by Tommy Butler
“What’s the matter?”
“My review,” says Merriam.
“Oh.” Jollis grimaces. “When is it?”
“Now!”
“Yes, of course,” says Jollis. “So, how are you going to explain the—you know.”
“I suppose I’ll just tell them the truth.”
Jollis laughs, but his mirth fades when he notes Merriam’s grim demeanor. “You’re serious?” he says. “Merry, that’s a horrible idea.”
“You want me to lie.” Merriam is incredulous. “To the brass.”
“I don’t see a choice. You can’t risk demotion. Do you want to spend the rest of eternity scrubbing out wormholes?”
Merriam’s dread threatens to spiral into panic. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Maybe you can just play dumb.” Jollis feigns a shocked expression. “An empty space? Really? That’s outrageous! How should I know where it came from?”
“But I was in charge,” groans Merriam. “I’d just look incompetent.”
“Then it was an accident,” says Jollis. He begins to circumnavigate the room. “You were on break . . . you went out for a quick turn through the void, and must have gotten a little on you without realizing it. And then—oops!—it fell into the vessel.”
“Also incompetent,” says Merriam.
“Okay, so it was on purpose,” says Jollis, churning in thought. “You put it there in case the brass realized that they’d left something out, or needed room for an upgrade—like collapsible wings, or a solar panel.”
“They won’t buy it.”
“Fine,” says Jollis. “You cleverly anticipated that the travelers would need a place to put things, so you gave them the empty space for storage. Like a kangaroo’s pouch.”
“Please,” says Merriam. “It doesn’t work that way.”
“Are you sure?” asks Jollis. “Maybe they could keep their tools in there. Or candy or something.”
Merriam slumps in resignation. “Thanks,” she says, “but I think I’m done for.” She rises, forcing herself toward the door. “In case I don’t see you, I’d just like to say that it’s been a pleasure working with you.”
“Wait,” Jollis calls out after her. “What will you tell them?”
“I don’t know.” She sighs. “Maybe I’ll go with the kangaroo’s pouch.”
Jollis nods. “Good call.”
Merriam is always a bit nervous with the brass. She’s not sure why. They really couldn’t be kinder, or more thoughtful. Even now, with her demotion practically a fait accompli, they are positively glowing.
“Merriam, hello!” they say, with that sublime enthusiasm only the brass can muster. “How are things?”
This is not the question Merriam was expecting. She is thrown off guard, and grows even more apprehensive as the interview proceeds, with the brass airily inquiring about one earthly trifle or another—the weather in Ubud, the Alaskan salmon run—topics not even within her official purview. Normally, this sort of chitchat from the brass would hardly surprise Merriam. Their passion for the earth is notorious, as is their unceasing delight in discussing the planet’s happenings. Yet, given the circumstances, all this gossip must be some sort of ruse, right? Meant to trick her into an admission of guilt? They must know about the empty space. It is simply inconceivable that the brass might not know about the empty space. Or is it? Merriam’s anxiety and confusion amass within her, expanding and intensifying until she can no longer keep from bursting.
“I did it!” she cries.
The conversation halts. The brass are taken aback. “Did what, Merriam?”
“The empty space,” she says, breaking down. “In the vessel. It’s my fault.” She hurries to explain. “It’s not a hole—it’s definitely not a hole—and I didn’t leave anything out. I actually had the whole thing finished, as per the blueprints—which were great, by the way—but then Jollis showed me the earth, and I hadn’t seen it yet, and it just blew me away, and I got scared that the travelers would like it so much that they wouldn’t come back, and I thought about how terribly we would miss them.”
“So that’s why you gave them the empty space,” say the brass.
“Yes,” admits Merriam. “We tried to fix it, Jollis and me. The dreaming had already begun, so we couldn’t just take it out, but Jollis thought we might fill it. He tried clouds, and light. He poured in emotions, one after the other—way past the prescribed amounts—until all the vials were empty.”
