Lillie OMAX

MAX

Lillie Olliver, 2021

“There’s no way.” Natalia looks at her reedy boyfriend and back at the dart board, her eyes narrowed in disbelief. He snorts.

“Are you challenging me, madam?” he says with an offended air to his voice, even though she knows he’s joking. She scoffs.

“I- what are you, a neckbeard?”

“I feel as if you are challenging my excellent coordination and athletic prowess.”

“No, I’m challenging your seemingly deluded belief that you are a master over space, time, and all the little things that would have to come together to overcome your lack of excellent coordination and athletic prowess.”

“Why, madam.” “You’re so gro ss.”

“If I make this shot, I’m going to demand something in return, you must know,” he says with a wiggle of his eyebrows in her direction.

“Oh really?” “Oh, absolutely.” “And what would you ask for?” “A kiss, madam.”

She chokes on her water and glares at him, wiping a stray drop from her chin. “We’re in public.”

“I meant later, obviously.”

“...Fine. Shoot your shot, Sir White Knight.”

Matthias lays down a dollar and picks up a dart- much to the bored dart-stand attendant’s approval- and stands up a little straighter from the slightly slouched stance he’d held prior to the challenge. Natalia rests her weight on one hip with her arms crossed, a small, amused smile written across her lips. Her boyfriend raises the dart up in his line of vision, one eye closed as he focuses on his target. He lets the dart fly, and it goes terribly off-course.

Natalia stifles a laugh with the back of her hand and Matthias turns back to her with a sour expression, which only serves to make her laugh harder.

“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she chuckles. “You can still be my white knight in shining armor.” They stroll away from the stand and rejoin the masses of people attending the carnival, the sweet aroma of cotton candy and salted pretzels floating by with the soft evening breeze. She inhales sharply; allows it to bring a warmth to her chest.

“This was a good idea,” Matthias says, tilting his head down a little towards her to speak so she can hear him above all the ruckus. “We should definitely come here again next year.”

“Yeah,” she agrees wholeheartedly. She turns her face up to look at him and smiles. “I think so too.” And maybe it’s because it’s something they’ve done so many times in the casual environment of their home. Maybe it’s because of the moment, the emotions- maybe it’s all too overwhelming. And despite the countless

times she has paid for this offense, the countless times she has reminded herself that it is wrong, her knuckles bump against his and, naturally, she slots their hands together.

Time seems to stand still. In fact, time does stand still. Her stomach sinks rapidly as she feels it happen, sees the popcorn flying from a bag in a child’s hand freeze in mid-air, sees the churning of a cotton candy machine stop in its tracks. Her breaths quicken as she turns to her left and sees Matthias looking back at her, his own chest rising and falling faster. “What did you do,” he breathes, staring down at their joined hands. He rips them apart, taking a step back. “What did you do, ‘Talia-”

“I’m sorry,” she gasps, turning around and scanning her surroundings like a cornered animal. “I’m so sorry, Matthias-” “You’re sorry? You- no,” he chokes out, stumbling backwards and giving her a last, devastated glance before tearing off into the crowd as if Hell itself is on his heels.

And really, he isn’t wrong. Natalia watches him go, weaving through throngs of people frozen mid-action until she’s lost sight, and swallows heavily as she turns and begins sprinting through the crowd in the opposite direction. She knows that both of them know it won’t do any good, but they can at least trymaybe if they can hideOr maybe what they’re so afraid of is having to watch.

Her train of thought is cut off as a gloved hand fists in the back of her shirt, yanking her to a stop and choking her as the neckline cuts into her throat. She hacks viciously, heaving for air as she drops to the ground, kicking out against her assailant.

“No, no,” she gasps. She tries in vain to scramble away. “Please, I’m sorry- I’m so- I’m so sorry, I won’t do it again, I don’t-”

“Please do not resist. You have broken the law.” Her sobs quicken and tears stream down her cheeks. “No, I didn’t- I-”

“Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

She is yanked to her feet and an iron grip closes around the back of her neck, holding her in place as she feels cold metal press to the underside of her cranium.

“Please,” she sobs, deep, shuddering breaths wracking her frame. She hears a gunshot in the distance and her knees nearly give out, the only thing keeping her upright being the hand on her nape. He is gone. She is next. She used to think that time would bring a sense of acceptance- maybe it’s the crushing guilt of knowing that it’s her fault that makes it so much worse this time around.

Her voice is weak, the lights of the carnival blurring together through the film of tears. “No,” she croaks.

It’s the last word she speaks.

