Part 1, Chapter 7

 

VII: The Sun

Ray jolted awake on the pink sofa to a shoulder-punch from Paula.

“Wh…?” He rubbed his aching side and squinted open tired eyes. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he’d gotten, but he could physically feel the weight of his eyebags. All things considered, the sofa had proven to be comfortable, its cushions likely having softened over years of abuse and enduring massive weight.

“You’ve slept enough. Up.”

Something about Paula’s clothing looked different. He knew before that her tank top was supposed to be white under the dust and spots of dried mud, but now it very nearly was white.

“What’d you do to your shirt?”

“It’s called washing, Ray. I used water and soap, and I suggest you try it, too.”

Wait…how long had he been asleep? He’d only intended a quick nap to wake himself up. He rushed over to the ladder, stumbling as he slowly regained his balance from being deep in sleep, and pushed open the heavy lid of the manhole. The sky was still bright and blue through the layers of interlocked sea grape and peppertree—he hadn’t missed it.

As he passed the remainder of the afternoon, he periodically opened the lid to check the sky. He was waiting for the day to take its first step towards darkness—for the first hint of imminent sunset.

When it was time, he took one of the towels that had made up his former bed into the kitchenette and laid it flat on the cracked and lopsided counter. Then out of the cupboard he gathered the stash of snacks and the bottle of soda he’d taken with the help of Hitchcock, as well as two (questionably discolored) plastic cups from the cupboard (he brushed the dust off first—he was man of hygiene). Then he tied the ends of the towel over the pile of goods into an ugly, but functioning, sack. He threw it over his shoulder and held it where the four corners knotted together. It was awkward to carry, but sort of fun; it made him feel like he was a man about to set off on a long journey. That, or a homeless man (which, really, he sort of was).

“Hey, I want to show you something,” he called to Paula.

“What?”

“Come follow me,” he said, “It’s outside.”

She followed behind with eyebrows knitted in suspicion as he climbed the ladder. Hitchcock, perched on the armrest of the sofa, sensed the excitement and lighted, following suit.

“What, is it something you found in the dumpster?” she asked once they had gotten to their feet on the surface. Hitchcock fluttered through the opening, and then she kicked the lid shut. But then she saw Ray was starting off in the opposite direction to the dumpster. “It’s not something bad, is it?”

“No, no, it’s not bad,” Ray said. Hitchcock landed on his shoulder and ruffled his feathers.

“What’s with the towel?”

“You’ll see! Patience, woman.” Paula shot him a look.

As they trudged through the mangroves, the woods gave its crown to the nocturnal, and soon the trees and underbrush were singing with frogs and crickets. Though the sun still hung in the sky, the approaching twilight had whisked away the brutality of the day’s heat, so that Ray didn’t dread leaving the shade of the canopy when they reached the woods’ end.

Now the abandoned stadium was in view, and they slunk around the edge of the asphalt until they reached the fence gate encircling it. He led them through the gap in the fence through which they’d exited on the night they’d woken up, and entered the jungle of graffiti and crumbling cement.

“Why are we back here? Did you figure something out?” Paula asked, voice rising with interest.

Ray felt a little guilty now. “Uhh, no. No, sorry,” he said, “It’s a little less…significant to our livelihood. But still cool.”

They’d reached the wooden boards that bridged the ground floor to the roof of the stadium. Under the cape of night, and with only Hitchcock to accompany him, the rotting platform had seemed a fun challenge within the bounds of danger a street cat would traverse—completely agreeable to Ray. But now that he’d come with Paula, the peril of the gaping holes in the wood and the worrying thinness of the wood stung a bit more sharply, and he wondered if she’d even want to try.

“Okay, this is the hard part,” he said. “It’s totally fine though, promise. I literally did it last night.”

“What do you mean, ‘this’? What’s ‘this’?”

“Climbing. Climbing this thing. We’re going up to the roof.”

“The roof? We’re climbing that thing? That splinter?”

Ray chewed his lip uncertainly.

“You can hold on to me if you want.”

“No, thank you.”

Steadily, they stepped onto the platform, leaning forward to keep their body weight balanced. A warm gust tugged at the board, and the wood creaked feebly. At one point Paula’s foot nearly slipped through one of the gaps, and Hitchcock chuffed as if to laugh at her. It was so steep that while climbing, they were nearly on all fours, so close were their hands to the wood in front of them.

Finally, they reached the concrete edge of the roof, and took the last ambitious steps off the platform. The air up here still carried the salt of the ocean, but was stripped of the murky stench of the mangroves. Under the light of the bronzing sky, the dull grey concrete glowed with warmth, and Paula’s sunglasses were turned so bright an orange they appeared fluorescent.

He opened his hands and gestured towards the horizon of the city skyline. “It’s the sunset!”

