Jayson wiped the caustic slime from his face with gloved hands. He spat out the black liquid in a sputtering, ragged effort, but at the same time he licked his lips and drew some of it back into his mouth. He knew the danger of this, knew how toxic the pools of Ivy Street were, but his tongue had tasted wetness and he couldn’t stop his body from craving a reprieve from his unending thirst. It tasted sweet, like a pepper. Part of him wondered if the man in the fancy coat had kicked the water in his face as a kindness, so that Jayson might break through his fears of street-water and discover its tastiness.
He spat again and scraped his tongue with his fingers. Toxic, poison. Infectious. He knew how evil these puddles were. Memories of lost friends came on like dim lights—friends who died in agony and covered in tumors. A junk woman had once told him that these black puddles were the run off of sewer ghouls, that parasitized men came up in the deep dark of the night to piss out steaming pools of blackness onto the cobblestone. Jayson did not want to become like them. He did not want to sink into the gutters and die and bloat and feed the rats with his poisonous flesh. He spat again.
But he was so thirsty. How long had it been since he’d tasted fresh water? Every few days he would travel down to the Wharf District and try to drink from the tide pools that formed between the flophouses, but the saltiness of seawater scared him. Something in his body instinctively told him that Salt Water Is Death. Funny that he didn’t get that same feeling from the black puddles of Ivy Street. His rational mind had to tell him that.
Jayson chuckled. ‘Rational mind.’ He hadn’t been sure of the things his mind told him in years. Decades? No, not that long. Surely not that long. He had only been on the streets for a few years, nothing more. His days at the factory weren’t that far behind him. He could still feel the warmth of the machines as he fed their fires, could still feel the tenderness of his wife in their tiny apartment in the Lower Reaches. His stomach turned as he thought of Miria… No, that wasn’t her name. Marya. No. His eyes opened wide and he stared into the dimness of the marketplace. By the Aether, had he truly forgotten her name? He felt a sudden, blooming ache in his gut, an ache that eclipsed his hunger and thirst and spread through his veins like a virus. Despair crashed unrelenting on the shores of his focus. Had his mind truly traveled so far into the abyss that he couldn't remember the love of his life? He could still feel the softness of her neck, still picture her green dress with the puffy shoulders, sense the way she hated the tightlacing of her corset but wore it anyway, but he couldn’t picture her face. Was that where names dwelled? Did they attach themselves to the face? But, oh no, how could he have forgotten her beautiful face?
As his gaze unfocused he lost track of the people passing in front of him. They became a slow, pulsing blur of muddy coats and tromping boots. They were all bound for somewhere, but they didn’t matter to him anymore than he to them. His eye grew watery, but he did not blink. He just stared, waiting for some flash or motion to bring back the memories of his wife’s features.
“Hey,” came a woman’s voice.
Jayson recoiled. A woman was standing above him. She wore a long coat and heavy leather pants, with a brown vest that buttoned all the way up her neck. So unlike his Moira, who loved showing the world the pale flesh and the fullness of her breasts. The woman before him was silhouetted by pink neon, making her look like an angel. The colorful light turned her blonde hair red and silver.
“You changed your hair, Mara.”
The woman said nothing. She glanced over her shoulder. A wide-shouldered man stood behind her—a Javadoan. He recognized Javadoans. One of those red-haired fucks had punched his teeth out when he used to work the rail lines, back in the day. That he remembered with clarity. Full red moustache, sweeping red hair, and blue eyes that seemed to never blink and contain all the fierceness and alacrity of a hawk. Why could he recall the countenance of a man he fought a lifetime ago, but not the face of his wife? He squinted into the dimness and glare that surround the woman. He couldn’t see her face. What had changed about Mira in the last however many years, he wondered?
“Are you cogent?” the woman asked.
“Moria, I can’t see your face. What do you look like these days?”
“He’s got tasp scars,” the Javadoan says.
“Fuck you, fire-face.” Jayson spat out some more trace droplets of the black water. “I haven’t wired.”
The woman crouched down. He could see her now—blonde hair running down her covered shoulders in wet tangles. Green eyes that looked sunken, sad. But beautiful. He couldn’t remember his wife’s eyes. This woman’s shoulders were too heavily covered, he couldn’t tell if she had soft, perfect skin. And her neck was buttoned up by that damned vest.
“Do you see much from down here, old man?” she asked.
