Sublimation(38)
There are ghoulish rumors about that, which circulated the same way that people like talking about airplane crashes. That bodies just appeared in the air and fell after takeoff. There had been an Australian kid who had stowed away in the hollow parts of the landing gear of a plane, about a decade ago. When the plane took off, he dropped from the sky. For a while there had been rumors that he was an instance, but it turned out he was just someone who died.
No such drama for Soyoung. The seat belt sign turns off. She gets up and gets her bag from the overhead compartment. She stands in line to leave the plane. And nothing happens when she crosses the threshold through the tunnel to the airport gate, nothing happens when she exits the tunnel, and nothing happens when she scans through the immigration checkpoint and goes to collect her single suitcase.
* * *
The cultural programming around the naming of instances differs societally. In many patronymic societies, the leaving instance takes a surname derived from their progenitor and is either given a new name by their progenitor, or chooses a new name for themself (the best examples arriving from Russia and the Balkan states). In societies with larger numbers of instances, there often arises the pattern that the leaving instance is the one to carry the name, and the remaining instance must pick a sort of shadow-name, like they’re some sort of ghost (common in East Asia in certain centuries). The ancient Romans used the same custom for their twins as for their instances, “Name” and “Anti-Name,” which seems grimmer when you don’t know that girls were named for their father and given numbers (Prima, Secunda).
But in most modern societies, instances carry identical names. This is the American tradition, which spread like the other American diseases (capitalism, Starbucks, McDonald’s). Soyoung Kang in Korea is the same as Soyoung Kang in America, the same name on two passports, barring any visit to the courthouse and any legal name change.
“Rose” is a nickname. A handle for the western mouth to bite. Rose had thought of herself as Rose, most of the time. Except sometimes in her head, she still sometimes called herself Soyoung. It was still her name.
* * *
Soyoung emerges from the airport and both of her past selves are thrilled. Finally home, finally an adventure. It’s the joy of homecoming twined with the joy of novelty and her skin feels awful and she wants a shower, but in that moment, she’s never been happier. This is the first time that her reintegration feels like a gift. The sky is clear. The sun is bright. Everything is going to be just fine. She’s going to fix everything.
She scans the pickup area and catches sight of Clarissa waving out the driver’s window.
Clarissa hollers, “Hi! Get in! Before we get ticketed!”
Soyoung laughs, pulls her bag up to the curb and shoves it in the back seat, slams the door closed and gets in. In her head: memories of Clarissa drinking awful plastic-handle vodka, of getting really awful cheap pizza together, of crying over breakups, of saying goodbye to Clarissa at the airport, and driving the remaining instance of Clarissa back home while they silently listened to My Chemical Romance. Soyoung turns the memories over in her mind with wonder.
“Seat belt,” Clarissa says. Soyoung obeys.
“Hi,” she says. “Thanks for picking me up. And for watching Dr. Crouton.”
It’s the first time she’s seriously spoken English in a month. She stretches her mouth around the syllables and tries to fill them organically. Rose doesn’t have an accent. Rose spent years grinding away the edges of her English so that nobody would ask her where she was from. Rose had been a pretty optimistic teenager, all things considered. People still ask where she really comes from.
“Yeah, no problem, I love your cat son. I’m not giving him back.”
“Please, my boy,” Soyoung says, as Clarissa turns onto the main road.
“My boy now,” Clarissa says, and she laughs, and Soyoung laughs, and it’s nice, it’s easy, it’s something so divorced from Rose’s family and its history.
“So, he’s still at your apartment? I am noticing a distinct lack of meowing in this car.”
Clarissa nods, her short blond hair bobbing.
“Yup, we’ll grab him from my place and then head to yours. I thought he probably wouldn’t like the carrier for so long, and JFK, you know, the delays. You hungry?”
“Caffeine?”
“Starbucks?”
“Okay, suburbia.”
“It’s the fastest!” Clarissa protests. “They have a drive-through! I thought you were in a hurry to see your boy.”
“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”
They drive for a while. They go past the little homes that look nothing like the tourist’s version of New York, the gas stations, the mysterious warehouses, the large ethnic food depots, the billboards that advertise pharmaceuticals and personal injury lawyers, and then Clarissa swerves them across two lanes and into the Starbucks drive-through.
Clarissa drums her hands against the steering wheel, glances at Soyoung over her shades.
“What do you want?”
Soyoung is hit by a staccato series of sense memories so strong that they almost make her gag. Rose at fifteen, Rose at seventeen, Rose at twenty-two in the car with Clarissa getting coffee. They spent so much time getting coffee. Something about the cadence with which Clarissa had asked, contrasted against the slant of the light, hits Soyoung’s neurons.