Asimov's SF, July 2009 by Issue 07 # July

Author:Issue 07 # July
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-07-10T14:00:51+00:00

Short Story: SHOES-TO-RUN by Sara Genge

Sara Genge writes, “I’m a new doctor in Madrid, which means that a) I’m hardly doing any writing now and b) I practice insomnia in the pro league.” Her most recent short fiction has appeared in Weird Tales and Asimov’s. Sara tells us that she’s always been interested in writing about gender, but now seems to be in a particularly gender-oriented phase. Her new story about the dangers and rewards of coming of age sometime in the not-so-near future is a part of this trend.

Shai-Shai parted the tarp and slipped out of the hut, hoisted a metal pot onto her head and left for the Sen river before anyone could spot her. Getting water was one of her girl-chores, but Shai-Shai refused to join the group of giggling girls that would leave for the Sen later on in the day. Going with the girls would be admitting that she was one of them, and she had spent too much time proving otherwise to give it up for the laughter and company.

She steadied the pot with her left hand while her right drifted up to the charred scars on her nipples. She repeated the gesture often; it served to reassure her nothing had changed. She’d stuck in the burning knives when she’d discovered the woman-flesh growing on her chest. The burns blended with her black skin, but the scars were big and visible. She didn’t care. She remembered the pain, and the relief when the breasts had stopped growing. They were always the breasts, never her breasts, and she was glad they hadn’t come back.

Her sneakers snagged on a tuft of kikiyu grass and she landed on her knees, the pot clanging away in the darkness. She cursed the Parisi ghosts, regretted it, muttered an apology and placed the pot back on her head.

She didn’t slow down, determined to return before the boys came out of their huts. They wouldn’t let her join them, despite the fact that she had shoes-to-run just like any boy. Shai-Shai would not let them see her doing girls’ work.

She got to the river just as the ground started to redden. The night air nipped her bare arms and back. To the east, the lights of the city of Paris blinked and died. The dome shone purple and orange in the dawn light as the nano wafted out of the city in waves. Shaman had told her that the Parisi lived in the nano. That’s where Shaman got his power. To Shai-Shai, the nano looked like a giant flock of birds, but Shaman said they were really verymany small things, visible only because of their numbers. The dome protected the city from the sun and poisons of the Waste, he claimed. The girl didn’t understand much of it. Holy men could be cryptic.

Shai-Shai glanced at the expanse of dirt and litter, half expecting to see children hidden in the bushes, laughing at her. She wondered where the “poisons” lay. There were

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