Short Story on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Yet Another Christmas Carol [short story]

Tue, 24 Dec 2013 20:18:42 +0000

[Note: This is yet another short story I wrote a few years ago and never got around to editing. Well, ’tis the season to post it. Although I swear my style got better. Really. Eventually I also started editing. Like, really. I swear. *sigh*]

It was Christmas, celebrated all around Earth – and in Heaven, of course. As for elsewhere…

If you believe for a single second that the devils don’t celebrate Christmas, you are, well, right, actually. They keep very quiet about it. Not even a mouse would dare speak about it to the Almighty Fiend, Lucifer. The sole exception to this unspoken rule had happened a few years back on the occasion of a Satanically spiked MTV „Merry Christmas” video which had seemed like a good idea for a few hours. Until it became obvious that it had been a pointless endeavor – those who watched MTV regularly had been mostly unaffected, those who didn’t had had their opinions on the low quality of the station confirmed and, generally, it had been a fruitless fiasco.

You didn’t talk to Lucifer on Christmas. It was the same as going to him on Easter, patting him on the back and saying „There, there, mate. Anybody would have thought that killing Jesus was a good idea. I mean, the heroic self-sacrifice was just a fluke because God is a—nrghya” (Lucifer would never let you continue).

On this particular Eve, the devil was walking on Earth through a snowstorm he had just conjured around an airport. It cheered him up to see other people despair. However, his spirits were considerably dampened when saw a familiar figure come towards him. He was beautiful, this newcomer, so much so that those who saw him forgot their lives and left their bodies willingly behind. He would have been such a useful ally, but the bastard had stayed faithful.

„Malach HaMavet,” Lucifer said, the Hebrew words rolling off his tongue naturally, not a twitch of his eyebrow betraying any emotion. „The angel of death. What do you want?”

„Good evening, Lucifer, light-bringer. I have a shorter name. It is Azrael, as you well know.”

„We haven’t been on familiar terms since nearly the dawn of time.”

„Even so, we used to be friends. And as such, I am here to warn you.”

„Warn me? Of what? Is there any way in which I can possibly be on worse terms with the divinity? Are you launching an attack now, of all times?” A cold, biting wind that would have frozen the heart in the chest of men blew threateningly against the angel of death. Azrael did not budge.

„I am here to tell you that, should you not stop doing evil deeds, you will suffer the Wrath of Heaven mightily.”

Lucifer was not impressed. „Oh, really? As opposed to being invited over for the holidays, as I am now?”

Azrael shrugged. „Metatron is the usual envoy, but you and he were never close. So they sent me. I was told that my coming was more appropriate.” He cleared his throat and tried to do an impression of the angel who was the Voice of God. „Oh, cease the wrongdoing on the night of the Nativity, for much wail ’n woe will fall upon thou if thou shalt not.”

„More ‘wail ’n woe’ than being sentenced to eternal hell, Malach HaMavet?”

Azrael sighed, acknowledging defeat as a messenger. He usually only saw people once and he didn’t have to awe them. „The greatest minds in heaven drank too much punch tonight. This really is a warning. Stop doing evil things.”

„Fuck off, angel.”

Azrael shrugged and left. Lucifer made the snowstorm just a bit stronger before he realized that his heart wasn’t it in anymore and left to find something better to do.

Two hours later he was in Japan, enjoying the fact that the majority of the population had no clue what Christmas was supposed to be about and celebrated it by giving each other gifts. Lucifer had ensured beforehand that most people would received things they hadn’t wanted at all and now he was reaping the fruit of that endeavor. While smiling upon a young woman who had opened a box that contained a fetish nurse’s outfit only to burst into tears, he felt footsteps behind him and turned, his smile turning into a frown.

„Jibrail.”

„You stick to tradition, don’t you, Lucifer? People tend to call me Gabriel now.”

Modernized pronunciation? He wasn’t impressed. „Same difference. What do you want?”

„I… am the Ghost of Christmas Past,” Gabriel said solemnly. Lucifer studied him for a few seconds, trying to determine whether the angel was taking himself seriously. His only connection to the Nativity of Christ was…

„No, you’re not,” the devil said. „You’re the Ghost of Conceivity Past.”

Gabriel gave a little embarrassed cough. „It’s called ‘Annunciation’.”

„So I have heard.” Lucifer almost made a tasteless joke about what spirit had actually impregnated Mary, just to see how the angel would react to it, but then decided against it, seeing that Gabriel had decided to perform a miracle. The angel had waved his hand around and they were transported into the past, on the Eve of the actual birth of the Son of God. Lucifer sighed. Oooh, he could definitely see where this was going. He’d read his Dickens. And to think that all he’d wanted for Christmas was mayhem and to be left alone…

„Behold, oh, you, Archenemy of the World,” Gabriel said in his pleasant voice which grated on Lucifer’s nerves. „On this most holiest of nights the Messiah is born and He-”

„Is there a point to this, Jibrail?” The archangel paid him no heed.

„-through His sacrifice will purge the world of sin-”

„He didn’t do so well, actually. Sin still exists. I’m in charge of it.”

„-both the mortal world and the underworld now getting a chance at redemption. Be joyful, Lucifer, for He is your savior, too, and on this most holiest of nights, God is willing to grant you forgiving if you’d only repent and return!”

Lucifer made a gesture as if to take a cigarette out of a pack while he listened to Gabriel go on. He lit the non-existent cigarette with a non-existent lighter, inhaled air through rounded lips, then blew some very real cigarette smoke in Gabriel’s nose, making him cough and splutter.

„Bad bye, Jibrail. I’m out of here.”

„There’s worse to come, Lucifer! You cannot escape!”

„Fuck off, angel.”

Lucifer left.

