I live in northern Virginia, less than an hour commute on the Metro, from the Mall in D.C., and I’ve never been further north than Philadelphia or further south than Virginia Beach. I didn’t know there was a western Virginia. I had to use Google Map to find Blacksburg, just off old Interstate 81, when I went to my father’s funeral. Don’t get upset because we weren’t close. 

My dad was a handyman, so my family was always cutting coupons. My mom was lazy, and she used me and my younger sister as an excuse not to get a job, which would have improved our family’s socioeconomic position substantially. I left home when I was sixteen to escape the prison in which I’d spent my life, but I remained in contact with my sister, Sheila. It was her imploring that coerced me to drive my ten-year-old Tesla to the frontier of civilization as I perceived it. The funeral was a disaster. Mom put on a mournful, widow show for a lot of people who didn’t mean anything to me—I didn’t even remember their names, or even their family relationships. My impression was that they were all waiting for their turn to die. Sheila was no different. I swore to myself that I would never contact her again, if I escaped this death trap alive. I frowned and smiled in turn throughout the tortuous day, but kept my mouth shut, and finally escaped, back to the studio apartment I shared with the woman I hoped to some day call my partner. 

***

“Is your father finally buried and out of sight? Can you stop living in his pathetic, underperforming shadow, and stand up for yourself? I expect more of you than being a handyman, a job you were actually fired from, which is difficult to wrap my head around after Congress passed the Job Protection Act.”

Anong didn’t pull any punches. “Actually,” I began, “My dad was never fired, but proudly cleaned sewage pipes for forty—” I didn’t finish my sentence because she slapped me so hard, I bit my tongue.

“This isn’t a joke, Ellison. You haven’t proudly done anything in your life. That’s why the Department of Labor has finally found you, just like they found me. I know you don’t give a damn about working at the restaurant, but it means the world to me. I like being the head hostess. Labor found this job for me after I went through a thorough screening and evaluation process…”

Anong was a lot stronger than her 110 lb. physique suggested. I rubbed my stinging cheek and waited until her words faltered before interjecting, “What are you getting at?”

Her usually passive face contorted in frustration because she wasn’t able to communicate her concerns more clearly to her devoted but emotionally clumsy boyfriend. She finally found words, which stung me more than her palm had. “I grew up in Los Angeles, but when I failed to succeed and was sent to the retraining program, I had to move to Manassas, a town I’d never heard of in my life! It turns out that I love it here. That’s another issue. My point is that if you fuck up again, you could be sent to the other side of the country. I haven’t seen my family in two years. I can’t afford it. What happens if you find the perfect job, which just happens to be in Alaska? I don’t want that to happen because I—”

I finished her sentence. “I love you too.”

She was on me before my words had died in the chilly air of our studio apartment. I fell backward on the sofa as her lips assaulted me. It was several minutes before she spoke a complete sentence. “I don’t want to lose you, Ellison, so please don’t be sarcastic when you report for evaluation. And for god’s sake, keep your political opinions to yourself. I don’t mind, but the Department of Labor might not understand. The government can be sensitive about some things, like criticism.”

She expected a response. I cleared my throat and began, “The main reason I love you is that you are so open and honest in expressing your feelings.”

Her expression became skeptical, expecting a snow job, but I didn’t let that distract me. “I’m not like you—maybe it’s a case of opposites attracting—at any rate, I don’t know how to share emotions spontaneously like you, but I do readily express my opinion about what’s going on around me…I love you intellectually whereas you love me emotionally. Get it?”

Her brow furrowed in thought, then her pixie face nodded decisively. “I agree, but what are you going to do, so that you can stay with me?” Her hands were on her hips as she sat on my lap, her dark eyes challenging me.

She always asked simple questions, ones that never had easy answers. I began as well as I could. “Just like we love each other with different parts of our minds, we interact with the world from unique perspectives. I don’t think I’m going to be happy as the head waiter in a restaurant, or even the sous chef. But I promise you this: I will not be separated from you any longer than it takes to complete whatever bullshit testing and evaluation the Department of Labor has in store for—”

She straightened up as if electrocuted. “What kind of attitude is that?” Anong never asked multiple questions at once, which made it difficult to respond ambiguously.

I took a deep breath and said, “I love you.’

She smiled.

“I will not be separated from you any longer than is necessary to get through this Department of Labor bureaucratic nonsense. I don’t know what is going to happen but it won’t deter me from returning to you. Maybe I will be brainwashed as you’ve suggested several times, or perhaps I’ll be sent to a toxic waste recycling center, but I will come back for you. I am not the kind of person who spends his life fixing broken windows, like my father did.”

She grinned, pushed against my chest, and sat up while conceding my point. “I’m so worried about losing you, Ellison. Unlike you, I commit my entire being to someone when I feel the way I do about you…”

I grinned, pulled her close, and retorted, “My intellectual commitment is of similar magnitude to your emotional response, but it isn’t only as strong, it is more flexible. I will find a way to be with you. Do you trust me?” I had asked a simple question, like she always did, and she couldn’t avoid answering.

Without hesitation, she said, “Of course I do, but be careful. You are dealing with the government now.”

***

Anong’s words were quickly forgotten when I found myself in what felt like a detention facility. One of my first formal activities was a lengthy and repetitive conversation with a middle-aged man who was inordinately interested in how I had managed to be fired from a handyman job. The entire interview seemed to be choreographed. The Department of Labor knew why I was fired. I had confronted a gorgeous blonde woman, a wealthy tenant, with a used sanitary napkin I’d extracted from her toilet and suggested that she should read the disposal instructions the next time she shoved such a device up her cunt. I hadn’t bothered with an appeal because I saw the entire procedure, including my working as a jack-of-all-trades, as a farce. I hadn’t known what I was meant to be, but it sure as hell wasn’t the guy who unplugged drains and replaced light bulbs.

That preliminary interview earned me a chat with a psychologist. 

Dr. Echo Heard had freckled cheeks that looked like they were about to explode. Her slightly wavy blonde hair framed a cherubic face frozen in a smile that suggested she didn’t believe anything she was hearing. She was the epitome of everything I loathed about modern America. 

“Why are you here, Ellison?”

I had to think a minute to come up with a response to that question. I finally figured it out and, leaning back nonchalantly in the comfortable armchair that faced her uncluttered, glass-topped desk, I replied, “Because I don’t like talking to morons.”

“I was referring to why you are at the career center.” There was no sign of humor in her face, fixed in the same incredulous smile.

I modified my answer. “I don’t like doing the same thing day after day, year after year, maybe for the rest of my life. My girlfriend—maybe she’s my fiancee—doesn’t mind that kind of life, which is fine by me, but it doesn’t work for me, personally. We’ve talked about it a lot. She’s brain dead, but I’m not, so I can’t pretend to be happy doing menial labor, I know I didn’t go to college. I didn’t have the grades. Whatever. Look, Dr. Heard or Echo…whatever…the bottom line is that I don’t fit into this fucked-up world, and I just want to be left alone. Is that too much to ask?”

There were no notes on her desk. Her pale blue eyes never strayed from my suddenly self-conscious hazel ones, looking into my soul, before she said, “You could have gone to college. You had reasonable grades, if not outstanding, but you never applied, not even to a community college or vocational school.” She paused and her index finger touched her lips as if thinking, before she continued, “Why is that?”

She asked simple questions, like Anong. Difficult to duck. “I know how it works, Dr. Whatever, we slip into our cogs…just another piece of the machine, but I’m not doing that, not that I think the rest of you are stupid or anything, but I can’t do it!” I was on my feet, pointing my finger at her.

Her expression reflected none of my frustration as she calmly replied, “Do you think it’s a conspiracy?”

