Asimov's SF, June 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  I hurry around the corner (glad for my flat shoes and wide pants) and then around a different corner, past a long row of fallen-down houses, but I only get more and more lost. Then I hear a flute in the distance, playing with the trills and flourishes exactly the way Flimm plays. I follow the music around a corner and there, sitting on the ground . . .

  I'm too angry to be a proper newsperson. I look around for a rock to use as a bludgeon, but there isn't one handy, even with those fallen-down houses just around the corner. I'll attack anyway. He's sitting down. I'll kick . . .

  But it's not Flimm.

  I fall over backward trying to stop myself.

  It's a ragged round-faced boy. Hardly in his teens. He's wearing loose dirty clothes. His face is full of odd little scars. He's nothing at all like Flimm.

  I lie there saying I'm sorry, over and over. And the boy is saying, “But you didn't kick me, you just almost did.” And “Thanks for not doing it.”

  He helps me to sit up and gives me a drink from his water bottle.

  How am I going to find Flimm now? He shouldn't get away with this. We thought he was our friend. If he needed a woman, we had many. Maybe not as beautiful as those down here, but even though unsophisticated, quite nice ones.

  And then there was me. And I'm getting more sophisticated every minute.

  I move over next to the boy, take out my notebook, and cross out everything I wrote about Flimm. Then I draw the smallest dog in the world and the woman with the tight skirt. In spite of Flimm being alive and well, I'm glad I came. This place is interesting. I also write about the boy playing the flute. His name is Jall. Later I'll ask his age and write that down, too, but he's gone back to playing his flute. I've practiced every single night on the trail and I still can't play very well. This boy, as Flimm does, has a flute no better than mine, and he can play all sorts of fancy things. I wonder if he can teach me some of those rills. I don't have any money though, and everything here is so civilized it takes money.

  I still feel like kicking somebody. I'll have to tell everybody back home that Flimm dropped us and without a word. I'll tell them these people are not our kind at all. They even pronounce half their words all wrong. They call the square the squire. They eat all sorts of odd things. . . . No wonder our newsman has such a long nose.

  I write all this down and then take out my flute. I play one of my simple tunes. (By now I know five.) The boy and I both laugh at how simple it is and how badly I play it. Then we play together, me, the simple tune, and he, the ornaments and harmonies around it. I had no idea I could ever sound this good. Of course it's what he's playing that makes me sound so great, it's almost as if I can really play.

  Somebody drops coins into the dust in front of us. We laugh again and play some more. After a bit we gather up our coins. “We ought to go to the square,” he says. “You should stand up there in your funny clothes and I'll sit beside you and play the ornaments.”

  I'm thinking how I could eat some of those odd fruits. Maybe have my portrait drawn.

  So he leads the way to the square. He has a really bad limp. He could never climb up to visit us. Even with me helping, he'd never get across our mountains.

  We pick practically the same spot where I sat before, only now it's sunny. The portrait man has moved farther down into the shade. I stand and the boy sits at my feet. We make a good team and my clothes are an asset.

  Though the portrait painter has lots of customers, he comes over to draw us and then again and again because people buy his pictures of us for more money than they pay for their own portraits. He says my costume helps, and I think: What costume? But to them I guess it is.

  We play all day and make a lot of money. More than I ever had before. And the portrait painter gives us some of what he makes on our pictures, too. He says it's only fair. And then he gives us one of the pictures of us and Jall says it can be mine.

  Then we buy some fruit and I get myself a sausage.

  This is all really good news. I can't wait to go back and tell about it. I'd bring Jall back, too, if he didn't have such a limp. It is nicer there than here. Here they don't even have one single great view, not a one, though they do have everything else. I wonder if I could bring the smallest dog in the world back with me.

  I do keep looking out for Flimm, though everything is so interesting I forget to be angry. I keep wondering if Flimm and I could sound as good together as Jall and I do.

  When the market begins to thin out, and people start to undo their stalls and pack up, they hitch that biggest horse in the world to a huge cart. Again, a girl no bigger than I am leads him off. I wish I'd had the courage to go up to that horse and stroke him the way she does.

  Jall and I divide up the money. I didn't bring anything for a purse so I put my share in with the last of my dried food. I wonder if I have enough to buy that smallest dog in the world. Or that horse. Though I don't think I could get that horse across the hanging bridge and all the way home.

  This is a very exciting place, everything here is news, but I still need to find Flimm. How do people find people around here? His safety is all my people really want to know about. They'd like the biggest horse and the smallest dog, but they wouldn't be satisfied until I told them about Flimm. I should have stopped him when I first saw him even though I was scared to. I felt so angry and trembly I wasn't sure what I'd do.

  * * * *

  Jall and I decide to spend the night right here where there's a little water for washing and to drink. The sound of the dripping fountain is pleasant and soothing. In the morning he'll help me find Flimm.

  We stick to our same corner next to the tumbledown wall. It's out of the way.

  But even with the soothing sound of the fountain, I can't sleep. I can't stop thinking about Flimm and that woman and how silly it is to be in love with somebody from here that I hardly know.

