Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 104

by Kressel, Matthew

  The endless night painted the world outside the window black. Mrs. Griffin stopped crying. Her fingers pressed the photo’s display, freezing it on a picture of a young husband and wife.

  She set down the phone in a daze. A burst of secret pain went through her. Maybe the kid in her belly kicked.

  He didn’t come home until the small hours of the morning. It was a cold night and he exhaled icicles with each breath. His hands cold and his feet cold, he dug himself under the bed covers. He huddled up for a while before he could do anything else.

  She was still awake. “Back so late again?”

  Slowly, his body relaxed in the warmth. The chill faded and he grew sleepy. He answered, his words indistinct, “Yeah, overtime. Also, this week’s pay, three hundred fifty points, I’ve already deposited . . . ”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Instead, he shut his eyes and fell into a heavy sleep.

  She, however, couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t the first time he’d lied.

  For five months now, he’d come home late every night, usually reeking of alcohol, only to fall asleep as soon as he got into the bedroom. She’d ask him and he’d just say “overtime.” However, he was just an ordinary delivery trunk driver for an AI company. How was he always working overtime? She’d just called his boss and found out the company didn’t have overtime. Not to mention, five months ago, he’d gotten a raise. Five hundred points, not three hundred fifty.

  The time and money he hid became her hidden worry. She was a proud woman, though, and never forced the truth from him. With every lie he cast, her heart cooled a little.

  He went to work as usual. She convalesced at home. Her fetus was already nine months old.

  Her home was cramped and dark. Often, she’d bring out a chair to sit by the curb. The street was lined with plum trees. In the cold weather, each twig exploded with a row of red flowers. She sat under a tree, waiting for him to return home. Car after car, suspended on tracks in mid-air, scratched her gaze as they came and went.

  With so much free time, she counted on her memories to pass the days. She’d first met him under this plum tree. Back then, she was still the daughter of a wealthy family. She was set for life. Designer clothes and expensive jewelry covered her from head to foot. She drove a luxury car. As she passed through, the red plum tree caught her attention. Or, rather, the man standing under the tree did. The red plum stood out against snow covered ground. He stood out like a bunch of plums against the snow of the boundless sky.

  She stopped her car then walked to his side. He smiled, warm laugh lines filling his face. He broke off a branch, giving it to her, saying, “I was just wondering whether there was anything this winter more beautiful than these plum blossoms. But now that I’ve seen you, I know my answer.”

  Right then, she fell in love with him.

  Just like a classical romance, this love ran into her parents’ violent disapproval. Her father had intended to arrange a business marriage for her. He flew into a rage, scolding her and beating her. He took away her purse and car, froze her card, then shut her inside their house. But it was no use. She was determined to marry him. Finally, with a wave of his hand and with an exhausted sigh, her father said one thing to her: Get out, and stay out.

  She spent a long time before she adapted to married life. He drove a truck, delivering robots everywhere. The work was hard and the pay was low. She’d lived in luxury since she was a child, but for him, she threw herself into the oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar of a ordinary life. Once, when she was learning to cook, she cut her finger by accident. The spreading blood scared her into tears. He heard her cry and went into the kitchen. Holding her, he said over and over again, “You don’t have to be in the kitchen. I will. Don’t hurt yourself again.”

  But, now, he’d changed. He’d learned to lie and hide money. Sometimes, his body carried the scent of alcohol and perfume. Everyone knew what this meant. She’d given up her youth and riches, her fingers now smoked yellow, the corners of her eyes now wrinkled. In exchange, she received only the sight of his back receding into the distance.

  The more she thought about it, the more it weighed on her mind. At the foot of the plum tree, she collapsed into tears.

  After his shift, his boss called him in. “Yesterday, your wife called me. She said you always come home extremely late. Her stomach is so large now. It’s not easy. Go home earlier and keep her company.”

  He hurriedly nodded his head. “Yes, yes, of course.”

