How High We Go in the Dark(22)

“Okay, bigger folks down below. Crouch on all fours,” I say.

Based on our initial math, which seems increasingly pointless due to the endless stream of people joining, we likely have the numbers for at least a fifty-layer pyramid. Surprisingly, everyone is communicating with ease, helping each other to their positions. I wonder if our work would go so smoothly if we were able to see each other.

I feel out the first layers of the pyramid for tightness, stability, running my hands across more bodies than I have touched in a lifetime. This is no time for shame or modesty.

“We need more strong people here. Follow my voice. Over here now,” I yell, noticing a gap in the chain.

“Somebody just squeezed my ass,” a woman yells.

“Seriously? Please stop,” I say. “You don’t want me to find you.”

“Can we hurry this up already?” the felon says, crouched somewhere in the center of the base.

The next layers proceed to climb, slowly, regularly apologizing for stepping on people’s heads. Again I inspect the pile, feeling for gaps, asking if everyone has a firm grip and foot anchor.

“I don’t think I can do this. Someone get me the fuck out,” a voice says, and I hear the muted thumping of a body falling down the pyramid, the slap of skin, the occasional motherfucker.

“Whoever that was, I need you to climb back up. You can do this. Think about your family and friends. Forget about what your body could do. That doesn’t matter now.” Several other people fall as I’m saying this and, again, I encourage them to find their places.

When it seems like all but the very lightest of us are in position, I tell the little ones to head to the top. It takes several moments for them to signal that they’ve arrived, long enough for me to again inspect the perimeter. Aided by my featherweight frame, I follow the last group—heads, hands, and backs serving as my steps toward an invisible sky. As I ascend, I hear snippets of chatter from within: Whose brilliant idea was this? It’s a wonder we’re not all suffocating in here. I don’t think I can hold on for much longer. Let me out. Let me out!

Near the pinnacle the weight of the air begins to dissipate, as if I’m climbing Everest, punching through the boundary of Earth and sky. I stretch my hands up high, try to find a grip on anything, and scream for help: Can anybody hear me? As I shout, a tingling sensation weaves through my body; my hair rises above my head as if I were floating in water. I fumble with a button on my shirt and rip it off. I raise my hand and feel the button vibrate until it slowly floats off into the dark. A tremor stirs below, and the pyramid begins to buckle, undoing the platform of bodies underneath me. I feel hands holding tight to my ankles, and then their fingers slip away, and I topple down along with the rest of them, volleying off one another, flailing like a pinball. I crash-land on a bald man with a mustache, feel the weight of him as a web of limbs forming over me, writhing around me for purchase.

“Is everybody okay?” I ask. My voice sounds muffled underneath the pile of groans and complaints. I work to climb through, searching for empty space. “Is everybody okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine. We’re invincible here, remember? So, you find Jesus or E.T. up there?” the felon asks.

“Not exactly,” I say. “There’s some sort of pull, though. A button floated out of my hand.”

“Okaaay,” the felon says. “That’s a cool trick, but how does that help us? I mean, your sorry ass is still down here.”

“Maybe the force will be stronger if we climb higher.”

“And how many people will we need for that?” someone asks.

What little authority I’d attained by simple virtue of being the first to speak out begins to disintegrate. But people are still talking about getting out. People still need to pick up their children, feed their dog, say I love you to their spouses. For now, no one has brought up the fact that in the real world, our bodies are inhabited by an impossible virus. Perhaps we all need to believe in second chances.

“Look!” the old woman yells. I see her silhouette pointing as if someone or something has raised a dimmer switch; the darkness subsides but only just. A planetarium projects stars onto a ceiling, a zoetrope night lamp casting light on walls of black—except no, it’s nothing that familiar or terrestrial.

All around us, spheres of iridescent light the size of hot-air balloons descend like a school of jellyfish. We are too mesmerized by the beauty of it to look away or even think about being afraid, as if we’ve been gifted with the sight of a cosmic occurrence like the birth of a star or the death of a planet, the aurora in a thousand snow globes. For the first time, we’re able to see each other. Me in a T-shirt with Godzilla on it that I saw in the window of a store once but could never afford, the felon with a shoddy tattoo of a tiger on his arm, the gamer kid in a faded Stanford sweatshirt, the lawyer in salmon-colored slacks and a navy polo, and the old woman in a faded Bruce Springsteen T-shirt. We realize our numbers have grown far greater than we believed. The orbs descend as far as we can see, illuminating the faces of thousands, and as they touch down, scenes play within like movies—children running in a field, a couple having sex in a bathroom stall, a man crying in a hospital, children huddled on a concrete floor in an immigration detention center. The images shimmer as if made of water. The lawyer walks toward the closest orb. He sees himself in a deli flirting with the girl at the counter, giving her his card.