William was the first one to arrive in class the following weekend, fifteen minutes ahead of time. I was putting down the class’s graded homework on their desks. He came straight towards me in the empty classroom, without his usual gang of shoveling boys.

The kids always waited until the absolute last minute before dragging themselves into my class, William usually being the last of them. Today there he was, ahead of everyone else. With all eleven years of his age, he was puffed up in the chest, with what I imagined was rage, from last weekend.

“William, hi. How are you? How was your week?”

These kids rarely looked at you in the eyes, no matter how much you invited them to engage in class. But now William was so intense with his staring, i knew he was willing his laser beam eyes to melt my head.

“This is for you, Ms. Lee.” His eyes still worked hard with the invisible laser. He handed me a gift-wrapped small box.

“What is this, William?”

“My dad wants me to tell you that my behavior in class last weekend was disrespectful and unacceptable”, he said in one breath, as if out of a religious litany. Laser beams burning still

“Okay..”

“My mom got you this. As an apology gift.” He put the box on the desk like slamming down a brick.

“Well, thank you William. I’ve never gotten an apology gift before…”

I opened the wrapping. It was a single pink tulip made of cloth, on a neon green plastic stem attached to a clear pretend flower pot. The sticker on the bottom bore the name of the dollar store down the street.

“Tell your mom thank you for me. Will you?”

He was not taken by my appreciation and remained stiff with his fists balled.

“Listen William,” I spoke to stop him walking away, “about last weekend. Was everything ok after I sent you out of the classroom?”

I knew everything was not ok.

Because after class last Sunday I looked for William in the hallway, then everywhere around our small Sunday school setup. He had torn his classmate’s textbook in class and snapped two other girls’ pencils while they cried. But Mrs. Mo, my head teacher, had warned me to never send William to the hallway again. She said William’s dad had picked him up when he dropped by and saw his son was in trouble again. Apparently he was a man with a heavy hand on child discipline.

Mrs. Mo sighed as she told me this. She said it was ok since I was new, then asked me to try to contain William during class best as i can and not to report anything to his dad.

William kept his laser stare, his eyelids heavy and shaking. So were his face and whole body.

“I will keep the gift William, but it is I that should apologize to you. I didn’t know…”

His face was getting redder and redder, he started to shake and growl.

“Are you ok…” I reached out a hand to steady him. Now I was terrified too. I was guessing this was anger but had never seen it like this on a child before.

He flinched like my hand was a knife.

“My mom said thank you for helping me behave.” Though gritted teeth were his last words. Then he spat on the floor next to my feet, hard, and walked out the classroom.

I remember my night-light watch read 12:03 for the last time. It was five minutes ago? Or maybe a few hours. The deep ocean water pressure has since cracked it, leaving 12:03 the last time known to me.

The headlamp on my suit is still working, with an unsteady flicker now and then. Blurry shapes swim in and out of sight, brown and grey and no other colors. Some even brush against me, or ram into me, then quickly pass into the dark. Or maybe they are staying still, I’m thinking, and it’s me that’s drifting and running into them. Motion is relative.

By design the suit is keeping me warm. I notice the calculator in my head has finally stopped. No more “X hours left of oxygen and heating”, or “Y additional ways to send distress alarm”. Like the industrious moments you see in heroic movies about human triumphs.

Those movies are nice, for people who are foreseeably alive. They are also a lie, a strong hand over the mouth of the dying, muffling the words of their forbidden tale. The vast majority of catastrophe victims do not survive. They depart with a whimper, without witness. That is a fact.

This is reminding me the time we drove to Zion National Park to watch the famed starry night sky. Except that night there was only clouds. The air seemed to glow a bit on its own, and we could almost see the undulating landscape in the dark. We waited lying down on the top of the cooling car and I melted into a dreamless sleep. We were told that was the darkest dark there is.

Right now I’m suspended in the amniotic fluid of planet earth, surrounded by a darkness never known to me before. It might as well be an ocean of black ink. Now this is some darkness. Darkness absolute. Beckoning me to sleep.

There is nothing left to do but to sleep.

Yada is born to a young single mother in her early twenties. She is born with big brown eyes and an easy smile.

I’m so lucky, her mother tells everyone, she is such an easy baby. Once fed and changed, Yada cries little, smiles often and seems very content.

In her early months Yada’s eyes are still developing in order to focus. She could see only within a foot or so at first. Because her mother is very busy almost all of the time, Yada keeps herself busy too with whatever is around her within her eyes’ focus. The glossy bars of her crib. The matrix of kittens printed on her sheets. Beyond those, she can only see fuzzy objects moving around, like faraway planets orbiting.

