The Transmutation of Joanni N.
A week passed with Joanni down on Oreana getting ready for the return of the “Eight of the Origins” clesig ceremony. She had communicated over video several times with the captain and crew of the Eridanus, and twice made a return to the ship for a few hours, but whether via screen or in person, the woman who appeared was, perplexingly, an enigma; her expression visored by sunglasses that were never removed, emotions hidden away, as if part of herself had remained on Oreana.
The most tormenting emotion Joanni chose not to communicate was a profound bittersweet yearning for two realities that stood in opposition to each other. A battle between a world that celebrated her and worshiped her existence as the celestial being tasked with returning the hallowed original clesig, and the world of the quiet, internally-focused woman who enjoyed forging her way through something bigger than herself, and who loved a man, who, in her most intimate and giving moments she called her king. A pawn who had been played by circumstance to be crowned a queen, loyal to both sides of the board. With a wish to both be celebrated for herself alone and to celebrate a vision held by her father and the Eridanus captain and crew. I dreamt I was walking in the rain, with the sky so far above me alive with thunder and lightning. Such was her fever dream. Claustrophobia and vastness. Love endangered by impossible circumstances. Loss and belonging and resilience. She was either enclosed in a spaceship or floundering on a planet, dark and void of vegetation. Everything on Oreana was obscured by dimness and burgundy dust, every utterance from its residents was self-serving, curvy, circular; so much so that she longed for a straight line, a straightforward response.
Signing off of one of her video visits, Joanni murmured to Chipman, “I can't wait to get home.” Homesick, yes, but distraught at leaving her beloved clesig behind, her companion since childhood, a representation of her father’s desires as well as her own. She was pulling hard in opposing directions; she feared she’d stretch herself so thin as to become transparent or snap.
It was tough going on Oreana—walking remained a challenge, nutrition was sucked out of packets, or concocted out of powders as the Oreanians did not consume solid food. Rehearsal for the ceremonial procession was often interrupted by bouncing attacks that were visited upon the younger girls in attendance: one girl would start jumping up and down due to some stimulus, then others joined in, bouncing higher and higher, until their limbs gave out and their legs were in danger of fracturing. After the frenzy faded, all activities stopped while they lay on the ground, exhausted. The older girls and adults never tried to stop them, but rather, lowered themselves onto the wine-colored surface, remaining prone until composure was regained by all. Joanni had no choice but to join them.
Joanni spent a good deal of time talking with the Primora, who felt it was her privilege as the highest ranking member of the Governing Council to hold private court with the visitor. The Primora had more interest than most in Joanni’s world as opposed to her own, but mostly from a protective instinct against outside forces than from a wish to learn or broaden her mind. Her outlook and mind did broaden slightly, which the Oreanian found disturbing—it left open spaces of doubt that the rest of her beliefs knocked up against. It was painful.
Joanni’s motivation during her visits to the Primora’s official chambers were twofold: to learn as much as possible about this strange and fascinating society, and to wheedle two concessions from the ruling council. First, Joanni wished to be allowed to place a small image of her father somewhere on the planet so that, finally, it could be said that he had traveled beyond the visible stars and had left his mark. Second, she asked for permission for Captain Chipman (and perhaps his officers) to be present at the clesig ceremony. The Primora eventually agreed to the former request, but not to the latter. However, she was interested in this ship captain who apparently had such a hold on the creature seated before her.
“This space driver . . . Is he neutered?”
“What?”
“Is he neutered?”
“Uh . . . no.”
“So, you don’t call him your pet.”
“No. I’ve never called him that.” Here Joanni smiled to herself. “Once in a while, I’ll call him pussycat.”
“Pussycat?”
“I only call him pussycat when he’s annoyed with me.”
“You do?”
“I do.”
The Primora took this in. Her expression was such that Joanni had no idea if she was reading it rightly or wrongly, but in any case it did not change the Oreanian’s mind.
A few days after this conversation, the lift doors swooshed open and the diplomatic team headed by Ambassador Gillis came onto the bridge of the Eridanus galaxyship and took their place behind the captain’s chair. The personnel assembled were the same as for the initial Oreanian broadcast, except that this time Joanni was not with them, but on the other side of the screen. They waited in silence for the front view screen, now dark and silent, to come to life, each nursing their own private thoughts. The bridge lighting was lowered and after a few moments, the video indicator light turned from red to green. Eventually, the orbiting audience could make out the ongoing scene on the planet below: two figures moving about at the back of what appeared to be a huge stage leading out to a sheer drop-off with glittering specks of light emanating from the audience below, a city sparkling beyond it, and sparks of electricity continually gliding through the sky. A strange structure lit up behind the two figures on stage and music rang out. Different colors strobed up and down the statue in rhythm with the notes. An ethereal creature with wings spread impressively out behind her and an elaborate crown that lit up with each movement of her head walked up to the edge of the stage, carrying the Origin Clesig—no longer Joanni’s clesig—triumphantly out in front of her, stopping at the very edge of the cliff. She held it up high and the audience in the amphitheater below her and the Oreanians presumably watching in their homes broke into frenzied hand fanning, which was their version of applause. A small boys choir hidden off to the side of the stage broke into an Oreanian cultural anthem.
Then the second figure, Joanni, appeared, walking carefully and deliberately so as not to fall, a raven-like bird balanced in the palm of each hand. Although these black ravens with their silvery underwings appeared light as air, Joanni’s hands were stretched out at right angles to her forearms, as if she was balancing a pair of heavy tomes. As she made her way with her birds, her lower face masked and a crown balanced on her head, she passed by poles placed roughly six feet apart on both sides of her path. Tiny cymbals were fastened up and down each of the poles and additional ravens flew up and down them, their wings hitting the instruments and producing a shimmering, tinkling sound. When she reached the end of the stage, she raised each hand in turn and let her ravens fly off into the black and silvery night; they circled over her audience and then soared off into the distance.
Joanni walked over and picked up the Origin Clesig that had been placed on a small pedestal by the Primora, held it in her arms for the last time, and sang the song that had brought her here. The audience was rapt. This was her shining moment; her clesig was back home and she was among her people.
To Tom Chipman, watching the screen from his captain’s chair, this second figure was painfully alien to him, a different species from the Joanni he knew, a being happy in a world he could not enter, just as she could not or did not want to penetrate his world of command. Her dark, dilated eyes reminded him, just for a fleeting second, of the gaze of the deer from his past. He could not contain the quiet wildness of those deer, and he wondered now about Joanni; wondered if he could hold her here with him.
He turned his attention back to the screen to watch her sing. He loved to listen to her sing; her voice drew him to her. But now, as she sang, in his imagination if not in reality, she was slowly seeping from her home planet Earth to her chosen one of Oreana; slowly as she sang, she faded from one and inhabited the other.
Image: You were with someone else. Source: “Flying Raven: ex libris, from The Raven (Le Corbeau)” by Édouard Manet, 1875. Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain.