“I recall the first time I saw you, your (one good) eye. Staring out between Moon and Saturn standing on a piano with Sun while a man with a moth on his back climbed a blood red picture behind you, using your huge ponytail to get a boost.”
“It’s not *that* huge,” she retorted.
He continued. “They said she would never be invited again to one of these get-togethers since she brought so many friends and acquaintances with her. But 3-d Venus is alive and well, still with her many fans following her around like packs of wild dogs and cats.”
“In the flesh (!).” She indicated herself, her body. What else was different about her, he wondered.
He went on. “You lived in a house much like our user, front covered in wisteria as if in a protecting fence or wall. You designed the moat to surround a castle but then had second thoughts of leaving bucolic life; castle too large to properly fit on (your) island. Stymie, husband at the time — stymied still how he could have ever goofed up on a looker like you! –”
Cute tittering; cute covering of mouth.
“…was most often away exploring Viterbo, finding relics in the ruins. Then one particular relic ruined it for you; he had to move on, *you* had to move. And so on to another Rim Island, taking the house with you and adding another husband to replace the subtracted first: Jacob, 1/2 man 1/2 alien in this case, with 2 normal eyes below a united third. You?”
“Me,” she decided to say. “Pure bred. One single eye and no normal eyes atall, they said. But that was wrong. I just covered one up, the bad one. Clockwork now.” She indicated the spinning, geared wheel on her face, very fashionable, very retro future. She pointed to both eyes at once now. “Two, you see, just like you.”
“What’s under that tuft of hair?” he said, still doubting her and tempted to reach over and lift it to see for himself. Maybe then he would know if she was happier with Stymie or Jacob.
She changed as she revealed the truth.
Sunklands 