IGMS Issue 37 Page 2

  "I slept with my roommate in college. We were snowed in . . ."

  "I broke Amir's stereo the first year we were married. I replaced it and he never noticed . . ."

  "The best way to make pie crust is with shortening, not margarine, but if that's the way your mother made it . . ."

  She spoke about anything and everything, from the important to the mundane. It was just like when she was alive. It was better than photographs, better than home movies. If only he could touch her again, it would be real. If only she could hear him better, they could really communicate. He could ask her what it's like being dead, ask if he could join . . .

  The thought popped in and out of his head.

  "No, Mom, that's not how it was!" a man several dozen graves down shouted. He kicked at the dirt, and the young woman with him tugged on his arm. "Why do you say things like that? I told you. I told you, you old bag." The young woman said something to him and he pushed her away.

  "I'll tell you again, Mom, I'll show you if I have to!" He stomped off, shaking with rage. The woman scurried after.

  Amir forgot about the incident until a few mornings later, when he opened the paper. Police Search for Motive behind Murder/Suicide. The article was accompanied by a picture of the killer and his victim: the man and the woman he'd seen at the cemetery.

  The faces began disappearing one by one, the ones with smiles and the ones without. Another headline said it all: Local Suicide Rate on the Rise; Spheres to Blame?

  They'd all had the same thought. Elsa was dead, but still there. He'd wondered if he could join her.

  The more he thought about it, the more the idea appealed to him. His life had felt so empty with her gone. He'd felt vibrant when she was alive, filled with light that only Elsa could provide. That light had gone out when a drunk driver barreled over her with an SUV.

  While his heart fluttered with thoughts of reconnecting with Elsa, his gut shuddered at the idea of abandoning the living.

  It's not really dying, he rationalized. It was only abandoning a body. Not even that. It was . . . moving to another type of existence.

  The idea was both alluring and frightening.

  One day he decided to broach the topic with Elsa. Maybe she could tell him what it was like, reassure him that it was worth it.

  "I want to be with you again," he said. "Tell me if I can come now. Or tell me to wait. Just tell me something."

  Else replied, "Remember the blizzard in 2009, when we were kids?"

  Amir knelt down with a hand on her headstone, staring at the engraved 'E' as though it were her eyes. "I need you to hear me today, Elsa."

  A man walked by and Amir glanced up for a moment, afraid he might be overheard. He'd seen the man before. He was about Amir's age, with a businessman's haircut, leather shoes and briefcase. He wore the biggest grin Amir had ever seen. It was the same expression Amir remembered seeing in the mirror the day he married Elsa.

  They locked eyes for a moment, but the man walked briskly on.

  "Elsa? Elsa, can you hear me?"

  "People abandoned their cars on the interstate because of that blizzard, abandoned them right in the middle of the road. Created the biggest traffic jam I can remember."

  "Elsa," he was growing impatient. He slowly enunciated every word. "Focus on my voice. Try to understand what I'm asking. Can I be with you? What happens if I -- if I -- " He looked around to be sure no was listening.

  He saw the businessman again, a baker's dozen plots to the right. They held each other's gaze again, and the man's expression was the same. His briefcase lay on the ground, wide open and empty. He raised his right hand to his temple, and before Amir could register what was in it, there came an ear-shattering pop.

  The man crumpled to the ground. The gun, his arm, and his right shoulder were covered in a red spatter.

  Amir's body shook, but his feet were frozen to the ground. Shock, horror, and disgust fought for prominence on his face and his gut. His breath burned in his nostrils. He closed his eyes as if that would undo what he'd just seen.

  Regaining control of his limbs, Amir sprinted for the entrance, searching for someone who worked there. There was nothing he could do for the man directly, and if he'd gone any closer he would have vomited.

  He found someone, and eventually the police came. Amir gave his account, but later that evening he couldn't remember a word he'd told them; while his mouth had been relating what happened, his mind had been turning on why. It was one thing to read about the deaths in the paper; to witness it, though . . .

