Category: fictionissue12

The front door slams shut behind me. The sound is muted by the headphones I’ve already slipped over my ears. I choose my playlist—Hawthorne Heights—then I let my breath out slowly and let the world outside slip away until there is only the music. If I close my eyes, I can see its colours: the pulsing of the snare, the humming bass and the glorious chaos of the melody. I hardly hear the song lyrics. They are meaningless words, merely a replacement for the useless static of my thoughts. It is the music which is the true sound of being alive.

I take the ten-minute train ride to work. I have to wait fifteen minutes on the platform because my train is late. It feels like an eternity. How does one measure an eternity, I wonder? Is it by the aridness of your existence, or by the strength of your apathy towards it?

Is arid the right word? Perhaps barren or desolate…doesn’t matter, they all have the same meaning anyway.

I turn the key in the door of the Willow Street Cinema and step inside. My heart sinks. There’s popcorn all over the floor and the possum that lives in the roof has gotten into the garbage bin again, rubbish has been strewn all through the foyer. Amanda started washing the windows, but didn’t finish the job. She’s left me a note on the counter at the ticket booth:

Sorry Oscar, didn’t get time to do all the windows you’ll have to do the rest before opening. Thanks!

I consider folding myself into a heap on the floor and sobbing. I consider ripping the whole carpet up with a crowbar and taking a sledgehammer to the windows. I switch my playlist to Jeff Buckley and close my eyes for a few moments, letting the soft chords quieten the chaos of my thoughts. I pull on a pair of gloves and start picking up the garbage.

It’s going to be a long day.

*

Every Friday is the same. We open with Casablanca, then it’s Camille followed by It Happened One Night and Gone With the Wind, finishing up the evening with It’s a Wonderful Life. By about the third hour of Gone With the Wind I’m ready to blow my brains out, but the sweet catastrophe of Story of the Year in my ears keeps me from utterly losing my mind. Finally, It’s a Wonderful Life draws to a close and the audience stands up to exit the cinema. The lights come up and Sam walks in to start cleaning. I see him smile and nod to Mr and Mrs Pendle as he passes them. They’ve come in every second Friday for as long as I’ve been working here, Casablanca is their favourite, but they come to watch It’s a Wonderful Life almost as often. Mrs  Stenhauser is the last to leave the cinema, as usual. Since her husband died she comes in nearly every day, seeming to take solace in the alternate reality of the silver screen. I shut off the projector and lock up the projection room. Sam’s closing up tonight, so I leave him to it and make my escape.

The Pendles are still in the foyer by the time I get there. By unspoken mutual agreement, we studiously avoid each other’s gazes. The Pendles are not fond of tattoos and body piercings, and I’m not fond of judgemental old geezers. I push through the fire exit door and I’m out in the alley behind the cinema. Chilly air sweeps the bare skin of my face and the rotten smell of the dumpsters seeps into my nostrils. I zip up my jacket and pull my chin into my scarf. God, I hate winter.

Head bowed, I watch my feet as I walk past the string of homeless guys sleeping against the alley walls. We don’t bother each other, lest our personal bubbles of misery should meet. I pull my phone out of my pocket and put on some Paramore. My fingers are half-frozen, I dig them deeply into my pockets.

I don’t see her until I run into her. I hear her exclamation of surprise because the impact has knocked my headphones askew. She’s dropped the thing she was holding in her hand. When I stoop to pick it up for her, I see that it’s a bag full of knitted items.

‘Sorry.’

I make to walk past her, but I find myself unable to move my feet. My eyes are arrested. So many colours on one girl – cherry beanie, violet fingerless gloves, jade scarf, peach cardigan and cream skirt flowering with hibiscus. Brightest of all is the blush of her lips, curving into a smile.

‘Don’t be, it was my fault anyway!’

She speaks and the world goes quiet. The cadence of her voice is sweeter music than my ears have ever heard. I try to think of something to say, so that I might hear her speak again, but for once my thoughts are silent.

‘Mum always said I needed to spend less time away with the pixies and remember to keep my feet planted on the ground. Somehow the lesson never seemed to sink in, so I guess I’ll just go around running into mysterious strangers in dodgy alleyways for all eternity.’

Her words don’t quite make sense, they rush and tumble together as drops of water in the river, but the sound soothes me. My headphones hang limp around my neck, forgotten.

‘Mum also said that not every silence has to be filled with words.’ Her smile fades.

‘There’s just so many of them in my head, it’s hard to stop them from spilling out, you know?’

The sound of her voice seems to cut through the air as a bell through fog and it pierces straight to my core. She looks at me, expectant, and I am suddenly aware of the silence that surrounds us.

Yes, like static on the radio. So loud you can hardly hear yourself think.

The words come to me with such clarity, as if they have been there all along, waiting to pour out of my head. But how to speak them, when my tongue is heavy with the gravity of the moment?

She drops her gaze and the feeling of momentousness passes.

‘Well, have a good night, I suppose.’

With three neat, deliberate steps she passes out of my orbit, but still I feel the force that pulls me towards her with an urgency I can’t ignore. My only thought is that I want to share more words with her. All the words we have in our heads, I want to spill them all between us until there are no more, and then I want to share the silence with her too. The thought grows louder and louder until I feel it pushing its way forward, bursting out of me.

‘Wait!’

I whirl to go after her, but she has stopped only a few paces from where I stand. She is bent over a nest of filthy sleeping bags where one of the homeless guys is sleeping. She is taking something from the bag in her hand and as she holds it out to him, I see it is a beanie. Her head turns at the sound of my voice and I stride toward her with my heart in my throat.

‘I just, um…wanted to ask if you…want to get a coffee or something with me?’

‘What, now?’

Her tone brings me to the sharp realisation of my absurdity. What kind of fool would agree to have coffee in the middle of the night with a stranger they bumped into in some back alley full of bums and dumpsters? The guy with the beanie chuckles and I want to kick him.

‘Okay, sure.’ She smiles at me.

What?

‘Just give me one minute.’ She turns back to beanie guy and hands him something else from her bag. A scarf. ‘There you go Frank, that ought to see you through the night.’

She hurries away down the alley and Frank calls his thanks after her. He looks up at me with a lazy grin plastered on his grizzly face.

Shove it up your arse, Frank. She said yes.

I watch her hand more scarves and beanies to the other miserable sods sleeping further up the alley. Her bag now empty, she returns to where I’m standing. As soon as she is near me again, I feel her pulling me in and my head begins to buzz, but this time instead of the cacophony of my thoughts all I hear is a single frequency: her.

‘Alright, let’s go.’

*

I let her choose the place and she picks a 24-hour cafe around the corner that I sometimes go to after work if I’m hungry and I know my fridge is empty. It’s not a place I would have chosen, it has neon signs in the windows and weird discoloured patches on the linoleum floor, but the imperfections don’t seem to bother her. We sit in the corner booth and order our coffees—a long black for me and a caramelatte with whipped cream on top for her.

She tells me her name is Maggie and she’s a student at the local college studying art history and political science. In her spare time, she takes French classes online and volunteers at the animal rescue centre. Her job as receptionist/event organiser at a friend’s art gallery pays the bills, but she designs and prints t-shirts on the side to help her save for the trip she’s planning to Europe in two years’ time. My coffee grows cold as I listen to her talk about all the places she’s going to visit, her eyes alight and her hands moving constantly. She takes a sip of her drink and we both laugh at the spot of whipped cream that gets stuck to the end of her nose.

I tell her about my job at the cinema and how I used to play guitar in a band when I was in high school. She asks me about my family and I stutter my way through the story of how my father left when I was fourteen, and how my mother drinks away every dollar my brother and I ever give her. I thought for sure the words would stop coming after that, but it only brought forth more; a torrent of words about the mother she’s never met and the boyfriend who used her credit card to fund his cocaine habit. The tides flow back and forth between us in rhythm, our voices are melody and harmony. Our music drowns out the noise of the world and my headphones lie dormant in my backpack, redundant.

At long last, with dawn approaching and the cafe all but empty, the words run out and silence falls. The quiet hums through my veins and despite the late hour, I am more awake than I can ever remember feeling. We reach for each other in the same moment, our fingers sliding together effortlessly. Maggie smiles.

‘Tell me, Oscar, what is it you want?’

Such a pointless question—What do you want on your toast? What do you want for your birthday? What do you want out of life? – but when she says the words, they are infinitely more significant. What do I want? At this exact moment, I want so many things it feels like I can’t have. Is it better to want pointlessly, or to live meaninglessly?

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’ll tell you a secret.’ She leans in until our faces nearly touch. ‘Nobody knows what they want, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t chase after the things we think we want, does it?’

Her eyes glimmer with the light of a fire I cannot see, but it burns a hole in the silence around us and through it I hear the clamouring buzz of new sounds, in a frequency I’ve never heard before. I’m terrified the noise will drown me out.

‘I think I want to see you again.’

Her smile broadens. ‘I think I’d like that.’

*

The sun is rising as I walk home. My headphones are back on and Dashboard Confessional blares into my ears, but it’s nothing more than white noise – a backing track for my thoughts.

Is tonight too soon for me to call her? I wonder if I should invite her to my place for dinner next weekend? I’ll definitely have to clean up a bit, my place is a disaster…I hope she likes music, can’t believe I didn’t ask…

I crash into bed barely five minutes after I’m in the door. It’s been a long day. I put my phone on the nightstand, then I take my headphones off and place them beside it. I hit pause on my playlist and roll back over, letting my head sink into the pillows. The world around me slips away until there is only the music, playing in my head. Her and me, me and her, the colours of us. The sound of being alive.

