Valeria the Warrior

Valeria didn’t know why her mom called her Warrior, and why others called her mom Home Commander. To her, she was a mom, and Valeria never felt like a warrior. In Valeria’s mind, a warrior was powerful, and everything scared her. The warrior had muscular arms, and hers were scrawny and hairy.

She also heard the word divine, and she heard it often. At the dinner table, when they bowed their heads and chanted before touching their forks. They sang about the womb, power and creation, and warriors. But she didn’t know what those words meant, and she never felt like a warrior, not even after the chant. Then her mother will bless the warriors one by one after the chant, and Valeria was last because she was the youngest of all the warriors.

Her small gloved hands pressed against the window and then her nose. Valeria tapped the glass and pointed at the darkened window of the top floor of the highest building she ever saw. “Mommy. Mommy. Look.”

She tapped the glass several times. But her mother looked at her with the blank stare, and Valeria remembered that her mom had gone away. That she was not herself. When her stare did not look like her own, Valeria imagined her mom playing hide and seek for a very long time.

When that stared landed on her, she felt cold, and not warm at all, even when it was hot outside.

“Home Commander,” her mother said, correcting her daughter’s address.

Valeria bit the inside of her cheek. She looked away, not wanting to see the stare, and pressed her nose once again on the window. The bus flew by, but then it shook when it stopped at the red light. It stopped right in front of the biggest building she ever saw, and she narrowed her eyes, and swore there was someone on the other side of the darkened window past her reflection. She saw her hands pressed against the glass and wondered who was the lone lady looking out the darkened window.

“That’s the president.” Valeria heard the girl behind her say.

Valeria turned her mouth just so, only the girl sitting behind her on the big yellow bus could hear her words. “The what?”

“You know the president. The pretty lady with the sad eyes, she’s on the TV every night.”

Then it dawned on Valeria who the lone lady was and sighed and whispered. “Yeah, my mom watches her too.”

“Yeah, we kind of have to, you know.”

Louisa was older than she was. A whole year. She was born in a funny month and with a bad heart and started The Course late. Valeria remembered when she showed her the scar on her chest. It was a bulky line right in the middle with tick marks lighter than her skin. She knew a lot, because she sneaked and listened in a lot.

“I know,” Valeria said, but she didn’t know. She didn’t listen like Louisa, she rather draw and plant tiny beans and watch them grow.

“Yeah right. You didn’t until I told you.” Louisa pushed against Valeria’s headrest.

Valeria snuck a glance towards her mom, she didn’t want her stare landing on her again.

“You know, soon we’ll have eyes, just like our moms.”

“Shut up, Louisa.” Valeria stole another glance. But her mom didn’t notice. Only a tiny line pushed against the skin on her mother’s temple, and there was another in the middle of her forehead. Valeria admired how straight her mom held her neck and back as well. Only droids looked like that. But she knew her mom was not a robot, she was real, she saw her cut herself when snipping a rose.  “That’s not true.”

“It is.”

“Is not.”

“Is.”

Valeria slammed her back to the seat. “Stop.”

She forgot to steal a glance but felt the frosty stare on her right cheek.

“Young Warrior,” said her mom with a warning tone. “Sit back and straight. Close your mouth and pray.”

Her mother’s hand pushed Valeria back and then strapped the seatbelt across her chest.

“Thanks a lot,” she heard Louisa say behind her, before hearing a similar click.

The light turned green, and the bus flew by the tall building, and Valeria looked down at the ground and all the people that looked like tiny ants walking on the streets. Up above them the clouds shifted and darkened.

Before they left, the screen predicted rain, and the bot packed an umbrella, jacket, and rain boots into her bag. The screen said thirty rain and showed a map with a lot of green and some red. She didn’t know if that was a lot or a little rain, but the clouds turned darker as the bus moved and she figured thirty was going to be a lot of rain.

Valeria grabbed her orange bag with the rain jacket, umbrella, and boots inside and put it on her lap. When she rested her chin, she smelled the plastic from the bag and the boots inside. She feared the thunder, because it scared her, like someone yelling at her. She wished her mother’s eyes would turn back to the real soft brown they were once. When they were soft brown, she would hug her then, and braid her hair and help her plant seeds outside. But not these cold eyes. No, not at all. The cold eyes were not her mom at all.

