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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 09/09/19

AN INFORMAL STATEMENT ON THE UNTIMELY PASSING OF OUR CEO, CINDI LAPENSCHTALL

At 12:18 A.M. EST, we received unimaginable news. You have likely already heard. We will say only this: losing our beloved Cindi isn’t just difficult because she was a close friend, a wonderful teammate, or a guileless leader, but because of what she represented. Nay, what she continues to represent. For all women, for all people of color, for the entire Transgender community, she showed that there is a way to the top, and a place for you there, that there is no social limit too powerful to keep the gifted from excelling. Attitude, perseverance, cunning and wit, she continues to be a beacon of hope for all people, regardless of background, of stereotype, of stigma. Losing Cindi is like being shot. The wound will never fully heal. Always it will remain on our collective abdomen, a reminder of the incredible human we lost. Of the leader taken from us.

We will not sit here and point fingers. Suicide is a most awful sin, and there is never one party at fault. Not Cindi’s struggles with mental health, nor any individual, regardless of what any post or note proclaimed. But we will say this: vitriol and hate are strong in the world, and those who know so little do seem, more than ever, to act as if they know a lot. We condemn vitriol and hate in the strongest possible terms. Be aware of your actions, because they all have consequences. Be aware of yourself, and be aware of others. Be kind to them and be supportive of them, even if it means swallowing your own pride, even if it means silencing your own opinions for their sake. Love your fellow humans. If you cannot understand them, or if you must indeed hate, at least communicate. Open a dialogue. All of this senseless meanness, it’s too much. Let this be a lesson to all of us on how to treat our fellow human, and now, how to forgive.

If you or a loved one is struggling with suicidal thoughts or actions, even if it may not be obvious, please, please, PLEASE call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255. Seek help. You’re too important for us to lose. And nobody, no matter how strong and smiling and brave, knows the size of the hole they leave behind when they take themselves from this Earth.

God bless us all. God bless our dear Cindi. She left quite a hole. She will be missed.

###

God, it’s perfect. See what they did? They didn’t name an individual writer. They didn’t name Gwami either, but of course they didn’t need to. Cindi did. The last communication from the departed CEO, a short and obsequious post on her personal blog, admitted in relatively transparent terms that it was Gwami the Seer’s “fabulously, daftly critical expose on myself and my dear colleagues,” that confirmed many of the anxieties she had about herself, that she was empty and a fraud and that, with this truth of herself laid out before her, she couldn’t bear another day of looking in the mirror, at her own false, haunted reflection. Cindi’s post was brutal, if maybe a tad self-indulgent. But what are we to do? Critique a suicide note? Nobody’d dare.

The post was taken down but not before it was downloaded and shared some 123-million times. If you have internet access, you saw the note. That was last night; the Press Release is this morning. If the post was a sword thrust through Gwami’s skull, the Press Release is the armored body behind it, the chain mail and the shield; every-thing but the blade.

How could you hate on Big Banana now? How could you see them as anything but victims of a horrible, defiling act? Cindi’s suicide didn’t just tear the fabric of pop culture, it tore a family apart, the Big Banana family, the grieving and bereft Big Banana family. Big Banana: the world’s first celebrity corporation now become the world’s first corporate victim, worthy of all the pity and prayers you can spare. They announced a series of candlelight vigils. All the remaining 12 Board Members will attend. The vigil is being held, not around the Bash or the Statler-Abramson Building, but in a park in North Brooklyn, some three blocks from Gwami’s show. Somehow, that doesn’t feel like an accident.

She’s been reading the press release forever it seems. Her head, bruised but not bleeding, thumps metronomically in a bastard time nobody else can hear. The Twins have been crying in their room for the better part of eight hours. A part of her, a teeny part trying it’s damndest to feign gravitas, is telling her this isn’t as big a deal as it seems, that the winds of the internet may blow roughly now, but that this too shall pass, as all storms do. But this is one big storm, and it’s coming headstrong for the mainland.

For your perusal, some highlights from the internet’s newfound style of speaking to/about @GwamitheSeer:

“@GwamitheSeer should REVEAL HERSELF for all to see! This is a CRIMINAL. SHE MUST BE PROSECUTED!”

“#MurderGwami because it’s what she deserves.”

“Let’s take the evil cunt @GwamitheSeer and rip off her mask and stone her to death! No punishment too terrible for this FUCKING BITCH.”

“Let a pack of wild dogs tear the flesh from @GwamitheSeers corpse. Let her family feel the hurt that she made us feel. Trample the bitch and let the pigs and methheads fuck her corpse.” 

“#UunmaskGwami and make her pay!! #UnmaskGwami!!!”

“She deserves to have her life ruined!!!! #UnmaskGwami then burn her alive!”

#UnmaskGwami 

#UnmaskGwami 

#UnmaskGwami

Others are somehow even more graphic in their desire to see Gwami exposed, raped, ruined, destroyed, maimed, mutilated, burnt and drowned and suffocated and crushed to death by the hooves of a hundred mad horses. Some are explicit, some are purposefully provocative, some are even rather eloquent in their calls for an execution.

