Pump Six and Other Stories(28)
Lisa roasted the dog on a spit, over burning plastics and petroleum skimmed from the ocean. It tasted okay, but in the end it was hard to understand the big deal. I've eaten slagged centaur that tasted better.
Afterward, we walked along the shoreline. Opalescent waves crashed and roared up the sand, leaving jewel slicks as they receded and the Sun sank red in the distance.
Without the dog, we could really enjoy the beach. We didn't have to worry about whether it was going to step in acid, or tangle in barbwire half-buried in the sand, or eat something that would keep it up vomiting half the night.
Still, I remember when the dog licked my face and hauled its shaggy bulk onto my bed, and I remember its warm breathing beside me, and sometimes, I miss it.
The Pasho
The acrid scent of burning dung carried easily on the dry wind. Raphel Ka' Korum breathed once, deeply, tasting memory, then fastened his electrostatic scarf over his face and turned to receive his luggage from the passengers still on the fat wheel.
Wind gusted around them. Scarves came loose and flapped wildly in the stinging air and brown hands snatched at the ragged free-flying banners before tucking them, sparking and crackling, over dust-caked noses and mouths. A man, Kai by his crucifix, Keli by his silk shirt, handed down Raphel's leather satchel, then pressed his palms together and ducked his head in ritual sterile farewell. Raphel did the same. The rest of the passengers, a motley conglomeration of basin people all stuffed tightly in the bed of the fat wheel, made gestures of their own, observing scrupulous politeness to his Pasho's robes and attainment marks.
The fat wheel slowly rolled away. Its bulbous jelly tires crunched on the Dry Basin's hardpan. Raphel watched the beat-up vehicle recede. Its passengers observed him in turn, their eyes full of questions at the Keli Pasho who disembarked in the center of the desert. Raphel turned to face his village.
The round haci of the Jai huddled in the barren basin like a small mob of conical-hatted refugees, their pointed heads jammed tight together, their adobe robes splattered with white Jai geometric patterns. Around them, clay-clotted fields lay tilled and patient as wind blew across them, ripping dust devils into the air and sending them dancing across the pale plain. In the far distance, the bones of the old city stuck up from the basin in a tangled mass of steel and concrete ruin, silent and abandoned for more generations than even the Jai could remember.
Raphel unwrapped his scarf and once again breathed deeply, taking in the scents of home, sniffing at nostalgia, letting it fill the depths of his lungs. Dust and burning dung and sage blown from the distant hills intermingled. Somewhere within the village, meat was grilling. A coyote or rabbit, likely stunned into sonic paralysis and skinned before it regained consciousness, now dripping fat onto open coals. Raphel inhaled again and licked his lips. Already they chapped in the aridity. His skin, long accustomed to Keli's lush humidity, felt tight on his face, as though he wore a mask that would fall away at any moment.
He glanced back wistfully at the receding fat wheel, a child's toy slowly creeping toward the distant muddy line where blue sky finally touched yellow clay. Sighing, Raphel shouldered his satchel and headed for the village.
The few scattered haci at the village outskirts quickly sidled close. They formed a tightly packed mass of thick walls and claustrophobic alleys. Streets twisted randomly, inviting invaders to stumble into cul-de-sacs and death courts. Sonic bulbs dangled overhead, their beaks gaping, eager to scream.
Raphel wandered amongst the Jai defenses along a path of childhood memories. He recognized Bia' Giomo's haci, and remembered how she had paid in sugar rocks when he brought her water from the well. He recognized the thick blue door to Evia's courtyard, and remembered hiding together beneath her parents' bed, stifling laughter while her parents groaned and creaked above them. His mother had written to him that Bia' Giomo had passed beyond and that Evia was called Bia' Dosero and now lived at Clear Spring Village.
Raphel turned another corner, and recognized Old Martiz squatting outside his haci. Red beans boiled over the old man's dung fire, slowly congealing into porridge. Raphel smiled and started to greet the old man, but as soon as Martiz saw Raphel, he grabbed his bean pot and scrambled backward, desperate to keep Quaran.
Raphel hastily pulled his scarf back over his face and ducked his head in apology. Martiz softened enough to set down his beans and press his palms together. Raphel returned the ancient gesture. He could have told Martiz the source of the Quaran gesture and how it had spread during the Cleansing, but Martiz was unlikely to care. For the Jai it was custom, and that was enough. Jai observed the old ways. In Keli, people shook hands and hardly observed Quaran at all. The trading culture easily discarded careful traditions of past survival. The Jai had longer memories.
Raphel skirted Martiz by the prescribed two meters of sunlight and threaded deeper into the village. The alley narrowed to a tight path between squeezing walls. He turned sideways and scraped through a kill-slot, its walls pressing against his chest and shoulder blades. At the far end of the kill-slot, he paused to brush ineffectually at the adobe dust that clung to his white robes.
Children's laughter echoed. Young Jai boys, their robes bright crimson splashes against the pale yellow clay of the haci, dashed down the alley toward him. They stopped short, staring at his Pasho's white robes and attainment marks, then pressed their brown hands together and ducked their heads in careful respect. A moment later they were past him and continuing their chase, slipping through the kill-slot with the easy limberness of basin lizards.