Twenty Rhapsodies (WIP)

Emil had many hobbies—all taken up to try and impress women. The bulk of his first and only novel was written in his last week of university, though he had spent three years lazily writing the rest; the girl he showed it to was polite enough to promise to read it, but nothing more. He still remembered the mole below her left eye. Next: a bass guitar collecting dust in his room. He had brought it with him, promised himself he would get back into the habit, but he could still do little more than play along to Porcelain, complementing the vocals like steam on tea, pretending his high school crush was singing along.

A brief gym phase, too. He was that sort of man—no substance, but eager to please. His current fixation was snakeskin theatre, but I cannot tell you how long he would practise it, for Emil would be gone a year from now. Still, it had been almost six months, and unlike his other obsessions, he was quite good at it. What he especially liked was how nobody knew what it was. The former journalist loved introducing new things to people. Allow me to explain it instead this time.

Snakeskin theatre was a style practised mostly in Elsed, the town this story takes place in. Its locals would have you believe it originated here, but there was much dispute regarding this between Elsed and its neighbours—was, in past tense specifically, for nobody really cared anymore except for the retired chachas arguing over sour toddy, sitting on the curb, glancing at crumbling roads they helped build. Snakeskin theatre was theatre for labourers and coolies.

Why?

Cost. The idea behind snakeskin theatre was to have just two actors. Such plays always took place in the dark, with one or two spotlights at most. Actors would change outfits when unlit, playing the roles of four characters, eight, sometimes, or even a dozen, all by themselves. The best of that era could change costumes—skins—in seconds. There were even those that performed solo, but that required tremendous skill and practice; it was generally agreed upon that a duo was most entertaining. Each swivel of the spotlights was planned down to the second; it was the actor’s responsibility to keep up. To be caught in a state of half-undress, between one skin and the next, was the most unimaginable disgrace for a snake.

Emil’s right cheek was painted green; his left, red. His makeup differed too; both cheeks graved with intricate swirls that swept up and around his brows, but in completely different patterns. The spotlight went out, and in that brief blink he took a step and about-turned. The eye opened once more, bathing him in light, and he continued his performance, no longer the opium farmer, but his humble wife, in the fields with him. There was no need to change costumes. With this trick, two could play a conversation of four.

Morgan, his partner, did the same, the lighter’s blinks perfectly timed. She screamed her lines. Emil’s light blinked, turning him from wife to neighbour. How, when faces only have two halves? He had been wearing a mask, tossed aside during the blink. His face was painted as well, makeup split down his nose, giving him two additional skins. With this trick, unique to Elsed, two could play a conversation of eight—more if they wore several masks. The catch: it is impossible to put your mask back on after you have thrown it aside. A snake sheds for the last time after the climax has passed, when the story enters its denouement and wraps around like a bowtie on a gift.

The play ended to scattered applause. “Fewer showed up this time,” Morgan said, sweating, sitting cross-legged on the backstage floor.

“Not many appreciate art these days,” Emil said with the slimy insincerity of a man with an infatuation. “Not like you do.”

“I don’t like art. Just theatre. Just this,” she replied as she ran her fingers through her hair, shaking out ornaments. “Are we doing something wrong?”

“No. We’re doing fine. You were great today.”

“Then why aren’t people showing up?” She kicked her sandals off, frustrated. “I’ve been doing this for so long, but the crowds are still thin.”

“Like I said, it’s not you—”

“It is!” She crawled over to him and gripped his shoulders. “When I was six, I watched Ky and Gault perform Twenty Rhapsodies, and the theatre was bursting full. They were brilliant, and they received the audience they deserved.”

Emil did not know Ky nor Gault, let alone what they performed, but made a mental note to watch a recording later. “Yes, but… the thin crowds aren’t your fault. You’re a brilliant actress.”

“Snake,” she corrected.

“Snake. You’re the best I’ve ever seen.” But he could not reconcile this with the thin crowds, so he chose an alternative. “It’s me. I’ve only been doing this for a month. Give me time to improve, and the crowds will come.”

“You’re wrong. There is no snake better than you in Elsed, save for me, perhaps. Because you don’t warp.”

“What?”

“You hate them too, don’t you? The warpers. That’s why you walk. You and I both.”

He took a moment to understand. “The other snakes warp. And that’s why you don’t want to perform with them?”

“They warp everywhere. To the supermarket, and back home. To France and America. To London. To this very theatre. They live a day at most before turning to dust and being reassembled somewhere else.” She paused to touch Emil’s cheek. “You’re still whole. Six months is longer than anyone else around. That’s why it has to be you.”

Emil hesitated. “But they’re good actors—snakes—even if they warp. Warping doesn’t erase talent. They’re really good, some of them. Not like me.”

“You’re shameless,” she said, pushing him away, laughing. “Are you that desperate for approval? Did I not praise you enough just now?”

“What? No, I…” he stammered. Morgan could often read his emotions better than he could. It made perfect sense. He could not read the lines of his own face, not even if he carried a mirror around wherever he went. It was like trying to tickle himself. Reading faces only worked when they were opaque, not transparent—when he could not already see what lay behind the mask. Still, none of this changed how embarrassing it was to be read so easily.

“You’re good,” Morgan continued. “You’re not really acting, are you? You’re too sensitive to be a snake. I could tell, somewhat, when I first met you, but when you scream and sob and fall to your knees on stage… that’s all real, right? You go off script sometimes, but that’s because the stage is real in your head.”

