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twelve thousand flowers
Jan. 1st, 2021 05:00 pmMy story "The Association of Twelve Thousand Flowers" is now for sale, as part of the January issue of Cossmass Infinities. The story involves unions, sex work, murder, ride-shares, elaborate descriptions of hair ribbons, exuberant bisexuality, and a planet that isn't ours.
( Here are some of the ideas braided into the writing... )
( I made two big changes... )
This story isn't actively about math, but it is about work. One of the characters has taken a job that keeps her away from her family for long stretches of time. One of the places I thought about, while writing that character, was Alberta. That's a place I've been for work. It's a place my dad worked in, too--he lived in a hotel for weeks at a time, doing engineering design for oil pipelines, in a year the US economy was struggling. We had dinner together once, when I was flying into Edmonton from one state and he was flying out to another, and traded paperbacks. I thought about the wide-open Edmonton sky, writing this story.
( Here are some of the ideas braided into the writing... )
( I made two big changes... )
She stomped on the pedals. Her velokab lurched forward, straight toward a tourist hugging an overstuffed duffel. The tourist dropped their bag. I started to scream. But the velokab’s sensors cut in and jerked sideways, sliding the kab into traffic a hand’s-breadth behind a fat gray truck.
I watched the kab drive away, bobbing and turning through the traffic like a candy wrapper floating down the river. I made myself relax my toes and my fingertips. I thought about breezes on water. But my breath was still knotted up like a Company contract. I had almost stolen somebody’s life, because she hurt my feelings.
You’re shaking your head. You wouldn’t hold me to account. The judges wouldn’t either, no matter how smug they are, in their snow-white wigs. That’s what kab drivers are for: to be responsible. A velokab can more or less pilot itself. But machines can’t make moral choices. Or strategic ones either, supposedly. That’s why, if a kab ever crashes, its driver is supposed to pay the price.
When people talk about humans taking responsibility, they always seem to mean somebody else.
This story isn't actively about math, but it is about work. One of the characters has taken a job that keeps her away from her family for long stretches of time. One of the places I thought about, while writing that character, was Alberta. That's a place I've been for work. It's a place my dad worked in, too--he lived in a hotel for weeks at a time, doing engineering design for oil pipelines, in a year the US economy was struggling. We had dinner together once, when I was flying into Edmonton from one state and he was flying out to another, and traded paperbacks. I thought about the wide-open Edmonton sky, writing this story.