Iwake up. The car has stopped running. I check the fuel gauge. Half-full. I try to start the car, but the engine won’t turn over. I slump onto the dashboard, defeated.
Then I hear…something. A bird call? I look out the windshield. Fog, so thick I can’t see anything else.
I get out of the car. The hinges squeak. I leave the door open behind me and walk around the front. The memorial cross is there, but it’s been replaced, the flowers fresh and white, the can beneath them upright and filled with daisies.
Clara loves daisies. I smile in spite of myself and walk to the flowers. More scattered around it. Still more trailing off toward the field.
As I follow them, I stumble through the fog. That’s all there is. Fog. Rolling across the field. I look down at the flowers, crushing beneath my feet. I keep going, following them.
Another noise. Not a bird call. It sounds like…
“Amy?” I call. “Clara?”
A voice answers. Then another.
The silence ends.
Drunk Physics
Drunk Physicsstarted in a bar, naturally. A bunch of physics postgrads hanging out, blowing off thesis stress, getting wasted and getting loud, and pissing off the group of math postgrads quietly working through theorems at the next table.
Six of us crammed into the booth. Trinity and I were the only girls—I do remember that. We weren’t exactly friends, but if Trinity wanted a drink with the guys, she always asked me to come along. I was her wingman, a warning to the guys that none of them would be escorting Trinity home, however noble their intentions.
I’m a good drinker. Well, not “good” in the sense I can hold my liquor. I absolutely cannot. I just become someone different, someone fun and funny and vastly more entertaining than sober Hannah. Being drunk doesn’t just lower my inhibitions—it atomically annihilates them while never destroying my common sense. All the clever and cool retorts I’d normally think but never say? They actually come out of my mouth. Plenty of silly nonsense, too, but never anything cruel.
So, I’m in the college pub with the guys, downing a fizzy pink something—that’s how I order drinks: just give me a fizzy pink something or a blue sour whatever. Bartenders either love me orhate me. This one thinks I’m adorable, and I suspect there are more than two shots in my drink. One minute I’m expounding on this showDrunk Historyand the next I’m riffing on aDrunk Physicsversion of it, and the guys are laughing so hard they’re snorting beer. Even Trinity chuckles as she sips her wine cocktail.
Then Rory says, “You should totally do that. Put it on YouTube.”
“Be my guest,” I say.
“No,you, Hannah.” Liu waves an unsteady finger in my face. “You and Trin. Together. You’d rack up the views. You’re hilarious, and Trin’s… Well, Trin’s Trin.”
Trinity is gorgeous. That’s what he means. She looks like Hollywood’s idea of a physics doctoral student, the sort who makes actual physics majors roll their eyes because, come on, we don’t look like that. Except Trinity does. Long curly black hair, huge amber eyes, a slender but curvy body. I’m embarrassed to admit that the first time I saw her in class, I almost offered to help her find her room because she was clearly in the wrong place.
“So,Drunk Physics, huh?” Trinity says. “How would that work?”
“You guys drink,” Liu says. “A lot. You get wasted, and then you try to explain a physics concept and post the result on a YouTube channel.”
“Itwouldbe hilarious,” Rory says. “You should do it, Hannah.”
The other guys take up a chant of “Do it! Do it!” banging the scarred table. I roll my eyes. Trinity shrugs and says, “Sure, why not.”
I look at her. “Seriously?”
A soft smile. “Seriously. It’d be fun.”
And soDrunk Physicswas born.
Six months later
Iwake on the couch, groaning and reaching for my water bottle, which I’ve learned to put on the table before we start filming.
As I chug lukewarm water, Trinity’s figure sways in front of me. She’s seated at the desk, and she isn’t actually swaying—that’s just me.
Trinity’s gaze is fixed on a massive computer screen where my drunken image gestures wildly. Thankfully, the sound is off. It’s last night’sDrunk Girl Physicsepisode. Yes, we had a name change. Apparently,Drunk Physicswasn’t as original as I thought. We decided to play on the element that made our show unique.Drunk Girl Physics.DGP to its fans, and to my everlasting shock, we actually have those. A lot.
Six months ago, Trinity and I started with a laptop and a cheap microphone. Now we have this ginormous computer monitor, connected to a top-of-the-line laptop, professional-grade cameras and microphones, all courtesy of Webizode.com, a startup channel for web series. We began on YouTube, but that was an exercise in humility. Oh, we got traffic—thanks to incredibly kind shout-outs from a few stars in the science-web-series biz—but we also got the kind of attention no one wants. For Trinity, that was endless chatter asking her to show some body part or another. For me, it was the opposite.
