Sleepless (a remix of the Endymion myth)

The first time she saw him, she knew. She needed him to pose for her. She’d put him on film. On canvas. Maybe even in stone, though sculpting wasn’t really her forte.

He was too beautiful not to enshrine that way – too handsome for words. Sitting on the library steps with his guitar, the case open at his feet he exuded the quintessence of youth, confidence, and sex appeal.

He’d already collected several handfuls of coins and a few bills, and it was barely ten-thirty in the morning. This did not surprise her.

Sleepless

If he were still there when her class was over, she thought, she would introduce herself. Gauge his interest in modeling. As she didn’t have time for even a ‘hello’ right then, she dropped a twenty in the guitar case, and mirrored his grateful smile as she moved beyond him.

The art room was on the third floor of the library building, overlooking the front steps. She could hear the faint notes from his guitar through the open window. They were doing abstracts that week.
“Here’s today’s challenge,” she told the group of first-year students. “Try to depict music through painting.”

After the expected questions about the kind of music and if she meant actual notes or just how music made them feel, questions she’d been fielding for centuries, it seemed, she took up her own notebook and sketched him from memory. It was a decent likeness, but it didn’t do enough justice to his real beauty. If nothing else, she had to see him again.

The steps were empty when she left the building at the end of her day.

But she couldn’t get him out of her mind. She remembered the soft, dark, chocolate of his curly hair, the startling blue of his eyes, and the way his lips formed a perfect, kissable bow. She recalled long, elegant fingers plucking the strings of his acoustic instrument and the definition of his chest beneath the tight T-shirt he’d been wearing.

Every night, she drew him, the details shifting as her memory faded.

Her obsession, however, did not fade. Several weeks after she first saw him on the steps, she caught his image – badly photographed – on a flyer for a local club. She ripped it off the bulletin board and went home to take her first real shower in weeks.

The club was dark and close. The neighborhood was typically seedy. The crowd was almost entirely students, but not, as she’d expected, almost entirely female. She got a glass of wine from the bar – slightly better than the two-buck chuck that had been her mainstay when she was an undergrad – and took a seat in the second row of tables.

The young folk around her sang with him on the choruses, but she was silent, watching him. Memorizing him. During his last song, their eyes met, and she made a gesture, which he answered with a nod. After the show, they met in the alley behind the bar.

“You’re the art lady right? I’ve seen your stuff in the university gallery. I liked it.” His words were casual, but the expression on his face was anything but.

She smiled a slow, seductive smile, and pitched her voice low. “I’m going to make you immortal,” she said, if you let me.”

He kissed her with his perfect mouth.

She took him home to do a lot more than kissing.

She woke before him and used the time to drink in all the details that had begun to seep from her mind. She ran her fingers over his bare skin, memorizing the textures. She leaned over him and inhaled his scent.

She never asked his name. Nor he hers. It didn’t seem to matter.

Heady from sex and the need to truly capture him – perfectly this time – she crept from the bed leaving him in deep sleep. She skipped the sketches, went directly to the canvas. He slept the clock around and she kept painting the whole time.

It became their routine. He played in different bars every night, and she went with him. They went back to her place after, and she painted while he slept.

His mornings came later and later, and her nights grew shorter and shorter.

She was with her nameless musician in her bed and still with him in front of her easel when she crawled out of the covers. She started a second painting, then a third. She stopped going to his gigs – he played for her when he came back every night.

She couldn’t get the paintings right. But she continued to try. She made cups of tea but set them aside to correct a line that was too dark or a strand of hair that wasn’t in the right place, only to pick them up later to find the liquid within cold and bitter. It can’t have been that long… she thought, padding to the kitchen to make another cup.

Her canvases piled up, and when she was out of stretched canvas she pulled the photographs off the wall and started painting him directly on the cracked plaster. She twisted her hair into a messy bun and didn’t even try to scrub the paint from her skin.

When she needed to remind herself of the precise curve of his lips or the exact position of the crease above his left eyebrow, he was there in her bed, a male sleeping beauty waiting for the princess’s kiss.

