Bliss

A short story

Hi Readers,

Our family has moved! We love our new home and I have continued to juggle unpacking, co-managing the family, self-care, and all that other adult stuff that gets in the way of writing. My goal is to have the next episode of Marredbury out next week (a week late, thank you for your patience!) I am also reworking my plans for the update emails. I have some fun ideas in a mix, but it is all taking time.

In the meantime, I want to share a short story I wrote for an anthology project. I was also a co-editor on this four part anthology. It was a super cool project. It started with the pandemic as a group of writers. It can be a very lonely work life as a writer, mostly a solitary activity. With the added isolation of lockdown in 2020, these writers reached out to each other and started a project. They used a kind of DnD storytelling game to create a world. In this shared setting with a collection of shared characters, the writers then went off and wrote a story that takes place in the world. The result is an anthology of short stories in their shared world.

I was not a part of the original group that got together to do this project. I jumped in after they had completed a couple rounds. I met so many wonderful authors and together we created the world of New Albion. It was hard work and so much fun! I want to share one of the four short stories I wrote for this project.

The anthology is written across centuries in a mythical island off the east coast of the United States called New Albion. This island is a mix of the human world and the fae world. “Bliss” takes place in the year 2187. I have been wanting to do a kind of behind the scenes look at this story (part of the reworking of my emails), but for now please enjoy this short story inspired by my friendship with my sister:

Bliss

Photo by Michelle Tsang

Bliss.

          A blanket roof over our heads. My cell flashlight illuminating the dimness. Laurel twisted her hands and shadowed birds flew across the fabric over our heads. We giggled and whispered late into the night, then fell asleep veiled by the blanket. I woke the next morning to the sounds of beeping, a tangle of wires and tubes, the air stale with our morning breath.

          Every being must have memories like my quiet moments with Laurel. Pure Bliss. Moments that transcend anger and fighting, hate and grief. It’s those simple moments where you often forget to be happy. Moments you don’t think about missing until they’re gone.

          Laurel’s always been afraid of the dark. I feared her illness. It terrified me to my core and all I could do was comfort her. I had never felt so helpless, but I remained at her side. We’d been together since the womb. There was nowhere else I’d rather be than that hospital room.

          It was Bliss that brought us back together. The ice cream flavor was the best of Faesion Ice Cream, a treat with an emotional boost. Better than Lavender Comfort and Chocolate Confidence. At least that’s what marketing said. I’m not the expert. That was Laurel’s deal. While she researched the lethal qualities of Bliss, I reported on the deaths. Nobody could agree on what was really happening. All everyone understood was that people were dying.

          I interviewed Laurel about the ice cream flavor. No one else at Nuance could have gotten a closer scoop than me. Laurel worked for the top research foundation, all of their efforts searching for a cure.         

          What should the population be on the lookout for? I had asked her during the interview.

          Laurel sat opposite me at her dining room table, the surface littered with manila folders and heavy books. Behind her, small nightlights were plugged into the outlets down the hall, fighting off the night, just as they had when we shared a room.

          She wore her wire-frame glasses where I wore purple plastic ones, her hair tied up where mine hung down to my waist. At a glance, we didn’t appear identical. You would have to look closer, the same soft nose, our indistinguishable pointed chins.

Copies of the same person living two separate lives, we went from being inseparable to catching quick phone calls on the way to the bus or snatching moments together at holiday dinners. I never minded. In fact, I never truly missed Laurel. Of course, I thought fondly of our childhood, of growing up together. Of course, I would make time to see her, as she would me. We were still there for each other, in the audience at our graduations, congratulating and loving each other in the meta-medias. She was there even when she wasn’t. I felt her beside me even while we resided on opposite sides of the city. Laurel and Evelyn. Evelyn and Laurel. The Veritas twins. I could never miss her because she was never missing.

          Laurel clasped her hands and rested them on the table, her nails unpainted and bitten down.

          “It starts the same for everyone,” she explained. “Pure joy, a high like no other. The ice cream is coffee-flavored, but honestly, it could taste like dirt and it still would be a customer favorite.”

          I nodded and scratched down notes.

          Laurel continued, “The flavor should never have been so strong. It’s addictive. Faesion Ice Cream claims it was a mistake, that’s the official record, but you know…” She shrugged, one eyebrow raised in the same skeptical look our mother would give us when she suspected we were lying.

          “What happens after the high?” I push her to move on.

          Laurel sighed. She hated it when I rushed her, but she always took so long to get to a point. When we were kids and she’d tell me what happened in one of her classes, she would go on and on. I’d know the entire history of the kid sitting next to her who picked his nose before she shared that he cheated off her math test.

