creative writing on environmental justice
1.
I remember the soil first. When I reached in and filled a farm trowel with it, damp, red, breathing under the greenery, it clung to my fingers like memory. It felt like something alive. It was alive, duh. But I mean something different. The soil felt like it was intelligent. Like it knew what was going on. Like it knew what was about to happen, the evil that was about . . .
Mississippi flows carries secrets in silt the bronze serpent’s scales
Cicada static rasps against the high noon sun
Trilobite locked in the bluff’s ancestral stone silence
Oil refinery flare stains the bruised . . .
Going from Kyiv to my mother’s native land, a village in the Cherkasy region, we used to take a road that ran like a thin ribbon across the endless dark blue water body. I have always been fascinated by these enormous reservoirs and this overarching lake called the “Cherkasy Sea”. As a child, I knew that Ukraine had two seas in the South, far away from where I live. . . .
Going from Kyiv to my mother’s native land, a village in the Cherkasy region, we used to take a road that ran like a thin ribbon across the endless dark blue water body. I have always been fascinated by these enormous reservoirs and this overarching lake called the “Cherkasy Sea”. As a child, I knew that Ukraine had two seas in the South, far away from where I live. This is why this mysterious Cherkasy Sea—in the middle of Ukraine—would leave my mind restless. My mum explained to us that this sea is artificial and man-made, but she did not give much detail. In the late summers, adults would glance at the river wistfully and warn us against swimming in Dnipro. Swimming was discouraged because of the “Dnipro blooming”—when the entire lake surface is draped in lime-green foggy seaweed covers. What is “blooming” is not the river, but cyanobacteria that poison the water with algae decay products such as ammonia and cyanide. Adults would often say that the blooming never happened before the Cherkasy Sea was created.
I always wanted to know more. Why did they do it? What was there before? Later in life, when unhindered access to the internet blessed our lives, I found a few scarce articles explaining that to create the sea, the Soviet government decided to flood thousands of kilometres of land. I could not believe it: how many towns, villages, hamlets were gone? What happened to the people from those areas? My mum grew up gazing at the Cherkasy “Sea”, but she did not know the answers to these questions.
My journey to Cherkasy takes me through Kaniv. I visited Kaniv as my fascination with the region evolved into a more systematic study—I am an anthropologist. In this small city on the banks of the Dnipro, which I had never had a chance to experience before beyond the modernist sign on the highway, I do ethnographic research with a small but inspiring community of volunteers. Here, the mystery of man-made “seas” finds me again. Ironically, I first introduced myself to this city in June 2024, right after Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zakharova claimed that Kyiv was preparing to destroy the dams of the Kyiv Hydroelectric Power station of the Kaniv Reservoir. This was part of a Russian disinformation campaign that aimed at causing panic among Ukrainians. Many feared that Russia would actually carry out such an attack and blame it on the Ukrainian army.
Kaniv Reservoir is one of the six (including “The Cherkasy Sea”) that comprise the Dnipro Cascade—a series of dams, reservoirs and hydroelectric power stations on the Dnipro River. These six giants were beacons of Soviet technological progress and indispensable tools of the USSR’s “modernisation” and “industrialisation” propaganda. Kaniv Reservoir is the youngest, so some older people who still live on its bank were witnesses and victims of the grand projects of “conquering Dnipro”.
Olga, a volunteer from Kaniv, agreed to share with me her experience of forceful relocation due to the flooding of the land in the 1970s:
“When our village was being destroyed, they showed us how it would be. They showed us a film by Dovzhenko called “Poem About the Sea”, made in 1958. Maybe you can look it up, but I can’t watch it. It depicts such a tragedy. They [the film] showed us new buildings, how beautiful they were, and how young people were driving around, singing songs. And, in the old village, they [the film] showed us old women crying. These old women were saying “we won’t let go, we won’t let go”. But the head of the Kolkhoz persuaded them; he said everything would be fine. No village, but everything is fine?
“Poem about the Sea” is the final, unfinished masterpiece of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s genius. He passed away while working on it, and his wife Yulia Solntseva completed the film. Dovzhenko’s art was continuously influenced by the poetic critiques of anthropocentric thinking, for which he had to apologise to the party and “correct” his behaviour, disloyal to Soviet ideas. I saw fragments of the film that terrified Olga as part of the exhibition The River Wailed Like a Wounded Beast, which I will discuss in this essay. Analysing the exhibition’s power to make one cry for the battered river, I will question Soviet colonial legacies and their enduring impact on the human and non-human. Additionally, I invite the reader to think about the healing of traumas that were previously taboo and the potential for developing a language to address them.
In the name of “building socialism” the Soviet government embarked on large-scale industrialisation. This involved mass electrification, urban development and, most importantly, the expansion of heavy industry. These grand projects, traversing the vast expanses of the USSR, were predominantly conceived in and directed from Moscow1. This top-down approach often resulted in decisions that lost their logic and coherence as they travelled thousands of kilometres to their destinations. These remote lands, with their diverse languages, religions, landscapes, and ways of life, differed profoundly from those in the political centre.
The object of my childhood yearning, the mysterious underwater terrain covered by the Cherkasy Sea, is called the Kremenchuk Water Reservoir. It is one of the six water reservoirs built on the Dnipro River and completed in 1961 to power the Kremenchuk Hydroelectric Power Station (in Ukrainian, HES). The colossal basin is 2250 km² big, an area larger than Amsterdam and the modern New Amsterdam or New York City combined.
Each project required thousands of kilometres of land to be flooded. It was not barren land but hundreds of centuries-old villages, towns and hectares of fertile soil, old-growth forests, lakes and meadows that formed the basis of the district’s agriculture2. Each basin that shredded Ukraine’s blue artery—the Dnipro River—is a heartbreaking example of the Party-programme-serving industrialisation projects that proved so woefully detrimental on many levels.3
Olga from Kaniv reminisces that before the last reservoir was created, one could drink water from the Dnipro and see its inhabitants in its crystal waters.
The colossal destruction of the river, the erosion of its banks, and the inundation of entire ecosystems led to environmental disasters that continue to this day, even after the systems and individuals responsible, together with their promises to “bring a communist future”, are long gone. The flooding has devastated floodplains, caused fish die-offs, and led to the phenomenon known as the “Dnipro bloom”. This seemingly poetic term describes a devastating reality: algae thriving in toxic abundance, poisoning the water with products of decay like ammonia and cyanide. Once-pure streams are now polluted, deciding the fate of a fragile ecosystem.
Thousands of historical and archaeological monuments were submerged, including seven out of the eight little-studied Zaporizhia Sich sites (fortified settlements of Ukrainian polity that existed between the 16th and 18th centuries). This could have been avoided if the builders had fully implemented the project and built a protective dam to protect the area from flooding.
The creation of the Dnipro hydroelectric cascades clearly manifested the gigantomania of the era of the “great construction projects of communism”. The area flooded during the construction of the hydroelectric power plants was 6,000 km² large. In total, up to three million people from different villages, towns and regions had to get up and leave. Before that, they were forced to destroy their houses and vast vegetable plots and cut down apple and pear trees that had been feeding their families for decades.4
It was not only Dnipro that was forced to “work for communism”. Latvia’s Daugava River also had to face the fate of “Sovietisation”. The construction of the Pļaviņas Hydroelectric Power Station involved flooding large areas. The project, which faced significant resistance from the Latvian people (largely ignored by the state), resulted in ecological damage, the forceful displacement of communities, the destruction of their homes, and the submersion of natural treasures. Latvia’s cultural symbols—a site of a cross-country pilgrimage, the “crying” Staburags limestone cliff, and the 13th-century Latvian Koknese Castle—were forever lost in the sea created to power steel and concrete representations of Soviet “greatness”.
While the Soviet authorities “gifted” Ukraine and Latvia with man-made “seas”, they took away the bountiful, seemingly infinite, fourth-largest lake in the world from the Karakalpaks in the semi-autonomous republic of Uzbekistan. The Aral Sea began its tragic decline in the 1960s when Soviet authorities diverted water from the two main rivers that once nourished it, channelling them to irrigate vast cotton fields. As the water receded, salt concentrations soared, turning the once-thriving sea into a lifeless, toxic desert.5 The Soviet regime knew they were sacrificing the Aral Sea for their agrarian “development” plans. Long before the Russian Empire refashioned itself into the USSR, Aleksandr Voeikov labelled the Karakalpak treasure, the Aral Sea, a “useless evaporator” and a “mistake of nature”. Despite the calculated sacrifices, the Soviet government, focused on developing the cotton industry in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, failed to anticipate the devastating consequences. Herbicides and pesticides from the new fields leached into the rivers and, ultimately, into the Aral Sea itself.6
The distortions of the Aral Sea, Daugava River and Dnipro River took place in the faraway corners of the communist “empire” and spanned different decades. However, they are all connected by many invisible yet substantial threads of top-down Soviet decision-making. It prioritised centralised “development” and “modernisation” over the interests and livelihoods of the local population, which devastated the regions from an environmental, economic, cultural, and health perspective.
Can we discuss the anthropogenic origins of these enormous, grotesque, life-altering transformations without considering the complex power imbalances at play? Soviet projects were not only aimed at bringing civilisation to the “empty” lands; it seems that they were determined to build the new Soviet order on the graves of the “non-Soviet”, non-Russian heritage and ways of living. Oleksandr Dovzhenko wrote in his memoir about the first HES of the Dnipro cascade: “The sea was born, endless, with an immense horizon. A geological miracle! At the bottom of which childhood sank forever.”
When we examine these top-down water politics, we cannot discuss them from an environmental perspective alone. Ecological catastrophes are significant puzzles in the convoluted yet explicitly authoritarian and extractive relationship between the metropole and the periphery. However, it is crucial to understand the intricate yet horrifying mechanism behind the relationship of domination between the Soviet centre and the borderlands, which needed to be “civilised”.
