Cuento de Mi Id

“Does the Word Morlock Mean Anything to You?”

September 21. It’s raining again today. I like it when it rains.

Sister Natalie once asked me why I like to see rain, and I told her about how it drowns the ants. She said that it was a bad thing to like things like that. Ants have the same right to live that we do, she told me, and it is not right to wish bad things about them.

I tried to tell her about how the ants came into my old house one time, but she wouldn’t listen. She said the only reason the ants would have come into my old house would have been because they’re hungry, and it’s not right to wish bad things about a living thing just because it’s hungry.

I wish I could make her understand just how icky ants really are, but it’s hard work making the Sisters understand anything.

Sometimes I wish my parents would come back from camp so I wouldn’t have to stay with the Sisters. We could go back to our old house and stay there and live like we used to live before the War. I wouldn’t mind living that way for a while -- even if my house did have ants. I wouldn’t even mind if we had to live in an attic again.

My friend Bobby says the Sisters aren’t really sisters. They just call themselves that because they want to look nice.

I told Bobby I already know that, but he never listens.

He’s always reading stuff the Sisters tell us not to read. Then he tries to tell me about it and get me in trouble.

I don’t know where he finds this stuff because the Sisters are supposed to have thrown all the bad stuff away.

But he does.

He’s always reading these old books full of bad words and pictures of people with no clothes on. He tried to tell me how grown-ups make babies, but I refused to listen because the Sisters say we should not talk about that kind of stuff.

Lately he’s been telling me about this book he read called “The Time Machine.” It’s a book the Sisters specially don’t want us to read because it was written by a bad man and it tells a lot of lies about history and stuff.

Bobby says that’s not so. He says that the guy who wrote it was a good man and that “The Time Machine” was a good book. He says it’s all about the future and how this man from the past goes there in a special machine. In this future, he says, there are no Sisters or camps or houses or anything. Just two tribes -- the Eloi and the Morlocks. The Eloi are the good people. The Morlocks are the bad. The Morlocks are always killing the Eloi, but the man from the past doesn’t like this, and he helps the Eloi defeat the Morlocks.

I told Bobby this was a strange story and I couldn’t understand why the Sisters objected to it.

Because they’re Morlocks, he told me.

I told him he must be joking.

Bobby insisted he wasn’t. The Sisters were Morlocks, he said, and they considered us all Eloi. And in the book, they ate Eloi.

I told Bobby he was just trying to scare me like he did that time he put that spider down my back.

But again he insisted he wasn’t.

I don’t know what to believe.

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September 22. Bobby showed me his “Time Machine” book during recess today. He said it proved the Sisters really were Morlocks.

I told him he was dumb. The Morlocks shown in the book looked nothing like the Sisters. They were all short and squat and ugly and stuff, and the Sisters don’t look anything like that.

Of course, they don’t, said Bobby. The Morlocks had a chance to read the book.

I told him he was stupid, and I threatened to tell Sister Natalie on him.

He asked me not to. He said what he told me was a secret and that I shouldn’t go blabbing about it to the Sisters.

Suppose I’m right, he said. Then we’d both be in big trouble.

I think Bobby’s just trying to scare me again.

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September 23. I asked Sister Natalie what a Morlock was but I didn’t mention Bobby’s name. She got very angry with me. She told me that Morlock was a bad word, and little girls like me should not be using words like that.

“Suppose someone called you a Spic,” she said. “Or your friend Bobby a nigger. Would you like that?”

“I don’t know what those words mean,” I told her.

“Of course you don’t,” she said. “Because me and the other Sisters have taken great pains to stop our students from using bad language like that. The word Morlock is just the same. It’s a bad word that only bad people use, and I don’t want to hear a student of mine using it. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said.

I was afraid to ask her another question after that.

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September 24. Bobby called me an idiot today after I found out what happened between me and Sister Natalie.

“You dummy,” he said. “Now the Morlocks are going to go after you for sure.”

“Go after me for what?” I said.

“For guessing their true identities, stupid,” Bobby answered.

