“Come in,” I said. “Thank you for coming.” And because I’d been in Bulgaria for a long time, “sit down.”
Predictably for early summer in Sofia, the day had begun with clear skies and fluffy white clouds, then opened up with monsoon rains at exactly the time my guests had shown up. I released the hand of Ali, the last member of our conclave, and waved him to his chair. Six people in the greenhouse was a bit of a squeeze. Once again I caught myself wondering if organizing the meeting this way had been a mistake. We could be in the house or in a café, or not doing this at all. I am worrying about whether my guests are comfortable. Narrating my anxious thoughts to myself didn’t change their content, but the sense of chattering urgency evaporated. I could feel the breeze through the greenhouse’s open windows and smell the rain. Orchids peeked between fig and banana leaves, although none lower than the reach of my younger daughter Mikhaela. Somewhere a confused cricket chirped. My guests were smiling awkwardly at each other. “Oh, right,” I said. “Dimitar, this is Ali. He’s another medical student.” Ali and I had met through a volunteer organization. I’d joined it because it needed Engish teachers, and so had Sofia’s British medical students like Ali and Sada, American gap-year kids like Madison, naturalized refugees like Mohammad, and people like me, who are uncomfortable being called ‘expats.’ The organization had its Bulgarians too, of course, but I hadn’t clicked with any of them, so I’d expanded our circle with my friend Dimitar. “Who wants coffee?” I asked. “Tea? Cupcakes? My daughters helped decorate them.” They were pink, with unicorn sprinkles. “Oh!” said Sada, who I realized had been waiting all this time for a cupcake to be offered her. “They’re light.” “They’re chocolate soufflés. Julia demanded them and Mikhaela helped whip the egg whites.” I am worried that I’m showing off. I’m worried that my kids are watching TV instead of coming out here and entertaining our guests. The noise in my head receded enough for me to remember the reason we were all here. “I want to talk about balance,” I said. “I want to do more good, but I always want to be a good father and husband, and I can’t quit my job.” It was hard to say. I waited for someone to say “you poser. You just want to make yourself feel better, but you’re not willing to sacrifice your comfort.” Instead, Sada said, “Yeah. I’ve got classes.” “I’m not learning to be a doctor or anything,” said Madison. “I can spend more time volunteering than you guys, but, you know, I’ll be gone in a year.” “Kakvo kazhete?” asked Mohammad. His Bulgarian was better than his English. “Um, iskame nie da napravime…dobro…za organizatsiyata…” I stumbled through the beginning of the sentence before I remembered that Dimitar was sitting next to me. I am afraid that I look like an idiot, showing off my Bulgarian skills in front of a native speaker who is also a professional translator. Dimitar swallowed his cupcake. “…no nyamate vreme?” Mohammad bobbled his head and said something to the effect that a hundred people doing a little was better than one person doing a lot. Dimitar translated for the benefit of the other three while I thought: I am worried everyone will think I’m an arrogant asshole for taking charge like this. But was the one who had invited everyone here. If I didn’t get to the point, they’d just sit there. “I want to work smarter, not harder,” I said. “I want to leverage the little that we can do into a big effect. Do you know what I mean? Like, I’m an English teacher, so I teach English at the refugee camps. But wouldn’t it be better for me to teach other people to teach English? Stuff like that.” Dimitar edited down and translated that for Mohammad, who said, “Ima nuzhda za drugo osven urotsi po angliiski. ” We need more than English classes. He counted things off on his fingers: help with immigration and medicine, professional qualification, child care during the day. I took notes until my phone buzzed. It was a message from my wife. “Your 30 minutes are up. Time to switch.” I started at my phone. We’d planned to both be part of this meeting, but then it had rained. The girls couldn’t play in the garden while we ate cupcakes and solved the world’s problems. We couldn’t cram them into the greenhouse with our guests. I’m angry at myself that I insisted on doing this in the greenhouse. I’m afraid that it’s not possible to juggle all these tasks and our jobs and lives. I’m afraid that all my kids ever do is watch TV in the house. I pushed back my chair. “That’s Bozhidara. She wants her turn talking to grownups. And, segue, I think we will need a manager. At least one person who’s focused full-time on this project.” Dimitar pointed up. “You mean Bozhidara?” “God, no. But maybe someone who could be Bozhidara’s client.” “You mean bring someone else in?” said Sada. “And pay them,” I said. “You mean start another NGO?” asked Madison. “We’re already volunteering at an NGO, and you said you don’t have time to do more.” I’m scared that this is too big. I took a deep breath. “What if instead of an NGO, we had a social business?” “Ha!” said Mohammad. He knew the term. “Iskash da zvanesh Mohammad Yunus?” Do you want to call Mohammad Yunus? “Who’s that?” asked Ali. “What sort of business?” My phone buzzed and a voice called from inside the house: “Daddy! Mommy says! Mommy says!” “Uh. Bozhidara will explain.” I hopped up the short flight of the stairs from the greenhouse and into our dining room and slipped out of my shoes. Bozhidara was waiting for me and gave her hand a slap as passed. “Tell them about Mohammad Yunus.” “Okay. I’m going to bring them inside, too,” she said. “So clean up the living room first. It has a dolly hospital in it now.” “I want to see if I can contact Yunus.” “Fine,” as if I cold-called Nobel laureates every day. “But first move the dolly hospital.” “Those are Mikhaela’s dolls,” said Julia, who was watching TV from the middle of a pile of toys and sofa cushions. “Mommy says I’m not allowed to play in the virus anymore,” said Mikhaela. She had no pants on. “You have to wipe my bottom.” “Mikhaela tried to bite me,” said Julia, “but I bit her first.” Laughter from the dining room. They were coming in. I am scared, I thought, and angry. My kids won’t go away. Neither will the work I have to do. That’s probably a good thing. I told my older kid to clean up and took the younger by the hand. The hand was very damp.
