“Don’t worry about me,” she said. Not long afterward she took her rusty green car and drove it back to Kawuye for the last time. She lived with Uncle Jacob and the elders. I was left alone in this whispering house.
We had in our neglected, unpaid, strike-ridden campus a mathematician, a dusty and disordered man who reminded me of Raphael. He was an Idoma man called Thomas Aba. He came to Jide and me with his notebook and then unfolded a page of equations.
These equations described, he said, how the act of observing events at a quantum level changed them. He turned the page. Now, he said, here is how those same equations describe how observing alters effects on the macro level.
He had shown mathematically how the mere act of repeated observation changed the real world.
We published in Nature. People wanted to believe that someone working things out for themselves could revolutionize cosmology with a single set of equations. Of all of us, Doubting Thomas was the genius. Tsinghua University in Beijing offered him a Professorship and he left us. Citations for our article avalanched; Google could not keep up. People needed to know why everything was shifting, needing to explain both the climate-change debacle and the end of miracles.
Simply put, science found the truth and by finding it, changed it. Science undid itself, in an endless cycle.
Some day the theory of evolution will be untrue and the law of conservation of energy will no longer work. Who knows, maybe we will get faster-than-light travel after all?
Thomas still writes to me about his work, though it is the intellectual property of Tsinghua. He is now able to calculate how long it takes for observation to change things. The rotation of the Earth around the Sun is so rooted in the universe that it will take four thousand years to wear it out. What kind of paradigm will replace it? The Earth and the Sun and all the stars secretly overlap? Outside the four dimensions they all occupy the same single mathematical point?
So many things exist only as metaphors and numbers. Atoms will take only fifty more years to disappear, taking with them quarks and muons and all the other particles. What the Large Hadron Collider will most accelerate is their demise.
Thomas has calculated how long it will take for observation to wear out even his observation. Then, he says, the universe will once again be stable. History melts down and is restored.
My fiancée is a simple country girl who wants a Prof for a husband. I know where that leads. To Mamamimi. Perhaps no bad thing. I hardly know the girl. She wears long dresses instead of jeans and has a pretty smile. My mother’s family knows her.
The singing at the church has started, growing with the heat and sunlight. My beautiful suit wax-printed in blue and gold arches reflects the sunlight. Its cotton will be cool, cooler than all that lumpy knitwear from Indonesia.
We have two weddings; one new, one old. So I go through it all twice: next week, the church and the big white dress. I will have to mime love and happiness; the photographs will be used for those framed tributes: “Patrick and Leticia: True Love Is Forever.” Matthew and Andrew will be here with their families for the first time in years and I find it hurts to have brothers who care nothing for me.
I hear my father saying that my country wife had best be grateful for all that I give her. I hear him telling her to leave if she is not happy. This time, though, he speaks with my own voice.
Will I slap the walls all night or just my own face? Will I go mad and dance for workmen in a woman’s dress? Will I make stews so fiery that only I can eat them? I look down at my body, visible through the white linen, the body I have made perfect to compensate for my imperfect brain.
Shall I have a little baby with a creased forehead? Will he wear my father’s dusty cap? Will he sleepwalk, weep at night, or laugh for no reason? If I call him a family name, will he live his grandfather’s life again? What poison will I pass on?
I try to imagine all my wedding guests and how their faces would fall if I simply walked away, or strode out like Raphael to crow with delight, “No wedding! I’m not getting married, no way José!” I smile; I can hear him say it; I can see how he would strut.
I can also hear him say, What else is someone like you going to do except get married? You are too quiet and homely. A publication in Nature is not going to cook your food for you. It’s not going to get you laid.
I think of my future son. His Christian name will be Raphael but his personal name will be Ese, which means Wiped Out. It means that God will wipe out the past with all its expectations.
If witchcraft once worked and science is wearing out, then it seems to me that God loves our freedom more than stable truth. If I have a son who is free from the past, then I know God loves me too.
So I can envisage Ese, my firstborn. He’s wearing shorts and running with a kite behind him, happy, clean, and free, and we the Shawos live on the hill once more.
I think of Mamamimi kneeling down to look into my face and saying, “Patrick, you are a fine young boy. You do everything right. There is nothing wrong with you.” I remember my father, sane for a while, resting a hand on the small of my back and saying, “You are becoming distinguished.” He was proud of me.
Most of all I think of Raphael speaking his mind to Matthew, to Grandma, even to Father, but never to me. He is passing on his books to me in twilight, and I give him tea, and he says, as if surprised, That’s nice. Thank you. His shiny face glows with love.
I have to trust that I can pass on love as well.
lie-father
GEMMA FILES
I that am I alone,
cruelest and most clever;
light-hearted, heartless.
I that am flame
without true form, a thousand things in one,
and every one of them a lie:
A fly when I stole the Brisingamen
A seal when I fought Hjeimdall for it
A red-headed man with my lips sewn shut
A red-headed bridesmaid for a thunderous bride
who sows slaughter between the sheaves
Fenris’ father
Sleipnir’s mother
A leaping fish caught in the net of tears
An old woman who will not weep, ever,
not even for the light of the world.
