The Apex Book of World SF

by Mahvesh Murad

  The pirate ship drops to the ground. The moment of weightlessness is like leaving our bodies. I begin to laugh.

  Our arms untangle. She immediately curls into a ball.

  Pepe must hate me to death. I’ve never told her stories. When she told stories, I never listened. Finally, I didn’t even let her tell stories. She knew why. However, she still has never paid any attention to me.

  So, she became the way she is now. The stories that sprawled like weeds in her head filled her. Her eyes grew blacker by the day. Later, her fingernails grew black, too. Finally, even her lips grew black. I had to take her to the doctor. (Our heads are the same as human’s. Even doctors can’t tell the difference.) The X-ray was completely black. I knew why. It was because of all the untold stories, but I couldn’t tell the doctors that. I couldn’t even tell Pepe. The doctors met for a few days and still didn’t know what to do. At last, I suggested plastic surgery, at least to change her lips back. Pepe constantly biting me had given her a chocolate smile.

  The surgery was a huge success. They gave her strawberry red lips. Everyone was thrilled. Pepe thought she’d been completely cured. That day, she was truly happy, but she still bit my ear lobes. Finally, I realized that, by then, Pepe was already wrong in the head. Her eyes seemed just like black pools, almost without whites. Not long after, Pepe became truly crazy.

  Her eyes seem just like black pools, shining with a fuliginous light.

  As long as I listen to her stories, everything’s fine. This way, she won’t get frenzied. I can also tell her my stories. This way, we’ll both be a little more comfortable. However, I don’t want to. I’m fed up. I hate Pepe.

  Even though I can pretend what I do is for her own good, and she’s definitely getting better by the day, even though I can pretend I don’t know I’m hurting her, I know she’s not happy. She’s crazy now. What I’m doing I do on purpose. I hate her and her stories.

  Come on, Pepe. Use your fingernails to rip open my chest. I want to tear off your scalp.

  Things are always like this. We wrestle, claw, and hate each other to death. But neither one of us ever leaves the other.

  Maybe I’m also going crazy. Maybe I’m already crazy.

  I never let Pepe know about going crazy. On the other hand, I still wanted to work hard to pretend we were normal kids. No, we weren’t kids who told stories. No, we didn’t tell stories at all. People believed us. They knew our creator didn’t give us programs for telling intentional lies. Our creator created us only to tell stories. Except for stories, we couldn’t say anything. This was how people recognized us.

  They asked us questions.

  They killed those who couldn’t speak.

  They killed those who told stories.

  Those kids were exactly like us. They were shaken back and forth like empty flour sacks, just like us right now.

  When the massacre started, Pepe and I saw them die with our own eyes. We didn’t grieve. We didn’t get angry. After all, death is death. Death is also nothing. Death is slight, just like an empty flour sack.

  I didn’t want to die, not one bit. When they ripped me away from the rest of the kids, I held onto Pepe’s hand and never let go. A lot of people tried to pry our hands apart, but they were wasting their strength. A fool carrying a knife threatened to cut off our hands if we didn’t let go. Pepe and I set our throats free. We began crying. Immediately, all the other kids began crying too. The adults panicked. At last, the adult who started this let us answer their questions together. “Either they both are or they both aren’t. Answering together might save some time.” So they asked their questions.

  I opened my mouth. I made sounds. I spoke. I didn’t tell stories. As a result, we survived.

  They gave us yellow, five-pointed stars. We stuck them on our chests as we walked into another group of kids. They wore khaki pants or full, white skirts. They all had yellow, five-pointed stars fastened on their chests. The kids who didn’t have yellow, five-pointed stars were on the other side. Among them, so many looked at me, astounded. Their pale faces shone with the blackness of night. They looked at me with amazement, to the point that they forgot that they were about to die.

  This was not part of our creator’s original plan. We were created following the same steps for the same purpose. Finally, for the same reason, we ought to be killed in the same way. I shouldn’t leave them because we’re the same kind of kids. They knew that but had no way to say it.

