Voidspire Audio Archive //: 
Nervous again. You're nervous every time you do this. You know why but you don't acknowledge it. Don't like to. Stings a bit, doesn't it? The whole thing does. Pretend it's not there and the sting goes away, yeah?
The way you feel leading up to the night is the same every year. The night gets closer and you get more excited but then for some reason as the days between start to diminish, you get more nervous, don't you? More and more worried as...Each. Day. Passes.
A day makes a little bit of dread. It's small but so is a brick when you think about it. That's how this feeling hits you. Another brick hits you by day's end. Maybe in the back of the head. Maybe you see it coming. It always hits you and when it does, you take it, you set it aside. Slowly, you'll pile them up. A few more arrive each time you look away, pelting you squarely in the center of your back, your arm. Somewhere it's gonna sting. Sometimes maybe that means one even hits you right in the dick.
Every day, you add more and more and more. More often than not, you'll get them flung right at your face. You never duck. Never even try. That's the thing about these bricks...when they decide to hit you, well, that just means you're gonna get hit. You're fucked. They never miss. Always hit you good.
That's nervousness, or anxiety or whatever for you...
Painful. Unavoidable.
Before you know it, the appointment is still a couple months away but you've already got enough of these metaphors piled up to build that wall that you always told yourself you'd make with them but never, ever actually meant it when you said it.
You remember:
The one you'd promised not to ever climb.
Maybe you say you don’t want to climb it...no sir.
Except it doesn’t matter when you say that, does it?
You lie to yourself about things like this all the time, don't you?
No no, don't get mad. You just say whatever you need to say, man.
In the end, you know you're gonna climb...
...aren't you?
Maybe it's healthy. Maybe it's not healthy. What do you know? You know that people tell you it's beautiful that you don’t date anymore. You'd rather not. Not when there's still time to be with him. You tell them that you were built to love him. You mean it too.
Nights like tonight are the only thing you really look forward to anymore.
Furlough is the only thing you truly need.
Is it really him? Deep down, you and every other Beneficiary know the answer to that…
…Sort of?
A digital photo you took and ordered 8x10 prints of is still the same photo, isn’t it? Nobody would tell you it wasn’t. Most people would probably even tell you it was better. Bigger. Higher resolution print than a digital screen shows.
What about the idea that alive, your husband had been Jaxel 1.0?
Could you really argue the 2.0 release hasn’t improved? Even just a little bit? Nobody else would know whether it's a good or bad upgrade. You could say whatever you wanted.
Version 2.0 looks the same.
Well. Almost the same.
Vaguely similar?
Whatever. Close enough.
You watched him build what you're seeing now when he was still alive. Doing his NeuroPrint mapping and teaching it his personality and movement with the "ReveSmart™ - 'Mannerisms and Body Language'" premium bundle from the makers of DigiClone®. You learned the whole teaching process for the final model from him so you could make your own.
This thing is as close to Jaxel as you're getting. You think you're pretty okay with that.
It knows every moment from the day you met to your wedding in this barn. Remembers the new things, too. The last Retrorevival and what you talked to it about on the one before that.
No, Zayan. Stop doing that. It's not “IT.”
HIM. HE is HIM.
He's not an "it!" He's not a thing! He's your Jaxel and tonight marks the tenth Furlough’s Eve you’ve shared together. There’s never been a gap where some part of him was just gone. Everything is there.
You look down at the pamphlet you were nervously twisting in your hands. It's so bent it looks like something someone pulled out of a trash bin.
You have it so you have something to occupy yourself with.
It doesn’t really change. This year there aren't new graphics but they’ve changed the typefaces. All of them but one.
You thought the one they did keep was an odd choice because it was the one you would have chopped immediately. Style changes sometimes, but never the words. Could’ve printed this for you less than a week ago and those’ll be the same as they were a decade ago.
As you flatten out the creases, you glance at the pamphlet title...
REVENANCE FURLOUGH Limitations, Fidelity, Inquiries & Answers
Big and bold at the top. You remember the original copy provided when you visited the Neural Archivation Bureau for the first time as the Bereaved.
The Beneficiary.
Every prior visit you were together. You'd both updated the NeuroPrints every six months with regularity. Why not? You did it so there’d be something to Retrorevive if something happened and one of you ended up alone.
