MATTHEW MCAYEAL - SHORT-STORIES

Matthew McAyeal is a writer from Portland, Oregon. His short stories have been published by "Bards and Sages Quarterly," "Fantasia Divinity Magazine," "cc&d," "The Fear of Monkeys," "Danse Macabre," "The Metaworker," "Scarlet Leaf Magazine," "Bewildering Stories," "The Magazine of History & Fiction," and "Tall Tale TV." In 2008, two screenplays he wrote were semi-finalists in the Screenplay Festival.

​Max and Patty’s Space Adventure
 

​“Why do I have to learn about the 2020s?” asked Max Lester. “I wasn’t even born back then!”
 
“The 2020s were a very significant decade,” his Uncle Stanley replied, “starting with the COVID-19 pandemic. Do you remember how it affected the economy?”
 
“I really don’t care,” said Max. “It’s all ancient history now. Besides, why do I have to think about homework on vacation?”
 
“You’re not really on vacation until you get into orbit.”
 
Uncle Stanley was seeing his niece and nephew off before they boarded the Alden passenger rocket at Cape Canaveral. Thirteen-year-old Max was very excited about visiting the new Hilbert Space Hotel, which was being built under the supervision of their parents. Max’s ten-year-old sister Patty, however, was standing there with a perpetual scowl on her face as though determined to show the world that she would rather be anywhere else.
 
“I’ll be right here when you get back,” Uncle Stanley told them. “See you next Wednesday.” With that, he left, and Max and Patty turned to board the rocket with the other passengers.
 
“Isn’t this the best vacation ever?” Max asked his sister, ignoring her obvious lack of enthusiasm. After all, he was enthusiastic about this, and she should be too.
 
“This isn’t even a vacation at all,” said Patty. “We’re going to Mom and Dad’s work.”
 
“We’re going to outer space, Patty!” said Max. “Do you not understand the significance of that? It wasn’t that long ago that only professional astronauts could go into space.”
 
“I would rather go to Salzburg. That’s where they filmed The Sound of Music.”
 
“How can you be so obsessed with that old movie?”
 
“It’s not just some old movie! It’s a classic, and it’s so romantic!”
 
“There’s no way visiting any place on Earth could be as exciting as going to space!”
 
“It could, if that place were Salzburg.”
 
Not long after they had taken their seats, the countdown started. As though oblivious, Patty put on her display headset. No doubt she would be watching The Sound of Music for the thousandth time. As they lifted off, other passengers began putting on their headsets as well.
 
Max did no such thing, of course. He did not intend to miss a second of their flight. By the time they were in orbit, most people were taking off their headsets and turning to look at the spectacular view of Earth, but not Patty. There was no way Max was going to let her miss this. Whether she realized it or not, this would be something she would never forget.
 
“Patty, look!” he said, prodding her. He realized that she couldn’t hear him with her headset on, so he pulled it off. “Look, we’re in space now!” he told her.
 
“Really?” she asked sarcastically. “I thought this rocket was headed for the center of the Earth.”
 
“But don’t you want to see the Earth from space?”
 
“No,” she said, putting her headset back on. “Don’t bother me again until we’re there!”
 
Max sighed. He was sure that she would appreciate the view if only she would just look at it, but it seemed she wouldn’t.
 
Just then, they were rocked by an explosion, followed by a shrill alarm.
 
“Attention all passengers,” said a voice over the loudspeaker, “we are experiencing a hull breach! Put on your oxygen masks now! Do not attempt to hold your breath; it could rupture your lungs!”
 
Realizing that Patty couldn’t hear or see the alarm with her headset on, and that he didn’t have time to explain the situation to her, Max grabbed her oxygen mask and pressed it onto her face.
 
“I told you not to —” she managed to say before he forced her mask on. Her headset fell off, but she continued to struggle, preventing him from putting on his own mask.
 
“Patricia, this is an emergency!” he said, and she stopped struggling. She knew it was serious when she was called by her real name. Finally, Max was able to put on his own mask.
 
“We will be making an emergency docking with the Malaysian space station Merdeka 4,” said the voice over the loudspeaker. “After we’ve made repairs, we’ll continue on to the Hilbert Space Hotel.”
 
