The identity of the truth

She was a glittering star in the sea of blackness, if a star could ever compare to her shining visage. Before I knew to call her name, I had not known the soft warmth gently thudding against my heart and only imagined it. Yet, the imagination could not commence to detail the collision of atoms synthesizing but demolishing all at once from a single brush of her fingertips through the silky sleeve of my dress. Her alluring, brown eyes often flickered from me to the floor when a gaping, but brimming, silence befell us, noses only inches apart as the air pulled us closer to each other. Her gaze was ever more tentative, and her limbs stiff until the repelling and attracting forces were all too overwhelming for me to take any longer. In a stolen moment of silence, I closed the distance, and our lips brushed.

The sudden action left her inert against the wall with only the keen intent of my lips to progress the moment, until her fingers twitched, and her eyes fluttered shut. She leaned forward, a small breath brushing my lips as she pressed closer to me. Her hands groped for a holding along my body until they found refuge among the mounds of my shoulders.

I sunk deeper into her kiss, imagining if I were a man. Then perhaps my palms wouldn’t be so balmy at the idea of my father or brother walking in on us. What could happen if I’m caught, my heart bursting so affluently for a woman. A woman! How preposterous and fantastical! But nothing had ever felt so proper. Could I truly die for something so sacrilegious? Was this not the strong desire to sin I’ve been taught to quell?

The red light from the stain glass pane, depicting god in his human form gazing upon humanity with a steely gaze burns through my vision. Fire licks at the bare bottoms of his pale feet, his fingers pointing squarely at the hungry flames. His fire will consume all sinners, and only the pure of heart shall survive the scorching holocaust. I’m doused in his righteousness, fazing my father and brother and the liturgy from my brain. I clasp my hands together, my heart raging with memories of her. Her. Please. My clammy palms sting prodigiously as my fingernails dig into my knuckles, falling upon my trembling knees with tears watering the corners of my eyes. Cleanse me of my sinful desires, Lord. Make me worthy.

“When you take this book and also this medal, you are signing these words, not only on paper, but across your heart,” The strong, rigid voice of my father rings in my ears.

“I believe,” I whisper softly, hardly able to squeeze the words out from my tightening throat. Tears threaten to spill down my cheeks, but I manage to fight them back.

“Repeat after me,” He starts, “Like the man who killed his son on the mount, I shall show tireless faith in the word of the lord, and in turn, lead my nation through his good will so that we may all pursue the pearl gates beyond this life and the next.”

The words slide off my tongue flawlessly as if they were kindred to my soul, and the ideas were wrapping the middle of my finger in a thin band. No other life is worth pursuing than the one in front of me.

“Through honesty…”

I echo the words.

“…fidelity…”

This is what I’m meant to do.

“…resilience against sin…”

I hesitate as if my tongue might be groping for the right words, which were said moments before. Surely my memory could not be so poor. No. What’s stopping me is her face. Her tear-filled gaze that night, but I chose morality over vice…right? Can I take it back? Could I ever rescind every bursting emotion and dewy word fallen from my lips? Could I forget her own trade of sweet nothings and desolate affection? For only a second, would his fiery light pare the pain of incinerating her face from my mind.

“You are god.”

She stopped in whatever she was doing. If I close my eyes and concentrate for long enough, I recall her pen had been wagging vigorously to deeply impress the ink of her pen upon her page, the sonorous scribbling halting for a moment. A small smile flickered across her face. Her eyes shone as she leaned closer to me, “Isn’t that sacrilegious?” Her proximity was intoxicating as her hot breath brushed my lips. Would she close the distance? When I said that, I was certain, and glimpsing her, with our lips practically touching, I’m sure it’s true. The ecstasy I’d been expecting to feel, the deep satisfaction, had come, and it stayed when I thought of her face and remembered her kiss.

She wrapped her dark fingers in my pale ones and pressed the back of my hands to her lips.

“No being is holier,” I whispered lowly, closing the distance as our lips brushed, “-than you.”

“Resilience against sin,” I reiterate. The words slide from the mouth of a stranger, even if the tongue speaking the words is my own.

A moment in time had come as fleetingly as it left, when love was as simple as the feeling, and the world and her repercussions were white noise in the splendor of it all. If only that moment could last forever, then perhaps my heart wouldn’t ache as it does.

“…fear of he who is greater than us all...”

“You are ashamed of me.” She announced, barricading me from her soul through the downcast expression on her face.

I moved to reach her, but she backed away as if my touch might be the sun itself reaching out to obliterate the atoms in her body, “Am I wrong?”

“I won’t hide,” she says with a tight voice.

For once, her brown eyes meet mine, and they shine with an unsung vigor alighting in her gaze. She had cut her fine, black hair, and it was so short that it curled tightly against her skull. At that moment, I wasn’t sure she was the same woman I met over a year ago.

“-and I won’t accept your shame.”

Everything was perfect as it was. We found our space. We found our corner in our own pocket of the universe that we could keep secret from the rest of the world. But she wants more, and I cannot give that to her. I am the daughter of the official of god in the Free Republic. The scandal would be enough to have me disowned and then killed. Aside from death, what would come of me after? As I would stand before my lord to await judgement, he’d gaze upon me with his merciless stare, declaring me too arrogant and sinful to enter the heavens. What is there not to be ashamed of? I wish to grasp this ecstasy and keep it pure for as long as I can. Leave the prying eyes to rest, and we’ll have all that we require.

