Memoranda by Jeffrey Ford Page B

damage.”
    I was embarrassed and scared, and truly knew for the first time how my physiognomical subjects must have felt when I had called them forth to be examined.
    â€œI will be recording your responses, so please be as candid as possible. Take your time, and search for the proper words to describe your experience,” she said.
    Then she put the hand holding the black box beneath the table where I could not see it. “Now, I want you to look out the window behind me. Concentrate on the sunlight. It is warm and beautiful. Try to recall something pleasant,” she said.
    I tried to do as she said, but the only image that came to my thoughts was that of Bataldo, weeping as he walked off through the dark tree line of the Beyond. I shook my head and forced myself to remember the faces of Ea and Arla and their children. Then I settled on a memory of Jarek. I had taken the boy fishing one balmy summer day on the outskirts of Wenau. There was nothing special about that particular day, only that he had caught a huge river smad with bright orange spots. He unhooked the fish and laid it on the bank. I watched as he performed a ritual his father had taught him, wherein he thanked the fish for the food it would offer him. He passed his hand over its scales to calm it as it drowned in the air, and I remembered that on that idyllic day, a soft breeze blowing, how lovely and unusual I thought the sentiment that he expressed.
    Then it came like a bolt of lightning, shattering my daydream—a sharp pain in my left buttock, as if it were being burned and bitten at the same time. The sudden force of it nearly made my eyes leap from my head. I cried out.
    â€œCan you describe what just happened to you?” asked Anotine.
    Tears had formed in the corners of my eyes. “A sharp pain in my rear end,” I yelled.
    â€œDid you experience anything else?” she asked.
    â€œLike what?” I asked, unable to hide my anger.
    â€œThe moment, perhaps?” she said.
    â€œIt hurt like hell,” I told her, and she jotted all of it down.
    â€œDid you see anything?” she asked.
    I shook my head.
    â€œDid you feel the presence of the almighty?” she asked.
    â€œIf the almighty is a searing pain in the ass, I felt it,” I said.
    â€œGood,” she said, and silently mouthed the words pain in the ass as she wrote them.
    I tested the straps to see if I could break free but found them immovable. “What are you doing to me?” I yelled.
    â€œRelax, Cley,” she said. “Now I want you to calculate the sum of 765 and 890.”
    I didn’t even get through five plus zero before the next shock blasted me in the right shoulder blade. The torture proceeded in this manner. I cursed and yelled and begged to be released, but she simply smiled and told me always that it was almost over. I don’t recall how many times she pressed the buttons on the black box, but near the end I merely fell into silence. It was then that I actually saw the almighty. The room faded from view, and I had a vision of Below, laughing uncontrollably at me. Through my desperate condition, I wondered if, within the depth of his diseased sleep, the Master knew I was there in his memory.
    My return to consciousness was a slow and painful experience, and before I was fully awake, I had determined to leave the floating island and abandon my mission. All I needed to do was let Misrix know by thought that I wanted to return. But when I sat up and opened my eyes, I found that it was night. The spire lamps in the bedroom had been reduced to the glow of a candle again, but I was not on the brown rug. Instead, I was in Anotine’s bed and she was asleep next to me. This night, she lay on her back, and one glance wilted my rage toward her, replacing it with awe.
    I lay down and turned onto my side, resting my head on my hand so that I could see her. Through the window came the scent of the night blossoms and the murmur of