The Comet

Kippy loved looking out the living room window of the apartment, and seeing, across the dark rope of utility wires and the spindly branches of the elm tree, the gleam of Comet Hale-Bopp, over the apartment building across the street.

Kippy and her mom lived in what the sign on the brick outer wall said was “Coventry Gardens,” but there was no garden.

The only garden, as far as Kippy could see, was in the sky.

“Well, you’ve got a good sky, anyway,” Grampie had said, when Kippy and her mom were getting ready to move there.

Kippy didn’t know what that meant; the sky was everywhere at night, interrupted now and then by the bump of a house or some other building.

Kippy and her mom were moving from a place Dad had once lived, but that was long ago, and Kippy wasn’t sure where he went, but maybe it had to do with the sky. She only knew him by name. He did not figure in her memories as a whole, real person.

Only her cat, Jarvis, did that. She was almost positive Jarvis was at least part person, and was in the sky. Maybe that’s why the sky was good.

What was for 100 percent certain was that the comet had come to the sky. It was a chilly March, but Kippy would stand at the window, propped open, through the screen, so the window’s reflection didn’t get in the way.

“Kippy, stop warming up the outside. That tree is dying,” her mother would say.

It was true. The elm tree’s roots grew all tangled up in the sidewalk. The tree was sparse and bare, and someone said it wouldn’t grow leaves even when it got warm.

“The comet is going to be there a long time,” her mother said. “You can keep the window open when summer comes.”

Kippy didn’t know how her mother came across such information. What Kippy knew, she heard in her third-grade science class. The classroom had one computer, a bulky, whiny sort of thing, and everyone would gather around it while her teacher pecked at the keyboard to call up some grainy images of the comet.

It looked so much prettier in real life.

***

Kippy knew two kids in school, her friend Rajesh, and a sort-of mean girl named Mackie, who had computers in their home. The kind that could connect to the Web, which her teacher said could connect to the world.

Her grandparents had regarded this revelation with skepticism and nervousness. Her mom said to her, vaguely, “Well maybe you’ll be able to do that someday.”

Their apartment was small, and the walls were sort of yellow, and the carpet was gray, but Kippy noticed that her mom seemed happy. Even though she was working two jobs now, one at a nursing home and one at night at the Mill Valley Convenience Store, just down the street.

She was able to be home when Kippy got home from school, most days. And the days she had to work late, she could go to Rajesh’s house, because his parents had their office in their house. This seemed strange to Kippy, but Kelly’s mom had an office at home, too.

They both had the kind of computers that were tied to the web.

“Watch,” Rajesh had said. He made some passes at some buttons and keys on the keyboard; that odd, whiny sound, almost like some weird insect buzzing past your ear, was the sound that meant you were being connected to the Web.

The only thing was, you couldn’t use the phone at the same time. If someone picked up the phone in the kitchen, Rajesh or his mom or dad would yell.

The someone was usually Rajesh’s older sister, who would make a face and stalk upstairs to her room.

But as long as nothing like that happened, you could get on the Web, and call up all kinds of things. Strange things. Recipes for cake. Cleaning your dance costumes. Martial arts.

Some strange pages where she didn’t understand all the words, but she could make out that the people writing them thought there weren’t enough white people.

“What difference does that make?” She asked out loud. She thought of herself as gray.

Rajesh shrugged, but she thought she saw something almost like a tear. She didn’t say anything. She thought it might make him mad, and he was a good friend, maybe her best friend in the whole class.

“Look,” he said. “Here it is. Hale-Bopp.”

They both drew closer to the screen. A sort of grainy image showed the comet, streaking across the sky, sparkling, and beautiful, and perfect.

“I bet it’s great there,” Kippy said wistfully, pulling a bit closer to the screen.

“Great?” Rajesh cried. “It’s just a ball of fire and ash and dust.”

Kippy looked at him, frowned, and didn’t say anything.

Then, Rajesh said, “Don’t you know what happened? A bunch of people decided there was a spaceship hiding in the comet, and they killed themselves so they could get on board.”

“That’s dumb,” Kippy said, but in reality, she felt almost as far away as the comet. The idea that you could get up and fly millions of miles away to a comet by killing yourself was just dumb. It couldn’t be that simple.

***

Not long after that, Kippy’s mom bought herself a pair of pink shoes at the St. Vincent de Paul store. “Don’t you love them?” she exclaimed to Kippy, and puttered about the kitchen, her toes close together, almost like a windup doll.

“They’re beautiful, Mom,” Kippy said. They were. But it felt strange to see her mom wearing something like what a doll would wear. Tiny, pink pointed shoes.

It wasn’t a Mom thing, or at least, not her mom.

Then Kippy remembered it would be dark soon, and the comet would appear over the roof of the building across the way, and things would be OK again.

