The Forgotten

 

I woke up sweating in a hotel room that smelt like gas and wet cement, with the ceiling fan making more noise than wind. My friend was snoring softly in the other bed, bare-chested, a machete tucked under his pillow like a joke nobody would laugh at twice. We were in El Salvador, again. Or still. You never really leave, especially when you’re trying to forget something.

--

She was a freelance reporter. Sarah or something like that. Gringa. Young, blonde, and probably used to lattes and Netflix recommendations. She had come down with a padded notebook and a press pass printed at home. “Investigative,” she’d said. “Immersive.”

We were drinking cheap local whisky out of water bottles and eating potato chips from a plastic bag. The conversation had turned into a slow spiral of abstractions—poverty, memory, global conscience. She said, with this blank conviction that only people who had never been afraid for their lives can manage:

“There are no forgotten people anymore. Not in the modern world. Everything’s documented now.”

I laughed once, loudly, and then stood up. My laugh startled my friend, who had been half asleep in his chair, like an old jaguar that never stops listening.

“You stupid bitch,” I said, “Of course there are forgotten people. Most of the world is made up of them. You don’t see them because people like you are the ones who did the forgetting.”

I was shaking now, and she blinked. My friend was on me before I got any louder, pulling me out of the room with a force that felt like compassion, or at least strategy. As the door closed, I saw her shaking her head, like she was disappointed but determined. She was going to prove her thesis. That was the story. That we were all accounted for.

--

We were dropped off somewhere east of Cojutepeque, or maybe it was further. No signs. No signal. No clear instructions. We were supposed to find a woman—his aunt, allegedly—who might help us with something undefined. Food. Shelter. The story.

The sun was vertical and overwhelming, and the road was all dust and dog piss. Within five minutes, we saw them—three young men standing beneath a tangle of barbed wires and dying yellow flowers. Tattoos up to their throats. One of them had a glass eye that didn’t track with the rest of his face.

 “Buenas,” I said, with the forced casualness of someone pretending not to smell death in the air. “We’re looking for my friend’s aunt. Maybe you’ve seen her?”

My friend tensed like a wire pulled too tight. He said:

“Tía? I don’t have a tía here, vos. You must be confused.”

 

They left us alone. But as they walked away, my friend leaned in, whispering to me:

“You don’t ask people things like that around here. If they think you’re looking for someone, they’ll want to know who, and why. Then they’ll go find her before you do. Not to help her. To find out what she knows. You get me?”

I got him. We were walking blind, in a game rigged by ghosts. Every question was a clue in a crime we hadn’t committed yet.

--

Later, I started thinking about her again—Sarah, or whoever. I imagined her stumbling across the cracked tile of some comedor, asking old women with cataracts where the child soldiers had gone. I imagined her recording quotes that sounded profound in English but were just tired fragments of survival. She’d be somewhere not far, I thought, lost too, only in a prettier way.

She would write about hope and resilience. She’d quote a man who used to be in a gang but now makes jewelry out of shell casings. She’d miss the man sleeping on cardboard behind the cantina who used to be the mayor’s brother.

Eventually, I thought, we’d run into her again. Maybe in the town square. Maybe on the edge of a dry riverbed where bones are buried. And I’d ask her if she still thought everyone was remembered. And I’d point.

To the old woman with no teeth who once taught algebra and now sells candy from a tray. To the child drawing cartoons in the dust with a nail, whose mother was disappeared, whose father was dismembered, whose name no one says. To the man with the glass eye who used to be called Alejandro but now answers to no name.

I’d tell her:

“This is where the census ends. This is where maps curl at the edges. This is where God forgets to answer the radio.”

And maybe then she’d understand. Or maybe she’d write a grant proposal. Or maybe she’d shake her head again, because some truths can’t be carried back on an airplane.

--

That night, my friend and I slept in an abandoned house. Rats scratched under the broken sink. The roof leaked even though there was no rain. I had a dream I was a boy again, looking through a keyhole into a room full of people who had forgotten my name.

When I woke up, I wasn’t sure where we were anymore. I looked at my friend, who was staring at nothing, his face lit by the slow, blue dawn.

“Do you think she’ll make it out?” I asked.

“Probably,” he said. “They like her type.”

Then we got up. We kept walking. Looking for a woman who may or may not exist, in a village with no name, to prove to someone who didn’t believe in the forgotten that they were still here.

Still waiting. Still hiding. Still real.

Dances On The Water

H: I dreamt I was walking through water.

The stoplight is red, and for a moment, there is stillness.  A momentary glimpse up, a moment to escape the metal and movement, the identification with gravity and all lines and shapes. Up there is a heart that moves like a winged bird, the white fluff that dances on the water of the lake.  Up it moves, past other birds and demons, mermaids swimming with only pale tails and wild scattered hair that covers the sun. There, way above, each second transforming, a heart becomes a curling, nameless animal with horned tail and teeth which lose shape with each exhalation of the mighty myth. 

V: The monks continued with their prayer, seemingly oblivious to the changing light.

Maybe the clouds will birth the objects spoken in prayer, maybe the idol of stone will laugh, maybe the invisible which cannot be proven by any measure will split open and bleed.  Is the stain on the tortilla enough?  The bush that burns?  The fluttering heart that can only be described as man and beard?  Sit in the temples, rise and fall at the command of the man dressed in white.

H: I thought to myself, this feels so good.

Now it gathers strength, shifting as always, needing just moments to metamorphose. A light flashes, brightening across the sky, end and beginning are the same, moving without thought or implied intent. There are technicalities explained in myth. Shape without rationality.  Words without meaning.  Their beauty easy to read, the colors easy to spot and wish upon, though expect nothing in return.

V & M: Their robes fluttered, ignited in the brilliance filling the landscape of barren hills.