Download the PDF of Stop Motion, Start Static

I sat on my bed, rolling a joint as I listened to the argument unfolding downstairs in the kitchen. I should be used to all of this by now, but I wasn’t, the noise left me anxious and afraid to leave my room. The sudden noise of plates being smashed to the ground made me jump. I hated hearing my mum scream, all I wanted to do was go out there and hit my dad’s face with a bat, but the last time I interfered, I got whipped with a belt. Mum made me promise to never interfere again.

I turned off the lights, laid down on the carpet, lit the joint and took my first puff. The deeper the breaths I took in, the more drowsy I felt. The fighting grew faint and indistinct. The only thing I could hear was the sound of my beating heart gradually calming. I’d thought I would be able to forget what was happening downstairs. But I couldn’t. I flinched at the sound of more plates crashing to the floor. I didn’t want to be alone tonight. I locked my door and quickly called Noah but there was no answer as usual. There was no point waiting for him to call me back. I climbed out the window, and made my way across the balcony, towards the tree at the side of the house; with everything going on downstairs there was little chance I’d be seen. The cold wind sent goosebumps up and down my body. I was slightly stoned but I managed to grip the tree branches tightly with my sweaty hands. I could see my misty breath as I made my way down the tree.

I had a 30-minute walk to Noah’s house, so I jogged to keep warm. I lost feeling in my face after a while. I didn’t realise how stoned I was until I arrived on the main road. The lights were brighter than usual and the cars were a blur as they drove by. The road felt never-ending. I decided to cut through the back streets to reach the park that was located at the bottom of the hill where Noah lives. I knew it was dangerous to be walking in the dark backstreets, but the amount of cars that honked as they drove past made me paranoid. I slowed down to catch my breath before walking up the steep hill.

*

Noah’s house was your typical modern-day mansion. Tall hedges blocked the view of the house from the street, but once you were past these, you could see the sandstone house. The large picture windows at the front of the house meant that anyone could see inside from the driveway. Noah’s parents were both lawyers, they decided two years ago that they would build their forever home before their retirement next year. It must be nice not having to worry about how your parents will pay for the monthly mortgage. I quietly walked to the garage, trying to avoid the sensor lights. I couldn’t hear music coming from the garage, I didn’t know if Noah was editing late again so I went to the side of the house to look into the garage window.

The red light illuminated the whole room, Noah’s computer table faced the window. He was in his pajamas glued to his laptop scre`en. It looked like he hadn’t showered for days, his curly hair was a mess, there were food stains on his grey hoodie and pizza boxes on the floor. Noah was wearing his headphones, I didn’t want to wake up the household so I waved my arms wildly to get his attention. When he finally looked up from his laptop with his big blue eyes, he sighed when he noticed it was only me tapping on the window. Noah walked over to open the side door of the garage.

‘LC, what are you doing here?’ Noah stood in front of me with an annoyed expression.

‘No hi’s?’

He leaned forward to kiss me on the forehead ‘Oh, sorry babe. I’m just a little stressed out at the moment.’

‘I can see that.’ I instinctively walked over to his couch next to the computer table. ‘Anyways, I just thought I would come visit you since I haven’t seen you for two weeks.’

‘It’s 12am. How did you even get here?’ I watched Noah settle himself down on the computer table.

‘I walked’ I said proudly.

‘That’s so far.’

‘It wasn’t too bad.’ All I wanted was for him to ask me why I was even here in the first place. Why was that so hard? I don’t know why I expect so much from him. It only led to disappointment anyways.

Noah frustratedly scratches his hair, ‘Are you going to be sleeping here tonight?’

‘Yeah, if that’s okay.’

My head was spinning again. The weed was still affecting my eyesight and the red light was making it worse. I laid back on the couch and closed my eyes hoping that the spinning would stop.

‘I really don’t have time to hangout right now though. I have so much work to do,’ Noah said in discontent.

‘No surprise there,’ I mumbled, my eyes still shut. I came here wanting my boyfriend’s company but instead, he was hinting for me to go. I should’ve stayed at home.

‘Really?’ Noah said clicking his tongue in disapproval.

‘When do you ever have time for me?’ I rolled my eyes as I turn to lay sideways on the couch to face him.

For the first time, I realised I was looking at a stranger. This wasn’t the person who I fell in love with five years ago. There was a time when seeing Noah would have made me nervous. He could take my breath away with just one glance. I was happy back then. It seems like a lifetime ago now. It was getting harder to hide how I felt about him. The sparks weren’t there anymore.

‘You’ve been here less than five minutes and you’re already starting an argument’, Noah said angrily.

‘Look, I didn’t want to be at home. I didn’t think you would mind if I came over.’ My stomach twisted into a sinkhole, I turned to face the ceiling and bit my tongue to stop myself from crying.

Noah sighs and moves his chair closer to reach for my hands. “I’m sorry.” He pauses, I can see the guilt spreading across his face. ‘What happened tonight?’ he said, his voice full of affection.

I wanted to tell him that I was drowning at home and that I started to smoke again to because I couldn’t handle my anxiety but my mouth wouldn’t move. I could see his eyes wandering back to the computer screen again. I just sat there and smiled weakly.

‘You should probably finish off your work first before we talk’

‘Thank you, baby,’ he said, playfully kissing my hands a couple of times before rolling his chair back to the computer table. ‘When I’m done with this, you can tell me everything.’ Before I could say another word, he turned to his computer and puts his headphones back on.

*

I sat back up quickly, watching Noah quietly. My head finally stopped spinning, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath in and breathed out in an audible sigh. I wanted Noah to turn around, to give me some kind of hope, a sign that there was a chance for our relationship. This cycle was becoming toxic for the both of us. I didn’t know why I always hesitated to let go. What was I afraid of? I couldn’t be worried about being alone because when I’m with him, I feel lonelier than ever.

‘How was work today?’ I ventured.

Nothing. I was talking to a brick wall. Was this his way in telling me he didn’t want to be with me anymore or is he just oblivious to what he’s doing? I didn’t understand. I couldn’t keep trying to defend his actions anymore. I wasn’t going to let him put me and this relationship on the side.

I stormed to grab another computer chair and placed myself on his right-hand side.

Noah’s startled by my actions and lowers the volume on his headphones. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m not okay. I haven’t been for a very long time.’ I felt a sensation that vibrated throughout my chest. I paused to control my breathing again, my heart pounded abnormally hard. ‘Do you even want to be in this relationship anymore?’ I didn’t care that I was raising my voice.

‘What? Where is this coming from?’ he said in a confused tone, his mouth slightly open.

There it was. His favourite go to line to use on me whenever I blindsided him. I hated it. I stood up and walked away to contain my anger before I said another word. I calmly turned around and noticed Noah staring blankly at me on his chair.

‘Just put me out of my misery already’ I said faintly.

Noah sternly faces me as he places his headphones on the table. ‘Of course, I want to be in this relationship.’

I shook my head in frustration, pacing around the garage. It was worse than I expected, he just didn’t want to make the effort anymore.

Noah stood up to stop me from moving around. He firmly secured his hands around my wrists. ‘Can you tell me what’s wrong? I’m so confused.’

I’ve been with this guy for five years and he still didn’t know me. He couldn’t read me the way I could read him. He knows what happens at home and yet, he has no clue what to say or do to ensure me everything will be alright. What was I fighting for?

‘If you actually paid attention, you wouldn’t be asking me in the first place’ I said softly. I freed myself from Noah’s grip and walked back to sit on the couch.

‘It’s always about your parents anyways, that’s nothing new.’ I could hear the irritation growing in Noah’s voice as he walked over to kneel down in front of me.

‘I get it now. It’s easy for you to pretend that my problems don’t exist because it’s not happening to you.’ I laugh sarcastically. We weren’t on the same wavelength. Why hadn’t I seen this earlier in our relationship? ‘How could someone with the perfect family home understand what I’m really going through.’

Noah stood on the other side of the garage speechless. I could see in his facial expressions that he was trying to come up with things to say.

‘I don’t give shit if it’s the same shit with my parents, I expect you to be there for me like I am for you.’ My voice cracked, I could feel my body trembling. ‘I know your job is important to you but it doesn’t give you the excuse to stop caring about me and my well-being.’

‘I always see you and when I don’t, I still call you whenever I can. I’ve never stopped caring though.’ Noah says in a panic. He walks over and kneels in front of me.

‘‘No Noah, all I am to you is white noise in the background.’ My breathing was becoming heavy, I thought I could be strong but I failed miserably. I could feel the tears streaming down my face.

‘I’m here now. I’m listening.’ Noah places his head on my lap, his hand clutching my legs.

I didn’t try to comfort him. It was too late for that. It was too late for anything. I was done waiting for him to come to his senses. I would rather be alone than be with someone who made me feel lonely.

Noah’s eyes finally connect with mine, his eyes bloodshot and his cheeks a light shade of pink. I didn’t realise he had been crying on my lap this whole time. He wiped the snort from his nostrils and whispered. ‘I’m sorry. I promise, I’ll do better.’ I really wanted to believe him this time but I heard it before. I would only be a fool if I was to believe him again.

‘There won’t be a next time Noah.’

Noah lets go of my legs in shock and walks away aggressively shaking his head.  ‘No, no, no, no, you can’t just end it like this after five years together.’

‘I’m done Noah.’ I wiped my face and gained back my composure. ‘I’m tired of taking care of my boyfriend when he can’t even take care of me. I’m not your mother, I’m supposed to be your partner.’

‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he said softly. The despair in his tone broke my heart but I needed to tell him the truth. ‘But I love you LC. There’s no one else for me.’

‘I’m not trying to purposely hurt you.’ I looked directly into Noah’s eyes. I observed his face silently before I said another word. I could see his puffy blue eyes filled with tears and his lips quivered. Noah was showing me emotions that I hadn’t seen in a long time.

‘We’re both trying to hold onto something that’s been dead for a very long time. I want to break up now before we end up hating each other.’

‘We’re supposed to be a team though. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you,’ he said quietly as he sat back down on his computer chair, and pressed his face against his palms.

‘We haven’t been a team for a very long time Noah.’

*

I don’t know how long we were sitting there but I couldn’t take the silence between us.

‘I think I should go now.’

‘Yeah, you should.’

Noah didn’t look at me, so I knew there was nothing else to say.

*

As I walked the quiet streets, the piercing icy wind woke me. My mind was clearer than it had ever been before. By the time I arrived home, the house was quiet again, the lights were all turned off. I climbed the tree with no complications and I fell right onto my bed, too tired to even change my clothes. I didn’t expect that to happen tonight. All I wanted was to find some sense of comfort from my boyfriend. I thought I needed someone to save me from myself but in truth, I was only there because being with Noah was familiar to me. I didn’t need to be there at all. I had made it each day without his help and I knew I was going to survive this break up as well.

‘I’m going to be okay.’ I muttered under my breath.

 

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Pip heaved the hatch open and stepped out of the crashed pod. She raised her hand, shielding herself from the light flooding through her irises. Stretched out before her was an ocean of sand. Golden dunes rose and fell as they stretched out towards the horizon. Her head spun and she went to lean on the side of the escape pod. Alex caught her, and helped her onto the warmth of the sand.

‘Careful, the shell’s still hot from our entry.’

Pip wasn’t looking at him. Her focus was drawn to the horizon. What had just been the Kentoro mountain range here on Arennah was now a bloody mess. Red-brown liquid oozed out of the volcanoes, drowning the mountains and scarring the horizon. Pip sat silently in the sand, taking it all in. It was hard for her to process what had happened. It didn’t feel real.

Alex watched her. Her red curls framed her face, and her head was in her hands. He decided to give her some space. She would be okay. She was their captain, and she could handle anything. In the distance, hazy from the heat, was a sandstone outcropping.

Alex turned back to the pod as Delian stepped out. Their azure robes danced in the wind.

Delian’s hands clenched and unclenched repeatedly. They darted forward, the sand not appearing to slow their step. They cartwheeled, with a grace and elegance like it had been practiced to perfection. Alex stared in wonder. Delian had been so reserved on the Orbiter. Alex turned back to Pip, running his hand through his mess of black hair.

‘I think we should find some cover in the rocks over there.’ He pointed to the outcropping. ‘Pip, can you walk? I think it’ll do you some good to get out of this heat.’

Pip looked up at him, her blue eyes focused on his furrowed brow. She forced a shaky smile and reached an arm up.

‘Is there anything you need from the pod? I’ve got our water and micro-rations.’

Pip shook her head. ‘The signal went out,’ she said. ‘If anyone’s nearby, they should be able to find us. ‘

‘We won’t stray too far from the pod then.’

*

Delian sunk to their knees and dug their hands into the sand. The top layer was sun-warmed and felt like a kiss on their skin. The sand underneath was cool and refreshing, undisturbed for millennia. Arennah was uninhabited and desolate. There was scarce else than oceans of sand, volcanoes, and rivers of bromine that ran like rusty arteries across the planet. The three-person crew of the Orbiter was a private team analysing and measuring the planet for terraforming. It was to be sold to the highest bidder as a salvation planet for a species that had squandered their resources and rotted their homeworld.

After soaking in the sun for a moment, Delian stood, and returned to their crewmates. Delian approached as Pip was rising.

‘We’re going to walk to the outcropping over there,’ Pip said. She looked a little pale, but then again they had all been stuck on the Orbiter for months.

Delian held out their hand, palm-up, in agreement.

‘Are you both all right?’ they asked.

Pip nodded. ‘Just taking a minute to acclimatise. It’s a strange feeling being planetside. Arennah looks very different from down here.’ She looked up to the sky, imagining she could see their ship in orbit.

‘Sure does,’ Alex agreed. ‘Looks like you’re adjusting well Delian?’

Delian’s hand quivered as their muscles tensed in excitement. They nodded, remembering to use the human custom.

‘Yes it is lovely here. There is always a balance to these things. We watched this place from above for months, bending it to our will. And now it is us that are subjugated.’ Delian saw Pip and Alex’s bleak expressions and hurried to amend their sentiment. ‘But it is not so bad. The sun is shining, and the ground is beneath our feet again. I know it may seem barren to you, but I promise it is not.’ They smiled in an attempt to be reassuring. ‘Come, I will show you.’ They began walking towards the rocks.

Pip wiped the sweat that had accumulated on her brow and gave a weary sigh. ‘Looks pretty barren to me.’

*

As they walked, Pip reflected on their final moments aboard the Orbiter. Her screens flashed red warnings as seismic activity spiked. Through the viewplate she watched as the Kentoro Mountains exploded in red. Force rocked the ship, and she had to brace herself in the pilot’s seat.

Alex had been working at a maintenance panel when he was knocked off his feet. He careened into the wall and jarred his shoulder.

From the floor, he called over the intercom. ‘Pip, what in space was that?’

‘Seismic activity like I’ve ever seen. Get Delian and prep the pod, this isn’t over yet.’

Pip had used every pilot’s trick in the book to try to save them, but the Orbiter was not designed to be manoueverable, and its thrusters were not enough.

‘We’ve lost orbit! The ship’s drifting away from the planet.’ Pip looked at Arennah beneath them. ‘We have to go down there,’ she said.

*

She had failed them. As a captain, and as a pilot, she had let them down. She stared at her feet as each one overtook the other. It was her fault.

‘It’s not your fault.’ Alex’s voice came from behind her. ‘I know you blame yourself, but there was nothing you could do.’

‘Thanks, Alex.’ Her words had no conviction to them. You can’t outrun responsibility. She had brought them here, to this wasteland, and had no clue how to get them home.

Silence descended as they trudged across the sand; each person absorbed by their thoughts. The silence fractured when Pip spoke up again.

‘I’ve never had a ship go down before. Never had a job that went this far sideways. Beyond correction.’

‘You can’t blame yourself Pip,’ Alex said. ‘You’re the best pilot I’ve ever worked with. A seismic event of that scale couldn’t have been predicted. The shape of the whole planet has been changed.’

Pip chuckled. ‘I guess our terraforming data is useless now.’

‘The will of the universe,’ Delian said. They were a few paces ahead of the two humans, leading the charge to the outcropping.

Pip sighed inwardly. She was growing tired of Delian’s chipper attitude. They were stranded, after all.

By the time they reached the shelter of the rocks, Alex and Pip were drenched in sweat. They had both stripped their jumpsuits down to their waists, and their white undershirts were already grimy. Alex collapsed onto his back in the shade of the small cave. He wiped the mat of hair out of his eyes. Pip’s face was as red as her hair as she sat next to him, clutching her knees to her chest. Delian looked lithe, healthier and more olive than they’d seen before. They were pacing, unable to keep still.

‘Rest here, I will go look for something to eat and to replenish our water,’ Delian said, before scaling the lip of the cave and disappearing from view.

‘You don’t actually think there’s water here, do you?’ Pip asked, gesturing at the desert before them. ‘There is literally nothing here.’

Alex shrugged, something only he could do lying down.

‘They seem to want to keep active,’ he said.

‘Yeah, what’s with that?’ A sharp edge crept into her voice.

‘With what?’ Alex climbed onto his elbows.

‘The movement, the gestures, the cartwheels? I never noticed it on the ship, but now it’s too obvious.’

‘Delian is from Axechatta,’ Alex said matter-of-factly.

‘So what?’

‘Axechattans communicate primarily through movement and gestures. Us humans tend to use a lot of words to get a point across. They use a detailed body language to provide nuance.’ He smiled at her. ‘Their happiness runs deeper than a surface smile.’

‘Don’t you find it infuriating,’ she asked, ‘to see them so happy in a situation like this? We’re stuck here, for who knows how long?’

Pip stared back out at the desert they had crossed. Their silver pod was barely perceptible. The wall of red loomed on the horizon. The liquid bromine spreading across the sand looked like a wave of red washing over a beach.

Pip stood up and began pacing in the cave. ‘This place is hell. I’ve brought us to hell.’

‘Come on, you don’t really believe in that old myth do you?’

‘Look around you Alex did you miss the lava? This is a literal hellscape.’ Alex noticed she was breathing quickly and her hands were shaking.

Pip? You okay?’ Alex stood up. His hands clasped hers and her eyes locked onto him.

‘We’re going to get through this. This is not your fault. You are the most amazing person I’ve ever met. Pip, I,’ he hesitated, half-believing he’d come this far. ‘I love you, Pip,’ he finished.

Pip let it hang there, like a feather falling slowly to the earth.

‘I love you,’ Alex said again, a weight lifting off his shoulders as he said it.

Pip looked away.

‘Alex, I…I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.’

Pip stumbled out of the cave, half-seeing, using her arms for balance.

*

Her mind swimming, Pip found Delian towards the back of the outcropping. They were on their hands and knees, reaching into a crevice between two boulders.

‘Delian, are you all right?’ she called.

