Breakable Things, page 9
Different species, you explain. The aircraft twitches and heaves, petulant. A smooth voice rolling over the intercom, apologising for the sudden turbulence. Unfair, the airbus announces, this time with a jolt, even as you settle cross-legged on its worn carpet. Yes, you tell it. Yes, you know. You get it.
To your surprise, it is all it takes: that brief connection. The commercial liner quiets, grumbling, its mutterings indistinguishable from the drone of its engines. You sigh. You pat its hull and wonder what it might have been like for train-priests. You heard the myths. Of how old country gods rode the devout instead of the other way around. Of how their faithful burned from the divine coal fires, their soul lettered with the dreams of the rails.
You decide you have the better deal even if they might have had a better storyteller, a woman named Vernon, who spoke to seeds and children with equal gravitas.
A stewardess veers towards your hiding spot. The airbus distracts her, a light blinking on somewhere distant. As her footsteps fade, the plane speaks again, pressing into you: so where are you going?
You wince at the pressure that seeps in the cup of your skull, the ache that pincers your temples. It is not the leviathan’s fault that you are only human.
Home, you sigh, after you’ve gathered your composure. I suppose I’m going home.
You don’t sound like you anymore, or at least the you that existed before. You don’t act like her either. You are louder, wiser, brasher, harder, entirely unafraid, your edges razored by all the places you’ve lived, your accent a consortium of previous experiences.
You’re lonelier too but you don’t like talking about that part.
And besides, wasn’t that what made the planes open themselves to you?
Home.
The plane wraps itself around the word. It has heard it a million times before, longing decanted into a single syllable, heavy as the first drink after that last goodbye.
This is home, it tells you, threading you in satellite data. Home is flight paths and brief hours in the hangar, a legacy of radio signals, the conversation of pilots. Home is the air, blistering cold, and both the dawn and the dusk, burning gold. Home is here, it insists, with me and mine.
You smile. Yes, you say, but also no. Home is a house in a humid country, steeped in the jabber of relatives, the wet smell of the storm as it crawls through the sky. Home is more complicated than this, you express with an angling of your palm. Familial micropolitics and the taste of five-spice on your tongue and wondering how a year can change so much.
That doesn’t sound like a good home, the plane snips.
You chuckle.
No, you say, but it is a kind of home.
Being their priest is not hard.
Initially, you’d expected some formal papacy, a coven of sunken-eyed businesswomen and gap-year backpackers who now travel forever on the wings of numinosity, all whispering of wind patterns and the augurs of baggage claims. You expected scriptures inscribed in telemetric reports, some fresh compass with which you could steer your life. But there was no formal institution to uncover, no rhythm to this new life. You learn everything on the fly.
Occasionally, you see directives printed on an arrivals board; you catch sight of someone not unlike you: tousle-haired, tired, their voices scrubbed of specific origin.
By and large, however, you are alone in this.
You are not unused to this.
Fortunately, the planes never require much. Most of the time, they only want to talk. Some court dialogue and discourse, full of curiosity for the world they skim. Others prefer that you simply listen.
On a trip to Japan, you argued with your vessel; it despaired of its uncomplicated exterior, wanting desperately to be beautiful, and you said it was beloved regardless. On a flight from Iceland, you said nothing, only made soothing noises as your plane replayed an old woman’s quiet death. I tried, it wept to you.
And you whispered back, finally: I know.
Why go to that home when you have a better one here?
Planes, you’ve learned, are jealous gods. Not wrathful ones, thankfully. Not petty either. But they are contemptuous of anything that takes you away from them, sullen at the idea they might not be enough.
You shrug. It’s different, you tell the airliner.
I don’t understand, it persists, tendrilling into your memories. Out comes a montage of faces, relatives half-remembered, no names at all: Eldest Aunt, Second Eldest Uncle, an entire genealogy in numeric succession. You don’t even like them, the plane adds, sifting through your recollections of micro-aggressions, all those times you sat and clicked your teeth in cold, impotent rage. Why go?
