Lifespan of Starlight (10 page)

A pause as she blinks two or three times. ‘I guess so.’ She seems dazed.

‘I’ll catch the train home before it gets late.’

‘Yes.’ Only now does she lift out of her thoughts, placing a hand on my shoulder.
‘Watch the weather, okay? Call a taxi if the storm picks up.’

‘Yeah.’

Her eyes begin to soften and I spin the other way, her sadness even worse than silence.
Numbly, I make my way over to the next platform. School wouldn’t have finished yet
but I send a message anyway.
Can I come over?

The reply comes back two minutes after finish time:
Sure
.

Mason’s still in uniform when he opens the side door, navy tie tucked into a thick
blazer. For a moment I’m unable to speak. I’m not even sure why I’m here. I can’t
tell him what just happened, not the whole story. I can’t say how I really feel.

‘Hey.’ He steps back to let me in.

A gust of wind bursts up, bringing dust and leaves inside with me. Mason swipes the
door shut. ‘Crazy day.’

‘You can say that again.’ I let myself sink to the edge of the couch, my body suddenly
heavy.

‘How’d it go?’

I manage a shrug. ‘Not great. They didn’t like my plans to work in food technology.’

‘You should take the computing stream. You can pretty much work in any industry from
there.’

‘Yeah.’ A sigh. ‘If I get in.’

‘Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.’

He seems so sure. And it’s only now that I realise how close to the fire I’ve been
playing. Until the interview I didn’t recognise how much being illegal is part of
who I am. The way I think, the words I say. I’ve been living this life for so long
that I don’t know how to think like a citizen. I thought I could fool everyone, but
maybe I’ve been fooling myself.

‘Listen, I’ve been thinking –’

Mason sits on the armrest across from me, hand resting on one knee.

‘– maybe I should stop coming round.’

‘What?’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just … I really have no idea how it works.

I wish I could help you, but I don’t think I –’

‘No.’

‘But maybe I’m making it worse.’

‘No,’ he says again, a shake of his head. ‘Hang on.’ Mason slips off the armrest
to kneel beside the couch, one elbow on the seat and the other on the coffee table.
‘Look, stop coming if you want, but don’t do it because I can’t time jump.’

My head shakes, a sad smile. The fact is that the longer I hang out with Mason, the
closer I come to letting the truth slip out.

‘I know why I can’t do it, and it’s nothing to do with you.’ He inhales and turns
to tap one finger on the coffee table. ‘I’m scared. That’s the reason. Not you.’

I know. I knew that already. But still I don’t know how I can help.

‘Maybe it’s just one of those things,’ I say after a while. ‘Until you do it for
the first time, it’s always beyond your safety zone. Always the unknown.’

‘I’ve come close,’ Mason says. ‘But each time I feel it pulling me in, I panic …’

‘It’s okay. Maybe one day, when you’re ready, it’ll just … happen.’

He shrugs, and moves around to sit on the floor, resting a shoulder against the couch.
I flop backwards on the doona and sigh, but with relief this time.

‘What if you could do it?’ I ask. ‘Like, imagine you already knew how. How far would
you go?’

He thinks for a bit. ‘Only a few seconds at first.’ I’m watching him side-on so I
only see one cheek lift as he smiles. ‘But once I managed that, then it would mean
…’ He raises an arm and sweeps the room with it, as if to say
everything
.

I smile back.

‘Will you stay with me, just one last time?’

‘Sure.’

We settle into our usual places. A gust of wind makes a branch scrape against the
outside wall, but it can’t touch us in here. The weather outside might be going crazy,
but in here we’re safe.

I breathe out and close my eyes first, maybe as a way to reassure him that I won’t
sit here and watch. A slow exhale like a tyre losing air. I accept the peace that
comes from sharing a space with someone in silence.

I let myself sink, allowing thoughts to come and then letting them go, drifting into
a place where each second seems to tick past slower than the first. I’ve been resting
inside my mind for a while, when a memory fragment hits me – the Minister for Resources
and Rationing crossing his arms – and the whole day comes back with a rush. I am
sucked out of the peace in an instant.

