It is a warm and humid night in summer. There is the sound of dogs barking on the street. The sound of crickets from the brush and cicadas in trees. Fireflies flash like tiny cameras through the tall grass along rows of dark cars parked along the curb. Half-dressed teenagers stare from the windows of clapboard houses looming like tombstones above, their darkened figures a tribute to the night defined by their beauty – Run away! they call to us. But where would we go? We are all here together – in that we are all made in the same way and follow the same rules – and there is no space, or time, or place anymore between us.
We are at the house of Lea’s father. We are alone here – Lea’s father is away for the evening. He goes every night except Thursday to the small tavern on 4th St. There he sits on the third stool from the left (this is for good luck, as he is a superstitious man). He will be gone, assuredly, until morning.
We watch a feral cat slink beneath the porch to hide from barking dogs. But the sirens coming soon (those to announce curfew) are shrill and louder still. Shiv’s red pickup truck parked in the empty lot next door; the front-left tire blown out during the 12th St. protest two days before. Mama Yea’s garden grows thick with tomatoes, pole beans and squash in the yard across the street. The Mullers in the house next over keep their Christmas lights on all year long. Shadows grow long, longer, dark, and then disappear. Streetlights in rows. All of this beneath a bloodshot sky; hazy red clouds fading slowly into boysenberry, eggplant, leather, and then a vast obsidian that covers us like a blanket.
When we were young summer had the smell of strawberries and meat on grills and coconut-scented sunblock from long days at the lake. Now it is the smell of smoke from endless fires and spoilt milk. We go to sleep at night with twisted faces – red from the heat, blue from suffocation – turned a dark, ugly purple that is unlike any color of the rainbows we used to watch after the rain. We didn’t know then what the future would hold – perhaps it would look again as it had in the past? But we know better now. And if there is grass to mow, beaches to swim, or games to play today they go unnoticed.
We think of our childhood as bathed in golden rays, soft and sepia toned. For those who had a joyful childhood this light holds the key to a happiness we have been unable to find as adults. What we know as children fades into fog, but this is only because we have never been allowed to fully explore it or explain it, forced to grow old for a system that cares little for our creativity and spirit as humans; for a system that works to control, limit, and quash this natural creativity found in humans; a system that has monetized the liberty of thought and the freedom of time with which every one of us is born.
If this were the only reason for revolution – Lea says – it would be enough. But there are plenty of other reasons as well.
In the city we grow comfortable with the recurrent cry of sirens. Police, ambulance, fire truck… and the siren calls of the fille de joie, men and women of 3rd St. The sirens that come every night to announce curfew are a more recent addition, the result of protests turned violent after dark and the mayor’s desperate attempt to restore order and maintain peace on the streets.
Our street is relatively calm. The protests take place in the financial and retail districts by the state capitol and the city’s downtown – symbols of government and commerce, the two cultural components ruling our lives with increasingly hard-fisted mentalities. And this is not by accident: Neighborhoods and residential areas (homes of people) are not considered effective targets, even if there are villains hiding inside.
We are in the dining room downstairs. Lea comes to me shirtless in the heat. Pale light from the lamp in the corner cuts across her skin with a coruscated glow that semaphores like the street lamps of the city grid. She moves with slow certainty, deliberate in her movements, each step taken with care. She stands before me, one leg crossed over the other, her hands on her hips and her hips raised to the side. She sings softly beneath her breath. In winter we need blankets, coats, scarves, mittens, and hats to keep our bodies warm. Clothing is optional in summer. As she grinds her hips into mine like corn into meal.
Here we’re completely free, she says in my ear. And we should enjoy it while it lasts.
Her words are fragile like glass – like they would shatter to pieces if challenged. Like she would prefer to stay silent against the evils and injustices of the world (if only that were an option) and hide beneath the bed to read her books instead. But still she yells (her words are not glass) and she does not stop yelling: She will be heard over the endless noise of the city.
The smell of soft cheese in the air. A bowl of ripe tomatoes growing soft and wrinkled on the table. We look to the street. To the lights of passing cars outside that flash along the walls. The night is mostly quiet. There is a soft rain just starting to fall against the windows. Lea’s back to me now and her arms raised over her head. She dances to the music we play to drown out the sirens. These damn romantics, she says, and their sentimental songs. Her warm breath and skin so close they are the same as mine. The wooden floor creaks beneath bare feet. The cat falls asleep beneath the porch. The wine we drink is sour. We are alone here but we have the feeling of being watched. We cover the windows with velvet curtains and go inward instead – no more need for the street when we have each other. No more need to reach forward, run away, or disappear into the night. I will remember this. With her. She puts her arms on my shoulders and her knees on my lap. We become one, solid, carved and polished like those marble statues of the ancients, and realize the night is not dedicated to youth or anything but itself. As tall fires rage only a mile away, and smoke billows into the sky. As the building blocks of the city crumble to dust and those marked sirens cry endlessly into the night.
