I remember Ty.
But I am not Ty.
Jon repeated these two facts whenever reality became too surreal to be true.
He awoke this morning from an all-too-real dream in which he and Lizzy lived together in the PEC system. They reconnected. He apologized for his part in the downfall of their relationship. And now—assuming waking life was real life—he had to find new truths to help preserve his sanity.
If you were still tripping, you wouldn't be thinking about tripping.
If you were still tripping, you would have no recollection of past lives.
Right?
Right.
The paradox weighed heavy on his damaged brain. His forehead burned with heat from an IDP fever.
Ellie found him awake on the mattress. She taught him a few simple exercises, then wheeled him to the bathroom. A pitcher of water sat beside the sink.
He requested a razor. She returned twenty minutes later with a flat hunk of metal with a sharpened edge. Scrap from a broken proxy, he thought.
The blade did its job removing thick tufts of beard and layers of ass-length hair. But thanks to his melting skin, he was forced to leave a jagged coat of grey scruff.
Dead skin fell from his fingers as he dipped his hands in the pitcher. Did the human body really shed every cell every seven years? If the factoid was true, there were fifty-four "Jons" dusting the walls of that room. (And, in the end, wasn't it all just nutrients?)
He called Ellie back to the bathroom, then asked her to wheel him to the office.
"I'd like to go outside," he told Emmanuel.
The bot shook his head. "We strongly advise against—"
"I need to clear my mind or I'll overheat. I understand the health risks."
The doctor clapped his hands together. "Of course. Ian will provide you with a universal toxin filter until we're able to upgrade your lungs."
"Thank you."
"Be safe, Mr. Nightly."
Jon clutched the rubber filter in his lap as the oafish bot wheeled him through the dim yellow halls.
Considering only birth-to-death trips, he remembered twenty-two lives... but he was certain there were more. He could picture nine wives, but only recalled the names of Lizzy, Julie, and Maggie. (Hannah—he remembered—was not his wife.) He had more than twenty children and dozens of grandchildren. He died in every life.
Jon was proud of himself for remembering the important things; it was the details that were beginning to clump. Names, cities, schools, jobs, best friends, girlfriends, achievements, sentiments...
The only operational elevator slid open and Jon was met with dust so thick that his chair left tracks on the floor.
"You'll need to wear your filter, Mr. Nightly," Ian said in his deadpan voice.
"Already?" He pressed the mask to his face. The rubber conformed to his chin and cheeks to create an airtight seal.
The elevator opened on the first floor to a flash and suck of pressure that popped Jon's ears, tussled his hair, and burnt his eyes. Ian pushed him into the open expanse.
The lobby choked beneath an ashy veneer. Soot collected in knee-high banks along the base off the glass walls. Grey blotches clouded the columns. Overhead, massive elliptical grates hung from the ceiling, their lush gardens reduced to shadowy ovals on the lobby floor.
With every breath, moisture accumulated in Jon's mask.
Ian moved methodically toward the front doors, stirring dust with every stride, circumventing the lopsided desk in the center of the room—
The desk...
What was this incessant feeling of deja vu? He felt it earlier when he dipped his hands in the pitcher. He felt it again with the mug of pens in Emmanuel's office, the beams in the rubble, the footprints in the ash. Nearly every noun spoken since he woke carried traces of familiarity—"hospital," "carcinogen," "tree"—as if each word held some profound meaning if only he could remember. Even the way Emmanuel blinked his eyes teased him with an epiphany dangling just out of reach. And now the desk...
They reached the front of the lobby. Outside, facing the endless waste, a pair of lifeless bots slumped against the glass. Their skin—once heralded as most durable material on Earth—had dissolved or melted or succumbed in some other way to the exotic elements reigning outside the walls.
"Does that bother you?" Jon asked, nodding to the exposed metal innards of the Ian units.
"Not at all," said Ian. "They'll be operational again someday."
Jon blinked away the tears from the chemical burn.
"Would you like to go outside, Mr. Nightly? I can carry you anywhere within a 1.13 mile radius."
He shook his head. "I think I changed my mind."
