The Unraveling

by Benjamin Rosenbaum

  Fift shifted uneasily in zir seating harness.

  The hollow windmoan, the pungent figgy electric autumn . . .

  In zir sleeping body’s dream, a wind was blowing, clearing away mists—a cold wind. Murkily, ze felt that body shiver.

  “It’s not that it’s a secret or anything,” ze said.

  Frill snorted.

  Lumlu giggled. The spiders were as big as ve was, headless, all bone-white legs. One scurried between two of vir bodies. Wide-eyed, ve stumbled forward to lunge at it.

  Fift looked down at zir hands. “I just don’t know what it’s called . . . what we’re making. I mean, it doesn’t have a name yet.”

  Frill shook vir head. “And will it have a name? Will it ever emerge from your little . . . fools’ paradise there, your self-exiled-mega-cohort with its head in the sand, your wombtombatum-for-a-thousand, or whatever it purports to be? Are you making something that belongs to the world, that I will one day see?”

  A look of concern crossed Thrimon’s face.

  “I don’t know,” Fift said. “Maybe not.”

  As two of Lumlu’s bodies closed on the spider, the third shrieked with excitement. At the last moment, the spider leapt straight up into the air over vir heads, and Lumlu’s bodies crashed together.

  Frill sighed.

  Father Smistria ambled singlebodied into the room, also sweaty, and tossed vir fighting gloves into the compost. A long gash on vir cheek was bleeding. Ve licked a finger and rubbed it along the wound. “Your Father Frill is an illicit combatant, Fift,” ve said. “Ve’s had vir nerves quickened.”

  Lumlu’s shriek shifted to panic, and in vir other two bodies ve staggered away from the collision, sat down, and began to wail with surprise and pain out of all three throats. The spider skittered around to its fellows at the other edge of the playpit.

  “You, Smi, are a liar, and a bitter-minded loss-denier!” Frill snapped. “I haven’t had my nerves quickened any more than you have!”

  “Please—Smi, Frill!” Thrimon said, stricken. “Is this sort of talk appropriate in front of our staidchild?”

  “Ze’s no child anymore,” Smistria said. “Ze took care of that long ago. The bout should have been mine.”

  “Ze’s only forty-six!” Thrimon said.

  Shria’s voice. It was carried through zir dream on the cold wind. Ve was laughing; then ve was speaking, intensely. Ze couldn’t make out the words. Another one of zir dream bodies was in the belly of a skywhale—a skywhale full of anonybodies who were staring at zir, trying to decide something important.

  “You haven’t achieved anything, you know,” Frill said, arms still crossed.

  Egathelie and Mulis leaned forward over the playpit. “That’s it, darling!” Egathelie said. “Wail, my dearest, wail! Use your wonderful lungs! Wail it all out, then get up to fight again! That’s the way!”

  One of Lumlu’s bodies wavered mid-sob to look up, and Mulis, vir longer Maternal experience granting vem an indulgent air of superiority, leaned across Fift to touch Egathelie on the arm. “Don’t distract vem, Eg,” ve said, and Egathelie nodded.

  “What do you mean, Frill?” Thrimon asked.

  “These Shelterings!” Father Frill cried. “What difference do they make? Penning yourselves up inside secret enclaves like . . . oh, I don’t know, like some character or other in your Kumru-blessed Conversation—”

  “Frill!” Thrimon said, horrified, and Smistria cackled.

  “—what good does it do? Out here, the Midwives and feedgardeners have all the power they ever did—”

  “And a good thing, too!” Smistria said.

  Frill glared at Smistria. “—and the Clowns are just . . . entertainment again!”

  “I don’t know if that’s entirely—” Thrimon began.

  Lumlu sniffled and helped vemself up, wavering on vir small legs. Ve looked into vir own faces, warily blinking. Maybe, Fift thought, ve was realizing for the first time that ve could hurt vemself, that vir own bodies were capable of betraying vem.

  Shria’s voice through the dream, louder now. Then it subsided to silence, and the mist began to drift back in, blue and buzzing. In the dream-skywhale, Fift closed zir eyes, ignoring the staring faceless passengers.

  “So what good did any of it do, then?” Father Frill said. “All your . . .” Ve pressed vir lips together. Ve put vir hands on vir hips. “All of it.”

  “Maybe you should come see,” Fift said. “Come to the Sheltering. I—”

  “Ha!” Frill said, throwing up vir hands. “I’ve been to enough proper Idylls without having to sever myself from the world’s feed to be there! And I have nothing to hide that I need to do where no one can see me!”

