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As children, we circled the crow chick that fell from its nest. Its wings were splayed heavenward like a saint’s, its brains streaked like veins of quartz across asphalt. Its neck arched back at a fossil-like, impossible angle. That was when I learned how fragile birds’ bones are.
When a human head hits a road at the right speed and the wrong angle, the asphalt will take off an ear like a belt sander. Dogs and bears and chimpanzees rip ears off during attacks. People rip off ears during attacks; in domestic disputes, drunken brawls, and reason-defying misadventures, people relieve each other of their ears like they’re tearing off stubborn pieces of bloomin’ onion.
You’ve only ever had one rule: never cross the stream that divides the wastes and the green land. That’s where the robots are, and the robots are our enemies.
The two children regarded Zekelo with solemn eyes. If they were intimidated by the twisting horns jutting from his head or his obsidian claws, they gave no sign of it. “Hello, young ones. Welcome to Zekelo’s Barterhouse & Emporium, the finest shop in all Limbo. Here, we offer phylacteries, nostrums, and rare antiquities from every plane of existence.”
Do it. The last words she spoke before we cinched the green ribbon around her neck, a stark line bisecting her head from her body, a scrap we’d buried to gather magic under the mother tree. We tied the final knot. She took up her sword, a girl become death, the edge of her blade fine enough to cleave three dimensions into one.
“How long do I have to have my membership with Juno before he proposes?”
“Well, is he subscribed, too?”
“Lifetime with Venus.”
“Girl.”
The great writer had lived well past his appointed lifespan, not by years but decades, and now existed less as an ongoing contributor to the literate zeitgeist but as an icon of a past age. He was a super-centenarian, just topping an unbelievable 110 and still appearing at literary conferences.
I know what you’re going to say. That I got what I deserved. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Nothing like kicking someone when they’re down, eh? But here I am, dressed in all my mistakes. Huddling inside a house I don’t dare to leave.
“What do you mean, ‘no?’” I said. “We have a deal. I kept my end, now you have to keep yours.” She showed me the face of a willful child. “I’m not doing it.” Then she turned her back and summoned the royal guards.
We have seen you come before. We have always resisted. We will always resist. The first aliens came as conquerors, ready to crush us, ready to destroy us. We went to ground, we hid. We fought. We picked away at them, bit by bit.
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