Hello and welcome to Letters From the Knot, a regular newsletter and an extended exercise in worldbuilding. Once a month, I post a piece of fiction that takes place in the Knot, a space-bound city, a tangle of debris. My aim with this project is to gradually populate the city over time, creating and discovering new parts of it as I go. Each piece will be different: a story, a dream, a character sketch, a slice of life, a fragment. This week, a mother and child meet for an early lunch.
And if sci-fi’s not your thing, I also release a more traditional and personal newsletter on the off weeks.
A New Sermon
Mum liked to meet early for lunch, to be sure she could get a table. Her worst nightmare was waiting, standing at the edge of a café, expectantly. She always said it made her feel like a ghoul, hovering above another person’s table, like a premonition of death.
All the same, she was late. I arrived at the top of second spin, as agreed, and ordered myself a falskaff. The café was one of a dozen or so on the main strip by the Selman port, and the seats were spread out into the promenade in an attempt to capture some of the romance of Old Europe, an attempt undermined by the insipid Selman architecture. Rose gold fixings and woven glass and pastel ullugrams. The water in the fountains was dyed too lurid a blue and they piped in an eerie birdsong. Every few feet there was a thin palm tree or an over-manicured flowerbed. The floor was polished metal, intended to redouble the approximated springtime sunlight, to make you feel embraced by the luxury and advancement of the Knot’s capital ship. In reality, its effect was only to nauseate.
One side of the promenade was dominated by cafe’s and other tourists traps. The other side housed the gates that, every hour or so, would deposit the Knot’s incoming visitors, space-weary and wide-eyed. I was relieved, at least, that the café Mum had chosen was among the more muted and tasteful. The seating area was hemmed in by something that looked like jasmine vines, and the floor covered in softwood tiles. The waiters were well dressed and young and attractive.
I couldn’t believe I had arrived before her. Instantly, I felt myself wasting mental energy thinking about how I would appear to her. If she had been there first, I could have taken the initiative, bustled over and bombarded her with hellos and pleasantries so that she didn’t have a good chance to read me before I sat down. getting there first meant having to arrange myself. She’d get the chance to survey me from afar before making her presence known. She’d see that my clothes weren’t new. She’d see my scuffed shoes, and overstuffed bag, and thin hair, and she’d be able to make some judgement about my life before she even sat down. She’d have fixed her face into a look of either sympathy or contempt. Though she was more than capable of conjuring both.
When the falskaff arrived, I chose my position with care. I leant back in the chair - nonchalant, unbothered, - and took out my glide to read. I pulled up something obtuse and academic so that, if she asked about it, I could tell her she wouldn’t understand anyway. By the time she arrived, I had finished my coffee, my nerves were quivering. In my frustration I hadn’t managed to read a word.
‘Peach,’ she said, right next to me all of a sudden, ‘you haven’t been waiting long have you?’ Her emphasis suggested that my waiting was my fault.
She was wearing an oversized black suit that shimmered in the rose light. Her hair was combed flat to her head, smart shoes and plastic satchel.
‘About thirty minutes,’ I said, half rising from the chair to receive a kiss on the cheek. ‘Got a table at least.’
The café was filling up by then, and the promenade was starting to throng. It was mostly tourists on this drag, still marveling at the glamour of the place, or else still fascinated by the artificial gravity, the uncanny feeling of the spin. On the promenade, children took turns to jump, clocking where they landed to see if the Knot had moved beneath their feet while they were airborne.
‘Have you already eaten?’ she said.
‘I thought we were meeting for lunch,’ I replied.
‘Yes thank god,’ she said, ‘I’m starving.’ She flicked her hand and a menu formed in the air before her eyes. An ostentatious Selman flex, but one she seemed used to. She looked, as ever, put together and Scandinavian and smug, though there was that characteristic glint of fear in her eyes that perhaps only I could see, the glimmering potential to explode at the slightest alarm or provocation.
‘Have you been here before?’ I asked.
‘Yes yes,’ she said, still browsing the ullu. ‘It’s hard to go wrong, really, I had a sort of beetroot quiche last time I was here that nearly made me forget my name. Ah, they’re still doing it.’
She hadn’t made eye contact since sitting down.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘I think I’ll just get the minestra.’
‘Perfect,’ she said. She glanced up, blinked a few times, her eyes shimmering, and finally brought her gaze to rest on me, the light gone now. At the same time she snapped closed her fist to dismiss the ullu on the table.
‘Well then,’ she said. Her eyes tripped over my features like she had leant them to me and wanted to gauge how I’d been treating her property. ‘I am sorry I’m late...it’s work.’
You don’t say.
‘How is work?’ I replied.
She planted her hands down on the table, and leant forward, her eyes were wide. ‘Incredible,’ she said, quietly, and leant back again. ‘Incredible,’ she repeated.
‘You’re getting good numbers then?’ I said. I picked up my coffee cup for something to do but remembered it was empty and put it down again. I wished I had ordered another. Mum was looking up at the sharp pointed leaves of the palm trees, shaking her head in wonder, as though she’d seen a message written up there just for her.
‘They just keep coming,’ she said, ‘more and more every week. You can’t imagine.’ - she licked her lips - ‘You can’t imagine how starved they’ve been, up there. Word has got around, of course, and, they’re just, they’ve just been waiting for people like us to set up. You wouldn’t believe the building Jonas found for us. An old theatre, from way back, back when it was spacebound and, well I’ll admit I didn’t think they had theatres up there, and, well obviously it hadn’t been a theatre for about fifty years, it was just some old rasp infested storage space until Jonas worked his magic but...well we only cleared the stalls to start with but with the number of people coming down, we’re going to be opening up the circle as well...’
