Where'd You Park Your Spaceship?, page 16
She had me and then she went and found him. SHE
FOUND HIM!!
Where was he?
On Mil Mer!!!
Isn’t that the one with all the active volcanoes?
Yes, you have heard of it?
I’ve seen pictures. Only a few people live on that planet,
right?
My Heen, you know A LOT about the galaxy.
If only he knew.
The CHAIRS sent your dad to Mil Mer? For his first
assignment?
Yes. He was a hearty man, that much is true. I once saw
him lift a cow.
A cow?
A cow.
A full size cow?
Fuller than full.
That is impressive.
But sending him to Mil Mer? A young man just shy of his 21st lap?
How’d your mother find him? I heard that people who
work for the CHAIRS leave their families and home planets
and all that behind and no one from their previous life
knows where they are…
Look at me. Asking him that question. Like I don’t know. I
heard…I say it like it’s a rumor, something I picked up
from a distance when it. is. my. life. This kills me just a
little. Pretending. It feels as though I have installed a
paper thin membrane between us. He is unaware of it.
I am.
This didn’t used to bother me, this distance between me
and everyone I encounter. I can lie for days on end
without a second thought. I sometimes wonder if I’m the
best SERIES 5 in the universe. I have gotten so good at
this job. But sitting here, listening to Borns tell this story,
some defense within me falters. The border becomes
porous, the boundary collapses just a bit. I’m caught up in
this story that he’s telling. It means something to me.
This hasn’t happened before.
Borns nods. Oh yes, that is what my father told me. He left it all behind to SERVE the ARRANGEMENTS. That’s how he put it. My mother, she refused to abide by the rules. She hid in the central compost cistern of her home port-with me in her arms. Then she snuck on a cargo ship, bribed the captain to smuggle her through customs inspection…Heen, I have lived dangerously my entire life.
Borns thinks this is quite clever.
It is.
Your mother was quite a woman.
Oh she was. She once ate a raw potato in one bite.
In one bite?
One bite.
Raw?
Yes. She pulled it out of the ground, spit on it to clean off
the dirt, and then jammed it in to her mouth.
He imitates having something large stuck between your
upper and lower teeth and then forcing it through by
ramming it with the butt of your hand.
YIKES I say.
Yikes is right.
And then she chewed it?
Oh no. It was too big. It filled her mouth. She couldn’t
move her jaw.
So how did she eat it?
The saliva in her mouth gradually broke it down.
Did that take a while?
Three days.
We sit in silence, mulling over that one.
I can’t leave it alone.
To be clear, your mother walked around with an uncooked
potato in her mouth for three days?
Three days.
Could she talk?
No. She invented her own sign language and then taught
it to me so that we could communicate.
Borns tells me this as he performs a succession of
gestures which I can only imagine is that sign language.
Is that the language she created?
Yes. Impressive, isn’t it?
What did you just say?
I AM NEVER EATING ANOTHER POTATO FOR AS LONG
AS I LIVE.
Two men in matching purple outfits-one of them wears a
green belt, the other an orange belt-appear at the back
door of the bakery. They glance around nervously, like
they’re afraid someone will seem them here.
Borns gives them a thumbs up.
He’ll be right out.
Bobby Freelance appears in the doorway, sees we’re
sitting on the bench, and motions to the men as he tells them
Let’s walk.
Off they go.
I am locked in on this story Borns is telling.
So your mother made it to Mil Mer?
He stomps both feet as he slaps his knees.
With baby me in her arms! She showed up at the door of
my dad's hut and when he opened it she said LOOK WHAT WAS BORN SINCE YOU LEFT. Borns strokes his beard.
I don’t know if that’s exactly what happened-
But your name IS Borns.
I say this because it’s obvious. Born Since. BornS.
Borns gasps.
My name is Borns.
He looks shocked.
Is that why there’s an S? It’s for SINCE?
I don’t know whether to answer or not. It’s seems pretty
straightforward. Has he never seen this?
Maybe not I say. Just a thought.
He considers this.
It’s just…how she was. How they were. There was no love
between them by then.
So why did she go to such great lengths to track him
down?
I have spent many LAPS pondering that very question,
Heen. The best I can come up with? She didn’t want him
to get away with it. With me. With doing that and then
leaving her alone with the responsibility.
I have another question.
What did your dad say when he opened the door?
He said All right then, I’ll have to build another hut.
