She liked to watch me sleeping. “I always remember you like this,” she would say. “Drowsing in a pool of sunlight, dawn pouring off you like gold. That is how I know you are rich.”
When she was young, rich to Tseleng was time enough to weed millet, and light enough to spot vipers. To me, it meant a roof that didn’t leak. When the Buyani arrived, it meant them, and suddenly the whole planet was poor.
…
“Memory and Faded Ink”
AEscifi
Published 10 July 2019
About the story: Alien drugs are different than ours are.