2061
by Vanessa Kalil
The violin was out of tune.
Maria leaned the instrument against her abdomen and plucked the three remaining, intact strings, the fourth stuck out to the side in a crooked curl. How many times did she tell herself not to forget to bring the new string she’d bought for it ages ago?
She lifted the instrument back to her shoulder and adjusted the silk cloth she had placed on top of the chinrest. Settled, she gently ran the bow across the strings, letting the salty air around her murmur with quiet notes. She was just getting into a groove when she heard a cough behind her.
“Performing to the dead now, are we?”
A woman emerged from the ladder leading up to the widow’s walk from inside the abandoned house. She stood and looked around the rotting planks, the opened balcony covered in bird poop. Even the banisters were decorated with splatters of feces.
Maria glanced down at the corpse beside her feet and shrugged.
“She still counts. Look, she’s waving for more.”
The decayed female body laid on its side against the wooden boards. One of its hands stretched out through the banisters with the breeze strong enough to sway the limply hung wrist just slightly.
“How nice of her. Let’s hear it then.” Caterina gestured for Maria to continue playing, but Maria shook her head.
“I forgot the string again, I’m such an idiot.”
“You are.” Caterina grimaced as she tiptoed across the fecal-mattered-planks and stood beside Maria. She looked at the front-facing banister before them which overlooked the ocean. She frowned at how little of it was not coated in post-meal leftovers.
“Here.” Maria placed her violin and bow on top of its case, the only item on the balcony which was free of bird droppings, and took off her oversized green sweater. She laid it out on the banister. Caterina clasped her hands together and bowed to Maria.
“I don’t deserve you.”
“True, you don’t.”
Caterina laughed and leaned her elbows onto the sweatered banister. She watched the ocean dance its tide as Maria squatted down to inspect the body. Maria immediately bit her lip and quickly brought up an arm to cover her nose.
“It’s definitely Francis.”
“Obviously,” Caterina said, not looking over.
Maria’s arm pressed against her nostrils as she rummaged through her pockets with her other hand. She pulled out a lipstick tube and started to poke at the grotesquely gaped mouth.
“Why couldn’t she have just waited?”
“Who knows,” Caterina said, turning to face the dead Francis, “it’s not our prob--is that my lipstick!?”
Maria glanced up with her hand holding the lipstick now poking through an empty eye socket.
“I’ll buy you a new one, don’t worry.” She gave Caterina two thumbs up. Caterina huffed and looked away dramatically, her chin pointed up to the moon. The lipstick shifted down to prodding around the poop-blotched clothing.
“We’ll have to report this if the jump is today.”
Caterina nodded. “I know.” She turned and leaned onto the banister again. “I wish they’d just get us already. It’s been so long.”
Maria, done with the remains, tossed the lipstick tube aside. Caterina glanced at it rolling across the chipped wood with a pout. Maria stood and brushed her palms against her skort.
“I hate thinking about time here. It’s far too slow.”
“‘You’ll have fun on Earth Planet 183. It’s an honor to study these kinds of civilizations.’ Blah, blah, blah, bullshit.” Caterina dropped her chin into her left palm.
Maria sighed. “It might be today.”
Caterina kept her eyes on the waves foaming around the shore just meters from the house they stood atop of, in their little crow’s nest.
“It might have been 1835, 1910, 1986. How many more lives do we have to live? What else can they want from this?”
Maria shook her head. “We’ll live as many as it takes. I will not be a Francis.”
The two women glanced down at the body, its clothes lightly rustling in the night breeze. The gun in its non-stretched out hand lying accordingly besides the hole in its head.
“No,” Caterina said quietly, “I don’t want to be a Francis either.”
Maria leaned against the banister, her forearms rested on her sweater.
“You have your Identifier?”
“Of course. You?”
“Of course.”
Caterina nodded. They let the salted air wrap around them, just their breaths adding to the ocean’s song from below. Maria shivered.
“Go on, put it back on.” Caterina straightened herself up, adjusting the collar of her brown, velvet jacket.
Maria tossed her sweater back on, then grabbed a small rectangular item from her left pocket.
“It should be almost time.”
Caterina pulled out an identical object from her own coat pocket. As if on cue, a static sound came out from both devices.
“B12.13, K14.21, G11.61, how are we tonight?” A metallic voice echoed from the rectangular devices around the balcony, and into the atmosphere.
Caterina turned her eyes to the sky.
* * * *
“I saw it, grandma! Halley’s Comet!”
The little girl swung her arms to the stars and pointed. The ocean brushed its foamy tendrils against an old woman’s bare feet. She smiled at the little girl.
“And I’ve seen it twice now, isn’t that crazy?”
The little girl laughed and danced in the water as the old woman smiled to the sky.
* * * *
Maria stood silently next to Francis’ body. Her hands dropped down to her sides. Caterina felt her eyes well up, still focused on where their ship had just flashed past Earth Planet 183 once again. The waves crashed quietly below.
“Play me something. I missed the initial performance.” Caterina wiped her eyes with her velvet sleeves, and gestured towards the instrument on its case on the feces-covered boards. Maria nodded. She pocketed her Identifier and knelt down to pick up her three-stringed violin and bow.
She placed her silk cloth on the chinrest and began to play.
Vanessa Kalil is an emerging writer constantly competing for her keyboard with her white and brown tabby. She resides in the American midwest after a childhood of moving through the American east coast and southern Brazil. She holds a BA in English and a minor in Film Studies from Boston College. She loves a good sweater and hot chocolate while she works on her creative writing and finding her voice in fiction, poetry, and television scripts. She can be reached at vanessakalil65@gmail.com.