Chapter 3 #3
Juniper shrugged. “That’s fair. I think it’s all about energy.
Each of us has this energy, coded deep within us, something from the universe, like a little fire being lit.
Some burn brighter than others, but that’s the way of things.
And when it’s our time to go, our energy returns to where it came from.
Little streaks of light, like a comet.” He chuckled.
“Can you imagine what it’s going to be like when all of us go at the same time?
That much energy released into the universe?
Man, I’d love to see that. I bet it’s going to be brighter than the sun. ”
“Why?” Don asked. “Why do you think that?”
Pantomime smiled. “Because we’re scared.”
Pantomime brought them weed cookies. One each, with strict instructions to eat half and then wait to see how they felt before deciding if they wanted the other half.
Peanut butter, little fork marks across the top.
They looked significantly more edible than the muffins they’d been given before they departed.
“When was the last time we got stoned?” Don asked Rodney as the Bee Gees began singing about stayin’ alive.
Rodney turned the cookie over in his hands. “Not since the nineties.”
Don nodded. And then, without thinking too much about it, broke the cookie in half and shoved it in his mouth. He chewed furiously, swallowing it down as best he could before he changed his mind.
Rodney sighed.
Don set the other half of the cookie on his lap. “Well, then. That’s that.”
“Last time we smoked,” Rodney said, “you thought the Queen of England was coming over. That apartment we had, remember? The one with the hot water that never worked. You spent almost an hour being mad we didn’t have any tea. You said that we were probably going to be executed.”
Don sniffed. “I don’t remember that at all. And it wasn’t tea, it was tea cakes. There’s a difference.”
Rodney said, “Yeah, yeah.” And then he split his cookie and ate half. He didn’t look at Don as he chewed, gaze firmly fixed on the fire. “Probably all stems and seeds. Won’t even feel anything.”
An hour later, Rodney had a flower crown of his very own.
Someone had also given him a pair of fairy wings, strapped to his back like a backpack.
They were sparkly and pink and he didn’t seem to mind them very much, even if he’d threatened the first three people who’d tried to put them on him.
Don laughed, feeling floaty, feeling fine.
He loved the way the grass felt against his hands, the soft give of the earth.
The fire stayed large and hot, sparks rising toward the blackened sky. People danced, people sang, people painted each other with greens and blues and reds. One woman—a tiny little thing, kissing five feet, but barely—walked across burning coals, her face a tight mask of concentration.
Pantomime sat next to Don, her arm through his. They watched as Juniper tried to convince Rodney that a little body paint never hurt anyone. Rodney did not seem to agree.
“You love him,” Pantomime said to Don, her head on his shoulder.
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because I choose to,” Don said. “He’s funny.
And sarcastic. Keeps me in check. Never once has he said a dream of mine wasn’t possible.
Never once has he made me feel like I’m somehow lesser.
I’ve tried to do the same for him because that’s what he deserves.
At one point, early on in our relationship, I worried that I was holding him back.
We weren’t out, not really, and I thought maybe he’d be better off without me. ”
“What did he say to that?”
Don smiled quietly. “Said I needed to get those foolish thoughts out of my head because he was in this for the long haul. I believed him. I believed in him. Still do, in fact. Now more than ever.”
“Do you have any regrets?”
“Hundreds. Thousands. When you get to be as old as we are, you rack them up like a collection of gaudy knickknacks.”
“I’m scared,” she admitted. “I try not to be, but I am. Not of dying. I’ve made peace with that.
But how will I act in the moments just before?
Will I cry? Will I beg for more time? Will I pray to a god I don’t believe in on the chance that there’s something else, something more?
I’m not scared of the end, but of what it’s going to be like just before it comes. ”
“You said it yourself. Right now, we’re all the same. Everyone is thinking some variation of what you are.”
“Do you think there will be music? Wherever we go when we’re gone, do you think we’ll still be able to sing?”
“I hope so,” Don said.
“Remember the Voyager?”