  “Maybe you’d find,” Fift said, “that you could try out new things, different things, if—”

  “Please! Kumru desire me protected from such nonsense. Look, Fift,” Frill said, “I know you’re sincere, and I’m sure with you there, nothing all that amiss is going on in Windswept Sheltering—well—nothing horrible, anyway. But what about the Redoubts? Panaximandra Shebol of name registry Central Glory 2 has set up—”

  Grobbard and Ellix came in. “Does anyone else think,” Grobbard said, “that despite the regard in which we all hold Arevio and Cartassia and Burin, and the eagerness with which we look forward to their latest production, that the prohibition on eating anything else in the interim, is perhaps—”

  Ellix nodded at Fift. “Hello, Fift.”

  Lumlu got to vir feet, squinted, and looked up out of the playpit for reassurance. The two Mothers waved and clapped. All vir heads turned in unison as ve looked from one to the other.

  Then Lumlu saw Fift. Ze wasn’t sure whether or not to smile. It had been five months since ze’d seen vem; ve had barely been talking then. Now ve was three-bodied—three chunky little bodies, naked and covered in curly golden hair. Fift couldn’t, of course, tell which one was the original, though ze couldn’t help wondering. Ze remembered the moment around age seven when ze’d realized that ze had no idea which of zir bodies had been the first . . .

  Lumlu looked into zir face, triply, and frowned.

  “I don’t know if anyone else thinks it, Grobbard!” Frill said. “Why don’t you add an axis to the consensus moderation framework? Or just eat something! You’re interrupting. The Redoubts—”

  “I, for one,” Smistria said, “don’t mind having the Revanchists holed up in one place—”

  “Then you’re overdue for a collapse!” Frill said. “Because who knows what they’re planning in there? At any time, they could burst out upon us all, and—”

  Lumlu turned, triplebodied, and charged the spiders.

  “Oh, stop tormenting the child, Frill!” Smi snapped.

  Frill arched an eyebrow. “You just said ze wasn’t a—”

  “Well, whatever ze is!” said Smistria. “The bout is done, and I believe we had something else planned between the bout and dinner. Or shall I just bathe?”

  “Perhaps,” Grobbard said, “as the meal will soon be—”

  “No,” said Frill, getting up, “you should not just bathe. Lead the way—to your room, Smi. Don’t worry, Grobbard: based on past experience, this won’t take long . . .”

  Smi glared at vem, taking vir hand, and then at Ellix, who was chuckling. Thrimon looked mortified, and Grobbard mildly annoyed.

  There was a hand on Fift’s shoulder. For a moment ze didn’t know which body’s shoulder it was. Then the confusion passed: it was a dreaming body. In the skywhale of the dream, or in the dreamed blue mist? No, it was heavy and warm and real, pushing through the mists of dream, reminding zir that ze had a body, lying in bed . . .

  Ze opened zir eyes.

  Shria was there. Singlebodied, golden-skinned, vir unruly black eyebrows curling above vir golden-irised eyes. Earlier, the conversation with Dobroc had reminded Fift of Shria’s fifteen-year-old face. This was the same face, if in a different color scheme, and the cheekbones a little broader with Second Childhood
’s growth. Though ve was no child anymore, either.

  Fift sat bolt upright, flinching away from Shria’s hand. Cemerid must have already awoken and left; they were alone in the nest room.

  Shria sat back. Ve was wearing, yes, a Conversationalist’s white shift. It didn’t look pretentious or pretend. It suited vem; ve was capable of anything. Zir heart throbbed.

  “Hi,” ve said.

  “What in Kumru’s barren genitals, Shria—do you ever knock?”

  “I knocked,” ve said.

  “Where’s Dobroc?” Fift said, fumbling to check the house feed. Dobroc was downstairs, of course, with Shria’s other body. Ve’d brought two! Ze dropped the connection, ze didn’t want to watch them. “Oh.”

  “I miss you,” ve said.

  Just like that, Fift’s breath was gone. Ze looked away. Why was ve in zir room? Because ve was Shria, of course; ve ignored—ve didn’t—ve wouldn’t—! This body’s heart, the house feed told zir, was throbbing at 134 beats per minute. Up from 64, eight seconds ago; impressive. Ze should have woken zirself up when Dobroc said that ve was coming and cleared out of here in all three bodies!