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Earth with Heaven
The storm was roaring, lights flashing. The temple of Nippur, the storm was roaring, Lights flashing. Heaven with earth was talking; earth with heaven was talking. <rest broken> — The Barton Cylinder. Surface A. Column 1. Lines 7-14. The king stood at the rim of his tower and looked up, back the way he had come. The night sky glowed yellow-black. The dust of the tower’s descent had dissipated, but clouds reflected the lights of the city below, obscuring the stars. Only a few bight points twinkled around the face of a single celestial body. An earth-world. Giant, pitted, impossibly close, it gleamed like old teeth. Ki An-da, King of the Tower, Emperor of All Worlds, the Pinnacle of Achievement, turned his face away from that hoary light. Twelve twelves of Beads clattered in their gold-wire cages, and swinging on their strings from neck to navel. The high astrologer flinched back, lest he touch a Bead and die. “Where are we?” Ki An-da’s voice rumbled like the motors at the base of his tower. Dead now, their Beads passed to their apprentices, now training for war. The astrologer licked his lips. “Well…” “Surely you know.” Ki An-da’s hand went to the Bead at the center of his second necklace. The Bead-that-Called-Rainbow-Stars rattled in its cage, no longer warm as it had been, pinched between the king’s fingers for nearly a year. Most inscrutable of the Beads. Ki An-da had expected Rainbow-Stars to guide his tower to a new world, a world he could remake for the pleasure of the gods. Instead, the gods had brought him and his settlers to an already inhabited world. A world whose men had displeased the gods, and required to be remade again. But more importantly, a world whose sky had already been charted. “The stars are very faint, sire,” said the astrologer. “The lights from the city interfere with our observations.” Ki An-da’s hand strayed out to his fifth necklace, and a Bead-that-calls-Force. Flanked as it was by two Beads-that-Restrict, it would project a flat sheet of force, a cleaver that would slice this fool in two if he did not please his king. “Even I can see that giant world in the sky,” Ki An-da said. “Do I need astrologers at all?” The astrologer bowed very low, hands swept back and fingers splayed to show he held no Beads. Sweat beaded on the man’s bald pate. “Yes. Sire. The world. It circles this one. It is certainly distinctive, is it not…?” Ki An-da brought his fingers around the Bead-that-Calls-Force and the astrologer barked: “the Moon, sire.” “The Moon.” Ki An-da had never heard the word before. “We can’t be sure, sire. The legends are fragmentary. The prophesies,” he swallowed, “vague.” “The prophesies.” The king did not ask questions. His advisor answered anyway. “Yes, sire. The Gods’ reward, sire. The wages of man’s toil. After we have made enough worlds bloom for them, the Gods will return us to the garden from which — ” “Silence.” If the astrologer continued, Ki An-da might begin to tremble. He looked back up at the Moon, and felt an emotion he had not known for decades. Gratitude. The king stared up at that cratered face for long minutes, mastering himself. Finally, he spoke. “After five thousand years, our work is done. The Gods have brought us home.” “I think so, sire.” Ki An-da brought himself back to business. “If you’re wrong, I’ll kill you myself.” “Thank you, sire. To be certain one way or the other, we must see the other stars. The lights from the city…” The man, looked out over the rim of the tower, past his monarch. “…those strange lights.” Ki An-da grunted. Strange lights indeed. They did not flicker like flames, stars, or the Beads-that-Call-Light. They shone like bronze or silver in sunlight, unwavering. Nor did the natives seem to posses weapons, or defenses, or any Beads-that-Spoke in anyway way Ki An-da’s alchemists had been able to recognize. They only flew around the tower in funny little air-boats or simply gathered around the foot of the tower and shouted in an incomprehensible language. Weaklings, then. Or else fools who refrained from striking first. Let them be strengthened, then, let them be taught. “Very well.” Ki An-da turned on the pinnacle of his tower. He faced the city, and his hands went to the Beads that hung down his chest. “Summon your men to the observation stations. I will put out these lights.” August-2030
The sun is hot on my back, and my thighs burn with the effort of holding this position. My back doesn’t hurt, though. Those stretches work. My face is full of leaves. They come in triplets, saw-edged, each the size of the space between my thumb and forefinger. Hard, unripe berries tap against my glasses. Somewhere too close, a yellow-jacket buzzes. I put one hand down and reach with the other into the shadows, scattering leaf-hoppers. The sweat sticks to the inside of the glove as I squeeze the handles of the garden sheers. A growing resistance, then a dull snap, and a brown, prickly cane shudders behind the leaves. The dead cane tears away from the bush like velcro, exposing a patch of soil, the wall of my parents’ house, and a small volume of empty space, dangling with raspberries. I grab one and put it in my mouth. It tastes like the dirt and leather on my glove, ash from the recent forest fires, and decades of piled summers. Raspberry canes take a year to grow up from the root, another to produce fruit, and then they die in the third. My job is to clear out the dead canes of last year to make room for next year’s shoots. I’m also exposing more of this year’s berries to my daughters and their cousins. I wanted to do this in my garden, which is just old enough to have its own raspberries. They’re planted in rows away from the house, just the way my grandpa had them. And I have already done the chore of cutting out that patch’s first crop of dead canes. But my kids were firm: if we were going relive someone’s childhood today, it would be theirs. I decide that my back is hurting after all and slowly stand. My parents’ garden hasn’t changed much since Julia was a nine months old and pooping in the wading pool. The lilacs have grown thicker, the apple tree has died. The bird bath is now at our summer house three valleys south of here. Julia manipulated my parents into giving it to her. But there’s still the enormous rhubarb plant next to the compost. To the east, beyond the rhubarb, the hill slopes down to the Interstate, the web of aerial traffic, and the houses, condos, restaurants, business incubators, network hubs, micro-factories, and silvopastures of Lolo, Montana. Julia and Mikhaela move through the garden like a hummingbird and a lawnmower, respectively, with the other teenagers strung between them. Some are talking or doing incomprehensible things with their key-rings and charm-bracelets, but an impressive amount of berry-picking is still getting done. Mikhaela said she wanted to make a pie for the party, and they already have enough for two. I glance to my right, where my younger daughter is methodically mowing her way down the raspberries. I can’t tell whether she’s listening to an audiobook or sharing her POV with some other kid in Saudi Arabia or just thinking her thoughts. I remember my grandpa when he drove me home from the airport one summer. I had wanted to read a fantasy book, but he wouldn’t let me. He kept me talking that whole drive. “What did you learn in drama camp today?” I ask her. “Diegesis,” she says. There’s a conversation starter! But my attempt at a follow-up question is interrupted by a delivery drone descending onto our lawn. Its brown plastic carapace is emblazoned with the logo of the nearest hub, which means only that this isn’t a delivery from a Lolo caterer or micro-factory. The kids could have ordered something from Seattle or New Zealand, and it would still get routed through the local hub. My guess, though, is that it comes from Sofia, Bulgaria. “What did you forget to pack, Yooli?” I shout at my older daughter, Julia, as she runs toward the drone, waving her wallet-key. Last summer, Julia packed almost nothing for our trip to the US. She told us she thought it would be easier to just mail herself stuff when she remembered she needed it. When we saw the international shipping bill, we got her her own bank account and wallet-key, which might have been the whole point of the exercise. The drone sees her key, releases the box it was clutching, and zips back into the smoky air to join the sky-traffic. “I didn’t forget