Ephemeral: Chapter 13
The tuxedoed V. C. Regent with his official gold badge strode onstage to the podium before a standing-room-only crowd in the V. C. banquet hall. Clara had seen him deliver a dozen Passing Ceremony speeches, but this was the first time she'd seen him award gold. This was also the first time she'd seen him look nervous.
The Regent looked down the aisle to his honoree and grimaced. His voice faltered as he called number 6,458,394,027, V. C. Top Regional Cardiac Surgeon, The Honorable Dr. Sunil Ulric, age 48 to the stage. Typically, the Regent had to admonish the crowd to rein in their enthusiasm while the nearly-departed processed through their midst to receive accolades. But there was no need for such restraint today as the applause sounded strained.
For the first time in any Passing Ceremony Clara had witnessed, the nearly-departed was unable to walk onstage of his own accord. Instead his daughter – a strong young woman with a long, black braid – pushed her father in a wheeled chair onto the stage. Pushed! Like a shopping cart! Trailing behind the young woman followed an older one who studied the red carpet in front of her feet. Clara blushed in sympathy.
Dr. Sunil Ulric, the great heart surgeon who once had operated on the V. C. Regent himself, slouched in his seat – reduced to a bag of skin and bones. The man could no longer sit upright or even speak. Instead, drool dribbled down his chin onto his pressed jacket to the mortification of all. Despite the diamond cuff links, the satin handkerchief, and a tie which cost more than a week's worth of Clara's earnings, no suit on Earth could cover the man's shame.
The presence of such deformity in the center of Vitae society – manifested in a man of medicine, no less – affronted all decency. The crowd averted their eyes from the sallow cheeks, the vacant stare, and the once-gifted hands now bent with disease. They wondered why this crumpled memory of a man had been allowed to suffer such indignity. Why had they not hastened his Rite of Passing?
It was enough to throw any V. C. Regent off his stride. He dabbed his damp forehead with his pocket handkerchief, fumbled with his notes, and looked decidedly uncomfortable – as if his gold-embroidered cummerbund were two sizes too small. While he stumbled through the lengthy list of the doctor's medical accomplishments, Dr. Ulric groaned. Raven's mother hung her head as she stood behind her husband, her lower lip quivering. But Raven stood erect and stared defiantly at the crowd with a dark fire in her eyes Clara had never seen before. She had survived a year of near-burnout for her father and refused to shed any more tears.
Now it was time for public praise when anyone in the crowd could stand up and share what the nearly-departed had meant to them. Often people told stories of college adventures or little-publicized acts of kindness. If the nearly-departed were particularly popular, this segment of the Passing Ceremony could last for hours. But though the audience filled the banquet hall, only a handful of people stood to give their commendations. Most were medical colleagues who could not bring themselves to look directly at the shadow of the man they'd once admired.
When it became apparent no one else wanted to speak, the V. C. Regent awkwardly hung the gold medal around the doctor's neck – careful not to touch him lest he also be stricken with PTPD. He offered the microphone limply to Raven should she wish to say a few words. She didn't. So without any further ado, the Regent nodded toward a man in a starched white lab coat who walked onstage from behind the red velvet curtains. Then the sound system started playing the Vitae Conglomerate Anthem. The audience respectfully saluted in solemn farewell as the man in white wheeled Dr. Ulric's chair through the gold-gilt door at the very back of the stage – the door leading to the Passing Ward.
Once it shut, the crowd breathed a collective sigh of relief.
Then the scene shifted and rippled as though something had disturbed the memory's surface.
Clara was turning to exit the building when the Regent did something truly unprecedented; instead of giving the usual dismissal, he tapped the microphone and began a new speech. “Everyone, please remain in your places. I've just been informed we have an additional Passing to celebrate.”
Clara raised her eyebrows. An additional Passing Ceremony? Just tacked onto the end of this one?! It's never been done!
“I would like to call number 6,456,324,158, V. C. Sociology Grad Student, Clara Leigh Milton to the stage, please.”
Clara stood agape. She couldn't believe her own ears! But the Regent had definitely called her number, her vocation, and her name. But … but … I'm nowhere near the age of Passing!
The Regent spied her amid the guests and gestured for her to come onstage. “Yes, you! Please come forward. Don't be shy!”
A thousand faces stared at Clara – then recoiled in disgust. Her knees shook. Her pulse raced. She extended her hand in the air. “E-excuse, sir. I believe there's been some mistake! You see, I'm not of Passing age. I'm only twenty-four years old.”
The V. C. Regent's face turned stern. “You?! Only twenty-four?! You lie!”
“N-no, sir!” Clara stammered. “There must be some misunderstand ...” Clara's protest died in midair as she caught a glimpse of the back of her hand and gasped.
It was bony and wrinkled!
NO!!!