“Not all the vials,” say the brass. “You stopped him before he emptied the last one. That was fortunate.”
“But none of it worked,” continues Merriam. “So we went to Earth to try to help the travelers fill the empty space themselves. In disguise, of course. I thought that maybe if we granted them their deepest wishes—”
“The leprechauns were quite charming.”
“But we failed,” says Merriam, breathlessly. “We went all over the world, granting wishes out the wazoo. It didn’t matter. No matter how many wishes we fulfilled, people just kept coming back for more. And now they can’t stop searching, in all the wrong places, just like Jollis predicted. I mean, spoonula sales are through the roof.”
“What’s a spoonula?” ask the brass.
“Never mind,” sighs Merriam, crumpling with despair. “I’m just so sorry. They’ll never be satisfied, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”
When the last of her admission has poured from her, Merriam braces herself for the fire and brimstone she is sure will come. Yet the glow with which the brass attend to her is even brighter and warmer than before.
“You’re right,” say the brass. “They will never be satisfied. The best they can do is be content with dissatisfaction.”
“I’m sorry,” Merriam says again.
“No, no, no,” say the brass. “On the contrary. It’s brilliant.”
The noose of Merriam’s fate loosens ever so slightly. “I don’t understand.”
“You see, we tried all this before,” say the brass. “It never worked. Without the empty space, the travelers just sat there. They had no desire to do anything, nor any desire to not do anything, or to even be at all. There was no longing, no adventure, no love. No one climbed mountains, or crossed seas, or stared into fires, or took naps. No one looked, or listened, or imagined. They had no reason to.”
“But the empty space makes them miserable.”
“Sometimes,” say the brass. “It also makes them alive. It makes the whole thing come alive. It is a wonder, Merriam. You need not despair.”
A weight lifts from Merriam, though she is not yet wholly at ease. “They can never fill it,” she says. “They’re doomed to fail.”
“Life is in the living,” say the brass. “There is no way to fail.”
Elliot
(2054)
Late spring. The knoll behind the cottage has burst to life with a lush growth of new grass—ironically, it seems to me, though neither the knoll nor the grass is to blame. I stand at the center and peer out at the surrounding ring of faces, some flushed with emotion, others paled by it. A breeze sweeps over the hill. Someone coughs. A long moment passes before I remember who I am or what I’m doing out here beneath the fragile blue of an impermanent sky. I am Elliot Chance. I am eighty-two years old. I am scattering Sasha’s ashes.
“It’s not a war,” Sasha used to say. She frowned on the notion that life is a fight against death, or its messengers. Still, that’s exactly what we did, at least for a while, until the end became too inevitable to bicker with, and Sasha just wanted to rest, and talk with me a little. I think we spoke mostly to hear each other’s voices, to confirm our shared existence. Specific words are harder to recall, though I know they were often the light, even silly sort. Sasha’s laugh, if diminished, never fully abandoned her, and any quip that could evoke it was priceless to me. Occasionally, however, one or the other of us couldn’t help but take heed of our predicament, and feel a need to say something about it. Those words were
important, too.
“I’m nearly at the door,” Sasha once said to me. She was frail by this time, and bedridden, and more often asleep than not, though her eyes when open had not lost their keenness.
“Slow down a little, would you?” I asked.
She managed a smile. “You fell behind,” she teased. “Distracted by wonders. My favorite puzzler.”
“Wait for me,” I said. “I’ll catch up.”
“Take your time,” she said. “I want you to enjoy every moment possible, and make it through the others as best you can.”
On the last day, we said very little at all. I had installed a hummingbird feeder outside the window, and I held Sasha’s hand as we watched the tiny creatures hover and whirl, their colorful feathers flashing like metal in the sun. That evening, just before she drifted off, she asked for a sip of water. I guided it gently between her lips, rubbing her throat to help her swallow. She closed her eyes in relief, then opened them again to look at me.
