Bastion Science Fiction Magazine - Issue 7, October 2014 (3 page)

It's the universe talking to me.

#

His name is Luca. He is taller than the tallest man on the island. His hair is sandy blond. I told him once that the Repetto's ancestors were Italian too, but they are not blond like him. They are small and dark. I told him that it was living on the island. It drained the colour out of everyone. He laughed and said their ancestors were probably from the south, of good Roman stock, while he was descended from the invading northern barbarians. I imagined him then in armour, tall and strong, cleaving his enemies before him.

Today when I throw my bike against the wall he is outside, holding something up toward the sky. He is doing a post-doctorate in astrophysics. He has come here to study an anomaly, a hole in the sky.

"Radiation levels were crazy today," he says as I come closer, crunching over the stones and shells. The hut sits on a rocky shelf right against the sea, and when the wind blows the waves slap against the walls and rush over the shingle to the edge of the grass. Nothing grows here.

I could have told him about the radiation. About sitting in the classroom and watching the universe bloom and burst around me. Sometimes they are just circles expanding, like raindrops on the water trough. Sometimes they are flowers with swirling cores and edges curved and twisting. Some days everything is spirals, little curls. Helixes. I savoured the word that he had taught me when he saw me drawing them on my schoolbooks one day. I haven't yet worked out their language, but I will. One day I will know what they are saying to me. And Luca will help.

He snaps the case closed and looks at his watch, a giant silver disk that shines against his tanned skin. "You're early today. Wait...last day of school, wasn't it? How does it feel to be all grown up?" He smiles at me. All grown up. Like he isn't twenty-seven, only eleven years older than me.

I smile at him and feel the tightness of my dress across my breasts. His white teeth shine. I want to lick his lips, run my tongue over those smooth teeth. "It feels good. I'm free!" I throw my arms out and spin, laughing, and the sky is full of blooming flowers.

He laughs with me. "Well, come in and let's celebrate." His long strides take him to the door first and he holds it open for me. I wish the islanders could see this. I wish that they could understand what they lack, what I seek on far away shores.

I stand in the middle of the main room because it is the only space to stand. The desks around the walls are a jumble of screens and keyboards and printers and papers, all of them pointing to the sky. Listening to the universe.

I haven't told him about my visions. Not yet. A lone helix bursts from one of the walls as I turn my head.

He smiles at me. "Tea? Or are you brave enough for coffee today?"

Coffee I normally avoid, because it opens the channel to the stars and fills my world with them. But I think today that will be a good thing. For when I explain it all to Luca.

My heart pounds. The bursts are getting stronger, even inside, even before the coffee. I have lain in bed so many nights thinking about this moment. Explaining to him what it all means, his South Atlantic Anomaly. About how all his measurements and numbers are just readings of what I see all the time, every day.

At night in the dark, he always understands. Is excited, awed. Offers me the one thing I want most in the world. We'll go back to England, he says. I can learn so much from you. In my mind I am standing under the oak trees that I have only ever seen in his pictures.

And sometimes in my room late at night he is kissing me.

But I know it won't be that easy. That I will have to convince him that I truly see them. And if that doesn't work, try another way.

The threat of failure sets my palms sweating and the starbursts increase until the room is filled with flowers blooming over the top of each other. I close my eyes to shut out the world. Now they are clearer with nothing behind them to obscure the patterns. I study them. Lights, patterns, shapes. Is that someone's face? A sharp-edged triangle. A ship? Waves roll across my vision, an ocean stirred to movement on a windy day.

"Gemma?"

His footsteps are raindrops in the pool of my vision. I open my eyes. He is standing before me, a mug in each hand, tin tucked under his arm.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes." I smile. The waves crash around him, through him. A starburst blooms on his temple, spreads out to touch me. I raise my hand, let the light sift through my fingers. "I have—I want to tell you something." My mouth is so dry.

He hands me a mug with the blue university coat of arms and clears some papers off a bench, awkward with one hand, but I cannot help him. My hands are glued to the thick ceramic, heat stinging my palm. The wind rattles the shutters on the windows, stirring the helices to jump and dance around them. It is a warning. The helices always come from sharp movement, loud noises. Danger.