Don nodded. “The satellite sent to space. The one with the gold record.”
“Actually, it was a space probe,” Pantomime said.
“A lot of people don’t know there are two versions of Voyager, the first and the second, and both held the gold record.
Do you know who made them? Carl Sagan and Timothy Ferris.
On the records, they put photographs of the Earth, of the life-forms on it.
Size comparisons of humans to animals. Pictures of men in competition, pictures of gridlocked traffic, pictures of buildings, of mountains, of trees.
A South Asian woman breastfeeding. A Black woman looking through a microscope.
Thatched huts. People with spears. Drawings of animals.
Math equations. Pictures of astronauts, of the moon. But you know what my favorite part is?”
Don shook his head.
“The sounds they included. Music from all over the world. ‘Tsuru no Sugomori’ from Japan. Bach performed by a German orchestra. Chuck Berry with ‘Johnny B. Goode.’ Stravinsky. Louis Armstrong. Beethoven. A Navajo night chant. And the noise of Earth, too. Volcanoes and earthquakes. Wind. Rain. The crashing of ocean waves. The sounds of footsteps, of laughter, of a heartbeat. And the languages. They had people from all over the world record greetings. In Burmese, in English, in Korean, in Polish, in Urdu. It was all pretty simple, an economy to the language. ‘Peace and happiness to all’ or ‘We wish you everything good from our planet’ or, my favorite: ‘Greetings from a computer programmer in the little university town of Ithaca on planet Earth.’ That one was in Swedish.” She looked away. “I think about that a lot.”
“Why?” Don asked.
Pantomime shrugged. “If either of the Voyager probes escaped the pull of the black hole, then they’re still out there, somewhere.
Maybe one day, they’ll be discovered. Maybe our voices will be heard again, even though we’re no longer here.
And what a legacy that is. Coming together to make something so impossible, something so human, and then sending it to the stars.
We filled it with so much of what makes us tick that it’s overwhelming.
But isn’t it a lie? Say that the records are found.
They’re listened to. We’re heard, even though there’s no one left to confirm.
What will those beings think? That we were loving, kind, and hopeful? Is that what we deserve?”
Funnily enough, it was Rodney’s idea. With bloodshot eyes and a goofy grin, he brought Juniper and Pantomime back to Don, holding both of their hands. Rodney still wore the wings. The other half of his cookie was gone. He’d eaten it.
Which explained why he said, “I’m going to marry Juniper and Pantomime.”
Don—ever the voice of reason—said, “Congratulations, but I’m pretty sure we’re married, and that constitutes bigamy. Which is illegal.”
Rodney grimaced, pulling his hands away from Juniper and Pantomime. “That’s not what I meant. I meant that I’m going to marry them.”
“Funny, that sounded like you just repeated the same thing.”
“Officiate!” Rodney shouted.
“Oh. Well, I suppose that makes more sense. Except for the fact that you’re not qualified to do that.”
“It’s okay,” Pantomime said. “It’s not like laws matter anymore.”
Don frowned. “Yes … well … huh.”
Rodney crossed his arms. “If we don’t do this in the next minute, I’m going to change my mind and go to bed.”
Juniper looked at Don with pleading eyes. “Please, man. This is, like, everything I have ever wanted. You can come too.”
“Thank you,” Don said. “I was waiting for my invitation.”
Rodney scowled at him. “You’re high.”
“So are you.”
Rodney giggled.
Don did too.
With the moon high above them, Rodney said, “Uh, okay. Hold on. Let me think. All right. We are gathered here tonight with hippies who don’t have real names. Two of them want to get married. That’s fine with me. But I’m only marrying these two, so the rest of you, stop asking.”
Everyone looked on at Juniper and Pantomime standing before each other, hands clasped between them. A red ribbon had been tied around each of their wrists, binding them together.
Rodney continued, adjusting his flower crown.
“These are strange times. Nothing makes sense. I’m in Ohio, and I don’t know why.
