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- Herausgeber: Francis Rosenfeld
- Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
- Sprache: Englisch
"Never forget, my dear child, that life is made of days, and no matter how many days you were gifted with, you should strive to enjoy every single one of them. When you have given your love and attention to your family and friends, it will still be overflowing, so pay attention to the ideals you care about, to the people whose needs call out to you, to the human race, to the universe itself.
Das E-Book können Sie in Legimi-Apps oder einer beliebigen App lesen, die das folgende Format unterstützen:
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Francis Rosenfeld
Letters to Lelia
Table of contents
Dedication
Foreword
One Thousand Years Later
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
© 2015 Francis Rosenfeld
Cover Design by Shardel
Dedication
To my family.
Foreword
"My Principal Progenitors have always had a flair for the dramatic," Humon reflected out loud after reading Tagas Cloud's letter, in the same even tone of voice Lily had become accustomed to.
"What do they mean, Humon? What does all of this mean?" Lily started tentatively, her voice overcome by an instinctive indescribable panic. Humon didn't answer, he just waved his arm, annoyed, trying to chase away the aggravation with the brusque gesture one would use to shoo away a fly.
"Procedure," he uttered eventually. "I swear, if our world really ran according to procedure we'd all be long gone by now. It took them seven planetary rotations to answer my request, seven! And now they expect me to rush to attention in less than ten gyrations! Good grief, my progenitors really know how to dish administrative bulk three layers thick! Do your parents push your buttons too?"
Lily didn't know how to answer the question, she disagreed with her parents on occasion but in all fairness she had to admit they never imposed even a single rule or task on her against her will. Since Humon's miraculous transformation her world had turned upside down and she was still in shock trying to deduce the exact way in which being hitched to a wisp was going to make all her future plans lose consistency. She took a deep breath and begged Humon, more with her eyes than with her voice, for clarification.
"What do you want to know?" he asked.
"Everything," a frazzled Lily replied eagerly, even if in a quickly fainting tone of voice. "Just start from the beginning."
"I'm approaching one thousand planetary rotations, that's about six hundred and forty seven Terra Two years, and at this age we are ceremonially connected to our compatible clouds, it's called the Bonding," he started.
"Connected how?" Lily shuddered with dread.
"Covalent bonds. That's how we maintain cohesion in gaseous form, as you noticed, my progenitors called me a cloud. By the time we reach our thousandth anniversary we're considered stable enough to bind safely with our compatible selections."
"You mean like in chemistry? Two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom make water?" Lily asked incredulously.
"Yes, but infinitely more complex. Some aggregates in the polymorphic cloud are composed of trillions of entities." Humon continued patiently.
"Is this like...a happily ever after sort of thing?" Lily uttered in a small, wretched voice that made him chuckle softly.
"No, scaredy cat, it's not like that at all. That's why we wait until we're one thousand to bond, we need to be stable enough to share electrical charges without altering our own structure, the same way electrons move freely between metal atoms." Lily breathed an imperceptible sigh of relief. "That doesn't mean they approve of you, though," Humon crashed her newborn hopes.
Lily's scrappy personality got a jolt of confidence, because no matter how old or complex the clouds were she was not going to yield to anybody's authority or approval. She straightened her back and snapped.
"Who exactly is expected to approve of me?"
"My progenitors, for one," Humon started, "then there is the Third Circle, my binding clouds, hypothetically speaking..." Lily abruptly interrupted him.
"Your progenitors? How many are they?" she asked.
"Oh, I don't know, I lost count a long time ago, higher covalent ranks donate parts of their structure during our first assembly, and later on other clouds keep sharing their substance with us through hundreds of planetary cycles, it gets really hard to keep track," he commented naturally, trying to avoid the progressively horrified look in Lily's eyes. The latter finally lost it.
"And they are ALL expected to approve your choice of partner!?" she blurted, her face flustered with aggravation.
"To tell you the truth, I don't know, this never happened before, we don't normally interact with solids, they are too dense," he replied naturally, completely blind to Lily's outrage. He met her gaze and reconsidered. "Maybe my First, Secondary and Tertiary progenitors, they were the founders."
