[M] Whirda's Poetry & Prose

[PepsiWhirda]

Fading

Every day, I lose more of my sight. Every night, the edge of the moon blurs a little more. I can no longer see the stars. In its way, this slow drift into obscurity comforts me. It reminds me of my mortality.

The city streams by thousands of feet below, as the zeppelin scuds through the still night. An icy wind snaps across the gondola’s observation deck. I lean over the railing, straining to make out individual buildings, but metal & stone meld together, a light-specked river. I try to ignore the scrape of talons against the elevator wing. There is a thump as Ada lands behind me.

The HARPY joins me at the railing, carbon fiber wings retracting into her back. For a few minutes we stand together & say nothing. I can hear her eye shutters irising as she tries to infer my line of sight.

“I do not understand,” she says at last, swiveling her head toward me. “Every night you come out here. What do you expect to see?”

“Nothing,” I reply. There is nothing in my voice, but my hand rises, almost unconsciously, to find the silver cross that hangs beneath my shirt. Ada knows about it. To her, it’s nothing more than a constant source of frustration. For me, it’s the last remaining vestige of my past.

It’s also the reason I’m held captive amongst the clouds. In my youth, my faith stuck me behind bars & barbed wire. These defenses are gentle in comparison, but no more subtle in their intent.

“Your body is failing. We offer you treatment.”

“I’m not interested.”

“You would let yourself die?”

“Death is natural,” I say. My smile is humorless, almost obligatory.

Silence. I can sense that she contemplates forcing the treatment upon me, but she knows that I would escape it afterward. That much humanity tends to outlive the conversion.

“I see,” she says. Then, “Why do you wear that cross?”

“Who are you?” I ask, ignoring the question she has asked me so many times before. “I mean, who were you before?”

For a moment, I think she might tell me. Perhaps this time I have caught her off guard. Perhaps, somewhere within that network of wires & nanotech, there is a vague afterimage of her past.

“I don’t remember,” Ada says. “It is not important.”

“It’s the most important thing there is,” I reply. “It’s why you will never understand.”

Something changes about her. Ada shifts her weight from talon to talon, agitated, & throws herself over the railing. I watch moonlight spark from her body as she plummets toward the earth. She fades from sight before I can see her protract her wings. Maybe this time she won’t bother.

Throughout this final journey, I have kept track of the latitudes & longitudes. Somewhere far ahead is the Adriatic Sea. Below, the ruins of the Holy See lie inert, slowly sinking beneath waves of metal.