“Still think I can’t make the shot?” “Oh, undoubtedly.” Matthias laughs and digs a dollar out of his pocket and places it down, picking up a dart with the same hand.

Natalia helpfully takes their son from his other arm and sets him down beside her, holding his tiny hand in her own. The action had scared her in the beginning, but she’d found (after frantically grabbing his hand to stop him from running into the street) that this specific contact brought no consequence (thankfully). However, when she’d attempted to research the topic to further define the boundaries of such physical contact, she- oddly enoughfound no concrete proof that there were such regulations in place at all. And yet she knows them to be real.

“You think Daddy can make the shot?” Natalia asks her son with a sweet voice, crouching down a little so he can hear her.

“Mhm,” the little boy responds, tightening his grip on her fingers. “Daddy can do anything!” Matthias gives her a pointed smile and she scoffs, jerking her chin towards the dart board with a fond smile. “Go on, you.”

Her husband lines up the dart, and just as he had done eight years ago, lets it fly. And just as it had done eight years ago, it buries in the backboard of the stall. “And that is why,” he announces, turning around and ruffling his son’s dark hair (so much like his own), “you’re a catcher, and not a pitcher. The good-at-throwingthings gene is not present in this family, buddy.”

“Daddy, what’s a gene?”

“It’s something you wear on your legs, buddy.”

Natalia gives her husband an exasperated look, but smiles nonetheless. Eight years, and every year they come to the same carnival, play the same game, and walk the same grounds. Their son has seen the carnival every year since his birth, and they know he’ll probably continue to see it until either the event ceases to recur, or he becomes a moody teenager that’s “too cool” for such things. But until that day comes, this is a staple in their lives.

“Momma, look!” her son says brightly, tugging her hand as he points at a large stuffed dog hanging from another stand’s ceiling. “Big dog!”

“That’s right,” she echoes back with a soft smile, her heart swelling (as she so often finds it to do in the company of her child) as she glances up to see her husband’s eyes filled with a similar emotion. They’ve made it so far- almost a decade, total. (Well, by a standard definition of “total.” The more accurate definition is too painful to consider calculating.) This is absolutely the furthest they’ve come, so far as either of them can remember. They’ve certainly never had a child before; that’s for sure.

“Do you wanna try and win it?” the boy’s father asks lightly, taking the boy’s other hand as the family of three wander closer to the stand. “This one is a water gun game! You just have to hit the targets with the stream, and…” Natalia watches her husband pick up her son and hold him close to his chest with one arm so his little hands can grab at the gun and fiddle with the trigger as Matthias gives the stand attendee a dollar. A bell rings, and the water stream reconnects with the guns; the boy (and a few other children who’ve wandered by to give the game a go) shriek as the water streams out of the nozzle, splattering against the red and white LED targets lining the back of the stall. Natalia stands just behind Matthias and her son, their laughter curling the corners of her lips into a grin.

But when half of the laughter stops,

and the streams of water freeze in midair, arcing across the stall space, water droplets hanging in suspension and glimmering softly, she feels her stomach sink with a horror that she thought she would never have to feel again.

But when she looks down and sees the one, slender, lone finger that Matthias had linked with her pinkie, she understands.

Her husband’s face is blanched white, his eyes wide and panicked. He looks back at her, then down at his son with a ragged breath, stepping away from the stall, only to find that their child, too, is frozen, seeming to float with nobody there to support him as his father’s arms fall away. Innocent, dark eyes lit up with the sweet laughter only a child could give, chubby fingers pressed over the trigger.

Oh, the horrible, horrible irony.

“You can’t,” Natalia breathes as she feels the cold metal press to the nape of her neck. They were faster this time, she notices. She hadn’t even had time to run. Not that it would have done any good, anyway. “We-we have a child, you can’t-”

“Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

“That’s not even in the law, it can’t be, I-” Matthias grits out from behind his teeth, his face turning red. “I barely touched her. We didn’t- there was nothing illegal about it.”

“Please do not resist. You have broken the law.”

“You B*STARDS,” Matthias shouts, and a tear drags down Natalia’s cheek as she watches him struggle against the thick gloves clamped around his upper arms. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS. MY SON- YOU CAN’T LEAVE HIM- MY-” He breaks down into wretched sobs, and Natalia only has a moment’s notice to close her eyes and turn her head before the sound of the gunshot seems to shatter through her entire body, so terribly close. She lets her eyes flicker back open and only watches her son, his face frozen in blissful happiness, forcefully ignoring the crumpled form only a few feet away from the both of them. He is the last thing she sees.

