[SESSION id=0.20]: Breakpoint Reached
The hall was cold. A side effect of the season more than the mechanics. None of the convenience machines in the domicile had been active in almost sixteen supercycles. No cooling. No heat. No lighting. No running water. No auto-cleaner. It was left exactly as it had been that cycle. Exactly as it was when I locked the door and left the last time.
But I'd left physically several supercycles before. Hadn't been there since the cycle I changed pi. Something had happened. I'd moved back into the domicile, into my old room. And I'd fallen into old habits.
Jazz was right behind me as I unlocked first the primary door, then the door from the hall into the living area. The room was a portrait of a cycle so long removed that nothing made sense. I couldn't walk through that portal without disturbing what I'd left behind.
Two cups sat on the low table in the living area. Side by side, waiting to be handled by the two people who'd been sitting on the couch. Both still full. A book and a mobile workstation were situated on either side of the cups. The book was open, spine up, resting its pages on the glass surface of the table in hopes of saving the place until its reader returned. The mobile workstation was open, but unplugged, long since drained of the last tiny life in any capacitor or battery.
The couch itself had a rumpled blanket thrown across the seat cushions between two decorative pillows. The blanket only ever had one user, but it was kept in that position, just in case. The pillows were a favourite of both users. Just fluffy enough to rest one's head, but not enough to relax.
An armchair was placed at an angle. It had a small sidetable with a vase. The vase looked empty until you got close and saw there used to be a flower in it. No one ever used the armchair. Armchairs were for retreat, for surrendering to loneliness, for isolation. That was a violation of the first rule: family.
Opposite the door was a chest-height counter with two stools next to it. One was upright. The other was knocked to the floor. There were bowls on the counter. One with a spoon sitting in it, still attempting to shovel out the soup that had long since gone cold, evaporated, and left only solid chunks behind. The other spoon had fallen, clattered on the floor, and been kicked under the couch.
The other side of the bar was a kitchen. You could talk and cook and eat and share time together all at once. With anyone who occupied either space. Perfect for family occasions. Perfect for anything else. If the water were still turned on, the sink would be full, overflowing due to the positions of the handles.
Each wall of the kitchen and living area was covered in portraits. Only a few were people. None of them were recognisable. The whole space was covered in a thick layer of something I wanted to call dust.
"It all happened so fast," I mumbled, staring into the room without entering. "We were here. And then she wasn't. And then I left."
My left foot was first to cross the threshold. The something that covered everything seemed to retreat at the motion. Then my whole body followed me. The hallway that connected the living area to the rest of the domicile was dark as it came into view. A strange place, hidden from people entering until they passed the door.
I moved to the small table in front of the couch. Her cup had lipstick stains on it. So did mine. We traded them back and forth so often that it was a running joke that the lipstick was actually mine and not hers. I always wanted desperately for that to be true.
Her cup, the one next to the workstation, was heavy as I lifted it from the table. Somehow, the liquid inside hadn't been overtaken by whatever force emptied the bowls on the counter. Even cold like it was, I could smell it. That stale sweet smell. Her tea was home for me, even if I never drank it.
Setting it down, I tapped the keys on the workstation. Nothing. Unsurprising. She always forgot to plug it in.
The book caught my eye. I recognised it. Hadn't read it in ages. The basics of systems administration. For a mind who always needed to know. I didn't have to touch it or the cup next to it to know both still felt like they did back then. Too much and too little all at once. I even knew what page the book was opened to. 'Section 12.6.5: User Permissions'.
"Still can't keep track of that stuff, even now," I laughed, but it was empty. Not simply hollow. Just a shell with no shape or form. Barely a laugh at all. "J.N. used to make fun of me for it."
I didn't go to the counter or to the kitchen. Instead, I went to the hallway. I wasn't ready to face it all just yet. So I opted for the easier path.
Her room was first. A modest bed meant for one, often occupied by two, especially when I was younger. A vanity table with two seats. A wardrobe filled with scraps. Cloth bugs had eaten most of the fabric to the point of falling apart. Unsurprising.