Deciding that the only place where he could escape Heaven was probably in his tower in Hell, Lucifer resigned himself to reading bad poetry for the rest of the night. He hated Heaven. He really did. He’d have preferred to be out and about messing things up, but they were being difficult. Still, horrid poetry was a good past-time.

Between the Holy Christmas and the Evening Star,
I hopped with my family into a nice, red car.
And because my wife has no sense of direction,
I’ll guide myself by a solar erection.

Lucifer penned a praising letter to the author. It would convince the man that he was a genius and needed to be acknowledged as such. Sheer evilness. He loved himself.

Outside his tower, demons paused in whatever they were doing as a flying sleigh flew down from the general direction of the sky and rushed in the sound of bells towards the tower. With the insight only allowed to those under tyrannical rule since the dawn of time, they scattered in all directions, hiding in fear, leaving hell empty for once (except for the sinners, who found themselves not tortured for the first time they could remember).

In his inner sanctuary, the Archenemy looked up to find that he had a chimney. And through the chimney came a tall, thin man with a Byzantine hairstyle and a long, red coat, a huge sack on his back.

„You’ve got to be kidding,” Lucifer muttered. „Nikolaos of Myra.”

„They call me Santa now,” the man answered.

‘Not with that slim waist and haircut they don’t,’ Lucifer thought, but didn’t say it out loud. „Fancy to see that you really act as a gift-giver! But, say, why aren’t you actually delivering gifts to kids? It’s the night for it.”

„I deliver spiritual gifts, Lucifer, light-bringer.”

The Archenemy burst out laughing. „I’ll call you Santa, alright. The anagram suits you well. You’re evil. Poor children everywhere dream of food and hot chocolate and warm clothes and you give them the right to carol. Smooth, Heaven. Real smooth.”

Santa Claus didn’t answer that. Instead, he did what he had been sent to do. He waved his arms about and the air was purified, smelling of a Christmas Tree instead of fire and pain. Lucifer felt a pang of joy in his heart and heard the sound of the angels singing in heaven again. For a few seconds, he remembered his old life, as God’s favorite, walking through the world, shining stronger than any other being ever created. He remembered the glory and bliss and rightness of it all. With effort, he pushed it away.

„I hate you,” he declared.

„For this one night, Lucifer, if you should seek redemption, you shall find it. This is God’s gift to you on the occasion of His Son’s birthday.”

„I still hate you.”

„Good bye and a Merry Christmas to you! Ho, ho, ho!”

Santa Claus disappeared up the chimney, then the chimney disappeared, then Lucifer waved the fresh air away. If he was correct in his assumption, there was only one more person to face. Well, he wouldn’t make it easy for them, whoever they were.

It was an unusually cold day for Mars. Not that Lucifer cared much. The atmosphere wasn’t breathable, being composed of 95.32% carbon dioxide, but, again, Lucifer wasn’t paying enough attention to give a damn. He just wanted the bloody Christmas over with already.

He saw the third person coming. „You’ve got to be kidding,” he said.

„Happy holidays, Lucifer!”

„Jesus of Nazareth, am I sorry to have killed you.”

Jesus smiled blissfully at him. „That’s alright, dear one. It had its place in the great scheme of things.”

Lucifer lit a particularly noxious cigarette and kept it burning through sheer force of will, contributing his own share to the toxicity of the planet’s air. „Precisely.”

„Look around you, friend,” Jesus said. The devil wondered why heaven was always so buddy-buddy with everyone. He didn’t feel himself to be Jesus’s friend at all, except in the sense that everything he ever did was twisted so as to be for a divine purpose. But that’s heaven for you. „If you had your way, Earth would look like Mars. This is the future that you long for, that you strive for. Is this what you want?”

Lucifer looked around at the barren lands, the toxic atmosphere, the quiet of a complete lack of life. It was empty and unexciting, no fights were necessary over this piece of rock. He threw away his cigarette and lit himself another one. „Yes.”

„But this is death, empty, barren! It’s abandoned and no souls are to be had.”

„Good. That will stop my troupes from getting distracted while training for the next battle with yours.”

Jesus and Lucifer looked at each other for a long while. The devil challenged Jesus with everything he had to say something about Scrooge, redemption and so on and so forth. The Son of God accepted the challenge.

„I am the path – come and you shall be saved,” He said.

„Do you know that joke they have?” Lucifer said, conversationally. „About me and you as computer programmers?”

Jesus shook His head and smiled even more. He seemed to be radiating joy and happiness. The devil thought that nobody had a right to be as overinflated with cheer because it was their own birthday.

„We fight to be the first to create the best software ever. The battle is very tense, we’re neck to neck, doing our best to type faster and win. However, when we’re nearly done, the lights go out. When they’re back on, I start retyping everything, but you win two minutes afterwards. The moral?… ‘Jesus saves’.” The Messiah started chuckling with just a bit too much mirth for the humor of the joke, Lucifer felt. „Your obsessive-compulsive soul-gathering is the laughing stock of humanity. Jesus saves, indeed. You can’t get your eyes off of me. If only you could save the devil, eh?”

„The moral, Lucifer, dearest, is another one.”

„Eh?”

„That you are known to be a bit… sloppy. Not paying attention.”

„Whatever.”

„Come and I will save you,” Jesus intoned. It sounded like a song.

„What? That’s a half-assed attempt, Son of God. You could have done better. But the result would have been the same. See you never, hopefully.”

Jesus left. Lucifer blew out some more smoke, then realized the trial was over and he allowed himself to feel smug. The magic of Santa Claus, Jesus and Christmas, combined with that of „A Christmas Carol” hadn’t been enough to save him. Nothing ever would.