Her question caught me off guard. “I don’t know…uh…maybe, but it’s more likely just the human condition.” I caught on to her game and continued confidently, “The world, society, government, are nothing more than collections of people acting like me most of the time. They don’t have an agenda, or even a purpose. They only want to be left alone. But there are some people who have to keep themselves busy poking into other people’s lives, like you and the Department of Labor, but at the top are the elites, with a plan, no matter how ludicrous it is, to conquer the world and tell others what to do. I’m not sure I’d call that a conspiracy but it sure as hell is an elitist syndicate that couldn’t care less about everybody else…” I was sure I’d said too much, but Dr. Heard didn’t seem to care.

“What do you mean by the human condition?”

I hadn’t expected her to focus on something so obvious. “Well…uh…we’re just a bunch of monkeys with language. We’ve fucked up pretty much everything we’ve done. For example, I’m sure that whoever created the Department of Labor just wanted to help people find a good job, like Anong—she loves being the head hostess in a steakhouse—but the effort has turned into a witch hunt of unlimited breadth, which is why I’m sitting here instead of looking for another job.”

“How do you feel about your mother’s tragic death in an industrial accident?”

She’d done it again, just like Anong. I didn’t think before retorting, “What the fuck does that have to do with finding me a job?!”

“Do you resent her untimely death?”

I was on my feet again. “How would you feel if your mother was crushed beneath an eighty-thousand-pound container?! Hell yes, I resent a society that would allow that to happen, and her paltry death benefit was barely enough to cover rent for the shithole we lived in. I stopped caring about getting an education because I had to earn enough money to put food on the table for my family, which your detailed records certainly tell you included three younger siblings.” I sat down again and added, “Yeh, I resent it, just like I resented my father getting run over by a rich motherfucker, and becoming a paraplegic, another mouth to feed.”

Her faded eyes never wavered as she coldly asked, “Do you think their injuries were the result of an unfeeling syndicate, the inherent stupidity of people, or bad luck?”

I was starting to catch on to Dr. Heard’s method. I met her steely gaze and said, “All three, as well as their failure to foresee the potential consequences if they didn’t focus on what was going on around them – their accidents were partly their own fault.” I hated myself for admitting that my parents had both been complicit in what had happened to them.

Dr. Heard’s expression didn’t change as she said, “I think that’s enough for today, Ellison.”

***

The food was pretty good at the training center. Breakfast was served at six a.m., lunch at noon, and dinner at six p.m. exactly, with no exceptions. They were brainwashing us like Pavlov did his dogs—be on time or you don’t eat. It worked. I anticipated every perfectly planned and executed meal, and it was better fare than I’d had at home, even better than the restaurant where I’d worked with Anong. This place was like a country club, except for having a roommate who wouldn’t have been my first choice. 

I shared a studio apartment with a guy I’d seen in a hundred movies. Jack was a fast talker who always had an angle, even for why we were being treated so well while spending our days playing roles in different work scenarios. To him, this wasn’t an opportunity to use role playing to find a situation that felt right, but instead they were poisoning us with psychoactive drugs to make us pliable for what was coming next. This wasn’t a government program that had gone off the rails. This was a conspiracy to perform some unnamable atrocity on us for an unknowable purpose. Jacks paranoia made me look benign. He’d been in trouble with the authorities throughout his life, mostly simple theft. He wasn’t a big-time criminal, but he told me about some guys he’d met while serving three months in a county jail in Illinois. Under the influence of total boredom, they’d talked about the underworld. In an affected Irish brogue, to match his red hair and freckles, he explained how an underground society of antiauthoritarian individualists had been created by people like him and me. When pressed, he elaborated on a clandestine network of hackers who could produce whatever digital identity was desired, for enough money. That was why he had focused on property crimes recently, to get enough cash to buy into the underworld. With a conspiratorial look, he boasted that he finally had enough money and it was all stashed in a safe place. I had saved a lot myself after meeting Anong and not needing much spending cash.

All we had to do was get out of the detention center. He’d contact his underworld connection, find out the details, then we’d get our financing together and make the deal. Anong could get another minimum wage job and I would have time to figure out what I wanted to do next.

Security was pretty loose at the center, but the campus was surrounded by a ten-foot-high brick wall topped by surveillance cameras. Jack knew a lot about security from spending some time in jail as well as his line of work (breaking and entering), so he’d spotted a camera that wasn’t operating and the adjacent one wasn’t installed for the best overlap. That’s where we would make our break, using a ladder he’d found in a shed. Jack was also a skilled lock picker. A very handy fellow to have around for a prison break. Trainees were allowed to wear our own clothes at the center, supposedly to increase the reality of the training exercises, so there would be no problem once we got over the fence. The most dangerous part, according to Jack, would be the two miles of woods and grassland separating the training facility from a nearby town. 

Once we got to town, Jack would use an alias he’d created for just such an eventuality. It wasn’t solid but would work for a few days, maybe a week, enough time for us to get our money and contact the underworld. 

The plan worked flawlessly. Right up to the point where I told Jack my account information and login credentials, so he could transfer the money to his account and buy our new identification documents. He verified the transaction, which had been executed on a computer in the public library, and we went to a quiet park to plan our next step. Jack’s eyes were twinkling when he explained what was going to happen next.

“This is where we part ways, Ellison my boy. I no longer have need of your services, now that we’ve completed our financial business.” 

“Say what?” I stammered. His smile reminded me of a bully from fifth grade. In fact, Jack was the spitting image of that guy, older and with red hair and a different name. 

“I didn’t have enough money to buy my way into the underworld, but I do now. Thanks for the leg up. So off you go. Go on now and don’t get any ideas about beating me up and getting your money back because, for one thing, I’m a lot bigger and meaner than you and, for another, it’s all in the cloud. Don’t have a dime on me.” He turned out his pockets to emphasize his last point.

I charged and knocked him to the ground, landing a couple of punches, before he regained his poise and fought back. I jumped off him before he could roll over on top of me, which would have been a very bad situation for me because he outweighed me by at least fifty pounds. I noticed a police officer on a bicycle entering the park and decided that if I was going back to the training center, so was Jack, and maybe I could sue him to get my money back.

I started jumping around, darting in and throwing ineffectual punches, avoiding his powerful but slow responses. I made as much noise as I could, taunting him, calling him names, lots of shouted profanities. It must have looked like a comedy sketch to the policewoman who came over to investigate. I noticed the pistol on her belt and smiled at Jack, dropping my fists.

“What’s going on here? Are you guys doing some sparring this morning?” Her disarming smile was no doubt the result of long practice and lots of experience dealing with violent men. 

Personally, I felt better already but Jack looked nervous, his brown eyes shooting threats in my direction. I immediately answered her query. “We escaped from Cookstown Training Facility and were planning to disappear into the Underworld, as my erstwhile friend, Jack Sharp, presented his intention. What he failed to divulge was that he would steal my money and disappear, in effect financing his disappearance through a con game. I would like to press charges against him for wire fraud, theft, impersonating a fellow escapee…”

She wasn’t listening to me. Her hand was on her weapon as she completed a brief conversation on her headset. “Got it. Awaiting backup—”

Jack flinched and her weapon was facing him as fast as a rattlesnake’s strike. “Stop right there, Mr. Sharp, and get on the ground with your hands behind your back—you know the drill. Do it now!”

Jack obeyed and she put cuffs on him. He wasn’t going anyplace, although what Officer Mancini said next suggested he might be going to a different kind of underworld.

“Your buddy is looking at twenty years for escaping from a federal detention facility, not to mention that his criminal record meets the Public Safety Act’s criteria for life imprisonment. No wonder he wanted to escape to the underworld. The transaction you referred to has been cancelled, Mr. Barber, and you will be returned to the center because the federal government has no interest in filing felony charges against you.” She paused and asked Ellison, “Is it that bad in Cookstown? We have people showing up all the time. They don’t run or resist, and they don’t seem to be afraid when they’re returned, so why the whole underworld scheme?”