The bed was unmade. The linens were in the wash, but never dried. Still, both pillows were there. One in the bed. One beside it, leaned against the wall. On the wall were a dozen pictures, faded with time, the artist no longer around to blush at the spectacle. And beneath each one a small plaque.
Flowers on a hillside.
-- L.A., age thirteen
Flowers in a vase, sun shining softly.
-- L.A., age twelve
Flowers resting on a young girl.
-- L.A., age sixteen
The last one looked just like Jazz, if she were twenty cycles younger. I couldn't smile at it. Because she wasn't Jazz. She was J.N. before the Princess. Her eyes were closed. I'd drawn it from a photograph she'd sent me.
In the corner of the room was a full-body mirror, framed in wood that was cracking at every joint. The mirror itself was tarnished to the point of unusability. It had been that way as long as I could remember.
"Did you know," I whispered, knowing Jazz was behind me, "that she knew? She wouldn't admit it aloud, but I could feel it in the way she acted. I think she read our messages. The ones where you called me Lillian."
I didn't turn my back on the room. Instead, I took several steps back into the hallway and continued the journey. There was a guest room. Never used. That was my fault.
A bed big enough for two. Bought for a special occasion. She never told me what it was. There was an envelope on the bed. The writing was faded. I'd never read what it said. Now I couldn't. Probably a function of the skylight shining through a window that had also bleached a fascinating arching pattern on the bed's linens.
This room had a closet, unlike hers. I'd never opened it. It was supposed to be empty. Even if that weren't the case, she told me not to open it when she bought the bed, so I didn't. What was the point?
Next to the closet's door was a door into a private washroom. This room hadn't been meant for guests. It'd been meant as a primary. But she'd never used this room. Why would she? It was the guest room.
Two desks, side-by-side. Configured for paired work for home workstations. I never understood why she'd bought two. When would we have two guests who who would work like that?
Unconsciously, I found myself staring at the envelope. I couldn't read it, but I felt her memory deserved the words inside to be read.
Take care of her.
She's fragile.
It bore a timestamp almost eighteen supercycles past. A few cycles before my generation anniversary that supercycle. There was no addressee. There was no signature. But it was her handwriting. Who had she addressed it to?
At last, I opened the closet. Clothes that would've been my size. Women's clothes. But the cloth bugs got to them too. Even so, they were beautiful.
"How long had she known?" I whispered. Jazz didn't answer. She was by the bed, staring at the note and its now discarded envelope. "What was she making room for?"
Jazz didn't follow me as I left the guest room and moved on to the final room in the hallway. Mine. It was pristine. Orderly. Unbothered by time, space, or entropy. Except for that something I wanted to call dust.
A bed reaching its failure point. A desk in the same condition. Both held together by desperation and fear. No chair. I preferred to work from the corner of the bed, so the desk was perfectly positioned.
There were permanent impressions in the bed where I sat, and where she always sat behind me. We were a team until I discovered how to work on my own. garden wasn't there, of course. I'd taken it with me. The one part of this place that I couldn't leave behind.
Every tiny fraction of wall space was occupied. Anatomy diagrams of the flowers I adored. One each of two kinds of rose. A dozen different lilies. Asters and tulips and even the occasional fruit blossom. But a full half of them were a single flower taken from every conceivable angle, every possible perspective, every state of growth and decay. The name escaped me. I couldn't say it.
That would be a sin.
Nothing surprising in this room. Just a million impossible things, and a few dozen obvious ones.
Breathing in the still air, I finally had the courage to face the truth. To return to that moment. To process what happened.
As I walked from my room back to the kitchen, Jazz joined me. I think she was holding the envelope from the guest room. We walked past her room and into the living area. My feet avoided the counter, the fallen stool. I turned off the water, not that it mattered. It wasn't running.
Then I walked to where I had been sitting. And after fifteen supercycles, I picked up the stool that had tumbled when I leapt up as she fell.