Phaeton
by Ryan Ross
by Ryan Ross
Summer.
The afternoon light moves across Zacharie’s pillow like a warm glacier making its way to his closed eyelids. He is aware and unaware of this as the sound of a telephone fractures the placid silence of the lake down the hill. He wakes, stumbles into his kitchen, and puts a pot of coffee on before wandering out onto his balcony. Yawning, he basks in the calm loveliness of the day as he takes in the familiar view.
He glances down the hill to the house near the lake. Though he is miles away, he can hear Clémence’s voice muffled through the walls, probably still on the phone that woke him (as she lives alone with her son and he should still be in school). And though he is miles away, he sees that outside she’s left an empty glass of wine sitting next to a recently disturbed lawn chair. If the scene was his, it would be evidence of a nap interrupted and he sympathizes.
The screen door of Clémence’s house slams, the crack echoing across the water as she stomps angrily to her cozy lakeside nook. Zacharie walks back inside his house with a hint of curiosity is on his face. He pours himself a cup of coffee.
Clémence grumpily dozes back off. An hour or so passes before she wakes to the sound of a distant squeal and whooshing release of a school bus’ ancient brakes through the trees. Beginning at that same distance are light, jogging footsteps growing louder on the pathway to the house.
“Mom! I’m home!” Philip shouts, moments later, leaping up the steps to their doorway.
“I’m out here, kid! Grab a snack and put your things away and then come sit with me. We have something to talk about.”
“Shit,” Philip mumbles as he enters the house. Clémence rolls her eyes and shakes her head, turning towards the lake to hide her amusement. Minutes later, Philip ambles down the path and takes a hesitant seat on the beach chair next to her.
“You took the bus?” she asks.
“Yeah…” Philip replies.
“Because they sent you home on the bus.”
“Mom, you know what happened!”
“And where is my bike?”
“It's where I always hide it.”
“Good. And after you bring it home tomorrow you’re not using it again until I say so. I let you use that thing because the bus system out here is awful, but you don’t get special privileges when you don’t behave at school.”
“I know,” Philip says, frowning, looking expectantly at his mother.
She continues, “Your vice principal used the word ‘alarming’ to describe the fight you were in today. What happened?”
“They gave me this,” Philip says, blindly thrusting a folded paper forward, staring at his shoes, “you can read it.”
Clémence takes the report and tears it in half. Philip glances up at the sound.
“I’d rather you tell me.” Clémence says.
Philip rolls his eyes.
“You’re so dramatic, mom.”
“Hey bud, I’ve been in exactly zero ‘alarming’ fights today. I think you're still in the lead if we're talking about drama. Now let’s hear it.”
“Well..” Eyes back to the floor.
“I see... about your dad again?”
“Nobody believes me! They all think he just left. I know it’s weird but they tell lies about me and when I tell them the truth they laugh at me.”
“So you attack them? You know better than that, Philip. There are always going to be people who find the truth too difficult to accept, even when the truth isn't so strange and our situation is hardly one of those instances, isn't it? I know it’s hard but you can’t let that get to you. We’ve talked about this... Now, what was it this time that has Mrs. Blake so ‘alarmed’?”
“I threw planets at the dickbags who were laughing at me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. At the boys who were laughing at me.”
“No, I mean. Well, yes, don’t call people dickbags, dear, but you threw planets?”
“From my model of the solar system.”
“Ah,” Clémence says, a tenseness leaving her face.
“This can’t keep happening, Philip. It’s the third time this year. Each time we talk about this there’s something you’re not saying. I need you to tell me now, okay? Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. What can I do?”
Clémence notices the tears that have been running quietly down Philip’s downturned face.
“Oh, Philip,” Clémence says, consolingly.
“It’s just that…” Philip says, staring at a leg of his mother’s chair, “I don’t want make you sad…”
“Oh, honey. I can handle a lot more than you think,” she says, reaching her hand to lift his chin as he sullenly dodges her touch.
“I’ve been through a lot, you know,” she says, “Please, what is it?”