She forgot to eat until she fainted from hunger. When she pulled herself off the floor she found that the fruit in her bowl had gone rotten. She found a chocolate bar and devoured it then grew giddy from the sudden rush of sugar.

The university contacted her next-of-kin – a niece who was a second-year law student. “Your aunt has missed three classes,” they said. “She didn’t call to cancel. Just stopped showing up.”

“That doesn’t sound like Aunt Lena,” the young woman answered, worry creeping into her voice. “I’ll go to her apartment.” Her boyfriend insisted on going with her.

They found the artist, cold and breathless, on the floor in front of the wall where she’d put the musician’s image. A flyer announcing his gig in a city a thousand miles away was clutched in her stiff hand. Below his image, the name she hadn’t asked for: Endymion.

When the autopsy report came back it said that Professor Selene Perez had died of exhaustion.

Photo by stasia04.

Heat Lightning

The sky is tight like a drum and painted in shades of gray fading from a purplish charcoal to a soft dove with bits of white. To the west, where the sun is setting, pink and orange glow through the gray, the dying embers of a summer day. There isn’t any wind, and there isn’t any chance of rain, even though the air is thick with moisture.

Heat Lightning

It’s the kind of weather that provokes lassitude.

Sitting on the porch swing, sipping lemonade, the woman and the girl watch the sky.

There’s flickering light out to the east, swaths of clouded sky lighting up and fading out like semaphore lamps, but the code they’re using isn’t Morse. It isn’t human language at all.

“Mama, are the fairies talking about us?”

The woman reaches out to her daughter and smooths a flyaway piece of hair out of the child’s face. The flickers of light seem more urgent when she’s watching them. “They want me to come back,” she says softly. “They want me to come home.”

“But you’re not going, are you?”

“No, sweet. I’m not going. Home is here with you.” But the woman can’t help it; she turns her gaze back to the sky. The light flickering there is mirrored in her eyes, as if she’s talking back to the unseen fairies. A whisp of a breeze stirs the air, whispering through the long, loose hair of the woman, and the tight braids of the little girl.

The lights fade away, and the dark creeps in and settles around them.

When the last of the sun has drained away and the stars are visible there is a low rumble. A battered red Ford pickup truck trundles to a stop on the gravel driveway. A man hops out, sees the pair on the porch and lets his lips spread into a happy grin.

He bounds up the three stairs to the porch with more energy than anyone has a right to have in the heat of summer. “Sorry I’m late,” he says. “How are my fairy princesses today?”

“Mama’s the only fairy princess,” the little girl answers. But she leaves the swing and lets the man scoop her up into his arms. “Did you have a good day, Daddy?”

“I did.” He kisses her on the nose then joins the woman on the swing, settling the girl on his lap. “And you?” he asks. “How was your day?”

The little girl understands that the question is really meant for her mother.

The woman leans toward the man, and kisses his cheek, tan from working outside, and rough with end-of-the-day beard stubble. “It was fine;” she says, but it’s not the usage of fine that women use when they really aren’t. She means it. “We’ve been watching the sky.”

Another round of flashing light illuminates the darkness in the distance. The woman seems to read the signals, to comprehend the conversation. She nods and smiles. “It won’t rain tonight,” she says. Softly. “But probably tomorrow.”

The man follows the woman’s gaze toward the eastern sky. “Heat lightning,” he says. “No rain with that. Not for us, anyway.”

“No,” the woman agrees. “It’s just the fairies talking.”

“And what’s the word from them?”

She smiles again, and this time when her eyes light up, they’re not flickering, but glowing steadily, like twin lanterns on a windowsill. “They say I can stay.”

She doesn’t add the words “for now,” but all three of them, their entire tiny family, are thinking it.

Photo by dendoktoor.

Alligator Rain

Alligator Eyes

“You’ve heard of crocodile tears, right?” she asked him.

They were sitting in her truck, which was parked at the top of the lake’s grassy embankment. The headlights were on low, beaming across the water, where raindrops merged into the eye-shine of alligators.

