by Lea Daley
I, on the other hand, am resistant, rebellious, eternally languorous. I’ve learned to stretch and fold time, creating deep quiet in the aftermath of Mer’s departure. That bed’s a seductive, expanding universe. I can push the boundaries of the morning, reset the parameters of the day. Only half conscious, I pare my priorities, eliminate unnecessary obligations, simplify the agenda. Who needs breakfast anyway? More often than not, I roll over to take another ten. And this morning’s no exception…
When I was completely awake, totally aware, finally convinced Meredith couldn’t rejoin me with her customary cup of chai, I rose to face another day on Jashari.
Chapter Five
While supervising the decoration of my expanded living space, the VTO exposed me to more unfathomable technology. Step one was visualizing the desired environment in the smallest detail. Step two was accepting that Aimée could lift the plan whole from my imagination. Step three was staying out of her way. I slept in my bedroom one night and woke to a completed living room. I spent the next night on the couch and rose to a finished sleeping chamber. How these miracles were accomplished, I couldn’t say…and was too proud to question the VTO. Because I’d only expose my ignorance and inadequacy.
At first, I considered asking Aimée to reconstruct the home Mer and I shared back on Earth. But I quickly rejected the idea. Because I’d expect to find Meredith every time I turned around. Instead, when finished, the suite duplicated rooms in a favorite apartment from my college years. I had to fight for that fidelity though. By Jashrine standards, my taste was overly elaborate—and absurdly redundant. I insisted, for instance, on having actual furniture—a need that confounded the VTO.
And Aimée thought the environment should be fresh, new, flawless. But I wanted it as authentic as possible. Wanted the battered surface of my coffee table perfectly reproduced. The aging pine floor re-created. The creaking wicker rocker unchanged. The soft, hand-stitched marvel of my mother’s quilt exactly duplicated. It had been particularly difficult to explain why my area rug should be so threadbare.
“But, Leslie-ahn! It could be quite lovely!”
“Aimée, it already is.”
My rooms even had simulated windows with ever-changing views. Scenes of a park near my university, missing only drones darting overhead and an endless parade of students strolling by. I knew, of course, that such a faithful rendition resulted from Aimée’s access to my memories. And I recognized that the light at home could never have been so golden, the lawns so lush, the shadows so deliciously blue. Instead, the VTO had captured my emotional response to the park. Seductive as that panorama was, I didn’t dare inquire too deeply into her methods.
I was seated on a cane-bottomed chair in the living room—blessedly solid and visible—when I first opened my desk drawers. To my surprise, even they were stocked, crammed to the hilt with all the minutiae of my youth. Everything jumbled together, looking just as drawers of mine always had. Amid the clutter, I found Nana’s playing cards, boxes of pens and several types of stationery. Here, Aimée cheated—by my college years, pens were a rare indulgence and I could never have afforded so much paper. Because harvesting trees for anything but critical needs was subject to harsh economic and social sanctions. I crowed with delight when I unearthed those treasures.
“But what will you do with them?”
“I want to journal—to make sense of my experience here.”
“No one actually writes anymore.”
“Not surprising. Even in my great-grandmother’s day, cursive had largely vanished. But Nana taught me penmanship—it was almost like our secret code. Academics still learned cursive, of course, so they could read historic documents—”
“Why not transcribe those by computer?”
“Scholars are a peculiar breed, Aimée, and prefer to make their own judgments about primary sources. Anyway, I love the feel of a pen moving across paper—so sensual. Maybe it’s the artist in me. That was one extravagance I never regretted.”
“You will find Jashrine technology much more efficient. We use language-specific brain wave recorders, which preserve inflection, as well as incorporating what you would think of as hyperlinks to related experiences or ideas. Shall I request one for you? They are effortless to use.”
“No, I want these. Efficiency isn’t everything.” I suppose my stubbornness in this instance didn’t undermine Aimée’s mission, because she quit arguing. And I’d notice over time that my supply of paper and pens never diminished, no matter how much I doodled in idle hours.