Sometimes, one particular fuzzy object would get closer and closer to her. Then it gets close enough and suddenly becomes Yada’s mother! Yada is overjoyed! She smiles and giggles and can’t have enough of her. Yada could feel a surge of sorts pass her mother’s eyes when she looks at Yada, which she would later learn is adoration and guilt.

Yada really wants to hold on to that face, so warm, and so rich in colors and texture, and moves! But soon her mother puts her down and goes back to being a fuzzy object moving this way and that. And so Yada goes back to the crib bars and painted kittens. She feels like they might have a story to tell her.

When she starts school, her teacher says Yada is a very nice girl and possibly very bright. Yada sees that the teacher is in the front of the classroom, always going on and on about something. But she really prefers to look out the window which she sits next to. The bees would come and visit in the warm months and she swears she can tell them apart. It always makes her smile. When it is cold outside and the windows have to be closed, she gazes at the back of the head that belongs to the boy sitting in front of her. His hair is clipped short and the hair circle on his crown looks like the swirl on a snail shell. Or like when she stirs her sugared oatmeal in a super fast circle. Sometimes she even giggles a little because it is really very funny.

One day the teacher tells Yada’s mother that they need to talk. Everyone adores Yada here, she says to her, but she seems to suffer from inattentive ADHD — sort of like a scattered brain. With Yada there, she asks her mother about early childhood development. Yada can see a surge of sorts pass her mother’s eyes, which she would later learn is shame.

Yada really loves her mother very much and doesn’t want anything to cause her shame. It takes her a lot of effort but she learns to guess at what makes the teacher stop believing she has “the problem”. Trial and errors first, then steadily she guesses more correctly than not — the answers to homework and exams, the eye contact sought and connected. Soon the teachers are satisfied. They no longer reports “the problem” to her mother, and Yada even gets gold stars next to her name on the wall.

Yada smiles. She knows that she manages to ration some time, to finally find out what that yellow Tweedy Bird has been really up to, chirping and pecking away, in the big willow tree.

What I want more than anything in the world is auditioning for the Little Swans.

Every girl my age knows the Little Swans is the most prestigious ballet school in the state. Their TV advertisements have all the girls wearing pink ballet dress and ballerina hair buns. I want more than anything to have my hair in a ballet bun, wrapped with a net. Mom says I’m too young to wear my hair in a bun. I figure that’s unless I become a Little Swan, of course.

Mom also has been telling me how strict their standards are at picking girls. Perfect height, perfect look, perfect flexibility, she says. I know she really wants to say, perfect weight, although she doesn’t say it. I know i’m not perfect weight because no other girls my age still get their cheeks or arms pinched by these mom-ly moms. Or get called “a perfect little bun”, Or “a dollop of butter”, Or any number of really quite cannibalistic terms. When they see me one way or another they see food. No one sees a ballerina. And when people see ballerinas they never see food. They see only beauty and grace.

My best friend Lindy’s mom entered her into the audition. My mom says it’s really so much money unless we stand a real chance. She says Lindy likely won’t get in either, because she is too short.

“Imagine how bad she will feel when the judges tell her she’s too short. Can you imagine that?” Mom shakes her head.

THE FOLLOWING TRANSCRIPT IS THE STATEMENT MADE BY CECILIA IVERSON, HAIRDRESSER AND OWNER OF ROSENFELD BEAUTY SALON AT 186 MAIN STREET IN THE MUNICIPALITY OF ROSENFELD:

“Last time I saw Margot was last Friday, at 4:30pm.

“I remember because I looked at the clock when I saw her walking through the door. Margo comes in at 2pm first Monday of every month. And She never comes in on Friday afternoons. Never.

“What’s my relationship with Margot you ask? Well, I’d say we used to be real close friends. She owns that bakery shop across the street from my salon. Yes, that one with the blue door. And I have been working in the beauty salon for twenty years. So I must have been doing Margot’s hair for twenty years now.

“You picked it up, didn’t you. You are a smart one. I did say we USED TO be real close friends… up until about three months ago, so yeah, up until April, Margot used to come in with a dozen of her Pineapple Puffies for me at 2pm her usual appointment time, every month. The Pineapple Puffies are her best seller and not one person in Rosenfeld isn’t addicted to those Puffies. By the way, if you gonna go over later, you will see it — first item on the chalk board. She makes them so buttery flaky with these juicy pineapple bites inside. Oh you won’t believe it…

“Right, yes. So she came in 4:30 last Friday, which was very strange. Friday afternoons she always gets a long line of customers waiting to pick up the puffies for the weekend. She walked straight to my styling chair — I just finished with someone and was waiting for my next customer. She said to me, Cel, there is something wrong with my hair.

”I could tell she was in a twist because she was all flushed and her forehead was shiny with sweat. I have not told a soul about this but I knew exactly what worked her into a twist.

