The Last Conversation

031

“I’m going to come into your room, now, ______. My appearance might be shocking to you. I will appear—well, I’m more than a few years older than you remember me.”

You clutch your image of Anne, the one informed by the videos and the sound of her voice and what she has said and has been saying. You shuffle slowly away from your bed, stand in the middle of your room, and cough into your arm. You stare at the door. You’ve spent untold hours fantasizing about it opening. Your imaginary face-to-face meetings and escape plans have become more dramatic, more complex, and increasingly bizarre. Last night, before you fell asleep, you imagined the opening door revealed blankness, nothingness, and though finding an eternally empty void outside the door is not a likely outcome, you might have stumbled upon a metaphorical truth.

“Are you feeling up to my visit?” She laughs.

You say, “Yes,” but you feel worse than you did yesterday. There is more sand in your head and it leaks into your body, making your muscles heavy and weak.

Instead of overwhelming joy or fear at the prospect of that door finally opening, you worry at the physical image of Anne in your head, trying to anticipate and replace it with the correct one to be revealed.

There’s a pneumatic hiss and the door slides open, disappearing into the wall to your left. She says, “Here I am.” Anne steps from the dimly lit hallway and walks into your room; her pace is brisk and confident. Her gray hair is long, hanging down past her shoulders. The gray is startling. Wrinkles cluster at the edges of her mouth and eyes. Her features are no longer made of the sharp angles and tight skin you memorized. She wears the same clothes from the brown-house tour video: jeans and a thin black hooded sweatshirt. You cover your mouth and start to cry.

“Hello, ______.” She waves. Her smile is the same one from the videos, from your memories.

“Hi, Anne.” You wave back, then you don’t know what to do with your hands. She is shorter than you imagined, yet at the same time her presence fills the room. “You look… good.”

“Wow, that’s some pause you’ve got there.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No need to be sorry. I’m only kidding.”

Your laughter turns into a coughing fit, one that rekindles a painful fire in your throat.

“That cough doesn’t sound good.”

“Am I—am I the same age as you?” You are again acutely aware you have yet to see a full and clear reflection of your own face. However, you have seen enough in glimpses of the darkened viewing screen to know your hair is not gray. The skin of your body is not wrinkled.

“Not anymore. It’s a little complicated. Come on, let’s go.” She reaches out a hand, palm up.

“Where?”

“We have some work to do at the house.”

“I’m sick so you probably should stay away—”

Anne takes your hand.

The curved hallways are white and wide and empty. The ceiling panels are similar to the ones in your room, but the lighting has been dimmed and does not glow as brightly. Initially there are no windows, only smooth walls and outlines of pneumatic doors adjacent to small, square security screens. The tiled floors are slick with dust and marked with footprints that appear to vary in size and shape.

You ask, “Are all of the footprints yours?” and can’t help but try to fit your feet into some of the prints.

“You and I are the only people here.”

You note that she didn’t answer the question directly, and you are suddenly very afraid. You slow down and are about to ask if she can bring you back to your room. You do not want to be out in such an expansive, labyrinthine, dead space.

Anne gently pulls you along and says, “If we had more time, I’d take you to where you used to work at the physical plant. The solar array and wind-turbine fields are truly a marvel, a sight to behold. They are for all intents and purposes self-sufficient, thanks to the brilliance of you and the maintenance department, of course. Only one turbine has burned out, and I’ve had to change just two panels of solar cells.”

“Where are we now?”

“We’re still in what most of us simply called the Facility. We’re in one of the outer medical rings. Not much for you to see in here, really. The majority of the bioscience laboratories are nested within the inner rings. We’re going to duck through an exit and be outside soon and then we’ll be home.”

“Home?”

“Yes, home.”

As you walk, the hallway’s smooth walls eventually give way to full floor-to-ceiling windows. The darkened glass is frosted with more dust.

“What is that room, the room we just passed?”

“Another genetics lab.”

