Elery's House

Posted on Fri 26th Jun, 2020 @ 6:53am by Yuliette Marayan Dr.
Edited on on Fri 24th Jul, 2020 @ 6:43am

972 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: Resolution
Location: Brown Sector: Zodiac
Timeline: MD11

There was a game of tag happening around the street entry to Granddame Elery’s place. The young ones were attended by moms and aunties kissing booboos and gossiping. Yuliette counted at least four races that she could decipher. Klingon, Orion, Bajoran, Human. And maybe some faint Trill markings. This lot were well blended and well settled. They had laundry hung overhead and a mass of tools in a workman’s barrow near the steps. There were chalk drawings everywhere, and the storefront below was a furniture and handmade oddities shop. Yuliette remembered going into upscale versions of places like that with her mother all of the time. Her mother would buy different furniture and decor for every new party she threw— that was her life’s calling, to spend all the money, and she was good at it. Her mother would have turned her nose up at the real thing though. These handwoven baskets and the rough cut wood carvings rubbed with colored stains. Hideous, she would say. Unoriginal. She preferred to buy *designer* primitive craft. Which Yuliette knew amounted to sweat shop labor with outrageous markups at the dealer. She’d seen the other side of that pipeline personally.

“Sorry, the shop is closed,” said a human wearing flamboyant socks pulled up to his knees just below where his shorts began. He had a face that was somehow both grumpy and comfortably familiar. His chin was a blocky shape and his bottom lip looked like the broad mouth of a fish. He was settling into a folding lounger and noticed her looking through the shop window.

“You can come back to the Drift tomorrow morning, if you’re still visiting. I open at 10, but earlier if you make an appointment.”

It seemed a little more difficult to see than it had before, and Yuliette looked up, dipping her sunglasses a little to confirm what she suspected. The lighting on the drift was shifting to an evening setting. This place followed some planetary night and day schedule. That was good for the circadian rhythms at least. She looked back to the man who was now pulling a dulcimer out of a case from under his chair.

“I’m actually here to speak to Granddame Elery. Do you know if she’s in?”

“Oh yeah, buzz that door and they’ll let you up into the family complex.”

“Thank you.”

“Sorry about your loss,” the man added. Yuliette was too confused to ask what he meant by that.

Yuliette climbed the set of steep stairs to the door. A longer access ramp was built alongside these steps. She pressed the little button by the voice box at the side of the door.

“Yes?” Came a tinny, elderly voice. “What kind of hat are you?”

“Uh, I haven’t got a hat.”

“No dear, what kind of hat *are* you?”

“You mean, if I were a hat, what sort might I be?”

“That’s what I said.”

Yuliette thought about it and smiled. Hadn’t Findley warned her this Elery lady was high? “A sunhat. With a broad floppy brim.”

“Mm, yes. I remember the suns.”

The door buzzed and the latch unhitched.

Inside of this entry stairwell there was also an old fashioned lift installed. When Yuliette came to the top of the flight of stairs there was a longer hall to the right with all the doors not unlike the narrow passage outside of her own apartment. But to the left was a fancier door with big panels and voices behind it. One of them was shouting “Answer the door! Someone’s coming up to see Grandmama!”

A girl in her pajamas swung open the door and looked at her funny. “Is your husband dead?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Is your husband dead?” The girl repeated unhelpfully, putting her hand on her hip. She was missing at least three teeth.

“No. I’ve never been married.”

“Then why are you wearing a white cowl like a widow?”

“Is your grandmother in?”

“She’s out on the porch. That way, through the kitchen.” The girl moved out of the way and let The widow who wasn’t a widow in.

Instead of another endless row of apartments, inside this space the walls had all been changed around. There was a stairwell going up to the next level like a proper two story home, or three if it went up as far as two more levels. People were using the central space like a family room, Drinking from teacups, hauling baskets of washing. Sitting with their devices. A bunch of little ones were leaping over the back of a sofa and a bald guy was holding a baby and reading aloud.

“And when the luftuf lost his one and only sock for his one and only foot, he set out on a journey. A great journey. Over the hideous wailing mountains. There the luftuf had to close up his inner ears and sing loudly the chorus his brothers had failed to sing. His brothers had tried to turn back but the wailing had made them sob until they themselves became rocks wailing on the wailing mountains adding to the frightful chorus. All because they had been too ashamed to be heard singing. ‘So long from the plains of my fathers I go, one foot have I to climb in the snow.’ at first he made no progress, for how could he climb with but one foot? But he sang all of the verses at the top of his voice. So he drowned out the wailing and focused only on his course. That is when the lufttuf learned to slither.”

Yuliette stood for a while, listening to the bedtime story, and wondering at what exactly a luftuf was, until she remembered why she was there…

 

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