Book I: Part 2: Alison

    Elsewhere, a clock face flickered blue, marking the time as eleven o’clock.  No one in the room noticed because the only occupant was staring at her hands.

    The occupant’s name was Alison Amberginnegan, and she was waiting for her 11:30 appointment.  Alison was early because she had nothing else to do that day. 

    The room was sparely furnished.  The floor and three of the walls were covered in green carpet.  Along one wall a comfortable padded green bench rose seamlessly from the corner, spanned the entire length of the room, and disappeared into the two walls adjacent.  Dead-center in the adjacent walls were positioned a pair of identical woody doors, full of knotty spirals and swirls.  (Alison had entered from the door to her right.) 

    The wall opposite the bench appeared crystal clear.  It let in streams of sunlight, illuminating every corner and surface.  Outside could be seen the city, section 49-FF.  Buildings rose and fell randomly in height.  Smaller buildings were built upon larger ones, sometimes at odd angles.  Some buildings terminated in height only gradually, forming spirals or steppe patterns when viewed from above.  Small penthouses and apartment complexes grew everywhere upon everything like fungi.  The room was very high up, and the view seemed to stretch out forever, the buildings eventually tapering out along the horizon: it was as if one stood on the high edge of a valley, one whose cracked terrain hinted at untold depths below.  Of course, Alison Amberginnegan did not see any of this; she was staring at her hands. 

    She sat with her legs crossed.  On her feet were a pair of green canvass sneakers with white laces.  Her legs were covered in a pair of red and green tights, which disappeared under a white linen skirt covered in golden sparkles.  She wore a black jacket which was mostly hidden beneath her hair: a large brown scraggly mop overriding her head and torso, through which could be seen a small pale face: a china doll’s head in a barren thicket.  Her face hung forward, its shaded eyes staring intently at her hands clasped bloodless in her lap.  She looked less like a full-grown adult than a small lost child. 

    A mimetic fugue filled her mind.  A shifting haze, each thought unleashing a flood of possible connections, like hypertext.   

    The bench felt velvety, the same feeling as the cloth of the dress her mother was buried in. (The shade of green was off though; her mother’s dress was darker.)  Alison remembered stroking her mother’s hands, clasped over her abdomen, her face deflated and misshapen.  Every so often her fingers went too far and glided over the cuff of the dress.  The green fabric felt better than the skin, which was like wax.  Cold wax over skin, like that time in her sixth year when she had spilled the candle on her hand.  She cried out, but the wax quickly cooled, and then felt fine.  But she had knocked the candle out, and sitting in darkness, fingering the wax, feeling the living flesh pulse under it, then fade away as the surface turned cold and hardened, she breathed heavy and became frightened, and called out for her mother. 

    Her mother, whose name was Igrane Tintagellian.  A pale thin delicate woman with doe eyes, (Alison had never seen a doe, or a deer, not really, only in movies) and long dark hair.  She remembered the hair hanging across her mother’s face, her eyes peering out from between the strands, watching the rain.  Lots of memories of Igrane Tintagellian watching the rain.  She would go out on the balcony and watch the superstorms pass over, the invisible forcefields hovering over the skyscrapers protecting them like an angelic cocoon, the lightning passing overhead in streaks, lighting the frictionless chasm of apartments, a view blurred by the raindrops falling in rows along the forcefield's surface.  A hundred billion pitters pattering in concert, and her mother standing visible through the open doorway (Alison was always to scared to go outside herself), framed as if meant to stay there, waiting, enraptured. 

    It was because Igrane Tintagellian died that she ended up working in the store.  Suddenly Alison, at 19, had to fend for herself.  How very strange.  She never saw her mother work, ever.  For the last nine years she wondered how her mother, with a child at her side, managed to tie ends together.  Where did the credits come from? Who paid for the utilities?  Did the credits all fall from the sky? Igrane Tintagellian was always at home, watching over her.  No answer came with the funeral, and she quickly found herself having to tie ends herself, and the first place she found herself in her wanderings was Pluta’s Cornucopia. 

