April 14, 1996
The hallway was wrong. It was longer than it was supposed to be. But the lockers were right. But none of them were hers. And she was late for a test. But where was the classroom? And why was the hallway empty? The bell rang. She wasn't going to make it. Then someone was pounding on a locker. She spun around but the hallway was still empty. The bell rang. The stranger pounded.
Martha blinked and everything was black. Her hand ached. Someone was ringing her doorbell. She stuck her head out from under the covers and squinted to read 3:15 on her bedside clock. The doorbell rang again.
She crawled out of bed and headed downstairs. The doorbell stopped but was replaced with violent knocking. Still half asleep, Martha couldn't imagine what was so urgent.
She reached the door and opened it. Before she saw who it was, his arms were around her.
"Dammit, Martha," James whispered. "Goddammit."
The embrace jolted Martha awake and the previous evening came back to her – the letter, the pills, and the phone, still dead on the kitchen table. "I'm sorry," she whimpered.
"No, it's okay," he said. His hold tightened for a moment then he released her. "I'm just relieved."
They stood in silence for a few moments before it occurred to Martha. James was standing in front of her. Not only that, he'd flown across the country for her, all because she'd thrown a tantrum like a child. She was overjoyed to see him and ashamed to see him and heartbroken from the letter and dizzy from it all...
Apparently, the emotional overload was evident to James. "Why don't you sit down?" he said and led her to a chair at the kitchen table. He hung up the phone then filled a glass with water from the sink.
"I'm sorry I... did that..." Martha fumbled.
"It's okay. It's behind us," James reassured as he handed her the glass and sat next to her. "But... you can't ever do that again." He held her gaze silently as the ultimatum set in. "I'm sorry to say that. I don't ever want to tell you what to do. I want you to think freely and act freely. I encourage your dissent. I love your dissent. And if you ever get tired of me, you have every right to leave me. You just can't leave me."
Martha nodded quietly then James continued. "That said, I cannot apologize enough to you. None of this is your fault. None of this is fair to you. Your parents and I betrayed you. Can you forgive me?"
Martha nodded again. She took a drink from her glass. Her temples throbbed. "I..." she started. For no apparent reason, the school hallway popped into her head. "I..." But she had no idea.
"Why don't we talk after you've gotten some rest. It's been a night."
"Okay," she said.
He walked her upstairs and to the bathroom. "We should clean this," he said, referring to the small cut on her hand. While Martha lathered hand soap over the wound, James returned the bottle of Vicodin to the medicine cabinet and found a bandaid. After she finished rinsing off the soap, he took her hand and blew the wound dry. He applied the bandaid and they walked to her bedroom.
She climbed into her bed. He gathered the scattered sleeping pills by hand and tossed them, along with their bottle, into Martha's trash then picked up the letter and set in on her desk. Martha lay her head on her pillow and watched him move about the room. She remembered how mundane her weekend was only hours before. All of it felt unreal.
He lowered the blinds then sat on the side of her bed. His face was placid but for a faint smile. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. "I'll see you in a few."
She smiled. He left, turning off the light on the way.
Martha awoke to the smell of bacon. The sun snuck past the side of her blinds to cast a vertical, serrated edge of light above her bed. Her clock read 10:30.
She got up and changed out of the clothes she'd worn to school and into sweatpants and a t-shirt. As she walked downstairs, she discovered more than bacon in the air – unidentified spices and some kind of singed vegetable.
Natural light flooded the kitchen and caused Martha to squint. She hadn't lost the headache from the night before.
James stood at the stove with his back to her. He turned and said, "Good morning. Your timing is perfect. I'm just about done." He lifted something from a pan and placed it on a plate and again to a second plate. Martha sat at the table where two place settings already lay. James walked the plates to her and set them down.
"Holy crap," Martha exclaimed when she saw the meal. "What the..."
"Roasted asparagus, Yukon potatoes, and poached eggs with bacon and... ah, hold on. I forgot..." He swung back to the kitchen and returned with a bowl. "...the hollandaise..."
But Martha already had a mouthful of eggs. "Shorry."
James smiled and said, "Not a problem." He spread the sauce over his plate with a spoon.
Martha finished chewing then said, "It's really good. And... I don't know why I'm so hungry. Oh yeah, I guess I kind of didn't eat dinner last night." She fed herself some asparagus and her eyes went wide from the taste – salt, pepper, and something sweet with the perfect amount of crunch. "So what, you were besties with Julia Child or something?"