Sovietisation, marketed as “bringing civilisation”, which was often aided by mass Russification, was dependent on a centralised erasure of differences, ethnicities, cultures, worldviews and traditions in the name of the “union of nations”, of a “new Soviet man”. National Soviet policies evolved over time.7 There were brief periods of “ethnophilic” political manipulation, where limited ethnic celebration was allowed, but only within the boundaries set by the Russian metropole. This was followed by consistent forcible displacements across the Soviet Empire, the artificial redrawing of regional borders between ethnicities and nationalities, and the forced transfer of Indigenous, non-literate languages from one alphabet to another.
In 1932, a massive opening ceremony with journalists from around the world took place to mark the completion of the first of the Dnipro Cascade Power Plants—Dniprohez. As the grand feast celebrated defeating the river to “serve communism”, people in the nearby villages (and across different regions in the young state) were swelling and dying of starvation.8 In the same year, after the state accelerated the pace of grain procurement, villages were simply unable to meet the quota. Many workers who came to take part in the construction were actually escaping the beginning of Holodomor, the genocide of 1932–33. Soviet industrialisation and modernisation were carried out not despite but through colossal human sacrifice.
Let’s look at our surroundings, at the land and water that carries us through James Lovelock’s poetic Gaia Hypothesis. Gaia—our Earth—is a living, breathing, changing organism; it shifts humans, and humans shift it. Brazilian thinker and activist Ailton Krenak9 argues that environmental crises stem from the flawed belief that humans are superior to nature and entitled to exploit it. This anthropocentric mindset has led to a civilisation built on systems that disconnect us from the natural world. Krenak argues that there is no point in speculating about the end of the world—Indigenous peoples in the Americas have already endured that multiple times. His works make me think of other people in other parts of the world who have witnessed the end of the world. Who lived through it, yet were not even allowed to talk about it.
This relationship of domination that was exercised through industrialisation and “taming nature” has little to do with theories of socialism or communism. Thinking of the Soviet desire to modernise the “uncivilised”, to transform roaring rivers and a bountiful lake into “work for communism” and to sacrifice one’s life in the name of the Soviet Industrial Revolution, one must consider how colonial domination operates.
These interventions dramatically destroyed the way people shared their lives with their native and spiritual landscapes for centuries. The dimensions of these anthropocentric and empire-centric relationships can only be comprehended and processed if one considers all aspects of it—the cultural, spiritual, ecological, and historical. Most importantly, upon examining the ways of life forever distorted by Soviet colonial relations—from those who lived along the banks of the Dnipro and Daugava Rivers to those whose families were nurtured by the Aral Sea—it’s crucial to understand that mechanisms of colonial relationships today cannot be fully grasped solely through a critique of modernity and power dynamics shaped by Western perspectives. We must seek for answers beyond established regions, formulas and examples to understand what is wrong across diverse regions in the world. We must do so to have a chance for building a caring, supportive, nurturing way of co-existing on our bruised Earth.
Imperial interventions can exercise their domination in an ironic way, ruthlessly perpetuating the suffering of the people. The Kahovka Dam, one of the Dnipro River cascades, epitomised the Soviet victory of civilisation over rural, “pre-Soviet” life. In the 21st century, it once again played a major role in establishing dominance: the former metropole attacked “its periphery” by destroying what it once erected on the flooded land.
These interventions might look different “on paper”—in the eyes of international criminal courts or critical thinkers. Yet the historic events of both erecting and blowing up the Kahovka Dam are entangled in the continuum of Russian colonial domination and colonial anthropocentric thinking. Living in this continuum, which traverses centuries and decades, ruling governments and states, how do people process the violence of the past while having to resist it in the present?
Latvians, with continuous protests and collective letters, managed to protect what was left of the Daugava. The now-historic essay “Thinking about the fate of the Daugava” by Dainis Īvāns and Artūrs Snips steered the public and managed to stop the megaproject expansion. However, this only happened in the late 1980s.1011 In the 1950s, any attempts to protest were impossible: the journalist Vera Kacena, who tried to resist the Pļaviņas HPP, was banned from publishing for the rest of her life.
Ukraine is trying to acknowledge the weight of repressed decades of grief for the scarred land while resisting the perpetrator who has been taking it away for decades.
The River Wailed Like a Wounded Beast, an exhibition at the Dovzhenko Centre as part of the 5th Kyiv Biennale (2023), tackles these issues. Curated by Stanislav Bytyutskyi, Aliona Penzii, and Oleksandr Teliuk, it delves into the cinematographic history of Dnipro’s transformation and the history of destinies in the catastrophes of past and present: from the erection of the first HES (in 1932) to the explosion of the Kahovka Dam in 2023.
It took me three attempts to visit. Like in an old fairy tale, I had to conquer three obstacles before getting inside the Dovzhenko Centre: three air raids. Despite the ongoing war, the exhibition opened in the historical building of Dovzhenko Centre—the largest film archive in Ukraine. So, every time there was an air raid—in Kyiv, they were happening a few times a day in the dawn of 2023—the exhibition had to close until it was “safe” again.
The Russian МіГ-31К death-carrying plane finally calms down and allows me to enter the exhibition. I find myself in a series of connected rooms, closely adjacent to the spacious, high-ceilinged hall of the Dovzhenko Centre. The exhibition poetically combines Soviet-era visual documentation and artistic propaganda films about the erection of the Dnipro cascade with live footage of the new catastrophe—the explosion at the Kahovka Dam.
In the first room, a documentary photography collection depicts Dnipro’s long-gone, majestic rocky rapids. I look at these pictures with fascination, as they offer a glimpse of how the legendary river my ancestors lived together with looked like. This is a mighty beast that the poet Taras Shevchenko asked to be buried next to, so that he could eternally listen to
“… the Dnipro and the cliffs
[…] The roaring of the river”.
Next to it, the visitor sees the cinematic collages created by Stanislav Bytiutskyi, projected on the eggshell walls, inviting one to experience representations of the Dnipro transformations in Soviet cinema by Mikhail Kaufman, Dzyga Vertov, and Oleksandr Dovzhenko. Some of the films in the montages have been censored and butchered in Soviet times. Some, like Arnold Kordum’s Wind Across the Rapids, were considered lost for a long time.
In a tragic irony, a montage of people swimming amidst their flooded homes from the film In Spring (1929) by Mikhail Kaufman mirrors the moving images in the next room. There, contemporary scenes depict victims of the Kahovka Dam explosion—at first glance similar but set in a drastically different context. The dam, originally built to “prevent flooding”, was destroyed a few generations later by the same colonial hegemony that erected it.
The last rooms feature infographics developed in collaboration with the media outlet Texty and designer Nadiya Kelm, depicting the “before” and “after” transformations that Dnipro underwent following its “Sovietisation”. Curatorial descriptions poetically situate the artworks within their historical and social contexts. The exhibition functions as a multimedia essay, where the curatorial framing tells a story. My soul breaks into a sad smile—I so rarely encounter such sincere and candid communication with the audience in modern art spaces in Amsterdam or Berlin.
The intensity of the exhibition’s multidisciplinarity does not overwhelm the audience. The space carefully weaves together art, film, representation, history, and sentiment into an intricate tapestry. This curatorial and cinematic craftsmanship achieves what art is meant to do: it makes one think and compels one to discover more.
For the curators, as for many of the visitors, the wounds are still raw—yawning, bleeding, and continually being poked. Perhaps this is why the exhibition is so powerful—there was simply no need to dramatise, exaggerate, or augment the open wound.
Journalists Zakhar Kolisnichenko and Andriy Chernega shared my enthralment with the Cherkasy Sea, lifeworlds of the long-gone landscapes and people who had once rooted there.
“And that time, no one explained anything . . . the way the Party says, and this is how it will be, the Party is our ruler . . . . But the Party is gone, and we are here” is a quote from their documentary Perestroika, stated by one of the villagers who were forcefully relocated from their homes in the 1950s due to the construction of the Kremenchuk HES.12
The documentary, created by Cherkasy natives Zakhar and Andriy, does not have a narrator’s voice. Consisting of oral histories and archive footage, it provides a timeless and poignant account of how Soviet industrialisation took over the human destinies of Ukrainians while flooding 200 villages in the Dnipro Valley where these people had lived for centuries:
“And who asked us? No one asked anyone . . . . Evicted . . . .”
“No protest . . . . Like cattle . . . . Kicked out of the pen and driven to slaughter”.
The journalists managed to capture stories and traumas that these people carried through their long, hard lives. Their stories often remained unspoken, left untold to children, grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren, long after Ukraine gained its independence. Perhaps, if it weren’t for Zakhar and Andriy collecting these stories of a generation that is fading away into eternity, we would never have known about their personal and collective wounds.
“Could we say that we are against, ha? Aha . . . . Who could even say that . . . .”
This need for people to share and keep their erased history alive is vividly portrayed in the comments sections on platforms where the documentary is shared. In YouTube comments, random people express sorrows for the destroyed lands and waters and attempt to restore their lost history, leaving a digital mark:
“Thank you for your good work. My grandparents were resettled from the village of Shabelnyky to the village of Tinki. They told very little about the resettlement, they just cried sometimes . . . .”
“My grandparents were from the villages of Mytky and Demky. They said they were large and rich villages founded by the Cossacks. It’s a pity that our history was destroyed like that.”
“Thank you for making the film, thank you very much! In my parents’ village, Pavlyshi, there were many immigrants from those places. And many years later, they remembered their homeland with great pain . . . . Houses, gardens, flooded cemeteries . . . . Damned empires that spit on people!”
In Soviet times, those who were othered and oppressed had no right to be angry. Expressing frustration about your rights was considered an attack on the party and the revolution. What happens when an individual has no right to express grief, anger, or loss; deprived of any instrument to address their frustration? What does this great gaslighting, on a political and intimate level, do to one’s life?
The problem lies in the fact that many post-Soviet colonised bodies are only now entering the conversation about how to process the harm whilst still, for decades, trying to claim that they, in fact, have been harmed. Colonial Soviet systems created complex ornaments of oppression with blurry hierarchies. Without the ability to name violent injustice as such, you cannot fight against it: something you want to confront just does not exist. Therefore, while the Soviet Union vanished, the traumas from its terrors remained unprocessed until today. Without a proper understanding of your past, it is impossible to build your present.