“So about three months ago, Margot came at her usual time with the box of puffies for me. She sat and we started chatting as I brusher her hair. Then I saw something… different with her hair. I saw… how to describe it… three tiny whiskers…?

“Well by whiskers I mean they were not her own hair. They were these three short hairs at the back of her head, just couple of inches above her neck. Much thicker than any human hair I’ve seen. Sort of like cat’s whiskers? Yeah. And they are GREEN.

“At first I thought it must be food coloring from the bakery. But after I cut, washed and colored her hair with her usual color sandy blond for her greys, I saw that they were still completely lime green.

“Did I tell her? Of course I didn’t tell her.

“Why not?? Because.. Well, let me tell you something. I’ve seen just about anyone’s hair in Rosenfeld for twenty years. I’ve seen hair and scalp in all kinds of conditions, any lump or rash you can imagine. Seen them all. I even style wigs for people in chemo.

“But us hairdressers are not here to do disease inspections, are we. If it is something that really matters, their doctor will tell them soon enough. It is not our business. Our business is to make people feel good about themselves, one day at a time, one hair cut at a time.

“So, I cut her hair and made sure those short green whiskers were completely covered. And that was in April.

“Pretty soon after that, Margot sort of.. changed. First we heard she was spotted multiple times driving around some eighty miles from Rosenfeld, which she had never done. She even stopped coming over to the salon to chit chat. Everyone knows the salon is the heartbeat of Rosenfeld. Anything that matters goes through the salon. Suddenly it just seemed Margot went and unplugged herself from this heartbeat.

“So when she came in last Friday, having also missed two of her appointments in May and June, I was just about ready to have a word or two with her.

“But when I saw her somehow I just knew — those three green whiskers were doing something real funny to her…”

Ok, I signed up for bungee jumping so that Timmy and the guys stop busting my balls. A little stupid, sure. But some tough-guy credit will guarantee to shut them up. I know it.

On the jeep ride over to the bridge I focused on my breathing. The jumping coach was going over instructions, which was entirely unnecessary, except to fill the nervous silence. It is very obvious that Bungee jumping instruction should be six words only: “Jump. And don’t shit your pants.”

Actually on second thought, you don’t even need to jump. Someone is paid to push you off. So, “Fall. And don’t shit your pants.”

I continue to practice my focus through breathing exercises. In and out. In. Out. I fully intend on not shitting my pants. Because Timmy and the guys are elbowing each other by the riverbank. I can hear them laughing and howling mockery at me. Bunch of idiots, always busting my chops.

The safety guy straps me in a bright red five-point harness and a pair of thick ankle wraps. He pulls on them firmly and secures the fit. Then he flips me around so I face the open air and the whirlpooling muddy river seventy feet below my toes.

I see trees, shrubs, rocks and things. But mostly, oh, I just can’t wait to throw this in Timmy’s face! Like, for the rest of his life.

“Oh yeah, Timmy?” I’d say, “then how come you chickened out on bungee? You chicken shit!”

BOOM. Mic drop.

Security person pats on my back twice, “you ready, tough guy?”

I nod affirmative once.

Eat it, Timmy.

She is alone.

“Do you know how many calves are born each spring?” She has been asked by her mother. “Birthing is an every-female thing, women or animals all the same. Not some earth-shattering miracle. If you don’t want to suffer, don’t be born a woman.”

So with a farm to tend to, which is a daily dawn-to-dusk kind of job, her mother isn’t there with her.

Her husband is still working in the office. His workmates, all very traditional, have been giving him their opinions. Birthing is a woman’s business, what with the blood, screaming, crying, and God feces even! Men should avoid the birthing room, that dark womanly place. There are doctors and nurses. Avoid it if it can be helped.

So he settles with staying at work. Women crying and screaming also makes him angry although he tells that to no one.

Luckily for her the hospital is just at the other side of town. She manages to walk there as the contractions start.

Contractions are no joke but the militant head nurse gives her tell off: “what are you shouting for? You think you the first woman birthing a child? Be quiet!”

She is alone. No one is there to support her, or give the nurse a tell off back. So she grips hard on the handrail and tries to walk off the pain up and down the stairwell. Her pain is held to a quiet groan — uuuhmmm — like she is only trying to clear a ticklish throat. Down from inside her gown though, sweat is racing to the stairs. She quivers and convulses in pain, quietly, as she is told.

The pushing starts. Her nails dig into her palm, deep, then the skin breaks and blood comes out. No one notices. This really is messy business. She can’t believe how much pain. More than pain she can’t believe how lonely she feels. Do all women feel this lonely as they are becoming mothers? At last she cries out and screams.

Finally the baby comes. Dearie, not like a new born baby at all. Once washed up she is all smooth skin and delicate features, like she was carved by an artist! Even the head nurse smiles, “that is a beautiful baby.”