“Yeah… why?”

“Because this is alligator rain.”

“Alligator… rain? Why? Because it’s thick and heavy?”

She grinned but shook her head. “Nope. It’s because the rolling thunder sounds like a gator bellow…” She gestured toward the water. “… and if you listen really carefully, the alligators will answer the thunder.”

“That’s beautiful… he said. “Beautiful and strange.”

La Vie En Rose

Art by tanatpon13p via 123rf.com

 

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu’il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

Another café, another ancient French song wafting out from speakers mounted above the door – why was my handler always asking me to meet in such places? And why did I always agree?

“I’m supposed to be retired,” I told him, by way of a greeting.

He nodded his head in tacit agreement, waving me into the chair opposite his. It was tall, made from faux bamboo, and featured a magenta velvet cushion. “You hate retirement,” he said, after a moment. “You miss the thrill of the chase.”

“You’re the hunter,” I reminded him. “I’m just the closer. And I have other obligations now.”

“Oh, yes. You’re the very picture of domestic bliss. How many teas have you hosted now?”

“One was actually a lunch,” I said. “And the other was a benefit for the Star Navy Office of Rescue and Extraction.”

“Ah, yes, SNORE.” He snorted the last word. “Only the Navy would come up with such an acronym for the operation that saves its citizens left on abandoned or failed colonies.”

“Renato created that unit.”

“Of course. And you’re the dutiful partner, supporting his endeavors.”

“There are worse things I could be doing,” I protested.

“There are also better things.”

A server arrived with two espresso cortados and presented one to each of us. The strong, bitter, slightly chocolaty aroma tickled my nose. I couldn’t resist tasting it, and when I did, my senses came alive. “This is real,” I said. “Not synthesized.”

“Only the best for the best,” he said.

I wanted to push the coffee away, but this man has always known me too well. I take another sip. “Flattery only gets you so far, Mart… what’s this really about?”

“Hatteras Six.”

“The prince?” One of my last gigs for Martigan’s organization had been ensuring that the prince’s marriage to a Betelgeusean princess took place.

“His father. He believes there’s a conspiracy to assassinate him and put his son on the throne, but under Syndicate control.”

“Mart – I can’t. I have a different life now. Besides, the last time I was involved in Hatteran politics, I nearly got killed.” I took another slow sip of the coffee. “Why me?”

“Because you’re the best.”

“So, you’ve said. Martigan…”

“Sasha…” He imitated my tone. Then he sighed. “Don’t you miss it? The adventure? The intrigue? Knowing that you’re changing the galaxy for good?” He paused for a second then added, “me?”

It was the final word that got me. Martigan and I had worked together for years – decades even – and you don’t have a relationship like ours without chemistry – good chemistry. But I’d fallen into the role of his protégé, and he had apparently relished being my mentor. I’d tried to seduce him once when I was much younger, and he’d been kind and gentle when he turned me down, convincing me it was just a workplace infatuation.

Over time, I’d learned to read him. I knew he’d desired me but needed my skills outside the bedroom more. I also knew he had a very particular code of honor… or decorum… that would never have let him act on his desires at the time.

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” I lied.

“Yes, you did.”

Damn him! “Yes, I did,” I agreed. “Why now?”

“Because you really are the best person for this job Sash. The prince knows you – trusts you. The princess won’t see you as a threat.”

If I do this – ” I began.

“- I’ll give you all the support you need,” he finished my thought. “Backup, a ship, everything.”

I smiled. “If I do this, I want you.”

“As a partner? I’m a bit rusty – been behind the scenes too long.”

“No, Mart. I want you.

“And Renato?”

“I’m sure he’ll find someone else to host his teas.”

“So, he is too normal for you!”

“No. Yes. It’s… complicated. Let’s just say, there’s more than one reason we’ve never married.”  I rose, preparing to leave. “You know my terms. You know where I’m staying or can easily find out. Let me know by twenty-two hundred hours tonight.”

He looked up at me and nodded once.

I drained the last of the coffee from my cup, and set it down on the table, then walked out of the café without looking back.