Ecocides, mass uprooting, genocides and reverberations of the desire to tame the land and its people—these are dimensions of colonial impacts that one cannot resist and “decolonize” just by thinking, talking, processing. But just like in the therapeutic journey, acknowledging the damage, acknowledging the trauma and how it affects you, finding the language and tools to process it, is a first, gigantic step towards healing.
This is what the exhibition The River Wailed Like a Wounded Beast does for me. The curators developed a moving vocabulary for telling the story of the ongoing trauma. You feel the river’s tears, you feel pain for it, you feel the longing. The curators and artists created a brilliant, situated, grounded, and accessible decolonial critique of Anthropocentrism without explicitly using this jargon. Nevertheless, the exhibition, in its poetry, artful sentimentality for the taken away, and confidence to work despite the mortal threats of the war, embodies the ongoing decolonial resistance.
The raging, long-suffering river is witnessing the landscape of Ukraine being radically changed. This time, battles between those who try to actively colonise and decolonise are happening simultaneously. The curators’ sincere and truthful language resonates deeply with visitors, reflecting the complexities of discussing the nuances of imperial dominations amidst the ongoing war.
Both the exhibition and the documentary make the observer cry for the battered river. By doing so, they are questioning Soviet colonial legacies and their enduring impact on both human and non-human entities.
These are examples of healing journeys, where making art, in its manifold forms, is an attempt to process the unspoken. Both examples show that the Soviet colonial violence and its aftermath is not a matter of perspective. It is a lived reality that has silently stamped the fate of humans and non-humans (and, predominantly, non-Russians).
As an anthropologist, I am deeply committed to feminist ecocritical and decolonial thinking. But in my work, I focus on people, their activism and resistance, and local discourse, not on dissecting theories. In this light I cannot help but think about how these critical discussions, especially those that are developing in Western(ised) platforms, often fail the people I work with.
While many intellectuals who were actually touched by the reverberations of the Soviet Regime have been trying to question Russian “imperial innocence” for decades, this job has not been easy, even after the Empire “struck again” in 2022. I often saw how experiences with Russian imperialism resembled a childhood trauma: subconscious and hard to put into words. Nevertheless, it always has the inexhaustible power to pull down those it encroaches upon.
For a long time, attempts to analyze the oppressive dynamics of Russia’s global influence and to describe it as “colonial” were dismissed as “melodramatic” or “overstated.” The discussion was mainly confined to the narrow circles of “Slavic Studies”. Now, it is often labelled (at least in personal conversations) as ‘reactionary’. Presenting my research before the war, I heard questions formulated as bluntly as “don’t you just use trendy concepts to justify your research?”. Often, these rhetorical questions were predicated upon an assumed lack of hierarchies of domination between Russian and “non-Russian” subjects of the Soviet Union.13
The Soviet regime diligently followed the colonial textbook of domination: culture over nature, the civilisation of the uncivilised, “educating” and “socialising” of the peasant, “normalising” all the othered: non-male, non-white, non-Russian.14 However, the USSR, which identified as socialist and anti-capitalist, claimed to be anti-imperialist and anti-colonial. This branding successfully masked the colonial practices within its own borders. Consequently, in contemporary Russia (which, as coloniser-successor of the USSR, has dominant knowledge-producing resources) postcolonial and decolonial approaches could not be on the table in mainstream public debates, art, policymaking and academia.15 Russia has yet to acknowledge its colonial impact on Ukraine, post-Soviet states, Indigenous people, Central Asian and Finno-Ugric Republics in Russia. And it likely never will. Instead, it continues to occupy and repeat Soviet-era rhetoric of being a “liberator”.
I was invited to contribute to this issue* as one of the curators of the Ukrainian Decolonial Glossary.16 UDG is an online platform that is a compilation of concepts from de- and postcolonial theories, featuring examples specific to the Ukrainian context. The first edition of this glossary showcases 20 terms, each contributed by diverse Ukrainian researchers, thinkers and artists. We had a goal to create a toolkit for dialogues about our convoluted past within and outside Ukraine.
I undertook this project because I believe that developing language to name our traumas is absolutely necessary for making sense of the past, for healing, and for building a future. However, the language of decolonisation is being erupted, misused where it is not appropriate, and denied to those who need it to claim their suffering. The healing process (and resistance that it carries) gets so much more complicated under the constant gaslighting of the perpetrator.
Not to commend Western imperialisms, but the relentless struggles and sacrifices of those who suffer under the ongoing effects of Western imperial modernities are starting to yield results. Recently, after long suffering and resistance, the Amazon River and the Whanganui River were granted personhood. Who will apologise to the Dnipro, the Aral Sea, or the River Daugava?
Tracing the metempsychosis of Soviet manipulations in its peripheries, I suggest focusing on what colonialism is in its essence: domination and subjugation in all spectrums of human relations (with humans and non-humans). Armed by the extensive multidisciplinary, plural, and multicultural bodies of work, I believe we are capable of reflecting on the multiplicity of modernities and their relation to each other. Recognising the power hierarchies that Western hegemonies dictate, we absolutely must recognise how the peculiarities of alternative modernities and colonialities, including the Soviet one, shape histories.
Decolonial, anti-colonial and postcolonial thinkings make sense when they are accessible to those whose rights and freedoms these theories are fighting for. These anti-colonial rhetorics can be tools for understanding the history and position of Ukraine (and other post-Soviet people) in the world, for dialogue (internal and external) and finding a common working language to deal with our past and present.
Whether they employ a decolonial vocabulary or not, people must have space to remember that decolonisation is a process, not an end result.17 The damage from centuries of oppression is irreversible. The Aral Sea’s breeze is forever gone, but the recent project of reforesting the lakebed is already yielding positive results for the community. When Ukraine liberates the land from the Russian occupation, a complete “cleansing” from the coloniser and return to some “untouched” state is unfortunately impossible.
Decolonisation is a movement forward—a complex, dialogic, and communal, long process of rethinking and critiquing the past and constructing new meanings. The artistic projects I discussed here poetically examine both the historical and contemporary traumas of the river and its people. This therapeutic, healing-through-art process is crucial. It is crucial for today’s resistance and the battles against empires that are yet to come.
This essay and the accompanying artwork originally appeared in WunderKombināts III, Latvian Art Yearbook, December 2024.
1. Gorin, Nazar. 2022. “Soviet Economic Integration or Industrial Colonialism? | Heinrich Böll Stiftung | Kyiv—Ukraine.” Heinrich Böll Stiftung | Kyiv—Ukraine, September 1, 2022. https://ua.boell.org/en/2022/09/01/soviet-economic-integration-or-industrial-colonialism.
2. O. Bazhan, P. Bondarchuk, Y. Vermenych, V. Danylenko, K. Yeremieieva, Y. Zhuravlov, O. Koliastruk, et al., “Ukrainske Suspilstvo v 1960-1980-kh rr.: Istorychni Narysy: Kolektyvna Monohrafiia” (Ukrainian Society in the 1960s-1980s: Historical Essays: Collective Monograph), 2022. Accessible at: https://ekmair.ukma.edu.ua/handle/123456789/26881.
3. M. Chornyi, Vplyv Budivnytstva Ta Diialnosti Kanivskoi HES Na Dovkillia Tarasovoi Hory [(Environmental Impacts of the Construction and Operation of the Kanivska HPP on Tarasova Gora). Materialy 3-4 Naukovo-Kraieznavchykh Sorokopudivskykh Chytan. Kyiv: Panmedia, 2023.
4. O.O. Babenko, I.D. Petrenko, Nove Nashe More… [Our New Sea]: Storinkamy istoriï budivnyt︠s︡tva Kremenchut︠s︡ʹkoho hidrovuzla. Імекс_ЛТД, 2016. Accessible at: https://dakiro.kr-admin.gov.ua/book/nove_nashe_more.pdf
5. M. Synnott, C. Drake, Sins of the Aral Sea, National Geographic, 2015. Accessible at: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/vanishing-aral-sea-kazakhstan-uzbekistan.
6. O. Ataniyazova, “Health and Ecological Consequences of the Aral Sea Crisis.” The 3rd World Water Forum Regional Cooperation in Shared Water Resources in Central Asia Kyoto, March 18, 2003. Accessible at: https://www.caee.utexas.edu/prof/mckinney/ce385d/papers/atanizaova_wwf3.pdf.
7. J.O. Pohl, Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR, 1937-1949. Bloomsbury Publishing USA, 1999.
8. N.K. Kupensky, “Mova Zaperechennia Holodomoru: Slipota, Hipnoz, Oderzhymist, Fetish.” Translated by Yevhen Gulevych [Blindness Hypnosis, Addiction, Fetish: The Language of Holodomor Denial] Україна Модерна, March 19, 2019. Accessible at https://uamoderna.com/md/kupensky-holodomor/.
This article was first presented as a paper ‘Blindness Hypnosis, Addiction, Fetish: The Language of Holodomor Denial’ at the Danilov Research Seminar on Contemporary Ukraine at the University of Ottawa on 9 November 2018.
9. A. Krenak, Ideas to Postpone the End of the World. House of Anansi, 2020.
10. Par Staburaga glābšanas mēģinājumu. Publicēts oficiālajā laikrakstā “Latvijas Vēstnesis”, 13.08.1999., Nr. 256/257 Accessible at: https://www.vestnesis.lv/ta/id/18441
11. B. Kušķe, “Raksts, Kas 1986. Gadā Apturēja Daugavpils HES Celtniecību.” LSM.LV, August 7, 2001. Accessible at: https://www.lsm.lv/raksts/dzive–stils/vesture/raksts-kas-1986-gada-aptureja-daugavpils-hes-celtniecibu.a350470/.
12. A. Chernega, 2016. ‘Perestroika (1956-1959).’ Accessible at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jocMR0vZCB4.