Old man? Jayson wasn’t old. He’d quit the factory at forty. He was still in his prime. “Myra, why do you cover up your beautiful neck? Your eyes have changed. Are you sick?”
She stared into his eyes. Green, like emeralds. Set in a face like chiseled stone, and framed but dirty gold.
“I asked, are you cogent?”
“Thera, he’s got tasp scars.”
The woman glanced back. “Names.”
The Javadoan frowned. “He’s a wirehead. I don’t think it matters.”
“I haven’t wired since my days at the factory, you son of a bitch!”
Jayson felt the woman’s hand on his shoulder, and realized he had moved to stand up. He felt energy leave his body, and he let her slowly move him back down onto his blankets.
“How long ago was the factory?” the woman asked.
Jayson shook his head slowly. “Not long. Quit when I was thirty.”
“And how old are you now?”
His mind strained at that. “… Forty.”
“Thera…”
“Don’t call me that,” the woman said. “My friend, what’s your name?”
“Jayson.”
“And who do you think I am?”
“Meery. My wife. But, also not her. Haven’t seen her in many years. Since the factory. You’ve changed since then.”
The woman frowned. “Was the factory out east?”
Jayson shook his head. “No. Here, in West Celedin. Up the road. I stayed close in case they change their minds and want me back.”
“And how long ago was that?”
“Thirty years.”
The woman looked down. Was she disappointed by that? Her green eyes came up and met his again.
“Jayson, what is it you used to do?”
“Made engine parts for ships. Pistons, big as a man. That sort of thing.”
“Did you make these parts for private or public vessels?”
“Don’t know. I did know, though. I remember some of the ships. The Sea Warden. I liked that name. Thought of it as a prison ship but for whales. Or, the sea was the prison, and the whales were trapped there, and this ship—”
“Therazine,” the Javadoan said. “We’re wasting our time. We weren’t going to get anything from the first vagrant we saw.”
“I know.” The woman stood, and her green eyes left Jayson’s. He felt that hunger-despair in his stomach again. “Do you have any glit for him?”
“He didn’t give us anything.”
“Look at him.”
“I am looking, Thera. He’s got tasp scars on his skull bigger than my thumb. I’m not giving him any money.”
The woman glanced back down at Jayson. He hoped to see affection in her eyes, or even pity. Instead he saw nothing. Cruel indifference.
“I think I might be parasitized,” Jayson said, touching his lips with a dirty glove. “Think some of it may have gotten in my mouth.”
“Let’s go,” the Javadoan said.
The woman stared at him for a moment longer. Then she turned away. For a moment the motion excited him, the thought of maybe seeing her backside, but that damned heavy coat was still there.
“Wait,” he said. But she didn’t. “I think some of it got in my mouth. I think—I don’t want to become like Gennon. He fell sick and… I can’t handle the thought of eating man-flesh, Mareh. I think I might be…”
The two disappeared into the crowd. Jayson looked around—faces everywhere, none glancing his way. The corner of his quilted blanket had dipped into the black puddle, and he pulled it out quick. It was thick withthe oily substance. He brushed off what he could, but dark stains remained. They always would, he figured. He’d have to burn the blanket. But maybe he could give it to his friends—or the sewer-dwelling things that had once been his friends. He wondered if they still sought blankets, or even warmth. But the thought of their mutated, predatory faces filled his mind with horror, and he banished the image.
He touched the side of his head gently—felt the crater-like scar on his temple where once he’d connected a tasp. He’d told the Javadoan the truth about that. Not since the factory had he wired, and even then it had only been with friends, on nights when Mary was away. The factory. He should go back to work. Surely, they’d be able to provide him with freshwater, or medical care if he had indeed been parasitized. He moved to stand up, and felt pain in his right knee. A glance at his now uncovered leg showed the bloodstains where a cart had backed over his shin, laming him. Fear and memories and pain washed over him.
Ah. Yes, he couldn’t walk. Which is why he was still here, on Ivy Street. Which is why he was thirsty. And hungry, despite the stalls of food all around him. Probably also why Mora left him. What use is a husband who can’t get out of the way of a horse-drawn cart?
Jayson leaned over and picked up his mug again. He held it out and gently twirled it so that the stones inside made a rattling sound. He just needed a little glit, just enough to get him a meal, and then a carriage ride back to the factory so he can beg for his job back. And maybe to the electro-den down the corner, where he might hook himself up to a tasp. Just for an hour or two, as a reward to himself. He was planning on working hard today, after all.
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