Read Online Skin Folk by Nalo Hopkinson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Nalo Hopkinson
Tags: Fiction, General, Science-Fiction, Literary Criticism, American, West Indies, Life on other planets, Short Stories (Single Author), African American, FIC028000, Science Fiction; Canadian, West Indies - Emigration and Immigration
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he approached the copse, a cloud of birds swooped down on him from their branches, all types
of birds. They dug their tiny claws into his already bruised body and pecked at any exposed flesh, twittering, cawing, screeching
their rage. He smelt his own coppery blood in the night air. He struck the birds off, crushed and stamped on the tiny bodies
like fleas, but more replaced them. As many as he pulped underfoot, there were more. The air boiled with them. The heavy smell
of blood and feathers made his head reel. He stung all over from the bite of claws and beaks.
And the old people were on him now, drawn by the sound. They poked him with their canes, jabbed at him with umbrellas. “Yes!
Keep at it, Robin; don’t let the slimy bastard get away!”
Huge claws tangled in his hair. A massive pair of wings beat about his head, blinding him. The cry was the challenge of a
hunting bird. He stumbled, fell, writhed quickly onto his back so he could see his attacker. Screeching, the old woman’s pet
landed on his chest, stabbed at his eyes. He tried to bat the great hooked beak away, but the bird struck at his hand. He
felt two fingers snap in its talons. He put his hands up to protect his eyes. The bird set its beak in his throat and tore
it out. Spreading its wings, it hopped up to its mistress’s shoulder, where it swallowed the gristly lump of flesh.
Air rattled in Stryker’s ragged throat, whistled out from his neck. He could feel his body arching, his heels drumming on
the earth. The old guardians just watched, alert.
It took a little time for asphyxiation to kill him; long enough for his darkening eyes to see his Samantha, his darling pigeon,
being escorted from the van by a clutch of old women, a brood of old hens, straightening her clothing and clucking soothing
words at her.
B
oston subway stops have the oddest names: Braintree. And Alewife (which, Bostonians will explain helpfully, is a fish). One
day, traveling on the Toronto subway system, I could have sworn that the driver announced Saint Mare Wash as the next stop.
The mundane Saint Clair West paled in comparison. In parts of Toronto, they wrap the trees with burlap in winter to protect
them. And then, I’ve always liked Hans Christian Andersen’s fiction…
UNDER GLASS
L ying on the chilly bank of the splinterswirling river, Sheeny shook the obsidian rectangle of the playscreen in her hands,
then swiped her palm over its blankened surface. In response, its opalescent screen swarmed with vague, sluggish forms: something
large and blocky, a building, maybe; smaller somethings moving around it; motes fluttering. Did that tiny shape in the foreground
look like Kay? No, no; stop it. Create instead a new story in the masses on the screen. Cobble a fake story out of tales that
Jeff used to tell, of worlds that used to might could be, places that she’d never seen, could only imagine.
The shapes were curdling into solid images. A tiny old woman stood inside the picture blossoming on the playscreen:
The cold morning light was the soft grey of a dove’s breast feathers. Old Delpha, old lady, stood on the wintry street corner,
looking at the construction site that had been sprouting there for the past few months like a stop-motion film; of ice crystals,
maybe, growing branch by angular branch upon each other like frozen towers.
Kneeling on the second-floor girders of the skeleton building, a welder flipped her mask down and put her lit torch to a joist.
A hissing tongue of blue flame jutted. To the burring sound of the torch scouring the metal—a tongue-lashing, Delpha giggled
to herself—a myriad motes of orange light sprang from the join, fountaining red-gold to the ground. A flock of fat pigeons
descended eagerly on the sparks, wings pumping the birds whup-whup-whup down. They quarreled and jostled for space, pecked
up the glowing embers as fast as they could. Smart pigeons. They knew how to keep their
of birds. They dug their tiny claws into his already bruised body and pecked at any exposed flesh, twittering, cawing, screeching
their rage. He smelt his own coppery blood in the night air. He struck the birds off, crushed and stamped on the tiny bodies
like fleas, but more replaced them. As many as he pulped underfoot, there were more. The air boiled with them. The heavy smell
of blood and feathers made his head reel. He stung all over from the bite of claws and beaks.
And the old people were on him now, drawn by the sound. They poked him with their canes, jabbed at him with umbrellas. “Yes!
Keep at it, Robin; don’t let the slimy bastard get away!”
Huge claws tangled in his hair. A massive pair of wings beat about his head, blinding him. The cry was the challenge of a
hunting bird. He stumbled, fell, writhed quickly onto his back so he could see his attacker. Screeching, the old woman’s pet
landed on his chest, stabbed at his eyes. He tried to bat the great hooked beak away, but the bird struck at his hand. He
felt two fingers snap in its talons. He put his hands up to protect his eyes. The bird set its beak in his throat and tore
it out. Spreading its wings, it hopped up to its mistress’s shoulder, where it swallowed the gristly lump of flesh.
Air rattled in Stryker’s ragged throat, whistled out from his neck. He could feel his body arching, his heels drumming on
the earth. The old guardians just watched, alert.
It took a little time for asphyxiation to kill him; long enough for his darkening eyes to see his Samantha, his darling pigeon,
being escorted from the van by a clutch of old women, a brood of old hens, straightening her clothing and clucking soothing
words at her.
B
oston subway stops have the oddest names: Braintree. And Alewife (which, Bostonians will explain helpfully, is a fish). One
day, traveling on the Toronto subway system, I could have sworn that the driver announced Saint Mare Wash as the next stop.
The mundane Saint Clair West paled in comparison. In parts of Toronto, they wrap the trees with burlap in winter to protect
them. And then, I’ve always liked Hans Christian Andersen’s fiction…
UNDER GLASS
L ying on the chilly bank of the splinterswirling river, Sheeny shook the obsidian rectangle of the playscreen in her hands,
then swiped her palm over its blankened surface. In response, its opalescent screen swarmed with vague, sluggish forms: something
large and blocky, a building, maybe; smaller somethings moving around it; motes fluttering. Did that tiny shape in the foreground
look like Kay? No, no; stop it. Create instead a new story in the masses on the screen. Cobble a fake story out of tales that
Jeff used to tell, of worlds that used to might could be, places that she’d never seen, could only imagine.
The shapes were curdling into solid images. A tiny old woman stood inside the picture blossoming on the playscreen:
The cold morning light was the soft grey of a dove’s breast feathers. Old Delpha, old lady, stood on the wintry street corner,
looking at the construction site that had been sprouting there for the past few months like a stop-motion film; of ice crystals,
maybe, growing branch by angular branch upon each other like frozen towers.
Kneeling on the second-floor girders of the skeleton building, a welder flipped her mask down and put her lit torch to a joist.
A hissing tongue of blue flame jutted. To the burring sound of the torch scouring the metal—a tongue-lashing, Delpha giggled
to herself—a myriad motes of orange light sprang from the join, fountaining red-gold to the ground. A flock of fat pigeons
descended eagerly on the sparks, wings pumping the birds whup-whup-whup down. They quarreled and jostled for space, pecked
up the glowing embers as fast as they could. Smart pigeons. They knew how to keep their
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