Nocrim doesn’t feel like she’s moving fast, more like she’s moving through a thin fog while everybody else just hangs out. It’s only after several seconds (but not seconds) that she realizes she hasn’t breathed yet; her body won’t need oxygen for a while.
Curiously, she circles around a frozen Cayvie, and then she sees the trail. Dark, gray, like thick smoke, it fills the space she’s moved through–a reverse Pompeii shape. It fades toward her as she watches.
Photons, she makes herself think. Just space where the light can’t keep up. That has to be it, because if not…
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
Frances doesn’t believe in God anymore, but she believes in Hell and this is it. Across from her, Lenny sits and stares dully at the carpet. Dad’s at work. Lucky Dad.
Mom took the opportunity of having her home from Oberlin to call a Family Meeting. Frances knew it would be bad, but she hoped the year since she came out would mollify things.
“Well we know it seems at first
Like sin will please us
But you can’t choose homosexuality
And be close to Jesus”
Mom sings, strumming the old Martin earnestly. Her voice is pretty. Frances wishes for death.
“My name’s Blot,” says the child. “Give me some of that.”
She’s clearly starving; Luck took her at first for four years old, but now he sees her growth’s been stunted. She’s probably only two years younger than he. Luck hesitates anyway, annoyed. “And what if I don’t?”
“I’ll bite,” she says simply, and grimaces. It’s not a threat, just a display of wares: she’s missing some teeth, and the remainders are a wreck. That bite means infection, maybe death.
Grudgingly, he breaks off a chunk of the corn bread and tosses it away. Blot has it before it hits dirt.
“No, it’s just a neighborhood display house,” hisses Puri, pulling her along. Jules follows. As usual.
“Puri!” She whispers back. “You don’t know that!”
“I told you, it’s cool. Nobody lives here, they keep it around to bump up property values. Show it on tours.” One skinny wrist pokes through the cast-iron gate in the hedge and unlatches it.
They both get their cuffs soaked with dew, peering in at urns, paintings, tapestry in the dining room. Puri grins back as they turn a corner–and then somebody hits a light.
Wet cuffs or no, they clear the hedge like antelopes.
Hobart pops four Dramamines, thinks, and pops two more. The coach seat is tight, and of course he got a window.
A ponytailed teenager squeezes in beside him. “Fly much?” he asks brightly.
“No,” mutters Hobart.
“I love it. Heard about the new runway here? They say it’s a half-mile draw. Think how far that would take you!” He laughs.
Up front, the stewardess demonstrates safety procedures in her padded suit, and Hobart can hear the hoarse teamster outside. He swallows hard. With a subsonic creak, the oxen draw the giant rubber band back even further; any second, they’ll let go.
Chyler wonders whether this is what’s called butterflies, but she doesn’t feel anything in her stomach; it’s her arms and shoulders, which feel tense and oddly bouncy, like springs being twanged. Her hands want to tangle in fabric.
She realizes suddenly that it’s been way too long since she said anything. Say something! Don’t be boring, don’t waste this! She tries to think of jokes. She wants to be clever, smooth, are her legs shaved? When was the last time she–crap!
Caleb’s really enjoying the evening, walking with a new and interesting person. He’ll have to introduce her to Renee.
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Dean would have relished this, he decides, in an old Outer Limits. An inventor running from his own creations! He scrambles over a low wall, throws himself flat and tries to breathe quietly.
He liked the sales at first, but soon it was out of his hands. Homo sapiens Segwayns, they call themselves, the next forced step in evolution. Everybody underestimated their advantages, especially once they took Washington, and now it’s a two-prong proposition: ride or die.
The hum of their gyroscopes is like the howl of hunting wolves, tireless, getting closer. Dean doesn’t know how much longer he can run.
No shower for a while, and she’s starting to feel it–when she runs a hand through her hair it won’t come down until she smoothes it. Sometimes that’s hours. Probably shouldn’t have cut it myself, thinks Holly, or so short.
Every morning she makes herself look at the picture (at least she still gets up). It’s a Polaroid of the three of them, in the park, last August; somebody held it wrong while it developed, and there’s one pale splotch of sky stained white. In the middle, a blurred Frisbee is baby-new pink: the color of skin under a scab.
Rooms are each Tomas to her, now, and doors are Kylies. She calls her left hand Chen, her right one Brandon, and the texture of the floor is Suzette. Her collection of baubles is Beauregard.
She doesn’t know where the names come from, but ever since that first scrap of paper they’ve been pouring into her. She tries to pour them, to apply them, just as fast. She wants the words for everything, but names are the only words she has.
She doesn’t know the need for food, but the need to name is a hunger. She calls the hunger Cosette.