‘Phillippa, good timing. I have just found some edible vegetation.’ They retrieved their hand and opened the palm to reveal three small leaves.

‘Are you joking? I’ve never seen you joke before.’

‘Quite serious. We call these revivifiers. They are densely rich in vitamins and minerals. All you have to do is put them on your tongue.’ They demonstrated.

Pip squinted. ‘No really, are you joking?’

Delian held out a leaf. Pip took it, and put it on her tongue. It tasted like a leaf. Delian clasped their hands together in gratitude.

‘Wha-ow?’ Pip asked.

Delian removed their leaf. ‘Beg your pardon?’

Pip removed hers. ‘What now?’

‘Oh you can just leave it for 20 minutes or so and you will feel much improved. I will go find some water if you will give this to Alex.’ They held up the third leaf.

‘Actually, maybe you’d better do it,’ Pip said, ‘He’s not taking this whole crash thing too well.’

‘I suppose it is to be expected,’ Delian said. ‘Arennah really is beautiful. I just wish to show you what I see in this place.’

Pip looked around her. There was another mountain range in the distance. She wondered which was going to break first, the mountain or her.

‘The beauty is not always in the big,’ Delian said, ‘sometimes, it is in the minute.’ They held out the leaf again. It was curved to look like a heart, and Pip could see the weave of thin white veins within.

‘If you say so,’ said Pip.

‘And sometimes,’ Delian said, crouching down in the sand again, ‘it is beneath the surface.’

*

Pip took a walk through the outcropping, trying to take in the tiny details of the rocks and the almost invisible life between them. Trying to focus on the most important crisis first: What happens if no one rescues us?

When she returned to the cave, Alex was sitting alone. His eyes were red. He made to speak but Pip cut him off.

‘I’m sorry Alex,’ she began with renewed conviction, ‘but my first priority is getting you and Delian off Arennah safely, and I’m going to need your help. We can talk about the other thing after. I promise.’

Alex wiped his eyes and nodded. Despite how badly today had gone, he wasn’t about to let the others down.

‘I need you to head back to the pod, and try to boost the distress signal. I’ll grab Delian and come and meet you. I’m not ready to sit back and wait to be rescued.’

*

Pip found Delian sitting cross-legged on top of a boulder. Their eyes were closed and their breathing was deep. Pip knew they meditated, but had never seen it before. She sat down as quietly as she could on the stone beside them.

After a minute of silence, Pip cleared her throat.

‘Hello,’ she said softly.

‘Hello,’ Delian said.

‘We need to get back to the pod. I think I can get us off here.’

Delian smiled ruefully. ‘You really are desperate to leave.’

‘I’m sorry Delian, but it’s my fault you’re here. I can’t rest until I get you home safely.’

‘What if I do not wish to leave?’

Pip turned to face Delian. ‘You don’t want to go?’ Why?’

‘Arennah is the closest I’ve seen to home in a very long time.’

‘This place looks like Axechatta?’

‘Almost identical. The system we are currently in is a sister to my own. Axechatta is glimmering and golden just like Arennah. But I have not laid eyes on my home for decades.’

‘Why not?’

Delian hesitated, wringing their hands.

‘I am a heretic. I rejected the traditions of Axechatta, so I was exiled. I glimpsed beauty and destruction in the universe, a terrible balance inherent in all things. Axechatta was drenched in the blood of its neighbours. I was a believer, a soldier. I fought with my commanders, begged them not to bomb Salifax. The war was won, but they couldn’t take any chances, couldn’t see the beauty of that world and its people.’ Delian closed their eyes. ‘I fled to the stars before my trial.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘I never thought I would miss it so much.’ They wiped their eyes with the back of their hand.

‘That’s why you took this job?’

‘I told myself I would see home one last time. But in the process I was helping to destroy it. Balance.’

‘Well, if it’s any consolation, I think Arennah is safe from terraforming now. Even if we’re stuck here.’

Delian looked into Pip’s eyes. ‘Balance,’ they said again.

‘But not without beauty.’ Pip held up another of the leaves she had found, and smiled. ‘Do you really want to stay here, Delian? Can you survive out here?’

Delian laughed. It was a light, musical sound and Pip couldn’t help but feel its warmth spread through her body, like stepping out into a wave of sunlight. Delian embraced her in a hug so tight Pip felt her breath leave her lungs.

When Delian finally let go, they said, ‘Of all the humans to have shared in my homecoming, I am glad it was you, Phillippa. I will help you to go home.’

*

A cargo barge picked up Pip and Alex three days later. Delian remained behind, carved out a new home, and lived a life of peace.

 

Download the PDF of ‘The Surface of Arennah’

Light golden grass covered the narrow field running alongside the old bluestone pool that the town’s creek had once fed. The slashed patch of land was coarse and parched, much like all the grass in the small town of Bluestone Creek during the hot months. Two children played in the mess of dead grass that had been cooked by the dry summer heat. The sister and brother were wasting away their long school holidays. More than for her own enjoyment, the girl played to keep her brother entertained, as her mother continually asked her to do. Jessica used her brother like a play baby, and he loved it. But, sitting in his pusher, Shane didn’t know the feeling was love. All he knew was that he became suffused with a sense of warmth, and a tingle pulsated from inside him when he was with his sister.
Jessica looked at her little brother sitting below her and remembered the moment she got to hold him for the first time, thinking about how light and precious he had felt wrapped in his baby blanket. She was six then. Now three years older, she wished he’d stayed little and precious. He even smelled nice back then, she thought. Now he just tagged after her and demanded her attention. Girls at her school were starting to play netball, and do pony club, and learn ballet. Some of them were even doing classes to make real working computer games, which she thought sounded fun. But she didn’t know anyone who had to care for a play-baby brother like she had to.
She was tired before they arrived to play in the dry field, and even though she knew her mum would be angry if she came home without her brother being worn out, the summer heat made her feel like she was going to fall asleep. She bent down, collected a handful of dry hay and sprinkled it over Shane’s head.
‘Oh no, it’s raining. We need to leave,’ she said.
Shane squinted into the falling stems of yellow and beamed. He asked for it again. She threw a new handful into the air, and he laughed at the feeling of the grass gliding across his face as it fell.
‘Again!’ he said.
She said no, it was time to go home. He pushed himself deeper into the pusher, drawing his legs in on himself like a turtle.
‘Get out, I’m not doing this again,’ she demanded.
‘No.’
‘I can’t push you on this, you’re too heavy,’ she said, pointing to the rough ground.
‘Please?’
When she heard his pleading voice, her defences dropped away. It was the one thing that made her see the vulnerable little boy she had once held in her arms, and he still needed her care.
‘Once we get to the road, okay?’ she said.
He unravelled himself from the pusher, and she began dragging it towards the road home.
As the two children dawdled out of the field, Shane stopped, mesmerised by the deep hole surrounded by old bluestone blocks.
‘What?’ Jessica asked.
‘No water.’
She pointed to the radiating white blob in the empty sky, and told him the sun had sucked the water away. It might be back at winter she reminded him. Dust floating from crushed dry grass under their feet caught in her nose, making her sneeze.
‘Bless you,’ said Shane in his little voice.
‘Thanks,’ she replied, and began to walk. She knew he would follow. He hated being away from her.

The sun was low by the time the children reached their front gate, and the lengthening shadows from the huge cypress trees at their front fence provided some pleasant relief from its heat. Jessica’s white joggers were brown with dry dirt, and her arms felt like jelly from pushing her brother over the potholes scattered along the side of the road. He was flopped like a rag doll in the seat, his feet hanging centimetres from the ground, asleep within the first few minutes of their trek home. With no light shining from inside, she could see the empty black windows mirroring the dying shrubs and random trees dotted through the yard close by their white weatherboard house, and she knew her mum wasn’t home, again.
She inserted her key in the peeling front-door, jiggling it so the key would turn. She gave Shane’s limp hand a soft squeeze, and stood him up out of the pusher, then disappeared down the creaking hall to put the frayed canvas stroller away.
Entering the living room a few moments later, Jessica was partially blinded by the TV that silhouetted Shane as it talked at him. She flicked the light-switch. Shane sat on the tattered couch transfixed to the pre-remote TV within poking distance. A breakfast bar was crowded with letters and a mixture of fresh and slightly rotting fruit. A yellow note sat on the dining table in the middle of the room. She picked it up from the worn pine, and read her mother’s hand-written scribble, with an urge to push something over.
‘Where’s mum?’ he asked.
‘She’s working,’ she replied as she always did.
‘I’m hungry.’
‘Yep,’ she said, pulling the pre-cooked dinner out of the fridge.

Their house creaked and smelt of old wood, but she always felt warm and cosy tucked up in bed. She was jealous sometimes of not doing what the other girls at her school did, but she couldn’t imagine not taking care of her brother. She heard the soft rumble of his snore in the bed opposite hers, and a silent chuckle blew from her nose. The front door squeaked open, and she turned away from the bedroom door to face the window. She curled up tight and pulled the covers to her head.

