The Maze: Three tales of the future Read Online Free PDF Page A

space beyond but vanishes before I can even grasp what it might be.
    “I’m Shelli, by the way, with an i.” She stands and her clothes flutter, their colors startling, like the blue jays and goldfinches you still sometimes see.
    Her feet are tiny, her shoes so clean and bright. They do not have the heavy soles that crisscross my garden and trample the soil.
    “I’m Kit,” I say, “with an i.”
    Shelli laughs, but as she walks the rooftop’s perimeter, her features grow somber. “This isn’t all like my grandmother said it would be.”
    “She’s been here?”
    “A long time ago.” Shelli shields her eyes with a hand and peers out over the ledge. “Is this the end of the world?”
    “No, unfortunately.”
    She scrunches up her face. “The future, then?”
    I shrug. That glimmer catches my eye again. I wonder what it is about my rooftop that makes the air do that. I wonder what it is about my rooftop that brings strangers to me.
    “I’m from 1999,” she says. “What year is it here?”
    Some claim to know the year, but no two claims match. I’ve since stopped caring, so all I do is shake my head.
    Shelli leans forward where the ledge is still waist high. “I go to school ...” She points. “There.”
    I follow her gaze and her finger to the charred remains, where wisps of smoke rise in the morning mist. “I used to go there,” I say.
    Her mouth turns down, but she is still so pretty. I want to work in her grandmother’s garden, have shiny, tall hair, and fancy nails—a different color on each finger. I do not want to stay on my rooftop. I do not want to use everything I have to coax tomatoes from the soil. I want to go to a place where hope still lives.
    “I don’t know how to bring you back,” she says, as if reading my mind. “I’m not even sure how I got through.”
    “That’s okay.” But the words leave my mouth with a sigh.
    Her gaze darts from black-streaked buildings to my garden and then to me. “It’s not really okay.”
    She’s right, of course, but I don’t have words to tell her that. “I want to show you something,” I say instead and point to the heavy footprints in the garden. At the sight of them, it feels like a boot is crushing my heart. “Someone else is slipping through.”
    Shelli kneels at the garden’s edge and traces the impression as if that will tell her what we need to know. She says, “Be careful.” And I think that maybe it has.
    Before I can respond, all the air around us is sucked away. I duck my head, bring a hand up to cover my nose and mouth. Soil and dust swirl around me. Grit stings my eyes. Then, all is quiet. Shelli is gone. Only her pink, sparkly nails remain, not clinging to the edge, but at my feet in a little pile. I scoop them up and hold one against my finger.
    Oh, so pretty.
     
    * * *
     
    Today, I find the tomatoes crushed, their seeds and pulp spread across the garden, their juice soaking into the soil. I tunnel my fingers beneath the dirt, excavating tiny bits of green flesh in hopes of saving it. My efforts only drive the dirt deeper into what little remains.
    I gather the tomatoes anyway. Perhaps with water from the rain barrel, I can rinse the bigger chunks clean—or clean enough. Perhaps ...
    The slap of the rake handle against tarpaper shingles forces my gaze up. At first, all I see are big, white boots, with heels so enormous, they could smash my largest tomatoes with one step—and probably have. His clothes do not billow. They are sleek and stiff, an exoskeleton that encases him from foot to head. The man before me is not from the past, not like Shelli. If he’s from the future, then I think humanity may be better off among the remains. My gaze darts to the building’s edge and the nails there—a set of brilliant blue. Only today, one nail points toward the rooftop stairwell.
    “You don’t belong here,” I say to the man.
    His image flickers then solidifies again.
    “This isn’t your world.”
    More flickering, but