    Pluta’s Corncopia, a used clothing store, owned by Pluta, a small translucent woman with a pug nose and a tail, who wandered deliberately around the interior of the store, crossing people’s paths, trailing strands of black tassely hair, getting side-tracked and drawn into the orbits of various consumers who she haggled with, the detour causing her to spin around the consumer in a flurry to maintain her momentum, rotating them as they followed the force of her argument, until she disengaged, and continued on.  One wondered how she managed to stay upright, what with all the spinning. 

    Always pulled about by her force was her assistant and lover, Prospero, who when not engaged stood in the middle of the store, where he could get a good view of all the surrounding sea of clothes from an island of cleared floor room.  Often he stood with a book in hand, trying to distract himself from his circumstance, yet inevitably following his consort's calls, sallying forth into the woods—didn’t the clothes lines look like willow trees?—to answer his mistress’ call, where, like clockwork, Pluta would berate and chastise him for his absent-mindedness, then send him back to his island to silently brood.   

    Alison once asked Prospero, after a particularly contemptuous spat, why he put up with her bossing, and he stated that it was to keep close to his daughter, who he didn’t want to lose to the wealthier parent by fault of desertion.  As Pluta owned the business; Prospero was hers to command. 

    To vent, Prospero piled orders and frustration upon the other clerk, Urie Dies: a small olive-skinned man-child with black curly hair and a smooth curvy nose betwixt dark pooling eyes, always hidden among the cloths, lurking about, blending in.  As if just one more item in the store with a price. 

    And above it all, perched upon a stool behind the register like an observant bird, sat Alison, the sea of priced items stretching out before her.  The items seemed to writhe en masse, swaying as if alive due to Pluta’s passing commotion.  A massive pile of refuse: cast away, discarded, exiled, fallen, unloved, unlovely, torn, rag-tag, bedraggled items, waiting to be reborn again upon new bodies.   There she sat, clad in garments rescued from the shelves and hooks: watching, unspeaking, trying to take it all in and catch sight of Urie traveling through the undergrowth.  (Before working there, when living with her mother, she was dressed in long flowing simple dresses of moonlight blue, unadorned by frills or patterns.)

    Sometimes he would come up to the counter and speak with her.  He would always call her Ariel,  his secret nickname. 

    ‘My name is not Ariel,’ she said.

    ‘Ah, but I like Ariel better,’ he said

    ‘What’s wrong with Alison?’

    ‘Why be Alison when you could be Ariel?’

    ‘That’s not a reason.’ Alison rolled her eyes and threw back her head in mock disgust.  There was a stain on the ceiling that reminded her of a land formation she had seen while paging through a picture book while she was seven. 

    ‘It’s a name common in my family,’ he said waging his finger. ‘Petulant.  You should feel honored.’

    She smiled sheepishly.  ‘Well, thank you, but what’s wrong with just being myself?’

    ‘What’s in a name?’

     ‘I’m used to it?’

     ‘That’s no reason.  You should be open to changes.  I bet you don’t even know who you are anyways.   You should try being Ariel, take on a bit of my type.’  Then he scampered off. 

     Sometimes they discussed wanting to quit. 

     ‘Promise if you quit you will take me with you,’ one would say.

     ‘Only if you promise to take me.’

     ‘Let’s quits together then.  That will show them how important we are!’

     ‘Oh, let’s.’

     It was a slow day—the ninth slowest since she started—last Freyday, when the man entered.  He wore a red skintight body suit with arcane copper wire patterns etched all across the surface, and a shallow silver helmet. He opened the door of the shop, letting in a gust of air, and ran straight up to the counter. 

    ‘Alison Amberginnegin?’ he said. 

    ‘Yes? How may I help you?’ she was confused; no customer had ever known her name before. 

    ‘Mizziz Amberginnegin—am I pronouncing that right?—I am here on account of Legacy Corps.  Do you know who Legacy Corps is?’

    She shook her head. 

    ‘Figures.  Legacy Corps is an executing firm.  Um,’ and the red-suited man stared off to one side, ‘It is my regret to inform you that your father has passed on.’