Lucifer went home on Christmas Day, feeling actually happy. Heaven had fucked off, the Nativity was over and things could go back to business as usual, more or less. Sure, there was still a bit of holiday to deal with, but that was going to end soon.

He opened the gates of Hell and found it… empty. The damned were peacefully comforting each other, out of their tar pits and torture devices. That was just wrong. Lucifer growled. Looking up into the world, he saw that his devils were not there, either. The world was uncommonly peaceful and safe.

He cursed and swore, pushed the damned back into their tar pits, screamed and raged for his subjects, but they had all been hiding ever since they had seen Saint Nicholas as Santa Claus descending in a flying sleigh. For a very good reason, it seemed to them as they felt Lucifer’s rage no matter how far they were. They disappeared even deeper into their nooks and crannies, or they tried to blend in even more when they were hiding in plain sight in all the corners of the world. They’d eventually have to go back to hell, but all of them thought it would be best if they were to be the last to slip in, unnoticed if possible.

Lucifer went to his tower, blowing smoke like a train engine and plopped into a chair, ready to plan something horrid when he saw the letter on his desk.

Dear friend,

Divine plans always succeed, regardless which possible outcome you choose. We appreciate your allowing the world to spend this holiest of nights in peace and happiness and thank you profoundly. The world appreciates this as a truly silent and holy night. What evil may have been caused was soon fixed by our people, whom you so graciously allowed to interfere.

Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year,
Yours,
Jesus Christ, John Milton, Douglas Adams, Gabriel, Azrael, Santa Claus, Mulla Nasrudin, Terry Pratchett &al.

Free award-winning fantasy prose from Tor

Wed, 28 Aug 2013 21:44:11 +0000

I’ve only just seen this today, but the awesome Tor.Com, one of the biggest short fantasy stories publishers out there, is giving away a free mega-book of the award-winning prose they’ve been posting on their site for five years.

I’ve just downloaded my copy and it’s huge. I mean it. You should have a few extra hundred MB for the .pdf and the .mobi is well over 100 MB as well. 151 stories, 3800 pages. Pictures, great writing, everything. And you should get it ASAP, because the offer ends on Tuesday, September 3rd.

Get the eBook(s) here.

And have faith that they’ve got good stuff. They’re a bit like legends in the biz.

Table of Contents:

When We Were Heroes, by Daniel Abraham
Olga, by C.T. Adams
Foundation, by Ann Aguirre
The Department of Alterations, by Gennifer Albin
The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model, by Charlie Jane Anders
Six Months, Three Days, by Charlie Jane Anders
Intestate, by Charlie Jane Anders
Legacy Lost, by Anna Banks
   The Witch of Duva, by Leigh Bardugo
10.    The Too-Clever Fox, by Leigh Bardugo
11.    The Girl Who Sang Rose Madder, by Elizabeth Bear
12.    The Horrid Glory of Its Wings, by Elizabeth Bear
13.    Faster Gun, by Elizabeth Bear
14.    The Final Now, by Gregory Benford
15.    Grace Immaculate, by Gregory Benford
16.    Backscatter, by Gregory Benford
17.    River of Souls, by Beth Bernobich
18.    A Window or a Small Box, by Jedediah Berry
19.    Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes, by Michael Bishop
20.    Catch ‘Em in the Act, by Terry Bisson
21.    TVA Baby, by Terry Bisson
22.    The Cockroach Hat, by Terry Bisson
23.    Shall We Gather, by Alex Bledsoe
24.    Prophet, by Jennifer Bosworth
25.    The Ruined Queen of Harvest World, by Damien Broderick
26.    Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order, by Damien Broderick
27.    The Memory Coder, by Jessica Brody
28.    The Desecrator, by Steven Brust
29.    Brother. Prince. Snake., by Cecil Castellucci
30.    We Have Always Lived on Mars, by Cecil Castellucci
31.    Our Human, by Adam Troy Castro
32.    The Water That Falls on You from Nowhere, by John Chu
33.    Fare Thee Well, by Cathy Clamp
34.    The Commonplace Book, by Jacob Clifton
35.    What Makes a River, by Deborah Coates
36.    The Ghosts of Christmas, by Paul Cornell
37.    The Elephant in the Room, by Paul Cornell
38.   Day One, by Matthew Costello
39.   Am I Free To Go?, by Kathryn Cramer
40.   Tourists, by Sean Craven
41.   Eve of Sin City, by S.J. Day
42.   The Cage, by A.M. Dellamonica
43.   Among the Silvering Herd, by A.M. Dellamonica
44.   Wild Things, by A.M. Dellamonica
45.   Things That Make Me Weak and Strange Get Engineered Away, by Cory Doctorow
46.   On 20468 Petercook, by Andy Duncan
47.   The Strange Case of Mr. Salad Monday, by G.D. Falksen
48.   Men Who Wish to Drown, by Elizabeth Fama
49.   The Iron Shirts, by Michael Flynn
50.   A Clean Sweep With All the Trimmings, by James Alan Gardner
51.   Lightbringers and Rainmakers, by Felix Gilman
52.   Shade, by Steven Gould
53.   Bugs in the Arroyo, by Steven Gould
54.   Steampunk Quartet, by Eileen Gunn
55.   Mother, Crone, Maiden, by Cat Hellisen
56.   The Ink Readers of Doi Saket, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
57.   Too Fond, by Leanna Renee Hieber
58.   At the Foot of the Lighthouse, by Erin Hoffman
59.   Ghost Hedgehog, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
60.   A Spell of Vengeance, by D.B. Jackson
61.   The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles, by Kij Johnson
62.   Ponies, by Kij Johnson
63.   Crazy Me, by James Patrick Kelly
64.   First Flight, by Mary Robinette Kowal
65.   How to Make a Triffid, by Kelly Lagor
66.   A Water Matter, by Jay Lake
67.   The Speed of Time, by Jay Lake
68.   The Starship Mechanic, by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes
69.   Dress Your Marines in White, by Emmy Laybourne
70.   A Vector Alphabet of Interstellar Travel, by Yoon Ha Lee
71.   Uncle Flower’s Homecoming Waltz, by Marissa Lingen
72.   Earth Hour, by Ken MacLeod
73.   Farewell Performance, by Nick Mamatas
74.   Though Smoke Shall Hide the Sun, by Brit Mandelo
75.   The Finite Canvas, by Brit Mandelo
76.   The Hanging Game, by Helen Marshall
77.   The Courtship of the Queen, by Bruce McAllister
78.   Heads Will Roll, by Lish McBride
79.   Swift, Brutal Retaliation, by Meghan McCarron
80.   Preparations, by Mark Mills
81.   About Fairies, by Pat Murphy
82.   Fire Above, Fire Below, by Garth Nix
83.   Ruled, by Caragh M. O’Brien
84.   Hello, Moto, by Nnedi Okorafor
85.   Sacrifice of the First Sheason, by Peter Orullian
86.   The Great Defense of Layosah, by Peter Orullian
87.   The Battle of the Round, by Peter Orullian
88.   Sweetheart, by Abbi Mei Otis
89.   Ragnarok, by Paul Park
90.   Four Horsemen, at Their Leisure, by Richard Parks
91.   The Rotten Beast, by Mary E. Pearson
92.   Angel Season, by J.T. Petty
93.   Silver Linings, by Tim Pratt
94.   The Button Man and the Murder Tree, by Cherie Priest
95.   Clockwork Fairies, by Cat Rambo
96.   The Next Invasion, by Robert Reed
97.   Our Candidate, by Robert Reed
98.   Swingers, by Robert Reed
99.   The Cairn in Slater Woods, by Gina Rosati
100. Jack of Coins, by Christopher Rowe
101. Jack and the Aktuals, or, Physical Applications of Transfinite Set Theory, by Rudy Rucker
102. Good Night, Moon, by Rudy Rucker
103. Loco, by Rudy Rucker
104. Jacks and Queens at the Green Mill, by Marie Rutkoski
105. The Film-Makers of Mars, by Geoff Ryman
106. Firstborn, by Brandon Sanderson
107. After the Coup, by John Scalzi
108. The President’s Brain is Missing, by John Scalzi
109. Shadow War of the Night Dragons, Book One: The Dead City: Prologue, by John Scalzi
110. A Weeping Czar Beholds the Fallen Moon, by Ken Scholes
111. Making My Entrance Again With My Usual Flair, by Ken Scholes
112. Two Stories, by Ken Scholes
113. If Dragon’s Mass Eve Be Cold and Clear, by Ken Scholes
114. Rag and Bone, by Priya Sharma
115. Do Not Touch, by Prudence Shen
116. The Night Children: An Escape From Furnace Story, by Alexander Gordon Smith
117. King of Marbury, by Andrew Smith
118. Beauty Belongs to the Flowers, by Matthew Sanborn Smith
119. Overtime, by Charles Stross
120. Down on the Farm, by Charles Stross
121. A Tall Tail, by Charles Stross
122. Zeppelin City, by Michael Swanwick
123. The Trains That Climb the Winter Tree, by Michael Swanwick
124. The Dala Horse, by Michael Swanwick
125. The Mongolian Wizard, by Michael Swanwick
126. The Fire Gown, by Michael Swanwick
127. Day of the Kraken, by Michael Swanwick
128. Eros, Philia, Agape, by Rachel Swirsky
129. A Memory of Wind, by Rachel Swirsky
130. The Monster’s Million Faces, by Rachel Swirsky
131. Portrait of Lisane da Patagnia, by Rachel Swirsky
132. Sing, by Karin Tidbeck
133. What Doctor Gottlieb Saw, by Ian Tregillis
134. Vilcabamba, by Harry Turtledove
135. The Star and the Rockets, by Harry Turtledove
136. The House That George Built, by Harry Turtledove
137. We Haven’t Got There Yet, by Harry Turtledove
138. Shtetl Days, by Harry Turtledove
139. Lee at the Alamo, by Harry Turtledove
140. Running of the Bulls, by Harry Turtledove
141. The City Quiet as Death, by Steven Utley
142. The Girl Who Ruled Fairyland—For a Little While, by Catherynne M. Valente
143. Terrain, by Genevieve Valentine
144. Last Son of Tomorrow, by Greg van Eekhout
145. Errata, by Jeff VanderMeer
146. A Stroke of Dumb Luck, by Shiloh Walker
147. Last Train to Jubilee Bay, by Kali Wallace
148. Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction, by Jo Walton
149. The Nostalgist, by Daniel H. Wilson
150. Super Bass, by Kai Ashante Wilson
151. The Palencar Project, by Gregory Benford, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., James Morrow, Michael Swanwick, and Gene Wolfe, Edited by David G. Hartwell

The Piano Demon [Story, Fantasy, Draft 1.03]

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 08:24:00 +0000

Author’s Note: This is another one of my infamously stuck-in-first-draft stories. One day I’ll actually edit it.

The first time I saw her – really, really saw her, not just glanced at her as we tried our best to catch the back seats in the small university classrooms – she was at a piano. Maybe I’d never have really been able to notice her had it not been for that one, strange evening when destiny gently pushed me out of my awkward life and into hers.

