We Are Ash Page 12

  We find a deep cave. We stay in it for several light cycles, until the deep, grey layer of the snow-bit making sky changes into a bright, vivid blue sky. We wait until the biting, cruel wind is not always about, then we wait for darkness.

  There is a bright moon in the star-speckled darkness and we run again. We let our fur fall away as we run, knowing that it is Not Allowed and that it will make the bipeds use the not-nice yell. We finally recovered from the horrible fixing. We are ready after staying away and staying still. We are ready to see the Dolores, to understand if the Dolores will try to make us fix more squishies.

  When we come into the Dolores's lair—the lair that we thought was our own housewife lair—we see that we have been replaced. The Colt is smashing its mouth against the Dolores's udders and when we step inside the unsecured chamber, the Dolores shouts a no-point noise and the Colt springs to its feet and covers its rigid appendage with a blanket. As if we have any interest in its rigid appendage. Even if we were to take part in the eating, the appendage does not seem to be a very valuable piece of meat. It is shouting something at the Dolores and the Dolores looks happy but is still not-nice yelling and we are so confused that even though it is Not Allowed, we let a low bear roar rumble out of us.

  “Ash! You're back! I'm so glad you're back! But you, can you—look, we're just—we'll be out in just a minute!”

  It pulls the Colt into its nesting room, even though this exposes what appears to be the most choice cut of flesh on the squishies if we were to use biped meat for the recipes. They are an odd and inconsistent lot, these bipeds. We thought by now we would understand.

  We hear many mouth-noises, but we are upset, so we go and climb in the grooming tub. We fill it with hot water to warm our sad, bald, peltless body. We are enjoying this nice warm place when we get yelled at again as the Dolores and the Colt invade the small grooming room. We stomp out of the grooming chamber, shaking our furless body as best we can, but we are still damp and annoyed. The shaking causes more yelling but we simply give the Dolores what it has told us is The Stink-Eye, even though it doesn't make our eyes smell any different.

  We wait patiently on the floor in front of the fire before we remember the pointless, not-nearly-as-warm-as-fur coverings and we put the drapes on. We wait more and we consider another bear noise, but we are tired of being yelled at. Then at last, the Dolores and the Colt emerge.

  The Dolores, even though we have been gone for nearly as long as the Dolores left us for the unmaking of the mother-thing, does not say it missed us. It does not say it is sorry for making us do the fixing. It does not say that it was too hasty in proclaiming the breathing into Not Allowed. No. The Dolores says, “Ash, this is Colt,” as if we don't know what the tall one is. We nod, anxious for the Dolores to continue with something substantive. Instead it says, “Colt, this is Ash, my quasi-roommate.” We do not know what a Quasi is, or a Roommate. We wish very much to roar.

  Instead we snort a squishy snort and say, “We are the Dolores's housewife,” and cross our arms as we see the bipeds do when they are feeling surly.

  The Colt's dark eye-fur patches shoot up toward its very nice, luxurious head hair. It turns to the Dolores and starts laughing. “I didn't know you swung both ways.”

  “Oh, for fuck's sake, Ash. No, not like that. She's between jobs, so she's been cooking and cleaning for me during the day.”

  “We are her crazy bitch, too,” we interject.

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” the Colt says and flops back onto the couch where the things-past-mouth-smashing had been happening.

  “Look, Ash and I had a bit of fight right before you got here. Ash, Colt is only here until overnight, can you wait to talk about it in the morning? Can you just promise you'll stay, that you won't run off or disappear again?”

  “Fuck the YOU!” we should and throw our hands into the air.

  How can the Dolores not be happy to see us? How can it not care that we waited in a cold cave? That we did not know if the Dolores really wanted us to Go Away? And now all it wants to talk about is the bigger one! Are we too small? The Lane is smaller than this one and she wanted the Lane. We swallow a bear-growl of frustration that we can't decipher these creatures words and actions.

  Dolores hugs us and whispers, “Will Ash stay? Please? Please don't go away. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, I'll spend all day with y—with Ash.”

