Iona

The bedsheets scratched at Iona’s skin, raising faint red welts on her shoulder blades and the sides of her belly. Everything did that, irritated her, raised her skin. When she was younger she’d gone to a dermatologist. He called her sensitive. That irritated her too. He was pointing at her skin when she said it, but she could hear it in his voice. It wasn’t her skin that he thought was the problem. There was once, in what felt like another life, that she’d had a set of sheets that felt soft on her skin, like sleeping on a cloud, but Asteroid, her dog had torn them apart. She named him that because he ruined everything.

Replacing them would have cost money she didn’t have so she went back to the cheap scratchy stuff. Still she stared up at the ceiling waiting out her alarm, in her hot, itchy, uncomfortable bed. Asteroid huffed and stretched his feet, pushing her leg off the bed. She sighed. “You know most people have their dogs sleep on the floor.” She said, pointing. Asteroid looked down at the floor and back at her and blinked. “Yeah exactly.” She said. He huffed again and jumped toward her face, knocking the wind from her lungs and tickling her cheeks with his whiskers as he sniffed her ear. She felt her phone buzzing on the windowsill. “Alright, I’m up.” She said, trying to forget she’d been awake for several hours.

Scratchy bedsheets off, scratchy clothes on. She thought, pausing before she put on her shirt. She turned left and right in front of the mirror, noticing the way her skin sagged. Her eyes drew back towards the empty half of the bed. She smirked, pushing away whatever it was that she was feeling. Black polo, khaki skirt, yellow apron, feed Asteroid, lock the door. Up and out and gone before the sun had even peeked above the horizon.

The flourescent lights buzzed, bathing the back room in unnaturally blue light. She pulled seven bananas from the freezer. They’d be brown mush before long, but it was summer and everyone loved brown mush blended up with their artificial flavors and colors. She tucked those and a few premade meals and pastries up under her chin and made her way to the boxes of oatmeal, kicking one, just so, with her feet so that it tumbled off the shelf and fell gently open. Empty. Her eyes darted to the schedule on the wall. “Sven.” she whispered with a loathing most would reserve for a sworn enemy. “Of course.” Bananas and breakfast burritos still pinched between her chin and chest she tried to squat down to open a new box. She dropped lower, a banana shifted. She froze. Then adjusted her chin, sliding it back into place. She grabbed the edges of the cardboard and pulled and… It’s that thick tape! She thought, her fingernail catching on the strings laced across it, making it impossible to open. The tower of food tucked beneath her chin tumbled clattering on the ground, leaving only a solitary bacon sandwich in her outstretched hand. “Sven.” She repeated, this time louder than a whisper. The bells attached to the door jingled. Iona looked at the clock. We don’t open for another ten minutes you asshole She thought. “I’ll be right out!” She said, forcing a smile across her face in the hopes it made her sound happier. She tossed the bananas and pastries in the trash, scooped up the individually wrapped meals and brought them out into the dimly lit cafe.

Iona froze as soon as she saw that it was her. Smooth, jazzy, saxaphone filled the otherwise silent cafe.

The building wasn’t old, but it was designed to look it. They thought it gave them prestige, surrounded by books and leather and walnut. They all stared at her, silent, fixed in their decision regardless of what she said. It was quiet enough to hear the scratching of one of their pencils. Her body burned with fury. She took a breath and let her mind trace upward, through the clouds and atmosphere, pushing through to what laid beyond. Galaxies illuminated before her eyes, each containing multitudes. Stars, the forges of creation beaming out their light, burning, in a moment more than the sum creation of humanity. The spaces between them were vast enough to be incomprehensible. But there were so many. In each of them there were planets, and on each of those planets innumerable undiscovered mountains and valleys, each of them enough to be their own discovery, their own adventure. All of this was meaningless in the face of that scale. All Iona, and every other person in that room would ever be is one tiny blip of light in the darkness. A single pixel illuminated for a fraction of a second, forming a fragment of a fragment of a frame of a picture. A grain of sand in a mandala, soon to be wiped away. None of it mattered, so why did it matter so much?

“Iona?” She said and her voice landed on her heart like autumn breeze. There was confusion in it, which was earned, and a trace of judgement, also fair, but none of it diminished the warmth. “It’s good to see you.” She said, and she meant it.

“It’s good to see you too,” Iona said, reaching underneath her sleeve and scratching the base of her arm.

They named it after her, which was both an honor and a burden. 606,536 Iona. The name came later, after the years they’d spent calling her insane and emotional. But then, as she’d predicted, 606,536 collided with Rehki (112,536) then into 500,012 and like a billiards shot she’d called twelve years prior, the trajectory became clear, and so she was named Iona, the world ender. They gave it her gender too, once it was clear where she was headed.

By that time she was disgraced, bullied out of her university, bouncing between jobs. The emails showed up years later, offering to reinstate her tenure, as if that was all it would take to undo the hardship they’d injected into her life. Twelve years was a long time, long enough to change things. Now? She thought, as she deleted another frantic email. Her phone buzzed. She hit ignore. It buzzed again. Ignore. Do Not Disturb. Leave me alone.

She put on her apron and washed her hands. All Employees Must Wash Hands Before Returning To Work. The soap felt like steel wool on her skin.