The Biomantic's Last Husband

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Old Husband is dead. I feel his loss in all my minds. The impending arrival of New Husband consoles me not at all.

Long ago Old Husband gave me permission to extend a sensory nexus into his bedchamber. At first I grew my eye on the wall across from the foot of his bed, so I could always watch him. My mouth and ear flowered on the wall, over the headboard, so we might whisper together at night. Later he told me the arrangement disturbed him, so I gathered my sensors together and arranged them into the semblance of a trophy-mask above his bed.

“A decorative effect”, love, ” he said.

But when he lay dying, the headboard hid his worn-out face from me; I saw only the trembling of his thin body beneath the coverlet, the aimless kicking of his feet.

He shuddered, and I heard his teeth grind together as a wave of pain passed through him. “Dearest,” he gasped. A status report. Please?”

“Rest,” I said.

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