Beings: A Novel

by Ilana Masad

They knew how to be quiet together, these two.

<3

He got mad at himself sometimes, a quiet anger like parental disappointment, his expression similar to how she imagined he must look at his boys when they were naughty or got low grades at school. He held himself to such high standards, became annoyed when he had missed a turn on Route 3 an hour or two ago. They doubled back and stopped to ask for directions at a restaurant, had ended up eating there, too, and the moist slice of chocolate cake she had gotten sat in her stomach, its weight welcome, sweetness still lingering in her mouth.

That was what it felt like: the prejudices he saw all around him doing just what they should not do, what he wished he could prevent them from doing, and jumping the blood–brain barrier.

There it was, the same peculiar light movement, and she began to track it again, the comfortable joy of a moment previous turning liquid inside her, sharpening into nervous curiosity. She pointed and asked her husband to look again, and told him he was being ridiculous if he thought the growing light could possibly be a star or even a satellite, so much farther away would it have to be then.

He hated not knowing things, did not take well to the unexplainable. He would think her ridiculous for even considering it.

As he watched it, he wished again for some other nighttime driver to pull off the road, bear witness to this matter. He had read once about the phenomenon of folie à deux and was frightened to think that he and his wife might be going mad together.

He repeated that the thing outside was likely a military plane, perhaps something they were not even supposed to see, and maybe that was why it was sticking close to them, to make sure that they would not talk about it.

He was a patriotic man, proud of his service, but he could not always put away his conscience, that voice that asked what good it was, fighting wars, especially wars that had nothing to do with them.

They drove, uneasy with one another in a way that felt new and vaguely itchy, as if their bodies were wrapped in sackcloth rather than their sensible garments of cotton and silk.

She watched for the bright object, a thrill trapped in her throat. She said nothing when they drove right past a motel, VACANCIES lit up in neon above a single yellow square. She imagined the night manager inside, feet on the desk, trying to stay awake with the paper or a small TV set. How glad the clerk would be to have the night’s boredom interrupted! But they did not have enough cash with them for a room, and besides, as frightened as she was, she wanted dearly to see what would happen next. Her whole body tingled with the fear, the adventure. She could not believe any real harm would come to them. Nothing so very bad had ever happened to her, even though many things had threatened to over the years.

when she looked through the binoculars again, she felt the early stirrings of what, much later, she would recognize as awe: the thing above was huge, round. She could clearly see now two rows of lit windows. Her heart raced.

She slid back in and babbled as he thrust himself into the car, put it in gear, and started driving, but he could not register any of her questions, so full was his head with the word run, so full his mouth with the word capture.

It’s time for them to leave, but where they are feels more like home than the blank white box housing their possessions, one of four rooms in the apartment they share with three other adults they are not related to by blood or friendship.

Imagine if I was a boy and enlisted in the military without telling her? I bet she’d come right to the barracks and shout louder than any drill sergeant could until she made them give her rebellious son back. Maybe not, actually. She’d probably be proud and crowing about it to everyone. “Oh, Phil is in the service, don’t you know!” Ha! Well, I’m not a boy, more’s the pity. Mother’s stuck with what she’s got. Or not got, as the case may be . .

Tell me what you think of this one? My favorite line is the first: “Estelle thought she’d like men better if she were a man herself.” Of course, then she manages it and . . . well, I’ll let you read the rest. Originally, I thought that Estelle would become a man by drinking a potion, but then I thought it would be better if there were a device that enclosed a person inside, like a womb, and that was how the person changed. I think my descriptions of the inside of the device are rather good. They gave me shivers, anyway.

To be looked at, to be seen, however fleetingly, is to exist.

A thesis statement of this novel. and what is already shaping up to be one of its most popular and beloved lines <3

There was nothing, really, that could stop life from continuing on, except for its opposite, and even then, it went on for everyone else.

She murmured his name, dazed but a little relieved. The other shoe had dropped. This must have been what she was waiting for, she thought, for something else strange to happen so that she could stop doubting the reality of that night.

Did she believe all or most of what she read? I suspect she did. That because of her early and enduring love of books, she saw anything written down in one as trustworthy, which meant that once she began looking for answers, she found them. She wasn’t gullible, fanciful, or easily manipulated, or perhaps better to say that we are all gullible and fanciful and easily manipulated when we are vulnerable and searching for a way to explain our experiences to ourselves.

There are many ways to be seen, and the Archivist firmly believes in the importance of witnessing the past through the detritus it leaves behind, more or less preserved.

