Aimee Bender: An Invisible Sign of My Own

Okay, I said. It starts with a kingdom, I said.

I like kingdoms too, Lisa garbled, mouth full of wrist.

I kept my voice low. It was hard to talk through the swell in my throat.

There was once a kingdom, I began, of pirates.

This pirate kingdom had discovered the gift for eternal life, I said. That means no one ever died there, so there were no cemeteries, and no obituaries. The eye patch was just a fashionable accessory. No one walked the plank, except to go swimming. Wars weren’t tragic. Flags

were not revered. There were no glass hospitals and red wigs and IV.1s; there weren’t any bad eye cells or casseroles. Cancer was not a big deal.

Lisa murmured approval, running damp fingers over her stitches. I stroked the rolls and waves of her hair.

But there was a big problem in this pirate kingdom, I said. It was way too crowded. Food was running out, and water was at an all-time low, and so the king pirate, who was also known throughout the land as a great mathematician, decided to issue a decree. He said: “I have done the math and the truth is clear.

According to the ratio of birth to death, factoring in the amount of oxygen needed per person, using exponents and dividing by three, one pirate in each household must die.” He said, “Come to the town square and bring your volunteer, or else please leave.”

But none of the other towns knew the secret to eternal life.

I looked at the head on my leg. Are you okay so far? I asked.

Lisa nodded, eyes closed, listening. I put my other hand, soft, on the wood of the park bench.

So on the chosen day, I said, keeping my voice low, the entire town congregated at the town square, where the skull-and crossbones flag was flying for the first time in years.

The executioner, wearing a big black pirate hat with a red carnation in the brim, rested a hand gently on the gallows. The king pirate held a

huge piece of scroll covered with numbers.

“Now,” the king boomed, “it is time, as a town, for us to make more by making less.” There was a little bit of scattered cheering. He bowed to the families, who each tearfully offered forward their special chosen volunteer, and the king checked each person off his list.

All was settled and ready to go except for one family of pirates.

This family said they couldn’t decide. First the mother had offered to die, but no one liked that, and then the father, and then the sister, brother, baby pirate. But no one was happy with any of the options. The mother announced: “We’ll all die.” But the town didn’t like that, and frankly, neither did the rest of the family.

So the father stepped forward and said, “Why don’t we offer forward a piece of each of us? I’ll cut off my nose, my wife will cut off her arm, my daughter can cut off her ear, my son his foot.”

I whispered it into the air. So quiet only we could hear. Lisa was resting on my leg, sucking on her wrist, her breathing steady and calm. The wave rose, thick, inside my throat, and I pressed my palm on the bench. Listen: I tell the wood-listen to what I’m doing here. Mark this down. Notice.

The king pirate, I whispered, the great mathematician, said it wouldn’t be quite as effective as the removal of an entire person, but he was intrigued by the concept of fractions and was willing to consider the idea of a group effort.

The mother nodded eagerly, and the father nodded nobly, and the brother held out his foot, wanting to get it over with as fast as possible.

But the daughter shook her head and stepped forward.

“In the next town over,” she said, “I’ve heard they have a fish pond. Can’t we just leave and go there? ” “But daughter,” said the mother, father, brother, and baby.

“If we leave, we’ll all die eventually. This town is special, this town is the only town that knows the secret to eternal life. Only one pirate has to die to save the rest of us from disease and death forever

The daughter listened. She nodded. But she kept talking.

“But I don’t want to cut off my ear,” she said.

“I want to be able to hear things. I want to see my mother use her hands. I’d like to see my father with a nose. I want to see my brother with shoes on. I hate hooks,” she said.

“But daughter,” said the mother, father, brother, and baby.

“Once you die, you won’t get to hear or walk or use your hands or comb your hair at all.”

All the kingdom was waiting for her answer. Some of the volunteer-death people shivered.

The daughter stared in the distance. There were ants walking in a row on the ground. They made a perfect line.

“I’In leaving,” she said.

“Anyone else want to come?”

The entire town leaned back. There was a wave of surprised murmurs.

The mother shook out her sacrificial arm.

“Well,” she said.

“I

suppose we can rob ships anywhere.”

The father seemed annoyed.

“I like eternal life,” he said.

The daughter hugged everyone and then began walking away, past the gallows, past the flag, past the volunteers, over toward the yellow rolling hills. The executioner pirate looked rejected. The king rapidly worked equations on his paper, brow crumpled with confusion.

After a minute, a couple of the volunteer-death people began following her, until a crowd of about fifteen trailed her path, The brother joined them. The mother said she’d try to meet them there soon with the baby pirate, but she wanted to pack first. The father kept shrugging.

“I don’t know about this,” he said.

From a long distance, the daughter turned around and waved.

“Bye,” she yelled.

“I’ll be next town over.”

The father and mother waved back, and for a moment all you could see were their three hands in the air, a family, palms at each other, waving in the afternoon light like sunflowers. The hills were bright and yellow. The daughter’s fingers stayed up, still moving, and the mother’s fingers waved back and the father’s fingers waved back and for a while all their hands were exactly the same size, exactly the same shape, until the daughter’s grew smaller and smaller, and when the hill dipped down, it was gone and so was she. The mother put down her arm. The father kept waving and waving, but his hand was alone in the air now. The king was still trying to make sense of it all, pencil flying across paper. A couple of townspeople wanted to watch her longer, so they scrambled on top of the gallows to gain height. Sure enough, they immediately spied her blue-clad back again, moving forward, down the hillside, with the small troop of people trailing behind her. The viewers watched on their tiptoes, twenty feet high, as the departing 2 group walked straight into death, and they watched as long as they could, her knees, her waist, her shoulders, the top of her head, but in minutes the path had sloped down again and even the people on the gallows could see nothing more than an empty yellow hill rolling out in front of them like a carpet of sunlit water.

Acknowledgments I am very thankful for the support and sustenance of many, and in particular, this team of people who fill and refill the glasses of faith and patience. I feel so grateful for: invigorating discussions with ever-supportive Meri Trust — the — Process and David Teacher-of- Metaphors Bender; the crucial forward hurtle encouragement of Suzanne Bender, and Karen Bender who inspires;

the wonderful wisdom and push of Jeanne Burns Leary; the excellent readings of Geoffrey Wolff Michelle Latiolais, and Phil Hay. I’m ridiculously indebted to the consistent rigor and investment of: super connected reader and friend Miranda Hoffman, structure king Glen Gold, the line-editing brilliance and support system of Alice Sebold, and thematic tsar of synthesis and much more, Teal Minton. Also big thanks for the warmth and smarts of my agent Henry Dunow and the insight and vigor of my terrific editor Bill Thomas.