Shards and Ashes

and wine and kisses and blankets and she tastes like everything and there are no doubts anywhere, for anyone at all.

8. J A I

I become careless. Sloppy. Happy.

I suck in my breath for no reason, gasping at the wonder that is my life.

In the shower, I scream.

When I have nightmares, they are not of death and dropping. They are of my life, before I met Z.

When everything was nothing, sand on my lips.

I forget to buy milk for my tea. I sleep through my first and second alarm.

I wonder if anyone notices.

9. Z

I never understood anything. Now I know that.

I wish it didn’t have to end.

I wish I could tell her.

I wish I could ask her brother.

10. J A I & Z

Everything is brighter in the air.

Partly it is the sky, how clear it is, how close they are to the sun. Partly it is the machine, the light shining off the spinning blades above them.

Zhishengji spin quickly, even for choppers.

Partly it is their hearts, pounding themselves into one. A rhythmic arrhythmia, a new beat. Beating itself literally together, and to death.

His lips pressed against her.

His breath in her ears.

The girl, Jai, sits on her scuffed boot heels, staring straight into the sun. The boy, Z, circles his arms around her. To him, she is the sun.

Beneath them, the light glints off the silver rooftops that were the Southlands, that are what remains of the Southlands, spreading like the scattered beads of a necklace that was meant to be broken. Scattered like petals, like leaves in the wind.

Behind them, in the distant blue, is the stripe of ocean that lines the sky. Haiyang, as they call it. There are no rooftops there at all. It looks like life, like endless life.

Siwang. The great river.

How Jai imagines it.

Vivid. Dazzling. The ever-present oblivion.

That which is constant.

That which remains.

Love.

Z steadies himself, steadying her. He catches his breath as the chopper twists beneath them.

“Don’t be afraid.” He kisses her cheek, a soft place he has found next to her ear.

“I’m not.” She leans back against him. A touch that is itself a kiss.

“We’ll be together.”

“You don’t know that.”

He smiles at her.

“At least we won’t be apart.”

“Ready?”

The pilot shouts back to them. They only nod. The pilot doesn’t care. He gets paid either way.

They clasp hands, ready to jump. Z takes one last look around the chopper. Everything is as it should be. He has been planning this jump for months, since before he knew her. Since the day he met Rama, and they made their plan.

Nothing about this day is a surprise. Nothing except the feeling in his chest. But that’s not the question.

Is she ready?

She squeezes his hand, as if in answer.

The chopper lunges in the opposite direction.

“Goupi!” the pilot curses. “No offense, kids. If you’re gonna jump, you gotta go now.”

Z reaches into the pocket of his orange jumpsuit, pulling out an envelope.

“For my parents.” He drops it into the box. She smiles, without letting go of his hand.

He knows she has no dropletter. She doesn’t need one. She has no one left to tell.

Nothing remains for her but him, but this.

The drop.

“You want a parachute? I know it’s kind of pointless, but it makes some people feel better. On the way down.”

The pilot turns to look at them, but they aren’t there.

They are slipping through the darkness, searching for the beginning of their story, feetfirst and falling.

They’re a hundred yards down before the pilot can even turn the chopper around and head back toward the base.

In his haste, he doesn’t see the two parachutes missing. He doesn’t know about the deleted records, the hacked system that can no longer tell Two Zero One One or One Nine Six Seven when to end their lives.

He doesn’t know it is time to begin them.

He doesn’t know the biggest secret of all.

That Rama is waiting, that he has always been waiting. That he is every bit his grandfather’s grandson.

That he can imagine a new world, and bring it to life, whether or not it is right or wrong. That he can find the man who will bring him his sister for a price, or in the end, for no price at all.

That Rama and his rebel encampment await them in the stretch of oblivion that is the Mojave Desert. In every way, it is the opposite of death.

It is, for the very first time, life.

An uncontrollable storm, more precious than any necklace of raindrops.

The pilot flies on, unaware of the cloud pattern building beneath him.

Instead, the pilot is wondering, as he does every night, how long it will be until he’ll be making that last drop for himself.

The pilot shivers and heads for home. He has a girlfriend and a dog and a love for bread and butter.

It is nearly enough, while he has it.

To keep the drops and his thoughts away.