Kaye Boesme - Podcast Details

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Epiphany 1 Poråkol 1892 [final entry]Dear Axopatomsa Kobsarka-Eråsis tal Niksubvya, Those were the pages of my journals that described how I rose to power. I was so young in 1865, and I hardly knew any of the things that I take for granted now. In 1869, I moved onto my next journal and censored as much as possible. It was a balance because my daughter would need to see enough to guess at what truly happened, but not enough to be dangerous. I wrapped the journal you hold now in waterproof cloth and used fingerprint technology to keep prying eyes from l...

2018-03-1606 min

Epiphany 16 Hoiekol 1865Public executions rarely happen in Tveshė. Every few years, the blacksmiths on Måra Street who keep the sacred smithing temple receive word from the palace that they must sharpen the guillotine. They scrape rust from its steel frame and assemble the killing machine deep inside the Reclaimed Zone. Here, the sun sizzles on the pavement and the sky never quite loses an undertone like steel. Those of us who decided to watch the executions assembled early in the day, most with parasols to protect us from the sunlight. I wore red for the first time since mo...

2018-03-0915 min

Epiphany 60 Poråkol 1865Thousands of years before the skyscrapers rose on Kaiatha Sound or the holographic gardens clustered along the edges of the great salt marshes, a child watched ler father and mother die at the hands of the Erebi tribe through cracks in a woven grain basket. As the parents’ blood spattered across the floor — as le heard the other villagers wail in the distance —— as the riders razed every other home in the town ——— as the scent of uncooked grain burning made ler mouth water and stomach growl ———— this child felt the veil between reality and illusion part. Le claimed to see a ta...

2018-03-0205 min

Epiphany 55 Poråkol 1865The Reclaimed Zone is repulsive, and Liga took me there today because I wanted to see Sehutañi. The Reclaimed Zone can never forget what happened to it. Almost nothing will grow above the floodplain because the dirt is absolutely barren. Even the river tried to cover it up by winding over most of it after Old Tveshė fell thousands of years ago. No one settled it until the Taritit decided to build infrastructure there. Only aliens would have funded the colossal penitentiary and the factories staffed entirely by people, not sharp-fingered robots like we had known be...

2018-02-2309 min

Epiphany 53 Poråkol 1865Today was the last day of the trial, and we only just saw Liga’s testimony. Liga dressed the most formally out of all who gave testimonies, a in a yellow men’s haukaptu with puffed fabric at the elbows. The embroidery, predominantly gray and amber, reminded me of a harvest I saw in Iturja when I was still a child. It looked altogether too warm, but ler white eyeliner and the banded, gray-and-yellow face paint over the bridge of ler nose hadn’t started to run. It must have been waterproof. Le sat with ler dark hands...

2018-02-1610 min

Epiphany 48 Poråkol 1865The murder trial started today. There is no sign of it stopping, actually. My descendants will find that most murder trials in the 1860s take under a day to decide. This is fast on record to be the longest one in the New Tveshi State. The courts drafted a lawyer for the assassins because no lawyer in Tveshė would take the case. They flew in an Iturji just out of law school who is very pregnant. Le has armed guards around lim at all times because the protests outside look like they could turn violent at any moment.

2018-02-0212 min

Epiphany 45 Poråkol 1865Karatau visited me and brought the strange cream. Liga apparently doesn’t know. We had a longer discussion about my role during the trial and whether I would be called in. The testimony recording will take at least an hour, and Karatau thinks that I can plead a health exemption. The Kohjenya have all of the relevant information, le said, with the exception of my journals. Suka has what le needs to have for safekeeping. I mean, Liga and I agreed to write them as we did so they looked like Maðzi-inspired things that I merely sha...

2018-01-2613 min

Epiphany 41-44 Poråkol 186541 Poråkol 1865 Regent Thassañi met with me again, and I learned so much from lim (and ler staff) about the way we will market my appointment to the press: The assassination has provided them with the opportunity to add more Narahji representation. This is important because the Daybreak Movement has started recruiting from non-Shiji groups. That’s what we will say. We will say that Tveshė is many people, but one country, all under a descendant of Sehịnta. News agencies will cover this story in Menarka while keeping a spotlight on the fun...

