going on about? Can you spare any change, or not?”
I wondered what a cheerful, giggling, stupid stinguish wanted with money. “Why aren’t you with your mirth?”
“I don’t have the time for this. I have to go and buy more things. Look at it all,” she said, distraught. She turned her face left and right taking in the vast market. She was desperate to be out there, beach-combing among the stalls.
“Listen. There’s a stinguish representative in Epsilon’s court. I can introduce you to her if you’re lost. She’s called Far-Distant. I’ll-”
“I’m not called that anymore. My name is Summer-Sale.”
“Far-Distant? Is it you? You’ve grown very thin! Don’t you remember me?”
She bubbled distractedly. “All the things on the stalls look really pretty and exotic when they’re arranged together, but if I buy one and take it away, it’s not the same. It seems to turn into tacky crap. I just want them all. I spent all my money on clothes, slime and jewelry, and now I’ve no money left. Please…I’m missing the music and the lights, and the stall holders talk so friendly.”
Far-Distant had evidently become a Constant Shopper. “No, my sister. I won’t give you anything. No one you meet in the market will be as friendly as your mirth. I think you should go back to them.”
The stinguish started wailing. I understood why, because I know the torment of addiction, and the effects of all addictions feel similar. Far-Distant would have to do withdrawal from shopping, and whatever world she must return to will seem very cold and unforgiving. I stroked her head but hundreds of tiny circular transparent scales rubbed off and stuck to my hand. Her mackerel skin shone.
She tried to shake me by my ankle. “I need money; I’m so unhappy.”
“There’s much to be happy about. If it had seasons, the ocean would be beautiful at this time of year.”
She looked for a way to escape me. “I’d rather go hungry than trouble you further…”
“No! Come back! OK, I’ll give you some cash,” I said soothingly. “You’re just a bit lost. Why not call for your mirth, they’ll help you.”
“You don’t understand,” she said bitterly. “All stinguish are lost and they always have been. All of us! We don’t belong here. Insects keep destroying our homes.”
“You mean Epsilon isn’t your home?”
“No. Up there.” Far-Distant dragged her arm out of the water and pointed vaguely away from the sea, across the open grassland.
“In the sky?”
“No, silly. Vista.”
Vista’s pale wasteland seemed to focus as I stared at it. For all its immense size, it looked weightless, part of the air. “I know that the Insects bored through from Vista to Epsilon so thoroughly that Vista slipped down the path they made.”
“All the sea fell into the Somatopolis,” said Far-Distant. “And the water carried us through, too. Ha! Not us exactly; our ancestors-it happened a million tides ago. But Insects ate the Somatopolis so we swam on again, and we ended up here. We’re very lucky to survive; the sea kraits and so on all became extinct. Everyone who was too big to fit down the waterspout died, left high and dry. The bad old snakes squirmed around in the ooze, too heavy to support their own weight in the air, and they were crushed. The ones trapped in pools starved when the food ran out. All of us stinguish rejoiced. The kraits used to eat us, but we escaped and they didn’t, ha ha. But that’s why stinguish are very lost. No wonder I feel lonely and have to go shopping to cheer myself up…Now can I have some change?”
“Well, all right.” I dug in my pocket for coins. “But tell me first; it’s just a myth, isn’t it, that stinguish can chat underwater?”
“We can! For two thousand kilometers.”
I shook my head. “I hardly believe it. I’m a messenger and if it was possible to shout that far I’d be redundant. But I’m not worried by those tales; I know water’s thicker than air and probably just muffles the sound.”
“It’s true!” she said indignantly.
I shrugged.
“Look! It’s true! Watch!” She ducked under and gave out her signature laugh. Bubbles rose from her gaping mouth and burst, releasing her wonderful inflective giggles. “Ha ha ha ha!” the bubbles chuckled. “Ha! ha!”
She listened for a second, then surfaced, blowing out spray. “I called ‘Hi.’ The littoral mirth is passing it on.”
Stinguish began to swim in from all directions. They all looked the same but different sizes. Naked and grinning they wriggled between the market stalls or glided effortlessly above them. Their tadpolelike tails waved in sinuous ripples, their long arms trailed, heads raised, watching the surface tension. Their swimming reminded me of flying; the grace of both belies the strength it takes. I appreciated their sturdiness, but I didn’t envy them the cold water.
The first stinguish thrust his hands against the estuary bed and burst upward, in a shower of spray. He gave a smile so wide I thought he would drink the ocean. “Far-Distant! I haven’t seen you for tides and tides.”
“Way-Farer!” shouted Far-Distant.
He batted her with his tail. “Have you recovered from your latest spending spree?”
“I think so,” she said uncertainly.
“Ho ho! So come back to us! We won’t lose you again, Far-Distant. We’ll surf the warm current over the reefs while fish shoals scatter before us. We’ll echo the sonar laughter rising from the benthic mirth five hundred fathoms down!”
Her mirth all broke surface at once; a hundred rounded backs rolled on the wave. The sea was silver with their bodies; chuckles and gasps wet the air. They surrounded Far-Distant, guffawing and tittering. Their round heads bobbed up, some leapt from the water and somersaulted back, flicking their gleaming tails. The nearest ones beached themselves on the pebbles, propped up on their spindly arms. They pointed at me in my “Club 18- ?” T-shirt and black wings, and collapsed in helpless belly laughter.
Far-Distant looked up at me. “It’s my mirth. Mine! They want me back. Thanks for your help; I’ll always remember. Um? Bye!”
“Wait!” I called. “I want to know about the sea kraits. If they’re extinct, how can Tarragon save them?”
“Tarragon?” cried Way-Farer. “Where? A shark! A shark!” He submersed and laughed an alarm call through the water.
“A shark?”
“Worse-a megalodon! Swim for your lives!”
Their heads bobbed down and their fleshy tails fluked up. Bubbles trickled between them. They whipped the sea into froth which the next wave brought ashore. The tight crowd of stinguish glided toward deep water, vanishing into the gloom. I shouted, “Far-Distant! Come back, you annoying amphibian!” But her mirth had gone, leaving just the occasional giggle swept back on the wind.
I felt the unusual warm glow of having done something right. I lingered and observed the aquatic commerce in the soaked souk. Far-Distant was an addict, and I managed to help her; maybe there was some hope for me. I couldn’t tell if her cure was temporary, or what strains drove a carefree stinguish to class-A shopping. For me, it was my past, and now Tern’s infidelity was eating me alive. But every Shift I start to die, and that’s the trip. I wished that someone in the Fourlands would save me the way I have saved Far-Distant. I needed someone strong and forthright to barge in and force me to stop.
The attraction to my body began to drag me back. I concentrated and redoubled the rate at which the vivid marketplace faded to gray. To black.
TO BLACK. t o b l a c k tob l a c k o b l a c o b l a b l a l a a w a s e was f g e was fu n g e was f u l i n g e was f u l l r i n g e was full y r i n g e was full s y r i n g e was full s y r i n g e was full of blood. the syringe was full of blood.
Blood was trickling out of the back of the barrel. It had soaked into the sheet and mattress in a patch around my elbow. The syringe looked like a red glass feather growing out of place on my arm. Fuck it. I sat up and wiped at a warm trickle that had been running out of my nose and horizontally across my cheek. I stared at my hand-it was smeared with red.
