zippy/samples/human-generated/captured_moments.txt

TUESDAY, AUGUST 03, 2004
Captured Moments
Published in Double Feature by Emma Bull and Will Shetterly
(NESFA Press, 1994). 
This work is hereby released into the Public Domain. To view a copy of the
public domain dedication, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/publicdomain/ or send a letter to Creative
Commons, 559 Nathan Abbott Way, Stanford, California 94305, USA. 

Captured Moments by Will Shetterly

I remember Papa's stopbox, a teal blue Tiempo Capturado that Mama brought home
for his birthday. It was huge and inefficient, and she should never have spent
so many pesos on a toy, but Papa would not let her return it. He used it to
preserve baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries in translucent cubes that he
stored in the pantry for spring-time meals in the middle of winter. Mama kept
her mink jacket, a family hand-me-down, safe from time in a stopbox, and lent
the capturador to my uncle for his stamp collection. Sometimes they would let us
little ones to seal a treasured toy or a last piece of birthday cake until we
begged them for its release, usually a few hours after enclosing it. 
When my father died, a year after my mother, my sisters and I cleaned out their
apartment. We found our baby shoes protected in stopboxes. I took mine home,
where they sat above my computer while I worked on my first play. One night when
I did not believe love had ever existed for anyone, I used my own capturador, a
sleek titanium Sanyo Tardar Ahora, to undo the stopbox. Bringing my face close
to the shoes, I breathed deeply of air that my parents had trapped while closing
up that symbol of their love for me. 
The instant would have been improved had my baby shoes been cleaned before they
were encased. But as soon as I coughed, I laughed, and I did not try to kill
myself that night. 


Let me begin again. 


I like life on the resort worlds -- always have and, after the upcoming
mindwipe, always will. Last year, I rented a small house on Vega IV, a sea
world, all islands and reefs and archipelagos, turquoise waters and aquamarine
skies, sunrises like symphonies and sunsets like stars gone supernova. There's
only one city: called Nuevo Acapulco in La Enciclopedia del Empirio de la
Humanidad, it's N'apulco to the locals. The N'apulcans are mostly emigrants from
Polaris II; the only difference between them and their Carribbean ancestors is
that the ancestors fleeced NorAm tourists. Now the N'apulcans profit from their
Hispanic siblings. 
I don't mean to sound cynical. I suppose I wish to show that I'm still capable
of a certain authorial distance, a semblance of dispassionate observation. The
following events may indicate otherwise. 
In fine tourist tradition, most homes on Vega IV are named. Mine was The
Sleeping Flamingo, and its outer walls were coral pink. Were they
mood-sensitive, they would have changed as I first viewed them. The rental
agent, an attractive N'apulcan named Tasha Cortez, was not mood-sensitive
either. She said, "It's beautiful, isn't it, Señor Flynn?" 
My instinct was to gesture curtly with a cupped hand that she lift the wind boat
and take me elsewhere. But she was young and attractive (as I have said and may
say again) and eager and so happy to be assisting the infamous Bernardo Flynn
that I merely raised an eyebrow in mild scepticism. And then, because a
playwright cannot resist a promising line, I said, "Your Sleeping Flamingo
should be put to sleep." 
To say her face fell would do a disservice to Tasha and to literature. (Allow me
my self-indulgences as you would those of a dying man -- when I convince my
mindsmith to permit the wipe, there will be another Bernardo Flynn, one who
knows no more of Tasha Cortez or Vega IV than he reads here.) Her brows drew
together, creasing the lovely, caramel-colored skin around her eyes and showing
the pattern for an old woman's wrinkles on her forehead. Her lower lip (a trifle
too narrow for her face, perhaps her only physical flaw) thrust forward slightly
as she started to speak. She caught herself, slid her jaw infinitesimally back
into place, and said, "You don't like it?" 
