The Zodiac Program

1

Anna closed her eyes and waited for the spirit of the Rat to enter her consciousness.

She certainly didn't choose for this to happen. The gods had come to her parents, promising good fortune for the family if Anna agreed to have the animals of the Zodiac share her mind. A new animal every year for twelve years. It was important, the gods said, that the animals knew how humans lived on Earth. They determined that Anna had an especially adept mind to accommodate the animals. Anna protested this idea, but her parents argued that they made sacrifices to support the family, so she must make sacrifices in return, and that was that. Her parents won all the arguments this way.

She felt the presence of another being in her mind. “Hello,” she thought.

“So you’re to be our gracious host?” Rat said. “Funny, I feel some burning resentment in you.” 

“My parents made me do this,” she replied in her mind. She opened her eyes to find them watching her.

“Anna, is it done?” her mom said, her eyes shining with eagerness and concern. Her dad’s lips were drawn tight into a thin, nervous line.

“Yeah,” she said. “Rat is here. Tell the gods they can give us the good fortune now.” She got up and went into her room, feeling her parents’ eyes boring into the back of her head.

“Well, don’t worry about me,” Rat said. “I’ll just be in this little corner of your brain. We are going to have so much fun."

2

“High school seems to be a form of torture,” Ox observed. “You go to school every day, come home, and don’t have friends.”

“I have to take all the hardest classes,” she replied. “My parents want me to be a doctor when I grow up, which means I have to get into the best colleges and get top grades in biology and chemistry.” 

“Do you like these subjects?” Ox asked.

She shrugged.

Ox was silent for a long time, allowing her some time to focus on her homework.

“You remind me of myself.” Ox piped up suddenly.

“What do you mean?"

“Did your parents tell you how the order of the Zodiac animals was determined? The Jade Emperor issued a race to see which animals were worthy of having the calendar years named after them. The Great Race to cross the river, we call it. I paddled along the river, carrying the Rat and Cat on my back. Rat pushed the Cat into the river halfway across, which means the Cat has hated water since. When we got close to the other side, Rat jumped ashore and won first place. I was determined to keep going. So I won second place because I was diligent.”

“But you got second place,” Anna pointed out.

“Exactly, I made it!”

Anna shook her head and tried to refocus her attention on a diagram of the human digestive system.

3

Not many teenage girls argued with the voice in her head as she walked to school. But Anna was always told she had an especially adept mind. 

 “Why do you put your head down?” the Tiger snarled. “You are not one to accept a position of subservience.”

“Look, I’m just trying to do my best,” she said. “I’m trying not to stir up too much trouble. Mom and Dad don’t need that.” 

“I thought someone so adept would be much fiercer.”

She stopped in her tracks. All of a sudden, she was angry. 

“What are you doing?” Tiger asked, but she ignored the question. She began speed-walking towards the nearest bus stop. A few minutes later, a bus arrived. She got onboard, paid the fare, and sat in a seat, trembling. This was the first time she was going anywhere on her own.

The bus wound its way into the heart of the city. She got off, not knowing how she was going to get back. She wandered the streets, eyeing the grimy storefronts. Her parents worked in one of these restaurants, she knew, and it was why she didn’t see them until late at night. The school would phone home today, but they wouldn’t be there to pick up. Maybe the phone line would be shut off again.

She passed a group of people on the streets carrying signs like “A living wage for all!” There were more signs on the ground, and no one batted an eye when she picked one up.

She joined in with chants, quiet at first, then louder. Likewise, she felt Tiger's purrs in her head turn into roars.

4 

Anna slammed the door and fell facedown into her bed, screaming into a pillow. Rabbit cowered in the corner of her brain.

“I did not like that conversation with your parents,” Rabbit said. “It made me feel sad.”

“Well, what else is there to do?” she said. “They don’t listen to me, or what I want.”

“Well, what do you want?”

“I don’t know, but it’s not medical school. I want to make some sort of other impact on the world."

“When I was crossing the river during the Great Race,” said Rabbit. “I was scrabbling all over the place in the currents, trying to grab onto whatever piece of wood I could find. It sounds like your parents are trying to give you a clear path to victory. It’s nice to have some structure.”

“Oh, fuck you and your structure,” she said. 