13. B. Kassymbekova, “How Western Scholars Overlooked Russian Imperialism.” Al Jazeera, January 24, 2023. Accessible at: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/1/24/how-western-scholars-overlooked-russian-imperialism.
14. B. Kassymbekova, A. Chokobaeva, “South/South Dialogues—South/South Movement,” May 7, 2023. Accessivle at: https://www.southsouthmovement.org/dialogues/expropriation-assimilation-elimination-understanding-soviet-settler-colonialism/.
15. V. Chernetsky, Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine, in: Columbia University Slavic Department, vol. 7, 2023, p. 32–62. Accessible at: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25748122.
* This essay and the accompanying artwork originally appeared in WunderKombināts III, Latvian Art Yearbook, December 2024.
17. C.E. Walsh, Decolonial learnings, askings and musings, in: Postcolonial Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, 2020, p. 604–611. Accessible at: doi:10.1080/13688790.2020.1751437.
Artist’s statement
“After Gaza” does not mean that the Gaza genocide is over—not only because the genocide is ongoing, but because Gaza, like the Shoah and the Nakba, will never be over. “Never again” feels like “the hope” that Benjamin said was for those who have none.
Theodor Adorno said that poetry “after Auschwitz” is barbaric, but you only live “after . . .
Artist’s statement
“After Gaza” does not mean that the Gaza genocide is over—not only because the genocide is ongoing, but because Gaza, like the Shoah and the Nakba, will never be over. “Never again” feels like “the hope” that Benjamin said was for those who have none.
Theodor Adorno said that poetry “after Auschwitz” is barbaric, but you only live “after Auschwitz” if you realize that you do. It becomes a way of seeing things. My mother was a Jewish refugee who left Romania for Switzerland in 1941. For me, now 78, much of my life has been lived after Auschwitz began to shape my sense of the world. But what has “after Auschwitz” become “after Gaza”? After the realization that Gaza will never be over, and that now, in the light of the Gaza genocide, Auschwitz will also appear in its light.
I live in a safe, protected space, but the desolations of Gaza (even from a distance) can transform the look (and the life) of things. Using a camera phone, I start with photographs of things I live with—trees, chairs, wall-shadows, burnt matches, cannabis ashes. As I work with the limited editing technology that the camera phone provides, I find icons in the photographs that seem to witness ongoing catastrophes—Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan . . . to witness and to be witnessed. I find what I can see but have hardly been prepared to know how to see.
“What should we bring Pawpaw for dinner?” I asked Mama.
Her bronze urn rested in the passenger’s seat, secured by the seat belt. Her ghost sat in the backseat, wearing the green skirt suit I’d buried her in, a thin blue aura haloing her body.
We were driving from Birmingham to Pawpaw’s farm in Sweetcreek. The high-rises and billboards gradually surrendered to . . .
“What should we bring Pawpaw for dinner?” I asked Mama.
Her bronze urn rested in the passenger’s seat, secured by the seat belt. Her ghost sat in the backseat, wearing the green skirt suit I’d buried her in, a thin blue aura haloing her body.
We were driving from Birmingham to Pawpaw’s farm in Sweetcreek. The high-rises and billboards gradually surrendered to fields of soybeans, corn, and cotton. The heat tested the limits of my Corolla’s air conditioning, and its tires were barely a match for the red dirt backroads. Roadside joints selling BBQ and fried fish plates cropped up like mushrooms. Mama narrowed her eyes in the rearview mirror. I could almost hear her suck her teeth, deriding them as country and low class.
“Ribs, I think,” I murmured to myself.
An hour later, I pulled into the farmhouse’s driveway with two rib plates and four suitcases. The single story house was white with green shutters and a black roof, set back from the road and fronted by a yard filled with pink azaleas and blue hydrangeas. In the far distance stood greenhouses and rows of garden boxes bursting with herbs. Pawpaw never had any powers to speak of, but he certainly had a green thumb, which is its own kind of magic if you ask me.
He sat on the porch, wearing a starched white shirt, pressed jeans, and a pristine Stetson. Gold front tooth gleaming, he grinned as I ran up the porch steps and into his waiting arms.
“Hey there, Lil’ Partner.”
“Hey there, Big Partner.”
Pawpaw was thinner than I remembered, and I didn’t miss the way he’d risen stiffly from his chair. But he still smelled the same: tobacco, mint, and Irish Spring.
He wouldn’t let me carry in my luggage, so while he brought my suitcases up to Mama’s childhood bedroom, I took her urn and our dinner into the kitchen. It was clean and bright as always, smelling faintly of lemon. I half-expected Granma to be there, kneading biscuits or frying chicken. But she wasn’t, and neither was her ghost.
“Did you finish Granma’s headstone?” I asked Pawpaw when he came in.
“Finally found that doggone recipe,” Pawpaw chuckled. “Thelma had it stuffed in a shoebox. Raymond finished the engraving last month.” He looked down at the checkerboard tile floor. “Everything still feels strange without her.”
Granma had died the year before, Mama three years before her. You’d think I would’ve been a pro at grief and loss, but no such luck.
“Can I go see her?” I asked. The family cemetery was a short drive away.
“Another time, Monica. You should get some rest.” Pawpaw only used my name when he made gentle “suggestions”. He nodded at Mama’s urn. “We can lay Gertrude to rest later, too.”
Mama had hated her name, insisting on being called Trudy by everyone. “When the cancer came back, she told me she wanted her ashes spread next to Granma’s grave whenever she died.”
I watched him absorb this information. He couldn’t have been more surprised than I’d been by Mama’s request. She and Granma had had a difficult relationship. A difficult relationship with a mother was one of the few things I’d had in common with Trudy.
“Well, I’m gonna respect my baby’s wishes. And I’m gonna do it proper,” Pawpaw said finally. “But today I gotta make some deliveries.”
Mama stood in the corner, thin fingers resting on her collarbone, a pained look on her face.
“And go see the developer,” I added.
“He’s offering twenty million now,” Pawpaw said, rubbing his jaw.
I whistled. “Wow . . . wow.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I set the BBQ plates in the oven for dinner. Neither Pawpaw nor Granma had ever approved of microwaves. Didn’t trust them. “I’m coming with you.”
“Ain’t you tired?”
I kissed his cheek, his skin wrinkled like crepe paper. “Yes, but I like to watch you work. And I want to meet this man for myself.”
Over his shoulder, Mama turned and disappeared. A part of me wanted to tell Pawpaw I’d been seeing her for weeks, but I kept silent. He had enough to worry about.
I helped Pawpaw load his truck with the orders. As a girl, Mama had painted the farm’s name and tagline on the truck’s doors: Sweetcreek Farms. Fine Herbs & Plants. Granma had drawn a picture of the High John the Conqueror root our farm was known for. Seeing it always made me chuckle; it made the farm seem downright ordinary. For over a century, our family had supplied root workers and other magical practitioners across the South and beyond with the herbs and plants they needed for their spells, rituals, and potions.
As we bounced along the dirt backroads, Pawpaw quizzed me about the uses of the plants packaged in the purple sachets Granma had sewn. As I answered each one correctly, a ghost of a smile tugged at Pawpaw’s lips. I’d been studying, so I could be useful to him. There’d been little else to do in the six months since I’d been laid off. He didn’t say so, but I could tell he was pleased with my knowledge. He and Granma had feared it would die with Mama, who’d been determined to put as much physical and emotional distance as possible between herself and the family legacy. Not just growing the plants, but serving the people who used them and those who wanted someone to conjure on their behalf.
“It’s always something with these Negroes,” Mama groused to me once when I was eight. We were at Sweetcreek for a rare Christmas visit, watching Granma give mojo bags, amulets, and teas to people looking for help with all sorts of problems while our dinner cooled. “She got more time for them than for her own family.”
A stern look from Pawpaw had quieted Mama’s complaints but that was the first time I’d noticed the unspoken tension between her and Granma. And it was the last time Mama had bothered to hide her displeasure with our life from me.
The delivery list had forty names. These were some of Pawpaw’s longstanding, most valued customers, women who bought from him in bulk. There were grandmothers with lined, brown faces and wrinkled hands and Millennials with dreadlocks, headwraps, and nose rings. He made a point to chat with each of them, asking after their families and health. Only at the end of these conversations did he deftly inquire about what magic they expected to work in the coming weeks and months, sussing out what they’d need for future orders, which I dutifully recorded in a small notebook.
My heart leapt when we got to Miss Eulalie, Miss Pearl, and Miss Henrietta, three of Granma’s closest friends. I remembered them from childhood summers, when Mama sent me down South so she could work overtime without guilt and fraternize with her boyfriends. They were consummate conjure women, renowned for their skills and potions just as Granma had been. They hadn’t changed a bit: Eulalie, in leopard leggings with long red acrylics, trailed by three cats; Pearl in her pressed usher’s uniform and immaculate steel-gray chignon; and Henrietta in her overalls and sturdy work boots, motor oil and grease under her nails. They exclaimed over me, pressing vials of oils and tinctures into my hands, which they promised would bring me luck, prosperity, and a fertile womb. I didn’t want kids but the mentions of fertility didn’t make me feel nearly as awkward as their questions about my craft. Pawpaw looked at his feet whenever this came up.
“I haven’t had time for spellwork lately,” was my standard reply before changing the subject. They didn’t need to know I could barely summon a candle flame these days, or that Mama’s ghost appeared whenever she wanted rather than from my summons, nor could I banish her when her presence threatened to suffocate me.
But they told us something that made a knot of dread settle in my stomach like a coiled snake—Sweetcreek’s produce was changing. Henrietta had noticed that some of her spells didn’t last as long as they used to. Eulalie was forced to use twice as much black snake root now in her protection charms. Pearl’s last batch of candles had burned with acrid, black smoke that curled in unnatural spirals.
It wasn’t just them. A few of the older women, those who’d been using the farm’s herbs for years, who could observe the changes between then and now, told us similar things.
“How long has this been going on?” I asked Pawpaw back in the truck.