"I understand."
The rubble extended to all three visible horizons, and Jon was glad Hannah wasn't there to see it.
Hannah. He had to convince her to go back inside. He had to tell her that she had no obligation to deal with any of this; the proxies, his illness, this terrible new world. He'd ask the bots for nutrients so they could share one last meal together... then he'd make her go back. "Do you know where Hannah is?"
"I do not."
"Are security systems working?"
"Essential systems are still online."
"Great. Then you can help me find her."
* * *
Jon clutched the edge of the door and peered into their old room.
Hannah was asleep on her mattress and still dressed in yesterday's silly getup. Her tubes were unattached and laying on the ground.
"Wait outside," he told Ian.
The bot left.
Jon pushed himself along the wall, latched onto the corner of Hannah's mattress, and pull himself to her side.
His smile was forced, but also genuine. He nodded to no one, over and over until he made himself stop.
With a series of cumbersome moves, he removed her clothes. One at a time, he hooked the tubes with his feet, lifted them to his hands, and reattached them to the ports in Hannah's stomach.
* * *
this disaster. this darkness. this death.
why was hannah so afraid of that word? was it because it was the one concept she didn't understand? she loved jon, but she couldn't follow him down this path without some trifle of knowledge... some bit of information to grasp and comprehend and trust. the words they spoke; death. dead. dying. die. was it a place? a person? could she see it? could she touch it?
it's 1995 and hannah swats another mosquito in the garden. strawberries. picking. picked. red ones, not the white ones. but why not the white ones? who told her they were sour and not quite ready to eat? why was she alone in a garden at such an early age?
it's 1998 and hannah suffocates under the blankets, a fort beneath her bed. (if she holds her breath long enough, maybe it will all go away...)
it's 1999 and she remembers jon. their meeting is abstract; she remembered his eyes, his jokes, a magic trick... but where? why?
days passed and hannah continued to search. weeks it seemed. maybe it was all over on the outside. maybe jon was already gone. vanished. dead.
hannah leapt to the tower at the center of her world. it had doubled in size after their trip to paris, and new experiences stretched to every horizon, curved upward, and climbed to the sky.
she extended her arm from her bedroom tower and opened her hand to block a portion of her creation. she thought, ["delete"] and vanquished whatever experience was behind her palm. she aimed her arm left... then, ["delete"]. another chunk disappeared and she did it again, slowly rocking her hand to and fro along her darling opus. 360 degrees later, her mountain was dead.
she turned from the empty expanse, fished her arm under her cloud, and removed the tiny apparatus with five blue buttons; gratification, satisfaction, happiness, joy, euphoria. she opened her hand, pressed them all at once, then curled up into a glad little ball, closed her eyes, erased her body, and reveled in the knowledge that she was the center of the universe.
* * *
The sickness... the deja vu... the pain in his joints. How is this happening? Jon wondered and woke up nights in tears.
It was day six in "reality." Time passes so slowly here.
Without lenses or reliable IDPs, he resorted to a note screen to search for his friends. He included every name that still held lingering significance. At the very least, the computer would tell him which friends belonged in this life.
Forty-eight names came up as "not found," confirming they were either non-humans conjured in the system, or total manifestations encountered while tripping.
The remaining list contained twelve names... twelve friends and relatives who—living or dead—had played a vital role in his current reality.
Hannah Lynn Lasker - PEC - Chicago LE - Active
Michael Daniel Nightly - PEC - Chicago LE - Active
Celeste Nightly - PEC - Artificial Intelligence - Active
Storm Erenheart Dillane - Deactivated - Y52
George Anthony Nightly - Deactivated - Y10
Susan Louise Nightly - Deactivated - Y23
Gavin Daniel Nightly - Deactivated - Y195
Amelía Inez Cardella - Deactivated - Y52
Joseph Marion Lasker - PEC - Chicago Stack #12 - Private
Giovanni Conrad Mitchell - Deactivated - Y336
Christopher James Marlin - Deactivated - Y379
Samuel Jacob Mendel - Deactivated - Y48
Jonathon Christian Nightly - Unknown
* * *
A darker bout of deja vu gripped Jon at the thought of his son.
