Lament for the Afterlife

by Lisa L. Hannett

  “Sure.” Immediately Inez’s teeth glow full-smile, slamming through her links to Peytr and Amelia. The severed chords jangle as they retract, racing back to their owners. She gasps as the shorter ends recoil, piercing her core like ice-picks, making deep and precise holes. “Please, sit.”

  Disregarding the chair, her boss half-perches beside the cups. One leg propped with foot dangling, the other straight-planted on the floor. Hands clasped on his bent knee, Taheer assumes the posture and tone of a doctor primed to deliver bad news.

  He watches Inez scald her tongue, then begins. “Tell me,” he says, then stops to clear his throat. It’s pure affectation—there’s always a bottle of salt-gargle on his desk, not a skerrick of phlegm in his voice. Inez figures he does it to give people time to focus their attention on him. He thinks it makes him sound professorial. “How long has it been since you’ve gone on rec-leave?”

  Stalling, Inez gulps down another mouthful. “Oh, I don’t know.”

  Taheer blows on his drink, takes a delicate sip.

  In the five years she’s worked here, she hasn’t taken a day’s rec. Why would she? Where could she possibly go—alone, arthritic, low on coin and good veg—that pirated channels couldn’t take her a thousand times faster? She gulps and gulps. Rec is for the unemployed.

  “It’s fine. Really. It hasn’t been that busy,” she says, keeping her voice low despite the office din. “And I get plenty of time in the solos… .”

  Tiny bubbles of spit pop against Taheer’s gums as he peels back his lips and sucks air through his straight teeth. “There have been complaints, Inez.”

  “Oh?”

  Though he hasn’t moved except to replace his cup and smooth a pleat on his pant leg, she imagines Taheer swinging his foot like a child, counting her offences off on his fingers. “Missed connections, broken connections, tinny reception, wire-crossings, echoes on the line… . And the streaker leaving your booth just now? And Essr. Bartos’s botched call? Do you know how much he invests in us each month? How much cash? Medicine? Only to hear some random woman screaming in his last call? Screaming, Inez? I mean, some disruptions are to be expected—but screaming? What’s going on here?”

  Dread creeps up her chest, lodges in her gullet. “I could ask you the same thing. Sir.” Hovering before her, the multihued quasars of Taheer’s figure cease their whirling and, one by one, go black. Next the cubicle walls melt into shadow, their absence amplifying the other mentalegraphers’ mindless chatter. Overhead the lamp fades, disappears. The chair is solid beneath her, the desk a cold ridge against her soft belly—but she can’t see their particles or read their vibrations. If she wasn’t touching them, she’d have no idea they were even there. Heart palpitating, Inez’s chords and channels and enamel shield withdraw. As one, they shrink until hard and fragile as porcelain. Empty as the cup in her hands.

  “What have you done to me?”

  Before registering his sigh, Inez hears the slump in Taheer’s shoulders. The rasp of dry fingertips across groomed chin-stubble. The bridge of his nose being pinched.

  “You’ve earned a week off,” he says at last. “Make the most of it. Come back when you’re refreshed.”

  “But—”

  “You’re welcome,” Taheer says. Wool scratches against the desktop as he stands. China clinks against china, clunks on pewter. His voice floats, disembodied, somewhere near the door. “Trust me, Inez. It could’ve been worse.”

  During her home-stay, Cora is Inez’s only contact with the world. The receptionist visits twice daily, bringing food and a clean chamber pot. Inez doesn’t dare ask about her clients—and Cora says little, using all her energy spying for their boss.

  Helplessness steals Inez’s appetite and makes her restless. In exile, she’s dropped fifteen pounds out of sheer worry. Sleep, when it comes, is more malicious than restful, her nightmares variations on the same circular clichés. Peytr drowns while Inez stands on the shore, dropping the life-rope’s frayed end into a still sea. Armed with a whip and lasso, Mimi drives Inez through snow-covered streets, lashing her clothes away layer by layer. A million Amelias float in glass bubbles, begging for rescue, but the sidewalks are impassable, the buildings impossible to scale. Countless times, Inez has sloughed the dreams off with her sweat-soaked blanket. Praying for dawn, she stares blindly at the clock only to hear it chime a quarter-hour’s passing. Awake or asleep, she remains stifled in darkness.

