She shakes a sweater from the pile the man left on the floor, where the jeans and underwear he shucked off still retain his shape, as if his body had dematerialized. Kicking off the blankets, the woman rolls carefully from the bed so as not to disturb the dogs and man. A tiny, mournful cry reaches her through the partially opened door, some small furred thing losing its life out beyond the chicken-wire fence and the scrub grass, where the man keeps the piles of lumber that once was the trellis under which they were married.Ī bit of white flashes by in her peripheral vision-a flap of cloth?-then disappears behind the farthest clump of jade plant. It really is beautiful out there, like a scene from Last Year at Marienbad, her favorite film, but enacted with owls, rabbits, voles, and coyotes. She looks out the sliding glass door at the garden in moonlight-they still don’t have curtains. The woman sighs and digs her toes into the fur of the white dog. Nine-point-three years is a long time to be married. It’s the duration that’s the important part here.
The two races live side by side, completely unaware of one another, sucking on the same earth.īut on the night of the fool moon, a special moon that occurs once per decade-or every 9.3 years to be exact-when the moonrise lag is equal to the moonset lag, causing great upheavals of the deep, cold waters of the Pacific Ocean, the slow race can sometimes catch up to the fast race. Though you can never be sure if you’ve actually seen them, or if there’s a smudge on your glasses picking up the light in a funny way. The other race is very, very fast, about as fast as electrons, and when they pass by, they leave a radiant residue. One race is very, very slow they crawl upon the earth like slugs, leaving silvery slime trails wherever they go.
She’s wedged in between them like a crooked tooth.įor about an hour now she’s been thinking about the two races of man. There’s a small brown dog nestled into her armpit. The man lies beside her generating too much heat. She puts on her glasses and sees that it’s 2:55 a.m. Perhaps it’s the full moon, or the fool moon, the kind of moon that keeps you awake thinking stupid thoughts. It’s the middle of the night and the woman can’t sleep. Series: The Tales of Gorlen Vizenfirthe.Series: From the Lost Travelers’ Tour Guide.People of Colo(u)r Destroy Science Fiction!.
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