It seemed to take them forever to reach the Malaysian space station. Max took steady breaths, afraid that he might run out of air before they docked. Fortunately, he didn’t.
 
“We have docked to the Merdeka 4. Please float to the exit in an orderly fashion.”
 
The panicked passengers did not do so, instead fighting and jostling to get to the airlock as fast as possible. No one wanted to spend any more time than they had to on a ship that was leaking air. Max had not expected that his first time floating in space would be like this! Holding his sister’s hand tightly, he pulled her along as he floated into the space station.
 
The room they entered was cramped, as it was not intended to hold so many people at once. Max did not dare to take off his oxygen mask until the airlock closed behind them and the chamber was repressurized. And even after that, he did not let go of his sister’s hand.
 
“Thank you,” said Patty. “You — you might have saved my life!”
 
“You see the sort of things you miss when you have that headset on all the time?” asked Max.
 

​Across the Wall

​ 
            I was born the year they built the Wall. It was a hideous monstrosity of concrete, barbed wire, and guard towers. They said that the Wall was there to protect us, that the people on the other side were “fascists” and “revanchists.” But everyone knew the truth. They didn’t build the Wall to keep out dangerous enemies. They built it to keep us in.
            Ever since I was a little girl, I felt drawn to a particular section of the Wall at a particular time of day. Every day that I could, I went to that part of the Wall at that time of the day and stood there, just for a minute or two. Of course, I had to be careful not to get too close to the Wall or else I’d be shot by the border guards who were there to “protect” us.
            “What do you stand there for, Comrade Heidi?” I was sometimes asked.
            “I don’t know,” I could only reply.
I couldn’t explain it. I just had this vague feeling that there was something on the direct opposite side of the Wall calling to me. It was like I was meant to be joined to it, but was cut off instead. Even if I could have explained this feeling, I wouldn’t have dared voice it. There was probably a Stasi file on me as it was. “Comrade Heidi Baumann is daily engaged in suspicious counterrevolutionary staring contest with the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart,” it probably said.
As I grew up in the shadow of the Wall, under the flag of the hammer and compass, I continued to visit that section of the Wall every day that I could. Some of the details changed over the years. The Young Pioneer uniform I often wore during my visits to the Wall gave way to an FDJ uniform. My method of traveling there changed as well, from a child’s skip to a clunky Trabant. On the rare days that I couldn’t manage a visit to the Wall, I felt a sharp stab of guilt, as though I had abandoned someone calling for help. But what sense did that make? I wasn’t making a difference just by standing there.
            So it went until the twenty-eighth year of my life. Following reforms in the Soviet Union, Poland, and Hungary, our own hardline government finally began to bend to the people’s will. Erich Honecker, our intransigent fossil of a leader, was ousted. And then, on the evening of November 9, 1989, Günter Schabowski announced on television that the border with the West was now open. After all this time, could it really be true?
            I went to see if it was. It wasn’t exactly an original thought. Huge crowds were gathering at the checkpoints in the Wall to see if the border was really opening. The border guards seemed to know nothing about any change in policy, but they eventually gave in and let the people pass through. They were greeted warmly by the people on the other side, the people whom our government would have us believe were “fascists.” Soon, people were climbing over the Wall, but no one was shooting at them. The Wall had become harmless.
            I ran to the section of the Wall to which I had always been drawn. A hand reached down to help me up and I took it. As I came up onto the Wall, I gazed into the face of a twenty-eight-year-old woman. She was… me. A different me. A Western me, with a mass of curly hair atop her head and a most peculiar outfit composed of bright, neon colors. We embraced as we came together on top of the Wall.
As I would soon learn, she was Marlene Baumann, the identical twin sister I had never known. She had been with relatives in the West on that day in 1961 when the Wall was built. No doubt hoping to spare us the pain of separation, our respective guardians had both chosen to never tell us about the other.
And yet, we had somehow been able to sense the other. For as long as we could remember, we had felt the same pull. On every day that we could, we had stood directly across from each other, as close as we could be with the Wall in the way.