Social Life of Things

The Social Life of Things

The Nature of Things – the secret life of Inanimate Objects by Lyall Watson

Social Notions

When the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda was a child, playing in the lot behind his home in Temuco, he discovered a hole in a fence board:

“I looked through the hole and saw a landscape like that behind our house, uncared for, and wild. I moved back a few steps, because I sensed vaguely that something was about to happen. All of a sudden a hand appeared – a tiny hand of a boy about my age. By the time I came close again, the hand was gone, and in its place there was a marvellous white toy sheep. The sheep's wool was faded. Its wheels had escaped. All of this only made it more authentic. I had never seen such a wonderful sheep. I went into the house and brought out a treasure of my own: a pine cone, opened, full of odor and resin, which I adored. I set it down in the same spot and went off with the sheep. I never saw either the hand of the boy again. And I have never seen a ship like that either. The toy I lost finally in a fire. But even now... whenever I pass a toyshop, I look furtively into the window. It's no use. They don't make sheep like that anymore.”

Such things are super-notions, objects given value which is independent of their substance or appeal. Value by association. Very often they are gifts. And a real gift, almost by definition, cannot be static. Historically it is something that was intended to be shared, to lead a life of its own. Gifts, to be true to their nature, must move.

Some forms of property stand still, they resist momentum, like houses which exercise extraordinary control over the destiny of certain families. True gifts are not like that, they are not supposed to be kept, but to be given away again as soon as possible. Everywhere that gift rituals exist, those involved recognize that the first movement of a new thing is relatively weak. It is with the movement through the first recipient to a second and a third that an object begins to acquire real potency. Gifts are social things, they need to go out a lot, and those that are prevented from doing so seem to lose a good part of their national identity.

The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski recalled a visit to Edinburgh Castle where he was shown the Scottish crown jewels, and told how they had been taken away on several occasions by English kings and queens, and how pleased the nation was to have them back now, safe under lock and key, where no one could touch them again. Malinowski was appalled and could not help thinking “how ugly, useless, ungainly, even tawdry they were”, in comparison to a collection of “thin red strings, and big white, worn-out objects, clumsy to sight and greasy to touch” he had seen not long before on islands off the eastern tip of New Guinea. Malinowski spent the years of the First World War working among the Massim people who live in a spray of islands scattered across the Coral and Solomon Seas. They share a language and most of a common Melanesian culture, but are untied principally by an astonishingly ceremonial exchange of gifts known as the kula. The complex ritual – no one ever things of it in terms of trade – revolves around two main categories of gift. One is known as bagi and consists of small broken pieces of bright red shell taken from Chama imbricata, a frilly rock clam sometimes known as a “jewel box”. These are drilled and strung together into distinctive necklaces on cords of natural fibre decorated with smaller red shell beads. The other gift is called mwali and is a pair of armbands made from giant leopard cone shells, Conus leopards, by breaking off the blunt caps and narrow bases and polishing the central cylinders into shiny white bands like large napkin rings.

Candles are the most common offerings in churches, temples and shrines, where their immolation seems to be understood ad a form of sacrifice. Photo by Elena.

Nightgame

Nightgame

By C.J. Cherryh

The sun climbed higher, and outside, the City sank into its daytime burrowings; and the Lotus Palace sank into its daily hus. Elio bathed, a lingering immersion in a golden bowl only slightly more gleaming than the limbs which curled in it, serpent-lithe and slender. He walked the cool, lily-stemmed halls, and stared restlessly out upon the only unshielded view of the Palace, upon the ruin-flecked valley below the hill, upon the catacombs sheened by the daystar's terrible radiations, and behind him his attendant lesser lords observed this madness with languid-lidded eyes, hoping for something bizarre. But he was not struck by the sun, nor did he leap to his death, as four Tyrants before him had done, when amusements failed; and he turned on them a look which in itself gave them a prized thrill of terror... remembering that to assuage the pangs of the last failed hunt - a minor lord had fallen to him in the Games, rare, rare sport.

But he passed them by with that deadly look and walked on, absorbed in his anticipations, often raised, ever disappointed.

The kill was always too swift. And he knew the whispers, that such power as his always burned itself out, that it grew more and more inward, lacking challenge, until at last nothing should suffice to stir him.

He imagined. Such talent was rare. The sickness was on him, that came on the talented, the brilliant dreamers, who found no further challenges. At twelve, he foresaw a day not far removed when his own death would seem the only excitement yet untried. He knew the halls, each lotus stem and startled, golden fish. He knew the lord and ladies, knew them, not alone the faces, but the very souls, and drank in all their pleasures, fed by them, nourished on their darkest fantasies, and was bored.

