"Jay."
"Honcho." His voice is soft
on the other end of the phone. He doesn’t even ask how I knew he
was calling, doesn’t hurl a hello at me like a javelin.
"Something wrong, kiddo?"
"Yeah. I mean, yes: I kind of ran
into this old man preaching about eternity and how souls are eternal
and he saw me and realized I couldn’t see and said the Lord would
heal me after I was reborn in heaven and I said that would be kinda
late and you’d be doing it soon anyway!"
"Okay? And?"
"And he kept going ON, Honcho, and
I said that heaven is part of the universe so it’s not external and
nothing here is eternal and forevers and I maybe said it more like a
Jaysaurus than a Jay so all he believed me cuz it was true and and
and …" And half a country away, Jay bursts into sobs without
tears.
"Jay?"
"IT’S NOT FAIR! You and Charlie
are going to all die when the universe does because it isn’t
forever and I won’t!"
I could ask things right now, learn
truths Jay knows not to speak. But no. I find I am not as big an ass
as even I thought: it go yearly is something of a surprise.
I settle for: “Jay, if this universe
were fair, do you think you’d have been allowed in it?”
That wins a moment of shocked silence
and then a fit of giggles.
"Exactly."
"I am pretty Jaysome," he
says.
I decide not to ask what that even
means. “You’ll be OK, Jay. You will have memories that outlast
universes and feelings deeper than black holes.” I pause. “And I
don’t think you’ll be able to forget Charlie even if you try.”
"I couldn’t forget you," he
says proudly, "and and lots of thanks!"
"You’re welcome, Jay."
"Nathen?"
I pause. Jay almost never says my real
name. “Yes?”
"I’m all kinds of glad we’re
friends!"
I don’t ask about his pause before
that, or what else he might have said. I say good bye. I hang up.
Sometimes it is the simplest things that are the hardest to do.
"It’s starting." I thread
no power into my voice, don’t speak in ways that canny be ignored.
But even so, I know I am heard by those who listen for such things.
"He’s starting to learn what he is."
And I know it isn’t my imagination
that the shadows around me pull back as though afraid. And not only
of Jay. I am what I am as well. I put my phone away — it was turned
off when Jay called — and I go back to sleep.
