#tech knowe

Me. In between daydreams of plump pink brains, Hi caught glances of himself in the mirror, grey and gagging. The faeries told him he smelled like a titan arum, smiling in between their sips of hot lemon and honey served by Ida. Corpse flower. Why couldn't they just say it? The scent of his skin was sickly and it was only becoming stronger as he got older. Lavender baths were only doing so much. He hated seeing Ida set her face in stone, as if holding off a nose scrunch, while her watering eyes gave her away.

So did the words she muttered in her sleep.

"Let him rest. We gotta let him rest. What... what have we done."

Warmer weather lent itself to sitting on the porch, so that's what Hi did, night and day. Maybe the absence of his cold body would help Ida get the sleep she needed to work at the hospital on her shift rotation. During the day, he could keep an eye on Tech playing in the front yard with his friends while he gripped both hands to a hot lemon and honey.

Tech was a cool nephew, clever and kind and keen to help with cooking and cleaning in the kitchen. It must run in the family, Ida Juana thought with a chest swell of pride. She watched his dark brown eyes, copied and pasted directly from Hugh, light up when she offered him a spoon to lick the leftover icing from.

Lowkey? She'd freaked out when Hugh came home from the forest with a real live flower baby that he said was his. He could've just gone for an ayahuasca retreat like everyone else looking for a spiritual awakening, but nooo, he had to endear himself to a faerie tribe and learn their secrets. Classic Hugh! In the end, though, things were working out. Ida and Hi weren't going to have kids of their own, which they'd talked about even before Hi became... what he was now. So at times when they were thinking it would be nice to have a kid to spoil, Hi could set up the console while Ida took Tech to pick out a new video game. Hugh appreciated this too, being a single dad by choice who could use a break every once in a while.

He could wiggle his fingers, though. That meant he could type. Another action to add to the long list he was checking off: Things You Can Still Do When You're a Zombie. The concept was gaining some traction in the social media sphere in tweet form so he was going to try his hand at content with paragraphs - maybe he'd be better at them than he was before, differently wired brain and all.

The alternative list, Things You Can't Still Do When You're a Zombie, was being left out of the content plan. It included things that made Hi feel sad. Can't run. Can't go anywhere without being asked if he was alright, because you look a bit grey, sir.

Can't hang out with your best friend ever again.

The faeries had visited to check on his progress. The price appeared to have been paid for coming back from the dead, they said, beaming at Hi's dulled eyes and slacking jaw. That was before the phone call from Sara Bellum, her words tearing through wet gasps: "Andy's - gone - he got sick. Like. Like you did."

There were nice things to write about. Hi was an uncle now. Hugh became interested in faerie culture, even after what he and the others had done to bring Hi back; he packed a bag to go on sabbatical into the woods and returned with a son, Tech, who he'd grown from seed through a 'pollination ritual'. Hi's blood ran colder than he thought possible when Hugh returned with the little green man in his arms, his brain thudding with the knowledge of magic and prices. Then, Tech reached out and grabbed Hi's index finger in his little baby fist, all blushing and bubbly.