Paula cracked a smile. “This is what you wanted to show me?”

Ray sat down at the ledge of the roof, overlooking the city. He set down the sack beside him and untied the ends of the towel, revealing the mound of colorful plastic snack packaging. There were plantain chips, and cookies, and granola bars, and gummies, and all sorts of things that looked so artificial even Ray called into question their safety for human consumption.

“What? Where did you get all of this?” Paula asked, beaming. She sat to his side, so that her legs also hung off the edge.

“I found them,” he said proudly.

The smile vanished. She furrowed her brow. “You found them? You didn’t fish them out of the trash, did you?”

“No, no!” Ray said, waving his hand, “They’re clean, they’re clean, alright? From a vending machine. Totally luxury. I swear.”

Paula rummaged through the pile. “Some of these look so familiar,” she said distantly. She picked a bag of Swedish Fish. “These are pleasing to the eye. I think I’ve had these.”

Ray couldn’t have explained what Swedish Fish were. He wasn’t sure he’d even heard the name before. But somehow, he had a gut sensation that liking them was an incorrect perspective.

He took the soda bottle and fiddled around with it. He hadn’t realized bottle caps were so difficult to remove. Suddenly the raven jumped down from his shoulder and took the cap in his mouth, twisting his beak to the side until it flung off and bounced down the cement to the rows of seats far below their dangling feet.

“Ah. Thank you, Hitchcock.”

“You named that thing?”

“I did name that ‘thing’, and I think he appreciates it.”

He poured half the bottle into his cup, and half into hers, and they took sips of the fizzy soda. It was the strangest sensation—like his mouth was sparkling, and his nose burning, but not in an unpleasant way.

The sky seemed to fizz, too, as the setting sun sent sparks of bright orange to the edges of great cumulus clouds so vast they stretched directly above Ray’s head. From here the entire earth seemed to be dipped in a golden haze, like the light itself was a tangible veil hanging in the air. In the distance, the humidity in the air made the city skyline faint and misty.

He glanced over at Paula. She was sitting hunched forward, as if trying to submerge herself deeper into the sunset, staying completely still. He looked back down at the cup in his hands and watched in admiration of the sun’s reflection in the drink, and pretended he’d caught a part of the sun to keep.

“I’m supposed to be better than this,” Paula said suddenly.

Ray looked at her quietly. He’d envisioned snacking and looking at pretty colors, but evidently the sunset was making her introspective.

“None of this was supposed to happen,” she said.

Ray wanted to say, Well, there’s really no way of knowing that if you can’t remember anything about your life, but he stopped the words from blurting out.

“I think all of this was supposed to happen,” he said instead.

Paula looked at him doubtfully. “You’re not upset? It doesn’t mess with you, knowing there’s a massive gaping hole in your life? Or not even a hole, just an expanse of nothing up until a few days ago?”

He fidgeted with his cup, moving it so that the soda swirled and made a tiny carbonated whirlpool. “No, not really. It’s like, I don’t know what I’m missing. You know? I can’t be sad about something I can’t even remember. Maybe my life totally sucked before. I don’t know.”

“But maybe it didn’t. Maybe you had a family that loved you, and friends, and a nice house.”

Ray scratched his head thoughtfully. “I mean, either way, it’s not something that can be helped. It’s not an actionable thing. So I don’t see a point in upsetting myself over it.”

“I just feel like—like—” She was digging her nails into her scalp. “Like something was stolen from me. You know? Like I’m supposed to be doing something. Achieving things. And now, maybe it’ll all be nothing. Maybe I’ll do nothing. Maybe this is it, and I’ll just sit back and this is life now, and I’ll just let this be my entire life forever. Living in a hole in the ground, and eating expired food, and never knowing what the hell is wrong with me.”

“I don’t think you’re the kind of person to do that,” he said.

Paula threw her hands up. “I don’t know! Maybe I am! Maybe I am the kind of person to always do that. How could I know otherwise?”

“I haven’t known you for very long, and even I feel like I already know otherwise.”

She turned her head to face him. “Maybe I’m dangerous. Maybe I’m a bad person. Maybe I’ll hurt you.”

He eyed her. “Will you?”

Hitchcock croaked.

“I don’t know, I don’t think so, but I don’t know! I don’t know myself.”

“I think,” he said slowly, “you need to relax. Right now—in this moment—everything is okay.”

“Is it?”

“Dude, we’re alive,” he said. “We woke up in a dying stadium in the middle of an island with zero memory of who we are, all janked-up and bruised, and we’re surviving.” He lifted his head and watched the sun burning red as it lowered itself beneath the darkening horizon. “That’s pretty crazy. All things considered, I think we’re killing it.”

Paula’s eyes wandered to the rows of old plastic seats far below and took a deep breath. In the darkening atmosphere, the light from her eyes was becoming more visible behind her shades, and her cheeks glowed in the warm radiance. Even at this altitude, the light was attracting moths that flitted about her face.

