David Bridges
io9 is proud to current fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. As soon as a month, we characteristic a narrative from LIGHTSPEED’s present challenge. This month’s choice is “The Final Lucid Day” by Dominique Dickey. Take pleasure in! (You may also hearken to the story right here).
THE LAST LUCID DAY
by Dominique Dickey
You’re asleep in goals of your father holding your head underwater, so the decision from Magnolia Assisted Dwelling goes to voicemail.
“I didn’t increase a son of mine to rely on his fingers,” your father says within the dream—as a result of ah, sure, it’s your whole worst moments rolled right into a single nightmare.
You hear the beeping of your alarm and you understand you’re dreaming, however you possibly can’t get up any greater than you possibly can pull your self freed from your father’s palms. He holds you down and tells you to rely the seconds, present him how lengthy you possibly can maintain your breath, however the one technique to make sense of the numbers is to tally them in your fingers. He pushes you down deeper. He walks away.
It all the time ends with him strolling away.
It all the time ends with you splashing within the deep finish, alone.
• • • •
Whenever you awake, sweat outlines your physique within the mattress like a policeman’s chalk drawing. Your alarm has been going off for . . . how lengthy? Too lengthy. You’re operating late for work, and in the present day already feels terrible.
You name in sick. That’s sorted. What’s subsequent? The voicemail.
The voice of the message is automated. You knew this was coming, however there was no means of figuring out when. You work that’s the aim of the service—to inform you precisely when.
Effectively, one other hour in mattress gained’t damage. You need the sensation of waking up proper, from a great dream and even from no dream in any respect. You set your alarm once more and shut your eyes however you possibly can’t get again to sleep. You catch your self eager about your father’s favourite belt—thick black leather-based, buckle scratched to hell. You’re a grown man and it nonetheless makes you’re feeling wobbly with concern.
You haul your self out of your sweat-damp mattress. You bathe. Magnolia Assisted Dwelling is an hour away in site visitors. You cease at an ATM on the way in which and get there simply earlier than eleven.
• • • •
You have been six when your mother and father referred to as it quits. Mother bought Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays. They alternated Easters, a vacation neither of them particularly cared about. Dad bought each different weekend. Each different Friday, you’d haul your in a single day bag to high school and stash it behind the receptionist’s desk. Each different Friday, your father would present up within the pickup line in his crimson sports activities automotive.
His bachelor residence was two hours out of the town. On the midway level, he’d pull off the freeway and circle on the floor streets for a bit, finally pulling into the parking zone of a mini-mart or a gasoline station. You’d stretch your legs after which he’d hand you a few tens and set you free on the aisles of junk meals. You’d eat collectively in silence.
That was if you felt closest to him. Not in his residence, a ravishing place that by no means felt like house, however within the automotive in a nondescript parking zone, surrounded by overpriced snacks, his espresso black and gritty as tar steaming within the cupholder between you.
• • • •
At Magnolia, the receptionist tells you your father is within the backyard. You choose by way of the timber and rosebushes till you discover him sitting at a wrought iron desk with a composition guide and a ballpoint pen, scribbling. There’s an extended second earlier than he seems up and sees you. You want time may cease, may offer you house to consider the that means behind the phrases he’s writing—or perhaps they’re numbers, or diagrams.
No matter it’s, it is smart to somebody smarter than you. Somebody with the specialised information required to grasp it. Lucid, your father is a genius. He’s probably the most sensible man you understand.
After which he seems at you. There’s a flash of shock on his face earlier than he pushes himself to his ft and comes shut, his arms held out as if to hug you. “It’s a Thursday, isn’t it? What have I accomplished to deserve this?”
You smile. Even now, he doesn’t know you nicely sufficient to know you’re forcing it. “I believed we’d go for a drive.”
• • • •
Your father, a theoretical mathematician famend in his subject, stood over your shoulder as you probably did your homework. You have been a baby. You have been counting in your fingers. He took off his belt and laid it on the desk. He wasn’t truly going to beat you with it, however you didn’t know that—how may you presumably know that? It could take just a few extra years of this earlier than you noticed straight to the underside of his empty threats.
He by no means hit you. The specter of violence stored you in line, and that was violent in a quiet kind of means. Each different weekend you eclipsed your self. You sat on the kitchen desk along with his belt beside you and also you let your thoughts go elsewhere. You hid in plain sight. You spoke solely when spoken to, in non-answers and with a heavy tongue. No, he by no means hit you, however typically he took you by the shoulders and shook you, as if it might convey you again.
