We're Here by Naomi Kanakia

Author:Naomi Kanakia
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781952086755
Publisher: Neon Hemlock Press

XII. A CONVERSATION: THE LAST OF ITS SPECIES

SHAYLA: Are you doing all right?

MO: I don’t know.

SHAYLA: Wow. You actually answered, instead of hanging up. Is it my birthday?

MO: No, it’s...I’m running out of time. I’m going to die.

SHAYLA: (a noise, almost inaudible, like the sound of lungs drawing in air)

MO: Are you going to tell me I could just choose not to?

SHAYLA: I don’t need to tell you.

MO: Hey! I was all ready to argue with you. I don’t know what to say now. I guess just that it hasn’t always felt like a choice.

SHAYLA: And now?

MO: Now. Well. It’s not that I’m afraid of dying. Death is what I’ve always been heading towards. But everything else...Shayla, what if I miscalculated? I’ve been rereading my old work this week, and I can’t remember anymore why I wrote some of it.

One thing in particular. At the time, I was just putting words to a truth, but it was one person’s story and I turned it into the story of a whole world. When people latched onto the concretist movement, I did the same thing.

SHAYLA: Not necessarily. What if they recognized their stories in yours?

MO: But what if my story was only my own because I couldn’t listen to you? You and Miles and everyone I care about, you all decided to digitize, and I haven’t been able to understand why, but what if that’s my problem? I let some kind of ideological certainty get in the way of listening, and meanwhile you’ve been moving forward, and I’ve been slowing down. What if that ruined the time we could’ve had?

SHAYLA (hoarsely): Mo…

MO: Sorry, I know we just got done crying.

SHAYLA: So much for that.

MO: I need a tissue.

SHAYLA: I don’t.

MO: Shut up.

MO: Okay, I’m back.

MO: It’s true what they say about seeing everything clearly from your deathbed.

SHAYLA: You’re not on your deathbed.

MO: Whatever, my death-porch. Shayla, I made this choice when I was eighteen. When you left for college. I decided to dedicate myself to my art, and then when digitization came around, it felt like giving up on everything I’ve devoted my life to. So I convinced myself that there’s something intrinsic in the concrete that’s absolutely irreplaceable. And that is true, but…

SHAYLA: But?

MO: But what if it’s a truth that doesn’t actually matter? I’ve spent the last two decades doing everything I could to hold onto that idea, but now that’s all I’m doing. There’s no space for anything else. And that’s even with an incredible amount of luck, to be able to stay in the concrete.

SHAYLA: A lot of us didn’t have your luck.

MO: And I’ve blamed you for it. I know that’s wrong. But I still can’t let go of…

SHAYLA: What?

MO: Strawberries.

SHAYLA: Right.

MO: I’m sorry. You have every right to be angry at me.

SHAYLA: I’m not angry, per se. I just wonder if you regret it.

MO: Why? Do you?

SHAYLA: Never. I have a life in the digital that I could never have had in the concrete. The only thing I regret is leaving you behind.

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