Terminal

“It’s confirmed, I’m terminal,” announced Gaya, before leaning back in her seat with a sigh.

Veena and Marty glanced at each other knowingly. Gaya had always been the most… flamboyant one in their group.

“Are you sure though?” asked Veena after a pause, laying a gentle hand on Gaya’s in the process, “I mean, there was that one time back in…”

“No, this time feels different, I’m sure of it!” said Gaya, taking a chug from her cocktail and then burying her face in her hands, “My temperature has never risen this high before, and I’m starting to feel weird fluctuations all over my body. Not to mention, I feel drier than Luna’s sense of humor!”

“Oy, was that really called for?” asked Luna, pretending to look wounded as she munched on a cheese stick.

“No, you’re right, I’m sorry,” said Gaya, before letting out another heavy sigh, “It’s just, I’m so frustrated! I was so sure this wouldn’t happen, that they’d know better!”

“You can’t put too much faith in intelligent life, I’ve always said,” said Marty, sipping at his whiskey on the rocks, “Sure, they look like they know what they’re doing, some of them may even say they care for you, but they always just make use of you in the end and don’t return the favour. You remember what happened to Alfie? He had intelligent life too, and look at him now!”

“He’s such a shell of his former self, that’s true,” nodded Veena, “All vacant eyed and gloomy.”

“You two will make great therapists, you know,” snarked Gaya, “So encouraging and optimistic you are.”

“Oof, when did you start with the dry retorts?” asked Merc, nearly bouncing off his seat as always.

“One of these days, Merc, maybe you’ll pay attention to the conversation and find out the usual way,” said Luna.

“I was listening, honest!” said Merc with a frown, “Gaya’s got a terminal case of intelligent life, right?”

“Um, it’s not the intelligent life that’s killing her, it’s the global…” began Veena, but then she realized what she was saying and stopped to reflect on it.

“You know, they’re not all that smart either,” said Gaya in a huff, “I mean, some of them think I’m flat. Me, flat! I mean, have they seen these curves?”

She indicated the blue dress she had on (Merc thought it was white, but nobody was invested enough in his opinion to correct him). It was a stylish number, showing off with embellishment the kind of voluptuous figure that made a cola bottle look like a wooden stump. Marty was struggling to keep his eyes off her assets.

“You are anything but flat, babe,” agreed Veena with a smile, “I mean, wow, I don’t think even I could pull off that dress the way you do!”

“Aw, thanks Veena!” said Gaya, smiling after felt like forever. Veena was undoubtedly the hotter of the two, but thankfully she was currently nice enough to not rub it in her face. “Although, I thought it would be smaller when I first put it on. Does it look like it’s been stretched out?”

“It looks fine to me,” commented Marty, and stopped himself before he said anything inappropriate about where the stretching out was happening.

“Ugh!” Gaya’s face was once again in her hands, “Why did it have to be like this? Why couldn’t the dinosaurs have hung around for longer? They were so much nicer to me!”

“Yeah, I liked them too,” said Luna, “Especially the really big ones with the long necks. They made me feel relaxed just by looking at them!”

“Too bad they went extinct during that accident though,” said Veena, “Did the guy ever apologize, by the way?”

“Oh yeah, he did,” said Gaya, “He was actually really nice about it too, in a super awkward kind of way. I think he felt bad about all the damage he caused.”

“Yeah, it’s nice when they admit they’re in the wrong,” agreed Marty, “although it would be even nicer if they’d just stop speeding around the way they do…”

“Well…” began Luna, but then didn’t really know how to continue. Her close relationship with Gaya began because of one of those accidents.

“Does anyone want more drinks?” asked the strangely fresh-faced waitress who had popped up at their table.

“I’ll have another, yes,” said Gaya, “And tell the bartender not to skimp on the alcohol this time, yeah?”

“If you really need the kick that bad, just get something on the rocks like me,” said Marty.

“Don’t encourage her, Marty!” scolded Veena, before ordering another cocktail herself.

“I’m not sloshed enough to drink anything that tastes like a chemistry accident just yet,” said Gaya.

“I’ll pretend you didn’t just insinuate that this absolutely divine TM-88 single-malt wasn’t crafted to its stellar perfection,” said Marty before haughtily taking another sip.

When everyone had been sufficiently restocked with their medicine of choice…

“You know, Tess from Parnitha was having some issues with intelligent life too,” began Veena. “In her case though, they began to leave and hang around her neighbours before she came down with anything severe.”

“Yeah, she was lucky that way,” said Gaya, nodding without realizing it, “But the lot I’m stuck with are only just figuring out how to leave. They’re too busy doing who knows what else.”

“I remember some of them managed to visit me,” said Luna, “They seemed nice! A bit messy, but nice.”

“Ha! Barely a dozen of the brightest ones visit you and you already think they’re messy,” snorted Gaya, “I’ve got billions of them on me, and they clean up about as well as a hurricane!”

“Speaking of hurricanes, how are your own efforts at ‘cleaning up’ their numbers?” asked Marty.