  Perhaps they could have told stories, told treasonous and false stories. If the adults were smart, perhaps they could have figure out that I was actually telling a story, one that didn’t believe that it was story. However, the kids didn’t have time. They’d be dead soon. After they died, they’d be like empty flour sacks. They’d be nothing.

  Nothing I did could seem out of the ordinary. When they asked me questions, I was certainly telling them stories. I treated everything that happened as a story to tell. You see, survival was just that simple. None of this is the truth. All of this is a story. As long as you think this, you can recount events in the way humans speak because you’re telling a story. This isn’t anything unusual. Those who are like us are unusual. I, myself, am also a little unusual.

  Only Pepe doesn’t seem unusual. Maybe she knew long ago that I’d act like this. Because she was also not unusual, we could survive. Even though the rest of the kids who told stories were all unusual, they wanted to survive. From among those kids, I saved only Pepe. This was inevitable after we’d rushed out of that black room together. I thought, for kids who told stories, Pepe and I had brains that were atypical.

  We were atypical from the start. This notion stops my hand. A few hits later, Pepe also calms down. Her black eyes gaze at me, her long hair draped over her shoulders. The world is no longer in upheaval. The pirate ship has stopped.

  People disembark from the pirate ship. A girl with blond hair tied with a pink butterfly bow walks ahead of us. Her skirt is also pink, highly creased and topped with lace. Very pretty, but not as pretty as the graceful arc of her calves. I can’t see her face.

  “The tortoise and the hare raced. The tortoise was always behind. He wanted to see the hare’s face. That way, he could find out the color of her eyes.”

  That is Pepe telling her shortest story.

  I laugh. Pepe doesn’t know that the tortoise also longed for the hare’s lips. She’s still too young, so she doesn’t understand desire. But I have desire. I want to know. Kids who tell stories are kids who have no needs. We eat. We sleep. We tell stories, but not from need. But on that day, when I came to treat this world as a story, I suddenly developed desire. At that moment, I understood this world even better. I understood even better the stories we told and spread.

  “Let’s ride the carousel, OK?” I said to Pepe.

  She lowers her head, staring at her rounded leather shoes. Pink Butterfly Bow has just entered a gold pumpkin carriage.

  “Come.” I drag Pepe, rushing to the ticket taker before the carriage starts to move. Very few people are riding the carousel. I pick a red horse for Pepe, then climb onto the wooden horse closest to the gold pumpkin carriage. The carousel starts to move. Odd music begins to play. We ride up and down among the colored lights. Butterfly Bow is really happy. She smiles, waving her hands at her side. I see her eyes, a charming emerald green. In stories, men call girls whose eyes are this shade of green sirens. The men bring those girls home, fondle them, then let them cry. I start to get excited. The horse under my body chases the carriage ahead of it with all its power.

  Butterfly Bow looks as though her heart has opened with joy. She probably feels like she must be a real princess. I hope that she’ll also wave at me and smile and she does. Her smile brushes past us and I feel so lucky. She’s really beautiful. I’ll remember her the way she is right now, forever.

  I love her. I always fall rashly in love with these sorts of girls. When they’re young, I meet them by chance then I fall in love with them. It’s a harmless love. Not
hing ever comes of it.

  I can put my love for them into the drawer of my heart. Pepe isn’t there. She’s not like those girls.

  Because she is my drawer. Pepe knows I’ve never put her into the drawer of my heart. But she doesn’t know she is my drawer. This point is very important, and also very unimportant. In any case, we hate each other to death.

  I hate Pepe, hate her telling her never ending stories. Even without having her spring wound, those stories—so annoying they should just die—gush non-stop out of her body. Yet, pushing words out of me is gradually getting harder and harder. I’ve no strength left. I haven’t been speaking as much lately. I’ll speak even less until my mouth shuts up, forever.

  Once, I searched all over without finding a trace of the key. I’ve already become a very person-like thing. I just need the key and I’ll be a person. No key and I will be dead. I’m almost dead now. Pepe is still telling stories non-stop.

