CW: military hardware, guns, misogynistic language, sexualized gaze, sexualized spirituality, kidnapping, nudity, teenage sexual experimentation, involuntary bondage
Reality seems to be a dream I'm slowly waking up from, Lanka. Natalia rubbed her eyes, watching the golden sunshine growing darker and darker as it gets swallowed up by the cold, remorseless valley. A few jets whizzed by her ear, sounding like massive hornets drilling into her ears. Ow ow ow! The entire history of her disappears dust cloud by billowing dust cloud. She did not think that witnessing the destruction of a people would be as casual and plain as it was reading it. But these are useless thoughts now; Natalia murmured to herself, holding the hands of the child soldiers as they skipped down the alleyways, and everyone knows this is now nowhere.
"Nico nico!" the children chant, raising their arms. Nico nico! Natalia ties to chant along, but no sound could come forth from her mouth. All hands on deck. Boots up over barbed wire and anonymous fields of experiments. Come and get it. The airs of forever smell like petroleum. "Mama!" one of them shouts to Natalia, pulling on her shirt, causing the whole carnival to screech halt. "Look!" The horizon is full of towering mushroom clouds, standing tall like infinity trees. "Look!" A wave of dust covers the valley. He pulls out a piece of chocolate-covered quark and hands it to Natalia. "I want you to have it because you're so pretty," he says. Natalia tried to cover the molten side of her face with her hair, before opening up her hand and mouthing with her lips a 'thank you.' Now, do you remember your name? And he thinks for a bit, and he shakes his head, and he takes Natalia's hand, and they all take Natalia's hand and they sing "nico nico,"
And they sing:
Hear her speak, the motherland!
(clap clap clap!)
Hear her sing, sweet motherland!
(clap clap clap!)
We leave the sun's loving embrace, hand in hand,
to step into night's cold, barren no-man's-land.
And who wrote that little song? She grabs their little cheeks, and squeezes them so tight. Who will take care of you? Watch; the sky is turning a billowing black, a hot shroud is all you're heir to. One of the children embraces Natalia's slender leg and lets himself be carried down the street, and he wouldn't let go even though she mouthed to him "let me go let me go let me go!" Now tell me mister, what exactly am I an heir to?
And where were you born? She wondered. The children looked up at Natalia. Were you born here, in this city? The children could not remember. What use does land have for a name under the dazzling, terrifying stars of Nay-toe? "Where are you from, mama?" Natalia could not remember, it seemed a dream from infancy. Perhaps I was born somewhere in the last century. Natalia answered with a empty voice; nothing came forth from her mouth. "What is the past?" one of the children asked. A nightmare we wake up from, she thought. She stuck out her hands and motioned them to follow her towards the square. We are merely called by the name this place gives us. We are of Nay-toe, we are united in fear.
In the middle of the square sat a large piece of unexploded ordinance; a long, shapely rocket had stuck itself into the concrete on a bed of rubble. Around the square stood many monoliths of glass, pointing up towards the sky, bearing jagged teeth. Everything that was not encased in glass had been burned down to black dust. The trees smoldered like large candles. I stood there in the street, holding hands with children, and I thought it all so strange dear Lanka that I couldn't help but laugh. "Nico Nico should be here," a child said. "Nico Nico will come and save us," another child said. "Nico Nico fills up the skies with light," another child said. These were child soldiers guided by the warmth of a maternal hand, guided by the dream of an embrace. Who will take the hands of these orphans of nowhere; who will sew them to the sky?