“All those years, and you never once made that shot,” Natalia muses, then grunts as she adjusts her sitting position so one bony leg is crossed over the other.

“Are you kidding?” Matthias responds gruffly, voice laced with offence that’s betrayed by a loose grin. “I’m sure I made it onto the board at least once.”

“Doubt it, darling. Your mind is failing you.”

“I’ll have you know, I’m in peak physical condition,” her husband gripes back, lightly tapping her shin with the side of his cane. “Never been fitter.”

Her smile is faint. A wisp of greyed hair flits in front of her eyes as she takes in their surroundings again. It’s depressing, really: the sky is overcast, yet with no promise of rain. The ground is dry, littered with the occasional foam cup or long-outdated flyer. The park is barren, only the stray runner to bring a flash of color. She still finds it strange, even though it’s been a decade since the carnival had stopped running, at least in their town. Every year they sit on the same rickety bench, which is becoming more

Matthias leans his elbows onto his knees, harrowed gaze fixed on the carpeted floor. “He felt real, though.”

“I know.” Silence. “I’m sorry.” He looks up, eyebrows creased.

“If I’d tried harder, focused more, maybe we would have-” She chokes on her words, one hand coming up to press against her mouth to hold back a sob. “Maybe we could have- we wouldn’t have had to-”

Matthias shakes his head, goes to reach for her hand, and the movement stutters as they both, on instinct, recoil. He notices that she’s shaking, faintly.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he says softly. “It was… it was a bad thing, what they did. We signed up because we needed the money, and we couldn’t have- we didn’t know what we were getting into.” She nods faintly in agreement, still feeling on the verge of crumbling to pieces.

“We’re…” His hands move to fidget together as he sits up straighter, clearing his throat. It’s almost just as strange to see his young face, reminding her of all the years that they, and only they, shared. “They said we can leave soon. Go back to our lives.”

“Right, right.” Lives. They had had those before, she knows; she remembers, even though it feels like remembering someone else’s life- a brutal irony, given that it was the only real life she’s lived. “Do you maybe w+ant to…” Matthias offers her a tiny smile. “Get a coffee? When we’re out?”

Natalia sniffles and nods, her fingers lacing together in her own lap. “I would really like that.” She knows that there’s no way the two of them will just… move past this. Not alone, and not together.

But maybe it’ll be a little easier if they share the pain of remembering dozens of lives lived, sorting through what’s real and what’s not. While they’d gone under with the planted understanding that they were two people in love, they both know that over the decades and decades they’d built something real over the lies. She knows that they’re both not willing to dismiss that connection despite the hell they’ve been put through; in fact, they know that the other person might just be the only person alive who might be able to provide any stability, any understanding, any comfort.

“This is it, then?” she says with a small shake of her head. “I know, really, only a few weeks passed, but I feel like… like I’ve lost an entire lifetime.”

“Yeah,” Matthias says, nodding with a somber expression. “I hate them for it.”

“But we consented to it,” she says in response, even though she agrees.

“We didn’t consent to a living hell,” Matthias growls in response. “Nothing about that was ethical.”

“Maybe once we’re out, we could try to… I don’t know… tell someone, or…”

“Maybe,” Matthias echoes. “Maybe.” She nods silently, then pushes herself to her feet. “I’ll hold you to that coffee,” she says with a small, weak smile as he stands as well.

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” Matthias responds, matching her efforts in producing a believable grin. It doesn’t work for either of them. Soon, people come to take them back to their respective rooms. And then they wait.

It’s almost unreal when they cross the threshold of the main doors and out onto the pavement, sunlight bright and warm against both of their pale faces, which hadn’t been kissed by natural light in so long. They’re both still in their regulation clothes, but small tote bags over their shoulders hold their clothes from Before (as they’d come to call it).

Neither of them have been brave enough to open their respective bags, much less put on their old clothes. Matthias looks to the side and down a little to meet her gaze, and he smiles faintly- this one, genuine.

Natalia returns the smile and her heart pounds as she brushes her knuckles

against his. His expression flickers and he closes his eyes, lacing their fingers together and holding her hand tight. They’re both frozen like that, breath caught in their chests, anxiety twisting their stomachs for long, silent moments, only broken by the rush of the wind in the trees. Time flows on. Matthias’s eyes open again and he squeezes her hand. Natalia feels tears prick at her eyes, but she’s tired of crying and blinks them away. The two of them look forwards and step out into the world, fingers locked together. It’s the last thing they do.

Case Identifier:________MAX_________ Date: 00-00-00 Results: Inconclusive Subjects: Terminated