Crooked Words

by K A Cook

Perhaps ze could go and do a course… “Do you like it?”

  “Most of the time. I’ve just got to remember to use arrangements and colours that work better with breather eyesight. It’d be nicer to get out and talk to folk, if…”

  “You can find folk to talk to,” Pat said, and Moon nodded. Ze twirled hir umbrella in hir fingers, and it occurred to Pat that maybe ze wasn’t the only one who found this whole social interaction thing complicated. Still. They were both sitting here, the music was good, and there was no chance of anyone staring at them oddly or asking them to leave. For the first time in months, Pat felt almost okay—ze wasn’t alone here, they both understood exactly what it felt like to be in a world that wasn’t comfortable around them and didn’t want to understand, and maybe they both needed to be able to talk to someone. Maybe Moon also wanted to have a conversation that didn’t involve processing trauma or post-death social adjustment. “Okay, then. Ah … Star Wars or Star Trek?”

  Moon raised both eyebrows. “Are you assuming that because I build websites that I’m a geek?”

  Pat shrugged and tried not to look away in hir awkwardness. “Everyone’s seen one or the other, right?”

  Moon grinned, then. “I’m just pull—” Ze stopped and shook hir head. “I was going to say that I was just pulling your leg—I find myself catching those sorts of phrases all the time.” Ze sighed and glanced down at hir previously-unattached arm for a moment before raising hir eyes back to Pat’s face. “Do you? And Trek.”

  “All the time.” Pat took another small sip from hir glass. “Me too. Kirk or Picard?”

  Moon, thank heavens, didn’t comment on the fact that Pat’s conversational skills started and ended at something close to a questionnaire. “Kirk.”

  What? Pat sat up on hir stool, disappointed. “No. No way is Kirk better than Picard. Kirk just screwed around, but Picard had the whole Borg thing going on…”

  “Kirk’s hotter,” Moon said, and ze folded hir arms as if that signalled the end of the argument. “Beat that.”

  “Patrick Stewart’s—” On second thought, it might be wise to avoid any awkward discussions about the origin of Pat’s name, so ze stopped before ze could say ‘accent’. “Uh. Never mind. You win. The TARDIS or the DeLorean?”

  “I can’t believe you’re even asking this,” Moon said; ze shook hir head. “The TARDIS. Do you find it weird now, watching science fiction, and the way the writers treat anything that’s not human?”

  The question surprised Pat only because of its obviousness. “I can’t really watch it anymore,” ze said, struck by the sudden realisation that ze didn’t really know what else to talk about—well, aside from physical therapy, psychology and politics, but who wanted to speak about that on a night out? The realisation, however, left hir rather miserable. As a breather, science fiction had always been something ze could talk about with someone else (even if only to find out that they didn’t like it), but these days, post-death, it didn’t make sense. Almost nothing out there bothered to acknowledge hir existence, in fact, so what did ze bring up as a conversation starter, anyway? Sport, played by breather men? Food, which they didn’t eat? Clothes, which were an exercise in dysphoria and frustration, because society liked to pretend that hir body didn’t exist? How long it took to re-learn to write with a child-sized sharpie? How Pat had given hir Lego collection away because ze could no longer manage the tiny pieces? “I want to like it, still. I tried after I got out and I ended up throwing mugs at the TV. Even these days … there’s still almost nothing out there with DA folk. Well.” Ze paused to make sure the bartender wasn’t in earshot. “Unless they’re vampires.”

  Moon rolled hir eyes, and Pat wondered if ze’d felt the same frustration. Why did breathers consider vampires so hot and sexy? Pat couldn’t see much difference aside from fangs and a little less scarring … but it was nearly okay to be a vampire, these days. “Wouldn’t you just do anything for one TV show?” Pat asked, leaning forwards across Louisa’s empty chair. “Some dramedy about a bunch of zombies and a ghoul in a coffee shop, trying to get jobs, find a partner, survive the Centrelink queues and how supermarkets hide the brains and blood in a corner away from the breathers so that you can never find them … and no vampires. Just mummies and ghouls.”

  Moon jerked hir head in such a quick nod Pat was almost afraid hir head would end up bouncing onto the bar. “I know, right? Especially the vampire bit.” Ze shot an apologetic glance towards the bartender, now making her way down their end of the bar. “Sorry, Harriet, but it’s true. And then you go up to someone and ask, and they look at you down their noses like you’re not worthy to share the same air—never mind that we don’t … oh, I mean the supermarket stuff. When I first—well, I always had to ask for the brains, and it was so embarrassing.” Moon grinned back at Pat. “I’d love a zombie TV show.”