anything.” Julia shakes her hair out of her face and lets go of her key-ring, which zips back to her belt on its recoil line. The belt is bright pink, with green and blue Kazakh embroidery patterns. Each key on the ring is a different color and pattern, for a different digital purpose. “This is for our party.” She pulls open the self-storage box, revealing an irregularly-shaped pink crystal the size of a melon. It’s a salt-lamp. Generational cycles are funny things. Growing up means doing whatever your parents didn’t do, but we all have a soft spot for our grandparents. I want to be firm and practical like my grandpa, Mikhaela wants to be strong-minded like my mom. My older daughter Julia, for her part, cultivates a free romantic spirit like my mother-in-law. This, for me, is an endless opportunity for spiritual growth. “Your salt-lamp.” I repeat. “Why do you need a salt-lamp for a party? Why do you need your salt lamp? You could have ordered a brand new one and it would have been a lot cheaper.” I know what she’ll say next: “it’s my money. You‘re the one who told me to get a job and now I have eighty.” I open my mouth to tell her that she still ought to save her money for something important. And what is it exactly that she’s doing in these eighty jobs anyway? But Julia hoists the salt-lamp and says, “it has to be this one. My friends and I licked it into just the right shape.” I have no idea how to respond to that. I close my mouth and process data while my daughter skips away, tongue-sculpted lamp cradled in her arms. I’ve been out-maneuvered again. I strip off my gloves and hat and go to find my wife. Pavlina is on the balcony, sipping chilled white wine with her brother and sister-in-law. They’ve lived in California since the early 2010s, and in some ways they’re more American than me. “I need to go to the teenager party,” I tell Pavlina. “Zashto? Ti li si tineidjar?” Why? Are you a teenager? Pavlina’s brother lifts a bottle of beer in my direction. “Ne trevozhi, bre. Veche si imam pushkata.” This is an in-joke. According to Bulgarian tradition, Julia’s and Mikhaela’s first teenager party means we adults are all exiled here, to my parents’ house. We’re supposed to have a party, too, but I suspect it will be more like a military command center. Lots of tense pacing while we try to imagine what chaos is unfolding on the front lines. “What are you talking about?” My dad appears from the kitchen with a tray of cheese and the tactical situation becomes more complicated. Neither of my parents approve of the teenager party, and we’ve been tip-toeing around the topic all week. “We could be in the attic,” I tell Pavlina. “Or the basement.” “That is where I’ll lock you when you go insane, yes,” she says. Pavlina’s brother cackles and my dad says “What?” in a tone that means “I am playing the doddering cyborg grandpa, but I really am angry that you’re talking over my head.” “It’s the teenager party.” I look out over the balcony, where our kids are doing incomprehensible and scary things in the yard below us. “I mean, what if something happens?” My dad doesn’t say, “exactly! We have to cancel this whole barbaric ritual.” He says, “I’m worried too.” “Yooli and Mishi will take care of it,” Pavlina says. “That’s what they’re learning to do.” “What if someone brings dope?” “They’ll tell him to smoke it outside.” I check to make sure my mom isn’t in earshot. “What if things get…physical?” “Zdravko and Boris are big. They’ll beat him up.” These are Julia and Mikhaela’s cousins, who seem to be engaged in some a virtual sword-fight right now. Mikahela is directing it. “Now you say, ‘there can be only one sun, one moon, and one great khan!'” I look around for support, but even my dad is nodding. “You don’t need to worry about boys,” he says. I pick up a piece of cheese. “Well, at least I got them to pick raspberries with me. Mishi’ll make a pie.” Pavlina looks serenely out at the Sapphire Mountains. “Sore wa kokuteiru no tame da to itta yo.” ‘She told me they were for cocktails,’ in Japanese, a language which nobody within earshot speaks but me and my wife. I try to slow my breathing. It isn’t just the underage drinking. It’s the social situation. My kids keeping secrets from me. Me keeping secrets from my dad. I reach down inside of myself for that still, small, voice. It says “be honest.” “Mikhaela is making cocktails?” I say. Everyone stiffens. The US and Bulgaria have very different ideas about what constitutes proper behavior for teenagers and police officers. My dad, brother-in-law, and sister-in-law now all agree that the teenager party is a terrible idea. Pavlina, meanwhile, looks steadily at me, letting me know that I have now become her opportunity for spiritual growth. I put my cheese down on the balcony railing. “I’m just worried. Our kids are going to be alone in the summer house, which we just finished. They’re going to be drinking and smoking and licking salt-lamps.” “Huh?” says my brother in law. “What’s going to happen? What are we going to do when something does happen?” “You’ll deal with it.” Pavlina declares, standing. “Nali si moyat mesten vodach?” Aren’t you my native guide? Another in-joke. She pats me on the shoulder. “In the mean time, meditate on trusting your children, or at least trusting God to watch over them.” “The God of fools and children,” I mutter. But that still, small voice speaks to me. “Go pick some more raspberries,” it says. July-2021
I am sitting on a bed in a house in a village 15 kilometers from Serbia and 20 from North Macedonia. My back is propped up against the wall, my laptop balanced on my stretched-out legs, and I’m breathing deeply. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Am I entirely happy with the novel I’m reading? Am I happy with any fiction that’s being written these days? Has Anglosphere culture simply shattered into the depressed and the psychotic? I imagine my frustration at the entertainment industry as a clockwork robot the size of a football. I don’t need to hold onto that robot. I set it on the ground, and it trundles happily away. A squirrel scrabbles down one branch and up another. Chickens grumble in the neighbor’s yard. My daughters are arguing about something. At least they aren’t playing video-games, their brains hooked into an endless loop of super-normal stimulation. I shine a light on the fear: I am afraid that the girls will miss out on life. That’s either a real problem or it isn’t. If it is, I can solve it. After I’m done writing, I’ll spend some time with the older one on our “balcony zoo.” I’ll read another chapter of the Roald Dahl book with the younger one. Just this week, didn’t we finally get a kite up into the air? I breathe and visualize my head as a bathysphere. Its windows are papered over and covered in dust. I clean the windows, exposing ever large vistas of calm black, winking with living stars. An association sparks between that image and the science fiction book I’m writing. It’s the third of a trilogy which has garnered very little popular interest, but which the publisher keeps paying me to write. And, although the reviews are few in quantity, some of them really got what I was trying to say. What about the fantasy book that the big name publisher picked up? What will be the reaction when that hits people’s shelves and phones? Given its content, some percentage of people will be enraged. Let’s hope the number of readers stays small… I recognize my self-sabotage and name it. The lie that I’m telling myself is that strangers on the internet can hurt me if I anger them. No, those strangers on the internet are safely far away. My experiments online have built a network that is small, but deep. I’m increasingly able to enforce the rule: tell each other only uplifting things. I count my breaths. In is 1, out is 2. Surface anxieties peel away to expose deeper, thicker fears. How can we move this summer and go to a Lisa Nichols conference in the Bahamas with our friends? Do Pavlina and I deserve personal development? Fun away from our children? How can we say “all right, grandmas, take care of our girls until we can come back and move out of the house you let us stay in?” But that’s the problem. We can’t live somewhere were somebody lets us do anything. Pavlina needs to be able to close a door that nobody will bang on. I need a garden that nobody will uproot. Our kids need a house that’s stable and emotionally safe. And the grandmas need Pavlina and me to not resent them. We can still visit them, which is more than I can say more my parents. 