by Leena Krohn
I suppose she could also be considered one of the Otherkin. Sylvia was middle-aged and formerly employed in middle management. She had been laid off in the recession, gotten divorced, and then fell deeply into debt. If one were to indulge in a bit of amateur psychology, one might suggest that those experiences played a part in her peculiar situation.
“I am not just one,” Sylvia said. “I am a group of people with only one body. You’re about to ask who live in me. You know my name. I, the one speaking now, have always lived in this body. But I’m also home to an older gentleman, a girl I call Fanni, and a horrible brat of a boy, a real nuisance. Sometimes I think there are still more people in me, but they stay so quiet that I haven’t noticed them.”
I remember Saulus saying that people have seven bodies. And now someone was claiming that one body could hold many identities!
“How long have they lived in you?” I asked, incredulous.
“One of them has been there since the start, since childhood. The other two moved in later.”
She talked about herself like she was a house!
“Would it be possible for me to meet these people?” I asked, curious and disbelieving at the same time. I found the thought fascinating that this person could hold all four seasons, four periods of life.
“Why not—maybe soon if you’re interested. Oh, look, it’s raining,” Sylvia said, got out of the armchair, and went to the window. “I have to go. Goodbye.”
But she made no move to leave. She stayed where she stood, silent, before letting out a heavy sigh. I could only see her neck and back, which now seemed hunched. Water trickled hurriedly down the window pane, each drop forking into two or three branches. The stark view outside the window dimmed, the brick wall and dark sky becoming one. The lamp on my desk seemed to lose its intensity, and the woman’s silhouette seemed to dissolve into the gloom.
“It’s just a shower.”
I was startled to hear a deep baritone reverberate in the room. I hadn’t heard anyone come in, and no one had. He had been there the whole time, I just hadn’t realized it. Sylvia turned away from the window, and I saw her face again, except that it was not hers, not Sylvia’s.
“Sylvia left,” a man said. “I’m Antero.”
Features that had a moment ago looked like the flourishing face of a woman in her prime had become lined and masculine. Her body language had changed entirely. I saw a bent figure, an old man, though one dressed in women’s clothing. I couldn’t get a word out.
“You’re shocked, afraid even,” he said. ”I apologize, you must not be used to this sort of thing.”
“You could say that,” I admitted in a shaky voice. “Would you like to sit down?”
I was trying to be polite, though I hoped that this person wouldn’t stay long.
“Thank you,” he said, and sat in the same armchair that Sylvia had just gotten up from. “I won’t keep you,” he went on, as if having guessed my thoughts. “But I could say a thing or two to help you get over your shock. This is natural, completely natural!”
I wasn’t convinced by this claim, it sounded utterly ridiculous.
“The body, if I may be so bold, is a gate, a road wide enough for more than one traveler. In fact, I think that folks are naturally multiple, a family of selves, but our upbringing and schooling trim us down like you’d do to the branches of a tree.”
“Well! That’s a new theory to me.”
“Society tries to fix us as one, always the same. But that’s a big lie, and it won’t work even if you try. If you really looked at yourself, you’d know there’s more than one of you as well. You’ve got both sexes and all ages in you. The person you think you are is just a small part of all your selves. Most folks just don’t want to admit it.”
I found the idea objectionable. I admit that I remember many times when I “wasn’t myself,” as one says. But usually those times had to do with shame or guilt. It takes courage to admit that the person who had acted in those situations was me and no one else.
“I think one has to seek to be whole,” I said. “At times I feel like I’m not the one who did what I did, or at least that it wasn’t at all typical of me. And you often hear people who regret what they’ve done say, ‘I wasn’t myself,’ but that’s different. It doesn’t mean people have distinct selves.”
“Don’t be so sure. Think about it,” the man said. “This is a fascinating subject, but I can’t stay. Maybe I’ll stop by again for another chat. You have another meeting now.”
“Do I?” I said. ”I don’t think so.”
“She’s already here,” Antero said. “You have a nice day.”
His old voice faded as the being in front of me grew young and lithe.
“What’s that?” asked the girl who was wearing Sylvia’s clothes.
She pointed at the rock ‘n’ roll fish and went to have a closer look. The fish began mewling in its synthetic voice, and the girl laughed with surprise. She danced around a little and then seemed to get embarrassed.
“Are you Fanni?” I asked and went to silence the fish.
“I guess so,” the girl said, a little unsure. “You wanted to meet me? Why?”
“Just out of curiosity,” I said. ”How long have you been . . . or, rather, lived . . . ”
“In Sylvia? A couple of years,” the girl said, as if talking about a rental apartment. She was about to say something else, but before she could, her face twisted and some kind of spasm shook her whole body. I watched this new metamorphosis in shock. She stomped her foot and was no longer Fanni. It had been a very short visit.
“What do you think of my acquaintances?” Sylvia asked. “Fanni didn’t want to go.”
I was bewildered by the blur of events and the sudden switches of people, or at least characters.
“I haven’t met all of them yet,” I managed to say.
“Thank goodness for that. You really don’t want to meet the fourth one. An ill-mannered child, a real menace. One day I’ll find a way to evict him.”
