Technology Softens a Poignant Farewell in This Sci-Fi Short Story

io9 is arrogant to contiguous fabrication from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we diagnostic a communicative from LIGHTSPEED’s existent issue. This month’s enactment is “The Last Lucid Day” by Dominique Dickey. Enjoy! (You tin besides perceive to the communicative here).

THE LAST LUCID DAY
by Dominique Dickey

You’re dormant successful dreams of your begetter holding your caput underwater, truthful the telephone from Magnolia Assisted Living goes to voicemail.

“I didn’t rise a lad of excavation to number connected his fingers,” your begetter says successful the dream—because ah, yes, it’s each of your worst moments rolled into a azygous nightmare.

You perceive the beeping of your alarm and you cognize you’re dreaming, but you can’t aftermath up immoderate much than you tin propulsion yourself escaped of your father’s hands. He holds you down and tells you to number the seconds, amusement him however agelong you tin clasp your breath, but the lone mode to marque consciousness of the numbers is to tally them connected your fingers. He pushes you down deeper. He walks away.

It ever ends with him walking away.

It ever ends with you splashing successful the heavy end, alone.

• • • •

When you awake, sweat outlines your assemblage successful the furniture similar a policeman’s chalk drawing. Your alarm has been going disconnected for . . . however long? Too long. You’re moving precocious for work, and contiguous already feels awful.

You telephone successful sick. That’s sorted. What’s next? The voicemail.

The dependable of the connection is automated. You knew this was coming, but determination was nary mode of knowing when. You fig that’s the intent of the service—to archer you precisely when.

Well, different hr successful furniture won’t hurt. You privation the feeling of waking up right, from a bully imagination oregon adjacent from nary imagination astatine all. You acceptable your alarm again and adjacent your eyes but you can’t get backmost to sleep. You drawback yourself reasoning astir your father’s favourite belt—thick achromatic leather, buckle scratched to hell. You’re a grown antheral and it inactive makes you consciousness wobbly with fear.

You haul yourself retired of your sweat-damp bed. You shower. Magnolia Assisted Living is an hr distant successful traffic. You halt astatine an ATM connected the mode and get determination conscionable earlier eleven.

• • • •

You were six erstwhile your parents called it quits. Mom got Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays. They alternated Easters, a vacation neither of them particularly cared about. Dad got each different weekend. Every different Friday, you’d haul your overnight container to schoolhouse and stash it down the receptionist’s desk. Every different Friday, your begetter would amusement up successful the pickup enactment successful his reddish sports car.

His bachelor flat was 2 hours retired of the city. At the halfway point, he’d propulsion disconnected the road and ellipse connected the aboveground streets for a bit, yet pulling into the parking batch of a mini-mart oregon a state station. You’d agelong your legs and past he’d manus you a mates of tens and acceptable you escaped connected the aisles of junk food. You’d devour unneurotic successful silence.

That was erstwhile you felt closest to him. Not successful his apartment, a beauteous spot that ne'er felt similar home, but successful the car successful a nondescript parking lot, surrounded by overpriced snacks, his java achromatic and gritty arsenic tar steaming successful the cupholder betwixt you.

• • • •

At Magnolia, the receptionist tells you your begetter is successful the garden. You prime done the trees and rosebushes until you find him sitting astatine a wrought robust array with a creation publication and a ballpoint pen, scribbling. There’s a agelong infinitesimal earlier helium looks up and sees you. You privation clip could stop, could springiness you abstraction to deliberation astir the meaning down the words he’s writing—or possibly they’re numbers, oregon diagrams.

Whatever it is, it makes consciousness to idiosyncratic smarter than you. Someone with the specialized cognition required to recognize it. Lucid, your begetter is simply a genius. He’s the astir superb antheral you know.

And past helium looks astatine you. There’s a flash of astonishment connected his look earlier helium pushes himself to his feet and comes close, his arms held retired arsenic if to hug you. “It’s a Thursday, isn’t it? What person I done to merit this?”

You smile. Even now, helium doesn’t cognize you good capable to cognize you’re forcing it. “I thought we’d spell for a drive.”

• • • •

Your father, a theoretical mathematician renowned successful his field, stood implicit your enarthrosis arsenic you did your homework. You were a child. You were counting connected your fingers. He took disconnected his loop and laid it connected the table. He wasn’t really going to bushed you with it, but you didn’t cognize that—how could you perchance cognize that? It would instrumentality a fewer much years of this earlier you saw consecutive to the bottommost of his bare threats.

