Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 106

by Sam J. Miller

  He looks doubtful. “How normally do you think she will ever live like that? She won’t find a husband with her face all scowling and crooked.”

  The words aren’t even for me and they still sting. Maybe Aliye was right to hesitate in the doorway of the house. “Does it matter? What does she stand to inherit if she does marry?”

  “A happy life, an untarnished reputation.”

  “Reputation? Is that what Mom cares about?”

  Baba shook his head. “Your maman never wished for Aliye to go. I insisted on it. Losing all your goats in an outbreak like we did, that draws enough eyes, but if your daughter dies of the same symptoms then people ask questions, they suspect you of something.”

  Hearing him talk like that, I can’t keep myself from saying, with something like frustration, “She didn’t have the hook, Baba.”

  The frown lines on his wind-chapped face deepen. “What was it, then?”

  “She had polio.”

  Baba repeats the English word, polio, then tries in Turkic. “Not a worm?” he says.

  “Not a worm.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “A doctor from Anchorage examined her.”

  “Oh God,” he whispers. “God, how could we—”

  “We’re home now,” I say, reaching across Baba’s lap to shut the bottle of shoe polish. The concept of heirloom furniture is entirely lost on my goatherd father. “I’m selling the farm, I don’t think I’ll ever go back besides to get things in order. So you don’t have to be sorry.”

  “Three years,” he says. “Three years we were without you.”

  “Do you still want us here? With worm’s blood on our hands, with faces unmarriageable and halfway frozen?”

  “Hafsa, it doesn’t matter if they want me,” Aliye says. I turn around and see she’s standing in the doorway. I don’t know how much she heard, or how much she’s hurt by Baba’s bleak view on her future, but she looks determined.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying,” she tells me, “that I’m going home.”

  Home meaning Alaska, I realize, not Turkey. Home meaning the enormous snow-coated bodies of sleeping helminths, home meaning frozen trappers commemorated by piles of stone.

  “I won’t go with you,” I tell her.

  “I know,” she says. “You don’t need to. It’s my home, not yours. Like you said. A place for parasites.”

  Three months after Aliye returns to Circlet, Dr. Akudaan sends a letter telling me that she’s gone. She was a good farmer, he says, like he’s trying to eulogize my own sister for me; she wasn’t killed by the cold or starvation or helminths. He wanted to tell me before we left Alaska that she was dying of reinfection, but Aliye wouldn’t let him.

  Folded into his letter is a check, signed by Aliye. Almost enough to rent my own stucco house in the city, almost enough to import a pair of freshly-immunized goats. On the back of the check, Aliye wrote: I hope this covers three years.

  I don’t feel sorry like she wanted me to, I don’t feel guilty. But I wish I could have laid a stone on the pile for her on the day we rode out to the mammoth graveyard, when she knew already that she would fall while I rode on, that her road ended before mine did, and she would be an elegy, then a story, then forgotten while I recovered from what her tragedy had done to me.

  About the Author

  Kay Chronister’s fiction won the 2015 Dell Magazine Award and has appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies. Originally from Seattle, she currently lives in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, in a household of twenty-one children and six dogs.

  Android Whores Can’t Cry

  Natalia Theodoridou

  False start #1

  MEETINGS AT MASSACRE MARKET

  by Aliki Karyotakis for the London New Times

  I met Brigitte at what the locals call Massacre Market. She pronounced her name as if she were French—or I should say French-made, I guess, but I didn’t know that at the time. She was a working girl, owned by a guy named Jerome—also French, supposedly. She was waiting there for my local liaison and I, among desiccated corpses and stalls full of blown-up photos of the tortured and the dead. She kissed Dick on the lips when she saw us, before greeting me. She did it in a mechanical way, as if she were supposed to, as if she couldn’t do otherwise. That’s when I saw the long strip of nacre that ran down the back of her neck, along her spine, pure and magnificent. I shot Dick a questioning look.