His work-gnarled hands tightened on the steering wheel. “A few years. Was hard to notice at first. Land seems angry.”
I listened as Pawpaw described the upheaval at Sweetcreek and the farms of his friends. Stronger, more destructive hurricanes tore through fields, burning summers scorched tender plants, and pests never seen before chewed through crops before they could flourish.
“Sounds like climate change. It must be impacting the potency of the herbs and plants.” I shook my head, furious and powerless, at the massive forces making his hard job even harder.
“That’s what the news say. I don’t doubt it, though I don’t know too much science myself. But I don’t think that’s all.”
“What else could it be?”
Pawpaw rubbed his jaw. “Something broke when Gertrude left. Thelma’s magic wasn’t the same after that. That wasn’t noticeable at first, either. But spells she used to be able to work with her eyes closed, she could barely do them by the end.”
I kept my eyes on the road. Mama took me away from Sweetcreek when I was five, tired of being judged for having a baby out of wedlock, tired of living under Granma’s roof.
“Mama never used her magic much besides little stuff like healing baths and burning sage to purify our apartment,” I said quietly. “I never thought anything of it till I saw what Granma could do. Maybe Mama couldn’t do more than that.”
Pawpaw nodded. “Maybe not. Magic don’t run in men, you know, so I couldn’t tell you.”
“Well, we both know I’m a failure in that arena, so I couldn’t tell you either.” I laughed ruefully. “A failure in most arenas lately.”
“Don’t ever say that,” Pawpaw snapped. He pulled over and fixed me with a hard look. “Stop listening to the lies the Devil tell.”
Pawpaw was such a calm, easygoing man. I was taken aback by his vehemence, his fierce belief in my worth. I nodded, swallowing hard and weaving my fingers with his. He patted my hand, kissed it.
I rested my head on his shoulder. “I should’ve come home sooner.”
“You’re here now.”
We sat in silence in the truck, Pawpaw slumped against his seat. After a few minutes he spoke again. “Since Thelma died, a lot of the ladies come round and help me bless the soil.” He swiped a hand over his face. “It helps, but the land still seems upset. Agitated. Out of balance.”
I squeezed his knee. He could’ve been talking about me.
The next day, Pawpaw and I headed to Langston, the closest thing to a city near Sweetcreek, to meet the developer. I expected Ryan Cutler to be a standard issue good ol’ boy, but he was actually a standard issue finance bro, like the ones who’d fired just about everybody at my old job. He had a pale, forgettable face, with watery blue eyes and wheat-colored hair.
“Good to see you, Eugene!” Ryan said, extending a hand to Pawpaw.
“Mr. Hayes,” I corrected him, stepping slightly in front of Pawpaw and intercepting the handshake. “And I’m Ms. Monica Hayes, his granddaughter.”
Ryan’s fingers were puffy and his palm was moist. I hid my disgust as I pumped his hand with more force than was necessary. He looked flustered as I held his gaze before sitting in one of the chairs at the gleaming glass table in his office. Pawpaw shot me a look of proud gratitude as he removed his hat and sat beside me. I knew he’d never be comfortable correcting a white man, even if it was to insist on respect.
I’m here now, Pawpaw.
“My grandfather told me about your offer, but I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
Ryan looked at Pawpaw, who looked back at him without saying a word.
“Ms. Hayes, I’ve made your grandfather a substantial offer for his land. I’m assembling several properties for warehouse development. My goal is to transform Sweetcreek into a logistics hub—it’ll bring jobs and much needed economic growth to the area.”
I’d heard this spiel before. “Why should he sell to you? Our land has been in our family for generations.”
Again, Ryan cut his eye to Pawpaw. Again, Pawpaw remained silent.
Ryan exhaled loudly. “Ma’am, your family has done an incredible job. And you’ve got a nice niche with that woo-woo stuff. You’re not at the mercy of the market in the same way commodity farmers are.”
I bared my teeth at him in an imitation of a smile. “Woo-woo stuff?”
Chuckling, Ryan wiggled his fingers. “Great idea. All you’re missing is crystals. My niece loves crystals, has a shelf full of them.”
Pawpaw let out a frayed huff, thumbing the edge of his Stetson.
Ryan barreled on, oblivious. “But I’m sure you know farming is a hell of a lot of work. Your grandpa takes on a ton of risk to not make a lot of money. The interest on the money I’m offering is more than he’d make in a good year. I’m giving him a very attractive way out.”
Nothing Ryan said was wrong. I was certain a spreadsheet somewhere on his blocky Thinkpad laid it out in black and white, some complex financial model that calculated our land’s value down to the penny, spitting out the number that would make Ryan a tidy profit and make an old man go away quietly.
But none of that accounted for the magic in the soil, the power that produced some of the most coveted and revered magical flora in the world. Or at least, it had.
Ryan twirled his wedding band, looking at the gold ring instead of me. “These warehouses are tens of thousands of square feet. They need a ton of land. I’ve made offers to other farmers around here.”
Pawpaw spoke for the first time. “Twenty of them.”
Surprise flickered across Ryan’s face before he smothered it. “Many of them are keen to sell for all the reasons we’ve discussed, but your holdings are the anchor.”
I frowned. “What does that mean?”
“It means the development falls apart without your land, because the parcel won’t be big enough for the warehouse complex. If Mr. Hayes doesn’t sell, then the other farmers won’t get their money.”
The Saturday morning after our meeting with Cutler, the other farmers came by to beg, cajole, and threaten Pawpaw into selling his land. He patiently listened to everyone, telling them he was still thinking and praying on his decision. Logically, I knew those farmers were also struggling with ailing land and shrinking bank accounts. But in my heart I resented them for descending on Pawpaw like hungry locusts devouring his peace. I’d had enough; I needed to get out of the house before I punched someone.
The screen door banged behind me as I bounded down the porch steps, my feet carrying me to the fields. The sun bore down hard as I meandered along the packed dirt path winding through the rows and rows of plants nestled in moist black soil in cedar garden boxes Pawpaw had built by hand. A ring of greenhouses protecting the more delicate, heat-sensitive plants like bayberry surrounded the fields, their panes glinting in the sun. The air smelled sharp and medicinal in some areas, then sweet, earthy, and musky in others. All was quiet except for the buzz of bees, the low hum of cicadas, and the dirt crunching under my shoes. My hands grazed the tall, lance-shaped leaves of the Queen Elizabeth root, rubbed the waxy, viridian leaves of rue growing in a lacy pattern, stroked the rough, ropey bundles of angelica root drying on posts.
“Monica!”
I turned to see Miss Henrietta loping toward me, smiling wide under a straw hat and carrying a large paper bag. “Brought you and Eugene some lunch!”
Henrietta was a big woman, tall and powerfully built. She intimidated a lot of people, but I knew her as the dispenser of some of the world’s best hugs. Once she turned me loose, I peered inside the bag, greeted by the heavenly scent of two pork sandwiches wrapped in grease-stained brown paper and a dozen tea cakes.
“You didn’t have to do this!”
“No, but I wanted to,” she replied, patting my cheek with her calloused hand. “Why you out here?”
I ignored her question, letting another that had been simmering leap out instead. “Will you make me a mojo bag?”
Confusion flickered across Henrietta’s face. “What kind?”
I shuffled my feet. “Prosperity. Money. Finding a new job.”
She glanced at Pawpaw on the porch, trying to shake a departing farmer’s hand. The man swatted his palm aside and stormed off. Word of Cutler’s offer had traveled fast, but she didn’t pry.
“Alright. Let’s go to Thelma’s workshop.”
Pawpaw still kept the workshop tidy. Dried bundles of herbs hung from the rafters. Mason jars lined the shelves, filled with roots, powders, and stones, their names written in Sharpie in Granma’s neat hand on masking tape labels. A long wooden table in the center of the room was covered with tools—knives and spoons, a mortar and pestle, scissors, several chipped bowls, a small cauldron, and a brazier. A wicker basket filled with old fabric pouches sat underneath.
Mama had appeared again, frowning at Henrietta as she scanned the shelves for the necessary ingredients. I ignored her, turning on two ceiling fans that pushed the hot air around. Henrietta deposited an armful of jars, herbs, and roots on the table. Her nimble hands moved with precision over the plants and tools.
“Alfalfa,” she said, crumbling a handful of dried leaves in her palm. They released a faint, grassy scent as they rained into a bowl. “It keeps money steady in your house.”
To draw money and prosperity to me, she added powdered sassafras and bayberry bark. Then cinnamon, “to make that money come quick”. High John was next. She held the dark, knobby pods reverently before grinding them up, her brawny forearm working the pestle. As she worked, she whispered prayers for my prosperity over the ingredients. Mama watched from the corner, her arms folded over her chest.
“Mama didn’t like you.”
As soon as the words escaped my lips, I snapped my mouth shut. Henrietta stopped grinding. What the hell possessed me to admit that?
Before I could apologize, Henrietta said, “I didn’t like her either. Biggety self.”
Mama looked at me expectantly; I suppose waiting for me to defend her. Instead I asked, “Why do you say that?”
“She was ashamed of where she come from,” Henrietta answered as she resumed grinding. “Ashamed of the work that kept her fed and helped poor folks around here that didn’t have nothing but prayer and Thelma.”
I thought of all the times I’d heard Mama disparage Sweetcreek. Poverty had been her greatest fear. She saw how hard Pawpaw and Granma worked and yet how precarious things could still be. To her, root work was something poor people used because they didn’t have anything better. It wasn’t power, it was the legacy of slaves and sharecroppers—the weak and abused, in her mind.
“She always pushed me to excel in school. She didn’t want me to end up like her—selling nice things she couldn’t afford to rich people, working long hours but still needing food stamps.”
“Well, maybe it wouldn’t have come to that if she hadn’t run off and took you with her.”
No matter how well I’d done in school and how far I’d risen professionally, it never felt like enough for Mama. And a fat lot of good it had done me in the end, when all my achievement and self-worth had been ripped away in a five minute Zoom with HR. “Maybe,” I said.