  After he left work, he didn’t go home. Instead, he went the door of a nightclub in the middle of the city.

  Someone had been waiting too long for him. “What took you so long? Quick, Boss Wang is already drunk. Drive him home.”

  Obsequiously, he bowed again and again. He got into the flying car, started its engine, then flitted to his assigned location. This is what he did every night.

  He drove the nightclub’s customers, delivering them home. He had to beg for a lot of favors before he got this second job. Just one delivery paid at least ten points. Most of those bosses had drunk too much and stank of alcohol. Sometimes, in the embrace of a woman whose clothes were drenched with the spray of perfume, they didn’t go home. Their destination was a guest house. He didn’t mind. He just wanted to be paid.

  He didn’t tell her about this second job. He wanted the money to be a pleasant surprise.

  Five months ago, as he was signing for his freight, his boss told him, “This is LW’s latest domestic robot. It can do all sorts of household chores.”

  He laughed. “What about taking care of a baby?”

  The boss snorted. “Not just babies. This robot has a long term of service. It can take care of someone from birth all the way until death.”

  This sentence moved his heart.

  She was clumsy and not very good at household chores, to say nothing of raising a child. If she had a robot to help her, he wouldn’t spend every work day worrying about her. After that, he asked how much it cost. Twenty thousand Alliance points. This was not a small number.

  So, for these few months, he was always busy outside the house. According to his calculations, in five months, he’d saved three thousand points from his wages. Add to that the hundred extra points he earned every night and he’d now saved eighteen thousand points. Their child would be born soon. He needed to earn money more quickly.

  Tonight, he took a couple, man and a woman, to a hotel. On the road, she tittered as the man’s hands never stopped caressing her. He paid no attention to them, focused on his driving. The hotel wasn’t far. Its neon lights flickered below them.

  Some people. The woman was a little shy, after all. She pushed aside the man’s hand when he reached for her skirt.

  The man was not happy. He roared, “What is there to be afraid of?”

  Despite those words, the man raised his head and looked around. His gaze fell upon the photo on the car window.

  It was of a couple, a man and a woman. Their happiness together shone on their faces. She rested her head on his shoulder. He looked at her with a mild expression. In the background was a cluster of plum blossoms in full bloom among the ice and snow.

  The man, staring blankly, asked: “This photo . . . ”

  Like the man, he raised head and looked at the photo. With an irrepressible joy, he said, “That’s me and my wife. She’s beautiful, yeah? I’m a lucky man. She’s pregnant. It’s a girl. She’ll grow up to be just as beautiful.”

  “Then why aren’t you at home with her?”

  “I have to make money so that I can buy her a present: a robot. So she won’t have to work every day.”

  The man stayed silent.

  The woman, who had just resisted the man’s advances, noticed the man wasn’t touching her any more. Confused, she pulled the man’s hands to her. The man pulled them back, then lit a cigarette. The smoke drifted around the car’s small and narrow cabin.

  When he finished smoking, he said slowly, “Don’t go to the hotel. Take me
home.”

  The woman asked, “To your home? I’m not that kind of—”

  “You can go right now.”

  The man took out his card. He tapped a few numbers on it, put the woman’s finger on its screen, then transferred over that many points.

  The woman grumbled, “It’s enough money, but I have professional ethics. Halfway though, I can’t just—”

  “Go.”

  The women left. He continued to drive on to the man’s house.

  A plain woman came out. She brought the man an overcoat.

  “Didn’t you say you had a meeting tonight?”

  “I canceled it.” The man ran his hands through her hair. “No meeting is more important than you.”

  He watched this play out. His heart roiled with an indescribable feeling. He laughed, started the engine, then slowly left the rich side of town. Suddenly, he thought of her and didn’t want to earn any more money tonight. He wanted to turn in early and spend time with her. Whenever she felt cold—and their house was always cold—she’d rub her hands, wrinkle her nose. The way she behaved was adorable. The way she behaved would worry him for the whole of his life.

