Chapter 1: *CSA* (Rainbow Fairies) Seven Stories about the Seven Sorrows / Seven Stories about the Seven Joys
Summary:
TW: historical atrocities, rape, child sexual abuse, starvation, disease, exhaustion, exposure, drowning, hanging, bee sting death, allergy death, unwanted pregnancy, miscarriage, forced relocation, violence, suicide, family loss, racism, unreliable narrator, lost history, heavy religious focus.
Edited a bit for clarity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Irish_(folklore)
Chapter Text
Seven Stories about the Seven Sorrows
“Up here. That’s it, by the trailhead! Come on, Kirsty. We’re nearly there.”
Our Lady of Sorrows of the Chahta’s Oklahoma. Cornflower eyes and corn-silk hair. And a crystal rosary dangling down.
“This is where they… This is the place, you know, where they all… turned up.”
A warm spring day. Air blurred by pollen and birdsong. She points to a soft grassy place beside the embankment. Flowers laid out in cellophane. Soft toys with wet fur and glass eyes. Flowers rotting. Cards and streamers. And bright red dresses. Flowers peeking up from the dirt.
“We don’t know for sure yet. Where they came from or who they were. Just that they’d been in the ground awhile. So long that it’s hard to tell… Chief Tania says we should treat them like our Chahta i tek - no different from our other stolen sisters. And if they’re not, well… I think they are. No matter what you say.”
Seven bare earthy places. Marked by seven flagstones.
“Let’s say a prayer for them, okay? No matter who they are.”
A Story about The Prophecy of Simeon
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
It’s not a crucifix (maybe it should be). A red dress hanging from a simple wooden cross. A little bit tattered. Water-stained. Threads splaying and fraying as the wind blows through.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Prophecy looks just like Our Lady, only older - a teenage girl with blue eyes and long blonde hair. She wears a red dress, but not like the one hanging from her grave-mark. Red muslin. Dyed in England. Bought in town.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
She lives in the South-Southeast. And speaks White. And looks English. Never knows her father. And her mother never speaks of him.
It doesn’t matter, Ruby. You’re my daughter. You’re Chahta and nothing else.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
1824 - the settlers elect Andrew Jackson. The Indian Removal Act is signed in May of 1830. The Prophecy gets sick that spring. In April. Sore throat and burning fever. Tremors that shake her to her core. Too sick to stand for long. They take her mother and leave her alone. For two weeks. She lasts that long.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Prophecy with her arms wrapped around an old Shuti. Heaving into it until she’s too weak to move.
“Amen.”
A Story about The Flight into Egypt
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
The smallest grave by half a foot at least. A tiny cross. Stuffed toys and flowers. And a small orange sapling planted there, spitting blossoms across the overturned dirt.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Flight is seven years old. Led along the trail, holding tightly to her mother’s hand. Brown hair and a bright orange dress.
“Blessed art thou among women,
They march west, soldiers closing in from all sides. The very old and very young fall to the wayside. Scarlet fever. Diphtheria. Influenza and dysentery.
I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you. And she tightens her grip on her mother’s hand.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
They cross a beach in the first seven days. The Flight into Egypt runs ahead. A scallop shell. Cracking open beneath her feet. Her bare feet.
It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s only a little cut.
And her mother cleans and wraps it, but the Flight has no shoes. And the soldiers urge them on…
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Seven more days. That’s all it takes. For the wound to turn and her blood to curdle with it. Oozing an orange mix of blood and pus as her foot becomes necrotic. The Flight walks until she can’t walk. Her mother carries her until they both fall to the ground.
“Amen.”
A Story about The Loss of the Child Jesus In the Temple of Jerusalem
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
This one is plainer than the others. But the grave and all the grass surrounding it is dotted with dandelions and daffodils and yellow irises. A single yellow ribbon tied around the cross to mark her place.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Loss is a woman of twenty one years. Sallow skinned and dressed in yellow. Healthy when they’re forced to walk the trail. And well-read by anyone’s standards. Especially for a woman. Especially for an Indian. Especially now.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
The Chahta are matriarchal by nature. The women walk ahead. And their men fall in line with that. Their being the operative word.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
The Union men do as they please and take what they want to. Including the Loss - hands bound above her, legs dangling naked from the lemon tree. Her periods stop. Her stomach hardens. She speaks to no one about this but William Buchan. And his Domestic Medicine.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Seven weeks when the cravings set in. And they’re passing another lemon tree. Bees buzzing lazily. Thick, golden honeycomb. Dripping like… like… The Loss can’t help herself. So she doesn’t. And they sting her seven hundred times. The last thing she feels are her legs and the blood spreading out between them. As her child is forced - seven months too early - into the world.
“Amen.”
A Story about The Meeting on the Via Dolorosa (The Fourth Station of the Cross)
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
Chain over chain of clover. And a soft green blanket laid out on the grave.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Meeting - a small brown haired woman - holds her dying child until the Flight into Egypt flies away with God. And then the Fourth Station of the Cross flies to pieces.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
Her own mother - her sisters and friends - try their best. The Meeting is an older mother by the standards of the time. Twenty seven years. But she’s so small and fragile… and they carry her for as long as they can.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Fern, please. Please. They're already impatient. If you fall again, they won’t wait for you.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
The Fourth Station crosses herself and steps into the noose. Seven soldiers all together, pulling on the rope that lifts her from the ground. And they leave her there, hanged to the old nut tree.
“Amen.”
The Crucifixion
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
This one nearly on the water. A stone’s throw from the river at least. The first cross eroded some seven months ago. The new one is made of concrete, pressed all over with little blue stones.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Crucifixion with short hair, in a blue dress. Too short. Too thin. As winter creeps over them. Lips going blue. She huddles close with the others. As they march north from Tennessee.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
The soldiers have had their want of all the women by now. And the girls too. The older ones walk with a limp now. The younger ones lie half buried in shallow graves.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Seven months from the seventh month of the year. February. The river is frozen, but… tentatively so. Thin ice with cold veins beneath it. Seven hours to cross here. Seven days to go around. At thirty and four years, the Crucifixion is not the oldest or the strongest or the youngest or the sharpest of tongue. She’s just there.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
They strap seven tent pikes to her back and send her out across the river. Stepping delicately. Trying desperately not to fall. Blood pounding in her ears, she doesn't hear the first crack or the second. By the seventh it’s too late to do anything but scream as the ice breaks and water rises and as the cold hands of death swallow her whole, never to be seen again.
“Amen.”
A Story about Jesus’ Descent from the Cross
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
This cross stands taller than the others and a few young girls sit around it. Reading in the shade. Some scribble notes in the margins, fingers stained with ink and indigo.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Descent strums a banjo down the trail. And plays so sweetly that even the soldiers sing along.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
The Descent is an older woman, but not quite old. Forty nine. A spinster with no children at all. She pins her hair up and wears men’s clothing and spits tobacco at the foot soldiers’ feet.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
On Sundays they stop to pray. And the Descent from the Cross leads her sisters in song. Chisvs il i̱ nukilla hinla cho? And the soldiers call it devil music and use their guns on her. Beating into her chest and breast and brain.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Heavy hands and heavy boots. Come down heavy on the Descent. Gore mixed with clay and yellow dust. She holds her prayer book to her chest. And keeps holding to it. Even as the pages run with red.
“Amen.”
A Story about the Burial of Jesus by Joseph of Arimathea
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
The last grave is all dug-out and empty. Like Easter Sunday and the empty tomb. Purple heathers tangling and baking in the south spring breeze. The Carousel has been built here, on the edge of the park. And “Ohoyo Hamakbi” has been moved to a proper gravesite.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Burial is not born deaf, but loses her hearing soon after birth. A riding accident. A kick to the head. She lives but goes on without her right eardrum. She never goes near another horse again either. And that’s fine while her mother can still carry her.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
Burial is thirty five in 1830. Her people know sign language. The soldiers don’t bother. Terrified and screaming and for weeks on weeks they drag the Burial down the trail. Men and horses. And pure, blind terror. For weeks and months. They keep her tied up on the back of the horse, bent over and jostled with each stony step.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
It’s an accident. A simple slip. A snake in the road or a stick that looks like one. The horse rears up and the Burial hits the ground hard. And they leave her for the other beasts to trample. Over and over. Again and again.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Why? she chokes out. Broken. Bloody. And one of the men kneels down beside her. Why? she begs again, desperately searching his lips for an answer.
“Amen.”
Seven Stories about the Seven Joys
“Down there. This is where it ends.”
The Cause of Our Joy of Catholic Ulster. She’s Black Irish (as in dark White, not African). Dark hair and blue eyes. Sharply angled, mouth turned up in a grin. Occasionally tugging on the crystal beads of her rosary.
“This is the place where… Well, we think this is where they came from.”
A cold, wet spring day. Mist settling thick about the Maritime Museum. Swallowing all the boats but one.
“From a coffin ship. Just like that. That's what Father Ron thinks.”
Seven floating memorials, stirring slightly in the current. In every color of the rainbow. Red and violet. Orange and green.
“We should pray.”
A Story about the Annunciation
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
Red flowers. Red ribbons. Bright red rosary beads.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Annunciation, with flowers in her hair, works the land she does not own. Red corn and red wine and little red potatoes cooked with lamb. It isn’t much but it’s enough to live off of. At least for now.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
1845. The blight begins. And the little red potatoes come up black and sick or not at all.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
The corn and barley come up just the same. And so do the landlord’s taxes. And after that, nothing is left. Nothing but an empty cupboard. An empty stomach. An empty bowl…
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Seven months later. The Annunciation boards the coffin ship with everything she owns in the old copper pot she carries at her side. America, she whispers. And when I get there, I’ll eat my fill.
“Amen.”
A Story about the Nativity of Jesus
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
A little orange boat. Covered in flowers and orange balloons.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Nativity is born of Ulster Orange and Irish Green. Her mother goes to beg food from her landlord. Returns with what she can carry in her skirt.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
The Nativity comes seven months later. Much too early. And her mother flees in shame, leaving her child behind.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
Seven years into the “famine”. The Nativity is alone. She boards the ship to Memphis. All nails and fibers. Sir, I don’t have any money…
That’s alright, the captain says. I’m sure you’ll find a way. So she does.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
He gives her a scallop shell. Creamy orange. And it fits right into the palm of her hand. A pretty thing for a pretty girl.
“Amen.”
A Story about the Adoration of the Magi
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
This one is all dying honeysuckle and rubber duckies. And waterlogged streamers bleeding warm saffron into the ice-cold bay.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; The Adoration starves and miscarries on Protestant land. She grieves for a time and buries her daughter beneath the mustard tree. And boards a ship to Tennessee.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
Dark, low ceilings and a million voices. The heat is awful when there is any. The cold is terrible when there’s not.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
To one of the men here, she talks about her dead child. Drunk one night on piss and liquor. Only part way developed… I think it was a girl.
He leers and leans over her as she vomits. Well, that’s no good is it? How’s about I give you a son?
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
Seven weeks later. The Adoration of the Magi rushes ashore. Seven months later, she sits in a bar in Tennessee. Drinking and drinking and not drunk enough.
I know a man who ‘ll sell you a case of the stronger stuff.
Whisky? The Adoration throws back another drink.
Honey. Turkish delicacy. It’ll make all that bad stuff feel like nothing.
And it does.
“Amen.”
The Resurrection
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
A tiny Pieta. The mother and child. Covered in a thin film of green.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; The Resurrection flees her home and family and the child she never asked to have. Sells her jewelry. Buys her ticket to the American dream.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
She cleans houses in Memphis. For rich families. Good mothers who love their children the right way… even if they need her help. They’re good to her.
Marzipan? It’s fresh. Cook uses the almonds from our own tree.
No, Miss, I shouldn’t. I get dreadful ill, you know.
She keeps this up for seven years.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
A little girl fresh off the boat from Dublin. With brown hair and amber eyes eerily similar to the Resurrection’s own. She carries with her a little scallop shell. And not much else. And for seven months they work together.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
The Nativity takes dire ill. Quick as creeping fire. And the Resurrection stays beside her, trying to play the nursemaid as best she can.
I’m not gonna make it… am I?
I-
That’s okay, Fern… Can you do something for me? I want you to find my real mama.
O-okay. Okay, the Resurrection whimpers. What’s her name?
Cut; she goes out to the nut tree, behind the house. And stuffs a handful into her mouth. Not bothering with the shells.
“Amen.”
A Story about the Ascension of Christ to Heaven
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
Forget-me-nots and blue violets colored with frost.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; The Ascension boards a ship in Dublin. Bound for Memphis, Tennessee.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
It’s warm below deck. Filth and vomit and that moist rotting heat. The Ascension spends most of her time above.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
It’s cold above deck. Cold wind. Cold weather. Cold spray from the sea. But it’s better than sitting and smelling urine mixed with vomit mixed with excrement and blood…
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
It’s better. Until the storm comes. Not that staying below would have saved her.
“Amen.”
The Pentecost
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
Indigo in the water. Ave Maria from an old music box.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; in Dublin. The Pentecost plays the Celtic harp.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
In Tennessee. The Pentecost plays the Celtic harp.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
In church the Pentecost plays the Celtic harp. On the street the Pentecost plays the Celtic harp. She’s older. And homeless. But not sick yet. And wiry and strong. And when she plays people listen…
Irish monkeys!
He drags her off the street on Sunday morning, walking home from Mass. And beats her and rapes her. And buries her in a shallow grave, arms wrapped about her hymnal.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
They find her seven days later. They blame the Indians.
“Amen.”
A Story about Coronation of the Virgin to Heaven
“Hail Mary, Full of Grace,”
Another music box. But this one is shaped like a carousel.
“The Lord is with thee.”
Instead of a memory, a childish notion; the Coronation is born poor and deaf. And never learns to write or read. She works in the fields, with the landlord’s horses. Until the sickness starts creeping out and over. The animals always have enough to eat. Her family sacrifices all they have to the English and Protestant elite. The Coronation is caught skimming from the trough. And fired shortly after.
“Blessed art thou among women,”
They sell all they have to buy a ticket to Memphis. Her mother gets sick. Her father. All her brothers and sisters. 1847. The Coronation arrives in America. With no family. And nothing to her name.
“And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”
She finds her place at the traveling carnival. The carousel operator. Feeling the music and the rhythm of the horses moving up and down and up- There are men here no different than the Protestants in Ireland. With hands that snatch and eyes that glow.
“Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now, and
at the hour of our death.”
How do you do it? one of the other girls - rainbow windmills and carny hats - signs to her. It’s awful, isn’t it? How do you live like this?
And the Coronation gives her answer.
“Amen.”
Chapter 2: *CSA* (Natural Habitat) A Story about the Natural Habitats
Summary:
TW: rape, gang-rape, child molestation, CSEM, child assaulting child, child assaulting adult, violence, murder, accidental death, racism, slurs (Native writer wrote it and it's portrayed as a very bad thing), oppression, children repeating horrible behaviour, faeces mention, genital injury, parental favouritism, sibling bullying, false accusation, drug use, pregnancy from rape, forest fire, sad ending.
https://www.nlc.org/article/2024/05/03/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-persons-awareness-day/
Chapter Text
“ ‘But where are you really from?’ ”
A red palm print. On white skin. On light skin. And every shade of brown and black. And they say: “This is for our women.”
An orange shirt. Short sleeved. Button-up. And hooded pullovers. Some wear their regalia. And they say: “This is for our children.”
Braids. Some long. Some thin. Some just barely woven into Euro-short hair. And they say: “This is for our men.”
The Anthrome speaks for all of them. A mix of Quiché and Kʼicheʼ and all flat-nostriled and nasally-high.
“Yeah,” he says (teeth sharp, gums bleeding), “We get that a lot…”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; towering redwoods and sequoias a thousand-years old. Vernal pools and bottomless rivers sparkling like fire in the sun. Thickets and dales and fat moss clearings circled by fairie rings. And they call this place the National Habitat. Rolls off the tongue easier than its old (and truest) name.
“Okay, okay… Okay, people! Just listen. Let me explain.” The Anthrome holds up a hand. Sleeve so wide and thick that it swallows the appendage almost entirely. For some of them, wings come to mind. Skin and sinew. The Desmodus draculae. “You’re probably thinking of it like… an environmental thing.” He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I know the one about the bear and Teddy Roosevelt. Heard the same thing when I was in school… Well, not really. I was a Mayan kid in Guatemala. Circa 1996.”
And people… so many people… Fat and thin and short and tall. And White (mostly). And rich (mostly). Take only pictures. Leave only footprints. But what about the tracks running deep in the limestone? But what about stickmen (carved by stickwomen) chasing deer across the cavern walls?
“Gringos call it Turtle Island, but that only goes so far. North America. Canada. Mexico. The US of A… and Central America ‘cuz that’s part of it too. Covers me, I guess. But there’s more to it than that.” He looks over his shoulder and the Rainforests come up behind him. “How do you, um… That word again?”
“Abya Yala,” says Tropical in a thick Colombian accent.
“Abya Yala,” says Temperate. Try British Columbia. “From Abiyala. Completed Land.”
But it’s not complete. The Tropical Rainforest grows up on the border. A tiny Kuna village on the edge of the Darién National Park. Close enough to touch, but not to enter. Not with Fuerzas de Defensa de Panamá standing by.
I don’t understand… In the park… Across the border… Aren’t they Kuna too?
They’re not the ones who drew the line.
The Temperate Rainforest is born in the middle of a food desert. Every month or so, she climbs into the back of her papi’s old pick-up truck and makes the hours-long drive into the city. Canned fruit and bags of flour. Cereal and instant ramen. Things that last.
How come there aren’t any grocery stores at home?
We didn’t need them, back before the park.
“It, um, wasn’t supposed to be like this. Work like this… I guess it started with Yellowstone back in the 1870s. Maybe it’s different where you’re from. Up north… or down south.”
Doubt it, the Thicket types. Even her text-to-speech is quiet. She’s a bit on the chubby side. Spiky brown hair, light tanned skin. She’s wearing a T-shirt with her name printed on it, covered up with tape, and a cartoon image of a hedgehog.
“Yeah… There’s this thing in American law - any federal land not ‘in use’ becomes Native by default… I mean, it’s supposed to. This is why we had all those, um, demonstrations in the 1970s. Alcatraz and Wounded Knee… So Mr. Roosevelt put it to use. With Yellowstone, and then the others. Anywhere there was a decent piece of land.”
“You mean our land. There wasn’t much else to take. Not after the Homestead Act.”
Um, Miss? The Desert sits at the front and waves at her teacher. Fidgeting with her ribbons. I thought the Indians were allowed to hunt there.
Things change, Ashley. You should know that. We probably saw what happened to the bison and had no choice but to go back on it. Like when you lose privileges at home.
The Desert is too young to disagree. No immediate stake, either - Indigenous, but to Afghanistan, not here.
“I don’t even know why I’m up here. I mean this is all Kyle’s idea. I mean… Shit.”
“Not the first time that’s been broken,” a short-haired man says. Not an official member. Just here to supervise. Beside him is a woman holding a toddler in her arms, and Freshwater Lake right next to her. A young girl, one of the youngest out of their little group. Dressed in pink with short spikey hair, probably the palest on the stage.
The Taiga is a “weird kid”. The black sheep, black-haired child next to his do-right, lily-White mom and dad. He grows his hair long and ties it into pigtails. Maybe I wanna stand out! You act like that’s a bad thing! And I wanna dance!
… Have I ever told him he couldn’t dance?
I love his little dance.
But they don’t understand what he means. (I want to dance the Fancy Feather) (I want regalia and an Indian name and fry bread grease on my hands) (I want a feathering ceremony) (And my own fucking land) He’s run away before… This time is different.
“Every year when I was little, before Dad had it out with Uncle Andrew, we’d come down and visit the park. I thought… It seemed almost magical back then. And I really, really felt like an Indian. Not just some White kid from Ontario. Sorry - off-White.”
And Thicket hums in agreement.
Young Thicket quizzes her mother. So, are we Scottish Celtic or Irish Celtic?
Both, along with Beothuk. Your father’s ancestors were indentured servants back when they were in Canada…
So, like Irish or…
Scottish.
A few years later, the Thicket takes to the internet and finds something… someone… who can put everything she’s never said into words.
“Waddleworld. Webbit. EnVee. Bluetube. Gracias a Dios por los datos ilimitados.”
It starts with the Taiga. An angry kid with a cellphone and a sleeping bag. Screaming Red Power! until he’s red in the face. It starts with the Rainforests. College roommates at this point. With their own phones and followers. It starts with the Thicket (extremely nervous, but wanting to help). With the Desert and her parents. #OCCUPYNH And the Anthrome boards a bus in Guatemala. Take me north.
“You know that stuff I said before about Alcatraz during the ‘70’s? I guess we were all thinking of ourselves as IAT part two… And boy, were we ever…”
The Mesa works at a green grocer outside of Mesa Verde. Not quite White, but not quite Brown either. Snowy-white hair gathered up in braids. The Plateau’s skin is no darker, but his hair is brown and his eyes are dark and empty and as round as his face. He licks the money before laying it in Mesa’s hands as the cashier tries to smile. Are you, um, here to visit the park?
“Fire spreads fast, but the forest grows slowly.”
They look like fire in the pictures taken from above. Red dresses and orange t-shirts. Men and women with their hair in braids. Moving, shifting, singing. The beating of the powwow drum.
“But then you have to stop and think, and you wonder… which one lasts?”
The Freshwater Lake plays in the water, a bit rough with the other kids, but intending no harm. Her hair in spikes much taller than they are on the stage.
Why don’ you wike the park, Papi?
It’s a long story, Emilia. Your father will explain it better when you’re older.
Mami and Papi and the Taiga’s video (and Tropical’s and Temperate’s and the Anthrome’s). Papi decides for the rest of them (well, her brother’s too little, but Mami gets nervous when he’s left by himself) and they drive from the city with bags of tamales and tacos and barbacoa. And crispy fried axolotl on a stick. They stay and talk a while. With the grownups. Freshwater doesn’t really pay much attention, but she plays with the Desert and the Hedgerow. Tea party turned murder-mystery.
Where’s your doll?
I wost it.
Again?!
They never stay the night.
“We were there for almost a month before it felt like we were getting anywhere. Every day before that was like… Do you mind if we stick with the fire metaphor?”
More orange. More red. All four corners of the Medicine Wheel. The Uplands - all three of them - from the Andes Mountains. The Billabong from Cherbourg. And Shrublands from Hebel with his parents… and Bushlands too. Moist Broadleaf from Mandalay…
“It was like lighting a candle under a smoke alarm. Sure, people are looking but it’s only a matter of time before the sprinklers go off. And everything comes splattering down.”
A thousand candles - maybe more - and two thousand hands. Keeping vigil under a deep-bleak sky. Some White. Some Brown. But now the number’s closer to equal. And the crowd washes out a lot beiger than before.
“It was easier when it was just us, you know? I mean… I mean… I mean,” he stammers, "I guess maybe there were a few issues…”
The Plains - Taiga’s uncle - has it out with Broadleaf right there in front of everyone… And he drops his pants right there in the middle of the campsite. The Hedgerow bites most of her playmates. This time she draws blood and the Clearing passes out cold. People fuss about it for a few days. At least until he absolutely destroys their only bathroom. Him and his father and the rest of their family.
The Hedge and Hedgerow are very similar. Even as far as fathers and daughters go. Brown skin and brown hair - suntanned and sunbleached so much that they come out nearly the same shade of umber. He bends down and she whispers in his ear. “Uh-huh. Yeah… She says she’s sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
It gets worse.
The Plains again. Plain as day. Plain as anything. Boxed in by the crowd, pressed on all sides as the Bog traces out the shape of him. Brown hair. Nose smashed (probably by the last one he tried this on). Hands clenching and teasing jjjjust below the belt. Sssorry, he sniffs. Blind as a bat without my glasses.
The Mesa crawls into his tent and finds someone waiting for him. I thought you were- How did you… But he’s not. Muttering in Hopílavayi, the Plateau falls on top of him, covering Mesa’s mouth with his own. Before he can scream or cry.
“Los blanquitos. It didn’t get really bad until they showed up.”
The Thicket shifts uncomfortably and she’s far from the only one.
“Oh come on. Not you. Don’t be like that. Look,” he sighs, “you can be White and you can be Indigenous. We know that. These people though…”
The Perennial Meadow on his “little boy game” as his mother calls it. Under his sleeping bag in the dark. He stays up late and sleeps in later. And in the morning there’s another tent inches from their flap-door. The Annual Meadows. Entwined together. A White couple smiling with their teeth. Bare naked. Snake tattoos. Long hippy-dippy ‘dreadlock’ hair. And the smell of marijuana mixed with sage…
“Don’t get me wrong, it seemed great at first. It’s nice to have allies-”
“It’s nicer to have friends,” the Tundra says. A plainish looking man in a fur jacket. Hair a mottled mess of black and brown. “Anyone can call themself an ally. But nobody wants to act like one.”
The River and the Sea come together with the Estuary pulling on their hands. He’s very handsome. And White. And she’s very handsome too. Not that he ever looks at her. Or at Estuary for that matter. No - the Sea will laugh with them, will eat their food, will sing along (tonelessly and in his own words) with their protest songs… And he will cower in his tent leaving the River to face the police, counter-protesters, the National Guard, and to shield their child as best she can.
“This is gonna sound dumb, but I think the best thing we can do is love each other. As hard as we can. As much as we can.”
“Aw, I’m tearin’ up ovah here.”
Late at night. The Forest Floor sits with the Canopy in the open trunk of his Saskatoon cab. Please don’t tell my wife.
Come on, man. It’s like… like you want us to hurt you.
The Canopy looks up at him, eyes huge and watering. I was a kid. Dakota Dunes opening weekend. Got thrown out on my ear… Police picked me up…
The Canopy and the Forest Floor. Sitting on the stage. Greasy brown hair and stains on his t-shirt. Neatly groomed but smelling like sweat and body odor. And neither of them flinches. “I’m glad I met youse outta this. If nothin’ else.”
The Canopy and the Forest Floor. Hand hovering over his shoulder. Crying into his knees. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t wanna die. I… I just… Maybe if it happens again. Maybe this time I’ll be strong enough…
“I mean, sure, on one hand it’s great that we were able to get so many Natives together in one place.”
“Not just Natives, mate” the Billabong says. “Indigenous. Period.”