I recalled how I’d been talked into this stupid escape by a hardened criminal who had seen me as a victim, a thought that made me cringe in embarrassment. I shook my head. “No, but some of us, those who’ve had trouble finding a career—we don’t all know we want to be police officers when we’re kids—get a little freaked out at what might happen if we fail…again—if you know what I mean.”

Several patrol cars pulled up as she replied, “I know what you mean. I didn’t want to be a police officer until I went through the same training program as you, but in Florida. I love my job and my community, and you will too. I guarantee it.” Her understanding smile warmed Ellison’s heart as she went back to work.

***

I noticed a nuanced change in Dr. Heard’s demeanor when I entered her office after my return to Cookstown. Her expression was more like Officer Mancini’s supportive smile, until she introduced the older man waiting for me like a snake, his wrinkled hands laying on the glass surface of her curved desk, black eyes hiding what was going through a devious mind. 

“Ellison, this is Dr. Defoe. He is the director of Cookstown Training Center. His presence here indicates nothing more than his personal interest in learning why some participants in the program try to run away. He is not here to judge or punish you, but he may have some comments after we’ve discussed what happened. Okay?”

I looked at Dr. Defoe. He had a square forehead framed by unnaturally brown hair for his age and his bent nose looked like it had been broken more than once. Maybe a boxer? Not a heavyweight like Jack, possibly a middleweight, but he could have kicked my ass even at his age. He nodded his agreement with Dr. Heard’s assessment of his role, so I nodded too. 

I expected her to clear her throat but she just got to the point. “What happened?”

Another simple question. Ambiguous enough to encourage me talk about what was important to me yet focused on a recent event. I thought a moment about taking the deep, personal road or the freeway, finally choosing the first. “I was desperate to get back to Anong, which made me easy prey for a confidence man like Jack Sharp. Also…I admit I’m a little concerned about what happens to people who fail—”

Dr. Defoe interjected, “No one fails, Ellison, not at Cookstown or any of the other training centers.”

I couldn’t believe I’d answered her first, skillfully buried, question as well as her second. She was good, but Dr. Defoe worried me. The edges of his mouth were sinking under gravity, giving his facade an undeniable look of disapproval. I nodded curtly, avoiding eye contact, but didn’t continue my unfortunate tirade.

Dr. Heard’s hands disclosed nothing as she continued, “If everything had gone according to plan, would Anong have joined you and Jack in the underworld?”

There she went again, asking a single, unavoidable question. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to her about it because—I didn’t know we had that option, and we just wanted to be together, but she was so happy that… No. I don’t think she would have even packed a bag. She isn’t a fool like me, even though I call her brain dead all the time, to her face—why do I do that? I guess I’m just a stupid, fucking asshole!” I was on my feet but there were too many targets for my accusing finger, so I sat down, suddenly exhausted. 

Dr. Defoe cleared his throat before beginning, “Do you have any more questions, Dr. Heard, or is it my turn?”

Dr. Heard almost grinned at his question but settled on nodding discreetly.

“What were you running from, when you joined a known felon in an escape from a low-security facility?”

I was too tired, after escaping and hiding out, not eating enough, dealing with Jack’s treachery and my own stupidity, to come up with a glib response. “I was just running…just running, always running… What do you want to hear?”

“The truth,” was his dry response.

***

“I love you!” 

I grinned at Anong’s exuberant greeting. “I love you even more.”

She was laughing as she retorted, “I doubt that, Mr. Barber, but I’ll let it go for now. Are you getting used to being treated with respect?”

I spilled my guts about what had happened. She told me stories of people who’d done the same thing and returned, just like me, and finished the program. She saw it as a promising sign that I was on the right track. When asked what my favorite section was, I lied and said that I liked law enforcement—only because of Officer Mancini’s advice.

“Did you make sure to tell them about our relationship?”

Another unambiguous question. “They know that I love you and we are engaged.”

A sudden indrawn breath. “Really?”

“Several times, but whatever happens, believe me when I say that I will come to you and we will be married and live like real people—adults. I’m tired of this way of life… I’m sorry, I got carried away. We’ll be together and you will pursue your career while I follow mine, whatever it might be—”

“You’re scared. I can hear it in your voice. I know how hard this is for you, so I won’t lecture you, but remember one thing: We are going to be married and have a family, and how successful we will be is up to you. Do you understand?” She was doing a good job at being the supportive partner.

I got it, loud and clear. Stop fucking with Dr. Heard. Compromise. Find something in those occupational lessons that I could live with. Think about a job rather than drift into one. That was her real message. I had to give the subject a lot more thought. The problem was that I wasn’t intentionally antagonizing Dr. Heard and Dr. Defoe—I simply can’t control my mouth when confronted by authoritarianism. Unable to resolve my internal dispute, I settled for another compromise.

“It’s going to work out, Sweetheart—”

Did you just call me sweetheart?” 

Her expression said it all, so I nodded my acceptance of whatever that appellation meant to her—and me.

***

The other trainees grilled me on why I had tried to leave the program without authorization, and what had happened, especially what had happened to Jack. I told them the truth. No one called me a fool but neither did they express any interest in attempting a similar escape, to become permanent exiles within society. That thought had never occurred to me. It sure as hell would have occurred to Anong, however, a fact that had somehow escaped me when I’d been under Jack’s influence. I sure as hell felt like a fool. 

 The training program continued. I concentrated on our assignments and tried not to think of it as a colossal waste of time. One-by-one the others found a trade that suited them and advanced to the placement program. They underwent more psychological testing and completed extensive interviews, as well as simulations of life in different social environments—no wonder Anong was so happy in her career. I was convinced that the training center represented a legitimate effort to place people in the right working and living situation by the time I was the only one left in my class. They had run out of occupations. No one had tried to convince me to choose one of the many we had been introduced to, not even a suggestion to think about it. It was like they didn’t care what happened to me. Paranoia convinced me that Anong was right about the hard labor that awaited me, as the only person to fail the program. I was pretty despondent when I reported to Dr. Heard to discuss my predicament.

Dr. Defoe was sitting in the same chair as before when I entered Dr. Heard’s office, but the atmosphere was subtly different. I couldn’t tell what was going on. For the first time, she cleared her throat before speaking. “How do you feel about the training program, Ellison?”

I found it easier to speak openly after spending several months at the Cookstown facility, so I didn’t hesitate to answer her question. “I’ve been trying, Dr. Heard. I really want to find the right career, butI don’t know…maybe I should be a carpenter, or stay in the restaurant business—”

Dr. Defoe interjected, “Why do you think you have failed to be placed, Mr. Barber?”

That was a hard question. I shook my head indecisively and said, “Maybe I’m an incorrigible nonconformist. I’ve had many of the jobs that were part of the training program, so…maybe I’m not cut out for doing anything. Maybe I’m a failure…”

Dr. Heard smiled sympathetically, her head imperceptibly shaking in disagreement. “No, Ellison. Everyone has something they enjoy doing, but for some of us it isn’t obvious. Tell us about your feelings with respect to the occupations you found most interesting.”

So I rambled for a half hour about appreciating the complexity of many of the jobs I’d had in the past, and some I’d been introduced to at the training center but, based on my experience with many of them, the challenges decreased with time and they would all quickly become routine. I pointed out that my average longevity in a career was less than a year. 

When I ran out of steam, Dr. Defoe said, “I see your point, Mr. Barber, you may not be suited for any of the careers available through this program. What do you think, Dr. Heard?”

She nodded uncertainly and replied, “He will need further processing, probably at the Silver Springs facility. We will need to complete a few more tests to be certain, however.”

