Category: Fiction

DP FICTION #29A: “Monster of the Soup Cans” by Elizabeth Barron

“I created a monster the other day, but I’m trying not to think about it. These things usually take care of themselves, don’t they?”

The scientist’s words echoed against the grey walls of her tiny kitchen laboratory, while the orangutan she was training to speak just stared at her with a bored expression, like he’d heard all this before.

Even the fluorescent frogs, hopping around in their tank above the microwave, looked bored whenever the scientist talked about her problems. She’d created them to cheer herself up, but there was only so much that bright colors could do.

The orangutan’s speech training was a failure so far, which was actually a relief to the scientist. If the orangutan ever did start to talk, he would no doubt feel entitled to offer his own opinions and tell the scientist exactly what her issues were and that he was done listening to her babble instead of resolving them. Conversing with a silent orangutan was just easier.

“I put the monster in the cupboard,” said the scientist. “I didn’t know what else to do. I know, I’m so scattered. I try not to be, but I’m getting worse, aren’t I?”

The orangutan hooted and puffed out his lips, and then started taking apart the coffee maker. The scientist hoped he meant, “Why worry? You’re just fine the way you are, this monster thing will work itself out.”

The monster waited patiently in the kitchen cupboard, rearranging all of the scientist’s jars and cereal boxes and building little towers out of the soup cans—a tower out of tomato, another out of minestrone, another out of corn chowder. The monster was hungry, but he didn’t dare eat any of the scientist’s soup. He didn’t want to upset her. The monster only ate food from the back of the cupboard, things she wouldn’t miss—dusty cereals left behind by ancient boyfriends, or fancy dried pastas brought by guests who never came back.

The monster felt like he knew everything about the scientist, just from watching through the crack in the cupboard door and listening to her talk to the other experiments, the ones she could stand to look at. But surely the fluorescent frogs and the orangutan didn’t know that her favorite soup was minestrone, or that she always left her keys in the same place and then forgot where they were, sparking a frantic search whenever she left the house (which she hardly ever did).

The monster liked this about her. She was always nearby, even though she never went near the cupboard door. The monster caught a blurry peek of his reflection in the dusty metal lid of a soup can and shuddered. No wonder she wanted to forget him.

The scientist busied the rest of the day away with observing the fluorescent frogs and finger-painting with the orangutan, but soon it was late and she got hungry. It was Monday, she realized with relief, the day she ate Nepalese take-out, so she had a practical excuse not to go into the kitchen cupboard.

The monster would be fine for another day, or even longer, she told herself as she searched for her keys. In fact, the longer she put off dealing with him, the easier it would be—he was probably just sleeping anyway and wouldn’t want to be disturbed.

All reasonable creatures, she’d often concluded, preferred to be alone—it was as natural to her as the thing in the cupboard was not.

The scientist finally found her keys on top of the organ cooler. “One of these days, I’ll remember where I left them. Tomorrow, I swear it. It’ll be a new day.”

The orangutan rolled his eyes.

The monster held his breath all the while she was gone, wishing that he’d gotten up the nerve to tell her where her keys were before she’d worked herself into a panic.

One of these days, he would be brave enough to say something, and she’d be so grateful she might even look at him.

When the scientist returned home, the monster pressed against the crack in the cupboard door, watching with wide and hopeful eyes. She looked crestfallen, an expression he’d seen on her only once before—when she’d created him.

“I can’t believe the Nepalese place was closed,” she said to the fluorescent frogs. “I was really hungry for yak curry too.”

The fluorescent frogs blinked their pink and yellow eyes, and the scientist hoped they meant, “You could eat soup two days ahead of schedule, but you’d have to deal with you-know-what . . . better to go hungry. You could stand to lose a pound or two anyway.”

The scientist started to agree over the sound of her growling stomach, just as the cupboard door began to creak open. Her heart raced as a cloudy grey eye blinked and then recoiled. Delicate fingers reached out and handed her a metal can, then closed the cupboard door with barely a sound.

The scientist turned the can over in her hands, unsure of what to think—how had the monster known that minestrone was her favorite? Probably just a coincidence, she thought. She walked out of the kitchen, turning the lights off as she left.

© 2017 by Elizabeth Barron

 

Author’s Note: A struggle to connect with others and break from the normal writing/class/take-out routine inspired this story. It’s lonely being trapped in the cupboard, but it’s just as hard to have no other company but your half-formed creations. I’m much better at letting them out of the cupboard and into the light nowadays.

 

elizabethElizabeth Barron lives in the dark, football fan-infested forests of Ann Arbor, Michigan. She has a degree in creative writing from Oberlin College and an MFA from Hamline University. She and her partner have a dog and three cats that really should know better than to sneak into the cupboards. She has also been published at Empyreome, Fiction on the Web and The Fable Online.

 

 

 

 

 

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DP Fiction #28B: “Regarding the Robot Raccoons Attached to the Hull of My Ship” by Rachael K. Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

From: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

To: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

Date: 2160-11-11

 

Dear Ziza,

You already know what this is about, don’t you, dear Sister? The robot raccoons I found clamped along my ship’s hull during this cycle’s standard maintenance sweep?

Oh, come on. Really? You know I invented that hull sculler tech, right? They’ve got my corporate logo etched into their beady red eyes so my name flashes on all the walls when their power is low. I admit some of your upgrades were… novel. Like the exoshell design–I’ll never understand your raccoon obsession. Impractical, but points for style. I hadn’t thought you could fit a diamond drill into a model smaller than a Pomeranian’s skull, so congrats on that. Not that they made much progress chewing through my double-thick hull, but I’ll give credit where credit’s due.

Still, it was unsisterly of you, and it’s not going to stop me from dropping the terraforming nuke when I get to Mars. Come to grips with reality, sister: you’re in the wrong. You always have been, ever since we were girls. Especially since Mumbai accepted my proposal for Martian settlement. Not yours.

I’m sending back the robot raccoons in an unmanned probe. Back, because yes, I’m still leagues and leagues ahead of you. I only lost a day cleaning up the hull scullers. I’ve kept the diamond drills. I bet they’ll chew right through that Martian rock.

I’ve also included a dozen white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, because I know it’s your birthday tomorrow. Happy birthday!

Now go home.

Love your sister,

Anita

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

To: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

Date: 2160-11-12

Dear Anita,

Remember that summer when Father dropped us off at the northern rim of the Poona Crater on Mars? Alone. For two weeks. “This rustic camping trip will be a great learning experience,” he said. “My precious daughters will bond.”

When I learned that there were no pre-fab facilities and that we were responsible for erecting our own dwelling, sanitation pod, and lab, I started plotting ways to poison our father. You, on the other hand, I am still convinced, were determined to thoroughly enjoy the experience just to spite me.

But Father was a conservationist, and now that I am older, I can appreciate that he was trying to instill that same spirit in us. “Not all life jumps out and bites you in the butt,” he used to love to say. And we learned the truth of that when we unearthed a family of as-yet-undiscovered garbatrites in the red dust on one of our sand treks.

We spent hours watching them under high magnification under the STEHM, trying to communicate with them, recording their activities and creating hypotheses about the meanings of their habits. I have to admit, there was a point when I stopped cursing father and started to secretly thank him. And where I sort of, kind of, could maybe see why you weren’t so bad after all.

I don’t think I’d ever seen you so dedicated to anything before this. You missed meals and stayed up throughout the night trying to communicate with the elder garbatrite. The one you named Benny. Exhausted, you fell asleep at your desk and left the infrared light on too long and effectively fried the poor critter. You cried for days and you even held a formal funeral for Benny, something his fellow garbatrites didn’t seem too pleased about.

With that in mind, how could you possibly want to drop a terraforming nuke on a planet you and I both know is already teeming with life? Creating a new habitable world only has merits if it’s not already inhabited.

If you won’t see reason, then I’ll just have to make it impossible for you. The Council for Martian Settlement may have accepted your proposal, but let me remind you that I’ve never been keen on following the rules.

So, you found the hull scullers, eh? I knew those diamonds would distract you from my real plan. You’ve always been so… materialistic. But hey, someone has to be.

On another note, the cookies were to die for! They were even better than Mother’s, but I’ll never tell her that. I really appreciate you thinking of me. I have a proposal to make. On our next monthly meal exchange, I’ll make your favorite, a big old pot of Anasazi beans and sweet buttered cornbread, if you’ll send more of those cookies.

XOXO

Ziza

P.S. My sweet raccoonie-woonies, Bobo and Cow, liked the cookies too. They also send their love.

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

To: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

Date: 2160-11-15

Sister:

Come now, Ziza. Let’s not make me out to be some kind of villain. Of course I remember that summer. I remember how we licked the condensation inside our lab windows to stay hydrated because Father’s Orion Scout childhood romanticized survival stories. It’s the real reason we’re such die hard coffee drinkers nowadays. He ruined the taste of water for us.

And I remember the garbatrites. How could I ever forget? That dusty red boulder we found in the sandstorm provided just enough shelter to pitch our emergency pod while we waited out the squall. Nothing to do but talk with each other, or play with the STEHM. Which meant we chose the STEHM, obviously. It’s the closest look I’ve ever gotten at you, all those disgusting many-legged organisms crawling on your skin and hair, in your saliva, your earwax. You’ve always had an affinity for vermin.

But I’ll be forever grateful you suggested taking samples around the boulder. When we first saw the garbatrites, their tiny little dwellings drilled into rock like mesa cities–that might be the closest I’ve ever felt to you, each of us taking one eyepiece on the STEHM, our damp cheeks pressed together, our smiles one long continuous arc. When the light brightened or dimmed, they danced in little conga lines. We weren’t sure if it was art, or language. Is there really a difference?

There’s something I realized when Benny died. The sort of revelation you only have when you’re nudging together an atomic coffin beneath an electron microscope with tiny diamond tweezers just three nanometers wide: life is short. Life is painfully short, full of suffering and tragedy and wide, empty spaces. And those rare spots hospitable to life are just boulders tossed into an endless red desert, created by accident or coincidence. The only real good we can do in life is to spread out those boulders, minimize the deserts where we find them. Make a garden from dust. Plant our atomic coffins and let them bloom. Terraform whole planets, so we’ll have more than just the blue boulder of Earth.

That’s what you never understood, dear sister. It’s why when you spent your youth chasing pretty men, I betrothed myself to science, burned my hopes of human love in the furnaces of my ambition. Do you remember when Asante, my poor besotted lab assistant, proposed to me at the Tanzanian Xenobiology Conference? How I laughed! As if any children he could give me would approach the impact my terraforming nuke will make on our species. Never forget, Ziza, that this mission is my life’s work, my legacy. You will not stop me.

In other news, I got the Anasazi beans and cornbread, still warm and fresh in their shipping pod. How did you know I had the craving? That was a kindness. I remembered you while making salaat today.

I was less pleased about the virus installed in the shipping pod’s warming program. Nice try, but I saw through that in about five seconds. Here’s a tip: next time, beta test it on all the shipboard systems I invented, not just the navigation. My sanitation program does more than filter my own crap.

I’m sending you an e-manual on Programming 101, and an ordering catalogue for Anita Enterprises in case you’d like to support the family business.

XOXOXO,

Anita

P.S. Go home.

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

To: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

Date: 2160-11-28

 

Anita,

It’s been nearly two weeks since we last spoke, and of course, you know why. When you told me to go home, I knew that you were serious, but I never thought you’d resort to using the health and welfare of our dear mother as bait to get me to turn around and head back to earth.

I’m still trying to figure out how you managed to simulate for video not only our mother’s countenance, darkened and marred by some mysterious illness, but her voice, the cadence like smooth stones tumbling in water and her accent. When she pleaded for me to return home, telling me that she was afraid to die alone, of course I turned back.

How much time did it take for you to create those videos, one arriving each day, her looking progressively worse? The worst was that one video with her by the window in her study, Mount Kilimanjaro in the distance. It came on the third day. The sunlight that glinted through her silver hair, like icy filaments, made her look so painfully beautiful, yet it was not enough to erase the shadows beneath her eyes or the sadness in them.

A better question, I suppose, is “Why?” Why resort to that when you know how much Mother means to me, especially now that Father is gone? Are you still jealous of our closeness? Do you still believe she loved me most?

Not that you deserve to be, but I’ll let you in on a secret. I used to believe Mother loved me more than you as well. One day, I must’ve been about twelve, in my pathetic need to always be reminded that I was loved and cherished, I asked her why she loved me more than you. I waited a few moments, as she looked skyward, it seemed, for the answer. I was sure she’d say it was because I was more beautiful, more kind, smarter, that I had a more generous spirit, because truth be told, these things are true. But she didn’t say that. Mother told me that she did not love me most. Nor did she love you more than me.

Then why do you spend so much more time with me than Anita? Why do you kiss me goodnight and not her? I numbered all the things she did for me and not you. Do you know what she said?

