Part 29 (1/2)
”Maybe he was in an accident?”Shamus wondered.
”No,” Isma said. ”He decided not to come. Him not coming yesterday, I understand. But I still thought he would come today...”
”Don't think like that,” Shamus insisted. ”If Timothy could be here, he would be.”
”No.”Isma hadn't admitted it even to Hanna. She had just told Hanna he was missing, not the reason she suspected he had left. ”I did something, I did something that hurt him. I don't know how he found out, but he did. That's the only explanation. He's somewhere alone and hurt because of me.”
”You really shouldn't blame yourself.” Hanna cut in.
”I saw Paul,” Isma admitted, and the admission made her tongue feel like it was rotting.It was a ch.o.r.e to get the words out but she forced them out. She told them and she felt the self-righteous ones (Shamus, Raymond, Annabel) judging her.
Hanna took her side. ”You were with Paul for years. Of course you saw him. You're dying tomorrow. If Timothy was angry he should have faced you, not run off like a coward.”
Isma just shook her head and nothing anyone said could make her feel better. Benito suggested she try and make the best of it, but she replied ”I just want to leave. I'm going to go home and have an early night.”
Hanna put her arms around Isma. ”You shouldn't let him make you feel like this on your last night. Stay and we'll cheer you up.”
”No,” she said, forcefully. ”I'm going.”
She said her goodbyes to the ED group and none of the goodbyes were what she had imagined. They all felt flat, even with Hanna. Hanna was crying but Isma's eyes were dry. ”How did this happen?” Isma asked Hanna before she left. ”I've only known him three months. I shouldn't feel this. One week ago, if you told me this would happen, I wouldn't have thought it would affect me.”
”Should I walk you home?” Hanna asked.
”No. Thanks, but I'd rather be by myself.” She stepped out into the rain.
When Timothy got to the church, only Shamus was still there, putting things away. He told Timothy that Isma had already left, so Timothy drove to her apartment. What would he say when he got there?He had no idea. A part of him wanted to confront her about Paul and ask for specifics. Why did she lie?Did she sleep with him? Did she still love him? Another part of him just wanted to be with her and not to bring up Paul in any way whatsoever.
The traffic was dense, which was unexpected for a Sunday. The cars moved at a crawl. Timothy wondered where everybody was going to or coming from. Yesterday he'd been driving out, no particular destination in mind, just getting far far away. He'd planned to go to another city, to get a hotel room, a lot of alcohol, a thousand-a-night escort and whatever else he needed to make sure his last day was perfect even without Isma. That had been the theory. In practice, he'd felt miserable and had not been able to stop thinking about her.
So here he was, driving to apologize?Grovel?Scream at her? Well, something. ”I've got one day left and I want to spend it with you,” he whispered to himself. ”That's real romantic. Who could say no to that?”
Timothy turned round the corner to Isma's apartment block and he saw the fire. The top three floors of Isma's building were ablaze. Timothy looked down at his watch. 00:27.Half past midnight.
”No,” he breathed as the realization hit him.
This was it. This was how it was going to happen. Isma was in her apartment right now trapped and she would die in there, if she wasn't already dead. If he went into the building to try and save her, he would die too. That was the prediction. This was how it was going to happen.
The Death Machine had always been right but that was because everyone had always known too little information. Even EDs. But this time, Timothy knew everything. This was how it would happen. There wouldn't be two fires. This was the only one. All he needed to do to survive was to stand by and watch. That's how simple it would be to prove the Machine wrong. All he needed to do was do nothing. It's not like he could save her anyway.
Timothy stopped his car just outside the building. He heard screaming from within.
He stared up at the billowing flames and looked at the window he knew to be hers. She was in there, pinned under something or unable to run for some other reason. She must be so scared because she knew this was the end. She was in there, about to die. Waiting to die. Alone.
Timothy got out of his car and ran toward the fire at a full sprint.
Story by Daliso Chaponda Ill.u.s.tration by Dylan Meconis
MISCARRIAGE.
THE CITY IS BEAUTIFUL AT NIGHT. Long after the sun goes down, when the last rays have left the horizon scorched and aching, the buildings show their true shapes, silhouettes against the black with lights that twinkle orange and red. These are not the buildings, not anymore-rather, they're the buildings' ideas of themselves, the barest sketches. The burned-in after-image of a skyline put to bed.
With the fall of dusk, things simultaneously expand and contract. The streets open up, and familiar drivers can run them like rabbits in a warren, every turn practiced a thousand times and unimpeded by hesitant outsiders. It's a delicate dance. The people thin out, and suddenly the extra interactions-the vacant smiles and nods that mean nothing-are stripped out as well, and every meeting becomes one of significance. You see only who you want to see, and if you see someone else, it's because you wanted to see them and just didn't know it. Or they wanted to see you.
At the same time that the streets are opening up, they're also closing in. The city is a city during the day-people coming and going on business, tourists waltzing through and then back out, leaving snapshots and traveler's checks in their wake-but at night it becomes a home. Everyone acts a little different-after all, we're all roommates on a grander scale. This is my home, but it's yours, too. Mi casa es su casa. Mi ciudad es su ciudad. Mi casa es su casa. Mi ciudad es su ciudad. We're all in this together. We're all in this together.