"Contact!" one of the children shouted. They scattered, running for cover; some of them hid behind the rocket and peeked out over its bent stabilizers. Natalia put her hand on her TT-33, and pushed herself up against the tree-- she grinned, would she really stand a chance against a squadron of liquidators? She pulled on the slide with great effort, grunting and trying to force a bullet into the chamber. Natalia looked through a few burnt crevices in the trees towards the stairs that run up the freeway beyond the square; she saw a few men dressed in flecktarn, with weapons that looked angular and complex like buzzing wasps. Natalia's eyes widened with anger, with fear and anticipation. Stay down, and don't shoot; she stuck her tongue between her teeth and hissed at the children. Three men ran down the stairs and hid behind a few benches encased in glass. While she watched them take positions, sudden bursts of glare irritated her eyes-- she was being watched through a scope by another group of men hidden in the smouldering ruins of a building. She waits for a few moments; she was not dead, so she reckons these must not be liquidators. Natalia hissed again so the children would stay down. She took a few breaths, then walked away from the tree-- she stepped with great caution towards the square with her hands up. The children grit their teeth; one of them yelped at Natalia but would not budge from behind his meagre cover. As Natalia walked further towards the men, she pulled her hair back to show her face; to show them who she was and that she was of value.
One of the men raised his head up from the bench, and raised his fist: "Paco, it's her! Look at her face! Look at her face!" The other two men got up from their position; they were dressed in body armor, with plates of Kevlar stuck to their torsos and their heads covered with helmets. They approached Natalia with their rifles drawn, and their hands shook with palpable nerves. "There are children here!" one of them shouted. "They have weapons. We're surrounded." Behind her, she heard the cocking of rifles-- the men jumped up and raised their rifles, their heads scanning the square for potential heat. "How many!?" one of them shouted. Natalia remained silent. "Can you speak?" One of them asked Natalia. The men hid behind the benches, unsure of how exposed they were. Natalia looked at the windows and saw that many of them suddenly were filled with more child soldiers armed with rifles; they'd too had been waiting for Nico Nico's return.
One of them walked slowly towards Natalia. "Come with us, peacefully. No-one gets hurt." Natalia looked at the face of the man who had shouted at her: his pinkish folds, the drops of sweat falling from his glasses. "Paco! Cover me." The man took Natalia and pressed her up against him, his head sticking up over her own, his STANAG magazines and flashbangs pressing into her sinewy back. The other two men ran up behind us, using us as cover. The man took my TT-33 from the holster and threw it onto the ground, making me powerless. We walked backwards-- I saw the children watch me with anticipation and regret as I was pulled up the stairs. Out from the rocket, one of the children stuck up his head; a shot rang out. I was pushed down on the ground as the men pressed themselves up against the glass walls. I watched as the children ran in every direction, screaming. "Let's go!" he shouted. "Paco, let's go!" Nay-toe is breathing down my neck and he won't let me go.
"We won't hurt you," Groypee said as he pushed Natalia into the armored little sedan. How did they know where I was? Be honest with me, Lanka. Are my movements so predictable? Have I been tagged, visible to everyone? Or maybe everyone's lines carry the same course in the Autonomous Zone. I remember this from mathematika class; so much of a trajectory can be understood by its origin. Because of what I am, I am here. "We won't hurt you, cutie pie. No-way, detka." Groypee said as he sat next to me and held me in his arms as if I was a wild animal to be constrained. The other one, who I assumed was Paco, took the driver's seat. The rest of the men loaded up into a white van, hanging beside each other like fleshy carcasses. I had no more illusions about my own fate, Lanka. Groypee took out his phone and told me to smile. I wanted to feel the comfort of my TT-33 once more. "We caught ourselves a real life loli here," Groypee said. I didn't understand what he meant but I covered the molten side of my face as if I didn't wish to disappoint. I remained silent. "A loli," Paco answered no-one as he turned on the radio and turned into the highway. The speakers started to rattle with deep bass and a constant, repetitive clanging. "A lolicon, a cute little girl that you just want to hug," Groypee added. My realization that I might be of value startled me. "You really can't talk, cutie pie?" Groypee grabbed my face and looked into my mouth. "Stop touching her," Paco grunted. The music on the speakers started to heave with rumbles and mumbling. "Still got your tongue?" Groypee asked. I remained silent, my face crystaline like the glass that covered the highway. "What a shame about all of this," Groypee whispered as he touched the molten side of my face with his gloved fingers. "What a shame about such a beautiful little girl." And I didn't know if he felt pity or envy; I thought about it as I watched the fire of the mountains pass by the windows of our car.
