Conversations with Chris Riker
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https://www.amazon.com/Goody-Celeste-Chris-Riker-ebook/dp/B0CJ3GVWTY/
Goody Celeste takes you back to that one summer when life got real. In 1969 Rhode Island, Paul, a teen shaken by his parents’ divorce, meets a young witch named Cece. Even as she copes with news of a husband missing in Vietnam, Cece uses her “human magic” to help Paul and his friends face a seductive stranger. As Paul comes to realize, “Women have more going on inside than I ever imagined.” Goody Celeste is a coming-of-age tale wrapped in a summer idyll replete with groovy music, classic cars, gorgeous boats, sultry beaches, love, betrayal, and the Moon Landing. With a message of hope grounded by consequential life choices, Goody Celeste is a literary fiction novel with a dash of magic realism, complete at 85K words.
Excerpts from Goody Celeste by Chris Riker
I turned sixteen in Rogerton that Moon summer, the summer of my witch.
I had to leave Rhode Island to understand how that summer and its people became me. It wasn’t until a visit home after living in Atlanta, a city too far from the ocean, that I first sensed the subtle magic. I craved clam cakes and fries from that one shack beside the big rocks in Galilee. Waves would break all around, and gulls would menace me, crying like starving refugees. Then there was the sky. The same blue expanse ignores cursing commuters on Atlanta’s Downtown Connector now, just as years ago it ignored daydreaming boys biking Rhody’s Scenic 1A to Narragansett. No sky is complete, though, without a threat of weather. Always in New England, there’s a storm coming.
***
Cece and I walked along, squishing the wet sand between our toes, talking or not talking. Just being. She reached down and plucked a knobbed whelk from the saturated ground. Lifting her shades to inspect the little shell, she reported, “No one home.”
Without warning, Cece released an eldritch shriek to the Dark Lord Cthulhu. I froze, certain I was in the presence of sudden onset madness. Cece tore the sunglasses from her face, flung down her towel, and charged into the light surf, whipping her arms about as if she were a little girl. Her silliness unfrazzled my jangled nerves.
The brilliant sun exposed a belt of deep navy blue which lightened again at a sandbar parked another dozen yards out. This shifting platform allowed swimmers to stand chest deep and wait for the right curl. A few people used surfboards, while kids rode the swells on inflatable rafts their folks got them from Benny’s. The real action, though, was reserved for the thrill-seekers who turned themselves into human projectiles. I was making my way out to join her when Cece torpedoed straight by me, embedded in a frothy breaker. Sleek as a dolphin, her toned arms cut the water like the prow of a racing sloop. She grounded to a stop and pulled herself out of the water, Venus minus her giant clam shell.
***
Cece collected pristine specimens in a net bag. “The moon brings these to us. You call it the tides. It’s all part of the universal song. It gives the shells their oceanic energy. I once placed a small shiny cowry into a Mojo bag and used it to catch the attention of a certain Navy flyboy.” Her eyes closed as she said it. I knew who she saw within her mind, within her heart. “I’ll use a few of these big ones on the rim of the tub for a ritual bath with sea salt and a sprinkling of wildflowers.” I could picture Cece’s body in the water. She read my mind. “On second thought, maybe I should string them into a dreamcatcher.” Oops. Well, I was still a red-blooded teenage boy, after all.
- Details
September 8, 2023
Today we’d like to introduce you to Chris Riker.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I was a journalist for thirty years, working at WSB-TV and CNNI in Atlanta, among other places. About five years ago, my lifelong itch to write fiction finally drove me to begin writing novels and short stories. The faucet handle came off in my hand, and I have yet to call the plumber. My first novel, Come the Eventide, began life as a silly story. I wanted to write “Octopus’s Garden” – Ringo’s song – in story form. Somewhere in there, my octopodes and dolphins told me that, no, I could not write it as a short story; this was a serious novel. It grew into a treatise on saving planet Earth, with dolphins leading the way (because stupid humans are too self-absorbed to save themselves.) As of this telling, I have four novels out in the world. Number five is under construction. For the latest, I invite people to check out ChrisRikerAuthor.com, where they’ll also find FREE exclusive content in the form of short stories.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Without a doubt, the greatest obstacle is being seen. About four million new books appear each year. Publishers only handle a fraction of that, and of course, they’re looking for sure bets. Amazon is the biggest culprit, indiscriminately churning out material no matter the quality. That said, when a person has to write, they write. I have to write. Hey, writing is free therapy! I have found that having a writers’ group is invaluable. It means reading the work of others and offering constructive feedback, but the benefits of sharing one’s vision are immense. After a meeting, I come away energized and ready to go!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I focus on character-driven stories coping with real-world themes, including the environment, women’s and human rights, corrosive selfishness, and abusive wealth acquisition. Sounds pretty grim, right? So… I fold these weighty concerns into wild adventures. It’s a lot easier to absorb the preachy bits when they’re mixed in with shapeshifters, winsome witches, haunted imperial tombs, talking dolphins, or Alexander the Great. I am very pleased with my novels and short stories. I don’t quit work until I feel the story is solidly told, with characters the reader will care about and remember. My voice is my calling card. I invite readers to sample some of my shorter works at ChrisRikerAuthor.com and decide for themselves whether to invest in one of my novels.
Where we are in life is often partly because of others. Who/what else deserves credit for how your story turned out?
I credit my wife Ping for allowing me to spend insane amounts of time on my writing when I could be out becoming a billionaire. I also thank my fellow writers in The Lawrenceville Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Group and The Atlanta Writers Club. (There are many other groups out there; find one that fits your kink!) These have allowed me to meet and speak with people at all levels of their creative development, including many published authors. The feedback is everything! Also, it gets me out of the house to blow the dust off.
Contact Info:
- Website: ChrisRikerAuthor.com
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- Details
The day had come for the old soul to leave her house for the last time. No one wanted to keep her anymore. The reigning generation, a dozen disconnected relations on the spring side of thirty, would have set fire to the home, along with Meemaw, for the insurance money had laws not forbid such things.
They scurried about the place like hungry vermin scratching out anything of value, although their values were deeply suspect. Meemaw cherished her tchotchkes, Irish lace, and antique paintings, nothing of great worth but collected with care over a lifetime. The descendants, having all but muted her long ago, ignored her pleas for attention. The intruders searched every room and hallway, the attic, and the space under the stairs. Grubby fingers rushed over the Behr Brothers upright piano, the mahogany bookcases, and the delicate cluster of Limoges pill boxes. All her priceless mementos were now orphaned dross. Clutching hands rummaged through it, seeking things made of gold or silver that might have melt value.
“Art makes you a fully realized person.” That wasn’t quite what Meemaw wanted to say, but her menu was limited. No response, of course.
“I don’t know why Gran Taylor held onto all this dusty shit,” one of them said. Paula’s kid, or grandkid. It got confusing after a while.
“Your mouth is your business card,” she said, though that didn’t seem to fit either. It didn’t matter; no one heard her attenuated voice over their own frantic thieving.
“It’s a century old at least. I think most of it was Mimi’s.” Idiot. Meemaw couldn’t put a name to his face, or any of their faces. It was hard to believe they were her blood.
“Who?” asked a twenty-ish girl whose eye make-up surged in orange pulses like some robotic insect.
“Her.” The rude one walked over to Meemaw’s tabernacle and picked it up.
“Respect flows out and comes back like ocean waves.” Not bad. Again, no one reacted.
