Category: mojo 19 Fiction

“My therapod ancestors go back two hundred thirty million years. And yours?” The bird’s voice was high and clear, oddly airy as it floated to my mind, not my ears. I found I could talk the same way to the crow.

I straightened my trousers and lab coat. Sheepishly, I replied that our civilization went back ten thousand years, and our species a few hundred thousand more, though primates went back fifty-five million.

Her black feathers gleamed blue. “No wonder you are so cruel, young as you are,” she said.  Overhead, the light flickered. I would need to change the light bulb.

We spoke about her ancestors—more than seven hundred dinosaur species, who walked over eight continents, some of whom were carnivores and some herbivores. I explained that mine descended from primates and the same eating habits applied. My species conversed and fought and hunted; we ate everything, including each other. She understood but did not approve. 

She raised and lowered her wings. “After the asteroid hit, my ancestors shrank, survived, evolved into birds. I can sleep standing up.” She preened. “I can fly to the roof of a barn, a cathedral, the moon.”

I told her I didn’t believe that last.

“That was hyperbole,” she said. “Just my aspiration at one time, when I was a chick. She cawed a laugh and whirred one wing against the cage. “My mother taught me to share my food with chicks. And yours?”

I said that mine died in giving birth to me.

“That’s sad,” she said. She blinked, and I thought I saw tears. “Mine did not leave me until I was grown.”

“I had a pet,” she said. “The human just before you. A happy lovely farmer. She wanted a pet for her child. But then she brought me here, left me. That’s how I’m here.” She hopped on the perch, took a step, stumbled.

Poems have been written about her folk—“Twa Corbies,” for example—but not poems of praise. They were closer to curses. She understood that too: “Tribes that do not know each other are likely to dislike one another.”

I joked that sometimes knowing someone accurately meant they deserved disapproval.

She took in my statement and remained quiet for a long moment, did not croak a laugh nor blink. I told her I was joking, and she said it was a child’s dumb joke. I agreed.

She rocked back and forth on her perch. “Let me tell you a joke. Why was the moron hitting his head against the wall?” I leaned in. The generator in the corner hummed. She stepped sideways. “Because it felt so good when he stopped.”

I said I had heard that in grade school.

She nodded. “Sometimes the old jokes are the best.”

I said that it’s not politically correct now.

“The protagonist could be changed to a lab researcher,” she said, pointing her beak at me. “Or a genius, or a bird in a cage.”

The light flickered. “I have another one,” she said. “How many birds does it take to screw in a light bulb in a lab?”

I shrugged.

“Just one to electrocute her. And the light is out forever.” She squawked. She hopped on her perch, flicked her wings against the cage. “I lied. There is no light bulb. No researcher. No bird.”

We were learning a lot about her: nutritional needs, visual acuity, auditory ability, memory, but not flight. I said I could free her.

She screeched a sad laugh. “I’m teaching you about humans. It’s my job. I cannot leave. You are my children. Besides, my wings were clipped. By the previous owner, a human. You know that.”

“I’m sorry.”

She clucked and whirred her wings, blinked and looked away. “That’s a start.”

Ada went swimming. The day was extremely hot, so she went swimming. The water was also hot, but not as hot as the day. The day was one of the hottest she could remember.

Ted was on the beach, reading a textbook. He was studying to be a medical technician, and he was reading about the various proteins that showed up in urine.

“Albumin,” Ted called to her from the beach towel.

She couldn’t hear what he said, so she just waved. Then she let herself drift under the surface. A breaker curled overhead, making a noise.

---

It was darker underwater, mostly blue shot with white streaks. Sand stirred up from the bottom made small billowing spirals, in one place exposing some kind of shellfish. Ada thought about the man she knew who refused to eat anything that had eyes. She wondered about this shellfish, whether it had eyes, whether the man she knew would refuse to eat it, and if so, should she have shellfish at the wedding dinner anyway, even though this man she knew would be there and might not eat it.

She moved along the bottom. The spirals of sand settled, and the turmoil at the surface receded. There was an enormous peace down here, she realized, in all this blue shot with white streaks. She was glad to be only twenty-two at times like this, with her life before her and a rewarding career in computer programming just ahead.

