A Cup of Normal

by Devon Monk

  If I were lucky, I could ratchet the line taut from the platform and send a bond-line out to self patch. If I wasn’t lucky, the storm would hit while I was dangling by a wire.

  I pushed that thought out of my mind.

  “. . . promise . . .”

  “. . . Allen choose . . .”

  “. . . good-bye . . .”

  The top was only a few steps away. I glanced down, saw Don swing over to the catch platform and anchor the mags into permanent latch-joints. He got busy rerouting the power on the information pull, down the broken line.

  He had family to visit.

  I promised Ce I’d be there tonight.

  The storm drew closer.

  I climbed to the top, slipped up through the hole in the upmost railed platform and stood.

  Voices, song, a broken, overwhelming sound churned around me. I covered my ears and searched for the source. The break in the line shone with yellow light toward the dark sky, the same yellow in the window of our house, but this light hurt my eyes to look at it.

  I lowered eye shields and knelt. My fingers knew what to do — link, wrap, ratchet. Activate the bond-line, feed it out, guide it like a wire snake twisting out to cover the break. I did these things, trying not to think of the storm I could feel pushing at my back, trying not to think of the voices, Celia, dreams. The bond-line snaked out around and around the line. Once the bond-line reached the break, I triggered the fusion. My wrist pack blinked red. Patch failure.

  I’d told her I’d come home. I glanced up, and wished I hadn’t. The storm covered the sky, tendrils reaching out to wrap the sun.

  The wind hit.

  I held on as the tower swayed, flexible enough to withstand the last thousand years of storms. But it wasn’t the tower I was worried about. It was the lines. They whipped in the gusts, snapping, thrumming, throwing the voices louder around me, the split in the line like a yellow eye, glancing off to search the storm.

  “Allen. Storm looks pretty bad. Abort?” It was Don’s voice in my ear. He’d interfered with Archives’ connection, a dangerous action this close to a broken line, where the access to Archives’ instructions was critical.

  My reply was brief, “No.”

  The storm whipped. Belt tools slapped my hips. I attached the come-along to the main line. I pumped the ratchet, pulling the heavy main line slowly taut. The break map at the left corner of my eye shield showed a point where two lines intersected above the break. If I could pull the broken line close enough, I should be able to crawl out to that intersection above the break and seal the line below by hand.

  When the ratchet couldn’t be cranked any farther, I called over to Don. “I’m crawling out. Unhook safety.”

  “Negative, Allen. Don’t unhook. Abort repair. We can take care of this after the storm rolls over.”

  Which would be too late. Tomorrow, maybe the next day, and I’d promised Ce.

  I unlatched his safety hook on my belt. “Unlatch, Don. I’m crawling out.”

  Don swore once in my ear. I waited, but there was no movement on my belt line, nothing that indicated Don had unlatched my hook from his belt. I tried a different tactic.

  “You have family to see, Don. The break’s not far, just a few meters out. Let me get this done so we can go home.”

  Still no response.

  “Unhook, Don, or I’ll cut my line.”

  The line at my belt tugged. I could feel the unfamiliar weight of it swaying free in the wind. I triggered the recoil. The line slid up and wound into my harness.

  Don’s line scooted to the edge of the platform and slipped over. I waited to a count of twenty.

  “Safety re-set?” I asked.

  “Hooked and solid as a stone. You damn well better latch that safety to the platform, Allen. I am not going to make the climb down alone.”

  “Affirmative.” I slapped the hook over the railing on the far side of the platform and tugged it once. With the safety there, instead of on the side nearest the line break, I’d have more of a chance of missing the main tower if I slipped. Of course, if I slipped, the chances that I’d survive without getting tangled or battered to death by the winds were slimmer than I wanted to admit.

  I ducked under the railing and placed both hands on the wire. As slowly and carefully as I could, I wrapped my legs around the line and let the world invert.

  Hanging upside down by my calves and hands, I began my backward advance.