"Or something."
After they finished, James washed and put away the dishes. Martha's stomach was full and warm, but her headache remained. He walked to her, nodded to the living room, and offered his hand. She took it and they sat on the couch.
"So," he said.
"So," she said.
"I want to hear everything you're willing to tell me. And I will answer any questions you have as best I can."
"Oh," Martha said. "Like... like you... know things about my mom?"
"Hearsay, yes," he said.
"Okay, then. Why'd she do it?"
"She battled depression – for years. There was most likely a postpartum effect as well that went unconsidered." His voice was calm, but his eyes were resolute. "Though she had a somewhat successful career teaching Philosophy, because of the depression she fell short of her potential. But she had an unflinching desire for truth. And she thought she'd found an ironclad insight that life was not worth living."
Hearing these details gave Martha a strange, incongruent exhilaration. The context was painful, but growing up dodging the topic had left an aching void she just now realized. "And she... didn't want to have children?"
"That's correct," he said. "She thought that, because life was meaningless, giving life was cruel. Not that you asked, but I'd like to state how thoroughly I disagree with her on this."
"Okay." But something about the idea felt right – like discordant notes shifting into harmony. "How do you know all of this?"
"I've talked with your father. You've talked with your father. Once, you and I visited some of their old friends who were happy to reminisce."
Martha nodded silently. She thought back to the letter – back to her bathroom. As much as she loved James, was overjoyed to see him and grateful for the lengths to which he'd gone for her well-being... Nothing had changed.
"If there's anything on your mind, you can tell me," he said. "It doesn't have to only be questions. You can just talk if you want."
"Okay, well..." She didn't know where to start. Discovering her mother's convictions had inspired in Martha a violent and chaotic bloom without rhyme or reason or clear beginning. So the end is where she decided to start. "We're all going to die. And... I don't believe in an afterlife – it's just too convenient not to be man-made. So... when we die, it's all just going to be over and... Well sorry, I guess not for you-"
"Right, for the purposes of this conversation, let's forget about my situation. This is about you," he said.
"Okay," she said. "It's like... the basic goal or drive or whatever underneath everything we do is survival, right? But we're all going to die, so... I don't know, it's like those claw machines at the arcade that you know are impossible. If you put your dollar in, you're throwing that dollar away, so you just walk by." Martha sighed. "I don't know."
"No, please. Keep going," James encouraged. "I know exactly what you mean."
"And... so much of our lives is devoted to pretending we're going to live forever – like with the afterlife, which is basically a fairytale for the very old – or... or women getting plastic surgery or middle aged men dating twenty year olds or everyone's obsession with fame... Like, yeah Marilyn Monroe's dead, but we all remember her so it's like she's not dead, but no, actually she's still dead! And all of her posters and films and tributes will eventually turn to dust. It all will. There's no such thing as immortality, except..." She shrugged toward James.
He shook his head. "No, we're not going to talk about me."
"Sorry. But even with you – you were granted immortality, sort of, and it's been a curse. Even the dream is a nightmare. It's all a scam." Her argument was still unmapped, but the words were coming more easily. "It's like dog racing – the greyhounds race around the track because they think the rabbit's real and if they catch it, it will be delicious. But if any of them knew it was a lie, they wouldn't run. So why should we ?"
"Yes," James said. "Keep going."
"And you could make a case that having kids is leaving a legacy and they'll talk about you and toast your memory and that's a kind of immortality, but it's not. Because they'll die. And their kids will die. And you'll be forgotten. And all you've done by having kids is put the burden on them." Her hands were sweating. Her heart pounded. But she couldn't stop – the words coming like water from a burst pipe. "It's like a pyramid scheme where you're screwed until you screw over a bunch of people under you. And they're screwed until they screw over a bunch of people, and so on... And that's great for the human race, I guess. It keeps us breeding. It populates the Earth, but... but now we're using up all of its resources and hundreds of millions of us are starving, so what's the point?
"And if we'd never figured out we were mortal, things would have been a lot easier. But we did, and there were consequences. Knowing of our mortality – the logical thing would have been to sit and wait for death or find a sharp rock and get it over with. But like, then we would have gone extinct. So the same way evolution makes, I don't know, a frog's skin poisonous to help it survive, it gave us the fantasy of meaning to justify our pointless struggle.