She asks for him. The nurse calls his office again. He asks right away, “boy or girl?” They don’t have ultrasound yet. It’s a reveal-at-birth kind of thing.

“Girl. A beaut…”

He hangs up the phone. He’s the first-born son. He must, must have a son. But now he will never hear the end of disappointments, because his worst nightmare comes true — a daughter.

She waits with the sleeping baby, famished. No one comes. At last the nurse brings her a cup of plain water, mixed with sugar. She drinks up. It is delicious.

Still, no one comes.

“You are royal stupid.”

Bob puffed out a cloud of smoke and squinted at the wind shield. In front of the car visibility was five feet, tops. Fog everywhere, white as milk and heavy as sand dunes.

“Driving by yourself at midnight, in the Rocky’s damned fog, no cellphone reception, and your shit night vision…” he counted with his fingers. “They ought to induct you into some kind of Hall of Fame for Stupidity. Seriously.” He took another hard drag on his Marlboro, pleased with his joke.

I slowed the car way down, five miles per hour, and put hazard lights on. Immediately the dense fog lit up in orange fire everywhere, pulsating, engulfing. Never seen anything like this.

“He is right behind you.”

Knowing it was useless, I nevertheless checked the rear view mirror. Hell’s strobe-light disco still ongoing behind me, unlimited dry ice. And behind that veil of mountain fog, it could be anyone, anything.

“Anyone or anything can fuck us up right now.” But even Bob sounded a little scared. After all, he is only a figment of my subconscious, the chain-smoking shit talker that lives inside me. And Bob is a coward. If something happens to me, he’s out too. So at least we are aligned on basis of my safety.

He jabbed at the sign with two cigarette-holding fingers, “Deer Crossing!”

Then about a minute later at another sign, “Falling Rocks!”

My heart jumped as he shouted.

Several minutes of silence because there was no more roadside signs, then, “how do you know he is not coming after you?”

I checked the mirror again. Even if Godzilla itself was behind me, if more than ten feet away, I wouldn’t have known. I smothered what threatened to come up in my head like pushing down a jumping flame with a book.

He is not coming after me. He’s cruel but smart. He wouldn’t drive in this condition.

“Hey do you remember that Tom Ford movie? Nocturnal Animal. Yeah. That could totally happen to you right now.

“Someone pulls up from the left? A total stranger, or several even? Run you off the shoulder? A tire gets punctured? They have a gun and you have… let’s see… a folding fan?

“Fuuuuuuhhh…” Bob started to pull on his hair.

You can’t tell a Bob to “shut up!” Never worked for me. Only revs him up. So I turned the music on and up, it even syncopated with the panic light. If anyone was to see from afar, it was a slow-moving version of hell’s own strobe light disco.

The year is 1934. Seventeen is my age. My Daddy is a textile tycoon. My Mommy is the “handler” of me. Oh how they hate to be called Daddy! Mommy! — Speak properly, Leonora! Just more the reason I keep calling them, Especially today.

Today I am presented at the court, Court of King George V. Mommy is beaming at compliments of my “Great beauty”, Because she’s my handler. And I her carefully trimmed Poodle.

They admire my expensive dress, Cream silk, lace, pearls. Daddy is casually mentioning The very many thousands of pounds To have this dress made. A whole family’s allowance for lifetime, Crusted over my body, Telling the world, Leonora is “FOR SALE!”

Oh what great bore! —— Can’t pet the dogs Can’t touch the books Can’t even talk, Unless Mommy permits.

Many more hours to go. Then it’s my books My paint brushes And a shrinking lease On my freedom.

(Inspired by Leonora Carrington)

At the beginning of time, my father was reading to me from a big book. Book of animals, fairies, princesses. Now and then it gets dark in the book. Like when the little girl walks into the dark woods And floaty eyes begin to glowwww…… No no Daddy, skip skip! Read the part about the party again, Pleeeease…. I only want to hear about all species, real or imaginary, having a dance party, for all of eternity.

Then that age comes And I’m attracted to the opposite —— I chase tormented lovers, Whom I set out to save From their demons. I yearn for difficult jobs, Which elate me Once they are overcome. Life is fight And toil And grit. When anything comes too easily, I say no no, skip skip!

One day I find myself reading To my Father, On his hospital bed. I choose the news to his usual likings — Inflation, international conflicts, And of course, the election. His eyes are however faraway. Slowly he says, Skip those, Tell me something good. I find him a story about a pet parrot, Being returned to the pet shop. It quacks day and night only rude words. Dad smiles big and asks What happens to that rascal bird? I think of my eternal dance party Of all species real or imaginary. So I tell him, The ending isn’t so good Daddy. I’m gonna skip it. He checks his tubes from the machine, And said to me, Yes, yes. Skip, skip.