Woman On The Edge Of Time by Piercy Marge

Author:Piercy, Marge [Piercy, Marge]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Glbt
ISBN: 9780449210826
Publisher: Fawcett
Published: 1976-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Tuesday morning she was confined to her bed, as if she were sick. The doctors were to come in the morning. Monday afternoon they had been sent through a whole battery of tests—blood, urine, reflexes, all fussed over by Dr. Morgan. Redding had not been there. He taught someplace. He was connected with something called NYNPI. He was an important man. She was beginning to feel that his actual appearance was ominous. Better when he was being busy elsewhere. On others. There were others. Patients in the hospital in the city. Unsatisfactory in some way. Outpatients slipped away. They could not be depended upon. Their families butted in. They, tucked now in beds in their rows, were to be in some way more satisfactory.

She dozed in her bed, groggy on drugs. Casually in the early morning ward she cast an invitation to Luciente. She felt shy, embarrassed. Tentatively she opened her mind and sensed Luciente’s response. How easy it had become to slip over to Mattapoisett. She did not return exhausted. As if her mind had developed muscles, she could easily draw Luciente, she could leap in and out of Luciente’s time.

Luciente’s family—Bee with his head tilted back beaming at her, the old woman Sojourner on his left, Barbarossa, Otter in long braids looking Chinese, the slight blond man Morningstar bent over Dawn, Jackrabbit staring at one of the decorated panels with a dreamy frown, Hawk thoughtfully picking her nose, Luxembourg about to say something and visibly remembering she was no longer Hawk’s mother and still on the silence taboo—were seated around a table in the fooder, breakfasting on whole grains, nuts, sunflower seeds, blueberries, yogurt. The milk tasted full of flavor, like milk from her grandmother’s. The teacher said raw milk made you sick; grandmother said it made you strong. Herb tea in large pots steamed.

“You don’t have coffee?”

“To start meetings. In the middle if they run long. Same with tea.” Luciente yawned. “When we get up running early, to harvest.”

“But you don’t drink it every day?”

Bee shifted as if he might respond, but Barbarossa was ready with an answer. “Coffee, tea, sugar, tobacco, they all took land needed to feed local people who were starving. Now some land is used for world luxuries, but most for necessary crops. Imagine the plantation system, people starving while big fincas owned by foreigners grew for wealthy countries as cash crops a liquid without food value, bad for kidneys, hearts, if drunk in excess.”

“I couldn’t face the day without coffee! That’s the worst thing I’ve heard about your way of living.”

Everyone looked glum and even Jackrabbit stopped staring at the offending panel. Five people started at once talking about protein and underdevelopment and the creation of hunger, when Dawn piped up, “People, listen! I have a dream this morning.”

Other conversation stopped. She preened in the attention, making her face serious. Morningstar’s head bobbed over her like a pale sun. “I dreamed I flew into the past. I flew to that river and kept that nuclear power plant from killing everybody in Philadelphia.

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