This is what you let in
as a guest, and more, Odin One-eye—
this is what you mixed your blood with,
who you let marry into your All-family
and live proudly childless
while he bred monsters elsewhere
Do you not feel foolish?
Even now, pinned beneath mountains,
writhing in my poisoned bonds,
I cannot be contained.
My song goes on and on,
spawning many lines of liars—
Kveldulfr, Skalla-grimr, Egil in his turn:
hamrammrs, poets and killers,
who bend to fit the world around them
only in order to trick it
into breaking to fit them.
Thor Odinsson, mighty one,
when we lay together in the Jotun’s mitt;
poor sad Hodi, when I handed you the arrow
of mistletoe, kiss-attractor, to send
your brother’s bright face down
into my daughter’s clutches—
You felt my sparks dance
across your blind knuckles,
and laughed—admit it!
All of you, in pain or otherwise—
I could always make you laugh.
Look to me, therefore, on that day,
that dreadful time of reckoning,
when my ship made from dead men’s nails docks
at the very foot of the rainbow.
I promise you, cousins:
when all my brothers take up stones against you,
when one son takes the sun in his jaws
and the other coils ’round the world’s root,
squeezing, ’til your rotten tree cracks—
centipede girl
ADA HOFFMANN
Says one Centipede Girl to another: Are you real?
Fleeting, that moment. Must be her reflection at the other end of the sewer, maybe in some metal, but she watches it just in case. Holding her breath, she gazes down the long dark tunnel. Wills her ’pedes to stay still a minute, though they never do. Splish goes the stinking water, up to her ankles, as the ’pedes scuttle up and down her legs. And at that tiny noise, her faraway reflection starts and darts away.
Breath rises in her chest, a smile splitting her invisible face. Moved when I didn’t. Means she’s real.
Not really a reflection, but someone looking like her, taking up space. Someone that can be touched. And Centipede Girl wants so bad to touch.
She dashes forward, splashing, panting. The ’pedes squat, cling and sting, holding on for the ride. Splash goes the water as two or three of them lose their balance and fall, and they disappear with a fizz, becoming nothing.
Centipede Girl has hands, feet, teeth, a tummy, just like a real girl. Forgets they are there, sometimes. She is invisible, not through magic, but through layers and layers of ’pedes. Scrambling, writhing, waiting. Human skin never shows through.
In her memories, at five, she still has a face, but even then, the ’pedes crawl all over her. She drinks poison, when big looming parents say Now, listen to the nice exterminator man, and vomits blood for a week, but the ’pedes remain. Doctors shake their heads. Big looming parents slowly give up hope. And the ‘pedes breed.
Lives in the sewers now, in their comfortable, dark stench. Tries going up in the light sometimes and is greeted with screams.
A horrible uproar of water, and a run that burns her lungs and sides, before she catches up to the reflection that is not a reflection.
Don’t go! says Centipede Girl. Wait! Wait!
It turns to look at her, ’pedes shifting and squirming in the vaguest semblance of a head. It speaks hissing, as though layers on layers of hisses have to be put together just right to make the words.
Why wait?
Because you are like me, says Centipede Girl. Because you could be a friend.
An infested silence, as the other girl looks her up and down. Not exactly like Centipede Girl, after all. Bigger. Taller. A grown-up Centipede Woman.
Friend, Centipede Woman says, as though tasting the word.
Friend.
You hunt?
I hunt, says Centipede Girl. More often she scavenges, faceted ’pede eyes spotting some half-rotten thing. But fresh meat pleases her more. She’s learned to send one or two ’pedes out a short ways, keeping her mind on them so they don’t disappear, luring in some hungry rat or lizard, then pouncing with strong human limbs.
Centipede Woman nods. Barely perceptible under the writhe of her face.
We hunt.
So long since anyone touched Centipede Girl. Maybe not since she was born. She has thought of it in her sweetest daydreams, the ones that hurt the most. Hands holding hers. Arms around her. Warm sides to lean against.
One time she climbs all the way out of the sewer. Tells herself the screams won’t stop her. She’ll hold him down, the first unlucky passerby, and grasp his hands in hers, just for a while, just long enough to remember she’s real. But the screams turn to gags and prayers and bestial howls as she chases him, and she can’t do it. Not brave enough. Lets him get away.
She watches now as Centipede Woman hunts. Centipede Woman gives gruff instructions. Stand like this. Watch more careful. Never get full if not watch more careful.
Centipede Girl half-listens. Other half longs for Centipede Woman’s hands. Centipede Woman won’t scream. Nothing to scream about. Nothing on her that isn’t on both of them already.
She asks Centipede Woman every evening when the hunt is done. Will you let me hold your hands? Please?
You don’t want that.
Makes herself pitiful in the asking. Lets the tears creep into her voice, if they like. I do. Please, I do. I want it so bad.
No.