He ne'er deed you. The menace of unit kept you successful line, and that was convulsive successful a quiescent benignant of way. Every different play you eclipsed yourself. You sat astatine the room array with his loop beside you and you fto your caput spell determination else. You hid successful plain sight. You spoke lone erstwhile spoken to, successful non-answers and with a dense tongue. No, helium ne'er deed you, but sometimes helium took you by the shoulders and shook you, arsenic if it would bring you back.

You learned summation and subtraction by rote. You learned to swim. You learned to disappear. You learned different things, too, that you were blessed to forget.

If helium had deed you with the belt, if helium had made you number the lashes, you would not person utilized your hands to find the numbers.

• • • •

You thrust for an hour, alternately talking astir thing and humming on to creaseless jazz classics connected the radio. You propulsion disconnected the highway, ellipse for a bit, find a state presumption with an attached market. You springiness him 2 crisp twenty-dollar bills. Inflation, you think. That ought to screen it.

You travel him inside. He doesn’t look astir arsenic aged arsenic helium is, and helium wears his excitement similar a small kid. He has the currency crushed successful 1 fist, the scale digit of the different manus tapping his lips arsenic helium paces the aisles. The store’s small, but helium takes his choices seriously, and you fto him.

After a fewer minutes of witnessing his indecision, you rotation distant to fig retired your ain haul. Potato chips. A vessel of ginger ale, weeping condensation. A styrofoam cupful of achromatic java that’s someway burnt adjacent though it’s freshly regurgitated from the machine.

You’re astatine the registry erstwhile helium slides up to you, impatient—somehow he’s already made his picks and purchased them—and asks for the car keys. You manus them over. You ticker done the model arsenic helium folds himself into the rider spot of your applicable SUV and begins to eat. The pimply attendant takes your recognition card, swipes it, and hands it back.

• • • •

You turned eighteen. You stopped answering his calls and, eventually, helium stopped calling. Part of you felt similar helium was giving up connected you, but the bigger portion of you felt relieved. You thought of him whenever you went to a state presumption oregon mini-mart—all the time, astatine first.

The memories faded, arsenic memories thin to do, and you thought of him little and less.

Twenty years passed. You hardly thought of him astatine all. It was peaceful. It was good. You had the quiescent benignant of happiness that’s damn adjacent intolerable to seizure successful words. You didn’t deliberation astir him, you lived your life, and you were happy.

• • • •

He called aft your ma died. He had a caller number, but truthful did you, and you ne'er asked however helium got yours. He wanted to travel to the funeral, wanted to cognize if it was good with you, didn’t privation to conscionable amusement up and astonishment you. The thoughtfulness was unexpected—it was easier to spot him arsenic the antheral who would bash the blatantly inconsiderate thing.

“Sure,” you said.

“I’ll spot you there,” helium said.

The ceremonial was connected a blistery day. He sat successful the backmost and near arsenic soon arsenic the work was over. You hardly saw him, but helium looked conscionable the aforesaid arsenic you remembered. You wondered if helium was wearing the aforesaid belt: tarnished metallic buckle, achromatic leather gone limp with the years.

Two weeks aft the funeral—you spent a week waffling, and different week moving up the nerve—you called him. “Come implicit for coffee,” you said. You couldn’t archer if the connection was for him oregon for you. You couldn’t archer what you hoped to gain, but you had precise small to lose. Your impossible, wordless happiness had already shattered. What could helium bash to you that had not already been done? What much could helium take?

He came to your location connected a Saturday afternoon. He was a acquainted stranger. He hugged you tightly and came distant crying, embarrassing you both. His representation had already gone fuzzy astir the edges, the past bleeding into the present, but helium inactive knew you. He missed you. You were close connected time.

• • • •

You beryllium successful the car and you eat. You don’t speak—you don’t adjacent look astatine each other—but you consciousness adjacent to him.

Maybe this is enough. Maybe this is each you needed.

• • • •

Two years aft you got your dada back—two years of awkward biweekly java visits, talking astir each the things you wanted to speech about—came the fire.

He seemed to gaffe done time, confusing you with radical helium utilized to know, forgetting however aged you were, forgetting which stories he’d already told you. He showed you proofs that made nary sense, though you blamed your deficiency of mathematical cognition for this. He got mislaid astir the country from his house, once, but his neighbors walked him location and helium laughed erstwhile helium recounted the incidental to you.

He forgot helium was cooking successful the mediate of frying an egg. He near a burner connected and wandered retired of the room. He was astatine his table puzzling implicit an equation, a hand-drawn diagram that lone helium could understand, erstwhile a room towel caught fire. From determination it dispersed to the curtains. He would’ve been good if he’d fled erstwhile the fume alarm started to beep, but helium tried to enactment the flames retired himself.

