splinter of glass woke me.
I’d fallen off the cushion. My tongue was
like a piece of meat stuck in my mouth. I tried to swallow. I
couldn’t remember passing out.
I glimpsed the woman standing in front of me,
holding out the fruit. I blinked and she wasn’t there. I was
hallucinating, but now my mouth was full of saliva. I could smell
the fruit, its tangy citrus scent penetrating the humid breeze
blowing off the storm-ridden coast.
My head was on the floor, pain pulsing
through my ear. I scratched at the floorboards. Waves were
punishing the beach, pushing closer to the house. The window was
cracked where the tree branches smacked the house, swinging the
heavy fruit like a wrecking ball.
She wants me to eat the fruit. I’ll die
right here on the floor like a dog, shrivel up like a salted slug,
before I eat it.
But I didn’t die.
I kept on living.
The agony wiped out any thoughts of home. Of
Chute, the kids, my mother. I was just writhing on the floor,
doubled over as dehydration cramps pull me into a fetal position.
Sometimes I heard the rain and thunder and the constant banging. I
could feel the hardness of the floor.
I could also hear voices. The woman was
calling. I sensed the man out there, too. He was just watching.
And I imagined the taste of the fruit.
This seemed to go on forever.
And then it was there, on the floor in front
of me. The fruit was as red as a shined apple. I was dreaming of
reaching for it. I didn’t have that kind of strength, the kind to
even slide my hand across the floor, but then I felt it in my palm
and sensed the promise of life inside it. I punctured the skin with
my fingertips, watched the sweet juice dribble onto the
floorboards. My throat contracted.
I touched my tongue to the fleshy skin of the
fruit, the sweetness ignited the taste buds in my mouth. Inside me,
rapture exploded.
I devoured it like a starving beast, juice
flowing down my chin, the meaty pulp sliding down my throat,
filling me, scintillating my nerves. I sucked at my fingers and
licked the drippings off the floor. I could smell the ocean wafting
into the house along with a loving presence. I heard soft
laughter.
It was no dream.
She tricked me. I couldn’t resist it any
longer. In the end, I willfully took it. But now I was thinking
clearly. I knew where I was because eating the fruit had connected
me with this world. It was no longer empty. It was real. It made
sense.
This isn’t Earth.
A Happy Family
The truth .
I was pulled from the wormhole just before
arriving home, redirected to another part of the universe and
absorbed into an alien world. I didn’t know how or why it happened,
but I knew this much: this world is artificial .
The entire planet was composed of cellular
nanomechs that formed everything I saw and touched, heard and
tasted. That wasn’t the sky above. Not sand or water or rain. Not
even a tree. It was just the generic stuff made to look like those
things. It was my office on a global scale. How this was even
possible I did not understand. All I knew was that I was somewhere
inside it.
I knew these things because I had eaten the
fruit, partaken of this world, and now I was merging with it.
That’s how I knew these things. My being –my essence, my
soul – was interweaving with this artificial world. I was
becoming one with it.
This was no ordinary automated world, either.
It was not like my office that only responded to my commands. There
was an intelligence that was inseparable from it, a feminine being
fused into every single nanomech, as if she was this world. It was
her will that formed the ocean, and grew the trees, her will that
sent the moon across the sky. She was everywhere.
That feminine energy was in the room. The
woman in white was standing just inside the house, facing the
torrential storm. Her arms were crossed, her fingers drumming her
biceps.
“Manumit is making quite a mess,” she said,
without turning.
Manumit. I knew who she was talking
I’d fallen off the cushion. My tongue was
like a piece of meat stuck in my mouth. I tried to swallow. I
couldn’t remember passing out.
I glimpsed the woman standing in front of me,
holding out the fruit. I blinked and she wasn’t there. I was
hallucinating, but now my mouth was full of saliva. I could smell
the fruit, its tangy citrus scent penetrating the humid breeze
blowing off the storm-ridden coast.
My head was on the floor, pain pulsing
through my ear. I scratched at the floorboards. Waves were
punishing the beach, pushing closer to the house. The window was
cracked where the tree branches smacked the house, swinging the
heavy fruit like a wrecking ball.
She wants me to eat the fruit. I’ll die
right here on the floor like a dog, shrivel up like a salted slug,
before I eat it.
But I didn’t die.
I kept on living.
The agony wiped out any thoughts of home. Of
Chute, the kids, my mother. I was just writhing on the floor,
doubled over as dehydration cramps pull me into a fetal position.
Sometimes I heard the rain and thunder and the constant banging. I
could feel the hardness of the floor.
I could also hear voices. The woman was
calling. I sensed the man out there, too. He was just watching.
And I imagined the taste of the fruit.
This seemed to go on forever.
And then it was there, on the floor in front
of me. The fruit was as red as a shined apple. I was dreaming of
reaching for it. I didn’t have that kind of strength, the kind to
even slide my hand across the floor, but then I felt it in my palm
and sensed the promise of life inside it. I punctured the skin with
my fingertips, watched the sweet juice dribble onto the
floorboards. My throat contracted.
I touched my tongue to the fleshy skin of the
fruit, the sweetness ignited the taste buds in my mouth. Inside me,
rapture exploded.
I devoured it like a starving beast, juice
flowing down my chin, the meaty pulp sliding down my throat,
filling me, scintillating my nerves. I sucked at my fingers and
licked the drippings off the floor. I could smell the ocean wafting
into the house along with a loving presence. I heard soft
laughter.
It was no dream.
She tricked me. I couldn’t resist it any
longer. In the end, I willfully took it. But now I was thinking
clearly. I knew where I was because eating the fruit had connected
me with this world. It was no longer empty. It was real. It made
sense.
This isn’t Earth.
A Happy Family
The truth .
I was pulled from the wormhole just before
arriving home, redirected to another part of the universe and
absorbed into an alien world. I didn’t know how or why it happened,
but I knew this much: this world is artificial .
The entire planet was composed of cellular
nanomechs that formed everything I saw and touched, heard and
tasted. That wasn’t the sky above. Not sand or water or rain. Not
even a tree. It was just the generic stuff made to look like those
things. It was my office on a global scale. How this was even
possible I did not understand. All I knew was that I was somewhere
inside it.
I knew these things because I had eaten the
fruit, partaken of this world, and now I was merging with it.
That’s how I knew these things. My being –my essence, my
soul – was interweaving with this artificial world. I was
becoming one with it.
This was no ordinary automated world, either.
It was not like my office that only responded to my commands. There
was an intelligence that was inseparable from it, a feminine being
fused into every single nanomech, as if she was this world. It was
her will that formed the ocean, and grew the trees, her will that
sent the moon across the sky. She was everywhere.
That feminine energy was in the room. The
woman in white was standing just inside the house, facing the
torrential storm. Her arms were crossed, her fingers drumming her
biceps.
“Manumit is making quite a mess,” she said,
without turning.
Manumit. I knew who she was talking
Similar Books