Then something happened and out of nowhere, the accident submitted him for Permanent Archivation and you were the one who ended up alone. You just had to wait until they assessed his eligibility. You’d find out by mail and if the requirements were met, then the Revenance’s NeuroPrint was eligible for Retrorevival. That simple, really.
Waiting was literally the only thing left…and the waiting was the hardest part.
You read the first section to pass the time...
.Section A-10.
NEUROPRINT RETROREVIVAL & FURLOUGH ELIGIBILITY
Enrollment does not establish eligibility. Following Permanent Archivation, your loved one may be granted one Retrorevival per annum during the week of National Retrorevival Celebration. Eligibility requirements include NeuroPrint incompletion rates not exceeding 12% in addition to being awarded a minimum of 43/50 points via Independent Accuracy Auditor evaluating NeuroPrint Fidelity Metrics using the Standard A.U. Metrics Evaluation, Form 104b-7.
Upon approval, the Revenance’s Beneficiary of Record applies for Furlough Allocation with their local NeuroPrint Archivist Data Center. Allocations are restricted to Federal Retrorevival Week, as established by Constitutional Amendment #74b, to occur annually beginning immediately following the procession of October's Federal Third Sunday parade and concluding the following Saturday. Preferred Furlough's Eve date requests and scheduled evening timeslot must be received no less than six months prior to the requested date for...
Authoritas Uniterra's pamphlets and the warranty for your new stereo are clearly written by the same unbearably boring nerd. The only way you can absorb a single word is to imagine it being read to you by a young Russian socialite settling an argument after a few too many glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. You think it’s impossibly dry--clinical. She thinks you’d find it fascinating if you weren’t so stupid.
And that’s why you’re best friends.
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. Sort of. Close enough. It explains the procedure, but you already know about this because you have your own NeuroPrint and tissue storage at the local NeuroPrint Archivist Data Center too. You attended the seminars and townhalls, and even if you hadn't, you've done this a lot more than most people. Enough to not be shocked by how Jaxel looks now. Not anymore. He'll move the way you remember. The sound of his voice will be the same. His mannerisms too. They'll all be exact matches. The face will be the main outlier amongst a number of exact, perfect replications.
You know his skin will look closer to a roughly woven cloth---a burlap---than it looks like actual skin. You don't need to read this to understand how a HUSK is implanted with cellular information from Jaxel's stored tissue and that it can't support any lasting visitation. The things barely sustain viability for the tissue for periods longer than 12 hours.
Once a year. Evening appointments. That's all you get...
You don't need to read it, but you read it to yourself anyway.
.Section C-03.
FURLOUGH'S EVE DISCERNMENT - ROAD TO RETROREVIVAL
Appointment-day preparation begins with an Official’s extraction of retained, stasis-held Revenance of Record tissue at the NeuroPrint Archivist Data Center.† Suspension in modified petroleum medium and flash-cloning within a lead-lined irradiation chamber generate a formless genetic mass. Following quartering and growth-stimulant treatment, quarters undergo screening for treatment-resistant necrotic patchiness, spontaneous parasitic worm development, and mutinous cellular clusterization formations.
†Pre-extraction genetic-material and NeuroPrint backups preserve Permanent Archivation integrity.
.Section C-04.
FURLOUGH'S EVE DISCERNMENT - REVENANT HOUSING: THE "HUSK"
Approved quartered tissue segments receive invasive surgical embedment within a standard-issue Humanoid Upload Synthetic Kinematic unit (HUSK), appropriately NeuroPrint-preloaded. Four-to-six-hour incubation permits remote assessment of genetic latching; failures may require reserve quarters. Stature-adaptive inorganic supports adjust to DNA markers dictating donor-directed development of facial features, voice, and body type within nominally blank tissues. Local processing capacity and maturation intervals determine final presentation. Residual template expression permits texture, temperature, and ocular variations within acceptable…
It's been so long since Jaxel died that your memory of his face is the face of the HUSK. The face of the HUSK is the only face you seem to find when you dig through your memory. His actual face isn't there. Not anymore. The only image you can conjure has skin that's the wrong texture: uneven and ever so slightly scratchy to the touch...
