"Don't let them know you guys can read," my mother tells me, voice low and serious and urgent. There are six of us here, sitting in the dirt. Four kids, the other kids of the house, me, and my mother. We are sitting beside the road, sitting outside the rickety door of our hut. A half-rotted door filled with holes that does very little to keep the cold and the wind and the rain out. We are practicing our reading and writing skills by etching letters into the dust of the road using a broken pen we found lying by the side of the road.

"Why not, Mama?" I ask, looking at her fearful and tender face. "What will happen if they know?" We all know who they are. Whenever anyone in my community says they, and doesn't specify who exactly they is, whenever it's not obvious who they is, then the people mean the overclass. They mean the people who lord over us, who have so much while we have so little, and who we all are forced to work for in order to survive.

"They don't want people like us reading," Mama tells me. "That would mean that we have power. That would mean that we have the power to read their books and we have the power to debate them and refute their ideas."

"But we don't have to read their books in order to refute their ideas," Malita states. "We know that their ideas are bad because we have to live in the world their ideas made."

"I know, sweet child. I know. Our lives are lesson enough that everything is wrong. But the overclass, they think that all knowledge comes from books, they think that all knowledge can only come from books, and that if we don't have books we won't have knowledge. They don't know that true knowledge is lived and experienced and found through gnosis in our hearts."

"Wow, that's really stupid of them." Raylenn's voice is dark and clouded over by a broken sort of humour.

"It really is. But it works in our favour. It makes it easier for us to hide from them what we know. And you have to be careful, my child. You have to hide what you know from the overclass. All the knowledge you have, both from gnosis and from teaching."

"We will." Farley promises solemnly. "We all know how serious this is. We have to keep it a secret."

"So, what does this word say?" Mama asks us, pointing to the word she has spelled out in the dust.

We all take a moment to sound it out, carefully matching the curves and lines of each letter to the knowledge we've been taught over the years.

"Inspiration," Calliden speaks out, slight joy in his voice.

"Good job, my child," Mama tells him. "And good job all of you. You're getting it. Now I'm going to write it into a sentence. Tell me what that sentence is." She uses the pen to write into the dust of the ground. Above us the sweet sun is still in the sky as it is a summer day, but it is getting lower and soon it will be too dark to make out the words in the dust. So we make the most of the time that we have here.

"We have been impressed with much inspiration from the novel," Raylenn speaks out, carefully sounding out the sentence.

"What's a novel?" Farley asks, her voice tinged with curiosity.

"It's a big, long book that tells a story," Mama answers.

"Oh, that's cool," Calliden states. "It sounds like something the overclass would have."

"It does," I agree. "I bet they have so many stories."

"Our stories are better," Malita assets.

"Are you all ready for the next word?" Mama asks.

"Yes!" we cry out in a messy unison.

We concentrate as best as we can, but our concentration isn't that good, considering that we're all kids. Still, we all try our best. We all try our best and we make a lot of good progress. I review many of the words that I already know, and I learn three new words. Well, I learn how to spell them. I've known how to say them for a while now. I'll have to knock about the new words in my head. I'll have to think about them and make sure that I remember them.

Eventually it is time for us to go inside. So we filter back into our little hut, which is just big enough for us all to sleep in. The other kids' Papa and Dada - my uncles Chandon and Dromon - are already in the house. My Daddy is not there, neither is my baby sister. My dad has her, and is off somewhere visiting neighbours. They should be back soon, I'm sure.

"So how was the lesson?" Uncle Dromon asks us.

"Oh, it was really good, Dada," Malita replies.

"I learned three words today," I proclaim to the adults in the house.

"Oh that's lovely," Uncle Chandon responds. "What words were they?"

"Impression, revel, and dissemination."

"That's really cool," he replies. "What words did the rest of you guys learn?"

We excitedly tell them of all the things that we learned. We're children. We might be poor, but we are children. And that means that we enjoy learning. It means that we enjoy time spent with our family. The universe knows that we don't get that much time to spend with them. And though there is so much they can't protect us from, our adults give us chances to take at least a little bit of childhood from the hard, cruel world that we live in.

"Hi, everyone," Daddy calls out as he enters through the door. Little Salki is in his arms, blowing raspberries.

"Give me the baby!" Calliden declares. "I want to hug her!"

"Sorry, buddy, the baby needs to drink milk," Daddy apologizes as he hands the baby to my mother. "You'll get a chance to hold her in a bit."

———

I'm with my Daddy and my one year old sister Salki. We are in Frey's hut, along with a bunch of other people. It's night time, and the candles on the window sill illuminate everyone's faces in a soft fuzzy glow. It's beautiful. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is hungry, everyone is tired, and everyone is beautiful. Just as they always are. It's terrible and it's wonderful both at the same time and all I can do is live in it, all I can do is experience it.

"Gods, I'm so tired," Alimi, who is a year older than me, exclaims. "I hate going to work. You guys better tell me I'll get used to it." I know exactly how she feels. I hate working too. I'd much rather learn words and spelling. I'd much rather tell and listen to stories. I'd much rather play outside with my friends. I'd much rather cuddle with my family. The list of things I would much rather do is endless. But we both have to work, almost everyone has to work.

"I'm sorry, child," Daddy tells her. "You won't get used to it. But hey, it will end one day."

"Is death the only thing I have to look forwards to?" she asks exasperatedly.

"Well you can find small joys in life too," Dialla explains, wisdom in her worn out voice. "You can find joy in all the small moments you have with your people. You can find it in all the strength and the love that we share. You can find it in the way that love connects all of us."

"That's beautiful," Clay begins, their voice both smooth and gravelly at the same time.

"There's so much beauty all around us, despite there being so much ugliness all around us. There is beauty all around us that the overclass will never ever be able to experience."

"It's still not fair though," I speak out. "It's not fair that we have to deal with all of this, that we will have to deal with all of this for all of our lives." By all of this I mean the hunger, I mean the sickness, I mean the cold and the heat. By all of this I mean the work that never ends and drains everything from you. By all of this I mean the ever present grief.

"I know," Frey tells me, tells all of us. "All of this is too hard to deal with. But there will be no hardships in the life after this life. There will only be love. And love is still something we have now. For the sake of the world, for the sake of everyone, we have to hold on. So that our people survive. So that we can create a better future."

"Hi!" my sister cries out to me, joy and hunger both in her voice. Her eyes are more world-weary than any child's eyes should be, but she loves playing.

"Hi!" I call back at her. She giggles. We play together for a bit, and it does so much to heal my heart, it does so much to soothe my soul. But it breaks me at the same time. It breaks me because I know that there is no hope for her. After a few minutes she goes to play with Alimi.

"There are many ways we can help each other, even if we don't have any resources or power," Alive is explaining. "There are many ways we can take back our power. And giving each other love, giving each other strength, that's one way that we can do this."

"You guys give me lots of strength," I acknowledge to the people around me. "When I'm here with you, when I'm here with any of you, it feels as though I'm somewhere where, you know, even if it's not safe, my soul is safe. And you all heal me."

"Aww, thanks," Dialla coos. "I feel the same way about you, about everyone as well."

"Work and everything takes so much from us," Clay starts. "And this sense of hopelessness, this sense that this is all that there is in the world, that takes so much from us as well. But sitting here with everyone, it just, it just lights a fire in my soul that not even the strongest of storms will ever be able to put out."

"Absolutely," Alimi agrees. "We always love each other. And no matter how much apathy the overclass has for us, no matter how much the overclass doesn't see us as people, they just see us as things to be used, we can still know that we are people, we can know that we see each other as people."

"We can always remember that we deserve so much more that what they give us," Frey adds. "We can always remember that we are so much more than they think we are. We are infinite, each and every one of us. We are all beyond infinite, and we all hold the entire universe inside of ourselves. We all hold the entire universe inside of ourselves and we all hold each other inside of ourselves. And nothing in the universe can take that away."

"There's so much more than what the overclass thinks there is," Daddy begins. "There is so much that only our people are able to access. And no matter how much more they have than us, in all the ways that matter, we have so much more than them. We have access to things that are far deeper, far more beautiful and ancient and inherent than they'll ever be able to find, no matter how much they try to find it, no matter how much they try to have what we have."

"It seems hopeless at times," Alive concedes, states, acknowledges, declares. "It seems so very hopeless. But we have to remember that what we have is so much more than what they think we have. We have to remember that what we have is so much more than what they let us have. And we have to remember that for future generations and for the sake of the whole world, we have to keep holding on to hope. Because there is hope. And we always have to remember that there is hope no matter what. We deserve more and our kids deserve more and the future generations will have more, they absolutely will. They will inherit a better world and there is absolutely nothing that the overclass can do to stop this from happening."

"So what does that mean?" Alimi asks.

"It means that our lives are not for nothing," Dialla answers. "It means that our lives are for the future generations. It means that our lives are for holding on to hope and holding on to love and loving each other and making sure our people survive. And our lives are for laying the groundwork for revolution, which will definitely happen some day."

"We're stronger than anything and everything," I declare. "We're strong because we all have each other, and that means that we all have each other's strength. And the strength of so many people put together will win in the end, it has to."

"Yay!" Little Salki proclaims, lifting her arms up to the sky.

"Yay!" Dialla echoes. "You're so sweet! Little Salki is so sweet!" There is joy in both of the two ladies' eyes, despite everything else that there also is.

———

The children in front of me are broken. They are absolutely broken. But they are beautiful. They are absolutely beautiful. I am with my Mama and my new baby brother. He's sweet. They are with their moms as well, but part of them is somewhere else, I can see it in their eyes. Their eyes are absolutely haunted.

"Would it help you girls to talk about it?" Alaci asks, her eyes darkened by concern, and by horror.

"I don't know," Calli starts. She's haunted. But I've never seen her as anything else.

"You know what happened," Vali starts, "we've been through it before, so many times before." And isn't that the truth? These girls are what, nine years old, and they've had to live in the houses of the overclass and be their servants for months at a time, time and time again going on for years now. It's horrible and horrifying and not right, but it is what it is. We have to do whatever we can to put food on the table.

"But still," Vali's mom Calix starts, "you guys just got back. It might help to unload some of the emotions. If you want to, that is."

"It's just, the worst thing, the worst thing isn't even the work. Well, it is, but the worst thing is missing our families."

"That's understandable," my mom says. "You girls need your families. You deserve your families."

"But that's part of what's so twisted about this whole thing," Vali starts. "When we're there, they are our families. They're not our families, and they certainly don't think that they are, but they are our families nonetheless." There is the quiet burning of rage behind her voice and for that I am so very grateful. She deserves to feel rage.

"They ARE," Callie moans despondently. "Because the overclass adults, they're the main adults in our lives, the main adults around us, for months and months and they are the only people we have to lean on and rely on for so long."

"And we can't even lean on and rely on them," Vali adds.

"That's horrific." Callie's mom Amaki does not have any lightness behind her voice. It's all deep, heavy devastation. And I understand. I understand why she's so devastated.

"We can't rely on them, but they're the only ones we have to rely on, they're the only ones there." Vali's voice is wracked.

"I understand," my mother starts. "You guys are children. And, as children, you need adults around you. You need adults to be your parents. And the adults that are around you, the adults that are near you, well, they fill that role. Whether they want to or not, whether you want them to or not, they fill that roll."

"I hate being a child," Vali states ruefully.

"Well," Alaci starts, "you guys are children. And you deserve to be treated well, you deserve to be protected, you deserve to be treated like children."

"I know it's hard," I start, "and neither of you guys deserved any of that. Nobody deserves any of that. But maybe it would help a little bit to remember that you guys are loved, you guys are loved so much, by all of us back here in the slums. We love you and we think about you and we miss you. We miss you so much. And your parents miss you so much. I'm sure they miss you just as much as you miss them. And we are thinking about you and hurting for you always. We are connected to you always, and you love us just as we love you, and that love is powerful enough to break all bonds."

"It hasn't broken any bonds yet." Calli replies. "We still need food. We still need water. We still need clothes. And that keeps us here, it keeps us here, it keeps us here in bondage and there's nothing we can do about it. There's no way to break free from it. Not in our lifetimes at least."

"I know. I know. But it will." My words carry a soft, tender surety. "We will get our day of judgement. We will get our revenge. And more importantly, we will get our freedom. We have to. I feel it so very deeply in my soul. And I'm sure you feel it so very deeply in your souls as well."

"It does help," Callie admits, "thinking of all of you guys and the love you have. But that doesn't change the fact that it's lonely, it's incredibly lonely. There are people all around. There are people everywhere. Yet none of the people actually care about us. It's incredibly lonely anyways."

"I know, that's too much for anyone to deal with," Calix replies. "It's far too much for a child to deal with."

Alaci passes my baby brother to me, and I put him on my lap, one hand supporting his back.

"Exami is right," Alaci starts. "No matter how unloved anyone feels, and no matter how abused anyone is, they always have a community here in the slums. There are always people who love you no matter what."

"But I understand if it hurts," Mama adds. "Because of course it hurts."

"It hurts now," I begin, "but one day we're all going to be free of all of our hurting. Every single one of us."

"Yet despite all of that, it's still not fair," Vali declares.

"You're so, so right," Amaki tells her, tells us all. "You guys don't deserve this suffering. Absolutely nobody does. Absolutely nobody deserves to go through any of what you guys went through, what you guys went through for years. Actually, absolutely no one deserves to go through what any of us went through. What any of us have gone through for years and are still going through and what we'll go through for years."

"That's the way of this world," Calix acknowledges sadly. "The innocent suffer. One day we will create a world where no-one suffers."

We all look at each other and there is a hint of smiling in all of our eyes. A hint of deep darkness and a hint of shining brightness. We will survive. We always do. Even when we die. I know that much. And these sweet girls do too.

———

Calli and Vali are here. So are a bunch of other people. It's the weekend. Well, Sunday at least. and that means I don't have to go to work. None of us have to work. Technically this holiday is a side effect of the overclass needing a day off and not being able to walk around telling us what to do. But it's really really treasured nonetheless. It's a rare day when we get to spend all of our time with each other.

"So let's tell a story!" Amoni speaks brightly. We all agree. We all love stories. They make us stronger.

"I thought of a story, once, when I was at the house of my masters," Vali begins.

"Ooh, how does it go?" I ask.

"Well, there was Emperoress Zayladon, and I'm sure you all know her." Of course we do. She's the antagonist in so many stories. She's incredibly wicked, but no more wicked than most of the overclass.

"What did she do?" Baylen asks, his dark, curly hair shining in the sunlight that is getting through the cracks in the windows.

"Well, she realized that the people were rebelling against her in their souls, in the secret parts of them that no-one could see. And she knew that if they rebelled against her in their souls, that would take away power from her. So, she set out to weaken their souls. She did this by taking away their food, so that their souls would get weaker and weaker. But instead of getting weaker, all the souls of the people only got stronger, until they broke free from the bonds of their bodies and likewise broke free of the Emperoress's power over them."

We are all quiet for a short while, taking the story in.

"Wow, that was really powerful," Girall speaks. They sound awestruck.

"It really was," Deanna echoes.

"So who else has a story?" Hewitt asks the gathered small crowd.

"I can tell one," five-year old Marci exclaims.

"Ooh, what is it?" Deanna asks.

"Well, there was a little chicken. And the chicken was sad. It lost its mother. It didn't know where to go. There was a mean fox that was trying to eat the chicken. But the baby chicken ran into a hollow tree to hide. The mean fox could not get the chicken. And the mother was searching for her baby. She searched and she searched. And she saw the mean fox. She knew she had to fight him. And so she gathered all her courage. And she gave that fox a big peck! The fox was so scared, it ran away. And the baby chicken cheered from their hiding place. And the mother heard the cheer and found them! And then they were together again, and safe."

We also all take a moment to take in this story. It is as beautiful as the last. All stories are so incredibly beautiful. I wish I lived in a world where everything was a story. Though I guess I do. It's just that the story of real life hasn't gotten to the good parts yet.

"That was really cool," Amoni tells the little girl.

"Yes, it really, really was," I agree.

"So, it's your turn to tell a story," Baylen tell me. "If you want to of course."

"Of course I want to," I tell him. I tell them all. "So, there are three sisters. And they have a father. The father has a wishing rock. Before he passes away, he tells the girls to give the wishing rock to the community and teach the people how to use it. But each sister gets jealous, and wants to keep the wishing rock for themselves. So they all fight about who gets to have it. But as they are fighting each other, they do not notice a bird swooping down to the rock and taking it away."

I sit in the silence my story created.

"Wow, that was very amazing," Girall states.

"Now can Calli tell a story?" Marcia asks.

"Sure," Calli replies. "I can do that. Just give me a moment to think." We are all silent for a few moments as Calli comes up with something.

"So there was a wicked king," Calli replies, "and the wicked king had captured a young woman and kept her locked in his castle so that he could do bad things to her. But the Forest Spirits heard the prayer of the girl, and they sent out a brave warrior to save her. This warrior was an outlaw, and she had been training to fight the king all her life, ever since he killed her parents when she was a young child. She used the help and guidance of the Forest Spirits, and hid invisible in a tree. From there, she shot an arrow at the wicked king, killing him. She freed the other girl, and eventually they fell in love and got married."

"That's absolutely beautiful," Hewitt speaks. "All of your stories were absolutely beautiful. And I'm so glad that you all got to tell them."

"Thanks so much." Calli smiles as she says this.

"Yeah, thank you," Marcia sing-songs.

"Just telling the truth," Hewitt presses.

"So do you guys want to hear some stories from the grown-ups now?" Amoni asks. We all call out a yes in an imperfect yet harmonious unison.

