MetaPets

“Would you like me to teach you chess tonight?”

Azalea didn’t even look up at her father when he asked the question. She concentrated on poking at her cereal, like it was shirking its responsibility of entertaining her.

“No thanks, Dad,” she said. It was like he had forgotten the 48 other times she had told him chess was boring and she didn’t want to play.

“Dad, can we go to the carnival today?” Briar asked.

Azalea glared at her younger sister. Briar was munching on her cereal, and Azalea was sure she was making as much noise as possible on purpose.

Crunch crunch crunch.

Their father smiled. “We’ll see,” he said.

“Would you like anything in particular for dinner tonight?” his wife asked him.

“No, just as long as it’s not that ‘roast’ you made last Thursday,” he said.

She flicked him on the ear playfully. He laughed and was out the door, on his way to work.

“You girls hurry up and finish eating,” their mom said. “I know you were late yesterday.”

She looked pointedly at Azalea when she said that last part, but Azalea pretended not to notice.

Crunch crunch crunch.

Azalea gave up poking at her breakfast and put her bowl of cereal on the floor for their dog, Scud, to eat. Soon Azalea and Briar were out the door and on their way to the 25^th floor for school.

“I don’t know who you blew to get this glass this far into production, but both he and you will be fired by the end of the day.”

“Sir, if you just look at the data-“

“I looked at the data,” the man said. “And apparently, I’m the only one who did. No member of the regulatory committee should have approved this rat shit.”

“The numbers show-“

The man wasn’t even listening anymore. “I’m shutting down construction immediately. Tell your lawyers to prepare for a shitstorm.”

The man was right. Less than thirty minutes after his outburst, an explosion louder than thunder shook the floors. The glass structure surrounding the building cracked, and within moments everything came crashing down.

Briar rushed home after school. She ran past her mom and straight to her room where she threw her bag onto the bed. A tiny squeak of a trumpet sound came from her desk.

Looking at her from the inside a rectangular plastic terrarium was her MetaPet elephant, Grey. Her father had bought it for her just last week, and she was still getting used to caring for it.

She had squealed when he presented it to her. It was tiny and cute and she had never seen anything like it before. Briar could hold it in the palm of her hand, and when she stroked it with a finger its fuzz tickled her.

“What are you going to name it?” her Dad asked as they walked home.

She stopped abruptly, needing to think. “Ummm… How about Waffles?”

Her dad laughed. “It doesn’t really look like a ‘Waffles’ to me.”

“Hmmm…”

She could feel her face tighten as she thought hard about what to name it. When it struck her, she felt like the cleverest girl ever.

“Grey!”

“Grey?” her dad asked.

“I’m going to name him Grey!”

Her new MetaPet was grey, after all.

That had been last week. At the moment, she was focused on feeding it. She had the instructions out just to make sure she didn’t forget anything. Briar was so engrossed in taking care of Grey, she didn’t even hear the knock at the front door.

Isn’t it dinner time? Briar wondered. Usually her mom would have come to get her by now.

Briar walked slowly out of her room. Her feet gingerly touch the floor with each step. Was she in trouble for something? She couldn’t think of anything she had done wrong, but the worry still gnawed at her.

A woman with unkempt brunette hair was slumped on a chair in the kitchen, her head hidden behind her arms on the table. It had to be her mother. Briar glanced around but didn’t see her father anywhere.

Briar felt like her throat had closed up. Her voice had its claws in her throat and wouldn’t let go.

“Mom?”

It was Azalea’s voice. Briar hadn’t even noticed that her teenage sister had walked up behind her.

Their mother picked up her head and turned to face them. Her red-rimmed eyes were watery; her entire face was damp. Her lips quivered, but she didn’t make a sound.

Briar and Azalea just stood at the edge of the kitchen, frozen in place. This crying woman hardly seemed like their mother. Her eyes were those of a lost girl looking at an unmarked door in a hallway of unmarked doors.

The daughters saw this strange person and it scared them.

A man stood before the group of mourners. Azalea wasn’t listening to what he was saying. It was something about life and meaning and happiness and it was all bullshit.

Azalea stared at the ground at her father’s funeral. They hadn’t even been able to recover the body, so they couldn’t do the normal compost ceremony. They were there to “celebrate him” and look at his Tree of Life.

Azalea thought it was all pointless. It wasn’t a “Tree of Life.” It was just a fucking little twig with her dad’s DNA in it, and no matter how much they looked at it and no matter how big it grew it was still just a stupid fucking plant. It wasn’t her dad; it was just another reminder that he wasn’t coming back.

She wanted to hit the guy droning on about her dad’s accomplishments. She wanted to stomp on the sapling and turn it into splinters. Most of all, she wanted to slap that lost look off her mother’s face. Her mother, who had barely spoken to her or Briar since their dad died. She had been fucking useless, which meant Briar kept turning to Azalea for help and it pissed Azalea off. She didn’t want to deal with her little sister and she didn’t want to listen to people she didn’t know talk about how great their father was.

Azalea just wanted to go home and lie in bed and be alone.

“Thanks for helping me with the homework, Cedrus.”

Briar meant it. She had missed more than a few days of school, and now she had to catch up in all her classes.

Cedrus shrugged in reply. “S’okay,” he said.

They had been friends for years, but usually it was Briar who helped Cedrus with homework.

He climbed onto her bed and opened a window. His family’s apartment was in the middle of the building, so it didn’t have windows; they almost always hung out at Briar’s.

