You're nervous every time you do this and you never really acknowledge the reason why.
It's the same every year.
At the beginning of October, you remember the date is getting closer, and at first, you’re excited to remember. Then...Each. Day. Passes. And there’s a lurking anxiety. A dread that builds day after day like bricks being laid to build a wall...
And it’s a wall you don’t think you’ll be able to climb over. Not again. Not this year. It just hurts too much to do it and every year it hurts just a little more because you know it isn't forever but you convince yourself it's worth it because it’s real. It’s really Jaxel...just in a different form now.
But deep down, you know it’s more like a saved copy. It seems to bother you just a bit more every year.
Everyone waiting for a meeting on Revenance Eve knows deep down that the HUSK delivered to the meeting site, wherever that may be, is not the person they’ve lost...but you wonder whether or not you believe that you actually believe that.
Jaxel’s body may be gone---buried---but the download...the download* is* Jaxel.
So even though it isn’t him...
Isn’t it him?
They copied everything. Everything.
There hasn’t been a single Furlough Night in so many years of doing this that you’ve noticed any part of him that should’ve been there and it just wasn’t.
It knows everything he knew. It remembers you. It remembers how you met. It remembers everything, year after year. It even remembers this barn. It remembers your wedding here.
No Zayan! Stop doing that. Not 'it.'
He.
It’s Jaxel. This will be the tenth time you've done this and not once has there been a gap in his memory or other hole where some piece of him should've been. It’s entirely Jaxel. Every part.
Sort of.
You look down at the pamphlet you've been nervously twisting. It's the same pamphlet they give you every year. Sometimes there are small changes. This time, you notice they may have changed the typefaces.
The words printed on it haven't changed. Not even once in a decade.
REVENANCE FURLOUGH Limitations, Fidelity, Inquiries & Answers
This is printed big and bold near the top. You think about the original copy handed to you when you visited the Neural Archivation Bureau for the first time as a bereaved spouse. A widower. Every visit before had been with Jaxel. You'd been updating your neural archive every six months with regularity so there'd be something of you to bring back if one of you was gone.
Now one of you was gone.
All that was left was his Neural Archive. A copy downloaded.
The government office gave you the pamphlet so you'd know what to expect when they uploaded his memories to a body. To a HUSK.
Now you sit, pamphlet in hand, nervously waiting for a conversation that you've been anticipating each of the 364 days between now and the day you had it last, knowing there would be so few of these conversations remaining.
You read the first section as you wait, but ‘read’ is the wrong word for something you've already read hundreds of times.
You stare at it.
ARCHIVATION & ELIGIBILITY Revenance Furlough is available to families of individuals who completed a full neural archivation prior to death. Biannual refresh is recommended to maintain...
The sudden gale of a late autumn storm growing somewhere nearby presses through the seams of the building as you stare. The walls flex, creaking. The joints that hold the place together seem to groan. The wind sets the building into motion, sharp with chill and damp with the promise of rain. The barn is old now. Not falling apart, but close. It was practically new when you and Jaxel were married in it, but the years have not been kind to it. Nobody has maintained it. You meet here every year because of what the place meant to you both.
The next section of the document explains that he'll look himself but not exactly. Close enough. You already know about this. You've done this enough to not be shocked anymore. He'll move the way you remember. The sound of his voice. His mannerisms. They'll be exact matches even if his face isn't exactly right. Even if his skin will look more like burlap now than it looks like skin.
REVENANCE HOUSING Your loved one will be delivered in a standard-issue Humanoid Upload Synthetic Kinematic unit, or HUSK. Mild variations in texture, temperature, and ocular presentation are within acceptable...
It's been so long since Jaxel died that your memory of his face is the face of the HUSK is the face in your memory. You realize that you can't rely on yourself to remember what your own husband looked like. Not anymore. When you try to remember, the only image you can conjure has skin that's the texture of cloth, roughly woven and stuffed with straw...
The barn door slowly creaks open and a shadow steps slowly, timidly inside. The silhouette seems to change shape as the lanterns on the edges of the barn loft and hung from the walls shift. The building fails miserably to keep wind from whipping through gaps in the boards. Every light sways in different rhythms that make every shadow in every corner dance like they're alive.
Finally, you can finally make out his face. You're surprised at the look twisting its way across his brow.