The wind and the sea will trap us in here for the night. Luca does not know this, but I do. I know what happens when the wind blows on Tristan da Cunha. My imagination darts ahead to what might happen in the dark.

Luca smiles up at me. "Sit down, Gemma." He pats the wood. The tin is a barrier between us, an unscaleable mountain of biscuit and icing. "What did you want to tell me?"

Where do I start with the telling? My imaginings desert me, my plans, my carefully rehearsed words. "It's about your anomaly." I stumble over the word.

"Well, not my anomaly, but go on."

"You said that it was close here, closer to the earth than anywhere else. The cosmic rays."

"The Van Allen belts, yes. Two hundred kilometres up, full of energetic particles and anti-protons."

I didn't know what those were. I was so far from understanding this, but he could help me. I just had to explain it. "You said that sometimes when astronauts go through the belts they—they see things."

"That's right. The radiation stimulates their brains and they see images that aren't there."

"Yes." I breathe out, slowly, searching for the right words. "Those. I—I see them all the time."

There. Done. I raise my eyes, which have been focused on my cup, to meet his. "I've always seen them. I'm trying to figure out their meaning, but it's hard. You know about space. You could help me. I could help you. Back at your university. We could study them together." My words tumble out, because he is not looking delighted, or astounded, or interested, or any of the expressions I pictured in the dark at night.

His head is tilted slightly to one side, his expression thoughtful. "Do you mean phosphenes?"

I shake my head, unfamiliar with the word. "No, I see images. Starbursts. Like the helixes I drew. You knew what they were."

"Ah." He looks down at his cup, turns it around in his hands before looking back at me. "I do know what they are. What you are seeing are called phosphenes. They happen when the brain is stimulated, by various means. Astronauts see them because they pass through the radiation belts around the Earth."

"Yes. That's what I see. The cosmic rays here make me see these images—"

But he is shaking his head. "Gemma, the radiation is closest here, but it's still two hundred kilometres up. Only very, very tiny amounts would make it through the atmosphere. Barely more than would normally be found at sea level anywhere. It's not—The Van Allen Belt is not causing your phosphenes. Your images."

"Then how come I can see them?" My chest struggles for air. "I can draw them for you, prove that they're just like what the astronauts see." I put down my cup, but too hasty, and it tumbles off the bench, shattering on the tiles and splashing his shoes. I drop to my knees, trying to gather the shards in shaking hands. I feel a sharp pain. Bright blood wells on my fingers.

"Gemma." He is there beside me, taking my hands, pulling me to my feet. "Don't worry about the cup." He sits me back on the bench and comes back with a first aid kit. I cup my injured hand, watching the blood well and drip. At each beat of my heart there is a tiny pulse of pain in my finger, and from each pulse a flower blooms, sticky-black.

The sting of the antiseptic fills my vision with churning spirals. "I can prove to you that I see them."

He is quiet while he applies a Band-Aid. "I'm not doubting you, Gemma. Phosphenes are a well-documented phenomenon."

"Then why won't you believe me?" His face is close to mine. He smells of salt and sweat.

"I believe you. It's just—" He puts the kit on a bench and pushes the biscuit tin aside to sit next to me. "Phosphenes have all sorts of causes, not just radiation." He is holding my hands in his, gently. Like they might break. His palms are soft, not hard and scratchy like the men of the island. "Sometimes you might see them if you bang your head, or tap your eye. Some people with low blood pressure can see them, because the pressure affects the blood vessels at the back of the eye. Dying people see them. I've seen them sometimes, after a sneeze."

"Well I'm not dying. And I'm not banging my head." I look up at him. "What other explanation is there?" My voice breaks with the weight of every dead night-time dream.

"Well, sometimes they, ah—" He purses his lips. "Sometimes they can be caused by a genetic anomaly in the brain. Random firing of neurons."

Genetic. I pull my hands away. I know what that means. I know what he is trying to say. "You think I'm inbred, like the rest of the people here."

"That's not what I said, Gemma."