Even if the comet is fire and dust and ash, so what, she thought. Far away, it was pretty. Up close, it would be prettier and prettier.

Up close, maybe Jarvis lived there. Maybe her dad. Or maybe he was just dust and flames and ash.

Each night, Kippy tried hard to keep the rule about not opening the window, but it was so much easier to see the comet that way. When her mom was working at night, Kippy knew there were rules. Like, don’t touch the stove. Don’t open the fridge. Why, she didn’t know. Nothing in the fridge could catch fire, like the stove could. Anyhow, it was a rule.

The other rule: do your homework, and don’t spill grape juice on the rug. The grape juice would be in a pitcher, on the kitchen table, semi-cool, and it was good, but not spilling it took practice. And practice didn’t always work.

Most nights, Kippy felt fine alone. She knew she could call her grandparents, and even though they lived in the next town, in a house with trees all around, they could get there quickly if something happened. She also knew to dial 911, and not let anyone in if they knocked.

The landlords, as her mom called them, lived across the street. They didn’t speak English well. Kippy wasn’t sure what language they spoke, but their phone number was written on a paper, too, stuck to the fridge.

Kippy wished she could speak more than one language. Maybe I can make one up , she thought. A comet language.

She stared at the numbers on the paper on the fridge. She looked back at the grape juice, and her math book, crinkled and frayed in the corners, and a paper and pencil which she was supposed to use to write answers to the math problems in the book.

She wondered if she could carry them all, math book, paper, pencil and grape juice, into the living room and look at the comet, and finish the math and the grape juice before her mom came home.

Breathing deeply, and standing up straight, she grabbed them all from the table. She felt the urge to tiptoe, as if walking tiptoe would enable her to do this act more secretly.

She was sitting on the rug, cross-legged, at the “coffee table” where no one drank coffee, the math book opened and the pages fluttering slightly, the grape juice nearly gone, when the kitchen door swung open with a distressed whine. The door knob hit the wall.

Kippy scrambled to swallow the grape juice, even though she knew she’d be caught. Her tongue was all purple, and two dark drops had fallen onto her tights, around the knee.

She heard a sound, like crying, and then realized it was crying. It was her mom.

In that instant, Kippy forgot about the grape juice or her mom getting mad. She struggled to stand up, using the table to steady herself; her left foot, tucked under her, was slightly numb and tingly, and she stumbled and almost fell.

Righting herself, she ran out to the kitchen. “Mommy!” she wailed.

The pink pointy shoes were tossed across the floor, near the cabinet under the sink. Her mother was now sitting at the kitchen table, her hands tucked into fists against either side of her head, her knuckles glaring white, the rest of her hands gray, like her face.

Her eyes were squinting hard, and big tears were falling onto the table. Kippy was frightened. She’d seen her mom cry a few times, but nothing like this.

“Mommy!” Kippy said again, and pulled herself onto a chair. She began stroking her mom’s forearm, but her mom kept crying, and crying, and now the tears were running down her arms, her chin, everywhere.

For a panicky moment, Kippy thought her mom had disappeared inside, to some world Kippy couldn’t see, and that her mom couldn’t hear her.

Kippy pulled her hand away from her mother’s arm. Now her hand was wet, too.

After a few minutes, or what seemed like a few minutes, her mother leaned back, looked up at the ceiling, and Kippy looked up, too, and noticed a stray moth fluttering inside the ceiling light.

Without saying anything, her mom stood up, pushing the chair back, not even caring that the legs scraped the floor, the way she was always telling Kippy not to do.

She went quietly down the short hall, to where her bedroom was, and shut the door.

Kippy stared at the moth. It kept jumping and flitting around. The moth was in its own world. Her mother was in her own world.

Kippy knew that whatever made her mom so sad and upset, had nothing to do with the grape juice or even Kippy doing her homework on the coffee table, which she also wasn’t supposed to do.

She walked slowly, her feet flat now, back to the living room. She contemplated returning to her homework, and instead, went to the window. It was still open, letting in chilly air, and she realized she wasn’t going to get in trouble for that, either. All these wrong things, but no trouble.

Kippy latched onto the window sill, feeling a need to grip something, as if to make the world steadier. She looked up at the comet, dancing through the barest, thinnest, smallest branches of the almost-dead tree, and now she was crying, too.

***

The walls were kind of thin. Kippys’ mom was on the phone. With some reluctance, Kippy turned away from the window, and sank to the floor near the television. This was the best spot for hearing in her mom’s room, which is where her mom had all the phone calls she didn’t want Kippy to hear.

Kippy wasn’t always interested, but with her mom’s voice, high and loud, she knew it had to do with why she came home crying, and maybe why she tossed those pink shoes across the floor.

