One Heartbeat

I have successfully gained entry to Aneti’s apartment. So I don’t forget how to get there, I’m writing the directions here:

From the Progressive Movement office, walk out the door and turn left. It takes fifteen minutes to reach the Blossom Sun Skyrail Terminal, one of the linking places between the Sky and Berry lines (just as a note—their signs may change soon because a resolution was just passed to rename the skyrail lines after famous people and constellations, but these lines have blue and fuchsia color coding respectively). Take Sky to Waterside Plaza—fourth stop—and switch to the Riverside Line. Get off at Nikasa Street six stops later. Here, all of the trees bend and twist around one another like contorted souls and the temples smell not of incense, but of burning cakes and oil. (I remember the smell now. The morning I ran from her apartment, the twisting streets turned me around and around like a doll on a string. A priestess in one of the Lijai Street temples drew a map on paper so I could find my way to the skyrail.) Masija Temple faces the skyrail exit; turn right and go five blocks to Lijai Street. Turn right again.

Aneti lives in a seven-story apartment building halfway down the block on the top floor. The code she punched into the door—which she probably thinks I didn’t see—is 12-11-6-10 in Tveshi base twelve. The building smells like sanitary wipes, burnt bread, and seafood. Her apartment door has a flowering tree painted on it beneath the number in a wild, loping brush style, so colorful that it looks worthy of canyon art.

Her apartment smells like paint and offering cakes. She only let me into the antechamber, but it gave me a feel for her personality. Aneti has painted all of the walls purple, with wall shades down over the built-in video screens. By her sliding bedroom door, she has painted an image of a goddess on the wall above her household altar: a black gesture sketch, nothing respectable by any artistic standards, but still beautiful and real. In the goddess’s hands, she holds ten balls, one for each color of the rainbow. The constellations shine above her head in glow-and-the-dark paint.

Quotations cover most of the other walls walls: song lyrics, verses from sacred texts, and political statements.

Already she dances in the breeze, heartbeat praising her beloved.
The perfect form of divine worship is self-contemplation. When you know who you are, the mask of the world is cast aside and you can acknowledge the source of all of this.
Though individuals may be sacrificed, the forest of humanity still remains.

I whispered many of these things to keep record of them. These three verses stood out among all of the others. The first comes from the end of Impermanence, and the other two are things Sehet Annyi said in her dialogues that we preserved in the Shushei Enaharipui. Other things scattered across the wall troubled me more: The state must be made to kneel. Power lies in the heart of the thousand suns and the fires that consumed Old Menarka. Humanity must recognize its tutelage. Off-worlders hold the keys to our success. Take back the night. I touched the last sentence with my fingertips, leaving my prints on the wall and white paint on my hands. Still wet.

She came out of her room in a casual blue dress and fabric vest. I moved my fingers away from the wall. The fear in her eyes was palpable, but only visible for a split second. Do you like what I’ve done with the apartment? Aneti crossed the room and put her arms around my waist, resting her chin on my shoulder. I finally exhaled.

Where does this all come from?

Aneti smirked and let go of me, reaching across the acrylic paint on the table for her bag. Never ask an artist about her secrets. It’s bad luck. The seriousness in her eyes made me feel cold. When she finally laughed, my tight belly relaxed and I turned to leave the apartment with her. She grabbed my hair and gyena in her strong right hand and held me like that until her lips touched mine and the world exploded into happy, perfect feelings in my head. I pulled away from her and opened the apartment door.

I do not regret eating Malzō cuisine with her in that small basement restaurant in the Reclaimed Zone, nor do I regret taking her to one of the Narahji dance halls that evening instead of a holographic garden, but I do regret one thing.

Aneti’s spare key rested demurely on her table, just barely visible beneath the bright paints she used to create the private universe of her small apartment. I regret that I did not take it.