Empty Streets (4 page)

He'd been her only friend for a long, long time. He was thoughtful, quiet and easy to get along with. Her plainness, awkwardness, and angular face all stood in stark contrast to him. But she didn't feel jealous. She loved him.

"Ez, we never hang out anymore. Come watch TV with me?" She gestured towards the couch. He followed her, letting out a loud yawn before settling into the worn cushions.

Eri turned the TV up loudly. She turned to Ezra.

"I want to go outside again." She fought the urge to cover her mouth, swallow back her own words.

Ezra shook his head, looking nervous. "Eri, seriously, you will graduate soon and then you can go out whenever you want. You can really get in trouble."

"Yeah, but grown-ups just go to work on the shuttles. I want to go outside to explore."

"You could get hurt, or sick," Ezra whispered. The urgency of his words reversed his age and in an instant he looked like the child Eri remembered most vividly.

Eri smiled at him. "Oh, Ez, don't be dramatic. Besides, I feel like I am sick all the time when I'm in here. Outside though…feels real. I feel like if I keep living within the confines of this house and the Sims world, I will die of boredom. Or have a mental breakdown. I hate that everything I see at school isn't real. I feel sick just logging on. But when I went outside…it felt different." Her wide eyes shined, excitement and adrenaline replacing her fear.

He sighed and smiled a lazy smile. "You must have inherited the crazy genes. You can't get out anyway. You know they're gonna change the code." He yawned again, dismissing her with his indifference.

"Have you been staying on the Sims at night?" Eri asked quietly.

Ezra nodded. "Yeah and it's awesome. I've been maxing out my interpersonal hours lately and just got reset yesterday."

Eri gawked at him. She had never even come close to maxing out her interpersonal hours. "What have you been doing?"

Ezra looked at her sheepishly under his long eyelashes. "Just hanging out."

Eri grimaced. This meant one of two things. He had either illegally downloaded software that simulated drug use; it wasn't that hard to download and mostly went unchecked. Or he had started dating.

Dating in the Sims world was awkward, so Eri avoided it. There was a time when she was fifteen that she had dated for a couple of months, but it had left her feeling mentally exhausted and depressed. Going out with groups was hard to navigate and felt phony to her. Going out with one person meant the obligatory simulated sexual encounter, which she found to be bland and distasteful. She wondered if real sex was as boring. Based on the reaction from the boys she had dated, she was the only one that found simulated sex tedious and dull.

She and Ezra watched the People's News before a movie came on they had seen before. Her mother clanged dishes in the kitchen.

"Remember when we saw this the first time and thought we could build a pool in the house, too? And then we realized after we put all the tables upside down that we didn't have any water." Ezra laughed.

Eri laughed, too. They had been so little at the time. They were constantly trying to build stuff out of the limited furniture they had. Finally, their mother had gotten irritated enough that she had purchased the extra play software that came with the elementary Sims program. They were able to log on and play together in a park or in a pool. They were lucky enough that each of their parents had been only children and each had inherited a Sims machine.

"We were idiots." Eri smiled. The memories of them playing together in real life were different from the memories she had of them in the Sims machine. The memories from the Sims machines were blurry and shallow, unlike the strong, real memories she had, each vivid with sharp colors and smells and sounds.

"Ez…do you ever feel like…things in the Sims machines are different than they really are?" Eri asked her question carefully. She didn't want to lead him into an answer, and he often answered the question he thought you were asking, not the real question.

"Um…yes. They are better. The sky is always blue, the flowers always smell good, the girls are all pretty, and I have spectacular biceps." He held up his thin arm, in the midst of puberty, and she laughed at him.

"Okay, better. It is better." She tried to sound like she agreed with him. He knew she was lying.

"Why?"

Eri sighed. "I feel like when I am in the Sims, I am constantly aware it's simulated. I can't lose myself in it like I used to. It's like it starts to pixelate periodically and fragment a little. Am I going crazy?" She looked at him, an honest vulnerability sweeping across her face.