*

Towards the age of twelve, Jessica hit puberty, and things began to change. And then one day, Jessica’s mother brought home a wonky pony; a gift from her boss who didn’t want it anymore.
It was autumn when the chestnut mare began munching the overgrown grass at their house. The bow in the mare’s back almost reached Jessica’s waist, but its head was the same height as hers. She named the pony Trip for her turned in front hooves. She told her brother he was too young to ride the ageing mare.
‘You’ll fall off. Mum only wants you to watch,’ she said.
He never complained about his sister’s decision, just smiled watching her enjoy trying to guide the pony around the backyard. She was like a warm breeze to him. And he made sure he told her how good she was doing day after day.
When she asked if he would lead them down to the dry patch by the pool for their first adventure, his insides buzzed. Shane guided his sister as if she were a breakable object. He struggled to choose whether to look where they were going, or towards his precious cargo. But as they got closer to the field by the pool, he spotted the patch flecked with green, and he jabbed his finger toward the earth.
‘Jess, look,’ he said in a hush, careful of his excitement spooking the mare.
‘I know, why do you think we’re here?’ she said.
Jessica told him that Trip loved fresh grass. There had been plenty of fresh food at their home when they first got the pony, but now the yard was dust.
They stopped where a good patch of green lucerne had sprung up by the dry crease of a creek. As Shane was trying to tell the horse to eat up, Trip and his sister took off into the field beyond. He tried to follow, as the horse kept roaming to new greenness. Jessica laughed while the quirky animal lurched her around the tantalising field. He struggled to stay close and felt an unusual twinge in his stomach, one that he didn’t like. The air was thick on his skin, and he began finding it hard to breathe. With the constant pursuit of his sister, he grew tired and had to sit on the clammy grass to recover. And without realising, he started shaking his head. He wanted to go home. All the while, Jessica giggled and bounced around the field on their wonky horse. He had never seen her like it before.

The winter school holidays arrived shortly after their adventure to the dry pool. Shane spent the first day of holidays trying to lead his sister around their barren backyard, but she continually told him to go away. She had brought a new school friend over to see the horse, and they didn’t need him to help. From then on he only watched from their shared bedroom window as his sister’s new friends arrived to play with the horse. He had never seen her with so many friends before, and the sight of them playing irritated him to the point of exhaustion. He couldn’t stop thinking about his sister enjoying playing with other people but not him. It filled his mind and interrupted his sleep. When he should have been asleep, he wasn’t. He would sit up in bed looking at his sister fast asleep, just looking at her, hoping she would turn over and ask him how he was, but she never did. In his dreams he was invisible and would poke himself when he woke up. He began believing his sister had forgotten who he was, and he didn’t believe she knew his name anymore. He had barely spoken to her the entire holidays, and towards the end of them, a feeling of sickness stuck in his stomach, and at times, it made him retch.
On an icy Saturday morning, at the end of the school holidays, Shane watched the little pony through a crack in the curtains of their bedroom window. It was standing almost motionless in the chill air with steam coming from its nostrils, and tiny twitches rippling every now and again against the cold. It had trod little hoof prints into the frost. His sister was lying sound asleep in her bed between the window and him. He stuffed his arms into a jacket and went out.

Bewitching grey clouds had been appearing over the distant hills for days, teasing with winter rain. The creek was still a barren crack running along the edge of the town. Shane sat on the side of the old bluestone pool shivering in the cold, his jacket providing little warmth. His feet jiggled trying to warm-up above the chaos of blackberries and sprouting grass blanketing the hollow. He studied the lazy blood trickling from scratches across his hands and shoved them into his pockets hoping the annoying pain would disappear with the cold. Tiny drops of rain hit the dirt and dead weeds below his feet. He studied the horse he had just led into the pool and tied to a bramble of blackberries. The pony had made him feel sick for the last two weeks, and his head throbbed. The mare trilled while she nibbled at the blackberry bush, and Shane sat with his face squashed in confusion. He began to think about his sister as the horse chewed unfazed, and his heart started to pound. Drifting in the breeze, more drops of rain splashed around him from the blackening sky.

Rain teamed down outside the open front door. Shane rushed inside, skipping his soaked feet across the dry entryway, and went directly towards his bedroom. The door was open, but his sister’s bed was empty. He looked outside and saw her cleaning the horse’s feed trough.
Jessica already knew something was wrong before she spotted her brother sidling around the side of the house, looking like he wanted to run away. She took a breath, as if for the both of them.
‘It’s okay,’ she said.
She didn’t raise her voice, or get angry, even though she knew her brother had done something with Trip. She had seen his footprints with the horse’s in the frost when she went out to brush it. Neither of them spoke. She watched him staring at the ground and saw tears trickle down his cheeks. She snatched her brother in her arms and tried to squeeze the happiness back into him.

They walked from their house toward the old dry pool. She slung her arm over her brother’s shoulders as they walked through the rain.
‘Look, it’s trying to jump back to the clouds,’ she said pointing to the rain at their feet.
‘What?’
‘Nothing, just joking.’
Shane pulled at his sister to walk faster, but she was enjoying walking in the rain with her brother.
‘It’s okay,’ she said.
‘But the pool.’
‘Mr Sinclair said it hasn’t been full for sixty years.’
‘Huh?’
‘It’ll be fine.’
As they walked toward the old dry pool to collect their wonky pony, Jessica looked at her brother by her side. She told him she loved him, and he smiled.

Download a PDF of ‘New best friends’

“The spacecraft will be encountered and the record played only if there are advanced space-faring civilizations in interstellar space, but the launching of this ‘bottle’ into the cosmic ‘ocean’ says something very hopeful about life on this planet.” – Dr. Carl Sagan

I

On the fifth of September, in the year 1977, a group of scientists from the planet Earth put a message in a bottle. This bottle was an unmanned robotic spacecraft, a probe, which they named ‘Voyager 2’.  The message was etched onto a gold-plated phonograph record, and secured to the outside of the probe.

If a stylus were to be placed in the shallow groove that ran in a gentle spiral from the outer edge of the golden disc to its centre, and the record itself rotated at the appropriate speed, one would receive the message. The message was a collection of sounds and images of life on Earth, greetings in 55 different human languages, and a 90-minute selection of music from a range of cultures and traditions. In short, the message was this:

“We are here, and so are you.”

The Golden Record was protected by an aluminium cover, upon which the earthlings engraved instructions using simple diagrams and binary arithmetic. These instructions detailed how and at what speed the record should be played, as well as how the photographs and drawings encoded onto the record could be viewed.

The bottle was thrown out of the atmosphere from Cape Canaveral, Florida. The arm that threw it was an expendable launch system, a four-stage rocket. The bottle plopped into the cosmic ocean with 2,400,000 pounds of thrust and an almighty roar.

If you were to see Voyager for the first time as it emerged from its capsule, the first thing you’d notice would’ve been the large white reflector dish of its high-gain antenna, sat there atop the squat black body of the probe. At this stage, the rest of its instruments remained tucked tightly beneath the dish, but like a newborn stretching its limbs; Voyager unfolded its robotic arms and soared off into the void.

Voyager sailed through the main asteroid belt separating the inner and outer regions of the Solar System. It spent time observing the enormous gas giants – Jupiter and Saturn – and their moons, relaying data and images back to Earth.

By 1998, Voyager had travelled further from the Sun than any previous mission.

By 2012, it had left the outer limits of the Solar System and crossed into interstellar space.

By 2027, its generators could no longer supply the power needed to operate its scientific equipment. Many of its non-essential systems had already been shut down to conserve power. Its short-term mission was at an end, but its voyage had just begun.

II

Millennia slipped on by, and Voyager drifted into the domain of a young and stable yellow star. If humanity still existed, and were still counting the Earth’s revolutions the way they had been when Voyager left, the year would be 2,072,377. By sheer coincidence, it would have been the fifth of September.

Preserved in the vacuum of space, Voyager looked just as it did the day it was launched. Picture it in this moment, where it sailed along its uncertain path. The light of the nearby star playing along the white dish of its high-gain antenna, flashing like a signalling mirror off the golden record that remains secured to the body of the probe. This flash obscures vision for a split-second, and fades in time to notice the enormous metal claw closing around the probe, as if to crush it. Instead, the ‘fingers’ of the claw come to rest gingerly on the sides of its quarry, and the craft it belongs to swims into view. It is teardrop shaped, smooth and contoured. Cargo doors open—mandible-like—at the front of the ship, and with the greatest of care, the titanic pincer gently deposits Voyager inside.

*

Humanity had always wondered what life beyond their blue planet might look like, how it might behave, if it existed at all. Some even claimed to have seen space aliens up close, and that they looked like reptilian humanoids or pallid, glassy eyed spectres or little green men. That they liked to infiltrate governments, mutilate cattle or kidnap people, sticking things up them for science, or just for the hell of it. Maybe they had, and maybe they did. The people that found Voyager were not intergalactic saboteurs, sadists, or scientific sex-pests. They were however, against all odds, ‘little green men’.

They were ecstatic. These little green men, like the human beings that made Voyager, had an immense catalogue of theory and fiction about alien life. They had never found so much as an amino acid on any other planet, and being far more technologically advanced at this point than humanity was when Voyager was built, they had been to many planets.

When Voyager was first detected on their long-range scanners, the news was met with disbelief. So many of the little green men were sure that alien life simply did not exist, that if it did it would be so distant and so primitive that they would never encounter it, that they were alone in the universe and that they just had to accept that. Visual confirmation prompted system-wide celebration. A crew was promptly dispatched to retrieve the UFO and take it to a remote research facility for study, and the greatest minds of their little green civilisation clamoured for a position on the research team.

In the cargo bay of the teardrop-shaped retrieval vessel, seven green men gathered round voyager. It was primitive, to be sure, but they marvelled at its design nonetheless, carefully inspecting its scientific instruments, its antennae and its radioisotope generators. They babbled and gestured to one another, taking notes and visual recordings. A little green technician gently laid two of his hands on the unblemished aluminium cover of the golden record.