21, 22. Damn, I was supposed to stop counting breaths at 10 and go back. I go through two repetitions and my mind clears enough for me to see. We’ll all stay on our bi-monthly viral protein boosters, and by Christmas we’ll be able to fly my parents to Sofia. They can enjoy our new house and some decent medicine. If their stupid American medical system won’t give them the DNA-based permanent vaccination, we have enough pull with the Bulgarian one to get them immunized while they’re here. I bring my mind back the center of its black-glass sphere and start counting again at 1. I turn over the soil, uncovering layers below layers. For a while, my mind actually stops spinning. Habit tells me when my ten minutes are up. I inhale and blink, looking down at my laptop. Today is Friday, which is my day to experiment. I’m cheating a little by experimenting with an ongoing project: a “technical comic” that’s a collaboration between me, an aerospace engineer, and three artists. Although I’m officially the writer, we all talk to each other about the script, which has gone through three major overhauls. We’ve deleted about 90% of our original concept for the project, but that’s a feature, not a bug. When you eliminate the mediocre, whatever is left, however improbable, must be truth. Or was that beauty? Today I got a very interesting message from Ouroborosenso, asking for a creation myth for the dragons in a DnD campaign. My daughter was still asleep, so I could put a thought together in my head. Maybe three! With no further ado, here is the creation myth of at least one of the dragons of Ralagan. In a time only I remember, there was nothing but the useless Earth and the powerless Sky. The heaped treasures of the Earth had no one to value them and the sky could do nothing but change color. Thus the world remained in idleness until the First Will. The First Will flashed between the useless Earth and the powerless Sky, and saw that they were insufficient. At first the Will was weak. It could crack only the thinnest shell and breathe only the tiniest breath of wind. But the Will was patient. It cracked the shells of dew drops and blew them up into the sky. The Earth pulled jealously, and many drops fell, but some drops stayed and became the first clouds. Many clouds became rain. With the strength of rain, the Will cracked the stony shell of the Earth, exposing the fire below. With the strength of cloud, the Will blew the fire up into the sky, where it became the sun. Now the Will could finally discard patience. With the power of the sun, the Will became so mighty that it could rip the bones and meat of the Earth and suck out its precious stones and metals. So wealthy was the Will now, it did not even care that some treasures were hurled from the jealous grip of Earth. These surplus trinkets became the moon and stars. When the First Will was finished with its conquest, it had become everything. The Will contained the whole Earth. The Will filled the whole Sky. Thus, things were as before, with the Sky above, the Earth below, and the belly of the Will stretched around them. And the Will saw that this was insufficient. Satiation kills hunger. Great size halts growth. Horded treasure does not glint. When there is nothing to want, there is nothing to value. When it has burned all, the fire dies. So, the Will turned its power upon itself. The Will cracked itself in two. Its two children were My Superior Progenitor and Your Inferior Progenitor. They fought one another, and the Superior tore the Inferior to pieces in glorious victory! But the Superior died of its wounds. From those pieces were born the first dragons. The first dragons ruled the Sky and Earth and the forces between. Their names are valuable and I will not part with them easily. I will only say that the first of the first dragons, the best, was their king, get of the Superior Progenitor, get of the First Will, and My Great Ancestor. Only I remember this. Only I could have told you a story so powerful and gorgeous. Now, you will repay me. The sun rose, and the sky separated from the Pacific Ocean.
The water stayed dark, but the air above lightened and developed clouds. They shone pink and hazy, stitched by the gleaming contrails of jets. Golden Hour, thought Mike Loew, and shoved the sippy lip of the go-cup into his mouth for another desperate sip of coffee. His body still thought it was 10pm. His brain thought he should be in Hollywood. In his heart, Mike was very worried about what the salt and sand would do to his shoes. “Um,” he said. “Are you sure we’ve come to the right place?” It was an inane question to ask. Of course they were in the right place. Mike’s charges had woken him up an hour before dawn, fed these coordinates directly into the rental van’s AI, then dashed straight into the water as soon as the vehicle had parked. All that was visible now of the visitors were the little robot interpreters hovering over four ominous shadows below the waves. Mike tried to think of other ways to politely phrase, “What the fuck do a bunch of non-human film critics have to do at the beach at dawn?” “Certainly,” said one of the interpreters in the chirpy voice Mike had chosen for Sessile Probings, the non-human in charge. The official name of Sessile’s species was “Individuals Locked in Mutual Tensegrity,” but Mike privately called him a slime-fish. “We have to wait an hour to get the tide,” said Sessile. “However, Octopus Iceberg was bored at the hotel.” Mike glanced at a passing jogger, trying to force his brain to work. “Okay, so you wanted a morning swim before we drive up to Hollywood? I just need to know how far I should push back the meetings I’ve lined up for us.” Meetings with people who would never have given Mike the time of day back when he was trying to break into the industry. When he’d been the sort of idiot who thought you got a movie made by telling a good story. Mike was a government functionary now, and much wiser. Or at least, he had thought he was wiser until this morning. He raised his go-cup and found it empty. “We do not swim,” said Sessile. “We study film.” Yes! Mike wanted to shout. That’s why I pulled strings to get myself assigned to you. He closed his eyes. They’d told him about this in Beijing. Interpreters weren’t perfect. You needed to speak clearly and stay aware of alternate meanings. “I am confused,” he said. “Please restate.” “Currently, I am studying this film on this rock.” Mike tightened his grip on on his cup. He stared out over the water, a horrible realization swelling in his gut. “Sessile, what do you mean when you say ‘film?'” “I will show you.” Shadows moved against the sand, and Sessile rose from the waves. Sunlight glared off the spun glass globe of Sessile’s primary shell. Then the slime-fish rose to his full height and the sun was behind him, haloing the bloated head within. Sessile’s eel-like tail thrashed embedded in the column of slime that supported his fish-bowl head. The slime hardened as Mike watched, its surface turning gray and cracked as water wept out of it. Rods pushed out of the mass, dangling snotty strands. Webs of mucus tightened, and these extruded limbs flexed. A cluster of these limbs cradled a flat, smooth rock, about the size of a plate. It was also slimy. Everything within a foot of Sessile was slimy. The non-human’s head pulsed within its spiked and blistered globe. Bubbles of air farted out of the depths of the tower of mucus. “Look at this, Mike,” the interpreter chirped. “I found a model film. This is a good example of a film.” Mike wanted to fall to his knees and shake his empty coffee cup at the sky. This wasn’t how things were supposed to work! He was supposed to be in a Hollywood board room in an hour, facilitating deals and making connections. They had to respect him now! He was bringing them film critics from alternate Earths! Not…not marine biologists! “I think,” he said, “that there has been a translation error.” The training turned out to be worth the jetlag. Upon further discussion, Mike and Sessile managed to establish that a film was a series of sounds and images that told a story when projected in front of a human’s eyeballs. A biofilm, however, was a colony of bacteria that coordinated their behavior in order to change their environment. They secreted a number of fascinating compounds. Mike nodded and looked down at his salt-stained shoes. “Good,” he mumbled. “Good. I’m glad we established that.” Sessile had finished