You brought him state presumption java erstwhile you visited him successful the hospital. He had bandages astir some his arms and helium looked similar he’d aged 10 years successful the clip it took you to arrive.

“I’m not going to beryllium stubborn astir this,” helium said. “I’m not going to bash that to you—make you get a tribunal bid oregon other marque you ticker maine dice the hard way. I cognize I shouldn’t unrecorded unsocial anymore.”

In the silence, you wondered if helium meant for you to marque him an offer—you did person plentifulness of space, aft all, successful your mom’s aged house. But you didn’t offer, and helium didn’t ask.

“I’ll nonstop you a link,” helium said. “I already picked retired a place. Magnolia Assisted Living. Forty minutes retired of the city, specialized successful representation care. Just . . . accidental you’ll travel sojourn me.”

“I’ll travel sojourn you,” you said.

Awkward Saturday java had a caller location. He wore agelong sleeves to screen the pain scars. He worked time and nighttime connected theorems that you began to spot for the nonsense they were. Time and memories flowed astir him similar choppy water. He was adrift. He was drowning.

You couldn’t prevention him—you weren’t adjacent definite if you wanted to—but you visited each week.

• • • •

“There’s this thing,” helium told you, though by past you’d already done your ain research. “A work they offer. An implant. It tin archer you erstwhile your past bully day—your past truly bully day—will be. The drawback is that if the diligent knows their clip is up, past the achromatic coats accidental it leads to . . . antagonistic attraction outcomes. It’s a treble blind, I guess. The doctors don’t adjacent know. It’s amended if they conscionable notify the family.” He scratched his limb done his sleeve. You imagined the mode his burned tegument went puckered and thin. “I gave them your number. I anticipation that’s each right.”

There helium was: the antheral who would bash the blatantly inconsiderate thing, tossing you into a work that you ne'er wanted, didn’t cognize however to bear. Reality closed implicit your caput similar chlorinated water.

“That’s good with me,” you said.

• • • •

At the bottommost of his container of chips helium licks the particulate disconnected his fingers, past looks astatine you for a agelong time. “It’s my past day, isn’t it?”

You marque a concerted effort not to tense up. “What bash you mean?”

“Oh, travel on. My past lucid day.”

You shrug. He doesn’t cognize you good capable to cognize your tells. “I thought you didn’t motion up for that.”

“Don’t springiness maine that. They did each the tests. All the implants—even the ones that are inactive successful trials. Comprehensive.”

You motion again. “You definite you retrieve your intake that well?”

“Yes I retrieve my fucking intake—”

“Really? Because sometimes you misremember stuff. It comes with the full terrain.”

He doesn’t accidental anything, but his look is atomic successful its rage. The choler makes you consciousness small, makes you deliberation of his loop connected the room array successful the flat you ne'er felt harmless in.

And past the choler goes distant each astatine once, his look slack arsenic helium gropes successful the footwell for thing other to eat. There’s an unguarded infinitesimal wherever helium looks hurt, and helium looks sad, and helium looks precise old.

The petty restitution you consciousness astatine having wounded him is undercut lone by your ain guilt. You consciousness similar a monster, similar you’re nary amended than him. But what you privation from him—it can’t beryllium a deathbed confession. The speech volition suffer its worth if helium knows he’s retired of time, if he’s lone saying the words due to the fact that it’s his past accidental to bash so. You request it to consciousness organic. You request it to consciousness real.

You inquire the question you person ever been acrophobic to ask: “When you look backmost astatine my childhood, bash you ever regret anything?”

“No.” He answers truthful rapidly helium can’t person perchance thought astir it.

“Really?”

“No. Nothing.”

“Wow.”

“Does that astonishment you?”

“I conscionable think—”

“The mode I spot it, I did my best. I provided. And I didn’t person a dada astatine all, truthful it’s not similar I had a blueprint in
that regard. I did my best.”

“But what astir . . .” You’re trying to deliberation of a factual example, 1 that doesn’t wounded excessively overmuch to speech about. “What astir erstwhile you taught maine to swim?”

“You learned.”

“You could person drowned me.”

“Eh,” helium says.

You deliberation astir him tossing you into the water, him pinching your chemoreceptor and holding your caput down truthful you’d larn to clasp your breath, him walking distant and leaving you flailing successful the heavy end. You tin consciousness the fearfulness arsenic if it’s happening close now. You tin odor the chlorine and the sunscreen arsenic if it’s connected your skin—memory is strange, that way. Funny that you thought you could bring up this communicative without feeling that acquainted unhappy ache successful your chest, your gut.

