Installment for 26 May 2003

Nelle rubbed her hands together, rubbed her right thumb over the skin between her left thumb and left index finger.
"Skin is sin."
Nelle had to crook her neck to see around the statue. A kid looked at her through the space made by the statue's elbow.
"Hi," Nelle said.
"Are you a sinner?"
"I guess," Nelle said, turning her left hand over to look at her palm.
"I mean, what can you do with your skin that doesn't involve sinning?" he asked.
Nelle wiggled her butt a little to the right to look at him more clearly around the statue. Two of the statue's arms flung out behind and the statue's robes extended back. Her roommate had a round face - a little asian. Islander? The kid of a colonist, maybe even the grandson.
"You haven't been here long," Nelle said.
He nodded "You must have the Sight."
"Yeah," she said. "I see you're hair isn't long."
He reached up to touch his black hair.
"Hey, you're smart. How long is your hair?"
Nelle reached up and grabbed a lock to pull around in front. She held it out so he could see. "Comes down to the middle of the back. My old boyfriend called it practical brown. He wanted me to be blonde."
"You see, that's what's wrong with skin," he said, looking right at her. "You can feel the hair hanging down your back." He paused. "Like a lover's caress. You might as well be sinning for all that pleasure."
Nelle rolled her eyes. "Why are you here?" she asked.
"Why is anybody - "
"Shut up," she told him. "Why are you here?"
"Outside isn't so great for me." He looked away, shifted his head a little, so Nelle couldn't see him. "I - uh - "
"Why are you here, with me? A different guy was over there yesterday."
"He moved forward."
"Why are you here?" she asked.
"Why do you want to know?" he asked.
"Because," she said. "Because I actually want to know."
"I wanted to talk to you," he said.
Nelle started to say something, then stopped. She scrinched to the side, forward in the cell.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"You can talk to me later," she said.
Nelle third-folded her mat and lay it on the brown cement between the statue's skirt and the wall. She stretched out on her stomach, upper part of her torso on the mat. She wiggled until her tits were comfy.
She stared out into the dim light of the cavern.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Do you - do you - sorry. We're not supposed to ask this, but do you want me to leave?"
"You can stay," she said.
"Thanks," he said. "I mean. I mean."
"Now be quiet for a while."
She wondered how the place could all seem so quiet.
She hadn't counted, but there had to be forty cells stacked fifty tall. At two per cell, that was - let's see - 4000.
Just in the cells.
Not counting the Sanctuary. Not the outer quarters or the inner quarters.
Just in the cells.
Maybe that's why she woke up sweating. All those people, breathing.
All that humidity.
Sweat dripping down her back. Her slip bunched up and stuck to her skin.
"Skin is sin," he said.
Nelle rolled over, now using her mat just as a pillow. She looked up at the statue.
A man with long flowing robes parted in front to show him with a pair of very feminine breasts. Nelle couldn't see his face from this angle, but it had a serene expression.
The lights faded and came back and faded and came back and faded and came back.
Nelle quarter-folded the pad and pulled out its strap. She couldn't wear it as intended, strap around her waist, pad on top of her butt.
Instead, she slung it under her arm.
The guy was standing at the back of the cell, looking at Nelle as she stood up.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'll move. You don't have to move."
"I might come back," she told him. "I might not."
"I don't know what to do."
"Take your pad. Come back or not."
She moved back. He had to step away to let her pass. She walked down the stairs to the catwalk.
Some noticed she was carrying her mat. Maybe half of the people she saw wore their mats.
Nelle fell into line, walking and waiting.
The woman in front of her - who had very long Chestnut Hair and wore only a groin cloth - turned and said, "I guess they don't have enough food for you."
Nelle smiled. "Fat people eat about the same amount as everyone else."
"I didn't mean to be insulting," Chestnut Hair said.
"Sure you did," Nelle said.
The line moved again.
Chestnut Hair moved forward.
At the bathing room, Nelle walked slowly ahead, looking for an alcove to free up. She didn't spend any real time staring now. She'd looked appreciatively the first couple of times. People didn't seem to mind.
After she was wet and her spider silk slip clung to her body - she drew a lot of attention.
A tall, dark man finished in the alcove a little in front. She watched him pull on his robe, belt his mat on.
He noticed her attention and walked on.
Nelle stood under the body-cool water. She scrubbed at her armpits with her hands. She'd seen many others doing the same - trying to get the stink out without soap. She pulled up her slip far enough to clean herself.
When she came back, her mat was missing.
Again.
She walked to the end of the bathing hall. The attendant gave her another without comment.
"Hi," Chestnut Hair said as Nelle took a seat. Nelle wondered if Chestnut Hair could have managed to be at the same table. Everyone was to take the first open seat.
"Hi," Nelle said, putting her tray on the table and lowering herself onto the cushion facing Chestnut Hair.
"I hope you don't think I was mean before," Chestnut Hair said.
The other four people all looked at Nelle. They all wore robes and had long hair. Probably had been here for years.
Nelle shook her head. "We're supposed to let go of the past, right?"
She looked to the two on her left. "Right?"
They nodded.
And the two on her right. "Right?"
They nodded.
"I just didn't want you to think I was being -"
Nelle reached across the table.
Chestnut Hair reached down to her tray, as if to offer it to Nelle.
"Give me your hand," Nelle said.
Chestnut Hair reached for her.
"Tell me you didn't mean it - really didn't."
Chestnut Hair pulled back. She looked down at her tray.
Nelle pulled back. She looked down at her dinner tray.
The food here reminded Nelle of the Nippon lunches she bought as a kid. Those were wooden trays twenty centimeters wide and fifteen long, divided up into compartments. Nelle remembered it perfectly, left to right top to bottom: a sweet for desert, a sashimi - usually salmon, another sashimi - usually halibut, sliced ginger, four tuna rolls, soy sauce, hot mustard (it's an American thing), wasabi, sesame seeds. Chopsticks in a long compartment nearest her.
The tray here was smaller, with only three divisions - two filled with vegetables in curry sauce, the third with folded bread.
Nelle wrapped a piece of spiced tofu in bread.
Chestnut Hair flung her tray at Nelle. It hit her on the chin.
"I'm sorry, god dammit, you bitch."
She got up and stalked away.
Nelle wiped a little sauce off from around her left eye.
The person on her left picked the tray off the floor and picked a few crumbs up, wiping up sauce with his napkin.
Nelle straightened out her tray and started to eat.
Everyone not at Nelle's table sat transfixed while she and the others ate.
"Does it get humid, here, at night?" she asked the person on her right.
"I don't think so," the woman said. "Do you find it humid?"
"Sometimes I wake up sweating," Nelle admitted.
"Could - could it be something inside you? I mean, we all carry unresolved things in from the outside. And. You still have implants, I think."
Nelle nodded.
And she had plenty inside her.
Nelle took her tray and Chestnut Hair's tray to the end to feed them into the machine.
Then she went to meditation in the great cavern.
Nelle looked up at the diorama.
More than forty cells across and fifty tall. Some cells were twice as tall or twice as tall and wide to accommodate larger statues.
She third-folded her mat and knelt and waited.
She got nothing except a tickle up her nose where her mind told her her programmer interface was - was wanting her to plug in.
Nelle climbed five stories, rested, climbed five stories, rested, climbed five stories, looked down a hall some stories up.
No flag held up.
She walked down the catwalk, looking up and down into the cells. She found an empty spot near the end and went down into it.
She half-folded her mat and curled on it so that her shoulder and hip were both on the padding.
Nelle slept.

The Floating Spirit © 2003 Tim D. Sherer

Questions? Comments? Contact me.