Symbiosis

by Nicky Drayden

  The room is silent for a long while, but then clapping starts. It soon rolls into an ovation that hurts my ears.

  “No!” I scream out. We’d still be killing Zenzee, albeit more slowly. “This is not what we want!” But I am drowned out. I keep yelling until, finally, the applause subsides. “Doka doesn’t want this!” I scream at Tesaryn Wen. “There’s no way he would approve of this.”

  “You’re right about that, Seske,” Tesaryn Wen says, taking a few purposeful steps toward me. Her lips quirk. “But I’m sure he would have come around, if he’d had all the information that we have at our fingertips now. However, we will never know for sure. I hate to be the bearer of awful news, especially at the mark of such a monumental undertaking, but it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you, there was an attempt on our leader’s life during the summit. And unfortunately, Doka Kaleigh was killed.”

  The world around me starts spinning. Charrelle wails out in agony. I’m falling, but Bakti catches me under the arms and holds me close to his chest. “Seske . . . Seske . . . ,” he whispers into my ear.

  “We are at a very tender time. This assassination has fractured the little trust we had built between the other clans, and our tacticians warn that war may be on the eve,” Tesaryn Wen continues. “We need a competent leader to guide us through this monumental wave of change. The throne would fall back upon Seske Kaleigh, but since she has conceded it already, and since there is no female heir or suitable women within her family to claim the title, I vote that their Line be dissolved immediately, and all powers within it be conferred to me as interim Matris until the Senate has time to fully consider a suitable replacement. With the looming threat, our immediate action is required, so unless there are any objections among the Senators, then—”

  “I object,” comes a voice. A voice I know so well. Doka’s voice. Relief floods me, and I scramble back onto my feet, but I cannot see over the crowd.

  “Pick me up!” I say to Bakti, and he hoists me up by the hips. There . . . I see him, coming up the aisle. Dressed in ill-fitting common robes, but it’s Doka. It takes Tesaryn Wen a moment to recognize him, a heavy scowl forming on her face the moment she does.

  “It seems the ancestors have granted me more favors than you anticipated,” Doka says, strutting down the aisle toward the stage. “Care to tell our people exactly who it was that orchestrated the attempt on my life?”

  Tesaryn Wen crosses her fingers, index fingers pointing up, then stands there as if she’s posing for a portrait. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, and I’m afraid you have no Senate standing in this matter since it directly involves you. You must recuse yourself from all your duties, including voting on the matter.”

  Doka looks unbothered. “Then we will call upon the Senate. Who among you will choose not to deny what we have built together? Who will support me as we continue to stretch the bounds of our lives upon this Zenzee?”

  None of the Senators raise their hand.

  “Senator Kerell? Senator Baisle? Surely you, Gnasha? You’ve always complimented me on my policies.”

  Their lips remain pressed together.

  “I only need one objection . . . ,” Doka says, voice deflated of energy. “So it’s like this then, Senator Roshaad? You’ve been like a mentor to me.”

  Bella Roshaad stares at Doka coldly. He’s managed to alienate every single one of his supporters.

  Tesaryn Wen smiles. I clench inside, knowing what’s going to happen next. I remember seeing a family lose their Line when I was a young girl. It put a fear in me. “Put me down. Put me down,” I say, patting Bakti’s shoulder. As soon as my feet touch the ground, I tell him that we need to get out of here. I tug at him and gesture to the rest of my family to follow. We push through the crowd toward the exit, but then I hear a guttural scream, and when I glance back to check on everyone, a dozen accountancy guards rush after us. One of them has Kallum. He’s struggling, kicking, trying to fend them off, but it’s too late.

  For all of us.

  Twenty additional guards cut off our path, and soon we’re all being dragged back onto the stage. Doka is up there, too, breathing heavily and looking defeated. His eyes lock with mine, and there is no regret or awkwardness there, only anger and hurt.

