***
Awakening from a deep sleep to find yourself even more exhausted than you were before the slumber is just about the most unpleasant, infuriating experience regarding the tendency of the human body to attack itself. I rubbed my eyes sleepily as my vision cleared; through the window that my face was rested against, I saw Brynna and James standing with my older brother, Elijah. I perked up upon seeing him, but the grogginess in my body never fully dissipated.
I looked next to me to find that the car was completely vacated. When I saw Maura and Penny hurrying towards the housing buildings of Elijah's school, I knew that Penny, as she always did, needed to go explore the bathroom. Why are children so fascinated with strange bathrooms?
I was getting restless and impatient. I was tired of being cooped up in the car. I knew that we were running out of time, and that made my impatience grow even more. I wondered when my mother and father would contact us, asking where we were. If Brynna was to be believed, they were already at the launch site and waiting for us to arrive with impatience of their own. I was so not in the mood for one of their lackluster lectures; their obvious apathy had always been very depressing.
“Well, you were smart to think that I wouldn't need convincing. You know me, with my fascination of all things apocalyptic, right?” I had cracked the window ever so slightly in order to hear their conversation.
“Wow, Brynn, you weren't kidding.” James told her, and I heard Brynna laugh airily.
“I didn't know that you thought I was.” She replied, “He's an Environmental Science minor, for the sake of all deities and Gods.”
“And my sister is a bit of an arrogant genius, in case you haven't noticed. But in reality, James, she talks like this to scare people like you off.”
“People like me?”
“Yeah. You're what the people in the old south would call a 'suitor.'” All evidence of playfulness in Elijah's voice had disappeared suddenly. Threatening seriousness stood in its place. The only person who held any sway over what Brynna did was Elijah. His opinion mattered to her more than that of anyone else because he was, as she described, her “intellectual equal, or close enough.” He was fiercely protective of her, even more so than he was over me or Penny. In high school, their mutual friends had joked that Brynna had a one-man, round-the-clock Mafia to keep their nasty male peers at bay.
James was now on the receiving end of the Mafia man's blunt weapon. I looked up cautiously to see Elijah glaring icily at him, his distrust and disapproval plain.
“I am most certainly not a suitor.” James told him calmly, “I just knew after I had that dream and met with those people that I had to find her. I don't know how I knew or why I had to bring all of you with me. But I knew that there was no getting around it. Not that I wanted to get around it, but I just knew that it was a certainty, do you know what I mean?”
“Not really.” Elijah replied, “But I was cool after you said you most certainly weren't a suitor. She's my little sister, and despite her vast knowledge on everything, she sometimes makes really stupid decisions. No offense, but dating a man twice her age would be the epitome of a stupid decision.”
“This is ridiculous, Eli.” Brynna snapped at him finally, “And if I decided to date him or anyone else twice my age, there would be nothing you could do about it.”
“Believe me, I know. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't kick that guy's ass. That's my job as your brother, right?”
“According to Maura, who is most certainly not the best judge of how to handle unsavory circumstances, is she?”
“Don't start getting on Maura already. Didn't you say you only just went home a couple of hours ago?”
“This conversation is over.” Brynna snapped before walking back towards the car. I jerked downwards and banged my head hard against the door.
“I already know you were eavesdropping, so you can stop pretending you're asleep. I know you quite foolishly think you are smarter than me, and I must encourage you to think again.”
I sat up, scowling darkly. Her fierce blue eyes, amplified by the thick black eyeliner and mascara around them, stared through the crack in the window at me. It was like looking into the eyes of some horrendous spectral creature from beyond the grave whose eyes could pierce your very soul. Or it was like looking into the eyes of an angry raccoon who was sniffing at something dead on the side of the road. It depends on how mad I truly was at that moment.
When Maura and Penny returned, we all squeezed back into the car. Elijah hugged me, and I grinned as I squeezed him back. He looked happier than he had the last time I had seen him. At that time, living with our parents in the midst of all the emotional baggage was wearing him down more than he was saying. While Brynna escaped to the city, Elijah escaped to college. I had hoped to follow the latter's path myself someday.
Of course, that wouldn't be happening anymore.
“So, I figured that Pangaea place was something. They said it could be inhabited by humans. And immediately, I pictured some sci-fi movie plot about humans trying to overtake it and farm it for resources.”
“Why does it have to be humans invading?” Brynna asked, “Why aren't the otherworldly creatures who live on Pangaea invading Earth?”
“That's been done too many times. How many Earth-invasion movies have we seen, dude?”
“We have seen many, most certainly. However, I find your insinuation that we would destroy another planet with no thought of the well-being of the natives residing there to be prejudiced and rude, quite frankly. It borders on betrayal of your kind, young lad.”