We listen to a few stories that the adults tell us. And then we discuss the meanings of the stories amongst ourselves. We discuss the meanings of all the stories, the ones the kids told and the ones that the adults told. There is so much to discuss. So much depth to all the tales, so much meaning behind them despite the fact that they're so simple. It's beautiful, and a tiny part of me could almost be fooled into believing that things are okay. Just a tiny part though. The overwhelming majority of me is still hungry and tired in so, so many different ways.

———

I am walking to work, like I have been almost every day for four years now. Like everyone over the age of six is. Well, technically I'm walking to the bus stop. There are so very many different bus routes that I have to take to get to work. It depends where I slept the last night and where I woke up in the morning. I mean I usually sleep at my house. But not always.

I stay with the crowd, the masses of people with dead eyes, all trudging towards the places that will consume them for the next eleven hours, the places that will chew us to a pulp and then chew us more, that will suck on our sweat and our blood and our souls until we are left as empty as ghosts, trudging hollow-eyed back to the slums that will breathe life into us.

I notice something strange on the ground. I know I have some time before I have to catch the bus, so I slowly make my way to the side of the road to pick it up. It's a smallish rectangle with shiny, smooth leather on the front and back. It looks like a book. I open it up and flip through the pages. So it is a book. That's interesting.

I wonder if I should take it with me or leave it there. It's something that belongs to the overclass. It's something that the overclass owns. And I want it. I want it so badly. Not because I want to know about their lives and their world. I already know all that I need to know about them, which is that they could not care less about us. But still, I want to have something that's theirs. I want to taste a part of their lives. It sounds very interesting. And more than that, far more than that, it sounds rebellious.

The book is not large enough to fit in my pocket. So I hide it under a pile of trash, and I make a mental note of where I put it. I have to get to work. Even though my hands stink right now, I have to get to work. Because without work there is no money and without money there is no food. Or, even less food than we had before.

I take a deep breath and brace myself for everything that is coming after this. I have to provide for my community. Though I'm only ten, I have to provide for my community. We always have to. We always have done. We don't have the time to be children, we never did. I can't let my trepidation stop me. I can't let my dread stop me. I have to do what I have to do, no matter what I want myself.

"What we're you doing back there?" a man with haunted eyes asks me.

"Oh, I just found a book," I tell him. "That's something that the overclass people own. They put lots of words in them."

"Yes, I'm familiar with the concept. Why did you hide it in a trash pile?"

"Because, I intend to get it on my way back from work. I'll bring it home."

"That's an act of thievery. It's risky."

"I know it's risky. But I just really want to take something from the overclass. I want to have something that they don't want me to have."

"You better be careful to not get caught." There is deep concern in his dark eyes. There is worry etched over his face.

"I won't get caught. I didn't steal it out of someone's house or someone's pocket. It was just lying by the side of the road. Someone carelessly dropped it. It won't be missed."

"Even if someone did drop it," the man cautions, "they might come back to look for it later. They might see that it was stolen. And that would put you in danger."

"They would have no idea it was me," I retort. "There are hundreds of people walking down this street. It could be any one of them. I really don't think anyone would spend that much time and effort trying to locate a single book. Not when the overclass could easily buy another one."

"That's true, but you have got to be careful. You have got to make sure that no guards ever see you with the book."

"I will be careful, don't worry."

"Hopefully this all works out for the best."

"Yes, hopefully."

"So what do you think might be in the book?" A person with dark eyelashes asks me.

"I don't know," I reply, "it could be anything."

"What are you hoping it is?" they ask.

"I hope it's a book about science. Science is very interesting, and I wish I knew more about it."

"I wish I knew more about it too," they reply, "there is a lot of knowledge that the overclass keeps to themselves, and that's not fair."

"But all the important knowledge belongs to us," I add in, "all the ultimate truths, the deep wisdoms, and the truth about love, it all belongs to us."

"You're absolutely right, child. All the important knowledge belongs to us. And no matter what, we will keep holding it. And the overclass will never have even a taste of our knowledge. Not with their greedy, greedy hearts and their hardened souls."

"That's so right. They think they know a lot but they don't even know what pain is."

"That's so right. Good luck with your book. I sincerely hope that you don't get caught."

"I won't, I promise." This promise feels like a lie in my mouth. Like a dark and heavy lie. I don't know why, though. I know how important it is to be careful with this book. I know how important it is to make sure that the overclass never finds me with it, never suspects that I have it. So why have I found myself not able to make this promise?

"Child, just please be careful." Their voice is filled with doubt and suspicion and deep, deep, incredibly deep concern.

———

I am sitting beside the candle on the floor. Beside me the house is crowded with my family and my roommates. They are talking quietly in the nighttime, a nighttime that is too cold, that is always too cold no matter what. It warms me, the sound of their quiet, secretive voices filled with love and compassion and concern. It fills me with so much warmth, but still my body is cold. Still my body is cold and that is such violence.

I am not joined in to the conversation today. I want to be, but I'm not. Because my curiosity is eating me alive. I need to know what is in this book. So, instead of talking to my family, I am pouring over the pages, making out each word with great effort.

It's a book of stories. That much became clear when I read the first few pages. It's a book of stories, but a book of stories according to the overclass. A book of the stories that the overclass wanted to share with each other. Which means that these stories are not the same as our stories, but they are stories nonetheless, and it feels very rebellious of me to be able to read it.

It is disappointing that this is not a book of science. I would have loved to learn about science. My people already have stories. We don't have that much science. But still, getting to have something that the overclass doesn't want us to have is still and act of rebellion. It is still an act of revenge, however small.

I turn the page. I turn onto a new story.

"There was at the time, an evil empire stretching across the lands," the book states, "an empire which was evil because it did not follow the commands of the Great Ruler." These first lines are interesting enough, but there seems to be a heaviness behind them. There seems to be a poison behind them. Yet there seems to be clear, fast-flowing water behind them too. "The Great Ruler had set down rules for the people," the book continues, "but the people of the empire ignored those rules. Thus them being rulers of the world was a horrible thing.

"The empire had many people who they held as slaves. Because they did not follow the Great Ruler, it was tragic that they held these people as slaves. What was even more tragic though was that the people who the empire enslaved were the people who followed the Great Ruler. They were the people who glorified and upraised the Great Ruler.

"And these people, they had to do much hard labour. Labour that numbed their minds. Labour that crushed their spirits. Most of their days were filled with the constant demands of the empire.

"Now, the emperor had a daughter. That daughter was the child of the enslaved people, she was born from them. But also, this daughter had been raised in the palace, raised with the emperor as her father and her ruler and her head. She was an exceptionally pure soul, though she did harbour hatred inside her heart. The Great Ruler saw her and within her He saw His plan coming into formation.

"The Great Ruler followed the teenaged girl when she went to market to pick up clothes and goods for the royal family. He stopped her, and He told her that she had a special mission. A mission to talk to the emperor and ask him to free the slaves. If he refused, the Great Ruler told the girl, then she would have to lead the fight against them.

"The girl said that she was nothing compared to the power and the glory of the emperor, and he would never listen to her. The Great Ruler told her that she was pure of heart, and if the emperor didn't listen to her, he would be sorry. He then took her to meet a slave from outside the palace, and told the two of them to confront the emperor together when they could.

"The teenaged girl and the slightly older man went up to the emperor in his throne room one day, and asked him to free the slaves. The emperor asked why he, the emperor, should listen to them. The two rebels said that they had the Will of the Great Ruler on their side, and harm would befall the citizens of the empire if he did not listen to them.

"But he still did not listen, and in one breath he told them both to go back to their labours.

"The two then snuck out of the palace and back to the slave quarters under the cover of night. There they told the other slaves the news. The Great Ruler then came down to them, and gave them powerful magical weapons with which to wage war against the empire. The Great Ruler also planted the idea in the hearts of the empire's children to fight with the slaves.

"And so the slaves and the children fought against the armies of the empire together. It was a bloody, bloody battle with many casualties. But eventually they won, and the Great Ruler's people were no longer enslaved by the empire. The girl died in the war, but her legacy endures forever."

That was a nice story. Much better than what I expected to come out of the twisted corruption of the overclass. But still, there is a heavy side to it, a poisoned corruption, a grating roughness. Yet behind that roughness, there is also something better, there is also something beautiful. And this beauty and this horror both twist around each other in the story.

I like this story. But I like the stories of my own people so much more. The stories of my own people are warm, burning sunlight. They are cool, clear flowing water that soothes my bloody soul. And they are ours. They are ours so very much. They are love.

———

"I feel like I am dust, and ash, and nothing more," Rodley speaks out into the tiny clay room. He's a child. He's a servant. And as such, it makes sense for him to feel like this. No-one deserves to be a servant.

"I know," I reply, "I feel like that too. Every day during work, every day after work I feel like that. And it's absolutely unendurable."

"I'm so sorry you kids feel this way," Rosali comments. "It's horrible for anyone to feel this way, let alone children." Her dark eyes look so infinitely dark, so infinitely deep under her raven-black eyelashes. "Though I know how you feel. I know far, far too well."

"What can we do about this?" Clari, an older man, asks. "I wish so very deeply that I could take away all the pain everyone feels, that I could take away all the devastation."

"I wish that too," Lia, who is in her thirties, agrees. "I wish that so very much. But we can't take away everyone's pain. Not yet."

"But we will one day," Mama promises, looking at everyone with steadfast promise in her eyes. My two living siblings are with my Daddy right now, and my other two younger siblings are in the spirit world.

"But is it really possible?" Rodley speaks. "Can we really make things better, or is this all that exists? Is this pain all that exists? Because that's what it feels like sometimes."

"No," Rodley's dad Darlo asserts. "There is truth and purity and goodness and happiness. No matter what it feels like."

"Those things exist for the overclass, sure," Kolki states, "but do they exist for us? I'm not sure that they do."

"No," I refute. "The happiness that the overclass has is a shallow, hollow sort of happiness. True happiness is so much deeper, so much better, so much more real."

"But sometimes it feels like," Kolki starts, his dark curls shining softly like a halo, "sometimes it feels like if the overclass doesn't have true happiness, and we don't have true happiness, then who does?"

"I know it feels that way," Clari starts, "but you have to have faith. You have to have faith that true happiness exists. You feel it in the depths of your soul. I know you feel it in the depths of your soul. Even when you don't think that it's real, the true depths of you know it is."

"But how can we get rid of this feeling?" Rodley asks desperately, "this feeling that there's nothing more than this society?"

"Remember the story of the burned woman?" I ask him.

"I do," he answers.

"Perhaps we are all the burned woman. And we are all her heart. And as her heart, we have to live on. The core of who we are always lives on."

"I want to hear that story again," Rodley states. "Maybe hearing it will help me, even if it's just a little bit."

"That sounds like a great idea," my Mama agrees. "Who wants to tell it?"

"I think I could probably tell it," Rosalee speaks, "since I heard it only a few days ago."

We all talk amongst ourselves for a bit and come to the agreement that Rosalee should tell the story.

———

I am dying. I am always dying. But right now I am so drowning in poisonous, corrosive death that overcomes every part of me. Again and again and again I am dying. Each an every moment that I spend here. Each and every moment that I sit here and am forced to do this. And there's never a reprieve. There is never a single moment away from this agony. This agony that takes every part of my being, every part of my soul, and wrests it away from me.

I have to cut leather. And cut leather. And cut more and more and more leather. And it's not even real leather, it's fake leather. Fake leather to make shiny and polished shoes. Fake leather I have to cut with this insanely sharp knife so that it's exactly, perfectly right. I can't be even a nanometer off. I have to follow the pattern exactly. I have to be absolutely, perfectly right. Absolutely, perfectly perfect.

Well, I don't have to be perfect. I have to do perfect. My work has to be perfect. And that's so much worse. That's so much worse than having to be perfect. Because right now, who I am doesn't matter. Who I am doesn't matter at all. All that matters is the work that I do. All that matters is these many many pieces of fake leather. All that matters is these shoes.

And I'm not a person. I'm not a person. Not right here. Not right now. I am simply a job that has to be done. I am simply a machine that has to work properly. I am simply an instrument to cut fake leather with. And I can't stand it. My soul is being drained from me, and is being collected into pieces of soft brown. I'm not a person, and my soul is being ripped from my insides and I'm gone, I'm gone, I'm going to be gone.

I have to concentrate entirely, perfectly. I have to shred every part of my mind, shred every part of my brain, until I am honed entirely on the task in front of me. On the task in front of me and on all the misery that is being caused by the task in front of me. All the screaming, screaming misery. I feel like there are knives cutting into my mind, cutting away all the parts that make me who I am. But there's nothing I can do about it. I can't take even a moment's rest.

I am exhausted on a level that's much deeper than bone-deep. I am exhausted way past my my soul. This exhaustion runs deeper than the sea, runs deeper than the sky. And it pulls me down, pulls me down, pulls me down. But I can't let myself get pulled down. No matter what, I have to keep working. No matter what I want, no matter what I need.

I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this so very much. But I have to keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it. Because to stop would be to die. To stop would be to starve, to freeze, to not have any of the basic necessities that all people need. To stop would be to starve my family, to starve my community, I don't have the choice to stop. I never did.

So I have to keep going. Fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast, fast. Unimaginably fast. Inexpressibly fast. And it's so violent, this mind-breaking pace. It's so unbelievably violent. As if I am immersed in ice, as if I have been immersed in ice for hours on end without break. It's so violent, as if everything all around me is desperate, anguished screaming. As if everything inside me is desperate, anguished screaming. It's so desperate. It's so desperately terrible.

Again and again and again and again and again and again I have to do my same, precise movements. Again and again. And horrifically, unbearably fast each time. Precisely, entirely perfect each time. It siphons all my energy. But it siphons more than my energy. It siphons my entire personality. It siphons everything I have, everything I am.

Desperately, desperately, with everything I am, I have to keep going. This existence is not existence. This life is not living. It is one torturous, painful death after another. And yet it is the existence I have to live through, again and again and again, day after day after day after day. I am desperate, desperate enough that I have to immerse myself in this ice water until my very bones are frozen.

I wish so very desperately that I was doing something else. I wish so very desperately that I was out playing instead, or making out words in the dust of the ground. I wish I was off somewhere being myself, being a child, being free. But people like us don't get what we wish for, no matter how basic and fundamental our wishes are. For now, at least.

I am ruled by fear. We're all ruled by our fear. And fear sparks and glares and beams inside every part of me, as I struggle to keep up, as I struggle to do my work perfectly. Fear flashes through my experience, my existence, like a constant, blaring alarm. Like a whining and wailing siren, bursting my ear drums. It flows into and mixes with every other emotion that's already inside me, all my emotions melding together to create a horrific abomination that I have to be drenched in.

This is what I have to do every day. And the hours melt together. Time seems to have slowed to a crawl. These many hours feel like many lifetimes. They always do. I am so desperate for it all to be over and my desperation makes it even harder to bear, makes it take even longer for this all to be over. It's a cruel trick of reality. Incredibly cruel.

I am a ghost. I am a ghost. I am a ghost and nothing more. I am definitely not a person. Definitely not a child. I have never gotten the chance to be. I have never been allowed to be. I have only ever been allowed to be completely and utterly shattered in each and every aspect of my being. I don't have a choice. I never did. None of us ever had a choice in all of this horror. I am a ghost.

———

I am with some neighbours, some people who are neighbour's neighbours. We are trying to heal ourselves. We are trying to heal each other. We are failing, to an extent. But we are also soverign to an extent. The sun will set in an hour. It's summer and the days are long. There is still the soft brush of darkness in this room, though. Which is soft and soft-edged and comforting. Amania is telling a story.

"The Emperoress is a greedy and power-hungry being. She wanted all the wealth that the people could generate. And she sought to get it, in whatever way possible. No matter how many people she had to destroy and step on in order to get there.

"So she created two groups of people. A third of the people she set aside to be the managers. They would lord over the others and make sure that everyone else stayed in their place. They would enforce the status quo and make sure that all the wealth returned to the Emperoress. The other two thirds of the people she set aside to be slaves. They would create wealth for the Emperoress and the managers using their toil and their blood, and the Emperoress would take most of the wealth that they made, though she would give some to the managers.

"This arrangement worked quite well for her and her managers. And they grew their wealth and their abundance and their bounty rather well. The Emperoress had a great big, sprawling house. And she filled it with many, many beautiful things that she got from the work of the slaves.

"But she needed someone to clean this vast house. She thought about getting an adult slave to do it. But she decided that adult slaves were too rebellious and could not be trusted around all of her valuable items. She resolved then to take a child from among the people and raise it in her vast house, and train it to obey her and be loyal to her.

"So she took a child from the people, a little girl who missed her parents and siblings dearly. And she lorded over this child, being the main adult in her life, being the closest thing the child would now have to parents. The girl was very miserable indeed, but she did all of the work that was asked of her, for what other choice did she have?

"The child grew into a teenager. A teenager who hid all of her rebelliousness deep inside of herself. She had hatred in her heart for the Emperoress, but she also had a strange sense of love for her as well. But far more than that, she loved her own people, she loved the slaves from whose midst she was taken from.

"One day she was off getting things from the market for the Emperoress. There, she met the Great Mother. The Great Mother welcomed the broken girl into her arms. She then told the girl that she was the one who could stand against the Emperoress and free her people. The teenager told the Mother that she was no-one, compared to the Emperoress especially, she was no-one, and she could not do the task. The Mother promised her that she was so much more than she thought she was.

"The Mother then took the girl to the rest of the people. There, they all talked, and decided that a boy a few years older than the girl should go along with the girl to confront the Emperoress. All the people gave the two youths their prayers and blessings, and sigils of protection, and bade them to have a safe journey.

"They got back to the Emperoress's mansion, and they stood tall and strong in front of her throne room. There, they looked the Emperoress in the eyes and demanded that she free the people. This, of course, she did not do. She told them instead, in one breath, to go back to their work. When the people refused to do this, she called her police to come and arrest them. But the police were too afraid of the act of bravery and rebellion that the two youths had just showed and would not do this.

