“Mama! Maaaaamaaaaaa!” a child screamed in their direction. Firuzeh could not tell who this child’s parent was, since they all kept their heads down, to avoid a beating. To avoid the child’s being beaten. “Maaaaamaaaaaa!” Emma tugged at Firuzeh’s sleeve to encourage her to look forward and continue marching.
Around them were the old homes of Ward’s. The island was once the most desired location in the city to live, since the quiet and calm of the islands was a short ferry ride from the hustle and bustle of downtown. Oftentimes people passed the deeds to their houses down from generation to generation, in an effort to keep the sought-after community tight-knit. Then the flooding began happening every spring. The homes became mould-ridden, and what was once a charming and quaint haven for the wealthy and artistic soon became a ghost town. Firuzeh could see that the homes were tragically damaged. Each one leaned to one side or the other, unable to stand on its own rotten base, spotted with black mildew. Despite the cold, the air was thick with the smell of decay as they finally made their way to a wide bungalow.
The Boot opened the door and entered. They all followed, thankful for the warmth. Sniffles. Stifled crying. They walked down a long hallway with its walls covered with art installations, now soggy from the damp. A saturated photo of the lake had a Black woman smoking a cigarette in the foreground, a curious shape from the smoke emerging from her exhale. The woman’s face had been crossed out with a black indelible marker. By a vandal? Or the artist themselves? Firuzeh couldn’t tell. A large textile drooped heavily on the wall, smelling like garbage. When passing the fabric, one could see it was made of the fibres of newspaper headlines, woven together to spell the phrase “The End.” Firuzeh realized this had been some type of artists’ residency centre before the floods. This was a public space.
The Boot introduced the Others to a cohort of four Asian women in purple scrubs, each of them holding a nightstick and wearing a look of determination.
“Line up! Line up! Line up! Line up! Line up! Line up! Line up!” They screamed at the Others, poking them randomly and aggressively with the nightsticks. Like sheep, the arrivals were ushered down another set of hallways, where there were dozens of small bedrooms with two beds each. Emma and Firuzeh bunked together. The Purple Scrub women slept in four separate large bedrooms, which were set at intervals between the smaller rooms so they could surveil the Others. While passing one of the large rooms, Firuzeh could see a group of children, presumably belonging to the Purple Scrub women, playing a game of Monopoly.
“You didn’t count the money right! Count it again!” said a small child, trying to fan out her Monopoly money with her tiny hands. One boy had tossed the dice too hard and was searching for the missing pieces under the bed. Another boy was jumping squares along the game board, whispering numbers under his breath.
“Mooooom! Sebastian didn’t count the money right.” The little girl poked her head out of the room and called to the Purple Scrub woman leading the Others at the front of the line. Without looking, her mother screamed something in Cantonese.
The little girl exhaled and shut the door. They turned the corner of the hallway. A cafeteria. Then a great hall with expansive windows facing the frigid lake. A sorrowful shadow of mould crept up the walls to where the water line once had been.
It was in this great hall, under the dim light of the hanging lamps, where Firuzeh’s head was shaved. Where they were all shaved down regularly by the Purple Scrub women while the Boots stood aside and watched. Unevenly. Haphazardly. Aggressively. Like the sheep they had become. Firuzeh sat opposite Emma, whose eyes were like a buoy in this sea of confusion. Look at me, her eyes said. Don’t let go. I’m here.
It was in this great hall that they were forced to sweep their own hair into terrifying heaps and bag each of their identities before trashing them in the refuse container outside. They were each given an oatmeal-coloured long-sleeved scrub as a uniform. It was in this great hall that they were instructed at gunpoint to sew various items, including jeans, parachutes, plush toys and uniforms for the Boots. With Emma always stationed beside her, Firuzeh stitched heavy-duty zippers onto the fronts of jackets, wondering who would wear them, if a person wearing them would harm someone like her one day. It was in this great hall where, on occasion, a random beating would take place, for asking to pee, for sloppy workmanship, for passing out.
Each day, one of the Purple Scrub women paced between their sewing stations, all of her subjects silent.
“Stand! Stand! Stand!” the woman would say before the workers obeyed and recited the creed.
Through our work, our nation prospers.
Through our unity, we end conflict.
Through our leader, we find peace.
Through order, we find tranquility.
After long days, Emma would invite Firuzeh to sit on her bed close to the window to watch the moon thicken and thin across the night sky. It was the closest they could get to binge-watching television. Sometimes they would tell each other stories. Sometimes they would look at this physical, astrological manifestation of time passing in complete stillness. Sometimes they would lean on each other and weep. It felt good to communicate with each other in silence, without the patrolling Purple Scrub women interrupting them with their screamed instructions.
“I used to call this kind of moon a ‘fingernail moon,’ but then I visited El Salvador and my host told me that in Spanish it’s called luna sonrisa. A smile.” Emma’s face was wistful and glowing at this memory. “Fuck. I miss travelling alone. I miss being alone. My parents used to feel so sorry for me, thinking I would be this sad single woman all my life. I tried to convince them that I loved solitude, but they didn’t get it. They didn’t get me, ever.”
“Did you ever have roommates?” Firuzeh asked.
“Never!” Emma made Firuzeh giggle, slicing the air forward with a grimace. “Do you know how delicious it is to leave your dirty underwear on the floor? To watch television and eat chicken wings in your bed, buck naked? Being alone was awesome. No offence.” Firuzeh responded with an eye roll, followed by a smile.
“Maybe you should add ‘When I am alone, I get naked’ to this Renovation creed,” Firuzeh signed before pushing Emma’s shoulder.
Emma signed, “I feel sorry for you each time you have to recite it. I just mouth along and tune out.” There was a pause. “I wish we could come up with a creed for the Others.” They both thought for a moment.
Firuzeh struggled with the signs in her head, then figured it out.
“Through rest, I allow myself to be more than what I produce.”
Emma fluttered her flat palms in the air, her fingers splayed out in ASL applause. “Yay!” before adding more:
Through fighting, I celebrate my will to survive.
Through hiding, I celebrate my ability to navigate my own safety.
Through choice, I celebrate my body’s freedom.
Through pleasure, I celebrate my resistance.
At this last sentence, Emma signed, “Roll up your sleeves.” Firuzeh obeyed, her face twisted in curiosity. Emma leaned the round of her shoulder against Firuzeh’s, then continued to watch the luna sonrisa sail across stars in slow motion. Firuzeh could feel soft down covering Emma’s warm skin. The gesture was not sexual. It was simply a reminder that two human beings, two people who cared about each other, sat side by side. In this room, in this six-by-eight-foot room, there was peace.