Because you need me more than Anita.

In her way, which was always kind yet honest, Mother was telling me that you were the stronger of the two of us. But now, I wonder. Would a strong person use her sister’s weaknesses against her just to win? This was a low blow, Anita.

By now you’re probably wondering how I eventually figured out that the videos from Mother were merely a cruel ploy to get me to go back home without a fight. It was the video from Day Eight.

Mother lay in bed, slight as a sliver of grass. When her image popped up on the view screen my heart felt like it was trapped in a vice. She reached out. A tear traveled from the corner of her eye toward the pillow. She coughed, then called out my name. Her voice was so soft, so small and weak.

“Please hurry home, Ziza,” she said. “I don’t want to die without laying eyes on my favorite girl at least one more time.”

Favorite girl? No, Anita. Our mother never would have said that.

You think you’re so smart. You think you know everything. Yet, you don’t know kindness or humility. You don’t even know your own mother.

The decision to dedicate your entire life to science was an error. Life is so much more than entropy, polymerisation, and endothermic reactions. You really can have your coffee and the cream too. You should have married Asante. He would have humanized you. He would have taught you to slow down and enjoy the precious little moments, that together they all add up to a great big life full of disappointments, yes, but also joy and love and mystery. He would have saved you from yourself and cold loneliness.

This is where I remind you that you know nothing about programming that I didn’t teach you. Anita Enterprises is the mega-conglomerate it is because of me, your older sister and mentor. If I wanted to shut down every system on your ship, including life support, I could. And believe me, after this latest stunt of yours, I’ve been giving that idea serious consideration. The fact that I haven’t sent a couple of torpedoes your way is a testament to my love for our mother. She’d be angry if I killed you. So, I won’t.

See you on Mars.

Ziza

P.S. Don’t start none, won’t be none.

P.P.S. Bobo and Cow are very displeased with you.

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

To: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

Date: 2161-01-01

 

Ziza,

It’s been weeks since I last wrote, but you haven’t been far from my thoughts. Far from it.

While I continue toward the planet, I’ve been passing the time on my escape pod making a list of all the reasons I hate you, numbered and ordered least to greatest. It’s a long long list, forever incomplete. A sister’s hate is like the heat death of the universe: infinitely expanding, eternal, the last flame burning in this cold, barren desolation where God abandoned us.

Reason #1,565: I hate the way you eat popcorn with chopsticks to keep your hands clean. Are you too good even for butter smudges?

Reason #480: I hate how you laugh at bad jokes. Puns aren’t actually funny, Ziza. Everyone outgrew “why did the chicken cross the road” after elementary school.

Reason #111: Blue eye shadow. Self-explanatory.

Reason #38: “Don’t start none, won’t be none.” Really? Better knock that shit off. Like you’re not an adult responsible for her own actions.

Reason #16: I hate how Mother named you after herself, like you were the pinnacle of all her hopes, while I was named to placate our pushy grandmother.

Reason #15: I hate how you always laugh at me.

Reason #10: I hate how your favorite animal is the raccoon. You only picked it because it’s endangered. You can’t resist a lost cause, even if you don’t actually want to do anything useful about it.

Reason #9: Seriously, blue eye shadow.

Reason #4: That last family dinner we had before Father died, when we took the shuttle out to the Moon to picnic on Mons Agnes while we watched the Perseid meteor shower dancing bright upon Earth’s atmosphere like the footsteps of angels. Mother brought her heirloom silver for the occasion; I think we all knew in our hearts it was a special trip. We’d agreed for Father’s sake to get along, just for a few hours. He hated how we fought, how we picked at each other like children picking old scabs that won’t heal. Do you remember the white curling through his black hair? His cheeks sunk deep by the chemo? He wanted to dish up the jasmine rice and flatbread himself. His hands trembled so badly the peas rolled onto Mother’s quilt beneath the picnic pop-up, just skirting the regolith.

We both know I wanted to talk with him about the inheritance. I just wanted my share, my 50/50 split, but Mother was so concerned about poor helpless Ziza, who had run into such tough times after college, chasing after pretty men and idealistic wide-eyed save-the-raccoons causes that she needed a larger cut to keep up her lifestyle. Anita Enterprises cost me everything while all you ever did was chase your girlhood dreams of love and happy endings.

We were having such a great time. Your useless pet raccoons were recharging their solar batteries in your lap. Father told us stories of his childhood, how they didn’t even have a family shuttle when he grew up, and you could only sleep rough in wild places like Antarctica’s rocky plains. Mother held his hand and kissed him, love shining in her eyes. No matter how sick he got, he was still the dark-skinned 17-year-old godling she’d met on the road to Mount Kilimanjaro in their youth. We even tolerated a few of your puns.

It would not last. I volunteered to scrape the leftovers into the recycler at the service booth down the path. It was so close, I didn’t bother to bring a communication device. You deny it, but we both know you followed me. You used the Moon’s lower gravity to pile those rocks against the door while I did my chores inside. When I tried to leave, the door wouldn’t budge. I could only watch my family from the viewing port, my mother and sister and dying father laughing together, though I couldn’t hear them. I screamed and pounded the window, but nobody noticed from the picnic pop-up. No one could hear me through the vacuum of space.

How can I ever forgive you that prank, those precious minutes of our father’s health ticking away, and me unable to be there? How can I forgive that lost opportunity, those memories that should have been mine to cherish, to bear me up when I wake at night so desperate to feel his whiskered kiss on my forehead, his voice telling me he’s so proud of me, proud of everything I’ve done?

This is why I hate you, Ziza. This is why I can never stop hating you.

Reason #2: Those diamond drills in your robot raccoons weren’t just drills. That cornbread pan wasn’t just a pan. You know what, Ziza? In spite of everything else, I only sent you back to Earth with those fake videos to protect you from yourself, and keep you out of harm’s way. Because despite this whole list, part of me still loved you, stupid as it sounds. Maybe it’s because you’re named for Mother. But you tried to dump me into the vacuum of space, Sister Dearest. You tried to murder me in my sleep. You activated the wafer computer in the pan’s false bottom, hacked my defenses, and the drills turned my hull into cheese by the time I woke up. If I hadn’t mounted the terraforming nuke to the escape pod… but I did.

Reason #1: Did you ever love me? Ever, Ziza? I’m not filling this one out yet, because I don’t think I’ve yet hated you as much as a woman can hate her sister. Not yet. But I will.

So I’m going to tell you something else you don’t yet know: On the wreck of my shuttle, scraping by on the last of my life support, are a dozen rare raccoon specimens. I was going to release them on Mars after the terraforming ended so they could colonize a safe place far from any predators. My shuttle is set to self-destruct in two days’ time. If you leave your current course, you might just have time to save them. Let’s find out what you care more about: helpless garbatrites, or near-extinct raccoons.

The shuttle also contains an urn with Father’s ashes, wrapped in extra scarves in the top hatch in my quarters. Mother asked me to scatter them on the planet because Father had so many happy memories of camping there with his daughters. I didn’t have time to rescue it when I had to abandon ship a few days ago.

I don’t have that one on my list yet. Better go add it now.

Hate you always,

Anita

P.S. Why did Ziza fly across the solar system twice? Because she was a double crosser. Get it?

P.P.S. Happy New Year, by the way.

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

To: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

Date: 2161/01/02

 

Anita,

By now you’ve probably realized that regardless of your efforts, your escape pod’s trajectory is no longer Mars. You are now on an intercept path with me. I know that you must be seething, cursing my name, praying for my damnation (you’ve always been so dramatic), but give me the opportunity to explain.

Your ship was never in danger. The plan was that once you entered in new coordinates to anyplace other than Mars, preferably home, the diamond drills would have set about repairing the holes they’d created in the hull of your ship. Genius ancillary programming, if I do say so myself. All you had to do was turn around. But you, with your flare for the dramatic and unwillingness to give up, even when you know you’ve lost, decided to jump ship and make the rest of the voyage via the escape pod.

The escape pod. The escape pod with only half the power you’ll need to complete the trip to Mars. At the rate you’re going you’ll be one hundred and three before you even break orbit. If you paid as much attention to the details as you do the drama, you might have remembered that.

Why couldn’t all your hot hate keep those poor raccoons warm as your abandoned ship plunges onward toward the cold outer depths of space, too long and too far for either of us to go? I won’t be able to save those raccoons, nor Father’s ashes, because I will be saving you.

You can thank me later.

Your last message, so thick with evil enmity for your only sibling in the galaxy, reminded me of Tariq, the only man I ever considered staying with for a lifetime. I’ve tried over the last forty-three years, without an iota of success, to tangle and finally lose my memory of him among the many others. He was brighter than Sirius and sweeter than lugduname, at least to me. I know that long-legged bird wasn’t perfect, he chewed with his mouth open and, truth be told, he wasn’t very bright but he loved me without reserve.

You didn’t like him at first. You called him a “pretty, useless thing”, because he didn’t have the same knack for business or driving ambition for more, that you did. He was an artist and liked to create beautiful things, to experience the delights of life with all of his senses exposed and ready.

It was through your senses that he finally won you over. So thoughtful was he, that knowing your dislike for him, he still surprised you with your favorite, hot homemade waffles, on your birthday.

When I broke off the engagement with him only a week later, you, who had hated him all along, refused to speak to me for months. You said I’d made the biggest mistake of my life. You called me a fool.

I never told you why I broke off the engagement. And I bet you never knew that even now, there are sleep cycles when instead of sleep, I lay awake imaging how happy I’d be today had I not broken poor Tariq’s heart.

I broke off our engagement because of your Reason #1. In answer to your question, I love you more than breath itself, baby sister.

Tariq said to me one day, as we lay beneath the sun in a field of cool holo-grass, “Any sister who would waste her dying father’s final hours arguing over an inheritance is surely too selfish to bear.” He took my foot in his hands and kneaded my heel expertly. “I’m willing to tolerate Anita, my love, because of you.”

I said nothing to this for a while, mostly because the foot massage was so exquisite that it stole my breath and crossed my eyes. But when he was done, I politely slipped on my shoes, clapped off the holo-vision, and asked him to leave.

“If you love me, you must love my sister too. Anything less is unacceptable,” I told him.

So you see, silly sister, you can hate me a million times, but no matter what, I’ll still love you, even though you don’t deserve it. God, you’re such a brat.

Ziza

P.S. Are you seriously pouting about your name? Mother should have named you Shakespeare because you’re nothing but drama.

P.P.S. I didn’t pile those rocks against the door. That was Bobo and Cow. They were just trying to play hide and seek with you. I guess my sweet raccoonie-woonies won that round.

P.P.P.S. Why did the raccoon cross the solar system? To keep her sister’s paw off Mars.

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

To: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

Date: 2161-01-11

 

Dear Ziza,

Greetings from Mars.

Don’t worry. Nothing has changed. I have regretfully failed to deploy the terraforming nuke. My mission has failed, for now.

Perhaps even before you read this message, GalactiPol will be taking you into custody. I called them when my escape pod veered off course, when the navigation stopped responding to my counter-hacks. You might have forgotten in your rashness that the Mumbai Council for Martian Development endorsed my plan for terraforming, and that I was their agent. Interfering with my mission meant meddling with the Coalition of Humankind itself.

I didn’t call GalactiPol sooner because I wanted to beat you at your own game. So few people in this huge, empty universe can even approach my creativity and intellect. You’ve always pushed me to the greatest apex of my brilliance. I’m never as inventive as when you’re scheming to ruin me. But the thought of losing Father’s ashes into the void of space… well, it gave me no rest. He doesn’t deserve that, not at our hands. I’d hoped you’d fetch the urn, but instead I’m calling an end to our battle of wits.

GalactiPol scooped up my escape pod and listened to my account of your wrongdoings. They have dispatched a salvage vessel to my wreck, and an armed cruiser to arrest you. Unfortunately, I made a fatal mistake: the raccoons. As you well know, I did not have authorization to remove these endangered creatures from Earth.

So they’ve arrested me too. I’ve been dropped on Mars for safekeeping while they run the raccoons back to Earth. They’ve dispatched another cruiser to your coordinates. Soon they will bring you here too, dear Ziza, and for the second time we’ll wander the sands together in this desert of red storms, with only wit and curiosity and mutual hatred to keep us alive until someone returns for us.

Did you know part of our old camp is still here? Somehow the shell of our mobile lab held up against the years. Probably because of the garbatrites. Remember we’d left the lab tucked in the shadow of their great stone. Apparently they liked it (perhaps for the way it holds warmth during the cold Martian nights) because they covered it in their tiny homes like a shipwreck bejeweled with coral and barnacles. When I turn on the lights at night, they dance along the seams in swirling shapes, carving microscopic paths through the dust coating, just as frail human biceps have pushed and moved the world until you can see their efforts from space. The Great Wall of China! The glittering glass megascrapers of Nigeria! How floating Melbourne glistens like a blue jewel in the dark, riding the waves forever, its flooded gondola channels sipping the ocean’s rise and fall! Our little lab is a world for these tiny creatures. They shout,  We are here. We exist.