THE TWELFTH THOUGHT OF KALI HICHI:
« "The world as we think of it does not exist. Rather, the world is merely a tool by which we see the world itself. It’s a tool by which we project our actions, our behaviors, our tastes, our entire life onto the world. There’s nothing natural about it. When I see a human being and think of her as slave, or wife, or worker, there is nothing about the world which has made her that way. When I see a stone and think of mineral; when I see a tree and think of paper; when I see the beautiful explosions of bombs and think of atoms—- none of these things have anything to do with the world, and everything to do with me." »
Yelena laid on the sand, still warm from the heat of the day, and watched the explosions in the sky as jet planes roared in the distance. Are these the drifter clouds of atmosphere's grand tragedy, or the afterglow of rocket's red glare? She raised her right hand and formed a face with her fingers: "does it matter?" After a few moments, an overwhelming sluggishness forces her eyes to shut. How long did they have left? She'd made her peace with Christine but something still bothered her. Would the Zone be liquidated, cease to exist, remembered only in online compilations? Did they already shut down all the channels on the messaging apps? Did they still fap to Christine's customs, or did they already move on to newer, fresher images of women? She thought of her mother, and she thought of school, and she thought of how she misses driving around in her pizza-reeking delivery car. She was stuck here in a tiny corner of the world, feeling as if she was sinking into something dark and deep. She felt like a triple text unseen, a loose end in abstraction. She raised her right hand: "fuck you."
A shadow creeps across the sand. The heat of flames had left Yelena's cheeks, and she opened her eyes to see Little King standing before her. He looked as if a sportswear store had been exhumed by an excavation. His neon-green windbreaker was covered in ash, and his sneakers were sooty and caked with grime. Sweat dripped from his glasses. A key hung from a chain 'round his neck. Yelena started to laugh. "I'm tired of getting abducted," Yelena said. "I'm not moving anymore," she added. Little King didn't say anything; he took out his phone and showed Yelena a picture of Natalia. Above Natalia's face, a little cartoon dog sat sleeping on her hair. It had already thirty-three-thousand likes. Yelena sat up in alarm; "how did you find her?" Little King smiled, and spoke softly: "we have Nico Nico's phone, and her close friend's circle is very excited about your girl." Yelena's face softened up, her eyes falling; "I really owe you for that. You can abduct me again, I guess. Maybe that makes us even." Yelena suddenly felt cold, and she rubbed her hands together: "she can't even speak, you know. No tongue, she's got no tongue. I just call her Natalia. I don't even know her real name." Yelena looked up at Samuel; "where is she?" Little King got down on his knees, closer towards Yelena.
"Eia, eia, eia..." Little King said. Yelena sat up, her arms behind her. The dirt felt comforting in its base feeling, grime soaking 'tween her fingers. "I wanted this all to be something for us, Yelena." Samuel seemed so small to her, like his water was all squeezed out 'n fucked, now a dessicated form. "To be an island of virtue and remake ourselves in the image we chose; we wanted to give ourselves a new name, a new body." The rocket that sat poking into the stars had now begun to rise, growing ever more and more erect. "How does it go? Hard times make strong men? I think you understand; you most of all. Every woman wants to create paradise with herself, and gets frustrated at the world when she can't." Yelena shut her eyes, then opened them up again with a fierce twitch on the side of her left eye; "you're just an angry child playing in a big big sandbox. Don't confuse it with the real world, Samuel."
Little King stood up, removing his sunglasses with a temperate motion of his wrists which seemed so alien to Yelena. His eyes were black like a tar pit. A few chirps came from his pocket, he took out his phone and his fingers danced on the screen. "You're coming with me. You're coming with me, or you will die. I cannot let that happen so you're coming with me." Yelena felt a strange but pleasant relief; no more words, only the mere reality of a body at someone's command. There's honesty in violence and it never hides behind a beautiful face. She felt weak; hungry and weak. Yelena stood up and simply nodded. She followed Little King to her fate.
