Not So Far as the Stars

In the morning their conversation turns to dreams. She says she dreams of his home, though she's never been. And of the green and red trees and the people who climb the trees to keep the cutters from coming. In truth, the cutters don’t check so much if there’s a climber in the trees these days, but it’s hours too early to turn the talk somber so he sends a sleepy smile:). Says maybe soon the air will thicken up enough to get the lockdown lifted and she can see the trees awake. It’s a crude veil for a clumsy invitation, but in the bleary semiconscious of solitude, subtlety evades. He hopes he's played the game by the rules. He hopes she sees the invitation, but only if she’s looking for it. He hopes she’s looking for it.

A red lettered agenda on the Ophwyte wall shows rec time’s eleven hundred today. The times change often, a false attempt to maintain a modicum of circadian sanity. Like it makes a difference. He closes his eyes, wondering whether she’ll respond soon or later. That’s part of the game, too. Sometimes they don't write right back; pretend they have else to do. Like it’s even possible. They make the other wonder. They make the other wait. It’s the worst part of the game.

A signal she's responding sounds and his lipcorner twitches. He lifts his head and shimmies to the top of his mattress, a groggy imitation army man escaping a barbed wire blanket. Cradling the Ophwyte band between intertwined fingers, he wipes the sleep from his eyes with increasingly unfreckled shoulders. Anticipation surges inside him–a visceral accumulation of pavlovian stimuli. She’s the only unpredictable thing in his life anymore–the only spark. And she knows it. And she makes him wonder. And she makes him wait. It’s the best part of the game.

Her reply comes in pieces en pointe, tiptoes in triplestep. He transfers the text from the band to the wall, so they hover before him.

I want to make the climb, she sends.

To see the world from their perspective and breathe in the air they make. And to let them breathe in mine. To be part of something more than this.

There's so much to lose though, I’m never really sure I could.

He makes no mention of the Ophwyte contract, of its bind, or of the lockdown. Nor his dwindling vitality. He writes by the rules.

'It's always a sacrifice, but the climb is never futile if it's for the right reason.'

She responds with alacrity, he's piqued an interest.

Like what?

'Like like. Or even love.'

Even misplaced love?

He doesn't know the answer to that. Or whether it's a test. He doesn't even know if she means him or them or the trees. Anyway the response is the same:

'No such thing.'

-/-

At eleven hundred the mag locks lift. He fastens the band around his wrist and shuffles out quick, joining the hallway procession of the other elevens on the way up to town. They keep their heads down, moving with purpose–no use wasting time, and anyway it’s rude to let the air out. The Ophwyte band glows up in the semidim of the hallway, and he can see the others’ do the same. They pass by the closed doors of the days’ nines and tens and twelves. It’s been so long that they’ve all had rec with each other by now, but no one talks too much. Five hundred breaths in the sun is few, and speaking speeds them up.

As they step outside they strip, squinting. The freckles and tans on the other ones with pale bodies like his have begun to fade, in many cases traded for inky black trails and waxy patches of pink. The sun gives what it gives, sometimes more than they can take.

The wristband wriggles on his arm as he stows his clothing. Letters of the Ophwyte logo pass over the surface. He tries to ignore them. Let the brand become real–let the slang get normal–and the life somehow becomes okay. Like they’re never going back. Soon the letters fade, replaced by a number. Four eighty five, it says. Four eighty four. Reaching into his recently removed garment, he pulls from the pocket a fine silver chain. He wraps it around his wrist so it partially eclipses the Ophwyte. The dearest possessions are better kept close.

-/-

The town is empty but the colors are real, and they shine in the silver light of the almost empty air. He walks slowly, saving breath, to a place he knows nearby where the buildings part and the trees can be seen without exertion. There he stands, breathing slow. He raises the Ophwyte, automatically registering three ninety on the Pneuma-tick. He takes a snapshot of the treetops and sends it to her.

Footsteps crackle and drag on the concrete behind him, and he turns slow, economical. If there is an incident he will need every breath to get back. A woman stands there–hunched and lined and waxy-pink. Over-old. Scars line her ribs and navel, and her breath shifts the remaining pieces of her ribcage. Only her eyes seem to live.

She raises gnarled hands in mock-benignity, takes an experimental step forward.

“Lah,” she says, coughs really, pointing to herself. She motions at her Ophwyte.

He tries not to stare, looks down. A line has appeared on the band.

Better to save breaths, it says.

He nods.

Looking for climbers?

He shakes his head. Writes back: ‘Just for trees’

You miss them too?

‘My match.. She dreamed…’

Ah. A little rojko, then. A dreamer.

‘You could say.’

She a dime?

He looks up, surprised at the older woman. Her lively eyes are alight with mischief. He smiles and nods.

Mine too, she sends. Show me? I’ll show you back.

