M I S E R I C O R D I A

The smoke alarm started chirping at 11:17 in the morning.

Not screaming.

That would’ve required commitment.

Just one pathetic little—

chirp.

I opened one eye.

Waited.

Nothing.

Closed it again.

Chirp.

“Motherfucker.”

My voice came out dry enough to sand wood.

I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling.

Or what I could see of it.

One of the blinds had broken sometime during the previous administration and now permanently leaned sideways, allowing a single blade of California sunlight to cut across my studio apartment like God himself had finally decided to inspect the place.

He wasn’t going to like what he found.

Clothes occupied the chair.

Books occupied the floor.

Three empty water bottles stood in formation beside the bed for reasons nobody had authorized.

Two mugs sat on the windowsill.

One contained coffee.

Probably.

The other had crossed whatever biological threshold separated cereal from evidence.

I needed to clean.

I knew that.

Knowing things was actually one of my better qualities.

Doing anything about them was where the process tended to break down.

Chirp.

I groaned and rolled toward the edge of the mattress.

My foot landed inside yesterday’s jeans.

“Excellent.”

I kicked free.

The studio wasn’t dirty.

That distinction mattered.

Dirty implied rot.

Mold.

Insects.

My apartment was merely...

temporarily overwhelmed by inventory.

There.

Professional language.

That’s why they paid me the big consulting dollars.

Whenever anybody actually paid me.

I sat up and immediately regretted it.

My skull squeezed behind both eyes.

Not quite a hangover.

More like my body filing an official complaint regarding last night’s decisions.

There was a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the counter.

I squinted at it.

“You’re a bad influence.”

The bottle accepted no responsibility.

Typical.

I scratched my chest, stretched until something in my shoulder clicked, then looked at my phone.

11:19.

No missed calls.

No messages.

No job offers.

There were, however, three automated notifications politely reminding me that companies I had already given money to continued wanting more money.

Rent.

Electricity.

Student loan.

I swiped them away.

Problem solved.

My bank account contained enough money to survive, provided nothing unexpected happened and I developed the ability to photosynthesize.

I opened the refrigerator.

Condiments.

Half an onion.

A bottle of water.

One seltzer.

Some tortillas that had begun curling at the edges like they were trying to fly away and escape.

I shut it.

Cabinet.

Maruchan.

There she was.

Old faithful.

Some people had family recipes.

I had dehydrated noodles and a seasoning packet powerful enough to preserve a human corpse.

Chicken flavor.

Breakfast of scholars.

I peeled the lid halfway back, filled the cup from the tap, and shoved it into the microwave.

The smoke detector chirped again.

I looked up.

“I’m making noodles. Calm down.”

Chirp.

“Fine.”

I dragged the chair away from underneath approximately six pounds of clothing and positioned it beneath the detector.

The chair rocked.

I froze.

Looked down.

One leg was sitting on a hardcover copy of Ritual Landscapes of the Pre-Concord Southwest.

For fuck’s sake.

I stepped down.

Moved the book.

Tried again.

This was how people died.

Not heroically.

Not during war.

Not saving children from a burning building.

No.

Some asshole with two graduate certificates stood barefoot on a cheap dining chair trying to silence a smoke detector because replacing the battery yesterday had apparently required resources beyond human civilization.

I pulled the detector from the ceiling.

No battery compartment.

Wonderful.

Integrated unit.

I stared at it.

It chirped directly into my face.

“Okay.”

I put it back.

There are battles worth fighting.

There are battles you can win.

Wisdom is learning the difference.

The microwave beeped.

I climbed down.

My phone rang.

I lunged for it hard enough to nearly eat shit on the laundry pile.

Unknown number.

I cleared my throat before answering.

Professional voice.

“Hello, Cornelio Aguilar speaking.”

Silence.

Then:

“Hello! We have been trying to reach you regarding your vehicle’s extended protec—”

I hung up.

Professional voice off.

“Eat my ass.”

I carried my noodles back toward the mattress.

