Strange Horizons, July 2002

by Strange Horizons

“Sharon ... nurses, teachers, and secretaries don't need to take those kinds of classes."

  “But I don't want to be a nurse or a teacher or a secretary. I want to be an electrical engineer."

  She might have told him she wanted to dance naked across the gym during the next Open House and gotten a less stunned response. “That's a man's job! You—” He stopped and reached into his desk drawer. Sharon waited while he pulled out a bottle of aspirin.

  “I don't understand what's getting into you girls,” he said, with a shake of his head. “When I started out twenty years ago, no girl would ever have ever considered a career in science unless she wanted to become a science teacher. This year, there are three of you, all wanting to be electrical engineers."

  She looked up at his words. “Three? Who else?"

  “That's confidential.” He stood up and gathered some brochures from his in-basket. “Here. If you're really serious about this, Purdue University has an engineering program."

  “Rose-Hulman's supposed to be the best engineering school in the state."

  “It is indeed.” Mr. Carrico folded his arms across his chest, and the look he gave her reminded her of how her mother had looked, back on Sharon's tenth birthday, while explaining to her why her dream was an impossible one. “It's also a boys-only private college. They don't accept female applicants."

  “Purdue really isn't a bad alternative.” He smiled and added, “One of the other girls was quite impressed with how many astronauts had attended Purdue."

  She left his office determined to go off to Purdue, become an electrical engineer, join the Air Force, and then convince the good ol’ boys that a girl could too become an astronaut.

  But she never did any of those things. Instead, she married Jack the weekend after high school graduation.

  Marcia didn't do anything that foolish. She left her boyfriend behind and went to Purdue.

  Sharon looked up at the moon and wondered who that elusive third girl student had been who had given up, and how it was that Marcia, who was pretty and popular and seemed so scatterbrained all through school, managed to succeed where Sharon had failed.

  Marcia was one of the fifty-three rotating crew members working on the lunar base, one of fifteen women assigned to the project, and the only crew member over fifty. Marcia had had the foresight and the determination to carefully research everything she needed to do to reach her objective; then, while Sharon had given up and married, Marcia had studied the right subjects, obtained the right degrees, and made all the right connections to put her where she was today. “Uniquely qualified” was how the decision-makers had put it.

  “If John Glenn could orbit the Earth at his age, I can go to the moon at mine” was how Marcia had put it.

  Sharon pulled her gray wool coat tighter and walked to the car while the glowing moon played peekaboo behind the clouds.

  It could have been me up there.

  It should have been me up there.

  She got into her aging rust bucket and drove home without turning the heater on. It would be a wasted effort; the heater would just blow cold air against her face. By the time the air was lukewarm, she'd be ready to park the car in front of the two-story clapboard house where she rented a small room in what used to be the attic.

  The external stairs leading up to her apartment creaked and groaned with each step. She paused by her door and looked up one last time as she shoved her key into the deadbolt lock. The moon hid behind the trees, teasing her with its absence and then peeking out at her again when she opened the door to step inside. She stood in the doorway for a moment, staring at the moon, before stepping into her room and locking the door behind her.

  Her landlord called this an efficiency apartment, but Sharon called it a hole-in-the-wall closet.

  The kitchenette was an ancient Whirlpool refrigerator and a portable stovetop that had to be plugged into an outlet to work. A toaster oven substituted for a real oven, and while microwaves were cheap, she just didn't see the need for one.

  Money was too important, and never more so than now.

  Marcia had made all the right choices to achieve her dream, while Sharon and the unknown third girl student in their one-gas-station town had failed. If Sharon could go back in time and do it over, she would be up there on the moon with Marcia now instead of standing here, staring up at the moon every night while her heart longed to be there. But you cannot go backwards, you can only go forwards, and that was where she was going now.

  Sharon picked up the mail from the table and stared at the envelope that had arrived years too late. Rose-Hulman was still the best engineering college in the state, and they had gone coed in 1995.

