Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
Most of that time has passed since I sent Cristo back. I look past the four people yelling in my face to check the clock on the wall.
An hour to media nox.
Shouting over one another wasn't the most effective problem solving strategy when time was ticking away, but there wasn't much chance they would have a last-hour breakthrough anyway.
Marcus still insisted on evacuating the tower in case they didn't all die of old age instantaneously.
Cytheria demanded I stage an infiltration of Constellation and go down fighting. Even though we had sent an attack team hours ago, we should send more, we should send everyone.
Leander recommends little. Like the day I met him, he listens, silent, and will wait until the last second to point out the one thing no one else has realized; at least, that's his style. I don't count on him for a breakthrough. I don't count on anyone, not even myself.
Calcus begged me to take another look at his latest designs to build our own dial, as if we could build a sixty-two-foot structure, the resources for which over the past year they had not been capable of acquiring, in under fifty-nine minutes — when I heard that was what Calcus wanted to waste our time proposing, I ordered Leander to subdue him, but he still ejected outbursts at sporadic intervals that accused me of failing Soliara at its darkest hour.
Sera Cassus shouted at the others to shut up and shouted at me to assassinate Justin Marius even if it got us nothing but the satisfaction of his death.
Diana Aemilia shouted nothing because she was dead. Cytheria's sons shouted nothing, President Solin shouted nothing, my father shouted nothing. Calcus's daughters and his adopted nieces and nephews were ghosts and all of Marcus's and Sera's siblings, spouses and friends were ghosts. All my friends are ghosts.
Nova Dasilva is a ghost. It would be for the best if the rest of them die too — it's the only way to forget.
After that thought I was struck by the fantasy that the voices of all those who had died were shouting at me after all, as if they wouldn't hear of me thinking like that. There is still hope. If Cristo succeeds, none of them will be forgotten. They wouldn't need to be.
What would happen to Cytheria, Sera, Marcus and Calcus, to every living soul in Potestas Tower, Invernali, all of Soliara, every person alive in the present as it was, no amount of writing on walls, drawing out equations, proofs, theories could uncover or even make a vague suggestion; once Cristo succeeded, maybe then we would know, or maybe then there would be only oblivion and we would never know and never know what we didn't know. Maybe Cristo had already succeeded and was now living happily in a different present, but no research could ever prove or so much as suggest something like that. Death remains beyond science — for the most part.
So we would die or we wouldn't — there would be a new present or there wouldn't, the dead would be forgotten or they wouldn't.
Seconds ticked on the clock and voices shouted now more at each other than at me because it had become obvious that I wasn't listening.
A knock came at the door, but it didn't stop the shouting from the living or the dead.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Thank you for reading. Please leave your thoughts behind for me, and perhaps a star if you can. Be well <3
