Chapter 21: Chapter Twenty - "The Render"

It's easy how much you forget about the way your life is run when you step out of it for a few days, to live another life, as I have, with the Catz.

It was the night. It always is, when I began to feel the way I always feel. The time was the same time: nine. Maybe the night had fallen before I could. Maybe everything had fallen before I could. Nobody ever knew about me and her. Nobody ever suspected it to be the way it'd be.

Maybe the night, all of it, is the Queen. Or maybe, the night, is when my grandmother left, and when Moritz left. Maybe the night is nothing at all. And maybe, I've said this before. Maybe I don't even know what I'm saying. After all, I'm just a mindless teen-girl shot in the head from all the killings. And you might think this is just a story you're trekking through that's part of a tale, and that's cool and all, but I think, all of us, including you—the reader—should see that this, hopefully, is more than a story jotted by the Alexa Padz...and maybe it is a lesson on how we're all born on one side of the Wall, no matter what side, because we're all under the same sky...so maybe, we're all part of a gang, whether we like it or not, whether we want to be or not...maybe we're all part of something bigger, and maybe, when we realize we're part of that something that we don't even know that we're apart of...then we can realize it's not too late, before it is too late, like it is for me now, like it for you now...maybe it's not for you, but it is for me, so you should go and do that for me: go and take the gun out of yourself, and out of any other young teen you might see out there with a mental gun, or a physical gun, or a nothing gun...maybe just a word gun, a verso gun, a something gun, a do-it-all for yourself gun.

It's something we should all be aware of...it's something we should all be working towards: filling our mind to task it with emptying the violent one...the violent mindz.

I don't even know what I'm saying now. Maybe this is how the Party wanted us to feel. Maybe this is how the Party, yours too, wants us all to feel. You don't know anything. And neither do I. But if there is one thing I learned from the Black Catz...it is that we are all black cats, we are all part of one Catz organization whether we want to be or not, and when time comes, those Catz will come looking upon you, for you; whether those are your family Catz, or your Pet Catz, or your kid Catz, or maybe just your lover and friend Catz that you have to look over—I don't say what Catz mean or do, but I do know that some Catz can help you as these Catz from my mother's side...helped me.

Perhaps, we're all destined to become what pre-school tells us? For example: I was called Casper, for the friendly ghost, since I could remember...not now, but when I was still in pre-school, and when pre-schools were still around.

And look at me now: I am a ghost; I am translucent; I am invisible; and soon, like a ghost, I, too, will be haunting—and maybe hunting—everyone I know.

So maybe, as they suspected when I was young, I am that ghost they so desperately referred me to.

I learned that while in here, while with the Catz. And now...now I know it more while in the Holding Building of my side of the Wall...also known as the West-Party building. But I call it the Holding Building. Because that is what they do here. They hold people.

*********

Some days in life, some moments, you realize, somehow, in this crazy world, the one you had lost so much hope on, the one that vitiated you for so long...that it could still have some good people in it, some people that believed what you believed, that helped other people, that did something—even if it's tiny—good for other people.

Then, when you realize this, when you see this, when life gives you people that give you –as a person—hope, then you come back to life, you jump up and begin fighting for that good thing you began fighting for.

And that type of sign was all I needed from the world.

And it gave it to me—the world gave me the sign...in the form of a sign over the Wall, upon entering the floor lead by the sergeant.

In the floor, as in the street, people looked at you, with gawky eyes, with prickly fingers, but they looked at you, and waited for something more.

The sign that I am talking about can be seen by anyone that dare walk into this building.

Although, you can't just walk into this building. You need to be invited.

Which is what we are: invited.

They invited us to this place, to this building, to this scenario—they invited us to see what we did not want to see.

"Come on, step in," says the sergeant.

My mother holds me, lightly.

One hand on my back.

My shirt is tucked in. It is because of the vests the Catz first gave me, and probably the vests that has saved my life.

"She's waiting," says the sergeant.

Who's waiting, I think.

There is, maybe, more than one person waiting. She, can also be he and others.

But she is waiting.

Úshka, what are you doing? And what is she doing? She's seen what I have since walking in here.

"Come on, Ludy," Úshka says, always stabbing into my brain and taking a peak.

"Lady! What did I say?" snapped the sergeant, his feet actually (literally) snapping forward, front and flat in place, knees cracking up onto the sky, then back onto the ground—like the Gods have been cracking upon me since crossing to my uncle's store.

The servants in the rooms, as they were on every floor, as they were outside, as they were since we stepped out of the car—some servants can't be seen as they dress with civilian clothes, but they're there—have been attentive, finger-licking, tongue-twisting, teeth-grinding, jaw-biting, finger-cracking, throat-gurgling—since we arrived, since we got here; it's the way they're taught, it's the way they're raised to be, since employment practice, since the employment-procedure videos are played for them, all of them...it is like that.

Their uniform—the guards, the servants—is simple: sporting all black, like a tux, and a white shirt, they blend into the grime that still paints some of the alleys and corners...they are probably the black that remains within our souls unlike the buildings that flash and glow in-between the product and brands, always selling, but never telling—anything.

One of the servants tries to come at me, he walks up to me—a fellow that has been starved like the rest, with thick-jaw lines like Úshka, but for different reasons.

"Sir! Not now!" screams the sergeant at the frightened servant.

Upon getting onto, into the door, our feet walk like robots, in robotic-fashion.

One step forward, another step back.

That is what I think: because it is true; we walk forwards, taking a literal step forwards, but as we walk forwards, towards the Queen, we're really taking a step back in our life.

That's what I think.

The first light that hit my eyes is pink. It's part of the Queen's neon title above her huge, plastic, painted, glittered, stoned, piped, throne.

The next light is purple.

Then blue.

Then a shone of yellow blasts through from the hallway into our lane.

The sergeant has to raise his arms and I think that if he has to do it, then anyone, even those used to the Queen's nonsense, have to raise their hands every day, never fully being used to the ridiculousness of the Queen.

Above her waste-full throne, Queen...Bless, extends all throughout the wall behind her, from one end to the other.

Queen she is, but Queen we're not.

"Bless her," says the sergeant, telling me what my mind had already told me.

"What?" I ask, probably thinking the same as my mother and Úshka—not the servants or the workers in here, like the soldiers, because they're used to "blessing" the Queen on any given day, they know what it means, unlike us.

I don't know how we would or could bless the Queen, however, when she's the one that has everything—and more—than we do, than her people under her do, than anyone on this side of the Wall could do. So what is the "blessing" for?

Is it not simply an Oxymoron?

To bless the Queen?

An akimbo stance, the sergeant was now in, when he repeated that anger:

"Step forward and bless the Queen!" he demanded, his eyes telling me he won't tell me again.

A tall, pointing pompadour, as bright and rainbow-like as the lights behind it, shown and casted a shadow as it began to rise. Her hair, gigantic as once worn by musical and picture-artist, demanded your attention—even if you didn't want to give it:

"Queen, is blessed," first said, Úshka.

"Bless it your Queen," then followed my mother.

"Mhm..." coughed the sergeant after I allowed a few beats of silence rather than doing what my mother did: responded within the first second after Úshka's response.

To kill more time before the Queen killed me, I fixed my battered, bloody, dusty hair. It was no longer curled as when I first left the West.

The blessings shall come. But on my order. Not on the soldier's order.

It was, after all, the only control I still had: that of my words.

A small painting of a carvel hung beside the Queen, besides the other tall, large, oversized, uninsured, works of shit. But the peculiar thing about this tiny, undersized, undervalued painting was the strokes and pokes and lightness to it, the uneasiness to provoke, to grab, to crack at your attention.