“Looks like cheap plastic,” the girl said. “I didn’t even know it had a name. No one does this anymore. I sure as hell wouldn’t do it to myself. Anyway, this thing’s obsolete. I doubt the metals inside are worth more—”
“You can’t! The Liesmann Act. You have to turn ‘em in as is.” The rude stranger spoke firmly, swinging the tabernacle for emphasis. He clearly wanted it known he was running this operation.
“Stupid. Gran Taylor should have done that long ago.”
“Nope. Same law. You can’t surrender these things as long as there’s anyone still around who knew the original.”
“Well, Gran Taylor is worm farming now,” Orange Eyes said.
“Ew. You’re disgusting,” Rude Stranger said in a tone that was all for show. Neither one of them was worth a damn, not like Taylor or her other beautiful grandchildren … all gone now.
“So, we can turn in Gran Taylor’s—what, her grandmother?—turn her in for a surrender fee.”
“We pay the fee.”
“What? That’s…” The man threw the tabernacle roughly into a box and the two of them walked off, still arguing. Vile children. She wished she could curse. No, that was weak. She’d taught English for thirty years and knew how to communicate more effectively; if only she could do so now.
Hours later, the movers came. There was some discussion about the tabernacle.
“Respect flows out and comes back like ocean waves,” Meemaw said. She didn’t mean to repeat herself, but nothing else on the menu fit the moment.
The men closed the lid over her. Terrifying. She wanted to be left in her home, among her precious belongings and the memories they held. In truth, she wanted her family. She wanted her husband Jimmy and the kids, back in the early days, when the children were loud and full of trouble, but small enough to pluck right out of their tracks, little feet still running, and haul them off to the bath. That was fun. The memories were there. They were all there, stored in a crystalline matrix, forever luminous as the first kiss of a special romance. (That kiss was from Jimmy.)
“Age is a gift.” She was talking to the walls. Actually, she was talking sententious nonsense to the cardboard walls of a box. No big change there. It had been years since one of the little brats had figured out how to turn her volume so low no one could hear her menu vocalizations.
Time passed. Meemaw knew exactly how much, to the nanosecond, but it mattered not at all. It gave her time to think, something she’d done far too much of throughout the long decades. Choices. The decision to copy herself into the tabernacle. It seemed like an ages old dream come true, to live on and on. The company promised she’d be able to interact with others by recording a list of statements she’d chosen. The tabernacle held her memories, but its ability to translate her thoughts to new speech was limited; a menu would have to do. The cancer cut her recording sessions short, so the menu was frustratingly short.
For a time, there were two of her. Once the tabernacle had enough of her essence, there was a parallax view of sorts. Then, like someone throwing a switch, one set of eyes closed for good. She didn’t like to remember that part. There was a sadness there.
Jimmy was supposed to join her. He vanished, never came to her. Accident? Lack of money? No one bothered to tell Meemaw. No one spoke to her directly at all. For a while, they treated her as they would a parrot, then a ghost, then they ignored her completely. Choices, theirs and hers had put her inside a tabernacle, inside a box, inside an uncaring world.
At last, a pair of scraped and calloused hands opened the lid and gently pulled Meemaw’s tabernacle from the box.
She was in a large space. The workers’ footfalls echoed into the air. They flipped her over; always a jarring experience. After adjusting something outside of her sensory awareness, they put her onto a Doric plinth.
Reading from a screen that hovered above his sleeve, one worker said, “That’s it, Meemaw. Welcome to your new home. I hope you like it.” And with that, he walked off and shut the door.
That was it. Another person had come into and out of her afterlife. They had taken her from her home of many decades and dumped her here, wherever this was. People were rotten. They just never got it, never honored their elders, never—
“Hi. I’m Daryl.” It was a man’s voice. Gentle. Older perhaps.
“Sarah Ann Cobb. Welcome, sweetie.” A woman’s voice. She spoke with a Southern lilt, ‘like magnolias and manure on a warm breeze,’ Jimmy would say. The voice snapped her back to the present. “The workers told us your name is Meemaw.”
“Yes, that’s what my granddaughter, Taylor, used to call me. She was a bright one, an artist.” It took her a moment—not quite quantifiable with her digital senses—to realize that she’d just spoken two original sentences, the first since her original’s death. “I can speak!” What a delightfully silly thing to say. What a wonderful thing to feel!
“It’s the upgrade. Expensive.” Daryl again. Her senses attuned to their new surroundings and she realized that her tabernacle was one of several hundred, positioned on plinths of various heights all around a starkly lit warehouse interior. Daryl spoke again. “One of your family must have decided to pony up the money.”
Meemaw wondered which one of her great-great-grandchildren had made that choice.
“They could give us damn robot bodies so we could get up and move!”
“That’s nonsense, Jamal. You hush!” Meemaw couldn’t tell who had just hushed Jamal, or for that matter who Jamal was.
“Meemaw, you’re just in time for storytelling. We go round robin. Lord knows, we’ve got the time.”
“You are zee new kinder,” said a German-sounding voice. “I am Bettina, by zee way. Bitte, you do zee honors.”
Around the large area, tabernacles muted their private conversations. Tally lights shone green with interest. Meemaw was not the only one. There were others like her. They were people, with lives and families, probably some relatives they liked, some they didn’t. Most important, they were listening to her!
A story? Meemaw thought for a moment, then felt herself brighten. She began, “When Jimmy and I got married, we were dirt poor. Heck, dirt had more money. So, we said we’d wait a few years to start a family. Of course, Celia had other ideas…”
- Details
The morning meeting ran late as always, and the usual gang voted to get lunch at the place with bad wings served by teens in fantasy costumes. Tim bowed out. It was Thursday; on Mondays and Thursdays, he went to Jade Panda Garden for the complimentary hot-sour soup. It was also his birthday, though only he knew because in middle management thirty-seven was nothing to advertise.
Mama Guiju chatted happily with the lunch crowd as she moved from table to table in her floral top and sensible shoes, depositing maternal warmth along with the heaping platters of dumplings, sticky rice, and chicken feet. Mister Guo sat in the back, stuffing fortune cookies with handwritten notes, echoes of his youth as an underground poet spreading the truth after Tiananmen Square. There were two waitresses, Mama Guiju’s daughter and niece. Tim was never quite sure which was what. Qiu Jin looked to be in her mid-twenties and was possessed of a pair of dazzlingly intelligent eyes. Ditto, much younger, stayed in the background, face in her phone.
The food at Jade Panda Garden was no better and no worse than a dozen other Chinese restaurants along that stretch of Buford Highway, but here Tim felt at home.
All guests received a warm welcome. Those who neglected to leave a tip departed with Mama Guiju’s, “Xie xie, dà bí zi. Come again!” From nearby, Ditto giggled.
Mama Guiju treated Tim differently--more like a son. “I see gray hairs. You need black sesame buns and black walnuts. They’ll make your gray hairs to turning dark.” Tim accepted the extra sides, not counting too heavily on the homely values of the food but enjoying its flavor.
“You enjoying your beer, handsome Tim?” Mama Guiju never lectured him when he ordered a second Tsing Tao at lunch. The rice flavored brew went well with the meal and the effect carried him through his afternoon session at work. Tim helped the American dream function. He was a vice president at Balfour Analytics, which syphoned data from the web and served it up hot to anyone who could afford their services. They worked the dark arts, transmuting money into power.
