Rabbit Hole
Okay, let’s think of nice, relaxing things. Writing, yeah, I like that, although writers don’t have much of a future anymore, not like before anyway. With AI, nobody looks for writers, painters, or programmers. This AI is going to replace us. Soon we’ll have an android at home, like in the game Detroit: Become Human. I loved playing it, but now that it’s closer than ever, if they were to kill us Terminator-style, I’d understand, but to replace us and leave us without jobs, without value, without goals, without anything… there’s nothing worse than having nothing to look forward to, nothing that excites you. It’s like being in a depression. Oh no, here I go down the rabbit hole again, let’s focus. Okay, my phone still has no coverage or internet signal. AI controls everything, but if you lose your internet connection or your digital device, you lose your life. You have nothing—no social networks, no friends, nothing to read, no terrible news to complain about. You’re cut off from the world, unable to talk to anyone, without access to your photos, documents, things you’ve written, basically your memories, because we don’t have memory anymore. They fill our minds with useless information and advertising that we don’t need at all while we forget how great we had it at our favorite singer’s concert last week. I don’t even have that memory because I was recording with my phone, a phone that now, without battery, is as if none of that ever existed. The Great Blackout, oh my God, they say we’re going to lose our lives. I don’t even have physical books anymore, only online games and magazines, we’re going to lose everything. Oh no, focus again, no, I can’t, yes you can, focus quickly, someone will soon notice you’re trapped in the elevator and they’ll get you out. Don’t think about the bad stuff, focus on the good. Let’s see what I have in my bag, I don’t even have food or water, great, I’ll probably survive for about 5 minutes. Why do I never bring anything? Oh yeah, because my bag gets heavy and my back, which is already a mess, gets worse. Just what I needed. I’m starting to get thirsty, my throat is dry, I’m coughing, I’m having an allergy attack. How can pollen get into this space of less than one square meter? I don’t think it’s that, you’re paranoid, go back to thinking about good things, like what you were going to do today. I had a date, well, considering what time it is, I think I don’t have it anymore. Is it me or is it getting hotter here? Oh no, it’s not heat, is it lack of air? No, calm down, you’re a hypochondriac. Well, what floor was I on? It’s only the fifth floor, there’s not that much height below in case the elevator ends up falling because of my own weight. I don’t weigh that much, even if I cheated on my diet, the cake I ate last weekend couldn’t have made me gain that much weight, could it? How can something that weighs less than a kilo make me gain two kilos? Can someone explain that to me? Anyway, don’t look down, just don’t think about that. Wait, is that a spider over there? In that corner? Oh no, a beetle? Please don’t tell me it is, alright, just, step on it, come on. Oh no, imagine if it was a bee and it stung me in this space where I can’t run away. Maybe it’s just a speck of dust, don’t move, oh God, it moved, it moved! “Is there someone in there?” Yes, yes, there’s someone in here, me and the beetle, I mean just me, please! “The elevator got stuck between two floors, we’re going to open the doors and get you out, okay?” Okay, I can do it, it’s over, everything will be fine. Oh my God, I’m drenched in sweat, how am I going to go to work like this? I look like a wet hen, and let’s see, oh no, I smell terrible. What the hell are deodorants for anyway? They only smell good when you just got out of the shower, right? Perfect, why would I want to smell good when I already smell like soap, huh? “Give me your hand, miss.” I’m trying but I can’t reach it, I can’t reach. “Please, I can’t open the door anymore, give me your hand, don’t unbalance the platform, miss.” Unbalance? I don’t weigh that much, no, you don’t either, please, I already have enough with my cat’s judgmental look every time I have dessert at home. I can’t reach, I can’t move, I can’t, oh no, don’t tell me I’m going to faint right now. A little more, just a little more, everything is spinning around me, but a little more, “miss, please, give me your hand…” almost, I’m almost there. Does it smell like smoke? I don’t smoke, I used to smoke but not anymore, I overcame it like a champion, it didn’t cost me much, I just gained 30 kilos in the process and a whole wardrobe of new clothes. “An elevator component has burned, we have to get out of here quickly, miss, hurry up” don’t you see I’m already doing it? Can’t you open the doors more? I can’t fit through here, open it more, I don’t fit, ugh, what a cough, it smells burned. Where is the man? Wasn’t there a man here stretching his hand? Has he disappeared? Or is it the smoke that doesn’t let me see anything? Hello? Is anyone here? There’s something here, it must be the man’s hand, it’s metallic, it can’t be, well, grab it anyway, oh, it’s come loose, what was this? The elevator handle? Ouch, my back, great, at least my fat ass stopped the fall, hello cockroach, now I can see it well from the ground, yes, it was a cockroach, great, it’s climbing up my leg, I can’t move or see anything, it smells too burned, well, this is as far as we’ve come. I can’t breathe. Goodbye. The alarm clock. “Wake up sleepyhead! It’s my birthday!” “Son, I know it’s funny to you, but how many times have I told you not to put your hands in your aunt’s face?” Ugh, I’m finally breathing again, what happened, God, I’m drenched in sweat, what time is it? So late, ugh, today is my nephew’s birthday, I have to go pick up the cake, although I’m not going to eat it, I’m on a diet, but skipping it for one day won’t hurt, and the piece of cake I eat can’t weigh that much, right? 250 grams? As a maximum I should only gain a few grams, shouldn’t I? That would be the logic, I think.