“Marty!” scolded Gaya, “You know how much I hate doing that! Don’t talk about it so casually!”

“What a con-conun-nnn-problem eh?” cut in Merc, “Can’t live with them, don’t want to off them either!”

“Are you already drunk, Merc?” asked Veena in a blend of shock and disgust that didn’t suit her, “You barely had anything!”

“Merc’s still a lightweight, Veena,” pointed out Luna, “What were you expecting?”

“Good point,” agreed Veena, “so Gaya, none of your intelligent life wants to leave?”

“Well, a few do,” admitted Gaya, “Some of them are looking very closely at Marty, for example.”

Marty nearly spat out his drink.

“What! Why me? Isn’t Veena easier to get to? Or Luna?”

“Oh please, Marty, no life can handle any of this,” she said with some sass, taking the opportunity to show off her sizzling supermodel looks.

“And I’m a little too undersized to handle that much life, I think,” said Luna, “I’m not all that bigger than Phoebe and Damian, you know.”

“Damn it, you have a point,” cursed Marty before taking a swig from his whiskey.

“Hey, at least the bunch who’ll turn up will be the nicer ones,” said Gaya, “You know how it is, it’s the intelligent life that sticks to one place, and thinks that’s all there is to it, that’s the worst.”

“Well, here’s hoping they wise up a little more before they completely screw you over, Gaya” said Veena before raising her glass for a toast with the others.

“Cheers to that!” said Gaya, her glass clinking much rougher than it should have.


*


“AAAAAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaa…”

“OooooooooOOOoooooohhhh…”

“Oh no, she’s singing that song of hers again,” cursed Veena.

“Hey, you’re slacking off again!” snapped Marty, “Come on, we’re almost home!”

Veena grunted as she adjusted her positioning on Gaya’s left side.

“You know, it’s been a while since I’ve seen her this badly sloshed,” she commented.

“She’s got a lot to deal with,” said Luna, fishing for the keys as they neared the front door to their apartment, “It’s not easy living when you’re suddenly three degrees warmer than you should be.”

“I don’t get why she’s so angsty about it though,” continued Veena, “I’ve been dealing with high temperature like this all my life, and you don’t see me complain about it!”

“You’ve kind of answered yourself there, Veena,” pointed out Marty, “Being hot isn’t new to you. And it’s certainly not messing you up the way it’s doing with Gaya. It’s a difficult change to adjust to.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Veena off-handedly, “I hope she gets over it soon though. I don’t like her like this.”

“None of us do,” said Luna as the door clicked open, “but you heard her. She’s terminal now. Things won’t be the way they used to be anymore.”

“I know!” snapped Veena a little harshly, and then corrected herself, “Ugh, I’m a lot more exhausted than I thought. Let’s just dump her on her couch and call it a night, okay?”

“Fine by me,” said Marty.

Gaya’s apartment had seen better days. The potted plants looked depressed, the fish in the tank were sluggish; the whole place had the air of someone who was losing faith in the concept of self-maintenance.

Veena and Marty placed Gaya gently on her couch, and she almost immediately began to snore. Veena hurried off – Merc was still passed out in the car. Marty pulled out a blanket from the closet, and was about to cover Gaya with it before he gave it a second thought. The blanked was chucked back into the closet.

The last thing Gaya needed was more warming.

Euphoria

Note to self, thought Amari, build up your chili tolerance before you eat a curry like that again. Blinking back a couple of sneaky little tears, she took another sip from her glass of cold water. It tickled her already sore tongue and nothing else; it was about as satisfying as the last few broken bits in a packet of chips.

She took a look around. The night was getting late, but the quirky little South Asian food restaurant they were in either didn’t know or didn’t care, judging by how bustling it still was. She could see why; even if the miris maalu she’d tried had spent most of its time assaulting her tongue like a hard-nosed mugger with a spiked bat, it had tasted good while doing it.

And then she took a look at the others.

There is a moment in every gathering of friends, whether they be new or old, meeting weekly or after years, when the invisible signal goes out. And on cue, those friends will immediately whip out their smartphones and take a long ‘peek’ at them, briefly disregarding the presence of the other friends in the vicinity. An uncomfortable silence occasionally develops, which only the unfortunate souls without a smartphone bear witness to. Scientists are yet to determine what factors influence this phenomenon – whenever they get close, they whip out their own phones and promptly forget about the research.

Maybe it was the distraction of her burning mouth, but Amari had missed out on the initial broadcast of the signal. She was about to take a look at her own phone when Ji-hoon spoke up.

“Whoa, guys, check out this video! This guy is doing some insane shit with chocolate!”

Amari inched closer along with the others as Ji-hoon placed his phone in the middle of the cluttered table. One the screen, she could just make out a video of a man making what looked like extremely posh furniture – but wait, he was making it with chocolate bars instead of wood, and using chocolate syrup to bind the pieces together!

She leaned back with a sigh. While she definitely admired the man’s skills, she found these kind of food sculpting videos a little depressing. She couldn’t tell which outcome was more tragic: either those chocolate masterpieces would eventually be eaten, or all that delicious-looking chocolate would be left alone in awe.

