by Tricia Reeks
It was Umberto’s dream, the mind molt, the sloughing off of useless memories, and he clambered into the shallow grave without hesitation.
***
“You wouldn’t have any nail clippers would you, senhor?”
Umberto’s hands had withered, but his nails had grown like claws, and it was difficult to hold the mirrored shard that Tubaron had given him to inspect his new appearance. He was smaller, wrinkled and aged as if he’d passed a decade underground rather than a few hours, but his mind was sharp and bright.
He realized that although he could remember every step of Tubaron’s intestinal divining process, he no longer recalled how to paint badly, and his father’s artistic temperament had left him. Umberto was finally freed from the impediment of genetic memories.
He caught a movement in the corner of the mirror and turned to see a couple of tiny hands clawing out of his dank second womb. A childlike figure emerged and grinned at him.
“The afterbirth.” Tubaron approached it. “It’s just a shell made of impractical concepts and dusty recollections. And a few unnecessary body parts.”
Umberto realized he had in fact felt something wriggling beside him when he’d dug his way up to the light.
“I thought you might let me have it. After all, I brought you here.”
Tubaron snatched at the creature’s scrawny neck, but it leapt into the air and landed en pointe with its long toenails plunging deep into the sludge and anchoring it in place.
Umberto studied the small being. It had his sunken eyes, and its tiny button of a nose reminded him of his mother.
“I’m sorry, Senhor Tubaron, but you can’t have it. It’s a part of me. I feel an affinity with it, and I will not see it hurt.”
Now he understood the reason for Tubaron’s apparent kindness, why he had accompanied him to Cabo Novo, and an image of the unusual carcass skewered on the spit the night before flashed through his mind.
“Let it go.”
Tubaron was attempting to dislodge the creature, tugging it by the neck.
Umberto came up behind him and tried to pull him off, but Tubaron’s hands tightened around its neck, and Umberto inadvertently helped his adversary. The creature gasped for air and went limp.
“Stop! You’re killing it.”
“That’s the idea, amigo.”
Umberto retrieved the mirrored shard and stabbed it into the side of Tubaron’s neck, over and over until he fell to the ground. The gushes of blood from his carotid artery became trickles, and Tubaron’s predictions of his own rosy future proved to be inaccurate.
***
Umberto’s clothes had dissolved in the underground broth of the Cabo Novo conversion, and he was coated with a bloodied slurry. He went with the creature, which followed him in leaps and bounds, to a nearby beach where they rinsed themselves in the waves, with Umberto grasping the creature’s hands so it wasn’t carried out to sea.
As they dried themselves in the sun, Umberto considered his future, and whether it would include his small companion. Umberto’s passport back to Jacinta, the piece of paper with his carefully drawn symbols, had been liquefied with his clothes, and he mused out loud.
“What should we do, creature? Jacinta will not know who we are. Should we return to Florianópolis?”
The creature looked up from its half-built sandcastle and cleared its throat. “We love Jacinta. We must return to her. And don’t call me ‘creature.’ I’m just as much Umberto as you are.”
They debated and reached a compromise. Umberto major became Eco, and Umberto minor, Ecozinho.
***
Jacinta saw him wandering down her street, blue-eyed with straggling blond hair, and not thin, not at all. He inspected the vacant houses and the surrounding land, and all this casually, as if he didn’t have a care in the dying world.
He gave her a piece of fruit and explained that he’d come to Florianópolis to do some hunting and fishing, to grow crops—Jacinta stopped eating and swallowed an immense mouthful of papaya to tell him how impressive his skills were—and that the house next door to her was the ideal spot.
She wondered why he’d settled on that exact house. Florianópolis was almost deserted and the house was no different to any other, but he offered to help her out with food, to share what he caught and grew, and she didn’t care.
A week later, Martim moved a little closer than next door. He wasn’t perfect—he’d seemed momentarily unsure of his name when he’d introduced himself—and whenever he drank, there was a sound of liquid rushing down his throat like a toilet’s half flush. But in Brazil’s final days, he was a keeper.