Once in a while, Qiu Jin would open up while removing empty bottles and dishes. “Mama Guiju was a student. The soldiers killed her fiancé in front of her eyes,” Qiu Jin said once while Mama Guiju was busy with another table. Tim would ask questions and try to piece together the fragments of her answers. “She loved China with all her heart, but the Communists did not love her. She had to make a choice. Indecision is death. Mama Guiju married her fiancé’s brother, using her dead fiancé’s papers to get them both to San Francisco.” So, Mister Guo was his own brother, or at least used his dead brother’s name? That’s how Tim heard it, but maybe it was the beer fog. “We came here to Atlanta a year ago. The previous owners here were no good, so we bought for cash … fixed it up. We put in decorations for to please the dà bí zi …” Her small hand indicated the gilt dragon on the wall and the plastic cat waving at customers from its perch by the register: perpetual, monotonous, expected. “… and serve the food they are liking.” So, the family lived month-to-month. The place was never too busy. It wouldn’t take much for them to lose it all.
This was not Tim’s main concern, however. He pressed to learn Qiu Jin’s story; there must be one. She was focused and smart, but there was more, a sad shading about her pretty face.
“Well, I’m glad you’re here now,” Tim ventured.
“We do not to fit this place,” she said. He wondered where Qiu Jin did fit. He allowed himself a fantasy of walking with her along oriental streets, stopping into millennia-old buildings to sample unfamiliar meats and spiced noodles.
As Tim nursed his beer, Mama Guiju came over with a sticky rice ball sporting a small candle. Mama Guiju motioned Qiu Jin away, then set the plate in front of Tim with a smile. “Happy Birthday, Mister Tim.” How in the world? She stayed with him as he ate the ridiculous offering. He wanted to ask her about Qiu Jin, but hesitated.
Qiu Jin brought the check, on a tray with orange slices and a fortune cookie. A hand-made sign on the door promised ‘endless Joy at cookie to Fortuning.’ He crushed the brittle snack and nibbled absently on the bits while waiting for Mama Guiju to process his credit card. (With his DOB. Data, you devil!) Not really caring, he turned over the white slip on which Mister Guo had scribed. “Ten thousand cherry blossoms fall,” it read.
Dodging maniacs and potholes on the drive back to Buckhead, Tim considered Mister Guo’s missive. Not one of his best. “Cherry blossoms fall.” Time passes. Got it. I’m middle-aged; of course, I get it. Carpe diem, jackass, he told himself.
His team was hard at work, refining social media posts. Duke McLaws, a local developer with a stake in many sizeable projects, wanted a seat in Congress. His bona fides included a decade under the Gold Dome fighting for Voter I.D. and an acquittal in a family planning clinic arson case. His campaign ads featured rather unappetizing still photos that somehow linked abortions to illegal aliens.
“It’s not bad,” his underling, Conway, said, “but it lacks focus.”
“Machine gun it, like we did with Cobb last cycle.” The words came out of Tim’s mouth easily. He could say these things in his sleep. ‘Machine gunning it’ was office lingo for presenting talking points rapid fire. For Cobb, they’d actually used a machine gun sound effect—something Cobb’s base could relate to. For McLaws, whose supporters liked to call him ‘The General,’ they could cook up a series of emotionally loaded stills with a doleful fiddle track, like something from Ken Burns’ playbook.
“Bing-bong, post it!” With that, Tim closed another meeting.
The fall dragged on. By the time the heat finally broke, people were exhausted. Tim’s boss, Eric Ludgen, had his own way of wearing folks down. The team was turning in fine work, meeting deadlines and budgetary targets.
Still, Ludgen offered damning critiques, using belated foresight gleaned from watching Tim’s team actually do the work. He knew better than to accuse his boss of second guessing. Tim was a Madeleine hire. Madeleine was three CEOs ago. Ludgen was making room for his own players, demanding tribute for himself and his chosen while grudgingly noting the hard effort of others. “It’s what they’re paid for.”
The Georgia-Georgia Tech game was coming up. The boss didn’t want to waste tickets on minor clients. In order to bury the hook good and deep, to get him to commit to a much bigger campaign, Ludgen decided to invite McLaws out to lunch and dangle the prospect of prime seats. Aloud, he considered lunch at the Cheetah, where they’d just rotated in a new batch of girls. Before Tim even realized the words were coming out of his mouth, he seized the opportunity and suggested Jade Panda Garden. ‘Cherry blossoms indeed,’ he thought.
The day came. After some hesitation, Ludgen included Tim in the plan, making him promise to stick to the script he laid out.
Sitting across from the men, Tim wanted his usual two Tsing Tao’s, but held back. This was not the day for liquid charm and bluster.
His mind drifted in and out of the conversation. “We’ll get it passed,” McLaws was crowing. “Development can move forward quickly.”
Qiu Jin pushed the dim sum cart to their table and presented some dishes.
“Jesus, what’s this?” McLaws squawked.
Qiu Jin said, “Chicken feet. Give you good heart.”
“Feet?” Ludgen blew air through his pursed lips. “Darling, just bring us some Colonel Sue’s Chicken, OK? There’s a good girl.” Qiu Jin’s face offered no response to the diminutive. Tim looked at her and felt embarrassed for her but said nothing. She withdrew with the cart and set off to find an order of General Tso’s Chicken.
Ludgen told McLaws, “The Blacks would love chicken feet. They eat all kinds of ungodly shit.”
McLaws said, “The Blacks and Mexicans don’t come to Koreatown.”
Tim corrected him: “Chinese. They’re Chinese.” How could they not see the waving cat or the koi pond in the atrium? There were Chinese characters all over everything, not Korean with their little circles.
“Whatever.” The word oozed from McLaws’s mouth with a slow burp that resounded ominously like thunder in an old horror film.
Ludgen gave Tim the stink eye.
After that, Ludgen did all the talking for the company. They discussed campaign strategy. McLaws also suggested Balfour Analytics could help him leverage certain bills now before the legislature that were favorable to real estate growth.
“Cheap labor is everything,” he said. “We’ve got a lil beauty of a bill ‘at funnels public funds into trucks to collect the beaners and ferry em to work sites. S’posed to be a guy to get em registered all nice and legal. S’posed to be. When the job’s finished, a well-timed call gets ICE there just before the pay goes out. Hasta la vista, beaners!”
Tim considered saying something but bit his tongue.
Mama Guiju brought over the bill on a small tray that also held orange slices (which the others ignored) and fortune cookies. McLaws tore open his cookie. “‘Your friends reflect you like a pond,’” he read. (Tim wondered whether that message was directed at him.) McLaws turned the slip over and frowned. “No lotto numbers, mama-san? Tsk tsk tsk. Maybe you have another way to give ‘happy ending, eh?’” McLaws and Ludgen flared in laughter.
Mama Guiju looked to Tim, her eyes full of hurt at the slur. Mama Guiju waited, her pleading eyes on Tim. He merely sat in his chair, checking for messages on his phone.
Ludgen shared his fortune: “‘The beautiful lotus is dearer than gold.’ Sure it is.” He tossed down the bits uneaten.
Tim picked up his cookie, but in a flash Mama Guiju snatched it out of his hand and walked away. They paid and stepped out under the gray-blue sky.
McLaws and Ludgen, laughing together like pirates, piled into an Uber, leaving Tim to take his car back to work. An HR guy was waiting for him at the front door.
No one’s fool, Tim called in some favors and landed a job at a firm in Sandy Springs, farther north.
It took him weeks to get back to Buford Highway. When Tim looked for Jade Panda Garden, he found an ugly barrier. Crews had erected a chain-link fence. Behind it, heavy machinery was hard at work reducing the whole block to rubble. A sign hanging from the filthy links promised ‘The Magnolia Avenues’ would soon rise above the squat surroundings, as a work-live-play complex.
