SIXTY-TWO: MiJin

Arous banged on the door of the Mission. It was a large metal door with a bolt and no handle; it echoed like a gong through the alley.  The City only whispered back, a shush. 

She looked down the alley toward the street to see the lights reading “Rancho Regal” flicker and go out. She walked around the front and pulled on the glass doors; they were barred with iron and chained from the inside.  A slam came from the alley alongside the theatre. Arous turned and saw someone exit the alley.

She ran down the alley. This time she noticed a small doorbell in the wall sat below a sign that read “Ring bell for service.”

After a few minutes a rectangle piece in the upper part of the door slid back and part of a face with a couple of dark, lean eyes looked out at her.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Therese,” said Arous, stepping back so she could be eye to eye with the eyes that were asking questions.

“Who are you?”

“You’re the one hiding behind a large door, a slit I’m tiny not enough to fit through!” The eyes staring at Arous blinked.

“I’m Arous.  Therese doesn’t know me but I met some people who know her. Anyway, they gave me her name.”

“Breakfast is over and we don’t serve lunch here. You’ll have to comeback at dusk.”

“Wait! I don’t want to eat, I just want to talk to her.  I think she might be able to help me.”

I felt Edlawit wiggle her fingers under mine.

“Tell her you’re from Alippiana,” Edwi whispered

“I’m sorry.” The peep-hole started to close.

“I’m from Alippiana!”

“Alippiana?” asked the girl.

Arous heard a voice behind the girl and said louder:  “Yeah, the Bowl.”

The eyes vanished from the slit in the door for a few minutes. Arous waited. After a few minutes, the eyehole slammed and Arous heard a large bolt turning, scraping metal. The heavy door creaked open. A sweet clean smell hit Arous’ nose making her stomach rumble as she took a few steps up the ramp.

“I’ll get Therese,” she said and disappeared.

She wasn’t Amalgamese but she didn’t look exotic in the same way Arous did. Her skin was a bright gold and her eyes were dark and narrow. Her hair seemed a shade darker than Arous’ wavy locks; her’s were straight and shiny. She was shorter than Arous was expecting but then she saw the stool positioned by the door as the young woman let Arous into the back of the theater. Arous just saw enough of her facial features to think she looked familiar.

After a few minutes, she came out of the kitchen with a tray of tea and a few food items for Arous.

“Therese was just washing up when you came.  I heard your stomach rumble and thought I’d offer you a few leftovers. Therese is going to be awhile,” she said.  The girl didn’t look Arous in the eye but didn’t seem shy.  The girl seemed as if she was torn between dueling emotions: curiosity and fear.

“Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“My name is MiJin.”

“I’m Arous.”

“Yeah, you told me that, at the door.”

“Right,” said Arous.  She couldn’t think of anything else to say but the girl sat down anyway.  It didn’t make it any less awkward.

“Have you enjoyed being . . . here . . . in the City?”

“I guess,” said Arous. 

Edlawit whispered again, “I trust her. She’ll be one of us.”

Arous tapped her fingers on the table and then began to twirl her hair.

 “It’s a nice city. Clean, and very white and green. The capital building and the courthouse are nice to look at.  I think they’ve forgotten this part of the City.  It has a lot of potential, you can see what the buildings used to be,” MiJin looked Arous right in the eye, the continued. “The old buildings . . . There’s something majestic down here.  You know, they still keep old print copies of newspapers in the basement of the Archives? Weirdest thing. If nothing else, check-out the Archives, before you leave -”

“Who said I was leaving?” Arous snapped at her.  She could hear Edlawit in her head; the night without sleep left her defenseless against our seeing.

“Sorry, I, you just don’t look like someone who’d stay here.  I don’t know,” said MiJin and got up.

“I’m sorry,” said Arous. She looked at MiJin for the first time.

“You look familiar.”

“I couldn’t.  You’ve never seen me before.”

“You’re awfully confident of that,” Arous said.

“There are people here from all over.  City Canadí: the Melting Pot. We see kids here from every Pantaganent. Capitalism is King here, and each King has its Idelle Queen.  Kids come here thinking they’ll be the next famous Idelle for the next famous brand or MOTA or Cause. Dreams rarely come true, you know.”

“This is going to seem like a strange question but,” Arous paused.  “Have you ever seen anyone who looked like me?”

“Uh,” MiJin paused. “I don’t know. I -”

“I mean . . . I’m Lunese.  I’m the only one,” but Arous stopped herself, “I don’t have their honey skin, or their wavy, coarse, full hair or their copper eyes.”

“Neither do I,” said MiJin.

“I don’t know what I’m saying.”

“I do.  You and me, we’re different. It’s not popular to be different . . . to be a part of an odd, random, pure gene that happens to pop up. That’s what they say here, anyway. Pangaea Canadí, always proud of its melting pot but no room from the parts that don’t melt. My mom ran away from her family and brought me here.  She died here, I found Therese,” MiJin paused and smiled. “We’re different. And you still have a light about you, about your eyes, I noticed that the first time I saw-”

MiJin went pale; Arous started.