I was grateful for all these improvements to daily life, but plagued by a host of questions that arose while we planned my rooms: What did the rest of Jashari look like? Would I ever see it? How long would I stay in this transitional home? Was I a prisoner, or could I leave if I chose? Where would I go, what would I do if I broke out? Did I have any legal rights here? And—most urgent of all questions—were there others like me? If so, where? And when would I meet them?
Too frightened to hear the answers, I didn’t ask. Which made me cranky, irrational, increasingly disagreeable. I managed to persuade Aimée that I wanted time alone. Maybe she agreed because I really did need solitude, in some bone-deep way. She looked into my eyes, my mind, then made for the wall without a word. But as she departed, something in her posture conveyed grave concern.
I arranged and rearranged my rooms. Leafed through books in a desultory fashion. Journaled halfheartedly. Slept more than I’d ever slept before. Finally, when I’d built up sufficient reserves, I let myself mourn Meredith. Noisily. Passionately. Without censoring myself. Yet I was no closer to relinquishing her. I took to my bed and stayed there—scarcely eating, barely attending to bodily needs—for a long, delirious period. Weeks passed before I realized I was dangerously depressed. I didn’t care.
Then in an instant everything shifted and I panicked. I’d never been prone to black moods and sensed I couldn’t afford to indulge them now. Forcing myself out of bed, I summoned Aimée. Who appeared immediately. Thank god.
“Leslie-ahn! It is so good to see you!”
“Where have you been?”
“You sent me away, remember?”
“Some friend you are! I’m scared, depressed, starving and you pull a disappearing act?”
“As you wished.”
“Ah, yes…you are the consummate expert on my needs and desires.”
“How could it be otherwise?”
“I didn’t eat for days! I could have died!”
“Yes,” the VTO concurred flatly. “Others have.”
“What do you mean—‘Others have’?”
“Exactly that. This is a predictable stage of revitalization. Most Returnees go through a similar crisis. Only afterward can they commit themselves to survival.”
“And not everyone does?”
“Not everyone does. For some, there is too great a contrast between what they have imagined and what they awaken to. They cannot visualize a way to make a new life here, so they simply let go.”
“After all that trauma? After all the loss? They just give up? They die?”
“As you might have, Leslie-ahn.”
Suddenly that seemed unthinkable. Wasteful. Infantile. If I were going to die, I could have done it forever ago, in the arms of my lover, surrounded by friends. I’d sacrificed so much for this second chance and damn well wasn’t going to pass on it. But I needed friends—particularly here, especially now. I took a deep breath. “Where are the others like me, Aimée? The survivors?”
There was a pause, much longer than the searching silence that sometimes accompanied my questions. Then: “What do you mean?”
“An unusual response from a clairvoyant computer! Where. Are. The. Others? I can’t be the only…returnee…or whatever you call us…who’s here now.”
“We call you Laysancurob.”
“Nonresponsive, Counselor.”
I know computers can’t blush, but Aimée’s color did seem to heighten along those prominent ch
eekbones. And her angled eyes skittered away from my severe gaze. “There are not as many as you imagine.”
“How can that be? Thousands of people registered, even in the early days, before the technique was refined.”
“It is not like you think, Leslie-ahn. It is not that easy. There are…complicating factors.”
There was a tight quality to Aimée’s voice. In a human, it would have signified stress, but I couldn’t hazard a guess at the meaning of her tone.
“What complicating factors? Is it the technology? Is it us? Are humans too fragile for the process?”
The VTO answered grudgingly. “Once cryogenecists calculated the appropriate degree of cellular dehydration, the technology worked well.”
“Then what went wrong?”
“I do not think you are ready for this, Leslie-ahn. You are in a highly emotional state, just coming out of crisis. You need food, liquids and—” Aimée’s delicate nose twitched “—some attention to hygiene.”
“Oh, I’m ready, all right! I need to hear it and I need to hear it now!”