“Not just Indigenous…”
The Hutch and the Knothole. In orange and braids. And the Bird Box just in orange. Watching a movie on his brand new phone. The Hutch stage-whispers into Knothole’s ear.
This is the best part-
And the Bird Box glares at him.
Wait. Watch.
Shh!
Okay, ready?
Shh!
… That was even better on the third rewat-
The Bird Box falls on top of the Hutch. Knocking off his glasses. Biting and kicking and crushing the place between his legs.
Cut; I kept- I begged him to stop, you know? But he wouldn’t listen.
I mean… It sounds like he told you the same thing.
“There was this one kid. The youngest of three, I think. Clearly Daddy’s favorite. At least half White. I don’t know about the mom. She wasn’t in the picture.”
“The Knothole went back to Ottawa. Hutch went back to the UK - I know his parents are Yamasee. Brought to England during the 16th century…”
“Yeah. Yeah. The little brat was the only one who stayed behind.”
Snow falls and powders the mountains. The Taiga shivers in his fake leather and slashed jeans. There’s less than an inch on the ground but, thin as it is, it's white as sugar with no spice mixed in. And the Taiga - nothing but spice - stands out like his mother always said he would. The Bird Box is younger than him. But bigger. And stronger than both his older sisters. He beats Taiga as black as his Hot Topic lipstick. And leaves him gasping in the snow. With nary a look behind him.
“I’m sorry.”
The Taiga chews on his fingernails. Tense and terrified. Both parents there to stroke his back. Nobody else is looking his way though…
The Mesa shifts in his wheelchair. Legs set with a brace and wrapped in gauze. “I’m,” he says tightly. “I’m…”
The Canopy finds the Taiga an inch from freezing. The Forest Floor lifts him onto his shoulders. Cut; the Saskatoon taxi. Cut; the emergency room. Cut; the Mariner’s friend shining a light in his face.
No police, ya got that?
I’m sorry, the doctor tells him, I’m a mandated reporter.
Cut; the Taiga gives a statement. White kid… Brown hair… Deep tan… Albert Wise…
Cut; the Bird Box gives a statement. I’m Native too! My mom’s grandma was a Cherokee princess…
Albert, we’re not here to talk about your mom, alright? This is about…
He bites his lip hard enough for his eyes to water. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be bad! It… it felt good when Mr. Coneja showed me the game.
“I didn’t. I didn’t! I… I know he’s just a kid. Maybe someone did do something to him.”
The Plateau and the Bird Box and his two older sisters. Small for their age and more than scrawny. The Overstory and the Understory. Their brother shoves them forward. Do it or I’ll tell Dad you were mean to me again. The Plateau places a pack of gum into the Bird Box’s waiting hands. An’ stop crying! He only wants mouth stuff. It won’t even hurt.
“I don't know. And, God forgive me, I don’t care either. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
The police have been waiting for an opportunity. The National Guard has been waiting for an opportunity. The town has been waiting for an opportunity… This is it. This is all it takes.
“And we were surrounded by White people. White wolves.” The Anthrome hits himself in the forehead. “We fucking let them in.”
First they come for the Mesa. The police. The counter-protesters. The White hippies. They beat him so bad he can’t stand at his arraignment, let alone walk to and from the bench.
“And then he was gone. And it was open season for the rest of us…”
Tropical yells, loud enough and long enough to get the drunkards off of Temperate. They scurry like rats. Tropical helps her up, offering her own jacket and shirt. Walking in her bra through the snow. Okay, I’m going to take ya to the hospital. And I’ll make sure it’s not a fucking White guy.
“They said they wanted to help us. But they didn’t help us.”
I mean, I totally support the cause. The Annual Meadows to one another. At the same time, we have to think about what’s best for the kids…
The Perennial Meadow washing himself in the stream. Mr. Annual Meadow with his fancy camera. His wife stands by. Good shot… For the papers…
The River. Bruised. Exhausted. Shaken awake by the Sea. Mikhail, what- No. I don’t feel like it tonight… I have a headache- She screams when he reaches for the Estuary instead.
The Desert plays rough with Freshwater’s doll. Shaking it. Choking it. Yanking the ribbons from its hair. Fucking redskin! And she drives its face into her groin. Again and again. Ugly skin… Ugly skin…
Is she even Native?
Mrs. Annual laughs. They’re so creative at that age.
“Don’t you think you’re overplaying it a little?”
Anthrome, chewing on some gum, finds himself surrounded by White strangers. He can’t really tell much about them, save for the leader.
Seize him.
And they do.
“Huh?”
None of the settlers (nor anyone else) has even laid a hand on Thicket. And they don’t. But she witnesses all that happens, unable to look away like a deer in headlights. (What if she makes things worse? What if she gets hurt in the process? What if…) The guilt eats her up inside. She tries her best to help them afterwards… afterwards… but her anxiety is worse than it ever was. (She should have done something… anything…)
“I mean… sometimes even we don’t help each other.”
Shrublands in his sleeping bag. Bushlands bringing his fingers away from the zipper. Bit by bit. I show you game Albert taught me.
Breakfast. The next morning. Oh sweetie, Robert’s your brother. He would never hurt you.
But-
It must have been a bad dream.
“I know,” Mesa says. Expression vacant. Eyes distant. “But we usually do.”
The Hedge is beaten over the head. Knocked forward. Face in the dirt as they fall down on him. Jessica! Jessica, run! They hit him. They hurt him. They tear open his clothes… And then one of them screams. And the Hedgerow reaches through them to grab her father’s hand. Smiling sharp with bloody teeth.
Meadow’s little sister meets him after he leaves. She hears him crying. She doesn’t understand why. But she’s there when he needs her. Holding on. Holding tight. (Even if it keeps her up at night sometimes.)
The Billabong in the hospital, splattered from head to toe in blood and other things, crying in the shower after the doctors are done. The Pond and the Talus in the hospital, both screaming until they're sedated. Thicket and some of the others visit, keeping a close eye. Two others in particular. One a woman with pigtails, the other slightly toad-like. Hey, Steve, Jer came up with something to help treat the, uh, mouth sores. Sorry, I wish we could have done more.
Anthrome’s girlfriend visits him at the hospital. Holding his hand. Smiling weakly. She looks like she wants to either cry or hug him. But, for now, she’s focused on being there.
Another hospital. Another couple, clearly mixed. The woman with a fancy dance shawl. A bundle of flowers. Dad brought these for you… Thanks for helping them back there. You could have died. The Lowland smiles weakly at the Mixedgrass Prairie. She places a gentle kiss on his cheek, and squeezes both his hands, just as gentle.
The Marsh cooing to her crying children. She does what she can to comfort them.
You could have aborted them. Nobody would blame you considering-
They’re the only good things to come out of this mess.
“And sometimes…” Open Woods. Old and grayed, with black feathers in her hair. “And sometimes it’s not our fault…” The Field goes to hug her. Dressed in black. Dark brown braids and black feathers braided into them.
She finds Empty Beaches. Naked in the grass. Glasses shattered and driven into his eyes. Hair hacked off at hideous angles. Cold and stiff. And she screams and falls on top of him. Weeping as hard as she ever has in her life. Cut; The Field and her brother. Halloween night. Mom’s taking it hard. I wish I could have done something, you know? I was the last person to see him before…
You did all you could.
“And in the end we left on our own. Maybe that’s the worst part. All that work. All that time. For nothing.”
The hippies remain. The squatters. Smoking and spitting and breaking bottles against the redwood trees. No more orange. No more red. The green of a “smudging stick” - marijuana and white sage. And a tent made of polyester. When it catches it catches quickly. And another catches behind it. Then another… then another… then the alcohol soaked underbrush. Then the bushes. Then the trees…
Cut: Freshwater sits in the hospital waiting room, hair tattered, eyes on the TV. The news is on. She can’t look away. The doctor leads her parents and her bandaged brother back to her.
Remember, Emily, scissors can hurt people- Oh my goodness, are you alright?
My fwiends! She points at the screen. Park! Are they okay?
They went home, sweetie, her father tries to say. But did everyone?
“Less than nothing,” the Anthrome says.
“Less than nothing,” they all agree.
They hold hands; they gained each other, but it's still not more than nothing.
Chapter 3: (Ever After High) A Story about the Territories of Israel
Summary:
TW: sex trafficking of adults and teens, colonisation, displacement, psychosis, injustice, skinning.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/5/15/nakba-mapping-palestinian-villages-destroyed-by-israel-in-1948
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/05/10/middleeast/israel-sde-teiman-detention-whistleblowers-intl-cmd/index.htmlFor wiki purposes we're now listing realistic/racebent names we've given the characters where necessary, so:
Maddie Hatter = Madiha Hadid
Lizzie Hearts = Aaliyah Al-Fuad
Kitty Cheshire = Khairunnisa Qita
Chapter Text
“And he said ‘go back to your own country’. And I… I told him-”
The West Bank with little snakes of wispy curls around her temples, peeping from under the purple-green hijab. The Golan Heights perched on the railing of the stage. Smiling like a hangnail. Sharp and bloodless-bright. All purple silk. All over. And Gaza stands between them. Keffiyeh-crowned. Straight-backed. Head held to attention. Composed as well as any queen.
“I would if I could,” the Heights says languidly.
“But I can’t so I won’t!”
“That’s not… Well, I suuuupose that’s… Yes. I said that. I did.” She looks into the audience, chewing her lip, smudging her makeup. Rubbing her throat until it's sore. “Do you know the difference between a raven and a writing desk? What about an immigrant and a refugee?”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment (and another, and another); the West Bank is born in Nablus. Gaza in Ramallah. The Golan Heights in Majdal Shams. Little girls playing house under the ruins of their neighbor’s homes. Splashing in the sewage-flushed sea. Listening to their parents curse the flag raised in the distance. The West Bank’s father. Gaza’s mother and the Golan Heights’. More than half their families taken since the day they were born.
“My mother is a politician back in Falasteen. It’s an honor and a privilege… and a monumental responsibility. I resented it, when I was younger. Maybe I still do.”
“Yeah. I feel…” Golan Heights. All purple. All over. Turning to pink and red. “My mother has her own work… For Syrians or for Syria. Or maybe whoever was paying more that day.”
“Babi’s a haberdasher.” The West Bank smiles. With a mask of obliviousness covering for… for whatever that is, lurking just beneath the surface of her smile. The ivory gleaming on those teeth. “You would think that would mean something. Make a difference. Yeah. Everyone does at first.”
But there is no difference. The shells fall, the settlers spit, and the soldiers threaten them all the same. The mercenary and the politician and the daughter of the man who makes hats for a living. There should be a difference. But there isn’t. Not in the West Bank and not in Gaza. Not in Syria and not in Palestine. Not anywhere but the land under the blue and white star.
“And he used to say…”
I know what you’re thinking, Madiha. Six points. Pretty thing to wish on, isn’t it? Pay more attention to the white within it. See how it matches the white without?
“My mother doesn’t talk like that,” says the Golan Heights, upside down now, hanging off the rail by her knees. “About… Well.”
“Nor does mine.”
The West Bank’s smile remains in place. “My omm is dead.”
Everyone is dead. Everyone but the West Bank and her father. And two girls she’s never seen before. Gaza sees Pryde’s son on the news. Haman-Hamia. And she feels something. And then he disappears and she feels that too. The Golan Heights doesn’t own a television. Maybe once, before her father vanished. Before the house she was born in became someone else’s home.
“They take and they take and they push us as hard as they can. Hoping we’ll fight back. Just… not hard enough for it to mean something.”
“We can’t fight them! We don’t have an army. We don’t have aeroplanes or fighter jets! We don’t have soldiers! We have children. We have stones. And they call that terrorism! And they call us animals!”
“If you love your ‘country’ so much, why’d you leave it?”
Gaza lunges at the Replacement, hands raised toward his throat.
“Because.” The Heights and West Bank exchange a look, dragging their friend back between them. “Because you don’t always have a choice.”
Their mothers. Her father. A woman with harlequin diamonds on her business suit and a diamond scar on her face. Money changing hands.
Of course I don’t want you to go. Gaza’s mother takes her face in both hands. You’ll be safe beyond this place, Aaliyah. And that’s all I want you to be.
Khairunnisa? I want you to disappear, do you understand? Quiet as a mouse. Light as a viper. Until you’re free…
But what about you?
The West Bank’s father knees down in front of her, hand resting on the top of her head. Madiha Hadid! I know you weren’t thinking of leaving me behind!
“There was a woman in the area. Courtney Chester. She wasn’t an Arab. She wasn’t an Israeli. Or a Muslim. Or a Jew.”
“She said she’d help us. Bring us over to the States. She didn’t… and she did. I…”
“That’s why we’re here.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
The smuggler - one by one - loads them into the back of her car. And they drive for a long time. Out of Palestine. Out of Syria. Out of the Levant all together. Into Turkey and out again. And when they stop…
Everyone out! says the man with the gun. Single file. If you try anything I’ll blow your fucking head off. Understand?
They don’t. At least, the West Bank doesn’t. The Golan Heights knows some English, but none of these words. Gaza translates and the woman backhands her as hard as she can.
“That’s not… No.” She rubs the area around her eye. The port wine ruby. “I was born this way. And, I think, so was she.”
Special delivery for the old bitch, Courtney says, caressing the diamond mark on her own cheek. Give Miss Dalmatian my love.
“And that’s how it went, I suppose.”
They keep them all together. Naked and chained. Gaza to translate into English. The West Bank’s father to keep them calm… for the first few days. Until his blood runs thin and his head overflows with voices that are not his own. And the West Bank follows suit.
“It started around fifteen or sixteen, I suppose. It’s not bad with Seroquel - I take it with my morning and evening tea - but without it… well, I don’t remember.”
The men who take her can’t take the noise. The constant babbling. It’s not much better with her father. Or for Gaza and the Heights (who have to sit between them after all). Eventually it’s easier to entertain the fantasy. To listen for the voices and almost hear them. Almost.
“There’s a woman they call Miss Dalmatian. I haven’t met her. I don’t know why.”
“She wanted Gaza. For something. And she wanted her here. In America, I mean.”
“This town specifically. Something about rainbows, or maybe irises. I’m sorry, I don’t speak Greek very well… or at all, really.”
The Iris School of Arts. And the woman who owns it. Patterns and diagrams. Leather concepts. A jacket with a port wine ruby, placed over the heart.
“We never quite got that far.”
Plane tickets. False passports. Under false names. (Not even Arab ones.) All is well. All is quiet. And then the West Bank begins to scream.
“Altitude Induced Psychosis. Of course, since I was already psychotic, well, I don’t suppose that helped.”
“It did help.” The Golan Heights contorts again, leaning far enough over to kiss the West Bank on her cheek. “In its way…”
Security. What are three girls - with English passports, with little English - doing a mile in the air? Courtney tries to reason. They don’t listen. Gaza tries to lie. They don’t listen. The West Bank, the Golan Heights, try to speak. They don’t understand. The police are waiting when the plane downs in California. Here for the woman. And the girls. And the man who brought them here.
“The first few weeks they had us at the… the… is it the city pound?”
“That’s for animals.”
“People are animals.”
“You know what I mean.”
Juvenile Hall. It’s cramped and uncomfortable and crowded and loud. And so much better than where they were before. The girls in one room. Two beds and Golan Heights sleeping on the floor between them. They take away the West Bank’s father. And the woman with the diamond face.
“Human trafficking. Minus the prostitution charges, they arrested him with the exact same thing.”
Iris School denies involvement. The headmaster of another - Everard-Afton -agrees to take them in. The first night there, Gaza cries until her eyes are puffy. And the Heights screams into her pillow until blood runs down her throat.
“There was some talk of deportation.”
“Repatriation.”
“That’s the same thing. It just sounds nicer. And anyway…”
In California: a man huddles in the corner of his cell. Muttering to himself. And rocking. In Palestine, in Syria: refugee camps. Two women miss their children. And pray on their tents’ dirty floors. In Israel: a family travels between settlements in Nablus and Ramallah. And talk excitedly of their newly constructed summer home. A bungalow built into the Golan hills. Where a dozen family homes used to stand.
The West Bank speaks plainly for once, her eyes unclouded. “They don’t want us. We can’t go home again.”
Chapter 4: (Ever After High) A Story about the Three Nos
Summary:
TW: implied sexual abuse of teenagers, implied human trafficking, torture, mutilation, injustice, racism, colonisation, transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, physical/emotional parental abuse, fleeing home.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1967_Arab_League_summit
Consider this the Nakba Day Part 2, and an honouring of all conscientious objectors and the trials they face in sticking to their beliefs.
Chapter Text
“I didn’t.”
“I couldn’t…”
“I shouldn’t have.”
Not so long ago, the Three Nos would have made for a very pretty picture. Ridiculously photogenic. Two blonde, one brunet, blue eyes all round. Two boys and one sister. No Negotiations (with Israel) with a keffiyeh and just his eyes and a little of his hair showing. No Recognition (of Israel) and No Peace.
“But it happened. It’s been happening…”
“In the name of Yahweh.”
“In the name of Yīsrāʾēl.”
“In the name of us…”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; three children born - wealthy and wanted - to a family in Bethlehem. With a summer home in Rafah. And a cabin on Lake Ram. They travel between them with an ease that any of their predecessors would kill and die for. Not that they realize this as they go.
“It’s hard to see the problem when you benefit from it. New house, good food, fancy clothes… It’s all because someone else’s kid is going without. Not always, but when you’re part of a colonial nation…”
“It’s okay when… well, not okay, but when you’re a kid… you don’t know… Well, that’s not true either.” No Recognition removes his glasses, squinting without them. “You do notice. You do see. You just don’t realize it’s wrong when your parents do it. When every adult in your life tells you ‘it has to be this way’. Look at any place. During any genocide.”
“And, yeah, guys, it is genocide. Always has been.”
No Negotiations is the obvious favorite. The perfect child. Strong and blond and very attractive. Just like his father (wanted to be) at his age. And then there are the other two…
“The old man doesn’t talk to me much, and he talks about me even less. When he was my age… he looked just like me. But blond. I’ve seen some pictures from that time and it’s- Also I’m trans. And I don’t think that helped things any.”
“I think Dorrit’s the one who…”
“Psst!”
“Oh. Sorry. I’m right, though. You’re everything he wanted. Except a girl.”
“Yeah. A girl.”
She’s not even a tomboy. Frilly pink dresses and blue lace bows. Fingers smudged with her mother’s makeup. Still, she rides horses better than either of her brothers. And plays rougher than any of the neighborhood boys.
Dorrit, get down from there! Everyone can see under your skirt!
“It wasn’t so bad in school. Cheerleading. Girl sports… They never went to any of my games. Even when ‘ations didn’t have anything on.”
“They never went to see me in debate club either. Or orchestra. Or any of my middle school plays. Even when Negotiations didn’t need them.”
“I’m sorry… I know how this sounds, but I just never noticed it.”
It's easy not to. It’s like they said before.
“It feels wrong,” No Recognition says. “To compare it, I mean… That’s what we’re doing, right?”
No, Negotiations doesn’t see the way his parents look at him. No, he doesn’t see the way they look at his brother and sister. No, he doesn’t see the way they look at the Arabs on the news - but, at least in that, he’s not alone.
“Sometimes I still think it’s crazy that out of all of us it was you. It was you! And in other ways, well, it makes a lot of sense.”
Negotiations is not the best student. Not the worst either, but closer to that point than he is to the average. His sister says so (and she’s right, mean as that might be). His brother says nothing. And keeps his head down. He doesn’t need the attention. And he doesn’t want it anyway… not really (not really).
“Mom’s been a Jew all her life. Dad converted. Not for her. It’s not like being Christian where you take a bath and say a few words in the right direction. I mean, it takes years and years of studying the Torah. Years and years of-”
No Recognition studies the Torah. As diligently as his father did. So does No Peace. And so does No Negotiations - it’s the only book he knows in its entirety. And they find something there. They must. They keep looking.
“Whatever else we say, I want you to remember that thing that Bank said.”
“That her father said.”
“Right. The white without. The white within. Ignore the star. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” No Peace says, gathering her Magen David in her hand. “But not to them.”
“And that matters too.”
Negotiations stays out all night. With a girl he won’t say the name of. His father laughs and claps his shoulder… and scolds No Recognition when he does the same. And when it’s No Peace’s turn he says nothing, and does nothing when her mother takes her hair and takes her hand and hits her hard across the face.
“And I blamed you for it.”
“That’s fair. I guess.”
“Not really… but how could we not?”
Negotiations doesn’t notice. Doesn’t notice. Doesn’t read the resentment in his father’s mirror, in the reflection of Recognition’s glasses. Or the way No Peace never gets any. It’s easy not to. And they don’t look any further than themselves. And that’s even easier.
“Nobody talks about Palestine. Or the Palestinians. Not in Israel. Not… not to us. Most people just pretend like there’s nothing to talk about. Like they’re nothing. And the ones who do talk…”
… sound just like their parents…
“And we’d all spent years learning to tune that out.”
This is how it happens: Negotiations in Bethlehem. Passing through Area B into C again. Someone picks up a stone and hurls it at his head. Two girls. Sisters maybe. Or cousins. Brown hair. One with glasses. She calls him a-
وحش!
Warda-
Beast! she says. Again. In English. Israeli! Wolf! Dog!
Hey! I’m not-
But she’s not listening and - for once - Negotiations can’t talk his way out.
“If I could find her again I’d get down on my knees and kiss her feet. Shoes or no shoes.”
Negotiations gets home late. In a daze. Not drunk but stumbling drunkenly. His mother fusses. His father laughs. No Peace comes home two minutes later. And their father fusses and their mother shouts. And - for the first time in his life - No Negotiations stands between them. And - for the first time in his life - their father hits his eldest son.
Cut; split lip, eye swollen. No Recognition holds an ice pack to his brother’s face. No Peace hangs back, by the doorway.
David, she says. Thank you…
I’m sorry, I- I should have noticed sooner…
Cut; It’s just like the Palestinians, isn’t it? And he’s met with stony silence.
“It’s hard being a girl. Wherever you go. Hard in America. Hard in Israel. Hard in Palestine too, probably. Everything’s harder there.”
It was you, No Peace said. In front of the Palace. On the stage. You… But it is him. No Negotiations with his eyes wide open. No Peace and No Recognition with one eye shut. Bumping into each other in the dark.
“And it was hard being our mother’s daughter…”
Dorrit! What on Earth are you wearing?!
Mom, I-
You look like one of those Arab dancers. Go back upstairs and change!
And No Negotiations says Don’t talk to her like that! and Don’t talk about them like that!
“And our father’s son.”
Dexter! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!
Dad, I-
Or should we go back to Benjamina? Mathletes. Computer club. That I could understand. But no ‘son’ of mine is going out for drama! Especially not for some Muslim fairy tale! Pick a lane and stick to it!
And No Negotiations says Don’t talk to him like that! and Don't talk about them like that!
“A few years ago, I might have disagreed with you. I’d have been like ‘have you tried being more like him, more like her, more like… me?’ ”
It’s not the end of the world for them. The first time Negotiations pushes back. He’s a good boy, he’s their special one, he can be reasoned with… only… only…
Cut; the time comes for the draft and for to register. Three letters. Two early. One late.
“I signed up as early as I could.” No Peace bites down on her inner cheek, blinking hard. “I wanted to be something more than my mother’s daughter. A soldier. A general. Someone important. I thought… I was thinking about myself more than I was about the Bedouin or the al-Azazmeh. This is going to sound crazy, but it was easy - really, really easy - to just… not think about Falastin at all.”
“You can be trans in Israel if you want to be. And you can be a trans soldier if you want to do that. But I’m blind as a bat. Even with my glasses. And, geez, this is so messed up, but I cried when I got that letter.”
No Recognition locked up in the bathroom. No Peace tapping on the door. Dex, c’mon out. Please? We can talk about this…
What’s there to talk about?!
Dexter… Now Negotiations tries. This is… Honestly, this is probably for the best.
His father laughs. And coughs. And rolls his eyes. Don’t worry about him. You’ve got yourself to think about.
“And I said ‘no’.”
And he keeps saying no. To his mother, to his teachers, to the military recruiter at his school. Son, listen… You can finish high school first. You don’t have to serve on the frontlines. And Negotiations says No again. Even to them. Even to this.
“It doesn’t matter what they wanted. You don’t negotiate with terrorists. So I didn’t. So I don’t.”
And he doesn’t. Even when the lawyers come for him. And the policemen after that…
“Refusal. Conscience. Something like that. I didn’t pay attention at sentencing.” No Negotiations swallows hard. “Thirty days. Just thirty days.”
And by the end, after the blades and burning and bleach, when he limps out he’s almost unrecognizable. Not to his parents. Not to No Recognition. Not to No Peace. A child on the street outside cries and points at the MONSTER! And - on the car ride home - their mother starts to weep.
“A few days later they started talking about moving us out. ‘Ations and me and even Rec…og…nition. Uh, sorry about that.”
“The IDF didn’t want me. No matter how I felt about it.”
“I still wanted the IDF.”
Their parents want them safe and whole. Whatever else can be said. With some of them, this is easy - with No Negotiations. With No Recognition. It’s harder with No Peace.
“They don’t let you out when you get close enough to drafting. And even besides that, I didn’t want to go. Mom and Dad didn’t listen.”
“Did you expect them to? It’s not like they ever have before.”
They hire a woman with blonde hair and bright red lipstick. And a diamond shaped patch of scarred skin over one eye…
“I know what you’re thinking. But…”
But nothing. Asia. Europe. America. They pass without incident.
“I heard her on the phone once or twice.”
The Three Nos stop to shake their heads at one another.
“Something like ‘not them… no one they’re going to miss.’ ”
“Something like that…”
Chapter 5: *CSA* (Kizazi Moto) Stories about the Generations of Fire
Summary:
TW: all contain rape.