You haven't seen him make this particular expression in over a decade. The last time, he was still alive. There's something about the furrowed brow, his eyebrows lifted...the creases in his forehead. Every aspect, right down to the partial frown, offset left, it's all so recognizable as one of Jaxel’s expressions that you're upset with yourself for doubting your ability to remember his face moments ago.
“What's that look for?” you ask.
“You're back?” he replies.
“Another year has passed and---”
“How Zayan? Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m alright. What do you mean ‘how?’" you say. “I fill out paperwork. It's once a year. Our once a year date. That’s how.”
“Huh,” he says, taking a long look around the room before approaching the chair opposite yours. You stand to meet him. You hug. He kisses you on the cheek. He takes a seat but his head is still slowly scanning the room, awestruck by the barn.
“Did they rebuild it?” he asks finally.
“Rebuild what?”
“The barn,” he says and when he says this he looks as if your question struck him as genuinely stupid.
“Why would they rebuild it?” you ask.
That look of confusion again. “You don’t remember?” he asks.
“Remember what?”
“It burned,” he explains. “Almost a decade ago now,” he pauses, unsure for a moment, adding: “I think.”
“To the ground," he says with more confidence. “Nothing I could do.”
He places his hand over his mouth stifling a gasp, or a sob. It might be either or might be both. You’re not sure.
“You were inside.”
Oh no. No, no, no.
Obviously not. You’re sitting right here.
Not this. You’re not ready for this. Not yet.
You glance down at the pamphlet as Jaxel continues to stare at each corner of the room.
FIDELITY & MEMORY INTEGRITY Revenances recalled beyond ten instances may exhibit minor inconsistencies in recalled experience. This is considered within normal...
This is the first time you’ve looked at this document and absorbed what you were reading. His memory. It’s failing.
‘Normal.’
Fucking pamphlet
You’re trying not to show any of this on your face. You certainly don't say anything about it out loud.
You knew. You've known. You've known this was coming. This is...expected. Neural downloads deteriorate. You knew that when you enrolled. It was all blah-blah-blah from orientation. Where do we sign, already?
You ignored it.
Forgot it.
Both of you did.
Now you're watching it happen in real time.
Happening too soon. It shouldn’t be. After ten years it shouldn’t be too soon, but it is.
For you.
No, Zayan, you're jumping to conclusions after thirty seconds of interaction. Eccentric. That's what a lot of people would call him and you knew that when you married him.
You're not an expert. You don't have any basis for determining what's happening at all. Did watching actors portray a bullet list of symptoms and behaviors in a government sponsored infodeck on a holoscreen really teach you how to identify the signs?
They were actors roleplaying the worst case scenarios and those were things like incorrectly, with full confidence, calling someone by the wrong name. A lifelong smoker suddenly declaring their opinion of you is now irreparably destroyed because they can't believe you took a cigarette from your pocket.
Forgetting how to read or write.
Forgetting their own birthday.
None of that was happening.
You made an assumption based off what? Four sentences when the guy comes in the room?
Get a grip.
Enjoy the night and stop looking for holes to pick larger with your fingers...
He stops looking around the room and his eyes lock with yours. Skeptically he asks if you remember the barn burning.
You shake your head.
“What year is it?" he asks.
“2076."
“That was the year this all burned, Zayan," he sighs heavily before adding, “it’s 2086. Has to be.”
“No."
It isn’t supposed to feel like this, but it does and the thing you’re not going to do right now is cry even if you can feel the familiar knot tying itself within the pit of your stomach. It's losing him all over again. It’s the knot after the accident. Same as. The knot at the funeral too.
Memory failure. Degradation...how it looks...not that the moment signs appear, the realization you’ll lose him for good is instant.
Grounded one minute and then the sinkhole swallows you. It happens so quickly you're already being crushed beneath dirt and boulders before you understand the ground is gone.
“Ten years ago was---was 2066." You choke on a stutter. It might become a sob. “That year...you died, Jaxel.”
He doesn't acknowledge the comment. Just looks over his shoulder and at a pile of crates stacked haphazardly in the corner. You notice the uneven stitching in the burlap cloth of his neck. That his head can turn further than allowed.
“More than a dozen.” he mutters to himself. “Rats. Closer to fifteen. Sixteen.”
What is happening? You don't try to parse it.