Maybe it was the name "Michael" that carried the dark association. Or maybe it was the thought of unplugging another mind from the system...
Either way, Jon wasn't deterred. His son was his only living connection.
Ian escorted him to a doorway on the forty-first floor and waited outside.
Jon pulled himself through twenty sleeping bodies. The first was a girl who's petite frame and doll face indicated she had stopped aging around thirteen. Jon scooted around her, meticulously circumvented the partition between them, and found his son coiled on the next mattress. His gaunt body was tucked in the fetal position. He was smiling.
Jon shook him gently by the arm. "Mikey? Hey buddy—"
Michael awoke all at once, opening wide his black fishbowl eyes that found Jon and locked. His muscles stiffened in a rigor mortise pose.
"It's me," Jon said, resting a hand on his boy's shoulder.
Slowly, Michael's face drooped. His dimples sucked into his cheeks despite the mortified scowl creeping across his brow. Suddenly, his head thrashed against the mattress as his throat ejected an ear-splitting shamble of half-articulated words and horror-show nonsense as he conjured demons and begged Jon for death.
Jon jerked away, heart racing and brain scrambling as Michael spasmed and released a gut-wrenching cackle that carried with it a hint of his pre-pubescent voice.
Jon hoisted his body on top of his son, applied pressure to his waist and head, then coaxed him back to sleep with the most soothing voice he could manage.
* * *
"If I'm going to die, I'd like to do it my way." Jon made the decision on his fourteenth day as he found himself lost—once again—in meaningless contemplations. I've died so many times already... but this time, I won't wake up in another life.
The notion of nothingness after death had been so hardwired into his brain that it took another hour in a quasi-dream state to consider more abstract possibilities.
Twenty-two deaths, he thought, but I woke up every time... sometimes in paradise, sometimes in another life.
This thought led to another: what if his trips went too far? What if this life—including at least twenty-two trips—was just another manifestation of his braver and braver subconscious, the latest reality in a series of escalating realities that would last for another (he did the math) 903 years?
Or... what if this entire life was part of a single continuous trip he initiated in another reality a moment before he was born as Jonathon Nightly? And what if the timer in that life was set to expire upon his death in this life? Everyone from Hannah and Gavin to Emmanuel and Ty were merely holograms, algorithms, the epic manifestations of another creature's tripping subconscious...
Not only were these notions possible, they suddenly seemed far more likely than the beliefs he held for the majority of his life. It wasn't eternal nothingness that awaited Jon upon his death, but paradise or rebirth.
With a solid justification for his decision, Jon stood before Emmanuel and declared his intention to end this life. "If I'm going to die, I'd like to do it my way."
"I can assure you," said the bot, "there will be no pain in waiting."
"I'm not worried about the pain."
"Have you considered returning to the system? You may find infinite pleasure to be—"
"I'm already dead, Emmanuel. And I'd like to move on sooner rather than later."
* * *
you made the right decision.
you made the best decision.
every decision you have ever made has been leading to this moment; right here, right now.
complex abstractions. the unrestrained passion of a desert art festival. the nameless woman's imagination had already begun work on its newest creations; mindscapes so moving, creatures so innovative, concepts so rewarding that they infused every moment of her existence with a lifetime of the warm tinglies usually found on the verge between drunk and sober; the cozy anticipation of cuddling her first love; hugging her ankles in a soft and eternal womb.
a sentimental tide soaked her with sensations of satisfied anticipation. every transplendant experience from the nameless woman's life merged with every transplendant experience from every other life, first stricken from her memory, then recycled again and again as brand new adventures. christmas mornings, the smell of gingerbread and pine; entering the gates of disneyland for the very first time; a honeymoon in dubai; a tongue kneading slow and perpetual circles around the base of her clit; playful banter with quick-witted men; every blissful effect from every shade of breather.
it was all these things, not side-by-side, but simultaneously until she became drunken deep with joy and teetered on the edge of rapture.
