three little words
2:33 PM
The day you die, I’m sitting in rain-soaked clothes. Outside, tutta-tutta-tutta-tut, water bullets the balcony. A minute ago I was out there, smoking a cigarette. Really I was trying to keep myself from screaming my throat raw. Now I’m running my tongue across my teeth, tasting the lingering nicotine, each heaving breath reigniting the carcinogens clotting my throat.
I grip your hand like it’s your heart, holding it gently as the day you were born. It’s even weaker than that day, like it spent ten years staying alive rather than growing up. I smile at you because staying strong is a parent’s most important job. I tell you about the Moonlanders’ game. They won four-to-one. Their first win of the season! I tell you’ve I’ve got the scorecard in my pocket with every at-bat—be it an out, a hit, or a walk—recorded. Normally you’d beg me to let you see. Right now you just nod and nod.
It began this morning, just after dawn, with a migraine and blurred vision. You said something was beating your brain like a drum, melting the world into parking-lot-oil, the kind you used to smear around with sticks while I pumped gas. Then there was a tingle in your chest. “A weird feeling,” you said. “Like my heart’s ringing,” you said. “Like God’s calling me.” Soon you were sweating through the sheets and coughing blood and the nurses were frantically plugging you into machines I knew nothing about.
“We’re going to save him,” one nurse told me.
“Don’t make promises,” another hissed at her. “We can’t keep promises.”
“We promise to try our best,” a third said. “Our very best.”
Now we’re alone, same as we’ve ever been. Just you, me, and the hum of machinery inside, and the tutta-tutta-tutta-tut of rain outside.
Outside—BANG! Thunder erupts from the clouds, coursing electric white across the midnight sky. The lights flicker, struggling to keep the juice flowing, then switch off. Without power, the machines keeping you alive are nothing but useless hunks of cords and metal. They let out one descending whirrrrr and cease moving. I jump up and rush for the door, but you tug my hand. You try to speak, but your lungs are bags of leather. Even years of sterilized hospital air couldn’t heal them.
You mouth: “Is it okay to be afraid of going to Heaven?”
I say: “You’ve got a long time until then.”
You shake your head.
You mouth: “Goodbye.”
I say: “Don’t go.”
I try to say everything’s going to be okay, but your grip loosens, and so the words spill out my mouth all jumbled together into nonsense. As your hand falls from mine, the machines swell with electronic light, and the hum of them beating life into you is replaced by the beeeeeeeeep of your flatlining vitals.
Nurses flood the room. They’re bickering over how to help you. I’m cast aside as they rip you off the old machines and try to jolt life into you with new ones. They try, and try, and try, and try, and when they give up, when they tell me it’s over, I thank them and ask to be alone with you for a few minutes. When they’re gone, I don’t scream. I want to, but I don’t. I light a cigarette, torch my throat again, and pray the pain will ease the pain.
Then I just look at you.
You, too young to not wake up. You, who I wanted to watch grow even older than me from beyond the stars. I want to take you in my arms. To hold you, and hug you, and kiss you just like I’ve done since you were born. But all those things will only remind me of the undeniable truth—that the last time I heard your voice was a meek whisper of suffering, and now I’ll never hear even that again.
I don’t know what do, so I just sing. I sing a song from before your time and my time. A song that, they say, a few hundred years ago, humans wrote, but we always disagreed. “Too beautiful,” I’d say. “Must’ve been written by angels,” you’d say.
Now, I sing:
Time rolls on, so they say,
tomorrow brings another day,
the places change, the faces too,
but every day, I still love you.
We used to sing it together. Now I sing it alone in a hospital room between puffs of smoke to pass the time until the men in white suits show up to sweep us both apart, me into the future, you into the past, forever.
Even when they do, I don’t stop singing.
4:01 PM
Me and the others, we’re packed into a thin corridor like sardines in a tin can. You aren’t here. You’re on ice somewhere, about to be studied to figure out what went wrong, and then you’ll be stricken from record. First you’ll lose your name, they’ll smudge it away with thick black ink, and that’s all you’ll be. A smudge. Then you’ll get lost among a stack of other smudges. And finally, you’ll be turned to ash, and there will be no more of you. By then, I’ll be done here and onto somewhere new.
They say it’s easier this way. I’m sure it will be. Right now it isn’t.
Everyone here has their own little version of you. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, aunts and uncles, too. Some weep. Some scream. Some stand silent, eyes on the ground, while others claw their hair. No matter what we’re doing, we all step forward, in-sync, every five minutes. The bell chimes, a static-soaked voice travels out the intercom, and we step forward. The click-clack of soles on stone becomes a drum-beat of decay. Everyone here is grieving—and about to give away a part of themselves to stop it.
Click-clack. Click-clack. Click-clack.
Minutes turn to hours. Wails turn to whimpers. I try not to think about you. Last time we stood together in a line like this, we were outside a stadium, waiting for an Astroball game to start. The Moonlanders were playing the Starblazers. Gosh, you hated the Starblazers. You couldn’t wait to watch them lose. You said: “They’re gonna get thrashed.” You kept rocking back and forth, clicking your heels to the gravel in anticipation of the gates opening.