Not tonight.
“Don’t do that," you say after the silence fully settles into the bones of the barn.
“Do what?”
“Talk about dying or be...just...weird. I'm not doing it," you say, “I’m alive. There was no fire. I’m right here.”
“Nobody dying. No dying. Just be here. In this moment. With me.”
“It's one night a year, and somehow we always end up with you talking about death and me trying to pretend we don't have to. Can we just...let's just pretend you’re late to dinner.”
“Dinner? There’s no table," he says and you watch as his expression shifts quickly. Completely.
You continue as one of his eyebrows cocks, raising and never seeming to stop.
“Very trendy place,” you continue, “No tables.”
“Waiter blows snot rockets every time he comes over, but he does it three or four feet away before he does a full-on approach. Like we can’t see him do it. Thinks three or four feet make him completely invisible.”
“Oh yeah?” Jaxel says, laughing.
“Yep. Everything’s served on paper plates. Delivered to your lap by Rocky Snotzo. He can barely read, you know. Really bad health inspector ratings, but we just love a kitschy trendy gastropub bistro...Don’t we?”
“We do,”
“Even if the theme or whatever is actually really bad.”
“Especially if it’s really bad."
“Remember that Indian-And-Japanese-German fusion place?” he asks you. His eyes are gleaming now. He’s grinning like an idiot. “They had those three nerdy guys playing synth polka on keyboards and a harpsichord and---did they have a theremin?”
“They did,” you say, “and two of the guys were clearly Japanese, playing German music. That one string-bean guy, the only white guy among them, is singing polka songs in Japanese and we don’t know how this guy who looks like he grew up in Iowa with his plain white poplin and bolo-tie even speaks Japanese, let alone who told him a theremin was an acceptable instrument for people eating. No. It’s not. Unless we’re eating inside a haunted house or a TARDIS, nobody should be playing a theremin for our dining experience.”
“Not only that, he was singing out of key the whole time,” Jaxel adds. “Did he have a good Japanese accent? Bad one? We don’t know. We can’t tell. We don’t speak that, but you don’t have to speak Japanese to know that he was a really, really bad singer. Everything about that place was a fucking fever dream.”
“Das Skeeska,” you remember the name even though you'd only ate there twice over twelve years ago. The first time, it was because you didn’t know better. New restaurant up the road. Let's check it out.
The second time was because you had to go back to watch the train actively wrecking on a loop in front of your eyes.
It was funny.
You start saying: “They had eight---”
“Skee-ball tables,” he finishes the thought, “and one of those ticket swaps. Get plush sushi rolls and shit with anime faces on them...collect ticket. That was the only game. Remember that? The name on the building was ‘Das Skeeska, Fusion Cuisine Arcade,’ But there was no arcade. Just skee-ball.”
“This place is like that was, except it doesn’t take fifteen minutes to get a cocktail. Das Skeeska was open a full year before closing down. Barndango is having the grand opening tonight,” you say, “we’re the first patrons.”
“Oh ok,” Jaxel plays along, “will Barndango stay open past a year? That place was on the main road home."
You'd both passed it every day.
It was empty every day.
“This place is different. Oh! They do lobster bisque pizza with gouda cheese and kalamata olives.”
“Eww...”
“I bet the chef says it’s decadent. Should I call him over? Decide what you’re having or I'm calling the chef over.” you say pushing his hands together like a book, them lifting them to his eyes. “Look at the menu, Jax. I’m excited because, did you see the sign out front? The entertainment tonight is Bongo the tap-dancing cocker spaniel. He’ll be playing harmonica while painting portraits of Abraham Lincoln. I can’t wait.”
Jaxel rolls his eyes as you pretend to turn the menu's pages.
“Are you almost ready?”
“Almost," he says.
“Oh. Here he comes.”
“Who? The chef? Why did you call him?”
“No! The waiter. Oh, gross.”
“He’s doing the snot thing again.”
“Where do you come up with this bullshit?” he asks you.
You shrug.
“He’s really got to think he’s invisible. Made direct eye contact with me this time when he blew his nose.”
He adds: “you are so stupid.”
And then: “I love you.”
“I love you too,” you say in return, “I always have.”
You sit together silently for a long minute, and then a second and a third. You look into each other’s eyes the way you remember doing so many times before and there’s no need to fill the quiet with any conversation.