You realized addition and subtraction by rote. You realized to swim. You realized to vanish. You realized different issues, too, that you just have been blissful to neglect.
If he had hit you with the belt, if he had made you rely the lashes, you wouldn’t have used your palms to seek out the numbers.
• • • •
You drive for an hour, alternately speaking about nothing and buzzing alongside to easy jazz classics on the radio. You pull off the freeway, circle for a bit, discover a gasoline station with an hooked up market. You give him two crisp twenty-dollar payments. Inflation, you assume. That must cowl it.
You observe him inside. He doesn’t look almost as previous as he’s, and he wears his pleasure like somewhat child. He has the money crushed in a single fist, the index finger of the opposite hand tapping his lips as he paces the aisles. The shop’s small, however he takes his decisions significantly, and also you let him.
After a couple of minutes of witnessing his indecision, you get lost to determine your individual haul. Potato chips. A bottle of ginger ale, weeping condensation. A styrofoam cup of black espresso that’s by some means burnt regardless that it’s freshly regurgitated from the machine.
You’re on the register when he slides as much as you, impatient—by some means he’s already made his picks and bought them—and asks for the automotive keys. You hand them over. You watch by way of the window as he folds himself into the passenger seat of your sensible SUV and begins to eat. The pimply attendant takes your bank card, swipes it, and palms it again.
• • • •
You turned eighteen. You stopped answering his calls and, finally, he stopped calling. A part of you felt like he was giving up on you, however the larger a part of you felt relieved. You considered him everytime you went to a gasoline station or mini-mart—on a regular basis, at first.
The reminiscences pale, as reminiscences are likely to do, and also you considered him much less and fewer.
Twenty years handed. You hardly considered him in any respect. It was peaceable. It was good. You had the quiet form of happiness that’s rattling close to inconceivable to seize in phrases. You didn’t take into consideration him, you lived your life, and also you have been blissful.
• • • •
He referred to as after your mother died. He had a brand new quantity, however so did you, and also you by no means requested how he bought yours. He needed to come back to the funeral, needed to know if it was okay with you, didn’t need to simply present up and shock you. The thoughtfulness was sudden—it was simpler to see him as the person who would do the blatantly thoughtless factor.
“Positive,” you mentioned.
“I’ll see you there,” he mentioned.
The funeral was on a scorching day. He sat within the again and left as quickly because the service was over. You barely noticed him, however he seemed simply the identical as you remembered. You questioned if he was carrying the identical belt: tarnished silver buckle, black leather-based gone limp with the years.
Two weeks after the funeral—you spent every week waffling, and one other week working up the nerve—you referred to as him. “Come over for espresso,” you mentioned. You couldn’t inform if the provide was for him or for you. You couldn’t inform what you hoped to achieve, however you had little or no to lose. Your inconceivable, wordless happiness had already shattered. What may he do to you that had not already been accomplished? What extra may he take?
He got here to your own home on a Saturday afternoon. He was a well-known stranger. He hugged you tightly and got here away crying, embarrassing you each. His reminiscence had already gone fuzzy across the edges, the previous bleeding into the current, however he nonetheless knew you. He missed you. You have been proper on time.
• • • •
You sit within the automotive and also you eat. You don’t converse—you don’t even have a look at one another—however you’re feeling near him.
Possibly that is sufficient. Possibly that is all you wanted.
• • • •
Two years after you bought your dad again—two years of awkward biweekly espresso visits, speaking round all of the belongings you needed to speak about—got here the fireplace.
He appeared to slide by way of time, complicated you with folks he used to know, forgetting how previous you have been, forgetting which tales he’d already advised you. He confirmed you proofs that made no sense, although you blamed your lack of mathematical information for this. He bought misplaced across the nook from his home, as soon as, however his neighbors walked him house and he laughed when he recounted the incident to you.
He forgot he was cooking in the course of frying an egg. He left a burner on and wandered out of the room. He was at his desk puzzling over an equation, a hand-drawn diagram that solely he may perceive, when a kitchen towel caught hearth. From there it unfold to the curtains. He would’ve been high quality if he’d fled when the smoke alarm began to beep, however he tried to place the flames out himself.