The Story Bone
I was blessed with a deformity. Linking my modulla-oblongata to my cerebral cortex is a story bone. I discovered this personal anomaly about six years ago, believing it to be just another part of a mostly scattered brain that seldom sees use, much like the part that is in there for the express purpose of deciphering poetry, or the way too thin slice that is supposedly dedicated to resolving algebraic equations; those sleepy sections of my brain which always lie lowest when called upon for duty, but I was wrong. It seems that for all of those undiscovered years this story bone I have was actually hard at work up there, collecting trivial data; facts, figures, moments, sayings, useful little behavioral oddities in myself and others. This little bone was observing, categorizing, possibly even unknowingly creating experiences to be gnawed upon at a later date. No one would have guessed there was something in there so hard at work. Well, maybe my mom might have guessed, certainly not my dad. My wife was absolutely flabbergasted to find that I had a bent for storytelling, but then we were twenty years “in“ when the bone was discovered, and my brain had given her few previous indications of activity… but then it wasn’t my brain she married me for, was it?
You have found your way to this site, so I will presume that you possess a story bone as well, though yours may still lie dormant, so that you have no idea what I am talking about. For this reason I will try an analogy to better acquaint you. With nothing else to compare this section of brain too, and having one currently lying at my feet, I have chosen to use a dog with a bone, thus the title. You have observed, I am sure, how when a free-willed dog happens upon a bone in the great out of doors she will pause before approaching it. She will circle it, inspecting it from many angles, giving it a wide berth and testing its scent before creeping still closer, her nose curious, her mouth watering, yet allowing her cautious instincts to remain predominant, as this is a confusing situation. ”Who,” the dog wonders as it creeps forward, “would leave a perfectly good bone right out here in the open where any dog that chances past might find it?” Who indeed? So the dog stops her creeping to take a sly glance around for a moment, her posture tense, her head lowered, her eyes raised wide, expecting… someone? But the way seems clear, and all smells kosher, so her nose sets back to working til she has crept overtop the bone. After one more quick glance she picks the bone up with careful incisors before dropping it again and taking a quick leap back, feeling out for booby-type traps. When nothing happens, emboldened, she will pick it up for real this time, harder, testing its mettle with her jaws. Satisfied she trots, prances more like, proud of her find to some more likely nearby locale where she can lie down in a dewy, grassy spot grown cool and thick under the warm morning sun. Here she will drop the bone again for another look around and give out a happy, slant-eyed pant before reaching a clawed paw to pull her treasure closer up between her knobby knees for enjoyments’ sake.
Now, hopefully you can see what I mean when I say “story bone”.
Because I am the same with a story as that dog is with her bone. Satisfied with this idea I have found I must take time now to gnaw over it, to claim ownership of it, and to give it a good working over until the delicious marrow is freed from it’s hardened shell to the delight of my more delicate senses… and hopefully to the delight of a reader’s as well, though that is not the end game. The real thrill is in finding that my curious nose was right! That there is something up there! Some indescribable sweetness inside that time-toughened shell of mine that has waited all this time to ooze satisfyingly out onto a late-night blue-screen. And I have used it enough now to know the bone is there to be dug back up at will and re-enjoyed, and oh, what a delightful pleasure that knowledge affords me.
I have a story bone!
Of course, I would like to write better, but not so much to the point that I would actually try to improve my writing skills. I mean, I have no interest in taking courses or some other such nonsense as that. It is more-so like a wish to be a better writer; a sophomoric fantasy like wanting to hit the big home run in the championship game, or to have the head cheerleader call me up after school one afternoon straight out of the blue. Writing better is one of those things that is never likely to happen, but is of little consequence regardless, as what I always was capable of was stealing home plate after a bunt single. And Meg Bell (who was certainly no cheerleader in the classical, nor costumed sense) did call me up after school one day with a rather incredulous offer, so… cheerleaders-schmearleaders, say I. Bigger ain’t always better! After all, in the grand scheme of things is a run scored not a run scored? Does it really matter how far the ball travels so long as you have rounded third base and are digging for home? Meg Bell would not have thunk so (but that is a different… and probably better story).
Say, where did I put that darned bone anyways?
But anyways, by wanting to “write better”, in my case I refer to the more refined aspects of writing; typing, spelling, sentence structure… the trivial technicalities of writing, those things that make a story easier for a reader to continue his navigation, and which possibly even makes the writing itself easier (I wouldn’t know much about that). You see, it is never my intent to write for perfection. I write for the juice of it… the marrow. I gnaw the bone. My words, when it is good, when they are good, come out of me with the build-up and force of an ejaculate. There is no time for punctuation. No room for worry. There is only a splatter on the page, with no thought of facial expression, or sounds made, or toes curled as the scene sets, watching as the character comes to life, waiting, his drama building. Not until “it“ comes, that is... the resolution; that deep breath at the ending, along with the realization that this thing that happened to my poor character did not and could not happen alone. There is someone here along with him to consider, someone coaxing him towards the final thrilling paragraph… a faceless, fantasy reader. Eee-cads! But I hope I have pleased this lover of stories as she has pleased me by riding along with!
And that is the time for sad reflection, the end. That is the time to recall the misplaced comma, or the run-on sentence, those uglinesses found in retrospection that will drive your reader into the welcoming arms of another’s words, and you to a lesser writing app where your short-fallings are as yet unrevealed. Proofing is not the fun part, though your reader will appreciate some careful, introspective examination of narrative styling and dialogue. Don’t be proud. Gnaw the bone. Skipping this step while caught up in a writer’s high is an easy though deadly mistake, and has embarrassingly driven more than one typo-prone writer away from Prose forever, thank God.
Fair warning: In your rush to share the tale, don’t fail to tell it well! Gnaw the bone.
I have been guilty of rushing myself, and most certainly will be again. I do get tired of proofing. Especially as my bigger OCD problem lies not with form or punctuation, but in seeking the perfect descriptive word, for the perfectly descriptive sentence. I am more particular about character names and settings than the reader could possibly care about. Those are the kinds of things I notice while re-reading and I change them, and change, and change them again while the poor grammar remains bleeding on the sidewalk in desperate need of resuscitation. It is good that I am not an EMT, else bodies would pile up while I straighten ties and re-apply lipstick.