In the morning. We look to the street. The sun is shining. The yellow grass still holds moisture from the night. Lea’s father is sleeping on the porch. He looks strangely peaceful, the sun shining across his fingers folded contentedly over his chest. His breath soft and steady. His chest rises and falls. So much so that a butterfly and bumblebee pause to rest on his cheek before fluttering off again. We wake him and gently help him into bed. He hasn’t been sleeping well since the start of the unrest and wanders off occasionally (still very much asleep) into the night. For this reason we’ve been spending our time in Lea’s old bedroom – it helps to keep an eye on things when her father drinks.
When we were young, we knew her house as the haunted house on the block – not necessarily by ghosts, but by the man who lived there, and the children he never let outside. He too was never seen outside, only glimpses caught occasionally through the window, and the aging manor lent itself to the sort of evil aura that manifests itself in our dreams of horror and mystique. We would never have gone inside; we would never have disturbed what we assumed was a dark and sinister plot there – but we crept regularly across the lawn to the window to get a closer look. We snuck into the yard, only got as far as the large oak tree, ran off, and then returned a few hours later to do the same again. We found out later that he was simply too afraid to let his children into the mad, mad world outside.
The neighborhood radicals arrive for our weekly meeting. They come with clubs and bats and chains and tell us how committed they are to revolution – we will triumph! – and how they abhor authority.
We do not forgive our kings!
We meet in the woodshed behind the house. Lea lights a candle with a match and it glows against the skin of her face. She smiles and I can see her teeth in the light, all straight except for one crooked between her front tooth and the vampiric canine on the right. She tells us about the plan – her plan to take back control of society and to help others do the same. She is not one for violence, no! – or she would not have been if only things had been different. She knows now that morality is not passive, and that change does not come from waiting, and that action, even (or especially) violent action, is often the only path forward. Here, in the shed, with the rest of the neighborhood boys in the shadows just waiting to take their clothes off – she smiles at them too because she knows what they want, and she knows the power this gives her over them and their feelings. They pant, sitting upright, pleased as puppies as she compliments them on their commitment to her cause. She knows the world as it stands today must end. That she will be the one to end it is something she has known for as long as she can remember. I remember when I was still a child, she says. Not even ten years old. I looked to the sky. Some see shapes in the clouds. Others wonder about the stars and the galaxies beyond. My only thought as I looked up – my arms behind my head – was how I might some-day control it.
Control the sky? we ask, and she says, Yes, of course. There is nothing greater than the sky, after all.
I thought about people, she says. There are seven billion, eight billion, nine billion people on earth. Why should I not be one with them all? Of what use is success that is not ultimate success? Why would we bother to strive for anything that is not the greatest achievement for which one can strive?
I had no interest in any sort of simple, or contented existence, she says. I would be Queen of the Stars,or I would be nothing at all.
And she says this with a sort of conviction too convincing to ignore – you find yourself believing in it just as much as she does, through the excitement and the heat rising at your neck. Your heart is beating faster now. You want to reach out and touch her – you want to take part in her boundless energy and become something greater than yourself. Something better than your body and your mind and anything you have said or done. But how could you ever reach her? She is too far above. And then she smiles – as she knows what you’re thinking – and the heat beneath your collar only grows. And you realize suddenly that you’re no different from the rest of the boys panting and waiting for her next order, command or whatever rule she makes. But you realize too that this doesn’t bother you quite as much as you thought it would, as long as she keeps smiling, and keeps her light for you.
We sit, sweating, ready to destroy the world at her word. She stands above us prepared to give it. But then her phone rings and it is her father calling to ask if she is staying safe, to ask if everything is okay – honey, do you need anything? – because we are only 18 years old after-all, and still in need of guidance, and a safe space every now-and-again. And then the spell is broken. I remember that she is human, and that she has a family that worries, a home where her warm bed waits, untouched since she moved out only a week ago, and that she was young once, only a child the same as we were.
We are dripping in the shed. The heat trapped by the splintered wood of the walls and the single window where the white sun shines in through rays so thick we could bite them with our teeth. Instead we swat at them with our hands. Water rolls down our foreheads and our backs and drips into the dust on the floor. Lea fans herself with a copy of the Manifesto. Oh – she murmurs to herself – what a pain it is to be only human. But we are only human after all.
She unbuttons the top of her blouse and runs her hand through her hair. The boys waiting in the back look to each other with wide eyes and then back at her, their tongues lolling from their mouths like fat pink larvae. She kicks the door open with her foot and a quick breeze brings relief for all of us inside. She lets out a sigh, turns and leaves, swallowed by the sun and the leaves of swaying trees. Because she knows we are only human, and we cannot be more or better as much as we’d like to be. That both her grand plan and our belief in it are something that we have created in our minds –they are not real. There is no such thing as a Queen of the Stars, and she will never control the sky.