1) racism, colonialism, animal death, animal attacks, discussion of extinction
2) HIV, child by rape, racism, implied misogyny, disconnection from culture, poverty, fugue state, internal conflict
3) forced marriage, misogyny, anti-Christian violence, permanent injuries, running away, parental abandonment
4) Holocaust discussion, racism, antisemitism, fleeing country, drowning, attempted murder, hallucination
5) family conflict, intertribal conflict, violence
6) sex and labour trafficking of teens
7) rioting, violence, police brutality, prison rape, unjust imprisonment, quarantine, leprosy, suicide, love across time
8) racism, abuse of employee, miscarriage, rioting, fire, murder
9) racism, misogyny, homophobia, slut-shaming, fat-shaming, suicide baiting, doxxing, mentions of weird fetish art
10) child by rape, military occupation, racism, child witnessing film of rape, arson, murderhttps://globaldimension.org.uk/calendar/africa-day/
Chapter Text
“Feels appropriate to do this here, yeah? The first ever humans in Africa would have gathered around fires to tell stories, too. The Flame of Remembrance in Cape Town might have been more appropriate, but it’s in Parliament so we can’t get as close to that one.”
May 25th, Africa Day. 2025, the last birth year of Generation Alpha. Johannesburg. Constitution Hill. They aren’t exactly gathered around the flame - no one is allowed to get that close - but they stay in sight of it. The camera clicks. The recorder clicks on, and the Firestarter speaks into it.
“Generations of Fire, interview number one.”
A Story about Gen X
“One: a fire involving low-growing plants. Two: a minor conflict or crisis.”
The Brushfire is sixty years old, though still baby-faced, with moss-green spray covering any grey in his hair. Braided in the French style, framing his face. Wide eyes. Freckles. GUNDUA, OKOA, LINDA on his T-shirt.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1965.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Brushfire is born to a family of herders. Rural Uganda. A village so small it has no name. His sister comes home smelling like cattle. His parents are gone. And at fourteen, rubbing green wax into his hair for the first time, the Brushfire resolves to be a man if he cannot be a child and finds (after some trial and error) that he isn’t much good at either approach.
“Brushfires are actually really important to the health of a forest, did you know? Most of them burn out pretty quickly and they take all the dead growth with them. They become a problem when humans stop them too soon and let the kindling build up, until after a few times you get a fire too big to put out. I never lived in a forest, but I always tried to help the environment too, not harm it. I hope I don’t burn out so fast. I haven’t yet.”
Also in the underbrush; high pitched whines and keening voices. Sharp teeth and fur the color of the dead growth that hasn’t burned away. Black and brown and dappled. Like ash and earth. Like spotted leaves. And the sourness of blood clinging to them. And to his sister when she comes home from the fields.
Hard day, was it, KK?
Don’t call me KK! she snaps. Then lays her head in her hands. More cattle. Missing!
Stolen?
Eaten! Mbwa mwilu! Fucking wild dogs!
“We raised cattle, and it’s hard work. You need to be strong. Smart, too. People think that if it doesn’t have a microchip it can be done by idiots. Have you ever tried to outsmart hyenas? Lions? What about painted dogs? They’re some of the worst.” He sighs wistfully. “My family hated them, but we always respected them, you know? The way you respect a rival. They’re perfect hunters. And then I learned more about them, and I started to worry for them. See, humans are perfect hunters too. We killed them because they killed our cattle, and the fur traders killed them because they’re beautiful, and the rich tourists killed them just to say they did. No respect from them.”
Uganda creeps toward the eighties. And the dogs creep low into the grasses. Dwindling. Ever dwindling. And KK is happy when she counts their cows.
“I used to follow her. Her and my uncle and our cousin - his son. I wanted to be a herder. I… I still do! But I think… maybe I was wasted there. H-herding the wrong thing.” He pulls out his phone. “Her name is Roho, like her great-something-grandma’s. First one I’ve raised for a while. I only keep the ones that won’t survive in the wild.”
A wall-eyed calf struggles through the undergrowth. She cries out and the Brushfire is there to help her. He’s expecting a hole or a troublesome stone. Instead he finds a patch of white among the green and brown. A tiny, lively creature. Covered in afterbirth. All sweet and sticky red.
On the screen; long legs and white fur and radar-dish ears, and an air of cautious not-quite-friendliness.
“Even after a few generations knowing me, they aren’t really pets. It’s pretty much impossible to tame painted dogs, usually. They trust their pack more than they’ll ever trust you, and that means you can’t trust them an inch. But the ones I’ve kept don’t have a pack. I’d seen it with cattle - if an animal’s born too different, the mother won’t want it. The pack didn’t want the first Roho, they need to be camouflaged and hunters and prey could see her coming. But predators are the brushfires of animals. Did you know, in Britain and parts of America, they cleared out the wolves, so now they have too many deer? The deer strip the forests bare, injured ones linger for days in pain, disease spreads, it’s terrible. The world needs all the painted dogs it can get.”
Roho isn’t hunting anything for the time being. An infant. The Brushfire is no nursemaid. And a poor excuse for a painted dog. His sister is the herder. It’s his job to sit at market with the milk and meat and living calves. He buys puppy formula from one of the few permanent stores. And lingers in the doorway, peering at the shopkeeper's television. (The only one for miles around.) More dogs on the screen. Just one or two.
“They’re dying. They’re all dying. The tourists. The poachers. The trophy hunters. The dogs are dying. They’re gone. Well, except Roho. There’s this thing K- um, my sister said to me once. ‘The little ones don’t make it out here.’ But maybe… they just get left behind?”
He isn’t the only one who cares, at least, even decades ago. Environmentalists. Eco-tourists. Wealthy White men and women, some with their hair done in clumsy imitation of Brushfire’s people’s. Plenty truly want to help, but few truly know how. The wise ones listen to the locals. Not enough of them do. Brushfire talks to as many as he can, in between his trips to the market, in between bottle-feedings turning to meat-feedings turning to dragging chunks of carcass on a rope for her to learn to pounce. He doesn’t tell his sister. He tries not to let the tourists see him.
“Lots of people love the dogs. They’re lucky in that.” He taps his T-shirt front. “Do you have any idea how hard we have to work to get people to fund protection of beetles, or toads, or anything that isn’t pretty or cuddly or badass-looking? Lots of people want to protect beautiful things. But then we got the vegans. Uh, no offence meant, I’ve got nothing against people who just don’t eat animals, but so many American vegans don’t get that not everyone can not eat meat. There are plenty of plants out in the grasslands, yeah, but they’re almost all grass. We can’t eat that, and it’s not like we can afford to ship in much. Some of them get that just fine, but some of them seem to think we’re just not trying. And then once or twice I’ve met the real crazies who hate carnivorous animals too.”
It spills out into his sister’s world. Bit by bloody bit. The dogs. The cattle. The perfect hunters. Sneering faces - White faces - grimacing at her in the fields, at Brushfire in the market. Cleavers and knives and chunks of meat. And you call yourself an environmentalist.
“No, I didn’t. I never said that. That was their word for it.”
In the end, his own pack turns on him. White faces. White hands. White tourists with green on their tongues. They force the Brushfire down and force his legs apart. Laughing like hyenas.
“I’m just another soul, in just another body. Like my sister. Like Roho and her descendants. Like all the others.”
He screams for his sister. She isn’t there. He screams for his parents. They aren’t anywhere. He screams for Roho…
“And it was like… I mean, I’m not their master. It’s better than that.”
It’s like it was when he found her. The ghostly dog. White against the brush and bracken. Painted red.
“They’re my friends.”
And the Brushfire burns.
A Story about the Freedom Generation
“A person - usually a woman, usually a girl - with a fiery temper. In other words… someone who is easily provoked.”
The Spitfire, thirty-one, has some White in him. Grey eyes. Blond hair. His skin is not light exactly, but lighter than his mother’s. (The Spirit Racer, leaning on his shoulder. Ever present. Always there.) But the swelling of his neck and stiffness in his fingers, but the discoloration from wrist to elbow and down his left hand… Well, it’s not the kind of white he truly needs drifting through his blood stream.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1994.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Spirit Racer, thirty-two years ago and healthy, in a car so fast the camera barely catches her. Applause and praise and money she needs, money that gets her out of the slums. Respect she craves, respect she deserves. (An ocean away, tiny Speed Demon watches her on a top-of-the-range TV, stars in his eyes. I didn’t know they had cars in Africa, Mommy…)
“Spitfires were also a type of plane used by Britain in World War Two. Fighter planes. Fast ones.” He pumps a fist to punctuate, then flexes his fingers and winces. “I’ve never flown a plane, but fast vehicles are mine and Mama’s thing. She raced cars. Then she had to stop.” He bites his lip. “They call us Freedom Babies, you know. There was a bit of a baby boom from people celebrating. I’m not one of those. In the morning Mandela was president. And Mama was… and Mama…”
A White man from the richer part of Johannesburg. In a suit worth as much as their rent for a year. He races the Spirit Racer - Spitfire’s mother before Spitfire - and loses. She sings in isiZulu and dances on the hood of her car. On the night of the election. The first election that’s meant anything. She’s faster than her rival. In a car and out. But he’s stronger. Nine months later, Spitfire is born, and Spirit Racer is sick.
“She loves me. But it’s hard for both of us, you know? Just looking at me, people know where I came from. That I’m not exactly like them, whoever they are. And… they can tell I’m sick, and that so is she. When I was a kid, my bullies used to tell me I made her sick. That’s nonsense, whether she’d had me or not he’d still have… ugh. But sometimes it’s hard not to believe. And since she was sick, she couldn’t race anymore, so we never had much money, so we had trouble paying for medicine, so things got worse. And since this was the 90s, at first there wasn’t really much great treatment to be had for any money. We both got so lucky to live this long.”
They catch it early. Soon after onset. Like they did with Intare. In some ways this is kinder. Spitfire has never known violence. Not like Ikamba ya Rwanda. Not like the Spirit Racer… In some ways this is crueler. The Spirit Racer watches her baby cry out in pain. Watches him struggle. Hears the people here - her people - whispering whenever her back is turned. Still though. Still. In some ways it isn’t anything. It just is. And she calls Spitfire My beautiful son.
“I’m not White enough for the Melville crowd, and I don’t want to be either. I wanna be Zulu. Like Mama. And everyone else we know.”
As he grows, he has people to talk to about it. Mostly online, but it’s something. On one account:
‘Oh, that sounds so awkward. Everyone just thinks my family are white, so I don’t really know what it’s like, I guess, but… yeah. Sympathy.’
On another:
‘I went without my regular meds for a while once, too. It REALLY sucked. I can’t imagine how bad it must have been to go longer.’
He doesn’t let the two cross over, fearful one crowd will judge him for the other.
“There’s this one guy I know. From Rwanda. I don’t keep track of where most folks are from but I remember that. Always going on about his brother. I don’t… I get it, okay. I get it. But I don’t wanna sound like that. I wanna be Zulu.”
Zozo. The Spirit Racer takes his face in her hands. You already are. All the different parts of us make us Zulu.
Even the White parts? Even the sick-
Yes, she says. Even those.
“Meanwhile this White guy gets free run of the city. He’s rich too. Nothing and no one to hold him down. I’d like to… Maybe that’s why she never told me his name. Maybe she thought I would try to find him. Maybe I would have, and have gotten myself hurt. No, I don’t think I… I’m a racer. Not a killer. No matter what, I don’t think I could do anything that bad… A-and even if I could, that still wouldn’t be near as bad as what he did to her. To both of us.”
He turns eighteen. The Spirit Racer teaches him to drive in her 1994 Corvette. The nicest thing they own. And her eyes glow with all the fire she passed to her son. And she drives fast. And he drives fast. And it feels beautiful.
Spitfire brushes his brown hand down the bluish arm. “It’s okay with the medicine. Sometimes, though. Sometimes it’s bad. I hope it’s worse for him. It’s probably not. That’s how it is anywhere if you’ve got money. That’s how it is when you’re White.”
He’s almost nineteen. Been driving for a year now. Spitfire isn’t as fast as his mother was when she was his age. He’s plenty fast enough. And then a White man in a white and blue suit turns up in Soweto. Calling for the Spirit Racer by her name - her racing name. Mkhuzi!
And Spitfire’s mother steps in front of him, pushing him behind, as their black cat slithers between their ankles and hisses at the man.
Mama-
Not now, Zozo! Let the grownups handle this.
But-
Wait in the car. Now.
So he goes. And sits there. Foot hovering over the gas pedal. Fingers popping against the ignition.
“I could have done something. Right then and there… but I didn’t. I kinda wanted to.” He flexes his foot as if stomping on a gas pedal. “He’d bought out most of our neighbourhood. Was gonna strip it out and rebuild as something for the fancy folks. Mama bet him the neighbourhood that she could outrace him again, but the day of the race she got really sick again. So I put on a mask and went out for her.”
They’re about the same height, and with loose clothing both their skinny, sickly bodies look about the same. No one notices. He gets in the car at the racetrack and pushes the pedal, and as the speedometer needle creeps up to press the top of the gauge harder and harder, he feels less sick, less lost, more at home than ever.
“It was… amazing. But maybe I should have eaten something or slept better before going out. I think I fainted partway through and the car kept going, my foot must have still been on the pedal. I swear I saw my ancestors and they were all rooting for me. Maybe it was just one of those fugue state things. I hope it wasn’t. I hope I didn’t just hallucinate that they told me they were proud. But…”
He gazes, dazed, into the distance halfway around the track, falling behind, car slowing down and drifting to the side. Perhaps it’s the cries from the crowd which snap him awake, but the important part is that he does wake, and he slams his foot on the pedal. The White man, complacent, catches sight in the rearview mirror, and is too surprised to react for a moment as Spitfire speeds past him… but he does react, and catches up, and…
“It was a draw. Perfect photo-finish draw.”
He falls from the car, stunned, horrified. His mother runs forward, his mask slips off. Doesn’t matter now, they lost anyway… The White man steps from his car, frowning. Squinting at Spitfire…
Mkhuzi didn’t lose, he says, extending a hand. I concede to a worthy opponent. Two worthy opponents.
Huh? R-really? Spitfire blinks, Spirit Racer glares… but they shake on it, and their neighbourhood is saved, and the crowds cry Laduma! as if they simply won.
Our next race won’t be so easy, the White man says, but he’s smiling. And there’s just something about his face, just a little quirk somewhere, that Spitfire recognises from the mirror.
“I… wish he hadn’t done that, even if it meant we lost. I wish he’d just been bad all through so I could keep hating him. Hating him as much as he deserves for what he did to Mama. Does that make me a bad person too?”
And Spitfire burns.
A Story about the Baby Boomer
“In German Osterfeuer, the dry fire that begins the liturgy of the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday. Represents Christ’s Resurrection.”
The Easter Fire, seventy-nine (and the Paschal Fire peeping out from behind her like a child although he’s less than twenty years younger), with a cannula taped to her lip (and a monitor clipped to his chest). High cheekbones and a series of birthmarks. Eyes deep and dark as the river Esimirin. And sad.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1946.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Ilé-Ifẹ̀. 1953. The violence begins.
“That… that… Boko Haram wasn't around when I was a child. Or when my Luo was born. But they didn’t come from nothing. Just like a fire rising from the dust.”
The Easter Fire is young and pretty. And Christian. Anglican. Not that anyone cares to remember. She’s not Muslim. That’s all that matters. That's what they focus on. More than anything else.
“Now, it’s not as dangerous as the Westerners make it out to be. At least…” She opens her mouth and closes it again. The Paschal Fire moves a little closer, burrowing tight. “There are almost as many of us as there are of them. Forty something, I think, to fifty something. There is no apartheid. They don’t control the government. They didn’t back then. And they’re still killing us. That’s almost worse. In some ways. We’re dying and nobody notices. Except for those same Westerners, so they can make it about themselves, and cry on TV.”
The Easter Fire cries when they come for her. Young. Terrified. They shoot her mother and her father and they gift her to one insurgent’s son. He’s younger than the others, but older than her by a significant margin. They’re married first. Before he takes what he wants from her. Her period doesn’t come. Her stomach swells. The Paschal Fire is born nine months later.
“However he happened, I love my son. I can’t say all women in my position loved the resulting children, and I don’t blame them, but I do. That made things easier at first, but much, much harder later.”
For what it’s worth, he loves her too. She knows, even if he doesn’t say so - the Paschal Fire doesn’t say much at all. And Easter worries. His father - her “husband” - knows better than to bring him to a doctor and risk the questions that would come from that.
“It was never about having children for him. That man, I mean. It was always about possessing me to do what he liked with. After Luo was born, I wasn’t fit to have more children. That didn’t matter. He didn't care.”
The Easter Fire makes her plans. She will save. She will pack. She will prepare. She will run. She will not look back. She will take the Paschal Fire…
“But I… I…”
He finds the box beneath the floorboards. Filled with loose dollar notes and tarnished coins. He throws it hard at the Easter Fire and beats hard against the walls and floors. Through the window and down the stairs. He beats her and he beats her and he beats the Paschal Fire too, when their son steps in the way.
“And it made a sound like an empty pumpkin. All wet inside and splattering hard. He hit my Luo. My baby. So hard that… He fell.” She swallows. “And I didn’t think he would stand up again.”
She runs. No clothes. No food. No money. Towards the river. Blood running down her face.
“What kind of a mother am I? I left my baby behind.”
She goes to the police. They ask the same question. And don’t seem to care about anything else. She goes home to her father’s family. They ask the same question. To her mother’s… They shut the door in her face and tell her to go.
“There was a position open at Obafemi Awolowo. Some minor medical work. I wanted to be a doctor, you know, when I was younger and it felt like I could get there on my own. At least I could still help.”
The Easter Fire bandaging arms and taking blood work. Mopping emesis and replacing lights. Sometimes, on good days, she talks with the students as they pass. Sometimes she pretends - with the smaller boys, with the masculine girls - that they’ve known each other for more than a minute, a moment, a month…
“I thought he was dead. Or else… he didn’t want me. How could he forgive me for leaving him behind?”
Easter Sunday. Easter Service. The Easter Fire stands to pray. And then she sees him. Across the room. Ashier now than he was before, sicklier. Eyes sunken and burning like turned coals. He sees her. And she sees him and-
“And he did want me back, and his father couldn’t stop me anymore. The rest doesn’t matter. Nothing else. Except for that.”
And the Easter Fire (and the Paschal Fire) burn.
A Story about the Greatest Generation
“A phenomenon in which a luminous electrical discharge appears on a ship or aircraft during a storm. Regarded as a sign of protection given by St. Elmo, the patron saint of sailors.”
St. Elmo’s Fire is all wire and angles. Skin stretched thin over bones. Sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. Black dreadlocks brushed to one side. Fifty-five.
“An illness brought on by the ingestion of fungus-contaminated rye grain causing ergot poisoning. Common name derives from the medieval Benedictine monks dedicated to that saint who offered treatment to sufferers.”
St. Anthony’s Fire wears his natural, styled up. Sprayed with purple. His face is fuller than his day-one’s, but longer. And scarred on one side. Not badly though, not that badly. (“Ah, it’s nothing. Used to be worse.”) Same age.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1901.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; a woman with long and tattered dreadlocks. On a custom-built surfboard. Blown about by the wind and spray. She rides the waves without distraction, slicing through them like a hot knife in butter. Towards the boats that lie anchored a mile or three from the Durban bay.
“Obviously when we talk about the Greatest Generation, we don’t mean us. What’d we be, Gen X maybe? Anyway. We mean my grandma. Sorry you probably couldn’t have met her, she’d be like a hundred and twenty-four now. Greatest Generation and one of the greatest people we know of.”
“When people talk about World War Two online it’s always Germany this, America that, sometimes England or Japan. ‘Least for English speakers. People outside Africa forget it exists. But our people fought then too, and not only for the Europeans who forced us. Plenty of us had personal stakes.” He snorts. “The definitions we picked are kinda ironic - names of saints? People outside Africa forget some of us are Jewish, too.”
Ethiopian Jews. Beta Israel. This is where people’s minds go, when they remember Africa at all. That’s not who he means. South Africa. Lemba. The first Jews, though not as many call themselves that now. Grandma does. Locals whisper about her faith; the Europeans whisper about her skin, even as she helps them. She ignores them and keeps doing the right thing.
“You hear all these stories. Boats going to America. Full of Jews during the Second World War. People scared out of their minds. They came to South Africa - to Durban too - and we turned them out.”
“Some of them figured out a workaround. The boats would anchor out of sight offshore and Grandma would bring supplies out to them. For as long as she could. A backpack and a surfboard. And, yeah, it’s as dangerous as it sounds.” St. Elmo’s fire swallows hard. “They called her ‘Righteous Among Nations’. Sounds nice on paper, only… She was Jewish. Like we’re Jewish. Means they never saw her like she was. And there was a storm. I don’t know why she went out. But she did. And-”
Green lightning cracks across a slate colored sky. The water rises up from the deep. Like malformed fingers tearing for blood. And then the wind. And then the rain. White caps breaking over themselves like well-drowned corpses. And the refugee ship is tossed a mile high. She goes to help them. She doesn’t make it back.
“And the world carried on without her. Our parents banned us from swimming or surfing in the ocean in case the same happened to us, but of course we snuck out and did anyway, and we’re not dead yet, ja-ne? Still… still probably shouldn’t have. We could swim, but I can’t say we had a good teacher.”
The screen jumps by the minute. As children they meet in the community pool. Swimming lessons. St. Elmo’s Fire paddling in the shallow end, St. Anthony’s Fire venturing further out. The teacher is a wild-eyed woman. Gray haired and burn-scarred. Who takes a special pleasure in dunking them, holding them under a little longer each time.
“That’s how we learned to hold our breath.”
“We? Nah, man. Speak for yourself.”
People whispered about Grandma when she was alive. They still whisper. Not the woman with wild eyes. She asks - she always asks - always says exactly what she means. And that’s refreshing for a while. The same way the flood season breaks over the desert with those first drops of cold rain.
“She was younger than Grandma, but she knew of her, of course. Whole town did. She was… I dunno if she wanted to fuck her or wanted to be her. Which is weird since they didn’t agree on some pretty big points… No, she was Lemba too. That wasn’t why.”
“I think she was for Israel? Am I remembering right?”
“Yeah, yeah. That’s her day-one. Grandma wouldn’t have been a fan, especially now. They’re actually not great to Holocaust survivors there, even though that’s supposed to be why Israel exists… But that’s kind of a tangent.”
The woman asks about Grandma sometimes. Her body. (The water.) Her board. (The water.) The plaque with her name on it in the Holocaust Museum. (More of the same.) She screams and shakes St. Elmo’s Fire.
Are you stupid?!
She wouldn’t have wanted the thing anyway. Not from them!
“She wasn’t ‘Righteous Among Nations’. She was just righteous.”
“And Black among the Jews.”
“It’s hard for us. You don’t know unless you’re Black. You don’t know unless you’re Lemba. The old lady, she wanted us to take care of each other. It’s hard when your own people… When they aren’t your people.”
St. Anthony’s Fire is more forgiving. (She’s not so bad when you get to… Well.) He will take her to the wreck site. He will take her down to dive. If she needs to see it. To understand. St. Elmo’s Fire waits in the boat as they go, watching shimmers on the water.
“We had diving gear. Pretty expensive. Even to rent. At least she paid for it. One for her. One for me. One for Njabulo in case… in case something happened. Which it did. You know?”
“I know.”
An hour each of oxygen. St. Elmo’s counts down to the forty minute mark. Then fifty. Then… He struggles with the equipment. Doesn’t get it on right. Doesn’t realize until he’s sunk a story deep. He’s hemorrhaging oxygen. He’s sinking.
“Pretty sure every moron knows oxygen deprivation is really dangerous. I didn’t care - if he was still under, he had even less to be going on with than I did.”
“One of the symptoms is hallucinations, just like with ergot. That’s why we picked that from the dictionary for this. That was probably why we saw what we saw.”
“That was why the cops said they couldn’t trust our statements. We’re guys and she wasn’t and that can be weird, I dunno if they’d have jumped at the chance to punish a woman or not wanted to admit some old lady coulda hurt two strong young men. But we’re Lemba, and the cops weren’t, so they didn’t even care that much.”
He dives down even deeper, looking for a glint of St. Anthony’s purple hair. All he finds is silver. Silver bones and silver hair. And he chokes when the wild-eyed woman wraps herself around him and rips him down the front.
“She tried to drown us both. We’re not sure why.”
“Was it… like that anime thing Maadi mentioned? Yan-something? Obsession.”
“I think so. We weren’t Grandma, so we weren’t good enough.”
It only takes a moment. To grab him still, to hold him down. And he’s terrified. Pearls in the water by the second thrust. She shoves him back. And the Fires climb for the surface. It takes five minutes. The world record is 11:35. They aren’t that good, but they surface just in time.
“Like we said. She taught us how to hold our breath.”
“Like we said, though, without breath, you hallucinate. I still have nightmares of what I saw. When she did it. Her all green and slimy and with squid arms in her hair.”
“Yeah… Me too.”
And St. Elmo’s Fire
and St. Anthony’s Fire
burn.
A Story about the Millennial
“Historians speculate it may have been made by combining pine resin, naphtha, quicklime, calcium phosphide, sulfur, or niter. Its ability to burn on water made it an effective and destructive naval incendiary weapon…”
Pine Resin and Naphtha and Quicklime. Calcium Phosphide. Sulfite and Niter. Larger and smaller and skinny as twigs. Hair dyed red. Hair bleached blond. Greek Fire, a teen in the photo with pink and purple locs and just some black showing through at the roots. Forty-four years old now, with tattoos showing through her blouse sleeves. In the photo they cluster around her. Possessive. Protective. Parental. Peaceful.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1981.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Greek Fire and her components getting on a train. Her, sighing and rolling her eyes. The others fighting. Always fighting.
“Both sides of the family are Black South African and a lotta people think that’d mean solidarity, but we’re from different tribes - sort of - and ag, man, subsets of a group that’s overall oppressed are so much harsher to each other than when that group is doing fine. And that suits the guys on top just great. If we can’t work together, we can’t work against them.”
Shona and Tswana. Moyo and Talaote. Both have for their totem the symbol of the heart.
“You’d think, us being so similar, it’d make a difference. But it doesn’t. Even my parents get in on it sometimes, or they did. You’d think they’d know better at least.” Pause. Sigh. Roll eyes. Right on cue. “Still, it’s not like we were going to war or anything. It’s just family drama.”
As Greek Fire grows, she spends a lot of time online, researching the rather sparse information. Even in the Indigenous languages, there’s not much. Both families were cut off from their past so long ago; there’s so little anyone remembers or can recover. But the totems stick in her mind.
