Half moon, around four months pregnant
He came to me again tonight. I brimmed with victory. It is because I have the best butt, I know. Not to be crass. Let the other women sneer about the “unknown origins” of my proudest feature, so unusual among people of our kind. I was chosen because I was blessed by God, who protects our great country, Him, and all the rest of us.
I dressed and strolled slowly to breakfast. My eyes had been a little puffy in the hand mirror, but the color was high and fresh in my cheeks. My left arm felt sore. I believe it has something to do with little tears that are created in my muscles during physical activity, but I cannot remember the relevant facts.
I wish again that I could borrow a book. It’s getting harder and harder to remember what I’d learned in classrooms, sitting on rows of rickety wooden benches. It seems such a long time ago now. The benches were old and rickety on purpose, I remember thinking, so that when our attentions drifted and we shook our legs in boredom, the benches would creak and give us away to the teachers. I was such a child then, afraid only of an adult’s admonishment, not realizing that there are so many other things in life.
The corridor that leads to the dining room is long and straight. When the wind huffs, as it did this morning, it comes whistling down an unerring line straight at you, as if personally seeking you out. I put my hand out to graze a thick, round pillar as I walked past, shivering at the marble’s chill.
It’s getting harder to remember my family’s faces too. As I walked to breakfast, I cycled through them all again, one by one, practicing memory: Father, Mother, Brother. Father, Mother, Brother.
Knife moon, around two months pregnant
I’m leaning back on the bed writing this entry, waiting for Him. The bedding is soft, and I feel sunken and snug. I think about Father wrapping towels around his hot jugs of liquor before picking them up. I’d asked him once, why not just wait until it cools down? He’d shaken his head and laughed, replying that old men have no patience.
You’re not old, I remember correcting. In response, he’d given his head a few more wags.
I caught my thighs jiggling. How did this happen? I gave the right one a slap, willed it to be still. I am failing to possess mental fortitude. Divine Leader, He said our enemies halfway across the globe are like this, scatterbrained and always led by the nose by meaningless trivialities. He says this is because they are all addicted to cell phones that they carry around wherever they go. The mini computers entertain them and think for them, and slowly our enemies’ brains deteriorate due to misuse. That is our opening, He said. If we can retain the nimbleness of our thoughts and the independence of our brains, without aid of machines, then we will remain human and in possession of our awesome mental faculties, while the enemies devolve into babies who cannot function without being told what to do by lifeless computers.
Now I’m yawning, too. Another sign of weakness: boredom. Although the hour is getting late. To keep my mind sharp, I will try to invent new stories about my world. I’ll find an interesting object here in my room. Curtain, robe, couch: so many things in here are soft.
I get up to stand in front of the window. I see, high in the sky, something cold and hard: the knife moon sharp as a scabbard. She is my favorite, the one upon which many stories have been built. My current best has her getting pregnant all the time, giving birth to stars, her consecutive children, one after another without pause. This is because she is lonely, untouchably without peer in the night. But the stars she makes surround her, winking in joy, and this soothes her.
I think this is a pretty story.
A memory just burrowed to the surface, like one of the worms in the sandy part of the royal pleasure garden, appearing out of nowhere on an afternoon so sunny you squint and think the wriggling might just be a spot in your vision.
In the memory, Mother has her back to me, chopping green onions. I am boasting, describing to her how my teacher had called me up to stand in front of the whole class earlier that morning. “This girl has written an excellent essay that is in great harmony with the virtues we all should strive to live by. Let her be your example. Purify your thoughts, strain out unclean ideas, and work hard to record the triumph of your mind down on paper, so others may benefit.”
I told Mother how much I had wanted to grin, but how I’d managed to suppress it, because I knew I should be humble and dignified. I paused, expecting Mother to turn around with a big smile and put her warm palms against my cheeks. But the “tok tok” of the knife against bamboo board went on.
“I fear you will be just smart enough to know the truth of your situation, but not smart enough to escape it,” Mother said.
I must have fallen asleep earlier. I am frightened by this. What if Divine Leader had come for me, seen me fail at my station, and left for another? Or worse, perhaps he had not come at all.
In the hand mirror my hair is squashed against my cheeks, the top of one ear peeking out unattractively. And oh, the beginnings of wrinkles are bunched up below my eyes. Ah, I am old, I have served Divine Leader for five years; soon there will be tear-filled pouches dragging the corners of my eyes down. He did not come for me because I am losing my looks.
I stand as straight as I can. Maneuvering the hand mirror as I have done countless mornings, I examine my bottom. The arc formed by the small of my back seems as dramatic as ever—like a cove carved by patient ocean waves over many moons, Divine Leader had once said, swooping with his palm. I crane my neck and look harder. The fleshy halves themselves seem to have distorted overnight, like sacks of plucked cotton left out in a thunderstorm. I press my fingers gingerly into a buttock. As I feared, the give is different, like loose flour, whereas before it was like the best baked bread.