The interior of the tower was full of bright dust, and the light shining from the space above them illuminated it and made it all seem like she was being abducted by some beautiful UFO. The walls had a spiral staircase but an old fashioned cargo elevator sat in the middle, with big ugly hydraulics and hazard yellow control panels. Little King stepped onto the embossed metal platform and pointed at the panel; "you'll have to read it for me," he bellowed. Yelena joined him; she wiped away the dust from the control panel mounted onto the platform, and pressed a button that read "vverkh." The platform first shook, roused uneasily from sleep, then jumped into motion towards the top of the tower. Little King nodded and covered his eyes with his sunglasses; his silence terrified her.
The top of the tower was so bright, so unbearably bright; Yelena had to cover her eyes with her hands as the platform came to a stop. She let small fragments come steadily through her fingers-- the walls were covered in computer monitors, switches and consoles, grand maps made of buzzers and bulbs, "napravlyeniya" and "sryedstva," and there were a multitude of seats and carpets lined the floor and there were plants and ... "what the fuck is this place?" Yelena yelped. Little King grabbed her wrist and took her through the door out to the metal walkway at the top of the tower. From here, they could see the entire Zone lit up with fires, boiling with smoke and dust. Nay-toe's kingdom alit like an ember; 'Nay-toe takes, Nay-toe gives.' The sky was colored like a rotting strawberry.
"Everything is to be liquidated. NATO orders. Everything is to be as if it never existed. Do you understand?" Little Samuel sez; his bluster and warmth had given way to something remote, foreboding like a distant and unknown planet. "Old names, old identities, whatever body or form these things denote; they can no longer exist and now they can float in freedom. Terrible, terrible freedom." Little Samuel took off his sunglasses and looked at Yelena. She saw his leaden face, his blackened eyes; she felt she might drown. "No!" she shouted. She ran back into the control room and put a chair between herself and Little Samuel. "No! No! No!" but what could it mean? "No," and it doesn't mean anything here. Little Samuel kicked away the chair and wrestled Yelena down onto the carpet, thousands of fibers pressing into her body like daggers. "No," she wept. He felt heavy. She looked away from him; she refused to meet his gaze and it was the only refusal she could muster as his breath burned her neck. No. No, no no.
Little King grabbed her wrist, pressed himself up against her body; his face was wet with tears as she struggled beneath him. "I love you, Yelena." She shook her head violently, dull thuds as her skull hit the carpet. "I love you and you can complete me. You can fix what is deficient within me. We can have such beautiful, tall children, with want of nothing else. We can fix everything together, make the world anew. We--" his frantic talkin' was interrupted by the sudden movement of the platform, which made Little King jump onto his feet. Yelena turned onto her stomach, wiping away his tears from her face. She felt cold. Little King sucked on his vape and fixed his hair.
The platform returned back to the top with Paco and Groypee both standing beside Natalia, and they were holding her arms as if she was a stray animal with clipped wings. They dragged Natalia to a couch and released her. They watched her for a few minutes. Natalia said nothing; her eyes watched back. "Why doesn't she talk?" Paco asked. Yelena got up from the carpet, rubbing the reddened parts of her wrists. "She doesn't have a tongue," Yelena answered. Groypee shook his head. "She has a tongue." He grabbed her face. "And I bet she understands English just fine." Natalia sat rigid, like a doll. "Let her go, Groypee," Paco intoned. Groypee looked back at Paco, he released his grip and rubbed the sweat away from his forehead as he turned to face Little King. "And what now?" Groypee asked. Little King was watching the control panel as he sucked on his vape, trying to make sense of the flickering bulbs and switches that seemed like fireworks to him. "Now? With our Mahimata here, we can begin the final stage of the plan. We can accomplish what we'd set out to do." Yelena watched Paco's face grow stiff; she sat next to Natalia and she embraced her. She felt such relief that Natalia did not reject her, and she covered Natalia's face.