“Momzo and Baba thought it was kinda neat that we all have the same one. Just ‘kinda neat’. I thought it should be a bigger deal than that. I’m kinda more into the history than them - I can see why, too. So much of the history we can still actually find is depressing, and we’ve lost so much of it. I get why people wanna look more into the future, especially scientist types like both of them. But we can’t make the future better without looking at the past too, ja-ne? Doomed to repeat and all that.”
She listens to her father and grandparents in Shona. She listens to her mother and uncle and grandmother in Tswana. She begs them to listen to each other. They don’t, in any language.
“They were still fighting right up to my eighteenth birthday. I remember being pretty pissed about that. They couldn’t put their fights aside for one day? Maybe the most important day of my life? They made a fuss about me becoming an adult but they still kept fighting like kids.”
They take the train into Cape Town; they can’t even queue up peacefully, and block the door for long enough that Greek Fire almost can’t get into the carriage. She wanders ahead at Two Oceans Aquarium, and they don’t even notice till they bump into her gazing wistfully at the Diversity Gallery.
“I’m not so fundi with science as either Momzo or Baba are - before they retired she was a quantum physicist, he was a doctor. But I do like sea life. Cape Agulhas down on the south tip is where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet. We got so many different fish that only live in this area, and the fish from one side don’t fight with the fish from the other any more than whatever’s normal for fish, right? I remember I thought it was symbolic. Silly, maybe…”
Bunny chows and sour figs and Greek Fire examines shweshwe fabrics at the market. With more room to separate there’s less to fight about, and she has hope the peace will last till evening. Alas, it doesn’t. She’s too busy trying to damp the fires to spot that they’re being followed.
“White schoolboys. Kids younger than me. There were four or five of them, maybe? And I think the youngest was like thirteen years old. Shitty White folks start their kids young on following ‘em, sad to say. I’m not gonna say violent Black folks don’t exist, we all know about the prison gangs and stuff, but that’s not that many people and it’s mostly violence against each other, you know? We just don’t have the power or chance to get at White people that much, even if more than a couple of us wanted to. But they think we do, or they want to think we do, so they strike, uh, quote-unquote ‘back’.”
Two out of five a head shorter than her, but the other three more than make up for it. They drag her to an empty alley and hold her down in the dirt, and the bustling market noise almost covers her screams. Almost.
“Always at people who couldn’t be doing them any harm too. I was eighteen, I wasn’t armed. I was just some girl… That’s always it, isn’t it, all over the world? They pick on the easy targets, and they don’t care what we think, they wanna say to our dads and husbands ‘nyeh nyeh I touched your stuff’.” She grins wickedly. “I’m worth more to my family than that, and our women on both sides are stronger than they thought too.”
Her enraged mother; her huge, hulking uncle; her father’s father and her mother’s mother. Even her father’s tiny, wizened mother gets in on breaking hands and heads with her cane, while her father picks her up and tends her wounds. The boys flee, and the family work as a single unit to usher Greek Fire to a cab and to the hospital.
“We waited. We were pretty freaked out that they would report. We have money, but they were White, so kind of a coin-flip with our chances. They didn’t, eventually, or nothing came of it if they did. I think they just didn’t want to admit to being beaten up by my grannies. But we were worried for a while, and the third thing both sides of the family ever worked on together - second being the incident, first being me being born - was promising to be each other’s alibis.”
Over weeks, the house stays quiet. At first they don’t speak to each other very much at all. Only to Greek Fire, in the gentlest of terms and tones. The first time she smiles, though, is when her uncle asks her grandfather to pass the salt at the table, and says Please.
“They listened to me a lot better after that. And to each other, when I was there to help anyway. They all knew they loved me, but I guess they needed a chance to show each other. If ubuntu can come from something so bad, maybe it’s okay that it happened to me. It shouldn’t happen to anyone, but if it had to, I’m glad it was me and that I could use it.”
She doesn’t become a physicist like her mother. She doesn’t become a doctor like her father. She studies law and history and political science, and joins the Diplomatic Service, and both sides couldn’t be prouder of their precious peacemaker.
She pulls the neck of her top down, exposing just the very edge of another tattoo. Not enough to make out the details. Over her breastbone. “We share a totem. I got this to remind me that it’s from both sides of me, and also just for me. I made it my own, and I made myself our heart.”
Her components come together and the Greek Fire burns.
A Story about Gen Z
“Wildfires that never fully extinguish, and instead continue smoldering under the ground or snow for extended periods of time, emerging as full-on blazes when conditions allow.”
The Zombie Fire is a skinny, pimply man of twenty-eight. Loud and loud. Yellow on purple. Jacket over shorts. And long socks pulled up almost to his knee. On his phone. Filming.
“Lights - or fires - that appear in the atmosphere without an obvious cause. Examples include the onibi, hitodama and will-o’-wisp.”
The Ghost Fire looks pretty ghostly. Twenty-eight too. White on black hair. White on brown skin. In earrings and an overcoat. Both entirely too big for her - and she’s not small as it stands.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1997.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Zombie Fire with a homemade grappling hook at the stony ruins of Great Zimbabwe. He’s a skilled climber, but with terrible equipment and one hand occupied by a filming phone. The low rubber treads of his sneakers slip, and he cries out as he plummets to the ground…
“Obviously I didn’t die, I’m here, right? Someone caught me.”
Ghost Fire flinches. “No one caught my brother, at least not the way he needed.”
Ghost Fire and a different boy also climb the monument. When this boy falls, Ghost Fire misses; she runs for help, too late.
“There was some guy. Or some lady. It doesn’t matter now and I don’t remember anyway. He… she?… said they could help. I was hysterical. I didn’t think.”
The Zombie Fire flinches too.
The Zombie Fire… the Ghost Fire… They get into the strange man’s car.
You could be hurt. Let’s just get you checked out, yeah?
He could be too hurt to move. But listen, I’ve got some friends down the way.
“Big mistake. Big mistake.”
Beyond Zimbabwe. The Zombie Fire works through peatlands. Smoke rising to his knees. Bloody lips. Sweat falling like candle wax. Skin sliced in pockets big enough to put your fingers through. He walks with a limp that has nothing to do with the chain on his ankle.
“That’s where most kids like I was end up. Boys. Especially older boys. In the fields or in the mines or… I dunno, I didn’t pay that much attention when I was in school. ‘Labor trafficking’ - but that doesn’t mean they don’t wanna fuck you. Just that nobody got paid if they did.”
The Ghost Fire’s is a more stereotypical experience. A brothel in Johannesburg. She’s a rare beauty. Pure snowy patches. Ghostly white hair.
“Kids like I was? Girls? It’s the brothels. We’ve talked about it. Both of us kinda wish we were in the other place, sometimes, no matter how bad the other says it got. I got to at least be indoors, sleep a little more between buyers. He still got fucked, but less, and I guess… I feel like he got more respect? No, I know that’s a fucked way to think about it, I’m sorry, but they want boys for labour because they think girls aren’t strong enough. Ya know? I’m strong. Even if I can’t be strong enough to escape, I want people to see that I am strong.”
“I get it, it’s okay. Times like that you wanna catch hold of anything to remind you you’re a person.”
No one else seems to think so. It goes how it’s gone for so many others. On a stinking, sweat-soaked mattress; in the mud of the fields and blood of his hands.
“I think my dad blames himself for… I don’t know. We were fighting when it happened. I barely leave the house without him even now. And it feels pathetic, you know. Needing your dad to protect you when you’re almost thirty. But when I was- It’s hard to live like you did before. Knowing how much stronger they were. How easily someone else like them could hold you down. And you wouldn’t be able to stop them… until they were done.”
The peat is harvested in its entirety. The police come that night. For the Zombie Fire. For the other workers. And not the men (and women) who brought them here.
“It’s still better than-”
“Don’t. Don’t.”
They don’t let Ghost Fire go. It’s a random search. The girls are arrested. The men are turned out. The madam stuffs her pockets and runs for her life. Cut; the Zombie and the Ghost Fire. A police station in Johannesburg…
“Still, they did call our parents. Half the kids there didn’t get that. We had parents to call. Lotta kids in our situation don’t. It’s usually the ones with no one to miss them who get taken and I guess we just got unlucky. Really unlucky. But it coulda been worse.”
The Zombie Fire flares to life. His father comes in and comes in swinging. This is my son - my son - and you treat him like a criminal?! And the Zombie Fire bites his tongue and refrains from mentioning the monument.
The Ghost Fire’s mother hugs her tight and sobs into her hair. Her brother isn’t there to do the same, and she cries harder for him than herself.
They both drive home to Masvingo.
“And… like I said, I wasn’t doing good for a while. And you weren’t either, were you?”
“No. But we felt better when we could talk about it. It’s kinda childish, but we got into making up this fantasy sci-fi world where we could pretend we’d gone instead. We wrote stuff, we drew stuff…”
Zombie Fire opens up an app on his phone. Muchadenga: An Afro-Futurist MMORPG. The mentor character in the tutorial looks just like Ghost Fire’s brother. “And when we got older, we made a career out of it. Doing pretty good now, eh, sis?”
His father. Her mother. Find the therapist. Load them into the car and force them out again. He’s waiting when she comes in. Looking like a ghost. Looking right at him like she’s seen one too.
Have we met?
Sorry, no. I was just thinking of my brother…
“Don’t call me sis.”
And the Ghost Fire ignites. And the Zombie Fire flickers. And they burn.
A Story about the Lost Generations
“The fire or fires regarded as existing in Hell.”
Holywater’s blue-black and covered in lesions. Looks like she’d smell like low tide on a hot summer day. Bloody lips. All washed out in a sunbleached picture. Thirty-eight years old in a picture from a hundred years ago.
Hellfire’s blue-black and bruises easily. Short hair cut in the usual way. His old mugshot tucked in next to her picture. Forty-nine now. Fourteen then. Reading from a diary too old to be his own.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1883.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Hellfire as the smallest of flickers. Playing in the water of some Cape Town beach. White sand. Blue water. A little boy and a man with big strong arms. To pick him up. To catch him. To throw him into the air again.
‘25th of May, 1921.
They call this place Robben Island. Like the bird. But not entirely. There are no robins here. It’s… quiet. Not much to write about. Even less to say. I miss Alani. And even Baba, I suppose… in a way.’
Hellfire and another young man who looks not dissimilar to him. Black funeral attire. Ashes scattered in the sea.
Goodbye, Papa…
Mati, I… It’ll be okay.
‘25th of May, 1922
There’s something about this place. The people here. They’re nothing like Baba was or my sister’s friends back home. I think it might be that they’re sick too. That we’re all rotting and dying. Like cut flowers in the sea. Even Alani didn’t understand me towards the end.’
Hellfire argues with his brother:
Look, man, this isn’t healthy-
They killed Papa, Sana! I should be out there making them pay!
You wouldn’t last a day out there.
‘25th of May, 1923
Alani wrote to me. Baba didn’t. She misses me. She said. She hopes they find a cure.’
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; two young women playing in the water. The younger one splashing and singing. The elder - Holywater - struggling behind.
Nhela! What happened?!
What? Is there a crab on me? Seaweed in my-
Your legs… Small lesions. Pink and white and off-color brown. I don’t understand… Was it the water?
‘25th of May, 1924
Think it’s getting worse. Can barely hold pen.’
Hellfire and a hail of bullets. None from his gun. He’s arrested anyway. And convicted (of what? He can’t say for sure). They strip him of the Black Power shirt he’s wearing. Maybe that’s reason enough.
Holywater and a man who looks like her. And a little like her little sister too. You don’t listen! You mock my rules-
Maybe if your rules weren’t so mockable.
Nhela, he breathes in deep, for someone in your condition…
‘25th of May, 1925
It doesn’t hurt too bad today. Maybe I’m getting better.’
Years later, no better. Holywater and her father and the doctor he found for her.
Can you help her?
Another definition: Long-term infection by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae. Hansen’s disease. He doesn’t call it that.
‘25th of May; 1926
It hurts really bad today. Maybe I’m getting worse.’
The doctors take her. Her sister comes to see her before she goes.
Can’t you stay?
I wish I could. But she can’t.
They call this place Robben Island.
‘25th of May, 1927
The guards take him. The Alcatraz of Africa. His brother isn’t allowed to visit. And Hellfire wouldn’t see him anyway.
They call this place Robben Island.
‘25th of May, 1928’
‘25th of May, 1929’
‘25th of May, 1930’
And the same things happen there. For him, the men he’s locked in with. For her, the guards. He finds her diaries, hidden inside a wall. They bring some comfort.
“25th of May, 1931
I am leaving.
Goodbye,
Nhela Makhathini’
And she steps into the water.
Hellfire finishes reading, and he knows what she means, and he weeps for her as well as himself. When he’s freed, he’ll never marry; he’ll never feel as close to any woman as he has to this one long dead.
He puts the diary down, and has nothing more to say.
And Holywater simmers, and Hellfire burns.
A Story about the Silent Generation
“Arabic - حريق القاهرة. Also known as ‘Black Saturday’. A series of riots that took place on 26 January 1952.”
Saturday or not, the Cairo Fire isn’t Black. She’s not White either. Ninety-seven. Brown skin and once-brown eyebrows and brown ink on her chin. Three lines and the shape of a wavy-woven braid under her scarf. And sand and dust and stars in her eyes.
“Webb’s Dictionary. 1928.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Egypt under English rule. The Cairo Fire is born in the dust. To a dusty father. A dusty mother. And by the time she reaches her teenage years dust is all that remains of them.
“1882 to 1956. Almost a hundred years. I was born near the end of things. It was longer for Algeria. I’m not Algerian.”
Poor as the dirt she sweeps. Dirt in her hair, dirt on her hands, dirt is all most people see of her. Cairo Fire clenches her fists and swears she will earn better for herself, however she can.
“The White men… It was White men - isn’t it usually? And White women too. Living here in our houses. On our land. I worked for one family. They kept horses. And I swear the horses ate better than me, most of the time.”
The man propositions her. More than once. In front of the horses. Eventually he gives up and forces the issue. And beats the Cairo Fire down and beds her in the straw. The animals watch him do it. And - even though she’s fed them and brushed them and tended sore hooves and hotspots - they push their big heads out towards him and, for her, turn them away.
“Stupid things were always biting me. And they say animals are a good judge of character. It’s all a load of bullshit. It always was. Did you know drug-sniffing dogs react more to their handlers than any real smell? At least you admit your dog-creature just likes you because you feed her.”
1939. Chamberlain’s challenge on the radio receives no response; the British Empire is officially at war. So are the Cairo Fire’s people, because the occupiers are. It makes little difference; Cairo Fire barely leaves the stables, the man stays put in the house. She’s afraid that it will make a difference, a little hopeful that if it does it will be him who dies.
“Of course he didn’t. And England and America took the credit when they won. No credit for anyone from Africa, of course.”
White men and women dancing in the streets. Drinking and cheering. The boss celebrates too. Some celebration; he simply enters the stables and does the exact same thing he always does.
“I think I hate them. I know I hate him. But the rest of them too. The English. The White men. And the women who let him do these things to me!”
She struggles and limps, and hurts like Zombie Fire. She miscarries on the stable floor and the horses fall upon it. And she hates them too. She hates them.
“They call it the Cairo Fire. It wasn’t just a fire. It was a riot too. And a murder before that.”
Fifty auxiliary policemen. British occupiers. The Cairo Fire is angry. All of Cairo is angry. The year is 1952.
“They set the city on fire. And I was there to watch it burn.”
Hundreds of buildings going up one by one by one. Falling bricks and broken glass. Someone kills the man who owns the stables. Cairo Fire looses his horses into the streets and runs through scream-singing to the featureless night.
Thee yadi en maddate-l-donia yada!
This is when they fall on her. She’s been catcalled before. And hurt this way - in many ways - long before she knew any of the names she calls them now. But this time it’s not just White men. It’s her own people. And that’s worse than it was before.
“The reason I don’t hate all men the same way I hate animals is the man who rescued me. He was a good man. Smart-aleck sometimes, but good. He’d gone out to help anyone who was injured. I guess I fit that. He brought me home, and I was still young enough to be glad of a father figure.”
He hears her screaming and brings a few people to chase the other men off. He takes her home. He patches her wounds. He tells her a little of his own story. Algeria. It’s the French for us. Same difference… He doesn’t ever harm her, and he doesn’t ever make her leave. At first she does the same work for him as she did before, sweeping and cleaning, but she’s happy to do it for a friend and not a master. And as the years pass, he helps her study for what she truly wants.
“Algeria didn’t start appointing female imams till 1993, Egypt even later. My friend didn’t live to see either.” She smiles. “But I made it eventually, just like I promised him I would one day.”
And the Cairo Fire Burns.
A Story about Ama2000
“Ardent devotion or enthusiasm for God or Christian ideals; Christian fervor.”
The Holy Fire has green lipstick and the most beautiful brown eyes. Long, thick eyelashes. And a septum piercing. And she doesn’t look up from her phone…
“See also: Holy Fire.”
The Sacred Fire with his red hair and light eyes, light eyes lined with kohl. And he doesn’t look up from his phone…
“Webb’s Dictionary. 2000.”
Instead of a spotlight, two movie fragments; EnVee videos over in seconds, working up to BlueTube videos hours long. Sacred Fire talks his audience through the process as he sculpts a perfect bird from stone. Holy Fire unwraps and models boxes and boxes of jewellery and clothes, sent by her audience or bought with their donations.
I don’t know about you, viewers, but there’s a lotta dust in the air after I sculpt, and I could really go for a drink right now. Luckily, this week I’m sponsored by Slurm - It’s Highly Addictive! And I notice I’m getting more viewers now - thank you all. Did someone popular mention me?
And for my last box, guess who my sponsor is this week… Ah, yebo! Nuka Cola in cherry and lime, with the new and improved rocket-shaped bottle! Hey, kids, check out the link in the description to find out from GodOfCreativity how to make one of these into a lamp. The channel’s pretty new, but I just have to recommend the guy!
“We’re influencers. Or we were. I think we’ll have to lay low for a while at least. Hopefully not forever.”
Holy Fire gets a lot farther. A lot faster. #goddessofplenty and her in yet another nice new dress. Her audience expands. Starting in Capetown and spreading upwards. South Africa to Southern Africa to the center, to the north to the east and west. She’s an English speaker. That wins her Europe. And America… And her recommendation pulls in a few more people to Sacred’s channel, too.
“It’s harder than usual. When you look like us… but especially when you look like me. Black is beautiful, but the White girls get more attention anyway.”
Sacred Fire squeezes her hand. “We both had, um… other social media, too, though. Crafts on one channel, arts on another, heh. No one cares what you look like when all they see is a drawing. And you can draw yourself however you want. Yeah, fursonas, but not only that. You can be just a human who looks different from you, too. And, um, yeah, I mean adults-only art. Lots of artists keep their safe- and not-safe-for-work channels separate, and we thought we’d managed to keep them distant enough.”
They’re not personally into everything they draw, but it gets attention and commission money and it’s often fun.
‘Can you draw me in this showgirl outfit for my website logo? Maybe make my legs longer and lips bigger like in your self-portrait (nice iridescent hair BTW).’
‘Sure thing! You look especially lovely in this photo, want me to use it as a reference?’
‘Can you draw yaoi? You said you’re a het guy and I’d like to check you’re comfortable with that.’
‘Of course! I don’t mind at all.’
‘Aaaaawesome. In that case can I get some Peppy Cola Bear/the Kool-Aid Man?’
‘Can you draw furries? I’d like to get some Spitzles art for my fiancee’s birthday. Maybe a comic page where Sprinkles helps Spitz change his tail bandages and it goes from there?’
‘That might take me a little longer, I haven’t practiced as much with furry characters, but I can try. That sounds adorable. And happy birthday to her!’
“Remember the Thunderbread guy?”
Holy Fire laughs so hard she chokes.
‘Hi again! Can you draw CBF scat please? Implied vore too I guess. Frybread and Toast based on this digestion fic’
‘Mm, not sure that’s in my comfort zone, but I know another artist who might…’
‘Thanks very much…’
‘I choose to read that as sincere.’
‘Can you illustrate some stuff from Lotus Petal Party?’
‘I don’t know that one. What’s it about?’
‘NOOOOOOOOO DON’T AGREE TO THAT ONE’
It’s all in good fun - but fun is not all it is, when they find the niches they really enjoy. Morbid as it is, explicit as it is, erotic as it is… There is real love here. In the hypersexualized proportions. In the glistening, pouting lips. In every muscle, taut and tight. It’s almost more fun than their other occupation. Almost. And then the comments start coming in…
“Remember the Asianfishing guy? Uh, girl?”
Holy Fire laughs so hard she cries.
The fire starts under one of her “normal” videos. Holy Fire putting on her makeup. Green lipstick. False lashes. Dark lining around her eyes.
‘Hey, um, what makes you think it’s okay for you to do this?’
‘????’
‘Your eyes, jackass. As an actual Asian person, maybe don’t copy my traits for your aesthetic.’
‘I have monolids too, asshole. You know, we had them first, evolution-wise.’
It’s true, but people who don’t know much about the Khoi don’t know that, and in America and Asia that’s most people. She goes viral for all the wrong reasons, even though she’s right.
“They didn’t come to me,” says Sacred Fire. “Maybe because I was a smaller account.”
“Your skin is lighter.”
“There’s that too. And I’m a man. And that… matters. Any place in the world. Though maybe it depends on how other people define a man.”
There’s another creator on this app - and most of the others - a man with a great AI filter. Lipstick and eyeliner and a dozen colorful wigs. The usual one, though, is quite like a certain idol singer’s. Green hair like hers, tied into twintails. He’s Khoi too. Just like them.
“That’s a bit generous, don’t you think?”
“Hatsubinki.” He groans. “See, most of you probably already know that homosexual acts have been legal in South Africa since the 90s. Lots of people outside Africa don’t know that. Earlier than parts of Europe, and they’re the ones who shoved the ban on us in the first place. But public opinion is still… not great in a lot of places here, and I’m not gay, but drawing pictures of gay sex and pretty men made people think I might be. And if you’re a girl, they think it’s bad for you to be drawing any sex.”
“Yeah, that’s a worldwide thing. Guys don’t like a girl liking anything about sex that she’s not having with them, and girls don’t like a girl who doesn’t keep to girl standards.” Holy Fire scowls. “Anywhere in the world.”
She’s right to say it. Besides Hatsubinki people who come for her are largely not African. Not Black either by the looks of them…
‘Love how black people spend so much time telling us not to draw them with big lips and butts and then draw both themselves and us like this, huh? Do they really think Hatsune Miku’s that fat or can they just not recognise her as a woman without a couple of mattresses stuffed in her pants and top?’
‘I can see at a glance many demographics this content would offend. Please see this brief seventeen-page essay for further details.’
‘Kick the chair lol #die #DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE
‘Girl I know you DIDN’T just tell them black folk to hang themselves. feel like there’s a word for that…’
“Hatsubinki knew us in real life - well, he knew me in real life-”
“-and met me through her, when we did a public stream together.”
“He knew about my public account, and he must have found out about both our private ones. He was mad at me, and he told everyone.”
“The haters said it was what we deserved for drawing what we did. I think the American ones especially assumed it was just embarrassing for us, nothing worse.”
“I don’t think so. Some of them kept saying that even after we told them about… about… You know. And it can’t be that safe for all of them either, remember that what’s-it-called cult in California a few years back?”
“Ja-ne… At least they thought they were safer than us, though, and that counts for a lot.”
Another definition. Corrective Rape: a hate crime that involves raping someone because of their perceived sexual orientation or gender identity. Initially coined by Bernedette Muthien. Popularized by South African feminists. Far from unique to South Africa, but… but… this time it happens there again. And again. There’s more than one man he thought was his friend.
It’s almost the same with her, but there is no special term for when a woman is raped to punish her for overstepping, in the same way fish have no word for water.
“Do you remember those exclusionists?”
Holy Fire chokes and cries. “Which ones?”
‘So um… “Corrective rape” is a term coined by LESBIANS. It’s incredibly inappropriate for you to use the term if you’re not SGA.’
“It was so great. And now it isn’t. And that’s the worst part. It feels like I built this thing up - this wonderful pyramid - only now I’m trapped inside, in the dark, and the air is running out.” He giggles. “Weird thing to say about hentai drawings, but…”
“It’s easy to say something awful to someone else. It’s so easy. It’s easy to be brave until it’s you on the chopping block. And the messages. And the comments. And the calls keep coming. And you wish… sometimes you wish you could take it all back. That you’d never started at all. And you hate yourself. For hating this big, stupid thing you let become a part of you. And people laugh at you… when you try to explain.”
‘Um… look, dude, I’m on your side but if you’re seriously contemplating suicide over fucking rape kink and incest art… maybe the internet ain’t for you lol’
She puts down her phone. He puts down his.
“Maybe that kid was right. We should go offline.”
“At least for the moment. Let the haters burn themselves out.”
And the Holy Fire Burns. And the Sacred Fire burns. And they burn out together. One by one and side by side.
A Story about Gen Alpha
“A large, destructive fire that spreads quickly over woodland or brush. Webb’s Dictionary. 2010. But, um… there’s another one too.”
The Wildfire is the smallest and sweetest. Golden glitter and puffy hair. Curls and swirls of lace and paint. Fifteen years old, she still carries the stuffed animal she holds in the picture of herself at twelve. A dog maybe. Under one arm.
“Historical.” She clears her throat. “A combustible liquid such as Greek fire that was readily ignited and difficult to extinguish, used especially in warfare.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Wildfire as a tiny child, drawing and painting and sewing and modeling in clay, golden glitter on her skin in a messier way than her makeup will be later. The Hearthfire wipes her face, smiling, and embraces her.
“Mama couldn’t make it here today. She’s… she got hurt not too long ago. She sleeps a lot right now, but she’s gonna get better, I know. Now I can take care of myself so she’s not running around after me so much, and she’s not being hurt again.”
Kirinyaga. Kenya. She’s born in 2010. The shiny new generation. To a young mother. With no father around. She asks about him sometimes. Of course she does. And her mother Hearthfire comforts her with headpats and forehead kisses. And sometimes pretty lies.
“She told me he was dead. And I believed her. I had no reason not to.”
She's younger than Spitfire by a significant margin. And unlike him, her eyes are brown and her hair is brown and her skin has no hint of white to it. She never suspects. Never.
