all conditioned things

  Hi, everyone, and good morning! Or was it? And when was it? Wasn't it super early? The sun so bright, streaming in, their collective curtains open, two girls together, partnered—collegially, loveless—each and both all-together in one room.

  When was it? Even, what day was it? How should Lily find out?

  Lily stretched; she didn't spring up. Perhaps she'd roll about like a cat? No. No, no, nononope. She wouldn't. Things weren't darling enough in this room here, weren't darling enough for that. Her roommate would notice her; she'd be so annoying about it. Could Lily have fun? She couldn't, not with Berisha about.

  Lily had knocked her phone about in her sleep. Where was it? It wasn't on this side of her hands unstained, was it on that side? No? It rested somewhere under the blankets, suffocated so without air. Whatever. Who did Lily need to contact? Nobody, ever. The only girl she really felt like speaking to right now had broke her phone in July 2066. Had she gotten a replacement? Who knew.

  Oh, but her phone had a clock! Everyone's phone had a clock.

  Um, so how should Lily tell the time?

  Her roommate lurked above her. Personal space, much? Each of them had a side of the room, this was Lily's. Go away, Berisha.

  Um?

  Lily would ignore her, then. Lily would whisper the first demisemiquaver of the first word of a long, long prayer under her breath. She did so, and then—

  It was determined that Sunday, the 27th of February, 7:36 AM AST (UTC+0300), 2067.

  Hey, hey. Had her three weeks here passed just like that? Start of her first term of twelve terms or four years, her entire fate falling, falling into Lydia Wark. It was as though just a minute ago the sun was in transit across Capricorn. (Constellations, weren't they all pretty? Unless you were like, a weird loser freak who hated space. Who'd be like that, huh?)

  It was as though just a minute ago, Lily's little life wasn't all temptation, temptation, temptation, temptation, ridicule.

  It passed. Everything had passed without her being present, not really. (Things weren't darling enough for that.)

  Oh, whatever, well, whatever. Here's to another day of Lily's wonderful everyday~

  "Lily, Lily, you're such a sleepy-head," Berisha said.

  "I'm really not," Lily said. She sat up.

  "Oh? D'ya know sleepier?"

  Lily did not comment.

  "Will you call me Nexhmije today?"

  "No," Lily said.

  "So mean..." Berisha said, and then there was a little lull, as if Lily was meant to respond sincerely, with her whole and humming heart.

  Lily knew that she was a good girl, though. She was nice; she had always been very nice, even if others never ever admitted it. She had always found it quite hard to hurt others.

  So, Lily ignored Berisha, a little! (A lil'.) Let's hit skip; if we missed any important dialogue, we can read it back later in the log.

  In three minutes it was like "huh" and then she realised she was in the shower, at 7am? So early!?

  Back at home Lily may have been a little gross for the past seven months and may have let her personal hygiene slip a little, having given up on going outside and the entire outside world, brushing her teeth once a day as if she were five again and her little town was ill-resourced cut off from the world again, showering on a three day timer. Her hometown was cold. The warmth vented out to nothing. She didn't do much to get herself dirty. She was blessed, she wasn't accursed or filthy or kitanai or filled with impurity or ritual impurity, kegare, she told herself on day one of not washing herself, and then her bad mood slipped further and eventually she forced herself into the shower, quick, took a long period in the bath thinking, sinking further.

  That passed. It wouldn't have, if the old her who hadn't already earnt so much mercenary money hadn't already committed it to going to uni on the surface of the Earth, in the sacred-scientific Second City. Should Lily still consider that possibility? Hypothetical her, decaying.

  At the end of four years, if somebody else didn't remember her place, Lily would be back there, wouldn't she? If she didn't flunk out... actually, at least failing would take Berisha down with her, given how the Anatechnical-Autotheological Institute "Lydia Wark" worked. What a silly school. Old her was right to not have ranked it, even if it was the most prestigious of the Second City 'undergraduate' programs. Why had she done it? Because she had only wanted to be by her side? Because going to this school, the evil entangling one, was her atonement? How annoying—

  Something dropped or was knocked over. Lily didn't even care what. Berisha asked if she was okay in there; surely, Lily was.

