the strange lives of hattie aïcha: independence day pt. 1
The air was amber on the fourth of July this year. Amber days were always touch and go for traveling; all sweltered masses and heat waves hypnotizing you. There wasn't much to focus on those days in the way of 'interesting figures' on the train. Bodies slumped like shame into fake velvet and pepto bismol blue plastic. It was acidic, those days. No brown feeling could warm or dull it further, it just sat like fertilizer on the plains. You had to be careful stepping around those days.
Hattie Aïcha was more cautious on those days, but seemed to be on more of a roll on this particular fourth of July. She had a work shift, a long one coming, like a big long lollipop lick to the center, or a tongue stuck to a frozen metal pole; a lick that requires work, a lick with consequences. And like a lollipop, the job was sweet. Sure the shifts were long and the men were mean and she kind of had a crush on her manager and line cook and delivery person. Things were complicated, naturally. But they were sweet, oh so sweet. She got free food, free drinks and the occasional brownie when her supervisor was feeling extra special that day. AND she could dress however she wanted. Taffeta, tulle, jean, khaki, lace - all of it! It had to be practical and not too theatrical, which was hard honestly, but during the summer it was ideal. Beyond even.
Today, though, Hattie Aïcha was feeling more alive than usual. It was a cool morning, dew drops on the grass near the lake, and that burning hole creeping lovingly over the clouds. She went on a walk that morning, admiring the animals swirl around her morning coffee and stone as she strolled through the greens and mulch decorating the park behind her close friend's home. She'd taken to smoking in the morning sometimes when she needed a little magic to complete her contours. Sometimes she woke up feeling like a toddler's used puzzle piece, all edges strangely rounded and indiscernibly sharpened, with grooves weeping with saliva from incessant gnawing. When she looked into the mirror, she saw welts protruding from her limbs, raising her into space by the throat, angry and dry and quick-witted; punishing. So, she stoned to round herself out. It was strategic, really, and she'd taken to thinking that without it, she wouldn't feel real. Her mind right now wasn't strong enough to hold her steady. She'd not been careful in the wake and was now suffering the consequences. It was strategic, really.
As she sat on her patio, a friend shattered the bottom step of their shared back stairs, splintered wood crumpled under the weight of plastic moving boxes and sneakers, and it almost felt like a ghost died at once. Almost. Hattie Aïcha knew what it felt like to experience ghost death. They shared those kinds of things with her, and it was strange, being able to sense those kinds of useless seismic shifts. Lynea had warned her after she moved back that things would be different, and Hattie Aïcha had just assumed she meant because of Covid and general economic upheaval. In classic donkey fashion, though, she'd failed to inquire further and only could keep surmising that this was what she was alluding to. It had driven her crazy last year. Solstes had shared a similar sentiment but was far too afraid of the potential architectural shifts that kind of seeing precipitated. She'd closed herself off to it ages ago, refusing to see in exchange for living. You couldn't fault her, because in her own way, all of her family had done and was doing the same. For some reason or other, they'd stopped trying to see the layers of architecture offered to them; they'd traded stereograms for trompe l'oeils.
The friend lightly hissed as their ankle jerked quickly to the ground, destabilizing the whole patio for a second, all three stories of it trembling in mock threat. Hattie Aïcha wondered if patio stairs counted as stories, and how narrative is literally built into the language of architecture, and how could we (her) not have realized that sooner and acted on it. She called out, 'All good?' Her friend half-grunted, half-hummed in response. 'I should go help,' Hattie Aïcha murmured, pained at the thought of leaving a comfortable morning perch after a kind walk, but stirred by the alchemy downstairs. As she descended, she took note of the time - she'd be late if this took longer than five minutes, so she made quick work of her bound.
'What can I help with,' she offered. Her friend looked up at her, then promptly handed her this box. 'I've got about 10 of these.'