"Ah, you like that one, eh?" asks the Queen, taking her first breath, tasting her first blood, Her lips an oversized duck-like shape—there was a tutorials about this online a few years ago, it was made by a homemade celebrity of sorts, and later copied by uncelebrated young, hopeless girls looking for stars.

This Queen and her lips were—are—far from hopeless or unseen. She quaked again:

"My father painted it when he was on the run; you know, I'm just like you and your mother and her girlfriend," she says. "I'm from the East too." Her eyes bouncing from me, to my mother, to Úshka.

"Oh, and did you not instruct them on the yo dude?" the majesty then asks the sergeant.

The sergeant looks down in embarrassment.

"They're idiots my majesty. They don't listen." the sergeant then said.

"Oh, do they. They don't listen, eh?" the Queen asks, digging at him. "And what do we pay you for?" she then implied, waving a servant to the sergeant.

Before the sergeant could reply, he was fighting for breath.

A tiny, invisible string had gone around his neck, and was being held by the servant. It was also being tightened, tightened, and tightened, until you heard a small crack—if you listened carefully. And then the sergeant's fingers stopped struggling. They stopped trying to pull at the string, to pull it apart from its neck. They stopped trying to pull it away.

"I always did hate them, those from the West." the Queen then said, waiting for the sergeant and his body to first drop on the floor.

"You see," she followed. "I'm trying to rebuild from the inside on this side, the West, and we're trying to do it with people from the East, true fighters...and we needed to test you first, we needed to try you out...to prepare you...to see if you were ready for battle...to take a throne like your mother."

My mother now, was stepping up front, with me.

"Congrats, girl!" she said, nudging my shoulder.

What? But grandmother is dead. And so is Moritz.

"What?" I say. "What the fuck do you mean? My grandmother and my boyfriend are dead," I snap.

"Oh, come on. We saw how you looked at Úshka," said the Queen. "Who are you kidding?"

"That's why I got her for you...and you passed," said my mother, looking at Úshka.

Úshka stepped forward, closer to me. She then walked towards me. She grabbed me.

"Don't fucking touch me," I tell her, throwing her hand off of me. "What do you mean I passed? Passed what fucking thing? I've lost my grandmother—your mother!" I yell, right at my mother's face..."and I've lost Moritz!"

The servants snickered and brought out champagne. Music began to play.

A DJ popped out from a corner. Another one, then, popped out behind the first DJ.

"Come on, let's celebrate your initiation! You've passed the plan!"

The Queen states, raising a champagne glass from the sand it was being held to, over the servants stretched out, enslaved subjugated hand.

"They were sacrificed for you," my mother said.

"Yeah—we do it because we love you and we knew you'd be right," Úshka says.

"Knew I'd be right? You people don't even know me. And just because you're my mother doesn't mean you rule my life, when you haven't even been there for my whole fucking life!" I scream, going from Úshka to my mother—I still didn't know about the Queen, or who the fuck she is.

And when you think you've heard and seen it all, your eyes and ears remind you that you haven't indeed.

Outside the starvations reminds me of popularity and how I'm only here in a way because I'm supposed to "help". But can you tell me how?

Because I have no fucking idea.

Mental-questions can't be answered when the champagne flows, and it does flow now. It goes and starves and daggers and bubbles around, in trays, over slavish hands covered by white mittens which covered the poverty under them—like the suits that cover the fast-delivered obesity.

"Ludy! Welcome Ludy!" sings the walls. Here, they do talk—no, they sing.

The Party begins with their Party:

First sight you must see, even if mentally, is the full-on, powerful shell of the Party, covering the soft, unwoven, un-brave, cowardly, heart—not strong like its bought shell—and that is not what we want to be a part of; see that. Do you see it; do you see the fakeness; do you see the people I thought were family as shelled as everyone, as all the servants; do you see how the only true characters in this tale of the Catz are the ones that don't move anymore, the ones hidden under a body bag, soon to be underground?

But the Party begins. It must, after all, go on.

"Ludy! Welcome! You are a new leader!" yells and proclaims the walls, in a singing, salesman-voice, the type you'd hear on the screens, usually advertising or selling something—you know, that same annoying voice that sang up and down in the background of old news commentary (I say old because that type of news does not exist anymore) is all dull and dead, and when I inspect it at the moment, I realize it should have been a cue.

"We're now live!" screams the lady they call the Queen.

No Queen to me.

"I'm not fucking doing anything" I scream.

And a record scratches.

The DJ lifts his visions and drops his sun-shades—he drops his solar-blocking-spectacles.

But then they ignore me.

When the Queen turns back around like she doesn't give a shit about what I just said and grabs another glass of champagne, everyone else does the same, including the DJ...grabbing his own "glass," toasting in his own way.

"Everybody fucking jump!" he proceeded to enter onto his pads below. And everybody did jump.

Then the walls talked again:

"Oh, duck-duck-goose, Ludy is a new leader!" they announced, divulging in the news. Repeating it so everyone knew.

Then banners dropped that said...

The Road to States of Unite Plan.

From East to West, to this, to a new world? Is this what I was brought for?

"Come on," my mother pushed me, into the dancing people that formed like a group of swans in the water, in a lake, but instead, these swans were on a dance floor.

Úshka was still on my eye. She was at the corner.

But the dancing undulated my body too heavily for me to take control of Úshka in sight.

Can you dance with somebody? Wil they love you?

That is what my brain is telling me.

It's comical to see army-like, bullet-protecting vests in this environment, being used like this.

There is a man with a cheese grader.

"Let's take the cheese," the Queen yells.

And everyone cheers.

I just think one thing: I want to take that grader and grade her face, digginng her colors deep into her blood, changing the color of red she—like all of us—was born with, and changing it into white, purple, or anything but red.

What are we celebrating?

The deaths I did not want?

Fooling myself, along with my grandmother, and Moritz, and every other bodies that stayed behind:

Noe;

Oso;

Zero;

Congo;

Pamela;

Fernando;

Luviel!

How can my mother do this? To her own sister? But most of all, to her own mother. How?

And now, here she is, not giving a fuck because what: because I was "recruited"; because I "passed the test"?

What fucking test?

"Welcome to the Render" then shouted the DJ, and the Queen, and all Walls in the facility of the Party—it sounded like, again, one of those announcers, hype-men, hype-women you would hear at a Rave, or at some-sort of wicked, drugged-up party; there is not much I know about this one, however, chiefly, after all I've heard.

This Chief, this Queen, this Patron, chiefly from all the rest—chiefly her, gives me a reason to travel and travel through my cranium, around and around, at the scene I've been seen at; if I am here.

Can you see me?

"The Patron is on the Patron!" then scream the Walls, right before the DJ.

The abstinence, and absence, of love will make the heart grow stronger. That's my motto, my mantra.

If you were to ask what I learned through, and from, all of this—if there is anything to fucking learn—it is that love isn't shit and those you think should love you will probably never love you. My grandmother did and look at her now. Moritz did and look at him now.

So that tells me if I love someone, I'll end up like them—in a bag. So screw that. I can't love. Nobody.

The walls tell us to go to the dancefloor where my mother pushed me.

Then Úshka joins me.

She grabs my hand and looks at me the way Moritz looked at me.

"We've taken over the Catz!" the wall shouts, proclaiming, in victory, as then, the guests like the wall, shout and celebrate, lifting their champagne glasses. "The Black Catz!" the wall says.

And it is followed by a chorus-like reply:

"The Black Catz!" sing the crowd, and we all begin dancing again.

I am forced to dance. I am forced to move my feet. I don't want to, but I'm forced to.

I want Úshka, but not on the dance floor; and I want to move with her, but not in this way, not in this forceful, slavish-way.

The faces in this room, the dance room, the party room, the whatever-type-of-room-this-is, are not all so similar to that of any person I know...or used to know...really, on either side of the wall; you can tell the difference by their build, their figure, their smiles of I-don't-need-food-and-I'm-not-going hungry, internally, because, I can feed on whatever I want.

Take for example the Queen, and when she turns to give her toast; take a look at her: her face is ripe, ink, full; her eyes are glowing, even in brown darkness; her body is curved but in all the right ways—not the hurtful ways that can destroy someone without the Queen having to destroy them; and her hands and feet—just look at them—and how they stand and move with confidence, directing and pointing at anyone they want because they know they can do as they want.

"Let us gather," begins the Queen, tapping that champagne like it ain't no thing..."thang—chang, chang, chang... we're gathered here," she routinely followed, "because we've finally attracted the recruit and the Render is upon us for Ludy's daughter....Ludy..." she divulged again, making herself and the crowd laugh.

"Ludy!" some guests repeated, snickering at each other like bigot idiots unaware of what they were snickering about.

"The Render, as we all know it, is a big part in new leader-recruit."

"Here, here!" cheered a man with a beard. A real prick-face, he had—or has (until I take it off with that cheese grater—if I'm able to).

"The new Render, as you all may know, and as you all may have seen," the Queen explains, looking over at all the screens that appear on every wall—and I say "appear" because every wall turns into a screen, a monitor, displaying my every move since I was taken from my uncle's store like a movie...everything from going to the Catz, to Henry leaving, to Moritz leaving, to my grandmother leaving—it was all now being displayed and shown on screens for people to enjoy like entertainment...all they needed now was the popcorn. Everything I had gone through, every feeling I had felt, every tear I had cried, all the blood I had unintentionally caught—both on my clothes and on me—everything, all the feelings too, were now being shown.

I break:

"What the fuck is wrong with you people?" I yell at everyone, simply yelling at the top of my lungs—and more at the air up above us, above all the people around us.

This shakes the Queen:

"Pardon, honey?"

My mother turns quickly too, even dropping her glass.

The prick of the man before us jumps up, showing his true sack-size down under, the one being hidden under his undergarments.

"Honey," the Queen begins with her "excusable" voice:

"We told you: it was all part of our plan; and in order to assure ourselves that you'd be safe, we had to monitor your every move."

"What?" my mouth lets out without me wanting it to let anything out.

"Yeah—we just wanted to make sure you didn't die before we got your mother to you."

'What?" I repeat. "That's what I mean. I almost fucking died a lot of times and nobody ever helped! And when my grandmother and Moritz died—where the fuck were you all then?" I scream, terror in my mind, a horrid thought going through my brain, and more anger than I've ever felt building up inside, all throughout.

Because really: where were they?

"Ludy," my mother tries to interject, calming in her way...a way I hadn't quiet become, ever, since I've known her, so fond of. "Ludy, we're sorry about grandma and Moritz."

"Are you?" I let out, drowning in tears, feeding myself with my bodily-made-H2O.

"Listen" the Queen says, smooth and soft, like she didn't lose anyone through all of this—because she didn't lose anyone through all of this: "we had to get you to cross so we could infiltrate the Black Catz, and Luviel and Zero; we had to get rid of them to stake you as our leader; you should be proud."

I raise my head from where it was buried within my arms. "Proud?" I let out. "Proud? How can I be proud?"

My crying is no more broken as it is beaten, given-up in all its silence. "Proud of killing the only woman that's ever loved me," I let out, at my mother—the other reaper in this; "proud of killing a boy that loved me?"

The DJ tries to bring back his bass with a lower rhythm. And at the moment, we needed a bass, a spine. We need someone with a spine to say something.

"It was getting too dangerous on the other side; we had to put you," says my mother.

"Fuck the other side. Fuck everything. I lost my grandmother," I storm off to a couch in front of one of the ridiculous screens playing the story of the bummed-out human sitting before it.

The dragged seconds of agony made me feel as the only non-plastic soul in the room—and probably in West Wall; and when I was there, in East Wall too.

"The East Wall is not taken care of by their Police, and without us, they'd all be dead; without civil armies like us, civil governments like us, every one of those people on that side, your side" the queen taunts, "would be dead. You hear me!" she then says, upset that I had gotten her so upset.

"Grandma died for a reason," my mother says, rubbing my shoulder, sitting with me on the giant lip-shaped couch I was sitting on. The bright redness of its fabric made our dialogue seem in place—red like the blood my mother and I, and the people in this room, still hold on to; and red like the blood drained from Henry, and Congo, and Oso, and Luviel, and Zero, and the other Catz that had to be "sacrificed"; and red like our hearts that beat and hope for so much more—and maybe it is these very hearts making us react this way, making us do such acts of horrid horror for simple power and precious, precious comfort.

But comfort of what, I must ask; comfort for who; how is comfort, comfort; how is nobody truly comfortable?

The DJ now raises its music to normal tone and it feels like a party again—but not because of my feelings, but because of the ambience around the scene, around the area, around the stadium.

You are the nobody, we are the strong bodies, that I tell myself; let go and let be, within, we will be.

Is that my life? An on-rolling, always-playing DJ.

I mean, it has been since Black Catz.

Since I stepped foot in there, the bass dropped and the beat rolled, from one rolling fight to another—within the cars, whether with Luviel or Oso or Pamela, the beat was always rolling, always dropping, always tuning to that Coast rapper, that stem, that inspiration—you could say, if you could say.

Let me just note out a few differences from the DJs—that of East Wall and that of West Wall: West Wall's music-scratcher, "music maker," crews-up much whiter, lighter, sunnier skin, touched with more nutrition, more care, more love, hair that still cares, that still wants to be there (and is perhaps allowed to be there), cut at the sides, curved up top with care-gel, features that would get a women to care, or a man, depends what he wants for his heirs; East Wall's crew-up had less care, less ware, less tares, because young and youth life is always taken, and perhaps, music was not anybody's choice but a got to and the East DJ is a simple sacrifice.

Are you still with me?

"The Render! This is the Render!" the crowd sings, in synchronism with the DJ. And the music plays in synchronism with the words...The...Render; this...is...The Render.

Am I the Render; am I the Render?

Enchantment I wanted, Enchantment I did not get. But rather, the blood of sweet love tainted on me and my benevolence. Thus, is it Karma that calls my name, that signals with the red taken from other men, other wombs-men, other wounded-men?

Go back to the scene: The Render, the Party, the cheers; come back to me.

If you can.

"Come on! Have some fun! You'll never have to worry about money again," said my mother. "Only about dying," she then laughed.

She got up and joined Úshka, whom was still looking at me—as she had been this whole time (according to my side-eye)—and begins dancing again like her daughter hadn't just been fucked, royally.

Eyes, readable because there is no vitiation behind them, look, prawn, stare at me, they pierce through me, burning holes until I'm fully ash on the ground.

"Won't you join?" says Úshka, looking more beautiful as the lights hit her, here, and her vest is off, displaying more of her, the outer-shaping of her, closer to me, nearer to me than her face. Over her head, a bun of her light, heavenly, gold hair stays put, some of it still dry and stained with victims of the hospital—that might not be the right word, though, as they are not or were not, truly victims of the hospital but rather victims of the sergeant, and us, everyone in this room, victims of the West, I believe. Their spots still remind me of all of that, up top, over Úshka, ruining her gold, because maybe she, and me, and nobody is golden and safe as we believe, because gold, rather it being gold and shiny, can still be stained, ruining all of its value to the eye that cannot be seen...therefore, neither valued...or worn...with pride...worn with worthy.

And then the Queen continues as the dancefloor continues to flap, heels flickering like lighters in the dark snapping in and out of gas; her proposals to the people are not like that I have not heard before: do this, get that, kill them, get that; it's been the same since Black Catz.

"Who is the right one" I ask, to Úshka, who probably just expected my hand to be lead to the dancefloor, the clanking floor.

"They all are; we all have to fight."

"But for what? So many just die."

It feels like my medulla oblongata has shifted off course, no longer directing and reporting straight to my most important-functioning body parts—my brain and my heart—but instead to wherever it was entertained, or pushed to frail due to fear digested throughout the trek here, to these red lips, un-kissed like my pale lips.

And the pods and rods and stones we took when we were never alone, are showing as lights and neon and parties for Party's uncaring to me, but not for them, because this is the Render, as the Walls say, which make me want to ask Úshka something I do not wish to ask her, but I must, so here we go:

"What is all this really for? And what are you to my mother? Are you her lover?"

The names of Casper as I once heard it in Elementary and Middle School, came to me when I looked at Úshka and asked her what I asked her; they came to me, the names, the Casper name, because of the way Úshka did look at me...her and her bright, colored eyes gazing at me but not really gazing at me...maybe gazing right through me, like a ghost, like Casper.

Have I become invisible like the ghost I so dearly mention because of my youngling fellows who so dearly did harass me upon my school, learning years?

"Why do you ask?" asked Úshka, knowing precisely why I asked but pretending like she didn't know, asking me why I asked when there's possibly only one reason to ask such a question like that (is there not?). So the question is asked, neither rapped, or wrapped, just asked.

I look at her and ignore the party around us. In the light, when my eyes make it away from Úshka, I can see her smile a little, like she wants to, like I said what she wanted me to say.

The Queen is busy congratulating my mother for a job well done.

And my mother is congratulating her right back.

They shake hands, toast, drink, kiss, handshake, hug, dance, drink, ask for louder music, drink more.

"I just want to know," I utter to Úshka.

But do I?

She sits on the lips I'm sitting on. Rather, than doing what I want: to sit her lips on my lips.

They fit and are cushioned. They are comfort. The comfort my mother does not have yet. Neither does Úshka.

Her vests—Úshka's vest—is unbuckled before she sits—it is done by her own hand; her own hand controlled by those lost around us (Catz, grandmother, Moritz, Henry, Party Members).

"Drink this," she lifts a champagne glass to me as if I'd need it. I don't think I need to booze up for whatever she's about to land on me. If I can take all the shit that has happened since the Catz took me, I can surely—for hell I can—take whatever news Úshka is willing to deliver at a time like this...at a time like the Render.

Fuck the Render.

"I don't need the booze," I tell Úshka, directing what I'm thinking. "I've already seen what I've seen. That'll keep me drunk enough for a good while—if not life."

She reacts like a stand-up audience would. But I did not, unlike a stand-up, intend for laughs, I am not sitting here to give Úshka laughs.

"Your mother did this because they were going to grab you either way," says Úshka, looking at the Queen and her posse all gathering around the dance floor, lifting their arms carrying the booze as they hit it together and then shoved it into their mouths, down their throats. "Your mother had gotten word that the Catz were going to kidnap you either way to try and get rid of your mother."

"So she thought she'd get a head start?" I fire out.

"Well...yeah??" replied Úshka.

"And what exactly are you all kidnapping me for?"

"Haven't you seen how bad things are? How corrupt the government has gotten?"

"Yeah, but what can we do? What can she do?" I say, looking at the Queen. "She's already becoming them."

"Who?"

"The very people you all 'saved' me from."

"The East Side police is not like the West Wall police," says Úshka—I think, not even believing her own lie, her own words, her own circumference of no circumference.

When the song in the background fades out, our conversation raises in volume, echoing around the room. Our words travel from ear to ear. But luckily, none of the words we would or could be worried about, come out.

"Why so sad?" asks the Queen, her shadow now covering me, taking a bit less time than usual. You wouldn't have even seen her sneak up on us. But I'm also too distracted to look up and give a shit about anyone trying to sneak up on us. Right now, I'm as safe and good as a fully-seen calf in the middle of the jungle placed in the center of the sunlight, right near the lion caves, where the predators can stretch out a hand to claw it and bring it in to their jaws, their fangs, their teeth—as the Catz did to me—to puncture and suck and taste...to taste what they have craved and longed for...what they need to survive.

Am I the calf; or is the Queen?

"Moo...moo-," I begin, or stutter: "Moo-moo-moments, all of them? But how? How did you all follow me for so long?" I find a way to let out, trying to hide what I want to ask and how scared I am. Am I scared? I don't think so.

"Moo...mooo..." the Queen began, not in stutter, but in imitation..."mooo-mooo-moommy," said the Queen, bringing Úshka's head down in shame—perhaps at her unfaithful lips, unlike those that take care of our bums.

"Mommy helped us, isn't that right Úshka?" repeated the Queen, making sure I got her message loud and clear—as clear as can be after somebody remembers whatever words you couldn't hear or make out before.

Why didn't life—or why doesn't life—give you a vade mecum upon graduating? I mean, upon being born? It should, after all, because of all the things you have to go through. Or shouldn't your mother or father, or your parents, or the people chosen to be your parents? Why doesn't the world hand us all a personal-life-vade-mecum to help us in times like this, like the one I'm being placed in right now?

Then suddenly, out of nowhere, as Úshka and I are talking...are talking over these lips wishing for other lips, the crowd on the dance floor, with the Queen leading the way, along with my mother, begin to saturate, all together, all in a dance-motion at the same time, they begin to do this while snapping their fingers, while clapping too, some even banged their feet on the floor to create a beat-like thump in the song of thyme or whatever it was, some also kicked their feet down with their ankles pointing to the ground as to also cause a drum-kit-type sound for a snare or crass, then it all came together, and shuttering, they all begin to pronounce The Render is here...The Render is here...The Render is here—they continued this with their snapping adc clicking. Up and down the crowd moved, almost mocking and moving like a chicken or duck or bird, as it's plucking around trying to find a mate. But is that what they're doing: trying to find a mate? Or did they already do it: in finding me?

"What the fuck?" I whisper to myself.

"It's that time," says Úshka. "Your ceremony. You should be happy!"

The Queen throws a man with a table of champagne over to me thinking that would get me "in the mood".

Looking from the glass panels around, displaying the Party to the other world, we're probably on the middle-floor of the building, around seventieth or so, that means if I jumped I'd die before smashing on the concrete gravel below, but jumping wouldn't matter because the glass wouldn't break, I wouldn't even make it half-way out of the glass, the window, before I'd get thrown back, pushed back and almost knocked out by the break-proof, bullet-proof glass.

Push me back wall, for I don't need much pushing today—as old songs would say—time to break stuff.

Then, as I thought it'd get a 'tad bit more normal, those in the crowd, begin separating and going apart from each other, leaving a bit of space between each one, a few servants, Party members, anyone involved within the radius of the dance floor—everyone began to sashay in a circle; if there were an aerial view for this, you'd see about three circles, creating one giant circle, sashaying around other dancing beings, they bob up and down and shay in a circle, their hands stretched out and at their waist, palms spread out and looking downward; "The Render" they sang, as the continue sashaying, and saturation continues in a circle, the three trigs sashaying around the dancing beings....The Queen then walked away from me, in their own sashay, looking back every now and then, also singing "The Render" and then "come on, come on" she'd say..."come Ludy...come, come."

Then the dancers said it: "come Ludy!"

Then the Queen: "come Ludy!"

Then the dancers—until Úshka got up herself.

The lips—the big, red, comfortable lips—now had one bum on them.

Úshka began her sashay. She did it, too—like the Queen—looking back, and singing:

"The Render is here," the tuatara came like the Queen: "come Ludy...come."

Then my mother opened up. She separated herself from the dancing, and the circling sashaying, and the Queen who was entering the floor to take her place:

As soon as my mother walked off the floor, her sashay began—but towards me:

"The Render is here, my Ludy," she saturated. "The Render is here."

"The Render!" the Wall scram.

"The Render"! The DJ then screamed, pumping up the music—he played this classical, up-beat type shit—the type of shit I hadn't heard before but wouldn't mind adding to my Spotify list; opps! It's not Spotify anymore; now it's called God-ify.

'We did it for you," my mother said, tears coming from her eyes, in the rhyme of the music, slowly, elegantly, like she practiced it.

Is she real?

No, my brain tells me.

A humongous, spiked to the heavens-chair was then brought out. It came from a secret door hidden in pitch black, away from the lights. The chair said "Ludy--new leader of the Catz" in this tacky, bubble-like lettering. The fabric, was that of feathers, plucked and woven, pointing outward to be petted and smacked.

Eyes of my mother gazed on me and at the chair.

Was it her doing?

I sure hope not.

"I bought you the chair as a welcome home gift," she says. "You can use it once you take your throne."

But what throne?

"The Qeeun has hers, and I have mine, and every leader has one so they're always comfortable."

"You mean, so they sit and die?" I ask.

"Not at all. On the contrary—so they sit and think...so they can thrive."

"How? Thrive how?"

"You were planned to be taken. I saved you from that taking. Sure, grandma died. But look at you: you are alive and well and you'll have all the power you could never imagine soon; you can have anyone you want; no more being unpopular."

"What? Unpopular? Have anyone I want? And what makes you think that's what I want? What makes you think I'm not taken already? And grandma wasn't the only one that died--I lost my boyfriend too!"

"Oh, come on, you didn't love that boy!" my mother laughs off, as if Moritz' life was okay to waste because her daughter's heart didn't care for him much, because she didn't cry as if it might have hurt her, or grandma, or Úshka—because Moritz' death didn't kill me it shouldn't be that worrisome, thinks my mother.

"They're keeping people like you in cages so—you know that?" my mother lets out.

"What are you talking about? And why do you divert from all the fucked up that's happened. How all of this is pointless death and massacre. Almost genocide."

"Calling Ludy to the chair—to the throne" says the DJ, calling from his mic, his "high-up seat".

In a strange, unusual way, this DJ wasn't--isn't—like the one at Black Catz; this one doesn't seem somehow-knowing, somehow-safe, somehow-un-vitiated and professional, doing its job: playing us, moving us, most importantly, somehow, helping us...one scratch, beat, change-up, mix-up, remix, at a time.

When I told you before about my grandmother, and how she would sacrifice my birthday for her saints birthday and how she didn't love me enough because of that, I didn't also tell you that my next thought was that maybe she did love me and maybe she loved me more than I thought because she just wanted me to be close to her on her, and my, birthday for that reason, so she said those things and used her saint to do so—or maybe she simply loved me more than I thought for sacrificing her birthday for that of her saints, which meant she was a selfless person rather than a selfish person, as I once thought.

Or maybe I don't know anything.

Maybe I simply miss her—my grandmother.

She is truly missed.

I see all this now.

I see all this now because of the way my mother is. And the way Úshka is.

And I see why Luviel acted the way she did towards my mother. I see that now.

And I see why Luviel and Zero laughed when I felt some sort of connection towards my mother, and when I made decisions based off of the emotion I would get off of her, when I would make decisions inspired by her...why my sympathy towards my mother would soon, before and after, come to nothing.

And when my mother told me about what my father did...

...How in the blackness, in the darkness, when I was passing out, she said...

"He crossed a tunnel of cobble on his knees for you."

...How even after she said that—my mother did—how even after that, I felt some way I should have not: like I didn't give a shit, and how I didn't believe the emotion she was trying to set on me, no matter how much she tried to say it on me, or...set it on me.

Intentions—we all have them.

My father had his. To cover-up his fuck-ups.

My mother has hers: to leave an heir behind for her bullshit of power.

The Queen has hers: to have the power.

Luviel and Zero had theirs: to have power too, for their people.

The black Catz had all of theirs: to be youthful, to live free, kind, to live as a whole of people would wholesomely intend to.

It could be that my father crossed that tunnel, and then sent the police his way to avoid all of this now: so did he really protect me if he simply bailed out instead of being a man about it, standing up to it with chest-out, arms out, in front of me, the whole way?

And my mother, the Queen's biggest servant, completing the biggest of tasks.

Must I obey now: for her? Must I be the sacrifice?

I must be strong, is what I must do. Zone out. Cover my ears as I did when the Catz took me and how I'm still now. Cover your ears, Ludy. cover them deep. Cover your ears and keep fighting. For every child must do the job its parents could not do. Be the strong person in the family.

That "be better than me" speech should never come to anyone—and you now know that all it means is "I fucked up, I'm lazy, go on and be a success so you can support me. Thank you."

Do you remember what I told you before? That we all come with a bill in life.

Well—this is my bill; no—this is our bill: the bill of being "better than our parents". That is everyone's bill in life when you arrive.

The biggest bill yet, too.

But parents wouldn't' know that.

Parents know that until they become parents.

Parents know what they're supposed do to, and with, their child until they become parents, until they leave childhood, youthfull, non-parenthood-ville...behind.

Dear word-grabber:

I'm deeply sorry I told you to follow me; I'm sorry for -

No, fuck that; I am sorry, but I'm also tired of saying sorry;

Therefore, I will say-

Follow me if you dare;

Follow me if you want what you did not expect;

Follow me if thy words at start do not depend on end...

...for thee.

With grandmother in mind—with Moritz' parents, Moritz, Henry, Oso, Luviel, Zero, Noe, with all of them in mind—I lift myself:

"I am doing it for them," I tell my mother. "I'm doing it for them," I say again, meaning all of them—all those that rest above me now, and below me.

With them looking down on me—all those names I allowed the world to go on my watch—I feel it is only my duty.

"I'm ready to take this," I tell my mother.

"Come," she says, smiling.

The Queen glows.

My "throne" acts like glitter in the air.

And the DJ bumps—ready to blare.

At first sight, Úshka walks over to me, drifting apart from the dance floors:

"I'm glad you've decided on this," she says.

I don't know what I've decided on. I'm simply placing feet on a stool that leads to the chair, the throne, the glitter-bomb; I've simply decided to take a step, one step.

At times, when my grandmother had no choice, she would leave one of my nephews with me. Or she would send me to his apartment to look after them.

It was a small, dingy, brick place in the middle of the city, static running in and around it, poles too—bathroom and kitchen and living room—right above the restaurants and shops. Inside you could always find my nephew playing video games. And sometimes, he'd get just as heated as the counsel when he wasn't winning at whatever game he was playing. He would throw the controller and storm into his room. I don't know why his mother didn't just keep the video games in his room. Or maybe that's why: because he'd break everything. Either way, when he'd come back, and when he'd give the counsel time to cool, he would then come back and finish the game off like he was supposed to, in a winning way—I never knew how it happened.

I suppose it was like most things: let it cool and it will get better; like most situations.

So back there, on those lips, sitting on rec, hot, love, I realized that: that I had to cool down; that I had to let the heat go; that I needed to let the fire that wanted to lash out and forget that I still needed to avenge those that had fallen behind me—Moritz and my grandmother and the Catz and Luviel and Zero and so on—before I could freak, before I could get so fired up. So I did let myself cool. The cool came after I just sat there and blazed away as Úshka talked and the Queen and my mother listened.

And here I am, on the chair—fully cooled.

"There she is, y'all!" screamed the DJ through his mic. "The new Catz leader ready to be Rendered."

And the Queen walked up with a giant luchador mask.

What?

"Here it is, y'all!" said the DJ. "The Render mask."

And another dot connected: the luchadores; the luchadores, too, could have saved Moritz but they didn't.

"This one is yellow and black like Black Catz," says the Queen, airing out the mask and then heading it right for my face.

My mother pulled my hair back.

"It's beautiful," she says.

And then Úshka hands her a bun.

My mother ties my hair.

The mask goes on.

The DJ plays again.

Úshka then comes at me with a mug. A gold mug. Top fully open and circular. Silver and silver.

"Open your mouth," she says.

"What?

"Just open your mouth!"

I do. Because remember: I'm cooling down.

The liquid goes down my throat easily because most of it goes out of my throat.

The Queens surrogates' spurge, then, the same liquid Úshka is holding into the air.

Under the tail, under the chair and over the couch under the chair, glitter mounts from all the bits flying from the jets beside the DJ area.

Am I just the Queen's trouvaille pond?

If I am the trouvaille of the Queen or not is not important right now. I'm half-way from almost choking by not paying any attention to the booze running down and into my throat, and with the Queen not minding either—pouring heavily away—it is up to me to stop her.

So I raise my hand and place it in-between the challis of the Queen and the mouth of her "trouvaille-piece".

"Okay—I think I drank enough," I say, trying to swallow what I had already drunk while I was getting drunk, all under a funk that came in this hole I've dug and jumped and then, as you may know, sunk in.

Imagine yourself in a renaissance, elegant palace with the night painting the floors and shine of glitter on the floor, and there are the people who want to be elegant but also know the only person that is elegant in situations like this is the person with power, so they all strut around pretending—for the time being—that they are elegant until they are given the nod for the night to say that they are in-deed elegant and can now go home to sleep comfortably, with their champagne glasses, some take sips, and some look at me, and here I am—as you know—on the chair, the throne, stopping the jugging, with the queen—the purest renaissance-like person of them all in this situation—standing before me with her challises that says Party and that is all about the Render as is the chair, and then I look at my mother who is back by Úshka's side where she's been all these years instead of my years, and I look back at me, and the stopping, and I look at the Queen, and I just sit, I sit and I take the position:

"Where shall I go to start this role as the Black Catz leader?" I ask.

The Queen's brow's lift, they reach the light as it graces he forehead, and her lips widen out to show her healthy—unlike the servant's--teeth and gums:

"Úshka," calls the Queen.

"Yes, my lady," now, all of the sudden, being the servant to the Queen, says Úshka.

"Take her there tonight. Get her set up. And role with her for a week until she gets the ropes of that side. And tomorrow, after I have you, you will go to," the Queen says, looking at my mother, her smile growing wider.

If it is having like I want to have Úshka that my mother and Queen will go and have, then I don't want part of it here, but I do want part of it in East Wall with Úshka—if the Queen is sending me with her, and if my mother is allowing her to send me with her, then it's for a reason. I don't know that reason. I just know my post.

"There's a Jag outside waiting for you now. A gift from both of us," says the Queen.

"Yes—we saw you eyeing it and thinking about it," says my mother, then clicking a button that appears into her pocket dress and changes a scene on the wall of the palace to me, when the Black Catz took me--Oso and Congo and their Catz—in their Jag; there I was, as the night and day happened, outside my uncle's store pleading for help but all they could do was watch.

"Thanks," I say, because there is nothing else to say with these people, this "mother," this "Queen".

Úshka actually seems happier about the car than I do. Maybe she's actually into Jags. My eyes—the day of me being taken—were only onto the Jag because they were stuck in shock—and if my mother would have been a mother these past few years instead of a civil-war guerilla leader, she would have known that from the first look I gave, the first reactions; but my mother doesn't know jack about me—I hope you know that by now too; we both make nothing but wrong decision, and her guiding us, letting her choose the path, the way—it was all a bad idea.

The music continues from the DJ, and my mother continues the dance with the servant-crowd, and I take the throne away from my bum and hide on the lips again, because there is something about the style that I'll miss—the type of style the East Wall doesn't have; I'm going back to that dry delta-like place; I want to go back; I know that's where I belong because I also don't know what the fuck has happened to my uncle—or if they'll (the Catz or the gangs we murdered) will have vengeance on him.

As I had hoped, Úshka flounders at my trail. Her heels make her direction and space known.

To make certain, she cries over the DJ:

"Wait up!"

My liquids come to a halt forward:

"Hurry," I say, without a glance back.

Bombs dropped. Bombs from all sides. They dropped from the speakers. In beat.

When we sit, my body--and I suspect Úshka's as well—undulates with the couch, which is undulating with the "bombs" being dropped by...by...DJ Scratchy Scratch Queens...according to the tag over the speakers along his laptop, and the stickers that are on his laptop.

"So, what did you want to talk about? We should be in there dancing. Enjoying the party."

"Because you want to go back and lead the Catz?"

"Of course I do. It'll be great. You'll get to do all the good you've wanted to do. It's what your mother has been doing. It's what your grandmother didn't let her do."

"And what good is that? All I've seen anyone do is kill people."

"You know it's more than that."

"How is it more than that?"

"Well—it is not just killing people. It's helping people be safe—as everyone should be."

"How in the hell can you keep people safe if you can't even keep them alive."

"You know what I mean."

"I don't know what you mean."

"Well—well," stutters Úshka, "you know—sometimes, you need to leave a few stains to create a masterpiece."

"So you're comparing deaths to a masterpiece?" I ask confused.

"Not exactly. I'm just saying that sometimes you need to."

Before she goes any further, before she makes me dislike any bit of her, I stop her:

"I think I know what you mean."

"I know it's hard to get used to it. But everyone gets used to doing it. It's like the War Games the old folks used to play back in their day. You remember? When they'd send themselves to Iran, or Iraq, or Vietnam, Or France—it is like that, but we stay here, in our home town, because now, that's the shit that needs fixing."

"But they're just like us..."

"Who is?" Úshka asks—I guess, unlike I thought, not feeling what I was feeling, she is still lost.

"All of them. All of the other people doing what we're doing."

"Well—not really. Some still work for the Party's," says Úshka, almost giving me a rational—or trying to—for all the killings I've seen go down.

"I've seen them," I say.

"Yeah—but they're—or some—are working for the government. You saw that, with Henry, no?"

"How do you know about Henry?"

"Come on?" Úshka replies, looking up at the wall screens which was still playing parts of my story since leaving my uncle's.

"So you've been with them the whole time?"

"Yep. Here, we work for the Queen. She has it all. Or did. But she uses it to help. I guess."

"Nobody here has helped."

"Listen," says Úshka, "some of the kids you see fighting, well, they're doing it for the wrong reason."

"And our reason is right. Whatever the fuck that is. In fact—what the fuck is that reason?" I ask, fully obsessed.

"To not let them control us," says Úshka, then looking at a screen playing parts of the news—breaking news, read the banner, the picture.

There, in the picture, in the screen, in the wall that could now talk, I saw the stars—all of the celebrities, athletes, bankers, all of the rich fucks that had gotten out of hand with their pay, and that were taking it for granted. That's how it is on the West Wall. The East Wall is about to have that. That's why they're sending us there-- Úshka and I.

"Don't you want to be a part of that?"

"Geez. I don't know. I was just trying to cope with finishing school this coming year."

"You can finish school in East Wall. Or you can finish that school-like experience," Úshka then laughed, knowing finishing a "school-experience" isn't quite the same as finishing school for real.

This celebration isn't really for me. This celebration is for the fact that the West Wall Party now gets to have one-up the East Wall Party. But it's been that way for a while now.

Since I can remember—since my grandmother and I have lived here—things on the West Wall have always been "one-up" from that of their peers on the East Wall. It started with the food and water. We began to have more of it. Then our economy thrived higher than theirs due to economical control rather than looser laws for lazy rich people earning more than they could have ever imagined in doing whatever they probably never truly imagined they could do.

It would be easier to do this with my grandmother. To say that I still have her to cross with me, to help me as she has throughout all these years—during the good and rough times, and the times when I needed a woman in my life and she was the only one there. But she's not going to be there. So trekking and doing this on my own is all I have. And I believe I can do it with what my grandmother has already taught me. We'll see.

Úshka may think she's enough, that she can do that "partner" role my grandmother once took up so bravely and valiantly, but I don't know if she can; she might have been a good side-piece for my mother; but I'm not in need of no side-piece—not unless they can actually cause some change in this equation, in this plan, in this mental map.

In the near distance, by the lips where we were sitting, the Party continued the Reaping calls, and the DJ went on until the night faded out and the alcohol ran out and we all had to find a place to rest until the next day.

Today—the "next day"—has finally arrived, and I wake up over the lips where I just faded out with Úshka talking to me. I believe she was talking to be me because she was dead asleep on the floor beside me. I don't know why I took the whole lips but I did. Now we have to take the lips we came on this Earth with to East Well to do what we were tasked to do.

Groggy and uncut, I shake and wrap myself away, my hair gets tossed away from my eyes, my lips still dry and stuck together, my skin weak and white. The first thing to hit Earth were the shoes I dreamt with (in case I needed to run in my dreams as I have had to do oh so many times in real life).

The taste in my mouth is still of that bubbly being served last night for the Render.

I don't know why I even slept there.

My mother and the Queen and the servants are nowhere to be found. The space once filled with drunks and party people is now empty with Úshka and myself. Like they left us here. Like maybe, just maybe, this was our first task.

Alarms here that thought in my head go off to wake Úshka, who is still lost in her drunk slumber:

"Wake, wake get up and play, for today is your first day, rule, rule the East Wall today, the Queen and mom will meet you to play; dear Úshka and Ludy, please be out front of the building in fifteen minutes to meet the Queen and her servant."

The invitation and banner and notice, was given to us in a lullaby, ballad, mom-baby-song-like type of way, with—maybe the DJ inserted this part—a baby jingle, mnemonic, riddle, lullaby, playing in the background to create its beat.

Úshka didn't wake at the first call. And lucky for me—whom didn't want to wake Úshka—it didn't come with just one call, or it didn't stop with the first call:

"Wake Wakiiee" the walls (of the building) repeated, no DJ in sight, "Must meet the Queen and serve the day."

Then, after this time of calls, Úshka below me began to move. Her hands moved and twitched forward. Then came her legs. Then her hair got in the way of her face and vision as it did to me—and does and did even without being in here—with the air condition blowing it around to make the hot mess a windy, hot mess.

Or maybe a cool, hot mess?

My movement helps her out. Úshka needed a helping hand.

Our vests were left behind. I presume it's because we will need them. That's one thing I've learned since this journey: when vests are left around, it's because they'll be used.

"Did you hear that?" I ask Úshka--probably barging her with more than she could handle at this time of day, at this moment of the day.

This lazy, heavy, weak, dizzy feeling in the morning after a heavy night out wasn't normal for me. On this side, before my grandmother sent me to East Wall, and when I did go out with Moritz and the few soccer teammates I hung out with, staying out late never accompanied plenty of carbonization as it did last night.

"You have that booze blood," my grandmother would warn me. About who? I didn't know then. But I know now.

"I only caught 'meet' in there," Úshka replied.

"We need to see the Queen and my mother up front."

"When?"

"The Wall said in fifteen minutes a minute ago."

"The Wall," Úshka laughs. Then she gets up—extremely cautious, at a pace that could match a sloth in no hurry.

"Is this how it always goes? Y'all just party and then go and 'do business'?" I ask.

"Not always. Sometimes we get an extra day. But I think there's still people in East Wall that we need to settle scores with," Úshka replies.

"Well, I guess we better get moving," I say, knowing we'll need to meet the Queen and my mother in the al-fresco mode in about....

...I look at the clocks I can find on the wall....

"You have ten minutes left," it says, knowing the precise question I was going to ask.

Shaking my head, annoyed...annoyed that I can't seem to do anything for myself here or in East Wall, I tell Úshka:

"Looks like we have ten minutes. So come one."

Reaching for a vest, because I'm assuming we'll need them, I hand one to Úshka and begin to place one over myself—I am not even sure if this is the one I was using, but I still put it on.

"I'm guessing we'll need these," I tell Úshka, handing her the vests.

She's still raising herself, dusting herself off from the dust build-up on the floor from the celebrations. Then she grabs the vests from my hands.

"Oh, yeah. Wooo." she says, almost as if we're going to some other party—like all this fighting, all these wars, are all just a game to her.

And maybe they are to all these people: the Queen, my mother, Congo, Oso, Zero, Luviel—everyone involved. Maybe it's all a game for them. It sure as hell looks like one with all this technology. It looks like that of the plots we used to interactive with at school, during computer class when we were supposed to be doing our work instead of playing video games.

"I'm going to get water," I say, trying to forget about the "game" I was in, the one I was being forced to play, and direct myself towards one of the coolers behind the bar that stayed behind from the celebrations. I open the fridge and grab two after hearing Úshka's response:

"Please," she says. "You know—I am excited about this," she then says, confirming the thought that she does think this is all a video game—a real life video game.

We chug our water and strap ourselves before heading to the elevators.

Inside us—I guess because of how it feels for me–our veins and lungs and stomach are praising the arrival of the clear oxygen they need to survive after the long night of evils they didn't need to survive. I feel the refreshment smack me like a cold wave in the morning coming from the bathroom sink., my hands as the God pouring it and using it is my alarm clock, in sorts.

Reaching the elevators is easy without a crowd. We do so—Úshka and I—after downing our liquid to clear up our souls, placing our vests over our hearts to save whatever there is left to save, and clean-up what we can clean up from the rest left behind—in our hair, on our clothes and over our shoes.

The bell rings when our floor is up. We step in and press the button. Úshka does the honor of directing the elevator to the next floor.

Upon reaching the first floor, the Queen's servants can be seen waiting in a row, a line, an order to guide us to where we need to go, to where the Queen has ordered us to meet her.

"Your guests are here," the servants say as Úshka and I approach the Queen and my mother.

After passing the row of servants until reaching the outer glass of the first floor, only one servant guides us and breaks off after that, directly directing himself towards the Queen:

"Ma'm, and ma'm," he then says to my mother," the guests are ready."

Time having passed shows me a mother whom is only here to put-up, like she's attending a ceremony, a give-away, another party—but a more elegant one.

This does not do anything for the Queen—the sunrise and sundown—for she always looks the same: covered in fashion, elegance, and money (the money we fight so hard to keep).

All this still leaves me with plenty of questions. Those questions, however, are not due at the moment, it is not the right time to ask them, and we have to go, so I don't ask them and I count my own chickens in my head and I wait for the Queen's orders.

When the time doss come to ask, I will ask, you should know that, however.

"So, you two are ready, eh?" asks the Queen. "We have some stuff to give you, and some places to go before you two are off."

"You'll like this," says my mother.

"Is it bringing grandma back to life?" I ask her.

"No," she replies, in sorrow, in some sort of disappointment in herself.

"Oh, well, then it doesn't really excite me that much I guess," I reply.

Going from that failed attempt at cheering me up—and the failed attempt of cheering up myself that I feel every day—my mother then suggests taking my vest off, for I was not going to need it.

"We're making you pretty today," says the Queen.

Oh, okay—thanks for notifying me of my un-prettiness.

"Thanks," I reply.

In her economically-confident tone—since I met her—the Queen (and maybe my mother) say they're "taking you two to the salon," identifying Úshka and I as the "you two" in her daily news of the day—or maybe I should say her morning announcement, as it is the morning.

Úshka doesn't need as much fixing as I do, although I would never admit it, so I don't know how the Queen and my mother can so easily advise her to add more "beauty" to herself—even if it is fake—to her.

"Come on. This way," says my mother, taking a turn away from the servant and into an alley with gloss and graffiti and people taking selfies with their Party-given mobiles used to keep track of their every move to then post on their Party-given internet profile to also keep track of their every move.

It's always felt like everything I've done—although most of it has not been for myself—has been taken for granted, gone unseen. All that until now.

"We're going to get you two fixed so pretty," brags the Queen—like "getting pretty" would save our lives, like it would pay for food and clean water and rent, like it would pay for life's necessities.

Do you ever feel like that?

I sure you do. You're just not in this type of world to feel it. But I'm sure you would; I'm sure we all would—we all would feel this way at one point or another.

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It is bullshit, really, that we have to put up with these things like life. These bullish dress rehearsals that no God is forced to put up with but we are, and therefore we're like these fucking dumb-watts that live on earth because we're too stupid to figure out another way to live life–the life everyone begs for but nobody sees is stupid, fucking pointless, fucking childless; life is God's childish game; life is probably God's most immature game.

So here I am, like a dumb-twat that took on life following my mother around like those ants you would see on the floor following a sugar-trail. If only God would allow you to kill me too, it would be doing me a huge favor.

Sometimes in my family—actually, most times–I feel like I'm fighting for nothing, like I'm doing what I can with nobody else doing what they can. It's, I guess, what you would call life's evil, lazy games.

Parents are that: lazy. That's why they have kids.

All parents are lazy fucking fucks. They don't do shit but ruin lives.

And friends are second to parents. They're just as pointless. They, too, ruin lives and offer bad advice.

If I could give you one advice from all of this...it is to not have friends and to cancel yourself as soon as you're born because life doesn't matter and nothing you do matters and nothing you will do will ever matter.

Me writing all of this down will probably not matter in one world, or in any world, but here I am, playing God's game, writing it all down because I have to write it all down for myself and for my community that cannot write.

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You're probably wondering why I bother with all of this if I hate life and people so much, and that's easy: my fucking grandmother; my grandmother that they took away from me; and Moritz; the Moritz they took away from me, the one they snatched at a young age when he still had time to give to me, to sacrifice for me as they sacrificed him for them—those fucking basters.

It is for that reason—my grandmother and Moritz—that I follow the Queen, and her servants, and my mother, and Úshka, and the others...I don't know what others but I'm still here calling them and fighting for them.

The store, upon reaching it, is grey. It's made of brick. It's small—not as big as the rest of the buildings, at least. There is a sign outside.

Funky Funks, the sign up top reads.

Inside, through the glass, I can see all kinds of outfits. There are puffy ones, thin ones, big ones, small ones, yellow ones, green ones, blue ones—there are dresses to make any ugly soul...look pretty.

I say soul instead of face or appearance because that shit doesn't exist; a person is solely judged—in the higher real worlds, off of what they give, the energy, the love, the personality they offer—rather than by their looks; know that.

"The deal is, you two can pick two each, to take over. Then we'll need to fix your hairs," the Queen says, opening the door into the beauty shop—the "fixer-upper shop".

When I walk inside, a thin, small girl is waiting for us with drinks over her tray that rests over her palms, like the servants did at the celebration last night. In Black Catz they didn't have trays or people to carry trays because they just did it themselves, they just drank and fixed it themselves.

One dress—the first one I saw at least--was green. Then the second one was purple.

Úshka walked over to a rainbow colored one.

Most of the outfits, I could tell from what I was seeing, in this store, matched the stores on the sky rise buildings outside, attached and beside this very store.

"Look at this one," Úshka admired, looking back at me while feeling-up a dress in-front of her; it wasn't the rainbow one, but it was also fashioned with more than four colors, making it seem like it was a rainbow one—or the rainbow dress at the front.

I kept walking around, admiring.

How about this one?" my mother called out, prickling at a pair near a rack towards a far corner from the window, the one that was set up by the dressing rooms.

The dressing rooms in this store were in the back, like the rest in this building. They would put them up-front with all the thieves and stealing that happened about five decades ago, but they just invented new tech to fix that, new robots to do off with their heads whenever they needed to, so human hands didn't have to get dirty.

I shake my head at my mother in order to give her a response. Probably not the one she is looking for, but still, a response.

There is no salesperson here because there are screens, on every wall. And with those screens, they don't need other eyes watching you. They can watch you from anywhere.

"Dressing room?" one of the walls asks.

"Not yet, replies our Queen.

After that reply, a few dresses fly out of their racks and into the center of the store, up into the air where we can't touch them. The dresses begin to spin and model for us, free of any bodies in-between or under them. They twirl and ruffle as you would see them do in any common TV advert—but like I said, without the humans under them.

That is what things do when they are surrounded by tech: they operate themselves, they work themselves, they become human-free.

"Goes best in summer, or breakfast, or brunch, or raves, or even, at festivals," said the dress, or maybe it was the intercoms up top, in the store's ceilings that said that, after twirling and modeling for us.

Then, after that dress, another dress stood forward, separating itself from the rest, and it—too—began modeling for us as the last one did:

"Best for fall, and winter, and Christmas parties, and to impress that cling, cling," it implied, again and again.

Cling, Cling, in here, in this world, is a sort of expressive term to signify parental–in-laws...whatever parental-in-laws you could have with rules like ours.

A few more dresses flew into our view after those already flying towards us.

There was the spring break dress, the game day dress, the drugged-out dress, the accuse-someone dress, the abuse-someone dress, the trick-them-into-loving-you dress (yes, these are all real names given for the dresses by the tech designers, the robotic designers, themselves); once all the dresses played for us, or at least the most popular in this store, we were given a few seconds as to decide what we wanted to do with the options we were given.

"So?" asked my mother, impatiently, her green eye downing on me, focusing.

There were plenty to choose from. But what do you say when all the options work for everything, and work for everyone, but what you're looking for, what you're moving out to live for—forcibly.

"I don't know," I instinct-lee reply.

My mother lets out a kiss, releasing it in a blow, in a sigh.

"Well, young lady, you're going to have to choose, because we don't have much time," says the Queen, probably knowing my mother would just give in and maybe take me to another store.

Is this the feeling normal mother and daughters get, the ones they have for each other, when they're out with each other? Is this what it feels like to bond with a parent? There is love and trust, while distaste, worry, and envy still lingers above us—all of us.

It may feel good to be a real family again, someday.

"I kind of liked the summer, festival dress," says Úshka.

I knew she would. Úshka is that type of festival girl you read about in history books; she is like those youths we talk about that lived back in the day, living out in free and wild and fresh thinking, open to roam, in Rome...when in Rome; she is like those that lived in the early twenty-first century, when festivals like the ones this dress was made for, were still around...along with music like that and careers like those where it was humans and not robots singing through car speakers.

I would say I would have been one of those festival generations if I was lucky enough to be born into one. But I wasn't. So I don't pick the sun, festival dress because it doesn't tie back with me, even now.

Dots, and stripes, and tiny dots, or splashes, or leaves—they were all designed on some other dresses.

But, yet, the ones being advertised had drawn designs...finely tuned designs; not prints.

This was, after all, a very special occasion.

We're not just going to East Wall for fights, we're on our way for good.

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