  We nod and we lean into the hug, pulling the Dolores's long body against ours. Even though we want to be angry, we feel only love for the Dolores, how much we missed the Dolores. We feel relief that it does not really want us to Go Away even though it tried to replace us while we were gone.

  We won't go anymore. The Dolores won't be able to replace us if we don't leave it in the alone.

  27 More Things That Are Not Allowed

  Dolores didn't even bother to try to have Colt and Ash get acquainted after that. Instead she trusted Ash would at least still be there after Colt resumed his journey to Spokane. Despite the interruption and the fact that Ash was lurking nearby, she and Colt still managed to have a night of proper goodbye sex. Even if Dolores did expect blood dripping to come dripping out of his nose any minute if Ash got curious.

  He had to leave early, so they bid each other another passionate farewell in the wee hours and Dolors threw on some clothes to walk him out to his truck. Ash was nowhere to be seen, but the latest pair of running shoes were absent from their spot by the door, the closest thing to a note that Ash could manage.

  “Don't forget me, okay? Maybe miss me?”

  She grinned and kissed his lips. “Hmmm… I doubt you'll have much time to miss me out there in Spokane.”

  They kissed one more time and Colt waved out the window as Dolores ran back into the house, grateful for the fire and the firewood, even if it was ill-gotten. She let out a shuddering breath, barely conquering tears, when she felt strong arms snake around her waist and she screamed. The owner of the arms screamed too, and as Dolores spun it morphed into a shouting laugh.

  “Goddamnit, Ash! Don't be so fucking sneaky all the time!”

  “We are not sneaky! We were only trying to comfort the Dolores since it looked sad.”

  “Yeah, well, thanks, I guess. Come on, let's sit by the fire. I only have a little bit before I have to go to work. Are you going to tell me where you've been? I've been so worried about you. Could you please get a phone or some other way for me to communicate with you?” Dolores presumed from the hastily corrected owlish head cock that she wouldn’t be learning much about her absence. Instead, she cut right to the chase.

  “What are you, Ash? And what the hell did you do to Marisol? I thought you were just a little strange, foreign maybe, but it's more than that, isn't it? Are you even human?”

  Ash gave her a nostril-flaring glare that Dolores assumed was due to The You. “We never said we were human. No, not human. We are Ash. We have told the Dolores this many times. And we fixed the Marisol, if that's what that squishy was. We fixed it because the Dolores asked us to fix it. Why was the Dolores so angry at us? Is the Dolores still angry?”

  “I don't know, Jesus… I don't even know how to—”

  “Not the Jesus—Ash. We can spell it: A-S-H. It is not listening. Ash. Not the You, not the Jesus.”

  “Goddamnit—that's a… look, with me at least, Jesus is just a mad word, okay? I'm not mad anymore, but you need to stop the other thing. I know you—Ash—didn't look like Ash when you did the creepy thing to Marisol that broke her, that made her cough up blood, but it was you, right? Which raises so many other questions. Was that Ash? Did Ash do that?”

  “We did. We do it to learn, to travel. We must breathe into the squishies.”

  “Seriously? Fuck! Will you die if you don't… um… breathe… into people?”

  “We don't know about the You. We will not die. But we will not learn if we don't do it. We will not be able to explore, to discover new places. We would be very sad not to breathe into anymore squishies. Does the Dolores me
an all squishies? Or just the Marisol? And the Colt? And the Lane?”

  “No, all humans, Ash. It's Not Allowed. It's killing people, Ash. When you kill someone, then they aren't humans or squishies or soft bipeds anymore—they're just gone.”

  “They can remake themselves. We realize that some squishies are not good at remaking, but most must be. There are so many squishies, how could they not be able to remake themselves?”

  “Do you—does Ash think that's how it works? It doesn’t. When people die that’s it. No more breathing into anyone. Nobody. Understand. It's Not Allowed.”

  Ash's eyes narrowed to blazing green slits in the early morning gloom. Dolores held her breath, unsure what to do if Ash refused, if she intended to keep sickening and killing people. Then Ash glanced toward the kitchen and back at Dolores.