You introduced him gasoline station espresso if you visited him within the hospital. He had bandages round each his arms and he seemed like he’d aged ten years within the time it took you to reach.
“I’m not going to be cussed about this,” he mentioned. “I’m not going to try this to you—make you get a courtroom order or else make you watch me die the arduous means. I do know I shouldn’t dwell alone anymore.”
Within the silence, you questioned if he meant so that you can make him a proposal—you probably did have loads of house, in spite of everything, in your mother’s previous home. However you didn’t provide, and he didn’t ask.
“I’ll ship you a hyperlink,” he mentioned. “I already picked out a spot. Magnolia Assisted Dwelling. Forty minutes out of the town, specialised in reminiscence care. Simply . . . say you’ll come go to me.”
“I’ll come go to you,” you mentioned.
Awkward Saturday espresso had a brand new location. He wore lengthy sleeves to cowl the burn scars. He labored day and evening on theorems that you just started to see for the nonsense they have been. Time and reminiscences flowed round him like uneven water. He was adrift. He was drowning.
You couldn’t save him—you weren’t even positive for those who needed to—however you visited each week.
• • • •
“There’s this factor,” he advised you, although by then you definately’d already accomplished your individual analysis. “A service they provide. An implant. It may well inform you when your final good day—your final actually good day—will probably be. The catch is that if the affected person is aware of their time is up, then the white coats say it results in . . . unfavourable therapy outcomes. It’s a double blind, I suppose. The medical doctors don’t even know. It’s higher if they only notify the household.” He scratched his arm by way of his sleeve. You imagined the way in which his burned pores and skin went puckered and skinny. “I gave them your quantity. I hope that’s all proper.”
There he was: the person who would do the blatantly thoughtless factor, tossing you right into a duty that you just by no means needed, didn’t know the way to bear. Actuality closed over your head like chlorinated water.
“That’s high quality with me,” you mentioned.
• • • •
On the backside of his bag of chips he licks the mud off his fingers, then seems at you for a very long time. “It’s my final day, isn’t it?”
You make a concerted effort to not tense up. “What do you imply?”
“Oh, come on. My final lucid day.”
You shrug. He doesn’t know you nicely sufficient to know your tells. “I believed you didn’t join that.”
“Don’t give me that. They did all of the exams. All of the implants—even those which are nonetheless in trials. Complete.”
You shrug once more. “You positive you bear in mind your consumption that nicely?”
“Sure I bear in mind my fucking consumption—”
“Actually? As a result of typically you misremember stuff. It comes with the entire terrain.”
He doesn’t say something, however his expression is nuclear in its rage. The anger makes you’re feeling small, makes you consider his belt on the kitchen desk within the residence you by no means felt secure in.
After which the anger goes away , his face slack as he gropes within the footwell for one thing else to eat. There’s an unguarded second the place he seems damage, and he seems unhappy, and he seems very previous.
The petty satisfaction you’re feeling at having damage him is undercut solely by your individual guilt. You are feeling like a monster, such as you’re no higher than him. However what you need from him—it will probably’t be a deathbed confession. The dialog will lose its worth if he is aware of he’s out of time, if he’s solely saying the phrases as a result of it’s his final probability to take action. You want it to really feel natural. You want it to really feel actual.
You ask the query you have got all the time been afraid to ask: “Whenever you look again at my childhood, do you ever remorse something?”
“No.” He solutions so shortly he can’t have presumably considered it.
“Actually?”
“No. Nothing.”
“Wow.”
“Does that shock you?”
“I simply assume—”
“The way in which I see it, I did my greatest. I offered. And I didn’t have a dad in any respect, so it’s not like I had a blueprint in
that regard. I did my greatest.”
“However what about . . .” You’re attempting to think about a concrete instance, one which doesn’t damage an excessive amount of to speak about. “What about if you taught me to swim?”
“You realized.”
“You might have drowned me.”
“Eh,” he says.
You consider him tossing you into the water, him pinching your nostril and holding your head down so that you’d study to carry your breath, him strolling away and leaving you flailing within the deep finish. You may really feel the concern as if it’s occurring proper now. You may odor the chlorine and the sunscreen as if it’s in your pores and skin—reminiscence is unusual, that means. Humorous that you just thought you might convey up this story with out feeling that acquainted sad ache in your chest, your intestine.