"And what we're left with is mostly pain. Like, maybe if you're really lucky or really delusional you might come out on top – live a life more happy than not – but that would be the exception. Take America for example – we have all of the comforts of modern civilization: wealth, technology, food, medicine, peace. But the anti-depressant business is booming. Drug companies can't make the pills fast enough. And there's so much brutality and suffering in other parts of the world. We should be happy or at least satisfied with life. But it's as if... as if removing most of the suffering in our lives leaves us with nothing. It's as if the suffering is the point. But then... that's messed up! And it feels like my mom was right. You have a kid so the kid can feel pain? That's sadistic!
"And, I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking it. Maybe I could just distract myself with sports or gossip magazines or school or you... But after you find out what the Soylent Green is made from, can you really go back to eating it?"
James raised his eyebrows. "Damn... That's new."
"It's not a joke."
"Of course. I don't mean to belittle. It's just... Soylent Green..." He shook his head. "Anyway, what else? Keep going."
"I..." Martha took a deep breath and noticed her headache was gone. "I guess that's it. So now you're going to tell me why I'm wrong, right?"
James shook his head.
"Why not?"
"Because you're not wrong," he said.
Martha narrowed her eyes and stared at him for a moment, then said, "Huh?"
"Everything you just said makes complete sense. It was brilliant."
"So... I should kill myself?"
"No."
"Were you not listening?"
James smiled. "Yes, I was. It's just that your compelling argument is incomplete. You're a long way from proving that life is meaningless. But it's not flattery to call your ideas brilliant. It's the truth. And... Martha, I love every part of you, but mostly I love your brain."
She blushed in spite of herself.
"And these thoughts you're having can be terrifying," he continued. "They consumed your mother – smothered her will." Martha swallowed and James squeezed her hand.
"It's tempting to hide from them," he continued. "But I beg you not to. Intellectual curiosity, critical thinking, and seeking truth down any road no matter how dark or undesirable are the most courageous and important acts of man. They stand between us and the horrors of the past. They freed us from the dark ages a millennium ago and will someday free us from these as well."
"What? Dark Ages? We're in the Dark Ages?"
"A pet theory I have. No way of knowing. It's impossible to have historical perspective, never having made it past 2050."
"And... my ideas are going to save the world?" Martha asked skeptically.
"Maybe," James said.
"Right."
"Well, even if it's not you alone, you have the power to feed a collective enlightenment that absolutely could."
"I guess I can buy that," Martha shrugged. "But you've heard everything I've said before – other than the Soylent Green, I guess – and you've probably like, communed with hundreds of philosophical or scientific or artistic geniuses and heard their theories..."
"Sure," he said.
"And you've probably spent lifetimes alone in a... I don't know, figurative or literal cave debating and formulating and analyzing..."
"I suppose I have."
"Then lay it on me," she said.
"You mean?"
"The whole shabang. The meaning of life."
James took a breath and shook his head. "Can't say that I know it."
"Really? That's kind of a let down."
"Sorry," he said.
"No offense," she said.
"Yeah, but you're right. After all of this time, I probably should have the answer." He shrugged his shoulders. "My guess is that it's more complicated than a brief equation or a slogan that can fit on a coffee mug. It's probably different for different people. And now we are talking about me so the rules change a bit. I can tell you that, from my point of view, death is merciful – enviable, in fact. And while I agree with you that it's foolish to run from death, I don't think the answer is to run toward it either. But... finding meaning without an endpoint is-"
"Impossible?" Martha offered.
"I wouldn't say it's impossible," James said.
"Then give me something. I just puked my existential guts all over you. Now it's your turn."
"Puked your existential guts?"
"You know what I mean."
"All right. You're asking for my best guess as to what the meaning of life is?"
"Yes. Best guess."
"It's..." He scrunched his face and seemed to debate something in his head. "I don't know if I should."
"Hold on," Martha protested. "A minute ago, you're all 'You can tell me anything,' and now you're clamming up?"
"You're going to make fun of me."
"No, I won't. Or maybe I will. Who cares? Just say it!"
He sighed. "Love."
"Love?"
"Yep."
"Seriously? 'Love' is the meaning of life?"
"I told you-"
"Wow. That is cheeseball!"
"You said you wouldn't tease me," he protested.
"Yeah, but then I said I might, so I am. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm flattered. Unless..." She squinted her eyes playfully. "You're not talking about the love of a fine cigar, are you?"
He rolled his eyes. "No, Martha Beckett, it is you to whom I refer."
"Oh, well then thank you. But... 'Love is all we need?' I thought you said no coffee mug slogans."