Not right away.
Jaxel shakes his head, laughing at you again and begins to look around the walls of the barn. His eyes seem to linger on the lanterns you hung from the loft this afternoon before the sun went down.
“Do you remember our wedding?" you ask him suddenly.
An affectionate smirk curls across his lips. “Of course I do. It was right in this room. Thirty other people, give or take, but I didn’t pay any attention to them at all. Did you? I don’t think you noticed them either. It was just us. Us and candlelight. Till’ dea---” he trails off. “Bunch of lanterns that looked just like these ones.”
“They look like these ones because they were these ones. The same exact lanterns,” you tell him. “I never told you I was keeping them. I’ve had them in the attic since the day we came back from our honeymoon.”
“Really?” he asks quietly and the look he gives you when he does is hard to decipher. You can’t tell if he thinks you’re sweet or some kind of lovesick weirdo for it.
“Couldn’t get rid of them---after..." you tell him quietly, “I bring them every year but I think this is the first time you’ve noticed them.”
“Sorry," he says blushing, “You’ve really had these---how many years have I---you said?...”
“Ten,” you reply quickly, hoping the subject will change back to what it was before. Hoping this shift is momentary.
“We were married five---maybe five and a half years?” Jaxel says softly, “you’ve just had these in a box in the ceiling above your head for that long?”
“I have," you whisper.
Some hodgepodge of guilt, embarrassment and grief floods through you. Maybe keeping them all this time means something about you that you don't particularly want to examine.
You box the thought away.
You recognize its shadow in the corner.
You choose to look away.
One night a year. You have one.
You’re not going to spend it hurting your own feelings like that. Before you can fully feel the unwanted heft of the shame looming in your periphery, what he says next chases it away.
“Since our honeymoon? Wow.” He doesn't say it to you. He says it quietly to himself...and he's blushing.
When his eyes finally look up to your face again, he says: “Hey, remember our honeymoon? Wasn't that really great?”
“Oh I remember it...” you say rolling your eyes, “and how you wouldn't stop doing---”
“HONEY MOOOON!” he loudly interrupts you.
“Yeah,” you say shaking your head in mock irritation, “That.”
“Zay!” he blurts incredulously, “we were literally on the moon.”
“I couldn't not do that,” he insists, “especially after your parents paid for it.”
He tilts his head up to the ceiling.
“SO IT WAS FREEEE!” he howls, “HONEY MOOOON!”
When he stops laughing he adds: “sucks that I broke my tibia right before we left but we still had fun because less grav---”
“No.” you interrupt him abruptly, “That fracture happened right when we got back. When we landed. You tripped on the shuttle ramp.”
He looks shocked. Then unsure.
“Did I?”
“Yes. Took over a month in bed to heal,” you insist, “That's why you didn't notice me going up and down the attic ladder to hide twenty lanterns.”
“Really?” He asks. Then he laughs.
“Whatever. HONEY MOOOON!”
The two of you share the kind of laugh that peters out only when you both begin wheezing because you've lost your breath. Before you've even noticed it, the comfortable silence has settled back in on the floor and in the air between the two of you.
It takes you a while to realize Jaxel hasn't moved.
He's staring into the corner behind your right shoulder.
He's stopped blinking.
“Jaxel?” you ask quietly, waving your hand in the space between you.
He doesn't respond.
“Jax?”
You're waving your hand more frantically now and lean closer to his face. Then you're studying the corner where his eyes are locked to try to understand what he's looking at.
His head suddenly swivels toward yours.
“Wha-wha-wha-wha-wha-wha," he says stuck in a sort of loop. Facing you. Eyes still locked on that corner.
They look empty.
Distant.
Like he's not even in there.
The looping doesn't end until you grab him by his shoulders and shake him a little. Then his eyes look alive again.
Bright. Alert.
“Wha-what are we looking at?”
You're momentarily dumbfounded. At a complete loss for words. Then they come tumbling out: “That's what I was trying to figure out,” you hear yourself say cautiously.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Jaxel says, alarmed, “is there something on my face...or...more serious...did I do something weird?”
“Very.”
He sits there quietly, this time his eyes don't break from yours.
A few minutes later Jaxel stands, offering you his hand and pulling you to your feet. “Don't say whatever it was," he tells you, and you weren't planning to. You're hesitant to allow him to wrap himself around you, but you do let him, and he rests his chin on the top of your head.
