Песах Амнуэль - Zion's Fiction - A Treasury of Israeli Speculative Literature

“Ms. Watson!”

“Yes, sir.”

He uncovers Stephanie’s face. “Tell me how she died.”

I look at her face. I take a breath, and take off my glove.

“What are you going to do?” Professor Bendis interrupts just as I’m about to touch her.

“I… I was going to look at her last days.”

“How?”

“What?”

“How are you going to find her last days?”

“Um….I don’t think I have a pain or a feeling that I know corresponds to wanting to take your own life, so I thought I’d take the worst moment I’ve seen till now in her life, and try to expand on it.”

“Which moment?”

“I…” I look at him and I don’t want to say it.

“Do it.”

I cover my eyes. It’s not exactly true what I told him. In fact, I’m going to do the opposite.

I touch her.

— I replay the instant in which she had multiple orgasms, in which the pleasure overwhelmed her. And then I reverse it, searching for a lack of it —

She can’t breathe, her heart-rate doubles, and it’s dark .

What the hell! Her inner gyro says she’s in her bedroom, and it’s the middle of the night. Her parents are sleeping in the next room .

The scene she’s just reacted to happened in her head. Michael’s leaving her for good. This would explain his behavior over the past few weeks. Michael’s leaving for good .

And for an instant, in her mind, it’s true and inevitable .

Her world is so dark. There is no hope. There is no reason to live. There is only pain .

But this isn’t it yet. It’s not what Bendis wanted. I take the feeling and multiply it a thousand-fold .

Her pain takes my breath away .

And suddenly I see her from the outside. There’s no one in the room but us two and she’s not covered. I see her naked. I see her guts. I see her soul, her passion, her greatest desires, her pain, oh, how beautiful her pain is, bottomless, perfect, amazing. This pain opens her up to me in ways that couldn’t exist if she were alive .

I surf her blackness. It is endless. There is nothing about her I can’t know. She’s giving me all her secrets. To me. I love her .

More, open up more for me .

The pain multiplies by a multitude. Michael is there, saying “Yes,” and suddenly a wave of—of—of—of—of—

of—of—of—of—of—

of—of—of—of—of—

I’m on the floor, pain shooting through my elbow. Rebecca is holding me, half helping me up. I must have fallen.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“Bendis yelled at you to break contact,” she heaves me up, then adds, “And when you didn’t, he slapped you.”

“Are you all right, Ms. Watson?”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.”

“Keep your distance from the body,” he says. And I notice I almost grazed her.

“Yes, sir.”

“You saw Michael before it happened, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“When Michael said what you saw him say, Stephanie’s brain short-circuited from the pain. The same thing almost happened to you, Ms. Watson. She had to live with it. You don’t. You weren’t even ready.

“Sit the rest of the class out.” He points to a chair. “That’s enough adventures for one day, Ms. Watson. You’ll be fine.” Almost in the same breath, he looks aside, and I’m forgotten. “Mr. Crowley, step forward.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Same assignment. Find what led to her death.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And Mr. Crowley?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Try not to short-circuit your mind. This is just an assignment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Ms. Watson, a word,” he says once class is over.

We’re all alone. I still have to put the body back in. “Yes, sir.”

“You’re not hurt.” There’s no question in his voice, but he’s right. The ordeal was over as soon as I sat down.

“Yes, sir.”

“This happened because you’re identifying with the subject, Ms. Watson. You mistook her feelings for your own, instead of being an observer. That’s dangerous with a young woman who killed herself. During our next lesson, we won’t be going forward to her last few days. We’ll be going backward , trying to understand the seeds of the emotions that led to such pain. You’re not ready to see her death. Do not try it alone. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Professor.”

“Good. Lock up.” He walks toward the door, then stops and looks back at me. “By the way, Ms. Watson.”

“Yes, Professor?”

“Are you really fine?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then I should tell you… I’m gay.” So I should stop fantasizing about him. He probably hears me drooling every time he walks into the room.

“Yes, sir.” Should I…? Should I tell him? Damn it, yes. “I know, sir.”

He smiles, impressed. He knows I got it from his mind and not from physical evidence. “Very good.” And he walks out.

That only makes you more attractive, sir.

I rush to Professor Parks’s class. I sit through an entire hour and a half, and it’s like sitting on a geyser. Once her class is over, I rush out. We get thirty minutes for lunch, but I almost run to my dorm room.

I shut the door, double-lock it. I run to the bathroom, lock its door, put down the toilet’s lid, and sit on it.

Suddenly my throat constricts and I have to gasp for air.

Stephanie’s feelings overwhelm me again. But I’m not touching her, so it’s diffused, less powerful than it was. It was a pain worse than loss of hope, worse than loss of a loved one. Her future vanished, and it was as if she had vanished. No, it was even worse. There was no reason for her to live. It was the most basic emotion I have ever felt in a human being. There was no internal reason for her to exist. She ceased to exist at that second.

That was the emotion. Carried to the power of ten.

I didn’t see all the events that led to this when I was in her mind. I had to hear it from the class during the rest of the lesson.

Michael has been growing apart, keeping his distance, never initiating a call, but always sounding fine when she called. They hadn’t met in weeks. Stephanie had ignored it for as long as she could, but eventually she confronted him. He waffled and stammered, so she said, “Are we through?”

He said, “Yes.”

That instant she saw in his eyes how long he had wanted her to know. And she knew she had lost him forever.

And for her, it touched on something primal and ancient. A key turned inside her and the world turned white.

I saw more, though. I felt more before Bendis slapped me. Something in between the whiteness. Something….

I replay the feelings I felt. Piece by piece, I separate some of the emotions. Despair. The return of the ability to think. Walking home. Sinking into bed and out of life. And there are some actual moments in my head, some very clear moments from her last day.

Stephanie was lying on her stomach, face buried in the pillow, hardly breathing, all darkness. The inner gyro says it was her bedroom and that it was after seven p.m. It was dark outside even though she hadn’t seen it.

Her mother’s voice comes from behind, annoying, unbearable—she’s been talking for a while, now.

“I don’t know,” she says, “what you’re going through, or what’s so bad. But if you’re even thinking about killing yourself” and a shot of electricity goes through Stephanie’s spine—she’s been thinking exactly that “…I want you to know… I won’t have it. I’ll kill myself. I won’t have it.”

“Oh, gawd!” Stephanie shouts into the pillow, and her pain is unbearable. This is exactly like her mother. “This isn’t about you! Not everything is about you! This is my pain! Stop making everything about yourself!” And she shouts so loudly that she becomes hoarse, having uttered just those words. And without words, she keeps shouting in her head: This is mine. Mine! Don’t you get that?