Becoming Human
Short Fiction
His world ended. Timothy Marston stared out the polished glass door of the investment bank. The bank had taken four years of his life.
No more.
He touched the cold surface, found his soon-to-be-deactivated key card, swiped, managed to inhale, stepped outside. Hands buried in his pockets, he turned to look a final time at that towering building; though it was 11 P.M., fluorescent light flooded from the square office windows stacked endlessly atop each other. The architecture was as obsessed with efficiency as its neurotic, money-driven inhabitants.
“It’s over,” he thought, “I’ve failed.” He had never failed before. Marston crumpled the termination letter, walked across Sixth Avenue, tossed it in the first trashcan he saw.
But the message remained. “We regret to inform you that we must terminate your employment at A.B. Edwards & Co. …” He felt a sting, a sting of rejection, though — of course— he knew he’d never had an actual relationship with his coworkers. The community had been much too transactional for the warmth and trust necessary for anything like friendship to emerge. It had, in short, been business — nothing more, nothing less.
He walked on, aimlessly and not caring that it was past midnight and snowing. Emotional pain has its benefits; it’s so strong that it blunts physical pain — even cold.
He thought of the last few years: What had all the manic work accomplished? Ill-health? An alcohol problem? Money he had no time to spend and no one to spend it on?
Yes, he was disoriented, not just internally but externally. Soon the Midtown high-rises melted away and only trees remained, stripped of leaves, bent by wet clumps of snow, yet sure to come back to life in a few months. Although death takes life, life also takes death.
Marston glanced up and past the tangled branches at the glistening stars. He recalled a phrase— a quote from a time when he’d actually had time to read. “Life goes on.” He remembered another author’s advice, too: “Sometimes our lives resemble a fruit tree in winter. Who would think those branches would turn green again and blossom? But we hope it. We know it.”
Yes, all death — of a career, a life, a philosophy — yields new life.
“But is there anything left to live for?” he wondered.
“You have me.”
His heart leapt.
“Me.” It was a female voice. At 1 A.M. in Central Park, and therefore probably a junkie, a bum, or a prostitute. Yet when she emerged from the darkness, when she stood before him, she seemed too delicate for any of that. She had an unconventional but beautiful look. Beautiful because it seemed to Marston that she shared a secret with him — one he was too dull to understand. “You have me,” she repeated.
Marston backed away. “What does that even mean?” he said, though he suspected he knew, though the realization straightened his posture and stilled the tears that glistened against the bright white moonlight and fell to the pale white snow.
She didn’t reply.
“Please.” His hand shot forward, seized her arm; suddenly he felt desperate. There had to be an answer. Either that, or there must be something or someone to blame. An answer more concrete than entropy. For a crazed instant he squeezed her skin until his knuckles hurt and turned white. He wanted answers. More than anything he needed them.
She stared at him. Something weighed heavily in her hazel-brown eyes — regret, disappointment. At what? That he couldn’t understand. But then she gave another clue: “My name is Human. And that’s what you have. Me. A human. You’ve been alone for so long — a psychic island, surrounded by other islands, and all of you too afraid to make a bridge — that you’ve forgotten our togetherness.” She melted into the snow-bent trees.
Human? He stood for ten or fifteen minutes, gazed blankly at his feet. What had happened seemed a dream. Was a dream? Maybe he’d gone mad. Still, the mystery furnished relief from the day’s troubles, gave his mind something else to dwell on. Was he so distraught that he was exaggerating the words of a homeless woman, treating marijuana-inspired wisdom as the real thing: Truth? Or had she said something fundamental? Something about what’s truly valuable?
Timothy stood and wiped his coat. The swirling snow seemed infinitely unlike his former office’s efficient rows of cramped cubicles . For the snow had no hierarchy — no corner offices, no window views, etc. He felt for once that he could simply … be. For so long, he’d been so used to doing that he forgot the pleasure of being. He stood like that a long time. Motionless.
When he left Central Park for his apartment he saw his doorman. “Hi,” he said, acknowledging the man for the first time … well … ever.
The worker — Walter?— perked up his head, raised his bushy grey eyebrows. His tired brown eyes twinkled. “Well, well,” he said, chewing on the words. “Hello to you too, Mr. Marston.”
“Please,” Marston said. “Just Tim.”
Marston’s heart swelled with something then. That something felt hot and alive and out of place. It rose through his belly, grasped his heart, clutched it tight as he ascended the elevator to the seventh floor. He hadn’t felt this thing for years. He shivered. Whatever the feeling’s origin, it felt invigorating. What was it? A coincidence? Or had he rediscovered his childhood self, a self where status and heuristics of prestige and wealth mattered naught, a world where everyone was human — worthy of dignity — and a world where relationships trumped everything else?
