Shane Jones - Crystal Eaters

“To see if she’s dead?”

“To check.”

“Just help her. Let’s go. Come on, please.”

Dad walking toward the front door: “I’m doing everything I can.”

“You’re not doing anything.”

“Remy.”

“You’ll be remembered for doing nothing.”

“Who will remember?”

“Me.”

“Stop it.”

“I’ll stop when you help her. This has been going on for too long. Please.”

“Remy, I told you.”

“Let me see her face.”

“No.”

“I’m going to see her face before she’s gone, you owe me that.”

“You shouldn’t see her like this.”

“You can’t stop me.”

She follows Dad into the house where he dumps the triple blanket on the couch. They walk to Mom’s room, Remy stepping on the heels of Dad. The house is heavy with heat and difficult to navigate. Things are melting: a diamond-print reclining chair holds the impression of a giant, and the flesh-toned paint on the walls is dripping on the floor. When they enter the bedroom their bodies move slower in her presence. Mom looks tiny on the bed. Dad removes the blanket from her face in a quick passive-aggressive sort of way, looking at Remy the entire time, as if he knows what her reaction will be, as if he knows, and doesn’t care, that it will hurt her.

“You wanted to see.”

Remy’s shoulders fold inward and her stomach absorbs a hammer. Sharp pieces of crystal trickle down inside her. She’s never seen a body get this far.

Mom’s face has lost meat the skull once held. And Dad was right, something is wrong with her mouth, as if she chewed bricks. Her eyes are glazed and rust-colored. Soon, her left eye will drip crystals (Chapter 5, Death Movement, Book 8). Her nose is hardened ash that Remy imagines if she touched would crumble. Gray hair gunked with shit fans her pillow. Dad repeats Can you hear us? Can you? Are you okay? and Remy thinks Don’t leave me . Smell of dead dogs. Smell of burning. She peels the blanket from Mom’s feet and sees the skin is a darker red compared to her face and neck, and even her veins, once strong and blue, have disappeared beneath this new red shell. A lack of circulation results in the color red drying everything up, erasing the last crystals in the body (Chapter 9, Death Movement, Book 8). The red is moving toward her chest and aiming to stop her heart.

“You don’t have to be here,” says Dad, in a softer tone now that he’s seen Remy’s reaction. “I know you’ve heard this before, from me, from books, and maybe you don’t believe it, but it’s never been disproved. Parents go and their children step into their place. There’s nothing wrong with just letting that happen.”

The blanket on the bed, also significant in size but not quite triple blanket size, falls off the bed and to the floor. Shards of broken black crystal and blood dot the carpet and there’s something resembling half a tooth. Remy wants to pick up the black pieces and eat them. Mom’s face is turned up to the ceiling, throat exposed and seemingly not moving with breath.

“Do something,” says Remy.

“But I can’t,” Dad says.

“Let’s just go.”

“No.”

“Come on. Like you said, it doesn’t matter.”

Dad kisses Mom on the forehead and her throat moves. He turns his ear toward her mouth and listens. Remy can’t hear her, but whatever the words are, whatever the sound does, it makes Dad put his hand over his mouth and nose like he can block the emotion from coming out. He speaks into her ear. A block of melted ceiling crashes on the floor next to the bed but Dad doesn’t notice because he puts his ear back on her mouth and listens. He cries and then laughs, nodding. He rubs her head then says more, none of it audible for Remy to pick up on other than her name and Adam and the word younger . When Dad listens again it’s just sick person air. Maybe she’s smiling, with her lips like that. Dad turns to Remy, his body still leaning over Mom and says, “She’s such a —” He turns back to Mom. “Okay,” he says. “We’ll go.”

“Yes!”

Remy immediately feels embarrassed for being so excited.

“We’ll figure out how to navigate the city. We have nothing to lose, you’re right. I don’t care if we get arrested. Okay, let’s go.”

“It’s going to work,” says Remy. “I can feel it.”

Dad picks Mom up and feels the odd non-weight of her body. Seemingly unhinged, her head flops back.

“Careful,” says Remy, and moves in to support her head.

Before they leave Dad puts Mom back down on the bed and covers his face with two hands. He can’t handle it anymore. The emotion is pushing him around. But Remy is ready. She’s been waiting for this. She picks Mom up in the blanket and says it’s going to be okay, they won’t let her die, the city has powers (Chapter 14, Resurrection, City Hospital Myth). Thumb and finger around the bridge of his nose, eyes closed, Dad makes a snarl-face, inhales, and composes himself, says okay, just be careful with her. The house is full of hot disease and it throbs — walls, ceilings, floors — beating inward. Another block of melted ceiling, it appears saturated with water, crashes near the closet. Remy holds Mom to her body in the blanket. She’s so light. Remy unfolds wrinkles of fabric to find her legs which are tucked up to her chest and look like dried fruit.

She has at least one left.

“Ready?”

“Yeah.”

Remy exits the bedroom with Dad following like Remy followed him before into the house, Dad now the one stepping on Remy’s heels.

Outside, and walking quickly with the city in the near distance, everything is blowing dirt and bugs and heat. Most people are hiding inside, but a few dozen are out in the streets, watching. An elderly woman wears necklaces of green crystals that cover her entire neck, bracelets of blue and yellow from wrist to elbow on both arms. She stands on a rock and screams at the buildings. She smirks at Remy and Dad and Hundred. She tells them that everything comes for the village because the village is pure, this is the end of times, soon nothing will exist but dirt and it’s going to be better. Remy tells her to get inside, protect your number, you crazy.

The temperature today will shatter records with the sky creamed. They just need to keep moving toward the hospital and they won’t notice their dehydration, their exhaustion. A group of villagers point at three buildings built directly on top of the fence and there seems to be dozens of skyscrapers in the near distance too. Remy holds Mom closer. Dad walks beside them. They move toward the fence.

Mom’s weight increases when she suddenly stretches her legs out. The blanket trips Remy who stumbles but keeps her balance. More dirt and dust blows through the air and she squints, makes sure the blanket covers Mom. Dad offers to carry her. Remy says no, she does this, and Dad says okay, just please, be careful. They check her breathing by gazing into her mangled mouth, listening for wheeze and air. If this smell, like dead dogs, an odd sourness burning, is part of the death process, Remy’s never read about it, only experienced it from Harvak and smelled it on Mom that day in the kitchen. Her left eye drips a skinny trail of red.

“She’s close,” says Remy.

They run.

The sky isn’t a sky because the sky is a sun.

They run.

The sky isn’t like skin.

They run.

The sky is shit.

They run.

Dad loses his balance before standing still with his arms braced outward and he says Hold on, the ground tilted. Is this really the end of everything? He’s sure of it, the ground moved.

Remy stops. The towering buildings are scattershot in her vision because of the heat and swirling dirt. Windows are black boxes containing the faint outlines of nine-to-five workers eating ham sandwiches and discussing what they’ll have for dinner. She felt something move too, her feet trembled, but isn’t sure what, and figures it’s her own exhaustion, lowering count, causing her to lose her balance like Dad. She waits to feel something move beneath her but there’s nothing.