“When you leave and they take your place, where do you go?”
“Sometimes I just go out like a candle and I’m completely gone. That can happen even if I resist. But sometimes I’m in control and can observe the situation and intervene like I did just now driving Fanni away.”
“Can I be frank about what I think of your acquaintances?”
“Go ahead.”
“I’m not completely convinced. Despite everything, I have trouble believing that all these people I’ve met are different from you, separate individuals.”
“So you think I’m acting for you? Faking it?”
I tried to be considerate. “That’s not really what I meant. Perhaps it’s some kind of compulsion, unconscious.”
“Don’t give me that tired old garbage. I’ve been to six different therapists,” she snapped, so angry that I regretted having said anything. “Dissociative hysteria. Ha! I was just thirteen when my parents took me to the first. That one suspected my poor father of incest, that gentle and warm man who conscientiously paid his ridiculous fees.”
“That must have been difficult,” I said in an effort to sound compassionate. In fact, I was still terrified and afraid her face would change again.
To my relief, Sylvia took her coat from the hanger and made to leave. Just her? They all were leaving in the same plaid coat.
“I don’t think we have anything left to talk about,” she said coldly and turned on her heel.
When the door had slammed shut, someone tapped on the window, and I heard giggling and light footsteps running. I thought that Penjami had come by, and I climbed up on a stool to see out. Some menace had drawn a bad word in the dust on the window and run off. Whoever it was, they were probably dressed in Sylvia’s coat.
A Peculiar Flower Shop
Even when the streets are slippery with ice, summer fields are always with me. Florists’ windows are the joys of my evening walks. I can’t resist stopping at each floral window, and never
a week goes by in mid-winter that I don’t come up with a reason to visit a flower shop.
There are florists whose window arrangements seem to radiate out into the street. Other windows are like caves whose depths are illuminated by blossoms. Like campfires, they warm the people wandering the wintery streets. Each flower, though a captive, is an entire summer in miniature. I could stand by a window like that all evening.
When I open the door of a flower shop, my breathing deepens and slows. The room is saturated by a seductive aroma, and my eyes answer the calls of cloaked nectar, though the calls are not meant for me. The hieroglyphs that nature paints on the blossoms are signposts to insects looking for food. They are promises of coming pleasure and of the flower’s resurrection, the birth of another new summer.
The world’s beauty, so cruel and incredible, always has a purpose. It’s never there for entertainment. It is a fighting beauty, always a necessity. How can it also be such a feast for our senses?
That day, I had intended to buy a poinsettia. Maybe I would take it to my aunt, maybe I’d keep it myself, I hadn’t decided.
The flower shop was crowded with people buying Christmas baskets decorated with silk bows, spiral candles, and lichen. Plastic elves had been shoved between hyacinths, lilies of the valley, and red tulips. The arrangements were tasteless and the flowers looked a bit wilted. I couldn’t see the usual saleswoman, the people behind the counter complete strangers. I supposed the shop had changed owners.
“Where’s the other lady?” asked a woman in a black dress who was holding a potted white azalea. She didn’t seem happy either.
“Oh, she switched careers,” said one of the new salespersons, a short blonde woman whose hair hung down past her shoulders. She didn’t look at the woman who had asked the question. The older of the two women was tying a bouquet of lilies with hurried motions. I guessed they were mother and daughter. The atmosphere in the shop was agitated and unpleasant, but that was to be expected at Christmas time.
Just as my turn came up, I happened to look up at the top shelf, which was stacked with pots and vases, and saw a pretty little basket woven from birch bark. I was overcome by an intense desire to buy it. I decided I would plant my poinsettia in it.
“How much is that?” I asked.
“I can’t remember the price, but I’ll check it for you,” the younger woman said in a bored voice. I was embarrassed to have troubled her at this busy time. She climbed up a step ladder to reach the bark basket. On the way down she slipped and nearly lost her balance.
“Look out! Don’t step on those,” the older woman said and pointed at something on the floor behind the counter that I couldn’t see.
“Of course I won’t,” the blond woman snapped. “Don’t order me around!”
The unexpected severity of her reaction surprised me. Maybe she had just had a bad fright from her slip. It was strange to see her face darken with rage from such a harmless little comment. Her pretty mouth twisted into a malevolent expression. She bared her teeth like a mongrel dog.
I had a bill ready in my hand. Instead of calming down and taking my money, this strange person ignored me completely and just stared angrily at her colleague, who was perhaps also her mother. Not necessarily the happiest of arrangements, I thought.
The awkward moment just wouldn’t pass. The daughter’s voice grew louder and higher. She was speaking very quickly now, scolding and cursing, but I couldn’t make out the words. It sounded like she had switched to some unknown tongue.
The older woman didn’t turn or answer. She was still trying to finish the bouquet, but I could see her hands trembling and her forehead turning red. All of a sudden, the worked up saleswoman jumped behind her mother and hit her hard between the shoulder blades. Then the victim lost her patience, she grunted, turned, and quick as lightning, slapped her assaulter across the cheek. The daughter spat in her mother’s face.