I laughed. What could I do? I clapped her shoulder to show I was not laughing at
her. "Like it? I hate it, despise it, abhor it! It's gaudy, graceless,
pretentious -- That house is an affront to taste and intelligence. I should buy
it to raze it, but I am not so kind-hearted. I might, however, rent it." 
I think she only heard the last words of my speech. "You will?" 
"It amuses me. Show me around, and then I shall decide." 
"Of course, Señor Flynn." 
"And stop calling me 'señor'. Not even Los Mundos is so polite. Call me
Bernardo." 
"If you wish." 
"I beg you, change the color of the walls, at the very least." 
"But of course!" The house walls shifted from pink to lavender. 
I stared. 
"How's that?" 
I looked at her. 
"Worse?" 
I nodded. "I would not have thought it possible." 
She frowned. "It is rather ugly." 
"Thoroughly ugly," I corrected with smile. 
"Obscenely ugly," said she, smiling too. 
"No." I pointed. "It has no tower." 
"I can fix that." She reached for another dial on the house controls. 
"Don't you dare!" Her wrist, when I grabbed it, was smooth and strong and warm
in my fingers. "I'll take it. Exactly as it is." 
"You will?" 
"I must. God knows what you might do to it next." Reluctantly, I released her
hand. 
The interior of The Flamingo was a welcome surprise. Cloudwood had been used in
a Mediterranean manner, making the house seem primitive and civilized at the
same time. The kitchen and baths had every convenience that I desired. From the
living room, the view of the beach struck me with such intensity that Tasha
asked if I felt ill. All I could say was, "No. I'm in love." We both thought I
referred to the vista. 


It's strange how one can write delightedly of the happier moments of life,
forgetting the things that one would forget by remembering fully the things one
would remember, and suddenly the forgotten, in revenge, rears up to savage the
unwary. So it was as I wrote the preceding. My heart convulsed, and I left this
manuscript for a three-day spree. Apparently I was so successful that it lasted
a week and a half. Not bad for an eighty-three-year-old, even for one who has
his rejuve every month. And if I can brag and digress so easily, this must not
be painful enough to merit a mindwipe, yes? 
No. I abandoned these notes to my future self to have the wipe done immediately,
thinking that Bernardo Flynn should receive such services when he needed them,
even should the need arise at the third hour after midnight. My mindsmith is not
so understanding. She says I am emotionally a child, to which I reply, "Of
course. Why else would I come to you?" This logic does not soothe her; she says
I must wait three weeks. Three!. Such is the law. I say I do not care about law,
I care about service and she should care about money. Enough. I went on a spree,
and it must have been a good one. I hope the wipe is as successful with my time
on Vega IV as my spree was with my time here. I dimly remember three bedpartners
who were probably human, and one that I hope was delirium. I will not answer the
phone for a week, no matter whose face appears on it. 
I keep evading the issue. But which issue? The issue of why I am evading the
issue, or the issue itself? To deal with the first: it hurts to remember. If I
am capable of love, I loved Tasha Cortez. If I am not, I had the perfect mirror
for my narcissism. 
As for the issue itself, I'm no longer sure what I want to record. The
playwright in me wants every scene of our time together. The editor says no,
only those that are relevant. The sufferer says no, only those which cause no
pain. And the artist says no, only those which cause the most pain, for those
would be the truest memories. 
So I shall soothe my quarreling selves with a compromise. I will not talk of the
first time Tasha and I tried any act of sex or sport together. I can remember
similar things with others. Tasha's witchery lay in making old acts new. Is that
love? Probably not. But it is something marvelous and rare, which is surely a
sign of love. 
If my love for her was the only important thing, I would leave a holo of her
with a note: "Dear Future, this is Tasha Cortez. You loved her. With warmest
regards, Your Past." 
