Amabile by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Amabile

Page 69

Schenectady

Morey thought he was seeing small town stuff. Yes, infused with a Lynchian nod to the push of outside influence, but still small town. He wanted to see something bigger, and as the result of having seen a bogus, defaced road sign, teleported again.

Morey's arrival in Schenectady began with that familiar soft pop; the sound a fox makes when slipping between coordinates, as if the air itself briefly forgets where he belongs.

He had left Saratoga Springs only moments earlier, paws still tingling from the cold sidewalks and the faint mineral smell of the springs. Saratoga had been a swirl of boutiques, phone absorbed pedestrians, and the faint hum of winter tourism. But Morey, ever restless, felt the tug of another place; Schenectady, a name he liked to say aloud because it felt like a puzzle his tongue had to solve.

He had materialized just outside Proctors Theatre, blinking at the marquee lights. Schenectady in winter had a different rhythm than Saratoga; less curated, more lived in, a city that wore its history like a coat with frayed pockets. The air smelled of roasted coffee from a nearby café and the metallic tang of snow about to fall.

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Morey adjusted his scarf; an Amabilian weave, shimmering faintly with colors that to the educated eye, didn't yet exist on Earth, and trotted toward the sound of chanting.

At the corner of State and Jay, a crowd had gathered. Signs bobbed above heads:

Families Belong Together

Abolish ICE

No More Raids

The energy wasn't violent; it was determined, a kind of communal insistence that people deserved better. Drums thumped. Someone with a megaphone spoke about dignity. A group of college students handed out hot chocolate to anyone who looked cold, including, eventually, a bewildered fox.

Morey accepted the cup politely, though he mostly liked the warmth against his paws.

He watched the demonstration with the curiosity of someone who had lived through a dozen planetary customs but still found Earth's rituals endlessly strange. On Amabile, disagreements were settled through long communal storytelling sessions; whoever told the most convincing tale won the argument. Here, hominids gathered in the streets, raised their voices, and tried

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to bend the world toward their own notion of fairness through sheer presence.

As he stood among the crowd, Morey felt something stir; an echo of Amiable's ethos. The people here weren't lost; they were insisting on being seen. That resonated with him. Amiable taught that a place becomes real only when enough beings care about it. Schenectady, in this moment, felt intensely real.

A woman knelt beside him.

"Are you lost, little guy?"

Morey shook his head. He wasn't lost. He was observing.

He was learning.

When the demonstration dispersed, Morey wandered deeper into the city. He passed the old GE sign glowing faintly through the dusk, the brick warehouses converted into studios, the narrow streets where snow collected in quiet drifts. Schenectady felt like a place that had been knocked down and rebuilt more than once, a place that understood resilience.

He liked that.

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As night settled, Morey felt the familiar tug of his home planet; Amabile calling him back, as it always did when he'd learned something worth carrying home.

He paused on the bridge over the Mohawk River. The water moved slowly beneath him, reflecting the city lights in long trembling lines.

"Maybe Earth isn't so different," he murmured.

Then pop, he vanished, leaving only a faint shimmer in the winter air.