Tim drove up and down Buford Highway, searching for a place to have lunch. Nothing looked good.
- Details
A Short Story by Chris Riker
“…you were killed instantly, dying at the age of sixty-three, and were heavily mourned by your family and community,” said my voice as I read from the parchment in my hands. The dread that defined my life on Earth had come to fruition. I was stunned but not surprised.
“Not bad,” the robed man across the desk from me said in heavily accented English. He called himself Mohsine. He lifted the velum scroll from my hand, reached over, and slid it into a pigeonholed case that took up one wall. The furnishings in the room suggested a railway depot circa 1870’s, albeit one formed of thoughts and will rather than solid matter.
A Tonkinese kitten napping in one of the pigeonholes awoke with a start and shot out of its lair like a hairy cannonball, in the process scattering life scrolls onto the floor. Mohsine picked them up. “The universe is absurd. In the end, the scrolls record how we react to things beyond our control. Our anima sisters and brothers get written up in all sorts of ways, some of them most distressing. Don’t worry, you did well.”
“Thanks, I guess. It’s my first time being dead.”
“Hardly,” said Mohsine.
“What about my family?” The scroll said they mourned me, though for the life of me I didn’t know why. I had never done anything to make them proud. I had such big dreams, but what had they gotten me? I left Lara with a pathetic insurance policy and a mortgage I should have paid off years ago. No property, no pension, nothing for the grandkids. I was a failure and now it was too late.
“For them, time is passing. I can tell you they are sad but coping.” He smiled and scratched an earlobe.
I noticed how strikingly different he and I appeared. My terrestrial bloodline was a mix of English, Irish, Dutch, and Swedish. I was six-one, with dark hair (less gray than I remembered in fact), pale skin, and blue eyes. Mohsine was somewhat shorter and had powerful limbs, brown eyes, full lips, a broad nose, and a tawny complexion. I found my own clothing unremarkable (jeans and a sport shirt), but Mohsine looked imposing in his loose-fitting green robes. He had shaved his head except for a modest circle of frizz on the top which he grew to about a hand’s width and wore bound up in a colorful ribbon. Sideburns framed his face while a beard hung from the tip of his chin.
My next words came out before I could stop myself. “Are you God?”
From deep inside, Mohsine released a thunderous laugh that shook the room. “No, we are not.” He grinned warmly. I wanted to say something, but it was difficult to maintain my mental footing. “I’m trying to explain, I am you in a previous form. Distinct yet fundamentally bonded. You and I are but two of the many turns our soul has taken so far on Earth. This depot exists… between lives.” This was going to take some getting used to. “There are many of us,” he said, indicating the rows of scrolls in the bin. I concentrated but could not make a firm count of how many scrolls were there or how many slots were yet to be filled. “A word of advice. Later, when you meet the rest of us, if they offer their views on God or gods… or power… or money… or sports… or any such trivialities… smile and nod your head.”
“Fine, but then who is in charge of things?”
“No one, not in the way you mean,” Mohsine said, shrugging, then added, “although Falafel thinks she runs the whole dimension.” The kitten now sat on the desk, giving herself a tongue bath.
My brain hurt. From my point of view, the wreck had happened minutes ago. Working late at a job I hated, driving home in bad weather, bright lights; I honestly did not know whether I had crossed the center line, or the other driver had. Now, here I sat in a depot outside of time. It was a bit much.
Mohsine saw my discomfort and offered me a Coke in a cup crudely fashioned from a gourd. It was not the only anachronism battling the room’s decor. A kitschy snow globe of Boston sat on the desk, flurrying perpetually though no one had shaken it. An antique pendulum swung below a digital wall clock. “Ice?” Mohsine asked. I nodded and several cubes appeared above my cup and plopped into the fizzy cola.
“Cool!” I said. He shot me a paternal look to say my pun was childish.
“The creature comforts of the twenty-first century. I never saw ice – not a lot of it in sixteenth century Morocco.” He drank steaming mint tea from a small glass imprinted with Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
Mohsine was not how I pictured myself in a past life, not that I’d expended a great deal of thought on that subject. I spent more time regretting the dreams I let wither. If I had thought about it at all, I’m sure it was a matter of celebrity worship, fancying that I had once been Mozart or Julius Caesar or Lord Byron. Turns out I’d been an old Moroccan named Mo. Makes you go, ‘Huh.’ I said as much to Mohsine. “I was more of an Egypt buff. Pyramids, mummies! I’m afraid I never read up on ancient Morocco.”
“Ancient? I took my earthly turn barely five centuries before yours, Geoff. Wait til you meet Oona’loo’lolla. Then talk to me about ancient things.”
“When will I meet… her?” I asked, though I was in no hurry. It was strange enough to be speaking with this iteration of myself.
“When you’re ready.” Mohsine stood up and stretched. “You’ll reunite with all of us, all of yourselves – clumsy grammar – soon enough. It is easy to get lost in such a hall of mirrors. It’s best for the newly arrived–"
“You mean the newly dead.”
“As you wish. It’s best to take things slowly. For that reason, I have come to help you find your way before you bestow your Ātman upon the child.”
“My Ātman? What child?”
“It’s what we do here, Geoff.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“A wonderful suggestion. Follow me!” He grabbed my hand, pulled me out of my chair, and took us at a full run out of the depot. We sped from where we were to where he wanted us to go. The sparse, non-descript scenery slid by. Colors changed and musical chords rose and fell. “Do you like dolphins?” Mohsine asked.
“Sure.”
“Cool!” he said, flashing a mischievous smirk.
With that, we were wet. In fact, we were suddenly stretched out prone, floating deep in an ambient, almost amniotic, sea. A pair of sleek dolphins appeared and began to circle us, looking us up and down as if to take our measure. One was slightly pink in color; the other, which paired off with me, was bluish. So many times in my life I had told my wife I wanted to go swimming with dolphins, but somehow, I never made it happen.
Something occurred to me. “I’m breathing underwater!” I cried, less with alarm than an urge to narrate my own surprise.
“It’s better than not breathing. Now we must lock our knees, keep our backs straight, and let Reyad and Zinba do the rest.”
A bony rostrum gently but firmly planted itself against the soles of my bare (when had that happened?) feet and pushed. Reyad’s powerful tail whipped the water behind us, and we gained speed. I struggled to keep myself as aquadynamic as possible.
With a sense I did not recognize, I became aware of our travel. We were moving in the water but also in other ways that had nothing to do with the three dimensions I took for granted. Mohsine tried to explain, though I confess his words didn’t make a lot of sense: “While we are here, between one life and another, our sense of place and time is shattered. The sparkly shards fly about in a lovely chaos. Time flows as it will rather than how you are used to.” Good to know.
Turning my attention to the surface of the water, I saw hulls traveling in all directions. I perceived more about these vessels than I should have been able to take in from our undersea vantage point, and yet I was comfortable with this extra sight. It was as though I’d had it all my life and was only now getting the chance to use it.
I focused in on a simple raft, crewed by men and women who were filled with the spirit of exploration. They had learned to lash together bundled reeds and ride the ocean currents to a new land. A moment… or a few thousand years later, a fleet of wooden ships with dragon-headed prows split the waves above. These longboats were filled with brutal seekers who lived to spill blood and seize gold and land. Vessels of all configurations came and went. Men piloted them, carrying goods and settlers. Sailing ships also carried human cargo in their stinking bellies while the men on deck went about their duties indifferent to the misery below their feet.
