Rapture By Moonlight

They sat down for dinner, where Gwen would meet Elisha’s mother and father. She had spoken to her mother-in-law several times, but this was to be the first time she spoke with or met Elisha’s father. The way Elisha described him he seemed as a saint, for he was the one who first accepted her orientation, who first gave unconditional support to her new life. He was warm and approachable, strong and sincere, and Elisha made a point to tell Gwen, with a wink and a playful smile, not to fall for his charms.

Gwen was excited, but calm, content in the new life she would lead. But she missed her robot, her faithful servant, who was now somewhere across the globe, doing God knows what. Actually, she knew just what it was doing, but it kept fading in and out of her mind, like the name of someone she just met. She picked up a lobster by its tail, and feigned eating the whole thing in one bite, until the sound of her approaching in-laws stopped her, and she broke out in rapturous silly giggling with Elisha.

Then, it hit, just as she looked over and smiled at her love, her sweet Elisha. The sky opened up to the sound of Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata, not rich or full of blues, but filled with white areas delineated by pencil marks. She looked up, and heard the music, and saw the empty areas that paint would fill. And as her in-laws sat down, expecting to be met for the first happy time, she impetuously darted off, much to the amusement and joy of her lover.

Gwen ran into the next room and put three triangular markers on an enormous glass globe, around a blue patch almost totally devoid of land, knowing with absolute certainty where they must go. And above her was projected a wide canvas of sky that she must now paint, and she knew it was exactly what her faithful robotic servant was seeing, and knew it too was hearing the sonata, and she was gripped by a melancholy sentiment that was delicious and complete. Suddenly a great green turtle with immense flippers swam lazily above her in the cerulean blue sky, and she sank back into her chair, consumed in bliss.

“Gwen, what happened?” asked Elisha, as she quietly crept in and gently laid her hands on Gwen’s shoulders. “My mum knows all about you and your crazy ways, but this is the first time dad’s met you."

“I know, I know,” she said, grasping Elisha’s hand tightly with her own. “It’s just . . . well, I’m, a little afraid.”Elisha knelt before her, and holding Gwen’s hands in her own, she lightly kissed them with soft lips. “We’ll make it, you and I. I know it, my love.”

“Not that silly!” She gazed up at that white tract of land projected above. “I worry about what will come. I worry about upsetting the apple cart, about changing it all. I worry,” she got more emotional now, the anxiety wrinkling her brow, “about doing all this without letting anyone know. We’re taking a great chance, with a great many people we don’t even know.”

Elisha rose quickly, as the kindness and love faded from her face. She was like that – able to dispatch her emotions with an unsettling quickness. Gwen could think they had shared a passionate night together, but when all was said and done, Elisha could turn without even a kiss and slip off into the deepest of sleep. It made Gwen doubt her affection, her sincerity early in their relationship. It was one of those couplings where when the two of them were together nothing else existed, and there was absolute devotion. But when Elisha would leave, minutes later Gwen would have second-thoughts, doubt if they would make a good pair. One day she told Elisha of those concerns, and Elisha, in her kindest words, reminded Gwen that she was an artist, that she could be passionate about one piece for months, only to discard it in a whirl and even put her paint down for months at a time, while she indulged some other creative pursuit. You’re an artist, she said, as if the word was dirty, and you can lose interest and get bored easily. I’m just not wired like you – I may not have the intensity of passion you can have, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you.

It was the first time she used the word, and that one word blotted out all her concerns, or at least made the rose-colored glasses she usually wore now completely opaque. But her sternness still puzzled Gwen, as now she stood above her with cruel eyes and tight lips.

“We’ve committed to this path,” rebuked Elisha, “and we cannot deviate. Now get yourself together, and come in and meet my father!” She now wore a disarmingly tender smile, and even passed her hand lovingly over Gwen’s cheeks. “I love you so much, Gwen.”

Elisha left, and Gwen knew it was that hot-and-cold personality that kept her invested in the relationship. Elisha was still a mystery, and so long as she was, Gwen couldn’t leave, couldn’t get bored.