  “I hereby announce that the Kaleigh Line has been dissolved,” Tesaryn Wen says. She steps up to Bakti, pulls a few pins out of his bun, and his black thick braid falls down past his shoulder. A few more touches, and his hair is all flat again, running down his back. “It is unfortunate that you had to be a part of this, but you are free to return to your people.” Tesaryn Wen does a quick hand gesture, as if she were shooing a pesky cricket out of her house and back into the garden and not tearing our family apart.

  Bakti turns back to me. “Seske . . . I—”

  “Just go,” I say. “Go and don’t turn back.” My voice trembles. Perhaps I am being too cold, but I do not want him to witness what is coming next. I want him to remember me how I was.

  He nods, then starts the slow trek up the aisle to where the Klang are being held.

  Hands come for our hair, many pairs of them twisting and pulling and unraveling our braids right out here in front of everyone. They are not gentle, and my scalp yells out in pain, my head being yanked this way and that. Hairs pop and snap. Tears fall down my face. Never again would I feel the familiar pattern of my Line’s braids upon my head. No longer will my ancestors look down and see me. They will not find me, will not know what to do with all the favors I’ve built up over the years. They’d soon forget all about me.

  Charrelle sobs as they do her hair, clutching our baby to her chest, but when they come for Kenzah, she loses it. His hair is barely long enough to hold a few tiny twists, but they too must come out. Charrelle elbows the accountancy guards coming for our son. I shake off the people still in my hair and undo my last few braids myself before running to her aid.

  “It’s okay,” I whisper to her. “Let them take the twists out. They will be gentle.”

  Charrelle looks at me, her eyes bloodshot. “You. You are responsible for this. This is all your fault. You couldn’t keep your hands off my husband. You were running through his mind all the time, and he couldn’t concentrate on his job. Couldn’t concentrate on his family.”

  “What? No. We didn’t—” I almost deny it, but Charrelle cuts me down with a look. Did Kallum tell her? Doesn’t matter. This isn’t something we should talk about here. “Shhh. Calm down and let them finish.”

  “You want me to calm down,” Charrelle snaps at me. “You fuck my husband, make us lose our Line, turn our child into a bastard, and you think I need to stay calm. I trusted you! I thought we were friends!”

  The entire hall goes quiet. Tesaryn Wen slithers up between Charrelle and I, laying an arm over each of our shoulders. Charrelle stiffens. Eyes wide. Too late does she realize what she’s done.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Charrelle says, blustering all over the place. “I didn’t mean it. I mean, I don’t know for sure. It’s just that there was always . . . this tension between them, and I got used to it, but then all of a sudden, there wasn’t, and I asked Kallum about it and he couldn’t even look me in the eye, and he started crying, and then—”

  “It’s fine,” Tesaryn Wen says to her, rubbing her back now. “You didn’t do anything wrong.” She waves off the person trying to take out the baby’s twists. Dissolving our Line had been an appetizer for her cruelty. Infidelity was the real meal. I could practically feel her salivating at the thought of stringing Doka and I up by our thumbs. And she had total authority on how long we would be like that. Days. Months. Years, even.

  “Go ahead and ask us,” Doka says, coming to my side. “We won’t deny the truth. Seske and I have nothing to hide.”

  “We made a mistake,” I say. Doka flinches at my words, then nods. “We hurt the people we love most. And we are prepared to pay.” I twiddle my thumbs, remember how Adalla’s tin uncle, Sonovan, had hung by his thumbs for w
eeks for infidelity with his heart-wife.

  Tesaryn Wen smiles, then goes to confer with the Senators.

  “A mistake,” Doka whispers to me. “That’s really the way you feel?”

  “Don’t you?” I ask. “Look at what we’ve done . . .”

  He lets his head fall forward, nods slightly.

  “If there is no denial of infidelity between will-wife and head-husband, then we shall hand down immediate sentencing. For the crime of infidelity between family units, I sentence eleven days of public hanging by thumbs to Doka and Seske Kaleigh.”

  My gut sinks. In the back of my mind, I knew there was the chance that we’d have to face this public shame, but I never thought we actually would. Eleven days, in the swamp that had once been the central market, thumbs bound and high above us. Eventually our legs would grow too tired, and our whole weight would be borne by our thumbs, which would dislocate, causing pain that would last us forever. But I don’t have long to lament our fate, because then Tesaryn Wen starts talking again.

