A Better Death to Die In.

Moiling wind, rugged nuts, sopped air, soft baby body strapped against my back, a small puddle of a hand — a clove melded into my difficult palm, a trail of the Kinjo folk not far behind. It’s hard to stop when you’ve been selected because you don’t know how to, because your back is strong, you think clear, you lead. They chose me to lead and I am grateful and tired. My foot plummets into thick mud, slow to rise, hard and full falls — I pull the small child's hand upward every time she is stuck. I readjust the fabric protecting my baby around my neck, I turned my head at an angle so that the piece of sweat making its way in between my eyebrows falls from my nose to my cheek instead of in my eyes like all the rest have, I blink twice to clear remnants of the ones I miss, I smile at the little one asking me how much further.

It is time to move, the storm is coming. There is always a storm here, all over the soul, all in my crotch — aching from the babies that clawed their way out despite the walls begging them to wait for better skies. The men who made my womb confess walked somewhere behind. The storm is always here, but this was the only storm that the village gave credence to. The storm was predicted before I was born, the one that would free everyone from what they were held to; some would make it, many hadn’t so far, and we would heal the ones that almost didn’t, we pray. 

Prayer was the authority, king of the Kinjo people. We all bowed our heads so religiously a sharp bone jutted out the back of our necks; it was the only source of identification among all of the gangling natives that struggled and cried for the proud floating land that hoisted sky-scraping, reddish-green trees — shedding six feet leaves and baseball-sized nuts onto the archipelago. The Kinjo reigned supreme, chosen — the foot people of God or at least on their patch of land.

In wide voice and native tongue, I directed the people to stay close together. I whispered to my baby in English, “It’s going to be okay, it’s always going to be okay.”

A soft hand reached out to touch my elbow, it was my gently smiling grandmother, hunched and lean, string-haired with grey face, advising me to give my choices to God, making sure that I was taking my head out of leadership, if I was not the one leading I shouldn’t bare the weight of the choices, I was merely a conduit. Lightened, I nodded my head, she fell in line behind me humming the same song my father said she hummed when my mother was giving birth. 

My mother. Ana, they say her name was. American, thick-haired with attitude to match — a heavy woman to be around, weighing everyone down with her brooding and certainty. My father said I took my ways after her, and that, that quality would be the thing to save our people — the half breed. I covered my cooing baby girls head with a cloth just in time to stop a fat droplet from flopping off of the blanket sized leaves and onto her face. She whimpered and nuzzled into my flesh comforted by something other than cold air.

I hissed at my chunky boy who had let his fascination with a spider lead him into a sad predicament, his nose now bitten and bruised. No time for comforting him I squeezed his hand and thrust myself forward, cutting through the soggy air.

My grandmothers hum brought me back to my lust for familiarity. As much as this is the only home I’ve ever known, I couldn’t help dreaming about the life I was supposed to have. My mother, on a cruise gone wrong, found herself washed up in a nameless world. Desperate for food and shelter, my handsome broad-shouldered father seemed like the best last resort to have, he ingratiated her with foreign charm and universal attractiveness. While the swooning was more perfect than she could have imagined, according to him, she was never satisfied and persisted with trying to get home. Told him stories about America and how he should run away with her for storms of another kind. Committed to his people, he’d pound his chest proudly at this part of the story with pride, he resisted her pushing and instead forced her to stay. The oracle women predicted that she would be giving birth and that it was important that she did not leave, her child would be the body to carry God and lead the tribe to safety one day. They caged her for the entirety of her pregnancy and killed her once they found her late at night, a bundled me in her arms, attempting to flee. They couldn’t let her take their future.

I never had any judgement on what he or she should have done. I accepted my place in this life; devouring my father’s private English lessons and hand-me down-telephone tales of my mother’s life in a place other, danced around the fires, bowing my head like any other Kinjo citizen. Breaking my neck until I was holy.

As my energy waned, back folding from weight, eyes brimming with the sky’s tears and my own, I closed my lids to levitate. The mud became burlier, less innocent, the babies cried, Kinjo folk joined in, my grandmothers hums tore through slops of wet.

Keep going.

Urrrrgggggggggh.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm. Oh! Hmmmmmmm. Oh! Oh!

Hmmmmmm.

Keep going.

Keep. Going.

Keep.

Going.

My son fell flat, eager to pick him up, I lost my footing and fell to my knees.

Everyone bowed their heads. 

Grandmother hummed on.

Realigning ourselves, we limped forward. The trees closer together, we pulled away branches and leaves. We ducked and attempted to hop through the forested curiosity. 

A dark, narrow hole welcomed us, I could hear the silence of prayer as we trusted that what was inside would let us out at some point. 

Branches cracked underneath our calloused feet and brown, brittle nails. There wasn’t a variation in wincing, the pain remained constant almost benumbing us all from the evenness of the never-ending ache.

A wooded top covered them and swallowed them from the whirl of wind and nuts and rain. Hot, full air, greeted them, they trooped forward. The concept of time failed them, they knew that there was only now and forever. 

A sun opened at the mouth of the wooded hole, hunching and hovered, mothers, men, children, elderly — single filed toward it as the flame grew brighter. 

Sun in full view, scorched eyes, squinting they walked into the heat. Rain came down more than before, the sun still bloomed on. Confused on what sort of happiness to claim, the Kinjo people gathered themselves on their knees, all but me.

I waited, something told me to be still. Sore and still holding children I obliged. I tried to focus on the voice inside but kept getting visions of what my mother may have looked like. For a moment I wondered if God was simply my mom. Listening more intently, things quieted, even the rain seemed to acquiesce to the spiritual beggars. Tears streamed down my face in an unexplained joy.

“It’s going to be okay, if nothing more or nothing less, okay.” I kissed the words lovingly into the children's ears. Unwrapping the cloth from around the baby I passed the child to my grandmother, her frail arms replacing the cloth, she questioned me with a hard voice, but soft words.

“It is not me who is making the choices, I am just the passage.” Walking slightly forward as much as my courage could muster, the elder tried to understand my foreign tongue, somewhat is shock, she preserved her strength for standing sturdy and holding the new child.

The sun lowered its beams and the storm seemed to melt away. 

The Kinjo people would be safe here. 

I smiled through a mud streaked face and walked toward open ocean water until it reached my neck — I began to swim. Swimming until my body started to sink.

Loud voices of men made their way through the water, pulling, and tugging on my body, they retrieved me, and brought me on board. Gurgling and trying to find the air, relieved eyes, astonished, and curious they examined my condition.

“Where did you come from?” A pale man with ocean eyes asked.

Struggling to see beyond the men and the fuss, I put attention into refocusing my vision, but there was no amount of clarity that would reveal the place of which I left, there was nothing but water, and clear skies.

“America, can you take me back?” I bowed my head and prayed.