He’s emptied the suitcase, its contents flung about the room like the aftermath of a break-in. What does it matter where he goes? He grabs only the cash, passport, checkbook, and Social Security card, and stuffs them in his pockets. He checks that the fridge is empty, that the burners are off. He shuts all the windows and locks them, turns all the lights on and off and on and off again.
He dials the airline and waits, holding the phone between his ear and shoulder, and locks the door behind him, imagining the apartment deteriorating over time, the windows turning brown, the floorboards warping, the air inside turning poison from stagnation. That’s what standing still does. The only way to escape your own poison is to outrun it. He tugs on the doorknob one last time.
GET IN
As she is pulling into the apartment complex, her phone rings, but it stops abruptly as she continues down into the underground garage and parks in her spot. As she is climbing the stairs, the phone beeps and she checks the message. She stops in the stairwell.
“Hi, hello,” her boss says. “Listen, the office will be open again tomorrow, okay? I just have some things to take care of out of town, and then I’ll come back. And you’ll come back. I’ll explain everything then, okay? Goodbye. Call me if you need anything. But, uh, I don’t really know what you would need. All right then. Um…” he trails off, and the message ends with a beep.
Iris clicks the phone shut and continues up the stairs. She lets herself in, lets her things drop to the floor, and stands for a moment, staring at her apartment. She has never decorated per se, though she’s lived here over two years. The walls look blank as the day she moved in. She feels now more than ever that she’s simply been lodged here, another ice cube in a tray. She looks down at the dingy cream-colored carpet, and to the kitchen, the sink full of dirty dishes from single-girl dinners of ramen and crackers, the crumbs and sticky spots, and the hairs clinging to the furniture, the soap scum on the shower wall, all seem to encase her in an immobilizing dust. This is the mark she leaves. She thinks again of the ceiling fan at the bank, weighed down by grime, and swallows, the taste of her mouth stale, putrid. She then unbuttons her blouse, unzips her skirt, and lays these on the table.
She turns on the radio, and one of the Shangri-Las cries, “Look out look out look out look out!” followed by the sound of screeching tires and crunching metal. She twists her hair up in a knot and goes searching under the sink for bleach.
* * *
That night, sleep comes to her more easily than ever. She dreams that she is standing in front of the house, the family station wagon parked in the driveway. Her mother is filling the trunk with boxes. The roof is already strapped down with more belongings, camping gear, an old bicycle.
“Where are we going?” Iris asks.
Her mother’s shoulders jump and she turns back to her, startled. “How long have you been standing there?”
Iris thinks, but can’t remember not standing where she’s standing. “I don’t know. I think maybe a long time.”
“Honey you have to pack your things, we’re leaving tonight.”
“But where are we going?”
“We’re going. That’s all you need to know right now.”
“But why?”
Her mother doesn’t answer as she pushes things around in the trunk, trying to make one last box fit.
Iris turns around to look at the houses across the street. The night is dark, and the windows are all lit, dotted with shadowy faces; the neighbors are watching.
She wanders out to the backyard, and as she gets close to the fig tree, she can hear a faint humming sound, and see the way the branches are moving with it. She looks up, and there, from one of the higher branches, she sees two small feet dangling, the rest of the body hidden by leaves.
She comes closer and a voice calls down, “Do you see me up here?”
“Yes,” she says, “I see you.”
“Do you dare me to jump?”
Iris tries to answer, but no sound comes out. She moves her lips soundlessly, over and over again, saying no, but not saying it.
She sees that the tree is buzzing with energy again, its edges blurred in vibration.
“Do you?” the boy says again, and Iris just stands there, watching the tree hum. The feet tuck back up under the leaves then, and Iris backs away.
When she gets back out to the driveway, the car is running and her father is in the driver’s seat, her mother beside him.
He rolls down his window and yells out, “Neil!”
Iris looks and sees her brother standing in the middle of the road, far out ahead of them.
“Neil!” he yells again, to his son’s back.
“Get in the car,” her mother whispers to Iris without looking at her; she complies.
Her father switches on the headlights then, and Neil is illuminated, a towering figure far out in the distance. Iris squints, but can’t tell if he is walking forward or standing still.
“We’ll catch up to him,” her mother says now, and her father nods to her and eases out of the driveway.
From the backseat, Iris looks back at the house, at the horses they are leaving behind, asleep on their feet, at the great tree shaking in the night, but she can’t see the boy. She faces forward as the car rolls slowly down the road, Neil’s figure still glowing up ahead, under the many watchful eyes, shielded behind glass.
* * *
Outside of Iris’s sleeping body, her apartment sparkles whiter than white. She wiped down every surface with bleach-infused cleaners, their chemical scents masked with florals, vacuumed the carpet, washed the windows, mopped the kitchen floor, did all the dishes, hung all her clothes neatly in the closet, everything lined right up and stripped of germs, of dead skin cells and perspiration, of every trace of her body’s occupation. She breathes it all in, this freshness, and this emptiness too.
And in the early morning, before she wakes, a new picture forms in her sleeping cells: a pine tree alone in a field, then suddenly, two trees, then three, multiplying faster than she can track until her consciousness is floating above a rapidly growing forest, new trees shoving themselves up out of the earth one by one, faster and faster, with a sound like a deck of cards, shuffling.
IN ONE ROOM AND OUT.
Iris’s alarm goes off at seven forty-five. She sits up quickly, the sheets suspended stiffly around her. She stares, grimacing at the clock, then suddenly realizes that the sound she’s hearing isn’t the beep of her alarm, but rather the sound of radio static, coming from inside her dresser.
She hops out of bed and pulls open the top drawer to find the little radio screaming its crackle and hiss and she presses the off button hard with her thumb. She checks the back and finds it loaded with batteries. She pats her hand around amid her socks and panties— no batteries there. She tries to remember taking them out. She can’t remember. She sets the little radio down and rubs her eyes with her fists. Something is wrong here, but she can’t remember.