2018-01-1908 min

Epiphany 37-40 Poråkol 186537 Poråkol 1865 The hospital staff released me to my apartment. The morning dawned clear, and I have access to writing materials. Kati has gone to stay with a friend, and I have my room back. Once my parents left for the satellite home, I called Suka and asked lim to come with Liga. I have the bug, and the data won’t sync to my computer. I need to write down what happened before it becomes unusable and I forget. 38 Poråkol 1865 I failed. I fail...

2018-01-1212 min

Epiphany 34 Poråkol 1865I remember almost nothing from the next five days. I know that I went into surgery, and I know that I was in pain. In half-awake moments when the drugs wore off, I had hallucinations of Kelis and those things that one sees on the edge of death that most of the living — that I — don’t understand. Kelis and ler restless-dead companions came to my bedside and pressed their lips against my forehead, cold — cold like North Tvaji in winter. There were multitudes of dead, far more than those who died at the intersection who might hold jealousy towards...

2018-01-0511 min

Epiphany 28 Poråkol 1865, part 2The Great Road smelled like incense, and enormous clouds of it blew in the wind. We walked on thrown kau grain. The crowd showered us with half-frozen flower petals. None of them quite struck Fadehin Akaiañi or me. Being struck with the flower petals is considered lucky. The Great Road bisects a street that is Karudesa Street on the left and Nikara Street on the right. Karudesa Street leads to Senatorial Square, and Nikara Street leads to the embassies. It is one of the most well-watched places in the entire world because Tveshė is a...

2017-12-2914 min

Epiphany 28 Poråkol 1865, part 1The Sabaji use a paste called månukha that they make from a mix of opakha, ash, and the nopå nut’s milk. Only unmarried women and jomela wear it to the processions, including women who have never had a spouse and those who are still in their fertile years, but who have left a spouse behind. Unmarried Sabaji women wear it with headdresses, and jomela double-bind their hair. It says, Look at me, I am eligible, and I have a family that is ready for you to join it. I am eligible. I come from a high...

2017-12-2213 min

Epiphany 27 Poråkol 1865, part 2: An AddendumTime is staggered and disjointed. The way I write dramas is the way most of us live our lives. I think that is why they have succeeded so much: I am splicing moments together to form a story. Alone, the pieces of our lives don’t make a plot with a beginning, middle, and end. Together, they do. — Akah Gysabala, Memoirs We waited outside for a quarter of an hour before Adviser Tenes answered the door. Le had wet hair, which le slicked back when le saw us. Le met Kelta’s eyes and grinned. ...

2017-12-1529 min

Epiphany 27 Poråkol 1865, part 1Kelta and I slept on my bed like siblings. I surged awake in the middle of the night with nausea and went into the bathroom to vomit. The cut from my promise to Karatau throbbed in time with my heartbeat, and I felt so sweaty that I wondered if I had gotten food poisoning. I went to bed about forty minutes later and had restless dreams about a thread yoking around my neck while a calendar marched on under wicked, watchful eyes. I awoke with strong morning light on my face and felt like I hadn’t sl...

2017-12-0807 min

Epiphany 26 Poråkol 1865It took skill to drug Sehutañi’s drink without any experience. I took advantage of the neural array to make myself ruthless. I wanted to be glittering and carnivorous. The ịbarbok illusion cascading around me turned my heart into iron. I ate too much because I could not stop being hungry. Nothing but glistening raw seafood tasted good. The experience disoriented me, but without it, I could not have done this. The holograms and light playing across the ceiling distracted and dazzled me. I only pretended to drink, and still the illusions came around and into me.

2017-12-0118 min

Epiphany 25 Poråkol 1865Today, Kati and I encountered Karatau Meiyenesi on the way out of the apartment building. The sun had just risen, and we wanted to be at the satellite home while Gyetsuk was still there. Kati slammed the glass door shut in front of lim and scowled. The jomela stood on the other side and did not move to open the door or even to knock. I kept my eyes on lim while I had a sharp discussion with Kati. If Karatau can read lips, le must have caught the entire conversation. Ler smile showed nothing. ...

