Radio Sphere (4 page)

The doorbell rang earlier. It seemed like the ring of a funeral bell. I’m not sure if it changed after I moved out or because of the person who rang.

Dad and Grandpa prepped that house, they found and rebuilt damaged solar arrays, attached two small wind turbines to the roof, even devised their own rain water filtration and had a good sized garden growing all before the big mess. Grandpa would say be prepared for anything. Even the yard had a 1.5 devron
²⁴
tall fence around it, the windows made of bullet proof glass, rebar—reinforced concrete walls.

Chad seemed permanently aloof after his dad died. He often came over to my parent’s place for dinner. I liked Chad, he was this link between me and my parents because when he was around it was easier to talk with them. He would show me the best movies from the far past that I wouldn’t otherwise get to see. He collected them, often scavenging the city, because he loved the history and the stories they contained. His favorites? Into the Wild, Tideland, The Man Who Fell to Earth. When I answered the door, Chad was standing there in a slump. Mom invited him over, but he just wanted to talk with dad.

Dad was a friend of Chad’s father, so they could bond over him since he died when Chad was still a teenager. He called my dad Uncle Frank sometimes, but he called mom Iola even though she says he can just call her mom. We hung out for an hour before he left, right before dad got home from work, just the two of us. He asked when I got here and I told him I took the train last night, but I didn’t tell him what happened with that beat—brain stalker.

Chad talked about a girl he met a few days ago, but she was strange and he was curious about her more than anything else. We chatted about how I like living alone for the first time and how work was going.

“Did you watch that documentary I gave you?”

It was CSM,
²⁵
piecemeal and loose, a documentary on Vishnu stated to be the creator of unlimited universes.

“The content was interesting. Not sure I understood it all, but I loved the art pieces they showed. Everything was sort of jarring how it was put together.”

“I’ve never seen a CSM I liked,” Chad said, “but I love the idea of it.”

“You mean how people can put together something so big?”

“The pure passion it takes— these people are total stranger getting together over something they love. Is that even possible anymore?”

He continued talking like a man on a rushed walk without a particular destination. It’s not that he liked the sound of his own voice so much as just investigating his own ideas aloud, and I loved being there to listen even if most of the time I’d just distracted by my own thoughts and delve into my own ideas. Chad knew it happened and would smile when he noticed how far apart our mind’s drifted.

“I wouldn’t want you listening to every word I said anyway.”

Chad’s face dropped from a whimsical state to a serious, adult state.

“I wanted to wait for your dad to get here, but I’m just so excited,” Chad restarted.

“What about?”

“I left the city the other day.” Chad had a smile big enough to see from space.

“You left Boston? Why on earth would you do that?”

“Because I’d never done it before, and I’ve never know anyone who has. Do you?”

“No. No! Of course not.”

“There is a lot out there, Liz, it’s our future and our past. We can’t just hide in the city forever.”

“Nobody is hiding, this is where we live.”

“We lived, spread across the world once. With machines to help us travel anywhere. A world of discovery.”

“Machines and discovery that almost caused our extinction and the end of the world.”

“We don’t know that for certain. There is a lot we can learn, find.”

“The city is safe, Chad, you don’t know what’s out there.”

“I dunno what, exactly, I found a…a… zone where everything is…” his voice faded out.

“Like a daydream?” I asked. “Sounds like a movie.”

“No, I’m serious. I couldn’t stop wondering, you know, why the world changed. What was the purpose? I hiked out there,” Chad continued.

“Out there!?
That doesn’t even make sense.”

“I stumbled upon it, it is only about 19 k—devrons or so west of here. At Weeks Cemetery,
²⁶
but the place has a pull. Logan has it partially cordoned off, they’re cautious of entering.”

“Whats there?”

“Creatures, maybe. Or something important from the old age!”

“What are you even talking about? This is too much.”

“There are places within the zone where gravity is at half its strength, and others where water will grab a hold of anything it touches, surrounding it like the wind, and burn it into oblivion. There isn’t any thing alive out there. I didn’t even see a squirrel or hear the chirp of a bird.”

“It’s been months since I’ve heard a bird, Chad.”

“I spent three days walking around aimlessly until I needed to come back for supplies. It looked like a crash. Like a city crashed down from the sky.”

“It’s dangerous! Chad, this whole thing sounds crazy.”

