August 21, 2008
TWO OF CUPS
| EKATERINA SEDIA |
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You still think in terms of collagen and molecules, and the breakdown of flesh, and you think, how soft her skin now that she is getting older—not elastic and taut but so soft instead, buttery. It’s just the aging and the breakdown of proteins, you think, the same thing that is happening to the rest of her—firmness gone, instead this softness, yielding, and you press your cheek to the soft and cool skin of her bare arm, and there are tiny creases and wrinkles you can see from the corner of your eye, the shape of them the subject of your auguries, just like the cards are of hers.
Before you retired, you thought of things like that—you thought of the essential oils and plant secondary chemicals when you caught whiffs of wormwood, you thought of leaf senescence when you smelled autumn—smoke and treacle. You still think of them, but you try to use her words, and you bury your face in her scented shoulder and mouth words like “amber” and “peach” and “sunlight.” You breathe in the smells of summer fruit and warm skin.
You have to wonder, how is that even possible, how can we smell of so many things, and—conversely—how can we distinguish so many, and the fact remains: it is all the biological complexity, the receptors and the signaling proteins, enzymes and substrates, all fitting together so smoothly, like the hollow of your cheek over the curve of her shoulder, like the fine hairs on her upper arm and the tangle of your eyelashes, blinking so close to skin that she sighs and shifts.
There’s sizzling coming from the kitchen, the smells of cinnamon and cloves and cardamom, hot boiling cream. “Dinner’s ready,” she says, and puts away the cards. The top one, two people holding a cup, catches your eye. “What does it mean?” you ask and shift away, letting her stretch and stand up.
”A marriage or a union,” she says.
Your auguries seem to be in agreement.
Ekaterina Sedia resides in the Pinelands of New Jersey. Her new novel, The Alchemy of Stone, was published by Prime Books in June 2008. Her previous one, The Secret History of Moscow, received extensive praised for the LA Times and Neil Gaiman among others. Her short stories have sold to Analog, Baen’s Universe, Fantasy Magazine, and Dark Wisdom, as well as the Japanese Dreams (Prime Books) and Magic in the Mirrorstone (Mirrorstone Books) anthologies. Visit her at www.ekaterinasedia.com.