Asher, trans male to female. Conflicted. One of the last procedures before outlawed so after searching for my illusive identity I got one that defined a more feminine idea of what I felt deeply and another of outlaw status, owning both and perhaps the last of our breed, dark labs always the exception. But since the change, I’ve felt restless. I really liked the male body I grew into, it’s strength and endurance but not the hormones bumping up against my self-imposed firewall. Someone said it was like wanting your cake and eating it too. Choices.
Protesting has always been my outlet for rage against toxic masculinity, that badge of honor that the world board of directors uses to collect and use power for themselves. Being strong is one thing, being an egotistical bastard who makes the mistake of true inner power to one gained by default and money, another. They have been merciless in tearing the sacred web to shreds and their time of reckoning is here. Yes, most are men and also women who bend the knee or lift the skirt. Sorry.
I sit here on the top steps, collecting all the threads dangling before me. For one thing, our transness has certainly been forgotten as Meltdown and species extinction takes hold while enter stage left, the new kid on the block. The world revolution seems to either be over or on hold and an anomaly has arisen like one of those flowers growing out of the cracked macadam. Gaia, the Greek goddess of Earth is calling, her feminine temperament, her strong will to sustain and nourish, needs us but alas poor Yorick., we is the problem. But wait! No sweat Shakespeare!
Asher. the Torah states that Asher means “blessed” and “happy’’. I have always tried to be but as you can tell am a tad cynical but not jaded. My mind wanders, stays with things for a while then moves on. Currently I’ve been analyzing the hierarchy of the Keep by the steps they keep. Ha! And now apparently no steps which is the final straw for me.
There are the top steppers who have no need to go further down. Why? The door is right behind them. The woman, Sammy, I’m secretly in lust with occupies that step. Then the ones twelve steps down. Yep, the first third of the steps down. These are moderately stable members who have a modicum of sanity, not ready to throw caution to the wind with a twelve step allowance for something scary unknown to appear. Below them, another twelve down, are imo, the real risk takers. First off there’s too many stairs to climb if there’s danger and second, they’re relaying on the first steppers for help if anything happens which I think is selfish. Either see Cuma or be more careful. And finally, the chosen ones who sit at the bottom of the 36 steps, the same amount of humans here or maybe I should say, beings. Thirty six steps down and they sit like crows on a wire speaking softly to all, not to the one next to them but to everyone that they call a collective, like advanced Musketeers, all for One and One for All which if you think about it, is cool! There is disagreement but quickly understood. Fixed and moves on.
But this morning, the page has turned again. I stayed in my room until ten, late around here, but with no assigned chores, I continued reading The Three Musketeers which I know sounds weird and much better than I anticipated. After grabbing a mug of coffee, I went out the front and was confronted with another tableau that forced me to reimagine everything, again. And it was the straw! There are usually no one on the steps until after noon due to chores but that morning, there were six of the ten or more ‘volvers sitting on the cracked macadam near the trees which seemed twice as big as the day before. And above them was what looked like a baby Pterodactyl flying circles around the Keep. It’s funny, but my first thought was, so is this our dragon and then, where’s the mother or is it a Designersaur, smaller and cuddlier? The story had once again shifted but just how, again, still a mystery. Ah, and that straw.
I’m at the point, a confession, to spend a few seconds with Cuma just so I get to sit with them. How absurd is that! Not for the karmic busting lucid dreams or for the half mile sensual security radar or even the heightened connection with nature. Nope but for my foolish perhaps dumbed down version of humans need to be tight with those who care most. And another confession, she, Sammy, was one of them! So, either she’s one of them or feels safe being with them out there. Out there in the open.
Normally, each one seems like the old person, no change at all, going about daily life but on that last step or no step, the future of the human race is quietly being discussed like we used to when discussing the price of eggs. Sometimes there’s silence for thirty minutes then someone will say something like, exactly which is why we should do it. So, they’re hiding somethings, doing it silently so no one can hear or it’s the easiest way for them to hear each other.
The next day without any meeting, the junk cars in the back parking lot begin to get moved by hand, starting from the perimeter, working in. Of course I volunteer to help, attach ropes to bumpers and along with others pull them over to another empty lot. One mechanical genius got a truck started and a few are shoveling dirt into it from a weedy median that follows a large road southward where the search team found a well-stocked city maintenance garage and confiscated/took a jack hammer with five gallons of gas to rip away the asphalt. After an hour I had my scheduled Watch.
