Elements Of Natural Boundaries

This week's story turned out to hold 'only' the magic of friendship. Sometimes characters hold their story so closely that it's all I can do to just hang on and record it.

Lis Comal is kind of like that. Presented for those who were, or those who are, or those who are sending their's off to the first semester...

Elements of Natural Boundaries - a story by M. K. Dreysen

Against a backdrop of do-nothing wind and a moon that could have tried a little harder, Lis Comal contemplated the nature of endings.

The backdrop came courtesy of the too-small window. The contemplation thanks to the DJ's giggle when Lis requested Lola in her best throaty voice. The DJ had giggled, and then twenty minutes later played Lis's recorded request over the midnight airwaves. "This one's for Lis on a night for the lonely."

Lonely, that's what it was, Lis told herself. Not the phone call from Mom Lissner and the "Did you sign up for school yet?" questions with no answers.

Lis had a gig. Swing shift, too, so the tea in the coffee pot and that she'd made it to the Twilight Zone hour fit right in. Classes, not so much, but she'd told that lie because Lis couldn't tell any truths while standing there in Mom L's driveway.

She'd had a lot of time on the drive up to sit with the truth of it. Aya's truth, and Lis in her wake. With the inevitable consequence when some girl Lis had never heard of answered the door to Aya's apartment.

Four and a half hours and a year since Aya had graduated and left Corpus for the big city and the letters and the few phone calls hadn't covered what happened when Lis finally graduated and followed Aya's breadcrumbs. This meant, what exactly?

Lola on request, now, and in a few weeks Pearl Jam's Ten would debut and Lis would find herself with a whole new soundtrack to cover these hours.

Bennie showing up with a request for a ride along wasn't supposed to fit Lis's mood. "Dorm party, all the kids who got here early need someone for a beer run and I'm the only local." And, Bennie didn't need to add, the only one who knew someone over twenty-one.

Lis jumped in Bennie's ancient Ford, unsure of anything but that she kind of enjoyed the way the lights and the highway, unfinished Beltway promising more, streamed by. "They give you money?"

"Enough for a case." All that the scholarship-and-loan kids could scrape together. Bennie's home neighborhood, the convenience store her older brother minded the counter on, hid away in old pines. Lis didn't trust those pines, their shadows and the way they grew from the needles. But she carried the case of Budweiser to Bennie's car and tried to pretend that she wasn't nervous about it or the too-many too-close trees.

Sitting in a room with a handful of other kids, all of them pretending the lukewarm Bud tasted good, all of whom had accepted the Honors College scholarship that Lis hadn't quite made the grade for, should have been a downer. Here it is two o' the clock, Lis Comal, you should be miserable at this.

She couldn't bring herself to be so. Not when Bennie and Oni sat close enough Lis could see the future, and Dan "from Michigan" and Rick "from Wisconsin" started comparing notes on cold winters and Moira turned the TV on "because they run The Next Generation after the Twilight Zone" and of course it was a Q episode.

Lis felt years stretch out in front of her. A couple of them here in Moira and Bennie's dorm room suite, all the geeks wandering in and out as decompression demanded, and then a few more years after that in the series of apartments the three of them could afford. Lis felt and saw this future and drained the beer with neither qualm nor notice.

She opened up another, had half-drained that one with about the same lack of thought to it, still basking in the future's embrace, before Lis felt the weight of the question. 'What's the price? There has to be one, right?' she asked herself.

That question wound its way through Lis's mind, through the late hours and the shifts at the music store while everyone else hit their first classes. She fought it off with "You're just hurt because of Aya. Trying to make everything about that pain." Lis even said these lines out loud, into the mirror as Alive and Evenflow buoyed her spirits.

Only.

Her garage apartment was, more than anything, cheap. It had its charms, though, and one of them was that you didn't need to interact with the owners.

Lis came home to the other girl sitting on the stairs.

Gem. Her name was Gem, as in "I do it to pay for college" Gem, yeah right, of course Aya hooked up with an "I do it to pay for college" Gem as soon as she shook the dust loose. Only, now Gem was sitting on Lis's little porch in the pre-dawn and the pleasant little buzz was disappearing.

"What's wrong?"

"Aya. She's. It's hard to explain."

"Drugs?"

"Not exactly."

That helped. Aya had lost a year before. Freshman year of high school, Lis still in eighth grade and she'd gone that whole year wondering why Aya didn't answer the phone, didn't talk.

Aya, who'd switched to Sprite because caffeine in any amount felt too close to speed. Aya, who didn't bug Lis about the cigarettes only because she cadged them off Lis whenever the opportunity arose.

But that "Not Exactly". Lis sighed and pointed at her little apartment's door. "Come in and tell me." And so Gem came in; she got the story out before the pot of coffee had even finished brewing.

Mostly, it was nothing. "She wanted cash, you know? So she found a research gig."

"Engineering needs women?"

"Yep."

Which was how Aya's lost year hadn't much affected her scholastic pursuits. "How many hours a week was the job supposed to be?"

"Fifteen. More when they had a grant due, but those were supposed to be summer hours."

"How long has she been awake?"

Gem had said "Three days", but when Lis got to their apartment, she'd have sworn it was more like a week. "Aya?"

The whole place looked like a robot's graveyard. Mixed in with a generous dose of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes and random cat yark.

Lis found Aya sitting in the apartment's only bedroom, staring at the wall. The one that she'd covered in sketches, force diagrams and the wiring and motors needed to realized the movements she hoped for. "Aya?"

It didn't feel like the time Aya's parents had called, begging Lis to come over and talk Aya into going to rehab.

And, in that moment when Lis wondered what would happen when she touched Aya's shoulder, it felt like she'd walked backwards around the circle and come right round again.

Thank God that Aya's muscles were still there. Hair, raggedy assed and dirty. Skin too oily, face breaking out, sure. And a lot of smell. But she didn't feel like a soda straw beneath Lis's fingers. Aya was still here.

Just lost in the moment. "Hey girl. Love you, but I just need a moment..."

"What you need is a kick in the ass. And about a week's worth of sleep."

Lis got the smile she was looking for. Eventually. And then the pen put down and Aya turning away from her diagrams. "I did it again, didn't I?"

"Just you being you."

The hug felt solid, good. Like friends. "Gem's asleep on my floor."

Aya blinked. "Oh, shit."

"Yeah, go to bed, bitch." Lis punctuated the word with a pillow against Aya's head, softly. "See you tonight."

Lis didn't leave until Aya's snores were coming, soft and steady.

****

"How'd your deferred year go, Ms. Comal?"

Chaotic. Quiet. A lot of phone calls from Mom L. But here it was May and Lis had made her appointment with the department's student counselor and she had a schedule printout in her hand. Summer classes, one each session. To get her feet wet, to get her gig at Sam Goody used to scheduling around her classes.

And to make sure the half scholarship didn't expire completely.

She'd been excited, standing in line for the paperwork that advisors and crew pulled from the boxes in a constant stream. Lis had been terrified that she'd get there, say "Comal, with a C" and find nothing waiting for her. Closer she got to the head of the line, worse the fear came on.

But Gem, "Cormier", standing there behind her, helped. A lot. "I only do it to pay for college" had turned into "Doctor Young, my linear algebra prof, found an internship for me. Good grades and I'm off the stage forever, thank God."

"Not quite how I planned it, Mrs. Tranh. But that's ok."

"Damned right, sweetie. You're here and smiling and healthy, and anytime you can say that you're ahead of the game. Now let's talk about your fall schedule."