“Careful.” South’s climbing onto the top of the soundstage bus. “Sejal will catch you on set after hours.”
Sejal smiles and scoots over; they dangle their feet. South realizes that, in two months, he’s never seen her sit still.
“Aren’t you supposed to be working?” he asks.
“I am supposed to,” she says deliberately, “drunk.”
“On bourbon?” he guesses.
“On beer.”
He nods; they headsmash imaginary cans.
After a while he lies back and she, not uncomfortably, puts her head on his chest. It’s a good view. The construction crew, with cranes and concentration, is suspending Seven’s trailer from the roof.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Once the world was dry. All the water was in the heavens of the bird-gods. One god, Aquipher, saw us scraping the dirt and thought: they are poor. I will give them the heavens.
He took his spear and pierced the belly of the sky, and we danced in the rain. The heavens emptied. The bird-gods raged.
They roared thunder and struck Aquipher with lightning. His feathers burnt away; his body charred. He hid from the sky beneath the earth, but his lightning-wounds would not heal.
At night, when he leaves his cave, you may hear him screaming.
Thursday, September 14, 2006
The ghost ship roams the Sargasso Sea like a black wolf. A hundred-foot-tall, floating, translucent, ship-shaped black wolf.
The ghost ship meets a fish. “Whoo!” it says.
“Sorry,” says the fish, “fish aren’t scared of ghosts.”
“But I’m a black wolf!” says the ghost ship.
The fish shrugs. It doesn’t know what a wolf is.
“A white shark, I mean,” says the ghost ship weakly.
But the fish has already left. The ghost ship mopes over to Cochran the sailor, who is clinging to some driftwood.
“Saved!” gasps Cochran.
“Not quite,” says the ghost ship, and eats him.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Through the bluffs now, they stow pitons and ropes and bury those bags under a red marker. It doesn’t have to be a big one. There’s no need to change out the rest of their gear: the silver clothes that kept them warm in the shadow passes will cool them on the next leg of the trek.
There is a brief time, in evenings, when the sun shoots red and orange beams up at the soles of their feet. Telemachus holds out his water bottle and thinks of blood. There will be no rain, no oases in this desert of cloud.
Tuesday, September 12, 2006
Cehrazad lives in Memorare, which has five walls. The traders’ road goes through the walls northeast and south, so those gates are Rich Gate and Poor Gate. The farmers’ gates in the southwest wall are Bright, Blood and Burn Gates. The collapsed one in the east wall is called Broken.
The west wall overlooks a thousand feet of cliff and so is only vaguely necessary, but it has its Sky Gate too. It’s said that the man to enter it from above will change Memorare forever. That’s exactly what Cehrazad’s grandmother did, fifty years ago, on a rope and a dare.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Tegan’s born a twin while her father Amory, old-fashioned, paces in the hall; neither of them will ever see baby Tessa, whom the doctors quickly hide behind curtains and soft words. Elspeth’s got sweat in her eyes, so she only sees her daughter’s harlequin smile for a second. She should be glad, she thinks, that one of them lived.
Later, Elspeth and Amory reach into the incubator through plastic bags. They’ve already agreed never to tell her about the miscarriage, but Elspeth makes a silent promise when Tegan squeezes her finger.
Someday, she says. Somehow we’ll get your sister back.
Friday, September 8, 2006
Rombach7 is blind and he can’t sit for long without pain, so he paces close enough for his whiskers to brush the Lexan plate. Rilke meets generation loss. Visitors can’t hear it, but he’s actually a mutant–he purrs.
The zoo’s exchange chief is in negotiations with Bombay for a breeding pair of lions from a much more successful pool, once the habitat’s freed up. 7’s the last splice from the original Rombach stock, and his caretakers don’t consider him viable for stud, much less a remaster. No more Rombachs.
The gift shop plushies, now, those they can sell forever.
Thursday, September 7, 2006
Tegan swore she’d have to be two people to keep up with Marlo, so she became two people, and shortly thereafter became the first person in history to lose custody to her clone. Which had benefits: the alternative was dropping out. Twenty with a five-year-old. Doesn’t take a math degree.
“You’re late,” says Tegan2, wreathed in kitchen smells (Tegan can’t cook a Hot Pocket).
“Sorry,” Tegan mutters.
“Get your backpack, sweetie!” Marlo comes running.
Tegan2‘s got crow’s feet and gray hair: fraying telomeres. She won’t see thirty. Tegan takes Marlo’s hand and turns away, eyes filling, hating herselves.
Wednesday, September 6, 2006
Tegan cries angry grownup tears all the way to the zoo.
“Maybe we shouldn’t go, Tegan,” says Marlo quietly.
“Why,” mutters Tegan, “did I not teach you to call me Mom?”
“Because–”
“That’s enough, Marlo.” She wipes her eyes again.
Most of the animals are indoors, but Rombach the Panthera leo persica is out and pacing. He doesn’t have much of a mane; his eyes are brave. Marlo watches him until Tegan makes her leave, then slips away and comes back and gets yelled at entirely too much.
Marlo gets a stuffed lion at the gift shop with her own money.
Tuesday, September 5, 2006