  Maybe I'm in love with him simply because he brought us the outside world. Or simply because he's different. Or because he jokes all the time. But there must be lots of men like Flimm down here. I should look around. It would have to be somebody who doesn't limp if I want to take him home and show him off up there.

  * * * *

  Just after I finally get to sleep, first thing in the morning . . .

  . . . someone shakes my shoulder.

  “Darta. Darta.”

  Here he is . . . looking down at me. The slicked-up Flimm. . . . All in black, freshly shaved, hair combed, and I, for sure, the opposite.

  I wake as if to a happy dream.

  He remembers my name!

  He asks a whole row of questions: “What happened? How did you get here? Why? What's wrong? Are you all right?”

  As if the news was the other way around, from me to him.

  He says it was one of those drawings of us that showed him where we might be. They're all over town. They show the corner of the square and the ruined wall.

  I'm still half asleep. Is it really him? I say, “I looked for you all along the trail. We thought you were dead or hurt. I cried for you.”

  I reach up. He . . . for heaven's sake, kisses my hand . . . a long kiss . . . lips so warm and soft. Sits down beside me.

  I say again, “I cried for you.”

  Then I actually do wake up. This is no dream. Here I am, rumpled and dirty, dressed in clothes nobody wears down here, and he, so clean and citified. What chance do I have? And why is he always flirting? Doing odd things like kissing hands?

  I'll make the news myself. I'll be the news and I don't want to see both sides. Even Flimm has said there aren't always two sides to things.

  Besides, how come such an ugly man gets to have such a beautiful woman as that one he was walking with yesterday? And here he is being flirtatious even to me right now, and enjoying himself. How can he be so happy after all our worry?

  I attack.

  I catch him by surprise. Right away he's down on his back trying to defend himself. He doesn't hit out at me at all but I hit and hit. Scratc
h and bite and kick.

  Jall wakes up. He's a skinny lame boy so he can't be much help,

  But instead of coming to help me, he starts to play the flute. A sad wavy tune. That stops us. And almost right away. Or rather stops me. Flimm was just protecting himself.

  I sit back. News people don't cry. Is it the music or just everything in general?

  What with Jall playing that sad tune and the surprise of it, I'm calm but Flimm isn't. He grabs me, one strong hand on my arm. I'll bet I'll have bruises there.

  I've never seen him angry. He didn't hit out at me as I was hitting him, but now he looks as if he'd like to. He looks scary. I can see his jaw clenching and unclenching.

  I duck down and try to pull away. I know he's going to hit me and I deserve it. Except he doesn't.

  “What's all this about? Why?”

  “For you. We worried. There was a landslide. We thought the hanging bridge had broken. I looked for you in all the cliffs.”

  It's then I begin to actually cry.

  He tries to put his arm around me to hug me, but I pull away. “You're in love,” I say.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you yesterday. That woman.”

  He starts to laugh. I know him well enough to know he laughs about everything, but even this?

  “I'm in love, yes, with your mountain village and all of you gentle, sweet women. You're not like the women down here. I prefer how sweet you all are compared to the town women. How innocent . . .”

  “I don't believe it.”

  “Look around you. Wouldn't you want relief from this?”

  And suddenly I see.

  “I never told you of the war. I never told you of these bombed-out houses. Look at his ruined wall. . . . Our broken fountain . . . The news I brought you was always false.”

  How could I not have seen it right away, back at the bombed-out road? What kind of newsperson am I to be so blind? He said “how sweet” we are. He's right, we're much too sweet. But is it my fault if I'm innocent, since he never told us anything real?

  “And I never worried you with our epidemics. How many of us died . . . Look at this boy's pockmarked face.”

  Jall, too. I never thought . . . all this really real news . . .

  “You were our hidden garden . . . for the Preservation of Innocence. I came back and told news of you to the town. I brought your births and deaths and marriages back here. Now there's no longer the time or money for the trek out there. We'll miss hearing about you. We were all in love with you.”

  “But you taught us the news was honorable. You said it should be even-handed. Fair. And true.”

  “We needed you to be as you are. Our world was falling apart. We kept thinking: At least there's our mountain village, safe and sound.”

  “If you won't bring us the news, I'll do it. And my news will be real.”

  “There's mountain storms. There's rockslides. Steep drop-offs. A woman can't do it.”

  “Of course I can. I've just been through it. And, look, my notebook is full of news. I drew the news, too. The biggest horse, the smallest dog . . . It's all here.”

  “Stay here with me. Come and meet my mother. She has always wanted to meet one of the sweet women from the High Hidden Garden. Nothing good will come from telling your people the real news. Come.”

  “No!”

  I can't believe I'm refusing him. I always thought, if I ever had the chance, I'd run away with Flimm without a second thought.

  I don't want to hurt him. I tell him I'm tempted, “But I'd rather bring real news to my people. They deserve it. They don't want to be somebody else's High Hidden Garden for the Preservation of Innocence.”

  Copyright © 2011 Carol Emshwiller

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  * * *

  Poetry: RED EYE

  by William John Watkins

  * * * *

  * * * *

  In every man a demon lies;

  in photographs, we see its eyes,

  wild-fire flames of lust and rage,

  blood fires that do not dim with age.