Philip wipes each of his eyes. He hesitates, holding a pressed palm to his damp eye socket, peering up at his mother with his uncovered eye.
“I... want to see dad. Actually see him. Talk to him.”
Long seconds pass before Clémence exhales.
“Philip, you know that’s not possible. I’ve told you...”
Philip's eyes shift from the leg of Clémence’s chair to her feet.
“I just need proof, mom. For me.. and I… I think... you’re sort of lying to me about being able to see him. I sort of always have. Not totally but.. I heard you talking on the phone last summer with Grandma. You mentioned them not always being up there. That they can be... here... sometimes... too. Or something.“
Philip looks up, catching directly his mother’s now also tear-stained eyes before she can turn away.
Though he is miles away, Zacharie hears a car start. It sounds as though it has been years since the last time it was used and the curiosity that had been fading from his brow takes a sharp turn towards concern. He sits in contemplative silence as an hour passes, then another, and though he is miles away, he knows Clémence is fast approaching a line she shouldn’t cross. He knows and doesn’t know what her intentions are. He breathes a light sigh of relief as she stops the car just short of the boundary.
He walks out on his balcony, locking the door behind him. He lifts a decorative pot and sets the key beneath it before stepping gently toward and climbing on to his back porch's railing. He yawns and takes a deep breath before leaping gracefully out into the sky. There is a flash of light and he is an enormous swan gliding downhill towards the lake.
After a couple hours, Clémence pulls over as they approach an unusual, fading mile marker.
“All right, this is the place. It’ll be night when you get there so you’ll probably need to stay over. It's a very odd place but there’s usually a bit of cell service, it being up so high and all. So keep me informed, okay?”
“I will. Thanks mom. I… I know it’s not fun for you to be here.”
“I’m fine, Philip, really. There are some things...” Clémence says, stopping herself.
“Well I also know how hard it is for you to leave the house,” Philip says.
Clémence rolls her eyes, “smartass.”
They laugh together. She squeezes his shoulder lightly and then points east towards an entrance to a pathway just visible through the trees.
“Take that path. It’ll follow the river awhile and then wind a ways up through the trees. It’s not terribly far. Once you come out into a clearing you’ll be able to see their little place near the top of the hill... and say hello for me, would you?”
Philip looks back at her, confused.
Clémence continues what she stopped herself saying moments ago “I know I haven’t talked much about… what happened… and I think that may have been a mistake. I’m sure you’ve imagined things and I’m starting to think that each of them may have be worse than the truth.”
Philip looks at his mom, eyes a little wider than usual, an unfamiliar to both of them mixture of expression on his face, then he smiles.
“Bye mom.”
“Bye kid..”
She watches him exit the car and hurry towards the path.
“Buh. Slow down, you’re going to tire yourself out running like that,” she says.
She reaches for her phone to text him this advice as he plunges into the tree line but is distracted by a bright flash in her rearview mirror.
“Oh dear,” she says.
She starts the car, lingering as she turns back to watch Philip through the trees until he’s no longer in sight.
Hours later Clémence arrives home and parks the car, shouting before she's even shut the door.
"Where ya at, Zach?"
"I'm down here," Zacharie shouts back.
She walks back to her lakeside nook where Zacharie is standing. The cuffs of his pants are slightly damp and he's holding together a torn note, reading. He looks up.
“Little close to the line there, wouldn’t you say?” he says.
Clémence raises an eyebrow and smiles.
“You come all the way down here to tell me things I already know? I was taking my kid to meet his dad,” she replies.
“Ah,” he says, “after all these years. Is that a good idea?”
“Yes, I actually think it is. As if it’s any of your business. As if you’re some world’s greatest grandpa up there,” she jabs.
He winks affectionately.
She raises an eyebrow, frowning. “Is that really all you came out here for?” she asks, ”To complain about me nearing the line?”
He shrugs and smiles.
“Someone has to keep things in order around here,” He says.