For the first time, she felt what it was like to have the animal spirit in her head give her a mental cold shoulder. “Sorry,” she said after a few minutes of silence. “I’m a teenager. Teenage girls have crazy mood swings. Why don’t you report that back to your boss gods?"

5

Anna found the Dragon intimidating. It was harder to share her thoughts, and the Dragon felt more like a parent than a confidant. So she was surprised when she told the Dragon she was not going to apply to biology programs like her parents asked her to, that the Dragon was rather calm about it.

“I can see that you are not just being rebellious.”

“You don’t think that applying to Sociology is, you know, a mistake?”

“I can see you are trying to make your own purpose. Did I ever tell you why I didn’t win the Great Race? I’m a dragon. I could just fly over the river and be done with the whole business. But I stopped to help some farmers put out fires with my magical breath. When I reached the river, I gave that Rabbit a blow of my breath to bring that helpless little creature to shore.”

“That’s very kind of you,” she said stiffly. She looked back at her stack of pamphlets from the school counselor, at the bookmarked college applications.

6

“No.”

“Mom, I got into a college!”

“Not good enough. Why did you lie to us? You didn’t apply to any science majors.” 

“That’s because you made me take all the hardest classes, and I couldn’t do my homework with all these animals talking to me in my head, and I already suck at science in the first place, and so of course my grades are too crappy to get in anywhere fancy!”

“Why waste your time on a degree that doesn’t get you a job? Why no scholarship? We sacrifice all our time and money on you, and give you a good life, and this is how you repay us? You change your major now, or we’re not paying for school!”

“Fine. I don’t need college.”

“Anna…”

Her mom tried to physically bar her from going into her bedroom, but Snake hissed in her head, and Anna took that as encouragement. Her dad stood mutely by. She was stronger than her mom now, and was able to wrench past her and lock herself in the bedroom.

The next day, she waited until her parents had gone to work, then packed all her belongings in the car. 

“Where are you going?” Snake asked as she drove. 

“Luckily, I made one friend in the city,” she replied. “I’ll ask to crash at their place until I can get a job. Mom and Dad will be happy. One less mouth to feed and talk back at them. One less college tuition to pay. One less burden. Thanks Snake, you’ve been very encouraging.”

“Very sneaky way to avoid going to more school,” Snake answered.

7

“What are we doing with our lives?” she groaned, looking through the meager tips from tonight. She was lying in bed, in a cramped apartment after she decided she could no longer face the embarrassment of living in her friend’s house as a failure. “This will barely cover the rent for this month. Maybe I should take up another shift at the restaurant?"

Horse trotted along in her head, or so she imagined. “I don’t know how to give advice on such magnitude.”

“So what did you do to win top twelve in the Great Race? You haven’t told me your story yet.”

“There’s nothing to it. I just ran like the wind, and by good fortune, I won! Of course, I would have placed higher if Snake hadn’t jumped out of a bush and scared me near the end.”

“Wish I could have good fortune,” Anna said, looking around her dingy room.

8 

Sheep was infuriatingly silent on the advice front as well. “I am here to follow you and observe.”

“You’re really leaving everything up to me? All the animals guided me in some way.”

“You are doing well! I heard some people don’t have a roof over their heads, or any job at all!”

Anna looked around the restaurant, where she was the only one left tonight wiping down the tables. “Doing well. That’s the first time anyone has told me that."

9

She could feel Monkey’s judgmental presence with every beer she ordered. She knew Monkey was going to say something soon. 

“You’re going to drink yourself in a stupor?” 

“Get off my back, Monkey. I’ve worked my ass off for three years straight. I’m finally legal now, so why don’t you just let me be a drunken mess and blow all the money I don’t have on this alcohol?”

“Does that make you happy?”

“Why the existential question?” Anna picked at the beer label as she slumped over in the sticky booth. “Aren’t you supposed to be all goofy?”

“I’ve learned that goofiness is the reputation of monkeys among humans. But I'm actually very wise. So tell me, why aren’t you trying to do better, like you professed you would? Dragon said you wanted to help people.”

