Across the Universe

11 AMY

MORE THAN THE SOUND OF MY OWN BEATING HEART, I MISS the sound of a ticking clock.

Time passes, it must pass, but I have no more assurance of moving through time than I have that I am moving through space. In a way, I’m glad: this means perhaps 300 years and 364 days have passed, and tomorrow I will wake up. Sometimes after a cross-country meet or a long day at school, I’d fall into bed with all my clothes on and be out before I knew it. When I’d finally open my eyes, it would feel like I’d just shut them for a minute, but really, the whole rest of the day and half the night was gone.

But.

There were other times when I’d collapse onto my mattress, shut my eyes and dream, and it felt like I’d lived a whole lifetime in that dream, but when I woke up, it had only been a few minutes.

What if only a year has gone by? What if we haven’t even left yet?

That is my greatest fear.

Jason said, “When you get there, think of me when you look at the stars.”

I said, “I won’t limit myself to the stars.”

A cool breeze, like the day we—

What was that?

— met, with the music from the party pounding so loudly that the ground under our feet vibrated. When I wore my heels, I was taller than Jason, but I was barefoot now, the cool grass a comfort to my tired feet as I looked up into his eyes.

Did I move?

The dream fades, the sensation of grass-breeze-Jason disappears. Darkness. Nightmares tickle my mind.

Something’s happening.

No, no, no. Nothing’s happening. Nothing ever happens. It’s that nightmare again, that same nightmare. Ed/Hassan will unfreeze me, and I will be like now, and they’ll throw me back in. Or the ship will crash, and I’ll be stuck here, forever, never unfrozen. Or maybe this is the nightmare where—

Thunk.

— where they forget to unfreeze me at all, the ship lands and everyone’s so excited they just leave me behind, and—

Something is happening.

No. The nightmares are getting more real, and they’ll be so much worse because of it. I think I hear something. I can’t hear anything. It’s all in my mind. It’s not real. Think about something better. Think about Jason. Think about Mom, about Daddy, think about—

Click.

No. I did not hear a click. A click did not vibrate through the ice. That did not happen. It’s just the nightmares… it’s another nightmare. It’s as simple as that.

If I could, I would squeeze my eyes shut. Instead, I try to focus my mind, like I used to be able to focus my eyes in and out when I looked at something really close. Memories. Memories always kill nightmares.

My mind’s eye flashes images, a slide show of memories. Hiking the Grand Canyon. The middle school trip to the beach. Gymnastics when I was a kid. The first time I drove. The first time I scratched the car (same day) and Daddy yelled at me, but got me ice cream afterward anyway, and we pinky-promised not to tell Mom. Baking Christmas cookies with Mom and Grandma the year before she went to the nursing home. Cross-country meets. Marathon training.

I feel something. I feel something. Warmth in my stomach. And I hear… the hum of electricity. I realize I hear it because it is coming from the tubes down my throat.

My body slips. Just a fraction of a millimeter, but it slips.

The ice is melting.

Oh, God.

Thump.

My heart.

Thump-thump.

Water leaks onto my left eye’s lash-line. I twitch involuntarily. The yellow crust that has sealed my eyes for who knows how long cracks as — for the first time since I was frozen—I move.

OhGodohGodohGod.