooded jackets.

  I could stay here forever, my wife said.

  I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the days would last as long as the nights.

  My wife descended the stairs into the basement. The doorway grew darker. I poured myself a glass of water and sipped it, thinking all the things one does when met with a moment of quiet. The noise came from far away. It was a mere tinkling, faint and forgettable.

  I looked down the steps. Blackness, like the long Alaska night. No matter how much I strained my eyes I couldn’t see anything. Where was the flashlight? When had I needed a flashlight in all my years of marriage? I threw open drawers in the kitchen and found it buried beneath rubber bands and twist ties. I flipped it on. Descending the stairs, I paused on each step, sweeping the weak beam in front of me. There was the faint scent of hot metal. At the bottom I felt for the light switch.

  A naked bulb, like a toy version of my wife, swung from a cord attached to the ceiling. Shadows swayed back and forth. All across the floor, shards of frosted glass glinted in the dim light. My wife. What was left of her. I picked up the nearest fragment, a triangle just large enough to show the curve of the glass, and turned it in my hand. The raw edge sliced my finger. Blood filled the line of the wound and flowed out onto my skin. I let the shard slip to the floor.

  The broom. The broom was in the kitchen.

  THE EATING HABITS OF FAMOUS ACTORS

 
; All the main characters are dead now. I am afraid I’m all you have left. You probably noticed me in a couple scenes. I was there. Less beautiful, scripted with less erudition, less suavity. My wardrobe was selected for neutrality, my lines written for the simple advancement of plot. I made no bold declarations, no professions of love. I delivered the facts so my more prominent, more romantic counterparts could voice lines as if reciting poetry. The soft focus of their faces filled the whole screen for every smile and tear, while I stood, smallish, in the perpetual background of my existence.

  They’re all gone now, as the real names of the people who pretended to be them scroll up the screen, accompanied by a swelling string orchestra (there goes the name of the man who pretended to be me). The copyright halts in the center of the screen and the music fades and then everything is black. This is usually when you leave, if not before. But we are still here now, together.

  What is my name? Military Officer #2. On my costume, on an embroidered patch, chest-high right, it says Pendleton. My rank insignia makes me a colonel. But in the script I am identified only as Military Officer #2. I am too young to be a colonel. I know this, and you, the observant viewer, must have noticed it. I have no obvious subordinates, partake of no battles, lack even a gun. But I am Military Officer #2. I will tell you my story.

  There is an explosion, shown from many different angles so you can appreciate the pyrotechnics. I am with a group of people like me. Soldiers and Lab Techs and Townspeople. Lab Tech #1 and Military Officer #1 are shown in close-up, tears of admiration in their eyes (tears that net them considerably more pay than the rest of us). Then you are looking down from a helicopter. The view pulls farther out and the fire is a small yellow speck on the landscape. An ocean creeps into view. It is supposedly the Pacific but we filmed on the coast of Maine. The camera pans up until the screen is filled with sky. Fade to black. Credits.

  We are on a vista, those of us still alive, overlooking the burning facility. This is the sort of location that you only ever see in movies. You’ve never experienced a vista from which you can watch important action. Important action happens where it will, with little regard for scenery.

  The explosion wasn’t that impressive to us. It won’t realize its onscreen glory until the digital effects people get their hands on it. They will expand the ball of fire. They will add a shower of debris and plumes of smoke. Maybe even a mushroom cloud. Was there a mushroom cloud? I have no way of knowing until I sit beside you, watching myself watch the thing that wasn’t actually there for me to watch.

  One by one we walk away, leaving Lab Tech #1 and Military Officer #1 behind. Their close-up has separated them from the rest of us. One day you will see them in a different movie and wonder where you’ve seen them before. You will wonder for days. You will wake up in the middle of the night and remember. The vista. There were other people with them, but you remember only these two.

  Townsperson #3 walks with her head tilted back, looking up at the forest canopy. She has known this forest for as long as she can remember, as long as she doesn’t remember too far back. This whole Californian coastline is her home. These trees, the likes of which do not grow in California, are hers, as are the species of birds unique to the East Coast, and other animals, and the color of the ocean.

  Behind us, the facility continues to burn, making loud cracks, sounds that will be replaced in the final version of the film with a steady roar. The cracking fades as we move farther away. You’d think we would be upset, but we knew all along the fate of the facility. It was there in the script. We knew the flames before we saw them.

  I’ve forgotten how long the walk back to town is because we’ve been cutting from one place to another with impossible immediacy for the last two hours. Beads of sweat burst through the layer of makeup on our faces. Solider #5 wipes his forehead with his sleeve and smears flesh tone across the camouflage fabric. Two of the older Townspeople stop and rest on a rock. We leave them behind. The scene on the vista was their last.