They search in the clouds for the source of the twinkle.  Behold the blackness of space he called, the limitless that cannot be understood.  It is not for you to know.  Shopping carts and diapers, packed stadiums of hungry onlookers, waiting for a preacher to deliver the message of god.  We are a pack of wolves, the body wants the taste of flesh.  Each prayer is an invitation to death, open the book and begin to sing. 

K: I felt the rush of cool on my skin, brightening me from the outside in.

Do it because you are told, do it to raise your children well.  Do it because everyone else does.  They will mark your house with stones, the windows will be broken, the lawn dug for your grave.  There is no choice here, not in this country of laws, not in this places of worship.  Thought is for the heathens, questions are for the devil. 

M: A long, resonant tone escaped.

There is only one path and it has already been chosen.  The way is cleared, swept by slaves and those already condemned to death, they wait in cages until the flames rise with the call of the chosen.  Your dress will be torn when we arrive, your lips will be chapped, you will be thirsty, prepare for the voyage and bring the book.

H: I dreamt it lapped at my ankles, cool and vivid.

Wisps colored by the sun in varying moments of movement, a continuous smooth wind takes it, transforming it into the magic of light and moistened clouds ready to spurt their seed.  There may be rain tonight and if there is, I will stand by the window naked, my skin desperately fighting for warmth while my ear and nose take in the newness of the shower, covering it all with a light washing.   

Blinking Calls Of Destruction

The computers
share what you cannot.
The things she needs,
a thousand thoughts.
The damage of our
entwining chords and bubbles,
you will never accept.
My throat,
my city,
it blinks, bored, into the darkness.
Only the red lights call back,
warning,
sighing,
muted and complacent in my paranoia.
Alone right now, standing naked at the window,
I carve the new path into my arm.
A canvas of pure white,
the roads are thick
and etched in the bloody marks
of an adventurer.
A lone wolf guided by the moon and scent
of the night dwellers.
The thickening mist is silent,
constant, hiding that which prefers not
to be seen.
A new way emerges,
tangible,
thirsty.
I open my mouth and suck it in.
Breathe it, chew on the possibility
just outside the window.
I know that it must look the same,
keep up the same appearances,
not a pen must be out of place.
I must keep things as they expect them to be,
for they will be watching.
The writers and men of twisting paths,
it must look like the realm of story,
a plain story without a plot,
a story set down on the side table,
unread and unchanged.
The images will come to the censor,
the gray, the box, the filter.
The drab and colorless, the institution.
They will scan and search, looking for
Subversion, dialogue.
It will be their judgment,
their moral stamp on the colors that will ensue.
It must all appear pale and without fire,
they will push us on,
discerning what appears acceptable
from what is pure chaos,
what is breaking apart.
They will let us through the narrow tube,
the filter burrowed into each
and every one of us,
airtight, black, oozing. 
All will seem normal, plain,
coated in the institutional sheen and odor.
We will split then, dividing evenly. 
A double path communicating through the lights, the red. 
The black that appears almost invisible-
close your eyes and it is there, blinding as the sun,
hiding in the mist, flowing along the carved channels of my arm.
The small dark crystal awaits,
we bring
Destruction.
The crumbling of empire, of rock and continents
and the heavy bodies that come with them.
It is coming.
My computer beats out the song.
Listen, you mad genius.
You naked warrior,
You goddess of sex,
dripping labia exposed to the mass of small and crumpled men.
Listen.
Open up, the communication is coming.
The beat, the hypnotic chant will break the rocks apart,
brick by brick, the city will fall.
Vulnerable, bright and shining against the window
the visions slide
down my cheeks, leaving
no marks.
My mouth open,
your machine on,
the computer blinking, whirring.
I must be brave,
the red and black give their command.

Seer Of Dreams

War
came as though we did not expect it
the bubbles in the river told me,
water spoke to me
and soon, as the rain came,
the puddles were red and
glassy.
It came as though we were not expecting it
though the clouds had gathered on the hillsides and
above the olive groves and even
on the little mountain we so lovingly cared for.
In winter and spring and when the
proud foxgloves sprout like mad,
little white faces peering out of every crevice to face the
mother of all, the people of fire,
our source.

Are not the stories
filled with battles?
Dreams and desire for wretched glory.
Do the men not sing and
recall anguish and defeat out there
beyond the three rivers?

War came,
they were expecting it.
It is not incompatible
with life, it is life.
Men are born and taken.
On hands and knees they crawl
towards it, a great gleaming goddess.

I am the one who is frightened
who does not fit in,
I see it coming,
see it here
see the wounds
the bleeding.
It is I who does not sing the songs
kiss the marching.
And yet they rumble through me
like nursery rhymes
and lick at my fingertips.
I am the one who rips my
dress to rags and runs naked
through the streets.
I am the mad one
The liar
The seer of dreams.

Sportz

I posted comments and sent emails on Facebook when I clearly should have been watching the American football. Now everyone will know that I am that despicable outcast that does not luv the American football. I wuz not invited to any parties full of potato chips and beer and 49er fandom. I did not even know that there would be parties to miss because I did not even have the good graces to realize the football wuz happening!

It wuz today! Oh my godz! And I didn't know to scream stuff like "Go 9ers!" I didn't even know I should be posting scores in my status. I didn't even know the name of the opposing team. It is a ball fashioned from pigs skin that is not shaped like a ball but rather like an inflated vagina pictogram, or possibly a lemon. Very big mens will run with it and throw it and crash into each other to take possession of it.  It's not a sport I likes.

I will tell you about the sportz I do likes.

I likes to watch the Christians being thrown to the lions. This is my favorite event. Also,  I like it when the big mens are given pointy objects and made to fight to the death, and if they wont fight, then the lions eats them too. When the lions is full we bring out the bears. We don't want the bears to gets hurt so when the mens fight with the bears we don't let the mens have any pointy objects. Instead we roll the mens in honey and give them a football, then let the bears in. We call this "Goldrush Rugby."

