New Ficlet of Doom

There is a particular blue sky which desert dwellers know. It is high, and hard, and covers everything from horizon to horizon in unforgiving glare. This sky appears when it is so hot that the crickets stop singing, so dry that even cactus wilt. Under a sky of this blue, two young women walked along an arroyo.

The tall one had hair that would be black silk if she took care of it; she didn’t. It was chopped unevenly at her jaw line, held out of her eyes with a violet Alice band. Her eyes were almond shaped and corner-tilted, suggesting Asian ancestry, though their dark blue color belied the suggestion. Her lips were dry, but not yet cracking. She wore high­-waisted jean shorts and a green tank top with a superhero’s logo.

The short one had burnished copper hair twisted up and held off her neck by a silver pin. Her eyes were hazel: green on the outside with a ring of brown at the center. Her lips were red, a perfect cupid’s bow, protected by gloss. She wore jeans and a coral camisole edged with lace; her black bra peeked out around the edges.

They reached the place they were seeking and scrambled up the side of the ditch to the corner of a chain link fence. The fencing was cut, and the tall one held the cut open, gingerly careful of the hot metal, while the short one scrambled through. She followed a moment later, holding the fence for herself.

Inside the fence, a carnival’s rides waited for a season that had not come in either woman’s memory. Silently, the young women walked past a tilt­-a-­whirl frozen in place; past a haunted house folded in on itself to travel as a trailer. In the desert rust is not the primary enemy; ultraviolet light is. Plastics become brittle and pigments colorless. Binding agents break down and paint flakes away in scales. All the rides showed bare metal and splintered plastic.

In the shadow of a dismasted Viking ship stood a carousel. Most of the animals were dismounted, leaning against the center pillar. A horse and a hen stood side by side, bolted in place. Behind them was a dragon, its broad back providing room for a bench seat. The pair stepped up to the carousel’s deck. The tall one sat on the horse, while the short one leaned against the hen.

They looked at each other, and then away.

“Are you really going, Ada?” the short one asked. Her voice was a pleasant alto, her accent heartland American.

“Are you really marrying Jack?” Ada asked. Her voice was surprising, a dramatic contralto. There was a hint of foreign pronunciation… a certain cast to the vowels, perhaps.

The short one grinned. “Well, duh,” she said. She held up her left hand, showing off the diamond in its golden band. “He paid for me,” she said, teasingly. “Now I have to make sure he gets his money’s worth.” She shook her head. “Is that why you’re going?”

Ada laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Molly,” she said.

“Then why?”

Ada sighed. “I don’t know,” she said, looking at the Viking ship. “I feel like I have to. I mean… I won’t die or anything if I don’t go, but… I’ll go on doing what I’m doing. Drifting. Playing open mic night down at Saint Elmo’s, stocking shelves for Mr. Brown.”

“Is that so bad?” Molly asked.

“It’s not bad,” Ada answered. “It’s just… boring. I feel like I could do more. I feel like I could be more.”

Molly ran her finger over the scaling paint on the hen’s beak. She pulled a flake off, held it between her fingers, examined the color. She tightened her grip, crumbling the flake, then blew the dust off her fingers. “Okay,” she said. “But why the moon?”

Ada shrugged. “Why not the moon?”

“It’s so far away… and there are pirates. That thing with the asteroid….”

Ada laughed. “’That thing with the asteroid’ was ten years ago. And it was in the main belt. I’m not going out past Mars; I’m just going to the moon. You can see it from here!”

“I thought Lunagrad was on the far side?” Molly asked.

“It is,” Ada admitted. “But the moon… you can see the moon from here.” She leaned over, looking under the edge of the carousel’s roof at the hard sky. “Well. Not right now. But you know… generally.”

Molly nodded. “What will you do?” she asked.

“I’ll play in clubs,” Ada said. “I’ll wear fabulous clothes that I buy in the Sunday market. I’ll impress some producer and become a star.”

“You’ll stack boxes for some little shop,” Molly countered.

Ada laughed. “Maybe at first,” she admitted.

Molly shook her head. She looked at the toes of her tennis shoes.

Ada looked at the Viking ship again. “Hey,” she said, when the silence had stretched too long. “I got you a wedding present.”

“Oh?” Molly asked, straightening up.

Ada dug in her pocket, pulled out a small box. “Well, when my guitarist gets married, I have to give her something,” she said. “It’s in the Big Golden Book of Unbreakable Rules.” She handed the box over.

Molly opened it. Inside was a triangular ebony guitar pick threaded on a fine silver chain. She laughed. “I do have other things I can do,” she said, the teasing tone back in her voice. She took the chain out, and opened the clasp. “Help me,” she said.