“The first time you saw?” asked Arous. “Who? Me?”

“MiJin!” Therese’s voice from the doorway.  “They’ve come with the corn. Please go help them unload it.”

SIXTY-ONE: Wait

Arous had just left the building when she heard the door open behind her.

“Arous.  Arous! Stop. Wait.  I have something for you.”

James leapt down the four steps and into the street with an envelope in his hand.

“Moristia wanted me to give it to you.  It’s something she brought from home with her, some pictures. She says .  .  . I don’t know but she says don’t open it until you’re home.  Some place private. She says that’s important.”

SIXTY: Racing Home

Moristia got tired of watching and wanted to be one of the watched. Her father was not kind to her idea; he was brutal. So, one day she decided to leave. She knew she had to take James, her baby brother, or her father would take it all out on him.

“Now, I’m 4, almost 5 and she’s eighteen. That was three years ago.”

He finished the story and the tea was done.

“You’re only five?” Arous asked.

“Not quite. But I will be in a couple of months.”

“He’s a prodigy.  He was saying whole words by the time he was six months old.  And complete sentences before he was a year,” Mori said. “We left the day after his second birthday.”

She lay on the mattress staring up at the ceiling.

 “Oh, I miss going outside. I love your smell, you smell like outside.  I love it when James leaves and comes back and smells like the sun,” said Mori.

Mori paused and closed her eyes.

Arous and James helped Mori out of bed.  Between all their caution and effort they made it the one flight up to the roof.

They talked more about Mori’s story and James but Arous’ memory was foggy and fast-forwarded until the sun was coming up.

 “I believe there is another, a better life for me. Therese knows the story, a story about a Prince Charming. Death is the beginning. Life breeds hope. Death is the gateway: a new body, a new life, the same me . . . clean, new. But not here, not again. Not like this.”

And Arous’ mind wandered a bit during Mori’s story and she fought to bring it back but it was getting very late. She was snapped back as the beautiful colors began to emerge on the landscape outside of the wall.

“You should meet, Therese,” said Mori. “She’s the woman from the mission that helps me and James.”

Arous had drifted off at that point and so James continued without being prompted. A woman at a mission befriended the kids on the streets, all the kids who lured and trapped by their own warped hope. Hominy. She fed them hominy. During the week, good souls from outside the walls of the City would bring her corn and she’d make hominy with it and can it.

“Mostly, Muskogee who live in the hills,” said Mori point to the dark humps on the horizon that was appearing before them.

“Though most people don’t believe they exist,” said James. “They are supposed to live with the Momos.”

“I’ve known a few Momos,” said Arous.

James and Mori laughed.

“Anyway, she even helped a few Idelles escape,” said James. “I think there is one going to her now, but I can’t tell you her name.”

Arous knew Therese but had forgotten. Therese was a Yuhiketuh and Priscilla’s sister though they looked nothing alike. Priscilla was thin and tall with long, black wavy hair and olive skin.  Therese was tall and robust with blond hair, fair skin and blue eyes.  Therese was also several thousand years younger than Priscilla. Though the hopelessness in the City had bound Therese’s songs, her well-placed words often worked miracles of healing and escape.

They sat and watched in silence as the sun broke over the desert. Arous saw the look in Mori’s eyes as the sky began to gray. 

“Move me to the street side. I want to see the shadows slink away.”

Arous didn’t understand this request but moved her.  In the dawn, the dessert embodied beauty. They would miss the vibrant pinks and fiery oranges as the sun took its rightful place in the sky. Arous set Mori down on the ledge and sat behind her holding her around the waist. She looked down on the dreary street.  Trash cluttered the street below.  Figures crawled on the street twenty stories below. Arous looked behind her and knew the sun would be bursting on the scene at any moment.  She looked back down at the street. More and more figures appeared and walked faster and faster into an abandoned building and through another alley.

“There’s something else,” Mori whispered and then glanced behind her to see James sleeping on the blanket.

“What?”

“At the Temple where James works sometimes, they promised him that they could cure me.”

“Then why are you still sick?” Arous was eye to eye with Mori.

“Because,” said Mori, “my brother, they asked him to do something. He said no.”

“What was it?”

“He won’t say, he only apologized for not being able to help me,” Mori smiled and pointed. “Look, they’re racing home. They’re all racing home.”

Then it happened. The sun peaked over the horizon.  Figures froze on the street below if afraid that they were going to explode. Then they did double time and made it in doors. And then Arous saw what Mori looked forward to:  the shadows began to slink away. Like ink spilled on paper and time reversed, the darkness retreated around corners, back into trashcans and gutters, through doors.  And with each passing shadow the street became less dreary. Another shadow and another crawled under a car and through a broken window.  A girl ran down the street and ducked into a building, her shadow followed long and ducked behind her. The street appeared cleaner than Arous remembered the previous night. The street lost its darkness and gained hope.

“Listen,” said Mori. “You can hear her singing.”

Arous could hear a crystal clear voice ringing through the streets.

“Who is it?”

“That’s Therese.”