But let’s talk about Tariq. Now there’s an unhealed wound running to our cores. It’s true, Ziza, that you were always the prettiest. I am a plain woman, an experience you can never understand. Your beauty is a passport into people’s best nature. Everyone sees in you the face of an angel, and they give you an angel’s due. Well, any plain woman knows the converse is true, that we have to prove again and again our worth and goodness to a world that mistakes the grotesque for evil, the ungroomed for lazy, the fat for stupid.

Your Tariq, like all pretty men, suffered from the same assumptions. He was never as good to anyone as he was to you, Ziza Angel-faced. When he didn’t ignore me outright, he liked to pick on me for your amusement. He named me Yam Nose and Ogre Teeth, and when I protested, he laughed me off as too sensitive, as if I didn’t have a right to my dignity. People like him are cruel to girls like me in a thoughtless, automatic way, like they can’t imagine us having feelings any more complex than a dog’s. Yes, I detested him. But the day he made me waffles, throwing me one small, quiet kindness, I realized how happy he made you, that you intended to marry him. He’d be around our family a long, long time. I made my peace.

I am sorry you realized so late the flaw in him that was obvious to me from the first. But know, Ziza, that Tariq must accept responsibility for his own character. If you had married him, when you aged and your beauty began to fade, he surely would’ve turned that same cruelty on you. He may very well have been your soulmate, but take a hard look at your own soul, and ask whether you too mistake your angelic face for more than it is. You are merely human.

So come to Mars, Sister. Come to where this all started that summer our father wanted us to bond, back before we hated the taste of water, before we learned to despise each other in small ways and big. We cannot escape one another. Our hatred has been our brilliance, our secret genius, the harsh red desert that pushed and pinched and goaded us to build towers you can see from the Moon. Imagine what a lifetime of love might have accomplished

Come to Mars, Ziza. Scatter our father’s ashes with me. If we cannot make this place bloom with life, at least we can make it a little more dusty.

Anita

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

To: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

Date: 2161-01-11

 

Dearest Anita,

I can see the GalactiPol cruiser from my starboard viewport. Its black and gold stripes practically glow beneath the strobing orange beacon and make it look like a psychedelic bumblebee. Most people in my situation, facing detainment on Mars, endless expensive legal proceedings, possible time in prison, would be locked in the grips of fear and worry. Perhaps even shame. But not me. The one thought stuck in my mind, like a diptera fastened to sticky paper, is how beautiful that cruiser is and how excited I am to begin this second adventure.

It’s all about perception.

During that last picnic on the moon, when you were locked in the service booth, Father talked about perception. “Perception is everything. If you can project what you perceive it will become reality. You will believe it. More importantly, whether good or bad, everyone else will believe in your reality as well, and they will believe in you.” Not until I read your last letter did I realize how right Father was. And how wrong we have been.

In the mirror I’ve always seen the imperfect likeness of our mother, not quite as beautiful, not quite as kind, and with but a fraction of her intelligence. I have our father’s height and amber-flecked brown eyes, but none of his grace, strength, or athleticism. Yet, somehow you see in me the face of an angel.

In you I see the sharp mind and steady hands of a scientist. A fearless tenacious spirit intent on exploring all possibilities even at great cost, able to articulate your ideas, to change hearts and minds. You have boundless strength, so much so that you have been the central support for Mother and me since Father’s death. There is nothing plain about you, little sister, nothing wanting.

How is it that our perceptions have never aligned?

Be right back. GalactiPol is hailing me…

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

To: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

Date: 2161-01-12

Sorry it has taken me so long to return to this letter, but I had a few calls to make. Officers Gavalia and Ambrose boarded my ship at 2315 and took me into custody. My detainment cell is surprisingly modish, with full amenities including a computer and personal uncensored communication device. I have even been given unrestricted access to their onboard digital library.

According to officer Gavalia, though entry into GalactiPol requires extensive training and a stringent vetting system, they have little opportunity to actually do the type of policing their organization exists to perform. I suppose there just aren’t that many galactic criminals to catch these days, besides you and me, that is.

Now where was I? Ah yes. Perceptions.

I’ve been mesmerized by the images you sent of the garbatrite homes, the bright multilayered encrusted structures in every shade of red, orange and pink, lambent lights beneath the gaze of the sun. They expound beauty and ingenuity and life and more than anything, a prescience greater than anything either of us could have conceived.

We’ve been darting back and forth through this solar system, in an effort to outdo one another, trying our damndest to affect the change of our choosing, thinking we are so smart and so in control, when in truth, we are no greater than those garbatrites, and perhaps we are even less wise than they.

Perhaps there is a way for us both to have what we wanted, to terraform Mars and to protect the garbatrites. They were always keen to share their world with us and seeing the ingenuity and beauty of their structures, perhaps we can convince them to help us transform the barren surface of Mars into one of cooperative beauty. We can provide the framework for our cities and homes, and they can build upon them, layering their coral-like exoteric structures, creating homes befitting us all, unlike anything in the entire solar system.

I called Tariq shortly after my detainment aboard the GalactiPol cruiser. Before you think me hopeless, let me explain. Besides being happily ensconced in a polyamorous relationship with two of the nicest men and woman I have ever met, he has long since given up on his art (he was never very good anyway) and has been the Chief GalactiPol Officer for several years. I was hoping that there was still enough lingering affection between us that he would agree to assist me in this difficult situation.

Unfortunately, he is unable, as I had hoped, to have the charges against us repealed, but we have been allowed to serve the entirety of our sentence on Mars. Together.

Shall we do this, sister? Shall we make our dreams come true?

I envision us making a home from our old pod quarters. Perhaps we can build on an extra room and invite Mother. We can even build a special corral for Bobo and Cow, where they can play happily and where they won’t be able to disturb you as you work on your next great experiment. With the help of the garbatrites we can build a greenhouse. We’ll grow corn and tomatoes in soil fertilized with the ashes of our father. We will create a real home, a life. And we will relearn one another, our strengths and weakness, our mutual love for each other. One day other Earthers will join us on our red planet and find a world of wonder encased in garbatrite domes. A home.

Can you see it, sister? Good. Now hold that thought in your mind until we are reunited.

With all my love,

Ziza

 

*

 

From: Alamieyeseigha, Anita

To: Alamieyeseigha, Ziza

Date: 2161-01-13

 

Dear Ziza,

Why did the sisters cross the solar system? To get to the other’s side.

See you soon,

Anita

 

© 2017 by Rachael K. Jones and Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali

 

Author’s Note (Khaalidah): When I met Rachael about three years ago, I experienced an instant and sincere affection for her. We toyed with the idea of a collaboration for awhile before we finally dove in. We didn’t outline this story beforehand and had no clear idea where it would go. It took us across the galaxy, with great food, adventure, and lots of laughter. Collaborating with someone as talented and easy-going as Rachael was a joy for me. She charged my imagination. I am pleased to be able to share the results with everyone else.  In many ways the end result reflects how I feel about Rachael. She is a sister in my heart and a dear friend.

Author’s Note (Rachael): Khaalidah is my dear friend, my comrade-in-arms, probably a time traveler, and everything I want to be when I grow up. So when we started kicking around the idea of doing a collaboration, I jumped on the opportunity. Writing this story with her was immensely fun, often hilarious, and always surprising. While working on “Regarding the Robot Raccoons,” we eventually realized that although we each controlled a single character’s voice, we were actually writing each other’s characters via our reactions to one another, creating a more complex and nuanced view of Anita and Ziza that you get through just one perspective. I think this phenomenon also exists in all good friendships: in seeing yourself reflected through another’s eyes, you’re inspired to push harder, reach higher, and go farther in life than you ever would on your own. Khaalidah’s friendship makes me a better person, just as collaborating with her makes me a better writer. I hope our readers, in turn, will enjoy the results.

 

Rachael K. Jones grew up in various cities across Europe and North America, picked up (and mostly forgot) six languages, and acquired several degrees in the arts and sciences. Now she writes speculative fiction in Athens, Georgia. Contrary to the rumors, she is probably not a secret android. Rachael’s fiction has appeared in dozens of venues, including Lightspeed, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Strange Horizons, and PodCastle. Follow her on Twitter @RachaelKJones.

 

 

 

 

Khaalidah Muhammad-Ali lives in Houston, Texas, with her husband and three children. By day she works as a breast oncology nurse. At all other times she juggles, none too successfully, writing, reading, gaming, and gardening. She has written one novel entitled An Unproductive Woman available on Amazon. She has also been published at Escape Pod , Strange Horizons, and Fiyah!.  Khaalidah is also co-editor at Podcastle.org where she is on a mission to encourage more women to submit fantasy stories. Of her alter ego, K from the planet Vega, it is rumored that she owns a time machine and knows the secret to immortality.

 

 

 

 

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DP Fiction #28A: “The Existentialist Men” by Gwendolyn Clare

Kris has a talent for making toast come out perfectly every time. Never burnt. The rest of us yearn for a superpower so practical.

Ryan has incredible parking-space karma, but only after he has already parked. He’ll circle round and round the block, finding nothing and more nothing, and eventually give up and take that one empty space six blocks away. He’ll bundle up against the cold, scarf wrapped all the way up to his chin and hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, and walk the six blocks to the restaurant. And without fail, just as he opens the door, a parking space will open up directly in front. Once, he ran back to his car to move it closer, but the empty space had been claimed by the time he drove there. The parking spaces are taunting him.

Technology always behaves itself in the presence of Candace. If someone has a computer problem, all she has to do to fix it is walk over and glance at the screen. Of course, as soon as she walks away, the computer begins malfunctioning again. She doesn’t understand what the rest of us are always complaining about.

Julie could disappear, but only once. We all miss Julie.

Hiro is never, ever, in a situation where he might have the opportunity to be a hero. One day he slept in, and that was the day someone lost control of their car on the ice and plowed through the glass front of the café where he usually got his morning coffee. When the flu prevented him from going holiday shopping downtown, a chunk of limestone façade spontaneously fell off a building onto a crowded sidewalk, killing one person and injuring six. If he declines to join us for lunch, invariably someone in the restaurant will nearly choke to death. The rest of us got trained to do the Heimlich, and we try to take him along with us whenever we can, like a shield against the bad luck that seems to cluster in his absence. Hiro, for his own part, tries to stick to his schedule so he’s never not somewhere he’s supposed to be.

Brianna gets improbable injuries. It’s true that she enjoys her share of dangerous activities—rugby, skiing, roller derby—but that’s never when she gets hurt. She sprained her wrist in her sleep. She broke a bone in her foot getting out of the desk chair in her home office. Once, she actually slipped on a banana peel and broke her elbow. At an improv comedy show, she laughed so hard she cracked a rib. Most of the ER nurses know her by name. She has to be especially careful when Hiro’s not around.

Nick always knows exactly what time it is without looking at a clock. This would have been incredibly useful back in the 18th Century. But we all own watches and cell phones, and don’t really need him for anything.

Carlos says he has consistent, reliable precognitive abilities. Unfortunately, his precognition only senses one or two seconds ahead, so he never manages to react in time to change the outcome. This means no one else can really confirm whether or not he has a superpower at all, but we choose to believe him anyway. With everything else we’ve seen, why not? At least he knows what’s coming.

My superpower is that I’m friends with all these people, and nothing extraordinary ever happens to me.

© 2017 by Gwendolyn Clare

 

gwen-clare-headshotGwendolyn Clare’s debut novel — INK, IRON, AND GLASS — is the first in a YA steampunk duology forthcoming from Macmillan/Imprint in 2018. Her short stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Beneath Ceaseless Skies, among others. She holds a BA in Ecology, a BS in Geophysics, a PhD in Mycology, and swears she’s done collecting acronyms. She lives in North Carolina with too many cats, too many ducks, and never enough books.

 

 

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DP Fiction #27B: “The Aunties Return the Ocean” by Chris Kuriata

Content note(click for details)

Content note: harm to children

Auntie Roberta landed badly on the roof of her escarpment house, scraping her knees across the flagstone shingles and splitting her pantyhose. Her arms were too full of black water to keep her balance so she nearly slid off the edge.

She carried so much ocean she barely knew where to hide it all. Inside her stony home, she filled the kitchen drawers and cupboards with cold dark brine. Every pot and tankard as well. She quickly ran out of places, yet her weary arms were still loaded with the stuff. Where would it all fit? Auntie Roberta got on her knees and stuffed the final bits of ocean into the mouse holes. She heard the panicked mice squeak before drowning.