---

Ted didn’t worry about Ada. She was a good swimmer. He worried more about albumin, and certain products of the pancreas. There were, he thought, a good many things to worry about, especially when you got older. Ted was twenty-five. Albumin was something to worry about.

Ted failed to notice that it was very hot. His interest in proteins began to fade a little, as if time were bending backward, as if he were steadily moving backward through his interest in medical technology to a more primitive state, when urine proteins and blood chemistry were mysterious and distant. When he called out to Ada the word “Albumin,” it had an abstract, incantatory quality to it, as if somehow saying the word, Albumin, would do something strange, like ward off disease or protect her, Ada, from harm. He thought she was in danger of some sort, perhaps, underneath the water, and saying the word just before she went under would protect her from whatever was there.

---

When Ada disappeared beneath the surface, he said it again, over and over, “Albumin, albumin, albumin, al-bu-min.” He had forgotten that the pancreas was “a long, soft, irregularly shaped gland lying behind the stomach.”

“Huh?” A jogger stood over him. He was wearing a silver velour jogging suit and a watch on a heavy gold bracelet.

“Albumin,” Ted said.

“Oh.” The jogger moved on down the beach, followed by a black Labrador retriever named Snips. His departure caused Ted to look out to sea once more. Ada was doing the breaststroke on top of a wave. She saw him look and smiled, but she was too far away for him to see the smile.

Ada stood in knee-deep water, feeling the salt drying on the skin of her shoulders. She could see Ted lying back on the towel, the book closed on his chest.

“Ted,” she said later, standing over him.

He squinted up at her, shading his eyes with the textbook. “Yeah?”

“You should be studying.” She sat beside him and began to brush the white powdery salt from her forearms. This made the blond hairs that fuzzed her skin stand up for a moment, then fall back flat on the tan flesh. Ted reached for her, but she took his hand before it arrived. “When we’re married,” she said.

This statement caused Ted to remember that he had an exam tomorrow, and he would have to relearn everything he knew about these proteins in urine and blood that indicated trouble in the body. He sat up and opened the book.

---

Ada watched Ted frowning over a table of urine chemicals of some sort. The chemicals were listed on the left, followed by a column listing the normal readings for such chemicals. Finally, there was a column listing the possible diseases or malfunctioning organs that abnormal levels might indicate.

Looking at the table of chemicals in Ted’s book caused Ada to think about the nature of computer programming. Programming could order things like that, in rows and columns. Programming was a way of shaping things, of making sense of the world. Life, she thought, was a program, one with enormous flexibility. A good program should be like that, should be like life.

---

Ada’s father was an admirer of Ada Lovelace; had, in fact, named his daughter after Augusta, Countess of Lovelace. Ada Lovelace was the eldest daughter of Lord Byron, a fairly famous English poet who once went swimming across the Dardanelles or the Hellespont, Ada never could remember which. Ada Lovelace was good at mathematics and helped out Charles Babbage, and some people credited Charles Babbage with inventing the computer. He called it an analytical engine.

Ada Lovelace invented computer programming.

---

Ted’s Ada was not named Lovelace, she was named Sherman, after her father, Kyle Sherman. She had inherited his admiration for Ada Lovelace, though, which was why she wanted to become a computer programmer.

“Did you know that Charles Babbage invented the cowcatcher?” she asked Ted.

“No,” Ted answered. “I didn’t know that.”

---

Ted never understood why Ada wanted to be a computer programmer. She had a great body; she was almost an Olympic swimmer, and she played good tennis. Why did she want to be a computer programmer?

Finally, he closed the book. “The cowcatcher?” he asked.

But Ada was no longer interested in her conversation with Ted. She was watching a jogger come toward them along the waterline, followed by a black Labrador retriever. The retriever saw Ada watching him and came over. He’d been playing in the waves, and when he got to Ada he shook vigorously, sending salt water and sand all over Ted’s textbook.

Ted thought about killing the dog. He could, he thought, introduce extremely high albumin levels in the dog. Perhaps a certain kind of blow to the body, in the neighborhood of the pancreas. But by this time Ada was rubbing the dog’s ears, and the jogger had come over, breathing hard.

“His name’s Snips,” the jogger said. “He’s a Labrador retriever.”

“Does he retrieve?” Ted asked. He’d decided not to kill the dog, since Ada seemed to like it.