But I do miss you, Alpha-9. She gazed back up at the unpainted sky, as her mind mixed up the Moonlight sonata with the opening bars of the Appassionata.

2

Alpha-9 hadn’t seen a human in quite a while, not since it left the coast of Chile. It bought a rickety rocket pack in Concepción from a man of dubious worth, who was unknowingly to be the last example of humanity the mechanical man would ever see. The man asked about the large silver case Alpha-9 carried, even going so far as to try to override its command programs to see what was inside, but Alpha-9 was a very faithful robot, after all, he had been with Gwen since she was very little, and was able to rebuff the man’s inelegant advances.

I’ve kept all your secrets, little girl, and I’ll not start sharing them now.

Alpha-9 was like her own little diary. At first, her parents couldn’t afford to keep it for more than one day a week, and consequently Alpha-9 spent most of its time cleaning the house. But after Gwen lost one of her close friends through a very violent abduction, rape, and murder, her parents decided she needed a more constant companion. So they bought a longer lease, and Alpha-9 stayed with her three days out of a week.

The robot did wonders for her confidence, as she had a friend that would never die, never be abducted, never be taken away. When she came home from school, she told it of all the boys who looked sideways at her, who drew her eye, and of all the girls that talked with her or ignored her. And Alpha-9 never turned away, never looked bored or uninterested. It knew when to be quiet, and listen, and when to ask probing questions. It rarely offered advice, and certainly never judged her, no matter how many different rebellious phases she went through in her adolescent years. And while the Alpha series didn’t have the capacity for sentiment, it certainly had formed a connection to Gwen that was so deep into its programming that it could not be erased.

The ocean was going on forever, a vast nation of undulating waves, unbroken by land. It was threateningly overcast when it first set out, and Alpha-9 dearly hoped it wouldn’t rain, because it had little faith in the integrity of the seals of the antiquated and ill-mannered rocket pack. It was nothing but jerks and sputters, twice almost sending Alpha-9 into the drink. But midway through, the sun exploded through the cloudbank, and its small but powerful mind centered on Gwen.
It didn’t know why Gwen was with Elisha, someone so obviously flawed. But then again, human social interactions didn’t make up much of its programming. He did think Gwen was a better judge of character, and wished somehow she would see the obvious flaws in her mate, before it became her undoing.

Then, the sonata played in its mind.

Alpha-9 thought it odd, because no one summoned the selection. It wasn’t part of a daily routine; in fact, it had been quite a while since any of its masters had listened to the selection. But it was there, nevertheless, playing as it gazed down on where Easter Island used to be.

A lot of humans will be upset at me, it thought to itself. I think I might even be upset with me.

But, it is what Gwen had ordered, and at least for these next three days, I am hers.

Alpha-9 maneuvered itself into a hovering pattern and opened the silver case. It descended to just above the waterline.

What will you paint on this blank canvas, my master? Alpha-9 switched on the device, then tossed it into the water, watching as it sank down into the depths. What plans do you have for this template, cleansed from flood? A small program within Alpha-9 pressed forward other imperatives, shifting its mind from philosophical musings to more immediate matters. Still more things to do. I must hurry, or I will be late . . .

3

“So, how did you two meet?” asked Gwen’s father.

“Didn’t Mom tell you?” asked Gwen, growing confused, as she thought it was Elisha’s parents that they were having dinner with, not her own. “It’s really a silly story.”

“Yes, but sometimes you learn volumes in the way even silly stories are told.”

Elisha smiled magnanimously, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. She fiddled for a moment with a bracelet on her left wrist, one that glittered with seemingly hundreds of opulent jewels, but whose light no one seated managed to notice. “Well, it was actually a case of a wrong address.”

“I got a letter, and it was addressed to an ‘Elisha Tannenbaum.’ It seemed relatively important.”

“-it was just some tax forms-”

“-yeah, but I didn’t know that!” Gwen squeezed her hand. “Anyway Dad, I could’ve just written ‘return to sender,’ or something like that. But I decided to have a little project. My painting had stalled-”

“-still ‘stalled’ if you ask me-”

Gwen playfully pushed Elisha. “Anyway, I needed a distraction, so I tracked Elisha down!

