4891

Center, mid dial almost,

The night is nigh as the gnomon slowly marches toward the heart of the glass plate perching on Queen Omelas’s Sahasrara.

Too quick, to ease their anticipating thoughts, yet too slow to race their beating hearts.

Nothing but the roars of their empty stomachs could awake them from their heavily foisted reverie, not even the deafening wrath of thunder that drummed the skies, nor the flashes of lightning that laid bare the plain landscape ahead of them.

Whether it was a custom or a mindful belief, it was the tradition that all fights were to be fought on an empty stomach, not that there was much to eat anyway. According to their course of action, battles were spiritual rituals and in all self-renunciation, they are to be sought. Hunger became a familiar stranger, storming into the quietness of their days reminding of a dooming certainty; life shall never be the same after this war.

Diligent preparations for this war began by leaps and bounds four moons earlier. At first, it began by switching the second night term, which was three hours into midnight and three hours from dawn- usually dedicated to their first meal round and community circle- into intensive sprints of strategic war planning and food planting. Taja, self-nominated Aman chief, led this session.

The time allocated for the meals began to diminish, as did their shares, to only 20 minutes. The rest of their night was equally divided between three sessions: two that ran simultaneously: a weapons development, and a plantation workshop; a third one that required everyone’s presence: the community circle.

 Tara and Adan, Taja’s right-hand assistants and the two first survivors of the great transposition, led the two sessions, Taja once again, was self-nominated responsible for the circles, meticulously planning and running each of them.

The circles were the way in which the community maintained its bonds. It was the Amans’ way of listening and sharing, of differing and ruling, of living the sweetness… at least in reminiscence… of what life used to be.

Aman was the name chosen by Taja for the group of 66 women that the threads of fate connected after the great transposition. How they came to be faded with their withering days and memories, their bond persisted.

 All they knew is that time lapsed in a manner they couldn’t explain. All, coming from different wheres and whens, found themselves at different stages embraced by this community. Only Taja preserved in full the memory of who she was before the transposition, who she is now, and this is what made her lead…

This is what made others trust her leadership.

Like Mother Lake, Taja was mother to all the sixty-six women forming Aman, meaning water in this land’s native language. After her transposition, she lost, just like everyone else something, a part and a piece of her body and memory.

“Life was very much different before.”

Taja took it upon herself to school us every night, once the sun was set far behind the curtains of the moon. That was the only time when we could go out from our caves and breathe without our masks on. Taja used to laugh in a scornful way, pathetic and ironic, insinuating that we were like creatures known in the first world. Creatures she called “vampires”.

Vampires she told us, were neither human nor animal. They were not in our liking, and yet very similar. They lived during the night and slept all through the day, hiding from the sun’s rays that would set ablaze their immortal bodies. They preyed on other creatures to feed on their blood. Our tie to these creatures was stronger than we imagined, for as them, we couldn’t leave our ventilated cubicles during the day, and blood was essential to our survival as we came to know when our Omelas spy succeded her mission to the northern lands. At night, and only on special daylight missions, we wore our claws, another one of Taja’s inventions, inspired as she once said, by spacesuits.

The claws were a full-body outfit, green to contrast the redness of the atmosphere. Pale orange to camouflage our movements on the battlefield. A helmet covered our heads most of the time, with an eye shield and an oxygen mask that we could do without during the night. The suit also had a vitals monitoring life support system comprised of hundreds of wires that were connected to our backs. The entire garment was made from twenty-two layers of thermal micrometeoroid.

As for dimensions, no fashion trends were followed. The claws were five feet tall on average, wide enough on the waist to contain our midriff and narrow on both ends upward and downward. Everyone’s claws were different, however, in a way to compensate for whatever body parts they lost during their transposition. Taja’s claws, for example, were slightly taller, with broader shoulders, a wide hip and a slender abdomen. She told us that most people looked like this in the previous world. She had more sensors attached to her head and a 360-degree camera. These sensors enabled her brain to interpret virtual scans that the camera made, and hence, restored her ability to see and interact with her surroundings after she lost her eyes in her own time travel. Taja recounted with pride that her eyes were brown, the colour of the earth in the shade, and honey gold under the sunlight.

Through her intelligent sight support system, she could channel her visions and memories to others. Most of what we saw during our day retreat was from her own past and her recollections.

Indeed, her earthly brown eyes in the shade and honey gold under the sunlight have seen many things… beautiful and horrible.

My claws also had specific features. More wires were attached to my throat than any other part of my body. What I lost for long was my capacity to speak. Taja, after I was found unconsciously laying on the line of the seventh stream of Mother Lake, made sure that her trained engineers brought back my articulation.  Other Amans had extendable limbs. Others had planted wings, enlarged ears, and even expanded eyes. Each of us lived loss, and each retrieved something in this new world.

I also took the name of Aman by the decision of Taja. One night, before I was found ashore Mother Lake, Taja had this dream where she was chased by a vulture that with every flap of his wings struck her to fall to the ground. This repeated itself until her dream run took her near Mother Lake where I was lying, and a group of bees flocked around me. The bees made the vulture leave, and so in anticipation, Taja sent a troupe of hawks to fetch around Mother Lake for the prophecy that was me. Ever since I took the name Aman, and the bees took the label Omelas, in recognition of those who never leave before lending a hand.

Taja chose the names of the other Amans as well. Adan meant heaven, Tara represented the beautiful flowers that grew in the south of this land. What Taja calls Maghreb. Other women were named after countries and places Taja had been to in the first world: Oyoun, Fas, Sabta, Atlas, Demashq, Yafa, Cuba, Dakar and others. Some women were named after trees and plants, some after tribes and clans, and some after myths and Gods. My favourite name was Ishtar, however, whatever names we bore made no difference to us as we all belonged to one thing, Amans, the guardians of Mother Lake.

The preparations changed, as everything started to align, food and water enough for an entire month, one meal a day each, a reliable rotation system to sustain the plantation cycle if the fight runs over the span we estimated of one month, a siege in foresight.

The night repartition changed as well. It now included an entire hour for one meal in anticipation of a month of fasting, another month of fighting. An entire hour for the circle, two hours for the sister workshops and an hour for meditation. Taja insisted that we spent an entire hour each night by Mother Lake. The preserver of our lives. One of the two remaining water sources of this new world. The other one belonged to the barbarians of the north, unlike Mother Lake, theirs was blue, matching the colour of their eyes. Mother Lake was red.

The story unfolds that Mother Lake was also once blue. She fell in love with the sky and in her eternal infatuation took her colour blue when the sky was blue, and now she covers herself red as the sky does. The barbarians' lake was also probably in love with their skies, and their sky with their eyes, for they all wore the same hue. The width of Mother Lake was known to be about six thousand square meters, the depth of which was yet strange.

Mother Lake produced no fish or algae, her belly bore no pearls or treasures. Baren she became in the new world. Similar to all women’s bellies. No child has been seen in years. No woman had the ability to birth a child since the great transposition. Water from Mother Lake, however, was the only thing that could make the earth crack open in obedience and birth out effortless Edens. All the trees we had, the plantations, and the food that sustained us were thanks to her. The barbarians' lake was rich in fish and treasures, yet, it mastered no control over the earth. And this is the reason behind our war. Our earth quakes when Mother Lake erupts. Trees bud, greeneries appear, and all the living rejoice in her name. The life in theirs flourishes behind their eyes and ears. And they knew too well that to survive their needed our water. To have our water, we knew, they would need to take our lives with it as well.

“Mother's lack was the reason for our fight”,

Taja once said after the messenger from the north came. A blue armoured bee.

“The Barbarians wish to seize our mother, and their wish we shall never grant.”

The meditation was to serve this exact reason, Taja stressed,

“Everyone single of you should sit in silence and listen to Mother Lake. Everyone has to see the reason with their own mind-eyes, everyone has to ask questions and resolve to the same answers.”

For many nights straight, Taja and all the others showed us recollections of their past memories, of what the barbarians did to us in the past world. How they colonised, fetishised, killed, raped, stripped, faked, and pretended to care. Fate played its role, as it did once before in pawning the south and the north against each other. This time only, the balance was tilted towards us. If you had water, you had power.

Only those who can find the answers can be rewarded by the fight. All had to find their answers. And the answer was one.

“No matter what, even if we all die, even if I die, Mother lake must be protected. This is our last hope. In no way would we let those barbarians steal our water as they have once stolen our land and lives. No good has ever come from them. This is our hope, this is our right”. These words resonated in our hearts.

With these words, Aman reassured herself, as she was watching the gnomon that now made a sharp curve towards midnight. This triangular shadow only appears twice a day, at the peak of their isolation and the heat outside their oxygen cubicles, and minutes away from midnight, their release into freedom.

That was the answer Aman had, and this granted her the honour to fight. The same answer was reached by the rest of Aman, and all were honoured to fight.

The burning sun rays were more bearable now, some already slightly slid their face masks making more space for the sweat to race down their foreheads, and eyelashes, past the edges of their lips and unto their veils.

Neither too cold yet, nor scorching as it was all along the day, every day. They could start to feel the night breeze on their faces now,

It felt different this time, as never before,

Fear makes all mundane more pleasurable, meaningful when meaning has been lost, and valuable when time is no longer of weight value.

“Lo oh fellow”

From beneath her mask, Taja started to sing:

Lo oh fellow

into the skies of sorrow

sing my song oh fellow

sing of mother earth

filling the hollow

in my heart oh fellow

sing of my fate

in the skies of sorrow

sing my song oh fellow

sing of mother

mother  lake

tie into the stars

my remaining destiny scars

read oh fellow

read the shadow of my  eyes

the glittering dark line fatalizing my guise

read the tattoos on my thighs

my henna and my dance

I belong in this trance

in it, my mother lives

in it, my soul and demons reside

lo oh fellow

sing my song

of mother lake

of mother earth

sing that to this I belong

*********************************************

“You seem like a good girl”...“Who do you think you are”... “ I won’t let go”...  “ I know the likes of you, this is what you want”... “ Stupid, do you think they will believe you”... “Fucking whore”...

Sometimes he was gentle to me, sometimes he barked his words like a rabid dog against me. Sometimes all I could feel was his fists on my belly. At times all I could remember was his trousers pulling down and his spit and my sweat drooling on my neck.

“You will leave when I am done with you”... “ I will make sure you will starve to death, that people will stone you for seducing me like this”... “ Fucking witch”... “Make sure to pass by tomorrow or else”... “You know I could get you a visa if you were nicer next time”... “Imagine what a beautiful life you will have in Spain a lfriza diali”...

I took my life on the first day of Ramadan in 2015. I left without even last a drop of water in my mouth. All I could think of was that this needed to end, now.

I tore the veil off my face,

I could finally breathe. I felt the sun touching my skin. Oh! how much I hated the sun, how much I hated early mornings, how much I hated crowds, how much I hated vehicles, how much I hated fruits, how much I hated the look of my cracked hands, how much I hated the earth, cracked as my hand. I hated people’s eyes, and other women’s mocking looks. I hated when his wife beat me at the station, I hated when he accused me of throwing myself on him, of begging to be with him. I hated his pointing fingers at me. Men’s pointing fingers indeed, someone once told me, do always find a woman.

School… never stepped a foot in one;

Hospital… once. The day my mother died crushed under a truck;

Graveyard… every Friday since my mother died leaving me with a dead father, a glue-sniffer as a brother;

Happiness… yes, a few times, very long ago. Probably when I could play “lastic” in front of the douar’s orphan café;

Love;

Love;

Love;

I hate love, I hate it ever since I had to kill it. Love shouldn’t be seen by the neighbours, by lfqih, by my glue-sniffing brother, by my remaining family, by “weld ammi”, by the girls playing “lastic” in front of the café, by the people sitting in the café.

Love died inside of me,

When love died, I also had to be dead to the neighbours, to my glue-sniffing brother, to my remaining family, to “weld ammi”, to the girls playing “lastic” in front of the café, to the people sitting in the café.

30dhs and 3h were what I paid to get to where no one knows me

Where I willingly

Perhaps,

Became a slave

When it rained, I worked

When it didn’t I had to work, to eat

I ploughed and picked

I turned the land and watered,

I collected and covered

I took my life on the first day of Ramadan of 2015. I left without even last a drop of water in my mouth. I left no one behind me. I left with no one to remember me.

And I can’t believe that of all hells, God would throw me where the one thing I hated the most, earth, would be my sole refugee.

*********************************************

It’s the year 2056, Fès, once a dormant volcano, erupted and took the lives of thousands, natives and migrants. The rising sea levels already took over Nador and Martil years ago, rivers also flowed and took lives with them in Sala and Kenitra. But more than anything, my heart trembled only when I saw the great minaret shattering and swallowed by the waves.

I died in that Volcano.

Before me, hundreds and thousands died of thirst when all that sieged us was water.

**********************************************

I was not even seven back then. For three days I have been stranded in a sixty-six feet deep well that my father had dug a few years earlier. Men in this area used to puff clouds of foggy air using large wooden sticks. Burnt inside was a plant that my mother worked all day in the field to sow and raze.

The well dried out. My father had to dig another one, and then a second and third. Until we lost count and hope. No water was left in this land and for three falls straight it bore no plant. I saw the men inflamed as if with the same fire that ate Haj Alamin’s land down the hill, right across from the road leading to Issagen. Money was short, and my father decided that we were to be sent to his family in Fès where he was to find a job.

My mother was packing inside the house, I was playing with my younger sister outside.

**********************************************

I died the year bees disappeared. The palms deserted the sand.

**********************************************

I marvelled at how life came back to Venice during the pandemic. The water cleared for the first time in decades, probably, and wildlife came back. If it were not for the intrusive spying eyes of the media we wouldn’t have been able to see that. But I guess we can forgive them for some of the evil they inflict on the world for sometimes reporting positive news like that one.

I decided that before 2050 I would visit every city that would be wiped out by rising sea levels. I was a student back then, an ambitious girl trying to kick off a career in humanitarian development.

I dreamt of a world where no one was left behind… What a shiver saying these words sent to my spine! I dreamt of being of help to the world and that’s why, first thing, I decided to defend all rights, any rights. If you think that you have a right, you’ll find me there, on the frontlines of defence. Second, to save the planet I decided to dress up second-hand, be vegan, do yoga, recycle pretty much everything around me, boycott the meat industry and only use cruelty-free products. At least as much as my student’s pocket allowed me to. Can you believe it, I even wrote fiction inspired by that!

Going green was becoming a fashion, and like everything else, people went mad for it

Everywhere you looked you’d see the same thing:

“Eat green …”

“Detoxicate your body, here is the perfect shape and weight, exercise more, be more environment-friendly, let’s bring hippies back, let’s tie ourselves to a tree, go natural - even when dolled-up with makeup-…”

“Public sector jobs, that’s the past, let’s start a project, work free, switch green, save the planet, let’s bring youth onboard, the future will be theirs, and they will be the ones stuck with it…”

“We are probably just exaggerating, it’s not that bad, it can’t be. The summer is longer and more scorching now, but do you remember that summer back in 1976, we couldn’t have our afternoon siestas because of the heat, and suddenly the night breeze deserted us for the whole of the month of Ramadan, I’ll never forget that…”

“Speaking of summer, let’s organise a bootcamp”, “15 participants will save our country”, “let’s train them on design thinking”, “how much money will we need?”, “that’s not much, a few million are nothing”, “where shall we go this summer, Asilah, stay in Rabat, or move to Marakesh”, “oh I have a better idea, let’s go south, that would make us look more nationalist, donors like that”, “a roundtable could be a good idea as well”, “call your friend the expert”, “yes that one”, “he knows everything about… everything…”

The fashion changed, quicker than thunder once a second Covid break took place at the end of  2023. We were back homes, attached to our computers, again, with depression and sleep disorders. Yet, this time we found some solace in some countries’ decision to end the war in Europe. And that’s it, in the snape of a finger, we were all about peacebuilding and disarmament of tyrannical countries, something to look forward to, something to alleviate our idleness and give our constantly threatened existence some meaning. Again youth carried the curse of what previous generations ruined and the honour to try to fix it.

A group said that nothing would change unless those with means changed their ways…

A group said that nothing would change as long as mosques aren’t filled and women covered…

A group said it’s the Illuminati …!

And I say, the planet is beyond us, it recovered itself before leading to where we are now, and it can and will recover itself again, with or without us around to witness.

My death’s unfolding is unbeknownst to me as it is to some of my fellow Amans whose memories had erased their own recollection of passing. We like to think it is for the best.

**********************************************

I died poisoned by a jellyfish sting in the summer of 2029. My body had a reaction to the sting and no one around knew what to do. I died before making it to the hospital. Jellyfish were not native to those beaches, the expansion of canals had extended their migration into new routes.

**********************************************

I died in 2022 in the fires of Larache.

**********************************************

I think I am the only one who didn’t go through death yet, or at least not in its conventional manners marking a certain end to a certain beginning. My body experienced disintegration in a  fraction of a second and fractioned it arrived back in this world. But I guess that could be counted as death as well.

I know how it happened, yet not in its entirety. I first started my experimentation with metaverse travels when my husband got diagnosed with cancer. We both worked at one of the largest energy stations in Morocco. I must be honest, it was always my husband’s obsessive dream, idea or fear, I am not sure. He knew that our world would come to a point where there is no return. He was determined to create an escape for us. We held the belief that our sphere was larger and more complex to hold only one planet where life for humans was possible.

Now that I am here, I can see for myself that life is indeed possible in different shapes, forms and ways, on this exact planet, Planet Earth, and probably on other planets and in other spheres.

The year now is 4891. Curious to know how it looks? I’m sure Aman’s description has captured some of it by now!

Now back to 2061, the year where everything ended for me.

Kids I had none. I had never wanted any. The world was already too damaged to bring a new being to it. To me it was a selfish act, a crime even. In vanity still, others reproduced, although not in the same capacity anymore,  thinking that we will evolve as the world does. Those who could have kids considered themselves lucky and thought that they were actually doing a service to the “future of the world”.

What had started as an ambitious pastime became a serious endeavour after a while. We needed to get out of there!

A large explosion completely destroyed the energy station where we worked. The government was unable to provide any concessions for our keep, simply because the station never produced as much as what was invested in the first place. Just like that, we found ourselves without a job, in a country, rather a world of burning turmoil.

The last years were hard, unimaginably filled with hunger and thirst, scorching heat, and dusty brown lands. More greed, violence and wars took place over resources. Water mainly.

We were certain that there was nothing left to be fixed, that it was the end of humankind.

When we still had electricity, we could hear the news on the radio. Some were about how terrorist groups seized water canals. How stronger economies patch-cut the world again looking for sustenance. Some others covered about how the sun rose from the west, how people saw smoke in Yemen, how Yajooj and Majooj appeared in Latin America, and some even claimed that they were the long-awaited Mahdi. At this time, people still had hope that at least this was meant to be the way iy was. Mosques flocked with believers seeking God’s mercy “ Ya latif Ltof bina, Ya latif Afina”.

Harder days followed, we stocked what we could find: canned food, water, medication, masks, a vehicle and most importantly contacts of people we knew could be of help when we needed them.

Our home basement became our refuge. Armed groups swayed the streets for months and on, looking for resources, killing everyone they found in their way. We had to double up  our windows and doors. Total isolation it was. Total absurdity and agony when days looked the same, and then got worse.

By this time, my husband and I already had our claws invented, laughing, he would say that they grab your life the same way hawks grab their prey. We made sure that our suits could detect any deficiency in our bodies, already because of how scarce our resources were, our bodies started to frail and fail.

Our portal miraculously managed to move things from one table to the other, a pencil first, then the ashtray, and then our dog who made it leaving his legs behind. That’s how we knew that our system was not complete, that there were risks, but our ambition, or deception, pushed us forward. There was nothing left to lose anyway. We were dying, my husband was receiving no treatment, and we had to move fast. No food or water left. No news of what was happening around the world.

Sleep escaped us, then the starving began, and then the thirst took whatever remained of our strength and sanity.  We were decaying slowly, our bones gradually coming up to the surface, our skin stretching,

we had to take the chance, nothing left to lose,

and we did

I closed my eyes, the last image in my brain was my husband’s hands in mine.

I woke up to a beeping sound piercing my ears. Not once, not twice, it was beyond what I could remember. In the beginning, I thought that it was one of the nightmares that I had before. By force of repetition, I knew that it was impossible for a dream to persist and repeat itself this much. As tried to open my eyes each time all I could see was darkness surrounding and fogging my brain.

It took me months to wake up from this dream. It took me more months to understand where I was. The transposition succeeded. I was in the year 4888. The people around me spoke English. The people around me said that I was found in a car. They knew that I travelled through time, yet they didn’t know how and that’s what made me very special. Most of these people were time travellers like myself. They were engineers, politicians, old money lords, and royal families. They transposed collectively in the year 2066. What marvelled them the most was the claws that I had brought with me. I was found alone, with no trace of my husband.

They ran as many tests as they wanted, they could see my past, and all of my memories. They knew that my contributions to their new world are more valuable to them than my languidness towards life. I had lost all I once had, and yet I was forced to live again.  I wished I had died like all others I knew. I found peace and envy in their end, wishing for quiet in this loud new existence. I wished it was just another dream. I forced myself to sleep thinking that I would wake up again in the little dungeon that nestled me with my husband. I had hit the complete rock bottom and they forced me to move forward. In the midst of my despair, they managed to convince me that I could help make things better, not for us, but hopefully for the ones who would come after. To hell with all who would come after us!