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It's fall in word only, more like three months of Indian Summer, then fall instead of winter which I miss. It’s the best time to work outside and mostly everyone couldn’t wait. The only recommendation from a few was the application of one of the many bug repellents, mostly for the mosquito that is now carrying tropical diseases. Think unspent energy, cabin fever and the human requirement to move, use it or lose it. Because it was my Watch, I had a birds eye view and man, they were energized. Everyone has an e-printed gun in a little holster for the sudden appearance of god knows what. But there’s also the first steppers who can subconsciously detect a strange sound or scent a half mile away that evokes a red alert without knowing why. It was discussed at the intense meeting on Tris, Cuma and the others who have taken spit and decided that if the alert was felt, everyone should stop and go in, despite any visible sign of danger. Danger Will Robinson!
And it worked. Even I got closer to the door to the steps that led downstairs when everybody began running for the back door. It came from the north in the air and as soon as I saw it through the glasses, all the stories I’d heard informed me that it was dangerous, a bloody huge pterodactyl, probably mommy. I wanted to watch but that old instinct for survival checked my insatiable curiosity for anything huge Mesozoic so ran to the door. I understood that they’d been successful in resurrecting old species that might be more suitable for the warming Earth but crap! And why is it here, in a city and not out in the hinterland where pickens have to be better.
Just as I grabbed the door handle, I heard a high pitched scream that made me cup my ears and look in the direction of the prehistoric flying reptile. It was turning east away from us and going higher. Looking back down at the work below, Cuma, Abby, Free’d and Zenith were looking up, following it, hands cupping their mouths, uttering the shrill sound together in tandem. All the others were coming back.
So, the synesthesia bundled senses worked. I’ve done a little research here on it and some think that we may have started off with our senses bundled together but as time went on, separated. I gather that it’s something they can turn on or off. The warning comes in a flash of bright orange or red, responding to something picked up that is not usual and has at least one signature for possible danger. Not all warnings turn out to be bad.
The pull of nature on the evolving ones, I hear is intense. The idea and plan was theirs to bring it back, not just to our block but to the city. Part of their growth process brings an inherent understanding of horticulture, the best possible way of working with it that benefits all, a holistic approach that includes all pieces of the web. That is why they are acting as guides for the rest. Plans are being made for foraging expeditions, seeking diverse plant life wherever they can be found. There’s a river within a mile of here that has become a focus for the first trip.
Okay, I’M GOING TO DO IT! I’ve decided after talking with a few of them, that it’s like uploading to a better model, faster, more apps, even stronger. Some think not evolving to the third strand caused us to default on our own home. There’s the alien intervention thing but as far as I can see, it’s all good. Not one of those who have come out of the closet, have said they’d go back. Instead, they say they would have done it sooner but the fear of the unknown stopped them. There are minor things like flickering eyes, micro blackouts that some think are just the brain rebooting for the just created neural network for the new thing. How can I not do this! The word is that if you’re intention is strong, they’ll hear you and someone will find you. Or I’ll mention it to Sammy.
There’s another thing that they oddly, I think, neglect to mention much when taking about new abilities. Most don’t like the word superpowers because it’s like a cartoon word used in comparing two strand to three. Their almost shy in talking about their changes. But the one that they almost never mention is physical strength. We have two bathrooms with two showers for thirty six people. If it rains, we step outside and do it that way with, now because of the search parties, ample soap and shampoo. On a rainy day, I went out the back intending to clean in back of the tool shed and found Susan washing an amazingly toned body that would have taken months at the gym to achieve. I knew she had lost weight and her complexion was better but that made me stare. She grabbed the towel, smiled and walked into the shed to dry off and put clothes on.
The word came yesterday. Sammy said they asked and the word was yes, no problem. So, with all the hoopla I had to go through for a complicated series of tests and operations for the gender I organically felt to be, in a few minutes I will begin to change into another species or subspecies for free with no social backlash. When Cuma went through the first changes, there were no guides, nothing written out, no one there to comfort. She didn’t even tell her guardian about the weird things going on until he asked her, a month later. Now, if you want someone to oversee your new growth, there’s a few readily available on-callers and an ongoing document that describes the process anecdotally by all of them up to the earliest converts but you have to schedule to look at in or add an entrée, in the Mending Room with Abby being present. She began the additional Journal weeks ago understanding that some might be shy in entering their changes in the Keeps journal and also have a resource to see what’s coming.