  “The Dolores says everything fun is Not Allowed. If we stop breathing into people, the Dolores can't stop us from mouth-smashing. It gets to mouth-smash, and even smash whole bodies. We saw that it smashed its pelvis against the Colt. The Dolores is sometimes very mean to us for how nice we are to the Dolores. The Dolores was very not-nice after leaving us in the alone.”

  “You can mouth-smash, but not with Colt, okay? Lane is fine, but not Colt. And would you at least tell me about it so I can help you… navigate… other stuff? Do you… can you… I mean, do you even know what pelvis smashing is, Ash? Because you probably shouldn't do it if you don't understand it, okay? Maybe once you're a little more… human.”

  Ash scoffed and her eyes glinted. Dolores hoped that she could let the multiple “yous” slide and not go on a rant.

  “We will never be a squishy. We assume that some of the squishies have receptacles for the appendage? Then one terrestrial animal smashes its weak little appendage into the receptacle to solidify a relationship? The Dolores does not solidify our relationship because it has no appendage and we do not currently have an appendage. Should we have an appendage? We found it bothersome. It was unpredictable.”

  Dolores started laughing and Ash gave a responsive, grimace-faced laugh that in turn made Dolores want to scream. “I guess, sort of, but look, I don't know if Ash can get knocked up, so don't that without some guidance. I don't know if your… uh… receptacle is connected to a working uterus. And no, our relationship isn't a sexual relationship, that's different. We're friends. And I can't even contemplate the fact that you think you can just have or not have a dick.”

  “We have all the things that the squishy bipeds have. We remade a human body, but we are not human. We are not a squishy. But we wish to do the nice things squishies do, since you keep making Ash’s nice things Not Allowed. And we do not wish to try the eating or the stink-making, though, which seem to be the other primary squishy activities.”

  Dolores prickled at this remark, but it was hard to argue with facts. She took a long deep breath and took Ash's hands in hers.

  “I don't want to take away your nice things,” Ash's face lit up so Dolores quickly continued, “but I have to. I can't let you continue hurting people. You really can't fix anyone else?”

  Ash's face crumpled into a blend of horror and disgust. “The You is useless. But we also cannot do the fixing. We would no longer be us if we did that. We would lose everything, even the Dolores. We cannot fix them all, so the Dolores will have to figure out how to fix the other ones. We can't. We won't. We will do almost anything for the Dolores, but not that. No more fixing. If breathing into the squishies is Not Allowed, then the fixing is Not Allowed. Does the Dolores agree not to send us away for not fixing the other ones?”

  Dolores considered pushing harder, but she also didn't want Ash to disappear, especially if it meant a blood-cough-causing bender of “breathing into.” No, she would keep her friend and hopefully prevent more damage.

  “Okay, fine. But you have to shake my hand, that's how squishies make agreements. And you can't do it anymore, not even once, or I will make you go away and you won't be my crazy bitch anymore. Not my housewife, either, okay?”

  Dolores held her hand out. Ash clasped it in both of her hands and shook it so vigorously that Dolores had to yank it away. When she saw the sadness still making her only friend's face droop, though, she pulled Ash to her feet.

  “You want to take a bath? Come on, you must be freezing after running around in this weather.”

  “The stupid You. Always the You getting involved. We suspect the Dolores will say it is Not Allowed, but can it also be Allowed for us to grow a pelt while we are out running?”

  “Ash, no, just wear some warm clothes. Someone will shoot you if you run around looking like a glowing-eyed yeti.”

  At first Ash didn’t respond, instead sulkily filling up the bathtub.

  “Everything is Not Allowed,” Ash said under her breath, and Dolores couldn’t help but feel sorry for her.

  28 The Dolores Gets Another Friend

  Dolores found that she was very grateful to have a housewife once the semester started. In Dolores’s absence, Ash learned to use the washer and dryer, which was exciting. She also somehow discovered skiing—which she greatly enjoyed—but when pressed on how she paid for it became very surly. Dolores thought it was delightful to have her brain getting some work again. She didn't have enough time or money to take a full course load, but they were allowing her to audit a contagious diseases class. The course was especially practical considering both her career aspirations and home life.