And the nights are silent. They sleep, on opposite sides of the tunnel, every day.
She is good a long time. Ignores the ache inside and keeps her hands to herself. Hunts and hunts. Does everything Centipede Woman says, till at last, after months, Centipede Woman hunts all silent by her side. Still moving, same as before, but out of words.
Two days. Three. No words. And the ache is a pounding raging thing inside her head.
Think we go two ways now, says Centipede Woman, after three days silent. Think this done. Taught everything. Done.
No, says Centipede Girl. No.
Yes. Sleep day, then in evening, go two ways.
And Centipede Woman falls asleep.
The thing in Centipede Girl’s head pounds and rages, and though she knows it’s a bad, bad thing, she creeps to Centipede Woman’s side. Watches the rise and fall of the ’pedes on her chest. Looks up at Centipede Woman’s writhing skittering face, down to the hills of her shoulders, down the throughways of ’pedes up and down her arm, over and under each other, down to the squirming brown mass that is her hand.
Takes a breath, and then she reaches down and plunges her hand into the ’pedes.
Centipede Woman’s ’pedes skitter across the skin of her hand, probing it, tasting it. Shuddery, that feeling, even though Centipede Girl has ’pedes too. These ones aren’t hers and she can’t see through their eyes. But she brings her hand down anyway, right through the mass that should be Centipede Woman’s fist, right down to the ground.
There is no fist. No wrist, no forearm. Just ’pedes and ’pedes and ’pedes.
And Centipede Woman screams. What is this? What is this you do?
Centipede Girl backs away. Doesn’t know what to say, so just babbles. I’m sorry. I only wanted to hold your hand. I wanted it so bad. I’m sorry. Please.
You want my touch? says Centipede Woman, only half the ’pedes hissing. Other half screaming, eerie and shrill. Have my touch.
And just like hunting, Centipede Woman lunges.
Centipede Girl reels, bracing for the great slamming limbs of a woman, even though she knows better now. All that hits her are light little ’pedes, ’pedes upon ’pedes, until she staggers under the weight of such light little things. Centipede Girl screams, and the ’pedes scream, and blood billows in the filthy water.
Last she remembers, she is falling, collapsing, her limbs folding up into each other, and the bloody, mucky water rushing at her face.
Centipede Woman is gone now. Gone for a long time. Centipede Girl hunts alone.
Runs away now from mirrors, still water, anything to reflect her. Afraid of what she’ll see. Once she does see herself, distorted, in a shiny metal panel. Looks the same as before. Just ’pedes. Feels different, though.
In her memories, she has hands, feet, teeth, a tummy, just like a real girl. But all she can see now are facets. All she can feel now is hunger. Sometimes she reaches through the ’pedes and paws at herself. Tries to remember her shape. Be real. Please. Be like a real girl.
But her hands go right through herself, and there are no bones anywhere. No more girl. Just ’pedes and ’pedes and ’pedes.
clockwork fagin
CORY DOCTOROW
Monty Goldfarb walked into St. Agatha’s like he owned the place, a superior look on the half of his face that was still intact, a spring in his step despite his steel left leg. And it wasn’t long before he did own the place, taken it over by simple murder and cunning artifice. It wasn’t long before he was my best friend and my master, too, and the master of all St. Agatha’s, and didn’t he preside over a golden era in the history of that miserable place?
I’ve lived in St. Agatha’s for six years, since I was 11 years old, when a reciprocating gear in the Muddy York Hall of Computing took off my right arm at the elbow. My Da had sent me off to Muddy York when Ma died of the consumption. He’d sold me into service of
the Computers and I’d thrived in the big city, hadn’t cried, not even once, not even when Master Saunders beat me for playing kick-the-can with the other boys when I was meant to be polishing the brass. I didn’t cry when I lost my arm, nor when the barber-surgeon clamped me off and burned my stump with his medicinal tar.
I’ve seen every kind of boy and girl come to St. Aggie’s—swaggering, scared, tough, meek. The burned ones are often the hardest to read, inscrutable beneath their scars. Old Grinder don’t care, though, not one bit. Angry or scared, burned and hobbling or swaggering and full of beans, the first thing he does when new meat turns up on his doorstep is tenderize it a little. That means a good long session with the belt—and Grinder doesn’t care where the strap lands, whole skin or fresh scars, it’s all the same to him—and then a night or two down the hole, where there’s no light and no warmth and nothing for company except for the big hairy Muddy York rats who’ll come and nibble at whatever’s left of you if you manage to fall asleep. It’s the blood, see, it draws them out.
So there we all was, that first night when Monty Goldfarb turned up, dropped off by a pair of sour-faced Sisters in white capes who turned their noses up at the smell of the horse-droppings as they stepped out of their coal-fired banger and handed Monty over to Grinder, who smiled and dry-washed his hairy hands and promised, “Oh, aye, sisters, I shall look after this poor crippled birdie like he was my own get. We’ll be great friends, won’t we, Monty?” Monty actually laughed when Grinder said that, like he’d already winkled it out.
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