cw: mentions of death and violence
Chapter 13: Forever and Always Yours,
Sadie Crane didn't watch a lot of plays. They liked plays well enough, but there were no theaters in Alcoast or the surrounding settlements. Guess that made sense. Not a lot of theater folks out this-away. But Perant had two. One outer skirts, other near Sparrow and Finch University.
They got to see "Miserable People" way back when, maybe a few weeks off graduation. Packed theater, all students.
Hope is the thing with broken wings, E'san the Midwife said in Act I.
Hope is the thing with broken wings. Black Sparrow said that once. She made it profound. But it was just a quote from some stupid play written by some stupid guys a hundred stupid years ago. Figures.
They lived off that play for two whole weeks of university. Wrote to the Public Opinions section of the student magazine, a hostile back and forth with other students. Nobody understood that play like Sadie Crane did, nobody knew what it was about or why it mattered. The student magazine entertained this for weeks on end, until it wasn't funny anymore. They stopped publishing Sadie Crane's letters, the fucking cowards.
Thought: Literally don't do any of that ever again.
They were itching to write another scathing opinion piece. If they got out of this breathing.
Hands--strong sure hands--came down hard on Sadie Crane's shoulders, spun them all the way round. Their knees tried to buckle, but they gritted down and kept steady. Realized they were home free. Realized the hands on their shoulders, rough and work-pocked, belonged to De'afi of the Mother's Land.
"Hey, you're good!" the aviator said. "You're good!"
Ze shoved Sadie Crane into hir chest. Hir breasts were like hot cross buns, every bit as warm and wanted as Sadie Crane remembered from way back.
Thought: No more left behinds.
"Your boobs get fatter?" the anarchist asked.
"Damn, maybe," the aviator said back.
At their back, jackalopes screamed. At their forward, Viola pulled her lantern up and away.
"That don't sound good," she said.
"Ya think?" the anarchist sighed.
They pattered rest of the way out, stumbled from thick woodland onto the homestead. They were no safer outside the house than in the woods.
They made quick indoors. Replaced each candle that'd burned low while they were away.
De'afi jammed their belongings into the luggage compartment. This little excursion was a total nut bust, dead on two legs. If they didn't pass into the great black yonder this night, that'd be miracle enough to get hir praying to the old gods.
The anarchist and the journalist stood outside on the porch, watched the distance from path to woods. In case something came out the woods and they had to scarper. Been one hell of a night.
"You ever seen Miserable People?" Sadie Crane queried.
"Oh yeah, that one's some real shit," Viola said. "Real bloody. Real sad. Like nothing you ever seen, right?"
"Cripes, yeah," they said. "One I saw, they did animal blood. For the birthing scene."
"You are fuck lucky, space cadet," said the journalist.
De'afi got done packing. Ready to move.
They left the house at daybreak. Viola and De'afi took ahead on their shared motorbike, Sadie Crane rode on their lonesome.
Thought: You don't think. How much it trails between towns. Like a tongue stretching real far into a mouth. 'Cept the mouths are miles and miles apart. The tongue retracts. You're in the mouth now. Short to the stomach.
They sang while they rode, made the journey slightly more takeable. An old song, came inside some years back and made home. Reckon they must have picked it up off the radio. They kinda had this fixation about radio shows. Lotsa weird in the signals.
Four hours of biking with only a single meal break between. They arrived outer skirts of a town. Great big honking signpost in their way. The lettering was pale dusty sort of alabaster, Abakris would have said. BELLSWATERS it told them. They moseyed to a stop inches from, the bikes puttering and gasping wetly.
"Bell's Water?" De'afi said. "Bells Water? Bell S. Water?"
"Better have beds," the journalist said.
A fat tongue of road stuck all the way into town. Metal post boxes spoked the path ahead like rust-worn nails. The three Punks came off their bikes and standstilled top of road. Could see absolutely jack and maybe shit if they squinted real hard. Forever and ever stretches of vacant. Not a damn house in sight.
Thought: To be lost. In the final sweeps of wind that sing out the year. We'll fall out here. And we ain't strong enough to pick ourselves back up.
"You wanna wander?" queried the aviator.
"Guess I wanna die today, sure," Viola replied flatly.
De'afi's nostrils quivered, hir fingers plucked like claws at the air.
"Smell rain," ze said.
The three made quick with motorbikes in tow, luggage compartment bursting full with personals.
End of Chapter 13
BROTHERS WE ARE AT WAR. I speak to you from the mouths of our kin, slain by political medicines and left to rot in detention centers for the crime of BEING. Throats slit by fash. Bled like pigs into the dirt. TRAITORS CARRY THE RAPIER. TRAITORS WEAR THE CROWN AND THE NECKLACE OF FINGERBONES. We fight not against nature or invasion, but against THE TEN-HEADED BEAST OF ROYALISM. We fight against the DIVINE RIGHT TO RULE. The Badeers are not KINGS or LORDS. They are a fucking cult and they've FUCKED US.
--Excerpt from "Punk Pirate Revolution" Issue #37