I don't like to see my grandmother hurt. And while I know Moritz didn't mean to hurt her more than she already was hurting with his question, I know he did hurt her more. Yet, I don't regret him asking it. I wouldn't take it back. Because really, when Luviel first caught my grandmother's attention, and after she talked to my grandmother the way she did, I too, wanted to ask that very question. It was Luviel's skin, however, that brought me off to it.
"Don't worry Jeopardy crew. You'll have all the answers you're looking for soon enough," Zero responded.
After that, he told Luviel to shut her mouth. He didn't tell her. But he made that finger movementâthat gesture--my uncle first made at me at the store when Oso was knocking, ready to take me awayâand he did take me away, him and Congo. Zero's finger is longer, of course. It's thinner than my uncle's too. Zero's nails are also longer. Their edges are sharper than my uncle's as well. Boy, now that I really see himâZero, I meanâI notice how much he is not like my uncle. Not much like him at all, and if it weren't for that finger gesture, they'd probably have nothing in common.
I don't think about that anymore. I don't think about anything anymore.
I want it to be black, like the van.
I want it all to go to black.
I want nothing but I want to see everything.
I want to see where I cannot go.
I want to see where my life will take me.
I want it all to be like it never was before. Or maybe like it was before. Maybe I just want to go back to the other side of the Wall.
With Moritz in front of me, him and his bright, bold logo, his sport's team, his showing off of all the time one has to waste on the other side of the Wall that you can watch a sports team and that you have money to watch a sports team, it all makes me miss that side of the wall all so much more.
"Why didn't you ever try to reach out?" Moritz asks. "Why didn't you try to contact me and tell me you were in trouble?" he says, like it was so easy, like he's been on this whole ride with me, like he's seen this world through my eyes, like he's seen what I've seen.
Hell, Moritz, I think. I want to tell you. I want to tell you for sure. But now is not the time. And maybe, if we make it out, I can tell you. But not now.
"How would I?" I then answered, expecting Moritz to know my answer, expecting him to know what I thought he'd know of me, or expecting him to do as I thought he'd expect of me, and vice versa. "I didn't have a phone," I then say.
"You didn't have a phone? So that's how easy it is for you to forget me?"
"What do you mean? How can I call you if I didn't have a phone?"
"So before leaving you didn't have a phone?"
"Well..."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
Moritz is right. I did have a phone before crossing over to this side of the wall. So why didn't I call him?
"I'm sorry. My grandmother left me before I could plan everything," I lie.
"I gave you a week's notice," my grandmother then reveals, giving my lie away.
"Thanks, grandma," I reply.
"I did though," she insists, as if I hadn't heard herâor Moritz hadn't heard herâthe first time.
"I know. I know."
"So what happened?" Moritz asks. "I thought this was forever?"
I didn't want to laugh. But I did. Luckily, however, Zero and Luviel laughed before I could, blocking, like a giant, white sheet, my laughter.
My grandmother, on the other handâor side, as she isâwas a different story:
"What?" she jumped up! "Ludivina! This nice boy wanted to marry you?" she explained, like a child that had just found out they were going to be missing out on a big project, or a big toy, or a big musical, or play, or ice cream, whatever kids like.
"Oh, man!" Zero then exclaimed, with Luviel right after him, both getting ready with the invisible popcorn and soda, which was replaced by a cigarette and old coffee left in one of the cup holders from the time I was still free in Black Catzâof both Zero and Luviel, and Moritz and my grandmother; oh, and death too.
"Moritz," I dropped, ignoring everyone around us. "You know that could never happen."
"I do know," he replied, turning around, crossing his legs Indian-styleâwhatever that means, if it means anything at all.
"Don't be like that," I nudge.
"I never thought I'd die like this. Or next to someone that doesn't even love me."
"I do love you."
"Yeah. You just have a funny way of showing it?"
I drop my head, both to catch my breath and to also choose my next words carefully.
"I just have a way of never being able to show it," I let out. "It's not that I don't love you. It's that I can't love anyone. I can't love anyone ever, ever, ever."