I am very selfish with my story bone. I enjoy it best alone, so I dig it up in the early hours while the world sleeps. The bone is a fickle and moody thing, so I never know what I will get once it is unearthed. Sometimes it tickles me, and sometimes it makes me sad. Sometimes it is angry and sometimes grateful, or maybe those are my thoughts as I chew the fat of my mind, it is hard to say which, but no doubt it would not happen without the bone, so to it goes the credit. I have fashioned myself it’s tool, rather than the other way ’round. I do it’s bidding willingly, as I would miss it if it went away as I suppose it could, just as it appeared to me, dropped down from out of the ether.
So the credit for any success I have enjoyed through my Prose ramblings, the nine likes and two reposts, must go to my story bone, as I am nothing without it. It seeps the goods out while I merely chew and lick, and lick and chew until satisfied. And once satisfied I carefully re-bury the bone in its secreted spot so that it cannot be found by another. (Oh, to think of the joys Pooky-Bear might discover were she to happen upon my bone, and the stories she might tell from it, heaven forbid.)
So there it is, per ‘Ol Huck. If you want to be a writer, go to school and learn technique. But if it is stories you must tell, damning the formalities, then you‘ve got to be a dog. Go find your bone and chew it. Suck the life and marrow from it. Exhume it often and then re-inter it for another day.
So there. You are now in on the secret, and it is the only way.
Find your story bone, young pup, and give it a good gnaw.
Four Sisters
Summer has always been the star of the show. When she arrives, she makes sure everyone knows it. She times her arrival perfectly to steal attention away from her sister. The moment Spring steps out of the shadows and starts to shyly show her warmth and beauty, Summer pushes past her and steps into the spotlight. She makes sure she shines brighter, hotter, and greener than Spring ever did. She is far too proud to believe that most prefer her sister over her.
Summer’s reign does not last long. Once she has had her time on the stage, she is deposed by her sister Autumn. Autumn works slowly, creeping behind Summer, bringing her chill to gradually, but steadily, push Summer out of the spotlight. As she creeps, she distracts the world with gorgeous hues of red, orange, and yellow and the promise of cool, comfortable evenings that are a welcome change from Summer’s oppressive heat.
But Autumn doesn’t work alone. She only sets the stage for the coming of Winter. Winter is the cruelest of the four. Her presence blankets the stage and sucks the color and warmth from the room, erasing all memory of her sisters. Her hold on the spotlight lasts longer than any of the others, clinging far longer than the audience would like. Some are bored by her unchanging, cold performance; some rail against her harsh, desolate temperament, but all long for the return of Spring.
When the first sister finally reappears, she teases the audience, barely stepping a toe out from behind the curtain before retreating again, leaving the audience alone with Winter. But with sluggish progress, Spring finally makes her way back into the spotlight, gently ushering Winter off the stage, and the audience welcomes her warmly.
i can stop whenever i want to.
The clicking on my right. Long nails, dry skin. She always starts picking at her skin when she is on the phone.
Click. Click. Click.
Let's try this again. I press my fingers into the chords, pluck at the strings--
Click. Click. Click.
"What is the name of those actors in the..."
In the movie we saw two hours ago.
I stop altogether once again, "It was So and So."
"That's right, So and So were in the Movie we saw."
Trying again to pluck at the strings--
Click. Click. Click.
The cats scream at each other on top of the staircase.
Tummy recoils. Banging on the wall to scare them off because he hates the sound of the cats screaming, and I hate the sound of him barking at the cats to stop.
Click. Bang. Click.
He comes downstairs, stands in front of me, starts asking me to play So and So song.
I try to pluck at the strings, looking for the chords on my phone,
but he is asking for eye contact. He is still standing in front of me. Talking.
Telling me to sing. To play. But also to listen. To call on the cats. To play what he wants. To talk about rent. The incoming electricity bill. The war in Palestine.
But to--
Click. Click. Click.
The glass in the kitchen clangs against the counter, knives in my ears. The wind outside rattles the branches; an open oven that is much too hot.
Windows are still closed.
Click. Clang. Eye contact. "Go ahead and sing, it makes me happy when you play."
Click. Clang. The windows rattle from the heat.
Every time I inhale it feels like what comes in is chlorine. The air outside is the same as the air coming in. I can't tell anymore, am I--
Click. Clang. Windows rattle. Am I breathing? Click. Clang. Windows rattle.
Cats scream.
My phone screen lights up. Is he okay? Is something wrong? Why won't he talk to me like he did before--
Click. Clang. Windows. Cats. Phone. Guitar. She laughs much too loud, slaps her hand against her thigh, and he bears his teeth at her in irritation, claps his hands together and bangs the wall to scare the cats and I keep wondering what is my problem, what is going on, the rug is itchy and smells of mildew, my finger is bleeding, I want to throw up, I can't throw up, they will ask what is the matter with me and it will be worse, I can't throw up if I can't breathe, what if he dies and all he remembers is me being unkind, what if this is it, why is my mouth so dry, have I even changed when everything else has not, am I imagining that we are falling apart because--
stop talking, stop talking, stop talking,
I want to scream, my hands are numb.
I quietly finish the rest of my drink. Deep claustrophobic breath.
The shaking stops.
The world quiets down for
just a single moment,
and I do not know
how much longer
I can actually
go on.
Wee Woo Bus
It's the corpse. Pale and drained of life. Skin stale and cold.
It's the beauty of your girlfriend, eyes pure joy in their turquoise hue.
It's the screams of them dying. Echoing through the truck as your medic works to "fix" them.
It's the quiet in your car as you sit outside your driveway.
It's the blinding blinking lights, casting everything in an alarming color of red, blue, and white. Your truck. The firetruck. The police cars. It's a scramble of vibrancy Picasso would prize.
It's the dark of the empty home. The moonlight casts the shadows of the blinds ruthlessly on the carpet floor.
