Borne (Borne, #1)

by Jeff VanderMeer

True, he could take it while I slept … but this was always the test of our relationship. Were we symbiotic or parasitic?

Since Borne never displayed any kind of threatening behavior, I never thought to take him as a threat. Even calling Borne a “he” began to feel faintly ridiculous as he didn’t exhibit the aggression or self-absorption I expected from most males. Instead, during those early days Borne had become a blank slate on which I had decided to write only useful words.

Once, it was different. Once, people had homes and parents and went to schools. Cities existed within countries and those countries had leaders. Travel could be for adventure or recreation, not survival. But by the time I was grown up, the wider context was a sick joke. Incredible, how a slip could become a freefall and a freefall could become a hell where we lived on as ghosts in a haunted world.

Throughout all of this, my parents did not forget my education. Not a formal education but the education that mattered. What to value. What to hold on to. What to let go of. What to fight for and what to discard. Where the traps were.

Like most men, Wick could not help terror about one thing erupting as anger about something else. So I said nothing.

That was the moment I knew I’d decided to trade my safety for something else. That was the moment. And no matter what happened next, I had crossed over into another place, and the question wasn’t who I should trust but who should trust me.

Borne might be alien to me, he might have more senses, he might do things no human could do … but I thought I understood what he was saying. (Although, did I, really?) He knew now that he could be harmed. He knew now that he was vulnerable. No joy would be the same for Borne. No playfulness, either. Because behind it would be this certain knowledge: that he could die.

No more turret, but once again the upside-down vase design, the Borne Classic. He contracted so that my stool was pulled closer and closer to the ring of eyes, and his skin was like an electric storm at twilight, with shocks of lightning manifesting as silver cracks in his skin and a mottled darkness of deep, deep green sliding into black but also a startling glimpse of blue, as of a boat floating over clear water. The smell of him was sickly sweet then, like brandy mixed with crispy waffles lathered in butter and syrup.

Wrote Borne in his journal: “It is hard to feel as if I am two or three places at once and have to concentrate on talking. It makes me sound like I don’t know the meaning of my words.”

Wrote Borne in his journal: “The world is broken and I don’t know how to fix it.”