Suggested soundtrack: this chapter is intended to be read while listening to Feeling Good, by Nina Simone.
TW: references to drug use.
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« There is in all things a pattern that is part of our universe. It has symmetry, elegance, and grace (...). Yet, it is possible to see peril in the finding of ultimate perfection. It is clear that the ultimate pattern contains its own fixity. In such perfection, all things move towards death. »
Frank Herbert, Dune .
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April 2 2019, 11:11am
'Dad, who the hell are these assholes?'
Those words have been echoing in my head ever since I teleported out of Hargreeves Mansion. Ever since I began to run along the sidewalk of Rigel Street, in the midst of the impassive late-morning crowd. As I became visible again under the dull skies of The City, which I hadn't seen in years, I hurried along the sidewalk, pushing myself to the point of breathlessness.
'This, is the ~Sparrow~ Academy'
There were six of them. Or seven, my hazy mind couldn't tell. I could only notice their deep red uniforms edged in blue, sewn with a azure and tawny coat of arms, encompassing the sparrow, the swords, the tears and the lock. In another era, Five would have explained its heraldic symbolism to me, but we were too flabbergasted.
'~My children~'.
Could I have imagined that such a few words from Reginald Hargreeves would shatter my hopes? That we'd probably all had? But after all, who are we to have dared to hope that we'd managed to defy the omens? What are we, apart from shiny particles - helpless - tossed about in the unfathomable swirls of space-time?
I accidentally bump into a businessman heading out for lunch. And rather than apologize, I hurriedly teleport into the passing bus, its car radio humming bossa nova.
Ben wasn't 'our Ben', Klaus realized it at his painful expense, when he smashed him in the face for trying to hug him. A very much alive but alternative Ben, who sent him tumbling across half the room, just before an all-out brawl broke out, causing the most inconceivable chaos. Even worse than an ordinary quarrel between my regular Hargreeves. A firework display of adrenalin, misplaced egos and eclectic powers.
Holy crap. Did the number of dysfunctional Reginald offspring I'm going to have to deal with double, in just a heartbeat?
And ~it~ was there.
That cube I don't know the origin of, filled with pure energy, that spotted me immediately, even though I was invisible. It probed me as I probed it, like looking into a mirror. Both alike and different, in a way that oddly unsettled me, to the point of precipitating my departure - even more than the tremendous scrum of punches, kicks, rumors, sound waves and other stupid cawing crows that took over Hargreeves Mansion's beautiful Moorish balconies.
If Ben is another Ben, if the Academy is another Academy, then we're not back in our own reality. And if we're still somewhere else than 'home', then...
"Granny..."
This question is the only one left in my mind now, as I use my power to make the bus engine whirr, startling its driver as he maneuvers to avoid a taxi. I don't care if he gets nabbed for speeding down the avenues leading away from Rainshade Square. I want to get to Argyle West as soon as possible.
I need to know if she's okay.
On the outskirts of the business district's modern buildings, perpetually under construction, the traffic densifies, and the bus slows down. Through my marigolds - as I still call them - I can feel each of their engines getting just as annoyed as my heart, at not being able to move forward.
The steaming hot-dog carts, the newspaper hawkers, the employees with their brown leather cases: all seem unmoved by the storm of impatience rumbling inside me.
*Crack!*
I'm back on the sidewalk, splitting the constant stream of people sometimes rushing into one office entrance or another. Struggling to move forward, just as I now feel I'm doing against time.
*Crack!*
I turn into a grimy back alley, where clotheslines hang overhead, and the laundry seems doomed never to dry in the steam from the district heating. Cats flee, not so different from those in Dallas in 1961. I run under the half-open windows of the dingy buildings overlooked by the glass skyscrapers. Built from black bricks, misery, blackmail and trafficking. I push aside the memories tied to those doors and graffiti from the past. I turn onto Eighth Avenue, at the other end of this unfortunately familiar shortcut.
*Crack!*
In the blink of an eye, I'm on another bus. The Express, which usually only takes a few minutes to reach the bus stop down the block where I once lived. Once? 'Once' was yesterday. Literally, since it's April 2 2019. But in a timeline that wasn't this one. I breathe, on and on, as the driver interrupts the bossa nova he's been playing too, to give way to Nina Simone.
