Authors: Amirah Bellamy
27
Just as that thought entered my mind Doran gestured for each of us to to pretend like he had been taken.
So J and I started a fake discussion carrying on the discussion as if Doran wasn’t there. I figured Doran must have assumed that since they viewed him as a threat the house may have been bugged.
That did make me wonder how they even identified our family as being a threat. It seemed that Doran read my mind because as J and I talked Doran was busy taking extra precautions to secure the house and locate the bugs, if there were in fact any.
I figured it was probably happening to all the families. They were getting more fearful of an uprising and were starting to try to protect themselves. Thinking about it all made me sigh heavily. It was all a big mess.
Where were they taking everyone? And were they just going around rounding us all up? What were they planning to do?
Just then the thought popped into my mind that J was right. They knew who we were. They knew exactly who we were. It was just what the man who rammed his car into the Johnson’s house was expressing when he said, “I know who you are!“
It
was
over for them and they know it which is why they were doing what they were doing, trying to buy time. They figured that taking some of us captive would buy them some time. But it wouldn’t gonna work I thought to myself.
I went to whisper all of this to J and Doran. They looked at me in agreement. This all made me wonder about Connie and this whole thing with her authorship of the cartoon.
White Oblivion was a very popular cartoon, which meant that she had to work
with
them to get it onto a major network. Then I had just remembered something. The night we went to the workshop Connie was not herself. She seemed to be holding something back. Besides that, that was the shortest lecture I’d ever heard.
Whispering to the two of them I said, “You know that workshop that Doran and I went to where Connie was presenting?” I asked.
They both shook their head signaling a yes waiting to hear where I was going with it.
“Well Connie said that she had travelled all over the world and saw this happening everywhere. But she wasn’t very informative and considering how spooked out we all were she was actually quite short with us. Then the whole thing about the authorities looking for her since this hit the general population,” I explained.
They both shrugged.
“It all makes sense. Connie was the Trojan Horse so to speak. She was who they used to identify us and when I say us I mean those of us who were ready to evolve. That’s how they located us so quickly. There must be something more to who we truly are than even we know. I bet you it’s been those of us that attended that workshop who have been the ones among the blacks who have been coming up ‘missing,’” I explained further.
Doran nodded his head in agreement. THen Doran whispered that when he and J had gone out to retrieve empty bottles they’d heard some talk about that, but hadn’t actually made the connection to the workshop.
Suddenly, just as we were putting more of the pieces together it started to heat up again. We all looked at each other and shrugged.
“It’s getting hot again mom? Do you feel it?” Ina asked.
“I do feel it baby. I don’t know what that’s about. I wonder if it’s heating up everywhere. Let’s open the window to find out,” I said heading toward a window in the kitchen room on the back side of the house to remain discreet. We didn’t know if anyone was still watching the house or not. I opened the window and stuck my hand out and it felt like mid July outside. It had to be at least 90 degrees outside.
“Wow, it’s hot as hell out there. What’s going on?” I said thinking out loud.
“I wonder what’s causing it. I’m thinking we should check online on some social media sites. I’m sure people are capturing this on film. Maybe we’ll also see something that’ll give us an idea as to where they’re taking everybody,” J offered going to retrieve his tablet.
While J looked into things I thought about how they must have been torturing the others.
Interrupting my thoughts J whispered, “I got something!”
Anxiously running over to J who was sitting on the couch on his tablet I asked, “Whatcha got?”
“I found several videos showing this same location. Look here’s a really good one. Looks like this person is on the inside posting. I guess they didn’t find his phone,” J said showing me a clip of what looked like slave quarters in the middle of DC. As I watched I felt like I was time traveling. Had we gone back in time? I thought we were so past all of this savage behavior. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Their paranoia was absurd. Surely, they knew that it would backfire as it always had.
“We have to do something. Besides that I think it has something to do with things heating up,” J said.
“Yeah but we can’t go up against them. I can only imagine how heavily guarded it is….” I said before the strangest thing happened.
I looked up and saw that Ina then J were levitating. They even had the same glow that I had when I was levitating. Also, like me they had shape-shifted into another being. Ina had taken on a cat-like face and J took on birdlike features similar to Doran’s, the difference being that J looked like a hawk.
As I watched them in awe it began to get even hotter. Then I too began to levitate and transform. I looked and my wings had returned along with my beautiful brown skin, which I was so happy to see. Soon Doran transformed too.
“What is happening to us mom?” Ina asked with a puzzled expression, which quickly transformed into a smile. “This is great mom! It’s just like on “White Oblivion.”
“What do you mean by that Ina?” both Doran and I asked simultaneously.
“Well on White Oblivion after the special people changed they started to get powers and their bodies changed, well sort of,” Ina explained.
“What do you mean by sort of?” I inquired.
“Well their bodies were never real in the first place so when they changed they realized that the mean people had put them in a dream world and they had been there so long they forgot they were dreaming. But then they started to remember and when they did their powers came back,” Ina said matter-of-factly.
“Wow looks like Connie put it all in that cartoon. But why would she do all that then snitch on us? I doesn’t make sense,” I pondered aloud.
“Yeah but if what Ina says is true none of it even matters because no matter what they do to try to stop the change from happening the change is gonna happen regardless. If these bodies aren’t real then neither is this place and neither are they. I say we go help the others now, while we’re in this form. We don’t know if it’ll last. Besides that they’re gonna start getting more and more desperate. Plus, we need to find out why things are heating up so much and what the connection is between the heat and what’s happening. That’s the one thing we can’t seem to explain.
“You won’t get any argument here, but how do we all get around in this form and stay together? I did it before, but I don’t know if I can do it again and sustain it,” I pointed out.