  Ze closed zir eyes, slowed zir breathing, recovered zirself. Opened zir eyes again. Ve was waiting. “How’s the training with Dobroc?” ze asked.

  “Amazing,” Shria said. Ve put vir hands on vir ankles, leaned forward. “I won’t say I feel the flow yet. But it’s a lot different than just watching footage, or even being in silent attendance. It’s . . . I can feel the beauty, just out of reach.”

  As much as Fift supported Dobroc’s political project, as inured to it ze was in theory, it was still jarring—Shria in white, passing spoons. The vertigo of missing a step on a ladder. A sense of being invaded, of something private being stolen. But also, a longing: a certain yes, yes, come be with us . . .

  “How’s the visit back home?” Shria said.

  “It’s okay,” Fift said. Zir throat was dry. Ze tried to clear it. “Lumlu’s amazing; it’s only been a week and ve’s fighting spiders triplebodied.” Ve was chasing them now, golden-furred bodies and white spider legs galloping with abandon.

  “Huh,” Shria said.

  “That’s it!” Mulis cried, flinging up vir hand. “Lumlu, sweetie, you can do it!”

  “Oh Fift,” Egathelie said, turning to zir. “I don’t know if you’re checking your queue, but your Father Thurm is coming in. We’ve hardly seen vem here the last few months—”

  “Last few months?” Mulis said, still following Lumlu with vir eyes. “We’ve hardly seen vem since Chalia entered Second Childhood!”

  “—but ve said if you were going to be here—”

  Grobbard and Ellix were asking Thrimon about some impenetrable point of family meeting protocol, a proposed adjustment to the Far Theoretical engine overseeing agent-driven evaluative feedback to the cohort’s consensus modeling framework. They hadn’t forgotten Fift was there—but perhaps they didn’t know what else to say to zir. Or they were just giving zir time to adjust, to sink back into the flow.

  “Shria,” Fift said, opening zir eyes and forcing zirself to look at vem, “what are you doing here?”

  Shria looked down and stroked the couch-floor’s fabric. “Uh . . . I guess you’re looking for something other than ‘I’m here to train with Dobroc’ and ‘I miss you.’”

  “Yes,” Fift said. “Yes I am.”

  Shria took a deep breath and let it out, as if ve were preparing to say . . . something. And then a look of annoyance crossed vir face. “You know what, that kind of wounds me, Fift. Why aren’t those enough? You’re my friend. I miss you. I’m in the neighborhood. Why—”

  “Because it hurts to see you, Shria. Because my heart is tied to yours.” 124 beats per minute. “And to see you, and then to have you vanish again, to not be able to hold you close . . .”

  Shria’s face tightened. Ve looked away. Then ve turned back, reached vir hand out to zir face. “Fift—”

  Ze caught vir hand by the wrist and held it away from zir. “Shria,” ze said, “what did you come to say?”

  Shria yanked vir hand away, vir face turning a deeper gold. “Fuck you.”

  “What,” ze said, calm despite zir galloping heart, “did you come to—”

  “That I’ll stay,” ve said, and Fift’s heart stopped.

  Mother Pip paused by the doorway of the room where Fift’s Staid Fathers were debating. Ze gave Fift a guarded smile, raising an eyebrow, inspecting Fift as if confirming by eye what ze had seen over the house feed. It was exactly the expression ze had when ze supervised the unfolding of a satisfyingly nonlinear sequence of banking-historical transactions. Ze nodded and walked on.

  Fift could not breathe. The three Staid Fathers politely averted their eyes; the two Vail Mothers cheering Lumlu didn’t notice. Chalia came into the room, picking vir way around the playpit.

  “What?” Fift asked Shria. “Why?”

  “Why do you fucking think, you nutrient-flow-blocking, squandering, void-spurned, sisterless excuse for a spoon-passer! Because I miss you! Because missing you is like an itch contracted by rolling around naked in a field of some toxic surface plant. Because if you’re so stubborn as to hole yourself up in this . . . this place, and not come out for months, and you’re in such a Kumru-abhorred hurry to play cohort that you’ll only—”

  “Shria,” Fift said. “Shria, stop.” The pressure in zir chest, like some great beast was standing on it. “You can’t do it like this. You can’t do it for the wrong reasons. If you don’t believe in the Shelterings and you don’t believe in us making a cohort now—”

  “Stop being so arrogant!” Shria said. “Stop being such a dogmatic . . .” Ve threw vemself from the couch-floor to vir feet and stood staring. “What do you know about what I believe?”

