Falling Stars

A skin-bound memory

"Are you sure?" Millicent asks. "If I were you, I'd be finding better ways to spend my time."

The visitor sits. Its face is marred by asymmetry; one cheekbone has slumped lower than the other. "I'm starting to forget things. What good is time if I can't remember it?"

Millicent sniffs; winces at the ammonia-smell. "All right. What do you want?"

"All of it. The sorrowful sea. The pebbled beach. The reflection I saw in the Carnival mirrors: myself, older. The boy who gave me a bouquet of mushrooms..."

Millicent scrabbles for her tools. "Slow down, slow down." She brushes an assaying thumb across her client's skin, and it comes away glistening with a milky residue. "I don't know how well the ink will take."

The visitor grabs her wrist in slippery fingers. "Try."

The present life of man, O king, seems to me like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged.

"You authored me. But the Bazaar made me."

"Buy me a knife. Please."

Just a scratch

An annex of the Bazaar extends past the cathedral to the rusting shadows of Beazley's Gate. The shops that huddle in its arches are meaner and quieter than the bustle of the Bazaar proper, and you're a good way from any spires. Presumably that's why the noman has chosen this spot – but it remains close-mouthed.

It takes the knife in both hands, glances up and down the street, and leans its weight into carving a slash down the skin of the Bazaar. The knife barely penetrates – all the bombs of the anarchists have barely marked the Bazaar! – and the glossy demi-masonry closes up behind it. Nevertheless, the faintest seam remains. Panting with the effort, the noman works the knife-tip into the top and bottom, to mark serifs on a capital I. The knife-blade snaps in half as it completes the task. It turns and glances along the Bazaar-annex, towards the spires: then runs. You follow.

"I just want to be remembered," it says afterwards. It looks into your face – then at the knife – then back to your face. It grins. "Don't worry. I trust you to remember me the usual way."

An Incident: Get a private tattoo of your noman

Millicent nods. "I've something special in mind, but I've decorated the obvious places. It'll have to be somewhere more discreet. Over your heart? Perhaps a shoulder. Or a hip."

A compact

Your noman finds a corner stool. You occupy the divan. Millicent takes an apparently empty vial from a drawer, then closes the curtains and blows out the lamp. The vial's contents gleam, suddenly, like old silver. "Gant ink," Millicent says.

She begins, and your tattoo blooms gradually into the dark. A nuanced dapple of pain as her needle moves across your skin. The sound of her measured breathing, and the drip-drip-drip of your noman melting, slowly, onto her carpet.

When she is done, Millicent lights a candle. The tattoo vanishes, leaving only your bare, red-smarting skin. Your noman reaches out, its snowy fingers soothing. "We'll laugh about this in a year," it says. "You'll see. I'll still be here, and you'll have that silly tattoo you don't need. There's always a way, isn't there?"

A Private Tattoo of your Noman, Inscribed in Gant

In the dark, it gleams like the ghost of a star. The memory of your Noman is preserved forever - or at least as long as you have skin.