Collective Gravities

GRAVITIES

GRAVITIES

word west press | brooklyn, ny

CHLOE N. CLARK

collective

copyright © 2020 chloe n. clark

all rights reserved. no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. for more information, contact word west press.

isbn: 978-1-7334663-8-7

published by word west in brooklyn, ny.

first us edition 2020.

printed in the usa.

www.wordwest.co

cover & interior design: word west.

To Mama and Papa, with love,

for listening to stories

Table of Contents

Balancing Beams........................................................7

Dropping Dimes......................................................25The Collective Gravity of Stars...............................37These Arms of Yours................................................51Lover, I’ll Be Waiting..............................................55

12 In Assorted Colors.............................................65The Color of Electrically Brilliant...........................69The Width of Your Body Apart..............................77They Are Coming For You, So You Better Run, You Better Run, So You Can Hide...............................103

Thematic Cartography............................................107

See Sky Sea Sky......................................................111

A Reunion of Waves..............................................123

Like The Desert Dark............................................127

This Is The Color of Your Eyes in the Dark..........145

Bounce Pass............................................................149

Sometimes The Scenery Is Beautiful.....................155

On The Point Between You and Infinity...............167

Bound...................................................................171

The Intimacy of Objects.......................................185

Palm Line Constellation.......................................189

Spoken Like Tongues............................................193

For You, I Am Closer Than the Sky.....................197

Where God Suddenly............................................201

So This...................................................................217

Between the Axis and the Stars..........................221

Acknowledgments...............................................235

m

BALANCING BEAMS

The wooziness hit me in the clothing section of the store. It was a Saturday and every parent was out pushing their children in carts through the aisles. A mother scolded her son, put that down. I reached for the wall, leaning against it for a second, and watched the little boy scowl up at his mother. He held a bright red scarf in one hand, the ends trailing down to the floor. Staring at the floor, it seemed to spin. I knew it wasn’t really—spinning, I mean—but there are things you can tell yourself without believing them fully.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gone out. It was too soon to be surrounded by so many people after so long with so few.

Are you… It was the mother. She had walked up to me, her eyes wide.

Am I? I asked. I righted myself, but kept my back to the wall so if I fell, it could be more of a slide.

That astronaut? You were on the news? Weren’t you on the, the—oh, man, what was the mission called? she asked. Her excitement was palpable. Even her scowling son looked up at me with round eyes.

The Anam 7, I replied. Yes, I was.

Oh, boy, I knew it. Nicky wants to be an astronaut, don’t you? she asked her son.

His face curled up, nose wrinkling and lips pursing out. No.

She smiled, embarrassed. He’s just saying that. He loves space.

I do not! Nicky said. His eyes narrowed at her. The scowl had returned.

I tried to smile at him, but the nausea in my stomach pushed up through my chest. Space isn’t for everyone. It’s big and dark and quiet.

I don’t like the dark, he said. His eyes had met mine. The contact almost uncomfortable.

I shook my head. I don’t much either.

The mission had been routine. That’s one of the first things I tried to stress to people. We didn’t know anything was wrong. It was only when we’d completed the mission itself, a routine rotation around a planet we’d been monitoring, and were returning home that things went awry. One of the astronauts, Gina Gomez, Gigi to everyone who knew her well, woke up to her shift. She went to the computer bay and began to dismantle it, systematically. Kevin Banks, my best friend, was the one who found her. He tried to stop her.

I got there too late, I told the trauma specialist that we were made to see upon our return. I didn’t say how Kevin’s blood had spattered across Gigi, how she looked like an abstract painting. Or how I’d frozen, only for a second, and forgotten all of my training. It was a single moment but it seemed to stretch out and collapse, so that I thought I’d be stuck in that second of time forever. Trina Davis got there next, our medic, and I’d never be able to forget the sound of her gasp, an intake of air so sharp that it sounded like a howl, right before she ran forward and slammed an anesthetic-filled needle into Gigi.

It was so nice to meet you. You people really are the face of our future, the mother told me. She had shaken my hand, twice, and had me sign a piece of paper (Nicky will want this later. He’s just being obstinate. I am not!).

Thank you for your service.

Thank you, ma’am. Nice to meet you Nicky, I said. He gave me a suspicious look, maybe no one had ever said that to him.

After they’d walked away, I exhaled hard. The nausea had lessened, but some of the wooziness remained. The store no longer spun, but it turned slightly.

I managed to make it back home, curled into my own bed, and tried to sleep away the feeling.

The ringing vidphone woke me up. Answer, I said.

The screen lit up on the wall. It was Trina. Ava?

Yeah, yeah. I was sleeping. I sat up in bed so I’d be in the screen’s cam-view. I tried to smooth down my hair.

It’s three in the afternoon… Trina looked good. Better than I ever did. Hair pulled back tight and makeup highlighting her overly large eyes.