Noticing the questions written across my face, she sighed, “There is no future for us here. So let’s just end it.”

Her voice wobbled, and I imagined it had an awfully painful aspect to it as well. Her pupils glittered as she struggled to relegate the tears behind red eyes.

“I don’t understand.”

“You never do.” She wiped the sleeve of her shirt against her eyes.

I thought everything we had was perfect as it was. I never thought that whatever obscure word for what we had could have been as fragmented as shattered glass. She left, fire blazing at her heels as if she was going to tear this society to shreds if it were the last act she’d ever commit.

Her words were astringent and scorching as she reframed the lens of society in new ideas. Ideas that purged the very foundations of god’s name. Ideas that poured egg yolk, mixing with the blood from her nose, down her face. She always looked pallid after the first issue of her pamphlet was released, but the flames in her eyes had not died. Even when her cheeks were plump from random attacks, and her ribs shown through her thin skin because drinking and eating meant imbibing potential poison, nothing quenched her hunger.

Blessed are those who seek justice, for their worries shall be quelled.

Never have I seen a woman with such a sickly and abused countenance, look as if she’d taken a breath for the first time since her birth. I was convinced…I am convinced that she is god, and the person rushing with such fervor towards death is not her, but me.

“…fear of she who is greater than us all…”

My father heaves in to speak again, but he stops, a guttural sound emitting from his throat, “She?” He raises a brow, staring at me with that stern gaze that screams, ‘Embarrass me and you will be punished severely.’

“Yes,” I respond, standing to my feet. The man in that stained glass, revered as holier than all existence is not the visage of the god I know. He must be the devil himself, “-she,” I punctuate.

My father’s finger twitches beneath the leather cover of the bible in his hand. I’m sure, that he wishes to strike me, but he must keep the image of a benevolent man in front of his congregation. So, he will not raise a hand against me…for now.

Before another word is spoken, loud clamoring sounds from beyond the church walls, stealing the moment and the words from us all. Not a single being moves, only listening to the colluded shouting that fails to trail into comprehendible words, until my feet break the air. Beneath the edges of the door, shadows blot the light, and yet the shine prevails, glittering against the marble floor. The doors are outlined in the faint glow of the sun from beyond the church, and it calls me as powerfully as the first time I saw her face.

My heart sinks to the pit of my stomach, and I hold my breath. Had anyone spoken a word to me, I could never know. I burst through the church doors and stumble into the throng of factory workers and brown faces, spilling from all sides of the street. Where have they come from? Where are they going?

Shoulders push me forward and back, and should I fall, their holey shoes would trample me to pieces. A small girl, staggering over her untied laces, trips as another man steps on the ragged strings. She disappears underneath the legs and the feet of the angry protestors, crying out for a second before struggling to her feet to continue on her march.

“She didn’t do anything wrong!” A man calls from beside me. I turn to him. His ears are tinged red, and his hands shake as he holds up his picket sign. Only three fingers number the digits attached to his hand, a nasty scar trailing down from the length of his wrist to the tip of his elbow.

“Who?” I ask, trying to keep pace with the angered crowd.

“Aaliyah Justice,” The man responds, “Y’know, the one writing all those articles for us.”

My heart drops to the pit of my stomach. That eerie feeling from earlier must have been correct, and yet, I must see for myself. I must see with my own eyes. It can’t be true.

I find it hard to speak after the epiphany, struggling to keep my vision clear of the stinging tears threatening to spill down my face, and the rolling ball dragging through my throat. For a while, the protest carries on, and I’m unsure of how far we’ve walked, for all I can image is her face. But when we finally come to a stop at the city hall, I’m sure we’ve trekked a long distance from the ache radiating out the bottoms of my feet.

I wish I could be wrong. I wish I could live in denial for much longer, because the woman I loved, the woman who is god, the woman with the last light of truth is tied to a long wooden pole with stakes laid at her feet. She will be executed for speaking the truth.

A young woman of a golden complexion and brown eyes like Aaliyah’s cries out, “Aaliyah!” She repeats the name, staggering to the front of the crowd. She tries to edge closer, but the guards shove her back. She collapses against the ground, and peers at the woman through a teary-eyed gaze. I recognize her. She’s Alopay. Aaliyah’s ultimatum. Aaliyah’s reason for breath. The person whose existence drives her to be the woman burning at the stake. Alopay Justice.

Aaliyah meets her adopted younger-sister’s gaze, not with despair, but with fire. A smile etches its way onto her lips, almost as if she’s saying, ‘Your turn.’ Were we watching a woman die? Or were we watching the birth of a new era? Aaliyah didn’t make any of us feel that this was a moment of loss. No. In some twisted, radical way, she won, and now that she’s won, she’s beckoning us to follow the path she laid out.

The executioner lights the pyre, but a woman didn’t burn to death right then. We watched a phoenix rise into the sky, and yet, the tears poured down my face as the scent of burning flesh wafted the air. I turned, not caring whose shoes I ruined, and vomited against the ground with the salty water pouring down my face. For once, I didn’t feel like the foolish one of us two. It was her.

Why did she go so far? Why didn’t she try to live? Perhaps, because her existence was a protest of itself. So, how could she live in a state like that, but no matter how hard I try to understand, I still wonder why what she had wasn’t enough. A guttural scream raises from my lips, and the crowd surged forward. I sat there, buried under the throng’s anger and pain. She didn’t say a word, but I knew her last testament, and by god, I would understand why it wasn’t enough…even if it takes me to the stake.