“I did tell him, Doris,” her mother snapped. Her voice still sounded blurry and teary. There was a muffled sound; Doris was someone she once heard her mother call a “fake friend,” which Kippy thought was weird, and also, even though Doris was fake, her mother sometimes called her anyway when she was upset about something. “What should I do, Doris? Give him a big karate chop? Shoot him?”

A flash of fright burned Kippy’s chest. If her mom shot someone, she’d surely go to prison, and Kippy would be alone in the apartment. Or have to move somewhere, with someone, and maybe have no view of the comet at all.

“You know Doris, you’re really not empowering. All you do is criticize! I just lost my job because of this jerk, so I’m not feeling very strong at the broken places right now!”

There was a slam. Kippy fumbled to stand up. She did not want her mom to know she’d been listening.

The bedroom door opened, and her mom appeared at the living room doorway. Kippy felt a nameless panic, like maybe now she’d get in trouble for the grape juice and coffee table and open window, and all the other bad things she’d just done.

Her mother stood, her feet in panty hose with the toes pointing inward, looking all pinched like she was still wearing the shoes. Her face was grim and red, and still damp.

“Kippy, I want you to get ready for bed now. Close the window.” Her mother’s calm made everything seem weirder and scarier than if she’d gotten mad.

Kippy wordlessly went and closed the window, and then gathered up her cup and math homework from the coffee table. She looked up at her mom, and it seemed like neither of them knew what to say to each other. Finally, Kippy managed: “Good night, Mom. I hope you feel better.”

Her mom managed a thin smile. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

Kippy felt a lightness of relief.

***

The next day, after school, Kippy saw her mom’s old car parked outside, and the scary feeling returned. The car should not be there, because her mom should be at work.

Kippy fought an urge to run away. She suddenly wanted to run to Rajesh’s house, tell him all the strange things that had happened the night before.

Instead, she went inside. Her mom was sitting at the table, and the pink shoes were still in their careless place, near the cabinet under the sink.

“Um, Hi, Mom,” Kippy said, fighting back the fear in her voice.

“Kippy, sit down.” Here it comes. I’m in trouble because of all the stuff I did. But she climbed into a chair, trying to sit up as straight as she could, her hands folded on the table. Grownups loved that. She’d seen kids do it at school.

“Kippy,” her mom began, “We’re going to have to move. Mommy lost her job. Jobs.”

“Oh,” Kippy said. They looked at each other again, silent like last night, only for a longer time this time. “Oh,” Kippy said again. Then, her mother said, “We will have to move back with grandma and grandpa.”

“Oh,” Kippy repeated.

After a moment of silence that felt almost crushing, Kippy said. “OK, Mom. Um, I’m going to do my homework.”

Her mother nodded, but it was a nod like she was listening to a conversation on the phone with someone far, far away.

It wasn’t going to be dark for a few hours. Kippy took her books into her room, small and spare, opened up her literature book, and began tracing invisible comets with her finger.

When it got dark, she went to the living room window and propped it open. Her mother was sitting on the couch, quietly, watching a television program, and didn’t say anything about the open window or the chill.

***

The next day, after school, she went to Rajesh’s house, and Rajesh asked why she’d been crying all day in school.

“I wasn’t,” she said defensively.

“But you were!” he insisted. “I mean, not like loud or wailing, just –” he looked down for a moment, and then said, “Just, I don’t know, in your eyes. You kept looking away.”

She looked down at her hands, cupped in front of her, as if holding something rare. “We’re moving,” she said finally.

“What? Where?”

“To my grandparents’ house.”

“For real?” She hadn’t expected him to react so strongly. “But that means you’ll have to change schools!”

“No. Yes, I guess. My grandpa said he’d drive me. I mean, I don’t know.”

She wanted to cry now, but somehow, she couldn’t. “Everything will be different. I can’t come here unless someone drives me. And no comet.”

“The comet will be right where it is. You can see it from there. From anywhere. Besides,” he reminded her. “It’s fire and ash and some dirt.” She smiled, in spite of her great pain.

***

The move back to her grandparents took place in a blur; items hastily packed, in boxes not always properly taped down, or with the lids still up, as if forming a poorly-built roof.

Kippy did her part by wrapping her dolls and other toys in lumpy rolls of newspaper. But she felt far away, like she was watching herself through a telescope, like the kind Rajesh had.

And everything began to look like rain falling so hard the windshield wipers couldn’t keep the view clear. It took Kippy a few minutes to realize that it was because she was crying. This time, she couldn’t stop.

***

A different school, where some girls invited her to their lunch table, but then talked to each other and not to her, with some glancing nervously at her from time to time with a smile. She would smile back, and then they’d go on talking about names she never heard of, and places she never heard of. Like, Biltmore. She had know idea if that was a person, or a city, or a pet. She smiled and looked at her lunch.

This went on each day.

She would come home to her grandparents, which was a nice house, a “ranch” house with no animals. There were some trees around it, not dead or dying, and when warm weather came, they’d fill up with leaves.