Click-clack.
There was an electronic billboard above us. It was cycling through images. We couldn’t tell what was on it at first, but as we got closer, you started to make out your favorite ballplayers. Some were smashing homeruns, others were sprawling out to make incredible catches. You shouted their names as they appeared. “Garrett Jones!” you yelled. “Ranger Harris!”
“When I’m old as you, I wanna be just like them,” you said. “A ballplayer!”
Click-Clack.
6:30 PM
By the time I reach the end of the line, the sun has nearly fallen asleep, and so have I. One last click-clack puts me in front of a bowling-ball shaped, bubblegum chewing man who has grown so accustomed to sadness that he gives condolences as easily as he blows his bubbles. He reads my name, then your name, and that’s when it really hits me—this is the last time I’ll ever hear it. Your name. The name I practiced in front of the mirror for hours before you were born, wanting to learn to say it with such familiarity that, when you came into this world, you already felt like family. The name that, the first time I saw you, I forgot, because I couldn’t believe I’d created you—you, a living, breathing, human.
And now, I’m about to forget it again.
Forever.
I ask the man to repeat it. He obliges, then asks me a series of questions about relocation. What I’d like to do, where I’d like to go. “Somewhere without people,” I say. He smiles—yes, smiles—and nods, telling me that’s what everyone says.
“Before folks forget, all they do is remember, and remembering’s the worst thing.”
He tells me there’s nothing to do now but walk forward. Ahead of me, there’s a doorway, and that leads to the Cocoon. The Cocoon is a marvel of modern science—with it, I’ll see the beauty of the past one last time, like a ray of sunshine after a thunderstorm. Once I leave it, I’ll know how to be a person again.
I’m not sure. I take a step back. There’s no other option, they won’t let me leave, but I’m just still not sure. The man’s used to people like me. Scared folk. He puts his hand on my back and guides me forward. “This’ll be the last time you see them, so savor it,” he says. “Stay in there long as you like. And when you’re done, just say the three little words written above the door. See them? Say them. Just three little words.”
He’s trying to comfort me, but he keeps blowing bubbles. Pop, and pop, and pop. I wonder, how did he get here, with this job? Was this his relocation? Did he have to forget?
“There little words,” he says. “Then you’re free.”
I walk forward.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
I open the door.
Click-clack.
And I see you.
6:40 PM
Again and again and again.
Not the real you. I know that. I have to keep reminding myself of it, but I know it.
It’s a collage—blots of ink spread out across empty paper. Each one is a droplet from my mind-goop, memories sucked out by the men-in-white-suits or the machine itself. Different parts of my brain tingle like the images are being broadcasted straight from it. Maybe they are. I don’t know how this works.
One is of us in the firefly fields, playing catch. One is of us, during the meteor showers, catching reruns of old, black-and-white films while we sheltered in the theater. One, even, is of us riding the Starship-Express up into the cosmos. And of course there are plenty of us singing that magical tune you said was first sung by angels.
But the one that catches my eye is radiant. It’s of a day, three years ago, when you smiled like I hadn’t ever seen you smile before, and when I reach for it, all the other memories shy away like frightened mice.
I grab it with both hands and hold it like a flame that, if hit by a single gust of wind, would extinguish forever. Soon the Cocoon is doing its job. The real world is slipping away from me. It’s like I’m suspended in space, floating down the river of time. I close my eyes and let it take me.
6:53 PM
The gentle breeze, the last blown kisses of Summer filled with the coolness of the coming Autumn, sway the meadow-flowers around me. I don’t open my eyes yet. I let the chattering of children, the grumbling of halted engines, and the rush of stomping feet against cracked bleachers fill my ears. I take a deep breath—sawdust and cedar-tree-pollen.
CLANG! An audience roars as a bat thwaps a ball. Finally I open my eyes and see I’m among a sea of other parents, all sweat-soaked and boozing. In front of me? An Astroball field. There’s a boy racing around it, cleats kicking through dirt and he rushes toward second base. The throw comes in, but it’s not on time. He’s safe and everyone cheers. Everyone except me. I’m looking to the scoreboard, checking the inning. It’s five-to-four, bottom of the ninth, two outs. Next person up, you.
My heart’s a bottle-rocket about to explode out of my chest. I remember this moment—this feeling. The night before, you hadn’t slept. I hadn’t either because you’d been pacing in your room all night instead of sleeping, cleats thumping the wooden floor. I didn’t scold you, though. You’d been wearing your jersey since you’d gotten it—the number nine was stitched onto the back in a blocky font—and getting up while the moon was still out to practice your swing.
Your first game.
You were a healthy scratch, with the coach leaving you to ride the bench. But that didn’t deter you. You spent all game yelling from the sidelines, amping your friends up. And now’s your chance. You’re being called in, walking up to the plate, swinging your electro-bat back and forth, heaving out air like someone is squeezing your lungs.
You take your place in the batter’s box and raise your bat. You’re thrumming all over and the first two pitches you whiff at, taking huge golf-swings that spin you around. You take a timeout. The crowd’s on their feet. I’m buried among them. I do the same thing I did back then, hurrying to the bottom of the bleachers, throwing people every which way. And when I’m at the front of everyone, I make sure my voice is the loudest, and then…
…CLANG!
