“Infinitesimal”

Zidia Gibson

I need to get out of here.

The woman felt far too crammed and feverish as hot golden rays seeped into her

skin. Perspiration trickled down her neck. She ducked and weaved around the crowd,

one arm wrapped around the parcel clutched to her side and the other placed firmly on

the floppy hat strapped around her head. The daily market was usually well-attended

by locals, but today it seemed to be teeming with tourists.

A gust of wind suddenly swept through the downtown square, and the woman

was glad she was already clutching her hat. She looked down, double-checking her

purchase hadn't sprouted two wings and caught the breeze, and began barreling down

the cobblestone path toward her employer.

“Delilah!”

She looked up sharply, but only saw the outskirts of the market and a few

vendors beginning to pack up for the day.

“Over here,” the voice called out with a hint of amusement.

She stopped and turned to her left, eyes finally landing on a tall and toned frame

backlit by the sun. Delilah squinted her eyes to make out the owner of the voice.

“Adelaide,” she finally breathed out. I thought I’d never see you again, she added

in her head.
 “What are you doing here?” Delilah said instead. Her grip on the parcel

tightened.

“I was in town, you know,” Adelaide responded, waving her hands haphazardly.

“I wanted to stop by the market and pick up some Kouign-amanns, but then I saw you

scurrying away.”

Delilah bristled, took a deep breath, and then noticed Adelaide’s hands were

empty – they contained no brown paper bag filled with those sweet and crunchy

pastries. Delilah’s head immediately filled with memories of Adelaide coming home

from work hours past when she said she would be done. Of Adelaide being late to

every date they planned, becoming closed-off whenever Delilah asked where she’d

been.

“You lie and you hide and you can’t even give me a good reason for all of it,”

Delilah had screamed at Adelaide during one of their worst fights. “What are you doing

that you can’t even bother to share with me?”

Delilah had never gotten her answer. Instead, Adelaide just stared silently at her,

lips pursed together in a line, before taking her things and leaving her partner to ponder

what went wrong.

So, Delilah raised an eyebrow, put a hand on her hip, and said, “Wanna try that

again?”

Adelaide narrowed her eyes and stepped closer.

“Do you wanna try being nicer to someone who’s going to help you out?”
 Does she somehow know something? The package grew warm and threatened

to slip from Delilah’s sweaty hold.

“I didn’t ask for your help, Adelaide.” I have to go now, Delilah thought.

As if reading her mind, Adelaide glanced down to the arm holding the package.

She looked almost genuine as she said, “Let me, please. I can take that thing,”

Adelaide pointed to the parcel, “off your hands. I promise you.”

Delilah hesitated. She thought back to earlier today, when she had met her

employer across town at an extremely posh restaurant.

White and black tiles covered the floor like a chessboard, and ornate golden

detailing spanned the ceiling. The chairs and booths were fashioned with a deep

emerald green fabric that had Delilah wishing she was born into a different family that

could afford such a pretty thing.

They had sat across from each other in a wraparound booth that isolated their

affair from prying ears and eyes. For two hours, Delilah’s employer talked about her

task, pouring over details as waiters brought heaps of food servings to the table.

The man wore rings on his fingers, which glinted in the light as he talked. He

specifically instructed her to go straight to the market, find the vendor with black

awnings, use the money bestowed upon her to buy a telescope-shaped object, and

then promptly return. Only then would she be paid – a hefty half a million dollars – for

her services.
 “Under no circumstances,” his deep voice said, “should you buy anything else,

talk to anyone you see, or make additional stops before coming back here.

Understood?”

Delilah had nodded immediately, more eager than scared to start. The money

paid well, and her family always needed more. She briefly wondered what made this

artifact so valuable, yet simple enough, that caused rich aristocrats like him to pick

people like her to deliver their goods.

“Why are you so interested in me now,” Delilah demanded as she snapped back

to the present.

Adelaide had a hard look on her face now.

“People have disappeared, gone missing, and quite literally been removed from

reality doing what you’ve started,” she said. “You have no idea what you’re

transporting!”

By now, the square had all but cleared out. Only the rustle of leaves and howl of

the wind made noise in the silence between their words. The sunset cast long shadows

over the ground, creating patches of light and dark across the cobblestone. In any

other situation, Delilah would have laughed at the absurdity of their meeting right now.

They looked like two cowboys readying up for a shootout in the old Western movies

she used to watch. She half expected a tumbleweed to roll by.

