Big Sur
By Julia Markish
The trip had been Jonathan’s idea.
In his search for the environments where Gemma was happiest, most relaxed, most herself, nature had revealed itself as the most consistent. Almost every weekend throughout the spring and early summer, they had taken a long walk through the neighboring woods. This weekend, he’d come up with a better plan: they would drive down to Big Sur, he’d offered, and stay the night at a bed and breakfast. She had looked up at him with her green, searching eyes, smiled broadly, and nodded imperceptibly.
What if he hadn’t chosen Big Sur? What if they had stuck to the local trails like they always did?
“Oh, you’d most certainly still be alive, yes,” a voice jumped into his consciousness.
Jonathan swiveled around in the armchair he found himself in, and the armchair swiveled with him. “Who’s there?”
“Hello!” a form came into focus. They were in a cozy room, not unlike a well-appointed therapist’s office, and the form was sitting in an armchair similar to that in which Jonathan sat, though the form’s uppermost bounds barely crossed the middle of the chair’s back. Between them was a lit table lamp on a small table, and before them was a large, dark bay window. Jonathan felt a thick, plush rug under his feet.
“What is this? What’s happening?”
“I’m Patrick!” the form proclaimed and stretched his arm out across the table.
Jonathan shook it without thinking.
“Yes, very good! The pleasure is all mine. I’m your Reviewer. Have you read the pamphlet?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, I’m not sure I know what you’re talking ab—” As Jonathan talked, he noticed a booklet resting in his lap. He picked it up. The title on the cover was written in large, bold letters. You’re Dead. Now What? Jonathan looked back to Patrick in a panic.
“No need to panic!” the little man said, and then closed his eyes and chuckled, pleased with himself. “We’ll take it a step at a time. You ask me questions; I answer them if I can. In fact, we’ve already started.”
“We have? Started what?”
“Your Review! You asked, ‘What if I hadn’t chosen Big Sur?’ And I answered, ‘You’d most certainly still be alive.’ It’s very easy. Try another!”
Jonathan looked at his pamphlet again, and flipped open to the first page, where he found a table of contents.
Chapter 1: Your Review: How to Get the Most Out of Your Questions
Chapter 2: Your Funeral: Should you Attend?
Chapter 3: Tour of Duty: How to Choose Whether—and for How Long—to be a Ghost
Chapter 4: Reintegration: Remembering your Past Lives, and Accepting Your Last One
…
“I wouldn’t worry about reading it now if you haven’t looked into it. You’d be wasting precious Review minutes. You’ll have plenty of dead time—,” he suddenly chuckled, “Dead! Ha!” and went back to, “once you’re out. So, I would try asking more interesting questions than, say, whether the pamphlet is any good.”
“OK,” Jonathan put the booklet down on the table and leaned forward, his head landing in his hands. “What would you have me ask?”
“Ohhh, that’s one of my favorite questions!” exclaimed the man, his palms coming together in a burst of mini claps. He settled back into his chair and closed his eyes. “Let’s see,” he muttered to himself, “What have you got in here that’s worth exploring. . .” A few moments later, he opened his eyes and fixed them on Jonathan. “Why don’t we start with a simple one. Haven’t you always wanted to know what happened to your teddy bear? Bearly, was it?”
Jonathan’s eyes grew wide. “You know what happened to him?” he whispered with fervor. “I spent weeks scouring the neighborhood for him. It was that kid Jack that took him, wasn’t it? He was always such a bully. What did he do with him?”