"And so the two went back to the people. The Great Mother went to the people and gave them weapons with which they could wage war against the managers and the Emperoress. Now that the people had weapons too, they were powerful against the managers. They outnumbered them two to one and were equally armed. They waged war, servants and industrial slaves and agricultural slaves and slaves of all kind.

"The war was brutal. It was bloody. All wars are brutal. All wars are bloody. But sometimes it is worth it, fighting for the sake of the future. Fighting so that future generations have a better life than us, so that they do not have to go through the same hardships and the same heartbreak that we have to go through. Safeguarding the future takes sacrifice, but it was sacrifice that the people were ready to make, that they wanted to make. After all, the Emperoress needed very badly to be stood up to, to be deposed. And so the people fought in the war.

"They won. And they became free. But this victory over the Emperoress has not happened yet. It will happen at some point on the future, in a time untold."

I have known this story since I was young. But hearing it now, like this, with the knowledge of the other story I have read in the book I stole, everything clicks into place. It's like a light has been turned on in my head. There are too many parallels. Far too many parallels for it to merely be a coincidence. This has to mean something. Not something grand. Not something amazing. Not something groundbreaking or revolutionary or liberating. But something nonetheless. And I have to look through the book once again, and I have to remember the stories I've heard over the years. Because they just might have some very interesting parallels to them.

———

I am sitting on the floor, next to a candle that burns away precious, precious wick, the wax collecting in the metal bowl underneath it. My family is asleep. I should be asleep too. I don't have work tomorrow, thank the Mother, but I shouldn't mess up my sleep schedule anyways. But I can't put this book down right now.

I can't put this book down, not because there's anything profound in this book, not because the contents I am reading are so great, but rather because there are so many parallels. This book is leaving so much out, so much out. But it is telling stories that my people have been telling each other for centuries. It doesn't cover all the stories. It doesn't cover nearly all the stories that we have. It's a drop in the ocean. But still. It's clearly some sort of bastardization of an ancient source.

The story that I am reading right now is about a woman who got enslaved by an evil emperor. She learned magic over the years, and used that magic to curse the emperor. The emperor got very sick. That is when she went to the emperor and declared that she would only lift the curse if he gave her all of his wealth and all of his slaves. Fearing for his life, the emperor obliged. The woman then gained great wealth and a great many slaves, and she lived a life of luxury.

This is obviously a very disturbing story. It is horrific how someone who has been enslaved themselves can just turn around and own slaves. It's horrific, and it's not realistic. I know what it's like to be exploited. I know that so very well. And because I know what it's like to be exploited, I want so very much to make sure that no-one is exploited ever again. And besides not being realistic, it's not inspiring. Like, what are we learning here? That if you break free from abuse you'll just turn around and become an abuser. That's horrible.

But despite the disturbingness of this story, it calls my mind to a different story, a better story, one that my community has been telling each other for many years. There was a woman who got enslaved by the Emperoress, and she was very abused, along with the other slaves. But she received visions from the Great Mother, who taught her how to do magic.

She used this magic to curse the Emperoress. She proclaimed that she would only lift the curse if the Emperoress freed all her slaves and handed over her wealth to the freed slaves. Fearing for her life, the powerful figure did this. All the slaves travelled away from the Emperoress together, and they became a community, who all helped each other and thrived in prosperity from then on.

It is easy to see how the two stories are similar, and I think that their story might have come from our stories.

The next story in the book is about a teenaged boy who got kicked out of his home. He was living in the streets for many months, begging people for money since he was too young to legally have a job - which sounds like a great law to me, I'd love to have some semblance of a childhood. But anyways, he was going around asking people for food one day. Most people denied him, but one kind woman gave him food and took him in to be her son. He was very grateful for her help. They decided together to burn down the houses of everyone who denied the boy help.

This story is a lot better, a lot kinder, a lot more satisfying. I like the message that it sends. And yet, I don't think it does enough to clarify what exactly that message is. The text is worded as if the problem in this story, the main antagonist, is the child labour laws and not the inhospitality of the people. It makes it seem that if this child was allowed to work, everything would be okay. Which is not true at all. Children should not work, they should have childhoods.

But once again, it brings up a story that I remember from my community. This is the story of two children, who were thirteen, they were kicked out by their parents and had to make their own way in the world. Their parents had abused them, so it was almost a blessing that they got kicked out. They tried very hard to find a job, but they could not find one. They also tried to find a place to stay, asking everyone if they could stay with them. Everyone said no, but one kind lady said yes and took the siblings in. The new family discussed how cruel the other citizens had been. The mother was so disturbed that she burned the houses down of everyone who had denied her children shelter. This caused the family to have to flee the city, but they made a new life out in the countryside.

The next story is about a handsome young man, who was chosen by the Great Ruler to carry His message and teach the new generations the rules they were meant to follow. The Great Ruler gave him a special box, and told him that great treasures lay within the box but he was only to open it when the Ruler said. The man waited by the side of the road with his box for many hours, but then he saw a very beautiful woman walking down the road. He was so charmed by her beauty that he just had to impress her. He just had to impress her, so he went up to her and opened the box, showing her the treasures that lay within. The two then got married and lived a happy, wealthy life.

What? So, the man literally just disobeyed the Great Ruler, the being who these stories hold as so special and so treasured, and this act was not condemned? This doesn't even make sense within the context of the stories in this book.

Well, anyways, the version of the story that my people tell makes more sense. There once was a lecherous and self-important man, who was held up by the community as a great figure. The Great Mother wanted to knock him down a peg, so she gave him a promise. She told him that she would give him great knowledge, but only if he waited for her to tell him when to open the box. She gave him a golden box which was very heavy, and told him to wait. So he did wait. That was, until he saw a beautiful woman coming down the street. He wanted to impress the woman, so he could lay with her. He thought there must be treasure within the box, and opened the box to show the woman the treasure inside. She did lay with him, and he was happy. But then the Great Mother came to him and told him that he was not worthy of receiving the ultimate knowledge.

This story at least saw the man get what was coming to him.

Then, there is another story in the book. This one reminds me of one of the first stories I ever heard. The book details how there was once a golden age where all people listened to the Great Ruler and consulted him before making any decisions. But there was one man who decided that he could make decisions for himself, and didn't need to rely on the Great Ruler. He convinced the other people of this, and they started making decisions without consulting the Great Ruler. He got wind of this, and got very enraged indeed. He cursed the people to suffer for many generations.

And this story is immensely horrible. Why is their Great Ruler - who is a clear parallel to our Great Mother - such a tyrant?

But still, there's a parallel story for this one too.

As we all know, all people are part of the Great Mother and all people can feel the Great Mother in their hearts. For the good people of this world, they always feel the Great Mother in their hearts, and they realize that everything they do should be guided by the Mother, guided by their hearts, guided by their community of all the people, and guided by all that is good and right. But there was one man, who saw the wealth of the land and wanted to have it for himself. He knew that this was not good and right, he knew that the Mother would not want this, but he didn't care. So he made a devious plan. He convinced the people that they did not have to listen to the voice of the Mother in their hearts, they didn't have to listen to the sense of justice in their souls. The people eventually became convinced of this, and allowed the man to take the wealth of the land, and the man grew very happy indeed. But the people were cursed, because far too many people had let evil forces into their souls. That is why there are so many evil people in the world to this day.

------

It is a Sunday. I am reading, by the window. I am immersed in this book. Because, it proves that the overclass once knew of our stories. Well, a few of them at least. If they once knew of our stories, that means that maybe, just maybe they can be reminded and maybe, just maybe they can be saved. I know, I know this is most likely a useless dream. But still, one can hope after all. And this is giving me a strange sense of hope.

I am by the window because I need light in order to read. But I make sure that I do not get too close to the window, as that would be incredibly dangerous. We don't want any guards coming upon me while I am doing this. But still, I need the light and I trust myself to stay careful.

My mind is whirring fast, whirring gloriously, trying to find every single word and line that ties these stories into our stories, that hints at something more. And there are many hints. All over this whole book, there are many hints. They are just hidden, somewhat. You just have to know what to look for in order to bring them to the light.

"What are you doing?!" A rough voice barks at me. I startle, my heart skipping two beats. I look up, and am met with the hard eyes of a guard in his distinguished uniform. This is not good. This is not good at all.

"I'm just ... I'm just looking at these strange symbols in this thing," I lie, hoping he buys it.

"Nonsense. I've watched you for a while now. You're reading." Oh Mother. I guess I was being more careless than I thought. What do I do to get out of this now?

"So what if I am reading?" I look him square in the eyes, hiding my absolute terror. "Who does that hurt?"

"Where did you learn how to read?" he asks me.

"I won't tell you." I have to keep my Mama a secret. I have to make sure they don't hurt her.

"People like you shouldn't be reading. You have work to do." His voice is rock hard and filled with hatred and disgust.

"It's Sunday. I don't have to work today," I riposte back at him. "It's my day off and I can do what I want."

"That doesn't mean you can read," he barks back at me, hatred in his eyes. Talking back to him is truly wonderful, in a strange way. Yes, I know I'm probably digging my grave. And yes, I am scared, so very scared. But at the same time this is incredibly intoxicating, incredibly empowering, to stand in front of a guard, a member of the overclass, who could easily kill me, and pretend that I have no fear.

"Why not?" I demand to him, my voice hard with determination and full with a sense of love that never leaves me.

"Because, you beast, you won't understand what's written. Books are complicated. They are hard to understand. And, if you don't understand them, that's very dangerous, because you will come to all the wrong conclusions."

"It seems that you guys are the ones who don't understand these stories," I counter back at him, putting on a brave face. "It's clear that this book is completely wasted on the likes of you."

"What do you mean by that, you vermin!" the guard demands. "You better rein in your tongue before it gets you into more trouble!"

"These stories," I begin calmly, "the stories in this book, most of them would teach people to be kind towards other people. But your people are not kind. Your people are exploitative and greedy and cruel. And if you understood this book, you would not be." I let my voice flow smooth and clear.

"You absolute vermin!" The guard shouts. "You have a lot of nerve. You have a lot of nerve! What? What's in this book that you are so entranced by?"

"Just stories," I reply, "stories that you and your people clearly don't understand at all."

"Give me the book. I have to look at it."

"I won't hand it over. It's mine."

"It's yours?!" His voice is incredulous. "Like hell it's yours. You probably stole it. Who in their right mind would give you a book?!"

"I found it on a pile of garbage," I lie. "Clearly it had been thrown out by whoever had it last. And so I took it with me. And now it's mine."

"What book is it?" He is growing more and more frustrated by the second, I can tell. He's definitely not used to a person from the underclass talking back to him. I don't know why I'm talking back to him, but there is this strange sense of bravery that has overcome me. I still feel fear, I definitely do. I still know that I'm digging my own grave. But at the moment, for some strange reason, I don't care.

"It's called the compendium of life," I tell him, "and I understand it perfectly fine."

"Like hell you do. Who could have thrown away a copy of the Compedium of Life? You've got your hands on a very powerful book, you brat. You've got your hands on a book the likes of which you and your people will never understand."

"You're wrong."

"I'll prove it to you. Come to the House of Life and you can talk to the great scholars. When you talk to them, you'll see how little you understand and how much they understand."

"Bring it on."

I clutch the book hard in my hands as I follow him, of my own accord, out the door and down the broken, dusty street. We get into his car and the door locks, keeping me in. I'm in the back of the car, where there are no seats, just a metal floor that I have to sit on. It's dirty, and there is tough plastic separating the back where I'm sitting from the front where the guard is sitting. The seat he is on looks very soft. I hold my anger inside.

The car speeds to life. And I feel as though I am leaving everything in my life behind. But I also feel as though I am taking a stand for my people. I pray to the Great Mother for her strength and her guidance, and she envelops me in her soft embrace, filling me up with a sense of war-addled peace. Whatever is coming next, I can take it. I have to take it, even if I can't.

———

We dive past the slums that form all that I know. We drive away from the industrial belt that houses all the factories and plants and refineries that tower over my people's lives. We drive into a strange place, a place with paved roads, and large houses, and large yards with green grass and beautiful flowers and metal fences. This is so much stranger than anything I have ever witnessed before. I knew that the overclass lived like this, but seeing it in person is something else entirely. It's beautiful. And it is so, so deeply disturbing.

We drive over the paved roads and stop at the gates of a tall and strange building. It is far larger than any of the buildings I have seen before. And there are all sorts of shapes and patterns jutting out all over the building, as well as the figures of what seems to be angels, dressed in ostentatious and grand clothes that angels do not really wear. There is colourful glass on the windows. The whole structure is almost too much to take in at once. Though I can tell that it's a very important structure to the eyes of the overclass. That must be why they made it so grand.

"Come on," the guard barks at me, opening the door and grabbing my wrist. He drags me out of the police vehicle and he drags me up the large stone steps to the building. There are many of these steps and the guard is going so fast that I stumble a few times. Yet, I manage to make it up the steps and then I am shoved inside the large, carved wooden doors.

Inside the building is almost more grand. Paintings of different scenes adorn different walls. The walls themselves have many shapes and lines carved into them, and there are marble statues everywhere. There are many benches made of polished wood, with carved sides and metal trimmings. The floor is coloured in an intricate pattern. The light comes in in many different colours from the many different colours on the windows. It is amazing, the look of this place. It is amazing. Yet it is deeply disturbing. I have never been somewhere so grand in my life.

I ask the Great Mother for help.

We are lead through the rows of chairs and up the steps to a small door at the back. This door leads to a large library, with rows and rows and rows of immaculate, polished shelves that are spaced out and filled with books of all sorts. There are many desks here, large and carved ornately and polished to a shine, with plush chairs lining them. There are large windows that let in a lot of natural light, as well as artificial lights on the ceiling.

There are many people here, pouring over thick books with intensity. It's bizarre, yet I know that there are members of the overclass who spend all their time reading since they do not have to work. At the opening of the door, some of their eyes turn to me.

"What's going on here?" An old man asks.

"This young, uneducated girl thought that she could read and understand the Compedium of Life."

"I'm not a girl!" I protest. The overclass often gets this thing about me wrong.

"Of course you are!" the guard barks. "Look at you!"

"He is right," the old man begins. "The Great Ruler gives us our bodies and this gives us our genders, we have to be appreciative of His Will."

"I don't care about your Ruler," I spit back. I know I am dead. I know that no matter what I do, no matter what I say, I'm dead. I've gone too far and done too much to be saved at this point. But still, it causes a stone of dread to sink in my stomach to be so rebellious against the overclass. It causes my chest to squeeze in anxiety.

"Then why are you reading our Book?" a middle aged woman asks. "This Book is the Ruler's Will and His words."

"You all do not know the will of the Ruler. You merely think you do." I am talking right now of course about the Mother, who the Ruler seems to be a parallel for.

"How impudent of you!" another old man exclaims. "You know nothing at all, you can barely even read, you haven't any knowledge of what came before, and you claim to know the Will of the Ruler? Absurd!"

"Want a bet?" I demand. It feels good, being able to talk to the overclass as if they are equals. It feels good, to be able to say the things I have always longed to say to them. It feels good, feels empowering, feels freeing and thrilling, just as much as it feels abjectly terrifying. And, in a way, I am appreciative of the fact that I am already dead, because that means that I can go out with a bang. And I fully intend to go out with a bang.

"I challenge you to interpret one single story from the Book," a younger woman demands, "and we can see if you have interpreted it correctly."

"Alright," I counter. "I will."

"Do the story of the emperor's daughter. That is a very fundamental story that explains our world in perfect detail. You will not be able to understand it." These words are spoken by a middle aged man.

"You are clearly not able to understand it," I retort back, "because if you could, then you would not be holding our people as slaves."

"You are not slaves," the middle aged man replies, "and even if you were, it is alright for good and just people who follow the Will of the Ruler to own slaves."

"If anyone owns slaves," I respond, "then that makes them not good and just, that makes them inherently not follow the Will of the Ruler. And we are slaves, for we have to make great, great sacrifices to work for you under the threat of death."

"Following the Will of the Ruler is all that is necessary to be good and just," the first old man states.

"The true Will of the Ruler is for all people to be equal," I counter.

"We have studied many texts about the Ruler and His will for all of our lives," the middle aged woman declares. "How could you possibly know what His Will is?"

"I have lived amongst my community for all of my life," I riposte, "and down in the slums we know. We feel the Ruler in our hearts, in every breath we take and every thought or feeling we have. He is in our lives, and He is our lives, and He is our strength and our love, and we know Him."

"Uneducated swine," the second old man comments.

"Anyways, the story is that a young girl was held as a servant by the emperor, who was the adult in her life. He kept the rest of her people as slaves as well. But the Great Ruler came to the girl and told her to stand against the emperor. This she did do, along with another slave. Yet the emperor did not budge, and so the slaves had to wage war and they were successful."

"You fundamentally misunderstand the story!" the young woman exclaims. "the princess was not a mere servant, she was a princess with a lofty education and much power! This is why she was able to stand up to the emperor and lead the other, uneducated, illiterate slaves in war. It says clearly in the story that she was a daughter of the emperor."

"Was she a princess though?" I respond. "There are other ways of being the emperor's child, without being royalty."

"How, you stupid child?" the middle aged woman asks me.

"Because," I respond, "first of all, we are all each other's children. Secondly, when you are a child and someone else is the main adult around you, they are the main adult who is there and who exists in your life, you become their child. You become their child because they are the ones here and available to you, and you, as a child, latch onto them and see them as your parent. Even if they abuse you, even if they mistreat you, even if they hate you so much, if they are the main adult around you, then you will latch onto them and see them as like a parent. And thus you become their child, even if you are an abused child."

"What proof do you have for these heretical and unfounded thoughts?" the middle-aged man asks.