What an exhausting evening she’d endured. At the appointed hour, all the Aunties of the world had banded together like a swarm of locusts, and set upon the heart of the ocean. Their grubby hands tore the water apart, breaking up the reflection of the moon as they scrambled to load every last drop into their arms.  All along the empty ocean floor, fish flopped and ships jammed into rock beds. The neighbours had called the Aunties’ bluff, refusing to give in to their demands. So, just as the Aunties threatened, they stole the ocean.

During the theft, Auntie Roberta kept close watch on the other Aunties, noticing none of her sisters carried away as much ocean as she did. Auntie Roberta always did more than her fair share and never received thanks. The other Aunties thought they were smarter than her, but really they were just lazier.

“Hey!” Auntie Robert shouted. “Get away from there!”

A burr covered cat with collapsed ears sat on the kitchen table, lapping away at a mug filled with ocean. Auntie Roberta flung a wooden spoon and sent the cat retreating through a gnawed hole in the parlour wall.

“Sneaky thief,” she huffed.

***

“It smells damp in here,” the neighbour woman Marilyn said. She didn’t outright accuse Auntie Roberta of helping to steal the ocean, but she certainly sounded suspicious.

Normally, Auntie Roberta threw rocks at nosey neighbours, but the neighbour woman Marilyn came bearing a freshly baked pie and, well, Auntie Roberta didn’t know any spells strong enough to compete with flawlessly executed baking.

“Roof leaks when it rains,” Auntie Roberta said, stuffing pie into her mouth with both hands. “Makes the house damp. Can’t do nothing about it.”

The neighbour woman Marilyn pointed to the ceramic mugs, each filled to the brim with a curious liquid the colour of midnight. “What’s in all these?”

“Coffee what’s gone off.”

The neighbour woman Marilyn put her nose to the rim and breathed in the scent of salt and seaweed, triggering memories of her uncle’s tugboat and the baskets of crabs she helped haul from the deep.

Auntie Roberta licked the last of the crumbs from the bottom of the pie pan and the neighbour woman took her cue to leave. A neighbour had nothing to fear in the house of an Auntie so long as she was eating, but once an Auntie’s belly was full, staying under their roof was like leaving your head in a lion’s mouth–sooner or later the jaw would get tired and CHOMP.

Auntie Roberta washed her sticky lips in a mug of the ocean, breaking up the reflection of the midnight moon that continued to shine from the still water.

***

Word of their victory reached Auntie Roberta in her rain barrel: “The neighbours have agreed to our demands. Therefore, return your section of the ocean back where it belongs.”

Auntie Roberta took stock of the ocean squirreled away all over her house and wondered how on earth she’d manage to carry so much. She couldn’t believe she had done it the first time.

“Looks like I’m making two trips,” she grumbled.

To distract her mind from the inconvenient task, she looked forward to the coming spring. At last, no more sneaking around or disguising her identity. No more inventing schemes to trick the offspring into entering her service. Thanks to the ocean theft, this year the Aunties could snatch up whatever offspring they desired and the neighbours couldn’t lift a finger in protest. It had been agreed.

***

The sight of the returned ocean astonished Auntie Roberta.

“Are we joking?”

The returned ocean sat miles below its original level. The water had gone off, turning grey as stale root-brew. Auntie Roberta saw all sorts of detritus swirling in the stunted ocean; cobwebs, bits of crayon, pocket lint, silky upper-lip hair… You couldn’t even see the reflection of the moon anymore. It was an embarrassment. The Aunties left the ocean looking torn apart as a robbed grave.

The original genius of their plan, having every Auntie take part (for how could the neighbours track down and punish a million Aunties?) turned out to be its greatest weakness, for while a dozen Aunties will be cunning and precise, two dozen will be absent-minded and deceitful. Harvesting the effort of every Auntie in the world? Good Lord. The neighbours ought to be thankful there was any ocean left.

***

The day after, Auntie Roberta lay on her roof, camouflaged beneath a blanket of shingles, her arms loaded with rocks to repel the invading neighbours she was sure were coming once they switched on the morning news and got a look at the mess the Aunties had made of their beloved ocean.

Not a single rock needed to be thrown. The angry neighbours never came. Instead of seeking retribution, the neighbours gathered together as a community and held a day of mourning for their once vital ocean.

No action would be taken against the Aunties. The neighbours would honour their agreement, terrified if they reneged the Aunties would rise up and do something even worse.

That evening, Auntie Roberta smelled fresh bran muffins and opened the door on the neighbour woman Marilyn. Auntie Roberta stuffed muffins into her mouth, famished after spending all day on the roof with nothing to eat but the occasional low flying sparrow.

The neighbour woman Marilyn lifted a mug from the kitchen table. A bit of the ocean remained inside: a mouthful’s worth. The neighbour woman Marilyn swirled the mug, making the ocean race around the ceramic walls like a fat, black worm.

“I’d never looked closely before at how beautiful it was,” she said.

Auntie Roberta kept quiet, unwilling to admit her involvement in the ocean fiasco.

The ocean in the mug retained its midnight colour, and when allowed to pool the reflection of the moon shone brightly, dancing on the wall like candle flame.

“May I keep this?” the neighbour woman Marilyn asked. “So that one day my grandchildren can see what the ocean used to look like?”

Auntie Roberta’s full belly made her agreeable, and she waved her hand generously. “I suppose so, on the condition of future baking.”

She watched the neighbour woman Marilyn carry the mug down the escarpment, clutching it between her hands, not wanting to spill a precious drop of the original ocean. Neighbours made a bad habit of deifying things. Such reverence for objects made them easy to take advantage of.

***

When an Auntie grabbed an offspring, they performed a series of alterations to make the offspring more compatible with their needs. Some were muted. Others had their limbs lengthened or shortened. A few had their eyes cut out in order to heighten their other senses.

Auntie Roberta modified her offspring by burning the hair down to stubble, compacting the feet into cloven hooves, and replacing the teeth with chunks of rock. This kept the neighbours from recognizing their darlings when Auntie Roberta sent them into town to purchase necessities. She didn’t mind the extra work. She re-sculpted the offspring so effectively that even if their mothers did recognize them, their mothers always let them go, correctly believing they were beyond hope.

For days, Auntie Roberta waited in vain for fresh baking. Because of the damage done to the ocean, the temperature soared and there was scarcely air to breathe. Few neighbours could make the trip up the escarpment. There were no more markets and all the stores were closed. The moon did its best to keep the tidal waves in effect, but the new handicapped ocean could no longer provide the neighbours with the luxuries they had taken for granted all these millennia.

Before the receiver in her radio went out, Auntie Roberta heard about the neighbours’ pitiful attempt to rehabilitate the ocean. They emptied the tank of every aquarium and science lab. They hoped these fish would adapt to the new environment. “Nature will find a way” was the motto. Over the next thousand years, the fish might evolve into new species–guppies the size of whales–that would clean the waters and make the ocean once again capable of reflecting the moon. No neighbour alive would live to see that day, but maybe the children of their grandchildrens’ children would know the ocean as their ancestors once had.

Auntie Roberta allowed none of this tumult to affect her. So long as her house remained protected and she had her latest offspring to aid her daily tasks, she could endure anything.

The other Aunties, however, decided the neighbours had suffered long enough, and so they began bartering back the other half of the ocean.

***

Auntie Balut came to visit, trekking up the escarpment on the back of her long-legged offspring. The sunburned beast of burden collapsed after delivering her master. Auntie Roberta found an old can of stewed tomatoes. She cracked the tin and slowly fed the convulsing offspring the life-giving water inside. The last thing Auntie Roberta wanted was for the offspring to croak. With no one to carry her down the escarpment, lazy Auntie Balut would declare herself a houseguest and expect to be waited on hand and foot. The trouble with Aunties was their obnoxious insistence on making themselves at home.

With her shoes off and her bare feet propped on the kitchen table, Auntie Balut showed off the fine jewelry swaddled six layers thick around her neck. “This here had been in the family seven generations. And this here? They actually had to break into the mausoleum to strip it off the body.”

All the Aunties were rolling in wealth, for each held back a parcel of the ocean, stowed away in a kitchen drawer or under the bed like an antique vase they were waiting to appreciate.

“I could ask for all ten of their fingers, and they’d happily slice ‘em off with one hand and then wedge the knife between their teeth to slice ‘em off the other.” Auntie Balut dumped a purse of chopped fingers onto the table to prove she spoke no hyperbole.

In these harsh times, a bucket of the original ocean went a long way, and so the Aunties made out like bandits. The neighbours learned to extract threads of algae and encourage new growth. They pulled tiny fish from the black depths, happy to see new schools spawned the next morning.

Most impressive of all, when the sun set and the neighbours’ pitiful hovels were cast in darkness, their bucket of original ocean reflected the bright full moon just as it had shined the night the ocean was stolen. Whole families from age eight to eighty circled the bucket, hypnotized by the twinkling light and fortified by the fresh air.

When Auntie Balut finished crowing about her recent windfall, she looked around Auntie Roberta’s kitchen and her mood turned dour. Auntie Roberta had no mounds of jewels or ancestral skulls or even piles of snipped-off fingers to attest to profitable negotiations for her share of the ocean.

“Oh sweetie,” Auntie Balut said. “Did it not occur to you to keep a bit of the ocean for yourself? You know, to make a little—” she rubbed her fingers together in the sign of filthy lucre. Auntie Balut threw her head back and cackled till she broke wind, relishing the embarrassed look on Auntie Roberta’s face.

“You put all your ocean back? What, was someone supposed to spell out what we were really up to?”

Auntie Roberta held her chin high, waiting for Auntie Balut to laugh herself out. Instead, the laughter and the insults intensified, turned mean. “Maybe you gave the neighbours ocean freely. Maybe you love them more than your own Aunties.”

When she’d had enough, Auntie Roberta retrieved her knife from beside the whetstone and went outside. On the lawn, Auntie Balut’s offspring slept heavily, full of tomato water and dreaming of its old life. Auntie Roberta swung her knife, ripping the throat open from ear to ear, effectively bringing the offspring’s service to an early retirement.

“Leave all your jewelry on the table,” Auntie Roberta said as she wiped her bloody hands on her apron. “That should lighten you up enough to carry your own fat ass down the escarpment.”

***

Ages had passed since Auntie Roberta last paid someone a visit, so she intended to do this one right. Instead of squeezing herself into a ball to roll down the chimney or gnawing her way through the tasty kitchen floorboard, Auntie Roberta clicked her heels together on the front porch’s WELCOME mat in a perfect parody of one of the neighbours. She even brought a gift.

“Good morning,” Auntie Roberta said, proudly displaying a tray of baking. She hadn’t the right ingredients for her cookies; mostly sand and flour made from crushed mice bones, held together with spit and tomato water. She decorated the tops with broken Christmas lights.

The neighbour woman Marilyn nodded, and ushered Auntie Roberta inside. She had shorn her head bald, and her dry skin wrinkled like an impression of an alligator.

“Is your husband at work?” Auntie Roberta asked.

“No,” the neighbour woman Marilyn said, casting her eyes to the bloodstained hole blasted into the wall over the couch.

“Too lazy, is he?”

The neighbour woman showed no interest in the cookies, so Auntie Roberta snatched a couple and tossed them into her mouth. The glass crunched and made colourful clumps between her teeth.

She cut to the chase. “Have you still got it?”

The neighbour woman Marilyn nodded. “Have you come to take that from me too?”

Auntie Roberta reached for more cookies. “Things freely given cannot be taken back. But there’s nothing to stop us from making a trade.”

“What could you possibly have to trade me?”

The last of the cookies flew into Auntie Roberta’s mouth. “Anything you’d like, so long as you’re not too greedy.”

“Too greedy?”

“Meaning ask for one thing, not a dozen.”

She licked the empty tray and tossed it into the corner. The ceramic shattered, sending white shards flying like punched out teeth.

The neighbour woman Marilyn closed her eyes. Praying? Thinking? After a moment of privacy, she nodded and said, “Come with me.”

Stuffed animals made a pyramid on the too-tiny bed. Auntie Roberta’s back ached to see a bed that small. She would have to saw her legs off to fit, and there would be no room for the occasional late night company. The heads of plastic dolls crunched beneath her feet. This was a gaudy, immature room.

The neighbour woman Marilyn reached beneath the bed, retrieving a lunchbox painted over with frolicking cartoon animals. The frivolous object offended Auntie Roberta’s sensibilities, but the neighbour woman handled it reverentially, as though it were part of a daily religious ritual.

She split the box open and removed the Thermos rattling inside. Before passing the pink canister to Auntie Roberta, she held it to her chest, resting the lid against her cheek. Auntie Roberta thought she looked ridiculous, like a chimpanzee fooled into accepting a surrogate dolly.

