Lidia Yuknavitch - The Book of Joan

I step forward toward the viewing wall, as I’d come to think of it. “What’s the story?” I yell playfully across the space between us.

“What?” he shouts. “I demand my cackle, you gut-infested she-whore!”

If a cackle was what would give him pleasure in this idiotic interim, it was the least I could do. I draw in a huge breath of air and give it my all. What emerges sounds like a grandmother with respiratory problems, or perhaps a turkey’s gobble.

“That is by far the worst cackle I have ever heard,” he says dully. His voice carries a fatigue older than his years.

It is true. I am ashamed, but in my defense, I have no idea how to produce a worthy cackle. “What’s the verdict?” I hurl down toward his layer of purgatory. I know his punishment will be more severe than mine. He is under surveillance for a prior offense of a sexual nature.

What I receive in return is possibly history’s greatest and most profound cackle. But then Trinc does something odd: his cackle abruptly arrests, and then, nothing. Something is wrong. There is never a truncated joke with Trinculo. I crane my neck to try to catch a glimpse of him, but it is no use. I signal to my automated keepers that I want a word. Something like a treadmill comes toward me and cocks its “head.”

“Data on Cell Seven-seven-two,” I say, without inflection. “Trinculo Forsythe.”

“Negative,” is the only response the thing offers in return.

“Listen, you jumble of bolts and wire, I have high-level clearance. Christine Pizan . You will tell me the data on Cell Seven-seven-two. Or I’ll thread a rusty bolt through your ass-valves.”

For a moment I feel sorry for it, as if its feelings may have been hurt. The machine does a sort of half-circle this way and that, and its bobble-headed screen tips toward the floor. Then it buzzes back to attention, pushes away from my viewing hole, and blurts, “No access.” It then hovers higher and shoots a laser that slices a gash in the wall less than a centimeter from my cheek. I half expect to feel blood when I reach to touch my face. Killing me would mean nothing. Letting me live means next to nothing, too.

I move as close as possible to the electrical current that is my cell’s wall and yell, “Trinculo?”

Nothing.

Back in bed, I hold as still as a corpse, hoping that the tiny silver spider will visit me. More than waiting: I hope so hard I try to will my desire into the insect’s shape. When you live in space, far from the former natural world, it’s easy to remember that everything is merely matter and energy. Conjuring up a cyber creature seems as simple as calling a dog to your feet. And yet, if it was truly no more than a matter of energies, I could simply walk through the containment wall and its force field, like monks walking through fire in old stories of faith or magic. In truth I’d be burned to a crisp so instantly it would appear as if I simply vanished. There’s not much blood or guts or gore in space. Most energies simply signal through the flames when they end. One dissipates.

The spider does indeed visit me. Late. Wakes me from sleep. It is in the space between my shoulder and my jaw. It tickles, but also feels comforting somehow, almost like a caress. God, how lonely and stupid I’ve become. I close my eyes, hold still, and wait for the small pattern I suspect might emerge against my skin. I tap my fingers after each beat to be sure.

-- -.-- / - . . . . .-. --- . . . - . -. / . / .- -- / - --- / - . . . . / . -.- . -.-. .- - . -.

My—beloved—I—am—to—be—executed.

My beloved I am to be executed.

Morse code. I begin to cry. We haven’t used this form of communication since we were children making forts in the woods. I don’t know the circumstances, or what specific transgressions he’s been accused of, or when or how or what, but I know that when the Tribunal orders execution there is no bargaining. Even if Trinculo were granted a trial—unlikely, due to the vast number of his violations—his trial would merely be theater for the rest of us. My mind and throat lock simultaneously. My body goes cold and stiff. For a time I think I can easily will myself to die, right there in the idiotic cell. But then a rage comes over me like none I’ve ever felt before. A heat that begins in my belly and twists up my torso and flares out toward my rib cage. I sit up. The spider clings to my neck. I clench my fists hard enough that my fingernails dig into my palms, leaving little half smiles.

They cannot have him. I will not let them. Our lives may not be worth anything in this moronic CIEL world of pageantry and void, but one might yet bring meaning to a single life; one can still take one’s energy and direct it toward another, fully, unto death. I don’t know how I will save his life and get him off this orbiting pot of hubris, but I will find a way.

The spider has one last dance before it leaps away from me and into some crack in the system.

-. --- / -. --- - / -. . . . . .--. .- . .-. / . / . -. - . -. -. / - --- / -.-. --- -- . / - . . . .- -.-. -.- / .- . . . / -.-- --- .- .-. / . . . - .- --. . -. .-

Do not despair I intend to come back as your vagina.

My dear Trinculo. Finding light in death, sex even in doom.

I see neither him nor the spider again, before I am escorted back to my living quarters.

My plans are not changing, just evolving. Just gaining in human plot and depth. However, my rage is changing. She is beginning to take on an epic deathsong. The song. In my head. It’s coming back.

“Is there any chance of serious permanent injury?” My pupil looks at me, courage skin deep at best.

“What, you mean like burning through to an internal organ, like a heart?” I stare at her little head. Why are young adults’ heads so little? They look malformed. “We have no time for stage fright,” I say matter-of-factly. “Leave your fears outside my door or go do something else with your life. This is serious work, I have a deadline, and I don’t have the time or the patience to handhold apprentices.” I sit upright and stiff and look her dead in the face. Her skin is so translucently white it looks almost blue, as if her veins and arteries are gaining dominance. No, not blue, aqua—blue-green and pallid. Or maybe I’m just trying too hard to remember colors. She has grafts on each shoulder, tiny ornamental wing patterns, and some idiotic positive maxim. She looks like some cross between an amphibious creature and a baby eagle. I have no intention of mouth-feeding her. She’d best grow talons in the next sixty seconds or she’ll be out. “Make a choice,” I say. “Now.”

She gulps.

Her epaulets shiver.

“Listen, why do you want to do this?” It seems a fair question. Most of my former pupils come on a dare, or for the novelty of being the one who can scar people rather than being the one scarred. Whether they knew it or not, I always knew there was a hint of sadism to the choice. The best grafters were more than sadists. They were masochists as well. More: they were comfortable with that relationship, that dance between selves. And they couldn’t stay away from it if they tried.

“I…” Her words swallow back down her throat.

“Right, then,” I say, and start to pack up my tools.

“Wait!” She grabs my forearm.

When she does she immediately draws her hand back, as if she hadn’t expected the layers and layers of textual content there. We both look down at my arm, its white and tanned intricacies creating an entire poetic landscape where skin used to be. Then she puts her hand back on my arm and holds it there, running her fingers over what is there as if she is reading Braille.