Aeon Thirteen

by Aeon Authors

  Love brightened, which actually increased the ambient light level of the room. “Ah! Honesty! How is the old dear?”

  “She’s fine. She sends you her greetings and well wishes.” Misery was relieved to have dispensed with that obligation. The words had been like nettles trapped against her skin.

  “Good. Good.” Love settled down and the room returned to its original shadowy state. “And the storm, you say? How so?”

  Misery described her problem.

  “How awful for you,” Love said, shaking his head. “How can I help?”

  She swallowed in distaste at the honeyed tone of his words, the concern radiating from his eyes. “I need someone to repair the roof. Honesty recommended you. Will you consider it?”

  Love smiled. “I have no need to consider it. I’ll help you, of course. Shall we go look at it together now?”

  They departed for Misery’s house after Love went and filled a tool belt with a tape measure and a few other things he said he would need. He also insisted on making a quick stop in his kitchen “to pack a snack” since it was almost lunch.

  “Sandwich?” Love asked, holding up a picnic basket the size of a sea chest. “I have tuna fish, peanut butter and jelly, hummus with tomato and cheese—”

  “Nothing,” Misery said. She kept her eyes focused on the road ahead, only wanting to be home, to have this over with.

  “Later, perhaps.” Love rummaged in the basket and withdrew an eighteen-inch sub bursting with deli meats. He began to eat it.

  “What do you like to eat? When you eat,” Love asked after he had consumed several bites and they had walked a while in silence.

  “I’m sorry?” Misery said, drifting back from remembering she had still not dried any of her laundry. It would be gloriously, depressingly mildewed by now.

  “I was wondering what you like to eat.”

  Misery arched an eyebrow. “The same thing as most people. Cereal and toast in the morning. Sandwiches at lunch—”

  Love smiled. “I meant what’s your favorite food?”

  “Oh.” Misery considered the matter. “I rather like cold cereal, I suppose.”

  “Flakes? Shredded grains? Crunchy nougats?”

  “Oatmeal.”

  A furrow appeared in Love’s brow. “Cold…oatmeal?”

  Misery scowled. “What’s wrong with that?”

  The furrow vanished. Love shook his head. “Nothing. Nothing of course. It’s all personal preference…”

  Misery stopped walking and faced him. “But?”

  Love shifted from foot to foot. “Well. I mean, Misery, it’s just that most people prefer their oatmeal…you know, warm, if not piping hot.”

  She smirked. “Most people you know, anyway.”

  He looked startled. “What do you mean?”

  Misery started walking again. “I mean it’s not as though you really know everyone, Love.”

  He caught up to her. “I know everyone,” he said. “We all know everyone.”

  She snorted. “You know everyone’s name. That’s not the same thing.”

  “I know that you live alone. I know that you’re unhappy all of the time. I know…” He brightened. “I know that you like cold oatmeal.”

  Misery laughed, a series of hacks that sounded like a neglected engine failing to sputter to life. “Who do you think you are? Empathy?”

  “No,” Love said, suddenly solemn. “My sister is the most amazing person I know. I would never compare myself to her.”

  “Well, good. At least you have some sense.”

  Love grabbed her by the elbow. “Hang on. I’m out here to help you and all you’ve done so far is ignore or insult me. What have I ever done to you?”

  Misery glared at his hand. He withdrew it as though scalded. “Nothing,” she said.

  He shook his head in confusion. “Then why are you behaving so—”

  “Miserably?”

  Love blinked and then laughed. “Oh! I see.”

  Misery shook her head and they started walking again. “There’s a lot you just don’t understand, isn’t there?”

  “About what?” asked Love.

  “About the world,” Misery said. “You think everything is all rainbows, flowers, ripe peaches...” She looked as though she had swallowed a mouthful of curdled milk. “Sleeping kittens.”

  Love made a face that might have become a scowl on someone else. “I know it’s not. There’s you, Woe, Loneliness, Depression, Anger, the twins; but that doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy life a little more than you do.”

  “Actually,” said Misery, “It’s exactly what it means.”