Ada slid off the horse, accepted the ends of the chain as Molly turned her back. “Of course you do,” she said, fastening the ends together. “You can do anything you want. You could… come to the moon with me.” She rested her hand at the base of Molly’s neck for a moment.

Molly shook her head, and stepped away. She held the ebony pick between her fingers, running her index finger lightly over the smooth wood. “I can’t,” she said. “Even if I weren’t marrying Jack, I couldn’t. I’m not that girl.” She shook her head. “That life you described, the quiet, boring one? That’s me. That’s what I want. To be in my place, and live my life with the people I know.”

Ada pushed herself back up onto the horse’s back. “That’s saying you don’t want to,” she countered. "It's not the same as not being able to.”

Molly leaned back against the hen, and looked at her friend. “You’ve always thought I was as big as you were,” she said with a smile. “And I’ve been glad of that; I have. But I’m not.” She grinned. “Besides… pirates!”

Ada shook her head, and snorted a laugh. “There’s always a risk of someone doing something to you,” she said. “Always someone willing to die for their beliefs… or kill for them. ‘Pick your nose, lose a finger!’”

“Is that in the Big Golden Book of Unbreakable Rules?” Molly asked. “Good job I use my thumb!”

“You can get your thumb in your nose?” Ada asked. “That’s some serious pickin’ right there, that is!”

“See?” Molly asked. “I better not go where the Enforcers of the Book live… what would I do without my thumbs?”

They laughed, and Ada looked at the Viking ship. “I’ll miss you,” she said, when the laughter died away.

“You’d better,” Molly answered.

The Phantom Ache of Doom

I don't know why it happens, but every once in a while, it sneaks up and hits me. I'll be doing something innocuous... driving home, maybe, listening to the radio when a love song comes on. Or maybe standing in the shower, figuring out how I'm going to get all this month's bills paid, and also eat.

And then I think of Her, and I wonder how she's doing. I wish that there were something I could do to help. And that's when I remember that our separation is her choice.  That she could have had all the help I can offer, but rejected it; rejected me.

And I feel the pain of the loss all over again.

The Depression of Doooom

Yesterday... or this morning, by the calender, but before the last time I slept, so to me it seems like yesterday... I said to a friend that it's difficult to write about love when you're depressed and heartbroken. I was a little surprised to write it; I hadn't admitted to myself that I was depressed, or that I was still heartbroken. It's a little pathetic, I suppose, to still be heartbroken seven months after the last time I interacted with my ex on any level.

I've been alone for a long time. The last time I was seriously in love was in the mid-90s. That romance had serious problems... my girlfriend then wasn't so much in love with me as she was with the idea of not being alone. She constantly compared me, unfavorably, to prior partners she'd had. When she finally broke up with me, she said that I wasn't as smart as I liked to think I was. And while I now recognize that she was saying harsh things in an effort to make me give up on her, it hurt me deeply, because I genuinely in love with her. When you're in love with someone, you let them in through your shields; you give them the power to wound you deeply.

So it had been a long time since I was with anyone, seriously. I'd dated a little here and there... there was a girl in New York, and one in Tucson; a third in Flagstaff. But none of those were anything more than a little companionship; not so much Ms Right, as Ms Right-Now. And I'm not good at recognizing signals... or else, women don't really send me signals. I have to be hit by a clue-by-four to recognize that a woman is interested in me.

The Redhead hit me with that clue-by-four. She hit me with it in possibly the most effective way she could have; in a way that reached all the way back to my childhood, when I was first forming my ideas about sex, and desire, and love. She was smart, and beautiful, and eloquent. She was a geek, and sarcastic, and tender. She was everything I've ever wanted in a partner, even the incredibly shallow things that I would never admit to anyone else.

And she loved me. That love changed my ideas about myself. It made me see myself in a completely different light. If someone as wonderful as she was loved me, how could I be as lacking in human virtue as I'd come to believe?

But she changed her mind. And I'm still trying to find a way to deal with that.

New Fic Teaser (of Doom?)

“I came to the moon to go to college,” I said to my twin sister, Ren.  She... or at least her holographic avatar... was shrunk down to twenty centimeters and standing on my desk.  I leaned back in my chair and sighed.  “There were literally a million applicants for every admission here this year,” I went on.  “How can I waste time?”

Ren shook her head. Despite being my twin, she had Mama’s coppery-red hair, while I had Mom’s raven black.  I was jealous, but not enough to do the genetweek.  She was on Earth, at Mom’s alma mater, Northern Arizona University.  There was a slight but noticeable delay as the signal bounced from Aitken basin to the satellite at L2, from there to the processing station at L4, to the Baker Island High Port, and finally down to Flagstaff.  “Your argument is spurious, Ran,” she said.  “The admissions algorithm selected you as the best match for Sankt Vladimir’s cultural as well as educational milieux.  That includes your interest in dressing up in weird clothes.”

