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By Root 2187 0

nine m-years, named Melka. She was the best flier Zo had ever seen. When she was in the air leading them it was as if an angel had come into their midst, darting through them like a raptor through doves, at other times leading them through the tight maneuvers that made flocking such fun. And so Zo worked through the days at her co-op’s local partner, and flew every day after her work stint was over. And her heart was always soaring, pleased by one thing after another. Once she even called Ann Clayborne, to try to tell her about flying, about what it really meant; but the old one had nearly forgotten who she was, and did not appear interested even when Zo managed to make it clear when and how they had met.

That afternoon she flew with an ache inside. The past was a dead letter, sure; but that people could become such ghosts. . . .

Nothing for such a feeling but sun and salt air, the everchanging spill of sea foam, rising and falling against the cliffs. There was Melka, diving; Zo chased her, feeling a sudden rush of affection for such a beautiful spirit. But then Melka saw her and tipped away, and clipped the highest rock of a seastack with the end of one wing, and tumbled down like a shot bird. Shocked at the sight of the accident, Zo pulled her wings in and began dolphin-kicking downward next to the seastack, until she was plummeting in a powerful stoop; she caught up the tumbling girl in her arms, she flapped one wing just over the blue waves, while Melka struggled under her; then she saw that they were going to have to swim.

Part Twelve

It Goes So Fast

Prologue

They walked down to the low bluffs overlooking the Florentine. It was night, the air still and cool, the stars bunched overhead in their thousands. They strode side by side on the bluff trail, looking down at the beaches below. The black water was smooth, pricked everywhere by reflected starlight, and the long smeared line reflecting Pseudophobos setting in the east, leading the eye to the dim black mass of land across the bay.

I’m worried, yes, very worried. In fact I’m scared.

Why?

It’s Maya. Her mind. Her mental problems. Her emotional problems. They’re getting worse.

What are the symptoms?

The same, only worse. She can’t sleep at night. She hates the way she looks, sometimes. She’s still in her manic-depressive cycle, but it’s changing somehow, I don’t know how to characterize it. As if she can’t always remember where in the cycle she is. Bouncing around in it. She forgets things, a lot of things.

We all do.

I know. But Maya is forgetting things that I would have said were essentially Mayan. She doesn’t seem to care. That’s the worst part; she doesn’t seem to care.

I find that hard to imagine.

Me too. Maybe it’s just the depressive part of her mood cycle, now predominating. But there are days when she loses all affect.

What you call jamais vu?

No, not exactly. She has those incidents too, mind you. Like a certain kind of prestroke symptom. I know, I know— I told you, I’m scared. But I don’t know what this is, not really. She has jamais vus that are like a prestroke symptom. She has presque vus, where she feels almost on the edge of a revelation that never comes. That often happens to people in pre-epileptic auras.

I have feelings like that myself.

Yes, I suppose we all do. Sometimes it seems like things will come clear, and then the feeling goes away. Yes. But for Maya these are very intense, as in everything.

Better than the loss of affect.

Oh yes. I agree. Presque vu is not so bad. It’s déjà vu that is the worst, and she has periods of continuous déjà vu that can last up to a week. Those are devastating to her. They rob the world of something she can’t live without.

Contingency. Free will.

Perhaps. But the net effect of all these symptoms is to drive her into a state of apathy. Almost catatonia. Tried to avoid any of the abnormal states by not feeling too much. Not feeling at all.

They say one of the common issei ailments is falling into a funk.

Yes, I’ve been reading about that. Loss of affectual function, anomie, apathy.