Steve Katz - Kissssss - A Miscellany

“Yes, sir,” said Lohly, backing towards the door. She saw tears in his eyes. “Yes, sir. Hat and shoes.”

“It makes me so happy to have this figured out. I often look at that heap, and feel these powerful emotions. I never understood that monument before. It's everything. It's human beings, a monument to all the peoples. And the way it exists across all the generations. It's the people now, the people historically.

Imagine the genius of Sorb Imulrèe, to make this possible for our generations, into the future. I'm so lucky to understand this now.”

He was finally smiling at her, though it wasn't a smile for her, but something else. “Yes. Thank you. Glad you're happy.” She backed out the door. Well, it wasn't what she had hoped. This was one of the crazier things that had happened, but she had to keep reminding herself that even without the affair, this was at least a job.

“Yes,” said Sitund, a big smile on his face. “Yessss!” He sank down into his chair. “What is it about this day?” He relaxed into the satisfaction philosophers must feel when they arrive after long months of puzzlement at the answer to one big question. He lifted the binoculars again. Yerml was on the Heap, waving at him. She looked so appealing, balanced on top of that hat full of shoes. Balanced as if on all of humanity, man and womankind. He waved at her, though he doubted she could see him. He went to the window, and puckered onto the spot where he could see her tiny body as if it were wriggling on the glass.

Dojie sat on the low wall that surrounded the Heap, and dangled her feet in the shallow moat that circled it. Her mom had finally left, but not without first embarrassing her by coming over and fussing with her hair, some gruelly mother thing. She wished this progenetrice were more sensitive to what that looked like to her friends. She wasn't her mother's little girl any more. Something like that made her crave the body puncture more than ever. She never wanted to be like her mother ever. Lenoci's parents must have been a great pair of progs, but what did they think now that the puncture was totally on the screen, not just an idea? That's why Lenoci was drashy beyond commitment, to have gone through with the procedure. However, Dojie Resoft might as well forget about it. Not even ten years of the best summer jobs would let her afford the puncture. Not even if she sold her sex, like Ornash Sento; or like Gme Yran made porn flicks; or if she fed pictures of her body onto the World Wide Informator distriblastor, all of which alternatives disgusted her; but even if she did those things she would never make enough money in years for such a puncture. She had to do something else, something not so pricey, like ear removal, facial scrape, nose inversion, elbow locking, none of which had reached Monisantaca yet, which was so provincial, from Dojie's perspective. That was why kids here were spun in their own circles by Lenoci's drash. It would have been totally dry in Slegeslona.

She could find something to do that would cause her brideys to spin, something within her own price range, no problem. She and Nonawi Erryd had skiffed some ideas off the Informator, from this drashy nesting called Xupset Fron, which specialized in the widest of drash, busting all the moods. This was simple, but she could feel a whole world of drash supreme arising from it, no problem. This was permanent body tinting, derived from the practices of the ancient Etatreh peoples, whom she admired out-of-time. It would be going forward by going back. A big advantage was that this wasn't just a single revelation, like the body puncture, but you went through a whole sequence of transformations, like a golden yellow the first week, then royal blue, then green like eyes get, and a plump violet, and all kinds of other shades. And with a special wax technique you could make designs, which was beyond drashy, when you thought about everyone's tattoos. It would definitely jostle the progs, blow them off their snore stools. And her own brideys would pirouette around her, in and out of the Kick. Another great thing about it was that she could do it herself, there was no professional intervention involved, and maybe Nonawi could help. Then once she reached the deep teal she wanted to be forever, then she would bathe in the fixative, and that's the color you are for the rest of your life. No problem. It's real. It's a commitment. It's a “this is me” kind of a thing. She was going to do it. She had enough money now for the starter kit, that let you practice on a foot or a hand, and by the time she'd played with that and learned, she'd have enough saved for at least the whole-body primer tint.

“How's the wallow, Dojie?” Nonawi kicked some water onto her from the moat, then leaned over and brushed foreheads with her best friend.

“What?” Dojie was deep in her contemplation of the tinting.

“Nothing? Your brother? How is he?”

“Eukan?”

“Do you have another brother, that I don't know about?”

“I was thinking about something else. He's gone.”

“O no,” Nonawi said. “I'm so sorry. Dojie, that's horrible.”

“No. Not that way. He's still somewhere.” She waved towards the mountains. “Out there.”

Nonawi looked in the direction she was waving. “I don't see him.”

“Come on, None. He went to the mountains.”

“Is he alright there?”

“I don't know. I guess so. He's real resourceful. I wasn't even thinking about him. I was thinking about something else.” Dojie wasn't ready to tell Nonawi yet. She wanted to try the sample before she fielded any opinions.

“So aren't they looking for him? Do the police know?”

“My progs can't tell the police. They're so obvious into their pünksheit. It's disgusting. The police would know right away what it was, and they'd throw Eukan into a protection unit somewhere.”

“At least he'd be safe. That's better than being a meal for his progs. Why don't you tell the police?”

“Yeah, like they'd listen to me!”

Nonawi sat down next to Dojie, and dangled her feet in the water. They splashed at each other. Dojie imagined what it would look like if she had blue feet splashing. Ultimate. Beyond the beyond.

“When your brother gets back, I'm going to hug him ’til he squeaks.”

“Eukan doesn't squeak,” Dojie said, then they looked at each other and laughed like two girls.

With the evening chill, Eukan found the only way to reheat the blade was to hold it under his armpit, or once the sun had set, to fold it into his groin. Cutting the leaf was a longer job than anything he had read ever told him, and it made him sorry that he hadn't let Ajieck come with him. They could have taken turns. Every muscle in his body ached. He had no choice but to work through the night, through the pain, because he knew his tree was soon to launch its spore pod, and that would be it. “Don't launch yet, not yet. Please let me take your leaves first.” Maybe it was crazy to talk to the tree, but this was his tree, and talking to it comforted him. The Etatrehs had talked to theirs.

He wasn't aware how long the night went on, but he kept working, and then it started to get light again, and just as the first bar of the sun flashed through a crease in the mountains he heard a sigh, and felt something release, and he hugged the trunk of the tree as both leaves wafted down. They floated as if they weighed no more than feathers. “You only float,” he said to them, gripping the trunk with his arms and knees. “But I know how heavy you really are.”

When he was halfway shinnied down the trunk he felt a convulsion, and then a wave, like a gulp that rolled up past his belly pressed against the tree, and he looked up to see the pod launch, take off into the wide skyline, and then he lost his grip altogether, and as he fell he thought he was done for, that was it for him; but almost as if it were waiting just for this to happen one of the leaves received him, and it was like falling into the mouth of a dream, and the leaf rolled with him inside, so this was no worse than falling out of bed, onto the carpet, not even waking up. And within this leaf, exhausted as he was, he fell asleep without hesitation.