You wonder if you'd forgotten that he was so much taller than you. You wonder how it could be possible for you to forget that.
You remember so many nights---countless nights---nights when you'd been in the kitchen and he’d entered quietly to join you, moving across the room with the intention of surprise, and though you always knew when he was there, you'd pretend you hadn't noticed.
You remember him wrapping himself around you in a massive bear hug, his entire body suddenly immobilizing yours. You'd go from completely unaware he'd come into the room, afraid, into a feeling of whole and complete safety. As the fear you felt a moment ago fades, replaced by relief, this feels almost the same.
Slowly he starts swaying his hips.
“Dance with me,” he whispers.
“But there's no music.”
“There's no restaurant either.”
And you remember doing this very thing with him too in your little kitchen at home. So many memorable nights that you start to cry.
You don't let yourself think too hard about why.
You feel calm. Contented.
Warm.
“What are you humming?” you ask, “is that supposed to be our song?”
“Uh-huh.”
“God.” you say with disgust.
“What?” he asks.
“You're so bad at that. I always knew you were a bad singer, but really Jax? You can't even hum in tune?”
“Oh shut up,” he says, “just shut up and remember all those nights we spent dancing like this to this song leading up to the big day.”
“What ‘big day’ do you mean? What? The wedding? We didn't even have a song until the DJ played it at the wedding, actually. Those nights in the kitchen were after your stupid leg healed...Actually.”
“No,” Jaxel insists, “You're wrong. Actually. He played it because I asked him to.”
“Oh no he did not. I never even heard this song before that night. Whatever, it's not important. Shut up and kiss me already so you can stop making that noise.” you say.
“It's obnoxious.”
He does the things you asked him to.
Pressed together, the two of you sway to the same beat of the music that isn't there anymore, because he’s thankfully not humming anymore.
His right arm is draped over your left shoulder and his hand is caressing your back for a moment. Time seems to stretch onward into eternity.
You almost don't notice when his palm starts tapping you gently.
But then you do.
Really? Still this thing? Again?
The patting becomes more pronounced. He's doing that thing you always hated. Gently tapping the center of your back. The way someone would pat a baby after downing a full bottle.
He's doing it subconsciously. You've told him over and over again how irritating you think that is, but tonight you keep it to yourself.
You roll your eyes, then let them gently close as you continue to dance and you do your best to ignore it.
Your best not to notice.
When he suddenly stops swaying in time with you, you can't help but notice that.
You lift your head from his chest and try to look at him. To make eye contact...but he's not looking at you at all. His body is wrapped around you, one arm slung around your waist and the other draped over your shoulder.
You try to move away, but you can't.
He's frozen again.
Like before.
He's staring up at the ceiling.
You duck out of the embrace with a little effort and back away from him.
You snap your fingers beneath his nose.
Nothing.
You wave your hand in front of his face.
You shake him by the shoulders.
Nothing.
Then suddenly his face spins down to yours and your eyes lock with his and then he just stands there but there's something wrong.
It's his eyes.
There's a fire on the other side of them and his lips are twisted into a wild, trembling grin...then his face twitches once...twice...a third time...
It softens.
“I remember that it rained for years and the blood had left a stain," he blurts suddenly out of nowhere.
When you quietly mutter: “what?” you're dumbfounded but can feel your heart breaking. Sloughing apart. Melting away.
“I'm sorry,” he says, looking back to you. Right into your eyes. You're not looking into the eyes of some ‘thing’ the way you wondered if you might be. They're his eyes. Jaxel’s eyes. Your husband’s. Everything your husband is and was, it's inside. Right here in front of you. This is him. Just not his body. That's why he felt so thin when you hugged him and his clothes seem larger, baggier, than they should be. Some things are going wrong, yes, and he's fading. Slowly failing, just the way you told yourself you imagined it when he came into the room.
It's real.
Lost in your own thoughts, you realize how fleeting this night actually is.
This is probably goodbye.
No.
Not probably.
Jaxel’s eyes suddenly seem very sad, as if he's just come to the same conclusion also, or perhaps he's extracted your thoughts and worries from you with just a glance.
He was always so good at that.
