Dear Reader,
According to one of the best rejection letters I've ever received, this story "almost, but not quite" made it into Clarkesworld.
Enjoy!
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The
B(o)neyard
:: geo-pt:
Hyperiax (moon - Sentinel VI, Sentinel Alpha Solar System):
:: geo-pt: Colony
65 - Sectoral Commonwealth, Triangulum Galaxy :
::chronometric
index::ΔΨ/19:11:09/Θ/CƝP::21d/12m/42659(üCpé)::
[
[ - - 11.5 Local Years After the
Fall of the Plastic Kingdom - - ] ]
B(O)NES:
We
all lived in the B(o)neyard Entr(o)pia,
on a moon called Hyperiax, where the houses were
made of orox b(o)ne with orox hides tanned and stretched
over the chalky-white frames to keep out the Greyrain.
The
orox were the only large mammals left around here, except for us. I guess we’re
large mammals too, only we don’t think of ourselves that way. We don’t think
we’re animals most of the time. But we are.
The
orox grazed on the fields of frozen algae to the north of Hot Springs Valley, where
we built the houses of b(o)ne.
We
hunted them with spears we made from old electrical poles. But only when we
needed fresh b(o)ne and hides. Otherwise, we left the
beasts alone.
The
Temple was made of b(o)ne, too, but it was
different, it was human b(o)ne.
And
only the vertebrae and skulls, because the truly devout whose bodies made up
its architecture had their limbs severed in the old days and were waited on by
servants born to the Temple.
[ [
- - back in the old days it was considered normal that some serve others, but
now we serve only ourselves- no one is permitted to live full-time under the Temple’s
roof, or to be servants - - ] ]
It
was hard to move around in those days. Not much energetic difference from point
to point. So we didn’t get out much. It wasn’t really movement, not
mechanically. We grew in different directions, like mold. We just sorta spread
out.
It
was cold. (Cold).
All
the time. (Time.).
MUSIC:
In
the Temple, Borget 83 was playing his b(o)ne-and-sinew
mouthharp, and Selma 62 was playing along on a pair of b(o)ne-and-hide
drums. The music they made was simple and frenetic. It
went on and on, as long as they played, without a sound like it ever had to
end. They invented new names for the instruments they made: skeletubes, beating
skins, xylob(o)nes, tromb(o)nes.
The names made us laugh. And they would sing. They didn’t sing real words, they
just made sounds as if from a more ancient tongue, a secret language whose
meanings and definitions were lost to the time after the Fall of the Plastic
Kingdom.
We
were celebrating the defeat of the Neutron Razers that came from Rigel VII-A
last week. The Tap
had drained them and they were just metal bulk now, lifeless, no energy,
tumbling in orbit. We weren’t interested in weapons. We didn’t want them. They
didn’t mean anything to us. If the Rigelians wanted them back, they could come
and take them. But they wouldn’t, and that was just as well. They were like
metal clouds floating above Hyperiax. They
were harmless, now.
Borget
83 and Selma 62 are young, and they don’t remember much of the way things were
before. They’re happy playing with b(o)nes.
Last
year, M(O)THER found a spool of music
in the F(o)rgotten
Place.
She brought it back for the young ones and we introduced them to music,
and
that was nice because we had music
again. It made the old folx warm to remember how sounds came together to form
melodies and rhythms, how they had a syntax all their own, and it just made
sense when you heard it. You knew what it was, like language. It had been a
long time since anyone thought to have music,
because
when everything started, music
got us killed. The Boots didn’t like it. And even
though the Boots were gone, not having it became
habit, and habit became lifestyle, until M(O)THER
brought it back.
B(O)B didn’t like it, us having music again. It
made him nervous. He thought it was a bad thing that more orox should die when
we did not need houses. But we needed the orox to make music, and we didn’t
feel like arguing with him about it. So, we didn’t invite him to our parties.
BOOTS:
In
the Beginning
of the End,
there were the Boots.
The
Boots were
angry. Angry all the time. They shouted until their faces were red, and then
they shot off their guns because they couldn’t think what more to say, and
gunshots made more sense to them in their anger than words. The Boots
hated things like modern art and modern music,
and they burned music halls and museums. They
even thought language itself was a necessary evil. They wanted us to be dumb
animals again, because dumb animals are pure, they don’t feel guilt or shame.
So
it’s a nice, rare find, when you can find music
left over from the Burnings.