Philip breaks through the trees into the meadow as the deepening blue night encroaches on the sky; the day’s light diminishing into the round top of a large, geometric dome just over the western side of the hill. Philip peers at the lingering glow with a half-tilted head and makes for it cautiously. As he nears the source, which fits the description of the strange abode that he seeks, he has to look to the grass, squinting and holding his hands to his forehead, extending out like a visor, shielding his eyes from the blinding light emanating from a stripe of connected triangular glass windows circling the top of the dome.
He orbits the structure, searching for the door. After he makes what should have been more than a complete rotation around the house, a sudden flick of reflected light to his left draws his attention. He peers out from beneath his hands to find a golden, glittering motorcycle parked at the beginning of a dirt road that he had somehow not yet noticed. His breathing stops. His eyes pour over the glistening machine, coveting every inch of it—its shining, red, airbrushed flames and its bizarre translucent sidecar. At last he notices his bursting lungs and exhales, turning around to face the dome where he finally encounters the doorway, protruding from the side like the entrance to an igloo. He knocks.
The door is opened just enough for a young girl to peek out. She wears a crown of flowers and smiles brightly at Philip.
“Hello,” she says brightly.
She stares without blinking. The room is strangely dim and cool behind her and Philip looks eager to step out of the bright doorway and into the room behind her.
“Don’t be so preciously eager that you block the poor lad’s path, dear” says a voice from behind the door.
“Oh! excuse me,” the young girl says, pulling the door open and stepping aside.
The coolness of the interior seems to soothe Philip, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust.
The room is circular, matching the outside but for a flat roof above, blocking the source of the blinding light. What visibility the room does have comes entirely from the light bleeding through a line cutting the roof in half. And at each end of that line is a thick, pale green cylindrical ramp, spiraling down the wall to the floor where they, flattening and extending, join as twin stems beneath the floor’s marble mosaic; a vibrant and intricately patterned depiction of an enormous yellow flower, the center of which is a shallow pool of deep red wine.
Pointing each compass direction are four of the flower's longer petals, at the tip of which are large but unassuming wooden chairs. Sitting in the southernmost is the man whose voice Philip heard behind the door. He has a cool smile and though he appears to be young has short, stiff, graying hair. Sitting cross-legged, in the chair directly across the room from him now is the young girl who opened the door. She rests her bent elbow on the oversized arm of her chair and presses her face against her hand, looking bored but otherwise nothing less than entirely pleasant.
Sitting between them on the ledge with his feet hanging into the central pool is a middle-aged man, pensively watching tiny waves ripple from his ankles, his throne empty behind him. He looks up after a moment at Philip’s confused expression.
“It’s a good thing Summer’s out there, eh boy?”, pointing at the door just behind Philip, “You’d be scandalized, for sure.”
The young girl giggles.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Philip says.
An enormous latch sounds above and light floods the room. Philip’s eyes slam automatically shut and he covers his face with his hands, cowering. His skin is warm to the touch as everywhere becomes a powerful heat, deep and sudden. A few short footsteps sound above, then a loud crack and it’s over. As the coolness returns and the bright strain no longer challenging his eyelids, Philip peeks out, opens his eyes and stands up.
Slowly ambling down one of the flower’s stems is a tall man in a heavy, hooded, purple cloak. He waves leisurely at his three friends and then approaches Philip curiously. He stops a few feet away and stares at Philip without expression. He looks deeply into the boys eyes.
"I believe you are my son," he says, "your mother keeps the lake, yes?”
"Um..well...I..she never leaves it really..." Philip stumbles.
"I am happy that you are here. It is right that I should meet you." the man says decisively.
A look crosses Philips face and several moments pass, "Then why haven't you?"
He peers at Philip.
"You were with your mother, were you not?" he says.
It takes Philip a visible effort to continue, "Well, yes...I... But... you were here. I mean. I thought you were in the sky. I thought you were 'beyond this world'. That's what my mom told me. She's always told me that you had a responsibility to the heavens and that you were fixed there... that you were alive and not alive, that you were at a further distance than I could know. But if you were here...just up the road...this whole time...why...why weren't you ever with us too? While I was growing up...why have you never come to see me?"