No. No, that can't be right. You can remember how he looked. You're sure you can.
You'll do it later.
The entrance to the barn slowly creaks open and a shadow moving with a sort of calculated caution steps inside and closes the door. 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 make out his face. You're surprised at the look twisting across his brow.
This was a face you saw frequently when he lived, but never in Revenance. There's something about the furrowed brow, eyebrows lifted...the creases in his forehead. Every aspect, right down to the partial frown, offset slightly left, it's all so quintessentially Jaxel that you're upset with yourself for doubting your ability to remember with certainty how he looked before Archivation.
This. This was sometimes how he looked.
Yes. He made that face a lot.
He just had regular skin. The texture is wrong. Everything else is right.
Perfectly Jaxel.
“What's the look for?” you ask.
“You're back?” he replies.
“Well, another year has passed and---”
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I’m alright.”
“How?” he asks.
“What do you mean, how?"
"How...are you here?"
"You know how this works..." you say cautiously. “I, uh, so I fill out paperwork. Have to do that every year, way in advance. It gets scheduled...and then we have our appointment. Our date. That’s how I'm here.”
“Huh,” he says. He looks around the room slowly before moving to the chair opposite yours. You stand to meet him. You hug. He kisses you on the cheek. He takes a seat but his eyes are moving over everything in the room but you, as if awestruck by the barn where you meet him every year.
When he asks finally if they rebuilt it, you are very confused.
“Have they rebuilt what?”
“The barn,” he says. His face tells you that your question struck him as genuinely stupid.
“Why would they rebuild it?” you ask.
That look again.
“You don’t remember?” he asks.
“Remember what?”
“It burned,” he explains. “A decade ago now,” he pauses, unsure for a moment and then finishes the thought with: “I think.”
“To the ground," he adds with more confidence. “Nothing I could do.”
“You were inside,” he says softly. Almost muttering.
Oh no, no. Oh, no, no, no.
Obviously not. You’re sitting right here.
Not this. You don’t want to deal with this. Not yet.
You can’t do it.
You glance down at the pamphlet as Jaxel continues to stare at each corner of the room.
.Section P-03.
MEMORY FIDELITY & INTEGRITY
Revenances exceeding ten recalls may develop Furlough-Related P-RIC (Progressive Recall Integrity Collapse). Indicators include failure to retain prior visits, inability to name familiar objects, and loss of learned skills. Previously familiar meeting sites may provoke uncertainty or repeated questioning. Appointment suspension may reverse symptoms.
Continued Retrorevival may result in irreversible A-MFA (Advanced Memory Fidelity Atrophy). Symptoms worsen and may be accompanied by tardive dyskinesia, involuntary jazz fusion mouth-noises, polyuria, failure to recognize known individuals, and persistent claims to fraudulent professional credentials. Tardive dyskinesia is the most common presentation.
Avoid argumentative correction and report the occurrence of any symptoms to the Neural Archivation Bureau or your local NeuroPrint Archivist Data Center to establish a Beneficiary of Record Led Treatment Plan with a qualified physician.
For separately classified recall disturbances, see K-11. Such discrepancies do not independently indicate loss of identity and are considered within normal…
Not helpful. At all. You think it could be either thing...but also? Neither? Could it be nothing?
No.
Oh no. It's something.
What the hell is tardive dyskinesia?
And ‘normal?’
Hell no. None of this is 'normal.'
Fucking useless government issued trash.
You’re trying not to let any of these thoughts paint your face and 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. We knew that. They told us that when we enrolled. It was all blah-blah-blah from orientation. You wanted to shout: Where do we sign, already?! So they'd stop repeating themselves...
But they repeated it because they knew you'd ignore it.
Forget all about it.
Both of you would.
Now you're watching it happen in real time wondering how to fix it.
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 said and you knew that. Married him anyway.
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.
A catastrophic assumption based on what? Four sentences when the guy comes in the room?
Get a grip.
Enjoy the night and stop looking for holes to make larger...
He stops looking around the room and his eyes meet yours. Skeptically he asks if you remember the barn burning.
You shake your head.
“Well, I remember when it happened. I watched it, didn’t I? What year is it?" he asks.
“2076."
“No. What game are you playing?” he says, shaking his head.
