New Suns

by Nisi Shawl

  Mayang let it pass until Eunice was done talking. Then she stroked the young woman’s hair. “I think you’re very interesting.”

  Eunice caught Mayang’s hand, and kissed its palm. “I think you’re more interesting than me. You live forever under the sea. You see things no human ever could.” She thought for a moment about her never-mentioned father. “Also, you eat people. That’s really cool.”

  Mayang laughed so loudly Eunice was afraid someone would hear them, discover them and their secret. The seams in her cheeks loosened a little, mandibles almost unfolding in her mirth. But Mayang sobered as quickly as she had laughed. “There is a price to the freedom of the seas.”

  She was so serious, Eunice had to know. “What is it?”

  “Everything amazing you tell me, every change in the human world, will be lost to you,” Mayang answered, hands still stroking Eunice’s hair, drifting down. “Death is still a constant danger. There are so few of us, torn apart by the tides, I don’t even know where the others are anymore.”

  “I found you easily.”

  “I like to stay put. Fishing here is easy. There are so many more tourists than before.” She smoothed the fabric of Eunice’s panties. “But no more this feeling good here. Because you won’t have it anymore.”

  Eunice let Mayang’s hand linger, weighing the truth of the statement. Eunice’s wormbody explorations had turned up nothing sensitive. She parted her knees a little, and pressed the hand further down. Mayang’s fingers played with a stray hair, but withdrew after a moment.

  “You’re so young, Eunice. Go live a full life. The sea is for bitter old crones like me.”

  Eunice turned to kiss Mayang’s cheek, and trailed her lips along a mandible seam. “You’re not a crone,” she murmured, brushing sand off Mayang’s brown skin, flicking a cake of silt off a breast. It was small, mostly vestigial muscle leftover from years of swimming in the ocean. “And I’m not that young.” She kissed Mayang, working her fingers into the worm-woman’s mouth to reach places her tongue could not reach. Mayang’s mouth—the loose membrane, the soft muscles—pressed down, not to push Eunice out, but to draw her in. In a busy embrace, Eunice straddled Mayang, stretching the length of herself along to brush against the bristles that fluttered in a way Eunice noticed only happened when they kissed.

  The epidermis along Mayang’s body cracked as it dried. It did not happen often, Mayang had told Eunice, and really only meant she had a new segment to her body. Eunice helped peel the old skin off, and marveled at the polished iridescence beneath. She ran her fingers across the new skin, soft for now until it toughened over time, and grinned to hear Mayang moaning. She carefully stripped the length of Mayang’s body, fingers dancing between parapodia to a startling cacophony from Mayang. When she reached the final segment, throbbing with its newness, she embraced it, showering it with kisses, while Mayang arched her back, mandibles unfurling wide in a long, ragged cry.

  The afternoon sun had gone down by the time they rested. “When there were more of us,” Mayang whispered, eyes closed in dreamy afterglow, “we met during molting season. What a shame there are so few of us now.”

  Eunice went home and quit her job. She closed her bank accounts, all social media possible, wrote several letters that were along the lines of, “Don’t look for me.” Her mother tried to withhold her car keys and her identity card, as if those were things Eunice needed anymore. Concerned acquaintances tried to call, but Eunice turned off her phone and removed the SIM card.

  Off the shore of Terengganu, where it was still dark enough for moonlight to set the white sands aglow, Eunice rode Mayang’s back to an island of rocks too small for development, too rocky for trees.

  “Will it be painful?”

  “Very.” (Mayang actually couldn’t remember anymore.)

  “Will you be there when I wake up?”

  “Yes.” (Mayang lied, because anything could happen.)

  They tumbled onto a bed of sand together, kissing and licking and tasting, Eunice wrapped around Mayang. Mayang ran her pharynx over the length of Eunice’s neck, chest, belly, while her fingers found the human cleft and thrust deep, feeling along the lines of the wet walls for throbbing muscle. Eunice gripped Mayang’s hair, a little alarmed at the sudden engorgement from Mayang’s mouth, raking teeth across her clavicle, the round of her breasts, and every sensitive spot Mayang knew. She swallowed the bile of terror as Mayang’s head settled between her legs, mandibles unfurling and foaming at the edges. Water rose around her hips.