It helped a little, though. I open my eyes, glad to have escaped life for a while.

Mason’s across from me, his head dropped at an angle, his eyes still closed. I check
his chest because I’ve noticed that the rate that he’s breathing seems to match how
deeply he’s gone in. At first it shows no movement at all, but soon his chest expands
and sinks again with a breathy sort of rumbling noise.

A snore, I realise. He’s asleep.

The next one grows louder, and with it comes a sudden inhale as Mason’s eyes open.
‘Wha?’ He looks around, and rubs his cheek. ‘What was that?’

I hold back a giggle, not very well. ‘You umm …’ The laugh tries to push out again,
so I mush my lips together. ‘You fell asleep.’

He barely reacts, other than becoming a little pinker. For some reason that makes
me giggle again, and this time even Mason doesn’t seem able to hold back. A couple
of shy snorts from him set me off. Laughter bubbles up from his stomach and into
his chest until it escapes.

‘Sorry,’ Mason says once the laughter dies. ‘Sorry about that.’

‘No worries.’ I’m expecting that to be the end, but for some reason he breathes out
and shuts his eyes again. His shoulders relax, fingers softening once more.

A few seconds later, there’s a faint rush of air and his clothes fall to the floor.

He’s gone.

I
DON’T BREATHE AS
the seconds tick past. My brain won’t compute what it’s seeing. Mason’s not here.

Moments later, the empty space fills with his form and a sob rises in my throat.
He’s here again, except naked, sitting cross-legged on top of his clothes.

I’m stunned, speechless. He was gone, and now he’s back. My eyes trace the shape
of each muscle and take in the smooth shade of his skin. He’s even slimmer than I
imagined. His arms and chest are toned and lithe.

I glance away, my cheeks and neck warming at the intimacy of seeing him like this.
But then my eyes move back again. He doesn’t seem to have noticed his nakedness.
His head is tilted back, lips parted slightly.

I’ve seen that expression before …

It’s only as his lips kink up at the corners that it hits me. It’s the exact same
expression I saw on the woman after I’d just discovered her: complete and utter bliss.

A sucking gasp is the first sound that comes from Mason, like a skindiver who’s just
broken through the water’s surface.

‘Oh my holy cripes! That was
freaking amazing.
’ As he speaks, his eyes open and he
looks down to take in his bare skin. He looks over at me, beaming. ‘No wonder you
didn’t want to jump in front of us.’

With a push onto hands and knees, he crawls forwards. One hand reaches around to
cup my neck. The next thing I know, Mason is leaning closer, closer and pressing
his lips against mine.

My eyes blink and I let them shut, feeling the flush of heat from his skin. He pushes
forwards as if thirsty for more. His lips taste of butter and salt.

Mason pulls away, still grinning, and it’s only when he sees my surprise that the
spell is broken.

‘Wow. Sorry.’ His hand pulls away.

‘No, no, it’s okay –’

‘I’ve never kissed anyone like that before. It’s just … you know how amazing this
feels.’

‘It’s okay,’ I try again, but it barely comes out a whisper.

His face softens and he brushes the backs of his fingers against my cheek.

‘It’s just … I mean, this changes
everything
.’ By now Mason’s standing, picking up
his jeans and laughing when he sees that the buttons are fixed in their holes. ‘This
proves that it’s a natural process, something we can learn to do.’ He loosens the
buttons and steps into the legs before pulling them up.

They’re barely over his hips when he begins pacing, too full of everything to stay
still. Words stream out of him, fragmented and barely formed, as if a microphone
has been plugged into the centre of his brain:

‘It must be lying dormant in every human being. Waiting …

‘Now that I know how it feels …

‘… just have to escape the limits of our minds. It’s our fixed ideas that hold us
back.’

Mason’s pacing has only just begun to slow when I receive a message from Mum:
Taxi
on the way
. It’s not too late for me to catch the train home, but the storm has just
broken and rain on the roof is drowning the other sounds.