It’s midnight somewhere, I said. There was a crick in my back and my throat felt dry. What do you need, Trin?

Do I only call when I need something? she asked.

Yes.

She smiled. I’d think the mission made you awful, if I hadn’t known you before it. She turned to something off-screen, frowned at it, and then turned back. I’ve gotten a request from the Institute. Gigi has requested to see us.

All of us?

Trina nodded. There were three of us: Trina, myself, and Alex Harrow. We’d been a five-person team: one dead, one locked up, three wrecked but free. I talked to her doctors. They think she’s…Normalizing, is the word they used.

The night before everything went wrong, Gigi and I played cards. War because only two of us were awake and it was the only game we both knew the rules to.

She flipped a card over. A two of spades. My fiancée didn’t want me to go.

I flipped my card. Four of diamonds. I swept the two cards into my hand. Isn’t he kind of a dick, though?

She laughed. Thanks, Ava. He’s always said nice things about you.

Our kind get along, I replied. I flipped over the Queen of Hearts.

He thinks that space shouldn’t be explored. He didn’t tell me that when were dating and then he just lays it on me before the mission. Like he thinks we should leave some things untouched by humanity. Her card was the ten of clubs.

Grabbing up the cards, I said, what did I just say about him? Point proven.

Gigi looked out the ship window behind me. I could see space reflected in the pools of her eyes. The darkness was infinite. She blinked and it looked to me for a moment as if by blinking she had spread ink across her irises, blackening her eyes.

Normalizing. Huh. I have to go into the Institute tomorrow, I’ll ask them what they mean by that, I responded.

Why are you going in? Trina asked.

I’ve been getting dizzy. Nothing serious. It’s just….

Hard to be back to solidity? she finished my sentence.

Hard to be back, I agreed.

I switched off the vidscreen before she said anything else. It rang back a second later. Ignore.

I went to take a shower. The hot water would do me good. In the mirror, my reflection looked worse than I imagined—pale and puffy with sleep, hair a tangled mass around my face, and my eyes were red-rimmed. I could have passed as a ghoul in a low-budget movie.

Under the water, steam hovering around me, I thought of Kevin.

We’d gone to the Academy together, trained alongside one another, been best friends, and then we were called for the same mission. He had two older brothers, parents who made Sunday dinners. His mother called me Avy, and I always had an open invitation to come over.

She made pasta with sauce so spicy that it would sting my lips for hours. Kevin mocked me for it: the amount of water I’d chug as we ate, how then I’d always ask for seconds. Pequins, she told me once, that’s the secret. She showed me the tiny dried peppers, kept in a jar close to the stove, and she shook one out into the palm of my hand. The skin was papery and I absentmindedly popped it into my mouth. The heat wasn’t as intense as I imagined. It was a pleasant burn until I bit into one of the seeds and then the heat flooded across my palate. She’d laughed, delighted at my foolishness.

Later, after I told Kevin the story, he admitted to doing the same thing once, how, as a child, he’d once pushed a chair up to the counter and then gone through all of his mother’s spices. After he’d climbed up there, he tried each one: fenugreek he spit out, cinnamon he took two sprinkles of, fennel he thought smelled like licorice, and then the peppers he popped straight into his mouth. I thought I was going to die. I ran to Mom, tears streaming down my face, and begged her to forgive me and save me.

What did she do? I asked. We were laying in his backyard, staring up at the night sky. The stars shimmered and shook above us.

She laughed and had me drink some milk. I think she was glad I didn’t go for the sugar and instead went for spices, you know?

A shooting star arced across the blue. We both went silent, watching its glow.

Did you make a wish? I asked, after the light was gone.

He nodded but never said what it was.

Waiting at the Institute, I stared at a NewsScreen on the wall. Stories from the day flashed by in blips: stock rises for Monroe Labs, storms cause blackouts across New York, memorial to open for the Goldilocks Eight. I looked away from the news.

Ava? A woman, in white lab coat, had come out to fetch me. I got up, following her through labyrinthine halls to Doctor Parva’s office. Parva was behind his desk, studying something on a tablet. He nodded up at me, then turned to the woman, Gerta, you can go. Thank you.

She nodded, curtly, and left. I took a seat across from Parva.

How are you doing, Ava?

I’m here. So, some issues, obviously.

He nodded. How long has the wooziness been going on?

Off and on since we got back. The truth was it had been happening longer than that. It had started on the return trip. Things seemed further away or closer in the ship than they actually were. I’d reach for something and miss it by inches. If I stared out into space too long, I’d feel a blankness in my head, like my memories had drained out and a numbness spread up from my feet to replace them. Sometimes, I’d forget that I had limbs. They’d just be empty spaces. The worst was a morning when I couldn’t stand up to climb out of my bed. Your feet are there, I kept telling myself. They’re there. Move your foot, just move your foot, then you’ll know. I willed even a toe to move. My body refused. Right when I was about to panic, to scream for help, Kevin walked in. He watched me for a split second, a frown curving across his lips, and then he reached down and pulled me to my feet. Righted, I’d been suddenly returned to ability, to life. I didn’t ask him how he’d known what to do.

