The Black Emerald by Jeanne Thornton

Author:Jeanne Thornton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Instar Books
Published: 2014-08-02T04:00:00+00:00

Energy Arcs and Fractal Skies

It was good that Sharon had broken up with Carlo. She needed her space; he'd flunked out of his quantum engineering program—what am I supposed to write my thesis on, he griped, that some asshole hasn't written before—and he'd since been bad about respecting her space. He lounged on the black corner couch until the leather balled and stank, frowning as his pixel warrior jumped platforms on the TV and dodged crowds of pixel beasts, approaching its pixel goal.

Why had Sharon liked Carlo in the first place? Because he'd reminded her of that memorable First Boy back in high school—Michael was his name—back in the days when Sharon had spent four hours at a time painting naked girls with fixed, psychotic eyes and no smiles looking out of the canvas. She was a serious artist, and she'd been in love with Michael, his jawline, his black hair and drum-tight ribs and his serious nature, and he'd broken her heart, and she'd gone into advertising. Carlo and Michael shared a jawline and some delicacy to them, some sense that they were men trapped in crow's nests, the full force of the wind so high above deck and always whacking them in the face. His face was sullen on top of the black leather couch, his controller resting on the knees of his plaid pajama pants.

Where do you think you'll go when you move out, she asked.

I can't move out, Carlo said. There aren't any jobs worthy of a quantum engineer.

You flunked out of quantum engineering school, said Sharon. So you're not a quantum engineer. You're a waste of my food and water. Why don't you get a job that's not worthy of a quantum engineer? You could make tacos. You could hand out leaflets.

In the nineteenth century I would have been a great man, said Carlo, frowning at his controller.

Get out of here by tomorrow, she said, and she went into her bedroom.

Most of her furniture was simple Scandinavian stuff that she’d bought, piece by piece, to replace the old nautical-looking hand-me-downs she'd moved to the city with after college. The bed, with its giant, knotty headboard, was the worst offender, but also the most expensive to replace. On the wall hung her painting of a psychotic girl staring at the viewer. She stared back at it and she stuck out her tongue and she tried not to hear the sound of Carlo's pixel warrior dying again in the living room.

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