Brave New Worlds

Everyone knows I am different, though. They can tell.

Jamin and Zel stroll through the corridor of the apartment building where we all live. I can tell it's them coming because I leave my door cracked open to show everyone I have nothing to hide. Zel's distant voice caroms off the walls, fluctuating in pitch with the peaks and rhythms of the stories he tells; Jamin's subdued, distinctive laugh barks out at regular intervals. For thirty or forty seconds before they arrive, I hear their approach, and dread it. They are my best friends.

I sit in the exact center of the cerulean blue sofa, arms resting on its bell-shaped back, palms damp against the silky fabric. The voice of Noh Sis, last year's most popular singer, warbles from the stereo speakers, making a dirge of joy amid the interweaving of sitar and clarinets. Closing my eyes, I count the notes and half-notes by measure, now the sorrowful tone in the end-rhyme of love, Zel's exclamation, a series of mournful sitar chords, Jamin's laugh.

And the tap at the door.

I lift my head as if surprised to see them, smile as if happy. 'Hey!'

Zel throws wide his arms in an extravagant gesture of greeting, and says with dead seriousness, 'Arise! Arise like the evening star and brighten the way into night for us!'

Jamin grins, nods at me. 'Hello. '

They are both tall, and handsome, and completely at ease in themselves. Jamin is balding, so he shaves his head; he has quiet, wolfish features, and always wears plain, businesslike clothes, immaculately tailored and pressed. Zel is the shaggy, adorable puppy, all awkward limbs and endless energy.

I wipe my hands on my thighs, arise, and embrace them in turn with only a dry quick kiss on the cheek. 'Where are you going?'

'We,' Zel exclaims, 'we, for surely you are joining us — we won't have a speck of fun without you!'

Jamin grins — he always grins — and says, 'Heart Nouveau. '

Heart Nouveau is our club. We've been hanging out there since it opened, just around the time that we were finishing school. All our friends go there. It's the kind of place so packed and dark you can't see any decor beyond the dance floor.

'Not tonight,' I answer. 'Work exhausted me today. '

My work itself is not hard, but while I'm working my soul dances like a dervish until I think I will collapse.

Zel immediately begins pleading, making dance gyrations, beckoning me to join, but Jamin, with his hands folded at his waist in front of him, says quietly, 'thinking about marrying this weekend, are you?'

'Ah—'

Zel's eyes widen at this revelation and he ceases the call to fun. The two of them are a happy couple. They know that I am different from them and do their best to fit me into their view of the world, and the way it works.

'— been thinking about it,' I admit.

'Pshaw! Don't think about it, just do it!' says Zel as Jamin backs out the doorway, whispering to me, 'I'll call you tomorrow. '

Their voices resume their previous pattern as they continue their journey down the corridor toward the stairs. Pushing the door closed, I let my face lean against it, eyes shut for a moment, while I twist the lock. Then I go and fall onto the sofa, lifting my head only long enough to replay the previous song at a higher volume. The chorus opens the song: 'I want to set myself on fire and plunge into the oceans of your love. '

My face presses against the water blue color of the pillows, trying to drown in them. 'that's it — I'm only nervous about marrying this weekend,' I lie aloud to myself.

It's natural to be nervous about it the first time. I'll just do it, like Zel says, and then everything will be better.

You would think, as much as I practice lying to myself, I'd be better at it by now.

In the morning, I swath myself in my work robes — cheery layers of nectarine and lemon fabric, sherbet smooth. Covering my head and face, I walk down to the street and catch the bus into the city. The road bridges a green river of trees and grass that divides one quarter of the city from another. Through the bus's window I watch the women emerging from their apartment blocks and little homes.

When the bus reaches the corner, they climb onboard, taking seats on their side and evening out the ride so it doesn't feel so much like we'll tip over. We rattle along past road construction, the men working behind screens so their presence out of robes won't disturb weaker minds. The sun already pelts down mercilessly and they will have to leave off working soon.

We arrive at the Children's Center, a long concrete brick of a building with windows shielded from the sun by an open grid of deep squares made of the same material. The morning light turns it into a chessboard of glaring white and dark shadow. I don't even work with the children, who are on the lower floors and the sheltered playground of the courtyard, but toil away with records on the upper floors. Unlike Jamin or Zel, the job permits me to work alongside women, but only because I completed my theological studies and am a candidate for the priesthood. My superiors do not know of the taint on my soul. Do not know yet, I should say, for if they discover it I will never be ordained or promoted to an position in the lower floors.

Today I am verifying and recording the DNA strands of a recent set of births. My cubicle sits closer to the outer windows (and their view only of the rigid cement grid) than the inner, but is blocked from the light of either. Nevertheless, I jump immediately when the slightest shadow passes by. Looking up I see her — I see Ali.

Ah, Ali! Ali, my all, my everything, the eye of the hurricane that is my heart! Ali, that ails me! Ali, who alone can heal me! Ali, Ai!

This is silliness, of course; yet it is how I feel.

She stops and stares at the floor.

'What are you looking for?' I ask.

She turns her head this way and that. 'the button I accidentally stepped on that gave you that electric shock. '

Ali is wearing coffee colored robes, cream and roasted bean, the same as many of the other women in her department, and as she is a perfectly average height, with her head and almost all her face covered, I am still puzzling out how I always recognize at once it's her, whether there's something specific in her posture or gestures or presence that makes me know her instantly.

So I say, 'Huh?'

And her head lifts up so that her eyes turn toward me, glinting with amusement. I would recognize those stormy, sea-grey eyes anywhere. 'You are mocking me!'

She shakes her head. 'It's very difficult not to. '

I blush, the heat rising through my face to my forehead.

She chuckles, and then walks to another cubicle several spaces over where she speaks to one of our sister workers about a particular child whose progress they are following.

How can I describe her effect on me? In a single second, I suffer pangs and longings which have no name, an overwhelming need to peel away the layers of her robes like shells off a bean and root through her flesh until I find the hard nut, the seed core, of my perverse, unnatural desire.

When I was studying theogenetics in preparation for the priesthood we were taught that everything in the world was black and white, right or wrong, and I learned to give all the answers I was expected to provide.

All I have ever seen of Ali are her eyes. The white of her eyes and the black pupil are just like everyone else's. But that cloudy, wave-tossed grey is wholly hers!

And all my world is grey now too, as if something swirling deep within me since the moment of my conception has finally taken shape, the way clouds form when wind swirls in a clear sky.

The things I know are wrong feel right deep within my heart, and every right thing I do feels wrong.

Jamin calls me at work later that day, just as he had promised he would, his voice warm and resonant as always.

'I hope you don't mind,' he says, 'but I've arranged for you to join me and a friend for dinner tonight. '

'Sounds great — will Zel be joining us?'

'No. Just us. '