A Matter of Life and Death or Something

by Ben Stephenson

  But then he winds the film ahead quickly and points the camera at her. She is concentrating on her movement, focused only on lifting the heavy branch and ducking under, but when she turns to say something he clicks the camera and catches her. Her smile is gone. She looks him in the eyes, deeper than the eyes. Then she crawls out and moves back toward the street, quicker than before and less cautious, as if she now had a destination. He lets her go ahead. He puts the camera in his pocket and follows. He weighs more. His feet punch holes through the ice. He jumps over the ditch and once he’s back on the road he runs to catch up to her. He rubs his hand against the back of her yellow coat and speaks but she doesn’t reply. Now they walk in silence, and if they do talk their voices use deeper notes. They walk faster, as if the cold now irritates them. And they walk beside each other without walking beside each other. There are innumerable molecules between them.

  And we know his error, and we know he begins to know. And though his photos of us can never be us, can only be souvenirs and sad captives, we will forgive his grasp. We will thank him for the light.

  ICE

  You hated having your picture taken, you said you always have. I told you when I got them developed I would tear this one up for you. And I haven’t.

  In total there were three photos I took of you. The first two from that first fall, we were down at the waterfront by the playground. I took two of you sitting on the pier, and then you said you actually kind of hated getting your picture taken. Those ones didn’t turn out, you were lucky, I was too nervous and too in love to set the aperture, and you are a silhouette against fog. And so of course yes let’s keep the romance going here let’s pull out all the stops because this is THE ONLY photo of you that I HAVE:

  –You are slipping under a heavy ice-covered branch, in your bright yellow coat, turning towards me. I’m on the other side of the branches—you are seen through them.

  –We broke up the next day—this is our last official day. We did not break up because of this photo. But how could I ever get past how it tells the whole story. Maybe in thirty years I will be able to look at it and feel nothing—maybe.

  –Your breath is a cloud. It hangs out in front of you dusting the air under the tree, one of your hands is raised to hold up the delicate branch and its smaller branches, you’ve taken your gloves off for some reason, your white fingers look frigid. All the smaller coated branches on the side make it look like you’re stepping into a web of ice.

  –You were talking about being present, about undivided mind, it all makes too much sense, you were explaining and making connections and laughing, I was useless, I couldn’t stop trying to describe your laugh to myself. Was it like birdsong? Is birdsong so contagious? And I’m nodding and grinning and watching my feet move, taking photos. I agreed with everything wanted to agree with everything you ever said.

  –It was February 20th. We had not done anything for the day that is known as Valentine’s Day.

  –I had wanted to.

  –Because of the flash everything is all reflections and glitter, and you’re stepping into a cage of light.

  –How the things we did to each other could never not be signs.

  –Not being able to stop finding looking for metaphor in everything.

  –Your yellow is the only colour in the photo.

  –Just before, when we stood on the snowbank and I kissed you just under your ear, on the spot where your jaw becomes your neck.

  –The spot where your jaw becomes your neck.

  –The way I could make you smile by kissing you, if I was lucky. Activate your cheeks and draw your lips up into a smile and light up your face.

  –Your face is almost expressionless in the ice and calm in this candid way, maybe vaguely mad, or do I just know too much, you’re framed by a triangular hole in the ice matrix.

  –I promise you I don’t look at this photo every day.

  –There are an infinite number of ways to describe it and absolutely no ways to describe what it makes me feel and how much.

  –The same is true of you.

  –I should give myself time, today might not be the day, there will be more days—will there be more days—some days are better some are impossible to descri survive I am trying I need you to somehow know that, today has been a nightmare I am trying, I am not giving up.

  –I promise I will tear it up today.

  –I took your picture, you hated that, I knew it, I did it anyway. We were less than a hundred feet from the beach where we would have the worst day. The things I said were automatic. How could I be expected to let go of something I never got to have, I need to tear it up and get rid of it and everything behind it and beyond it, what fucking drama, I thought it was the real thing, I thought it was it—I thought it was GOING to be the real thing—did you know you were only half in it the whole time—did you try—I wish you never had to try—we always had to try—think, figure it out, make a rule—I thought one day it would all become perfect, how do you convince someone. You don’t. How can one person be so certain, I’m insane, I have made sure to fuck up every good thing I ever had, I can never just be. I can never stop caring. I was sure. I said we should skinny-dip there, if summer ever finally came. You said we would. I wish you would have told me I could let go and you wouldn’t disappear. I wish I could have closed my eyes or let go—you are not a passing instant to seal in ice—you are eternal, terrifying—I could never record even a moment of you so how could I be expected not to even try? I need to get rid of this, for you—I must have known the whole time—I will get rid of this for you I’m not lying I wish you could see, I had no idea how scared I was, I made it happen—I did it to myself.

  IT GETS HEAVY SOMETIMES

  I OBVIOUSLY wasn’t speaking to Simon the next day. It was easiest at suppertime because Simon wasn’t home anyway, so even if I wanted to I couldn’t have said anything to him. I made myself macaroni and cheese, and I put the entire package of cheese in too.

