feng_shui_house

My personal comm flickers, silently accepting the incoming message before the other comms in the residence get the signal. I don't normally bother to answer them at all, once I verify the caller is a stranger, but today of all days the anger is too close to the surface and I want... I need to release it. This number has called and been refused a dozen times in the last week. Some ghoul of a newsfeeder, perhaps.

"What do you want?" If my abruptness intimidates the woman on the other end of the line, her cheery reply doesn't show a trace of it.

"Happy Gauda Prime Day!" she chirps and I wish, more than ever, for the ability to fly through the ether and wipe the smile off her fatuous face. I have my end of the comm set for sound only, but she has no sense of security, allowing not only her unfiltered voice, undisguised features, but also her true location to feed through to me. Oh, for Liberator's neutron blasters.

"I repeat, what do you want?" Perhaps something of my tone arouses a faint survival instinct as she looks away from me. No, I'm mistaken, she's merely looking for her script.

"On this occasion, we remember those who gave their all to create the New Freedom. A small donation ..."

My patience, never a long rope, has reached the end. "You aren't looking for me. You want Blake. He was always the bleeding heart, ready to give his all for the Cause. Well, he'd given the last of it, thirty years ago. Do you hear?" I am still controlled enough not to raise the volume of my voice. "Remove this number from your calling list."

"Oh, of course, sir. I'm sorry." She doesn't sound it, doesn't sound as if she has any idea what bringing up Gauda Prime does to me. Happy. My god. Happy indeed. There will be parades and brass bands and children eating sticky sweets, while hawkers sell tawdry commemoratives with Blake's face, inexpensive shirts with three bloody holes across the belly... The comm unit smashes against the wall, shattering nearly as loud as a shot.

I stare at the mess, the strewn bits of a rather expensive bit of domestic technology, for several minutes. I should clean it up. It's early and I'm barefoot. Would be stupid to cut myself. To bleed on the floor. Blood on the floor is the worst mess of all. You can never get the stain out. All it takes is the right light to show it up again.

It's early. Remember that. It's not too late, it's early. I get the cleaning materials and remove the debris, salvaging the memory chip for reuse. So long as memory lasts, the outer shell is unimportant. I put everything away and return to the bedroom to dress. I meet my eyes in the mirror. I can still do that. It isn't easy, but it's necessary. Then I turn to the bed, to face the memory of Blake as he was. We had been fire and ice, although we could never decide which of us was which. Mutually destructive, but oh, the meeting was so spectacular. Until the last meeting, after that... well, smoke and water. A mess. A wasted mess.

And then Blake opens his eyes and smiles at me. His eyes are the same, clear and honey-tinted, amusement crinkling the corners. "Good morning," he says, lifting a hand to rumple through his snow-colored curls. Then he reaches for the exo-legs beside the bed and slips them onto his thin legs with the ease of long practice. "What's for breakfast?"

"Whatever you like," I say. "After all, today is..." The words stick in my throat.

Blake frowns. "Avon." He strides over to me, moving as smoothly, as strongly, as any man his age. They're very good legs. The best I could buy and then improve. The patent helps pay for our home. He puts his arms around my shoulders and kisses me. "Avon. It's today. That's what day it is. Today. Make me an omelette. I love your omelettes."

I don't cry. Of course not. I never do. But Blake likes onion in his omelette. Watering eyes is purely a bio-chemical reaction. No one could avoid it, no matter what day it was.