Turned out she didn’t live too far, so I walked right over, knocked on her door, and handed her the letter.”

“And I looked in her eyes,” said Elisha, with a comically romantic flourish, “and knew I couldn’t let this one go.”

“There have been others?” sternly asked Gwen’s mother.

Gwen’s lips wrinkled into a wry grin. “Oh tons and tons, mum! She’s a lesbian dynamo, seducing all us pretty young things!”

Her father smiled a warm, yet firm smile, one Gwen had seen many times, and knew to close her mouth, except to let some food in.

“Well, it sounds like some kind of providence that you two met,” he said evenly. “I must say, that Gwen has never seemed happier.” All he had to do was glance at his daughter, and she blushed crimson. “I confess I wondered how she would meet someone special, especially after she came out to me.”

“What was that like?” asked Elisha. “Gwen only has great things to say about how you supported her. A lot of my friends could only wish they had a father like you. Weren’t you . . . disappointed?”

He put his hands together, and sat back. “A very honest question, and it deserves an honest answer. If I had a son, who confessed to me that he was . . . different, then I would be tremendously disappointed. I would think that, in some way, I let him down, that I wasn’t enough of a man to make him into one. But I had the luxury of having a daughter, and it didn’t impact me as much. Part of me was happy that she found a direction, that she was making a decision so big that it would impact the whole of her life. But as I said, most of all I was afraid she wouldn’t meet someone worthy of her. That she would need to compromise, or even live alone.” He laid a meaty hand on Elisha’s. “It warms my heart to no end to see she’s met someone like you.”

Elisha gritted her teeth to hold back the tears, and lowered her head, overcome by sentiment.

“Dear,” rebuked his wife, “you’re embarrassing her!”

“I’m so sorry, Elisha!” he cried with a wide smile. “But at least that’s out of the way. Now come on Gwen, you had to have made some more paintings. This world is in a lot of pain, and when I look on your work, somehow, I only feel joy and hope.”

“Alright Dad, I made a couple.” She got up, and grabbed her father’s hand, leading him off to her studio. “Come on . . .”

4

Her mother and father had left several hours ago, and Gwen lay in her bed, still confused. She turned to Elisha, and asked, “I thought your in-laws were coming over?”

“No, silly! Whatever gave you that idea?”

Gwen thought back to playing with the lobster, feeling a kind of sexual high, flirting like that, when she thought Elisha’s in-laws were minutes away. Didn’t I run into here, scared about meeting them, scared about us? But then again, she had been making many mistakes lately. Five paintings hung in her studio, and while she remembered painting them herself, when she looked on them, they just didn’t feel like something she could do. She knew all artists felt that way, once in a while, like a painting or a story or a song was just too good for them to have created, to have come out of their meager minds.

Elisha shook her head. “Just like you to insert yourself wherever it’s most dramatic. This was supposed to be my special night, to finally meet your father, and you’ve gone and hijacked it all.”

Gwen hurriedly grabbed Elisha’s arm, and stroked it gently. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! I just...forget sometimes – that’s all! It seems like lately, more and more, I’m mixing things up.” She gazed dreamily back at her large collection of tubes of oil paint, spread haphazardly on a thin wooden table. The studio always reeked of turpentine and linseed oil, and sometimes Gwen thought it might be affecting her mind a little. I thought I was in the bedroom... “I wish I could remember what to do with this sky! I knew what it should be, just a little while ago.”

Elisha snatched back her arm, and took off her bracelet, though the motion barely registered in

Gwen’s mind. “Have you looked at the news?”

“No.” Gwen picked up a brush, and debated over putting in a quick session of painting. “Did Alpha-9 succeed?”

Elisha beamed. “Better than we ever could have hoped! The entire Nazca plate is revealed!”

Gwen nodded absently. “Do you really love me?”
Elisha sighed, her whole body collapsing as if all the air went out. “Didn’t you just hear me?!
We accomplished the evaporation of almost a third of the Pacific Ocean, and you’re asking me if I still love you?”

