The Saffron Malformation

by Walker, Bryan

  Quey stood watching her for a moment longer when she must have felt a tingle on the back of her neck because she looked up and at him. Her face was round but not fat and filled with the confusion that comes with recognizing something you can’t place. “I know you,” she said thoughtfully, her large grey blue eyes squinting slightly.

  Nodding, Quey stepped forward into the room. It smelled of chemicals and sterilization. It smelled a bit like a hospital but more like a morgue. “We met a few times,” he began but she interrupted.

  “Quey?” her eyebrows raised just a bit.

  A smile touched half his mouth and he answered, “That’s me.”

  Her expression melted into suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tell the truth I came to find you.”

  She nodded, growing agitated. “He send you?”

  Quey sighed, “Yeah.”

  “Well I don’t want to hear it,” she said stern.

  “Natalie,” he began but was interrupted again.

  “No,” she snapped. “If he wants to tell me something he can do it himself. My whole life,” she stopped, reconsidered, collected herself and started again. “If he wants to talk to me, he knows how to find me.”

  Quey nodded. “He wanted to apologize.”

  “Then he can do it himself,” she snapped briefly then calmed herself. “I’ve never hidden from him.”

  Like a band aid, Quey decided and before he could consider it any further he said, “He’s dead.”

  Natalie stared at him, frozen, trembling slightly, eyes beginning to shimmer, disbelief or maybe denial shrouding her with its false protection.

  Quey nodded. “That’s why I’m here. I don’t know if he’d have figured it out on his own but forced to reflect on his ways at the business end of a life and death situation he knew he’d done wrong by you. He didn’t go into specifics but he wanted me to tell you he regretted the way he handled things and he wished he’d have been man enough to say so sooner.”

  “How?” she asked, hollowly.

  “In the raid on Fen Quada.”

  “Raid?” she asked. “I thought,” she got that far before it was her turn to be interrupted.

  “I know what the news said,” he told her. “Been seeing a lot of news these last few months that isn’t the truth. The truth is the Angels of the Brood burned Fen Quada to the ground. Truth is they burned a lot of places,” he went on then remembered why he was here and stopped.

  Natalie looked down at her desk, her hands resting on a small stack of papers in front of her, trembling.

  “I just assumed he’d collected his money and moved on,” she said dryly.

  Quey crossed to the desk and sat in a chair opposite her.

  “You’re sure…” she trailed off, looking up at him in a last desperate grasp for hope.

  He nodded solemn.

  She looked down at the desk for a moment then slammed her hand against it and blurted, “Fucking stubborn old man!”

  Quey glanced over his shoulder at the opened door but there was no one in the hallway beyond.

  “Why,” she sobbed. “Why didn’t you just…” she got that far and then the tears came in a gush. Quey stood and moved around the desk. He stood beside her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She buried her face against him and sobbed for a while and he ran a hand over her hair.

  “He thought I was making a mistake,” she finally said in a soft voice. “He never bothered to find out if it was true.” Tears came again and she sobbed, “I should have told him I was happier this way. That I wouldn’t change a thing even if I could.”

  Quey stood quiet with Natalie pressed against his belly, holding her gently, when he spotted the picture on her desk of her and her daughter, a thirteen year old version of the woman he was consoling.

  He remembered Railen talking about his daughter being a doctor some day. Of course if you asked Natalie she always claimed she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do. She’d gotten into the medical program, however, and oh how Railen had celebrated. He remembered too, years later, how he suddenly didn’t want to talk about it anymore until one drunken night when he went on a rant. He’d said horrible things he’d never tell Natalie about. She’d dropped out of school because she was pregnant and now she taught anatomy in high school.

  “He knew,” Quey told her. She pulled away and looked up at him. “And I do believe he wished he could change the way he was about it.”

  She collected herself in a single tick and wiped her eyes. “Sorry,” she said between sniffles.

  He smiled, “No need.”

  She took a few moments, pulled a tissue from a box on the edge of her desk and wiped her eyes before saying, “Thanks.”

  “Come on,” he offered with his hand extended.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “You could use a drink.”

  She chuckled, “Probably, but I can’t. I have to pick up Amber. That’s my daughter,” she added pointing to the photo and Quey nodded. “She’s at a friends’ house. And then there’s dinner and…” she trailed off with a sigh.

  “Listen, Reggie and Dusty and his fiancé Rachel are in town too. I’m sure the three of them… well Rachel at least, should be able to keep Amber alive for a few hours.”

  She smiled and nodded and let Quey lead her out of the school.

  “I was halfway through my first year of my second tier of med school when I got pregnant,” Natalie offered over her second snifter of shine. She and Quey were sitting at the table in her kitchen while Reggie cooked some burgers on the stove. Rachel and Dusty had taken Amber and her friend Lauren out to eat.

  “He was so proud when I took the aptitude test and the results came back. He never understood.”

  “Understood what?” Quey asked, taking a sip. He’d broken out a bit of the blackberry shine, at Natalie’s request.

