Always/Never

Chapter 12 / Cold June War

"Toss me that," I said, holding my hand out as if Navin, on the other side of the kitchen, was about to throw me another drink.

For a moment, he seemed to consider it. He grabbed a juice box from the inner workings of the fridge, which was stacked high with fresh produce, yogurt, and a bowl covered in cling wrap that I could only assume was the last of a recipe that needed to chill for a while. He lifted it halfway, considered its weight, and gave the container a good false underhanded swing. "How many of these have you had?"

"Not nearly enough to get drunk."

"They're not... alcoholic," he said. Behind him, the stereo connected to his phone's speaker buzzed with the noise of a song I didn't recognize. Something about being in the past and experiencing anything new felt wrong. Like the universe whispering that I could only live the same life once. That any other attempt would create different experiences. "It's a juice box. The seven percent on the side is probably, like, how much of this thing is actually juice. Or, wait, maybe it's how much is actually sugar? It's one of the two."

I gave him a vacant stare. He tossed it to me, like how one tosses a frisbee. It was a miracle it didn't clock me in the face.

Tearing at the plastic to free the straw, I poked it through the tiny covering and took a long sip. "There's something in these that's addictive."

"Probably the sugar."

I nodded and retreated to Cal's room. Collapsed on the bedsheets. They were making labels for the additions to the collection, two geodes and a piece of metal that had washed up from seemingly nowhere in particular.

Crossing my legs, I leaned over to see. They pasted a slip of paper bearing a number on the backside with dotted clear glue. The ink came from a fine-tipped pen I'd seen used to trace art projects. A maroon archival database that was probably coded in HTML before the dot com bubble burst shone on their phone screen, listing the nomenclature for these so-called geospecimens.

I examined the metal. Rectangular, yet smooth, it was galvanized silver, intertwined in delicate wire. Not for the first time since seeing this collection, I wondered where the rest of it had ended up. I imagined the wire had built a cage, or maybe providing earthing. Some civil engineering project. What journey led it to the water? It had gotten lost in the waves that had sent it all the way to Dalford, where it would never find its way back. And, even if it had, the water had knotted it so that it wouldn't be of much use, anyway.

"That's the year?" I asked as Cal continued to write.

"Yeah." They nodded to their phone. "I write out the year, and the event, so everything I found today goes in the same group, and the parts, in case something breaks."

"Huh." What was of importance was the year the specimens were recovered. Almost counterintuitive, given that the rocks were far older. Maybe the discovery was the most important part. Nobody who stumbled on the labels would be under the impression that they were from this year, because it was obvious that wasn't true. A lot, incidentally, like how I was trying to reconcile being older than I actually was.

"The nomenclature's changed a couple of times through history," Cal said. "I think maybe three in total. Rocks are fun. Everything is different for them."

"Seems a bit pointless to change it, rendering your work no longer accurate."

"It's difficult to get it right on the first try." They pasted on the last label and handed the rock to me, pointing to the highest shelf. "Anyway, it gives museum workers something to do."

"Would it be better if it was right the first time?"

"Better is... I don't know. What do you mean by better?"