Motes Played — Chapter 5
Motes stopped playing. She stopped playing because, some weeks later, she was out with some friends, some of the others who had decided to give up on grown-up life now that they were here, now that they were decades old or centuries, now that they...
Unseeing
On the morning of every day, when days are warm and there is no rain, on days when Lyut knows when it is day and when it is night, he will gather his ingredients onto a small board and sit at the entrance to his cave and make his incense for three days...
What Defines Us
Darren, Haven't heard from you in a while. Do you think I could come up and visit for xmas? Been a while since I've seen the little monsters. Let me know before prices go up. How are you? How is Leila? LYF Mom * * * Mom, I'm sorry I haven't...
Penguins
Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruscheta. Fingers ferry food -- fish, perhaps -- finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning...
Hues
## True Name — 2350 I see the world in new hues. I see Ioan and May Then My Name sitting together on the bed, cross-legged and touching. I do not think they even realize that they are doing so, that they have set their hands next to the other's,...
Post-op images
Saturday is for mechanics. Sunday is for terror. Monday is for acceptance. Tuesday is for purging. Wednesday is for anxiety. Thursday is for sleep. * * * When I am asleep The world changes around me. In spring, I am changed. * * * I'm no good at...
Reading
All readings are the same. They all begin the same way, with stepping off to some sim, known or unknown, where she would arrive a good hour early. There, she would wait or walk or drink her coffee or tea. Would it be a bookshop this time? Would it be a...
Opportunity paralysis
## Rena Hatch — 2368 I thought it would be different. I thought it would be cleaner, maybe. Cleaner, or far more grimy, all exposed pipes and puddles of unexplained liquids pooling in dark corners while the brittle lighting of shitty fluorescents...
Beneath her coat was a whole identity
Beneath her coat was a whole identity: A subtle form of ideas under soft fur, A constantly shifting mass of meaning... And somehow, she pulled it off. She would go for days without shedding a thing, And then, as if a bottle rolling off a...
Prophecies
## Slow Hours — 2401 To step into The Bean Cycle was to be immediately assailed by sound. There was, as to be expected, the clink of glasses and muted howl of steam wands bringing milk up to temperature, but mixed in was the clatter and clicking...
Limerent Object (parts 1-5)
# 1 I wrap emotions in the cool embrace of jargon to soften sharp edges and take the sting out of ones I feel too keenly. It's why I got into this field. It's why I studied what I did. Of course I care for my clients, and of course I love what I do,...
Gigs
_Well, shit._ Winter trudged heavily through the piles of dead leaves lining the gutter, the lynx's broad paws crunching through them. There was a sidewalk, but this wasn't a mood for sidewalks. This wasn't a mood for keeping clean, staying out of the...