"You asked for my best guess."
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. No more teasing." She smiled and he smiled back.
"How about this?" he said. "Love is the irrational thorn in the side of dire existentialism."
"Ooooo, I like that," she said. "And just long enough to not fit on the mug."
"Great. So it qualifies. But I'll elaborate. What you said earlier is perfectly sensible. The logic is sound. The equation balanced. And considering my situation, one might think... how do I put this?"
"That it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I had actually killed myself?"
"Exactly. Sure, I'd be sad. But you wouldn't be gone forever. I'd see you again. So yeah, ultimately, logically, it's only a temporary setback."
"Makes sense."
"But when you called... And then when you hung up... It's hard to describe the sensation." He paused for a moment, then continued. "Did I ever tell you that I can slow my heart rate to seventeen beats per minute?"
"No! Seriously?"
"Yeah. I spent a couple of lives in Southern Asia – unscrewed the lid a few times. Point is – it took all I had, all of my concentration, all of my focus and control last night to keep from being turned away at the airport, raving and delirious. On the plane, everyone thought I was so brave to be flying with such obvious aerophobia. Granted, I could have landed the plane had the pilot become incapacitated, but they didn't know that."
He took both of her hands in his and inched toward her. "That you might have been dead; that the darkness might have overtaken you... It didn't affect me intellectually or even emotionally. It was... atomic. Like the particles that make up my body were in a frenzied panic, threatening to spin me into vapor. And I know... I know that if you had, I'd most likely see you again in fifteen years." He smiled and shrugged. "But what I know doesn't matter."
Martha dropped her eyes. "Shit," she whispered.
James leaned down to meet her. "What is it? What's wrong?"
"I feel like such a... piece of shit." She took back her hands and crossed her arms then turned her head to avoid his eyes. Her mother had betrayed her with a selfish act of cowardice and her response was to nearly inflict the same upon James.
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Hey, hey, no. You don't have to do that. Shame serves neither of us. Maybe the whole particle thing was a bit exaggerated."
"I'm... so sorry." She managed to look him in the eyes.
His face was calm and content. "I know you are. Thank you."
Martha lunged forward and wrapped her arms around him. They held each other tightly and, in her embrace, she made the promise.
After a moment, she released and sat back in her chair. "So... have I ever, you know, actually done it?"
"Yes, but only once under these circumstances."
"These circumstances? How... There were other circumstances?"
His eyes broke from hers, moving just over her shoulder. He nodded slowly, his attention distant.
"How many times?" she asked.
"There may have been more before I started keeping track, but by my count, you've killed yourself eight times. You..." He fell silent and closed his eyes. Moments passed, but Martha couldn't bring herself to interject. Finally, he reopened his eyes and spoke.
"On October 25, 1994 – the morning of that strange, premature snowfall – you walk into the cafeteria and life begins. But... sometimes you don't." James looked at her and smiled reassuringly. "The first time it happened, I was patient. I figured maybe it was a glitch in the timing. Maybe you would show up a month later. But the school year came and went without you. I made some phone calls and found that you'd killed yourself the previous summer."
Martha's mind flashed to her bathtub in Pasadena – the razor, the pain, the blood, the panic. Had it been the same? Had these other lives brought her to that moment when she either flinched and made it to James or managed to wrap the blade around her wrist?
"But the next life, you were back," he continued. "It was twenty or so lives before it happened again. This time, I called right away and again, you'd done it that summer. The following life, I considered trying to intervene. But... I didn't know how. What would I say? So I let it play out – and you showed up on cue. And every twenty five lives or so, it would happen. I came to accept that there was a given probability – four percent, more or less – of you not showing."
His eyes broke off again. There was something about his demeanor that Martha found peculiar. "Is there more?" she asked.
"Yes," he said and nodded slowly. His gaze remained distant. "I barely remember you from my first life. You were new. A year behind me. I took chemistry junior year so we never had a class together. And that's how it went for the first forty or so lifetimes. It wasn't until..." He paused and cleared his throat. "I was well into my surrender to nihilism when we had our first significant interaction. Robbie and Christian were following me everywhere because I was an exceptional asshole. On your first day, we were sitting together in the cafeteria when you walked in. I'm not sure why my eyes were on the door that day, but I noticed your coat in all its snowy, swollen grandeur. Out of boredom, I sent them to harass you. I don't know what you said to them. I'll... never know what you said to them. They wouldn't tell me. You can't tell me." He paused to chuckle. "Whatever it was, they were spooked."