Nothing is scarier, however, than the hashtag sweeping the globe. #UnmaskGwami isn’t as much a wish as it is a call-to-arms. The collective voice of the internet coagulated into one violent shout, hoping to reach the ears of the dormant demons that swim in the subterranean lakes under the internet.

These are the beasts, the hackers, the Dark Web operatives, the shadow corporations, the masters of code and data analytics. They who can find and trace and connect data from disparate sources, they who effortlessly pull off impossible capers — tearing down a Fortune 500’s whole computer system, or, say, knocking out power to entire cities — can surely find and reveal the identity of some internet celebrity, do the hard work so someone with less skill and more fanaticism can take an ax or a Desert Eagle to said celebrity’s newly-known noodle.

When her phone rings mid-daydream, Miranda nearly faints from fright. She hesitates before looking over at it, peering at the horror movie screen from between two eye-covering fingers, but it’s only Lakshmi. Thank God, actually, it’s Lakshmi; if anyone knows what to do, how to proceed, what to think and how to respond, its him.

Let’s allay your suspicions up-front: yes, it’s that Lakshmi. Eric Lakshmi. Just the name can start a gaggle of preteens screaming, or streaming, lol. You might know him as @ELThunder88 (for you devotees who knew him back when he was a mere streamer, before his content-minded brain started churning out the stuff that would ignite a superstar career), @LakshmiThaTrapGod (assumedly, this is how you first were introduced to the man, with his dozens of Vines-cum-Youtube-storylines, the handle that brought you the Brutus and Champagne’s Halloween series, the Desperate Times in the Back of a U-Haul miniseries, and, most salient to our story, Eric Lakshmi In: The Lair of Gwami the Seer, a quaint little couple of low-production-value videos that were the public unveiling of then-unknown Miranda Swami’s, ahem, rather popular Gwami the Seer character) or, if you’ve spent the last five years under a rock and just emerged of late, @EricLakshmandCo (his now far-reaching content brand producing all sorts of things: music videos and mini-documentaries, celebrity interviews [like that one with Gwami from the beginning of the year] and those uber-high quality, fake movie trailers that have been making the rounds).

Eric Lakshmi, who has more credit than anyone other than Miranda for Gwami’s success, he the famous streamer who saw something in her wild online blog ramblings, who reached out to her, who nurtured the character from her inception, who put his whole brand on the line for the sake of Gwami, who has been and the best mentor — and what’s it matter that he lives three thousand miles away or that they don’t talk like they used to, and how he got weird after the whole thing a few years back, who cares about any of that? — he’ll know what to do. He’s here to save her.

“Lakshmi, Thank God, I —”

“Jesus, you’re okay. Thank God.”

“What do you mean, ‘Thank God?’”

“Well, it’s just…this has got to be really hard on you, and, I don’t know, my mind went to the worst places.”

“Look, just because —”

“I know. Please, just…I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate…but I just, well, it’s bad. It’s really bad, and I had this stupid thought that…well I just woke up and saw everything and my first thought was —”

“Yeah, I appreciate it, Lakshmi, really, but honestly, I’ve got a lot —”

“Don’t use my name again, please. And don’t use yours. Just, just let me talk, okay, we have to get right to the point because I don’t know who might be listening, so I’m just going to let you know what I think you should do, okay?”

Holy shit.

“Okay.”

“I saw as soon as I woke up. It’s the only news anywhere. It’s like 9/11 probably was. Every article that talks about Cindi talks about Gwami, and every article is talking about one of you, and, and, and, well, a ton of unauthorized pictures from the Brooklyn gallery have gone up. They’re all over. It’s all over. It’s done. For your own safety, you have to end it.”

“What do you mean —”

“You have to delete everything. Scrub yourself from everything.  Every page and every post and every blog, you have to delete it all. The only way people are going to forget about you is if they can’t see or hear you anymore. If you have any videos or posts up, someone could, I don’t know, track your IP or something and get your address and then maybe even your name, and all it takes is one stupid person with Jodie Foster’s voice in their head to do something really, really bad. I’ve been researching. This is about your safety, and honestly, it doesn’t matter how popular Gwami was —”

“Is —”

“Was! Maybe you’re not seeing what I’m seeing, but what I’m seeing is an apocalypse. There are mass mobs of people calling for your execution, and nobody is saying otherwise. Always, almost always, there are a million thinkpieces up by now, counter-arguments, you know? Every side gets a say? But there’s nothing. There’s only hate and it’s scaring me. Really scaring me. Some of these people, they’re really nasty. They’ve done nastier things for a lot less of a reason.”

“People have been trying to figure out who I am for a long time though? Why —”

“Because then it was just about curiosity. It was like an Easter egg hunt nobody really wanted to win. Now it’s a bounty hunt. You have to understand what you’re dealing with. Who you’re dealing with. These people, they want blood. Whatever hand you had in the suicide aside, the internet believes you were the primary factor. You might’ve pushed her off that building for all anybody cares. As we speak, hundreds of thousands of people are looking through everything you’ve ever posted, every single one of your interactions, to see if they can get a clue as to where you live, where you went to school, anything. Think of the publicity, the fame, the satiation from finding you, exposing you, letting not just the internet, but the world, have their way with you.