Henrietta shook her head. “Gertrude broke Thelma’s heart. She turned her back on who she was. How can you stand if you ain’t rooted?”
Mama’s face was devoid of expression except for the smoldering look in her eyes.
“Go get a bag from the basket, baby. A green one.”
I did as Henrietta asked. When I returned to the table, Mama was gone. I held the small bag open and Henrietta carefully poured in the mojo mixture then tied it shut with gold string. She lit a bit of incense in the brazier, the warm, spicy scent filling the room. Passing the bag through the smoke, Henrietta murmured words too soft for me to catch. Finally, she held the bag to her lips, exhaling a long huff of air into it, before handing it over to me.
“What was that for?”
“I breathed life into it,” she said, her eyes meeting mine. “You gotta feed the bag once a month to keep the energy strong. I hold it in my hand on a full moon and speak my intentions over it again. But your gut will tell you what you need to do.”
I snorted. “You’re giving me too much credit.”
Henrietta cupped my cheek. “What you need is already in you, baby. Me, Pearl, and Eulalie will help you find it.”
“You know how the land got power?”
I turned away from Vanna White on the TV to look at Pawpaw. “Mama told me the land woke up when my great-grandmother killed a man.”
“Verlean. To save her husband Elijah’s life. And it was two men. White men, no less.”
“Lord. How did she get away with that?”
“No body, no problem, I guess.” Pawpaw’s lips formed a smug curve. “And even the white folks back then knew the women in this family were strong root workers, even if they didn’t understand or believe in conjure.”
Now that was new information to me. “Why was Elijah attacked?”
Pawpaw’s face hardened. “A Black family owning any land, even hardscrabble land . . . well, to a lot white folks in Sweetcreek that wasn’t to be borne. Uppity nigger had to be dealt with.”
Bile rose in my throat. “What exactly happened?”
“It’s fuzzy. Verlean and Elijah didn’t like to talk about it, as you might expect. But what’s important is that the land came to Verlean’s defense, came alive. After that, everything grown in this soil made the best magic you could get.” He took my hands in his own, his weathered brown fingers rubbing my much softer ones. “And the hands that grew those plants did too.”
I shifted uncomfortably as a sharp twinge of unease gripped my heart and squeezed. “And it can again. Henrietta said she and the other ladies would teach me—”
Pawpaw cut me off. “I’m selling, Lil’ Partner.”
Without thinking, I shot up, nearly toppling over because my legs had gone to sleep. “You can’t! You can’t let these people bully you into giving all this away! You’ve worked too hard!”
Pawpaw looked up at me, weary. “Ain’t nobody bullying me, baby. I’m tired. And the land is, too. I feel it every time I go to the fields.”
I couldn’t argue with him, with the defeated cast of his shoulders, with the exhaustion carving every line in his face. Because even in the short time I’d been there, I could also feel the energy in the land dimming with each passing day, probably even more keenly than Pawpaw.
“What about me?” I whimpered. “I wanted this to be my home.”
Pawpaw held my hand to his heart. “I was thinking of you when I decided. I’ll have enough money to make sure you’re taken care of. And wherever I am, you got a home.”
I couldn’t get Verlean off my mind or Pawpaw’s words: the land came to her defense. How? And, I thought bitterly, why wasn’t it rising to our defense now?
The day after Pawpaw told me of his decision, the land decided to answer the first question.
I was weeding herb beds when Elijah ran past me. I recognized him from old family photos. He looked over his shoulder at me, eyes wide with terror. For a moment, I thought I’d finally lost my mind. But then the thunder of hooves made the ground shake underneath me. Two men on horseback streaked by, one of them striking Elijah in the head with a baton. Elijah crumpled to the dirt, bleeding from the temple. The other man dismounted and began to beat Elijah. The vision was muffled; the men’s shouts and Elijah’s screams sounded like they were underwater. I was heartily glad. I didn’t need to hear the meaty smacks of fists on flesh. I squeezed my eyes shut, my breath coming in frantic punches.
When I cracked open an eye, hoping desperately for the vision to be gone, Verlean was there. She launched herself at Elijah’s attacker but he flung her aside like a dirty rag and kicked her in the stomach. Elijah crawled over, trying to shield his wife from the blows.
Suddenly, a pulse of magic rocked the earth. Verlean’s eyes clouded over in cataracts. She thrust out her hand and the two men flew backward, one falling off his rearing horse, the other hitting a tree. Verlean staggered to her feet and raised her hands to the sky. Darkness rolled over the land. Then she slammed her palms against the dirt and the pulse flared again. Even outside the vision, I felt it in my body. The trees, the grass, the flowers, and all the other plants grew uncontrollably as the ground opened up and devoured Elijah’s attackers, sucking them down in a maelstrom of dirt and rocks. Another pulse knocked me off my feet. I lay there in the dirt for what seemed like hours, sweating and gulping down air. When I lifted my head, the vision had receded.
“That was horrible,” I croaked out. “Why did you show me that?”
The trilling of the cicadas was the only response I got.
It was a harvest day—and night. The red sun dipped toward the horizon but the heat wasn’t giving up without a fight. Rivulets of sweat streaked down my back and between my breasts, soaking the mojo bag pinned to my sports bra. The waxing moon would soon be visible, time for us to gather the bay laurel, rue, and High John. We’d pick well into the night. Some of Pawpaw’s fellow deacons were stationed at the edge of the fields, frying catfish in vats of oil to slap on white bread with pickles and mustard for dinner.
Pawpaw was waiting for Cutler to draw up the paperwork before telling anyone of his decision. This would be one of the final harvests.
I walked through the rows of garden boxes, checking for leaves nibbled by pests and testing the soil moisture. For the dry plants, of which there were many, I summoned tiny rainclouds to water them. The clouds were a step above pathetic, but they got the job done if I concentrated hard enough. I had just enough magic to keep the phalanx of mosquitoes from biting, but they still swarmed.
A small army of teenagers making a few extra dollars were harvesting other herbs by hand, cutting and tying them into bundles. These would go into the drying houses for inspection, processing, and packaging. The inspection was the important part, testing the energy, potency, and spiritual qualities of the plants before they were sold—this was once Granma’s job. Henrietta, Pearl, and Eulalie were doing it now. Pawpaw paid them in herbs and roots, but I suspected their concern for him and enduring love for Granma were the greater motivators.
As I approached the drying house, I could hear Eulalie through the open door, telling bawdy stories about old lovers that made Henrietta guffaw and Pearl chide her good-naturedly. I’d told no one of my vision, and I yearned for their company to put it behind me. But when I stepped inside, the smile died on my face.
Granma stood in their midst, wearing a red dress dotted with tiny white flowers, smiling beatifically at me.
Eulalie looked up from burning sage. “What’s wrong, baby?”
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out. The love shining in Granma’s eyes hit me like an arrow to the chest.
“What do you see?” Henrietta asked knowingly. “Who do you see?”
“Granma,” I whispered.
Pearl gasped. The women looked at each other, then at me.
“Can y’all see her?” I asked them, desperate.
“No,” Henrietta said gently. “But she ain’t here for us.”
They arrayed themselves around me, placing gentle hands on my shoulders and arms.
“I’ve missed you so much,” I said to Granma. “There’s so much I need to talk to you about. Pawpaw and I . . . everything is slipping away . . . . ”
Granma walked toward me. I felt cold, the hairs on my arms lifting. She raised her hand to my face, her fingers hovering near my cheek. Then she moved to the door, motioning for me to come along. She looked out across the fields, her expression worried. I followed her gaze and saw Pawpaw standing near the angelica root. He turned and looked right at us.
“Can he see you too?”
Pawpaw took one step forward, two, three. Then he clutched his chest, his face screwing up tight, and dropped to his knees in the dirt.
“If you don’t go home and get some sleep, you’ll be in here next,” the nurse said.
I sat by Pawpaw’s bedside, watching his chest rise and fall in his sleep. The heart monitor beeped steadily, each ping a reminder of how close I’d come to losing him. The harsh fluorescent lights cast shadows across his face, and his hands rested limply against the crisp white sheets. He wore a mojo bag around his neck filled with healing herbs, made by Miss Eulalie. I trusted it as much as the meds the doctors had given him.
“He’s an old man, isn’t he?” I said.
The nurse squeezed my shoulder and handed me a cup of water. I drank it, more to ease the tightness in my throat than from thirst. My face was tight from the salt of dried tears. I kissed Pawpaw’s forehead and whispered, “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
His face looked peaceful. It enraged me that it’d taken a goddamn heart attack for my poor grandfather to finally get some rest.
Restless, I drove around town for a while before an impulse became a conviction. I stopped at the farmhouse and got Mama’s urn then headed to our cemetery. Pale moonlight filtered through the old oaks and pines, illuminating weathered headstones and patches of herbs growing among the graves. Here was where we grew our family stores of magical herbs, close to the bones of our loved ones. I walked to Granma’s grave, an empty space next to it clearly meant for Pawpaw. A shudder traveled through my body.
I stroked Granma’s polished headstone. Underneath her name, life dates, and 1 Corinthians 15:55 was the recipe for her famous caramel cake, the one she’d refused to share in life. At the end it said, “Hope y’all happy now. Love, Thelma.”
Screams erupted around me—wild, guttural, strangled keening. It took my brain a minute to process that they were coming from me.
My throat raw and nose running, I ripped the lid off Mama’s urn. “You don’t deserve this, but maybe this will make you leave me the hell alone.”
I dumped her ashes beside Granma. Guilt over not waiting for Pawpaw pecked me with a sharp beak but I ignored it. When the urn was empty, I flung it away from me. It sailed through the air and hit a tree festooned with Spanish moss with a metallic thunk.
Spent from rage and despair, I sank to the ground. Suddenly, the humid air grew colder by several degrees. Two bare brown feet appeared before me. My gaze traveled up a gray homespun dress before settling on a delicately pretty face topped with a red headscarf.
Verlean.
I reached out to touch her but of course my hand passed through her, as if through mist.