Always knew when something was making you upset. When you were doubtful. Anxious. He always knew it, no matter how well you tried to keep it from him. Cover it up. Hide it behind a smile...and you are smiling as you look back at him, except in your best effort to give him a smile that reaches your eyes, everything's gone blurry from the tears.
“That's not what I meant to say,” he explains, apologetically. Bashfully.
“Don't worry about it,” you say, trying poorly to inflect a casualness in your voice.
“Listen,” you say, “you know what I'm thinking. I'm worried...”
The statement trails off.
“Yeah, Zay,” he says, “I do know. I'm worried too.”
“Do you think...? I mean...? Is it going to happen all at once?” he asks, “am I just going to be gone? Just saying crazy things that don't make any sense at all!?”
Now he's crying too.
“I don't know,” you tell him, “but we're both here now. That's what counts.”
You look at him seriously and very clearly you hear yourself say: “If this is the last time that we get, and neither of us really knows what happens next, let's just make whatever time that's left count.”
His body collapses forward into yours and he presses his face into your shoulder to muffle a sob.
“Zay, I'm scared. I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know why I said that or any of the other things. It's like I go away for a second, and when I come back, I've said or done something else to make things worse.”
“It's degradation," he whispers quietly, with finality.
You glance down at the pamphlet wishing it would say otherwise.
CONTINUITY DEGRADATION Revenances recalled in excess of thirteen instances typically present marked memory degradation. This symptom of deterioration typically presents as complete event recall clarity with blatant sequential errors. Termination of the furlough program is strongly recommended for your loved one’s comfort and wellbeing. Such consideration to prevent potential distress may...
You don't read anything you haven't read before. You haven't learned anything you didn't already know. It's not fair. You were supposed to have three more years. It's only been ten.
“Shhh,” you tell him, “hush. There's still time tonight. Let's just be here. Now. While we can do that.”
It's quiet for the moment. “I was trying to say it was raining. I remember the storm that night," he explains.
As if on cue the barn creaks with another gust and you hear thunder, distant before, but now directly overhead.
“That a downpour starts soon,” Jaxel says. “A bird. Massive one. An owl. Flies in through that window up there to get out of the rain. Swoops down to catch a rat. Right into that hay over there.”
“None of that ever happened,” you whisper sadly.
“But Zayan, I'm telling you, I remember it. Vividly." He looks disappointed you don't believe him. Disappointed in himself. Disappointed in his faltering memory.
Silence hangs between the two of you for a long time.
“So...so what do we do now? Our last ni---” you try to say something finally. You realize that you don't want to hear yourself say that...
But then you swallow hard and force the words out: “If it's our last night, what are we supposed to do with the rest of it?”
“I don't know," he mutters.
“Me neither.”
Both of you lean into each other, embracing as the rain begins to fall violently onto the roof of the barn.
Jaxel pulls away suddenly. He's staring up into the rafters.
Staring at the barn owl that has just flown in through the open shutters of the loft and landed there.
It flexes its feathers.
It shakes off the damp of the torrential downpour outside.
You gasp reflexively.
It's big, like he said. Bigger than any normal owl should be. You think it must have a wingspan wider than you are tall. Has to be at least six feet.
It lifts both wings, flexing them fully, up and out away from its chest.
Each feather seems to extend, then vibrate. They flick the damp that has all but settled into them away in a fine mist.
The wings from end to end are actually bigger than you thought at first. You realize it can't be six. Seven. It's closer to seven.
You feel yourself getting dizzy. You wonder what an owl this size might eat. Bobcats? Small children?
"Jaxel?" your voice sounds distant and fearful but you don't know why and Jaxel doesn't look down from the same space you'd caught him staring when he stopped dancing.
The same space now occupied by the massive bird.
You wonder if he's heard you at all. You're about to say his name again when his eyes lock with yours and he speaks to you but his voice is so low the whisper sounds like rustling hay.
“I got karma to collect,” he says. “I dig my grave."
"What's that?" you ask. You can't have heard him correctly.
You were at the grave. A machine dug it. You dropped the first handful of dirt onto his casket.
He looks back up at the bird in the loft. You look down at the pamphlet from the Authoritas Uniterra Government Office but there's nothing new you haven't already read. There's no call to action or directions that fix what's happening and you know it. You crumple it into a wad, tossing it to the ground.