His father stares into the red of his pool throughout the question, offering no comfort or assistance. He looks back to Philip, expressionless.
"In this world, I live here," he replies.
Philip feebly tries once more "You couldn't have come down the road? Just a few miles?"
"I could not have."
"Oh," Philip says, "I see. Well... maybe I should go. "
Pain glistens from beneath his father's cloak, a gold tears glitters down his cheek. He pulls back his hood and looks at Philip.
“I am here and not here, always."
Long seconds pass as they stare at each other.
His father continues, "It is hard for me to represent myself in this world. I am slow, by human standards, to recognize, to react, and to feel. But I do. You look as though you feel disregarded. I have not disregarded you. I have had no opportunity to regard you. For me, the time that has passed since your birth has been but blinking moments. Crucial routine does that to an immortal.
"Your mother spent a summer here, years ago. It was an important time for us both but the experience had a different meaning for her than it did for me. It was a difficult emotional asymmetry for her. She came back the following summer and I had forgotten she'd been gone. She sent word when you were born and I haven't seen her since. I think it's why she never brought you here. I think she was afraid the experience would be too much for you; the time disparity and the different distances with which we focus on our own emotional clarity. Does that make sense?"
"Not exactly," Philip replies, smiling tentatively, "but it is almost comforting."
"I think I saw you admiring my chariot before you came in. I carry light in the sidecar. The only time on earth that I leave this home is to carry the light. You see, though part of me has always been in this world but I have never had any agency. And your mother misspoke, my responsibility is not to the heavens, it is of the heavens. My responsibility it is to the earth, your home. Please stay."
Four small heartbeats, then, "Okay."
"Though my powers here are limited, they are still great. I know you are disappointed in me as a father and I would like to make it up to you. Is there anything I can offer you?"
"Well...Maybe, actually..."
"Go on."
"My mom lets me drive her motorcycle to school sometimes. I'm not legally old enough yet but I'm a really good driver... Like you said, I saw yours outside... Do you think that I could drive it?"
"I'm sure that that is true," his father says, "however, it's not the machine you think it is. It travels slow, in but a single direction, and on a road that doesn't follow the same laws of reality that the rest of the planet does. It would be utterly overwhelming for anyone other than myself to drive. It was built for one task and one person only."
Philip is visibly crestfallen but offers "What about someone directly related to that person?"
His father tilts his head in thought, then, for the first time in decades, smiles.
Clémence wakes to a blip beneath the cushions of the couch she is asleep on. The clock on the coffee table tells her she's asleep in the wrong part of the house. She pulls her phone from beneath the couch cushions and holds the bright screen at arms length, slowly focusing on the text she's received from Philip: “I’m here. You were right, it is VERY strange. But I like it. Dad is unusual but I understand a lot now. Thanks mom. I’m doing something for dad tomorrow but I’ll call you tomorrow night. Talk to you later.”
She sleepily wonders aloud what task Philip could possibly do for his father, “Does that wine pool have a filter that needs cleaning?” She giggles and yawns her way down the hall to her bedroom.
Flash
Zacharie knows before he is awake. Though he is miles away, he hears a motor crack and falter and is flooded with sorrow.
Flash
Quick, strong beats in her chest wake her; her heart knows. Clémence, facing her bedroom window, opens her eyes as the light streaming through her thin curtain brightens, falters a bit, then brightens again. A moment passes, then, with a deafening crack, it is dark.
Flash
Zacharie is at the sun's doorstep. Apollo, outside, is staring down the road, terrified. Zacharie takes his son’s hand. Miles away, lightning strikes on the road extending before them.
"Go," he says.
Flash
Clémence is running to her dresser, hastily tearing clothes from her drawers; sprinting through the house and out the door; speeding north in the dark as the light begins to return.
Flash
Zacharie is at the post marking the distance from the lake Clémence can't leave. He rests a hand on it as her car pulls up.
"Was it Philip?" Clémence demands, leaping from her still-running car.
"It was," Zacharie admits.
"Why?" she asks.
Flash
Apollo drives steadily on; a small, charred body lying behind him in the dirt.
