Space Is Just a Starry Night by Tanith Lee

Author:Tanith Lee [Lee, Tanith]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, short stories, Feminist Science Fiction, weird fiction
ISBN: 978-1-61976-032-5
Publisher: Aqueduct Press
Published: 2013-05-03T16:00:00+00:00

Appendage PSX: My last thought is, I confess, is this really then what is meant by science fiction? Or, more disquietingly, was it always? I direct your attention to the final words of the final included witness.

Witness A (Two)

I’m very sorry I did that to her. Yes, I know she won’t speak to me. I can’t see her. Yes. I’ve never done anything like that before.

I can’t describe it. Can’t you try to fucking understand? She was lying on the bed with him. She was naked. He was — he was inside her. She was holding him in her arms —

I couldn’t handle it. You didn’t see. And there was this light in the room. Like a sort of bloody gilding. The whole scene looked like a pornographic oil painting from the Italian Renaissance.

I don’t remember what he looked like. Just another man. Some kid, twenties maybe. God knows.

He just moved away from her. There was something then. He was — what? what? — sinuous, something sinuous about how he moved. That I do remember. He moved like — a trained dancer, an athlete — no, like an animal. Like a big cat. A panther. Or a snake.

I know I hit her.

I’m sorry.

I never did anything like that before with anyone.

No, it wasn’t really because she’d fucked him. It what she said. She said I can see inside you.

Witness E (Two)

Yes, I could, I could see all through him. Through everything. No I can’t explain. I would if I could, wouldn’t I? I mean all this fucking talk, this interrogation, when I’m covered in bruises, and I’m still pretty articulate, aren’t I? OK? If not very pretty. Ha. Ha.

I don’t know now what it was.

It was as if I knew everything there was to know, the heights, the depths, yesterday, tomorrow, the beginning, the end — Oh —

Shit.

I need the plastic thing — the bowl — It’s your fault, all these questions — get the fucking sick bowl before I throw up all over —

Witness A (One)

She gets off of the bed and she says to me, I seen the stars.

That’s what she says.

She doesn’t mean — I don’t know what — I know —

I don’t know what to do, do I. I turn to him like a fucking dope, but somehow he’s not there no more. But there’s something. I can feel it too.

There’s this ringing in my head, and this terrific smell, a good smell — no, not good, can’t be, can it. But it’s clean, sweet — only it’s drowning me.

I suppose she called you. Or someone. That’s all I remember, mate. The lot. But I won’t forget none of it. And I ain’t been drinking, I told you. Test me.

Witness E (Three)

It was like looking through glass. You know, a glass case, perhaps. You can see everything so clearly, but you can’t touch it. If you try, you trigger the alarm.

But I do remember there was a tree. It was very tall, dark but golden, both at once.

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