If only children can be prodigies, then I wasn’t one any longer. I’d lived through my glory years at school, where I’d gone off and won prizes for art and English, maths and physics, running circles around classmates and less talented professors. Eventually, when push came to shove and I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I hid behind some more studying, delaying that dreadful moment when I’d have to prove that not only was I smart, but that I was also able to do something. I chose English and physics as majors, convinced I could do both easily enough. I wasn’t right. I wasn’t very wrong, either. There wasn’t much of a personal life left between the two, but I took my exams with flying colors and dreamed of the day I’d win a Nobel prize. I don’t think it will ever actually happen, but even fools can dream.

I was going to write a BA dissertation on the impact that 19th century scientific discoveries had on literature. It was an interesting topic and one of the few I could choose to reunite both my loves and get away with studying the history of physics, with its wild theories and random inferences. Word got out and before I knew it, one of my professors was suggesting that I should hold a conference on the matter in this event they’d have at our university. She said I should discuss the birth of science fiction and how its history differed from fantasy. Well, fine by me.

Then, my Renaissance Literature professor and I discussed it over coffee one morning in the underground bar where we waited for classes and in a spur of the moment decision she told me that I should join her and some other members of the faculty for a semi-official planning discussion that afternoon at Stanislaw’s place. I’d never had classes with Stanislaw, nor do I know why he bore that name. He wasn’t Polish, nor did he have any Polish relatives that anybody knew of. I wouldn’t really have cared enough to ask other students, but he was in his early 40s and he was handsome, so he was a common choice of gossip among female students.

I met up with the professors after we all finished out classes. Stanislaw came to meet us so he could lead us to his place and I was wondering how I’d managed to get myself in between all these people who were much above me in training and experience and how I’d fare spending hours with them. Maybe I’d embarrass myself with something stupid, pour coffee all over myself, or say that I’d never read Plato or something of the sort (although I supposed I could keep quiet about my failures).

There a few houses in the same courtyard where Stanislaw had made his home. There was a nasty little dog which tried to bite one of the professors, but he kept away with an extended leg, jumping around to lead us to his place.

„My apartment mate,” he warned us before we could go up – he lived on the second floor -, „is busy playing the piano. She’s a bit strange, but she’s nice otherwise.”

So we followed him up the stairs. There was some piano playing indeed, getting louder with each step. It sounded random, wild, furious, then it stopped, then it started again in rapid succession. Very short pieces of songs, like a storm that smashes itself against the window for a howling moment, then lets up, then starts again. It didn’t take that long to go up, but between the quick, sudden, furious bits of music it somehow it sounded much longer.

My Renaissance Literature professor walked in first – Stanislaw was at the very rear, having kept the dog away from us – and she made the piano playing stop abruptly and not return. Then one of the older professors walked in, and then I did.

I’d looked down on her in class. I’d thought she was one of those je m’en fous rockers, with her big, black T-shirts with strange designs, wolves, witches, Indians, Gothic ladies. She never had any with band pictures, though. Black pants or jeans. Black hair, silver jewelry. Other than her fashion statement, she was quiet and polite. Her grades, whenever I bothered to check, were high, but not at the very top. She wasn’t competing with me in anything, which settled the matter. I didn’t care about meeting her. I thought she was a party goer, a fun lover, all the things I’d never been, all the things I only cared about when I felt shunned and alone.

She was wearing a man’s shirt when we walked in that night. I thought I recognized it as something Stanislaw sometimes wore. It was probably his, now that I think about it. Of course, we all thought they were sleeping together. After all, it was blatantly obvious that they were living together and that they shared clothes. We knew she wasn’t his kid. So we came to the quick and embarrassing conclusion that they were sleeping together. Neither of them said anything on the subject. There was no apology, no explanation. It wasn’t my place to say anything and I think the others were too polite to mention it.

Later it would turn out that there was nothing between them. She was living there because she’d been kicked out by her parents, and by her aunt, and by everybody else who she had turned to. She had an extensible armchair in his library, where she also kept the few clothes and belongings she had. She wore the crazy T-shirts to advertise them – she made them for a living, sold them out to rockers and weirdos. She didn’t draw them, mind you. She came up with the idea, then collaborated with an arts student – later with me – and then she printed them at a specialized shop. Whenever she wasn’t busy wearing her own creations, she preferred manly button-up shirts, like Stanislaw’s.

I don’t know how they ended up living together. There was a history there. I never asked. She’ll tell me one day. Maybe.

That night, she looked a sight. Dark circles under her eyes, paler than usual, hunched over an electronic piano that was thrown against the dining room/kitchen wall. She looked drunk, or drugged. Maybe that was why we didn’t comment on her relationship with Stanislaw. We were too shocked. I don’t know.

„Come in, come in,” Chris said, carelessly. She laughed, but it was hollow. „I know how I look. I know damned fucking well how I look. But I’m not ashamed, so come on already. Sit down. Welcome to the dragon’s den.”

I thought she was maybe half-crazy. But she was just herself on a very bad day. Sarcastic, bitter, with a hint of deliberate insanity.

„Christine!” one of the professors said. He recognized her, or maybe remembered her name now. Or maybe he’d just found his voice again.

„Ah, I’m flattered to be recognized,” she answered. I couldn’t tell if it was meant ironically or seriously. Probably the latter. Maybe both. „And look, it’s Judith!” She’d finally noticed me. „You’re that double-major girl, the genius. How’s that working out for you?” She tittered on her chair as she said it and her haunted eyes followed me as I took a chair.

Nobody honestly called me a genius, even if I suppose I kind of am one. Except my family, they sometimes do. Some of the boys from my school would shout it to my face, tauntingly, ‘ge-nius, ge-nius, geek, geek, geek!’ They looked down on me, I could tell. So did the butcher whom my mum sent me to get our meat from, and one of my teachers. Sometimes girls would say, ‘oh, she can’t come to the party, she’s too busy being a genius.’ Others were just intimidated, or thrilled. I didn’t know how to handle it and in time I became one of those cleverer-than-thou people, but I’m not sure I meant it. Or maybe I did. Anyway, I never felt normal until I went off to college and even then, sometimes…

„Fine, I suppose,” I said. „How are you?”