  The trees thin out and the low buildings of the town become visible. Once white walls yellowed by time, small square windows full of yellow light. Towns like this, lethargic and homey, are perfect counterpoints for the action of a movie like ours. Through convention, when seen on screen, instead of providing the comfort they would in reality, these towns instead inspire agitation. You are conditioned to anticipate the shattering of the illusion of tranquility. Plus you’ve seen the previews. Before you ever sat in your seat in the darkened theater you had seen the final explosion, from at least two of its dozen angles, many times on TV. The last time you came to the movies, prior to the movie you had come to see, you were treated to three minutes of this town overrun with gunfights and car chases. You’ve seen beneath the surface. But it is a real town, not a set, and outside the realm of our movie it is, in fact, peaceful. With the main characters dead and burned up and resting comfortably in their trailers, there is nothing to upset the image of this town. It is what it looks like. You may abandon your previous apprehension. If this weakens the plot of the story I’m telling now, then so be it. I will lie about this town no longer.

  The streets are empty except for those of us returning from the vista. The crew has already packed up all the equipment and rolled out in the trucks. The extras have gone back home. Most were from neighboring towns. They are left unmentioned in the credits. They sat next to you in the theater and waited for themselves to appear on screen, pointing out stray limbs in the tangle of crowd shots, claiming ownership of this hand or that elbow. You shushed one of them.

  The actual townspeople, as opposed to our Townspeople, are all at home eating dinner by now. At first they were excited when the film crews arrived. They stood behind tapelines and watched as famous people said things to other famous people. But after weeks and weeks of disrupted lives, I know they will be glad to see us go.

  I tell Solider #2 to get me a cup of coffee. It is the last time I will have this authority. I will remove the uniform and everyone will remember that I was never a solider, much less an officer. I sit on a bench in the town square. The square is a small grassy spot where they planted trees instead of built buildings. The grass around the base of the bench has grown taller than the top of my boots. Lab Tech #7 sits next to me, but we do not speak. We have no lines to say to each other. Soldier #2 never returns with my coffee.

  Several Townspeople claim the gazebo in the middle of the square. They are talking and laughing and sharing stories like old friends. They have known each other for years, though we all met only a couple months ago, and they have just together experienced the kind of adventure that doesn’t usually happen to Townspeople. The first round of laughter is over and they realize that they have no other history, nothing much before the vista. They get up, patting shoulders and shaking hands. They walk each in a different direction, as if they were the debris expelled in an explosion.

  Lab Tech #7 rises from the bench and walks off, her white lab coat billowing ghostlike behind her. I want to say goodbye, but I am unsure of exactly how I should say it. I am unsure of who is saying it. My uniform feels suddenly uncomfortable.

  There are only three of us left in the square. Soldier #3 and Angry Townsperson hold hands on the other side of the gazebo. I see them as black shapes against the sunset. The clouds are distant and flat and gray. The trees barely have any green left in them. It is a beautiful scene but maybe too obvious. It announces the end too loudly.

  We all, the men at least, tried to woo Soldier #3 from the first day of filming. I did my charming best over the cold cuts on the catering table to impress her. But there was Angry Townsperson. You recognize him from a TV show. He was younger then, just a kid, but you remember the cut of his jaw and now he has the broad shoulders to match. When he doesn’t shave at least twice a day, a thick growth of stubble covers his cheeks.

  The sun is gone over the horizon. The shadows kick up like dust. I watch the couple leave the square, still holding hands, and for a moment I forget t
heir names. Jen and Ryan? No, that’s not right. She is just a Soldier. He is a Townsperson, albeit an Angry one. I am a Military Officer.

  The lamps flicker on in the empty park. I look down at my chest to remember my name, but I can’t read the patch in the low light. The streets are still empty. People don’t wander the streets at night in small towns. Nightlife is a phenomenon of the big city. I used to have a life there, in the city, before boot camp, before casting. It is a place that I would never have walked alone.

  I round the corner and the darkness is overcome by the glow of a movie theater marquee. In mixed black and red letters it says the name of our movie. I fish money from one of the many pockets of my uniform and I buy a ticket. Inside, a zit-faced boy takes my ticket and salutes me. It seems like I have not seen a zit in forever. I salute back. It is an unfamiliar gesture. I am the highest-ranking officer in the movie, and have been, until now, on the receiving end of all salutes. My fingertips touch my eyebrow and it is unclear which part of me is feeling the other.

  The theater is dark. I follow the little lights in the floor and ascend the steps. I move into the row. I sit down next to you. Now you are part of the story. You were the audience, now you are The Audience. There is no one else in the theater. It is too dark to see your face. We’ll call you #1. Audience Member #1. Don’t say anything until you’re supposed to. And never, ever look at the camera.

  SINGLE

  I’m in the park reading. I was reading in my apartment, but I came down to the park so a woman would notice me reading. Finding interest in the book or in the reader, she would talk to me. She would crave my touch and I, craving something to touch, would be interested in her. I would set the book aside, and when we left for coffee and the eventual copulation I would forget the book. I would not forget it. I would leave it for the next sad, lonely man in need of something to touch.