Martigan caught me at the door. I turned to face him, but he didn’t speak. He tilted my chin upward with a single finger and then kissed me. Coffee and pipe tobacco from him, coffee and lipstick from me – a match made in some cheesy dime novel from the back of beyond.

“Is that goodbye?” I asked.

“No. It’s a down payment.”

“I’ll collect the rest tonight,” I said, and continued out of the café though I tossed a final comment back at him. “I’ll still need the backup and the ship.”

The music from the speakers, a woman’s voice thick with emotion, followed me down the street.

C’est lui pour moi, moi pour lui dans la vie
Il me l’a dit, l’a juré pour la vie

* * *

Quand il me prend dans ses bras
Qu’il me parle tout bas
Je vois la vie en rose

Notes: This fic is a sequel to Allez-vous En (Go Away), and is a gift for Tek of NuttyBites.  “La Vie En Rose” was written by Édith Piaf.

Joy in All Things (A Basil and Zoe Story)

Joy In All ThingsStarhaven Transit Station
02:00 hours, local time.

Two in the morning isn’t typically a busy period on a starbase, especially if that starbase is little more than an interstellar transit station in a sector populated mostly by recently admitted members of the Coalition of Aligned Worlds – members whose planets are still dealing with the kind of wars and strife that the Founding Worlds resolved centuries before.

My wrist-comm vibrates against my pulse-point and I flip up the protective cover. As expected, it’s my fiancé, Basil, calling from the C.S.S. Cousteau, his billet, and the closest thing to a permanent home either of us has at the moment.

“Zoe, I am gratified to be speaking with you in real time,” he opens. “Time delayed messages are inefficient and lack feeling.” It’s a two-d image, flat on the tiny display panel.

“No disagreement here,” I respond. “But you were the one who said I should take this gig. ‘Using theatre skills to help flood-displaced children process their trauma would be a useful way to spend your semester break,’ you said. I could be spending the next five weeks doing Shakespeare in the Park on Hunter’s Moon, where there are cafes and restaurants and cushy hotels.”

“You could,” he says, “but you enjoy helping others. And, as I believe you pointed out, the time you spend on Repostus will look good on a resume.”

“There is that,” I agree, my tone slightly rueful. “But at least on Hunter’s Moon you could visit.”

“I miss you also,” Basil says, comprehending the words that were unsaid as well as those that were, and cutting off any further whining from me in the process. “However, assuming that there are no unforeseen events while you are away, your return shuttle will rendezvous with the Cousteau in forty-one days, seven hours, and seventeen minutes.” He leaves off seconds and fractions thereof, but I refrain from commenting on that.

“See you soon,” I say with no little bit of sarcasm in my tone. But the last word becomes a yawn. “I have three more hours to kill. I’m going to find the replimat and a rest pod. I’ll send a message as soon as I’m checked in at the hostel.”

“Very good,” he says. “I love you, Zoe.”

“Love you too,” I answer, flashing him a tired smile. “Harris out.” I cut the channel and snap the copper-colored cover back down.

Two and a half hours later, I’ve napped, washed up, and obtained a café mocha from a kiosk that claims to ‘proudly serve Red Sands Coffee.’ It’s not awful, but it’s not as good as the real thing. Better than the replicator though. My luggage has been checked through, so I only have my daypack and the coffee to deal with as I make my way to the boarding lounge.

Four-thirty in the morning is busier than two o’clock was, and most of the rows of chairs are at least partly occupied. I choose a seat in the front row, next to a conservatively dressed woman who appears to be human, and about the same age as my mother.

She bids me good morning and asks if I’m waiting for the shuttle to New Zaatari, the capital city. Then she says, “You look familiar. Should I recognize you?”

I get that a lot, partly because I’m the daughter of a celebrity composer who’s a bit of a playboy, and partly because I’m engaged to the Star Navy’s only officer who is also a sentient AI, and partly because even though this gig is an unpaid externship I’m doing during the winter intersession of my senior year of university, I’ve had several paid jobs, including a tour with the Idyllwild Theater of the Stars. Translation: for someone who’s not quite twenty-two years old, I’ve been in the press a lot.