The afternoon light moves across Zacharie’s pillow like a warm glacier making its way to his closed eyelids. He is aware and unaware of this as the sound of a telephone fractures the placid silence of the lake down the hill. He wakes, stumbles into his kitchen, and puts a pot of coffee on before wandering out onto his balcony. Yawning, he basks in the calm loveliness of the day as he takes in the familiar view.
He glances down the hill to the house near the lake. Though he is miles away, he can hear Clémence’s voice muffled through the walls, probably still on the phone that woke him (as she lives alone with her son and he should still be in school). And though he is miles away, he sees that outside she’s left an empty glass of wine sitting next to a recently disturbed lawn chair. If the scene was his, it would be evidence of a nap interrupted and he sympathizes.
The screen door of Clémence’s house slams, the crack echoing across the water as she stomps angrily to her cozy lakeside nook. Zacharie walks back inside his house with a hint of curiosity is on his face. He pours himself a cup of coffee.
Clémence grumpily dozes back off. An hour or so passes before she wakes to the sound of a distant squeal and whooshing release of a school bus’ ancient brakes through the trees. Beginning at that same distance are light, jogging footsteps growing louder on the pathway to the house.
“Mom! I’m home!” Philip shouts, moments later, leaping up the steps to their doorway.
“I’m out here, kid! Grab a snack and put your things away and then come sit with me. We have something to talk about.”
“Shit,” Philip mumbles as he enters the house. Clémence rolls her eyes and shakes her head, turning towards the lake to hide her amusement. Minutes later, Philip ambles down the path and takes a hesitant seat on the beach chair next to her.
“You took the bus?” she asks.
“Yeah…” Philip replies.
“Because they sent you home on the bus.”
“Mom, you know what happened!”
“And where is my bike?”
“It's where I always hide it.”
“Good. And after you bring it home tomorrow you’re not using it again until I say so. I let you use that thing because the bus system out here is awful, but you don’t get special privileges when you don’t behave at school.”
“I know,” Philip says, frowning, looking expectantly at his mother.
She continues, “Your vice principal used the word ‘alarming’ to describe the fight you were in today. What happened?”
“They gave me this,” Philip says, blindly thrusting a folded paper forward, staring at his shoes, “you can read it.”
Clémence takes the report and tears it in half. Philip glances up at the sound.
“I’d rather you tell me.” Clémence says.
Philip rolls his eyes.
“You’re so dramatic, mom.”
“Hey bud, I’ve been in exactly zero ‘alarming’ fights today. I think you're still in the lead if we're talking about drama. Now let’s hear it.”
“Well..” Eyes back to the floor.
“I see... about your dad again?”
“Nobody believes me! They all think he just left. I know it’s weird but they tell lies about me and when I tell them the truth they laugh at me.”
“So you attack them? You know better than that, Philip. There are always going to be people who find the truth too difficult to accept, even when the truth isn't so strange and our situation is hardly one of those instances, isn't it? I know it’s hard but you can’t let that get to you. We’ve talked about this... Now, what was it this time that has Mrs. Blake so ‘alarmed’?”
“I threw planets at the dickbags who were laughing at me.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry. At the boys who were laughing at me.”
“No, I mean. Well, yes, don’t call people dickbags, dear, but you threw planets?”
“From my model of the solar system.”
“Ah,” Clémence says, a tenseness leaving her face.
“This can’t keep happening, Philip. It’s the third time this year. Each time we talk about this there’s something you’re not saying. I need you to tell me now, okay? Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. What can I do?”
Clémence notices the tears that have been running quietly down Philip’s downturned face.
“Oh, Philip,” Clémence says, consolingly.
“It’s just that…” Philip says, staring at a leg of his mother’s chair, “I don’t want make you sad…”
“Oh, honey. I can handle a lot more than you think,” she says, reaching her hand to lift his chin as he sullenly dodges her touch.
“I’ve been through a lot, you know,” she says, “Please, what is it?”
Philip wipes each of his eyes. He hesitates, holding a pressed palm to his damp eye socket, peering up at his mother with his uncovered eye.