The chair was unavailable.

The desk was technically available if you were willing to relocate three books, a stack of survey maps, Dad’s old metal toolbox, two unopened pieces of mail, and what I believed was a spoon.

So.

Bed.

I sat cross-legged.

Steam rolled into my face.

For a few minutes, the apartment was quiet.

No TV.

No music.

No people moving in the hallway.

Even the smoke detector seemed to respect maruchan.

I stared at the wall.

This was usually the dangerous part.

Not because anything happened.

Because nothing did.

You can hide inside noise surprisingly well.

Work.

Traffic.

People.

Music.

A stupid video running in the background while you’re pretending you’re not watching it.

But eventually the room gets quiet.

Then there you are.

Just you.

And unfortunately, I’d met me.

I stirred the noodles.

“You’d hate this place.”

Nothing.

I waited anyway.

Stupid.

I smiled at the cup.

“Actually, no. You’d clean it.”

Still nothing.

“Probably organize the maruchan in order of expiration date.”

Nothing.

My smile faded.

I took a bite.

Too hot.

Burned my tongue.

“Fuck.”

There were easier explanations for Hual.

Trauma. Dissociation. A protector my brain built when being me became too expensive.

Pick your favorite. I had.

None of them changed the practical part.

There came a point when Hual stopped being just a voice and started being the one who woke up in my body. Years passed that way. I knew that much. I knew more than I liked and less than I should’ve.

Then, eventually, he gave the life back.

Not with some dramatic revelation. One day I was simply the one waking up again, carrying a history that felt like somebody else’s handwriting in my notebook.

Before the silence, he’d talked. Answered. Argued. Complained. Once spent nearly forty minutes explaining how inefficient I was washing dishes.

I finished the task.

That’s how committed he was.

Then, eventually—

silence.

Years of it.

Sometimes I told myself that was good.

Healthy, probably.

The kind of shit a therapist would put in a progress note.

Patient reports reduced communication with internalized alternate identity.

Look at me.

Healing.

Whatever that meant.

I ate another mouthful of noodles.

“You still there?”

Nothing.

The question sat in the apartment longer than I wanted it to.

I looked away.

“Good talk.”

By one in the afternoon, I had accomplished three things.

Showered.

Put on pants.

Moved the laundry from the chair to the bed.

Progress.

I needed groceries.

Not because I wanted groceries.

Because somewhere between one remaining seltzer and curling tortillas was a line even I recognized as concerning.

I checked my account again.

Bad idea.

Still the same number.

Apparently refreshing the app did not cause spontaneous wealth generation.

I threw on a black overshirt, shoved my wallet into my pocket, and left.

The hallway smelled like somebody’s lunch.

Garlic.

Onions.

Something fried.

My stomach immediately accused me of betrayal.

“Yeah, yeah.”

The elevator was broken.

Again.

The handwritten sign taped to the doors said:

TEMPORARILY OUT OF SERVICE.

That sign had been there for three weeks.

At some point temporarily becomes philosophy.

I took the stairs.

Outside, the day had already turned offensively beautiful.

Blue sky.

Warm sun.

One of those California afternoons that made the entire state feel like it was personally mocking anyone who couldn’t afford to enjoy it.

People moved along the sidewalk.

Delivery drones buzzed overhead.

A city shuttle rolled quietly through the intersection.

Somewhere a dog barked at something probably deserving it.

Life.

Normal, boring, functioning life.

Dad would’ve liked that.

He used to talk about boring like it was a luxury.

Not directly.

Dad didn’t directly talk about much of anything.

But whenever the news ran some anniversary documentary about the Continental War, he’d get irritated.

Dad never called it that.

That was textbook language.

Documentary language.

Political language.

To him it was always just la conquista.

The conquest.

Like humanity had only ever managed one.

Maybe that was enough.

He’d sit there watching commentators debate whether the Concord had gone too far after reunification and eventually mutter something like:

“Pinche gente.”

Then change the channel.

Dad had very little patience for people debating suffering from comfortable furniture.