III

The research facility was a tetrahedral orbital station that hung above a small, mineral-rich dwarf planet on the outer fringes of the system. It was the deep-space surveillance team aboard this immense trigonal pyramid that had first detected Voyager’s approach. The little green scientists scanned the probe in order to construct a three-dimensional image for detailed study. After that they began to dismantle Voyager with the utmost of care, taking samples of material from every component to be analysed and catalogued.

The golden record had been removed to be studied in a lab of its own early in the process. The scientists decoded the instructions on the cover with ease and marvelled at their brilliant simplicity. The purpose of the technology was easy to understand, though the little green men had never encountered such a thing themselves. The grooves on this metal disc were recorded soundwaves, and could be played back using the stylus provided.

Little green hands, which were barely able to contain their excitement, gently lifted the record itself from its container and placed it on a spindle that had been fabricated for this purpose. They placed the stylus in the groove in the exact position, and rotated the spindle at the exact speed indicated on the record cover. The bottle was open, the message read.

It should be noted at this point that, despite certain uncanny similarities, the physiology of these little green men was very different to that of the human beings who made Voyager. They had more in common with plants than with animals, subsisting through a process similar to photosynthesis, which allowed them to synthesize all the nutrients they needed using carbon dioxide, water and ultra-violet radiation. In addition, at key points around the bodies of the green men were fine-tuned sensory organs. These small ridgelike appendages were sensitive to nearby vibrations, not unlike the lateral line of a fish. These organs gave them incredible spatial awareness, and facilitated their language of soft words and subtle gestures.

Music came as quite a shock to the little green men. At the moment that the first notes of the Brandenburg Concerto No.2 met with their sensitive ears, their world changed. These little green men, for all their sophisticated technology and know-how, had never had a culture of music. They would often relax in lounges filled with droning, carefully engineered static, designed to create a kind of sensory bliss. Melody was entirely foreign, as was complex rhythm. Bach’s Baroque instrumental was cacophonous, confusing and exciting. They were hooked.

Who were these aliens – so behind the little green men in terms of technology – that had created such divine and diabolical sequences of vibrations? Answers lay carved further towards the centre of that golden disc.

IV

Following the 90 minutes of music on the golden record was a collection of 116 images. Information on humanity’s native star system, diagrams of cell division, of human anatomy and reproduction, photographs of human beings, the planet they lived on and the animals they shared it with.

As they had been encoded as sound, they were indecipherable when played back via the spindle that the little green men had constructed. Each image was preceded by a tone, followed by the image itself, which came in the form of a harsh electrical buzz; like the whine of a band-saw, which sent shivers of discomfort through the little green listeners. Each of these signals traced a sequence of 512 vertical lines which composed a complete image.

Among those images, and likewise etched on the aluminium cover, was a diagram. Straight lines of varying lengths radiated out from a central point. It showed roughly the position of Earth in relation to nearby pulsars; celestial bodies that emitted a constant and distinct pulse of electromagnetic radiation.

The human beings that had made Voyager had attached a map. By listening in deep space for electromagnetic pulses of the same frequency and intensity as those detailed on the pulsar map provided, the little green men located a main-sequence yellow star, which lay halfway along the inside of one of the Galaxy’s long spiral arms.

With permissions granted and navigation locked, the research station began the process of relocating. Inside the pyramid, propulsion systems hummed into action. Excited voices chattered away, relaying and confirming orders. Klaxons sounded and little green men hurried to their assigned positions. In the silence of the vacuum outside, the pyramid withdrew from its current orbit and turned, angling one of its four corners towards its chosen destination. Without a sound, it hurtled off into deep space.

V

The station arrived on the fringes of its target system in a matter of hours, and drifted inexorably towards the planet which lay third from its star. This was not the shimmering blue marble of 1977. This planet was a wasteland. The carcasses of thousands of satellites hung in orbit over arid continents and dull grey seas. Could this truly be where Voyager had come from?

Judging by this planet’s difference to the photographs found on the golden record, the little green men concluded that some immense environmental upheaval had occurred. Preliminary sensor sweeps revealed structures on the planet’s surface, and a team of four was sent down in protective suits to investigate.

The team descended via landing craft to a region where hundreds upon thousands of ruined structures lay strewn across the landscape, landing near a concentration of particularly tall ruins. Plant life had reclaimed the area, but had since withered in the heat of the sun, which seemed to beat down relentlessly upon the crumbling city.

It was then they saw them, a pair of figures slinking from cover to cover, between ruined doorways and the disintegrating husks of what must have once been vehicles. They fled at any sudden movement, only to circle back around, watching curiously. They were filthy, rangy things. At last, when one of the little green men attempted to approach them, arms spread non-threateningly, they scampered off for good.

Over the course of the little green men’s stay in orbit above Earth, more attempts were made at contact with the human beings that slunk among the ruins of their fallen world. Other groups were encountered, but the results remained largely the same. Where the little green men were not met with retreat, they were met with violence. Some humans threw rocks, crude spears, even faeces at the intruders to scare them off.

After every attempt at establishing contact, the little green men returned to their pyramid in dismay. Some suggested abducting one of the humans by force, to study it or to try to create some line of communication. Such ideas were voted down. These were not the people they had come to find, not anymore.

These were human beings who had inherited a world brought to the brink of destruction. They were the descendants of the human beings who had survived the collapse of the old world, had endured the unpredictable cycle of droughts and storms that had wracked their planet for millennia. Most of all they had endured each other. As resources had diminished, competition for those resources had increased. These human beings were not the human beings who had made voyager, nor were they the human beings that had written or performed the beautiful music of the golden record.

But the record endured, thought one little green man, and made his case. The message they received from Voyager had survived into their time. It could survive a little longer, and with a reply, to boot.

So the little green men took the golden record and they copied it. They copied its cover, complete with its instructions, its stylus and its spindle. They etched their own message onto their own phonograph records. In the grooves of these new records were the sights and sounds of their own world and people, their own science, and directions to their own world.

Around the planet they built trigonal pyramids of solid stone, and inside they placed a copy of each record. The structures were then sealed, but not too tightly. It was the little green hope that in time, this world would heal, and its people with it.

 

The message had been taken from its bottle and read, and those that read it had found it worthy of reply. They sealed their reply in bottles of their own and left them on the cosmic shore for someone to find. In short, the message was this:

“We are here, and so are you.”

*

“This is a present from a small distant world, a token of our sounds, our science, our images, our music, our thoughts, and our feelings. We are attempting to survive our time so we may live into yours. We hope some day, having solved the problems we face, to join a community of galactic civilizations. This record represents our hope and our determination and our goodwill in a vast and awesome universe.” – Jimmy Carter, 39^th President of the United States of America.

 

Download the PDF of ‘Voyager’

Jack Lewis was not, and had never been, a man to socialise.

Even when he had been a young boy in elementary school, people had often commented on how quiet he was, how he preferred to keep to himself, and interacted with others only when he had to. This habit had stuck with him all the way to adulthood.

Jack had an opinion of himself as a man of routine, the kind of man who had his life together. Each morning, he would be roused by his alarm clock at precisely seven thirty, eat his breakfast of toast and tea, and then catch the eight o’clock 399 bus to work. He would stay there for the day, stamping documents and filling in forms until precisely seven thirty in the evening. At this point of the day, Jack would pay a visit to the diner that was located conveniently underneath his office block and buy himself dinner. Then he would catch the same bus home, unless it was a Friday. On Fridays he would cross the street to the shopping centre near the bus stop and buy the week’s groceries. Afterwards, he would arrive back at his home in the suburbs, eat his dinner and put away the groceries, the alphabetised order of the jars soothing his soul. Then he would go to sleep.

Each day passed in an identical manner, barring the weekends. On his two days off from work, Jack would take the time to do things that he enjoyed, which mainly consisted of admiring his sizeable aquarium of exotic fish or working on his rather extensive collection of model boats and ships. His routine on the weekends did not differ much from the days on which he was expected to show up to work; he still arose seven thirty, only instead of heading off to the bus stop, he would stay indoors with one of the model ship magazines he wanted to read, or take the train to the nearby aquarium and burn a few hours there looking at the exhibits. Afterwards he would treat himself to a simple dinner of microwaved food, and then would go down to his basement workshop and spend exactly two hours working on his model ships, all the while listening to the somewhat ear-grating and wall-shaking thud thud thud of his neighbour’s music. At least, he assumed it was his neighbour’s music. It certainly came from inside the house next door. He had never been inside the neighbour’s home to confirm, nor did Jack really feel the inclination to. It wasn’t that he did not like his neighbour; Jack really couldn’t think of any reason to dislike the man. It was just that aside from a casual wave and nod to each other when they would occasionally set off for work at the same time, Jack simply felt that he didn’t know the man well enough to ask about his tastes in music. After all the years living side by side, all Jack knew about his neighbour was maybe his name, which he could not recall at the present moment, and that he had a wife and teenaged son, whom he occasionally caught a glimpse of through their windows.

And so, life went on, every day more or less a repeat of the last, just the way that Jack liked it, until one warm Sunday night. Jack settling down in his workshop with a mug of his favorite Earl Grey tea, with exactly one tablespoon of cream and two sugar cubes in it. He was adding some finishing details to the conning tower of one of his prized model aircraft carriers, one which he had just finished assembling the night before. Jack rubbed his hands together in anticipation and unscrewed the lid on a jar of cherry red paint, getting his brush ready.

It was in that moment that a pall of unease settled onto Jack like a cold, clammy mist. Jack stared at his tabletop, frowning. He sipped at his tea, hoping it would calm him down. It did not work.

