1/0: Entries from the End Times

<participant id = 1> fished a spare loonie from her pocket, then fed it into the slot in the shopping cart’s plastic-caked handle, freeing it from the chain that entangled it with its neatly lined siblings.

We had to penguin-shuffle along the aisles because the floor seemed to be made of pure, perfectly polished pitch-black glass. Now and then, I’d almost trip over the strange flowers seeping between the narrow rifts in the tiles, their metal petals obscuring my likeness.

The maguey cactus, yucca, agave fibers wove with my striatum, prefrontal cortex, amygdala, and hippocampus. They tugged me to the images floating in my cerebrospinal fluid. The hollow in the heel of my boot. An almond-shaped leaf. The needle pointed towards my forearm, like a compass needle pointing north. The coca plant ground into hydrochloride salt after being combined with ammonia, baking soda, and water. Without it, the eagle, and the visions of the empty chair at the dinner table would nest in my torn spinal ligament.

The leaf flitted away at the low thump of <participant id = 1> tossing a small, frozen, black chicken into the shopping cart. She retrieved her grocery list from her other pocket, humming happily to herself while she reminded herself of the next item. Her pleated skirt swirls around her legs as she sprints towards the fresh produce section.

In the center of my subconscious, the little leaf twirled around in tandem with the cornflower fabric fluttering over her knees.

My father would dye his dresses with the same shade. I’d sit beside him in his garden like my sunglasses sat on my brow. He’d flash me a sly smile. Place his pointer finger over his lips. I’d do the same, then help him scoop clay, resin, and another plant whose name I couldn’t recall into a pestle and mortar. He’d paint a band of blue across my forehead and chin. Tell me I looked like Huitzilopochtli, that he did this to his face after he defeated the moon and the stars, who would devour us if he didn’t prevail. He would cradle my cheek in his warm, rough palm. The same warmth that coursed through my system seconds after the needle sank into my skin.

Mi sol.

I had to have it. I had to have that little leaf to hide it behind its foggy, white veil before it lifted. I couldn’t go back there. I couldn’t tell what terrified me more. The empty chair, or the chair filled by my father, and the look on his face when he looked upon what his son, his sun who should’ve been a champion had become. I had to have it. I had to have it now.

“Zero,” <participant id = 1> said sternly, but not sharply, “Zero, can you go to aisle three and get me some jujubes, bamboo fiber, and shiitake mushrooms?”

“Shit mushrooms, and –” I caught my sunglasses before they could fall off “– and bad juju? What?”

“Jujubes.” She made a mangled oval with her index finger and thumb. “Red. Wrinkly. Around this size.”

“Oh, you mean dates!”

“Yes, yes, dates!” She excitedly touched her fingertips together, the shape unnervingly reminiscent of a steeple. “Can you go get them?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll go get them.” I hung my sunglasses from the lopsided collar of my shirt instead.

I tripped over a flower. It sliced straight through my sock, slashing my ankle. I tumbled to the tiles.

“Fucking asshole!” I shouted.

<participant id = 1> jumped and paled.

“No, no, no, no, not you!” I immediately yelled, which she also flinched at. I jabbed my pointer finger at the flower. “This. This asshole.” I sighed and shook my head. “How can you people believe God made no mistakes when He made this?”

She squatted beside me and peered at the petals.

I tore off a strip from my shirt with my teeth and wrapped it around my shallow wound. “You’re the flower expert, yeah? What is this?”

“Never seen a…nail scissor flower,” she said softly, the sentence shaking slightly before she steadied it and turned to me. “Can you walk?”

“Yeah, it cut my ankle, didn’t cut off my toe.”

She shoved the shopping cart with more urgency now. “Then get the jujubes, bamboo fiber, and the shiitake mushrooms.” She vanished into the rainbow of vegetables, her pleated skirt flat.

I flashed my middle finger at the nail scissor flower for good measure.

I tucked the vacuum-sealed packages under my arm, my thumbs tapping against the keypad of my pager.

<message id = 6>

<participant id = 0></participant>

Hey, I have the goods.

Which aisle are you in?

