Natura: Uhuru Genesis

SONIA

SONIA

1 White Cathedral

Alimo City, New Africa: June 2098

Dear Yoko,

Lately, I've had dreams, where the yurei escort me, all in white, to the suicide forest. I wake up, and I'm back here, in this glittering silly place, still a mistress to a man I don't know. I laugh at myself, and sob for you. Heard of Pagliacci, the clown's joke? There is this drug on the street – nise gen. I think he's the man behind it. I know it, even though I'm never allowed to get out on my own. I'm afraid for you, all alone in Tokyo. I hide it, but I'm afraid for myself too. There's an old man here too. He's turned me into something I don't understand. Sometimes I think I may do something stupid. Mom always said I'm the stupid girl, with a bowl of noodles for a head. I think she's right. Pray for me Yoko. Because, in the dream, sometimes I think I am their reckoning. Just promise me, that when the yurei come for me, you will take care of Ando. Tell my little boy mommy loves him.

Your sister, Sonia

There is a small music player, the shape of an egg, in the corner of Sonia Furuta's room. Lately, it plays the WOMAN IN RED on nights they return from lavish cocktail parties.

It's been strange, because she hates jazz music. Light a room up on tropico pop, and she will do a killer, little snake dance on a table, or anything raised. But jazz is a lull in her ears, something for old people.

And yet lately, on these nights, when she hears Fray Kashta's footsteps echo after her on the marble floor, her eyes automatically sting shut. She squeezes her locket, and allows the lulling music to flow to her ears. It'd make it all fade away; the sharp stab of a fingernail on her collar, the strangle around her neck like a tightened piano wire.

That music! Surely, it must be A –

"Anansi!" Sonia whirls, jumps, and screams with a start, throwing her cell phone to the bed. "Jesus! You don't knock!"

"I-I'm sorry," Anansi apologizes quietly. She's a pillar by the door, her fluorescent brown eyes as luminous in the dim room as cat eyes, hands clasped on her laps. "The door was already open."

Her robot maid has made it a point to always drive her up the wall. She's nosy, sometimes dumb, and literally has the most off-kilter taste out there. She's not all bad, though.

On those cocktail party nights, after Kashta is done breathing bitterly down her neck, "you are the beginning of something dangerous little geisha," Sonia would stay frozen. But as time slipped, she'd clamor up the stairs, an angel bleached of color under sparkling chandeliers, pink tips of her mermaid-blue hair sticking to her face, wet with tears.

Anansi would be waiting for her in her room. She would rinse the dye off Sonia's hair, in her bathroom, towel her, and serve her a pack of flavored cigarettes and sushi after. Anansi would soon leave, not without requesting the music player to slot in MY MELANCHOLY BABY. It'd jarred Sonia's ears, and annoyed the heck out of her. And yet, mindlessly, the eighteen-year-old found herself swaying on the floor, a gothic bride in the shadowed room, hugging her bare elbows.

"What is it now," Sonia picks up her phone, and tucks it out of sight, behind her. "Is it the dress?" she glances down her flowered silk dressing gown, "Honestly, stop harassing me to dress the way you want. If I want jean cut offs, that's what I'll wear. I'm sorry, it can't always be the kimono."

"I'm not," Anansi shakes her head, "harassing you." She peels herself away from the door, and strides neatly across the room, as if fearful that she might stain the floor, "I just wanted to remind you to get ready. It's White Cathedral night."