She doesn’t respond. She waits for me.
“Sometimes I think I don’t want to be like the way I am,” I say. “Do you think one day I’ll be like you?”
“Who am I?” she asks, her breath warm on my ear.
“You’re kind. And you’re on a path. You’re working toward self-betterment. Toward nirvana, I guess. And I’m still just…treading water here in my own bullshit.”
Mena laughs a little. Not at me, I know it’s not at me, but still, it makes me feel vulnerable. And she says, “Babe, nirvana is a tough nut to crack and I might still have a few more lives to go before I get there. I wouldn’t sweat it too much though. You just have to know the trick.”
“What’s the trick?”
She repositions herself so she’s looking at me. “The thing about nirvana is, it’s about escaping the cycle of reincarnation. That karmic revolution of reward and punishment that you’ve accumulated over the course of your existence. When you achieve nirvana, you stop accumulating karma. Once you’ve fully escaped it, then you’ve achieved parinirvana, which is actually beyond human comprehension…”
“Is this all just karma, then? Am I being punished?”
She sighs. This time, at my expense. She nestles into me tighter, until her body is fitted to mine. “The only one punishing you is yourself.”
I let the weight of that sit on my chest for a minute. Breathe in and out some more.
“Mena?” I ask.
“Hmm?” It’s soft. She’s dozing.
“You said there’s a trick.”
“To what?”
“Nirvana.”
“Right, sorry.” She yawns, speaking through it and stretching out her words. “So, the secret to nirvana is that the path to achieving it is a paradox. Like any goal, you think you should be working toward it. But to truly achieve nirvana you have to let it wash over you. You can’t fight for it or struggle over it. You get there by surrendering, not by trying. One of the base tenets of Buddhism is to end suffering. Struggle is suffering.”
“So struggle is the root of suffering?”
“Well, sort of,” she says. “Suffering comes from desirous attachment or craving. It’s easy to point at other things and say, ‘That’s the reason I’m sad.’ The truth is this: to find the true source of your problems, you have to look inside. The suffering you experience is related to how you process it.”
“So we’re back to it being my fault?”
“Yes,” she says, kissing me on the lips. “And no.”
I laugh at her, sniffling away the tears. “You and your riddles.”
“It’ll make sense one day,” she says. “When it matters the most, it’ll make sense. I promise.”
“So when do you think you’ll get there?” I ask. “Nirvana?”
I feel the movement of Mena shrugging against me. “You can’t set a time frame. And anyway, I’m not exactly seeking it. There’s too much work to do first.” Her voice is tired, and she doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and I wonder if she’s fallen asleep, but then she asks, “Have I ever told you about the bodhisattva’s vow?”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s delaying your own nirvana to save other people from suffering. To help others achieve it before you achieve it yourself.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
She kisses me again, longer and harder. I feel a wetness between our skin. Is she crying too?
“Hey,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“You are loved,” she says. “More than that, you are worthy of love.”
She grips my hand tighter…
…and then my hand is empty. I’m just here, alone in the hallway of the hotel I will be leaving tomorrow.
And no one will be sad to see me go.
Rather, this place will probably be better off without me.
This time when I cry I don’t try to hide it.
NOBLE TRUTH
Green carpet runner, worn down until the piles are smooth as glass. It cuts a pathway through a narrow hall of worn wood and faded floral wallpaper. As I walk down the hall, the creaks sing a symphony of my childhood.
I look into the oversize mirror interrupting the wallpaper. I see myself. Not a scared little kid who felt alone and isolated, but as I am now.
January Cole, house detective, perpetual fuckup.
Is this a dream or a slip?
Does it even matter?
I continue down the hall, toward my room, the hallway filled with the smell of garlic and chili paste frying in the kitchen. The knob catches and I have to turn it hard, then push the door open from where the wood has swollen against the frame. I expect that when I open the door I will find myself. Sitting alone on the bed, back to the door, a book open on my lap. The Bell Jar or Little Women or Kindred.
My timeline will cross itself. I will die. In a place that I did not experience hatred or cruelty, but something far worse. Something that left me permanently hobbled.
Gentle but persistent indifference.
The room is empty. The bed is a mess, as always, blanket and sheet rumpled from where kid-me threw them off. Morning sun streams through the window. The room smells the way it always did. Freshly laundered with an undercurrent of old wood.
I sit on the bed and fold my legs underneath me, wondering if I should take my boots off, but do I need to? Is this even real? I lay back on the pillow and stare at the ceiling. At the water stain in the far corner, from where the radiator leaked in the attic. At the popcorn ceiling, that I would try to divine shapes and figures from when I couldn’t sleep.
I blink, and find myself on my cot in the hallway of the Paradox Hotel. Quick as that.
Getting toward the end now. I can feel it.
I’ve also got a killer headache. I stand and stretch, feel my spine pop. My whole body is sore. Dinosaur hunting will do that, I guess. Everyone is still sleeping. No way to tell what time it is. There are no windows. I check my watch and phone, find them both dead. The TEA watch is working. Seven in the morning. I consider heading to the security office, but I can find chargers in the medical suite, which is closer. Plus it’ll have something for my headache.
After that I can start the process of whatever comes next.
There’s no one at the front desk in medical, so I go around and find charging mats for my electronics, then rifle around for a bottle of acetaminophen or ibuprofen.
No, that’s not what I need. My brain is buzzing. That constant Unstuck static, the volume still getting louder. Even louder than it was yesterday. And when I think about the last twenty-four hours—so many weird slips. More than usual.
What I need is a Retronim.
I dig a pill out of my pocket and I’m about to toss it back when I give it another look. The pill is a shiny little oval, slightly pink, and a bit bigger than the one I used to take, which was a robin’s egg blue.
Tamworth changed my prescription yesterday.
I head toward his office, and luckily he’s already at his desk, poking at something on a tablet.
“January,” Tamworth says, barely looking up. There’s a bandage on his forehead, just on his hairline. “What can I do for you?”
I don’t bother sitting. I put the Retronim pill on the desk in front of him.