Binary

Heather and Bruce have known each other their whole lives, but their physical paths never crossed. They both grew up in the town of Fairview and moved to the city of Springfield to live and work. They were so intertwined that they even shared the same set of parents, despite each of them being an only child. Despite their parents telling them that the other child was just an imaginary friend, their connection persisted into their adult lives.

Bruce Wheeler rose from his desk after shutting down his computer. His work day was officially over. Bruce walked from his home office to his living room and picked up a book from his coffee table. It was an antique, something that his grandfather had given him – a copy of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. The pages were brittle with age, but still smelled of the woods from whence came the trees that became the paper pages. It was also possible that it was all his imagination. Bruce had never actually been outside.

Heather Wheeler stared blankly at the spreadsheet that she had worked on for the past few hours. The sudden scent of old paper with a hint of pine disrupted her focus. She sighed heavily while letting her mind drift. It had been several years since she had last been out in the countryside. She still remembered the smell of the pines outside her grandparent’s house. And some of the sap from those pines still clung to the cover of the book.

“Stop that,” the voice in Bruce’s head admonished. “You’re making me homesick.” Bruce laughed, taking another whiff of the pine sap clinging to the cover. Heather sighed and tried to focus on her work. But her watch alarm reminded her that it was time to leave work and head home. She shut down her computer and walked toward the elevator. The hall lights flickered just before she pressed the elevator call button. She decided to walk down the three flights of stairs rather than risk spending time stuck in the elevator with strangers. As she came within reach of the exit doors, a flash of light lit up the sky, followed by a roar of thunder that shook the office building. Seconds later a heavy downpour hammered against the glass doors. She huffed and waited for the initial deluge to pass before heading out to the bus stop.

“I miss the outdoors,” mused Bruce. “Go for a walk, or a run through the park. I want to see trees and people and dogs and squirrels – there are still squirrels in the park, aren’t there?” Bruce was teasing about the squirrels. Heather did not like squirrels. She had tried to make friends with a squirrel only to have the critter bite her hand. Bruce could feel the pain when it happened. What he couldn’t explain was the noise he made because of it. He knew that his parents wouldn’t understand.

Heather laughed. It was raining. A run through the park was out of the question. “You’ll have to settle for a short walk in the rain to the bus stop.”

Bruce walked to the window of his apartment. There was no balcony for him to stand upon. The glass had darkened to block the intense ultraviolet light. He was one of the few with a view, but there was little to see except the tops of tall buildings. “Show me.” There wasn’t much contrast between his view of the darkened skyline and her view of the steaming street outside. Bruce sighed loudly. Heather laughed, then stepped out into the pouring rain.

The sudden roar of the rain made Bruce wince. Heather picked up her pace from a walk to a trot down the block toward the bus stop shelter. She arrived well ahead of the bus and sat down to wait. An older woman sitting next to her on the bench started to hum a familiar tune. She smiled at the woman before humming along with her. Soon they were both singing at the top of their lungs with Bruce’s laughter ringing in Heather’s ears. Their singing abruptly ended with the arrival of the bus, which splashed water into the shelter soaking the two women to the bone. Bruce could feel the cold rainwater on Heather’s skin. He wrapped himself in a throw blanket that he kept draped across the back of his couch to ward off the chill.

Heather shook herself off all over the bus driver before heading to the back to take a seat. The elderly woman sat near the driver and muttered something about young folks having no respect these days. Heather looked out the window at the rain while Bruce shivered beneath his blanket. “A cup of tea would really take the edge off the chill,” she quietly addressed her reflection in the window. Bruce obligingly trundled off to the kitchen to prepare a pot of tea.

“What’s your pleasure?” he asked opening the small pantry cupboard.

Earl Grey, hot,” she replied with a wink. It was a reference to a show that never aired in Bruce’s reality. There were no lightsabers either, nor were there rebellious robots attempting to wipe out mankind.

Bruce retrieved the generic canister marked ‘TEA’ and scooped a few of the dried leaves into his coffee press. He filled the glass coffeepot with hot tap water. “You’ll have to settle for whatever tea this is.” In a few minutes, the tea was ready. He poured the contents into a tall mug and slowly sipped it. By the time Heather’s bus arrived at its stop outside her apartment building, the tea had warmed them both up.

The rain had faded to a drizzle minutes before Heather’s feet hit the sidewalk. She ran the short distance to the door of her apartment building and began the walk up the stairs to the sixth floor. Bruce poured out the last of the tea while she trudged up the stairs and then down the hall to her apartment. Her apartment was smaller than Bruce’s. It was a one bedroom with a small kitchen just off the dining area. A sliding glass door led to a small balcony with enough room for a bistro table and two chairs. Heather spent a lot of time out there reading. She usually went outside in the evening with a cup of tea, but she had no desire to venture out into the storm again.