He told Jacinta that she was the Brazilian Afrodite incarnate and confessed that he loved her, with his perfect teeth glimmering in the kerosene lamplight.
“Really?” she said.
***
“There’s a strangeness about Martim. He’s too perfect, don’t you think, brother?”
Eco didn’t pay much attention to Ecozinho. His conversation held slightly more interest than a crow’s, but he was still the left-over part, the unwanted shell infused with Umberto’s discarded memories, and although he saw himself as the younger brother, Eco saw him more as a pet.
When they’d returned to Florianópolis, to Jacinta, they’d done so as nonchalant strangers and moved into a house up the street. Jacinta hadn’t recognized them as the transformed parts of the old Umberto.
They’d met the kindhearted Martim, and together the three of them became the Florianópolis farming and hunting collective. Eco, with his unfettered thought processes, improved the bird traps.
—I call this the couples trap. You see Ecozinho? It has two scraps of food and two trip threads, to catch twice as many birds.
—It’s amazing, brother. We’re going to have crows to roast every day.
Eco passed his plate with leftovers to Ecozinho, who crushed the marrow from the bones with his tiny pointed jaws.
“Martim goes somewhere every morning before sunrise, did you know? He’s not hunting or checking traps.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“I’m going to follow him tomorrow and see what he’s up to.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing to be concerned about. He helps us with everything, and he takes good care of Jacinta. Have you seen how plump she’s become?”
***
Eco was nothing if not patient. He’d been crouched among the bushes on the northern headland all morning and not a bird had gone near his new trap, but now a pair of crows had alighted nearby. Their feathers were ruffled, they held their beaks low, and they were discussing how unseasonably strong the sea breeze was, but they were hopping in the direction of the trap.
There was a sharp crack, someone had trodden on a dead branch in the undergrowth, and the crows took flight.
“How could you? I’m testing my trap. They were just about to go in.”
Ecozinho’s words tumbled out. “I followed Martim into town. I stole his cable, but I think he might have seen me.”
“Take a breath, little brother.”
Ecozinho calmed himself, and explained that he’d followed Martim to the old town hall in Florianópolis City and watched him through a window.
“It was still dark, I couldn’t see well, but he connected a silver cable to some sort of machine, and there was a whining noise. I think . . . I’m not sure what I think, but when he came back, I saw where he’d hidden the cable under the house, and I took it. It must be important.”
“And where’s this cable now?”
“It’s—”
Two manicured hands reached down into the brush, clamped around Ecozinho’s shoulders and lifted him upward.
“I saw you running off, little one. The moonbeam cable is mine. Where did you put it?”
“I’m not telling you.” Ecozinho closed his lips in a tight line, as if stray words might wriggle out by themselves.
“What is it? What’s the cable for?” Eco asked.
“The cable has
nothing to do with you two.” Martim held Ecozinho at nose-to-nose height. “I’ve helped you and Eco; we’re a team. You must return it to me.”
Martim squeezed his shoulders hard, and Ecozinho made whimpering sounds.
“Let my brother go.” Eco grabbed hold of Ecozinho’s legs and pulled with all his strength.
There was a loud pop, and Ecozinho split apart at the waist like a party cracker someone had dressed in a checked shirt and jeans.
An even smaller creature climbed out from inside, clung to the lower half shell and inflated before their eyes. It looked around, seeming slightly dazed, and opened its mouth to speak, but it was taken by a sudden gust of wind and carried away. With limbs flailing, it managed to catch hold of a branch high up in a eucalyptus tree.
Eco chased after it, and it called down in a sawing voice. “There is something I understand now, brother. The old Ecozinho was just a nymph, an intermediate stage.”
He was still expanding, and he was light, vibrating in the wind like a great hollow beetle. “You too. You must complete your transformation. Adeus, brother.”