Crucial line!!! "witnessing the past through the detritus it leaves behind" is so beautiful

During their lunch break, the Archivist goes to the stacks to retrieve Phyllis. The musty scent of cardboard and paper is exquisite. They inhale particles of dust that might once have touched the bodies and belongings of people living ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred years ago. Box 23-G is not large, nor very heavy, and they carry it back up to their corner of the office and stow it under their desk until they have time to investigate further.

I love "to retrieve Phyllis" and I love theinhaling of particles of dust that might once have touched the bodies and belongings of people living ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred years ago.

So she grew up on Killian, which is a big carved-out rock in the Ring Region, and due to mysterious reasons that you’ll find out, she’s fled Killian for Titan, where she’s hoping to make a new life. . . . sound familiar? I didn’t even think about it while I was writing, but when I was done, I wanted to give myself a good shake. Talk about lack of imagination!

We took a different line than the two I’m used to riding. As usual, I stared at everyone quite unabashedly. There is always so much to look at here, and smell, and on a Friday night even more so. Smell? Yes, smell! There were laborers in the car who were still sweaty from their day’s work and stank with it, and women doused in flowery perfume, and the reek of booze wafting up here and there though I couldn’t tell from whom. Whenever I’m on the train I think about how much Mother would loathe it, which, of course, makes me love it all the more.

and when we got there, I saw a vision. This woman on the platform about to come on just as Cote and I were supposed to be getting off. There was something gamine about her, her hair was cropped short and mannish and she was wearing suspenders like a man, and I don’t think she was wearing a brassiere . . . I could see a faint outline of her nipples through the thick undershirt she was wearing. I’ve really never seen anything like her, and haven’t been able to stop thinking about her since. I’m not sure if I want to look like her or get to know her.

play "Ring of Keys" from the musical Fun Home

After midnight, something changes. They begin to question their own convictions, their concrete perceptions of reality. The accounts are too emotional, uncertain, and desperate for answers to be solely the products of bored trolls or overactive imaginations, and the Archivist realizes they’ve begun to give the stories the benefit of the doubt, to even find some convincing. They’re reminded of their own attempts to describe their pain and its debilitating nature to white coats who wore sneers and had an eye on the clock. They wonder whether this is the first step toward remembering.

I believe that he did his best to accord others that which was undoubtedly, systematically, denied to him at various points in his life.

Perhaps it was his desire for secrecy, for privacy, that was constraining him so much. Perhaps he was trying too hard to be reasonable, sensible. Perhaps he should let in the strangeness of what had occurred and accept it as part of the narrative of his life.

It was only some six weeks later that they first met the psychiatrist who would end up playing such a pivotal role moving forward. But imagine: What if they had been able to consult with him and attempt to heal from the trauma of that night and its following confusion and then . . . go about their lives? But they would not be allowed to do that. For that meeting where they spoke, unprepared and put on the spot in front of a large group of strangers, was recorded without their knowledge or consent. And eventually, the recording found its way into the hands of someone a little bit like me: someone who wished to tell a good story. Is that all I am trying to do, after all? Tell a good story?

maybe some unconscious part of the Archivist wants to be in the documentary. Or wants to have something to say that’s worth documenting, worth witnessing: by a camera, a crew, an interested audience.

they stare at a spot on the wall where they killed a mosquito last summer, just after they’d moved in. They’d left the bloody smear there rather than trying to wash or scratch it off. It was a badge of ownership, even though they don’t own the room, only the items and things they do inside of it, and anyway, is ownership even something they aspire to when it is, under capitalism, nearly always a matter of bloody violence when you get right down to it? Why should they want to own anything but their own self, damaged goods that they may be?

I’ve decided to see a psychiatrist like you did, Rosa. I am so lonely, and I don’t know that I’ll ever find someone else like you. Or like we used to be. I know others must exist, or else we’d never have found those books we loved to read together before daring each other into the many things we did. But I don’t know where such people are. Maybe you’re right and we were perverse. Maybe I want you the way I want you because I’m sick. Or neurotic or crazy or whatever they call it. If that’s so, I’d like to get well.

Sometimes, when I put on makeup, I feel like I’m making the bed: tucking all the corners in so my face is pleasing and inoffensive, neat and orderly, my eyelids fluffed like pillows with mascara and eyeshadow. I’ve always hated making the bed.

(I’m not complaining about my work, mind you. I like fixing the words on the page. It’s soothing. It also feels like the only kind of fixing I know how to do. Is it good for anything? I don’t know. But I have to hope that reporting the news matters, and that my part in it does, too, at least a little bit.)

He agreed only that there were things that could not be explained.

I am trying to convey what I believe they were like, but I also need you to understand that I will never really know. In a sense, all of this, even the parts based on strictest accounts of reality, is made up. Just as made up as any story we tell about ourselves.

There is no shame in misremembering, for we can never truly count on memory in the first place.