Ray raised his cup and nudged Paula’s. “C’mon, cheers me. To killing it.”

If she’d had visible pupils, he was sure she’d have rolled her eyes at him. But she grabbed her cup and touched it to his. “To killing it.”

 

Part 1, Chapter 6

 

VI: Soda

 

It wasn’t long before Ray had set his heart on another session of shopping in the open dumpster, his mind flashing with all the wonderful, strange items he would find discarded inside (wonderful only, in all honesty, to Ray, as it was as standard a collection of garbage as what would be found in any other dumpster). This time, Paula could see; and when they arrived at the scene she beheld the garish sofa that had managed to stay in the exact same location it was in since the last time they visited the dumpster, leaned against the outside of the metal bin.

She gasped as they approached, and had her eyes been uncovered Ray was sure they’d be shining with infatuation. Her hands were laced together, and a smile had broken onto her face. The sofa was a tint of pink so saturated it stung to look at. He cast his eyes to the gravel, which in the area surrounding the sofa seemed to be tinted pink as well, so aggressive was the light bouncing from the furniture.

“Yeah, it’s no surprise you like it,” he said, “It burns my vision as much as your eyes do.”

She tilted her head admiringly at the sofa. She wouldn’t take her gaze off it.

“You’re not trying to suggest we bring it back, right?” he asked.

Paula pouted and rubbed her hands possessively on the matted fabric. “How could we not? We’re in desperate need of seating furniture, Ray—you sleep on a pile of towels.”

“I like the towels! Anyway, I thought you hated getting things from the dumpster.”

“It’s not in the dumpster, it’s beside the dumpster.”

He squinted at it through the harsh sunlight, sighed, and lifted one side.

 

It felt like hours before they reached the entrance to the chamber with the forsaken pink sofa, fending off hordes of mosquitoes and the sharp points of saw palmettos that adored piercing through their clothes. At first, Ray had held one side and Paula the other, but soon their arms grew weary, and they opted for the slightly more comfortable but far less efficient approach of dragging the sofa through the underbrush (with Paula wincing every time a spot of mud launched itself onto the fabric).

And though Ray had already been annoyed at having to expend so much of his fleeting daytime energy on lugging the unsightly furniture, he became even more annoyed when he looked at the diameter of the manhole cover, sweat rolling down the back of his neck, and saw that it was certainly too narrow to fit the sofa. Now that he gazed at the entrance to the chamber—how had they not considered this before? It was what, thirty feet to the bottom? Even if it would fit, what would they have done? Thrown it down the ditch?

Paula insisted that they would find a way and began tearing off the cushions. The underlying frame was smaller, and reluctantly Ray prepared to push the cushionless sofa down the hole while Paula held the lid open. But it wasn’t long until Paula, horrified at Ray’s carelessness with the sofa and exclaiming that he’d ruin it (had it not been long since ruined?!), demanded that they switch roles—so Paula now was tilting the sofa into the entrance, and Ray had just gripped the handle of the lid when—

“OW! SHIT!”

Ray jumped back from the lid, letting it clamp down forcefully onto the sofa while it was half-way in, and Paula scowled. “What?”

“It’s hot!”

“What, the lid?”

“Yeah, it—,” cautiously, he tapped a finger to the metal. “It’s burning.”

Paula cocked her head inquisitively. “No, I don’t think it was.”

“No, look, touch it.”

Paula gripped the handle with her hand and pulled the lid open. “Are you serious? You’re so dramatic. It’s a little warm, but that’s it.”

Ray was dumbfounded. His hand stung and pulsed from the burn. Still, his curiosity led his hand to touch the handle again, just to see:

He winced and pulled his hand back immediately. “It’s hotter! What—?”

He thought for a moment. “Lemme see your hand.”

“Why?”

“Just—lemme see something.”

Paula held out her hand, palm-up. He brushed his fingertips lightly against it. It was scorching.

Ray lifted his eyes to look at Paula. “Do you feel okay?”

“I did, but now you’re worrying me.”

“No, it just—I’m wondering if you have a fever or something. Your hand’s really hot.”

“You think I’m sick?”

“I don’t know, maybe. A fever’s when you get really hot when you’re sick, right?”

“I don’t feel sick.”

Ray drummed his fingers against his side. “Well, maybe you should take it easy for a little, just in case.”

Ray promised he’d do his best to care for the precious sofa, and was able to press it against the walls of the ditch as he descended the ladder, reducing the blow to a fall of only a few feet when he neared the bottom. Paula brought the cushions down as she descended after him, and soon they’d arranged the sofa neatly in the main room of the chamber.

“Oh, hey, you don’t have to sleep on the floor anymore!” Paula beamed. “You can sleep on the couch!”

