Archive for the ‘Alex Dally MacFarlane’ Category
Water Bodies
Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
Marcius watched the slow movements of condensed water on the window, and didn’t know what to do.
Behind him, a dead woman lay on a bed. She lay as if asleep — but too empty of life for that mistake to be made for long. “I see no marks of injury external or internal,” Cimber said. “She’ll have to be thoroughly scanned at a morgue. Most likely heart failure.”
Not an improbable conclusion, given the white of her hair.
Except for the water on her window and the secret words it made. Marcius glanced between them and Cimber, torn. If he revealed the truth, he risked seeing another artist contained. In her condensation-words a trusted water interpreter might find a clue to the artist’s identity — and that would mean containment, imprisonment of another man or woman who could help Marcius. But every case he helped solve earned a reduction of his debt to Cimber.
As Cimber requested a pick-up for the body, his eyes moving across the screens embedded inside them, Marcius said, “That’s not why she died.”
Cimber looked directly at him.
“She bought a water body,” Marcius continued, glancing at the window. “Those are her words on the window. She says that she was bored, and now she’s leaving in her new body. Soon she’ll be floating through the city, playing with the rain, the rooftops, the undersides of weather balloons.”
He could not keep longing from his voice. Neither could he ignore the look of displeasure on Cimber’s face.
Cimber had not approved of his little brother’s decision. And when he realised that Marcius had left without repaying a debt, disapproval had turned to action.
Running down metal roof-tiles, along drainage pipes, gutters — like slides at a child’s amusement park. He remembered it with painful clarity.
Some people worried that too many citizens bought water bodies, and made the act illegal. Marcius worried that too many artists would be contained before he’d repaid his debt.
Later, outside the apartment, Cimber acknowledged the debt reduction. “Another forty-six cases to go,” he said. “And I see you haven’t changed your mind.”
“I’d go back now, if I knew you wouldn’t return me to a human body again and again.”
Forty-six, he thought as Cimber began silently walking home, until I can be water, until I can play with the rain again.
He hoped that the artists taught their techniques faster than they were caught.
In Oranges
Monday, April 7th, 2008
To celebrate our first anniversary, each of us here at the Cabal has come up with a story beginning with a line provided to us by the illustrious Jay Lake. Alex Dally MacFarlane starts us off with the tale below, and tomorrow Daniel Braum will take us somewhere else entirely…
“Zoli liked to hang around psychiatrists’ waiting rooms to hit on the low self-esteem chicks.”
The altered citrus sinensis’ comment barely made Roland pause. Even when it waggled a branch heavy with oranges near her face, she refused to look at it.
“He also liked to kick puppies.”
“Now you’re lying.” She planted a final passiflora edulis seedling in the flower bed, which was covered by a knee-high glass structure to protect the plants inside from the chilly nights. Hopefully these seedlings would not be as troublesome as the last batch. I hope the brothel-boys keep their windows closed at night, she thought, and couldn’t prevent a smirk. Passion fruits are passionate when allowed to express themselves. Why am I surprised?
Brushing soil from her fingers, Roland turned to the orange tree that grew in a nearby bed. Its flower-mouths moved in a way that looked rude, even if she couldn’t quite tell why.
“My brother was an opportunist. You act as if I didn’t know this. But I do know that he didn’t kick puppies. Or kittens, before you suggest that.”
“You act as if you knew him better than I did,” the citrus sinensis retorted, trying to mimic her voice.
Its words stung, a little.
“Then tell me why he went, if you knew him so well.” When the plant offered no reply, she shuffled along the wooden walkway between beds to another batch of seedlings that needed planting out. “You enjoy being smug. You don’t actually know anything, at least not anything important.”
“I’ll know when he dies,” it said curtly.
She wanted to ignore its games, its cruel streak–which had made her brother so fond of the plant, she knew. But this was new. “Oh?”
“He let me bite him,” the citrus sinensis said, smug-toned. “And now I have a part of him inside me. It will tell me when he dies.”
Glancing at it sideways, Roland murmured, “I didn’t know you could do that.”
And she lunged up, running and jumping for one of its branches before it could swing them away. It thrashed at her, shouting rage-filled nonsense. She plucked an orange and dropped to the ground. “An orange every now and then,” she told it, “and if you’re telling the truth, I will also know when the war kills Zolinder.”
“I won’t let you,” all the flower-mouths said, loud and shaking.
Laughing unpleasantly, Roland peeled aside the orange skin. “Even you sleep.”
She tasted bitterness, soil, sweat, pain. Life.
Tasting, also, anger at the tree for withholding this, she said, “You’ll grow more. And you’re a fool if you think I don’t care about my brother enough to hurt you.”