Bruce was feeling a bit restless. He went to his exercise room for a virtual run. The images were of places that didn’t exist anymore. Open spaces disappeared when the ozone layer failed. He asked for a virtual run through “Riverside Park” while Heather took a warm shower. By the time that she had settled on the couch, he had finished his first lap of the park. Halfway through his second lap, he paused to comment on the news reports. “That doesn’t sound good.” The reporter was busy talking about an outbreak of a new virus on the other side of the planet. “That’s one thing about your world that I don’t envy.”

“At least my runs in the park aren’t virtual,” Heather snapped.

“True. But I don’t have to worry about rabid squirrels,” Bruce retorted.

Heather walked back to the bathroom to glare at her reflection. Bruce laughed while Heather toweled her short, curly, blond hair dry enough to comb it out. Heather stuck out her tongue and flashed her reflection. She returned to the couch wearing her nightgown and changed the channel to watch a movie. Before Bruce could object to her choice of a romantic comedy, his video screen signaled an incoming call from his parents.

“Bruce, did I catch you at a bad time?”

“No, Mom. It’s never a bad time for you to call.”

“I’m calling about your father...”

“Is something wrong? Is he ill?”

“No, now shut up and listen. His fiftieth birthday is coming up and I wanted to be sure that you could make it to the celebration – and I don’t mean by phone like you did for his fortieth.”

“I’ll be there, Mom.”

“In the flesh, Bruce. No holograms. Promise me.”

“I promise.” Bruce pasted on his best smile. “I’ll be there with bells on.”

“And dress nice. Don’t wear those schlubby workout clothes you have on.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ll dress nice. Where and when?”

“It’ll be at home this Saturday. Be here by seventeen hundred, if not sooner. Make sure it’s on your calendar.”

“I will, Mom.” Bruce clicked off the monitor and started toward the bathroom intent on showering before bed. As he walked down the hall, he could hear the soft sniffles coming from Heather. She should have been laughing, but his own thoughts were distracting him too much to ask what was wrong. As he stepped into the shower, Heather let him know what was bothering her.

“You take them for granted.” Heather crossed her arms and leaned back against the sink. “You forget that I lost mine.” She placed her hands against the countertop and pushed away. “Don’t you dare not go to that party.” Heather turned and stared into the mirror. “I’d trade places with you if it meant having them back.”

“But you can’t. And you always get so maudlin whenever I talk to them or think about them.” Bruce was shouting over the running water.

Heather shouted back. “Because I miss mine, but that doesn’t mean you should stay away from yours... from ours. They are all I have left and through you I can still enjoy the closeness, the laughter, and the celebrations. Please, please go to the party. Make your parents happy. Make me happy.”

Bruce sighed. Heather was very persistent. Instead of attending his father’s last birthday celebration, Bruce went out with some friends to celebrate the success of his park simulation program. He only made the holo-call to his father at Heather’s urging. “Fine, I’ll go. I promised Mom that I’d be there.”

Bruce was grateful that Heather fell asleep first. It was some alone time. Heather’s world was full of stimulation – sights, sounds, and smells that were missing from his. He could never quite grasp all of it from his quiet environment. There had never been a Riverside Park for him to run through. That had come from Heather’s world. But he had made a small fortune selling the ‘Riverside Park Environment Program’.

Heather slept in on Saturday, waking to the sound of a shower running. She rolled over and tried to drown out the sound before realizing that the shower was inside her head. “Thankfully, he doesn’t sing,” she mumbled as she shoved her feet into her slippers. She padded her way into her kitchen and started a pot of coffee before heading to the bathroom to take a shower.

The experience of showering together was not unlike being beneath a waterfall. It was like re-experiencing a trip to Niagara Falls that Heather had taken with her parents when she was eleven. And then there was the usual after shower comparison. They looked forward to seeing the image in the mirror with their other self as a ghostly overlay. It was a source of mixed feelings. There were elements of sexual attraction and disgust combined with intense curiosity. Heather grabbed her terrycloth bathrobe while Bruce toweled off.

Bruce had decided to put in a respectable appearance at his father’s birthday celebration. He wasn’t about to disappoint Heather or his mother. He chose a navy-blue Mandarin tuxedo. The robin’s egg blue mandarin collar shirt that he wore beneath the jacket accentuated the navy tux. Heather has slipped into a pair of jeans and an old tee shirt. She wasn’t going anywhere.

His relationship with his father was a good one, but Heather always seemed uneasy around him. He was surprised by her apparent change of mood. While he stood in front of the mirror for a last-minute inspection before heading over to his parents’ dwelling, Heather pulled a bottle of wine out of the cooler.

“Don’t get us drunk before the party starts. I’ll never hear the end of it.”

Retrieving a stemless wine glass from the cupboard, Heather replied. “I won’t. I promise. It’ll just be a few sips to relax on the couch waiting for the high-speed rail.” She carried the bottle and glass over to her coffee table and set them down before returning to her kitchen. While she searched the drawers for a corkscrew, Bruce rode the lift down to the transportation level and waited for a maglev car to arrive. She stopped her search and closed her eyes as the maglev car pulled up alongside Bruce. She enjoyed the experience of zooming through the tunnels that connected the towers of the city. At some point, Bruce would close his eyes and Heather would have to wait for him to open them again. She took advantage of the interval to grab the corkscrew and pop open the bottle of Riesling.

