Lament for the Afterlife

by Lisa L. Hannett

  Typical bureaucrat, Peyt thinks, grinding the outburst from his eyes, focusing on Cardea’s markings. She sure knows how to waste good words.

  In the interests of a future present.

  Peyt reads it over and over, but repetition does not spark understanding.

  “That’s it,” he tells Euri. “The whole inscription.”

  Who cares, she says with a shrug. Eyeing the watch like a jeweller, head cocked, squinting, she continues, It looks expensive.

  Quickly, he shoves it back in the box before the driver sees it. Anyone else gets curious the way his sister did, Peyt figures, and none of these parcels will be delivered today. Euri’s not wrong: the watch will fetch a good price at the nightmarkets, even with the damage. Enough to rent them a bigger apartment. A unit maybe. A place to sleep four without anyone having to share a room. Tantie May doesn’t have kids of her own, but she’s always loved the baby. And now that Mimi’s almost willing to trust her—at least ready to believe she won’t up stakes and run out on them in the middle of the night—May could stay on as a nanny. She could move with them, keep Mimi company while Peytr’s on the road.

  It’s not like Cardea knows where to find him. She hired him at a bar for fuck’s sake. No proof of delivery required, no names exchanged, no consequences… . And like Euri said, that fledgling Pidge ditched his load at the first opportunity—and no doubt Hoad would be Three on the PM’s nameless list of Pigeons, but once his cards come out he isn’t going anywhere fast. It was a risk Cardea took, a huge risk. So what does she expect?

  “Pull over,” he says. The cab emerges from the alleyway, rounds the corner, and the mules pull up stubborn while blue lines of Watchmen troop across the intersection, blowing whistles and flat-palm ordering the traffic to stop.

  But no, Peytr thinks, clutching but not pulling the door handle. No, no, no. I’m not low as them. Guaranteed I’m the only one’ll see this piece to its destination. Besides, if word got around… . Nobody hires a thief, Peyt knows, and he needs this job. Not just to support his family—to escape it.

  Euri rolls her eyes.

  A parade of recent evacs is herded down the road, whistles and batons keeping them in single file. Clothes drenched and stuck to their drooping bodies, ’winds straggling into their faces, hair soaked dark and plastered to their heads. Mothers dragging pale toddlers, fathers cradling suitcases, children wailing by the roadside as guards prod them along. White numbers sprayed across every set of slumped shoulders—across jackets and blouses, shawls and bare skin—a hurried sequence of seven figures, dripping paint.

  Bet their hands are all carved up like Ma’s, Euri says, and the twist in Peyt’s guts tell him she’s right.

  Fuck her, he thinks, re-wrapping the box and loosely tying it. Fuck Cardea.

  But your fare, calls the driver as Peyt opens the door. These is nearly grey lands… . And we ain’t that far now… . And d’ya even know the way?

  A bit late for honour among bastards, Peytr thinks, telling the man to keep the coin. Consider it a tip, he says. For your concern. The mules bray, long lashes slowly sweeping over milky brown eyes. Turned in his seat, the driver catfishes his mouth like an airship portal; up and down, up and down, fat lips flapping. Peyt leans in close to see if tiny passengers are lining up on his pasty tongue for the flight.

  “Let’s go,” he says after a minute, and Euri follows.

  ####

  “What you staring at, darlin’?”

  Blink: an ibis.

  Blink: a water buffalo.

  Blink: “Flamingos,” Peytr says. “But I’m looking for a hawk.”

  The skingirls smile and preen and ruffle their crimson skirts. Three of them, standing at the mouth of a wide alley. High and dry on a rising shore of trash. Sticking to the early afternoon shadows between a pharmacy on the ground floor of a high rise and a brownstone-turned-masonic hall. White halos flicker from fluoros mounted on the drugstore’s façade: tubes curved into pill-shapes, crosses, stars. Through a haze of drizzle, the light softens the sharpest edges of the girls’ faces. Hook-noses, arched brows, cheekbones, canines. It leaches life from their features, darkens the pits and hollows.

  “Look at that uniform,” one of the girls says. The blonde skinny one. The ibis. “Got your coat on wrong way around, though. Gutside out.”

  “Maybe he wants us to flip it for him,” says the water buffalo, a tubby brunette wearing a bandeau so tight, her cleavage is mashed up to the rolls round her throat. She takes a step further back into the alley, leans against a dumpster and starts to unlace the ties on her skirt.

