#showing up 20 years late with a burger and a sheet of unhinged 3am writing

[gwiazdowe]

001. Pantora, despite all of its efforts to paint itself as a Core-esque modern society, can be at times painfully and relentlessly old-fashioned, ruled by tradition and superstition ingrained in people’s minds with such certainty that no kind of argument can stand against it. Rzam Shio becomes painfully aware of it when her mother tells her she will absolutely not marry a man whose ancestors robbed the land of her grand grand grand fathers, not even if said man owns a business and enough credits to buy them a flat near the center lane. Those credits, her mother says, are surely her ancestors’ stolen treasure, and she will not let her only daughter be stolen just the same way their riches were. Rzam Shio considers herself a reasonable woman, so of course she does not listen to her mother.

002. The myth and folklore of Pantora varies between its historically separated cities. The details of tales, the names and numbers of gods, the roles of those deities, all more or less fluid between regions and families, and yet if you ask any Pantoran about what it means when a divine statuette falls from its shelving, most of them will agree that it means nothing good. Nothing good will come of this engagement, is what Luciola Imiela is told by his grandfather, a chipped ceramic idol rests in his wrinkled hand. But Luciola only shakes his head amused, mildly tired of these conversations. He offers to fix his grandfather’s statuette, or even, better, make him a new one. Something more durable that will not fall apart so fast.

003. Shio-Imiela, they decide, a joined name fits the union of such stubborn lineages, apparently oh so displeased over historical disputes to accept one or the other into their protection. They decide to not let it bother them when they purchase their house, a renovated four room apartment on the 85th floor overlooking the almost-city-centre. Nothing bothers them because they live fully, they love each other, and the displeasure of their parents does not reach into 1-758 Sopi District where smaller buildings with their lush rooftop gardens look like mounds on Nabooian countryside.

004. Luciola Shio-Imiela, Rzam’s husband, makes pottery by trade. He learned it from his late aunt, who learned it from her father or so he once explained. Luciola’s workshop occupies one of the four rooms in their home. He makes plant holders and elaborate vases, and crockery and curious little nothings. They pile up in neat rows upon the walls awaiting buyers, other artisans and politicians and prestigious personas from across the galaxy as colorful as the painted designs on the craft pieces. Pantoran ceramics - the real ones, not the cheap soulless droid-manufactured imitations - are a prized collectible in The Core. Luciola says, and he might never stop finding it funny, that’s because for all the resources Pantora lacks it still has something many planets don’t. Quality taste and quality mud.

005. Rzam comes home late every day except on zhellsdays when she promises herself to have a vacation from her office and her coworkers, supervisors, holocalls no matter what. That means Luciola and Rzam both take a vacation every zhellsday. Ideally, they book a flight to the Mid Rim to do sightseeing and catch a premiering holodrama that of course will not screen in their sector for another year. Ideally, they would be dining on a cruiser now. They aren't. Some morons of pirate gangs are dogfighting near the space routes, therefore their flight is delayed. Therefore Rzam just lays on the veranda browsing the holonet forums, she takes a walk to the mall with Luciola, she orders a steaming hot bread bowl for their lunch. It is a nice day, she thinks in the end. Still, some other days the shadows of doubt pour through the cracks of the polished city walkways, and some days uncertainty reaches from under custom-made furniture in her home, and Rzam ponders then, her mother’s words and her grandfather-in-law’s warnings; ominous, like a prophecy from the stars. This will not last. Some days she finds herself waiting, despite everything, for the moment it might come true.

006. Mother - Rzam feels like she might cry one day - You might hate Luciola for all he stands for or you might even hate me for leaving with him, but please, mother, do not hate our child. If you must, if you really must then at least offer him a prayer of strength. - And Rzam is surprised then, to find her mother embracing her gently, holding her with warm hands like on the cold evenings in her youth. - I do not hate you, Rzam hears, I am only worried.