"Ludivina!" my grandmother begs, hoping I'd shut up and take her beg as a plea, for she has always wanted a grandchild from me.
*********************
"Looks like he got your heart, huh, mom?" Luviel throws out, punching Zero in the arm as someone would do when they're partaking on an inside joke with someone apart than the ones they are joking aboutâin this case being my grandmother, Moritz, and myself.
"Don't you see that everything just always ends?" I throw out.
"What?" Moritz replies. "Everything always ends?"
"Whoa! That's deep, divine."
"Everything ends. No matter what, everything ends. No matter how the love between two people is, one of them, one of those hearts, will always die first, before the other. Thus, ending that love. So even the strongest love, like everything else, is born with a deadline. This whole situation, since I left my uncle's, has helped me see all of this, it's helped me realize that everything ends; at some point, we all end."
Moritz lets out a deep, long sigh.
What just came out of my mouth? Did I just tell Moritz what I think I told him?
"So I came over here for no reason? I'm going to die for no reason?" Moritz then asks me, catching me off guard, catching me with an unexpected question.
Fortunate for me, but unfortunately for our situation, Luviel answers for me.
"Yeah!" she simply blurts out, using the simplicity I would use for my answer, but not the same, exact answer,
"Noâyou didn't," I tell Moritz, attempting to fight back the audacious, reflecting comment from Luviel.
"Then what did I come for?" Moritz hits back, searching for what I truly wanted to say.
I tilt my head down again, hiding my insurance, my illegibility when it came to the matter in mouth, hand, mind, conversation.
"I don't know," I let outâfirst I let it out silently, almost hiding it from Moritz, making him work for it; making him work for more than he probably should.
"You don't' know?"
"I'm sorry," I breath.
"Hey! You all are making me depressed back there!" Zero abruptly interrupts us. Thankfully.
*********************
It's funny how since the second you are born you are born with a bill. We all come with one. Some come with one higher than the others. But we all come with a bill. Some are even named Bill.
And even worst, some are forced to pay a higher, riskier, more deadly bill than others. For what reason? I don't know. Maybe karma. Or maybe it's the compounds and components of the universe planned at us since birth.
Sometimes, at night, and during the day, actually, at all hours, if you listen, you can hear those debts and bills being paid. And you can simply hopeâat least I doâthat whoever is paying those bills is not having to go through a tough "transactional process."
You hopeâor I always didâthat what is happening to me, does not happen to them, or often.
I just never thought my bill would be paid with that of Moritz' and my grandmother's bill. I never thought Life's Waiter would bring us our bill together.
"Not long now," Luviel mentions, trying to break the once-romantic-tension between Moritz and I, which is now simply tension, without the romance.
"You two will be resting in paradise soon," Zero assures us.
Behind Moritz, I see my grandmother siting in a given-up stance. She's looking out the window the way a person does when they're feeling the last gusts of wind they'll ever get to feel. I don't know how much of that she's feeling because Oso and Congo pull up beside us, shortly after I had spotted my grandmother, and Moritz. Oso sticks half of his body out the window while keeping his hands and feet on the wheel and pedal.
"Turn right up ahead!" he screams.
Could he not have simply mobile'd the message to them (can I use that verb with youâmobile'd?)?
"I guess this is it," Moritz says.
My grandmother's expression changes. Maybe she hasn't given up? Maybe she's just getting up?
"Ludivina...," she begins.
"Hold your tongue, ma!" snaps Luviel.
"I need to tell her," my grandmother then replies, hitting back at whatever Luviel was trying to hide.
Luviel then, gives my grandmother a smileâlike she knows what she is trying to hide, and, indeed, does not care too much to be bothered to stop her, or to prevent her from bringing whatever it was to the light, to me.
"You won't need to soon enough," she proceeds to snarl.
**********************************
It's funny how since the second you are born you are born with a bill. We all come with one. Some come with one higher than the others. But we all come with a bill. Some are even named Bill.
And even worst, some are forced to pay a higher, riskier, more deadly bill than others. For what reason? I don't know. Maybe karma. Or maybe it's the compounds and components of the universe planned at us since birth.
