The Opposite of Hallelujah

Originally published on Moral Calculus in April, 2005.

Let me lay this one on you in a series of vignettes.

Picture me standing in my living room, facing the sliding glass doors to the patio. Behind me, water is running over dirty dishes. To my right, Christopher is standing against the coffee table, flipping through channels and probably chewing on a hangnail. To my left is the old console television from the 80s we had. It is tuned to Fox. I am standing there, sideways, watching commercials while I twist a wet dishcloth in my hand. Summer Glau is there, on the tv, screeching and I think, She sounds like a bird. Then I say, “Honey, that looks good. We might should watch it.”

We do remember to watch it, eventually. I think, Hey, it’s that cute guy from 28 Days! Oh, they advertised this part. He’s flying this thing. Then there is a lot of dark mystery. Just when it’s getting good, the phone rings. It’s my sister and I choose to speak to her. I get back just in time to find that something is being blown up. I ask Christopher what happened, but I don’t remember what he said.

It’s another Friday evening. There is so little on TV on Friday night and we are boring types that don’t go out. But we’ve discovered that Spike is doing Star Trek: The Next Generation all Friday evenings, grouping the eps by main character or theme and calling it Trek: Uncut. It’s Trek Uncut Beverly Crusher! Woohoo! Six months later there is bitter regret, when I piece things together and figure I missed “Jaynestown” in favor of “Remember Me.”

Finally we remember that Firefly is on. Either that or Trek Uncut was having a Yar (or Troi, or Wesley) night. But “Safe” is on and we are enjoying it. This is the night it comes to us that they’re speaking in Chinese. We laugh for an hour after the episode has ended, repeating to one another, “Seems we got here just in the nick of time! What’s that make us? Big damn heroes, sir! Ain’t. We. Just.”

I’m at work not doing anything special. It’s a Monday or Tuesday or something and not much is happening. Nicole wanders in, as she is wont to do and pulls up a chair. We exchange pleasantries before she asks, very quickly, “Have you heard of this show with the cowboys and the space ship?” I say, “Yes!” Very quickly. “Did you see it last week?” She is smiling and I am smiling and there is something happening between us. “No.” I had forgotten again, maybe to go out with friends, but probably for stupid Star Trek. She starts telling me about the episode and how it was all filmed in different colors and there were all these flashbacks about how the crew came on board. “The pilot had a mustache,” she said, laughing in the way that only Nicole laughs. “Wash,” I say, not correcting her but filling it in for myself. “He’s my favorite. Mustache? Tell me more!”

A few weeks later, I’m staying late at work on a Friday evening. I’ve been watching the Fox Firefly website all day as they leaked trailers for the episode, called “War Stories.” It looked to be heavy on the Wash and as the day drags, I grow more and more anxious. I have to be here—there is work to be done and it has to be done tonight, but I call Christopher every 15 minutes, just to make sure he has the VCR set up, and that he’s tested it, and that he’s going to start recording two minutes early, just in case. I get home three quarters of the way through the ep and turn the TV off while we finish up dinner. We rewind and watch and eat. I watch it twice more that night, immediately. It is and forever will be my favorite episode.

A few weeks later, I’m expected to go to Red Lobster to celebrate my brother-in-law’s birthday. I can’t think. I don’t remember what I ate or what conversations I had or even who was there. All I know is that I am in a restaurant while a new episode of Firefly airs and it makes my skin crawl.

For weeks now, we’ve been told that the pilot will be shown as the last episode. See how it all began, the bumpers say. A special two hour Firefly event! Indeed. “Serenity” was magic. Watching Mal kiss his crucifix shocked me. I finally understood what everybody meant when said, “My fandom has the Red Sunglasses of Moral Ambiguity.” I laughed too loudly at Mal’s “Huh” when he first sees River. I clutched a blanket to me (it was December 20th) tightly when they said Kaylee was dead—how did that work? I bent over the coffee table, cheering Wash on, embedding the picture of him throwing the thrusters for the Crazy Ivan on my heart forever. The ad for American Idol over the closing credits made me sick to my stomach.