But instead, at a crossroads with the person she least expected to see, Delilah

felt lost and angry.

 “Since when have you been interested in me or my safety,” Delilah sneered.

Adelaide closed her eyes and sighed. When she opened them again, her eyes

were glassy.

“I’m trying to take care of you right now, Delilah. I’m trying to fix our future – your

future.”

What is she talking about?

“I can’t just hand this thing over,” Delilah said, shaking her head. “I’m being paid

more than you could imagine just to deliver something. Why would I pass up on that

opportunity?”

“Please, Delilah. I am begging you to hand me The Eye and walk away.”

Delilah was getting annoyed now.

“Why?” Delilah retorted. “You can’t just show up out of nowhere, start spouting

claims, and expect me to believe them!”

“I can’t tell you for the same reason I was gone all those nights!” Adelaide yelled,

the sound reverberating across the square. “I can’t tell you but I need you to just listen

to me, please.”

Delilah didn’t accept that answer. Nothing Adelaide said now would ever justify

the hurt she caused.

“I’m leaving,” Delilah said coldly, turning on her heel toward her employer’s

estate. “Don’t follow me.”

And with that, Delilah walked away.

 ———

It was dark when she approached the neighborhood of her final destination. A

few street lamps lit the road, but the moon, in its full and shiny glory, provided the

majority of visibility. Adelaide’s voice rippled through Delilah’s head as she walked

down the street.

You have no idea what you’re transporting!

That was true. She didn’t remember her employer mentioning anything special

about the object beyond its shape. What it contained or what it was used for, Delilah

could only guess. And yet…

Why was Adelaide so worked up over this thing?

Delilah slowed to a halt as she racked her brain for an answer.

The man’s insistent detailing over instructions did make her wonder why he

hadn’t just grabbed it himself. He was rich and powerful, yet he didn’t seem at all eager

to get his own hands on the precious cargo.

Adelaide’s biting voice came rushing back.

I can’t tell you for the same reason I was gone all those nights!

The statement made Delilah’s head spin with curiosity. As if moved by a puppet

master, Delilah’s arms shifted on their own accord, relocating the package so it rested

neatly in her hands. She looked down at the unknown item. Brown, wrinkled tissue

paper stared back.

No one ever said to not inspect the artifact, Delilah’s brain whispered sweetly.
 Balancing the object in one hand, Delilah delicately undid the white string

wrapped around it. After pushing the tissue paper aside, she found a cylindrical tube

nestled within.

It was about the length of her forearm and made from brass, although it didn’t

reflect much. The object felt old; the shine tarnished and muted, and it all bore an

ancient air. Delilah’s fingers just barely wrapped around and met when she picked up

the item to inspect it further. She was surprised by how cold it was. The way the chill

leached into her skin reminded her of when she was six and had gotten her tongue

stuck on a lamppost during winter because of a dare she wouldn’t back down from.

The brass zapped the heat from her hand and left her feeling like she couldn’t

drop it even if she tried. Most of the weight, Delilah noticed, seemed to be distributed

towards one end of the tube: the side with colorful glass shards. She brought that

closer to her eye to examine. The pieces, which were all different colors of the rainbow

and shaped in triangles, ovals, and rectangles, had somehow been fitted to sit in

between the brass connected to the rest of the cylinder and the end of the tube. Delilah

turned the item so she could view the other side. Brass covered this end except for a

little hole that remained translucent and unobstructed in the center.

Intrigued, Delilah ran a finger over the spot.

Nothing happened. All she felt was a slight indentation where the cylinder’s

texture changed.
 She held the tube up in the air, brows furrowed as she wondered why this thing

was worth half a million in her employer’s eyes.

She suddenly remembered Adelaide calling it “The Eye.”

Delilah brought it back toward her body and held it eye-level. Winking down on

her right eye, she loosened a breath and viewed through the peephole.

Darkness swallowed her senses.

For a moment, time and space stood still. She heard no noise. Smelled nothing.

Saw zero. Her sense of up and down and left and right scattered into the void.

The world as she knew it stopped spinning. There was a pause –

And then the planet was freefalling into nothingness as some external force

knocked it off orbit.

Slowly, tiny, white dots creeped along the edge of her vision. They appeared in

singles, populating the blanket of black randomly, before all of a sudden rushing to

reveal hundreds upon thousands.

Not dots, she realized.

Stars.