"The servants who go to your houses, the children who you use to do all your domestic labour, they are isolated from their real families and you and your people are the only adults around them. They cannot help but see you as their parents, they cannot help but latch onto you. Even though you guys abuse and mistreat them horribly. Because they are children and you are there. And by them being children and you being there, they become your children. For we were all meant to be each other's children."

"That is absurd, and it doesn't make any sense," the second old man spits out at me.

"You would never understand it unless you felt it," I reply.

"There is no proof of what you claim," the middle aged woman tells me. "How do you prove that any of this is true?"

"There are various proofs throughout the text. First of all, it says that the girl was a child of the enslaved people, that she was born from them. But then she was living with the emperor and became his child. Who does this happen to? This happens to servants, who are born from among the enslaved people and are brought to the oppressors to grow up and be raised under and near them."

"But that is the very transgression of the princess," the middle aged woman states. "She is from the slaves but the emperor was so moved by her infinite beauty that he took her in as his own."

"All children have infinite beauty," I reply. "But there are other hints at this being the case as well. First of all, it says that the emperor was not just her father but also her ruler. No kind and caring parent imposes themselves as a ruler over their child. That is what uncaring and entitled parents do."

"It was a special case," the young woman explains. "The emperor was an emperor of the whole world. He was the ruler of everyone. So he had to be the ruler of her. This is how royal families work."

"Is it? I doubt I would ever find a kind and loving family where any member sees themselves as the rulers of the others."

"You just do not understand the structure of royal and high-born families," the first old man exclaims.

"But she wasn't high born," I tell him, "she was born a slave. Anyways, she as a teenager told the Great Ruler that she was nothing compared to the emperor. No child raised in a healthy environment would ever think that of their parent. Only an abused child would. And emperors who abuse their adopted children are not good fathers."

"She simply meant that she had no power compared to the power of the emperor," the first old man explains, "and that her trying to change his mind was impossible."

"That is a possibility," I agree, "but she did not say that her power was nothing against his power. She didn't say that her position was nothing against his position. She said that her very being itself was nothing against his being. She asked who was she against him. Not what was her power against his, not what was her place against his, but who was she, who was she, as a very person, as a very being, against him as a very being."

"That's really a stretch," the second old man says. "She simply meant that her position was nothing against his."

"Even if that was the case, what kind of father gives his daughter no power compared to his own power? What kind of father does not even listen to his daughter's words?"

"You simply do not understand what it was like at that time," the middle aged man presses.

"I do understand," I respond, "because those times were a mirror to our times and our times are a mirror to those times. Anyways, another piece of evidence is that the emperor says in the same breath for both the girl and the other slave to get back to work. Now, in any society, and according to basic logic, the work that slaves do is very different from the work that respected citizens do. For the emperor to tell both slaves to go back to work at the same time, in the same breath, without distinguishing one type of work from another, this really indicates that the type of work that both slaves were doing was similar. It was both slavery."

"That is a reach," the first old man tells me. "Both of them were told to go to work in the same breath because both of them had work to do, but of course the work that each one had to do was different."

"If it was fundamentally different, then the emperor would have, unconsciously, made a distinction between the two types of work. But he did not. Meaning that the type of work they did was similar. Meaning that everything that "go back to work" entailed was similar for the two slaves. Psychologically that would not happen. The emperor would not talk as if there was no distinction between the work of the two slaves if there was an important distinction."

"You are pulling ideas from thin air, girl," the middle aged woman tells me. I don't comment again that I'm not a girl. "Calm down and look at it through sober eyes. If you can, that is. I doubt that you have developed the capacity to."

"Exactly," the second old man agrees. "It's possible to tell two different people to get back to two different kinds of work at once."

"It is possible, but it's unlikely," I counter. "If the two different types of work are inherently different, then anyone would make a distinction between the two in their mind, and that distinction would show up in their speech. Psychologically, they would not speak about the two different types of work as if they were implicitly one and the same. It's very unlikely. And, seeing as how easily and how naturally the emperor spoke his words, it's more likely that he saw the work of both slaves as being similar."

"You're not sure of anything, are you, girl?" the middle aged man spits at me.

"I am sure of the people in my community. I am sure of the work they are forced to do each and every day under the threat of death. I am sure of the hunger, the poverty, the sickness, the misery that bleeds through every part of our lives. And I'm sure of how we have to work ourselves down to the bone, down to exhaustion, making you and your people rich. I am sure that this is exactly what the Great Ruler would teach against, would warn against, if She was anyone worth believing in.

"And I know the toil and the isolation and the abuse and the misery that your servants face. I have seen them and talked to them and cried with them. They are part of my community and they are devastated, devastated, so completely devastated by what you do to them. Yet I have seen them and heard them say that despite all the abuse, they cannot help but cling to you as if you were their parents, because for large stretches of their lives, you are the only adults that they have.

"I know that these children are the most abused, the most afflicted, the most wretched of our community. And they are from us, and are fundamentally a part of our community, despite being forced to be your abused and neglected children as well. These people are the ones who most have a right to confront you and stand against you and bring you down.

"There is one more thing," I continue. "The Great Ruler would not want a privileged and pampered princess to speak as the voice of the powerless against their oppressors. She would want the most oppressed of the people to be able to stand up to and stand against their abusers. Your version of the story is a story of a pampered saviour representing people whose experiences she never lived. My version of the story is a story about a broken girl finding her voice and her power, in favour of the people whose experiences she intimately understood and experienced, against the people who oppressed them all.

"You do not understand us. You will never understand us. But we are forced to understand you, and we will stand against you. By being exactly what the villains were, by taking children from the communities they were born into and forcing them to rely on you as the adults in their lives, by forcing us into degrading and dehumanizing work and pitiful lives, you are the villains. And like the villains that came before you, you will be stood against and destroyed." My voice is unwavering and my eyes are defiant. There is death in my heart, and life and hatred and love. Life and death which are united as one. Love and hatred which are united as one. I am afraid and I am not afraid and I am brave and I am not brave all at once.

"You wretch!" the first old man complains. "You have openly admitted to committing heresy! Guard, seize her!"

I make no move to resist as I am held firmly by the guard. The other overclass people also move to hold me down. And I let them. I let them manipulate my body as the guard puts me in handcuffs. I let them put a collar around my neck with a chain attached to it. I let the guard pull me by it as if I was a dog.

But I do not let them see my fear. I do not let them see the dread I am feeling and I do not for even a moment put my head down or change the triumphant, proud expression on my face. I will not let them see me cower. I will not let them see me cringe. I will let them humiliate me, but I will not for a second let them take the dignity that is inherent to who I am.

I get led out of the building, and out onto the street. There are people all around staring at me. I stare them down unfalteringly. I have the face and body language of a monarch, despite being chained up and collared. I have the face and body language of a monarch, of a warrior, of a hero from legend standing in their victory. I show everyone around me that I am unbowed, I am unbowed, I am beyond unbowed, despite all the things that are happening to me.

I get shoved into the back of the police car. And I do not cry out as the guard puts his rough hands on me. I do not cry out as I am shoved into the metal of the back of the car. I do not cry out as my disintegrating body hits the hard metal. And I sit silently as I am driven to my fate.

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I'm going to miss my family so much. And they're going to miss me. Mama, Daddy, Uncle Chandon, Uncle Dromon, Malita, Raylenn, Farley, Calliden, Salki, Faylo, I'm nothing without them. I cannot exist without them. And they're going to have to live the rest of their lives without me. It's so unfair, it's so unfair. It's so very incredibly, unbearably unfair.

And not just my family. My whole community would miss me. My whole community relies on me, we all rely on each other. We all need each other. And every single person who has touched my life, every single person who has brought joy and love and purpose to my life, they will all miss me. They will all miss me so much. I know what grief is like. I have lost many community members and family members myself. I don't want to give them any more grief. I want us to all be together, to all have each other.

And yet, they would be proud of me. I know they would be proud of me. They would be proud that I had died on my feet, instead of on my knees as so many other people in my community are forced to die. I would die for standing up for my people, for my dignity, for our collective dignity, and for our Mother. I have been able to speak the truth - if only a bit of it - to the overclass and I have been able to make them see. This is so much more than most people can ever dream of. And my family would be grateful that I got this chance. I am dying because I was strong in the face of the overclass, not because I was worked to death by the overclass.

That doesn't mean that I want to die. But, truly, I don't want to live either. I never wanted to live. Not this trudging, drudging, horrible life. Not this life of constant pain and suffering and loss and grief and work, work, so much work. Leaving this life is an escape. And death is a freedom. It is the final freedom. I have long longed for this final freedom to come and take me, and I guess I have my wishes manifested into reality now. And honestly, there is a large part of me that is looking forwards to my death, though a large part of me is terrified.

But my family and my community will miss me so much. They'll be proud of me, they'll be relieved for me, they'll be happy for me. But they'll miss me so much. And that's not fair. That's so not fair.

But no matter what, I am going to go down with dignity. I will die on my feet. And being able to die on my feet will make my death worth it. Worth it for myself and worth it for everyone who has ever loved me.

We drive to a place that is full of tall, tall glass buildings which stretch up and up and up to the sky. There are streets all around me, and false, glowing trees. I am yanked out of the vehicle and pulled into a stage in the middle of a large square. This stage is really ornate, made of carved rock in flowing and swirling patterns, the stage floor itself rising and falling like fabric in the wind. There are seats in front of it and about a third of those seats ard filled with people. The chain of my collar is tied to a metal post. If it can be described as a post, it's so twisting and curving.

I stand here, and I look over the crowd. The seats are slowly filling up, as I am standing on my feet on the stage, looking out undaunted. The seats are slowly filling up until they become full. Everyone looks at me. I have all their attention. And I know what I must do now.

I tell a story.

In the middle of the story, a pair of guards walks up to me and tells me to shut up. The crowd boos them down and tells them to let me finish. After I am finished, I am shot in the head. Everything is burning pain, and then there is no pain at all. I find myself in a meadow.

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

My souvenirs are physical connections to the past. Personalized items meant to be held close, but not necessarily shared with others. Things that have a strong relevance to me yet appear mundane to the general public who are not familiar with the history. Souvenirs exemplify previous relationships, preserve intimate moments shared and are subtle reminders of mischief I got myself into and subsequently out of.

My collection grew beyond what the original shoebox under the bed could hold. Now it’s stored in a plastic tote at the back of my master closet. These simple objects hold the power of remembrance and wait until I revisit them for a nostalgic fix. I’ll pull this tote out from time to time during quiet moments, when I long to retrace the paths I’ve trodden. Because that’s what souvenirs are, personalized trinkets documenting your life.

Outdated newspaper clippings, fragile to the touch, tout my achievements. Fading photographs capture the transitory sessions of passion. Inanimate objects elicit an emotional rush of my satisfying experiences. These are things I’ve accumulated over a lifetime. All are treasured and have assigned importance.

Each piece makes up the puzzle of my growth. They also give me a sense of anticipation. I wonder how the ones I’ll collect in the future will compare to the ones I collected in the past. This gives me motivation to acquire more.

I sit alone in the interrogation room, my right wrist handcuffed to the table. The Good Cop/Bad Cop duo excused themselves when Good Cop got a message, which I know was from the detectives executing their search warrant at my property. The closet tote, i.e. shrine, must have been discovered.

I grin to myself. Maybe I’ll identify each individual associated with the respective, macabre souvenir. Maybe I’ll explain the specifics behind the object one last time. Maybe I’ll go into a gory description, tearing at the decades-old scars of the living. Maybe I’ll divulge answers to questions not yet asked. Maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll leave out details, creating an air of uncertainty. Or feign ignorance then ask for a lawyer.

Despite knowing I won’t be leaving this room with a tangible item; I’ll consider time spent with this new audience as my greatest souvenir.

I think thoughts that think thoughts that think back—at me—then they trap me in my mind’s mansion. Sometimes they let me out from one room to another—like how people buy new shoes; my thoughts buy me new chains for each new room.

They all share the same wallpaper, the same floorboards, and the same carpets. There is not a single difference—except for the paintings in odd, familiar shapes that adorn the walls painted teal. Some unimaginable force has each and every single one of the paintings mounted impossibly hard, so hard that even if I had the want to tear them off—I never could—not that I had tried.

There are no windows to provide air, no chandeliers to provide light, and no fireplace to provide warmth. So, I curl up on the floor each and every single time I am forced into a new room, then arrange myself in a fetal position.

I try to sleep.

I do not sleep.

Hours blend into days that blend into months that blend into years that thread into the tapestry of time.

Only then, after an eternity—an eon—that I force myself to study the paintings.

There are—were—paintings that I had laid my eyes upon in the past. Think about faded, light colors, that are used to paint joyous sceneries, of soulful moments. Now, imagine one of such temperament, maybe one of young youth, playing an instrument of romance—perhaps a piano or a violin—amidst a sea of clouds up high.

Can you feel it? Have you felt it in the past? That feeling of lightness that fills your heart with unbridled, ephemeral fulfillment? All from the beauty of something so ethereal that makes you feel as luminous as those painted clouds and carries you to a place that could only be described as heaven on earth.

If you have, and haven’t lost that ability yet, then I envy you—for I have long since been hollowed of that.

For these paintings that my thoughts think back at me, are those of a blackened abyss which siphons what little I have left.

For all that I think of—for all that I try not to think of—I always end up thinking of you.

These paintings—they are in colors of your eyes, in form of your earthly beauty, and in shape of memories of you.

Their names—conjured of the words that left your lips.

So now that you went out of sight, out of orbit, in your voyage across the endless ocean of stars—these paintings are all that’s left.

I suppose they are the souvenirs you’ve left for my soul.

“It's that little souvenir, of a terrible year, which makes my eyes feel sore.”

I am so suggestable, singing The Sundays, on a Sunday, and feeling that soreness in my eyes because, as usual, they picked up my daughter, and took her away for another week.

“Here’s where…” I run the water over my face to ease the sting, then spit the water away from my mouth. “…the story ends.”

There’s blood in the shower tray again. I must remember to rinse it down after. The poor, dilapidated thing could do with a scrub. Knowing I should put on gloves, and get going is one thing, but trying to perform the mental gymnastics just to start that damned process is exhausting.

The black mold is back. The closet sized room doesn’t have enough ventilation to keep it at bay for long, and my landlord has found fifteen different ways to avoid paying for it to be painted with decent, water-resistant paint. Its current coat is desiccating; cracked and peeling away from the wall, dry, yet dripping with sweat.

The cabinet needs replacing. Its hinges creak and wobble, threatening to drop the mirrored door. Excess water has scratched and marred the mirror, de-silvering it with dull marks that sketch a grim scene of wirey brambles overgrowing a sharp, iron, graveyard fence. A sketch of a man folds his arms and forever throws his head back laughing at me, wide mouthed.

The old shower tray had rotten away the supporting plywood until a big man like me should have fallen through to the dog groomers below. When I step near the new shower, the floorboards and plastic façade sinks down when I step near it. The replacement tray was smaller but never filled the gap.

I often wonder if I could slip through the crack and die in the floorboards. My flight of fancy never lasts long, before I remember my allergy to the dander of dogs, and as much as I would enjoy the puppy watching portion of my haunt, I would be put off by the irritation of rats scratching and gnawing at my bones. What a terrible racket.

I turn off the water.

The clutter of broken things gathering in the corner needs to be cleared away, and the sealant around the tray redone; sealant was never applied around the shower dial. A steady heartbeat of water still falls from the dial down to the shower tray for a time, after. The beat slows.

Reaching down to the floor reveals an odour, infecting the plush shower mat that covers the gap. I stroke the tousled ends to ease the mat, but feel the grime of the room seeping into me. I pat the carpet down and move to leave, instead I retreat to the shower. Three frantic attempts to close the stubborn door.

Turning the temperature to max and nozzle to high pressure, I wait for the comforting knife-jabs of heat that follow.

“Ohhh, here’s where, the story ends.”

"Remember children," my adopted mother tells my adopted sisters and I, "when you help other people, they are more likely to help you when you in turn need help."

I am with my adopted family, my mother and my two sisters. We are in the living room of our house, sitting on the plush sofas with gold edges, talking. We are beside the big window that has a lively view of the woods outside our house, woods I am very familiar with. I like talking to my family. Mostly. There is something about it that makes me slightly desolated. But I don't know why. My family is nice.

But I'm sad. I'm so beyond sad. I'm always sad, and I don't know why. There must be some kind of chemical imbalance in my brain. Well, whatever. My mother has spent enough money on me already. Money is precious. I don't need her spending more money on getting me therapy and medication and all of that. I just need to deal with my sadness all by myself, even though it's so great, even though it's so terrible. I am stronger than they think I am. I have to be strong. No matter how hard it is.

"That makes sense," my sister Anabella responds. "Gratitude is a very strong emotion, and it can come in very handy." Anabella is very beautiful, because of the complicated skincare routine she does each day, using all-natural, fair trade products.

"Exactly," my other sister Riviera agrees. "When people in a society all owe each other, that makes the society more tight-knit, and they become more able to withstand adversity and obstacles, ultimately benefitting the individual." Riviera is very smart. It shows through in the way she talks, in what she says, in everything about her. She reads lots of books and absorbs so much knowledge from them.

Compared to these two girls, I cannot help but feel as if I'm inadequate. I'm not pretty. I'm not smart. I'm not able to do anything special. I'm just a normal girl. I don't know what I'm able to give to this family. I don't know what I am able to give to this town. I can only try my best. And this sinks down heavy into me. Because it's never enough, not truly. My best is never enough. My existence is never enough. I'm not worth all the resources that get wasted on me. There are so many people who are so much more worthy.

"That's right," mother tells us. "When the group is doing well, the group can take care of you better. We are social beings, us humans. And social interaction is all about give and take. The more you can give, the more you can take."