  I did this. He kept repeating to himself. I did this. I moved the Spheres. Once the voices started, everyone was afraid to lose them, so nothing had been changed.

  They're killing themselves because of what I did. He'd crossed a boundary into death while he still breathed, and had unthinkingly dragged hundreds of people along with him.

  The next day he still went back, undeterred. Six plots were roped off with crime-scene tape, and blood splatter was visible both on a tombstone and the single Sphere corralled within.

  Amir choked on bile when he saw the spray of dark red -- realizing he hated the Spheres as he loved them. They told him he already spent days lying on a grave, so he might as well be in one.

  And he'd believed them.

  A grain of a plan wedged itself into his consciousness. They need to go away.

  I need to get rid of them.

  Amir sat at his kitchen table that evening, drawing a map from memory, jotting down where each Sphere sat in the cemetery. He could throw them in the river, but if he took them one by one someone would notice. How could he remove them all at once?

  The phone rang. He disconnected the receiver without noting the familiar Eugene number on the caller-ID. He couldn't afford interruptions.

  The plan came together quickly. He needed the right supplies. He had to make sure he could pull this off in one night. The internet became a trustworthy conspirator.

  He still visited as usual. Watching the businessman kill himself hadn't cured him of his desire to be with Elsa. He longed for her even more, knowing his daily sessions would soon end. The days ticked by and he marked each one on the calendar, watching time march toward a Wednesday he'd circled in red. That would be the last day he would ever speak to his wife.

  He held on to every moment, told her everything he needed to say, asked everything he needed to ask. But he never received any answers.

  Just three days away, he decided he couldn't do it. He couldn't kill her a second time.

  Amir made up his mind to ask a final time.

  If I kill myself, will we be together?

  He had to have an answer, had to know she'd heard him.

  And he could only do that if he finished moving the Spheres: including the large ones that he couldn't budge alone.

  If she said yes, maybe he could kill two birds with one stone. Maybe he could destroy the spheres and rid himself of the burden of living without her at the same time.

  Amir understood the irony: killing himself while trying to prevent other suicides.

  In the nights before, Amir spent long hours in his kitchen, bent over a chemistry set. He worked slowly, keeping himself focused. The results had to be perfect.

  The morning of, he hopped into his truck and drove to the Heavy Construction Equipment rental facility five miles from the cemetery. The employees graciously helped him connect the trailer that carried the bulldozer he'd rented. He then took the machine to a park a few blocks from the cemetery and left it in the parking lot.

  On his way home he stopped by a corner drug store and picked up a bottle of over-the-counter sleeping pills.

  "I'm in love," Elsa declared, bending backwards against a Sphere, its vibrations pulsing through her spine. "No wonder people have pilfered them for centuries; they feel alive. But not like a plant or an animal. Like a string." She laughed at his quizzical expression. "Like a connective thread, tying life -- me -- to something greater." She turned and pressed her ear
to the granite. "It's like the universe is speaking through them."

  Amir walked up behind her and pressed himself against her body, sharing the deep reverberations. "And what is the universe telling you?"

  She found his hand and entwined their fingers. "That it's time."

  Evening came to his door earlier than usual. Time seems more fleet of foot when it only has a few hours left to run.

  The cemetery closed at dusk, which meant it was time to make his final visit.

  He packed two suitcases full of supplies and tucked them into his truck. Then he brewed three thermoses worth of fresh black coffee and evenly distributed the sleeping pills amongst them. Finally he combed his hair, washed his face, and shrugged on his jacket.

  Amir felt like he'd arrived at the cemetery before he'd even turned the engine over. The majority of the cemetery grounds were a bulky, black shadow, silhouetted against the dusty blue-black of the city's night sky. Only the "Welcome" sign above the locked gates was directly illuminated.