“Thank you,” she said. Perhaps only I could know that she was referring to more than just a sip of water, and that it wasn’t just me she was thanking.
Such might be considered apt final words, given Sasha’s view on the exaggerated significance of endings, except that this wasn’t ours. As agreed, we had already written the final page of our story—years and years ago, on a fire escape, floating in the night above a broad river. “My heart cares about your heart,” Sasha had told me before saying goodbye. A good ending, by my measure. I’d take it every time.
I don’t relate these things to the ring of faces. Nor do I mention Sasha’s coded messages, or her novel. She made me promise not to reveal them, and I like to think of myself as someone who keeps his promises. I’m not sure what to tell the faces. I would rather not be here at all, but Sasha had mentioned to one or two of her friends that she might like to have her ashes scattered over the knoll. So here we are.
I clear my throat and run my hand down the front of my tweed suit—not the one Bannor wore, of course. He took that with him. It’s a close cousin, though, and I was certainly thinking of him when I bought it. I would have purchased a homburg hat as well, but didn’t think I could pull it off. Bannor had a style all his own, and though Sasha said I wore it well, I don’t put the suit on very often. “Special occasions only.”
I drop my eyes back down to the grass—countless tiny blades of green, stained now with a pallid gray. Sasha and I tried to plant flowers here, I tell the gathering. Several types, over the years—typically using whatever seeds the kids in the neighborhood were selling. They never took (the marigolds gave it the best go). During the first few seasons, we got more and more frustrated, until it became something of a personal mission to get flowers—any flowers—to grow here. Yet the knoll would tolerate nothing but grass, and lots of it. Eventually there came a spring when Sasha and I looked at each other and realized it was time to wave the white flag, and we laughed at ourselves, because the truth was that we both loved the grass.
It is a lame eulogy, but the gathering seems to appreciate it. We descend from the knoll as a group, then pass through the cottage to emerge at the front porch. A neighbor raises a handkerchief to my cheek, wiping away tears I didn’t know were there. The others embrace me in turn before they leave, until all the faces are gone but one.
“That was nice,” says Dean. “I mean—”
“I know what you meant,” I say. “Thanks.”
My brother lowers his suitcase to the ground by his feet. At eighty-four, he considers it a challenge—and a source of pride—to carry his bags rather than pull them along on their rollers. When I called to tell him that Sasha had died, Dean was packed and on his way up to the cottage before I had a chance to either request or refuse any company. Together we attended to the expected formalities, mostly in silence.
“I never knew about the flowers,” says Dean. “Funny.”
“Yeah.”
“I would have just kept planting the shit out of that knoll,” he says. “But I guess sometimes you have to let the call of nature take its course.”
My brother hasn’t changed much. I suppose I haven’t either, though we are both old men now, our hazel eyes paler and our hair equally gray. We look more like brothers than ever. Nevertheless, I still can’t tell if Dean’s mangled aphorism is intentional or the result of his innate crassness, and I don’t know how to respond.
“Sorry,” he says. “Just trying to make you laugh. Unsuccessfully, as per usual.”
“Is that what all your butchered maxims were about?”
He laughs lightly. “Always,” he says. “Especially back in the day, when we were at the firm together. You hated that job. I felt bad.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” I tell him. “I’m grateful to you. Those were valuable years.”
“That’s what Dad always said—that you needed the training before you could do your own thing. He said your experience had to catch up with your imagination.”
“He never told me that.”
“Didn’t he?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Though by now I’ve probably forgotten more than I remember.”
“You and me both,” says Dean, chuckling again. “So, when are you coming down to visit? The boys will be in town next week. They’d love to see you.”
Dean’s sons both live on the West Coast. They’re all grown-up now. Long grown-up, actually, though I can’t help but think of them as little boys—maybe because that’s what they are in most of my memories of them. I can still see the younger of the two at his first birthday party, pondering a slice of lime that Dean had given him. He would raise the lime to his lips and suck on it, then push it away quickly and scrunch his face up, as if someone had just sprayed him with water, or pinched his nose, or otherwise affronted him in some outrageous manner. Then, after a moment to compose himself, he’d raise the lime right back up to his lips and give it another suck.