'Birds flying high, you know how I feel'.
'This, is the ~Sparrow~ Academy'
Once again, I shudder to think what Reginald Hargreeves did after meeting us all in 1963. What directions his feedback loop would have led him to take after evaluating us all. What new reality his Providence founded on the wings of the sparrow. Did he wish to replace us, having judged us deficient? Or did he judge his work to be worthy, and wish to double his chances, fully aware that we would sooner or later try to make our way 'home'?
'Sun in the sky, you know how I feel'.
'Dad, who the hell are these assholes?'
As the bus briefly speeds up along a section of the elevated expressway, I catch a glimpse of The City's urban skyline. This northern city by the lakes, where I've grown up since almost the beginning of my life, by the will of this man who decided to monitor me. I still don't know what I am, within the schemes he's woven into our lives. And I crash into one of the seats at the front of the bus.
'Breeze driftin' on by, you know how I feel'.
'~My children~'.
I close my eyes for a moment, exhausted from all my recent materializations and teleportations, and from the emotions that now prevent my legs from carrying me properly. When I open them again, I let my eyes wander over the succession of buildings and streets that the Umbrella Academy once 'protected' in the shadows. But in this timeline, the new so-called heroes seem to be superstars: their faces are everywhere, since the beginning of my trip. On top of buildings, on newsstands, even on children's T-shirts. I could almost laugh, if I didn't find it so fucking pathetic.
I don't even have the strength to boost the car's engine one last time, so I just lean back and rest my head against the window. The other passengers don't notice anything strange about me, not even in my clothes, which might just look a bit vintage. But in The City, you could have three heads: no one would notice. I sigh, my eyes unfocused.
'It's a new dawn, it's a new day. It's a new life for me... and I'm feeling good.'
I, too, am trying to convince myself that I feel good. So, with the tip of my finger, as I did so many times as a child, I start to draw in the cold window fogging. Without thinking too much.
Concentric squares. Dots. And lines, gradually connecting them. A pattern I've only seen once, on the velvety paper of Reginald Hargreeves' notebook, during our 'light supper', but which I've been thinking about ever since. I sit up straight and stare at it for a brief moment, there on the misty glass, ephemeral but haunting to the point of making the marigolds inside me buzz again.
'And this old world is a new world, and a bold world, for me'.
'WARDEN FABRIC-MARKET !'.
The recorded voice calling out the names of the stops suddenly snaps me out of my reverie, for this stop is one of the two closest to 'my place'.
'Oh, freedom is mine, and I know how I feel'.
My hand quickly wipes the drawing off the window, and I initiate the movement to teleport myself outside, without the slightest concern for what the other passengers will see. But I can't do it. I'm out of fuel, for a solid hour at least. And I need a coffee.
'It's a new dawn, it's a new day. It's a new life for me... and I'm feeling good.'
The bus doors close behind me as I adjust my collar: the temperature in The City in April is nowhere near as nice as it was in Dallas in November. I shiver a little as I walk up the section of street leading to the building where I've always lived. With my mother, my grandmother, until the first Apocalypse swept us away.
Three steps, and my gaze scans the interior of the entrance hall. In the corner by the elevator, near the garbage room door, the narrow space where Klaus had slept for nights when my mother died hasn't changed at all. For a brief moment, I could almost still see him there, on his shabby mattress, clumsily knitting to replace his favorite Vivienne Westwood sweater, which he'd had to pawn to pay off his debts.
My fingers automatically dial the digicode on the door, which has never changed. The one I'd finally given him so he'd stop bribing the neighbors.
4107.
The light turns red. Have my trembling fingers typed it wrong?
4107.
No. The tiny LED stubbornly glows red, and I frown, a hint of anxiety stirring in my chest.
"Looking for something?"
I recognize the voice at once. With her slightly graying black bun and household apron, Mrs. Moretti, our downstairs neighbor, seems almost a fixed point in time. A courageous woman who raised four children in her small apartment while her husband was mostly absorbed in his stamp collection. She was just as judgmental as Granny, which often resulted in a stairwell squabble. A notorious eavesdropper, who suspected several times that I might be hiding a power, before my mother managed to quell her suspicions.