In
the B(o)neyard
Entr(o)pia, there were no new artists, except for Borget 83 and
Selma 62, and the old folx who played with them on the b(o)ne
sets.
Borget
83 and Selma 62 didn’t remember the Boots,
but the old folx sure did.
The
Boots
were our first test of the Tap.
We turned it on, and their weapons and vehicles were immobilized. We collected
these things from them, destroyed them, and when they resisted, we destroyed
their houses. We made them burn like they made everything else burn, and then
nothing more burned, because there was nothing left. The dishonored and shamed
ones who wished to atone came to live with us in the B(o)neyard
Entr(o)pia.
FUEL:
Every
night in the B(o)neyard we had a party. But we
didn’t invite B(O)B,
because he didn’t like us making music.
We
made potato vodka and ate strips of smoked orox meat from the methane farm. It
was still possible to get things to work if you could get them to run on
methane. Like cars, sometimes. But mostly the ovens and the lights. And the
potato vodka made good fuel too, and didn’t smell as bad as the methane. We
didn’t have any plastic anymore, so we used b(o)ne.
We
carried b(o)ne
knives. These were like Rigelian knives. They were made from the b(o)nes
of our ancestors. They were sharped and ridged, designed to hurt, and useful in
ritual suicide, only no one really did the suicide thing anymore. Mostly we
used the knives to carve the spears from the old electrical poles so we could
hunt orox to make houses.
There
was no reason to die now. We were all dying, anyway, so it would have just been
wasted effort, and in the meantime, we were learning how to be a People
again, and we didn’t need Rigelian drama.
You
could tell when you saw Borget 83 and Selma 62, and the other young ones.
They’re fine with it. They get it. They don’t remember anything else.
They
go scampering through the cane rushes, playing at love, those two, and come
back at orange-dusk with glowing cheeks. They’re happy. It’s us old folx who
are miserable.
ENTR(O)PIA:
Entr(o)pia
is the way we live. We exchange
very
little energy. We save it
for
the young ones, so they can enjoy
their music.
It doesn’t do good to waste movement
on
the old folx.
We’re
miserable, anyway.
So
we save our energy for the young.
B(O)B:
B(O)B follows M(O)THER
to the Forgotten
Place.
He
destroys the things M(O)THER looks
for.
He
doesn’t want humans to have things like art or music
or civilization anymore.
He
wants us to be dumb animals. He says he’s trying to protect us from ourselves.
He
said to us once
“You are better off as dumb animals.
You might not realize it, but you are.
So, play with your b(o)nes.
But leave the stars alone.”
B(O)B followed M(O)THER
to the Forgotten
Place
on a greyish day in early Tuvember. The morning was crisp and golden-cold. The
leaves were crunchy on the ground. There were many shiny things left over from
the days before we were just dumb animals. B(O)B
was good at staying quiet while he moved. M(O)THER
did not notice him. She was looking at the shiny things. She hoped to find
something novel, something that would bring us light and joy in the B(o)neyard.
M(O)THER was like that. She
liked to see us happy. She loved it especially when the young ones made music.
She loved it when B(O)B
got squirrely and reminded us about the Boots.
She would laugh and taunt him. She would say she saw Boots
yesterday,
only no, no, that was just orox.
M(O)THER discovered something shiny on the
ground. She bent over to pick it up. B(O)B
was very fast. He struck with his combat spikes extended, and ripped M(O)THER to shreds. He brought her head back
to the B(o)neyard
Entr(o)pia and dared us to make her dead eyes blink. But none of
us wanted to challenge B(O)B.
He was old and miserable, anyway, and his circuits were degrading. Parts of him
were made of plastic and no one made plastic anymore, and we couldn’t rebuild
him with b(o)ne, even if we wanted. Soon, we would
be on our own. Us dumb animals, and all the ruined, shiny things to rediscover
and make us dangerous again. And it wouldn’t matter to B(O)B then if we and the shiny things made
history repeat itself, like he surely thought we would, being dumb animals. But
it wouldn’t be B(O)B’s
problem. It wasn’t even B(O)B’s
problem now, it was Borget 83’s problem, and it was Selma 62’s problem, and the
other young ones, but B(O)B
didn’t see it that way. So, we waited for B(O)B
to die, and we mourned M(O)THER.
And we counted the ways that plastic was better than b(o)ne,
and mourned that, too. But then, we remembered that b(o)ne
made better music. And we no longer mourned. We sharpened our knives and
decided to hunt an orox.
