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Multicoloured Blue [MultiFormat]
eBook by Jenny Adams
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eBook Category: Science Fiction/Dark Fantasy
eBook Description: Jenny Adams describes this engagingly dreamy and otherworldly duet between two appealing characters thus: "Multicoloured Blue is the kind of blue you see when physics and emotion go beyond where they really ought to. One moment everything's slow and dark, rock solid, nothing moves. Next moment all that's gone and everything is bright, you squint, the ground moves under your feet, makes you nauseous, delirious. Theresa lives in a castle on top of a cliff with a jet black sea at its feet. When the storm comes she wakes up in a world that has physics that's cracked and there was already a Theresa there who was happy and in love. Theresa steps into the life she always wanted, but at any moment, any moment that life could be ripped away. A story for people who like to drift on oceans of colour and for whom things don't have to make sense to be interesting." We think you'll be moved by the story too.
eBook Publisher: Clocktower Books and Far Sector SFFH (magazine), Published: Far Sector SFFH, 2004
Fictionwise Release Date: September 2004
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [341 KB], eReader (PDB) [47 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [35 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [32 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [96 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [103 KB], hiebook (KML) [106 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [77 KB], iSilo (PDB) [29 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [37 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [70 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [51 KB]
Words: 10946
Reading time: 31-43 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
Moonlight forked like infant lightning on the waves. Oars shed droplets that could've been celestial the way they were flying, could've been microscopic pond life the way they were shaped. The droplets weren't tears; the girl in the boat wasn't crying, she was sadder than that. The moon's pockmarks made it seem cloaked in netting, struggling to shine through cage bars. It wasn't the first time the girl had rowed in the moonlight. Usually she came to mitigate a chronic melancholy though, a survivable depression. And only when she knew her staff were very sleepy, better still, drunk. Usually she didn't shimmy down a drainpipe fast as a lizard, silent as a spider, they might hear her, no matter how fast and smooth, they might hear her. Usually didn't risk bells being rung for her missing person in the middle of the night. But tonight just had to get out, just had to. One more second in her bedroom, she'd go mad. Another second in her bedroom, nothing to do, nothing tomorrow. If she didn't run to the jetty, if she didn't row till her arms hurt and the sweat stuck her clothes to her skin, she saw herself ending up mad, hallucinating. Making it all up.
Theresa looked to the far away and it wasn't space she saw there, jet black and promising. It wasn't anything. When rowing helped, she could breathe in the wide open and without walls, conjure purpose from the rhythms of oar in water. Since she'd been nine years old Theresa had rowed the bay, studied the horizon, the sky. Studied the back of her hands that had no wrinkles, that were blank of work and time. Seen hope that somehow, from under or over the sea, she could find a vigorous future. If she'd written her story for herself she would've composed an explosion, a forced marriage, a surprise cancer, some monster to drag her into this deepest pit. No monster though, just one after another, bruises of the spirit, till she was sure she could see a purple cast under her skin. She rowed despite the bruises and usually the rowing would've helped, but it wasn't helping and she couldn't see any skin any more--just blue. She was Princess Inconsequential of the Cobwebby House. Crumbled cliffs with the castle on top. The cliffs that made the beach a private one. The house without a hint symmetry in a slab or a wing. Slabs the size of trolls. A castle all sandstone, bitty, made of chippings even when it had been brand new. And impossible to imagine it had ever been brand new. A residue of imperium--no, older than that, a decayed trace of imperium. Where nothing renewed, not really; something of the mushroom in every seed sprouted, every baby born there. Castle men walked heads down, muttering. Castle women dragged heavy skirts, looked straight ahead. Theresa walked as if she was blinkered like she was supposed to, only in her deepest gut was she all the time peeking. Theresa's night was ripe for harbouring a secret lover. If she'd been able to choose her own reason to shimmy here, risk the bells, it would've been that lover. It would've been a grown up reason she was here. There's a moment of development and decision when a creature grows up, says I'm ready for reproduction and occupation, ready to make a mark. For Theresa that moment had been five years ago. Since then, the more she'd opened herself for love, become porous for love, the more the smiles of young men turned waxy and melted away. And occupation? Everything worthwhile a princess could do had been done generations ago. Princesses long dead had worked hard and taken a scythe to all challenges for a princess. Theresa put the oars up and rested forward on her elbows. Drifted. "Water!" She said. "You know everything, you've washed all shores, come on now, seems like I've waited forever to hear something more than sloshing from you, tell me, is there anything out there for someone like me?" The sea lapped up against the boat. Bobbed the boat up and down. Gravity's tides and weather's currents moved Theresa not very far and didn't say a word. She let herself stay doldrummed long enough for dumb gurgles to irritate almost to the point that her bedroom had irritated, then she picked up her oars. Picked up her oars and prepared to go from one barren place to another, from open sea to serving sovereignty by doing nothing. Princess Numb of Featureless Nowhere. She turned the boat's nose back towards the shore. Didn't pay much attention to how difficult it was getting to pull the oars. Didn't notice the wind raising the ends of her hair into chaotic spectres. Or the air on her cheek getting fresher, air more biting than kissing. Storms can come suddenly. The storm came suddenly. As if the sky had ruptured and hard air had been forced through. To punch up waves and make them curvy foamy towers to grow for a second or two then fall. To land dead trees on the shore, throw seagulls off course, pull giant rocks off cliffs. To say--you're not allowed to be as dark and monotonous as this, as sad and becalmed as this. * * * *A young woman is dancing in the arms of a man dressed in blue. They're waltzing to strings, violins, a dozen violins. They're on a boat. The boat is big; definitely big enough to support a wedding party that's waltzing. She's a big Norbian boat. She's called Clarion. The party are all in the same electric, insect blue. Most have their eyes closed as if they're ecstatic in dancing. The seascape isn't so totally blue. Every time a wave pops, pink sparkles fly where you'd expect there'd be droplets and foam. The seagulls have copper coloured feathers but they dive bomb and screech same as seagulls everywhere. The young woman steps back from the man and steps again till she's stopped by a railing. She leans back, precarious--tiniest flip and she'd be in the sea. All stop, look, reach out, step towards, but Theresa's partner reaches her first. "It's all right," he says. "You're all right. It's all been just a bit too much, hasn't it? Too much excitement and champagne, that's all." He's close enough to catch her but he doesn't try, like he trusts her, like it matters that he trusts her. "Hypnotised by the dance for a second, weren 't you? But you'll be okay now--promise." He holds his arms out ready to catch her. "Come here, look at me, keep your eyes open."
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