"Later that day, in the same cafeteria, I saw you eating lunch by yourself. I took the seat across from you because Robbie and Christian's failure to humiliate you left me feeling unfulfilled. And, as always, I was bored. We started talking and you were... so dark. At one point – I can see it clearly – you were eating tater tots. You'd taken on too much ketchup and left a glop at the corner of your mouth. You wiped it off with your wrist and left it there. We'd been talking about the absurdity of heaven and hell and you said something that..." He paused, eyes off in the distance, and smiled sadly. "You said, 'What if we're already burning? Would we know? If all we knew from birth was fire, would we feel it?' And for the first time in... hundreds of years, I guess, I felt..."
James sat back and took a breath. He looked into Martha's eyes and smiled. "It was a revelation. A miracle. Can you guess how I responded?"
Martha shook her head.
"I took your wrist – forcefully, I took your wrist – and wiped off the ketchup. Then, I said, 'If you're already there, you might as well take a razor and slice up the vein,' and I traced your ulnar vein up your arm with my finger. Then, I left.
"The next morning, everyone was talking about the new girl who killed herself. And... it's hard to describe my reaction. I definitely felt guilty – which is saying a lot because, at the time, I had sworn off caring about others' well being.
"But it was more than that. You'd made me feel like I was... with someone – not even romantically, just in a basic sense of existing alongside another human being. All those prior lifetimes, I'd stood next to people, talked to them, fought with them... But they were like ghosts, or I was like a ghost. And hearing you were dead made me feel painfully alone and suddenly desperate to find you. Then Robbie joked that you killed yourself because of how much Adams High sucked and so I broke his nose. Not to defend your honor or anything so noble... I think I was just projecting. But it wasn't enough so I punched Christian and then the kid next to him. I left the building and, on my way to my car, found a large rock and smashed it through a random car's windshield. I was planning to kill myself so it was all going poof anyway, but... I think I also knew, on some level, that it was over – it was the last call for random acts of violence.
"The next life, you returned and the rest are histories. You've been... everything." He smiled faintly. "Without you there is no me."
Martha sensed he was done. Seconds passed. Was he waiting for her to say something – to react to his confession? She was at a loss. Her throat felt tight. But still he waited. At last, she said, "'Without you there is no me?' You've graduated from coffee mugs to greeting cards."
He chuckled and said, "So I have."
Martha tucked herself next to him and leaned her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm around her. She thought she understood, at least as much as a girl in her first life could. She wanted to apologize for what she'd put him through, but resisted the urge. You already did that, Martha, and he already forgave you. Still, it was all she could think of. She felt lucky to have him – lucky to have such a partner with which to walk, hand in hand, through this life however bleak it may be. I'm sorry, James, she thought. I'll never leave you. For as long as I live, I am yours and your path is mine. Path!
"Oh, hey," she said. "I almost forgot. Mr Prince taught us Feynman's Sum Over Histories yesterday."
"Don't care," he said. "Sorry. That sounded rude. I just mean we don't have to worry about that now." He took her hand by the fingertips in light of her wound and constricted his arm around her shoulder slightly. She felt safe from the void. "However," he said. "When do you expect your dad?"
The idea caught Martha off guard. She'd spent the last eighteen hours in either the moment or the infinite and everyday details had ceased to exist. "Not until like, five or six."
"That appears to be his cab."
"What?!" She sat up and looked out the front window to see her father lifting his suitcase out of the trunk of a taxi. "Crap!" A moment earlier, she'd felt as if they'd put the ordeal to rest but her father was restoring it front and center. "What should I do? What... What should I do?"
James stood. "Advice?"
"Yeah!"
"Tell him as much as you like but only what is honest." He took her hand and helped her up. "And for your own sake, offer him your empathy."
"Empathy?"
"Yup. It can't hurt. Literally, it can't. I've not once seen empathy make things worse for a person." He kissed her quickly then held her gaze for an extra moment. "This is a conversation you were always going to have. It's going to require bravery. It's a good thing you have so much." He walked to the door and opened it. "Steven."
Steven stopped short of the door and gaped for a moment. "James? I... didn't know you were home this weekend."
James took the suitcase and carried it inside. "It was a spur of the moment trip. But I have to go now. Good to see you."
"Yes," Steven said. "Good to see you?"
James turned back to Martha, nodded his head slightly, and smiled. Then he left.