  But when Cora raises the venetians on the seventh morning, Inez is almost clear-headed. Lying on the couch, she peers through her lashes, forcing herself not to flinch. At the basin, the traitorous bint hunches with her back turned, wasting water rations on yesterday’s dishes. Out the window above the sink, flares radiate over the skyline. Clouds cough purple starbursts as the little meteors lance them to the grey beyond. Beside the front door, a noisy orange miasma churns from the piss-pot. On the table, a plastic thermos reverberates a healthy beetroot red, brimming with chilled borscht. The pattern on Cora’s knee-length skirt is so vibrant, Inez can hardly breathe. Awash in such a brilliant clash of colour, she closes her eyes and rolls over, hiding tears.

  “Do you have coins for the shower?” Cora asks. “I’ll reserve a stall for you, if you want.”

  “No point,” Inez says into her pillow. “I’m not coming in today.”

  “Don’t be petulant, Inez. Essr. Taheer has already been more than generous—”

  “He was overly generous with the suppressant, that’s for sure.” Channelling a bit of Amelia’s fire—oh, she can’t wait to really tap into it—Inez flips over and sends her gaze to the ceiling, as if Cora is spidering up there. “Maybe by tomorrow this shit he’s slipped me will have worn off. As for today’s shift, well, I can’t do a fuckin’ thing about that.”

  Swearing, Inez has learned, is the quickest way to get rid of a reformed skingirl like Cora. Within minutes, she’s packed her floppy rubber basket and flounced out the door, a perfect imitation of prissiness.

  Counting to fifty and back, Inez forces herself to lie still, listening to the click-click of the receptionist’s retreating heels. Racing to the window, she watches Cora hail a cab—and before the mule has dragged her to the end of the street, Inez casts three lines as far into the ether as she can. The first and nearest bounces off of Mimi; the second and third, so closely entwined they appear as one, latch onto the cabin without much resistance.

  “How long was I out,” Inez says, opening Amelia’s eyes.

  Peytr bear-hugs her so hard, Inez rattles around the vast space behind Amelia’s bland brown irises. “Too long,” he says, squeezing and squeezing, clinging to their hand even when Inez gently pushes him away. “I thought— I thought—”

  While Peytr cries, Inez searches for—and finds—what’s left of Amelia. Alert as a stuffed owl, the woman is perched on a driftwood branch under a bell jar, its walls thick with dread. Knocking on the glass doesn’t rouse her. Shouting proves just as useless. There are no air-holes drilled in the flawless surface; tendrils of flesh weld the jar to the floor. There’s no way for Inez to break in, no way for Amelia to break out.

  “Good,” Inez says, flustered from failing to tip the jar over. “Fine, then. I’ll stay, thank you very much.”

  “Yes,” Peytr says, wrapping his trembling arms around them, grinding his face into their—now her—shoulder. “Please stay.”

  And the tighter he holds her, the queasier Inez becomes. Despite the blood-shot eyes, the week-old beard gouging her skin, the musk of unwashed man oozing from his pores, Peytr reminds her too much of the sticky-sweet squirmers she’s had the misfortune of channelling. Just like them, he reeks of bewilderment and dependence and misplaced affection. He holds onto her not out of love, but simply because she’s there.

  Crossing onto Peytr’s minor chord, Inez dry-retches.

  With each step, the line warbles, her tread playing his mind like a saw. All around, a kaleidoscope of memories pummels her, forcing her to crouch or fall. Digging in with f
ingers and toes, she plucks one murky vision after the next. Begins the long task of sifting through the past, translating random moments into a story.

  Peytr sitting beside Amelia’s spindle bed, watching her chest rise and fall.

  Peytr wrestling her—yes, Inez recognises this part—Peytr losing his grip as she writhes. His palms are too slippery. Her thrashing too violent.

  Peytr sweeping broken glass, huddling over a full dustpan, licking.

  Peytr standing in an empty apartment—no, not the cabin—clutching an illegible letter, a spill of soot on his jacket and pants.

  Peytr searching for a cloth to wipe blood from Amelia’s mouth. The hankies are everywhere, she’s got dozens of the things, flannel and terrycloth and cotton. He’s afraid to use any of them lest they absorb her dreams.