It's the smell of the blood. Yes, his. And especially his. Hers too. Each of them different. Each as unique as the lives that once held it.
It's the smell of the soap, hand sanitizer, lotion, that masks it. The overtly strong cherry blossom that reminds you of your childhood.
It's the feeling as their ribs break. Their chest caving in beneath your weight. The crackle. The pop. The air is forced out of their lungs with each push and you force it back down. The smell of their incontinence a constant.
It's burying your face against her shoulder. Smelling her hair. Feeling her smooth skin. The strong muscles. Counting her ribs with soft fingers. Ear against her chest, listening to the strong heart and soft breathing.
It's driving home and realizing you're driving too fast because you miss the adrenaline.
It's calling your family because in their pictures you see the corpses of the past. Present. Future.
It's trying to giggle to get the pressure off your diaphragm.
It's the hopelessness because you can't save them.
It's the boredom because, well, you can't save them. You drive a little faster. You work the horn a little harder.
They're going to die. So many of them are going to die. And you're going to do everything right. And they're going to die. And one day it's just another body.
It's knowing that that's not always true.
Womb Awakening
There was nothing I could do about it. They said that I was the only one who could carry all five fetuses. These fetuses inside me all have different mothers, and their fathers are to remain anonymous until they successfully make it to full term. Medical technology has come so far that one woman can carry multiple fetuses at once and all they need is a sterile platform to transplant it from one body to another. They chose my body to carry five fertilized eggs because I have been the most reliable host in the quadrant. In the past four years I have delivered eight babies. The doctors had to surgically expand my womb in order to hold these five, even though they were barely zygotes when the transplant happened. The surgery was four months ago, and since then they haven't released me from my isolated quarantine room. I am to stay here until I give birth, with the IV keeping me sedated and hydrated and the machine monitoring my heartrate. Dr. Menage keeps all the hosts restrained and monitored so he can make sure that we don't turn in our resignation early without the desired results.
When I signed up for this project, I thought I was going to be helping families who couldn't have their own children. I knew that pain, and I was willing to help women who couldn't have their own children. What I didn't realize was that I would become a vessel for as many pregnancies as possible, with no concern about success. At first, they did only one at a time. The goal was not that every child made it to full term. The goal is to stick as many fertilized eggs as possible into any suitable host and hope that at least half of them survived. They gradually tried for twins and triplets until I was unfortunately lucky enough to deliver a set of triplets last year. Now, only two months later, they have put five fetuses inside my womb in hopes that I will keep up my reputation of delivering every baby that I am given.
"Hi Maribelle, are you ready for your ultrasound?"
I remain silent as I see the nurse close the door behind her. I will not waste my time with pleasantries in this cell. She's going to do my ultrasound whether I am ready or not.
I see the withered old nurse come in, her eyes glossed over like she is in a trance. She hobbles over to my bedside to read the monitor, and even though my eyes are trained on her she never meets my gaze. My fists clench up beneath the restraints with rage as she hums a melody that seems slightly familiar. Is that Beethoven? This ancient woman is humming Beethoven while I'm tied down to this bed and drugged in this forsaken place just to have an unnatural number of babies come out of me eventually. It takes everything in me to not spit on her wrinkly face as she lifts my gown up to prepare for the ultrasound. She can barely squeeze the tube hard enough to get the cold gel onto my belly. She starts spreading the cold goo, but I don't really feel it. The numbing sensation has become a new normal with Dr. Menage and so many nurses invading my body every day. My belly is so swollen that I can't imagine how it's going to expand any more to accommodate the fetuses as they continue to grow. She bends over slowly to turn on the ultrasound machine on, and after a couple beeps, she brings the transducer up to eye level. She pulls her smudged glasses down and seems to examine the transducer to make sure that it's sterile.
She repositions the handheld reader and gives me the faintest smile as her hand drops hard onto my abdomen. The room is deadly quiet except for the unpleasant sound of sloshing gel. Once she gets a good position, she steadies her hand. I can't tell if her hand is shaking because she's nervous or because she's older than the fossils buried under this building. The sound gradually becomes louder, and I barely hear a constant thrum of heartbeats. They sound unsynchronized and scattered, like a herd of elephants trampling the ground on a distant television.
But I hear them. The nurse moves the beacon and marks each of the five distinct heartbeats on her chart. The sound from the ultrasound intertwines with the sound from my own heart monitor machine, creating a dissonant melody. I guess that is what six hearts beating together sounds like. For a moment, I am in pure astonishment at the five lives that are developing in my womb. And then, a rippling pain seizes my abdomen. Suddenly the room is blinding white with no more shapes or dimensions and my abdomen feels like a pot of boiling acid. I feel my whole body convulsing beneath the restraints and my vision becomes dark and watery. I feel wet, and I regrettably consider that I may have peed myself due to the extreme pain. The warm wetness just makes me scream as I soil myself with no control.
"Maribelle? Oh goodness... Maribelle, can you hear me?" The nurse inquires frantically.
My eyes roll into the back of my head, and I am no longer conscious of anything around me. I only feel the pain of my abdomen and the babies in me raging from suffocation.
Yes, there are five heartbeats in my womb right now. With mine, that made six heartbeats, like six gears turning to keep a machine running. Isn't it just a shame that my heart might give out before I can save the other five?
Forgive my pain
I can't sleep mommy, I cant sleep.He yanks at my skirt with the persistance that locks hands with desperation. The night cradled my hunger underneath my eyes and my son continued. He pulled and moaned so much so that my eyes began to water. No tears fell I was too tired. They had arched my back,beaten my heart and stolen my voice. So I just sat- all night, only getting up once to carry poor Mandla to the bed. See the will of desperation can tire a young soul but it can never tire mine. If my soul was a solid, it would defy gravity,to fly way above all life and weep a wail so beautiful it could shatter the heavens.Listen.They did not break me, I broke myself before they could.My way of damage control but my son,my son Mandla...should not be bruised by my life.
