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Back The Black Maybe Save as PDF
Chapters (13)
  1. Cover
  2. Introduction by Steve Rasnic Tem
  3. To Bite a Dog
  4. Fogtown
  5. The Time Remaining
  6. Return to the Midnight School
  7. In the Snow, Sleeping
  8. Multiplied by Zero
  9. The Amber Complex
  10. Sky Filled With Crows, Then Nothing at All
  11. Walks Among You
  12. The Black Maybe
  13. About the Author

At the time they found him, the headphones were still covering his ears. The Walkman had the last tape he must have listened to before his death.

The tape was empty.

The Time Remaining

The Time Remaining

My therapist urges me to picture a different story, a story in which Vili doesn’t die, or at least not like that. But before I can rewrite my past, first I need to face it – recount everything that happened exactly as it happened, up to the point when I lost control.

Vili’s death struggle started on a Friday. It was pouring out­side, the perfect melodramatic backdrop for the announce­ment of bad news. The three of us – my mother, Vili, and I – were sitting in the kitchen.

Vili was given to me by my maternal grandmother on the first of May. I remember this because I’d been trying desperately to figure out the meaning of that holiday, but no one could give me a good answer. In a way, the May Day celebration continues to be a mystery to me to this day.

We were headed to the festival, the whole family, my father, my mother, and my grandmother, to enjoy the company of other families, watch the performers on the main stage, and indulge ourselves by buying things we didn’t need from the vendors’ booths. Early on during the festival a huge storm materialized out of nowhere, devastating the marketplace. My grandmother ran back at the last minute to buy Vili from a seller who was frantically trying to save his stall from destruction. My grandmother grabbed Vili, not even bothering to wait for the change, while the seller was defying the torrential wind.

Grandmother slipped the gift into my hand, yelling – and this was the first time she ever yelled at me, though it was driven only by the need to be heard over the raging wind – to take care of Vili and always remember her. I couldn’t understand that request at the time. She was my grandmother, how could I ever forget her? Standing in the windstorm, I suddenly had an eerie vision. I felt like the world was about to fall to pieces, the wind would soon rip through the field and tear apart people and the past and the future, and I would fall into a dark abyss beyond time. I hugged Vili and found his touch rather comforting. He was soft and warm, and he made me feel that together we were solid enough to withstand the violent force of the wind. Vili’s charm came from his smile; not a clumsy grin, nor a condescending smirk, not even the bitter, frowning grimace that so often featured on his fellow toys. Vili had a friend’s smile, empathetic, approving, encouraging, but also with a touch of adult-­like solemnity.