Page 51 - Vol. VII #1

anointed “they,” the singular, gender-neutral pronoun, the 2015 Word of the Year. As in: “They and I went to the store,” where they is used for a person who does not identify as male or female, or they is a filler pro- noun in a situation where a person’s gender identity is unknown. — Jessica Bennett, The New York Times
Vijay thought, how trendy of Foster, Lee to be non- gender specific. Infants and the elderly were uniden- tifiable by sex, reproduction being irrelevant to both. Foster, Lee was Neither this nor that. Albino? At a glance, yes, but then, immediately, ‘they’ were a deep tan, chameleon-like. Looked Asian, no, African, no, Irish. Long hair was wavy, was straight, was shiny, then dull. Pulled back in a gender-free ponytail. Fos- ter, Lee made Vijay feel like he was in a kaleidoscope, looking out, not in. It had to be the sushi. His hand went to his stomach. He looked out the window at the cloudy sky. It offered no bearings.
“What was he, the kind of teacher
he never believed could actually exist?”
“Professor,” they said.
Neither a question nor statement. Just three syllables of sound. Phonemes. He called up their grades on his tablet.
Vijay avoided addressing them by name. “Something I ate. Never mind. Congratulations on this weekend. Family enjoyed it?”
“Not in attendance,” Foster, Lee said.
He looked up from the screen in surprise; the move- ment made him seasick.
“Why not?”
A pause, then they shrugged.
“You’re a remarkable student. If I were to say so— and I’d very much like to say so on your behalf. Why aren’t you interested in getting an A+? I wish I could add + to the nth.”
“Your saying...so...creates opportunities,” they ac- knowledged.
He frowned at their pauses, brief as a caught breath. Vijay recognized the behavior of dumbing down ex- planations for students or instantly translating from Hindi. His mother still sometimes hesitated assert- ively just like that.
“Opportunities don’t matter to you?” “It...depends.”
Vijay thought the pause was perhaps a tic of some kind. Nausea distracted him.
Foster, Lee stood up and walked to the window. Turn- ing away from the professor, they placed their heavy textbook on the sill. They were outlined in cloudy light. Their low tenor voice and pauses became hypnotic.
“We read an anecdote that you created for a paper a long time ago... that describes a field of poppies with the power to choose... which bees to satisfy. Some bees came for pollen only...some for pollen and H2O... some for either/both, but also... some for something else the poppies had... that they didn’t even know they had, but they knew... when those bees lighted on them. They preferred those bees and unconsciously... did something that kept those bees longer. The poppies and those bees lingered longer together... and the bees never told... when they returned to the hive. The bees didn’t include the poppies in their dance... Only those who randomly arrived... seeking the ineffable without expecting it... were welcomed and embraced.”
Vijay took his hand from his mouth. “Blue poppies.”
Foster, Lee turned and faced him. “So they were.”
“Words like ‘ineffable’ and ‘qualia’ lack evidence. Which one of us is the poppy, which the bee?”
“A two-dimensional question.”
Silencing a defensive retort, Vijay looked at the num- bers on his screen. He felt more curious than angry, and more nauseated than either. Foster, Lee walked to his desk and picked up the photo of David propped up in Ruthie’s lap. Both blue-eyed and brave, but other- wise jarringly dissimilar.
“Hey,” Vijay said.
“If you could, would you correct your son’s genetic effect? Pinnochio wanted to be a real live boy.”
Vijay expected to feel righteous indignation. Rage. Instead, he calmly considered standing and dismiss-
(continued on next page)
44