Still, I hedge. “Not necessarily.”

“You must be an aid worker then, coming to help with the survivors from the fires?”

The smaller continent on Repostus recently suffered a debilitating drought followed by terrible wildfires, and complicated by floods. It was all comparable than what had happened in California, on Earth, in the first half of the twenty-first century, but on a much wider scale.

“Sort of,” I say. “I’m here with Beyond Theater. We’re going to be working with the kids from Safirah, using theater skills to help them process.”

“Ah, so you’re on a mission! That’s worthy. I, too, am a missionary of sorts.” I open my mouth to tell her that I’m not a missionary, just an actor, and a student, but she goes on. “I travel to planets in strife and bring them the word of The One.”

I can’t help shivering. The last time I encountered someone following ‘the One,’ it was Basil’s twin leading a coalition of artificial intelligences that wanted nothing more than to eradicate all organic life from the cosmos. Never mind that organic life created them and kept the power on.

But this woman isn’t referring to Castor. Instead she was referring to the focus of a relatively recent religious movement. The old religions – Judaism, Islam, Christianity, the Cruastean Practice from the planet Chelea, and many, many more – all still exist, but religious practice has become largely personal. People no longer proselytize, and I don’t remember ever encountering an itinerant evangelist before.

“I didn’t think people still did that,” I tell her.

“I don’t know about ‘people,'” she says. “I only know about myself. Bringing news of The One’s loving kindness to the unenlightened is a personal quest. I used all my personal savings, moving from planet to planet, and when that ran out, I started working odd jobs in exchange for food and transit.”

“That seems like a lot…”

“It is, but my cause is true. If more people truly embodied The One’s teachings, the universe would be a better place.”

I notice, now, that she has a satchel full of data-flimsies, presumably holding religious tracts. She is staring at me, her face open, expectant. “The universe could use more kindness,” I say.

But what I’m thinking is that on one level I agree with her – more loving kindness is never a bad thing, as long as it comes with equal measures of acceptance and understanding. I’m also thinking that I don’t want to tell her I agree with her because she’ll assume that I’m also a follower of The One, and conventional, human, religious practices have proven challenging to mesh into my life with Basil. Not that I’m particularly devout or anything, but I grew up in a family that actually went to church on occasion, and part of me misses the community and the rituals involved.

But this inner dialogue is  actually an improvement over former versions of myself, because two or three years ago what I would have been thinking – and possibly saying aloud – is that this woman is a freaking nutcase with no life.

To her credit, she doesn’t offer me any of her data flimsies. Instead, she says that she’s also going to Safirah, to offer spiritual succor to those who need it. “So many parentless children there, now,” she says, real grief in her voice. “And so many childless parents.”

An announcement for our shuttle – it’s delayed forty-seven minutes – makes her last few words unintelligible.

Curious, and with more time to fill, I ask her, “What motivated you to do this?”

“My husband,” she shares, her voice soft, “and my son. They were both in the Navy and served during the Oligite Invasion. Both their ships were lost.”

I’d been living with my mother on the Cousteau during that war but had been with my father on Centaurus celebrating the winter holidays, and his wedding to my stepfather, at the time. I’d returned home to find my mother injured, and it had been Basil’s support that helped me through it. But I don’t tell her that. I just say, “I’m so sorry.”

“The NFS sent a counselor and a priest, and after spending time with both of them, I reconnected with the teachings of The One,” she explains. “My family was fairly religious when I was young, but I’d lost my way, as so many do.”

I’m distracted by the sight of a family with three children and a luggage pile you could build a fortress from attempting to navigate through the increasingly crowded lounge. The adults in the group are both wearing the uniform of the Coalition Medical Service. They were probably reassigned to Repostus because of the extreme need for doctors. I think about the two bags that are being routed to the shuttle for me – a privilege accorded to me because of my Navy fiancé – one of which is stuffed full of packaged chocolates and hard candies from Earth and Centaurus. My cheeks flush with embarrassment and guilt. Sure, the snacks are meant to share, but I could easily manage with far less than I brought.