“At night, I’d unscrew the lid, and moon light would cover the ceiling. We used to lie on our backs and watch the light ripple. She said it looked like friendly ghosts.” The memory pained her, and she thrust the Thermos towards Auntie Roberta. “It sings to me at night, begging to be let out, but I’m afraid it will evaporate and I’ll be left with nothing.”

“Relax, I’ve handled ocean before.”

At the front door, with the Thermos tucked snugly into her apron, Auntie Roberta lingered, about to suggest the neighbour woman continue to visit her little house on top of the escarpment. She could bring fresh bread, baked on the rocks in her yard. Neighbours often made feeble attempts to befriend Aunties, either out of awe or fear, but such partnerships were forbidden. This was a new world, however, and Auntie Roberta didn’t feel like she needed to play by the rules anymore.

She turned back, about to extend an invitation, but changed her mind. The light in the neighbour woman’s eyes, dim when she first arrived, had now gone out completely. She was a woman without hope, and Auntie Roberta knew she would never see her again.

***

Using steady, freshly licked fingers, Auntie Roberta poured the ocean into a hollow glass amulet the shape of a spider with its legs ripped off. She sealed the amulet tight and hung the chain over her neck. Ice coldness stabbed her breast and she shrieked. Unexpectedly, the ocean remained as cold as it had been the night the Aunties scooped the water up.

“You’re a tenacious bugger,” she saluted the ocean.

The heavy amulet swung from her chest proudly. No Auntie could laugh at her now, like stupid Auntie Balut had done. The ocean around her neck proved she was just as devious and cunning as the lot of them. She couldn’t be mocked—just so long as the embarrassing truth of her giving the ocean away to a neighbour woman (and having to pathetically make a deal for it back) stayed secret.

“I didn’t trade mine away for useless trinkets. I still got my piece of the ocean.”

All that was left now was for Auntie Roberta to fulfill her end of the trade between her and the neighbour woman.

“It’s a goddamn shame,” Auntie Roberta said.

The offspring stirred at the sound of her approaching footsteps. For practical purposes, Auntie Roberta kept the offspring crated beneath the basement steps when she went out. So much easier than worrying what mischief they were getting up to in her absence.

Auntie Roberta paid dearly for the return of her dignity. She knew this offspring was the last she’d ever have in her service. Without the ocean, the land was mute of the sound of copulation. Neighbours were unwilling or unable to create future offspring.

“I promised your mommy a strange mercy.”

Auntie Roberta slid the block of wood from the crate door. Her apron held the same knife used to cut the throat of Auntie Balut’s offspring. Used properly, it would do the job just as the neighbour woman Marilyn had demanded:

“Release my daughter from your service, quickly and painlessly,” she had said.

She must have thought Auntie Roberta would use a spell, giving her daughter a final dream of their happy family on a clean ocean before magically stopping her heart. Charming, that the neighbour woman thought spells came as  easily to the Aunties as snapping their fingers, but no. Auntie Roberta wasn’t going to waste the effort of a spell on the offspring.

“Come to Auntie.”

The offspring remained in the cramped crate. Normally so eager to get out, this time they crouched on their elbows and knees, eyes opened wide. Monkey noises came from their throat, contractions that normally turned into… what, cheers? Laughter?

In the darkness of the basement, the reflection of the moon beamed from Auntie Roberta’s amulet, shimmering over the steps, filling the crate with its cool, blue light.

“Oh, you like that, eh?”

Auntie Roberta lifted the amulet. The reflection of the moon brightened the clay wall. The offspring rolled onto their back, looking up at the light as it rippled and twinkled, dancing across the wall like friendly ghosts. Purring softly, the offspring threaded an arm into the dirt, cuddling the imaginary mommy tucked lovingly beside them.

Auntie Roberta twirled the amulet between her fingers, sending the moonlight gleaming all over the basement. She hated her sisters, the rest of the Aunties. Since the inception of the universe they had a glorious, renewable pool of fresh neighbours that provided them with everything they needed to survive. And they’d fucked it up irreversibly and for what? A fleeting moment of superiority? Untold riches for the cleverest of speculators? Well, that worked out just great, hadn’t it?

“What a goddamn shame.”

With the last of the shimmering ocean lying cold against her breast, Auntie Roberta pulled the knife from her apron and held up her end of the trade, completing the task faster and more mercifully than any spell she might have cast.

© 2017 by Chris Kuriata

Chris Kuriata lives in St. Catharines, Ontario. His short fiction about elderly poisoners, whale-hunting clowns, ghastly family photographs, and childhood necromancy have appeared in many fine publications. You can read more about his work at www.chriskuriata.wordpress.com

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DP Fiction #27A: “The Things You Should Have Been” by Andrea G. Stewart

“You should have been a doctor,” my mother said. She squinted at me through the screen, as though the new computer I’d bought her had some secret flaw. She never quite trusted that it was better than her old one. “You always liked stitching when you were small. Remember that shirt you made? So many compliments!”

“Mom, it’s a little late for that. I’m thirty-three.” I tugged at the hem of my jacket, my elbows rubbing against the chair’s metal armrests. Fidgeting usually helped me calm my nerves. It didn’t help now. It had seemed simple on paper: five years away from home. Now the only thing I could think of was the blackness of space beyond these metal walls.

“Never too late.” Wisps of gray hair escaped from her bun, brushing the sides of her cheeks. She turned back to the pan on the stove. “You put your mind to something, you can do it. All my children—very capable.”

I could almost smell the soy sauce and chives, the sesame oil on the edge of burning. It made me miss home, more than just a little. “Stitching isn’t the only prerequisite to become a doctor.”

She sliced the air with her chopsticks. “But you’re good at memorizing.”

I focused on the soft glow of the LED lights above my head. “Stitching and memorizing–I’ll be sure to put that on my application. Lei Wong: he once stitched his own shirt.”

“Lei,” she said, “I’m serious.” She disappeared from view and I heard the clink of bottles as she rummaged through the cupboards. I was pretty sure my colleagues’ mothers didn’t cook while they were on vid calls.

“I’m serious too. I’ll update my resume. First thing when I get back.”

She popped into view once more, her face taking up the entire screen. “A lawyer, then. You’re good at arguing. Also good at making your mother feel bad.”

“Do lawyers make their mothers feel bad?”

“The ones who don’t listen do.”

I sighed and shifted in my seat. The cushion was thin, and I could feel the cold metal beneath it. No luxury, here. “I’m trying to listen.”

“Who said I was talking about you? I was talking about lawyers.” She gave a triumphant shrug and lifted the pan, shoveling greens onto a plate. When she was finished, she leaned on the counter, her face in profile. The sunlight from the window trickled into the creases on her temples, highlighted the places on the counter where the laminate had begun to wear away.

A knock sounded on the door behind me. “Two minutes.”

My mother gave me a sideways look. She’d heard it too. Her lips pressed together; her fingers curled around the edge of the countertop. “You could have been a comedian. Just making jokes. All the time. Taking nothing seriously.”

“Mom…”

She pushed away from the counter. “You can still do something else. Anything else.”

“I’ve got two minutes before we leave.”

She shook her head, her brow furrowed. Her hands wove through the air, wildly, like broken-winged birds. “Still enough time! Tell them you changed your mind. They can bring you back.”

They could. They’d never let me leave Earth again, but they could. I thought of returning to California, having my feet on real, solid ground again, standing in my mother’s kitchen and pleating dumplings, the smell of pork and cooked cabbage thick in the air. I couldn’t say it didn’t tempt me.

I checked the clock in the corner of my screen. A little over a minute before we began preparations to initiate the warp drive, before we left the solar system and ventured into the unknown. “But this is what I want to do. I’ve worked my whole life for this.” Hours of study, of physical preparations, of navigating paperwork and interpersonal relationships. “I’ll stay safe.”

My mother closed her eyes. “Always higher, always further, ever since you were a boy. You never knew how to stay safe. You’re thousands of miles away from safe.” Her shoulders hunched. She set the chopsticks down and lined them up until they were parallel, a small space in between. “I know you want to do this, and I’m proud of you, I really am. I’m just not ready.” A wan smile flitted across her face. “Lei Wong: space pilot.”

I gave her a return smile–one I hoped was reassuring despite the flicker of fear in my chest. “I’ll come home.”

She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Good. Maybe then you can try stitching again, instead.”

“I can try. Bye, mom. Love you. Catch you on the flip side.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Probably not a comedian. Not very funny.”

The screen went black.

“Ready?” Susan, my copilot, peeked inside the door.

I put my hands to the armrests, rose to my feet, and took a deep breath, the anxiety in my chest finally easing. “I think so.”

I could have sworn the air smelled of sesame oil.

© 2017 by Andrea G. Stewart

 

Author’s Note: This story was inspired by my mom, who can be alternately critical and alternately amazed at what I’ve accomplished–and sometimes both at the same time! I think, for her, my life will always be one of possibilities, even if I’ve set my feet firmly on one path.

 

10981917_10155292391580397_7630903974659219700_nAndrea Stewart was born in Canada and raised in a number of places across the United States. She spent her childhood immersed in Star Trek and odd-smelling library books. When her dreams of becoming a dragon slayer didn’t pan out, she instead turned to writing. Her work has appeared in Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, and Daily Science Fiction.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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DP Fiction #26B: “The Long Pilgrimage of Sister Judith” by Paul Starkey

When she heard the call to prayer Sister Judith knew something was wrong, even if she couldn’t immediately identify what was amiss. As she was wont to do when she was anxious, she tugged at the rosary around her neck, and it was as she did this that her mind put two and two together.

Around her on the Deck Eleven concourse the mellifluous call to prayer was echoing from the Voxes hung around the neck of every Brother and Sister, Novice and Postulant. It was not, however, coming from the Vox hung from the rosary around her neck.

She examined the device, elegantly curved in the shape of a figure eight, symbol of her faith. None of the lights on the upper portion were lit, not even the one indicative of a fault.

She glanced nervously around her, at her fellow adherents of the Greater Journey hurrying this way and that, heading for their preferred chapel. Brothers and Sisters chattered away, heads held high. The Novices remained in their groups of six, heads always bowed, chanting the triptych under their breath as they were required to do when they were called to prayer.

“Dedication- Deceleration- Destination.”

“Dedication- Deceleration- Destination.”

“Dedication- Deceleration- Destination.”

And finally the Postulants, clambering up from their knees, bending their legs and rubbing at their kneecaps before they headed off after the others. Heads bowed like the Novices, but not in groups, not chanting, not even talking, obedient to their vows of solitude and silence.

Sister Judith felt suddenly out of place. If she just continued to stand there eventually people would notice, not only those of the Faith, but the secularum as well: the engineers and teachers, the labourers and schoolchildren. She felt suddenly like a criminal, as if she’d done something wrong, been singled out for some divine punishment.

She should act as if she had heard the call, or else find a touchscreen and advise the communetor that her Vox was broken. Instead she just stood there, seized by a rare moment of indecision. It was not a feeling she was used to.

“Don’t fret, Sister Judith, nothing is wrong.”

She turned and bowed her head. “Maven Angelica. “

“Oh lift your head, girl. It’s been ten years since you were a Novice.”

Sister Judith smiled as she complied; Maven Angelica’s tone had been playful. Though she’d rarely spoken with the head of the Faith, Judith had heard her speak many times, and knew from these occurrences, and the comments of others, that she was not, nor ever had been, a strict disciplinarian. Not all Mavens had been so accommodating.

Despite the fact that she was a familiar figure around the Ark, it always surprised her to see Maven Angelica wearing the familiar cerulean habit of their order, but no wimple, her grey hair instead hung freely in several haphazard plaits. Sister Judith had to resist the urge to adjust her own wimple, suddenly paranoid that a scrap of blonde hair might be poking free.

No one knew exactly how old Maven Angelica was, but she had been Maven for as long as Sister Judith could remember; her first memory of this serene woman was as clear as her memory of yesterday. She’d been four, which meant Maven Angelica had held office for at least thirty years.

She was a striking woman despite her age, which had crooked her shoulders and necessitated a small metal cane, and despite the recent stroke that had caused the left side of her face to fall ever so slightly and was responsible for a vague slur to her voice. Her skin was clear of lines, her hazel eyes still bright. In her heart Sister Judith thought Maven Angelica was probably more beautiful in her dotage than she’d been in her prime.

“I’m sorry, Maven.”

Maven Angelica threw a dismissive hand in the air, her other remained wedded to her cane. “I’m too old for apologies. You’ll realise, as you age, that there are many things you don’t have the time for any more.” She smiled. “And talking of time, you and I have an appointment.”

“We do?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m here, and that is why your Vox did not issue you with the Call to Prayer. You have a more important matter to attend to, one that will entail us taking a trip to the Cartography Chapel.”

Sister Judith’s eyes widened. The Cartography Chapel was a place of great reverence, one that even a Maven only entered rarely.