  “And in the matter of inappropriate sexual conduct with a member of the crown, I sentence Doka and Seske Kaleigh to expulsion from the beast from the third anal sphincter.”

  The crowd gasps.

  “Our crime is one of infidelities,” I scream out, “not of . . . inappropriateness . . . sexual or otherwise!”

  “Your wanton fornication has corrupted the throne. There is precedent with the daughter of Matris Bordal. Of course, you remember Baxi Batzi.”

  “But she was a beastworker!” I say. “Both Doka and I are in the ruling class. It shouldn’t be treated the same!”

  “Curious that you favor class distinctions now, isn’t it?” Tesaryn Wen says, lips quirked in a wry smile. “You are free to raise your concerns with the Senate.”

  I swivel to look at them, frowns stare back at us. We still have no friends there.

  “Any objections from the Senate that we punish for the greater crime first?” Tesaryn Wen asks. There are no objections. And with that, hands come down upon Doka and me.

  I lock eyes with Adalla. She stands there motionless, her lip trembling, then comes running to me, looking as if she’s ready to fight off every single accountancy guard surrounding me. I shake my head at her, and she slows. I reach for her, best I can, and she does the same, our fingertips just able to touch.

  “I’m sorry,” I say to her, the words dredging up the entirety of my heart. “I’m sorry for everything.”

  Per custom, we are bathed and given new robes and fed a final meal. It is quite the spread, though it goes untouched. Doka and I sit there, across the table from each other, staring. I barely recognize him: his naxshi scrubbed from his face, his hair out of braids altogether, held up like sunbursts in thick, chunky twists. My hair is in loose braids following no particular pattern. I smell the fragrant yonatti oils in there, reminding me of my childhood. The women who dressed my hair insisted on it despite my pleas. While it made your locks strong and shiny for a while, they would become brittle over time, but I suppose that doesn’t matter anymore. By the end of this day, both our bodies would be floating in the cold dead of space.

  Our untouched entrees are moved, and desserts are placed in front of us. Lime tarts, symbolizing the rebirth of the matriarchy.

  I laugh. Today of all days, I am presented with the dessert I have pined after for most of my life. “Say what you want about Tesaryn Wen, but her sense of irony is flawless.”

  Doka nods and picks up the tuning fork. “Some poor chef must have spent hours on this. We shouldn’t let her work go to waste.”

  I pick up my fork, and we both strike them on the metal bowl. His fork rings an octave lower than mine, and we move them closer to the lime until it begins to hatch. The hairy flesh of the lime bulges out, then nearly a dozen hatchlings erupt from the rind, tumbling down the mound of whipped candy creme and settling into a river of jelly. Doka and I stare at each other for a moment, awkward silence besides the fading ring of the forks. I turn my attention quickly to the lime tart and when all the hatchlings have drowned, I go in after the first bite, grabbing the perfect portions of flaky pastry, creme, and lime jelly.

  I take a bite and close my eyes. “Amazing,” I say. Doka agrees, swallowing his tart without even chewing once.

  “You should take your time. Savor it,” I tell him.

  “You’re right,” he says, fetching another tart then holding it up to his nose and staring at it. “Sometimes I get so excited, I rush through things.”

  “You do,” I say.

  He stops, looks at me. “We’re talking about the tart, right?”

  “Right,” I say. “What else would we be talking about?”

  “Right.” He takes a smaller bite now. Chews. “See, I missed that the first time . . . that spice? Anise? Interesting take. And the bits of lime hatchlings, they kind of stick to the roof of your mouth. A little heat to it, but the creme balances it out.”

  “Ha, so you’re a connoisseur of fine desserts all of a sudden?”

  “Just more experienced. I messed up the first time. I knew I didn’t want to do that again if I ever got the chance to take another bite.”

  “Do you want to know what I learned from my first taste?” I ask.

  “Of course,” he says.

  “Sometimes you take a small bite, but it’s still bigger than you can chew. Maybe you don’t like the taste or the texture or there’s a weird hairy patch in it, and it’s too late, because it’s too rude to spit it out. So you just chew. And swallow.”