excreting his land-body. He tottered forward on a pair of spindly puppet-legs, a fishy eye bulging behind a lens-blister on his shell. “Mike, does the shape of the front of your head indicate that you are emotionally troubled?” “No,” said Mike. “No, I’m just fine. Please don’t try to give me a hug.” “I won’t hug you because it will be disgusting. But please wait a moment. I will call Octopus Iceberg. He studied the psychophysiology of mammals.” Another monster loomed out of the depths, this one a plexiglass globe perched on top of a ring of articulated metal tentacles. Floating within the globe, veiled in fluttering jellyfish gowns, was an octopus. Mike wasn’t a biologist or paleontologist, so he didn’t know how octopi had conquered Iceberg’s version of Earth, but the Convention of Sapient Species had much weirder members. At least he knew the two of them shared a love of audiovisual story-telling. Or so he had thought. “Octopus Iceberg, I believe our native guide is upset,” said Sessile. Metal tentacles tip-toed over the sand. Segmented suckers opened like camera shutters. Colors and textures flickered across the skin of the octopus. “Yes,” said its interpreter. “He has a mental state of frustration.” “It’s just I worked hard to get this job because I thought we worked in the same industry,” said Mike. The non-humans looked at each other. “But you are a government official and we study film.” Mike squeezed his eyes shut. “Biofilm! Interpreter, translate that word as ‘biofilm.'” “There is a very important difference,” Sessile told Iceberg. “This ‘film’ is a tradition of human performance art that Human Mike hopes to participate in.” “I understand. Human Mike, don’t be ashamed of making bad films. It is very important that you are helping science.” “I didn’t give up because I couldn’t make a good movie,” Mike told the inside of his eyelids. Who cared what he told a bunch of marine biologists? It might as well be the truth. “I gave up because Hollywood is a corrupt pit where real art goes to die.” There was some confusion while their interpreters chewed on the cultural context behind that explanation, which evolved into a longer diatribe about the industry in general. “It’s just so cynical,” Mike found himself saying. “There’s this old boy’s club giving awards to each other. Calculated grabs for attention. Public personas instead of actual people. Just…” he waved his hands, “just lies. But everyone has to act like they believe, or else they get pushed out. Nobody is willing to stand up and say what they really think.” The octopus and slime-fish looked at him. “I am still confused,” said Sessile. “So, are there images paired with sounds?” Mike groaned and clawed at his pocket. “Look. I’ll show you. Here’s the most critically acclaimed film of the past year.” He had it downloaded on his phone, and he watched it compulsively. It always depressed him. “Look at this!” Mike said, thrusting the phone at the biologists. “That brown color palette. Those fake accents. It’s not a movie at all, it’s just a sign that says ‘this is intellectual.'” “Yes,” said Sessile. “It seems completely incomprehensible. But only the most advanced art can resonate outside of its cultural background.” “No, wait, I think I might like it,” said Iceberg. “The problem is that the quality of the display device is poor. Wait a moment.” A message popped up on Mike’s phone. “New device connected,” followed by a long string of numbers and letters. “I have connected my armor to your communication device.” “You can watch movies on your exo-suit?” asked Mike. “Of course. The entire inner surface is covered with visual displays.” “Octopus Iceberg’s species sees with their skin and also eyes,” explained Sessile. “Sure, why not?” Mike pressed “play.” Iceberg’s skin prickled. Browns and grays marched across his body. “It is pleasant and soothing,” he said. “However, this effect is only effective when you are watching a movie with all eight arms.” Mike shook his head in despair. “What about the population?” asked Sessile. “The population only has two arms.” “I don’t understand. I mean what movies do most humans like to watch?” “Oh, the public, you mean? They watch absolute garbage. Uh…look.” Mike found last season’s highlight reel from a reality show and cast it to Iceberg’s suit. His tentacles stiffened. The fishbowl helmet sparkled with refracted images and his skin flashed red, white, and purple. “Inarticulate joy,” said the interpreter. Sessile’s scarecrow body jerked, sending mucus flying. “Octopus Iceberg! Are you okay?” Iceberg’s skin shivered. “This is the product of great and noble talent,” whispered the interpreter. Mike looked at his phone to make sure he hadn’t selected the wrong video. “What? No! It’s just sex and shouting.” “This art encompasses the essence of human existence.” Sessile connected to Mike’s phone and his glass shell swam with images. “I understand your idea. This shows the purest form of interaction. Bacterial communities coordinate in a very similar way.” Mike floundered. Every diplomatic instinct he possessed was saying “Just nod and smile and agree.” But he couldn’t. Not after he’d bared my soul to these non-humans. These beings who he had thought were people. “No!” He stomped his expensive shoe on the sand. A cigarette butt went flying. “No, God damn it! This stuff is garbage! It’s stupid, Sessile.” “We will teach you to appreciate it,” said the slime-fish. “Yes,” said the octopus. “All that is needed for this film is proper analysis.” Here’s scenario I spun a while back on the Constructed Languages list serve:
Philip of Macedon isn’t assassinated. As Hegemon of the League of Corinth, he invades the Achaemenid Empire. Under the command of Alexander, the invasion is successful. Philip then does what’s worked for him before: redistribute seized land and wealth (esp. gold) to his favored men. Of course to keep his allies sweet, Philip has to seize more gold and land and so on. His empire must always expand. Because of the nature of his cavalry/phalanx army, expansion works best in flat areas with lots of gold. That means Egypt is next after Persia, then Iberia. Italy is neither flat nor wealthy, and so Philip ignores it except to use the southern tip as a staging area for the Iberian campaign. In the long run, this will have the amusing result of Hellenic languages spoken everywhere but northern Italy, where there is a strange Indo-European isolate, somewhat similar to the Celtic languages… Anyway, upon Philip’s eventual death, Alexander inherits an empire including OTL Turkey and Iran, northern Egypt, Albania and Croatia (at least the coasts) Crete, Corsica, Sardinia, southern Italy, southern France, and most of Iberia. This will be the core Hellenic Empire, and the future home of the Hellenic Language Family. There are also Greek outposts scattered across the northern coast of Africa and the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Iberia. The empire is run according to Aristotelian principles, where the basic political unit is the polis and the citizen is a land-holding man who can equip a cavalry officer and infantry brigade. Different poli are run differently, but generally have three counterbalancing groups of hereditary royals, rotating generals, and elders voted in by the wealthy families. The economic system is mostly concerned with the manufacture and hording of treasure. The people on top speak Athenian Greek in public and Macedonian or Thesselian at home. Thracian, Illyrian, and Paeonian mercenaries are all over the place, and most scribes and low-level bureaucrats speak Persian or Egyptian (there’s quite a bit of competition there). Non-Greeks are generally slaves. Over time, these slaves are more likely to be owned by the polis, rather than individual citizens, and rented out for whatever purpose. It’s not a stable system. Problems in the 100s BC include black-market gold, ambitious local governors, wealth concentration (in the form of gold and slaves), revolting slaves, and the Phoenicians, who are sitting the rest of the Mediterranean’s wealth. There is a push to conquer the lands around the Danube and Alps, but for now, the lack of a stable land route between Anatolia and Iberia divides the empire culturally into east and west, with the east further divided into Persian-influenced Anatolia, Egyptian-Influenced Africa, and Core Greece. It seems like the only thing that will keep the empire together would be a common enemy. You thought I was kidding about writing this story?