  “I could be a doctor, sure. I even enjoy the idea of it but the schedule,” she took a moment to sip. “I knew even before I went into the program I wasn’t going to like it. I wanted a life, you know. Twelve or fourteen hour class days and then on call all the time, sometimes working seven days a week.” She shook her head. “Even at sixteen I knew that wasn’t for me. When I took the test that came back saying I was knocked up it was almost a relief. The part about being a doctor I really enjoyed, I found in being a teacher.” She fell silent, allowing the sizzle of frying meat patties to take over the room. Quey waited patiently as whatever memory had arrested her slowly released. “I wanted my daughter more than I wanted to be a doctor. Wanted her father too,” she added with a touch of bitterness, “or so I thought at the time. Now I think it’s for the best he’s not around.” She didn’t believe what she’d said and she took a heavy sip of shine to wash the lie back down.

  “Everyone down with cheese and onion?” Reggie asked.

  Quey and Natalie met eyes for a moment and then started to laugh.

  “What?” Reggie asked, looking from one of them to the other.

  “Yes for me,” Quey proclaimed and Natalie followed with an affirmative of her own. “To cheese and onions,” he offered, holding his snifter out toward her.

  Natalie tapped his glass with her own and said, “Here, here.”

  They both drank.

  “I told you not to get into the blackberry,” Reggie said, slapping a slice of onion on the patties frying in the pan. “Shit makin’ y’all crazy over there,” he finished as he dropped cheese over the onion and set a cover on the pan.

  “Little crazy never hurt anyone,” Quey said, smiling. “Hell, probably being a little crazy’s the reason I can sit at this fine table with you questionable sorts right now. A saner person would have perished years ago.”

  “A little crazy’s the only reason there’s a here for you to sit in right now,” Natalie added and they raised their glasses to each other once again before taking a sip.

  The moonshine had blessed them all with a healthy appetite and when Reggie finally placed the plate of bur
gers on the table with another of homemade fries beside it, chewing and the occasional groan of satisfaction were the only sounds for at least a minute. If Reggie had no use beyond his ability to cook meat he’d still be more valuable an asset than most people Quey had met in his travels.

  Natalie was looking down at the fries on her plate, had been for some time, Quey came to notice, when he heard the beginnings of her soft whimpers. Quey looked up at Reggie who nodded slowly.

  “Fucking stubborn old man,” she blurted and then the tears came freely.

  Quey put down his burger and after a brief moment of listening to her soft sobs he moved to pour a bit more shine in her snifter. She shoved it away and he had to retract the bottle quickly to keep from pouring it all over the table.

  “I don’t want any more. That was his answer to everything. Anything that happened, pour a fucking drink. Don’t deal with it. Don’t talk about it. Don’t do a fucking thing just pour a fucking drink.”

  Quey set the bottle aside.

  “I’m sorry,” she apologized, looking over at him.

  Offering her a smile he assured her, “It’s alright.”

  “He was always nice to Amber,” she started, staring thoughtfully down at her plate. “Sent presents every birthday. On holidays.” She looked up at him. “You know why I didn’t go back? Why I stayed away for so long?”

  Quey shook his head arbitrarily.

  “I couldn’t stand the way he’d look at me. I could see his judgment in every glance. His disappointment. That wasn’t the only reason though, not really, not fully. Really I thought he’d get it. I thought…” she trailed off.

  The air in the room was heavy.

  “He did,” Quey offered and she looked up at him. “Long before Fen Quada burned, he’d known he was being an idiot, probably from the beginning. He used to talk about you, showed pictures you must have sent of you and Amber and videos. He always did it with a smile. Matter of fact it wasn’t until the end I even knew you were on the outs.”

  Tears shimmered on her eyes and her lips trembled as she told him, “It must have been Amber.” She looked down, ashamed. “I never sent him anything.”

  Then she buried her face in her hands and cried for a spell. Reggie stood and went into the other room. Quey stayed with her and they talked about her father, about the years they’d missed out on and the minutes before there were no more. She wanted to know the details and he gave them, as best he could, the pleasant and the gruesome. She listened to him recount for a long time, asking the occasional question, and when it was over she sat quietly. She thought she’d be satisfied when she got to the end of it all but what she felt was nothing. Empty.

  Eventually she moved into the living room and sat on the sofa, alone and in the dark while Reggie and Quey cleaned the kitchen. As Reggie finished scrubbing the last of the pans the front door opened and Dusty walked in with Rachel and Amber following. They’d been laughing but that was sapped when they got a glimpse of Natalie.

  “What’s wrong?” Amber asked. Dread raced though her as she looked at her mother sitting sideways on the couch with her legs drawn up. She’d never seen her mother look small before, and that coupled with the frailty she saw in her eyes and on her face terrified her. She looked like a porcelain doll and all the world was jagged rocks.

  “Come here baby, I’ve got something to tell you about.”

  Amber crossed the room on legs she couldn’t feel, powered by a mind that had spun into numbness. She sat and her mother hugged her, wrapping her arms tight around her thin body and burying her face into her daughter’s wavy reddish-brown hair. Amber looked at Rachel and Dusty from over her mother’s shoulder, her soft, round features carried worry too great for them.