    ‘My father?’ she asked, puzzled. 

    ‘Ayup.  He died about three months ago.  They have just finished sorting through all the electro work, I believe.’ The red-suited man pulled a small holographic card out of the air. ‘Anyways, I have been asked to give this to you.  You have, it seems, inherited something from him.  I have been sent to notify you that you need to meet the executor of the estate, a Mosses Meddleson.  This is his card, for you.  Within it is all the information you need to know.’  The red-suited man handed her the card.  ‘Sorry for you loss.’  he smiled, then was gone. 

    Sorry for your loss.  That sounded odd to her.  It had never really occurred to her that she had had a father.  That is, she was aware that one must have existed (the existence of a father was the excuse for her and her mother’s different last names) but she had never pictured there being a real flesh-and-blood person out there, somewhere, who was her father.  It would not have made the slightest difference to her if she had been virginally conceived. 

    But now she had a father, and as soon as she had found him, he was already gone.  For three months.  She had lost something without even knowing she had had it. 

    But what did she lose exactly?  She looked at the holographic card.  As she flickered it back and forth, different tableaus flashed across the surface. 

Mosses Meddleson

Chief Executor, for Legacy Corps!

Located in Room 7A-D, Level 1852

Of Legacy Corps Tower 1

(LL code 49-FF 2270 1852-7)

Call # 233-377-610-987-1597

The next one looked like this:

Hello, Alison!  I, Mosses Meddleson, commend and welcome you!  I regret inform you of the death of your father, Allathir Amberginnegin.  However, old Allathir has left properties to you in his will, and it has befallen on my humble head to explicate for you the intricacies of your inheritance.  If you could, please call the number listed on another face of this card, and make an appointment with my receiver, Janet/us, for sometime next week, so that we may explain the details to you.  Thank you and have a pleasant evening. 

The third and final image in the card was a smiling face: cheery, aged, but bursting with youthful exuberance, centered around a thin nose and encircled by a thick wreath of curly hair and beard: an image, she could only assume, of Mosses Meddleson.

    Alison was not allowed to use the store holographone, so she had to wait.  Then she had to take the cable car back to her apartment.  (She couldn’t afford a telepass.)  This all meant that she didn’t get a chance to call back until 5:49 pm. 

    The holographone pinged twice before answering.  The face that came into view was a mannish looking woman with an even complexion and short purplish hair done up in a swirl.  ‘Awfully late you are calling, no?’

    ‘What? I mean, I’m sorry?’

    ‘Yes, what is it you want?’

    ‘Well, my name is Alison Amberginnegan? And I have this card, and…?’

    ‘Alison Amberginnegan?’  The mannish woman turned away from the holographone.  Alison heard typing in the distance.  That had been an awfully fast reaction. 

    ‘Uh, yes? That’s me?’

    ‘Middle Initial M?’

    ‘Yes?’

    ‘Ah, yes.  Messer Meddleson was expecting a call… he has open….  He can see you at 11:30 on Wodensday.  According to his notes you will need a ninety minute period.  Can you make that?’

    She had no idea.  To make that, she would need to take a day off, or leave early, and she had never taken a day off, or left early, ever.  She had always been too afraid to ask Pluta. 

    ‘Yes?’

    ‘Good girl.  Messer Meddleson will see you then.  Come to our offices on level 1848.  Not 1852, like on the card.  1848.  People are always following the card and getting lost.  You can’t reach Messer Meddleson’s offices by going straight to his level.  You need to started on 1848.  See you next Wodensday.’ 

    The connection terminated.  Alison stood in her room blinking. 

    Why did she have to start five levels down?  Why did she agree to an appointment on Wodensday, during the day, when apparently they were still open at night?  Couldn’t she have gotten a night appointment?
    Why hadn't she said anything?
    Sometimes Alison noticed, upon a reflection, her brain coming up with random little decisions that added up to the solution to a larger problem she had been dealing with.  That night, Alison wondered, while laying in bed, in her blue-moon nightgown, under her alabaster covers, staring at the ceiling covered in star stickers, if this was her brain doing something like that again.  She hated when her brain did that.  Usually the decisions she was unconsciously making were highly uncomfortable. 

