Her Rebellion

First, there was Analise. War, and Analise. People weren’t supposed to have books, during the Repression of 2076. 

This is her rebellion. Fingers traced lovingly over crumbling spines. Books upon books, volumes upon volumes, stacked in rickety shelves, on the floor, in the dust, knowledge moldering. She slides another volume onto the shelf. Poetry, this time. She examines the effect. Very pleasing. Analise picks a story from the crowd at random, a lottery to choose her adventure. She collapses into a chair that puffs dust. Red, in the sunlight, brown, in the decay. No matter. Pages crack open, and the smell of long-forgotten phrases mingles with the dust and mildew and age-warped wood. A sigh echoes in the silence. This is her rebellion. 

Spider silk shimmers in the window, sunlight catching silver ropes. Aching joints, cracking ankles, swollen fingers, thinning hair, but hidden here, decay means nothing. Age mingles with the stained pages of a historical novel. What difference is there between the two, really? Hours skitter by, the sun lost in a blaze of glory. Spider silk is dyed pink by the close of day. What is sleep in a forest of story? Nothing, really. Gray head drops, dust swirls, grip slackens, volume tumbles, releasing dust motes into the waning light. Contentment. Sleep. This is her rebellion.

Senses awaken, one by one. Smell, acrid. Touch, heat. Sight, red light flickering behind closed eyelids. Taste, smoke. Sound, wailing. Sirens blare their triumph. A spark burns through her thin shawl. She shrieks, waking in a scarlet haze of confused pain. Terror descends, hunted animal instincts oiling rusty joints with adrenaline. To flee is her only thought. Analise was never a fighter. Screeching, the window slides up, releasing the smell of rot, ripping the screen. She moves with the stealth of snowy forests, with the silent panic of a violent sunset. Flames lap at her flesh. Only fifteen feet to the ground, but years have loosened her sinews. Analise is not a fighter, but neither is she a coward. She jumps. Air whistles in her ears for a single second, before impact steals every shred of breath from her body. Bones crack, crunch sickening. Her stomach rejects its meager supper. Smoke, convulsions, purging, stinging tears. Her body assumes odd angles, ankle hanging, fingers twitching, hip crooked, blood flowing. Bone protrudes from flesh like a heinous stalagmite. The stars are listening to her wail of agony, perhaps, but they are the only ones. It isn’t pretty, but this is her rebellion. 

Blood, grass, stars. This is all there is for Analise. Constellations weep for her, the moon screams for its dying daughter. Flames lick the night. Bone, flesh, books. The ashes of blackened pages clog her throat, settle in her pores. Knowledge cremated is danger eliminated. Or so they think. Words burn, but ideas linger. This is her rebellion.

She can’t go on, can’t can’t can’t! But she must. She feels them coming, knows through a fog of pain they are just behind her. But the exquisite pain of grinding bone on bone dulls the knowledge of pursuit. Dragging. An inch, another inch, a foot, a yard. Aged fingernails, digging into dirt. Another inch. This is her rebellion. 

A whisper is all she can muster. The Milky way lends an ear, perhaps. Shakespeare clings to her ragged breath. To be or not to be. Crawling. That is the question. Green grass and scarlet blood stain her cardigan with the colors of a forgotten holiday. Dragging. Whether ‘tis nobler in mind—fighting, forging—to suffer the slings and arrows—smoke, cough, racking whisper—of outrageous fortune…this is her rebellion.

Seventy years ago, her bicycle hit a stone. There was flying, then impact, then pain. The little girl called Analise had sat on the tiled bathroom floor, eyes trained on a spot of scudge marring the whiteness. Mother dabbed alcohol on her screaming knees. Lancing pain. 

“Don’t cry. Be strong.” Mother’s words run deep as the Mariana trench. 

Analise is old now. Dragging, crawling, pain. Don't cry. Be strong. She smells her roasted library in the wind. Still, she forces herself to whisper the lines. Take arms against the sea of troubles. This is her rebellion. 

Boots clomp just behind her, voices raspy from the smoke demanding her attention.

 “She’s over here!” 

Crawling, faster.

 “Grab her!”

 Or by opposing, end them. Never conceding. Burned library, scraped knee. Stinging alcohol, electric chair. No difference, at the core. To die—to sleep, no more; Only mouthing words, now. Boots crush blood-stained grass. And by a sleep to say to end—No! Never ending. To be. This is her rebellion. 

The arms that encircle her are rough. Thick rubber gloves grate on her ancient paper skin. 

“Got her!” 

“How many books?”

“Too many!”

“One is too many.”

“Thousands!” 

“Is this true?”

Her anger, dormant for so many years, is kindled hot as hell. She won’t allow them to speak of her books like a crime. And so she speaks for them.

“True.” A word like hot oil popping in a pan. 

Her books are burning. She will not let them burn her too. And so she does it herself. This is her rebellion. 

Then, there was Athas. Minds deemed feeble are locked away during the Purge of 2125. Her brain is her rebellion.

She wakes with a stunning jolt. She must have been screaming, because the guard is there in seconds. 

“What now?!” His uniform is disheveled, his hair rumpled. 

Athas feels images and sensations yanking on her brain, demanding an explanation, but she can’t get them in order. It’s like trying to put a twin size fitted sheet on a king size bed. 

“I saw an old woman…no, I was an old woman.” 

The guard performs an eye roll so spectacular it should win an award. 

“You had a dream, girl.”

“No!” Athas is sure of this, at least. It was not a dream. “It was a life!”

“A life?”

“Yes! I saw the war.” 

“What war?” The impatience in his voice has no rival. 

“Analise’s war.” The words leap to her lips without thought. 

“Who the hell is Analise?”

“She’s…” Athas begs her mind for the answer, but the memories are fading, floating, insubstantial, just out of reach. 

“My great great grandmother!!!”

“God Athas, be quiet!”

Athas hadn’t meant to yell, but the satisfaction of grasping the truth and hanging on could not be volume-controlled. This is her rebellion.

“I was Analise, my great great grandmother, in the war! She had…she had a library! They burned it down. Analise threw herself on the pyre. She chose to be. She chose to be…me.”

There is actual fear in the guard’s eyes, but he slaps derision over it. The guard is an avoidant man. 

“Where do you think you are, some kind of Hindu temple? Some sort of reincarnation cult? You aren’t this Analise character, but she sounds crazy enough I bet you two would get on fine. Now go to sleep or I’ll get a sedative, and your father already signed the papers so no, you can’t refuse it.” 

The lights flick off, accompanied by a huff from the guard. 

Athas lays back on the thin pillow, pulls up the thin sheets over her thin paper nightgown. All is quiet on the cell block. But Athas does not sleep. Analise would be proud. This is her rebellion.