Monday
I love to watch you sleep on a while each morning. When you finally awake, you stretch like a god cat, wiping the sleep from your eye. This is my favourite part of the day. A moment of tranquillity before we rise and join the others on the hunt.
As we prepare for the day, the desert cool slinks from our tent, while the warmth of Ra’s beauty knocks loud, insistently calling us both to the service of our Pharaoh, Ramses.
This has been our happy life these last seventeen years. Years that I wouldn’t change for all the gold in the great pyramid. Some men chase wealth, and some yearn for power, but in you, I have everything I need, want or could ever conceive.
As Ra’s halo crests the dunes, picking my Aish baladi bread from the table, I set reluctantly to leave with the same vow that I have promised each day since we met.
“Now I must go do our master’s duty, but please know I live only to return to your arms. For I will be by your side today, tomorrow and unto the end of time.” As ever, you kiss me softly and smile.
“As you have proven to me in each and every existence, my dear,” you say, and I both understand, and yet don’t. Our daily ritual completes as you hold up the charm that eternally adorns your beautiful neck, and I kiss it.
* * *
As the hunt party heads home, our bejewelled, gold-decked lord seems content with today’s haul. He made five kills, and these beasts are carried off to be prepared for the evening feast. I’m hot, sweating, and tired, but there is a feeling of pleasure in both a good day done well, and joy that I course back to you now.
“I’m home.” I enter our little tent refuge, and my brow is furrowed to see it empty of all except you. “Are we going somewhere?” Your smile is the rock that snags the vessel of my concern, leaving nought but the flotsam of worries to scatter on the Nile.
“It’s time to move on, my dear.” You step forward with the charm held out for me.
“I had better seek permission if we intend to stray far,” I say, “For I have work in the morning,” but as we do each day, I step forward, kissing the charm twice.
Tuesday
I love to watch you sleep on a while each morning. When you finally awake, you stretch like an angry tabby, the cold morning light disturbing a deep, deep slumber. I adore how the frown melts from your brow, and slowly, ever so slowly, a Cheshire grin illuminates my world.
“What is on the agenda for today?” you enquire through feminine feline yawns. Conditioned by your words, my single-track mind switches from awe-inspired reverence to the mysteries of relativity.
“More of the same research. We’ve been stuck for months. Albert is convinced there is a link to be found somewhere, but I’ll be damned if we can find it.” My head is now captured with the equation that’s scrolled on my chalkboard at the university. It hurts to think of it, but aside from the beauty that currently lays next to me, it is seldom I ponder anything else. The illusive Equation and your perfect creation… Is understanding of my life’s two pillars ever to elude me?
Your soft hand lays on mine, pulling me back from mathematics. “You know, dear,” you say, “Maybe Mr Einstein could investigate a link between space, time, and energy. There may be something for you there.”
“Oh dear,” I say, “Surely an idea that simple would have been……….” I am struck dumb. Twenty years of seminars, lectures and experiments, and the love of my life may just have moved physics on five decades. “Sweet god, I love you. I must run.” I jump out of bed and head for the door.
“Dearest,” you shout, aren’t you forgetting something?”
I turn back. “Sorry.” Running over, I press my lips to hers. She holds up the silly charm that she’s worn since we met on that rainy Times Square night. I kiss it also.
“Thanks,” she said and nodded floorward, “But I was thinking more about trousers.” I look down at my bare legs.
“Trousers! Yes, but that is still only the second-best idea you’ve had today,” I say, making my way to the wardrobe.
Wednesday
I love to watch you sleep on a while each morning. When you finally awake, you stretch like an Eluvian Mog. Your vaguely feline frame is silhouetted by the bright blue morning light, filtering in through the window of our 712th floor apartment in the Tokyo Bay Arcology.
Lying here, next to my dream, I scan back through the seventeen years of hard graft that got us up this high in the building. Like all but the hereditary class, we started out on the lower floors.
Thinking of our first rooms, I give a silent chuckle. It was a tiny cold space, below sea level. The windows leaked constantly, and the noise of the oxygen pumps made sleeping impossible. Well, for me anyway. You only ever have to close your eyes for a minute, and it is as if your spirit leaves the galaxy.
Asleep or awake, you made my life tolerable. No, not tolerable. Good. Yes, even back then, in our noisy, damp cellar, I was blessed beyond reason.
I trace my finger around your mouth and, through the balcony window, watch the Io freighter launch into the summer sky. If pride be a sin, then damn me, for I’m a little bit proud of my work on the electron drive that will allow the ship to reach the Jovian lunar colony in under two days. Yet, I know the mathematics would have never been solved without your insight. With little more than a rudimentary education in quantum chromodynamics, you didn’t know the answers, but your insight into the questions that should be asked was legendary. …or would have been, had you ever permitted me to let the world know of your role in the discoveries.