She turned toward the wall and caught her reflection in a gold-gilt mirror. Her hair was as white as death! Her back was bent. And her beautiful teeth – which she'd always faithfully flossed – now looked yellowed and crooked. She put her hands to her wrinkled, sagging face and shrieked in horror.
“Get her!” the Regent bellowed from the podium.
The audience roared in fury, turned in on itself like a maelstrom, sucking Clara down, down, down to its center. There was no prayer of escape. She screamed ...
… then fell with a jarring bump onto the floor beside her bed in the Sapphire Hotel. Clara rubbed her eyes and blinked, terror still clouding her vision. The fiery pink, purple, and orange light of Elpis-rising filled her room through the photopetrium wall. Her chest heaved up and down under her pale blue nightgown. She raised a trembling hand to her forehead still damp with panic.
But the screaming did not stop.
“Help! Help!” Aliyah squealed from the suite next door.
Clara staggered to her feet and bolted toward her teammate's room.
Raven joined her a second later – her hair a wild black forest in its unbraided state. Raven tried the bathroom doorknob. It was locked. She rapped on the door. “Aliyah! Open up! What's wrong?!”
“I can't believe it! I think … I think I'm dying!”
Raven met eyes with Clara. She pounded on the door. “Open up!”
The door knob turned and swung inward onto a spacious blue and black tiled restroom with a large mirror and bright lights which hurt Clara's eyes this early in the morning. Inside stood a very disheveled Aliyah wearing a blue and gray kimono-like robe. She had one arm raised above her head and held a single strand of hair between her pink nails. “Look at this!” she pointed with her other hand. “Just look at this! What the heck is going on?!”
Clara did not believe her eyes at first. She rubbed them and squinted. Sure enough, the strand Aliyah held above her head was white as flour, stark against her other black curls.
Clara's throat went dry.
“I swear this was not here yesterday!” Aliyah said. “Did I catch it from you?!” She glared at Clara and took a step back as if Clara carried some deadly virus.
Raven recovered first. “It’s only one gray hair, Aliyah. Some in the Agilis Grand Assembly have lots of them ...”
“Don't patronize me! I’m only twenty-four!” Aliyah protested. “This hair is six inches long! I’ve never seen it before. How could I have missed it? Something's not right!”
“If you don’t want gray hair, there’s a simple solution.” Raven reached over and gave a sharp tug on the strand.
“Ouch!” Aliyah yelped.
“See!” Raven held the strand at arm's length and dropped it into the toilet. “All gone.” She flushed the commode while Aliyah rubbed her smarting scalp and studied her reflection.
Someone knocked on the suite door. “You girls okay in there?” It was Tristan’s voice.
“I’m alright now,” Aliyah called from the restroom. “Just having a moment …”
“Oh. Okay. They just brought up breakfast.”
“We’ll be out soon. Thanks, Tristan,” Clara called. Then to Aliyah, “Are you alright?”
Aliyah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Sorry for the drama. I was caught off guard. My mother’s nearly ready for Passing, and she barely has any gray hair.”
“It's probably stress.” Raven said with a frown. “We’ve had so many changes in the last forty-eight hours, I wouldn't be shocked if we all got gray hair by the end of the summer.”
“But it was six inches long!” Aliyah persisted. “Why didn't I see it yesterday? It's not exactly camouflaged!”
Raven shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe things just go at a quicker pace here all around.”
“Hmmm.” Aliyah looked unconvinced as she combed through her hair looking for any stray white strands.
Clara gazed at her own hair in the mirror and paused. That's funny. It seems longer than it was yesterday. It's almost to my shoulders! She cleared her throat. “I need a shower before I head back to Almitas.”
Raven nodded. “Make sure you don't forget your scan-stone. If anything else weird happens, we should communicate.”
“Agreed,” Aliyah said, still examining her scalp with her fingers.
Clara returned to her room, showered, and started fixing her hair into a half up-do when she glimpsed a streak of white among her own russet tresses. She froze. Her hands shook. Her hairbrush clanked against the porcelain sink as she leaned closer to the mirror.
There – near her left temple – sprang a strand of gray hair hiding right behind her ear.
Clara yanked the thing from her scalp and flushed it down the toilet before anyone could see. Her pulse rushing, she recalled her earlier nightmare and felt dread creep up her spine. She shivered. What on Earth is going on here?! I'm only twenty-four!
So what do you think?
Alright. I wanna hear your funny stories about when you realized you weren’t as young as you once were. Or even funnier — when people mistook you for being much older than you were. And I’ll start with mine:
I have had gray hair since I was twelve. “Natural highlights,” a friend in college once called them. But I feel like my face doesn’t look particularly older than it is. So I’ve been rather incredulous when I’ve been mistaken for both my son’s grandmother and my husband’s mom. (Especially since I’m two years younger than him!) LOL! People are funny.
Share your stories in the comments below.