Jack rose from his workbench, screwing the lid back on his jar of paint. Something was definitely wrong. He looked at his cheap digital watch, adjusting his glasses as he did so. It was three minutes past eight, which was just about the usual time he should be in his workshop, so no problems there.

Had he perhaps forgotten to do something? Jack quickly went over everything he had done that day and couldn’t find anything that he might have missed. He wasn’t wearing anything out of the ordinary: smock, t-shirt, and tracksuit pants. He dressed this way pretty much every time he set to work on his models.

Jack had never been a superstitious man, but right now he could not help but feel as though some hidden sixth sense had sprung in his head, warning him that something was not right. Had someone perhaps broken in without him hearing it?

Keeping as quiet as possible so as not to alert a possible intruder, Jack mounted the steps to the basement, keeping to the sides of the steps to avoid making any creaking noises on the wooden stairs. Once he reached the top, he slowly reached behind the umbrella stand and brought out a wooden cricket bat. Jack had won it in an office raffle, but had always meant to sell or give it away, since he didn’t play cricket. He hefted the bat, feeling its comforting weight in his hands as he tiptoed around, checking all the windows and doors, making sure they were all locked and unbroken.

After a thorough check around the house, establishing it intruder-free, Jack replaced the bat and sat down on the couch, scratching the stubble on his chin and letting the thoughts in his head grind. Something was still off, and he knew that unless he figured it out, he would be up all night bothered by it. In a way, it irritated him that he was feeling this way. Didn’t he have as much right as the next man to a peaceful weekend? He had done everything right, and if it weren’t for the neighbour’s music…

Jack’s hand paused mid-scratch. He jerked his head to the wall that blocked his neighbour’s house from view. Quiet as a grave.

Jack rushed to his front door, throwing on a jacket over his painting smock. He stormed out of his house and onto the sidewalk, making tracks for his neighbour’s own front door. It was past dusk, and therefore a little chilly, but Jack was adamant. He would let nothing stand in his way of finding out just why someone had the nerve to throw a wrench into his well-oiled machine of weekly routine. Jack’s ears grew hot; he was partially infuriated and partially concerned, though mostly for himself.

Jack arrived at his neighbour’s house and raised his hand to knock. What was his neighbour’s name again? Jules? Julien? He decided to risk the former. Jack knocked once, twice, thrice on the wooden door then took a step back, just to be polite.

He heard footsteps within the house, and after a few seconds, Jack’s neighbour was peering at him as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.

‘Jake?’

Jack inhaled, his brow furrowing. There was definitely something wrong here. He could see it in his neighbour’s bloodshot eyes and his unshaven face.

‘It’s Jack, actually,’ Jack corrected. ‘Listen, Jules,’ His neighbour didn’t say anything, so Jack assumed he had been right in guessing the man’s name. ‘I can’t help but, ah, notice, that something’s been off lately,’ Jack said almost accusingly. ‘I don’t suppose you know what?’

Jules’ eyes grew mournful, and Jack began to have second thoughts about whether this venture had been a good idea. Oh well. It was too late to turn back now.

‘I…well…you’d better come in,’ Jules said, stepping into his house and opening the door wide for Jack to enter.

Jack followed Jules into the house, taking note of all the pictures on the walls of Jules and his family, as well as a sizeable collection of strangers whom Jack assumed were friends. Most of the lights were on, and upon passing the kitchen, Jack saw Jules’ wife, a shorter woman with blonde hair, sitting at the table and staring numbly at a collection of papers.

‘It’s nice of you to come by, Jack,’ Jules said absent-mindedly. Even Jack, who did not consider himself very good at reading body language, could tell that his neighbour’s thoughts were a million miles away at the moment. ‘We haven’t told any of our family friends yet…’

‘Yeahhh…’ Jack said slowly. ‘Look. I just came by because, well, things have been, er, quiet. I wanted to know why.’

‘Quiet?’ Jules gave Jack a questioning look before understanding dawned on his face. ‘Oh, you must be talking about Calvin, I mean, our son’s music?’

‘Is that his na-‘Jack caught himself. ‘I mean, yes. The music. Of course. I was wondering where it went.’

Jules sat in silence for a whole minute. Eventually his wife came over with two cups of tea, setting them onto the living room coffee table. Jack took the tea, hoping for something to moisten his dry mouth. This was more human interaction than he’d had at his job for years. He sipped at the tea, which was definitely not Earl Grey, and steeled himself so as to not make a face at the bitter drink. Jules took a fortifying gulp of the hot liquid before continuing.

‘Jack,’ Jules said at last. ‘Calvin’s been sick. He has been for a very long time, ever since he was nine.’

Jack stared at Jules, who was gazing into his cup of tea as if it contained the secrets of the universe. Remembering that it was rude to stare, Jack looked back to his own beverage and took another sip of the horrible tea. His lip twitched as he forced it down.

‘The only thing that kept him going was his music,’ Jules said suddenly. Jack went back to staring at Jules. ‘He always was a snappy little musician. Magic on the turntables, is what his music teachers said about him. Calvin loved making music, and once he got sick, he threw himself into it, always said it made him forget about the pain.’

Jules sighed heavily, his shoulders slumped as though they held the weight of the world on them like Atlas of myth. ‘He made dozens of songs to help pay for his treatment, since he couldn’t bear to let us pay for all of it.’

Jack sat silently, feeling more than a touch irritated, but giving away nothing. He yearned to be back in his workshop painting his aircraft carrier, but no, he just had to find out why the music stopped and now he was in the metaphorical frying pan. Surreptitiously, Jack angled his left arm toward himself and sneaked a peek at his watch.

Jules didn’t seem to notice.

‘But on Saturday night, Calvin-‘ Jules broke off, stifling a sob. ‘Calvin got worse, and had to be taken to the hospital. The doctors are saying they can’t do anything, and that if Calvin g-gets worse, he could, he could…’

‘Die?’ Jack completed slowly. Obviously that was what Jules had meant to say, but Jack was shocked when Jules covered his face with his hands and let out a tearful moan. He almost dropped the cup of tea he had been holding as Jules leaned against him and sobbed into his jacket. Jack awkwardly patted his neighbour on the arm as his eyes darted all around, hoping to find anything to alleviate the situation, whether it be an exit or another topic. He found neither.

By the count of Jack’s watch, they sat like that for ten minutes and thirty-three seconds. At which point Jules’ sobbing had deteriorated into sniffles, and finally into heaving gasps.

‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ Jules sniffled. ‘I don’t mean to break down like this, but Calvin means so much to me and Sarah and I’m just not ready to let him go. No father should have to bury his son.’

Jack nodded slowly as if in agreement. ‘It…it’ll be alright,’ Jack said, remembering from a book that it was the typical thing to say to someone who was sad. He hoped the book hadn’t exaggerated its effectiveness.

Jules gave a rattling sigh and wiped the last of the tears from the corners of his eyes. ‘I hope so, Jack. I really do. Thanks for stopping by, but I need to help Sarah with the hospital forms. I don’t mean to kick you out or anything, but…’

‘Oh, no, it’s fine, it’s fine!’ Jack cajoled. ‘You’ve got a lot on your mind, I get it. I’ll just see myself out.’

Jack was just turning the doorknob on the front door when the patter of footsteps made itself known behind him.

‘Jack, wait!’

Jack inhaled, feeling indignation flare up inside him. What was it now? Jules was at his side, holding up a small silver disc in a transparent case.

‘Jack, I want you to have this. It’s one of Calvin’s albums, and I know it would mean the world to him if he knew someone was still listening to his work, even if he might not make it.’

Jack blankly accepted the disc and tucked it into his jacket pocket. With a final wave, Jack bid Jules goodbye, and he hurried back into his own house and locked the door, glad to finally be alone again.

He checked his watch again. He had wasted at least twenty-five minutes on his little field trip, but perhaps it was worth it. Jack took the disc out of his pocket, staring long and hard at it. He went back down to his basement and put the disc into his CD player. Immediately, loud bass pulses and heavy beats filled the room.

‘Ah, no!’ Jack shouted, slapping the “stop” button on the CD player’s remote control. He would never be able to concentrate on painting with that kind of ruckus. He rubbed his chin and thought. Then he unplugged the boom box and hauled it up the basement steps and into the guest room.

It was a sparsely furnished space, with a single bed, a dresser, and a wardrobe, all empty. Jack lowered the CD player into the bottom drawer of the dresser and closed it, plugging in the wire. Then he pressed “play”.

It worked; the music was now muffled, and would barely register back in his workshop, but its wall-shaking beats and bass drops still made Jack feel at ease. Just like it used to before Calvin had been moved to the hospital.

Now he could, at last, get back to his life in peace.

All was right with the world.

 

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I reach the end of my story and pull my headphones over my head. I sink into the sounds—I like to listen to static and white noise while cleaning. It brings everything close, I can focus. Sometimes it’s rain or cats purring, today it’s just static. I close my eyes and squeeze them so tight I see tiny lights. The bleach smells cold and reminds me of home. I open several bottles one after the other and pour them all into the bathtub. The milky white masks the red slightly. I let it sit in the bath while I clean the mirror. I spray the window cleaner three times, squeezing the trigger slowly; they are satisfying squirts. I wipe a cloth over it and the blood smudges. It frames my eyes but covers everything else in a strawberry haze. I look deep into my blue and wonder if I can see my own soul. I wipe faster until my arm starts to hurt.

