A Guide to the Fruits of Hawaï’i

A Guide to the Fruits of Hawaï’i

By Alaya Dawn Johnson

The remaining nineteen residents are divided into four units, five kids in each, living together in sprawling ranch houses connected by walways and gardens. There are walls, of course, but you have to climb a tree to see them. The kids at Grade Gold have more freedon than any human she’s ever encountered since the war, but they’re as bound to this paradise as she was to her mountain.

The vampires who come here stay in a high glass tower right by the beach. During the day, the black-tinted windows gleam like lasers. At night, the vampires come down to feed. There is a fifth house in the residential village, one reserved for clients and their meals. Tetsuo orchestrates these encounters, planning each interaction in fine detail: this human with that performance for this distinguished client. Key has grown used to thinking of her fellow another, stranger veneer. The vampires who pay so dearly for Grade Gold humans don’t merely want to feed from a shunt. They want to be entertained, talked to, cajoled. The boy who explained about Key’s uncanny resemblance juggles torches. Twin girls from unit three play guitar and sing songs bu the Carpenters. Even Rachel, dressed in a gaudy purple memaid dress with matching streals on her hair, keeps up a one-way, laughing conversation with a vampire who seems too astonished – or too slow – to reply.

Key has never seen anything like this before. She thought that most vampires regarded humans as walking sacks of food. What pleasure could be derived from speaking with your meal first? From seeing it sing or dance? When the first went with Tetsuo, the other vampires talked about human emotions as if they were flavors of ice cream. But at Grade Orange she grew accostomed to more basic parameters: were the humans fed, were they fertile, did they sleep? Here, she must approve outfits; she must manage dietary preferences and erratic tempers and a dozen other details all crucial to keeping the kids Grade Gold standard. Their former caretaker has been shipped to the work camps, whicj leaves Key in sole charge of the operation. At least until Tetsuo decides how he will use his dispensation.

Barbies vampires. Photo by Elena

Key’s thoughts skitter away from the possibility.

« I didn’t know vampires liked music, », she says, late in the evening, when some of the kids sprawl, exhausted, across couches and cushions. A girl no older than fifteen opens her eyes but hardly moves when a vampire in a gold suit lifts her arm for a nip. Key and Tetsuo are seated together at the far end of the main room, in the bay window that overlook a cliff and the ocean.

« It’s as interesting to us as any other human pastime. »

« Does music have a taste?»

His wide mouth stretches at the edges; she recognizes it as a smile. « Music has some utility, given the right circumstances. »

Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, edited by Rich Horton, Prime Books, 2015.