  “Really. Why?”

  “Because,” she said, clenching her grimy fists, broken nails biting into her calloused palms. “Life isn’t all about Happiness,” Misery rolled her eyes, “despite what she says. Life’s just not that simple. Life’s messy. Life’s imperfect. Life’s…complicated.”

  “And you think I’m just some simpleton living in a palace.” Love sounded almost hurt.

  “Well?” said Misery.

  He shook his head. “Well, Misery, then I’m not the only one who doesn’t understand everything.”

  She glanced at him. “Really. What’s so complicated about your life?”

  “Did you happen to notice the scaffolding on the East Wing?” he asked.

  Misery shook her head.

  Love smiled. “Well, I can’t imagine you see much out from under that cloak and umbrella. Hatred set fire to my house last week. I’m doing repairs.”

  She looked at him. “He set fire to it?”

  “Yes…for the third time this month,” Love said. “Before that he was throwing rocks through my windows. Before that he poisoned my gardens. It’s been going on for years.”

  Misery imagined living under such a siege. It would be awful, but too scary to properly enjoy…and all that work. “That’s terrible. I had no idea.”

  He shrugged. “If you spent more time out among us you might discover things are more…complicated than you know.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Do?” The almost-furrow was back. “The only thing I can do—go on with my life. I’m not about to install a security system or hire others to control access to the grounds. I don’t know how to live like that.”

  Misery scowled. “But then he’ll just keep at it.”

  “Most likely,” Love nodded. “But perhaps he’ll tire of it eventually if I don’t give in.” He smiled. “Or at least come to one of my parties without spray painting slurs in the bathrooms.”

  They walked the road in silence for a time after that, speaking only to greet others that they passed. With two exceptions, everyone stared openly at the odd couple, wondering why Love and Misery were traveling together. Courtesy had no such thoughts or, if she did, concealed them. Shame withdrew behind a crumbled section of rock wall, waving them away and ignoring Love’s jovial greeting. Eventually, they arrived at Misery’s house.

  Love blinked, taking in the broken brick walkway strewn with trash, the weed-infested yard, the overgrown hedges, and the empty birdfeeder hanging from a listing, rusted pole. Beyond, Misery’s house slumped, the walls covered in mismatched wooden shingles, the roof bowed enough to be a giant’s saddle.

  “Home Sweet Home,” he said.

  Misery led him inside with some hesitation. She did not want a running commentary on her house. No chit-chattish platitudes. No remarks about how “lived in” it looked. No—

  “Do you have any tea?” Love asked.

  She cringed. “I have Earl Grey…. I’ve been told it’s not very good.”

  Love smiled, amused. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  Misery went to the kitchen and put the kettle on. “Why don’t I show you the roof while that’s heating?” She wanted him gone as soon as possible, before he took it into his head to invite himself into the living room to visit. Before he—

  “Good idea,” he said. “The sooner I see it, the sooner I
can be off to get what I’ll need.”

  She blinked. “Right, then. Follow me.”

  They went upstairs.

  “Well, if you wanted a skylight, this would certainly be an opportunity to add one,” Love said from inside the attic. “But you’re not interested in a skylight, I assume.”

  “No,” Misery said from out in the hall where she had retreated into the deepest shadow available. “I want it covered. Completely.”

  “Alright. Well, I’ll just take a few measurements. Make some notes.”

  A low moan started below them in the house, a sound so despairing and lost that it would drive children into the arms of their parents.

  “Is that your kettle?” Love asked.

  “Yes. I’ll get your tea while you work.”

  When she returned she found Love perched atop a stack of broken furniture, stretching his measuring tape across the top of the hole.

  “Tea,” she said, edging through the sunlight and shielding herself behind a soggy column of boxes.

  “Thanks,” he said. “Almost done.”

  Misery surveyed the attic while she waited. The additional light made it easier to see the cobwebs and their owners. She watched a few spiders crawling along, making their own repairs.

