Work Text:
The Autumn Directly After
It’s a sunny day in the middle of autumn and Conrad is cruising across campus on his skateboard. He’s meeting his INDE204B study group at the library in seventeen minutes.
He’s a little over a mile away from the library. That’s 1.7 kilometers. Assume he’s averaging a speed of 9.7 miles per hour. Around 4.3 meters per second. Distance over speed to solve for time. A little over six and a half minutes. Which leaves him just under eleven minutes to finish his flashcards.
The scenery whizzes by him in a blur of greens, emerald to olive. Back home, the sidewalks would be carpeted in leaves of warm red, orange, and brown. Here they’re bare, save the occasional candy wrapper or flyaway sheet of notes.
He wouldn’t even have to close his eyes to believe it was still summer.
***
Thanksgiving
Conrad thinks the probability of him getting hit in the head by a rogue flying spatula is nontrivial today.
He’s washing the dishes while Agnes cooks. He wasn’t even planning on celebrating this year, wasn’t particularly feeling in the spirit, but she somehow roped him into it.
“For the last time,” Agnes says, brandishing an onion and celery coated spatula at him. “You’re not touching my stuffing. You know what, don’t even look at my stuffing. Just stay in your lane and keep your eyes on the dishes.”
“I could grill some chicken,” he suggests.
“Oh we are not eating your clinically flavorless chicken. Today is supposed to be a holiday.” She blows a curl that’s fallen out of her ponytail away from her face, bowl resting on her hip as she mixes the stuffing.
“And before you ask,” she continues, pointing the spatula at him once more, “I know you’ve been making a lot of salmon recently and no, you cannot make salmon either. Get back to scrubbing”
Conrad finishes rinsing the soap off the
bowl he was working on and places it on the rack to dry. The warm glow of the oven light, cranberries burbling softly as they simmer on the stove, the air thick with the toasty scent browning butter and the earthy spice of nutmeg. It’s all familiar but transposed a couple units to the left, the cacophony of cheerful, familiar voices absent in a way that makes him tighten his grip on the plate he’s washing.
“I could make a sweet potato pie.”
Agnes pauses mixing the stuffing, setting the bowl down on the counter. She grabs two slices of leftover bread, one in each hand. “Do I need to make you into an idiot sandwich?”, she asks, leveling him with a pointed glare. “Because I’ll do it. Now scrub.”
“Yes chef. Apologies chef.” He mock salutes her with a sudsy hand before returning to the dishes. Agnes begins to hum the Peanuts theme under her breath as she devotes her attention back to her stuffing. Conrad shakes his head, scrubbing a saucepan in even clockwise strokes as a soft smile curls across his face.
Maybe there are still some things he has to be thankful for after all.
***
Winter Solstice
The dark of the night feels heavier today, palpable, like if he reached out and swept his fingertips in an arc through the sky they would come away stained inky black. Conrad knows this is just confirmation bias.
He’s watching Die Hard, the screen of his laptop flickering as John McClane pulls off another impossible stunt with endless flair and charisma. It’s not quite a holiday movie, but then again, it’s not quite the holidays.
The microwave lets out a shrill beep. He walks over to take his mug of milk out, eyes still glued to the screen, nearly colliding with the vase of hydrangeas resting on the kitchen counter in the process.
He rifles through his cupboard, turning around every few seconds to make sure he’s not missing anything. He finds the packet he was searching for, and stirs the powder into his drink before making his way back, taking care not to let the liquid slosh out of his mug.
He settles back into his spot on the couch. John McClane has finished securing the firehose around himself and Conrad watches, elbows balanced on his knees and mug handle indenting his palm, when he takes a soaring leap off the roof as the building explodes behind him.
Steam is curling in soft grey spirals from his mug. Conrad lifts it up to take the first sip of his drink, and has to restrain himself from immediately spitting it back out. He wrinkles his nose as he stares down at the murky brown liquid speckled with agglomerates.
Cocoa was never his specialty.
***
Christmas
He drives from Palo Alto to San Diego, cruising the I-5 windows down, wind whipping through his hair, a soft rock song humming over the radio. Nearly eight hundred kilometers of distance to cover with just his thoughts for company.
He likes the immensity of the highway. Hundreds of cars fly past him carrying people with their own lives, their own rock they push up the hill every day.
When he exits the highway and hits that first stretch of coast, he feels as if the oxygen is being pulled deeper into his lungs.
Conrad pulls into the parking lot and remains still for a moment, hands resting on the sun-warmed leather of the wheel as he gazes at the bright sapphire of the Pacific sprawling into the distance before him.
He allows himself one more breath of stillness before exiting the car, keys in hand and an even layer of sunscreen across his face.
The waves are crashing violently against the rocks as he walks down the pathway overlooking the sea. He rolls up the sleeves of his hoodie so he can let the ocean spray hit his forearms.