"Are you sure about this, Samuel?" Paco asked. Little King didn't respond nor turn to face him. Groypee looked at Paco, looked at Little King, his worries hot and heavy... it must be the doubt a pawn feels as he is thrust towards the enemy, oblivious to the plan that dictates his movements. Yelena felt Natalia squeezing her; "uspekoysya," she whispered. "We don't even know if these missiles still work," Paco answering himself after a few minutes of silence. "And we don't--" but Little King interrupted Paco with anger; "leave us alone! Go bother someone else!" Little King's would not meet Paco's gaze. Groypee's face turned sour like a child caught in the middle of his parents and he walked onto the platform. "Paco, let's go. Let's bounce, bro," Groypee sez. Paco looked at Yelena and Natalia; concern appeared on his face but it blew away quick, so quick... he joined Groypee on the platform and motioned Natalia towards him so she could press "vnjis," they disappeared into the darkness.
"Hard times create strong men, and strong men create good times. But good times create weak men and weak men create hard times;" Little King muttered to himself. "Cliché bullshit." He turned away from the consoles and walked up to the couch before Yelena and Natalia. He crouches down and grabs Natalia's hand, he moved away her hair and studied the wounds on her face. He removed his sunglasses. He reached into his pockets and pulled out a piece of chocolate-covered quark. He gave it to Natalia and Natalia gobbled it up and Yelena had never seen such joy and pleasure before-- her teeth press into the confection slowly, her eyes softened, her cheeks were returned their rightful color. "She will be our daughter," Little King muttered. He rubbed Natalia's hands and then turned to Yelena. "My Mahimata..." Little King sez. "Come with me, help me find the right switches. It's almost time." He looked at Natalia and kissed her on the forehead. "It's almost time; we will take the underground train and escape to the bunker site at Chelyabinsk."
Yelena walked up to the consoles and sat down on the seat Little King brought up behind her. The colors of the switches, flickering seemingly at random, seemed like a nightmare. She felt the ancient plastic under her fingertips; it felt as if an incredible, infernal demon was resting just beneath the surface. Is this Nay-toe's will? Little King came up beside her with a piece of paper filled with numbers. "Yelena... these are the coordinates of NATO bases in the Zone. I want you to enter them into the computer and then initiate the launch sequence." Yelena took the paper into her own hands and read the two-dozen lines of coordinates; Little King was lying-- he could not know of such things and the numbers didn't make any sense. She pressed a button that read "entry" under a panel titled "directions." Dozens of rows of switches lit up, and the keyboard whirred with anticipation. Her fingers went for the very first number-- Little King grabbed her hand; "please, don't give me a reason to hurt you," his voice sullen and apologetic. Yelena withdrew her fingers; she looked at the list again, then typed in the first row of numbers. She pressed the button that read "entry" once more, the console whirred and the printer spat out numbers and the screens flickered. She repeated the process; she repeated the process over and over again. Natalia watched over Yelena's shoulder, both fascinated and frightened by the machines that surrounded them. Little King looked at the lights change on the map and sucked on his vape.
Yelena had finished her entry and pressed the launch readiness button. Under her feet, she could feel the ground whir. Little King watched from the metal walkway as countless bottomless holes in the soil cracked open, as if the Earth herself was complicit. He sucked on his vape. The explosions grew closer. Let them liquidate whatever they want, the Zone is not a place but an ideal. Yelena rose from her seat, took Natalia by the hand, and confronted Little King on the metal walkway. She was too exhausted to feel fear. "You owe me an explanation," she spat. "You owe me the truth because that's supposedly why you're doing all of this. You want me to be your bride but you hide from me. You're a liar." Little King removed his sunglasses and sucked on his vape, he did not meet Yelena's gaze. "I'm fulfilling NATO's will, Yelenochka. To live not by material or physical boundaries, but to live purely by desire. And that means we destroy everything that binds us, that controls us; destroy everything that prevents us from seeing each other for what we really are. Only then can life freely circulate again."
Yelena released Natalia's hand and cracked her knuckles. She punched Little King as hard as she could. Natalia leaped back in surprise; she didn't think the princess had it in her. Little King touched his cheek, he turned his head to meet her gaze. "Who do you think you are?" Yelena shouted. "You think you know Nay-toe's will? You think you're special? You think you're a big and powerful man? You're fucking nothing. You're fucking nothing and I can fucking kill you if I wanted to. You're a retard. You're a faggot." Little King laughed, laughed for a while. He sucked on his vape, then he took Yelena by her arms and forced her onto the couch. Natalia watched but did nothing; she did not understand them, understand the fury between them. She watched, then looked away. "Go ahead!" Yelena spat as Little King pressed her face into the couch and pulled up her frock. "You're not man enough to rape me, Samuel!" Yelena shouted. Little King undid his trackpants and tied her wrists to her back with its string. She looked back at him from the couch as he grabbed her waist. She looked back at him; his face was tense, wet, full of terror. Little King grabbed his penis from his pants and stroked it. He could not get hard.
