Joshua Mohr - All This Life

•••

OR WHAT ABOUTa drone strike? Something unmanned, unpiloted, a weapon streaking into your life, poised to deliver its deadly cargo, no matter what gets ruined. Who gets ruined. Without even contemplating the legacies, the impossible detritus of trying to inhabit a smashed existence.

It’s a drone strike, this blame explosion. Noah911 is engulfed in guilt.

This is the spot. He’s watched the video so many times that he’s sure this is the exact spot where the brass band jumped. He waits to feel close to Tracey, to feel her aura, her ghost, her kiss, but that’s not happening. He’s here alone with his Ziploc bag. He’s here alone and there’s only one way to feel close to her again.

Noah911 registers a kid standing nearby fiddling with his phone. Then Noah911 is right at the rail. In the middle of the bridge. Noah911 looks over the edge. Noah911 mutters more apologies, begs for mercy, clutches the Ziploc bag like it’s a Bible.

THE CAR BARELYstops before Rodney jumps out, and Sara tries to keep up. They are in the parking lot next to the bridge, on the San Francisco side. Rodney tries to run, but he’s limping really badly, slowing down with each stride. His foot must be broken.

“You. . run,” he says.

“What can I do?”

“Run!”

It’s comical to Sara: She shouldn’t be his proxy. She’s too small to do anything. But if she sees them, at least she will be there. Try and get a couple beefy guys to help her. She’ll figure it out. Whatever he wants. However she can assist. If Jumper Julie had the courage to walk this path and do what she did, then Sara can summon an unknown strength to help Rodney.

“I’ll find her,” she says.

•••

NOAH911 PUSHES AGAINSTthe railing, at the edge, and he is crying. This is goodbye and he fingers the bag, traces its contours cautiously. He squeezes it, not with any anger but as a last way to show love. Noah911 ponders whether it was his mother or father who found his plate of leftovers in the kitchen after the funeral. Are they worried, wondering what he’s doing, or are they lost in the arts and crafts studio, pretending not to remember?

He opens the Ziploc bag and shakes out the ashes. Her ashes. Tracey. He shakes her into the air, not seeing a drone strike but something with beauty to it. Tracey snakes from the Ziploc bag and for a moment the ashes circle and sit in the air like a swarm of bees.

Noah911 gets one second with all of the ashes frozen in the air. Face to face with them. Her. His sister. One last look in each other’s eyes.

Then they flutter off in every direction; she flutters off in every direction.

Noah911 was wrong before about needing that YouTube clip. This is better. This is what he needs, the memory of watching her cremains drift in the sky. She’s not that video. She doesn’t come to life with the click of play. She doesn’t die at the end. YouTube has nothing to do with his sister. She is a mosaic now, living in his heart, each tile a memory that if he stands back and examines their configuration, he sees Tracey.

He puts the Ziploc bag in his pocket and turns to walk away.

It’s poetic, Albert, I’ll give you that, it makes sense to trigger me with the scattering of ashes since our mission is to keep the world uncremated, and once I see the man throw the ashes up into the wind, I know I need to move to that precise spot. It’s where the portal will open, this woman will move away from this world and once she’s gone, you will materialize. I’m so curious to see what you’ll look like. I’m excited to shake your hand. This woman doesn’t seem to know what’s coming, she moves next to me, clutching her purse. I steer her with a hand on her forearm, but she’s not squawking or fighting me at all and the greenhouse gas of human sadness is almost over.

I’m so curious to see what you’ll look like.

There’s the issue of Jake’s bit rate. How many bits of his pathos can be processed per second. How it can be compressed to travel faster. How he is inflamed with anger and betrayal, how he feels so dumb for expecting to see a congregation of his followers. They said they’d be here. They told him that. They promised. But the only guy standing at the railing holds some dusty bag and he is crying and Jake wants his people, his friends. He hates being lied to and he’s stupid for thinking his followers were real. They were like him, sitting in front of their computer or phone, and they never wanted to meet the real Jake. They don’t care. He’s alone and he’s so tired of believing and being let down. He just wants one follower to show, one real breathing human to care.

All these compressed emotions and he needs to express them, needs to jettison some of the spam coursing through him, delete it, throw it away. How can he get rid of all the noise?

Jake needs a multimedia projection of his sadness, including audio and video, meaning motor control, meaning breathing, meaning facial expressions, meaning talking, meaning corresponding body language, then he needs to make sure his veins — those Ethernet cables under his skin — are capable of transferring all that data quickly enough.

Like how an HD DVD has 29.4 Mbit/s. That would be ideal.

Because now there is one follower standing in front of him: his dad. Jake needs to interact with his dad, seeing as how Paul screams at him, “What are you doing?”

Jake keeps near the edge.

“Will you step away from the railing?” a guy says, someone even fatter than his dad, someone in a cheap suit.

“Are you another therapist?” Jake says.

“I’m a police officer.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“The opposite,” Esperanto says.

Jake pauses, wondering what exactly is the opposite of trouble. Pleasure? Happiness? Peace? Siri would know.

“Stay away from me,” says Jake. “I have to do something.”

“LET’S STOP,” SAYSWes.

There are so many people around them that Kathleen can’t figure out why she’s not screaming. Someone would help. That’s what happens. People help each other. Get out one syllable, one simple noise. Yell like Felix did over the phone. Talk like Rodney. Choke out any sound.

Instead, she does as she’s told, stopping.

“Your hand,” he says.

“Huh?”

Finally, she makes a noise. That wasn’t so hard. Make another. Make the same. Do it louder. Save your life.

“Give me your hand,” says Wes.

•••

THIS IS WORSEthan falling off the balloon because at least Rodney did that to himself. This is his mom. This is his mom who needs his help but his foot can’t go more than a mile per hour and he’s embarrassed and she needs him and he’s letting her down and he’s trying, Mom, he’s trying his best, he trudges on with his broken foot, every now and again he tries to run but the pain is too much.

Balloon Boy is a bone, and a bone is a bomb, and its ignition in his foot blasts through him, up his leg like a chimney, ringing through his chest cavity, blazing in his guts.

THE TILE FROMhis memory mosaic that speaks to Noah as he’s walking away on the bridge, toward San Francisco, is this: Way back during her junior year in high school, Tracey sits in the driver’s seat of her new car. Taking it out for the first time. By herself. She’d gone out with Noah and she’d gone around the block with their parents, but this was her first time navigating the streets alone. Responsible for herself. She has a huge smile on her face. Both hands on the wheel. The light blue polish on her nails is chipped, but she grips that wheel, ready to hit the open road.