2017-11-2429 min

Epiphany 24 Poråkol 1865I feel much less confident today, and this is why: I decided that I needed to go back to the Galasu Knowledge Foundation, so I made an appointment with Akah Deohårañi. While Liga did connect us, I don’t know anyone else whom I can trust. I am beside myself with worry. I had the name of Aneti’s sister — the intimate name, not the formal one. It is Keptar. I have ler family name. I mean, families reuse these names all of the time. One needs both, but — it was all I had. Deo met...

2017-11-1716 min

Epiphany 23 Poråkol 1865Today, I don’t have much to write. Kati and I spent breakfast at my family’s satellite home. Aneti and I went to the Necropolis again to make offerings to ler sister — against the grain of any religious calendar. I have a message from Kitesrati on my comm band that must be answered. It’s flirtatious — “Hello, cutie. I want to see your worried face, how about a kuaićo again? We could go to your apartment after.” I think that I should say yes and have sex with Kitesrati, but I haven’t changed the bedsheets since A...

2017-11-1007 min

Epiphany 22 Poråkol 1865Today, Aneti and I took a walk beneath the hanging plants at one edge of Senatorial Square. We kissed. I tried to think about Kitesrati. Aneti rested ler hand in the small of my back and murmured something that I failed to catch. Le pushed me away. I chipped caked henna from ler arms and licked my lips. The hanging vines tickled our cheeks as a breeze wove through them. Wind damage from the storm means that cleanup crews are working throughout town. Even so, I wanted to pull Aneti into the vine-copse and have sex. This...

2017-11-0212 min

Epiphany 21 Poråkol 1865Before work this morning, I sent Liga a reminder message about the photographs. I tagged all of the ones I took of Aneti with Liga’s name. This is a risk considering my ongoing fight with Liga. Hopefully, less biased minds within the Kohjenya will prevail and I will have the support from them to complete this mission the way it must be done. Suka is behind me. I urgently need information, and so do they. Most of the religious face paint came off successfully, but I wore long sleeves today because pumice is not a...

2017-10-2711 min

Epiphany 20 Poråkol 1865Aneti had breakfast at home with ler family. Le left early and paused at the steps of ler family home, cupping ler hand under ler mouth while le ate the last bites of a filled meat pastry. The way the sunlight hit lim reminded me of a few lines of a poem I read last year by Akah Laioñi Karodanė: This is the first river in the cosmos, seeing you lying there in the dappled sun. The morning light cascades between your golden breasts like the first rivers from which En...

2017-10-2009 min

Epiphany 19 Poråkol 1865True beauty lies in impermanence. Reeds die to create masterpieces, festival baskets, and colored mats. Insects singing today will surely die tomorrow, crushed mercilessly by a woman’s slow-moving pestle to extract the deep dyes. Mortality makes you beautiful, Kakedi, whose name means sweet-singing birds and lush meadow-flowers, able hands and libation vessels, one word with a fluid essence across time and human language. So flaunt that beauty: give yourself to the rushing summer streams and the heights of the canyons. Plunge yourself into de...

2017-10-1309 min

Epiphany 18 Poråkol 1865Today, I thought about how to gain access to Aneti’s room while I stood in line to buy traditional paper. I spent 10 lh. on this notebook. It has 360 pages, and it (surprisingly) lies flat. The Sabaji use base twelve, so this was one of those situations where I had to buy a bigger notebook than I wanted because I refuse to buy things in units of that obscene counting system. I will conserve paper from now on because this is so much more expensive than my smart sheets. There is no data storage. I cannot annotate or do an...

2017-10-0613 min

Epiphany 17 Poråkol 1865You decided to tell me everything. Thank you, even if this conversation went poorly. We seem to have butted heads. However, you must apologize. I don’t blame you, necessarily. You wanted to protect Suka. You thought you needed to protect lim from me, and that is the part that I hate. When you called me, the space behind you had been repurposed into soft seating around a low table. From the camera angle and lighting, I could barely make out the print maps under examination. Do you not sleep any longer? Was this not a...