I understood that more now.

Not enough to agree with everything he believed.

But enough.

Age does that.

You spend half your childhood thinking your parents don’t know shit, then adulthood arrives and introduces the deeply annoying possibility that they knew some shit.

Not all.

Let’s not get carried away.

I walked three blocks to the market.

There were cheaper places.

They required transportation.

Transportation cost money.

Capitalism was apparently one elaborate system designed to punish people for not already having the things they needed.

Inside, I grabbed a basket.

Eggs.

Rice.

Beans.

Chicken thighs if they were on sale.

Actual vegetables because occasionally I liked pretending my organs had a future.

More Maruchan.

Obviously.

I stood in front of the instant noodle shelf longer than necessary.

Chicken.

Beef.

Shrimp.

Spicy chicken.

Lime chili shrimp.

I chose spicy chicken.

At checkout, an old man stood ahead of me with two grocery bags’ worth of stuff spread across the counter.

Tortillas.

Milk.

Fruit.

Medication.

Coffee.

The cashier scanned the last item.

“Forty-eight seventeen.”

The man tapped his card.

Declined.

He frowned.

Tried again.

Declined.

The cashier looked away politely.

That somehow made it worse.

The old man’s ears turned red.

He started separating things.

“Quita el café.”

Take off the coffee.

The cashier removed it.

He tried again.

Declined.

He sighed.

“Y las naranjas.”

The oranges came off.

Still short.

I watched him look at the medication.

He didn’t touch it.

Good.

For one second I hoped he would.

Not because I wanted him to lose his medicine.

Because if he had started putting back snacks, soda, alcohol—anything stupid—I could’ve let it happen.

Medication made it unfair.

I hated unfair situations.

They required decisions.

I stepped forward.

“¿Cuánto falta?”

The man looked at me.

“No, no.”

I looked at the cashier.

“How much?”

“Six eighty-three.”

I tapped my card.

The old man immediately shook his head.

“No, joven, no tienes que—”

“It’s okay.”

“No.”

“Sir.”

He stared at me.

I gestured toward my basket.

“You’re looking at a man who just upgraded from chicken-flavored Maruchan to spicy chicken. Financially, I’m basically untouchable.”

The cashier snorted.

The old man didn’t.

Then his mouth twitched.

“I can pay you.”

“Nah.”

“Give me your number.”

“That sounds like a scam.”

Now he laughed.

Good.

There it was.

Embarrassment is a strange thing.

You can’t always remove the problem.

Sometimes the best you can do is give somebody a better emotion to hold beside it.

The cashier bagged his groceries.

He thanked me again.

I shrugged.

“Cuando pueda, ayude a alguien más.”

Whenever you can, help someone else.

Dad used to say some version of that.

Usually immediately after telling me not to lend people money.

Contradictions were sort of his hobby.

The man squeezed my shoulder before leaving.

Warm.

Firm.

For half a second, I wanted to pull away.

Didn’t.

Then the cashier started scanning my groceries.

Twenty-nine dollars.

I looked at the total.

Then at my basket.

Then at the door where the old man had disappeared.

Brilliant, Cornelio.

Fucking humanitarian of the year.

I removed the whiskey.

Then the chicken.

Kept the Maruchan.

Priorities.

On the walk home, one of my grocery bags split.

Of course it did.

A can of beans hit the sidewalk and rolled toward the curb.

I chased it.

There was something uniquely humiliating about sprinting after your own food.

I caught the can with my shoe before it entered traffic.

“Not today.”

A kid waiting at the crosswalk looked at me.

Maybe seven.

He held his mother’s hand and stared like he had just witnessed an ancient hunting technique.

I picked up the can.

“Never let them know you’re afraid.”

The kid smiled.

His mother didn’t.

Fair.

I carried everything home with one bag hugged against my chest.

By the time I reached my building, sweat had glued my shirt to my back.

The elevator was still broken.

Four flights.

Beautiful.

