The Ones Who Never Broke a Bone

You wake in a Walmart parking lot.

Position: fetal. The asphalt still radiates yesterday's Arizona. A Subway wrapper adheres to your left cheek. Sweet onion teriyaki.

The security lights pulse. Irregular. Like something cardiac.

Above: stars flicker in patterns. Binary or Morse or the thing children whisper to stuffed animals after the accident.

Your Samsung lights up. No bars. No time. Just an app you didn't download. White bone against black. The name: "Remember?"

You tap.

The parking lot holds its breath.

They found you through your medical records. Thirty-four years. Zero fractures.

The man wears tinfoil over a Nickelback tour shirt, Vancouver 2003. Crocs with Nike athletic socks. His teeth: perfect cubes. When he speaks, sound arrives from multiple coordinates.

"Gene Ray." His handshake feels like channel static. "Time Cube Division."

A woman in grey records something on an iPad wrapped in Lisa Frank unicorns. Her fingernails: filed to points. Natural weapons.

"The unbroken are anomalies." Gene's cube teeth click. "You bend where others snap. Reality can't find the angle to split you."

The woman rotates her screen. Your skeleton glows. Museum quality. Pristine.

"Welcome to Mars."

Aisle seven. 3:47 AM. Gene tears open a family-size Frosted Flakes.

Inside: depth without bottom. Rust smell. Burning plastic.

"Mars. 1979. Project Pegasus." Each word drops like a coin into dark water. "The overflow had to go somewhere."

"Overflow?"

"Everyone who didn't fit the new timeline."

The vertigo hits. Gene pushes.

Thud.

Red dirt. Two suns. Different sizes, like mismatched contact lenses. The air: pennies and AvGas.

A Walmart squats against the horizon. Familiar logo. Familiar dimensions. Different inventory.

The meat department sells faces. Michael Jackson, shrink-wrapped, $49.99. Three Avril Lavignes, past expiration. Paul McCartney, frozen since 1966.

"You need cover." The woman appears. Still taking notes.

She hands you grey polyester. The patch: BIRD DRONE TECHNICIAN - LEVEL 2.

"The moon's actually CHARLEMAGNE-47. Surveillance platform. Pigeon-shaped. It cries when it registers violence."

Splat.

Something wet hits your shoulder. Above: a camera shaped like a dove, LED tears streaming.

"It cries for everyone," Gene says.

The break room. No windows. Fluorescents hum at the frequency of tinnitus.

A poster: REMEMBER - AUSTRALIA NEVER EXISTED. Someone's drawn a cock where Tasmania should be.

Gene spreads blueprints across a card table. Cross-sections of things that look like mountains.

"Mile-high trees. Before the Great Logging." His finger traces the stumps. "We cut God's lungs. Replaced them with mattress stores."

You wait.

"Nobody buys mattresses. Perfect cover. Plus." Click of cube teeth. "Memory foam absorbs everything."

The woman enters dragging something. Hollister shirt. Smooth skin where the face should be.

"Clone expired."

She opens what looks like a supply closet. Inside: hundreds. Stacked. Different brands. All faceless.

"The originals are under Denver International." Gene shows you his Nokia. Tunnel footage. Glass pods. Beautiful bodies. Tubes running from temples to machines.

"Adrenochrome," the woman says. "Or what we call product."

Elevator. Muzak "Smells Like Teen Spirit." Three levels down. The doors open.

Temperature: walk-in freezer.

The CERN Reboot Room. A black cube spins at the center. Each surface: different timeline. In one, you're seven. Jungle gym. Compound fracture. In another: sixteen. Windshield. Femur.

"All the timelines where you broke," Gene says. "We deleted them."

Something approaches. Lab coat. It walks with the sound wet leather makes. Its face: almost human until the sideways blink.

"Sign."

The contract: one line. I agree to remain intact.

You sign.

The ink burns through paper, through clipboard, through palm, traveling up your arm, across your chest, settling in your right femur.

"Congratulations." The thing's voice: a TED talk in reverse. "You're Maintenance Division property now."

Elevator. "Wonderwall" now. The woman hands you a mop. The bucket: something that isn't water. It moves. Forms words: FORGET. FORGET. FORGET.

"Timeline Storage. 2012 overflow."

Behind the door: filing cabinets. Ceiling-high. Each drawer labeled. Berenstein. Mandela. Harambe.

"The gorilla triggered the shift." She opens a drawer. Thousands of VHS tapes. Different spellings. Berenstein. Berenstain. One just reads: BEARS WHO EAT SOULS.

"Clean it up. Make it coherent."

You dip the mop. The not-water whispers.

You mop.

Six months. Six minutes. Time moves differently when you're sanitizing it.

The routine: mop timeline spills. Dispose expired clones. Feed pigeons (input: dreams, output: surveillance footage). Check the cube for cracks. Report pixelating celebrities.

Sleep: unnecessary for the unbroken.

Sometimes the security monitors show the old world. Your apartment. Dust accumulating. Your job. Someone who looks like you but fractures easier. Your mother. Calling a phone that no longer exists in her timeline.

Gene: "Normal."

The woman: "It gets easier."

The reptile measures your bones weekly. Still perfect.

"You're the immune system," it says, scales against your radius. "Reality's white blood cells."

"What happens if I break?"

Sideways blink. "You don't."

Today. Tonight. Last year. Celebrity cold storage. Mopping.

Movement behind frost.

Not a clone. Not a replacement. Him. Conscious. Watching.

"I know you." Voice like 1984. "You're the one who bends."

You know this face. Everyone knows this face. Dead since—but here. Real.

"Help."

Footsteps. Click click of cube teeth.

"Problem?" Gene's multi-directional voice.

Gene. The reptile. The woman. A pigeon that might be God.

The mop trembles. The not-water: CHOOSE. CHOOSE. CHOOSE.

The face in the frost. Waiting.

You do what the unbroken do.

You bend.

Past Gene. Past the reptile. Past the structure of how reality operates. Your unbroken hand against glass.

Crack.

Not the glass.

Everything else.

Walmart flickers. Mars inverts. Two suns. One. None.

Fluorescent security light. Hot asphalt. Subway wrapper on your cheek.

Your phone buzzes. Unknown number: "Thank you."

You sit up. Everything holds.

In the distance: a pigeon on a power line. Crying or laughing.

The rearview mirror: cube teeth. Tinfoil. Pointed nails taking notes.

Then nothing.

Just you.

Still unbroken.

Still bending.

Still here.

Or the simulation that replaced here.

Or the dream the simulation has when it needs to believe in home.

You turn the key. The engine catches.

Drive.

This short story is part of my compilation of short stories, Dream City and Other Stories.

Want more? Dive into Dream City and Other Stories, a collection that lives in the shadows, that keeps you guessing, keeps you wanting just one more page.

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