Collected Works ✏️ Vancouver
The French Maid
Baulixia
I couldn't help myself from wondering what lay beyond my container. The only time I saw outside it was when, the day before, the Baulomorph French Maid made her first visit. She opened and shut the door so quickly however that I couldn’t gather much. A concussive roar slipped into my room, and I saw a flash of dark blue, which I imagined was a hallway.
The maid’s name is Baulixia, and she’s actually French. She said her name used to be Odilia. She wore what appeared to be a black spandex dress, and had frills on her white apron. Her fish-net stockings ended abruptly in sensible running shoes with white laces. She was wide-eyed and eager to please.
Baulixia assured me that she was allowed to answer any of my questions and give me any help I needed. I suspected that she’s in fact under restrictions as to what she’s allowed to say. Yet I didn't want to embarrass her, and I kept my questions away from anything political. She’s no more responsible for my present confinement, or for the collapse of human civilization, than I am.
Baulixia confirmed that I’d probably be in my present container for about two months. She also reassured me that the only reason my door was locked was that the construction site outside was dangerous. If I wanted to walk around outside, I’d better do it with a guide. Otherwise, I might get knocked senseless by a crane, orange light-beam, or drone. She stressed that there was little point in venturing out, as it was ear-splittingly loud. I could also damage my eye-sight because of the toxicity of the isolate particles and the intensity of the orange beams and laser welding.
"Myself, I ave the prescribed route, mostly under the tunenells. My friend Baularette was thinking, Oh, look, eez a coffee shop on zee ozzer side of zee elevate walkway! She was knocked into with a hammer of drone, un marteau of the flying things. I imagine that it eez better to wait until zay are finish wit ze construction."
Her accent was delightful, singing and slipping past any anglophone dangers she encountered. She had dark eyes that danced above the white frills of her apron. Her personal life became very interesting to me.
Luckily, my curiosity wasn't rebuffed. She was in fact a very lonely girl, having left Cherbourg only two months ago. She'd made very few friends prior to the takeover. The one friend she did make, Baularette, was still unconscious in the hospital, dreaming of the coffee shop at the other side of the construction site. The Baulians had managed to cure a number of ailments (flus, cancers, etc.) but they still had difficulty waking up the human brain once it had decided to go into what they referred to as deep sleep mode.
To my surprise, Baulixia invited me to a Baulomorph party on Friday night. She said that the authorities encouraged humans to interact with Baulomorphs, since this was perhaps the easiest way for them to understand Baulian culture, which was otherwise mind-strainingly different.
"Zay are encouragent this mixing of human bodies with Baulomorph bodies, since zay are very much ze same, especialment as far as ze fun tings are concerned" Before she closed the door she winked at me and said, "Juste call me Baulixia, ze French girl who can fix you up. Bring ze swim-suit. It's in ze top drawer."
I hadn't read anything about this in Assimilation Manual S 2,700,000,000.
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