Those smiles to pa.s.sersby that seem forced in the light become smirks at three in the morning. The raised eyebrow that says, ”How was she?” or ”I bet you could use a drink, too.” People's walls start to come down. Masks are for daylight-once dusk hits, it's the moon's turf, and she likes us naked, naked, naked, just the way she made us.
Or at least some of us. The poets. The dreamers. The dancers and weavers. Sure, there are children of the sun out there-hardworking proponents of duty and righteousness-but not at night. We are the merrymakers, the children of the moon. And the moon, she takes care of her own.
She was taking care of Ryan as he ran across the bridge, her light following him as he took in the skyline, the radio towers and bedroom windows that lit his way home, offering nothing but asking nothing in return. It was a sight that had taken his breath away the first time, and every subsequent viewing was a chance to return to that original moment-who he was with, what he was doing.
Ryan wasn't interested in going back tonight, nor home. The globes on the streetlamps glowed soft as he turned down the footpath, hedges forming a tunnel before opening up into the park proper. Here it was dark enough that the moon washed away the colors, leaving only stark whites and grays. And black. Lots of black.
Annie was waiting on the merry-go-round, one foot dragging in the dust. The contrast of blonde hair over heavy black peacoat was enough to fry the rods in his eyes and blind him to more subtle distinctions, but he knew they were there. The tiny triangle where her nose met her lips. The scar on her cheek that made her hate cats. The ears that poked through the sides of her hair in a way that only she found awkward. She stood up, and the diminis.h.i.+ng momentum of the merry-go-round carried her up to him, then stopped.
”Hey,” he said.
”Hey,” she replied.
They stood awkwardly for a moment, then she sat and he followed, close but separated by the toy's dully reflective steel rail.
”How was the hospital?” she asked.
”Not too bad. Long.” He sighed and pulled his jacket closer around him. She knew it was a loaded question-it was every time. How could he explain that working in the ER was simultaneously exhilarating and crus.h.i.+ng? That in any given day, he worked miracles and failed miserably, complete strangers giving up and expiring beneath his hands? He couldn't, and once upon a time he'd told her so. So now she asked how his day was, and he said fine, and both of them knew that the exchange was one of affection, not information.
The machine didn't make his job any easier, either. You'd think it would warn people, let them know what was coming, or at the very least aid in diagnosis and emergency room triage, but somehow it rarely did. Every day he saw people making good on their little certificates, and every day it took all but a select few by surprise. Some were straightforward-the middle-aged man with the steering column in his chest and DRUNK DRIVER on the laminated slip in his pocket, or the kid who quit breathing on Sloppy Joe Day and hadn't yet been informed by his parents that CHOKE ON CAFETERIA FOOD was the last entry in his abbreviated biography. Others were more complex-the third-degree burn victim who tried to cheat death by never smoking a pack in his life, only to be done in by the upstairs neighbor who fell asleep with a lit cigarette near the drapes. Or the woman with SAILBOAT ACCIDENT in her wallet, crushed by a towed yacht in a five-car pileup. The list went on. One way or another, things always worked out in the end.
Though the residents and long-time nurses did their best to combat complacency-after all, you could never know if the heart attack implied on the slip was this one, or another in thirty years-you could still see the knowing look in the doctors' eyes when someone crashed. If you were lucky, the advance warning made things a little less traumatic for both patient and doctor. More dignified.
Annie pushed off from the ground and the merry-go-round spun hesitantly, their weight throwing it off balance and making it squeal against its steel and rubber fittings. Ryan realized he'd trailed off and snapped back to the present, turning toward her.
”Did you talk to your mom?” he asked.
”Yeah.”
”How did it go?”
”About how we expected.” She reached up with one hand and tucked a lock of severely cropped white-blond hair behind her ear. ”She doesn't really trust it, and has all sorts of philosophical misgivings, but in the end she knows it's our decision and supports us without question. She'd like us to come out and see the new house whenever we can-she's trying to hold it back, but I can tell she's already gearing up to play the doting grandmother. She's probably already got the shower half-planned. I told her you're booked solid, but that we might be able to make it out in a month or so. What do you think?”
Ryan grunted noncommittally, feigning reluctance. She shoved his shoulder hard, tipping him off balance.
”Oh, come on,” she said. ”You know you love it. You don't even have to help cook-you just get to read and ride the horses and hang out with William. I'm the one who's going to have to go visit eighty-year-old great-aunts and listen to stories about people who died in 1967.” She stood and grabbed his hand. ”Come on, let's go sit on the swings.”
Ryan stood and let her pull him along. In the dark, her tiny hands glowed against her sleeves, and he marveled at the boundless energy contained in something so small and delicate.
The park was nothing extravagant-a gravel-covered box edged with trees on one side, with the merry-go-round, a few big climbing toys, and a swing set. Nothing like the expansive playgrounds both of them had grown up with, but that was the price they paid for living in the city. During the day, every square foot was covered in running, yelling children, offering local mothers a few minutes to read their books on the surrounding benches. But at night it stood empty, save for the occasional drug deal or sleepy hobo.