“It was that year, Zayan," he sighs heavily before adding, “that’s got to be almost 10 years ago now making today ’86.”
“No."
It isn’t supposed to happen like this, but maybe it’s going to whether it’s supposed to or not. The thing you’re not going to do right now is cry even if you can feel the knot tying itself within the pit of your stomach again. You’ll be losing him all over again at some point. You didn't wonder very seriously if it would be today until just now. This knot...It’s the knot you felt after the accident. The one inside you at the funeral too.
Memory failure? Is this how it looks? Now, with the possibility of signs appearing, 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, Jaxel." You choke on a stutter. It might become a sob. “That was the year...you died.”
He doesn't acknowledge the comment. Just looks over his shoulder at a pile of crates stacked haphazardly in the corner. You notice the uneven stitching in whatever the material is that makes up his neck. That his head is turning further than it should.
“More than a dozen,” he mutters to himself. “Rats. Closer to fifteen. Sixteen.”
“What?” you ask quietly.
What does that mean?
No. He’ll snap out of it if you leave that alone. If you change the topic. You can’t spend the whole night wondering and worrying about something like that.
“Don’t do that," you say after the silence fully settles into the bones of the barn.
“Do what?”
“Don’t talk about remembering me die or act...just...you’re acting weird and I'm not doing it," you say, “I’m alive. There was no fire and I am alive.”
“Nobody dying. No dying. Your mind is playing tricks on you, that’s all. Just be here. Right here, at 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’ve arrived late to dinner.”
“Dinner?”
“Yes,” you insist. “This is a nice restaurant. If you keep that up, people are going to start staring.”
“But, there’s no table," he says and you watch as his expression shifts quickly. Completely.
One of his eyebrows cocks now, raising and never seeming to stop. You know he's not actually planning on engaging because every time you've done this, he's needed his arm twisted...really, really twisted...to let you have your way. But that's never stopped you before. In fact, it's only ever made you lean into it harder. He'll see what happens in the end. You'll win and he'll play along. Even if it takes some time to get him to loosen up, this is already doing the thing you wanted it to in any case. He's not talking about things that never happened anymore, is he?
“The trendy places don’t do tables anymore,” you continue, “look around you. This is a trendy spot, hence: no tables.”
“There is a gross thing though. I saw it when I was waiting for you to show up. Why are you late again? No. Don’t answer that. I saw the waiter blowing snot rockets. He does it every time he comes over, but he does it three or four feet away before he is close enough to talk and interact. Like nobody saw him when he just did that…again. Thinks three or four feet make him completely invisible.”
“Oh yeah?” Jaxel says, laughing.
"Yep. No tables, and…and everything’s served on paper plates too. Delivered right to your lap by Rocky Snotzo. Did you know he can’t read? Poor thing. His mother blames herself."
"The vaccines, you see…" you stage whisper, “She didn’t want so many visits to the pediatrician so she did all the regular ones and even the irregular ones that they haven’t even tested on animals. Her cousin makes them with pixie-sticks and pool cleaner. That’s just what I heard. I’m sure there’s other things."
You pause.
And then keep whispering: "He actually can't read because he mostly just was not paying attention in class. His own fault."
You pause again. Jaxel looks like he's trying to decide if you're really going to keep this up...or if you're nuts.
He needs to hold onto his hat because, baby, you know the answer is both.
“I’m really glad we decided to meet here. I’ve been wanting to try it out despite the really bad health inspections, I just love a little trendy, kitsch gastropub bistro…we both do actually.”
He’s been staring at you dumbfounded, as you make all of this up.
“Don’t we love them?” you say.
“Don’t we?!” you say with a touch of feigned aggression when he doesn't reply.
“Um…we...do?”
“We love them even if the theme or whatever is actually really cringe,” you say with a manic smile, chuckling nervously as if the chef may overhear you.
“Especially if it’s really…um…bad,” he says nearly laughing mid sentence.
“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, “two of the guys had no business being that good at traditional German music. It was like five generations of their ancestors gifted them special knowledge how. Remember? They were so good...but that one string-bean guy, the only white guy among them, not good...first, he's 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 to play while people are eating. No. It’s not. Unless we’re eating inside a haunted house or a TARDIS, nobody should be playing a theremin for any dining experience. Not anywhere.”