  After supper I was sitting in the kitchen drinking milk and thinking about how much my life was ruined and then Simon came through the front door amazingly fast.

  “Let’s go!”

  He quickly tossed some plastic bags on the counter and threw some things in the fridge. He was doing a hundred things at once and I had no idea what he was talking about.

  “Arthur?” he looked me in the face. “Let’s go! I found her!”

  “Found who?” I said, breaking the rule about not speaking to him.

  When he said her name I couldn’t believe I forgot. I was forgetting everything lately, even though I wasn’t forgetful. I jumped off my chair and ran to the National Geographic calendar on the fridge. Sure enough, the day said:

  “Rosie.”

  We drove a lot quicker than Simon usually drove, which still wasn’t exactly quick. But he sped our rusty red car to the very end of our road, turned left and kept on going. He drove so fast I think he might have almost been going the speed limit. I kept my forehead pressed up against the cold fogged-up window and watched the night fly by because I had a lot to think about before we found her. It was starting to rain, and the rain tapped the car all over, making music kind of, and dripping patterns down in front of my face. I imagined Rosie running through the rain in the dark. Then, running through a different country full of snowy mountains and white cougars, then running through a thick rainforest, smelly sweat all over her, never stopping for a break. I imagined her doing the whole trip in one go, never even sleeping. I bet she could.

  I saw her out there all alone, with only Icebird to protect her. I thought that Icebird was a really good name for a trailer, but maybe she named it that because she actually wanted to have a gigantic blue bird, like a phoenix but made of ice-feathers, that would fly above her as she ran and carry everything she needed in a chest tied to its back
. Every night when she got tired it would let her sleep under its wing and it would sing gigantic sleepy lullabies like a foghorn. I figured that must’ve been what she really wanted to bring on the journey with her, but she couldn’t get quite enough sponsors for that so she just got a trailer instead.

  I pictured her beginning in Wales and then also ending in Wales. Where her trip started and where it would finish were the exact same place, but that wasn’t the important part. The parts in between were what I liked to imagine. When she got back to where she started, back to Wales, it’s not like she had gone nowhere.

  I saw her running and running still, maybe sometimes walking, maybe sometimes sleeping in a tent in a farmer’s field. I saw her with enough energy to run around the whole world, even though she was old enough to be my grandmother. I wondered if it was possible she actually was my grandmother. It was possible. If she was, maybe that meant someday I could run around the world too, with my own grandchildren.

  “When I spotted her it was right about,” Simon paused, “... here.”

  We drove under an overpass near the highway, and the pitter-pattering of the rain shut up for a quick silence and then started again.

  I looked very carefully out the window for her, but all I saw was the ditch filling with cloudy water, and power lines drooping up and down and up and down in front of the twilight sky and dark forests as we drove past them. I knew she wouldn’t be that hard to spot because on her website she always had bright-coloured clothes and of course she was always pulling Icebird. We turned onto a ramp to get on the highway, because Simon said that if she was going around the world, then she’d have to head northeast out of the city. This was something that Simon didn’t need to tell me, because I am not stupid.

  Our car is stupid though, because it always does this stupid thing where one of the windshield wipers stops in the middle of the window and twitches like the kid on that commercial about seizures. When this happened, Simon always had to pull over and get out of the car and sort of punch the thing until it decided to snap out of it so that we could see again. This could sometimes take years to work. So he got out of the car, and as he was outside in the pouring rain doing the punching part, I thought about how it probably wouldn’t work the same at all on that kid with the seizure.

  Then I started to think different. Such as, what would happen when we finally found Rosie? I had been following her journey for months on her website, but she had probably never even been to my website. I didn’t even know exactly why I wanted to see her, but I did. I had never really pictured what I would do if I saw her. I wanted to try and talk to her, obviously, because I wanted to tell her that I read her website every three days, on average, and that I thought she was really brave. And I wanted to get her autograph, so that I could hang it on my wall at home and show it to my grandchildren. I wondered if she’d be as nice as I thought she was.

  Simon got back in the car and we started driving up the ramp in the dark. By then it was completely dark outside. We headed northeast on the highway for fifteen or twenty minutes without seeing anything except for a roadkill. Simon said it was a racoon but I wasn’t so sure, I was pretty sure it was a mongoose or a Tasmanian devil. Maybe a zebra.

  Then Simon pointed at some glowing orange dot way up ahead. When our car bounced, the orange dot strobe-lighted in the headlights, and soon it became a little orange square, then a bigger orange square with a yellow X, and then a person wearing a neon vest, and then Rosie.

  She was running on the side of the road, and running slow, to be efficient. Icebird was attached to her waist with straps, and pulled behind her that way, instead of how I always thought it had handles on it, with her holding on to the front. She must have been so soaked. We pulled over onto the elbow of the highway and Simon stopped the car pretty far behind her, and she just kept running. It was weird. I felt like we were spying on her. Like we were being too sneaky; sneaky in a bad way. Our headlights were still reflecting on her back as she kept running and we spied on her. I was surprised she didn’t check over her shoulder to see who was there. Lots of other cars and trucks were speeding by and they didn’t know what they were missing.

