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November 30 - December 4, 2020
I have seen two worlds now and the space between. We are a wonder—
Or maybe it’s just easier to think something is impossible than to try.
When I was a boy I used to wonder what it would be like to walk in the stars. Not on them. In the space between.
There’s a moment between us. It’s like a snap into focus where all at once she sees me, she finally understands that all my flirting is just hiding in plain sight, just being so obvious she’d never guess she is the one thing on this world that I know and all I want. But then it happens. She looks, for just that first moment, afraid. The universe is brimming with stars and life, but there is a section of sky that is utterly dead and empty. They call it a cold spot, a supervoid, and they say it got that way because two parallel universes got too close to touching. That’s us. That’s me and Dell.
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Nik Senior stopped it, in the way a lion stops infighting among gazelle. When the dust settled, the new emperor was on top, challengers dead or exiled. He opened his mouth, blood still dripping from his jaw, and declared peace.
When I was a kid, I thought the empress was beautiful—and terrible. I hated her for standing next to a monster, for sleeping next to him and never clamping a pillow over his face. When I was a teenager, I thought I understood. She didn’t like it, but she was secure the only way a pretty girl with no stomach for a hard life could be in Ash. But then, when I got older still, my understanding turned again, darker. Once I was with Nik Nik I began to wonder if the empress didn’t mind the bloodshed at all, because for all the hell he bought the rest of us, Nik Senior could never do anything but love
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No, killing should take longer than a heartbeat. Murder should be unignorable, always.
There is comfort in the inevitability. It makes my part in her story unremarkable. I didn’t change her fate; I don’t have that power. My presence just changed her timing. We were always going to separate. We must always separate. Time is a flat thing and we are always separating. When we are together we are already gone.
this is so comforting. how lovely said
I believed I was stable. I thought my ability to go to work, to visit my family, to eat and sleep, meant that I was. I confused routine for reliability and reliability for safety. I had no idea the chaos I was capable of holding inside of me. Now the only thing “static” about me is the buzzing rush in my ears when I try to think, a hiss like the sound that comes through the speakers when Dell tries to contact Earths that are lost. I am lost.
“Lay down. Tell me what breaks your heart.”
As they stroke my back and gently massage my neck, I realize it is touch I want, touch that is making me feel a little bit whole again, and it is touch from a person who is part castle, someone I cannot destroy and who will always be safe.
When I get home, I am still sad. I am still distraught and full of guilt. But I have taken a step back from the edge of true despair, or something even more dangerous.
Thinking this way is dangerous. Murder has a cycle just like water. In the same way water becomes a cloud, then becomes water again, when blood calls for vengeance the blood from that vengeance calls too. If you plan to give death, it will always return to you. But I’m not worried. I’ve been close enough to death to see its shadow my whole life. It always misses me, but only just, like the person who leaves the room before you get there but whose scent is still in the air.
And I thank the city for letting me know Dell, not just because she’s beautiful and I got to see her, but because I was able to know a person who carried strength and perseverance, but was utterly devoid of self-pity.
When I think of Wiley City, this will be what I miss. Not the magic pods, or freely growing food, but this, being close to a woman who inspired me and challenged me, and changed me for the better. Touching, finally, the night sky.