“Don’t make it about me,” you said as you wrote yourself out of award acceptance speech after speech. A world at peace with itself and the three races we discovered in nearby systems owed you more than it would ever know.
As the rocket disappeared above the stratospheric cloud layer and its hydrogen tail broke and filled the sky with cotton wool buds, I saw you were awake.
“Good morning, sleepy,” I say. It’s a lovely day, and neither of us has to work. What do you fancy doing?”
A storm cloud forms in your eye. You hold up a finger, and I kiss the tip. “I have to go now,” you say.
“But it is our day off,” I reply. I am more than worried by the finality of your statement. In our seventeen glorious years together, other than work, we have never once spent a day apart.
“This journey is over. We must go back now,” you say. “It’s time.” We lie face to face on the bed. My mask of concern counters your soft smile.
“Back where?” I hear the whine in my own voice. “We’ve always been together. I don’t know what you are saying to me.” You run your fingers through my hair before holding the ever-present charm to my mouth. I draw my head away. “What’s happening. I really don’t understand.”
Laying a finger on my chin, you turn my head back. “Darling, you say. I want you to kiss the charm now, and yes, doing so will end this time together. But if you can tell me my name, you don’t have to.”
I lie stunned. How can this be? The woman I met and married all those years ago. The rock that my life was built upon, the air that I breathe, how is it possible that I do not know her name? “Am I ill?” I ask. “Surely dementia was cured decades ago. Let’s go see the doctor now. We can get this sorted.”
She touched the charm to my lips once. “There is no cure for what you have right now. Not in your world, anyway. Nor is there a remedy for the condition from which I suffer. I promise you it was never meant to be like this.” She pulled the charm away, leant her head in and kissed me. “If there is a way, I will find it, my love,” she said, putting it to my lips again. As she did, she whispered. “I am Cassea. Look for me in the night sky. Our two disparate destinies may yet be one.”
Thursday
The soft beep of the five o’clock alarm starts and, with each repetition, gets a little louder and a lot more insistent. I turn to switch it off and feel something is wrong. The space between me and the clock is vacant. But it has been empty for the seventeen years since I left university and entered politics. Why would it feel so wrong today?
With the alarm subdued, as ever, the punctual, soft knock at the door follows.
“Come,” I barely managed to growl.
“Good morning, Mr President.” Jordan is a fabulous butler, but why the hell is he always so goddamned breezy in the morning?
“I hate you,” I say, as I have every morning since the two of us took up our roles in the Whitehouse, seven years ago.
“Now sir, is that because you are a grumpy pig, or is it that you are racist and hate all black men?”
“Take your pick,” I reply, ceding the moral high ground while pulling the duvet back over my head. “You do remember that I am the second black president. Not sure you can beat me with that stick, my good man.”
“Two black presidents and I still don’t have my donkey,” he said, alluding to the offer the Union army used to form black regiments in the civil war.
“Well, here’s the deal,” I say from under my down-filled refuge, “Bugger off for a couple of hours and let me sleep. I’ll get you a herd of the damned things.”
“Tempting as that offer may be, sir. You have a meeting of the joint chiefs at six. Now get this coffee down you and get into the shower before I drag you there by the heels,” Jordan said in mock anger. The two of us had been friends since school. He went into catering as I took the road to politics. Now President, the world called me the most powerful man on the planet, but both of us knew well that Jordan was the alpha male.
“Yes, sir.” I sat up and saluted.
* * *
With the Middle East crisis settled and relations between the US, China, and Russia on better terms than ever, I believe I earned my Nobel Peace Prize. However, if global harmony had a downside, it made these security meetings as dull as ditchwater.
“Yes, Mr President, Europe is booming, peace is sprouting across the Middle East, and China is opening up nicely since they agreed to dispose of all nuclear weapons. Apart from this asteroid that may pass rather close to Earth, we have very little to worry about,” the general said.
Only partially aware of the conversation around the table, I was more interested in looking through Tinder on my phone. For some strange reason, today, I felt more single than usual. It reminded me of the time I got dumped, back at college. There was a woman-shaped hole in my life. Even so, something drew me from the screen.
“Asteroid?” I suddenly perked up.
The general did well to hide his annoyance that I’d ignored all the important items, but this bit of frittery drew his commander’s attention. “Yes, sir. Rather strange one this. The boffins didn’t even detect it until last night. It’s not expected to hit the earth, but it may scrape the top of the atmosphere. Should be quite a light show.”