Sometimes, at night, and during the day, actually, at all hours, if you listen, you can hear those debts and bills being paid. And you can simply hopeâat least I doâthat whoever is paying those bills is not having to go through a tough "transactional process."
You hopeâor I always didâthat what is happening to me, does not happen to them, or often.
I just never thought my bill would be paid with that of Moritz' and my grandmother's bill. I never thought Life's Waiter would bring us our bill together.
"Not long now," Luviel mentions, trying to break the once-romantic-tension between Moritz and I, which is now simply tension, without the romance.
"You two will be resting in paradise soon," Zero assures us.
Behind Moritz, I see my grandmother siting in a given-up stance. She's looking out the window the way a person does when they're feeling the last gusts of wind they'll ever get to feel. I don't know how much of that she's feeling because Oso and Congo pull up beside us, shortly after I had spotted my grandmother, and Moritz. Oso sticks half of his body out the window while keeping his hands and feet on the wheel and pedal.
"Turn right up ahead!" he screams.
Could he not have simply mobile'd the message to them (can I use that verb with youâmobile'd?)?
"I guess this is it," Moritz says.
My grandmother's expression changes. Maybe she hasn't given up? Maybe she's just getting up?
"Ludivina...," she begins.
"Hold your tongue, ma!" snaps Luviel.
"I need to tell her," my grandmother then replies, hitting back at whatever Luviel was trying to hide.
Luviel then, gives my grandmother a smileâlike she knows what she is trying to hide, and, indeed, does not care too much to be bothered to stop her, or to prevent her from bringing whatever it was to the light, to me.
"You won't need to soon enough," she proceeds to snarl.
***********************
The van took a sharp right, tossing Moritz, my grandmother and I, farther away from the two front seatsâfurther than we already were.
"It was a rough ride, huh miss Divine?" Zero asks.
I don't know if he means the ride to the actual location they're taking us to, or the whole ride since I left my uncle's store, or just my whole ride in general, entirely, in life. Either way, I guess they've all been rough, every ride.
"If you're not my mother, then who are you? What do you want with us?" I ask Luviel, not directing, or using, the lighter tone I had directed and used towards her before, but with a more angrily, determined, with-a-purpose tone this time. These times are getting serious, after all. And possibly, getting to the end too.
"LuvielâI need to tell her," my grandmother snaps before I can react more, or give Luviel a time to react, even though she doesn't seem so eager to react or to say anything, her lips straight ahead, her face getting more serious with every pause Zero places on the pedal below her, right under her feet.
With all of usâMoritz, my grandmother, and Iâbunched in a corner of the van, caused by the sharp turn here, Zero pulls to a full haul after dragging the tires for so long. I counted the seconds too. They were about three-hundred and fifty seconds. Between talking to Moritz and my grandmother, I counted the fucking seconds. That's what life gets to, I guess, when you're at the last seconds of your story: you count every second.
Gates outside the van opened and clacked against each other. Then the rumbling of shoes over gravelâlike the one in the Black Catz parking lotâbegan to approach us, it started from a distance, past the clanking gates, until it was finally at the door of the van. Luviel and Zero were outside before we knew they were going outside.
"Should I try?" Moritz asks, looking at the door handle.
"We can't run," my grandmother says, being the one that can do the least amount of running. "If anything, I'll distract them while you two run as far as you can."
"I'm not leaving you," I snap, immediately, without a second thought.
*********************************
Brain: Whelp. It was a good ride. At least you got to see and live ratchet shit. You got to live "the movies," eh?
*********************************
Remember how Black Catz looked. How it was truly designed?
I'll remind you, because you seemed to have gotten off the beaten path of the story:
An anaconda over the bar, spread out like a piece of measuring tape, or like dominos, or like a line of something; a zebra in one corner getting attached from behind by a giant bear; a lion looking out into the bar from a mountain top, enjoying the glory that was our intoxication to forget all that wasâand isâtoxic; the pool table wrapped in fur, to remind the visitors of the power of the owner of the pool table and the location where the table was allowed to be a table, of pool; the wildebeest, horns up, face down, stance steadily at an angle to anyone standing in front of itâthis, I assumed, was to show off the confident, at-anytime-ready-to-square-off-attitude this whole side had developed in its evolution since Separation.