“He was so bad though. Singing out of key the whole time,” Jaxel adds. “Did he have a good 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. The other two musicians? Prodigies, both. That guy? Totally the owner's weird harajuku nepo-baby, don't you think? Everything about that place was a fucking fever dream.”
“Das Skeeska.” You remember the name even though you'd only eaten 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 tickets? 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 says, “but will Barndango stay open past a year? That place was on the main road home."
You'd both passed it every day and it was empty. Every. Day.
“Of course! This place is different. Oh! They do a lobster bisque flatbread pizza with gouda cheese and kalamata olives.”
“Eww...”
“I bet the chef says it’s decadent. Should I call him over and ask if he would describe it as decadent? Decide what you’re having or I'm calling the chef over,” you say pushing his hands together like a book, then 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 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---not after..." you tell him, “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 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.
When you speak, it's with hesitation...
“Jax-uh-Jaxel?” you ask waving your hand in his face.
"Hello?"
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 haven't moved.
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 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 saying nothing, 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 without a sound 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, 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. Tap-tap-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 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 he stares into you. Through you. He still doesn't respond.
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 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, 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. No matter how well you tried to keep it from him...or cover it up. Or 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.
“I don't know,” you tell him, “but we're both here now. That's what counts.”
You look at him seriously and 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 with finality.
You glance down at the pamphlet wishing it would say otherwise.
.Section K-11.
CONTINUITY DEGRADATION Persistent recall failures typically observed beyond thirteen instances constitute Continuity Degradation. This classification is distinct from P-RIC and A-MFA. See P-03.
Qualifying presentations include: actual events recalled out of sequence; anomalous gray-matter leakage from ear, nose, throat, and additional orifices; imagined scenarios recalled with complete clarity; incidences of sudden, inexplicable systems buffering presenting as momentary freeze-ups; disturbing conduct or utterances; onset of any listed presentation mid-conversation.
Be Advised: Identification warrants complete Furlough Program Termination.‡ Beneficiary Furlough Risk Assessment Models assign continued participation a system-failure probability increase from 37.3% to 92.68%. See X-17.
‡The Neural Archivation Bureau and nine of ten clinical psychologists recommend termination before symptom onset to preserve Revenance comfort and wellbeing. For 24/7 discontinuation counseling via iCuff FaceCom, contact 1-900-…
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.” You step back so you can see his face better and motion for him to sit down with you.
It's quiet for the moment. “I was trying to say it was raining. I remember the storm that night," he explains as he sits.
As if on cue the barn creaks with another gust and you hear thunder, distant before, but now directly overhead.
“And 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.
Your mind circles back to the wall you were thinking about before Jax arrived. The one you were going to build out of all those little pieces of dread. You thought it would stand between you and exactly this moment.
Well. Here it is.
You should have cancelled the appointment. Built the wall. Refused to climb over it or come back here ever again.
Jaxel would never have known. He doesn’t know anything that happens between Retrorevivals. You could have stopped before seeing him this way. Before he had to experience whatever is happening to him now.
Your breath catches. Your heart misses a beat or two, then regains its footing and trudges forward.
Didn’t you know it would come to this? Something feels like you did. Something feels like you knew and didn’t want to face it. Something feels like you were telling yourself things you knew weren’t true.
Something about that feels incredibly selfish.
Something about his suffering has everything to do with you. Your choices. Your inability to let go. To move on.
To say goodbye.
It’s sooner than it’s supposed to be. That isn’t fair. But you knew there would be a night when it happened. Everything you needed to know was in the pamphlet.
In every pamphlet.
They might change the pictures sometimes, or even the fonts, but they’ve never once changed the words.
Everything has an expiration date. Everything. Eventually.
Cheese does. Milk too. And eggs.
How long ago did this end? Really. You know when it did. But you kept coming back. Kept looking back.
Maybe you weren’t afraid a Retrorevival would go bad. Maybe you were waiting for one to go bad enough that you wouldn’t have to choose.
Maybe those bricks weren’t made of dread at all. Maybe that was another thing you told yourself. You weren’t saving them up. They were hitting you. Leaving all those little bruises. And you kept letting them.