2017-09-2919 min

Epiphany 16 Poråkol 1865Aneti and I visited the Necropolis today, where ler sister lies in a small urn neatly shrouded by the ashes of others. The Necropolis of Galasu, which the Taritit did not target during either bombardment, contains row after row of small streets and walkways that wind together, labyrinthine, with no map to put yourself through — just memory. The Shiji and Galasuhi keep the graves of their ancestors outside of their homes because bringing the ashes of the dead into a home is one of their religious taboos. The necropoles of Shija look similar to one another: All en...

2017-09-2212 min

Epiphany 15 Poråkol 1865I went to bed early last night and awoke before sunrise, so I had time to sit down with your package. Last night left me so exhausted. I cried into a pillow. What happens if we don’t learn who this person is until after le is assassinated? What happens if the bottleneck is a trap for my family and I am arrested due to some unknown law? Thank you for sending me the protocols in the package, and as per your instructions, I will not describe precisely what they are in the journal. It really does pu...

2017-09-1513 min

Epiphany 14 Poråkol 1865The Kohjenakri associated with my cousin, Deisurås, came to my door this morning with a slim package. The day hadn’t yet slipped into 14 Poråkol, and I stood on the balcony watching birds dive at prey in the small park between this apartment unit and the one beside it. Ler presence diverted the path of an indigo-crested bird with six pebbly wings, which had just gone into a dive towards one of the small slithering things in the grass. A smaller black bird swooped in and pulled an obelisk thasa out of the grass before the...

2017-09-0809 min

Epiphany 13 Poråkol 1865You called me just before work while I was helping Kati find ler Skyrail pass. When my wall rang, I told lim to go ahead with mine, and I ran to my room. My heart beat fast when I saw that black panel with your nonexistent identifier. Kati shut the door to our apartment. I don’t think that you slept, Liga. Your hair fell stiffly around your face in a halo, no longer held by tight bands into buns. You paced back and forth. I sank down onto the bed and waited for you to speak be...

2017-09-0112 min

Epiphany 12 Poråkol 1865Liga, will you call me? Aneti asked me if I ate dinner last night at the docks. I told lim that I went out with family and friends. Le already knows about the family satellite home, so I showed lim some of the photos I took of Gyetsuk and ler fiancé. Aneti accepted the account, but I saw something in ler eyes. Perhaps you were right. I should not have gone because now Aneti suspects that I am lying about something. Giving the excuse made my heart beat fast even though I had prepared my a...

2017-08-2507 min

Epiphany 11 Poråkol 1865, Part 2Yes, Liga, I did go to the docks, and I employed an awkward strategy to ensure that I could. I compared the layout you sent me with maps. Then, I messaged Gyetsuk and told Kati that we would meet lim at a restaurant on the second floor of a building that almost directly overlooks the place of interest. The restaurant serves Mãkyei food, and none of us has had it before. Tsum, Gyetsuk! This is Salus, your younger cousin. You may still be asleep, and I am not scheduled for breakfast this morning — but I would lik...

2017-08-1810 min

Epiphany 11 Poråkol 1865, Part IJIKUVĖ IS FIRMLY COMMITTED AND I FOUND A SECOND. COPY INFO AND MEET US AT EAST PIER DOCKS 11B AT 12H. Aneti, staying awake all night in ler room painting quotations on ler walls — or going over old-fashioned Daybreak documents — or half-asleep, or otherwise-conspiring — chose the wrong recipient for this message on ler communication band. It came in shortly after midnight. Of course, I called you immediately after I copied the message above. Aneti would have maintained a record of it in ler comm band, and I don’t want lim to know that le m...

2017-08-1112 min

Epiphany 10 Poråkol 1865Thank you for the messages you sent earlier, Liga. I am happy that you have not been ignoring me on purpose. “This is not the only murder plot, and the others are now more time-sensitive,” did not completely convince me. The documents that you sent along with it did. I understand what you mean now. As a warning, you need to give me more things like this. You cannot coast on Suka’s opinion of you forever, and I need answers. I am intimately — and sexually — involved in this investigation. I am nearly at my limit. We need to ha...