“What did you do in those laboratories?”

“I’m sorry but you don’t have the clearance to ask that.” She laughs and you are not sure why. “And I didn’t work in these outer-ring labs.”

“Who did?”

“Other scientists.”

“Where are the other scientists?”

“They left.”

“Why?”

“Because almost everyone was getting sick.”

“The pandemic?”

“Yes.”

“Were people getting sick like I am getting sick?”

“I’m afraid so. I’m very sorry.”

“What will happen to me?”

“You’ll either get better or you won’t. Again, I’m very sorry. In the meantime, we’ll enjoy a special day together.” Anne squeezes your hand and pulls you through the outer ring.

“Are you ready to go outside? This is my favorite part.”

Before you can ask Favorite part of what? Anne punches the horizontal push bar with two hands and the emergency exit door flies open. You’re awash in the sun’s fusion-powered glare and you close your eyes, cover your face with shaking hands. You listen to the wind echoing in the bowls of your ears. The smell of the air and how it feels on your skin, on your lips, and inside your lungs are beyond your abilities of description, and it’s okay because even if you were able, you would not choose to sully this moment fumbling with inadequate words.

Anne slowly pulls you away from the building’s shadow, into the heat of the day. She says, “It’s not the Ocean State, but we’re about a mile from the ocean. Can you smell the salt? It’s very strong today. Don’t you remember the smell of the ocean?”

Despite your terrible congestion, you can smell it. At least, you think you can. You have no olfactory memory associated with the water and waves with which to make a comparison. To your shame (yes, shame, as how could it not be your fault somehow?) you have forgotten the full sensory experience of being near an ocean. To forget is to lose something that was once yours, that was once of yourself. But how could one lose something as expansive as an ocean in a dusty corner of one’s mind? What if, instead, to forget is to open a door to a void; the memory is not retrievable because it is not there, was never there.

There are countless other buildings within the Complex. Their exteriors are looping arcs of steel and glass. You wonder if they were designed to look like ocean waves. You do not ask.

Anne tells you the oval-shaped building across from the Facility was called the Dormitory. You tell her you remember that, but you don’t.

You don’t care about the Dormitory or the sprawl of the Complex. You prefer looking at the leaves on the trees, their branches are giant green hands pulling and clutching at the buildings. You prefer looking at the puffs of clouds floating in the blue sky. When you can do so without tripping, you walk with your eyes closed and your face pointed directly at the sun.

The roads winding through the campus are overrun with weeds and grass poking up through cracked, bleached pavement. You haven’t been walking long but are already out of breath. Anne gives you a bottle of water and encourages you, tells you that you are almost home.

You crest a hill and in the sloping distance, for as far as you can see, are what you assume to be more ruins of medical and research monoliths, but ahead, in the foreground, about one hundred paces away, dotted in the middle of an empty parking lot is a small two-story brown house. Your house.

“We have to start on the fence today.”

Within the rough sea of pavement, the brown house squats on a rectangular plot of grass. The lawn has brown patches but is otherwise well maintained. The crab apple tree in the front yard is not as big as you remember. Anne laments that it probably gets too much sun for it to grow to its full potential.

“This is our house? We lived here?”

“Yes. Well, it’s not our original house. It’s a replica. Not perfect, but, you know”—she pauses and rubs your arm—“nothing is.”

Anne explains that first she pried up and removed the pavement, creating the home’s footprint. It took years, but then she jerry-rigged a foundation with bricks, posts, and pier blocks. “It probably wouldn’t pass an official housing inspection, but the house is standing.”

“You did all this?” you ask.

“I’ve had a lot of time and a lot of help.”

“Where’s all your help now?”

“They’re all gone.”

“Did they get sick too?”

“Yes. But maybe you’ll be the one to get better.”

As good as the sun felt initially, the light and heat are giving you a headache. “Was that why I was in the room for as long as I was?”

“Yes and no. Mostly you were there until you remembered who you are.”