"Well if that's so, then why can't anyone else here see them?" I'm standing over him now, my head only just above his. "If it was breeding, then everyone here would be able to see them. But they can't. Only me. I'm not like them. My mother wasn't born here."

"Well, maybe it came down from your mother's side. But Gemma, your phos- your visions can't be caused by the Van Allen Belt radiation. It's just not possible."

His voice is kind, but with it goes my hope of escape. I have failed to convince him. I can feel the tears running down my cheeks.

"Gemma—"

There is a booming crash and the shutters along one side all bang at once, sending jagged lightning strikes across my vision. The wind has come, and it howls around the house. Now I can hear the roar of the ocean, stirred to a frenzy.

Luca jumps up and opens the door, then shuts it just as quickly as salt spray is blown in by the wind. I think of my father's bike, and wonder if it will be there in the morning.

Luca leans against the door. "It's all water out there, Gemma. You'd better stay here until it goes down."

I nod. I know this. I had planned this, to be trapped in here with Luca, to have all night to convince him, to talk about our journey off the island, our plans for the future. In my plans, he believed me.

#

I sit on the bench, my gaze on the floor. Luca is busy lifting things up onto tables in case the water comes in under the door. He is talking to me, a constant stream of words, sometimes about his work, sometimes about me and my future here, now that school is done.

He doesn't understand that I don't want a future here. I don't want to marry one of these islanders and raise sheep and only know three hundred people my entire life. He doesn't understand that when he leaves, he will take my future with him. That he was my future.

The starbursts are constant now, tumbling over one another to get my attention. I can't bring myself to call them
phosphenes
. Luca thinks there is something wrong in my head. But there isn't. My mother didn't come from here. I'm not broken. How do I make him see this?

When I blink, the starbursts are frantic static across my eyelids. I will not look. I don't want to see what they have to say.

But the lights go out. Luca is swearing. I cannot help but see them now, in the dark, filling my vision with fireworks. With each gust outside they scatter and dance like leaves, as if the wind is blowing them through my head.

"Gemma, Gemma there's a torch near you somewhere, on the bench—" There is a crash and swearing. Curling spirals. Blooming flowers. Sharp lightning from the shutters.

My searching fingers find the torch. "I have it." My voice is rusty in the dark.

"Good. Bring it over here, I think I've knocked one of the receivers over."

I put the torch down on the bench. My school dress pulls easily over my head. I kick off my shoes and slip across the floor to Luca, following the lines that crackle and spin from his words. I am afraid and electrified, all at once.

My hands meet the fabric of his shirt. His hands grab my shoulders, then let go instantly when he touches my flesh.

I stand on tiptoe to kiss him on the mouth. It is as warm and firm as I imagined. His hands come back down, to rest on my hips. His soft palms feel wonderful on my skin.

He pulls away. "Gemma, stop.” His hands fumble for mine in the darkness. “You don’t want to do this.” His voice is gentle, but in his words I hear that he does not want me. I am nothing to him, just a crazy, inbred girl who sees visions. Someone to be nice to. Nobody important.

I run to the door, stubbing my toe on a box, my skin hot with shame. I fling the door open and splash out into the night. The ocean washes my feet, driven up onto the shingle by the howling wind. The cold spray stings my naked skin.

Luca is at the door. “Gemma! Come inside!” He hesitates, clearly worried about the swirling water. I turn my back on him.

My mother abandoned me here, on this lonely rock, under a hole in the sky. This can’t be all there is. This can’t be all the meaning in my life.

I lift my hands up to the shining stars, begging them to take me away. The wind roars across the land. A wave, higher than me, crashes over the edge of the island and shoots along the shingle. I am up to my knees in icy, foaming water.

This is dangerous. Many people have lost their footing, been drawn down and swept away by the waves, when the wind blows on Tristan da Cunha.

I hear splashing. Luca forges through the water toward me. I can feel shell and stone shifting beneath my feet. Here is a way off the island. A permanent way.

Then Luca grabs my shoulders, his smooth hands warm on my skin. Flowers bloom, new constellations under the bright veil above. I feel that I will never know what they are saying to me.