“Maybe so, but you know it would happen. Didn't you see Avatar?”
Off they went. They were speaking to each other on a channel the rest of us couldn't quite tune in to.
“Wait a minute, do you really think there's other life on this planet?” I interrupted them.
“As far as we know, there's nothing there but plants, water, land, and air to breathe.” James explained. “I suppose it’s a possibility. But after all the explorations they've already done there...”
“Whoa!” Elijah exclaimed, “They've done explorations already?”
“I told you that they were keeping secrets.” James answered.
“People have been on this planet already?” Elijah was practically bobbing up and down in his seat excitedly. “What was it like, man? Do you know all the details? This is my geek-fest right now.”
“Species: Homo-sapiens. Classification: Male Space Nerd. Reproductive Status: Non-existent, now and forever. Live long and suffer, young virgin.” Brynna narrated, and Maura, James and I burst out laughing. Elijah just stared at her, fighting a smile. I laughed longer than any of them, forgetting all about my previous irritation with her arrogance.
“I can't even come up with a sarcastic comment to counter that. Do you see what happens when I'm forced to wake up early? All of my knowledge and that entire education Mom and Dad are paying out of the ass for go right out the window.”
“Do you ever worry that it will never return? I know I sure do.” Brynna replied without missing a beat.
“I'm ignoring you from now until we get to the ship.” He was trying hard now to contain his excitement, even at just saying the word “ship”.
“Good luck with that.” James said dryly. “I've been trying to ignore her since about an hour after we met, and so far, I have been unsuccessful. She's a fiery, persistent little thing.”
“Excuse you, Mr. Maxwell, though I might literally be a thing, I do not appreciate being referred to as though I am simply an inanimate object. Fiery and persistent though I may be, I certainly do not grovel for your attention as you are making it sound.”
“Listen, crazy, it was a joke.” James told her as we all laughed somewhat cautiously at her irritation. “Sorry, let me rephrase that,” James kept his voice in its usual dull, sarcastic monotone when he said, “Crazed woman, thou art angered for naught. Thine intention was never to offend nor scorn your nonexistent feelings.” He l
ooked at her. “I know you understood that, Ophelia. Now please, accept my apology before you go drown yourself in a river.”
“Oh, a Hamlet reference,” Brynna replied in mock awe, “Perhaps Shakespeare's second-best known play so congratulations; your knowledge on sixteenth-century literature is mediocre. Also, how can you compare me to the title character's mentally ill, pathetically devoted love interest? I am not waltzing around, handing out flowers to symbolize the impending demise of us all. If I were, we certainly would not be in such fine moods now, would we?”
“Give me your hand.” James told her austerely as he reached out to her.
“No.”
“Seriously. Give me your hand.” He insisted, “I'm sitting right next to you, and I can easily just take it but I'm asking politely. Come on.”
“Take my hand, and I will slap you with sufficient force across your smirking face, James.”
“Please?”
“No! Keep your eyes on the road before you kill us all.”
“Only if you give me your hand.”
She sighed and rolled her eyes in irritation. Then, she reached out her hand to him. He grasped it in one of his.
“Now look at me.”
“Your behavior is peculiar, to say the least. To say the most, you are beginning to, as Violet would say, 'creep me out.'” But she looked at him.
“Summon your inner Zen. Relax. James doesn't want to offend you. James likes you, though James certainly can't figure out why. Go to sleep. When you awake, you might begin acting like a twenty-two year old again. Right now, your tantrum is making me think that I need to immediately pull over and install a car seat for you.”
She snatched her hand away and smacked him hard on the arm as Maura, Elijah, and I laughed again, this time without fear of her reproach.
“Or procure a strait-jacket...” Maura added, and we only laughed harder.
“Chortle all you want, you contemptuous hyenas, but believe me when I say that the second this scourge of a man closes his eyes, he will cease to exist.” She looked over at him again, “Yes. That was a direct threat to your life. I will not kill you for your sarcastic commentary on what you perceive to be a show of immaturity on my part. I will kill you for referring to yourself in third-person. That kind of grammatical and conversational inconsistency is a capital offense in my world.”
“I'm sorry, honey. I zoned out about halfway through that.” James said after a minute. Maura and I were still giggling beyond control, but Elijah was beginning his return trek to Brynna's side.
“Alright, alright...” He said, holding up his hands to stop us. “Do you want me to kick his ass, Brynn? I will.”
“No, thank you.” She smiled at him, “Though you can surely hold him down while I kick his ass.”
“No ass-kicking is necessary. Hey,” James said, and Brynna looked over at him, “I'm sorry.”