My new friend follows my gaze. “Packing light is a skill taught by necessity. They should be grateful they have so much to carry.”

“I’d never thought of it that way.”

“I learned it the hard way.”

We chat for a few more minutes, and then the shuttle finally opens for boarding.

“Thank you for the conversation,” she tells me. “You will be doing a good thing, a worthy thing. It will be hard at times, but there will be moments of joy. Remember that The One teaches that it’s right to embrace joy wherever we encounter it.” And I can tell that she really means the words she’s spoken. Then she glances down at my left hand, where my engagement ring gleams against my vacation-tanned skin. “Your partner must be proud of you. Lean on that when you miss him.”

I realize that I hadn’t mentioned Basil or having a partner, and I suddenly wonder if I should be checking to see if she filched my identi-chit while we were talking. Shaking my head, I stand up, sling my pack over one shoulder and step toward the open hatchway that leads to the shuttle. It strikes me that we’d never exchanged names, and I turn back to ask for hers and offer mine, maybe see if our seats are close together, but the chair she had occupied is empty, and I don’t see her walking away.

Shrugging, I let the gate attendant scan my chit and I take my seat on the shuttle, but I can’t shake the woman from my mind, and when they close the hatch for launch, I ask the onboard attendant if anyone is missing.

“Nope, everyone’s checked in,” she says.

Basil often reminds me that the universe is full of strange things, and not all of them are massive events. I resolve to think of the evangelist as one of them. I further resolve to take her advice during these five weeks of separation from my partner: find joy in all things.


Notes: New Zaatari is named after a city in Jordan, where Clowns Without Borders spent time with Syrian refugees. Safirah is named after a city in Syria. This piece was partly inspired by their work. Thanks to Fran for naming Repostus and CJ for naming Starhaven.

 

The Wisdom of Crocodiles

 

Here is your wisdom, they say as they thrust the young reptile into my arms. Guard its life as you guard your own.

I too am young, and the idea of being responsible for this other life is daunting.

What if I fail?

What if it dies?

Or, what if it grows large and mean and I cannot control it?

White Crocodile by Silviu Sadoschi

My year-mates, my heart sisters and blood brothers,  are also given young reptiles to care for. I see each of them cradling their black-scaled, green-eyed charges. I see blood welling from the arm of my name-twin. Her reptile has not yet been taught to gentle his claws.

My reptile is white, not green, and her eyes glow red like the embers of a fire. They say our reptiles – our crocodiles – are the descendants of Earth’s dinosaurs. But this is not Earth, and I am certain mine is closer akin to dragons. Her claws are light against my skin. Her ectothermic body presses into my chest, seeking heat.

Here is your wisdom, they repeat, and I understand: In caring for our crocodiles we will learn to care for others, and in training them to behave politely, without lunging for food or snapping their heavy jaws, we will learn to temper our wilder urges, to live thoughtful, measured lives.

I hold the white crocodile closer, and I feel her infrasonic rumble move through my bones.

She is my Wisdom

I am her Heart.

When we are both grown, she will return to the waters of the Great River and I will take my place on the village council, but we will still be bound.

They say that our People descended from crocodiles instead of apes.  I cannot be certain of this, but I dream at night of lying in the warm sun on the riverbank, of watching my lover move silently into the darkness, of sliding into the dark water where I am truly free.

It is a dream that feels almost like a memory.

Here is your wisdom, they say yet again, and I give them a half smile, one that doesn’t reveal my teeth.

The white crocodile is my Wisdom.

And I am her Heart.

Art Credit: Silviu Sadoschi – https://www.artstation.com/silviu

A Suit to Die For

Credit: Boris Groh - https://www.artstation.com/borisgroh

Changes in fashion and culture affect everyone. Business attire had grown ever more casual. Flight attendants didn’t have to be stick-thin and perpetually twenty-three anymore. It made sense, then, for the Grim Reaper to rethink his look.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said to his tailor (a lovely man named Moshe destined to die of heart-failure at the age of fifty-seven.) “Black never goes out of style, but if one more child looks at me and wants to know if I’m the character from Scream I may go mad.”

