The Past Is Red by Catherynne M. Valente

Author:Catherynne M. Valente [Valente, Catherynne M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250301130
Google: zQT6DwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1250301130
Publisher: Tordotcom
Published: 2021-07-19T23:00:00+00:00

* * *

I TOLD ALL this to Big Red Mars yesterday morning because I was thinking about the past again, which is both a silly thing to do and an impossible thing not to do.

“Sometimes I dream about all the old countries sleeping down under the sea,” Red confided to me. “England and France and Portugal and Poland. All their kings and queens weighed down by emeralds and saltwater in the dark with the squid. All those bones. All those fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters. And in my dream, if the fathers and mothers loved their sons and daughters and sang to them in their cradles, they made a good country, and if they didn’t, they made a tyranny, so whether existence is a bloodbath or a bubble bath could hinge on whether a little child got kissed good night with a story and a glass of water or sent to bed without snuggles or a snack or a cohesive philosophy of justice.”

“Yes, but why have a king at all?”

“Someone has to make the rules, Tetley.”

“Do they, though? They’re all dead, so none of their rules kissed them good night with a story or whatever you were going on about just then. Seems like someone should have thought of a rule that goes Do Not Fuck Your Only Planet to Death Under Any Circumstances. Seems like that should have been Rule Number One.”

“Maybe they did. The planet is still there. Humans are still living on it. And whales and lanternfish and stone crabs. And tigers, too! Earth was always seventy percent water. Most species were always aquatic. Rule Number One might have been sprained, but it’s not technically broken. I don’t think you and I need to mourn for Earth.”

This is how Red always talks. Like a book from Bookbury turned into a girl.

I chewed on my lip and emptied an overripe passionfruit off my rain awning into my mouth like an old-timey Fuckwit with a fat oyster. “I will tell you what I think. I think kings happen because some people have an empty place inside them that wants to be full and it will do anything to feel full and the first thing that makes it feel the opposite of empty it will chase forever and ever. And the weirdest thing about this place is that obeying fills it up, but making someone else obey makes it slosh up and splash all over the floor.”

“And you don’t have that place, I assume?”

“I don’t have any empty places in me, Red. I’m packed tight with happiness and luck and all the things that have happened to me and my elephant seal and my moringa tree and my boat and all the love I’ve saved up. But sometimes I think I can smell that space when I meet a person. Whether they have or don’t have it. I can smell their craving to not be empty anymore. And it frightens me.”

Big Red Mars sighed. “It’s not wicked to want someone else to be in charge of you, you know.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.