Where the Winds of Limbo Roar

Posted on Fri 8th Dec, 2017 @ 7:33am by

758 words; about a 4 minute read

Mission: A Phaser as Deadly as a Candlestick
Location: MacBeth Apartment, American Village
Timeline: Day of the Dead, Late Morning

Aiko MacBeth hadn't gone to school. Her father had commed the administrators, who nodded sagely when he told him she'd need a day or two off. After she'd answered the same question from the investigator a dozen times, she asked to be excused and come to her bedroom, taken off her school uniform and hung it neatly, and put her pajamas on.

She was lying across her bed, watching shards of light dance across her ceiling. The shards came from the multi-faceted crystal unicorn she had hanging in her window, which in turn was breaking up light cast by the fake sun in the fake sky outside that window. There was a lot of fakery involved in her idyllic life, she thought bitterly.

There was a knock at her door. Irritated, Aiko called, "I'm fine, Dad. Go away."

There was a pause, and then a woman's voice, contralto with a hint of a New York accent, "I will go if that is your desire, but I am not Dad."

Aiko sat up, crossed the bedroom over her sheepie rug, and opened the door. "Doctor Addams," she said. "Sorry."

Addams looked down at the girl in her superhero logo camisole and tap pants. "I apologize for catching you en déshabillé."

Aiko frowned. "Is that something dirty?" she asked, curious about the words she didn't know.

Addams smiled. "It can be," she answered. "If one's caller is very, very fortunate. But most often, not. It simply means 'dressed for bed.'"

"Oh," Aiko said, weighing the words. They did have a certain elegance... more than just 'in my PJs.' "Would you like to come in?" she asked, politely.

"Thank you," the Doctor said graciously. "I believe that I would."

Aiko turned back to the interior of the room, pulling out the desk chair for the Doctor and taking a seat on her bed.

"Merci, mon ami," the Doctor said, accepting the seat. Her eyes roamed the room, taking in the curious combination of relics of little girl and hints of young woman that were on display.

"Why do you do that?" Aiko asked. "Speak a language no one knows?"

Addams returned her regard to the young woman. "I suppose because my mother did," she answered, sounding thoughtful. "And my father responded to it as if it were the height of elegance and sophistication."

"Oh," Aiko said, and stared down at her hands. "I don't remember very well how my mother behaved."

Addams nodded, listening.

Aiko shrugged. They sat there in silence for a few minutes. At last, Aiko said, "why do people die?"

"Ah, ma petite chérie, you have lit upon one of the great questions of the ages. From a physiological standpoint, I could lecture for an hour, but I suspect nothing I said would touch upon what you really wish to know." Addams sighed. "It is a question I have, myself, pondered at no small length. And I believe I have come up with an answer. An answer which satisfies me, at any rate."

"Oh?" Aiko asked, invitingly.

Addams nodded. "I have concluded that 'why do people die' is the wrong question. The right question is, 'why do people live.' When you think about it, life is a profoundly unlikely condition. Why, just being you, or being me, is unlikely. Our parents had hundreds of thousands of possible mixtures of their genes... how did we, in particular, come to be?" Addams was silent for a moment, thinking of what Serenity Phillips had told her of her trip into an alternate timeline, and the different character of the Chlamydia Addams there.

"So... why do we live?" Aiko asked.

"Ah," Chlamydia said, looking both wise and mysterious, "that is a question that only you can answer. Certainly, among the gazillion people living among the three to four hundred billion stars in our galaxy, and the innumerable galaxies we have observed beyond our own, there is only one life form known as Aiko MacBeth, and only one known as Chlamydia Addams. Why are we? Why are you?" Chlamydia shook her head.

"What's your answer?" Aiko asked.

"To learn," Chlamydia answered promptly. "To know. A famous Terran scientist once said that he believed that the creator of all things does not play dice with the universe. I believe that we are the creator's dice. I don't know the game, or the rules, but I tumble along as best I can, trying to understand."

Aiko nodded, thoughtfully. "Thank you."

 

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