Words came with great effort. I said, “I want to talk to them. I want to tell them something,” I pleaded.
“Do not concern yourself. We are in-between. Those men you see will not be affected by us.” Mohsine’s voice took on a tone of sadness. “It gets worse.”
Reyad and Zinba were pushing us upwards towards the surface… then we burst through it into the air. Up and up we went, perhaps a thousand miles. It seems redundant to say that this existence in which I found myself had a dream quality to it, but here we were. Dolphins could fly. I could fly. Why not?
Below, my eyes gathered vast sweeps of land in startling detail. I could see villages surrounded by untamed land. These settlements hardened, the buildings morphing from crude wooden lodges to fine buildings of stone and then steel and glass. The growth accelerated, metastasized. The forests and wild places thinned and retreated until the manmade dwellings outsized the natural domains. Then for no apparent reason the advance came to a halt. I recognized the designs, the roads, the filth of my own time. From our place far above, I saw what I’d never been able to see in my life. The Earth was covered in a solid mass of human flesh and was drowning in the poisons we produced, both land and sea.
“This is the present. My time.”
“Yes.”
“And the future?” I asked.
“Is what we are here to bring about,” Mohsine answered.
“Bring it about. I want to stop it. End the destruction before it’s too late.” Perhaps even now I might make a difference, I thought, but it was not going to happen.
“We can do what we can do. Focus on your Ātman, Geoff. Perhaps the Ātman you choose to give our child will be compassion.”
It finally dawned on me what he was talking about -- that our child, Mohsine and my child, was our next life on Earth.
“You’re saying I can give our successor the benefit of my knowledge.”
“Wisdom... and knowledge are earned between the womb and the grave. They are of great value but do not easily translate from one life to another. What if, before you were born, I had wished you all my knowledge of spice trading, what would you have done? Been an American nutmeg trader at the age of five? Such knowledge would have limited you in ways you cannot imagine. No, each Ātman is a facet in the child’s true self. While lives begin and end, the Ātman grows over many lives.”
I knew this was important, but my mind groped to find context. “I am trying, but I’m not sure I understand. What exactly is an Ātman?” I asked.
“Think of an Ātman as a general sensibility that colors our choices. Our past selves contribute new parts. One part may take dominance at times or lurk in the background as a series of preferences. Each may duel with others, but each is there to help us meet whatever situations life presents us.”
“What are my choices? Can I tell our child to be fat, dumb, and happy?”
“More than one of our kind have tried that. I hope your choice is more… evolved. Would you like to know what others chose for you?”
“Yes!”
Mohsine issued a series of clicks, whistles, and chirps to our dolphins who responded by taking us down to the waters of the Mediterranean. They set a new course and sped us through the sea. In a heartbeat (yes, I still appeared to have one) we were stepping out of the waves and walking up the rocky shore to an impossibly tall pink granite structure. It was millennia more primitive in design than the skyscrapers I had recently viewed, but unequalled in grandeur in any time or place. Pharos. The Lighthouse at Alexandria.
Every edge was unweathered, freshly hewn. We ascended the cool limestone steps on the water side, one face over from the tower’s great pedestrian causeway, and passed through a colonnade topped by statues of Ptolemy II and his queen. Mohsine pointed to a plaque on one wall. “No!” I cried in happy disbelief. It was the plastered false front stamped onto the great wonder by its architect. Though I could not read it, I knew it gave all glory to the pharaoh. Therein lay the joke. In a century or two, the plaster would flake away, revealing the permanently engraved mark of the architect.
Standing in the courtyard, I strained my neck to take in the tower’s dizzying four-hundred-foot height. “I’ve always wanted to see this!”
“I know,” Mohsine said.
“Wait, you dreamed of seeing the lighthouse too?”
“The wonder of it has inspired dreamers for centuries even though great tremors claimed the light.” I strained to remember my history. Mohsine would have been born about half-a-century after workers recycled the last tumbledown stones of the lighthouse into a fortress.
“So, I got that desire from you?”
“Perhaps.”
“Is that an Ātman?”
“No, just some of the flotsam that drift from life to life. A weakness for puns, a love of artichokes. Quirky sorts of things. The bits never add up to much but they make us interesting.”
“Can we go up?”
As Mohsine said “Yes” we rose, passing windows and the square landing that presented visitors with statues of Triton the sea god at each corner. Up we went above the central eight-sided segment to the apex chamber and the lamp itself. This cupola was topped off by an enormous statue of Poseidon, visible to sailors in the Great Harbor… and from the royal barge with its aerial escort of sea birds. From the lamp room the view of Alexandria stretched out below us. My breath caught in my throat as I recognized the famed library, storehouse of all the knowledge gathered from across the ancient world. I indulged myself an immodest comparison: I had become the storehouse of an Ātman that would, hopefully, benefit my future self. If only I knew what that Ātman was to be.
Behind us, mounted in a pivoting cradle stood a parabolic mirror made of brightly polished bronze. “Does it light up?” I asked eagerly.
“At night.” And it was night. A furnace flared to life in front of the mirror. Mohsine and I laughed at the cheap theatrics. “Now then, you were wondering about the Ātmans of the past? Let’s spell them out.”
A fog bank was rolling in off the water like a moving mountain range. The mirror caught and focused the light, but instead of projecting a single beam, it flung thousands of colorful rays onto the misty wall. The effect reminded me of a laser light show. Once again, this realm of existence glibly borrowed from the times of our lives and mixed elements with mad abandon.
“Behold the Ātmans that have help shaped yours and my lives,” Mohsine said. And he read from the fog bank: “‘All unfolds with divine timing, be patient.’ Laura. She was a precious soul, beyond earthly measure. Oh, what am I saying was? She still is!” From somewhere in the fog, I heard Reyad and Zinba chattering to each other in a sort of animated commentary.
“‘Gratitude.’ Our sister Annabelle added this single word to the mix a century and a half ago. Daughter, wife, and mother of six, she dreamed of breaking away from her hard life in West Virginia’s coal mining country and discovering her full potential. She never marveled at the lights of Paris, and yet at the end of her sixty-eight years she closed her eyes on the world with a contented heart.”
I envied Annabelle’s turn at our existence. I hated my aimlessness. How wonderful would it be if I could be grateful for my life instead of regretting my mediocrity. She had cleansed herself of resentments like those that weighed on my spirit. I strongly considered following her lead and committing to offering the child an Ātman of gratitude.
Mohsine was looking at me and seemed to know I was looking inward. He patted the granite balcony. “We were here, you know. One of our number was among the hundreds who labored in the blistering sun to build this place. He gifted us an Ātman: ‘Do not falter. Work on.’
“Some of our anima clan were more, shall we say, pragmatic.” ‘Take. Do. Eat well,’ shone the light in garish reds and golds one might expect in the draperies adorning a brothel. “That was Vyacheslav,” Mohsine explained. “He was a drinker and a lover. A bit fat. When you meet him, don’t ask about his cousin.” He squeezed his lips between his forefinger and thumb, basically saying ‘Shh.’ I filed away the tip.
More colors flashed out into the night, greens, umbers, and violets. “Other entries along those lines include: ‘Succeed!’ … ‘Dominate!’ … and ‘Never make mercy your business partner.’ “There are many more, but I expect you’d like to see one of us saying this.” The lamp turned silvery blue and spelled out, ‘Love is all - let it out and let it in.’ “It’s a shared sentiment from Elna and also from Duangkamol. Two dear ones. Elna died without regret while cradling her fifteenth great grandchild. Duangkamol never once lied about her feelings. She lived to love… and fortunate men loved her.”
