Stories for Chip

by Nisi Shawl

  That night on the white sand she draws all manner of significant ideograms, according to her strongly-held opinions. She dances—furtively at first, for it is one thing to be discovered nude by a river where after all anyone might reasonably bathe, but quite another to be seen cavorting—but eventually she stretches out her hands to the world and spins and leaps with her whole remarkable self. She invokes angels and local gods she has heard about from local people, performs whatever syncretist rituals are in line with her understanding of divinity. Overall, indeed, she does the best she can with what she has, promising a small sheep if such is required, or good strong whisky and tobacco, or a life of virtue and contemplation on the other hand, and heartfelt apologies for this behavior. The point is, this thing must be done, she repeats over and over to the wind. It must be done.

  The night seems not to care. In the end, she lies exhausted and dusty on her back and just shrieks at the sky, conscious that here at last she has perhaps finally come to an understanding of what magic and religion truly are. And at dawn, through gummed eyes, she sees the result of her exhortations and exertions washed to shore by the breeze: a strange contraption like a sword or flintlock, to be worn as near as she can tell in the small of the back. Inscribed upon the hilt are occult symbols: Combine Medical Industries: NIS 3.1.a.

  This is a river in a dream, and as such washes through all caves and all valleys, and will in good conscience respond to such desperation as it can.

  ◊

  Grendel springs from his sleep, from his golden bed, jointless neck twisting. Snatches up his coat. Pauses to strike at Billy Tumult’s living head. Ow, Billy Tumult says in the empty cave, and hears Grendel’s mother chortle from the dark. She must be able to fly, thinks Billy Tumult on his stick. That must be it. She’s never where she should be and always where you don’t want her.

  No time for that now: through the shadows skitters spidery Grendel, owl eyes bright and fingers grasping. Blink blink here and blink blink there, but he has no idea what to look for, knows only that something is wrong. Peers in through the high windows of the saloon, looking for another lawman. Perhaps Marshall William’s found his steel? But no. There he is, stuffed shirt presiding over a poker tournament, the Yupik winning, yes, of course. Where away?

  So very close, did he but know. Evangeline Roth stands in her boudoir, scant yards from the door she rents to Grendel, the entrance to the cave. A sensible jacket and good trousers are important in such moments. She doesn’t bother to put the scalpel in its holster, doesn’t propose for one moment to let it out of her hand until she’s done with her task. No idle oath, this, but pure practical terror, which she feels sure is a better guide to questing behavior than any bold pledge or pretty couplet.

  Amazing, she considers, how impossibly hard it is, in a nightmare, to open the doors of one’s own house.

  But she does.

  On the roof of the mayor’s mansion, Grendel gives a shriek and spins in the moonlight, spins for home like a compass needle. Scrabbles across the tiles and leaps. Never touches the sandy street, just folds away. In a real hurry now, is Grendel.

  ◊

  Evangeline Roth takes in the cave, the cackling dark, and the head of Billy Tumult on a stick—and all this existing somehow inside the confines of her guest room, for the rental of which she charges a few dollars including soap and hot water for washing. Two seats by the fire, she notes, laid in front of all that lustrous gold, but only one shows any sign of occupation. Before the other, decaying and uneaten baked fish, peppered with flies.

  This all is, she acknowledges, more odd than she was prepared to contemplate before stepping through the door she painted last summer in duck egg blue. All in all, though, she would handle it very well if only the dismembered head would stop giving her instructions. Just like a man, she considers, to die absolutely and then hang around to offer his useless experience to a female person who is so far still alive.

  Charity, she thinks firmly, putting the head in her bag. Charity begins at home.