A wall wouldn’t stop everything from every direction. But it could stop what was coming at you from here.
You never built it.
Maybe some part of you didn’t want those bricks to stop.
Maybe you enjoyed the sympathy. Alone, but not because your husband left you. Because he died. Maybe you liked hearing how lucky you were that you could both afford Revenance accounts, back before the subsidies made them available to almost everyone. How lucky you were to have so much of him recorded.
Early adopters.
But maybe it wasn’t about being lucky. Or the things people said. Or the extra attention.
Maybe there was something else.
You couldn’t let him go.
A tear moves down your cheek. At some point, you moved to Jaxel and sat on his lap. His arm is around you. Your head is tucked to his chest. You’ve been here together, listening to the sound of wind and thunder as the approaching storm readies itself to destroy the world outside.
This…thing…it is Jaxel. A giant piece of him is in there. His DNA. Everything you recognize when he speaks. You didn’t get to say goodbye before he was gone. That’s what this was supposed to give you.
And it did.
Nine different times before tonight.
Most people do it once now. One Retrorevival. To say goodbye. To move on.
You have tonight. You don’t have to pull away from him. You don’t even have to say goodbye if you can’t. Say so-long. Say see you next time.
Then call the NeuroPrint Archivist in the morning. Have an Official lock the account.
You don’t do this again.
Tomorrow, you start planning a new path. Something beyond waiting for another night in this barn.
Tomorrow.
Tonight he’s here. Tonight you’ll make the most of what you have left, and you wouldn’t leave now…not even if the coming storm would let you.
“So...so what do we do now? Our last n---” 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.”
He hugs you a little tighter as the rain begins to fall violently onto the roof of the barn.
His arms pull 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.
You gasp reflexively and rise to your feet from his lap.
Jaxel stands too.
You stare at the thing in surprised wonder.
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.
He doesn't respond to you. Not at first. You notice that he's stopped blinking again as the seconds stretch-; away and time begins to feel like the act of trudging through a bog. The water up past your shins, almost sloshing over your boots. The mud down below sucking and sucking and trying to take one from you each time you move. A trophy to keep.
"...for some kind of check," he says finally.
Then it hits you. You remember the warnings and 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...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?
It was a warning. Small but bold and framed in a solid yellow box near the bottom.
.Section X-17.
ADVISORY: 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 and slowly back away from him.
The owl spreads its impressive wingspan slowly...patiently. Waiting. Suddenly, it 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 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 thing caged within. Lifts the thing to its beak and rips away the head. It pulls it away from the body completely effortlessly with its beak.
There's a string of bloody sinew stretching from the thing like a string of taffy. It snaps. Dangles from the body.
It lifts its neck and its beak opens and closes quickly as the head disappears down its throat.
Then it buries its beak into the torso and eats.
You watch until the ceiling explodes. There's a blinding white. Spots burn in your eyes. Too bright. You can barely see anything and everything you can see is white and it's too bright.
What just happened?
You don't know but 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.
Several of the lanterns have fallen from their hooks, the oil that was in them sent flying. Everywhere and spreading rapidly, tiny fires dot the wooden beams across the floor. One of the ones you'd hung from the ceiling shattered beneath falling debris, landing directly on the hay piled in the corner. So flammable. So dry. So bad, because that one does not stay tiny. Not at all. There's a sort of rushing woosh when it happens. Almost instantly, that becomes the very biggest of the fires.
All of this seems to happen in an instant and also in slow motion.
You're trying to understand.
You're shocked and stumble backward, away from the blaze. Then, losing your footing, your ass lands on the floor hard.
The rafter holding up the walls of the barn, where the owl who’s disappeared was perched, creaks and then snaps loudly as you're climbing back to your feet. It sounds like a tree falling, collapsing...and the wind and rain are as loud as a freight train with the building starting to come down around you.
It lands on the loft and the crash is deafening as it pulls the entire loft away from the structure on the way down.
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.
You pivot towards the door about to run. Jaxel, with the same idea in mind, is already several feet ahead. Halfway to the door. Something falls behind you before you have a chance to take a single step. Something wide and impossibly heavy and you know this because the floor rises up to meet you and whatever fell onto you is now pressing down on your lower half. It pins you almost completely against the ground and you feel something in your leg break as you go down. When you try to pull yourself out from beneath it, the only thing you're able to do is claw at the floor. You twist your torso uncomfortably so you can see what it is. What is it that's crushing everything below your waist?
