100 Proof

After all of it, he hoped she would have felt less adrift in the world, more certain of who she was and who she could become.

It is all a choice, he said. You get to pick the direction—any direction is fine.

She sighed, then. She had spent so much time pushed about by the currents around her. You say that like it’s easy, she said. You say that like you’ve figured out the way.

It took them years, but the lost umbrellas made their way to the end of the world and created a low-slung forest. He found it just when he thought he’d seen everything.

Mid-forest, he felt like a giant, looking over the domes of black, yellow, and polka dot. They were shiny and slick, and rooted so firmly he could not extract one to protect himself from the falling rain.

He considered dropping down to lie beneath them, but was afraid of becoming likewise rooted, caught in this world where function lost became art found.

Do you hear what I’m saying? she asked. Do you hear what I’m saying?

She had suspected for years that the answer to the question was no, but had been too afraid to actually ask. Now the question hung out there, floating in the netherworld between their phones, perhaps lost, perhaps ignored.

Sometimes, when silence fell between them, she filled it with a new topic. Today, she let the silence grow louder and louder between them. She didn’t drown it out with more unnecessary sounds.

She started creating soft barriers between herself and the world, nestling in amongst pillows wherever possible. It had become too difficult to stay in hard places, her skin made raw by corners and edges.

At night, she built a fort of pillows around her head and torso, curled against them, and slept soundly, her dreams arriving as if through a barely-smoked filter. In them, everyone smiled and no one asked too much. It was a much more satisfying world than the one she was used to inhabiting, and she began plotting ways to get there earlier, stay there longer, and minimize the time she unwrapped herself from blankets and emerged into the sharp light of day.

Whenever he couldn’t find her, he checked all the dark places. She could often be found in one or another, scribbling something into a notebook or onto a scrap of paper. The scraps drifted about her bedroom like snow, gathering in one corner, then the other, depending on how quickly she moved about the space.

Are you afraid you’ll forget something? he asked.

I write things down so there’ll be a better chance of them happening, she said. The world is so uncertain, and it’s the only insurance policy I can afford.

Tell me one magic thing, she said. Surprise me.

He thought about everything he’d seen and where he’d been. He thought about the way light fell across water, and symphonies that evoked bird songs.

I had no idea where I was going, he said, finally. And I did not know where to look. That is how I came to where you were, and how I came to see you standing right in front of me. It’s the only magic, really, that I’ve ever needed.

It’s easy to see a total eclipse, said the scientist. You just stand very still. One will pass overhead—I guarantee it.

How long will it take? she asked.

Not long, if you really think about it, he said. It might take 300 years, but that’s only if you just missed one right before you got to where you wanted to watch it.