This won’t stop us from trying, of course: We have always reached for things we weren’t meant to have, and have often grasped them in the end: The first human to climb a mountain, cross an ocean, discover the atom, fly an airplane, or travel into space must have felt themselves god-like or chosen, but there comes a limit to the abilities of humans; to how far our arms can reach and the things we can achieve, and we have quickly reached it – we will soon be swallowed by the things we have built.
While this might sound cynical to you, dear reader, it isn’t meant to – it is a sober realization, certainly, to learn that we are not nearly as special or as interesting as we’d like to think, or that we’re the only ones who think we’re special when we do, but it also allows us to explore the things that do make us so. For example: When I bought Lea a bouquet and brought it to her on her birthday (her birthday is in August, only a few short days away). I left it on the porch, and I imagined for days after how her face might have looked when she opened it. This isn’t something deserving of praise, or something even unique to humans – we know penguins, apes, and kittens give gifts as well – but an appreciation for the joy of others; the ability to carry it with us and let it define us for better, is ours. This is just one thing. But what a thing it is! And, through this, we might understand it is the most-gentle piece of our nature – not our hubris or violence, or our endless need to be the best or most-powerful (our endless need to dominate) – that gives us the potential for greatness. It is our ability to communicate, to connect, to care and to forgive. Sadly, however, this is a piece very often ignored. Or worse – ridiculed, diminished, and thus forgotten. And what will we do when the violence ends?
Lea calls me the next day. I am home in my own apartment and she is again at her father’s house. There are dark clouds in the sky that warn us of a coming storm. Lea loves the rain and listens to the thunder from her porch. Are you free? She asks, her voice is soft over the phone. Can you meet?
Yes, I say. Of course. Where would you like to meet?
We meet at our usual café on 7th St. Her hair hangs over her face in auburn threads. She keeps her chin in her palm until I sit down. Then she looks slowly up at me, her eyes dark-rimmed and low. She smiles and says hello with a cup of coffee steaming on the table in front of her. Sunlight shines in through the window Her thin fingers absent-mindedly pulling and twisting at the ends of her unwashed hair. She says hello to me and then looks away to the other faces of the café.
You know, she says then, turning back to me. There isn’t very much we can do today. You and me, I mean. Or just me on my own. We need other people for everything. Other people to help. But when you have no energy left to give, no role left to play, and it feels as though there is nothing left you can do, it seems so much easier just to give up, run away, and let the world implode…
But we can’t give up, she says. It isn’t an option. If I give up, it won’t be me alone who suffers – it’s everyone else as well. Everyone who might have benefitted from the accomplishments of my mission.
Tell me, she says. Do you really think I can make a difference in this world? – but then she waves her hand and sighs before I am able to respond. Never-mind, she says. Don’t answer. Don’t answer.
We finish our coffee in silence with nothing more to say. Then we leave the café and walk through the heat and the dust to the small apartment she keeps in an old warehouse overlooking the river. The walls are made of brick. Wood beams hang exposed from the ceiling. She sits on the bed by the window and I sit beside her. I was never considered beautiful, she says, leaning her head back against the wall. A late-bloomer perhaps, as my grandmother would say. She liked to use that term. I wasn’t raised in the glow of fashion lights or model dreams or the adoration of my friends and classmates… She turns to me. And that my physicality would now curry favor with those who might advance my goals is something of a cosmic joke, she says.
But we forget these things that make us human – she smiles – our foul breath in the morning, the insecurities about the way we look, the pain in our bodies and minds that comes with growing older. We forget about the way we connect through verbal language. And through body language and the way we touch as well. When we forget these things, we are no longer human, and our bodies become one with the mattress and table and the flowered wallpaper around us, no longer caring for the physical nature of existence – we exist here only within ourselves as we become one with the world.
And everyone would simply live as statues, she says. Perfect for a picture, admired in stillness, placed on the walls of museums with the works of old masters without the anxieties or uncertainties of being alive: It is not always easier as a woman to be beautiful, but this is an easier option for those who are.
We could be naked right now. Lea says to me. But the system is keeping us clothed.
She removes her clothing and then stands uncovered before me. This has been the hardest to overcome – she says – how I look. One way or another. I must be one, or the other, or nothing at all. If I am beautiful, then I am not seen as a threat. Or if I am ugly (I have been), I cannot be content.
Look at me now, she says. What do you see?
You are very beautiful, I say, and she sighs. Yes – she says – very.
