Zazen - By Vanessa Veselka Page 0,60
cob buildings. A goat bleated at me. Tamara was over by the smokehouse. She waved me towards her.
“Want some smoked fish?”
“I thought you were vegan.”
“No, Mirror only speaks to me because she considers my conversion a life goal.”
She handed me a pink strip of salmon jerky.
“She says you’re a big old faggot and you’re off the party list forever,” I said.
Tamara smiled and blew into her hands.
“Good. I like Mirror. She’s stubborn.”
Tamara cut off a couple of bigger pieces of fish. A roll of wax paper was strung up on the door and she wrapped the salmon.
“Where is everybody?”
“They drove into Breaker’s Rise to pick up Astrid, Britta’s girlfriend. You’ll meet her later,” she closed the smokehouse door, “Astrid’s kind of like Mirror, a little overzealous about details. She’s okay. I think I like Mirror better.”
There was a sharp, faint glare in the east but it didn’t look like the sun was going to break. We came around the other side of the smokehouse. A cord of wood was covered with a blue tarp and tied with bright yellow twine. Tamara got down and cinched it tighter.
“Want to see something?” she said.
She took me around by the woodshed. Under a tin overhang next to some baskets of kindling was the beginning of an elaborate Nativity scene on a platform of baled hay. It had a cob manger with little tin foil solar panels and a computer chip star.
“We do something like this every year but this time it started early,” she looked up at the sky and blinked. “I think it’s the war. People feel it coming.”
She flipped a switch and tiny white and red lights lit the crèche.
“Astrid wants to put the three kings up against the manger wall with a firing squad of PETA Barbies in orange faux fur bikinis. Can’t you see Mirror doing something like that?”
“Why do you say it’s the war?”
“Because that’s what’s driving everything right now.”
“Yeah, but when I talk about the war people act like I’m delusional and just trying to ruin their 70s t-shirt glitter decal fantasy march.”
She laughed and shook her head.
“That’s because you talk about the war all like it’s already happening. It’s not happening for most people. Some of us, yes, but not for everyone.”
“Because they’re fucking desensitized automatons that reproduce through violence?”
“People are on their own learning curve and outrage is a personal thing. We’re short on it already.”
She pulled a box off a shelf.
“And,” she said, “when people do figure it out, they need something on the other end that they can be a part of.”
“Like a tableau of horrific understanding?”
She stopped.
“You know, Della, you’re funny but you’re like a switch that’s stuck open.”
A thousand answers went through my head but mostly I just wanted to leave. Turn around and walk off. But what was I going to do? Hide behind the nearest goat? I stood there on the verge of tears feeling like I wanted to punch a wall. Tamara plunked the box on the thatch next to the manger.
“Britta’s mom sent these.”
She opened the box. It was full of Barbie and Sailor Moon dolls.
“We’re using them for the nativity scene. I originally envisioned the Virgin as some sort of homemade Valerie Solanis action figure but I got out-voted,” she picked up an anime vampire in a biohazard suit. “I’m trying to adjust.”
She waggled the doll at me.
“No gods! No masters!” she said in a toy voice. “Hi! I’m Della,” she squeaked, “I like dinosaurs!”
“I hate dinosaurs, ” I mumbled.
The doll danced in front of me. I tried to ignore it.
“I like Pterosaurs!”
She was too stupid to look at.
“I’m an invertebrate paleontologist.”
“No. You’re a pussy who can’t take criticism.”
“Fuck this!” I said and shoved the box.
“Oh relax,” she said, “we’re all a little like that.”
I felt that part of me that couldn’t be moved, moving, a glacial shift in all my horrible pride.
Tamara put the doll back and turned off the manger light. I stepped out from under the tin roof. Two dog-sized goats wandered toward a covered stall. Tamara blew on her hands again. Her lavender hair was vibrant against the whitening sky.
“Come on,” she said, “I’ll show you around.”
The temperature was dropping and the sounds were changing as the layer of snow crunching underfoot began to freeze. Barn swallows rushed the sky and their chattering calls echoed on the dormant landscape. Not all the people who lived on the Farm were there. Some were travelling and some were in the city. We passed empty