When the bears is full we take away the footballs but keep the honey and bring in the South American ants. We don't want the ants to get hurt either, so we tie the mens to posts.  We calls this event "Raisins on Celery." It's very slow but the mens screams the loudest in this event.  We usually use this time to replenish our supply of krispy Kale Chips and  refill our horns with mead. Then we plays some drinking games while we listen to the mens screaming and Katy Perry improvises a Merce Cunningham inspired dance routine in a skimpy patriotic outfit for the youngsters on a hovering stage above the field.

If Katy's not naked enough the kidz boo and then we chain Katy to the lego wall on the hovering stage and release the dragon. We never worry about the dragon getting hurt. He is bad ass. By then the ants is done and the field is cleared for the fireworks and laser show, but the people is already leaving the stadium or turning off the tv and posting the scores on Facebook:

Lions 30 Mens 0
Bears 10 Mens 0
Ants 4 Mens 0
Dragon 1 Katy Perry 0

Go Lions!

Then we run out into the streets to tip buses over and light them on fire. We play kick the can and freeze tag  by the warm light, organizing teams in accordance with which corporations sponsored our technical educationz or put our party's politicians in power (as is their constitutional right) or issue our paychecks. Then those of us who don't need abortions (our constitutional right) or some cosmetic surgery head home for bed so we can get up for work in the morning. The rest beat feet to the clinics before they're closed for the midnight Taco Bell run.

The Wanderer

He expects nothing of anyone.
He looks out into the dust of the world, scorching fallen bones to white stones.  Water is perhaps days away and he does not expect to find it.  The desert floor is scattered with the fallen, both man and beast have succumbed to their thirst in this vast yellow wasteland, all of them left there uncovered as food for the scavengers. 
He expects nothing and gives nothing.
He takes what he finds, what he needs. Men have died beside him and he has stepped sideways as they fell. It is by chance that bullets and arrows have all but missed the target. 
He continues on, his face cracked and blistered and burning, an unrelenting sun high above that has no mercy for the weak. Sucking on stones as he stumbles over the few patches of withered grass, he has not lost the desire to live, just the expectation that life somehow belongs to him. 
There is no god above to save his soul, to pluck him from this dry bed of dust and wind. There is nothing, no one beyond his own skin, nothing but the determination to keep moving and follow the stars. Perhaps he will stumble upon a watering hole. 
He does not pray for rescue or grace, does not hope to find some other man along the path with a full canteen and dried meat. There are no friends in this place, not in this desert or in any town he has ever been. There is no sweet smelling woman that does not hold her hand out for coin or gift, no act of mercy ever granted without expectation of consequence. 
The men out here come as vultures and thieves and even those he has ridden side by side with watch him with suspicion, as he does with them. 
He expects nothing of them and he gives them nothing. Each man rides until he is unable to do so any longer. Then he is left and forgotten, stripped and left to the sun and rain, to the vultures and time.
Scanning the ridges of far away mountains for signs of smoke and silhouette, for enemies and arrows and bullets aimed at his chest, he walks on, his mouth dry as the desert sand and cracked earth.
The wasteland is for the solitary drifter, each man experiencing the earth with eyes colored by his path and choice.

Phoenix

He had grown old, his wrinkled hands leathery, his hair thin and white. Once he had been strong and swift. He had been legend, born in the fire, a man of destiny. Living by the gun, he had no reservations about dying by the gun. And yet somehow he was still here, haunting a sagging ranch house adrift in an endless sea of yellow grass; the ghost of a legend.
It had been a long time since he had first come to this house and fallen in love with its occupant, a lovely young widow with flaxen hair and freckled cheeks. Somehow he had married her and stayed, and it had been a long time since then, a long time since he took off his guns and hung them in the closet, trading them for a hoe.

She died and his unborn child died with her. He buried them not far from the house. What few neighbors they had came to lay their hands on his shoulder in silence, one at a time before drifting back out into the golden abyss.
He might have left then, he had still been young enough. He could have taken up his guns and forgotten this almost life in a glorious blaze of gunfire. Instead he stayed. He hitched his horse to a plow and tore through the unforgiving earth as if in a trance.

He could no longer  live, and yet he did not die. His days played out in an uninterrupted flow of monotony under a cloudless blue sky. Like the hands of a clock, he moved as if propelled by hidden gears, a prisoner of time frozen in a story that had ended prematurely. The days bled one into the other, each indistinguishable from the last. Only the occasional visit from a neighbor, once or twice a year, punctuated the seemingly endless single day that sucked his youth away.

A  tanned old man with pale blue eyes, he stood on the porch staring out at the prairie grass, watching a figure approach from the distance. It seemed to be a child, coming in at a good clip. He stood and watched as the details emerged.
Yes a child, a girl, with soot on her hands, face and apron. Red hair, streaks in the sooty cheeks to mark the passage of tears. Maybe it was nothing that he could see, maybe it was something that he felt radiating from her, or the simple fact that she was a break in the endless predictability, but when she was near enough for the details to become apparent, he felt swept up by a wave of emotion and ran out to meet her in the field. He dropped to his knees and took her by the shoulders.

“Child, what happened?”
She gasped, and sobbed,
“Bad men. Bad men came. Bad men with guns.”

He looked over her head at the hills and could see the wisps of smoke dissolving in the sky beyond the hills. Then he looked back into her face, into her eyes, into all that must have happened written in the burning eyes of a child. He looked into the fire in her eyes and felt something quicken inside of him.
Standing, he scooped her up and carried her swiftly to the house and up the porch steps. It was the way he had carried his wife up those same steps after their wedding, but now it was a child and the feeling in his chest was different. He set her down on her feet inside the door and went to the closet.
His whole body was steadily flooding with heat, he could feel it in his limbs, his chest, his face. Opening the closet door he reached inside and took up his guns. He strapped them on without hesitation. It had been many years, but his fingers moved deftly as he opened the barrels, checking that they were loaded. He gave them a spin.