“Not in my judgment!” Aimée turned abruptly.
When she vanished through the outer wall of my apartment, I stormed after her, furious, thwarted, my bracelet raised. Then I screeched to a halt, exactly like some moronic character in a holotoon. I didn’t know what awaited me out there, or whether I could handle it. I wasn’t even sure I could breach the bloody barrier. I only knew I wasn’t prepared to find out. Not yet. Aimée was right again.
Exhausted, bewildered, I shuffled across the carpet—that perfect duplicate of a pretend Persian—and flung myself on the couch. I stayed there for hours while light from my “window” shifted through its programmed cycle, mimicking a soft spring day on a small and distant blue-green planet. I was subsiding into sleep when a single word bobbed to the surface of my mind: Laysancurob.
“We call you Laysancurob,” Aimée had said. What it meant I couldn’t guess. Where it originated I might never know. Still the syllables teased at me with nagging familiarity. Lying there, I couldn’t escape their suggestive rhythms. Laysancurob. Laysancurob. Laysancurob.
Chapter Six
Prodding myself into action at last, I followed Aimée’s advice. I addressed my personal hygiene and felt better for it. I ate the bland, healthful food of Jashari and felt stronger. I straightened my apartment. I returned to my journal in earnest, scribbling random thoughts about coming back to life so far from the life I’d known. But my motivation to write quickly faded. Because who would read those observations? Who would care? I abandoned writing for solitaire, playing so many games that Nana’s cards went limp in my hands.
Then seeking direction—or maybe salvation—I consulted Serenghi’s writings. Once again, I failed to find personal meaning there. A favorite adage of Mer’s came into my head: When the student is ready, the teacher appears. I could almost see her challenging grin, those dancing eyes. Could hear her say, “Babe? Perhaps you’re simply unprepared for Serenghi’s lessons?”
I closed the brittle book with elaborate caution—every time I turned a leaf, I risked destroying it. Aimée could re-create the volume, of course, sturdy as the day it was printed. But I needed it to be authentic. Needed it to be a link to my world, to the friends who’d given so precious a gift. And there was something I wanted to learn from that fragility. To be more temperate. More in command. More like Serenghi herself.
She’d composed that manifesto in solitary confinement. Which was an apt description of my own situation. Except I was in collusion with my jailers, too petrified of the unknown to demand release. I glanced at the book on my lap. Turned Serenghi’s portrait facedown so her freedom-fighter’s eyes couldn’t rebuke my paralysis.
Sitting there, aimless, alone, I acknowledged a bitter truth: I missed Aimée like fury. But the VTO was operating from a protocol far too subtle for me to interpret and she wouldn’t return unless invited. Not for the first time, I wondered where she went, what she did, while we were apart. Wondered whether she simply ceased to exist, as holoflix vanish on command. The thought made my stomach knot. Still, I was too obstinate to summon her. Instead I spent hours staring out my “windows,” studying trees as they bent to phantom breezes, counting cherry blossoms as they drifted down to sharp, green grass. Watching imaginary clouds move through endless, inventive dances. Tracking shadows as they lengthened, while the sun—just one!—glittered on a tiny, meandering brook. So authentic. So lovely. So delusional.
In the unbroken quiet, I became aware that a yearning, restless, spring fever feeling was building in my core. I needed to work, needed to analyze my experience on Jashari. Needed to express, disarm, subdue and control it, as any artist must. But journaling was the wrong vehicle. I needed tools and materials long outdated—or contemporary ones I couldn’t even name.
To make matters worse, I felt self-conscious about that urge—knew I’d be judged again, found wanting. The perfect analogue for my fear surfaced: as a student, I’d seen a film from the early twentieth century. The camera had captured a shaman from some newly discovered, rapidly dwindling aboriginal tribe. Earnestly daubing colored muds on a cliff face, sketching mystical designs. I’d watched with amused superiority. So quaint! So naïve! Now I was appalled by my youthful arrogance—and understood that on Jashari my artistic efforts would be viewed through the same condescending lens.