Halfway up, the plastic handle tore deeper into my fingers.

I switched hands.

Pressure flickered across my palms.

I stopped.

Looked down.

Nothing.

Just skin.

A faint crease from the bag.

I flexed my fingers.

The sensation disappeared.

“Cool.”

Probably circulation.

Probably.

I hated probably.

I climbed the rest of the stairs.

The photograph fell out while I was looking for somewhere to put the rice.

That’s the thing about clutter.

Eventually it becomes archaeology.

Layers.

Periods.

Cultures.

Artifacts nobody remembers depositing.

I moved Dad’s toolbox from the desk and a yellow envelope slid sideways.

The photograph slipped out.

Face down.

I froze.

Not dramatically.

More like my body recognized it before I did.

I picked it up.

Old house.

Single story.

Stucco.

A porch.

Tree leaning over one side.

Nothing remarkable.

The image had faded toward brown around the corners.

I’d found it after Dad died, mixed with paperwork from a life I apparently knew very little about.

Receipts.

Old identification.

A photograph of Mom I still couldn’t look at for very long.

Three addresses.

Names I didn’t recognize.

And this.

I turned it over.

Dad’s handwriting crossed the back.

Most of it had smeared.

One word remained clear.

Cecilia.

I stared at it.

No last name.

No explanation.

Just Cecilia.

I’d tried researching it once.

Do you know how many Cecilias exist in California?

A lot.

Turns out women have been using the name for centuries without considering my future investigative needs.

Very inconsiderate.

I traced the letters with my thumb.

Dad had never mentioned her.

At least not that I remembered.

That qualification had become important in my life.

Not that I remembered.

There were years that existed less like memories and more like a box of photographs somebody had shaken violently.

Faces.

Rooms.

Weather.

Feelings disconnected from events.

Sometimes Hual had filled gaps.

Not with details.

He’d talk about people.

Someone who annoyed him.

Someone who made him laugh.

Someone he missed.

A woman he loved.

Never enough for me to construct the life around those feelings.

I used to ask.

Eventually I stopped.

You can only listen to someone describe how well they’re doing with your life so many times before curiosity starts feeling like self-harm.

I put the picture down.

“Know her?”

Silence.

My throat tightened before I could stop it.

Ridiculous.

I hadn’t expected an answer.

Expectations are dangerous little things.

They survive remarkably well without permission.

I cleared my throat.

“Didn’t think so.”

I slid the photograph back beneath the envelope.

Then immediately pulled it back out.

No idea why.

I propped it against Dad’s toolbox instead.

The house stared at me.

I turned it facedown.

Better.

At 3:42, I opened my laptop.

This was technically work.

Looking for work counted as work.

I had told myself that enough times that it had become legally binding.

Three rejection emails.

One project delayed indefinitely.

One consulting firm looking for someone with ten years of experience in a software package released six years ago.

Excellent.

I bookmarked that one.

Maybe they needed a time traveler.

I checked the state cultural-resource board.

Nothing.

Historic preservation contract database.

Nothing I qualified for.

Academic research boards.

Nothing that paid enough to qualify as employment.

I leaned back.

The chair squeaked.

“You know what the problem is?”

Silence.

I spoke anyway.

“I made the mistake of studying things I actually cared about.”

Anthropology.

Religion.

Folklore.

Ritual.

Sacred space.

Historic preservation.

Archaeology.

Political history.

Collective memory.

The kinds of subjects that make people say:

“Oh, wow, that’s really interesting.”

Right before asking:

“So what do you do for money?”

Consulting, apparently.

Which is a professional way of saying:

Please pay me to know weird shit temporarily.

I was good at it.

That was the frustrating part.

Give me a site.

A community.

Old maps.

Oral histories.

Burial records.

Religious practices.

Construction plans.

Tell me you wanted to build something without accidentally bulldozing the physical memory of everyone who came before you.

I could help.

Ask me to turn that ability into stable employment?

Apparently that was forbidden knowledge.

My inbox refreshed.

A new email appeared.