Enough. Tasha and I walked through The Sleeping Flamingo together, and I decided
to buy it. Then -- 


This is not easy. I stand up, I walk around, I pretend someone makes a vid about
a writer and I must enact every cliche. I cannot decide what's important. But I
have learned something: writing trivializes. The Tasha who was is not the Tasha
in this file. The Tasha in this file is not even the Tasha I loved and thought I
knew. The Tasha in this file would walk through a net show in half an hour,
including commercials, and just before an ad for Figuero's Flash Diapers --
Keeps Baby Driest!, she -- 
Tasha is not the whole of what happened on Vega IV. I must also write about
Emiliano Gabriel Malaquez. 


Future Self, you know our style well enough to tell that time has passed between
the last sentence and this. Not another spree --at least, not like the other. I
have been re-reading all our favorite books -- 
But neither of us care to dwell on such boring subjects, do we? 
I want to pick up with Tasha and me walking about The Sleeping Flamingo, and
then, for the sake of literary convenience, to say that from a corner of the
yard I saw a neighboring house, and the sight filled me with darkest
forebodings. But the truth is that Tasha pointed it out from the one place where
it could barely be seen, and I only felt envy that it had been designed by
someone with understated good taste. "Who lives there?" I asked. 
"No one," Tasha replied. 
Truth is always more boring than fiction. For Malaquez did not move into Dream's
End until four or five months after I -- we? how does one speak to one's future
self? -- occupied The Flamingo. 
I do not plan to write a book: this narrative must move more quickly. Tasha and
I became lovers that evening, after a good dinner of paella at her apartment. I
made some small joke afterward, about approving of her firm's business
incentives, and she cried. Consoling her, I began to suspect I loved her. I
moved into The Flamingo the next day; and she gave up her apartment three weeks
later to join me. It was the sort of romance that happens so rarely that most
people believe it does not happen at all, the sort of romance that sustains the
hopeless billions who regularly watch A Wandering Star Called Love. (Which is to
say, you and me, Future Self.) 
Who was Tasha Cortez? She was a twenty-four-year-old (Terran Standard) N'Apulcan
who left university training in hydroponics to work for her aunt's real estate
firm. Her family said she did it to support her father, who was dying of a
particularly painful degenerative disease. Tasha said she woke up one morning
convinced that if she spent another day studying vegetables, she would become
one. 
She did not like my plays. I had impressed her because I was famous and amusing
and not, as I had hoped, because I was a great artist. That bothered (yes, and
intrigued) me until I realized that she was bored by most plays, movies, and
vid. She did not like being a spectator. I often told her that she should have a
bio-check to see if she suffered from some metabolic imbalance. I often told her
too many things. 
Search "Emiliano Malaquez" and you'll find he's a master of the "captured
moment" school of sculpture. Even The Terran Times has only praise for his work.
To compare his pieces to those of others is to compare mannequins to living
models. He accents the illusion of reality --I paraphrase his entry in La
Enciclopedia Humanica --by doing life-size scenes in "the full round," never the
easier frontal or three-quarters view. Moreover, he never did portraits of
famous people; his works were therefore the reality and could never be compared
to it. As is typical of his school, his pieces are sealed in stopboxes. The
shimmer of light on their surfaces always reminds us that we're looking at an
instant snatched from under the hooves of time. They say the cubes will outlast
planets and suns, that when the universe dies, the works of Malaquez and his
followers will be the last things seen in the final wink of God's eye. 
Yes, Self, I am also bothered that this observation ignores half-eaten cheese
sandwiches, incomplete insect collections, and locks of infants' hair, forgotten
in closets, basements, and warehouses. 
You see the inspiration for my latest play, "Captured Moments." The mindwipe
will take its creation from my future self --but time too often does that
without aid. The play's second act concludes with the last fight between Tasha
and me. I have disguised us in the play, and deleted one brief melodramatic
interchange. Now I will mention it, in case I/You decide to restore it. Shortly
before she left, Tasha said, "You steal from life for art, Bernardo. You'll
impoverish yourself." I only snarled at her and -- 
My story leaps ahead of itself. Let me retreat and retrench: 
One night during N'apulco's mild winter, Tasha returned to The Flamingo, saying,
"Nardo! Nardo! Guess what?" 
