| |
Mack followed his path back to the square, replicating every turn and stumble from his memory, but he didn’t find the rose. He looked everywhere around the square and even asked a few of the regulars, but no one had seen it.
Then he noticed something, red dots sprinkled all over the square, puddles of rusty water. He bent down and checked every one of them, but the only thing he found in the water was trash.
The rose was gone, lost, like his years, and now even his hope.
Tired and dizzy, he approached the fountain fence and sat on it, feeling as if life was draining out of him.
The energy slowly left his toes, legs, fingers, hands, back. Everything was slowing down around Mack and all the square visitors walked slower and slower when suddenly they all began to drop out of his view, together with all the ruins surrounding the square. Then he caught a glimpse of the green light, now the only thing in his view, high in the sky and far, far away. The green light seemed to fall down from the sky, and Mack realized that he was falling back into the red rusty water of the fountain.
It was a relief to die there, in the place where he spent so much time waiting, hoping. For most of its visitors the square was just a place to pass through, but for Mack, it was the place of great beginnings, and now he couldn’t wait to experience the new beginning that awaited him at the end of his present reality.
He longed to be baptized by the rusty red blood water of so many that passed through there before him. Only the water never came and Mack wondered if he missed it, if the fall was itself the transition to the other side. There was no sound, or at least nothing that he could hear. No sense of anything touching his body, no sense at all, except the sky that was now shifting again, only this time in the opposite direction. It seemed as if he was falling, long and slow, falling back into the world.
Soon something sparkled down low on the horizon, the green light, getting stronger and rising high into the sky to take its place. Then, one by one, all the ruins around the square got back into their place. Until finally, Mack met face to face with the square regulars, a few old cyborgs who caught him in mid-fall.
The cyborgs put him down on the ground with his back against the fountain fence. Mack didn’t know whether to thank them or chase them away. He nodded to them in appreciation and they left him there on the ground.
Mack felt born again, unable to move, or speak, like a human baby. No energy or desire for anything except yell out a loud and long, unstoppable cry. He tried, but all that came out of him was a raspy whisper. That was no way to hold onto the world, in fact, no way to hold onto anything.
A green twinkle sparkled in the distance, the top of the world, so faint and far away, hiding in the clouds. The only thing worthwhile, and possible at this point, was to complete the fall, to reach the bottom of the fountain, because whatever was after that, anything, would probably be much better than what Mack was used to.
Analyzing the power he had left in his body, Mack rerouted everything away from his sight, hearing, speech, everything from the unnecessary towards getting back on the fence and completing the fall.
He pushed himself up from the ground and sat on the fountain fence, ready for the unknown. He put his hands on the fence to push himself back and away when he felt something under his right palm.
Something rested on the fence and pushed up into his hand, the shape of a familiar object that he knew too well.
Mack grabbed the object and gently held it in his hands. He smiled recognizing the shape and wondered if he was already there, on the other side, because it was impossible for him to be holding a hand, a human hand.
He rerouted his energy and opened his eyes.
The darkness slowly turned to light as he regained his vision, and through the blurriness in his eyes, he saw the soft hand he was holding disappear under a long sleeve that was part of a beige trench coat.
Mack smiled as his vision gained focus with every second, and he noticed a small bun of gray hair on top of a small head, and then finally the face he had seen so many times in the virtual network. The face that was now real, and much more beautiful than any imitation.
She smiled back and Mack felt a surge of energy rush through his circuits, energy that by habit wanted to extend his hand and give her something like he dreamed he would so many times.
“There was something I made for you,” said Mack, “but I lost it. I’m so sorry...”
She rested her other hand on top of his, and it seemed like they were now bound, as one, their eyes and hands unwilling to let go, but even more so, their hearts. One beating faster and pumping blood, the other flashing a red that was never brighter.
“Will you make it for me, again?” she said.
Simple words that sounded more like music to Mack, and he couldn’t understand why, nor did he dare to question the magic that was her.
“I will,” he said.
Mack got up from the fence and felt the energy almost burn through his circuits, a vitality that would probably allow him to conquer the world, except he only cared about conquering her heart.
Still holding her hands, his practiced routine was to offer a tour of the “Light of Freedom”, but suddenly it didn’t feel right, it felt almost selfish.
“What would you like to do?” he said. A question that he didn’t expect himself, but that made him happier than he thought possible, for it was possibly better than any gift that he could have given her. That question was in itself a gift, one from the heart, one of consideration.
“It’s my first time here. Would you show me around?”
Mack smiled and held out his hand.
She took it, and they walked stepping in sync around Sector C for what seemed like days. Never getting tired, lost in time, both finally belonging.
