Zhang. Yes, he liked it. He liked it very much. His hand tingled slightly as it began to withdraw, to tuck itself and the light playfully behind his back so she’d have to come closer if she wanted to take it. He wasn’t sure why the name had mattered so much. Was it more about gaining something to be one of them—or leaving something else behind?
Abruptly, he handed her the flashlight and stepped back into the new darkness of the carriage. “Good night,” he said as he closed the door, to stop himself from thinking any further. He didn’t want to think about anything at all anymore.
HELLO?
Hello?
This voice is mine. Did I make this for myself?
I sound different inside this small thing. So certain. Like I knew something I don’t know now. I think I knew so many things. Now I don’t know anything at all.
We are driving now. There are four of us. Me; a woman with very short hair, as if it was shaved off recently and then began to grow again; a man with a . . . an animal on his shoulder; and a woman with pale, wavy hair. There are things that make me think once there were more of us. Women’s clothes that are too small for us, one backpack more than passengers. A huge dark mark of dried blood on the floor when none of us have wounds. Or maybe it’s paint.
I think we are friends. They seem to think so, too. But were they not friends with you, Ory? Is that why you’re not here? I can’t find any sign of you. The backpack is not yours. There’s a breast cloth inside—a cloth to hold the breasts close, for a woman. I can’t remember the name. I don’t want to look at the blood anymore. I don’t think it’s yours, but I don’t want to ask any of them, because I don’t want to know.
I feel . . . I’m not sure. It hurts, deep inside. When I stand, my head pounds and I grow dizzy, and my hands shake sometimes. Each day is worse. The others seem to have it, too. Sometimes the pain is so bad I just lay on the ground inside our big car, holding my middle, waiting for it to pass. I know there was something I used to do to stop this, but I don’t know what.
Partway through the afternoon, the man with an animal living on his arm suddenly sat up and looked nervously at the woman with short hair, who was driving. “Where are we going?” he asked. The creature snarled and circled his biceps, dodging freckles.
The woman with short hair cocked her head, and then her eyes went wide, too. She pressed her foot down, and we all slid forward as the big car ground to a halt. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Should we keep going?” the golden-haired woman also in the backseat asked.
The man with an animal arm peered through the slats out the window. “Let’s get out and look around,” he said.
Outside, the air was sweet and warm. It smelled like honey and dust. I closed my eyes, but turned my face up so it could soak into my skin.
“We’re on a road,” the man observed.
“But heading for what?” the pale-haired woman asked.
“This,” the driver said.
We all turned and saw her facing not the road, but the side of the big car instead.
“Oh,” we all murmured at once. It was gigantic. The sun, the road, the big car, and its long, stretching shadow.
“This is you,” I said, and pointed at a painted woman with a smooth head.
“And you,” the man replied to me, and pointed at another woman with brown skin and a huge mass of tightly wound curls springing off her head in all directions. On another man, we could clearly see the black outline of an animal on his arm. The woman with pale hair was painted next to him. They looked at each other hesitantly. In the painting, they were holding hands.
There were others, too. But we didn’t know who they were. I looked for you too, Ory, but I didn’t see you there. Where are you?
“It’s a message to stay on this big road until we find that,” the driver finally pronounced. She pointed at a cluster of black and colored shapes at the end of the painting. “We have to go there.”
“The Place,” the blond woman said. She glanced at the animal-armed man, but neither of them moved closer to each other.
“Let’s drive,” the driver said.
Soft, floating water has started falling from the sky. Not as one great body, but in millions of tiny fragments. It acts like rain, but I know it’s not—I remember that much. It glitters silver as it drops, so everything in front of us is shimmering. We’re all crouched in the driver’s cabin, peering out the front window to watch it.
“That’s ______,” the animal on the man’s arm said, but I’ve already forgotten what the creature called it.