“It . . . it just doesn’t mean anything, if you don’t.” A few tears ran down her face, deftly escaping her feeble attempts to wipe them away. She gently put down the brush, and flopped onto an old, worn bed that reeked of paint and cat. “I always feel like I’m straddling the edge of this bed, hoping I’ll fall into it, and into you, but feeling like more and more I’ll fall the other way, onto the floor, and out of your life.”

Elisha shrugged. “It’s a shame you feel that way.” She went into the bathroom, and began to wash her face, as Gwen fought a losing battle against the tears that begged to be released.

5
The Pacific Ocean above the submerged Easter Island bubbled and boiled as if in a great stew-pot left on too long. Vapor clouded the sky, as a great hurricane swirled around the spot where the machine lay. Alpha-9 was long gone, halfway back to Chile, when the lightning came crashing from the sky.

Then, the first morsel of land could be seen, seeming to rise from the depths, though it was, in fact, the depths that were being moved to reveal it. The great moai could be seen, their massive heads revealed unto the sunlight. The ocean kept on disappearing, and soon, not only was the entire island visible, but much of the Sala y Gómez Ridge. Dozens of planes began to investigate the anomaly, and soon discovered that the entirety of the Nazca plate was being revealed. The Earth’s atmosphere was growing thicker and thicker as more of the ocean evaporated into the sky, darkening the surface, blotting out the sun.

But the atmosphere couldn’t hold it for long, and the water came down. There was an atmospheric pressure barrier over much of the Pacific, so it fell everywhere else. The eastern coasts of the Americas soon vanished underwater, as the ocean swelled to incredible heights. The western coasts of Africa and Europe met a similar fate, with even the Mediterranean swelling and enveloping Italy. Australia vanished underwater, as the Indian Ocean expanded anywhere it could. It was only in landlocked places like Des Moines, where Gwen and Elisha lived, that people could still live in ignorant bliss.

6

Lingering on the edge of their bed, waiting for Elisha to return from her toilet, Gwen’s hands were drawn to the small drawer by Elisha’s side of the bed. Summoned by some irresistible force, something akin to a melancholy dream, she rummaged through the trinkets and baubles, knowing something of greater worth lay hidden.

That’s the best place to hide something of value – in the midst of the worthless and the discarded.

When her hand touched it, violins sung in her mind, shouting the opening melody of Moscheles Concerto no. 3, full of resonant strength, an almost bitter, tragic anger. The room was dark, and tinged with a heavy violet, and in that carpet of seductive gloom the jewels of the bracelet exploded in fire. She held it close to her eyes, with the concerto still playing in her mind, the first solo notes of the piano making its grand entrance. The jewels spoke to her, sung to her, telling her of the hundreds of worlds they had seen, the immense power channeled through their facets.

Gwen felt their ennui, knew they needed more; a different mind, a higher purpose.
The question of ‘why?’ formed in her mind, and was quickly answered. The whole of creation lay out to be explored. Not devoured like succulent morsels of meat, as Elisha sought, but assimilated, experienced, swallowed and digested, spat up like cud to be chewed and understood again, and then finally catalogued in her mind and soul as fuel for her creative endeavors. As some artists would sum up their culture in one painting, once symphony, one book, so she would endeavor to sum up all worlds, all galaxies, in her brushstrokes. The dancing piano of Moscheles faded into the brusque, painful notes that opened the master’s Requiem, heralding grim errands that must be done.

7

The world cried out in pain and fear, but Gwen sat secluded in her bedroom, oblivious to all entreaties for help. The bracelet still held her mind as she held onto it, even as Elisha came out of the bathroom.

“What’re you doing?”

“Who are you?!”shouted Gwen, surfacing from a haze. “What are you?!”

Elisha snapped out to snatch the bracelet, but Gwen shoved her back with terrible force, knocking Elisha off her feet, sending her falling back into the floor and wall, her skull making a dull thud against the panel. Gwen disinterestedly examined her, still clutching the bracelet, as if

Elisha was some fallen bird with an injured wing.

“How did you make that device? What’s it doing?”

Elisha tried to stand, but found a dull haze hung over her eyes and mind, making her limbs numb and faint. But she still managed to laugh.