Before J could respond I was distracted by Doran who began to look a little weird. He appeared to be his evolved self, but something was off. He had a reddish glow and moments later so did J.
28
Looking at Doran and J strangely I asked, “Guys what’s happening to you?”
With a mixed look of joy and grief Doran looked at me and said, “Opportunity. Baby we have to go and we have to go now, but you and Ina need to stay here. The others need our help. You’re right. They are being tortured, but not even the worst of their torturing attempts can hurt these bodies. That’s why we have to go now. It’s time to end this for good. I think that’s what’s heating things up,” Doran explained.
“Yeah but how are we gonna get back together? Are you gonna come back for us?” I asked.
“I promise you I will baby. We will definitely get back together,” Doran said reassuringly.
I knew Doran was just telling me what I wanted to hear. The truth was he didn’t know how things would turn out. I got a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I knew that things were about to get worse and that there was a strong possibility that Ina and I would never see Doran or J again. I knew that in this whole thing there would be sacrifices, but I didn’t want that to be the two most important men in my life!
Just then we heard yelling and screaming in the streets outside. I floated to the window and saw people fighting one another and some had the same reddish glow that Doran and J had.
Immediately I turned around and they were gone! I had a feeling that they were being influenced by this wave of heat that seemed to be infecting many of the people that I saw fighting in the streets.
It was just like Connie had said. People were regressing. They were fighting back in ways that just weren’t helping us. In fact, it was making things worse. The worse part was that Doran and J had now become part of the regression.
Then I remembered what Doran himself had said, which was that that was the plan all along. The plan was to provoke us to act this way, knowing that it would make us regress.
Things were getting way out of hand and something had to be done to stop it. Balance had to be restored.
Ina looked at me saddened by the sudden departure of Doran and J and said, “What now? How do we get them back mom? We have to get them back!”
She was riddled with worry as was I. I tried to think of some comforting words but came up empty. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t even know what to think about what was to come.
Then my thoughts unexpectedly shifted to Connie and why she played the role that she played in all of this. I couldn’t decide if Connie was friend or foe. Yet the more I thought about it I was convinced that she was playing for the other team, working against her own. Though I couldn’t for the life of me imagine why she would align herself with the losing team. Afterall, they weren’t even real and she knew it. Then I considered that perhaps she was just playing like she was helping them.
I just couldn’t resolve what her angle was. I couldn’t figure her out. I couldn’t understand why she played such a big part in everything that had happened. It seemed at every turn her name just kept coming up.
As I pondered such thoughts we heard a huge boom! It sounded like an atomic bomb. Moments later the air was filled with smoke and we saw that it
was
some type of bomb. Ina and I went back to the window to see what was happening. We saw a band of white kids, who we couldn’t identify as actual whites or blacks in white skinsuits. They were riding through the streets in tanks standing at the top and yelling out obscenities. Some ran around terrorizing the neighborhood yelling that it was time to rid the world of the white devils and that their time had come. They were sick of their oppression and now it was time for them to pay. It looked like a scene from the movie
The Purge
. After hearing their protests it was clear who they were and it was a definite sign that we were in fact regressing.
While I totally agreed with everything that they said I didn’t agree with their methods. We finally had a way out of the prison that had become our life and they ruining it.
We watched them go into some of the homes of our white neighbors dragging some of them out and torturing them the same way that I’d watched Doran being tortured. As I watched I couldn’t help but feel vindicated. At the same time, the instant I did I descended back into my white body as had Ina. It was as if we were all linked to the boys terrorizing our neighborhood.
Then I felt the most intense feeling of anger brewing inside of me as I began to get hotter and hotter. It became unbearably hot and I noticed that Ina was experiencing the same thing In fact, we were both starting to take on the same reddish glow that Doran, J and the others had.
Quickly, remembering what Connie said I willed myself to control my emotions. I refused to let the anger consume me.
“Don’t let it consume you Ina. Stay neutral. That’s the key. This doesn’t have to control us. Go numb! Do it now!” I insisted.
Looking at me Ina obeyed. As I looked at her I saw her switch back and forth from white to her cat form. From the look on her face she seemed to be witnessing me doing the same thing.
It was as though there was an internal struggle going on within us as we tried to resolve whether or not we would maintain control over our emotion or let them control us giving into the anger.
As justified as our anger was for all that we’d endured as a people it simply wasn’t serving us. I noticed the more we were able to control our emotions, the more we were able to control our physical form. Then within moments we started to levitate again and take on our evolved form.
“We did it mom!” Ina gleamed.
“Yes we did baby!” I replied.
Hoping that we all had shifted back I started to feel better until I looked out the window and saw that the boys on the tanks had shifted back into his lower form. They had a very pale white, almost alien appearance.
I glided out the window and said to them, “You have to try harder. Don’t let it control you,” I pled.
Walking towards me one of them replied, “That’s easy for you to say. You haven’t been through what we’ve been through. We deserve some justice and finally we can get some. We ain’t goin nowhere until we do.”
“That’s just it though. Without peace there is no justice. Don’t become them. Nothing about them is just. Embrace your peace and you’ll get all the justice and vindication you need. I promise you will. I know it’s been hard for you. It’s been hard for all of us. But if you let the anger go you’ll see that you possess a power that will take us far beyond the confines of this place,” I said convincingly.
“I love you and that all sounds good, but right now what will feel good is some get back. You two will never understand what we had to endure. I’ll be back,” the young boy said.
Just then I recognized him. It was J! Then the moment he saw that I recognized him he was gone.
I couldn’t believe it. Just like that my son was gone. Ina was crying hysterically. I was so distraught I didn’t have the will to comfort her. I had lost the two most important men in my life and felt like there was nothing I could do about it..