"I..."
I'd almost expect her to tell me that the electricity bill has arrived in her letterbox by mistake again, but something in her look lets me guess that she doesn't recognize me.
"I'm looking for Ms. Hoàng," I tell her, but deep down I've already understood.
"Ms. Hoàng, Ms. Hoàng..." she repeats. "Ms. Hoàng as in the secretary at the dental clinic on the corner of Second Avenue? Or Ms. Hoàng as Hoàng Import Export, and if so: you're definitely in the wrong district."
"Neither... I think...", I manage to stammer. "Ms Hoàng on the fourth floor?"
Mrs. Moretti shrugs.
"On the fourth floor, there's only the Patel family and old Mr. Ivanovitch, who's lived there for almost twenty-five years."
"The door on the right?"
"Yes."
I understand that Granny and my mother never rented this apartment, and Moretti frowns slightly, with a form of suspicion, now.
"You must be mistaking the building," she says, carefully hiding the code she's dialing, which unlocks the glass door.
"And if you're here for canvassing, you can go and f-"
"No. No I'm not. I'm sorry for the bother."
Giving me one last glance, she rushes into the hall, where I'm no longer welcome. Through the closing door, scents reach me for a second, instantly bringing back a myriad of memories so deeply rooted in my childhood that they've practically built me up. The scents of detergent, mixed world cuisines, outdated wallpaper, and elevator grease. But in this reality, I never lived there and this pain in my chest is proof that I know.
But I want to witness it with my own eyes.
I step back and move around the building into the side alley where the fire escape climbs. I grasp the metal handrail, climbing the grate-like steps that Klaus so often used. I pass successive landings, including the one on whose wall he once vomited after getting high on oxycodone. My pace slows as I reach the window of what had been my bedroom the day before, somewhere else in space-time. An immaculate window: with no more holographic stickers displaying the names of my favorite metal bands.
I glance inside, catching sight of a desk covered in papers, right where my bed once stood: the wall adorned with a reproduction of 'The Kiss' by Klimt instead of my Metallica poster. Suddenly, I'm seized by the paradoxical nature of my memories, based on events that have never existed outside the electrical connections of my exhausted brain, and perhaps Klaus's.
I step back and fall to my knees on the creaking staircase. Motionless, facing the windowsill he's never stepped over. Feelings and thoughts overwhelm me to the point of nausea, making me momentarily regret fleeing the chaotic brawl at Hargreeves Mansion. At least I'd have been able to let off steam, because now my whole being is roaring.
Behind this wall, the apartment has never heard my childhood giggles and terrors, nor my mother's scolding in face of my first invisibilities and teleportations, nor the noise of Granny's sewing machine. Here, the bass of my teenage music - the kind that made the neighbors grumble - never thumped. Nor the end-credits music of Granny's dramas, covering Klaus's murmurs and laughter in the dead of night, before he raided the fridge or over-used the shower, as soon as she started snoring.
Where have our lives gone? What has happened to us? Yes, 'once' was yesterday. Yesterday that - apparently - never existed. Nina Simone's words haunt me, as if she wanted to speak directly to my heart.
And my fists clench.
'Stars when you shine, you know how I feel.'
'This old world is a new world, and a bold world, for me.'
'And I'm feeling good.'
Notes:
Welcome back to The City, dear time-traveling fellows, for the start of the 3rd season of A bend in space-time (and of The Umbrella Academy). For Rin, just like for the others, the realization is harsh: after years spent in the dust of Dallas and the '60s, they're not exactly 'back home'.
Nina Simone's song suited so well the feeling of this chapter and the return to 2019 (and also connect to Sinnerman, from the season 1 soundtrack, to remind us that we are indeed back to The City). Really, for me The Umbrella Academy will always be inextricably intertwined with its music.
Once again, Reginald Hargreeves's plans are looming in the background, even in Rin's drawings on the bus's window. Will she finally understand her place in the machinery of the universe?
Any comment will make my day!