He smiles again, shrugs, and unwinds from his wrist the fine silver chain. A heart-shaped locket. He’d meant to give it to his match when they were last together. Before. It had been Valentine’s Day then, and a man on the street had been peddling pendants by the station when he’d arrived in her hometown. Love is essence, the man had said, but also it is evidence. It had seemed a romantic notion, so he’d bought one. He'd never had the courage to give it to her, though. Some cliche of cowardice had intervened. Time, pace, fear. Perhaps it even had been wise, then. Before. Back when things took time. They’d been young. There had been time for everything. Time to take time. Time to be sure. But then the air had turned thin, and now they counted breaths. Checked their wrists at every interval to see how much life remained inside them. He knows now he would take that risk before a single breath left his lungs. It suddenly seems such a strange thing from which to hide.

He unclasps the locket with a well-practiced hand, and the projection of an image appears. Her favorite photo of them. The one from that wedding. It had been so hot they thought they’d die. Why had it seemed so funny? The danger of the heat. Like the weather had known the feelings they themselves had not quite defined. As if to say 'this is what you are: beware the ephemera'.

Lah whistles low. A toothless waste of breath–a sign of respect. She sends a reciprocal image on the Ophwyte: A dark face, high bones, deep eyes. He smiles, feigns applause.

My Satelíta, she sends. My little electric starlight.

‘She’s gorgeous.’

Hands off boyo, she mine.

He laughs–a welcome waste–and holds up his hands, mimicking her. Three sixty. Lah takes a step closer and offers a hand to hold. It is blistered and bleeding and a bone is exposed through a thin layer of mucous. He reaches out, but his body betrays him at the first exchange. He steps back, ashamed. She shrugs one shoulder, stepping closer, looking up into his eyes. This time he holds his ground. They shake a minute, maybe more. A manual exchange of forgotten feelings. Transactional. But also warm. Then, of a sudden, it is over. They step back, eyes returning to the red and green treetops. For a while they stand and watch them fall.

"She wants to take the climb one day," he says, aloud. "But I am afraid."

You should not be afraid, Lah sends.

'But I am. I am afraid that she will not make it. Or that I will not.'

‘I am afraid I have imagined her. Imagined us.’

‘That the closest I can ever hope to be is in her dreams.’

‘I am afraid we are in love. And I am afraid that we are not.'

‘And I am afraid to break the rules.'

Lah looks at him for several breaths, then taps her Ophwyte.

Take some. Go.

'Take what? Go where?’

Some of me. Of my air. To where she dreams.

'But what of you and yours?'

My Satelíta, she is as far as the stars.

I spent weeks at a time inside. Just waiting.

Holding my breaths. Saving so that one day I might reach my Satelíta. Now look at me.

I am what comes of hiding from the light.

He watches, sadly, her arthritic operation of the Ophwyte. Registers how burned she is. She has begun to boil in the sun.

If could fly, I’d fly. Or even climb. Just to see how bright she shine. I would not be here now.

But you are near her dreams, and that is as near as you can be for now.

If they are all you can give her, all you can be... For tonight they are enough.

He looks down at the Ophwyte. Sees the offer. It is all she has. All but ten. Her eyes look upon him unblinking. Beyond certain.

Take mine. GO. Make the climb.

When you are there, you will know if it’s love. Or if it is not. And that's all that you can hope.

Sometimes you climb the tree and the tree gets cut.

This is the nature of nature.

The nature of Love.

It ain’t ever easy, she sends. But it's not so far as the stars.

-/-

As he enters the trees he checks the Ophwyte. Ninety thousand. Lah's breath is a fortune. It has given him time. If he wanted, he could go back. lothe. Sell the extra breaths online, or send some to his match. She would be comfortable then. They could continue forever. Alone together, the Ophwyte way. But something in Lah's eyes as her last ten expired has a hold of him. She had looked to the sky, through the sun it had seemed. To a nonexistent distant location. Her gaze, her lively eyes, had followed something as the last breaths left. And as she whispered "Satelíta," one final time, there had been a spark.

He'd left her eyes open, and carried her through town to a place he knew. It had cost him breaths but they were hers anyways. And to undervalue another's heart is to undermine one's own. On the edge of town a cluster of clairvoyants' storefronts had stood, forgotten. From before the Thinning. A rock had cleared the glass from the door, through which he ran the lamp's chord.

Once more he turns to look at Lah. She appears so small. A miniature statue resting under the light of an electric star. He wraps the locket tight around his wrist. Breathing deeply of the air amid the trees, he chooses a branch. One that reminds him of Lah. Strong and gnarled and wholly its own. And he begins the climb. When next his match dreams of his home, and of the green and red trees and the people who climb the trees, she will be dreaming of him. Until then he wonders. Until then he waits.