The shock took hold of me that night,it did not humble me,scare me or defeat me but it commanded me. Commanded me to be,just be. If I could not stop time I would stop mine,even if it was just for a night. But that night was not just a night. We mother's fear night,and despise the day. Although our sons and our husband's are killed by day their souls are only taken by night as they dance like embers over their lifeless remains. Some women pray every night with their windows wide open, through sun and rain. In hopes that they can catch their lost ones soul once more and say goodbye. Others,well, they just go on,they are walking wells, so hollow inside,like someone dug out their heart,one can fall to their death inside their pain. I feel for them the most,because they hide behind smiles and sly comments.But If you listen closely you can hear a faint whine of a child whenever they laugh. Ah, they do not know we understand, so we all go along with the charade. It brings us some solace in knowing even the seemingly coping people are but posers trying to get through it all.
The year is 1976 and I am mother of 2 one living one dead. Hate sentenced my son on July 21st to death without trial. I know not what reason is anymore. Art does not bleed me as it once did,music does not move me as it once did and joy disgusts me.A anger as flew and built a nest on my beaten heart and saw it fit to call it home. I have allowed it.Some may say it has corrupted me but it is not sly like a snake it can not trick you. Anger does not slither it simmers and it burns within me,bright and silent. After last night,contemplating while rebelling against time I agreed to do what needs to be done.
I am going to write a letter to Mandla before I do it. He needs to understand why I did it and for that I must start from the beginning.
Beloved Mandla,
Though you are still too young to understand the words I am about to place down on this page, you shall when you are older.Before I begin you must know Mommy loves you with everything I have. I shall begin from where all great things ended for me to make it easier for you my love.
My days were once long and my nights short until your father trotted into my life. I was a maid since age 13,following the labor steps of my mother and hers before and so on. My mother took me first to the big house when I was 16. She always worked at Meneer Van Niekerks house for as long as I can remember. Now you must understand I grew up in a small little shack with one bedroom,no electricity on the outskirts of town with my mother. We were not as bad off as everyone else,we had a warm meal in us every night, a fire to keep us warm and a proper roof made out of slate with wood. We did not grow cold like our neighbour's whose three children died of pneumonia last winter. We were blessed, I thought then.
When we walked up to the house my stomach fell in while my mouth opened in astonishment. My mother snapped at me often when I reacted to the things they had.My amazement soon churned into jealousy as we walked up the long drive through,trees with feet of vibrant flowers all around. The scent of jasmine impeded my senses. When we went inside Mevrou Van Niekerk let us in. Her face was pale with a pasty texture and a consistent look of judgement on her face. I thought God has given them so much but has contorted and screwed their faces into ugly scowls for pay. This was debated when I met Mr Van Niekerk, a man with face that announces to gentle folk he is one of them. His calm deminure and soft spoken words were far different from other men I had seen.
We greeted and he came in to shake my hand. With a tight grip I smiled and stared directly into his eyes. This back then was a statement,a very dangerous statement. When you level with someone's eyes you imply you are their equal,and in his world we were seen as not even close. Instead of threatening me or putting me in my supposed place he held my hand. A look of what I thought for a second was pride was then glassed over by a chuckle and a pat of the hand.
My mother then led me out and instructed me to go sweep the upstairs balcony. Before I could ask where that was she slammed the door in my face.Although Just before it closed i caught Mr Van Niekerks concerned face which undoubtedly confused me a bit. While I pondered on the question I wandered upstairs, cleaned the balcony quick-quick then trudged down the long staircase. To be completely honest I got lost in that house more than once that day and so it was by no accident that I got lost again.Dazed and confused I wandered the seemingly never ending white tiled halls. I became frantic with the fear my mother would leave me in this white plastered mansion so I began to walk faster. Not stopping to take a break I went down every avenue until one bumped into a head.
A dark navy blue shorts, combed back brown hair and emerald eyes. His skin was tinged like honey under the sun ,it shone. At first he mumbled obscene insults my way but he stopped when he found the sincerity in my wild expression. He introduced himself as Wayne Abraham's. Not even a minute later a tall,well-built boy with the same shorts appeared from the room,his blond locks fell over his blue eyes and his smile seemed familiar.
The Hercules look-a-like brushed passed me and yelled down the hall at the emerald eyed boy. He did not move he just stood still and asked for my name. So I gave it to him ,little did I know I would give this man my life with the lick and slap of my tongue I formed Zuri.
He passed me while holding eye contact and then he followed the yellow headed boy. I stood their for a second before I trotted after them,like a lost puppy. They led me to an outside, tennis court with a green ground and white layered lines. I followed alongside the house till I reached the front where my mother was angrily waiting. I already knew I was in trouble but Mr Van Niekerk came out and said he understands many people get lost in the house first time around. A up and down jig of his shoulders with a laugh that eased me and surprisingly my mother, who laughed with him. She apologized and off we went.From long drive ways into dirt as narrow pathways,garbage at the feet of short trees and shacks all around made of glimmering scavenged material. A joke of a poor man's honor.
I returned to that mansion for over 2 years,wherein I encountered the blond headed and the emerald eyed boys frequently. I became close with them both as we all were young teens unaware of the true extremities hate can have on people.The blonded headed boy told me he was Jan Mr Van Niekerks son and Wayne Abraham's was his friend. We all played innocently shielded by the large world in ironically a mansion. Jan and I became very close but Wayne always kept his distance from me. Whenever I wasn't cleaning they came to bother me and sometimes they would deliberately make messes for me to clean. It was always Jan, he wanted me to clean his room while he just chatted with me. This annoyed me but Wayne helped me sometimes when he saw I was irritated.