Ezra burst out laughing. Eri indignantly punched him in his arm. "I'm serious!"

"I know; ouch, don't hit me! Jeez you are strong for being so little. Eri, you are aging out. Didn't you know? The software is developed for young brains. You take the test soon; you'll be done. Who cares if it looks funny?"

She shook her head at his logical answer. "No, Ez, I feel like…like I was robbed of making real memories." She whispered, her words evaporating as the reality of what she said hit her.

Ezra looked at her, his smile fading. He nodded. "I know what you mean."

He reached out and grabbed her hand, holding it tightly in his small, soft hand, one that would grow and mature and become the hand of a man. But, now, it was still the hand of a boy.

"Kids! Dinner!" Eri's mom yelled from the kitchen, her voice a mixture of irritation and exhaustion.

At the dining room table, food sat in neat piles on white plastic plates. They ate aroma-less, taste-less food in silence. They didn't speak of the simulators again.

Rules

After ten minutes of going through the motions, Eri wiped her hands and asked to be excused.

Her father cleared his throat. "Eri," he said, taking a breath. "What you did today was dangerous. We can't protect you when you leave this house. We have been guaranteed delivery of our food and you do not need to worry about it."

She nodded, avoiding his eyes. She was certain he would perceive her determination to go outside again.

"Not only is it dangerous, it is completely unnecessary," her mother contributed. "We have everything we need here, and you can go outside through the Sims."

"Right, the Sims," her father said with a sigh. "You won't get robbed, injured, sunburned, or inhale toxic fumes through the Sims." He stared at her hard, and Eri had to bite the inside of her cheek in order to not respond. She had been outside for seven minutes and hadn't coughed up toxic sludge and had no blisters on her arms or legs.

"Look, Eri, I know you are curious," her father said.

She looked up at him, meeting his dark eyes with hers. For a moment, he saw her. Eri's irritation softened.

He continued, "It is only natural. Soon, you will take the Achievement Exam and we will find out if you are to go on to college or start a job. Then you will be able to explore the outside safely, within the law. Do you understand?"

"I just…yes, I understand. I won't go outside again." The thing about lying, Eri realized, was that the more she did it, the easier it became. "Dad, when you go outside…does it seem different than it did when you went to school? Like, is the real outside different from the simulated one?" The question hung in the air, collecting static and discomfort.

Her mother began to answer, her irritation spilling over into words, but her father held up his hand, stopping her. He stared levelly at Eri, waiting so long to answer that she began to squirm. Ezra glanced at her, working to be invisible.

"We will not talk about this anymore. Outside is outside, and it is dangerous," her father said, ending the conversation.

Eri nodded, blinking to prevent her eyes from welling with tears. She pushed away her feelings, trying to replicate the numb feeling she had when she was in the Sims. Her father uncharacteristically reached over to touch her small hand, curled into a fist on the table. She stared at him, cheeks flushed, and he stared at the table.

He whispered, "Be patient, my curious child. The world will open up to you soon enough."

He stood, leaving the table abruptly. His bedroom door clicked softly behind him. Her mother stood as well, wringing her hands.

"You two," her mother said, not taking her eyes off of the bedroom door, "clean up dinner." She left them in silence.

"What. Was. That." Ezra blew out a breath, raising an eyebrow at Eri.

"No idea," Eri said, shaking her head.

Ezra yawned deeply. "You're nuts. And I need to sleep." Ezra stacked as many dishes as he could and took them to the sink. Eri followed with the rest.

As she watched Ezra trudge off to bed, worry flickered in Eri's mind. He had slept most of the day. The dark smudges under his eyes remained, hollowed caverns housing shadows.

Eri wandered into the living room, turned on the TV and nestled into the couch. She charged through the twenty-eight channels they had before determining there was nothing worth watching. She leaned against the arm of the couch, letting her eyes relax. The room grew distant and blurry. She blinked slowly, falling unexpectedly into a tunnel of sleep.