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t have been eyeing the lime tart the whole time and just stayed at home and ate your too-spicy egg loaf every day for the rest of your life.”

  “I should have,” I say. “But the tart was parading around in front of me, looking so . . . delicious. And it was nice. And kind. And thoughtful. And beautiful. And maybe I spent so much time building it up in my head as the perfect dessert, I sort of set myself up to be disappointed.”

  “Ouch,” Doka says, then shakes his head. “I mean, I imagine that would hurt to hear. If I was a lime tart. Because that’s a hundred percent what we’re still talking about.”

  I nod. “Definitely.”

  “So you don’t like tarts,” he says.

  “Oh no, I love tarts. Almost more than anything. I’d give my life for a lime tart. I just can’t enjoy it . . . sexually.” I put my fork down and stare at the pile of creme sitting before me. I seem to have lost what little of my appetite that I’d had. “So maybe there will be this weird tension between me and lime tarts for the rest of my life . . . which I guess isn’t all that long, so maybe I shouldn’t even be worrying over it.”

  Doka sees me sobbing, so he pulls his chair around next to me and puts an arm over my shoulder. “So what would you rather worry over?”

  Adalla? Our people? Our family. Our child? The Zenzee? There was too much worry left and not enough time. “Why do we have to worry about anything? What good would it do us? What good has it ever done us?”

  The attendant comes out and politely says, “If you’re done with desserts, would you like tea service?”

  I shake my head. “We’re done. Finished. Ready to go.”

  “Very well, ma’am.”

  We stand up and are escorted to the third ass, passing first through the other two sphincters. Doka and I walk shoulder to shoulder, slowly, as if in a wedding procession. Ruddy waters lap at our ankles, fissures erupt to form islands of undulating flesh. Four accountancy guards guide us carefully around the dangers—so we won’t die prematurely, ancestors forbid. Through the second ass, we come to the sphincter, waiting as the guards pry it open for us to pass.

  We step over the threshold.

  The air is sour and crisp, and I lose my breath. A thin wall of flesh is all that separates us from naked space. Doka’s hand finds its way into mine, and I grip it tight as the guards retreat back to the safety of the second ass. Then, we wait in silence.

  And there’s a whole
lot of it. Here, in the third ass, nothing lives. No chirping of beetles, no hissing of petulant vines. It is all just matter the Zenzee can recycle no further, ready to be expelled into space.

  The puckered, purple sphincter trembles, then begins to dilate ever so slightly. Almost immediately, pieces of dirt and clumps of clay near it get sucked through. Hissing winds fill our ears. Then a large slab of clay slams down over the opening, and the sucking stops. For a moment at least.

  Doka looks at me. “I’m sorry, Seske,” he says. “This is all my fault. I ruined everything.”

  I shake my head. “I made that decision, too. We can’t go back and change the past now.”

  The piece of clay breaks in half and is sucked out. The sphincter continues to widen. Larger objects start to get pulled toward it. Our robes included. I catch the reflection of stars in Doka’s eyes. He’s looking, out there, into space, but I can’t do the same.

  “Do you think it’ll be quick?” I ask. “Death?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t think about it. Maybe we should keep our minds somewhere else.” Doka says this, but still he is not able to look away. I pull his chin toward mine.

  “We should keep our minds elsewhere,” I say, raising my voice to speak over the squall.

  “Meditation?” he asks.

  “Maybe?” But I’ve never been much good at concentrating on such things. I lean forward, pressing my body against his. I bite my lip. “Maybe not.”

  “Seske . . .”

  “It’s not like we can get into any more trouble than we already are.” I run my arm over his shoulder, down his arm. “And look how stiff and nervous you are. Like you’re afraid I’m going to bite.”

  “I’m afraid you’re about to do something that we’ll both regret.”

  I raise a brow. “See? You’re already thinking like we have a future long enough to harbor regrets.” We lower ourselves down to the ground, bracing against the increasing winds. Doka has always been a distraction, and I’m even more grateful for it now, keeping my fear at bay.