My mind was on other things. "You wish to become pregnant? I suppose I could
assist a friend. Purely for the sake of the race, of course --" 
"Ever the altruist. Still, if I do decide, we could practice --" 
Later, I said, "You've been chosen to succeed the Emperor." 
"What?" 
"My guess." 
She batted at my nose like a cat. "Silly Nardo." 
"Then I give up." 
"Emil Malaquez is buying the house up the hill." 
"Oh." 
"You don't know who he is?" 
"Well..." 
"Nardo!" One of the many things I liked about her was that she often thought me
shockingly ignorant. 
"That's, uh..." I am never so quick-witted in person as I am on the page.
Especially when someone thinks me shockingly ignorant. 
"You know, the sculptor. He's had shows in Brazil and New Madrid and everywhere!
He may be more famous than you." 
"Imagine that." I remembered an article in The Medusa and a photo of a work in
which 100-peso notes fell like confetti onto a small Undersider, sexlessly young
in grimy, oversized clothing. The child's face was a warground for wonder and
mistrust. Imprisoned light from forgotten streetlamps snagged itself on metal
threads in the fluttering pesos. The stars themselves might have fallen on the
Undersider and the event would have been no less strange, no less miraculous. "A
great artist will grace this world, then?" 
"Nardo!" She was never tolerant of my ego. 
"Well. What's this more-famous-than-me person like?" 
"I didn't meet him, jealous old one." 
"Too bad. If I thought he could free me from you --" 
"Hah!" She wrapped her arms around my stomach. "You'll never be free of me, old
man!" 
The next evening, she arrived with a stack of glistening stopboxes containing
sushi, sashimi, oysters in their shells, and Terran vegetables fresh plucked
from their hydroponic beds. Wondering about the reason for her extravagance, I
asked how work had gone that day. 
"Emil came in. He's taking Dream's End." 
"Emil?" 
"You've no memory left, old one. Emil Malaquez." 
"Ah. You did that to test my affections." 
"What?" 
"Calling him by his first name. I did that in a comedy once.'Nights with Karl
and Groucho.' It was before your time." 
"Oh." 
"The critics liked it." 
"I'm glad." A moment later: "That's not why I called him 'Emil'." 
"No?" 
"No. We lunched together. He's nice." 
"Oh." 
"It wasn't like that." 
"You're free." 
"Of course. Still, it wasn't like that. You think I sleep with every famous
person I meet?" 
As you may have guessed, we had talked about such things. I do not claim ours
was a perfect affair, only a wonderful one. 
"Tasha --" 
"Do you?" 
"No." 
"Good. I invited him to dinner tomorrow." 
"Oh?" 
"He'll be our neighbor. You say we're becoming too insular, that we need to
socialize --" 
"I've socialized for sixty-three years." 
"Nardo?" 
"Yes?" 
"How should I reply?" Her voice had grown quiet, and I began to feel some guilt.
I had, it is true, told her that we needed other company than our own. I said
this from years of learning that romances consume themselves without other fuel.
But knowing this did not mean I wanted it. 
I said, "Truthfully." It was the statement of a younger and crueler man than I. 
She screamed, "I haven't socialized with Terra's elite for most of my life! I
haven't socialized with hardly anyone for hardly any of my life! And I invite a
neighbor, one nice, lonely man --" 
"I'm sorry." 
" --who took me to -- What?" 
"I'm sorry. Truly." 
"Oh." She studied me as a suspicious puppy might, then said, "I'm sorry, too." 
"I suppose I sound like I'm bragging when I talk of the things I'm tired of." 
"Only because you are." She smiled. 
I had to grin, so I did. "True." 
"He may come to dinner?" 
"If you wish, he may be dinner." 
"I love you." 
"And I, you." Months earlier, we might have sought a bed, a couch, or a
comfortable chair at this point. Instead, I asked, "Is he handsome?" 
"You're jealous." 
"A tiny bit. Extremely." 
"Content yourself, old one. He's four inches shorter than I, his nose is big and
broken, and --" 
"This is cosmetic?" 
