Odin's Eye by Maria Haskins

Author:Maria Haskins [Haskins, Maria]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: artificial intelligence, science fiction, aliens, space and time
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Their apartment was on the ground floor and had its own, private entrance. She put her hand on the ID-plate and pushed the door open. The light came on automatically inside and Tobe slipped in under her arm, already sliding out of his jacket, letting it fall in a puffy, slowly collapsing heap on the floor, then he disappeared into the bathroom while she was still fumbling with the click-seams on her coat. She sat down at the kitchen table, kicked off her shoes, and saw a couple of cockroaches scuttling back into the cracks in the walls. Not even the latest extermination devices were effective against the new mutated strains.

Voices could be heard from outside, but they were distant. As usual the more immediate noises came from the apartment upstairs, and she turned on the music so she wouldn’t have to listen. Instead, a thin, soft voice sang to her about some kind of love, trying to make her cry, but she had heard it too many times and it didn’t move her anymore.

“You look tired. Aren’t you going to bed?” he asked when he returned from the bathroom, the pajama pants barely hanging on to his narrow hips, the outline of his ribs painfully visible when he reached up and grabbed hold of the edge above the door, swinging back and forth a couple of times.

“In a bit. You go. I’m going to work for a bit but I’ll try to be quiet.”

He nodded but remained where he was, fingers drumming on the door frame.

“Are you okay?”

“Sure,” she answered. “Are you?”

He gave his usual, ambiguous shrug and quickly brought one hand to his face but he wasn’t quick enough, she saw the blood like she had seen it almost every night lately - a thin, dark trickle from one nostril.

“It’s nothing,” he said to deflect her before she had time to say anything, rubbing his fingers on his pant leg to get rid of the blood. It took all her willpower not to go to him, to fuss over him, but she did remain seated. “Are you sad?” he asked then.

“What do you mean?” She was still thinking of the man in the grey coveralls. That, and the blood. “Why would I be sad?”

He picked at an invisible spot of peeling paint.

“It’s just that you looked so strange down on the pier.”

“Maybe,” she answered, considering her response carefully. “I was just thinking about something that happened a long time ago.”

He nodded as if he knew what she meant.

“Do you like it here?” she asked after a while.

The shrug again and a counter-question instead of an answer:

“Do you like it?”

She thought about it.

“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

There was a long silence between them while the synthetically generated music drifted by, accompanied by the muted sounds of whatever paid-for passion was going on upstairs.

“You kind of looked like you were going to cry. As if you felt lonely.”

“I’ve got you, and you never allow me to be lonely,” she said and then, finally, he smiled: a thin beam of light.

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