  “There,” Love said. Misery heard the furniture scrape and creak as he descended the stack. He appeared around the boxes a moment later. “Good news. The beams to either side seem strong and aren’t badly bent. You’ll do with a patch rather than a tear off. I can get it done in a day.” He glanced at the tea, as though noticing it for the first time. “Ah.”

  The cracked cup sat in a pool of tea that had leaked into the saucer. She held it out. “Here.”

  “Thanks, again.” He took it and drank some.

  She waited for the inevitable, but Love finished the tea without a word.

  “Well,” he said, carefully handing the cup and saucer back to her so that the tea in the saucer did not spill. “I’ll go and get what I’ll need. Is eight o’clock tomorrow morning too early to start?”

  Misery made a face, as though tasting something sour. “I’m never out of bed before nine-thirty.”

  “You could just let me in and then go back to bed,” Love said. “I just need to get in. If I don’t start until after nine-thirty I might not be able to finish tomorrow. I’m sure you want this over with as quickly as possible.”

  She imagined stumbling to the door, half-asleep, to let this walking ray of sunshine in. Not appealing. But, as he said, she did want this over with. A mumble escaped her.

  “I’m sorry?” Love said.

  “I said ‘I suppose’.”

  Love nodded. “Good. That’s settled. I can find my way out. See you in the morning.”

  He walked out of the attic, leaving her in the shadows. She stood there listening to his receding footsteps on the stairs and then in the rooms below. The front door opened and shut.

  Misery noticed she was sad that he had gone. But it was a new form of sad. One that included a cold pit that had opened in her, draining away her energy to go about her normal life now that she was free to do so. It was unsettling. Distracting. And it persisted for the remainder of the day. She was not sure what to make of it.

  The next morning she woke to the sound of rapping on her window. It jolted her out of a dream in which she was sitting alone in a frigid rain on a beach. She was naked, shivering in the cold, hair matted in clumps to her face and shoulders. Seagulls wheeled and cried. One had just deposited a warm, mushy load of droppings on her head. It was all exquisitely depressing. She glared at the source of the sound that had interrupted the dream.

  Love smiled and waved outside. He was wearing denim carpenter pants and a white linen shirt. He pointed in the direction of the front door.

  The irritation faded at the sight of him. Misery looked at her clock. 11:43. But, being broken, it always read 11:43, so it was entirely possible it was actually eight-thirty. She rubbed her eyes in a feeble attempt to clear her head and made her way to the front door.

  “Good morning. I’m sorry I startled you,” Love said. “Your doorbell doesn’t seem to work and I had already knocked several times. Here, these are for you.”

  He held out a gigantic bouquet of dead roses.

  She stared at them.

  “They’re from my garden,” he explained, still holding them out. “I usually compost the dead blooms but I thought you might appreciate them.”

  Several petals fluttered to the ground. They did look dreary. “Thank you,” she said. Misery stepped back and allowed Love to enter.

  “You can retreat back to bed if you’d like, Misery,” he said. “I can just get to work.”

  “Thank you.” They seemed to be the only words in her vocabulary at the moment.

  He smiled and, carrying an enormous toolbox, slipped past her and headed for the stairs.

  Misery watched him go. When he had vanished she shifted her gaze to the small shrub of dead roses she was holding. They were wonderful—in a way that would only appeal to her. Love understood her. It was a disorienting thought. He had listened to her. It was so thoughtful. It made her feel warm, like the sunlight shining through the door. It made her feel—

  Something deep in her soul scuffled and scratched. That wasn’t right. No one gave her roses. No one gave her anything. And that was as it should be. She was an ugly duckling that actually was what it was and not some lost cygnet in a nursery tale. No one was going to change that. No one could. Misery threw the roses into the yard and slammed the door.

  She went back to bed, and NOT because he had suggested it. Pulling the torn shreds of her comforter over her head, Misery attempted to bury herself and find her way back to sleep.

  Time passed and sleep eluded her. Instead, she listened to Love bump up and down the staircase carrying loads of whatever it was that one needed to fix a roof. Wood, she supposed. Nails. Shingles.

