by Olga Menson
Athena laughed.
"Did you really think I'd forget? I was so glad that you got to see it, but I would have done it whether or not you were here. It's the most distinctive performance I know. It's the only one that's really me. And you. It's my favorite," Ath said, looking at me with a peculiar intensity, "Anyway, I'm sorry I scared you."
"Yeah. About that. You should go see a doctor."
"Come on. I fainted one time. I probably didn't drink enough."
"You got wobbly the other night too. I thought it was the wine, but..."
"Ok, fine, Dad. I'll go first thing next week, ok? I don't think I'll be able to get an appointment this afternoon. But you have to promise me not to say anything to our parents."
"Ath..."I began, but she cut me off.
"I mean, it Od. Mom has enough to worry about with her father's death. She doesn't need to be freaking out about her neurotic daughter too."
I sighed.
"Fine."
Athena smiled. She almost always got her way with me. On the other hand, she had agreed to go, and that was all I really wanted. When we pulled back into the driveway, she leaned over the center console and kissed me on the cheek. It was sudden, impulsive. I felt myself blushing.
"What was that for?"
"It was for coming with me. For writing that song for me. For being protective. I love you, Od. You're the best man I know."
And then she got out of the car like she hadn't just said the most incredible things.
* *
Time passed. Ath didn't crawl into bed with me again. I went back to school during the days and finished the installation, hoping that it went over well. I was primarily into electronics engineering, but music and computers were both fun hobbies.
To be honest, I really wanted Ath to like it, which I guess shouldn't surprise anyone. I was a little disappointed, however, when I got the email.
"Ah, fuck," I said that morning at the table. It was still just Athena and me. The funeral would be that Friday, and after that, Mom and Dad would come home.
"What is it?" Ath asked.
"It's the exhibition."
"Is it canceled?"
"No, just delayed. I guess the local power station failed, a lightning strike or something. They just decided to do it in two weeks."
"Oh, that's good."
"Is it?" I asked Athena, genuinely confused.
"Yeah," she said, "it's after the funeral. Mom and Dad should be back by then. They'll want to go. It will distract them from all this...stuff."
"Oh, yeah. Jeez. I hope that they don't hate it. It's kind of...weird."
"Have you met our parents?" Ath asked me with a smirk, "They're kind of the definition of weird. And they'll love it. I really can't wait to see it. Normally you show me things like this, and your secrecy has been intriguing."
"Eh," I said, "It's not a huge deal. I just kind of wanted it to be a surprise for everyone. If you want to see it early..."
"No," Ath said, "I can wait. I'm patient."
I snickered, and she hit me playfully. It was a relatively normal morning.
Later I drove Athena to the doctor. It was pretty routine, to be honest. She was back there for a while, and when she came back out, she said that they drew about a gallon of her blood for tests but that the doctor couldn't find anything obviously wrong with her. Most of the tests would come back in about a week after the funeral. She promised to tell me when she heard something.
The week passed. Mom called me and asked me to do a bunch of things, most of which was already done. I got Ath to school and home again after my classes. We cooked and kept things clean and went grocery shopping, so Mom and Dad wouldn't have to do a bunch of things when they got home. At night, I watched TV or read with Ath on the couch. She was cuddling with me more than usual. I didn't push her away. Maybe I should have, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. And, I reasoned, if I enjoyed it for other reasons, it was ok since she was initiating, and I was just passively experiencing it. I know it's fucked up, but it was all I had.
The funeral came and went. Mom and Dad came home. I reluctantly went back to my on-campus housing. I told myself that it was for the best, but that didn't make me feel any better. I stayed close to the family during the funeral, burial, and for most of the wake, but Ath and I didn't have any time to ourselves. I caught her looking at me a few times with a strange expression on her face.
We were both busy with schoolwork, so we didn't meet for lunch or dinner like we typically would have. Two weeks passed quickly, and nothing seemed out of place.
That was when it happened.
* * *
Magic and Death
* * *
I was excited on the night of the exhibition. I dressed up a bit. Not in a suit, mind you, but I wore nicer jeans and a well-ironed dress shirt. It was pretty casual in any case. I had the impression that the art department didn't take the "mixed-electronic-media" showcase all that seriously, but that wasn't true. They had drinks and food, a big, well-lit gallery in the back of the main building, and had ensured that each artist had the right spot for their installation.
I was majoring in comp sci, but I was thinking about a minor in music or maybe "interpretive art," so I was pretty interested in responses to what I'd done as well as in seeing the works of others. All of the other participants were art majors, so I didn't expect to look all that great next to them. That was fine, I wasn't really looking to impress professors that night. Not even my parents, really.
Athena was a different story. Her performance had made me smile at the synchronicity of things, but it had also made me a bit nervous. Would she think that I had done this in response to her? Would it seem silly now? I didn't know, but I understood now that she was the one person who's opinion truly mattered that night.
I could never really tell her how I felt. That would destroy everything we had. But maybe I could show her how much she meant to me. It was worth the hours I spent making the final changes. Then, she could go to Sweden and I would move away before she came back. We'd still love each other, but she'd be safe from my baser feelings.