  Billy Tumult stares up at the interior space of the handbag and considers this a new low. Rescued by a merry widow from a monster’s cave, dumped into a perfumed clutch filled with the unmentionable secrets of females. No, he promises more loudly, he will be quiet, there is no need to stuff that—somewhat used—monogrammed lace hanky in his mouth for hush. But how hard is this for the bold adventurer? Quite hard, indeed, and that must be his very own scalpel in her other hand, prudently unholstered and charged. If Billy still had that—and arms and legs and so forth for its deployment—this story would run differently, that’s for sure. But here, this is the way things are, and he’s reduced to…what? Baggage? At least, surely, early warning system, canary in the mine. And yes: warning, indeed! Scuffle and titter in the dark, rat-roach rustle. Christ, Billy says, it’s the mother! Look out behind you!

  This being his advice, and he being in his present place—and having resolved in her mind the curious clue of the undevoured fish repast—Evangeline sweeps up the scalpel directly in front of her and thumbs the trigger. No monster takes her between the shoulders, no great vasty mother sups upon her spine. The tittering and cackling carries on regardless as the blue white stream emerging from the scalpel licks just in front of crabwise Grendel, cloaked in shadows, and brings him scritching to a halt. There is no mother, Evangeline has reckoned, not really, just a chittering landscape. There’s Grendel, and he must have his sound effects, but in the end—just as she is—he must be alone.

  So there they stand: widow and monster, each paradoxically in their own place of power. His cave, her house. A darkness walking meeting a patchwork saint of practical technology and improvised magic in this altogether unanticipated explosion of Billy’s Wild West operating table, on which apparently he is himself presently anaesthetized.

  High noon, she realizes, as somewhere a church bell begins to ring. Grendel drops his hands to his sides and waits for the twelfth chime. She can feel the shadows smirking. A ridiculous mismatch. After all, he can step behind her on the strike. Take her, just as he took Billy Tumult. It wants only the right moment.

  She shrugs, and uses the scalpel to remove his head. Watches the body fall. Listens to the chimes run out: bong bong bong bong. The right moment, Evangeline the widow remarks to her spare bed and washing china, now returned from whatever reality they occupied while the cave was in residence in this space, is when I bloody say it is.

  She puts the head in the bag and, on a whim, attaches Billy Tumult to the fallen corpse. The body rises. Job done. I’m alive, alive, shouts the resulting personage. Well, yes, Evangeline replies, judicious, but best you wear some sort of neckerchief until the scar is properly healed. And for God’s sake put on a shirt.

  ◊

  Marry me, Billy Tumult says, opening his eyes on the operating table to the first pleasurable feelings he has known in half a decade, Jesus Mary and Joseph I’m cured and I thought I was screwed. Marry me, Evangeline, I swear to God!

  The object of this proposal is a fine figure of a woman, a temporary hire in the practice, recently arrived in town and filling time while she looks for an apartment. Hell, no, replies Evangeline Roth, I don’t even like you and frankly going by this one observation your specialism’s a crock. That in mind and with some reservations regarding your ability to understand the literal truth of what I’m about to say, you can buy me a platonic drink while we discuss my bonus.

  And with this offer, Billy Tumult has to be content.

  Voice Prints

  devorah major

  1.

  Well, first of all, you must understand I am one who loves people; I mean I love humans. I love our smells, and the way we lounge around, how we throw out an arm or pull in a leg, the way this one tilts his head and that one scrunches up her nose. And the voices, oh how I love them—especially in song. Let others have their pianos and saxophones, let others crave the beat of the drum or the strumming of an acoustic guitar; for me always it was the voice hummin
g and becoming a bird or a windstorm—the notes of love flying, the essence of the singer if you will.

  Of course it was that love that brought me here, caged by you who have no center. My only solace is that I know others will discover that too. Perhaps they already have.

  The thing is, I really don’t know how I first started to know, or when. To tell you the truth, I wish I never had found out about you. Well sometimes, anyway, once in a while, or at least once. Oh, you do smile. How nice, one with a small sense of humor. But sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I never found out. I mean, now that I know you intend to keep me here until I die. Oh yes, it is pretty on this mountain cliff and the air is so incredibly clean. But it is snowed-in so many months of the year and I am alone most of the time, or else served by one of you.

