After all, he was responsible.
The Chimera Transit
A fter sex the stranger, whose name was Rebecca, cuddled under my arm. I transmitted seretonin—enough to raise my mood above depression without inviting further arousal. The stranger moved against me, her leg slung over my hip, her hand on my chest, breath in my face. She had a mouth like Lynn’s, the shape of it. I waited until she was asleep then carefully extricated myself from her body and her bed.
I walked home in the rain. It was past two a.m. The gloom came upon me again. Looking up, rain anointing my face, I transmitted a dopamine and norepinephin brain cocktail. My mood soared, and for a moment I was infatuated with the sky, as I used to be. A distant roll of thunder reminded me of the Outbound shuttle launches I used to watch with my dad when I was a kid, daydreaming stars. My mind felt nimble. Jazzed. City lights underlit the cloud cover. I thought of starships, which led to my father and the Big Bang (weapon discharge in the basement), which led to Lynn, and I wondered what she was to me.
A woman laughed. I looked across the street. She wore a long coat and floppy hat and she was with a man, hanging on his arm, ducking. A green Tinkerbelle Flirt hovered around her, flew away, returned. The man reached out and captured it in his hand. They bent over it together, their faces illuminated by a green flicker. I heard her say, “It’s beautiful, I love you!” She moved her face under his and kissed his mouth. I looked away.
What Lynn was to me: gone.
*
The next evening as I was dressing to go out a fairy light hovered in close to my window. I stared at it, my shirt hanging open. I thought of half a dozen women who knew my name and could access my People Finder code. But none of them possessed a romantically flirtatious disposition. They might call, or pop me an EyeText on my retinal repeater. Fairy Flirts were kid stuff. I whacked the window with a rolled up New Yorker . The Flirt drifted back, flimmering wings making a ruby nimbus in the rain.
*
I sat by the window in a coffee bar on lower Queen Anne, sipping espresso and reading a flashprint copy of a faux Updike novel. The style and plot were perfect Updike (Rabbit in the 22nd century) but thin under the surface, like all program-written books. I read the sentences and listened to the words in my head. It improved when I transmitted some phenylethylamine into my limbic system. A boost of joy surged through me. The words glowed. Analog or not, it didn’t matter.
A pretty girl sitting alone at the next table suddenly ooo -ed in my direction. Her hair was styled into glossy blue spear points. I tried a tentative smile, but the ooo wasn’t for me. Ruby light shimmered on the other side of the window.
“You have an admirer,” the pretty girl said.
“So it seems.”
I stowed the fake Updike in my overcoat and went out of the bar. The Fairy did a couple of loops around my head. I was conscious of people watching me through the window.
“Okay, okay,” I said to the Fairy. It darted off. Too fast if it expected me to keep up. The pretty girl inside the bar made a shooing motion at me. It was idiotic but I started after the Flirt.
Really it seemed determined to evade me. I picked up the pace. The Fairy veered down an alley. It was running out of juice, skimming low, ruby flimmer reflected in rain-stippled puddles. I splashed after it in hot pursuit. It tried to soar up the side of the building on my right, winked out suddenly, and dropped like a dead clinker. I caught it in my hand.
I looked up at the lighted and unlighted windows. The little Flirt was warm in my palm but the rain was cold and I’d left my umbrella in the bar. I started to walk out of the alley. A window opened.
“Hey—” Tentative female voice, almost apologetic. A slight figure backlit by the apartment light.
“Yeah?”
“That’s mine.” Some kind of accent. Eastern European? “Toss it up?”
I could have, maybe. She
The Chimera Transit
A fter sex the stranger, whose name was Rebecca, cuddled under my arm. I transmitted seretonin—enough to raise my mood above depression without inviting further arousal. The stranger moved against me, her leg slung over my hip, her hand on my chest, breath in my face. She had a mouth like Lynn’s, the shape of it. I waited until she was asleep then carefully extricated myself from her body and her bed.
I walked home in the rain. It was past two a.m. The gloom came upon me again. Looking up, rain anointing my face, I transmitted a dopamine and norepinephin brain cocktail. My mood soared, and for a moment I was infatuated with the sky, as I used to be. A distant roll of thunder reminded me of the Outbound shuttle launches I used to watch with my dad when I was a kid, daydreaming stars. My mind felt nimble. Jazzed. City lights underlit the cloud cover. I thought of starships, which led to my father and the Big Bang (weapon discharge in the basement), which led to Lynn, and I wondered what she was to me.
A woman laughed. I looked across the street. She wore a long coat and floppy hat and she was with a man, hanging on his arm, ducking. A green Tinkerbelle Flirt hovered around her, flew away, returned. The man reached out and captured it in his hand. They bent over it together, their faces illuminated by a green flicker. I heard her say, “It’s beautiful, I love you!” She moved her face under his and kissed his mouth. I looked away.
What Lynn was to me: gone.
*
The next evening as I was dressing to go out a fairy light hovered in close to my window. I stared at it, my shirt hanging open. I thought of half a dozen women who knew my name and could access my People Finder code. But none of them possessed a romantically flirtatious disposition. They might call, or pop me an EyeText on my retinal repeater. Fairy Flirts were kid stuff. I whacked the window with a rolled up New Yorker . The Flirt drifted back, flimmering wings making a ruby nimbus in the rain.
*
I sat by the window in a coffee bar on lower Queen Anne, sipping espresso and reading a flashprint copy of a faux Updike novel. The style and plot were perfect Updike (Rabbit in the 22nd century) but thin under the surface, like all program-written books. I read the sentences and listened to the words in my head. It improved when I transmitted some phenylethylamine into my limbic system. A boost of joy surged through me. The words glowed. Analog or not, it didn’t matter.
A pretty girl sitting alone at the next table suddenly ooo -ed in my direction. Her hair was styled into glossy blue spear points. I tried a tentative smile, but the ooo wasn’t for me. Ruby light shimmered on the other side of the window.
“You have an admirer,” the pretty girl said.
“So it seems.”
I stowed the fake Updike in my overcoat and went out of the bar. The Fairy did a couple of loops around my head. I was conscious of people watching me through the window.
“Okay, okay,” I said to the Fairy. It darted off. Too fast if it expected me to keep up. The pretty girl inside the bar made a shooing motion at me. It was idiotic but I started after the Flirt.
Really it seemed determined to evade me. I picked up the pace. The Fairy veered down an alley. It was running out of juice, skimming low, ruby flimmer reflected in rain-stippled puddles. I splashed after it in hot pursuit. It tried to soar up the side of the building on my right, winked out suddenly, and dropped like a dead clinker. I caught it in my hand.
I looked up at the lighted and unlighted windows. The little Flirt was warm in my palm but the rain was cold and I’d left my umbrella in the bar. I started to walk out of the alley. A window opened.
“Hey—” Tentative female voice, almost apologetic. A slight figure backlit by the apartment light.
“Yeah?”
“That’s mine.” Some kind of accent. Eastern European? “Toss it up?”
I could have, maybe. She
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