I could take you somewhere else, it purrs, the sound rattling in your ribs. Further than you could imagine. We could visit Paris, if you desire, and we’ll make sure to arrive at the sunset, when The City of Lights sits flushed like a girl at her first soiree. Or maybe Norway to witness aurora borealis? India to visit the Taj Mahal, or even a pilgrimage to Vegas so you might worship at its temples of high-priced bacchanalia?
We could go anywhere, your god whispers. Only stay with me, stay with us, stay.
You counter with a nervous laugh and push onto your feet.
The plane holds its breath.
Somewhere in first class, a baby (you picture the child as blonde, blue-eyed, cheeks chubby from an easy supply of milk) hiccups a cry and stops, mesmerized by the energies pacing the narrow aisles. Somewhere, a stewardess (she is of Mediterranean stock, her curls unruly, lashes thick as midnight) falling in love with an old friend, her fingers warm against the other woman’s brown cheek.
They’re expecting me, you breathe into the quiet.
Flights can be delayed, your god ripostes.
You shake your head. At some point, we all have to go home.
This is home, it insists, plaintive.
I can’t, you sigh. They’re waiting.
A few years ago, you nearly said yes.
It was your last flight from Scandinavia. You did not call it that then. But you understood you were never going back. The plane—a Boeing 777, carbon fibre-enforced and energetic as a colt—crooned sweetly to you, dazzled to carry someone like you.
You’re my first, it confided. Shy as a boy. My first priest.
You blushed.
That was the day you realized that religion isn’t always an ascetic pursuit. You can fall in love with the sutras of never-stopping, always-moving, with the mantra of footsteps on clean white tiles, the electronic voice reciting departures like prayers for the dead. Stay, the plane said, wrapping you in its thrum, the way a man might lay his woolen coat over your shoulders, might kiss your face. Stay with me forever.
I’ll love you until you die. I’ll love you beyond that. I’ll hold your bones in my cargo hold, and your soul in my voice. We’ll never, ever be apart.
And you almost gave in.
You were so very tired of being second-guessed and second best, so heartbroken by neglect, by the idea that to be happy, you’d need to slice strips from your heart. Matrimony was compromises you weren’t sure you were willing to make. But you loved him, the man you left behind. You thought he would be home.
But he wasn’t.
Stay, your plane said so gently.
But you didn’t.
You conjure their faces: mother, sister, brother-by-conscious-selection.
You conjure your ache for them, a pang like a needle worked through the fat of your lips, always dragging you back. The soft give of your sister’s nose when you press down on its tip, your mother’s singing, the exactness of your best friend’s enunciation. A hundred reasons to go home, a thousand tethers.
They hurt you, the aircraft objects.
You crawl back into your seat, silent. Your row-mates sleep propped against each other, the woman’s black hair like an oil-slick spread over her partner’s shoulder. They smell of expensive perfume and cheap wine, a faint sourness. You smile at your reflection in the screen, and she frowns in return, her eyes glowing green.
Hurt is a part of being human, you tell your god.
I’d never hurt you, it sulks.
Yes, you sigh, but that’s not the point.
They don’t deserve you, it hisses.
Perhaps not, you say as you palm your reflection. But that’s not the point either.
The plane sighs and the cabin convulses: so what is?
You think about it for a second.
Love, you declare, is the point.
If you had said yes that day, they would have never let you leave again. You would have spent your whole life in airports and aboard your gods, restricted to the liminality between borders, neither here nor there, no country to your name.
In exchange, they’d have given you everything. They’ve have spoiled you. Every hotel would have a suite registered to your name. Pre-paid, naturally, all incidental expenses included. Every bar would have an open tab waiting for your arrival, every restaurant a table with its finest accoutrements.
You would have grown old on caviar and smoked salmon, wagyu beef cooked precisely to your taste, designer baklava and diamondine confections. Your wardrobe would have been tax-free haute couture. Whenever you require a human diversion, you’d only have to step into the myriad massage parlours, the nail salons, the theatres with the latest productions. The planes, they take care of what is theirs.
