Authors: Jason Erik Lundberg (editor)
Tags: #Southeast Asian Speculative Fiction
When a list of stops starts scrolling down the card, she almost drops it.
The surprise turns into fascination, as stops on the schematic blink in concert with the names. And then a familiar string of letters brings a smile to Carla's borrowed face.
Carla finally knows where to go. She's going to Ortigas. She's going back home.
*
Ortigas gleams in neon lights, despite the afternoon sun.
Carla can hear singing in the distance, vendors shouting their wares, flyers being thrust upon her by people wearing ill-fitting suits, and Carla thinks,
maybe not everything has changed
. And then she sees egg-shaped vehicles zoom and hover at intersections, dirty, mechanical golems bearing the logo of the police casually marching alongside pedestrians, while buildings shimmer symbols and advertising and propaganda. She feels foolish for even momentarily believing that some things have remained constant.
Carla's memories weave in and out of the present, providing outdated, contextual information:
None of the memories that come tell her how to get to her home.
Carla takes a deep breath and cautiously steps onto a tiled pavement. Something appears beside her, and Carla nearly screams.
The hologram starts talking about insurance.
"Thank you for stepping into MetroFil Insurance today. My name is Holly, and for just a few minutes of your time—"
Carla has a vague recollection about holograms. The holograms in her memories were static-ridden, with limited range. She remembers thinking how wonderful the holograms were; how exciting. The hologram in front of her is crisp, leagues away from what she remembers it to be. The image is that of a cheerful young woman, wearing a blouse with a large ornate logo, nearly indistinguishable from a flesh and blood human.
"—we have a host of different benefits to suit your needs—"
For the first time in what seems like ages, Carla laughs. At least she can count on insurance spiels to remain unchanged. Carla suddenly remembers having to memorize one and she thinks to herself,
I must be an insurance agent
which doesn't quite fit and she amends it by telling herself
I must have been an insurance agent in my youth
and that feels more true, so she laughs because she feels she's claimed one more piece of information about herself.
Carla is still in good spirits several meters afterwards, even with Holly the hologram still tailing her, trying to enumerate the benefits of financial protection, when a man offers her tasters of a particular drink.
"Are you real?" she asks the man.
The man laughs, because he sees Holly, and Carla laughs again some more, because it is the first conversation she's had, that she initiated, and though brief, she feels all the more alive for it. Carla tries to think of something else to say as she picks up a cup from his free samples tray and takes a sip.
It's a chocolate drink, mildly cold, somewhat sweet, a little too watery. But as the liquid travels down her throat, it triggers, in the irrational way the Carla's memory seems to trigger, an image of a kitchen, where the fridge door needs to be closed gently, where the tap water is too strong, where tiles don't match the cabinets, because it was too expensive to change the tiles, after the cabinets were replaced, where an oven sits, old but in good condition, a relic passed down from mother-in-law to daughter-in-law.
And then the image explodes into a house, into a street, into series of roads, into a map, startlingly clear in Carla's mind.
Carla drops the cup and tries to run.
*
When she finally arrives at the gatehouse of the small community where her house is, where her kitchen is, where she irrationally believes the oven she inherited still sits, she looks more bedraggled cat than human. She's been scrambling, walking, avoiding swerving hovering cars that she does not recognize, contending with a landscape that has become unfamiliar to her. The coughing fits come more frequently now but somehow, despite her trials or perhaps because of it, the weight of the body has eased.
I am a pebble in an avalanche.
She's hurtling to her end, propelled by an image that becomes more glorious with each labored breath. Memories taunt her, pull at her, urge her forward. The road she walks is the road of her past, the houses that she passes by are the houses she knew, the trees that loom like leafy sentinels are smaller, thinner, younger.
Carla does not even notice the security guard who waves her on—perhaps deciding she's no threat, perhaps recognizing her desperation—she just keeps walking, as quickly as the body that is not hers, that is still dying, that is tired and light and weightless, is able.
This is where I live,
she tells herself.
This is where I will die.
And she tells herself she's happy.
One memory becomes even more prominent, as she walks closer to her home. The memory is of Carla, fixing a tilted, framed picture on the wall, picking up the keys on a side table, locking the door twice. There was a seminar in Manila that she had to attend; it was important for her career. And so she left early in the morning, while Husband and Son were still asleep.
It has taken her a long time to make it back.
The house that is Carla's house, regardless of who thinks they own it, looks remarkably the same. It is a narrow off-white structure, two stories high, gated with red metal. The sameness of it jolts Carla out of her euphoric determination.
I must be remembering it wrong,
Carla thinks, because the off-white is still the same shade of off-white in her memories, and the red, same shade of red, and things don't stay the same, because time is different in Manila, and people, and things, and places change, even if insurance spiels don't.
There is the sound of a door closing; footsteps; someone struggling with iron that needs oiling; then the gate swings open. A gray-haired man stands half turned toward the house.
"We're going to be late!" says the gray-haired man. Someone responds from inside the house, which satisfies him. He turns around.
The impact of seeing him brings Carla to her knees.