"What do you mean you don't interact with solids?" Lily pressed on.
"We don't see a point, they don't transfer charge, as far as we're concerned they're inert," he explained.
"You mean I'm inert?" Lily said with a low growl.
"Well, technically, yeah..." he acknowledged.
"I really have no idea how to answer that," Lily couldn't even summon anger.
"I'll just make another request, by the time it reaches the approval committee, they would have already forgotten about the first one and we'll get another seven years. We could probably run this indefinitely," he tried to appease her.
"Absolutely not!" she snapped. "There is nothing wrong with me, I shouldn't have to slither under the door of the waiting room from one appeal to the next. I can't believe I have to entertain the concept of being approved of, I'm a free human being, and an immortal one at that!" she upped the ante.
"I'm not saying they would stop me from interacting with you, I'm just saying that this never happened in the history of Vlor and no cloud would comprehend our relationship in concept. If you decided to get in a life long commitment with a Purple community do you think your parents would approve?" he asked.
"What does Purple have to do with anything, why would I consider such a thing? Purple is a culture of immortal bacteria!" Lily cried.
"In every way that matters, so am I," Humon replied gently.
"So what in the universe possessed you to follow me here, then?" she kept probing, revolted.
"I like you, you can fly! A solid that can fly, that's so extraordinary!" he smiled, dreamily.
"You LIKE me?!" Lily's fuse reached its end. "Because I can fly? Josephine can fly! Geese can fly, and they're dumber than dirt! Careful not to fall for one of them!"
"You should be so lucky to get compared to Josephine!" sister Joseph protested through the interlink, but Lily was too upset to respond.
"So, does that mean you have to leave? They sounded pretty adamant about your required presence in the polymorphic cloud," Lily continued.
"Oh, no. 'Your continued presence in the polymorphic cloud can not be substituted' is the standard phrase we use to deny a request. As I said, I hate procedure," Humon continued, unperturbed, and then got up to pour himself a cup of tea.
***
To say the news of Humon being a wisp made waves through their community was a massive understatement. Sister Joseph took the opportunity to point out that she was right all along, that there was something peculiar about the young man whose life had left no trace on Terra Two.
Lily was a tightly wound bundle of nerves all the time now and she became seriously irate every time someone tried to bring up the subject of inter-species dating, if one could call it that. The sisters didn't press the issue, not wanting to add unnecessary stress to her already shaken conscience, but Purple, who had no understanding of human mores, pestered her about every detail with the caring and gentle touch of a dental drill.
"Lily. Not. Smart. Lily. Not. Know. Wisp." they indicated purposefully. Lily clenched her teeth but remained quiet.
"Purple. Said. Wisp. Deceitful." the blabbermouths continued, in the face of Lily's stoicism.
"Wisp. Think. Lily. Slow. Why. Spend. Time." they marched on, traipsing all over the young woman's feelings. Lily's pride finally exploded.
"You think I'm slow too, in fact I can't even count the number of times you told me I'm slow!" she responded, exasperated.
"Purple. Not. Date. Lily." the immortals continued mercilessly. "Purple. Parent. Not. Send. Letter." they spearheaded the attack on Lily's pain points.
"I don't want to talk about it!" Lily snapped.
"Purple. Want. Talk." they clarified their superior status. "Lily. Talk. Back."
Lily settled into a stubborn frowning silence to protest the invasion of privacy and complete disregard of her feelings.
"Lily. Solid. Wisp. No. Use. For. Lily." they plowed ahead through whatever depths of Lily's feelings had miraculously escaped demolition. "Lily. Pet." they continued harshly, trying to break her silence.
"Wisp. Haughty." they continued prodding. "Wisp. Always. Travel. Lily. Stand. Still."
"I don't travel!?" Lily broke, infuriated. "I've seen the entire known universe, how much more do I need to move around?" Purple softened its relentless criticism to a tone that almost sounded compassionate.