  Tonight, he’d use his wallet to stop her hands. He’d rub them slowly until they grew warm from the circulating blood. He laughed at the thought.

  His mind still preoccupied, he didn’t pay attention in both directions. An out-of-control flying car fell off its suspended track. It hit him from the right. The two flying cars rolled over each other then fell out of the sky. They exploded, blooming into resplendent, beautiful flowers.

  She overslept. She waited for him, but he never came home. She got out of bed, went out to the street then stood under the plum tree. If he came back, he’d have to pass through here. When he came back, he’d see her under the plum tree, like when they’d first met, a face set off against plum blossoms.

  The night was as cold as water and she wrapped her clothes tight around her. She’d decided to forgive him. It didn’t matter what he’d done. She’d decided to forgive it all. He was her only worry in the world. Her plan now set, she began to laugh. When he came back, he’d definitely grasp her hands in his and rub them, letting circulating blood make them warm.

  This is how she waited for him, staring at the end of the street, hoping he’d appear from somewhere. Overhead, a cluster of plum blossoms opened in resplendent beauty.

  “I’m sorry . . . I’m genuinely sorry.” LW31 lowered his head in apology.

  Mrs. Griffin shook her head. “It’s not your fault . . . My mom was an ill-fated person. Not long after she gave birth to me, she died. But she was also a fortunate person. After his death, she still used the money to buy you. It shows that she never blamed anyone.”

  LW31 paused, then put its hand on Mrs. Griffin’s shoulder. “In that case, I can now help you carry out some other way of dying. How would you like to die?”

  “Sleeping pills? That way, I won’t feel any pain.”

  “OK.” LW31 answered. “Except that, right now, we have two problems.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “One, within forty-eight hours of overdosing on sleeping pills, not only will you not be able to sleep, but symptoms like gastrospasm, abdominal pain, and foaming at the mouth will emerge. This is because every organ in your body will perform their post-poison stress function. Many people who attempt suicide by overdosing on sleeping pills, because they can’t stand the pain any longer, call for help . . . Mrs. Griffin, I don’t think you will want to endure that sort of pain.”

  Mrs. Griffin closed her eyes. Most of a day passed, it seemed, then her lips quivered. “I’d just like to commit suicide. I just want not to look like a disgrace after I’m dead. Even if I foam at the mouth, you will take care of my corpse for me, right?”

  “Of course. I exist to serve you.”

  “That’s good then.” Mrs. Griffin nodded. “As for the pain . . . Throughout my entire life, I’ve endured too much pain. I’ve long gone numb. Open the drawer and check. How many sleeping pills are left?”

  “Mrs. Griffin, this happens to be the second problem. We don’t have enough sleeping pills.” LW31 opened the drawer and took out the drugs. “A total of seventeen pills. This is a prescription drug. A pharmacy will sell twenty pills at most. Given your build, to cause death you may need eighty-six pills.”

  “Can’t you go out and buy them for me?”

  “Mrs. Griffin, maybe you forgot. The great migration has already begun. Practically everyone has already gone. There are no more pharmacies.”

  Mrs. Griffin sighed. The lamp lit her face. She seemed a little sallow. The years had left gullies on her face.

  LW31 said politely, “Mrs. Griffin, it would be better if you tell me more. Besides your parents, there were other people who loved you, right?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Griffin swiped the photo again. This time who appeared was a lanky young man. Mrs. Griffin glanced at him. Thick tears drifted from her eyes. One night from many years ago floated up to the present.

  Late night.

  Silence.

  Peter and Jason stood silent at the gate at start of the street.

  A street like this one,

  there shouldn’t be anyone standing there.

  A street like this one,

  there shouldn’t have been two men in designer suits standing there at night.

  The start of the street was broken.

  The middle of the street was cold.

  The end of the street was dark.