Hattie Aïcha thought quickly and spilled, "Okay, I can help with 3 max.' Her friend nodded and turned their shoulders so Hattie Aïcha could get past. 'Be my guest, and thank you, friend.' Hattie Aïcha nodded brusquely and jumped lightly down to the khaki cement, two steps at a time. She'd done that often as a child, resulting in a dent in not one, but two walls in two of her childhood homes. 'I miss it,' she thought, letting the space around her form in the ink of this memory. Slowly, her clumsiness was all she could see, white spackled walls cracking like fine ancient marble under the weight of her cranium. She always recovered from physical pain quickly, 'I'm okay! I'm okay.' But she was emotionally fragile; affected. The slightest lack of response from her mother made her unsure, and derogatory pet names from her father confused her, and she got the feeling of dread served to her on a silver platter by her siblings every so often. She carried pain in a backpack, like an explorer always almost ready for the expedition, but certain to always be leaving something critical behind. 'We have too much in common now,' she thought, skipping above the gray, sunburnt wood. She often wondered if this was what seeing was about. Remembering too much always, and sorting only through the pain.
Hattie Aïcha made quick work of her assistance, carrying one heavy box and two light ones in one trip. She couldn't be late today and wasn't sure why. 'Here you are, friend.' They nodded, and smiled in gratitude, stress set into their mouth, and Hattie Aïcha offered a hand on their shoulder, punching the air with a fighting fist before tossing her knees up the stairs, three at a time now. She was just blessed to have worked through that storm of memory. 'Don't let it suck you in,' she repeated, hearing the voice of her stepfather deepen the base of her own thoughts. 'Don't let it suck you in,' she repeated, this time under her breath, reveling in her own depths. It stirred the waters around her, and she saw soft ripples in her periphery. How wondrous, she thought, to have your reality reflected in your vision. How dangerous too, she thought.
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'This, is Damen. Doors will open on the left. Thank you for choosing the CTA.' Hattie Aïcha stood up on both legs, desperate to steady herself as the train came to a heavy stop. She tiptoed down the stairs and waited at the stoplight, something in her stomach tugging at her knees, desperate to speed to work. She felt gravity and locomotion too deeply sometimes, the stone behind a helpful numbing creme on her brain but making her actively aware of each bone. As she approached her work, she heard voices out of focus blend into new words in foreign languages, and chose the back exit to enter into today. Nicoli was there when she arrived, toe-stomping a cigarette but into the oily remainders of the restaurant next door. He was the only one that spoke Chinese with her, and they used that to their advantage. Everyone else chose French, German, or, god forbid, Dutch to offer their international customers. Their coworkers called them 'Sinos' because 'sinophile' is too big a word to spit out while landing a joke. It kind of sounded like Rhinos and Hattie Aïcha sometimes wondered if it was more derogatory because of that, or more apt.
They were both Black and had spent time in China in their youth, knowing intimately what it meant to be alone in a dying regime. They also knew what it meant to live in different but communal realities; everyone kept to themselves and came together willfully when it was time. No wishy-washy. Because of that, they didn't do platitudes with each other - there was no use for niceties when you've found the only person who doesn't seem to require them. You indulge in it, milking the sludge of abrasion and truth from each other's memories. It was restorative.
'You look alive.' Nicoli spat out, eyes leveling into Hattie Aïcha.
'You look dead,' she replied, coquettishly smirking at his muddled face. Looking at him was awkward sometimes because even though he was forward and truthful, his face wasn't. Hattie Aïcha had to focus on his face more than anyone she'd every met in her life. It was exhilarating and stupid.
'I was offering a compliment, dickhead.'
'And I was simply impaling you with my unicorn phallis of truth. I love you, I'm late, see you in there.'
She skipped inside after entering the code, wondering what a service worker-run HR department would look like. 'Would a work partner be obsolete? Humans love grey love,' she thought, putting on an apron and her scarf, locks coiling in puffs over the light fabric. The mirror caught her pensive-to-pleasant expression morph, and it was like a glitch had taken over her, face cemented in codes. She walked through the saloon-style doors, wood creaking as if celebrating her arrival. She whipped out her phone, clocked in, and it was just as soon as she'd tucked her phone in her pocket that they walked in. Tyler. And Bastion, their best friend, but that was less important.
What was he doing here?! They locked eyes, and a smile crept slowly onto Tyler's face, teasing Hattie Aïcha. She melted.
