Clarkesworld Year Nine by Ken Liu
Author:Ken Liu [Clarke, Neil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: anthology, clarkesworld, novelette, science fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Science Fiction And Fantasy, short fiction, short stories, short story, world sf
ISBN: 189046497X
Publisher: Wyrm Publishing
Published: 2018-03-20T00:00:00+00:00
5. Orange
This is what happened to me in the Orange Country: I didnât see any cities even though there are really nice cities there, or drink any alcohol even though Iâve always heard clementine schnapps is really great, or talk to any animals even though in the Orange Country a poem means a kind of tiger that canât talk but can sing, or people, even though there were probably some decent ones making a big bright orange life somewhere.
I came out of the door in the basin of The Jonquil Julep and I lay down on floor of a carrot-colored autumn jungle and cried until I didnât have anything wet left to lose. Then I crawled under a papaya tree and clawed the orange clay until I made a hole big enough to climb inside if I curled up my whole body like a circle you draw with one smooth motion. The clay smelled like fire.
âI love you,â said my sorrow. She didnât look well. Her fur was threadbare, translucent, her trunk dried out.
âI donât know what âI love youâ means in the Orange Country,â sighed Jellyfish.
âI do,â said the Sparrowbone Mask of the Incarnadine Fisherwomen, who hadnât had a damn thing to say in ages. âHere, if you love someone, you mean to keep them prisoner and never let them see the sun.â
âBut then theyâd be safe,â I whispered.
âI love you,â said my sorrow. She got down on her giant woolly knees beside my hole. âI love you. Your eyes are yellow.â
I began to claw into the orange clay my hole. I peeled it away and crammed it into my mouth. My teeth went through it easy as anything. It didnât taste like dirt. It tasted like a lot of words, one after the other, with conflict and resolution and a beginning, middle, but no end. It tasted like Mummery showing me how to play the clarinet. It tasted like an Emperor who wasnât an Emperor anymore. The earth stained my tongue orange forever.
âI love you,â said my sorrow.
âI heard you, dammit,â I said between bright mouthfuls.
Like she was putting an exclamation point on her favorite phrase, my sorrow opened up her cabinet doors in the sienna shadows of the orange jungle. Toucans and orioles and birds of paradise crowed and called and their crowing and calling caromed off the titian trunks until my ears hated birdsong more than any other thing. My sorrow opened up her cabinet doors and the wind whistled through the space inside her and it sounded like Premiére Rhapsodie in A Major through the holes of a fuel-efficient crystal clarinet.
Inside my sorrow hung a dress the color of garnets, with a long train trailing behind it and a neckline that plunged to the navel. It looked like it would be very hard to dance in.
Download
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.
Sita - Warrior of Mithila (Book 2 of the Ram Chandra Series) by Amish(53750)
The Crystal Crypt by Dick Philip K(36389)
Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(14721)
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han(14437)
Ready Player One by Cline Ernest(13928)
The Last by Hanna Jameson(9775)
Year One by Nora Roberts(9274)
Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey(8920)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8349)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro(8264)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown(8217)
Dark Space: The Second Trilogy (Books 4-6) (Dark Space Trilogies Book 2) by Jasper T. Scott(7885)
The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood(7415)
The Circle by Dave Eggers(6816)
Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6 by Frank Herbert(6670)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood(6452)
Legacy by Ellery Kane(6371)
Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1) by A.G. Riddle(6157)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty(5791)
