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,88888, I saw them all, suddenly, for just a moment, through |
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,88' '88, non-Radchaai eyes, an eddying crowd of unnervingly |
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88' '88 ambiguously gendered people. I saw all the features that |
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88, 88 would mark gender for non-Radchaai—never, to my |
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'88, ,88' annoyance and inconvenience, the same way in each place. |
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'88888' Short hair or long, worn unbound (trailing down a back, |
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8 or in a thick, curled nimbus) or bound (braided, pinned, |
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888 tied). Thick-bodied or thin-, faces delicate-featured |
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8 or coarse-, with cosmetics or none. A |
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profusion of colors that would have been 88888 |
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gender-marked in other places. All of this matched ,888 |
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randomly with bodies curving at breast and hip or not, 88' 8 |
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bodies that one moment moved in ways various ,888888 |
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non-Radchaai would call feminine, the next moment ,88' '88, |
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masculine. Twenty years of habit overtook me, and for 88' '88 |
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an instant I despaired of choosing the right pronouns, 88, 88 |
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the right terms of address. But I didn’t need to do '88, ,88' |
|
that here. I could drop that worry, a small but '88888' |
|
annoying weight I had carried all this time. I was |
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home. |
|
Ancillary Justice |
|
Ann Leckie |
|
|
 |
return |
