Desires Unknown Game
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A girl lies on her side in a bed, looking into the night sky through a small window. She stares out at the stars that will soon become visible when the sun goes down; but for now, there is no moon or planets in view.
It’s not clear whether she’s alone, although her voice has an absent quality to it that makes her seem like a ghost or spirit rather than a person. A boy enters and stands over the bed, watching the girl.
“Do you have any idea how far we’re from home?” he asks. His voice has been edited to sound scratchy; like his voice, the sounds of his footsteps and breathing are faint as though they are coming from a distance away rather than right beside her. They may be inside, however. He may be standing next to the window; there are no doors in sight.
The girl doesn’t respond, so he asks again, more loudly. “We can’t go back; I know that much. The ship is beyond repair… but do you think your parents will just let us stay here forever? This place is almost too remote, and if the others find us here they’ll kill us for sure.”
As he speaks, he sits down on the edge of the bed. His voice is slightly distorted by some kind of machine, which might be part of his suit, or perhaps some kind of recording device. “Do you remember that game we used to play—Desires Unknown?” he says suddenly, interrupting whatever was going on in the girl’s thoughts.
The question makes her startle. She looks over at him. Her expression is uncertain: she seems surprised that he remembers, although perhaps not very surprised. But then he goes on: “You made me promise that if anything happened to either one of us, I’d return to this planet… and I never did.
Not even when you got sick. I left you behind…” The girl shifts uncomfortably as the boy sits beside her. “I don’t know why. Maybe I thought you would die—maybe I even hoped you would die. In any case, we’re stuck out here until you die or we both do… so it’s only fair that we each have a say about where we want to die, right?
There’s still time to change our minds. We can decide together, but we need to decide before we get caught.”
The girl hesitates a moment longer and then nods slightly. He leans forward and kisses her softly on the lips. A slight breeze blows through the room, stirring the curtains. It’s hard for us to tell what the room is like; there is no way to tell whether they are inside a building or not, although the sound of the wind suggests it may be coming from outdoors.
After a moment, he takes something from his pocket—a small metallic object—and sets it on the bedside table. “So… which one of us will you choose to save?” he asks.
“No,” she says firmly, pushing him away. He opens his mouth to protest but then seems to think better of it. Instead, he picks up the metallic object from the night table and tosses it into the air between them. It passes in front of the girl and lands on the floor.
The girl leans over and picks it up. It is an old-fashioned coin, made from metal—possibly brass. “Why did you give me this? Did you think I’d choose you to go back to the ship?”
“Maybe,” the boy replies. “Or maybe it’s just another game. But you won’t need that anymore. We’ll both die here.” He gets off the bed and walks toward the door. She stands up as well. The two of them head outside, the girl looking at the ground as she walks.
They have been walking on a street, which suggests they are inside the building, rather than out in the open. “We’ve only got one chance now. Your turn,” the boy says suddenly.
She looks back at him. “My turn?”
“You always start. You were supposed to tell me something, so let’s go back and do it.” The boy leads her around a corner, away from the building and off the street. There is grass on either side, with trees beyond.
They stand in a clearing where they used to play—though it wasn’t clear until this moment whether they played together or separately, and perhaps not even then. “Remember that time you told me how you wanted to die?
And how I said I’d save you no matter what?” The boy reaches out to take something from the girl’s hand, but she pulls it back. The coin falls to the ground, landing face up. It spins slowly as it goes and stops: the point is facing downward, towards the ground. For a second, neither of them says anything.
The girl starts to cry, and the boy goes to her and embraces her. They kneel down beside the coin. After a long time, he raises the coin into the air, pointing to the point. Then he drops it.
The coin falls between them, the point landing on the grass. When they pull it out again, they see a faint line, as if the coin has been stamped into the ground.
***
Kai closes his eyes and thinks about the first thing he ever saw.
It was the ship’s control panel, where the light shines in from behind him. Kai stands there, waiting for the alarm to sound and the door to open. It never does. Instead, the light turns off. He looks around and sees the alarm clock on the bedside table, which he knows by heart—it’s an old-fashioned thing with numbers on each side and one big green button.
