Forecast

Forecast: Chapter 15
by Shya Scanlon

Forecast is being serialized semiweekly across 42 web sites. For a
full list of participants and links to live chapters, please visit
www.shyascanlon.com/forecast.

15

When Zara got home her face was fixed in a golden grin. Hiding her crush from Marshal and Jen was simply not an option, and she knew it. They’d seen her wear similar expressions before, but this one pulled both parents from their household occupations and wound them in like moths to a bare bulb. Zara paraded around the house, ostensible chores bringing her purposively from room to room while her parents flitted about behind, asking about her day. They were as powerless to avert their attention as she was, and together the household ran concentric circles around the issue until it cramped and began to wither, forcing the Zarabarbarian to betray her secret just to protect it from asphyxiation.

She sat in the kitchen nook with a sardine sandwich and watched her parents watch her eat. They saw her scarf in silence, smacking her fishy lips. Marshall beamed back something approximating what he thought his daughter must be feeling, and Jennifer tapped her small foot quietly against the leg of her chair. As their interest increased Zara felt her own enthusiasm start to wane, and she knew the only way to make them leave her alone was by giving up the goods. She had a flash of anger, but then focused instead on Asseem, whose image encouraged her to get it over with. After the final bite of her greasy snack she did just that.

“His name is Asseem,” she said plainly.

“I knew it!” Jennifer bellowed, elbowing her husband.

“How could you know it was Asseem?”

“No no, sweetie, I knew it was a boy.” She looked at Marshal with pride.

“Well, whatever,” Zara returned. She wanted to wrap this up. “It’s just a boy I met today. He seems very intelligent.”

Her mother paused. “Is he cute?”

Zara thought of Asseem’s tight black curls, his high forehead and smooth, brown skin. “I guess.”

“Oh honey you’re not fooling anyone here so why don’t you just fill us in.”

Marshall stood by soberly, his dopey expression having been replaced by one of airy affability. He was characteristically reticent throughout their conversation, but showed his support in brief remarks and minor attitudinal adjustments punctuated by pointed nods and grunts. It was in times like this that Zara appreciated her father’s otherwise maddening insouciance, but it wasn’t quite enough to counter her mother’s insistence that every little breath of life be squeezed from her memory. Zara resisted, but was drawn in. She wanted their approval despite herself. That, or she wanted to brag.

“He’s Muslim,” she said defiantly.

“Oooo,” Jennifer leaned in, eyes wide. “How exotic.”

“Mom he’s not a fucking objet d’art.”

Her mother took offense. “Zara you know very well there’s a difference between objectification and fetishization.” She pouted. “Besides, I was only trying to share your excitement.”

This was only partially the case, of course. Jennifer’s vision of her daughter was nothing shy of transcendent: post-judgmental, unorthodox and daring, emotional x-ray vision; if she could have forced the girl to lift weights Zara would have been muscle bound by age eight. It wasn’t so much “sharing” as augmentation she had in mind when cheering Asseem, pushing him past his own rebellion, granting him vision to overcome his hard-driven resentment.

This was old news to Zara. They’d been trying to exorcize the demons of social distortion from her since her first contact with society, forcing her out the door into the dirty world, winding her back in and hosing her down, then pushing her back out the door. Asseem was another perfect target. He was bright, rebellious, moral, and wretched. She watched her parents take to Asseem with a fervor she almost envied, galvanizing his own “best intentions” while steering him slowly from his faith like a wayward priest. Zara saw her mother glow with self-assurance and her father stand, nodding, and bask in the glow he helped create.

“Well there isn’t much to get excited about yet,” said Zara, taking a stab at humility. “I don’t think he likes me.”

“Oh please, honey.”

“Really, Zara,” added Marshall, “I can’t see how anyone could resist you.”

“No dad, I don’t suppose you can.”

Zara fielded a few more questions before she realized how little she really knew about her crush. He was elusive, and she wasn’t bent on deciphering his mysterious perspective so much as soaking up something so radically other in all its spectacular difference. Somewhere in that opaque package were feelings that would either allow her access to Asseem or keep her at the gate, arms reaching through the wrought iron. She wasn’t sure which she wanted more.

Right now all she wanted was out of this conversation. She redirected.

“I couldn’t make the emotional transfer thing work today,” she blurted out in response to an unrelated question. They’d moved to the living room and were sitting under dim overhead lights, photons crawling along their pathways as though bored. Both of her parents suffered continual headaches due to all the eyestrain from after-hours reading, and they’d been looking forward to this technology despite themselves. They had issues with what they could make of the theory, but it was clear from the flash of disappointment that stole across their faces they’d been harboring secret hopes. Marshall looked at the floor, feigning concentration. Jennifer rolled her eyes, giving herself some time.

“Well good,” she finally managed. “That stuff is going to reinforce some really bad habits.”

“Are you sure you just weren’t doing it right?” Marshall asked.

“Well…” Zara began. Honestly, she wasn’t sure about it one way or another. The machine just hadn’t worked. Because she so easily saw through her parent’s apparent disdain, she wasn’t so much bothered by the failure as curious. She, like the other kids in her class, like Handpepper himself, had figured she’d be a natural for emotional transfer. All the blood on her hands and dirt on her knees. All the anger at Marshall and Jen. All the low-cut blouses for low-brow men. But instead of turning the worst elements of her personality into the greater good for human kind, she’d gotten lost in thought, drifted off into a trance-like, post-Dirty Dog haze, and hovered in front of her classroom until her teacher rubbed it in.

“Sure.” She said. “Sure I’m sure.”

Jennifer looked at Marshall, and he back at her. They shrugged simultaneously, and made their way out of the room. Back to the books. Zara watched them go with a mixture of relief and disappointment, and sat alone in the murky living room, listening to the wind blow bits of overgrown street against the windows. She could hear paper shuffling, murmurs as her parents shared their work, and her eyes fell down to floor, wishing for a dog to return their gaze.

Read Chapter Fourteen

Read Chapter Sixteen