The Border Guard took note because she wanted to cross the bridge on foot. Officer Stephens, through his bulletproof window, questioned the woman. A few final snowflakes drifted. The other guards stationed at F.D.R. Memorial Bridge—and most sane folks in Lubec, Maine—were sleeping off Y2K parties. The woman wore a parka and wrap-around sunglasses. Her skin was bronze, hair medium-length. But there was something about her that Officer Stephens couldn’t quite place. She wasn’t pretty, and at first that’s all he thought it was.
“Identification, ma’am?”
It was a Pennsylvania Driver’s License, legit. Last name Jimenez, but for a first name she had the oddity ‘Zemma.’ No middle. The face in the photo was about as ugly as Stephens first guessed—her chin was all wrong. Born January 1st, 1971. “Oh,” he said. “A New Years baby, are you? Well, happy birthday Ms. Jimenez.”
“Thanks, Officer.” Her voice was soft and steady. “Turning thirty in under an hour. That’s why I’d like to cross your bridge.”
“Ms. Jimenez, could you please remove your sunglasses? So I can verify this is your picture?”
She hesitated, then removed them like she was peeling off bandages. Certain oddities had hidden in plain sight while she wore those wrap-arounds, but now Stephens understood. He had read about transexuals online: didn’t think they were dangerous, just misguided. Recognizing Zemma as one, he didn’t gape or snicker, he simply stared for a few seconds. She looked towards the horizon and waited for the Border Guard to compose himself.
“Please,” Zemma said. “I’d like to be on the bridge while the sun rises.”
“Were you born in the United States of America?”
“Yes, in Maryland, then we moved to Philadelphia. Look, I don’t want to go all the way to Canada. I just want to be on the bridge, then come back.”
“How about your parents?”
“Are they relevant?”
“Ms. Jimenez, were your parents born in the United States?”
“…No.”
“Neither one?”
“No,” she slid her sunglasses back on, “but I’m a U.S. citizen even if they weren’t. I just want to be on the bridge a few minutes, then I’ll come back.”
“Ms. Jimenez—” Stephens clamped his eyes and grimaced. He sneezed powerfully into the crook of his elbow. “Excuse me,” he mumbled, uprooting a tissue and trumpeting into it. Then he shook his head and sighed. Gesturing towards F.D.R. Memorial Bridge, he said, “How about thirty minutes, Ms. Jimenez?” At first she was blank. But when Stevens returned her license, she grinned. “And I’m going to radio ahead, so don’t expect just to waltz across.”
“I don’t want to go to Canada, I told you. All my stuff is at the Days Inn. I want to be back before lunchtime.”
“…All your stuff?”
But Zemma had already walked on, leaving slushy footprints up the bridge. The sun’s tip peeked over the horizon, spilling blood across the waves below. Last night’s snow ceased and temperatures rose. As Zemma left lands claimed by the United States, it wasn’t hot or cold but a comfortable medium. Soon she reached the center of the bridge and stopped walking. She had no way of measuring, it was simply one more feeling clicking into place. And not a moment too soon: sunrise blood glittered across the ocean all the way to the opposite horizon’s landmasses. She looked at that tiny jewel: the first sunrise of the new millennium.
Zemma climbed onto the ledge. She untied her parka and let it fall, exposing completely her bronze body. She was undressed but not naked: still wearing her boots and sunglasses. Zemma wasn’t skinny, but she wasn’t fat either. Two breasts greeted the dawn, each the size of a Gala apple, and a hairless penis dangled between her thighs. Not male or female, not pale or dark, neither on land nor in the ocean. Between borders. Zemma began to stand on her left sole only, balancing on the ledge. She reached out her left hand as far as it could go, but kept her other arm clenched to her breast. Now, now, now was the moment—she felt it as strongly as the other omens that brought her here. Now was the moment, but nothing happened. Not until, looking into the sunrise, Zemma shut her left eye. Then, everything happened. It took no time at all, just that moment between night and day. Zemma left her body, and knew many forms.
Smaller and smaller inside were organs comprised of cells and organelles and molecules and atoms and quarks, and still more invisibly small entities. And for a moment, each of those entities was Zemma. She was every cell in her body, and every ribosome, every particle. She was the layers of societies that constituted her, that strove for her benefit. Simultaneously, larger and larger outside of her were humans comprising nations, and nations constituting humanity. Humans and animals and plants all striving to benefit Earth. Earth and planets, solar systems, galaxies, universes, and still more invisibly massive beings.
And for that moment between shifts in time and space, each of those beings was Zemma. Every atom of every galaxy—she was the consciousness of this universe and the others. She unified the microcosm within her and the macrocosm without. She was not one thing or another: Zemma simply was.
And when she left the Border Station on the way back to the Day’s Inn, bundled again in her parka, she couldn’t help but spill hot tears into the slush. There was nothing she could say to Officer Stevens. No way to tell anyone what she had realized on the bridge between millennia. She thought it might cost a whole lifetime to get even one person to understand. But it was a long walk back through Lubec, and her worries first subsided, then died. After all, she now knew the universe’s secret: that men and women fulfill their destinies even when they don’t know the universal secret.