  “Yeah yeah, it’s the real deal,” he said. “She’s my artificial girlfriend in this town. I’m renting her full time. Very useful. She knows people.” Dick could be snide like that. “I’m sure you girls will get along,” he added.

  Brigitte turned to me, holding out her hand. She gave me a warm smile, but I could tell that she, unlike Dick, was very well aware of where we were, of the transactable images of gore and violence that surrounded us. Of the history of this place.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” she said, a glint of something indecipherable in her eye. Was that an android thing? Or was that the part of her that is human?

  Androids can usually pass, if they don’t have any visible nacre. But, of course, as soon as nacre appeared on android skin, people started wearing fake nacre patches as a fashion statement. When the patches are high quality you can’t really tell them apart.

  What was the nacre’s appeal? I suppose part of it is that we still don’t understand why or how it is formed. The other part is that it’s perfect, beautiful. And that it doesn’t perish.

  Nacre is forever.

  [Note to self: You sound like an infatuated schoolgirl. What does Brigitte have to do with anything? Get it together. Just get the facts straight. Also, preserve both Dick’s and Brigitte’s anonymity.]

  >>>END OF FILE

  Nacre: Formation and Function

  Nacre, or “mother of pearl” is a composite material produced by certain molluscs as an inner shell lining and as the outer coating of pearls.1 Since the APC-VII2 finalized and started regulating the production of androids globally, nacre has been a standard feature of all artificially produced semi-mechanical humanoid organisms.3 The production of android nacre had not been foreseen and remains unexplained. However, android nacre is considered harmless, if not beneficial for humans as an identifying mark, and so no attempts to avoid its appearance on android skin have been made.

  Nacre formation is an evolutionary conserved and multiply-convergent process among the Mollusca phylum, arising as early as the Ordovician period (488 to 443 million years ago). While the exact process of its production is little understood even in nature, the function of natural nacre is largely defensive: layers of nacre protect the soft tissues of the organism from parasites, while damaging debris can be entombed in successive layers of nacre, ultimately resulting in the formation of a pearl.

  The function of android nacre remains unknown.

  1 - “Pearl” is also slang for a locally produced hallucinogenic that is sometimes used in meditation. Despite the name, the connection with either natural or android nacre has not been confirmed, largely due to lack of research.

  2 - APC: Android Production Committee.

  3 - These are commonly referred to as Androids, as this has been the popular term for many decades—however the universal applicability of the term has been questioned on various grounds. Still, other proposed terms, such as Gynoid and Cyborg, although more accurate in certain cases, are no longer in widespread use.

  >>>END OF FILE

  Fieldnotes #1

  It’s Dick’s afternoon playtime and he makes Brigitte re-enact scenes from his past while I try to work on my article. Playing in front of me is awkward, indiscrete. Vulgar, even. But I’m sure he does it on purpose—he wants me there. He wants me to witness this, and he knows I won’t interfere. He is the client: his game, his rules.

  Brigitte playacts Sandra, my college friend and Dick’s ex-wife. She kinda looks like her too. Now they’re acting out the night Sandra left him—left us. Dick is high on pearl
. I can tell from that slightly unfocused look in his eyes. Like he sees things past Brigitte, past the windows and the smog, past the illusion of life.

  “I can’t be with you any more,” Brigitte says. It sounds like she’s said this line a hundred times already—a recitation. It seems she’s in learning mode for these sessions. Dick is shaping her into Sandra. I find this deeply disturbing. “You’re such a brute,” Brigitte recites. “Not sophisticated at all.”

  “That’s who I was when you married me. What was different then?”

  Brigitte pretends to put all of her clothes in a suitcase, preparing to leave. Dick follows her around, practically yelling in her ear.

  “I’ll tell you what was different,” Dick says, “you were a horny little cunt back then, weren’t you.”

  Brigitte stops packing and just stares at him.

