One Heartbeat

Forgive me … but are those tears in your eyes? Adviser Sari spoke formal Tveshi to me, not unusual in daylight. His state robes looked slightly frumpy and big on him, a peculiarity that no doubt had enticed many women. Mësahelepui. Or … podhæ makhutsan hos i tsorgan sehìntol. Is that still current? He placed the newspaper pouch on the grass.

You are an unabashed flirt, I replied, wiping the tears from my face. I closed my bag and got to my feet, making a certain traditional hand gesture, but that only made him laugh and come in closer.

Adviser Sari stopped when our bodies were almost touching. He reached down to untwist my index and middle finger; once he did so, he slipped my joined thumb and ring finger apart. Sehet Annyi performed that very action in the Shushei Enaharipui when she tamed Orobi.

Adviser Sari, though, leaned close until I could feel his breath against my ear: Omàhì kul yihrayal ku yozveis ksavùla bas mos rur i bàkelesal. Op tsur ron noñila. A man is standing between the trees with a gun. It’s pointing at you. He raised his hands to my face. Don’t turn around. He hasn’t finished sighting you yet. Look at me.

I couldn’t move. Sehutannyi must have sent him after me.

Put your arm around me. There is a crowd of people passing between us and him. We will move among them. Make sure you stay on my right. Smoothly, he moved his arm down to my side. I whirled to his other side. Stop shaking. He’ll know.

The group that walked between us and the trees consisted mostly of schoolgirls in red-trimmed uniforms, carrying their lunch boxes and textbooks to the waterside during their off period. They had reached that awkward age near the end of their education—too young for most people to take them seriously and too old for childhood games. Of those ten or eleven girls, statistically speaking, two of them would have gone into public office. One of them would have applied to a courtesan school, but she only had an 18% chance of admittance. One of them would shave her head and become a doctor, one would enter the clergy, and the rest would spend their lives serving others in various capacities.

One of the girls looked like me at that age, hair undreaded and unkempt to balance the smooth crispness of her uniform. She had a way of looking at the world around her, prioritizing things and identifying them as class struggles, culture wars, and foreign influence.

Yet a strange
                                                                        expression
                                traveled
                                                    over her face.
Her left hand
                                                gripped the space
                                                                                between her breasts
                        and came away red.

People were screaming. Adviser Sari shoved me to the ground and lay on top of me. The gunshots sounded distant—surreal. We locked eyes for a moment and he got to his feet. He grabbed the girl’s corpse and used it to shield himself as he approached the gunman. The man dropped the gun and took off running. Adviser Sari dropped the girl.

Sirens wailed in the distance. I crawled to one of the girls and watched the blood bubble from her mouth. One of the bullets had caught her in the lung, but she wouldn’t die … she just remained there, moaning and making rasping noises. I tore the gyena from my head and tried to hold it over the wound.

When I looked up, I saw the sniper walk out in front of a commuter pod. It hit him in the midsection and pulled him down onto the rails. It bounced him among the wheels. His head rolled out and onto the sidewalk.

Adviser Sari stopped and looked down at the head. He kicked it back into the street.

The girl with the punctured lung gasped in a final breath and went silent. I leaned back until my head hit the wet grass. The blue sky filled my vision like a lover, pure and silent like the High Wilds. To think that a thin shield of atmosphere was our only protection from the vastness. To think that at any moment, the world could take our breath away. Our parents don’t tell us about death and pain when we’re young. They seduce us with books and dances, religion and plump fruit, and wonder-concealing cities. Perhaps they should. Perhaps Impermanence would have ended differently had Kakedi known all of the suffering life would give her before the god of winds vitrified her soul.

Already she dances in the breeze, I murmured, heartbeat praising her beloved. Akačehennyi waltzes in her eyes.