I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “I wish I could talk to Mama about it,” I complained.  I tapped my slate, pulling up the system map.  Two months on, Grey Maru would not yet have passed the orbit of Mars on its Hohmann orbit out to the Jupiter Trojans. The time lag would be no more than talking to Ren.  

Ren looked like she was about to object that I could, but then she nodded; she knew what I meant.  “It’s weird,” she agreed, “not being able to go to the jungle and talk to them. But she would agree with me.  Ran, you’re in Lunagrad.  How many times in the last five years have I heard you go on and on about the Valentina Bridge and the CosPlay brigade there?”

“How many times did I hear you gush on about ‘the mountain campus,’” I countered.  “How’s that fresh air thing going for you?”

Ren looked embarrassed.  “I’ve discovered that ‘fresh air’ smells like cattle droppings,” she admitted.  “But I’m waiting for winter... I’m told that skiing is a blast.”  She shook her head at me.  “And you’re deflecting.  You know what Mom would say if you asked her about it.”

“Is your homework done?” I said, mimicking Mom’s drawl.

“Well?” Ren asked.  “Is it?”

I looked off to the left, at my bed and the pile of textbooks I’d left there to answer Ren’s call.  “Yeah,” I said, only fudging a little.

“Then you can go play,” Ren said, mimicking Mom’s drawl as well.

I nodded.  Ren was silent for a moment, then went on, “I have to go meet some people,” she said.  “But you really should go.”  She blew me a kiss.  “Love you, Orchid.  Miss you.”

“Love you, Lotus,” I answered.  “Miss you more.”  Her hologram winked at me, and then vanished.  I sighed, and closed the channel. 

The Movie of Doom

As I drove in to work today, I had NPR on the radio.  I often have NPR on the radio, because I need something to quiet the voices in my head... and NPR keeps me from having to listen to love songs that make me cry over The Redhead dumping me.  Because, you know, crying is not particularly conducive to safe driving.  And isn't it amazing how many popular songs are about love?  You'd think there was nothing else available about which to write songs.

But I digress.  On the program Snap Judgement, I heard a segment by the documentary filmmaker of Seeking Asian Female.  She described how she came to make the film; described how she was uncomfortable with the way that a certain kind of (generally White) male looked at her, objectified her, and that she wanted to get into those guy's heads, wanted to see what it was that they saw when they looked at her. 

Have I mentioned that I was born in Japan? I thought about a particular incident from my life: the night that I walked through a dark parking lot, and a man in a truck drove past, turned back, parked his truck, and came to talk to me.  There is no horror story here; I talked politely but distantly to him, he got back in his truck, I got in my jeep, and I drove miles out of my way on well-trafficed streets to be sure he wasn't following me.

But it happened because of how I look, is my point; it happened because he perceived me as being part of a class of women that fit his particular desires, and it didn't have anything to do with who I was. So I have some experience of what the filmmaker was talking about, is my point.  And I listened to her piece with interest.

One thing that she said made me sad: "Steve wasn't really marriage material.  He didn't have a house, he didn't have much money...."  It made me sad because you could say those things about me.  I have a decent job, but I don't really have any savings.  I have a twelve-year-old car that my mother gave me, and it's requiring a lot of maintenance lately.  I don't have a house... I rent an apartment in a part of town that's okay, but not the best. 

When The Redhead and I were together, she wasn't my girlfriend; she was my partner.  I placed her needs, physical, emotional, spiritual, on a level with my own, and tried to find ways to fulfill those needs... hers, and mine.  Sometimes, I put her needs first.  Sometimes, I put my needs first.  Most of the time, I found ways to fulfil both of our needs at the same time. 

I'm interested in my partner's life.  I'm interested in her interests.  I'm a good friend, an affectionate partner, and, I think, a good person to be with.  But it wasn't enough for The Redhead.  And, apparently, it's not enough for the maker of the documentary.  Which makes me wonder if there's anybody it's enough for.

In the last argument that The Redhead and I had before she dumped me, I said that I chose to believe that the future would be better; that I had to believe that, or I'd end up in the bathtub with a pot on my head to keep the bullet from going through the wall after it went through my head. 

I still feel that way.