My body is changing, as Mother had warned it would. I am afraid to think of what comes next.
Spring Flower smirked as soon as my shadow crossed the threshold of the dining hall. She clattered her tea cup onto the table so that the other women looked up and also noticed the spectacle: me. I stood tall, summoning all the good thoughts that would help me see this situation in the right light. One, we are all here to serve Divine Leader. Therefore, none of us are better than the others; we are all equal before God and Him. Two, any small way in which I am able to serve this great nation is a wonderful honor. Even if my usefulness is fleeting, I must cherish my duty while it lasts.
My duty. This is the part that is hazy. Before Divine Leader, my duty was to stay chaste, such that I could fulfill my more important, ultimate duty of being a faithful wife. But now I am neither girl nor wife. Will I ever be a wife?
I thought about Divine Leader’s wife. I saw her walk by once, regal in soft but vibrant silks, satiny hair piled higher than her own hands could have arranged. Guards surrounding her, she’d nodded when we bowed in her general direction, none of us wishing to draw her attention. I remember feeling oddly shameful for some reason I didn’t understand.
Full moon, water breaking
I’ve sat up long past the time He would have come. From time to time I stood at the window to look at the moon. Tonight I am too downcast to invent tales, so I revisit one my brother told me what seems like a long time ago. I am writing it down before it, too, is forgotten.
Once upon a time, in a place far away, there ruled a cruel tyrant. He waged wars at whim and demanded the best of everything for himself. In that way, he snatched a beautiful young girl away from her poor family and made her his wife. Thanks to her sweet nature, the tyrant was almost happy for a while. The land knew peace and was thankful for it. But one day, a traveling shaman prostrated himself before the tyrant and spoke of an immortality pill hidden somewhere in the realm. This immediately became the tyrant’s obsession. He dispatched his men and forced commoners to abandon their livelihoods in search of this pill. Hell bent on attaining everlasting life, he punished those who inevitably came back empty-handed and trembling, his savage streak worsening.
Until one day, soldiers interrupted the tyrant’s daily banquet with news that the pill had been found buried deep underground, nestled among the crisscrossing branches of a very old fig tree. The tyrant roared with delight. At last, he would forever continue enjoying this life that yielded such pleasures to him: food from land, sky, and sea; treasures from the four corners of the map. He laughed and ordered more food and drink to be consumed as celebration.
When the first troupe of dancers was worn out, the tyrant ordered a fresh wave. The tyrant’s wife retired to her chambers. As quietly as she could, she barred the door from inside and hoped the guards posted outside had not heard. From inside her robe’s long sleeve she extracted the pill of immortality, pilfered from the tyrant while he was cursing the flagging dancers. She pondered the tiny pill between her slender fingers, thinking of all the injustice and suffering that would continue unfolding through the ages should her husband indeed never die. She thought about the poor of the land, scraping by at the mercy of one man, without even the hope of one day seeing a more benevolent ruler guide their lives. She had to do something. The tyrant had to be stopped.
The tyrant’s wife made up her mind. Her fist tightened around the tiny globe. She took a deep breath and swallowed the pill. At first she felt no different. Then, to her surprise, her body grew lighter and lighter. Gasping, she clung to the foot of the bed, but it was no good. A force, gentle yet supremely strong, buoyed her away from the floor and out the window. As she floated away from earth she cried her goodbyes to her family, hoping they would hear her. Up and up she went, becoming lighter than air, until she reached the moon. There she landed, and there she stayed, the beautiful woman in the moon.
The sun has risen, but the moon can still be seen, hovering around vision’s edges, clinging on for as long as she can. I haven’t slept. I stand up from the bed to stretch. My shoulders feel pain, and my bones seem to have rusted.
I know I must be strong. I must do better. I want to think of courageous examples to follow, but my mind is tired, I know it. I do not have an excuse for what I thought earlier. It’s a story, just a rumor really, of a girl my age who had run away from this divine country, nobody knew why. It seemed she had been poisoned by the enemy’s propaganda. Defected, they called it. I thought it an apt word; she must have contained a defect within her to abandon leader, country, and family like that. It could not have been a spontaneous mistake. She had trekked across a long desert and bribed help along the way with her family’s valuables, in entirety, strapped to her back. At the end of her journey . . .
That is where I cut the bad thought off. I am writing this down to help me remember my mistake. I must not be selfish; I must not let my little fate interfere with the larger mission of our divine country. I resolve to do my best in my own way. To start, I will not sit anymore. I suspect sitting around for most hours of the day has squashed my bottom into a less desirable shape. Therefore, starting now, I will stand. With luck, my body will find its way back to its true, intended form.
