Chapter 13

“Here we are! The quarters of our good sister Day.” Exclaims, on three voices, the sociable sister GULL who is not only a storekeeper at Nike Moon Five, not only a generous volunteer from Asgard (that can be anywhere above the commonly visible universe), but also one of the most neighborly giant ladies – at least amongst the ones that Doris and Don have met, to date.

“Day! Oh, sister Day, I am so happy to see that you are doing fine, that you’ve set a natural looking background.” In spite of her visible efforts, Doris sounds embarrassed.

“Hi Doris and welcome to my new place. Meh, don’t call it natural if you know that’s nothing more than a background, an illusion. I am no fan of living inside a machine. However, I feel more at liberty here than deep inside the den of Kronos – where you had the audacity to ‘deliver’ me.”

“Delivery may not describe what we are doing, not in the best colors, at least.” Doris hardly finds her words, visibly cornered.

“You are an accessory to the pussy traffic performed by your little pimp across the galaxy.”

“The galaxy is not exactly relevant here but--”

“Shut your mouth, Don! I do not want to hear anymore of your technical jargon. I don’t give a fuck about how you call the strings or stars or clusters. All I know is that you have been my man, under the Golden Sky, and that I was more than happy to be the second wife under your Tree. But Dor turned jealous on me for just being there, second to her. She wasn’t content to be the first. No, no and no! She wished to be the one and only one. What am I saying here? She wanted to rule over you, over the man of her Tree, and she eventually arrived to do just that. The mistress of the Tree, above and ahead of her given shepherd. Who could imagine such a thing?”

“Dear Day, this is quite a common occurrence in Asgard, if I may.” Intervenes GULL, on a peaceful note.

“GULL dear, please keep the Asgard habits for you. We had a society on Prior Earth, a very simple and natural one. We had happiness and harmony. Until everything ended up to pieces and tragedy. And because of what? Because of jealousy and rivalry.”

“I can see that I’ve taught you well, Day.” Speaks Doris, like a knife.

“What do you mean?” Stops Day, taken aback.

“I was jealous then and I am jealous now. I want my Don only for me. Exclusively! If this wasn’t the social norm on Prior Earth, well, I’m terribly sorry for that. And I’ve paid it with my prior life. Taking him down with me. Down to abysses that I couldn’t fathom, that I cannot fathom, because those are unfathomable. Still I love him in my own way, he is my prey to have and treasure. I am not sorry for loving him the way I do.”

“You are not sorry? But you gotta--”

“Yes, I am sorry for all the havoc that my thoughts and my deeds had implied. I am sorry for allowing a maelstrom to run amok, out of my soul and into the worlds. I am sorry for doing you harm, for confusing and abusing peace on earth, for giving happiness to waste. I am sorry for upsetting you, my dear sister Day. I am sorry. Please forgive me for all of that, and for more that I don’t remember or that I can’t understand. But don’t ask me to be sorry for loving and wanting Don all for myself, because that’s not gonna happen. Not in any eternity.”

“No wonder that you break worlds, sis. Tell me what was on your mind when you delivered me and Dag, in a tunneled transfer, from the bay of your fancy pyramid to the somber den of Kronos. As fuck prey to the daemon of time. Tell me!”

“Prey?! Fuck prey??! You still don’t get it, sister Day. My only prey is Don! I am because I prey on him, because I have him, because he is mine and mine alone. This Kronos is a distraction and you are-- you are...”

“We are collateral. I see.” Day sighs away, stepping to the background. The rustling savannah, blurred to blue by an uncertain horizon, evaporates like a foregone dream. The irons emerge from behind, only to give way to a new mist: the luminous floor of stone, the majestic walls aiming for a dark ceiling.

Day turns around to bend and stretch a hand for Doris to jump in.

“Not advisable,” comments Don. “Hey Doris, gimme your hand.”

“Yeah, yeah, Don, or Master Don, whatever. Same old, same old. Jump in my palm along with your wife. You know that I won’t hurt you. No matter what she’s done to your mind.”

The two little humans, holding hands, jump into Day’s palm under the scared eyes of GULL – a goddess from Asgard.

“Everything alright, GULL? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Quips Don while slapping his ‘Great Leap Nike’ knee high tight boots. Like a monkey would show off.

“I am all right. I feel fine. Just. I don’t know. I-- Can I ask you something?”

“Sure. Go on.”

“Before boarding the tenth transport, my mom told me to think twice, then my dad asked me if I knew what I was doing. I answered them both, on a whim, that I’ve already thought it, more than twice, and that, yes, I did know what I was about to do. They kissed me on my forehead, I kissed their hands and neared the Bifrost.”

Doris, Day and Don are all ears. And eyes wide open. The latter delicately keeping the former and the last in her palm, close to her sternum. “What’s the tenth transport?” Whispers Day.

“A girls-only expedition to Midgard. It took place after the ninth, a military transport, and before the eleventh, a medical one.”

“Girls only?”