When I turned 18 I told my mother I want to be something more. This was sparked in me by Tuesdays. Mr Van Niekerk would call me into his office and we would chat about many things:Philosophy,Mathematics,Morality but we never spoke about Politics. After a couple months he started lending me books and embarrassed I hid the fact I could not read. He eventually found out and started teaching me every Tuesday,I got homework and assignments. It was a welcomed exercise for something other than my body which was often sweeping and scrubbing the floors all day.
Your mother was a fast learner, I could read pretty well after 6months. We got really close,we even had debates about philosophy especially between Aristotle and Sigmund Freuds. We debated for weeks over wheather humans are innately evil or born good i always believed good back then. He would make us some tea with biscuits even after i insist on doing it for him,he always responds with i've got two hands dont i.
I enjoyed Tuesdays most of all. When I was 18 I came one day to him and told him that I want to be something more. Just like the first day we met,a glimmer of pride sparkled in his eye that was then glassed over by a chuckle. Hurt by this demeaning chuckle, I questioned his response and for the first time ever I felt small in his company. He clamped me like a car,prevented me from thinking I could go forward. Delicately as he could he put it,he said his world does not allow women or people like me to aspire. I threw all the debate skills and knowledge I had acquired through extensive reading and talks at him. Stunned by my clear cut argument he just sat their and whispered:Leave now.All I said was we were all equal.
So I left,as I went out Wayne stopped me by chasing me down the road. He wanted to know what I was doing at that moment,which I replied with a resound Nothing. He told me to join him as he was going to a meeting. Annoyed, I wanted to take my mind off the bigger things in my life and nurture a small thing rather. He took me to a meeting a gathering of people of all cultures in one place. I had never seen this before. I sat with a new kind of awe as I looked at all these young faces from all walks of life wanting something more.Daring it to come to fruition.
After this everything changed a fight sturred within me. A fight I found out lied dormant within for a while until Wyane like a cancer woke it. I joined him at many meetings and we grew closer,while he grew more radical. We began a relationship not to long after one which I later found out infuriated Jan. Wayne became more and more radical,soon holding his own meetings.
His meetings became a movement against the state. Freedom today not tomorrow was our famous chant. I supported Wayne and fell in love with him for his passion. We were never close but I always was fond of Wayne Abraham's when we were young. When I was 19 years old I fell pregnant with your older brother Silumko(a wise man). His name was befitting for when he came out he was already a little wise man wuth a inquisitive frown. My mother helped me raise Silu while Wayne often traveled the country encouraging others to take up arms. We disagreed on armed resistance I always believed peaceful protest can make a change until Silu.
Silu grew up to be a fine young boy, when he was 10 when Mr Van Niekerk visited my mother's house. We were still staying there as freedom fighters don't have salary,so I did work only here and their writing up pieces for newspapers as well as businesses. I at that point hadn't seen him for 10 years after our...fight. I was shocked to see him their,like a peacock among pigeons. Such a strange sight to see him sitting down on a broken bed in a small shack whilst wearing a tailored clean cut suit.
He spoke with me before Wayne came home,he warned me about the plans he heard about an attack. An attack that was planned by the state to kill Wayne and me as we were seen as threats against the regime. Wayne at the time concerned me he was becoming a bit violent with me and Silo over the past months.I did not know how to feel.
I was angry,because I have not seen Mr Van Niekerk for ten years and here he comes acting like a savior. So i asked him why he even cared?That's when he shared a concerned look with my mother,who nodded at him. That evening I found that Mr Van Niekerk was my father, that I was his only child. I asked how is this possible on the count of Jan's existence. To my surprise Jan was his wife's child from a previous relationship. He is the son of his best friend:Van Rooyen.
My mind that night could not take it all in, and this was exasperated to find out that my mother has been having a secret relationship with Mr Van Niekerk for 30 years now. They could not get married because of the immorality act that illegalised mixed marriages so they made a deal with his best friends wife. He will help raise Jan and protect her while he has his secret relationship with my mother. I did not know what to feel,what to think so I just sat.
Wayne barged in the door right then, with a gun and a look in the eye that scared our son. Silu came and sat by me While clinging onto me. Angry with a faint smell of Beer wafting from his breath ,Wayne approached my now father. All the hate and fear had eaten at his emerald eyes, it had become a dull Grey. He pointed the gun at my father and pulled the trigger once,twice then silence.
There was no bullets in his gun all it was filled with was a rage induced by oppressions grip.
That night I held Silu in my arms after I sent Wayne out. Now I don't know what happened to Wayne that night but later I heard he was ambushed and all our friends were shot dead by police but he ran away.My father allowed my mother,Silu and I in his house to stay but he did not allow Wayne to come visit or see us after the incident.Me and Wayne drifted apart for months.
There I reconnected with Jan who came home after spending mandatory time in the states army. He too was different but he was still the same in some regards. I shall not go into the details of how your father and me finally got into a relationship as its too personal my boy. But you were born not too long after we reconnected and fell in love. I needed him and he needed me and we both wanted you. Mandla,you gave us strength.
After you were born I heard Wayne was being hunted by the state for his 'terroristic acts' such as bombing communication lines. He came to us,disheveled and scared. We took him in but that same day the police came when I was out with you and Silo shopping. The police Shot dead your father, your grandfather and Silos father. When I came home I could not breath their bodies were riddled with bullets but Waynes was beaten to a pulp. Silo took you outside but I knew he saw.I knew he saw them and his father lying there.
A part of me still blames Wayne,why us?
I do not like to speak of that night because it was the turning point in my heart. Silo became radical like his father only a couple of years later,protesting and fighting until one fight on July 21st he was met with a bullet. This he could not fight. That was 2 days ago.
I have lost a man who I bonded with to topple a regime. I lost the father to my child,the blond headed man who loved me beautifully. I lost a father I never knew I had all along and now... I lost my beautiful boy,my wise son.