  This was the most run down street in the city. Normally, few people walked it. It was a crime-ridden street. In dark places, countless eyes opened, stomachs rumbled, waiting for prey to enter.

  Afterwards, the prey were swallowed and digested. Nothing left of them to be spit back out.

  But Peter and Jason stood at the head of the street, relaxed, as though they belonged there. As though this was their home.

  Peter was tall and thin. Standing there, motionless, he seemed like a sharp pencil.

  Jason was short and fat, just like a wax gourd that had rolled all over the ground.

  Jason was smoking. With a deep drag, the flame fled from the head of the cigarette to the end. The entire cigarette was burnt up.

  Peter asked, “Now?”

  Jason blew a puff of thick smoke. “Now.”

  The two men started down the long, dark street.

  The wind blew by. It whimpered like tearful ghosts.

  The people who lived on the street, they weren’t law-abiding folk.

  They were of all sorts. The beggar’s neighbor was a thief. Above the thief lived a prostitute. Across from the prostitute’s balcony was a reliably blundering cheat.

  But they all had one thing common.

  They were poor.

  So poor that they could only live on this old, dilapidated street like snails in their shells.

  To be poor is to suffer. It’s the kind of suffering that freezes the heart stone cold.

  So, whenever someone walked down this street, they usually entered the gaze of the beggar, the thief, the prostitute, and the cheat.

  They’d swindled old men out of their clothes. They’d taken candy from babies.

  They never let even a single cent slip past them.

  But, now, they didn’t dare even plan. They shut their windows. They lay on their beds, grinding their teeth until they sucked blood, not daring to make a sound.

  Because Peter and Jason were walking down the street.

  They walked neither quickly nor slowly. Their every step clicked on the pavement, solid and steady.

  Peter walked six hundred fifty-nine steps altogether. Jason one thousand three hundred fifteen.

  They stopped in front of a room at the tail of the street.

  The room was dark. Its light was out.

  But Jason heard breathing.

  Panting like a fawn running from a hunter’s gun.

  Jason lifted his head and laughed grimly.

  They haven’t
found the wrong place.

  They beat the door three times like drum.

  No one answered.

  Jason continued to pound the door.

  Dull and dreary, the dense dark of the night flustered them.

  “Who is it?” At last, a sound from inside. It was a female voice, as clear as a bell, but trembling.

  Jason said, “It’s me.”

  Peter said, “And me.”

  The woman inside the room said, “Who are you?”

  Peter and Jason said, “We are detectives from Public Safety Bureau of the Alliance of City-States.”

  The woman said, “You shouldn’t have come.”

  Peter said, “But we’re already here.”

  The woman said, “Can’t you just go back?”

  Jason said, “The last person who wanted us to go back is now sleeping in prison.”

  The woman in the room sighed.

  She couldn’t hide from disaster.

  The woman opened the door.

  When she opened the door, she saw short and fat Jason and she saw tall and thin Peter.

  And Peter looked at the woman.

  He couldn’t help but gape at her. She was an extremely beautiful woman.

  There were many standards for judging a woman’s beauty. Some preferred the face, particularly the nose and mouth. Some preferred the figure, obsessing over the breasts, waist, ass, and legs. But no matter who the judges were, once they looked at this woman, they couldn’t deny her beauty.

  Because, regardless of face or figure, she was completely flawless.

  Pretty brows, seductive eyes, a jade nose, a cherry mouth.

  Ample breasts, tiny waist, a round ass, long and slender legs.

  Combined to perfection.

  Jason, instead, looked at the room behind the woman.

  The room was small. The walls were old, but clean. It made one unspeakably comfortable just to look at it. The room didn’t have much furniture, but the owner had clearly chosen every piece with care. Every piece was placed exactly where it ought to be.

  The woman said, “You’ve come to my home in the middle of the night. What do you want?”

  Jason said, “You don’t know what we want?”