  Peytr’s palms slipping. If he was wearing gloves he could stop her. If his hands would stop quaking, he could stop her. If he kisses her on the mouth, only this once, if he kisses her properly, he could stop her—

  Peytr scooping, fingers shredded and stinging, scooping as much glass from her mouth as he can. Blood is stark against Amelia’s pale skin, glistening and offensive. It looks like she’s been eating entrails, ravishing a freshly-cut heart. It almost looks like she’s napping, digesting, sleeping off her fragile feast.

  Peytr locking the cabin door, guts churning with shame, with pity.

  Peytr’s palms slipping. The cryptic letter falling to the table top as a wallful of photographed strangers look on.

  Peytr wiping and wiping and wiping Amelia’s face plain. Wringing the scarlet dew into one of Rupe’s old pots, just in case he’s absorbed any secrets she wanted to keep.

  Peytr assessing the damage. The ceiling’s blizzard of glass is reduced to a flurry, maybe fifty crystal bombs suspended from the rafters, maybe five hundred. Tears blur his ability to count.

  Peytr locking the cabin door and running, running until his legs are rubber, running until he’s far-flung and sweat-clean and low.

  Peytr wrestling, losing grip as Amelia writhes, not screaming anymore, whispering, whispering, she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone, she’s gone …

  Peytr calling for Mimi, for Ned, hearing skingirls’ laughter outside in the square, harsh and false and lonely.

  Peytr tearing health and recover and love from his wordwind, burying them beneath Amelia’s tongue. Apologising with hands and cloths and silence.

  Peytr running alone, running until he is home again.

  Peytr sitting beside Amelia’s spindle bed, watching her chest rise and fall.

  By the next morning, Inez knows she’s done all she can and wants to do here.

  She’s ridden Peytr to sleep and, while he snores, she unravels the tangled skein of his thoughts. First, she rearranges them tonally and chronologically, then ranks them by degree of sadness.

  Amelia. Ned. Mimi.

  Mimi. Ned. Amelia.

  It isn’t perfect—Peytr still clings so tightly, Amelia’s fingers are white from the pressure—but it’s a start. Back-stepping onto Amelia’s chord, Inez pulls their hand free and rolls over. They won’t be his pacifier or swaddling blanket. No one woman he’s met could ever be.

  Luxuriating in Amelia’s dark spaces, Inez has felt, she has been, she has possessed every crevice—all but one tiny bell-shaped gap.

  Have it, Inez thinks, magnanimous. It’s all yours.

  The stuffed owl pretends not to hear.

  Inez pretends being ignored doesn’t bother her.

  Cat-stretching, Inez tries to enjoy her new body, the vanilla scent on her skin, the twenty years shed, the tautness of breasts and belly. She tries to enjoy it in Peytr’s company, tries to enjoy being on their own. But suddenly there’s just too much of him, too many splotched limbs constricting, too much hot breath moistening the back of her neck, too many orphaned words spinning, spinning.

  No one woman, she thinks, can care for this man.

  Delving inside, Inez assembles a constellation of Amelia’s happier times, strings it around the glass dome, yet fails to lure her other half out. The owl’s head spins on its axis. Unblinking it stares, beyond the reflected sparkle and shine, into the dark.

  “Suit yourself,” Inez says, knowing her efforts have been wasted. There’s nothing else she can or wants to do with these two. Virtually nothing has changed since her arrival; they’re both so wrapped up in themselves, they hardly notice she’s there. Though she’s tried, they don’t love her at all.

  So when Cora comes to take her back to work, Inez wears her sharpest smile. Snapping chords with her teeth—one a saw weeping, the other a pedal-muted piano—she follows the receptionist out to the cab, polishing her shield.

  Evac. #457-357-0

  Age: 70 (±5)

  Sight: Both eyes present; lucid with a smudge of grey.

