Revolution in the Underground (5 page)

Maggie took a break from kicking at the plastic wedge and stared at her brother until she knew he was uncomfortable.  The silence seemed to make bare his words.  The vacuum seemed to diminish the weight of his reasoning and the more she waited the more he squirmed.  “It seems to me,” Maggie began already feeling that she won the intellectual argument, “that your belief is predicated on happiness requiring goals.”

“Hey, I never said that
I
believed this stuff… I’m just saying what this one guy said.”

“But you do believe what he said don’t you?”

“Yes… I think,” Ember admitted after some time.  He wasn’t used to being on the losing side of a discussion.  He had many philosophical conversations with his sister before and usually it was he who had the upper hand. 

Maggie usually partook in such conversations only to see the inner workings of Ember’s brain, which is why she typically defended the opposite viewpoint, whereas Ember saw such conversations as an opportunity to explore the soundness of his argument.  This w
as usually Ember’s way of resolving a genuinely powerful thought from a silly one—if Maggie laughed within the first few minutes it was usually a silly one.

Ember felt a tremendous desire to rise up with such an intellectual force that his sister would have no choice but to recant her words and see things his way.  Maybe it was Maggie’s previous kindness or the memory of his emotional Evaluation, but for some reason he decided to let Maggie have it her way.  He would listen to her with an open mind.

“You know, Ember, there are a lot of people in Erosa that are happy and very few of them have real goals.  You don’t need a goal to be happy—”

“But having a goal doesn’t preclude you from happiness,” Ember added, feeling the clarification was important.

“No, but maybe it makes happiness harder to obtain.  All I’m saying is that maybe you should try it…”

“Ambitions are different than goals and curiosity is different than ambitions,” Ember retorted, feeling that the snappiness of his own words was enough to derail her.

She paused for a moment.  “Do you identify with Sisyphus?”

“What?”

“Do you think you’re like Sisyphus?”
              “Well… ahh…”

“You do, don’t you!  You just can’t help but be unhappy.  You’re not happy unless you’re unhappy.  You’re the only one in all of Erosa—”

“Maggie, I’m not unhappy, I just feel incomplete.  I don’t think I am like Sisyphus because I, like everyone else here, have no real life goals.  I think what you meant to ask was whether or not I
want
to be like Sisyphus.”

“Well do you?!”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

Maggie laughed semi-condescendingly, “Yep, that’s my brother.  The only person in all of Erosa who would be happier perpetually pushing a heavy boulder up a large hill.”

Ember thought for a moment before asking, “Maggie, why does it bother you so much?”

“Huh, what?  Nothing bothers me, I’m the happy one.”  She wasn’t sure if she liked where the conversation was heading.

“I mean, why do you care so much about
my
happiness? Why does the thought of
my
sadness bother you?  And why bring it up today?  Of all days?”  He was asking now with a greater sense of urgency, as if he was about to uncover something truly insightful.  It started to rain.

Maggie looked up at the sky and then at Ember to see whether or not they should return home.  The look on his face suggested that they shouldn’t.  “What do you mean?  I care because you’re my brother?”

“Come on Maggie, who are you trying to fool?  Cut the sweet talk.”

“It’s the truth!”

“Maggie…”

“It’s the truth.  I care because you are my brother and I love you!  Is that so hard to believe?!  Would you not feel the same for me?!”  she proclaimed indignantly.  Maggie was speaking from her heart and Ember could tell that she believed in what she was saying.  His fire died down slightly upon this realization.  “Don’t you believe me?”

“I believe… I believe…” he said slowly, “that you believe that is the reason.”

“Well, Ember, tell me what you think the reason is?”  The rain was coming down hard now.

“I think you’re sad because you know that you don’t feel all that differently from me.  You put on airs and pretend like you’re the happiest girl in all of Erosa…  and everyone loves you for it.  I think you feel sad because you feel like you have made all of your friends on false pretenses and I think I am a constant reminder of the lies you built up…  and I think you’re depressed because I remind you of who you really are.”

“Are you calling me a phony?”

Ember didn’t want the conversation to degenerate into name-calling.  “No, all I’m saying is that… well… the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree…  We are related, you know?  Clearly there is some adventurous spirit in our blood.  I feel it, Mom and Dad felt it, and so I assume you have it too.  I just think that maybe you’re not being honest with yourself… that you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re something that you’re not.”

The mention of their Mom and Dad instantly changed the tone of the conversation.  She wiped away a tear from her eyes but it wasn’t clear for what reason.  “How do you do it?  How do you always bring me into your dramas.”

“Maybe it’s because you want me to take you in?  Maybe it’s because you
subconsciously
feel the way I do,” he suggested.

“Ember, it’s not normal.  This isn’t normal.  Hardly any one else in all of Erosa ever cries.  People don’t have the need for it.”

“But we do,” he suggested again.

Maggie’s vulnerability subconsciously motivated her to attack him verbally.  “Ember, have you ever stopped to consider how much of a burden it is to always hang around you?  I’m bothered by your unhappiness not only because I care about you, but also because I care about myself.  The way you handle yourself, you know, it kinda ruins it for the rest of us?  I mean, how selfish?  Have you ever stopped to consider how you affect the people around you?  Have you ever thought about me? What I thought?!  How I feel seeing my brother depressed?!  Well, have you?”

Her questions were clearly rhetorical.  Though he knew she wasn’t interested in his answer—or more accurately put, though he knew she would continue the same rant regardless of how he answered—he knew that he had to say something.  “Of course I thought about you.”

“Have you?  I don’t think you have.  You just go on acting and feeling however you want to act and feel, completely unaware that it affects the people that care for you the most.”

