half-lathered with moss.
A sickening recollection of my reason for being in this city washes over me, nearly buckling my knees. These sharp sensations of coolness, quietness, beauty, all to be stolen from me for no reason, for nothing—I don’t even know what this draft is for. Epitaph collage of broken slate and granite tombstones knitted together by the weeds, “Rest In Autumn Loving Wife,” “Where We Shall Be Killed In Fire,” and protracted lines of numbers. The iron-piked wall is interrupted by a partially collapsed house and as this is the only exit that presents itself I part the curtain of vines and enter the house through the wall, setting my feet down with care on the slippery floorboards.
I hear voices near me. In the next room, three mortuary students are throwing dice against the far corner; a fourth lies with his head on a split cushion along another vine-draped hole in the wall, the day’s beaded light gleaming on his long legs and checked vest. He is watching the dice players and smiling. They turn to nod and grin at me, bent cigarettes at their lips, then return their attention to the dice. A fifth student lies nearby in the room’s darkest corner, his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles and his shoulders propped against a door in a deep doorway.
I can see the whites of his eyes, and the dim motions of his face as he speaks.
“As you honor death, buy me a drink!” he calls, smiling. It sounds like a quotation. If I were a wit, I’d know from where and give the countersign.
“I have no money,” I say, pinching at my empty pockets.
“Then you are my brother,” he replies at once, and lithely rolls himself into a crouch with his arms between his knees like a frog, but still sitting on the stone jam of the doorway. His face is round with a slightly tapering chin, skin white as custard and a sharky grin on red baby lips, faded grey irises in eyes like yellowed ivory. Straight pale brown hair bells from his top hat in a bowl cut.
“I’m Jil Punkinflake.” He says this as though he expects me to have heard of him, smiles up at me and offers his hand. “Go ahead and laugh if you like, but it’s my name.”
I don’t laugh, but we smile at each other.
“What’s yours?” he asks.
“Low,” I say.
“Just Low?”
“Low Loom Column is my complete name outside the country.”
“What country?”
“My country.”
“Mm,” he says. “What is it inside?”
“I can’t say it here. I’m not inside.”
Jil Punkinflake gets up and tugs the ladder from his vest. A large death’s-head moth, clinging to his lapel like a boutanier, opens and closes its wings meditatively. We sit down together on a piano bench by the wall. I explain my problem, how I come to be here.
“An exemption?” he asks.
“A narrator’s exemption; they’ll give it to you if you’ve already done your obligatory service, or trained for something.”
“So you get out of it if you’re a veteran?”
“No, I mean you go into the army when you come of age and serve a year, war or peace. It’s a standing army.”
“That’s what you did, Low?”
“No, I took medical training. The Sodality in town made me an award of the fees, because my marks were good in school.”
“But what possible good is it to the army training you if you can use that to get an exemption?”
“I imagine they reckon on being able to entice you to stay, having you right there. And there’s always the chance war will break out during your training period—there’s always one going on somewhere— then they can enlist you for a full tour without discounting your training time.”
“And just to whom are you assigned, Low?”
I have to check the ticket to be certain.
Jil Punkinflake’s head tilts back as though he’d just been lightly buffeted on the chin. “Makemin’s unit is understaffed. Half his troops have deserted already. Why don’t you run? Your chances are good.”
“I was seen by an Edek,” I say with a
A sickening recollection of my reason for being in this city washes over me, nearly buckling my knees. These sharp sensations of coolness, quietness, beauty, all to be stolen from me for no reason, for nothing—I don’t even know what this draft is for. Epitaph collage of broken slate and granite tombstones knitted together by the weeds, “Rest In Autumn Loving Wife,” “Where We Shall Be Killed In Fire,” and protracted lines of numbers. The iron-piked wall is interrupted by a partially collapsed house and as this is the only exit that presents itself I part the curtain of vines and enter the house through the wall, setting my feet down with care on the slippery floorboards.
I hear voices near me. In the next room, three mortuary students are throwing dice against the far corner; a fourth lies with his head on a split cushion along another vine-draped hole in the wall, the day’s beaded light gleaming on his long legs and checked vest. He is watching the dice players and smiling. They turn to nod and grin at me, bent cigarettes at their lips, then return their attention to the dice. A fifth student lies nearby in the room’s darkest corner, his outstretched legs crossed at the ankles and his shoulders propped against a door in a deep doorway.
I can see the whites of his eyes, and the dim motions of his face as he speaks.
“As you honor death, buy me a drink!” he calls, smiling. It sounds like a quotation. If I were a wit, I’d know from where and give the countersign.
“I have no money,” I say, pinching at my empty pockets.
“Then you are my brother,” he replies at once, and lithely rolls himself into a crouch with his arms between his knees like a frog, but still sitting on the stone jam of the doorway. His face is round with a slightly tapering chin, skin white as custard and a sharky grin on red baby lips, faded grey irises in eyes like yellowed ivory. Straight pale brown hair bells from his top hat in a bowl cut.
“I’m Jil Punkinflake.” He says this as though he expects me to have heard of him, smiles up at me and offers his hand. “Go ahead and laugh if you like, but it’s my name.”
I don’t laugh, but we smile at each other.
“What’s yours?” he asks.
“Low,” I say.
“Just Low?”
“Low Loom Column is my complete name outside the country.”
“What country?”
“My country.”
“Mm,” he says. “What is it inside?”
“I can’t say it here. I’m not inside.”
Jil Punkinflake gets up and tugs the ladder from his vest. A large death’s-head moth, clinging to his lapel like a boutanier, opens and closes its wings meditatively. We sit down together on a piano bench by the wall. I explain my problem, how I come to be here.
“An exemption?” he asks.
“A narrator’s exemption; they’ll give it to you if you’ve already done your obligatory service, or trained for something.”
“So you get out of it if you’re a veteran?”
“No, I mean you go into the army when you come of age and serve a year, war or peace. It’s a standing army.”
“That’s what you did, Low?”
“No, I took medical training. The Sodality in town made me an award of the fees, because my marks were good in school.”
“But what possible good is it to the army training you if you can use that to get an exemption?”
“I imagine they reckon on being able to entice you to stay, having you right there. And there’s always the chance war will break out during your training period—there’s always one going on somewhere— then they can enlist you for a full tour without discounting your training time.”
“And just to whom are you assigned, Low?”
I have to check the ticket to be certain.
Jil Punkinflake’s head tilts back as though he’d just been lightly buffeted on the chin. “Makemin’s unit is understaffed. Half his troops have deserted already. Why don’t you run? Your chances are good.”
“I was seen by an Edek,” I say with a
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