I imagined being connected to a brain scanner, the results of my further processing relegating me to a lithium mine in Utah, maybe a recycling center in Mississippi. My worst fears had been realized.

I was a useless human being.

***

“Things work a little differently here at the Silver Spring training center.” 

I had already surmised my status as human refuse before the middle-aged woman seated across from me, in a nondescript office with a single window looking out on a luxuriant lawn, had pointed out the obvious. This was the last stop—lithium mine or recycling center? 

“How’s that?” I asked, resigned to my fate and no longer willing to play the game. The boldness of a condemned man.

Dr. Springer smiled at me and said, “For one thing, Mr. Barber, you will need to upgrade your wardrobe. Managers don’t typically wear T-shirts adorned with pop art and those jeans belong in the trash can. For another, this is an open facility. You probably noticed the lack of security. Silver Spring is an open campus. Despite the absence of barriers, no one has ever failed to complete our program, a statistic we are very proud of. Finally, you will be expected to perform at the highest level which, from your work record and Dr. Defoe’s report, I don’t think will be a problem. Are you prepared to begin your advanced placement program?”

From the satisfied smile on her face, I assumed my mouth was hanging open. I closed it and said, “Yes, ma’am. Is there some way I can contact my fiancee and let her know where I am now? She’s been very concerned about my…well, about my lack of progress in the training program thus far.”

“Classes begin next week, so you have until then to complete any personal business. After that, you will be occupied with becoming the person you were meant to be, so I suggest you visit Anong and spend a few days together, before beginning the most intellectually challenging experience of your life.”

***

I could come and go as I pleased, so I followed Dr. Springer’s advice. I took the Metro from Silver Spring to Ashburn, Virginia, where I got a Lyft ride to the steakhouse where Anong was the head hostess. My stomach was demanding immediate gratification when I stepped up to the hostess station to face my fiancee.

“What are you doing here?!”

“I’m hungry and I heard that this is the place for a great steak and lobster dinner. Do you have a table, or should I sit at the bar?”

She led me to a secluded booth and immediately demanded, “Why did you quit the program and ruin our future?!”

I smiled sarcastically and replied conversationally, “I can’t wait to correct your misunderstanding, Sweetheart, but for now could I get a menu and a glass of water, and a glass of my favorite beer?”

She tensed, then her jaw relaxed and she nodded. “Your server will be with you shortly, but I’ll get your beer myself. I love you.”

This novel was written in 1994 but not translated to English until 2019, so this is a hybrid like other novels I’ve reviewed by Japanese authors. The translator did a very good job, however, and it reads very easily. The sentences are mostly very short, which conveys the sense of hopelessness that dominates the novel. The narrator tells the story in the first-person past tense, which is curious considering how the book ends.

The author uses a very clever technique to tell the story in two separate threads within one novel, with separate protagonists dealing with antagonists who steal their identities through a series of exhausting tribulations. This is a story about the hopelessness of fighting to stay alive in a confusing world. It can be interpreted as either a commentary on postmodern society or personal depression. It carries both messages equally well, at least to me. I lean slightly toward depression myself. It was a very depressing story.

The author does an excellent job getting inside the head of the main narrator (shall I say “outer character?”). However, there isn’t much there, just an inevitable spiral into resignation and submission to the unknowable void. Even a brave act of rebellion turns out to have neither meaning nor chance of success. The nameless heroine is representative of the world depicted in the story, a world with no names for places or people, where fatalism rules and those who resist are swept up by the “Memory Police” or go into hiding for the rest of their lives.

This book was classified as science fiction, but I would call it either fantasy or a horror story. Although it has some similarities to “Brave New World” or “1984,” it is more like “Animal Farm.” The plot is simply too fantastical to interpret as being anything but a metaphorical twist on social problems like alienation and depression.

As a science fiction story, “Memory Police” is a failure, but it is successful as a social commentary expressed by a likable, if simpleminded, narrator.

But I couldn’t take too much of it at a time. It’s that much of a downer…

Read whatever you find. That’s my motto. I always heard about this book but I managed to never read it or see any of the movies based on it. It wasn’t my “thing” even though I had no idea what it was about. The title says it all.

It turns out that this is a short novel (probably even a short novella) written for teenage girls. It is also a literary study in character development — introducing, challenging, revealing the inner thoughts and emotions of four sisters during a tumultuous personal and family period as it does. Nevertheless, Jo is the central character and most of the action focuses on her growing friendship with the boy next door, but this line is dropped suddenly when the narrator’s attention turns to her older sister, who has a potential suitor. The whole story is like that. The focus jumps around a lot because of so many protagonists in such a short story. No subplot is pursued. Everything is in the air at the end, which leapt on my like a hidden tiger. Boy was I surprised…

As an adult fiction, it would have needed a lot more explanation of convenient gaps in the action, not to mention a better ending, but adolescents don’t have time for that.

This flash fiction is something I wrote as a practice piece in the writing group I’m in. It is in response to three prompts: 1)  A character needs to display at least three clearly identifiable emotions; 2) Two characters are engaging in conversation, but one never speaks; and 3) Only 5 sentences can be longer than 10 words. And it has to be less than 500 words. (Note that I used italics on the longer sentences.)

I was having a bad day, one episode in a bad week. Thank god for Freddie. We met at our usual place, for a few beers. It was Friday. He was waiting for me, sipping a Bud. He didn’t look up as I sat across from him. Something was wrong. I let it go and ordered a Bud Light. I knew what was wrong, why the silent treatment. Marital issues. I kept my mouth shut until my beer arrived. 

“Was it about last weekend? Did Lisa go ballistic because we got drunk?”

He nodded but didn’t look up. White knuckles said that this was worse than I thought. Freddie wasn’t a violent man, but Lisa was a handful. “Did she…like…you know…?”

His dark eyes met mine in confirmation. His fist suddenly slammed the mug into the table. Beer splashed. The server came quickly to clean up. The young woman knew Freddie. 

I finished my Bud Light. “Another round. He’s cool…”

A nod from Freddie, acknowledgment, a moment to reconnect with my best friend since high school. We had always used subvocal communications to share our feelings. “You don’t have to say a word. We’ve been through this before. Lisa is really hot, right?”

He nodded, started to speak, but I interjected, “You hate each other, right?”

Another nod.

“But you both like the sex, am I right?”

His face lit up, illuminated by memories of his and Lisa’s sexual activity, which wasn’t limited to the bedroom. His brow furrowed in deep thought. I knew what he was thinking, so I added, “I don’t get it, Dude! You and Lisa are like wolves, the way you fuck and fight. But it works for you… Did she throw you out?”

A shake of his blonde head confirmed my suspicions.  

“It was that Mexican chick, wasn’t it? Did you fuck her?”

He nodded. I threw my hands up in exasperation. “I can’t believe you fucked her for those big tits!” 

Freddie shrugged, wanting to say something he couldn’t form into a sentence. He’s like that. The strong, silent type. I’m not like that, so I let him have it. “You are an asshole! Do you understand that simple fact?”

He nodded and his gaze focused on his beer. 

I hadn’t finished. “I would kill you to fuck Lisa, she’s that hot. Well…you know what? Your most-recent extramarital affair isn’t such big news. I have a bulletin for you. I lost my job today. I’m out of work.”

Tears appeared at the corners of Freddie’s blue eyes. His marital concerns morphed into empathy. He does that naturally. He hugged me, offering to do whatever he could to help. His sofa was at my disposal.

Another random read, another crime drama, but this time an incomplete part of a series, starting nowhere and leading to a dead end, and best of all, based in Glasgow, Scotland. The dialogue may have been accurate but how am I to know? Even the narrator (the story is told in threads based on close-in POV characters) uses slang, which meant northing to me. I looked a lot of it up.