“But you can escape Gwami. You can delete her and destroy her. That’s up to you. But if it gets to you you? I don’t want you to have to destroy yourself. And it might come to that. Please, you had a good run. A great run. You were amazing. Now pivot, we’ll do something else, figure it out. You have the beauty of anonymity on your side. Whatever your hand was in this, you can get out. So, get out.”

“But I —”

“I have to go. I love you, but please, please don’t take too long. Just trust me and do as I say. I know this is painful, but you have to let go of her. You’re already gone from everything of mine. I had to, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but it’s time to let Gwami die. And soon. When it’s all done, call me back. Until then.”

And the line goes dead. Click. In vain Miranda yells, “Lakshmi! Lakshmi! Lakshmiiii!!” into the receiver, but he’s gone. He refuses to pick up any more of her calls. He leaves her on read.

She’s actually, truly alone in this.

There are bubbles in her stomach, all acid and hot hot hot. They fly up from the melting belly bile and pop against her throat, the burning burning all over her chest and shoulders until the room is like 1000 degrees and her skin is so, so itchy she wants to peel it off just to be rid of it. Red flashes, hot flashes, red and a moment of black and then the confusion in her chest has a new brother, a just born infant brother crying a piercing cry in Miranda’s ear: it’s Fear.

What is Lakshmi really asking her to do? This is more than deleting an account or two or twenty, this is about murder. It’s the post-birth abortion of a living, breathing person, a person more real to so many than even their closest friends. It’s a murder of Miranda’s entire future. This was supposed to be the time, the time when Gwami and Miranda would finally coexist in the same form, but now Gwami has to die? She has to die — Miranda essentially has to carve out a portion of her soul — or it might be the ur-Miranda, the engine, who dies in her place.

And she hasn’t even had her coffee yet. Or a cigarette. But surely, the apocalypse can wait fifteen minutes.

All in all, the doing takes longer than the contemplating. Not for any reason other than the accounts all need to be deactivated individually, and across all the disparate platforms there are something like 24. Her video archives, her posts across all platforms, her pieces, her websites, her marketplaces, all of them torched and destroyed, all the advertising contracts forfeited, the dollar flow dammed. Doesn’t matter anyways, the advertisers (the very few she allowed to sponsor her in the first place) fled in the night. By noon, there is no trace of her in any annal of the internet. Individual archives of her work compiled in private by former zealots are all that is left of Gwami the Seer. They’ll exist onward like exhibits in a museum, showcasing artifacts of a lost and misunderstood civilization.

Now she’s supposed to get ready for class.

🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌 🍌

The Modern Millennial Woman can compartmentalize much heartache, keeping her daily routine unaffected by breakups or death or suicidal thoughts, end-times prognostication or flu diagnoses. Classes may still be attended, in which hands are raised and homework assignments are submitted on time. Insomniac bags under eyes may be hidden with tasteful and expensive makeup, and looking the part is half the battle. Perhaps a close friend would notice the dandruff and the split-ends, the malaise behind the eyes, but there are no such friends to speak of. There haven’t been in years. If there were, perhaps their sweet and concerned presence might pry loose the pain from behind the Modern Millennial Woman’s, Miranda’s, strained eyelids, her cracked voice. But there are no such friends to speak of.

She doesn’t leave her room much, but who’d notice that? The Twins, her theoretical roommates, have been off on the first leg of their new Big Banana internships, invitations to which were passed around with opium-pipe-languor to most of the Graphic Design students, although there were some fascinating exceptions. They’re always getting home late from drinks with coworkers, from sponsored events at galleries and uptown bars and the homes of well-connected execs. Miranda, though semi-curious about the exact nature of their new positions, won’t bring it up, afraid that any interaction will lead to some long, painful dissection of the Cindi/Gwami debacle. Miranda is a lady with opinions after all, though it sometimes takes some finagling to get them out in the open. Not ever a fan of those gossipy, surface interactions the Twins and their ilk so love, now they may actually destroy her. Not worth finding out, if she does say so herself.

Not that she wanted one, but isn’t it strange that she never got an invitation? That a yellow, banana-scented envelope never found its way into her mailbox, onto her desk, into her portfolio? She’ll never admit it, and don’t you dare tell another soul, but she searched. She searched in the mailbox and on the desk and in the portfolio, and all around each, thinking there must have been a mistake. There had to have been a mistake, right? Not that she cared, or cares, but there must’ve been a mistake, right?

Right?

Her meager free-time is spent mostly unmotivated. It’s like she’s sitting Shiva, giving Gwami’s death the time and weight it demands, letting the universe slowly adjust her to a new reality. Only this Shiva looks to go on much longer than seven measly days. Only there’s nobody around to bring her baked goods and casseroles, to send big flower displays that’d keep her spirit up. She sits in mourning alone, depressed as can be, replaying all of her paltry mistakes in grave, hyperbolic detail. Early on, she realized it was futile looking for a single thing that she’d done wrong. The conclusion was that she’d done everything wrong, that she had taken on Goliath with a measly slingshot, missed her shot over the giant’s shoulder, and it, laughing, stomped her out. Outside of the Bible, this is how these stories go. She’s missed her chance at beatification, at myth.