  Bibliotheca 16°37’0”N, 106°43’58”E

  Great-great-great-Tantie Willa† was [one of?] the first skybunker flyer(s). A real fuss-pot, she was; a real neat-freak. Hated the crush of dead ’winds beneath her feet, the film of word-ash piling on flats and angles—no matter how speedy the brooms, no matter the annual rains, the world was too dirty for the likes of TW. She lived on the thirty-fifth floor of a sixty-floor building; they say TW often imagined dust building higher and higher, burying lower levels until she could step off her own balcony and stroll on the risen ground … [Tangent: Flrs. 25-60 destroyed in TW’s youth; girl orphaned at 16; prime candidate, nowadays, for recruitment into the skycorps] … Even after all that, she wasn’t afraid of heights. Liked to climb to empty apartments above, get the long-view to other cities, other countries where grey-changes, she thought, had no effect. TW spoke of the ’windless people who lived elsewhere; how unsettling it would be, not to know what they were thinking unless it was said aloud. [Tangent: runs through a nonsensical list of other human mutations (i.e. “grey-changes”). Note: ‘singers’ was a new one; to be added to records.] How calm it must be in the emptiness, the clean and quiet of non-’winded communities.

  TW was “a real deft knitter”; scrounged for wool to clothe herself and younger sister [Tangent: teller’s mother’s line described at length; migrations detailed, including names of ships, ’ports, dates of landing—detailed, then repeatedly self-corrected; passion and fancy, more than fact, seemed to drive the teller’s account. Note: no credible explanation for TW’s unprecedented ability to knit ’winds into gliders; nor how she “discovered” that ’winds caught and interwoven on the brink of death made for the best flights; nor why she alone took to the skybunkers while her sister, it seemed, did not. The mother’s ancestors went “below”; few wanted to stay aboveground the way TW did. “Too dark and cramped in the tunnels for TW,” was the teller’s assessment. “Too close to grey territory down there; conditions more than bad enough to scramble anyone’s ’wind.” Account of sky-borne activities were equally sketchy: the bunkers are complicated, way-stations in the sky. Bird-houses? Targets for grey ships? Regularly pummelled, these platforms are common as dusk—but what a view the girls must get from up there, sunlight and stars, an invaluable aerial perspective on battle movements on the ground. Stockpiled with ammunition shorn from the freshly-dead—the amassed words were packed into bombs and dropped on grey hills? Launched upwards to perforate the cloud cover? Woven into an enormous blanket that would, one day, smother the war below? Whatever else they do, the skybunker attendants continue to look down on the war below, to see the war above at eye-level, and add to the general confusion whenever they can. Non-believers contend it isn’t fée creatures who steal eyes and bodies; these girls whisk away the near-dead and the living, the naysayers claim, but of course they cannot support such assertions with proof. One way or the other, they are spies, these little flyers; they are bees gathering pollen; they are reapers.]

  Skybunker architects hired TW to gather materials; they are lithe and spritely, these glider-girls, but their tasks, on the whole, are mundane. [Note: Romantic attempts to name these w
omen as something grander, something more daring, more poetic than they are, went out of fashion at the beginning of the last century; since then, interpretations have been less absolute, less whimsical. People see the girls simply as they are, more or less: bombadiers, ammo-couriers, drays.] TW flew hither and yon collecting scrap metal, bolts, nails, anything worth scavenging, anything that wouldn’t weigh down her sails. Got them the best building-stuffs they could want, did TW; in return, soon as the towers stretched above the smog, she was allowed to camp up there for life, away from the bustle of words. TW descended to harvest ’winds and not much else; occasionally, she sent paper-plane messages to her sister below. [Aside: teller acknowledged this last “fact” was too far-fetched to be reality; amended the story by suggesting there may have been elevators secreted in the skybunker shafts, lifting supplies and people way way up just as the tunnellers’ rigs plunge way way down …]

  Some people, they say, mistook the first flyers for greys. “What a load of rot …” [Note: Anger-inspired tangents rendered the teller mute for the duration. Understandable. By all accounts the “fée” may be hominid; however, they are too quick to truly be mistaken for leaden humanity, far too light and clever.]

  *

  † This excerpt is not included in the interview proper—see attached file—but was transcribed over tea. (Due to advanced age, the teller required frequent breaks; subject changes were frequent; stress-related stammering not uncommon. Lengthy pauses and irrelevant digressions are not recorded in full here.) The following should be filed under ‘apocryphal histories,’ ‘speculative genealogies,’ and/or ‘claims to fame’; copies for the Cycle of Auto/biography have already been despatched via Pigeon.

  “I haven’t seen him there. Not yet.” Fog wafts around O’s mouth as he speaks, drawing pale curlicues on the night air. Euri leans forward to hear better, though the building is quiet around them.