“It’s like with your mama, right, Manzo? People coming here from Europe. British soldiers. They weren’t rich but they were still British, and not long after it they left the country, so even if someone had wanted to do something no one could find them. So Mama didn’t try. And when she was sad about it, she told me she wasn’t, and pretty early on I knew she was lying but I didn’t know how to help her.”
She’s just a kid. The oldest in her generation. But that isn’t saying much. But she makes her mama happy… and that’s enough for now.
“And then I grew up.”
Not quite. Not entirely. The Wildfire is twelve years old.
“Mama used to work all the time. When I was little I’d just color in front of the TV. Or play with my dolls. Kid stuff. But I was getting older. Old enough to start taking classes online. And old enough to use the computer for other stuff…” She cringes, passing over Holy and Sacred with a glance.
The internet is weird and wonderful. She's too young to be seeing this, most of this, to search and play without restriction. But she’s not that young. And her mother isn’t home to check.
CocaKole
Kenya? I live in Lagos. Mainland. Police here aren’t very good. But I hear Kirinyaga is *full* full of soldiers. British ones.
“I didn’t know exactly what happened that time. Mama never told me. I just knew it must have been really, really bad. And, well, I started looking into the English people here. Especially the soldiers…”
Hearthfire comes home, tired from work as usual. Wildfire, clutching the half-made beginnings of her little toy dog, sidles up to her. Uh, Mama…? I found some stuff online which scared me. About soldiers…
Hearthfire comforts, holds her close. That’s why I don’t want you going outside alone, Enkai. It’s true. I’m sorry.
About that… Did my dad really die?
“She got mad about that, really mad. She didn’t hit me but she lifted her hand like she was going to. And I think that scared her, because she ran out and didn’t come back for a couple days. There was food in the house and everything, but… She got down on her knees and apologised when she got back, and I could tell she’d been hurt while she was out, and I didn’t wanna upset her again so I said nothing.”
And she says nothing when the Hearthfire locks herself in the bathroom and showers until even the dishwasher runs cold. That night she sleeps with the Wildfire curled up around her. And whimpers in her sleep. And the Wildfire says nothing. Even then.
“And then, um, I saw the video. I don’t think the people who showed me wanted to hurt me. They were kids like me, at least they said they were, and they said ‘hey, wanna see something really scary?’ and I thought they meant like a movie or something. Maybe they thought it was just from a movie. But I recognised my mama. And the video was dated - that time she ran out on me. I must have made her too mad to be careful…”
Wildfire runs to her mother, crying enough saltwater to damp both their sparks. Hearthfire weeps too, and tells her everything about the first time, and the latest, and every time for every woman she knows in between. The video shows faces. Hearthfire heard their names. Someone could have done something, and nobody did. Wildfire promises I will do something! She helps Hearthfire change her bandages and cooks for her, and Hearthfire thinks this is all of the something she meant.
“I knew where those men were stationed. Not all of them from the video were still there, but some…”
Where there’s smoke there’s fire. And there’s fire everywhere when Mama turns on the news. She doesn’t ask. She doesn’t look at the Wildfire even once. But that night, she sleeps all the way through.
“Mama said she wouldn’t hurt them. You said you couldn’t hurt that man. I’m not like her. I’m not like you. Maybe that makes me bad, but maybe I’m like Roho. Like a brushfire, taking out the bad growth when no one else will.”
And the Wildfire reignites the Hearthfire, and they burn.
And the Firestarter - not much older than Wildfire - holds the recorder. Young-looking with braids and beads and a bun spun out of it. Peacock feather earrings.
“I’m listening,” she says and ignites the paper too.
Chapter 6: (Young Justice) A Story about Kemwer and his Sons
Summary:
TW: kidnapping and implied sexual abuse and torture of teenagers, shooting of a child, parent death.
https://theirworld.org/news/16-facts-for-day-of-the-african-child-on-june-16-1/
Chapter Text
“D-Dad, I- Daddy, I’m scared…”
Three of the Four Sons of Kemwer are not, in fact, Kemwer’s sons. Or of any relation to him at all actually. As a matter of fact, Hapy isn’t anyone’s son at all. One discolored eye, green with infection, and makeshift bandages wrapped around her upper brow torn from one of Imsety’s pant legs. It’s just as well, the way the muscle bulges outward, veins swollen from running fast and long and too damn hard. And Duamutef needs no introduction - Homes has already given one.
But Qebehsenuef is the important one. The one holding the phone. His hair is braided, but it’s just as black as Kemwer’s. And his father wears glasses but - underneath - their eyes are just as brown.
“Virgil? Virgil! My God. Where are you? It… it’s okay. It’s okay. I promise. Daddy’s gonna- Daddy’s here. Please don’t cry.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; June 16, 1976. Soweto. Johannesburg. South Africa. Kemwer is ten years old. Marching. Chanting. In his limited Zulu. In his native Xhosa. And even in English - anything but Afrikaans. And he looks just like Qebehsenuef. Without his glasses. With longer hair.
“I didn’t run away, Dad. I didn’t run away.”
“Shh. Virgil. I know that.”
“I’m… My friends and me-”
“It’s okay. Take your time. Wherever you are… I’ll come and get you.”
He sniffs, blowing snot from both his nostrils. “Calisota City. In-”
“Calisota City?! The hell did y-… How did you get down there?”
They march on Soweto.
To Hell With Afrikaners
“They got me from the bus stop. They thought I was a hitchhiker. I told ‘em - Dad, I told them no - that I was just waiting for Sharon to come gimme a ride. I was real polite and I… I… I didn’t wanna go. But… But-”
“But nothing. Virgil. You said no.”
“I did. I know.”
“Son, listen to me,” Kemwer says as firmly as he can, as gently as he can. “I don't think it would have mattered. No matter what you did or said.”
They march in the streets.
To Hell With Apartheid
“Those other kids… It didn’t matter for them, did it?”
“No, it didn’t,” Duamutef says.
“And… what about their parents?”
“What about them?” Duamutef says.
They march on the school.
To Hell With Afrikaans
“Tye doesn’t have a dad. And Ed’s is… A-and Sam?”
“あなたのお父さんは電話中ですか?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows. Not unless you speak Japanese… We, um, we were all in there together.”
“Where?”
Qebehsenuef breaks down sobbing. “I don’t know!”
They’re all in this together. Kemwer and the Zulu girl marching beside him. With a yellow headband and big fluffy hair. And a piebald streak running through it (much smaller and whiter than the Heiress’ yellowy-black braids).
Igama lami ngingu Jean Khumalo.
Richard Hawkins.
“This guy… some guy… picked us up… This man. And there was this place… like a warehouse. Or-”
“No, no, man! It was more like a hospital. With doctors and-”
“針も血も!”
“Those weren't doctors! My mom is a doctor and-”
“Oh,” Kemwer almost chokes on it. “Oh. Virgil. Oh.”
Kemwer and Jean Khumalo. And the next two days. They’re so young. They’re so, so young. But… but… but-
“Complications… Stray bullet… Left in from when we, well… She loved you kids so much…”
The other three crowd around Qebehsenuef as he doubles over. And screams.
They keep on talking. We’re changing the world here, you know. The whole world. Not just Soweto. Not just Africa. They’ll hear us up in Egypt. In Ghana - that’s where my grandmother was from.
And mine.
Just think! South Africa could be the next Algeria-
But what do you want out of it? I’d like to… I don’t know. I want to help people. Somehow.
Kemwer tries and tries his best and can’t do much of anything. “Shh. Shh, Virgil, please-”
I’m going to be a doctor, she says. Whether or not they listen.
“He’s right, esse. You don’t want anyone to hear us.”
“Hear you?! Hold are! Are you still there?! Are you safe?!”
Kemwer is ten years old. And Jean is eleven. Of all the kids here, they’re towards the younger end. But not the youngest. They have no guns. They hold no ransom. The lifeblood of Soweto’s ‘uprising’ is some twenty thousand children. And the blood is… just blood. Black blood. African blood. And if it runs just as red as anything… well, it doesn’t matter. And nobody cares. So they keep bleeding.
“It was c-called the Palace. Back when it was a theater.”
“The Palace. Calisota,” Kemwer repeats. “I can be there in a few hours. Think you guys can hold on until then?”
“それは痛い。私のプライベートな部分.”
“Dad, I’m sorry, I-”
“Shh. None of that now.”
Jean is eleven and surprisingly well read.
For her sex - she hears from some of the men who share her race.
For her race - she hears from all of the men who don’t.
For your age, I mean, Kemwer says. I’ve never met anyone like you before. Maybe, Kemwer says. If I didn’t live here.
And Jean Khumalo calls him Isiphukuphuku! More of one than anyone I’ve ever met before.
“Come soon, okay?”
“I will. I promise. Can you stay on the phone?”
“I ‘unno,” Qebehsenuef slurs. “Trying. They hurt me pretty bad.”
The other kids call her Medic. And she is. And that’s what she does. And that’s why they aim for her. And pull the trigger tight.
“How did they-”
“Daddy…”
A stray bullet. An accident. This is what they’ll tell the papers and the history books. Later though. When history cares to remember Soweto and the African child. And June 16th. Later. But not now.
“What did they-”
“Daddy…”
He carries Jean two blocks to the nearest hospital. And then twelve more to the nearest Black doctor when the first throws them out.
It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s… It’s… It’s
And it is okay… Two kids and a wedding later. And some two and forty years… until it isn’t. Fast forward; Jean drives just a little too fast. Hits the brakes a little too hard this time. The ambulance smashes into the back of a lifted truck that wouldn’t clear the way. And the Afrikaner bullet finally hits home. And… and… and…
Richard? she says. Richard, I’m scared.
I’m here. Jean. I’m here. It’ll be okay. I promise.
“I promise,” Kemwer says and means it just as hard as he did back then. “Everything will be alright.”
Chapter 7: *CSA* (Cabbage Patch Kids) A Story about the Orange Shirts
Summary:
TW: child sexual abuse, child pregnancy, forced incest, mass child murder/infanticide, physical abuse, racism, cultural erasure, Islamophobia, transphobia, starvation, neglect, child labour, forced public nudity, forced shaving, injustice, social indifference.
Posting a few days in advance to allow prep time if you want to join in: https://orangeshirtday.org/ Wear orange, donate, and don't let anyone forget!
Chapter Text
“In English it’s something like ‘Cabbage Patch School.’ Something about us kids growing and learning. Like sprouts bursting up from the ground.”
The Orange Shirt has orange hair and a lot of freckles. Masses of freckles. And a brace on her leg. She walks with a limp or walks with a cane or not at all (her wheelchair has been a common sight since the first day she came here). And she wears a blue infinity symbol, near the edge of her bright red sash.
“I was twenty-seven when I came here. Twenty-eight now. I was seven years old in 1997… When I came to that school. Eight when I left. I… Please don’t trouble yourselves worrying about me. That’s not what I’m here for. A-and… and anyway! I was Metis! I was adopted… I wasn’t there for very long…”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Orange Shirt has a short leg and a summer birthday. The Indian Agents put off taking her for one more year. One more year. And when they do come, they come for her sister.
Let go, Jenny! Let go-
NO! Please! We have to stay together! Paula?! Paula, stop! Please, mister! She needs me.
Cut; the Orange Shirt is the oldest in the first grade and the tallest too. Not that the younger kids seem to notice. Or to mind.
Later, they take them to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“It was my… friends, and my sister that suffered the most there.” The Orange Shirt is quiet for a moment. “I miss them all so much. It’s worse with Polly though. Of course it is. We were like this… We were… They call them ‘Irish twins,’ you know. She was my other half.”
The Dinner Shirt pleads as her twin tails are hacked clean off. MY HAIR! MY HAIR! And they run the clippers rough across her scalp. Until her words become wordless. And the blood runs red down her blood red face. The Orange Shirt holds still for them. And they shave both of them down clean.
Later, they take them to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“And the kids… The other kids… Sometimes it seemed like they were more her friends than mine. But of course we were friends. It’s just… complicated when you’re that age. Grownups talk about how childhood is simple. But it’s not. It’s not even innocent. Not where I’m standing.”
The Polo Shirt talks a lot about hockey. And rugby. And football. And lacrosse. And Western Shirt loves to listen when…
My folks train horses for rich folks. We used to ride ‘em all the time back on the ranch.
Really?! Horses are so cool! Do you have your own?
Sometimes she talks in Ojibwe. And has to go away “to sit” for a while. She always comes back though. Some don’t. Always comes back with a dragging leg. With lines on her knuckles. Always comes back. To shoot the basket. To guard the goal. Always comes back… and then she doesn’t…
Later, they take her to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“It was run by this awful old lady. Lavender McDade. They call them Residential Schools but we hardly even learned anything. Not history or science. Not letters or numbers. Not really. There was some of that. But mostly we were working. This was way up in Quebec, just south of Nunavut. They were all over the country. There were even some schools here. Actually, a lot of schools… Anyway, she had a farm there. Ferme de Choux.”
They take them to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful!
I’m hungry, the Undershirt whimpers. Are you sure we can’t-
The Overshirt rolls his eyes. Come on, Vernon, seriously? We’re already in enough trouble as it is… Anyway. He wipes his hands on his jeans, smearing them with his dirt-covered fingers. You hate vegetables.
Feed the plants!
“Us younger kids they had working out in the cabbage patch. Weeding. Watering. That sort of thing. Snacking was against the rules. Most of us did it anyway. And, well, if you got caught you got the strap. I mean if you got lucky.” They wince. Some of them. “The paddle was worse. And when the nuns got the ruler…” They all wince. “It wasn’t so bad if she used it on your hands.”
The Kariyushi Shirt on the phone with her mother. 迎えに来てもらえますか？具合がよくありません。
There’ll be no heathen Indian talk in my school! the headmistress shouts at her.
Missus McDade? the Aloha Shirt says, playing with a beaded strand of hair. She’s speaking Japanese.
Well, she’d better start in English if she knows what’s good for her! Followed by the usual threats. But - of course - they’re only threats. Mostly, the Kariyushi Shirt is ignored… unlike her friend. Unlike most of their classmates.
Later, they take her to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“We were also forbidden from speaking our languages. Or doing, well, anything connected to our previous culture. It was the whole point of them, after all. Forcing us to fit into their cookie cutter White mold.”
The Orange Shirt is White already. If not by her teachers’ standards, then by the other kids. The older kids. The ones who know better-
What’s a May-tee?
Looks White. Acts French…
She’s not a real Indian. Just look at her face!
-so she stays with the ones that don’t.
But they take all of them to the cabbage patch.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“They started disappearing even before, you know. Even before I left. No, of course I don’t blame myself… I mean, I used to. I have to keep thinking, well, they didn’t die for me.”
Out of nowhere. Into here. The Poet Shirt has never met the Polo Shirt. And never will. Still. They resemble each other in no small part. Fat, yellow-haired girls with glasses. The similarities don’t go any farther. The Polo Shirt is loud and brash and bossy. The Poet is shy and very nervous. Especially nervous alone in the halls. The click of a camera. She turns around fast… and can never quite see the taker or the watcher or… whoever he is. Or she.
No one ever takes Polo’s picture. They don’t need to. And then they can’t.
Both of them in the cabbage patch.
Make yourself useful!
One above.
Feed the plants!
And one below.
“The nuns were just as bad as the priest. Worse even, I think. There were more of them.”
And the teachers. And the coaches. And the headmistress is the worst of them all. She picks the Talisman Shirt up by the wrist and shakes him. She rips the turban away from his curls.
Indian devil worship!
But Miss! The Dress Shirt with her long brown hair. Her no-nonsense tone. He’s Muslim, not Peyote! His daddy’s from Africa!
Mrs. McDade is apoplectic. That’s even worse!
She drags them to the cabbage patch by the hair.
Make yourself useful or I’ll feed the plants!
“There’s nothing I hate worse than a racist. Nothing. In the whole wide world. Don’t get me wrong, other prejudices are bad, but when you look, a lot of them involve racism too, deep down.”
Dress Shirt in pants. Dress Shirt in the boys’ bathrooms. Dress Shirt held down as the headmistress shaves her head.
But Miss, I am a girl! Daddy says I’m both-
McDade shoves the cut-off hanks of hair into Dress Shirt’s mouth and gets the paddle. Dress Shirt chokes and coughs up hair as McDade makes her count.
Later, they take her to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
Cut; the Bib Shirt watches Dress Shirt cry when she comes home from school. She doesn’t know why her hair is now short, or why Mommy is crying over it. Or why the Dress Shirt whimpers when Bib Shirt holds up her own pair of scissors.
I want to be just like you.
“Like I said. I was adopted. Lotsa kids were. Especially, um… The ones who looked like me. My mom and dad… They really liked freckles. They would have liked Paula Louise. I think. She woulda liked them too.”
The priest and Dinner Shirt. The first week there. She’s a small girl. But the nuns have experience. They can tell. They can always tell. Cut; the Diapershirt is born and buried in a butter box. And the Dinner Shirt rakes the ground with bloody fingers. And wails. Cut; Dinner Shirt sits in the closet in a puddle of her own piss and blood, watching the light fade through the crack in the door, again and again. So thirsty. So hungry. She gnaws her sleeves to rags. It’s not enough.
Later, they take her to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“Marshmallows were her favorite.” There are tears in the Orange Shirt’s eyes.
It’s pizza day in the cafeteria. The boys all sit together. Overshirt on the end with his brother. Everything on it. Picking off and handing over the little fish.
You know the rules! the monitor starts shouting. No sharing food!
But… but Mrs. Norris, we just-
She isn’t listening. Not here. Not in the office. Not in the coatroom. The kids screaming and hammering against the locked closet door. The weasel-faced priest unlocks the door. You can come out if you do one thing for me. I want to watch…
Later (Overshirt sobbing with his fly undone, Undershirt limping and bleeding), they take them to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“My kids… They’re so different. They fight all the time. Not like me and Paula. I wonder sometimes if… Maybe if I had been a better sister…”
Henley Shirt and Tolstoy Shirt. Two little blonde girls. Not true sisters. Not really. Close enough that they might be all the same. As fat and squat as any of the other kids. It doesn’t stop them poking fun. They aren’t Indian either, despite their claims about their grandma being a Cree princess.
Don’t call me an Indian!
And just like that, the Bowling Shirt is dragged away. By his now-thin hair. (Forced through with comb and relaxer.) To the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“When I was there… of course there was a bullying problem. You see that even with happy, normal kids. Oh… Are we not supposed to say normal, eh? What about typical? What about stable? I got it pretty bad from the older kids. A lot of us did for being Metis. Um,” she adds, almost guiltily, “don’t call us Indians, by the way. That’s… not so valid, you know, up north. A closed term, they call it. Only we can use it. Like the f-word for gay people.”
The staff calls them worse than that. In class. During sermon. And out in the cabbage patch.
Make yourself useful!
The brothers - Overshirt and Undershirt - on the ground above.
Feed the plants!
The cousins - Camp Shirt and Baseball Shirt - underneath.
“Someone used radar or something like that. To look into the ground. They say there could be a thousand bodies down there. Another thousand anywhere like it - at every Indian school. They don’t know for sure though. Can’t know without digging up the place. And it still belongs to the church… It’s like they’re still trapped there. In life or death. It’s like it doesn’t even matter. Like it’s been a hundred years and nothing’s changed!”
The Aloha Shirt is dragged into the bathroom. Her own orange shirt is pulled straight off and ripped into shreds by McDade. She’s left alone after that, sobbing her heart out. Not old enough for even a training bra, she walks half-naked to grab a spare shirt from the lost and found.
Later, they take her to the cabbage patch. Behind the school.
Make yourself useful! Feed the plants!
“It hasn’t been a hundred years, though. More like… Maybe like… nineteen.”
The Orange Shirt is there at the memorial. Not the funeral - there isn’t a funeral. Coffins without bodies, pictures without names. Camp Shirt and Baseball Shirt and Polo Shirt. Sweatshirt and T-Shirt. Western Shirt. And Dinner Shirt.
“They gave us numbers. When we came there. And that’s what they called us.”
Still though. She tries to remember. The ones she knew: Otis Lee and Canon Lee and Sybil Sadie. Tyler Bo and Ramie Bo (short for Rachel Marie). Dawson Glenn. And… and…
Aw, don’t cry, Jenny. They’re finally good for something. You know what we always say…
Make yourself useful, the Orange Shirt chokes. F-feed the plants…
“Baby Dodd. His mother was my little sister.”
Barry Al Bet?
Here. Talisman Shirt.
Travis Edward Hooper?
Travis Edward Hooper the Third. Bowling Shirt.
Sheereena Kahale? and Michiko Hasegawa?
Here! and Here! Aloha Shirt and Karyushi Shirt.
Marybeth Duncan?
Here! Dress Shirt.
Norma Jean Bechnell?
Present! Poet Shirt.
Melanie Duff? and Billie Duff and Nick Duff?
We’re here, sir. Ghost Shirt and Ghillie Shirt and Grandfather Shirt.
Vernon Dabner?
Here! Undershirt.
Paula Louise?
Who?!
The rabbity-faced old teacher shakes his head. It’s nothing… Myles Dabner, was it? Myles. You look like an old girlfriend… Anyway. You’re late. You know what that means.
No recess, Overshirt intones. Make yourself useful. Feed the plants.
“I hope nothing like this ever happens again. Ever.”
A school in rural Quebec. On old monastery grounds. The only school around for miles. The Orange Shirt drives Undershirt and Overshirt there with tears in her eyes. Be good, okay? she says, but they’re gone already. Run up to the playground. And the cabbage patch. Behind the school. Where their friends are waiting…
And her friends are waiting…
And they feed the plants. They all do. In their way.
“Well…” The Orange Shirt tugs at her collar. “They don’t call it a residential school anymore.”
Chapter 8: *CSA* (Transformers) A Story about Cobalt Red
Summary:
TW: hard labour slavery, physical and sexual child abuse, war, child soldiers, whipping, branding, imprisonment, betrayal, manslaughter.
We only found out Congo Week existed this month, and we didn't want to wait a whole year for it to come around again, so enjoy now!
https://congoweek.org/
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEconomics/comments/120t89c/what_can_consumers_do_to_avoid_encouraging/
Chapter Text
“I didn’t know they made pink phones. Is it new?”
“Yeah! I… I mean…” The Watchwoman mumbles. “I have to keep my tech up to date. For work, you know…”
Cobalt Blue wears a lot of blue, a lot of red, a lot of silver jewelry. His hair is short but heavily styled. Blue-black. Like his eyes. When he speaks, his accent is Congolese and his voice is deep.
“Where’d you get it?” he asks. “Do they come in blue?”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the DRC. Kolwezi. Cobalt Red has worked the mines for as long as he can remember. Broken nails. Broken fingers. Scrounging and scraping out his weight in ore. He’s a toddler. He’s a child. He’s a gangly teenage boy.
What do they do with all this stuff? Do you ever wonder?
Why would I? says Cobalt Red. That’s not my job.
“Whatcha got there?”
“It’s a fidget toy,” says Dr. Robot. Expression impassive. But he tenses slightly. “One of the newer models. They do make non-electronic versions. But…”
“I get you, I get you. Do they come in blue?”
Cobalt Red does what he’s told, when he’s told to do it-
“Oh my g- Dude! You’re like a real life robot!”
The Automaton giggles. “It’s a little uncomfortable. I’m still growing so Father has to get new parts all the time and… oh.”
“They look like regular skin and everything. Could you get them in any color though? What about blue?”
-and Cobalt Blue does what he wants.
“Whatcha playing?”
“Castlestein 8,” Player 2 says absently. Eyes glazed by the screen. “Had to get a new gaming laptop just to play it on. Check out this baby!”
“It’s purple!” he says, delighted. “Do they come in blue?”
An only-slightly-older girl supervises production. In a filthy pink dress with most of the skirt torn apart. And bare, bloody feet. And a whip that doesn’t quite fit in either hand.
Faster! she barks. Don’t make me hurt you!
Come on, D, Cobalt Blue says, knocking his shoulder. Elita’s a softy. You don’t think she’d really do it, do you?
Her back is bloody when she turns around.
No, Cobalt Red says. I don’t.
“So you’re the guys who make-it make it, yeah?”
“Sorry?” the Groom asks. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Technology. Things like that.”
“Well, yes,” says the Pioneer.
And the Author adds: “We were never involved, though, the way you’re thinking of.”
“With Sentinel? Yeah. I mean… it all comes back to Iacon. And we only ever got to see one part of the whole process. What do you do with the ore once you get it? It was always super rough when I was a miner. Most of the time, it wasn’t even blue. How do you get it that way?”
The mine is run by a man in purple velvet. Likes to throw his weight around. Likes to pin Cobalt Red against the wall. Likes to pin Cobalt Red beneath him. And go at it like machinery. It’s the same with Elita. With any of the girls here. With most of the boys. Not Cobalt Blue though. Red covers for him… and lets Blue go on thinking that he’s just that slick and quick and hard to catch.
“What are you kids even fighting about?”
“WADDLETECH verSUS ROBINsonS!” the Invader screeches.
Man in Black nods emphatically. “Robinson!”
“WADDLETECH! The SCREEN is THINNER!”
“Robinson! The screen is bigger!”
“They both look the same to me,” Cobalt says. “Cool that this one comes in blue.”
What do they do with this stuff?
They make phones with it. Phones and cameras and… I don’t know what else.
“Hey! Kid! What does that thing do?”
Text to speech device. It’s electronic.
How does that work? Phones? Cars? Is it like fuel or…?
Don’t know, Cobalt Red says and knocks his shoulder. Doesn’t matter. You’re here until you die.
Here until you die, anyway…
What does that mean?
“I thought they used gasoline to power cars.”
“Not electric,” the Speed Demon says. “She’s a beaut, isn’t she? Self driving. Better for the environment.”
“It’s… nice.”
“Oh, shit. Dude. I’m sorry.”
“About what? I was just thinking… it’d look better in blue than red.”
They bring in new meat from time to time. This time it’s a boy with scars on his shoulders. And scars on his back. And scars on his stomach. His buttocks. And sides. They call him Bourdan. He seems not to hear them. He talks animatedly to no one at all.
“What’s that thing?”
“Don’t talk about Oso like that!”
“No, I mean… What’s that in his hands? A phone? Or… something?”
“It’s a tablet. You know. For kids! Have you never seen one before?”
“I like the case. Blue’s my favorite.”
I feel bad for him.
Well, don’t, Cobalt Red says. He was a rebel. M23. This is all their fault.