The ball jumps off your bat and soars across the sky like a shooting star. You stand there a minute too long soaking it in and me and all the other parents hoot and holler. When the noise finally reaches you, knocking you back into reality, there’s no point in doing anything but enjoying your first ever strut around the bases—you just hit a game-winning homerun.
And I swear, I’ve never seen you happier.
I wish, I really wish, I could’ve seen you do it again and again.
Three little words.
6:59 PM
Golden shimmers reflect off the windshield as fireworks rumble the air, blotting out the stars. Back then, I sat in the car, waiting for you, not wanting to embarrass you. I waited, listening not to the radio but to the cheers of parents and children all around. When you climbed into the passenger seat, I hugged you tight, pressed your heart against mine.
I tried telling you I was proud of you but the words turned to gumbo. Soon I was crying and you were squirming away, embarrassed your friends would see. “When you’re older, you’ll forget a lot, but you’ll never forget this,” I said. “And I won’t either.”
But now I know better than that. Now I know the truth—in a world that is constantly rushing ahead, memories get left behind all the time. So we should savor moments and live without regret, not chase the past and wish we could plunge back into it.
That’s why, this time, I don’t wait for you. I don’t sit and booze with the other parents, imagining life as an infinitely expansive tapestry of days because I now know it’s an hourglass and each second, another grain of sand falls, and when they’re all at the bottom and there’s nothing left up-top, it’s over. You’ve only got a couple grains left. In a few hours, after a laughter-filled pepperoni-pizza-and-cosmic-coke-dinner, you’ll start having trouble breathing, and I’ll rush you to the hospital, and you’ll never step foot on an Astroball field again.
I leave the car behind, wading through the sea of beer-stinking parents, desperate to find you. They’re cluttered together, watching the fireworks, chatting about the game. They try roping me in, but I keep moving, telling them I’ve got somewhere to be. I find you covered in dirt in the dugout with your friends. You’re mimicking your swing, reliving a moment you wanted a million more of. You’re smiling because you’re no longer dreaming—one day, you’re going to be a ball player, and this was the first step.
At least, this is what I think happened. I never saw any of this. This, like this whole thing, is just pieces of my memory stitched together with the gaps filled from the wellspring of my imagination by the Cocoon. None of this is real. Once, it was. But not anymore.
I know that.
I know you’re gone.
Three little words.
I want so badly to talk to you. But I’d only be talking to myself. I want to live here, in this moment, but that isn’t living at all. I want to remember you, the good and the bad and everything in between. But they say I can’t. They say: “It’s easier to forget than overcome.” I don’t agree. But it doesn’t matter. I’m here, in the Cocoon. There’s no other option, now.
You’re walking toward me, now. You break into a sprint. You’re excited to tell me all about tonight—but I know everything you’re going to say. Some people lose themselves in the Cocoon. I will not. You’d never forgive me if I did.
Three little words.
“Dad,” you say. “Dad, dad, dad!”
I sweep you into my arms. I hug you tight.
Three little words.
You look at me. Your cheeks swell with excitement. I should see a ten-year-old full of life. Instead I see hospital beds and ventilators and pain, so much pain.
Three little words.
Three little…
Three…
“I love you,” I say.
You open your mouth to say it back. Before you do, I say:
“Delete these memories.”
And then, like water down the drain, everything goes swirling away. The good, the bad, the you.
It’s better this way, they say.
As I leave the Cocoon, I find myself on a platform full of people. I don’t know why I’m here, and from the frazzled looks on their faces, they don’t either. We’re herded into a line like cattle, each directed into different booths where an ox-sized man in a white suit questions me about what I ‘remember.’
I tell him: “Everything.”
He then asks me what ‘everything’ means, and so I recount all the important details. My name and where I’m from and how old I am. Who my mother and father are, where I live, and where I went to school. He gets a chuckle out of me when he asks if I have any children—I tell him I’d have to find a woman who loves me, first!
That gets me a big red stamp on a sheet of paper. He tells me I’m going to have to move, that I’m being given a new job in a city a few hundred miles away. He hands me keys to an apartment and tells me which space-station to go to and when my shuttle is leaving. It’ll only take a few hours of travel and my new boss will explain everything. When I ask him how I got here, the ox-man just shrugs. He tells me this is his job, and now I’ve got mine, so I’d better hurry along.
I’m shuffled out of the booth and onto a street bustling with people going every which way, all with somewhere to be. The paper has carefully detailed instructions of where to go printed on it and I fall in line with all the other confused folk, following the paper to the nearest road-sign like a map. Click-clack, click-clack. Nobody around me is talking. Everyone has someplace new to be. Click-clack, click-clack.
As I walk, a song floats into my mind. Well, more a set of lyrics. They’re familiar, but I’m not certain what they’re from. They just feel right to sing, and so I do. I sing:
Time rolls on, so they say,
tomorrow brings another day,
the places change, the faces too,
but every day, I still love you.
I sing, and I walk, click-clack, click-clack.
Click-clack.
THE END