Hybrid Child: A Novel (Parallel Futures) by Ohara Mariko

Author:Ohara, Mariko
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press
Published: 2018-06-15T00:00:00+00:00

Lesiah pedaled her bicycle across the mazelike town. She clattered along on the big two-wheeler bicycle, ready to go anywhere, to the ends of the earth.

The densely packed buildings were falling down; it looked as though the roofs would collapse at any moment if she were to pedal just a little too loudly. She rode like the wind, squeezing the bicycle through spaces that were barely wide enough for a single person to fit through.

Lesiah turned onto a side street, where casually dressed gangsters were wheeling and dealing. “What the fuck’re you doin’!” Loitering by a light shining outside some kind of bar or otherwise dodgy establishment—the advertising sponsor must have forgotten to turn it off—they hurled insults that pierced her body.

Still now, there were so many strange happenings in the slums of Yahweh-Yireh. If you picked up an old telephone, for example, you might be met with the sound of a crying baby. Then, you would be stuck inside the phone booth until you crooned some soothing words to make it stop—it was an old program from a private telecommunications company that had been used as a means to increase revenues. Who would have guessed that an old program like that would come back to life, like a ghost . . .

A ghost . . . yes, a ghost.

The thought had just happened to pop into her head. But in fact, this town was teeming with things that could only rightfully be called ghosts.

Milagros had spewed out all kinds of things at once—programs from ages ago that had built up like gas at the bottom of her belly; happy childhood dreams of balloons and fireworks; nightmares of insects blown full of air and exploding—the town was inundated with this and that and everything in between.

She gleefully pumped poison into every terminal and every blood vessel, every tube and every sensory organ—like a crazed, bloodthirsty killer.

Lesiah pedaled her bicycle, making her way through the slums . . . she could only rely on herself; she could only trust her own will. Lesiah rode through them—through the ghosts. She rode through beer bubbles the size of a human head frothing in a giant mug; she ripped huge transparent vegetables out of the ground; she flew straight into people’s baffled mouths; she tore into the chests of lovers . . . those were memories . . . Milagros’s memories. Milagros’s records of Lesiah.

Lesiah passed by a 3-D image of two lovers and realized that the woman in the image was herself. The color drained from her face.

Milagros knows everything; she has eyes everywhere, and she never forgets anything. She even remembers things from decades ago that are like ancient history to humans, long since forgotten. She never, ever forgets. She remembers. She remembers everything like it happened yesterday.

Lesiah rode frantically.

That old boyfriend? She had forgotten his face after all this time, but of course seeing something makes a person remember it.

Sweat ran down her forehead. Shiverer Mouse called her “the Lesiah who never breaks a sweat”—but that wasn’t true.

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