          I had a theory that her rambling stories and her fear of the dark were connected. They fed into a deeper fear, I thought. A fear of the unknown. She didn’t know what detail would be missed, what questions could be asked. She didn’t know if she would have the answers, or what the questioner would think of her if she admitted not knowing. Just like she wouldn’t know what was hiding in the dark. She couldn’t stand the uncertainty, the unknown. That’s why she became a scientist. She became a woman in search of answers. Though, I think she should have become a journalist with me, becoming the woman who asked the questions, but even I was never able to change Laurel’s mind once she had it set.

          “Not everyone gets sick,” Laurel answered my question. “That’s why it took so long to get Bliss off market.”

          “Are people still using it?”

          “Of course, though only the illegal stuff. You won’t find any Bliss ice cream in stores.”

          I had originally wanted to try Bliss myself and write an exclusive of my experience. Laurel had been the one to stop me. I called her for advice and she insisted on this interview instead. So far, she hadn’t shared anything I didn’t already know. I wrote down notes to assure her that I was taking this interview seriously. She confirmed I could still find Bliss. I could still write a first-hand exclusive. She cleared her throat.

          “It’s dangerous,” she added. “Really dangerous, Evelyn. Not everyone gets sick, and there’s no way of telling who would be safe and who wouldn’t. Those who do get sick don’t have a positive prognosis.”

          I nibbled on the end of my pen. Twins couldn’t really read each other’s minds as so many people wondered, but it sometimes felt like Laurel could open mine like a book.

          “They get a fever. It gets so high that they have hallucinations. Their muscles weaken and doctors worry about their hearts.” Laurel shook her head. “They’re wrong, though. It’s their brains they should be watching. Bliss takes over each wrinkle of the cortex. I’ve seen it happen many times now. Patients lose their sense of taste, then smell, then sight and hearing. They lose control of their bodies. Speaking, then breathing, until they slip into a coma. They get lost in the world of Bliss and they never wake up.”

          The end of my pen remained in my mouth, but I no longer chewed. Laurel pressed her palms to the table. She locked eyes with me, finished describing the death of the Bliss victims, and pressed her lips in a line, daring me to argue with her.

          I cleared my throat and returned to my notes. “So, how long does this take?”

          Laurel sat back, satisfied that her point had been made. “It can take only months for some. A few have survived a year. I don’t believe a patient could survive more than five.”

          I finished my interview with Laurel, compiled my notes, and wrote a different kind of exclusive. Not direct experience with Bliss, but a direct narrative from the scientist on the front line, my sister. I had to admit to myself that the story turned out pretty good. Wasn’t going to win me a top staff position, but it was the closest Nuance had gotten to the epidemic.

          Laurel was admitted to the hospital with a high fever only a week after our story was published. I received a panicked call from our mom.

          “They say she was exposed in the lab.” Her voice was hushed and quick. We hung up quickly and both rushed to Laurel’s side.

          Looking at her in that sterile room, oxygen running through tubes in her nose, medication dripping through an IV to keep her temperature down, I could only think of the feeling of natural Bliss, no artificial flavor included. Small blissful memories fluttered in my chest.

          Shadow puppets under the covers at night. Road trips to the cliffs of Lost Shore, windows down, the sea breeze running through our hair. Our first apartment, the thrill it was to be adults on our own. Laundry piled high, pancakes for dinner with a view of Staego’s Needle through our living room window. A duo since birth.

          Life had gotten away from us. Laurel lost herself in her research, each study she worked for leading her closer and closer to Bliss and the hunt for the cure. My life became Nuance, chasing the next great story, competing for the top staff position.

          Now, none of that mattered. No story was greater than my position beside her, my hand clasping hers.

          Five years.

          Laurel assured us with a smile, her cheeks flushed with fever. The lab was close to treating the Bliss invasion. She was sure she would survive five years and who knew where they would be at that point. In that amount of time, they could find the cure.

          Our mother was reassured, but I heard the lie on Laurel’s lips. A lifetime of listening to her words, watching her face. I understood why she lied. I felt the fear in her eyes, the same terror of the unknown that she’d had since we were young.

          Machines beeped a high-pitched tune. The sun shone through the expansive windows. Our mother fussed over Laurel. She brought us dinner, but Laurel didn’t touch hers.

          “I’m not hungry,” she said.

          I stared down at the take-out in my lap, my appetite gone in just a few words.

          Mother left after visiting hours with a kiss for each of us and a promise to return first thing in the morning. The hospital allowed me to stay. Laurel didn’t need to ask me.

          She yawned. I turned off the lights and slipped into the small hospital bed with her, careful not to disturb the needles and tubes. I nestled beside her and fetched the blanket folded at the foot of the bed. Laurel laid her head on my shoulder as I blanketed us in shadows. Under the covers we could talk and laugh. Under the covers we were safe. Under the covers I would never let Laurel go.