The jogger laughed. “Never,” he said.

Ada looked up at the jogger. “Do you eat things with eyes?” she asked.

---

The jogger swung his arms easily back and forth as he left the young couple on the towel. The girl hadn’t been there the first time he ran by. He’d thought about stopping then, when he heard the boy say something about Al Buchanan, but it had turned out to be something else, some chemical he supposed, since the boy was studying a medical text.

“Come on, Snips,” he said, wagging his hand at his side, and the retriever bounded over, kicking sand against his calves as he ran.

The girl was pretty, he thought, but the boy was prettier.

He started thinking about Al. Here he was, running down the beach, his dog at his side, thinking about Al Buchanan. He hadn’t thought about Al in years, not since they’d gone to Acapulco together that April when it rained. They’d fought the whole time, he and Al. They’d fought about the rain, they’d fought about money, they’d fought about where to eat dinner. Al was a beautiful boy, but spoiled, the jogger thought. He was glad now that he didn’t see Al any more. He’d been startled when he thought that boy back there had said his name, that’s all.

The jogger glanced at his watch. It was getting late. The heavy gold band was warm against his wrist. Yes, it was getting late. He’d run enough. He should run up to the cafe on the other side of the highway and have a beer and then get home. Jose would be waiting for him.

---

“The Analytical Engine,” Ada was telling Ted, “was a primitive computer. But they couldn’t make it back then, when Babbage invented it. Their machinery couldn’t match the tolerances necessary.”

“Tolerances,” Ted said. “That’s rich.”

Ada looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Ted said. “Tolerance, that’s all. I was thinking about tolerance. Tolerances, you know.”

“He also invented actuarial tables,” she said, as if that fact had some deep significance.

Ted finished folding the towel and pushed it under his arm. “Actuarial tables,” he said.

“Yes. You know, statistics, probabilities. What chance you have of getting killed. That sort of thing. For insurance companies.”

“Oh.” Ted lost interest.

---

The jogger was walking by the time he got to the side street where he’d parked his car, and had mostly gotten his breath back. Snips walked with his head down, nose to the pavement, as if there were some deep scent there, some game he should retrieve.

“Okay, motherfucker, hand it over.”

“What? What?”

He was a kid, maybe twelve years old. The knife looked very large. Funny, you’d expect a kid like that to have something else, a pocketknife, a Swiss Army knife, a switchblade, even, but not a knife like that. Not a big carving knife with a walnut handle. He assumed the kid had stolen it.

“Hand what over?” he asked. Snips wandered off on his trail, leaving the jogger behind.

“The watch, motherfucker. The watch. Hand it over.” He gestured with the knife.

“Oh.” The jogger shook his head as he reached for the heavy gold band. Jose won’t like this, he thought.

---

Ted and Ada got in their car. “What else did Charles Babbage invent?” Ted asked.

She laughed. “The speedometer,” she said.

Ted started the car. “The internal combustion engine,” he added.

“No,” Ada said, misunderstanding. “The Analytical Engine. And,” she continued, “he also invented the Differential Engine. It could calculate logarithms to twenty decimal places.”

“Oh. Yeah. Right. More decimal places than I’ll need.” He shifted slowly into first gear and moved out of the parking lot. Sand sprawled along the edge of the highway. It looked very untidy. Indicative of some disorder in the body politic, he thought.

“He invented the skeleton key, too,” she said.

“The skeleton key,” he said. “Really?” He was putting her on.

“Listen,” she said, teasing. “I’ve heard about a course we can take. After we’re married.”

“I have to pass my exams, first,” he said.

“You’ll like this course,” she said. “It’s a sex course.”

“Not until we’re married,” Ted said.

---

The jogger held out his watch. The kid reached for it, but he seemed to be a bit too far away. He thrust the knife forward, reaching toward the watch with his other hand, and the jogger took hold of the wrist of the hand holding the knife and twisted it viciously in a vertical spiral. The knife sank into the kid’s chest without a sound.

The kid looked surprised to see that he had stabbed himself in the chest with the knife. He looked down at the knife and noticed that it had a wooden handle. It was the first time he had really looked at the knife. It was really a fine piece of workmanship. The kid sat down so he could examine the knife more closely.