But even now, no matter where she went in the house, she couldn’t see the comet.

Some other houses, not far away and much taller, were blocking it.

The trees outside were blocking it.

***

At night, when everyone was in bed, she heard mother, in the next room, making a muffled sound, and Kippy couldn’t tell if it was laughing, crying, or talking.

The room had a smell like dried fruit. It made her sneeze.

In her mind, she could see the window back in their apartment, and looking at Hale-Bopp, moving very fast, but seeming still at the same time. Gleaming and beautiful and whole.

She thought about what Rajesh said, how comets were just dust and dirt, and ashes and fire.

Once Comet Hale-Bopp was gone, she would never see it again, because it wouldn’t be back for 2,000 years, and maybe the whole planet would be blown up by then. For sure, they’d be dead.

Kippy sat up, her dolls and plush animals that she had snugged around her pillow tumbling about. She gazed at them in the darkness, and tugging off a pillowcase, stuffed them into it.

She had a twinge of anguish. It had only occurred to her that she was going to have to make choices: what to bring with her, and what to stay.

She had a favorite pair of shoes, worn out, and one of the few things she and her mom ever argued about. She struggled to put them on, and struggled to do it quietly.

In the end, her heels were peaking out, and this was uncomfortable, but she grabbed the pillowcase of plushies and dolls, and left the room as quietly as she could, trying not to make “tap tap” noises across the hardwood floor.

A muffled voice called from her grandparents’ room: “Kippy, is that you?”

For a moment, she froze, but then cleared her throat, and said, “Yes. I’m getting a drink of water.”

The muffled voice: “OK. Be careful.”

Grownups always said be careful, even about getting a glass of water, though they were always saying you need to drink more water.

In the kitchen, Kippy turned on the cold faucet, which answered with a rusty groan, and filled a cup that was sitting in the sink. She felt proud that she thought to go through the motions, in case someone was listening for the sound of getting a drink of water.

She turned to the stove. Dullish blue light from distant lights was slipping through the kitchen window, and glinting a little on the stove’s surface.

Clenching the pillowcase in one fist, she turned one of the front burners, hoping it would not make that “click-click” sound it sometimes did. It made a slight squeak, but the bluish flames bloomed, and jumped a little.

There was no sound in the house except a creak from somewhere deep inside. The house would creak a lot.

Kippy grabbed a match from the box her grandparents kept on the counter, in case the burner didn’t come on. Kippy thought it would be fun to toast marshmallows that way, but her grandparents and her mother had both said “no.”

She dragged one of the matches through the flame, delighted when the spark erupted on the match head. She’d sometimes been afraid of the matches, but tonight, she felt good, hopeful and nervous all at once.

There were some papers on the table, some bills, including some addressed to her mom (she could read her mom’s name) and some with nasty-looking red words like “last notice.”

It made her angry to think about it, and about her mom crying when they came. She touched the match to the envelopes, and soon the words “last notice” were curling back, dissolving into black, with a slight smell from the ink.

“Good,” she said out loud, and then rushed her hand to her mouth, even though the word was already out.

For the first time, she was trembling. She didn’t know why. But she knew it was time to go.

She opened the door, not really caring about any squeaking or creaking, and stepped outside, shivering. It was still a good few weeks away from really warm weather.

In a little while, the air would be full of all kinds of bad smells, she knew, because anything burning would do that. She knew because some kids in her class got in trouble for trying to burn a math book in science class. And a social studies book.

The same blurry feeling she felt when they were packing up to move came back. The blur of red fire engines, her grandparents and her mother running out with coats over their night clothes, her mother holding Kippy’s baby picture in a frame.

A police officer was asking questions, not unkindly, but in a voice too far away.

Someone was sweeping her up in their arms, and she gripped the pillowcase fiercely, although her palms were getting wet, like her face.

What she felt was rage. Comets were just dust and flame and ashes, and she’d tried to make her own comet, here on Earth. And her plan failed. The grownups around her, crying and confused and pleading with her gently, only made her angry and made her cry even harder.

She looked up at the night sky. Held up in the adult’s arms, she could see Hale-Bopp, fuzzy and muted between thin clouds.

THE END

Bio: Meg Smith is a writer, journalist, dancer and events producer living in Lowell, Mass. In addition to Aphelion, her poetry and fiction have appeared in Dark Dossier, Dark Moon Digest, The Horror Zine, The Cafe Review, Muddy River Poetry Review, and many more.
She is author of six poetry books and a short fiction collection, The Plague Confessor.
She sits on the board of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac!, which honors Lowell-born writer Jack Kerouac, and is creator and director of Poe in Lowell, which celebrates Edgar Allan Poe's three visits to Lowell...

E-mail: Meg Smith

Website: Meg Smith's Website

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