She had many questions, but to ask might seem impertinent, so she sidestepped the sanctified nature of the Chapel, and instead focused on more rational concerns. “I should pack, such a pilgrimage will take several days.” Which was putting it mildly, to walk to the bow of the ship from their current position in the port transept would take her at least two days at a brisk pace, and she doubted Maven Angelica would be able to walk as quickly, so it might take three or four. They would need to arrange lodgings on the way and…

“That won’t be necessary, we’ll take the monorail.”

Sister Judith was shocked again. For the Adherents of the Greater Journey, faith was about struggle, about not taking the easier path. Unless they were aged, or otherwise infirm, those of the Faith were expected to walk everywhere, to clamber between decks along rickety ladders rather than taking the elevators, to spend days on journeys that would take the secularum mere minutes. Sister Judith hadn’t ridden the monorail since childhood.

Now she knew she must say something, even if it came out as impertinent. “Maven. After your years of selfless service to the Greater Journey you have earned the right to forgo the basic tenet of our Faith, but I am not nearly as worthy. I at least should walk.”

For a moment Maven Angelica stared at her, her face an unemotional mask, and then the old woman laughed. “Oh, you are a serious one, aren’t you? That’s good. The Faith needs strong souls, minds that will not bend… but sometimes faith must be flexible. How else to survive the strongest storms, eh?”

Sister Judith wasn’t sure she understood, but she nodded anyway. She had challenged the Maven’s request and her challenge had been discounted. She could only hope that the grand old woman had the best interests of the Greater Journey at heart.

There were several dozen people waiting at the monorail station, but as they saw the Maven approach they all stepped aside: young or old, man or woman, technician or artisan. Sister Judith felt like a fraud and she kept her gaze downcast, even as Maven Angelica conversed with people as they passed.

She glanced up only once, to find a small boy staring at her. He had tousled black hair and wore a vermillion cloak that was well-made enough to suggest his parents were high-ranking, or else were garmenters and had made it themselves. She smiled at him. He blushed and her smile broadened.

Despite the amusing interlude with the child, she was grateful when they were safely within the carriage. There was room for six, but no one would have dreamed of joining them.

They sat facing one another. The Maven looked at Sister Judith, but the younger woman found herself conflicted as the carriage began to move off.

“You can look. I realise this is a novelty for you.”

Sister Judith nodded, then—feeling slightly guilty—she glanced out of the window.

Her timing had been impeccable, because the carriage exited the tunnel a moment later, into the cavernous expanse of Plantation Two. She had to resist the urge to gasp, so long had it been since she’d seen this view.

Plantation Two was located on Deck Seven. Technically the rail they rode along counted as Deck Eleven and glancing up she saw bright sun-lights affixed to the ceiling roughly two decks above them.

She looked down once more, at the narrow strips of green and brown where men and women toiled, cultivating food to feed the Flock. The three plantations were located far apart, providing redundancy in case of a disaster.

And then the world below was gone as they were swallowed by a tunnel once more. Maven Angelica had obviously been waiting for this. “Your faith is very strong isn’t it?”

“I…I like to think so.”

The Maven nodded. “You’re being modest. You scrubbed your name from the Troth List before puberty, turning your back on even the possibility of pollination. Instead from a young age you pledged yourself to the Greater Journey. You were a Postulant at fourteen, one of the youngest ever.” She smiled. “I was eighteen when I took the vow.”

“It’s not something I can explain, but as far back as I remember I knew that I wanted to dedicate myself to the Greater Journey. I remember Brothers and Sisters visiting school. They seemed so wise, so serene. I envied them that. We watched recordings of Maven Charlz. He was very inspiring.”

“He was a fine mentor, he taught me so much.”

“He was a great Maven…” She paused. “Of course, so are you.”

Maven Angelica smiled. “The Greater Journey is beyond ego, Sister Judith. You’ll realise that when you take my place.”

“Me? But…”

“But nothing. I have watched you for a long time, spoken with those of the secularum as well as those of the Faith. Academician Singer says you have a sharp intellect, that if you had not taken the vows you would have made a fine engineer, you have that clarity of thought, an utterly logical mind. Indeed,” she grinned, “I have heard that your quarters are so neat and tidy they put all your fellows to shame.”

“Order is preferable to chaos.”

“So said Maven Josept almost five generations ago.”

Sister Judith nodded. “After the Mutiny.” She took a calming breath. “Order is preferable to chaos. Love is preferable to lust. Faith is preferable to self. As a shark must swim to live, so we must journey to survive, a creature with many hearts but one purpose.” She smiled as she finished the recitation.

“You know the speech well.”

“I admire him. He was Maven in troubling times.”

“Indeed, though one hopes a Maven is never again compelled to take such action.”

“The sacrifice of the fifteen?”

The Maven nodded.

Light flared. Instinctively Sister Judith looked away as the carriage exited the tunnel and Plantation One was revealed. She stared down, shielding her gaze from the sun-lights above as she focused on a circle of figures. She couldn’t be sure, but she imagined there was a grave at the centre of the group, one of the Flock returning to the soil, even as their soul was likely already going through the recyclers, being cleansed of sin in preparation for a new life come the next pollination.

“Dedication- Deceleration- Destination,” she whispered.

* * *

At the bridge terminus there were more curious looks from those waiting for the monorail, but no one said a word.

Sister Judith was unused to being stared at. Suddenly finding herself the focus of attention was unsettling, but if she was to be the next Maven—what a ridiculous thought it still seemed—she would need to get used to this.

Entering the bridge calmed her. Despite its size, despite the thousand twinkling lights and the cacophony of beeps and chatter, it was a familiar place. She occasionally helped to monitor the antigravity systems. She recognised people, and whilst the fact she was with the Maven drew attention, no one knew she hadn’t walked here.

“Maven, good to see you,” said Captain Pryce turning from his command dais. He gave a tiny bow before extending his right hand. He was wafer thin, and many of the secularum joked that one day he’d slip between the grills of an air vent and be lost forever.

They only joked when he wasn’t around however, for his temper was ferocious.

“Oliver.” The Maven took the proffered hand. “I believe you know Sister Judith.”

The Captain smiled at her, it was a smile of familiarity, yet something more as well, as if it wasn’t just that he recognised her from her tithed service, but was also aware of some greater secret regarding her. Did he know she was to become Maven?

“Can I help you?”

“It’s probably nothing, Oliver, summoned to the Chapel by high and mighty circuit boards.” He laughed at that. “We’ll leave you to your work.”

Sister Judith stumbled after her Maven, her initial feelings of familiarity gone now as they stepped around the command dais.

The bridge was elliptical in shape, with a mezzanine level circling above where more secularum worked. There were empty stations, where those of the Faith had taken their leave to pray, but there were still several dozen sets of eyes within the room, and Sister Judith felt them all on her as they approached the hallowed door at the head of the bridge.

The door was unremarkable. Still Sister Judith felt her legs weaken as they drew near, and when the Maven dropped to her knees and bowed her head she gratefully followed suit.

They chanted the triptych three times, and then the Maven stood and approached the door. She placed her palm flat against the wall beside the doorway. A moment later the door spun sideways into the wall, revealing darkness within. Without hesitation she strode inside. Sister Judith followed, feeling as if the stares of the crew were pushing her on.

Darkness swallowed her, and she felt an unaccustomed emotion as the light behind vanished with the closing door. Fear. Despite the vastness of the Ark there were precious few nooks and crannies that she had never visited, but the Cartography Chapel was such a place, and the notion of unfamiliarity, even when it was holy, terrified her.

Lights flared.

“A little underwhelming, isn’t it?”

“Not at all,” she answered quickly, though in truth it was. In her imagination the Cartography Chapel was a lavish cathedral twice the size of the bridge. The reality was a room barely five metres square, the walls bare metal. No furniture.

“It’s all right, Sister Judith; sanctity does not require scale, or majesty. Now then…” Maven Angelica cleared her throat. “Computer, please confirm identity.”

Sister Judith frowned. She was surprised. It wasn’t like the word “computer” was forbidden, but it was terribly old-fashioned.

“Biometric sensors confirm identity of supplicants as Maven Angelica and Maven-elect Judith.” She was again disappointed. She had expected a smooth, glorious voice, but the rasping whisper that echoed forth wasn’t even as clear as the communetor’s voice.

“Wait, it knows I’m Maven-elect?”

“It does.” Maven Angelica smiled at her. “Succession of the Faith is not a matter to be taken lightly. Every Maven identifies potential successors from the moment of their accession. The list evolves over time of course—you were only a baby when I took office, after all—but the communetor knows them all. If something happened to a Maven the communetor would ensure succession.”

Sister Judith was astounded. Half an hour ago she’d been ordinary. Now she stood in the Cartography Chapel. Now she was Maven-elect, and beyond this she had been Maven-elect for some time. Her head was spinning, and it must have shown on her face.

“I’m sorry, this should have been handled better, but I wasn’t expecting this.” She tilted her Vox slightly. Sister Judith could see an amber light she’d never seen lit on anyone’s Vox before. “Journey Control were careful to ensure we did not know when our voyage would end, so that each generation would have hope. It would have been vanity to believe Deceleration and Destination would arrive during my tenure, but I shouldn’t have ignored the possibility.”

Sister Judith felt her legs weaken once more. “Deceleration…Destination…” her mouth was suddenly, achingly dry.

Maven Angelica was beaming. “Indeed. That our faith, as laid down by the tenets of Journey Control, should bear fruit in our lifetime. Oh I feel giddy.” She turned. “Computer, I received a destination notification, please confirm specifics.”

“Arrival at final waypoint has been achieved. A verbal order is required to begin deceleration into destination orbit.” The words were so dry, so banal, yet they made Sister Judith tremble.

“Computer, provide forward visual.”

The far wall seemed to vanish, and Sister Judith gasped as she beheld a dark void lit by myriad stars. “Do you understand what you are seeing?” asked the Maven.

“This is the view ahead, but because of our speed some of those stars are actually behind us. That is the miracle of aberration.”

“We are travelling at half the speed of light. If we were to go closer to light speed, those stars, every star, would appear in a cluster in front of us. Truly a miracle. One of those stars is Destination. And we are almost there.” She cleared her throat again. “Computer, once the order to decelerate is given what is the timescale for arrival?”

“Deceleration to orbit will take Ark Three approximately fifty days.”

“Fifty days,” said the Maven with reverence. “Fifty days until we reach Destination…”

Sister Judith’s eyes widened as she struggled to take this in. Deceleration and Destination were tenets of the faith, yes. But in truth, much like the Maven, she hadn’t expected to actually live to see them. And Ark Three? That implied two others at least. Had the Faith stayed true aboard those other Arks, or had heresy taken hold?

“I wonder what Destination will be like?”

Sister Judith wondered too. She had studied the memory files of Earth: it had seemed chaotic, undisciplined, the environment not something that could be easily controlled like the Ark’s. Pollination would run rampant, the Flock would spread across this new world within a handful of generations. They would form tribes, and eventually they would form nations. Would those nations battle over resources as those on Earth had?

The Maven took a deep breath, straightened her back. “Computer, this is a verbal order to…” The command was cut off as Sister Judith took hold of the Maven’s rosary and pulled it tight against her trachea. The old woman made a gurgling sound and her hands immediately went to her throat to try and pull the rosary from where it was choking her. It was a logical instinct, but also flawed, because it meant she took her hand from her cane, and as she did her legs gave out and she fell, her own momentum hastening her strangulation.

Sister Judith followed her down, dropping painfully to her knees. She held tight to the rosary and with each passing second it got easier, despite the Maven’s struggles. As the Maven died Sister Judith repeated the triptych over and over again with tears in her eyes, trying to soothe the old woman into the next world, consoling herself that her soul would be recycled.

And then it was over. Sister Judith released the rosary and shuffled back from the body, clasping a hand to her mouth as she sobbed. What have I done?

Of course what she had done was put the Greater Journey first, put it above even the Maven’s life. Deceleration and Destination might be the gleaming Eden at the end of the Greater Journey, but she could not shake the feeling that they might also prove their undoing.

“As a shark must swim to live, so we must journey to survive, a creature with many hearts, but one purpose,” she quoted to herself.

Life aboard the Ark was self-contained, ordered, safe. Now she realised that Deceleration and Destination were a test, a test of faith. They were temptations away from order. Which meant the true heart of the triptych was Determination. Determination to do what was best for the Flock, and what was best was that the journey continued.

She stood. “Commu…computer?”

“Yes, Maven Judith?”

She shivered at that. “What happens if the order to decelerate is not given?”

“If a verbal order is not received within nineteen minutes navigational systems will realign course to the next habitable destination.”

“What is the travel time to that destination?”

“Ninety four years.”

