Michael Cunningham - Specimen Days

“Do you know what it says?”

“Nope. No idea.”

“But you want to take it with you.”

“I paid for it.”

“With my money.”

Luke shrugged and put the bowl back into the bag. Only the sound of Catareen’s breath was audible. Ee-um-fah-um-so , faint as a curtain worried by wind.

Simon thought he could see the bowl on another planet some time in the next century, sitting on a shelf, where it would silently reflect an alien light. This small and fragile object, bearing its untranslatable message, was the entire estate of a woman who had intentionally deformed her child and then abandoned him. The bowl would travel to another sun, although it was neither rare nor precious.

Biologicals were mysterious.

Luke said, “You’re absolutely sure you don’t want to come?”

“I do want to come. But I’m staying here.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Luke went and stood beside the slumbering Catareen. “Goodbye,” he said softly. She did not respond.

Luke said, “If I was a better person, I’d stay, too.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no reason for both of us to stay.”

“I knew you’d say that.”

“But you wanted to hear it anyway, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. I did.”

“Is this what Christians refer to as absolution?”

“Uh-huh. Anybody can do it. You don’t need a priest.”

“You don’t really believe in this crap, do you? Really?"

“I do. I really do. Can’t help it.”

Luke stood solemnly at Catareen’s bedside. He held the bowl close to his chest.

“She’s had a long life. Now she’s going to the Lord.”

“Frankly it creeps me out a little when you say things like that,” Simon said.

“It shouldn’t. If you don’t like ‘Lord,’ pick another word. She’s going home. She’s going back to the party. Whatever you like.”

“I suppose you have some definite ideas about an afterlife.”

“Sure. We get reabsorbed into the earthly and celestial mechanism.”

“No heaven?”

“That’s heaven.”

“What about realms of glory? What about walking around in golden slippers?”

“We abandon consciousness as if we were waking from a bad dream. We throw it off like clothes that never fit us right. It’s an ecstatic release we’re physically unable to apprehend while we’re in our bodies. Orgasm is our best hint, but it’s crude and minor by comparison.”

“This is what Holy Fire taught you?”

“No, they were idiots. It’s just something I know. The way you know your poetry.”

“I don’t know poetry, exactly. I contain it.”

“Same difference, don’t you think? Hey, it’s about time for me to blast off to another planet.”

“I’ll walk you downstairs. I’d like to say goodbye to the others.”

“Okay.”

They went together to the base of the ship. It was humming now. It put out a faint glow like the one that had emanated from Luke’s mother’s bowl in the dimness of the sickroom. The settlers were assembled at the bottom of the ramp. At the top of the ramp, the entranceway was a square of perfect white light.

Emory said heartily to Simon, “Here we go, then.”

“I’ve just come to see you off,” Simon told him. “You’re not coming?”

Simon explained. Emory listened. When Simon had finished, Emory said, “This is really rather extraordinary, you know.”

“What is?”

“You.”

“I’m not extraordinary. Please don’t patronize me.” Emory said, “A child said”

“I don’t feel like reciting poetry just now,” Simon told him.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Emory smiled and nodded. “As you wish,” he said.

Twyla approached from the crowd, with Luke behind her. She said to Simon, “If you’re staying here, you could take care of Hesperia.”

“I guess I could.”

“The neighbors are coming to get her tomorrow. Tell them they can’t have her after all. Tell them you’re going to keep her. Will you do that?”

“Sure.”

Luke said, “He can’t take care of a horse. The neighbors are a better bet. They’re horse people, right?”

“Hesperia would be one of the herd to them. She’ll be Simon’s only horse.”

“This is assuming Simon wants or needs a horse. This is assuming he’d have any idea what to do with a horse.”

Othea said, “We need to be getting on board now.” She held the infant in her arms.

Emory said to Simon, “It seems I did a better job with you than I’d realized.”

“Have a good trip,” Simon said.

“Same to you. Excuse me, I’ve got to do a head count. Don’t wander off. I want to say a proper goodbye.”

Emory strode off into the crowd. Luke and Twyla continued bickering about the horse. The argument seemed to be leading them into other, more general areas of disagreement.

Simon decided it was as good a time as any to slip away. No one seemed to notice when he did.

He resumed his place beside Catareen in the dim, cool room. From outside he heard the sounds of the departure. A ringing of metal, three clear notes in succession. A strange sound of suction, unidentifiable, that came and went. And every now and then the sound of voices, a child calling, an adult answering. They were indistinct. They seemed to come from far away, farther than he knew them to be.

He did not wish to see the ship depart. He preferred to be here, in this quiet room.

As time passed he drifted into sleep and out again. His head fell onto his chest, and he jerked awake. Each time when he woke he was briefly surprised to find himself here, with the dark silent form laid out on the bed. Each time he understood that he was in fact here. Then he’d fall asleep again.

Finally he got onto the bed beside Catareen. He was so tired. He wanted only to lie down. He moved carefully, trying not to disturb her. He arranged his body beside hers on the narrow mattress.

Her eyelids fluttered open. She turned her head and looked at him. She was quiet for a while. Then she said, “You.”

Her voice had thinned. It was a low whistle, barely audible.

“Me,” he answered. “When you go?”

“Don’t worry about that.”

“When you go?”

“I’m not going.”

“You are.”

“No. I’m staying here.”

“Not.”

He said, “I wouldn’t want to go without you.” It was not what he’d meant to say. It did not seem quite literally true. And yet, he’d said it.

“You go,” she said.

“Shh. Don’t talk.” As if he’d ever imagined asking her to speak less.

She said, “Go.”

He answered, “This is where I want to be.”

She looked at him. Her eyes were fading. She opened her mouth to speak but could not speak.

“Sleep,” he said. “Just sleep. I’ll be right here.”

She closed her eyes. Carefully, he put his arm over her. Then he decided she probably wouldn’t want that. He removed his arm. He inclined his head toward hers, let the skin of his cheek touch the skin of her forehead. He thought she would not mind that.

Soon he was asleep, too.

He dreamed that he stood in a high place. It was bright and windy. In the dream he could not determine whether he was on a mountain or a building. He knew only that he was standing on something solid and that the earth was far below. From where he stood he could see people walking across a plain. They were distant, and yet he could see them perfectly. There were men and women and children. They were all going in the same direction. They were leaving something behind. He could just barely make it out. It was a darkness, a sense of gathering storm, far away, shot through with flashes of light, green-tinted, unhealthy, small shivers and bursts of light that appeared and disappeared in the roil of cloudy darkness. The people were walking away from it, but he could not see what it was they were moving toward. A brilliant wind blew against him, and he could only face into it. He could only look at that which the people were fleeing. He hoped they were going to something better. He imagined mountains and forests, rivers, a pure windswept cleanliness, but he could not see it. He could only see the people walking through the grass. He could only see what was on their faces: hope and fear and determination, a furious ardency he could not put a name to. The wind grew louder around him. He understood that the wind in his dream was the sound of a spacecraft, departing for another world.