“Stop making me sound crazy.”

“You are. Just a little.” Morgan leaned closer. “I’ve learned how you tick. And I know exactly what drives you. Listen,” she said, her forehead pressing against his. “Morgan will perform in Florence one day, on the stage of the Pergola. She will receive the audience and applause she deserves. Or she will die trying. And she knows exactly how she will get there. It’s you. All you have to do is listen, and she will realise her dream. Understand?”

It was this obsession with purity that Emil liked about her. This devotion to her life’s work. He admired such people, because he was not one. Even journalism, which he had loved so much—it was not reporting he loved but having all eyes on him. Journalism was just a means to that end. Theatre, too. But Morgan was different. She lived for theatre. This was all there was to her. There was no room in her heart for anything else.

So when they had sex in the dressing room afterwards, Emil knew not to attach labels to what they did. He looked at her body moving mechanically on top of him, silhouetted against flickering light, her dead eyes staring at the tiled floor. They were not making love. They were just shedding their skins before going home.

It was Emil’s coat that gave him away the first time he met Morgan. Long and thick with symmetrical buttons, its collar hidden underneath a thick scarf, its tips brushing all-weather boots, bulky and waterproof.

“You walked here, didn’t you?” she asked, leaning forward as though inspecting a bug, her face shadowy in the dim backstage lighting.

“What? I—” Emil was here to do the questioning and did not expect to be questioned. He was the one holding a mic, after all. He glanced at his cameraman, who did little to stifle his giggle. See? Anyone could tell.

“Anyone could tell,” Morgan said with uncanny perception. She was still in her costume—a thick black habit that swept the floor, her face split in two by makeup. She was the snake he was here to interview, and the way she stared with two eyes set in two different faces was very unnerving. “Warpers don’t dress for the cold. Not when there’s a pod just outside the theatre.”

Emil looked down at his attire. Was it a crime these days to stay warm? He had always been weak against the cold, but nobody had ever remarked on how his mother used to bundle him in layers as a child. He did not like to admit the good old days were long past, that his mother was dead, that her wisdom was now outdated.

“Don’t you feel embarrassed, walking around like that?” she continued, taking a step towards him. She grabbed his scarf and ripped it off before he could respond.

“H-hey! Who gave you the right to… Give it back! That’s mine!” he yelled helplessly as he lunged and grabbed, his fingers grasping thin air as Morgan danced around him, wrapping the scarf around her own neck. The two pranced like bull and bullfighter, Morgan deftly sidestepping chairs and props while Emil barreled through them, furious.

“I thought walkers were supposed to be fit,” Morgan said, laughing as she danced around him.

“Walking is not a sport,” Emil said, gasping as he kicked another chair out of the way to lunge at her. “That’s my property. Give it back already before I call the police!”

“The police? Do you run to the police for everything? Even when you stub your toe?”

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

She tutted, sidestepping him again. “Nothing. I’m not the one walking everywhere.”

Emil spun, grabbed nothing, and lost his balance. A brief moment of carelessness, and now his weight had tipped over its axis, past the point of no return. His body was in gravity’s hands now. It was a silly boast, but Emil had not tripped for as long as he could remember. If you were to ask him, he would no doubt credit his daily walking, but in truth he rarely tripped even as a child, though it must have happened at least once. He must have at some point. Children trip. That was common sense. It must have been very painful.

Adults like to attribute their behaviour to traumatic moments in childhood, so far back that they are absolved of the responsibility of remembering it. It then becomes possible to fabricate these events—to assume that one must have tripped at some point simply because children trip. To pretend. To act. Many things can be explained by assuming such axioms to be true and applicable to oneself.

Not all behaviours come from lost memories. Some Emil could remember clearly, like that time a bully held his Walkman out the window of a moving bus, threatening to toss it into traffic. He tried to fight him for it, but he was weak and his punches ineffective. He remembered the embarrassment of being unable to take back what belonged to him.

Emil saw the ground rushing towards him for, what seemed like to him, the first time in his life. It was a sheer, raw terror that he had not been immunised against. This was a new fear, and there is nothing humans fear more than what they do not know: the circle drawn on a plane, expanding and contracting, before taking on a third dimension and revealing its true, spherical form.

He shrieked and stuck his hands out, anything to break his fall. He landed hard, barely managing to avoid slamming his teeth against the floor. He stayed on his knees, panting, pupils dilated, refusing to believe the danger had passed. Teeth don’t grow back. Only milk teeth do.

“Hmm… That was a pretty convincing scream—”

Emil whirled and punched her gut. She doubled over, gagging, and he exploited this moment of weakness to pull the scarf off her neck and clutch it to his chest, still kneeling. “You piece of shit. Freak. People like you should be executed,” he spat, his pupils shaking as he struggled to focus. “Scum like you… I can’t even imagine how you were raised, thinking it’s okay to take without asking.”

The theatre’s central heating had been turned off for some time. The chill clawed into Emil’s lungs and he quickly wrapped the scarf around his neck. He looked up and saw Morgan, there, right in front of him, casting him in shadow, her face neutral, as though she had not been punched at all.

“You should act,” she said calmly, evaluating him. “You’re good at it.”

“...What? You want me to… what, become an actor?”

“A snake. Not an actor.”

