Hold My Hands

"Hello. My name is Alice Sawyer, and by the time you see this, I will be dead."

Alice's face scrunches with distaste, and she taps the middle of the heart-shaped locket hanging from her neck. The locket replies in a detached, androgynous voice.

"Recording paused."

She grasps it with a delicate pinch--thumb on the right side, middle finger on the left--and gives it a quick shake. It responds without fuss.

"Recording erased."

For a moment, she fidgets with the contraption, tracing her thumb over the Ashen Phoenix logo as she nibbles her lip. Then she sighs, dropping it. It would help if she had anything to say.

Her fingers tap a harsh staccato on her cheek, and she speaks again.

"Play sample display."

The voice is absent. Instead, a recording obediently beams from the locket onto the blank, white page in front of her (recommended by the tattered, stained instruction manual as a background for ideal viewing conditions). Alice blinks in surprise. So this locket is, indeed, still fully functional. The price she paid for it was practically nothing, then. She would do business with that man again, if she could.

The person in the video is young; if Alice had to hazard a guess, she would say mid-20s. Their face and body are both fairly round, and they carry it well, with an elegant posture. Their hair is wavy, around shoulder-length, and a shade of brown reminiscent of a coffee table Alice once owned. Their eyes are the dark, dewy green of a lawn at sunrise.

Ew. That was embarrassing, Alice thinks, pinching the bridge of her nose.

The person's lips part with a broad smile, lopsided and nervous, and despite just having felt ashamed of her romanticism, Alice can't help but feel like she's watching an old friend.

She tries not to project, though. That feels akin to pissing on a grave.

The person begins signing, and the robotic voice returns, to translate with a tone that leaves much to be desired.

"Hello. My name is -"

The machine takes a moment to process the person's rapid fingerspelling.

"Cheyenne...Wallace."

Alice smiles. It is a nice name.

The voice continues. "Let me say the obvious thing first. I am deaf. I was born with mild hearing loss that degenerated as I aged, and now I can hear absolutely nothing."

Alice's smile fades. So this is the previous owner - young, bright, charming...and deaf. They should have had many good years left, but she knows how this ends. She cannot pretend otherwise after seeing it so many times - and yet, in a sick, selfish way, the first few seconds are always a comfort.

"It is interesting to me. So many times, people have created tools and programs for the purpose of minimizing isolation. We write, and we speak, and we record, and all for the same reason. We hope someone out there will listen."

Alice is listening.

"No one has ever listened to me."

Already, Alice wants to scream. I'm listening!

Cheyenne takes a deep breath, making noises of which they are likely unaware. Alice wants to pull her own fingernails out.

Cheyenne looks down at their lap, then back to the camera (or rather, the mirror; these machines functioned much like older cameras in that, if you wanted to see yourself as you recorded, it was best to use a reflective surface). After a moment, they begin signing again.

"The past few years have been strange, to say the least. On the one hand, we are more alone than ever before. At this point, I do not think anyone is lying to themselves. I have not seen the face of another human being since I was 18 years old. I do not know what that means, for me or for anyone else, because no one can tell me."

They twist their mouth, their eyes darkening.

"On the other hand, when have I not been alone?"

They stop, their hands floating in the air as they appear to contemplate.

Alice is winded by something she cannot articulate punching her in the sternum. She bends over instinctively, arms wrapped around herself. After a moment, the words come to her.

You are here, watching them, but they are still alone. Why?

Cheyenne begins again, and the voice catches Alice off guard. She gasps, and her throat seizes with excuses she cannot speak to fruition.

"I do not need to tell you what has been taken from us. I would not waste your time like that. What I will tell you is that it has taught me something, far too late to be of any use. It has taught me that it is okay to need."

Tears flood their eyes at an alarming speed, as if their fingers had pulled invisible plugs from their tear ducts and years of buildup were spilling out. Their bottom lip trembles. Despite this, they continue signing with calm, measured gestures.

"It may be too late for any of us. This whole program may be a joke. They may watch this recording, laugh, and take this locket to be recycled for parts. I have made my peace with that, but I also know this is all I can do."

Cheyenne takes five slow, deep breaths, squeezing the last of the tears from their eyes. Alice breathes along with them, and it feels dirty, almost sacrilegious, as if she were stealing the air from their lungs.

Then their eyes meet the camera. They grow still, their gaze challenging the lens, raging against the voice like a potted plant on a spaceship. Alice leaves bite marks on the heel of her hand. Two excruciating minutes pass. Alice draws blood.

Cheyenne lifts their hands once more.

"Assuming this program is real, we all know what we plan to do. We all know the choice we have made."

Their eyes have not left the camera. Alice brings her knees to her chest, holding herself as tight as she can manage. It is not very tight, anymore.

"I want you to know that it is okay to need that. You are like me. I know you are. You were not allowed to need anything else."

I am like you, Alice thinks. I am not like you. She tears up. I'm sorry.

"This is the one thing that no one can keep from you. This is the thing we, as humans, barely brush our fingertips against, let alone come to own."

They smile. Alice wishes, stupidly, that she could somehow be the reason for it; that she could have any right to be watching this right now; that she could reach across time and give them everything they could possibly need; that she could be someone different, someone better than curling up in front of the final moments of someone she never knew.

"I will not tell you I love you. I will not comfort you. I will simply tell you that this is yours. That is not my judgement. That is a fact."

Their smile drops sharply, as if their cheeks cannot hold the weight any longer. By contrast, their eyes soften. They have found peace in the inevitable.

Alice thinks, This is not mine.

"If nothing else, take care of yourself. That is my message. I hope you know what it means for you."

As Cheyenne's hands just barely fall still, the recording abruptly cuts off. Alice's eyebrows furrow. There is no telling if they had anything more to say. There is no telling if it mattered.

Her eyes glaze over as she stares at the blank paper, stomach swimming with a guttural unease, as if she had just thrown up from food poisoning. Her mind is slow, her thoughts sticky with guilt and something she does not dare call grief, but it is close. Well, perhaps it isn't close. Perhaps it is the feeling of pissing on a grave, after all.

She touches the locket with her fingertips, as if she might shatter it with too much pressure. She shouldn't be touching it at all. Her fingers are greasy and clumsy, piggish and greedy. Impulsively, she yanks it over her head, throwing it as far as she can manage. It is not very far, anymore.

She holds her head in her hands, still smudged with blood, and it feels like someone else's blood.

She will never know how it ends.

She thinks, I deserve that.