There are a lot of other lights in the room, but these he doesn’t need: it’s just the one that matters. He hears his sister’s voice: “You’ve got to be kidding.” Kai turns to look at her and she flinches away; suddenly the light comes back on. Kai sighs in relief: it’s happened again.
He takes the metal box off the shelf, walks over to the bed, and places it on his sister’s pillow. “Good night,” he says. He puts the box down and runs out of the room. He stops on the landing and looks up at the control panel again, and then climbs down the ladder to the floor below.
He returns home and gets ready for dinner. His parents have taken their plates into the lounge. Their voices are muted, though he can make out their words now and then. “You didn’t come here today. That’s not like you.”
Kai knows his mother is trying to act like this is all normal, but he can tell something is wrong. “Are you sure you’re going to be able to do this? What if your father finds out?”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve got everything under control. You know what the last thing he said to me was when he left for the last time?” They talk a little more but Kai can’t hear it properly. “We’ll see each other again. Just wait.”
The two of them walk into the lounge together; the room has a fireplace, as Kai remembers, and a table made from glass. His parents sit down with their heads bent forward and he joins them, waiting until they ask him how he’s doing. He tells them, “I’ve been thinking a lot, and I’m going to tell you something.”
He’s never spoken so clearly before. It’s as if something is pushing him forward. “My father is coming back,” he says.
His mother starts to laugh, and his father shakes his head. “Kai, you’ve got to stop doing that. You know it’s not true.”
“It is,” he insists. “He promised—he said we’d see each other again and it will be the same place, just the same people, just the same time—” The words catch in his throat as his father takes him by the shoulders. He feels dizzy and then cold.
The boy walks over to the wall of windows at the end of the room and opens the blinds, letting the light come inside: there is snow falling outside, and thick flakes that are still wet. “He was the one who told me it would be like this,” the boy continues.
“He told me you’d find the way back and get us all out of here. If he couldn’t do it, no one could. He said you were the key.” His eyes grow wide when he notices his sister looking at him. She says nothing, though he can feel her presence, standing beside him.
The snow has begun to pile up on the window sill. Kai goes over to the table and picks up the box: it is hard and heavy in his hands, but he holds it firmly. He returns to the wall of windows. “Now I’ve got to tell you the truth,” he says. “It’s time for the first test.”
“You’re kidding.” His parents exchange glances. “Kai, where’s the control panel?”
“The door won’t open.” Kai stares out at the snow. “It’s shut. We have to get out.”
His father stands up and walks over to the console. “That’s right,” he says. “I didn’t tell you anything because I was worried about you. You might not be ready—” His voice fades away, though it isn’t clear what he is saying. “He’ll be back any day now,” his father continues. “We’ll be together then. And everything will be different.”
“He promised,” Kai says quietly, staring at the snow outside. His father turns around. “When the ship landed in our yard, he said he had to go away for a little while—but that he’d come back, and we could get back to Earth, and the two of us would make it—” He looks at his sister.
“Who said that?” the boy asks. “It wasn’t me, I know it.”
His mother laughs. “Kai, it’s all right. It’s just the weather.” He can feel their faces growing farther and farther away from him like he’s moving too fast. His father bends down to his level, but the light has changed and he can no longer see his face.
“This was your grandfather’s room, you know,” the boy hears his father say. “And now this is yours.” The voice is soft now; it sounds as if it is coming through some kind of tunnel. His father moves close enough that Kai can touch his cheek with the tip of one finger.
“He always said there was something special about you,” his father whispers, and Kai feels the warmth of his breath on his skin. “Do you know why Kai? Because we’re going to meet each other again. You’ve got it right.” He pauses a moment.
“The key is here.” His father holds out his hand and Kai puts the box in it, feeling his heart beat faster and his voice catch when it touches his fingers. He stares into his father’s face until his eyes are closed. His father is still for a long time, and then he begins to pull back.
“We’ll be together soon, and I promise you things will be different.” The boy reaches forward and grabs his father’s hand. “He made me promise that. I couldn’t tell you. We can get back together, though. But only if you keep the key.”