Ray would have almost preferred to continue curling up on his pile of towels, but he had begun waking up with a sore neck and back, and conceded.

 

 

By the time Paula had fallen asleep, Ray’s energy was renewed. Now it was time for the second half of his day, during which he would bask in the quiet of night and go wherever he pleased.

He lifted Hitchcock onto his shoulder, then climbed the ladder and left. The sky was a bright pink, but grew duller and darker with every gust of wind, taking on the deep blue cape it would wear for the duration of the night. He broke through the dense woods, out onto the beach where they’d spent the first night, as the last of the sun’s color faded from the sky, and once again receded into his thoughts.

By the time he became aware of his surroundings again, he saw that he had ended up wandering far to one end of the island. Here, there was a compact roofed structure, perhaps a public restroom, one of whose walls boasted a vending machine. 

The bright colors and varied shapes of the snacks and drinks encased within the glass captivated him, and instantly he felt like a small child. He was drawn to the front of the machine and pressed his palms against the glass, eyes widened.

But he had, of course, no money with which to purchase anything, and quietly he mourned what could have been.

Then he had an idea.

“Hey, Hitchcock,” he whispered to the bird, “you wanna do something really cool?”

He offered a hand to the bird, which he stepped onto to perch. Ray moved his hand so that he looked Hitchcock straight in the eye. “I will give you so much sand/pencils if you do this for me.”

The bird cocked his head expectantly.

Ray pointed at a green bottle of soda with a colorful pink label reading “Dragon’s Dew”. There was only one left. “Get this for me,” he said, tapping at the glass.

“Oh, my God,” Ray chuckled in gleeful disbelief as the bird jumped up and flapped awkwardly through the flap of the vending machine. He watched through the glass as the bird swiveled itself up through the obstacle course of metal coils and packaged snacks. With his beak Hitchcock gripped the top of the bottle and tipped it forward until it fell, clattering onto the bottom of the machine and rolling to the exit flap, where Ray fished it out, beaming.

“You know what? Get all of it. All of it,” Ray said, gesturing to the other snacks.

In fluttering crashes, the bird swarmed around the inside of the machine, knocking plastic packages of candy and chips and things Ray couldn’t really identify as any real food down to the bottom, where Ray snatched them and stuffed as many as he could into his pockets.

By the time of his return, Paula was still asleep, curled up on the mattress. He stashed away the snacks in the kitchenette’s cupboard for later.

 

 

“Oh, look at this,” Paula exclaimed from the other room. “This is weird.”

Ray rubbed his eyes and stumbled over sleepily. She was standing before one of the walls in the bedroom, where there hung a thin board of wood. “Come look over here,” she said. “It’s a mirror.”

              She was prying off one of the edges of the wood board, and Ray saw that the wood was in fact fastened (poorly) with nails to something behind it on the wall. He followed where Paula was pointed and peeked behind the wood to see the reflective surface.

              “Why would someone board up a mirror…?” Ray muttered.

              “It’s strange, right?” she said, and stared at the mirror scrutinizingly. “I actually can’t think of a single logical reason.”

              With his hands, Ray pried off the three nails holding the wood board to the frame of the mirror, and then leaned it against the wall. The mirror was a bit dull in the corners and layered with dust, but otherwise looked perfectly normal.

              They stood together before the mirror and gazed at their reflections.

              This was the first time Ray had seen himself.

              His eyes were piercingly dark, and the skin under them a bluish hue as if he’d gotten no sleep. His hair was just as dark, and long and shabby so that it nearly covered his eyes. The bridge of his nose was high and long, and his eyebrows thick and expressive.

              Paula was gazing at herself, too. Her face was only a few inches from the glass, as if she were debating trying to enter the mirror. The soft warm glow radiating from her glasses bounced off the mirror and illuminated her cheeks.

              “Is that really what I look like?” she whispered.

              She touched a hand to her forehead.

              Ray turned his gaze to her. He didn’t see anything wrong.

              Gently, she moved a hand through her hair, and brushed out the more tangled areas. She touched a spot of acne on her forehead and rubbed a smudge of dirt off her chin.

              “Nothing wrong with looking a little rough,” he laughed half-heartedly. “Hey, maybe that’s why the guy covered up the mirror—so he wouldn’t have to look at himself.”

Her lips were quivering. She turned away from the mirror and sat on the edge of the bed. Ray wasn’t quite sure how to react. He sat down next to her. She was gripping the sheets so tightly her hands shook. Then beneath him Ray felt a warmth. He touched his hand to the sheets, and realized the heat was coming from Paula.

“You okay?”

Her grip on the sheets loosened, and the warmth dissipated.

“I’m fine,” she said flatly. She wore a blank expression. “I’m gonna go read through the journal again.”