“Didn’t you used to do art stuff too, Amari?” asked Andrew, his eyes still glued to the chocolate maestro.

“Nothing like the guy in the video though!” said Amari half-heartedly, “but yeah, I used to sketch and paint a bit.”

“Oh yeah, I remember those pictures you put up on Facebook!” said Kwang with a grin, “They were really pretty! It’s too bad you stopped though!”

“Thanks!” said Amari, “But, well, you know how it is. Work happened. Life happened. The usual.”

“Ahhh, life,” drawled Andrew, as though he were going to launch into a deep philosophical discourse on the topic, before sitting back in his own seat with a sigh. The topic silently cursed him for leaving it hanging.

*

The next evening, it took Amari at least fifteen minutes before she could find what she was looking for. It wasn’t that her room was untidy. Well, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 was spotless and 10 meant that one footstep required at least five items to be relocated, Amari considered her room to be a 3. Others thought it was a 5, 6 tops.

But when she put something away, she put it away deep, and tended to forget where exactly said thing had been put away. In this case, it had been behind a row of thick books in her closet.

She blew the dust off of it and then gazed at it. Not lovingly, but something milder.

Her old artist’s sketchbook looked a little worn, but mostly it just looked disappointed in her. The once shining cover had been dulled by abandonment issues, and the edges curled a bit here and there. The pages nearly had that odd fragile feel to them that pages from older books tend to have.

It had been a while since she’d done this. What to start with? Hmm… ah, of course! It was the perfect thing to start with!

She immediately began to google reference images, the pencil trembling with anticipation in her hand.

*

The last crumpled ball of paper bounced off the rim, hovered in the air for a painful moment, before landing with a huff on the ground near the bin.

Amari walked away from the sketchbook, picked up the ball of paper and dropped it into the bin, and collapsed on her bed in a frustrated heap. What was she doing! What was she even trying to do! She used to be so much better at this; her drawings actually earned the name ‘art’. Now, she couldn’t even get the details of a bird’s claw down right!

She groaned into her pillow for some time, more out of a need to vent than feelings of physical discomfort. When that was done, she grudgingly returned to her desk, a blank page on her sketchbook awaiting her expectantly beside her pencil.

But as she sat down, she remembered that the next episode of The Expanse was going to air soon! She looked at her laptop screen, then at the sketchbook, then back at the laptop screen. Well, her sketching attempts weren’t going anywhere – maybe she just needed a break. Take her mind away from it for a while. She could always come back to it later. Right?

*

Wrong.

*

Some weeks later, Amari was watching a TED talk. In it, a cheerful lady named Simone Giertz was talking about how she made ‘useless’ things as a hobby, and how it was anything but useless to do so. The useless things in question included a helmet with a toothbrush attached to it in the most ridiculous way possible, and a shirt made of eyeballs.

“Kwang, you watch the weirdest things,” muttered Amari to herself. She didn’t stop watching the video though.

And then Simone began to talk about performance anxiety, and moving past the idea of avoiding failure. At this point, Amari wouldn’t have stopped watching even if her bedroom door spontaneously caught fire.

The talk ended, and a strange feeling began to consume Amari. It was as though Guilt was trying on something else’s clothes, and compensating for the bad fit by just putting on more layers. She looked at the spot where she had stashed the sketchbook this time around.

She’d been approaching it all wrong, and that thought was what struck her the hardest. Her motivation a few weeks ago had been to draw a picture as beautiful as what she’d been capable of back when she was a more prolific artist. But with that attitude, the critic on her shoulder took over the production, and nothing would approach that critic’s inflated standards.

No, before she could enjoy the products of her efforts, she needed to enjoy the process first.

She dug around for the pencil in her desk drawer, then pulled out the sketchbook and opened it to the page she’d stopped at. The faint grooves from when she’d drawn on the previous pages were an unnecessary reminder of what she’d been trying to sketch the last time.

Amari began to sketch. And this time...

...the bird’s claw was just as faulty as it had been before. But she didn’t care.

Time slowed down so it could peek over her shoulder at the sketch she was bringing to life. Her pencil danced across the page, and old feelings began to course through the fingers that were holding it.

Oh, how she’d missed this! The sensation that the world around her could go stuff its head in a washing machine for all she cared. The intensity of the scratches as the pencil added detail after detail. The magic of a wing, and then a plume, emerging from all that lead. The ecstasy, no, the euphoria of it all.

Amari only became aware of her breathing again when the picture was done. Sighing with relief and stretching muscles that had somehow gone numb in the span of a few minutes, she took a look at the drawing.

It was supposed to be a phoenix, rising from the ashes of negligence. It wouldn’t be mistaken for anything else, she thought. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being indistinguishable from the real thing and 1 being a smear left by an excited flock of pigeons on a statue, this was a – no, it didn’t matter. She had finally drawn the damn thing, and more importantly, she was starting to feel it.

And it felt good.