Wireless Mouse

We meet the protagonist of Into the Amber.

If the car driving down the street away from Mari’s house was punctuation, it was a period.  A final, driving, dividing period.  

If the helicopters overhead were punctuation, they would have been the exclamation point.  Repeating with a staccato flair, Mari stood in her yard as they ripped the day’s glow in half with the splitting of sound and air.  She had accepted this new reality long ago, but seeing it unfold before her very eyes was still unsettling.  As her feet depressed into the freshly mowed yard, her mind started to work intermittently.  At times it would move fast, and her brain’s processor would calculate seemingly thousands upon thousands of emotions and thoughts in that second.  But then, the cables would come loose and he brain would go blank, staring at the mailbox at the end of the driveway mindlessly like a robot.

Brian was leaving.  Going away to a place from which he may not return.

The ground was somewhat chilled under Mari’s bare feet, with tiny blades of grass tickling her toes as she shifted uneasily from left to right.  Her tongue was shoved in vain against the back of her teeth, trying desperately to form words to express…something.  Anything.  

Mari folded her athletic frame and sat on the grass.  She hadn’t planned on staying out here, but it was all that felt okay at the time.

*     *     *     *

The knock on Mari’s door was soft.  Quiet.  Almost like it was trying to hide something.

Mari was sitting at her desk when it happened, softly listening to music on her iMac.  It was late, but sadly, the homework of a high schooler can’t tell time.  She had to wait for the second soft knock, just a bit more audible than the first, to capture her attention.  She stopped working and walked to the door, opening it narrowly.

“Hey, kid.”  It was Brian.

“Hey,” Mari replied, their voices barely above the tiniest violin whisper.

“Got a second?” 

Mari paused, unsure of how to answer.  Brian had appeared at her door countless times before, that soft knock repeating night after night.  Tonight’s knock, though, followed Brian’s news.  Mari hadn’t figured out how to respond, even as her green eyes peered at Brian through the narrow opening of the door.  

What if this was the last time?  

“Yeah, sure.”  Here, Mari opened the door wider and crossed back to her desk.  Brian stepped in the room, spinning to close the door before standing just inside, almost like he was afraid to touch anything.  Mari had sat back in her desk chair, and she was peering at Brian.  Studying him.  

“Nothing, I guess.  Just couldn’t sleep.  Thought I’d come talk to my kid sister.”

“Gee, thanks.”

A pause hung low and awkward in the room.  Brian finally walked to Mari’s bed and sat, facing the wall.  He was staring at a Foo Fighters poster.

“When did you get this one?  I may have to take it from you.”

“Look, just…”  Mari trailed off.  

Brian turned.  “What?”

“…Just say whatever you want, because I’m going to make up my own reasons for this anyway.”

“Come on, kid…”

“You know, you could call me Mari.  I’m not your little sister anymore.”

“Yeah, you are,” Brian chuckled as he spoke.  He repeated it.  “Yeah, you are.”

In the corner of the room, peeking out from the closet, was a stuffed Donkey Kong that Brian had given to Mari.  He won it at a county fair.  Perfectly called his miles-per-hour on a radar gun for three consecutive baseball pitches.  That was six years ago.  The stuffed gorilla, massive with a red tie, just sat with the same goofy look on his face, staring at the two siblings.

Mari finally bit.  “I guess I’ll just never understand it, so there’s no real reason I should try to.”

“It’s what I need, Mari.  I need to go.”

“Look�"save that bullshit for Evelyn.  You don’t ‘need’ to go.  Not right now.  You see the TV reports every night.”  Mari hardly ever cursed.  The blood hit her head quickly from the rush, almost like it was emboldening her.  

Brian turned back to face the poster on the wall.  He sighed, knowing Mari was right.  “It’s just…hard to explain, Mari.”

“Hard how?”

“I don’t know, kid.  It just is.”

“Well, then why’d you come down here?  You should be sleeping.  Long day tomorrow.”  Her voice uttered the last sentence with a crooked tongue, slithering and sarcastic.  At this, Mari turned back to her schoolwork and picked up her pen.

Brian stood and turned to Mari, who was no longer paying attention to him.  Ten thousand emotions flew through his head, butterflies and maelstroms trying to find a place on which they could settle.  They all felt wrong.  They felt like the kinds of things you’d see in movies, where the perfect thing is always said at the perfect time, and the audience all wonders what kind of person actually thinks of those kinds of things to say in the first place.  He cut his head to the side, staring at Mari’s closet door, half-opened.  A few pairs of sneakers were walking out, and Mari’s clothes hung on the bar near the top.  He could see sweatpants,sweatshirts, t-shirts, and a few pairs of slacks before the light ended and the hangers dimmed next to the closet door hinge.  He realized he was analyzing Mari’s clothes, and consciously turned his head to his sister.

She was sitting at her desk, hair pulled back, scribbling somewhat angrily on the paper in front of her.  Her head was bowed like a prayer.  She was wearing a t-shirt from her club hockey team, the year that they played in Rochester at the Bauer International.  Brian remembered it well, being in the stands and seeing Mari streak up and down the ice.  His voice gave out after a few days of cheering.

Finally, he opened his mouth.  Nothing came out.  Seconds passed.  Still nothing.  Brian’s eyes floated around in his head, swimming, looking for something else to fix his attention on.

The room was dark.  The only light came from Mari’s desk lamp and the iMac’s music visualizer.  He couldn’t recognize the song.  

“What song is that?”

Mari stopped writing and sighed.  “Chevelle.”  She started writing again.

Brian nodded, despite his sister’s lack of attention.  More seconds were lost, falling away like rain.

“Look…Mari?”  She didn’t acknowledge it.  The next words formed in Brian’s brain, and were passed through his blood to his tongue.  But there, they stopped, unable to find an opening.  He exhaled deeply.  “Just…”

Mari looked up from her homework, but didn’t turn around.

“Forget it,” Brian said.  He softly turned toward the door and wrenched the handle slowly.

Mari stared at the space in between her two windows.  It was bare, painted a dark purple that looked even darker in the nighttime.  She blinked once, twice, and twice more rapidly.  The rest of her end of the conversation was swallowed, difficultly, down into her belly.  Her jaw locked to the right, and she felt the tears start.

Mari Lennox shook her head like someone cracked an egg in her hair�"quickly, yet small and firm.  She looked back down at her schoolwork:

SnO₂ + H₂ -> Sn + 2 H₂O

Her eyes slurped the tears back up, and none fell onto her paper.  The emotion washed away, and she picked up her pen and began to write again.

Author's Note

This scene has been removed totally from the final version. The hardest decision I made from the first draft to the currently-being-revised edition.

Comment/review as you please! Thanks!