I pick up the hand mirror and smile into it, nodding. Another memory came then, as if sensing my weakness. It was my last dinner at home, the night before I was to be escorted to the royal residence, right here, where I sit and breathe. Back then this place had seemed unreal, impossibly far away. I felt as if I were about to die, then reincarnated into a palace. Mother had made my favorite dish: root vegetables marinated in soy. It was a joyous occasion, but everyone was silent until Father cleared his throat and said, “It is the greatest honor conferred upon us to have you chosen to serve our Divine Leader.” As he finished this declaration he glanced at our door and window. I followed his gaze but saw nothing unusual. When I looked back at him, his eyes were red. He resumed describing how proud he was.
Bun moon, around seven months pregnant
Well, I have finally done it. Today, for the first time, I went all day without sitting, from the moment I woke up until now, late at night.
I can’t say this achievement has helped me regain Divine Leader’s affection. It has certainly invited scorn from the other women, who think I am slowly losing my mind. I have taken to wandering the royal pleasure garden more frequently, because keeping my legs in motion is easier than standing still like a pillar when the afternoon wears on and my legs become tired. My garden strolls confuse the other women. They all avoid the sun like the plague because they do not want their skin to darken. Me, I like to focus on one thing at a time. It gives me purpose to stand as straight as I can for as long as I am able. So that is what I do. Even at the expense of having porcelain skin, which, if I am honest, I will never attain anyway.
I am sitting on the bed now, massaging my calves. It feels good. Feels like a better kind of failure, compared to my earlier ones. I can’t explain it well.
Spider thread moon, newborn star
I cannot possibly write down the emotions I am experiencing. Today has been a spinning-top kind of day, and now the string has been entirely unraveled, and I am ready to topple onto one side.
Lunch was pleasant. The other women lethargically pecked at their ginseng broth while I had seconds, hoping the extra nutrition would go straight to my bottom. I stood at the vast dining table, towering over everyone else seated. They teased me, of course, but I did not mind. Divine Leader was almost never present at midday meals, and anyway, I was beginning to see results from no longer sitting.
After lunch I smoothed down my clothes and set off into the pleasure garden. These walks had become almost a habit by now, so I was not paying too much attention to my surroundings, beautiful though the shrubberies and artful stone sculptures were.
Suddenly my name boomed from a distance behind me. I whirled, joy and terror intermingled. The voice belonged to Divine Leader; I could not be mistaken. And indeed there he strode, his hands crossed behind his back. Next to him was a tall, thin man, who, though he was keeping pace with Divine Leader, looked as if he was not moving his limbs at all. He seemed to glide.
I minced toward them, going as fast as I could while still preserving grace. I stopped at two bows’ distance of Divine Leader and sank my head low.
“This is the one,” Divine Leader said, amusement in his tone. I kept my forehead level to the ground but raised my lashes. The men appeared to be inspecting me with interest.
“Lift your head,” Divine Leader commanded. I swung up. Searching for somewhere to safely land my vision, I focused at random on the other man’s collarbone, a sharp slice peeking out of his shirt like a half-concealed weapon.
“Indeed, she stands as straight and still as they say,” the man commented.
“All of my pleasure girls have interesting personalities,” Divine Leader said. “No two alike.”
“Let us put her to a test.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“An excuse to perform for you again, Divine Leader.” The man smiled, lips thin as my favorite knife moon.
Divine Leader threw back his head and laughed, neck folds creasing.
“This is your lucky day,” he said to me. “This man is a national hero. Fifteen years ago, he brought much honor to us by winning an Olympic medal, right on enemy territory. He showed the world that we are not to be disrespected. Pay tribute, girl.”
I bowed deep, looking at the Olympian’s shoes and wondering what sport had been his mastery. He did not look athletic at all, with his malnourished, skinny frame.
When I arced back through air to face them again, the Olympian jutted his bony chin toward something behind me. “That pine tree,” he said. I turned and looked. It was a good fifty feet away, set back from the winding brick path designed for ambling. The tree’s feet were crowned by a half ring of boat orchids.
“Go stand under the tree, nice and straight just like you are now. Do not move once you get there.”
I bowed and started off toward the tree, wondering about the odd request. Perhaps they would take some photographs of me. It was a fine, clear day, barely any clouds. The natural lighting was good.
I reached the tree and stopped. Up close, its bark was much rougher than it had seemed from my earlier distance. I turned to face Divine Leader and the Olympian.
The Olympian’s eyes had disappeared. One eye was squeezed tight. In place of the other was a gaping, bottomless well, tunneling out of his face.
I gasped and winced. The Olympian lowered the rifle he had been aiming at me.
“I said, ‘Do not move,’ did I not?” he shouted across the manicured lawn.
I bowed in apology, terrified. Out of the corner of my eye I saw embroidered shoes padding toward me. I straightened up and met Spring Flower’s eyes. She looked somber, which darkened my terror.