    ‘What do you mean you want an extended lunch?’

    For the next four days, Alison acted as if nothing had happened.  Things went on as always.  Pluta orbited, Prospero came and retreated, Urie popped in and out of view, his absence harassing her.  She rode the cable car to and from labor, enjoying the gentle curving descent and ascent as it glided through the streets.

    ‘Where do you get off asking for something on such short notice?’

    Alison hadn’t mentioned to anyone what had happened on Freyday until the end of Tirsday.  She had never had the courage to face Pluta until she had no choice. 

    ‘I-I’m sorry,’ she sputtered.

    Pluta stared at her crossly.  ‘Well, you can’t skip work.  It’s not allowed.’

    ‘A-all I need is a lunch break from 11:00 to 1:00.’ She figured maybe she could get out of the meeting early, and be back at work by the time it actually ended. 

    ‘You know you don’t get a lunch break!’

    ‘Well…Could I have one?’  Alison had no idea where this thought came from.

    ‘No!’

    ‘Just one?’

    ‘Of course not!  What if consumers come?’

    Usually no one came in during lunch hours.  She tried counting all the people that ever came in between 11 and 1 but gave up.  Some of the time she didn’t keep track of the clock at work. 

    ‘Couldn’t you get someone to fill in?’

    ‘Hah! Like who?’

    ‘Well, Urie could, or Melinda…’

    ‘I’m not making my daughter come in early!’ boomed Pluta.  ‘Look here, either come in tomorrow, for all of the day, or you’re gone!’

    ‘Gone?’

    ‘Gone!’

    ‘But, I need to go…’

    ‘Well, make your decision now.  Either you work all of tomorrow, or you can leave, right now!’

    Alison froze.  Could she reschedule?  What if she couldn’t reschedule?  Was there a penalty for not following the schedule?  Did she forfeit her inheritance?  What if it was a big inheritance?  What if it was pittance, not enough to keep her rent, and then she was out of a job?  Maybe nothing would happen if she missed the appointment. She could reschedule.  But for when?

    ‘I’m waaaiiiit-tinnnnng.’  Pluta stood hands-on-hips glaring. 

    She couldn’t lose what was left of him.  Not for this.

    ‘Well, what’s it going to be then?’

    Slowly, shaking, Alison turned.  She began walking for the door, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other.  Behind her was silence.  She remembered Urie then, their promises to quit together. 

    Now she was quitting. 

    She was at the door.  Would he follow?  She turned: a slow revolution. 

    And there was Urie, a few feet from her.  Staring at her.  His face pained, eyes wide.  Silently she pleaded. ‘Don’t let me be alone.’ His face twitched, and went blank.  As if pulled by an external force, he retreated behind a hanger of clothes, disappearing into the masses.  Crestfallen, Alison turned, and with moist eyes, opened the door and walked out. 

    ‘I’m not paying you for this week!’ yelled Pluta.  The door closed.  A bell chimed.  Alison ran off.  It was raining gently all the way home, which steamed the air and hid her tears. 

    She remembered a dream she had had the night before.  She was in a boat, weighted down low along the water, full of hooded forms rowing.  Fog drifted off the water’s surface and obscured the distance.  Then suddenly the fog parted, and a tower appeared in the air.  She heard yells and shouts and saw a giant flame on the nearing shore.  Dim figures danced around it in a circle.  She looked up towards the tower, then back down toward the dancing figures, and began to feel afraid.      

    Sometimes, she felt an intuition of future tidings, as if she knew, just knew, what would happen next.  This feeling of fate or fortune filled her with dread.  Dread of the unknown, dread of her powerlessness.  She was feeling that feeling right now. 

    Alison blinked.  Her clenched hands were as pale as the grave.  From the periphery of her vision she saw the window, the source of the light blanketing her.  It was obviously very sunny.  She did not look up.