“Not Siberia again, I hope,” I asked excitedly. “Somewhere I can go take a look?”
“The grumpy general punched some keys on his pad. “You’re in luck, it’s going right over Washington. Just about midnight tonight.
* * *
With the staffers and politicians on the grass and the public on the pavement, an expectant crowd gathered on both sides of the Whitehouse fence. Annoying my security team intensely, I made time to shake hands with people through the iron railings. There was an excited atmosphere. The asteroid was expected any minute.
“Thanks for coming out, folks. I better get back to the house before my security chief has a heart attack,” I said, waving to the well-wishers while crossing the lawn. Half way there, I realised that I’d gained an extra shadow, and on looking up I saw the light from the astral body as it entered the planet’s upper atmosphere.
“It’s started,” said one of the young astronomers who first detected the visitor with his home telescope. This really embarrassed the professionals and their multi-million-dollar arrays.
“What have you decided to name it?” I asked the lad.
The young man blushed and maybe even bowed slightly as he stammered, “Eh… Sir… if it is okay, I will name it after my grandma. She was called Cassea.”
Something akin to the tolling of a bell sounded in my head. “What a lovely name,” I said to him, but he now stood with a blank expression on his face. “You okay, man?” I said, but the lad didn’t move.
Suddenly, I became aware of the silence, and looking around, not one of the hundreds of watchers standing on either side of the fence moved a muscle. Something drew my gaze skyward. Directly over my head, the fireball hung, silent and still.
“It’s beautiful, no?” came a voice from behind. A voice both strange and somehow known to me. I turned and gazed into eyes never seen before, but I knew them better than my mother’s.
“Cassie,” I said, unsure how I knew her name or why I understood that I had loved her all my life. How did I know the touch of her lips on mine? Our hands clasped tight? Her shiver in my arms?
“You remembered,” she said and smiled. Our life together… No, that wasn’t right. Our lives together flickered tantalisingly in those golden eyes. In a heartbeat long epoch, she replayed our eternity before sighing. Your cure was simple, but my condition is so much more complex. For, as you now know, I was sent to you already. My task was to evaluate that your people are suitable to join the universe.”
“We’re ready,” I said, a little too eagerly.
She put a finger to my lips. “You’re on the road, but it will be two hundred years before all the ills of this planet have been cured. Together, you and I woke on that day. That day yesterday, two hundred years from now.” She touched my forehead, and a hundred lifetimes with this woman flooded back into my memory.
“You were the signpost. A beacon that would light the way for humankind. Your job is done. They are on course now. That will not change.”
“Then why have you returned today?” I asked, unsure if I could live with her answer.
“It was never meant to happen, but I fell in love with the hunter, with the mathematician, and with the scientist. Your people’s destiny goes on, but you don’t.” In a familiar action, she took my chin and turned my head. About six feet away, stood a frozen man, gun held up, pointing at my head. “You were chosen because you wouldn’t be around long enough that, even if you recalled my visit, you could never pollute the timeline. You die today, my love.”
I sighed, “I think I always knew.” I looked back up at the frozen fire hanging above the world. Somehow, my fate was irrevocably tied to this heavenly visitor. The scientists discovered it yesterday, but I have waited for this all my life. All my lives.
The wind, like the planet, stood still, but a chill breeze ran between us, and she raised a finger to flick a strand of raven-black hair from her pensive eyes.
“Then are you consoled that your fate lies here, today and forever after? Is this the destiny that you choose?”
I looked at the would-be killer and slowly turned to Cassea. “I think I made you a promise once.” I always keep my promises.” She smiled that smile and took my hand.
Friday week.
A brow-beaten Jordan woke to the slate grey morning and incessant rain rattle on the roof. The weather suited his mood. He had the onerous duty of burying his best friend yesterday. Had he woken to sunshine today, it would be just plain wrong.
“Love,” he whispered. Love wasn’t a word Jordan and Elliot used when talking about each other in life, but since he was gone, he touched his President’s photo on his bedside table each morning and whispered, “Love you, man.” A regret he’d never said so, hung like the clouds above. “I hope you knew,” he sighed.
Groaning loudly, he got out of bed feeling ten years older than a week ago. “Coffee will do the trick,” he headed for the kitchen. The blinds were closed, but as he put the kettle on, he heard noises coming from his front garden. “Must be the garbage men,” he guessed and pulled the string to open the blind.
“Well I’ll be….”
On his formerly manicured lawn, stood twenty to thirty donkeys, happily chomping on the very expensive grass.
Jordan looked to the sky and laughed
Story written by Jim