Grammar and punctuation followed the usual paradigm, deteriorating at the halfway point but, because of the slang used by the narrator I don’t know if it was intentional or not. This book should not have been released outside of Scotland, or maybe the U.K. Maybe it should have been translated to American English.

I am certain there is a plot, but it’s a lot bigger than this novel, which I was not told was incomplete when I started reading it. This piece of the story had no plot to speak of. It was like a narrative of a…actually it wasn’t even a good episode of a police drama. The solution of the crime graphically described on the back cover was only in the minds of the characters, with no actual evidence. Pretty cheap.

The cast of characters promised a lot but the plot (such as it was) failed to bring their stories together in anything close to a coherent picture. The author had a great idea but utterly failed to deliver an interesting and rewarding, not to mention entertaining, piece of imaginative fiction. This novel isn’t worth the time it takes to read the back cover.

Thank god I borrowed it from the library and didn’t waste my own money…

“Excuse me sir, but could you tell me where I am?” 

The young man’s eyes were glazed when his stumbling progress stopped and he faced me. His countenance exploded in delight as he responded, “Oh, man, you are not from this world, it’s like I needed to meet an alien…”

“What?”

“I never met a blue man in person. Awesome!”

“Could you tell me where I am…on earth I mean?”

The young man wrapped his arm around my shoulder and said, “The more important question is where did you come from?”

I understood. He wouldn’t accept me without knowing my origins, as awkward as that might be. “I came here from another galaxy, a long way from here.” I realized that my ability to speak with this stranger, enabled by my universal translator, couldn’t bridge the gap in our life experiences.

The young man lit a cigarette and said, “Bring it on, dude!”

“What?”

“Tell me about your home planet. What’s it called?” 

I had to think a moment before responding. “Eclectic. I come from another galaxy, a planet where everyone does whatever they wish at any moment. Is that how it is here?”

The young man took a drag from his cigarette and said, “It can be pretty crazy, but I don’t know if it’s like Eclectic…I mean, that’s wild. Tell me more.”

“Let me see…on Eclectic people don’t have physical bodies so we don’t have houses to live in, or offices where we go to work, no freeways or metros—”

My companion stepped back and asked, “Are you like ghosts? Did you come from the afterlife? That is way cool!”

“Not at all. What I mean is that it isn’t like…this. I don’t have to walk to get around, so we don’t have roads or highways, no cars. We move between places by…hmmm…I just have to think about where I want to be.”

“I get it, like in Star Trek, with the transporter and all. Cool. What about trees and shit like that?”

“We don’t have any trees or plants on Eclectic. No wild animals either. What I mean is that life didn’t evolve like here, with bacteria and plants and animals and intelligence. We just skipped straight to the top of the evolutionary ladder, and became virtual beings, but grounded in reality–not ghosts…”

“Is Eclectic a planet, you know, like earth?”

“As far as our scientists can tell, we live in a subset of dimensions from the eleven that define the multiverse we share with you. There are no planets.”

“Do you have a family?”

“Yes. I have a partner and two children. We live in a beautiful sphere surrounded by a sea of blue methane, sparkling with effervescent bursts of red.”

“Why are you here?”

“I am an explorer.”

“So, you guys have like a NASA or some shit?”

I had been briefed on this universe, so I answered, “Yes, exactly the same.”He threw the cigarette into the street. “Cincinnati, Ohio.”

I’ve seen paperbacks by this author all my life, in airport book shops and bookstores. I never read one of her more than 100 books (I guessed at the total but they’re listed on the frontispiece), so I figured I might as well. If you’ve read any of my reviews, you know I don’t have very high standards. Still, for Danielle Steel to still be on the shelves, her books must be pretty popular. The back cover claims that she’s sold almost a billion copies of her novels. That’s quite a feat.

I’m not sure how to begin. I didn’t find a single cut-and-paste error or misspelled word. Commas weren’t randomly distributed and the grammar and punctuation were textbook correct. Either the author is extremely careful or she has an outstanding copy editor. For all I know, she may write on an old Remington typewriter, like I started out on as a child (from the photo on the back, she looks old enough).

This novel reads as if it were written by a third-grader, for a third-grade audience. Most of the sentences consisted of a main clause, followed by a “comma” and “and,” followed by an often-unrelated clause that had nothing to do with the original topic of the sentence. A few “buts” were thrown in, possibly as afterthoughts.

I have never read a book as repetitive as this one. Material from chapter one was still being repeated (for the tenth or twentieth time) in the last chapter; sometimes a detail about a character’s background or personality was repeated in the same paragraph! And I thought the Qur’an was repetitive (actually, it wins the prize…so far).

This is an outstanding example of why it is a really bad idea to use an omniscient narrator, especially with a lot of characters. The narrator was head-hopping (sharing the thoughts and motivations of different characters within a short span of words) so much I got dizzy, going so far as starting a sentence in one mind and ending it in another. And there were a lot of minds to invade, at least ten, probably a dozen if you count late-comers.

Because of the omniscient narrator, there was no surprise in what passed as a plot. The reader knows all about everyone, long before they can show their true colors. What a sham! I found myself wondering what meaningless scenes would fill the remainder of the book long before I reached the half-way point.

Needless to say, every one of the ensemble cast of characters was sorted out and either sent to Heaven or Hell by the end. If you like simple stories with no suspense and happy endings, this novel is for you. And there are so many others to enjoy, as listed in the frontispiece photo above. For me, I’d rather read a poorly written novel with some surprises and (hopefully) a plot rather than third-grade prose.

Have fun…

Clarisse Yankovic’s faded blue eyes scanned her surroundings without recognition, the house she had lived in for almost fifty years now an alien landscape. She had fallen in love with the brick-clad, French Revival home the first time she laid eyes on it and, with help from their families and a large mortgage, she and David had moved into their dream house immediately after getting married. That had been forty-seven years earlier. The three children who’d filled the stalwart edifice with life had moved out decades ago to raise their own families, only visiting on holidays, birthdays, and her and David’s wedding anniversary. The house had quietly been invaded by cleaning and maintenance crews supplied for a monthly fee by a property management company. They had lived as tenants in their own home for too many years, a situation tolerated because of its simplicity. All that had changed when David died suddenly of a heart attack the previous year. 

It had suddenly dawned on her that there was no longer any reason to remain in St. Louis, dealing with the cold winters and an army of professionals keeping the house in perfect working order; their home had become nothing more than a repository of fond memories, not to mention a money pit. Her dream home was a museum. And she was a mannikin, part of the display, brought to life for special occasions like Christmas–Sacajawea in Night at the Museum. 

Today was the day. She informed the house of her decision. “I’m moving to Florida or maybe Southern California and I’m afraid I won’t be able to take you with me.” She waved her arms expansively and continued, “I have plenty of memories stored in my diaries, countless photo albums, and in the cloud, so I don’t need daily reminders from every corner of your beautiful interior. I’m sorry but that’s how it has to be…”

She paused but the house didn’t respond.

“Very well then. Let’s spend our last few months together pleasantly. I’m going to start sorting out the physical memories while my children and several charitable organizations pick your bones clean. But don’t worry because a new family will soon move in and I’m trusting that you will shelter them and keep them safe, right?”

Still no response. 

Clarisse danced up the stairs as she continued, “We’re going to start in the attic. Get the worst part over first was always my motto. I know that’s your most personal area but don’t worry, I won’t violate your privacy. I’m just going to remove a lot of what you probably see as clutter but which, to me, represents memories stored away for many, many years.”