He stared for a moment, clutching his scarf tightly, awed by her sheer audacity. “I didn’t come here for a job. I have a job, which I came here to do.”

“Which is?”

“To interview you! To promote this stupid theatre! Shouldn’t you treat me with a little respect?”

“Why?”

“Because I could ruin you! A few words on TV and nobody would ever watch your plays again! I mean, sure, I can’t outright call this theatre terrible on TV, but it’s not hard to praise and criticise in the same breath.”

“Really? Give me an example, then.”

Emil hesitated. He was not good at being put on the spot. “I… Right now? I can’t come up with something just because you want to hear it now. I need time. I need a script—”

“A script?” Morgan said, leering closer with an irritating smile. “What a coincidence. I need a script to do my job too.”

“I’m not an actor like you! I’m a journalist!” Emil spat.

“I see. A journalist. And you said you could ruin this theatre and my career with a few choice words. I disagree. I think it’s the other way round, and that you’re about to lose your job.”

“What? Why?”

“Because your cameraman has been recording this whole time.”

Emil slowly turned his head and saw his face reflected in a gaping black lens.

“Sorry. No cuts. Editor’s orders,” the cameraman said, peeking out from behind the viewfinder. His face held no expression. But Emil read his pupils and the way they averted in distaste, the way his lips pursed as though holding back a snicker. Honestly. Filming for a walker is a hassle already, and now this? Fighting a woman for a scarf? How embarrassing. No wonder cameramen draw straws to decide who has to tag along with you. What a disgusting man. Please, get fired already.

Emil, who prided himself on his ability to read words, lines, furrowed brows and the space between, felt mortified, humiliated, and suddenly wished he was blind. His ears turned red hot. That disgusting warmth spread like urine, flowing freely, staining, dripping to the floor. His eyes watered with hot tears and he turned before they could spill, towards Morgan, whose feet looked blurry and wet before him. He knew he could not hold it in any longer so he pressed his face into his elbow, soaking his sleeve, feeling his own warmth. He could no longer see. He desperately wished not to be seen.

He was in a classroom, standing in the middle, but the world stretched impossibly tall around him. Children pointed and laughed. He clutched the tear in his shorts that exposed his buttocks, but this only drew more attention to himself.

“How many times have I told you? Why can’t any of you just listen?” an adult said in the scathing, exasperated tone that could only come from a teacher who had grown to hate her job. “We have grounds for you to play in. Why can’t you use those? I’ve said so many times to stay away from the parking lot. Is simple English too much for you? Are you even listening to me? Look at me when I’m talking to you!”

He hated being belittled like this. He was not stupid. He understood perfectly well that the concrete slope next to the parking lot was off-limits. But everyone used it as a slide, and it really was not steep enough to be dangerous. Still, he knew not to use it. The teacher had said not to, and that was good enough reason for him. But everyone had wanted to slide down it anyway. They would tease and exclude him if he said no, so he had no choice but to follow along. Why couldn’t she understand that he had no choice? Why was he being made to seem like a dumb, mute fool who could not understand basic instructions? But above all, what he wanted to know was—why him? Why was he the only one whose shorts had ripped? They were all in uniform, so why was he chosen? It was not fair. His young heart could not accept that everyone else had gotten off scot free and that he was being made an example of. He wanted to scream his lungs out.

“Well? Answer me,” the teacher said as he managed to look up, warm tears staining his cheeks, staring at the teacher’s neck, unable to make eye contact, unable to speak. His throat was shut tight. He gasped for breath between sobs. This was very amusing to his classmates, who stifled giggles and whispered, not wanting to draw the teacher’s attention. He was still holding on to his ripped shorts and dreaded what would happen if he accidentally let go. His brain did not have the capacity to do two things at once, so he remained mute, which frustrated him even more.

“Answer me!” the teacher yelled, having lost her patience. “Can’t you look at me, at least? Fine. Fine,” she said, her tone suddenly turning calm, indicating a transition from angry and frustrated to… what, exactly? Emil did not know, and it was this lack of knowing that terrified him more than anything else. The rest of the class fell silent too—probably out of morbid anticipation rather than fear.

“Since you can’t do anything but slide down concrete—since you can’t speak or hear, clearly—remain standing. For the rest of the period. Your parents will hear about this.”

There was one hour left in the period. One whole hour of standing. His blood drained into the soles of his feet, leaving him light-headed. His stomach felt queasy. An overreaction, but to a child, being punished unfairly like this and made a spectacle of felt like public crucifixion. The fear and shame filled his bladder, and he suddenly felt the urge to pee, but even if he dared ask permission, he could not, since his throat would not open. Then there was the hole in his shorts. When seated, nobody could tell, but standing for an hour meant gripping the tear shut the whole time. It was humiliating. Emil had never felt so embarrassed in his life.

That the teacher would report this to his parents was the killing blow. What would they think of him? He had never gotten into trouble before, and his parents had always drilled into him the importance of discipline and good character. They were loving and kind and this is how he would repay them? He felt like a failure. Worse than a failure—he was an embarrassment, not just to himself, but to his family. He forced himself to look into the teacher’s eyes, and for the first time, he could read not just words, lines and furrowed brows, but the space in between, and what was left unsaid.

Disgusting boy. Clearly wasn’t raised right.