He looked up at the jogger. “Jesus,” he said.

The jogger nodded. “Nobody loves you,” he said. “When you’re old and gay.”

“Jesus,” the kid said again. “Jesus.”

The jogger nodded. “Come on, Snips,” he said. As he walked on to his car he carefully put his watch back on. It was awkward, walking and attaching the heavy gold bracelet, but he managed.

Al Buchanan, he thought. The kid looked like Al.

---

Ted drove past the corner. He waved at the kid sitting on the curb. For some reason, Ada telling him about the course they could take after they were married had put him into a good mood, so he waved.

Ada told him some of the details of the course. How they would have to set aside time for lovemaking four days a week. It was a requirement. Then she started to tell him about the apartment she’d found in a nice old building near the hospital.

The kid on the curb didn’t wave back. He seemed to be lost in thought, as if he were remembering some particularly pleasant event. A day at the beach, for instance, like this one, with hot sun, and warm water.

Ada glanced at him through the small window at the back of the car. Yes, she thought, he’s remembering something pleasant. Where would we be without pleasant memories?

It is their last day in the third city of their post-college trip to Europe, and Bri is flirting with their tour guide again.

They are walking through a museum filled with nude paintings of bulbous-thighed, blue-veined women. Riley is fascinated by their rolling flesh, the way the bodies can’t seem to help occupying great expanses of space. She walks a few steps behind Bri, stewing over how little she seems to be paying attention, preparing the speech she will give to her later about the dual ugliness and beauty of the nudes, how they simultaneously illustrate an antiquated and radical depiction of the female form, how Bri would’ve seen this too, if only she’d been paying attention to something other than the lean figure of their guide, Tomás.

Riley sighs. Even the back of Bri’s head is lovely, dark hair draped over olive shoulders. The first time Riley saw her naked was early freshman year. They had just stumbled back to the dorm after a party, stoned and a little tipsy. Bri’s forehead was damp, her eyes glassy and red-rimmed. Riley kept waiting for her to break off and head to her own room, but Bri followed until they were outside Riley’s door.

“Umm… are you gonna go to your room, or?” Riley had asked.

Bri started giggling. They’d met only a few days earlier, but the alcohol and the loneliness of starting college gave their early acquaintanceship the illusion of intimacy. “My roommate is really mean. Can I stay with you?”

It was the kind of thing a child might say, Riley thought, waking from a nightmare and begging to crawl in bed with an older sibling. In truth, she was charmed: of all the people Bri could’ve gone to bed with, she’d chosen her.

She watched as Bri pulled off her skirt and top, blushed handing her an oversized t-shirt. They crawled under the blanket, Riley lying as still as she could on the undersized twin mattress, feeling Bri’s breath warm her neck.

---

Bri turns to Riley and gestures to a painting. “I like that one. It’s horrible and gorgeous.”

Riley smiles. “Grotesque.”

Tomás shakes his head. “Here I was worried you’d only want to look at benign landscapes.”

Bri gently punches his arm. “You underestimate us. Maybe American girls generally.”

Riley thinks, it’s impressive in a way how Bri does it, gives the impression of desire without any desperation. They’ve slept with similar numbers of people, even similarly attractive ones, but Riley knows the numbers mean nothing when she has to work a hundred times harder to make people want her, has to contour her cheeks and paint on her lips to prove that she really is up for anything.  

“You know, nearly all of the models were prostitutes,” Tomás says. “The artist himself was nearly broke, would pick up women from the street able to offer them nothing but his own art.”

“Oh?” says Riley. Strangers mill around them in the gallery, a mixture of tourists and locals. Riley examines the couples. A pair of teenagers kiss, their hands tangled in each other’s hair. An elegantly dressed older woman and a much younger man smile at one another as if sharing a secret. She knows all relationships are transactions of some sort, all romance, in one form or another, an exchange.

They leave the gallery into the blue of evening, lampposts illuminating cobblestones. Tomás says, “Well, I guess this is where I leave you. I’d be happy to recommend a restaurant, if you’d like.”

Riley is about to agree when Bri jumps in. “What? No, it’s our last night! You have to have dinner with us.”