I don’t like Ohio. I don’t like hippies, and here I am, talking to a bunch of them.
Strange times, indeed. But these two people want to get married, and that’s the only thing that matters. Juniper, do you love Pantomime?”
“Yes,” he said.
“And Pantomime, do you love Juniper?”
“Yes, yes,” she said, eyes wet.
“Then by the power vested in—what am I talking about? I don’t have any power.” He paused, lines forming on his forehead. “I’m … powerless,” he said. He looked at Don. “There was nothing we could’ve done to stop it.”
Don breathed in. Don breathed out.
“I feel lost, sometimes,” Rodney said. “But then I see Don. I see his face. I hear his voice. I’ve known it—him—for decades.
The best of times, the worst of times. But he’s still here, and I know that means something.
I know because I choose to believe it, just like I chose to love him.
” He looked back at Juniper and Pantomime.
“You have a choice. You get to choose who you love. No matter what happens next, no one can take that away from you.”
There were no rings. Turned out, throwing an impromptu wedding meant certain things weren’t included.
But Juniper and Pantomime didn’t seem to mind.
As soon as Rodney announced them as husband and wife, Juniper dipped Pantomime and kissed her sweetly, his braid hanging down the sides of their faces.
The crowd around them howled their joy to the sky.
They danced, that night. All of them. They danced into the early hours of the morning.
Rodney too, though he refused the hand of anyone who asked.
Aside from Don, that is. They moved away from the fire, away from the people.
They danced in the shadows of the dark, pressed chest to chest, swaying slightly, feet shuffling through the grass.
“What an odd day,” Don said, a little more sober than he’d been during the ceremony.
“We’ve had odder.”
“Have we? I can’t remember.”
In the distance, near the fire, Juniper and Pantomime were in their own little world, hugging each other close.
Rodney said, “It’s not fair.”
Many things were unfair. Don didn’t know which thing Rodney meant, and said as much.
“They’re just kids. They don’t get to have what we had. Have.”
“A long life,” Don whispered.
Rodney nodded. “They don’t get to spend weeks and years waking up next to each other. They don’t get to see the world together without thinking about how it’ll all be gone soon enough. They don’t get a chance to just be.”
“Don’t they?” Don asked. “It might not be as long as we’ve had, but they have it now. I don’t think you could have given them a greater gift.”
Rodney scowled. “I didn’t do anything.”
Don kissed the underside of his jaw. “Okay.”
They left the caravan early the next morning, the sun barely peeking above the horizon. A heavy mist hung over the field, low curls of fog at their feet. Juniper and Pantomime joined them outside their RV, the pair wrapped in a wool blanket.
“Where will you go?” Don asked them.
Juniper grinned. “Thinking about a honeymoon. The Poconos, in Pennsylvania. Cabins up there. Seems like a good place to sit out the rest of time.”
“All of you going?”
Pantomime shrugged. “Maybe. Most are still headed for Canada, but the borders might be an issue. Everything is shut down. No one going in or out. If they try, they’ll have to be smart about it. What about you two? Washington, still?”
Don nodded. “Washington.”
She cocked her head quizzically. “Will you find what you’re looking for there?”
“Yes,” Rodney said, and Don believed him.
Rodney and Don took turns hugging Juniper and Pantomime. When Rodney and Juniper came together, Juniper whispered something in Rodney’s ear. Rodney didn’t move. When Juniper pulled away, Rodney said, “Been doing it for this long. Can’t stop now. Won’t stop now.”
As they drove down the small hill back to the road, a line of people stood next to the remains of the bonfire, waving under the morning sky.
When they were out of sight, Don asked, “What did Juniper say to you?”
Rodney’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Some hippie bullshit.”
“Rodney.”
He sighed. “He said that I’m to love you forever.”
“And you can’t stop?”
“Can’t. Won’t. Not now, not ever.”
They drove on.
After a time, Don reached over and took Rodney’s hand in his. It was enough.