Any motivated free-time she spends in the gallery. Her real gallery. The other one, the one in Brooklyn, is impossible to even query into. It would be fatal to give Mr. al-Faifel the slightest inkling of her real identity. And with the frenzied press likely swarming on his skin, he must wish so badly he could point his finger over to Miranda’s East Village apartment. “There she is! Accost her yourselves!” But alas.

The world, reacting to her sorrow, has drained itself of color. It has taken on death hues: grays and dark, ambiguous blues, blacks like voids and brown like unmentionables underneath boot-heels. A bleak, cloudy summer becomes a bleak, cloudy fall, and when the sun does deign to shine, it does so far away: across the bridge in Brooklyn, across the water on the steep slopes of the Palisades, slopes that fall suddenly, enthusiastically into the ocean, zealous watchmen on the edge of the known world.

She tries her hand at more painting, just small stuff in her room when the boredom of constant anguish becomes overpowering. Her hands create only thick, ugly brush strokes, and all her colors seem sapped of their vivacity. Decay has crept into all aspects of her life, like a reminder of how she should be feeling, of how worthless it is to pursue, to dream. Is this a punishment? Is this some divine confirmation that one body is to live one life, or else? It’s a shame, she let her selves get too mixed-in and jumbled-up to be disentangled, a sad, theoretical pair of Siamese-twins miscarried together. Even her analogies are lacking in depth.

As she thinks more about the Great Deletion, a split-second action spurred on by emotion and friendly concern, Miranda’s own life seems worthless without Gwami juxtaposed beside it. It’s too late now, of course, but if she had to do it again, she’d save Gwami’s life over her own. If it would spare her the experience of this current life, she would do it unflinchingly. Mind you, Gwami doesn’t “exist.” But Miranda’d cut off her own arm if it meant rewinding events a few weeks. Maybe a foot, too. She could survive just fine with only one ear, like that cop in Reservoir Dogs, who, despite his mutilation, went on crying and carrying on for the entirety of his short thereafter existence. But alas.

Alas there is no trace of Gwami anymore. She has been written from existence, and only the soft wind blown past the wisps of her vanished hair catalogues her once life. The wind carries only faint, barely perceptible whiffs of glamour, of clout, of cool, just enough for a melancholy nose to sniff nostalgia.

When Gwami evaporated into the stratosphere, she took all of Miranda’s concealed cool with her. Thus explains Miranda’s newly wastoid slant of the shoulders, the carelessness about hygiene, the overall spike in her avoidability index. Miranda Swami has no conscious control over these things, they simply happen. Perhaps something’s happened to her aura, or, you know, she’s just depressed.

Maybe that’s why nobody’s reached out, even less nobody than usual. Historically, professors would often email, asking the star pupil’s expansiveness to come fill up their office hours or place pieces in some small student collection. None of that. Once, Caleb might’ve tried coaxing her to one of his work parties, but they haven’t spoken in months. Mother and Father, forget it, they’re too busy, or self-important. Lakshmi, well Lakshmi was good at first, checking in constantly. Semi-constantly. A few times. But, anyways, once he settled and saw that Miranda wasn’t lurching towards lethality, he receded back into his own nervously selfish life. Don’t be too harsh on him, though, he’s got one of those easy minds that only recognize extremes. You’re either depressed to the point of suicide, or probably fine. This is the characteristic attitude for men of a certain age.

But even the Modern Millennial Woman can only take so much solitude, and since her last remaining companions — the sixteen pieces hanging in the Eldred L. Apple Exhibition Center — aren’t speaking to her anymore, that means nobody is. Solitude doesn’t have to be a physical sensation, you know; this isn’t jail. Ask any suicidal and they’ll tell you: company can be right beside you and yet nowhere at all.

The solitude creeps into Miranda’s bones, into her bloodstream. Always kind of a solitary cat, she nevertheless had this best friend hitching a ride within her for the brunt of her adult life, a companion with the kind of smarts and toughness and can-do, boot-strapping attitude that made iconoclasty possible. It was like she was in a secret club, just her and this cool, popular person. Together, they saw the rest of the world as trash. They themselves were singularly clean atop the rabble.

Gwami was something she could hold high and lord over the rest of the world. When they saw the empty seat beside her but chose one elsewhere, when they forgot her birthday again, when they had gatherings in her apartment but neglected to send an invite her way, it was okay, because she had Gwami. Because, though they didn’t know it, they wanted her, craved her attention and affection and guidance. They lusted for her back, but could not recognize her face. And there’s a kind of power in that.

But Gwami is gone, and Miranda isn’t so strong with her power fractured. 

Don’t believe that? Look who she’s dialing up.

“Thank you for calling The Trier Group, this is Alex Pepperidge’s office, Diana speaking, how can I help you?”

“Diana?”

“Uhm, yes, who’s calling?”

“This is Miranda. Swami? Calling for Caleb?”