  Lily was all-ecdysis in there, melt or moult, cuticle or fluid dripping, dropping, draining away. Lily absentmindedly pulled through the knots did not mind the split ends of her hair. She'd washed it... all that mattered was to put her pin in there. A black octagram, empty inside, split through the diagonals in quarters.

  Lily emerged from her and Berisha's en-suite. She'd changed in there, obviously. Apparently you weren't supposed to mind changing in front of your Lydia Wark assigned partner? Lily did. She wore black. Flowy sleeves, flowy skirt.

  In some super serendipitious sense she was totally opposite to Nexhmije Berisha, who wore: short skirt, box pleats, white, destressed. Dainty beige belt through it, sandals. Graphic t-shirt repping nothing, cropped to show her midriff, cut on the neck actually could be lower, Lily supposed. Lily wasn't unfair.

  Berisha didn't seem to have recorded an outfit of the day video today. She was browsing some surface SNS site when Lily stepped out.

  "Hm. I feel like you have the makings of a super cute girl."

  Mechakucha kawaii? Hm, but Lily couldn't be bothered.

  "Maybe," she said. Lily didn't want to commit to anything.

  "Hey, Lils."

  A nickname for the nickname?

  "Yes, Berisha?" Lily said.

  "Are you scared of being cute because Connor will hit on you?"

  No, Berisha—Lily did not take men's feelings into consideration when she dressed. She shook her head.

  "Okay," Berisha said. "He's an annoying guy, isn't he?"

  Lily nodded her head. She absolutely agreed with her on that count! At least they had. They could be super good Lydia Wark partners together, really. Despite myriad differences, they'd drift together towards the same goal, or drop out rueing everything ever. Totally... it was definitely possible…

  "It's okay, Lily. I'll beat him up if he bothers you."

  Lily stared at her.

  "No, no, I totally will."

  She was a fit European girl, Nexhmije Berisha, though perhaps she shouldn't be thought of belonging to continent and country—Westphalia had passed away—but instead to watershed and edge of ocean. Berisha belonged to the North Atlantic, then, that deep democratic ocean. Her grandfather had been a Coalition veteran, and an avowed secularist; he had participated in the campaigns against the Old Faith. Berisha bragged. She swore he'd try to kill the Lord of the Universe if He existed, which He didn't.

  This worked on their classmates? Lily didn't really understand it. Maybe it was because her grandfather had been a three-star general in the Japanese SDF, and then a four-star general in Fuukoku after the second sakoku, since all the the new Noble little lords and ladies and princelings and prisses had inflated the officer corps, incompetent. Then again, Nexhip Berisha got to remain on the surface of the Earth, even though he had less to brag about. Yuuji Itou had so much more. Then they threw him into the Pacific Ocean; then he sunk into the abyss.

  "I really am! You never believe me, Lily..." Berisha said, since Lily had not said anything.

  Why should Lily? Berisha was dumb. Berisha had asked where Lily came from: Lily had mumbled the name of the small town, and Berisha had convinced herself that Lily came from Xinshangdu, still thought that to this day.

  "I've got you," Berisha said. She nudged Lily lightly. "Let's go!"

  There was a sluggish second. Lily followed her, then.

  What were they doing? Lily had skipped Berisha's prattering, remember?

  There was a boy named Connor Gierke that Berisha wanted to meet with; he was Lily and Berisha's classmate. Berisha liked him very much; her tales and petty bragging enthused him. If Berisha had any bravery, really, she'd forgo the courting and ask him out. (Or forgo asking him out altogether? Because he was stupid.)

  She didn't. Berisha enjoyed the spectacle. Berisha was a pretty girl who recorded ideal eikons of her life on scrolling social media. She played love-me-not with disappearing messages and temporary stories. She was desired by many; she became herself in others' desire. If all that desire disappeared, that damsel would die of deprivation.

