Editing Put Paid, Packed Away
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Joshua and I had spent the hours before midnight getting acquainted with our bed, almost double on a side than either of us was tall, and the murmur of the surf had finally lulled us to sleep. The sound of it met me as I woke with a start and for a second, I couldn't remember where I was. Joshua slept beside me, unconsciously sprawling with abandon thanks to the size of the bed, and it was easy to slip away without jostling him awake. Our hosts had thought of everything. I pulled on the bathrobe they'd provided and padded barefoot off the platform for the veranda. Zephyr was nearly full and hung low on the horizon, a fingertip above the ocean, and by her aqua glow I was able to find my way easily. <br><br> | Joshua and I had spent the hours before midnight getting acquainted with our bed, almost double on a side than either of us was tall, and the murmur of the surf had finally lulled us to sleep. The sound of it met me as I woke with a start and for a second, I couldn't remember where I was. Joshua slept beside me, unconsciously sprawling with abandon thanks to the size of the bed, and it was easy to slip away without jostling him awake. Our hosts had thought of everything. I pulled on the bathrobe they'd provided and padded barefoot off the platform for the veranda. Zephyr was nearly full and hung low on the horizon, a fingertip above the ocean, and by her aqua glow I was able to find my way easily. <br><br> | ||
| − | The sky was strewn with stars, too many to take in at once. Their hard diamond glitter reminded me of another night filled with stars and the man who stood under them | + | The sky was strewn with stars, too many to take in at once. Their hard diamond glitter reminded me of another night filled with stars and the man who stood with me in under them. Mike was gone. As many close calls and scrapes as he'd managed to overcome through the years, Mike could not have survived after Joshua let him go. I knew of no way it could be done, could not imagine a solution without descending into madness, devising one impossible scenario after another. Something I was aware I could do and resisted. I had people who needed me and a life to live. Both required I remain sane. <br><br> |
| − | Mike had people who | + | Mike had people who needed him and despite the conditions of his exile on Miranda, he too had a life to live. I thought back on what he'd said, of how Valerie's cure had changed him once exposed to the Pax. How it had made him smarter, stronger, faster. Had it driven him mad? Or had he made the best of a hideous situation and found a way to make it work for him and what he believed in? I will never know what he truly intended to do with me had Joshua lost. Arden's fate, I had pretty much mapped out—he'd be a captive doctor making more copies of Mike, replicating the process by which he'd been changed. <br><br> |
But what purpose would I serve on that ship? Engineer? First Mate? Lover? Bed Toy? Snack? All those positions held mortal risk, some more than others. And if Mike had actually gone through with his threat and changed me into something like him, would there have been anything of my old self left? And if so, would I have wanted to live with the loss? Would I even have cared? Or would I, like Mike, have come to grips with the change and tried to make it work for me, changed consciousness and all? Was that state so … elevated, evolved, exalted … that Mike would rather risk the death of my personhood to give me a chance at it? Had his love become so twisted and bitter? Or was he, like Shelley's monster, a desperately lonely creation in need of a companion to make his existence bearable? Had I turned my back on him yet again, when he laid everything he had and was and could be at my feet, to no avail?<br><br> | But what purpose would I serve on that ship? Engineer? First Mate? Lover? Bed Toy? Snack? All those positions held mortal risk, some more than others. And if Mike had actually gone through with his threat and changed me into something like him, would there have been anything of my old self left? And if so, would I have wanted to live with the loss? Would I even have cared? Or would I, like Mike, have come to grips with the change and tried to make it work for me, changed consciousness and all? Was that state so … elevated, evolved, exalted … that Mike would rather risk the death of my personhood to give me a chance at it? Had his love become so twisted and bitter? Or was he, like Shelley's monster, a desperately lonely creation in need of a companion to make his existence bearable? Had I turned my back on him yet again, when he laid everything he had and was and could be at my feet, to no avail?<br><br> | ||