"He's not that ugly. I think they're his natural features." 
"Interesting." 
"You could write a play about someone like him." 
"Perhaps." 
"I think his face is his form of vanity. It's the reverse of you with those
ridiculous stomach muscles. Old men should be fat." 
"Is Emil?" 
"Yes." 
"I am jealous. I'll eat two dinners tonight. Five deserts." 
She giggled. And then we did make love. 



I've been thinking about the mindwipe, now two days away. Who said that those
who forget the past are doomed to repeat it? I fear that may be true for me. Add
this to the reasons I write now: to remember something, perhaps even to learn -- 
Emil Malaquez arrived after sundown, carrying a small package wrapped in what
looked like real paper. His evening dress was formal, expensive, and slightly
stained, as that of all forgetful artists should be. He was a jovial man with an
easy laugh, and even uglier than Tasha had suggested. I liked him immediately. 
"Señor Malaquez?" 
"Please. Call me Emil. You must be Bernardo. Tasha's told me much about you." 
"All of it outrageous praise?" 
"All of it." 
"Ah, she is wonderfully perceptive." 
He raised an eyebrow, then guffawed. "Has she said as much about me?" 
"She thinks you are a genius. Do come in." 
"Thank you." Stepping into the living room, he said, "A beautiful house." 
"I'm glad you came after dark." 
Tasha, by accident or design, had found an innocently erotic posture on the
couch, where she lay with a book of M'duvian prints. "Emil!" She leapt up. "I
did not expect you --" 
"So early?" 
" --on time. It's unforgiveable, but you're forgiven." She nodded at the
package. "What's that?" 
"For your kindness in inviting a stranger into your home." He held it out, and
with a delighted "Oh!" Tasha snatched it from him to rip away the paper. 


I stopped writing, and only the thought that I might miss the mindwipe kept me
from another spree. I went walking, but after N'apulco, Rio seems no fit abode
for a creature of flesh. I walked from this hotel to the old city, past the end
of the slidewalks and softwalks to the hard, cracked pavement of City Park. But
Undersiders left me alone. Perhaps they recognized a fellow ghost. So I
returned, and slept, and now the mindwipe is thirteen hours away. 


The side of Malaquez's parcel gave way to reveal a greenmunk caught in a sheen
of solid air. Bits of leaf mold flew from under his feet as he ran to greet a
friend or a bringer of food. Tasha oohed in awe. I said, "Frodo's been visiting
you, eh?" 
Malaquez said, "Your pet?" 
"Hardly. He lives around here somewhere. I suppose he was attracted to the
commotion up the hill." 
"Ah," Malaquez said. "Why 'Frodo'?" 
Tasha said, "A little fellow with big, furry feet. What else could he be
called?" She handed the sculpture to me. 
I almost dropped it; I expected it to weigh no more than a holo. "Heavy," I
said, as if he might not have known. 
He laughed. "My last piece was of four old Undersiders crouched around a trash
fire. Be glad someone didn't toss that to you." He spoke of his art with the
enthusiasm of a seven-year-old. "Um, I should wait to importune you, but..." He
grinned shyly. "A confession, and then a request. And then you must forgive me
for being so forward. It's not easy for me to ask a favor." 
"Relax," I said. "It's easy for me to turn one down." 
He glanced at me and decided I was joking. The surprising thing is that I was.
"Good. My last show --" 
" --was glorious!" Tasha said. 
" --was kindly received," he said. "But an artist who would stay first among his
fellows can tell when he begins to fail." 
"Oh?" I hoped no one would bring up my last three plays. 
"I must change my subject matter. No more urchins, dopers, vagrants, or whores.
I want to do more traditional portraits." He spoke quickly, prepared to be
rejected. "Would you permit me to do one of you? I would pay --" 
"Never," I said. 
"Ah." He shrugged lightly. 
"Nardo!" Tasha said. "It's an honor --" 
"Of course," I said. "That's why I cannot take payment." 
