It’s my crocodile mother. Can you hear her? I can hear her call me. Like . . . a siren, as loud as a siren and I am feelin’ her eyes just arrowing into me and her tail inside me again and her skin in my skin and her mouth . . . on my head on my neck pullin’ pullin’ me back down (glory drops to the ground and begins to slither on her stomach) into the swamp right here right underneath me she is thinking into my thoughts she is thinking it’s sweet in the swamp, baby girl, it’s so sweet and muddy and thick and smells like bakin’ cake you can glide through the swamp you can crocodile yourself as far away down the swamp as you . . . thick and smellin’ sweet like wood fire and honey cake and all those crocodiles, bringin’ me home . . .
glory takes a strip of cloth from her pocket and tears it to make a ligature, then ties it and puts it around her neck. She walks in circles, her breathing laboured, and then faints.
A recording plays. gail’s tone is measured but increasingly distressed.
“Glory, take that thing off your neck. I am not playing your game. Take that off. That’s a direct order. She’s blue. We’re going in.”