Dazzling and endless and made of the most ancient matter in the universe.

Before she could marvel any further, she was thrust backwards, zooming out

toward something. Everything around her zipped past at lightspeed. The stars left

streaks in their paths and the pressure threatened to pop her brain.
 Her journey began to slow. Things started to appear against the white and black

background. She saw rocks and asteroids and moons, and then planets of all kinds:

ones made from rock and gas, ice and fire; ones that were dark and dormant and

others full of life and soul. She passed by a planet that looked humongous, but then it

faded from view and an even more colossal sphere took its place. This continued on

and on, each new discovery searing its existence into her being, rendering her mind

incapable of processing.

Her fast travel geared up again, launching her past planetary objects until they

became a blur. She could see a pattern now: rocks swirled around giant stars, forming

one of countless collections that orbited a fixed point blindly, which then amassed to a

collection of clusters that became everything.

Abruptly, she found herself staring up at an old, dusty bookshelf lined with

trinkets and treasures. Cobwebs caked the corners.

A lumbering figure loomed above her.

Held between its thumb and index finger was a clear vial with a cork top. In that

vial, she could see the swirling chaos she had just been whiplashed through.

Somewhere deeper in that contained microcosm was the miniscule place she knew as

home and the infinitesimal existence she called life.

Her breathing became uneven, chest rising and falling sporadically. She was

perceiving everything she ought not to and making sense of absolutely nothing.
 She could tell, deep in her gut, that this was her final stop. All of her traveling

had led here. There was nothing for her to grab on to, no tether that brought her back –

no one who could anchor her to the reality she knew.

Her last mental grasp slipped away and her consciousness crumpled like

paper.

———

Adelaide found Delilah passed out on the street, the Eye of Medusa broken and

laying off to the side.

Picking her body up bridal style, Adelaide hauled her ex-girlfriend to the nearest

lamppost and rested her gently against the pole. She used one hand to prop Delilah up

while she fished her phone out of her pocket. She dialed her boss.

He picked up on the first ring.

“We have another one,” she said.

“Condition?”

Adelaide wanted to cry.

“Broken.”

Her boss hummed.

“Looks like I saved my money,” he said. “Leave the Eye but bring the woman

back to me. I want to scan her and see what’s new.”

She breathed in. Breathed out.

“Fine,” she ground out.

 She ended the call with a click and stuffed her phone back. She picked Delilah

up again, this time fixing her over one shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and began

walking toward the estate.

When Adelaide arrived she was greeted by her boss who cleared her through

the security wards with a wave of his ring-adorned hand. She stepped into the house

and headed toward the medic room.

She pushed past the plastic curtain hung up in the doorway. Her eyes fell on the

dozens of cots lining both sides of the room. In each one lay a person, some old,

others young, but all hooked up to various ventilators and devices. Everyone they took

was nothing but empty shells of human beings. Lost in their own heads, stuck in the

cosmos.

Adelaide placed Delilah down on the closest bed, fitted with pale and sterile

sheets. With her arm now free, Adelaide stretched a bit: bringing her aching limb

across her body and behind her head; rolling her shoulder, cracking her neck.

She stared at Delilah, whose eyes twitched fast and erratic beneath her lids, and

wondered where everything went wrong.

My fault.

Should have been there.

Didn’t try hard enough.

Destructive.
 Adelaide’s brain spiraled as she got to work hooking Delilah up to the tubes that

would breathe for her. She moved slowly and methodically. Once she was done, she

took a shaky breath in. She let it go and leaned down to Delilah’s resting face.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Adelaide unfastened the hat atop Delilah’s head and placed it carefully to the

side. She stroked Delilah’s temple, ran fingers through her fine hair. Her boss appeared

at the doorway and cleared his throat. Adelaide knew she was on borrowed time, now.

Tears welled up in her eyes. The man would soon examine what Delilah witnessed

behind the safety of the device screen. He wouldn’t suffer the same cruel fate as her or

the other poor souls stuck in limbo.

“I’m so, so sorry, baby, I didn’t want any of this to happen,” she said.

She started sobbing.

“You deserved so much more than this. Than me. I– I should have told you

everything. All those times… I should have said something.”

She sniffled and wiped her tears and snot on the back of her hand. Eyes rimmed

red and heart aching, Adelaide placed a kiss on Delilah's forehead.

“I love you,” she said, voice rough and broken. “I love you and I will never forget

you.”

FIN