  “You’re supposed to cry now,” Dick says, and then pretend-slaps his forehead. “But I forgot. You can’t cry, can you?” He turns to me. “Hey Aliki, did you know that? Android whores can’t cry. Because who wants to fuck a whiny bitch, right? Right?”

  I look at Brigitte. I think I see a twitch disfigure her lips for the tiniest of moments, but then she smiles. “Who wants to fuck a whiny bitch?” she repeats. Still in learning mode. Damn it.

  “You really are a dick sometimes, Richard,” I say.

  Dick laughs. He comes over and hugs me.

  Brigitte keeps smiling, a twinkle in her eye.

  >>>END OF FILE

  Nacre: Human Use

  Historically, nacre has been prized for its iridescent appearance, while its strength and resilience has made it a suitable material for a variety of purposes. The nacreous shells of sea snails were used as gunpowder flasks in the 18th century and earlier. Nacre inlays have decorated some of the most renowned temples and palaces in Istanbul, traditional musical instruments in Greece, the keys of flutes, and the buttons of kings and queens the world over. Some accordion and concertina bodies are entirely inlaid with nacre. Little spoons made solely of nacre have been used to eat caviar in Russia, in order not to spoil the taste with metal.

  All of these practices, although rarer, continue to this day. However, where natural nacre was used in the past, android nacre, the price of which is exorbitant due to the legal restrictions placed on its farming, is mostly used today.

  [Note to self: I wonder what it feels like for androids. Do they consider nacre to be a part of their skin? A part of who they are? What would it feel like to see your skin as decoration, a musical instrument, a spoon?]

  >>>END OF FILE

  False Start #2

  MASSACRE MARKET: A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE AND SILENCE

  by Aliki Karyotakis

  for the London New Times

  “That great dust-heap called ‘history.’”

  —Augustine Birrell

  “Truth? I have no use for that. Truth won’t feed my people. It won’t cover their bodies. Won’t keep them safe.”

  —The General

  My air-conditioned taxi drives me through the outskirts of the city. I gaze in comfort at the unfinished highways, the hollow skeletons of skyscrapers looming over them as a reminder of the economic fallout—a city in perpetual suspension. But once at the centre, this city is impeccable—polished and shiny, no sign of poverty or suffering anywhere. It makes one think of the new regime’s necessity, its efficiency. A good alternative to the chaos and agony that came before. Only the smog weighs on us, like a bad omen.

  As soon as I step out of the vehicle, I realize this is the hottest and most humid part of the day; the smog is so thick I can hardly breathe or make out any sky. My local liaison is meeting me in front of the city pillar, the geographical and spiritual centre of the city, from where everything extends outwards. I find out that the Massacre Market is tucked away at the heart of a crowded, semi-underground slum—the city’s last. We have to get there on foot. It will be a difficult journey.

  When we arrive, hot and breathless, I am greeted by what my liaison describes as “The Political Cadaver of this country”: the dead body politic, the regime’s atrocities mechanically reproduced and exchanged in a gamble with the spirits of the dead, a funerary protest. The place is crowded and dark and putrid; the stalls exhibit small mountains of body parts and corpses—some fake, some real (and I can’t tell which is which)—the brownish hue of decay accentuated by the bright orange robes of the monks and nuns that frequent the place, looking for visual aids to their death meditations. Tall cork-lined walls are covered by the forbidden pictures of the massacred and those brutalized by police. Relatives petrified in front of them, looking for the familiar face among the myriads, looking but not wanting to find I’m sure, or making small shrines with offerings for the disappeared; while protestors and instigators pick out the most shocking ones to circulate and share, to dub as the hidden reality of the regime, its true face the face of those it murdered. In the loudspeakers, recordings of the massacre’s soundscape: screams and bullets, the sound of revolting children and of a state devouring its young.

  I spot a mother clinging to the image of her dead boy, his face proliferated ad infinitum, plastering an entire wall, in protest.

  Here, at Massacre Market, death is a political act.

