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Authors: Andrew Sean Greer
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boys were embraced immediately and coaxed away from the edge by parents who shouted, trying not to sound too frightened, trying not to think about what had surely happened. It still had not quite happened; they had not fully realized that the boy was dead, bones broken on the rocks of the beach below, near a fan of seaweed, where each wave unfolded its luminous edge onto the sand.
The students moved all at once to the wall, but randomly, like molecules of water panicking at the boiling point. They ran around each other, toward the open edge, drawn to the horror. Denise and Kathy, together at the beginning, split around the huddled parents and children, and this might have made a difference, in the end. Together at the wall, or apart. Kathy stopped to hold frozen, crying Lydia, taking her in her arms. Eli came with the Mandays and headed straight for the wall. It was only chance that put him next to Denise. Kathy stood in the middle of the overlook, hushing Lydia, kissing her cheek. Everyone was yelling until they heard voices from below.
When the shouts floated up from the beach, those on the overlook understood. Denise and Eli stood together at the wall, looking down on a village darkened by the sultan’s edict, one small lantern recently lit and showing a scene too complex to understand: rocks and driftwood and, somewhere in the rubble, a small, thin body. Denise took Eli’s hand and felt it shaking; she looked up at his eyes in shock. Kathy held the little girl. Island voices shouted in a foreign language. A high girl’s voice, which they later learned was a grown woman’s, began to wail somewhere in the darkness. They understood before the sultan faced Swift and whispered a translation; before the solemn, bearded professor turned toward them all like a giant and told them what had happened. If only Manday’s time machine were true! If only each of them could have gone back thirteen days, they would have chosen to remain in their old lives: Swift writing a letter; Lydia hearing her mother’s bedtime story; Eli writing out his thesis proposal; Kathy washing dishes and listening to the Beatles; Denise waiting in a cafe for her old lover, shaking her head at the waitress,
nothing yet,
as she read through the jukebox choices. Each of them would have chosen those petty worries over this one, but how could they have known? We are deaf to what our lives will bring us.
It began here, when they were young. Denise held on to Eli’s hand and he whispered to her. Kathy, far away, stared at the crumbled wall. It was born of this moment. They stood on the overlook, silent, watching, listening to the men and women shouting and crying below. The meteor storm was reaching its peak above them, sending sparks of light across the stars, shattering the dark bowl of the sky as if a god had dropped it. Only the children raised their heads to see.
1971
near aphelion
It is always hard to realize that these numbers
and equations we play with at our desks have
something to do with the real world.
—Steven Weinberg
Her father would not let her chop the vegetables.
“But I’m
sooo
good at it, and
sooo
careful,” she complained, pulling up a bar stool and resting her chin on the countertop.
He refused, wiped the blade of his heavy knife, and began slicing a moon-white onion, letting the rings fall silently to the board.
“Oh, come on,” Lydia said to her father, and then flailed her arms out, crying: “Oh, just drop it!” She was trying out a new way of talking now, similar to her friend Kim’s voice—so many sighs and
ohs
and weary eye-rolling expressions—but she hadn’t got it right yet, and could see it wasn’t working now. He glanced up at her and she was a little afraid she’d offended him, somehow; acted too teenagerly for a girl of eleven, like a tourist saying the wrong words from a phrasebook. But he waved her away with the knife—he was unconcerned, and unmoved. Usually, when she wanted something, Lydia
The students moved all at once to the wall, but randomly, like molecules of water panicking at the boiling point. They ran around each other, toward the open edge, drawn to the horror. Denise and Kathy, together at the beginning, split around the huddled parents and children, and this might have made a difference, in the end. Together at the wall, or apart. Kathy stopped to hold frozen, crying Lydia, taking her in her arms. Eli came with the Mandays and headed straight for the wall. It was only chance that put him next to Denise. Kathy stood in the middle of the overlook, hushing Lydia, kissing her cheek. Everyone was yelling until they heard voices from below.
When the shouts floated up from the beach, those on the overlook understood. Denise and Eli stood together at the wall, looking down on a village darkened by the sultan’s edict, one small lantern recently lit and showing a scene too complex to understand: rocks and driftwood and, somewhere in the rubble, a small, thin body. Denise took Eli’s hand and felt it shaking; she looked up at his eyes in shock. Kathy held the little girl. Island voices shouted in a foreign language. A high girl’s voice, which they later learned was a grown woman’s, began to wail somewhere in the darkness. They understood before the sultan faced Swift and whispered a translation; before the solemn, bearded professor turned toward them all like a giant and told them what had happened. If only Manday’s time machine were true! If only each of them could have gone back thirteen days, they would have chosen to remain in their old lives: Swift writing a letter; Lydia hearing her mother’s bedtime story; Eli writing out his thesis proposal; Kathy washing dishes and listening to the Beatles; Denise waiting in a cafe for her old lover, shaking her head at the waitress,
nothing yet,
as she read through the jukebox choices. Each of them would have chosen those petty worries over this one, but how could they have known? We are deaf to what our lives will bring us.
It began here, when they were young. Denise held on to Eli’s hand and he whispered to her. Kathy, far away, stared at the crumbled wall. It was born of this moment. They stood on the overlook, silent, watching, listening to the men and women shouting and crying below. The meteor storm was reaching its peak above them, sending sparks of light across the stars, shattering the dark bowl of the sky as if a god had dropped it. Only the children raised their heads to see.
1971
near aphelion
It is always hard to realize that these numbers
and equations we play with at our desks have
something to do with the real world.
—Steven Weinberg
Her father would not let her chop the vegetables.
“But I’m
sooo
good at it, and
sooo
careful,” she complained, pulling up a bar stool and resting her chin on the countertop.
He refused, wiped the blade of his heavy knife, and began slicing a moon-white onion, letting the rings fall silently to the board.
“Oh, come on,” Lydia said to her father, and then flailed her arms out, crying: “Oh, just drop it!” She was trying out a new way of talking now, similar to her friend Kim’s voice—so many sighs and
ohs
and weary eye-rolling expressions—but she hadn’t got it right yet, and could see it wasn’t working now. He glanced up at her and she was a little afraid she’d offended him, somehow; acted too teenagerly for a girl of eleven, like a tourist saying the wrong words from a phrasebook. But he waved her away with the knife—he was unconcerned, and unmoved. Usually, when she wanted something, Lydia
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