“No, I know, but it’s real. It’s something.”

“Something?
That’s worth risking your life for?”

“I won’t know until I go back.”

“You can’t!” I froze, I’d just blurted the words out. I had no intention to back them up with reasons, feelings, or understanding. It wasn’t even that long ago, but I was so much younger then.

“I need to know, Liz. About the past, and whatever happened, even if there is nothing to find ever, I can’t stop looking. If nothing else, I found a lot of usual… things, machine parts and artifacts, maybe. Trees are growing through the wreckage.”

“You really plan on breaking into a Guard zone to salvage some junk and see trees? There is a reason we don’t need trees anymore!”
²⁷

“Liz.”

“I just don’t see it.
²⁸
You’re choosing to leave us when you don’t have to.”

“I’m already 24, we won’t be living as long as our parents… I don’t know how long we’ll live without the treatments they had. I want to do something with my life before it’s over without me knowing it.”

His name is Guy, and I worked with him at the water dispensary. He thought this was a date. His parents aptly named him. He is not Chad, or Chad—like, but when I could I’d pretend he is. He doesn’t know; nobody can see my thoughts. He had recently moved out on his own, too. Guy is messy; messy hair, messy clothes, dirt under his finger nails. We only came together out of some weak occupational connection and mutual disconsolance. I wasn’t sure what the movie was because I couldn’t stop worrying about the couch I was on with Guy. It was sucking me down to the depths of hell, maybe somewhere worse, and people generally find it weird if I keep moving to adjust, to escape, so I didn’t move. He put his arm around my shoulders, but I had mixed feelings: happy because it meant he liked me, sad because it pushed me farther down into the couch, and worse my shirt had slid up held between me and the couch back exposing my skin to the horrific floral fabric, which was scratchy. I inwardly shuddered so he wouldn’t think it was because of him.

It’s not because I liked Guy, but I wanted him to like me.

I couldn’t concentrate on this movie or on Guy at all. I had to fake being an adult in front of him to show him that I was strong, that I wouldn’t be a burden to him, and to make certain for myself. I was scared of growing up; when it’s real, when I could no longer pretend to be an adult or a child or anywhere in between at will.

I began to think that my skin was turning into the fabric of the couch, because of the scratching. Slowly my back turned blue with small white and pink flowers dotted across it, and it spread to my arms until my entire body was covered. I was becoming a me—couch—hybrid creature and nobody noticed. I was, as I’d folded down into a turtleish stature, a child couch. What was my mission? What could I do with my new life? Should I use these new powers to scare people? Can I do something great now that I was not a regular human, like show everybody that humans are more similar than different: “We are not so different” they will say to each other while uniting to shun me.

“Do you like the movie?” Guy asked while he leaned in towards me, snapping my mind back to reality, but I could hear him just fine from where he was.

Pretending it was
Brazil
²⁹
I told Guy that I liked it. It wasn’t
Brazil
, but
Something and Someone are Dead
and it seemed good but I didn’t want to like it and I wasn’t in the mood for fate.

“We should do this more often.”

“Do you usually watch movies like this?” I asked, grabbing for anything to say, but instead of answering he just kept leaning in towards my face… “I’m just glad it wasn’t CSM.” His face smelled like beeswax
³²
and his breath was like baking soda and mint. I guess he wanted a kiss, a confirmation of a connection between us, but I wasn’t there. As he got extremely close I had to fake a sneeze to keep my personal space, I had just returned to humanity after transforming into a couch creature and I needed to regain my personal bubble.

Reality is reality whether it really happened or not. I walked out of the station because I was confused. How had I even gotten there? George: remember! The air smelled like sour milk and my head felt as if I’d been crying. Even if it’s not a reality we’ve all shared, reality is in the mind of the beholder. Sometimes. I think. Reality is reality whether it really happened or not. Do we see the same view as others? Darkness backwards and lightness forwards, or as our hair and voices differ are the insides such amounts different? As I measure the curve of the roadway I walk. How do I measure the thoughts and the memories, the feelings and the dispositions, the matter and dismatter in the other than I? Some are like waves, but can be predicted easily while others are like the night sky with endless amazement. Is your reality the same as mine or is that the point?

My emotional state rebounded as I jaunted down the station’s stairs into the city, trying to whistle the songs I’ve heard from birds throughout my life, trying to calm myself and blend into the coming dawn.