A vertical beam. A structural vertical beam that was holding up the weight of the second level and the roof.
It's too heavy. You'll never get out from beneath it by yourself. You can only turn just above your hips. You're squirming right and then left and that's when you see the chair...or what's left of it. To your left. The chair where you sat earlier tonight took a direct hit from this thing too...all that's left of it is a pile of matchsticks. Oh God. Oh God. If you'd been sitting there it wouldn't only be a pile of matchsticks. That pile would be covered in the pulp of whatever was left of your head.
The far end of the beam sent embers flying when it fell and given several moments to slowly rain down, some of those embers fizzle out before they meet the floor. Most of them do not and you can already see that some of the ones that don't go out are starting to catch. Everything in the barn is so dry the entire thing is going to go up.
Everything eventually devoured by flames.
When the beam falls, Jaxel turns reflexively to see what made the noise. He's begun moving back quickly, but cautiously. Thank God. He's coming to help. He'll get this fucking thing off of you. If your leg is broken, he'll be able to carry you, or at least help you hobble out of here.
He's stepping left here, and right there, avoiding everything on fire as best as he can. When he reaches you, he desperately tries to push the beam out of the way, but it's no use. It's too heavy to push but he tries and he tries and he doesn't quit trying. If you could help him you would but how could you help, pinned stomach down on the floor? 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 pushes and pulls at the beam in all directions while the places that it burns begin to spread.
Nothing.
It doesn't even budge.
Doesn't care about you.
Doesn't care about anything happening.
Support beams care about very little.
It's their default setting.
Jaxel realizes the futility of trying to shove it off of you. He changes modes...attempts to lift it. Lift it just enough...just an inch and you can wriggle free. You'd be able to move. The both of you would run out of here. It's almost as wide around as your chest. It's too heavy to even give you the inch you need. No budge at all as he frantically keeps yanking and tugging and trying to get enough of a grip on it to make it move.
Goddamnit use your knees, you want to shout...but what will that accomplish?
One of the crooked stitches on his fingers rips. The seam tears apart and whatever stuffing that he's been shoved full of to fill out the shape of his hand begins to fall out. Billowy white fluff poofs out from it, just like the insides of a torn, overstuffed bear and as the sleeve of his ill-fitting shirt catches fire, this does as well.
He stops trying to lift the beam altogether. Just stops and stares at his hand. It's not a look of horror but more as if he were studying it with that familiar look of confusion on his face again.
You both stare at his burning fingers. Your mouth goes wide as they begin to melt. Not a rough-spun cloth at all. Some sort of plastic. The fire is melting whatever his skin is made from and it sloughs down into the palm of his hand in a slow stream, like wax down the side of a candle.
The bones beneath are silver metal, gleaming with yellow light. Shining with the reflection of the raging blaze of everything around you. The joints are held together by screws and he just stares at it.
His eyes grow distant. From the moment he began to watch his hand melt, he hasn't moved. He's still as motionless as a statue. He's no longer staring at what's left of his hand. He's looking through it as if focusing on the empty space beyond.
Suddenly, he blinks, coming back to life. Back to reality. Back to the present.
“Jaxel!" you're screaming. “Help me! Help me! I don't want to die! Not here! Please!”
Tomorrow. You were going to call them and never do this night again.
Tomorrow.
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:"
/: "DETECTED."
/: "DIRECTIVE OVERRIDE:"
/: "ENGAGING."
/: "REQUESTING."..
/: "CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED"
/: "DIRECTIVE UPDATE:"
/: "EXECUTE PROTOCOL SEVEN..."
It's the last thing you hear him say, but these are words that you hear in another voice. Not your husband's. He says it with no inflection whatsoever. The cadence is staccato and the tone is deeper with uncanny, 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 with impossible quickness.
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 the inbound Com. Many passengers watched in shock as she accepted the Com Transmission.
A FaceCom. 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 years and 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 Furlough's 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 you both chose to let 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...
And now, you watch it run...
...Run into the night.
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