He probed the death of victims, and found even that tedious.

He grew thin, pacing the halls by day, and exhausting his body in dreams at night. 

He terrorized captured laborers, but that waking sport palled, for the dreams were more, and deeper, and more colorful, unlimited in fantasy, save by the limits of the mind.

And these he had paced and plumbed as well.

At twelve he knew the limits of all about him, and had experienced all the pleasures, heritor of a thousand thousands of his sort, all of whom died young, in a City which found its Eternity a slow, slow death.

Perhaps tonight, he thought, savoring the thought, I die.

Hammered into rain, the city rebuilt on that ruin, stubbornly rising as if up were the only direction it knew. Photograph by Elena.

The Haunted Tower

The Haunted Tower (London)

By C.J. Cherryh

There were ghosts in old London, that part of London outside the walls and along the river, or at least the townsfolk outside the walls believed in them: mostly they were attributed to the fringes of the city, and the unbelievers inside the walls insisted they were manifestations of sunstruck brains, of senses deceived by the radiations of the dying star and the fogs which tended to gather near the Thames. Ghosts were certainly unfashionable for a city management which prided itself on technology, which confined most of its bulk to a well-ordered cube (geometrically perfect except for the central arch which let the Thames flow through) in which most of the inhabitants lived precisely ordered lives. London had its own spaceport, maintained offices for important offworld companies, and it thrived on trade. It pointed at other cities in its vicinity as declined and degenerate, but held itself as an excellent and enlightened government: since the Restoration and the New Mayoralty, reason reigned in London, and traditions were cultivated only so far as they added to the comfort of the city and those who ruled it. If the governed of the city believed in ghosts and other intangibles, well enough; reliance on astrology and luck and ectoplasmic utterances made it less likely that the governed would seek to analyze the governors upstairs.

There were some individuals who analyzed the nature of things, and reached certain conclusions, and who made their attempts on power.

For them the Tower existed, a second cube some distance down the river, which had very old foundations and very old traditions. The use of it was an inspiration on the part of the New Mayoralty, which studied its records and found itself a way to dispose of unwanted opinion. The city was self-contained. So was the Tower. What disappeared into the Tower only rarely reappeared... and the river ran between, a private, unassailable highway for the damned, so that there was no untidy publicity.

Usually the voyagers were the fallen powerful, setting out from that dire river doorway of the city of London.

On this occasion one Bettine Maunfry came down the steps toward the rusty iron boat and the waters of old Thames. She had her baggage (three big boxes) brought along by the police, and though the police were grim, they did not insult her, because of who she had been, and might be again if the unseen stars favored her.

She boarded the boat in a state of shock, sat with her hands clenched in her lap and stared at something other than the police as the loaded her baggage aboard and finally closes the door of the cabin. This part of the city was an arch above the water, a darksome tunnel agleam with lights which seemed far too few; and she swallowed and clenched her hands the more tightly as the engines began to chug their way downriver toward the daylight which showed at the end.

They came finally into the wan light of the sun, colors which spread themselves amber and orange across the dirty glass of the cabin windows. The ancient ruins of old London appeared along the banks, upthrust monoliths and pillars and ruined bits of wall which no one ever had to look at but those born outside – as she had been, but she had tried to forget that.

In not so long a time there was a smooth modern wall on the left side, which was the wall of the Tower, and the boat ground and bumped its way to the landing.

The city soared, a single spire aimed at the clouds, concave-curved from sprawling base to needle heights. Photograph by Elena.

Catch the Lightning

Catch the Lightning

A novel in the Saga of the Skolian Empire by Catherine Asaro

The Abaj Tacalique

The Raylicon sky glowered red above the horizon, its streamered clouds lined with fluorescent pink. Directly above us the sky calmed into gray and at the opposite horizon it deepened into black.

Athor and I stood alone, surrounded by desert. Low red hills rolled out in every direction as far as we could see. In the distance, claws of rock stretched like skeletal fingers up to the angry sky. The horizon was closer than on Earth and the gravity weaker. Although it looked like how I imagined Mars, Raylicon is actually a darker red than Earth's neighbor and has a more complex biosphere. Her atmosphere is oxygen rich and dense, giving the daytime sky a pale blue color.

Althor still wore the pants and boots of his dress uniform, with a black knit pullover. He had given me his flight jacket, and it hung down over my dress to my hips. Made from the same insulating material as his regular uniform, it even carried its own web system.

We stood staring at the sky. The receding spark that had been the Jag was gone now. “Do you think it can make it back without a pilot?” I asked.