Bourdan can’t be more than fourteen years old. If that. And he’s got at least a year on Cobalt - Red and Blue.
“You build robots? That’s so cool!”
“And mostly theoretical,” the Mad Scientist says. “They’ll be one of the first commercially available robo-aids. They will be. Someday. Right now Emily here is the prototype.”
“You should make them in all different colors. The ones on TV, they’re always white or silver. What about real colors?”
“Like red?”
“And blue!”
You remind me of Steve, Bourdan says.
Who’s Steve? Another soldier?
He was… He died.
Oh, says Cobalt Red.
“I don’t understand.”
“Understand what?” the Time Traveller asks, the Voyager hanging close to him.
“How’d he see it? How did… How does that work? I don’t… I don’t understand.”
“It was a video. Have you never seen one before?”
“Of course I… Well, one time I… Oh, hey! Can you change the background colors on that thing? To blue, even?”
The man who owns the mines. They’ve seen him a handful of times - always on camera. Heard his voice on the manager’s phone.
He’s called Sentinel, I think.
No, you idiot. That’s the company!
“How do you use that… thing again? The one you need all those computers for?”
Mrs. Ashley Huggbees smiles big and bright and wide. “THE INTERNET?!”
“That’s what I said. How did you… did you do something to make your… make your browser look like that? Could I make it blue or something?”
Cobalt Red asleep where he’s standing. Cobalt Blue shaking him. Hard. D! Wake up, come on!
Wha…?
Rian! Bourdan. Through the haze of smoke and rifles. Deo Sebatien!
Elita’s voice: Everybody get down!
“Is that like a Pear Pod?”
“What? No, you khar! It’s a Pear Watch! Totalllly different.” Megaera snorts when she laughs and thwacks Cobalt Blue. Hard. “You’ve gotta get one! It’ll totalllly change your life.”
“Do they come in blue?”
Death to Sentinel! Death to Iacon! Death to Rwanda and the M23!
What’s going on? The guards… Should we help them?
Are you kidding? says Cobalt Red. Run!
So they run. The ground is dry and bleak and barren. There’s no place to hide. So they keep running. Barefoot. Bloody. Dragging along whoever they can. Elita makes it. So does Bourdan.
“What’s a dating simulator?”
“Oh! It’s great, you’ll see!” Yandere babbles, dragging him towards her. “You can borrow one of… Oh, do you have a computer?”
“No? Dad’s kind of hesitant with buying them because-”
“Well, you’ll have to go out and buy one. You can get them cheap at Mallmart! You hafta get a gaming laptop! I think everybody should have one!”
Cyan and Cerise nod their assent.
“Do they-”
“Yes. They come in blue.”
“… I was going to say used.”
Eventually they all fall down together. A tangle of limbs in the freezing sand. Heavy breathing gives way to heavier breathing.
Cut; Cobalt Red starts awake. There’s a boot on his chest and a flashlight glaring at his face. In his eyes.
Get up! Now! A teenager’s voice. High and crackly. I mean it!
Who…? What…?
Shit. Bourdan squeaks. It’s the FARDC.
“Lead? Is that like-”
“No, stupid.” The Social Butterfly rolls her eyes. “L-E-D.”
“Where’d you get them? Do they come in blue?”
The FARDC isn’t so different from M23, it seems. Child soldiers. With their coats hanging off their shoulders. Like elephant skin. And their boots stuffed with newspapers. They search Cobalt Red for weapons. For food. For… anything, really. He has nothing. They stand there, staring at each other for a while. With bare and empty hands.
“Maybe we can play sometime.”
“Sure, but you’ll have to get a new laptop.”
“This is a new laptop.”
“It’s the wrong kind.” Lancelot of the Lake shakes his head. “And it’s an older model. Used. You need a new new one. With enough space for all your games.”
“Aw.”
“I’ll help you look, if you want?”
“… Can you find me one in blue?”
Child soldiers. Steven Sesanga. Boots stuffed with newspaper. Sandy Wanga. Child soldiers with the same broken look in their eyes. Charlie Wanga. Cobalt Red goes with them. Cobalt Blue lags behind…
“You can make your own go-cart on this app,” the Champion tells him. “You might need to buy a new phone though. Or something. They don’t work on older models. But, look! They come in blue!”
Cobalt Blue lags behind. With Elita. With Bourdan. Cobalt Red walks in front. With their new friends… “friends”.
It’s a trap! Hit the dirt!
M23. Boots. Guns - not held by children (maybe they were. Once). They take as many prisoners as they can carry - Steven and Sandy and Charlie… and Cobalt Red. They shoot the rest - Elita and Bourdan and Cobalt Blue.
“You use the internet for this game,” says the Victor. “It’s more adult than the one you were playing before. But you can still customize your car and everything. There’s just this one shade of blue though. But you won’t have to buy a new phone.”
“That’s okay. I was thinking of getting one anyway.”
He thinks it’s the mines at first. Low ceiling. Smell of dust and dirt and blood. But there are bars on the windows. (There are windows!) There are heavy bolt locks on the door. The jailer… soldier… whoever she is… She’s rutting into the oldest boy with some kind of metal pole, making him scream. She smiles. Cobalt Red opens his eyes.
Look who’s awake. Our little escape artist.
Where’s Rian?
D, Sandy Wanga says.
No. No. Nonononono-
Aww, you miss your boyfriend? I wouldn’t worry. Let’s give you something else to think about. You cost Sentinel a lot of money. So she burns the company logo into his chest.
“That’s a… tablet, right? Like the Rock has?”
“Not hardly.” The Dulcimer Player grins. “That’s a kid’s toy. This is my recovery present. From my… my older sister. It’s even purple.”
“I want one in blue!”
Cobalt Blue isn’t dead. (Or Elita. Or Bourdan.) Cobalt Red doesn’t know that. Not for weeks. Not for months. Not for years. Then FARDC bombs the prison.
“I design a lot of those… high tech gadgets. VR headsets. Pear Watches. Those are the things that come to mind… We import a lot of coltan, cobalt, diamonds… Sorry about that.”
“You should add more colors.”
“Working on it. The models this year are going to be red and blue.”
Cobalt Red. Cobalt Blue. Hand in hand. Before the court.
Asylum, please.
They testify before the United Nations.
Asylum!
Cobalt Blue shows them the bullet in his shoulder. Cobalt Red bears his chest to show the brand. They're young men, still children, really. Their story is terrible. Terrible enough. As bad as Frosting’s.
Cut; welcome to America. And a tenement on Outland Avenue. Elita and Bourdan. Steven and Sandy and Charlie and-
Cut; Red and Blue share a bed. They always have. Things are good for a while.
“That’s not a Sentinel thing, is it?”
“My phone? Yeah. Why?”
“Isn’t that… odd for you?” says the Sacrifice. “Because…”
“Not really. Sentinel. Iacon. Pear. WaddleTech… It’s all the same. All the time. I’m not pressed about it.”
They protest outside the Sentinel building. Sentinel - Prime Electronics. With signs. With bricks. Under the White Fang. Cobalt Blue doesn’t come to all of them.
This is dangerous, D. The Fang is no joke. You know what they did to that poor little White girl.
What one person did! And Bagheera Bachchan is White Fang too! I think even the Schnee girl is now!
They’re violent extremists! They’re… they’re terrorists!
Sentinel’s the terrorist! Look what they did to me!
“What are you doing?”
“O-oh! Hi! Awe and I were… Um!”
“Shock’s gonna show me where the cobalt goes!”
“What?”
“She wanted to know what you needed it for. I told her it goes inside the phone.”
“So he’s opening it up for me!”
“Isn’t that kind of a waste? I mean…”
“No, no, no. You don’t understand. This is an old phone. Nobody’s using it anymore.”
“Huh.” Cobalt Blue leans in, squinting at the inside. “Thought there’d be more blue.”
Cobalt Red hugs him, as Blue comes through the door.
You’re in a good mood today!
It’s Sentinel! The CEO, he wants to meet me! To meet us! You’ll come, won’t you?
I… I don’t know, D.
Please?
I… He sighs. Of course.
We’ll make him listen.
Whatever you say, D…
“My uncle,” says Pua Mae, “is a bioengineer. He puts computers inside of people.”
“I have one of those. A pacemaker.”
“What color is it?”
“I… don’t… know… It sorta looks blue. Kind of. But that might just the way veins look. You get me?”
“Did they use cobalt to make it?”
“They use cobalt in everything.”
The CEO wears a blue suit and silver jewelry and he receives them with open arms. He leads them around the factory. All the shiny, silver parts. The clean bits.
I care, he says, about my employees.
Cobalt Red believes him.
I’d like to give you a job here. Maybe as a consultant. Someone who knows what the miners want, eh?
“My phone! Damnit!”
“Just buy a new one. They’re not even that expensive anymore.”
Cobalt Red goes to work. Ever diligent. Ever faithful. Cobalt Blue plays hooky. Leaves early. Calls in sick.
I like just knowing I can do it. You know?
“I need the newest model! Everyone else has one!”
Cobalt Blue isn’t there when it happens. The first time it happens. A hand slips from Red’s shoulder. To his back. His buttocks. His naked inner thigh.
What are you-
You may be free now. From the mines. From that shithole of a country. But you will always, always belong to me. There’s nothing you can do to change that.
“I won it in a raffle. Pretty cool, right?”
It’s the same. It’s just the same as it was before.
I thought… You said you wanted to help me.
You should be thrilled I’m giving you the time of day, you stupid bitch. He rips open his collar. Drags his nails across the branding.
Cobalt Red grabs his wrist and pushes just hard enough. How? he says. How did you know that was there? You’re just the CEO. You didn’t know-
Sentinel ignores him. Not her best work. Still though. Serviceable.
And Cobalt sees RED.
“Just dump it. Nobody wants your old TV. Even if it does work.”
Cobalt Blue on the Late Night Show: I don’t care why he did it. Murder is murder. There's never an excuse.
Cut; Cobalt Red in a red prison jumpsuit. Ankles chained. Shovel in hand. As the guards force them onward. The only difference is the lack of cobalt.
Faster!
Here they mine gold.
“Everybody smile! Oh. Oh, no, wait…”
“Who’s that in that picture?”
“Elita.”
“No. The guy in the red-”
Cobalt Blue curses, scrolling through his camera roll. “Deleted, see? I’ve been meaning to get a new one. With more cloud space.” And he gazes at the real clouds up in the blue.
Chapter 9: *CSA* (Barbie) Stories about MMIW
Summary:
TW: child sexual abuse, underage pregnancy, incest, racism/racial slurs, ableism, kidnapping, child murder, disbelief, running away. NOTE: anti-Native racial slurs were put in by our Native cowriter, again.
https://www.nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/
https://www.nativehope.org/missing-and-murdered-indigenous-women-mmiw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KsplOrlCaM
Chapter Text
A Story about the Arctic
“Hi, Barbie!”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And the Arctic is…
She’s a nine year old girl. In a brown, fur-lined parka. A bit chubby. Dark hair and brown eyes.
“Hi, Barbie! Hi, Barbie! Hi-”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; The Arctic is just one part of it. The Arctic is just one part of that. And Barbie is just one part of hers…
Hi, I’m Barbie!
She picks her up from a Goodwill, transferred from another, smaller Goodwill, transferred from…
“Hi, Barbie!”
she says,
“Hi, Barbie!”
The Arctic is cold, but beautiful. The Arctic is just beautiful. That’s what her mother says. And everyone around their village. Aleut. Unangas. The people of the islands… to the western side. It’s hours and hours to the nearest city. It’s hours and hours to the nearest town. The White men still come here. And linger like wolves on the outskirts. In their expensive nylon snowsuits. Like wolves, her grandmother says. And even more dangerous.
What makes them dangerous? the Arctic asks. They look like us, only…
You’ll understand when you’re older.
“Hi, Barbie!”
she says,
“Hi, Skipper!”
The Arctic is lonely. There are other children in the village. Of course there are. Babies though. Or older girls. Or boys who don’t want to play dolls. Or boys who do, but don’t have any. She doesn’t have any other dolls to share. Just Barbie.
“Hi, Barbie!”
she says,
“Hi, Ken!”
They notice. Like a wolf notices the lame fawn, lagging behind the rest…
“Hi, Barbie!”
“Hi… Who are you?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. In her hands. In his.
“Do you want to play with me?”
A Story about the Subarctic
“Everybody! Turn to the Barbie next to you, tell her how much you love her. Compliment her!”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And Inuit is… And Yupik is…
They are… Two little girls in two little snowsuits. White trimmed with fur trimmed with black and red. Inuit is slightly older. Barefaced. Yupik wears her mother’s makeup. Lots of makeup.
“Uh… Whose turn is it again?”
“You pick,” Inuit says. “They’re both Barbie. I don’t mind.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the Subarctic is just one part of it. The Subarctic… Yupik and Inuit are just two parts of that. And Barbie is just one part of theirs…
Hi, I’m Barbie!
They have lots already. They find one more on the side of the road. A scattering of broken pieces. And someone’s old brown parka. Thrown off of the highway overpass. Coming from the west.
Probably Alaska. Probably the islands… It’s probably fine to take them, right? And we need more for our game.
“Reporter Barbie, you can ask me any question you want.”
“How come you’re so amazing?”
A girl with a parka. On the nightly news.
I want you girls to stay away from the highway. You have no idea how dangerous-
But we- Yupik begins. Inuit shushes her.
Yes, Mrs. Nukusuk. We know.
“No comment! No, seriously, no comment.”
You don’t want to get in trouble, do you? If my parents find out… they might not let me come over anymore. Promise you won’t tell, okay?
Promise. But… let’s not go back, ‘kay?
Promise.
“I love you guys!”
It’s quite a ways between Yupik’s village and Inuit’s. An hour’s drive at least. And neither of their parents has the money for gas for them to do this every weekend. Maybe once a month. They swap Barbie between them.
Did she lend you one of her dolls?
Cut; Inuit on the phone with Yupik. Her mother standing over her, arms folded. Mom says we can’t hang out anymore. I’m sorry I took you to the overpass…
“The Nobel Prize in Journalism goes to… Barbie!”
“I worked very hard… so, I deserve it!”
Yupik on the phone with Inuit. Alone in the living room. In the middle of the night. So, um… she really gave it to you, huh?
It’s my own fault for blabbing. Are your parents mad?
A little… They didn’t yell or anything.
My mom never yells. At least… not usually. It’s different this time.
Different how?
“The Nobel Prize in literature goes to… Barbie! You’re the voice of a generation.”
“I know!”
Inuit’s parents go out with their guns and rods and leave her home with the television on. She calls Yupik.
Yupik’s parents pack up the car and drive to Anchorage. Grocery run. She picks up the phone.
Cut;
I miss you!
I miss you!
They can make it, it’s decided. Probably… If Yupik walks one way. And Inuit walks the other. And they meet in the middle. And play just one game.
“Only Barbies are Barbies, and we would argue that corporations have no free speech rights to begin with, so any claim on their part to be exercising a right is just their attempt to turn our democracy into a plutocracy!”
“Yeah! Wait… Um, what’s a Plutocracy?”
“Something bad, I think? They were talking about it on the news.”
“Okay, okay. Go back to the game now.”
“This makes me emotional! And I’m expressing it. I have no difficulty holding both logic and feeling at the same time. It does not diminish my powers, it expands them.”
“Yeah! Um, what does diminish mean?”
“It means to lessen something,” says the man, leaning out the window of his car. “You girls shouldn’t be playing under here. It’s dangerous, you know.”
They meet under the overpass. They bring their dolls.
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t listen to him,” Inuit says. One hand shoving Yupik behind her. The other brandishing her doll. “We’re just playing. Leave us alone.”
“Aw, don’t be like that.” And he smiles. Pretty. And plastic and perfect. Like Barbie. Just like Barbie. “Come on. Hop in and I’ll give you a ride. You can even keep playing. Maybe I can play along…?”
A Story about the Northeast
“Barbie has a great day every day.”
“What about Ken?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And the Northeast is…
Algonquian. Long brown dress. Long black hair. She hugs her baby - Haudenosaunee with her beaded headband and knitted poncho and long, frilled skirt. She hugs her belly.
“Ken only has a good day if Barbie looks at him. He’s her accessory. Everybody knows that. Like men used to be before.”
“Well… I think it’s a little more complicated.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Okay… Can I be Barbie this time?”
“No,” says Haudenosaunee. “They're my dolls now. You had your chance.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; The Northeast is just one part of it. The North East are just two parts of that. But Haudenosaunee is Algonquian’s whole world. From the moment she comes into it…
“Hi, Barbie!”
“Hi, Ken!”
Before that. There is Barbie. (Hi, I’m Barbie!) And candy. And a man at the Powwow. A White man. There is blood, there is crying, there is pain… And Algonquian throws herself out of his car and runs down the highway.
“Hey, Barbie! Check me out!”
“Ken! No!”
“Ken…?”
“Oh, hi, Barbie. How much of that did you see?”
“We saw the whole thing!”
“Let’s get you up on your feet.”
Hours later. The Algonquian in the tiny rez hospital. Clutching the doll he bribed her with.
I didn’t recognize him. Maybe he was from a different tribe. Iroquois or something…
You’ll be okay, the doctor says. She’ll be okay.
Are you sure? You don’t want to give her any contraceptives…?
We aren’t allowed to carry any. I wouldn’t worry about it. She’s so young…
“If I wasn’t severely injured, I’d beach you off right now, Ken!”
Nine months later, Haudenosaunee is born.
“Not even broken, you’ll be just fine.”
“Shredding waves is much more dangerous than people know.”
“You’re very brave, Ken.”
“Thanks, Barbie.”
Nine years later. Another powwow. Another man.
That’s a pretty doll you got there. What’s her name?
It’s Barbie. They're all Barbie.
Where’d you get them?
My mom… She gave me her whole collection. They’re all White though. They don’t make Native Barbies anymore.
That’s funny. I think my daughter used to have one… I might still have it at home. Shouldn’t be too far. Come with me?
“Mommy? I… I think I need a doctor.”
“Dr. Barbie’s right over here-”
“No. A real doctor.”
Her water’s broken beneath her massive belly. Wetting her shoes and socks and…
“Oh. Oh. I… I…” Looking around frantically, Algonquian’s eyes land on the first face available. “She’s in labor! Can you help?”
“Don’t forget Barbie,” Haudenosaunee whimpers.
“You get them,” the man says. Pointing to the pretty, plastic pile. “You can join us in the car.”
A Story about the Northwest Coast
“Hey, Barbie? Can I come over later?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And the Northwest Coast is…
A little girl wrapped up in her baby blanket. Plastic tiara perched crooked in her long black hair - straight as a razor.
“Yeah, okay, I don’t have anything big planned.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; The Northwest coast is just one, beautiful part of it. The Northwest Coast is just one beautiful part of that. And Barbie is everything.
Hi, I’m Barbie!
The doll comes new. In the box. For her birthday. From parents who scraped and saved and even starved a little. To make it special for her.
Hi, Barbie! I’m… Barbie.
They love her. They really do. More than life. More than anything.
“Hey, Barbie! Check me out!”
There are other little girls here on Quileute land. And boys. But the Northwest Coast is shy and solitary and not much interested in their games anyway - especially as they get bigger and they get older. And they start asking for phones, for makeup, for designer shoes… And the Northwest Coast stays the same.
Hi, I’m… This isn’t a Barbie.
I know, hon. But your mom and I… We’ve been thinking…
You’ve got a lot of Barbies, sweetheart. And you’re starting high school next year. Don’t you think…
Think what?
It’s time to grow up.
“This is a real rager, Barbie!”
she says.
“Thanks, Barbie!”
She’s singled out. Of course she is. By just about every kid in school. The White ones and the Indians. The girls and the boys. Even the other SPED kids. Northwest Coast eats lunch on the bleachers. Just her and Barbie.
Are you one of those people that collects dolls and toys and stuff? I’ve seen some really weird customizations on WaddleWorld…
I just collect them, Northwest says. I’m not good at painting or… um, stuff like that.
That’s cool, that’s cool.
“Gosh, this night is just perfect!”
“It’s perfectly perfect!”
The boy. He’s nice to her.
I’m like the Ken to your Barbie, huh?
“You look so beautiful, Barbie!”
“Thank you, Barbie! I feel so beautiful!”
“So do I!”
He’s nice to her parents. They like him.
He’s like the Ken to your Barbie, isn’t he?
“This is the best day ever!”
He asks her to be his girlfriend.
I dunno, Northwest says. I’ve never been anyone’s girlfriend.
I’ll show you.
She cries and tries to run. He doesn’t let her.
Shut up! Shut up! Like anyone else will have you, retard!
“You ever think about dying?”
Ken at the hardware store buying rope and tape. And lots of it. Ken at the toy store buying a shiny new doll.
The game stops. Barbie is pink and plastic… but she doesn’t seem as pretty or perfect as the one in his hands.
“Can I play too?”
A Story about the Plateau
“Wow.”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect and the Plateau is…
She has blue eyes. And long black hair, braided, and turquoise jewelry.
“You can go now.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the plateau is just one part of that. The Plateau is just one part of that. She’s Nez Perce - Nimíipuu - born and raised. She speaks the language. She knows the songs. And the dances.
Hi, I’m Barbie!
The only thing her father ever sends her. Pink and pretty and perfect… but the Plateau wishes she weren’t so blonde.
“I was thinking that maybe I could, you know, stay over tonight?”
“Why?”
“Cause we’re girlfriend-boyfriend.”
“To do what?”
“To… I’m not actually sure.”
Plateau’s father is White. She’s two years old when he walks out on them. She’s raised by her mother. And her grandmother. And her maiden aunts.
You have his eyes. But they don’t say it fondly.
He was a mean drunk.
White men are like the wolves here, Nia. The money comes in with them. But they’re dangerous if you get too close. Your father… Don’t let it happen to you, promise me?
“I don’t want you here.”
Her father… She’s twelve years old when he comes back. Crying alienation. When he takes custody. And takes her away with him. To Willows, Wisconsin. Where the real Barbie lives.
“Is it Ken?”
“No, Ken is just a good friend.”
It starts almost immediately. Plateau in bed. Her father creeping in and climbing on top of her. holding her down as she thrashes and cries.
I’m sorry, he says at breakfast the next morning. You just look so much like your mom.
She comes home from school to an empty house. No surprise there - he works late into the evening. And a doll on her bed. Pretty and plastic. A peace offering… until he climbs into her bed again.
“After all, this is my dream house. It’s Barbie’s dream house. Not Ken’s dream house. Right?”
“Right as always.”
It’s a vicious cycle. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Don’t tell your mother.
She tells everyone. None of them believe her.
“And it’s girls’ night!”
She stays over at Barbie’s house. Barbie Roberts. Not Barbie Handler. The real one. As pretty as the doll her grandmother made when she got sick of Malibu Stacey. The one her father named her after. Long before she becomes famous in her own right. With even longer, blonder hair. They get in bed together.
Don’t worry, Plateau whispers. I’ll deal with your dad.
What?
What?
My dad? Why would he…?
“Every night is girls’ night.”
Court. The police. Her doctor from Idaho. Her doctor from here… Her mother and grandmother and maiden aunts. And her father. Her father… He seems angry. But he doesn’t say a word. He buys her a brand new doll. And she plays with it. Because that’s what little girls do.
“Every night! Forever!”
“Every night.”
“Forever and ever! Goodnight!”
Plateau and Barbie… and Barbie Classic.
My mom’s winning, we think, in court. So I’ll probably go back with her when all of this is done.
Oh… says Barbie Classic. That’s good. Um, will I ever see you again?
“Nia?”
She screams and grabs her doll. The leering figure of her father creeping up from the end of the bed…
“Let's play one more game.”
A Story about the Great Basin
“Goodnight, Barbies, I’m totally not thinking about death anymore!”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect and the Great Basin is… (are?)
There are four of them. Little girls in powwow dresses. Brown eyes and sleek black hair. Shoshone in white. Ute in blue and white with the beaded neckline. Paiute dressed in pink from head to toe. And Washoe in brown with more beading. They sit in the grass by the open fire. Watching the dancers. Nodding along to the drums. Mostly though, they’re focused on the game.
“Okay, now it’s morning.”
“Yeah! Except make it that she doesn’t wanna wake up.”
“Like she’s tired or she doesn’t wanna live anymore?”
“Um. The first thing.”
“Okay! And make it that she’s got really bad breath!”
“Ewww!”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; The Great Basin is just one small part of it. The Great Basin is one small part of that. They aren’t friends exactly. They barely know each other. But they see each other at the interstate, intertribal powwows. It’s nice to be around girls their age.
Hi, I’m Barbie!
Someone always brings enough to go around.
“And for breakfast she has burnt waffles.”
“Yeah, and drinks expired milk! With chunks and stuff.”
“Gross!”
“I know!”
There’s a certain magic about little girls, the way they have of finding other little girls. They don’t remember faces. They don’t ask for names. They know each other by the color of their powwow clothes. And the way they braid their hair. And they play.
“And then she… oh. Oh no.”
“What?”
Shoshone holds up the doll. Plastic feet split at the middle. “I think I pressed too hard.”
Washoe never gets anything new. All her toys are old or thrifted. All her toys are hand me downs. Barbie is this year’s Christmas present. After months of saving and scraping by.
Cut; Can I be her this time?
Okay… But be careful.
I will, I promise.
“You promised!”
“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to!”
Washoe picks up the broken doll and swings it at her face. Shoshone runs away in tears.
A White man. One of the tourists. He watches them. At every powwow he watches them. Sometimes he brings his own friends.
It’s not worth it, man. One little girl… that’s one thing, but four? Just you wait. They’ll have to split up eventually.
But they never do.
“Maybe we can play something else…”
“Like doctor?”
“Yeah! Dr. Barbie can fix Barbie’s feet!”
“Yeah!”
“Girls, it’s time to… Where’s your friend?”
“She hurt Barbie, mom!” Pretty, plastic, pink… not so perfect anymore. “She can go play with somebody else. Forever even! For all I care.”
A Story about the Great Plains
“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?”
Barbie is… well, she’s certainly pink and plastic. Not that pretty or perfect though. Not anymore. And the Plains are…
Lakota in the white dress with the long, beaded fringe and the long, thin braids. Dakota with the big, thick braids, in the blue dress with the beaded choker. And Nakota wears white also, but with a parka thrown over it. Her hair is braided in two places - skinny strands about her temples - otherwise it hangs loose.