2017-08-0411 min

Epiphany 9 Poråkol 1865I have more to report about Aneti, and I apologize for missing your call. Today, Aneti came into work and rushed past the front desk. Le took the stairs up to the rooftop garden, and I watched from the security cameras with Larañi. In a secluded part of the garden, le wedged a small pocket mirror into a space between two vases. Larañi clicked ler tongue and shook ler head. I took the elevator up and found Aneti there. Le had scattered men’s makeup every which way around the mirror, and ler hand...

2017-07-2811 min

Epiphany 8 Poråkol 1865Sehuta, eğ søngabu søi! Seğ nigavøḥaiḥa gavøsu tagamnil lejeḥ helai Kuta fas medtė ødya. Sø topo eğil. Sehuta, I need you! We can’t try it in the first decad of the month because Kuta has backed out. Come meet me. Kuta must be a person. Rain makes no sense in the sentence otherwise. Liga, do you know someone named Kuta, perhaps with a name suffix, in the Daybreak Movement of Galasu? Liga, will you contact me? I have seen some of your messages, but I want a face-to-face conversation. You...

2017-07-2018 min

Epiphany 7 Poråkol 1865This afternoon, Aneti and I went to one of the parks immediately after work. We sat in the shade of a blossom-raining tree, and the warm summer breeze played with the fabric of our light hepteri vests. We took the Skyrail to my apartment, where Kati stood over the stove stirring noodles for a sasahi-based sauce. I wanted to go to Lantern Park for one of the moonlight tours of the historic city, but Aneti wanted to visit a holographic garden. We stopped arguing in front of my cousin once we saw that le was there. I...

2017-07-1411 min

Epiphany 6 Poråkol 1865[ Author’s note: This additional text appeared in the audio version. Hello, this is Kaye! I have a few quick updates before this week’s chapter. Also, I’m recording this before sunset, so you may hear the birds in a nest outside. Epiphany includes a heavy use of constructed languages. And guess what! George from the Conlangery podcast interviewed me about Epiphany, conlangs, and a bunch of other stuff. You can head over to conlangery.com and listen. Conlangery is a really good podcast, and I encourage you to take a look if you’re interested in conlan...

2017-07-0711 min

Podcast – Conlangery Podcast Conlangery #130: Interview with Kaye BoesmeKaye Boesme joins George to talk about her far-future audiodrama Epiphany. Top of Show Greeting: Narahji (Note, I am working on a transcript for this episode. It has been delayed by irregular baby napping.)

2017-07-031h 05

Conlangery Podcast Conlangery #130: Interview with Kaye BoesmeKaye Boesme joins George to talk about her far-future audiodrama Epiphany. Top of Show Greeting: Narahji (Note, I am working on a transcript for this episode. It has been delayed by irregular baby napping.)

2017-07-031h 05

Epiphany 5 Poråkol 1865The Galasu Knowledge Foundation is more impressive than the library in Menarka, but Galasu was not completely burned to the ground during the Taritit Invasion. The thing that struck me most when I walked in today was the size of the building and the thousands of well-lit reading pods inside, acoustically isolated and stacked one on top of the other like egg sacks. The Menarka Document Cluster must have something like this beneath all of the scaffolding and noise, but I hope that the pods use some other material than composite. Wood, especially fruit wood, could brighten the entire...

2017-06-3011 min

Epiphany 4 Poråkol 1865I am writing these notes, which I am certain that you will dispute, because I don’t want to replay the video conversation multiple times. That is all. If you want my perspective, you can have it here; if not, please skip this entry entirely because you know what you experienced, Liga, and you know what I want. Let’s start at the beginning. The indicator lights from your computer equipment bathed you in surreal green and sky-scattered light. It was afternoon, so you must have drawn those shades over the balcony doors that I saw hanging part...

2017-06-2311 min

Epiphany 3 Poråkol 1865Today started and ended like a cyclone. Sometimes, I feel like everything in my skull has been compressed like a springing ball, and it was just released. My thoughts are a haze in my head, racing this way and that. I want to make something in the kitchen, to check the kipana fruit’s freshness in the refrigerator, to pace back and forth over whether I will have enough money to visit one of the Dream Gardens this week. I haven’t eaten at the satellite home enough. These are all anxious thoughts, and I don’t know w...

