The land was a revelation. Kara looked out the ship window and was impressed by a little orange-green rippled strip, nestled into the solid expanse of the city. That, she decided, was where she would go first. Business could wait. It always did, wanted or not.
Though tedious, the automated customs process was surprisingly efficient. Kara went to the information kiosk and engaged the bot attendant. The name of the little rippled strip of city translated as The Goal. Well yes, thought Kara, that is my goal. She found her way to the ground transport hub, engaged a botcar and told it, “Take me to My Goal.”
“There is no location in the city called My Goal,” said the botcar. “Please choose another destination.”
Kara laughed and said, “Take me to The Goal.” And off they went.
On entering The Goal her attention was captured by a fountain that she had somehow not noted in her view from the ship. It was huge, the water flowing in a kind of slow cascade down architectural forms to an impossibly tilted pool. Impossible because the surface of the water rested level with the tilt. She approached, slowly following a path of smooth, unbroken orange stone. The path made a wide spiral around and toward the fountain, its irregular edges lined with fine greenery that draped and billowed as if windblown.
There was no wind.
The falling water made no sound.
Kara could hear the background noise of the city, fading as she neared the fountain. But she could not hear the water.
She circled closer.
As she neared the highest point of the impossibly slanted pool, a warning light wavered in the air before her. Her speech translator rendered it saying, “Silence is now required. Remove shoes.” Kara looked around. She was almost but not quite alone. She saw another person remove their foot coverings and stand holding them. A few seconds later a storage cubby floated over, and the person placed their shoes into the cubby which then floated away.
Kara removed her shoes and placed them in the cubby when it floated to her. The path gave off a gentle warmth beneath her feet.
She spiraled closer to the pool. The cascading water shimmered but did not splash. It flowed almost like cloth, sometimes silken, sometimes coarse. Could she touch it? Should she? In the required silence there was no one to ask, no intelligence to call out to. She continued to walk in a slow spiral closer to the pool. I feel like an orbiting moon, she thought. Then, no, I’m a moon descending toward splashdown.
Kara shivered. She looked around for the other person, turning 360 degrees while walking the slow spiral inward toward the edge of the pool. This is a gravity well, she thought as she watched the fountain ripple and the pool shimmer. She caught sight of the other person across the pool. The person bowed toward her. Kara bowed back. They resumed their silent slow spiraling walks.
Kara was now close enough to gaze down into the impossibly slanted pool, then up into it as she continued to walk the slowly tightening spiral. I want to touch it, Kara thought, and her hand reached out. Can I? Should I?
She looked across the pool. No one was there. She turned again in a circle, and again her feet kept her in motion on the orbiting descent as her body rotated. She finished her turn with both arms outstretched, facing the fountain. Her eyes locked on the rippling substance of the pool at her feet.
It was layered with life.
And it sang.
short poems (haiku, senryu, haiga, tanka, haibun, and tanka prose) have been curated by a variety of publications including Acorn; The Best Small Fictions 2022 (Sonder Press, 2022); contemporary haibun online; Drifting Sands Haibun; failed haiku; #FemkuMag; Frogpond; Haiku 2014 (Modern Haiku Press, 2014); Hedgerow; The Heron’s Nest; Mayfly; Modern Haiku; Nest Feathers (The Heron’s Nest Press, 2015); Presence; Prune Juice Journal; Rattle; several Red Moon Press haiku and haibun anthologies; Ribbons; Snapshot Press Haiku Calendars; Trash Panda Haiku; and Wishbone Moon (Jacar Press, 2018).
She illustrated two Haiku North America anthologies: Dandelion Wind (2008), edited by Michael Dylan Welch and Lenard D. Moore, and Sitting in the Sun (2019), edited by Michael Dylan Welch and Crystal Simone Smith. Dr. MacQueen’s work as a social scientist and health researcher (now retired) has also been published in a number of academic journals and several books.