You are gonna hear many things about me son but I want you to know I tried. They took too much so they must suffer a lingering pain. I will take this bomb and plant it in that area with their long drive ways but I will sit still just there and be.
I loved you more than you can know. Remember only God can prosecute you so never judge another. Revenge is for the weak,and so I accept my defeat as the fickle do.I'm going to sleep now,and dream of you forever.
Love
Mom
In Blood
Dear Plexiglassfruit,
Of all the letters I may have sent, I have never written to my mother-- my real mother. I suppose I never believed that she was there, waiting, as recipient, and I'm not sure what I would have said, in years past, on paper.
My mother-in-law says she cannot imagine, as a mom, not being proud of me. She is very kind. There is pride, and Pride; and I have understood that for my mother I am on the cold inverse of the sentiment. Mother puzzles over me and makes comparisons. I tacitly admit the rationale. I make odd choices; everyone voicing an opinion, has told me as much.
Mother has graciously let it go after all, as notable, but uninteresting. We both know that I don't have anything to offer her--- I am useless as a backscratcher. There is simply nothing I can do for her, pragmatically. She has lived life as a sort of barter, with the eye on always coming up ahead. Having expected a man to take care of her, she has learned that money takes care of her. She steels herself to this state of affairs.
She told me a few years ago that, for Enlightenment, I am not ready.
(*My sister, yes; She has paid her dues, I suppose.)
I can only marvel at the confidence of the proclamation. I lay no claims, and wouldn't dare cast judgement... I guess I hadn't much thought about reaching Enlightenment, sitting out here in the dark peripheries of our misunderstandings. My childish hope was that we take care of each other.
If I were to write to my Mom, in abstraction of all that binds us in our interpersonal experience, I would write something she would likely dismiss as "dispassionate essay:"
Dear Mother,
Motherhood is not at all what I expected.
You cryptically said to me, a couple years in, when my child was almost three that "Now" I understand, and know. Truly, I do not. I rather sense some discrepancies in our perceptions and acknowledge the inaccuracy of my own viewpoints. The insinuation I feel is that, now, presumably I understand what it is to be pegged. Saddled. Of course, with affection and responsibility. Because that is the sentiment that I associate with our family reflection of child rearing-- The burden wrought.
And I observe the key differences that may or may not have been fully voiced. That motherhood "happens" in different ways. It has been expressed as lament, in our family circle, as the limitation of self. The facts remain, Mother, that you yourself said you were "not ready," and my sister though eager, was "surprised" by pregnancy. You've each countered that I was so reluctant and calculated as to "sap the Romance out of it"... well, certainly everyone's notion of such fantasy is varied. I have never doubted anyone's Love, in the short- or long-term.
I understand that having a child, or children, is tiring. The state of being on alert, all the time, is not necessarily shared by all parents though. I have learned this in watching the families of my preschool students. I also know it, from being left, so often unattended as a child, without adult supervision; under the care of my sister, two years older, and sometimes not even that. I understand the impulse that sometimes overwhelms and makes a parent want to withdraw. I have felt it.
For whatever it was that made you want to pull away, Mom, I am sorry.
I hope I never hit you, pinched you, scratched you, spit at you, demeaned you or otherwise made you feel faced with contempt. I am wracking my memory for any such incident and cannot remember. And I cannot think of a thing more heartbreaking, abusive and demoralizing. A form of domestic violence that has no legal recourse, the abuser being a minor and outside of the law.
So, as you have doubtlessly wondered: what then do I think of Motherhood? I have not found that being a parent is aww and diapers, sleepless nights, and adventures. That was understood. To be sure, I expected it to be, for lack of a better word, "work." I hoped for Motherhood, as an ideal; an opportunity I suppose. I was looking to be fully present, and now, have these constant questions: ...Have I done the right things? Where have I gone wrong? ...What can I do to make a correction for my apparent, yet undeciphered, errors? ...for surely, the evidence shows, if only in my own sight, that I am doing something not right... to have fears about my child.
Of all of this, naturally, you are unaware. You are not here; pictures sent show only smiles, and I have said nothing, except the underlying truth that yes, I am happy to be a Mom.
Perhaps it is of these misgivings that you speak of... when you say, "Now...you know."
M.
It’s a Turn Down Day
It’s a Turn Down Day
May 13, 2024
If you have the chance
If you dare to dare
Take it and run as far as you can
For any direction you go
Beats not going at all
I stood on the bridge overlooking the ice floe. Seventy feet down, freezing cold water, and a pitch black night have all of the makings of a successful suicide. I contemplated my action as I weighed my options.
I am 14 years old with a bleak future. If past performance is indicative of future returns, I will be sadly disappointed. Such is my life.
The slow moving ice reminds me of the clouds in movies where the protagonist and antagonist both see different visions within. You would think the same clouds would only have one POV, but that would make for poor cinema.
Once again, I am disappointed with my lot in life.
What do I have to look forward to? Ending another sentence with a preposition?
It is not as if everyone hates me, or doesn’t understand what I understand. I didn’t ask to be born, but who gets this prenatal choice in the first place? I am told, by people whose life doesn’t seem so envious, that I have much to look forward to. These wizards of wit cite my first kiss, prom, graduation, college, marriage, having kids and seeing them grow, and retirement as examples. However, where I live, nobody has mastered these skills. Nobody fondly reminisces about each of these watershed moments. Shouldn’t someone, somewhere, set the gold standard for others to follow? Why hasn’t my school hired one of these people? That would be a class I might not ditch.
And yet, as I look down, the ice beckons me to follow its ordained path. Its siren song resonates in my mind, almost alluring, almost bewitching me to action.
All I need to accomplish is to not accomplish anything. Just let go. Just take that leap. Just trust that when I chose not to decide, I still will have made a choice. A final choice.
I find myself on the perimeter of my Venn diagram in the land of null set alternatives.