A business card materialised before him, hazy and unclear. He blinked back tears. A passport-sized photo of a beautiful woman with green eyes and flowing black hair stared at him, pale as a corpse. Morgan Laplace. It had the correct number and variation of syllables to flow off the tongue of a dolled-up presenter at some overseas awards ceremony. Completely unlike his own, which looked clumsily long when displayed on-screen. But it was her face that drew his attention, not her name. Headshots are emotionally numb compared to the real thing, but even so, he could not read a word in her expression.

“Take it,” she said, looking down at him. “In case you consider a career switch.”

Emil took the card and nodded. Not because he had any interest in acting or this dingy theatre. But because her face was a beacon in calm waters, blank, unreadable, still and quiet. There were lines, yes. Words. Brows, even. But the space in between was empty and it was there that he found the respite he grew to crave more than anything else.

Acting is not a one-man show. Snakeskin theatre uses fewer actors than other forms, but it is no two-man show either. Behind each play at the Still Pendulum were three others working hard in the shadows to bring each performance to life, some more passionate than the others. The playwright, Auric, loved his craft. He had spent over sixty years of his life hunched over a desk writing more stories than any other man could dream of, mystery, romance, sci-fi, everything. Some stories he liked and others he hated, but each scratch of his pen on paper made him a better writer, so he made sure to finish everything he started. Decades of this had taken its toll—his skin wrapped taut around his bones, no meat in between. His hair was long, greying, matted. And without his glasses his deep-set eyes could not see past the edge of his desk. But he could still write, and for that he was grateful, and he did not ask anything more of his failing body except for more time.

Then there were the twins—Morgan’s younger siblings. They were just happy to be here. They adored their sister and loved playing a supporting role, preparing the props and costumes, rearranging the stage between acts, and pointing the spotlights. Sometimes they would even try acting out the scripts, Alice taking Emil’s lines and Evie taking Morgan’s—not always, but these were the pairings that felt most natural to them. Still, the stage only had room for two. They would never get the opportunity to perform alongside their sister, not at the Still Pendulum, and not at the Pergola, for like Emil, they too would be gone a year from now.

“The Tombowe closes tomorrow,” Auric said, sliding his newspaper across the desk, taking a sip of tea. He had prepared two cups as usual—one for him, and one for Emil, who always shared his evening tea with the playwright. There were not many other opportunities to make conversation with him.

“Where’s that?” Emil asked, skimming the paper.

“Seventh ward, near the harbour. They run Chandelier every December. Surely you’ve seen it?”

“No,” Emil responded, to which the playwright tsk’d. Not too loudly—he already knew what sort of man Emil was. He had written such characters before.

“And Twenty Rhapsodies,” Morgan said from where she lay sprawled on a sofa older than the theatre itself.

“Yes, well, they only ran that once.”

“Of course. Who in Elsed would want to watch it again?”

Dust hung still in the air, lit up by windows that glowed a deepening red. Auric had been very particular with the Still Pendulum’s floor plan during its construction, ensuring the green room had an unobstructed sunset view. It was always around this time that the light shone just right, bathing the room in a brief womb-like warmth. Auric always came up with his best ideas during this interlude between day and night.

“Nobody, I suppose. It’s not the same without those two.” Auric, the writer of Twenty Rhapsodies, sighed. Nobody in Elsed wanted to see it performed again more than he did.

“I agree,” Emil added, having watched a recording of Elsed’s most fabled performance just a few nights ago. The others ignored him. “It was a lovely play. If only we could show it to the rest of the world.” This time, everyone turned to him.

“The rest of the world? We’re walkers. You know that, right?” Auric asked.

“I mean… yes. We are,” Emil responded, looking down at the table.

“So where would we even perform? Florence? It’s an ocean away.”

Emil glanced at Morgan, but she was silent, staring at him, so he did not know whether to push or concede. He had simply made an offhand remark to try and jump into conversation, not realising the water was far deeper than it looked. “Nevermind. It was a silly idea,” he finally said.

“Would we actually? Perform Twenty Rhapsodies at Florence?” Morgan asked from the sofa, now sitting up straight.

“Could we? Don’t be ridiculous. What, you want to warp there?”

Morgan paused for a moment. “No. Of course not. Forget about how we’d get there. We could, couldn’t we? Perform Twenty Rhapsodies there? Not in Elsed, where everyone’s already seen Ky and Gault’s performance. But in Florence.”

“It would be its debut performance outside of Elsed,” Auric said, thinking.

“Yes. Exactly. There would be nothing to compare it to. Nobody to heckle us for not being Ky and Gault.”

“It’s difficult to imagine anyone but Ky and Gault performing Twenty Rhapsodies.”

“Why? Are you saying we’re not good enough?” Morgan said, her green eyes locked onto Auric.

“I didn’t say that, though that is certainly a concern. Rather, I wrote Twenty Rhapsodies for Ky and Gault, much like how I now write plays for you two. The roles were made to fit them, not the other way round.”

“Seriously? We’re snakes. We can play any role you give us.” Morgan was angry, clearly. “There’s no need to change the script.”

Auric looked at his faithful snakes carefully, as though inspecting them for the first time before looking back at Morgan. “How arrogant. Twenty Rhapsodies—I remember what I imagined both roles to be as clearly as the day I finished it. It is not so easy for just anyone to take on those roles. But fine. I have no reason to forbid you. After all, I have little time left and I would love to see it performed again, here, Florence, wherever.”