There was a second or so where I could have affected an organic reaction of surprise or congratulations, but it slipped by and mum furrowed her brow.
‘That’s amazing,’ I said, glancing over her shoulder to the interior of the café where two waiters stood chatting to one another, each holding an empty tray flat against their thighs. One was leaning against the bar. The other was rocking back and forth on their heels.
‘Have you ever been?’ she said.
‘Mm?’
‘To the Twins,’ she replied.
‘Not since I was studying.’
‘Oh, of course,’ she scoffed, ‘well I mean the real Twins, not the university campus.’
‘Right.’
‘The people down there are so...’
Here we go.
‘They’re just so honest,’ she said. ‘Not like up here, where everyone’s just thinking about how much they earn or swizzing round to the Hafgufa to go to the new gløgbar or whatever. The people there, the people there are engaged in the real world of the Knot, their lives revolve around the gravity, the push and pull of the place. Some of these people go back three, four generations. Seriously. they’re from here, you know?’
‘Aren’t we?’
‘Oh you know what I mean. They speak the old languages, they eat real Knot food. Not...well, this.’ She said, as if the café hadn’t been her choice.
‘And you’re living down there?’ I said, and started to count the minutes.
‘Well no, not really. Jonas’ stomach can’t take the low gravity for too long, you know. We’re taking the supplements though so...you know, maybe some day. I’d miss the culture though I think. Have you seen the exhibition at the Ovum?’
‘No.’
‘Oh,’ she shook her head, ‘it’s probably not your thing, actually.’
Inside, the waiters still hadn’t moved, happily chatting, trays empty. I imagined they were flirting with one another in the way you did when you were trapped with someone for eight hours straight. Who cared if a couple of rich Selmans didn’t get their quiche?
‘Where is that food?’ I said, distractedly.
‘Be patient for god sake, Peach, we’re catching up. I used to sit for hours when I was your age and just talk and talk.’
It had been ten minutes, maybe fifteen, since she arrived and already we were in silence. What passed for silence on the Knot, anyway. There was still the deep gurgle of the spin, the slow and yawning ceaseless creak. There was still the clatter of footsteps from the tourist children dashing back and forth between the palms, still the sonorous chimes, the helpful glides. Mum watched me for a moment, waiting for the next question, losing interest and looking at my clothes and hair and, no doubt, my frown lines. Her lips trembled.
‘So I hear your Dad’s gone back,’ she said, pretending to look at something on her glide.
‘Has he?’
‘He never stays long. He’s a creature of habit. Have you not seen him?’
‘We went to the theatre,’ I said, distractedly, drumming my fingers on the table.
She laughed. ‘He went to the theatre did he?’
‘I guess so,’ I replied.
‘I suspect he’s happy to be back in Copenhagen?’ she said.
‘Do you think you could add a coffee to our order?’
She tutted, ‘It’s a lot of caffeine,’ she said.
‘In a coffee?’
‘To have in a day,’ she said.
Mercifully, the food arrived. We fussed over the dishes for a while and I ordered a second coffee for myself. The minestra was too salty and otherwise flavourless. Mum’s quiche was a vivid purple and the salad looked wilted. I could tell from her face it wasn’t as good as she remembered but I could also tell she wasn’t going to say anything.
I decided not to ask any more questions of her. A standoff. Gamely, and between mouthfuls, she filled the time by sketching for me the new sermon she was working on. ‘It’s...well....I’m starting with the idea of the Knot as a closed loop. I’ll talk about the new transit rings and how you can ride them and circle back on yourself and, although you’ve not gone anywhere, you come back to where you started, right?’
She was speaking enthusiastically and could I could briefly imagine why those people on the Twins might be drawn in by her.
‘And in that rotation,’ she continued, ‘you’ve looped around everyone else in the Knot. It’s possible to encircle every life here in an hour or so in the way that Christ encircles us all with...’
‘Do you think those people use the transit rings a lot?’ I asked.
She frowned deeply then, chewed her food a couple more times and quietly swallowed. ‘Well it’s just something I’ve been thinking about.’ She poked her quiche with the long rose gold fork.
I felt bad then, of course. It wasn’t her fault. We sat silently for a few moments more. My coffee arrived, and I stared at the quivering black surface for a moment while it settled.
‘And anyway,’ she started again. ‘I don’t think I need to use the transit rings as the main image, the point is about perspective...’
She didn’t ask questions because she was scared of the answers. When you ask questions of God, or of your own faith, you can be assured of some rigidity. The lessons are ancient. They bend but do not break. When you ask a question of your child, you only ever find a mess. Decisions they’ve made that you wouldn’t have or, far worse than that, sadness. And in that sadness, judgement, and in that judgement, a glimpse of your own failures.
I drank my coffee in a single gulp.
‘I think the point I’m trying to make,’ she said, ‘is that in the Knot we feel small, small compared to the Earth, or compared to the system, but that...in God's eyes, it’s all the same. We’re all small in his love.’
She didn’t ask questions because she feared pain. I once imagined it was the role of a parent to take on some fraction of your pain. To embrace and in some way diminish it. That’s not how her heart worked though. It could only multiply pain, amplify it and pour it back out again. Though in fairness to her, she could do the same with love.
She stopped talking and watched me. Her quiche was gone now. She reached out a hand and placed it on mine. ‘Where have you gone?’ she said.
I felt like my hands were vibrating from the caffeine. The soft shamsun light was brighter all of a sudden, I was sure.
Mum put down her fork. ‘Is it Nina?’ she said.
And the name was a weight in my arms, an unmistakable human density.