Until Next Time?

Until Next Time?

People stared at the androgynous figure above them. Her smile came softly, quickly, deliberately, her smirk and her eyes moving in unison.

She knew, simply by existing, by revealing, by commanding without a word, that the crowd was hers. If only she had prepared more. But there was no way to prepare. No way to predict what would happen, let alone what reaction her return might provoke.

The people stood silently, in awe, fear, excitement, it was hard to tell. Their faces were intent and expectant, though for what, they could not say. Subtle glances and fidgeting rippled through the crowd, unnoticed.

Coy was an imposing presence. Her long, thick hair seemed to flow to its own rhythm, wind or no wind. The light played tricks with the colors: white with silver strands that reflected back like mirrors, gold flecks and soft blond tendrils blending into a striking piece of kinetic art.

Her body was sealed into something that could have been a full-body suit, or maybe her own skin. It was electric. Sparks danced through it, moving without pattern or purpose. And the rest of it glowed around her in a shade of lavender uncommon to the crowd. Her stance was strong and matter-of-fact. Her face was delicate to the touch, like a fragile porcelain doll, but there was nothing fragile about Coy.

Her vessel had landed exactly where it always did, on the same scorched ring of earth. “That’s my mark. A proper arrival,” she thought.

* * *

The faces stared blankly, waiting. Would she tell them what to do, or who she was, or play with them and let them keep guessing without a clue? One man in the back, broad-shouldered and muscular, quite handsome if you got close enough, was slouching now, as if defeated by something or someone. His face grew long and sweat dripped from his brow, but he made no move to wipe it away.

This was the part almost intolerable to her kind, and to Coy in particular. Her dream was to find a place where she related to people not as a celestial or a superior, but in a way that was informal, conversational, and friendly. Deep down she wanted to feel the bond people share when they call each other “friend.” But she quickly shoved weakness like that down, deeper than the last time.

It was time to decide where to go with these people. “Should I create a new society in my own imagination and then build it here? Or I could become their leader and enjoy the power the naive will give me.” Then she slid into her new idea like silk. “I’ll change them from who they think they are into who they could be. I’ll show them their true potential. And the best part, I will remain an equal, neither showing them the way nor becoming a total subject to their ‘leaders.’”

It hurt her heart to see the puppets so susceptible to rhetoric. She was used to places that needed someone like her. Coy would teach them a better direction, as she had many times before.

She had visited, each time trying a different approach, each time disappointed and leaving as abruptly as she landed. She would try again. And as she looked down at the crowd below her, that smile resurfaced for a flash, then was gone.

* * *

“How long have I been standing here? Walking back and forth like I’m waiting for my big moment to speak. Something’s off. It all feels insincere,” Coy thought, swallowing hard to make that strange feeling, like a lump stuck in her throat, go away. She felt a new sensation. Shaken.

The man was still staring at her. “What does he want from me?”

Coy whipped around toward a commotion. They were all stepping forward, greeting her, not with exuberance or disdain. It was all very unemotional. They remembered who she was, but would she be able to recall any of them? Thoughts appeared and disappeared before she could grab on to them.

The staring man’s face transformed as a charge of red light went up it, leaving a laser-like glow, as if he were being plugged in for the first time. “Coy,” he whispered. Finding his voice, he spoke louder. “Coy, you’ve returned.” She remembered what Jim had looked like all those years ago. She recoiled at the thought of the flirtation they had shared.

Another woman, dressed in pajama bottoms and an old t-shirt, her hair slightly wild but somehow composed, stepped forward with a surge, like a car battery that had just been charged. “Hello again, Coy.”

“I know her too. It’s Nicole, no, Noelle, wait, it’s Nancy. That’s it. Wow. That’s Nancy,” Coy thought, recalling that Nancy had once been lovely. She had been fond of her.

Suddenly, it clicked. That was why she hadn’t recognized anyone at first. They were finally aging. She felt a jolt of sadness for them.

With more questions than logical thoughts, Coy stepped forward. “Hello again, everyone. I hope you are all doing well,” she said, relaxing her stance. “A while has passed, and it’s time to pick up where we left off.”

* * *

Still standing on the hill before them, naturally drawing every eye, she felt pieces of history go to work in her mind. She recalled how she had left things. She had expected their lives to go back to normal. The sky was the shade of pink it used to be, and sunlight could finally make it through the darkness to their planet. She remembered quite a few of the crowd, though it took a moment to collect their information from her data-soaked memory. She remembered too much. The welcome was always the same. Every word. Every face. Every voice. “They usually don’t change. I haven’t changed.”

They weren’t there to look at a shiny new object. They weren’t there to catch up. This was too familiar. This, this merging among them, had happened countless times. It was a loop. Her worst nightmare. Everything was rushing back to her too quickly. There was a weight on her now, too heavy for her mind to carry.

The sickness came in waves. Weak, dizzy, pale, and then gone. Coy fainted.

* * *

Uncertainty came. Not clarity. Not relief. Something heavier. Wrong.

It wasn’t them.

It was her.

The faces she had remembered as hopeful blurred and reformed into something else. Not awe. Not trust. Something quieter. Somber.

She had called it adoration.

She had needed it to be devotion.

The visits were no longer lined up the way she remembered. They didn’t progress. They reset. Each time clearer in her mind.

She had left thinking she had given them something. Direction. Possibility. A better way to be.

What she was feeling now was different.

Each time she left, something went with her.

Not gratitude.

Continuity.