  “And zombie space explorers,” Pat said, hir words now rapid with enthusiasm. “Why can’t zombies or mummies travel through space and time? Why can’t we be the good folk for once? We’re always evil, or thoughtless, or just falling apart. You’d think we’d be more advanced than this. We all know about the differently animated now, so why can’t zombies be the heroes?”

  Moon gave hir a curious look as ze shifted hir weight on hir stool. “So, what do you do, or did, Pat?”

  “Did.” Pat shrugged. “Sales assistant in a bookstore. And … well. Trek and Doctor Who fanfiction at night, not that there was any payment involved, obviously.” Pat couldn’t help a grin as Moon nodded and slapped hir hands against hir knees. It was kind of obvious. Bookselling hadn’t been the perfect job—it wasn’t just chatting to people about books, and the job involved a lot of private side-eyeing at the things people considered good reading without the usual disasters of a retail job—but the staff discount and the surreptitious reading of new releases helped make up for the rest. “It was getting hard anyway: the manager kept coming down on me for how I dressed—you know, retail.”

  Nice slacks and a well-ironed shirt clearly didn’t matter if customers stared at hir oddly, if they felt the need to ask someone else to help them, if how Pat dressed now didn’t match the clothes ze’d worn for hir interview. If death—months in rehab and therapy and trying to put hir existence back into some kind of order—had ended Pat’s career path, it’d already been on the road to the end before ze’d gotten chewed on in the park one sunny Sunday arvo.

  “That’s disgusting.” Moon scowled hard enough to tug at hir sutures; the gesture would have made a living Pat all tingly in hir chest. The undead Pat couldn’t tear hir eyes away.

  “Then I got chomped, anyway,” ze said, and Pat tried to sound careless, like it didn’t matter: in the end, it really didn’t. What did it compare to all the glances ze’s endured since? “I don’t really know what to do, now. Maybe a course in something.”

  “Write,” Moon said, and ze spun around on hir chair to reach across and take Pat by the hands. Hir skin felt rough and cool against Pat’s own. “Write about all this. A TV show or—no, write a webseries, and then you could get actual DA actors in it. Queer folk, right? Tell Louisa, and she’d pimp it out to every DA folk in the country—she’d know if there are organisations that help DA artists. I could make you a website. It’d be awesome. Then we could all read and watch things we like.”

  Pat stared at hir in return, startled. Ze’d never really thought about that as a serious option—but ze’d spent hours cursing and throwing crockery at the TV, newspaper, book, or anything else that either pretended ze didn’t exist, or treated the DA folk as though they were evil or freakish. Pat didn’t think that anyone outside this room would ever read it, and it certainly wouldn’t pay hir any money, so it wouldn’t solve the job situation, but ... ze grinned, wondering if it might be more satisfying than zombie-centric Doctor Who fanfiction. It’d certainly be worth it even if Moon was the only one that ever read something ze wrote...

  “Hey!” Louisa bounded over and wrapped one arm around Pat’s neck, the o
ther around Moon’s; Pat just managed not to spill the remains of hir Cranium Crush over the bar. “How are you two going? Are you going to get up and dance, or sit there all day? Remember: nobody cares if body parts go flying, just as long as you’re having fun! Hey, Tammy.” She waved at a ghoul in a blue silk evening gown hovering at her elbow. “Don’t you totally think these folk are adorable together?”

  “Oh yeah,” Tammy said, waving the pool cue in hir hand. “C’mon, Lou, I want to dance to this.”

  Louisa grabbed Tammy by the waist, whirled hir about in circles, and vanished almost as abruptly as she’d arrived. Pat hesitated for a moment, and then reached up and shoved hir shoulder back into place. Moon broke into a small, wicked, almost admiring little grin, and didn’t look away as Pat adjusted hir shirtsleeve and checked that hir fingers still worked. Pat smiled back, and then blurted out the first thing to pop into hir head in an effort to evade the sudden awkwardness: “I’m not sure, but … did we just get set up?”

  Ze’d never even so much as mentioned that ze was single during hir phone conversation with Louisa, and yet...

  Moon shrugged, but hir eyes lit up a little too brightly to match her dismissive words.