Элинор Арнасон - The Very Best of the Best - 35 Years of the Year's Best Science Fiction

I stand up. The last scraps of the man I wanted so badly to be fall to the floor. You shrink down, down, trying to disappear, but you don’t have as much practice as I do.

You cover your eyes, uncover them, look at me, shut them again. I grab the door latch, averting my gaze from the sight of my own hand.

You’re muttering something over and over again like a Buddhist chant. I listen carefully. My hearing is not what it was just a few minutes ago, but I can recognize the words, “ Ni shi shenme? ” What are you?

I don’t have a larynx anymore and my tongue can no longer accommodate human language, so even though I want to, I can’t answer “ wo bu zhidao ” or “ ouk oida ” or “ nga nu-zu ” or “I don’t know.”

I get the door open. The outside world is an endless polluted twilight. The driver behind us doesn’t look up from his cell phone to glance in my direction. Two car-lengths away, all I can see are vague shapes and headlights. The smog will hide me well.

I climb out of the ambulance and into the haze. I don’t look back.

I saw you once after that. It wasn’t long ago, I think. I was wearing someone new, a girl with black hair and a melon-seed face. Pretty girls are easy for me. I can slather on makeup if the skin isn’t right, and I don’t have to bother with a backstory or a personality. No one really wants it.

It was at an auto show in Shanghai. I was draped across a green Ferrari, wearing a bikini that matched the paint. I hadn’t expected to see you, but there you were with a group of businessmen smoking Marlboros and ogling the models.

You were older. I’m not sure by how much. Time passes differently for me, and maybe time alone was not responsible for how much you had aged.

I would like to say I will never forget you, but I can’t promise you that. This shapeless matter inside my head shifts and dies and regenerates, and as it does so, memories fade and old incarnations of myself are discarded. Maxwell Stone had lovers, most likely, but I can’t recall their faces, and someday I will lose yours as well.

Your group strolled by my Ferrari, making the obligatory lewd remarks, flashing their brown teeth in leery grins. I wore my generic smile and offered up a vacant titter. I told them about the car.

You stood a little ways behind the other men with your hands in your pockets. I knew that look: you were too tired to pretend to be having a good time.

I smiled at you as hard as I could. Finally, you looked up. I thought maybe you would recognize me somehow. Maybe you would cry out, “It’s you!” and take me in your arms. Or maybe, at the very least, you’d let your gaze linger on me a little longer than normal.

But you didn’t. You made that nervous grimace you do whenever a woman pays too much attention to you. Then you ambled off to look at a Lexus—a four-door with lots of cabin space. Good for families.

I watched you move. Your shoulders were slumped as though you carried something very heavy.

Then more bodies flowed between us, wealthy men and their school-aged mistresses, nouveau riche wives and their spoiled bachelor sons searching for a car to attract a pretty bride, broke students in designer knock-offs come to take selfies in front of BMWs so they can pretend to be rich on Weixin.

I lost you among them. I did not find you again.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

ANOTHER WORLD

BEST SCIENCE FICTION STORIES OF THE YEAR #6–10

THE BEST OF ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE

TIME-TRAVELERS FROM ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE

TRANSCENDENTAL TALES FROM ISAAC ASIMOV’S SCIENCE FICTION MAGAZINE

ISAAC ASIMOV’S ALIENS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S MARS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S SF LITE

ISAAC ASIMOV’S WAR

ROADS NOT TAKEN (with Stanley Schmidt)

THE YEAR’S BEST SCIENCE FICTION, #1–35

FUTURE EARTHS: UNDER AFRICAN SKIES (with Mike Resnick)

FUTURE EARTHS: UNDER SOUTH AMERICAN SKIES (with Mike Resnick)

RIPPER! (with Susan Casper)

MODERN CLASSIC SHORT NOVELS OF SCIENCE FICTION

MODERN CLASSICS OF FANTASY

KILLING ME SOFTLY

DYING FOR IT

THE GOOD OLD STUFF

THE GOOD NEW STUFF

EXPLORERS

THE FURTHEST HORIZON

WORLDMAKERS

SUPERMEN

ISAAC ASIMOV’S PLANET EARTH

ISAAC ASIMOV’S ROBOTS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S VALENTINES

ISAAC ASIMOV’S SKIN DEEP

ISAAC ASIMOV’S GHOSTS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S VAMPIRES

ISAAC ASIMOV’S MOONS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S CHRISTMAS

ISAAC ASIMOV’S CAMELOT

ISAAC ASIMOV’S WEREWOLVES

ISAAC ASIMOV’S SOLAR SYSTEM

ISAAC ASIMOV’S DETECTIVES

ISAAC ASIMOV’S CYBERDREAMS

ALIENS!

UNICORNS!

MAGICATS!

MAGICATS 2!

BESTIARY!

MERMAIDS!

SORCERERS!

DEMONS!

DOGTALES!

SEA SERPENTS!

DINOSAURS!

LITTLE PEOPLE!

DRAGONS!

HORSES!

UNICORNS 2

INVADERS!

ANGELS!

DINOSAURS II

HACKERS

TIMEGATES

CLONES

NANOTECH

IMMORTALS

STRANGERS

THE VISIBLE MAN (COLLECTION)

NIGHTMARE BLUE (with George Alec Effinger)

SLOW DANCING THROUGH TIME (with Jack Dann, Michael Swanwick, Susan Casper, and Jack C. Haldeman II)

THE PEACEMAKER

GEODESIC DREAMS (collection)

THE FICTION OF JAMES TIPTREE, JR.

GARDNER DOZOIS worked in the science fiction field for more than three decades. For twenty years he was the editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction , during which time he received the Hugo Award for Best Editor fifteen times, Nebula Awards twice, and a World Fantasy Award. He was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame and received the Skylark Award for Lifetime Achievement. You can sign up for email updates here.

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