"Not. Like. Wisp." they tried to explain. "Wisp. Assemble. Cloud. Anywhere. Wisp. Want. Lily. Lesser. Being."
"God, you're heartless!" Lily jumped to her feet, really hurt. "I didn't know, OK? If the progenitors didn't find him I'd never have known. What do you want me to do?"
"Terra. Two. Three. Billion. Human." Purple recommended. "Find. Boy."
"You find boy!" Lily retorted.
"Purple. Find. Lily. Boy." the immortals magnanimously offered, missing the sarcasm. Lily had had about all that she was capable of enduring at the time, so she left Roberta's lab, where the uncomfortable conversation had taken place, slamming the door behind her. She didn't know where to go, so despite her good judgment and finely tuned instincts, she headed to the Prayer Hall, hoping to find some peace and quiet and a glass of warm milk in the kitchen. As expected, sister Joseph was there, together with Sarah, sister Mary Francis and sister Abigail. "Why not sister Joseph?" Lily asked herself quietly. "Who else was left to put me to the question?"
"Well," sister Joseph started the heavy artillery as soon as she was in visual range, "if it isn't our prodigal child. Where's the puff of smoke?". She paused for thinking, then she continued: "Are you sure it's the same puff of smoke, by the way? How can you tell?" Lily gulped hard and was instantly drenched in cold sweat. She never contemplated this aspect of wisp existence, but it certainly wasn't beyond the realm of possibility. All of a sudden, Purple's commentary about humans being incompatible with wisp life made a lot more sense to her than before.
"Do you have any milk?" Lily asked Sarah, softly, and the latter rushed to warm her up a cup. She sat down, drinking it in slow sips and blowing on the surface to cool it down a little.
"Are you all right, dear?" sister Mary Francis asked gently, almost in a whisper.
"Define all right," Lily thought, but instead of answering she nodded her head in agreement. A little puddle of tears had gathered in her throat and she had every intention of stopping them there.
Sarah felt the young woman's anguish and snuck into the pantry to retrieve a plate of warm honey chamomile cakes. Lily smiled at the familiar aroma and as she reached for the cakes she felt comforted, the way she did when she was a child and the sisters brought her goodies to make her forget about her scraped knee. The cakes and milk settled her stomach and allowed her to notice that one of the young children had left a little toy on the kitchen table, a kite with a long stringy tail that captivated all of Solomon's attention. She watched the cat's antics for a while, wondering at his agile movements, unspoiled by the passing of time.
"Solomon, no!" Sarah jumped to pick him up because Josephine had just flown through the open window and the redhead wanted to curtail the inevitable conflict.
"Git, beast!" sister Joseph stepped forth to protect the poor dragon from the attacks of the vicious feline. Scales and fur ruffled and then the muted growls melted into an alert hostile silence. The two kept staring at each other for a while, then found something else to occupy their attention. Lily was grateful for the intermission, unfortunately as soon as the conflict subsided, all eyes returned to her and her inescapable problem.
"So, dear," sister Mary Francis started innocently, just to make conversation, "do you think we'll be seeing Humon's parents soon?"
"Which ones?" sister Joseph retorted. "The being can't keep track of how many he has! Imagine trying to find all of them!" She stared starkly at Lily. "I knew no good was going to come out of your schlepping around all corners of the universe. Serves you right, you were just looking for trouble, weren't you?"
Sarah gave her an icy stare and was about to accompany it with a verbal diatribe, but sister Joseph made a "eech!" gesture with her hand and turned her back to the audience to focus on the rice milk she had cooking on the stove.
Lily had finished her milk and cakes and she retired quietly to a window nook to watch the suns set over the kitchen garden. Soon the sisters got absorbed in the noises and activities before dinner and forgot about her altogether. She sat there long into the evening, thinking of nothing, just watching the birds, the tiny field mice and the moving rocks, and following the slow movements of the plants that closed their flowers to prepare for the night.