The boy knows he should feel something, but instead he feels nothing. “He promised,” he says quietly, over and over. “He promised.”
“Kai…” His father releases his hand, but it isn’t clear if he does it of his own accord or because someone else is forcing him away. “Come back to bed,” his mother calls out from the doorway. He looks at his parents and sees them smile, their faces twisted as if they are holding back laughter.
The boy watches them go until they are gone. His eyes wander around the room, which has grown dark. Then he goes back to the box and opens it. Inside is something that was once like the boy: a small thing, with two eyes and three arms, and then—the boy stops looking and closes the lid.
There’s nothing left to find. He stands up and walks slowly across the room and through the door. Down the steps, he walks, and through the snow; he carries the box in one hand.
***
In the morning, the snow has stopped and the streets have turned white. Kai is shivering and tired. He gets up and takes off the parka and the boots. He feels weak now as if he can hardly walk, and he wants to lie down on the floor and sleep. But it’s not time to rest yet.
His sister is asleep, her head resting on her knees. She sits with her back straight, the blanket wrapped around her, but her eyes are open and she stares at him with an expression of fear and surprise. Kai tries to reach out to her, but he’s too far away.
He knows that soon he’ll be able to touch her with his mind, but for now it doesn’t matter. He will still be here when the two of them are reunited. His hands feel numb, so he places them on the tabletop, where they tremble until the world has come back into focus and he realizes it’s almost midday.
He looks around the kitchen, wondering what to do. “I need to get warm.” He thinks he hears a sound from one of the cupboards, but then it seems to disappear. A moment later, the water in the sink begins to boil. Kai wonders if that means something, like his grandmother was trying to warn him about something, and then he remembers that she couldn’t speak.
Her voice had been trapped inside the box. It wasn’t real. And now it is gone forever.
The boy steps outside and sees that the sky is clear. The sun is shining; the snow on the ground is melting quickly. Kai listens closely, and he can hear a faint hissing sound, as though someone is walking over the snow.
He follows the noise and finds a man, dressed in black, who seems to be holding his breath. At first, Kai thinks the man is going to attack him, and he’s not sure if he’s fast enough to run, but then the man turns and goes through the front door of the house.
“That was strange,” his mother says. She is wearing an apron now, and there’s a pot of soup boiling on the stove. “What did you find?” she asks. He looks at her. She has no memory of the night before, or what happened to him, and she is confused by everything. “I’m cold,” she adds.
He nods, and his hands shake again as he places them on the table. His mother takes the box from him and opens it up. It is empty. Kai doesn’t know if it’s true, but he has the sense that his parents are about to tell him something important, but they aren’t quite ready for it yet.
They sit there together in silence, staring into the fire, and Kai is once more aware of how much he wants to be here. He tries to think of the last time he was with them, but all he can remember is sitting in the chair where his grandmother sat.
But it was like he wasn’t really there, and now that he’s in the real world, his memories of being locked in the box don’t seem quite right. As though I was already gone when he took me out. He wonders what his father is doing, and why he won’t look at him. And why did he call me a ghost? Is this because he thinks I am dead too now?
“Kai?” His mother has finished stirring the soup, and he can hear the kettle whistling. Kai stares down at the bowl, and then he blinks and looks at her again, but his father has left the room and the door is closed. He lifts the spoon and touches it to his lips.
It tastes of salt, and it reminds him of the ocean: a cold sea with blue-green waves that are just visible against the pale gray horizon. The sun sets over the water, the sky becomes a dark blue, and the waves appear to be melting away. At last, the whistle of the kettle reaches the end of its cycle, and he is alone in the kitchen again.
His mother leans back in the chair and watches him eat the soup until she feels his hands trembling again and she holds them tight. She notices how thin his arms are, how the skin is wrinkled as if he has been lying on them for too long.
“You’ve been through a lot,” she says. “I’m sorry we didn’t get to go home and see your grandmother. You could have stayed with us instead of going out to the old house.”
“It was a mistake,” Kai admits. “But you could still come here tomorrow. My father can take you to the station.”