  There was a great crash followed by a second, lesser bang, the tinkle of breaking glass, and then a scraping rattle that ended with a final thump. Misery sat bolt upright.

  “Oh, dear,” said Love, his voice muffled by the distance.

  She went to look. A metal ladder lay at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. Looking up, she saw that one of the steps near the top was now broken and that two of her paintings had been knocked down. Broken glass lay on the stairs.

  “I’m very sorry,” said Love, stooping to pick up one of the paintings. “I stumbled at the top here and dropped the ladder. I could try and replace these, if you prefer.” He held it up so she could see the cracked frame, the shards of glass. “Or is this an improvement?”

  “I know what you’re doing,” Misery said.

  “Oh?”

  “Yes. You’re trying to get me to love you.”

  Love did not react. “I thought I was just being nice.”

  Misery smirked. “Come on Love, I’m not Gullible. The flowers. The fawning over what I want or need. This—” she waved her hand at the scene, “this blatant attempt to make my house more of a disaster.”

  A smile crept onto Love’s face. “Is it working?”

  “No!” She stamped her foot. “I don’t love you. I never will love you. Why can’t you just let me be who I am?”

  Love started down the steps toward her. “Because I want more for you. A better life for you.”

  “I’m not something that needs to be fixed,” Misery said.

  “I didn’t say that,” Love said, stopping two steps up and sitting so they were closer to eye level.

  “It’s what you meant. It’s how you approach the whole world,” she said, waving her arms. “All of your little niceties, all the endless smiles, all the fancy parties. You’re just trying to get everyone to be like you.”

  “Would that really be so bad, Misery?” he asked.

  “It’s wrong,” Misery said. “It’s…unnatural. We all have a place in this world. You think we should all abandon ourselves and just learn to
be like you. But we’d lose ourselves. I wouldn’t be Misery anymore.”

  He stared at her for several seconds. “Are you sure you’re not related to Wisdom?” he finally asked.

  “Distantly. At best.”

  Love chuckled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, you asked me here to fix your roof. Not you.”

  Misery nodded, swept a stray hair into her eyes. “Good.” She looked again at the mess on the stairs. “But you can leave the stairs like that.”

  Our Authors

  Greg Beatty (“What Do We Pay the Moon?”) and his wife live in Bellingham, Washington. Greg has a BA from University of Washington and a PhD from the University of Iowa, both in English, and attended Clarion West 2000. His work has appeared in 3SF, Absolute Magnitude, Abyss & Apex, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, Asimov’s, Fortean Bureau, HP Lovecraft’s Magazine of Horror, the Internet Review of Science Fiction, Ideomancer, Oceans of the Mind, Paradox, SCI FICTION, Shadowed Realms, Strange Horizons, Star*Line, and The New York Review of Science Fiction, among other venues. In 2005 Greg won the Rhysling Award in the short poem category.

  Æon has also published Greg’s poems in issues Six, Seven, Eight,, and Eleven.

  Visit Greg on the Web at http://home.earthlink.net/~gbeatty/

  S. Hutson Blount (“One Avatar, Hold the Anchovies”) has had the usual odd employment history common to those engaging in the disreputable business of fiction. Though possessing no higher education, he pretends that his Navy technical training counts as college. He was spotted in Seattle in the summer of 2005 associating with more talented graduates of his Clarion West class. When he's not thinking up more ways to tell lies to people for money, he masquerades as a devoted husband. Another example of his “work” can be found in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

  David Dumitru (“Little Moon, Too, Goes Round”) fancies himself an emerging literary voice. It’s a good thing, then, that we don’t let him do the writing. It’s us, his characters, who write the stories. Sure, he does the typing and takes all the credit, but it’s us who write the stories. There’s KC Moss, here in Aeon, and Andy Monahans in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. There’s a boy named Oak in All Hallows Magazine, and Frankie, an Australian girl from the Never Never, in ByLine, to name but the most recent escapees. We’d like to thank the editors at Aeon for publishing “Little Moon, Too Goes Round” and letting David think once again that he’s contributed some little smidge to the advancement of the human experience.