“I forgot almost everything because I was asleep for so long.”

“That’s right.”

You remember so many things now, even with your head pounding and your vision blurring.

“Was I asleep for so long because I and everyone else got sick and you were trying to help me? How come you aren’t sick?”

Anne claps her hands together. “We’ll talk about that in the morning. Will you help me start the fence now? It’s hard to believe, but the fence is the last thing we need to build and then our house will be completed.”

You cough and bend over, and your vision goes momentarily fuzzy at the periphery. You take a few deep breaths before speaking again. You say, “Our replica house, you mean.” You step onto the front lawn. The house looks like the one in your head. You ache with recognition, longing, and something akin to if not happiness, then contentment.

“Same thing.”

“Is it?” You look away from the house and scan the ruins, the surrounding pavement, and the sagging, behemoth exoskeletons of the Complex. “Is the rest of the world like this?”

Anne shrugs and says, “Enough of it is. I’m sure there are other lucky survivors, but nobody comes knocking on our door.”

“All this happened while I was asleep? Why did you ever wake me?”

The smile on Anne’s face falters. She says, “Come on. The fencing materials are in the backyard.”

Tools and wood are piled toward the edge of the grassed lot. Anne says that some of the supplies come from the maintenance department but over the years she’s successfully scavenged local abandoned homes and found one improvement store about a two-hour drive away that hadn’t been entirely looted.

“We’re only going to start the fence’s back section today, ______. We won’t push ourselves too hard. I know you’re not feeling well.”

You assist Anne in measuring the distance between posts, marking the spots with wooden stakes, digging six postholes, setting the posts in the holes with a quick-drying concrete. Then you take a break. You sit in the shade, drink lemonade, and eat rations. The lemonade stings your throat, but you do not complain. Anne talks. You do not. You concentrate on conserving energy and not passing out.

You and Anne spend the rest of the afternoon attaching rails to the posts and pickets to the rails. Despite Anne’s near-constant encouragement and compliments, you are ashamed because you are not as much help as you’d like to be. You bend nails and screw in the screws crookedly. Anne has to fix your mistakes and redoes much of the work you were supposed to do on your own. Your hands are slow and clumsy. Your hands do not remember to whom they once belonged.

Most of the celebratory dinner (corn, baked potatoes, leafy greens) comes from Anne’s garden, which she maintains in another area of the campus.

“I figured after all the hard work you wouldn’t mind the starches. There’s only so much I can do to dress up the protein paste though, sorry. I tried raising chickens and ducks, but I wasn’t good at keeping them healthy.”

The kitchen is exactly how you remember it, which is a comfort, because in the videos, you only saw an empty kitchen, the one from before the linoleum was replaced with laminate and before this little breakfast table, and you don’t remember updating the cabinets and appliances, but somehow you remember these being exactly where they are and looking like they do, and maybe you even remember Anne sitting like she is sitting now and looking like she is looking now, but you know that can’t be possible, can it? Maybe your memories are creating themselves; like the solar array and wind turbines, your memories are becoming self-sufficient.

“Aren’t you hungry?”

You are not. Your tongue is swollen, and chewing and swallowing are impossible chores. “I’m okay,” you say.

“You don’t look okay.” Anne looks right through you. You’ve been aware of that idiom and now, perhaps for the first time, you understand it. She says, “Come on. Let’s get you upstairs.”

“Who are we again?”

Anne tilts her head and furrows her brow, observing you, making silent calculations.

“What are we, Anne? What are we together?”

She pulls her hair behind her head and ties it into a quick ponytail. “I’m not sure what you’re asking.”

You cough and you wince at the splintering shards of pain in your throat and head. “How do we describe you and me? Are we coworkers? Are we friends? Are we a couple? Are we lovers? What are we?”

Anne covers her mouth with a hand and laughs. She laughs until her face is red and she isn’t breathing. Despite how terrible you feel, you laugh too.

