Dig .
There’s no black crystal.
Dig .
A waterfall of dirt attacks him.
Dig .
Z. ducking even though he’s covered by the metal roof of the machine.
It doesn’t exist so just get a dark-colored red, a bunch, and trick them .
When Z. was a child he met Adam McDonovan who told him he was breaching the city to achieve something no one had ever done before. Z. asked if it would be bigger than fireworks and he said yes, different, why was everyone talking about fireworks. He said that the true way to extend one’s count was to have others remember you. He held a bag with dark crystals, looked like red. Everyone wants to be amazing in an ordinary world, said Adam. Z. listened and memorized every word. He didn’t want to be stomped out like some bird. Just be great enough so someone younger will remember you, said Adam.
The division began with the night of separate bedsheets. For years, Younger Dad insisted on sleeping under the same sheets because that is what married couples do , no matter how much sheet Younger Dad took in twists during the night. Sometimes, Younger Mom woke with her fingers touching an edge of blanket as Younger Dad, deep in dream, held the blanket from her.
“Why’s it such a big deal,” said Younger Mom. “How do you expect me to sleep if I don’t have any covers and you have to, absolutely must , sleep with a window open?”
Younger Dad had a theory that he’d achieve a better sleep if fresh air was blowing in. He spent his days working in the crystal mine, harvesting yellow and melting it down. It was difficult, messy work, that clogged his body. If fresh air wasn’t circulating, his mouth and nose went dry and would cause him to wake throughout the night. Not that he could remember, the next day, of waking up, but he said he felt it . He said the sleep didn’t catch right .
“What about a bigger blanket?”
“That’s not a solution.”
He took three blankets into the garage and placed them on the table where Harvak would one day expel his last crystal, and using a needle and black thread, he stitched. It took two hours and the stitching was poor. When Younger Dad pulled at the new seams triangle-shaped holes formed. He went back and added thread — quick loops to help hold together the triple blanket that wasn’t a solution, but an attempt.
He pulled the blanket from the garage and into the house where he let it drag across the floor and up the stairs. The blanket extended from the bottom of the stairs to the top and into the bedroom where it slithered from a fearful Remy who watched half-hidden, but standing, in her bedroom.
It took another hour to figure out how to display the blanket. The trick was to fold it in a way so it appeared to be three separate blankets stacked. He wanted it to be a surprise when Younger Mom entered the room, ready for bed, dressed in her gray nightgown, brushing her teeth with one hand while pulling the bedsheet down with the other.
“What’s going on here?” she asked, looking at the bed stacked high with blankets.
“Watch THIS,” Younger Dad said.
He pulled one layer off and to the right and another to the left. The blanket touched each wall of the bedroom. One side had to be folded back over. Younger Dad stood with his arms extended outward.
“Very you,” said Younger Mom smiling with her hand spread over her mouth. “Still going to keep the window open?”
That night, on each respected side, they crawled into bed and under the blanket with a good fifteen feet of fabric on each side.
Yes, the window was open. Yes, Younger Mom was smiling and laughing. Yes, Younger Dad felt pure joy for having injected pure joy into Younger Mom. Yes, Younger Dad asked if Younger Mom was tired and ready for sleep and she said yes and yes they went to sleep. They were years away from the first signs of her illness but it was there, inside her. It didn’t matter then. There was joy in that bed.
Younger Mom woke at 2:35 in the morning because of the breeze blowing on her arms. The blanket had dipped to her waist. She pulled it to her chin, fell back asleep, only to wake twenty minutes later with the edge of the blanket against the side of her body.
“It worked,” Younger Dad said in the morning, a spoon filled with oatmeal raised to his lips. “I’m good.”
“Not exactly,” she said, pouring a cup of coffee, looking through the kitchen window above the sink. “Put all the blanket on my side tonight.”
So, they put all the blanket on Younger Mom’s side in a ridiculously huge pile even Harvak was too scared to jump into. Younger Dad had barely enough blanket to cover his body. He had about two inches of blanket on his side, to the thirty feet of clump on Younger Mom’s.
It didn’t work.
“I’m sorry,” said Younger Dad. “Huh.”
They tried tucking the blanket under the mattress, and they tried wrapping Younger Mom in a tunnel of blanket, and they even tried having Younger Dad only touching the edge of the blanket, not even on him really, but none of it worked. The last attempt involved Harvak sleeping between them — the dog acting as a kind of anchor to the blanket. But after an hour Younger Dad flipped and flopped and Harvak leaped from the bed as the blanket shifted once again and the breeze blew in from the open window.
“People talk about people who don’t sleep together,” he said.
“You should care about me sleeping, not people.”
“I believe in a one blanket policy, I think,” said Younger Dad.
That night Younger Dad went into the bedroom and saw two blankets — one brown and one white — neatly folded side by side on the bed.
Years passed. Remy grew. Adam imprisoned. Mom coughed a new sound. Dad fought through his blanket. That is, instead of taking blanket, which he couldn’t do now, his body moved toward the center of the bed and pushed at Mom who woke throughout the night from knees and elbows.
“Last night your elbow pressed into my spine.”
Dad tried sleeping on the couch. He couldn’t fall asleep because the flow of air from the window wasn’t right. Mom tried too, but the couch proved too lumpy, and she hated the feeling of her arm disappearing between cushions.
“It’s temporary,” she said. “What we’ll do is set up a bed in the spare bedroom. I know, his bedroom. I’ll get some sleep. My head hurts.”
“If that’s what you want,” said Younger Dad. “If sleeping in separate bedrooms is a good idea then let’s do it.”
Dad stands on the roof. He kept the triple blanket in the garage for years, and earlier, pulled it up the ladder. It hung blob-like over the eaves and became a flag some villagers waved at when Dad shook-out the dust. He placed it over the roof, corners to corners. Wondering what to do about Mom — can anything living be saved from death — the triple blanket covers all.
Remy runs through the mine with Hundred. Sharp yellow disregarded by workers because they won’t liquefy due to over-crystallization cut her feet. Remy imagines her count as twenty ice cubes pyramided inside her. I don’t have any color. Mom is leaving. Who will be strong enough to bury her body? Dad is with her now, he will watch her go . Leaving the mine, Remy looks toward the city so near, the fence smashed by three new buildings. The sun is a predator in its sky blistering. She heads home feeling helpless.
Dad climbs down from the roof by way of ladder holding the triple blanket.
“You’re not with her?”
Dad bunches the blanket against his face, trying to keep it from hitting the dirt, but most of it remains clumped at his feet. “Going in now.”
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