  The storm howled and spat hail. I tilted my head back once to glance over my shoulder. The line below me was obscured by hail. I tipped my head back up and tracked my progress by the map on my eyeshield.

  Razor sharp ice bit at the backs of my hands, my exposed jaw and chin. I scooted palms along the wire, its surface rough enough to give at least some traction in the wind. My legs stayed locked at the ankles. The line pitched and swung in the wind.

  The voices were louder, sounding almost as if they were in my earpiece.

  “. . . Allen . . .”

  “. . . Choose . . .”

  “. . . all dreams . . .”

  The break was almost in reach. Two more stretches. One. I saw another line cross the one I was suspended from and made my way to the intersection for a better hold. The blueline map across my eyeshield blinked yellow. I didn’t need the map to tell me the break was below me. I could smell it, rank as melted steel, feel it, hot as a yellow sun, and hear it. The voices called my name.

  “Allen,” Celia.

  “Allen,” Don.

  “Allen,” Archives — no, that voice was my own.

  I twisted and looked down into the break. Yellow as the center of pure fire, yellow as old Sol. Bright enough to bring tears to my eyes, yet I found I couldn’t blink, couldn’t squint.

  The voices rose from the split in the line, a ragged fissure three meters in length. Playing across the bright light were images, ghosts, flashes of colors vaporous as moonlight and mist. The figures were easy to make out, familiar: my wife, Ce, wrapped in the solar blanket waiting for me, Don’s bulky form, walking ever closer and yet not moving, and me, staring up at myself.

  I looked down into my own eyes, and saw myself smile. The image of me wasn’t wearing a safety belt and harness, but rather was bare-chested, bare-footed and wore light, loose pants. I stared. I looked so human, my skin the same color as Celia’s, my chest complete with nipples and hair. The way I had once looked. That image was joined by another, smaller image. A child, an impossible daughter, with Celia’s smile and my eyes.

  The image of me extended a hand. I could see fingernails there, and the creased lines of a palm made of living flesh instead of my own smooth palm, the inhuman palm of a linewalker.

  The voices called out.

  “. . . Allen . . .”

  “. . . can’t wait . . .”

  “. . . dreams . . .”

  I let go of the line with one hand and reached for the yellow light. The image of me drew forward. Our fingers brushed briefly past each other. I stretched further, intent on something else, something more.

  “. . . Transport home? . . .” Don’s voice.

  “. . . Transport child? . . .” Celia.

  “. . . Transport reality? . . .” Archives’ voice.

  I let go of the line with my other hand and triggered the welder, spraying and sealing the break in one motion.

  But not before I answered all the voices. “Yes.”

  “Don’t go,” said Celia, my lovely wife.

  Familiar words. It felt as if we had begun each of our days here, caught by the violet light of the new rising sun: she, wrapped in a solar blanket against the cold, I buckling the last latch on my safety belt.

  “I won’t be long. The string-break doesn’t look too severe.” No sound from her. I looked up from the all-go green on my wrist pack. Her eyes were dark, mouth tugged down in a frown. That was familiar too.

  “I promise, Celia.” I extended my hand and gently pushed the strands of her hair away from her temple.
/>   “I know.” She turned in the doorway.

  Just before the door closed, I saw a small figure looking out at me. She had her mother’s smile and my eyes.

  A chill ran down my spine.

  I slipped my index finger into the slot on my wrist pack. “Allen Bourne.”

  “Transport requested?” the soft voice of Archives asked.

  “Negative,” I said. “Request off-duty status.”

  There was a pause, and I realized my heart was pounding too hard. My fingers fell in their familiar ritual, belt, wrist, eyes and ears. I was surprised to feel ice on my shoulders.

  “Acknowledged,” Archives said. “Off-duty status granted.”

  I shook my head and studied the ice melting in my bare, lined hand. For a moment, I remembered something more, a hand like mine, but smooth as plastic. There had been a choice. I had chosen a life, this life, this reality . . . then the memory was gone. I shook my head again. A man only had one life, didn’t he?

