the Tokyo Writers Salon (my sis' project)

Prompt: be careful what you say (unedited)

the thing about me is that I don't respect the idea of care. I don't. When Holman took the last ship to Telriddeo, he held me and silently wept, the pinkish tears of his clan staining the dirty grey of my unisuit,

I didn't care, I told him.

You do, he said.

I stepped back, not far enough away to lose complete contact with his longest arm, just enough to stand in that all-enveloping circle of...care.

Holman, I can't...

I wasn't about to say it. I wasn't about to talk out loud about the engine of my brain asking one question since the orders came down from on high, why why why why why?

I refused to cry. our ancestors used to use that shortcut as the best way to signal the importance of their emotions, To signal their discomfort, their anger, their sorrow.

their sorrow.

their sorrow became ours, so easily. so smoothly, we hardly knew when it happened.

but I refused.

Holman held me in the circle of his arms, and leaned his front circle against my forehead and suddenly the energy, the bitterness, the anger, the sorrow, dammit, the sorrow, drained out of me like a pithecata striking into the heart of a glowBall and draining the liquid that kept it alive,

all that anger was keeping me alive.

If once I opened the gate to care, I would begin, not to cry, but to wail, to wobble, to fall.

to fail.

My love...

shut up I screamed...and thrashed but I was not able to leave the circle of his arms. I could not bring myself to. we both knew that the only way to get through this separation, forced and beareaucratic

and rushed and stupid, so stupid...the only way to get through it was not to care. not to say. not to look into his central eye and see the devastation there.

not to cling. not to watch as he drifted towards the Telriddeo. not to fall to my knees in the dirt of what used to be called Mars, keening as the heart of my heart, the half of my soul, drifted into the wretched distance, to live without his other.

and so I had to be so careful, utterly careful, not to say.