A taxi pings its arrival a few minutes later, and Mason walks me to the door. He
cups my head in his hands as if he’s going to kiss me again but he just grins. It’s
sort of contagious, so I grin back.

‘This is so freaking amazing, Scout,’ he calls over the noise of the rain. ‘Thank
you so, so much.’ He reaches around to hold me in a hug before pulling back. ‘Tomorrow.
Yes?’

‘Yes,’ I say, though I’m not sure anymore what tomorrow even means.

I’m glad for the chance to sit in the taxi, tucked away while the lights streak past
in the rain. Safe in the dark, I lift a hand to my mouth and allow myself a secret
smile.

Soon I hear a clunk as the taxi drops into deceleration and turns off the highroad
into the streets near our house. We’re travelling slowly enough to see out properly
now, and as we
reach the end of my street we pass Kessa and her twin sister racing
towards their front porch, backpacks raised as shelter.

How very strange. The whole world has burst open, become something entirely new,
and they have no idea.

I float through the front door and into our room, confused and happy and scared all
at once. It’s as if I’ve just heard the high notes of a song I’m going to love for
the rest of my life.

Mum’s in one of the armchairs, resting her head in a hand, her face flickering cool
blue from the comscreen. She turns to me slowly and yawns before flicking it off.
‘Have you eaten?’

‘No.’ I’m still floating. No need to sit. ‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Sure?’

‘Yes.’ No need to eat.

Mum stands, and stretches her chest and arms. ‘All okay?’ She smiles when I nod,
and stretches again. ‘Listen, Scout? You did the right thing, all right? There’s
no shame in telling them what they want to hear.’

It takes me a while to return to the world I left only hours ago. Before …

Mum’s still going. ‘Once you have a place in the school, you’ll be able to make your
own choices. I thought you handled it well. Sometimes you have to say what they want
to hear.’

‘But I …’ Only now do I finally catch up. ‘I messed up. I thought you were upset.’

‘Nooo.’ Mum slips an arm around my shoulders and squeezes. ‘Definitely not upset.
Not with you, at least.’ She lets go and sinks into the armchair again. ‘They think
they have the right
to control everything, but you can’t treat people like that.
It doesn’t work.’

She’s thinking of Dad, I’m pretty sure. Once he stopped being useful, they sent him
away.

‘I was annoyed by the way that man shouted you down,’ Mum finishes.

I hook a knee over an arm of the other chair and sit sideways so that I’m facing
Mum. ‘You think I still have a chance?’

A pause. ‘Yes. I do.’

Then we go quiet, and I imagine that we’re thinking about the same things. How getting
into school any other way is impossible for me. How the first step in applying for
jobs is your academic record. I’ve tried already to forge a transfer from another
school, as well as copy and change an academic record, but those things are encrypted
and password-protected tighter than the national security secrets, especially now
that knowledge is currency.

‘And don’t forget second round offers,’ Mum says after a bit.

I don’t want to keep talking about it, so I just say,‘Yeah.’

Mum sinks into a longer yawn. She gets tired earlier and earlier these days. ‘Ready
for bed?’

A single shake of my head. ‘Might stay up a bit. I’ll be quiet.’

‘Don’t think I’ll hear a thing, I’m bushed.’ Mum kisses me on the forehead before
slipping out for the communal bathroom. I watch the latest episode of Top 40 while
she’s getting ready for bed and then switch it off when she calls goodnight.

I don’t even bother with a lamp, just sit here in the dim light
reaching through
the cracks in the blind from next door, listening as her breathing softens and slows.
She’s asleep in minutes.

I’m alone with my thoughts again. I slip off the armchair and onto the floor, aware
of the solid feel of the floorboards beneath me. Legs crossed, hands resting on knees.
A steady exhale. Maybe I’ll never understand the science of it, but seeing Mason
skip ahead those few seconds has brought the truth of it into focus. It’s as if we’ve
discovered some strange sea-creature that’s been living in the deepest caves of the
ocean, or stumbled across a universal law that explains the expanding of the planets.