The Orchid Nursery. Louise Katz

revelation through dream or vision is afforded me for I am undeserving and must be tested further. I understand this.

      With a dip of the scale, beauty made in equal parts of strangeness and formal utility shifts from mystery to monstrosity. Suffering flesh is all I can see, no more and no less. The vision of symmetrical order that can only be achieved in (wo)Man and nature herself when her untamed form is pruned back to reflect pure function, the ideal to which I always aspired, is ruined. And I feel that ruination in the deepest part of me. If (wo)Men had souls – see, even if it makes me tremble, I can utter even the worst blasphemies, thoughts I would never previously have considered giving form – then that is where I would be feeling it, in my soul. In that moment my world is thrown off kilter, as if the planet itself has fallen out of its orbit around the sun, is dislocated among the dead stars. My blood roils in my brain as I crouch amid the wreckage of a dream.

      I am weak and impure and although I know that ultimate spiritual fulfilment is achieved only through sacrifice, in that moment I cannot feel the truth of it. I am a poor, shallow thing, fit only for the meanest and foulest duties in the Spare Parts Manufactory, a dudbub minder or shop-floor sluicer.

      But is that her in the rose-coloured gown? I make myself look once more.

      ‘Pearl?’ I venture.

      But the veiled face is still now, the swollen lips closed over the empty mouth. Silent.

      I make my way back through the corridor to the meeting house and let myself out into the corp-yard, no plan formulated, no way yet even to think. Somehow day has become evening. The sky is the deepest indigo it can be before turning black. Lightning forks among the heavy clouds banked at the edges of Civilisation, at the end of the farthest plain. I smell metal, and blood sausage frying. The shaved grass of the corp-yard is deep green, highlighted in gold where the floodlights touch it. The foot-soldiers are at their evening Defence Drill. The Martinette yelps a command and the armoured troops stop in perfect unison, the folds of their brief military skirtles subsiding into disciplined folds at mid-thigh. Then, efficiently as clockwork mannequins, each (wo)Man clicks her left shoulder-aug into the right one of her neighbour. I see that this is a formal drill tonight. They have painted their faces in regulation bands of black and white from the forehead down to where the upper body armour meets the throat. Another yelp in a slightly lower key and they click the opposite shoulder-augs into position. Now they form a perfectly impregnable barrier of metal and bone and hard flesh. A beautiful thing.

      What Pearl said is true. I do have a talent for this life. It suits me. All of it: the clarity of intent, the elegant precision, the focus and nobility of purpose. Yet it could be that I will never again participate in this humble but essential aspect of the art of war. I let myself linger just a little longer to watch the lines of armed Ecumen now form ranks behind those of the (wo)Men. A further command from the Martinette and the (wo)Men at each end of each line form a circle around the Ecumen, protectors of Perfect State. I watch as the Men now lay the muzzles of their guns upon the steel shoulder-bridge formed by the female foot-soldiers, their living palisade. I do not wait to watch the second round, do not wait to listen to the prayers that will follow.

      I walk past the reading room where, years ago, inspired by the images printed on the covers of books, I had sought and eventually won the privilege of learning more of that arcane art. Naturally girlies don’t need very sophisticated reading skills, for we learn our lessons by rote as dictated. We accrue our vocabulary and grammar and all refinements of our spoken manners and conversation through repetitions of the elegant rhythms and poetic constructions in the Tenets of the Ways of (wo)Man and, of course, the Doppelbook. Our girlish mixture of modern post-Liberation phrasing and gracious archaisms tends to please Men – especially the Properganders and Scholars – when they desire to hear our voices. Nevertheless, I managed to get a special dispensation from Jimander, who was in charge of Instruction for Girlies. He granted it only when I had agreed to do an extra unit of Contemplation on the Responsibilities of the Vessel on Tuesday to Saturday evenings. Later, I would take my hard-earned learning and, in intimate collusion beneath the covers of my bed, would in turn impart to Pearl what I had learned … ah, how long ago that now seems!

      I continue on past the telly-room where the Stone girlies of Oblation, the Dirt girlies of Sacricunt, and the Bark girlies of Dutilove will now be standing to listen to the Son of the Son delivering his evening telecast of the State Anthem of the Dual True Faith before sitting down to watch the News for Girlies. And on to the empty cunnydorm. I go to Pearl’s bed and lie down there, my face in my friend’s pillow. I inhale deeply, but the linen has been freshly laundered and there is no scent of her.

      I lean over to my side of the table and pick up my rare book, its pages brittle and yellow with age. It has been a very long time since I have looked through it. Pearl and I had pored over it together many times, marvelling at the bravery and prowess of the noble Man whose chronicle it was, for it is full of pictures of a Hero with a spiderweb painted on his suit. (There is only a little bit of text and mostly pictures, so we were pretty sure we could handle the stress of intellectual effort. Though a female mind might tremble at the scale of the task – which was further complicated as some sections had been blacked out, and in some cases whole pages excised – still we did it! And the rewards for our efforts were boundless!) In each frame the spider Man does something dauntless. We had often mused about him. Who was he? How long ago had he lived? How much was fantasy? The height of the buildings, or the porno clothes of (wo)Men like those in the displays of pre-Liberation artifacts in the Museum?

      Here I sit once more, alone this time, allowing my mind to wander along familiar tracks for the comfort that is in it, when I notice something very odd. Tucked into the middle of the book is a new, unfamiliar piece of paper. On one side is part of a story of great heroism, like the ones in the book of the spider Man, but with girlies instead! Like Pearl and me! The bravest one is named ‘Tank Girl’, and she is dressed in huge boots and very tight garments that expose her thighs but render her cockslot nigh-on impregnable! Porno!

      The author of this text is clearly unschooled in the ways and roles of Man and (wo)Man, for it is not only pornographic but a most foully heretical tract – may GodFather (BBHCM) forgive me for reading it to the end! And worse – wishing for more!

      I turn the page though I know it is a sin. But another page, deeply creased, has been pasted onto the original text. In one corner of this overlaying sheet is drawn the face of a person with a mask over its nose and eyes, a fat pink tongue sticking out of the slit of a mouth, and on the head a ridiculous hat with devil horns on it, brightly coloured in red and green and blue. Impossible to tell the sex of this grotesque thing, this leering, jeering gargoyle. Profane, haraamasur.

      8.

      ‘Fools Rule OK.’

      These words are written below the ugly face. Whatever that means. What is this creature? An animal thing or a grown dudbub? A mutant Man or a misspelling?

      Below this incomprehensible legend is another image drawn by an amateurish hand. It shows the wall that surrounds Perfect State and the narrow path that wends its way into Stone Plain towards BigAmass, that great pile of licheny rocks by the curved finger of Yellow Swamp from which one may see, if the sky is clear and cloudless, the tilt of the roof of Hagovel, under which she grovels in a stew of her own filth, or wallows in nearby muddy streamlets to salve her lust-scorched hungry loins. We have no maps that extend further than BigAmass for we have no need of them. Yet this one shows several more landmarks dotted throughout the desert of sickly grass and into the main body of the swamp. I note Tor Man, longer and narrower than BigAmass; then Black Defile that dips down, down into Longully, then up onto higher ground and a dotted line marked as Last Beat. There are other signs leading towards the green line of forest – One Tree, Womanbane and a few more – thence to the extreme edge of Perfect State and onwards, into Unrule, clinging to the land’s end, beyond which is only the terrible sea. Comprehensive instructions, but no key telling exactly how far it is – though I could guess at roughly two days walking, possibly less, judging by the distance from BigAmass.

      But inevitably, my eye is drawn to that dire