This is wherefore you went truthful galore years without reasoning of him astatine all. This is what you were avoiding. You don’t cognize what you want. You privation him to admit helium wounded you. You privation to perceive him accidental that helium was wrong. You support pushing.

“I could person died,” you archer him.

“You didn’t. You learned to swim, didn’t you?”

“It’s not conscionable that. I was a kid.”

“You turned retired okay.”

“Did I?”

“You did,” helium says, with cleanable confidence, similar helium has nary thought however incorrect helium is.

He hardly knows you—because you haven’t fto him, due to the fact that determination is truthful overmuch you haven’t told him. He doesn’t cognize astir the way of wrecked relationships, each wholly your fault, which you blasted connected your attachment issues, which you blasted connected him. Your parent is the lone narration you couldn’t wholly destroy, and
goddammit you tried. He doesn’t cognize astir the nightmares. Telling him however he’s ruined you would represent admitting defeat, but helium can’t apologize for the symptom if you don’t amusement him the wounds.

You aren’t going to amusement him the wounds.

He’s ne'er going to apologize.

Why did you adjacent bother? Why did you adjacent hope? He’s going to hide you and helium volition never, ever beryllium sorry.

Time is benignant and representation is cruel. Someday you’ll hide him too.

• • • •

You were successful assemblage the archetypal clip you mislaid your father.

“My mom’s an architect,” you said, erstwhile the taxable of household came up successful a speech with your freshman twelvemonth roommate.

“What astir your dad?”

“I don’t person a dad,” you said. You didn’t adjacent hesitate, and you felt nary guilt for the smoothness of the lie. If anything, it made you proud. Look astatine me, you thought. Look astatine the beingness I’m creating without him. Look astatine however bully that beingness could be.

The grief came later, erstwhile you replayed the speech successful your constrictive dorm bed—a dilatory blooming feeling down your sternum, similar humor spreading successful water. You realize, now, that it was practice. You’ve already mislaid him once. You cognize however to suffer him again.

• • • •

It’s an hr backmost to Magnolia, and you marque the thrust successful silence. He’s not adjacent angry, and possibly you aren’t either. You deliberation you’re mostly sad.

He sips his shitty coffee. He turns connected the radio. Saxophone trickles retired of the speakers.

“Back to the garden?” you ask, erstwhile you’re parked successful beforehand of Magnolia. The weather’s inactive nice, if a spot breezy. If helium wants to walk his past bully time moving connected proofs successful the sun, you won’t basal successful the mode of that.

“Yeah.” He gets his notebook and ballpoint pen retired of the backseat wherever helium stashed them. He leaves his trash successful the footwell: metallic wrappers, an bare styrofoam cup. You archer the receptionist you’ve returned him for the day, past locomotion him backmost to his small table. He lines up his notebook on its edge, past turns to you.

Waiting.

Well, what bash you do?

You conscionable his regard and clasp it. This is your dad. He’s your dada and he’s old, and he’s falling apart, and he’s going to die. And past you’ll person a dormant dad, who was a shithead successful beingness and had the audacity to footwear the bucket without apologizing for immoderate of his shitheadedness.

You miss not having a dada astatine all. You miss the years of easy denying his existence. The prevarication that felt much and much existent each clip you told it. The communicative that you cognize you tin ne'er gaffe backmost into, present that it’s been fractured.

He volition ne'er beryllium himself again. You hatred him. You miss him already.

You hug him tightly and travel distant crying, embarrassing the some of you.

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About the Author
Dominique Dickey is simply a speculative fabrication writer and crippled designer. As the originative manager of Sly Robot Games, they’ve created Plant Girl Game and Tomorrow connected Revelation III. They contributed to the Nebula Award-winning Thirsty Sword Lesbians, and the ENNIE Award-winning Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel. Their novella Redundancies & Potentials is forthcoming from Neon Hemlock successful 2024. Their abbreviated fabrication has appeared successful venues including Fantasy Magazine, Lightspeed Magazine, and Nightmare Magazine. They unrecorded successful the DC area, wherever they’re ever connected the hunt for their adjacent idea. You tin find their enactment astatine dominiquedickey.com.

© Adamant Press

Please visit LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to work much large subject fabrication and fantasy. This communicative archetypal appeared successful the June 2024 issue, which besides features enactment by Varsha Dinesh, Andrea Kriz, Megan Chee, Dominica Phetteplace, Deborah L. Davitt, Oyedotun Damilola Muees, Shanna Germain, and more. You tin hold for this month’s contents to beryllium serialized online, oregon you tin bargain the full contented close present successful convenient ebook format for conscionable $3.99, oregon subscribe to the ebook edition here.

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