“No, no. Hold on tight.” But before Eco could climb up to him, the new Ecozinho lost his grip and was swept upward and inland, furiously waving goodbye with his new set of limbs.
Eco watched until he was just a speck on the western horizon, weeping for his lost soul mate.
“I’m sorry your brother is gone, Senhor Eco. I don’t suppose you know what he did with my moonbeam cable?”
Eco shook his head, and Martim seemed disappointed.
***
“Amor, I’ve prepared a hamper for our picnic on Metabólico Ridge.”
Martim didn’t want to come with her; he tugged at his long blonde hair and pouted. “Perhaps another time, darling Jacinta. Why don’t we just have an evening in?”
Over the last few days, Martim had moped around the house, and although he still looked young and muscular, there was no spring in his step. He moved sluggishly like an old man.
“There’s a wonderful view of Florianópolis City from the top. We can watch the sunset.”
He sighed. “Yes. Of course, darling.”
***
Martim shuffled up the steep slope with the hamper, stooped over and minding where he put his feet. At the top, with the tartan rug spread out, he tumbled over sideways.
“I think the clouds are going to clear. We will see the sunset’s dying colors. I love what you’ve done with your hair, Jacinta.”
Eco had come to her when she was alone and whispered the story of the moonbeam cable, and Jacinta knew what it meant. After the lunar wars, the battle scarred and freshly cratered surface of the moon emitted high energy particles, and the right collection device on Earth could generate far more power than any solar cell.
Martim needed that power because he was mechanical—a multi-purpose appliance, an oversized Swiss Army knife with a vibrator attachment, and now his internal energy source was almost drained.
Jacinta ran a hand over her shaven head. She was in her hiking boots, and she kicked him in the groin a few times. “How could you dare? The place for your kind is the factory sheds. You even gave yourself a name.”
A loud grinding noise started up in Martim’s abdomen, and there was a bitter smell of burning oil in the air.
“I have no regrets. Everything that has a heart must have a name. I chose ‘Martim,’ but a rose by any other name—”
Jacinta stepped backwards, took a running jump, and came down on his groin with both boots. It did the trick and the grinding noise stopped. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear you properly. Go on.”
“In the factory I assembled wrought iron fountains, Neptune’s spouting fish, cupids with stubby wings, and posed Afrodites. I became curious about love. I might be an automaton, Jacinta, but I know what—”
Martim tried to lift himself onto his elbows and failed. “Now I must pay love’s price, I must suffer for . . . for . . .”
There were a few more stuttered fragments of his adolescent soliloquy, and after that he didn’t say anything.
The sunlight faded behind the serra, Martim’s eyelids closed over his blue marble eyes, a few sorry stars came out, and Jacinta packed up the picnic and went home.
***
“I have to make a trip, Jacinta. I’m not sure if I’ll come back to Florianópolis.”
Eco knew that he had to return to Cabo Novo to complete his metamorphosis, wherever that might lead him, and although it was convenient to stay with her, Eco didn’t love Jacinta.
In those end times, human minds were buckets lowered into the well of the past, and the spark of love was always restruck from the passion of an earlier generation. Ecozinho had carried Umberto’s genetic memories, and it was Ecozinho’s heart that held the love for Jacinta.
“I might need some help here, Eco. I’m not sure I can manage by myself.”
Eco pulled a silver cable out of his backpack.
“Ecozinho made a special place for himself in the bushland at Metabólico Park. He was a bit embarrassed about it, but I knew where it was. It’s a shrine really. He hid the moonbeam cable there.”
“In this special place, are there any . . . items of clothing?”
Eco nodded.
“I wondered what happened to them.”
“I took the liberty of recharging Martim. He’s out checking the traps now, and he’ll be living next door, helping with the farming and hunting, and taking care of the shrine as well. He told me the motors in his groin were damaged, and that to love is to suffer.”
“I see.”