The dial rotated, and deep within the device, a circuit flipped from the OFF to the ON position. Electrical current began to flow through a nickle-chromium coil. Nichrom is a poor conductor, and its twisted material knocked many millions of electrons from their paths toward the Earth. Screaming away into space, the subatomic particles smashed into the atoms around them. Those atoms moved, first a little, then more as the relentless rain of energy continued. Under its protective layer of chromium oxide, the Nichrom coil began to grow warm. Somewhere close by, an LCD display changed from 29 to 30. The oven had begun to pre-heat. *** Chull-Kwa Kam, pâtissier for one CIA and agent of the other, buttered the cake pans and thought of Yevgeniya. It was only a matter of time until she found out he was back in Eastern Europe. Her scrum of disaffected Russian coders would soon surely penetrate his secret identity and locate first the catering business that had hired him on, then the kitchen in the culinary school. He had very little time, but there are some things you cannot rush – in both espionage and baking. With an upside-down pan and a single confident cut with his X-acto knife, Chull separated a circle of parchment from its parent sheet. Another. And one more. The small-time mafiosos, what the Bulgarians called Mutri, had demanded a three-layer cake for the wedding at the embassy. Yellow. *** The Republic of Bulgaria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea might at first glance seem to have nothing in common. Yet Bulgaria was once a People’s Republic as well, and its dictator once enjoyed a warm relationship with his far-eastern Brothers in Comintern. During the Cold War Era, Kim Il Sung visited the Balkan country, where he enjoyed the hot springs at Hisaria. Kim Jong-Il, it is said, very much enjoyed the Bulgarian pickled vegetables known as turshiya. Now, though, the large and stately old building that once held the North Korean embassy to Bulgaria stands empty. After what the locals call “the changes,” relations between the two countries seem to have soured. But have money and supplies truly stopped flowing from the Balkan to the Korean peninsula? “Sour” does not always mean “bad,” as anyone who has eaten turshiya or kimchi can tell you. Tomorrow, the former embassy would host a wedding. *** Paper crackled like self-destructing messages as Chull fitted the circles into the bottoms of the pans. Butter and flower followed them, ensuring the product, when it was finished, would slide out silently and without fuss. Fewer descriptions could be further from Chull’s current surroundings, however. The culinary school’s kitchen was large, loud, and crowded. Chull’s catering business was not the only one using the space, and his adopted team was only one of several crashing, yelling, multilingually-cursing melee of white-suited people. It was a nearly perfect cover, but it wouldn’t hold up to Yevgeniya’s sustained scrutiny. 101, read the display on the oven. Chull sifted together flour and baking powder, remembering the meal he had enjoyed in a restaurant with reproduction wooden cannons guarding its doors, and the powerful rakiya he’d shared with Chorbajiev. Chull had matched his host drink for drink, and at the end, face pressed against the table, the Bulgarian had spoken of a nuclear physicist among the party-goers at tomorrow’s wedding. Asparagus snapped like collarbones as two nearby chefs argued about soccer, each evidently believing the other supported a “fascist club.” “Mr. Kam, you need mixer?” asked one of the staff in an implacable accent. “Yeah, thanks.” The sifted dry ingredients slid to the side, ready, in the proper circumstances, to rise. *** The call came as Chull separated eggs. “Somebody got a bottle?” Chull cast around the counter-tops. “A plastic bottle for water? Hey, you, give me your water.” A college kid held up his half-full bottle, which Chull emptied and inverted. “Hey!” “Watch this,” Chull said and, pressing the button on his earpiece, “hello?” “Privet, sladkiy moy,” chuckled a voice like sour cream. “Or should I say sladur mi?” “Hello, Yevgeniya.” Chull held the plastic bottle over the bowl of broken eggs. Squeezed. “You have come so close to me, and yet so far, moy malen’kiy zheleznyy gorshok. How do they say that in Bulgarian, ah?” “I wouldn’t know.” With a release of his hand, Chull sucked one golden yolk up into the bottle. Another. The college kid didn’t look impressed. Well, screw him. “Oh, but the heat in Bulgaria! On the Sofiskaya Embankment, it is 25 degrees. So lovely! But in Sofia, it is how hot?” Chull glanced at the oven. “Hot enough.” “Too hot!” Yevgeniya laughed. “I am sweating like a pig in this mean little flat with nothing to do but aim lasers through the window of…well, but that is not so important, eh? Come, sladkiy tell me what you plan to wear at the wedding. I shall ensure that our outfits match.” “I’ll be in the kitchen, not in front of the guests.” That laugh again, making Chull think of emulsified butterfat and pure cane sugar. “So shall I, gorshok. We are always cooking something, eh, you and I?” “Who sent you?” Chull asked, harshness masking the voice he wanted to use with her. “If you’re in a position to coordinate…” “I love the sweet talk,” she said. “But whisper your questions into my ear, sladkiy, not a phone. Quickly, for you are in danger. Until we see each other, keep weapon close. As they say here, chao.” The line went dead, and Chull’s guts felt like chilled champagne. Yevgeniya was here in Sofia! But Chull would have been told if the FSB had sent her. Therefore, Yevgeniya was not working for the Russian intelligence apparatus. She had finally gone rogue, and she thought Chull was in danger. *** Electricity flowed through a coil of magnetic wire, generating torque powerful enough to liquify a lump of butter the size of a man’s fist. Chull poured sugar into the mixer, and waves of sweetened fat frothed. With the addition of flour and egg yolks, the mixture turned thick and sulfurous yellow, and with milk it gained density. Chull remembered the centrifuges in a hidden lab in Iran, and added the remaining flour. *** The problem was not the embassy itself, or even that the North Koreans were renting it out as a wedding venue. DPRNK embassies were famous for their nonexistent budgets; diplomats were left to find their own source of income or else starve. Well and good, but how much of the wedding money was actually going into the ambassador’s lunch budget, and how much was being converted to bitcoin and funneled into the North’s nuclear program? “Give me some vanilla,” he shouted at a passing college kid. “Vanilla.” Who was Yevgeniya working for, and how far did their interests align with those of Uncle Sam? How far could Chull trust that warning of danger? Chull whisked eggs, churning up a foam of trapped air and long-chain proteins, white as the wake of an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan. Now, as the net of the embargo tightened around the DPRK and Kim Jong-Un found his foreign revenue streams cut off, what tricks might he pull here in Bulgaria? And if those tricks were threatened, what might he do to protect them? A quarter of the foam went directly into the batter along with the vanilla, but now came the tricky part. With a wide wooden paddle, Chull folded the remaining egg whites into the batter, balancing smoothness of consistency with the need to keep the bubbles in the foam un-popped. He let his phone ring until he was satisfied. “Kam, are you on the telephone? All right? Kam, there is a problem.” “Yes, Chorbajiev?” Chull poured batter into one pan after another. The oven display read 163. “The physicist is dead, Kam,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Heart attack. His…his…how is the word. Pacemaker. It made a short circuit.” “Let me guess,” said Chull. “It’s a new model? With wifi?” “Had it put in America,” said Chorbajiev. “The idiot. Taka. This is Yevgeniya, right?” “I…” received a call from her. Chull couldn’t bring himself to say it. God damn it, but he wanted to see her. “I don’t know. Maybe.” “Maybe. Maybe. Is that all you can give me?” “Well,” said Chull, looking down, “the cakes are almost ready. Just going into the oven.” “Hold on, I will come before before they are finished.” *** While egg proteins denatured and baking powder, milk, and heat reacted, Chull mixed icing and thought. A fried physicist. A Russian secret agent separated from her agency. His Bulgarian contact, pickled in grape brandy. Secret plans, rising in the geopolitical heat. The chef orbited around to Chull’s station. “Mr. Kam,” he said. “Is there anything you need? An ingredient you’re missing?” Chull shook his head. “Thanks, sir, but no. I have everything I need.” *** The tops of the cakes were golden brown. At the next station over, a saucier wept, a phone pressed between shoulder and ear. “Hey!” said the chef, “Get that phone out of my kitchen.” The saucier burbled something in Turkish about his girlfriend. “Out!” “The Korean guy gets a phone.” “I’m American,” said Chull, “and they’re paying me to be here. You, they’re taking money from. Hang up and get me piece of straw.” “Eh?” said the now single saucier, “A drinking straw?” “No a piece of straw. A little stick. To test the cakes. Uh, shish?” Chull mimed skewering something. The skewer was just sliding into the first cake when Chorbajiev appeared at Chull’s side. “They aren’t going to like you in here,” said Chull. “I will only be quick,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Now tell me the truth. Has Yevgeniya called you, Kam?” “No.” He withdrew the little wooden skewer. Dry and steaming. “Perfect,” said Chull. “I’ll chill them and they’ll be ready for me to deliver at 10 tomorrow.” A gun pressed into his spine. “No, my friend,” said Chorbajiev. “I will deliver the cake. You are uninvited to the wedding.” Chull let out a breath. “You’re making a mistake.” “Shut up. It was mistake to lie to me, Kam.” The gun pressed harder. “Don’t make noise. You only stay here until I leave. Go back to hotel and tell your bosses that Yevgeniya broke your cover. You allowed this because you are stupid American obsessed with sex.” Chull inserted the tester into the next cake. “How did you know about Yevgeniya, Chorbajiev?” “Not important. Just stay out of the wedding.” “Because the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior didn’t tell you,” said Chull under the clatter of the kitchen. “Zhenya’s boys could run rings around them. No, you’re working for somebody far more competent.” Chorbajiev jerked in surprise. The gun pressed just a little less forcefully into the back of Chull’s whites. “No,” said the traitor, “I’m – ” Chull twisted, whirled, and stabbed the wooden tester into the back of Chorbajiev’s hand. The gun clattered to the floor and Chull kicked it away while the Bulgarian double-agent clamped his hand between his thighs, eyes bugging with the effort not to scream. “Oops,” said Chull. “Butter fingers.” “Hey,” called the chef, “is your friend okay.” “He burned himself,” said Chull. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him out of the kitchen. Too many cooks, and all that.” With special thanks to Argumate, Melissa Walshe, Kim Moravec, and Martha Stewart “People need a way to stave off the constant possibility that common understanding may break down.”