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Before she moved, Tyler and Hattie Aïcha had an understanding. She'd pine for them, they'd never acquiesce, but they'd make the most of the time that they had in class together. Hattie Aïcha believed that they were destined for each other. Their tanned skin, wefts of chlorine, sea salt and persimmon emanating from their clothes, and smiley face tattoo at the ankle that a friend had drawn at summer swim camp when they were 15; it made her dumb and intoxicated. Tyler once told you that their mom flipped when that happened, and their sibling tickle-bombed their mom to get Tyler out of trouble. 'Mak just went for her ribcage, like absolutely dove for it. She collapsed almost immediately, anger bubbles rising as laughter instead. I was so proud of my family in that moment, honestly. Imagine what she'd have said instead.'
Tyler lived in fear that their family could die at any moment; Mak's family had orphaned on in the war. Mak's home country used a different time and identity structure than we did, so gender assignments became nebulous and had different architecture linguistically. When Mak joined Tyler's family, on explained that every pronoun exists as 'on,' and everything was context specific. On couldn't describe it further, as that history was sacred to on's history, but Tyler's family didn't probe. They understood.
During the war, Mak's family was killed to protect the history. Without on deaths, torture would envelope on whole population, pestering on forever and burning pustules aimlessly. On died to catalyze the destruction, knowing resistance had spent its turn well. Hattie Aïcha, upon hearing all of this, wondered how much truth Tyler knew about Mak's home. To her, it sounded strategic, and she wondered how much Tyler's parents knew. She always wondered how Mak ended up with them. They'd shake their head slightly and say, 'Landy, its not our story to know.' She wondered how they could settle for that when it could all be out there.
Tyler had taken to calling Hattie Aïcha out of her name early on after meeting in Chinese class and mishearing her name as 'Handy Aïcha.' They'd snickered slightly, because it was still high school, but wondered what her utility could be. They were a romantic, sure, but a pragmatist when the time came. They'd said, 'Handy, like Handyland,' in a written note 30 seconds after roll call. She sent it back with, 'Hattie, like Hatshepsut.' They couldn't pronounce it, so they searched it up. 'No wonder your name's so sweet, you were a monarch in another life,' they wrote back. 'And in this one,'
They never had another exchange like that, but gravitated towards each other in every convenient space. In geometry, Hattie would always have pencils when they came unprepared. In homeroom, Hattie would fix their glasses when they were slightly loose. In robotics, she'd tinker with their code and make strange memes to make them laugh. they seldom did, but that only fueled Hattie Aïcha more. Hattie Aïcha wondered if this was all in her head, and then she realized exactly what she was to them; handy.
She'd pull back, forget he mattered, forget their loose exchanges. She'd find another focus for her energy; a book, an essay, a love, a show. Somehow, though, Tyler would scoop her back in like shit in a doggy bag, and just as routine. They'd snicker, she'd whimper. Routine is a bitch.
When she left, it took them a minute to realize how much she'd impacted them, but by that point, she'd grown up and moved on from childish games. The rubber band was too tight for her; she broke free. Their glasses loosened, their sibling grew up, and they went off to college, briefly chatting online before it dissolved into zeroes. They zeroed out.
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'Handyland, no way,' Tyler tried out on their tongue, noticing it quickly dry out. Bastion raised an eyebrow, trying to see what Tyler knew that he didn't.
Hattie Aïcha sucked in a breath and opted for a chuckle instead of a shriek. 'I'm honestly surprised you remembered after all the times you came begging for a pencil after 'forgetting' one.'
'That's what you remember me for?' Tyler challenged.
'Not much else to reach for, I suppose,' Hattie Aïcha pinched back. Tyler burned in that spot or a moment, thinking of how to recover. 'I guess its lucky you're slinging here now, then. Got more tangible stuff to reach for; better for your health.'
'Asshole,' she thought, 'True as fuck though.' She said,' Thanks for looking after my health. Can't say I'm doing the same though. Together or separate?'
'Tog-'
'Whichever takes the longest. I haven't seen you in years.' Tyler interjected their friend's comment, and Hattie Aïcha felt something dangerous wrap around her throat. It felt thick suddenly. He was charging her, instigating. She thought quickly, settling for,
'Just sit at the table then, I have to change the music soon anyways. You'll pay together, though?' she directed at Bastion.
'Uh, yeah.'
'Cool, 10 even.'
'No discount?'
'Kin only.'
"I'm not k-'
'No, my friend, you are not.'
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