“Oh, wow, Miranda, hi! Do you not, well, if you’re calling, I suppose you must not, so yes, I guess I will be the first to tell you. Your brother hasn’t worked here in months. Months.”

“What? Really?”

“Oh, yes, it was all quite sudden. Mr. Pepperidge is Junior Vice President now.” 

“And bully for him. So, uh, do you know where my brother is?”

Diana makes a clicking noise with her tongue before saying, “Unfortunately not. The grapevine is unusually silent.”

“Grapevines, yeah.”

“Did you try his personal — ”

“Yeah, I will, thanks,” Miranda says, hanging up. Caleb not working for Trier? He had his head in that dickshit’s lap for the better part of a decade, and now he’s “moved on?” Weird. But also, who gives a shit? Caleb can do what he wants, and honestly, she’s happy he’s out of there. Maybe he’s stopped being such a piece of shit without Trier’s lead to follow. Who is she kidding? Of course, he’s still a piece of shit. At his core, Caleb Swami is an asshole. Even if nobody around him has ever wanted to admit it, he’s an asshole. She could write her Senior Thesis about it. There wouldn’t be much in the way of substance, though she might get points for passion. Only...she has nobody else to call.

She has his personal number, but of course he prefers that line left clear. It’s not really a personal number as much as it is a direct channel for important clients. Was a direct channel. Who knows what kinds of clients he’s servicing now, or what kind of servicing he’s doing for them. She dials anyways, bracing herself for the inevitable, ‘Miranda, what the fuck? You don’t call my personal number except in an emergency. Are you in an emergency, or are you just bored? Really, I’m busy. Can’t you schedule something with Diana/Lizzy/Tawny/Bobbi’ or any of the rotating secretaries he’s kept out front?

The last thing she expects is for the line to be picked up after one ring, for Caleb’s reservedly flamboyant voice to say, “Oh, Miri, hey.

Nobody calls her Miri anymore. Miri died long long long before Gwami was ever a twinkle in the proverbial eye.

“Caleb.”

“How are you? How are you holding up? Are you okay?”

(Sometimes she forgets that he knows. That her grand secret, perhaps the biggest secret in the world right now, can be readily exposed by this man: a former low-level executive at a restaurant group and notoriously coke-addled bathhouse frequenter. This man, who also happens to be her only sibling.

It doesn’t really even make sense that he knows. She never had a good reason for telling him, it was more just to have told someone at all. It never exactly excited him, probably made him jealous, and was responsible in large part for their most recent and most intense falling out.

That was this past January, when Caleb was opening a new place in SoHo. It was a grimy little Korean taco joint meant to invoke some dark alley in Seoul where the knowledgeable traveler could find delicious, hidden eats ala Bourdain. All exposed brick, those amber Edison lights, the black countertops.

“It’s so obvious, Caleb. You’re better than this.”

“It’s not obvious, it’s dated.” 

“It’s kitschy.”

“Kitsch is cool.”

“Kitsch is kitsch. It’s only cool if it’s accidental.”

“It’s a pop-up, Miranda, the point is that it’s on purpose. Take a single marketing class —” 

“What do you want me to say? Do you want me to jerk you off, or do you want the truth?”

They shouted at each other from opposite sides of the space, Miranda facing the wall, disastrously glossy black brick. She was right, too. The hardwood floor was over-lacquered. The tables were going to be tragically close. The kitchen, open for all to peer into, was far too small to accommodate the shifting, meandering orders of 120 taco-happy, probably stoned, guests. And worst of all, people were going to come in fucking droves.

“This isn’t the truth though, Miranda, this is you being difficult.”

“I wouldn’t come here.”

“Of course, you wouldn’t! You only go to cat cafes and cheap Vietnamese places. This isn’t for you.” 

“Then why ask for my opinion? I was never going to be of any help to you.”

“Miranda,” he says slowly with his hands. “Let’s not pretend that you thought I wanted you here to give your opinion on the — fuckin’ — wainscoting. You’re smarter than that.”

“I’m leaving.”

“Hey, come on!” 

“Get off me.” 

“Miranda!”

“Get out of my way.”

“It’ll be a favor. Just do something in the corner for me. Something small. You don’t even have to sign it. It just needs to look like Gwami. We’ll say it was here when we opened the space.” 

“I’m not a fucking meal ticket for you, ass-hole.”

“You can eat here for free whenever. Take whatever you want. Take lit-er-a-lee anything.” He went so far as to drop to his knees, hands clasped before him in reverence…“Miranda, I really need this win. Badly. Really badly. Please. Please. Just put aside your pride and help me out, once.”

He didn’t ask for her opinion again. Didn’t ask for her to scribble something on a wall again either. Conversation cooled completely. Not that they talked much before then, but, you know, they chatted occasionally. He invited her to stuff sometimes. Could he reasonably believe his restaurant’s failure was her fault? Could that failure have been why Caleb left Trier? Her unwillingness to even slightly hemorrhage a fantasy character for the real-life success of her real-life brother, is that what she envisioned when she thought of Gwami affecting the world?

She remembers this all at once — it smacks her in the face, teleports her away, and brings her back panting — all before she can come up with a bullshit answer to his question.