“Welcome to my weird house.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the Great Plains are one small part of that. The Great Plains are part of that. Split three ways about the Oceti Sakowin. They know each other though. Better than the Basin. Lakota’s auntie is going unsteady with Dakota’s half brother’s half sister’s cousin-in-law. Dakota’s stepsister goes to school with Nakota’s uncle’s ex-girlfriend’s daughter. Nakota’s stepmother’s stepfather sells weed and booze to Lakota’s brother.
They don’t go to school together, but the same lady watches them after class. Every weekday.
“Sorry about the dog crap.”
Nakota sighs. “You can’t say crap.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a swear word!”
“No it’s not… is it?”
“Yeah, we aren’t allowed to say it at my house.”
“Well, in my house, we say it all the time.”
“We’re not at either of your houses,” Dakota says. “This is the weird house. We’re playing Weird Barbies. Okay? So shut up and be nice!”
In some ways Lakota and Nakota have a lot in common. They’re both quiet girls. Good students. Happy to let the louder, more charismatic Dakota take the lead in all their games. She has swim class once a week though. On Wednesdays. And they - Nakota, Lakota - find that they don’t do as well… not without her, not together on their own.
Crying Breakfast Friends is for babies.
Well, I like it.
Well, I don’t. What about Magical Slayer Mamika?
Without her?
“What can I do you for?”
“I had to come see you about… My feet… they’re, um…”
“Flat! HA! Never seen that before.”
“They’re flat because she’s off brand. Because your parents didn’t want to buy you a real Barbie doll.”
It’s a good thing they have Dakota. She keeps them grounded. It’s a good thing she has them. They keep her humble. It’s a good thing… A good, good thing.
“Uh, girls? Don’t suppose you’ve seen another little girl around here?”
“Huh?”
“My daughter. She’s about your age. Help me look for her?”
Barbie is pretty and pink and plastic and perfect. At least… the one in his hand.
“I mean, we were playing…”
“It’s okay.” Dakota stands up. Smiles. At Nakota and Lakota… and the strange, White man. “I’ll help him. You guys keep the game going without me. Okay?”
“Okay, I guess.”
“Hurry back though.”
“Yeah. I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
A Story about Native California
“You’re Stereotypical Barbie, right?”
“What does ‘stereotypical’ mean?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. At least she used to be. She was… In Native California’s hands.
Native California has brown eyes and blue eyeshadow and a brown dress with blue fringe. And Brown skin and blue-black hair.
“That Ken of yours. He is one nice looking little protein-pot.”
“I guess…”
“I’d like to see what kind of nude blob he’s packing under those jeans.”
“EW!”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; California the state is one of fifty smaller parts. Native California the girl is a teensy, tiny speck. Somewhere in the middle. She’s a Miwok Indian. At least… her father is. He isn’t on her birth certificate. Her mother is White. And she marries a White man. With a White son. And tries to rub the red out of Native California until only pink remains.
Hi, I’m Barbie!
She’s a gift from her stepfather. I hope we can be friends.
She plays with her once before her stepbrother gets to her - to all of Native California’s dolls - cuts their hair and scribbles red on their faces.
Don’t be such a crybaby! You said you wanted one to look like you!
“Don’t be gross! You said you wouldn’t.”
“Oh come on. It’s a joke. Ugh. I’m just playing.”
“You’re being weird again,” Native California sniffles. “You said you wouldn’t.”
“I’m playing.”
That’s what he calls it. Late at night. When he creeps down the hall, to her room, and stands over her. When he peels back the covers. And pulls up her nightgown. And pulls down his pajama pants. Shh! I’ll get you a new Barbie. Even better than the old ones.
Cut; he does. And she ruins them.
“I don’t wanna play with you anymore…”
Their games - real games - always turn out like this. Barbie going to the shops one minute, flat on her back the next. Ken ‘grunting’ over her.
Stop iiiiiit. This isn’t fun anymore!
Cut; Native California flat on her back. ‘Ken’ grunting over her.
Stop it! Please! This isn’t fun anymore!
It’s not supposed to be.
“Have it your way then,” he says. Then snaps Barbie over his knee. Into two neat pieces. He reaches for another. And another.
“NO! Stop, what are you-”
“You said you didn’t want to play, right?”
“Not with you! Stop it! You’re hurting them!”
“You hurt me!”
“I’m sorry,” Native California says. “But my dolls-”
He rips another’s head off and throws it hard. It bounces off a nearby shrub. And rolls.
If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you.
Native California believes him. She doesn’t tell.
Pink. Plastic. Pieces. He throws the last one to the ground and reaches for Native California.
“No! Don’t!”
He does it anyway.
A Story about the Southwest
“Anyway… What preceded this?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And Southwest is…
Bedecked in turquoise jewelry. A black hooded sweatshirt thrown over a long, floral skirt. And a blanket shawl tied around her middle. She has thin brown eyes. And sleek, black hair.
“Oh, um, nothing… a really fun game of volleyball…”
“Really?”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the southwest is part of it. The Southwest is part of that. She isn’t a princess. Not really. But the tourists get confused. She’s not a chief’s daughter either. There hasn’t been a chief in a hundred years.
Hi, I’m Barbie!
She's the gift her mother gives her. After her inauguration. For when I can’t be here with you.
She doesn’t look anything like you.
No, but… They’re bound to make one eventually. Maybe someday.
Maybe someday, the Southwest sighs and repeats it back.
“Thoughts of death.”
“THOUGHTS OF DEATH?!”
“Is that a problem?”
Southwest starts school for the first time. Four of the girls in her class have short hair or thin hair or no hair at all. Some of them make it to the end of the year. A few make it to graduation. Some make it to middle school. And it goes like that…
But why? Southwest asks, tucking another doll into another coffin. Another classmate gone too soon.
Oh, honey… That’s just how cancer is. That’s what it does.
But why though?
“You’ve opened a portal!”
This is where they mine uranium. This is where they built the atom bomb. The air is poisoned, the land is poisoned, the water is undrinkable…
Why doesn’t anybody care?
I care.
Well, why don’t you do anything?
I’m trying, her mother says. I’m trying. I really am.
“I didn’t open a portal.”
And she is trying. And her people are trying. And so is Southwest. They stand in front of the White House, the cancer ward, the trucks bringing the uranium out, bringing the miners in.
Why isn’t it working?
They’re pushing just as hard as we are. Harder, maybe.
Why?
I don’t know, baby. And she throws out another death threat.
“Well someone did. And now, there is a rip in the continuum that is the membrane between Barbieland and the Real World, and if you wanna be Stereotypical Barbie perfect again, then, baby girl, you gotta go fix it. Or you're gonna keep going funny.”
Listen, hon. Mommy makes some people very angry.
Why?
The miners… The energy companies. I want you to be careful. I want you to be very careful.
Why?
“Hey there, Barbie-girl? You’re, um, the chief’s kid, right?”
“The president’s kid.”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And powerless. In the real world.
“You wanna play a game with me?”
A Story about the Southeast
“What is that?!”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And Southeast is…
Light eyed. Light skinned. Dressed in beads and feathers. And tall boots.
“Cellulite. It’ll spread EVERYWHERE and then you’ll start getting mushy and sad and… complicated.”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the Southeast is part of it. The Southeast is barely part of that. Cherokee girl. What little is left of the Cherokee land. The stretch between Appalachia and the Sea…
Hi, I’m Barbie!
The only thing left for her, from the Church’s toy drive. After the Salvation Army has gone and picked through.
You’re lucky to be getting anything at all, her teacher says. Be grateful.
I am grateful, Southeast says. But a part of her whispers: Grateful for what?
“What do I have to do?”
“You have to go to the Real World and find the girl who is playing with you.”
“Playing with me?”
“We’re all being played with!”
The Cherokee are a broken nation. Split between here and Oklahoma. Southwest’s home is broken. Split between her father and her mother. Barbie is the only constant - coming with her wherever she goes.
“Usually there’s some kind of separation. There’s the girl, a.k.a. the player, and the doll, a.k.a. the playee. And never the twain shall cross.”
“The twain is crossing?”
Charcoal baby! Redskin! Savage! Chief! Injun squaw!
These are their neighbors. Her parents’ friends. The poor, the rural, the salt-of-the-earth working class.
Be kind to them. They’re no better than us. They’ll see that eventually. They mean well…
“The girl playing with you must be sad. And her thoughts and feelings and human-ness are interfering with your doll-ness.”
The storm comes hard and fast and throws itself over the lower east coast. Throws itself against the mountains. And empties itself over the land. Over everything. Not the rez though. By some strange miracle. Somehow. They at least are spared.
Cut; You want us to help them? But they… These people are-
It doesn’t matter. Whatever they did, whatever they didn’t. Whatever they said… It’s the Christian thing to do.
“Am I being too technical?”
Doll in hand. The Southeast walks into the mountains.
“Help! Help!”
“I wasn’t playing! I… I mean…”
Barbie is pink and plastic and perfectly fine. So is he. Doesn’t stop him screaming though. Doesn’t stop the Southeast where she stands.
“U-um! Don’t worry. Barbie and I are gonna help you.”
“Little closer. Closer…”
“W-what are you- But… but… I was trying to help you.”
“You can help me.” He sneers and gets on top of her “Let’s play a game.”
A Story about the Caribbean
“Go. Be careful. I love you.”
The Caribbean wears a flowered blue quadrille dress. With an apron. And a bandana tying up her hair. And big, silver hoops in each ear. Her hair is big and natural. Wide instead of long.
“Bye!”
she says,
“Bye!”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; the Caribbean is a tiny part of it. The Caribbean is a tiny part of that. They say Jamaica has no Taino left. Less than one percent with Taino DNA. The Caribbean is less than half. Less than a quarter. Less…
Hi, I’m Barbie!
Black Barbie. But not Jamaican.
“Bon voyage to reality, and good luck restoring the membrane that separates our world from theirs so you don’t get cellulite!”
The Caribbean through the same hurricane. Even faster. Even harder. She curls up into a ball beneath the staircase, clutching her doll. Even as the roof and upper floor are ripped clean away…
“I’ll be back in no time, with perfect feet, and we’ll forget that this ever happened.”
“And you’ll get to see all the good work we’ve done to fix the world. You’ll be such a hero to them. All those grateful, powerful women who owe their wonderful lives to Barbie. I’ll bet every woman will say thank you and give you a really big hug.”
The church. The relief effort. Not the Cherokee Nation. Not the Indian Church. White men with leering eyes and smiles. (These are the ones who will do.) And White women with disinterested, glazed over looks. (These are the ones who won’t interfere.)
“Yes, you’re right. Here I go. Bye.”
“Yay!”
“Bye, Barbie!”
she says,
“Bye!”
“Hey there!”
“Oh, um, you’re one of those aid workers…”
“On break right now,” he says with a pretty, plastic smile. “Can I play with you?”
A Story about Mesoamerica
“What are you doing here?”
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And Mesoamerica is…
Exquisitely beautiful. Long hair, braided past her knees. Dressed in blue and gold and white. Sharp eyes and nose and cheeks. Her bird - a cockatoo parrot - watches from his perch. Repeating the game back to her.
“Squawk! Doing here!”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Coming with you!”
Instead of Barbieland, the real world; Mesoamerica is part of it, Mesoamerica is part of that. She’s Afro-Mexican. Mixtec from Oaxaca. They were an empire once. Now though…
Hi, I’m Barbie!
It’s all her parents can do to afford the thing. And only one of them. And it’s broken soon enough anyway - White girls, Mestiza girls - the first (and only time) Mesoamerica brings it to school.
Why do you want a White doll anyway? Morenita? Piel roja?
Aww. I think she’s gonna cry.
“No. Please get out.”
“I can’t. I made a double bet with Ken, and you can’t make me look uncool in front of Ken.”
“In front of Ken…”
“Ken’s not cool!”
“He is to me.”
“Is to me! Squawk!”
Mesoamerica doesn’t have a lot of friends. Mexican is Mexican… to the tourists and the gringos and the White people from the north. But Indian is Indian. And Black is Black. And…
“You’re just gonna slow me down.”
“Barbie, what if there's beach? You’ll need someone who’s a professional in that.”
Carnival season. Everyone forgets everything. Everyone is an Indian. Except the real Indians, the ones who can’t take it off.
“Did you bring your rollerblades?”
“I literally go nowhere without them. Please?”
“Okay. Wow. Let’s do this.”
It used to bother Mesoamerica. When she was younger…
They called me a savage like it was a bad thing. Now though, they’re calling themselves-
It’s a costume to them, says her mother. They see you the same way.
“Can I sit in the front?”
“No.”
Try to stay away from them. These people… They get drunk and irrational. You don’t know what they might do. Remember, her mother says. You aren’t real. Not to them, anyway.
“Take it, kid,” the man says, holding the doll out to her. “I won’t bite.”
“I really shouldn’t-”
“Oh, come on. Come here and take it. What are you scared? You can trust me. I’m an Indian too…”
A Story about Turtle Island
Barbie is pink and plastic and pretty and perfect. And…
Utterly lifeless. Without a little girl to play with her.
Chapter 10: (Barbie: Princess Adventure) A Story about the King of Flowers
Summary:
TW: prison rape, violence, torture, colonisation, Islamophobia, disbelief, minors witnessing violence.
https://www.newarab.com/news/genocide-games-israeli-olympic-flagbearer-signed-gaza-bombs
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/28/nikki-haley-finish-them-missile-israel
https://reliefweb.int/report/occupied-palestinian-territory/they-brought-israeli-civilians-watch-our-nude-torture-idf-torture-palestinian-prisoners-turned-entertainment-israeli-viewers-enar
https://palestinecampaign.org/events/november-2024-week-of-action/
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/
https://jewishnetworkforpalestine.uk/
https://www.allmep.org/
(The core writer group are not Jewish but we recommend talking to Jewish peace activists to get their perspective and avoid falling into antisemitism when discussing this topic.)
Chapter Text
Day 1:
“Oh, I remember this part!”
Four flowers. Young and fresh-faced. In polo shirts and bright pastels. Four flowers. And each one leaning down to sign, American innocence (ignorance) reflected in the carapace - the rocket’s metallic outer shell.
Trey Reardon
The Windflower in pink and khaki. And a cowlick like the Barron’s only… worse, somehow.
Ted Johnson
The Spanish Marigold wears glasses. The thinner brother, sweating profusely. In the sweatervest. With the long black pants.
Ned Johnson
The Palestinian Poppy wears glasses. Khaki shorts. Green v-neck with a wrinkled collar. Solidly built.
Ken Carson
He’s the chaperone.
“When I went on birthright,” says Anemone Coronaria, “we came here too.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; they come to the Palace. Circumcision gone wrong; circumcision gone right; the Windflower is like Royal Blue, born with “too much” down there - two sets and then they take the wrong one; Anemone is like the Duke, born without anything at all.
It's nice here. At least… at first.
Day 2:
“Internet says it’s an Orange-Tufted Sunbird.”
“Where’s the orange?”
The Windflower has a point. The sunbird is hummingbird-like. With a long, thin beak. Brown wings with green-blue-purple at the tail and legs and head.
Anemone shrugs. “They were all over the place when I went on birthright.”
“In Arabic it’s Sultan az-Zahar,” the Palestinian Poppy reads from his guide book.
“The king of flowers,” Spanish Marigold reads from his phone.
The Champion takes the stage.
Israelis aren’t Middle Eastern. Especially not if you’re Ashkenazi.
I said I was Ashkenazi and-
She’s right. Anemone Coronaria. Where do you think Israel is?
Oh. I guess that makes everyone here right now a Native American.
I mean, Pimelodidae pipes out, Indigenous people do have a higher rate of these types of things than most…
Hey, buddy, I’m just tellin’ like it is on my birth certificate!
Yeah! The Windflower. Leave her alone.
Day Three:
“That’s an Israeli breakfast. I think the shakshuka is my favorite.”
“Fresh watermelon,” the Windflower says, reaching for more. “Can’t believe they were invented here.”
“Watermelon?”
“Yeah. Well… no.”
“He means the seedless kind. They grow them at Kibbutzim. Just like this. That’s where they come from.”
“It’s the empanadas for me,” says the Palestinian Poppy. “With cheese and olives. That or the breakfast pizza.”
“The pizza,” Spanish Marigold says. “Definitely.”
“When I went on birthright, I was totally obsessed with the falafel. Obsessed. Never actually tried it before I came to Israel. Almost wish I hadn’t. The O.G. was better than anything you can get at home.”
The Victor takes the stage.
Oh, the Stray says. Oh… Um. Sorry.
The Champion shrugs. I got you. It’s confusing.
It’s not, says Anemone Coronaria. So what if her mom is Arab? Ashkenazim or Sephardim or-
Mizrahim. Um. I think…
-Jewish is Jewish. Israelis are Jews. And all Jews are Indigenous to Israel.
Several Jewish members look at each awkwardly.
Day 4:
“Who are they? Those people waiting by the gate.”
“Oh. They’re just Arabs. Er… Goyim, you know - gentiles? It used to be a house before it was a hostel. Some people still aren’t happy about… The point is, they can’t stay here. It’s a safe space. Like the Palace is supposed to be. Nobody else but Jews.” Anemone sighs, offering them a close-lipped smile. “It was like this when I went on birthright.”
If you’re Indigenous, Jerusalem asks, how come you’ve got the world’s highest rate of skin cancer? The Palestinians don’t.
We don’t! the Windflower snaps. That’s-
Australia!
Or New Zealand!
Yes! We’re only number twenty-three!
Out of one-ninety-five… Shem comments.
The Witch rolls her eyes. The Wix snickers. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Hey! Aren’t you all Jewish? Um, except ’Salem. (They are.) You should be on our side!
In your dreams.
The Clown sketches a drawing of the Flowers worshiping a landmass standing atop unmarked graves.
Day 5:
“CANNONBALL!”
The Spanish Marigold jumps into the water, surfacing in seconds. The water is warm and salty.
“This is great!” The Windflower pushes back his wet hair. “Did you come here on your birthright trip?”
“We were supposed to.”
Sometimes the Palace is wrong. Like it was about Knave. Like it was about Magdalena. Like it was about Tisiphone. And the Sociopath. And the Mean Girl. And… They’re right this time though. About this.
So is the Palestinian Poppy. So is the Spanish Marigold:
It’s not like you guys ever talk about the Congo. Or Sudan.
Why not? Since you hate genocide so much.
Cobalt Blue squirms. They have a point. Maybe just because there are more Jews than Africans here? African-born people, I mean.
Day 6:
“Smile!” The Palestinian Poppy snaps a picture with his brand-new camera phone. “Good one, Ted. Now the group shot. What do they call this place again?”
“What?” says Anemone. “Oh. Um… It’s the Shuk.”
“You okay, man?”
“Huh? Y-yeah. I’m fine. I just… The last time I was here…”
No, Kintsugi says. I don't think Muslims are the problem. I mean… My dad's Jewish. It didn’t end well with my sister’s mom. But. Um. That wasn’t a reason.
They’re not Arab, though. Afghanistan is different.
But… you said Muslims hate Jewish people.
Well, I meant Arab.
Al-Quds is nice… And-
Ugh! You know what I mean!
Ignore her, says the Windflower. She’s not really Jewish. Not if her mother is a shiksa. Sorry. Was.
Kintsugi flips them off.
Day 7:
Tel Aviv. Pride.
“See, you couldn’t do this in Palestine. They’d throw you off a roof.”
Anemone comes with the Dulcimer Player. Sometimes Barbie Classic comes along.
How do you know the Barbie Roberts?
We met on birthright, he says, smiling big and blinding white. It was awesome.
I don’t know about awesome… We had fun. I don’t know if I would do it again.
Aw, come on. It wasn’t that bad.
Day 8:
“Le olam.”
Yad Vashem. They are quiet. Anemone speaks for all of them:
“Never again.”
Barbie Classic on the stage.
Since when are you even Jewish?
I’m not. Well… my dad is.
That counts! the Windflower says.
Kintsugi scowls. But you just told me-
Day 9:
“Shabbat shalom.”
They sit down to a sabbath dinner. Kiddush. Challah. Fish and meat.
“Change of plans, boys. For tomorrow. Well… not tomorrow tomorrow. You know what I mean. Sunday. I ran into this girl - Amelia - from my birthright trip. She’s with the IDF now. Gave me the passes to… It’s in… There’s this place called Naqab. I think it’s some kind of zoo.”
Barbie. Anemone. The Dulcimer Player.
Skipper’s not going. She’s never going. Do you understand?
I don’t want to go, the Dulcimer Player says. Look up the definition of ‘Settler Colony.’
Come on. If you’re still… I mean… Our trip was years ago. This’ll be good for her. Everything that happened… I mean. That’s all in the past.
That’s easy for you to say! You're not the one who was taken hostage!
Day 10:
“Why did you… How could you bring us here?”
Four Flowers. In the barren yard of Naqab prison. The smell of shit. And sperm. And blood.
And vomit. The Palestinian Poppy’s. And the Spanish Marigold’s.
“I didn’t know,” whispers Anemone Coronaria.
The Sunbird. Lies there. Barely stirring as the guards run through him. He’s a young man. Maybe thirty. Anemone’s age. Green eyes sunken. Brown hair darkened to black and overgrown. He meets Anemone’s eyes briefly. And - despite the pain, the hate, the humiliation - there’s some small spark of recognition.
“I… I know you.”
“No. No.”
Chapter 11: *CSA* (Wicked) A Story about Krav Korban
Summary:
TW: rape, child molestation, incest, CoCSA, antisemitism, anti-Christian sentiment, racism, war, murder, fire, bullying.
Sorry the Sudan Day chapter is late, we had some changes of mind in what we were going for and some IRL complications getting in the way. Here it is now!
Chapter Text
This was taken just before he died.
Krav Korban takes the photograph from the Scapegoat Standing. Studies it as close as he can. The Scapegoat’s brother stands alone, a small Polaroid photo of him dressed in a fine suit. Krav Korban inspects it closely. He can see his own eyes looking back at him. His nose reflected. The expression is one he usually wears. He looks up and nods. “I can see why you said you didn’t need the DNA test.”
We can do it, if you want to be sure. It’s just…you look so much like him. The Scapegoat frowns. Can I say I’m surprised it took you this long to seek us out? If your mother never made a secret of it…
Krav Korban sighs, and gives the Scapegoat a weak smile. “Yes, there’s a reason… How much time do you have?”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Scapegoat’s brother with Korban’s mother. A broken rubber in a motel trash can. Scapegoat’s brother hastily writes his real phone number on a scrap of paper.
Again, so sorry I didn’t notice… Give me a call if anything pops up… I’ll stand by you, no matter what you choose.
This was before everyone had a cell phone. You know how it is. How it was.
“I’ve only ever lived in Al-Fashir. Until now at least. Except for university.”
There was… We lived in Beach City, it’s the Jewish neighborhood, You would think that would make things easier. But-
“No, I understand,” Korban says. “It gives them an easy target.”
Yes. How did you… Oh. I see.
The Jews of Sudan are mostly concentrated in Khartoum. The same few families. Korban grows up in the Darfur capital. An only child. To a single mother. The only Jewish child in his school. He comes home crying most days. Glasses broken. Nose bleeding. Homework torn to shreds.
Why don’t we move to Omdurman? he begs. It’s not fair! I want to be around people like-
Shh. His mother hushes him quickly. It’s better this way. To be beneath notice… The important part is that they’re comfortable here.
“I didn’t understand until I was older.”
Neither did Abraham.
“How b-b-bad was it?” Krav asks, stuttering a little.
There’s that freedom of speech thing. It’s not enough for the Nazis to have their parades, their rallies - they have to do it in our neighbourhoods. In front of our schools. Our children. Our…
Korban nods. “I’ve seen it. The war… Well, it didn’t come out of nowhere.”
It never does.
Korban is the only Jewish kid, but he’s not the only one picked on. Not by a long shot. Curly hair. Darker skin. Christian cross. All these seem to get other children picked on as well. Korban does little if anything to help, too busy dodging his own tormentors to look up from the floor or even around him.
“Race and religion. That’s where the line’s always b-b-been drawn.”
Scapegoat looks as though if he could sigh, he would. Tale as old as time, I suppose.
Why don’t we leave? he asks. Mother shakes her head.
Where to?
Well… Didn’t you meet Dad in Israel?
Birthright. I wish now that we didn’t go. Well…
“I know what you mean.”
He didn’t know. He didn’t mean to.
“I b-b-b-” Korban stutters. “I believe you.”
Mother looks almost angry. Almost. She merely shakes her head again.
We call it Doikayt. Here-ness. Yiddish.
“I’ve never heard that word b-b-before.”
You wouldn’t have.
Krav Korban thinks. Well, what about the US? Dad was a citizen, right? Maybe we could go-
Jacob Dillamond, not another word.
“Mom knew b-b-by then,” Krav Korban quietly explains. “What had happened. She was worried…”
She had every right to be.
“Yeah… I know it probably wouldn’t have b-b-been b-b-better, here. I don’t b-b-blame my Mother. B-b-but…” he trails off.
You wonder.
Krav Korban nods.
How old were you? When. Well, you know, when-
“When it got baa-ba-baaa…” He sighs. “When it hit the fan?”
It’s been bad for a long time. It gets worse.
“When I was a child. 2003. The war in Darfur - the first war. I was at university in Khartoum when the South was given independence. 2011. And now…”
And now, the Scapegoat agrees.
“I thought I could stop it. This time. I wasn’t a child anymore. I thought…”
His mother makes frantic, long distance calls. Don’t come home, she tells him. Stay in Khartoum. You’ll be safe there.
“B-but of course… I wasn’t safe.”
Let me guess. Too light for some, too dark for others. Neither Muslim nor Christian. Child of neither side.
“Target of b-b-bo…” Korban trails off.
I wish I could say I was surprised.
“Probably doesn’t help that I didn’t stay quiet.”
Scapegoat gives the ghost of a smile. You got that from your father, I suspect. He never did know when to keep his head down.
The people of Darfur share his skin. His eyes. His curly-kinky hair. A handful of Christians. A hatful of Muslims. Krav Korban is the only Jew.
“Most of us left while the going was good. Israel. Or Europe. Or the states. B-b-b-but I… Mother wanted to stay. Could have gone on my own. I suppose. B-b-b-but it… It didn’t feel right.”