“So you’re okay with it,” Morgan said, relieved, sitting back down on the sofa. “Good. I still don’t know how we’d get to Florence, though.”

“I didn’t say I was okay with it.”

The three fell silent, thinking, leaving only the ticking of a clock. Emil recalled his trip to the supermarket that morning—he liked walks and would often volunteer to buy groceries for the rest. It had been a gloomy morning with lingering grey clouds from last night’s drizzle. The roads were empty, the paint on the tarmac fading. The town council did not have the budget to uproot the roads that criss-crossed the city all at once, so many were left as they were. The traffic lights were off, cracked and covered in frost. It shocked Emil how quickly things went from taken-for-granted to relics of the past. He remembered having to crane his head to look up at his mother, having to stand on his toes to surpass her waist. How tightly she gripped his hand as she taught him to look both sides and wait for the signal to turn green before crossing. How none of that mattered anymore, seemingly overnight. It was uncanny.

The clock kept ticking. The sun had shifted, its light at a different angle. Night was imminent. And Emil was thinking about what Auric had said earlier, about Florence. He had never been there himself. He knew nothing about it, but it seemed every actor in Elsed, snake or no, knew about it. People hardly visited local theatres—why bother, the best of the best performed in Florence, the Mecca of theatre, just a warp away?

Warping was not an option, of course. Not for the walkers that took refuge in the Still Pendulum. The rest of the world had gone mad, but not them. That did not stop Emil from proposing a very mad solution.

“How about a ship?” he asked.

The two looked at him. “A ship? To Florence?” Auric said, confused, breaking the silence. “Nobody sails that route anymore. Or any routes, for that matter. Why would they? Everything’s connected by warp nowadays.”

“Not everything. I mean… passenger ships, yes, but cargo ships still ply the route. It’s just like—”

“—the opening of Twenty Rhapsodies,” Morgan said breathlessly, leaping out of her sofa, grabbing Emil’s shoulders and turning his chair around, leaning close. “You’re a genius. They did that, didn’t they? They were stowaways en route to the New World. We could do that. It would be easy. Find a ship, sneak on board with food and supplies, hide in a container—”

“Are you insane?” Auric interrupted her. “We would die! Crossing the Pacific takes, what, months?”

“But Ky and Gault did it!”

“Ky and Gault were acting!”

“They were acting out a script you wrote!”

Auric stared at her for a moment. “Morgan. Real life is not a play.”

She shrunk slightly, embarrassed. “I… Fine. I know. I know that just because it happened in Twenty Rhapsodies doesn’t mean it’s possible to make the crossing in real life. But it’s not impossible. You’ll admit that much, won’t you?”

“It’s a ridiculous idea.”

“But it’s not impossible?”

“...It’s not impossible,” Auric said, ashamed at how shamelessly he wanted to see his magnum opus performed again.

“And you would approve if we had a plan, a realistic plan, with realistic odds of survival?”

“That depends on the plan.”

“And if the plan was realistic?”

“I would approve.”

Morgan looked back towards Emil, gripping his chair harder, but she suddenly found herself at a loss for words. What was she supposed to say? He had always agreed to her requests, and sometimes Morgan did find it quite impressive that he had lasted six months of snakeskin theatre without getting bored or giving up, even if she knew it was not out of any real passion for acting. She had not expected him to have improved this much in so little time. And she liked that he was a walker like her, that when she looked into his eyes on stage she saw a bottomless, swirling pool, and not the glassy doll-like beads that warpers all had. But even she thought this request was a bit too much, even if he was the one who proposed the idea. Asking him to accompany her on stage was one thing, but to accompany her as stowaways on a cargo ship across the ocean? That was a big ask. Too big an ask to make without leading up to it with several smaller asks. But what was she supposed to ask him? If he actually wanted to come? If he liked acting? If he knew the way to Florence? If he was confident he could survive in a shipping container?

“Can you swim?” Morgan asked Emil.

“No.”

Auric stared daggers at Morgan during the brief silence that ensued. “It seems your plan is not realistic,” he said.

Morgan remained standing, frozen, gripping his chair, staring into his eyes. “You can’t swim,” she repeated calmly.

“I can’t.”

“Then learn,” she said, grabbing his shoulders and yanking him out of his chair. She pulled him along by his wrist, stomping towards the door while Emil struggled to keep up.

“Wait! I’m—stop pulling so hard! Where are we going?”

“Lake Egret!”

“I don’t have swimming trunks!” “Your underwear will do!”

Morgan slammed the door shut behind them and the green room fell silent once more. Auric sat there in the dark, dumbfounded. The sun had almost set, its light weak and dim. His tea had grown cold.

“Lake Egret,” he murmured. Lake Egret was cold this time of the year. It would be dark, too. He wondered if they would be safe.

But the Pacific was far colder and darker than Lake Egret. If Emil and Morgan could handle Lake Egret at night with no issues, he could approve of sending them to Florence.

Auric really, really wanted to approve.

