Shimmer

by Rin Swann
Embroidery by Anna Nelson

The needle hovered exactly four centimeters above my right eye the moment I realized I was going to live forever.

It was such a small thing. The length of a pinky finger with a sharp end and a ribbon of wire streaming from the other side. Such a small thing for such a powerful promise. My memory contained forever within a server. The doctors told me it was the closest thing humanity could get to living forever, neurons sparking like binary code as you were uploaded. 

If it worked.

For someone like me, destined to die soon anyway, that needle gave me a chance. It was immortality contained within a thin silver line and it whispered that it would free me from the fear of death that started in my teens and never really faded. But as I looked at it now, I knew immortality wasn’t what I wanted. Not really. 

The needle started to descend and I resisted the urge to jerk away. I wanted this, I told myself. I still want this.

Yet as it glinted from the hospital lights, shimmering under the fluorescent glow, all I could think about was everything a shimmer could hide.

Shimmer. My first wife, Ally, liked to shimmer. The memory of her was from so long ago that I could taste the dust in my mouth, but I remembered how much she loved to sparkle.

Shiny lips, shiny eyes, sparkly silver eyeshadow that glinted like starlight, and a collection of jewelry sunk into the hollow of her throat like craters from falling stars. The glitter was just enough to hide the selfish little girl underneath. Ally never really grew up. She was always looking for the next sparkly thing; diamonds for her birthday, emeralds and rubies for Christmas, essences and shimmery perfumes that made her shine just a little more.

It took seven years before I saw her for what she really was. I was so blinded by her reflected light that I didn’t see what she was doing with my brother behind my back. 

I still haven’t spoken to Dan. It’s been five decades.

Three centimeters. I fought the urge to shut my eyes. I was waiting for an epiphany, a sudden realization that would give meaning to my life. Or maybe I was waiting for regrets. What was the point of immortality if you never knew if the ones you loved would see you again?

Instead of an epiphany, all I remembered was the glitter caked on Ally’s eyes. Girls seemed so willing and ready to powder and primp behind a cakey layer of dust and glitter. Of course, I was no stranger to hiding either. I hid a forged check that allowed me to buy the pink diamond necklace Ally wanted. I hid my secret chocolate stash that my third wife called disgusting behind my beer bottles. I hid the truth like I hid the bruises that my “hard-working” father used to greet me with each night.

There was no epiphany but there was a quiet acknowledgement of the truth. I was never meant to be a father. When Ally told me she was pregnant, the first thing I did was ask her not to keep it. When she refused, I begged her to leave me. 

I could still feel the memory of the blush-colored bruises on my ribs that my dear dad had given me on my tenth birthday. That temper was something we shared. I knew there were things that would always cause me to react and the eruptions were just as volcanic as my father. I didn’t want something so innocent placed in my browbeaten arms. I didn’t want my child to ever flinch from me.

But Ally refused. She came home the next day with a collection of glittery mobiles—pink, blue and green so the baby could have variety—and little sparkly onesies. She kissed me on the cheek, told me it would be OK, and passed me a rhinestone rattle. As I turned it over and over in my fingers, the gemstones catching the light, I almost believed her.

Two centimeters. I could feel the shadow on my eye, like a physical weight. For the first time, I thought about what I was doing, really thought. This was an impulsive choice, made while I was sputtering blood, geriatric, and alone in a hospital bed. Was all of it worth it? Was this tiny chance that someday, Bea would see my memories worth becoming something more than human? I didn’t know if I believed in an afterlife, but I wish I had the choice.

I inhaled and tried to steady my breathing. When my daughter, Bea, was born, I walked up and down the hall eighteen-and-a-half times before I could finally bring myself to enter her room. When I did, all of my fears seemed to disappear. She was so small, wrapped in a little duckling blanket tucked under her chin. I promised myself then that I would be nothing like my father.

And I wasn’t. In the beginning. I spent hours cleaning diapers, sleeping beside her crib, and answering her every cry and tear with a coo and a funny face. Ally’s friends used to laugh at me, saying they’ve never seen a father be so motherly.

“I had to beg my husband to change a diaper once a week! And look at him, he just does it!” one laughed.

I attended every concert, wiped every tear, gave every hug while Ally pursued her hobby of the week, collecting jewelry and kisses behind my back.

It was only when Bea was six that I found out. When all the glitter was finally gone, I realized I was never meant to be a family man either.

I packed up my suitcase and walked out the door. Bea hovered in the window, watching me go. I almost went back, just to hug her one more time, pull her closer to me. Instead, I placed a hand over the rattle in my pocket, got in the car, and drove away. The last thing I saw was Ally’s hand on Bea’s shoulder, her wedding ring glimmering.

It wasn’t like I never saw Bea again. I married three more times, though I ensured I never had another child. But when she turned fourteen, everything changed. She came home from school one day, on one of her weekend visits, wearing glittery eyeliner she had gotten from one of her friends and sporting a brand new stud in her nose that her mother had gotten her for her  birthday. Without telling me.

I still can’t explain what happened. Seeing that silver packed over my daughter, my baby's eyelids, like Ally's, that silver stud in her nose shimmering over and over … A part of me lost it.

I screamed at her. Yelled at her to take it off, to return it, to never wear makeup ever again. She shouted back that I was being unfair, that I was old, that I wasn’t in her life enough to tell her what to do. I turned my back on her and she caught my arm and I raised my hand. Halfway towards her, I realized what I was doing and let my arm fall back to my side.

I told her to get in the car. I brought her back to Ally and her new boyfriend without a word.

Before she got out of the car, she looked back at me, silver makeup streaming down her face, and told me she loved me. I told her to get out. That was the last time I saw my daughter in person. Outside of the support checks, I was nothing to her anymore.

One centimeter. A single tear fell from the corner of my eye.

There was one night after Bea was born when I sat out on the deck with Ally. It had been two weeks of not sleeping, but finally, out under the stars, Bea curled up and fell asleep in my arms. Ally and I shared a glass of wine, toasted to good health and good fortune as we stared up at the night sky. It felt like I was immortal then. Like my bones would never ache and I would never be without a family. If I could get Bea to finally sleep, I could be the man my father never was, and that possibility went to my head quicker than the wine. We leaned back in the deck chairs and stared up at the night sky. The stars shimmered, inviting promises that she didn’t keep. The sky might, if only I asked.

The needle hovered over me. Half a breath and it would be over. In that second I realized that, although I was about to be immortal, I never felt more human.

I inhaled my last breath and thought of Bea, the reason I was doing this. She had a daughter of her own now, a daughter who would never know her grandfather, unless she watched my memories. 

And this would be my last memory, my message, my last change to get it right. I would make it count.

It was my fault, I thought. I should’ve said I loved you that day. And I should’ve been there every day after. If you ever see this, remember that I love you.

The needle descended. The hospital faded. I could taste the wine on my lips and smell Ally’s perfume. Then the needle ruptured my eye and all I could think was how, in the false fluorescent lighting, it looked like a glittering rattle.