Parallel Infinities

  *****

  Rosetta liked her little apartment. She sipped her nighttime mug of coffee, snugly curled up on the worn cushions of the old, beaten-down sofa that had lovingly been placed against the far wall of her living room. She liked it a lot, even if it was just a patchwork medley of the new, the old, and the ancient. She was willing to indulge in a few new things when she had moved in--sensible things. For instance, a sparkling white new refrigerator to wedge between the bland wall and the scummy brown counter that had come with the four-room flat. It was certainly an improvement on the eternally-grumbling, old, crusty machine that had previously "cooled" her leftovers—broadly speaking. However, most of her furniture was old or undocumented and dateless. To her, such things were bizarrely timeless. Her couch was had been a decoration on the side of the road. The rugs that rested artistically across the hardwood floors, the prettiest of which swirled with colors and patterns in soft blues and grays beside Rosetta's bed, all came from second-hand shops.

  And then there were the ancient things. They were not really ancient, at least not in the literal sense. Ancient, to Rosetta, felt more philosophical than literal, because what was ancient changed all the time. After all, Pompeii was a modern city once, before it became a burial ground of dust and ash and charred bones. A modern city, teeming with life, before it flared up beneath a sky of brimstone and was snuffed out as quickly as the head of a match. Rosetta saw Pompeii in the photographs that lined her walls.

  Shoving the thoughts away as quickly as she would have batted away a mosquito, Rosetta allowed her eyes to fall on the grandest structure in the room: A modern bookcase for her textbooks and, admittedly, all of her other books, too—the exquisite, chimerical, tantalizing stories that seemed to bleed from the pages into reality. She imagined what it must be like to write such a story, to have such euphoria churning in one's blood and such fiery, ghoulish demons clawing beneath one's fingertips. She wondered if the authors that could make heinous beasts and unlikely heroes come to life on paper could also dream of their imaginings that were so feverish for bloodlust, could step into the vivid light of a new world quivering with magic at its core, could caress the weathered trunk of the tree that stood for centuries in the midst of the most terrible storms, could see and do and live all of the things for which Rosetta was ravenous.

  Life was not as adventurous as some would have liked Rosetta to believe. Her mother, the woman with the fire in her hair and enthusiasm ingrained into her voice, always told such wonderful stories. Perhaps Rosetta should have known that they were too good to be true, but they had been woven their way into her mind just as easily as her hair had been pulled into pigtails. Fiction and fact had blurred so easily when she was a child. Reality and fantasy, interlocked and interwoven, had been lost in a complicated dance of metaphors, imagery, and forgotten dreams. Her mother had shown her the cruel drug of impossibilities brought to life, and Rosetta had never been able to let go entirely.

  At least I have adventures sometimes, Rosetta thought dimly. She sipped her coffee; it was brutally heavy with vanilla creamer, but that was exactly how she liked it. She knew that most would think a caffeinated drink just before bed was absurd, but it was the only time she could stand the brewed concoction, and for whatever reason, it helped her clear her head. My own little adventures. Sometimes.

  Sometimes. Only sometimes. When darkness saturated the horizon and the whole town went to sleep, then sometimes, if she felt self-indulgent—a rare event in itself—she would allow herself an adventure. Whether it was real or just a figment of her imagination, it was appalling how little Rosetta cared. Sometimes—when the wind blew in the right direction and her heart was stirring in her chest like a tigress within her cage, snarling at reality and all its cruelties, tired of being trapped by responsibility and the vile confines of reality as most knew it. Sometimes—that blessed sometimes was synonymous with tonight. Taking another small sip of her coffee, Rosetta smiled. Tonight.

  In one swift motion she downed the last of the drink and stood up, pulled her plush violet robe tightly around her, and strolled leisurely to the kitchen. Through the splotched, age-stricken window behind the sink she could see the last touches of dusk trickling down beneath the skyline like traces of a shimmering oil-on-water mixture seeping down a storm drain. She paused for a moment, allowing herself to be enthralled by the suffocation of the sunlight, before those last tiny inklings of light faded away and the clouds grew darker above the sparkling lights of the city. They swirled and turned the sky into a murky sea struggling against the wind, writhing and twisting and pulling what once was a day into a whirlpool of midnight.

  Rosetta hummed herself a lullaby as she turned from the ominous-looking drapery that had cloaked the sky, letting the exceedingly bright yellow light from the bulb fixed to the ceiling wash over her face and arms. The world looked so dark when dreary days came to a close, when the scent of the dampened ground wafted away and the sound of raindrops grew muffled like the voices of faraway memories. It was as if her little corner of creation had been purged of all its excitement, left dull and gray and cold. She knew that feeling well.