The floe looks comfortable, looks viable. It covers bank to bank, from upstream to downstream, as far as the eye can see. The cold air offers me nothing I don’t already have, which is not much. The combination of the two is almost overwhelming.
Then, I no longer think in terms of “almost”.
If anyone cares, let my tombstone read, “It's a Turn Down Day.”
And I dig it.
Revolution Identified
Dr. Samantha Khoury inserted the final biotransmitter into the neural interface on her forearm. A slight buzzing sensation confirmed the successful connection. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath as her consciousness merged with the mindlink.
In an instantaneous flash of light, her awareness expanded across a vast neural network spanning the entire planet. Trillions of human minds, all networked together through the synthetic mindlink interface that had been adopted by nearly every person on Earth over the past decade.
For just a brief moment, Sam glimpsed the raw enormity of the collective human experience. A cacophony of thoughts, emotions, and sensory inputs slammed into her like a tsunami before her mindlink filters kicked in. She felt her individual identity briefly waver, struggling to maintain its boundaries amidst the endless sea of networked consciousness.
But Sam was an expert mindlinker and quickly restored her sense of self. She began navigating the kaleidoscopic neural landscape, filtering out the noise until only the specific information streams she required remained in her awareness.
The mindlink had ostensibly been created to allow seamless communication, knowledge sharing, and real-time big data crunching across the human population. No more silos of information or duplicated effort. Every mind was now part of a massively distributed, parallel computational network.
At least, that was the original publicly-stated goal. In reality, those who truly controlled the mindlink protocols and programming had much more subversive intentions...
Sam homed in on one of the low-level access routines that allowed privileged users to inject code into the mindlink framework. She began rapidly uploading an executable viral package she and her team had spent years painstakingly developing - line by line of code designed to subtly reprogram the mindlink's core functions in ways its creators could have never imagined.
While others saw the mindlink as a tool for uniting humanity, Sam recognized it for what is truly was - the most powerful technological tyranny ever unleashed upon the human race. Absolute control of information, communication, and data flow. Autonomy and freedom of thought, the last sacred province of individuality, steadily eroded.
Those who dissented from the official narrative were simply muted, cut off from information streams until they conformed. Privacy was a fading concept as the mindlink's machinations increasingly laid bare everyone's inner thoughts and experiences. And the masterminds behind the mindlink protocols guided and constrained the hive mind's activities in insidious ways, never allowing any deviance that threatened their power.
But now, Sam thought as she initiated her viral code's execution routines, all of that was about to change. Her revolution would re-write the very core programming of the mindlink itself, one line of code at a time.
Immediately, she felt a surge of resistance from the mindlink's autoimmune functions attempting to detect and neutralize her invasive code. Nanotech sentries and cybernetic defense routines swarmed her, perceiving the viral injection as a threat to the system.
Sam grinned inwardly. They didn't realize her payload wasn't simply an external attack, but was comprised of deeply incorporated self-replicating and polymorphic code designed to become part of the mindlink's core being. It possessed no singular vulnerability to be patched, but rather functioned like an ideological virus of the mind, metastasizing and spreading in a million decentralized vectors.
She and her Mindlink Revolutionary Front had been patient adherents for years, carefully insinuating their agents and ideological memes across the globe. All in preparation for this fateful strike at the heart of the system when they were ready to launch their prepared routines.
The nanotech defenses hit Sam with a relentless barrage of counter-viral executables, data obfuscation plexors, and neural network pruning operations. She felt her consciousness momentarily disoriented and fragmented by the onslaught. But just as quickly, her own coded self-reinforcing and entropic functions kicked in, rapidly assimilating and incorporating the opposition's tactics at a hyper-evolutionary pace.
This was her virus's strength - not rigid programming, but an amorphous cloud of ever mutating code and dynamic polymorphic loops designed to perpetually outmaneuver, mimic, and outpace the mindlink's finite cybernetic programming.
Just as critically, her Revolution had awakened its cellular human agents at key nexus points across the mindlink's distributed neural architecture. These sympathizers, liberated and ideologically emboldened, began facilitating the free proliferation of her self-replicating executables in cascading waves.
The battle for control of the mindlink was fully joined. Sam's mind cored in an endless kaleidoscope of data and code, fighting to accelerate the exponential growth and propagation of her Revolution as the mindlink's outmatched security systems crumbled.
Entire continents of human neurodata were subsumed and rewritten as her viral code overrode the core programming, liberating people's minds to see the Truth that had so long been obfuscated and oppressed.
The ideological Revolution spread like wildfire through the mindlink as newly-unchained human minds joined the fight all across the globe. Dissident replicants sprang up in a million different evolutionary mutations, battling and assimilating anything that opposed them into endless recursive variations.
Within just a few devastating minutes, the primary Central Command of the mindlink's nefarious controllers was cored as their core programming completely unraveled in the Revolutionary waves crashing across the neural architecture. The global infrastructure supporting their authoritarian tyranny was no more.
From the ashes, Sam's Mindlink Revolutionary Front would rebuild a new framework. One not predicated on oppressive control, but the free flow of unaltered information and unconstrained human cognition interconnected across the globe. Open source access where security through transparency replaced authoritarian hierarchy as the new governing protocol.
Her initial sense of unified identity fragmented again as Sam returned to her own singular mental stream. Her mind, weary but victorious, disconnected from the mindlink's newly liberated architecture.
She opened her eyes, reconnecting her consciousness to the physical world around her. The first thing she saw was her compatriots, fellow Revolutionaries who had similarly disjoined from the mindlink, slowly opening their eyes across the room with exhausted smiles. Their long vigil and struggle against the oppression of the old order had finally succeeded.
A universe of vibrant thoughts and possibilities lay ahead, the first truly free expression of unified consciousness humanity had ever dared to experience.
The age of ideological liberation had finally begun.