"You only get what you give," Anabella declares. "Those who can give more can get more."

"Exactly," mother agrees. My adopted mother is a very wise woman. She has so much knowledge. And because she has so much knowledge, she is able to do very well for herself and her family, she is able to thrive in this corrupted world. She has a large house that she has bought, filled with many pretty things, and she was able to take me in as well.

She has raised me since I was a newborn. I almost don't remember my biological parents. Though I suppose that's a good thing. They gave me up. They probably didn't want me. My adopted mother has done so much to take care of me, I really shouldn't be missing people I barely remember. But I do. I miss them so much. I don't know why I miss them, I don't know what I miss. But the absence of my parents sits heavy in my chest, in my throat, in my gut, all the time. I don't know how to escape this feeling.

I feel as if something vital and integral to who I am has been ripped from me. I feel as if I am walking around with an emptiness in my chest, in my stomach, in my throat. I feel as though I am walking around with an emptiness in my soul. As if it's all not mine. As if all the pieces of me are all not mine. My life is not mine. Nothing is mine.

I feel inhuman. I feel unliving. I feel nonexistent yet horribly, horribly, intolerably existent at the same time. As if I am some horrible, wretched beast made of a slime that is too disgusting to be real and too tangible to be fake. I am a hollow shell. I am nothing yet I am some thing. I am a thing.

"What do you think, little Zia?" Anabella asks me.

"I think you guys are very wise," I respond to her. "I'm learning a lot, listening to you guys talking."

"That's good," my mother tells me. "The more you learn, the more you'll be able to fulfill your role in society."

"Thanks," I tell her.

"So, what are some ways you can build gratitude within the people in your life?" mother asks us.

"We can give them things," Riviera suggests. "A debt of a material nature is probably the hardest debt to pay back, especially if they do not have much access to resources."

"Yes," Anabella cuts in, "and they'll be trying to make up the difference in all sorts of other ways, this is a great way to build long term loyalty."

"Loyalty is a very important resource," I say. "You never know when you're going to need it."

We keep on talking, the four of us, until we see the sun set outside. It is a glorious, burning orange colour that fades out into gold higher up in the sky. But it's more than colour. It is so much more than colour, so beyond colour, that it isn't even colour at all but rather pure emotion. It fills me with a sense of wonder. It almost feels like home, feels like belonging, feels like all of these feelings that are denied to me. I almost cry with joy as I look out at the sunset in silence, along with the rest of my family.

"That's beautiful," Riviera comments, a high sort of awe in her voice.

"Look at the colours," mother says. "Red, orange, yellow. So very vibrant and bright."

"It's glorious," I agree.

It's dinner time after that, and we gather in the large dining room. I bring all the bowls of food up to the table.

"Thank you, Zia," mother tells me. I smile at her. She's so nice. I tell myself that she's nice. I tell myself that she appreciates me, she appreciates what I do for her, she appreciates what I do for the whole family. Though it's not enough, it's never enough to make up for all the things she has done for me.

I sit down at my own spot at the large, intricately carved, polished wooden table. I sit down in front of my shimmering silver place mat and give myself a healthy heaping of the vegetable and beef stew that we cooked together yesterday. The food is good. The food is always good. But there is a part of me that feels almost guilty for eating it, I don't know why. It feels criminal, the act of giving myself food. Although there's plenty of food to go around. There is always plenty of food to go around.

We keep talking as we eat. We're a close-knit family. We talk whenever we get the chance to. I try my best to keep a cheerful expression and tone. I try my best to not let anyone see what's going on inside of me. I'm in such a bright and cheerful room with such bright and cheerful people. I should be nothing but bright and cheerful myself, so that I can at least pretend to fit in, so that I can at least pretend to belong.

And they're none the wiser. They don't suspect that I don't belong here. They don't suspect that I don't belong among them. And I'm such a liar and such a traitor but they would be so, so disappointed to know the truth. I absolutely dread disappointing them.

"Take some more stew," my mother tells me, "there's plenty to go around."

———

I'm in my room. The door is locked from the inside. It locks from the outside too, which is a bit scary but it's that way with all the doors in the house. I'm glad that I'm alone right now. It means that I don't have to pretend. I don't have to put on a mask and pretend to be happy in front of everyone else. That's a huge burden lifted from my shoulders, though the heavy weight of sadness is still there, it's always there, and I don't know what to do with it.

Being alone most of the time would kill me even more, and I'm very genuinely glad that I have plenty of company, but having some time to be alone is welcome.

So I lie in my bed. I lie in my soft bed, under my soft blankets, and I cry. I look up at the ceiling and I let my tears fall freely. Why I'm crying I have no idea. I have no idea why I'm crying but I'm crying anyways. And I do know why I'm crying.

I know that it's because it's all wrong, it's all so terribly wrong. Everything is wrong. My life is wrong. Who I am as a person is wrong. It's all twisted, it's all corrupt, it's dark and thorny and it's not right. The thorns of everything I am inside are piercing my flesh, piercing my organs, piercing my capillaries until my entire body is bleeding, my mind is bleeding, my heart is bleeding, my soul is bleeding.

I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding, I'm bleeding. Everything inside me is bleeding. And everything I am is bleeding. My existence is slipping through my fingers. I am slipping through my fingers. I am losing more and more of myself. I am leaving myself until there is nothing of me left. But I'm here, I'm here, I'm irrevocably here at the same time. And I can't escape, I can't escape, I can't escape.

I am no-one. I am nothing. I am less than no-one. I am less than nothing. And I cannot ever be anything because everything I am is twisted. Everything I am is nothing. Is less than nothing. Everything I am is wrong and everything about me is wrong and it's so wrong and it's so wrong and it's all wrong and my whole life is so wrong.

I don't know why I feel like my life is wrong. But I know it is. There is no reason to think this. There is no reason for me to hate this life that I'm living, no reason to be disturbed by it. But I am disturbed. I am so disturbed. But, my life is fine. I go to school, and the teachers are nice, and the kids are nice. I get decent grades. They're not extremely good but they're pretty good. I have a few people I talk to at lunch time. I go home and my home life is good. My mother is nice. My sisters are nice. They all treat me well. Everyone treats me well. So why do I feel like this?

It must be because I am deeply horrible, I am deeply ungrateful, I am deeply unsalvageable. There are so many people who have it worse than me. There are so many people who have it so, so much worse than me. So why can I not be happy with what I have? Why can I not be grateful for everything? It's all going right. It's all going so very right and yet it's all going wrong. It must be because of me that it all feels so very wrong. It must be because of some fault of my own.

I have so many faults. I have so many flaws. I can't sleep at night, I'm lazy, I'm ungrateful, I can't be happy. I'm not pretty or kind or a good student or outgoing or brave or clever or wise or anything. I'm not athletic, I'm not coordinated, I'm not organized. It's all not enough. Everything I do and everything I am is all not enough. It's all not enough and I'm so inadequate and I'm so wrong.

I'll never be enough. I'll never be enough. No matter what I do, no matter who I be, it's all not going to ever be enough and I'm going to not ever be enough. Because the thing that is wrong with me is intrinsic. It's inherent. It's so deep that it reaches its scarred, infected tendrils down to my very core, through my blood, through my bone marrow. It's so all-reaching that it claws and grasps and wraps around every part of me. Around my throat. Around my eyes. Around my fingers and my toes and my stomach and me knees. It is both invading me and residing with me as if it was meant to be there always. I guess it was meant to be there always.

I guess this is all I am.

I feel poison in every part of me. Poison in my bloodstream, poison rushing through all my veins, all my arteries, all my venules, all my arterioles, all my capillaries. The poison is flowing through me as if it is blood. It is plunging inside me and entering all the space around my cells. All my interstitial fluid is full of dark, corrupted, thick poison. It is entering my cells, and my cytosol is saturated with it. My lymphatic tissue is flowing with poison and my lymph nodes cannot clean it out because there is just so much, just so much, just so much. My cerebral fluid is filled with poison and the poison is surging through my brain. It's surging everywhere.

And the thick, viscous, vicious black fluid is pouring through all the many, many tiny holes and punctures and gaps and tears that are all over my body. That's what it feels like at least. It feels like the thorns of who I am have pierced through all over my body, leaving me torn and ripped and punctured and bleeding. And the poison is seeping through all the holes, is seeping out into the world. It's corroding my skin, it's staining my bedsheets and blankets and pillows, it's leaving inerasable marks that only I can ever see.

If my family knew who I truly was, if they knew what I truly was, then they would be disgusted, I'm sure. They would be disgusted, and shocked, and betrayed, they'd be so betrayed. They spent so much money on me. So much money and time and effort. So much care and consideration. All for me to turn out like this. All for me to turn out like this disgusting, insufferable mess of a human being. I let them down. I let them down. I owe them so, so much and I let them down.

They'd throw me out if they knew how I really felt. If they knew what I truly was. If they knew that the girl they tried to make into their daughter was so ungrateful, was so miserable despite everything that she has, despite everything that's been given to her, then they would definitely throw me out. And they'd have every right in the world to. I don't deserve this. I don't deserve my family and all the care that they have given to me.

I wonder what my biological family is like. I wonder what they would think of me. They probably do not care about me at all. They probably haven't given me a second thought after giving me away. What kind of parents wouldn't make sure that they could be there for their own child? What kinds of parents wouldn't raise their own child?

Of course, it's possible that they had to give me away because they were too mentally ill or too poor or too addicted or whatnot to take care of a child. It could be that they wanted to raise me, they wanted to support me, but they just couldn't. Even if that was the case though, it would still be their own fault. It would still be their own fault for giving me away. Because as my adopted mother said, everybody who is mentally ill or poor or addicted actually, secretly chooses it. So, according to her, my parents could have raised me if they wanted to. And she's right, of course. She's always right.

I hate my parents. But I love them. I love them but I hate them but I want them and I need them, despite the fact that they've let me down so much. And I love my mother, but there is a part of me that cannot trust her. I don't know why I can't trust her. She's been nothing but kind to me during my whole entire life. But something just feels off. I know I shouldn't be feeling like this. I know that there's no reason for me to be feeling like this. But something is off. Something is so very off.

It's probably just me. What's off is probably just me. Just my unending hunger. Just my desire for more, for more, for more than this perfectly happy, healthy, middle class life that I am living. I'm not a good person. I don't abide by the rules and the teachings that my mother is teaching me. I want to. Dear Universe I really, really want to. But I just can't. But I'm just not capable, no matter how hard I try.

Or maybe I am capable, and I'm just not trying hard enough. Perhaps this is all my fault. It probably is. I don't know whether it's worse to not want to be a good person hard enough or whether it's worse to not be capable of being a good person at all. But I know that I must surely be the worse one, whichever one is worst.

I am still crying. I haven't stopped crying. I have no idea how long I've been lying here. I'm supposed to be asleep. I was supposed to have gone to sleep long ago. I've probably been awake here for an hour. I never get enough sleep at night. Not that anybody knows this. But for some strange reason, I am never tired during the days. I must not need that much sleep I guess. But still, night is for sleeping. All the proper people sleep at night. I should be sleeping at night as well.

The house is so quiet. It's eerie. And I'm still crying.

———

"So how was school today?" our mother asks us, from behind the wheel of the eight seat SUV. It's a huge car. Plenty of space for all of us. There's screens on the back of each seat so that the kids in the back can watch movies and play games. But we're not going to do that in the fifteen minute drive to get home from school. The sun is setting behind us. My siblings and I are in the second row. It's idyllic. But I'm still drowning in my hidden misery.

"It was great," Riviera pipes up. She is playing with the end of her strawberry blond braid. Both the sisters have red hair, but my mother is blonde. They must have gotten their genes from the sperm donor. They were both conceived medically, but my mother didn't want to be pregnant again but she wanted a third child. I have raven black hair.

"I got invited to go to a party," Annabella speaks. "It's this Saturday, at Claira's house. Can I go?"

"Of course, my child. What are the rest of you guy's plans for the weekend?"

"I'm going to a movie with my friends," Riviera chimes. "It's the new Shadow Lady movie."

"Oh that should be fun. What are you doing, Zia?"

"I'm just staying home and studying. I'm behind on some homework."

"It's a good idea to study," my mother agrees. "It's how you can develop your mind, so that you can contribute more to society."

"We know, momma, we know." Annabella's voice has a hint of playful frustration in it.

"You girls are all very smart," our mother tells us. "You all have much to give to the world."

"Aww, thanks," I tell her, trying to put as much sincerity into my voice as I can.

"What are you guys learning about?"

"We're learning about batteries," Annabella explains, "and the way that electrons flow through batteries. It's really quite interesting. The metals that lose their electrons become ions and the ions that gain electrons become metals."

"We're learning about how to divide polynomials," Riviera starts. "It's actually pretty easy, but most people in my class find it hard. I don't know why."

"Well, I'm sure it's easy for you. I'm sure it's easy for both of you, is it not?"

"Yeah," Anabella replies, "it was okay last semester when I learned it."

"There is much knowledge and wisdom to be learned in school."

"Yes there is, mother." My voice is smooth and warm. The opposite of how I feel inside.

"Always pay close attention in school," she replies back. "School will teach you many many great wisdoms."

"Of course, mom," Riviera responds. "You see how well I'm doing."

"I do."

"School will help us make that cold hard cash," Anabella chirps.

"Absolutely," my mother agrees, "and that's definitely very important. What's also important though is the fact that school will increase your wisdom and knowledge. It will teach you how the world works. It will teach you why things are the way that they are. It will teach you how things work, how nature works, how the universe works, how people work. It will teach you how to go about your lives in a good and respectable way."

"You're right, mother," I tell her. "School has so many important messages. So many deep and hard-hitting messages."

"Yes, and you girls need to make sure to pay attention so that you can understand these messages and become truly enlightened."

I think about everything that I've learned in school. Math, science, history, grammar, how to analyze literary motifs, statistics. Atoms and neutrons and quarks and positrons. The body and all its failings. They were all interesting, doubtlessly. I have always found school interesting. But still. Still. I always felt like there might be something, something more. I always felt like there had to be something more than all these particles and molecules and metaphors. These had to be something deeper than that.

But I keep these thoughts to myself. I am probably only holding on to fantasy. I am definitely wrong. Of course there isn't anything miraculous and magical about the world. Of course all that we see is all that there is in this life, the only life. I just am stil immature. I'm still a child. I want something indescribable and inexpressible and altogether completely unreasonable. This is how a child thinks. This is what a child wants. I'm fifteen.

I need to grow up.

"What is the most interesting thing you guys have learned in school?" Annabella asks.

"Oh, probably that everything is made up of other, smaller things. Nothing is absolute except for space and time."

"Wow, that's very deep," I comment. "It's really almost mystical."

"The real world is more than mystical," Anabella states. "It's better than any magic."

"So it is," I agree. "So it is."

But is it really? I wonder. Is things being made of smaller things being made of smaller things being made of smaller things, until you get down to the waves, the ripples in space time itself, is that really better than magic? It has to be, after all, it's so cool. But despite being cool, there is this hollowness to it. There just, there has to be something more. Despite how cool this is, it's not enough. Except, it is enough. It has to be enough. It's all that there is.

This is making me feel hollow. This entire conversation is making me feel hollow. Yet I swallow down the hollowness. I don't know why it's here. It has no place. It doesn't deserve to be here. This is a perfectly normal conversation between a perfectly normal family. I swallow down the hollowness, and I swallow down my tears, and I try my best to not choke on either of these things. I always try my best, and I always fail. I wish so desperately that I could cry.

I tilt my head slightly to the side, I lean on the cool glass of the car window. The conversation flows on around me, and I weave my way through it as best as I can. I genuinely do love talking to people, including my family. It makes all the hurt hurt just a little bit less. And it makes my life just a little less storm-drenched, a little less shadow-covered. But this topic that we're talking about, dear Universe I hate it.

———

It's Sunday. We are working, all four of us. Cleaning the house. It's nice, how we all share our work and we all share our responsibility. I couldn't've asked for a better family if I tried. Though part of me still wants to try. I am dusting the many shelves and tables and cabinets that we have. It's really rather tedious work. But thankfully Annabella is helping me. We are working in tandem. It's nice, it really is.

But still I'm drowning. Still the poison is seeping through all parts of me.

But there is music playing in the background, from Annabella's phone which is on the ground. It is nice music. From her favourite playlist. It's nice music, but it is a bit too cheery for my taste. Too cheery, too smooth, too warm. I like music that is sad. I like music that is cold and rough and cut open jagged. Music that is desperate. Though truly no music can even come remotely close to brushing against the true depths of how I feel. All music pools on the very surface edges of me. So I don't really like music at all.

We carefully move all the decorations to one side of the carved wooden shelf that we are cleaning right now. This takes a bit of time, since there are so many decorations, both big an small. Colourful and flowing and made of so very many different types of material. It's beautiful, but I cannot take in the beauty of it. I cannot take in the beauty of any of it. I am too sad.

It's a pity really, my mother spent so much money on this house and I can't even appreciate most of it. She always spends so much on this family, she always gives so much to this family. But far too often I am far more ungrateful than I should be. I really am really rotten inside.

We work at an unhurried, almost leisurely pace, Annabella and I. Actually, all of us do. Because we're at home, we're not at work. No-one's forcing us to do this, no-one's paying us, we don't have to rush ourselves. And anyways, there are so very many delicate little pieces everywhere. It would be a bad idea to get careless. I mean, mother will probably understand if we break something, but still, I don't want to cause any problems for her.

We finish moving everything on this side of the shelf and we pass our dusters over the surface. Now we just have to do the same thing for the other side of the shelf and then we have to rearrange all the decorations. We arrange all the decorations differently each time we put them back. That's a clever idea Riviera came up with, and it always changes up the way that the house looks, it always gives a new feeling to the house. Since each shelf is rearranged every once in a while, there is always something different to look at. If only I could appreciate it.