“Those cloaks always seemed heavy for summer wear,” Moshe agreed. “And hard to keep clean, with the trailing hems and all. You’re supposed to be Grim, not grimy.  Let’s try something simpler. Minimalism is very trendy right now.”

The tailor cut and stitched, measured (more than twice), cut some more, and finally held up the finished uniform. “Try this on, G.R.”

The Reaper went into the dressing room and changed into the new creation. Observing himself in the mirror, he smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant expression; the mirror cracked in response.

“Well,” called Moshe the tailor. “Are you going to let me see?”

The Grim Reaper stalked out to the main room. He always stalked. It was his way. Stalking and looming were two of his signature moves. “You don’t think the bare midriff is a mistake?”

“No, not at all. Do you like it?”

“I do,” the Reaper said. “The tattered shirt feels so breezy, and the trousers fit perfectly and I can move in them. I don’t know what to do about my scythe though. It doesn’t really enhance the look.”

The tailor was silent for a moment, studying him. Then he moved toward the accessory wall of his shop. “I have just the thing,” he said. The Grim Reaper heard different objects being lifted, examined, and tossed aside. “Aha!”

Moshe returned to the fitting area and thrust something into the Reaper’s hand. “This is perfect.”

“A briefcase?” The Reaper pronounced the word slowly, breaking it into its component parts.

“A multidimensional briefcase. It’s got a pocket for your scythe and another, zippered section for storing souls.”

“It’s perfect.” The Reaper folded his scythe into the briefcase. “You have my eternal gratitude.”

“Eternal?” Moshe asked.

The Grim Reaper opened the briefcase once more. “I’m afraid so. Come with me, Moshe. Everything will be alright.”

Moshe never felt his body hit the floor, but the Reaper and the rest of those dwelling in the Afterlife had perfectly tailored clothing for the rest of Time.

Art Credit: Boris Groh – https://www.artstation.com/borisgroh

 

If Only It Would Rain

A Basil and Zoe story, sort of.

Robot head looking front on camera isolated on a black background

 

Her head hurts.

And there’s this weird choking feeling in the back of her throat as if she stuffed grief whole into her mouth but can’t swallow it down where it won’t hurt anymore.

And the storm clouds are overhead, and thickening.

If only it would rain.

She goes through the motions… She meets friends for pedicures, but the colors seem overbright. She makes nice meals for herself, but the food all tastes like sand.

And the sky is black above her, no sun to be found.

Sundays are the worst.

Any other day, she could go up the street to see Sissy or Gina and share a frosted glass of iced tea on the porch or call across the fence to Becca and accept the invitation for a dip in her pool.

But Sundays are family days.

And her family is far away.

And her partner is further away than just “away,” because he’s dead, and she can’t quite wrap her brain around it.

But the sky keeps getting thicker and she can feel it in her brain pressing harder and harder.

She considers traveling, but she’s not ready to leave the house they built together, the things they so lovingly collected (trinkets from a myriad of planets) the bathtub he had installed just for her, because it echoed the one he’d installed in their cabin on the ship.

She considers going back to work, but she’s not ready to face auditions, and she’s spent enough time away that she no longer gets straight-up offers. Or at least, none that don’t repel her.

Her daughter tries to make her smile, asks her to play, demands beach days… and she does her best to be present in those moments, but inside all she feels is numbness, blackness, a void deeper than a black hole.

And the thunder is unceasing.

If only it would rain.

Finding Antares (for Nichelle Nichols)

Nichelle / Uhura

 

The skies are green and glowing,
Where my heart is, where my heart is,
Where the scented lunar flower is blooming:
Somewhere, beyond the stars…
Beyond Antares.

 

To their sisters of the seas, the mermaids of Earth, and their air-breathing landbound human cousins, Antares is the biggest star in the constellation known as Scorpio. Some legends even refer to it as the scorpion’s heart.