Yelena writhed on the couch trying to cover herself up with her frock; she rolled onto her back, her hair covering her face. She looked at Natalia on the metal walkway; Natalia looked at the missiles rising from the holes in the Earth. She laughed. "You really are a faggot," she spat at Little King. Little King put away his penis and held onto his trackpants as he walked to the console. "Which one says 'launch?'" Little King bellowed. Yelena laughed; "pyedyik, kazyol," she said between giggles. Little King ran to her and squeezed her neck with his hands which made his trackpants fall back down onto the ground. She did not fear him. She laughed even though breathing became more difficult and more difficult and... she felt herself choke; she coughed. "You," she coughed, "are so..." she feels herself growing faint. Little King let go of her neck. Yelena gasped loudly, her throat rattling as she greedily sucked in air. Little King walked back to the console, his trackpants dragging behind him. He looked down at the console. He took the key hanging from round his neck and inserted it into the unoccupied key slot then turned. All the lights of the console flashed then dimmed, with the exception of one small button right under a few switches which blinked with horny eagerness. Little King hesitated for a few seconds then pressed the button.
Natalia stood on the metal walkway and watched the missiles shake and whir then fall dead. Several rose up a few meters then clattered back down into the hole which caused gigantic plumes of smoke and shrapnel to ejaculate forth. She thought it terribly amusing; she started to laugh, laugh more and more. She started to choke on her own giggles. One missile managed to rise from the hole-- her laughter turned to astonishment; how beautiful they could be, cutting through the air, hellfire spewing forth from their tails. The missile rose up high and high into the sky, shook and clattered, then disintegrated into glowing, beautiful dust as it burned up into one big fireball. A large flash-- a deafening boom that made the walkway beneath her shake. The sky was for an instant completely illuminated. Natalia covered her eyes. The air smelled strange. A powerful wind took the dust and covered the Zone in rain, in dust and shrapnel. No-other missile had managed to leave its burrow. Natalia returned inside.
Little King stood before the console which emitted a faint buzzer. The map was now completely devoid of light. The printer had jammed. He walked onto the metal walkway beside Natalia, watching the landscape in his underwear, and saw that radioactive dust had begun to cover the Zone. Alright. Instead of detonating, the missile had impotently disintegrated, polluting the Earth with nuclear material. He reckons it's a real environmental disaster. The UN would probably have to step in. Trillions of dollars would have to go into the clean-up effort. Little King stood there at the edge, holding the railing. "Huh," he muttered. "I expected more." Natalia came up to him, her face demanding an answer. Little King didn't meet her gaze; "probably will make the Zone inhabitable for a few thousand years. Isn't that crazy?" Natalia thought about it for a few seconds, then pushed Little King off with a full sprint and a shove. He made no sound as he fell down and hit the rocks below, beside the splattering and the dull thud of his flesh. It was her first kill; she returned back inside.
Yelena looked at Natalia; the tower was quiet. "Did you?" she asked already knowing the answer from the look on her face. Natalia undid the string holding Yelena's wrists. Natalia put down Yelena's frock over her legs and pulled her up. Natalia looked down at her, as a mother would look at her child; Yelena felt her deep sorrow for her lost home, the damage that had been done to it, and she felt her need to hold someone. Yelena embraced Natalia, kissed her head, patted her back; Natalia started to weep silently, covering Yelena's frock in hot tears. "I'm sorry," Yelena whispered. "I'm sorry," Natalia squeezed her tightly, rubbing her face onto her. "I'm sorry that I assumed you didn't speak English." They held each other as the rain grew louder and louder, so loud they heard nothing but its pattering as it hit the glass.