In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 283-286

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Chapter 3
Esther
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If Esther had not panicked, she’d have run.
Had she not had to go, she would have gone.
Had she not been embarrassed, then someone
would not have found her sitting on the john.

Is this the true insider whom we sought?
This pale, defenseless, frightened, teenaged thing?
Had centuries of close confinement brought
our race to this (or is it will they bring)?

Was she a good example of her kind?
At this point it is difficult to tell.
Just think of it as though you’ve long been blind,
and now you find your guide dog can’t see well.

In one sense she was representative:
She had no kind, or rather it was she.
She had no hope, as long as she might live,
that ever she’d rejoin humanity.

©2011 Louis A. Merrimac

In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 279-284

The lower door had been a cargo hatch,
ingesting and regurgitating bags
with little numerals that one might match
(if one was lucky) with one’s claim check tags.

The occupants now permanent, this door
allowed the entry of necessities
and exit of what could be used no more,
like human waste and stuff that makes one sneeze.

His first time in, with Seven Six’s wreck,
he’d gone in also through the cargo hold.
He’d felt a thrill when he had reached the deck,
but this was platinum if that was gold.

Though he’d grown up near where these creatures ranged,
he was no more of them than of the birds.
So once he was inside, had he been changed?
By this did he switch sides, in other words?

It would be nice if we could introduce
an insider with Ciral to compare:
someone who’d never been, like he was, loose—
someone who, unlike he lived, lived in there.

Unfortunately, he had smoked them out,
so they were unavailable to speak,
and while there were more carriers about,
to look at them would make our story weak.

©2011 Louis A. Merrimac

In the Next Life, Canto III, stanzas 275-278

He knew that he was plotting to betray
his trading partners, who had placed their trust
in laws of commerce, which he would obey,
but violate those standards now he must.

As luck would have it, though, he got to choose
a carrier that bore a different mark:
an envoy, or a tourist on a cruise.
He set his trap and poised to strike a spark.

The carriers would kneel down on command
if someone with a finger on the switch
would push the right way with the other hand.
It didn’t matter much which hand was which.

The safety exits worked as you’d expect
from something that was once a fuselage.
The vessel’s crew were eager to eject,
not knowing ’twas an act of sabotage.


©2011 Louis A. Merrimac