But they would have never let you go home again.
And you could not live with that.
Love is everything, you continue.
The words spill like sleet: Love is a migration of billions, all going home. Love is the two-weeks vacation that you can’t afford to take, the sweat-salted claustrophobia of a train packed tight, the sound of footsteps keeping beat with the heart that won’t sleep until it is home, home, home.
Love is foolish, the plane says.
Love is, you agree.
You said no instead.
You said no even though it hurt you both to hear it.
You said no because you weren’t done with the human world and its half-broken things, its yearnings, its small comforts. You couldn’t say goodbye to your mother, her skin growing age-mottled, or your sister, her eyes already bracketed with lines. You couldn’t bear the thought of giving up your best friend.
They are only three, the god had said.
And you had laughed at its answer, your voice a moment’s distance from breaking. Only three, you repeated, as if galaxies could be built on home-cooked food and long nights watching the world through a glazing of sweet smoke.
The plane is silent for the longest time.
You eat a first-class meal despite your economy seating, the stewardess frowning as she doles out chimichurri butter on your plate. You know what she is thinking: a clerical error, certainly. But she gives you what the plane wants. The food is exquisite, the slivers of lobster meat only slightly overdone, the accompanying vegetables beautifully caramelized.
An apology, you wonder as you soak your bread in the dredges of your repast, your eyes skipping up to your reflection. She regards you without interest.
It is only when you’re on the verge of looking away that she mouths the words:
I’m sorry. We only wish to be loved.
You nod.
One day, you tell your gods, you’ll be theirs and theirs alone. When your mother is gone, when your sister is someone else, when your best friend is replete with children, too busy to realize you’re missing, you’ll consecrate yourself to them. One day, but not yet.
A whisper: Will you love us as much as them?
More, you say.
The plane doesn’t ask if you’re lying.
the games we play
The Dog-King is not quite what Yavena expects.
He is physically imposing, of course, military upbringing exposed in the thickness of his musculature, the midnight fur sliced close to his hide.
The other Ovia in Yavena’s court speak of the Dog-King as a monster among Gaks, a fearsome legend. But where Yavena anticipated the flatness of a killer’s regard, there is a penetrating curiosity instead. A scholarliness amplified by his chosen garb—the earthy, flowing raiment of an academic—and the small amber glasses crouched precariously atop his muzzle.
Nothing Hahvak prepared her for.
“Ah.” His voice is warm and younger than the striations of white in his pelt suggest, boyishly pleased. The Dog-King slinks away from a desk piled high with official-looking documentation. “Yavena, was it? We’re charmed.”
Yavena traps fist against open palm, bows almost low enough to tempt accusations of impudence. Beside him, her sponsor—Hahvak, the little Gak with a wailing laugh—crumples into an exaggerated kowtow.
“This one is honored you recognize her face,” declares Yavena, her command of the Gak’s growling, liquid language impeccable. With monarchs, subservience is never inappropriate. “This one begs an audience from the Scourge of Kyonadrila Valley, the Conqueror of the Ten Thousand Colors, the Lord-General of the Gak, the—”
“‘This one’”—a youthful playfulness thrusts through the Dog-King’s voice—“is overwhelmingly polite. We’re amazed that you resisted the temptation to call us the Dog-King. After all, is it not our name among those of the Ten Thousand Colors, our most treasured of vassals?”
Yavena snaps her head up, guilt blooming. Words can be schooled, but thoughts have always enjoyed a rebellious autonomy in her head. “This one would not dare! This one—”
“We would have you address us as peers, Yavena.”
A beat. “My lord.”
“Good enough, we suppose.” A broad hand, caged in iron rings and steel-grey bangles, is flapped delicately.
