James Smythe - The Echo

I have to test this. I have to see if this is true, so I sit at the console and I open the radio and it is at the right frequency, of course it is, because it is the same frequency; and I say his name – my name – into the darkness, to see if I will answer.

‘Brother?’ There is static and nothingness. A gap, a pause, a wait in the air. ‘Can you hear me?’ I ask, knowing that he can. He replies. I can only hear myself in his voice, now. Nothing of Tomas in it at all. People always used to say that we sounded the same but I could never hear it. I can hear him asking more questions, but I don’t have answers. I don’t want to ruin him; I’m not even sure that I can if I want to. He still has hope, or he does now. I remember that feeling. I had it once, but now it is gone; or replaced, by whatever I will leave this ship for in fourteen days, and not come back to.

He is so happy to hear from me. I say his name and he bursts with joy. I don’t remember sounding like this, but then, that’s not surprising. Back then I was preoccupied with getting somewhere. Now I am stuck. I have to wait. I have to meet him before I see whatever it is that I am going to see. The connection isn’t good, so I tell him about the static. It fades out and in, and I think that I should stop talking to him. It’s easier. I can barely bear to hear his voice, because it does remind me so much of Tomas.

I wonder what Tomas is doing now. Fuck him, fuck him, fuck him.

He asks me about when we were kids. Our childhood. He doesn’t know that it was the same. He asks if I ever think about it, and I say that I do. I cannot lie to him; not any more.

‘All the time,’ I say. He’s so desperate. He thinks that it means something, that we are close. Tomas thinks about our best times. He is so pathetic, I think. I am just like this, fawning at the altar of the one who would have surrendered me to this abyss, this maw. He wants to think that Tomas thought well of him, when in fact it was nothing but abandonment. I was a sacrifice to science. I wonder if he still thinks of me. If he wishes he could do it again.

The slow-fade of my mood as I try to forgive him. I reach out to my memories of how Tomas and I were and I try to think of a reason that I shouldn’t harbour the grudge that I do, that I will, until the day that I die. Who am I kidding, I think; I am already dead. I don’t say a word to the other Mira, because I am so angry. I want to tell him not to trust Tomas – not to trust me – but I can’t. Because there’s something else. There was a version of me here, and then it was gone. When I found the new version of the ship, or the old version, or the copy, I was not here. I must have gone out there into the darkness. It’s a lure in the purest sense: the fish approaches the line with no idea what it’s getting into.

I want to placate him. I can’t remember our exact conversations, so I rely on my gut. That seems to make the most sense.

‘This will all work out, you know.’ I hope that I sound convincing. I am talking to myself as much as I am talking to him. I decide that I have a part to play: that of my brother. He wants to know that this is all right. I remember enough: that he was suffering. So I put the mask on, and I channel Tomas Hyvönen, master of all he surveyed; the brother who had something to prove, and proved it over and over, at the sacrifice of all others. Mira, the Mira coming through space with eagerness and hope, says that he thought he was abandoned, and I, a false Tomas, give him peace, for a moment at least. I tell him that I could never do that. I swear it to him. He asks how far away he is from me, and I tell him. I know exactly how far.

I don’t sleep. I can’t. I am worried about getting this right. About what it means, whether I’m in a cycle or not. I mean, I am. But at what stage, and whether I can break it. And if, therefore, I’m going to die. I’m going to die and somehow see myself.

Where do I go when I leave this ship? What happens to me? The other version of me wants to talk about Hikaru and Inna, and I cannot bear it. I don’t want to think about them. I just want to move on. I want to tell him that he gave them an ending, that he finished their journey for them. That that should have been enough. Maybe I don’t know him as well as I thought I did?

That thought alone makes me laugh. I remember that I wondered if there was something wrong, as the person I thought was Tomas signed off unnaturally. Now, I stifle my laughter as I do it. I think about how confused I am leaving myself. When he is gone I stare at the anomaly. That’s all there is to do when you are perfectly still: stare at it.

What’s left? After this, what is left?

I feel sick. I drank too much. I have finished the champagne. I have not eaten in two days, and I don’t know why. I shout at Tomas, as pointless as it is. I scream his name into the ship, and I tell him what I think of him. I call him so many words. He has put me here. He is responsible for their deaths. He is the one who should feel guilty, not me. Not for any of this.

‘Tomas?’

‘I can’t talk,’ I say. And then, ‘I’m sorry.’ Because I am apologizing to him, not Tomas. I am not the sort of man to abandon you. I will try to help you: that’s who I am, now.

I still haven’t slept. My body won’t let me. I haven’t shaved, haven’t washed. I am becoming who I will become, and it is not who I was. I cared, before. Do you remember that? Once, I gave a shit.

I question this: that maybe I am imagining it all. That I am still alone. This is me and my psyche, and we’re battling. This is a struggle, a tug of war that I am having, and losing. Winning would mean sanity. Winning might mean no longer being alone, because being alone means that there is nothing. Nothing left at all. It would make sense that I would imagine myself as Tomas, maybe. Maybe I should paint my face: the birthmark, blood-stained, covering my head.

‘I wanted to see if you are still there,’ I say to the other Mira. I want to know that he is real. He asks me why I – Tomas – left him to die. I cannot give him a satisfying answer. I can only let it hang there, and wish that I could tell him. I wish that I could tell him why our brother decided that we were not worth saving.

Still no sleep. I see things, out there, in the anomaly. I put screens everywhere I can around the ship showing the camera views of the outside. I don’t know which direction is which, other than this. And there, in the darkness, I see something. A glimmer. It’s there and then it’s gone. I pull the screens up, look at them. Try to find it. There’s nothing. I am seeing things, I tell myself. All that’s there is the black that’s always there. Why would there be anything else? How could there be anything else?

He talks to me and I reply, but I am barely present. Barely functioning. I want him here so that I can go out and see what it is.

Maybe that’s why I left? Because there’s something else out here with us?

I can’t see it. He messages me, but I ignore him. If I miss it for even a fraction of a second, I am worried that I will not know what it is.

He asks for my help, and I want to tell him that I cannot offer him anything. He pesters me, an irritant suddenly. Is this how Tomas felt about me? Am I channelling him entirely, his feelings, his moods? The other version of me is still days away, and he sounds nothing like the man that I am now. I have slept, finally, but it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like I’m past something, like I’m not even meant to be here. I can’t explain it better than that.

Maybe I can. Like I’ve cheated death, maybe. I am on borrowed time, and yet time doesn’t seem to be linear, not here. Time is like anything else: language, or air, or me. Perfectly malleable.