  When Sharon had learned that Marcia was working for NASA, she'd signed up for some introductory engineering courses at IUPUI, just to see if she could have made it, but she'd had to stop when Jack announced he wanted a divorce.

  But then Marcia was selected to work on the lunar base. Marcia hadn't let Mr. Carrico or age or anything else stand in her way, and now Marcia stood on the moon. The only impossible dream was the one you did not attempt to fulfill.

  Money was important. Sharon would need every penny she could scrape together to cover her tuition and expenses.

  Her half of the equity in their former home would barely cover two years of $30,000 per year tuition, and the room and board was almost $8,000 per year. She'd also need books, transportation, and a hundred other things that she didn't dare think about. Nothing was impossible if you approached it one small step at a time.

  Sharon turned off the light, because electricity costs money, and stood at the window staring up at the moon's bright glow.

  I'm trying, Marcia. This time, if I don't make it, it won't be because I didn't try.

  Copyright © 2002 Linda J. Dunn

  * * * *

  Linda J. Dunn is an Indiana-area author whose work has appeared in various magazines and anthologies. She is also a computer specialist at a government agency and enjoys working out at the local gym. For more about her and her work, see her Web site.

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  Other Cities #11 of 12: The Cities of Myrkhyr

  By Benjamin Rosenbaum

  7/15/02

  Eleventh in a monthly series of excerpts from The Book of All Cities.

  On the plain of Myrkhyr, in the first year of the cycle, a million nomads cross the salt flats. They go as quickly as they can, though they are not used to traveling by pony. Everyone has taken too much with them, and the salt flats are soon littered with endless miles of abandoned things.

  Few reach the mountain crevasses before the enormous shadows rush over them. Each behemoth that screams by overhead is a mile wide, blotting out the sky in all directions. The wind it drives before it shatters the ground and spawns sandstorms. Its tentacles, as long and wide as rivers, end in yawning mouths which sweep the ground, devouring the nomads and their ponies, hundreds at a gulp.

  The next weeks are bitter. There is nothing to eat in the mountain crevasses. The behemoths prowl the skies, their high-pitched screaming filling the air. Some people go mad from hunger and grief and the deafening sound. Some climb out of the crevasses to meet the giant mouths.

  After that the behemoths roam farther and farther from the mountains, and the people come out to hunt. By the tenth year of the cycle, the behemoths are seen no more; by the thirtieth, they are only a memory. The people build crude huts of mud and wattle; they plant the plateaus above the crevasses; their flocks increase. On clear nights, by the fireside, they recount their days of greatness.

  Around the fiftieth year, the behemoths return. Soon there is no day, only a screaming night—the sky is filled with huge, writhing bodies. Then the behemoths fly to the salt flats to die, burrowing deep into the ground, each bearing within it a child which eats its parent's body as it grows.

  Soon the people outfit themselves and set out from the mountains. They are lean and rugged and ride gracefully. Descending the mountains, the
y can see the great expanse of the salt flats, where a hundred cities glitter, white and clean.

  At first the cities are simple: a few large ivory halls with many rooms, a small park, perhaps with a pond, and always a well sunk deep into the earth. The first arrivals at each city claim its rooms; others camp nearby, their yurts surrounding the city walls.

  By the seventieth year of the cycle, the cities of Myrkhyr have grown turrets, parapets, ramparts; great domes and amphitheaters; fountains and lampposts. The people discover again how to use the foundries, book binderies, breweries, and halls of government that slowly push up out of the ground. The salt disappears from the land around the city walls, and the soil yields a lush harvest.

  After a hundred years, or a hundred and thirty, the signs appear. The roofs grow scales. The rooms begin subtly to breathe. An animal smell fills the streets. The water tastes like blood.

  The people love their cities—the concerts in the park in summer, the grand operas, the canals along the promenade where children sail gaily colored toy boats. Only a few leave for the mountains when the first signs appear. Not this year, most say. This year I will be appointed director of the commission. This year he will love me. Anyway, autumn will be soon enough. Let me just enjoy the summer.