Her tears had stopped. She would wait here for the next nineteen minutes. After that she would leave the chapel and explain that the communetor had advised that Destination was still decades away, and that the shock had been too much for Maven Angelica. She was old, so it would be believed, and it was forbidden to perform an autopsy upon a member of the Faith. After that she would insist on a pilgrimage, as penance for not being able to save Maven Angelica. She would walk to the stern basilica, to the port and starboard transepts. She would walk every corridor, and speak to every member of the Flock. She would hold true to her belief that she had done the right thing.

She only hoped that, in ninety four years’ time, her successor would do the same.

© 2017 by Paul Starkey

 

Author’s Note: I’m not sure where the initial germ of this idea came from, but the notion of a religious order existing on a generational starship quickly took hold and once I began thinking about the Adherents of the Greater Journey ideas flowed thick and fast about just what form this religion might take, and about what its adherents might be like. Much like religions existing on Earth today I liked the idea that different people would see different things in the tenets of the faith. I still can’t decide whether this was a religion that evolved organically aboard ship, or whether it was something cynically placed on board by Journey Control. As a writer it’s nice not to know all the answers, even when you’ve created the world you’re writing in!

 

paul starkeyPaul Starkey lives in Nottingham, England, but has no information regarding the whereabouts of Robin Hood. He’s wanted to be a writer since he was ten years old, but didn’t really start writing seriously until he hit his thirties. Since then he’s been making up for lost time. He’s had stories published in the UK, USA and Australia, including being published by Ticonderoga publications, Alchemy Press, Fox Spirit and the British Fantasy Society journal. In November 2015 his novella ‘The Lazarus Conundrum’ (a zombie story with a twist) was published by Abaddon Books. He’s also self-published several novels. 

 

 

 

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DP Fiction #26A: “O Stone, Be Not So” by José Pablo Iriarte

We had no idea what to think the day Otto started living backward. We might have had a clue if we’d noticed he woke up all cranky and sleepy when he’d always been a morning person. It’s hard to spot subtle things like that, though, when your bright, happy ten-year-old wakes up unable to form a coherent sentence and unable to understand anything you say. I thought he was having a seizure, or had developed some god-awful disorder. I had Aidan call for an ambulance while I ran around the apartment like a madwoman: grabbing a change of clothes, our insurance cards, and a couple of Otto’s favorite toys.

The doctors could find no physical cause for his sudden incoherence and no indication his life was in danger, so they sent us to a local neurologist. I’m the one who actually figured out what was going on, though. Or really Otto did, but I helped him express it.

He listened to the doctor’s questions, his eyes wide and flipping back and forth between Aidan and me, his head shaking with incomprehension, his answers incoherent. As at the emergency room, his answers were all gibberish. I suspected he’d suffered an injury to the part of the brain responsible for speech, but might be otherwise able to communicate—he seemed too alert, too aware of what was going on. So I pulled a pen and an old receipt from my handbag. He grabbed the pen with no sign of any particular cognitive difficulty, positioned the tip against the paper, and pressed down fruitlessly. His father went and found a pencil, but somehow it wouldn’t write either. The point was freshly sharpened and I wrote with no difficulty, but in Otto’s hand, nothing.

Giving up, I reached for the pencil, but before I took it he flipped it over and started erasing a blank area of the sheet. The skin up and down my back and neck tingled as letters began to appear: first what looked like an ‘i’ on the right side of the page, drawn upside-down for my benefit, since I was kneeling across from him. Then he erased some more and I realized it was an exclamation point, followed by a ‘D,’ and then another letter and another, until he had un-erased the message, “I’M BACKWARD!”

He met my eyes and then, seeing that I’d read the message, proceeded to trace over it from right to left. As the tip of the pencil touched each letter, it disappeared.

We got better at communicating as we learned to deal with this thing, but whenever we reached an impasse, out came the pencil and notepad–and a pack of fresh erasers.

Some things don’t change a great deal when your boy is living backward. Hugs are still pretty much the same. Kisses feel a little funny, but they still work.

We only went to a couple appointments with the neurologist before we figured she didn’t know any more than we did. We didn’t want to end up like those families in bad sci-fi movies, having our boy taken away to be experimented on and never seeing him again, so we stopped going to her office.

School was out of the question, so we tried homeschooling. I had to quit my job, but we tightened our belts and made do.

We had our challenges, of course. I won’t pretend otherwise. Mealtime was pretty gross. And it was unsettling having your kid get cleaner and cleaner throughout the day, right up until bath time, after which he came out dirty and sweaty.

Basically what I’m saying is we tried to make our peace with this. Something crazy happens in your life, like you lose a limb or your hearing starts to go, you learn to accommodate, to live around it. This didn’t change how much we loved our beautiful boy. We still played, even if our play was filled with constant little moments of weird.

But then during our homeschooling sessions, I started to realize he was losing skills, facts–his reasoning itself became more basic before my eyes. His father and I would think back and say, “Oh yeah, that’s about how old he was when he learned long division,” or we’d remember how old he was when he . . . when he . . . I’m sorry. How old he was when he learned to read.

That’s when we grasped where this was headed.

Do you realize that when he cries, the tears roll up his face and get sucked into his eyes, like some kind of poison? I dab at them to no effect; it’s like I’m squeezing the moisture onto his face myself.

In the end, fear forward and fear backward are more or less indistinguishable.

His father couldn’t handle the inevitable. “Let’s let the scientists have him,” he said. “They might be able to figure something out.”

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “Of course they can’t ‘figure something out.’ Have you ever heard of anything like this? All they will do is take away what little time we have left.”

When he couldn’t convince me, he tried another tack. “Nadia, we can’t take care of him,” he said. “We should find a facility to deal with him, so we can have our lives back.”

He wanted his life back, so I let him have it. I didn’t want my life back. Still don’t. I want every moment with my boy that I can get.

Going out with Otto is easier now. Nobody points or asks if he is retarded. If you don’t get too close, babies act about the same forward as they do in reverse.

I’m not sure what’s going to . . . how this will work . . . at the end. I don’t expect miracles. I don’t count on having more than a few more months with him.

I try to look on the bright side, because what else can I do? I’m not the first mother to lose a child, but other parents don’t know when the end is coming. Perhaps they spend years regretting a harsh word or a moment of inattentiveness on that fateful last day. Or they spend their last few months watching a beloved child suffer in anguish. I don’t think Otto can even remember being a big boy anymore. He doesn’t seem to be suffering.

“It’s okay,” I say as I wiggle him playfully on my lap. “Mommy has her sweet baby boy back. Isn’t that right, Otto?”

He smiles toothlessly and reaches up a hand toward my face, babbling.

He said his last word three months ago.

It was “Mom.”

© 2017 by José Pablo Iriarte

Author’s Note: This story was originally written for a short fiction contest for the Codex Writers Group. The prompt was to write about two people who could no longer communicate through the means that had previously worked for them. I seized upon the idea of somebody suddenly switched into living backward, and had fun playing with the notion of symmetry in life and in language. Before long, though, I started to be intrigued by the other ramifications of having a child who was living backward, and by the parallels between this concept and having a child with a terminal illness.

jose-iriarteJosé Iriarte is a Cuban-American writer and high school math teacher living in EPCOT with their wife Lisa and their two teenage kids. Their fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Fireside Fiction, Daily Science Fiction, and other venues. Learn more at their website: http://www.labyrinthrat.com.

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DP Fiction #25: “Bloody Therapy” by Suzan Palumbo

I hugged my daughter, Ashley, when she returned home from school crying. She told me she was scared of going to the bathroom alone,because of Bloody Mary, and had wet her pants on the bus ride home. I wiped her eyes and kissed her forehead.

“The kids in my class said Bloody Mary would steal my soul if I said her name three times in the bathroom mirror,” she said rubbing her eyes.

“Bloody Mary doesn’t exist, Sweetheart. She’s a story people made up to scare each other.”

“But Mom, you said I would make friends with the kids here if I looked for the good in them. How can they be good if they try to scare me?” Her sobs receded into the focused expression of a child trying to make sense of the world.

“Trust me, Hon, everyone is capable of being good. Even not-real Bloody Mary could be nice if she wanted to be.”

***

That night, I surveyed myself in the bathroom mirror. The frown lines between my eyebrows seemed deeper; the corners of my mouth drooped lower. I had sworn during the custody hearing to provide a stable environment for Ashley. I massaged my temples and recalled my own childhood fears of shadowy closets and pitch black bathrooms. I pursed my lips. I wanted to shake every kid in Ashley’s grade for making her cry.

I locked my bathroom door and turned off the lights. In the darkness, I repeated the forbidden name in front of the mirror in an even and deliberate tone: “Bloody Mary…Bloody Mary…Bloody Mary.”

The luminescent face of a pale, young woman emerged in the mirror. Her eyes were dull black orbs. Her hair was matted and tangled with red clots of blood. She stared at me. I took a step backwards.

“I want your soul,” Bloody Mary shrieked. I trembled but then steadied myself. I wasn’t a helpless little girl anymore and Ben wasn’t here to save me. I looked into Bloody Mary’s soul-less  eyes.

“You’ve come for my soul because I said your name three times in front of a mirror? That’s an overreaction.”

She blinked.  “What?”

“This whole shtick is so melodramatic. What are you getting out of this other than making my poor kid wet her pants?”

“You summoned me. You can’t call me and then question my soul stealing. You know nothing about me.” Her voice had transformed from a paranormal screech into the whine of a petulant teenager.

“This is my fault? The only person who controls you is you, Bloody Mary. You need to rethink this haunting bathrooms gig.” I pointed my finger at her, echoing the jargon I’d internalized in couples counselling. I was about to continue the dressing down when Ashley began knocking on the door.

“Mom, who are you talking to?”

“I’m on my cell. I’ll be out soon.”

I returned my attention to Bloody Mary. She glared at me in the dark.

“You’re right, I don’t know you. Come back tomorrow. You can explain yourself then.”

Mary sighed and rolled her eyes.

“All right, but anger me and I will claim your soul.”

“Okay, whatever. I’ll see you tomorrow, and do something about all the blood in your hair, Mary — Maybe wash and comb it. You’re in bathrooms all the time.”

“My name is Bloody Mary.” She rattled the mirror as she disappeared into the darkness.

The following night I turned off the lights and summoned Bloody Mary to the mirror. She was sullen.

“Bloody Mary, why do you enjoy terrorizing people?” She assumed the shape of purple brooding clouds and drizzled blood.

I continued. “Why are you drawn to mirrors?” She returned to her regular form and stood silently, leaving the rest of my questions to bounce off the mirror’s reflective surface.

“Your hair looks better,” I said with an artificial smile. A dim light appeared in one of her eyes  before she faded away.

***

I began calling Bloody Mary through the mirror twice a week; trying to tease out the roots of her behavior.

“Was your father abusive? Your mother, neglectful? What motivates you, fear or revenge, Bloody Mary?” I took quick showers and left the water running in the dark to muffle our voices.

Over the months her appearance improved. Her hair became shiny and tangle free. Her eyes developed deep brown irises that reflected centuries of loneliness and sorrow.

She no longer shape-shifted to deflect my questions. She forced her memories to surface and they would wash over her, leaving her voiceless and causing her to rock back and forth. During her breaks, I unpacked the burdens of my bitter divorce and laid them before the mirror. It was a relief to talk to someone who didn’t know us when we were Alicia and Ben: Happily Married Couple.

“I’ve heard you tell Ashley to look for the good in people. What happened to the good in Ben?” Bloody Mary asked.

“I lost track of the good in Ben.” I cast my eyes downward. “We alternated between skewering each other with insults and avoiding contact until I convinced myself there was nothing to salvage between us.” I put one hand on the vanity. “He said and did things to hurt me on purpose.” I rubbed my forehead. I was a failure at marriage. If I couldn’t apply my own advice to Ashley’s father, wasn’t I a failure as a mother, too?

***

Bloody Mary’s history began to coalesce in drops and trickles.

“I saw my mother drown,” she revealed after one of her long silences. I reached out and touched the image of Mary’s cheek in the mirror, attempting to brush away a tear that had escaped her now-human eyes.

***

We planned a girls’ night. I mixed Bloody Marys.

“I like the name,” she said. I placed her drink on the vanity and sat with my back against the bathroom door.

“Sometimes I eavesdrop on Ashley at school,” Bloody Mary said after her second cocktail.

“How?”

“Her teacher has a mirror at the back of the class. I can hear what goes on.” Mary tilted her head to the side. “You don’t need to worry about her. You’re doing a good job.”

“You think?” I sat up straight.

“You should see her. She’s kind but she’s no pushover.”

“I hope so.” I leaned back, letting the door support my full weight.

“Trust me. I would tell you if you needed to worry.” Bloody Mary spent the rest of the evening creating pink fractal patterns in the mirror.

***

“I never want to see another Bloody Mary again,” she moaned the next night. I laughed and got her some water.

***

One weekend, when Ashley was at Ben’s, Bloody Mary arrived wearing an earnest expression. I waited for her to speak.