„Crappy,” she said. She looked up and saw that our professors were still uncertain. As I said, I didn’t know Stanislaw except from seeing him in corridors and from gossip, but they probably knew him better and hadn’t expected to find a female student wearing one of his shirts in his kitchen. „Hey, please sit. Don’t let me bother you. I don’t bite nice people and you look nice enough to me.” She turned back towards me. „Actually, kind of worse than crappy. I got my ass kicked in a fight today and I hurt like no tomorrow.” I’d find out later that it was because of all her fights and irregular hours that she got kicked out of her own house and that her grades weren’t quite up there with mine. She’d been deemed a lost child by her father and by her five younger brothers and sisters. None of her family looked up to her, but they didn’t look up to anybody. Her mum had run off at some point before, after it had been found out that Chris wasn’t really her husband’s. ‘Dysfunctional family much?’ I’d ask her later when she’d rubbed off on me and told me her story. ‘Love, you’ve no clue.’ She called all people she liked love. It’s why it took me awhile to realize she wasn’t sleeping with the professor. ‘Auntie Lisa slept in the attic, thought she was closer to God that way. One of my cousins stole cars and when they caught him he said he was promoting jogging in an innovative manner – and he believed what he was saying.’ The list went on.

Stanislaw was the best host I’d ever encountered. We gave us some excellent tea and cookies and had Chris write down our ideas. She listened intently, wrote it all down, but didn’t say much. She sat at her piano seat all throughout our meeting, laughed at our jokes and when we were done for the day, she asked if she could play for us.

„Gotta warn ya, though,” she said. „I play with an accent. I play like a demon.”

So she played. Gods, she really was a demon with that piano. Her fingers ran so fast it sounded as if she had four hands, not two. She never faltered, never hesitated, never made a single mistake. Her music didn’t just have an accent, it was furious, mad, depressive in the way a full orchestra with canons can play ‘depressive’, biting, snarling and at the same time I wanted it to never end. And when she started singing, her voice was a musical screech, beautiful because it had taken everything in it that it hadn’t liked and beaten it into a pulp. It was strong and strange and wild and pained.

I can’t remember what she sang. Something about fairies ripping the world apart by moonlight, I think. We were rooted to our seats. My Renaissance Literature professor started crying. I think I started crying, too, and I knew for certain that each and every one of us was remembering something that we didn’t really want to remember right then, but we couldn’t help it. Chris was a genius way beyond me, way beyond anything I could imagine. I thought I saw her standing in hell and screaming defiance against all the devils – but then I was carried away and it was all about me. I remembered all the times I failed and every mistake I’d made and every embarrassment. I remembered that my boyfriend had left me because I was too caught up with physics. That I was afraid I’d never make it. That deep inside I was always scared that one day my brains would go away and everybody would find out I wasn’t much aside from that. It hurt so bad I couldn’t breathe, I felt all the air knocked out of my lungs, but it was beautiful. She made it beautiful and sad and wonderful.

„I’m depressive,” she told us before we left. „But I don’t let it bother me.”

„How did you learn to play?” my Renaissance Literature professor asked her on the next meeting at Stanislaw’s place.

„A deal with a demon,” she said. She looked much better than the first time, rested and healthy.

„What?!” I asked. I tried to figure out what she was getting at with that metaphor. „Did you sell your soul or something?” Maybe she’d worked hard, I thought, for years and years and years…

„Gods no. I didn’t make the deal with it, it made the deal with me. It got into huge trouble, said it’d give me anything if I saved its clumsy behind. I guess I could’ve asked for immortality, but I wanted to play the piano. It was so pissed to hear that. Had to go through hell and ask everybody about it. In the end he made a really bad deal to get me piano skills. I’m not sure he ever forgave me.”

We didn’t press her for an actual answer. We didn’t know we’d already gotten it, see. I assumed that it was something about her parents making sacrifices, maybe her mother taking on some really dirty job to get her prodigy daughter lessons – back then I didn’t know her mother hated her for being a mistake that she’d never been able to take back. In those early days, I took much of what Chris said as a metaphor. It was later that I realized she said the truth out loud carelessly because nobody ever believed any of it.

She played again for us, something slow and beautiful. Nothing weird happened. Nobody cried.

„She could’ve been a musician,” my Renaissance Literature professor said. „I wonder why she never went for that.”

Because she’d only been able to play the piano for three years, she’d never been seen practicing and she didn’t like the idea of being in the public sphere. Even so, the word was spread around by my Lit professor. After a month she was offered a job to write a soundtrack for a short film, and then the demands kept coming, a slow trickle of income.

Stanislaw was great. He never minded us using his house after we got closer. My own roommates back at the dorm didn’t like Chris much and they could do without me, too, so I started spending more and more of my free time there. We’d study together, then I’d move on to physics, then I’d draw her T-shirt patterns. Sometimes she’d go out and come back covered in bruises, or with torn clothes. I worried for her.

„I can hold my own,” she told me.

„But who’s doing this to you? Why do you keep going? What if one day you can’t make it?” I asked.

I don’t know exactly when we became friends, but I knew exactly why. I’d felt so awkward my entire life, never fitting in because I was the wrong sort of geek, but she made me feel as if it didn’t matter, because the entire world was outside somewhere, irrelevant. She didn’t make me feel like one of the crowd, which had been my secret wish until then – but she made me feel like a solitary one of a kind and a damned awesome one at that. She didn’t let me walk in her shadow – she cast no shadow. Neither did I. Chris plucked me out of the world and took me with her into another reality. It felt great and wrong at the same time, as if she was doing things with me that were forbidden and wonderful.