Elsed was far from the sea. Walkers who wished to see it had no choice but to make the six hour drive on the fast-eroding Interstate 17 that bored through rolling hills and continued till the eastern shore. In the olden days, many lived and died on this side of the hills, never once having seen the sea. It was simply out of reach. So it was natural that the children loved stories of the sea. Children always want to know what lies on the other side. They knew of the salt in the air and the mechanics of the sea breeze, how it shifted with time of day. They knew of the pure white sand that yielded beneath the feet and playfully engulfed the toes. They knew of the waves that made the beach slide out from under you, pushing in and pulling back, leaving you where you were. The hues of the sea—like ink at night, like golden honey at sunrise, and like the clearest summer sky at noon, oversaturated hues only children can see, that adults can only remember. The children knew that too, well enough that they could draw it all from memory despite never having seen the real thing, the colours so accurate you would think they were the ones who had made the sea. And at the age of twelve they would see it with their own eyes. The field trip to the sea had been Elsed tradition ever since the tunnels through the hills were completed and Interstate 17 was extended to connect Elsed and its neighbours to the port towns in the east.

Warp pods changed all that. Families could warp to the beach for afternoon tea and back as easily as they would warp to the supermarket for groceries. Children from such families were not very interested in the sea. They had seen it all before. Perhaps what had enchanted the people of Elsed for so long was not the sea itself, but that it was out of reach, cut off from them by the hills. The sea was just the sea, exactly as documented in textbooks and maps. There was nothing magical about it. Nothing at all.

Emil had just finished undressing himself when Morgan pushed him from behind. He tried to scream, but his lungs were empty, and there was no time to breathe. He did not want to see the water rushing towards him, the bottomless pit of Lake Egret. So his body pivoted around, his heel twisting on the slick wooden pier.

It was a starless night, but the moon was in full bloom, and Morgan was laughing, both arms still outstretched, green eyes wide open, her hair like a halo.

The moment passed and Emil’s back plunged into the freezing water. He sank and panicked—aren’t bodies supposed to float?—so he thrashed and spluttered in pitch darkness, guided only by faint, diffused moonlight. After much struggling, he poked his head above the water, spitting water and gasping for breath, the cold numbing his limbs and face.

“You could have killed me,” he said, panting, looking up at Morgan who sat cross-legged on the edge of the pier.

“It’s not that deep, you know.”

“I can’t see the bottom,” Emil muttered even as he righted himself in the water, trusting her words. His feet found the lake bed and he stood up, his head above the surface. There was a brief pause before Morgan started laughing again.

“I didn’t know! Besides, it’s cold!” he said, pushing wet hair out of his eyes.

“Sorry,” she said, catching her breath. “Still, you managed to float for a bit.”

“I thought I would die if I didn’t.”

“Try floating on your back again. Calmly, this time.”

Emil took a deep breath and kicked off the lake bed, wanting to bring his legs up immediately before his body had the chance to sink. He managed to lie on his back, his body partially submerged, his face parting the surface. The moon stared back at him. The wind picked up and played along his wet skin, carrying the faint scent of jasmine from the terrace farms across the lake. He inhaled, filling his lungs with the cool air the world gave so freely asking nothing in return. As his eyes adjusted to the night, stars revealed themselves one by one, twinkling in chorus, each a thousand, thousand miles away. The stars had made him, just as they had made the water and the wind. And they could make you again—that was Auric’s favourite line, one most famously used in Twenty Rhapsodies’ closing act. Floating in Lake Egret, separated from the rest just by his skin, he thought that drifting away from the shore and into the eye of the lake would not be unpleasant. That it would be a good death.

Then his mind took over, instinctively realising that he could not see the shore from this angle, that he might already be drifting. He rolled and thrashed, looking around and trying to find his footing on the lake bed.

“Relax. You barely moved. The water is still,” Morgan said, her voice calming Emil instantly. “Here. You’ll need to learn to do more than just float.” She lay down on her stomach on the pier, her chin on the edge. She stretched out her arms and pulled Emil towards her, taking his hands in hers. “Float,” she said.

Emil kicked off the lake bed again and let his body take over. It learned quickly, how to balance without rolling, how to use the air in its lungs as ballast. He floated on his stomach this time, his legs trailing behind him, gripping Morgan’s wrists.

“Gently,” she said, easing his grip and intertwining his fingers in hers. Emil could not crane his neck high enough to look at the sky. All he could see was the water, the pier, and Morgan’s face. He decided to look at the water.

“Paddle,” she said.

Emil started kicking his feet. He had seen swimmers on television, of course. How they kept their legs stretched as they kicked, their arms pushing water like broad oars. He emulated them, minus the arms. Morgan smiled, pleased.

“You’re doing well.”

“I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Your body does. Keep going.”

Emil kept going. And going. Then Morgan stripped and joined him in the water. She swam a lap around him, and his eyes committed the motion to memory. She held his arms and moved them to demonstrate, and his body remembered how each muscle should flex, which tendons to loosen and which to pull tight. Then she held his legs, keeping him in place while he practiced his strokes with his arms.

And then she let go.

Emil coiled and sprung into a breaststroke. He swam towards the eye of the lake, his body putting both halves of the motion together seamlessly. The lake had not changed, but he was no longer confined to the shore where the lake bed was in reach. Now, the whole of Lake Egret was his to explore. The water became more pleasant, less condescending of his inability, as though inviting a younger brother who had finally grown enough to be included.