Patrick pointed to the window, which suddenly lit up, and Jonathan found himself looking out onto the street where he grew up, zipping by hedges and houses, as if the room they were in was an all-terrain hovercraft, or a tiny UFO. He let out a low whistle. The view in the window stopped at the playground where Jonathan had spent so many of his afternoons, and there, sitting on the bench, was eight-year-old Jonathan, along with his beloved Bearly, the giant stuffed bear that he’d gotten for his sixth birthday and hadn’t gone a day without since. The next minute happened exactly as Jonathan remembered: his brother called him to the jungle gym bars, but as soon as he grasped a bar he fell, scraping his knee, and, momentarily forgetting all about the existence of Bearly, he let his brother half-carry him back to the house where their mother patched him up with bacitracin, a band-aid, and some chocolate milk. But the view out of the Review window stayed trained on Bearly. Time was now passing faster: night fell, then morning came, and Bearly was still on the bench. As the sun moved across the sky, time slowed again: two little girls had come to the playground with a middle-aged man. “That’s Walter,” Patrick suddenly piped up. “He’s visiting his sister, who lives in your neighborhood. His wife just passed away two weeks ago. Cancer. This one,” he pointed to the younger girl, “is Fiona, Walter’s daughter. She hasn’t smiled since her mother’s passing. This one is Melodie, Walter’s niece. You might recognize her. . .” But Jonathan wasn’t paying attention to Melodie. He was watching Fiona, who had sat down on the bench with Bearly. She was talking to him. She was looking around for his owner. She was reaching out her hand and taking his paw. She was hugging him. She was asking Walter if she could keep him, and Walter, shrugging, was agreeing. And then, as Jonathan watched, transfixed, Fiona smiled. The window flickered, and Bearly was in the little girl’s bedroom. It flickered again, and Jonathan saw a fourteen-year-old Fiona sitting with his by now faded and frayed childhood toy, wiping tears of teenage tragedy on his shoulder. The window flickered again and went dark.
“And now you know what happened to Bearly,” the Reviewer said with a satisfied smile.
“That’s incredible,” breathed Jonathan, and sat back in his chair. “I guess I should have been nicer to Jack. What else can you tell me?”
“Well, my friend,” Patrick said, “you’ll have to put at least some effort into this, if you’re going to get anything out of it. What’s been important to you? Which of life’s mysteries haven’t you been able to crack?”
“Gemma,” Jonathan said simply.
“Indeed,” Patrick replied, and they both sighed. “So then, what about Gemma?”
Jonathan thought for a few seconds. “Does she love me?”
“Ah! A common question. Alas, I don’t deal in other people’s emotions. Only their actions. Behaviors. Facts of history.” He paused, as if listening, and then smiled slightly. “Wonderful idea! Yes, let’s go to that night that you’re remembering now.”
The scene playing in Jonathan’s mind just then—the time he had told Gemma that he loved her—was immediately mirrored in the window before them. The two of them were still at UC Berkeley, working on their senior projects in Gemma’s basement apartment on Roome Lane. They had just ordered pizza—half pepperoni, half mushroom. They were sitting on the gray rug that they’d found for free on Craigslist only days before and lugged to her house for six blocks on foot. She was sketching architectural designs for her landscaping final. He had his laptop open but hadn’t typed anything. He was watching her. And when she finally looked up—perhaps from sensing his eyes on her—he found himself saying the thing that he’d promised himself he wouldn’t say. “Gemma, I think I’m in love with you.” She stared, first at him, then through him, then past him altogether. They sat in silence as she pulled at the threads of the gray rug. Jonathan’s chest was tightening. He felt as though he’d just started an avalanche, and it was gathering speed. He put aside his computer and started crawling toward her, but she shook her head. “Don’t do this, Jon. Don’t fuck it up. You’re my best friend. Don’t take my best friend away from me.” Her voice was tense and even. She sounded angry. His chest tightened all the way, and he stood up abruptly. There were dozens of things he wanted to say then: that he would never leave her; that they could be best friends and they could be lovers; that they could live and love the rest of their lives together. But her tone had drained all the courage he’d somehow worked up. All he could do was gather his computer into his bookbag, put on his shoes, and walk out in a daze.
Jonathan watched the scene from the window, fingers tugging at the shirt hem in his lap. “That was the worst day of my life,” he said softly to Patrick.
“I know,” consoled his companion. “Keep watching.”