“I... want to see dad. Actually see him. Talk to him.”
Long seconds pass before Clémence exhales.
“Philip, you know that’s not possible. I’ve told you...”
Philip's eyes shift from the leg of Clémence’s chair to her feet.
“I just need proof, mom. For me.. and I… I think... you’re sort of lying to me about being able to see him. I sort of always have. Not totally but.. I heard you talking on the phone last summer with Grandma. You mentioned them not always being up there. That they can be... here... sometimes... too. Or something.“
Philip looks up, catching directly his mother’s now also tear-stained eyes before she can turn away.
Though he is miles away, Zacharie hears a car start. It sounds as though it has been years since the last time it was used and the curiosity that had been fading from his brow takes a sharp turn towards concern. He sits in contemplative silence as an hour passes, then another, and though he is miles away, he knows Clémence is fast approaching a line she shouldn’t cross. He knows and doesn’t know what her intentions are. He breathes a light sigh of relief as she stops the car just short of the boundary.
He walks out on his balcony, locking the door behind him. He lifts a decorative pot and sets the key beneath it before stepping gently toward and climbing on to his back porch's railing. He yawns and takes a deep breath before leaping gracefully out into the sky. There is a flash of light and he is an enormous swan gliding downhill towards the lake.
After a couple hours, Clémence pulls over as they approach an unusual, fading mile marker.
“All right, this is the place. It’ll be night when you get there so you’ll probably need to stay over. It's a very odd place but there’s usually a bit of cell service, it being up so high and all. So keep me informed, okay?”
“I will. Thanks mom. I… I know it’s not fun for you to be here.”
“I’m fine, Philip, really. There are some things...” Clémence says, stopping herself.
“Well I also know how hard it is for you to leave the house,” Philip says.
Clémence rolls her eyes, “smartass.”
They laugh together. She squeezes his shoulder lightly and then points east towards an entrance to a pathway just visible through the trees.
“Take that path. It’ll follow the river awhile and then wind a ways up through the trees. It’s not terribly far. Once you come out into a clearing you’ll be able to see their little place near the top of the hill... and say hello for me, would you?”
Philip looks back at her, confused.
Clémence continues what she stopped herself saying moments ago “I know I haven’t talked much about… what happened… and I think that may have been a mistake. I’m sure you’ve imagined things and I’m starting to think that each of them may have be worse than the truth.”
Philip looks at his mom, eyes a little wider than usual, an unfamiliar to both of them mixture of expression on his face, then he smiles.
“Bye mom.”
“Bye kid..”
She watches him exit the car and hurry towards the path.
“Buh. Slow down, you’re going to tire yourself out running like that,” she says.
She reaches for her phone to text him this advice as he plunges into the tree line but is distracted by a bright flash in her rearview mirror.
“Oh dear,” she says.
She starts the car, lingering as she turns back to watch Philip through the trees until he’s no longer in sight.
Hours later Clémence arrives home and parks the car, shouting before she's even shut the door.
"Where ya at, Zach?"
"I'm down here," Zacharie shouts back.
She walks back to her lakeside nook where Zacharie is standing. The cuffs of his pants are slightly damp and he's holding together a torn note, reading. He looks up.
“Little close to the line there, wouldn’t you say?” he says.
Clémence raises an eyebrow and smiles.
“You come all the way down here to tell me things I already know? I was taking my kid to meet his dad,” she replies.
“Ah,” he says, “after all these years. Is that a good idea?”
“Yes, I actually think it is. As if it’s any of your business. As if you’re some world’s greatest grandpa up there,” she jabs.
He winks affectionately.
She raises an eyebrow, frowning. “Is that really all you came out here for?” she asks, ”To complain about me nearing the line?”
He shrugs and smiles.
“Someone has to keep things in order around here,” He says.