He stood in front of her then.
“What’s your name?”
“Margaret. Benson.”
A flash of recognition. Benson.  They raised  horses over the hill. Or they had until today.
“Can you count?“
She nodded.
“How many men were there? Take a minute, think about it.”
“Six.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded.
“What about your kin…anybody hurt?”
Again she nodded but this time her freckled face crumpled to expel the fresh tears that welled up in her eyes.
He laid his hand on her shoulder,
“You get yourself over to Doc Hoverstad’s place. You know where that is?”
She sniffed, “No.”
He motioned toward the back of the house.
“That way, north, across the creek. ”
They locked eyes again. He lifted his hand from her shoulder. Then he passed through the doorway and down the steps, eyes trained on the faint bluish curl of smoke in the distance.

He found the girl's parents together, Mr. Benson with three wounds in his chest, Mrs. Benson draped over his legs, half her skull missing. A young cow hand lay dead further from the house.
By the smoldering barn he found a man still breathing, a bullet lodged in his belly. Gasping like a  fish out of water, the dying man didn’t seem to see the other at first. He was older with a grizzled chin, beads of perspiration all over his forehead.
The man with the gun knelt beside him and the dying man whispered:
“Don’t worry about me none. They took the oldest girl, Lizzie. Left an hour ago I think. You’ll catch them… you’ll catch them, I can tell, I know it, you have the look. Go on. Go…on…go…”

Another familiar feeling had come over him, replacing all the heat. Now he was cold, as if his heart could pump a blizzard through his veins. Everything was crystal clear, every slow steady thought, each strong quick motion.
It took him no time to recognize their tracks and follow them through the pass and out of the valley. They’d taken 20 or so horses with them, making them easy to follow. 20 horses and one girl.
How many years had it been since he put down his guns? It could have been no time at all. It could have been yesterday, except that he felt old in his bones, a bit stiff, slower than he had once been.
As the terrain leveled out and the grass gave way to dusty earth and brittle bramble the answer registered with clarity; 15 years. 15 years, six men, 20 horses, 1 girl. The world could be distilled into these figures.

They appeared to him as a cloud of trail dust. He stayed just near enough to follow them, far enough away that they wouldn’t notice him in pursuit. As dusk approached they made camp around an outcropping of large boulders. Thankfully, the terrain was littered with such groupings of stones.
The man with the gun left his own horse behind  and approached in the descending darkness, just as they were lighting their fires, arguing about who would cook and  who would stand guard while the others used the girl. He waited to see how the quarrel would go, if  one or two might die before he descended on them.
One was already wounded from the raid on the Bensons and sat slumped against the rocks ignoring the others. The girl was laying  where they had dropped her, on her side with her hands tied behind her back, a gag in her mouth, 15 feet from the wounded man, seven feet from the rest of the gang.

One bandit did pull his gun and point it at another, two more moved to restrain him. In that moment the girl wriggled up to her feet and started running. Someone gave a shout and all their attention turned to her.
The man with the gun took the opportunity, first firing on the bandit who had already drawn his weapon in the argument.  Five. That one fell dead and another whirled, reaching for his guns. The horses had begun to scream and tug against their ropes. He dropped the bandit who was closest to catching the girl before turning  his gun on the bandit who was drawing. 4.
Here he missed and had to duck behind a boulder as the bullets came screaming after him. Then he took a second shot and landed it in his opponents throat. 3.
The two bandits left standing gave up chasing the girl as their companion fell gurgling, grasping at the geyser of blood.  They peered searchingly into the darkness, but the man with the gun ducked behind the boulder and waited, listening to their exclamations.

“Shit. Shit. They got us.“
“How many are out there?”
“Shit.”
“Hey, shut up, how many of them?”
And then a third voice, a lot fainter, the wounded man,
“Just one I think.”
“I ain’t waiting to find out. I’m tearing out of here.”
“No you ain’t!”

The man with the gun seized the new opportunity, rose swiftly and fired on the bandit who had put a restraining hand on his cowardly companion. 2.
The coward spun wildly around drawing his gun and firing before the man with the gun could react. He caught a bullet in his shoulder and stumbled backward. The bandit fired again but missed giving the man a chance to recover. He rushed forward gun blazing until the coward hit the dirt with a thud. 1.
There was a momentary quiet. Then a single shot. The man felt the hot blood spilling out of his gut. Much too slowly he turned to the man who had killed him, the wounded bandit slumped against the boulder. They looked at each other silently, firelight dancing over their faces. Then the man with the gun took aim and shot the man who killed him in the head. 0.

He fell to his knees then, still holding his gun. 15 years and six men gone. 20 horses and one girl.
“Lizzie!” he shouted, “Lizzie Benson!”
It took a while, but the girl returned from the darkness and crept carefully over the bodies, kicking one that was still breathing. She came and stood in front of the man on his knees who was struggling to breathe.
“Lizzie.” he said.
She stared at him, the dirty gag still in her mouth. He motioned her closer and she got down on her knees in front of him. Letting go of his gun, he reached around her head and untied the gag.
He pulled a knife out of his boot and cut the rope that bound her hands.
Wincing in pain he dropped the knife and placed a hand on his blood-soaked belly.