  Hrk, hrk, sniff, sniff. Sad, and sadder that Lily had to bear witness to all of it. And they were just roommates, Lily and Nexhmije, only, were they? Berisha hoped they were more…

  Get over yourselves. It wasn't like that, if Lily could help it. Lily wanted a certain other girl's heart. Berisha barely knew what love was. Berisha only responded to others' expectations. Berisha tried to be a good Lydia Wark student; a good Lydia Wark student shared everything with her partner. They repeated this incessant: classmates, professors, personal tutors, the Vice-Chancellor or President Jeanne Arkhangelsk-Alessandre Dieudonné herself. It had been decreed: a good Lydia Wark student was so tied to her partner, tantum entangled.

  It had been determined: if your relationship was worth so much, anything, everything—the universe would steal your entanglement away.

  Berisha went to the lift; Lily followed. Her mind did not teleport to the top of the stairs; if Lily were there, she would not fall herself, a tumble. Who would Lily sink for, or descend for?

  Lily did not remember when anything had meaning. Wasn't there joy at some point? Hadn't fate decreed that? Fate had been usurped; so it had been said. She liked the girl who had usurped it. She liked her, a lot. She liked talking to her, and making her listen, and toying with her. The usurper teased her, just by existing. The usurper continued to breathe and that teased and taunted her, even through raspy breaths, so shallow, always sick, no less sicker when she was choked. She curtsied as if she could ever be prim or proper or right and that really riled Lily up each time, Lily's purity decaying, despoiled, and—

  Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

  Lily? Was that right? Lily. Did a name matter? That depended; a name didn't matter without the right scenario, or the correct context, or a prim and proper arrangement.

  Yes. In the Second City, she was just another Lily.

  They reached the bottom. Berisha did not wave to the receptionist as they left their dorm. It wasn't such a long walk to their student union.

  The Second City reminded Lily the most of Xintanxiangshan. She had overheard her classmates call it 'more Western European than West Asian,' but Europe and Asia up until the beginning of the month had been distant places found only in textbooks and anime and the Fukuoka-shi citizenship card she had, so Lily didn't really understand what feeling or emotion they were trying to express.

  It was what people who did not grow up in small towns deemed a tiny city. The triennial census, since censuses were safe to conduct here, said that the Second City had roughly 210,000 permanent residents.

  Scary! Her hometown had been at three and a half thousand—the maelstrom of maladies brought in by the birth of a certain girl had caused roughly five hundred excess deaths over ten years, but the birth ratio was quite high, so when Lily came of age her hometown had been under three thousand. Seventy times more!

  Her hometown didn't have public transport. Lily didn't know how to react to the bus driver once she tapped on with her Second City ID. At least she didn't have to pay for it; the students of the seventeen higher education institutions in the Second City received free public transport. Adjuncts, professors, researchers, political-military staff and menial workers, some permanent residents, most itinerants who turned the city from two hundred thousand officially within the city's limens at one time to two point two million: they all had to pay!

  Lily was not a permanent resident, but graduating from Lydia Wark meant that she could definitely get it, if she wanted it. If she wanted anything, anything but...

  Hm. Lily pretended not to watch the short-form video Berisha watched on her phone. It was about 'murderer men from Manama', a clip from an acerbic news channel. Loud. A little scary? She didn't realise that the surface of the Earth had less tight infocontrols.

  They should lock everyone contaminated by hatred up. Under the care and custodianship of their betters!

  They should make a beautiful garden of girls, and give Lily free reign of it, and—

  They came to their stop: the Anatechnical Student Union. Lydia Wark was a small higher educational institute, which only ran a single course. Its students were registered to both the Anatechnical and Autotheological student unions. The one thousand two hundred Lydia Wark students of course had their own representatives in each student union. They were outvoted by the other student unions, or so Berisha told her. Lily didn't pay much attention to student politics. She didn't hurry to sign up as a student representative, having barely started her course, barely knowing this city.