There’s a seal sunning itself on a large rock, and he pauses a moment to observe it, arms resting on the cold metal of the railing, slightly wet from the droplets flying up from the blue chaos below.
He’s just about to continue his trek down to the beach when he catches sight of another seal, this one fighting against the waves as it endeavors to make its way onto the rock.
This seal is a little larger than the other, and is valiantly battling the pull of the current. Its dark brown head disappears and reappears as the seal attempts to haul itself onto the rock. Wave after wave crests over the seal’s head, dragging it back into the thick of the relentless waters.
There’s a moment when Conrad thinks that the seal has succeeded, that it has made it. The seal has managed to heave the top half of its body over the edge of the rock and is trying to get the rest of its body up, slowly scooting forward on its stomach, when an enormous wave crashes over the rock, swallowing the seal back into the gaping mouth of the sea.
Moments pass by, and Conrad doesn’t see the seal. He’s starting to think that the seal has abandoned the rock when he sees its head bobbing amongst the waves.
The seal attempts again. And again. He continues to push forward despite each attempt being washed away and repeatedly being forced to start anew by the cold, churning waters.
When the seal manages to heave its upper body onto the rock once more, Conrad tips his body forward to lean over the bar of the railing, monitoring the movement of the ocean. The water has temporarily receded but the seal has only a small window.
The seal moves rapidly, scooting forward on his stomach, flippers fluttering against the jagged surface of the rock as he shifts his body weight forward. Conrad watches as the seal gets his tail over the steep face of the rock and moves forward a little more. Now fully on the rock, the seal rolls onto his side to bask in the warm glow of the golden afternoon sunlight.
Conrad turns around and starts walking back to the car before the next wave hits.
***
New Year’s Eve
Conrad checks his watch. Two hours until midnight. His apartment is silent save the delicate ticking of silver hands, and he’s sitting at the counter with a crossword puzzle.
He fills out 10 down. Doesn’t glance at his wrist. 9 down. Fidgets with his pencil. 8 down has him stumped. He turns around on his barstool so he can look out the window.
The fireworks haven’t started yet, but there’s a plane, headlights filtering through the clouds to cut through the dark of the night in luminescent white beams. If they came from a different country, even a different zone of the States, the passengers in that plane are time traveling right now.
He checks his watch again.
He doesn’t think about how it’s already a new year back East.
***
Valentine’s Day
“So you want me to celebrate murder then,” Conrad says, blasé as he leans against the counter, drafting an email to Dr. Namazy on his laptop.
“Not murder, Conrad.” Agnes punctuates her sentence with an eye roll. “Valentine’s Day. Half off pink vodka shots at the bar.”
Conrad glances up, fingers still flying across the keys. “Valentine’s Day originated due to the martyrdom of two different St. Valentines who were executed by the Roman emperor. Ergo, murder.”
“True,” Agnes stretches out the syllable as she considers. “But the holiday has evolved since the third century.”
“Sure,” Conrad says. “Now it’s a day for the corporate fat cats to diminish love down to a box of chocolates and a boquet of red roses.” He pauses for a second, fingers stilling on the keys. “When you’re in love it’s—it’s this force. Impossible to express in a card with a heart stamped on the front.”
The corner of Conrad’s mouth twists slightly, fingers striking the keys with an undercurrent of tension contradictory to his usual precise rhythm. He’s only partially focused on his screen. His attention is fixed past it toward the kitchen, gaze drawn to a cupboard with the door hanging slightly crooked on its hinge.
“Okay fine. No Valentines themed bar,” Agnes decides. “How about we go try my friend’s homemade moonshine and hope that we don’t fall horrifically ill?”
“Yes. Because that’s what today is all about. Ethanol poisoning,” Conrad monotones, but he’s already shutting his computer and moving to grab his keys.
“I’m only coming because you’ll need someone to scrape you off the floor,” he says, pointing a finger at Agnes. She shakes her head with a small smile before following him out the door, both of them pausing only to put on their shoes.
The cupboard is momentarily forgotten.
***
Spring Equinox
There’s a carnival abuzz with energy all across Arguello Field when Conrad passes by on his way back from INDE206. He scans the sprawling lawn, taking in the crowds of students, the stretches of neatly arranged stalls. The air hums with the chimes of games won and lost, laughter threading through.
He walks along the lines of stalls, ends up buying a lemonade in the hope that the sharp citrus will cut through the dry heat of the day. He takes a sip and tries not to wince. Too sweet. He grabs another straw so he can save it for Agnes. Sometimes she’ll don a grudging pretense before proceeding to happily finish his sugar saturated drinks.
Conrad continues perusing the carnival, stopping to examine a stand with plushes of biological molecules and organelles as prizes for a moment before moving on. He doesn’t quite feel like blowing twenty bucks on darts in the hopes of winning his very own stuffed eukaryotic ribosome.