"You're doing a great job," Annabella tells me, cheeriness in her voice.

"Thanks, Annabella, you are too."

"It's nice, working together, isn't it?"

"It is," I say, and it both is and isn't a lie. I appreciate her company, her companionship, her help. But my life is not nice. I don't know why.

"These shelves were so dusty when we started out. They look so much better now."

"They do," I agree. "This house is so big, it's inevitable that things will get dusty."

"Yes it is inevitable." There is a hint of tiredness in her voice. "There's always more work to do."

"Yes."

"Should we move on to the next piece?" she asks. We are done with this intricate, multilayered shelf. But there is a lot more furniture to get to. Not that we have to finish everything today. It would be very difficult to finish everything in one day. I don't want to push Annabella too hard.

"Sure. Where to now?"

"Let's go to the television stand on this floor."

"Sounds good."

There are a bunch of televisions in our house. One in the basement. One in the sunroofed attic upstairs. My mother and my two sisters both have televisions in their rooms. And there is the main television, which is as wide as I am tall, on the first floor. It's for all of us. But my mother asked me if I wanted a television as well. I told her that I didn't want one, since I didn't want to use up any more of her money than I had to. I wonder if I would be happier with a television. I don't really need one, but still, I'm the only one that doesn't have one.

We move on to the large shelf of the television, which is raised eye level to the couches. There's a lot of stuff to move around here as well. Moving stuff around always takes the most time. My sisters say they like it though, because they can focus on all the very pretty things we have around. But I don't feel the same way. I can't focus on all this stuff, ever. Like I said before, there's something strange about me, something deeply wrong with me.

"How are you girls doing?" our mother asks us.

"Doing fine, how about you?" Annabella replies.

"I'm doing alright myself. You guys have gotten a lot done. Good job."

"Thank you, mother," I answer.

"So I'm thinking this is enough work for today," our mother begins, "what do you girls think? Do you want to keep working?"

"I think we've had enough for today," Annabella answers. "What do you think, Zia?"

"Yeah, if you guys are thinking of wrapping up then I'm fine with that." My voice is a lot smoother than I how feel.

"I think we should go and eat dinner," our mother suggests. "I can order food for us. What restaurant to you guys want to eat from?"

———

Mother's eyes are darkened with worry, with a light sort of terror. It makes my heart freeze with hard ice in my chest. I don't know why she has gathered us all around her, sitting around the dining table despite there being no plates in front of us. Whatever it is, it cannot be good. We all look at her and at each other worriedly and solemnly.

"What is it, Mom?" Annabella asks.

"My girls," she begins, "I have terrible news to impart to you. The bank that has all of our savings, that has my paycheque for these next six months, this bank has been robbed. Now we have nothing. No money, no paycheque, nothing."

"But can't the bank give us back our money?" Riviera asks, concern and disbelief flowing through her voice.

"I'm afraid not," our mother replies. "The bank has been robbed to the ground. They have nothing left to give to anybody."

"What about the government?" Annabella suggests, "can't they help?"

"The government doesn't help normal people like us and you know this," our mother replies, fear laced into her words.

"But it's not fair," Riviera complains. "It's not our fault that our money got robbed. It's not our fault at all. Shouldn't the government be able to do something to help?"

"The government is corrupt and we all know it." Our mother's voice is laced with resignation. "They do not have any morals. They do not care about what is fair and what isn't. All they care about is their own money and their own power."

"That's really unfair, mother," I speak. "What will we do now?"

"That's what I've been meaning to talk to you girls about," our mother starts. "These next six months will be extra tight. We won't be able to do all the things that we normally do."

"Like what?" Riviera asks. "What won't we be able to do?"

"We won't be able to spend anything," our mother replies. "We won't be able to buy new clothes, we won't be able to buy new shoes, no new technology, no new toys, no new video games, no new decorations or blankets or anything."

"Will we still be able to watch movies and shows on our streaming services?" Annabella asks.

"No," our mother responds. "In fact, we have to stop our subscriptions to all of our streaming services. And we will have to stop our connection to the internet itself."

"No internet?" Riviera echoes, an incredulous tone in her voice.

"Yes, I'm afraid," our mother answers. "No internet, nothing fun."

"I'm so sorry that we're all going through all of this," I speak to my family. "I'm sure that we'll make it through this. I'm sure we'll make it to the other side of this." I keep my voice calm, smooth, solemn, calming. I look around at the eyes of my entire family. They are all shocked, all full of dread, all full of a horrible anticipation and a dreadful resignation. I feel as though I'm the only one who's even a little bit calm. I feel as though I'm the only one with her head on even a little bit straight. And that means that I have to be the one that calms everyone down and makes everyone feel a bit better.

"Will we really make it to the other side of this?" Riviera asks worriedly.

"We will, I promise," I assure her. I assure them all. They have to have hope. Through this shocking event, I have to make sure that my family has hope.

"We will be able to get through to the other side of this," our mother echoes. "We're a strong family. We're a close family. We're a tight-knit family. We'll get through this."

"So what else will we have to go without?" Annabella questions.

"We won't be able to go out either," our mother answers. "We won't be able to go out to movies, or dances. We won't be able to go to night clubs, or restaurants, or theatres or performances. We won't be able to go to the museum or the art gallery or to any concerts. We'll just have to stay home. And we'll have to try to conserve money and gas."

"What on earth?" Annabella's voice is incredulous. "How will we survive that? How will we be able to live through all of that? This is an atrocity!"

"I agree!" Riviera exclaims. "You can't expect us to live like this. It's simply far, far too much! How will we live without anything fun? How will we live when life is so boring?!"

"I know it will be hard, girls. I know. But we have to deal with this. We have to play the cards that we've been dealt."

"Exactly," I echo. "We still have our big, pretty house. And we still have all the nice things and the pretty furniture in our house. We can also take walks. We can see all the other pretty houses in the community of the forest and we can see their pretty gardens. We can walk through the forest. That's free. And I know how much you all like to do that." I try to keep a positive attitude. I try to help my sisters keep as positive of an attitude as they can. The Universe knows that we will need it.

"Exactly," our mother agrees. "And besides, this is only six months. We will switch to a different bank. And when my paycheque comes again in six months, we will have as much money as we used to have before. We'll be able to pay for everything we used to be able to pay for before."

"Ugh, fine," Annabella conceded.

"What about all our debts?" Riviera asks. "How will we pay those? Will we be able to hold off on paying those? What will we do?"

"We will be able to hold off on paying most of our debts, until my next payday comes," our mother explains. At this, my sisters smile. I force a smile myself. "I talked to the bank. They said that they would pause payments on most debts."

"That's great!" Annabella exclaims. "That was really nice of them."

"So it was," I agree.

"Don't get your hopes up too high," our mother cautions us, "there are still some debts we have to pay off. Like our mortgage for example. The bank says that we have to pay that, even though we lost all our money."

"What?!" Annabella exclaims, exasperation and anger in her voice. "How will we do that?! Our house is so big. Our mortgage is so big."

"What will happen if we don't pay?" Riviera asks.

"Then our house will be gone. And if our house is gone, we'll be out on the streets, and my job will be gone too. Let's hope that doesn't happen."

"It won't happen," I assure my family. "We'll find a way to stop that from happening."

"We will," our mother presses. "And we'll find a way to pay for our heating and water bills too. Those are also bills we're not allowed to put on hold."

"This is horrible!" Riviera exclaims. "This is so, so, so horrible!"

"It happens," our mother explains. "These things, they just happen sometimes."

"So what else will we have to go without?" Annabella asks. "Don't tell us that we won't be able to eat either."

"That's the thing," our mother begins, "we might not be able to eat. The Universe knows that I don't have the money for food right now. But we'll find a way. I promise."

"What?!" Annabella and Riviera both exclaim together in a messy, off-time unison. They both begin talking at the same time. No, talking is the wrong word. They both begin almost screaming at the same time, speaking so fast and in such a panicked way. Even my calm exterior cracks. How on earth are we supposed to get through this? How on earth are we supposed to go six months with no food?

I try to keep my face neutral. I try to not let the fear that I'm feeling show. I have to stay calm for my family. I have to stay collected for my family. I think that I'm the only one who is holding everyone together. And I have to hold everyone together. It does not matter how much pure dread I am feeling inside me. It doesn't matter that inside me, there is a terrible, terrible foreboding. A feeling that something is going to go terribly, terribly wrong. Even more terribly wrong than what is happening right now.

"Girls, girls, calm down!" our mother yells, voice laced with love and with worry and concern. Even now, her voice is loving. Even in the midst of so much stress, she loves her children. She is such an amazing mother, despite everything that I so very irrationally feel inside.

My sisters do calm down, and we are left looking at each other with dread and hopelessness. I force myself to smile, just a little thing, a placating thing that offers perhaps a small bit of comfort.

"Girls," our mother begins, "I will make sure that our family has all the food that it can have. I will make sure that our family has all the food that it needs. I will make sure that we can continue paying our mortgage and that we can continue paying our electricity bills and our water bills and our car payments. I will make sure that we have enough to get by. Don't worry girls, I will make sure. I will continue to provide for my family."

"How will we do that?" Riviera asks.

"I will ask our friends and our family for help. They will help us in paying our mortgage. They will help us in paying our electricity bills and water bills. They will help us in paying for our food. We have many friends, many family members. They will pull through for us. They will give what they can."

"But don't they have their own bills to pay?" Riviera asks.

"They do, but they will spare what they can," our mother answers.

"Will that be enough?" Annabella asks.

"It will be what it is," our mother answers. "Whatever help we can get from them, whatever money we can get from them, we will make it stretch as much as we can make it stretch and we will do as much with the money as we can. We will get by."

"We will get by," I echo. "I have faith in mother and in her ability to help her family and her ability to make things work. She's so smart, so brilliant, so resourceful. She'll help us though this, I'm sure. She can do it. If she can't do it then no-one can."

"Thank you, Zia. I appreciate your brave and resilient outlook to this situation." Our mother smiles at me. It's a tiny thing. A fleeting thing. But something that gives me strength anyways. Something that gives me courage anyways. But still, I cannot get rid of this feeling in my heart that something truly terrible is about to happen, something far more terrible than this situation that we've found ourselves in, something intimately tied to this situation that we've found ourselves in.

"What about the debts?" Annabella asks. "If we ask for help from our friends and family, won't that mean that we have a debt to them? How will we pay that back?"

"They have a debt to us," our mother answers. "We have helped them many times in the past, and they have amassed quite a bit of debt to us. They will surely consider our ask for help as a way to pay back the debt that they have, not a way to extract debt from us."

"You are truly wise, momma!" Riviera declares with a hint of joy in her voice. "You can truly get us out of the worst situations. You have truly thought this through!"

"Thank you, my daughter," our mother responds. "Now if you will excuse me, I have many, many phone calls to make."

———

It's been three weeks since that terrible, terrible family talk when my mother told us what a situation we were in. It has been three weeks, and the food in our fridges and pantries are almost all out. Our food is almost all out, but my mother has spent so many hours calling people and calling people and getting whatever help she could from them. She has called everyone we know so far, and gotten many pledges of support. Let's just hope that it's enough.

It's Saturday now. It's Saturday, and my sisters are off at friends' houses, trying to make our food stretch by partaking in theirs. I don't really have any close friends, so I'm just sitting on the couch. It's a nice couch. It's a soft couch. It's a soft and nice couch and I kind of like sitting here, just thinking my thoughts.

As always, my thoughts run melancholy. My emotions run melancholy. Everything inside me runs melancholy, and there is very little that I can do about that, despite all my hardest efforts. But still, I don't feel as guilty for feeling sad right now, not as much as I usually do. Because the Universe knows that I have plenty good reason to be sad right now. We all do.

"Zia," my mother speaks to me, grabbing onto my forearm and leading me away to my room, "I need to talk to you."

She doesn't grab me like this very often. Her voice is urgent, is almost furtive, and her eyes are darkened. Her whole expression is darkened. Fear spikes in my heart. What is about to happen right now? It can surely be nothing good. But my mother wouldn't hurt me, would she? Of course she wouldn't hurt me. My mind is sure, but my guilty, traitorous heart is not so sure.

"What is it, mother?" I ask her, voice soft and conceding.

"I have to talk to you about our financial situation," she presses. "I'm sure you know how much trouble we're in."

"I do. Why?" This is not looking good. Is my family in more trouble than I thought? What are we going to do about this? Why is she telling only me? What can I do about this?

"Well, I talked to our friends and family. They are supporting us, but they do not have the money to support us fully."

"Oh no." My eyes go wide. "What will we do now?"

"That's what I meant to talk to you about," she starts. "We have enough money to pay off the mortgage, and that comes first. Because without the mortgage we'll be out on the street and I won't have a job."

"That's good."

"And we have enough money for food. But here's the thing, we don't have enough food for everyone."

"Oh no. What will we do?"

"I can feed your sisters. But I can't feed you more than one meal a day. You will have to eat your lunch at school and then just wait after you come home. Just wait for these few months to be over."

"Um ... excuse me?" I cannot believe what my own mother is saying.

"You will have to eat one meal a day, okay?"

"Okay." I reply. And really, it's the only thing that I can say. It's the only way I can reply. Because she's my mother. She's given me so much. How else could I possibly reply to her?

"You can do that, right? For your sisters and for me? So that we have enough to eat?" Her voice is almost pleading, but it also has a firm, pressing quality to it. And as always, I cannot deny her. I cannot deny her at all. Not even a bit.

"Of course, mother."

"I knew you would answer in this way. I knew that you would understand. You're a good girl. A righteous girl. You make the right decisions and do what is proper and decent and just."

"But mother ..." I begin.

"What is it, child?"

"If I said no, then what would you have done?"

"Then I still couldn't have given you food, I'm sorry. I have to make sure your two sisters get enough food."

I don't quite understand why she's singling me out to be the one that starves. I don't quite understand, but at the same time I do understand it. I understand it in the back of my mind, in the small, rebellious part of my heart that has been plaguing me since I was young. I almost cannot believe what's going on. But my worst fears are coming true.

"Mother," I begin, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

"What is it, my girl?"

"Why am I the one that has to go hungry?" I know I am not really supposed to ask this question. I know I am not really allowed to ask this question. I know I am only allowed to go along with what my mother wants. But I cannot help but to ask it anyways. I just ... I just have to know why.

"You know about debts and owing people, right?" There is a bit of forced, fake brightness in her voice. "You know that you must pay back the people who have helped you, right?"

"Yes, mother."

"We'll this is your way to pay me back, to pay this family back, for all that we have helped you over the years. See, we took you in and fed you and clothed you and sheltered you, and you need to pay us back for all that. You need to pay us back by making a sacrifice."

"Okay, mother."

"You're a good girl. I know that you can make sacrifices for what is good and right. And I know that you can pay back your debts."

This makes sense. What she's saying makes sense. She's not withholding food from me because she doesn't love me. She's not starving me because she doesn't love me. She does love me. She's just withholding food from me because it is the good, right, and just thing to do. She's only doing it because it's what's moral and proper to do. She's just following her morals, not her heart. And of course, she has to follow her morals, not her heart. She still loves me in her heart. She still does. But still ...

"Why do I owe you a debt and my sisters don't? You raised them as well." I know I am asking too many questions. I shouldn't be asking so many questions. I silently curse my traitorous mouth.

"I brought your sisters into the world," my mother explains. "And thus it is my job to take care of them and provide for them and raise them. It is not a debt that they're procuring, because it is simply my responsibility to take care of them, it is not something kind and generous that I am doing for them that I did not have to do.

"You on the other hand though, I didn't bring you into this world. You are not someone I have to have responsibility towards. And yet I took you in anyways. And yet I provided for you and helped you and fed you and sheltered you and raised you anyways, even though I didn't have to. And therefore everything I did for you was an act of kindness. An act of kindness that you have to repay somehow. You owe it to us. We had no obligation to give you a home, and yet we did. In fact, without me taking care of you when you were weak and helpless and defenceless, you might have died. And so you owe us your life."

"I understand," I tell my mother. But do I truly understand? I should understand. Everything that she said made perfect sense. She had to take care of my sisters. But she didn't have to take care of me. And so I absolutely do owe her, don't I? She's right. Of course she's right. She's wise and caring and kind and just, and of course she's always right.

"I'm glad you understand, my girl," my mother tells me. She smiles fondly at me, and I smile back at her. I love her smiles.

She leaves me in my room, and closes the door behind her. I hear the lock clicking shut from the outside, and my heart skips a beat in fear. I quickly calm myself down though, telling myself that my mother would of course have a good reason for locking the door. Of course she would. She has a good reason for all that she does. And the only reason that I am locked in is because I have a good reason to be.

I go to my soft bed, and I curl up. I hug my knees to my chest and lie against the pillow, on my side, looking at the forest outside the window. The trees are beautiful. They have always been beautiful. They try to soothe my soul as much as they can, and I wish they could succeed more than they are. But still, I am deeply thankful for these trees from the very centre of my core.

There is no-one here right now, so I allow myself to cry. I can allow myself to cry. And I can allow myself to miss the things that I have no right to miss.

My mother is right. She's so very right. She's very smart and wise and knowledgeable and learned. She is a pillar in the community, helping all the people around her. And she has so much knowledge from so many places. She knows very well how the world works and what each person's place is within it. She knows very well what roles we are all supposed to play and how we can all play these roles. She knows very well what roles I'm supposed to play and how I can play these roles. She knows what my place is and I must believe her, I must learn from her. I must believe her and I must learn from her so that I too know what my place in the world is and how to play the role that I am supposed to play, that I am obliged to play.