  [Note to self: People need the historical and political background of the story to make sense of any of these. Start with an interview instead? Also, explain Death Meditation.]

  >>>END OF FILE

  The First Death Meditation

  Death is certain.

  There is no way to escape death.

  We start dying the moment we are born.

  The body is a husk, a shell, an overcoat. It must be left behind.

  Imagine you are performing a vivisection on yourself.

  Imagine every detail.

  Concentrate on the repulsiveness of the human body.

  The corpse, swollen and bruised.

  The skin, peeled back.

  The fat, removed.

  The muscle, shredded.

  The organs, shrivelled and gone.

  The bones, pulverized.

  The corpse, festering. The corpse, fissured. The corpse, gnawed. The corpse, dismembered, fragmented, scattered. The corpse, bleeding. The corpse, eaten by maggots and gone.

  You remain.

  >>>END OF FILE

  Interview with X, one of the leading protestors at the November Massacre

  Part I [PLX1.vf]

  Q: What is Massacre Market?

  A: Images of death, disease, and violence are forbidden by the regime; they are not good for foreign affairs, for the economy, won’t bring in investments. So now there’s a black market for that. It’s not about money, though. We believe in an exchange of gifts with and for the dead. At the same time, it’s a political thing. Because the government and the military want to hide the dead, when we photograph them and share their pictures, when we circulate footage of the massacres, we are exposing the true face of the regime. It’s a form of protest.

  Q: A protest against what?

  A: Against the regime’s suppression of the fundamental truths of life and death. Of poverty and suffering. Against the state’s cover-ups of its core practices, the terrorizing and massacre of its own citizens when they dare to speak out or deviate in any way.

  Q: Then how does Massacre Market survive? How come they haven’t shut it down yet?

  A: They have tried; they do raid it from time to time, but it pops up again after a while. Some people believe it is allowed to exist, or even that it has been set up by the government, as a safety valve, you know? To serve as an illusion of resistance.

  Q: Do you believe that?

  A: I do not.

  Q: Can you talk about the November Massacre? I know this is the most recent one, but there have been others.

  A: Yes, that is correct.

  [He hesitates.]

  Q: Can you recount the day of the Massacre?

  A: [Pause] In the morning, the General was schedul
ed to appear at the city centre, very near the University. Attendance was, of course, mandatory, for students and first class citizens alike. So everyone gathered as planned. The General delivered the formal greeting and raised his arms in the usual salutation. The masses cheered, as expected, as they should. They couldn’t do otherwise, you understand. But then, then, they kept on cheering. And clapping. Just cheering and clapping as loud as they could, whistling and cheering, and waving. And they wouldn’t stop. After a few minutes, it became evident that this was no enthusiasm. It was super-conformity, you see? By cheering, they did not allow the General to speak. He literally couldn’t get a word in. But what could he do? We were only applauding, he couldn’t possibly punish us for that. So he mumbled the end of the speech he never managed to actually deliver, got off the podium and went back to wherever it is the General goes back to. And then the crowd was allowed to disperse, but the students and some others lingered. They were still not allowing themselves to talk, but they were smiling. They were shaking hands, not yet daring to speak about change, but that feeling, you know? That feeling, it was there. I felt it.

  But then the trucks and the tanks appeared and sealed off the main square around the city pillar with the students still in it. We were surrounded before we realized what was going on. Some of us managed to slip through and save ourselves. Some holed themselves up inside the Polytechnic School at the University. They got them, though, eventually. They got them all.

  Q: What did they do to them?

  A: Why are you asking? You know very well what they did to them. You’ve seen the pictures, no? [Kneeling under the sun, hands tied, some behind their backs, some in front of their chests, beaten with steel batons and shiny black boots. Taken with a fisheye lens, they look like a human ocean. Innumerable, uncountable, and unaccounted for.] You’ve seen the footage. [Herded onto cattle-trucks by the back of their necks. Taken to that off-camera place from where no-one returns.] At four o’clock, it rained. The streets turned red.