There's no reason to expect that he is still here, that he hasn't changed houses, that he hasn't moved on. But he is here. He is different, and yet the same. And he is coming closer and saying, "Are you okay?"
Carla is drowning in memories, gasping for breath. Through the blur of tears she sees his face, lined with age, bearded where it used to be smooth, gray where it used to be dark. But his eyes, the shape of his lips, the size of his ears—it's all him, so him that Carla laughs, then coughs in the attempt.
This is what Carla wants to say:
I remember you.
I don't remember what we last said to each other on the night before the morning of the day I didn't come back. I don't remember if we fought, or if we laughed, or if we said something meaningless but truthful. But I remember that you like your coffee sweet in the morning, your eggs barely cooked and slightly salted; sometimes, you smoke; when you're tired, you snore.
I remember you like running your hands through my hair, and I like running my hands down your back, and we like running our hands on each other a lot. I remember the way your eyes would squint when I'd say something you don't understand, the sharp edge of your voice when you're upset. I remember how you looked the first time you saw our son.
I have to believe that you're happy. Just as I have to believe that our son is alive and happy. I have to believe that you've moved on, and you have to believe me, when I say that this belief brings me happiness.
Now I know that not all things fade. I love you, Joseph.
The body that is not hers cannot comply. Her borrowed lips can barely move; her borrowed voice nearly inexistent. It seems like the more Carla struggles, the more difficult it is to focus. Joseph is saying something; that much she can discern. But the words themselves are lost in a waterfall of memories. Joseph morphs into other Josephs, all of them laughing, as the pasts layer themselves upon each other, obscuring the present:
Carla coughs as the pain in her chest intensifies. In the reflection of his eyes, she can see the body of Natalie, dying all over again. With all her remaining strength, she reaches up to him and whispers, "I'm home."
Love in the Time of Utopia
Zen Cho
Zen Cho (Malaysia/UK) is based in London. Her short stories have appeared in publications in the US, Australia and Malaysia, including
Strange Horizons
,
Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine
, and the
Selangor Times
. She was a finalist in the Selangor Young Talent Awards 2011 and has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. Find out more about her work at zencho.org.
Feisal found out about his heart when he met Xinya. The lesson was unexpected. He met her at work, which was such an unsuitable venue for intimacy.
Like everyone else, Feisal had attended the classes in right thinking and right feeling at school. He knew feelings were creations of the mind. Armed with a proper understanding of their true basis, one could create appropriate feelings where they should exist, and snuff out inappropriate emotions when necessary.
But when it happened, love was like a tsunami, or a bird dropping on the head. It struck him unawares out of the bright blue sky.
*
The small branch of the regional cosmetics business where Feisal worked was only beginning to extend its scope to research. Xinya was the first biologist they hired. She was young, only a couple of years older than Feisal, with a round pleasant face and narrow eyes that gave it a look of friendly cynicism.
Her hair was mostly hidden by a scarf, only a few brown curls escaping to frame her forehead. This confused people, who thought she was a Muslim despite the eyes, until she explained she was a Latter Day Izzahite.
This was accepted without surprise. It was extraordinary how these cults that had sprung up in the wake of the Crisis had become so respectable—though he should not think of them as cults, Feisal reminded himself; that was hardly affable. The new religions were no longer proscribed, as they'd stopped attracting dangerous enthusiasm. These days there were as many indifferent Izzahites as there were half-hearted Catholics and lackadaisical Muslims.
Apart from the minor eccentricity of professing a religion, there was nothing out of the common way about Xinya. It was easy to be affable with her—she didn't push to make space for herself in the conversation, but asked Feisal questions about his work and listened with apparent interest.
Feisal was nominally the company's graphic designer, but he also wrote copy in the national language and in English, produced fervent testimonials from happy customers, managed the advertising budget, organised marketing events, and kept the key to the kitchen cupboards. He felt embarrassed about talking so much about himself, and asked Xinya why she had chosen to be a biologist.
"I liked studying Bio at school," said Xinya. "The university offered me a place to study medicine. But I didn't want to be a doctor."
Feisal had never heard of anyone who'd been good enough to get a place on the ferociously competitive medical course and yet rejected it. "Why not?"
"I like cells better than people," said Xinya. This was not strictly affable but she made it sound as if it was, her voice was so full of suppressed laughter.
It was only after Feisal fell in love with this hidden laughter that he noticed Xinya's dimples, the soft velvety down on her cheeks, the way her eyes got lost in sweet curves when she smiled. It was only after he was in love that he saw Xinya was beautiful. By then it was too late.
*
Feisal decided to confide in his sister. Muna was no more a
bangsawan
than he was, having failed the state examinations and gone contentedly on to make a living as a hairdresser. Her profession gave her the opportunity to converse and deepen affability with a wide range of people, so she had a better understanding of the world than he did.
"Kak, how ah, if—" Feisal hesitated. "If you want to approach terms of intimacy with somebody?"
Muna was delighted. She showed it by saying in a lecturing tone, "Oh, finally you listen to me? You've met somebody? Why never tell your family?"