of oddly mundane detail: the kind of mud the fish crawled over; its consistency; where the rocks were, and how big they were, and what they were made of, and how they looked that day; where the firm sand was; where the patches of sea grass were; the direction and strength of the currents; the temperature of the water; the taste and degree of salinity of the water; the other kinds of fish in the area at the time, numbered, named, and described; how the surface of the water looked from underneath just before the fish shattered it and emerged into the open air; how the sky looked, seen for the-first time; what the temperature of the air was; how strong the wind was and from what direction it was blowing . . . and so forth. If it had not been for some fairly spectacular gymnastics the stiltless dancers were going through in accompaniment to this recitation, Farber might well have fallen asleep on his feet.
Once the fish did make it up onto the land, though, things picked up. The first thing the fish—now a sandcrawler, by the way—did was either to have a litter of baby sandcrawlers or to split itself up into a number of parts, each of which would then eventually grow up to be a baby sandcrawler—the dialect made it difficult for Farber to tell. The babies (or parts) did an odd, intricate dance, and then kwians —winged marsupials, although here they seemed to be symbolic of or synonymous with supernatural creatures of some kind—swept down and snatched up the mother sandcrawler (or one of the parts) and deposited it on a barren plain of rock. Here the sandcrawler (or part) was visited by a Person of Power, jet black and puissant, who told it that it must change again, and for the final time, in order to protect its children (or fellow parts) from the barrenness of the world and the fierceness of the sun. The Person of Power offered it three choices: it could turn into a rock, high and remote, and shelter the others from predators with its adamant bulk; it could change into moss, cool and moist, and shelter the others with its dampness and softness from sun and sharp rocks and biting wind; or it could die, and turn into a pool of blood that would provide life-giving nourishment for the others.
The dance ended then, and the Cian snapped their fingers in applause, hissing like teakettles.
“But what did it do?” Farber asked. “Which one of the three things did it turn into?”
“It turned into all three, of course,” Liraun said, smiling radiantly.
“But it couldn’t! They’re mutually exclusive—it would have had to’ve turned into one or the other. They can’t all be true at the same time.”
“But they are! Of course they are,” Liraun said, still smiling, but looking at him now with an odd, intent expression. “It turned into all three things, at once. It did. That is the point of the story—if it had become only one thing, the story would be meaningless. Do you see? Do you understand? It’s important that you understand.”
Farber muttered polite acquiescence, understanding nothing. As they left the square—she still exuberant, he puzzled and unsettled—he looked back in time to see the two dancers who had operated the huge false head crawling out from inside it, like parasites emerging from the torn and paralyzed body of their unwilling host, and it struck him that the faces of the dancers were no less remote and strange than the flint-and-wood-and-obsidian masks of the great totem that they inhabited and haunted, that they strained to animate, succeeding only for a few brief seconds in bringing it to a passionate and totally transitory kind of life.
Hugging each other against the gathering evening chill, hip slapping hip, they wandered back to the Enclave while, like transcendent fireflies, glowing pastel lanterns came on one by one around them in the luminous darkness of the alien night.
5
Ecstasy is perhaps too large a word to use in connection with sex, or even lovemaking, but that night
Once the fish did make it up onto the land, though, things picked up. The first thing the fish—now a sandcrawler, by the way—did was either to have a litter of baby sandcrawlers or to split itself up into a number of parts, each of which would then eventually grow up to be a baby sandcrawler—the dialect made it difficult for Farber to tell. The babies (or parts) did an odd, intricate dance, and then kwians —winged marsupials, although here they seemed to be symbolic of or synonymous with supernatural creatures of some kind—swept down and snatched up the mother sandcrawler (or one of the parts) and deposited it on a barren plain of rock. Here the sandcrawler (or part) was visited by a Person of Power, jet black and puissant, who told it that it must change again, and for the final time, in order to protect its children (or fellow parts) from the barrenness of the world and the fierceness of the sun. The Person of Power offered it three choices: it could turn into a rock, high and remote, and shelter the others from predators with its adamant bulk; it could change into moss, cool and moist, and shelter the others with its dampness and softness from sun and sharp rocks and biting wind; or it could die, and turn into a pool of blood that would provide life-giving nourishment for the others.
The dance ended then, and the Cian snapped their fingers in applause, hissing like teakettles.
“But what did it do?” Farber asked. “Which one of the three things did it turn into?”
“It turned into all three, of course,” Liraun said, smiling radiantly.
“But it couldn’t! They’re mutually exclusive—it would have had to’ve turned into one or the other. They can’t all be true at the same time.”
“But they are! Of course they are,” Liraun said, still smiling, but looking at him now with an odd, intent expression. “It turned into all three things, at once. It did. That is the point of the story—if it had become only one thing, the story would be meaningless. Do you see? Do you understand? It’s important that you understand.”
Farber muttered polite acquiescence, understanding nothing. As they left the square—she still exuberant, he puzzled and unsettled—he looked back in time to see the two dancers who had operated the huge false head crawling out from inside it, like parasites emerging from the torn and paralyzed body of their unwilling host, and it struck him that the faces of the dancers were no less remote and strange than the flint-and-wood-and-obsidian masks of the great totem that they inhabited and haunted, that they strained to animate, succeeding only for a few brief seconds in bringing it to a passionate and totally transitory kind of life.
Hugging each other against the gathering evening chill, hip slapping hip, they wandered back to the Enclave while, like transcendent fireflies, glowing pastel lanterns came on one by one around them in the luminous darkness of the alien night.
5
Ecstasy is perhaps too large a word to use in connection with sex, or even lovemaking, but that night
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