“You are not sorry. Your apology is useless given that I have threatened your physical well-being. You are simply trying to avoid great pain.”
“Nope. You're wrong. I'm genuinely sorry.”
“Shut up, James.” She rested her head against the headrest and closed her eyes. Elijah reached over and patted her shoulder.
“You're a good sport, kid.” Immediately, he changed tracks in his mind. “So were there humans on the planet already?”
Brynna sighed, shook her head, lowered her sunglasses, and muttered about attention-deficit disorder. My eyes widened slightly when I saw James reach over and squeeze her hand tightly in his. I was right in the middle of the backseat and had been the only one between Maura, Elijah, and me to see him do it. My eyes moved to Brynna, who had turned her head to look at him. I expected her to snatch her hand away and scowl darkly at the fact that he had sought a human moment of warmth from her. Instead, she gazed at him uncertainly, as though she was genuinely confused about how to proceed.
“No. Just rovers, as I was told.” James answered, and I watched as his thumb stroked the back of her hand. “Sorry to disappoint you, man.”
Brynna's fingers locked around James's for just one quick second. Then, she pulled her hand away, crossed her arms over her chest and closed her eyes again. James smiled to himself and found my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Instantly, we both looked away, him trying to pretend that he had not touched her and me trying to pretend that I hadn't seen.
“That doesn't disappoint me at all! We will be the first human beings to set foot on this planet. Do you all have any idea what that means?”
“We'll be the first to die if it turns out the little computer on wheels was wrong about the oxygen level being plentiful enough to support human beings?” Brynna filled in quickly.
“No! It means that we'll be like...” He stopped, trying to form the right words to phrase what he was trying to say. His excitement was rendering him practically incapable of speaking. “This planet will continue to exist long after we're gone, and we'll have been the first people to ever set foot on it! We'll be myths! Old legends!”
“So?” I furrowed my brows in confusion. I finally broke my curious gaze away from Brynna and James. I would have plenty of time to contemplate whatever was emerging between them later. In the present, I was genuinely interested in whatever it was that Elijah was getting at.
“Yes, if you're suggesting that people are going to marvel in wonder at our very existence, I must, as they say, burst your bubble.” Brynna eyed him in the mirror. “While they might marvel, we will no longer be around to experience their worship.”
“It doesn't matter!” Elijah replied, and I watched Maura start shaking her head slightly as she tried to suppress a chuckle. “We'll be studied. We will be the reference group for whatever culture forms there. For thousands of years, people will talk about how everything started, and it will have started with us!”
“Your need to be discussed and revered is worrisome, Elijah Daniel.” Brynna informed him.
“It's immortality, Brynna!” Elijah exclaimed, “It's what everyone wants!”
“Well, though I agree that it is immortality in its own right, I sincerely doubt that all people yearn for an eternal life, physical or metaphorical.”
“Bursting his bubble, raining on his parade. You are a monster, Brynna Olivier.” James told her.
“Thank you! Somebody says it, finally.” Elijah replied, but he was laughing. “I know that you're secretly psyched about this, too, Brynn. You just want to act all aloof about it because you don't want to geek in front of James.”
“I would be more than willing to geek in front of James if I wasn't so very tired. Plus, I am still worried about the world ending sooner than we think. To be more specific, I am worried about it ending while we're still on it. Eli, I will make you a deal, right here and now, in front of all of you, the Council of the Toyota Prius. If we make it safely to Pangaea, I will gladly geek out with you.”
“I know you will. You don't have to swear anything, because I know that once we're on a different planet, you won't be able to contain yourself. You're as much of a nerd as I am.”
“I learned from the best, didn't I?”
“By 'geek', what exactly do you mean?” James asked. “You have to explain these ridiculous slang terms to old people like me.”
“Giggle, jump up and down, clap my hands. Behave like some puerile little child with ADHD who just downed a two liter of Mountain Dew. The whole nine yards, James.”
James laughed again, and Brynna smiled.
“We'll all be so thrilled to be alive that I'll be surprised if everyone doesn't break into a multicultural interpretation of the Thriller dance.” Brynna continued quietly after a minute. “That's if we make it, of course.”
“We'll make it.” James told her, and I gaped at them, my mouth open, and my brow scrunched together in confusion. One minute, they were screaming at each other. The next minute, they were clutching hands and reassuring each other gently that everything would be alright. If that was what being an adult was, then I wa
nted to remain a child forever. Relationships were too confusing in later years.
I shook my head slightly, deciding not to attempt an analysis of their ups and downs. Instead, I laid my head against Maura's shoulder. That time, when I fell asleep, it was peaceful.