An old woman appears in front of us. She’s done 80
laps, maybe 90. She’s holding a small glass jar. She
places her hand on my knee, then on Borns' knee.
Good day gentlemen.
Borns and I both stand up.
Good day to you I say to her.
Who am I? What happened to Heen? Some old lady
shows up wearing striped socks and sandals holding a
glass jar in an alley behind a bakery and I stand and greet
her with a GOOD DAY?
Lan Zing appears.
I didn’t hear her coming.
She glides as much as she walks.
Lan Zing is also carrying a glass jar.
She and the woman exchange jars.
There is great love between them. I can feel it.
Lan Zing turns and heads back in to the bakery. She holds
up the jar as she passes
Starter.
Borns responds The gift that keeps on giving.
Bread is its own kind of language.
We sit back down.
You grew up on Mil Mer?
At some point we should probably get back to work. But
not yet.
Yes. I did. My father built my mother and I our own
hut. And then when I was five I got my own hut.
Your own hut?
Yes. On the side of a volcano.
With no one around?
Oh my it was quiet. So quiet.
Was it just you and your family?
Yes. No one else for miles. Five days walk to the nearest
humans.
What about school?
My mother taught me in the morning, and then in the
afternoon I did rounds with my father.
Was it dangerous?
Oh yes, I have been attacked by little chunks of flying lava
more times than I can count.
What about wild animals?
I had a pet jaguar for a while. His name was Willie. But
goodness, he was a windy one-he stunk up my hut.
You had a gassy pet jaguar named Willie that slept in your
room?
My room? In my bed!
It sounds exciting.
Borns strokes his beard some more.
Yes, once in a while. But it was so quiet. And so lonely.
And we were always on edge.
Because of the volcanoes?
That. And the chance that someone from the CHAIRS
would come through and see that my dad had his family
with him. I picked up from an early age that it was not
good for me to be around.
That sounds terrible.
That’s the best I can do. Tell him it sounds terrible. I
shouldn’t have said anything.
My dad built a secret compartment in the floor of my hut. I
filled it with books he got me when he travelled. That way
if I ever had to hide for a while I’d have something to do.
And that was your childhood-
That was my childhood. I was so lonely. Have I already
said that? My dad built my mom a hut. Her own hut. So
that they wouldn’t have to be together. Do you
understand? The only two other people in my world
couldn’t stand each other. That’s why I made the vow.
A vow?
I decided that one day I would have a big family and it
would be loud!!!
He wiggles his fingers with their red nail polish and does a
little dance sitting there next to me.
I even made up a ceremony to mark the occasion. I took
large cooled lava rocks and I stacked them in a circle up on
a high plane above our huts. It took me nine days. I imagined each pile as one of my children and THEN I
MADE A LADY PILE.
He sings these two words LADY PILE in a high falsetto as
he stands up and pretends to hold someone close to him.
I stood among those stones and I stretched out my hands
and asked to be surrounded by LOVE for the rest of my
life!
His reenactment works for me-I can picture it.
WHO did you ask for this?
I think I’m missing the point here, but I want to know.
Who did I ask? Heen you have the most unusual
questions! Who did I ask-MYSELF? THE VOLCANO? MY
HEART? WHOEVER or WHATEVER is responsible for
such things? He pauses. What do you think of that
answer?
I think a thousand things. Few of them coherent.
It’s a very odd and wonderful answer that is hard for me to
understand-
I stop.
Voices waft out the door of the bakery.
Kids’ voices.
Lots of them.
Ziga Mey sticks her head out the back door and shouts
BORNS!!!!
He looks at me, his face glowing.
AS IF ON CUE!!!!
And then he turns and runs inside the bakery.
I follow him in as he is attacked by a swarm of blonde
children. They climb on him, they pull his hair, they hang
from his arms.
They are large-boned and their cheeks are red and they
are chattering and singing and running in every direction.
Borns turns to me and smiles like he’s going to
spontaneously combust as he proclaims
MY PILES OF ROCKS CAME TO LIFE!!!
A woman enters. She’s wearing a white Mu-mu with large
red flowers all over it. She’s got a baby in a pouch and a
straw hat on her head. There is something powerful about
her, like it’s her world and the rest of us are visiting.
Peeble.
I just know it.
She walks up to Borns and kisses him and then slaps his
ass-I have never seen anyone do this to anyone in public.
She turns to me.