  A cute guy sat in the front row of the contagious diseases class and was always there earlier than her. His name was Brook. She'd never known a male Brook and she wondered if it was as miserable as being a Dolores. He was always seated by the time Dolores squeaked in seconds before class started, and even if she’d gotten up the nerve to talk to him, she always had to run to work or to see Ash immediately after.

  Fate had finally smiled on her one day, though, when she and Brook actually physically ran into each other at the library. He bounced off her like she was a guardrail, but she was able to snatch his arm and keep him upright. He laughed and apologized before giving her a little half smile, showing very white, but slightly crooked teeth.

  “Aren't you in my contagious diseases class?” he asked. He had the scruffy beginnings of a beard on his strong jawline and golden eyes that looked luminous in his tan skin.

  “Sort of, I'm auditing it. I didn't have all the pre-reqs and I, uh… never mind. Yeah. You're the guy who always sits in the front row. I'm Dolores.” She realized she still had his arm in a death grip. She dropped it and then shook his hand.

  “Yeah, that's me. Brook. Auditing, huh? You must be down with the sickness.” His eyes glittered as he waited to see if she appreciated the joke.

  “I guess it's just woken up the demon in me?”

  Brook guffawed, clearly tickled by the reference. He glanced at his watch and said, “I've got another class. Wanna walk and talk?”

  Dolores pulled over his arm and looked at his watch too. She nodded and they made their way out into the savage winter day together.

  “Auditing for now, but eventually I want to go into research and prevention. I’m also a little bit obsessed with this new red pneumonia. I've known a bunch of people that have gotten it. One who died, even.”

  Brook made a cross with his fore fingers. “Back, ye harbinger of contagion!” he said with a smile. “I hear you. I'm actually a little obsessed with it myself. I did an internship at the CDC last summer, and hopefully I'm going back again soon to volunteer some. At least until I can get a job there. Fingers crossed.”

  He continued, on a roll now. “I'm not convinced it's a disease at all, though. The red pneumonia that is. It seems more like there's some kind of chemical agent involved, that somehow all these people are getting poisoned. Except I can't for the life of me figure out any kind of coherent motivation. Or toxin. Or anything, really. I asked my old CDC supervisor why they’re not doing more and he just said they can’t commit tight resources on something that isn't really killing peo
ple. Well, at least not many people. So I've been trying to do a little armchair detective work. I thought at first maybe it’s some kind of terrorist, but they’d be super inefficient if that was the case, so maybe some kind of personal vendetta. I'm trying to Facebook connect some of the known victims, and at least four different cases were cousins! Close cousins too! Like, actual friends! Crap. Sorry, I totally rambled on you. I’m sorry. This is my classroom.”

  Dolores's heart was racing at how perilously close to the truth of the matter Brook was, but it was also racing as he looked at her with his earnest, honey-colored eyes. She nodded and then her mouth spoke without prefrontal cortex permission: “You want to get coffee sometime and do some armchair detecting? Or whatever the active verb for that would be?”

  “Sleuthing is the term you're looking for. Sure.” Brook rummaged in his bag and pulled her hand toward his before writing his number down on her palm. “And although I endorse and enthusiastically recommend frequent hand-washing as the best preventative for contagious disease, I hope you won't wash my number off until you have programmed it into your phone.”

  Dolores was delighted to have his number, but also dismayed that he had so deftly put the ball back in her court. She had inadvertently made the first move and tried to force him into making the second, but he'd been too quick with his antiquated pen on flesh. She looked up from her inked palm and saw that he was already gone. She smiled and set off back toward the library, which she had left without a second thought in order to make what might be her second friend. Maybe more, but no. She had enough to think about with Colt these days.

  As the semester progressed, Dolores eventually found a frantic rhythm to her life, balancing her shifts with her classes, spending time she should've been sleeping working on problem sets and lab notebooks and reading. She and Brook had commenced a lively texting friendship, but they'd only managed to see each other outside of class when she was working at Starbucks. However, she was certain that at least some of these interactions had been flirtatious. She hoped. She dreaded. She wished.