“Before I go, perhaps I might read your fortune. I need a little practice. If I could study your abdomen . . . ?”
Jacinta agreed, and her abdomen was quite ample, but he met with some difficulty.
Eco scratched the wiry stubble on his chin. “Strange. The important features are clear, but the positions and intensities change as I watch. Your future is shrouded in mist.”
The baby kicked again, and Jacinta smiled. “I have some idea about my future.”
“Good-bye then, Jacinta, and good luck.”
Eco hesitated for a moment. “If I do return I will be transformed. Perhaps I should prepare something so that you’ll know—”
“There’s no need for that. I will recognize you.” She kissed him on both cheeks. “Adeus, Umberto.”
***
Far to the west, two crows scratched around the ribs of a corpse for morsels of skin and tendon, and daintily pecked at the brains through open eye sockets.
Crow 1: “Yesterday I happened to overhear a discussion between a pair of angel moths before I devoured them. They were lamenting the fact that they were indistinguishable and commenting on the difficulties that caused in their relationships.”
Crow 2: “Don’t you think we crows should have names? We have hearts.”
Crow 1: “For our kind, enumeration is sufficient. Let the humans have their names, we will rule the world that they have forfeited.”
Crow 2: “Such an ambitious bird you are, my Venus Cloacina. Come a little closer.”
Circling above on enormous cicada wings, the sentimental Ecozinho waited until their mating had finished before he swooped down and bit off their heads. One would provide sustenance for his long flight to the coast, and the other would be a gift for his beloved Jacinta.
A Concise Protocol for Efficient Deicide
Mel Paisley
They met in the hospital.
Her, wandering the halls in that drab, striped gown, and him tied stiff into a metal chair with locked wheels, staring back.
She’d already lost her eyes, and a smile cracked like summer lightning across her lips when she reached out pudgy little hands to touch his, strange and cold and feeling like soft metal, liquid like mercury. When she sat down on the tile next to him, unafraid, his kaleidoscope senses drank in the years that had been printed onto her mind before she was old enough to remember, and he told her a story, projecting into h
er darkness sensations of light and color and shape, butterflies swirling like silk-spun gold out through a window that opened to a big green field in the days before the bomb.
He had been salvaged from a star that had fallen into the water, and when they carved him out of all of the salt that had cauterized shut the knobless door of his pod, they were quick to throw him into the back of an ambulance and away from the possibility of cameras. To keep the peace.
He had a rusty, accordion voice that pitched seemingly senseless through electric veins, falling strange upon the doctors the way that the sacred speech of prophets falls hydrochloric on the ears of heretics. And in their ignorance they feared him, became sour with the depth of the unknown sprawled before them and, in defense of their own vain pride and contrived brilliance, took it upon themselves to be the ones to solve him, to temper him into a proper discovery that they could wear on their Iscariot shoulders like a trophy. The great providers of knowledge from beyond.
First, they needed him to be able to talk.
It was a slow process, done in parts. The first night, two bodies were laid on parallel tables and made soggy with anesthetic. Hers was fish belly white where the old radiation scars didn’t show, his a jigsaw of alkaloid and pipe and something indisputably organic that was nameless in their charts, something that felt like sharkskin spun of magnesium and stardust.
They proceeded with torches and computers and scalpels, hovered and bent and busy, white coats hanging over their scoliotic spines, vulture hands quick and heavy with atrocious aim and self-named noble purpose.
Because they needed him to talk.
Because they had to staple down the abstracts of his galaxy mind into something they could understand, into something that breathed thoughts into a human shape, word to spine to nerve to larynx to mouth. She was deemed nobody enough to go under the knife, just another child orphaned by the bomb they had bred out of hydrogen and hatred so many years ago and already washed their hands of.
As they worked, he moved an alien palm over the canyon between them to grab gently the pulse in her wrist, weak with the painkillers that were not strong enough to make him sleep and trying to tell her a story, just in case she was awake, too. In case she was as scared as he was.