“Who are you?” she asked.
“I met you when you were a baby.” he managed to say. “You must be 12 now.”
“13.” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember you.”
“Doesn’t matter.”  he said. It was getting hard to see her, shadows were bleeding over her face, green eyes, red hair, freckled cheeks. “Your sister Margarette came and got me. She’s at Doc Hoverstad’s now. You know the place?”
“Yes, I do.” she answered.
“She’ll be needing you now. You better take those horses. Those are your horses.”
He couldn’t see her at all now, just the front steps of the farm house, the door slightly ajar. He must have fallen over because he could feel the hard earth against his shoulder. Her hand was resting delicately on the other shoulder.
“You know the way home?”
“I think so.” She was crying, he could hear it in her voice, but he was looking at that door, slightly ajar.
“North east. You can wait till the sun comes up, follow your own tracks back. You can take my belt, take my guns.”
“Mister, won't you come with me?” she sniffled.
“Not this time.”

He turned away from the door, heard it shut behind him, and looked out at the wide blue sky. His guns were hanging at his side, his horse was saddled and waiting. He smiled at the sun  from under the brim of his hat and mounted in a swift fluid motion. Feeling young and feather light, swifter than lightning, he gave a little kick and was off, riding into an unfamiliar landscape, strangely beautiful, eternally uncertain, overflowing with terror and delight.

The Last Tree

The choppers whirled a few feet away, sending still green oak leaves from their branches. It circled, waiting for confrontation.  It circled, adding swift currents of anxious air. 
This was not the sweet sound of evacuation. It was not civilization coming with dry walls in the midst of a flood. It was the brutal force of empire. It was metal and strength looming from above. It was reinforced steel and bullets. It was brute strength.
There was one more tree left, the rest had been cleared away.  Chopped, roots dug, bark mulched.
I had been there when there was still a small grove of oak trees. It had been a sunny Saturday. Blue. A soft wind that carried summer on its wings. The earth had been covered in a blanket of tan leaves that were hard and brittle and sharp along the edges.
The spirit was still young then. There was still a chance, they thought, to save the grove. A small group had gathered around a guitarist.  He leaned against a tree, eyes closed in concentration, lyrics forming on his lips.
My steps echoed with crunching leaves, adding a bit of unnoticed rhythm.  The leaves, one step closer to the earth. Dust. The trees were a canopy. Late afternoon light sprinkled in like glittering jewels. 
A barefoot man in cutoff jeans walked through the grove holding burning sage.  A thin, button-up shirt, unbuttoned now, exposed his smooth hairless chest.  Skunk and earth.  Smoke looked like genie dreams in the rays of sunlight.  
Close to the sidewalk, a few bicycle  activists distributed bruised apples and oranges collected from the nearby farmer’s market. The small space was alive. Young girls in wide skirts.  Old women with long white hair that had seen this all before, and yet still hoped. 
"We will save it," they claimed.  They would.  They wanted to.
Months later, the university was through with games.  The guitarist, apples, the sage.  All forcibly removed.  The squirrels, birds, they were all gone. The police had built a metal chain link fence around the grove, trapping a few lone tree sitters that had climbed into the thick oak branches as a last resort.
I had almost been one of those girls. I had almost taken my sleeping bag and gone into the night. There could have been moon light, a stolen kiss, but that was a different path. I stayed in my blue carnival house.  Warm, cool-hued and imagining, never regretting a night under the stars that would never be.  
There was a different tree to climb and I listened to him sooth me like water.  Cool.  Tranquil.  His words dripped down my ears.
The fence went up, metal and cold, doing what it was designed to do. The crowds watched, pushed to the other side of the street, their hands clutching the barrier, watching as the chainsaws came. They cut every old oak in the grove.  They turned a home to little pieces, they turned it into dust. 
Just one lone tree remained.  The barefoot activists. Just a few thorns left.
Force was nothing new, force stretched out, trickling into every dark hole.  Fifty years. It was not about war or free speech, it was only trees. Nothing had changed, the eyes of the country still blinked in hazy sleep.
Far worse had been done, more violence stood tall on batons, ready for another skull. 
The police came, the fingernails on the octopus, the lowest level that would squeeze into those holes, bashing the centers with their metal-toed boots. Trained men.  Guns, bullets, gas, masks, batons, handcuffs.  Helicopters. Once again.
There were just a few left. The only animals now remained high in their branches, waiting for the inevitable.  Barefoot, eating granola, waving signs, burning sage.  Surrounded by gas and guns, the tree could offer no protection. Its own death was coming. 
The grove was gone.  Steel bars and cement were no longer a bad dream.  The hard hats were ready.  Plans.  Fiberglass.  The obstacles were cleared and soon it would all be over. Most would forget this ever happened.
I listened to it on the radio, driving early. Bright morning light coming through the windshield.  News of the final standoff. The barefoot people came down. They said they had been assured no charges would be pressed.  The university later denied making that promise.  And the final tree came down. 

Another Confession

Greta clears her throat softly, looks into the bright spotlight coming from the back of the room- squints slightly then continues.  Inhaling, the smile comes.  Exhaling, her shoulders soften and the words begin to flow. 

“I am not yet what I wish to be.  I am not yet what I yearn to be.  I am covered in layers of dirt and habits that cover my eyes.  I shred my heart with my own hand.  Those knives!  Gleaming!  Kitchen drawers and the rusty tools of the shed.  Give them to me!  You devils, there is no fire that can cover these tears.  It is only me that begins to claw.  I stand around the corner with a knife, watching myself- we are sharp and gleaming in the moonlight.”

She looks up, seeing nothing but darkness and the brilliant light.

“I always think it's them.  Them with their ill thoughts.  With their conspiracy.  I take the bait when they sit together, gulp it down without thought.  Give me your hooks! Gleaming!  I swallow, tearing at my own mouth, cutting these lips!”

Greta’s eyes are glistening with tears.

“ I go outside to pick yellow leaves. I go upstairs, pretending to read.  I watch them like characters in a movie, wishing I was them. Wishing I lived in a Barbie world with new cars and a large house and fashionable clothes. I see others and envy them. I envy the bed they wake up sharing.  I envy them for the human lives they lead. My mind is full of questions.  I am unsettled- standing here.  Can you hear me?  Bring me the knives!”