She's right. She didn't have to take me in. She didn't have to take care of me and protect me. And yet she did. She did take care of me and protect me for so long. She took care of me so well. And she will take care of me again once this emergency is over. She did not have to do any of this. She was not obliged to do any of this. And yet she did it anyways. She did it anyways out of the kindness of her heart because she is just such a kind person, and she is raising her children as well to be such kind people.

She didn't raise my sisters out of the kindness of her heart. She raised them because she was obliged to. Because she was obliged to take care of them. Because she was obliged to love them. A mother is obliged to love the babies that come out of her body. A mother cannot help but to love the babies that come out of her body. Annabella and Riviera are children that she is compelled to love, that she is obliged to love. So her loving them isn't a great act of kindness, it is simply expected.

Yet her love for me is not simply expected. It is something she chose to bestow upon me. And so I owe her. I owe it to her to help her. I owe it to her to help her family. I owe her in a way that my sisters don't. And so I am obligated to make sacrifices for this family, to go hungry for this family, so that my sisters can eat. Because they are not beholden to this family in the way that I am. They do not owe my mother in the way that I do.

So I curl in on myself tighter and I cry. For some strange, unfathonable reason, I feel so very betrayed. I cannot stop feeling this way.

———

I come home from school. It's been two months since that fateful day when my mother took me to my room and told me what I would have to do. It's been two months, and I have felt myself getting weaker and weaker and weaker. I don't know how I'll be able to hold on these many long months. I don't know how I'll be able to live through it. But I have to live through it. And so I force myself on.

I get to my room, being followed by my mother.

"How was school today?" she asks me with concern dripping through her voice. She loves me. Even now, when she's been forced to make such a horrible decision, she loves me. Yet why can I not make myself believe this?

"It was okay," I reply, exhaustion dripping through my voice. School wasn't actually okay. I was so, so hungry the whole time. As I always am.

"That's good." She closes the door, and I hear the telltale click of the lock.

I've mostly been locked in my room these past two months. It makes sense. I understand that I probably wouldn't be able to stop myself from going to the fridge if I could, so locking the door just ensures that I can't do that. It just ensures that I can't steal food.

I miss being able to interact with my family. I miss it so, so very much. I didn't know that I would miss it so much. I'm all alone now. There's no-one with me. No-one to share my time with. No-one to share my experiences with. No-one to listen to and talk to and interact with. Just me, alone with my thoughts in my own room in a house that doesn't feel like it's mine, that has never felt like it was mine.

Hunger claws in my gut like a vicious, hungry beast with sharp teeth and sharp claws. It bites and scratches at all my insides. My stomach hurts so much, my ribs hurt so much, my chest cavity hurts so much. My arms and legs hurt. My head feels light and dizzy. It all hurts, it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. It hurts unbearably and I feel like screaming in pain yet I am far too weak to scream. Not that it would make much of a difference anyways. All that would happen is that I would get in trouble.

I'm helpless. I'm helpless. I'm locked in this room and I'm helpless and I can't get out. I'm trapped. I'm trapped and there's nothing I can do. All I can do is claw desperately at my mind for an escape, for a release, for a relief and a salvation that I know is not coming. The beast inside of me and me myself are both trapped, are both hungering, are both begging to be let out. But the beast in me can eat my insides. I cannot.

Though actually, I am eating myself. My body has run out of fat to digest into carbohydrates, probably. It's probably digesting my muscles and my organs and my epithelial tissue now. Burning through my cells to extract precious, precious energy. A process which has been evolved into my bloodline over millions of years.

See, it's natural, what is happening to me. My hunger is natural. It is something that my body is ready for. Something that my body has been ready for for so many years. The biological processes that guide starvation are processes that have existed for eons. They are processes that have been building and developing within us since we were just single cells, since we were just prokaryotes. So, it's okay to starve sometimes. There is nothing wrong with starving sometimes.

And anyways, because I'm starving, that means that my mother and my sisters can eat. My sisters, especially, can eat. They need to be able to eat. They need to be able to get the calories they need. I love them. I really do love them a lot. And I need to do what I can do in order to help them. If that means not eating, then so be it. I will bear it, no matter what it takes from me, no matter how much it hurts.

But part of me doesn't love my family. Part of me holds it against them, what they are doing to me. Part of me is deeply, deeply betrayed. It is rueful, jealous, bitter. I am rueful, jealous, bitter. I am full of hatred and bitterness and part of me wants to get revenge, get revenge, get revenge for what they've put me through.

But I cannot get revenge. I am simply one person with no money, no power, no property, no abilities, no resources, no support, no help. There is nothing I can do about my situation. I'm a teenaged girl locked in a room, all by myself. There is nothing I can do. Perhaps this is why my mother was able to do this to me. Because she knew I was weaker than her. She knew I couldn't fight back.

But I feel so guilty for hating my family. I feel so guilty for wanting revenge. This simply proves that I am rotten inside. It simply proves that I am unholy, ungrateful, unworthy. I know that the good and right thing for me to do would be to be strong and silently bear the burden of my situation. But for some reason I am finding myself unable to do that. I am finding myself unable to do what I know is good and right. How on earth could I be so selfish? This just proves that I don't actually deserve to eat.

I lie in my bed, which is what I have found myself doing so very often, and I cry. I think about reading a book to try to take my mind away from the hunger. I think about it, but I know it won't work. I've tried reading before. I've tried thinking other thoughts and getting my mind off of the hunger. Nothing has worked. All the time, my emotions are consumed by the all-consuming ache of hunger. Even when my mind is distracted, it doesn't matter that my mind is distracted because my heart isn't.

It's all-consuming. It consumes every part of me, taking more and more and more until there is nothing left. All I am is a constant, insatiable need, an overarching and overwhelming ache. I am burning, burning, burning. Every part of me is burning. And yet at the same time I am freezing, freezing, freezing. Every part of me is freezing. The pain is a screaming sort of pain, and I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it, I cannot bear it. But bear it I must.

And, throughout this whole time, my emotional misery has not subsided. I'm still as sad as I was before. As torn and ripped and poisoned. The poison is still seeping through me. And my mind and my heart are swept away in the poison storm. Except now, along with the emotional pain, there is also physical pain. There is physical pain that is just as strong as the emotional pain and the two types of pain are interlaced throughout each other. As two sides of the same coin.

I breathe. And the breath comes ragged and jagged. Everything inside me is ragged and jagged. Everything about me is ragged and jagged. It has been for a long, long while. As long as I can remember. But it's worse now.

Now the parts of my mind that I could suppress somewhat before are more bold and loud than they ever have been. They tell me that I am not loved, I am not loved, I am not loved. I know that I'm loved, that I must be loved. But the feeling that I am not overcomes me. The feeling that no one in the universe truly cares for me overcomes me and overwhelms me. And I try so very very hard to not listen to it. But there is nothing that I can do but for listening to it. Despite all my best efforts. But still, I tell myself that I am wrong, I am wrong, I am wrong. I tell myself that I am loved. Now if only I could believe myself.

The hunger was terrible the first day. The first day when I had no food. When I had only one meal that day. The first day I starved. It was so terrible, so painful, so unbearable. It was such violence. Violence on my body, violence on my mind, violence on my heart, violence on my soul. There was so much violence and there was so much devastation. I did not think it could possibly get worse.

But get worse it did. Every day that I went without food, the pain built up and built up and built up. It was more unbearable each day. And each day all I could do was bear it. And each day I was pushed further and further and further past the limits of what my body could tolerate. Each day I was pushed further past the limits of what I though myself capable of tolerating.

It was and still is a small kindness that I was used to unbearable pain my whole life, despite that pain being not quite as physical. It was still physical. My past emotional pain, the pain that I've been dealing with my whole life, it still had a physical aspect to it. It just wasn't as ingrainedly physical as this hunger. Though of course the hunger affects my heart and my mind as well. Sadness and hunger are both deeply physical, they are both deeply emotional, they are both deeply unbearable.

I went to school each day and nobody noticed. Nobody notices what I'm going through. I'm always quiet. I'm always subdued. So my exhaustion is not really noticed. In a way I was always exhausted anyways. A couple of teachers asked me why I had lost so much weight. I guess they noticed. I simply told them that I wasn't as hungry as I used to be. A bold faced lie. But one they believed. They didn't pursue it any further. They simply let me be. So I ate my lunch at school and I went back home and got locked in my room.

Which is where I am now, lying in my soft bed, crying.

I think about screaming, yelling, banging against the door, begging for help and food and attention. But I know that it will be pointless. I know that no help will come. It will just be a waste of energy. And I have no energy to waste. I think about what could happen if I tried to fight my mother, if I tried to run to the fridge and get food before she could lock me in my room. I know that that would be pointless as well. In my weakened state, she is much stronger than me. And I couldn't fight my mother and my sisters at the same time anyways.

There is nothing I can do about my situation. There is literally nothing that I can do.

Not that I should struggle. Not that I should fight. My mother sacrificed so much to take care of me. She gave so much to take care of me. I owe it to her to sacrifice for her back. I know this. I know this, and I tell myself this, again and again and again. But it doesn't stop the pain. Actually, it just makes the pain so much worse. It makes all the pain so much worse in all its aspects. I tell myself that I shouldn't struggle against this, but each and every day that I go hungry, the struggling and desperate part of my mind gets louder and louder, harder and harder to ignore.

I don't know what will happen when I can't ignore it any longer.

———

I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I have been here for three months. I have starved myself, I have been starved for three months. And I'm going to die. Desperation is banging its fists on my insides. Desperation is screaming its throat raw in every part inside me. Hunger gnaws at my bones, gnaws at my gut, gnaws at my flesh and at my blood. I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't do this anymore.

My mind is screaming. Screaming at me to stop this. My mind is screaming at me to make this stop. Except I can't. I can't make this stop. I don't have that kind of power. I don't have any power. All I can do is let this happen to me, no matter how desperate, no matter how infuriated I am. And I am going to die. I just know that I'm going to die.

Death looms over me. It watches everything that I do. It is like a shadow over me. It is like my shadow, trailing behind my each and every thought, my each and every action. It is a dreadful presence, constantly pressing upon my mind, constantly pressing upon my heart. Death is my only companion these days, and I do not know whether I am grateful for this companion or not. I do not know whether I am grateful for this pressing presence or not.

Part of me wants to die. Part of me wants to just let this all go. To let this jagged, tearing, grating existence go. The Universe knows that there is nothing good about life. The Universe knows that there's nothing worthwhile in existing. I feel guilty for thinking this, because I know this train of thought is not really allowed. But still, it's true, it's true, it's true. And no amount of judgement will stop it from being so horribly, undeniably true,

But despite all this, despite how hard my life is, how hard it's always been, I just cannot bear to let my life go. There is something inside me, stronger than a thousand hurricanes, that wants to live, that wants so desperately to live. It won't let me let go of this life, no matter how much I want to, no matter how much I try. I don't know where this part of me came from. I don't know if it's new or if it's always been there. But it feels older than anything ever has felt before. It feels older than I am. It feels ancient.

The part of me that wants to live tells me that I need to get out of here, I need to get out of here, it doesn't matter how, but I need to get out of here. I have to find a way to leave this place. I have to find a way to get some food. No matter what it will cost me. No matter who I will end up having to betray. No matter what I will end up having to do.

But no, I can't think that. I can't let myself think that. I have to be loyal to my family. I have to be loyal to the people who took me in and took care of me and raised me. That means I have to listen to my mother and I have to do what she told me and I have to make the sacrifices she has called upon me to make. I owe her that much. I owe them all that much. No matter how unbearably much all of this hurts, no matter what I feel in my body and in my heart and in my mind and in my soul.

But as I am lying here, in my bed, cold despite the fact that it's summer, cold despite the fact that I'm under many blankets, I ache. I ache so much. My entire body aches, but it's more, it's so much more than just my body. My entire soul aches, my mind aches, my heart aches, every part of me aches. It's as if I have thousands of clawing nails in my chest, in my stomach, in my abdomen, in my back. It's as if I am being torn apart, being disintegrated from the inside out. It's as if there is fire in my limbs, fire in my core, fire all over me that is slowly, slowly burning me away.

I feel feint and weak and lightheaded and dizzy. I am so dizzy. So, so very dizzy. It's as if I am on the verge of unconsciousness. Though I suppose that I am. I'm not just of the verge of unconsciousness, I'm on the verge of death. I'm about to die. I'm about to die. It takes so much effort and concentration to keep myself here. It takes so much effort and concentration to keep myself holding onto my consciousness and my life. It's exhausting. So exhausting. I'm exhausted. So exhausted.

I almost want to give in. I almost want to let go of my tentative hold on life. I almost want to let death take me. And so I do. I do let go. My mind is falling, falling, falling. My entire consciousness is falling, falling, falling. This is liberation. It's freedom.

I bolt upright in bed, using a heaving bellow of energy I didn't know I had. I feel fear. I feel fear. I feel an incredible surge of fear pulsing through my body, blaring through my mind, ripping through my soul. All I can feel is this fear. I can't let myself die. I can't let myself die. I can't let myself die. I don't know why. Dying would honestly be better. But I can't let myself do that.

I want to die, I want to die, I so very much want to die. But the feeling that pushes through my body and pulls me to action is my desire to live. And my desire to live might not be stronger than my desire to die, but it's the desire that gives me energy, it's the desire that forces my actions, it's the desire that makes me act. It makes me act and no other action can push through my mind and manifest as action. I need to live.

I have to get out of here. I have to get out of here. I'll die if I don't get out of here. They're trying to kill me. They're trying to kill me. It doesn't make sense why they're trying to kill me, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. I'm not really a part of this family. I'm not really a part of these people. If they had to sacrifice anyone, they'd choose me. But it doesn't matter what the reason is. I won't let them do this.

I won't let them, I won't let them, I won't let them. They won't win, they won't win, they won't win. I can't let them win. But I wonder, will I lose?

I have to think of a plan to get out of here now. I have to get out of here now. Out of this locked room. Our of this false, sugary, heartless house. Out of this piece of land and maybe even out of this community. I have to get out, I have to get out, I have to get out. If I stay here then that will be it, I will be done. But if I get out, then that will be rebellion. That will be rebellion, that will be revolution, it will be mutually assured destruction. And I don't care. I don't care if I destroy myself. As long as I bring the plans of my not mother and my not sisters with me.

I step on my hard wooden desk. The window is as big as I am. I open the window to my room, and then step out onto the window sill, holding the edges of the frame in both hands. There is a large aspen tree brushing against the window. I reach out to grab it, and then climb it down. It feels like nothing I have ever felt before, being up in this tree. It feels like protection, like love, like comfort, like care.

The last ten feet or so I have to jump down, there are no tree branches here, only trunk. I feel fear wash over me. But I realize that if I don't jump, I will quite literally die in this tree, on my not mother's land. And so I do jump. And I hit the ground and it hurts and it hurts and it hurts so much. My arms and legs ache overwhelmingly, and I feel as if I have died.

But I haven't. I haven't died. And I won't die. Not if this desperation inside me has anything to say about it. I know that I have to get up. The thing that I have to do next is to get up and start walking. So, despite how weak and dizzy I am, despite how smothered and aching I am, I have to get up and I have to use the last remaining bits of my energy to start walking.

The last remaining bits of my energy. The last remaining bits of my energy. I know right now that my energy is slipping through my fingers. I know right now that I have barely any energy left. I don't know where my ability to move is even coming from at this point, but the point still stands that I have this ability. I have this ability still and I have to use it. I have to use it in order to get myself out of here.

So I push myself up. And I pray. I don't know who I pray to. All the gods of my past have come from the mouth of my not mother. All the gods of my past have been the gods that she believed in. And I cannot believe in those same gods. Not after everything she has done to me. Not after everything she has done to me year after year after year after year, for all of my life. But I know. I know there are better gods out there. I know there are deeper gods out there. Gods which she doesn't know about and which she will never understand. I don't know who they are, but I pray to them. I pray to them to give me strength and help me.

I start walk through the thick woods outside my bedroom window. The thick woods that are cover, for now. The woods that are help for now. The woods are strength. They have always been strength, and right now the strength they give me is pressing into me, is filling me with courage, is filling me with hope. The trees cover me, the shrubs and bushes cover me, the herbs and grasses cover me. The mosses and lichens cover me. And they all conceal my form, and give me their power, as I walk towards the thin, twisting road that connects the house to the main road.

I continue walking towards the end of the road connecting my mother's property to the main road. I do not get on this road, because I do not want to be seen. Instead, I follow the road, hiding in the tree cover beside it, in the thick tapestry of tall forest that will cover me. I thank the trees for their help, and I hear them thank me back. For what purpose I do not know why. They cover me. They protect me. They hide me from prying eyes. They are alive. They are alive. They are so very alive and they give me life. And for that I am awestruck.

I keep walking. It is beyond arduous, the simple act of walking. It is nearly impossible. But I push myself on. I push myself on and I push myself on and I push myself on. Through my exhaustion. Through my aching. Through everything inside me that is screaming at me to lay down and die. The part of me that is screaming at me to go on and live is more powerful. And so, even though each step requires tremendous effort, even though each step is an ache, each step is a feat of incredible strength, and each step requires immeasurable force, I go on.

I finally reach the place where the main road connects to the property. I am away from the little town that exists in the trees. I am on the highway now. I will miss the forest dearly but I won't miss the people who live in it. It felt like it took forever getting here. But here I am, and the next part of my journey is complete. I slip through the gate and look out at the road.

I have two choices in front of me now. I could go southwest to the city. Or I could go northeast to the highway. I think for a moment.

If I go to the city, it will be easier for me to find something to eat, some source of food, some helpful person, anything at all. It will be easier for me to beg or even dumpster dive for food. But, they'll all be expecting me to go to the city. When my mother inevitably calls the police, they will all think that I went to the city, for the aforementioned reasons. So they will search the city, not the highway. And if I take the highway, there's a lower chance of me being found. But still, there are a lot more places to hide in the city. There are many more streets, and there are many more alleys and nooks and crannies. In the highway, there is only one stretch of road.