  The third wrinkles her nose. If her tangled hair was pink instead of blue, Peyt thinks, this one could be Gerte’s twin. “Always so desperate,” she stage-whispers to the ibis, tut-tutting as she nods at the buffalo. Turning back to Peytr she says, “What kinda hawk you after, soldier? High or low-flyer? We know a lot of birds around here.”

  Thinking of the gold’s quality, the watch’s craftsmanship, Peyt shrugs, reluctant to give too much away. “Depends on who’s soaring nearby.”

  “Ooooh, we got an eager one, Sissy,” says the ibis, slinking closer. She walks her fingers up Peyt’s front, toys with his hood strings. He grabs her hand to stop it from going any further; it’s hard and callused and colder than Euri’s.

  On the street behind him, umbrellas bob in both directions, people hurrying with heads down, taking advantage of the easing rain. Velos splash after them, motors and pedals plonking, while twice-a-days trundle to and from the depot, windows streaked with passengers’ breath. No one pays them any attention. Peyt had thought about catching a lift back to the suburbs, but Euri didn’t want to be trapped. We’ve got legs, she’d said. Then, always the riler, And mine are way stronger than yours. For the past forty minutes or so they’ve gone east, skirting the parklands, aiming for the storm-channel that will lead them back to Peytr’s neighbourhood. They’ve hiked almost to the other side of the city, and still Euri has had no trouble keeping up. Now she’s hanging on to Peyt’s belt, pulling, urging him to keep going.

  “Just a minute,” he says, and the skingirls chortle.

  “Aw, you made him all shy, Nolene.”

  “Look at that blush! Never had three at once, I reckon.”

  “Never had even one, more like.”

  Peyt sputters, choking on too many words. The women cackle, their laughter forced and shrill. Euri tries to wedge herself into the huddle, but the girls are too close, too quick. Now the water buffalo adds her bulk to the group; she bumps him from behind, smothered breasts pressing against his ruck. Reaching around, she hugs him deeper into the alley while Euri shouts, Retreat!

  “How many greys you killed, soldier,” says the blue-haired Gerte, hands exploring Peyt’s chest, ribs, hips, cock. He grunts as she squeezes, none too gently. Groans as she pulls him hard.

  “How many greys you fucked?” he gasps.

  Blink: the skingirls are eyeless

  Blink: they’re serpent-haired sirens

  Blink: they’re ghosts.

  “Why,” asks the flamingo, arm jerking faster. “That turn you on, Captain?”

  The other girls paw Peytr’s jacket, rub under his ruck and shoulder bags, pat his buzzing hood, grope his waist. They’re searching, he thinks. Frisking.

  “I’m not a Cap—”

  Euri kicks Peyt’s trembling legs, lands several punches and yells, Retreat!

  “’Course you’re not, soldier,” says the ibis. “A Cap would be out on the field, wouldn’t he, Sissy?”

  “A Cap would wear his uniform gutside in.”

  “A real Cap wouldn’t be hawking,” says the flamingo, leading them all toward a nest of old clothes and tin cans, moulding onionskins and cellophane. “He’d be blasting the grey shit off our beat. Making it so no one’s gotta sell nothing they don’t want to.”

  “Sing it, Sissy,” says the buffalo, slamming Peytr with her full weight. His face smashes into the concrete wall and

  Blink: gre
ys leer in the shadows and Blink: smoggy fists pummel Peyt’s kidneys and nuts and Blink: it’s three on one and Blink: the Whitey’s mouth crackles Retreat! Retreat! and Blink: his skull crashes into a growing red patch and Blink: Euri’s howling and flailing and struggling against them but her arms are pinned and Blink: “Don’t hurt her!” and Blink: his arms are pinned and Blink: “Don’t hurt—” and Blink: his packs are gone and Blink: his pants are down and Blink: the birds are squawking “Traitor!” and Blink: he can’t escape and Blink: a gold watch isn’t escape and Blink: he’s balls-down on the ground and Blink: his head rammed hard into the base of the wall and Blink: rammed and Blink: rammed and Blink: he frees an arm but doesn’t hit and Blink: “Coward!” and Blink: stilettos are crushing, breaking, puncturing, penetrating and Blink: he shields his wordwind, protects it, nothing else, lets them give, let them take, whatever they want, but not this. Not this. Not this.