  Mayang bit deep, seeking the second heartbeat, splitting skin and flesh. Eunice screeched as Mayang’s teeth-lined pharynx burrowed around her clitoris, nerve endings shattered and ripped apart. The froth turned bloody, burning, blazing as seawater rose. Eunice clamped her legs together, almost catching Mayang’s neck, and Mayang ducked away to let the transformation begin. Eunice squeezed her legs shut, gasped in shock between sobs, while Mayang rubbed her arms up and down and stroked her hair and crooned an old song: the blood from Eunice, the foam from Mayang, the salt of the sea, all would bubble together to form a cocoon, so sleep, so fade away, let the warm blood go. The water rose, and Eunice felt the moonlight ebb from her vision. Everything grew cold and dark and silent except for Mayang’s voice.

  Eunice dreamed of entwining with Mayang over and over, of exploring the ocean depths and each other, of the freedom of the shifting sea.

  Coda

  DO YOU KNOW, Eunice? I cannot remember the last time I witnessed a metamorphosis. When the water covered you, the foam turned into a thin film that reminded me of bloody cauls over babies. Unpleasant memories. When you wake up, I hope you will not mind having been buried in the silt of the mangrove, because I had forgotten how much men are prone to roaming in their boats these days, their mastery over the ocean allowing them a greater range. You will also have more food around when you wake up, and I will be there to catch them with you, and teach you how.

  And I can already sense that you will not be happy in this sleepy little beachside, so we will drift across the oceans to find old shipwrecks and waylay unhappy boats. We will delve into the trenches to find the methuselahs who feed on whales and deep sea squid in between their slumbering aeons. Maybe we will find others like us. Maybe we will make more like us. Maybe in the far future you will leave me anyway, but it will not matter by then.

  Sleep easy, my little Eunice.

  Three Variations on a Theme of Imperial Attire

  E. Lily Yu

  THEY NEVER TELL the story right. The Danish must have their heavens and happy endings, and Andersen’s tales are meant for children. We, however—you and I—know that people are people, and every one of us capable of—

  But the story.

  Once there was a vain and foolish emperor, who made up for his foolishness by a kind of low cunning. As such rulers do, he drew to himself a retinue of like men and women, who told him he was wise and humble, gracious and good. The emperor would smile at their flattery, which in his wisdom he knew to be the truth, and lavish gold and gems and deeds upon them. Thus was everyone contented within the palace walls. And those outside got on as well as they could.

  Eventually, with narrative inevitability, two men with knapsacks and pockets full of thread came knocking at the palace gates.

  “We are tailors,” the first one said, “wise but humble tailors, who seek to offer our boutique services to men of might, such as yourself.”

  “Here is a list of our bona fides,” said the second man. “Sterling references, one and all.”

  “The very best, I’m sure,” the emperor said, looking at the ruby buttons on their vests of gilt brocade.

  “What we’d like to offer you is an exclusive deal—”

  “—the latest in fashion, which no one else owns—”

  “—designed in collaboration with a distant country’s military-industrial complex—”

  “—top secret and cutting-edge—”

  “—the Loyalty Distinguisher line of
couture.”

  “What a mouthful,” the emperor said, looking askance. “Call it something I can pronounce.”

  “What a brilliant suggestion! The Thresher, how’s that? Since it sorts the wheat from the worthless chaff.”

  “Powerful,” the emperor said. “I like it.”

  “Now, the key selling point of the Thresher line—what a wonderful name!—is that it’ll let you sort at a glance your loyal, meritorious, and worthy subjects from—well, the useless ones.”

  “At a glance, eh?”

  “Indeed! When we dress you in Thresher fabric, cut to the height of style, those subjects of noble character will see you as you truly are, with all your hidden virtues displayed. They’ll swoon at your intellect, marvel at your power, gape at your discernment and understanding. You’ll know them by their raptures and fits of joy. Then you can place them in positions of authority. Judging village disputes and distributing grain, for example. Or tax collecting.”