Valeria closed her eyes and tried to relax. The hum from the engine lulled her to sleep bit by bit. And in her sleep, she prayed. Not like her mother with a chant and the frosty stare. But with her scared heart opened wide, and in her heart she let every fear showed, and the universe saw it and noted.

Then she traveled, oh she traveled. There were shapes, so many different shapes, that collided and collapse onto the other. Where one began the other ended, and where one ended the other began. Then there were colors, so many colors, even some she hadn’t learned. And they all became one and then separate like a wave crashing on the shore following a rhythm she heard before. Where had she heard this song? Valeria asked, deep in a trance.

“Remember,” whispered a voice inside of her and outside as well.

But Valeria didn’t know where to look, for the voice was everywhere and nowhere. “Are you my mom?” she asked, but she knew her mother’s voice didn’t sound like that.

“Kind of,” said the voice. “Do you remember the song?”

“I don’t know.” Valeria shook her head. It bothered her, she didn’t know. “Is it my song?”

“It is. Close your eyes, muchachita.”

And Valeria did. The sound became so clear. It was a song she sang before, inside her mother’s womb, it was the beat of her heart, combined with her mom when they beat as one. It was all around her, coming from everybody, like an orchestra in the sky. “Do we all carry the same song?” Valeria asked.

“We do.”

Then Valeria opened her eyes and in front of her was the most beautiful color in the whole wide world she’d ever seen. She couldn’t describe it, because she’d never seen the color. It was a girl and a boy, a human and a cat. It was everything, and everyone combined as one. And it was beautiful and so divine.

“Even you? Do you have the same song?” Valeria asked the swirling color.

“I do.”

She scratched her head. “I don’t understand.”

“We are all the same.”

“But you—you.”

“And so are you.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.”

The more she looked at the swirling colors, the more they hurt. Because it was hard to see. Valeria looked away from the most beautiful light and thought about her mom, the blank stare, and their song from long ago when she’d been a baby in her belly. Then her eyes itched and she wanted to cry.

“Can you hear that?” asked the most beautiful light.

Valeria scrubbed her eyes. “No, what is it?”

“Your song lost its rhythm. Why is that?”

“I dunno.”

When the light chuckled, it echoed in the walls of Valeria’s mind.

“I can see straight into your heart.”

Valeria cocked her head, and she couldn’t lie. Not to the beautiful light. “My mom, she has the blank eyes and when she does, she doesn’t hug me, not even plant seeds with me.”

“I see.”

Droplets of rain hit the hairs on Valeria’s arm. “Your song changed too. Are you crying?”

“Yes. They’ve ruined their song, and I don’t want them to ruin yours.”

“It’s okay,” Valeria reach for the colors but her hand came back wet. “Is not all the time, when her eyes turn back to normal, she’s my mom again. And she hugs me, and sometimes we even dance.”

“I’m so happy to hear that. Open your hands,” and a harmonica landed on Valeria’s palm. “Put it against your lips.”

Valeria placed the harmonica against her lips and air turned into a song, the song of her heart.

“Play this when you need to remind your mom what her song sounds like.”

“I like it.” Valeria played more.

“Now put it away. Underneath your rain jacket, inside your boot.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s raining outside and when you pull it, I don’t want you to drop the harmonica and lose it.”

Valeria squeezed the harmonica inside the boot at the bottom of her bag. “I won’t.”

“Promise?”

Valeria nodded. “Yup.”

“Good, cause you are almost there.”

“Where?”

“Consciousness,” the beautiful light smiled, and the colors shined so brightly, Valeria closed her eyes.

She didn’t know what consciousness meant, but her tummy flipped, and her head hurt. When her eyes opened once more, she was looking at the window covered in rain.

“We are here,” said her mom, taking the seat belt off Valeria. “Put on your rain jacket.”

Her stare was blank.

When she reached for her rain jacket, Valeria squeezed her boot and felt the harmonica inside. “Mom, I want you to listen to a song.”

When she got home Valeria pushed the harmonica against her lips. In the kitchen, she sang to her mom the most beautiful song—the song of their hearts, and her mom remembered the rhythm from a long-ago time when it hummed in her womb mimicking her heart. The soft brown color came back into her eyes, welcoming her soul. The next day, they sang danced and planted seeds. The frosty stare never came back. They planted so many seeds; they filled a field.