Fiction |

“Countdown”

After I turned thirty I began to worry I was running out of time. I hadn’t even started trying to have two perfect children and had yet to publish a novel. Additionally, I had never been to Machu Picchu, and it seemed like everyone I knew had already gone. Naturally, I turned to Papa for help. He was an experimental scientist, the only person who could move the needle.

“I want to know how much time I have left,” I told him. “I need to make a plan.”

Papa sighed and extinguished his cigarette. “You have considered feeling gratitude for every day you have on this earth instead of counting down to your demise?” he asked.

“I have tried to seize the day many times,” I said. “But I can’t seem to keep a hold on it.”

I promised to fix up his enchanted garden in exchange. Papa was an adjunct. He was too broke to pay someone else to do it, but too tired to do it on his own, and it was overrun by weeds.

Papa took me up on my offer and retreated to the garden. He emerged with a radiant sunflower with a face bigger than my own. He sprinkled a pink powder over it and the combination was stunning, the color of the sky at dusk.

“You must sit with the plant in a dark room,” he said. “Feel awe at the fact of your existence. Consider what you plan to accomplish with the time you have. Then you must eat the petals of this fine flower. But none of the seeds—do you hear me? Not a single one.”

This seemed easy enough. I carried my radiant flower home. My husband was in his office, working on his dissertation, which was for the best. I did not want him to know what I was up to. I took the sunflower to my dark writing nook and sat before it like it was a god.

I attempted to feel gratitude at my existence. I saw my dear husband mowing the lawn with a beer in hand, nodding at me across the grassy divide. The endless summer hours I spent on the sunny porch writing, pure ecstasy. The moments of teaching that made me feel immortal.

My future rolled out before me like a magic carpet. My published novels stacked in a tower before me. Children squealing by my legs. My husband a handsome, gray-haired professor. Our cat, Mr. Snuggles, along for the ride. I chewed and chewed the bitter petals until they were gone.

I couldn’t help it. The seeds looked so delectable. I sampled one. Who would know the difference? But the nutty meat was tastier than I expected. I had another, and another. My husband walked in when a solitary seed remained. He plucked it and chewed thoughtfully.

“Is this a new form of meditation?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking,” I said. He knew I had been forcing myself to live in the moment recently. He kissed my forehead and left to top off the bird feeder.

Papa chastised me that night when he invited himself to dinner. My husband put his head in his hands when he learned what I had been up to.

“Why can’t you just play it by ear?” my beloved said.

“Life is not a pop song,” I said. “I don’t want to wing it and see.”

“Your actions will have unintended consequences,” Papa noted.

Then a dread mixed with ecstasy filled my marrow. I saw it all with a startling clarity. I panned from Papa to my heart to Mr. Snuggles, who watched the birds depleting the feeder.

“Mr. Snuggles has seven years to live,” I said. “You have thirty-three,” I told my husband. “And Papa, you have fifteen.”

My husband threw down his fork. “Did it occur to you that maybe I don’t want to know?”

Papa was delighted. “Fifteen, you say? That is much longer than I expected, given my bad habits…” He drained his vodka with gusto.

Mr. Snuggles meowed with deep anger and scurried away. But when I tried to let the truth about myself settle over me, nothing happened. I saw from my husband’s blanched face that he held the answer. I recalled the solitary seed in his gut.

“When?” I asked him.

“You’ll live a long time,” he said, shaking his head. “So just fucking enjoy it. Will you?”

#

But what was there to enjoy? My new knowledge filled me with dread and revulsion, though it did thrill me, on occasion. I knew how long everything would last except for me. How long each feeder-draining bird had left before oblivion. I saw the fate of every person I passed on the street as clearly as the headlights of an oncoming car.

My husband was not pleased by my new gift. Still, he pitied my morbid nature and took walks with me in the park behind our home in the evenings.

Once, we passed a couple and their blonde boy, who shrieked as he chased a butterfly.

I spoke when they were out of earshot. “They have no idea their son only has two years to live,” I told my husband.

He said, “How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t want to know.”

“Thirty-three is a long time,” I said. “I would be lucky if I had as long…”

“Enough,” he said. “Please.”

Then he took my hand and turned to his favorite subject, birds. They had nothing to do with his dissertation.

