Palor

Gily

"You comin' in?" Asked Gily.

"It's getting cold, late, and you have an early class... Alfie?" she asked again. Alfie was the nickname she gave Cuauhtémoc. Guillermina Iyolo, or Gily, was a young woman a few years after university. She had some Tarahumara blood in her family. Alfie liked that. People often thought she was Asian, Hawaiian, or exotic, whatever that meant. She had that quality that people saw as beautiful without being 'runway model' beautiful.
"Yeah. Coming." Alfie said coming in from the porch of their apartment. He stepped on a small graphene toy which made a squeaky sound. "Ouch. Damn it." He picked up the toy and was about to throw it down below when he realized it probably belonged to the upstairs little kid. He tossed the toy up to the upstairs porch, but the toy fell again on the porch chair by his feet. He looked around for a porch chair, "Chair to ladder," he got up on the ladder and reached up and tossed it up again. This time it stayed up on the boy's porch. He's a nice kid, he thought. He got down from the ladder, "Ladder to chair," and grabbed his lower back and squirmed. He was in pain from that day's work out.

The anatomical body tattoo on his forearm was blinking in the lower-back region. He touched the biotattoo and the blinking stopped as his body created its own analgesic to take care of the back pain. Nanodiamonds in the blood stream were used to diagnose illness and injury in the body. Biological molybdenum disulfide nano-computers, powered by the ever-present ambient radio waves in the atmosphere, were used for the body to generate the necessary medications needed for repair and maintenance. There were those that were against this invasive system because it was desensitizing the body to pain.

It was late and they were both tired, "I really don't want to start this new semester. Teaching Physics 101 lab. He has something against me, I know... Híjole..." Alfie whined. Gily just rolled her eyes. She was afraid he was overwhelmed with his work, and she didn't know why he didn't ask for help. That's the way it had been since she met him, but he was getting close to finishing his degree, and it mattered more now. He was a first-generation immigrant from México and perhaps he had a high dose of machísmo in his blood. Machísmo. She suddenly realized she may not know him as deeply as she thought. Her body felt an uncomfortable warm flash.

"Alfie, it paga the bills, babe." She slipped off her clothes to change into her sleeping ones. "Side table to chair." She said. Her side table rearranged itself into a chair. She scooted the chair closer to her.

Alfie just watched her, "Ay, mamacita you look gooood..."

"Oh, stop it. I do not. You always say that." She put on her night clothes, which didn't amount to a whole lot. "Chair to side table." The chair rearranged itself into her side table by the bed and scooted itself into place.He slid into bed and before he and his self-medicating body knew it, he was fast asleep. Gily was watching some holoclips on her handheld for a bit. She thought of calling her brother but decided not to as he probably wouldn't answer her call. Where the hell would he be tonight, she thought. She looked down at Alfie.

"You're asleep, aren't you..." Gily asked without an answer, "...Yeah, you are." Gily commanded the lights out, doors and windows locked, and slid under the covers and lay down. She sat up, gave Alfie a goodnight kiss, then she slid back down again.