“So what?” I said. “Morlocks are just make-believe. They don’t exist in real life. And even if they did, your book says they lived in the future.”

“My book was written a long time ago,” said Bobby. “For all we know, this could be the future the writer was talking about.”

“You’re an idiot, Bobby,” I said.

“Look who’s talking,” he said.

I ignored him for the rest of the day.

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September 25. It stopped raining today. Today was the first day all week I could see the sun. But it doesn’t seem the same without Bobby.

I asked Sister Natalie about him and she said he must have run away in the middle of the night. He used to talk to me a lot about running away to camp to join his parents. So I suppose that is where he went.

We finally had fresh meat in the cafeteria today. But it doesn’t seem the same without Bobby there to make yukky comments about it.

My friend Indira thinks I’m being silly. She believes Bobby will come back just as soon as he realizes how rough it is on the outside. But somehow I don’t think so.

Sister Natalie kept urging me to eat during mealtime, but I just couldn’t finish a bite. I wish I could eat as much as her and the other Sisters do, but I’m just not in the mood.

Sister Barbara came by during lunch today and said she understood how I felt. She said that Bobby and I will probably be together quite soon and that I shouldn’t worry. I wonder what she meant by that and why she had that strange look on her face when she said that.

Sometimes I get the feeling that she and the other Sisters know just exactly where Bobby went.

But that would be stupid.

Cuento de Mi Id

“Mariana: Warrior Film Critic”

(Not to be confused with a certain female blogger whose persona seems to share certain physical attributes with this story's title character. Funny how stuff like that happens.)

It was a red-letter day and she was a red-headed woman, making her way through the snowy streets of Nuevayor in hopes of catching the eight o’clock show for the new art flick Marlowe in Love.

Up ahead she saw a billboard for the new Gaderan Schwein epic. It seemed like the same old militaristic flagboy fantasy film she had been seeing advertised hourly since the start of the Djinnistani War. Maybe not as bad as Yankee Doodle Baby Daddy or My Country, Right! but definitely close to that territory. It was called The Crusader, a take-off, no doubt, on the old Raymond A. Harold character Harridan Bourne. Judging from the billboard, it was all about a religiously motivated vigilante dressed in black who was all eager to fight for truth, justice and the American Way. Though the character was supposed to be a dedicated Christian with a cross around his neck that would be the envy of most Papists, he also managed to sport a hot babe on his arm, lest someone question his heterosexuality.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, she thought.

And then, all of a sudden, she stopped.

Between her and the movie theatre, three shadowy figures were waiting. Even though the street lights were shining fully upon them, she could not see their faces. Nor was she sure that she wanted to.

Draculaters, she thought. Worshippers of the vampiric self-proclaimed deity Vlad Christofor Tepes or as his followers preferred to call him, the Vampire Christ. Normally such people made a point of sparing any Nuevayorer who wore any ornament resembling the letter “T”. But unfortunately, Mariana rarely wore any such ornaments. Indeed, since the end of the Belief Wars of the 1990s, she rarely wore any ornaments at all. Indeed, every summer it was only mere modesty -- and the lack of sufficient sunblock -- that prevented her from violating the local nudity taboos.

The Draculaters were turning in her direction, their dark faces showing their canines as they looked upon her. They had had it in for her ever since she panned the movie Red Dusk which had been produced by a major sponsor of the local Church of the Vampire Christ. Not only had she given the movie a bad review but she questioned the sanity of a so-called religious person who poured millions into the production of a mediocre pot-boiler while doing nothing to help the local homeless. Not that the Draculaters lacked dealings with the poor but there were rarely the type of dealings in which anyone save the most desperate would care to participate.

But wait! They were coming her way.

And her movie started in ten minutes. She looked for an alternative route to the ticket counter but judging from the way the Draculaters were spreading out, there was none. She would have to fight her way through.

She opened up her massive Guess purse and pulled out her mace, her taser and her pepper spray. Just for fun, she also pulled out a jar of garlic powder. After all, she once had been a Girl Scout.

