Originally posted at Posthuman Blues

The aerostats hovered over the horizon as we made our way through the wastes. Their lights, already tenuous, played weakly across the ground, accentuating the heaped ash and leaving curved rungs of light dangling in my vision like baubles. I'd never adapted to the aerostats' presence. Even their shape seemed implacably wrong, as if they'd been snatched from some higher dimensional space and squeezed until they fit the contours of the known. As they moved they stirred up vast clouds of black dust that occluded the stars.

I mopped sweat from my brow with a peeling concert T-shirt and took a sip of ancient Gatorade from one of the bottles we'd taken from a convenience store somewhere outside St. Louis.

Liquid flesh

Nerves took root as the liquid flesh congealed on her body, bonding with exposed muscle and stifling the flow of pus and blood that had persisted despite the application of bandages. Fresh nerves -- better than the charred originals and duly patented -- brought with them a sensory clarity that reminded her of purchasing her first HDTV flatscreen and quietly marveling at the resolution.

For long hours she immersed herself in the sheer amniotic newness of her body, aware of its patient coagulation, its inexorable stiffening into something that, ultimately, would serve her in her new life. The gloved hands of the biotechnicians slowly receded and she found herself in succulent darkness, a creature of transition.