Chapter 9 (How to Apologize to Dragonflies)

In case a client cries during their Reinstatement, the Department’s handbook includes a short paragraph suggesting the immediate steps to take: the first, offer tissues; the second, offer water. In the Eraser’s room, surrounded by dust motes plummeting off the green couch, June finds neither tissues nor water.

A second later, it dawns upon June that she does not really know what to do when she sees someone cry. Is she expected to give them a cookie, pat them on the back, tell them everything is going to be fine; or is she expected to hug them, even though she does not really like touching most people she knows, and offer a really empathetic handshake? Usually, when people are vulnerable in front of June, all she can do is muster up the courage for a shaky thumbs-up and contort her face to resemble something quite close to a genuine smile.

The serpentine nature of June’s contriteness at not knowing how to comfort someone is a consequence of June never having believed she was allowed to. Comforting someone implies closeness. Closeness implies permission. Permission is something June has spent her entire life believing she does not have. What if they misconstrued June’s intentions? What if June made it worse, and people stared at her the way one looks at strangers who sit at the wrong table?

Sporadically, there were moments when people around June would choose to be vulnerable by sharing something truly personal about them – a memory they’d guarded close to them, like how, when they were seven, a horse had back-kicked them on a Tuesday evening at a farm. June never knew how to receive these stories without reaching for one of her own. “Oh, I remember being kicked by a wild boar on my chest when my best friend pushed me off my bicycle and fled away. I was six,” June would say. On a good day, by the grace of her baroque wits, she would even quote movies, songs, books – crafting advice from pieces of art because pieces of art brought comfort to her.

You gave June a story; she gave you back a story. People often misread this as competition, as if June were trying to prove that her hurt, her life, had sharper edges and deeper roots; as if she were trying to eclipse their struggles with her own. What June was trying to say was that she understood because she had lived it too. There is a thin line between I understand and I am listening; June has no idea which part of the line she is on. She has decoded comforting someone as building bridges populated with stories over a strong, gushy stream of river, not realizing that sometimes all people want is to stare at the river.

She feels a surmounting pressure of guilt, knowing that people deserve something gentler and kinder than whatever she has to offer, don’t they? They deserve to feel listened to rather than observed. Yet in the moments that June has spent apologizing profusely for inadvertently breaking dishes, hiding in doorways to wait for everybody else to sleep, gritting her teeth before entering a room, perusing text messages a thousand times before pressing send, June loathes that she cannot grow to be the listener that people deserve. She can only apologize for not being the person other people deserve.

When June sees Orion bawling his eyes out, violently tearing the cables away from his body after his first Reinstatement, panting violently and stumbling around the room with his hands reaching around for some invisible exit that no one else can see, June no longer worries about saying the wrong thing. Everything else seems irrelevant, including the Department that she has spent her entire life advocating for.

She ignores the strobing red lights when she brazenly pushes against the door to her chambers. Rushing into Orion’s part of the Archives, she jumps past the littered mess of wires tittering all over the floor, and against all rational senses, pulls Orion into her arms.

She hugs him, and she feels warm.

For a while Orion, with his head buried into June’s right shoulder, does not say anything. He only shakes. June stops herself from reminding Orion that he’s stronger than this, because while June may not know how to comfort someone, she does know that people who need to be comforted don’t really look for reminders and conjectures of how strong they could be. They look for a space that allows them to be weak for a while.

Eventually, in a voice so thin that only dragonflies can hear him, Orion mumbles, “Bureaucracy.”

“What?” June blinks. 

“My entire Reinstatement hinges on a bureaucratic error. Some pissed-off Department fool’s ego…without the person Erased, I have become an anomaly,” Orion says. His words, punctuated between sobs, make little sense to June. She squeezes him a little tighter. She needs a distraction to get him away from here.

“Do you like ducks?” June asks.

Orion does not respond.

“Like the bird.”

“I know what ducks are,” he chuckles, his head still sunk into her shoulders.

“I wasn’t sure,” June says.

They both refuse to let go.

“You weren’t sure that I know what ducks are?” Orion giggles harder.

“No, I wasn’t sure you liked them,” June says, followed by another small moment of silence.

“They are nice…I guess. I haven’t thought about ducks that much.”

“Ducks are the best. They like to flop around. Like your hair,” June teases, then asks. “Would you like to go feed them cucumbers?”

“Feed them?”

“Cucumbers.” June nods.

Orion pulls away, the fringes of a small smile on his face. “Cucumbers?” he asks.

“Ducks like cucumbers,” June shrugs.

“Ducks? Cucumbers?” Orion tilts his head.

“Ducks. Cucumbers.”

“You’re just repeating the things I say now,” Orion says, exhaling loudly. He bends forward and starts picking the loose cables one at a time, carefully setting them aside. “Do you want to go now?”

“I can think of nothing better to do all day.”