Porochista Khakpour - The Last Illusion

So she wrote him a letter. It was four paragraphs and two pages long, a decent length, she thought. She took the advice her mother once gave her: When breaking up with a boy, write them a letter, but instead of a focusing on all the things they did wrong, go on and on about all the things you’ll cherish. Everyone deserves a consolation prize! So she dug and dug and spit out whatever she could come up with. They weren’t all lies. She would miss the job; she would miss him. She did have no idea what she would do. And she did, for the record, think meaning and symbol and theme and all that shit were overrated, and she was sad to see that it had made their last weeks together so empty. She added one P.S., the only sentence she couldn’t fully stand behind, but it was better than ending on a passive-aggressive note: The FOT [Fall of the Towers] was so awesome today! Better than anyone thought even! They were moved, they were blinded! Mission accomplished, all hail the chief!

When Shell Hooper was back to her usual thousands of miles away, she thought to herself, for the first time, that it was too far. She started calling Zachary, the only child she really had left, she had to admit, over and over to make up for the distance.

Distance was met with distance. For a while he did not answer. He didn’t know how to answer. It took him a while to even realize it was his mother. He had never heard her cry before — at Willa’s funeral, she had kept her crying completely silent, wary of making a scene even when a scene required a scene.

But on the night of September 10, 2001, he finally called back, even though he knew it was the middle of the night in Hawaii.

She answered and started crying the moment she heard his voice.

“I need you to take care of yourself,” she kept saying. “You’re all I’ve got, you know!”

“Oz’s not dead,” Zachary grumbled. He had to admit he felt a tinge of pride for having a sister who was doing time in the slammer. She was tough, and she’d come out tougher, or so he was telling himself.

“I don’t want to talk about Daisy right now! I want to know you’re okay. Are you okay? Are you happy? Do you have everything you need?”

“We’ve always had everything,” he snapped.

“Yes, and that’s good! I want you to have it all! I want you to be filled with it all!”

“Mother, I have to go,” Zachary said, though he didn’t, of course.

“I need to tell you something.”

“Shoot.”

“Oh, Zachary, be nice, now of all times,” she pleaded.

“Let’s talk another day.”

“You know we won’t!”

“So shoot.”

She paused. It was amazing to her that these words were so hard to get out, words that should feel more natural than any words on earth, especially to her son. But was he her son? Had he ever been? For years, her children had been unknowns to her. And now she was losing them all — but could there be such a thing as too late when it came to family? All these thoughts roamed through Shell Hooper’s head as she paused — and eventually Zachary quietly put the phone down, hoping that the gentleness of his click would soften the blow, but he had warned her — until something snapped her out of the nightmares of her neuroses and she just let it out, I love you, son, not realizing she had said it to no one, just a dial tone.

If there was one person she still wished she could be with just one more time, it was, of all people, Zal. And if there was one thing Willa would tell Zal, it was that it took her being gone for her to remember. She still could not remember the face of the man who had harmed her, but she remembered the ending of the story that had kept her alive.

And the girl held the valentine and said, “This is my heart.” But the man put a fist to her chest and said, “No, this is your heart.” And she said, “I mean no disrespect, sir, but you have no idea. Believe me. Take this heart of mine wherever you go.” The man laughed. “Why would I do that? It’s just a piece of paper!” She said, “Because one day you’ll be in danger. That’s the truth. One day we’ll all be in danger, but on your day, you will be protected.” The man laughed again, but this time because her words made him uncomfortable. “Trust me. When you are in danger take this heart and then take your matches and just burn it, just like that. Then you’ll see: I’ll protect you. .” And the man said nothing, stunned, because he could not imagine that such a small girl would know that he also needed protection.

Bran Silber did what he did every night before an illusion, never mind that this was the Last Illusion, the name that had replaced the admittedly dull Fall of the Towers in his head: he stayed up all night. But his mind-set was altogether different. He sat on the balcony outside his bedroom, smoking but not chain-smoking, staring at the glittering skyline of his city — and he did not for one moment even think he was about to alter that skyline. He just looked at it, admired it, and felt okay. That was his first tip-off that something might be different here: he felt relaxed, peaceful, good even.

It was not a feeling to be trusted, he told himself, and yet he could not shake it off.

Before he knew it, he was saying I love you in his head and eventually out loud, to no one in particular.

He would be haunted for ages by those three words that had, like a curse, stamped themselves on his illusion, himself, them, everything somehow, but it would be many more hours until he even had the luxury of recollection.

Because when he walked out of his home that still-dark Tuesday morning, it was like any morning before an illusion. All was well. Silber felt a giant, monstrous confidence — after months of doubt — welling up inside him, gearing to explode. There was no choice but to win, and no one to win for but everyone, no one to win against but himself, he coached himself.

And Bran Silber even mouthed to his reflection as he always did before the big show: You, love, are a god. Now go kill them.

Showtime: Silber inhaled and cued the music. At first it was all wind chimes and drums, and then came the violins, layer upon layer of shrieking violins. It was the most manic dirge he had ever heard, perfect in a way no one could guess for his last illusion.

Everything — and he meant everything —was perfectly in its place, he would insist and insist and insist again until the day he died.

Before he could even consider the inevitable nerve or two, he was spotlit on that already blindingly bright day, on the platform’s platform, waving at more masses than any of them could have dreamed— another record for the records, Silber thought, a bit tearfully. The dirge drowned out by the roars of cheers and applause.

All was as it should have been, he’d tell and retell, cross his heart and hope to die.

At the very most, one aspect possibly could have been interpreted as off : seconds before the illusion, he felt the familiar sense of fate catching up with him, like sensing an earthquake seconds before it hits, and he felt himself go in and out and in and out until he was sure he was gone. But, professional that he was, he immediately went on autopilot and heard himself belt into the mic: “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining us! Behold the greatest illusion of our time, New York City, the Fall of the Towers!”