This is the reason you went so a few years with out considering of him in any respect. That is what you have been avoiding. You don’t know what you need. You need him to confess he damage you. You need to hear him say that he was unsuitable. You retain pushing.
“I may have died,” you inform him.
“You didn’t. You realized to swim, didn’t you?”
“It’s not simply that. I used to be a child.”
“You turned out okay.”
“Did I?”
“You probably did,” he says, with excellent confidence, like he has no thought how unsuitable he’s.
He barely is aware of you—since you haven’t let him, as a result of there may be a lot you haven’t advised him. He doesn’t know in regards to the path of wrecked relationships, all completely your fault, which you blame in your attachment points, which you blame on him. Your mom is the one relationship you couldn’t completely destroy, and
goddammit you tried. He doesn’t know in regards to the nightmares. Telling him how he’s ruined you’d represent admitting defeat, however he can’t apologize for the ache for those who don’t present him the injuries.
You aren’t going to point out him the injuries.
He’s by no means going to apologize.
Why did you even trouble? Why did you even hope? He’s going to neglect you and he won’t ever, ever be sorry.
Time is sort and reminiscence is merciless. Sometime you’ll neglect him too.
• • • •
You have been in faculty the primary time you misplaced your father.
“My mother’s an architect,” you mentioned, when the topic of household got here up in a dialog along with your freshman 12 months roommate.
“What about your dad?”
“I don’t have a dad,” you mentioned. You didn’t even hesitate, and also you felt no guilt for the smoothness of the lie. If something, it made you proud. Have a look at me, you thought. Have a look at the life I’m creating with out him. Have a look at how good that life could possibly be.
The grief got here later, if you replayed the dialog in your slender dorm mattress—a sluggish blooming feeling behind your sternum, like blood spreading in water. You understand, now, that it was apply. You’ve already misplaced him as soon as. You know the way to lose him once more.
• • • •
It’s an hour again to Magnolia, and also you make the drive in silence. He’s not even offended, and perhaps you aren’t both. You assume you’re principally unhappy.
He sips his shitty espresso. He activates the radio. Saxophone trickles out of the audio system.
“Again to the backyard?” you ask, when you’re parked in entrance of Magnolia. The climate’s nonetheless good, if a bit breezy. If he desires to spend his final good day engaged on proofs within the solar, you gained’t stand in the way in which of that.
“Yeah.” He will get his pocket book and ballpoint pen out of the backseat the place he stashed them. He leaves his trash within the footwell: metallic wrappers, an empty styrofoam cup. You inform the receptionist you’ve returned him for the day, then stroll him again to his little desk. He strains up his pocket book alongside its edge, then turns to you.
Ready.
Effectively, what do you do?
You meet his gaze and maintain it. That is your dad. He’s your dad and he’s previous, and he’s falling aside, and he’s going to die. And then you definately’ll have a lifeless dad, who was a shithead in life and had the audacity to kick the bucket with out apologizing for any of his shitheadedness.
You miss not having a dad in any respect. You miss the years of simply denying his existence. The lie that felt increasingly more true every time you advised it. The story that you understand you possibly can by no means slip again into, now that it’s been fractured.
He won’t ever be himself once more. You hate him. You miss him already.
You hug him tightly and are available away crying, embarrassing the each of you.
In regards to the Writer
Dominique Dickey is a speculative fiction author and sport designer. Because the inventive director of Sly Robotic Video games, they’ve created Plant Lady Sport and Tomorrow on Revelation III. They contributed to the Nebula Award-winning Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and the ENNIE Award-winning Journeys By way of the Radiant Citadel. Their novella Redundancies & Potentials is forthcoming from Neon Hemlock in 2024. Their quick fiction has appeared in venues together with Fantasy Journal, Lightspeed Journal, and Nightmare Journal. They dwell within the DC space, the place they’re all the time on the hunt for his or her subsequent thought. Yow will discover their work at dominiquedickey.com.
Please go to LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the June 2024 challenge, which additionally options work by Varsha Dinesh, Andrea Kriz, Megan Chee, Dominica Phetteplace, Deborah L. Davitt, Oyedotun Damilola Muees, Shanna Germain, and extra. You may look ahead to this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should buy the entire challenge proper now in handy e book format for simply $3.99, or subscribe to the e book version right here.
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Brandon Fletcher