Yavena unbends but finds herself unable to loosen the knot of tension crushing her lungs. She is disarmed, robbed of equilibrium by the Dog-King’s frictionless affability. She folds her arms behind her, adopts the posture of a soldier at rest. As she does so, she captures the sliver of a smile on the Dog-King’s mien, its meaning impenetrable.
Unbidden, her gaze jumps back to Hahvak next, but she finds no reassurance there, only slyness, a wheedling humor. Yavena stiffens further, elegant in defiance.
“So,” the Dog-King begins as he mounts the steps to his throne. It is an intimidating structure, mythic in proportion, cobbled together from the bones of a thousand devoured Mothers. “What is it that you wish to ask from us, Yavena?”
“This one—” She stumbles, words snagging on ceremony. “I mean, I wish to play a game with you.”
The Dog-King laughs loudly. “Cordial and learned! Trust the Ten Thousand Colors to know the ten thousand desires that lurk in the living heart. Tell us the desire that beats at the core of that most sacred organ.”
The massive Gak monarch slouches onto his seat, elbow propped on an armrest, muzzle cupped in a broad paw. A hush glides over the dignitaries in the audience chamber, tautening muscles and attention. Dark eyes anchor on Yavena. They wait. Watch.
The Ovia inhales thinly, exhales her entreaty in a measured torrent.
“As per custom, I have won all of the Supplicant’s Challenges.” Here pride burgeons for an instant. “I have beaten all your Overseers. I have earned innumerable favors, six guild recruitments, three requests to join a noble’s entourage, and… one slightly drunken marriage proposal.”
Silence. The Gak are barely respiring, their bodies statue-still. Only the Dog-King alters expression, smile broadening. In the background, Hahvak’s slithering giggles. “Small little thing? Carmine fur? Pompadour? Speaks like he swallowed a flute?”
Yavena nods, expression grave.
“Avah has always enjoyed unusual tastes.” A chuckle that spreads like an infection through the courtiers. “We apologize for the interruption. Continue.”
The Ovia swallows her apprehension and resumes as instructed, voice held steady through the application of will. “I wish… I wish to claim my right to challenge you to a game of your design. If I win, return Iraline of the Ten Thousand Colors, Mother of the Dead and beloved brood-sister. If I lose—”
Ventricles strain against the onset of terror. Yavena’s pulse hammers like fists. The audacity of her coming revelation is not lost upon her, and like the wail of a wolf pack, it bleeds her spirit of courage.
“—return Iraline to the Ten Thousand Colors and let me take her place instead. She is soft. I am muscled. Larger, better suited for your banquet hall, my plumage more impressive. I—”
Shocked noises detonate in the hall. In between, a strange, shrill laugh. Hahvak.
The Dog-King maintains his genteel smile. “Correct us if we are mistaken. But do you not belong to the Court of the Living?”
“I do.” It is too late for retreat.
“And does not the duty of feeding the Gak belong to the Court of the Dead?”
“It does.”
The monarch leans forward, eyes hooded, lamplight-gold. “Tell us, then: why would you have us risk political unrest between our kingdoms? Do we not have a treaty? Do my packs not watch the mountains of your nests? Do we not feed you as you feed us? Do we not have a deal?”
Yavena can scarcely breathe. “We do.”
“Then tell us why we should grant you this boon.”
Because of love, Yavena thinks. But what she tells him is, “But you are the greatest mind among the Gak. You would win. I’m sure of it, and you would have stories to tell of my insolence. Is that not worth the infinitesimally small chance of loss?”
“Your confidence in your deliciousness is appreciated.” A slight, slow inclination of the head. The Dog-King shifts in his seat and rests his jaw atop steepled claws.
Yavena spreads her hands and advances a step, no longer willing to divide decorum from desire. After enduring so many trials, so many weeks of combat, has she not earned the liberty of uncensored expression? She is pleading now, openly. “Iraline deserves more years to her life. She is an accomplished artist, a masterful poet, a historian of unparalleled accuracy. I know there is no honor greater for one belonging to the Court of the Dead than to appear on your table, but give her back to me, Lord-General.