She shakes her head.

“I am not what I wish to be.  I am not what I yearn to be.”

The Spheres of Galia Part 12

In the biggest challenge to the King’s authority for the decades he had reigned, thousands of common folk massed outside the new palace to protest the ongoing war in Vitnu. Through upheavals and bitter strife in the kingdom were natural process, bound to occur in any realm with a large collection of players, there had never been a gathering of opposition so large that the chanting could be heard as far as the Sophrastas Sea.
People had grumbled at his unpopular rulings before in the markets and taverns, it was a minor crime, though a popular pastime. But now, it went beyond irritation, beyond drunk complaints. The people went out in the misty winter air and gathered at the gates to make their discontent known and unmistakably heard. With torches aglow that sent fiery messages to the King in his tower, they chanted into the starry darkness, rocking the metal gates with the collective force of their anger.
It was not long before their presence drew out the Royal Guards. Armed, the Royal Guards drove the rabble forcefully from the main plaza. Eager to administer beatings to members of the unarmed crowd, they drew their batons, their swords, and fists, swinging wildly at any figure without a shield or uniform. There were screams of children and much shouting. No one was spared the hand of the Guard. The people dropped their torches with each blunt blow and small fires broke out, filling the night with smoke.
The violent night left in doubt the next step for the Kingdom. The recurrent doubts as to the true birth right of the King continued to plague the populace. Many scribes and a small number of councilmen had been offended by the King's harsh rule and his resistance to change. They rallied with the peasantry, calling for a change.
The apparent leader of the King’s opposition was forcefully taken from a healing temple by unknown men in common clothes that betrayed no sign of their rank. Bright and two other councilmen had been severely beaten in the clashes with Royal forces, but Willem alone was carried away. The old healer watched in terrified silence as seven men wrapped Willem the Bright in a blanket as he lay sleeping on a bed in the largest temple of healing in the Kingdom. Locked in the neighboring chamber, Willem’s wife screamed for him while the cowering healer watched his patient being carried away.
The High Priestess hid her smile when the news of Willem the Bright’s abduction reached her. His whereabouts remained unknown, though his fate was certain. The King was playing into her hands, making it all the easier for her by removing yet another beloved man of the people. She was astonished at the level of his blindness, his arrogance. He acted as though he had never studied the history of the Spheres.
It mattered little to her that he no longer sought her consultation. These days he kept council with Argus the Torturer and though brutal, his advice was simple to decipher. She would know his next move before it became a thought in his mind. Soon, she thought, it would be time for her to act openly against the King. For now, she was content to watch his unraveling and with it, the unraveling of the Old Kingdom.

The Spheres of Galia Part 5

Violent skirmishes raged across the Spheres between the supporters of Olslo and the warlords they accused of trying to stifle the revelation of magickal knowledge. There were fires upon the grounds of carefully tended manors and several of the largest squares were littered in glass, metal and blood. Amidst the panic and smoke, the Chamber of Windows lay melting. Once a glory or architecture, it bubbled in a pile of iridescent goo.

Beside the molten walls, wooden stakes had been erected on the scaffolding where condemned criminals had once been humanely vaporized, but now, the heads of councilmen from both the Red Hat and Yellow Hat parties oozed their blood. Smoke rose from the smoldering ruins of the capital city and lines of refugees marched towards the forests of Avin where temporary dwellings were being established.

The Lady Rob, along with other surviving council members found herself sequestered within the safety of the Towers of Ral, the sanctuary of the Kingdom’s most powerful magicians. Many of her fellows were distracted beyond reason. Grown men, including Philip the Old, were reduced to sniveling wretches. Most had not noticed the terrible inconsistencies of the reports that blamed the Lucen Scribes and Vitnutian terrorists for the attack on the Chamber of Windows. The Lady Rob herself had met the resurrected leader of the Lucens, Olslo, and found it impossible to believe that such a person could be responsible for the violent attack. His eyes shone with something alive beyond the simple need for violence. He was not a creature of quick reaction or anger, there was no need in him for sticks or guns. There was something else that reached out to her, coming out through his eyes and into her, something so fierce and wild and wise that it could only turn into itself, becoming soft.

Having been present during the attack, she had seen with her own eyes the strange creatures with shiny black armor that tore the heads from Council members. Her account of the event had already been written off as the results of hysteria, but the Lady Rob knew her mind to be sound.

Exploring her thoughts as she wandered the white halls of the towers, she made her way into the forbidden western tower where the magicians were gathered in the Kingdom’s defense. Here, she overheard the warlords and magicians making preparations to cut off the magickal energy necessary for Olslo's work with the Lucens and others throughout the Three Spheres. Listening, she was filled with a sense of dread.

In many ways, Olslo and his ideals of freedom and equality reminded her of her father and his disgrace. As a young woman, she had been devastated by her family’s loss of status. She had been little moved by her father’s lofty dreams and had worked her whole life to repair his name. Now, picturing Harrold’s head on a stake and remembering with pain her father’s own vaporization on the same lucite platform in front of the Chamber of Windows, she felt her hands begin to tremble. The hot tears she had never shed over her father’s execution fell from her eyes. Her body began to shake, a cold terror began to move through her, starting in her fingers, toes and back, and moving inward, journeying quickly towards her chest and the heart that lay protected. With each falling tear she released the locked thoughts and visions of the kingdom. It was not as pure and true as she had pretended it was, as she had wanted it to be. It had not been her father who had failed so many years ago, it had been her own heart and the heart of The Old Kingdom.

The Lady Rob made her way to one of the public communication portals, tears flowing unabated over her reddened cheeks, hot salty tears dowsing the velveteen fabric of her dress. She established a connection with the Lucen Scribes and relayed to them all that she had learned in the west wing.

