Chapter 15: An Injustice

How could they do that to us? Those fucking colonizers! They promised it would be different this time. We signed agreements, shook hands, and broke bread. My wife made a penril con arroz y todo. And yet…that’s the last thing I remember about our life. Our history, our people, our homeland, even our names. Gone. 

I’m sure it’s still out there somewhere, but I have no idea where to find it. I’m grateful enough to have my wife still by my side. She struggles with voices in her head calling for her return. Judging by how she holds herself, I’d imagine we were of high status. She’s nothing short of a queen in my eyes. Maybe I’m just biased at this point. After all, all I remember is her. And I will protect her with my life.

“Void, come on!” she calls to me from the waves. “The water’s perfect. There’s no big waves or nothin’!”

“Coming,” I yell back and abandon my sneakers in the sand.

Heh. Void. I had said that name as a joke, and she just ran with it, calling herself Voidette as if we were a pair of cartoon characters. It’s not like I mind the name. I just think my wife deserves a real name, not a feminine version of mine.

“Will you relax for a sec and just enjoy this?” she begs as I watch her struggle to tread water.

“We don’t even know where we are,” I say, swimming closer.

“Seems like paradise to me,” she laughs.

That it does. A beach set against the backdrop of a lush jungle of palm trees. Doubt that we’ll be the only ones here. The colonizers linger in the shadows no matter where we go.

“I love you, Voidette,” I say to myself as she tries and fails to befriend a seagull, her innocent laughter filling my soul.

I need to figure out how to get back home and undo the amnesia we’ve been gifted. I’m sure the myths of the past hold clues. Once I figure out how to access them, I’ll be unstoppable. But for now, I’ll embrace this moment and enjoy the waves. It’s all I’ll have when things get chaotic again.