  Fift swallowed. “Well—”

  “Of course the Iraxis parents,” Mulis said, vir eyes still on Lumlu, who had chased a spider under an overhanging ledge and was cautiously closing in with all three of vir bodies, “all miss you far more than they will admit. You should know that, Fift. It would be different if you were simply off somewhere in the world. Not even at home, you know, but just somewhere one could see you . . . and not, well, swallowed up into . . .”

  Again, Egathelie reached across Fift to lay vir hand on Mulis’s shoulder. “But you’re here now,” ve said brightly, “and so this evening, we should all just enjoy ourselves!”

  Shria drew a ragged breath. “I was never opposed to the Shelterings. I just don’t think they’re the only answer! If the whole energy of the liberation movement is channeled into playing cohort and putting up fancy wallpaper, that’s a disaster. But if they’re part of something, a new diversity, a new relationship to the feed . . .” Ve waved an arm. “Fift, you confuse what I believe with what I can bring myself to do. What I said before, years ago—well, I just couldn’t imagine myself in here, cut off from the world, stationary and . . . waiting . . . !”

  “So what changed?” Fift said.

  Ve looked zir in the eye. Fierce, golden. “Well,” ve said. “For one thing, I’m learning to sit. I’m learning to be the still center.” Ve said it without a grin, without irony. A pang of inscrutable longing shot through Fift.

  “Sit,” ze said.

  Shria cracked vir knuckles, and then slowly, came back and sat by Fift on the nest room floor.

  “And I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry,” ve said. “I don’t know why you need to be forming triads and quaternads at forty-six. I don’t know why you can’t wait for our Courting Century . . .”

  “We’re not children,” Fift said. Their shoulders were a fingerwidth apart, not touching.

  “That’s a spurious argument,” ve said. “Just because we rebelled against those structures doesn’t mean we have to do the opposite. I like the idea of a century to focus on who I am, just me, myself, connecting with whomever I want to however I want, with no expectations of anything lasting. But”—ve shrugged—“apparently you an
d Dobroc are in a hurry. I don’t know Cemerid, but I trust your judgement. And maybe my reluctance is . . . well, that same vailish fear of remaining still. And I know I want to break through that. Anyway, I didn’t say I’m ready to declare a semi-cohort or undertake a pledge. I said I’d stay. I’ll stay, I’ll try this, I won’t let my fear chase me away. And we’ll see what happens.” Ve turned to look at zir. “Is that enough?”

  A great and terrible emotion was swelling inside of Fift like an invisible balloon, crushing zir organs to every side, filling zir intolerably until there was nothing left. Was it terror?

  Chalia came up, trailing a hand over Mother Mulis’s back, and then reaching toward Fift, straightening zir robe. Ve squinted at zir. “You look happy,” ve said.

  Oh: It was joy.

  “Yes,” ze said, to Chalia, to Shria.

  “It’s enough,” ze told Shria. Zir voice was thick, an awkward instrument which needed to be maneuvered out of zir throat. “For a start.”

  Shria turned towards zir. Ze put zir arms around vem, and ve enveloped zir. Zir forehead against vir cheek, zir hands around the thick muscles of vir back. Ve smelled like—like dawnflowers, like gemmon, like a surface wind, like home? No: like Shria, here with zir again, after so long.

  Ze sighed.

  “Dinner!” Father Cartassia called.

  Fathers Grobbard, Ellix, and Thrimon sprang up with uncharacteristic haste and crowded into the hall. “Kumru praise us!” Frill said, toweling vir hair. “I could eat a robot bat.”

  “Lumlu!” Egathelie called. “Time for dinner, darling!”

  “You know what’s funny?” Shria said, lifting vir head a fingerwidth away from zir, vir breath tickling zir ear. “You’re going to find this ridiculous. But part of my decision . . . you remember what Thavé said, when the Unraveling started? About star-ships?”

  “Star-ships?” Fift said, frowning into vir shoulder.

  “Yeah,” Shria said. “That collapse-ripe idea of zirs, giving up everything just to build somewhere new. It seems absurd, but also . . . brave. Sometime in the Ages Before the Ages, someone was bizarre enough to do that, to give us . . . this.” Ve buried vir nose in zir hair. “Somehow that image made the Shelterings seem . . . less like a dead end? Less like a retreat. More like something we need to learn: how to give up everything and start over.”