„I’ll always make it,” she answered. „I have a secret.”

„What secret?”

„I can keep it myself, thanks.”

She told me about other things, however. How she could sing better than she could study, play better than she could sing and fight better than anything else. Her mother had probably been a witch, she supposed. Her paternal grandmother definitely was, and she hadn’t gotten to die before she was whisked off to hell. Chris hadn’t been in hell, but she could feel the devils’ presence when the old lady disappeared.

„Or maybe my mum was a demon,” she told me. „You never know. Or maybe dad isn’t really my father and the real one was a warlock who sold my soul before I was born. Or I really am a bastard, but to a guy who’s just a man and I have shit luck.”

„My family’s all sane and human,” I said, apropos of nothing.

„I pity you. That’s why you’re so out of place. Me? I’m nowhere, but then I don’t need to be. Hey, you can be with me.”

I felt a warmth in my chest and a smile on my face. „I wish I were happy like you.” But I was happy right then.

She let out a very cheery laugh. „Happy like me? Rich, mate. Really rich.”

There was a gig in a bar once. She played like a demon again. Her hands were blurs, her eyes burned with rage and fire. She brought the audience to roars of approval when she cried-sang her chorus lines and then she looked at them and held them under her gaze, reducing them to utter silence as her hands slowed to a strange, discordant trickle of notes.

I thought then: maybe she got the talent from some crazy deal, but she got the music from herself. My physics could match her fingers, my knowledge of humanities could rival her voice. But she had this thing and she played with whatever it was. I was too scared, too trapped in failure even when I won. I had so much to lose, from my position to my parents’ approval, to my feeble few contacts. She had nothing. I envied her. And I loved her. I wanted to be her. I wanted to be with her, to drink her, to become her. If I were her, I’d win more than a Nobel – I’d win the whole goddamn world. I wouldn’t be Willis Eugene Lamb, who nobody knew about. I’d be Marie Curie. I’d be Albert Einstein. I’d be one of the people who didn’t need a damned prize so you’d know who they are. The people about whom you sometimes talk in present tense even when they’re long dead (Napoleon commands the French armies… Charles Dickens is born… Albert Einstein wins the Nobel prize…).

I’d be somebody alive.

One day, Chris didn’t come back. We waited, Stanislaw and I, until it was night. I went back to the dorm at about 11 PM. She wasn’t in class the next day, nor the day after that. I went back to Stanislaw’s and slept in her armchair for a week or more, waiting for her to return. My calls landed on silence, then her phone went dead. I was afraid she’d lost that fight – the one she was never expecting to lose. She’d never told me her secret.

Maybe she was dead, her body stashed somewhere, or thrown in the river. Maybe some demons had dragged her to hell, like they’d done her grandmother. Maybe her mum had come back for her.

Eventually I didn’t visit Stanislaw anymore. His kids had come home – a daughter my age, a boy a bit younger, living with their mum in Italy. I never knew what to tell them about my being there, about Chris being there, about Stanislaw letting us stay with him even though it was inappropriate. I just felt embarrassed. So I stopped seeing him, too, except on corridors. We talked less and less. There had been only Chris between us and now she wasn’t there.

I think I’d know if Chris were dead. I’d be able to feel it. My life would feel emptier. No, she’s alive somewhere. Maybe she doesn’t want to contact anybody, or maybe she can’t. Maybe she’s amnesiac. Sometimes I think I hear an echo of her piano in songs – she might have gone underground. She could have a small empire of her own, in a hell, or in a paradise, or in a place in between.

If she were dead, I’d know, wouldn’t I?

She never told me her secret, but she has one. She’s using it now. She’s playing dead. And I can forgive her for being away for so long. I can forgive her even if she’s run to LA and become really rich and looks down on me (though she wouldn’t). Because she’s alive. I know it. I know it. People like her don’t die. They’re just away.

The Translator [short story]

Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:22:43 +0000

Author’s notes: I wrote this a while ago for a friend. It turns out that this blog has any number of spiritual people visiting, so as I was going through stories and trying to pick one to post here, I decided that this one would be perfect for all audiences.

I broke a few polite rules in writing this one. One such unspoken rule is that a character’s name shouldn’t resemble that of the author. Another says that characters aren’t supposed to look like self-inserts unless they are self-inserts. Those things make it so much easier for people to interpret and criticize, but I like having fun and seeing what happens if I do one thing or another.

Here you go, peeps. I won’t bore you with other comments, although there’s much I could say.

Happy holidays and all that!

***

The Translator

Malena was born on the third of April, a heady Aries and a talented translator. She only waited for so long before she put her foot down and took charge of her destiny, riding it like a child of the sea would a dolphin.

She began her job with diligent care from the moment she first awakened from the drowsiness of the very young and into the slow comprehension of children. She first translated her own simple thoughts to the world in an agonized cry – ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!’ – first in the Spanish words of her parents and then repeated in the strange, native Tupi dialect of her Mestizo nanny. The dark-skinned woman had gasped in fear and tried to cover the child’s mouth before any of those of the house heard and fired her for teaching Malena to speak the wrong language. But before she could even reach out towards the tiny mouth, the great wooden doors of the child’s room burst open to admit Malena’s fiery, proud mother. ‘She speaks! Oh, she speaks!’ the Spanish lady cried, waving a white shirt about like a flag. ‘I’m hungry! I’m hungry!’ the child repeated again and again, first in Spanish, then in Tupi, making herself heard so loud that many years after men would claim to have heard her from across the town letting the world know that the devourer of knowledge had come to Earth.