And then she had returned, calling the fragments she saw everywhere failures. And the crowd she called naive.

Calling herself the answer.

The loop tightened around the thought until it hurt to hold it.

It had never been hers to break.

* * *

She was in someone’s home. Maybe Carol’s? It felt familiar, so familiar that she could barely separate the last time she was here from this one. The timelines were trying to merge again.

She knew the room, remembered hearing the same voices coming from somewhere else in the house, and felt the same disorientation she had felt last time. Except last time it had been brighter, more tasteful, almost cheerful. How could they allow so many things to get worse?

The room felt sullen, grim, worn in a way she didn’t remember. This was a place that had slipped. Dusty shelves and wobbly tables told a story. Had they let it go, or had it simply been forgotten?

She assumed they were responsible and made a mental note to repair it.

“I left them with clear instructions. I should have stayed longer. This time…” Her thoughts were interrupted.

Then she realized the voices were a low, steady hum, each detailing the wrongs that had been done the last time. She thought she heard the words “hurt” and “abandoned.” Their fondness had been replaced with sorrow and disbelief.

“What have I done?” A single tear ran down her fragile cheek. What she had thought was strength felt as if it could crack in an instant.

She did not hear the rest. “We’ll have to make adjustments. The timing is still off.”

“We need to be more careful.”

The voices grew louder as several people prepared to enter the room to check whether she was awake and okay. Swiftly wiping the tear away, she saw the gift she had given them last time. It looked like a timepiece, but she remembered it as something different. She was sure of it.

“You said it was the last time, Coy. You promised. We trusted you from the beginning to the end. And look at us now. Back at the beginning,” Jim said, still hunched forward and worn.

“I can fix this,” her mind interrupted her other train of thought. It was becoming maddening. There were thoughts, then more thoughts, and thoughts everywhere in between, like a field of static where everything flickered, blurred, and tangled. Messy but magnetic.

There was a tremor. The gift she had left them flickered. Then again. It was jarring.

The room went silent. Maybe they were waiting on her to speak. To reassure them. Was the timepiece supposed to do that? She thought not, but she couldn’t be sure.

“Has anything good come of how I left you?”

There, in the corner, she spotted an apparatus. It looked familiar, clearly something she had built, or at least left instructions for, again. Progress. Broken progress. Had she given them the plans for this? Obviously it would have been her idea. They were creating change. She didn’t understand why they were so slow when her people would never stand there waiting, confused.

Then feelings came. Recognition. She was picking up two opposing sensations, trying to join them together again. This time it was her thoughts that held the charge.

There was hesitation before Nancy spoke. “You don’t know, do you? It wasn’t easy or simple for us when you left. There were a lot of challenges and messes we had to clean up, including what our next step would be. It is what gave us shape. What held us together.”

They stood there with a look of disappointment and pride.

“Surely, by my presence, at least in the beginning, I brought hope and promise of change with me. I was the catalyst.”

Again, the heaviness came upon her. In an instant she was out.

“Okay, everyone out so we can check in and then all get some rest,” Carol said. “We’ll come up with a solution when our heads are clear. Pete is manning the project. Let’s get in sync, everyone.”

* * *

After Coy woke, Carol made sure she was comfortable.

“In the meantime, Coy, I hope you don’t mind, but we have to ask you not to leave this evening. We can’t have confusion spreading, and you should rest. This must be hard on you.”

She was about to protest when she decided she was too tired to try to make real change or start on her repairs. She powered down into a restless sleep and catastrophic nightmares. She did not know whether they were dreams or memories, but they were disturbing. It was perhaps her least favorite side effect of being there.

In one nightmare, she saw herself on the hill. She would be a savior. She looked out onto grateful faces. She dreamt of dark clouds, devastation, self-destruction, and a place that was never hers to fix.

* * *

As the signals grew louder, she could no longer stall. In her mind she knew what she had to do. Coy would right the wrongs she had done. Maybe she couldn’t stop the chain of events that led to her last broken promise, but she could take a better direction at this fork in the road. They would see, and be overwhelmed that she cared for them enough to never give up. In a hundred years she would see them again. Coy felt sure the loop had closed.

In a hundred years the crowd would be wiser. They knew she would not be able to resist the need to come back. To help. Despite the wreckage she had caused, or the remarkable progress they had made without her. They would be prepared, as they were this time. They were close to cutting the loop. They would be ready.

Coy had to go. She knew the crowd was right that she should rest. She needed to return to her home and let her people tend to her. The fainting spells were coming more quickly with every passing minute.

When Coy walked toward the vessel, she passed someone she didn’t recognize, a man standing off to the side, his eyes fixed on a small blinking light in his palm. He glanced up at her only when the light changed. “That must be the Pete they were referring to earlier. He must be shy. I’ll bring him a gift next time,” she decided.

As Coy stepped into her vessel, her trepidation gave way to a thought. “As much as I want them to succeed, they’ll fall apart without me again. I’m the spark that moves them forward.”

The mask of Coy’s delusion shone brightly. The crowd passed looks to one another. There were whispers and nods. The words to reveal what they knew, who she was, never came. Only pity.

A sharpness came into her eyes as she flashed a distorted smirk, eyebrows furrowed, lips pursed. All of the flashes and electricity she exuded were gone. She was vulnerable. A second later it was a grin, gleaming wide eyes, and a disarming disposition. As Coy looked out onto her crowd, she felt affection, drowned out by the pity she felt.

The vessel flickered one last time. It was gone.