every piece of art you have ever created has been received by the world with open arms and will live in their hearts for the rest of time.
electricity surged from her heart to her extremities; the pulsating, sweaty-palmed delight of a scary movie, the joyful terror in the moment before cliff diving, the nervous trembling of hands exploring another woman's thigh, all tangled with the prickly shivers induced by the climax of an excellent film—"skin-gasms" she once called them—a flood of catharsis without the pain.
you alone ended aging. you alone eradicated disease. you are the savior of the world.
existence was nothing short of a poetic neuro-storm, a spiritual libation to divinity in every form—every god, every idol, every benevolent manifestation of mother nature, every human on the path to nirvana—the breathless sensation of arms raised in loving exhalations of gratitude for every single moment of this good and glorious life.
you are the dust from stars.
* * *
Jon spent his final night on his chair beside Hannah. He never fell asleep... at least he didn't think so.
He used his forearms to reposition himself and bumped something with his foot beneath the bed. It took a minute of finagling to coax out the object, then he bent down and picked it up.
It was a box. Cardboard. Scribbled along the top, "For Jonny."
He turned it over and left fingerprints in the dust. There were no other markings. The tape that once held the seams together lost its adhesion and flittered to the ground. He bent back the flaps and removed the gift, a set of markers, all grey, with the faded word "Prismacolor" branded across the package. He removed the darkest shade. The cap fell off and rolled under the bed.
Smooth plastic casing, dried-out pigment; a primitive tool for conveying ideas. Another rush of deja vu—another distant certainty that these had meaning—and Jon dropped his head and grit his teeth and beat his fists into his legs... but he couldn't place their significance.
With no rational train connecting his thoughts, Jon threw the box aside, squeezed his eyes shut, bowed his head, crushed his hands together, and strained to recall a childhood ritual. "Please," he said aloud. "Please..." He tried to say more, but the words didn't come.
He tried again. And again.
Finally, through rigid lips and quivering hands, Jon managed a real prayer. "Be with me," he said. "Comfort me today when I die. Forgive me. Amen."
Jon forgot about the mysterious gift and his plea to the heavens, then turned his attention to the woman sleeping before him. He stretched his body as far as his faulty limbs would allow and kissed her forehead. He lingered a moment longer, secretly hoping the kiss might snap her out of her slumber and she would sit up and hug him and cry. But as he pulled away, Hannah didn't move.
* * *
"please..."
the whisper resounded through the nameless woman's cultivated mindscape. it belonged to an old friend—an ex-lover, perhaps—but her brain cast it aside in favor of another perfect memory.
"please..." it said again through the obnoxious gurgle of a human larynx. "be with me. comfort me today when I die. forgive me. amen."
"die" was an unfamiliar word in paradise.
forget about it, she told herself, then returned to the joyful excursion of unrelenting pleasure.
* * *
In the old birthing unit, a white sheet billowed in the air between two Ellies before falling lightly to the mattress on the floor.
Emmanuel observed the proceedings from the opposite side of the glass cylinder, perfectly quiet at Jon's behest. His static apologies and programmed suggestions ("Death comes easier on the inside!") had grown irritating, making Jonathon Nightly's final words to the world, "Please stop talking until I'm gone."
Thin plastic tubes; abandoned machinery once capable of fostering life; mindless bots watching his every move... was this how he imagined it would end? Even on the day he injected T4 into his veins, he must have known he was only postponing the inevitable.
If he did actually imagine his death, he probably didn't expect to feel so alone, so disconnected from the planet which had sustained him for half a millennia, so disenchanted with the people in his past, with the markings on his arms.
The tattoo looked like intricate bruises under his burnt skin. He traced his finger along the spiral and watched the marks lighten as they approached his shoulder. What do they mean? he wondered.
Jon hung his head. When he raised it, Hannah was there, glowing for a moment in light from the elevator, then stepping toward him with empathetic eyes and an expression both solemn and alive.
She looked tired, disjointed, as if she had been awake for a million years.
Jon pushed his sick body from the couch, willed strength into his legs, and stepped toward her.