***
Whether quietly or out loud, pretty soon no matter where she went or who she saw, Lily was met with advice, reproach or sympathy for her plight, so much so that no matter what her purpose was she couldn't dig it out from underneath the mound of communal opinion. Normally under similar circumstances she would go to Vlor to find peace and quiet and sort her thoughts without interference, but given the situation she didn't think she would find her favorite place in the universe very welcoming.
She felt life had served her a pariah sentence and much as she tried she couldn't figure what exactly she'd done to deserve it. After she went over the facts time and again to the point of obsession, and managed to irritate even Humon, who usually had the composure of a Zen master, she decided to go to Soléa and spend some time with her childhood friends.
Jimmy and Jenna hadn't changed and being with them made Lily feel care free and happy again, like she was when they were playing together on the beach, wondering about the future and wishing on the stars. They didn't ask questions and didn't offer opinions or advice, and at times Lily seemed to experience the normality she once knew, and then Iseult, her friends' baby daughter, started crying and reminded her of her age and circumstances.
She started wondering what she was doing on Soléa, because she didn't belong there. She didn't feel like she belonged anywhere anymore and all the corners of the universe that she loved, visited and enjoyed had suddenly become unfamiliar and aloof.
She spent some time in prayer, figuring that even if existence itself decided to spit her out, God will still be there to listen to her plight, and at the end of her soul searching she had the revelation that however conflicted her life had become, it was not going to improve by itself. She could feel her circumstances waiting for her return so they could jump her simultaneously, demanding solutions. She straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and headed back home, where she found Humon working on his dissertation like nothing happened at all.
Lily thought she finally lost her mind, because everything seemed so normal all of a sudden, her vaporous boyfriend, the unjustified opprobrium of family and friends, dropping a few pegs on the ladder of sentience and having alien beings disapprove of her in principle.
She thought of all the times during her youth when she worried about potential problems and had to admit that even in her wildest dreams she couldn't have imagined her current situation.
"Have you been here the whole time?" she asked Humon with half a voice, slapping a whole new slathering of guilt over the top of her already burdened conscience.
"Where else would I be?" he lifted his eyes for a second to acknowledge her return, and then he went back to work, unperturbed.
***
"Why. Lily. Sad." Purple asked, and Lily would have wanted to avoid the busybodies, but now that they were paying attention they were going to follow her with the questions everywhere, in unrelenting manner. She sighed and reluctantly answered.
"Humon is going to leave for his new sibling's assembly, really soon." She stopped for a second and continued with half a voice. "They really wanted him to go back to Vlor, what if they don't let him come back?"
Purple uttered the auditory alternative to an eye roll, if one could conceive of something like that.
"Wisp. Never. Go. Anywhere." they charged. "Lily. Not. Know. Wisp." Lily tried to interrupt the stream of indignation, but the immortals were on a roll. "Why. Choose. Relationship. Unknown. Species." they ranted. "Lily. Solid."
"I...don't understand," Lily tried to reply, but Purple continued its unbroken stream of prickly wisdom.
"Wisp. Get. All. Places. Same. Wisp. Here. Wisp. There. Wisp. Never. Move."
"You mean to tell me he's still on Vlor? Right now?" Lily asked, shocked, staring at the silhouette of her beloved projected against the turquoise waters of the ocean.
"Define. Is." Purple rehashed a subject that had driven the sisters to the brink of their patience and sanity centuries ago. Lily looked at the ethereal being in the distance, whose body was melting in and out of reality in long strands of color and light that bent and twisted around themselves like pulled taffy. She wanted to get closer to witness the multi-dimensional phenomenon of an entity being in several realities at the same time, but Purple protested sharply.
"Lily. Not. Go. Through. Wisp. Intrusion. Rude." they continued more appeased. "Wisp. Welcome. Sibling." they giggled. "Wisp. Cotton. Candy. Pull. Strand. Get. More. Wisp."
Lily frowned, upset.
"Purple. Find. Lily. Boy." the immortals proposed, again. "Purple. Make. Humon. If. Lily. Like." they offered magnanimously.
"You mean like a cardboard cutout?" Lily finally burst, outraged.