**********************************
"You won't be leaving me. I've lived all I've wanted to live, Ludy. I've helped you all I can. And this will be my last, and best, way of helping you get back to the life I worked so hard to provide, and get, you (to)."
It's not necessary to tell my grandmother that we can't carry her out, or...carry out her "master plan," because the van door opens, and outside, like we drove and waited so long for, awaits our inevitable faith, our end, our death.
Zero is the first one to reach in. His hand goes straight for Moritz. It tugs onto his long, blonde curls, pulling them back, making his skull rise to the blue skies of the earth, making his eyes face the cloudsâhe makes Moritz' eyes face upward towards the universe we allâmy grandmother, Moritz and Iâmight be facing, and headed towards to, one dayâa day that might come sooner than we might have expected...and definitely liked.
But how right have I gotten my aftermath?
The area we are all dragged out to after Zero grabs a hold of Moritz, is more yellow and beige than any other surrounding I had laid eyes on since crossing to this side of the Wall. The plains that go as far as my eyes can reach, or see, are colorless. Everything mirrors the vast deserts of the Las Vegas outskirts. This all is definitely where people get buriedâwhere the aftermath goes.
Oso and Congo arrive after some minutes. Already at our presence, however, are about six other young men and women I had not seen at Black Catz or anywhere else. But that is how it's been since I arrived: people always coming and going; people always being everywhere; new people always being here and there. So I've stopped caring or paying attention. I stopped noticing. I happen to only notice now because it just so happens to possibly be my last minutes on Earth. So, here I am, noticing everything.
"Good of you to join us," Zero tells Oso.
"Traffic," Oso said and winked at Zero.
Congo laughed and hit Oso, in a playful way.
******************
By some de-flying miracle, apart from all the things my grandmother knew, all the things she was wise of, she did not know what a dragonfly was, she did not know the word dragonfly at all.
It was that, and it's been about only that, that I've taught my grandmother: dragonfly.
It happened one day in the garden. I used to spend a lot of time in her garden. And during that time, I used to always play with dragonflies. I would wait around and wait for them to land on a plant, on a leafâon anythingâthen I'd quickly grab their tail, and hold onto them for a bit. I never kept any. I just enjoyed their presence for however long they allowed me to enjoy it, before flying away.
***************************
In this desert-like area that we've been brought to, dragonflies hover all over us. They're hard to miss. They replace the usual mosquito you'd see hovering around, forming body-like clouds that swerve around you, area to area, on the other side of the Wall.
My grandmother sees them too. She looks at me once she does see them.
Quite fitting it is; quite fitting they are.
"Fucking things!" swats Luviel.
"They're dragonflies," says my grandmother, holding out her hand for anyone who wanted to take a rest, any one of those dragonflies who wanted to land their tired wings on my grandmother's wrinkled, freckled, dark palm.
"She'll be here any minute now," says Congo, checking a pocket watch he has pulled out of his dirty, jean pocket.
Yes, a pocket watch. An item that tells me certain things about these Catz: they're odd, unique, elegant, friendly, and yet, extremely viscous, unfaithful, uncaring, unmoral.
Luviel walks Moritz away from us.
"What is happening?" my grandmother asks.
She is then pulled over to Oso by a young man.
The man's fauxhawk is strong, like the rest of them.
"Come on, lady," he says, dragging her to Oso, whom then dragged her towards Luviel, where Moritz was as well.
Congo is keeping his eye on his watch.
I look around for any houses, any light, any sign of life that might feel some sort of compassion for us and might call for help, might give us a tiny spark of life, of hopeâlike the one my uncle Benny was looking for when he bent over my victim's body.
**************
With nobody in sight, Congo looks back at his watch.
Then, suddenly, dust rises in a trail, in a line, from the distance, the far distance. The trail begins to make its way towards us. It's a dirt trail too thin for a car. Only a motorbike could expose, or create, such a trail.
