Folio One, Page One (magra mos itz)
My dearest confidant,
Since you have asked in previous correspondence, accompanied by a sincere disclosure of your own secrets without—according to the oracles I have consulted—omitting anything the objective reader may consider damaging to your reputation, I will comply with your request for my own background. I expect you to maintain strict confidentiality.
If you suspect something in my willingness to acquiesce, consider that I need to come clean before the communication lines tighten again. Here in the lower depths, the locals never hear more than radio broadcasts. The deep-canyon planes cannot find terrain suitable for a permanent landing settlement. Clustertrees—was it you who commented on the absurdity of the vegetation?—interfere with satellite readings. The locals will not tell outsiders which streams are navigable.
Still, I am certain that bullet trains and space visitors will someday reach Málkze.
It only takes one chance occurrence to ruin everything—a child discovering stills or music videos on an old cultural feed from the early twentieth century or a local musician investigating famous lyricists—but it is inevitable enough that I must apologize before fate conspires to drive me back into the canyon abysses.
Amkzí, as you know, is not my real name. My accent is too cosmopolitan for a bronze-skinned Málkvo, and I ask too few questions about the interplanetary community. Truthfully, I grew up in a suburb of Menarka during the rule of Akhaigannyi, and I died thirty-four years before her, in late summer.
My life story will take some time to prepare. It is gluttonous and crude. You must understand, though, that before the cleanup, people glutted themselves on technology. They thought that it could solve everything from bank balances to sexual dysfunctions. From the radio, I infer that things have changed. Were I in your generation, things would have gone differently for me.
I thought about a proper beginning to this confession last night, but nothing would come, so I looked at the sky instead. In the “netherworld of canyon rocks and roots,” as you call it, trees choke the sky from view even at midday. I find that climbing them unblocks my creativity.
The air outside my cabin smelled like the fresh kòvo carcasses that I had strung up between two mooring trees. Fifteen minutes later, I had pulled myself into the canopy.
Shooting stars coursed through the night sky like fountain jets. I held out my arms to the sky and felt the deep pit in my stomach that warned me of the drop should I slip. In my previous life, I had loved climbing more than sex.
Replace the endless tree canopy with Galasu's cityscape and you will see the world as I knew it on 3 Pesussekhin of Poràkol 1918, exactly two weeks before my death. Then, as last night, I held my arms out as pinpoints of light fell from the sky. My heart hammered in my chest and my toes curled against against the large, moist sculpture of a rearing daraiga.
We will begin here not because it is advisable, but because I have given up on brainstorming a more appropriate introduction to my life.
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