Chapter 3: Outer Layer

The poster on the wall announced STAG in big capital letters. Outside, rain fell. Inside, candles flickered. The air stank of burnt coffee, cigarette smoke, and spirits.

De'afi Kota-Kyah-Osi-Ori-De'ali banged hir porcelain cup of lemon beer on the bartop. Goldenrod-colored liquid heaved up the sides in a broad spray. Splitter splatter, splitter splatter, sang the droplets. The porcelain cup said nothing because porcelain is famously non-talkative.

Ze missed the ark where ze grew up. Mati, a small island fat with olive trees and fields of sweet rice. Where the village elders simmered rice in coconut milk to have after the sun went down and fermented it to make wine. They baked flatbread every morning to have with olives, tomato sauce, and cheese made from goat's milk.

Forgetting is the first death, as hir elders liked to say. Ze knew that better than anyone. That's why ze still wore the red and orange beads from hir coming of age ceremony ten years prior, threading the exits of hir long twist braids. In this way, ze remained connected to hir native land. Every time ze saw her reflection, tall with legs that went up forever and skin toned russet brown, ze thought about where ze came from and couldn't help but smile.

Ze wore a brown leather jacket with several pockets and a collar lined in white fur. The merchant who sold it to hir said it belonged to his grandfather who was a royalist soldier during the war. Ze didn't know if that was true, but perhaps it didn't need to be. Sometimes a story could just be that--a story.

And last but not least, the big shiny gold hoops through both earlobes, outer rims studded in glittering silver. Like the priestesses in Mati.

Hir ink wasn't visible in the coat. A snake wound up hir left arm and across hir back. The tattoo kept going to hir right forearm where it stopped in an explosion of whale sharks and swallows. Flowers interlocked by a rope of skinny vine--a family tree, each petal representing another member of hir extended blood and bones--painted hir shoulder blades and back. Hir neck bore a complicated pattern of overlapping scales. The neck tattoo was Shoalian in design, specifically South Shoal. De'afi traveled there for a couple weeks to learn the culture and to help a group of anti-war activists blow up a munitions factory.

South Shoal and North Shoal had been at war on and off since before De'afi was born. The story goes that when the serpent goddesses I'lli and O'lli made love for two hundred days and two hundred nights, their lovemaking split the land into six arks they came to think of as their children. Arcadia, Kat-Ari, Turaq, Shoal, Ladezi, and Eudora in their respective languages. I'lli and O'lli started to fight over which of their children was the strongest. Their fighting became so intense that Shoal, their youngest, tried to get in between and stop them from tearing each other apart. They turned their rage on their youngest child, cutting its head from its body. Wracked by hatred and grief, the serpent goddesses flew off into the sky. I'lli became the sun and O'lli became the moon, never to meet in the sky again. But they would come together every few decades to make love or fight, in what they called an eclipse.

The head--North Shoal-- hated its body for being able to feel and the body--South Shoal--resented its head for being able to think. This caused war between those who lived on South Shoal and North Shoal. People who did not want to fight fled to the heart, what would later be called Mati. Or at least that's how the story went. Nobody really knew why the Shoals started fighting. The war had been going on for hundreds of years and the people who started it were long dead. Which made hir wonder, why even fight if you don't know what you're fighting about?

There was a small room above the bar where De'afi lived. It wasn't much, but it had a bed and a tub where ze could wash. It was better than most places De'afi had lived since leaving Mati. It was traditional for Matese people to travel after their coming of age ceremony. Most came back to the island in a few years. De'afi was twenty-seven and hadn't yet felt the call of homecoming.

Ze spread open hir leather-bound notebook. A complex butterfly of sketches spread out from hir fingertips. The outer layer of All Creation made from knowledge and feeling. There was always something to know. There was always somewhere to go. There was always something to feel.

Ze'd been working on hir flying machine for going on a decade. Only drawings and blueprints for now, but that had never stopped hir before. It was another story De'afi told hirself.