“We were robbed and murdered on our wedding day,” she whispered. She clutched a silver hand mirror to her chest. “This was James’ wedding gift to me.” Her pale cheeks flushed and became rosy and full.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“No, it was a secret I needed to tell.”

I nodded at her in the mirror. The dashed promises of my own wedding vows still colored my reflection.

“I can’t cling to the past anymore.” She lowered the hand mirror and held it at her side, out of view. “I need to leave. I need to figure out what I’m going to do now.”

“What about all of the souls you’ve stolen?” I bit my bottom lip.

“I’ve never stolen a soul — No one’s stayed long enough for me to capture theirs.”

I placed my hand on the reflection of her shoulder in the mirror.

“That’s not true,” I said.

“I’m sorry Ashley was afraid of me.”

“It’s okay, Bloody Mary.”

A smile flickered across her lips.

“Just call me Mary.”

I smiled back as she vanished from the mirror.

***

I parked my car at the curb in front of Ben’s house. I got out and tried to lean casually on the passenger side door. Ashley waved at me from the window. A minute later she skipped out the front door with her overnight bag. Ben followed her, stopping at the midpoint of his lawn.

“Mom!”

“Hey, Did you have fun?”

“Yes! We saw a movie and went to the park.”

I inspected her appearance. Her hair was a mass of fly-aways and her pants were covered in dirt. I looked up at Ben. He put his hands on his hips and clenched his jaw.

“Thanks, Ben.”

“You’re welcome, Alicia.” His words were shaded with caution.

“I can’t wait to tell Rebecca at school about the movie.” Ashley bounced up and down next to me. I hugged her. We both waved at Ben after I started the car. I saw him shake his head as he turned to go inside.

At home, I went to my ensuite and looked at myself in the mirror.

“Thank you, Mary,” I whispered. I closed the bathroom door and went to help Ashley unpack.

© 2017 by Suzan Palumbo

Author’s Note: “Bloody Therapy” was inspired by my five year old who came home from school one afternoon and declared that she, “didn’t like Bloody Mary.”  She had drawn a picture of medicine for Bloody Mary during art time and explained that we needed to give the medicine to Bloody Mary because, “the Bloody Mary Lady needs help.”   I promised my daughter that I’d help Bloody Mary.  This story is part of my effort.

suzan photoOrginally from Trinidad and Tobago Suzan is a writer based in Ontario, Canada. Find her full bibliography at https://suzanpalumbo.wordpress.com/

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DP Fiction #24: “The Avatar In Us All” by J.D. Carelli

For my 88th birthday, I celebrate with a bottle of bourbon. I fumble with the anti-intoxication meds my doctor insists I take, the dispenser flying out of my hands and across the kitchen table. “Goddammit!”

Chrissy walks in, putting her hands on her hips in disapproval. Her face is her mother’s, but when I look for my eyes, all I see are the blank, grey eyes of an android. Not my daughter, only her avatar.

“Is it so hard to ask for help?” she snaps. The avatar has a faux personality—based on Chrissy’s—but the motherly tone in her voice tells me my daughter is sitting halfway around the world, jacked-in.

“I’m an old man,” I say, reaching for the bourbon. “Why bother?”

She walks over to the table, deftly dispenses a tablet, and pops it into my mouth. Sitting down in a chair beside me, she pushes two glasses my way.

“Do you at least have a glass of something where you are?” I ask, filling both glasses.

She chuckles. “It’s morning over here, Dad. You know that.”

“I know,” I say, washing the pill down with the bourbon. “I was just testing you.”

“Sure you were.” She follows my lead, downing the glass.

I fill them both again. “You know I’m just going to empty your stomach reservoir and drink it, right?”

She harrumphs.

“Do you have time to watch The Tonight Show?”

She groans. “No. I have to get to work, but my avatar will keep you company. I doubt you’ll even notice.”

I will. “Fine.”

We nurse our second glasses as the crickets chirp outside. Chrissy purses her lips, letting me know she has something to say. I raised her to be plainspoken, so I know it must be something particularly awkward. I know exactly what she will say.

“Why won’t you come here?” she finally asks.

“Ugh,” I say with a wave of my hand. “Now that would kill me.”

“Come on,” she says, putting a hand on my arm. The warmth and pressure feels just like Chrissy. “It’s been years since you last visited. Guangzhou has changed a lot. It’s clean, organized.”

“Guangzhou without all the pollution? It’s just not home if you’re not wheezing after a brisk walk.”

She laughs. “I miss that American sarcasm, too. Bring it with you. Besides, I could show you around the lab. You’d get a kick out of what we’ve done with the place.”

I moan. “I retired too early. I wouldn’t remember anything.”

“Yes you would,” she says. “At least send an avatar.”

“Are you kidding me? My old body can’t take that.”  Creating a template for an avatar is like an MRI that takes four hours.  Just the thought of it makes me weary.

She sighs. “If you don’t want to come here, I’ll just have to go there. After this phase of construction is complete, I’ll have some time.”

“No, no,” I say, getting angry. “This is huge for you. And the world. Don’t worry about me.”

“It’s not just you,” she says. “I could visit Michael, too. They just moved into their new house.”

“I know. I talk to my grandson, you know.”

Her face lights up. “Why don’t you go visit them? You’d love upstate New York this time of year.”

“No. I’m fine right here on the west coast. Still waiting for it to break off and drift into the Pacific.”

“Come on, Dad,” she says with a push in her voice. “You can’t just rot there.”

“Don’t you have to get to work?”

“Dad.”

“No.”

“Christ. What’s the matter with you?” she chides.

I slam the glass down on the table. She goes silent, and so do I. We are too similar for our own good. After a short respite, she sighs. The avatar blinks and I know she’s gone.

“Would you like me to turn on your show?” it asks.

I grunt, moving to the living room. The bourbon comes with me.

***

Morning hurts.

Pulling myself up from where I had slept on the sofa, I stare down at the empty bottle on the coffee table.

“Aren’t you glad you took the pill?” the avatar asks. My heart skips a beat, but I notice its dead eyes are staring at the blank wall display. It turns to me, plastering a preprogrammed smile onto its face.

“Don’t you have anything better to do?” I ask. The aroma of fresh ground coffee hits my nose and I feel a pang of guilt. “Isn’t Chrissy home yet?”

It shakes its head. “I don’t have her on GPS, which means she’s still at work.”

It’s strange talking to something that looks almost identical to Chrissy, but after a few months with the thing, I’ve grown accustomed to having something to talk to. The downside is that it makes me miss my daughter—the real one—all the more.

I stand up and get myself a cup of coffee. It follows me into the kitchen, handing me another mug. Rolling my eyes, I fill it up. The damned thing learned from the real Chrissy, who knows her mother and I shared a cup of coffee every morning for fifty-five years.

Shuffling out to the back patio, I enjoy the view. Children frolic on the beach below while a middle-aged couple walk a robotic dog along a footpath. “Keep it weird, Santa Cruz.” I used to walk Chrissy along the same beach. Her mother and I, that is. Have I taken Michael? Or his family?

As I take a sip of coffee, a thought occurs to me. “Avatar, get out here.” It does, and far more lithely than my sixty year-old daughter. “How much would a plane ticket be?”

“To where?”

“To here.”

It rolls its dead eyes at me, a perfect imitation of a five-year old Chrissy. “From where, then?”

“From Guangzhou,” I say. “And New York.”

It tells me, then says, “I doubt Michael could come, though, with work and the house.”

“You don’t get paid to talk,” I snap.

“I don’t get paid at all,” it says. “You know that.”

I round on it, looking it square in its empty eyes. “I don’t want to go there.”

“Why not?”

“I’m an old man. Don’t I get to be stubborn for no reason?”

“I find it hard to believe this is a recent development,” it says.

I narrow my eyes at it. “Chrissy?” The resemblance is uncanny.

“She’s on her way home.”

“Oh.”

It waves me on. “Out with it then.”

I’m tempted. “Will Chrissy know?”

“If she cares to review the files.”

I nod, taking another sip of coffee. “I don’t want to go for a reason as old as time. I’m irrelevant. Last time I visited Chrissy, she was so busy with work. She tried, she really did, but she has a life. As I did when I was her age. Same goes with Michael.”

“Why don’t you tell her that?” it asks.

“You’re programmed to mimic her emotions. How do you think she’d feel?”

It simply nods.

“I tried learning some of the new engineering they’re using at the lab, but it’s changed so much in the last twenty years.” I turn away, staring out over the beach. “If I could just get them to come here, maybe things would be different. They’d have fun here.”

“Dad?”

I spin around.

Chrissy’s blinking. “What were you saying about having fun?”

I look down to the coffee in my hand. “Back from work so soon?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I have to go back though, so they gave us a few hours for dinner.”

“Oh?”

“We’ve been having some problems with the lab’s containment protocols. I don’t really want to talk about it.” Her mouth chews something not really there. “Hope you don’t mind. I’m hungry. So what’s this about fun?”

“I thought it’d be fun to take a walk,” I say.

***

I watch the Tonight Show in the dark, looking over to the time display every few minutes. The avatar sits beside me, knowing to keep its mouth shut during the monologue. When it cuts to break, I sigh. “Chrissy?”

“Nothing on GPS,” it says.

“Why wouldn’t she tell me if she had to work early?” I wonder aloud.

“She’s very busy, I’m sure she just forgot.” It’s a reminder I don’t need.

“Those tickets?” I let the words hang in the air. “Forget them.”

“She’s often late. Don’t you think you’re being juvenile?” I’m not sure if it’s channeling Chrissy or my late wife.

“It’s like you said, they just don’t have time.”

“Then go there, Goddammit.” It spits the words.

The show resumes, but I’m too angry. “You didn’t talk like that when you first showed up.”

“I learn every time you two talk.”

I curse, moving to the other sofa. “You’re not her. Remember that.”

“Then go see her.”

“I told you, I—”

It cuts me off. “I know, you’d only be in the way. But is it any worse than how your life is right now? The only time you’re ever happy is when Chrissy is jacked-in and you forget I’m an avatar.”

The words cut me. “So, what? I should just go and bother her when she’s busiest?”

“When she was a child, did you ever chide her for bothering you when you were busy with some project or another?”

“No,” I say. “I tried not to.”

“And neither will she. Go.”

I realize it’s right. “Fine. Book the ticket to Guang-”

“Wait,” it says, its eyes snapping toward the display. “Something’s happened.”

The display changes, suddenly covered in bright lights. I narrow my eyes and struggle to read the caption. “Tragedy strikes Guangzhou: Chemical Lab Explosion.”

I stare up at the display for a long time. The avatar moves to my sofa, slowly wrapping me with its arms. I realize I’m shaking. “What happened?”

“Reports coming in say there was a malfunction that caused a containment breach.” Its voice quavers, just like Chrissy’s did when she told me she was pregnant with Michael.

“Maybe…maybe she wasn’t there,” I say.

It squeezes me beneath its warm embrace and whispers. “I don’t have her on GPS.”

I look to it, its dead eyes dead forever. “Get the fuck away from me!” I push it off the sofa and it retreats into the kitchen. I hear it pacing back and forth.

Shaking, I watch the news story unfold. Sometime later, the avatar brings me a new bottle of bourbon. I snatch it away, clutching it to my chest. It sits down on the other sofa, and I can’t stand to look at it.

It speaks softly to me. “She went quickly. She never knew it was coming. There was no pain.” All the things I told Chrissy when her mother passed, it’s telling me now. Or whatever this machine is, it’s comforting me.

On our separate sofas, we cry.

***

As night turns to morning, the bourbon forces me to the bathroom. The avatar sits on the lip of the bathtub, rubbing my back. I can’t meet its eyes.

“Just go,” I say.

“Where?”

“Wherever you want,” I say. “Just go.”

It wrings it hands.

“Out with it,” I say, sensing a question.

“I can book a flight for you.”

I think about it and nod. “Fine.”

“There’s a six-hour sub-orbital leaving in two hours,” it says. “That’ll give you time to pack.”

“No,” I say, forcing myself to look. Its eyes are not Chrissy’s, but they’re not dead either. “Not to Guangzhou.”

“Where then?”

“New York,” I say. “And make it for two.”

© 2017 by J.D. Carelli

 

Author’s Note: Living abroad, I’m always an ocean away from family and friends. This makes me wonder how future technologies might change our concept of what it means to be present in someone else’s life. When I saw the rich depths of emotion in that, “The Avatar in Us All” was born.

 

jdcarelliJ.D. Carelli is an ESL teacher by day and a fantasy writer by night. The rest of the time he spends with his wife and daughter on a tropical island in Southern China. As a child, he fully believed that he could control the Force, and has been trying to reclaim that feeling on the page ever since. You can find out more about him at http://www.jdcarelli.com or on twitter @jdcarelli.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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