Heen, right? Borns has told me about you. He tells me you two have traveled across the ages together…
She pauses, rolls her eyes, and then says
He tells everyone that.
She has the gravitational pull of a small planet. I melt.
I wondered about that…
I want her to know I’m in on the joke.
Her face turns serious.
Although Borns…he doesn’t lie. Ever. So you know it’s
true.
*
I tap the white disc.
Like I do every day.
The same white disc Vo gave me all those laps ago.
Yeah, Heen.
That voice. Randy. Ready to go.
I have tapped this disc thousands of times and Randy has
answered immediately every single time.
I once asked him Do you sleep?
He answered Sorry, Heen.
That threw me.
Sorry for what?
Can’t give you any of that. Them is the rules.
He says that line THEM IS THE RULES with extra twang,
like he’s impersonating someone.
You can’t tell me if you sleep?
Right. I’m here to take your report. It’s nothing personal.
Got it. It’s literally nothing personal.
Yep. Just your report.
That was the conversation.
All those thousands of reports, all those hours of talking, and I know nothing about him. My job is to notice, and his job is to listen to what I notice.
Is his real name even Randy?
Is he impersonating a Randy when he listens to my
reports?
My job is to pretend, is his as well?
I can’t get to him, can’t pierce the pretense. Can’t get to
the person behind THE RANDY.
Is this how I am for everyone I meet?
I begin my report. Openness.
Is that even a word?
Excuse me? Randy hesitates.
Open. Free. These people. Here on Firdus. They talk about
anything. And everything. Casually. Love. Sex. Flags.
Babies. Dead parents-who help them run their business.
They get personal the first time they meet you-
Randy stops me. Heen, is this your report? Because I can’t do anything with this…
A split second of silence.
This is new for Randy and me.
This…glitch.
What is happening with me, going on like that? Rambling.
My reports are always crisp. Factual. Precise.
I recover.
My apologies, wandered a bit there. Won’t happen again.
First up, school jackets. Passed 126 students today
wearing their regulation school jackets. 112 had taken
them off and slung them through the straps of their bags.
Because of temperature, humidity, low wind, observations
indicate the material of the jackets is too thick. I did
several walks in lighter grade merino, cotton twill, and
canvas-cotton was optimal…
Excellent.
Back on track.
I give him the rest of my report.
*
I finish the page.
I read it again.
And then I read it again.
I put the book down.
I pick it back up and read the page again.
I don’t know what to do with this story. This woman Devra
is standing in a row boat in an ocean. She’s trying to row
this boat across this ocean with her man who very early in
the journey decides that this sort of thing just isn’t for him.
He calls for a rescue ship and when it arrives he gets off
the row boat and onto the rescue ship. And now it’s time
for her to get off the row boat and on to the rescue ship
that will tow their row boat back to shore.
But she doesn’t.
She sits back down.
And starts rowing.
Away from the rescue ship.
Towards the other side of this ocean called the Atlantic.
Alone.
I read the page again.
She rows alone across that ocean.
Who is this woman?
How does she do this?
I do this every evening.
I file my report, make myself dinner, and then read books
about people who did things on Earth that no one had
ever done before.
It’s a strange obsession I have.
Earth.
It’s insignificant and primitive and long ago.
Just one planet.
With only seven continents.
And six mountain ranges.
And five oceans.
And one sun.
And one moon.
So small.
That’s all they knew.
And yet these people, they did things that astound me.
This woman stands there in that row boat, watching her
man board that rescue ship.
And she doesn’t follow him.
She sits back down and keeps rowing.
What is going through her mind?
What is happening in her heart?
How is she able to do this?
Who is this woman?
*
I walk to work in the dark.
It’s always dark, all over the galaxy, when you walk to your job in a bakery.
Bobby Freelance is on the bench in the alley. He’s sitting
between a man and a woman who are wearing very nice
clothes for this early in the morning. They are speaking
intensely to each other in hushed tones, their faces
leaning in. Bobby Freelance has his head down, listening intently.
Bobby Freelance stops the man.
He points to the woman, motioning for her to continue.
She does.
The man interrupts her.
Bobby Freelance gives him a death stare.
The man stops talking.
The woman continues.
The man listens to her.
I come in through the back. Lan Zing is standing alone in
the middle of the empty tables where people in a few
hours will be sitting while they eat their bread and drink
their coffee.
Heen, are those tables in the right place?
She points to the three along the wall.