"Here she comes," says Congo, in the most satisfied tone I've ever heard from him.
Oso and Zero and Luviel, they all stand there, almost admiring the picture moving towards them, their eyes widening wider with every tick of the pocket watch in Zero's hand, and their lips slowly forming and curling upwards into a smileâthey all begin to decorate their faces with reactions of disbelief, as if they couldn't believe what was happening before their very own eyes, but they also loved what was happening before their very own eyes.
As still as the light poises around usâthe only things out here, in this desert, like Oso, Zero, and Luvielâwe begin to look even more motionless.
Apart from Moritz, my grandmother and myself, whom all were not included on whatever the memo was that explained what was currently happening, there was nobody else making any sudden, or slight, movements.
The dust trail swerved and turned like I felt our van do on the way hereâwherever here is.
"God almighty. There she is," says Zero.
"I can't believe we pulled it off," says Oso.
I believe his comment was directed at all of us; like I had something to do with that "we"; like we all didâmy grandmother, Moritz, myself, Oso, Congo, the dead man in my uncle's store, my uncle Benicio, Noe, Pamela, Fernando.
Wait!
Where are Pamela and Fernando?
"Alright now. Let's remember what we talked about," Oso says.
My grandmother takes a step forward. Her eyes are dead-focused on the dirt trail, which is ever-so-closer to us now, making its identity known with any next movement, the next drive forward.
"Who are you all giving us to?" she asksâmy grandmother.
Zero is the first one to slap Moritz.
"Tell your girlfriends granny to shut-up!" he tells him, just as Moritz' face flies to one side, in the direction of the trail.
Then Congo does the same, with a "yeah," added to itâa "yeah, you hear that?"
Luviel responds with a more-direct, less-physical answer, one directed towards the person asking the question:
"We're not giving you to anyone," she tells my grandmother.
At this same time, at the moment of Luviel's response, the trail looks like it could be touched, reaching a point it had not warned us it would reach in our ever-predicting mind.
"Stand back until I say something," says Oso, to the young men and women that are around us; the ones that tossed us around when we arrived. The "new Catz," as my brain would say.
**************************
Brain: More like your murderers. You know, how you were with that kid in your uncle's store?
**************************
"Maybe you should know that I loved you," says Moritz, being Moritzâsaying the worst possible thing(s) at the worst possible time(s).
*****************
I don't respond because I'm keeping my eye on the trail, and whoever is behind the dark, shiny spherical helmet speeding, like a monster on crack, right at us. Maybe a race horse on crack, mixed with a futuristic robotic racer, might be a more accurate picture to paint for you, describing that dust trail now reaching us.
"Ludy!" snaps Moritz.
"Yeah?" I say, mindlessly.
"Nothing," Moritz replies.
"I'm sorry," I say.
"Steady," says Oso.
"I love you too," I tell Moritz, knowing I didn't' really mean it. And I'm sure he did too. But he didn't say anything. Perhaps, at least in our last moments, it is okay to fall into such clichés as is the one that says "ignorance is bliss."
"Will you two lovebirds keep it quiet while the adults talk?" asks Congo.
The trail nears in, the roars guiding it to us getting oh-so-that-much louder, invading our ear drums to the point of having to block them with our fingersâthose whom were bothered by it, of course.
"Here she is," welcomes Zero.
Then, the helmet stops. And the motor follows, in a faster trail. It also feels as if everyone else follows with them, stopping at the step.
What followed, was the following:
A steady, firm, medium-sized, long-haired, medium-shouldered, caves-firm, woman snapped down the bike break, my eyes followed her every move, moving upward, stoppingâin-factâfor a bitâat the reflection made on the motor of the bike; the skin under the helmet almost matched mine, but in the falling sundown, it was off just a tad; fingers snapped the engine off.
"Ludivina!" said Zero.
*********************
"Yeah?" I respond.
"Ludivina!" my grandmother exclaims. Her face dropping upon realizingâunlike mine (my face)âwhat its eyes were seeing, the signs they were sending backâor as the Catz would do, and say...shooting backâto my brain.