"Oh? Oh! Thank you!" Malaquez turned to Tasha. "And you as well? Perhaps the two
of you together?" 
Her eyes became circles at the idea of being, as she undoubtedly thought it,
immortalized by Emil Malaquez. Catching herself, she said casually, "Oh..." And
then she smiled, laughed loudly at herself in the way that always made me think
how much I loved her, and said, "My God, yes, yes, yes!" For a perfect moment,
Emil and Tasha and I were one entity, laughing until our lungs hurt. 
This is torture. I had not considered that I might not write to learn, but to
punish myself. Let me abuse the playwright and dismiss the penultimate scene in
a few sentences: After giving Emil full rights to a sculpture of Tasha and me,
we had a good dinner of curried clam chowder, lobsters boiled on Terra and
unstopped still steaming on N'Apulco, and cinnamon custard for desert. Then we
went out for a late swim. 
I had drunk too much, I confess, though we all had. Somehow, Tasha and I began
to argue the worth of Solevgrad jazz, as inconsequential a topic as I can
imagine. She had studied it in school, so she thought herself as an expert. I
once had a neighbor who played it constantly, loudly, and badly, so I thought I
knew it better. Malaquez tried to mediate, but I saw him as siding with Tasha.
So, I think, did she. The subject shifted from music to Tasha's obsession with
fame, undoubtedly by a leap that I made. She had no choice but to follow. (I do
not remember any of this well, just now, nor do I care to. Those who are truly
curious may look at the last act of "Captured Moments.") I remember suggesting,
with characteristic tact, that she add Emil to her small list of major
accomplishments. 
Malaquez glanced away, embarrassed. Tasha looked at me as if to say, "I will."
She said, "I feel sorry for you, Nardo. I'll see Emil home." 
"Yes," I said, "Do that," and did not care what she did, or why. 
Emil asked, "You're all right?" I muttered something he must have interpreted as
assent. They both walked up to Emil's home while I watched the scarlet moonlight
ripple on distant waves. Disgusted with Tasha but more disgusted with myself, I
finally realized she would not return that night and went into The Sleeping
Flamingo to drink myself to sleep. 
She had not come home when I woke in mid-morning. I waited, and drank a glass of
MorningAfter and three cups of coffee, and wondered whether our affair could
survive the events of the night, and whether I wanted it to. Perhaps I should
have invited Emil to stay, but even then I knew that sex was not the problem
between Tasha and me. The problem was that I have trouble distinguishing between
compromise and capitulation, between symbols and substance. Shortly before noon,
I climbed the sandy path to Dream's End, rehearsing my apology, slowing only to
pluck burrs from between my sandals and my feet. 
Malaquez answered the door in blood-red pajamas and a black silk robe. Sixty
years ago in a similar situation, I had broken my knuckles on someone's face. I
merely said, "Is Tasha here?" 
He pursed his lips slightly, then nodded. "Yes." 
"May I see her?" When he hesitated, I said, "Last night was my fault. I hold it
against neither of you. Please. Let me talk to her." 
"I --" 
"Please." 
He looked me and at last said, "Very well." 
We walked through his house in silence. It was as attractive and as impersonal
as a decorator could arrange for tenants of unknown taste. A tall, narrow
stopbox stood in the center of one room; sand trickled forever downward while
beads of water splashed across the sand's path. If that was Malaquez's work, it
was a very minor effort. But then, I was in no mood to consider art. I only
wanted to despise the man who had slept with my lover. That was easier than
despising myself. 
He paused before a bedroom door. "I should go in first. To prepare her." 
I smiled. "She handles surprise surprisingly well." 
"What would it hurt?" 
"True. Go ahead. Tell her..." I shrugged. "Tell her I love her." 
He studied me, then said, "I'm sorry things happened this way, Bernardo. I
didn't anticipate last night --" 
"I'm very good at making things happen this way. But if Tasha will forgive me
--" 
He nodded, repeated, "I am sorry," then slipped into the next room. I waited in
the dark, carpeted hall. A warm breeze came from silent vents above me. I heard
no voices until Malaquez said, "Enter." 