I could sense each of those sentiments in my own memories and feelings. I wondered, then, with so many helping me why I felt so conflicted in my life. Why did the thought of the life I’d now concluded fill me with profound disappointment?
The fierce lamplight fused to a single beam of amber-tinged white cutting through the fog and darkness. It seemed almost banal by comparison. The show was over. Mohsine and I looked at one another.
“When do I bestow my Ātman?” I asked.
“When we get there, of course.”
I sensed no deception from Mohsine. There was no way he could lie to me. I had to be patient and accept the way he presented the information to me.
It was time to go. This time, we walked down the winding steps inside the tower. It was exhausting, but fascinating at the same time.
“You are troubled in your choice?”
“Yes. I want to do the right thing for this child.”
“That may be harder than you imagine.”
We passed visitors to the lighthouse on our way to the shore. No one turned their head as we stepped into the water and kept going. Reyad and Zinba met us below the surface, eager to be off.
“Where are they taking us?” I asked.
“To my home and my time.”
The sea around us lightened. It took only moments, but we were soon far away, in a different ocean.
“In case you wished to know, empathy was dominant among all my spiritual gifts while I walked the Earth. A good choice. I pass it along myself occasionally. And yet… no Ātman, not even empathy, is without its dangers.”
Our dolphin guides brought us to a crowded harbor then happily darted away. We stepped from the water onto narrow streets made of flat stones and crushed shells. We found our footwear returned, sneakers for me and balgha for Mo, and our clothes dry, both my jeans and Mohsine’s gray and olive-colored djellaba. (The words of his life were now familiar.)
“Agadir,” announced Mohsine. “Home.” We stood in a gleaming white port city near the foot of the Atlas Mountains where the Souss River flows into the Atlantic. “Five-hundred years ago, this was the beating heart of Morocco’s culture and source of its great wealth.”
Pungent smells stung our nostrils from open air market stalls and livestock pens tucked into every odd space. People dressed in glorious fashions passed us on the street, bustling into and out of small shops and homes. The women wore jewelry of silver, pounded copper, and gold and on their faces intricate geometrical tattoos. The architecture reflected Morocco’s long history as both conqueror and conquered. I noticed the people’s Berber tastes, residual Roman influences especially around the columns, and an echo of Byzantine style.
Mohsine led me to his own shop and explained what we were about to see. As he called up memories from his own life, faint shadows darted in and out of our field of vision, overlaid on this ‘present.’ Like Scrooge traveling with the Ghost of Christmas Past, I was a shadow here.
We sat down at a café overlooking the boats anchored in the brilliant blue cove. A hungry dog circled our table, which the owner set with a tray of fish and mssemen bread drizzled in honey. I didn’t realize how good eating could still feel; the fried bread and honey filled me with a sweet delight. Knowing I was left-handed, Mohsine reminded me to eat only with my right, in deference to Muslim custom. He then poured me a cup of mint tea and began his story.
“In the final days of the Wattasid kings, I was born into a family of wealth and standing. My father was a merchant, trading in finely worked leathers, brightly hued rugs, brass utilities of all sorts, argan oil for cooking, and when he could find nothing better to sell, hashish. He traveled often, leaving me to protect our home and look after my mother and younger brothers. I filled my heart and head with more concerns than a boy my age should until I was an old man of thirteen. Childhood passed me by on the street without a nod of recognition.
“Even as a boy, I looked out on the world and felt its pain. I could not bear to see people with no morsel of food or protection from the ocean’s cold night breath. I took bread and blankets from home and gave them freely. One day, my father spotted me doing this and grabbed my slender reed of an arm so tightly I was sure he would break it. He scolded me, saying, ‘Foolish boy. You give away all that I have earned and for what? These people will only follow you and demand more. One day your wealth will be gone, but their want will never fade. They will grow angry when you can give no more.’ His words stung, but I reluctantly obeyed his commands. I wanted to please that man more than I wanted my life.
“Once I had attained fifteen summers, I traveled with him. We visited new and strange lands, far from home. I learned quickly from my father how to spot quality but had difficulty with his way of negotiating prices. I felt that those selling an item had a right to earn what price they wished for their goods. I watched silently as my father spoke faster and louder than the merchants he dealt with. He convinced them that their goods were of poor quality and barely worth his labor to haul them back to Agadir. He told them only by chance might a drunken sailor relieve his shop of such dreck.
“I never spoke of my feelings, but I confess to you now that my father disappointed me. His cynical views threatened to turn my heart bitter. My father and I argued like two lions. Our tempers grew hot; he accused me of trying to live in paradise blind to the real world and I accused him of stealing from merchants who had families to feed. I demanded my freedom, and he allowed me to leave home with a few possessions and a light purse.
“I fashioned my life, action by action, day by day. I knew how to trade, though I offered better prices than my father had. This made me welcome in marketplaces up and down the coast. People called me an honest man, and I cherished this praise. My reputation for charity and kindness spread and brought me more wealth than I ever expected.
“One merchant with whom I traded frequently had a daughter with eyes dark as dates and hips that filled my nights with– She was all that I ever knew of love and I married her. She bore me three strong sons and a caring daughter. In time, my sons came into my growing business.
“After years of traveling from one bazaar to the next, I acquired a shop of my own. I expanded again and again, trading in many of the goods my father had taught me to sell, plus silks brought in by the men who traveled the seas. Our reputation turned to gold. Soon, the work was more than my sons and I could finish by nightfall. My sons, meanwhile, felt the same wanderlust I had known at their age.
“Not for the first time, I regretted having been severed from my siblings and cousins, whom I now might have offered a place in my enterprises. Instead, I hired a handful of young men. I found them struggling to survive in dark alleyways and offered them hard work plus a wage to meet their needs. I trained them and eventually entrusted them to tend my shop while I and my sons went abroad.
“One day, I returned from my travels, having left my sons to conclude some business in Rabat. I was in my sixties by this time and tired. I dreamed of nothing more than coming home. Ever mindful of my business, however, I decided to stop and check on things before returning to my wife and bed.
“I found one of my hired men stealing from my shop, loading a cart out back. I saw the guilt in his face and yelled at him. I called him ungrateful and scolded him in my father’s voice. And while my mind was hurling bitter words, the man picked up a jeweled cane taken from my own tables and bludgeoned me over the head. I fell to the hard street and bled to death mere steps from the shop that had been so much of my life. The man took his stolen goods and struck out for distant lands, leaving behind his filthy name.
“My son found me a day later. My family and people in the community mourned my death with copious tears but also with laughter and food and drink, as I had always wished.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I am not. I understand now that I was not wrong to share with others what little I could. Even so, there are always those who will repay kindness with selfishness and violence. They harm themselves. When they brutishly clutch a handful of riches, they drop the opportunity to grow.
“I must accept that I can show such people the way, but I cannot make them take the steps. It is the nature of free will. Instead of jumping in to try and solve another’s problems, I must offer simple guidance. I will not call it a regret, but I will say that I wish I had put my family ahead of my business pursuits. Beyond that, I am happy and at peace.”
Mohsine had exposed his inner self to show me that any Ātman I might choose could create risks for the child. We walked silently for a time. I did not pay attention to the shifting surroundings, but I knew we were no longer in Agadir.