  Lily followed Berisha and the bus carried on, students, teachers, researchers and waged workers from Dammam–Dhahran and Manama–Muharraq pooled together.

  The Lydia Wark weekend was Sunday alone, so Lily and Berisha were off. Was anyone else? The Second City was work, overwork. Look at the world around you: isn't it ill? Don't you want to work on the frontiers of human medicine to make it better? That was the ethos of the Second City.

  Sickening, to Lily. She was lazy. She scanned her ID again behind Berisha, who ran up the marble stairs to bar E, a little glass building that jutted out from the rest of the student union. Bar E offered morning refreshments: tea and coffee, high quality imports from Aden, and biscuits and hot chocolate. That was local: al-Qatif's latifundia.

  Lily wasn't hungry. She followed Berisha, who wagged her poodle-tail: she had found Gierke! She ran up to him. Hi-hi. They—

  Lily would get over herself, today. For the past three weeks this tension had simmered. Today, Lily would burst it open.

  Gierke was a greasy boy from Vierbein, a planned community in the City of Windhoek's orbit. He did not realise that Lily was also from a small town, but Lily's small town was poor, isolated and ill-serviced, while her idle searching suggested that Vierbein was much richer per capita than Windhoek. She hardly thought their experiences were comparable.

  Gierke was confident, and snide. He participated actively in the politics, economics and debating societies. He nudged Nexhmije to come along, but she didn't, as Berisha had correctly assessed herself as bad at public speaking. He had nudged Lily. Lily was brilliant at public speaking. It was inherent and assured that Lily dazzled others, even if the fate that assured it had been usurped.

  Lily didn't like this invitation very much. Berisha told him off. "Don't you see?" Berisha had said. "She's scared of crowds."

  Lily wasn't scared of crowds. She didn't know what Berisha was talking about. If being around her classmates sent a pit in her stomach, so what? Lily had always been cool and confident! More confident than Gierke's dumb ass, and with so many accomplishments to back it up.

  In any case Gierke wasn't the issue. He was occupied, anyway, chiding Berisha for not buying refills for the liquid metal store on her phone, and then getting a water summoning spell wrong and filling a store designed for tap water with mineral water. Berisha would complain about him doing that tonight. It'd be in that stupid tone: annoy me more. Not Fairbanks, not Muwaylihi, not Heap: me.

  Whatever. The issue was—

  Lily needed to get over herself. Gierke had been with his partner; Lily tapped Gierke's partner on the shoulder.

  Lily barely managed to say, "Can we talk in private?"

  Gierke's partner nodded.

  Gierke's partner was a girl, to be clear. This was quite rare. Lydia Wark had only been running for... fourteen years? There had been less than ten mixed assignments. Everyone knew why President Dieudonné had done it, in this case. Since Gierke and his partner had less than average compatibility, and since Gierke's partner would probably have better compatibility with another girl, it seemed stupid, and cruel.

  The girl, Gierke's partner, led Lily out of the bar. It was Sunday, and very early morning. Very few people were here. Still, Gierke's partner took Lily further into the building, through some weird corridor Lily hadn't even noticed was there, under the wide atrium with all the plush chairs and beanbags and dice to play nice games with.

  What a courtesy.

  Lily hadn't forgotten her backpack, right? She hadn't. That was good. Lily had forgotten to take it to class two out of six days in the second week. She had used a recording spell but Lily felt all out of sorts and when she tried to regurgitate the information she couldn't write and Berisha had offered her notes but get this: Berisha's notes were trash. Maths, 'Standard Model' physics, linguistics, neuroscience, philosophy, politics, history, natural, preternatural, supernatural—Lily just knew that Berisha didn't get it. As if she were psychic…

  There were rehearsed lines. "I," and Lily stuttered, which wasn't part of the rehearsal, which was only in her own head, "want to, uh, give these to you, uh," and maybe Lily was thirsty, and should have gotten water at the bar, and shouldn't have forgotten her water bottle, "so you can..."