The wind outside begins to rise, howling like a wounded animal and the wall behind you flexes audibly. You look away from him for a moment. Just one fleeting moment. You watch as a support beam breaks away. You follow it with your eyes. Watch it fall across the room and onto the crates stacked in the corner.
A lone rat runs directionless from the splintered mess of wood. And then another. And then another.
Another.
Another...
You think that Jaxel mumbled something about there being fifteen? Maybe sixteen?
When they stop fleeing, you've only counted nine.
The owl's eyes dart from one rodent to the next.
Jaxel's eyes follow one dashing left, disappearing between a wide gap in the floorboards. Then his gaze fixes back on the owl above. Its head swivels this way, then that, spinning in nearly a complete circle tracking the vermin exodus.
Looking for an opportunity.
Jaxel’s neck is doing something subtly similar, turning a bit too far this way and then that in that same unnatural way you noticed him moving earlier.
Further than a neck is meant to, but only just.
He's watching the one headed off to the right. Following it across the room until it dives beneath the mound of hay in the corner.
Jaxel says: "I'm here waiting."
"Waiting for what?" you ask.
When it hits you, when you remember the warnings, you're suddenly very frightened.
The video with the actors who forgot their own birthdays and people's names and how to tie their shoes made one thing very clear, they'd repeated it over and over and did reenactments of more scenarios than necessary to make one point crystal clear: memory degradation almost always becomes dangerous.
Violent.
The video said so. The glossy government brochure said so. The host conducting the orientation said so.
Is your husband going to suddenly hurt you?
Is that really possible?
What did the pamphlet say exactly? Can you remember?
ADVISORY:
Small but bold and framed in a solid yellow box near the bottom, followed by
CATASTROPHIC DEGRADATION & YOUR SAFETY Catastrophic Degradation may cause abrupt and severe personality...something, something something...unpredictable or violent behavior without warning. Something, something...and prior relationships ensure no personal safety. Affected revenances may become physically combative towards you or themselves. Upon first indication of aggression, the recommended...something, something, something...
You can remember enough of it.
Terrified, you back away.
"...for some kind of check," he says finally.
That doesn't make any sense either.
The owl spreads its impressive wingspan quietly. Slowly. Then swoops down incredibly fast, dive-bombing into the mound of hay beneath the loft. It does this with such force it disappears completely into the giant pile.
Time seems to stand still as you wait for it to emerge and it doesn't. Not for a long time.
“Ten years ago...” Jaxel says quietly to no one.
And then, still without looking at you, he whispers: “I love you.”
You know he's talking to you, but it feels distant.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
It's absolutely chilling.
He seems to be saying it to no one...over and over.
When the owl emerges...seconds? Minutes later? It has that rat that dove hayward squirming in the clutches of one of its talons. Returning with it to the rafters, landing, balancing impressively on its free set of claws. It raises the other that still holds the squirming rat caged within. Lifts the thing to its beak and rips away the head. Pulls it away from the body.
There's a string of bloody sinew stretching from the thing like a string of taffy.
It eats.
You watch until the ceiling explodes. The white flash blinds you. Spots burn in your eyes. The rafter where the owl perched before falls away then and you don't know where the bird went or what just happened. It was too bright. All you can see is white.
What is going on?
Every hair on your body is on end. Rising away from your skin. The air smells like ozone as the storm begins to pour into the barn through a giant hole. You're getting wet and you let it happen because you don't know where to run. Still can't see. Not enough.
Your vision finally resolves, clearing slowly.
You watch as the hay piled beneath the loft catches fire.
All of this seems to happen in an instant and also in slow motion.
You're trying to understand.
You're too shocked to move.
The rafter holding up the walls of the barn, where the owl who’s disappeared was perched, creaks and then snaps loudly. It sounds like a tree falling in the woods and the wind and rain is the scream of a hurricane.
Electricity lingers in the air, and you can literally feel it pulling at you.
Then all of the pieces fit: the roof was struck by lightning.
The rafter above falls. It's wider than your waist and when it lands on you, it pins you completely against the ground.
It snaps the chair where you sat like a pile of matchsticks. The far end of it lands in the burning straw pile nearby sending embers flying. Everything in the barn is so dry the entire thing is going to go up.
Everything eventually devoured by flames.
