The Fourth Circle by Zoran Živković & Mary Popović

Author:Zoran Živković & Mary Popović [Živković, Zoran & Popović, Mary]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9781892389664
Google: Fs5iAAAAMAAJ
Publisher: Ministry of Whimsey Press
Published: 2004-02-15T14:44:26+00:00

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The Fourth Circle

CIRCLE THE THIRD

1. A GUEST IN THE TEMPLE

WE HAVE A visitor.

Though his arrival was unexpected, even by me, Sri did not seem surprised at all, or if he was surprised, it was pleasantly. Now my friend has male company, which obviously pleases him more than does mine, so he's happy while I feel neglected. Ah well, serves me right for being so gullible—like all women in fact.

As if men's feelings were made to last.

I know I should pay him back in kind. He richly deserves it, but I still manage to restrain myself, though I don't know why. The only thing he has earned from me is total contempt—or worse—especially after how he behaved regarding the baby.

He let me see it just that one time, and then only for a short while. I thought I would die of pain when he tore me away from the crib and started asking heartless questions about alleged hermetic viruses, wild programs, and similar absurdities, as if this were not a real baby, afflicted with Down's Syndrome though it may be. So what if it is? Sri least of anyone has the right to blame me for that. If he'd devoted more attention to me, if everything else hadn't been more important to him—his silly meditations in the first place—I would never have been forcibly inseminated by that stunted monkey.

I had a premonition from the very onset of pregnancy that this crossing with the primitive genes of the Little One would come to no good; I kept telling myself, in my rare moments of sobriety, that I ought to abort, but in the end that damn maternal instinct prevailed. That's the worst curse that God—never mind which one, all gods are males—uses to punish women. That's why I hate them all.

The baby seemed to be stretching its tiny hands toward me, but I know now it wasn't a deliberate act. It was an involuntary twitch. It doesn't recognize me as its mother, and that hurts more than Sri's indifference. I tried secretly to approach it several times, in defiance of Sri's cruel ban, but each time I suffered the same disappointment. Perhaps that's what Sri wanted to spare me when he forbade me to see the baby again after that first, traumatic time.

But, no, I'm deluding myself. He's nowhere near as thoughtful as that. To him the baby is just a peculiar program malfunction that he would have destroyed long ago if he weren't so intrigued as to how it came about. Before our guest arrived, Sri had, to my horror, gone poking about the crib several times, totally unfeeling, not caring a whit for my desperate cries and pleas to leave the baby alone. Now, luckily, he has no more time: he is devoting himself entirely to his new friend, which does not surprise me in the least.

There was a moment when I had the impression that he planned to vivisect the baby—well, perhaps he wouldn't go quite that far. Sri

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