“How can I not feel how I feel… it’s who I am,” he interrupted mistakenly.

“But it’s not only you Ember!  It’s not only your feelings!  I share in your pain and I share in your happiness, can’t you see that?”

“Sure, but I can’t help that.”  It was now a torrential downpour, but neither of them had any desire to leave—Maggie because she felt good getting something off her chest and Ember because he found that the rain granted a good deal of legitimacy to his dramatic feelings.

“Sure you can!  I do it all the time!”

“See, I told you!”

“What?!”
              “You just said it!  You just essentially admitted that you are pretending to be something you’re not!”  Ember smiled as if he had caught her in a trap.  Maggie was understandably annoyed by his smirk.

“If you pretend you’re happy then you’ll become happy.  If you act depressed then you’ll be depressed.  You have to choose how you want to live your life.”

“Well, I don’t want to live my life pretending.”
              “But it’s not just for you Ember?  I feel like you’re not listening to what I have to say.”

“Tell me then!  Tell me what you have to say!”  The rain made it hard to see whether or not she was crying, but he suspected that she might be.  He sensed that a culminating blow was coming.

“After you do it for a while, it stops being pretend.  I’m not pretending.  It’s not pretend.  It’s real Ember.  It’s real… but you can’t see that because you never try!  And you won’t try because you don’t want to be happy.  I hang out with you because I feel like I have to.  You know, because you’re my brother and all.  Do you know how difficult it is to leave all of my happy friends and go spend time with my depressed brother?”

“Come on, I’m not that bad.  You make it out like I’m walking around with my head hung down.”

“But you do Ember.  You are that bad.  You are, Ember!  You just don’t see it!  Everyone else is happy all the time.  Why do you have to ruin it for everyone?  Why can’t you let us live in our happy little world?  Why do you need to be like this?  You can be happy like us too?”

“What, like you?  And you’re happy?”

“Happier than you Ember!” She did not sniffle, but Ember was now certain that these words came with tears.

“And live in your collective fantasy?  Huh?!”

“You just want to stomp out the last bit of free-thinking that is left in this darn place!  You just want us to all be the same!  Everyone’s little idyllic fantasy won’t be complete until everyone is a part of it?  Is that it?  Without me none of you would even know that you are happy because you would have nothing to compare it too.  You should all be grateful.”  Now it was Ember’s turn to feel indignant.

“Don’t flatter yourself!  No one is looking at you.  Hardly any one pays a parting glance.  The mighty Ember sacrificing himself so everyone else can be happy?  Are you even listening to yourself?!”

“You know what?  I’m not going to pretend.  It’s not what Mom and Dad would’ve wanted!” 

“Leave Mom and Dad out of this!  That’s not fair and you know it!”  For a second Maggie considered hitting Ember.  They had not fought physically for a very long time and ultimately she decided that now was not a good time to start again.

“You know it’s true!”

“Ember I don’t like being with you!  I wish you weren’t my brother!”

Of all the hurtful things they had said to each other throughout the fight, for some reason these words rang the loudest and stung the deepest.  Ember sat down on the pile of trash and Maggie came to join him.  The two of them sat quietly, looking at the rain as it fell and thinking about how they might begin the inevitable reconciliation process.  Ember thought about how her reaction was so obviously a defense mechanism, but intelligently elected not to mention the thought lest he wanted to continue the fight.

Believing that her attacks had cut the deepest, she spoke first.  “That’s not true.  I’m glad you’re my brother and I like spending time with you.”

“I know,” he said automatically going through the motions.  “Mom and Dad would’ve been proud of you too.”

“It’s just sometimes I wish that you were a little different,” she said tenuously, cognizant of how easy it would be to relapse into an argument.

“And sometimes I wish you were a little more honest with who you are,” Ember added feeling that it was only fair for him to respond in kind.

Maggie nodded.  “I love you.”

“I love you too.”  While the two hugged Ember whispered into her ear, “I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“I don’t know what I would do without you either, Ember,” she whispered back.

They let go of each other and sat motionless for a few minutes longer—in part to appreciate the falling the rain, and in part to ponder whether or not there was something more left to say.  As they got up to leave Maggie kicked at the plastic sheet once more, and to her surprise it slid down.

“Ember!” she shrieked instantly!

“What?!” he cried, whipping his head around to see what she was looking at.

“The rain…  look what it uncovered!”

Ember looked at the heap of mud and trash but couldn’t see much through the rain.  Maggie fell to her knees and started scooping up the mud and trash and throwing it aside like a girl on a mission.  Ember joined her.

“What is it?!” he cried with uncontainable excitement.

“It looks…  It looks like…”  She was so anxious that she couldn’t even finish her thoughts.  She dug faster.

“What?  What does it look like?!”  He paused for a moment to look at her face.

“Dig! Dig!” she commanded.

Finally, after a minute of digging Ember saw a thin plastic bilayer, blackened by the mud and dirt, but translucent at the edges.  Maggie pulled at it gently along its length, trying hard not to rip it.

“I… I… don’t believe it!” Ember said as she removed it from the trash heap.  Maggie’s jaw was wide open.  They stared at each other disbelievingly.

It was a sealable plastic storage bag, but that’s not what they cared about.  What they cared about was what they saw inside of it.  Through the grimy translucent plastic was, unmistakably, a letter.  A genuine letter from the past.

“But… but… how could you…  how did you see that through the mud and rain?” Ember asked, understandably suspicious.

“I don’t know!” she said laughing with excitement.  “I don’t know!  I got lucky I guess.”  The two of them paused to consider how fortunate they were and how easy it would’ve been to miss it altogether.  She wiped off the dirt from the surface of the bag.