The Anniversary of Doom

In March, 2012, I was living in Knoxville, Tennessee.  Or, as I would sometimes write it, Tteenneessee.  On White Day, March 14, 2012, The Redhead sent me an email indicating her interest in me.  We'd become accquainted on Google Plus, and I'd been flirtatious at her, but figured nothing would come of it.  But on White Day, I wrote about Valentine's Day / White Day, and how lesbians interpreted the roles.  And The Redhead sent me a White Day present, indicating her interest.

We wrote a lot of email for a couple of days.  And she revealed that her roommate was leaving town for a few days, and that she was a little scared because the previous time that the roommate had been gone, she'd passed out and concussed herself.  She was afraid of that happening when she was alone, and of the possiblity that she could die with no one there.  So I stole money from my brother's "get out of jail eventually" bank account, put gas in my car, and drove the four hours to Charlotte to be with her while her roommate was away.

A year ago this very moment, I was waiting for her to get out of the shower and answer me, let me know if it was okay for me to come and keep her company.  She did, eventually, and I drove.  I stopped just across the TN/NC border, and got a side order of bacon at the Waffle House.  We were text messaging each other at each of my stops, and she was concerned about what I might pick up on my skin at the Waffle House.

So, when I arrived about five in the morning and found her sitting on her porch, I sat beside her in another chair, and didn't touch her.  We talked for about an hour, and then I got up and went inside, used the bathroom, and did a full nursing scrub from my fingertips to my elbows.  And when I came back out, I took her hand, and we talked for another hour or so, sitting on the porch, holding hands.

Eventually, we decided it was time to sleep, and we got up and went inside.  I hesitated at her bedroom door.  "I came here," I said, "with hopes, but no expectations.  If you want, I can go and sleep on the couch, and it'll be fine."  And she smiled, and took my hand, and led me into her bedroom.

We had a very good week together.  And that turned into a relationship, and that turned into the best six months of my life.  I felt like I was loved; I felt secure and happy.  And I didn't know what the future was going to look like, but I believed that she would be next to me as we went forward into it.  As we shaped that future for ourselves, to suit ourselves.

But then, she began to draw away from me.  She made new friends, and adopted a new religion, and one of the keystones of that religion was "No Homos!"  And she said, "They're going to have to yield on that," and she said, "any friend of mine will just have to acccept you," and she said... many things.  But in the end, she kept me hidden from her new friends, and eventually, she broke up with me. 

And the worst six months of my life ensued.  I miss her every day.  I cry at stupid things, because The Redhead would like them, and I can't share them with her.  I haven't spoken with her at all since Christmas Eve, and I don't expect that I will ever speak to her again.  And I'm coming to terms with that.  But... I still miss her.  And I still love her.  And I've gone over everything I've done, and everything she's done, and I don't see anyplace I could have done anything different.  I don't see anywhere I did anything wrong.

I thought that this relationship was going to be different.  I thought that she saw who I was, and accepted me for that person.  I thought that I was ready to have a real, grown-up relationship, and to make it last the rest of my life.  And I thought she was ready, too.  I thought that there were myriad little pieces of our lives and experiences that fit together and made us an excellent, an amazing couple.  I knew that she made my life better, and I thought that I made her life better.

But somewhere, I was wrong.

The Maunderings of Doooooom

I was thinking about FurryMuck tonight. As I did paperwork, wrapping up yesterday, preparing for today, I was thinking about who I used to be. Mucks started after the grand hayday of text-based adventure games, after InfoCom stopped being a gaming company, but they were the same sort of thing... a text-based environment where you could relate to people through their words, and yours.

And even then, I foresaw that they wouldn't last forever; that graphics would overtake them. And though FurryMuck is still there (I had to check; I myself have not signed on in years), it has been made less important by the advent of MMO games. In some ways, MMO games are not as free an environment as the mu* worlds, because you can't do whatever you want; only what the programers have set up for you to do.

But I wonder how long it will be before technologies like Kinect make it possible for you to be in those worlds more fully; before you find the line between reality and virtual reality blurring.  I read an article which suggested that gaming insiders believe holodeck-equivalent technology is no more than ten or fifteen years away.

And I find myself wondering... how will we find each other there?  FurryMuck was found because people had a common interest in antropomorphic animals (or theriomorphic people, depending on how you view it) but I haven't found that the PlayStation Network's Home has any organizing principles.  I haven't played Second Life... in part because no one I know seems to play it... but I wonder how people find each other there.

I talk, sometimes, about how great it would be to be able to play RPGs with Michael and Steve, who now live far away from me, or with Grace in England.  I wonder... will the technology make that possible, or will there always be barriers such as time zones stopping us from getting together?  Will we be able to gather for a few hours once a week with those who are congenial to us, and have shared adventures?  And... how would we find those people, new people, who are congenial to us?

It's a brave, new world.