"Yeah?" I replyâagain.
But it's not my reply that stops Zero and my grandmother from inquiring about me, or about what I'm saying, again. You see, it's my name they are saying, but it is not me that they are referring to, it is not me which is being directed at, and it is not me whom they seek a reply from.
"It can't be," my grandmother says, having the same reaction with this woman as she did when Luvielâher daughterâwalked into Black Catz.
Could this be?
Another relative? Another reaper?
The woman whom is temporarily claiming my name, ensues to walk over to my grandmother.
"Mom, I'm sorry for all of this," she says, opening her arms towards my grandmother, and then bringing her into the circle she had formed, which directed my grandmother to her chest.
"But how?" my grandmother kept on.
"Alright, alright," says Zero. "We had a deal. Now here they are."
"How did you find them?" the woman holding my grandmother asks.
She then walks over to me.
Her hair drops over her face like mine does. And her eyes look deep into you in that uncomfortable way I sometimes do with Moritz, or with my grandmother, or with anyone I'm trying to get the truth out of.
"Ludivina," beeps, signals, warns the lady in front of me, still holding her helmet off to the side, and my grandmother right in the middle, right at her center. There are gloves over her handsâthe racing and driving typeâbut she begins to slip them off as she raises her arms towards my face.
"Ludivina," she repeats.
I glance over at my grandmother, who is halfway covered in tears.
"Who are you?" I let out. "You can't be," I then say.
My heart is axing its way out of my chest, and my legs are trying to keep it together so that my body does not collapse to the groundâalthough I'm sure Zero, Oso, Luviel, Congo, and the other band of Catz would love to see that.
"Ludivina, I'm so sorry for never being there," the woman lays on me.
What? She's sorry??
********************
It is her!
No, it can't be.
But here she is.
Here she is when you're about to dieâor so you assume.
Why?
Why all of this?
*************************************
"Hey!" Congo shouts. "Hey! Where the hell are you going?"
There was new dust in the air now.
Like the motorbike when it was making its way to us, it is now somethingâsomeoneâthat is making their away from us.
"Moritz! No!" screams my grandmother.
My ear catches shoes ruffling and wrestling to the pebbles scattered all around this desert. I follow them and my eyes see the owner of the shoes.
There he goes: Moritz looks like a jackrabbit trying to escape a predator, springing straight from the start, and the jump, the soles of his shoes only becoming visible when his feet rise up as the other one steps down...step after step after step.
"Moritz!" I scream out without telling my brain to do so, because, after all, it's the last thing Moritz, and his miscreant behavior, would want.
Although, my brain thinks otherwise, as it screams out to me: lies, lies, lies, it says.
My grandmother doesn't move, but she continues to scream Moritz' name.
I do tooâI continue to scream for Moritz to come back.
It is only my grandmother and I trying to wrangle Moritz back before the other Catz, or Zero, or Luviel, do.
But our screams fall on speedy ears going too fast to catch our soundwaves (I hope).
And then, after that thought-shot flew through my mind, a cock goes off. And bullets going into a barrel begin to clink beside me.
I turn to see Zero. He's packing up his fire to release the bomb to end country Moritz.
"No!" I say, running over to him.
Zero pushes me away. No, speaking truthfully, you should know, that he slapped me away.
"Get out of here!" he says, swinging the back of his palm right over my left side. My face flips back to see Moritz, still sprinting.
I go back towards Zero for another lunge. This time, I leave my hands in the air, trying to take up as much space as possible...trying to cover as much of Moritz as possible.
"Please!" I say, holding back the nervousness in my voice. "Please."
"Shut up," Zero commands, laying another back hand on me.
"Ludy!" Luviel says.
But who is she directing my name towards?
"Get a hold of your daughter!" she says. And you can guess it was not directed at me.
I freeze. Nothing hurts anymore. Zero's slaps don't hurt anymore. The pain I've felt since leaving my uncle's store isn't there anymore. I am simply standing and freezing. I feel nothing.
"What did you say?"
"I told your mother to get a hold of you," replies Luviel. "You know? My fucking sister!"
The first blast goes off.