Riley rolls her eyes. She can see already the night stretching in front of them, how Tomás will place a hand on Bri’s thigh, and how she will glance at him with heavy-lidded eyes. How later, they’ll return to the hostel, an unspoken agreement that Tomás will come with them. Then Bri will drag Riley to the bathroom, flushed and giggling, will ask if she wouldn’t mind waiting outside the room a while. Then finally the door will click shut behind them, and Riley will haunt the common room, playing beer pong with other tourists, eventually letting one of them take her to bed, then crawling back later to the room she shares with Bri so they can lie together and describe their exploits. But no matter the night ahead, tomorrow, at least, she and Bri will be on the train, Tomás rendered only an anecdote.

They meander to a restaurant Tomás knows, one with a patio overlooking the hazy green of the river that traverses the city. Each of the tables bears a single candle, and Riley is forced to acknowledge the beauty of the other patrons where the flickering light illuminates their faces and gestures. Unlike Bri, Riley’s family are not so distant immigrants from this region of Europe, and there is a comfort and also a frustration that comes with being surrounded by so many people whose features resemble her own.

Bri sits in the chair between Riley and Tomás, leans her head on Riley’s shoulder so the ends of her hair dip below the neckline of Riley’s dress. “Our last night,” she says.

“Until the next city,” Riley replies.

Bri adjusts the strap of her dress, and Riley turns away when she notices Tomás is also looking.

Bri’s body is nice, well-toned under a layer of fat, but not unusually so. Her teeth are crooked and often slightly yellow; her nose long and slim, with a stud that, caught from the wrong angle, could resemble a pimple. It’s her eyes, Riley hypothesizes, that draw people in, impossibly bright and framed by long and delicate lashes that give her whole expression a feeling of softness. She seems, in looking, entirely enraptured by whatever mixed up thoughts you are trying to convey, willing, over and over again, to give you the benefit of the doubt, to love you in all your messiness, your ugly acts.

A waitress comes by to fill their cups with wine.

They clink glasses. Bri says, “To one last night, the three of us.”

Tomás takes a sip, then glances at Riley. “So, Riley, you studied what at university?”

“Environmental studies,” she replies.

“So, you’re going to save us all from climate change?”

She shrugs.

“I’m only joking. And did you like it?”

She nods. “I’m definitely glad to be done with school, though.” She hasn’t decided if this is fully true. Definitely, she’s glad to be done with the cycle of school: endless tests and work, days spent grinding in the library, then bailing on work to smoke or drink, or sink into weeks of depression amidst dirty sheets and piles of laundry. She doesn’t know why she chose Environmental Studies except that she liked the people—people like Bri, the stubbornly optimistic. People, often, without backup plans, who couldn’t just graduate and fall into work at their father’s company like she half believes she’ll do if enough time passes and she still hasn’t figured out what happens next.

“Riley and I are both going to save the world,” Bri says.

Tomás chuckles. “And will you remember me when you’re famous?”

Bri blows him a kiss. “Of course.”

It’s weird to be shown around by someone who’s essentially the same age as us, Riley decides. Next time she and Bri travel together, she’ll have to make sure she specifies to the tour agencies to give them someone older—and not a sexy older, either. Someone who will be gone by dinner, rushing home to a partner and kids.

Tomás lights a cigarette, holds out the box to each of them in turn. Riley feels her body relax. A boat passes by on the river below, tourists waving from the deck. She glances at the other tables, making eye contact with an attractive man with a slightly overgrown beard. She won’t have to go home alone, she’s sure. She’ll find someone, either here or back at the hostel. It won’t be easy like it is for Bri; she’ll have to make some kind of effort, a lean or smirk. But then in the morning, she and Bri will be on the train sharing earbuds, watching the countryside pass. It’s what she likes best about sex with men—how uncomplicated it is, how easy to enter and then depart. She finds herself able to settle for almost any man, to trick her body into whatever twist or bend of intimacy the moment requires, looking at herself as if from above, like one of the museum’s grotesque nudes. Women make her nervous. That, or they remind her of Bri.

Their food arrives, made strange and exotic in the shadows cast by the candlelight. Bri’s knee occasionally bumps hers, an accidental move on its path to Tomás’s. The conversation flows easily enough, Riley jumping in often so Bri can’t accuse her later of sullenness. The couples at the surrounding tables look so lovely, Riley notices again, or a matching kind of unattractive made lovely in its own right, misshapen noses or acne-scarred cheeks, lumpy bodies and inexpertly applied makeup.

