A Magazine of Many Arts

Tony Daly

On an interstellar transport 
at a distant way-station, 
a female android with immaculately 
polished surfacing and pre-programmed smile 
helps a tentacled man slither on board.

He wears an elegant moth eaten vest 
over a compression-suit with frayed seems, 
an aqua-tube over dehydrated gills, 
with an overly lathered proboscis 
pickled in a perpetual frown.
He flinches from her touch.
 
In private quarters 
calculated to his planet’s specifications 
is a water chamber 
with manicured seaweed gardens, 
and an extensive shellfish menu 
with impeccable service 
by a cyborg mermaid.

But none of it is good enough for him: 
the water’s ph balance is off, 
there are pebbles in the garden, 
his crustaceans aren’t fresh, 
his mollusks are from a different ecosystem.
He flinches at the site of her. 
 
In the astral dome 
where passengers gather 
to gaze at the stars 
while engaging in conversation, 
he drinks too many celestial rum-runners, 
extols the inferiority of the “air breathers” 
and “circuited freaks” with whom 
he’s forced to associate. 

When his aqua-tube malfunctions 
nobody offers assistance.
The automated investigation system 
finds no evidence of tampering 
or malignant play.
 
In docking bay H-311,
a janitor mech lays his body in a disposal pod, 
seals the hatch, 
sets the program to “incinerate” 
and launches the ash into the transport’s wake. 
His spirit set to wonder the cosmos, alone, 
absent the “air breathers” and things he detests.