Philip breaks through the trees into the meadow as the deepening blue night encroaches on the sky; the day’s light diminishing into the round top of a large, geometric dome just over the western side of the hill. Philip peers at the lingering glow with a half-tilted head and makes for it cautiously. As he nears the source, which fits the description of the strange abode that he seeks, he has to look to the grass, squinting and holding his hands to his forehead, extending out like a visor, shielding his eyes from the blinding light emanating from a stripe of connected triangular glass windows circling the top of the dome.
He orbits the structure, searching for the door. After he makes what should have been more than a complete rotation around the house, a sudden flick of reflected light to his left draws his attention. He peers out from beneath his hands to find a golden, glittering motorcycle parked at the beginning of a dirt road that he had somehow not yet noticed. His breathing stops. His eyes pour over the glistening machine, coveting every inch of it—its shining, red, airbrushed flames and its bizarre translucent sidecar. At last he notices his bursting lungs and exhales, turning around to face the dome where he finally encounters the doorway, protruding from the side like the entrance to an igloo. He knocks.
The door is opened just enough for a young girl to peek out. She wears a crown of flowers and smiles brightly at Philip.
“Hello,” she says brightly.
She stares without blinking. The room is strangely dim and cool behind her and Philip looks eager to step out of the bright doorway and into the room behind her.
“Don’t be so preciously eager that you block the poor lad’s path, dear” says a voice from behind the door.
“Oh! excuse me,” the young girl says, pulling the door open and stepping aside.
The coolness of the interior seems to soothe Philip, and it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust.
The room is circular, matching the outside but for a flat roof above, blocking the source of the blinding light. What visibility the room does have comes entirely from the light bleeding through a line cutting the roof in half. And at each end of that line is a thick, pale green cylindrical ramp, spiraling down the wall to the floor where they, flattening and extending, join as twin stems beneath the floor’s marble mosaic; a vibrant and intricately patterned depiction of an enormous yellow flower, the center of which is a shallow pool of deep red wine.
Pointing each compass direction are four of the flower's longer petals, at the tip of which are large but unassuming wooden chairs. Sitting in the southernmost is the man whose voice Philip heard behind the door. He has a cool smile and though he appears to be young has short, stiff, graying hair. Sitting cross-legged, in the chair directly across the room from him now is the young girl who opened the door. She rests her bent elbow on the oversized arm of her chair and presses her face against her hand, looking bored but otherwise nothing less than entirely pleasant.
Sitting between them on the ledge with his feet hanging into the central pool is a middle-aged man, pensively watching tiny waves ripple from his ankles, his throne empty behind him. He looks up after a moment at Philip’s confused expression.
“It’s a good thing Summer’s out there, eh boy?”, pointing at the door just behind Philip, “You’d be scandalized, for sure.”
The young girl giggles.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Philip says.
An enormous latch sounds above and light floods the room. Philip’s eyes slam automatically shut and he covers his face with his hands, cowering. His skin is warm to the touch as everywhere becomes a powerful heat, deep and sudden. A few short footsteps sound above, then a loud crack and it’s over. As the coolness returns and the bright strain no longer challenging his eyelids, Philip peeks out, opens his eyes and stands up.
Slowly ambling down one of the flower’s stems is a tall man in a heavy, hooded, purple cloak. He waves leisurely at his three friends and then approaches Philip curiously. He stops a few feet away and stares at Philip without expression. He looks deeply into the boys eyes.
"I believe you are my son," he says, "your mother keeps the lake, yes?”
"Um..well...I..she never leaves it really..." Philip stumbles.
"I am happy that you are here. It is right that I should meet you." the man says decisively.
A look crosses Philips face and several moments pass, "Then why haven't you?"
He peers at Philip.
"You were with your mother, were you not?" he says.
It takes Philip a visible effort to continue, "Well, yes...I... But... you were here. I mean. I thought you were in the sky. I thought you were 'beyond this world'. That's what my mom told me. She's always told me that you had a responsibility to the heavens and that you were fixed there... that you were alive and not alive, that you were at a further distance than I could know. But if you were here...just up the road...this whole time...why...why weren't you ever with us too? While I was growing up...why have you never come to see me?"
