Austin Bunn - The Brink - Stories

Instead, I took out Bo’s flyer + pinned it to a bulletin board that was quilted with countless notices of human irrelevancy. “THIS IS OUR FINAL OFFER,” the flyer read, in Bo’s handwriting. “Civilization is about to be Spaced Under. UFOs will take us to the next level. Join us!”

You looked at all the flyers on the board + I asked what you were thinking + you said “nothing” + I said if you were having thoughts you needed to tell me, that that’s what it meant to have a check partner.

“They have ballroom dancing on Thursday nights,” you said.

Leah, you are so next level!

I remember how we found you street-side in Salt Lake City, with your retriever Rocket + your blond hair caked into rope. (It looks so much better short!) You were a seeker, your backpack crammed with books from every religion. You skimmed the I Ching + cast coins right there on the sidewalk, onto the front of your skirt. It took me an hour to build up the velocity to enter your atmosphere. Your facepart was so smooth + new. A hoop pierced your eyebrow. The two tiny bites into the skin looked maybe infected but still adorable.

I handed you our card.

Do you want to know what happens next? Come to a Total Overcomers Anonymous Meeting.

You cleaned a fingernail with the corner. “What happens next is you buy me lunch,” you said + I took you to burgers. You left Rocket outside, tied to a banister with twine. You tried not to show your hunger, but your arm ringed the plate the way a gorilla would if a gorilla ate off a plate. I fell so hard for you, my knee bouncing under the table, even though I knew that was wrong + emotions add weight to our containers. You wouldn’t tell me about your life but now I know all about your life. Your Mormon family, your brother who went AWOL on his mission trip in Brazil + your mother who had an affair + how everything splintered from there. I couldn’t wait to rescue you, to give you shelter + true family. I know it was awful when Bo made you leave Rocket behind but that was a necessary shedding. Don’t tell me feelings are hard to give up! The most difficult thing I’ve ever done was lie with you on that mattress + not touch because Bo wanted us to “learn to be neutral.” While we lay there, every religion moved through me. If these letters can prove anything to you it’s that I’ve never been neutral.

At the student center, a male vessel got up from the entrance desk + approached us. “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you students? Because you need to be a student here to post flyers.” His vessel featured a brown ponytail + flip-flops + a T-shirt that said “Alpha Chi or Die,” which made me think that maybe he knew something we didn’t. A can of soda rose to his mouthpart.

“This is very important for students to know,” I explained.

“Well, there are rules and I’m the rule guy,” he said. “Can I see some ID?”

“Don’t you want to hear about the Final Offer?” I said.

“This UFO caca ?” he said + ripped down the flyer + crumpled it. That was when I realized we were talking to a Luciferian! Bo has told us so much about them, their ways of scrambling our message, that I expected his eyes to blaze + his lips to peel + show fangs. I really wanted to grab your container, Leah, + run.

“That was totally unnecessary,” I said.

The Luciferian belched + his eye machines looked from me back to you. “And what’s up with the twinky turtleneck get-up?” Then, to himself, he muttered, “California, land of the freaks.”

“This entire world will end in two days,” you said + it was beautiful.

Back in the van, we put our tuning forks to our heads + asked the Next Level what to do + I heard, “Return to headquarters.” “Right now?” I said into the universe, but silently. “Can’t I spend more time with Leah?” Then I swiveled my eye machines + saw you looking into the minivan beside us in the parking lot. The sliding door was open + those two twin babies, new vessels, fresh from the manufacturer, blinked in the backseat. Their mother bent over them + you waved to them in a tiny way. But the mother saw you + swung the sliding door shut.

“Finish your work,” the Next Level returned, so I drove. According to my stopwatch, it had been one hundred + twenty minutes since we had launched from Rancho Santa Fe + we still hadn’t picked up the fuel for the space jump. At the Ralphs, a cashier vessel with a bumpy facepart scanned our big jars of applesauce + cases of pudding + jugs of vodka. He said, “Looks like a party — can I come?”

I wanted to say, The invitations were given out two thousand years ago!

“The invitations were given out two thousand years ago!” I said.

“No need to shout, dude,” he said.

“I wasn’t shouting,” I said.

“Lady,” the cashier vessel asked you, “this guy doesn’t have you against your will or anything, does he?”

You smiled + bagged.

But in the car, I could tell something was wrong. In the passenger seat, you watched the brush fires + hugged your legs to your chest. You left the Bible on the floor. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want to bang your frequency. In the driveway, I parked + neither of us moved.

“Michael, do you ever have doubts?” you said softly to the dashboard. This close, your facepart was a sun that I couldn’t look into.

“Doubts?” I said.

“Doubts about the Gate,” you said. “About us going.”

Leah: we all have spirits — memories + hopes + addictions + behaviors rattling around in our containers like sneakers in a dryer. They are the additions + we need to subtract them + get empty. My Spirit List is long: you, mainly, then my father then Boulder Colorado + my old programming job. . These spirits make the doubts about the Gate + doubts are how the Luciferians win. They’ll tether you here to the earth to endure the recycling. To fit through the window in the sky , Bo teaches, you have to let go of everything that you are carrying. Nobody said it would be easy to get the scales to zero.

“Spirits make doubts—” I said, but you said, “Never mind,” + suddenly you were light years from me.

Inside the mansion, you walked straight to the Spirit Room to decontaminate, which I thought was a good idea. We needed time apart. I took the grocery bags to the kitchen + hovered in front of the computers, each one blinking, “Red alert! Hale-Bopp is coming!” in an important font. I could hear Brian in the den recording his testimony for the video camera. Did you read his screenplay Beyond Human , which will change the world after we leave? It is 422 pages about Bo’s emergency landing on the planet, how the away team created Jesus + the other vessels + what happens after the long war of earth living is finally over. It’s so big Brian bound it with six-inch screws. Brian told me he came from Portland, where he made industrial films until his wife was mauled in a zoo-related thing. From the den, I heard him say to the camera, “Death is just the twist on page twenty-seven.”

Bo was there in the kitchen, on a stool at the countertop, crushing our pills. I’m always honored to be alone in his orbit. It’s selfish, I know — I get all his gravity that way. His silver hair bristled like a boot brush. I sometimes wonder what his face would look like if you smoothed out all the wrinkles — would it be the size of a tablecloth? Last month, Old Margaret whispered to me that Bo’s vessel, the one he’s been piloting for sixty-six years, is collapsing from cancer, which is why we have to leave now, while he’s still strong enough to lead us through the jump.

When Bo saw me, he smiled. Then he said what he always says: “Such a beautiful container.” Bo likes me more than the others, I think, because most of us have old containers or fat ones like Darwin’s + Bo prefers the look of newer ones. I decided this was the time to ask my big question: could I share a bunk with you in the laundry room for the departure? “Yes” would mean you + I would climb the sky together. I was so nervous I was vibrating.