She reached the second-floor landing and used an extendible hook to pull down the attic door recessed in the ceiling, revealing a folding stair. The maintenance people had kept it in perfect condition over the years, so she confidently climbed the sturdy treads. Reaching the top, she flipped the light switch that had been expertly installed decades ago, bathing a space defined by steeply dipping rafters bathed in high-efficiency LED lighting. She spent several minutes identifying the contents that had been randomly stored over the decades. It was like a library where the books had been arranged using a classification scheme based on a dead language, something like the Dewey decimal system. With no one to argue with her, Clarisse made an executive decision. She turned off the light and carefully descended the steep attic stair, closed the ceiling door on its hydraulic pistons, and called the property management company to request a couple of able-bodied young men to move the attic’s contents to the ground floor. 

*      *      *

“Where do you want us to put everything, ma’am?”

A pair of strapping young men appeared at Clarisse’s door the next day, ready to haul heavy boxes and to whatever manual labor she asked. “Would you mind rearranging the furniture in the living room to make space for everything? I’m moving out and it doesn’t matter where it all goes as long as it can be removed by the people who are coming from Salvation Army and Habitat for Humanity…”

The young Hispanic man glanced around, shrugged indifferently, and said, “No problem.”

Clarisse stayed out of the way while her house became a three-dimensional, full-size version of Tetra. She watched in amazement as the dining room became a storage facility, the chairs carefully stacked on the table’s unblemished surface, covered by bedding from her ample linen supply. The living room was emptied in a few minutes, before being filled with the contents of the attic, which included open cartons containing items piled haphazardly which it made no sense to have saved. None of it was intimidating when exposed to the sunlight streaming in the front windows. She thanked the two men after several hours of hard work and offered them a tip for their services.

“You two have worked so hard, catering to all my stupid whims…”

The older man waved his tattooed arm and said, “Just doing our job, ma’am. We’re glad you’re happy with our work.”

Clarisse wouldn’t be satisfied with just telling them they’d done a good job. She wanted to give them a tip. “As a token of my appreciation, I would like each of you to take one item you like from the house, but of course not my memorabilia.” Their confused expressions prompted her to elaborate. “Anything you can carry with you…” She glanced out the window at the moving van parked in her driveway and added, “Anything that will fit in your truck.” 

She waved her arms as an invitation.

“Anything?” the younger man asked.

She nodded.

“The big-screen TV?”

“It’s yours,” she replied nonchalantly.

The sixty-inch TV and sectional sofa disappeared into the truck with as much alacrity as the attic’s contents had been transported to the living room. Feeling that the house was glad to have its attic emptied, relieving it of supporting so many memories it couldn’t possibly comprehend, Clarisse was compelled to rush to the side of the van as it was about to leave. She pushed two crisp hundred-dollar bills into the tattooed hand and said, “Someday, you’ll be my age—what I mean is that you did a lot more than move some boxes out of the attic…”

The two young men responded in unison, “Yes, ma’am.” 

*      *      *

The first thing Clarisse found among the attic’s displaced contents was a sealed box labelled, “Clarisse’s Diaries.” It had a date, just like several other boxes closed as tightly. But there wasn’t enough space to move the cartons around, to find the first diary she’d ever written, a record she had forgotten about long ago. Unable to find space in the crowded ground floor of her dream house, she had to wait for the removers, the men who would take away all the furniture that made it impossible to expose her memories to the light of day. She was certain the stoic house was looking on, taking no more than a passing interest in her efforts. 

“I hope you’re having as much fun as me,” she proclaimed, waving a glass of wine poured from a bottle discovered amongst the attic’s treasures. 

There was no answer. 

The next day, the game of Tetra continued. The moving men, representing competing philanthropic enterprises, arrived within minutes of each other, creating a tense situation and forcing Clarisse to make decisions about which charitable organization got what. Not having given it a lot of thought beforehand, she used a simple rule: Habitat for Humanity got anything made of wood whereas the Salvation Army got everything else, including David’s clothes, which had been hanging in the closet for more than a year. Having a set of rules in place, the house watched silently as its contents were systematically removed, leaving only Clarisse and the minimum necessities: a single bed from a guest room; an armchair; a folding TV tray; a few pans that neither of the charitable organizations wanted; some random plates and bowls; and the contents of the attic.

Clarisse breathed a sigh of relief as the last team of mercenaries left, transporting the bulkiest evidence of her previous life to unknown places. She sat in the sole remaining chair and looked at the blank walls, no longer adorned with expensive decorations, and expressed her feelings about the day.

“Thank god that’s over with.” 

She was certain the house breathed a sigh of relief.

*      *      *

“I don’t understand, Thomas,” Clarisse began, gazing questioningly into the sharp blue eyes of her father’s younger brother, now ninety-three and still living in the same house he’d occupied for more than sixty years. 

“My diary repeatedly refers to you as not being welcome in our house. There are countless entries talking about how you forced your way in but papa was too polite to call the police. But that isn’t what I recall at all. You were always visiting—spending all day on Saturday—taking me to the park. You showed me how to throw a baseball for Christ’s sake!”

Thomas’ pearly teeth gleamed, matching the twinkle in his bright eyes, as he responded to her despondent query. “First off, your first diary entry is accurate. Ivan went nuts when I told him I was gay and it was on Christmas Eve, 1954, and he called me a lot of names. I seem to recall throwing some back at him as well before storming off, swearing to never set eyes on him again. But we cooled down. He got over the initial shock and so did I. He had trouble accepting that I was gay—I had to fit his idea of a proper, manly brother. But, like I said, Ivan and I got over our first reactions and patched things up. So, your memory is more reliable than the diary you wrote when you were a young girl, almost seventy years ago, probably because your memories haven’t been transformed into words.” He patted Charisse’s hand and added, “A lot gets lost in translation.”

Clarisse was glad to have Thomas verify her recollection of events so many years in the past, which only served to remind her of so many other ambiguous entries, recorded when she was older. They talked about her diary while sitting on his front porch, occasionally interrupted by neighbors passing by, and eventually concluded that neither of their memories of past events was perfect. They argued about several of her diary entries, recorded through the decades, and each came to recognize the frailty of what they had assumed was reality. Thomas wrapped up the long conversation, lubricated by coffee and tea, by standing up suddenly.

“I think we have established that the written word isn’t very reliable. I’m just glad that the camera was invented, giving us visual proof of events and more importantly, the existence of our ancestors and thus ourselves.”

Clarisse added, “Not to mention the internet and social platforms, where we can…” Her words trailed off as she recalled when she’d discontinued writing in her diary because of the easy access of a multimedia platform like Facebook to store her memories. No more need of a diary, photo albums, or scribbled notes in the margins of letters and newspaper clippings. It was all digital now. 

She found her voice and added, “Oh my, that’s another can of worms, Thomas. I think I may have propagated my myopic, self-centered view of reality into the digital age.”

He looked at her comfortable shoes and said, “Are you up for a short walk?”

She nodded and waited for him to continue.

“Let’s go for an early dinner or late lunch, what do you say? We can discuss how you’re going to reconcile your treasure trove of historical documents with your mind’s unique point of view.”

Clarisse stood up and, nodding emphatically, said, “That’s a great idea, Thomas. Talking to you is mentally challenging and I think I’ve burned at least a thousand calories already. I’m famished.”

Her arm naturally entwined with his as they stepped off the porch. Suddenly self-conscious she grasped his bony forearm and said, “What will your neighbors think, with you walking with…I guess I’m a younger woman?”

He patted her grasping hand and admitted, “I was so excited about your visit that I told the entire neighborhood about my niece coming to visit. I don’t know if they expected a young girl or not, but you will always be Jackie to me.”

Clarisse squeezed his arm and said, “You called me that until I quit playing softball after high school. It was your private way of telling me how much you loved me…” She stopped, unsure if she’d stepped over a forgotten line.

She breathed a sigh of relief when Thomas quickly kissed her forehead and said, “Damn right, Jackie, that’s exactly what I was doing.”