Are you okay? If this were a phone call with any other person, the answer would be clear. “Yeah, fine, all good,” she might say, or riff onto one of the million variations of the phrase, each one meaning, in essence, don’t worry about me, I am well-equipped to handle this life and all of its myriad challenges. But this is Caleb, who knows firsthand that Miranda is, ahem, not exactly well-equipped to handle this life or its myriad challenges. A million ways to answer him, a million ways to lead Caleb towards the response she wants.

But what does she want?)

“Not really.”

(Apparently, she just wants a friend.)

“Okay. Uhm, are you safe? Are you feeling, you know, okay?” Him, too, just like Lakshmi. Maybe that’s just men, lacking the same nuance of thought and emotion that they do in action. And watch him fumble around with responses he is unequipped to wield.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m physically okay. I just…I could just use a friendly face right now.” 

“Then I hope mine will suffice.”

“Clever. That’s good. Keep that up, I want more of that out of you.” 

He promises she’ll get more when they meet on Thursday.

“One of your places? Ahem, Trier’s places? You’ll have to tell me what happened.” 

“Yeah, uhm, my schedule is actually pretty tight, you can do dinner, I imagine?”

“I actually have to be at the gallery that night. Important critic coming at 7:30, big deal and all that jazz. Earlier, maybe? Please.”

“Hmmm, I suppose I can swing something. Ah! But, well, are you okay with somewhere a bit less traditional?”

“I like it already.”

So, they plan to meet. That’s a big step forward. Despite herself, she’s excited, genuinely excited to see her brother. She straightens her hair; she applies blush. She remembers to clean behind her ears. She wants good things reported back to Mother.

But Miranda’s enthusiasm doesn’t last long.

A youngish man with no hair holds out two robed arms to a crowd far too large for any Thursday afternoon.

“Look out and wonder, ye flock, on the state of your souls,” he shouts. Someone cries “MMMMMMMM,” and there are scattered sobs.

“Caleb, this is ridiculous.” 

“Miranda, shut up.”

“He called us ‘ye flock,’ like this is the Old fucking Testament or something.” 

“Miranda, please.”

“But, like, how pretentious do you have to be to use ‘ye’ or ‘thine’ or ‘thou’ in the 21st century?” 

“If you’re going to act like this just, please, wait for me outside.”

“Whatever you say.” How quickly their turgid peace is forgotten. The introductory wailing of the organ, one of those 270-pipe skeletal systems sometimes found in the more baroque New York City churches, saves her from more self-indulgent secularism. Life is too short and time too precious to waste any of it in a world of someone else’s devising, and this is certainly not her world. When did it become her brother’s? Miranda is all too eager to escape the cramped quarters, drawing the lolling perfunctory stares of adroit psalm-sayers.

When she gets outside the Church, she sits on the steps and runs a finger over her phone’s glossy, black screen. How long does service last? Are you allowed to smoke within 50 feet of God’s house? She feels bad leaving Caleb, for even if she can’t understand his presence here, it’s clearly important to him. Important enough to make him act so completely out of character.

He moved his mouth to the hymns, sure, knelt when he was asked to, stood when commanded, but why? Caleb has always detested this kind of thing. What could have possibly sparked such a change?

15 minutes later or so, Caleb emerges from the stone double-doors in a huff, his jacket half-on. A crowd of relieved post-churchgoers does not follow behind.

“Come on, let’s go get a bite,” he says smiling at her. 

“It’s over already?”

“Not exactly. But I’m sure God will understand.” 

“You could’ve stayed.”

“Unnecessary, I saw what I needed to see.” 

“And what was that, exactly?”

“Just a few favorite hymns of mine.”

“Caleb Swami, age 34, reformed, complete with a collection of favorite hymns.” 

“A lot can change in a year.”

“More than I ever thought possible.”

They hurry down the sidewalk, a sidewalk strangely bare for such a temperate day. Caleb sweats no matter the temperature, but something is clearly going on here; even his neck is damp. Perhaps he’s anticipating the coming questions.

“Sooooo, what happened with Trier?” Miranda asks, some few steps behind Caleb, who’s almost jogging.

“Why don’t we talk when we get there?” Caleb suggests. “There” turns out to be a bifurcated French bistro-type-deal with a more casual café separated from a white tablecloth dining room by a row of potted, people-height ficuses.

“What do you think?” Caleb asks his sister as they sit. 

“We just sat down. Haven’t even looked at the menu yet.”

“Yeah, but first impressions, of the space, of the vibe.”

“Uhm, I don’t know. It doesn’t seem extraordinary. I feel like I’ve seen this exact place a dozen other times. Look at the tile,” she says, eyeing down the alternating hexagonal pattern, black and white mosaic.

“It’s supposed to be like a classic, French bistro.” 

“Clearly.”

A silence. Eyes graze menus. Servers offer bread, they offer water, they offer suggestions. Caleb orders a salad, dressing on the side, and Miranda orders citron-marinated olives. She’s not very hungry. On second thought, Caleb orders two Amaros. The server asks Miranda for her ID, and Miranda, without looking in her wallet says she, “Forgot it at home.”