Doikayt. Like I said.
“No. I mean… It… There was another reason.”
A handful of Fur students allowed into schools. The number dwindles. Steadily. Until only Korban remains. And then he’s expelled too. Just a clock-tick from graduation. He goes home to his mother.
You should come in to work with me some time. Mr. Tharwat won’t mind. And I’m dying for you to meet the girls.
The girls.
“Mr. Tharwat…” Krav Korban sighs. “He was a politician. You know how it is. Too important to b-b-be involved. It kept Mother safe, too, at any rate. Safer than she would have b-b-been.”
You said girls? Are they…
Korban only nods.
The girls are young now. They’re even younger when Krav first meets them. One stands tall, speaks in full sentences, and doesn’t take after her father much. (If at all.) The other takes after him a lot more. She doesn’t speak much. And doesn’t stand at all.
“Esma-Fatima. And Nezha-Warda. Tharwat. Their father was Arab. Their mother was Fur. Like me.”
I heard something on the news. That they…
“The mother died. That’s what my mother was for.”
And the father?
“Oh, he was lovely - to Nezha.”
As far as Korban can see, anyway. Nezha need only let out a sound and her father came to her side right away. Spoiled is a word for it. Golden dresses, golden inlays in her wheelchair, golden child. Nezha basks in it. How could she do otherwise? She is a child, a small one at that.
“With Esma… Esme, he was…”
Complicated?
“I was going to say abusive, b-b-but sure. Complicated works too. He wasn’t subtle about it either. Ever.”
Esme is darker than her half-Arab sister. Darker than their mother ever was. And their father - lightskinned, almost white-skinned - would be almost kind to disregard. He hits her. He hurts her. Breaks her glasses and lets her stumble around blind for almost a month before Korban and his mother can convince him to buy a replacement pair. He hits her. He hurts her.
It’s not like anyone will notice the bruises.
But, of course, someone does notice. More than once Mother comes to Krav Korban in tears.
I know he’s hurting her. I don’t know what to do!
That sounds awful.
“It was. Esme was practically family, even then. Mother didn’t know what to do, and…”
You didn’t either?
“Worse. I got an idea.”
It isn’t a smart one, all things considered. But…Krav Korban is angry. Krav Korban sees Esme crying. Sees Mother crying. And he gets a thought.
“Like I said, he was a politician. I thought he had to care about his reputation. I thought if I threatened to let something slip…”
The man laughs. High and sharp. How dare you? You think anyone will believe you?
Leave her alone. She’s your daughter. Not some common-
Does that mean you’re volunteering to take her place?
I… Korban swallows. I-
I’m so sorry. Does she…
“She doesn’t know.”
The Scapegoat nods. Is he…
“Dead.”
Because of you?
“God, I wish.”
It goes on for months.
“It wasn’t necessarily malicious. It was just… He wanted. He got. That’s how most of them see us - the upper class. Here and there.”
Get up NOW! Put your hands where I can see them!
Blearily, Korban sits up, swipes the sleep from his eyes, and-
I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to. Hands up!
It’s a girl. Just a girl. About Nurse Emerald’s age. Black dress, black hijab… the only Black woman - the only woman period - in a sea of men. Most of them are Fur. Like her. Like Korban. Some, though, are light-skinned Arabs with feathery hair and wings embroidered on their jalabiyas. In the middle of the back.
“Former Janjaweed. I have no idea what she said. What she did to make them… To change them.”
Most of them are holding guns, but the leader - this woman child - carries half her weight on one shoulder. It’s as long as a broomstick, as long as her arm.
Please, he says. I’ll do anything. Just leave the little ones.
“She was barely more than a child herself. I felt… b-b-b-… sorry for her. Something about her eyes.”
She shouldn’t have-
“Stop. I mean it. If you want to talk b-badly about the liberationists… Well. You won’t hear that from me.”
We’re here for the governor, the young woman says. And offers a tight-lipped smile, even as she ties his hands. They bring him down the stairs. Into the drawing room. The girls are waiting - Esme without her glasses, Nezha without her chair. They cry out for him.
Not them, he whispers. Please not them too.
“Some men need killing.”
It’s quicker than he would have liked. Painless even. The girl shoots him once and kills him quickly. Splatters his brains on the wall.
Good riddance.
“Indeed. I think the fire might have b-been an accident, unlikely as it sounds. The young lady… She wouldn’t have done that.”
She pointed a gun at you.
“B-b-b-be that as it may.”
It starts in the kitchen. Hits the liquor cabinet. Bursting bottles. And a shower of sweet and green. The first spreads. All the while, Korban thrashes. To save himself. To save the girls.
What happened?
“We made it out somehow. Have my mother to thank for that.”
First Esme, dragged by the nightgown. Then Krav Korban as she finds him in the smoke. She goes back for Nezha Warda. The youngest one…
“Poor little thing. Her poor little legs.”
The beams give way. The wall crumbles, wallpaper burnt and peeling back. It all comes bearing down on Nezha. Who can’t do much with her hands tied. Not even crawl away.
“We live in Khartoum now. Where I attended university. It’s… safer, you see? Outside of Darfur. It’s not the same as leaving entirely. That thing you said before… Doikayt?”
Doikayt.
“It’s a miracle you were able to find me at all.”
I’ve been looking for a long time.
A letter comes. As Krav Korban recovers in hospital. Fire damage. Smoke inhalation. Painful fluid-filled blisters and deep purple burns. Esme reads aloud to him. Sounding out the difficult parts.
Doc-ter… I-sick Dill-a-mon- Dillamond. Hey! Isn’t that your name?!
I’d love to meet them.
“Maybe you will one day. For now though… They’re safe. For now.”
Back in Sudan. Khartoum this time. In a house paid for with their dead father’s blood and money. Korban’s mother enters the girls’ room - tray in hand. Drops her coffee on the floor. And their hot chocolate.
Nezha-Warda! What on earth are you doing to your sister?
Nezha-Warda begins to cry.
It’s okay, Miss Dulcie! Esme protests. She’s always done that. Father taught her how!
Krav Korban smiles ruefully. “No one will ever hurt them again.”
Chapter 12: (Hetalia, SatW) A Story about Danegeld and Bloodwit
Summary:
TW: accidental rape due to drunkenness, emasculation, chemical castration, self-harm, cousin incest, references to bestiality/necrophilia/false accusations, dysfunctional family, dysfunctional friendships.
Chapter Text
A Story about Danegeld
“Mads. Matthias. Hic. I… Gimme a second. Hard to read.”
Danegeld is sandy-haired, thirty-something, with a scrubby, scruffy beard and bloodshot eyes. Maybe high. Maybe hungover. He reads off a sheet of three-hole paper.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. S-so… So… please. I was drunk. I know that’s not an excuse. I know. But I was drunk. It was Befrielsesdag. We were all drunk. Even the kids. Look, you can take whatever you want from me. I don’t care what it is… And I know how this sounds. Please. I’ll pay whatever. I’ll do whatever. Just don’t take my body away from me.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; Bornholm. Six-point stars and Nordic crosses. A mailbox and a path leading up the lane. All that remains of the house is its ruined foundation. Half a dozen or so tents erected all round. More stars and crosses. The Dannebrog in all its glory. Someone’s started up a bonfire. Picnic tables. Kids playing in the sprinkler. Brunettes. Redheads. More sandy-blondes. Albino whites. Albino reds. Blue eyes. And brown eyes.
S’ like lookin in a mirror. Which one ‘re you again? Riley or…?
And here I thought I was your favorite nephew!
Hold on…? Mads! He pulls him into an affectionate headlock. Knuckling his scalp. Where ya been, kid?
Dene Andersen,
Amalienborg Slotsplads,
1257 Copenhagen, Denmark
They get to talking. They get to drinking.
Japan, huh? What’s that like?
O-oh! It’s… it’s great! Really! Um, I’ve been staying with Pappa and Timo and the kids… They, um… We’ve got a coupla exchange students. From Norway or Iceland or… I dunno. But they’re brothers. Little younger than me. And… weird. They got the guest room.
Awkward, huh? Danegeld laughs and claps him hard between the shoulders. Nor was too at that age. And your Pappa’s so serious… Ice’s too. What’s his name again? Soy? Soe. Yeah, yeah. Say. Don’t the Nakiris have a place in Tokyo? Bet they’d let you crash there. If you wanted. If daddy doesn’t-
It’s not like that. I… He grins. It’s not very convincing. I see Alice all the time. And Soe basically raised me. It’s like this. We’re like this. Two fingers curling in together. I wanna know my father. Even if I hafta sleep on the couch. He reaches for another beer. A-and I know - I know - Berhhh… Bernhard… Berwald…? Pappa is happy to have me there. Even if I gotta sleep on the couch…
Norvald Björnsson,
Slottsplassen 1,
0010 Oslo, Norway
There are no couches. Danegeld half-carries the kid back to his tent. Half-drags him through the flap. They’re drunk. They’re really drunk. But so is everybody. And nobody says anything. Nobody does anything. And then they’re alone. And then Danegeld gets on top of him.
In my defense, I was drunk. And, you know, we aren’t exclusive. You have your boyfriends. And I have mine… And anyway, you can’t judge too much, right? After all that stuff with you and Jan… Before he killed himself.
And after.
I did something stupid. Really stupid. I hope you can forgive me. I mean. We started early, right? And things are good now, right? I’ve been there for you. I’ve kept your secrets.
Always have. Always will.
I need to borrow some money. A lot of money. It’s this or
I’d do it for you. You know I would.
Love,
Dene
P.S. This isn’t blackmail.
Mm? What ‘re you… No. Stop! What are you doing?!
Shh. Danegeld purrs, dragging a finger down from his lips to the top of his fly. They’re drunk. They’re both, really, really drunk. And then they’re grinding against each other. Without rhythm.
I said stop!
Danegeld shoves him down. Holds him down. And… nothing. Fuckin’ A… You mind takin’ care of this?
Sven-Åke Bernadotte,
Kungliga slottet,
107 70 Stockholm, Sweden
Vomit. A lot of it. Expelled through the mouth and nose. Choking. Clawing. Danegeld holds fast. Wraps his hands around the kid’s neck. Just a little tighter. Just a little more. His arms go limp. His neck goes rigid. His teeth clash together (but not all the way through). And Danegeld jerks back. And hits him as hard as he can.
Son of a bitch!
Panting. Tears in his eyes. Vomit dripping down his chin. He’s wet himself, Danegeld realizes as he struggles with their underclothes. Hitting him again. His nose. And mouth. And stomach. He hits him again. He hits him again-
I know we’ve… had our differences. I know. Believe me. I pleaded guilty. No jail time. Gotta wear a tracking anklet though. Curfew. No drinking. Can’t even smoke… And I gotta send Mads a cool 5k a month. Not in Krone either—USD.
I know you’re still mad that I fucked your sister. Sorry.
Look, I don’t wanna play that card, but I saw what you did at Ísleifur’s birthday party. The one at the petting zoo. It wasn’t legal in Iceland. Just so you know.
I know you’re still mad that I fucked your ex. Sorry.
If I can’t pay, there’s a good chance of em shipping me off to Storstrøm. I can’t do prison, man. Remember what happened with Austin? That kid from London you tried it on with? He got hurt pretty bad, right? I could get hurt pretty bad too. You said you felt guilty.
I know you’re still mad that I fucked your rapist. Sorry.
Send cash. ASAP.
Your friend,
Dene
P.S. This isn’t blackmail
P.P.S. Well…
Stefan Häyhä,
Pohjoisesplanadi 1,
Helsinki 00170, Finland
FFFFFFFFffffuck… I knew you were enjoying this.
Stop! I… I don’t want to! Fuck! Shit! Get offa of me!
Shh. Baby. Just a lil bit more…
In Danegeld’s drunkenness it makes perfect sense to grab that bottle - half full of vodka - by the neck and bring it down on his hapless ‘partner’s’ face. Until the whining stops. And the bottle breaks. And his body jerks with quiet, hiccuping sobs. Muffled as he bites down, into his own hand.
Shh. Don’t Argue, No-one Else’s Gonna Ever Love Du…
You know what? Nevermind.
I saw what you did to Sven.
He comes to. Head pounding. Blood rushing in his ears. Everything hurts. Dimly, he realizes there’s something else beneath him. Whimpering. Wide-eyed. With a shard of clouded glass in his hand. Blood and vodka.
I… I couldn’t do it…
Huh…? But it… doesn’t… Oh.
That’s when Danegeld looks down and realizes. He’s the pistil. Not the pestle. The mortar has broken. The stamen cut into. But not all the way. No. Not all the way…
He jerks away from him. And they both scream.
Ísleifur Norvaldsson,
Thorvaldsenstraeti 2-6,
Reykjavik 101, Iceland
They scream. And everybody hears them. Without the music or the mirth of last night’s simcha. Someone rips open the tent flap. Someone knocks Danegeld to the floor.
Cut; the police station. Danegeld with two black eyes. A broken nose. Spitting teeth into his hand.
Mr. Nakiri?
Th… the stepdad? He blinks sluggishly. Nah. Thish wath alllll Mormor. And… Hic. Think the sister helped.
As much as I’m sure you’d like to add my dick to your collection, I’m kind of bent on keeping it attached.
- Dene
P.S. I know where you live.
P.P.S. I know what you did at the Phallological Museum.
P.P.P.S. I know where you put it.
A plea bargain. It’s a good option, his lawyer says. No jail time. House arrest. Maybe community service. And, of course, You’ll have to keep up on your prescription.
… My what?
Firmagon, probably. Or Zoladex or Lupron. Some kind of anti-androgen.
Anti… His blood runs cold. You’re talking castration?
Mr. Andersen. You really don’t have much of a choice here.
“You don’t have to do this. Uncle Dene? You don’t have to do this. I… I don’t want you to. It feels weird to take control of somebody else’s body. Even like this. Even…” He swallows. “-after. Besides, not being able to get it up didn’t make much of a difference.”
Bloodwit on the witness stand. Slumped onto his sister’s shoulder. Broken nose. Healing bruises. His pupils are pinpricks. Eyes flicking back and forth. And side to side.
“Could use the money though. I guess.”
A Story about Bloodwit
“Uh… Uncle Dene…? I think I’m hurt. I think I’m dying.”
Bloodwit in the tub. Cellphone in hand. Eighteenish or twenty-something. Sandy hair, spiked with gel and flattened with bathwater. Blood swirling between his legs. Around his groin. On the lip of the bath; a straight razor gleaming. He reaches around in the water and comes up with… something in his free hand.
“I don’t have anybody else t’ call…”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; questions. So many questions. The hospital. Doctors in white coats. Policemen in crisp, blue uniforms. Bloodwit’s mother. And Bloodwit’s sister. And his grandmother. And his stepfather. And his great aunt. And his great, great aunt. And his cousins once, twice, three times removed.
Was there any penetration involved?
My mouth.
Anything else?
I’m sure he woulda tried, but… He got on top of me and sorta tried to… eh. Like that. Until we both passed out. When I came to, he was still… The only thing I could think of was to cut it off. But it hurt so much that… I couldn’t do it. At least, not all the way.
Pappa >
You gotta stop calling me “Pappa”
around the kids. It’s one thing for
Timo to do it. But
On the plane now.
Tell Timo thanks for the ride!!!
See you schmucks around later.
Next stop? Bornholm, baby!
Jeg leaker dig!
Read at 5:55 AM
BEFRIELSESDAG, BITCHES!!!
Sent May 5th
Five missed calls
Uh. So.
I’m probably gonna stay in Denmark
for a while.
Five weeks-ish. And then I’ll come home..
Anyway. Don’t worry. I’m fine. Everything’s
Fine. I’m just gonna switch to online classes
for a while. Is that cool? Is that okay?
Please just say something
Read at 5:55 PM
He squirms the whole time, on the flight back to Tokyo. Red-faced as he tries not to scratch the still-healing stitches. Burning like a mosquito between his legs.
perheryhmäkeskustelu >
Timo
Any word on Matthias?
Sent 5:50 pm
Timo
He was supposed to be flying back today…
Sent 5:50 pm
Pappa
Staying in Denmark. Few more weeks.
Sent 5:51 pm
Timo
Ah.
Sent 5:52 pm
Timo
Any idea why?
Sent 5:53 pm
Eiríkur
“family emergency”
Sent 5:54 pm
Lukas
Emergency my ass.
Dumbass got wasted and started a feud again.
I’ll bet money on it.
He’s fine. I’m sure
Sent 5:55 PM
His first night back. Bloodwit showers in the dark.
Mads? Come oooon, you’re taking forever.
He’ll be out in a minute, Peter. Give your brother a little space.
Timo >
Hey. So… I’m back.
I'm at the airport.
Can you ask Pappa to come and
get me? I don’t wanna bother Soe at work.
Pretty please?
Sent five hours ago
Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry
Just seeing this now. BRT!!!
😮 😞 🫂
Sent fifty five minutes ago
Hey. So…
Is Arvid okay?
I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to hit him.
I just. I freaked out
It was an accident
Sent five minutes ago
Mads. You really, really hurt him.
I know. I’m sorry.
I already talked to the police.
Told them what happened.
That it wasn’t
Typing…
Bernhard.
It’s not that easy.
Now they’re asking if he’s hit me before.
😣
Matthias. What have you done?…
Sent five seconds ago…
His first night back. Bloodwit sets up camp on the sofa. A neck of vodka. Strangled in his hand. He turns over in his sleep and makes a mess of the blankets and upholstery. Jerks awake to a scream that’s not his own.
Arvid?! Oh. Shit. Are you okay?
The kid with red hair and the Nokemon t-shirt. A thin red line. A deep red line. Across one cheek and the ridge of his nose. The bottle is broken.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to-
perheryhmäkeskustelu >
Timo
Lukas?
Timo
Eiríkur?
Pappa
It’s date night.
Timo
Yep!
You guys don’t mind watching the boys, do you?
Mads is our go-to. Usually. But
Well. Not anymore.
Lukas
I’ll take care of it. I think Erik has plans.
Timo
Ah! Thank you!!!! ☺️ 🙏 😊
Pappa
Try not to start a fire.
Eiríkur
It was ONE time!!!
The hospital. After. Five stitches. It’ll leave a nasty scar. Bloodwit pacing in the waiting room.
I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to.
You think I give a damn what you meant to do?! the smallest man says (the tallest at his shoulder, glaring daggers from behind). You hurt my baby!
It was an accident! I… Look, I’ll pay for everything, okay? I can come up with the money. Easy.
This isn’t about the money! What the fuck is wrong with you?!
Lukas >
Heyy, broski.
?
So I.
I’m probably gonna lay low for a while.
K.
Probably stay with Tim for a few days.
At Hitomi. You know, with all the polisci kids?
K.
Listen. Can we talk?
I just. Really need a friend right now.
Read at 5:55 PM
Hitomi Hall. Spartacus’ boyfriend comes home to find his roommate - blonde hair, bored expression, cigarette between his teeth - pacing, to find Bloodwit in his bed.
Jansen, what the fuck?
If you wake him up, I’ll rearrange your face.
Like hell! Why isn’t he in your bed?!
Antonio. Please.
Explain then, he says with a put-upon sigh.
perheryhmäkeskustelu >
Eiríkur
Ok. Seriously. What the hell is wrong with Matthias?
Timo
Can we not get into this again?
Eiríkur
No. I mean.
Typing…
Eiríkur
Something that *wasn’t* wrong before.
He hasn’t been the same since he came back from
Eiríkur
From wherever.
Lukas
I think you’re reading too much into it.
Pappa
I’m with Lukas here. Seems fine to me.
Sort of.
Eiríkur
If you say so…
Bloodwit can’t sleep with anyone. Bloodwit can’t sleep by himself. The money comes in installments. Every fifth of the month. The infection spreads to his thighs and buttocks. He can’t bring himself to look. He can’t bring himself to touch. He showers in the dark.
Eiríkur >
You got another check in the mail.
Sent five minutes ago
That’s a lot of money.
Sent four minutes ago
What the hell have you been doing with it?
Sent three minutes ago
Where the hell have you been getting it from?
Sent two minutes ago
Seriously. What’s going on?
His sister comes to visit. Dragging two more kids behind her. One with white hair and dark skin. One with white skin and dark hair. And then there’s Miss Alice-Ice - red eyes flashing.
Do they know?
Know what?
Matthias.
… No.
perheryhmäkeskustelu >
Pappa
Bathroom door won’t open.
Timo
Yeah, I noticed that. I think it’s broken.
Door won’t open. Handle won’t turn.
Timo
Been like that for a few hours. I thought maybe Matthias was just in the bath again.
Pappa
Wasting water.
Timo
Be nice.
It hurts so bad. It itches so much. He’s so drunk it doesn’t seem to matter. Another mouthful of vodka. And then the razor’s in his hand…
And. And.
This time he finishes.
“Matthias? Mads? Hey. Uh, listen to me… alright? Is your old man home? Can you get the door open? No. No. Stay with me. Stay with me… You. You’re gonna need to hang up, okay? And call 1-1-2… or… What is it in Japan? 1-1-9? Tell them you’re hurt. Listen. Listen. You need help, okay? You don’t need me.”
Back in Copenhagen, Danegeld bites his nails on the phone. It would be easier, something whispers at the back of his mind. It would be easier. You could just let him die…
“You don’t owe me anything, you got that? Nothing at all.”
Chapter 13: *CSA* (Garbage Pail Kids) A Story about the Red Dresses
Summary:
TW: rape, child murder, racism, abandonment, kidnapping, poverty, unsanitary, corpse desecration, hit and run, facial disfigurement.
https://amnesty.ca/red-dress-day/
Chapter Text
“The highway has a name. The Highway of Tears, we call it. That’s where he gets them. Or they get them. Or…”
The Red Dress without the Ruby. He’s sandy haired. With an infinity sash like the Orange Shirt’s, and he wears a ring on the same hand as hers. He wears a red dress. And he carries one.
“The landfill doesn’t have a name. It’s just the landfill. That’s where they end up.”
Instead of a spotlight, a movie fragment; the Red Dress as a child. Singled out by the other children. Pelted with stones. They call him redbone and worse than that.
“We were poor White trash. Well… not even White. Not really. The Metis don’t ‘count’ in the eyes of… We’re not real, we’re not recognized. But the real White folks… they hate us all the same.”
Back off!
A bunch of lumpy short stacks. Foster kids. Clearly neglected. Unadoptable. They’re ugly kids. Dirty and smelly. Crawling with lice. But the Red Dress looks happy to see them. He doesn’t turn up his nose.
“They were kids from the projects. Way, way out in the projects. We were urban Indians. A lot of us are. It’s not any easier than growing up on the Rez. Well… not unless you look like me. And even then.”
Cycling Dress likes to pretend he’s a greaser. Some hotshot with a hot rod and a girl on each arm. All he has is one beat up bicycle. With one flat tire. He rides it up and down that patch of road… and the Red Dress doesn’t see him anymore. Not ever again. Not really…
“Everyone knows someone. It’s not just women. It’s not just kids. I was lucky. It was just my friends.” He clenches his skirt and blinks hard. “It was just my…”
Mr. Dodge! Hey, Dodger! Think I found somethin’!
The Wedding Dress makes moony-eyes at Red Dress’ oldest daughter. His hair is split down the middle. Neat brown and spiked spray-dyed green. He holds up… something.
“We all made fun of Greg for that jacket of his. Paying so much when it wasn’t even real leather. But plastics last.”
Maternity Dress always dresses well. Pristine and perfect if not pretty. He holds her hair back as she vomits all over her nice, new clothes.
“Valerie was pregnant. Had been for a while before she disappeared. I didn’t know. Nobody knew. Not until later…”
Partially mummified. The Bathing Dress finds her. A formerly-fat kid with a lot of baggy skin remaining. He struggles with it. Wading through the waist-deep trash. Dodge! Hey, lookit this.
Maternity has wasted away quite completely. The smoking dress in her arms, remarkably intact given the circumstances. Burned with cigarettes. Then just burned.
“She was too young. Maybe I’d have been a good uncle. Maybe…”
The Mermaid Dress has scaly skin and bad teeth. Crooked, sharp and angular. Almost animal. He catches minnows in the creek. Tissue Dress right there with him, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
“For years, we thought he’d fallen in.”
The Bathing Dress again. Pulling up chewed limbs. Too many limbs. They look like they’ve been eaten.
“We found him and Tessie together. She might have been washing up there - they didn’t have lights on at home. And there was mold in the house, her nose was always running. It looked like she’d been drowned. That's what they think.”
Halloween night. Costume Dress wets his pants. He does that a lot. S’okay… I’ll go home to change, I guess. But he never makes it there. Neither does Slip Dress with his bad stomach. Eats too much candy and stumbles behind him.
“Winston. Nat. They were Batman and Robin that year. And every year… before.”
A-Line Dress is the Bathing Dress’ sister. The same malleable folds of fat and skin. Mostly concentrated in her face. Mostly… Ugh. It smells. Like pee and farts!
“It’s disgusting. Digging through the garbage. But someone has to do it. The police don’t care. The town won’t help. The dead should be buried. But not like this. Not like that. Never.”
The Dressing Gown has red hair in pigtails. Like her aunt and her mother and her sisters. She presses a towel to her nose. Trying to wipe away the stench. Decay and gore and garbage. So much garbage… That's okay, sweetie. You don’t have to dig through the trash if you don’t want to. She stands at the gate with V-Line Dress. Each holding a sign. And then the car barrels forward.
Cut; hospital. Face is extremely damaged… it’s a miracle she survived it at all.
V-Line isn’t so lucky. They pull his pieces together. Even then, it’s not an open-casket funeral.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
Rewind; the same car. Years before. Newer. With nice leather seats. It pulls up alongside the Cycling Dress. Goin’ somewhere, kid? The driver is an attractive young man with wavy brown hair and dark tinted glasses. The Cycling Dress climbs inside.
“It never is.”
Account Deleted on Chapter 1 Fri 12 Apr 2024 09:13PM UTC
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Silver_Linings_Playfish on Chapter 5 Mon 27 May 2024 11:36PM UTC
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essence_of_annoying on Chapter 11 Mon 05 May 2025 12:43AM UTC
Last Edited Mon 05 May 2025 12:43AM UTC
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essence_of_annoying on Chapter 11 Mon 05 May 2025 11:30PM UTC
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