  Rachel tugged on Dusty’s sleeve and nodded for him to follow her back out the door and he obliged.

  “We’ll come by tomorrow,” Quey said and Natalie nodded. Amber looked up at him, her eyes shimmering orbs of fear glistening in the dark as the light from the kitchen found them. Quey and Reggie left them alone.

  “Mom?” Quey heard Amber plea as he stepped from the house.

  “It’s about your grandfather,” Natalie replied as he closed the door behind him.

  That night Amber let her mother hug her for a long time. It reminded her of the times she’d run home from school crying because someone had been mean to her, or when Shelly Duragno didn’t invite her to her sleepover, or a handful of other things that had happened over the years that now seemed trivial. The only one that came close involved her father. His promise to be there. His promise to show up this time. The long wait on the park bench and the bitter emptiness of the playground as day settled into night. Her mother had let her sit there for hours, as long as she needed to be sure he wasn’t going to show. When she finally allowed herself to believe it there had been a hug like the one they shared that night on the couch.

  An hour later they tapped into the signal and watched stupid video’s online. Nothing heavy. Nothing with a plot. Nothing that might require thought. They watched silly pet videos and comics telling jokes and some crazy people rambling in front of a camera until Natalie finally fell asleep.

  Amber covered her with a blanket, turned off the screen, and went to her room. She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel. She’d liked Grandpa Railen, but then she didn’t really know him very well either. She’d met him a few times, he’d sent her birthday presents but she was ashamed to admit that when she found out what was bothering her mother was that he had died she was a little relieved. Not because she wanted him dead but because her first fear had been that her mother was sick. She had a friend Palma whose father had died last year of an illness they were only now beginning to explain. It had been a slow and brutal process and Palma still wasn’t herself.

  Lying in bed she felt guilty that she wasn’t sad.

  The Severed Head and The Failing Friend

  “I’m going to kill you,” the voice said, calm as always. The head it came from sat on a table, wires protruding from its neck. Its eyes stared blankly across the room at the opened door where Ryla stood in a light blue cotton slip.

  She had dozens of these thin dresses, chosen primarily because they were unlikely to hold static electricity, which could be deadly to computer parts. It was also the reason there was no carpet above the first floor of the compound and even then it was only present in one section of the lobby.

  For years she’d never worried about wearing anything at all, what did it matter to anyone if she strolled around the compound clothesless? Two years five months and eighteen days ago, however, her oblivion regarding modesty had caused quite the stir when she’d forgotten to cover herself. It was during one of her trips into the world, in the city of Atlemon, that she began to evaluate the necessity of remembering to wear something.

  Ryla had commissioned a number of jobs there before leaving the sanctity of the compound, and the city itself was large enough that she was sure she’d be able to find the parts and supplies she wanted without much trouble. She’d checked into a hotel, rather fancy and overlooking a park, but that wasn’t why she’d chosen that particular establishment. She’d chosen it because it had rooms with tile flooring.

  There were five robots spread around the room, each one had been opened up and wires were sticking out of them. Parts had been pulled from each of the various models and were sprawled across the table and dresser top. The air conditioner hummed loudly from the wall next to the bed as it pushed the coldest air it could muster through the room’s many vents. She’d removed all clothing because static is deadly to computer parts.

  Three quick taps hammered against the door and Ryla looked up from a circuit board she believed she could save, given a little love. When she opened the door, all the way and without thought, she cocked her head confused by the gaped jaw and wide scanning eyes the young man on the other side used to gawk at her.

  “Yes?” she asked.

  “Um…” the thought he’d had when he f
irst stopped in front of the door and knocked was replaced by, ‘holy shit this chick is naked.’ He shook his head, looked up at her face, expecting anything besides the expressionless nature of her features. He’d heard stories about things like this happening, myths men in jobs such as his stood around telling each other to make the menial nature of their days seem potentially more exciting. In them the woman was always older than the nude statuesque figure standing across from him now, and when she looked at him it was supposed to be with sensuality not naivety. The other myth involved catching someone off guard and usually involved a sharp screech and a desperate jump toward clothing or a blanket. The girl in this room did neither. She, instead, stood and patiently waited for him to gather his thought. “I was sent to see if you needed anything.”

  She remained still for a moment, seriously contemplating his inquiry while he looked her over as subtlety as possible once again. Her long limbs and torso, the subtle lines of her, the gentle curves of her frame were soft and elegant. She wasn’t a skeleton with skin stretched over it, but she wasn’t an ounce heavier than she should have been either. He lingered on the firm swell of her breasts and for a moment he thought about what could happen, according to myth. He thought of her stepping forward, looking into his eyes, her body slightly brushing his as she replied, “Yeah, I need something…”

  “No,” she answered and closed the door.

  Inside the hotel room Ryla returned to the robots. They were sick and the disease was neglect. When she’d opened them she’d found insides full of dust and insufficient cooling due to burnt out fan motors and insufficient pumps for the liquid coolant systems. She was running through the instructions she’d leave with their owners, wishing she could just steal the bots from them and take them home with her. Of course they were nowhere near sophisticated enough to-