  How I miss humans. It’s been eight years. Three years since you found out I knew the truth and five more spent up here. Odd, isn’t it? I never was one to believe in aliens. After all, there is enough evil in humans; why try and make some extraterrestrial beings to explain evil away? Mmm, of course, I don’t know where you come from. Perhaps you are actually Earth creatures. A different species than Homo sapiens, amazingly similar in external structures, but fundamentally different where it counts. Yes, I do, I do know for sure that you are not human in the way we are human. I know I am right because you have put me out here and spent years trying to find out how I know. Of course I keep telling you, but, er, you don’t believe me.

  Ah, but I prattle on. Forgive me. Thank you for bringing the teas, and the ingredients for the curry too. The scent of fresh ground coriander is wonderful. Let me make you a cup of tea while I grind the spices. You said you preferred honey, didn’t you?

  Now, as to your first question, yes I will tell you exactly how I know you are not fully human. I have told you, I am telling you. I know you think it is more complicated, and that you can teach each other how to protect yourselves from my talent, remake yourselves and again be completely hidden from me, from us humans. But there is no technological solution that can keep people from finding out the truth. A turtle without its shell is still a turtle, after all. And a turtle inside its shell may be better protected, but it cannot move quickly; it is a turtle.

  I am pretty sure that if you fail, you are eliminated. Am I right? Don’t look away. It’s obvious how fearful each of you gets as the contract end grows near. Obvious.

  You don’t wear a cologne. Most of you do. Because of that sour smell, like a mildly infected scab, just a bit of pus leaking from its edge. Have you gotten better at concealing that, or have I simply gotten used to the scent, no longer able to smell it as readily? But there it is sliding out underneath your sweat.

  Of course you are uncomfortable with me. You all are. That is why they change caretakers so often. But I must say, you do have a nice smile. How old are you? Twenty-nine, thirty, or maybe much older, but benefitting from their surgeries? Don’t be nervous. Er, what did you want me to call you—Marcus? Right? A very good name, Marcus. Lots of human history. I’m glad your kind is beginning to read. You were so boring before that. Everyone I was sent had nothing to talk about, and of course your kind tries to speak endlessly, especially since I have told you about silence.

  It was that fact that got me out of the cage. It is your silences, I said, and then they put me through all kinds of lie detectors and truth serum treatments and discovered that I was always telling the truth, nothing but the truth. It was then that they decided to put me up here. And now it’s been five long years with only your kind for company. But you know that, don’t you? They realized that I had told them silence since the beginning, so the deprivation and torture weren’t working. That’s when they decided to put me here and try treats and seduction instead. Oh, treats and seduction and the occasional torturer. Hmm.

  They send one of you every few months with a box of treats, fresh fruit, a real book, cake. And you, you brought it all plus the teas I asked for and what you claim is an underground tract to boot. You say it is written by a fellow prisoner. How amusing. Don’t worry, I’ll read it, if only to see what you want me to believe. Your hands are quite soft-looking. But you still look quite virile, nice muscles. Is that imprint in your jeans real? If so you are quite well-endowed despite your short stature. Or perhaps it is because of it, short torso long….

  Oh my, I’ve embarrassed you. How sweet; you are just light enough to blush. Are you supposed to woo me? Hoping for a bit of loose pillow talk? But I have already told you all there is to know: It is your silence. In some of you I can tell by the way you breathe, so you may as well start talking again. Three sentences and you were done. You are trying to be quiet to hear what I hear. But you cannot. Maybe with machines and tracking, if you can measure silence, but you are unable to hear the difference. That is why so few of you are singers; few are even competent.

  Yes, yes, how can I tell? Of course I will tell you. I will tell it all. I have waited for the right time and the time is now. I, er, tire of this cat and mouse. I tire of this mountain. Even though you have been here less than a day, I tire of you. You are trying to figure out what part of your silence reveals your essence. Squirming, shifting, frowning, shooting out the briefest of smiles, silently. Totally silently.