  She brushed her teeth and washed her face, wiping away the last residual smudges of foundation clinging to her pores. She had once wondered if this was a routine or a ritual, but thereafter decided it did not particularly matter. It seemed that life was all the same: routine, responsibility, repeat. Slather on makeup, scrub it off, repeat. Feel happy, feel drained, repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  "Like a broken record," Rosetta seethed as she walked hurriedly to her room. As soon as she passed the living room, her phone rang, and she froze. The little touchscreen-equipped device had been abandoned in her haste to end the night, leave reality for a few precious moments, let go...

  But responsibility beckoned her back, crooking its bony finger and drawing her in, whispering a susurrus of the crippling possibilities if she ever truly let herself believe that she could escape it. She almost let the call go to voicemail. Almost. But she was too well-trained, too inclined to obey her instincts. It could be her sister, crying over whatever had sent her over the edge. (Rosetta did not blame her. Rachel was too young and too naive to be as burdened as she so often was, and if the slightest bit of extra weight could sink a ship in turbulent conditions, its effects on a teenage heart were immeasurable.) It could be a classmate asking for assistance on the mountains of homework that anchored down every book-bag that came within a one-mile radius of their professor, and, if Rosetta was perfectly honest with herself, she would not be able to deny them the help they requested.

  She caught herself biting her nails, and quickly yanked her hand away from her mouth. It was a bad nervous habit that she had intended to break years ago, but somehow had just never found the time, even though it made the cuticles ragged and marred the delicate colors of her nail polish when she bothered to wear it.

  As she approached the device, which was ringing incessantly, demanding her to answer, she saw that it was her father calling. This was a rare and momentous occasion. Rosetta's father used his landline so rarely that it was hard for her to recall the number most of the time. What if he's hurt? What if Rachel's hurt? What if he's gotten himself into an accident? I know who will be paying that hospital bill, Rosetta fretted. Years ago, the thought might have been salty, but now, it was just standard procedure.

  "Daddy?" Rosetta said in a hushed voice once she picked up the phone and pressed it against her cheek. The cool screen felt almost comforting against her skin. It felt strangely solid in the midst of the always-dissolving world around her. Trying to hold onto things, she found, was like trying to fasten a wave to the seashore.

  "Is something wrong?" her father asked. "Rosetta, you sound worried."

  She squared her shoulders and set her jaw. "I'm fine, thank you," she answered. "Why are you calling?"

  "No, no, s'okay, everything's okay." Rosetta had always thought that he was like charcoal. His skin was dark and rich, his voice was
gravelly, rising and falling like the light of glowing embers, and once, so very long ago, he had burned like the sun with the fire of life. He was more like a heap of ashes now, a dull whisper of the light that once was, on the verge of being swept away by the rain. Once again, Rosetta's eyes locked onto the rainclouds now marching to a city farther east. Once again, the heap of ashes had remained intact. Once again, the measly glue she acted as to hold a family that had been ground to dust together held strong. Yet another day, and they all survived. "You doing good in school?"

  "I'm doing well, yes," she answered shortly.

  "Good," he said. "I'm proud," he continued, and, as an afterthought, added, "of you."

  "Me too," Rosetta felt a small butterfly of happiness flutter in her chest. "Thank you." Rachel asked you to call, didn't she? her thoughts inquired feebly. I didn't mean to worry her. I'm sorry. "Dad," she began, "are you still looking for a job?" Two months ago, Rosetta had been furious to discover that her father had ceased his search for work and Rachel had volunteered to pay his mortgage. It had been the first time in years that she had truly felt rage, and she had yelled at Rachel in a burst of fiery, volcanic, repulsive anger. Rosetta regretted it, and approached the issue now only with the most cautious attitude.

  "Yes, Rosetta." His voice was even wearier than usual. "You know, I didn't ask your sister…"

  Rosetta's lip curled with annoyance, but she bit her tongue. "I know." Her father never had to ask for anything. All he had to do was stop, and he really did sometimes. Rosetta could not be sure whether it was intentional or not, but, in the past, the moment his eyes went unfocused his lips pressed into a thin line and stayed silent, his bones became as still as a corpse's, and Rachel and Rosetta grew frantic. Terrified. Willing to do anything to bring him back from the sea of sorrow he seemed to retreat to within his mind.

  "Okay."

