"I Know There's An Answer"

The city on the hill gets coldest in February, or at least certainly feels that way, ‘cuz the December chill is a novelty after the summer’s frying and the November heat waves. But by February, the cold’s truly set in, the days still don’t last beyond 5 PM, and there seems to be no end in sight. That was the first thing Zipper noticed during her metaphoric time travel back to old Boston, as Grace described the scene…

It was a quiet moment, in-between fights, when Jackson and Doc Rooney were wandering around, wondering about it all. Through the power of imagination, Grace took Jackson’s spot, while Zipper donned the role of his erstwhile companion.

“But it really got this cold?” Zipper asked as the two wandered past the opening to a subway station on the way outta Chinatown, large-black-T-in-white circle logo hanging over the entrance.

“Earth had no climate control back then,” Grace answered.

Zipper’s nose wrinkled. “And yuck, what’s that smell? It’s worse than Magenta Sue’s pits after gym class.”

“That’s what cities smell like.”

“Eden don’t smell like that.”

“‘Cuz Eden is Eden.”

The two metaphoric-time-traveling-high-schoolers-pretending-to-be-college-students jaywalked across Tremont, which didn’t make any sense to Zipper because why wouldn’t a city be built with overhead pedestrian walkways above major roads? Down to their left was Newbury Street, with brick houses that only went three stories high, and yet-

“Waddya mean, Jackson and Doc Rooney had to split a room?” Zipper questioned. “And that a tiny room in a three-story building could cost that much? A-And where's the universal income?"

Grace shrugged. “It’s the way things were back then.”

It seemed to get colder as they trudged up the Common, the Atlantic wind whipping fierce, bringing in occasional snowdrifts. The park was deserted after nightfall, with all the bums descending into the city’s subway stations for the night. Without the augmentations of 3025 medicine and gene-editing, Zipper couldn’t see as well, hear as well, feel as well, so she stumbled after Grace in the dark, feeling like Doc Rooney’s great-grandfather on an Ardennes patrol during the Bulge. Fortunately, there weren’t no roars of Tigers and Panthers in the distance, no ack-ack in the skies, just the droning sound of an ambulance barreling down Tremont, reminding Zipper of Rooney’s mother’s hospital bills…

“I thought the past would be exciting, but this is awful,” Zipper supposed as they passed by long fields of dead grass and bare trees. “Stinking cities and rent ya can’t afford, hospitals ya can’t afford, all this cold weather while at the same time ya got that global warming business, one screw-up and ya fall into poverty, and I’m no fan of this nuclear war thingie either.”

As snowflakes smacked her face, she scrunched up her nose. “How did people live through this?”

The pair arrived at the edge of Frog Pond, frozen over for the season. The park, utterly empty and utterly quiet, reminded Zipper of the Sea of Tranquility on the Moon, magnificent desolation, least it was until the colonists moved in…but Zipper and Grace stood before something predating Eden, before there was Man to name it Eden…

“Mainly inertia, I suppose,” said Grace. She eyed the ice, then took a few steps back. “But maybe also a moment like this, something that doesn’t have a name.”

Before Zipper could protest, Grace sprinted forward, coming alive, as she jumped off the dying grass and onto the ice. Zipper gasped, because they didn’t have Ice Thickness Calculators in the Brain Implants back then (or Brain Implants, for that matter) so there was no way to know if the ice was strong enough beyond gut feeling. And yet, when Grace landed, she did so with a serene smile, the ice holding. The momentum carried her forward onto one knee, and she slid across ice never touched by human hands.

“Your turn,” Grace called out.

Breath condensed in front of Zipper’s face. She didn’t understand how something couldn’t have a name. The whole point of the War on Nothing was to name everything, after all. Anything that existed without Man’s knowledge didn’t exist at all.

And yet…

When Zipper took a few steps back, when she sprinted those few steps forward, the basic inkling of understanding rushed through her. When she hit the edge of the grass, she did something spontaneous and spun around as she jumped, back arched, her eyes taking in the spinning lights of the three-story houses, lantern-lit Chinatown, the distant ambulance, and then above her - the Moon and real stars! Only three were visible through the smog, but to be able to see them on a crisp night like this, some ancient feeling rose within her-

Ah, maybe I get it now. When it comes to life, you just gotta do Something, whatever that Something may be, ‘cuz it makes all the other sucky parts worth it, gives you a reason to get up in the morning and out of the house…

The ice held when she hit, but her momentum knocked her on her ass, onto her back, and she slid around while laughing. If only she could keep sliding forever…

But in 2025, Jackson Mississippi and Doc Rooney had their own struggles to keep up with. In 2993, Grace Pillow had to stop her reading because she had some writing to practice. And in 2999, Zipper Chute - hands in jacket pockets, arriving back from Sue’s - was struggling to find a struggle.

Perhaps struggle wasn’t the right word. You don’t need a struggle to find meaning. You need to strive to find meaning, that’s a better way to put it. Zipper wanted to strive towards Something.

As to what that Something was-

When she got back to her room, all tidied up by her bots, drone arriving with a grocery delivery, Zipper slipped onto her bed, laid on her back, hands behind her head. A lone light fixture, featuring an immortal translucent A-Polymer bulb, hung above her, perhaps just like the sun.

Zipper glanced around the room.

I’ve been in this private womb for too long, dig.

She reached towards the sun. Perhaps I really just oughta go out there and see what I can find, ‘cuz I ain’t gonna find nothing in this room…

Hand reaching upward-

Yes, yes, that’s it - my Something may be TBD, but the only way to determine it is to go beyond Bronx-12, go explore a bit, travel the world like Jackson and the Doc, leave the womb, walk on my own two feet…

Hand closed around the sun-

Yessir. No more days of nothing. I’m gonna go out there and Do Something.