* * * *

Eri opened her eyes to the green glow of the keypad, its gaze assessing her.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, the grogginess of sleep slowly lifting. She could hear the rustle of movement in the basement and assumed Ezra was on the Sims. The house was still and solid, the air heavy and thick.

She thought about the way her dad had looked at her at dinner, the way Bodhi had raised his eyebrow at her after class, the way Ezra had squeezed her hand before dinner. She wondered if she was the only one who thought about things, who wondered if all of her world was orchestrated by a being of some sort, a god who was directing her movements like wind pushing against a leaf. She had two opposing fears: being trapped within a concrete cage and facing the unknown, with it the penalties that came with deviating from the prescribed existence.

She sat up, rubbing her face. She glanced at the clock; ten forty-seven in the evening. The beat of her heart picked up. She felt fear, but it was not enough to immobilize her.

Answers

Eri tapped on her lamp and opened her clothing trunk, a nervous energy pinching her fingertips. She dug out an old pair of tennis shoes and pulled them on, knotting the laces clumsily. She tugged on a black short-sleeved t-shirt and thin black cotton pants, quickly pulling the top half of her hair back into a rubber band.

She pulled the tapestry away from the wall, squeezing her body between the wall and the cloth. She found the window with her hands and tugged at the corner. The old, dry tape cracked, falling away, pulling the tarp with it. Opening the window and looking down, she sucked in a small breath. The ground was a dizzying distance away.

Eri swung one leg out of the window, letting out a breath of air and sucking in another. Her sweaty hands clung to the window frame as she swung her other foot out, twisting her body so she faced the building. She used her upper body to lower herself until she was dangling from the window frame. She felt along the wall with her feet until she found an old metal spike from the absent fire escape. She lowered her feet to the spikes as she felt along the wall for something to hold onto.

Distracted by the thoughts of how she was going to get back in, she lost her balance slightly and tried to brace herself against the wall. She didn't have anything to pull herself forward with. Her hands tingling, she had one last clear thought before she fell: do not fall on the porch. She pushed off hard with her right foot, hoping she might at least be able to land in the grass between her porch and the neighbor's porch.

The force of hitting the ground knocked the air out of her, and she lay still, tangled in the tall grass and gasping for breath. A black dome of a sky stared down at her. A smattering of stars and milky luminescence contoured the black canvas. The silence rang in her ears.

She sat up slowly and stared into the darkness, inhaling the sweet, humid air. The moon illuminated the concrete, each surface glowing white with reflection. She was in a valley, with grey mountains on each side dwarfing her.

She stood, leaning against the porch, blinking into the dark.

The cracked asphalt crunched under her feet as she abandoned the perimeter of her home to stand in the middle of the road, staring up at the sky. Turning towards the alleys, she walked, then jogged, and then finally ran.

The hard, hot earth absorbed the sound of her feet as the raced along the road, her muscles stretching and contracting in joy and horror. Heat radiated from her face, adrenaline pumped through her veins.

Smiling and out of breath, she ducked into an alley and hunched down next to a large metal trash bin. Elated and alive, she was in love.

In the distance were the factories, their own community within the city. Ten-foot steel fences encircled the buildings and the towers of grey stone spewed smoke into the sky. She'd asked her parents once what they did all day at the factory. They had looked at her warily and asked, "Why?" She hadn't known why she wanted to know, so she had shrugged her shoulders in response. Her father had looked emptily at the TV. Her mother had said, "We work."

"You are louder than you think," a voice whispered, startling Eri out of her thoughts.

Eri shivered, his company making her nervous.

"Bodhi? Where are you?"

He appeared in front of her, a faint outline in the dark.

"Your second time outside and you are just going to wander around? Seems like you would have a plan." He shrugged as he smiled at her.

Her relief was visible. "I don't need a plan to go outside. Sometimes you just go outside."

"Not here you don't." He turned to jog up the alley towards her road. "You coming?"

She jogged after him and as his speed increased, so did hers. He deftly maneuvered potholes and cracks, crumbling road and heaved sidewalks. She sprinted to keep up, the hot air in her lungs weighing her down.