  Armed with one of the thermoses, he pulled his arms tight around him, to give the impression he was cold, and jogged up to the gates. He called out, "Hello?"

  A flashlight flicked on inside of the small guard post on the other side of the fence. "Hello?" its owner echoed.

  "Jimmy?"

  The flashlight's beam moved out of the post and bobbed along towards Amir, its glare shielding the guard. "What are you doing here this time of day, Amir? You know we're closed."

  Amir had stayed until closing hours often enough to get to know the night staff. They were all underpaid, bored, and eager to start a conversation with anyone who was around.

  "I couldn't get away today. I'd really like to see my wife, just for a few minutes, let her know I didn't forget." He held up the thermos and jiggled it back and forth. The coffee sloshed inside. "I brought a peace offering. Enough for all the guys."

  "You know I shouldn't."

  "Come on, what am I going to do, run away with her head stone?"

  Jimmy considered for a moment. "Alright, just a little while. Half-hour tops, okay? Let me call the guys, I'll take your 'peace offering' over to the main office."

  "Thanks, means the world to me."

  Amir hurried back to the truck to get the rest of the coffee while Jimmy unlocked the gate.

  Returning, Amir handed the containers over, and the gates were re-secured. To be sure they drank heartily, Amir helped carry the coffee to the office, watching carefully as each member of the night staff gulped down lid after lid full. In fifteen minutes they'd all curled up someplace warm to "rest their eyes."

  Amir lifted the keys and hurried to begin implementing his plan.

  Driving a bulldozer down the well-tended path, crushing flowers and flinging pebbles as he went, felt surreal. It gave him a sense of physical, kinetic control. He relished it.

  Amir didn't stop to greet Elsa. They'd speak soon enough. He went immediately to his task of organizing the correct Sphere configuration.

  The maps he'd made helped guide him. A subtle pattern had already risen from the new placement of the smaller stones. It had a distinct center, and branches -- not tree branches, more like fingers. More like a crystal pattern. Like a snowflake.

  He approached the innermost large Sphere and held his breath as he pushed against it with the machine's blade. Though it weighed close to half a ton, its globular structuring allowed it to roll with minimum leverage. It tumbled slowly over several graves before stopping, but the residents didn't seem to mind.

  He took his time, filling in the gaps in the array with the right stones, stopping now and again, turning off the bulldozer, to listen.

  Soon the voices began to overpower the song. The chatter rose, louder and louder, drowning out the clear-cut notes.

  But when he moved the last Sphere, confident of the pattern he'd created, it all stopped. The music ceased, the chatter died. Silence: the sort that engulfs all Sphere-less graveyards, gushed in with a swampiness, thick and miserable.

  His heart stuttered in his chest. One horrible thought engulfed his brain: I've lost her.

  He jumped from the dozer and landed in the middle of an occupied plot.

  "So I said to her, if you can do better, do it."

  He leaped next to the headstone, sure he'd been caught. It sounded as if someone had spoken right beside him, right to him.

  "And she said, see if I don't. Can you believe the nerve?"

  He stepped off the grave, and the silence returned. He stepped back on.

  "She can be so hard-headed sometimes."

  He stepped off. Quiet.

  Amir laughed, open and hardy. He'd done it. He'd completed the array and focused the energy just so.

  He resisted the urge to run to Elsa.

  They'd have time, plenty of it. But right now he had a job to finish, and only a few hours in which to do it.

  He had packed the cabin of the bulldozer with all of the implements he needed, and now brought out a drill and a can of machine oil. Here came the gamble. If he disrupted the integrity of the Spheres' surface, would they still work?

  He set his drill-bit against one stone, then squirted some of the oil to act as a lubricant. Steadying his hands and swallowing his misgivings, he drilled. Carefully, slowly. The resulting hole bore a few inches into the granite, but did not breach the inner sanctum where the crystals lay.

  Nervously, he returned to the nearby grave.