  "Okay." The conversation felt scripted and forced, and perhaps it was. Perhaps their whole lives had been like that for years. Perhaps they were both actors just playing their parts in this little episode that fate had chosen for them. Rosetta wondered what she looked like to him, the man that had tuned out and left her to patch up all the wounds left in the walls of the house, the scars carved into the pictures tucked away in scrapbooks, the bruises brutally punched into the hearts of those who had to keep going while he sat idle. Did she look strong? Or was the truth of the matter—that she had been a terrified child with no choice but to try her best to fix the world for her sister—as plain to see as she feared it was?

  She did not feel like the words ‘strong’ and ‘heroic’ were appropriate. Such words were not for her, not during that time of her life. The only feeling she could identify in regards to that time was desperation. Horror-induced survival instincts, like those of stranded shipwreck victims frantically swinging their arms and kicking their legs to keep above water, battling the waves and the wind and the utter exhaustion just to take another breath. Even now, at the tail end of the trauma with the open sea behind her as she collapsed on the shore of victory, she could remember in frightening detail what it felt like to have lungs full of water and a throat hoarse from screaming.

  "Are you going to visit her?" Rosetta's father asked gruffly. "Wednesday..." The world trailed into the silence that was always waiting behind that question.

  Rosetta's eyes became glassy and motionless, like polished stones. "Yes."

  The silence that fell between them was as heavy and thick as a concrete wall. It felt cold and sempiternal, squeezing the life and warmth and eloquence of conversation with its cold, silvery fingers. The sad sigh climbing its way up her throat felt like tongues of fire leaping up from her belly, scorching her throat and turning all her words to dust.

  "Good, I...I'm glad," her father said. "When?"

  "Sorry, Daddy, but I think I'll go alone," Rosetta steeled herself for some sort of barbed-wire backlash spewing from his lips, but such a chiding never came. Her mother had always been so different when Rosetta had spent time with her alone. She was even gentler than usual, speaking with a tender voice and looking at the world with soft, untroubled eyes. Rosetta liked seeing her that way, in a dreamy, muted version of the world where cruelty was a bit less poignant. It did not particularly matter anymore, but a stubborn corner of her heart seemed to think that if she went by herself, it would make cruelty less poignant once again. It was a lie, but a beautiful one—the sort of thing anyone would love to believe.

  "Of course," her father grunted.

  "Good."

  "Yes." A heavy sigh poured through the phone's speaker, chipping with white noise. Rosetta knew the sound as well as she knew the patterns of the lines etched into her palms. It was the sound of exhaustion, the sound of being finished, the sound of being drained within an instant with no fight left inside. "All right. Goodnight."

  "Goodnight." Click. The line went dead. The conversation left a scalding sensation in the back of her throat. Slowly and methodically, she plugged the cellphone into its charger and left it behind as she walked purposefully toward her bedroom. Pixels and batteries and connections forged to satellites in space and back had little significance to Rosetta. Her heart was set on things forged as far away from reality as they could be.

  Quietly, as if to ensure she did not disturb the sleepy shadows billowing like smoke beneath the furniture and between the cracks in the floor, Rosetta closed the door behind her. The little room was smothered in a dark, thick, grayish hue, like an old black-and-white movie. The silky sheets seemed to writhe and twist on the bed, opening their untidied folds for her as her eyes adjusted to the darkness. She knew that many people were afraid of darkness, but she had never been afraid of something so trivial. Darkness, light—both were kind in some ways and cruel in others. The only difference Rosetta could spot was that the terrors of the night were fictional, at least most of the time. Should a monster appear in the day...

  Rosetta shivered. Reality was an unfeeling and untamed beast.

  Shaking off the chill that was causing bumps to rise over her skin in pinpricks, Rosetta took a step toward the bed. One step toward dreams. One step toward nightmares. One step toward forgetting the two could be distinguished from one another. She took another step. Two steps toward midnight. Two steps toward noon. Two steps toward being able to see both within the same minute, and simply by wishing. Two steps toward freedom. An exhilarated smile broke out on Rosetta's face. Freedom.

  Refusing to waste another second, she leapt into bed, yanking the covers over her lanky frame and letting them settle over her skin like a layer of dust would settle over a forgotten city. She closed her eyes. Everything became very still. The world went silent. Even her heartbeat seemed to hush. The singing of the stars filled Rosetta's head, and reality slipped out of her like sand between fingers. Her body went slack. And then, in a grand, fluid gesture, she stood up, leaving that cracked physical form like a doll upon the bed, and Rosetta flew.