They split the check, then begin wandering back towards the hostel, crossing a bridge interspersed with buskers playing songs that mingle with one another, airy as bells. Bri takes Riley’s hand and spins her while Tomás follows behind laughing. Their dancing, Riley thinks, is much the same as their flirtations: where Bri is easy and lithe, Riley is heavy and weighed down, attractive still, but lacking that quality of effortlessness that is, inevitably, what’s most desirable.  

They stop at a crowded bar in the same neighborhood as the hostel, toast again to their final night. Tomás wraps an arm around each of them. “What will I do without my beautiful American girls?”

Bri leans against him. “I think somehow you’ll get by.” Other bodies press against theirs, shimmering with sweat. It’s awful and wonderful, Riley thinks, the giddiness of wondering who you’ll go home with, all the endless opportunities to kiss the wrong person.

Before they leave, Tomás steps away to go the bathroom. They watch him weave through the crowd, statuesque body and delicate curls.

Bri says, “He wants to have a threesome with us.”

Riley coughs. “Um, what?”

“So…?”

“Are you serious?”

Bri pushes a strand of hair behind Riley’s ear. “Of course I am. You think I’d spend our last night here without you?”

“So, you convinced him?”

“I wouldn’t say it took much convincing.”

Riley tries to picture it: Bri’s hair haloing over her breasts as Tomás kisses her neck. “I feel like I’ll just end up watching.”

Bri shakes her head. “You won’t.” She leans in, whispers, “I want you there.”

Tomás returns from the bathroom, and they step out of the bar back onto the street. Riley’s throat feels dry, her knees shaky. Bri walks between them, turning occasionally to give Riley a little grin. “Isn’t Riley so pretty?” she asks Tomás.

“Beautiful,” he replies.

Riley pictures again the ballooning nudes of the museum, the body in all its tortured acts of love—of exchange. She will do it; she has decided. Maybe had decided already, when she didn’t leave with anyone from the restaurant, and again with no one from the bar.

They stop to smoke a last cigarette on the hostel stoop, Tomás chatting for a while with tourists from another European country. The air feels cool and sensual against her skin. Occasional stars glimpse through the lights of the city. She imagines, in the distance, the river’s lapping current. All around her is conversation and laughter, but she is elsewhere already, tangled in unfamiliar sheets.

They climb the stairs to their room, past people drinking or eating late dinners, saying hi to a few loose acquaintances gained over their few days in the city. Riley spots a man she’d been eyeing a day or so earlier, debates sneaking away.

The room feels oppressively quiet. Bri opens a drawer to pull out a joint she rolled earlier, then offers it to Riley. Tomás opens the window and the three of them squeeze together to lean out. Below, the streets are still alive with revelers, people smoking or chatting on stoops, meandering home from or on their way to bars. To Riley, everything looks smudged and dark, like a painting or a photograph taken with too little light. Even Bri and Tomás seem impressionistic and vague, save for the warmth of their skin.

It isn’t that she’s never been with a woman. She has. It isn’t even that she’s never been with Bri. They haven’t… not really, save a few brief kisses, moments of deniable touch. She knows what is on offer: one night in a room none of them will ever see again; Bri and Tomás in all their angelic beauty. But she isn’t sure yet what she is giving in return—clumsy touch and imperfect body; what if, in giving this, she accidentally hands over more?

Bri stamps out the end of the joint and turns to Riley. She raises an eyebrow, barely suppressing a laugh. Riley smiles as if to say, “Go ahead, then.” Bri’s laughter falls away and she nods ever so slightly, looking only at Riley. This look, Riley is sure, will be the moment of greatest intimacy between them—the one part of the night that is theirs alone.

Tomás brushes back a loose strand of Bri’s hair, and Bri leans towards Riley. And then they are kissing, and there is Bri’s hand traveling down her back, and then Tomás’s mouth on her neck, the beginning of a bruise. They move gradually in the direction of the bed, Bri tugging off her dress, looking at each of them in turn as if it to say, “Now what?”

