Stringers by Chris Panatier

Author:Chris Panatier [Panatier, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857669636
Publisher: Watkins Media
Published: 2022-04-14T22:00:00+00:00

My hands shook and my teeth chattered all the way back to the enclosure. Seeing the memory of another human being played before me like a home movie was terrifying. I was a trespasser to someone’s most sacred moments. An interloper of nostalgia.

The trauma, though, was tamped some by my anticipation of nectar. I was like a kid on Christmas Eve, anxious to tear open a big box of narcotics. Once inside the cell, I scrambled for the center where the food tube would emerge and deliver the essence of life. Patton was against the wall, clutching Pickles, zoned out.

“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.

His eyes barely opened.

“Come get some nectar,” I said.

He smiled weakly. “I don’t get nectar, Ben.”

Eyes came in and gestured toward the floor where a small panel opened. I giggled in anticipation. “Patton! Food!” I said.

Nectar is for the one who seeks the Chime, the Note of Jecca, said Eyes, handing me my tube.

“What’s he eat, then?” I asked, only half focused on the question as I pushed the tube to my umbilicus.

Eyes made a gesture and an elliptical panel opened in the floor. A shining black spine bowed upward from the hole and slithered mechanically from it. My first thought was it’s the piss eel. Remembering the blinking blue light and the forced hibernation, I panicked, and scrambled clumsily away.

This time the eel had no eye, just a hollow, scoop-shaped appendage at the head. It slithered over to Patton, and a lumpy slop the consistency of mucous-soaked oatmeal poured out of it. Patton scooted up and began to eat from it.

I watched him lap the gruel from the food eel’s face. It wasn’t ideal, but this was the way it had to be. Nectar was for people who were doing important work. He wasn’t going to find the Chime or the Note of Jecca and bring back the Bloom of God to save the Scythin.

I was.

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