Councilman Argus had not been present at the Chamber of Windows. Now a guest in the house of Lord Avin where the King himself was taking refuge, he expressed surprise at the scale of the astral attacks that had targeted major astral compounds of the Kingdom within the last 8 hours. Many high ranking guests of Lord Avin were convened in his dining hall, still dining on game hens and pudding despite the violence.

"It's truly what the scribes would call an astral war. What is happening is just astonishing," Councilman Argus said from behind his dark glasses. Lord Avin shook his head, “they’ve had the power to do this sort of thing all along. This is their response to the attack of our magicians on their Lucen pools.”

“You mean their counter-attack,” Councilman Argus corrected harshly. “They used brute force to destroy our capital city.”

“We have reports coming in from reputable sources that the attack on the capitol was launched by a third party,” Lord Avin said firmly but softly.

“You mean the account of the traitor Lady Rob.” The retired torturer glared, “who is clearly an ally to the Lucens.”

“There are other accounts,” Lord Avin answered softly and the High Priestess entered the dining hall, her purple robe rustling as she bowed before the king.

“A young boy suspected of being involved in the magickal attacks was just captured in the Cold Reefs an hour ago and is currently under interrogation.”

“Will he lead us to Olslo?” Dominious asked.

“It is quite possible,” the High Priestess told him.

“And the Lady Rob?” he pressed, “has she revealed anything about her connection with the scribes?”

“No majesty, but we will continue questioning her.”

“What about our plan, have we been able to shut down the Lucen pools?” Dominious leaned eagerly forward in his chair.

Shaking her head, the High Priestess continued, “Olslo's actions have thrown all magickal operations into disarray. Our magicians are working to restore some of our own astral chambers. When we have recovered these we will resume our attacks on theirs.”

“And our people? Those taking refuge in Avin, are they taken care of?”

“Our Lord Avin has been most gracious in opening his lands to our displaced citizens. Most are already sheltered and their wounds are being tended to. I personally have been amongst them, administering to their spiritual needs and listening to their accounts. Most of them cannot understand what is happening, but they are angry nonetheless. They will be glad when Olslo is brought to justice.”

In the dungeon of the Towers of Ral, Lady Rob collapsed upon the stone floor of her cell where her keepers had left her. Beyond the bars of her cell, she watched them grab hold of the boy and carry him away. She wished to scream, more than anything, she wished to scream, but her tongue was swollen and saliva ran from her mouth onto the cold stone. Completely paralyzed, she lay on the ground floating in a state of near bliss now that an eternity of pain had come to an end. Vaguely, she could recall having done something to have earned her misery, but it was a blur. All that was real was the pain inflicted by The Torturer. That was all that had ever been, all that could ever be now. She wished dimly that the strange boy could be spared the experience. Then she lost consciousness.

The Spheres of Galia

They had released a manuscript listing chambers worldwide that the Old Kingdom considered critical to its royal security. This was in the year of the blue Sapphire in the aftermath of the Orzab massacre. The crops were poor that year and the new security tax left the people facing hunger, while the soldiers were sent what bread there was to keep them occupying the deserts of Vitnu on the third sphere. Rumor had it that the perpetrators of the massacre in the capital city were hiding in the arid mountains somewhere in the darkness of Vitnu.

The locations cited in the manuscript from the High Priestess of the Old Kingdom ranged from underwater cities to suppliers of food, medicine and manufacturing materials. A council was summoned to determine the fate of those who had circulated the manuscript throughout the three spheres of Galia. In these meetings the Royal Guard declined to comment on the details of what it called "stolen" writings containing magical knowledge. A local magician called the disclosure "damaging," and said it gave valuable information to the adversaries of the King.

"This is one of many reasons why we believe their actions are irresponsible and dangerous," the magician cried through trembling white whiskers. Even his cloak rippled as if disturbed by a wind, though the great hall was oppressively warm and still.

The scribe Olslo was among those accused of conspiring against the King. His eyes were clear and blue, as placid as a frozen lake. He stood tall at the trial, the son of seven mothers who had worried over his upbringing and education and now were absent in light of his disgrace.

“We felt that this manuscript, along with others, should be available to any citizen of the kingdom, that airing out secrets might help to bring peace to all three spheres by empowering even the lowliest inhabitants of Galia with knowledge. We reproduced the manuscript and others without regard for, or even knowledge of, their content. All information should be available to all beings.”

Even the old magician seemed momentarily stunned by the young scribe’s composure and clear bright voice. He was quick however to re-spin his own webs for netting the support of the council. Olslo would be sentenced to imprisonment in Narion on the second sphere.

Nonetheless, the manuscript had been disseminated throughout Galia. There were many who had become familiar with its content. It was now well known that in it, the High Priestess asked her envoys to help update a list of chambers around the world which, if destroyed, disrupted or exploited, would likely have an immediate and deleterious effect on the Royal Kingdom.

The Priestess Amalidia herself was questioned. Though the manuscript was meant to serve the purpose of strengthening security, it could now be regarded as having done the opposite.

“Just who made this manuscript available to the likes of Olslo? He could not have reproduced it without having at some point seen the original. Only the High Priestess and her envoys could have had access to it,” Lord Avin Deloro pointed out to his majesty the King of the Old Kingdom while they hunted the genetically manifested foxus in the revived forest of Avin.

“Your kingdom is ancient and vast. You are the only monarch who can claim rulership of an entire Sphere. It would make an appealing prize for an ambitious woman.” They sat astride their stallions, Lord Avin’s a deep purple, King Domonious’s a resplendent red. It was a strange coincidence unknown to either man that their mounts had been manifested in the same laboratory where Olslo’s seven mothers had conceived, gestated, and birthed him.

Ahead of them the hounds bayed in pursuit of the foxus. “I’ve never known Amalidia to be overly ambitious,” King Dominious said warily through his neat black beard.