"Exactly. Same. Lily. Can. Not. Tell. Different."
"Why not make several?" Lily commented, sarcastically. "This way I can have one to keep at home and one for the office," she elaborated.
"What does one need to do in order to be able to attend a Fusion Observance ceremony in peace?" Humon chimed his thoughts through the interlink. "Can you please have the conversation about making action figures of me later? It's really distracting!"
"Tell. Lily. Three. Dimension. Humon. Better. Purple. Make. Why. Lily. Need. Multiverse. Humon. Lily. See. No. Different." the immortals took the opportunity to get his approval on the matter, but Humon really meant it when he said that he wanted some peace and quiet and didn't respond.
Purple's need to express opinion and give advice simmered in uncomfortable silence for the duration of the ceremony, but as soon as the events were over the immortals let out a verbal deluge. They went over all the Humon replacement options with Lily, again and again, until the young woman decided to simply refuse to listen, and in the process they dislodged the boulder of wrath that had finally found precarious equilibrium in sister Joseph's mind.
"As I live and breathe, didn't I tell all of you nincompoops that the purple goo was going to drive us to lunacy, but who listens to me?! Shut up, you bacterial blabber, I don't know why Lily puts up with your rattling on, but I've had it! Hey, cat-brains, are you going to let your kin drive this one nuts, obvious lapse in judgment notwithstanding?" she turned the verbal artillery to Sarah.
Sarah fretted, uncomfortable, because she could feel Purple's unease about Lily's relationship with Humon, unease a lot more intense than the other sisters knew, a tumultuous mix of reverence and apprehension with just a hint of jealousy.
"Purple. Want. Lily. Happy." the immortals eventually relented. "Wisp. Too. Much. Trouble." they continued softly. "Too. Many. Dimensions. One. Reality. Hard. Enough."
***
It is often mentioned that people change when major events happen to them, but this wisdom is often misleading. Life happens to people all the time, we grow up, we choose our destiny, we find our love; it's only when life changes its very essence that people don't have any choice but to abandon their self, like one can't wear clothes that have become too small. In this way Lily had changed. Not for the better, in the opinion of some, and not drastically, for those who didn't know her well.
She wasn't sad, though she looked it at times. In her effort to relearn life, love, and purpose, there was no time for sadness. Throughout her youth she had successfully managed to flee every situation that made her uncomfortable, a great coping mechanism for one with the soul of an explorer. The memory of this habit made her giggle in its absurdity, she felt like an ostrich with its head in the sand.
Humon noticed her unease and tried to give her comfort the best he knew how, but everything in his appearance, his composure, his thoughts, and his activities was a substantiation of the truth that gaseous composite multi-dimensional beings and stubborn humans given to wander lust were not meant to mesh.
Lily got into the habit of visiting Sarah at the Institute, the serenity of her sparse garden filled with aloe and gardenias allowed the young woman's spirit a little rest. Sarah talked to Lily sometimes when they sat together on a bench for a brief respite from their never ending whirlwind of activities.
"How are you, my dear? You look a little worn out..." Sarah said to Lily, in the soft, tentative voice that was her trademark. She didn't want to intrude, but didn't want the young woman to think she couldn't feel her struggle.
Lily took some time before answering because she honestly didn't know.
"How do you carry on a relationship with an entity for whom your life is old news? I'm the pointless bearer of unilateral tidings," she said eventually.
Sarah shuffled on the bench a little, startling Amber in the process and fretting over her gardening apron to bide her time.
"How about your work? Aren't you interested in the nature of the universe anymore?" the redhead inquired.
"Why do the research? I can just ask and find out," she said. "Kind of takes the thrill out of the discovery, doesn't it?"
"Did you?" Sarah asked, hopeful.
"Of course, but I didn't understand the answer," Lily burst out laughing. They sat quietly for a while, admiring the setting suns over the turquoise ocean.
"I'd like to show you something, if you have time," Sarah smiled.
