The Earring
The dull gold earring in his left ear was his only jewelry. It was a disk with gracefully flowing symbols in black on the surface attached to a post piercing the lobe. She had noticed it many times in passing but had never taken the time to examine the details closely. Now as she stood on her knees to get a better look at the bauble, she could see that it was, in fact, far more intricate than she had thought. The cursive script of the design was in several parts, linked together by thin lines of engraving which were not visible from a short distance. The enameled main elements were hauntingly familiar, like a face one cannot quite place in memory. She gently traced the shapes with the tip of her forefinger.
"What does all this mean?"
He looked up from the book he held in his lap, the lens of his spectacles flashing in the lamp light. "The earring? It's a tribal thing. All my people wear one. We're given them when we're still very young – as soon as we can be trusted not to pull them out. They're a sort of identification device."
"But what do the signs mean? Are they just decorative and symbolic or do they have a real meaning?" She was bored and jealous of his attention to his reading.
With a sigh, he closed the book, after first carefully marking his place, and turned to her. "They have meaning. I told you it's like an identification bracelet. The marks are a code telling from what family I come and into which crèche I was placed. You know we keep careful tabs on our bloodlines so we can weed out any genetic defects and sometimes it's useful to know the age of an individual without having to ask."
"So that's the secret. It's numbers; I thought they looked familiar in a strange way. I wouldn't mind having jewelry like this for myself although I'm not sure I'd like everybody I met knowing my age right off." She continued to fondle the earring.
"You might find the second and more practical use even less appealing," he responded dryly. "This coded information is principally used to identify a badly damaged body. Not all of us die neatly and leave a recognizable corpse. We have the same information tattooed on our bodies when we reach puberty. I used to have the marks on my torso, under my left arm. That's gone now, of course. Vaporized along with my left arm. I won't need to have it replaced because I'm no longer unidentifiable; the surgeons have seen to that with all the machina they've built into me."
"Don't talk like that." She squirmed and made a face.
"Why not? You wanted to know what the earring was all about. I told you. You're too squeamish about reality. As a matter of fact, there's no reason for me to even wear this earring anymore but I've grown so accustomed to it that I'd feel incomplete – make that even more incomplete- without it."
"Must you talk like this? I don't like to think about death. There's been too much of fear in our lives. You're safe now and alive and you're going to stay that way. Don't remove the earring. It becomes you and now I understand its meaning, it means you." She laid her palm against his cheek and looked deeply into his eyes. "I'll draw the design on my linens and have it embroidered in silk. Whenever I see it, I shall think of you."
He briefly pressed her hand more closely to his skin and answered, "You're a sentimental creature. Why make such a celebration of a piece of jewelry?"
"Because I'm actually celebrating you and the fact that we're here together and happy. At least I'm happy ..."
He simply smiled absently and returned to his book.
Aug 26, 2004 2