  Lily's voice shrunk. She continued. She had to. Gierke's partner already knew. She knew this entire time (although what she knew was surely wrong!) and as a courtesy hadn't mentioned anything.

  "I want help—yes, I want help..." Lily continued, as she had always been quite wordy, "talking to her, again. And I—"

  Gierke's partner looked down on Lily, clearly. Gierke's partner's hands shrunk into her oversized hoodie; it covered a skirt which quite frankly fell boxily around Gierke's partner's hips.

  Gierke's partner. It wasn't true, no matter how much Mrs Vice-Chancellor wished for it. The girl in front of her had was entangled with someone else.

  Ah. Everything was false.

  Lily needed to get over herself.

  Michiko Kusunoki brushed her hand through her hair. Her twin-tails, reddish, dyed, fading back into brown, flopped about, and then Kusunoki said:

  "Nexhmije?"

  No? What are you talking about? Who cares about Berisha?

  "Um, well!" Kusunoki continued. "I think she likes you more than me, so I don't know why you're asking for my help?"

  She laughed. Kusunoki's laughter was darker than her speech, which Kusunoki tried to infect with resonance. Kusunoki hated her natural voice, see.

  "You're a super introvert and she's a super extrovert, right?"

  English speakers in Lily's country preferred inkya and youkya; it took a second for Lily to figure out what Kusunoki meant.

  "I think she understands that you're shy, but she doesn't know what shy people do, or how to support them. I don't think she's been in a scenario where some higher authority has been like: this is a shy, skittish person, and you've got to take care of them! For your own sake! Or else!"

  Lily wasn't shy? What was Kusunoki talking about?

  "And in any case, you're rank 7, which is a big deal! There aren't many rank 7s in the world; you're special! I have a friend with a really powerful ability, but her rank is only 4, officially, because it's hard to measure. It might be harder for you, but Carmen and Munir are popular because of their rank, right? They have other qualities, they're really charismatic, but there's a charisma to quiet girls, isn't there? I have a friend who's kinda like that..."

  Was Kusunoki taunting her?

  "Nexhmije, I think, already tries to show you off... and this might really annoy you, but it might be good to play along with it? Not with Connor, he's a dick, haha... thinks with it, too, but Mia is nicer. And you're stuck with her. In society, we're tied to other people, aren't we? Whether we like it or not. You can run away, but you can't just break those ties, or deny them..."

  Shut up!

  Lily didn't say that. Lily took off her backpack, reached into the thin compartment which she had always assumed was for paper.

  "Wait, if you're giving me chocolate for advice, shouldn't you have tried giving some to Nexhmije...?"

  What? Was Kusunoki stupid? Why would it be chocolate?

  Lily took out a black folder, and handed it to Kusunoki.

  "Okay?"

  Kusunoki took it, indelicately, a natural klutz!

  She—the other woman—opened it.

  Lily had come up with the idea to do this maybe two weeks ago. So long she had been hesitant. Everything could go wrong. In any case, Kusunoki already knew. She pretended not to. If Kusunoki had interloped it was because she was the accomplice to maybe not the real criminal, since the real criminal (wrong in every case!) was the thing that had been stolen, but the real thief, the girl who had stolen it. Most likely Kusunoki knew that she had gotten away with it, so why gloat?

  Lily would have gloated, had she been in Kusunoki's position. She didn't understand.

  Kusunoki flipped through. She made a strange sound.

  "Wuh."

  Lily stared.

  "Huh?"

  Lily stared.

  "Why do you have this? What the fuck?"

  Was it stage machinery that Lily heard turning? Yes, surely. The transition to the next part of Kusunoki's act.

  "She's really smart... I knew that. But..."

  Or was Kusunoki a fool, whirling about in circles? As if the actions of those around her had not roiled Lily's world…

  "April? What the fuck? Why do you have this?"

  "Why wouldn't I have this," Lily said.

  "April—wait. Wait..."

  Lily waited. She had waited two weeks to confront Kusunoki; she could wait a little longer.