“Can you help me?” I pleaded. “Can you wake the land up again?”
She shook her head no, pointed at me.
I punched the grass. “My magic is dying, just like our land. I can’t do anything!”
Verlean licked her lips, looked over my shoulder. Granma stood behind me. And beside her was Mama.
“What the hell do you want?” I snarled. “You started this in the first place. This is all your fault!”
To my undying shock, Mama nodded. But I’m here now, she mouthed.
Tears sprang to my eyes again, unbidden. “It’s too late. Pawpaw is selling. We’re gonna lose everything.”
Verlean knelt, her hand hovering over the grass covering Granma’s grave and Mama’s ashes. Her eyes bore into mine, and snatches from my vision of her placing her palms on the ground and the land bursting to life flitted through my mind. Verlean nodded, like she could see the memories. Granma and Mama stood on my left and right, their palms raised upward.
Tentatively, I placed my hands on the soil, my fingers sinking into it, dirt collecting under my nails.
And then I felt it—the power.
It surged up through my palms, a crackling force vibrating through my bones. Magic coursed through my veins; I could actually see tributaries of gold, pink, and green light up underneath my skin. The herbs and roots around the graves began to writhe, twisting and spiraling as if alive, pushing through the ground with a ferocious urgency. Leaves unfurled in seconds, stems thickening and blooming at an unnatural speed. The ancient oaks groaned as their roots stirred beneath the earth, intertwining with the growing plants. A variety of scents warred for supremacy—woody, floral, spicy, sweet—with the earthy smell of humus underneath. I spun around, laughing like a madwoman as a veritable Eden emerged in the cemetery. I ran from tree to tree, touching the bark and watching flowers bloom from nowhere under my fingertips. Everywhere I touched, flowers, herbs, and green plants sprang to life. The light in my blood faded but I could still feel the magic thrumming through me. Never in my life had it felt so strong, so present. I was nearly overwhelmed.
Verlean and Granma watched me, smiling wide. Mama stood a little apart, her lips pressed together in a tight line, her expression much more subdued.
“Thank you,” I told her.
She gave me a small nod of encouragement, her arms wrapped around herself.
Four generations rooted in the dirt, three on one side of eternity, one on the other. I gave them one last glance before heading back to my car. A ping on my phone alerted me to an email—the paperwork was done and ready to sign. I almost deleted Cutler’s message, but turning him down in person would be more satisfying.
Back at the farm, the fields bloomed for me as I walked through them, the herbs, plants, and roots doubling, tripling in size. It was yet night, but I lifted my gaze to the fields and farms beyond ours. My palms itched with power.
I had a lot to do.
hear me out please my home has grown into gunfire
the bullet is going round again on the news my people dangle
between nightmares between mouthfuls of regrets in search
of quiet in another headline a child left home . . .
hear me out please my home has grown into gunfire
the bullet is going round again on the news my people dangle
between nightmares between mouthfuls of regrets in search
of quiet in another headline a child left home for school and
returned to his parents wiped into nothingness as if by the hand of
God & the community remained quiet like an explosive at rest
on reading the news i misplace my tongue i do not know where
to start mourning this country of ghosts this cemetery three
shadows short to be called a night so i begin from my mother’s
waist tie where she wraps our family ruin into safety
i begin from the news where an entire generation was burnt into ashes
& the ashes burnt into ashes & the ashes into the ashes of burnt things
i begin from my street that has now become a Qibla where the kunfayakun
of bullets manifest i begin with my bare shadow mourning alongside me
i begin from the voices of the Chibok girls in interviews when asked how it
feels to be home again from their accents i can tell the number of times they wish
to break alongside the night i feel the loneliness in their voices
the void wearing their faces like skins the therapy they will not get
i know what it means to be plucked unripe two winters away from
blossoming hear me out please my country has grown into gunfire
earlier today a fight broke between students and some gangsters
PINKERTON HOT SPRINGS5
Even though this land was Ute territory, the upper Animas River Valley was first settled by prospectors in the spring of 1860. Charles Baker, returning from the mines north of Silverton, established “Old Animas City” and built the first bridge across the Animas River. The community lasted less than a year before it was abandoned. During . . .
PINKERTON HOT SPRINGS5
Even though this land was Ute territory, the upper Animas River Valley was first settled by prospectors in the spring of 1860. Charles Baker, returning from the mines north of Silverton, established “Old Animas City” and built the first bridge across the Animas River. The community lasted less than a year before it was abandoned. During the summer of 1875, James Harvey Pinkerton settled in the area now known as Pinkerton Hot Springs. He raised dairy cows with his wife, three sons, and four daughters. Throughout the year they produced and sold dairy products in mining camps in the San Juan Mountains. In the spring of 1876 they sold 116 pounds of butter for a dollar a pound to the miners north of Silverton.
THE HOT SPRING POST-PINKERTON
Even though, the community abandoned the land. Even though, the cows and prospectors produced and sold the mountains. Even though, Charles Baker lasted less than a summer in the Valley and produced no wife. Even though, the butter fattened the sons on all the miners’ daughters. Even though a dollar couldn’t settle the spring and the area known as the River of lost mining camps pounded the bridge until it broke and fell through. Even though, Pinkerton took his wife and his 116 cows to the fat river and drowned. Even though, the north blew in 1876 snowstorms and blew out 1875 hot summers. Even though, the community abandoned the land and abandoned the land and abandoned the land. Even though, this territory was first and now Ute land. Even now, this old, old land. Even now.
5. Text of a historical marker erected near Durango in La Plata County, Colorado by the Colorado Department of Transportation—San Juan Skyway
WOLF POINT4
The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by here, westward bound, in May 1805. Fur trappers and traders followed them a few years later. Steamboats began making it from St. Louis up the Missouri as far as Fort Benton in the early 1860s. Wolf Point was the halfway point between Bismarck and Fort Benton. Wood choppers supplied cord wood for boats stopping . . .
WOLF POINT4
The Lewis and Clark Expedition passed by here, westward bound, in May 1805. Fur trappers and traders followed them a few years later. Steamboats began making it from St. Louis up the Missouri as far as Fort Benton in the early 1860s. Wolf Point was the halfway point between Bismarck and Fort Benton. Wood choppers supplied cord wood for boats stopping to refuel. The American Fur Company packet Chippewa blew up and sank not far from here in 1861. A deck hand tapped a barrel of alcohol by candle light. The fumes, the candle and the 25 kegs of black powder did the rest. Fortunately, no lives were lost in the disaster.
Wolf Point originated as a sub-agency and trading post for the Fort Peck Reservation in 1879. The place was named when trappers killed several hundred wolves one winter and stacked their frozen carcasses next to the river, where they were observed by men heading upriver on a steamboat. The name Wolf Point stuck and no one there has been bothered by a wolf at the door since then.
POINT WOLF
Several hundred wolves traded songs one winter, harmonizing upriver under frozen black fumes. The river was a halfway point between men and lives lost, steamboats stacked like carcasses upon each other. The 25 remaining fur trappers and traders followed the wolves to a place named woods, for that is what they were and there was no bother to name things anymore. The men carried candles in their hands to refuel the fires the wolves had kept burning for them. Lewis and Clark slicked like strange words on their tongues, when the wolves asked for the sub-agency responsible for the westward disaster. The trappers stuck out their palms for the wolves to lick the keg powder off. No one returned to the Company. No one supplied the Fort. Fortunately, the river stuck its course and soon the whole Point traded light for depth. The wolves barreled around the last standing door, observing the original agreement to which they were bound to sing the early years backwards. The men sunk to their knees and no one has bothered the wolves since then.
4. Text of a historical marker erected at Wolf Point, Roosevelt County, Montana by the Montana Department of Transportation
Akka left for the war. She didn’t come back, not right away.
For a while, we thought that our mother might go, since she was the marine biologist, but Akka was a pilot, an astronaut in training.
The monsters had come from the sea, and we had to take the fight to the deep dark waters, so alike and yet so different from the vast quiet and emptiness of space. Deep pressure . . .
Akka left for the war. She didn’t come back, not right away.
For a while, we thought that our mother might go, since she was the marine biologist, but Akka was a pilot, an astronaut in training.
The monsters had come from the sea, and we had to take the fight to the deep dark waters, so alike and yet so different from the vast quiet and emptiness of space. Deep pressure versus near vacuum, 2 degrees Celsius versus 2 Kelvin, the occasional strange fish versus asteroids, 11 kilometers to the bottom versus 384,000 kilometers to the moon.
There was no longer a space program, and Akka was an astronaut without a job.
I remember her telling me she would come back different, that she would be able to go underwater, to fight the sea monsters that had driven us away from our island, from our shores. The monsters kept my mother from her work of studying life in the sea. (How can one be a marine biologist when it was too dangerous to be near the ocean?)
The war left my father looking exhausted and worried about how he would be able to care for us. Because Akka went to war, my father didn’t have to go. He and my mother could stay with us, and we could work the land to grow food, far away from the water’s edge. My father and Akka both found this darkly hilarious, since our family were farmers and fisherfolk for generations, and they had both tried their level best to not be either. The irony of my father marrying a marine biologist who fishes for knowledge had not been lost on them, either.
When Akka told me she was going, I was afraid. I sat in the circle of her arms, in her lap, my head leaning against her chest, hearing her heartbeat, the blood moving, back and forth, like when you float in the ocean, and you can hear the water moving across the sand. I loved to listen to her heartbeat, saying in the ‘thumpa-thump,’ “I love you.”
“But Akka, you hate the ocean.” Unlike her, I loved the ocean, the seashore. I missed our house, long gone and washed away in the first attack.
Akka always responded with a laugh. “Bachi, I don’t hate the ocean. I’m not fond of what’s in the ocean.” This was reassuring, as she used to say that before the sea monsters came.
Akka hated fish. Indeed, she didn’t just loathe them, she was actively afraid, phobic. Not the water, not the dark, the cold, the depths, but the actual fish. I didn’t understand, remembering how she’d feed me sashimi, nigiri, her hands holding the chopsticks, gently dipping the sashimi in soy sauce, placing the fatty goodness of the salmon in my mouth, or feeding me bits of ginger—so strong for my child’s taste buds.