  Mimi found them a couch a few weeks ago, beige with black and brown stripes, that looks almost new by lamplight. She’s sitting on the middle cushion, knitting a baby blanket out of old sweaters. To her left, Euri’s perched on the sofa’s fat arm, dandling the little one on her knee. The tiny girl gurgles, cheeks shining with his sister’s kisses.

  Peyt runs toward them. His feet wear holes in the carpet but make no progress. Wind whistles past his ears, drowning out the sound of his sobbing.

  “Isn’t she gorgeous?” Mireille asks, without looking up from her needles. “Couldn’t you just gobble her up?”

  The baby coos and

  Blink: she’s little Zaya and

  Blink: she’s little Ned.

  “How can you love a kid you barely know?” Peyt cries, legs pumping, left right left right left, going nowhere.

  Euri smirks, shifts the bundle in her arms, and says, Retreat.

  When he comes to, it’s so dark Peyt touches his sockets just to be sure his eyes aren’t gone. The lids are marshmallow, gummed with blood and gunk, the lashes pulling like Velcro as he slits them open. A soft white glow beckons him from the street. A trail of light-crumbs glinting off water and buckles and scattered coins, showing him the only way out of the alley. He blinks, but there’s no escape from the throbbing in his head. His back. His sides. His arse. His groin. Hands tucked under his chin, Peyt’s lying in a puddle—no, puddles—some sticky, some piss-reeking, all numbing. Not numbing enough.

  “Euri?” he croaks, then spits blood and teeth. “You there, Euri?”

  The girl doesn’t answer, but he thinks he hears her quiet sniffling. Muck bubbles from his nose as he releases a nervous breath. Across the alley, a balled silhouette gets on all fours and crawls over, coming close enough to touch but not touching. Oh, Peytie. Oh, Peytie. Oh, Peytie.

  “Help me up,” he says, jaw aching but intact. Euri rocks back and forth, hugging her stomach, as if she’s the one with cracked ribs. Alone, Peytr gets onto his elbows, then has to wait for the spots in his vision to clear. On hands and knees, he sways with innards churning. Heaves bile until his throat burns. With one hand out, propped against the wall for support, he finally straightens. With the other, he tentatively pats himself down. Gravel and filth are ground into his pelvis, his pubic hair, the crease between his legs. Liquid weeps from a hole in his thigh—shallow, he hopes—and pebbles of glass chafe the gashes in his calves. He brushes off what he can, then explores the scrapes on his arms, the welts on his cheeks, the crooked mess of his nose. Last, he drops his hood. Runs shaking fingers through his ’wind.

  Mostly whole.

  Mostly.

  Once Peytr’s standing, Euri starts to calm down. Still folded in on herself, she manages to help haul up his pants, even rolls the waistband since the skingirls stole his belt. The cunts and their feral nest are gone—along with his provisions, Cardea’s bag of seeds, and every coin he had, except the few they’d spilled and the one or two he’d stashed in his boots. Groaning with each step, he shuffles along the alleyway. Finds his ruck tossed in the mud, empty. Two of Jean’s shells rolled into a sog of cardboard boxes, the shirt Esther gave him trampled in a pile of shit. Skingirls have enough red on them already, Peyt figures; their anger’s strong enough without grenades. He rescues shirt and shells and, poor-pawing through the trash for a plastic bag to put them in, he finds his satchels, gutted like the Pigeon who’d made them.

  “They got the watch,” he says bitterly, stepping out of the dark passage and into the pharmacy’s light. He leans against the wall to catch his breath, chest brewing a wracking cough that ends in splash of pink spew. A bell jingles as a customer leaves the shop, the glass door swinging shut behind her. She glances Peyt’s way just long enough to really see him before hurrying off in the other direction. “They got the fuckin’ watch.”

  Euri sidles up close. Carefully, she wraps her arms around Peytr’s hips. Nuzzles into his belly. Squeezes until it hurts.

  “Enough, kiddo,” he wheezes, and Euri pulls away. She thumps his cargo pocket, a quick one-two with her palm, then skips into the drugstore without turning to see if he’ll follow. Of course, Peytr thinks, tracing the flat box’s outline through the cloth. Crushed, but intact. Euri must’ve slipped it in there before leaving the cab. She was always thinking ahead.