When I finish with the en-suite I lift the plug out of the bath and rinse everything down.  It is back to its flawless porcelain white. I sit the body up. The skin squeaks against the walls of the bath as I struggle; I didn’t think it was this heavy. I move into the bedroom. I bend down and drag my hand underneath the mattress to bring the fitted sheet away from it. I strip back the quilt cover and the pillowcases and put them in the wash with lemon, baking soda, and as they are white, some bleach too. I scrub the carpet with cleaner too. The bubbles soak through my jeans, leaving two dark circles on my knees. I wipe down the surfaces of the bedside-tables and the drawers. The place is small, so the bedroom and the en-suite are the only places that need a deep clean. When I think everything is perfect I have to check it again, twice. Walk through the place slowly and check everything. Look underneath every bookshelf, the sofa; everything. I turn the warm tap on in the bath but leave the plug out, this will keep him warm and soft.

I close the door with a heavy click and put my shoes on again, they feel a lot looser on my feet now. In fact, all my clothes seem less restraining. I pull off the plastic gloves and stuff them into my back pocket, adjust the headphones on my head and change to a different track, this one is rain. ‘Rain with distant thunder falling on a shed’ I laugh at how specific it is. I hop down the stairs of the fire escape, skipping every second one and head into the foyer. I have a quick look around and go out onto the street. Outside it’s actually raining. People are ducking and passing through the streets to avoid the drops. I fiddle with my headphones. My chest feels clearer than it has in months and my nose is no longer blocked, it’s an amazing feeling. I can almost see myself from the outside, raising my face to the sky like I’m in a shitty romance movie—pop music playing over the top.

 

*

 

The train was loud. I could hear it even through my headphones. I looked from one face to the next. A woman was sleeping with a bag between her legs, head tilted to the side and arms loosely crossed on her lap. A boy and girl in school uniforms looking deep into each other’s eyes were blushing and holding hands. They probably thought they’d be together forever, they were more mature than their friends. This one was meant to last, they might get married and have some kids. They’d go to the same university and they’d always be in love. A young mother and her son. He was standing on the chair and looked out the window at the outside moving fast. Did he understand that he was on a train? She was holding him by the legs and pointing at things in the distance: shop, tree, another train. And then there was you.

You were wearing a shirt from some band I’d heard of but never listened to. Your hair was short on the sides but coiffed on the top, your small round glasses were slightly crooked. You were holding a book and talking to your friend. I was awestruck, you were the most handsome thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop looking. Was I hoping to catch your eye? I don’t think so, but I didn’t have to worry about what I’d do if I did, you never looked my way. If you had, looked, I was wearing a blue flannel button up shirt and a striped jumper over the top, my favourite Levi jeans and a pair of Doc Martens. My hair was neat, but very much in need of a cut. It was getting long. I turned the track down, so I could hear what you were talking about. I think it was about the book you were reading, it was for class and you were laughing with your friend about a particularly risqué passage that took you by surprise when you read it.

‘Should I talk about it in class?’ you laughed again ‘I’d be shy, but I have to know what he was thinking putting this in!’ Your smile made me smile. And then you got up with your friend. I jumped up to follow, I couldn’t lose you.

I gathered you were walking to class. I followed with my headphones on, the street was too loud not to. I missed what you were saying but it was okay. I followed you right up to the university building. It was large and made of sandstone, the edges looked sharp. Chimneys came out of almost every peak on the roof and windows covered every face. You were so mysterious I wanted to be close to you. Your friend said goodbye to you and I caught your name, Max. In Latin, it means ‘the greatest’. I thought it suited you well. I felt quite silly standing there now that you were gone, I made the walk of shame back to the station.

When I got home that night I sat alone in my room, face lit by the screen of my laptop.  Searching you up on Facebook wasn’t hard, your name and university and there you were. I sent you a request and you accepted. I was surprised, that’s usually the hard part. I waited two and a half days so as to not seem too keen. It took me hours to construct that simple message: ‘Hey! you probably don’t remember me, but I met you at Joe’s party last week. We should meet up for coffee sometime! Or go to the markets?’ I thought this was really smart I scrolled through your feed and saw some photos from the party.

When we came together we were like old friends you were so upbeat and shone when you smiled. I walked up to you, this time you were wearing a t-shirt, black jeans and a denim jacket. Your eyelashes were so long they flicked every time you blinked. I don’t think I’d ever seen a man with eyelashes like yours.

‘This place is so busy today, hey?’ your voice was even lovelier than I remembered, I had psyched myself up for days training myself not to need my headphones at the market. I knew it would be loud, but I wanted to hear you. It was deep and felt like you had poured golden syrup into my ears and over my face. I wanted to sit in your soundwaves forever. There was a stall that sold jumpers not too far from where we were, I suggested we looked over there.

‘Yeah sure,’ you did a little smile that made my heart skip a beat. I didn’t want to assume anything yet, but I thought, maybe, you liked me. We talked about what you studied, I already knew, it was on your Facebook, but I wanted to hear you say it. Give it to me.

We discovered throughout our market traipsing that we were the same size in clothing. And even though I was shy to suggest that stall, you did in fact like jumpers. The more we talked the more I felt as though you felt the same as me. We liked movies, the same movies. We liked books, the same books. Our hands brushed over each other and lingered. You put your hand on the small of my back as we weaved through the multitudes of people. I thought you were so brave to touch me like that in public. Our hands bumped together less by accident and more with purpose, our fingers intertwined.

We got coffee afterwards. You pulled out your phone to check your messages. Your hands were strong and heavily lined. Your fingernails were cut to the same length on every finger, no stray pointy shards that needed to be bitten off. Each nail was blessed with the same sized half-moon by the cuticle. The hair on your arms was straight, and all went in the same direction. When you looked up at me, was the first time I wasn’t afraid if someone had seen my soul behind my eyes. We arranged to meet again, two days later, I’d catch the train back to your apartment with you after uni.

We shared earphones. The first song you put on, do you remember what it was? it was soft like you. Your fingertips stroked the back of my hand the whole trip. Your place was cosy and warm. Brown carpet stretched from wall to wall, the walls were off-white as they generally are in apartments. You had books and films crammed, double stacked, into your bookshelves. You walked in ahead of me and turned around. ‘Well. This is it!’ Your lips pinched into a smile that looked like you were stifling a laugh. ‘I love it.’ I whispered. You made us tea and we sat on your bed. Your hair was soft passing through my fingers. ‘Max.’ I took a deep breath. ‘Do you like me?’ your little smile again; it killed me every time, you leaned in and kissed me. I could feel the lines on your lips and your stubble on my cheeks. Inside your mouth was warm and wet. We lay down on the bed and you held my face. Our breaths were slow and heavy but got faster. Your hands clutched at my back and mine made fists in your hair.

When we fell apart the place was quiet. I wondered if you could hear my heartbeat, was it fast? Or slowly trudging on? I moved my hand to your head and ran my fingers over the cartilage in your ear: Daith, Rook, Helix. I could feel you shift and then vibrations travelled up my chest and throat. You invited me to a party you were thinking of having in a couple weeks, you said you’d introduce me to people. I kissed you again and pulled you in close.

I had done the trip to yours a countless amount of times by the time the party came around. When I arrived at your building I could hear the music from the street. The door was already open and there were far too many people crammed into the space. The music reverberated in my chest and my ears. I put my headphones on quickly and shut my eyes. Breathed in and out. The air was already being used by everyone else. You were leaning against a wall, a red wine balancing between two fingers, talking to someone. My entire body filled with warmth when I heard your golden syrup voice. You saw me and beckoned me over.

‘What are you wearing these for?’ You pulled my headphones off, ‘guys this is Ben, the one I’ve been telling you about,’ your arm circled my waist. You called out to Sam, to bring me a wine. I didn’t drink but I wanted you to see me drink. Wine after wine after Vodka lemonade, the drinks kept coming. I watched you dance. Your body swayed, and your eyes closed. Your mouth was loose, and your smile was different; a drunk smile. You were called away by Sam for something, you looked back to me and smiled. I wasn’t sure what to do with myself while you were gone so I assumed my wallflower position. I ran my hands over each of the books’ spines, they seemed cramped and their spines were jutting out everywhere. The amount of liquid I had consumed had started to hit me and I went to the bathroom but when I opened the door – you have to remember this bit. This is the bit that absolutely crushed me, so you must remember. You were there, weren’t you? With Sam. My heart fell through the fucking floor, Max. You didn’t see me straight away, so you kept on. Your hands were on his waist and clenching his shirt like they often did to mine. Your eyes were closed with your long eyelashes gently kissing his cheeks. Your eyes snapped open and I felt my knees wanting to give way. ‘Ben! What are you doing in here?’ Your voice was slurred. You followed me out of your apartment saying you were sorry, but I pushed passed you and ran into the alley next to your building. I fumbled with my phone like a drug addict trying to push in the needle. I had to press play. Rain with distant thunder. You didn’t come out after me.

The next three days were the hardest; I sat like a kettle boiling. I took the train to your house. You kept trying to apologise and kiss me, but I connected my elbow with your face and carried you to the bath. I stripped you down and put tape over your mouth. You woke up. I told you I loved you, and I didn’t want it to be like this, all the cliché stuff you’d expect. I flipped the knife over and over in my hand and moved my eyes from the floor. The first thing I noticed was your eyes. They were almost closed but not quite, eyelashes still flicking softly when you blinked but they were holding tiny pearls made from tears. Your skin was red and wet from the tiny pinpricks of sweat. I placed my hand on your cheek and kissed your quivering eyelid. And I did it.

‘I wanted you to know my side of the story, Max.’ I’ve got to clean now. I pull my headphones over my ears.

 

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