Storm Chaser by Ariel Dominelli

Author:Ariel Dominelli [Dominelli, Ariel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781648983801
Publisher: City Owl Press
Published: 2023-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

PREYING ON PARASITES

“IN THE DARK, I PROMISED THE GODS I WOULD HEAR THEIR REASONING.”

XÓCHITL | SEPTEMBER 9

The old rotary phone rang, and I was startled awake. The room I was in was mysteriously absent the navy sheets and the beautiful, glowing woman. I walked into the hall, still not sure if I was dreaming; I never had dreams this good. I had just enough time to catch Apricity on the phone before she swung a modern-looking chair to look out the window. She stared down at Pox in his plague doctor costume on the other side of the street and pouted.

“That’s my cue,” she said, sliding into her shoes and shrugging on a simple gray jacket.

“He never comes in. Do you know why?” I asked. Apricity looked panicked, as though she had a secret she wanted so badly to tell. I nudged her with my foot and smiled.

“Uh, um, I think there’s history there?” she said, almost too quickly, before kissing me on the cheek and sprinting out the door. That was interesting, the secret but also the kiss. I had plenty to think of all day while Siu hid in their office.

Like most days, the doctor worked on something behind closed doors, for hours and hours. They and the robot argued and muttered to each other. The look across Siu’s face when they took their rare breaks reminded me of Leo when he was about to fail out of grad school. I saw a cocktail of burnout and determination. He always brushed me off if I asked about it.

Being locked in this velvet cage of an apartment was brutal, but having a secret helped keep my mind sharp and made it not seem so bad. I learned some other things during my time at the clinic. First, when I heard the doctor call the robot Čapek, I learned that it was more than just a namesake; it actually had some of the older man’s memories downloaded into it. Siu referred to the robot as if it was Čapek himself. Secondly, Siu had known the living version of Čapek for a very, very long time. This brought me to fact three: our most esteemed Dr. Siu was old.

They looked between twenty-five and thirty—no wrinkles, no lines around their eyes when they smiled. There was a shock of white to their black hair by both temples, but before now, I thought it might have been a fashion statement. Nonetheless, the doctor was at least in their late eighties. There were photos on the walls with Siu’s image rendered in grayscale. The edges were cracked and yellowed with time, and the frames were altered more by the sun than their still-breathing subject. There were framed medical degrees—all about twenty-odd years apart—dating back to the forties, each subsequent one more faded than the last. And then there were the songs.

They always worked with music playing in the background. It drifted softly out of the office’s barred doors. I didn’t know if it was just to make their muffled frustrations harder for me to hear or if it was a genuine preference.

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.