The boy’s parents had been making plans to travel home when they heard that Kai was missing. They would have had to leave early. Perhaps the train had already arrived by the time they were ready to head out. He is certain that they must be wondering where I am now.
They probably think I drowned in the river or was eaten by wolves. Kai looks down at the soup in front of him; it reminds him of the soup that his grandmother made for him when he was sick. When she did not need his help anymore, he noticed that his mother stopped calling him her son.
Instead, she would say, “How is my little ghost today?” “Can I get you some more soup, ghost boy?” And finally, after he told her to stop using his nickname: “Just Kai.”
After this, he became less sure of himself and began to think of his mother as a stranger. She took no notice of him, and she wasn’t always nice to the rest of the family, but he continued to eat what she cooked and listen to his father read to him from one of the books in the library.
Now that he thinks about it, the food was quite good. The other kids would call him fat-bellied because he was a bit chubby, but his mother called him “my little butterball.”
Kai goes into his room and pulls the blanket over the bed to hide the open space under the bed. He closes the door and stands there for a moment before he climbs onto the bed, and lies down, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the old house.
Is it true that we will burn up inside? If so, maybe I should go back outside, and he imagines throwing open the windows. But if the wind blows hard, it’s like all the air has been sucked away, and everything seems to be moving, and he begins to feel dizzy. He takes off his boots, then sits up on his knees and stretches out his arms. His muscles are very tired.
He opens the window just a crack, and then stands and stares out. The stars have come out, and he feels an unfamiliar sensation rising through his skin: a sort of prickling as if he is about to be pulled apart. He gets to his feet again and walks over to the window, peering out to where he had climbed up onto the roof, and now there is nothing there.
He remembers the time he and his friends went to the quarry to swim, and he wondered how they could stand up in the water, but the boys told him that it was because he wasn’t good enough, and the water would take him if he did not stop being afraid.
He has never seen the water; his father won’t let him. The wind ruffles his hair, and he shivers. Then he hears the whistle of the train coming up the track, and he realizes he does not hear it approaching from the south. The train must be going north, which means he will not be able to ride it, and Kai starts to cry.
“You can stay with us,” his mother says, and she wipes away his tears. She puts her arm around him and leads him back to the kitchen where they sit down together at the table. They don’t talk, and he keeps his eyes on his bowl for a long time before he decides to look up and meet his mother’s gaze. “I’m sorry I’m so sad.”
His mother nods. She gives him a cookie and tells him to go upstairs and rest, that his father will be home soon and he can ask him anything he wants. He goes upstairs. His father is already sitting at the desk, looking out of the window. He asks his son how he felt after eating lunch, and his voice sounds like someone else’s. “Are you okay?”
Kai lies on his bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about what his father had said: that he was afraid when he saw all those people burning up in the river. It seems that his father’s voice is gone forever. But he will never know what happened. All he knows is that one day, there had been something warm and soft and beautiful, and now there is only a hole where it used to be.
The train arrives shortly after dark, and Kai makes his way down to the station to find an empty boxcar. The other men are all waiting by the tracks, and some of them greet him, but no one seems to notice that he has changed.
He takes a seat with them and then waits for the conductor to board the train and check their tickets. When he turns around, Kai sees his own face in the man’s, and is startled by its resemblance to the old man’s; he has not seen his father in a very long time, so it is strange to see another person looking like him.
“Do I look familiar?” he asks the man, and the conductor laughs. “Yes, my friend,” he says. “You remind me of my granddad.” They wait together for the train to depart. In the darkness, the black smoke from the engine looks like a river, and the wind whistles through it. The old man watches Kai with blank eyes and then sits back against the wall. “It’s a strange world, isn’t it?” he asks.
Kai thinks he hears a crackling sound behind him, but when he turns around, nothing is there. “Yes, it is.”
When the train begins to move, he is frightened. He gets off the train as soon as it stops at the depot. Kai follows his father back to the house, but it is strange being here. The other men are there: they have found something that he does not understand.
He goes into his room and stares up at the ceiling, thinking about the time he saw all those people floating away in the river. “I will get them,” his father had said. And he will.
The End