Sergio De La Pava - A Naked Singularity

Marcela laughed but raised her palm and winced. It hurt to laugh she said and Alana wondered aloud what laughter was anyway.

“I’ve never been in a bar in my life by the way,” Marcela added when the pain had subsided. “And Bill’s not fat either. I mean it Casi, don’t say anything to him about his weight, he’s very sensitive about how fat he’s gotten.”

“Oh man,” said Alana. “I think I know what you mean about the tinge of loss in love and what’s worse I think I can explain it.” She waited for us to ask her to do so but we said nothing and she continued anyway. “It’s not like loss, it is loss. What you’re feeling, and this is neither the time nor place of course, is the actual loss that is the inevitable end of all love, barely discernible but nagging.”

“What? You mean like glimpsing the future?”

“I guess but what does that really mean, the future ? What do you think Casi?”

“What do I know?” I said and just then we were interrupted by the gleeful screaming of Mary and Timmy in the other room. “And what’s up with that Marcela? Now she’s talking nonstop? What the hell?”

“That’s what I said, what the heck. Well that’s what I said after I broke down in tears of relief, hugged her, and thanked God.”

“Ask her what Mary’s first words were,” said Alana.

“Huh?”

“Go ahead, ask her.”

“Okay, I’m asking.”

“Well I tell Ma to bring her to the hospital. She says she told Mary in the car that she was going to meet her new brother. Nothing. Anyway they get there. Mary comes into the room and gives me a hug and kiss. Still nothing. Then she walks over to the little glass bassinet where the baby’s sleeping, takes one look at him, smiles and says this is something nice .”

“This is something nice?”

“ This is something nice , exactly like that.”

“Okay, and she’s been talking since?”

“More than ever, like nothing ever happened.”

“Tell him the kicker,” said Alana.

“What kicker?”

“Obviously I’m curious but I don’t want to mess with a good thing either so I don’t really say anything at first. Finally this morning I got up the nerve to ask her, you know, why she hadn’t talked in months. Know what she says?”

“What?”

“She goes, you told me if I didn’t have something nice to say not to say anything at all .”

“Get out.”

“Swear.”

“…”

“So it was good news all around that day.”

“Serious,” said Alana.

“Although one thing’s for sure, it’ll be a long time before I use a saying around that kid again.”

“Oh and ma’s lumps were nothing either,” Alana said to my still slack jaw.

Then that thing happened where everyone in the room is suddenly uncomfortably quiet and doesn’t know where to look because the person they’re talking about walks in. And beautiful Mary walked confidently with her chin held high, cutting through that silence and into my lap as I began to make out a bizarrely-illustrated book in her little hand.

Everything in lower Manhattan looked different, almost unreal, that day — like Vancouver dressed as New York. Truthfully, I was surprised to see that the old buildings and people still existed in any recognizable form since someone like me believes that when they stop going to a place it immediately changes and everyone else stops going as well. And I had planned on never returning but Soldera was going to be sentenced that day and I had to go back and see what would happen.

The cold had remained and even intensified in a way that defied calendars, the changing of the seasons, or any other logic, until finally it seemed everyone would just quit and petrify in their place. Then suddenly, the day before, the sun had reappeared — without warning and at the seemingly last possible moment — to burn off the sky’s gray and warm the air until by the end of the day people could be heard to complain of the heat. And that next day, the first of life’s cruelest month, had been more of the same, with some even wearing shorts in a gesture that seemed more symbolic than anything.

From behind two of these individuals, who wore inexplicable smiles along with their shorts, emerged a solitary black figure taking impatient purposeful strides directly toward me as I stood outside of 111 Centre. I watched his every move, frozen in that spot, as the distance between us shrank rapidly and when he stopped three feet away from me I looked near his face but without focusing.

“I guess you’re pissed,” he said. “I wondered, not an especially long time, what your reaction would be and I suppose I have my answer now.”

I didn’t say anything and even kind of looked away a bit.

“At any rate, this should smooth things over between us,” he said, extending his upturned palm with a gold key in the center.

“Dane!”

“Yeah, who else?”

“I didn’t even recognize you until just now.”

“What are you insane? It hasn’t been that long. I look the same don’t I?”

“The hell you been?”

“Take the key Casi.”

“What is it?”

“A key.”

“To?”

“To a storage locker. You’ll find the address right on the key itself. Inside the locker is the money just waiting for you to go rescue it. It’ll be safe in there for a while but I wouldn’t wait too long. You’ll see I spent some of it, a man’s got to eat, but it’s basically all there.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Well that’s a long story. Let’s go get breakfast, I’ll tell you all about it.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’m going in here about a case.”

“Dressed like that?”

“I’m only going because I want to see what happens, not in any official capacity. I don’t work there anymore.”

“Yeah I heard. So why do you care then?”

“Where’d you go?”

“Look don’t think I abandoned you at a difficult time or anything like that. There’s twenty million or so reasons for you not to think that. Truth is I had to go a little underground for a bit but now I’m back, in the flesh, before your very eyes. Now forget about what’s going on in there and let’s go share a last meal. Many of your questions will be answered there.”

“No I need to see.”

“Need? Casi, man, I guess some things won’t change. Forget about that building will you? Go get your money is my sage advice. Bottom line is you’ll never be the true subject of anything that happens in that or any similar building and as I repeatedly tried to impart to you in our limited time together nothing else matters the least.”

“I guess I won’t be.”

“No you won’t, at least judging from that picture of Assado losing his head.”

“You saw that before going underground huh?”

“Ah Ballena, you should say what you think directly. I suppose The Whale’s still lurking, true, but that’s no longer a concern of mine if it ever was.”

“Why would it be our last meal? You going somewhere? Or just still dying?”

“Going somewhere, going back down. Truth is I only came up here because of the cold. I love the cold. But now it’s getting hot here as well and if it’s going to be hot anyway I might as well be in Florida where I’m more comfortable. Fact is you should come with me. It’s much better down there than here, you are aware of that right?” I motioned like I had to go. “Like I said, go get your money Casi. I took enough to live on for a little while then I’ll do something else to get more you know? Maybe our future paths will cross who knows? You don’t want to come now? Cool. If you change your mind later we can always hook up then. 410? You did the right thing there. It’s all how you define right . That’s the key. Look around you, everyone’s adopting our definition Casi. With every passing moment any given individual is being stripped of significance, either being herded together with a great number of others only to be slaughtered en masse or else being severely isolated, left to fend for itself with only its meager gifts for protection. And make no mistake but that this state of affairs is as it should be. Let us continue to hone and hone the methods by which man hangs his fellow man and be done, once and for all, with any hypocrisy.” He smiled and grabbed my hand by the wrist. He turned my palm up and slapped the key into it then clasped it closed with his two hands. Just then a woman let out a hurtful scream to my left. I looked over and saw that she was actually laughing, bent over at the waist exaggeratedly as a man hugged her from behind and smiled. When I turned back Dane was gone. I moved my head quickly looking everywhere for him but it was as if he’d never appeared at all. I dropped the key into my pocket and went inside.