Any other symptoms?

Some nausea. And I’ve been extra tired, I guess.

Parva nodded. And why didn’t you report this sooner?

I shrugged. I thought it was just re-conditioning.

He nodded, looking back at his tablet, he slid a finger across the screen and brought up what were probably my charts. Blood works normal. Everything looks normal, honestly. So I’m going to ask something, Ava, and you’re going to answer me with the absolute truth, yes?

I nodded. My heart rate quickened.

You had the symptoms during the mission, didn’t you? Parva’s gaze was focused on me so steadily that I knew what a mouse felt like in the split-second before a hawk’s talons encased it.

Yes, sir. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it sooner. I wanted to look anywhere but his face. My eyes landed on the photo on his desk of a smiling family, though Doctor Parva wasn’t pictured in it.

Parva sighed. None of you mentioned it. At least you thought to come in and get checked.

What? I asked. His words filtered through my mind, spinning into place, until the meaning might become clear, a Rubik’s Cube of answers.

You were on a mission, yes? A routine rotation before which you all agreed to be tested beforehand and afterwards. You also agreed to any and all added stimuli during the experience. Do you remember this agreement?

I nodded. Outside the window, behind Parva, the sky was gray. Clouds had overtaken the sun, but no rain was supposed to fall.

We need to always understand what will happen under any circumstances. That’s what we need. It’s the only way we’ll ever really achieve any kind of perfection, of true ability.

Everyone felt like I did? I wasn’t even sure that was really my question.

Parva sighed. I’m not sure. Trina claims she is, and was, fine. Alex admitted to having tinnitus during the voyage. Gina, well…Now that she’s normalizing, we’ve been able to ask her things and get actual answers. The thing is, she refuses to tell us what she felt, why she had her breakdown. She says she wants to see you all.

So you don’t know why she did it? Whether whatever…stimuli…did it? Made her do it? My voice kept still, didn’t shake like I thought it would.

There were things she managed not to tell us, Ava. Some episodes when she was a child that she kept hidden. We only found them out once she got back. Her parents have been cooperative. Parva’s voice was clipped, calm. He sounded like a TV news anchor reading aloud a sad story that he didn’t really care about.

Kevin’s face. The blood. Gigi shaking a wrench in one hand. I clenched my eyes shut, forced the images down. Why does she want to see us?

Parva took a long time to answer. He studied the photo on his desk, the smiling family beaming up at him. Maybe she wants forgiveness.

Back on the mission, Alex was bored, and letting us all know it. He tossed a ball up and down. It thwacked against the palm of his hand every time he caught it. He was a hard man to get to know, or to like. Handsome, with a deep voice, and a permanent frown etched on his face. He was a couple years older than Kevin and I, but he made it seem like decades stretched between us.

I am so tired of this mission, he said. Possibly to me as he was turned slightly in my direction, though more likely he was addressing the air.

How can you be sick of being in outer space? Out-er. Space, Trina said. She had turned to study him.

We’re not doing anything. I became an astronaut to actually do things. I should’ve been on the Goldilocks 8 team.

Then you’d be dead, Kevin muttered.

Or the mission would have been a success, Alex responded. He caught the ball a last time and threw it at Gigi. It bounced off of her leg. She didn’t seem to notice. Gina? Gina!

She turned, frowning, to look at Alex. What? Her voice was almost monotonic.

I just hit you with a ball. Alex’s usual cool seemed startled slightly.

Oh, she responded. I was looking out. Space is so…

We all waited for her to finish the sentence. Silence ticking by. Finally, Trina asked, so what?

Gigi shrugged. I can’t—just—I can’t feel it. Gigi shook her head, as if clearing the thought away, and her faraway look with it. Sorry, why did you throw a ball at me, Alex?

That was the last time we would all be alive in the same ship room together.

At Kevin’s funeral, his mother brought me to sit with the family, between Kevin’s older brothers. They kept his casket closed. I was glad. I didn’t want to look down at his face and know the exact spot where the coroner covered up his cracked skull, his broken nose, his lips torn apart.

A woman played a song on the violin. It was a tune I didn’t know: low and slow and sad. To keep from crying, I focused on my breathing. Kevin’s mother’s shoulders shook, each of her breaths was a ragged gasp. I tried to think of peppers and of shooting stars. But stars led me to space, to waking in the dark and hearing Kevin’s yell.

Gigi! Stop, stop! And then the sound of something heavy hitting something hard. A thud of his body falling to the ground. Then more hits. I could have gotten there faster, but for a second, I couldn’t remember that I was alive. In bed, I couldn’t feel any part of my body. It was just like I was a thought stuck in