Where Futures End by Parker Peevyhouse
FOR ELIZABETH, who plans for endless futures
1.
WHEN WE ASKED THE IMPOSSIBLE
(one year from now)
DYLAN
Dylan asked his first Impossible Question when he was five, when he could still hear music in running water, still find gilded kingdoms trapped in beams of sunlight.
Why do I see things no one else can see?
Impossible to say, son, Dad had answered with a smile, closing the cover of the book they’d been reading, The Blue Fairy Book.
Are they real, the things I see?
Dylan’s older brother, Hunter, hated questions like that. Stop pretending you’re special, he would say.
In a storybook, an Impossible Question might be a riddle that could never be solved, a challenge that would bring the quest to a standstill.
In real life, an Impossible Question might be easily met with a shrug or a sigh. But it might also carve the whole world into pieces as small as dust motes so that you could hardly breathe for fear of scattering them all.
At the age of eleven, Dylan asked Dad an Impossible Question for the last time, when they were getting hot dogs at Alki Beach in West Seattle. It wasn’t that Dylan never saw Dad again after that. It was just that there were no more jackets tied like capes, no more laughs that went sideways in the wind, no more perfect burn of salt spray and spicy mustard. The story of Dad and Dylan came to a standstill.
In the years since the day at Alki Beach, Dylan had become an expert at Impossible Questions. He would creep into Hunter’s room after lights-out to ask, What’s at the bottom of a black hole in space? Is a red blanket still red in the dark? Why don’t zombies eat their own flesh? Hunter would pass one of his earbuds to Dylan and they’d let the Sonics or the Rolling Stones answer as best they could.
Why do I sense things no one else can? Dylan asked himself now, standing outside the prep school gymnasium where his brother’s basketball game was taking place. He knew the crowd was about to roar. He felt the hum in his bones, without even seeing the action.
And sure enough, a moment later, the cheer erupted.
He opened the door and stood in the doorway. Gray-and-purple banners emblazoned with Hevlen Preparatory were slung on the walls. “Heavily Perspiring,” Dylan and his friends had used to joke, sophomore year—before Dylan had gotten kicked out for cheating. Now it was fall of his junior year.
A boy in a gray Hevlen blazer edged through the doorway: Blaine, who used to sit with Dylan at lunch so they could program modifications to their favorite PC games. He tipped his carton of popcorn toward Dylan and said, “Is it true that some kids carry knives to class in public school?”
“That’s why we get those metal rulers,” Dylan said, reaching into the carton. “Levels the playing field.”
The air in the gym was warm, but Dylan suddenly wished he’d worn a jacket, because Blaine was staring at the peeling letters on Dylan’s T-shirt that spelled out Put on Your 3-D Glasses.
“It seemed cool in my mom’s pawnshop,” Dylan said. “Anyway, my old Hevlen uniform’s too small now.”
“I wish I didn’t have to wear this thing.” Blaine flicked the collar of his blazer. “Think I should defect? Try my luck with metal rulers?”
Dylan tried to laugh, coughed out a popcorn kernel instead. Blaine eyed Dylan’s slouching frame. “Hevlen has to expel somebody at the end of each year. To keep the rest of us sweating.” He studied his popcorn carton and shrugged. “Probably only picked you because you were on scholarship.”
Dylan tried to give off an air of sure, fine, leaning back against the doorway. That odd electricity hummed in his bones again and then, what do you know, out on the court his brother sank another three-pointer. The crowd chanted his name: Hun-ter, Hun-ter!
The other team called a time-out. The hum in Dylan’s bones subsided. He had a clear view of his brother standing a head taller than the rest of his team. Everything about Hunter’s face was rugged—sheer-cliff forehead, wide chin. Even his sideburns looked like they were trying to reclaim territory ceded to his ears.
“Your grades weren’t really that bad, though, were they?” Blaine asked. “You were on the team that went to math regionals.”
“I cheated on my finals. Zero tolerance rule. Whatever.”
Blaine’s eyes widened.
“We actually debated the legality of that zero tolerance rule in philosophy class,” Dylan said. “Whether it’s really fair to kick someone out for a first offense.”
“They have philosophy in public school? Huh, wow.”
Dylan didn’t answer.
On the court, Hunter slid past the point guard and flipped the ball up to the basket.
Blaine’s mouth hung open. “It’s like someone spliced dolphin DNA into his.”
The air in the gym was way too warm, the popcorn smell stifling. “I’m gonna go,” Dylan said. “See you online sometime?”