Anna felt the beer swimming in her head, and even her thoughts seemed slurred. “I can barely help myself. But maybe I’m afraid of what would happen if I actually tried to succeed? Model minority, my ass. Because of who I am, anything that doesn’t look like massive success is an abysmal failure. That’s what my parents told me. And speaking of them, what kind of parents let their thirteen-year old kid be taken over by a series of animals without consent? During the most formative years of her childhood? No offense, but it’s not something I agreed to. And I would be less crazy if I weren’t trying to talk to all these spirits in my head. You know, Monkey? All you animals tell me how you crossed the river to win the Great Race. But I’m just floating down a river that gets faster and faster. Every minute of my life is the river. But I can’t get out. I can’t do it.” She downed the rest of the beer.

Monkey contemplated for a bit. “Is that why you’re drowning yourself without asking anyone for help?"

10

“I wish you would stop crowing every morning.” Anna groaned, rolling over and looking at her alarm clock. It was set to ring in half an hour.

“But it is my greatest pleasure!” Rooster said pleasantly. 

“Well, as long as I’m up, I might as well finish my homework before I have to work. I have to tell you, community college is not as easy as everyone makes it seem.”

“Glad to keep you on track.”

On the way to the restaurant, she stopped by the college campus to drop off her paper and chat with her professor. Months ago, she had wandered into her professor’s office on a whim, attracted to the bold topics on the bulletin flyers. The professor had encouraged her to enroll in classes despite her advanced age. After that first conversation, Anna no longer felt like she was drowning.

 As she walked towards her building, she heard a group of people chanting and brandishing signs, and she instinctively turned to watch. It was as if she was fifteen again, with a tiger roaring in her brain. She looked at the paper she was about to turn in: Social action to increase minimum wages: an American history.

11

“Good boy!” Anna crowed, waving at a dog with a wagging tail and tongue. He was passing by on the street with his owner. 

“Dogs on earth are so friendly!” proclaimed Dog. “Though quite naive.” 

“I love them so much.” Anna said. “They make me feel loved. I would adopt one, if I weren’t broke.” She hesitated. “They’re the only creatures on Earth who make me feel loved unconditionally.”

“Aww, but what about your parents?”

“Hey, surely the other animals told you my backstory. They love me as long as I do my part for the family and live up to their standards. Well, I couldn’t do my part, so I removed myself from the equation. They’re unburdened now. That’s the good fortune the gods promised them.”

“But they lost you.” Dog pointed out.

Anna shrugged.

“I bet you love dogs so much because they aren’t afraid to shower you with love!”

“You’re just as optimistic as a real dog.” But she watched other dogs trotting down the street with their owners.

She drove to the grimy restaurant and walked in slowly. After five years, she was going back to her parents as their greatest nightmare: near penniless and throwing away what little money she had left for history textbooks. When her mom looked up from the table she was clearing and they locked eyes, Anna thought she glimpsed the beginning of happy tears.

12

“Yes, yes yes yes yes!” Anna leapt up from her laptop and jumped around in her cramped space. 

“Congratulations,” Pig said. “University, here you come.”

“Well, I’ll have a mountain of loans to deal with. But at least my non-profit really likes me. They might promote me next month.”

“You’re going to tell your parents?” 

“Maybe.” Anna looked at her phone. Her parents still weren’t happy with her choices, so she doled out information about her life in small doses.

“Well, it’s almost time for me to leave.”

Anna went still. Twelve years had gone by since her parents had forced the Zodiac program on her. But faced with graduating from it forever, she suddenly didn’t want to face it. 

“My child, are you sad?”

“I’ve shared my mind with animals since I was a preteen. It’s like you’re all part of me now.”

“You know, you can ask the animals to come back. But are you sure you want to? You’ve said so many times what a burden and distraction we are."

Anna sat down on the edge of her bed. “I’m the girl with animals in my mind. My parents gave me this identity, but I made it my own. I accept it. When I was a teenager, I let the animals influence me. I took their personalities personally. But I'm my own person now. I have my own way of crossing the river, even if I have to cross it over and over again. And the animals give me the strength to do it.”

“It is evident that you are your own person now,” said the Pig, smiling. “For example, I am lazy, and you are not.”

Anna laughed. “Farewell, Pig. See you in twelve years."

She felt Pig leave. Then she closed her eyes and waited for the Rat to enter her consciousness.