Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack

Author:Rachel Pollack
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2015-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

6

Jennifer’s marriage to Mike Gold ended on a piece of green metal at the exit from Glowwood Hive. A raised circle about five feet in diameter and set in the ground beside the Celestial Guardian, the metal plate was called a ‘soul-map.’ Its surface bore a diagram of the streets interspersed with spirit configurations and the mark of an official blessing from the Mid-Hudson College of Tellers. Officially, all residents stood there every time they left the hive. Officially, contact with the map joined them to the hive’s unity. Officially, they could step on the map and get a jolt that would carry them through a two-week vacation, so that even swimming in a pool in Honolulu they would feel their neighbours floating beside them with every stroke.

In practice very few people ever bothered to stop their cars to get out and ‘mount’ the map. The few times Jennie had done it she’d never experienced anything more than a slight tickle in her feet.

On the evening their marriage ended Jennie and Mike were on their way to Shop-Rite for double stamp night. At the exit from the hive they stopped for someone coming up the access road. When Mike stepped on the gas the car stalled. Before he could start it again Jennie said, ‘Mike, why don’t we go stand on the map?’

‘What?’ Mike said. ‘What for?’

‘I don’t know, it just seems like—we live here, shouldn’t we do it some times? It’ll only take a second.’

Mike hesitated, and later Jennie would think how if he’d only started the engine she would have given in and maybe they would have stayed together. But instead Mike said, ‘Oh fuck,’ and got out of the car.

The two of them stepped onto the map. Jennie tried to take his hand but he jerked it away. Jennie was about to step off when she started to sway. ‘What’s going on?’ she said.

Mike had begun to jerk from side to side. ‘Feels like a storm’s coming up,’ he said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

But when they looked back at the hive they seemed to stare down at it from the top of a hill. The streets had stretched out. They rolled on and on, they lifted into the sky, a vast criss-cross of black stripes covering the ground. The houses glowed, they shook and danced, like cartoon houses with windows like huge soft eyes, and doors like smiles. From each house, like a paper thrown into the air, the hive members leaped into the sky. They sang to each other and the voices rose to high-pitched squeals, like bats.

Jennie screamed and Mike shouted, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ Then the two of them rose with their neighbours, plucked in one motion from the flat Earth to an arched sky burning with light. Jennie looked down, she expected to see her and Mike standing there, entranced, but no, the map was empty, their bodies had risen, they were flying, look, they passed a plane, Jennie waved and all

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