  In women's eyes you'll see its fires

  of smothered fury, wild desires,

  that smolder slow but hotter burn

  and woe to those whose hate it earns.

  In children's eyes, its fires you'll see

  flame up in gleeful savagery

  un-tinged by guilt, without regret,

  a silent but still deadly threat.

  “It's lens refraction” wise men say,

  “not fire! It only looks that way.”

  Deep down, we know that looks betray

  things science can't explain away.

  —William John Watkins

  * * * *

  * * * *

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  Short Story: WALKING STICK FIRES

  by Alan DeNiro

  Alan DeNiro was born in Erie, Pennsylvania, and now resides outside St. Paul, Minnesota. He received a BA in English from the College of Wooster and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. His short story collection, Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead, was published by Small Beer Press, and was a finalist for the Crawford Award. The author's first novel, Total Oblivion, More or Less, appeared from Spectra last year. He's currently working on a historical fantasy about the Dutch painter Vermeer. Alan's first story for us relates the remarkable road trip of two peculiar buddies. They journey through a landscape that, while almost familiar, manages to completely upend reality as we know it.

  On All Hallows Eve Eve, Parka sat on his motorcycle in the unending desert. The moon was a low-hanging fruit. The blue fires of Casino were off in the far distance to the north. Parka pulled an apple out of his jacket pocket, cut it in half with his claw, and offered one half to his fellow traveler, Jar.

  “The apple has a pleasing scent,” Jar said before he ate it, crushing the apple into pulp with his mandibles.

  “I would have to agree,” Parka said.

  “Where did you procure it?”

  “In a house outside of Casino.” He indicated the blazing pyramids and monoliths with his claw. “Two days ago. I forgot I had it. There it was, sitting on a kitchen table. Red and perfect.” When he finished eating the apple, Parka brushed off a posse of stick insects that landed on his shoulders.

  “Hey, cool, walking sticks,” Jar said, brushing them off Parka's jacket.

  “Is that what the locals call them? I just don't know where these bugs come from,” Parka said.

  “They are everywhere,” Jar said, cleaning his mandibles with his fingers afterward.

  Parka watched the walking sticks rattle on the hard desert ground.

  “All right,” Parka said, kicking his motorcycle to life. The reactors shot into clutch for a second and then hummed. Jar followed with his. “Santa Fey then?”

  “They are expecting us.”

  Parka patted his satchel, the one containing the Amulet of Ruby Webs, which he had extracted from Casino at great cost.

  “Yes they are. I do not expect traffic. Or to encounter those we disposed of.”

  Parka was thinking of the Worm-Hares.

  “Not under the mountains.”

  “Nope.”

  Parka leaned forward and his bike shot ahead. Jar soon followed. After they broke the sound barrier, Parka put on his headphones. He liked Toby Keith.

  * * * *

  In the great tunnel underneath the mountains, they stopped at a rest stop. They hydrated and Jar sulfurized his joints. There were a couple of other travelers at the rest stop. Others sped by on their motorcycles and flaming chariots. Every once in a while there would be a rumbling sound that would shake the wire grating of the low roof and send dust to the ground. Once there was a low growl far above, like a brane gun backfiring.

  “What's that?” Jar asked once.

  “Taos,” Parka said, not looking up from his hammock and his well-thumbed copy o
f The Toby Keith Review.

  “Ah,” Jar said, going back to his sour acupuncture.

  The human child who was indentured to the rest stop looked up from his abacus. He had a nametag that said SHARON. “They've been going like that for a fortnight. The Black Rooster Company is finally yielding their fortress against the Azalean Gullet.”

  But the two couriers ignored him. Blushing, the child went back to his figures.

  “Say,” Parka said, “what are you going to be for All Hallows Eve?”

  Jar pulled the needle from his spine and blew on the tip. “I was thinking Jack Nicklaus.”

  “Really? I love As Good as It Gets!”

  Three of Jar's eyelids quivered, a sign of confusion and then mild amusement. “No, not the actor. The golfer.”

  Parka raised his eyebrows. “Really? Do you golf?”

  Jar shrugged. “Who are you going to be?”

  “Dwight D. Eisenhower,” Parka said without any hesitation.

  “Really? I love World War II!” It took Parka a few seconds to realize Jar was being a sarcastic mimic.

  Parka sighed.

  “But seriously,” Jar said, perhaps sensing Parka's exasperation, “I would have sworn that you'd be one of the indigenous musicians.” Jar pointed at the cover of The Toby Keith Review, in which Toby was performing in his moon-slave cage for various Being seneschals.

  “I'm not quite so easily typecast, friend,” Parka said. “Not quite so easily in one box or another. I have a lot of interests.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jar said.

  “Anyway,” Parka said, wanting to change the subject a bit, “it won't matter if we can't make Santa Fey by tomorrow.”

  “Ha ha,” Jar said. “Don't worry. We're in the slow season. We're deep underground. The winds of war are incapable of blowing upon our faces.”