So, one Amaro. “Do you really not have your ID?” Caleb asks. 

“Just didn’t want a drink.”

“Could’ve said so.”

“I didn’t say anything about a drink. That’s the point. I can order for myself.” 

“Jesus, is this how it’s going to be?”

“I don’t know, Caleb, is it?”

“Fine, fine, I’m sorry. I’m a little on edge. Forgive me. I’m here for you. That’s why we’re here. For you. I just want to buy you things. You don’t seem like you’ve been smiling much lately.”

Miranda tucks her chin into her sweatshirt, biting the upturned hood. Her maw half-full of muffling cloth mumbles, “Not much to smile about.”

“Yeah, tough times. How you holding up?” 

“Poorly, Caleb, very, very poorly.”

“To be expected. Thank you,” Caleb says as the waitress returns with two Amaros, setting one down in front of each of her guests. She looks at Miranda and puts her index finger to her lips, quietly pirouetting away.

“Well she is delightful,” Caleb exclaims. “And your type, maybe?”

“I’m practicing celibacy right now.”

“Haven’t you always?” 

“Go to Hell.”

“I’m sorry. I am. Couldn’t resist. Cheers.” 

“To what?”

“New beginnings.”

“Cliché. How about…to a couple of queers speaking French.”

“Ça aussi.” Clink.

“You know it isn’t over, right?” he continues.

“What?”

“Gwami. It’ll just take time, everyone forgets everything eventually. Even Mel Gibson is making movies again, and —”

“Nah, I think it’s done. I’m not going to be one of those people reviving all their past lives forever. It’s over; it was great, now it’s over, and I’ve got to move on. I think I want the stability of something more serious. I mean, I’m like five credits away from finishing my major, and Graphic Designers of my caliber have a really good starting salary. It’s just, like, do I really want to keep fighting for the rest of my life? Would that make me happy? I don’t think so.”

“Wow, Miranda, I’m a little shocked. That’s, uhm, very mature of you.” 

“I’m very mature for my age.”

“Always have been.”

“What happened with Trier?”

Caleb turns red. The salad comes. And the olives.

“Bon Appetit.” 

“Merci.”

“So?”

“Creative differences. I saw myself as much more valuable to the company than he did.”

“Pepperidge has your office now.” 

“So, you understand, then.” 

“What’s the new gig?”

“Uhm, a food thing. A startup. Just working my way up, you know. Thought some more ladder-climbing would be good for me.” 

“Has it been?”

“Same as ever.” 

“Shocking.”

Silence while the two eat. Miranda shuffles her feet.

“I really am sorry what happened,” Caleb says between bites. 

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”

“Have you talked about it at all?” 

“That’s the point.”

“Maybe it would do you well to talk to, you know, someone.”

“I’m not fucking suicidal, okay? Why does everyone think I’m just going to fucking kill myself whenever anything bad happens.”

“Hey, hey. Hey. Nobody’s saying that. It’s just, well, you know how you can get.”

Oh no.

In another universe, perhaps Caleb took another moment to consider what exactly he was saying, to reevaluate his verbiage, to lighten his tone. But in this universe, he doesn’t even lock eyes with her, nothing to communicate Oh boy, that is SO not what I meant. He says it, stuffs salad in his face, and seems utterly unprepared for Miranda to shoot back with:

“No, Caleb. Actually, I do not know how I ‘get.’ Care to enlighten me?”

“Don’t do this, Miranda” he says, defensively. Too defensively. He’s blowing it. “I was just saying —” 

“I know what you were saying. You were saying that I can’t handle any personal tragedy without completely flying off the rails. I know exactly what you were saying. God, why can’t I just have a fucking conversation with anyone about something other than my fucking emotions? I know what happened before. I am well fucking aware, but this is not —”

“Miranda, I’m not —”

And, in truth, he might not be. But it doesn’t matter. Sometimes, when too much pressure accumulates in a superheated vessel, the slightest structural deficiency can lead to an outsized explosion. And Miranda’s “vessel” was never very strong in the first place. It’s also never been so pressurized.

Crack, snap, kaboom!

“Caleb, if you brought me here so you can convince yourself that you’re a really great fucking person, so concerned for your poor baby sister, then you shouldn’t have fucking brought me here. There’s not an altruistic bone in your body, we both know that. This was a mistake. A big mistake. You were always just going to posture and prance around and pretend you give a shit when you clearly don’t. Fuck it, I’m going.” Miranda tosses her napkin onto the table and jerks upright. Caleb grabs the armless sleeve of her sweatshirt.

“Sit down, Miranda. Jesus Christ, when did you get so sensitive?”

“Caleb! Fucking listen to yourself! You sound like a prick!” She’s really yelling now, can’t stop herself, can’t control her pitch, and it’s starting to attract the attention of the other diners. Their server takes a step towards the table but stops…not her problem. “You want to bring me here to make me feel, what? Like it’s not the biggest fucking personal tragedy of either of our lives that I lost this thing? This was ev-er-ree-thing to me. You KNOW that. Don’t sit here and feign sympathy when you and I both know you’re only doing this because you still want to make a buck off whatever’s left of her. She’s gone. You’ve got to realize that the way I do.”