She felt like a child again, memories of throwing a baseball awakened, the feel of the glove on her right hand, Thomas laughing as she threw the ball past him, too fast for him to catch, him standing behind her showing her how to hold the bat, his excited cheering from the four-tier bleachers at the middle-school fields where she’d played. The memories were so overwhelming that Clarisse stopped, her eyes filled with tears, and stammered, “I remember everything now, Thomas. I’d forgotten how close we were until just now. Can you forgive me for abandoning you for so many years?”

He took a handkerchief from the pocket of his tweed blazer, dabbed the tears from her eyes, and said, “You didn’t abandon me, Jackie. We both had happy and fulfilling lives. Now we are back together, sharing old memories of younger days filled with promise. We both lived our dreams and now…here we are, given a rare opportunity to be reunited after such a long separation. My eyes are filled with tears of joy too.”

She loosened her grip on his arm. “I feel like a little girl right now, walking with you like this, Uncle Thomas…”

He stopped and, tossing his long arm around her shoulders, looked into her eyes. “And I feel like a young man, so let’s avoid mirrors for the rest of the day.”

They laughed together. 

*      *      *

Clarisse had considered putting her diaries in storage because she definitely wasn’t going to haul them around the country with her. She had mentally committed to leaving St. Louis for a warmer place, but she hadn’t yet decided where exactly she was going. She was going to travel light, taking whatever fit in a large suitcase. During their late lunch and the drinks that had followed, Thomas had convinced her that she should have a cleansing ceremony, with a bonfire as the central theme, and then and there burn her diaries. She had at first been mortified at the idea of tossing her precious memories into flames, but he had persuaded her by sharing his own experience with loss. When his lifelong companion had died ten years earlier, Thomas had followed Edward’s wishes and destroyed all evidence of his existence. As Thomas had explained it, they had shared a beautiful life in this world and there was no reason to expect more than that. His argument had been so eloquent and deeply emotional that Clarisse had acquiesced, with the condition that he would attend the ceremony. He’d accepted the responsibility but made a request that had sent her into a panic: She had to invite the entire family to attend as well, presenting it as a celebration of life and renewal, like a wake for the recently deceased. 

“Everyone?!”

He’d nodded confidently and answered, “RSVP of course. No one will attend except me, but you will have declared your freedom from the past, and your intention to live as you wish.”

She’d been convinced by his argument, and now found herself standing in front of the firepit in the backyard, its blackened stones reminding her of the decades of joy this place had given her. What had seemed like a good idea was starting to look like a desperate plea for attention. The diaries, which had been so overwhelming in a house filled with furniture, comprised a pathetic pile next to the firepit, whose flames they were supposed to feed. They wouldn’t last five minutes.

Her mental anguish was interrupted by the sudden arrival of Thomas, accompanied by a very old woman Clarisse didn’t recognize, who clung to his arm as if it were a life preserver in a stormy sea. 

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” the elderly matron began. 

Clarisse was at a loss for words.

Thomas filled the silence with an informative comment. “I reckon it’s been more than fifty years since your college graduation, Clarisse. As I recall, that was when you and Helen last met…” 

“Aunt Helen?”

The elderly woman suddenly became enervated. “Where is the drink you promised me, Thomas? I’m thirsty and I have a feeling this bonfire is going to look more like a book burning and I hate destroying literature. Don’t light the fire until I’ve had a couple of drinks.”

The young man Clarisse had hired to bartend this exclusive event appeared with a cocktail, which he offered to the centenarian woman. She sipped it and looked at Thomas before saying, “You always were a sly fox. You could have made a fortune on Wall Street. But you never were a greedy man.”

Clarisse was overcome with memories. Again. This was a woman who, like Thomas, had made a profound impression on her, telling her at her college graduation party to forget all that sports bullshit because she wasn’t that good, and focus on making money. Clarisse had followed the advice she’d been given that day by the wife of her mother’s brother, Aunt Helen. Memories flooded into her consciousness and she lunged toward the frail, elderly woman, her assault stopped by Thomas’ surprisingly strong arm. 

“Don’t get carried away, Clarisse.”

She felt foolish when she realized that Aunt Helen, who had inspired her to pursue a business career rather than sports, was physically frail because she was more than a hundred-years old. Clarisse accepted the glass of sparkling wine offered by the server in lieu of hugging her aunt. 

“Hold this, Thomas,” Helen said, passing her glass to the younger man without looking. “Give me a hug, Clarisse, I’m not as brittle as he thinks.” She opened her arms wide enough for Clarisse to fit between them.

They hugged but Clarisse made a point of not squeezing too hard, as much as she wanted to compress five decades of missing affection into a single moment. She was crying again, a fact noted by Helen as she retrieved her drink from Thomas. “I’d join you in a good cry if I could, Jackie—yes, Thomas told me about that, centuries ago, but you don’t recall any of that, you were too young—but the truth is I don’t have any tears left…”

Clarisse wiped her eyes, sipped from her glass of wine, and tried to sound understanding in her reply. “I guess you have cried a lot of tears, losing so much, people you loved, I’m sorry—”

Helen waved her hand dismissively as Thomas helped her into a chair that had been placed near the fire pit. “No, Jackie, I mean that I can’t cry anymore. I’m too old and I don’t have any extra moisture to waste on emotional displays, or at least that’s what the doctor told me. I’m all gummed up inside, nothing working like it’s supposed to. I’m surprised I can still think; in fact, my memory is as sharp as a tack…” Her mouth emitted a shallow, hoarse cackle that grated on Clarisse’s nerves, the residue of a hearty laugh that her body was no longer able to reproduce. 

The bartender appeared with fresh drinks for everyone.

Clarisse took a moment to examine Helen as she pulled a pack of Marlboro cigarettes from her jacket pocket and removed one with fingers as steady as a surgeon’s. Her hair was as white as snow and cut short, but she wasn’t balding. Faded blue eyes peered out of sockets no deeper than Clarisse’s, shadowed by white eyebrows without a wisp of eyelashes for adornment. The smooth face was broken by no more wrinkles than Clarisse confronted every morning in the mirror, moot evidence that reaching Helen’s age was the result of factors having nothing to do with personal habits. She proved that when a lighter appeared in Thomas’ hand to light her cigarette.

“Thank you, Thomas. Now, let’s burn these books and get on with the real fun!”

The bartender lighted the prepared fire and retreated discretely, leaving Clarisse to supervise the proceedings. She tore some pages out of the first diary she’d ever written and threw them into the small flame to applause from Thomas and Helen. Encouraged, she became more daring, tossing pages and even entire diaries into the flames, feeding the fire with wrinkled newspapers used as packing for some of the other contents of the attic. 

The three elderly people watched the funeral pyre, feeding its appetite for paper, while the bartender kept their interest fueled with alcohol. When the last of the diaries had been consumed in flames, Helen lit another cigarette and offered one to Clarisse. At first offended, then confused, she accepted it and followed Thomas’ advice to not inhale but just puff it enough to keep it burning, instructions enthusiastically supported by Helen. It was somehow relaxing to hold the burning cylinder, a weed wrapped in paper, a habit that hadn’t killed Helen after more than forty years. Clarisse laughed and choked at that thought, that Helen hadn’t started smoking until her husband had died of lung cancer, when she was sixty. 

“What’s wrong?” Helen asked.

Struggling to get a grip on something she couldn’t identify, much less control, Clarisse stammered, “I feel lost, as if the floor just dropped out from under me…nothing makes sense anymore—where are my children? I mean, for god’s sake, I invited them personally, on the phone, it’s not like this is the middle of the night…” She glanced at her watch before continuing, “It’s only seven o’clock. They only live a few minutes away and their children are old enough to be left home alone for days if not weeks…” She was sobbing by the end of her tirade and collapsed into the chair next to Helen.