“Shut up, Don. GULL confessed to me, when I was in labor and she was holding my hand, that she embarked on a curiosity trip.” Points Day like a “I was eager to learn about humans, about Midgard and why the Creator has chosen it out of all worlds. I still am curious. You know, when in Asgard your questions get answered before you can finish the thought of them.”

“It applies to many other worlds and cultures, GULL dear. This is sublime.” Exhales Doris.

“You bring me to my yet unasked question, Doris dear. See, I elaborate on it before expressing it, I think so much about giving it a form, about finding the right words, not to hurt you. Not with my question. Not with a word. I am kind of like... I don’t know. What’s this that keeps my mouth from speaking out?”

“Fear, my dear. This is fear. You are afraid of harming us. Even with your words. And as it clearly turns out, where you’ve been born fear is unheard of.”

“How do you beat fear?” Hurries GULL the question. “There you go, I spoke it out!”

“You don’t beat fear. You process it.”

“Ah-ha! So this is why you humans are so slow, because you waste a great deal of brain time with processing fear. Makes sense, Uhm.”

“You are brilliant!” Exclaims Don who, in the meanwhile, has convinced Day to move her palm of such a manner that he can play with her giant nipple. “Look at me. What am I doing right now?”

“You hang down from Day’s nipple.”

“And how do I look to you?”

“Stupid? Crazy? Off maybe. But I can manage that. It is you we’re talking about, after all.”

“Exactly. Your brain didn’t even bother to process all the nonsense that you’ve spoken out. Simply by observing the present in front of your eyes, by correlating with either memories or prior knowledge about me, you produced a statement that stands pristine. This is a casual proof of your brilliance, GULL – the goddess from Asgard.”

“You’re doing the fear demo now?” Rants Doris, bit amused, bit uncomfortable. “And you’re using a provocative way. To stir emotions. Because, unlike GULL, I’m invested in you. Seeing you hanging like a baboon from that nipple won’t help my logic, nor speed up my processing powers.

“I’m doing a demo, Doris, not a fear demo, just a nonsense demo. See how many seconds has GULL spent on it? Now go figure, what if that would be about fear?, and not a demo!”

“It still takes me another minute,” continues Doris. “Your eloquence is efficient. I guess. GULL, I wish to ask you about romance in Asgard. If I may.”

“There is no distinction between romance and courtesy. Love is filling Asgard like water fills the ocean.”

“How about just sex, no strings attached?”

“You mean reproduction?”

“Not necessarily. No.”

“Physical copulation, exchanging fluids, goes only when a goddess decides to procreate.”

“But sex for pleasure?”

“Oh, breeding is very pleasurable. So they say.”

“You haven’t experienced it?”

“No. I am a virgin.”

“Yet you tell us that you have sex, romance, you are courted and all that?”

“Of course.”

“I don’t understand.”

“No fluid exchange. Mental sex, emotional romance, social courtesy. Sex is much more than physical contact, than procreation. Sex is communication.”

“GULL, I get it. Let me ask you: have you ever been in love?”

“No. This is why I took the tenth transport. I am looking for love.”

“How is it going so far?,” wonders Don, leaving the nipple alone.

Doris catches a mischievous exchange of glances between Day and GULL. The former commences in low voice. “Regardless of his gallant ways, Kronos treated me like a mare. Knowing me intimately, he wished to have children. Knowing him, I wished to know why. We both got what we wished for. Before parting our ways.”

Comforting Day with her looks (the two little humans felt tremors in her hand), GULL continues. “Day is a wonderful woman. She gave birth to a pair of twins – one red blooded, like his father, and one blue blooded, like us. She asked me to give them names. Which makes me their godmother. MANN is the name that I have given to the red blooded twin and OMD is the name that I have given to the one with the blue blood. I am about to fall in love for the latter. Well, I love them both, I keep having sex with each in my mind, I even picture myself between them. But I decided to breed with OMD. He is my choice. Tomorrow I’ll make love to him. The way you call it – exchanging fluids and all that sticky stuff.”

Doris shakes her head. Don shakes his legs, as he sits in Day’s palm. “Did you hear her, bunny? And you call me a pervert, eh?” Doris smiles at her crazy hubby, saying not a word. She won’t shake her head anymore, but fix a knee in Don’s back, stare up in Day’s eyes and ask. “What say you, sister Day?”

“I am telling you, little ones, to watch and learn. A tad of telepathy would speed up your curve. Why on earth and its moon did you firewall your minds, I cannot tell. But this goddess from Asgard knows what she’s doing. Tomorrow morning, my boys will attain maturity. Tomorrow evening, they’ll belong to her.”

“How about you?”

“I belong to Don, still. Whatever you wish to do to me, sister Dor. This is who I am: a part of your family, of Don’s tree.”

“Love is complicated,” contemplates Don while playing with the symbols on his wrists, “love is all we need, why try to understand it if the requirement is to need it.”

“Anyone wants to add yet another stereotype to this conversation?,” brims Doris, “what now?”

“Let me show you something. Come with me. We’ve got five more minutes to reach the edge.” Exclaims Day, already jumping with a little human concealed in each of her fists. GULL follows her leaps.