Just Give It Time by Matthew J. McKee

Saudade: (n.) a nostalgic longing to be near to something or someone that is distant; the desire to be near again to what has been loved and then lost, “the love that remains.”

I.

I was lying naked in the middle of our rooftop garden when Luna came home from work. I heard her moving about downstairs, but made no move to dress myself, nor to work up the energy to get up and greet her.

I heard the slithering of wood against wood as the door to the roof slid open.

‘Hey, beautiful,’ I called out.

‘Hey yourself,’ Luna said, a small smile slicing high on the right side of her porcelain face as she leaned over me. ‘You shouldn’t be out here. You’ll catch a cold. And someone will see you.’

I blinked rapidly.

Standing over me, Luna’s hair was a waterfall of blue shimmering around us, shifting softly through the azure spectrum as if it were made of aroura. Her eyes were deep-sea green and she smelled of wisteria.

I snickered up at her. ‘Jealous?’

‘Always. But seriously, what are you doing?’

‘I’m…waiting for spring.’

Luna frowned, and the light humor of our banter was sucked out of the air like a switch had been flipped.

‘Did—you call in another weather system? After I specifically told you not to?’

‘Whaaat?’ I shrugged, twisting some of my hair about my index finger. ‘It’s not a big deal. Central Climate Consultants were having a sale—’

‘C.C.C. is always having a sale!’ Luna snapped. ‘You know that! It’s a sham!’ Suddenly all business, she crossed her arms and moved out of frame.

A plastic lawn chair creaked and I could imagine her dropping down onto the seat with her head hung, but I kept my eyes on the sky, I kept them fixed on the darkened dome above.

After a minute, Luna sighed.

Plastic creaked.

She reappeared above me, scowling.

‘How long, and what did you order?’ Her voice was quiet, but cold, like an icy finger of death.

But even that.

Even that was a shade, a hue, a vivid. Anything was better than living in this drab, still, nothingness. Everything else was grey. The world—was grey and muted. Luna was my iridescent, my resplendent, my light and love. But she was always gone—and for so long! And I…

‘I…I ordered twenty-five degrees. Alternating days of a light breeze and no wind at all with a small drizzle every weekend—’

‘For. How. Long?’

‘…four months.’

‘Four months?!’ Luna threw her hands up in the air and stalked out of view. ‘You fucking addict!’

The door slammed open. Slammed shut. I heard the rattling and crash of bottles in the kitchen. The door slammed open. Slammed shut again. Luna glared down at me, amber drink in one hand, the bottle in the other. Her eyes were wide and wild.

She was fire; a beautiful, ice-cold fire.

‘Do you know how much that’s going to cost us this far out of season?’

‘No.’

‘Over a year’s worth of my salary.’

‘I…’

‘Don’t you care?!’

My toes curled. ‘I, I just wanted to see the Cherry Blossoms again. I just wanted to see color again.’

‘If you’d just wait, they’d be back next year!’ Luna gestured around our lofty garden, the trees winter-pale, branches barren. ‘They come back every year! You know that! I explained it to you when I installed them!’ Some of her drink sloshed over the rim of the glass and splashed down onto my naked stomach.

I squirmed.

Cold.

It was cold.

Everything was so cold.

Even Luna’s eyes were cold as they bored into me.

I averted my gaze. ‘I…couldn’t wait.’

‘We can’t afford it! Do you remember what happened the last time? Did you forget what I had to go through just so we could keep this mansion?!’

‘No, I—’

‘I had to take five extra shifts a week! Five! Hell, I’m still working it off! I’m the one who has to go outside and put on the radiation suit! I’m the one who has to go back and forth to that fucking tombstone of a factory! I’m the one who has to put in the work!’ She jabbed a finger into her chest, more whiskey spilling, down, down, splashing onto my bare breasts.

I flinched over and over, each ice-cold lash of liquid burning my skin like I was actually being whipped.

‘Luna, I…I’m sor—’ My apology broke apart on my lips.

The sky, was brightening. Far above us, the top of our habitat dome was brightening into a soothing spring glow. All around us the air was warming.

‘Ahh!’ The sun! I could feel it! Even if it wasn’t real! Even if the only time I could see the real sun was in my memories and dreams, I could still feel it!

I forgot everything.

And wished everything would forget me.

II.

She’d fallen silent. She’d fallen up into the sky again. Staring down at her as the faux-sun rose over my head, all the venom and vitriol I’d been feeling slid away from me. My blood ceased it’s boiling.

All I could feel when she looked like that was pity.

Slack jawed, drooling up at the sky, tears spilt unnoticed from the corners of her eyes: dead black, an empty, wistful gaze.

I sighed, took a step back, and sat down on the plastic lawn chair.

I took a sip of whiskey.

Another.

Another.

Then a gulp.

Another.

Another.

Then I drained the glass, coughed, hacked—felt like maybe my liver was ready to go. Maybe I even had radiation poisoning. My company guaranteed a life protection suit and even offered replacements in case of a puncture, but who was to say they weren’t shafting me? Who’s to say they hadn’t skimped on the material and gone for only fifty percent irradiant resistance in the areas less exposed?

Every time.

Every time I thought I was about to get out of the shit, something like this had to happen.

The doctors had diagnosed her with Sun Sickness, but they hadn’t felt it necessary to put her in the asylum. She wasn’t the worst case they’d even seen, they’d said. Some people had actually tried to eat the sun, they’d said—whatever that meant. Be happy, they’d said; at least she still understands what reality is, even if she can’t stand to be a part of it—be happy and do your best.

They’d said.

As if there was any other option.

‘What am I going to do with you?’ I said, watching the love of my life waste away in the simulated sun. ‘And what am I going to do with me…’

It was only a matter of time. Even if I did have a full protection suit. I drank so much these days; I knew I was poisoning myself. Sometimes, I was even drunk the next morning. So drunk, I thought I could feel it; when I stepped out of our habitat dome and into the dead zone, I thought I could feel the radiation eating holes into me. Even with all the protections—sometimes I even felt it in the safety of our bed. Sometimes the radiation found me in my dreams.

Tears pulled at my eyes as the nano-birds woke up and the insect functions kicked in. Cued by the temperature rise, slits opened on the trees and the slotted blooms gracefully unfurled with an almost imperceptible hum.

And in the middle of it all, she rolled about in giddy glee like Eve in ecstasy in the Garden of Eden.

I watched her go—an erotic still-life come to life—and poured myself another glass.

I didn’t know how to tell her that it was hard for me, too. I didn’t know how to explain to her that I wanted spring back, too. I wanted to tell her, though, that if she could just wait, that if she could just hold out, that if she just gave it some time, the spring would be even more glorious than…than whatever this was.

But I couldn’t.

She was lost to me.

Like the world was lost to all of us, she was lost to me.

All I could do, was watch, and drink, and just…give it time.

Matthew J. McKee

Image: White clouds billowing in a blue sky from Pixabay.com