A shriveled, dry hand covered hers and a hoarse voice, coming from just before the grave, said, “That’s how it goes, Jackie. Don’t fret about it or you’ll go crazy. Let’s go inside and take a peek at some of the old family photos you’ve been storing in the attic. I have a feeling we may have another book burning before too long.” Her lively eyes didn’t have to look far for support because her mouth was twisted into a grin that reminded Clarisse of the Crypt Keeper. 

Thomas and Clarisse helped Helen to her feet as she threw her cigarette butt into the dying embers filling the firepit, floating on the soft breeze, reminders of the fragility of memory. Clarisse recalled a painting she’d seen once in a museum. The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali had made a deep impression on her even when she was only thirty years old, and now she was living that dream, or was it a nightmare? She accompanied the two people who seemed to be the only humans who cared about her and, holding tears of loss and pain deep inside her chest, made Thomas and Helen as comfortable as she could in the empty house she was occupying alone. 

Helen settled into the armchair, Thomas and Clarisse seated on folding chairs at her sides, and said, “I’m going to need another drink before I can deal with whatever your photo albums contain, Jackie…” 

Before she could finish her sentence, another whiskey sour appeared, delivered by the taciturn bartender, along with drinks for Clarisse and Thomas. Helen was in a good mood, so Clarisse wasted no time laying her oldest photo album on the TV tray, exposing images she only vaguely recognized to a centenarian mind as sharp as a scalpel.

*      *      *

“After what you’ve told me Clarisse, I would recommend Facebook Story instead of News Feed, and you aren’t a good candidate for platforms like Instagram or Snapchat because most of your contacts are on Facebook. They will eventually adapt to your new presence within the same platform whereas asking them to migrate their on-line presence—that’s highly unlikely.”

Jessica Holmes had been Clarisse’s internet consultant for almost twenty years. Intrigued by the unfamiliarity of the internet and the confidence exuded by a young black woman straight out of college, she’d become Clarisse’s first client. They had become good friends. Jessica had gone through Clarisse’s oldest photo albums (annotated with Thomas and Helen’s humorous comments scribbled on post-it notes) with her and digitized the images, including any comments as what she called metadata. It would all be stored in The Cloud for future retrieval, maybe by her children when they grew up a little more and weren’t so occupied with their own kids. Several boxes of memories were going to be reduced to a few gigabytes of data, according to Jessica, well below the storage capacity Google allowed at no cost. Clarisse would have been lost without her friend’s help, but she was confused.

“What’s wrong with just continuing with what I’m used to? It’s pretty straightforward, posting a photo or something and reading any comments, what’s wrong with that?”

Clarisse recognized the look on Jessica’s face, the same expression she used when she was about to explain something so obvious that anyone would know it, anyone familiar with the internet and social media. But she’d learned to listen to Jessica’s condescending lessons without getting defensive, so she bit her tongue as yet another example of warped perceptions, no more than the reflections from a funhouse mirror, was revealed.

“Of course, it works fine, but you want to get rid of false memories and inconsistent communications, especially to yourself, right?”

Clarisse nodded emphatically.

“I’ve analyzed your Facebook activity for the last ten years, Clarisse. That’s why I think you should switch to the Story paradigm.” Clarisse’s blank look prompted Jessica to continue, “A couple of people respond regularly to your posts, mostly with Likes rather than comments. A slightly larger group sees them but doesn’t react consistently. In fact—I don’t know how to say this, but you look at your own posts more than anyone else. They are a digital extension of your diaries and photo albums, a trip down memory lane and not much more. I’m not suggesting you disavow social media, only that you use it more effectively given your recent epiphany. And, by the way, I fully support your decision, in case I didn’t make that clear earlier…”

Clarisse was aghast. She swallowed hard and made up her mind. “So, this Story thingy is like gossip, I guess? I post a photo, maybe with an inappropriate comment, and it just disappears the next day? I don’t have to constantly check to see how it was received…one or two people might comment but then it goes away—could you show me how to do that?” 

*      *      *

Clarisse woke up in a strange place, sunrise’s first rays streaming through the thin curtains illuminating the austere room sequestering her from reality. This wasn’t her bedroom in the house she had emptied of her worldly possessions. She wasn’t lying in the bed she’d become accustomed to but instead in a soft, twin bed, a stiff pillow supporting her head. Recent memory sharpened and she recognized her surroundings. She was in Thomas’s guestroom. 

She had sold the house to a young couple with three children and two dogs. She was certain it would be happy with the new family. 

The week she’d spent with Thomas had been like a vacation, getting up late, having brunch instead of breakfast, going for walks in the park, window shopping, and of course visiting Aunt Helen. When Clarisse had pressed her elderly aunt about her health, Helen had sworn on an old, dusty bible she dragged out of a closet that she was in perfect health for someone her age. Her only medication was an occasional sedative to get a good night’s sleep and Tylenol for aches and pains. She had patted Clarisse’s arm and concluded her medical summary with, “I’ll probably just die in my sleep with no one the wiser. Of course, spending so much time with you and Thomas will probably add ten years to my life.”

Clarisse sat up, suddenly alert. Today was the day. Thomas and Helen were taking her to the train station, where she would board a local Amtrak train to meet up with the Southwest Chief in Kansas City. She would occupy a private suite for the scenic ride to Los Angeles. Her bag was packed. Her morning shower seemed to take forever, and getting dressed was far more complicated than she remembered it, but she finally made her appearance in the kitchen, where she and Thomas had coffee and discussed the day’s activities. It was dark. She looked at the clock and realized it was only 5:30 a.m., not even close to their usual time to get up. 

Feeling foolish, she went to the living room as quietly as she could, not wanting to wake up Thomas. Feeling her way in the semi-darkness to turn on a table lamp, she was startled when the room lit up, revealing Thomas sitting in his favorite chair, a cup of coffee in his hand.

“Why don’t you join me, Jackie?”

“Whaaaa—” she began.

“I couldn’t sleep and I’ve found that when I have insomnia, it’s better to get up because otherwise my back hurts in the morning. It’s something about being asleep, is what my doctor tells me. I’m so excited about your adventure, it’s like I’m the one getting on that train and going to California…”

They finished a pot of coffee and walked to a diner for breakfast. At Thomas’s insistence, she had the Full Monty, a pile of pancakes topped with blueberries, surrounded by scrambled eggs and home fries, covered with a mix of gravy and syrup, with a plate of sausage and ham on the side, not to mention toast and homemade strawberry preserves. As she worked on the delicious pile of heart-stopping instant death, he explained that he ordered it about once a month, but he didn’t eat anything more substantial than fruit and salad for several days afterward. In other words, she might not like the food on the train. 

“I wish you were coming with me, Thomas. You could get a ticket because we would be sharing a suite. And you could come back anytime you wanted on a plane or the return trip of the Southwest Chief. Please join me?!”

“Eat your biscuits, Jackie, and don’t leave any of that gravy. Now, about your childish demands, I would love to accompany you, and I may visit you in a couple of months and ride the Southwest Chief, but this is your voyage of discovery and emancipation. You haven’t done anything this adventurous since you went to college…”

Clarisse cleaned up all of her plates with Thomas watching approvingly, while she contemplated his words. Sitting there with him, she realized he was right. It wasn’t that her husband, David, had been overbearing, only that they had done everything together. Every decision was a team effort. Cleaning out the attic was the first personal decision she’d made without his input. Thomas had recognized this because…because he was older and wiser than her, and he’d been through it all himself. This really was something she had to do alone.

“Can I get you to promise to come out for a visit after I get established, not necessarily in a house or whatever—I am going to get a two bedroom apartment, expecting a guest to appear at any moment.” Her gaze dipped as she added, “Please?”

Thomas examined her plate as if making sure a child had eaten their broccoli, before his hand gently lifted her chin, urging her gaze to meet his. 

“I already bought a ticket.”