She lifted one hand and revealed a peach, blushing ripe. After a heartbeat’s hesitation, she stood on tiptoe and balanced the peach on my head. I caught myself just in time; I’d almost slumped forward so she could have better access.
“Sweet Rain,” she whispered, hesitantly letting both hands go. Then she left me.
I looked right ahead, at the Olympian and into his rifle’s eye. I did not have a choice. I was locked into this posture, my neck stretching, my soles rooting. A breeze picked up. I felt a stray strand of hair brush against the very tip of my nose. I shivered against my will.
The Olympian lowered his rifle once more, clearly disappointed at my disobedience. I fought to not close my eyes against the images that rushed me while I stood helplessly still: Father, Mother, Brother; rain swishing through leaks in the roof; Baby, taken from inside me while I slept a drugged sleep; the blood that came month after month.
“What’s wrong?” Divine Leader asked, impatient.
“Just a speck of dust,” the Olympian replied, nodding respectfully. “I’m sorry to make you wait, Divine Leader.” From his pocket he withdrew what looked like a rag and applied it to his gun’s crater. I stared, tears almost coming. He had seen me twitch; I knew he had. But he was not giving me away. I compressed my body, willing every muscle to adhere, trying to be both tall and compact at the same time.
The Olympian cradled his gun and slowly brought it up to his face again. He adjusted his aim with a few minute movements, then stood completely still, the dark eye unmoving yet simultaneously reaching for me.
Sweat sprouted near my ears. I clenched my entire being into myself, matching the Olympian as best I could. It seemed that was the true challenge, a test of immobility between us. Until a firecracker went off, and an arrow of air whipped past my crown. I allowed myself the tiniest adjustment; I bit my lip.
“Ahh!” Divine Leader shouted, his voice full of triumph. “Wonderful! I see you have not lost your skills one bit.”
The Olympian tapped his rifle against one thigh. He might have been smiling, although it was hard to see from where I stood, with a humming in my ears.
He set out in my direction, gun swinging casually. Divine Leader seemed taken aback, but he followed the Olympian.
“Now you can move,” he said when we were face to face. I swallowed hard but did not relax any part of me. Suddenly, the Olympian bent and carefully placed his gun on the grass, not far from my feet. He rose just to dip immediately into a deep bow.
“Divine Leader, if I may, I would like to present you with a proposal that will bring glory to you and all that you rule.”
Divine Leader nodded assent. They did not say anything else until they were a distance away, taking small steps, keeping their voices low. I remained standing until my calves spasmed of their own accord. Then I hurried away, taking one last look at the rifle lying in the grass.
Ladle moon
I cannot believe it. I stand with my back to my new room’s window, marveling at how different it is from what I have known for the past five years. Everything had been soft or reflective, smooth to the touch, when I had waited night after night for Him. Now, here, the surfaces are dull and coarse, and sharp edges lurk. The wooden bed frame has not been sanded down completely, splintering here and there. I run my fingers across it, seeking the thorns.
He had seemed such an unlikely person to change my life, the Olympian. Coach, he said to call him. Then again, all the ways my life has been diverted have been unexpected, beyond my ken.
I am here to train, so that I may become a competitive sports shooter. What a strange phrase, I’d thought when they first explained it to me. Amusement and death rolled into one.
I understand, of course, that this is a very serious matter. Coach explained to me that Divine Leader had been extremely unwilling to part with me, seeing as I am one of his favorites. But in the end, over tea, Coach convinced Him that extraordinary things in one’s possession must be shown off to the world in order to truly shine. If kept locked in a box and only taken out for admiration from time to time, even the brightest jewel would gather dust. I nodded along as Coach nodded in imitation of Divine Leader’s reaction to this reasoning.
“Why was I chosen?” I asked, half-afraid of the answer.
“Sharp shooters need to have complete control over every finger, every breath,” Coach said. “A single tremor, and all is lost. You have the talent of turning yourself to stone. With my help, you may excel.”
I must have unconsciously let slip a smile because Coach continued: “You must know that Divine Leader has a condition.”
I waited. Up close, Coach’s eyes seemed too cloudy for him to be such an expert shooter.
“You must win medals and let the world see what treasures emerge from Divine Leader’s guidance. This is especially important,” he paused. “On enemy land, outside of our borders.”
I bent my neck, signaling understanding.
“If you fail to bring glory, there will be consequences. So, train hard.”
I swore I would. Coach turned to leave. At the door, he paused and said, “One more thing. Attaining glory is as much about winning medals as about conducting yourself honorably on foreign soil. You will be given a computer to study geography and the customs of other lands. Use it wisely.”
I held my jubilance in until his footsteps had died off. Then I stood, very still, looking at nothing in particular, seeing Father, Mother, Brother, Baby, woman in the moon, defector. For the first time, I did not stop myself from thinking about them. I wondered what each of them were doing at that exact moment in time.