I got there before the official opening, so I could see the other artists' work. There was a fantastic LCD "painting" that changed depending on how the closest person viewed it. One appeared to be just a simple vase with some kind of screen on the outside that created animated "greek-style" warriors and dancers. I even helped a freshman near to tears with their laptop, which was driving their "lighted space" experiment. Once we got it booted up and running, I was very impressed that it was just LEDs in a very dark room.
To be honest, by the time I got back to my own piece, I wasn't feeling that good about things. I was interrupted by my father's hand on my shoulder. I wasn't shocked that they showed up as soon as the exhibition opened. At least I had a supportive family. I was expecting some friends to be by, but that probably wouldn't be until a few hours later.
Mom looked tired, but she was definitely interested in all the displays of light and sound. Dad more or less accompanied her, and they slowly moved from one thing to another, as they always did in museums, carefully observing and experiencing, and then arguing quietly about what it meant. For a moment, Athena and I watched them and chuckled. Then she hit me on the arm. She was dressed casually too, but it was impossible to avoid noticing that her jeans and simple black sweater both fit her like a glove. Even with makeup, I could see that she had dark circles under her eyes, and she looked a little pale and maybe thinner. I suspected that she hadn't been eating or sleeping enough, but she had a lot going on. I would talk to her about it later.
"Okay, they might be saving you for last, but I'm not that patient. Where's yours?"
I gestured over to the small pedestal about three feet from us. It was a very plain rectangular white pillar. Inside was a laptop. On top was a set of what looked like clear safety glasses with a thick black frame and earpieces built-in for sound. Also, there were some alcohol wipes for sanitary reasons. Ath lo
oked at them skeptically.
"Do I put them on?"
"Yes, genius, they're glasses. You're lucky that you're so cute."
"Jerk," she said, putting them on, then jumping back a bit with a start.
Athena was busy. She'd pretty much been busy her whole life. She read and used her phone, but didn't play a lot of games, so it made sense that augmented reality was a bit of a shock to her, even if the technology had been around for a while.
"Holy shit," she said, "Where did you get these? Did you...did you make this? Is this your music?"
I laughed. I didn't need to see or hear what she was experiencing. I made it after all. I knew that on the pedestal, there was a small male figure dancing. Right now, it was doing the first stage of its routine, which was a series of flips and acrobatics inspired by Russian traditional dances and parkour. One of my songs played as he did, more or less an electronic dance number with some adaptive rhythm.
"Try to grab him," I told her.
Ath looked at me for a moment, but she reached out hesitantly as if to carefully pick him up.
"What the fuck? He jumped over my hand! And then he stuck out his tongue at me!"
Athena laughed.
"Ok," I said, "This might not work quite as well, but I want you to cover the dancer with your left hand. Like you're trying to block him from your vision."
Athena didn't ask any questions this time. She just did it.
"Ok, what now?"
"Now, swipe your hand like your choosing something on a big phone screen."
Athena did and then froze.
I saw tears run down her cheeks, and I suddenly felt very nervous. Had I gone too far? It seemed so right when I was putting the extra time in, but now...I wasn't so sure. She covered her mouth with her hand, and her uncharacteristic silence alarmed me.
"Od...did, you do this for me," she said, never looking away from the tiny figure on the pedestal.
"Yes. Only for you. No one else."
"It's beautiful. It's the most beautiful thing anyone has ever done for me."
Athena understood then. I was filled with relief. She saw the dancer. I had made her roughly to my sister's proportions, with the same color and length of hair. I wasn't much of a character modeler, though, so she was relatively low-polygon. Even so, the tough part wasn't her appearance, it was her movement.
I couldn't exactly call my sister for motion capture sessions, and I didn't have the time for that even if I could. Instead, I watched recent videos of her dances and combined that with my memories of her original choreography, and then I used to that to animate the character by hand. This meant that the small figure that Athena was seeing moved very close to how she really did, or at least how her brother saw her.
I'm sure that to some people, this sounds like genius, but it isn't. I didn't make the augmented-reality glasses technology, but I did learn how to use it. I knew how to compose music and how to use software to design, rig and animate three-dimensional characters. It was just a matter of combining the various skills I'd learned and made sure that it worked well with the AR glasses...and that the surface and object detection worked well. I really didn't want any of my little performers clipping through hands or dancing on air. I wanted for people to almost believe what they were watching.
"How...how did you do this? I mean...I could guess, but...I don't...I can't..."
Athena watched for a long time, unaware that others were lining up in her general vicinity, interested in the intensity of her reaction. Mom looked over at me, concerned. I suppose that it might have looked like Ath was having a bad experience, I smiled and gave Mom a thumbs up, and she and Dad returned to their wandering.
In a moment, Ath took the glasses off. My application reset to the default start. She ignored the few tears on her cheeks as she carefully cleaned them as per the instructions that had appeared on the glasses at the end of the display, but now I was a bit worried. I wanted her to love her gift, to be sure. I wanted her to think of it, and of me, when she was gone, but making her cry? I wasn't sure if that was truly good. Ath didn't cry very often at all.