Harvington University — Cultural Resource Consulting Opportunity

I stared at it.

Then checked the sender.

University domain.

Real.

Probably.

I opened it.

Dear Mr. Aguilar—

Already suspicious.

Anyone calling me Mr. Aguilar either wanted money or believed I had money.

Both were dangerous.

The message continued.

Harvington University’s interdisciplinary research division was seeking a contract cultural-resource specialist for a multi-phase development project involving historic properties, sacred landscapes, regional folklore, archival religious materials, and community consultation.

I sat forward.

Okay.

That was...

weirdly specific.

I kept reading.

Experience preferred in:

cultural anthropology.

religious studies.

historic preservation.

cross-cultural ritual practice.

oral-history collection.

archaeological compliance.

postwar migration communities.

Spanish fluency.

I blinked.

“Jesus.”

Somebody had finally found a use for all the useless shit I studied.

Either that or this was the most sophisticated identity-theft operation in human history.

I scrolled.

The contract included housing during field assignments.

Travel reimbursement.

Research stipend.

Potential extension.

Then compensation.

I stopped.

Scrolled back up.

Down again.

Same number.

I actually leaned closer to the screen like proximity might expose the typo.

“Bullshit.”

I calculated it.

Once.

Twice.

Pulled up the calculator because optimism had betrayed me before.

Still the same.

Six weeks would cover almost three months of rent.

Maybe four if I continued my long-standing culinary partnership with Maruchan.

I read the email from the beginning.

There had to be something wrong.

There is always something wrong.

The universe does not casually hand broke people money for knowing the difference between a shrine and a memorial.

I searched Harvington.

Real university.

Public.

Old.

Respectable.

Their research institute had enough vague interdisciplinary language on its website to either be genuinely innovative or a cult with excellent grant writers.

Could go either way.

I opened the attached project summary.

My pulse picked up.

Not excitement.

I didn’t do excitement easily anymore.

Excitement implies expectation.

Expectation implies investment.

Investment implies—

No.

Money.

This was money.

That was safe.

I could do money.

Professional curiosity.

Also safe.

Temporary contract.

Six weeks.

I could do six weeks.

Work had rules. You did the job, they paid you, everybody went home.

I liked rules like that.

I clicked deeper into the packet.

Phase One: Preliminary Cultural Assessment

A research facility.

Inland California.

Historic district.

Multiple structures.

Religious significance.

Community sensitivities.

The first survey location appeared near the bottom.

I read the town name.

My fingers stopped moving.

Pressure.

Both hands.

Slow at first.

Like someone pressing thumbs directly into the centers of my palms.

I pulled them away from the keyboard.

“What the fuck?”

The pressure sharpened.

I turned my hands over.

Nothing.

No cuts.

No swelling.

No reason.

I flexed my fingers.

The ache remained.

My eyes went back to the screen.

The town name.

I read it again.

The pressure pulsed.

Once.

Hard enough that my breath caught.

I stared at my hands.

Then at the screen.

Then back at my hands.

“No.”

I didn’t know that place.

I was sure of it.

Almost sure.

Probably sure.

Fuck.

I scrolled away from the name.

The pressure faded.

Slowly.

My heartbeat didn’t.

Across the desk, Dad’s photograph sat facedown beside his toolbox.

I don’t know why I looked at it.

I reached over.

Turned it around.

The old house stared back.

For a second, something moved behind my eyes.

Not a memory.

Less than that.

The shape of one, maybe.

Then it was gone.

I sat completely still.

The apartment suddenly felt too small.

I looked at the photograph.

At the word on the back.

Cecilia.

Then at the contract.

Good money.

Temporary work.

Academic bullshit I was actually qualified to do.

Nothing supernatural.

Nothing dangerous.

Nothing complicated.

Just a job.

I swallowed.

“Yeah.”

My voice sounded wrong in the empty room.

I cleared my throat.

“It’s just a job.”

I clicked Accept.

The confirmation loaded.

My hands started aching again.