  “Wait up,” he says. “I’m coming.”

  The pharmacy walls are bare concrete, its floor a garish marble tile. Rows of steel shelves are cleared of anything worth stealing; what’s left is a few rolls of bandages, bundles of sterilised rags, vacuum-sealed ponchos, creams and outdated makeup, mineral spirits, neatly-stacked towers of polypropylene bottles ready to be filled. Behind the counter, a greasy-haired white coat doles out pills on a first-come, what’s-in-stock basis. An old stumpey is being served while a pair of young mothers waits in line with their snotty-faced kids.

  Peytr limps from aisle to aisle, wondering what kind of meds he can get for thirty cents and a couple of shells. Right about now he’d take anything to dampen the hot thumping around his cracked bones. The tear-gas-burning in his sinuses and throat. The fire of shame under his skin.

  “Euri,” he whispers, looking around and over shelves. “This is no time for hide ‘n’ seek.” People sniff and scrunch up their faces as Peytr walks by—even the gibbering guy wheeling past on his way to the exit, a colostomy bag overflowing into a bucket rigged under his chair. Peyt swallows a hard lump. Even a fuckin’ crip stinks less than him.

  He rounds a corner into the farthest aisle, where the wall is lined with bottled jewels. Polishes of all colours, dusty but still sparkling under the ceiling fluoros. Liquid face paint and shimmering powders. Test tubes of lipstick smearing coral and ruby and antacid pink gunk onto little rectangular mirrors. Peyt catches glimpses of his reflection, but can’t tell if all that red is on him, or on the glass.

  Standing in front of a garish display, a straight-hipped woman with long red braids is smudging blush onto pasty cheeks. She tilts her head this way and that, trying to get a good angle in a convex mirror, under bad lighting. The colour makes her look green, Peyt thinks. And no amount of goop is going to make her any less plain.

  “Euri?” he whispers again.

  The red-head turns and smiles, shaking her head.

  “Amelia,” she says. “You Mischa?”

  “What?” Peyt scowls. “No, I’m—” No names, soldier “—Two.”

  Amelia snorts and says, “Well, you’re looking pretty banged up there, Two. Half your luck if Papa Syd has anything strong enough here for you.” She clips the blush’s plastic container shut, slips it into the back pocket of her jeans, and pulls the hem of her sweatshirt down to cover it. “I don’t think anything in this place,” she tips her head at the makeup, “is going to be much help with—” flutters her hand in the general direction of his face “—all that.”

  “Suppose I’ll take my chances,” Peyt says, stifling another wet cough. Mouth tanging with acid and blood. Thumbing crust from his nostril, he turns and looks out over the shoulder-height rows, consciously not-staring a
t the string of glass beads swirling around Amelia’s neck.

  “I don’t have much,” he says quietly, heart pounding. He picks up a vial of nail polish remover, puts it back down. Picks it back up again. Turns it over and over in his grimy hands while he speaks. “But I’d give it all for one of those pretty pearls you’re wearing.”

  “Ah,” she says, fingering the necklace. “These beauts are spoken for, my friend.”

  Peyt sighs. Puts the vial back down. “Thanks anyway.”

  “Tell you what,” Amelia says, reaching out to stop Peyt from leaving. Startled, he looks down at her, but can only guess what she’s thinking. There are no thoughts eddying above her bright copper plaits, no insights sneaking out of her pores. ’Windless, she gazes up at him without sneering or dry-retching or wincing. She doesn’t brush off the crud on his sleeve, doesn’t wipe her palm before ferreting in her hoodie’s pouch. Brown eyes give him a quick once-over. Two seconds, tops, and Amelia seems to take everything in—from the tightly-bound hood to the sagging satchels to the walked-thin soles of his boots.

  “Tell you what,” she says slowly. “Clean yourself up and I’m sure we can come to some kind of arrangement.”

  In her hand, four silver-wrapped spheres. She tucks three deep inside his left satchel, then carefully peels the foil off the fourth. Listing three addresses—“You got to remember them all, right? Even when you got your glow on …”—she pops the misshapen glass marble into his mouth, and tells him to meet her at the bodega across the road when he’s done.

  “Right,” he says, floating on sweet cuts, inhaling clouds. “Done. I just have one thing to get rid of first, and then it’s done.”