“Why me?!” demanded Gwen. “The bracelet tells me many things, but that’s clouded. Why me, dammit?!”

Elisha gurgled and coughed, spitting up some blood. “Did you ever look at your paintings? Really look at them?”

Something curled up in Gwen’s soul, as a nameless fear bared it claws. She started to glance at one of the paintings that hung in the bedroom, but she resisted, wanting to stay focused.

“Damn these human bodies.” Elisha tried valiantly to stand, but found half her body wouldn’t move. Resignation settled on her alien soul, and suddenly she had a strong urge to see her homeworld again. But all that lay before her was the Earth, and this pitiful creature named Gwen sitting before her. She sighed, settling for this semblance of existence. “What woke you up?”

Gwen got up, and grabbed the lamp on her bedstand, yanking the plug out of the socket. Its base was heavy brass, and Elisha tried to squirm as she saw deadly intent in Gwen’s eyes.

“You sure you can do this?! I thought you were all lollipops and sunshine, paint and canvas, kind to every living thing!”

Gwen held up the bracelet, as a defiant fire burned in her eyes. “You’re not even a woman. This thing, keeps speaking to me. Telling me things.”

“It told me a lot too. That’s how I got here.”

“And just as it chose you to find someone with a more . . . interesting mind, so it has chosen again.”

Elisha sagged against the wall.

“And you know what happens next,” continued Gwen, as she raised the lamp high in the air.

“Such a pity you’ll never see your own planet again. It looks like such a beautiful little world.”

Thunder slammed relentlessly against the world outside, obscuring whispers and words, gestures and even terrible acts committed by simpletons and fools.

“Be careful, my love,” gurgled Elisha, as her head now lay split open. “Once in a while, glance back, to see what you have done. It can be . . . a terrible sight.”
 

8

The bridge glittered in the early morning dark in macabre echo of her own newfound bracelet, with red, blue, and white jewels twinkling alongside one another. The police and fire engines consumed almost two-thirds the length of the bridge, as pools of traffic gathered on both sides, eager to pass. Gwen sat in her car, waiting, watching as they hoisted the thing that was named

‘Elisha’ out of the river.

I wonder what they’ll say about her missing fingers.

The bracelet had told her of how Elisha took over a human host, how her spirit flowed in through the fingers. It told her that though her body was dead, her essence still lived in those tips. So she cut them off, and put them somewhere for safe keeping.

You never know what, or who you might need in the future.

She had to call the police, because she had to get moving, and she didn’t want to leave until she knew Elisha’s body would be cared for.

I did love her, once.

9

“Where are we going?”

The rain still fell, pooling in the gutters and streets, flooding basements and fields and every home built low instead of up high. It’s all that was on the news, when the power still flowed. What was once an irritating bother had grown to biblical proportions, with many imploring the Creator remember his promise about the first flood. A hundred different men in imitation of Noah pirated hundreds of ships, trying to ensure they would be father to a new world, but few were even able to cut loose the moorings, much less navigate the treacherous rising waters of the angry Earth.

“Not again!” the people pleaded on the TV, “you promised Lord – not again!”

“You don’t even have anything packed, Gwen,” said the robot softly, wondering if his master of the moment had taken leave of her senses. “How can we go anywhere? The streets are flooded, no planes are flying – not even the trams are running. How can we . . .”

She stood up, and put a finger to her lips, motioning him to be silent.

“Wait, and see.”

She grabbed her bracelet firmly, closed her eyes, and swam into its power. The dial that was Easter Island turned, shifting gradually into the landmass of the Nazca plate. As it fell, great clouds of steam burst into the air, as bolts of power crackled along its periphery. The rain boiled and turned to steam, the ocean around it ascending into the sky.

“What are you doing?” asked Alpha-9, almost unable to process what was occurring.

“Leaving.”

-- Kevin Gordon
The bracelet glowed like a nova, and Alpha-9 instinctively drew closer to her. Easter Island fell down into the depths of the Earth, as around it all the power of its core surged forth. The bracelet focused it, directed it, and Gwen and her trusty metal servant vanished into the fabric of space and time, leaving the Earth and its creatures to fate unknown.