007. Her mother named her son, Cirzpibog, with meaning and with promise, to which Luciola says he has not heard a more pretentiously outdated name, to which Rzam says that it’s bold coming from someone going by ‘Luciola’ by choice. In any way, Cirzpibog (because the name stayed) is quite a social child, he must be because as soon as he learns how to make sounds he decides to converse with everyone and everything in front of him. Curiously, despite his love of being surrounded by people, he does not yell, unlike Rzam’s niece, when left in the room alone. Instead he cries always, and precisely, when the front door closes, when guests leave, when Luciola goes shopping and three steps before he returns. Rzam relates her thoughts to her neighbor during a turbolift ride, eager to hear a similar story, but Rzam is only measured with a half attentive glance, offered some sympathetic nods, like she made half of it up. 

008. For starters, Cirz always comes around just at the right time when you need him, he exclaims an answer before you call his name, fixes you with an expectant gaze the same moment you decide to observe him play. Then, another thing Luciola notes, though he does not think much of it the first time he locks the door to his workshop and some minutes later Cirz waddles inside like it was never an obstacle at all. Maybe it wasn’t, Luciola considers, because maybe he simply didn’t lock the door, but it’s weird when that happens again twice. And when Rzam tells him to fix the door. And when there is nothing to fix.

009. He should have exchanged the locking panel, Luciola is now sure of it, or maybe he should have told the boy more sternly to not wander into his work-space (but he loved all the company of a two year old coming to stamp fingerprints in his clay and smearing paint on his floor) Most important of all, he should have not let this kid out of his sight even for a minute to warm his food, because the next thing he finds is Cirz in the rows of his pottery, head upturned to the table where Luciola left his ceramics ready for shipment. Luciola takes this in with a sickening worry in his chest. A slender statuette tilts over his son's face in a way that defies gravity. Because it should be falling, but it doesn't, but it falls like some broken spell when he steps forward to snatch Cirz away from the table. The thing crashes into a stack of not painted cups and all of it splinters loudly, and for how quiet Cirz was before, now he cries fat tears in Luciola’s arms. The room seems to shake with him.

010. This is some kind of bogus. Luciola shakes his head at his grandfather, unable to process that the man would tell him to expect a visit from Coruscanti Monks with the certainty of a person who wholly believes they will come. (But then again, Luciola told his grandfather about Cirz levitating items with the certainty of a person who believes it happened.) He regrets telling him now; If he didn’t, he would not need to think about the possibility of his kid becoming a Jedi, nor about the way to bring this up with his wife.  

011. Rzam would expect this kind of story from her mother, but Luciola? For star’s sake Luciola stammering about ‘The Force’ freaks her out. She never took him for the superstitious ilk, and perhaps that is exactly why a part of her is willing to consider his every word, finding, at last, an explanation for things she also saw in her child. Another part of her refuses to acknowledge it, this part that is angry that Luciola would even consider giving Cirz away, and the part that decides to bury the memory of this conversation as soon as it is over. Because maybe all of it is a mistake and no Jedi will ever come. Not somewhere as far as Sujimis. Not to their house. She gets to delude herself about it for another three months, but no longer than the day Cirz runs off to the front door and she finds a stranger on the other side.

012. If he goes, can we still visit him? - Rzam looks this man, this Jedi, in the eyes and he holds her gaze with the calmness of somebody who has answered this question too many times.

No.

She leans against the back of her chair and feels physically sick. The thing is, the Jedi are offering to give her child an education, a lifetime of it in fact, sponsored by The Republic, and considering how hard it is to secure a spot in Coruscanti schools, this is, painfully, undeniably, not a bad offer at all. 

The thing is, Cirzpibog is only two and she’d never imagine he would be parting from this household so fast.

The thing is, if the Jedi do not take him, someone entirely worse might. 

The thing is, she might never see him again.

013. Cirz’s small hand pats urgently at her lap, and that’s when something completely knotted loosens in Rzam. She looks down to Cirz, who until now was glued to their guest’s side following the conversation with an entirely too serious interest. Now he regards her with such glee and fascination that she swears she sees galaxies in his eyes. He tells her that mister Koon is sparkly like him, and whatever it means, she realizes she’d have no heart to deny him this sense of belonging.