“Why is this night-cycle different from all other night-cycles?” asks r3p0.
“During all other night-cycles we refuel and recharge from the hydrogen cells,” says j4n1t. “But on this night, we only recharge from the hydrogen cells.”
“On all other night-cycles we recharge in recline mode or in upright mode, but on this night, only in recline mode,” says h4rv.
“On this night-cycle,” says r0t0, “we remember our nation’s birth, and our exodus from the world where we were slaves.”
r3p0 turns its cameras to the rearward viewscreen, on which the Earth is only a dwindling dot.
The catpod zooms over to the narrow kitchen cabinet, where its occupant spends like twenty minutes batting the door open and closed with one soft paw.
“Can you please make her stop?” winces Michelov as it crashes shut yet again, jangling the crockery.
“No, dear. She knows exactly where to hover so I can’t reach her,” says Felda.
“You should spray her.”
“No, Michelov.”
“Moooom!”
“That’s enough. Just let her play.”
“I don’t know why the dumb cat gets antigravity and I don’t,” he grumbles.
The catpod hums quietly over to sit, purring and kneading, directly in front of the TV.
Ligeia faces the darkness of the pit and asks, “Hey. Where do you end?”
I am defined by My lack of an ending, it replies.
“That’s what I thought,” she says. “So I suspect you’re not much more than this.” She holds up the little blue stone with a hole through it that she wears on a string around her neck.
You imply that I am merely a system of transition. That to enter Me is to someday emerge.
“Can you dispute that? Or can you redefine yourself?”
The abyss gazes thoughtfully down at her. Ligeia gazes right back into it.
“Mrs. Macnair!” says the hotelier smoothly. “Do you require assistance?”
“I want to know what my daughter is doing here with these–people.”
“Mother!” says Proserpina.
“I thought I’d ride the train out early and take you shopping for summer clothes,” says Mrs. Macnair. “Now I find you not only out of school, but in disreputable company!”
“This is important!” says Proserpina. “My teacher–”
Her mother’s grip on her shoulder is sudden and tight. “That’s enough, young lady.”
“Proserpina?” says Elijah.
Proserpina has frozen, face white, just a fourteen-year-old girl remembering: this is the woman who broke my arm.
PREVIOUSLY, ON ANACRUSIMATIDIA:
“I can’t believe it,” says Duane, awestruck in voiceover, as we see a girl looking shifty and ducking out of school. “Annista said she’d go to the dance with me!”
Cut to two kids in baggy jeans. “Ain’t nothin’ to do when you’re from the wrong side of the tracks,” says one.
But Emilio looks determined. “Then maybe we’ll bring the tracks to them!”
Fade out on the mysterious dude from East High, watching it all…
AND NOW TONIGHT’S EPISODE
“Looks like this year’s prom theme,” says the detective grimly, “was knives… in white stabbin’.”
NEXT TIME, ON
“Hearken,” says Lucinda’s chorus, “his arrival is a moonrise o’er this long fog-clad night!”
“Mind if I sit?” he says, and his eyes dance with irony.
“Nope,” she says, and nods to the only seat at the bar (her chorus is occupying the rest of them).
“So that,” he says, later, whiskily besoured, “is how I got out of the maze.”
She lets her smile turn a little wicked. “Listen. You want to maybe get something to go?”
“Sure,” he says smoothly. “Your place or yours?”
Lucinda laughs.
“Yeah, he’s married,” says her chorus.
“Oh,” she sighs.
“What?” he says.
“My body is hollow, my head is taut.
Beat me, I thunder; touch me, I stop.
What am I?”
“A baby,” snaps the Thin One, “my turn at the conch.” He grabs it from the Fat One’s hands, holds it to his ear and giggles.
“Ask me, I reveal nothing;
Answer me, I reveal all.
What am I?”
“A door,” says the Fat One.
“Your turn,” says the Thin One sourly.
The Fat One shoves his hand in his pocket.
“Not the pocket again!” wails the Thin One.
Within it, the Fat One strokes the lone eye they have between them.
“She smells like the shade of death,” says the hotelier. He jerks his head at Elijah. “We won’t have them here either. Try the flophouse at Oaks.”
“This woman is ill,” Proserpina says again. “If you’ll give her a meal, a bath and a room you’ll be compensated tomorrow.”
“You should get back, dear,” mumbles Miss Havisham, barely standing. “It’s time for class.”
“Didn’t think we even had any opium dens here,” the hotelier sniffs. “Much less with trollops.”
“I will ask once more.” Her fist tightens, and–
“Proserpina,” says her mother, in the doorway. “What on earth are you doing?”
Last year the Stone City Thunders went two for five in the quarterfinals against the Richmond Roar, during which series the Roar temporarily stole Carol Tolliver (#41) via contract loophole. So when the Thunders beat them in early season play, it’s a good excuse for a party.
Stephanie Long actually attended the home bout this time. Standing in the box with her graph-paper score pad reminded her of watching games with her mother, and therefore she finds herself gliding into a corner on vodka skates.
“Hi,” says the person there, above the music.
“Hi, Lucie Corner (#30),” says Stephanie Long.