The azalea lady in the black dress looked shocked.
“What are you doing?” she yelled. “At Christmas of all times!”
The women didn’t seem to hear her. They were fighting silently now except for groaning and panting, as if they were in some kind of wrestling match. Without my noticing, they had moved from behind the counter to the middle of the floor, maybe to get more room for their scuffle, which was intensifying. The other customers drew into a tighter and tighter circle. They didn’t say anything, didn’t try to stop what was going on, not even the old azalea lady. Just the opposite, everyone was watching the incident, wide eyed, as if it were a professional bout they had paid to see. I was afraid I’d soon hear applause and cheering, but the audience’s silence remained unbroken.
Most terrifying of all, it seemed like the flowers had turned towards the sudden flash of violence as if mesmerized. Were the buds swelling and the blossoms becoming more exuberant? Were the colors deepening as if a bright light had been shined on them?
The women’s heels clattered on the floor as they tried to kick each other. In the heat of their battle, a glass vase filled with flowers was knocked off the window sill and shattered. The women trampled the flowers under their heels. Petals were strewn everywhere like drops of blood. I was overtaken by fear and panic.
I pushed my way to the door. The crowd gave way slowly and unwillingly. The unusual duel seemed to have captured its full attention. I escaped the store empty handed just as the grunting and clattering of heels was joined by yells and cries. Part of the shop window crashed onto the sidewalk.
When I got home, I realized I had left a plastic bag in the store. Though it only held a couple of oranges and the daily paper, I was still annoyed.
When Noora called that evening, I mentioned that the flower shop had changed owners and that the new ladies seemed a bit strange. For some reason, I didn’t want to tell even her what had actually happened. What had actually happened? Did I even know that myself?
“I don’t think the store has changed owners,” Noora said.
After the holidays, about a week later, I passed by the same store. As I was fleeing, I had heard the sound of glass shattering, but the window was undamaged now. They must have replaced the glass. There was no sign of the incident. The flower arrangements were particularly beautiful that day: blue hydrangeas, poinsettias, simple and elegant baskets of hyacinths.
Christmas was over, but I still wanted a poinsettia, and I remembered that I needed to buy a bottle of seaweed extract. I wasn’t eager to see the arguing women again, but my longing for flowers overcame my hesitation, and I ventured into the store. Besides, I hoped to find the plastic bag with my oranges and out-of-date daily paper. To my relief, the former owner was inside tying a mourning band around a wreath.
“Oh, you’re back,” I said.
“Back?” she said. “But I haven’t been gone.”
“And the window has been fixed,” I said before I fully understood what she had said.
“It was never broken,” the woman said, even more confused. “Not in my time, at least. And I’ve been here for a long time, almost twelve years now. You must be thinking of a different shop.”
I was embarrassed and said, “I’m sure you’re right—it must have been a different flower shop.”
But when I looked up at the top shelf, I saw the small birch bark basket that I had wanted to buy. I knew that I was in the same shop where the brawl had happened. It was the same to me, at least, but perhaps not to everyone else.
I didn’t want the basket anymore, and I didn’t dare ask whether anyone had forgotten a plastic bag full of oranges in the flower shop. My life had become stranger than the articles in The New Anomalist.
The Fastest Way to Travel
Faith had recovered, though very slowly. Her heart medication had been increased, and the prognosis was that she only had a short time left. The Marquis never left her alone in his apartment, and now always brought her to the office during the day, though only on the condition that there were no datura seeds anywhere. I assured him that I wouldn
’t think of keeping them in the office anymore.
Faith spent her diminishing days asleep on the dragon mat, and I had to half carry her to do her business in the empty lot next to the railway tracks.
Raikka had also come back after a short break. He finally brought his article on hole teleportation. Neither of us mentioned his finger, but I could see that the end of it was still wrapped in bandages. I suspected it hadn’t healed properly.
“Hole teleportation is the fastest and best way to travel,” Raikka assured me.
I wished that Raikka hadn’t come just that day. I was having one of my bad moments, and it was hard to focus my eyes, let alone get excited about hole teleportation. My head was humming. I had drunk at least a gallon of water. I decided, once again, that I would have to give up datura tea, completely. As soon as he came in, Raikka said, “It smells funny in here.”
“Could you tell me, in a couple of words, what hole teleportation is,” I asked. “I don’t have the time right now to read your article.” (In fact, I wasn’t able to.)
“Hole teleportation uses the geometric characteristics of the universe to move objects. It sounds amazing, but any object or creature can be transported to any point in the universe just as long as it’s first shifted outside the universe.”
“Really?” I said. “And just how does one go about that?”
“You see, if you send an object outside the universe, where there is no time or space, the object can’t stay there, of course. That’s why it instantaneously appears at a different point in our universe. Before the object is sent out, it’s enclosed in a vacuum made of virtual holes. It’s now completely isolated and in a place that is not a place, in a time that is not time, a location governed by the geometry of a black hole.”
“Is that so?”
I was very dull-witted that day. As far as I could see, I still hadn’t gotten an answer to how the object is enclosed in a virtual hole in order to zap it somewhere inside the universe, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask.