Cheerful voices chattered at me from the tile under my right foot. I shifted my boot, so the steel toe wouldn’t cover the scene unfolding in the obsidian.

<participant id =1> darted from perfectly furnished table to table, balancing multiple ceramic coffee cups on an intricately decorated tray. Instead of her vintage, light blue dress, she sported a simple, pastel pink sweater over a ruffled, off-white skirt, and short black heels. Orchids and lotuses budded in the cobblestone paths she had paved between pools of water lilies. The customers had no faces, but they laughed melodiously as she cracked joke after joke in a language I couldn’t understand, a strangely, but not unpleasantly smug smile on her face.

The obsidian mirror rippled and the scene’s angle changed, focusing on her a few hours earlier, hunched over the counter, carefully crafting elegant swirls with rich, creamy milk, the rich fragrance of the coffee causing me to salivate instantaneously. When the silver bells over the door chimed, she turned toward it, and her hands flew to her heart.

An older Chinese woman in a long, grey felt coat caught <participant id =1> in her arms, rubbing her back, and pressing her cheek to her daughter’s hair. She pulled away to cup <participant id =1>’s face in her wrinkled hands. A beautiful diamond chain encircled the dip in her prominent collarbone.

An older man marched into the cafe. The older woman stepped aside, so he could gather <participant id =1> against him. <participant id =1>’s shoulders stiffened at first, but then she melted into his embrace. The older man patted her between the shoulder blades, pressing his lips to her temple. He had a brand new Rolex watch wrapped around his wrist.

Three ephemeral figures of light enveloped the family. A dove, a lamb, and another man with holes in his hands and feet.

<message id = 7>

<participant id = 0></participant>

Aisle four.

I’ll meet you at the self-checkout.

The wheels of the shopping cart squeaked in the distance, drawing my gaze to the other dried foods stacked on the shelves to my left. I spotted <participant id =1> in the aisle next to mine through the gaps between the cardboard boxes, her sneakers’ soles shredded by the petals. Unlike the <participant id =1> in the tiles, she walked with weight. I hadn’t noticed how much weight she walked with until the mirror told me how much lighter she could be. She didn’t look at the pale, oblong tubers she retrieved as she carried them to the cart, her stare distant, her gait lethargic as if she were yoked ox plowing through a field. She didn’t just hunch, she curled in on herself, her head drooping like a dying plant.

What the hell had happened to her?

The loss of the sun, or something long before that?

She didn’t even notice the tiles under her feet flickering to life.

But I did.

How could I not?

The shiitake mushrooms, bamboo fiber, and jujubes under my arm flopped to the floor, the invisible eagle’s talons raking into the tight tendons flanking the nape of my neck.

Me – not me, but the mirror-me – posed for a photo on the highest pedestal of the podium, a gold medal clamped between my teeth, my black belt barely hanging onto my hips, my formerly crisp uniform now crooked and caked in both my and my opponent’s perspiration. My nose – my nose, and mirror me’s – watered at the sweet sound of “Mexicans, at the Cry of War” blaring through the speakers.

The colors of the flag, my flag, filled the crowd. Green for the Mexican Independence Movement. Red for those who died fighting for it. White for the Catholic Church. And the serpent and the eagle entangled, the latter perched on the cactus told the Aztecs that at long last, they had a home.

And screaming from the front row of the stands, my mami and my papi, his arm around her, her leaning into his touch.

And my nose – not my nose, only mirror-me’s nose – had no powder under it. And he wouldn’t look at our beautiful mami and our beautiful papi. He just smirked at the camera. What an asshole. That asshole had no idea how good of a life he had. That should’ve been me. That would’ve been my life if it weren’t for me.

My temples throbbed and my fingers trembled as I stooped to retrieve the scattered vacuum-sealed packages from the ground.

What kind of joke is this?

My mami and my papi, their arms around each other. My mami and my papi. Together. As if my mami wouldn’t let him eat dinner with us, wouldn’t let him touch her whenever he braided ribbons into his hair, put on makeup, and told us to call him Carla instead of Carlos.

I staggered towards the self-checkout, the clumsy movements of my horribly dancing heart staggering with me.

What kind of sick fucking joke is this?