Light comes through the window behind us. I listen to her without moving, I am still. Then she touches me again and her energy, this electricity of soft skin spreads from her fingers through mine, and through my full body and we become human once more. Not painted or shaped. We come together and she gives me her form – I give her mine – and we are safe. But we know it will not last.
Through this hunger for more we become obsessed with the small features of our lives – how many times we had gone swimming at the beach, how many different apartments and homes we had lived in and with how many different people, how many times we had passed gas or gone to the bathroom, how many times I have had sex and how many orgasms – how many times had my toes gotten caught in the sheets as they tensed – and too with how many people. How many times I had sat in the passenger’s seat of a car – whose car was it? – and how many times did you hold my hands over the center console. How many? And then to notice also the crack in the wall, the rip in the wallpaper, the peeling paint of the windowsill, the dust in the corner. This apartment is not unique, but we will never be here again. Notice the smells coming from the refrigerator, from the trash, from the bathroom, from the cupboard, through the window, from the sky like an angel on high, each one, tell them apart, they are distinct, they each hold their own story. I remember one from that night we stayed in and watched movies on the wall, drank wine, and slept on the floor. I remember one from my grandmother’s kitchen. But this smell now is only a reminder – it does not, cannot, smell the same as it did when I was a child, when my grandmother knew the answers to all the secrets of the world. I notice that one of these smells is unfamiliar, something I have never smelled before, but should I ever smell it again, and I know I’ll see her face when I close my eyes, as it is her smell now.
Why don’t we move away? Lea asks me. While there is still time? Why don’t we go someplace where love is the only currency, and sentimental songs float through the air, the smell of perfume flows from the apartment next door, with a small kitchen where we cook our meals together, warm, and humid, as we stand close enough for our hips to touch but not so close as to satisfy our appetites?
And why don’t we…
But our duality as humans – that we can love and feel as deeply as we do, but then also hurt and maim and act as irrational, violent, and uncaring as we do – is either grounds for our being saved or grounds for our extinction. And (ostensibly, at least) it will lead to one or the other: In these current times it is hard to imagine that the human race is not bound for extinction sooner or later, so preoccupied are we with acrimony and discord; so are we killing the planet almost as quickly as we are killing ourselves; so have we failed to learn from our failures and become wise to those things that would ensure the long and contented survival of our species. We continue to reach forward – discussing the colonization of other planets before saving our own (for example), building and building and building, running faster, driving faster, moving faster toward a future we cannot be certain wants anything to do with us, refusing to slow down even for a moment to understand what we are doing to ourselves, to others, and to the spaces around us. We continue to reach forward, and so we continue to prove ourselves failures as stewards of the earth and its most-dominant species.
If God, or any god, were real, it would not be a God (or gods) with a sense of humor, no – it would be our deities shaking their heads in shame and embarrassment, and how could they not be…
But then – what sins would have been removed when those sins are the very items that continue to prove our humanity? That is – humans are simple, flawed, and barbaric creatures, and completely unable to face, own up to, or even admit this fact. That we do not love our neighbors, and we do not empathize with the plight of others unseen. And our subservience, or our obedience to this piece of our humanity and our society will be the one singular thing (if there is one) that leads to our demise.
Too must we understand that those who would celebrate death are the most human among us. Humans are the only creatures who celebrate death in this way – death as the result of pride, death as the result of greed, death as the result solely of nation and order. To come to terms with this fact is crucial; we must understand that humans are violent, selfish creatures, yes. But then realize we are capable of rising above this foolish, violent nature to grow and be better. We can be better! Lea says.
We talk about these things – they are not unknown to us. They are not mysteries. We see them before us in all that we do. We understand our violence, our brutality, our failings. And still, we are unable to change – because we know we are unable to change others – and herein lies the core of the problem: That we would try and change others before trying to change ourselves, that we would assume that the problem lies elsewhere and that there would be any sort of redemption anywhere beyond the self. If there is a sense of control we have, the autonomy we so prize, why would we not extend that to a better-ness that might save us all? Here again do we understand human selfishness.
For example: When we take a second portion before others have been allowed their first. Or a much larger example: When we ignore the endless problems of the world in favor of our own personalities.
Should this be so hard to determine? Is it so elusive? And what sort of peace; what sort of calm could come from anything but this sort of immediate and deliberate action – what of the authority that has dominated our lives for as long as any of us or our ancestors can remember, without truly offering the sort of stability, this peace, day-to-day, that would make it worthy of being our authority.
What more could we say than enough! We will abide by this authority no longer.
We understand, then, why the artists and the poets and those most-aware of this inequality have always lived on the fringes of society. To the fringes then is where Lea and I too will go. Because if we were to stay, such damnable action as this – in which we become the violent authority we wish to overthrow by fighting this oppression with violence of our own – will be the only option we have left.