  The carousel keeps spinning round and round. We surround a large post, revolving around it. I’m behind Butterfly Bow, Butterfly Bow is behind Pepe, and Pepe is behind me. No, Pepe, you’re in front of me. The carousel keeps spinning round and round. We surround a large post, revolving around it. I can’t see Pepe. However, Pepe, you must be there. Pepe, my Pepe.

  I can just make out someone speaking. It’s Pepe. She’s telling stories again. The sound of her voice is odd, as though it’s being stretched and stretched by something. Drunks croon like this but, Pepe, why are you? This is not good.

  It’s awkward and dangerous. I must have forgotten something important. As I was telling you the story, I must have left out something really important. I should have realized sooner. Every good storyteller ought to have mastered this sort of narration technique. I should have realized sooner. Because when we escaped from the house, I was the one who held Pepe’s hand tight. Out of so many people, I held her hand tight and have never ever let go.

  I don’t realize this is a problem until we reach the Ferris wheel. Now, it’s too late. You can’t blame me for this. Pepe keeps telling stories. That story about witches wanting to play the subtraction game she’s told over a thousand times, but she’s never finished it even once. She is already mad. She glares at the sky, waiting, waiting, waiting, for the story to continue. Because she doesn’t continue the story herself, she grabs and scratches me like mad. A sharp, fearful sound erupts from her body. What is it, what is it, what is it? Blue-green fish swim across the black pools on her face. That sound still rings, piercing my ears.

  Pepe’s an idiot. All she knows is to tell these stories she doesn’t understand over and over again. She doesn’t understand anything, but she wants to speak anyway. That’s simply how our creator designed us. The spring keeps unwinding. Stories are told. But after so many years have passed, no one remembers where, whatever weird place, those keys have been kept. At first, no one worried about this problem. Maybe because we can’t even find our own springs? Besides, that was a problem for years in the future. Many years have now passed, we’ve gone mad and the other kids have died. No one cares about those keys. No one worries about something that won’t matter yet for years. There’s just no story, that’s all.

  It’ll be OK. It’ll be OK.

  Bright light fills the amusement park. The smell of popcorn lingers in the air. The flavor of sweat, engine oil, and sausages stick to the light bulbs. Lamps light the Ferris wheel, making it seem like a giant pinwheel spinning slowly in the transparent wind. The places where Pepe grabbed me begin to itch. One by one, I scratch each itch. From all the rubbing, my body smells rotten. If not for wounds, kids who tell stories would never rot.

  Underneath my khaki pants, my legs are filled with scars of wounds unable to heal.

  Pepe is looking at me. She sits across from me, so peaceful. When she can’t go on with a story, she turns her face out the window. The sky is purple. The window faintly reflects us sitting together side by side. The Ferris wheel slowly rises. The people below us shrink. Pepe stands from her seat. She tugs a little at her full, white skirt.

  “Let’s go to the amusement park,” she says as she leans out of the window, facing distant lights.

  I stared closely at her. “This isn’t a story, Pepe. You can just speak now.”

  Pepe’s head turns around. Laughter rushes at me. She hasn’t laughed like this in a long time.

  I hold on to the railing as I fasten the catch. The wind’s blocked out. We’ve ridden in Ferris wheel compartment to its highest point and soon it’ll slowly descend. On the ground, one by one, a crowd gathers facing something small and white. It’s so small that it’s more like a white speck.

  Pepe, why are they talking about you? From up here, I can’t see clearly what you look like now. The Ferris wheel has already reached its highest point. The carriage will stop here for a moment, hanging by itself in mid-air. Then, it’ll descend, descend to the earth. I’ll visit your body then leave. In my heart, I play over and over everything that will happen. It’s so chaotic below. They won’t pay any attention to me. I’ll show some sorrow and confusion. This way, they’ll believe you and I have nothing to do with each other, then they’ll release me. Maybe they already know you’re a kid who tells stories. They’ll still guess you either jumped or were pushed from the top of the Ferris wheel. So I still have to play innocent for a while.