People have this image of dancers as fragile. They are the opposite, some of the toughest and most willful people I have met. Unfortunately, there's also a stigma connected with expressing emotions. It makes you look weak. Ath never wanted sympathy or to look weak. Her public vulnerability was shocking to me in a way that it wouldn't have been in others.
I put my arm gently on my sister's shoulder and led her away from the pedestal as someone I did not recognize picked them up and put them on. I wanted to hear everyone's feedback, but right at that moment, I only wanted to hear from one person.
"Are you all right, Ath?"
"Oh, god," Ath said, sniffling and wiping her tears away, more annoyed than sad, "I'm sorry that I'm such a wreck. I guess I've been stressed out because of the audition and the big changes coming and...I really wanted to see your thing, you know? I never expected that you would do something like this. Will anyone else see it?"
"Only if they do what I told you to do. And I'm not telling anyone else. This was for you and you alone."
"Why?" Ath said. I wouldn't have believed that such a simple, one-word question would have had such an impact on me. She looked into my eyes, and I felt that she could see my guilty thoughts and feelings. Could she? Impulsively, I told her the truth. Sort of.
"Because you've been uncertain. And because you're so beautiful, inside and out. I wanted to show you how I saw you...I mean, how everyone does. And because...because I love you, and I'm going to miss you a great deal. More than you know."
I immediately both kicked and commended myself. I had said too much, but I knew that if I had said less, then Ath would have filled in the blanks herself, and I didn't want her to get any wrong ideas with this. I wanted her to know what she meant to me, even if I could never tell her the entire truth.
"I see," Ath said simply. "I can't believe that you...that it's so perfect. Is there any way to save this so I can play it back later? I mean, I know that I can't have the glasses, but..."
"Yeah. I can do that. It won't look the same but, I can record the animation and give it to you so that you can watch it on your laptop."
"With the music? The music is so important."
"Yes, with the music, too. It's yours as much as mine."
Ath smiled, and there was fresh wetness at her eyes.
"Good. I kind of think I'd like to watch it. And share it with people, when the time comes."
I raised my eyebrow.
"What time would that be?"
"Um, I just meant when I made friends at my new school. They're going to ask me about my family, and I'll show them this. Oh my god, I can just see the girls badgering me for your contact information. It's going to be really annoying."
I laughed, but I also didn't believe her. It wasn't like her to lie, but it seemed to be a minor one. Well, I'd pushed her to enough emotional vulnerability for one night. We stood in silence, then chatted about everything and nothing. I left her to mingle and talk, returning to my installation.
I answered questions of all kinds, from critics and novices. Some were insightful, and others rude. All were interesting to me because they forced me to think about what I'd done. There were other models of dancers in there too, and they randomly rotated in and out. Not my Little Athena, though. She stayed a secret, only for those who knew the right gesture.
After what seemed a short time but was most likely a few hours, my parents showed up. They loved what they saw, and said the most supportive things, as parents would be expected. It was all very wholesome, and it gave me a little more solidity, convincing myself that the distance between Ath and me was even more necessary. Our family was good and, to some degree, pure. I would not spoil it.
The lines thinned out, the hour grew late. I saw Mom, Dad, and Ath talking. Mom walked over with Ath, but only Mom wore her coat. Oddly, my sister was carrying a backpack.
"Are you sure
you're ok with this, Odin?"
I blinked in surprise. Ath spoke up, helpfully.
"She's asking about me spending the night tonight. Because of the thing I have to do at the hospital tomorrow super-early. I told her that you were ok with me staying, and you only live a few blocks away, so it doesn't make any sense for me to go home now."
In point of fact, Ath hadn't told me anything about a hospital. I was taken aback, but her eyes were pleading, not at all like her confident or mischievous self.
"Oh, that," I said, hoping Mom bought the lie. "Yeah, that's fine. It makes sense."
"Fine, I just wanted to make sure," Mom said, "I know how pushy my daughter can be."
"Just like her mother," Dad said, walking up. "We should go, hon. We both have early days tomorrow."
"All right," Mom said, giving in. "Don't go to bed too late, you two! I'm proud of what you did tonight, Odin."
I could almost hear Ath's eyes roll as Mom kissed both of us and left. She still had a great deal of trouble seeing either of us as adults.
Athena waited patiently in the lobby as the evening completed. It didn't take long. While others had to wait until the morning to take their more extensive exhibits down, mine was really just a laptop and the glasses, so I was ready to go five minutes after the show closed.
"Ready?" Ath asked as I walked up to her. She hid her nervousness well, but it was there.
"Yep," I said, holding the door open for her, feeling the chill air revitalize me, "Now do you want to tell me why you didn't tell me about that whole overnight plan?"
I swear that for just a second, Athena stumbled. For us regular mortals, that's kind of a normal thing, but for her, it was very unusual. I couldn't remember the last time she made an error in movement, even on particularly tricky performances.
"Uh, yeah. I mean, I wasn't sure whether I should ask or not. I planned on it tonight, but then I saw your thing and...I got distracted. No, that's not true. After I saw it, I didn't really think that I needed to ask anymore."
Athena turned and gave me the bratty "I-know-something-you-don't" smile that I was all too familiar with.