Riley thinks of their younger selves standing in her freshman dorm room. Bri with her bare skin and the challenge in her eyes, waiting for Riley to hand her a shirt. But what if she hadn’t given Bri that shirt? What if, instead, she’d let her hands trace the curvature of her friend’s body, a painter over canvas? Would it have been just one night, or would that moment have an afterlife? Would Bri float from Riley’s life like so many other college friends and hook ups? Maybe they would’ve dated, would’ve lounged on the grass of the quad in early spring, and kissed without needing alcohol or a man for justification. But with the possibility of a relationship comes equally the possibility of its dissolution. Maybe she and Bri would’ve never gone to Europe, wouldn’t be climbing aboard the train together when sunlight streaks again through the curtains. And really, Riley wonders, is it possible to love someone you know so well—to be loved by someone who’s seen you so completely?

Tomás presses Riley down onto the mattress, and there are the muscles of his shoulders and the contrasting softness of Bri’s hands, and out the window, lilting music and conversation that will thin out but remain until sunup. Riley hears herself moan as if from a distance, looks at the collage of their limbs from the above vantage she knows so well—the scar on Tomás’s knee; the unevenness of Bri’s breasts, all the imperfection that hurts unbearably for the empathy it calls forth.

They move in shapes of slants of light, curling into and then pulling back from one another. Riley tries to lose track of where she ends and they begin, to bleed over into whatever it is that makes Bri herself, the ease with which she flirts and dances and lives in her own skin. But it never quite happens, or she never quite succumbs to it, feeling always the uncertain edge of her own form, arms and legs, stomach and breasts, big enough to cover the whole canvas, leaving—in the end—little room for anyone else. She wants to be happy it is happening, that whatever she has felt about or wondered at in Bri can finally be probed or seen, but mostly she just feels far off, like it is all happening, but is, perhaps more than anything, too late.  

After, they fall asleep side by side, Tomás snoring softly, Bri nestled in the middle, her head resting on Riley’s chest. In the morning, Riley imagines, Tomás will slip from the bed, winking at her over Bri’s sleeping form. Possibly he will mouth something to her, remind her again not to forget him. For a second, they will both look down at the innocence of Bri’s sleeping face and share something close to intimacy. But just as soon the moment will end, and they will again be strangers passing through a borrowed night in a rented room.  

It’s strange, Riley thinks, how you can occupy the body of another so completely yet remain so apart. For a moment—in a dorm or hostel bed—your lives are as one, but then, just as soon after, you disappear back to separate rooms or countries. Once Tomás leaves, she decides, she will lie as still as possible so as not to wake Bri. Then, even knowing the continent outside is beckoning, she’ll close her eyes and try to forget all of that, to be as she was the first night they shared a bed, young and unknowing, full of the rush of new longing. Nothing yet has been decided, she’ll tell herself, nothing given away and nothing lost.

Bri turns over in her sleep, shifting towards Tomás. Tomorrow, Riley thinks. Tomorrow, we’ll be on the train, sharing headphones and watching the world pass. Her eyes begin to close, the picture growing hazy as if it were already a memory, the dissolving end of a dream.

Why so many Kabresi from the nearby island of Kabre flocked to the island of Numa was a mystery until the spellmaker of Numa said they were sick with a highly contagious disease and wanted the Numians to catch it. The Kabresi neither looked nor felt sick, but they dropped dead suddenly, without warning. If not for the spellmaker who gave immunity to the Numians by unleashing the power of a small ebony amulet, they all might have died.

The Kabresi were jealous of the Numians who had discovered large deposits of diamonds and gold, which had made them rich, thanks to the spellmaker, whereas the Kabresi, who didn’t believe in spellmakers and amulets and magic, survived by recycling plastic and cardboard they collected from the slums on their island. I could have helped you, the spellmaker told them.

Since the Kabresi did not know the Numians were immune, they touched every doorknob, every light switch, every surface they could touch, to spread the disease. In time, they realized that not one Numian had died. Maybe there’s more to this magic stuff than we realized, they said to one another.

They heard that an amulet under a rock by the shore could cure them—if they could find it. The Kabresi did not know if they all were infected, but all of them frantically searched until a monster wave swept them out to sea. It was said by future generations that the rock and the amulet were swept away too—if indeed either one had ever existed.