  “Good,” the emperor said, rubbing his chin. “And the rest?”

  “The Thresher fabric will reflect their true ugliness. They will pale and shrink back and avert their eyes.”

  “They will scream and faint.”

  “They will whimper at the sight of their deepest selves.”

  “And thus you will know your traitorous subjects.”

  “Hard labor would be too good for them.”

  “Make me this suit at once!” the emperor said. And his court, whispering amongst themselves, wondered how the marvel would be managed.

  Well, you know how. The tailors placed loud orders on the phone for Italian leather and French wool, Japanese silks and bulletproof thread; had conspicuously large boxes airlifted to their quarters; and all day and all night they cut and sewed the air with an industry that was inspiring to see.

  The appointed day came, red and hot. Crows rattled in the palace trees. In the emperor’s chamber, before his cheval glass, the tailors presented their work with pride.

  “Our finest piece.”

  “A triumph.”

  “A breakthrough in fashion.”

  “But let us see what it looks like on you. Habeas corpus is the haberdasher’s true test.”

  The emperor looked at their empty hands—swallowed—scowled—thought—and said, “Bravo!”

  “Is the jacket not to your liking?”

  “Hm, yes, the pants are a little long.”

  “I’ll fix that in a minute, never you worry. There.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Perfect,” the emperor said, gazing at his reflection.

  “Now you must show it to your subjects. Your courtiers have assembled and are waiting.”

  When the emperor strode into his court, a ruby-buttoned tailor at each elbow, his courtiers stared. Then one, then another hastily applauded, and the stamping and cheering shook the walls. A little color came back into the emperor’s cheeks, and he whuffed through his blonde whiskers in relief, though what terrible worry he had been relieved of, no one watching could say.

  “You chose your court wisely,” the tailors said. “Now ride throughout your kingdom and sift the wicked from the good.”

  And the emperor, glancing dubiously at the saddle, mounted his horse and rode through the city streets. His stomach billowed with every bounce. Before him rode his courtiers, shouting the people forth to praise the craftsmanship and glory of these new clothes, which would divide the loyal from the perfidious.

  The people, who had not survived six decades of imperial whims and sudden prohibitions on various fruits, fats, and hats without acquiring a certain degree of sense, observed the wind’s direction and vociferously admired the blinding gleam of the cloth-of-gold, the shimmer of silks, the cut and fit of everything.

  Children, however, who through lack of life experience have not yet learned the salubrious lessons of unjust pain, while quite disposed to lie to avoid immediate punishment, are also inclined to speak inconvenient truths at the most inconvenient times.

  “Ma, the emperor is naked.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s wearing the finest suit that I ever did see.”

  “Ma, I can see his dick.”

  At this the goodwife clapped her aproned hand over her son’s mouth, but it was too late. The emperor had heard. He turned a pitying eye upon them, as their neighbors immediately began to point and hiss. Why, they’d always known—an absent father—single motherhood stirred up evil, that’s what they’d always said—but the emperor’s getup was magnificent—truly unparalleled—only a stupid blind woman couldn’t see that—

  The emperor nudged his horse with his knees and serenely continued upon his way.

  In the morning the boy and his mother were gone. Their little stone-and-thatch cottage had burned to the ground. Their neighbors and their houses had vanished as well. Only a few cracked teeth and a fistful of phalanges were found.

  The emperor retained the tailors on an exclusive contract at astronomical rates and took to riding out among his people on a weekly basis, since it was now clear that there was treachery in the land. People fell over themselves to report their parents, in-laws, rivals, classmates, colleagues, never failing to praise the newest suit of clothes themselves, until the streets turned black with blood and soot.

  When the emperor was finally stricken with a fatal case of pneumonia—which happened far later than one might imagine, because he was a corpulent and well-insulated man—his former subjects, one after the other, dazed by the news, picked up the phone by habit to denounce their friends, and heard, on the other end, the dusty silence of a dead line.