His father stares into the red of his pool throughout the question, offering no comfort or assistance. He looks back to Philip, expressionless.
"In this world, I live here," he replies.
Philip feebly tries once more "You couldn't have come down the road? Just a few miles?"
"I could not have."
"Oh," Philip says, "I see. Well... maybe I should go. "
Pain glistens from beneath his father's cloak, a gold tears glitters down his cheek. He pulls back his hood and looks at Philip.
“I am here and not here, always."
Long seconds pass as they stare at each other.
His father continues, "It is hard for me to represent myself in this world. I am slow, by human standards, to recognize, to react, and to feel. But I do. You look as though you feel disregarded. I have not disregarded you. I have had no opportunity to regard you. For me, the time that has passed since your birth has been but blinking moments. Crucial routine does that to an immortal.
"Your mother spent a summer here, years ago. It was an important time for us both but the experience had a different meaning for her than it did for me. It was a difficult emotional asymmetry for her. She came back the following summer and I had forgotten she'd been gone. She sent word when you were born and I haven't seen her since. I think it's why she never brought you here. I think she was afraid the experience would be too much for you; the time disparity and the different distances with which we focus on our own emotional clarity. Does that make sense?"
"Not exactly," Philip replies, smiling tentatively, "but it is almost comforting."
"I think I saw you admiring my chariot before you came in. I carry light in the sidecar. The only time on earth that I leave this home is to carry the light. You see, though part of me has always been in this world but I have never had any agency. And your mother misspoke, my responsibility is not to the heavens, it is of the heavens. My responsibility it is to the earth, your home. Please stay."
Four small heartbeats, then, "Okay."
"Though my powers here are limited, they are still great. I know you are disappointed in me as a father and I would like to make it up to you. Is there anything I can offer you?"
"Well...Maybe, actually..."
"Go on."
"My mom lets me drive her motorcycle to school sometimes. I'm not legally old enough yet but I'm a really good driver... Like you said, I saw yours outside... Do you think that I could drive it?"
"I'm sure that that is true," his father says, "however, it's not the machine you think it is. It travels slow, in but a single direction, and on a road that doesn't follow the same laws of reality that the rest of the planet does. It would be utterly overwhelming for anyone other than myself to drive. It was built for one task and one person only."
Philip is visibly crestfallen but offers "What about someone directly related to that person?"
His father tilts his head in thought, then, for the first time in decades, smiles.
Clémence wakes to a blip beneath the cushions of the couch she is asleep on. The clock on the coffee table tells her she's asleep in the wrong part of the house. She pulls her phone from beneath the couch cushions and holds the bright screen at arms length, slowly focusing on the text she's received from Philip: “I’m here. You were right, it is VERY strange. But I like it. Dad is unusual but I understand a lot now. Thanks mom. I’m doing something for dad tomorrow but I’ll call you tomorrow night. Talk to you later.”
She sleepily wonders aloud what task Philip could possibly do for his father, “Does that wine pool have a filter that needs cleaning?” She giggles and yawns her way down the hall to her bedroom.
Flash
Zacharie knows before he is awake. Though he is miles away, he hears a motor crack and falter and is flooded with sorrow.
Flash
Quick, strong beats in her chest wake her; her heart knows. Clémence, facing her bedroom window, opens her eyes as the light streaming through her thin curtain brightens, falters a bit, then brightens again. A moment passes, then, with a deafening crack, it is dark.
Flash
Zacharie is at the sun's doorstep. Apollo, outside, is staring down the road, terrified. Zacharie takes his son’s hand. Miles away, lightning strikes on the road extending before them.
"Go," he says.
Flash
Clémence is running to her dresser, hastily tearing clothes from her drawers; sprinting through the house and out the door; speeding north in the dark as the light begins to return.
Flash
Zacharie is at the post marking the distance from the lake Clémence can't leave. He rests a hand on it as her car pulls up.
"Was it Philip?" Clémence demands, leaping from her still-running car.
"It was," Zacharie admits.
"Why?" she asks.
Flash
Apollo drives steadily on; a small, charred body lying behind him in the dirt.