She shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“You’re a scientist. Give me a hypothesis.”
She looks up at the giant trees. “Well, if, let’s say, these trees were planted when the Planner created the Four Cities. Judging by size, these must be hundreds of years old. We can’t tell of course unless we cut them and count the rings. There are quite a few factors that could accelerate or decelerate growth. Water, temperature, light, even technology can play a part. So really, there isn’t a way to truly know,” she says.
“Ugh, just give me a number,” Benja says.
“No.”
“Come on!”
“I’m not going to.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no point,” she says. “Except one.”
“What’s that?”
“To shut you up.”
Benja mumbles something unflattering about her profession.
Aris finds his question amusing—not in itself, but in its human-
centeredness. However long the tenure of humans has been, it is dwarfed by the amount of time prior to them. In the history of the earth, they are but a blip.
Under the canopy of needles and leaves, she pictures a world where trees are the only permanent structure. Years from now, humans will cease to exist, and nature will take over—just like millions of years ago. Cycle. And recycle. These are the only states of being as true as time.
“What if I don’t go to the hospital?” Benja asks.
“When you’re sick? Why not?”
Benja sometimes speaks to her as if she were a part of his internal conversation. More than once she has been left to hypothesize about the missing words like an archeologist.
“No, silly. You know, how at the end of each cycle we’re supposed to check ourselves in at a hospital to await Tabula Rasa?”
“I’m sure there’s a way to collect the stragglers somehow. I don’t think you’re the first person to wonder this, or even want to try it,” Aris says. “Besides, where are you going to go?”
Her friend does not look capable of surviving in the wild. She doubts he has even set foot outside Callisto. Ahead she sees the steps to the main library. Benja quickens his pace. She trots to keep up with his long legs.
The temperature is cooler inside the majestic Rose Room, a great hall of marble walls and wooden shelves filled with books. It’s one of Aris’s favorite rooms in the library. And this library is her favorite place in the world. Here, time eases like a raft drifting on a slow-moving river, making her feel like she is suspended inside a mahogany-paneled lockbox instead of racing toward inevitability.
Sometimes she comes here to just sit and inhale the scent of old books. Woody and earthy, with a hint of smokiness. It is a unique smell. Since paper is rare and books are rarer, Aris equates it to the scent of history.
“I’m going to walk around,” Benja says. His footsteps echo toward other parts of the library.
She is not the only one partial to this place. Every table is occupied. Where else can one touch the memories of time? She settles on an oak chair. At the table are two others: a woman and a man. The woman is young, and Aris wonders if this is her first cycle. Not that she would know.
Natural light shines in through the grand arched windows, supplementing the orange globe lights of the enormous chandeliers overhead. On the ceiling are mural paintings of fluffy clouds and a brilliant blue sky framed by an ornate baroque frieze.
Aris leans back on her chair, her neck resting on its back. She studies the orange-and-pink-tinged clouds on the ceiling. They look like cotton. Their edges gray, pregnant with rain. She wonders if the mural was painted to capture the moment of rivalry between a storm and a sunset. Perhaps it’s meant to represent the struggle between the beginning and end of one’s lifespan.
It’s an empty pursuit, she thinks. The beginning and end of a life are not two separate states but one continuous state of being. Everything that lives must die—is that not a law of biology? And does not the principle of mass conservation state that mass can neither be created nor destroyed? Things die, but they do not disappear. Life leads to death, and death to life again. An unbroken circle.
When she lifts her head back, the man who was there had left. On the table in his place sits a blue origami crane. She reaches over and picks up the folded bird. It’s light in her hand. Paper—an uncommon material no longer used for general purposes as it was prior to the Last War. Only a few specific trades have a need for it. She runs her finger along its lines, feeling its coarseness.
“Nothing,” Benja says from behind her, his voice laced with frustration. “I walked through the whole place, and nothing.”
His eyes zero in on the crane in her hand. “What the hell is that?”
“A crane.”
“I know. But why . . . what . . . I mean how did you get it?”
“A man who was sitting here left it.”
Benja snatches it from her.
Before she can protest, he whispers, “O flock of heavenly cranes, cover my child with your wings.”
He looks at her, his eyes glinting with excitement.
“Do you know what this is?” he asks and gazes at the crane in his hand as if it were a precious baby bird.
“Other than it’s a folded paper fowl? Genus Grus. Species japonensis.”
“The ancient Japanese called the crane ‘bird of happiness.’ They believed its wings carry souls up to paradise,” he says.
“And?”
“The Dreamers use it to communicate,” he whispers.
“What!” she says in a high voice.
She remembers where she is and looks around to see if anyone is watching. No one is.
“How do you know?” she whispers.
“I hear things.”
“I can’t believe they really exist.”
“And you thought I was insane,” says Benja.
“Wait, so if they use it to communicate, and it was left for me . . . But why?”
He shrugs. “How would I know what they use as criteria? Maybe it’s your face.”
“What’s wrong with my face?” Aris bristles.
“It’s that innocent, lost look you wear.”
“I do not!”
He laughs. “I’m just kidding.
