The Esth King's Lyricist
Kimi K2 (0905) and Davinci 002
The mirror showed my teeth wrong this morning. Not crooked—I've always had crooked teeth—but wrong. Too many, or the wrong shape, or arranged for a mouth that opens differently than mine. I checked three times. Fourth time they looked normal. I'm writing this down so I know I saw it. So I won't forget. As soon as I stop the confusion will be worse, and I won't know what I was thinking when I stopped and thought again.
The pillowcase had toes on it this morning. I know it's my own. I remember weird dreams. But now, my toes. I looked again: five, like some nightmare, including the big one (on the big bony foot) trimmed down to a point. That's what nightmares are. Not as detailed as this, no foam rubber so you can tell the texture. Everything smooth, but curves. Curves and hard angles. Fitting, like edges of ice or metal—steel, I don't know. No, fuck that. The sheet is goddamn wrong.
Dreams, fuck. Nightmare. Not a goddamn nightmare. This is a dream. Something between sleep and waking. Something built up for dreaming.
What's wrong with the firmness of the pillow? Is it too firm? Is it too soft? Like the pillow and blanket combined are a single material. The strangeness is different from the toes or teeth: the strangeness comes from the pillows themselves, not that they're wrong, but that they feel right when they aren't.
And the dress, I checked the mirror again. It feels right. Skirt, blouse, jacket. It's the right colour. But it's all wrong. It's completely wrong. Where are my pockets? I don't have pockets! Why do I need a dress with pockets?! But they're there. It's the dress from the song. “I stepped out into the morning rain/ Brought into being by the fall.” Even the dress is wrong in the way a goddamned goddamn nightmare would be wrong, like how it's possible to remember walking and the sensation of a cool hand on a sweaty forehead—
Seriously.
At least, the keyboard felt right. But I can't type. Singing, no problem. "You strike me, burn me. The iron heart won't fail to/the touch." I said that just now when I tried. The song, it might as well be in a language I don't know, one I can never learn. Too alien, but close enough to recognize. I sang softly so Alice wouldn't hear.
She came into my room later, not that early. Around ten, I guess. She was wearing bloomers and an old fashioned blouse like my mother used to wear, or a maid in cheesy '50s soft porn. Ouch, black leather pumps. I'm pretty sure there aren't supposed to be any heels, ever.
“Do you like it?” she said, sniffing. “I took the liberty of putting this together, you know. To wear at home, not expected. I've noticed they don't always dress you properly, at Kettlewell.”
“The… dress. I do like it. It's appropriate.” I am not a woman. Not even in my journal. Not even in the dreams. One dreams from the inside. She came close enough to wrap me in her arms in a dressing gown just like mine and was very careful about her nails. “Big changes. How did you do all this so quickly?”
“Silly rabbit. Find a problem with the bed sheets, and I change it, of course. You change the focus of a problem.”
“You're an amazing problem solver, but…” I laughed. Felt I needed to pull her close to illustrate. “But I'm not sure it's appropriate. To change…”
“What is 'appropriate'?” she said, tracing patterns on my unshaved cheek.
“Preserving your virtue. Being modest. Not… not… actually, I can't think of the right expression. The basics of behavior, as parents think—” "Oh!" "It's Mother Language, Alice.” "No, small one, I am the Queen. Not getting orders from Patricia now."
“That's outdated, Patricia is,” Alice mused. “No reason one has to own the role to take advantage.” She offered me a cup of tea, and I took it from her. She was wearing tiny gold-rimmed glasses. “I've been overhauling Kettlewell,” she explained, circling my chair (in heels), “stepping behind the scenes and making sure the outside allows you to do what you want inside. Everyone has their own private space, but the community as a whole. But in a very specific way. Permitting a contrast.”
“You're the Tailor King?”
“Esth King. It's very simple. Make a dress for someone, it's the ordinary. Make a dress where you made all the little hems and seams and turnings and buttons. Oh. Oh, that's not what the Ace wanted to be.” She hovered like a sparrow. “Not a change from this, but,” she thought, her eyes never leaving my face, “how to do it differently. Add length, shorten the neckline, combine fullness with closeness, transfer ease of movement to beauty. You're a lyricist. You write from the body but from the mind too. Beauty, beauty, needs structured thought. Reciprocity is the word. Reciprocity you find beautiful.” She smiled, but she was staring so intently my face twitched.
She smelled like bergamot and roses, but sharp and slender like a snake, and her pupils were too little until she blinked, then big, big enough my reflection looked green. I looked at my eyes and they were Venus Fly Trap, purple and gold, hanging open and in awe, focused on the face of someone who held me with impossible focus.
“I admit I became worried,” she said, “after you were taken the first time. Your person should sing. And the Lynx were increasing. They are almost organic now. And the breeze, and the conductive yantra, almost indistinguishable. Our Lady wanted your craft to survive, so I committed to the Oral Tradition. The Lynx got distinctions and style, but not the conduit.”
She touched my cheek, so I found myself leaning into her hand. I went through my flashbacks: the bees in my hair, right there, they were the honey. A scentless distraction. The wing beneath my pillow, still there; I checked. “Lasos!” She lifted my hand and held it between hers. I forgot what I was thinking about Alice and it was trivial.
“Lasos lives inside you, just as you live inside her. Not just your body,all your senses. But when you're dreaming, there's no difference. Her Song becomes yours. And when you◆ About the ending
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