She shakes the jar until the last flakes of powder fall onto the table. The storm rumbles through the roof, lightening punctuating a skim-milk sky in staccato. A window flies open, slamming against the wall and cracking. She flinches.
/s/
/top/
Clamping her hands over her ears reduces the roar of thunder to a soothing buzz, but she needs her fingers. Better to deal with the noise and get her fix—then everything will be better. Then she can
/do/
/n’tdon’tdon’/
/t/
“Shut up!” She scrapes the blade across the table, across the other scars already left in the faded plastic, and assembles the powder into a reasonable line. The straw is bent, but good enough. “Don’t tell me what to do. You’re not even real!”
/Iwaswas/
/ssst/
/canbewas/
/op/
There isn’t any pretty way to snort a memory, and she doesn’t try, just sniffs with a mighty intake of air. The fine particles, glittering in another flash from the sky, disappear up her nose. She sighs as the rush hits her.
/ohhhhhh/
/no/
/oh/
It tastes like—
ACT ONE, SCENE ONE: A BOARDWALK IN THE SUN
OUR HEROINE, TANNED AND FRECKLED, HER HAIR SUN-STREAKED AND WET, TANGLED WITH SEA SALT, IS LAUGHING. AN OLDER MAN, HER FATHER, HANDS HER A TOWEL. SHE LOOPS IT AROUND HER NECK.
SEAGULLS ARE CAWING OVERHEAD.
HER FATHER SAYS SOMETHING TO HER THAT WE CANNOT HEAR. SHE GRINS AND POKES HIM IN THE SIDE, THEN RUNS AWAY, SAND CASCADING AWAY FROM HER SWIFT FEET.
HE SHAKES HIS HEAD, SMILING.
THE BEACH IS FULL OF HAPPY VACATIONERS, FAMILIES WHO ARE DIGGING IN THE SAND, SUNBATHING, AND
/lies/
ICE CREAM SANDWICHES. A LITTLE GIRL PILES SAND AND SHAPES IT, CAREFULLY PUTTING ON THE SHELLS THAT SHE HAS FOUND, CLAM SHELLS, CONCH SHELLS, SWIRLY WHIRLY TWISTY WHISTY PRETTY PRETTY PRETTY
/worsetha/
/nlies/
SHELLS AND SUN AND A SUN AND A SUN DRIPPING DOWN INTO THE SEA SO THAT THE STEAM RISES, SMELLING LIKE HAPPY AND
AND OUR HEROINE HAS FOUND
/noteven/
/goodlies/
NO NO NO
SHE HAS FOUND
A BOY
BEAUTIFUL AND SWEET AND LOVING AND HE SMELLS WONDERFUL, LIKE
“Cotton candy,” she whispers. Her face is wet, and for a moment she thinks that she is crying, but then another drop of water falls onto her forehead. She touches it, and looks up to see the leaky ceiling.
/itwasn’treal/
“I know.”
/anditshould/
/n’tbe/
/worstkindofl/
/ies/
/theones/
/youbelieveev/
/enwheny/
/ouknowthey’relies/
She gets up and closes the window, tracing the broken glass as she locks it. “You’re not real either.”
/but/
/Iwas/
/IWAS/
/andyou/
“Shut up!” The lightning has stopped, the clouds are gone, but the sky is the color of liver. She shivers as she realizes that her hair is truly soaked from the rain. The back of her shirt is wet, sticking to her chilled skin like a piece of ice.
/t/
/he/
/y’re/
/comi/
/ng/
The lights flicker and go out. She pulls her hair into a pony-tail, using the rubber band she pretends not to know wasn’t on her wrist a moment ago. “I don’t want to die.”
/Ididn’t/
/eitherbutI/
/didanyway/
“Tell me again how it happened.” The wind picks up. Reaching out, she finds that the windows have disappeared. She slides down the wall and sits cross-legged on the floor. “Please.”
/no/
“Please.”
/it’sg/
/ettingt/
/oo/
/hard/
/erto/
/talkinyour/
/langue/
/ge/
“Try?” She is afraid. The whale is never unsure, never admits to a fault. The whale is too big, too absolutely and irrevocably itself, for it to hesitate.
/goin/
/gtob/
/eforgotten/
She curls her fingers against each other. “I’ll hold on as long as I can. I promise.”
/Imus/
/tad/
/mitI’mafraidtoo/
/you are/
/theonly/
“I can barely hear you.” The water evaporates in a whoosh as the wood around her splinters apart. She grabs a piece of it and focuses on its smell, the way it scratches and raises red lines on her skin. “Can’t you speak—” She doesn’t know whether the whale speaks too slow or too fast, too softly or too loud, and doesn’t know what she needs to say to make it better. They can only speak in bits and pieces, each letter pulled out of quicksand. “Can’t you speak more clearly?” The wood slips from her grasp and disappears.
/s/
/orr/
/ysorrysorry/
/youshouldn’t/
/havel/
/etthemfeedyou/
/somanyprettylies/
“I know.”
/theypulled/
/thep/
/lugoutnowj/
/ustafewla/
/st/
/secondsof/
/elec/
/tricity/
/left/
She stares at the blank white that has replaced the room. The whale’s voice is faint enough now for her to know that it is whispering. “Is—is there nothing I can do?”
/nothingnot/
/hing/
That flat finality can’t be argued with. She smoothes her palms against her arms, shivering, searching for something, anything, to—ah. She smiles and pulls up the memory. “Then—then let’s watch the sea until. . . until we go to sleep.”
/y/
/e/
/. . ./
/s/
The white wavers, shakes, and turns aquamarine. She smiles as the waves crash around them, the room filling with the dirty smell of salt. It’s as real as the whale’s memory can make it. “Is it good?”
/g/
/go/
/g/
/ye/
/s/
/th/
/a/
/nky/
/ou/
She closes her eyes. She hopes that someone else can remember the whale, that someone else can make this ocean. It is a good place. The kind of memory she wishes she had held more of in her—
ACT ONE, SCENE TWO:
OUR HEROINE LEANS OVER TO HER LOVE AND
“No!” She shakes her head and concentrates. The whale is gone, but she remembers the feel of it, the unshakable reality of the whale even though so much time had passed since it had truly been a real whale. “I want to see.” Her legs turn clear; her hands float away. She ignores it; she doesn’t need them. She grits the teeth that are not there, were never there, and focuses again, looking for the one scrap of truth that she knows must be there. The wind rises in her ears, wailing, plunging her into what must be an end and she summons up one last memory. It floats up and
. . .
The tide goes out.
A waterfall of low notes echoes against the water like they belong there, and if they were not her whale’s than they should have been.
She takes the breath she’s never needed.
And then
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