“I don't know,” Althor said.

I wanted to offer comfort, to take away his haunted look. But in the few minutes since the Jag had revived us, Althor had remained distant and closed.

“The Jag was right.” I said. “We're safe here. Both of us.”

“It needs a pilot.” He looked no more accepting now of its decision than he had when it first told him it was going solo.

A rumbling finally registered on my mind. As I became aware of it, I realized it had been in the ground for a while, growing stronger. With it came the memory of that morning so many years ago in Chiapas, when an earthquake shook the ground until fissures opened. After it was over, my aunt and uncle had been dead, our home destroyed, our sheep lost, and our crops gone.

The rumbling grew stronger, shaking the desert, stirring dust. Thunder in the ground. I moved closer to Althor, but when I touched his arm he stiffened. So I dropped my hand. He wouldn't look at me, just stood staring at the horizon.

The came silhouetted against the crimson sky, hundreds of them, sweeping over the curve of the world like phantasms created from the burning horizon. In wave after wave, a horde of riders thundered out of the sunset.

“Go away,” I whispered. “No more.”

“These are friends,” Althor said. “Abaj”

“Your ancient bodyguards?”

He nodded, his attention on the riders. The force of their coming raised clouds of dust.

“If these are bodyguards,” I said, “why weren't they here when the Jag set us down?”

He continued to stare out at the riders. “The Abaj Tacalique control the ground-based, orbital-based, and interplanetary defenses for this system. They've one of the most extensive defense matrices in settled space.” Dust swirled around his feet, agitated by the rumbling ground. “It makes no difference where we are on the planet. They have been guarding us since we entered the system.” He motioned at the riders. “This is ceremony”.

They came on, resolving out of the gathering shadows, tall forms on mounts. Long strips of cloth trailed behind their heads, snapping in the wind.

The lightning. Illustration by Elena.

The Last Hawk

The Last Hawk

By Catherine Asaro

(A novel of the Skolian Empire)

The escort returned Kelric to the AmberRoom the same way they had taken him from it; in complete silence, his wrists locked behind his back, without Deha or her retinue. The journey up the tower seemed endless. He couldn't even use his hands to lean on the rail as he climbed.

Inside the AmberRoom, Hacha freed his wrists. Brusquely she said, “Don't try to leave. An armed octet will be posted Outside at all times.” She turned and walked toward the door, motioning for the others to follow.

Rev spoke: “I'll stay a while.”

Hacha glanced back and shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then she left with the others, closing the door behind her.

Kelric sat on the edge of the bed. “Is she always that abrupt? Or is it just me?”

Rev said nothing.

“Ekaf took the vow of silence.” Kelric said. “Not me.”

“I have no right to speak with you.”

“Hacha just did.”

“Only because she is now captain of your Calanya escort and Deha has allowed it. But she can't talk with you. Only to you.”

Kelric exhaled. “I don't understand any of this.”

“You can speak with other Dahl Calami,” Rev said. “And with Deha. But not to anyone Outside.”

“You do it too.”

“It?”

“Say Outside as if it were a title.”

“It is,” Rev said. “Those within Calanya are Inside. The rest of the universe is Outside.”

Dryly, Kelric said, “That leaves a lot of people Outside.”

“Yes. You are one of a very few.”

“Great,” Kelric muttered.

Rev sat in a chair. “Kelric, it is considered a great honor among our people.” He stopped. “I should call you Sevtar now.”

“Why Sevtar?”

“He is the dawn god, a giant with skin made from sunlight. He strides across the sky, pushing back the night so the sundgoddess Savina can sail out from behind the mountains on her giant hawk.” Rev smiles. “Deha thought it appropriate.”

“What's wrong with the name Kelric?”

“Kelric isn't Coban.”

“You're right, he isn't. But my name is Kelric.”

“You have a new name now.”

Kelric shook his head. This was getting him nowhere. He ran his fingers over his right armband. Akasi? Deha reminded him too much of Corey, his first wife, stirring ghosts better left buried. Corey had been a well-known figure, a hero of the people. During the long days after her death, at the ceremonies and state funeral, all broadcast to a grieving public, he had stood silent in his black dress uniform, a widower when he was barely twenty-four. On display before everyone, he had kept it all inside, how it tore him apart to lose her. In the ten years since, he had gradually regained his equilibrium. Now Deha came along, throwing everything off balance.

It was safer to thin of other things. He regarded Rev. “I thank you for your speech.”

“It was my honor.”

“I'm glad someone feels that way. I think Llach wants to heave me off a cliff.”

Soft thoughts. Photo by Elena.