  The light flicked on in the house, and I glimpsed the shadow of Celia and our little girl. She was three now, I remembered. Memory tugged, of Celia’s pregnancy, of the hard work it took to become a lineman, choosing not to have the modifications. The relief we both had in that choice when years after I took the job here on Archives, they discovered the sterilizing side-effects of modification.

  I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with cold air. It felt like a storm was coming. Better to be home than up on the lines today.

  I smiled and walked back to the house, the familiar thrum of wind through the lines singing out in choices and dreams far above my head.

  I have a real love for this odd, dark world. This sprang from a read-out-loud challenge with the theme: “Christmas Lights.”

  X-DAY

  Jenny sat by their X-Day tree and clutched her favorite doll, Claire, against her chest. There was no use hiding how much she loved Claire. Ever since the doll with the matching can of pretend spider spray showed up beneath their tree last year, she hadn’t wanted to let her go. But tonight was X-Day Eve, and soon Santa Claus would come down the chimney and take her favorite toy away.

  “Bedtime,” Mom said from the kitchen. “Leave Claire under the tree with your soldering set.”

  Jenny glared at the soldering set she’d gotten two years ago. She’d tried to like it. Had spent hours singeing her fingertips while soldering together scraps of metal, wire and broken gears from her dad’s work shelves. She wasn’t good at soldering, but her dad said mechanics was in her blood.

  Jenny thought that was because her father was a mechanic for the northern city machines. He never told her what the machines that ran the world looked like nor what they did, but when he came home at night, it took hours before his hands stopped shaking and he could smile again.

  She bent Claire’s plastic legs, straightened her skirt and placed her under the tree.

  Jenny felt heavy like she was made out of metal and gears herself. Her chest hurt like rusted things scraping together without any oil inside her. She stood and walked behind the wall that separated their sleeping area from the main room. She crawled beneath her blankets on the floor. Dad snored softly in the blankets he and Mom shared.

  Jenny felt empty without Claire, and her chest hurt worse.

  She listened to Mom roll the flat bread then seal it in a warm-box to keep the spiders out of the dough overnight. Mom came in and turned on the spider strip that glowed red and green along the edge of their sleeping room. She knelt next to Jenny. “Don’t worry honey. Santa might not take Claire.”

  Jenny watched her mom’s face for hope and didn’t find it. Santa always took the good toys.

  “Goodnight, Mom,” she said.

  Mom kissed her then slipped beneath the blankets with Dad.

  Jenny stared at the ceiling that reflected the red and green from the spider strip. Tears slipped down her cheeks, hot as oil, but didn’t loosen the grinding hurt in her chest.

  The spider strip snapped and sizzled as night creepers died trying to cross it. She had counted thirty-one deaths when she realized she’d forgotten to put Claire’s can of spider spray under the tree with her. She sat and pulled her big can of spray, and Claire’s miniature one, out from beneath her pillow.

  Squirting the floor ahead of her, Claire crossed the living room, the fist-sized spiders scattering.

  The doll was still under the tree. Except for the spiders that covered her, one hanging from the back of her head so that only one eye and her lips showed between hairy legs, Claire looked okay. Jenny sprayed her doll and the spiders scuttled away to the edges of the room like angry whispers.

  Jenny put the tiny can of spider spray in Claire’s lap and was trying to decide if she should take Claire back to bed with her when a scuffling echoed from the roof. Santa! She could ask him to leave Claire behind. But good little girls weren’t supposed to catch Santa taking gifts.

  The scuffling turned into a coordinated ringing that grew louder, like the drumming of fingers, or fast footsteps down the metal chimney. A green and red glow poured out from the fireplace and filled the room. Then the floor no longer moved with shadows. Every spider in the house had fled.

  Jenny hid behind a chair and watched, wide-eyed. Santa came down the chimney.

  The tip of his black boot poked out of the fireplace, and his leg, though skinnier than she’d imagined, was red. His other black tipped leg dangled down. And then a third. And a fourth. Santa crawled out of the fireplace, eight thin legs, bulbous hairy red body, and a round head with white hairs between his mandibles. Green and red light the same colors as the spider strip poured out of his multiple eyes.