  Finally, when it is too late, the people pack their things and hurry for the mountains—not looking back, or looking back in tears.

  There are always a few who refuse to leave. They climb spires at the cities’ edges. When the city-behemoths explode out of the ground and hurtle screaming across the salt flats, their riders hang on as best they can.

  * * * *

  Previous city (Penelar of the Reefs)

  All published cities

  Copyright © 2001 Benjamin Rosenbaum

  * * * *

  Benjamin Rosenbaum lives in Basel, Switzerland, with his wife and baby daughter, where in addition to scribbling fiction and poetry, he programs in Java (well) and plays rugby (not very well). He attended the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop in 2001 (the Sarong-Wearing Clarion). His work has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction and Writer Online. His previous appearances in Strange Horizons can be found in our Archive. For more about him, see his Web site.

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  Once Upon a Time in Alphabet City

  By Joel Best

  7/22/02

  It's two old friends running into each other in a grungy no-name dance club on Avenue B. Pinocchio's gunning Luckies and knocking back bourbon at the bar when the fairy with the blue hair steps in from the street wearing a sheer Day-Glo blouse and hot pants that leave little to the imagination. Blue sees him, gives her shimmering azure hair a toss; he can tell she's doing a little mental check, can this possibly be? Then she's sitting on the next stool, drinking a dirty martini, and marveling at the coincidence of this meeting.

  “Actually,” Pinocchio says, lighting his tenth cigarette in an hour, “I was waiting for nobody else but you. A dream told me you'd be here tonight."

  “Flatterer.” Blue leans into him. “You've grown up."

  “I'm not a little boy anymore."

  “It's been ages since I last saw you."

  “Summer of 1970. The day we all arrived in this world."

  Blue averts her eyes. “I shouldn't have abandoned you. I was in shock."

  “It's ancient history.” Pinocchio exhales a fire-hose stream of smoke. “Those were difficult times for everyone."

  “How are the others? The old man and the talking cricket?"

  “Later.” He orders another bourbon and signals the bartender to refill Blue's glass. A band takes the stage and people dance.

  Go away, he thinks at the fairy. She remains on the stool. “How have you been?” he says aloud.

  “Getting by. Doing this and that. Right now I'm living with a painter who thinks he's going to be the next ‘big deal.’ Problem is, his idea of achieving this goal is hanging around CBGB waiting to be discovered.” Blue gulps her martini and sighs. This is 1985. CBGB hasn't been a happening spot for years. “I don't know why I stay with him. Tell me why I put up with his bullshit."

  Pinocchio shrugs. “Your kind is obliged to take care of strays. I remember that from the Old World."

  He's thinking, Get out of here. Don't look back.

  “The Old World,” Blue breathes. “It seems like a mirage."

  “That world existed. It was as real as this one."

  She regards him closely. “Were you truly waiting for me?"

  “It's the unvarnished truth,” Pinocchio says, and Blue coos, “Liar.” But she's genuinely pleased and, taking his hand, leads him to the dance floor.

  The fairy is warm and soft in his arms. Pinocchio shuffles his feet, as clumsy now as when he still wore a wooden body, and allows Blue to lead. He continues thinking at her, telling her to walk away, but she can't hear. He knows in advance she won't hear, but still he tries.

  A scrap of waking dream comes to him. He's a few minutes up the timeline and Blue falls into him, making believe it's an accident. The dream takes him ahead another hour, to his room at the Hotel Commodore on Avenue D where Blue says she isn't going to do anything more than kiss him, but ends up in his bed. It's the fulfillment of ancient, forbidden desires. They touch one another. It's delightful. It's sinful. Pinocchio has had this exact dream for years and often wonders if the feelings he's had for Blue since their very first meeting aren't what caused them to be transported from the Old World in the first place.

  That doesn't explain the old man and the talking cricket. Why punish them for someone else's crime?

  Because life is full of innocent bystanders?

  He's with Blue in his room, he's on the dance floor. The dream makes it all the same.

  Leave immediately.