"I have time," Lily welcomed the offer, relieved, in the same manner one would use to acknowledge that one had coins, aspirin, or a pen to write with. They got up and walked to the apothecary, whose whole space was suffused with a warm glow that made the spotless glassware sparkle.
On a low table in front of the built in window seat lay a colorful array of little bottles, which, to Lily's bewilderment, were filled with essential oils. She recognized chamomile, lavender, and gardenia, whose scent filled the shop when she lifted the glass stopper. The young woman was a bit puzzled, she thought Sarah was going to reveal some scientific breakthrough, a new frontier in bio-engineering.
"Why are you showing me these? I practically grew up in this shop, distilling essential oils was one of the first things you taught us as children?" she asked.
"There is nothing new under the sun, my dear. Maybe you can only find meaning in the things you discover for yourself."
***
After the typical deliberations and extensive decision making by committee, the wisps conceded to Humon's appointment to the diplomatic mission on Terra Two, appointment which gave them the opportunity to quickly whip up a small portion of his Third Circle bonding selections to go with and assist him. The latter expressed their concerns in writing, pointing out the solid environment was unsuitable for their development and submitted their formal objection letters to the central cloud manifold, where their complaints were registered and placed in queue to be processed in due time over several planetary rotations, according to their priority status.
In the meantime, Terra Two was buzzing with the news of the permanent settlement of the wisps, news that made people a little nervous.
Lily became by default the lucky beneficiary of the burden of views, concerns, advice and objections from both sides, since for some irrational reason the wisps saw her as a bridge to their culture, albeit one with disquieting limitations impossible to overcome. This conviction didn't stop them from privately gossiping that no rational cloud would consider entering into a bond with a solid, and an inert one at that, flying ability or no! They did, however, use her as a resource for cultural, environmental and historical references about Terra Two and had to admit that her exhaustive travel schedule and contact with multiple alien cultures imparted on the inert solid the insight and diplomatic skills necessary to facilitate their adjustment.
The first complaint of many was that the elevated temperatures on Terra Two excited the flow of electrons, making their cloud assembly, so orderly on Vlor, reach a velocity and volatility that made them uncomfortable; the thirty degree temperature differential sped up their proper and sedate thinking processes to a level that for humans would be the equivalent of running on steroids. After a few months of protest and bewilderment they realized they could double polymorphic cloud efficiency with little to no side effects, and started seeing the silvery shimmer on top of the puddle of misery and disgrace that was living among solids.
Lily, with uncharacteristic patience, guided them along the way the best she knew how, or as they liked to call it, brought the confusion of their hardship to less appalling levels.
In this entire endeavor Humon had maintained a detached attitude, as if the process didn't concern him in the least, and tried to stay out of hearing range when Lily was in search of a kind spirit willing to share her frustrations. He continued his poetry teachings and managed to publish a couple of tomes, while Lily's levels of aggravation reached higher and higher levels, as she walked around the Institute surrounded by the new diplomatic mission like a cartoon character with a rain cloud over its head.
Sister Joseph made a few witty remarks about the fact that Lily's outward world seemed to reflect what had to be the fog in her brains, but soon gave up, curtly whipped into shape by Seth. The latter didn't want to offend the new friends and allies whose decorous demeanor had no appreciation for sarcasm.
One minute Lily was floating in a sea of mists, the next she was surrounded by the physical forms of her partner's covalent bond selections, who managed to be just as patronizing in person as they were in cloud form. Seth smiled furtively at times, as she watched the young woman's struggle to navigate the mighty sea of thought, posturing and rank, a struggle a lot more familiar to the elder than she cared to admit to her congregation.
'***
"How are you holding up?" Seth asked Lily, approaching her quietly as it was her habit. The young woman was gazing out the wide open doors in Sarah's office into the healing garden, freshly washed by rain, and out into the distance, to the turquoise horizon of the ocean. She startled and turned around slowly to welcome the leader's interest, rather surprised and with a dreamy smile slowly melting into her features.
"You look happy," the leader remarked, surprised. "Aren't you stressed out by all of this hubbub?"