I blinked when I opened the door. Sunlight filled Malaquez's bedroom. Tasha lay
sprawled nude on a rumpled bed. Her skin seemed as smooth and as polished as the
bed's teak frame. She was looking slightly to my left, smiling with trust and
satisfaction like one sexually content. Malaquez stood near her, pointing
something at my chest. Though the morning sun shone fully on both of them, it
shimmered around Tasha. 
The part of my mind that remembered four months in NorAm during the Great
Cleaning sent me rolling across the floor. Malaquez was not prepared for me to
react so quickly, or perhaps he waited too long for an expression I would not
have, a gesture I would not make, a poignant moment of repentence, wonder,
despair, or love. Had he been faster, he could have had rage. I threw a chair at
him. As he fell, I scrambled onto him, my knees pinning his arms, my fingers
probing his neck. 
I shouted, "Where is she? Tell me, or I'll kill --" 
He began to cry. "She left. Earlier this morning --" 
Her clothes lay by the cube enclosing the bed. I hit him with the back of my
hand. "Tell me, Malaquez." 
"She wanted to be famous. She did! Now she will be." 
He seemed to expect me to understand. "Where!" I demanded, squeezing his throat
until he began jerking his head madly at the sculpture. 
I stared at the naked Tasha. Most of his story I have pieced together since, but
I understood enough as I knelt on his chest with my hands tight on his fleshy
throat. He had made his name with a home capturador. He began with small animals
and moved on to derelicts and Undersiders, people who would never be missed. Now
he had thought to use vacationers like Tasha and me, and when someone came
looking, he would say we had gone island-hopping in our windboat. Our boat would
disappear into the ocean to be found or not as the wind and tides chose. His
story would stand in either case. 
I wanted him to tell me more, but he babbled, begging me to forgive him, to
understand. I did not listen. I took the capturador, a matte black Tiempo
Capturado, from his grip and studied it, not really thinking about it or
Malaquez or Tasha. I think I was wondering what it meant to say that a thing was
art, so we accepted it as art. Or perhaps I was thinking about the things that
humanity made that would outlive our species. But I was probably only looking at
my reflection in the capturador's lens. Had he said then that I should use it on
myself, I might have. 
That moment passed. I looked at Malaquez. His eyes opened wider while we watched
each other. His lips contorted as if they had lost their ability to shape sound.
I turned to touch the cube that was Tasha's crypt. She smiled in trust or
pleasure or pride, an erotic Mona Lisa who would smile forever, and I could
never know why. 
The controls of the capturador were more complex than those of a kitchen model,
but I recognized the unstop tab. I could free Tasha. If I did, one of three
things would happen. Most likely: she would be meat --there is a reason why
stopboxes are most often used in kitchens. Less likely: she would live the rest
of her days with a mind as free of worry as a slug's. And the tiniest chance of
all: she would blink as if I had just materialized in Emil's bedroom, and then
she would laugh and tell me that she was going to be immortal. 
As I put my hand on the impervious surface of Tasha's stopbox, I heard Malaquez
run for the door. 
It is strange to know that we can do acts of unrepayable kindness to those we
should hate. Know this, my future self: Thanks to us, Emil Malaquez's name will
live as long as his masterpiece, "A Self-Portrait: Anguish," endures. 
And Tasha? I could say that I did not dare to take responsibility for her fate.
I could say that I chose out of consideration for her desire for fame; some
critics already say "Waking With Tasha" is Malaquez's finest work. If science
finds a way to safely free the subjects of Emil's art, perhaps the I who reads
this file will know that my decision is wise. But I cannot stop thinking that I
was never afraid of losing Tasha to brain damage or death. My fear is that she
would live, and I would learn that I had lost her long before Emil Malaquez
translated her into a thing that can be kept, admired, and loved. 
For in my way, I have done the same thing. 
I am ready for the mindwipe now.