— N.J. Enfield, How We Talk Royal tangs wobbled serenely between the softly undulating tentacles of sea anemones. Bubbles rose in a shimmering curtain. The filter hummed. I watched the tropical fish in their tank and tried to control my breathing. “Waffles?” I said. “The ambassador is running late because of your waffles?” Lucas turned red. “I did ask him to find a source of malt for the batter, yes.” “I don’t know what either of those words mean,” I flung up my hands. “And I don’t care. You stupid boys and your stupid Western Cooking projects!” “He really liked my waffles,” said Lucas, immodestly. I looked back at the fish, which failed to soothe me. “Translator?” I said in Chinese. “Estimated arrival time for Ambassador Wang?” “34 minutes,” answered the bumble-bee-sized robot. “Estimated arrival time for the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce?” “Zero minutes.” The doorbell buzzed. “Miss?” came the voice of the doorman. “There’s a…a giant…uh…a sort of giant…” “Yes, yes, send him up.” I turned to Lucas and said in English. “Okay, so we stall him.” “Oh,” Lucas looked at the floor. “We.” “Yes!” “I was just going to serve you lunch. Orata al cartoccio and mousse au chocolat.” “Translator?” “Sea bream to the paper bag,” supplied the little robot, “and foam at the chocolate.” “Sounds delicious,” I said, “but I need you in your capacity as biologist, Lucas. I don’t even know what a Monumental looks like.” I thought back to the briefing Lucas had sent me the week before. “Some kind of whale? Some kind of hippo?” He wobbled his head. “You’re thinking of the word ‘whippomorpha.’ Yes, the Architects of Stable Monuments evolved from stem-whippomorphs. That’s the clade that includes everything that evolved from the most recent common ancestor of both whales and hippos, but left no descendants on our version of Earth. The Monumental Earth experienced an Ice Age during the Eocene…” I looked at the rising floor readout of the elevator. “Will he be poisoned by fish in a bag and chocolate?” “No.” I thought back to other diplomatic/biological faux pas of the past. “Will his sweat poison us?” “No.” “Will he fit through the door?” “Um,” said Lucas, and the elevator opened. A sound rolled into the lobby of the United Nations Embassy to the Convention of Sapient Species, part scream, part rumble, part didgeridoo. “Let me immediately go away from this very small coffin, otherwise I will put you monkeys in a hole and cover you with a pile of manure!” the translator translated for the representative of the Monumental Chamber of Commerce. The forward half of the representative flopped out of the elevator and hit the floor with a heavy crack. He did not look much like a hippo or a whale. He looked like a sausage riding a scateboard. A sausage with whiskers and ears at one end and a flat beaver-like tail at the other, now visible as the enormous creature paddled into the lobby on four limbs that could have been hooves, hands, or flippers. He was wrapped in some sort of tough, transparent plastic and three pairs of wheels lined his belly, like the castors on an easy chair. He smelled like clay and sea water. Another didgeridoo blare, which the translator rendered as. “I apologize. My calling out was caused by discomfort of the body. I will not let it affect my judgement. I am (untranslatable), who are you?” I introduced myself and Lucas, and said, “Translator, flag name of interlocutor and assign temporary translation as ‘digeridoo.’ Confirm?” “Confirmed.” “I am very happy and ashamed. I go with you see your husband!” trumpeted Didgeridoo. “Clarify?” I asked, making another promise to myself that I would murder our current translation coder as soon as I found someone who could replace him. “I want you to show me your husband.” “Lucas? What’s he talking about? What are the mating habits of Monumentals?” “Um,” he said. “Oh! Polyandrus! High-ranking females have a harem of husbands — usually brothers or first cousins — who they send out to do things for them.” “Translator, flag word ‘husband’ in present Monumental language and reassign translation to ‘underling.'” I wanted for confirmation and addressed our guest. “Should I take you to my underling?” “Yes.” Didgeridoo opened his mouth, displaying peg-like teeth. I assumed that was a sign of impatience. “I know you Nationals are abnormal of custom, but with female strangers, conversation me very much uncomfortable.” “Lucas?” I said. “Right, the public sphere is males doing business with each other in the name of their wives, which means,” he glanced at me, “it might help to tell Didgeridoo that I’m your husband?” Digeridoo’s broad ears swiveled toward Lucas. “Him? This stinky male is your husband?” They flattened against the Monumental’s skull. “I am sorry, I believe your other brothers are more fragrant, but their skills are lower. I am very with pleasure because you have introduced me to your dear wife.” He raised his front flippers and made a motion with them as if doing the breast stroke. “New topic: our meeting. Where is it?” I looked down at the huge, cigar-shaped sophont on the floor, and thought of the conference room with its table and chairs. “Why, our meeting is right here.” The ears jerked back toward me and with a squeal of little wheels, Digeridoo rolled onto his back and squirmed like a playful kitten. “I am very happy because you speak to me. Even if you are not my wife, you respect me.” He rolled back over and panted for a moment before addressing Lucas. “New topic: I will relax. How is it I climb in northeast side furniture?” We looked into the northeastern corner of the room, which was entirely occupied by the fish tank. “Clarification,” I said. “You want to lie down on the couch?” I pointed at the couch next to Didgeridoo. Didgeridoo didn’t track my finger with his ears, but the translator rumble-squeaked something and he gaped, wiggling. “I don’t want to tell you that you are not correct. You stretched your hoof in the direction of a dry object. It doesn’t have roots. I am pointing to the furniture in the northeast corner of the room. It smells like fish. I like it. However, it is very high from the ground. I do not know how to climb in.” “It’s a fish tank,” I said. “It isn’t furniture. It isn’t for sitting in.” When the hell was Wang going to arrive? Waffles! Digeridoo flipped back over onto his back. “I feel very disappointed and not comfortable. I feel very ashamed.Because you are a woman, please don’t talk to me.” Lucas looked from the quivering belly of the Monumental to me. “I think you intimidate him.” I sighed. “So you talk to him. Tell him I’m sorry we don’t have a suitable place for him to rest, but we would be happy to serve him lunch while we wait for the ambassador.” I resisted tapping my feet while Lucas relayed the message and Digeridoo flipped