It is also the place where the mother-heart of all space sirens beats. When they are created, they are bathed in Antares’s heat. When they love, they are blessed by Antares’ light. And when one of them ends her last dance with the spheres, they escort her home and bid her farewell as she begins a new journey, beyond time, beyond space… beyond Antares.

Astral mermaids are often seen as fictional creations, frivolous fantasy beings who hitch rides on the tails of comets, treat asteroid belts as steppingstones, and slingshot themselves off the rings of planets

They play on a field of immeasurable size, but they also love deeply and when they mourn, it is with reverence and respect, casting a green veil across the starlight with their tears. Sometimes, those tears are visible to mortals. We humans call them the aurora borealis.

Every so often, there is a mortal being inducted into the siren’s sisterhood. Our linear, finite lifetimes necessitate that this happens only when such a person has finished her last song. When that happens, the sirens come to guide her past their mother-heart to a place where time has no meaning.

Forever, as the song goes, is just another journey. Nichelle Nichols, beloved by so many of us here on Earth, is the latest mortal to be invited to take it with the sirens. We wish her well as she moves beyond Antares, surrounded by the love of her family, her friends, and her fans.

Then let the years go fading,
Where my heart is, where my heart is,
Where my love eternally is waiting
Somewhere, beyond the stars…
Beyond Antares.

 

Image Source: e online
“Beyond Antares” written by Wilbur Hatch (music) and Gene L. Coon (lyrics)
“Beyond Antares” performed by Nichelle Nichols

 

4:33

The clock ticks. The countertop herb garden’s pump grinds: it needs more water. The owner of the house grunts slightly as she rises from the couch, which creaks in response. The faucet gushes into life and there is a soft click as the woman fills a plastic pitcher. The rubber cap of the herb garden pops loose. Water dribbles into the dark cistern. Water meeting water  – the splashes are muted by the container. A hiss: the grommet is sealed.

Ping. Pling. Plink. The faucet wasn’t turned off entirely. Drip by excruciatingly slow drip, water meets the metal of the sink basin.

The dog scratches himself, then shakes, ID and rabies tags jingling. He settles onto his bed with a soft flop. Slurping sounds emanate from it as he begins cleaning his privates.

The woman picks up her iPhone and texts a friend. The return sound is a whistle-ping. Ah, she’s using WhatsApp.

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She is still in the kitchen. She opens the fridge and it, too, emits a soft pop – louder than the herb garden. She stares into the chilly, white, landscape of possibilities. She slides open the deli drawer with a faint sound of metal on plastic, extracts cheese in crinkly plastic, and swings the door shut. A low click means it bounced open again.

A few seconds later, there is beeping from the fridge. The woman takes several seconds to recognize the sound, then bumps the door closed with her hip: a soft thud, followed by a more solid one.

Outside, thunder rumbles. The dog grumbles in response. The woman hushes him.

Another beeping sound begins but it’s external, a neighbor backing their golf cart out of the carport. (The vehicle’s headlights double the illumination in the woman’s house.) The cart whirrrrs into forward motion that fades away.

Birds sing in the trees outside. A sandhill crane calls to its lover. An owl screeches a warning to a squirrel. Lizards come out and make their soft gek-gek-gek sounds. Bug-zappers across the back yard at that neighbor’s place make their distinctive sting-pzzt sound as mosquitoes meet a sudden and violent end.

(No one mourns the mosquitoes.)

Somewhere in the distance, an ambulance siren is heard, the doppler effect obscuring the direction it’s coming from.

Thunder rumbles louder, and there is the electrical crack of a close lightning strike.

The dog whimpers – he hates storms – and the woman picks him up and rocks him like a human infant. His tags and her bangle bracelets click, clack, clank together.

The clock ticks.

Written last summer for Like the Prose 2021. Prompt # 24 – Crossover Art Form
Inspired by composer John Cage’s musical composition of the same name,
in which he simply let the audience listen to ambient noise for four minutes and thirty-three seconds.