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Two weeks have passed before Thomas finally calls her.
She is having an informal dinner with her roommate Paul, a dinner born more of encounter than of planning, both of them leaning up against the kitchen counter, bowls of miso in their hands. A portable TV is behind them, featuring talking politico heads (blah blah Ford administration) and a stockticker bar of scrolling updates. From her purse: the bleeping of a thin melody (her cell phone ringtone is the theme from Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
—Excuse me a moment, she says. Her Caller ID indicates that it's Thomas.
—Actually, she says, —I'm going to need to take this in my room. Paul shrugs. She leaves the bowl of soup on the counter, walks towards the kitchen door, reaches up to bat at the pendant hanging from the circular fan's pullchain, hits a button on the phone, speaks. —Hello?
At the other end of the city, Thomas starts slightly at the sound of her voice. It still seems strange to him, the way the phone splices them together instantaneously. Even in this age of velocity it seems too function too fast: it seems to function at a speed that humans are not yet psychologically developed enough to fully comprehend.
—Lydia? he asks.
—Yeah, Thomas, it's me, she says. She sits on the edge of her bed.
A conversation has a self, Thomas thinks. My voice with hers creates some hybrid being. A life into which each participant can potentially dissolve. He wishes he had learned the art of conversation earlier, wishes that his parents had not privileged domestic silence quite so highly, wishes that he could trade hundreds of quiet dinners and quiet cups of tea for one sibling. Imaginary brother, imaginary sister: they are easy enough to wish for, but he cannot imagine how they would have inhabited the empty category that exists for them.
—Lydia, I, he says.
—What, she says.
She has already decided that their relationship is over. What is there, really, to keep her in it? They share tastes in music. She liked the way he wrote on his website. She thought he was kind of cute. But those things are not love. She is not certain that she knows what love is— she is only twenty-one —but she believes it has something to do with communication, with opening yourself to the other, with the responses you receive when you do. Thomas does not communicate with her well— neither sexually nor emotionally —and thus she knows that she cannot love him. And if she doesn't love him— can't love him —then what's the point?
She remembers the attacks on Tuesday, the Delphi staff gathering together in someone's cubicle right at the start of the workday, listening to the radio. Remembers her sudden awareness of being fifteen stories up. By noon they had all left the office— practically the entire Loop had been abandoned as a preventative measure against bombs and plummeting planes. Feeling like a target. Thomas knew she worked in the Loop, and on Tuesday you could hardly escape the knowledge that the Loop had been evacuated: at some point during the day he must have thought of her, pictured her hurrying out with the others. And he still did not call. She sat at home that night, watching the replays over and over, her breath catching in her throat suddenly at nine pm, as though the reality of what she was watching had finally seeped in through some series of invisible layers and touched her; it was then that she cried. He must have known, some part of him must have at least suspected that she was out there somewhere, scared, weeping, friends or family perhaps dead, and still he did not call.
—Lydia, he says. —I just wanted to say that, that I'm sorry.
It is true that something inside her pangs. It is true that she believes that Thomas is a good man, that his faults are born from awkwardness and uncertainty rather than from malice; true even that for a moment she entertains the thought of teaching him, remaining with him and guiding him gently back onto track when necessary, as many times as necessary, again and again. And it is the thought of these iterations, on and on into the future, indefinitely, that finally makes her think no.
—Thomas, she says. —I'm sorry, but: I just don't think it's a good idea for us to see one another anymore.
There is silence on the other end of the line. A faint shuffling noise.
—Oh, Thomas says. —Can I. A pause. Can I still call you sometimes?
—Thomas, she says. —I don't really think it's a good idea.
—Oh, Thomas says. —OK.
—I'm sorry, she says.
—No, no, Thomas says. —It's OK.
—Take care, Thomas.
—I will, he says. —You too.
—Thanks, she says.
Silence.
—Goodbye, she says.
—Bye-bye, he says, and she can hear him hang up. She presses END and sits there for a moment. She holds the phone in both hands in her lap.
Thomas lies on the floor next to his bed, his hand still on the phone, now replaced in its cradle. He closes his eyes. In his mind, the possibility of suicide manifests itself, for a moment; just for a moment, it flares like a phoenix in his skull. He knows he will not do it. He is neither brave enough nor desperate enough to perform the necessary actions. Right now he does not want to perform any actions at all. He lies on the floor next to his bed, even after he tells himself to get up. A long time passes before his body responds to the instructions cabled to it, distantly, from the sad empire of his mind.
Further Reading ::
Information Prose : A Manifesto In 47 Points ::
A manifesto, outlining some of the aesthetic goals behind Imaginary Year, can now be read here.
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