Emil had grown up next to the local waterpark. It was a relatively big attraction (by Elsed standards) and had a few pools, including one with a wave generator that ran on a schedule, and a separate heated spa pool to relax in. Emil had never been to Lake Egret, let alone the sea, so to him, the pool was wonderfully large, vivid, and beautiful. He loved the teal-blue tiled floor. The water was never still, always rippling as people swam through it, making the seams between the tiles dance and waver. He had never seen anything like it. Floodlights surrounded the pool and his little mind could not comprehend where the light came from. Not only did they keep the pool well lit, they also formed fractals in the rippling water itself, shifting and refracting, a beautiful foil to the dancing tiles below.

His parents signed him up for nightly swim classes, but he quit after his first lesson. He was very young, just a few years old, and there were other children like him, all paddling with kickboards near the shallow edge of an olympic pool. Whether it was actually olympic-sized, Emil was not sure, but that was what everybody called it. He needed to use the toilet, so the instructor let him, telling him to hurry back. He was nervous using the urinals surrounded by giant men, but he managed. After washing his hands like his mother taught him to, he stepped out of the washroom.

The pool was full, the lights bright like countless little suns. The waterpark was bounded off from the rest of Elsed by the starless night. The air smelled strongly of chlorine. For the first time, he felt like he was part of something. He was part of this isolated world where he could swim as he pleased, where everything was blue and sparkly and clean, where people moved like fish, slicing gracefully through water. Of course, Emil could not swim yet. But he could see the rest of the ladder stretching up above him. The first rung was ready and waiting. All he had to do was climb, and he would eventually reach the top where everyone else was waiting.

He looked up and saw a swimmer dive off a board from what seemed like a hundred metres high. He did a somersault and plunged into the water like a knife. There was no splash, no detonation on the surface. The water swallowed him up as though that was where he belonged. As though he had originally emerged from the water and was being pulled back in reverse.

Emil wanted to be part of this world, too. So he stepped into the pool’s shallow end. The others swam around him, paying him no attention. That was fine. He did not want to be celebrated or highlighted like some kind of anomaly or newcomer. He just wanted to be a swimmer like the rest.

The floor outside the pool had concrete coping lining the edge where it met the water, meant for swimmers to hold on to. He gripped it with his tiny fingers, his body floating behind him, and started inching along it. The others were at the other end of the pool, so he would have to make his way across. Olympic pools are deepest in the middle, so it was not long until his feet could no longer reach the floor and he had to pull himself along using just his fingers. It was not difficult at all—the water supported his weight, and he would not sink as long as he maintained his grip. This was a good sign. The fact that he was not struggling meant that he was doing things right. That he was part of this world, that he knew its rules and etiquette, that he was not the clueless newcomer. The crossing was slow, but he was in no hurry. He was wholly content with being present in this otherworldly place, being here in the swimming pool.

Then a muscular arm grabbed him by the collar and yanked him out of the pool. It was the instructor. He started yelling at him. Apparently, inching along the edge of the pool like that was dangerous.

The lights lost their magic. Now they were harsh and blinding. The chlorine turned acrid, making him distinctly aware that he was inhaling chemicals and not fresh air. The floor froze his feet and the wind bit into his skin through his swimsuit. Emil could tell the instructor was angry, but he could not understand what he was saying. He looked up at him. He was a shadow silhouetted by searing fluorescent light. His words bounced around his skull, too many reverberations for him to distinguish the syllables.

The waterpark waterparked around him uninterrupted. People swam and played. The waves lapped, unbothered. Nobody was concerned for the child being yelled at. Emil realised he had never been part of this world at all. Nothing of value was lost when he was removed from the pool. Rather, something that should not have been there in the first place, a bumbling idiot that had wandered into somewhere he did not belong, had been dealt with, returning the swimming pool to its rightful state.

Foolish boy. Doesn’t he know how deep the pool gets?

Not only can’t he swim; he can’t understand basic instructions either.

How hard is it to just walk back? Is he trying to show off?

Surely not—unless he thinks inching along the edge is impressive or something.

I’m glad he got pulled out before doing something stupid.

Imagine if he actually tried to swim.

Even without seeing their faces, he heard their thoughts. Even as they continued to swim as though nothing had happened, he knew that they were all secretly relieved to have the pool back to themselves. There were no gazes drilling into the back of his head, but he knew. They had all seen the instructor pull him out. They knew what had happened, and they were glad that the irritating child was gone.

After the instructor finished yelling, he finally escorted Emil back to the students who lay in the pool waiting. This crushed what little was left of his pride, knowing they had all seen what happened, knowing that his idiocy had kept them waiting.

That night, after his parents picked him up from the pool and asked him how the class went, he hesitated. He knew swim classes were not free. He knew his parents were paying so he could have fun—they knew how much he liked the waterpark. He knew they wanted him to continue and improve as a swimmer, but only because they thought that was what he wanted.

“I don’t want to go back,” he said quietly. His mother stopped patting his hair dry, confused. Her son was not crying. He did not look upset. But he was still a child, her child, and she could easily read that he was holding himself back, that he was upset, that he was trying not to upset anyone else.

“Why?” she asked, unable to resist, feeling some sense of duty as a parent to at least ask.

“I just don’t like it,” he replied.

After a brief pause, she nodded and resumed drying his hair, not pushing any further.

Emil never attended swim classes again. He still visited the waterpark often with his family—it was nearby and cheap, after all. But Emil only ever went there to play in the waves. He never tried to swim and never stepped into the olympic pool again. That was beyond his station.