Hannah caught him, wrapped her arms around his neck—gently at first—then he grabbed her, pulled her close, and ignored the pain.
Had they ever hugged like this? Like they couldn't get close enough? As if the molecules between them were still too much?
Had they ever kissed like this? Lost were the memories of a thousand meaningful kisses, but he was certain this one would have topped them all.
"I'm here," Hannah said, then kissed him again.
Jon brought her to the couch where he was waiting for the proxies to finish their preparations.
"What were you thinking about when I walked in?" she asked, leaning into the crook of his arm.
"My tattoo," he said. "It's been bugging me."
"Why?"
"I know the symbols are events from my life, but I don't remember what they mean."
"I'm sorry, love."
"They must have been important..."
"They were."
"You remember?"
She smiled. "I remember everything."
One of the Ellies poked her head into the corridor. "Five minutes, Mr. Nightly."
He nodded.
Hannah snuggled closer. "Want me to tell you about it?"
"The tattoo?"
"Your life."
He nodded again.
Hannah's finger hovered above the G&S icon at the top of his shoulder, so faded it was nearly gone. She told him the letters represented George and Susan Nightly, his parents, that they were good people, and that they had loved him dearly. She pointed to the protractor and told him about his early ambitions as an architect; ambitions he later achieved through sheer will. The circle above his elbow prompted both delight and melancholy as she expounded on the circumstances of their failed engagement. Bouncing back and forth through time, lifting his arm and craning her head to find more symbols, Hannah provided eloquent and whimsical summaries of her most favorite icons.
As she spoke, Jon found his attention drawn only to the sound of her voice and playful mannerisms, not her words. Her descriptions had released in him another torrent of deja vu, but the only memory he cherished was the one forming right here, right now, with her.
This shift in perspective unlocked something new and wonderful in the sticky center of Jon's brain; a revelation, a meditation; the release of specifics and the knowledge of the whole. Every object he'd been unable to place, every event fading into his flesh, every unreachable notion lost in the molasses of mind, they had meaning only as a whole. And when he stopped trying to pin them down, they flowed through him like rain.
Jon listened to Hannah's stories, and as he listened, he basked in contentment and relished the epiphany that—in some small way—he was connected to everything.
* * *
A pair of liquid-filled bags dangled on separate hangers above their heads. Tubes uncoiled, needles on the tips; the proxies inserted IVs into the arms of both Jon and Hannah, then slipped quietly out of the room.
The glass barrier faded to a solid grey tint leaving the couple together and alone on a crisp sheet and standard mattress.
"That's it?" Jon asked, his back curved and cuddled in Hannah's embrace.
"They said we have three minutes."
Silence.
"Did you ever think this day would come?" he asked.
She didn't respond.
"A thousand years... and now—within a few minutes—they have us hooked up to needles and tubes."
"You could wait," she said.
"No." Jon picked at his flaking skin, then forced his hand to stop. Another minute of silence.
"Do you feel anything?" she asked.
"Not yet. Are we supposed to?"
"I don't know."
Jon rolled to his back and gazed at the ceiling.
"You're beautiful," Hannah said, staring at his profile. "I haven't told you that in a while."
He turned to face her. "Do you remember the day we met in Paris? About a hundred years ago... that island from the painting. You wore a purple dress and we made love in the rain."
"I don't remember..."
The room fell quiet again and the couple shared the tranquility.
"Was there more to the story?" Hannah asked.
"No..." Jonathon inhaled through his nose. "I'm starting to feel tired."
"Mmm." Hannah closed her eyes. "Hey, Jon?"
"Yeah, sweetheart?"
"Was I beautiful that day? The day I wore purple?"
After a long pause, Jon closed his eyes for the last time. "You were stunning."
Thank you for reading : )
If you enjoyed the book, please take a minute to rate it on Goodreads! It may seem silly, but every review pushes me a little closer to my dream. (Go to www.goodreads.com and type in The Day I Wore Purple.)
Thanks again for your love and support! Next up: A sequel to Lighthouse Nights...
I love you all,
Jake