  “Time,” Pinocchio says, “is a profoundly screwed-up mess."

  “Tell me about it."

  “I really do see the future."

  Blue laughs and pretends to trip.

  * * * *

  Long past midnight, tangled in sweaty sheets, they talk about the past.

  “So what happened to the old man and the cricket? I know it can't be anything very good.” Blue rolls another joint and the air grows sweeter. She's had to get a little stoned to bring the subject up.

  Pinocchio lies quietly beside her. “Geppetto never adapted to the shift from storybook world to NYC. He's been in Bellevue since ‘71."

  He reaches for his Luckies, fits one to his lips, lights up. “And I still can't talk about the cricket. What happened to him made Bellevue seem like a walk in the park."

  Blue smokes another joint.

  “Life has treated us harshly,” Pinocchio says.

  Blue is small beside him. “Tell me about it. I used to be magic. Now look at me; I'm just another bimbo."

  Pinocchio stubs out the cigarette and holds her tightly.

  Get up. Dress. Run.

  He wants to speak the words, but can't. Knowing about tomorrow isn't the same as being able to control it, any more than understanding every molecule of a mountain grants a person the ability to move it a single inch.

  * * * *

  The telephone rings when he expects it to. Being flung into the New World turned Pinocchio into a seer. Dreams constantly speak to him of the future. They began the moment he was sucked into the same bright hole in the sky that swallowed Blue, the old man, and the talking cricket. Pinocchio picked himself up and found the dreams lodged within his soul like shards of glass.

  Three rings before he lifts the receiver. Blue opens her mouth. He put a finger to her lips.

  “Wood Man here. Yes? Uh-huh. No, everything is progressing as expected. Another day, maybe two. Be patient. You know I'm reliable. I'll call when the job's done."

  In the midst of this, another dream. He's standing with Blue in front of her flop, a shabby loft building off Tompkins Square Park. Part of him finds it ironic that she's been so close all this time, practically a neighbor. She's just f
inished telling him how her man, Leon, is upstate begging next month's rent from his sister. It's an invitation to come inside. Pinocchio wants to leave, but the dreams have always told him he'll do otherwise.

  He hangs up the phone and turns, still breathing the scent of her musk. “Sorry about that. Work."

  “Gotta pay the bills,” Blue says. “What do you do, anyway?"

  “Solve problems for people. Life contains a lot of loose ends. I get paid to tidy them up."

  “Like a private detective?"

  “In a way.” Pinocchio pulls up the sheets and swaddles them both like babies. “Part of my job usually involves finding someone who doesn't want to be found."

  Blue's getting excited. “That sounds interesting."

  “Sadly, it can be."

  “Why sadly?

  He quiets her with a kiss.

  * * * *

  Early morning fog wraps the trees with wet gray wool. The streets bordering Tompkins Square Park are somber rivers; the shabby apartments occupying this part of town, drab and formless mountains. The air stinks of wood smoke laced with garbage. Someone's burning trash in a barrel to keep warm.

  Blue dawdles at the bottom of the steps leading to her building. The light from a nearby street lamp paints her face a garish yellow.

  “Someday,” Pinocchio says, “these lofts will go for small fortunes. Young urban professionals, fantasizing about the romance of city life, will roll into this part of town with wheelbarrows of money. With them will come the expensive boutiques, the chic coffee shops, the late-model cars. Another few years and you won't recognize the place."

  “You and your imagination."

  “It'll happen."

  “A dream told you so?"

  Pinocchio nods.

  “Leon isn't home,” Blue says abruptly. “Once a month he heads upstate to wheedle rent money from his sister in Albany.” She cocks her head. “You feel like a nightcap?"

  “It's getting late."

  “I wish you'd come up. Just for a while.” The fairy hesitates, not wanting to explain, then going ahead and doing it anyway. “Two weeks ago I saw someone getting hurt, hurt bad. I don't know who he was or why it happened or any of the details, only that it was awful and I still have nightmares.” She's breathing heavily. “I don't want to be alone."