Page 29 of Meet Me in Another Life

Santi shakes his head. “Thanks for the mentorship,” he mutters under his breath. He fixes the bug and sets up the next run of the simulation, then goes to the lounge to make a pot of coffee. He drinks his first cup, kicking his feet up on the table where copies of old journals act as makeshift coasters.

He knows he shouldn’t talk to Dr. Lišková the way he does. He knows she shouldn’t talk to him the way she does. They simply don’t work, and he’s not sure if it’s him or her that’s the problem. It’s not that he dislikes her. If they were anything other than supervisor and student, they might even get along.

As if summoned by his thoughts, she comes into the lounge for a cup of tea. The sound of the kettle rings a bell in Santi’s head: time for more coffee. He picks up his mug to refill it, but it’s heavier than he expected. Hot coffee sloshes over the edge, burning his hand.

He swears. Dr. Lišková watches with amusement. “Did you break gravity again?”

Santi is searching for a comeback when he remembers what hewas about to do. He stares at the full mug of coffee, at the fault line in the universe. “It was empty.”

Dr. Lišková pours water into her mug. “You mean you thought it was empty.”

“No. I know it was empty.” Santi looks up at her. “How long have I been in here?”

Dr. Lišková checks her watch. “You’ve been away from the lab for thirty minutes.”

Santi notes her careful rewording: confining her testimony to what she could personally observe. “Well, I was in here the whole time. Have you ever known me to take more than ten minutes to drink my coffee?”

“You do usually down it like it’s juice,” she admits, bringing her tea over and sitting down. “I suppose you made an exception.”

Santi realizes she isn’t going to take his memory as an accurate record. “It’s hot,” he says, showing her the inflamed skin on his hand. “It can’t be the same coffee I poured when I came in here.”

“So someone came in and poured you another.”

He swings his legs down and sits up. “Okay, first, there are maybe two other people in the entire building right now. Second, how would I not have noticed someone standing right next to me and pouring me a coffee?”

Dr. Lišková turns to face him. Santi has never seen her so engaged in any conversation that isn’t about research. “You fell asleep.”

“After drinking a whole mug of coffee in ten minutes?”

She shrugs it off. “That’s normal for you. I’ve found you in here fast asleep after drinking the entire pot.”

Santi shakes his head, half-laughing. “Are you just going to keep throwing rational explanations at me?”

Her brow furrows. “I don’t understand. What else should I be doing? What alternative am I arguing against?”

Santi opens his mouth and closes it. He looks down at his coffee, still there and still inexplicable.

Dr. Lišková understands. She laughs, and that’s unusual enough to make Santi stare. “Oh, I get it. You think this was a miracle! All hail the holy coffee cup!” She leans toward it, making exaggerated motions of veneration.

Santi doesn’t want to let her see that she’s got to him. “So you think I should accept one of your explanations instead?”

Dr. Lišková’s eyes widen. “Yes,” she says. “Obviously, yes.”

“And what if my perception and my memory tell me that those explanations are wrong?”

His forced calm is working. He can see the frustration coming off her in sparks. “Then you should conclude that your perception or your memory is wrong. You know the science, Santi. Witnesses can’t even describe a car crash accurately five minutes after it happened. We’re flawed, lumbering machines, crudely accidented into existence because a few cells randomly started copying themselves. I don’t understand why you wouldn’t accept that, instead of—of jumping to the conclusion that a big man in the sky likes you enough to stand you a coffee.”

Santi glares at her, overcome by an intensity of feeling he can’t explain. She glares back, as if his faith repels her as much as her cynicism does him. He sees her see him seeing her in a set of infinite mirrors and reels with a yawing sickness.

A knock on the door of the lounge snaps him out of it. “Do you mind not arguing so loudly?” says a sleepy-looking graduate student. “I’m trying to get some work done next door.”

“Oh,” says Santi. “Sure. Sorry.”

The student closes the door behind her.

“Christ,” scoffs Dr. Lišková. “We’re turning into my parents.” A personal detail, offered like a flash of a fish’s tail before diving back into the depths. Santi imagines a sullen seven-year-old covering her ears. The sharpness of the image makes him shiver. “I’m not jumping to any conclusions,” he says, lowering his voice. “My mind is open, that’s all. What about yours? Why are you so desperate not to believe?”

Dr. Lišková runs her hands through her white-streaked hair in frustration. “If God could work miracles, why would he refill your coffee cup instead of—I don’t know, curing all the world’s diseases? Or—or revealing the secrets of the universe?”

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