The feeling departed when he entered his studio. He collapsed on his bed and felt sleep begin to clutch him. Just before consciousness slipped, though, a hungry and desperate thought seized his mind: I must see Human again. Tomorrow.
Morning sunlight streamed into his room. He checked his watch. Eight-thirty. His heart fluttered — late! He leapt from bed, threw on his checkered tie. Then he remembered that he didn’t have work. Which meant he didn’t have to work. He was out of the job; he was unemployed. He was … free.
Timothy nodded at Walter as he left the building and walked towards Central Park. She would be there; he knew it. Out of habit he bought a coffee along the way, poured some sugar to sweeten up the bitter darkness, lifted the cup to his mouth. Before swallowing he let the coffee pool against his hoarse throat. It had been so long since he’d appreciated the simple act of drinking coffee. Why?
He sat at a bench in the park — the same exact bench — and waited for her. For Human. The wind was sharp, harsh, yet if one paid close enough attention, in a way the cold felt good. Why hadn’t he noticed this before? How everything was such a miracle, if one just allowed oneself time to take it in? Was it because he had been too busy at his investment bank? Too busy waiting for the next ping on his work phone? Too busy being shouted at by his superiors and shouting at his subordinates? Too sleep deprived? Or had his morals been corrupted to to such a degree where he had stopped appreciating the beauty in the small things — human relationships, a morning coffee, and so on.
Very suddenly, for the pure joy of it, he reached down and raked his hands through the snow. The little particles stung. No matter. It was proof he was alive; that he was human.
She tapped his shoulder. “Hi there.”
He glanced up. “Hi.” He reached for a name. Human? No. That was absurd. “May I ask your name again?”
“Human.” She smiled as if she knew something he did not. “And yours?”
“Timothy,” he said. “Timothy Marston.”
“You look like a Tim today. So I’ll call you Tim.”
“Okay.” Tim. It had a strange texture to it.
She motioned to the bench. “Can I join?”
“Okay.”
She sat abreast him, her left leg near his. She had curly brown hair, large brown eyes, broad, full lips. Outside a work environment, he hadn’t been this close to a woman in years. He could feel the warmth of her leg on his.
“You were sad yesterday,” she said. “Last night.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Why? What a question. “I got fired. It finally fell apart. I worked for so many years. I made myself sick. Not physically, no, but mentally — heck, look who I’m taking to! Do you even exist? But anyway, it was all for nothing.”
“Nothing,” she said.
He nodded.
“You worked on Wall Street.”
He nodded. “Although I had a brief stint at a big Midtown law firm.”
“So you did work for nothing.” She frowned. “Just money. And what is money?” She pressed her leg into his and smiled at the snow and the trees and the sun. “This is better.”
Better. Ahead, trees swayed — oaks and pines and all sorts of others. Squirrels scurried. Birds sang. Their songs pierced the cacophony of horns and road-rage-fueled profanity so easily that it seemed clear that they meant everything. The city’s noises? Nothing. Nothing at all.
“Maybe you’re right,” he said. “Maybe that was nothing. And maybe this is something, Human. Maybe this is something.”
She gazed at him for a long moment. “Not something,” she said. “Everything. I am Human and you are Human and that is everything.” Her twinkling eyes were wide and happy. Puffy snowflakes floated lightly down and across her hair and settled on her shoulders. She didn’t seem to care.
And so they sat, staring at nothing, being and not doing. It couldn’t have been more than five minutes. To Tim it felt like five years.
Then she rose. She turned towards him just long enough to flash a strong smile, a certain one. Their eyes met. She winked and nodded and paced away.
Tim considered whether he should go after her. He rose from the bench, nearly took a forward step— stopped. It was useless. Human had given him something, something valuable. A gift. His heart felt fuller and he felt fuller, yes, but he’d already received everything she could give. Already the moment had passed — mere minutes, but he knew it would last aeons. He sat back down and sighed. He watched as her curly hair disappeared into the park.
An idea came: that the smallest things could change everything.
“Because,” he said, “because they aren’t small at all. They’re everything. We’re everything — our relationships, our common lot on this rock in space” And that was it. Finally, he understood; finally, he could allow himself to be human again.
The energy he’d felt last night returned. As before it felt alien yet invigorating. Tim pushed himself up from the bench. He would have to find a new job of course. No, not a job — a lifestyle. For an unsure moment his lips wavered.
Then, for the first time since childhood, he smiled.
For he was not alone. He was human.
