Читать книгу The Pearl Jacket and Other Stories - Shouhua Qi - Страница 24

Zhong Zimei

Monogamy has collapsed. The short, temporary relationships between men and women are now maintained through “open rendezvous” (no more “secret rendezvous”). Childbirth is handled by “Generational Reproduction” chain stores.

All “open rendezvous” happen at nightclubs. The nightclubs of the 20th century, though, are nowhere to be found. The nightclubs of the entire world are gathered in the vacuum 230,000 kilometers from the earth to the moon. They are made of colorful soft plastic, semi-transparent, big ones about one kilometer across, and small ones only 10 meters. These oblong things float in the atmosphere, rock slightly, and bump into each other softly, as spontaneous and romantic as can be. Hence a new expression is coined to describe this new nightclub phenomenon: “Nightclub-tique.”

Tonight, John flew his spacecraft again to “Nightclub-tique.” His partner was Gonzales—an impeccable beauty.

They had just finished the first round of French cognac when two tall and strong police officers appeared in front of them. One of them said to Gonzales coldly: “Give me your left hand!’

He gripped Gonzales’s ring finger and lifted the nail easily, all the dark red parts glittering right before their eyes.

“A fake human indeed! Where is your product registration card? No? An illegal fake human! You’ll have to come with us—”

“Wait a second!” John stood up and removed a golden card from his waist belt.

The coldness of the police melted away. One of the officers swiped the card against the magnetic buckle of his waist belt and gave John a salute:

“Mr. John, member of the Global Commission! You have two of your five amnesty rights left. All right, we will grant amnesty to this lady.”

When the police left, the ashen-faced Gonzales threw herself into John’s arms and cried gratefully:

“You won’t despise me just because I’m a fake, John?”

John burst out laughing. He gently lifted the nail of his own ring finger.

“You’re a fake, too? How can fake humans sit on the Global Commission?”

“Why can’t commission members be fake?” It took John a while to stop laughing. “Let me tell you a secret. My card is fake, too.”

John reached to wipe away the tears from Gonzales’ cheeks. “The tears in your dacryocysts must be counterfeit. You should use Daiyu. That brand can’t be faked. The world we live in today, there are too many fake things. Who knows, this French cognac may not be real. . . . ”

Just then another group of police swarmed in. They were not coming for John, though. Instead, they dragged out the manager from his office. The manager was shaking from head to toe.

“The license for this nightclub is fake, damn it!’ A police officer shouted.

John walked up and showed them his golden card.

An arrest was thus warded off. The manager bowed to John so many 90-degree bows and returned to his office.

“John! You are something! I’m so proud of having someone like you among us fake humans!” Gonzales snuggled in John’s arms and said again softly, as if to herself; “How nice it’d be to return to monogamy. . . . ”

Outside the window, the most splendid vista of nightclubs in the entire Milky Way still unfolds its endless story of “Open Rendezvous”—the story of Nightclub-tique, real and fake alike.

(2000)