2017-06-1610 min

Epiphany 2 Poråkol 1865Aneti and I went to ler home, and we had sex. I need to remember the way there again, so here are the directions: From the Progressive Movement’s office, walk outside, turning left. It takes fifteen minutes to reach the Blossom Sun Skyrail Terminal, one of the linking places between the Sky and Berry Lines (just a note — one of the lines will be renamed after a god soon). Take Sky to Waterside Plaza, the fourth stop on the express, and switch to the Riverside Line. Nikasa Street’s stop is number six. Here, all of...

2017-06-0909 min

Epiphany 1 Poråkol 1865My grandmother sent me a dress from Kobsarka for the festival, but it didn’t come in time. Canyon shipping can be so variable that it’s almost better to have someone carry it with lim on a visit. Still, the celebration went well! My aunt let me borrow a spare gown at the satellite home, and I went to the rain dances with the rest of my family. The processional attendants wore the traditional outfits and water-like face paints, their heads adorned with stiffened, spine-like growths shed by beasts in the Canyon-dark rivers that shat...

2017-06-0208 min

Epiphany 60 Hikol 1865Kati has decided to try baking Itaki fish-and-nut bread using a recipe shared by one of ler friends on the boards. The Itaki use fresh fish instead of dried in the pastry. Le has decided to blast modern music very loudly, the kind that makes me long for traditional ksibja* and tonal percussion. If I ever have a musically-inclined child, le will play the ksibja. Kati successfully auditioned for the Kekas Ensemble, which will sponsor lim during the remainder of ler music education at the local conservatory. The entire family will celebrate at breakfast tomorrow, and Kati...

2017-05-2606 min

Epiphany Gender in EpiphanyThis isn’t a normal Epiphany episode, but a note from me, Kaye Boesme. The content of this episode is on the cultural guide to gender (the TL;DR gender guide). I went with gender-neutral pronouns for everyone in Epiphany, including men and women, because traditional gender roles are not identical to those practiced in most Earth cultures with which I am familiar. This episode does not address the specific gender-neutral pronoun chosen, but is intended to be a cultural orientation to help listeners understand the world as Salus sees it and the political and social environment of gend...

2017-05-2121 min

Epiphany 59 Hikol 1865This morning, one of the administrative coordinators and I met on the street in front of the headquarters. I had questions about vacation, so le took me up to HR, and a young Shiji woman explained the Holiday Equivalencies Program. Everyone receives the Sabaji Tveshi majority’s religious holidays off, but they have a voucher system for those of us who need to take time for other religious holidays. This apparently also impacts some Shiji, specifically the Eneiji. The woman slapped a large, year-long chart on the table between us. Religious holidays in nine cultural traditions were marked out, wi...

2017-05-1914 min

Epiphany 58 Hikol 1865Last night, I dreamt of Kelis. Le stood in a meadow of kau. It bobbed like the surface of the sea and cut into ler skin. Le held one of the husks and pulled apart the sheaf to expose the indigo grain inside, and le let the kernels fall to the ground. I knew that le did not see me. The kau leaves did not hurt. They went through me as if I were the ghost and not lim. Looking straight ahead, le sang: Sixteen red dresses: Four for the dark bride. Sixteen...

2017-05-1211 min

Epiphany 57 Hikol 1865This morning, a thunderstorm squatted over the entire city, and thunderstorms are nothing like monsoons. Lightning flashed from cloud to cloud and hit the rods on Galasu’s tall buildings. Thunder rattled my windows. Torrential rains started when I was halfway to the Skyrail terminal, so I ran. Thankfully, I packed another gyena in my bag. The dark purple and white one I wore into work soaked through in minutes. My hepteri vest clung to my skin. Once I detrained, I stopped for a cup of hot nonu at a vendor stall and dashed down Kisera Street....

2017-05-0511 min

Epiphany 56 Hikol 1865My words bring horror. People call me Desertion. My skin is the color of cliff-rock, and it flakes like cliff-rock. The Great Canyon dark devours my soul. My body becomes it, and the Canyon-Dark becomes my mind. It rips my brain into small pieces that are the Canyon’s rivers, And my blood is the soil that nourishes the people with fruit. Such is my fate to serve for all time: I revolted against our ways, the Karatha, the Tesekhaira, the ruler! I chose to be alone, and what a mistake! I...

2017-04-2811 min

Epiphany 55 Hikol 1865Suka called ler older cousin, Liga, whom le said was a hacker. I don’t remember ler face from Suka’s home, but le must be in our generation. I must have met lim. Le is familiar, and they look like each other. Maybe le was always out — but le looks our age. Le may have avoided us, of course. Suka says that Liga fell out with their family, and le isn’t married out. Le lives — likely in disgrace — with non-family in a crumbling apartment complex near the edge of the intact pre-Taritit apartment buildings in Menarka prop...

2017-04-2012 min

Epiphany 54 Hikol 1865Kati is playing music in ler room. I can hear it through the walls. Le keeps stopping and going. It’s a complicated set of arpeggios. We had noodles with nut sauce and bought fruit-filled pastries like they eat in Itaka to celebrate the new apartment and our family relationship, right in front of the shrine, and we offered the naksbetru incense that the Narahji Community Center has given to me for the month. It smelled so much like home that I nearly started crying. Kati offered puatuamė wine to our respective families’ gods in a Shiji diale...

2017-04-1417 min

2017-04-0707 min

Epiphany 52 Hikol 1865, part 2Please, please, please, Gods, forgive me for what I did last night. This morning, I ran back to my apartment, showered, changed, and went out for a hangover IV. The cure nearly made me late for a meeting. I told Akah Kara that I needed to attend a religious ritual. It is so embarrassing to think that I didn’t observe the proper sexual etiquette for an unmarried woman that I couldn’t bear tell lim that I needed a purification. Kartreytin’s priestesses bathed and re-sanctified my hair in the goddess’s small offshoot of the m...

2017-03-3007 min

Epiphany 52 Hikol 1865, part 1Yesterday, the Dream Garden show opened with flashes of light that made me fall back against the cushions. Gray and green points sprayed over the dome canopy like a wailing hose, crying into my ears like something in the throes of death. The neural net of the costume I wore — an ocean elemental — made everything swirl back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in my head. My thoughts repeated circularly, I could feel the tides, and my skin felt wet. My hands had become an amorphous blob of sea that sucked against the sandy shores of m...

2017-03-2307 min

Epiphany 51 Hikol 1865We had an earthquake this morning that rattled the windows and threw the drinking glass on my bedside table to the floor. I have never felt anything so strong before — they are always so mild in the Canyons! I reached a groggy hand beneath my pillow for the knife I keep there, and then I realized what the shaking meant and felt very embarrassed. I sank back into the pillows with my heart hammering in my throat. When the earthquake stopped, I opened the windows and looked outside. The cirrus-whipped sky stretched as far as I could se...

2017-03-1606 min

Epiphany 50 Hikol 1865This is my solution: I will write in Tveshi and not in Narahji. If anyone asks about this project, I will call it language practice. I have impeccable understanding of Tveshi in writing even if travel-addled me cannot articulate what le wants to strangers in the Skyrail terminals. My first commute began at 2h.35 this morning. I overestimated the time it takes to go from the River Market District Station to Senatorial Square. People in formal aniku and hepteri styles jostled me back and forth as I struggled off of the Skyrail platform. Children in school uniforms...

2017-03-0913 min

Epiphany 49 Hikol 1865I am sitting in my apartment, unpacked, and I am so, so exhausted. Work begins tomorrow. My head feels like it has exploded, and my hands won’t stop shaking. The cause? The man who shouted hekhiakouri gekhasėo at me on the Skyrail this morning. The streets were so unfamiliar, and I cut lim off on the access ramp. It wasn’t until that moment that I realized that my mother is right. A move to Central Shija five years after the Narahji Protests means that I must stay on my guard constantly. I told...

2017-03-0306 min