  That was my important discovery, the one which brought me my original sentence of the living death of silences in a dark dry cage with powdered nutrients given four times daily and drugged water available whenever I wanted it and a video screen where I could see all the TV drama replays of news that never happened mostly performed by you empties. Sometimes humans got the roles; they are far better actors. You flatter yourselves because you have infiltrated so deeply. But it is simply that most people are so unobservant, so careless with their attention, so mediocre in their desires. But for those who are awake you aliens stand out like a swath of chartreuse in the middle of a white-on-white dress suit.

  You smile. Yes, I know how chartreuse scares you all. In fact, all greens seem to make you nervous. Why is that? Of course I notice; I have nothing to do but notice you and your kind. None of your silly movies ever take place in meadows or forests. You love old westerns and interminable war pictures, and snow, what little of it is left, lots of snow. But you do like reds; my, you enjoy blood. To my knowledge I’ve never seen you bleed. Is your blood red? Or is it green? Is that why you flutter so at the very thought?

  It was my observational skills that got me here. Those and my big mouth. Mindfulness was supposed to come with circumspection, but no, I’m blabbing all over the place. Yes, most humans laughed at me, ignored me, but your kind—they knew I spoke the truth and they trembled. They needed to figure out how I knew, how I could recognize you. And so quickly, too.

  Yes, yes, I know what you are thinking. Get to the point. How can I tell? How? Not even a grunt, my handsome outlander? No, you are trying silence just now. Measuring me. Yes, I know you are trying to learn all that I know before you return me to my cage. You are so smug in your supposed values. You don’t kill, you say. Unlike humans, you don’t murder. You simply use humans to murder each other. And then of course you starve populations, create new diseases, destroy our ecology. You kill. You simply don’t do death in a one-on-one fashion.

  I must admit you provide some small amusement with your supposedly friendly interrogations and stoic quiet. These past years are so tedious, only one of your kind at a time to talk with. No communication with the outside, no communication with humans, so that my heretical ideas will not be spread. Oh, you frown so deeply. Not very convincing. You are clenching and unclenching your right hand. Yes, that’s it. Relax.

  Come, let me massage your shoulders. I love to touch flesh, even alien flesh. And you love to be touched. Most of you, anyway. Come on. We are stuck here, you and I, until the next envoy is sent. Until they decide you have failed. Tell me, do they really eliminate you if you fail? Oh, I am not to ask questions. The one before you was very strict about that. They sent a woman, you know, an older
woman pretending to be Romani. She had long dark hair and bronze skin and crooked teeth. She swore she had lived on the streets of Sarajevo before being captured and sent up here, but it was a lie. Oh, yes, they had even given her tarot cards, so cliché, as if all Romani read cards or palms. Your kind has so little imagination. Of course, it was clear she was a fake right away. She called herself a gypsy. That’s like me calling myself a nigger.

  Again, you smile, halfway. Of course, you are supposed to be black, are you not? American black at that, so I suppose you think nigger may be acceptable. But I’m not a nigger, at least not your nigger—but are you mine, my pretty yella nigga? Ah, a bit of a bigger smile there. Come on, lovely almost-man, sit between my legs and let me run my fingers across your shoulders. They are close to your ears; they must ache. Let’s not play games. I know what you are and you, well, you know as much of me as I let you. But we are here for a time. Let’s enjoy ourselves. I’m sure that is the instruction you were given. Carrot, stick, stick, carrot. That is the way. I’ve had three sticks, it’s about time for a carrot. And such a fine, long limber carrot, definitely good for the eyes. And maybe the teeth too. If you are very nice I might just nibble on your earlobes.

  Goodness but you are tight. Don’t you do anything but work out? Now back to your question. You slipped, you know. You said, “How do you know us?” not “How do you know them?” The last male they sent kept pretending to be human for a full week. We had some wonderful sex before he gave up. Simply wonderful. Your kind can be quite attentive. Oh, you move away. Please come back. You are too impatient. Are you a torturer, then? They are so much less patient, so much less patient.