Asimov's SF, January 2007 by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T14:01:43+00:00

“…what is a kimono … if it ceases to be a thing worn?”

—Kunihiko Moriguchi, 2005

“When no one chooses to wear kimono, might they not choose to become the kimono?”

—Masafumi Saikaku (1999-2073) From: “The Lives They Lived” (“Emperor of the Epidermal Kimono”), Sunday, January 2074, The New York Times Magazine.

The next morning, Masafumi wasn’t too surprised when Harumi didn’t show up with her customary trays of momengoshi, ready for her hand-worked embellishment, but when Ignazio didn’t show up for work either, he first grew puzzled, then … as he worked through each layer of their most recent words and actions, dwelling in particular on the seeming happenstance of their wants and needs, which managed to merge with his own artistic needs and wants, he became angry, shamed to the bone by their tandem deception, their dual interplay of common desire for him to act in their stead (the unspoken upset on Harumi’s part, Ignazio’s urgings to find out what was wrong, the revelation of their common foe … and Ignazio’s sudden urge to play nano-Master to his unsuspecting Apprentice). But his anger washed away like unwanted dye from a resist painting when he ventured for the second time into the restaurant where Harumi had worked, past the dew-blurred chalk-outline of Ulger’s body. One of the recent immigrant waitresses hurried over to him and said, “Harumi, she say for me to tell you something. She say thank you, and she hope you not angry at her and her boyfriend. She say, they cannot be free unless common enemy is gone. But they cannot be ones to stop enemy. She hopes you understand, and forgive. And she say, she love new kosode. When they come back, she want more. If you wish to make for her.”

“Did she say … did they say where they are going?”

“Las Vegas. They have Skin Show there. She go show off kosode, tell everyone you make. Oh, she also say to get rid of the ribbons, she say you know what mean. Okay? You have meal now?

“I’m not hungry—”

“Not hungry, is okay. I put in box later. Harumi, she pay ahead. She say serve you special dish … you sit, I go get,” and so Masafumi sat, surrounded by scents and memories and distant sounds of cooking, until the waitress placed a plate of kinugoshi before him, and the scent of the deep-fried “silken” tofu filled his nostrils. As he picked up his chopsticks, he noticed in the dim light that there was a design, deeply branded, in the center of the slab of kinugoshi:

The ancient symbol for a kimono….

Lifting the oishii treat to his lips, prior to savoring the warm custard-like interior, Masafumi decided that no matter what it might cost him, or how many free tattoos he might give that nanotech factory worker, he’d somehow get the thirteen yards worth of transparent nanofabric for Harumi’s osode … under the circumstances, no other cloth would do. m

Copyright (c) 2006 A. R. Morlan

—Special thanks to Ardath Mayhar for her help with revising this work.

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