  "You're not like how she described you! At all! I thought it was a coincidence?"

  "What?"

  Kusunoki's hands shook. The folder dropped. One of March Inoue's certificates dislodged itself. It was for the All-Acacia School Exit Exam, so it probably wasn't important? Not compared to the Standard Second City University Examination certificates, anyway.

  Every fragment of her Lily had left needed to be kept. She swooped down, returned it to the folder.

  "She called you brilliant, and charismatic, and unshakably confident, so forgive me for not associating the April with some weeping, shrinking violet?"

  "But I am," Lily said.

  "A violet?"

  "No. I'm more like a lilac, anyway. Isn't that why everyone calls me Lily K?"

  See. What was wrong with everyone? Lily didn't stutter. Lily spoke confidently.

  "April, we call you Lily K because Nexhmije heard your mom call you Riri..."

  "She said Riru. Ril."

  "Nina said that you hated nicknames."

  "March understands me very well, yes."

  "Okay, whatever. The point is, the girl Nina described wouldn't let people call her by names she hated indefinitely, or freak out whenever someone tried to speak to her, or seemingly try to do the bare minimum at all times! She spoke of you as someone who always shone, and always won!"

  "Did she? How often does she speak about me?"

  "A lot! Especially since Re—it comes up, okay! You did a lot to her! You meant a lot to her!"

  "Did I? She left me to rot," Lily said.

  Kusunoki's expression, already sinusoidal and muddled and quivering, frayed further.

  "Yes, she did."

  That was it. That was all there was—

  "It was only you," Kusunoki said. "She only left you, nobody else! I'm sure."

  "What, Kusunoki? Do you pity Shinkei? That town is long past hope."

  Kusunoki turned around.

  "Kauzaki."

  "What?"

  "If you'd like to speak with Nina again... if you care about her safety, or her happiness, then please follow me. I'd like to go somewhere with soundproofing."

  Lily gave in. She did not strop or saunter. She followed Kusunoki to a study room. She felt all shy about it, though there was hardly anybody around. April acceded to Kusunoki; April had to accede to Kusunoki. Kusunoki held the key.

  The door clicked shut. Kusunoki, lady-like, let her in. April found a seat and sat politely.

  Kusunoki went to close the door. The outside world needed to be shut out.

  She paused.

  There had been a certain unholy girl. She could deny and negate and rejected anything that was good; she usurped everything. She was a total failure who could never do anything right; she was capable of doing anything. She had a certain spell for welcoming the Nobility, unworthy rulers who could hardly tolerate the tottering world they had created.

  It shut everything up.

  Lily could not use that spell. Could Kusunoki? She and March had been afflicted by Reiko Heather McNamara's light; didn't that allow for the sharing of magic and psychic potentialities.

  It would still be March's magic, cursed, sickening.

  Each of them had promised that they could suffer March forever, but...

  Michiko looked over at April. Kusunoki, Kauzaki; so courteous, neither used telepathy against the other. Courtesy? Social strategy. Lily was the stronger telepath, but Kusunoki was connected to McNamara; they'd find themselves evenly matched, and then things would escalate.

  Neither girl needed it to know how the other felt. "I should use the silencer! The Second City is surveilled and designed to be surveilled, from the bottom to the top, even if this study room appears to be soundproofed. But I can't. I'll get sick, go crazy..."

  Sick, crazy, obsessed... Kusunoki was the grounded one, wasn't she? McNamara was the one who was in love; Kusunoki was the best friend. Platonic, pacific, pointless.

  The door shut. The only thing that could keep their secrets safe was inattention. Kusunoki? Miss Best Friend? Weren't you the type of girl that everyone told their stories without? That was good, Lily thought. So super useful!

  Kusunoki sat a seat away from Lily, curled up on it. Lily did not dare to speak; Kusunoki Michiko did.

  "Hey, April. April? We weren't good enough for her, either..."

  And their time with her had been impermanent, and each girl was without her and without herself, and Kusunoki's wobbly expression became a dukkha downer smile.