The moon hangs low and full, her silvery light reflecting in the facets of black choppy water. Blue and I sit in the cockpit of a sailboat. My eyes scan the open ocean while female Peshmerga fighters sleep all around me—below deck, on the open deck near the bow, and one curled up behind me in the stern.
I cup my pregnant belly, allowing myself room to grieve in this peaceful moment. Rida saved my life…and I got her killed.
My old story starts to ride its rails: Everyone I love dies.
Tears wet my cheeks and my throat tightens. My dog Blue, sitting by my feet, leans more heavily against my leg, his focus steady on the horizon as he lends me comfort. I reach out and sink my fingers into the thick ruff across his broad shoulders, finding some peace in the warmth there. Blue doesn’t die.
Rida did, though. Shot in the back. Killed in an instant.
The faces of other people I’ve lost crowd my mind’s eye. My brother, James, grins at me like he knows all my secrets. My friend, Malina, winks, her eyes sparkling with joy. I got them killed too…
I spawned the lies that Rida used to start a revolution. Right before she died, Rida told me my lies were truth, that she was a messenger from God, and so was I. Because we are all divine. We are all one.
Bunch of fucking bullshit.
But Rida’s lies lent strength to women in bondage, offering them the opportunity to recognize their worth.
Her words freed women who’d believed other lies about our sex. That we are dangerous and in danger. That we are the root of all evil—Eve tasted the forbidden fruit…knowledge in a woman’s hand is damnation for all humans.
More bullshit.
But women believed Rida’s new story instead of the old ones…fascinating how much power belief lends reality.
Rida claimed to be a prophet, to have heard the voice of God, and that He said women were equal, and should rise up, spill blood, do whatever it took in order to claim their rightful positions next to men. But it wasn’t God, it was a very brain-damaged me.
The lies took on a life of their own, as they so often do. Fueled by enough belief, a well-told lie—fiction—can change the world.
The boat rocks gently, the sails filled by a fresh gust of wind.
We are in the Mediterranean Sea, miles off the southern coast of France, fleeing. Running away is how my life as Sydney Rye began: Blue and me in a boat, escaping New York City. But it is no longer just the two of us. My son shifts inside me as if he can sense my thoughts of him…and maybe he can.
The connection I feel to this new life is not something I can articulate. Maybe because I am afraid of what it sounds like. It sounds like a bunch of bullshit.
I’ve always insisted that faith in a God, in a deity outside yourself, is dangerous. It leads to absolution of one’s actions. If you’re killing for God…well then, that’s one thing, isn’t it? If you’re oppressing for God, really, how could you not subjugate other humans? God made me do it—for a higher purpose, of course.
I always held myself responsible. Insisted that I choose to save lives, often by taking others. I made those choices. No god told me what to do, or absolved me of the burden of my actions.
Those beliefs brought me here, to this boat, to these waters, to this life growing inside of me. To a grief as deep as the sea beneath me.
Is there a way forward without bloodshed? Can I break this curse and hold onto the ones I love without giving up and just letting the world spin on without me? It’s all the trying that gets people killed. But every time I try to stop… as they say, they suck me back in.
Lightning flashes in the distance and I look at Blue. He doesn’t react to the storm I see hovering on the horizon. It lives in my damaged brain. A lie I’m telling myself.
A smile tugs at my lips, humor in the absurd softening the blanket of grief cloaking me.
Thunder rumbles and a voice whispers within it. Burn it all down.
A shiver runs along my spine as images spring to life inside my mind’s eye. A web of lies suspends humanity in a constant struggle, each of us flies buzzing against the spider’s perfectly designed snare—the more we fight, the stronger the web holds. Each of us tangling ourselves further, twisting the silk tighter, holding us in our singular perspective.
But even if we don’t fight the web still holds us—it does not release when we surrender. There is no escape…except to destroy the web. To burn it down.