“Believe me, every woman in a position of power is there for no reason but ambition. For them there is no brothership such as we know. We must be most wary of our wives and then our magicians, in that order. Amalidia is the worst of both.” King Dominious eyed the landscape through squinted eyes, letting the words roll through him.

Down in the catacombs of Nurk, among the ruins of a long lost civilization of the first sphere, Amalidia sat in her underground tower looking into the darkness. The manuscript had been considered so confidential the envoys had been advised to come up with it on their own: "Posts are not being asked to consult with local strong men in respect to this request," the High Priestess had dictated. In truth only she could posses the manuscript in its entirety. Only she knew of all the chambers it had come to describe. The incomplete manuscript that she had shared with the King was the same that she had leaked to Olslo and the other Lucen scribes. She smiled at her own reflection in the glass window pane. Beyond it, in the darkness, a shinier darkness scuttled through the ruined underground city. Amalidia watched her children moving through the inky depths of the Sphere.

In Narion, on the second Sphere, Olslo toiled in the mines with the other convicted scribes of Lucen. In the gloom, the clarity of his voice and eyes faded. Only there in the throws of despair did he begin to suspect that they had been played as pawns, just like he had once played in the old sphere game his seven mothers taught him in childhood. He had a bit of rope hidden under his bunk. Tonight he thought, would be a good night to die.

In their laboratory, Olslo’s mothers took the information they had gathered when they first conceived Olslo and created him once again. In the laboratory, where the King and his Lord’s fine stallions were born, Olslo was again gestating.

The Service

Suze looked into the clear blue sky of a July day. It all looked so peaceful, the simplest painting from the genius of a man without arms. There was not a single cloud to agitate the evenly coated hue. It was all chirp and sun. All summer delights and watermelon, not a single cloud to throw in a thought of moisture or a hint towards a memory of rain, for a fall that would surely come before she could turn her head towards the grass. Above her the heavens were wide and clear, resembling a roof, though as she looked she knew that beyond the obvious sense of safety were other planets, meteors, and above else, the most dangerous of all, hurtling rocks coming in her direction, containing the spores of alien life. Up above, on a July day, it only looked like summer and sweet cherry pies and fireworks. Towards the left was fall, and further, towards the white house on the corner, was winter, with its piles of snow and thick boots and smoky fireplaces.
She lay back on the grass, her long sandy blond hair framing her face like a beached mermaid. She was safe and the sky felt like a roof because right now there were soldiers out there, fighting the aliens spores with every available bit of metal and technology and ounce of human will.
As she slowly turned her head, winter would come. In a few months she would be 18, and at 18, she would be required, like all 18 year olds, to put on the lifeless gray wool pants and the suit top with ample shoulder pads. On her head would sit the pointed military hat with the nation’s yellow embroidered eagle, meant to allude to gold, though failing miserably. This would be the suit, the new mask she would be required to wear, though not even Suze thought of it as a mask.
It was just what they did, what everyone had to do. One generation after the other, marching in lock step, marching one after the other with their knees up, elbows extended, chin raised in exaggerated pride. Each year there was a new batch of enlistees. A tray of dough that seasoned and hard instructors drilled with lashes and harsh words. After discarding a few burnt and crumbling ones that just never had a chance for the cookie platter dream, the battalion would be formed.
It was not just a requirement, but a rite of passage. What every young, bright eyed and overly enthusiastic young person had to do before they turned 20. And when she returned from her years in the hostile skies alive with alien sperm, after her skin had grown used to the lifeless green pants and baggy shirt and the collared jacket and the pointed hat, then she would come back, a woman ready to vote and throw back tall mugs of frothy beer in manly competition. After her service she would be able to apply for a child-bearing passport and maybe even become a teacher.
But first, before any of that, she would need to put on those pants. She would need to learn how to hold the impossibly heavy gun with its many chambers destined for variously weighted bullets, she would learn to run in time, in position, as part of the group; not ahead, not behind, but in perfect formation. The chants would become buried in her head, melodies that would follow her into old age like white hair and memories of bloody footprints. The sound of her instructor’s voice would bury itself in her mind, finding places in her dreams to escape and re-ignite the torment of humiliation.
Before she could get the gun, before any of it could begin, she would need to go to the office. There would be the forms to fill out, little x’s and lines that would require signatures and full disclosures. Tests, weights, prodding, measurements, scans of all her most intimate parts. By the end, they would know everything about her. They could see her dreams and almost determine her future.
The blue sky could give her no words of motivation, it knew her destiny. Beside her lay a small rectangular piece of paper with the writing of machinery and machine-like people all over it. The sky could offer her no recourse, no place to hide. And just as she had reluctantly always given up her location as a child when the game was called off, “come out, come out wherever you are!” it was time to face the nation. To become a bride, giving herself, body and soul to the nation. Take me, and make me a woman. Give me your gun, the power of your explosion, and I will be your woman.
She looked down at the card, an oversized flier for the national army. “We’ll keep fighting. And we’ll win!” There were a mix of men and women, three white men, a black and Hispanic man, one white girl with a wide smile and an Asian girl. They all wore the same lifeless green uniforms, held the same black semiautomatic weapons in their left hands, their right fists raised in the belief of ultimate victory. Their smiles were white and shiny, their eyes clear as though they had never seen the blood of war, and indeed they had not, for they were models, not soldiers.
But she didn’t need to be convinced, she already was. It was a requirement and there was no place in society for discussions about pacifism or even learning about those monstrous aliens with moon-sized sperm. What was out there, past the blue of the sky, was the enemy. A cold race intent on destroying human life because it hated them, it hated their lifestyle and the human species.
Service was not negotiable. It was a requirement for the species, and Suze knew that it was time to add her body to the marching mass, it was time she became a citizen.