Yet that creative tension mounted, demanding release. At last, bowing to necessity, I called for the VTO. She was smiling when she entered my apartment and my chest constricted without warning. Whatever Aimée was, she was exquisite. Still wearing my old T-shirt and painters pants, though time had finally begun to tell on them. The trousers were shredding—an enchanting glimpse of brown knee flashed with each step. Ridiculous! I admonished myself. You’re getting turned on by a piece of machinery! Commit this to memory, Burke: She’s a robot. Nothing more.
Aimée responded to my flustered greeting with such elaborate courtesy that I realized she’d read my mind. Naturally, I began to babble. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable! It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a woman—a really, really long time…and I feel completely idiotic…”
When Aimée touched my hand, I swear an electric arc leaped between us. “Leslie-ahn, I know that within your context this is a compliment.”
“The highest.”
“Or the lowest?”
I laughed. Hysterically. “God! I must be in terrible shape to be reacting like this!”
“Careful…don’t spoil a beautiful moment.”
“Aimée! You actually made a joke! Two of them!”
“I have modified a matrix to better meet your needs.”
“Amazing…thank you. But I called you here to talk about art.”
“Surely not your etchings?”
“Wow—you really do have comprehensive programming!”
“The better to eat you with, my dear.”
“Please! I need stick to the topic at hand.”
Aimée’s eyes lit as she identified another opportunity to practice her new skill. I raised one palm with regret. “Art, my friend, art! I’d like to meet some of Jashari’s artists.”
“There are none, Leslie-ahn.”
“What? How could that be?”
“Artists are unnecessary.”
I was dumbfounded. “This would be the first culture to believe that!”
“You must remember that Jashari is more advanced than any society you have known.”
“A world without artists?” I said harshly. “That hardly seems like progress!” I wouldn’t—couldn’t—back down. Not on this topic.
If Aimée were human, she would have rolled her eyes. “Artists were long ago replaced by algorithms.”
“By math?”
“Math. As you know, the science of art was plotted millennia ago. Even your ancient Greeks understood that humans have biological responses to certain spatio-visual relationships. We know precisely what colors, textures, forms and
combinations most please the human eye.”
“But—”
The VTO put one hand on my arm, urging me to reason. “Is not our world very beautiful, Leslie—without artists? Your windows, for instance? The perfect proportions of your dwelling? Your morning tea bowl—the way it fits absolutely in the curve of your palm? You must have sensed the artistry in every aspect of our culture.”
“The windows, my tea bowl…their beauty enhances life and I value them, Aimée. But those are functional things—not ‘art’ in its purest form. Doesn’t Jashari have poets, painters, musicians? People who express and provoke emotion? Who explore new ideas—or defy old ones? Who have unique styles and personal stories to tell? People who must create or go mad?”
It was Aimée’s turn to look nonplussed. Maybe showing was better than telling? I decided to invite her into my mind. Because pretending to privacy seemed like splitting hairs. Placing her hands against my temples, I bent till our foreheads touched. “Close your eyes, Aimée.”
The sharp scent of turpentine swirls around me as I stand before an easel. Summer sunlight pouring into the studio strikes saturated color on canvases slanted against a white wall. Somewhere a classical guitar spills music into the air.
Loose in my hand, a loaded brush moves almost of its own accord. Trailing rich swirls of color down raspy canvas. Softening the boundaries of thick, wet paint laid down just seconds before. I’m suffused with sensation. Awash in emotion. Supremely alive, yet wholly detached from myself. Wordless joy fills me—the passion, power and timelessness of the creative act. Nothing exists before or beyond. Nothing equals this pleasure…
Overcome with longing, I dropped Aimée’s hands. Pulled back. Wiped tears from my cheeks.
“I see why you might miss that, Leslie-ahn. Was it always so intense?”
“Always. I call it mental masturbation, if you’ll pardon my French. It’s defining—central. I have to find a way to work here!”
