The Genesis of the Incorporeum

“Did you have that dream again?”

It took Briallen a minute to figure out which crewmate was asking the question. She was still lost in her painting, being extra careful not to let a single drop of pigment escape in the null gravity.

Briallen placed her brush in the hollow palette where the tiny machinery would extract the paints and leave the bristles clean and ready for the next color. She looked up and saw a man of average height with hair buzzed close to his scalp. That described about half the men on the station.

“I was trying to be a tree, but the tree didn’t fit,” she explained. Briallen went through her mental records, trying to remember what the man’s name was. There were two engineers whose names sounded alike, and she was pretty sure he was one of them. Alec? Eric? It was something like that. “Or not exactly trying to be a tree, per se, but …” she paused, sighing, knowing that a moment ago, lost in her painting, she had the word and the concept on the tip of her tongue, but now it was lost. “I was trying to mind-meld with it or something.”

The man who might be Alec or Eric laughed. He was nice; she wished she could remember names better.

“This one’s different,” he said, maneuvering into her art space and examining her painting. “Less tree-like than the others.”

Briallen turned to look at the previous paintings she’d done, all arranged poetically on one wall. In some, the tree was large and symbolic, with roots that mirrored the spread of the branches. In others, the tree went through the seasons, enduring the winter and celebrating spring.

Her latest work was more impressionistic. She could still tell it was a tree, although the shape was not immediately obvious. “What bothers me most is the knowledge that it isn’t really a tree … it’s analogous to something we can’t yet comprehend …” She put the last of her painting supplies neatly away. “And I have no idea how I know that. I just do.”

The co-worker whose name began with a vowel regarded her with curiosity. Or maybe he thought she was nuts … Suddenly, Briallen felt uncomfortable. It felt too intimate, talking about her paintings and her dreams. She changed the subject.

“What’s Eve doing?” she asked.

“The same thing she’s been doing. Gathering energy, getting ready to unload her pent-up misery on anything that gets in her way.”

“Briallen, Archie …” a blonde head peeked in the door, curls forming a halo around her face. “The Commander wants everybody up top in fifteen minutes,” she said before vaulting right past. “I hear there’s going to be cake!”

Finish reading this story by AmyBeth Inverness in the Garden of Eden anthology. Get it FREE!