A Cup of Normal by Devon Monk

Author:Devon Monk
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
Tags: Fantasy, General, Short Stories (Single Author), Fiction
ISBN: 9780982073094
Publisher: Fairwood Press, Incorporated
Published: 2010-07-15T04:00:00+00:00

STRINGING TOMORROW

It felt as if we had begun each of our days here, caught by the violet light of the new rising sun: she, wrapped in a solar blanket against the cold I could not feel, I buckling the last latch on my safety belt.

“Don’t go,” said Celia, my lovely, childless wife.

“I won’t be long. Home tonight. The string break doesn’t look too severe.” No sound from her. I looked up from the all-go green on my wrist pack. Her eyes were dark, mouth tugged down in a frown.

“I promise, Celia.” I extended my hand and gently pushed the dark strands of hair away from her temple. Her skin was warm against the fingertip sensors in my gloves. “I’ll be home tonight.”

“It will need to be tonight,” she said. “The appointment to choose a child is tomorrow. With or without you, Allen.”

“Can it wait?”

“It has waited. I’ve waited,” she said. The wind tugged at the edge of her blanket, and I knew it was true. Ten years of hoping. There was no denying I could never father a child of my own blood. My modified body, made to walk the strings, had ensured I would never reproduce.

“I’ll be home soon.” I’d hoped it sounded positive, but she shook her head. She knew me too well. Knew I hated the idea of picking a baby off a shelf, out of a file, a jar.

I put both hands out and gently squeezed her arms. She drew into my embrace, blanket and all, and I inhaled the sweet copper scent of her. Flesh and bone, so warm and alive in my coldwire and bio-composite arms. Fifteen years we’d been married. Fifteen years I’d watched her go from hope to despair of ever conceiving a child.

The green on my wrist flashed. My shift was on. “Ce, I need to go.”

She nodded against my chest. When she stepped back, I was surprised to see her tears. I hadn’t felt her crying.

“I promise I’ll be home.”

She looked up at me, held my gaze, searched for a guarantee in my words.

“I won’t wait past tomorrow,” she said. She turned back into the house and shut the door behind her.

The wind stirred the lines above my head and I glanced up. Strings a meter thick zigged from horizon to horizon between jutting, jointed metal frames, netting the dawn sky, catching the last light of stars. It was for the song of the strings that I endured the training and the modifications it took to walk the strings, mend the strings, sort and route every possible word and dream into Archives before they were lost.

I slipped my index finger into the slot on my wrist pack. “Allen Bourne. Locate to site.”

“Allen Bourne,” a soft alto of Archives said in my left ear. “Site Baud 15, Cross at 45. Break approximately one point one mill. Transport requested?”

The upper window of the house flickered with yellow light. Celia at her computer station, activating the lines, digging into Archive’s knowledge, browsing for babies.

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.