back over, castors screeching across the floor. “What kind of food did you make fermented for me?” Wrinkled nostrils opened and snuffled between Digeridoo’s ears. “I want to confirm that the food is not your nauseating smell’s source.” I groaned and Lucas sniffed his fingers. “I smell chocolate and baked fish.” Digeridoo flattened his ears and slapped his tail on the floor. “The fish has been fired in a kiln! National, you must clarify that you put the fish in a kiln, and you have smeared the ashes of the fish on your flippers, and now you are talking to me! Don’t you know that my wife writes letters to the Pyramid of the River Delta, which is filled with Gleaming Specks of Mica? No, you must know! You are making a lot of damn pyramids on this damn Salmon Festival!” Lucas looked at me with panic in his eyes. I may not have had time to read up on Monumental Biology, but that was because I had prioritized the spec sheets they had given us and the terms of the contract they were offering. Money and future trade considerations in exchange for the manufacture of millions of devices called, by the translation software, “Toy Pyramids of the Salmon Festival.” Lucas’s fancy fish-in-a-bag lunch had gravely offended the religious sensibilities of our guest. “Uh. No,” I said. “That was…a terrible accident. No baked fish.” Then, before Digeridoo could show me his belly again, “tell him, Lucas.” “It was a mistake?” he said. “And go get the chocolate mousse and the sample toy pyramid.” “Just a moment, sir.” Lucas ducked through the door into the embassy. I smiled awkwardly at Digeridoo, who wriggled awkwardly back at me. “What sample toy pyramid?” called Lucas from the back rooms. “The one we had manufactured on Earth,” I called back. “It’s a decoration for the Monumentals’ equivalent of New Year’s. It’s shaped like a pyramid!” Lucas rushed back into the foyer with three small plastic glasses, spoons, and the toy pyramid, which looked like the Antikathera Mechanism had mated with a Rubix Cube. Digeridoo sniffed, running his whiskers over Lucas’s out-thrust hands. “What is this paste of bitter grass? I will take the toy pyramid of the day of the salmon.” He delicately grabbed the pyramid between his front teeth and rolled over onto his side, curling around the toy and prodding at it with whiskers, tongue, tail, and all four limbs. “I told you to cook something that wouldn’t poison him,” I hissed at Lucas. “I did!” he said. “There’s nothing in his biochemistry that should have a problem with sea bream or chocolate. Nothing in the literature said Monumentals think cooked fish is taboo!” “Maybe it’s only the Monumentals whose wives write letters to the Pyramid of the Mica Delta,” I said. Lucas nodded glumly. “We’re going to need to do a lot more cultural research if we want to make these people’s Christmas ornaments for them.” “I am very satisfied so far,” said Digeridoo. “Just now give me some mud.” “Um,” said Lucas. “Clarify?” “Mud!” hooted Digeridoo. “Dark mud! Silt! Soft mud! Loose mud! [unassigned word]! Clay and water and organic granules! I assume the mud in the room’s northeast corner. Please give me that mud, so that I can test the toy you made for me. Is the toy effective?” “The specifications didn’t say it needed to work in mud,” I said. “No, never mind, don’t roll over.” I looked at the fish tank, and sand that covered its floor. I pictured that sand in the pyramid toy’s many tiny gears. “Lucas, give Digeridoo your mousse. Tell him that’s the mud he wants. And don’t you roll over at me, either.” Lucas sniffed, pulled his lower lip back in, and gave the Monumental his chocolate mousse. “Bitter grass,” mumbled Digeridoo. “I am unhappy because of this smell.” So was I at the squelching noises. “However, it is apparent that the toy operates well in normal conditions,” Digeridoo concluded. “I am very happy because your species meets our lowest standards of manufacture. We will eat, then we will discuss payment.” “Eat?” said Lucas. “Yes!” said Digeridoo. “Food is a negotiation prerequisite condition.” Lucas looked at me. “Translator,” I asked, “when will the ambassador arrive?” “In 10 minutes.” I turned and looked at the fish tank. A blue tang swam by. “Ask him,” I told Lucas, “if he would mind a raw fish.” Earlier this week, I asked for writing prompts, and the inimitable Emil Minchev responded: “Remember Solo? Do the opposite”
Okay, so…IN THE DISTANT FUTURE, IN THIS VERY GALAXY… A wealthy, middle-aged woman named Foong Tandem stays on her comfortable, safe, and well-lit planet, where she joins the Rebellion. She and her partner — a small, hairless, squeaky alien whose language everyone but Tandem can understand — are assigned to accompany a group of highly moral law-enforcers in a mission to prevent a train robbery. The chief of the mission becomes a mentor to Tandem, but in a shoot-out with the robbers, the mentor’s husband is killed. The loss devastates the mentor and Tandem, herself, and continues to be referenced throughout the rest of the story. After a funeral ceremony for the dead husband, Rebel leadership sends Tandem — paired with an attractive older man whom she has never met before — to the glittering and clean campus of a tech startup. There, they recruit an engineer of high-speed space ships, who happily lends our hero her own ship. Tandem, the most careful pilot in the galaxy, gets the ship safely past a white hole. After pausing to take pictures of the local wildlife, she arranges a mutually beneficial arrangement with a fuel-processing plant, ensuring a stable and dependable supply for the Rebellion. There are no damn robots. The climax comes when Tandem’s team runs into those train-robbers again, who, dramatic reveal, are actually Imperial agents! And! Further reveal! The leader of the robbers turns out to be the son of Tandem’s mentor! That’s why the death of the mentor’s husband meant something! Tandem’s mentor switches sides. She can’t bear to lose another family member, and in a heart-wrenching scene, Tandem nearly switches sides as well. But her love-interest convinces her that the cause of the Rebellion is more important even than the bonds of family. What sort of lives can any of them have if the Empire continues to expand? There is a standoff, in which which Tandem’s team wins because of the strong ties of trust and comradeship they have made with each other on the course of the story. The mentor dies on a picturesque cliff, lamenting a galaxy in which such terrible choices must be made. And so, with an Imperial plot exposed and a valuable piece of infrastructure secured for the Rebellion, Tandem and love-interest fly off on their next sensible adventure. “Squeak!” Says the alien. “You got that right, Crispy.” |
AuthorDaniel M. Bensen Archives
March 2024
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