  Jenny felt a scream in her throat, and pressed her hand hard over her mouth. Santa undulated to the tree, each leg working in mechanical unison. He poked at the soldering set with his spiked front foot, and she had a wild, crazy hope he’d take it. Then he pushed it away and snatched up Claire. His mandibles spread wide and he stuffed Claire down his throat. She got stuck for a moment or two, then Santa shoved her the rest of the way down.

  Jenny moaned.

  Santa’s head swivelled. Red and green light poured over her. His eyes were not like the house spiders. They were glassy and flashed red and green like the ticking of a clock. Jenny held very still.

  Santa looked away. His bulbous body jiggled and he spat out a toy, covered in silver and gold tinsel, and left it beneath the tree. Then Santa scurried to the fireplace, gripped the edge with six legs, and up the chimney he crawled.

  Jenny was too frightened to move. Claire was gone. And Santa was not a jolly old elf. He was a machine and a spider and had eaten her doll! Had he eaten all her other toys? Her bear, her books, her jacks? Or had he swallowed them, and wrapped them in sticky web for some other child?

  When her hands stopped shaking, she walked to the tree and looked at her gift. A ratchet set — the kind of gift she usually hated — with a matching hammer. She picked them up. The silver and gold webbing that wrapped them was warm and smelled like the city machine oil her father kept on his shelves.

  X-Day was about giving and taking. She was old enough to understand that. She was old enough to understand other things too.

  Jenny opened the door, letting the cool air in. She tucked the ratchet set under her arm, glanced out at the red and green lights that wobbled and skittered along another roof, and down another chimney. She picked up the hammer and big can of bug spray, figuring she could move faster on the ground than he could picking his way across rooftops.

  Not that it mattered. Jenny would follow the red and green lights all the way to the northern city if that’s what it took to get Claire back. She smiled as she stepped outside, the hammer heavy in her hand. She decided this X-Day, she would give Santa a gift he’d never forget.

  This dark, yet hopeful story was written in response to articles I had read about modern-day slavery and generational indentured service. It made me angry to think that in our current world, slavery and suffering stil
l exists. I put that anger into words here.

  MENDERS

  There are certain things that can’t be done unless the mind is shut off and the body is left to its own accord. Things that if I think about them even a little too much, will make me realize what I have done, and what it makes me. Boiling a baby is one of those things.

  The fire beneath the copper pot smokes. I smell of salt, steam and wood in our close, damp work room. The other menders who weave and spin thread for the lord are in the room, quiet, working, waiting for me to drop the birthing cocoon into the pot. I want my mate, Bind, to be here, but then I remember why he is not.

  Follow touches my shoulder, her fingers as dry as old wool. “Soon, Favor,” she says.

  The fire at my feet is growing hot, and I can smell the burnt-hair singe of my skirts.

  Spin’s needles scrape and click in the shadows, knotting old thread into cloth. Beyond that sound, I hear Work, steady, efficient, as he bends to the loom near the darkening window.

  Only Bind is not here.

  I look at my baby in my hands, wrapped in its cocoon, not yet breathing. The thread that pours from my fingertip and connects to the cocoon is gold in the late light, and will be silver in the dawn. I make the last loop of thread around my baby’s head to finish the cocoon. The pulse of my life flows to my child, once, just once, in both greeting and farewell. Then I lift my baby over the pot. I drop the baby into the water. The string between us snaps.

  I can’t see anything after that. The first time, I couldn’t look away. I saw the cocoon bob, turn in the boiling water. Watched as Follow stirred the pot, her old arms strong and steady on the long handled paddle. Saw Spin insert her needles into the cocoon, gently prying the strands apart, discarding the baby in search of the real treasure, the threads of the cocoon, which she caught first on one needle, then on a slender stick, turning, until the thread pulled around itself, the stick growing fat with my baby’s death.