We came to the place of renewal. It was a launching spot for a new beginning on Earth. We joined a circle of quintessence, all my past selves, including those we had acknowledged in our conversation. They displayed soft edges and subtly different hues, no two alike. I could not discern their features or even count their number. Mohsine assured me they would resolve into sharp relief soon enough.
For now, what was important was the child, there in the middle of our circle. It was literally indescribable, real but with no race or gender, lacking all detail yet perfect in its potential. I had no way of knowing where this child’s life would begin on Earth or how much time had passed since my own story’s conclusion. None of that mattered. What mattered was the child.
“Take one last moment to consider your gift to this new life of ours. I have made my choice.” Mohsine stepped up to the child and spoke from the heart: "Be true to yourself." From nowhere, Falafel, the kitten I had met at the depot, came running up, ears back, eyes two balls of hot murder. She leapt onto him and used her claws as pitons to scale Mount Mohsine until he plucked her from the weave of his robes and cradled her harmlessly against his shoulder. “She approves of my choice,” he said, stroking the now purring beast.
I thought about what Mohsine had told me. I had not done anything with my life as interesting as he had done. I had never trekked alone to distant lands where I did not speak the language. I had held jobs but never started my own business. I had certainly fought with my father but never stood up to him or struck off on my own. I had been many things, but never… Something always held me back, something lurking below my consciousness. Some inner flaw.
Yet, what did it matter now? I was done with worldly concerns. I could look at them for what they were: momentary distractions. And if my failings meant nothing now, I wondered whether those great mistakes and doubts had ever meant anything at all?
I looked to Mohsine and he seemed to read me perfectly. He raised his head slightly and his eyes creased with approval. The effect was wonderful. It was as if I were a hot air balloon casting off from my moorings, suddenly free from the tethers that held me to the Earth. I could rise.
In that moment, I knew what to say to the child.
I stepped forward, closed my eyes, and spoke: “Be gentle with yourself. You are a good soul.”
- Details
A Short Story by Chris Riker
Among the smoldering stumps of the Ancestors Grove, Meilin set out a midday meal furnished through her own hard work while watching little Xinyi tackle her twin brother, Bingrui, and nip his tail. Meilin must teach her cubs to keep these embers hot. One day, her pride would bore down to the deepest entangled roots and pluck them out. One day.
A green shoot pierced the scorched ground, its buds struggling to open. Alignment was coming round again. She ripped the sprout from the warm soil and tossed it onto a small brazier. Her mate, Weichen, ever the politician, was visiting other families in the grove, making sure they were doing the same.
“Why don’t you like the flowers, Mommy?” It was Xinyi, pinning her yowling brother’s head underneath her body.
“They remind me of Grandfather Li; they’re appealing enough, but they cause problems,” she said, freeing Bingrui and stroking the girl’s golden coat as a reward for her boldness.
“Tell us the story, Mama! Tell it to us!” Xinyi jumped about, excited to steal another telling, knowing her mother would never refuse this demand. Bingrui plopped down on his hind quarters and flapped his arms. He was not nearly as talkative as his sister, but he welcomed story time.
“Very well, my cubs. This is the story of the time your Grandfather Li came to visit us.
“The grove comes into alignment at irregular intervals, because the ecliptic plane of Emdee’s system doesn’t line up exactly with that of old Sol’s. Even so, it comes around far too often, if you ask me. They’ll teach you all about this in school. You must study hard.”
Xinyi yipped, “Oh, I know all about sympathetic quantum DNA encryption and… I know all of it!”
Meilin was delighted with her oh-so-proud daughter. Xinyi knew the big words. Her teachers would fill in the details soon enough. It was important that they understood the broad outlines before they focused on details that could lead in many confusing directions. They responded to the exciting bits, so they got those in generous portions in the first lessons.
“You know this story, too, young shīzi,” she gave them both a stern scowl, ears back, one fang bared. The cubs quieted down and pivoted their ears forward to assure their mother they were listening.
“Now, this was some years ago,” Meilin began. “You two were still in my belly.” Her voice took up the storyteller’s lilting delivery which bonded generations and worlds.
“I was working in my garden at home; back then, it was much smaller than you see it now. I had just tamped down the soil along the final line of umberwort seedlings, pulled a clutch of tiller grubs from an apron pocket, and sprinkled them among the rows, except for one I popped in my mouth. Mmm, it was tart! There were vreelings skittering all around, stopping to gnaw the weeds with their terrible rodent teeth. I told them, ‘If you chew up my crop, I’ll eat you instead!’ And I meant it; pets or food, it all depends on how they behave. We designed vreelings to consume invasive plants and insects, but they’re stupid. If they’re hungry enough or get a certain wild herb in their nostrils, they’ll devour anything. Remember that, children. No matter the planning, everything in life comes down to chaos and teeth.
“Bot-Kem and I shooed the vreelings out the garden gate and latched it. My back hurt from carrying you two all day. It wasn’t going to be much longer. By harvest time, I was going to have two little assistants.
“I wanted your father to help me expand the grib nut grove and add in a few more hectares of arlong trees. I needed help; I’m just one she-shīzi with a worn old bot. Weichen — Daddy — was busy with the provincial council. I remember wondering whether you cubs would ever get to see your father in person, rather than on the optivu.
“Kem-bot has always been a good sentry. It alerted me to Daddy’s arrival, and I rushed to meet him, carrying a basket of his favorite arlong fruit. I ran straight past the shīzi standing at the gate. He was skinny, not very healthy looking, with a mane that badly needed grooming. Despite this, it was his gaze that drew my attention. There was a fierceness there, a predatory hunger beyond the usual. This shaded his demeanor with a quality of intelligence, but it also gave me a chill. After a moment, I realized this shīzi was a senior council member whom Daddy worked with.
“‘There are my beautiful ones!’ Daddy roared in his big masculine way, his eyes meeting mine and scanning my huge belly. Your Daddy is very handsome, with his lustrous mane of ormnut-colored fur growing down his back. It keeps Mommy warm on cold nights.”
“Mommy! Skip the gross stuff!” chuffed Xinyi while Bingrui gurgled and licked his paw. Meilin ignored her and continued:
“Fine. I kidded him, saying, ‘Have you politicians solved all of Emdee’s problems? Is that why you’ve finally decided to visit the mate who’s carrying your litter?’ The provincial council reports to the Emdee Assembly, though neither is much in the habit of solving problems. Mostly, they impress each other with speeches or get into tooth-and-nail confrontations.
“Daddy said, ‘We’re finalizing the carbon accounting system. We can then begin growing the next generation of bio-designs, including paunchideer, with enough left over to allow us to increase the crop yields and improve distribution. We’ll all be fat before you know it.’
“I said, ‘We’ll scamper through somehow without giant dens and noxious vehicles and trying to outdo each other with bright shiny things.’ Then I caught myself. Looking over to our visitor, I asked your father to introduce us.
“‘Lao, this is Meilin, my mate. Meilin, this is… was… council member Lao.’
“‘You say, this was Lao?’
“‘Yes. Things are changing,’ said the shīzi. ‘Lao went to the grove and tasted a blood pear.’ One or two shīzi had gone to the grove as if summoned each time an alignment came round. I’d heard stories from the other prides, but those who were changed never… lasted. I had never spoken with anyone who had tasted one of the pears. ‘Lao is a suitable host, but not my preferred one.’
“‘I do not see council member Lao when I look at his face. Has he gone? Why would he agree to this arrangement?’