  As far as I’m concerned, this isn’t hard. You know that I can lie. I think of what happens to me as a story. In a loud voice, I’ll recite the story version of me like an actor’s lines. As a result, they’ll think I’m a normal kid. What I’ll say are all things a normal kid says. They can’t see my spring unwind. It unwinds and unwinds, pushing hard against this scary world, turning what happened into a story. In my mind, I tell myself none of this is real. This is a story. A story, so a lie is no longer a lie. I’ve merely changed the way that I tell stories. Yes, Pepe, you knew. That’s why you laughed.

  You kept laughing because you knew—the story of this amusement park was your final story.

  I think maybe I’m wrong, perhaps I haven’t changed the way I tell stories, rather, I’m just living in a story. No, you’ll never understand these two aren’t the same. We’ll never understand.

  But this doesn’t matter. You lie on the ground, peaceful, broken, accepting the crowd’s chatter. I’ll pass by your body then innocently leave.

  That there’s no key isn’t my fault. Soon, I’ll become utterly silent yet alive forever. Killing you also isn’t my fault. I’ll live forever, and be utterly silent.

  “Excuse me, you dropped something.” As I’m leaving the crowd, a woman calls to me. She sneaks me something. It’s ice cold and I almost shake it off my hand. I gaze at it. It’s a smashed up heart-shaped key. Your name is carved on it, Pepe. I know that this must be your heart. I know that this must be my key. I know.

  But, Pepe, you know, I can no longer find my spring.

  I lost it long ago.

  We all lost our springs long ago.

  Six Things We Found During the Autopsy

  Kuzhali Manickavel

  Indian writer Kuzhali Manickavel’s short fiction collections are Things We Found During the Autopsy and Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings, and echapbook Eating Sugar, Telling Lies. Her work has also appeared in Granta, Agni, Subtropics, and elsewhere.

  1. PLAYBOY

  A PLAYBOY WAS hidden behind her jaw, rolled and bent like she had stashed it there in a hurry. Black and white alarm clocks were pasted over the women’s breasts and the words !wUt aLarming bOobeez! were scrawled across the stomach. It was hard to tell if she had done this herself or if someone else had done it for her.

  We could not find any incisions so we decided she must have rammed the Playboy into her ear and hoped for the best. We thought this made her stoic, medically marvelous, and gay. We wondered if she had a secret crush on one of us and while we unanimously agreed that this was possible, we knew in our hearts that it was not.

  2. BLACK
ANTS

  The ants were an ongoing observation, like watching fish. They floated up gently through her skin, broke the surface, and lay there like the journey had made them tired and they just needed to lie down for a while. We discovered that there were no ants near her elbows but could not come to a consensus as to how this was significant. We thought we saw something that resembled an abnormally thick spiderweb under her pancreas and decided not to pursue that line of inquiry because it obviously had nothing to do with the ants.

  We wondered if she had let the ants in or if they had smashed their way through her, vandalizing her body with starred and spangled railroads, towers, and pornography. Now that she was dead, the ants probably had no reason to stay. We thought this was heartbreaking but also the best option for everyone involved.

  3. ANGELS

  The angels were clustered and nested behind her heart and lungs. They had to be pulled out with tweezers, which was not easy because they kept hanging onto her esophagus with their angry fingers and teeth. They had no nipples, bellybuttons, or genitalia, which made them like dolls but we did not feel like combing their hair. Their feet looked like hands and they dug their heels into our faces as a sign of protest. They caterwauled. They sounded like prehistoric birds that were heartbroken because they were going to die in the evening.

  We thought she must have been a closeted Catholic. We thought she had probably been more into the angels than she was into Jesus, which is why she had allowed them to stay in such a communally sensitive area. We thought it was racist to assume that only Catholics had an affinity for angels.

  4. ST. SEBASTIAN

  St. Sebastian was tied to her spinal column, eyes looking heavenward, an arrow running into his chin and out of his forehead. His body was peppered with arrows but it was the one through his forehead that made us untie him. We thought that untying him would make him feel better. We didn’t touch the arrow because we thought it would make his head fall off.