I am not so sure how time passed by so quickly, how I agreed to help, or how we started to manufacture the Claws. All I knew was that our expeditions led us to north Africa, once my home.

All I could recall in the thick of my depression was my blindness, my despair, my inability to eat, breath or desire to live again.

The technology we developed, my husband and I, was very helpful to these new people whom I trusted wanted to make things better. We worked on the claws first, then we developed a headset that enabled me to see my surroundings again. I saw the way life had become; people all dressed in white, living under an electromagnetic dome. There were strange-looking kinds of birds, hybrid disfigured animals, and what seemed to be sea creatures bred for food. No trees or plants in sight. The earth was greener than usual, yet with no life on it, nor  coming from it.

I was on board for our third expedition, heading south to where I once lived. To where I had called home.

Strange, is the word I would use for the lack of a better one. The sun never rose and it never set. Without our claws, we couldn’t breathe. The heat was too unbearable that we had to move only during the night.

We finally arrived to what we had been long looking for, a place where trees grew, where there was hope that the world could go back to what it once was. A noble mission indeed, I thought. This gave me the desire to live again.

We took samples of the water we found in an orphan lake on that land. Our analysis showed that it had the capacity of bringing life to our lands. We came back again. This time with the intention of staying and expanding, but also of figuring out how we could move this water up north to our people. This is when things started to  change for me. With time, we started to notice that people, solely women, appeared through mysterious wormholes that we couldn’t pin down. Out of nowhere. Without any knowledge of how or why they got there. These women spoke the language of my land and I was the only one capable of communicating with them.

Experiments started on these new arrivals. However, without anything to contribute, the leaders decided that we had to get rid of them, “ they are of no use to us, and we are in no need of new mouths to feed”.

I thought that this new world would force people to change their ways, it would force them to see others with more mercy, to stop putting price tags  on others! We were all given a second chance to change our ways, but all these people did was to prolong their own lives, regardless of who it impacted.

With every fading day, I felt it stronger, I was not meant to live to kill others. I myself was alive only because I could give something, offer a service and add a value. But all people can do that. In their own, unique manner. I felt shame and betrayal because these were my people. We shared the same origin, we spoke the same tongue and we had a common history. I had to act.

Careless of how dangerous my actions were, I started to sneak in at  day time to look for new travellers. I found a path south of the lake, which I called now Mother because of how gracefully it could bring life to the world. That was clear from her shores as they were the only parts divinely painted green. I smuggled gear and food to the newcomers. The group slowly grew and so did the crew’s suspicions. One day, I cut all oxygen masks during our retreat, leaving the northerners to suffocate in their sleep.

A new world had indeed started for me, I was with my kin. And we were resolved to survive, not because we wanted to, but because we knew that this earth of ours was capable of surviving. We only had to stick around to make sure that a bunch of colonisers didn’t get in the way of that. We were the prophetesses of this new world.

I had the knowledge and the gear; all I had to do was to train the newcomers in my vision.

**********************************************

Revenge was on its way,

This is what we ended our night circles with, every night.

The northerners would never forget their defeat, and we will never forget that they mean to betray our earth. With all means, we will protect this Lake. Our mother.

The gnomon rested finally at the centre. It was midnight. Masks were lowered. The northerners’ footfalls drummed into our ears and raced our hearts. Destiny marched towards us as Taja unleashed her first scream into her hollow horn to which the Omelas, our bee army, were the first to respond with a robust bang of their wings, an attack that already drew some of the frontliners  to collapse to the ground.

Without a single other thought, swifter this time than destiny itself, the Amans launched their hasty leaps, fusing the redness of the sky, with the dust curtain raising from the ground. Wiith their skilled micro-blades they forced their arms into slashes.

Sixty-six women and an army of a thousand bees stood in the face of a hundred northerner with their own army of a 1000 bird. One by one, an Aman and a northener fell. One by one, a bee and a bird fell.

**********************************************

Mother Lake turned everything in her stomach out. The water engulphed her inwards, drifting her body over the edge of the mountain on which Queen Omelas stood. From underneath, Aman could already see the mighty queen falling… drowning. Every surviving soul was drawn back to the water in Mother Lake’s protest. In the flash of  seconds, trees were growing, flowers were budding, and the sun was turning yellow, a calm and serene yellow.

Oh, fellow,

Life has come back!