The Draculaters came closer. They started to surround her.

“You wouldn’t dare,” she said.

They smiled. The theatre security guard showed no signs of acknowledging their existence and there was no way the local cops would show up in time to prevent anything even if they wanted to.

They closed in.

She smiled. Beckoned them to come closer.

Then hit them with the mace and the pepper spray.

While the Draculaters pawed at their eyes, she spread out the garlic powder on the sidewalk around her. One of the fiends dared to cross it, only to collapse when his garlic allergy kicked in. As his companions hastily checked their pockets to see which of them carried an epi-pen, Mariana boldly walked up to the ticket counter and bought one ticket for Marlowe in Love.

“Isn’t that that movie about the English pervert?” said the ticket seller, smacking her gum so loudly it could be heard halfway across the Rio Hudson.

“No,” said Mariana. “It’s about a great playwright.”

“I heard it was about perverts.”

“Well, you heard wrong,” she said. And ignored the great big silver “T” that the ticket seller wore around her neck.

*************************************************************************************************************

The movie was great. But it was way too short.

By the time she got out, the Draculaters were gone and she had just enough time to hit the subway for a ten-thirty train. With luck, she would get home in time to write a quick review and post it on the web before she had to go rest up for her day job.

She should have brought her laptop but she really did not like bringing it out in this weather. Besides, with the trouble she got into, it was usually a good idea to keep her hands as free as possible.

As she entered the subway, she was still congratulating herself on not having had to use her taser when she noticed the sound of footsteps echoing behind her.

She looked behind her.

A white-clad woman with snowlike skin and coal-black hair was following her. She noticed Mariana looking and smiled. It was not a pleasant expression.

“You saw the new Kit Marlowe movie at the Alhambra, right?” she said in a brisk yet unrecognizable accent.

“Yes.”

“It was a horrible movie, wasn’t it?”

“No,” said Mariana. “Actually I liked it.”

“No, it was horrible. The writers of today -- they just don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” said Mariana, trying to edge her way toward the turnstile.

“How hard it is to raise a kid with filth like that being shown.”

“Actually, I found it to be a beautiful movie. And I’m not sure why you’re bringing kids into this. Not every movie has to be made for kids, you know.”

Mariana backed away and went through the turnstile.

She was just about to board her train when she suddenly felt someone grab her in a bear-hug and steer her toward the front of the train.

She tried to fight her way free but whoever was holding her was just too strong. She tried to scream but someone just covered her mouth. And no one was paying attention, anyway.

Save for a trio of Draculaters who were coming closer to her...

“No,” she thought. And with that thought, she kicked the nearest would-be assailant in his generative organs and bit the hand that covered her mouth.

She heard a woman scream from behind her. It sounded like the Woman in White. She felt a strong force drive her off the subway platform and onto the tracks in front of the nearest train. And the train was preparing to depart.

She started to get up. But two Draculaters leaped down to hold her in place. She whipped out her taser and used it on one. The other stumbled out of her way and onto the third rail. Two down, one really down.

She climbed back onto the subway platform as the train started to move. She heard a scream from behind. And a scream from in front as the Woman in White muttered something about the Curse of Lesbos and how all those people stick together.

Mariana did not bother recharging the taser. She was not a short woman and she normally towered over most of her would-be adversaries. But the Woman in White was half a head taller than her and she was holding her clenched fists as if she had been a professional fighter.

A lesser woman would have given up then and reconciled herself to a beating. But then Mariana thought of her cousin Anton who had succumbed to the SIDA demon five years ago and how little help he had received from doctors because of people like the Woman in White. Then she clenched her own fists. The rest was easy.

*************************************************************************************************************

Her roommate Bonita was waiting up for her when she got home.

“I swear, girl,” she said. “It seems like it takes longer and longer for you to see those silly art flicks of yours. Please don’t tell me you were woolgathering again?”

“That’s right,” said Mariana. “I was woolgathering. Silly me.”

And with that, she collapsed upon her bed.