Tais Teng - Green-Ache.pdf - Tais Teng - widez2

GREENACHE

Waking in the ashgrey hours of the morning he heard his dead wife sing. Dimitri kept his

eyes tightly closed and felt his muscles grow rigid with dismay.

Footsteps. A shadow fell across his eyelids, turning the pulsing red a darker shade. She

seemed to hesitate.

No, don't kiss me!

The shadow vanished and her voice drifted to the tiny kitchen. She still sang, her voice clear

and glad.

"Starman, o starman,

whatever you do,

don't shift

my red eyes blue!"

A surge of the house current must have nudged the sensurround recorder in the display

mode, resurrecting a ghost almost seven years old.

He stil remembered spraying the recorder on the wall. Thin filaments, invisible to the naked

eye. It had a ten billion byte memory and it would keep recording their conapt forever.

"When we're old," Jocelyn had said. "Real ancient, you know, old and gnarled, we can go

visit our younger selves."

The recorder was flexible, that was the most horrible thing. It could interact, make those

old recordings talk with their latterday versions.

He rolled from the sleep pallet and found the jutting control panel by touch.

"Dimitri? You're awake?"

He shuddered. She sounded so alive!

He touched the switch in the upper left corner and her voice faded. Dimitri opened his eyes.

He was alone.

A succesful exorcism. But his wife would be back. Short of tearing down the walls he knew

no way to stop the recorder permanently.

We wanted it to last, he thought. Only the very best was good enough for us. And we could

afford it.

He walked to the kitchen and drew a glass of bitter coffee. The house was very silent.

Like a tomb. And all the ghosts want to talk to me.

His computer chimed, the screen flashing an urgent blue. Government override. He drank

the last dregs of his coffee and strode to his computer.

Tais Teng - Green-Ache.pdf