“It would be nice to see them, too,” I say.
“We can break out the mitts and have a catch,” says Dean. “Like old times.”
I refrain from pointing out that I no longer have a mitt, or that my brother and I never played catch in old times. “I haven’t thrown a baseball in decades.”
“Me neither,” says Dean. “We can see whose arm falls off first.”
“Maybe,” I say. “Let me see how things go.” I indicate the urn under my arm, but I don’t know why. It’s empty now. There is nothing left to attend to. Not officially.
“C’mon,” says Dean. “It’ll be fun.”
“Thanks,” I say. “I’ll do my best.”
“Promise?”
Once Dean’s car is out of sight, I retreat into the stillness of the cottage. I pause in the foyer to listen for any lingering echo of the gathering—or of Sasha—but there is none. Nor will there be. With the urn tucked under one arm, I open the closet and pull a backpack down from the shelf, then pass into the little den that we used as an office. From a cabinet behind the desk, I retrieve the opaque plastic container that holds Sasha’s ashes.
I didn’t scatter them on the knoll—or I did, but only symbolically, though the gathering wasn’t aware of this distinction. At least I hope they weren’t. If any of them suspected that what I sprinkled over the grass was mostly fine sand and crushed seashells, they graciously kept the secret. And why wouldn’t they? The ceremony itself was sincere, and intended mainly for their benefit anyway—in honor not only of Sasha but also of their affection for her. While she may have mentioned it to her friends, Sasha never told me definitively that she wanted her ashes scattered on the hillside, nor did I ever promise to do so.
I open the seal on the container and gingerly pour the ashes into the urn, securing the lid afterward. From within framed photographs on the desk, another group of faces stands in witness, if not in judgment. I let them be, reaching instead to lift my digital tablet from its charging base. No bigger than my palm, its screen is not much use to my aging eyes, but
like most technology these days, it operates primarily by voice control anyway. I drop the tablet into the pocket of my suit jacket, then carefully stow the urn in the backpack. It’s a close fit, but I have only two more items to collect, and only one of those needs to fit inside the pack.
Still in its box on the basement shelf, the revolver has yet to be fired, at least since I stole it years ago. It may not even work, though it appears to be in good operating condition. I load the cylinder with new bullets, under the hopefully correct assumption that most misfires are due to faulty ammunition. Opening the backpack, I tuck the gun in beside the urn, then zip up the pack and slide it onto my back. Its lightness surprises me. I barely feel the straps against my shoulders as I climb the basement stairs and continue to the living room. With an almost formal reverence, I take Sasha’s novel from the bookshelf. Then I turn and go.
I walk the three miles into town. With several pounds on my back, this may not be generally advisable for an octogenarian, though Dean would no doubt be proud. On a narrow street closed to vehicles is a bookstore that has survived for more than a century—bravely persevering through the digital revolution, multiple recessions, and a dozen unconsummated going-out-of-business sales. I slip to the back of the shop, where the out-of-print section grows larger each year. Even now, in a time when electronic words don’t take up any space, volumes still disappear forever.
I flip one last time through the pages of Sasha’s novel. Somehow I managed to refrain from underlining favorite passages or otherwise marking it up. Maybe I knew it would ultimately be passed along. I look for an appropriate spot on the shelf, then realize it would likely be a final resting place for Sasha’s words, which is not my goal. Instead, I return to the front of the store. At the best-seller section, I shuffle books around to clear a space on the top shelf. There, I think, as I set Sasha’s book in place. Better.
“Have you read that one?” A young woman appears beside me. From behind an anachronistically thick pair of glasses, she gives me a studious look. “I haven’t heard of it.”