It’s true, my new condition put a strain on our relationship. Whenever he took me to dinner, I knew he could see me watching the other couples, mulling over their fates. Sometimes I could not hide the look of horror when I sensed someone’s doom was particularly imminent.

My husband would spend a lot of time with Mr. Snuggles, watching the birds dancing around his feeder, cardinals, bluebirds, gray birds that could fit in the palm of your hand. I knew I was in trouble when I sensed my husband was relieved whenever Papa joined us for dinner. Papa was his former antagonist, but now, he helped dilute my presence.

“Marriage is not unlike sour cream,” Papa once noted, spooning a dollop of the mixture into his soup. “For a while, it makes everything richer. But one day, it can turn and poison you.”

A year passed in this fashion. The connubial rift grew into a chasm. My husband put up three feeders yet the greedy birds only multiplied and seemed to eat more quickly. He finished his dissertation and began to interview for jobs around the country. My novel remained in stasis, though I continued tending Papa’s garden to keep busy when I was not teaching.

One morning, a mother and child strolled by our house. The boy had just ten years left, but I only smiled at my husband and declared him a handsome child. This seemed to open something within him. He understood I was making an effort.

“You’re not terrible,” he said to me, squeezing my shoulder.

That evening, he asked me to go to Machu Picchu. I was elated. I could see it in his eyes. He was ready to tell me when I would die.

#

Nobody told me Machu Picchu would be so hot. As my husband and I scaled an interminable mountain, my sweat began to sweat. And the bugs, too, they ate me until I was nearly bloodless. By the time we reached the top, I was numb to the view. Verdant and lush, yes. But there were no cocktails, only my husband’s picnic lunch. And then, just an older man with two years left giving us a friendly wave as he trudged by.

“Is it everything you wanted?” my husband asked with a smile as I collapsed in the grass. He was proud to have tortured me in such an elaborate fashion.

“And more,” I said, but I kissed him anyway, a sweaty kiss I treasure to this day. “I’m sorry I’m so difficult.”

“I didn’t marry you because you were easy,” he said. “I enjoy a challenge.”

“So do I,” I said, meaning him, my father, my writing, my troubled existence. We munched on plantains and sweet cheese and sipped warm beer. I thought there would be more ruins, but he said they were on the other side, that we would see them later.

I gave my husband a significant glance to indicate I was ready for his wild knowledge. A glimmer of understanding flickered in his eyes.

Then a rare bird whose name I do not recall edged into the clearing. For years my husband had been waiting to see this extraordinary blue-tailed creature. No bird who patronized his feeders could compare. My husband lifted his binoculars, holding a finger to his lips.

This seemed to me a silly approach. I took out my phone and snapped a picture.

“What are you doing?” he said.

“Don’t you want a photo? It lasts longer.”

“I want the feeling of seeing the bird,” he said, and he continued to stare until it flew away. He put his binoculars down with a look of such satisfaction that I wondered if he and I were members of the same species. I wanted to show that he was a superior being, that I desperately wished I shared his enlightened perspective, but how?

“That bird only has a month to live,” I told him. “Isn’t that funny?”

He laughed meanly. Then he packed up his binoculars and was silent as we made our way down the mountain. My sweat had cooled. We never even got to see the ruins, which meant I could not even check the event off my bucket list.

“What?” I said. “I was just trying to make a transition. I thought you brought me here to tell me how long I had to live.”

“You got it wrong,” he said, sighing profoundly. “I believed you were over your morbid phase. I wanted to tell you I was ready to have children.”

“All right,” I said. I could feel my face aching into a smile. “I’ll take it.”

“I can’t do this anymore,” he said, turning away. “I love you, but I’ve had enough. I can’t be with someone who only cares about the end.”

There was no use in arguing when I would have done the same thing. I said, “At least tell me when I’m going to die. Please?”

He shook his head and walked toward the open field at the foot of the mountain. I already knew I would not be going home with him. But he took pity on me and turned around in the middle of the field. His face was lovely in the waning sunlight.

I shouted into the void between us. “How long will I live?”

“Not forever,” he said. Then he walked onward, leaving me with this stunning revelation.

Contributor
Maria Kuznetsova

Maria Kuznetsova was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and moved to the United States as a child. She is a recent graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her debut novel, Oksana, Behave! will be published by Spiegel & Grau/Random House in March 2019. She lives in Iowa City with her husband, daughter, and cat.

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