  "So then she --"

  He ran to the next stone, eager to finish.

  After hours of work, all of the stones had holes in them, ready for their implants.

  The suitcases were filled with home-made trinitrotoluene: TNT. He'd found both the recipe and the supplies online. "They should know better," he'd commented while placing his order for nitric acid.

  Amir popped nugget after nugget of TNT into the holes, followed by a blasting cap -- also home-made.

  He rigged it all together with a web of fuse line.

  The last nugget and cap he saved for himself. These he left in his jacket pocket.

  "Elsa?" he called into the night, knowing she couldn't answer until he stood on her resting place. "I fixed it," he explained, stepping onto her grave. "Tell me now," he said. "If I die, will we be together?"

  "Amir."

  That single word drew his neediness to the brink of its containment. His breath caught in his throat.

  Else's voice rang clear and human, without an other-worldly quality. Nothing more than air stood between them.

  "Is it that simple?" he croaked. "Or do we have to be buried together?"

  "Remember our wedding day?" she asked. "I was so afraid of forgetting my vows, and then we both forgot. Remember?"

  He knelt, staring into the turf, wrenching it between his fingers. "I remember. Of course I do. We talked about it last week, and we laughed about it when you were --" Amir caught himself drifting with her. No. No! "Focus, Elsa! This is important, and you have to tell me. Now. What do we have to do to be together?"

  "Yes, we were so happy, together."

  "No, no, no. Elsa, listen --"

  She continued to reminisce about their wedding.

  Amir pounded his fists against the ground. "Don't you understand what I'm trying to accomplish? I want us to have happy days again, like our wedding, like the day at Caño when you fell in love with these damn stones." He thrust his face in his hands, holding back a scream or a growl, he wasn't sure which. "I can't do it unless I know. I --"

  "Caño."

  He fell back to his knees. "Yes," he said. "Remember, baby? Remember how happy we were that day, how perfect and beautiful --"

  "Remember Jake."

  "Jake?" His son's name sobered him.

  "You're sure?"

  They were back at the strip of sand, on the lookout for their boat.

  She nodded, then rested her chin on his shoulder. "Absolutely."

  "Because the music of the universe told you to?"

  She slapped his bu
tt. "No, silly. Because we're us. Because I love you so much. I want to bring that love to life. Want to see it breathe and grow, find love of its own."

  Amir let out a deep breath. "We're really going to do this?" He looked her in the eyes for reassurance.

  "Yes. We'll be good parents." She smiled broadly. "Great parents."

  As soon as they arrived back at their hotel room they stripped down and made love. Silly, messy, rambunctious love.

  If Amir could have lived forever in that moment, he would have.

  That night was a big part of what made that day so special. They'd conceived Jake that night -- made a family.

  "Jake." A dim recollection struck Amir, and he reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out the crumpled envelope with green and yellow embossing on the front. With shaking fingers he ripped it open and unfolded the letter.

  Hi Dad,

  You must be really busy. You haven't been answering your phone or your e-mail, so I thought I'd try the old fashioned way.

  I really want to talk to you. I'm thinking about proposing to Emily, but I don't know how. I want it to be special, but I'm not really the creative type. Any ideas?

  Call me when you get a chance. If I don't hear from you I'll just take a trip home at the end of the semester. Call, okay? I want to do it soon. It's like the way you talk about Mom, you know? I don't want to spend a minute without her. Anyway, hope to hear from you soon.

  "I don't really remember when Jake was born," Elsa said. "I'd been in labor for forty-two hours, and I think I fell asleep before they had him cleaned up. Amir got to see him first."

  Amir realized two things at once. He touched the ground with his fingers, taking in the sensation of each blade of grass. "You're not really here, are you?" He carefully removed the explosives from his pocket and set them aside. "If you were really here you would have told me not to do it a long time ago.

  "I've got a son. We've got a son. He's love come to life and I've ignored him for a shadow."