The Ever After of Ashwin Rao. Padma Viswanathan

      Planes would fall from skies, some Agents heard our Daddies say.

      Planes flying. Planes falling. What goes between?

      Mechanic Daddy bought us on plastic. We: Sony. We: Sanyo. He: Reyat. He: IDIOT!

      But even an idiot can assemble a bomb, blow it up in the woods, assemble another, blow it up, assemble us and . . .

      We were in the bag!

      Bag Daddy closed the zipper over Us. His hands were sweating. We were covered in clothes. Toothpaste. Deodorant. Aftershave—a joke? Well, this was one of those handsome Daddies without a beard. He was nervous, shaking and grinning. Scared! Of us!

      Oh. The Twin. Our Double.

      Grrr. We were jealous. Our Twin was on its way to Japan. We wanted Japan. Like Hiroshima-Bomb and Nagasaki-Bomb. They WERE The Bomb. The H-Bomb and the N-Bomb dancing A-rings and O-rings around the other bombs, Alpha and Omega. That was Us now.

      Us going West. The Twin going East. Going, but not to arrive. To go.

      Daaaaa BOOOOOOMMMMBBBB!

      Bag Daddy stops at the airport, but his ticket doesn’t go past the next stop. He’s checking us, so we won’t be checked. He’s not checking himself—he’s letting the counter gal have it, and she’s got a line full of people all craning their necks to give her the stink-eye. What’s the holdup? He hasn’t got a gun!

      She’s giving in, “Okay, okay,” agreeing to Check Us Through.

      We are in like Flynn, checked in because she checked out, into the hold, interlined because Daddy was out of line in the line.

      Who’s your Daddy? He’s gone. And the line is moving again.

      I phoned as they were getting ready to go to the airport. Some small thing, an excuse. I had no premonition. I only wanted to hear their voices. My sister was stressed: in a hurry. My nephew was curt: monosyllabic. My brother-in-law was out getting gas. My niece—my niece was all ready, her knapsack packed. She told me which books she was bringing, what games, stuffed animal, candy.

      On the conveyor belt, on our way, we hear, behind us, kerfuffling. The detection equipment has gone haywire, awry, kaput!

      Security folks call for dogs, but all the dogs—yes, ALL THE DOGS—are at a training session. Every wet black nose off who-knows-where.

      A wand! That’s what they come up with. Hocus-pocus! The trained wand-bearer demonstrates: Hold wand by handle. Wave wand over bags. Say a magic word under your breath, under the roses, nobody knowses, so they supposes, but they supposes erroneously.

      What? They found something! Another bomb? Some other bags are being pulled aside. The wand quivered and beeped over them like a terrier, a Ouija board, a crystal on a string. Dowsed!

      Kikikiki. Hahahaha.

      They pulled the wrong bags.

      They let the flight close. We roll away, quivering undetectably, as they search the magicked bags, the conjured problem that vanishes as they search, poking with left hand, tossing with right hand. What do they find? Clothes. Toothpaste. Aftershave. Curry powder—ah. That must have been what the wand sniffed. Spicy like dynamite. Asian hot.

      Thank gods, think the pokers and tossers, we didn’t delay the flight for this.

      For a long time after, I couldn’t remember any of it, though I remembered now that I pictured her, leaving the security cage, hoisting her small, stuffed tote onto her shoulder, pulling a ponytail from under the strap, her shoes slipping on the newly waxed floor, Sikh women cleaners looking past her impassively. Unless I’m making that up.

      A buzz and a hum and a click-tick-click. We are aloft, alone, all on our own. Daddies left behind. Cut from our origins, we become one with the plane. Its components become us. Buzz, hum, and click-tick-click goes the timer, under people (subhuman). Our clock’s on, our coxswain, synchronizing the plane’s components, now marching with us in lockstep, marching in time to stop time. To disappear it. The horizon approaches, the vanishing point.

      Ah! The Twin has gone and done it!

      It was supposed to run in time with us but it ran out of time. Jumped the gun.

      Hahahaha! We are delighted. No—we are lighted! We are THE BOMB.

      For a long time, I thought that all I had heard, over the line, was pure sound: her voice. Her voice, the sound of which I will not try to describe, the sound of which had no precedent in history; the sound of which will never be heard again.

      She was sweet beyond sweetness. She was not a saint. She was not a future unrecognized Canadian asset. She was beautiful and peculiar and still-unknown. She was just a child.

      Oh, her voice! What sound fell into the sea? My child, oh, my child, oh, my lost, my smiling child.

      JUNE 23, 2004

      I woke on the floor beside the bed instead of in it, not with the sun, which was above and beyond me, but to my phone’s jangling. My mouth was glued shut and my knees, old unreliable knees, were not bending. The floor. I want to say this is not as sordid as it seems. My own mother only moved to a bed late in her life, and her mother never used one. When we holidayed at relatives’ homes, we all sacked out on bamboo mats on the floor, wherever we found a free spot.

      I wished I had made it to the bed. My brain had swollen so that I couldn’t open my eyes, but the floor stayed still as long as I didn’t move. The phone beeped a voice-mail alert as I pulled myself to sitting, grasping the bedclothes on one side and the dresser on the other. The wrought-iron balcony chair had left a legacy, I discovered, as I stood, breathing shallowly: hemorrhoid. Blood feels the pull of cold iron.

      My own iron smell of unappetizing leafy greens filled the space around me as I shuffled miserably toward the shower, disrobing as I went. The steam drew out the alcohol as well. I smelled pickled. Kimchee, that was me, with a thousand-year-egg in my ass. What a wreck.

      As the coffee decocted, I tried to figure out who had called me. Not a number my phone or I recognized, but there was a message: Brinda.

      I perked up a little.

      Her voice was breathless and uncertain on the message, thin and small when I reached her on the phone. She wanted to meet.

      “But yes, I would be happy to . . .” The throbbing had returned. “Tomorrow? The same café?”

      “Um . . .” I heard her swallow, and grew concerned that if she had to wait, she might not show up.

      “Or now?” I could pick up Tylenol on the way and surely the coffee would help.

      She exhaled. “Now would be great, but, I don’t suppose you have an office or anywhere, that— I would really prefer somewhere private?” She had tears in her voice. The bombing anniversary, perhaps? My mind was working slowly. More privacy—why?

      “I’m so sorry. I don’t have an office.” The dentist started his drill downstairs. I felt it in my molars, loosened by the drink. “I suppose, if you don’t mind, you could come here. It’s a studio apartment, but it has a sitting area. There is a dentist’s office beneath, but the place itself is quite private. Come, why don’t you?”

      We agreed that she would, within the hour. I opened a window, cleared an empty bottle off the balcony table and scouted for further signs of my binge. A burst of laughter from downstairs. Elsewhere, people were eating or opening a window or just walking dully along. Not everyone re-died each June 23.

      I