  UNNECESSARILY GRIM, YOU say? Unrealistic? Scenes this bloody no longer occur in the civilized world? I agree with all your criticisms, most erudite of readers. There’s nothing for it but to try again.

  Here then is a more charming tale, one that will better suit your taste.

  Once there was a body politic that, through happy geographic accident, had avoided any number of devastating wars, and was thus left the most powerful government in the world. On the basis of that evidence, it thought itself the most enlightened body politic that the world had ever seen. It kept its citizens under surveillance, arresting or ejecting those who did not agree, and as a result enjoyed unanimous approbation.

  One day, two men, sons of a vast clothing empire, who had recently been elected to the body, presented a sheaf of invisible bills.

  “See how stylishly we’ve cut, trimmed, and hemmed taxes! How popular you’ll be with the tastemakers of this realm—how perceptive and attractive you’ll seem—if you pass them!”

  “See how they funnel the vast majority of money to the military, which is always fashionable. How powerful you’ll look to your enemies!”

  “Look how your children will benefit, leapfrogging into elite universities, flourishing in the compost of your trusts and estates!”

  “All honorable members of this body politic will see the good, glorious vision these bills represent. All citizens of discernment shall agree. The others? Well, they are not citizens, or they are fake citizens, voting without proper identification, and we should divert a portion of our security budget to uncovering these traitors and deporting or imprisoning them, as our fathers did in their day.”

  The platforms and proposals were trotted before the country with pleasing pomp and ceremony. The true citizens applauded them so loudly you couldn’t think, and trained in militias to hunt down the fake citizens, and rammed cars into the bodies of fake citizens, and phoned in denunciations of their neighbors, ex-lovers, grandchildren, pets—and before too long the streets ran black and red with—

  Ah.

  That didn’t go very well, did it? Heavy-handed, on the nose… it’s hardly even a story. The artistic error was choosing a plurality as a subject. It’s difficult to create complexity of character, complete with inner conflicts and landscapes and unique worldviews, when one’s protagonist is an amorphous group. Especially when the members are as slippery as politic
ians. I understand now why Andersen chose to write about an emperor rather than, say, the Rigsdag. Artistically, that is, never mind that the first Rigsdag convened twelve years after his fairy tale was published. That detail will be conveniently left out of my forthcoming treatise on art. It is a treatise written for a very select few, and will be scorned by the unenlightened masses. Only a humble and wise reader such as yourself, magnanimous and perfect in character, will understand the secrets I disclose therein.

  So a character study is what’s needed, it seems.

  ONCE THERE WERE two tailors—

  You know what? You’re right. We don’t need both of them. They’re hardly distinguishable as it is. Andersen might have wished to signify the multitudinousness of such men, or illustrate how well they work together, once they recognize each other, but we can take that for granted as something the reader already knows.

  ONCE THERE WAS a man who called himself whatever was suitable to his purposes at the time. If it profited him to say he was a soldier, then he was a soldier who had served with distinction. If it furthered his aims to call himself beloved, then someone’s sweetheart he was. By speaking the words that another person wished to hear, whether those words were flattery or promises or blame, he could insinuate himself into most others’ trust.

  He had few talents besides this one, and a loathing for honest work besides, but this one talent proved enough to feed and clothe him until such time that the trick was plain. By then, of course, the man was long gone.

  He fed at first on the labor of farmers, progressing at length to literate merchants and clerks. Over and over his living proved to him the moral by which he compassed his world: that the slow and stupid existed to be ruled and robbed by cleverer and better men than they.

  But the smell of damp wool and the low burr of laborers came to displease him; the damp, wormy odors of ancient books soon bored him; in short, there are only so many times a bright man of tremendous worth can fleece the same kind of idiot. The reward is small, the dupery tedious. One must establish trust, perform small favors, establish rapport and commonalities, and so on and so forth, and that routine grows repetitive. The man longed to leave a mark on the face of history, as a result of which he could no longer be ignored.