A couple weeks later, I read on the Fox board, corroborated at Whedonesque, that Firefly was not coming back. Never coming back. All the money and all the postcards and everything, while not for nothing (though we didn’t know that then), wasn’t worth much. I watched Bonibaru’s “Hallelujah” video and cried. Christopher came home to find me sitting in his chair in front of his computer, sobbing. He held me and I bawled. I decided that I would hold this secret chord forever.

I spent the winter listening to Neko Case’s album Furnace Room Lullaby. Each song is a beautiful encapsulation of one character.

I wade into the fray at Television Without Pity hoping against hope to buy tapes of the episodes I haven’t seen. I succeed, but the quality is crummy. Crummy or no, we watch them, at least one episode a day for the next year.

I discover fanfiction. There is a moment where I wonder if this simulacrum can do something to ease how I ache for the story. I read and read and read and it is so good and wonderful. I start to learn acronyms and I follow authors. I start to wonder where the romance stories are. I start to feel keenly the lack of Wash/Zoe when there are gigs and gigs of internet dedicated to Mal/Simon, Mal/Jayne, Jayne/Simon, and Mal/Simon/Jayne. So I start writing the stories I want to read. And to my great pleasure, other people like reading them.

I find out there are people out there, mostly from Fireflyfans.net, who know how to use IRC and are eager to chat with other people who are Firefly minded. It’s the beginning of a summer, a year, a miniature lifetime spent at #firefly.

Then I wrote The Browncoat Chronicles. And I still have not stopped wondering if someday someone might walk up to me and ask, “And every breath we drew?” I will, of course, reply, “Was hallelujah.”

Christmas came around again and the evening of a party, I rushed in the door, intent on changing in five minutes, putting on makeup in five minutes, and getting back out the door. Christopher made me stop and stand still. He handed me the DVDs. I cried, feeling exquisitely bittersweet happiness. We got home from that party at 9:00 and watched “War Stories” with commentary and the special features until 11:30. I cried a little more, along with Ron Glass. Along with everybody I suppose.

I got nominated for the Strawberry Awards, four times over. I didn’t win, but I knew I wouldn’t. Still.

Two weeks ago, Spark, maguinan, and Sergeant X and I spent an evening back in #firefly talking koolaid and blogging and whatever it is that we spend our time talking about. The Sarge was a little taken aback at Spark’s latest graphic, “Will the last person in #firefly please turn out the lights.” I was at too, first, before I realized that #firefly had both been over for a long time now and that it would never really be over, not as long as we kept talking somehow.

Last night I started writing another story, to fill another niche I think is lacking— Wash/Kaylee. I was IMing Spark, as usual and he asked, “Do you know what tomorrow is?” I panicked for a minute, thinking I’d forgotten his birthday. Or some kind of deadline. When I finally said no, he wrote, “Tomorrow’s the day Serenity should have premiered.” I wrote, “Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.”

Today is the day Serenity should have premiered. We should be outside the cinema right now, striking up conversations with strangers and wearing homemade t-shirts that say “To Whubba Who?!” and “Who’s flying this thing!?” and “Taikong su yu yo de xing qao de sai jin wu de pigu!” So let’s just all say this once together, for old time’s sake:

Here’s how it is. Earth got used up. So we moved out and terraformed a whole new galaxy of earths. Some rich and flush with the new technology. Some not so much. The central plants, them’s formed the Alliance, waged war to bring everyone under their rule. A few idiots tried to fight it, among them myself. I’m Malcolm Reynolds, captain of Serenity. Got a good crew: fighters, pilot, mechanic. Even picked up a preacher and a bona fide companion. There’s a doctor too. Took his genius sister out of some Alliance camp, so they’re keepin’ a low profile. You got a job, we can do it. Don’t much care what it is.

Once you’ve found Serenity, you can’t live anywhere else.