  “Wow,” I said. I stared out the windshield watching her bright bouncy back get farther away and eventually slip back into the darkness. Half of me wanted to ask Simon to take me home. After a few minutes I looked over at him and he was already looking over at me. He asked if I wanted him to come with me. The brave half of me told him no. I took a breath that was very deep.

  When I finally got out of the car, Rosie was an entire football field away from me, and the raindrops smashed my face. My hair was instantly wet and flopping in my eyes and I had to push it out of the way. I started jogging fast enough so I could catch up to her, but also slow enough so I could not catch up to her for a while. Why I was so hesitating, who knows? I practised things in my brain.

  “Hi my name is Arthur Williams and you haven’t met me yet but I go on your website every three days on average and I hope you enjoyed running through my town and you are really brave.”

  Too long. I kept jogging.

  “Hi my name is Arthur Williams and I am ten years old and I am your biggest fan that I know of and I think it’s amazing that you are going all the way around the whole world and you must be glad the world isn’t flat anymore because what if you fell off the side and will you sign this hankie for my grand-children?”

  Even longer. And I wasn’t saying what I really wanted to say. What did I want to say? I tried to calm down and make sense.

  “Hi my name is Arthur Williams and sometimes I wish I was running around the world too and what was your favourite place so far and did you ever feel like it was too hard for you and maybe you should just quit and how much money have you raised so far and how many orphans does that save and don’t your feet ever start to hurt and is it possible you might be my grandmother?”

  I couldn’t stop babbling even though my mouth wasn’t open yet. Then I noticed how close I was getting, and even though I hadn’t unboggled myself yet I was only a few more steps from Rosie, and I tried to slow down but it was too late and then she was right beside me.

  Rosie looked down at me and her eyes widened and reflected Simon’s lights down the road. Her sand-coloured hair was wet and bounced around. She looked surprised to see me at first, and then maybe happy. She smiled at me. It was more than a smile, it was one of the biggest smiles I’d ever seen. She had a huge grin on her face. For some reason, I had usually imagined her as sad. Brave, but sad.

  “Well, hello!” she said, and slowed down until we stopped running.

  A ball of words appeared in my brain and then somehow teleported to my throat. I wasn’t sure what the words were, but Rosie was staring at me and the throat bubble just burst out of my mouth and unravelled itself out of my control.

  “HimynameisArthurWilliamsandtenyearsoldyou’rereallybrave!”

  I am such a moron sometimes. Rosie laughed, probably because of how loud and squeaky I was. Then she just smiled again. She tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Come on.”

  We ran together. I stayed right beside her and kept the same speed, even though I could have run so much faster. We ran beside the highway, through puddles and mud and tried to avoid squishing the worms on the ground, and the cold rain soaked all the way through my sweater and my t-shirt to my skin. We ran past hundreds of trees and rocks and families of bugs and animals in the woods too dark to see. We ran below nighttime airplane flights and whole flocks of owls, and above whole cities of millions of tiny ants underground. The rain slid down our faces splashing on the ground. Her face was smiling, and after a while mine was too. Technically, we were heading for Wales. We ran on our one little planet that was called Earth, in the middle of an infinity of other galaxies. The line we were drawing made a squiggly circle around the whole globe.

  After a while, I wished that Icebird had
handles like I thought it would, because then maybe I could help her pull it for a while. For some reason I thought that would be a very nice and brave thing to do. Another more scared part of me really wanted to just curl up inside Icebird and follow her for the rest of the trip. I just wanted to be more than a silly boy who ran beside her for two minutes. Maybe I could help her on the journey, and be her personal assistant or something. I sort of hooked my arm through the trailer’s strap and tried to pull it that way. It was a stupid idea, really, because it would have actually just made it harder for her to pull. It was a weird angle. Or at least, it didn’t seem like I was making much difference at all, and also I don’t know if Rosie even noticed until Icebird bumped a little rock and jolted sideways all over the place.

  She slowed down when she felt the trailer wobble. We stopped running.

  “Whoo-oops,” she said, with her quick voice and her accent, “you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Sorry.”

  She straightened her back out and raised her arms over her head, and leaned back to stretch. She took some really deep breaths. I didn’t know what to do, so I copied her back stretch, and then I did some jumping jacks for some reason. I forgot that I’m not very good at jumping jacks. So I stopped.

  There were so many questions I wasn’t asking. There were so many things I wasn’t telling her. I wanted to ask her for her autograph and I wanted to ask how much money we were raising. I took my handkerchief out of my pants pocket for the autograph but when she smiled at me, my heart felt weird and I wiped the rain off my face with it instead. I put it back in my pocket. I wanted to ask her if her feet were aching, and what size shoes she had. I wanted to ask about her husband. I wanted to ask if he was the true love of her life. Mostly, I needed to tell her all about Phil and how he was dead too and how awful that was. I had to tell her about my investigation and how I was only going around a whole street instead of a whole planet but it felt like the same thing. I had to tell her about how Simon had ruined it all. There was no way she wouldn’t be able to help me out, I mean, she was running around the entire world.