After the joy of hearing their only daughter speak lifted and she was fed, Malena continued learning new words, translating her thoughts into both Spanish and Tupi until she finally drove all those around her to desperation and a visiting aunt dared to do what the others out of superstition would not even attempt: she pulled Malena aside and explained that one could not always speak in all tongues one knew. Just one outcome was needed. The child understood immediately.

Without her parents knowing how she did it, Malena also came to speak the Portuguese of her grandmother and the Tupi dialects of her nanny’s friends. By the time she went to school, she had learned English and German from a tall man with round eyeglasses who had asked for a translator into the native dialects and had been brought to see the miracle child. Malena had led him around, laughing at his difficulty with any language, and ended up mimicking his way of speaking to perfection – coming to know words, he felt, which he had never spoken before her.

In school she learned French from her teachers before the others could even count properly to a hundred, then spent the rest of her classes yawning demonstratively until a miserable Hungarian boy started teaching her his language secretly while they waited for the lectures to be over. Malena found out that Attila had never wanted to leave his country, but his parents had dragged him across the Atlantic in the search of a better life.

„You shan’t find it here!” Malena had laughed, then danced circles around him in all her languages before she settled down to really look at him and study his plight. Reaching out, she translated him into something new, better suited for this new continent. She made his shyness into mystery, his strange accent into charm, his longing for home into a hint of an exotic land within his eyes. „You’ll always have Hungary in your heart,” she said, touching his chest. „And it will be there more than it will ever be on a map.”

After she translated Attila she noticed that translating from language to language became as easy as shaking one’s whiskers is for a cat. She only had to glance at a language to fill her huge bags of words, even if those languages were Chinese, Bengali, or the obscure Arawakan, or even the Latin caught in church. After some time she came to understand languages she had never heard before just reading them through those who spoke. But as time went, languages concerned her less and less.

She started translating cultures and people, touching them and seeing them melt under her fingers to become something of the same essence and of a different shape. Curious to see how far she could go, she experimented on her own person, translating herself into a common Tupi woman, into a Spanish noble girl, into an English princess and amused herself by going deeper and deeper every time until one day she found that she could translate her black hair to blond, her white skin to black, her round eyes to slants. Malena became a mistress of disguise, always the same deep inside, but ever more changing on the surface, today Japanese, tomorrow Hindu, the day after that Mestizo, always keeping it her secret. One day at school she became frustrated with a proud, stuck-up girl that boys all seemed to dream of and decided to translate herself into a tanned, manly Antonio just so she could scoff at the Consuela’s pride. That way, Malena accidentally found out about the difference between men and women, though at first she was confused by what she considered to be an accidental extra appendage. But as soon as she discovered that she had followed nature, she realized that her gift was more marvelous than she had expected. Consuela and her pride remained forgotten.

When Malena’s father decided that he had had enough of his ever prettier daughter running around acting disgracefully and making friends with the oddest of characters, he tried to stop her from going out and turn her into a proper young lady. In a fit of rage, Malena ran through the entire town, uncatchable until the very center of the town when her father’s fingers finally encircled her arm, only to have her translate her body into that of a sparrow that flew away, followed by the frightened cries of men and women who thought they’d seen the devil kidnap a child, or the fairies spirit her away.

Not daring to look back, Malena went on for days and nights as a bird or as a goat or a bear, dodging humans. When a hunter caught her fox’s trail, she learned how to translate into plants and started through being an oak. Later, sad and away from home, she turned into clouds and moonlight, then figured out how to turn rain into drought and poor men into rich. And all the time she felt that her true self, the one deep down inside was becoming smaller, smaller, smaller, a single point around which the world could be made to turn, whatever touched her becoming something else. The tinier she became, the more she could shift herself and the things around her. When she had been as large as a watermelon, she could transform into humans, when as large as an orange, into animals, when as a grape seed into plants. Now as the tiniest fleck of dust from the head of a pin, she flew over the ocean as breeze, dived between the water drops as a fish and turned dark, murderous oil spilled from boats into sea monsters. She translated herself into a cloud that kept a handsome sailor cool, then floated above the land again and translated a battlefield under her into a peaceful gathering. One day she translated herself into an atom, another into a solar system far away, exploring herself in all forms she could imagine.

Finally, when she felt that she could translate herself so well that she could be anything, anywhere, know anything, do anything, she discovered that the tiny spot she had become could hike upon atoms that seemed much larger than the Earth and see each fleck of light separate from the others. And there was something much, much smaller yet than her, something she could finally sense in the background, something she could not entirely understand nor translate yet either. As if the entire world was built within a vast, vast sea of this and never knew it. Wondering what more she could do if she could be as small as that, Malena dived.

She made herself smaller and smaller, holding her breath to get as tiny as the things around her, trying to translate them. She shed her name, her concepts of herself that were somewhere within, pushed them outside for later use, let them drag behind her. She became so small physicists would never guess her presence. She shed the idea of appearance, shed her personality and became smaller than can be conceived. She shed everything else she had, looking deep, deep inside for the thing she had in common with this strange mass of the tiniest particles. She became tiny, tiny, tiny beyond belief, beyond understanding, beyond what can be explained and in the end she also dropped her efforts at being smaller and gazed on, almost as tiny as these things.

What she saw she could almost touch, but not yet understand. She could smell that whatever it was molded itself into matter, she could taste how gravity worked, she could hear energy transformed and touch Life being alive. Almost there, she thought, almost there. Why, if she watched carefully, maybe she could find out. So she stood still without even realizing she was still, stopped thinking without realizing she was not thinking, watched without realizing she watched. She just was.

What there is left to say there are no words to translate.