There’s spin the wheel. Funnel cake. Bowling. A basketball hoop and a ring toss stand. Conrad lowers his head, gaze fixed to the blades of grass and hand tightening around his cup of lemonade as he quickens the pace of his steps past the palm reading stall. The eyes boring into the back of his head are just his imagination.
He ends up stopping at a cotton candy stand on the outskirts of the field, stationary as he observes the pastel colored clouds spin further into existence with each rotation around their metal planet.
“You want one, kid?” the man running the stall asks him, voice warm. He’s tall, with a shock of salt and pepper hair peeking out from under his pink and white striped cap.
Conrad jolts back to awareness. “Yeah, sure,” he says, as he leafs through his wallet for the right number of bills. Cotton candy now in hand, he thanks the man who tips his hat in response, then turns back to the heart of the carnival.
He roams the chaos pulling tufts from his fluffy periwinkle cloud, sugar melting into sticky rivers down the lines of his palms under the blazing heat of the day’s unbiased sun.
***
A Day in Late June
There’s no notification on his phone. Nothing written in his planner. The date isn’t even circled on his calendar.
His thumbs still itch. To write a text, an email, a letter. All three. To drive the wrapped package sitting at the bottom of his desk drawer down to the post office. Put one of his vintage stamps on the upper right corner. Send it.
He doesn’t.
Sometimes he wishes he didn’t always have to remember.
***
Fourth of July
Fireworks are lighting up the night sky, but Conrad is sitting in his living room with the shades pulled down. He’s contemplating grabbing his noise cancelling headphones when the phone rings.
He glances at the contact name flashing on the screen. Taylor Jewel. He doesn’t think he’s ever received a call from her in his life. He hesitates for a moment before deciding to answer.
He’s barely lifted the phone to his ear when she starts talking. “This day always makes me think of him and I just—I don’t know,” her voice wavers, thin in a way that he’s never heard before. “Like, I just thought you of all people would understand.”
He can hear her unsteady breathing over the hum of the line. A firework crackles to life and then dies amidst the dark stretch of sky.
“Santa Claus is only for Christmas, Taylor,” Conrad says gently, as if explaining something obvious to a small child.
He hears her muffled laugh, slightly wet around the edges. “Fuck you, Fisher.”
The line is silent for a minute before he admits, “I also thought of Santa today.” After a beat he adds, “Mrs. Claus, too.”
He hears Taylor laugh again, still slightly wet, but brighter and sharper than before. “Mrs. Claus is Santa’s wife, you fucking freak. And here I thought you were supposed to be the smart one.”
“My sincerest apologies,” Conrad drawls, rolling his eyes and slouching down against the back of his couch. “I’ll make sure to brush up on my North Pole knowledge before I send in my application to be an elf.”
“Yeah, you’re short enough to be one,” Taylor agrees sagely.
He lets out an incredulous scoff. “I think all that bleach is starting to seep through your skull and into your brain, Blondie. ”
Taylor tries to interject, but he continues. “And if anything, you’re the one who should be an elf. I bet you would just love to sit on Santa’s lap.”
Silence follows, and he’s worrying that he overstepped when Taylor shoots back, “Well yeah dipshit, he’s like the world’s best sugar daddy.”
Conrad feels a smile ticking up at the corner of his mouth and he attempts to straighten it back out. “Maybe I should get in on the action, have Santa pay my med school tuition for me—hold on a second are we still taking about Santa, or Santa?”
“Either way, both are mine,” Taylor responds.
“Well then what do I get?” he asks. “Because I am not taking Rudolph.”
“Okay, then take Prancer.”
“I don’t think so,” Conrad says drily, leaning further back into the couch cushions.
“Vixen then. She sounds hot.”
“Still a no,” he tells her, trying not to let the amusement seep into his voice.
“What, too afraid you can’t handle all that? Too bad, she’s mine now.” She hums under her breath, considering. “Oh, I know. Cupid. He’s the slowest, so your old man bones should fare alright.”
He wonders if she can tell he’s rolling his eyes. He hopes so. “Hilarious. Now seriously,” he says, “what do I get?”
“The honor of talking to me, Fisher, duh.”
He lets out a soft chuckle.
Outside the fireworks have reached their crescendo, exploding resoundingly across the expanse of night.
***
One Year Later
It’s a cloudy summer morning. Conrad is waiting at a crosswalk when out of the corner of his eye, he sees a girl in a simple white dress, dark hair flowing delicately around her face. The oxygen vanishes from the air.
He taps his fingers against the side of his leg. Runs an unsteady hand through his hair. He turns to get a better look.
It’s a bearded man in sweatpants and a baseball cap.
The light changes, and he crosses without another glance backwards.