Martha folded her arms. Despite James' assurances, she didn't feel remotely ready for this.
"I tried calling you last night about my earlier flight, but the line was busy," he said. Martha didn't respond. Her eyes stayed on the floor. "Marty, is there something wrong? Did... did something happen with James?"
Martha didn't know what to say, or even how she felt. Was her father to blame? Was he a victim? Empathy. But what about the deceit? Every day, you lied to me!
"Marty?" he asked, concern on his face.
She knew she had to speak, but couldn't find the words. So instead, she walked upstairs.
Steven followed. "Martha, talk to me. I'm not mad. Just talk to me. What is it?"
Martha entered her room and walked to her desk. She heard her father stop at the door. Her desk was neat – reference books lined up against the wall were flanked by a lamp and a stack of notebooks. Writing utensils were stowed. Angles were right. Everything was in its proper place with the glaring exception of the crumpled, blood stained suicide note at its center. She picked it up and, eyes on the floor, walked it to her father.
"I found this," she said softly, then handed him the letter and returned to her desk before he could respond. She stared at the copper base of her desk lamp as the paper crinkled in his hands.
"Oh... Oh, Martha," he managed. "I..."
She looked at him. His eyebrows twitched. His face had lost its color.
"I..." he cracked, mouth agape.
Martha's eyes fled to the wall. The room was quiet but for the paper crinkling and her own breath. Her eyes stumbled upon her father's reflection in the glass of a picture frame. For a moment, his face was slack and ashamed. Martha quickly tightened her focus to the photograph in the frame leaving her father obscured. She was three, sitting with the Easter bunny. Then Martha saw her father kneeling in front of the three year old. "Mommy killed herself," he'd say. "Mommy would rather be dead than with us." How would the girl react? She looked so happy next to the bunny. He should have told her. There was so much joy on her face. What would it look like if he'd broken her heart with the truth? He should have told her!
She turned back to him and he flinched slightly. He clenched his jaw and recovered. "Martha, I... don't know what to say... where to..."
As he spoke, Martha walked to him.
"...I'm so sorry," he continued. "So, so sorry."
She wrapped her arms around him and pressed the side of her head into his chest.
"I'm sorry. I... I just didn't know what... what to do," he stuttered. His embrace was both heavy and weakened somehow. He exuded remorse, but there was something else. There was pain. She left him. The love of his life had ended her own. She'd betrayed a promise of eternity and deserted him to the toil alone. She thought of James. Without you, there is no me. But he had a daughter and so the anguish was locked away. "I'm sorry," he repeated.
She abandoned both of us. She'd left him with not only the full responsibility of raising Martha, but also the burden of keeping her suicide.
"Me too," Martha said. She released him and saw surprise on his face. Her stomach warned her to stop as if she were on a rollercoaster slowly ascending toward its terrifying drop. It's going to require bravery. She took a breath and looked her father in the eyes. "You should have told me."
He nodded and whispered, "Yeah." She hugged him again. "I just... didn't..." he stammered.
"I know," she said. Then she saw her mother standing at the same sink Martha had the night before. She saw her mother's pain and despair. She saw her mother fail the test she'd passed... and felt pity.
Tears streamed down Martha's cheeks. These felt different, however. She didn't fight them. There was no choke or jagged breath. They just came. And then they stopped. She let go of her father and dried her cheeks with her shoulders.
"Can I ask a favor," Martha said.
"Anything."
"Can we talk about this, like, some other day? Maybe find some sports on TV and eat popcorn instead?"
Steven smiled and cleared his throat. "That would be wonderful."
They headed back downstairs and took their reprieve.
Author's note:
This chapter was my primary motivation for writing this story. While the specifics of Martha's crisis do not hold for all teens, I believe that all teens experience it in some form. Maybe it's instantaneous or maybe it develops gradually over time, but they will realize they've been lied to – that they're not actually Space Rangers, if you will. To make matters worse, when they try to voice their angst and betrayal, they're usually called spoiled brats. My ultimate dream – beyond fame, fortune, and a mountain of donuts – is for someone in the midst of their crisis to read this, understand that they're not alone, and see that this necessary struggle will ultimately set them free. Oh yes. I went there. The truth will set you free. Deal with it.
Like, totally (not)90's detail: "Soylent Green" is a movie from 1973 about a dystopian future where there is a world wide food shortage. Scientists develop food pellets supposedly made from soy, lentils, and sea plankton. Spoiler alert!! It's actually made from people! Like, ew.