ِدیردر

DEIRDRE CLAYTON

1:50 p.m.

Death-Cast did not call Deirdre Clayton because she isn’t dying today, but she’s going to prove them wrong.

Deirdre is on the ledge of her apartment building roof, eight stories high. There are two deliverymen watching her, either interested in catching her with the couch they’re moving into the building or else placing bets on if she’s a Decker or not. The blood and broken bones on the pavement will settle their wager.

This isn’t the first time Deirdre has found herself higher than the world. Seven years ago, back when she was in high school and months after Death-Cast’s services became available to the public, Deirdre was challenged to a fight after school, and when Charlotte Simmons and instigators and other students who only knew Deirdre as “that lesbian with the dead parents” arrived at what was supposed to be the battlefield, Deirdre was on the roof instead. She never understood how the way she loves could drag such hatred out of others, and she refused to stick around to find the love everyone hated her for. Except back then she had her childhood best friend to talk her down.

Today Deirdre is alone, knees wobbling, and crying because, as much as she wants to believe in better days, her job prevents her from doing so. Deirdre works at Make-A-Moment, where she’s charging Deckers for thrills and fake experiences, fake memories. She doesn’t understand why these Deckers aren’t home with loved ones, particularly those two teen boys today, who, as they were leaving, talked about how underwhelming the virtual reality experience was. It’s wasted time.

The boys from earlier reminded her of a short story she’d finished working on this morning, something for her eyes only that has kept her distracted in the quiet times at work. Her story is set in an alternate world where Death-Cast has another branch called Life-Cast, and this extension informs Deckers of when they will be reincarnated so their families and friends will know how to find them in their next life. It’s centered around fifteen-year-old twin sisters, Angel and Skylar, who are devastated to learn one twin is about to die and immediately seek out Life-Cast’s services to find out when Skylar will be reincarnated. Angel is upset because she won’t be reunited with her sister for another seven years, when Skylar will be reincarnated as the son of some family in Australia. Skylar dies saving her sister’s life, and it ends with a devastated Angel depositing a hundred-dollar bill into an old piggy bank to start funding her way to Australia in seven years to welcome her sister back into the world—albeit as an infant boy.

Deirdre thought she would continue that story, but scratch that now. Life-Cast doesn’t exist, and she’s not waiting around for Death-Cast to let her know when her time is up. This is a world of violence and fear and children dying without having lived and she wants no part of it.

It will be so easy to jump. . . .

She stands on one foot, her entire body shaking, surely about to tumble forward any moment now. She once scaled a rooftop at work, in their virtual parkour station, but that was an illusion.

Death is prophesied in Deirdre’s name, that of a heroine in Irish mythology who took her own life.

Deirdre looks down, ready to fly, when two boys on a bike turn the corner—they resemble the boys from earlier.

Deirdre reaches deep within herself, far past the place where lies and hopelessness come easily, and even beneath the very honest truth where she’s okay with the impacting relief that comes with flying off this roof. She sees two boys living and this makes her feel less dead inside.

Intent may not be enough to cause her to actually die, she knows this from the countless other mornings when she’s woken up to ugliness, but when faced with the chance to prove Death-Cast wrong, Deirdre makes the right decision and lives.