Bruce watched as she deftly cut the foil and drove the corkscrew into the artificial cork. She pulled the cork and poured a few ounces of wine into the glass. She warmed the golden liquid with the palms of her hands before raising the glass to her nose and smelling it. He reveled in the taste as she took a sip. She swirled it about in her mouth before bringing the glass to her mouth as if to spit it out. “No,” he protested. She tossed her head back and swallowed, followed by mocking laughter. He turned his attention back to the passing landscape while she slowly sipped at her glass of wine.

Bruce arrived safely un-inebriated at his parents’ domicile. Heather had respected his desire to remain sober prior to his arrival. The door still recognized Bruce when he approached it and it slid open to allow him entry. Heather still had the keys to her childhood home, even though she had sold it off after her parents died. Bruce never understood why she kept the spare set. He also didn’t quite understand why his mother insisted on keeping his biometrics on file with the domicile’s security protocols. He was capable of signaling like everyone else. Heather sighed. She had tried to explain the concept of sentimentality to Bruce once, but he couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it.

Bruce had barely crossed the threshold when his mother embraced him. She gave him a squeeze before backing away. “I’m so happy you came. I was worried you’d find some excuse not to come. I know you have a busy social life,” she effervesced. Heather basked in the warmth of his mother’s hug, but it was short-lived. His father was the next person to greet him with an equally warm embrace and a pat on the back. At first, Heather winced. Her own father had always held her too long and too tightly. The gentle pats on the back were reassuring. She felt safe with Bruce’s father.

“Everyone, look who managed to drag himself away from his friends.” He winked at Bruce. “I believe you know everyone here.” Bruce nodded in response before his father led him to his seat at the table. “Let’s get this shindig started.” Heather didn’t know everyone there, but that didn’t matter as she had finished half the bottle before the dinner ended. Between the wine and what Heather considered a boring conversation, she slowly drifted off to sleep leaving Bruce free of her drunken interjections. Bruce took notice of his father’s relaxed demeanor. He thought that the old man had mellowed in the past ten years. The elder Wheeler smiled and placed his hand on Bruce’s shoulder. “Thank you for showing up in the flesh. It’s the best present I could have gotten tonight.”

Bruce smiled. “I’m glad I came. I didn’t realize just how much I missed you and Mom until lately.”

“Why don’t you stay here until after breakfast? The bed’s made in your old room and I still know how to make those waffles that you used to demand every morning.” Bruce accepted his mother’s invitation to spend the night.

It was in the early morning hours when Heather awoke with a start. It took her a few minutes to remember that she had fallen asleep on the couch during the dinner conversation. And now that she was awake, he wasn’t. She wondered how late he had stayed up. Parties tend to run late. And even with the high speed of a maglev car, Bruce lived an hour or so from his parents’ house.

It was eerily silent in her headspace with Bruce asleep. She tried very hard to remember how Bruce’s parents looked. His mother looked exactly as she remembered her own mother looking. But Bruce’s father looked considerably older than she expected. His hair had greyed noticeably. He had gained some weight and added a few wrinkles. His smile was affable as ever and his eyes were still a piercing blue. He wore a casual shirt to a formal dinner party, something her own father would never have done.

There was a time when that would have made her laugh. She fought back the tears. Seeing her father through Bruce’s eyes didn’t seem to assuage the guilt she felt. It was her fault that her parents had died that night. If she hadn’t argued with them, they would have stayed another night. The weather was bad. A freight truck jack-knifed in front of them. But they wouldn’t have been out driving if they hadn’t argued. Heather couldn’t remember what they had been arguing about, but it didn’t really matter anymore.

Heather thought about Bruce. He was happy, outgoing, and had friends. He would be fine without the voice in his head. All she had was Bruce. She hadn’t read a book in a long time. When she wasn’t working, she was home alone – except for Bruce. She staggered into the kitchen and uncorked another bottle of wine. Sliding open the glass door, she walked out onto her deck. She chugged a few ounces of wine before leaning against the balcony. “Oh, shit! I missed the singing and the cake.” She took another chug from the bottle. At the top of her lungs, she began to sing. “Happy birthday to you!” She stepped onto one of the chairs and belted out another line. “Happy birthday to you!” Hopping onto the table she finished the verse. “Happy birthday, dear Dad. Happy birthday to you.” Swinging her arms wildly on the last line, she lost her balance.

The smell of fresh coffee wafted into Bruce’s bedroom waking him from a dream. He tried to make sense of the dream while he dressed. He didn’t usually remember his dreams. He walked out to his parents’ kitchen and sat down at the breakfast table with his parents. His mother noticed his perplexed look. “Is something wrong?”

“I had a dream this morning. In it, I was flying. Or maybe falling. And I have a splitting headache.”