“‘You might be surprised,’ said the shīzi who had been Lao, a cryptic grin on his face. ‘The important thing is that my place is with your growing family.’ He patted my round middle then straightened his slouched back and said, ‘You see, I am your Grandfather Li from Earth.’ I do not know how many generations journeyed in that word, grandfather; perhaps a thousand distant voices spoke through his, calling for me to show proper respect. And yet…
“My hackles went up, just as yours do every time I tell you this story, Bingrui, Xinyi. This shīzi seemed harmless, but there was something in his eyes, the way his muzzle quavered. He was in the form of the Shīzi of Emdee, but carried something older inside, something alien.
“Your father took me aside and explained that Grandfather Li had made quite an impression in the Council. He took Lao’s place at the gathering, but instead of watching, Grandfather Li puffed out his chest and took charge. He said he was the leader of a great consortium of businesses and proceeded to name them off, though the names meant nothing to anyone there. He promised great rewards for the members of the assembly, and that held their attention for a while. Then he called for more detailed quarterly reports and surveys on all natural resources. ‘This world is ours,’ he chuffed. Some grumbled, but no one challenged him. Then, Grandfather Li demanded major changes. He wanted the largest of the males to form a new, higher house of government. There were low growls in the back. Lastly, he called for ‘all true Shīzi’ to attack the lesser prides of the next valley, tear out the throats of their males and offspring and impregnate their females. This prompted a furious, claws-out debate. Several members left bloodied; one lost an ear.’
“Grandfather Li, who had been nearby with eyes closed but ears alert, said, ‘The fools do not see the plan… yet. I will shape them into useful servants.’
“‘The Council members told me outright,” Daddy whispered to me later, ‘to never let Grandfather Li come back to White Rock. They found him condescending, divisive,’ Daddy huffed, ‘and pathetic.’
“Grandfather Li moved into our den and asserted himself as patriarch. He was soft-spoken but unyielding. Suddenly, his sleeping chamber was ‘too small even for a cub,’ so I spent a day digging it larger. He found the grounds insufficiently grand, so I promised improvements. He complained about the meals I laid before him… and I held my tongue and gave him large portions of arlong wine. Each day, he issued new instructions on every detail of my home management. If I tried to object, he would narrow his eyes as if my act of speaking back violated some sacred law. Grandfather Li.
“Late one morning, Grandfather Li rose from a night of drinking. He stepped from the den into my garden with his tail out straight, a look of disapproval on his muzzle.
“‘We stretched our hand across an ocean of stars and planted our seed here on MD-1433. We touched the grove, and it touched the primitives infesting this rock. We raised you up to be our heirs, rulers of this world. You receive our brilliant gifts, Little Plum, yet this is what you do with them? Plant roots and play with bugs?!’
“‘The Shīzi are one with Emdee. We learn her ways, and she nourishes us. Besides, I love my garden,’ I said as meekly as I could. The vreelings roamed about restlessly, you two were restless inside me, and I was restless too.
“‘You were born to be master, not partner,’ he spat out this last word and continued, ‘just as we were lords over the Earth. With our will and our machines we defeated nature. We raised armies with promises of heaven and crushed inferior men who dared oppose us.’
“‘And what has become of the Earth?’ I demanded.
“‘You dare ask such things, child!’ Grandfather Li thundered. ‘The Earth is gone to ruin and dust. But men still send their seed into the dark reaches through recorded transmissions. We send our knowledge. The grove allowed you to fill your libraries and schools, is this not so?’ He said it rhetorically. Of course Earth had sent its history into the receptive fruit that grew in the Ancestors Grove. A bite from a blood pear provided raw knowledge, though little wisdom. Grandfather Li continued, ‘We transmitted the essence of humanity to promising worlds such as MD-1433. Men planted the human spark inside beings born to these kingdoms. But, these were frameworks only, the essence of humanity. What you do not know is our final triumph. Even as the Earth cooled in her grave, we learned how to transmit… ourselves. Each of us distilled his memories and passions into a single thrust of energy that in time found its way into the blood pears of the grove. In this way, we mock death itself. Like the gods of old, we have become immortal!’
“He said it as if no Shīzi had ever surmised this. We had. We knew Earth was not done with Emdee, a world worthy of a name rather than some astronomer’s uninspired designation. I looked Grandfather Li straight in the eye, which seemed to surprise him. ‘You crossed the ocean of stars to live again as a withered old shīzi.’ The respect had drained from my voice, and I knew it.
“‘We came here to begin an empire that one day will fill every corner of existence. We will raise nation upon nation on world after world, taking what we wish as we rise higher and higher.’
“‘You ruined Earth trying to do that, reduced it to an unlovely stone.’
“‘We made mistakes, Little Plum. We will learn and go forward. That is our destiny spelled out before us. An unquestionable plan.’
“Now, I was angry. Here was my Grandfather Li, smelling of stale arlong wine and standing in stolen skin while boasting of his greatness. I wanted to honor my ancestors, for it is right to do so, but I had had enough, and I dared speak my mind. ‘How will that work, old shīzi?’
“‘I will lead the men who are to come. The machine back on Earth will send more during each alignment, though it may take many years.’
“Looking at his frail host body, I said, ‘You clearly do not have many years.’
“‘And so, I come to you. The blood pears from the grove have another, special quality.’ He held one of the fruits up for me to see. It was translucent, like an amber-hued crystal. ‘Little
Plum, bite down, and I will bite down.’
“‘You would take my life, Grandfather Li?’
“‘No, Little Plum. I would take ownership of the lives you carry.’
“With a jolt, I saw it all clearly. He had no interest in heading up our family. He had only been waiting until he could get me alone with that blood pear. He wanted to put himself inside you cubs, take you from me and change you until you were not the Xinyi and Bingrui I knew you should be.
“This, I could never allow. My vision went to blood. That’s when – ”
“That’s when you roared and gobbled him up!” bellowed Xinyi, her pupils grown wide as saucers at her favorite part of the story.
Bingrui too squealed, “Gobbled him up!” and bounced about on all fours.
“You two! I did not eat him or roar – a she-shīzi does not roar. I stared him hard in the eyes. ‘You made us, old… man,’ I snarled. ‘You wanted the Shīzi to be like you. Now see how human we can be.’ I reached into a pocket of my apron, drew a pinch of a certain herb, and blew it all over Grandfather Li.
“Realizing what was happening, he cursed and whimpered pleas for mercy. It was much too late for that. The smell of the herb and of fear drove the vreelings mad, and they pounced, pinning him and gnawing at his belly flesh. I thrummed and sank my fangs into Grandfather Li’s neck. His howls died in his severed throat, and he was still.
“His blood smacked of astonishment and musty self-pity. I spat it out and let the vreelings have their fill.”
Like the story, the feast Meilin had prepared from the bounty of her gardens and ranch was done. Nothing wasted. Shīzi prides throughout the grove were packing up and heading home. Wisps rising off numerous braziers carried the scent of blood pear buds. Gathered, incinerated. Weichen lay curled up, gorged and sleeping; useless, but so sexy. Time for another litter, she thought with a lilting hum. She’d earned it.
Meilin drew her cubs close to her, and they looked over at a mound that bore no marker. “He is here. We will remember Grandfather Li, and we will keep these fires burning. We will learn to dig deep enough, to the core if needed, to find the deepest roots and destroy them.”
To ones so young, these were words and words. They loved the story but did not grasp its full meaning. That was fine. Meilin loved her cubs, all chaos and teeth. She would teach them well, and whenever they misbehaved, which was often, she would warn them with a growl: “Be good, or Grandfather Li will get you!”
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