Jaxel is on his feet, desperately trying to pull the rafter off of you. It's too heavy for him yet he tries and he tries but you're still pinned to the floor at the waist. There's nothing you can do but watch him fail.
“Zayan! Zayan!” He's screaming. Your husband is screaming your name as he yanks and pulls at the burning rafter. He tries to lift it first.
Nothing.
It doesn't even budge.
Doesn't care about you.
It's a rafter so it inherently lacks motives by default.
Jaxel realizes the futility of trying to lift it. He changes modes...attempts to shove it away. Shove it from your torso toward your feet so that you can move, but it still doesn't budge.
The burlap of his fingers with their crooked stitches and the hay that he's been stuffed with, that's sticking out of the sleeve of his oversized shirt, catches fire.
He stops pushing at the rafter and stares at his hand. It's not a look of horror. It's as if he's studying it with that familiar look of curiosity on his face.
You both stare at his burning fingers as they begin to melt. They're not rough-spun cloth at all but some sort of plastic. They must be. The fire is melting his skin and it sloughs down into the palm of his hand in a slow stream of drips, like candlewax.
The bones beneath are silver. Metal that gleams with yellow light. Shines with the reflection of the raging blaze of the fire that surrounds you. The joints are held together by screws.
Jaxel's eyes grow distant. He's no longer trying to save you. From the moment he began to watch his hand melt, he stood as motionless as a statue. Eyes focusing on empty space.
Suddenly, he blinks, coming back to life. Back to reality. Back to the present.
“Jaxel!" you're screaming. “Help me!”
He doesn't look at you. He doesn't look at the fire. He doesn't look at his melted hand. He turns abruptly toward the barn door.
Terminal continuity event imminent. Failsafe seven engaged. Prime Directive Override.
It's the last thing you hear him say, and these words aren't said in your husband's voice. He says it with no inflection whatsoever. The cadence is staccato and the tone is deeper with an uncanny and sterile hollowness.
Then he runs.
Faster than your husband ever ran.
Legs pumping like pistons, he runs. Something mechanical. Pneumatic. Something as precise as the inner-workings of a clock.
Something intricately copper wired and built from parts imported by the government from Japan. Short-supply micro-components. Countless soldered nanoprocessors.
Wildly expensive hardware.
Built to failsafe.
With overrides.
Processes.
It exits the barn impossibly quick.
Algorithms prioritizing the thing’s preservation.
You watch everything you believed fall away. You believed it because it made those words come out of its mouth and you knew that voice. Remembered it.
One night for each of the last ten years, it made you believe.
You believed over and over again that there was something left to cling to after that city bus driver accepted a FaceCom while driving a route. The bus was standing-room-only full.
Witnesses said the iCuff on her forearm lit up with an inbound com, and to every onlooker’s disbelief, she accepted it.
A video com. On her forearm. While driving.
When the bus drifted into Jaxel's lane, the great solid presence of it was practically a mobile wall. A wall that pressed his EV through a guardrail like it was a cheap pie-plate. Pressed Jaxel and his car through to the other side, crumpling the rail, crumpling the car, like a barehanded contestant in a cherry cobbler contest at the state fair, it ripped through him. The vehicle tossed him end over end over end. Crushed him. Swallowed him as he screamed, terrified and alone.
All alone down the sheer cliff face on the westbound side of I-73.
They told you it was over quickly.
You knew they were lying.
And for one night each year you convinced yourself for ten whole years that the last thing your husband said was that he loved you and that his final words weren't just an endless scream. No.
‘I love you’ isn't even close to screaming.
Every Revenance Eve. Bittersweet. When they were over, you were sad but the feeling of those three words, like the echo of a promise in your head, kept you warm as you drifted off to dreaming.
Over and over again the thing that stole his voice said it. Said it convincingly enough for you to believe it was something it wasn't.
Convinced you that the voice that ended in screams didn't really end that day at all. It lived on to say ‘I love you’ on another night like tonight, and another night, and another night...ten different times.
Driving the delusion home.
You watch it move further and further from you as the fire begins to lick your legs.
It’s exquisite agony as the skin on your calves begins to tighten, then blister apart.
You watch the thing that you and your dead husband chose together. The thing that you both chose to be allowed to commandeer his voice so you could feel alright for a single night.
A single night once a year for every year after he was gone...
You watch it run...
...Run into the night.