“Make sure you blow it out the window,” Azalea said as she climbed up next to him. “My curtains are starting to smell.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. Cedrus pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and stuck it between his lips. He flicked the end and it lit up, smoke already beginning to slowly stream out the window.

“Ugh, it’s hot as balls out there,” Cedrus said before passing the cigarette to Briar.

He was right. Briar could feel the hot, sticky air against her cheeks as it slunk into the room. She had the sensation of warm glue beading up on her skin.

She inhaled the sharp taste of ashy smoke and let it drift in her lungs. Her eyes closed and she let herself float away with her breath as she exhaled.

“How’s your stupid, grey lump doing?” Cedrus asked.

“It’s called an ‘elephant,’ baka,” Briar said.

“It’s stupid.”

Briar took another drag of the cigarette. “Shut up.”

“Rook to 4H.”

Azalea stared at the chess pieces set up in front of her and watched the computer’s Rook move on the board. She studied it carefully, trying to see what move to make next. Her teeth kneaded her lower lip and the tip of her tongue tasted skin. It helped her concentrate.

“Knight to 4H,” she said.

“Illegal move.”

“Kuso,” she cursed under her breath.

She swiped at the chess pieces, but her fingers glided through the pieces like they were made of smoke. The holograms barely flickered at her movements. Azalea didn’t understand this game. It was stupid. What the hell was a Knight good for? It made no sense.

I should have let Dad teach me.

Her heart felt empty at the thought.

“Sis?”

The door to Azalea’s bedroom began to open. Azalea quickly slammed her hand down on the little black button on her desk, and the chess pieces immediately disappeared. Briar poked her head through the newly opened crack in the doorway.

“Bree, what the hell do you want?” She was so tired of her little sister bugging her.

Briar paused and just looked at her sister with her big eyes, like she’d done something wrong. It annoyed Azalea even more.

“Well?”

“Will you take me to the carnival?” Briar asked her.

“Fuck no.”

“Pleeeaaase?”

Briar’s whining hadn’t worked on her in years.

“Bree, you are old enough to go to the carnival by yourself.”

“It’s no fun by myself!”

“Then take your idiot friend with you; I don’t care. Or you could always ask Mom to take you.”

Azalea felt a little stab in her stomach as soon as the words left her mouth.

Briar looked back towards the living room where their mother spent all her time, then looked back at Azalea, her eyes pleading.

Fuck both of them, Azalea thought, and she felt her eyes narrow as she continued to glare at her sister.

“Shut the door,” Azalea said.

The door closed slowly with barely a sound, and Briar was gone. Azalea pressed the button on her desk and the chess pieces reappeared.

“Knight to 4G,” she said.

“Illegal move.”

“KUSO!”

Briar stood in the huddled mass of people that vaguely formed a line. Adults and teenagers surrounded her, and she spent most of her time waiting only able to look at legs. A forest of legs tightening in around her so that she couldn’t see what was going on.

Her heart was racing in her chest. Briar was so excited to get to go to the carnival. Her friends made it sound like so much fun! But what if she didn’t know where to go for fun once she got inside? She’d never gone out alone like this before. There was always at least one other person with her, even if it was just Cedrus. But he was busy, and she didn’t want to sit at home.

With nothing to do and no one to talk to, the wait was excruciatingly long at half an hour. She spent most of her time counting stitches in people’s pants and trying not to look at butts. The people around Briar were with their friends and with their families. She was surrounded by conversations she could only catch discordant pieces of. Lots of loud laughter. It sounded like fun. Then Briar realized she wouldn’t be laughing like that. She was alone. She must look weird amongst all these groups. Some of them would probably point and laugh at her: the weird child who came to the carnival alone.

Finally she was at the front of the line, standing before the ticket seller. Beyond him Briar could see the carnival rides and the bright blinking lights. The salty-sweet smell of cotton candy and popcorn was already recognizable.

“Thudlbe fifgeencredids mith,” the ticket seller said.

Briar couldn’t understand what the man was saying. It sounded like garbled noise, muffled behind his thick mustache. She fumbled with her card, asked him if he could repeat what he said.

“Thutlbe fifbeengcreds mif.”

He had to be asking for her card, but what did he want? Everyone else had obviously understood what he said. Why couldn’t she? What if he’s telling her she’s too young to enter the carnival alone?

Briar couldn’t hear it, but she became convinced that the people waiting in line behind her were now all talking about her. Laughing at her. Complaining at how slow she was. Wondering why the line hadn’t moved yet.

Her face felt like an oven; she knew her cheeks must be flushing an idiot shade of red.

She looked up into the ticket seller’s eyes, hoping for some kind of help. He just looked back at her, waiting. The lights behind him seemed brighter. The flashing blues and reds and greens and purples filled her vision. The cacophony of conversations around her was deafening.

Briar opened her mouth to speak, didn’t know what to say, and instead closed it and shook her head ‘no’ as if that somehow provided an answer. She tried to hide her blushing face, tried to hide her burning eyes, and she turned and ran from the ticket seller, ran toward the elevator.

After a moment of furious button-pressing, the doors opened to reveal an empty elevator. Briar collapsed in the corner of the elevator as the tears poured down her cheeks. All she could think was how stupid she felt and what was she going to tell Azalea if she asked later and she really hoped Azalea didn’t ask how stupid does a person have to be to stand in line and then leave without having a single bit of fun? Why did she even think she might be able to do this? Now Briar was torn between wanting desperately to go to the carnival and hating the carnival and everything about it. The bitterness brought its own pain and Briar’s soft crying turned to sobs.