She’d joke, “Fish is best served on beds of white rice, beloved,” while eating the sushi, our mouths happy, our minds quiet.
“But Akka, you hate the fish. They scare you,” I said again, still not sure why she was doing this.
“I’ll use the hate to fight the sea monsters,” she told me, and then she went away.
When she first came back, she was so different. She still held me and my sister, her arms still strong and lean, though she had to be careful now; her skin felt more like that of the salmon or trout we loved to eat.
“Can you feel this, Akka?” I’d ask, touching her new skin, dark, darker than my own skin, darker even than hers had been. I couldn’t see her tattoos anymore, her new skin obliterating those colorful mementos.
Akka, who loved Ganesh, who loved spacecraft and wolves and robots and stars and galaxies, who had sat for hours of pain to have them tattooed on her body, had let them take those away. For this new skin, she had sat for even more hours, in even more pain, to come back to us, skin darker, rougher, with luminous spots that showed up under dark light, scales like the salmon we loved, slits against the sides of her throat to help her filter oxygen out of water. I couldn’t see her eyes anymore, changed as they were, with extra eyelids, protecting her from the cold, from the pressure, from the sea monsters.
“I can, beloved,” she said, “I can feel you, and even if I couldn’t feel your hand, I feel you here—always” touching where her heart used to be.
I didn’t know, until so much later, how even her insides had been changed, moved, enhanced by the military surgeons with genetic surgery and biometal implants, so she could survive under the water, breathe, exist, live under the depths, under the pressure, in the dark, in the cold, and even down past where there were no fish at all, where the sea monsters came from.
But I remembered, from before she left, what it was like to be held in my aunt’s arms, hearing her heartbeat, over and over, saying in the ‘thumpa-thump,’ “I love you.”
Now when she told me, “I love you,” I found it hard to believe the words, because I couldn’t see her eyes, and I couldn’t hear her heart. My little sister was terrified, and refused to come near our Akka, though she, too, loved our aunt dearly.
My father and Akka were talking, thinking I couldn’t hear.
“It’s okay,” she said.
My father said again, “They love you, you know that. The little one is afraid of what has changed.”
Akka responded, “She’s not the only one, brother.”
He hugged her, heedless of the scales, of the gills, of her hidden eyes, her lost tattoos, the webbed skin on her hands and feet.
I was looking at the picture of Akka the way she used to be. She stood, eyes crinkled against the sun, sideways smirk showing her joy, wearing her flight suit and leaning against her fighter plane. Her long hair in pigtails, one hand draped over the fuselage, another holding her helmet. She hadn’t looked that happy since the sea monsters came, and her fighter plane had been destroyed. She would have flown more of them against the sea monsters, but the military had other ideas. As soon as the first few attacks occurred, they started pulling the best pilots and fighters for this other mission. There was to be no space program until we knew we could survive on our home planet. The planes were useless—the sea monsters were invulnerable to everything short of a nuclear blast, which would also leave the cities and waters contaminated.
“Akka,” I said, “you were afraid of fish. Now you are one.”
She smiled, careful with her mouth, her closed smile hiding her sharp teeth, nictitating membranes covering her eyes. “I am still afraid of fish, beloved. But I want to stop the sea monsters more.”
My Akka’s pigtails, her bright eyes, her soft brown skin were all gone, even as her heartbeat was gone. The wicked grin was barely all that was left, and she was hiding that from me.
“I love you,” I said, even though my little sister refused to come and say goodbye, still terrified of what had come to visit us.
“Not Akka,” she cried. I wanted to smack her, but my mother and father and Akka all said it was okay, that she didn’t know, that she was too little.
In these times, old traditions came back, and my father, mother, and I said goodbye and touched her feet, now webbed, covered in fine scales. She stood, awkward, her gills working even without having any water surrounding them. Her webbed hand gently touched the top of my head, bringing me back upright.
Then Akka left; forever, I thought.
It took years for the war to end. We’d catch glimpses of Akka and the other pilots on videos, and my sister and I would cheer as we’d see the swift, darting movements of the ocean-going fighters and know our aunt was amongst them. Sometimes, there were body camera videos, and we could see Akka clearly in the water with her team. Sometimes, battle videos would leak out, and we’d scan them, frantic to see if our Akka was there. Our parents weren’t keen on us watching the battles themselves, but once we had access to the internet, it was hard for them to stop us.
We noticed that a note would always reach my father or mother just before we’d find those videos, letting them know she was alive and mostly safe. None of us wanted to see a video where we saw any of the fighters die, though we knew many of them did. We only wanted to watch the sea monsters be destroyed. It was no consolation for my mother, who had discovered that they were not actually aliens, but something mutated from the polar ice melt, letting an ancient virus mingle with the strange soup we’d left after industrializing the surface of the planet, creating deep sea monsters that wanted to come up on land.
There were times that my little sister and I would play games, where I’d be a sea monster, and my little sister would play one of the deep ocean fighters. I tried hard not to remind her she never said goodbye to our Akka, but I think she remembered. Her stories about how brave and amazing and perfect our Akka was, fighting the sea monsters to keep us safe, would be glorious. These games would end with me, flat on the ground, quivering in my death or defeat. Sometimes, we’d convince our father to play the sea monster, and all of us would end up on the floor, giggling and tickling him as he’d hold us tight, telling us how proud our Akka would be, to know we were thinking of her, grateful for her bravery.
There were news interviews with our Akka, or other deep ocean fighters. My little sister and I would watch together, curled up on the couch, held between our parents’ arms. Every interview, without fail, she’d look straight at the camera, even though we couldn’t see her eyes behind their glossy protective eyelids, and tell the world she missed her family, how her nieces meant the entire universe to her and she hoped to be home soon.
The war finally ended.
Someone, something came back, after the sea monsters were destroyed. We used atomics after all. Akka and others like her dove deep below where the sea monsters bred, planting small atomics in the nurseries, bigger ones in the adults, only sometimes escaping before the blasts destroyed the ocean floor. Akka swam like she flew: fast, precise, accurate in her bomb placement, in her escape routes.
The military escort told me: this was my aunt, she was a hero, and she was home to rest. It was hard to tell. She’d changed even more, her skin and body now designed for the deep ocean, where normally the pressure of the sea would have crushed anything else. It had taken days for her to come up from the depths, having to adjust to the lower pressure out of the water, a little like how astronauts had to adapt back to the pull of gravity.
Our mother went back to work on the ocean, trying to figure out what had changed, whether our seas would come back from the deep wounds left by the monsters, by us fighting them. Father continued growing food—continuing that tradition he and Akka had tried to escape. Akka came back to us, but she didn’t talk to me anymore. To be fair, she didn’t really talk to anyone anymore, except to Mother.
I think she was afraid for us, her body now designed for deep sea battle. Afraid because of what she’d done under the water. More than a decade had gone by, where she had fought, dove, and killed sea monsters. l was sixteen, an adult almost, but I remembered her so clearly, even without my pictures of her, her pigtails and pilot’s uniform, her wicked grin and gentle love.
I tried to talk to her, but I think she still saw me as the small, frightened six year old child she loved so much that she gave up her heart, her dreams, even her relationship with her family, to keep me and my little sister safe.
My little sister asked my Akka if she could take off her dark, glowing, scaly skin.
“I’m not sure,” she admitted.
But I remembered her, as did my little sister. The way she was.
Before the sea monsters. Before the suit that became her new body. Before she lost, killed, swam away from her dreams of outer space.
Years after the sea monsters were destroyed, there was talk about renewing the space program. The news came one day that they were looking for trainees again, for new young pilots to restart our climb into space. My little sister called to tell us she’d been accepted.
After that call, I found Akka in the cove by the beach, laying in a shallow pool, completely under water, letting the tide push her back and forth. Her gills moved, involuntarily.
She couldn’t even control it like I could control my breathing.
I sat in the shallow water with her. Her scales were soft, and I pulled her into my lap, holding her, like she used to hold me when I was much smaller. It was hard to sit there, with the sand and stone moving under me as the waves lapped up and down, the same movement of her body floating above me.
Akka had told me, a long time ago, how her father, my grandfather, would swim out past the breakers, and she and her brother would swim with him. How my grandfather would float, and they would play, swim, dive around him, coming to hang onto him like a raft when they were tired. My grandfather liked the sound of the ocean in his ears while he floated.
“Akka, please, let’s swim out past the breakers.”
We swam. She stayed under the water, while I stayed on top. We floated out there, with her facing down into the sea, because looking up at the sky hurt too much. I slid under her, floating, holding her onto my chest like she had done with me, when I was smaller, and she hadn’t yet gone to war.
“I always feel safe with you, Akka,” I said, gently running my hands along her scaled shoulders and arms, so hard, so strong.
“Sometimes, I don’t feel like I’m safe for you,” she replied.
I couldn’t say anything to that. I didn’t have anything to say for that. I didn’t believe she would hurt me, even with her body all scaled and hard, even with her organs moved, her hair gone, even with her eyes hidden. I kept running my hands gently along her skin, knowing the right direction to stroke, how to read which edges would be sharp, and which would lay soft for me to touch. I didn’t want to tell her that it would be okay, because it wouldn’t, it couldn’t. She couldn’t take off this skin and there was no going back to that picture from decades earlier.
Her head lay on my chest, my arms were holding her, and we were just floating. The ocean moved under us, the sound of the sand moving distantly below us, behind us by the shore and I could hear it. We lay there for a long time.
Finally, she said, “I can hear your heartbeat.”
“Thumpa-thump means I love you, Akka.” I laughed, still remembering, after years and distance and change and loss.
She smiled against my skin. “I love you too, beloved,”
We floated like that for a long time again, and I said, “Thank you, Akka.”
I felt her go very still against me. I hugged her tighter, her skin so much softer in salt water. She hugged me back.