Once again, the window stayed on the scene after the Jonathan in it had gone. Gemma continued to sit on the floor, silent and still, until the doorbell rang. She jumped up and wiped her face, a renewed energy in her body as she ran to the door. She flung it open. A college student with a ponytail and a pizza stood on the other side. “What?!” she cried at the delivery boy, “Why aren’t you Jonathan?” and swung the door shut again. It was as though an entirely different Gemma had taken over her body. “WHY!?” she sobbed. “Why did you say that? Why did you lie to him? Why did you let him leave?” She collapsed onto the floor, her drawings crumpling under her body. She stayed there, sobbing, rocking back and forth.
Jonathan behind the window looked away, distress pooling in his eyes. “I should have gone back,” he whispered. “Please, I don’t want to watch anymore.” The window went dark again.
“My dear,” the little man said, “we can only do what we dare to do at the time that we do it. No more. And after, there can be reflection, learning. Perhaps closure. But regret—there is nothing that regret can change, other than to breed mistrust in yourself.”
Jonathan looked at his new friend. By the faint light of the table lamp, he could barely make out the soft smile that seemed to perpetually play on his lips. “Can you show me what’s happening right now?”
Patrick strained his head to one side, frowning momentarily. Finally, he said, “It’s not an easy experience, you know—witnessing one’s own end.”
“I understand,” Jonathan said. “But I want to see her.”
The Reviewer nodded appreciatively. “Alright, if that’s what you want.” He pointed to the window, where the scenery was already rapidly changing. They were soaring through waves of the Pacific, skimming white-tipped crests along the unmistakable green cliffs and rocky beaches of the mid California coast. They could see Route 1 weaving its way, at times doubling back on itself as it climbed what looked like mounds from where they flew, at times stretching out like a delicate thread in the grass. Jonathan recognized the stretch of road before his last memory. But the window did not bring them to the highway itself. Instead, it started slowing nearly one hundred feet beneath it. As it approached, Jonathan got out of his armchair and came up to the window. There, just on the other side of the pane, was Gemma. Tears streaked her face, scratches blazed on her clothes and skin. She was frantically scrambling towards the wreck of Jonathan’s Civic, whose window she had evidently been thrown from above where it had finally landed. A few seconds later, she stopped, and Jonathan saw his own body, which had come half-way out of the driver’s side window as well. His head was covered in blood. His left arm was pinned behind his torso. Gemma kneeled over his face, gasping, noiselessly shrieking his name.
Patrick stood and put his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder. The dead man’s back strained. His body pushed against the glass. “Go to her,” Patrick said. He unlatched the window, and it swung open. Confused, Jonathan looked from him to the scene outside, but he didn’t ask more questions. He leapt out of the room just above where Gemma had stopped. He expected to land hard on the slope, but all he felt was the distant echo of a thud. He tried to run to her, and felt himself floating instead, as if underwater. Moments later, he was hovering next to her trembling body. “I’m here,” he muttered, “I’m here.” Tears, hot on his face, dripped from his cheeks, but evaporated as soon as they hit the air. And just as he wondered if she could feel him there, wisps of mist wound their fingers around her body, moistening her skin.
After a time, Gemma’s breathing started to ease. Her hands, which had been clutching at bloodied hair, slowly relaxed into a caress. She tore her gaze from the body in her arms and lifted her face to the sky. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply. Jonathan brought one hand to her cheek and wrapped the other arm around her body. The mist gathered closer.
She opened her eyes, staring into the space where he hovered. Her hands felt for her jacket pocket, and she unzipped it shakily, removing her phone. The screen had a large crack along the right side, but still lit up when she pressed a button. She navigated to her contacts and pressed the phone icon under the name Zoe. The only Zoe that Jonathan knew was a classmate from senior year—she’d been in one of Gemma’s advanced architecture classes, maybe Structural Design.
“Gem?” a voice came through.
“Hey,” cracked Gemma’s voice. “We’ve been in an accident. I don’t know how I’m alive. Jonathan is—” she choked as she said his name, and her throat closed up again.
“Gem, where are you? Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine, but Zo, he’s. . . he’s. . .”
“Breathe baby,” the voice soothed. “I’m with you. I love you.”
Gemma panted into the phone, first shallowly, then deeper, as the fog around her grew thinner. “Me too,” she sighed. “I love you, too.”