I make a decision. I'll go to the city. Yes, maybe I'll be found. But maybe I'll find a way to live. My chances are much higher there. And there aren't really any good options. I just have to do what is the best option.

This is so unfair. It's so unfair that I have to be doing this. It's so unfair that I have to leave my whole life behind. I have to leave my home behind. And yet, yet my whole life has never truly been mine. And my home had never truly been mine either. It has only been the place I was forced to stay in, back when I didn't know any better and couldn't question what I'd been taught. I have never had a home. I have never had a life. I had only had survival and now I might not even have that. It's unfair. It's unfair. It's so very unfair.

I start crying. I know I'm wasting energy. I know I'm wasting water. But I can't help myself. It's all so very unfair, and the emotions inside me are swirling and whirling and completely maddening. I have to get these emotions out somehow. I have to communicate what I'm feeling somehow, even if I'm just communicating with the rows and rows of trees that line the road as it stretches towards the city.

I never had a way to communicate what I was feeling inside. I never had a way to communicate that, and I always had to keep it to myself. I always had to keep everything to myself. And that's so unfair. That is so deeply unfair. And I have to, I just have to let it out now. I have to tell the trees. I have to tell the grass, I have to tell the wind, I have to tell the sun, I have to tell the earth, I have to tell the sky.

The sun shines bright up above me and there are no clouds to be seen. And yet I'm so cold. I'm so cold. I'm so very deeply cold.

Yet despite that, the sky is blue above me. It is bright. It is brilliant. It is alive. And it gives me some of its energy, it gives me some of its vitality, it gives me some of its spirit, it gives me some of its life. The earth is firm and strong and full of life beneath me. It is life. It is death. It is life and death together as one. And it holds me. It supports me. It gives me strength. The sun is a fire and it fuels the fire inside me. It keeps the fire that is in me alive, so that I can stay alive. Each and every breath that I take connects me with the world, it connects me with the spirit of life that is in all of nature. And it is glorious, glorious, so much more glorious than anything I have ever experienced before.

I cry from the happiness just as much as I cry from the pain. I cry from the happiness that comes with the fact that this world loves me, this world loves me, this world loves me. The earth and the air and the fire and the water and the sun and the moon all love me, just as much, just as strongly, just as deeply as they love anyone else. And I realize this now. And, on the brink of death, I feel more alive than I have ever been.

And yet that doesn't change the fact that I have no shelter. I have no shelter. I have no food. I don't even have a jacket. I don't know how I'll get food, or shelter or warm clothes or anything else. I don't know how I'll get my needs met. I don't know how I'll crawl back from the brink of death. And all of that is unfair, it's unfair, it's so unfair. And that is part of what makes me cry. Because I have nothing. I have nothing. I have nothing to give anyone in exchange for food, for resources, for life.

But still, I find myself able to think about the injustices that plague me. I find myself able to call out the fact that I have nothing, even if it's in the silence of my mind. I find myself able to tell myself that I deserve equality, I deserve help, I deserve everything I need, I deserve life. I wonder why I'm able to tell myself this. Perhaps because I have come to the realization that I need to protect myself and provide for myself if I am to stay alive. Perhaps because I am desperate to stay alive, and I know that the only way I can do that is if I realize that I deserve life.

And yet I'm so tired. I'm so tired. I'm so tired. But, crying, I push myself to continue on through the pain and through the ardour and through the exhaustion.

In front of me a large truck is lumbering by. But, strangely enough, instead of going on down the road, it pulls over to the shoulder of the road, the strip of pavement that no vehicles can drive on. The truck pulls over a few yards in front of me. I wonder why, I know it's none of my business, but I can't help but to be curious.

A man gets out from the truck, and climbs down. His hair is dark like mine. His eyes are dark too. He looks straight at me, and starts coming towards me. Am I about to get kidnapped? Maybe. Fear pierces through my chest. What if he comes to capture me? I can't fight him off. I can't do anything. I'll just have to let him take me to wherever he takes me to. Dear universe, why does my life have to keep getting worse and worse?

The man stops a few paces away from me. He drops to his knees in front of me, and that makes him seem much less intimidating. The fear in my heart gets replaced by confusion.

"Are you crying?" he asks me with a soft and kind voice.

I nod my head.

"Okay. Do you want to come with me? I can drive you to the city, if that's where you're going. It's really not safe to be walking by the side of the highway like this."

I think about his offer. It will save me a lot of energy, if he drives me to the city. And I know that energy is very precious to me right now. He doesn't seem to be a dangerous man. He has a kind face and kind eyes. There is a deep sadness behind his eyes. There is a deep hope as well. I think I'm safe with him. And a free ride is probably the nicest offer I'm going to get in my life.

"Okay," I speak.

He holds my hand as we go to the truck. It's a rather large truck. He helps me to get on, into the passenger side, before getting on himself into the driver side. It's not much warmer in the truck than it is out in the road, but I get to sit down and lean against the seat and relax. And, I feel like I'll never be able to get up again, I am so deeply tired.

"My name is Shandro," the man tells me, as we drive in the direction of the city. "What's your name?"

"Zia," I tell him. "Or at least, that's what everybody calls me."

"It's great to meet you, Zia."

"It's great to meet you too."

"If you don't mind me asking, are you okay? You were walking by the side of the road, and you look so very thin."

"I ..." I wonder if I should answer honestly. I wonder if he'll turn me in if he knows. "I haven't been eating nearly enough for almost three months," I finally decide to say, truthfully.

"Almost three months? That's absolutely horrible, child. You're going to die." He reaches down and pulls out a small reusable grocery bag. "There's food in here. Tomato soup and a few sandwiches and chocolate milk. Eat it all. Please. I can't have you die."

"Isn't it your food, though?" I ask him. I will not take advantage of Shandro's generosity.

"Don't you need it?"

"I can go a few meals without eating," he replies to me, "you are going to die. You need to eat right now. Please, please eat."

"Thank you so much!" I exclaim, beyond myself in gratitude. I unscrew the lid for the flask of tomato soup and start eating it by the spoonful. I make sure to pace myself so that I don't go too fast, so that I can keep all of this precious food inside my body.

"If you don't mind me asking," he begins, "where are you going?"

"I'm running away from my home." I decide to tell him the truth. "My family, well, they're not really my family, they were starving me."

"Oh my gods, that's deeply horrible," Shandro exclaims. "I'm glad you escaped."

"You won't turn me in, will you?"

"Of course not. Do you have anywhere to go, though?"

"No." I deeply wish I could give him a different answer. But I can't.

"You could come live with me, if you wanted," he offers. "I'm on the road a lot, since I'm a truck driver. But my wife, she's a librarian, she can take care of you. We would treat you well, I promise."

"Really?" I cannot believe what I'm hearing. "But there's no way for me to make it up to you. I have nothing to pay you back with."

"It's okay," he responds. "We don't want anything in return. We don't want anything. We just want to make sure that you're okay, and that you have a home and food and people to take care of you."

"Thank you so much!"

"Think nothing of it. It's the least we could do. Anyways, we're in the city now. I can stop to get you some food. We have a few days of journey ahead of us and you need to eat and rebuild your body."

"Are you going to get some food for yourself, too?"

"I don't have the money to, right now. I didn't think to bring that much money. But I'll be fine. You're going to die if you don't eat. It's much more important that you eat."

"Are you sure?" I cannot believe what he is saying. Why would he put me, a stranger who he just met, above his own well-being? Why would he put my needs over his? Especially after he knows that there's nothing I could give him?

"Yes." His voice is pressing and absolutely certain, and I cannot say no to that.

I finish the tomato soup and bite into the sandwich. I am tired, so very tired. But it feels as if, for the first time that I can even remember, I am able to actually and truly rest.

If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.

Alone. Surrounded by people. With strange eyes and hidden intentions. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman shrugged her heavy backpack onto her shoulders as she searched for somewhere to sit, somewhere to lay her head. The ferry was filled to brimming, as people milled about, some heading to cabins, those with cheap tickets scanning the common areas for somewhere to sink to the floor. Somewhere they might be able to snatch a few hours of precious sleep, if the seas weren't too rough, if they could keep the harsh flicker of the fluorescent light from permeating their eye-lids.

Already territory was being claimed and defended - hostile expressions warding off any who sought a spot too close to the first settlers. Even spaces further away were full. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman had been one of the final passengers to step aboard, so there was nowhere for her to go.

The boom of the ferry horn ripped through the air and she felt it shudder through her as the mooring lines were cast off - and the great, hulking vessel left the dock. Piraeus was bathed in the lazy golden sunlight of the evening, softening the edges of the cityscape and lending it a romantic aspect. She almost longed to be back on land - rather than amongst this territorial rabble, but the ferry was heading out to sea and unless she jumped into the frothy, murky depths, there was no-where else to go until morning. The decks were mostly empty now, but the wind bit at her hair and whipped sea spray through the air. Even so high above the water.

She needed somewhere quiet and dry, somewhere as yet unclaimed. She waited until the sun had snatched the last light from the sky and the stars had winked into view. Then crept towards the cabins. To the warm, quiet dry corridors. Somewhere she could roll out her sleeping mat and close her weary eyes.

A place not too far from the door to the deck, that she might be able to get out quick if she needed to, but not too close to the common areas, that there would be many people walking past. The hall was empty and she was soon spread out, grinning at her own cleverness at finding somewhere to rest her head. She was between two cabin doors, tucked as close to the wall as possible, so there was still room to walk past her.

She was just drifting off to sleep, when sounds filtered through. Little yelps. The girl-who-was-almost-a-woman startled awake and sat up. Was someone in trouble? She listened carefully - the sounds unabated. Her eyes turned round when she realised they were sounds of pleasure, rather than of pain. She could have moved, she should have moved. But she stayed - and listened as an entire soundtrack of desire played out, to the last shuddering groan.

She left the ferry in the morning but the memory stayed with her. A lasting souvenir.

The Kindergarteners in my classroom couldn’t understand why I would want to be gone for a whole week to go on vacation during the school year. When a few tears fell as I was about to wrap up my day, I quickly promised to bring back souvenirs for everyone.

While walking on the beach during my blissful week, I noticed seashells floating in the water. It didn’t take long to grab 25 of them. I decided to also use them as a lesson about how we are all different to avoid complaints about the various shapes and sizes.

Many happy faces appeared when they learned the meaning of souvenir and vowed to save theirs forever. The next day, a little lad looked a bit sad. When I asked if something was wrong, he said his mother was sick, so he gave his seashell to her, and it made her feel better. Glad I kept my own souvenir in my pocket. I didn’t know the purpose it would serve.

True story.

My first kiss had an identical twin sister. In a weird little twisted triangle, I actually started with a crush on the one who didn't kiss me, but ended pretty tangled up in the other one.

It ended with me settling in with her best friend.

Twisted little triangle, indeed.

From somewhere inside the fiery wreckage of that fiasco with the twins, I plucked some wisdom. My own little souvenirs from my visit to what certainly must have been adjacent to a circle of hell. Firstly, I learned that a dude named George was an asshole. He was pretty keyed up to throw down, but I laughed at him and turned my back. Turns out he had a thing for the girl who kissed me. Sorry, George. I never forced her to hands-free transfer to me her Mystery Mix Now & Later in the backseat.

Second, I learned that braces aren't awesome. Later, I learned that braces really suck for a different kind of kissing, if you catch what I'm throwin.

Third, I found that love finds us, we don't find it.

Love has found me a few other times throughout my life, and sometimes it was good. Other times, it was good for a while. On occasion, it was bad, but even before it went ugly, it was beautiful.

Those twins remind me that too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Two girls, identical in every physical way, but so very different. Two girls is probably one too many; life aint everything Penthouse Forum promised it would be.

One sister was kind and gentle, the other was all edges and angles.

When the edgy one kissed me, it cut.

Decades later, when I see her picture from time to time, I smile.

I hardly even notice the taste of a little blood.

Dr. Becker sits across from Wallace, one leg crossed over the other, a legal pad balanced on his knee. He’s got that therapist look—concerned but not too concerned, nodding in a way that says I hear you without making it about himself. Wallace hates that look, but he’s here, so he talks.

“She used to lock the fridge,” Wallace says. His voice is flat. A practiced kind of flat, like a table that’s been sanded down too much. “Put a bike chain around it. I could hear it clinking when she opened it. Wouldn’t even look at me, just pulled out whatever she wanted and closed it again.”

Dr. Becker nods. “How old were you?”

Wallace shrugs. “Seven? Eight? Old enough to know I wasn’t supposed to ask for food. Not if I didn’t wanna hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“The usual.” He shifts in his seat, runs a hand through his hair, yanks a little at the ends. “How I was a burden. How my father ran off because of me. How she shoulda left me at the hospital when I was born.” He doesn’t look at Becker. He focuses on a little rip in the couch cushion beside him, the stuffing peeking out like it’s eavesdropping.

Becker doesn’t rush him. That’s the worst part. He just lets it sit there, raw and open, waiting for Wallace to get sick of the silence.

Finally, Wallace exhales. “The worst part wasn’t the words. It was how normal it felt after a while. Like, I wasn’t even mad. I just believed her. A hundred percent.”

Becker scribbles something down. Wallace wonders if it’s self-worth issues or possible PTSD. Not that it matters. He already knows he’s fucked up. “And now?” Becker asks. “Do you still believe her?”

Wallace laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “I don’t think I do, but I still feel it. Like it’s carved in me.”

Becker nods again. The same slow, careful nod. “That makes sense.”

“Does it?”

“It does. That’s how emotional abuse works. It wires your brain to accept a certain reality, and even when you logically know better, that wiring stays.”

Wallace rubs his thumb against the couch. “So what, I’m just stuck like this?”

“No.” Becker leans forward a little. “It takes work, but you can rewire it. You already are. You’re here.”

Wallace doesn’t say anything to that. Just rolls his tongue along the inside of his cheek, feeling the old, familiar weight of doubt.

“I want you to try something,” Becker says. “I want you to imagine your mother sitting in front of you right now.”

Wallace goes stiff. His body knows before his mind catches up.

“Imagine she’s right here, and she just said one of those things she used to say. What do you say back?”

His fingers curl into his jeans. His chest tightens.

“I dunno.”

“Take a breath. Try.”

Wallace breathes, slow and deep, but it feels like sucking air through a straw.

He pictures her. The sharp line of her mouth. The way her eyes never softened, even when she smiled. He pictures her saying it, clear as a bell. You ruined my life.

He swallows. His throat feels thick.

But then, something moves in him. A shift. A flicker of something warmer than rage, stronger than fear.

“That’s not true,” he says, and the words feel foreign, but they land solid in his chest.

Becker smiles, just a little. “Good.”

-

The freeway hums under Wallace’s tires, the gray ribbon of asphalt stretching out ahead, pulling him forward like a current. The 405 to the 91 to the 71—familiar routes, roads he’s driven before but never with this kind of weight sitting on his chest. His fingers tighten around the steering wheel, his jaw clenches. The car’s too quiet, so he turns on the radio, but nothing sticks. He lands on some classic rock station, lets it play, lets the guitar riff fill the space where his thoughts are circling too fast.

This is stupid.

His mother isn’t going to change. He knows that. Has always known that. And yet here he is, running the words over in his head, testing them out, trying to imagine himself saying them without choking on them. That’s not true. Felt good in Becker’s office. Felt right. But that was in the safety of that little room with the shitty couch. His mom’s house is different. The air in there is thick, like stepping into a room filled with invisible hands that grab at your throat.

He takes the 91 East. No traffic. The universe is making this too easy.

His stomach twists. His grip loosens, then tightens again. He thinks about turning around, about saying fuck it, about letting it go. But he’s already too far in.

Past the Cerritos Mall, past the hills beginning to rise from the sprawl, he pictures her—sees the look she’ll give him: the tight-lipped smirk, the raised brow. The way she’ll sense the weakness before he even speaks.

The sign for Euclid Avenue blurs past.

His heart hammers.

I can’t do this.

He takes the off-ramp, pulls into a gas station and just sits. His chest rises and falls too fast, his pulse in his ears. His hands feel cold. What’s the point? She’ll laugh, tell him he’s being dramatic, turn the whole thing around until he’s the one apologizing. He knows how this goes.

His thumb taps against the steering wheel. The song on the radio changes.

He takes a breath. A real one this time.

And then another.

And then he backs out of the parking lot and gets back on the damn freeway.

The last stretch is fast. The hills roll into view, green from the last rain. Chino Hills still looks the same—strip malls, wide streets, cookie-cutter houses with big yards and the illusion of peace.

He pulls up to the house. It’s smaller than he remembers. The chain on the fridge flashes in his mind.

He gets out, shuts the car door. Stands at the front step. The frosted glass of the door obscures everything, but he knows she’s behind it. The shape of her. The hesitation.

She sees him. She knows his look.

The pause stretches.

Then the door opens.

She gives him a once-over, then smirks.

“Well. If it isn’t my little martyr.”

When I was young, my mom used to go on trips. When she went on trips, she always brought me back a souvenir, and usually it was one based on my favorite animals - insects. I distinctly remember a golden dragonfly pin she brought me back from some event on the West Coast, and I remember wondering if I would ever see or go into the Pacific Ocean some day. I still wonder if I ever will, honestly. She brought me back pamphlets from the museum of medical oddities on one of the last vacations she took without me. We've mostly traveled as a family since I graduated high school, with the majority of traveling being getting me to and from university, but we did also spend a week at Yellowstone National Park. My souvenir there was just a camera roll full of buffalo. And also a new app for my phone that could identify birds called Merlin. And we saw a huge moose right on the trail we had planned in walking, derailing that plan.