“You called me!”

“Because I had nobody else to call! God, I’m so stupid,” she says, muttering to herself as she walks.

“I’ll Venmo you,” Caleb says over his shoulder.

“PRICK,” Miranda screeches, already halfway out the door.

Inside the restaurant, Caleb calmly motions to the waitress. “Check,” he mouths, scribbling on his hand with a pantomimed pen.

Outside the restaurant, Miranda begins to break down. Or rather, things break down around her. She calls herself stupid, calls herself destructive, calls herself a monster. She thinks he didn’t deserve that, then thinks yes, he did. She thinks she overreacted, then thinks he brought it on himself. She wishes she never called him, she knows she had nowhere else to turn. She wonders why she lied to him about wanting something serious, wonders whether she was really lying to herself, wonders whether repeated lies can influence the thereafter truth, like how people who smile more become happier over time. She feels alone. She feels apart from herself. She should smile more. Temporarily, she doesn’t even know who she is.

Miranda Swami doesn’t lie to avoid the judgmental stares of others. Miranda Swami doesn’t lose her shit and storm out of restaurants. Miranda Swami has not and will not settle down for something more serious, will not let her accomplishments and her talent and the ideas in her head drain away in the hope that an ordinary, basic life of commuting and motherhood and peaceful death will bring her closer to some dead, dipshit ideal of happiness. She will not fucking smile more. Miranda Swami built an entity out of air, formed her aphysical ideas into semi-living flesh; she is a God, of sorts, and so why-oh-why does she feel all the weak parts of her person fraying even further? Why does she feel so torn?

She presses her shoulder against a block of brick wall, all alone in a city of eight-and-a-half million. She wants to smash her skull into eight-and-a-half million pieces. One for all her neighbors. She wants to scream as she does it, bludgeoning chips off her cranium again and again into the brick. She won’t though, because she’s strong, and also because it’s exactly what everyone expects from her. She might be a lot of things — self-destructive and depressed, vile and unlovable, alone and exploitative, a murderer and euthanasia enthusiast — but she will not be obvious. Under no circumstance.

She enters a park she’s never seen before and ducks into a shady corner, finding a nice bench set across from a eucalyptus thicket. Previously unknown feelings ooze uncontrollably from her pores. This is grief, this is rage, this is reactionary. This is so unlike her.

Her throat is full, so are her nostrils. Her phone shakes in her hand, and it’s predictably devoid of remorseful texts from her brother. She considers reaching out to him, sending a long, meandering apology, because he’ll probably understand. He must understand, right? How could he have known he’d set her off like that? He’s a man, even the most feminine among them don’t think about these things. They’re so momentary, he couldn’t possibly have known that his words would break down the door to something, that they were the jailer’s key to a very vital cell. But she doesn’t text him, because apologies are pointless. She’d rather he disappear from her life, from the Earth, whatever. She never wants to see him again. Never wants to see anything again. Her cheeks are red and swollen from the tears, and she wipes them away with the butt of her sweater-covered palm.

But when her phone vibrates, she checks it immediately, thinking even if it’s not Caleb, it might be someone else. An actual human. Even some words from Mother or Father, were one of them to reach out, would help stabilize her, bring her wayward spirit back from its far-away wanderings. But they don’t even know anything’s wrong. They have no idea who their daughter is, or was, or who she contained.

It is in fact from none of those people. It’s a message from an unknown number, a number that’s more wing-ding than digits, in a font that texts don’t come in.

Miranda Swami, it reads, we know what’s been done to you. We know who you are, who you were. Everything that’s happened, it’s all been a show. Everything. A conspiracy whirls around you, unbeknownst to you or anyone else. We have answers. About the suicide, about Cindi, about everything. Gwami is dead, but she doesn’t have to be. Follow our directions, we have much to discuss…

Three dots. An ellipsis. A promise of more to come. 

An insinuation. 

Conspiracy.

Answers.

They know who she is.

If this is a veiled threat, it’s an effective one. If it’s a promise of information, it’s an essential one. The “number” sends something else, a location pin, somewhere way far uptown. Miranda’s feet begin to take her there before her brain can decide if it even wants them to. Her brain, to be fair, is plenty preoccupied. All it can think about, suddenly, is the revival of Gwami the Seer. “Gwami is dead, but she doesn’t have to be.”

All the flotsam floating in her skull, meandering and shifting shapeless in the shadowy dark, replaced by a single bright orb, and everything else is washed away by those words. Those words! So simple, so suggestive, so impossible, right? So impossible. But if there’s a way…

Miranda would save Gwami’s life over her own. She knows who she is, and she is not herself. Not in the traditional sense. That’s who Miranda Swami is. She’s more, she’s expansive, she contains multitudes. Miranda Swami is a kosmos.

Looking up from those words, Miranda looks back into the world. The wind begins to blow hard, brushing up the green underbellies of the Elm leaves, sending the reflections of white clouds across the glossy building-side above her.

It must have drizzled. Miranda steps in a puddle. Water enters her shoes from the sides. She marches up town, unconcerned.