She stops laughing. A small shadow of a smile remains. Her eyes are pointed down at the table, not at you. “There were times when we were all those things. Right now, we’re partners.”

“Your hands do not remember to whom they once belonged.”

The sun hasn’t fully set outside, but it is dusk in the house. Anne leads you by the arm, up the stairs to the second floor, and if your memory of the house’s layout is correct, into what should be her office, the one with the yellow walls.

She says, “I recently decided to make this the master bedroom. I know the room is smaller, but I enjoy how the sunlight reflects off the yellow walls in the morning.”

With Anne’s help, you change into clean pajamas. They are made of a fabric softer than the pullover and white drawstring scrubs you’ve been wearing. You slowly crawl into the queen-size bed; the wooden frame creaks under your weight and movement. You lie on your right side, facing the windows. As your head sinks into the pillow, Anne pulls the bedcovers up to your neck. Your fever is raging. Your teeth chatter and your pajamas are instantly soaked in sweat.

Anne retreats to a bureau across the room, adjacent to the door. She lights a candle. The wall you are facing glows with eerie, flickering orange light.

“You need your rest. Tomorrow is a big day. A big day for both of us.”

She climbs into the bed but remains over the covers, not inside them with you. She drapes a hand over your shoulder and promises to stay until you fall asleep. You close your eyes, but you can still see the orange light on the wall.

You are awake in the dark, sitting at the edge of your bed, feet on the hardwood floor, and you are crying.

Anne isn’t in the bed next to you. Your muscles ache and your joints are filled with ground bits of glass. You don’t want to move, but you get up, and it’s as though your brain is a step behind your body. You shuffle to the door and fumble for the knob, which is cold in your sweaty hand. You open the door and you are so afraid, of what exactly you don’t know, but the fear is shutting down your mind. You flow down the hallway and to the bathroom as though the floor is the belt of a treadmill. You twist the sink knobs, but there is no water. You shiver, groan, and your hands shake, and that’s when you see there’s a mirror on the wall. It is dark, but you see yourself in the glass. You see who you are. You paw at the wall light switch next to you, but no light comes on. You stop breathing and moving and the you in the glass does the same. You both blink. You both raise a hand up to your face. You are not who you remember. You are not the person in the pictures and videos Anne has showed you. You are someone else entirely, and you want to yell but it comes out as a low, keening moan.

You blink and you don’t remember how you got there, but you are back in the yellow bedroom. You are standing in front of the window. You open the curtains and clumsily lift the blinds. Outside, the moon is missing a piece, but it’s still so big and bright. You sit on the bed and stare at it. Then you are standing and looking down the hill to the Dormitory, and it’s not as far away as you thought, and in the moonlight you can see fine, you can see everything. You watch the marble front entrance with its dry fountain, and Anne emerges between the Dormitory’s glass doors. She is walking backward, pulling a gurney behind her. There is someone lying flat on the gurney, covered by a sheet. She pivots and turns; her arms block your view of the other person’s face. Then you can’t see them very well because they are small underneath the big moon, because you are farther away from them than you thought.

You are awake in the dark, sitting at the edge of your bed, feet on the hardwood floor, and you are crying. You hear Anne’s feet pounding on the stairs and down the hall and then into your room. The candle has burned out and there isn’t enough moonlight spilling through the window behind you.

You ask her, over and over, Who, who am I?, and you ask her, over and over, Who was on the gurney?

Anne stands in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around herself. She asks, “What’s wrong?”

You tell her what you saw but you know you’re not doing a good job and you sound far away, far away from yourself.

Anne says, “Shh” and “No” and “It was a dream” and “It’s because of your high fever” and “You were having a fever dream” and “Hallucinating” and “That’s why it was so real” and “There’s no mirror in the bathroom, you can look tomorrow.” She does not answer your “who was on the gurney” question. She guides you back down onto your bed and pulls the covers over you.

You ask her to stay, but she does not. She shuts and latches the door.