“Emil!” Morgan shouted, and for a moment the moonlight seared his eyes, harsh and blinding, and the jasmine in the air choked his lungs. But he quickly recognised the joy in her voice and the world returned to normal. “Emil! Wait for me!” she shouted again, swimming, catching up to him.

They both rolled onto their backs, their heads touching, Morgan’s feet facing the shore while Emil’s feet pointed towards the eye of the lake. They looked at the stars. The air was quiet, the water still.

“You swim well,” Morgan said softly, catching her breath.

“I just did what you told me to.”

“Still, you’re a natural. Is this really your first time?”

Emil hesitated. “I grew up next to a waterpark. But I never really went swimming. I just played in the waves and soaked in the spa pool with my dad.”

“A waterpark? Ah, right—that one. Near the edge of town. I remember. I’ve been there before. So that’s where you grew up?”

“Yeah. It’s a bit far.”

“You must have had a beautiful view of the hills.”

“I suppose so.”

A brief silence. The stars twinkled.

“When did you go?” Emil asked.

“To the waterpark? Hm… five, six years ago, I guess?”

“I see.”

“Why do you ask?”

“No reason.”

The wind picked up, caressing their skin.

“It closed a few years ago,” Emil murmured.

“Really? That’s a shame.”

“You liked it?”

“Yeah.”

“Me too.”

The swimming pool felt a bit more real now that it was a shared memory, even if it no longer existed. The pair drifted further from the shore, still in formation, but they were swimmers, and this was their domain. Lake Egret was not built by man—it was made by the stars, just like them, and so they had every right to be here.

“Did you choke on the water when I pushed you in?”

“Yeah. Thanks for that.”

“Sorry. My family spread my grandmother’s ashes here, by the way.”

Emil stared at the stars for a moment. Morgan would sometimes say things that he had no idea how to respond to, and this was one of those times.

“I-I see. Does your family usually do that?” he managed to respond.

“Yeah. We cremate our dead and scatter their ashes. That’s weird in Elsed, isn’t it? Most of us bury our dead.”

“I don’t think it’s weird. It’s just… it’s not a tradition that had an opportunity to develop here, considering how far the sea is.”

“My family wasn’t from here, originally. Well, we’ve been here a few generations, but some old traditions persist.”

“Oh,” Emil said, picturing Morgan’s face against the night sky. He could see her perfectly. Green eyes were not common in Elsed.

“You’re thinking about me,” she said.

Emil choked on water, losing his balance for a moment before recovering. “I’m not.”

“You don’t have to.” She reached over and gently pulled his chin, rolling his head further back, upside down. They made eye contact. Morgan’s face filled the upper half of his view. The moon and the stars occupied the rest. Emil burned this picturesque sight into memory.

“You’re really not from around here,” Emil mumbled, not sure what else to say.

“Well, obviously. I don’t know any other Laplaces here.”

“You’re right.”

The breeze quieted down, the trees falling still.

“Why does Elsed bury its dead?” Morgan asked, still looking at him.

“Why? That’s… that’s just how it’s always been.”

“You don’t think it’s cruel?”

“Cruel?”

Morgan pondered for a moment. “We give our dead back to the stars while you keep your dead locked in boxes.”

“The dead are dead,” Emil said, though part of his heart understood what she meant.

“Only until they’re made again. Like you and I were, remember?”

“I don’t remember dying.”

“But you remember being born from nothing. Auric is right, you know. If the stars made us once, they can make us again. And they did. They made us again. And they will. And maybe next time, my grandmother’s ashes will be part of you.”

Emil tried very hard to avoid averting his eyes. “I… I get what you’re trying to say. But Auric just writes stories. I like that line too, but Auric doesn’t know more than we do.”

“He does, Emil. Writers know better than anybody else what it means to create something from nothing. You know it too. That’s why you’re a walker. You’re afraid of being disintegrated and remade elsewhere.”

Emil looked down at the stars. He understood Morgan, but there was a part of him that stubbornly did not want to admit he was scared. Not in front of anyone, but especially not in front of Morgan.

“It’s okay. I’m a walker too. You’re not the only one who’s scared. Auric is, too,” she said, reaching out to caress his cheek. “We all are. That’s why I need you on stage with me. I cannot act alongside a corpse.”

She gently pulled his head alongside hers, adjacent, their faces turned towards each other, and she kissed him under the light of the moon. Emil let her, of course—he was madly in love with her, though he knew that he was simply convenient to her, a man that learned quickly and was not a living corpse. Emil was okay with that. He had grown not to expect anything more than conditional love.

The kiss lasted a while before Morgan finally pulled away. “I didn’t expect my first kiss to be upside down,” Emil muttered, looking away.

“We can do it again right side up later,”

“Once is fine.”

Emil’s stammering amused Morgan. She giggled this time, softer than her laugh when she had pushed him into the water earlier, soft like the silver chimes his mother had installed above the front door. They tinkled whenever he came home from school and his mother would immediately step out of the kitchen to give him a hug. It was a sound that he had learned to associate with unconditional love.

There was no reason why Morgan’s gentle laugh should have reminded him of the tinkle of a bell. He knew her love was conditional. But for the brief time they spent floating towards the eye of Lake Egret, borne on its still, silvery surface, cradled by the jasmine breeze passing through swaying trees, all part of this heavenly stage constructed by the stars, he let himself indulge in the fantasy that they could be more than just actors, that their love could be real.